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Welcome to NetHack! ( description of version 3.4 )
NetHack is a Dungeons and Dragons like game where you (the adventurer)
descend into the depths of the dungeon in search of the Amulet of Yendor,
reputed to be hidden somewhere below the twentieth level. You begin your
adventure with a pet that can help you in many ways, and can be trained
to do all sorts of things. On the way you will find useful (or useless)
items, quite possibly with magic properties, and assorted monsters. You can
attack a monster by trying to move onto the space a monster is on (but often
it is much wiser to leave it alone).
Unlike most adventure games, which give you a verbal description of
your location, NetHack gives you a visual image of the dungeon level you are
on.
NetHack uses the following symbols:
- and | The walls of a room, possibly also open doors or a grave.
. The floor of a room or a doorway.
# A corridor, or iron bars, or a tree, or possibly a kitchen
sink (if your dungeon has sinks), or a drawbridge.
> Stairs down: a way to the next level.
< Stairs up: a way to the previous level.
@ You (usually), or another human.
) A weapon of some sort.
[ A suit or piece of armor.
% Something edible (not necessarily healthy).
/ A wand.
= A ring.
? A scroll.
! A potion.
( Some other useful object (pick-axe, key, lamp...)
$ A pile of gold.
* A gem or rock (possibly valuable, possibly worthless).
+ A closed door, or a spellbook containing a spell
you can learn.
^ A trap (once you detect it).
" An amulet, or a spider web.
0 An iron ball.
_ An altar, or an iron chain.
{ A fountain.
} A pool of water or moat or a pool of lava.
\ An opulent throne.
` A boulder or statue.
A to Z, a to z, and several others: Monsters.
I Invisible or unseen monster's last known location
You can find out what a symbol represents by typing
'/' and following the directions to move the cursor
to the symbol in question. For instance, a 'd' may
turn out to be a dog.
y k u 7 8 9 Move commands:
\|/ \|/ yuhjklbn: go one step in specified direction
h-.-l 4-.-6 YUHJKLBN: go in specified direction until you
/|\ /|\ hit a wall or run into something
b j n 1 2 3 g
: run in direction until something
numberpad interesting is seen
G, same, except a branching corridor isn't
< up ^: considered interesting (the ^ in this
case means the Control key, not a caret)
> down m: move without picking up objects
F: fight even if you don't sense a monster
With the qwertz_layout option, the y and z keys are swapped
(this requires option QWERTZ to be set at compile-time).
If the number_pad option is set, the number keys move instead.
Depending on the platform, Shift number (on the numberpad),
Meta number, or Alt number will invoke the YUHJKLBN commands.
Control may or may not work when number_pad is enabled,
depending on the platform's capabilities.
Commands:
NetHack knows the following commands:
? Help menu.
/ Tell what a symbol represents. You may choose to specify
a location or give a symbol argument.
& Tell what a command does.
< Go up a staircase (if you are standing on it).
> Go down a staircase (if you are standing on it).
. Rest, do nothing for one turn.
_ Travel via a shortest-path algorithm to a point on the map
a Apply (use) a tool (pick-axe, key, lamp...)
A Remove all armor.
^A Redo the previous command
c Close a door.
C Call (name) an individual monster.
d Drop something. d7a: drop seven items of object a.
D Drop multiple items. This command is implemented in two
different ways. One way is:
"D" displays a list of all of your items, from which you can
pick and choose what to drop. A "+" next to an item means
that it will be dropped, a "-" means that it will not be
dropped. Toggle an item to be selected/deselected by typing
the letter adjacent to its description. Select all items
with "+", deselect all items with "=". The moves
you from one page of the listing to the next.
The other way is:
"D" will ask the question "What kinds of things do you want
to drop? [!%= au]". You should type zero or more object
symbols possibly followed by 'a' and/or 'u'.
Da - drop all objects, without asking for confirmation.
Du - drop only unpaid objects (when in a shop).
D%u - drop only unpaid food.
^D Kick (for doors, usually).
e Eat food.
E Engrave a message on the floor.
E- - write in the dust with your fingers.
^E Write "Elbereth" onto the ground.
f Fire ammunition from quiver.
F Followed by direction, fight a monster (even if you don't
sense it).
i Display your inventory.
I Display selected parts of your inventory, as in
I* - list all gems in inventory.
Iu - list all unpaid items.
Ix - list all used up items that are on your shopping bill.
I$ - count your money.
o Open a door.
O Review current options and possibly change them.
A menu displaying the option settings will be displayed
and most can be changed by simply selecting their entry.
Options are usually set before the game with a NETHACKOPTIONS
environment variable, or via a config file (defaults.nh,
NetHack Defaults, nethack.cnf, .nethackrc, etc.), not with
the 'O' command.
p Pay your shopping bill.
P Put on an accessory (ring, amulet, etc).
^P Repeat last message (subsequent ^P's repeat earlier messages).
The behavior can be varied via the msg_window option.
q Drink (quaff) something (potion, water, etc).
Q Select ammunition for quiver.
r Read a scroll or spellbook.
R Remove an accessory (ring, amulet, etc).
^R Redraw the screen.
s Search for secret doors and traps around you.
S Save the game.
t Throw an object or shoot a projectile.
T Take off armor.
^T Teleport, if you are able.
v Displays the version number.
V Display a longer identification of the version, including the
history of the game.
w Wield weapon. w- means wield nothing, use bare hands.
W Wear armor.
x Swap wielded and secondary weapons.
X Switch the game to explore (discovery) mode.
^X Show your attributes.
z Zap a wand. (y if qwertz_layout is set)
Z Cast a spell. (Y if qwertz_layout is set)
^Z Suspend the game. (^Y if qwertz_layout is set)
: Look at what is here.
; Look at what is somewhere else.
