Figurine

(
Name	figurine
Appearance	figurine
Base price	80 zm
Weight	50
Material	mineral
Monster use	Will not be used by monsters.

A figurine is a type of magical tool that appears in NetHack. It is vaguely similar to a miniature statue, and you can apply one or cast stone to flesh on it to generate the depicted monster on a square next to you. Figurines weigh a fair amount, but are much easier to carry and animate than statues; they cannot be created by petrification, and cannot be destroyed with a pick-axe or wand of striking.

Generation

Figurines are generated as a random monster, based upon a combination of your level at the time of its creation and the dungeon level; they are severely biased towards non-human monsters. Figurines are generated 75% uncursed, 12.5% blessed, and 12.5% cursed.

Monsters brought to life from figurines will not have their starting inventory.

Effects

You can bring a figurine to life by applying it or using the stone to flesh spell. Applying a figurine will prompt the player for a direction and generate it on the square closest to them in that direction, while the latter method will cause it to animate on its current square (or next to the player if in their inventory).

If a figurine is applied to a square with a monster on it, the figurine will be lost and nothing will be generate. Attempting to apply a figurine onto solid rock or a square containing a boulder will fail without using up the figure, but will generate the monster as normal if it has phasing. Applying a figurine > or < will always succeed even if you are surrounded by monsters, unless the entire level is filled. Applying a figurine respects genocide but does not respect extinction, except for monsters with special limits such as erinyes and Nazgul.

A monster created from a figurine is most likely to be tame if the figurine was blessed, peaceful if it was uncursed, and hostile if it was cursed; however, even a blessed figurine may create a hostile monster, or a cursed figurine a tame monster. The odds are as follows:

	tame	peaceful	hostile
blessed	80%	10%	10%
uncursed	10%	80%	10%
cursed	10%	10%	80%

A cursed figurine will automatically transform anywhere between 200 to 9200 turns after it is cursed or placed into an inventory - this timer starts whenever a cursed figurine is picked up or an existing figurine is cursed; dropping or uncursing the figurine will stop the timer. A figurine that transforms is treated as if you applied the figurine yourself, i.e. there is a ⁴⁄₅ chance the monster will be hostile; if this transformation fails for any reason, the timer is set again for anywhere between one and 5000 turns.

Strategy

See also: preferred pets

Randomly-found figurines can be blessed to obtain more "exotic" pets, with the link above providing more detail on which pets you may want. For example, some players wish for a blessed figurine of an Archon (or ki-rin for riding) in the hopes of gaining a powerful pet - remember that as noted above, there is a ¹⁄₁₀ chance that the monster will be hostile, which may spell doom for you if the figurine backfires and you are not prepared to deal with such a monster. Also of note is the ¹⁄₁₀ chance that a blessed figurine will generate a peaceful monster: this at least means you can attempt to use charm monster or a scroll of taming on it whenever either option becomes available, though monsters like Archons or ki-rins are very likely to resist multiple attempts due to their high monster MR. It may be a good idea to stand close to a staircase when applying it, e.g. so you can #jump to escape a potential death.

Non-blessed figurines can be used to generate a peaceful or hostile creature in the path of more dangerous foes; while tame monsters can be used for similar purposes, they may attempt to attack if they are at a high enough level and risk being killed. They also have a more mundane use as a means of generating corpses for sacrifice.

As magical tools, unwanted figurines make ideal polypile fodder.

History

The figurine is introduced in NetHack 3.0.0. From this version to NetHack 3.4.3, including variants based on those versions, applying a figurine generated the monster with its starting inventory.

Messages

You set the figurine beside you and it transforms.

You applied a figurine.

You set the figurine beside you and it transforms.
...into a pile of dust.

You applied a figurine of a Nazgul or erinys after they were extinct.

You get a bad feeling about this.

The monster from an applied figurine was generated hostile.

The figurine writhes and then shatters into pieces!

You applied a figurine to a square occupied a monster on it, or the applied figurine was of a genocided monster. This destroys the figurine.

You see <monster> drop out of your pack!

You were carrying a cursed figurine, which spontaneously transformed.

You suddenly see a figurine transform into <monster>.

A cursed figurine on the ground suddenly transformed.

Encyclopedia entry

Then it appeared in Paris at just about the time that Paris
was full of Carlists who had to get out of Spain. One of
them must have brought it with him, but, whoever he was, it's
likely he knew nothing about its real value. It had been --
no doubt as a precaution during the Carlist trouble in Spain
-- painted or enameled over to look like nothing more than a
fairly interesting black statuette. And in that disguise,
sir, it was, you might say, kicked around Paris for seventy
years by private owners and dealers too stupid to see what
it was under the skin.

[ The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett ]