Mina Harker
Mina Harker, V, is a unique monster that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. Mina Harker is an undead human and one of Vlad the Impaler's vampiric wives, making her a lord to vampire-kind: she is strong, unbreathing and amphibious, has flight and enhanced regeneration, can track the hero and see other creatures using normal sight and bloodsense, and can be seen via infravision. Mina will seek out weapons, armor and other items to pick up, waits for the hero to approach her, and can follow the hero to other floors if she is adjacent. She can reach level 30 and has 14 points of AC in the 'natural' category.
Mina Harker has a single weapon attack, a vampiric bite attack and a single-target active gaze that can charm monsters and allows her to steal items as nymphs do. She has expert prowess in martial combat and a full base attack bonus of +1 to-hit per level. Mina possesses cold resistance, sleep resistance, poison resistance, drain resistance, and death resistance, and has a weakness to silver.
Mina Harker can be warded by a fourfold-or-better Elder Elemental Eye.
Generation
Mina Harker is always generated hostile. She is not a valid polymorph form or genocide target.
Mina Harker is always generated in the central room at the top floor of the Windowless Tower, where she is placed to the right of Carmilla (and opposite both Vlad and Ilona Szilagy) during level creation.
Mina Harker is always generated with a stiletto, a bow and 10–29 arrows, a gentlewoman's dress, Victorian underwear, and a pair of stilettos.
Mina Harker never leaves a corpse upon death.
Strategy
While Mina is individually on the weaker side, her ability to steal items paired with the spellcasting of Ilona and the seducing gazes of Vlad and Carmilla can leave the hero thoroughly disrobed and robbed of vital weapons and armor if a player is unwary or under-prepared. To that end, be careful that wands of striking or fire are not zapped at the doors to their room, even if you are only targeting the other vampires in the surrounding area—if they are destroyed, one of more of Vlad and his entourage may be able to see the hero from where they are meditating, usually becoming active much earlier than you want.
Origin
Wilhelmina "Mina" Harker (née Murray) is the female protagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror epistolary novel, Dracula. She is portrayed in various other roles within adaptations of the story throughout the years: some versions romantically pair her with Count Dracula as either his soulmate or the reincarnation of his deceased wife, while others are believed to blend in aspects of historical accounts surrounding Vlad the Impaler’s unnamed first wife, who reportedly committed suicide in 1462 by throwing herself from a Poenari Castle tower into the Argeș River to avoid capture by an encroaching army. Mina's portrayal in dNetHack and its derivatives seemingly leans towards the former, where she is fully under Vlad's thrall in contrast to the events of the original novel.
In Bram Stoker's Dracula, Miss Mina Murray is a young schoolmistress who is engaged to Jonathan Harker and is best friends with Lucy Westenra. She is an orphan who never knew her father or mother, and is a virtuous, intelligent and practical woman praised for her secretarial resourcefulness and insights, acting as the moral mother figure of her social circle. After her fiancé Jonathan encounters Count Dracula and his brides and escapes from his castle, she travels to Budapest to join him there and care for him during his recovery. The two return to England as husband and wife, where they learn that Lucy has died from a mysterious illness and severe blood loss caused by attacks from a blood-drinking animal (revealed to be Dracula). A coalition to destroy Dracula is then formed by Abraham Van Helsing, consisting of Lucy's former suitors Dr. John Seward, Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris.
This coalition learns of Dracula's plans once Mina collects all of the relevant information—including the various characters' journals, letters, and newspaper clippings—and organizes it in chronological order, and then types out multiple copies to give to each of the other protagonists; this compiled information is what makes up the actual text of the novel itself. With Mina and Jonathan joining, the coalition uses this information to discover clues about Dracula's plans and investigate the various residences he purchases as a means to track and eventually destroy him.
However, Dracula learns of the plot against him and takes revenge by biting Mina at least three times, feeding her his own blood as well so that she is doomed to become a vampire upon death—Dracula then kills Renfield, his fanatically devoted servant and familiar, after the latter suffers an attack of conscience and tries to protect Mina, and he destroys all of the copies of their compiled records (except for one, which Dr. Seward kept in a safe). Due to Dracula's influence, when Van Helsing attempts to bless Mina by placing a wafer of sacramental bread against her forehead, it burns her flesh and leaves a scar; this influence also causes her to fall into trances that telepathically connect her to Dracula, and at Mina's urging Van Helsing uses hypnosis on her to obtain intelligence on her whereabouts.
The hypnosis is initially successful, but the effects diminish significantly as time goes on and Mina is further corrupted into a vampire: eventually, Van Helsing "restrains" Mina using a circle of finely crumbled sacred wafer, reasoning that vampires should be unable to exit or enter such a circle—he is not only proven correct when the circle protects him and Mina from the brides of Dracula, but Mina also looks at the brides with fear and disgust, signaling that she has not yet fully turned. Mina saves Van Helsing in turn when he hesitates upon preparing to stake the first of Dracula's brides, with Mina's influence or a vision of her bringing him to his senses. The party succeeds in killing Dracula just before sunset, lifting his vampiric spell and freeing Mina from the curse; seven years later, a son is born to Jonathan and Mina, signifying hope and renewal.
Encyclopedia entry
I thought that I was asleep, and waiting for Jonathan to
come back. I was very anxious about him, and I was powerless
to act, my feet, and my hands, and my brain were weighted,
so that nothing could proceed at the usual pace. And so I
slept uneasily and thought. Then it began to dawn upon me
that the air was heavy, and dank, and cold. I put back the
clothes from my face, and found, to my surprise, that all was
dim around. The gaslight which I had left lit for Jonathan,
but turned down, came only like a tiny red spark through
the fog, which had evidently grown thicker and poured into
the room. Then it occurred to me that I had shut the window
before I had come to bed. I would have got out to make certain
on the point, but some leaden lethargy seemed to chain my limbs
and even my will. I lay still and endured, that was all. I
closed my eyes, but could still see through my eyelids. (It
is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how
conveniently we can imagine.) The mist grew thicker and thicker
and I could see now how it came in, for I could see it like
smoke, or with the white energy of boiling water, pouring in,
not through the window, but through the joinings of the door.
It got thicker and thicker, till it seemed as if it became
concentrated into a sort of pillar of cloud in the room,
through the top of which I could see the light of the gas shining
like a red eye.
[...]
The last conscious effort which imagination made was to show me
a livid white face bending over me out of the mist.