, Pick up some things.
@ Toggle the pickup option.
^ Ask for the type of a trap you found earlier.
) Tell what weapon you are wielding.
[ Tell what armor you are wearing.
= Tell what rings you are wearing.
" Tell what amulet you are wearing.
( Tell what tools you are using.
* Tell what equipment you are using; combines the preceding five.
$ Count your gold pieces.
+ List the spells you know; also rearrange them if desired.
\ Show what types of objects have been discovered.
! Escape to a shell, if supported in your version and OS.
# Introduces one of the "extended" commands. To get a list of
the commands you can use with "#" type "#?". The extended
commands you can use depends upon what options the game was
compiled with, along with your class and what type of monster
you most closely resemble at a given moment. If your keyboard
has a meta key (which, when pressed in combination with another
key, modifies it by setting the 'meta' (8th, or 'high') bit),
these extended commands can be invoked by meta-ing the first
letter of the command. An alt key may have a similar effect.
If the "number_pad" option is on, some additional letter commands
are available:
h displays the help menu, like '?'
j Jump to another location.
k Kick (for doors, usually).
l Loot a box on the floor.
n followed by number of times to repeat the next command
N Name an object or type of object.
u Untrap a trapped object or door.
You can put a number before a command to repeat it that many times,
as in "40." or "20s.". If you have the number_pad option set, you
must type 'n' to prefix the count, as in "n40." or "n20s".
Some information is displayed on the bottom line or perhaps in a
box, depending on the platform you are using. You see your
attributes, your alignment, what dungeon level you are on, how many
hit points you have now (and will have when fully recovered), what
your armor class is (the lower the better), your experience level,
and the state of your stomach. Optionally, you may or may not see
other information such as spell points, how much gold you have, etc.
Have Fun, and Happy Hacking!
y k u 7 8 9 Move commands:
\|/ \|/ yuhjklbn: go one step in specified direction
h-.-l 4-.-6 YUHJKLBN: go in specified direction until you
/|\ /|\ hit a wall or run into something
b j n 1 2 3 g: run in direction until something
numberpad interesting is seen
G, same, except a branching corridor isn't
< up ^: considered interesting (the ^ in this
case means the Control key, not a caret)
> down m: move without picking up objects/fighting
F: fight even if you don't sense a monster
With the qwertz_layout option, the y and z keys are swapped
(this requires option QWERTZ to be set at compile-time).
If the number_pad option is set, the number keys move instead.
Depending on the platform, Shift number (on the numberpad),
Meta number, or Alt number will invoke the YUHJKLBN commands.
Control may or may not work when number_pad is enabled,
depending on the platform's capabilities.
General commands:
? help display one of several informative texts
#quit quit end the game without saving current game
S save save the game (to be continued later) and exit
! sh escape to some SHELL (if allowed)
^Z suspend suspend the game (independent of your current suspend char)
(^Y if option qwertz_layout is set)
O options set options
/ whatis tell what a map symbol represents
\ known display list of what's been discovered
v explore start automatic exploring until something interesting is seen
V version display version number
X explore switch the game to explore (discovery) mode
^A again redo the previous command (^A denotes the keystroke CTRL-A)
^R redraw redraw the screen
^P prevmsg repeat previous message (subsequent ^P's repeat earlier ones)
# introduces an extended command (#? for a list of them)
Game commands:
^D kick kick (a door, or something else)
^T 'port teleport (if you can)
^X show show your attributes
a apply apply or use a tool (pick-axe, key, camera, etc.)
A armor take off all armor
c close close a door
C call name an individual monster (ex. baptize your dog)
d drop drop an object. d7a: drop seven items of object 'a'
D Drop drop selected types of objects
e eat eat something
E engrave write a message in the dust on the floor (E- use fingers)
f fire fire ammunition from quiver
F fight followed by direction, fight a monster
i invent list your inventory (all objects you are carrying)
I Invent list selected parts of your inventory
Iu: list unpaid objects
Ix: list unpaid but used up items
I$: count your money
o open open a door
p pay pay your bill (in a shop)
P puton put on an accessory (ring, amulet, etc)
q quaff drink something (potion, water, etc)
Q quiver select ammunition for quiver
r read read a scroll or spellbook
R remove remove an accessory (ring, amulet, etc)
s search search for secret doors, hidden traps and monsters
t throw throw or shoot a weapon
T takeoff take off some armor
w wield wield a weapon (w- wield nothing)
W wear put on some armor
x xchange swap wielded and secondary weapons
z zap zap a wand (y if option qwertz_layout is set)
Z Zap cast a spell (Y if option qwertz_layout is set)
< up go up the stairs
> down go down the stairs
^ trap_id identify a previously found trap
),[,=,",( ask for current items of specified symbol in use
* ask for combination of ),[,=,",( all at once
$ gold count your gold
+ spells list the spells you know; also rearrange them if desired
_ travel move via a shortest-path algorithm to a point on the map
. rest wait a moment
, pickup pick up all you can carry
@ toggle "pickup" (auto pickup) option on and off
: look look at what is here
; farlook look at what is somewhere else by selecting a map symbol
Keyboards that have a meta key can also use these extended commands
via the meta modifier instead of the # prefix:
M-? Display extended command help (if the platform allows this)
M-2 twoweapon toggle two-weapon combat (unless number_pad is enabled)
M-a adjust adjust inventory letters
M-c chat talk to someone
M-d dip dip an object into something
M-e enhance advance or check weapons skills
M-f force force a lock
M-i invoke invoke an object's special powers
M-j jump jump to another location
M-l loot loot a box on the floor
M-m monster use a monster's special ability
M-n name name an item or type of object
M-o offer offer a sacrifice to the gods
M-p pray pray to the gods for help
M-q quit stop playing
M-r rub rub a lamp or a stone
M-s sit sit down
M-t turn turn undead
M-u untrap untrap something
M-v version print compile time options for this version
M-w wipe wipe off your face
If the "number_pad" option is on, these additional variants are available:
n followed by number of times to repeat the next command
h help display one of several informative texts, like '?'
