Winter wolf
d winter wolf 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 9 |
| Attacks |
Bite 2d6, Breathes cold 2d6 |
| Base level | 7 |
| Base experience | 102 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | 4 |
| Base MR | 20 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 700 |
| Nutritional value | 300 |
| Size | Large |
| Resistances | Cold |
| Resistances conveyed |
Cold (47%) |
|
A winter wolf:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line281 |
A winter wolf, d, is a is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is a large carnivorous canine that is similar to a warg, and has an affinity to cold.
A winter wolf has a bite attack and a frost breath attack capable of freezing and shattering potions in the inventory of monsters hit by the blast, unless they have reflection. Winter wolves possess cold resistance.
Eating a winter wolf corpse or tin has a 7⁄15 chance of conveying cold resistance.
Winter wolves are considered "children of the night" for the purpose of talking to vampires.[1]
Contents
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 can summon hostile winter wolves by calling for help, with a 1⁄10 chance of generating a hostile winter wolf on each adjacent square[2] - a character that gets lycanthropy from a werewolf can similarly summon tame winter wolves using the #monster extended command by expending 10 power.
Winter wolves 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.
Strategy
Groups of winter wolves are even more unwelcome to deal with compared to their young: they have the same AC and movement speed along with stronger attacks, and cannot be seen via infravision; unlike the cubs, winter voles are not randomly generated as early, meaning that a character is somewhat more likely to have cold resistance and/or a container to stash potions in. However, werewolves can generate one or more winter wolves when calling for help and can appear much earlier than the wolves or their cubs, which can overwhelm weaker characters in an instant unless they can keep the werewolf out of melee range. Winter wolves also have a MR score of 20, making wands and spells somewhat less reliable.
As with winter wolf cubs, a wand of fire and other sources of fire damage are among a character's better options against winter wolves, as are wands and spells that can slow down or immobilize them. Valkyrie characters take no damage from their breath attacks, but should still handle werewolves and winter wolf packs with care. Winter wolves respect Elbereth, but will use their breath attacks while fleeing, and theri 20 MR makes scaring them a bit harder. Players that have a source of reflection at this point (e.g. from Sokoban) gain a vital edge against winter wolves, and the threat of facing them early alongside werewolves may influence an early wish for a particular type of dragon scale mail.
Once winter wolves are dealt with, their corpse is a good potential source of cold resistance for characters who lack it and are not observing vegetarian or foodless conduct, and make a decently filling meal besides. Lycanthropy from a werewolf may also be tempting to an early character 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 non-Caveman human characters.
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.
A dwarvish cloak protects your inventory from heat and cold 9⁄10 of the time, making encounters with hostiles such as winter wolves more bearable. Pets can also gain intrinsics from corpses, allowing them to become cold resistant by eating a winter wolf corpse.History
The winter wolf first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.
In NetHack 3.4.3 and earlier versions, including variants based on these versions, werewolves calling for help have a 1⁄5 chance of generating a winter wolf on each adjacent square to it.[3]
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.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, winter wolves 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. This also applies to SlashTHEM and Hack'EM.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, winter wolves can generate as minions of Skadi.
The Windowless Tower contains a niche with a winter wolf on its middle floor as Vlad's Tower does in vanilla NetHack. 1⁄5 of the monsters randomly generated on the Water Temple level of the Chaos Temple Quest will be winter wolves.
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, winter wolves are given a third stage of growth: a winter wolf pup can grow up into a winter wolf cub, and then a winter wolf. 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.
In older versions, it is possible to use the defunct cooking feature to turn a winter wolf corpse into a regular wolf corpse.
