Pirate
| Pirate v0.12 | |
|---|---|
| Author | Nephi |
| Download | link |
| NetHack PatchDB | 56 |
| Pirate Role | |
|---|---|
| Author | Chris |
| Download | link |
| NetHack PatchDB | pending |
The Pirate, abbreviated by the game as Pir, is a role that is the primary focus of the Pirate Role patch. There are at least two such patches documented so far:
- One of the earliest-known iterations was an incomplete patch written by Nephi in 2003, with a somewhat-updated version added to the NetHack Patch Database in 2005.
- A user going by "ozma777" and "sonik" offered downloads for a version of SLASH'EM that included the patch and made improvements on it, including establishing quest levels along with several other changes—this version of SLASH'EM can be found on GitHub as well, though the iterations on Nephi's Pirate patch are not yet available as a standalone file.
- A second variation built using Nephi's initial patch as a base was created by ChrisANG, the primary developer of dNetHack, and first made available on GitHub in 2013.
The patch by Nephi and the later patch by Chris were each originally written against NetHack 3.4.3. The contents of each patch are described in the sections below, with the role that is available to the hero as it exists in each patch being described in separate sections from the rest of that patch.
Original patch by Nephi
Nephi's first patch lays the basic groundwork for the role that later iterations of the concept expand on.
New monsters
The following monsters are added by the patch:
- B parrot
- Parrots are fast-moving birds with a bite attack and a claw attack. They are not to be confused with the parrot that appears in SLASH'EM.
- @ buccaneer
- Buccaneers are the role's quest guardians.
- @ Pirate King
- The Pirate King is the role's quest leader.
- @ Major General
- The Major General is the role's quest nemesis.
- @ Pirate (player monster)
- Player monster pirates behave as most other player monsters do—they are not to be confused with the quest guardian buccanneers, since "Buccanneer" is one of their rank titles.
New items
- ? The Marauder's Map, the Pirate quest artifact
New levels
No levels are changed or added by the patch.
Other changes
- Pages are made chaotic—the reason is unclear, and it may likely have been an error.
- Code to prevent the hero from starting with rings that have negative enchantment is added in u_init.c—said code is seemingly duplicated and occurs earlier in the file.
- Alternate item names are established for the Pirate role, similar to the Samurai role:
| Standard | Pirate |
|---|---|
| potion of booze | potion of rum |
| cram ration | sea biscuit |
| scimitar | cutlass |
| sack | ditty bag (derived from "commodity bag") |
| large box | foot locker |
| club | belaying pin |
Role information
This section focuses specifically on the Pirate role as it exists in Nephi's patch.
Pirates are always human, and can start as neutral or chaotic.
Starting inventory
Each Pirate starts with the following equipment:
- 1-300 gold pieces
- a +0 scimitar (wielded)
- 2-4 +1 knives
- a +0 pair of high boots
- 2-4 cram rations
- a snack item
- 3-6 kelp fronds (1⁄4 chance or 25%); otherwise
- 3-6 bananas
- 3 potions of booze
- a ring of adornment (1⁄2 chance or 50%); otherwise, a random ring
- a tool:
- an uncursed +0 grappling hook (1⁄2 chance or 50%); otherwise
- an oilskin sack
Pirates start the game with knowledge of the oilskin cloak, oilskin sack and grappling hook.
The Pirate's default starting pet will be either a parrot or a monkey with roughly equal probability.
Intrinsics
Pirates gain the following intrinsic properties upon reaching the given experience levels:
Attributes
The Pirate's starting attributes are distributed as follows:
| Attributes | Strength | Dexterity | Constitution | Intelligence | Wisdom | Charisma | Remaining |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum attributes | 8 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 30 |
| Distribution percentages | 20% | 20% | 25% | 15% | 10% | 10% |
Skills
Pirates have the following skills available to them:
| Pirate skills | |
|---|---|
| Max | Skills |
| Basic |
|
| Skilled |
|
| Expert |
|
Pirates start with Basic skill level in scimitars and knives. They use the intelligence stat to cast spells, and their special spell is cause fear.
Special rules
Some dialogs for Pirates are slightly changed, and alternate item names are applied as described above.
Rank titles
The status line displays one of the following ranks for the corresponding experience levels:
- XL 1-2: Landlubber
- XL 3-5: Sailor
- XL 6-9: Mariner
- XL 10-13: Mutineer
- XL 14-17: Buccaneer
- XL 18-21: Cutthroat
- XL 22-25: Corsair
- XL 26-29: Privateer
- XL 30: Dread Pirate
Gods
The Pirate pantheon is based on classical sea gods.
Quest
The Pirate's quest sees them fight the Major General for The Marauder's Map, an artifact scroll of magic mapping. The Marauder's Map grants searching and telepathy while wielded, and can be read to map the current level without being used up. Invoking the artifact grants object detection as with the potion of object detection.