j jump jump to another location
k kick kick something (usually a door)
l loot loot a box on the floor
N name name an item or type of object
u untrap untrap something (usually a trapped object)
^ Show the type of a trap
^[ Cancel command
^A Redo the previous command
^C Quit the game
^D Kick something (usually a door, chest, or box)
^E Search a room (available in debug mode only)
^F Map the level (available in debug mode only)
^G Create a monster (available in debug mode only)
^I Identify all items (available in debug mode only)
^O Show location of special levels (available in debug mode only)
^P Toggle through previously displayed game messages
^R Redraw screen
^T Teleport around level
^V Teleport between levels (available in debug mode only)
^W Wish (available in debug mode only)
^X Show your attributes (intrinsic ones included in debug or explore mode)
^Z Suspend game (only if defined)
a Apply (use) a tool
A Remove all armor
b Go southwest 1 space
B Go southwest until you are on top of something
^B Go southwest until you are near something
c Close a door
C Call (name) a particular monster
d Drop an item
D Drop specific item types
e Eat something
E Engrave writing on the floor
f Fire ammunition from quiver
F Followed by direction, fight a monster (even if you don't sense it)
g Followed by direction, move until you are near something
G Followed by direction, same as control-direction
h Go west 1 space (if number_pad is on, display help message)
H Go west until you are on top of something
^H Go west until you are near something
i Show your inventory
I Inventory specific item types
j Go south 1 space (or if number_pad is on, jump to another location)
J Go south until you are on top of something
^J Go south until you are near something
k Go north 1 space (or if number_pad is on, kick something)
K Go north until you are on top of something
^K Go north until you are near something
l Go east 1 space (or if number_pad is on, loot a box on the floor)
L Go east until you are on top of something
^L Go east until you are near something
m Followed by direction, move without picking anything up or fighting
M Followed by direction, move a distance without picking anything up
n Go southeast 1 space
N Go southeast until you are on something (if number_pad, name an object)
^N Go southeast until you are near something
o Open a door
O Show option settings, possibly change them
p Pay your shopping bill
P Put on an accessory (ring, amulet, etc)
q Quaff (drink) something (potion, water, etc)
Q Select ammunition for quiver
r Read a scroll or spellbook
R Remove an accessory (ring, amulet, etc)
s Search for traps and secret doors
S Save the game
t Throw something
T Take off one piece of armor
u Go northeast 1 space (or if number_pad is on, untrap something)
U Go northeast until you are on top of something
^U Go northeast until you are near something
v Start autoexploring
V Show version
w Wield (put in use) a weapon
W Wear a piece of armor
x Swap wielded and secondary weapons
X Enter explore (discovery) mode (only if defined)
y Go northwest 1 space
Y Go northwest until you are on top of something
^Y Go northwest until you are near something
z Zap a wand
Z Zap (cast) a spell
< Go up a staircase or travel to a staircase leading up
> Go down a staircase or travel to a staircase leading down
/ Show what type of thing a symbol corresponds to
? Give a help message
& Tell what a command does
! Do a shell escape (only if defined)
\ Show what object types have been discovered
_ Travel via a shortest-path algorithm to a point on the map
. Rest one move while doing nothing
Rest one move while doing nothing (if rest_on_space option is on)
: Look at what is on the floor
; Show what type of thing a map symbol on the level corresponds to
, Pick up things at the current location
@ Toggle the pickup option on/off
) Show the weapon currently wielded
[ Show the armor currently worn
= Show the ring(s) currently worn
" Show the amulet currently worn
( Show the tools currently in use
* Show all equipment in use (combination of the ),[,=,",( commands)
$ Count your gold
+ List known spells
# Perform an extended command
M-? Display extended command help (if the platform allows this)
M-2 Toggle two-weapon combat (unless number_pad is enabled)
M-a Adjust inventory letters
M-c Talk to someone
M-d Dip an object into something
M-e Advance or check weapons skills
M-f Force a lock
M-i Invoke an object's special powers
M-j Jump to another location
M-l Loot a box on the floor
M-m Use a monster's special ability
M-n Name an item or type of object
M-o Offer a sacrifice to the gods
M-p Pray to the gods for help
M-q Quit
M-r Rub a lamp
M-s Sit down
M-t Turn undead
M-u Untrap something (trap, door, or chest)
M-v Print compile time options for this version of NetHack
M-w Wipe off your face
NetHack History file for release 3.4
Behold, mortal, the origins of NetHack...
Jay Fenlason wrote the original Hack with help from Kenny Woodland,
Mike Thome, and Jon Payne.
Andries Brouwer did a major re-write, transforming Hack into a very different
game, and published (at least) three versions (1.0.1, 1.0.2, and 1.0.3) for
UNIX(tm) machines to the Usenet.
Don G. Kneller ported Hack 1.0.3 to Microsoft(tm) C and MS-DOS(tm), producing
PC HACK 1.01e, added support for DEC Rainbow graphics in version 1.03g, and
went on to produce at least four more versions (3.0, 3.2, 3.51, and 3.6).
R. Black ported PC HACK 3.51 to Lattice(tm) C and the Atari 520/1040ST,
producing ST Hack 1.03.
Mike Stephenson merged these various versions back together, incorporating
many of the added features, and produced NetHack version 1.4. He then
coordinated a cast of thousands in enhancing and debugging NetHack 1.4 and
released NetHack versions 2.2 and 2.3.
