Byakhee (dNetHack)
B byakhee 
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|---|---|
| Difficulty | 15 |
| Attacks |
Bite 1d6 physical, Claw 2d4 physical, Claw 2d4 physical, Sting 1d3 stun, Sting 1d5 byakhee larvae (25+ insight) |
| Base level | 11 |
| Base experience | 299 |
| Speed | 20 |
| Base AC | 1 |
| Base MR | 25 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 2 (Quite rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 1600 |
| Nutritional value | 100 |
| Size | medium |
| Resistances | cold, sleep, poison
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A byakhee:
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- For the monster in other variants, see byakhee.
A byakhee, B, is a type of monster that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. Byakhees are strong, amphibious and thick-skinned omnivorous creatures with bat- and bird-like traits: they have flight, can be see via infravision, and like other monsters in their class have a 1⁄3 chance of moving in a random direction during each turn. The byakhee also possesses infravision, regeneration, unbreathing, and the ability to see invisible - they can follow a hero to other levels if they are adjacent, and will seek out magical items and other objects to pick up. Tame byakhees may turn traitor.
Byakhees have a bite attack, two claw attacks, a sting attack that can stun targets and is unaffected by magic cancellation, and a second sting attack that can infect their target's armor with byakhee larvae if the hero has 25 insight or more. They possess sleep resistance, poison resistance and cold resistance.
A byakhee corpse is poisonous to eat.
Generation
Randomly generated byakhees are always created hostile, and may appear in small groups.
Origin
The byakhees (or byakhee birds) originate from the H.P. Lovecraft short story "The Festival", and were later featured in August Derleth's tale "The House on Curwen Street". They are servants of the Great Old One Hastur, and their description in "The Festival" paints them as four-limbed eldritch monsters with bat-like wings, possessing visual traits of various animals such as vampire bats, crows and buzzards, as well as somewhat resembling human corpses. The text specifically describes them as "not altogether crows, nor" any of the other descriptors used, with their otherworldly and eldritch nature emphasized by the speaker's difficulty in fully recalling their appearance.
Encyclopedia entry
A creature of the stars, this bat like being can be summoned
across the vast interstellar gulfs to serve magicians and
dark powers. It is said that they will seize those who
summon them and cannot best them and carry them off to whatever
terrible fate awaits them on other worlds.
