# Talk:Werecreature
I think that you can stop being a werecreature by praying, can anybody clarify this? Geb 00:13, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

It's worked for me. Kahran042
It has worked for me too, but it has also not worked.  I think it depends on what form you're currently in and if you have any other problems (like being Stressed) or not, and of course if it's safe to pray.Shmoo 00:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
It's also notable that you can return from werewolf form by eating wolfsbane. It'll give you a severe HP hit, but if you have a regenerating character or something it's worth it. Drinking holy water works too, with a less severe HP hit. This is all in Slash'EM, so mileage may vary. Personally, I can't understand how people play lycanthropic characters in Slash'EM. That shit is so irritating. It's easy to come back to human form if you're an Undead Slayer (you start with 5 sprigs of wolfsbane), but you have to find all your shit that you dropped, and it seems like every time you change (to/from lycanthropic form), you can carry a little less.
Zapping oneself with an Wand of Fire may have the effect of restoring human form. (Nethack 3.6.0) --Gautier (talk) 18:36, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
Where have the other Were- pages gone?  I wanted to put all their information here, but I keep getting redirected here instead.. hmm..Shmoo 00:34, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
...Nevermind, i wasn't paying attention... (I feel foolish!)

I have started editing the body of text in this article.  Can someone please read it over and correct any facts that I may have misinterpreted?  THANKS!Shmoo 01:40, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Can a pet be infected by werecreatures?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Orcchrist (talk • contribs) 

No.  Though I suppose a pet could be a werecreature.--Ray Chason 18:42, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Also notable that turning into a wolf will make you break out of your armor. This does not happen with the other forms. --Estragon 18:45, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
The way the "Resistances" section reads, at a glance it looks like eating their corpses grants you resistance to Lycanthropy. Maybe a clarifying note? ----Bray298 (talk) 17:14, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Etymology
Just in case it may be useful to people editing this page: the prefix "were-" comes from an Old English word for "man" or "person". So the word "werewolf" originally meant "man-wolf". Consequently, it makes no sense to talk about the creature having a "human form and a were form": those would be the same. The best way to make the desired distinction is "human form and animal form". Netzhack (talk) 07:43, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Summoning and extinction
Does the "summon help" respect extinction? If so, is there a message that tells you when a werething tries to summon help but fails because its helpers are extinct? Fyr (talk) 17:50, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Werejackal farming
In my current (zen) game, I have semi-successfully used a werejackal to generate jackal corpses for sacrifice.  It worked for a while, until I killed it by mistake (it looks exactly like the jackals it summons).  I caught lycanthopy, of course, but I had a ring of polymorph control and only transformed once, due to a typo.  The beast was locked in a room connected to a coaligned Minetown temple; I don't think it would have worked without sanctuary.  Overall, I probably wouldn't recommend this strategy since it requires both rare resources and careful typing, but it was fun.  Tomsod (talk) 11:24, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Addendum: after thinking on it for a while, I feel a reasonably useful strategy for werefoo farming can actually be proposed.  The main idea is using conflict on a peaceful/tame werefoo to induce it to attack you on demand.  (Werefoo only summon help when they try to attack you in melee.  It always spawns hostile.)  The chief benefit is that you don't require a coaligned temple to prevent wolfsplosion.  (In fact, better to avoid temples altogether, since they don't mix well with conflict.)  Also, you're much less likely to kill the werefoo by accident this way.  You still need something to manage lycanthropy (Werebane, amulet of unchanging, or ring of polymorph control) because you will eventually get infected.  (Make sure to turn paranoid_confirmation:Were-change on if you're using the ring.  Don't be me.)  You will also need some means of taming/pacifying the werefoo, like a scroll of taming.
The rough steps are as follows: find and secure a coaligned altar.  Find a werefoo.  Lure it to the altar and tame/pacify it, in no particular order.  Equip your lycanthropy management item.  Put on a ring of conflict.  Endure werefoo attacks until it summons help.  Remove the ring.  Kill the summoned monsters and sacrifice them.  Repeat last four steps.
The same scroll of taming can both tame and pacify the werefoo, depending on if it's in animal or human state at the moment.  The choice between the two is non-trivial.  If the werefoo and the altar are on the different levels, it can be hard to transport the former to the latter, since werefoo are not followers.  Taming solves this problem.  But, tame werefoo will eat your corpses and can be killed by its own summons.  You can remedy this by locking it into a closet, which also improves the frequency of its conflict-induced attacks.  It still needs to be fed, and you have to lock the door each time you venture to the altar, though.
I tried to be clever in my tests and dug a closet connected to a door diagonally: the idea is, since you cannot move diagonally through a doorway, but can attack, a pet werefoo whistled there will stay trapped in the closet, while still attacking you under conflict.  However, it turns out a pet trapped in this position will not attack you even under conflict, which may be a bug.  But a peaceful monster will, so you can take the best of two worlds and whistle your werefoo in such diagonal closet, and then let it go wild.  In fact, as I think about it now, it doesn't even need to be peaceful as long as it's trapped there, so you don't need conflict after all!
Since there are three species of werefoo, you need to choose whom to farm.  The practical answer is "whomever you find first", but if you do get a choice, werejackal and werewolf each have benefits.  Werejackal: its summons are pushovers, so it's safer, BUT they're slightly less likely to leave corpses.  Werewolf: more corpses, the corpses are more nutritious, and winter wolves can give cold resistance.  BUT unless you have Werebane, you'll inevitably get infected, and then eating wolves will be cannibalism.  Also, those same winter wolves can breathe cold, which is dangerous both to you and to closed doors which you may be depending on to keep the werewolf trapped.  The wolves and wargs are tougher than jackals, as well.  And if you somehow transform despite the precautions, your wolf form will shred your armor!  Wererat is inferior to both, producing next to no corpses.
My initial motivation for trying this was to sacrifice for Grayswandir, but any motivation for farming works here, be it death drops or prayer boons.  The only caveat in the last case is, if you're not wielding Werebane, you'll probably be feverish almost each time you pray, which reduces the chance of getting a favor by up to 25%.
I'll likely repost this in the Farming article once I think it over some more.  The idea has some merit, I think.  Tomsod (talk) 16:34, 4 September 2018 (UTC)