Later, Mike coordinated a major rewrite of the game, heading a team which
included Ken Arromdee, Jean-Christophe Collet, Steve Creps, Eric Hendrickson,
Izchak Miller, Eric S. Raymond, John Rupley, Mike Threepoint, and Janet Walz,
to produce NetHack 3.0c. The same group subsequently released ten patch-
level revisions and updates of 3.0.
NetHack 3.0 was ported to the Atari by Eric R. Smith, to OS/2 by Timo
Hakulinen, and to VMS by David Gentzel. The three of them and Kevin Darcy
later joined the main development team to produce subsequent revisions of
3.0.
Olaf Seibert ported NetHack 2.3 and 3.0 to the Amiga. Norm Meluch, Stephen
Spackman and Pierre Martineau designed overlay code for PC NetHack 3.0.
Johnny Lee ported NetHack 3.0 to the Macintosh. Along with various other
Dungeoneers, they continued to enhance the PC, Macintosh, and Amiga ports
through the later revisions of 3.0.
Headed by Mike Stephenson and coordinated by Izchak Miller and Janet Walz,
the development team which now included Ken Arromdee, David Cohrs,
Jean-Christophe Collet, Kevin Darcy, Matt Day, Timo Hakulinen, Steve Linhart,
Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Eric Raymond, and Eric Smith undertook a radical
revision of 3.0. They re-structured the game's design, and re-wrote major
parts of the code. They added multiple dungeons, a new display, special
individual character quests, a new endgame and many other new features, and
produced NetHack 3.1.
Ken Lorber, Gregg Wonderly and Greg Olson, with help from Richard Addison,
Mike Passaretti, and Olaf Seibert, developed NetHack 3.1 for the Amiga.
Norm Meluch and Kevin Smolkowski, with help from Carl Schelin, Stephen
Spackman, Steve VanDevender, and Paul Winner, ported NetHack 3.1 to the PC.
Jon W{tte and Hao-yang Wang, with help from Ross Brown, Mike Engber, David
Hairston, Michael Hamel, Jonathan Handler, Johnny Lee, Tim Lennan, Rob Menke,
and Andy Swanson developed NetHack 3.1 for the Macintosh, porting it for
MPW. Building on their development, Barton House added a Think C port.
Timo Hakulinen ported NetHack 3.1 to OS/2. Eric Smith ported NetHack 3.1
to the Atari. Pat Rankin, with help from Joshua Delahunty, is responsible
for the VMS version of NetHack 3.1. Michael Allison ported NetHack 3.1 to
Windows NT.
Dean Luick, with help from David Cohrs, developed NetHack 3.1 for X11.
Warwick Allison wrote a tiled version of NetHack for the Atari;
he later contributed the tiles to the DevTeam and tile support was
then added to other platforms.
The 3.2 development team, comprised of Michael Allison, Ken Arromdee, David
Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Steve Creps, Kevin Darcy, Timo Hakulinen, Steve
Linhart, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Eric Smith, Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and
Paul Winner, released version 3.2 in April of 1996.
Version 3.2 marked the tenth anniversary of the formation of the development
team. In a testament to their dedication to the game, all thirteen members
of the original development team remained on the team at the start of work
on that release. During the interval between the release of 3.1.3 and 3.2,
one of the founding members of the development team, Dr. Izchak Miller,
passed away. That release of the game was dedicated to him by the
development and porting teams.
Version 3.2 proved to be more stable than previous versions. Many bugs
were fixed, abuses eliminated, and game features tuned for better game
play.
During the lifespan of NetHack 3.1 and 3.2, several enthusiasts of the game
added their own modifications to the game and made these "variants" publicly
available:
Tom Proudfoot and Yuval Oren created NetHack++, which was quickly renamed
NetHack--. Working independently, Stephen White wrote NetHack Plus.
Tom Proudfoot later merged NetHack Plus and his own NetHack-- to produce
SLASH. Larry Stewart-Zerba and Warwick Allison improved the spellcasting
system with the Wizard Patch. Warwick Allison also ported NetHack to use
the Qt interface.
Warren Cheung combined SLASH with the Wizard Patch to produce Slash'em, and
with the help of Kevin Hugo, added more features. Kevin later joined the
DevTeam and incorporated the best of these ideas in NetHack 3.3.
The final update to 3.2 was the bug fix release 3.2.3, which was released
simultaneously with 3.3.0 in December 1999 just in time for the Year 2000.
The 3.3 development team, consisting of Michael Allison, Ken Arromdee,
David Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Steve Creps, Kevin Darcy, Timo Hakulinen,
Kevin Hugo, Steve Linhart, Ken Lorber, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Eric Smith,
Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and Paul Winner, released 3.3.0 in
December 1999 and 3.3.1 in August of 2000.
Version 3.3 offered many firsts. It was the first version to separate race
and profession. The Elf class was removed in preference to an elf race,
and the races of dwarves, gnomes, and orcs made their first appearance in
the game alongside the familiar human race. Monk and Ranger roles joined
Archeologists, Barbarians, Cavemen, Healers, Knights, Priests, Rogues,
Samurai, Tourists, Valkyries and of course, Wizards. It was also the first
version to allow you to ride a steed, and was the first version to have a
publicly available web-site listing all the bugs that had been discovered.
Despite that constantly growing bug list, 3.3 proved stable enough to last
for more than a year and a half.
The 3.4 development team initially consisted of Michael Allison, Ken Arromdee,
David Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Kevin Hugo, Ken Lorber, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin,
Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and Paul Winner, with Warwick Allison joining
just before the release of NetHack 3.4.0 in March 2002.
As with version 3.3, various people contributed to the game as a whole as
well as supporting ports on the different platforms that NetHack runs on:
Pat Rankin maintained 3.4 for VMS.
Michael Allison maintained NetHack 3.4 for the MS-DOS platform.
