Fat cat

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A fat cat, f, is a type of monster that appears in SpliceHack and Hack'EM. The fat cat is a strong domestic feline that can be seen via infravision like all felines, and will seek out gold to pick up.

A fat cat has a single bite attack.

Eating a fat cat corpse or tin will confer the aggravate monster intrinsic, unless the hero is an orc or a Caveman.

Chatting to a fat cat will give various responses, depending on its tameness and condition.

Generation

Fat cats are not randomly generated. A large cat can grow up into a fat cat.

Strategy

Heroes that are physically weak and/or less combat-capable, such as Archeologists and Healers, will want to raise their domestic cat to a large or fat cat for more of an edge in tough encounters.

Chatting with a tamed fat cat can provide an idea of how it is feeling.

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.

The fat cat being a gold lover is a pun on the term "fat cat": originally used to describe rich political donors, it is commonly used nowadays to describe a rich, powerful and greedy person who is able to "live easy" off the work of others; in the United Kingdom, it is also used to refer to executives whose pay is deemed by others to be excessive.

Messages

<The fat cat> yowls.
Your tame fat cat is caught in a trap, confused, scared, or at low tameness.
<The fat cat> whimpers.
A leashed tame fat cat is near a square with a trap.
<The fat cat> meows.
A tame fat cat is currently hungry.
<The fat cat> purrs.
A tame fat cat will become hungry in 1000 turns or less.
<The fat cat> snarls.
You chatted to a peaceful fat cat.
<The fat cat> growls!
You chatted to a hostile fat cat.

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.

[ The Cats of Ulthar, by H.P. Lovecraft ]