Frost salamander
| : frost salamander (No tile) | |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 13 |
| Attacks | |
| Base level | 10 |
| Base experience | 245 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | -3 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | -3 (chaotic) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 1500 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | sleep, cold |
| Resistances conveyed | cold (66%) |
|
A frost salamander:
| |
| Reference | EvilHack 0.8.3 - monst.c, line 3873 |
A frost salamander, :, is a type of monster that appears in EvilHack and Hack'EM. The frost salamander is a humanoid reptilian monster that is a cold counterpart to the salamander: they only reside in icy areas, and can freeze pools of water underneath them. Similar to their fiery brethren, frost salamanders can wear all armor except boots and wield weapons.
A frost salamander has a weapon attack, a cold touch attack, and two bearhugs that inflict cold damage. Frost salamanders possess cold resistance and sleep resistance, and are vulnerable to fire.
A frost salamander is poisonous to eat, but eating a frost salamander corpse or tin confers high percentage of cold resistance, though the corpse is poisonous.
Generation
Frost salamanders are always created hostile. In EvilHack, they are only randomly generated in the Ice Queen's Realm, and in Hack'EM they are generated normally.
Four frost salamanders patrol the icy river on the uppermost floor of the Ice Queen's Realm at level creation, and four more are generated on the middle floor containing the Abominable Snowman at level creation. Kathryn the Ice Queen can generate hostile frost salamanders with the summon nasties monster spell.
Frost salamanders are generated with either a halberd (3⁄4 chance) or a spetum (1⁄4 chance).
Frost salamanders cannot be targeted for genocide.
Strategy
While frost salamanders are incapable of drowning a character in pools like salamanders can in lava, their strong attacks and cold damage can prove perilous for the unprepared. Most fire sources such as a wand of fire or the fireball spell are viable methods to fight off frost salamanders, and characters that entered the Ice Queen's Realm without full intrinsic cold resistance can top themselves off with frost salamander corpses and tins.
Encyclopedia entry
For hundreds of years, many people believed that salamanders were magical. In England in the Middle Ages, people thought that fire created salamanders. When they set fire to damp logs, dozens of the slimy creatures scurried out. The word salamander, in fact, comes from a Greek word meaning "fire animal".