Paul Winner and Yitzhak Sapir provided encouragement.
Dean Luick, Mark Modrall, and Kevin Hugo maintained and enhanced the
Macintosh port of 3.4.
Michael Allison, David Cohrs, Alex Kompel, Dion Nicolaas, and Yitzhak Sapir
maintained and enhanced 3.4 for the Microsoft Windows platform. Alex Kompel
contributed a new graphical interface for the Windows port. Alex Kompel also
contributed a Windows CE port for 3.4.1.
Ron Van Iwaarden maintained 3.4 for OS/2.
Janne Salmijarvi and Teemu Suikki maintained and enhanced the
Amiga port of 3.4 after Janne Salmijarvi resurrected it for 3.3.1.
Christian `Marvin' Bressler maintained 3.4 for the Atari after he
resurrected it for 3.3.1.
There is a NetHack web site maintained by Ken Lorber at http://www.nethack.org/.
- - - - - - - - - -
From time to time, some depraved individual out there in netland sends a
particularly intriguing modification to help out with the game. The Gods of
the Dungeon sometimes make note of the names of the worst of these miscreants
in this, the list of Dungeoneers:
Adam Aronow Izchak Miller Mike Stephenson
Alex Kompel J. Ali Harlow Norm Meluch
Andreas Dorn Janet Walz Olaf Seibert
Andy Church Janne Salmijarvi Pasi Kallinen
Andy Swanson Jean-Christophe Collet Pat Rankin
Ari Huttunen Jochen Erwied Paul Winner
Barton House John Kallen Pierre Martineau
Benson I. Margulies John Rupley Ralf Brown
Bill Dyer John S. Bien Ray Chason
Boudewijn Waijers Johnny Lee Richard Addison
Bruce Cox Jon W{tte Richard Beigel
Bruce Holloway Jonathan Handler Richard P. Hughey
Bruce Mewborne Joshua Delahunty Rob Menke
Carl Schelin Keizo Yamamoto Robin Johnson
Chris Russo Ken Arnold Roderick Schertler
David Cohrs Ken Arromdee Roland McGrath
David Damerell Ken Lorber Ron Van Iwaarden
David Gentzel Ken Washikita Ronnen Miller
David Hairston Kevin Darcy Ross Brown
Dean Luick Kevin Hugo Sascha Wostmann
Del Lamb Kevin Sitze Scott Bigham
Deron Meranda Kevin Smolkowski Scott R. Turner
Dion Nicolaas Kevin Sweet Stephen Spackman
Dylan O'Donnell Lars Huttar Stephen White
Eric Backus Malcolm Ryan Steve Creps
Eric Hendrickson Mark Gooderum Steve Linhart
Eric R. Smith Mark Modrall Steve VanDevender
Eric S. Raymond Marvin Bressler Teemu Suikki
Erik Andersen Matthew Day Tim Lennan
Frederick Roeber Merlyn LeRoy Timo Hakulinen
Gil Neiger Michael Allison Tom Almy
Greg Laskin Michael Feir Tom West
Greg Olson Michael Hamel Warren Cheung
Gregg Wonderly Michael Sokolov Warwick Allison
Hao-yang Wang Mike Engber Yitzhak Sapir
Helge Hafting Mike Gallop
Irina Rempt-Drijfhout Mike Passaretti
Boolean options not under specific compile flags (with default values in []):
(You can learn which options exist in your version by checking your current
option setting, which is reached via the 'O' cmd.)
autodig dig if moving and wielding digging tool [FALSE]
autoopen walking into a door attempts to open it [TRUE]
autopickup automatically pick up objects you move over [TRUE]
autoquiver when firing with an empty quiver, select some
suitable inventory weapon to fill the quiver [FALSE]
autounlock automatically apply unlocking tool [TRUE]
BIOS allow the use of IBM ROM BIOS calls [FALSE]
cmdassist give help for errors on direction & other commands [TRUE]
confirm ask before hitting tame or peaceful monsters [TRUE]
DECgraphics use DEC/VT line-drawing characters for the dungeon [FALSE]
extmenu use a menu for selecting extended commands (#) [FALSE]
fixinv try to retain the same letter for the same object [TRUE]
help print all available info when using the / command [TRUE]
IBMgraphics use IBM extended characters for the dungeon [FALSE]
ignintr ignore interrupt signal, including breaks [FALSE]
legacy print introductory message [TRUE]
lit_corridor show a dark corridor as lit if in sight [FALSE]
lootabc use a/b/c rather than o/i/b when looting [FALSE]
mail enable the mail daemon [TRUE]
null allow nulls to be sent to your terminal [TRUE]
try turning this option off (forcing NetHack to use its own
delay code) if moving objects seem to teleport across rooms
number_pad use the number keys to move instead of yuhjklbn [FALSE]
perm_invent keep inventory in a permanent window [FALSE]
pickup_thrown autopickup things you threw [TRUE]
prayconfirm use confirmation prompt when #pray command issued [TRUE]
pushweapon when wielding a new weapon, put your previously
wielded weapon into the secondary weapon slot [FALSE]
rawio allow the use of raw I/O [FALSE]
rest_on_space count the space bar as a rest character [FALSE]
safe_pet prevent you from (knowingly) attacking your pet(s) [TRUE]
showrace show yourself by your race rather than by role [FALSE]
silent don't use your terminal's bell sound [TRUE]
sortpack group similar kinds of objects in inventory [TRUE]
sound enable messages about what your character hears [TRUE]
(note: this has nothing to do with your computer's audio
capabilities, and the game resets it periodically)
sparkle display sparkly effect for resisted magical [TRUE]
attacks (e.g. fire attack on fire-resistant monster)
standout use standout mode for --More-- on messages [FALSE]
time display elapsed game time, in moves [FALSE]
tombstone print tombstone when you die [TRUE]
toptenwin print topten in a window rather than stdout [FALSE]
travel enable the command to travel to a map location via [TRUE]
a shortest-path algorithm, usually invoked by '_'.
verbose print more commentary during the game [TRUE]
wound_message healers can see how badly monsters are damaged [TRUE]
There are further boolean options controlled by compilation flags.
