Wumpus
q wumpus 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 9 |
| Attacks |
Bite 3d6 physical |
| Base level | 8 |
| Base experience | 118 |
| Speed | 3 |
| Base AC | 2 |
| Base MR | 10 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 2500 |
| Nutritional value | 500 |
| Size | Large |
| Resistances | None |
| Resistances conveyed | None |
|
A wumpus:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line767 |
A wumpus, q, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The wumpus is a type of omnivorous quadruped that is strong, can cling to ceilings, and can be seen via infravision.
A wumpus has a single bite attack.
Chatting to a wumpus causes it to burble similar to a jabberwock.
Contents
Generation
Randomly generated wumpuses are always created hostile. A wumpus generated at level creation has a 4⁄5 chance of being created asleep unless the hero has the Amulet of Yendor.[1]
A wumpus is always generated on the Ranger quest locate level at level creation.
Strategy
The wumpus is very slow, but has a strong bite attack and can cling to ceilings, allowing it to generate over and move past moats without drowning or being relocated. Even so, its lacks resistances of any kind and has a low monster MR of 10, so its sluggish movement makes it an easy target for any hero with good kiting skill or ranged attacks at their disposal.
Of note is that while the wumpus is not very desirable as a pet due to its extremely low speed, it is the only eligible steed for riding that can also cling to ceilings.
History
The wumpus first appears in Hack 1.21, which is based on Jay Fenlason's Hack: in this version, it uses the W glyph. From Hack 1.0 to NetHack 2.3e, the wumpus is only generated if the NOWORM compile-time option is defined, and is otherwise replaced by the long worm—both use the w glyph. NetHack 3.0.0 adds both monsters to the default bestiary and moves the wumpus to the quadruped monster class with the leocrotta and several other monsters.
Origin
The wumpus is derived from the early turn-based text adventure game Hunt the Wumpus, where the player moves through a series of connected caves (arranged as the vertices of a dodecahedron) in order to hunt and kill the titular monster inhabiting one of the caves—the Ranger quest locate level is a homage to the game. As indicated by the game's description that serves as the encyclopedia entry, the Wumpus (capitalized as shown) is a large creature with sucker feet that is normally sedentary, hence its low speed and tendency to generate sleeping in NetHack.
There are twenty numbered caves, and two of these caves contain fatal bottomless pits that the player will fall into upon entering, while two others contain "super bats" which will pick up the player and move them to a random cave. The Wumpus is placed in one of the caves at random, and is not affected by either of these hazards. The caves are in complete darkness, so the player cannot see into adjacent caves; instead, upon moving to a new empty cave, the game describes if they can smell a Wumpus, hear a bat, or feel a draft from a pit in one of the connected caves. Entering the cave with the Wumpus will startle it, after which it will either kill the player or move to another cave, and the Wumpus will also kill the player if it moves to their location.
The player is equipped with five "crooked arrows" that can change direction in mid-air, which they must use to shoot and safely kill the Wumpus from a distance: if the player chooses to fire an arrow, they first select up to five caves that the arrow will travel through, and then enters each cave that the arrow moves through; if the player enters a cave number that is not connected to where the arrow is, the game picks a valid option at random. If an arrow hits the player while it is traveling, the player loses; if the arrow does not hit anything, then the Wumpus is startled and may move to a new cave; and if it hits the Wumpus, the player wins.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, the wumpus hits as a +1 weapon, cannot be seen via infravision and will not be randomly generated in Gehennom.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, wumpuses are fey creatures.
Encyclopedia entry
The Wumpus, by the way, is not bothered by the hazards since he has sucker feet and is too big for a bat to lift. If you try to shoot him and miss, there's also a chance that he'll up and move himself into another cave, though by nature the Wumpus is a sedentary creature.
