Ninja
@ ninja 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 7 |
| Attacks |
Weapon 1d8 physical, weapon 1d8 physical |
| Base level | 5 |
| Base experience | 66 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | 10 |
| Base MR | 10 |
| Alignment | 3 (lawful) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 1450 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | None |
| Resistances conveyed | None |
|
A ninja:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line3185 |
- This article is about the monster. For other uses, see Ninja (disambiguation).
A ninja, @ is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. Ninjas are strong humans that can be seen via infravision.
A ninja has two weapon attacks, and can multishot thrown shuriken and darts as well as yumi fired from a ya.[1]
Contents
Generation
Ninjas are not randomly generated, and normally created ninjas are always generated hostile. They are not a valid form for polymorph.
Ninjas are only generated on non-filler floors of the Samurai quest at level creation, and are the only non-unique monsters to be generated exclusively on a Quest. Nine ninjas are generated on the home level of the Samurai quest at level creation, while eight are generated on the locate level at level creation, and five are generated on the goal level at level creation.
A ninja is always generated with a melee weapon and a set of projectiles:[2] the melee weapon has a 3⁄4 chance of being a short sword and will be an axe otherwise, while the projectiles have a 3⁄4 chance of being shuriken and will be darts otherwise.
Strategy
Ninjas are an excellent source of the otherwise-rare shuriken for Samurai.
History
The ninja first appears in NetHack 3.1.0. Their starting inventory is added in NetHack 3.6.0.
The presence of ninjas in the Samurai quest may be an homage to the defunct Ninja role, which is present in versions from NetHack 1.3d to NetHack 2.3e, as well as a nod to the Samurai rank title.
Origin
A ninja (Japanese: 忍者, lit. 'one who is invisible') or shinobi (Japanese: 忍び, lit. 'one who sneaks') was an infiltration agent, mercenary, guerrilla warfare expert, or bodyguard that existed in feudal Japan, and was often employed in siege, espionage missions and military deception. They often appear in the historical record during the Sengoku period, when jizamurai clans of peasant-warriors in Iga Province and the adjacent Kōka District formed ikki – "revolts" or "leagues" – as a means of self-defense, although antecedents may have existed as early as the 12th century. The first known English use of the word ninja was in 1964.
The word "shinobi" appears in the written record as far back as the late 8th century in poems in the Man'yōshū, and the word's meaning is the basis for the ninja's association with stealth and invisibility; meanwhile, the word "ninja" was uncommon, and a variety of regional colloquialisms evolved to describe what would later be dubbed ninja. Related is the term kunoichi (くノ一), originally an argot that means "woman" and supposedly coming from the characters くノ一 (respectively hiragana ku, katakana no and kanji ichi), which make up the form of kanji for "woman" (女)—in fiction written in the modern era, kunoichi means "female ninja".
Ninja gained notability as mercenaries during the 15th century, when they were hired to employ many asymmetrical warfare tactics such as scouting operations, raiding operations, arson, and even terrorism. These tactics were considered abhorrent by members of the samurai class. Following the Tokugawa shogunate in the 17th century, the ninja faded into obscurity, though a number of shinobi manuals, often based on Chinese military philosophy, were written in the 17th and 18th centuries, most notably the 1676 Bansenshūkai. By the time of the Meiji Restoration in 1868, shinobi had become a topic of popular culture in Japan which featured in many legend and folklore, where they were associated with many supernatural abilities.
Many of the now-ubiquitous stereotypes about ninja were developed within Edo theatre: their black clothing was supposed to imitate the outfits worn by kuroko, stagehands meant to be ignored by the audience; and their use of shuriken, which was meant to contrast with the use of swords by onstage samurai. In kabuki theatre, ninja were "dishonorable and often sorcerous counterparts" to samurai, and possessed "almost, if not outright, magical means of camouflage." Many famous people in Japanese history, including several known samurai, have been associated or identified as ninja, but their status as ninja is difficult to prove and may be the product of later imagination; rumors surrounding famous warriors sometimes describe them as ninja, though there is similarly little evidence for these claims—such rumors are likely the reason that "Ninja" and "Kunoichi" serve as a rank title for Samurai.
Variants
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, ninjas can appear among the adventurers generated in the Bar at level creation.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, the ninja monster is renamed to the ninja gaiden in order to accommodate the ninja player monster that corresponds to the Ninja role.
