Yeti

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For the macro used to define all apelike creatures, see S_YETI.

A yeti is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is an apelike creature that can be tamed with bananas, but is primarily a carnivore.

Eating a yeti corpse has a 33% chance of providing cold resistance.

Generation

Yeti are a somewhat uncommon sight once you have gained a few experience levels and either traveled past the Oracle's level or reached Minetown. They are also among the apelike creatures that can very occasionally appear on the Healer quest.

Strategy

The yeti is dangerous and must be dealt with carefully - while it cannot grab the player like a carnivorous ape, the yeti moves quicker than the largest ape, and has a bite attack in addition to two clawing attacks. Yeti can move faster than a normal-speed hero, does extra damage by biting.

With a small bit of preparation, you can blunt its damage with high AC, or else safely deal with it from a distance: engravng Elbereth can scare it off, allowing you to follow up with any ranged attacks at your disposal. Multishot projectiles, offensive spells and wands are ideal, especially if you can exploit the yeti's vulnerability to fire - its own 6 AC is low enough that even a mediocre spellcaster can kill a yeti with a few uses of the force bolt spell (or a wand of striking.

History

The yeti first appears in the bestiary of PDP-11 Hack, a variant of Jay Fenlason's Hack. The macro used to define apelike creatures, S_YETI, is named after the yeti, and the monster class uses the Y glyph as the yeti did in the first versions of Hack.

Origin

The Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, is an iconic cryptozoological animal said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal and Tibet. Folklorists trace the origin of the Yeti to a combination of factors, including the folklore of pre-Buddhist Himalayan cultures such as the Sherpa people, and misidentified fauna such as bears or yak.

The Yeti is often described as being a large, bipedal ape-like creature that is covered with brown, gray, or white hair, and it is sometimes depicted as having large, sharp teeth.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, yetis can also be tamed by throwing them bananas, and can hit as a +1 weapon.

Lethe patch

In the Lethe patch, seven yetis are generated in the lair of Geryon within Gehennom.

Encyclopedia entry

The Abominable Snowman, or yeti, is one of the truly great
unknown animals of the twentieth century. It is a large hairy
biped that lives in the Himalayan region of Asia ... The story
of the Abominable Snowman is filled with mysteries great and
small, and one of the most difficult of all is how it got that
awful name. The creature is neither particularly abominable,
nor does it necessarily live in the snows. _Yeti_ is a Tibetan
word which may apply either to a real, but unknown animal of
the Himalayas, or to a mountain spirit or demon -- no one is
quite sure which. And after nearly half a century in which
Westerners have trampled around looking for the yeti, and
asking all sorts of questions, the original native traditions
concerning the creature have become even more muddled and
confused.

[ The Encyclopedia of Monsters, by Daniel Cohen ]