# Spellbook of create familiar

spellbook of  +   create familiar   

Appearance

random

Abundance

1.01%

Base price

600 zm

Weight

50

Turns to read

42

Ink to write

30–59

Spell type

clerical

Level

6

Power cost

30 Pw

Direction

non-directional

In NetHack, the spellbook of create familiar allows you to learn the create familiar spell.

Contents

1 Effects

1.1 Pet types

2 Strategy
3 References

Effects
This spell creates a monster near you. It has a 1/3 chance of creating an appropriate starting pet (see below) and a 2/3 chance of creating a random monster.[1] The created monster will be tame, if it is tameable, and made peaceful otherwise.

Pet types
If create familiar creates an appropriate starting pet and you are one of the following roles, you will receive the listed pet type:pet_type in dog.c

Role

Pet

Caveman

little dog

Knight

pony

Ranger

little dog

Samurai

little dog

Wizard

kitten

If you are not one of the above roles, but have specified the pettype option, you will receive a pet of that type. Otherwise, you will have an equal chance of receiving a kitten or little dog.

Strategy
Overall, the spellbook of create familiar is a useful one-time utility spell, and may be worth keeping in your stash if you want to create more pets in the future. Because of its high difficulty, however, you will generally not get to cast it early unless you happen upon a robe. Because domestic animals are so easy to tame, the spellbook of polymorph can supersede this spellbook if you get lucky or do not fear system shock.
If you are casting this spell at a high enough level, it can be used to forcefully create a desired pet; simply cast it over and over again until you get one you want. Useless pets can be abandoned on the level; doing this will probably exhaust your magic reserves more than once, but you probably won't have to fear enemies while casting, considering the number of friendly monsters you are likely to create.
If you're altar farming, you could use this spell to summon a pet and then kill it, reducing your luck in order to avoid crowning. This also causes a loss of alignment record, but the other monsters you kill should get your alignment back up to maximum before prayer timeout reaches zero again. Be very careful not to sacrifice a former pet's corpse! If you name your new pet, its corpse will inherit the name, making it easier to avoid this mistake.

References

↑ dog.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 73

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It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.
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