Large cat
f large cat 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 7 |
| Attacks |
Bite 2d4 |
| Base level | 6 |
| Base experience | 76 |
| Speed | 15 |
| Base AC | 4 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 250 |
| Nutritional value | 250 |
| Size | Small |
| Resistances | None |
| Resistances conveyed | Intrinsic aggravate monster |
|
A large cat:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line375 |
A large cat, f, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is a small and carnivorous domestic feline that can be seen via infravision. Large cats can be tamed by throwing any type of meat or rations that they can eat at them, and can be pacified by throwing veggy food at them.
A large cat has a single bite attack.
Eating a large cat corpse or tin will confer the aggravate monster intrinsic, unless the character is an orc or a Caveman.
Chatting to a large cat will give various responses, depending on its tameness and condition.
Contents
Generation
Randomly generated large cats may generate as peaceful towards neutral characters. A housecat can grow up into a large cat.
Strategy
Like other cats, hostile large cats can be unwelcome annoyances to early characters, and may even prove lethal if a low-level character encounters one in an early bones - thankfully, they can be just as lethal to other hostile monsters when tamed. A former character's large cat can be tamed to help deal with their ghost and sort through bones items, and ideally can help hold off whatever monster sent the last character to their doom. Remember that cream pies, eggs, and melons will splatter on the cat's face, and veggy food such as lichen corpses will reliably pacify a hostile large cat.
As pets
Chatting with a tamed large cat can provide an idea of how it is feeling.
Characters that are physically weak and/or in less combat-capable roles, such as Archeologists and Healers, may want to raise their kitten or housecat to a large cat for more of an edge in tough encounters.
Below is a table describing how much weight in objects a domestic carnivore at a particular stage of growth can carry, which is generally applicable for credit cloning and otherwise ripping off shopkeepers - remember that cats and dogs can only pick up a single object at a time:
| Pet type | Corpse wt | Can carry unassisted | in uncursed bag of holding | in blessed bag of holding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| kitten/little dog | 150 | 51 | 72 | 144 |
| housecat/dog | 200 / 400 | 68 / 137 | 106 / 244 | 212 / 488 |
| large cat/large dog | 250 / 800 | 1000 | 1970 | 3940 |
History
The large cat first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.
Origin
The cat (Felis catus), commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small carnivorous mammal that is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the domestication of cats date as far back as around 7500 BC in the Near East. Cats are commonly kept as house pets and farm animals, but feral cats that avoid human contact can also be found. The cat's retractable claws are adapted to killing small prey like mice and rats, and it has a strong and flexible body, quick reflexes, and sharp teeth, along with a well-developed sense of smell and night vision. Valued by humans for companionship and its ability to kill vermin, the cat is a social species, but a solitary hunter.
Cat communication includes vocalizations like meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling, and grunting as well as cat body language. It can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by small mammals. Domestic cats are bred and shown at events as registered pedigreed cats, a hobby known as cat fancy. Animal population control of cats may be achieved by spaying and neutering, but their proliferation and the abandonment of pets has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, contributing to the extinction of bird, mammal, and reptile species.
As of 2017, the domestic cat was the second most popular pet in the United States, with 95.6 million cats owned and around 42 million households owning at least one cat. In the United Kingdom, 26% of adults have a cat, with an estimated population of 10.9 million pet cats as of 2020. As of 2021, there were an estimated 220 million owned and 480 million stray cats in the world.
Messages
- <The large cat> yowls.
- Your tame large cat is caught in a trap, confused, scared, or at low tameness.[1]
- <The large cat> whimpers.
- A leashed tame large cat is near a square with a trap.[2]
- <The large cat> meows.
- A tame large cat is currently hungry.[3]
- <The large cat> purrs.
- A tame large cat will become hungry in 1000 turns or less.[4]
- <The large cat> snarls.
- You chatted to a peaceful large cat.[5]
- <The large cat> growls!
- You chatted to a hostile large cat.[6]
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, large cats and their other growth stages have their frequency raised to 7. They also do not randomly generate in Gehennom.
All of the above information also applies to SlashTHEM.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, large cats appear among the random f that are part of the second quest monster class for Cavepeople and make up 6⁄175 of the monsters randomly generated on the Caveman quest.
TNNT (the game)
In TNNT (the game), one of the achievements requires the initial pet to survive to its last growth stage, e.g. the starting kitten has to become a large cat.
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, cats are given a fourth growth stage: the fat cat, which a large cat can grow up into.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, large cats appear among the random f that are part of the second quest monster class for Cavepeople and make up 6⁄175 (3%) of the monsters randomly generated on the Caveman quest, as in UnNetHack. Large cats also appear among the random f that are part of the first quest monster class for Zookeepers and make up 24⁄175 (14%) of the monsters randomly generated on the Zookeeper quest.
Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, large cats and their other growth stages that can generate randomly (i.e. excluding the fat cat) have their frequency raised to 3 rather than 7, and can randomly generate in Gehennom - all other SLASH'EM details apply.
Encyclopedia entry
Well-known quadruped domestic animal from the family of
predatory felines (_Felis ochreata domestica_), with a thick,
soft pelt; often kept as a pet. Various folklores have the
cat associated with magic and the gods of ancient Egypt.
So Ulthar went to sleep in vain anger; and when the people
awakened at dawn - behold! Every cat was back at his
accustomed hearth! Large and small, black, grey, striped,
yellow and white, none was missing. Very sleek and fat did
the cats appear, and sonorous with purring content.
