Chiropteran (starting race)
- This article is about the playable race. For the monster, see chiropteran (monster).
The chriopteran is a playable race of hero that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack, and notnotdNetHack. A chiropteran is a form of bat-like monster, and will appear as B if the showrace option is set on.
Chiropterans can be of any alignment, and can play as a Binder, Caveperson, Convict, Monk, Priest, Rogue, or Ranger. In notnotdNetHack, they can also play as a Barbarian.
Racial benefits and restrictions
Chiropterans are large monsters with a body shape similar to that of other bats—this prevents them from wearing boots of any kind and significantly restricts the type of armor they can wear, but in return they are capable of flight, have a higher carrying capacity and gain an additional bite attack. Chiropterans are immune to foocubus seduction as a result of their body's incompatibility with the latter's humanoid form.
A chiropteran's attribute caps are primarily skewed towards physical prowess, as further detailed in the section below: they have exceptional physical stats, but their mental stats are on the lower end.
In addition to standard human-like vision, chiropterans also possess two forms of detecting monsters that are relatively unique to them among playable races: they have a keen sense of smell that can detect monsters within six squares of them, and also possess echolocation, a form of "sound vision" that maps any terrain, monsters and object within their line of sight even if they are currently blind; monster locations detected by echolocation are denoted by an I, while detected items are marked at their current locations as their basic object type (i.e. a tool, a weapon, and so on). Chiropteran heroes are not subject to disorientation from loud noises the way other monsters with echolocation are. Their special spell is magic mapping.
Monsters with the animal monster attribute are considered the same race as a chiropteran hero for purposes such as cannibalism and same-race sacrifice. Dwarves and gnomes that are not undead will always generate as hostile towards a chiropteran hero. Chiropteran heroes that are killed by any type of mummy and leave bones will rise from the dead as a chiropteran mummy.
Attributes
| Character Race |
Strength | Dexterity | Constitution | Intelligence | Wisdom | Charisma |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chiropteran | 20 | 20 | 14 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| HP gain | Starting HP | Pre-cutoff | Post-cutoff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chiropteran | 5 | 1+d6 | 1+d2 |
| Energy gain | Starting energy | Pre-cutoff | Post-cutoff |
| Chiropteran | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Chiropterans have high strength and dexterity caps at 20 each, but their constitution cap is tied for the lowest with the yuki-onna at 14, while their intelligence, wisdom and charisma caps are all subpar at 16 each (the same as a starting orc hero). Their HP growth is the third-best among playable races in spite of their low constitution, but they also have no energy growth at all.
Starting equipment
A chiropteran hero's starting equipment is made to fit their body shape like most other races of heroes, with the following substitutions applied for boots (which they cannot wear at all, as discussed previously).
| Standard item(s) | Replacement item(s) | Affected roles |
|---|---|---|
| high boots | leather gaunlets | Barbarian, Ranger |
| low boots | pair of gloves | Rogue |
The chiropteran's default starting pet is a giant bat unless they are a Convict, in which case their pet will be a sewer rat as with other Convicts.
Chiropteran Convicts will have the weight of their chained heavy iron ball set to 1600 aum.
Strategy
Chiropteran heroes will generally want to seek out upgrade kits in order to fit their desired armor to their body.
A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:
"Expand on this section."
Origin
The word "chiropteran" is used to describe bats, which are winged mammals of the order Chiroptera: this order is the second largest order of mammals after rodents, and comprises about 20% of all classified mammal species worldwide, with over 1,400 species of bats.
The chiropterans of dNetHack and its derivatives are somewhat based on the Desmodu, ogre-sized bat-like humanoids that originate in Dungeons & Dragons and appear in the game's 3rd Edition, with some artwork depicting them riding even larger bat-like creatures. Desmodu can be found all over the Underdark, and many of them dwell in large cities within Skull Gorge (also known as The Hollow),. They are named for a genus of bats: Desmodu, Diaemus and Diphylla make up the subfamily Desmodontinae, which consists of the carnivorous, blood-consuming vampire bats of the family Phyllostomidae, or New World leaf-nosed bats.