While the quest data does feature associated text and distinct quest NPCs, there are no maps specified for use in the quest within the files available foor download, nor are any new level files present—this renders the quest and the associated artifact inaccessible along with the Bell of Opening (and thus makes the game unwinnable), since fallback levels will be generated instead. It is unclear as of yet what happened to the intended level files or what they were meant to look like. The quest dialogs within the patch are copied from those of the Tourist quest.
Second Patch by Chris
The Pirate Patch by ChrisANG iterates directly from Nephi's preliminary patch, and provides the base for the Pirate role that most readers and players will be familiar with.
New monsters
The following monsters are added by the patch:
- h githyanki pirate
- B parrot
- The parrot is identical to how it is implemented in Nephi's Pirate patch.
- Z skeletal pirate
- & damned pirate
- @ pirate brother
- Pirate brothers are the role's quest guardians.
- @ Mayor Cummerbund
- Mayor Cummerbund is the role's quest leader.
- Blackbeard's Ghost
- Blackbeard's Ghost is the role's quest nemesis.
- @ Pirate (player monster)
- Player monster pirates behave as most other player monsters do.
New items
- ? The Marauder's Map, now their first sacrifice gift
- ) Reaver, their crowning gift
- ( The Treasury of Proteus, their quest artifact
New levels
The Pirate quest is the only new set of levels added in the patch.
Other changes
- Code to prevent the hero from starting with rings that have negative enchantment is added in u_init.c—said code is seemingly duplicated and occurs earlier in the file.
- Monsters that are underwater are treated as invisible and considered stealthy, including the hero.
- The ELBERETH compile option is no longer necessary for crowning, though the crowning title for a lawful hero will change from "the Hand of Elbereth" to "the Arm of the Law" without it.
- Handling for the effects of the role's first sacrifice gift and quest artifact is added, as well as inventory for the newly-added monsters.
- Encyclopedia entries for the new monsters are added, as well as ones for "Dread Pirate Roberts" and "pirate king".
Role information
This section focuses specifically on the Pirate role as it exists in ChrisANG's patch—many elements are adapted from Nephi's patch as detailed above.
As in the original patch, Pirates are always human, and can start as neutral or chaotic.
Starting inventory
Each Pirate starts with the same equipment as in Nephi's patch, with the addition of a leather jacket. The default starting pet odds are also the same as in Nephi's patch.
Intrinsics
Pirates start the game with the ability to swim, and gain the same intrinsic properties at the same experience levels as in Nephi's patch:
Attributes
The Pirate's starting attributes are distributed the same as in Nephi's patch.
Skills
The Pirate's skill set, starting skills, spellcasting attribute, and special spell are all unchanged from Nephi's patch.
Special rules
The primary defining features of the Pirate role as it exists in this patch are:
- The existence of "king of the hill" mode, explained in the Quest section, and
- The lack of sacrifice gifts available for them.
The Pirate can only receive a singular artifact as a gift from sacrifice: The Marauder's Map, which can be read to gain clairvoyance as with casting the spell at Basic or lower skill. Invoking it will detect the current location of objects and reveal the locations of any other artifacts among those objects. The rule regarding sacrifice gifts does not extend to crowning, and the Pirate has a different crowning gift as well.
A Pirate that is crowned will have the blessed and rustproof +1 Reaver placed at their feet, unless the artifact already exists in the game. If Reaver does exist and is being wielded at the time a Pirate is crowned, it will be formally identified—in practice, this requires that a Pirate hero find Reaver in the bones of another (former) Pirate, since they cannot wish for it or obtain it by any means other than as described. A crowned Pirate is given the title of "the Pirate King", regardless of the hero's actual gender.
A Pirate hero that attacks with the wielded Reaver will steal an item on each hit, which will only occur 1⁄10 of the time for monsters and heroes of other roles, but beware—stealing a footrice corpse this way will turn the user to stone, unless they are wearing gloves.
Pirate heroes that die and leave bones files will always arise as skeletal pirates.
"King of the hill" mode is activated for a Pirate that has possession of their quest artifact, detailed further below.
Several dialogs for Pirates are slightly changed, and a slightly different set of alternate item names from Nephi's patch are applied:
| Standard | Pirate |
|---|---|
| cram ration | sea biscuit |
| scimitar | cutlass |
| small shield | buckler |
| sack | ditty bag (derived from "commodity bag") |
| large box | foot locker |
| club | belaying pin |
Rank titles
The status line displays one of the following ranks for the corresponding experience levels, which have mostly been changed from Nephi's patch:
- XL 1-2: Landlubber
- XL 3-5: Sailor
- XL 6-9: Cutthroat
- XL 10-13: Bosun
- XL 14-17: Second Mate
- XL 18-21: First Mate
- XL 22-25: Captain
- XL 26-29: Pirate Lord
- XL 30: Dread Pirate
Gods
The Pirate pantheon is a trinity of the Christian God, the Devil, and the sea. Their sole sacrifice gift is The Marauder's Map.
