Giant humanoid
The giant humanoid is a monster class that appears in NetHack, and is represented by the uppercase H glyph (H).
Giant humanoids are designated internally by the macro S_GIANT.[1] This is not to be confused with the M2_GIANT flag used for all forms of giant, though all non-undead giants are part of the monster class.
The class contains the following monsters:[2]
- H giant
- H stone giant
- H hill giant
- H fire giant
- H frost giant
- H storm giant
- H ettin
- H titan
- H minotaur
- Quest nemeses:
- H Lord Surtur
- H Cyclops
Contents
Common traits
All monsters in the class are naturally humanoid in shape and can wear non-torso armor, though the minotaur cannot wear hard helms due to its horns. They are all huge in size except for the minotaur (which is large), and are all carnivorous monsters, with the titan being the only omnivore.
Minus the ettin and minotaur, all giant humanoids are capable of walking over, lifting and throwing boulders.
Generation
The non-unique giants in the monster class can generate as peaceful towards heroes of the same alignment, while the ettin and minotaur are always generated as hostile.
The giant humanoid is the second quest monster class for Valkyries, and makes up 6⁄175 (~3.42%) of the monsters randomly generated on the Valkyrie quest. Two hostile giant humanoids are also generated on the locate level at level creation, and one is generated on the goal level at level creation.
The giant humanoid is also the second quest monster class for Cavepeople, and makes up 6⁄175 (~3.42%) of the monsters that are randomly generated on the Cave-dweller quest. Two hostile giant humanoids are also generated on the locate level at level creation.
Giant humanoids are large enough to always leave corpses upon death.
History
Of the monsters in the class, the minotaur first appears in Hack 1.21 and Hack for PDP-11, which are based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and is also included in the initial bestiary for Hack 1.0: from these versions to NetHack 2.3e, it uses the m glyph. The giant first appears in NetHack 1.3d, and from this version to NetHack 2.3e it uses the 9 glyph.
NetHack 3.0.0 formally introduces the giant humanoid monster class along with the "elemental" giants (minus the storm giant) and the titan, moves them to the H glyph and adds the pre-existing minotaur, ettin and owlbear to the monster class; in NetHack 3.1.0, owlbears are reclassified as apelike creatures and moved to their current glyph.
The storm giant is the most recent monster to be added to the monster class: it appears in SLASH 6, the last release of SLASH based on NetHack 3.1.3, and makes its vanilla debut in NetHack 3.3.0.
Variants
SLASH'EM
SLASH'EM adds one new monster to the monster class:
GruntHack
GruntHack adds one new monster to the monster class:
SporkHack
SporkHack adds one new monster to the monster class:
dNetHack
dNetHack adds several new monsters to the monster class:
- H gnoll matriarch
- H warrior changed
- H minotaur priestess
- H deepest one
- H lurking one
- H blasphemous lurker
- H lurking hand
- H blasphemous hand
- H twitching four-armed changed
- H Lugribossk
- H giant goat spawn
- H Father Dagon
- H Mother Hydra
- H giant duergar
- H giant stoneguard
- H duergar annihilator
- H giant deepking
Encyclopedia entry
Giants have always walked the earth, though they are rare in
these times. They range in size from little over nine feet
to a towering twenty feet or more. The larger ones use huge
boulders as weapons, hurling them over large distances. All
types of giants share a love for men - roasted, boiled, or
fried. Their table manners are legendary.