Boolean option if INSURANCE was set at compile time:
checkpoint save game state after each level change, for possible [TRUE]
recovery after program crash
Boolean option if NEWS was set at compile time:
news print any news from game administrator on startup [TRUE]
Boolean option if MFLOPPY was set at compile time:
checkspace check free disk space before writing files to disk [TRUE]
Boolean option if SHOW_BORN was set at compile time:
showborn show numbers of created monsters after the number
vanquished [FALSE]
Boolean option if PARANOID was set at compile time:
paranoid_hit ask for explicit 'yes' when hitting peacefuls [FALSE]
Boolean option if PARANOID was set at compile time:
paranoid_quit ask for explicit 'yes' when quitting [FALSE]
Boolean option if PARANOID was set at compile time:
paranoid_remove always show menu with the T and R commands [FALSE]
Boolean option if EXP_ON_BOTL was set at compile time:
showexp display your accumulated experience points [FALSE]
Boolean option if SCORE_ON_BOTL was set at compile time:
showscore display your approximate accumulated score [FALSE]
Boolean options if TEXTCOLOR was set at compile time:
color use different colors for objects on screen [TRUE for micros]
hilite_pet display pets in a highlighted manner [FALSE]
Boolean option if TIMED_DELAY was set at compile time (tty interface only):
timed_delay on unix and VMS, use a timer instead of sending
extra screen output when attempting to pause for
display effect. on MSDOS without the termcap
lib, whether or not to pause for visual effect. [TRUE]
Boolean option if QUIVER_FIRED was set at compile time:
quiver_fired when using the f (fire) command and no ammunition
is quivered, prompt for ammunition to quiver, then
fire it. [TRUE]
Boolean option if QWERTZ was set at compile time:
qwertz_layout swap the y and z keys [FALSE]
Boolean option if USE_TILES was set at compile time (MSDOS protected mode only):
preload_tiles control whether tiles get pre-loaded into RAM at the
start of the game. Doing so enhances performance
of the tile graphics, but uses more memory. [TRUE]
Boolean option if WIN_EDGE was set at compile time (tty interface only):
win_edge align menus and text windows left instead of right [FALSE]
Any Boolean option can be negated by prefixing it with a '!' or 'no'.
Compound options are written as option_name:option_value.
Compound options which can be set during the game are:
boulder override the default boulder symbol with another default: [`]
disclose the types of information you want offered at the end of the
game [ni na nv ng nc]
dumpfile the name of the file where to dump the disclosure information
when the game ends (only if the patch has been compiled in)
[none]
fruit the name of a fruit you enjoy eating [slime mold]
(basically a whimsy which NetHack uses from time to time).
menustyle user interface for selection of multiple objects:
Traditional -- one object at a time prompting;
Combination -- prompt for classes of interest, then menu;
Partial -- skip class prompt, use menu of all objects;
Full -- menu for classes of interest, then object menu;
only the first letter ('T','C','P','F') matters; 'N' (None)
is a synonym for 'T', as is boolean style negation [Full]
packorder a list of default symbols for kinds of objects that gives the
order in which your pack will be displayed [")[%?+!=/(*`0_]
(If you specify only some kinds of items, the others from the
default order will be appended to the end.)
paranoid ask for confirmation before doing any of the following:
hit -- attacking a peaceful monster [TRUE]
quit -- quitting the game [TRUE]
remove -- removing armor or accessories [TRUE]
trap -- walking into a known trap [FALSE]
lava -- walking into lava [TRUE]
water -- walking into water [TRUE]
pickup_burden when you pick up an item that exceeds this encumberance
level (Unburdened, Burdened, streSsed, straiNed, overTaxed,
or overLoaded), you will be asked if you want to continue. [S]
pickup_types a list of default symbols for kinds of objects to autopickup
when that option is on [all]
runmode controls how often the map window is updated when performing
multi-step movement (various running modes or travel command):
teleport -- don't update map until movement stops;
run -- periodically update map (interval is seven steps);
walk -- update map after every step;
crawl -- like walk, but delay after making each step.
(This only affects screen display, not actual movement.) [run]
scores the parts of the score list you wish to see when the game ends
You choose a combination of top scores, scores around the top
scores, and all of your own scores. [!own/3 top/2 around]
sortloot controls the sortloot patch [none]:
full -- All pickup lists of items are sorted by item description
loot -- When inventory letters are shown, has no effect.
Otherwise sorts by description
none -- Works the traditional way, like without the patch
Compound options which may be set only on startup are:
align Your starting alignment (align:lawful, align:neutral,
or align:chaotic). You may specify just the first letter. [RANDOM]
catname the name of your first cat [NONE]
dogname the name of your first dog [NONE]
dungeon a list of symbols to be used in place of the default ones for
drawing the dungeon.
The symbols are subjected to a fair amount of processing, so
that you can use C-style escapes such as \n or \081 as well as
indicate control characters by ^x or meta characters by \Mx.
As usual, \ can force the next character to be taken literally.