- Lawful: the Lord
- Neutral: the deep blue sea
- Chaotic: the Devil
Quest
The Pirate's quest sees them fight Blackbeard's Ghost for The Treasury of Proteus, an artifact chest. The Treasury of Proteus has 1⁄4 the weight of a regular chest at 150 aum, and grants magic resistance and acts as a luck item while carried. While the hero has The Treasury of Proteus in their open inventory, it has other effects including some that significantly change gameplay:
- While a Pirate hero has The Treasury of Proteus on hand, they are considered "king of the hill", and monster generation will change accordingly. When randomly generating monsters, 1⁄5 of them will be other pirates who seek to steal the quest artifact and kill the hero in no specific order—skeletal pirates will be generated in the dungeon above Gehennom, while damned pirates will be generated within Gehennom, and githyanki pirates will be generated on the Elemental Planes and Astral Plane.
- The Treasury of Proteus has a 19⁄20 chance of absorbing and blocking curses while carried—it will then become uncursed if it is currently blessed, and otherwise becomes cursed.
- When a Pirate hero first picks up The Treasury of Proteus, a timer is set to count down each turn, and when the timer reaches 0 it will polymorph its contents, signified by a sea-related message being printed. Normal items inside the container at the time have a 1⁄20 chance of resisting this effect, while artifacts have a 19⁄20 chance of resisting.
Losing possession of The Treasury of Proteus will disable these listed effects.
Pirates in variants
The Pirate role has since been implemented in dNetHack as well as its derivatives, generally using the patch by ChrisANG, and can also be played in other variants of NetHack:
Origin
A pirate refers to someone who conducts maritime robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. The English word "pirate" is derived from the Latin pirata ("pirate, corsair, sea robber"), which in turn comes from Greek πειρατής (peiratēs, "brigand"), and first appeared in English around 1300: its spelling did not become standardized until the eighteenth century, and spellings such as "pirrot", "pyrate" and "pyrat" occurred until this period.
The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilizations. In classical antiquity, the Phoenicians, Illyrians and Tyrrhenians were known as pirates, and pre-classical ancient Greeks condoned piracy as a viable and "honorable" profession, with references in many texts including Homer's Iliad and Odyssey; by the era of Classical Greece, piracy was looked upon as a "disgrace". The term "piracy" has been generalized in modern usage to additionally refer to acts committed on land, in the air, and on computer networks, and fictional portrayals of piracy also extend this to outer space.
Romanticised accounts of piracy during the mid-16th to mid-19th centuries (referred to as the "Age of Sail" have long been a part of Western pop culture: Tales of the Middle Eastern pirate Sinbad the Sailor are included in the first European translation of One Thousand and One Nights, which was published in 1711, and appear as an independent cycle from the main stories in 18th- and 19th-century collections. The two-volume 1724 book A General History of the Pyrates is generally credited with bringing key contemporary figures and a semi-accurate description of their milieu in the "Golden Age of Piracy" to the public's imagination. This in turn inspired and informed many later fictional depictions of piracy, most notably the 1883 Treasure Island and the 1911 Peter Pan; pirates were further stereotyped and popularized more recently by the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise which began in 2003.
Historical pirates were often sailors or soldiers who had fallen into misfortune or were captured, forced into a life of crime. In various literature, the pirates may be represented as having fallen, perhaps resembling a "respectable" person in some way. Pirate characters generally quest for buried treasure, plundered riches in treasure chests. Pirates' treasure is usually gold or silver, often in the form of doubloons or pieces of eight. They may also be generally portrayed as "swashbucklers" and "plunderers", often with a rough-and-ready appearance that evokes their criminal lifestyle, as well as rogue personalities and adventurous, seafaring pursuits. Such pursuits are often set in historic areas like the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, the English Channel, and various Caribbean locations such as Tortuga (where the Pirate quest of the patch by Chris is set).
Pirates are usually depicted as greedy, mean-spirited, drunk on rum, and often wear shabby 17th or 18th century clothing, with a bandana or feathered tricorne, and are almost always armed with a flintlock pistol and cutlass or similar weaponry—of note is that the cutlass is a relative of the saber and a much shorter sword than the scimitar, though its blade does have a noticeable curve. Pirates sometimes have scars and battle wounds, rotten or missing teeth (suggesting the effects of scurvy), as well as a hook or wooden stump where a hand or a leg has been amputated, and often wear an eye patch to conceal a lost eye. Some depictions of pirates also include monkeys or parrots as pets, with the former mischievously assisting them in thieving and the latter loudly copying whatever the pirate captain says.
Encyclopedia entry
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We pillage plunder, we rifle and loot.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We extort and pilfer, we filch and sack.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Maraud and embezzle and even highjack.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We kindle and char and inflame and ignite.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We burn up the city, we're really a fright.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We're rascals and scoundrels, we're villians and knaves.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We're devils and black sheep, we're really bad eggs.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We're beggars and blighters and ne'er do-well cads,
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Aye, but we're loved by our mommies and dads,
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
