Winter wolf cub
d winter wolf cub  
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 7 |
| Attacks |
Bite 1d8 physical, breath weapon 1d8 cold |
| Base level | 5 |
| Base experience | 64 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | 4 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 2 (Quite rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 250 |
| Nutritional value | 200 |
| Size | Small |
| Resistances | cold resistance |
| Resistances conveyed | cold resistance (33%) |
|
A winter wolf cub:
| |
| Reference | NetHack 5.0.0 - include/monsters.h, line 275 |
A winter wolf cub, d, is a is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The winter wolf cub is a small, neutral and carnivorous canine animal that is a juvenile form of winter wolf and shares its affinity to cold. Female winter wolf cubs have shorter tails than the males. Winter wolf cubs are considered "children of the night" for the purpose of chatting to vampires in their humanoid form.[1]
A winter wolf cub 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 wolf cubs possess cold resistance.
Eating a winter wolf cub corpse or tin has a 1⁄3 chance of granting a hero or monster cold resistance, as does digesting a live winter wolf cub. Eating winter wolf cubs is considered cannibalism for a hero that has lycanthropy from a werewolf.[2][3]
Contents
Generation
Randomly-generated winter wolf cubs are always created hostile, and can appear in small groups. They are not randomly generated in Gehennom. A winter wolf cub can grow up into a winter wolf.
Winter wolf cubs 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 comment indicates that the winter wolf cub was considered as a default starting pet for the Valkyrie role.[4]
Strategy
A group of winter wolf cubs can be distressing to face for early heroes: they can appear quite early and usually before the hero has a known source of cold resistance, and the rays of frost breath can deal significant damage and destroy valuable potions if there is no convenient container to stash them in. They also cannot be seen via infravision, making them worse to deal with in darker areas, and their breath weapons can easily kill non-resistant pets. While Valkyries have little to fear from them overall, they will not appreciate losing potions to the cubs' breath.
Players that find and identify an early source of cold resistance or reflection can handle winter wolf cubs with relatively little trouble: 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—the ability to deal with breath attacks and other rays from early hostiles is often an argument in favor of choosing silver dragon scale mail from an early-enough wish. 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, providing an early means to make encounters with winter wolf cubs somewhat more bearable.
Winter wolf cubs lack any MR score, so wands and spells that can slow them down or immobilize them will help to close the distance. They are also especially vulnerable to the wand of fire and other sources of fire damage, such as a lit potion of oil. Winter wolf cubs also respect Elbereth like other canines and can be scared off with ease—beware that they can still use breath attacks as they flee from you.
Once a group of cubs is dealt with, heroes that are not observing vegetarian or foodless conduct can eat any corpses they leave for a potential source of intrinsic cold resistance, making future encounters much less troublesome. They can also leave some of the corpses to meat-eating pets to grant them cold resistance as well.
History
The winter wolf cub first appears in NetHack 3.3.0. From this version to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, winter wolf cubs are chaotic with an alignment value of -5 while adult winter wolves are neutral, and they share tiles between genders. Additionally, and unlike the winter wolf, eating a winter wolf cub corpse or tin is not considered cannibalism for a hero that has lycanthropy from a werewolf. All of these are changed for NetHack 5.0.0 via commit 837da486 and commit 45766db5.
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 cub's initial alignment, and may or may not count eating winter wolf cubs as cannibalism for heroes given lycanthropy by a werewolf.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, the Ice Mage's starting pet is a winter wolf cub.[5]
Winter wolf cubs are chaotic, and eating winter wolf cubs is not counted as cannibalism for heroes given lycanthropy by a werewolf as in NetHack 3.4.3 and prior contemporary versions.
Winter wolf cubs 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, eating winter wolf cubs is not considered cannibalism for a hero given lycanthropy by a werewolf, as in NetHack 3.4.3.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, Cavepeople and Rangers each have a 1⁄12 chance of starting with a pet winter wolf cub (or 1⁄4 if the player sets the option to always start with exotic pets). Cavepeople and Rangers are also capable of domestically taming winter wolf cubs with thrown food.
Winter wolf cubs are chaotic, and eating winter wolf cubs is counted as cannibalism for heroes given lycanthropy by a werewolf. They can randomly generate in Sheol.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, winter wolf cubs are chaotic and can track the hero and other targets through normal vision and scent. Eating winter wolf cubs is not counted as cannibalism for heroes that are turned into a werewolf via lycanthropy.
Winter wolf cubs 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 wolf cubs and other canines while wielded.
Winter wolf cubs can be generated as minions of Skadi.
Winter wolf cubs can appear among the d that make up 1⁄10 of monsters randomly generated in the Windowless Tower branch.
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—both the cub and pup are chaotic. The winter wolf pup also acts as the default pet for Valkyries, fulfilling the role of the winter wolf cub that is commented-out in vanilla NetHack.
Eating winter wolf cubs is not counted as cannibalism for heroes given lycanthropy by a werewolf.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, winter wolves and their cubs are both neutral and considered woodland creatures, and eating them is counted as cannibalism for heroes given lycanthropy by a werewolf. Winter wolf cubs can be randomly generated in the Ice Queen's Realm.
Winter wolf cubs 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 wolf cubs 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, the Ice Mage's starting pet is a winter wolf cub as in SLASH'EM. Winter wolf cubs are chaotic, and eating winter wolf cubs is not counted as cannibalism for heroes given lycanthropy by a werewolf.
As in SLASH'EM, winter wolf cubs 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. Winter wolf cubs 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.
