Trapper or lurker above
The trapper or lurker above is a monster class that appears in NetHack, and is represented by a lowercase t glyph (t). It is designated internally by the macro S_TRAPPER.[1]
The class contains the following monsters:[2]
- t lurker above
- t trapper
Contents
Common traits
Both the trapper and lurker above are strong, carnivorous animals that are neutral-aligned, and each possess a body that has no eyes, limbs or head. They can hide themselves to surprise and engulf unwary victims until they are digested, and can follow you to other levels if they are adjacent to you.
Generation
Trappers and lurkers above are always generated hostile.
Strategy
Both the trapper and lurker above can be easily detected beforehand by an attentive player using something such as telepathy or warning - they also move at a very slow 3 speed, making them easy to hack apart even if you are engulfed. However, pets are not so fortunate - their digestion attack will instantly kill any other monster they can engulf. To avoid losing good pets, keep a close eye on them and check for hiding monsters through methods such as the above.
History
Both the trapper and lurker above appear in Hack for PDP-11, a variant of Jay Fenlason's Hack, and are included in the initial bestiary for Hack 1.0; the monster class is formally introduced in NetHack 3.0.0, when both monsters were moved to the t glyph.
Variants
dNetHack
dNetHack renames the monster class to the trapper, lurker or metroid, and adds several new monsters to the monster class:
- t baby metroid
- t metroid
- t alpha metroid
- t gamma metroid
- t zeta metroid
- t omega metroid
- t metroid queen
- t mouth of the goat
SlashTHEM
SlashTHEM adds one new monster to the monster class:
Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, both the lurker above and trapper are mindless and thus cannot be detected with telepathy.