Since many of the default symbols are overloaded, they are
given here by name instead of symbol, with some added notes:
stone (solid rock, normally ' ')
vwall hwall tlcorn trcorn blcorn brcorn (room boundaries)
crwall tuwall tdwall tlwall trwall (wallified maze characters)
nodoor vodoor hodoor (no, vertical, horizontal open door)
vcdoor hcdoor (vertical, horizontal closed door)
ironbars tree room darkcorr litcorr
upstair dnstair upladder dnladder
altar grave throne sink fountain pool ice lava
vodbridge hodbridge (vertical, horizontal open drawbridge)
vcdbridge hcdbridge (vertical, horizontal closed drawbridge)
air cloud water
default: \ |--------||.-|++##.##<><>_\\#{}.}..##\ #}
effects like dungeon, but for special effects symbols
vbeam hbeam lslant rslant (generic zap beams)
digbeam flashbeam (special beams for digging and cameras)
boomleft boomright (boomerangs)
ss1 ss2 ss3 ss4 (shielding sequence)
sw_topl, sw_topm, sw_topr, (swallow, top row)
sw_midl, sw_midr, (swallow, middle row [no center])
sw_botl, sw_botm, sw_botr (swallow, bottom row)
extl extm extr (explosion matrix top row)
exml exmm exmr (explosion matrix middle row)
exbl exbm exbr (explosion matrix bottom row)
default: |-\\/*!)(0#@*/-\\||\\-//-\\|\ |\\-/
gender Your starting gender (gender:male or gender:female).
You may specify just the first letter. Although you can
still denote your gender using the "male" and "female"
options, the "gender" option will take precedence. [RANDOM]
horsename the name of your first horse [NONE]
menu_* create single character accelerators for menu commands. Below
is a list of all commands. Each is followed by a list of window-
ports that implement them: 'x' is X11, 't' is tty, 'g' is Gem,
'a' is Amiga.
menu_deselect_all deselect all items in a menu [-](gxta)
menu_deselect_page deselect all items on this page of a menu [\](gta)
menu_first_page jump to the first page in a menu [^](gta)
menu_invert_all invert all items in a menu [@](gxta)
menu_invert_page invert all items on this page of a menu [~](gta)
menu_last_page jump to the last page in a menu [|](gta)
menu_next_page goto the next menu page [>](gta)
menu_previous_page goto the previous menu page [<](gta)
menu_search search for a menu item [:](gxa)
menu_select_all select all items in a menu [.](gxta)
menu_select_page select all items on this page of a menu [,](gta)
monsters like dungeon, but for monster symbols
default: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ@\ \\&;:~]
msghistory number of top line messages to save [20]
name the name of your character [obtained by asking the system or
the player]
objects like dungeon, but for object symbols
default: ])[="(%!?+/$*`0_.
pettype your preferred type of pet (cat or dog), if your character
class uses both types; or none for no pet [RANDOM]
race Your starting race (e.g., race:Human, race:Elf). [RANDOM]
role Your starting role (e.g., role:Barbarian, role:Valk).
Although you can specify just the first letter(s), it will
choose only the first role it finds that matches; thus, it
is recommended that you spell out as much of the role name
as possible. You can also still denote your role by
appending it to the "name" option (e.g., name:Vic-V), but the
"role" option will take precedence. [RANDOM]
traps like dungeon, but for trap symbols
arrow_trap dart_trap falling_rock_trap squeaky_board
bear_trap land_mine rolling_boulder_trap sleeping_gas_trap
rust_trap fire_trap pit spiked_pit hole trap_door
teleportation_trap level_teleporter magic_portal web statue_trap
magic_trap anti_magic_trap polymorph_trap
default: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^"^^^^
windowtype windowing system to be used [depends on operating system]
Compound option if TTY_GRAPHICS was set at compile time:
msg_window the type of message window to use:
single -- One message at a time
full -- Full window with all saved top line messages
reverse -- Same as full, but messages printed most-recent-first
combination -- Two single messages, then as full
default: single
Some sample options lists are:
!autopickup,!tombstone,name:Gandalf,scores:own/3 top/2 around
female,nonews,dogname:Rover,dungeon: |--------||.-|++.##<><>_\\#{}.}..## #}
rest_on_space,!verbose,menustyle:traditional
Debug-Mode Quick Reference:
^E == detect secret doors and traps.
^F == do magic mapping.
^G == create monster.
^I == identify items in pack.
^O == tell locations of special levels.
^T == do intra-level teleport.
^V == do trans-level teleport.
^W == make wish.
^X == show attributes including intrinsic attributes.
