Red naga hatchling

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A red naga hatchling, N, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is a juvenile naga that can be seen via infravision.

A red naga hatchling has a single bite attack and possesses fire resistance and poison resistance.

Eating a red naga hatchling corpse or tin has a 110 chance each of conveying fire resistance or poison resistance.

Generation

Randomly generated red naga hatchlings may generate as peaceful towards neutral characters. A red naga hatchling can grow up into a red naga, and can also hatch from red naga eggs.

Red naga hatchlings are only randomly generated within levels and branches that are biased towards monsters of a particular alignment.

Strategy

Red naga hatchlings are somewhat slower than a player character, and are generally non-threatening. Their corpses can be a valuable early source of fire resistance and poison resistance, though meat-eating pet owners may need to position themselves so that their pet does not steal the corpse for themselves.

History

The red naga hatchling first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.

Origin

The Nāga (feminine "Nagi") are a supernatural race of half-human half-serpent beings that can occasionally take human form, and hold cultural significance in the folkloric traditions of many South Asian and Southeast Asian cultures over the past two millennia. Nagas also appear in Dungeons & Dragons.

Their most common depiction is that of a snake with a human head, which the default tileset of NetHack draws from—other iconographic depictions portray them as human from the waist up and snake from the waist down, wholly human with snakes on the heads and necks, or even as common serpents. Various south and southeastern Asian cultures also portray Nāgas as having multiple usually-serpentine heads.

Encyclopedia entry

The naga is a mystical creature with the body of a snake and the head of a man or woman. They will fiercely protect the territory they consider their own. Some nagas can be forced to serve as guardians by a spellcaster of great power.