Lycanthropy

Lycanthropy is an intrinsic property that appears in NetHack.

Description

A hero can only be given lycanthropy from being bitten by a werecreature (which uses the AD_WERE damage type) or eating their corpse or tin. Being bitten and infected by a werecreature abuses constitution, while a werecreature corpse is poisonous to eat and consumption of werecreatures is cannibalism for human heroes. Wielding Werebane prevents lycanthropy from being transferred via bites.

If a hero is infected with lycanthropy, they become vulnerable to silver: this causes them to "retouch" everything in their inventory, forcibly drop any worn silver items such as weapons and rings, and take 1d10 points of damage for each silver item dropped this way. This check will also cause artifact blast damage to trigger if the hero is carrying any artifacts that are not of their alignment (or role, for quest artifacts).

Along with a weakness to silver, a hero with lycanthropy gains intrinsic drain resistance and hungerless regeneration, and may randomly polymorph into their animal form: during daytime hours, they have a ¹⁄₈₀ chance each turn of changing forms, and during the night they have a ¹⁄₆₀ chance each turn. The animal form that the hero takes depends on the werecreature that infected them, and the hero will be treated as being the same species as that animal as long as they have lycanthropy. A hero that attempts to polymorph with lycanthropy will toggle between both of their forms, and doing so with polymorph control prompts the player to choose whether or not they change forms if a form shift would occur—as with any other form of polymorph, a hero that is killed while in animal form will return to normal form if possible.

Werecreatures are the only monsters that have intrinsic lycanthropy: other monsters cannot be infected from being bitten by a werecreature or eating one's corpse, though a pet will not eat the corpse unless they have poison resistance.

Animal abilities

As an animal, the hero usually has much lower carrying capacity than normal and cannot wear any armor: werejackals and wererats will be forced out of their armor and drop it, while werewolves will destroy their shirt, cloak, and body armor and drop any remaining armor. Even after shedding armor, their encumbrance level will often be at strained or worse due to the animal form's much lower carrying capacity, and it is not uncommon to end up overloaded as a result.

While in animal form, a lycanthropic hero can use the #monster extended command to call for help by summoning a few tame monsters of the same species to their side (e.g., using #monster as a werejackal will call jackals, coyotes and foxes), which requires 10 power and exercises wisdom when used successfully.

Lycanthropy and (un)holy water

In addition to each potion's normal effects, quaffing a potion of holy water will cure any lycanthropy and return the hero to normal form if possible, while quaffing unholy water will immediately cause them to shift to animal form. Inhaling the vapors of either potion will shift the hero to their normal form or their animal form, respectively.

Strategy

Between the many setbacks of animal forms, the loss of armor with each transformation and the debilitating weakness to silver, lycanthropy is generally considered undesirable. The property does also have notable benefits, however: drain resistance and regeneration are useful properties, and the ability to summon tame monsters can come in handy.

Prevention

Naturally, one of the easiest ways to deal with lycanthropy is to avoid catching it in the first place: A ring of protection from shape changers will cause werecreatures to immediately shift back to humanoid form upon becoming animals, and wielding Werebane will prevent their bites from infecting you, on top of making short work of hostile werecreatures as well. In lieu of reliable protection, high magic cancellation (e.g. from a cloak of protection) can significantly reduce the chances of infection.

Another good prevention method is to kill werecreatures before they can reach melee range - more often than not, many heroes will find a suitable projectile weapon or attack wand before they encounter one. Silver weapons are typically quite rare, but can deal enough damage to dispatch a werecreature quickly even if you lack skill in that weapon. Pets are also a valuable resource in keeping a werecreature off your back, especially if you can get them between you and the hostile monster.

Curing and mitigation

Even if you cannot reliably prevent a lycanthropy infection, there are various means to manage or even cure the condition. An amulet of unchanging or ring of polymorph control can prevent unwanted transformations as long as the hero is conscious and not stunned, asleep, or confused - the tradeoff for this is an inability to pick up or use any silver objects until you can cure the lycanthropy, as well as taking up a ring or amulet slot.

The following methods can cure lycanthropy:

• Eating a sprig of wolfsbane.
• Quaffing a potion of holy water.
• Praying to your god successfully, as lycanthropy is considered a major trouble.

If all else fails, you can force yourself to transform back from animal form by dropping your HP to zero, e.g. kicking a wall repeatedly, then gradually make your way forward until you can wait out any prayer timeout or else find a means of stopping or curing the transformations. Letting monsters kill you in animal forms is possible but tricky, due to lycanthropy giving intrinsic regeneration. Unfortunately, you will also have to consider leaving behind much if not all of your current inventory in order to avoid being immobilized by its weight if or when another shift occurs.

Lycanthropy and pets

Lycanthropy can be used to acquire a very large number of jackals, rats, or wolves depending on the hero's animal form, which you can use as temporary meat shields at bare minimum - pets that survive can be polymorphed (usually via wand or polymorph trap) into much better pets. Very low-level heroes will have trouble using this command early on, as the animal form will have much lower maximum power, and repeated "deaths" in animal form will usually result in even lower maximum power the next time you shift into animal form.

History

Lycanthropy first appears alongside werecreatures in NetHack 3.0.0.

The full-inventory "retouch" from being given lycanthropy is introduced in NetHack 3.6.0.

Origin

The word "lycanthrope" (from ancient Greek λύκος [lýkos, "wolf"], άνθρωπος [ánthropos, "man"]) simply means "werewolf". In Dungeons & Dragons, which NetHack heavily borrows from, the term is extended to apply to all shape-shifting were-creatures.

Messages

You feel feverish.

You were given lycanthropy from a werecreature's bite.

You can't handle your foo!

The player was wielding a silver weapon or wearing a silver item at the time they were given lycanthropy, and is forced to drop it.

You lack the energy to send forth a call for help!

You tried to use the #monster command while shifted to your animal form, but do not have enough power.

You feel purified.

You successfully cured yourself of lycanthropy.

Variants

SLASH'EM

SLASH'EM adds several new werecreatures (and thus more potential sources of lycanthropy), and the lycanthrope is present as a starting race that has incurable lycanthropy: lycanthrope heroes will always be werewolves, although they will automatically remove their armor before transforming rather than destroy it unless the armor is cursed.

A blessed potion of amnesia can cure lycanthropy.