Gender
In NetHack, the hero and some monsters in the dungeon have a specific gender. Certain monsters are referred to with neuter terms, while others have no apparent gender at all.
The player's own gender has no bearing on their gameplay, other than that some players will select a starting gender for their hero that matches their own if possible.
Pronouns
The following pronouns are used within the game for heroes and monsters of specific genders:[1][2]
- Male: "he", "him", "his"
- Female: "she", "her", "hers"
- Neuter: "it", "it", "its"
- Group: "they", "them", "their"
Unseen humanoids and most "lower" animals are referred to by neuter terms.[3] The "group" set of pronouns is only used whenever the hero is hallucinating.[4]
Note that NetHackWiki will use "they" in its singular form when referring to the player, any one person of an unknown, non-binary or non-specific gender, or any person that uses such pronouns.
The hero's gender
During character creation, the player may designate their hero as male or female, or they may also specify a default gender via the gender option in their configuration file. The hero's initial and current gender can be shown at any time using the base attributes command.
The Cave Dweller role uses "Caveman" and "Cavewomen" for male and female heroes, respectively, while the Cleric role uses "Priest" and "Priestess". The always-female Valkyrie is the only role available that is exclusive to a single starting gender (though this does not prevent their gender being changed like other heroes).
A hero that puts on an amulet of change will change their gender, regardless of the amulet's beatitude. Heroes may also have their gender changed through polymorph, whether by transforming into specific monsters (including doing so randomly when becoming a monster that can be male or female) or by polymorphing into their own race and feeling "like a new man/woman".
Effects
The hero's gender alters various messages in the game, and has some limited effect on gameplay mechanics:
- Heroes can lay eggs when polymorphed into an oviparous monster, but must be female to do so—this typically requires the hero to be female when polymorphing, although a male hero that polymorphs may very rarely become a female monster.
- Any eggs found and carried by male heroes have a 1⁄2 chance of hatching into tame monsters, while those found and carried by female heroes never hatch tame. Eggs laid by the hero will always hatch into tame monsters regardless of their current gender.
- Heroes can be seduced by amorous demons dependent on their gender. Male heroes can be seduced by a succubus, who will steal a ring of adornment from the hero if they see one in the hero's open inventory—female heroes can be seduced by an incubus, who will put a ring of adornment in the hero's open inventory on their hand if they see one. Both actions have a charisma-based chance of the amorous demon asking the hero's permission.
- The hero's rank may vary depending on their current gender.
Monsters and gender
Monsters can be gendered as well, which has some effects on their abilities in specific cases (as with the amorous demons discussed prior) and also changes the names and titles that certain monsters are addressed by, as well as the pronouns used to relay their actions—some non-unique monsters may be exclusively of a single gender, such as the three nymphs, killer bees, the Keystone Kops, and Nazguls. The default tileset may also illustrate monsters of different genders with "appropriate" dimorphism.
Below is a list of monsters with different names dependent on their gender:
History
The option to play a male or female hero is introduced in Hack 1.0.2—in previous versions, the hero's gender is assumed to be male, at least by comments in the code. Monsters in these early versions are not explicitly referred to with gendered terms, with the exception of shopkeepers (who are also assumed male by default).
From NetHack 3.0.0 to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, the Caveman and Priest roles (the former names for Cave Dweller and Cleric, respectively) each have two player monsters to represent male and female NPCs of those roles.
Additionally, in versions up to NetHack 3.6.7, monsters that can be male or female are capable of growing up into single-gender monsters, such as gnome and dwarf women becoming gnome lords and dwarf lords—NetHack 3.6.1 introduces a temporary fix for messages that report monsters changing gender when growing up via commit 606a738c, noting that adding female counterparts to those monsters breaks save file compatibility for the NetHack 3.6 series.[5][6]
NetHack 5.0.0 changes this via commit 0c3b9642 so that both monsters and heroes have gender-neutral names along with ones for male and female heroes monsters, and roles with gendered names are given their current set of names.
Variants
NetHack variants may add new gender-specific items and single-gender monsters, with some even adding single-gender roles or additional starting genders as well. Variants based on versions prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may independently attempt to resolve the incongruent treatment of gender for monsters that grow up into stronger forms.
NetHack brass
In NetHack brass, female characters dressed as nurses can apply bandages in fewer turns than male characters. Female characters wearing "maid armor" (i.e. the maid dress, frilled apron, and katyusha) gain various benefits, while male characters will instead gain the aggravate monster property.
SLASH'EM
SLASH'EM adds the Yeoman, a role for heroes that always starts as male.
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, the player's interactions with succubi and incubi are not determined by their gender, but instead by their sexuality. Additionally, players may elect to play as nonbinary. A nonbinary player character is unique in the following ways:
- Nonbinary characters are more likely to receive armor removal prompts when being seduced by a monster.
- Nonbinary characters can't lay eggs.
- Eggs that hatch in the inventory of a nonbinary character always produce peaceful monsters.
- Nonbinary characters cannot be seduced by succubi or incubi, unless the player character is bisexual.
References
- ↑ src/role.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 687-L694: Table of all genders
- ↑ src/mondata.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1187-L1207: pronoun_gender() function
- ↑ src/mondata.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1187-L1189
- ↑ src/mondata.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1197-L1200
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.1, line 1816-L1831
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1874-L1889
