Winter wolf

d winter wolf
Difficulty	9
Attacks	Bite 2d6 physical, breath weapon 2d6 cold

d winter wolf
Difficulty	9
Attacks	Bite 2d6 physical, breath weapon 2d6 cold
Base level	7
Base experience	102
Speed	12
Base AC	4
Base MR	20
Alignment	-5 (chaotic)
Frequency (by normal means)	1 (Very rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	700
Nutritional value	300
Size	Large
Resistances	cold resistance
Resistances conveyed	cold resistance (~46%)
A winter wolf: has no hands. is an animal. is carnivorous. is normally generated hostile. is strong. does not appear in Gehennom.
Reference	NetHack 5.0.0 - include/monsters.h, line 290

A winter wolf, d, is a is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The winter wolf is a large, strong and carnivorous canine animal that has an affinity to cold like its cubs, and is chaotic where their cubs are neutral. Female winter wolves in the default tileset have shorter tails than the males. Winter wolves are considered "children of the night" for the purpose of chatting to vampires in their humanoid form.

A winter wolf has a normal bite attack, as well as a frost breath weapon that can freeze and destroy potions in the open inventory of those hit by the blast depending on the damage sustained—reflection will deflect the ray without any damage. Winter wolves possess cold resistance.

Eating a winter wolf corpse or tin has a ⁷⁄₁₅ chance (~46%) of granting cold resistance to a hero or monster, as does digesting a live winter wolf. Eating winter wolves is considered cannibalism for a hero that has lycanthropy from a werewolf.

Generation

Randomly generated winter wolves are always created hostile, and can appear in small groups. They will not randomly generate in Gehennom. A winter wolf cub can grow up into a winter wolf.

Werewolves that call for help and summon hostile monsters have a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of generating a winter wolf per summoned monster—a hero that contracts lycanthropy from a werewolf can spend 10 power to summon tame winter wolves with the same odds by using the #monster extended command.

Winter wolves can appear among the random d that are part of the first quest monster class for Samurai and make up ²⁴⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Samurai quest.

A winter wolf is generated in one of the niches on the middle floor of Vlad's Tower during level creation.

Strategy

Groups of winter wolves are even more unwelcome to deal with in the early game compared to their young: they have the same AC and movement speed along with stronger attacks, and cannot be seen via infravision. While they are not normally generated until quite some way into the dungeon, werewolves can generate much earlier than winter wolves or their cubs, and may summon winter wolves when calling for help. Winter wolves also have a MR score of 20, making wands and spells somewhat less reliable against them. A werewolf summoning one or more winter wolves can easily occur before the hero has either cold resistance and/or a container to stash potions in, and can overwhelm them in short order unless they can keep the werewolf out of melee range.

As with winter wolf cubs, an early source of cold resistance makes winter wolves easier to fight: an extrinsic source of cold resistance will protect each item in the open inventory from freezing and shattering ⁹⁹⁄₁₀₀ of the time, with a separate roll for each item that would be destroyed. An early source of reflection (e.g. the amulet from Sokoban) can also provide a vital edge, and their presence may be a factor in favor of choosing silver dragon scale mail over gray dragon scale mail for an early wish. Valkyries start the game with cold resistance, giving them one less source of HP damage to worry about, but should still handle werewolves and winter wolf packs with care.

Worn dwarvish cloaks do not lessen cold damage but can protect items in the wearer's open inventory from cold damage ⁹⁄₁₀ of the time, and they are especially plentiful in the Gnomish Mines. Winter wolves respect Elbereth, but will use their breath attacks while fleeing and are harder to scare through other means. A wand of fire and other sources of fire damage are helpful against winter wolves, and wands and spells that can slow down or immobilize the wolves may still be worthwhile despite their 20 MR score.

Heroes that can kill winter wolves can eat their corpses for a source of cold resistance if they are not observing vegetarian or foodless conducts, and can also feed them to carnivorous pets for the intrinsic—at 300 nutrition each, they also make a decently filling meal. Lycanthropy from a werewolf may also be tempting to an early hero in order to obtain a winter wolf pet, which can become strong enough to potentially take out the watch and even the aligned priest in Minetown—remember that werewolf corpses are poisonous, and eating their corpse or tin is also cannibalism for human heroes that are not Cave Dwellers.

History

The winter wolf first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.

From NetHack 3.0.0 to NetHack 3.6.0, including some variants based on these versions, werewolves calling for help have a ¹⁄₅ chance of generating an allied winter wolf. This chance is reduced to ¹⁄₁₀ in NetHack 3.6.1 via commit 1f4574b6, which grants werewolves the ability to summon allied wargs with the same chance, and also makes it cannibalism to eat winter wolves while the hero has lycanthropy from a werewolf.

From NetHack 3.0.0 to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on these versions, winter wolves are neutral while their cubs are chaotic with an alignment value of -5, and they share tiles between genders. Both monsters are given their current alignment in NetHack 5.0.0 via commit 837da486.

Origin

The winter wolf and its cub originate from Dungeons & Dragons, where winter wolves are creatures of greater size than worgs that possess similarly foul disposition. Winter wolves are immune to cold but vulnerable to fire, and can breathe gusts of cold as well as bite and trip enemies; they can also speak like worgs can, and are even capable of speaking the worg language along with Common, Giant and their own bestial language. Winter wolves are sometimes found as allies and guardians of frost giants, white dragons, and other evil arctic beings.

Messages

Messages associated with winter wolves and their cubs can be found on other articles:

• For messages specific to communicating with vampires as a wolf, see the article on the vampire monster class.
• For messages printed when chatting to wolves, see the article on canines.

Variants

NetHack variants created prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may retain the winter wolf's initial alignment, and may or may not count eating winter wolves as cannibalism for heroes given lycanthropy by a werewolf. They may also adjust the odds of werewolves summoning winter wolves in order to accommodate the chance of summoning wargs as well.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, winter wolves are neutral, and eating winter wolves is not considered cannibalism for heroes given lycanthropy by a werewolf (as in NetHack 3.4.3 and prior contemporary versions). Werewolves have a ¹⁄₅ chance of summoning a winter wolf per summoned monster.

Winter wolves can appear among the random d that are part of the second quest monster class for Yeomen and make up ⁶⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Yeoman quest.

GruntHack

In GruntHack, winer wolves are neutral, and werewolves have a ¹⁄₅ chance of summoning a winter wolf per summoned monster. Eating winter wolves is not considered cannibalism for a hero given lycanthropy by a werewolf, as in NetHack 3.4.3.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, Cavepeople and Rangers are capable of domestically taming winter wolves with thrown food.

Winter wolves are neutral, and can randomly generate in Sheol. Werewolves have a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of summoning a winter wolf per summoned monster, and eating winter wolves is counted as cannibalism for heroes given lycanthropy by a werewolf.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, winter wolves are neutral and can track the hero and other targets through normal vision and scent. Winter wolf corpses and blood cannot be consumed without taking cold damage, unless the hero or monster consuming it has cold resistance—doing so is not counted as cannibalism for heroes that are turned into a werewolf via lycanthropy.

Winter wolves can be warded by a Toustefna stave that is carved into a wooden weapon and placed on the hero's square, and that weapon will also warn of winter wolves and other canines while wielded.

Winter wolves can appear among the d that make up ¹⁄₁₀ of monsters randomly generated in the Windowless Tower branch. A winter wolf is generated within a niche on the second floor during level creation, as with Vlad's Tower in NetHack.

Winter wolves make up ¹⁄₅ (20%) of the monsters that are randomly generated on the Water Temple level of the Chaos Temple Quest.

Winter wolves can appear as minions of Skadi.

SpliceHack

In SpliceHack, winter wolves are given a third stage of growth in the winter wolf pup, which can grow up into a winter wolf cub and then a winter wolf—the winter wolf is the only growth stage to be neutral.

Werewolves have a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of summoning a winter wolf per summoned monster, while a hero with lycanthropy from a pack lord has a ³⁄₄ chance of summoning a wolf per summoned monster. Eating winter wolves is considered cannibalism for a hero with lycanthropy from a werewolf.

In pre-Rewrite versions of SpliceHack, it is possible to use the defunct cooking feature to turn a winter wolf corpse into a regular wolf corpse.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, winter wolves and their cubs are both neutral and considered woodland creatures. Werewolves have a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of summoning a winter wolf per summoned monster, and eating them and their cubs is counted as cannibalism for heroes given lycanthropy by a werewolf. Winter wolves can be randomly generated in the Ice Queen's Realm, and can be summoned by a monster casting the summon nasties monster spell while in the branch.

Winter wolves can appear among the random d that are part of the first quest monster class for Infidels and make up ²⁴⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Infidel quest.

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, winter wolves can appear among the random d that are part of the first quest monster class for Ninjas and make up ²⁴⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Ninja quest.

Hack'EM

In Hack'EM, winter wolves are neutral. Werewolves and nosferatu have a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of summoning a winter wolf per summoned monster, and eating them is counted as cannibalism for heroes given lycanthropy by a werewolf.

Winter wolves can appear among the random d that are part of the second quest monster class for Yeomen and make up ⁶⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Yeoman quest, as they do in SLASH'EM. Similarly, winter wolves can also appear among the random d that are part of the first quest monster class for Infidels and make up ²⁴⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Infidel quest, as in EvilHack.