#levelchange == change experience level
#lightsources == show mobile light sources
#monpolycontrol == control monster polymorphs
#panic == panic test
#polyself == polymorph self
#seenv == show seen vectors
#showkills == show numbers of monsters killed
#stats == show memory statistics
#timeout == look at timeout queue
#vision == show vision array
#wmode == show wall modes
# This data file is generated by 'makedefs'. Do not edit.
00002bdf
abbot
0,11
ac
armor*
armour*
suit or piece of armor
680,19
aclys
aklys
1522,4
~agate ring
agate*
1750,8
aleax
2249,2
*altar
2337,14
amaterasu omikami
2841,6
amber*
3140,5
amethyst*
3427,6
*amnesia
maud
3790,19
~amulet of yendor
~amulet of*flying
~amulet of*sleep
*amulet
amulet of *
amulet versus *
4374,14
amulet of yendor
4993,10
angel*
5533,12
anhur
6225,7
ankh-morpork
6649,9
anshar
7142,5
ant
* ant
7435,4
anu
7643,5
ape
apelike creature
* ape
7907,19
aphrodite
8920,18
apple
9954,6
archeologist
* archeologist
10246,5
archon
10514,4
arioch
10703,5
*arrow
10966,16
ashikaga takauji
11466,9
asmodeus
11963,15
athame
12728,25
athen*
13921,15
axe
14830,6
axolotl
15070,1
bag
bag of *
sack
15103,16
b*lzebub
15996,7
durin*bane
balrog
16392,9
baluchitherium
titanothere
16896,9
banana
17405,18
banshee
18257,6
barbarian
* barbarian
18604,35
barbed devil
20424,2
*bat
bat or bird
20514,9
*bee
21009,6
*beetle
21311,9
~bell of opening
*bell
21721,8
bell*book*candle
22169,7
bell of opening
22627,14
blindfold
23143,11
blind io
23788,9
blob
* blob
gelatinous cube
ooze
* ooze
*pudding
* slime
24306,17
bone devil
25276,2
book of the dead
25392,6
~*jackboot*
*boot*
25756,10
*booze
*sake
26327,12
boulder
27054,16
~*longbow of diana
bow
* bow
27959,14
brigit
28688,11
~stormbringer
*broadsword
29307,5
bugbear
29446,4
bugle
29637,9
*camaxtli
29928,7
camelot*
30332,12
candelabrum*
30958,9
*candle
31415,4
candy bar
31540,18
carrot
32616,11
s*d*g*r* cat
33344,15
*cat
*feline
kitten
34298,11
cave*man
human cave*man
34871,13
dwar* cave*man
gnom* cave*man
35589,15
*centaur
36260,17
centipede
37263,11
*erberus
kerberos
37830,7
chameleon
38235,24
*haro*n
39555,7
chest
large box
39941,19
chih*sung*tzu
41038,8
chillbug
41477,6
tiamat
41690,14
chromatic dragon
42583,3
citrine*
42764,1
~elven cloak
~oilskin cloak
*cloak*
42827,12
cloud*
43542,7
cobra
43812,16
c*ckatrice
44692,23
chickatrice
45897,4
*coin
*coins
zorkmid*
46082,5
cornuthaum
46355,19
couatl
47306,14
coyote
48096,2
cram*
48192,6
*crocodile
48535,16
croesus
kroisos
creosote
49112,8
crom*
49552,17
crossbow*
50438,6
crystal ball
50651,5
ct*ul*u
kt*ul*u
cht*ul*u
kht*ul*u
50919,18
curse*
51819,12
cwn*n
52417,8
cyclops
52880,31
~sting
~grimtooth
*dagger
54135,10
dark angel
54553,10
dark one
55177,8
dart
darts
55615,5
demi*lich
55816,11
demogorgon
56458,11
demon
57014,9
devil*snare
57526,15
diamond
58277,18
dilithium*
59379,21
dingo
60638,4
disenchanter
60856,1
disintegrator
60930,23
dispater
61974,10
djinn*
62478,8
~hachi
~slasher
~sirius
*dog
pup*
*canine
62966,6
~trap*door
~*spellbook*
*door
doorway
63290,11
doppelganger
63743,27
*dragon
*xoth
64953,18
*drum*
65960,7
~dungeon fern*
dungeon*
66330,17
~dwarf ??m*
dwarf*
67070,21
earendil
elwing
68311,15
earth
69217,2
eel
giant eel
69292,9
egg
69786,7
elbereth
70169,20
electric eel
70912,5
*elemental
71203,5
~human or elf*
~elf ??m*
~gr?y*elf
*elf*
elvenking
71506,19
elven cloak
elf* cl*
elv* cl*
72568,10
emerald
73123,18
engrav*
A.S*
73588,20
erinys
erinyes
74520,2
ettin
74647,2
evil eye
74772,3
excalibur
74886,14
executioner
75681,6
expensive camera
75887,11
eye of the aethiopica
76519,8
eyes of the overworld
76952,6
fauchard
77314,6
*fern*
77647,11
figurine*
78154,11
fire trap
78774,10
f* brand
79330,3
floating eye
79486,7
flesh golem
79885,21
flint*
81032,10
*flute
81340,5
*flying
81538,4
fog* cloud
81792,8
*food*
81940,8
fountain
82461,15
fox
82960,11
~violet fungus
*fung*
83527,21
*gargoyle
84703,14
*garlic
85444,20
gehenn*
*h?nnom
hell
86584,9
*gem
gem or rock
87122,4
*genocide
87300,8
geryon
87795,28
*ghost
valley of *dea*
89039,10
ghoul
89611,16
*giant
giant humanoid
90516,6
giant*er
90867,16
glass golem
91731,10
glaive
92333,7
~gnome ??m*
gnome*
gnomish wizard
92768,28
goblin
94265,10
god
goddess
94796,13
gold
gold piece
95582,9
gold golem
96049,10
~gold golem
~flesh golem
~straw golem
~wood golem
~glass golem
*golem
96615,18
grave
97634,5
grayswandir
97839,6
*grease
98197,3
gremlin
98336,13
gr?y*elf
98993,9
grid bug
99527,13
grimtooth
100227,6
gunyoki
100525,2
hachi
100636,8
*harp
101114,22
halberd
102325,12
hawaiian*shirt
103085,9
healer
* healer
attendant
doctor
physician
103615,20
heart of ahriman
104750,19
hell hound*
105871,23
hermes
107206,15
hezrou
108118,2
hippocrates
108234,11
hobbit
108832,10
hobgoblin
109424,23
holy water
110671,22
hom*nculus
111801,13
*hook
112460,9
~unicorn horn
*horn
112940,9
horn of plenty
113331,11
horned devil
113818,2
*horror
113908,8
~horsem*
*horse
114338,8
*horsem*
rider*
death
famine
pestilence
war
hunger
114803,26
huan*ti
116196,5
hu*h*eto*l
minion of huhetotl
116498,6
humanoid
116824,5
human
chieftain
guard
nurse
ronin
student
warrior
*watch
player
human or elf*
117086,7
hunter
117491,9
~ice devil
~ice vort*
~*ice golem
ice*
117840,22
ice devil
118698,4
~uranium imp
imp
118901,13
incubus
succubus
119551,4
irrational pi*
119760,7
*insect
*insects
locust
120139,20
*iron ball
*iron chain
121229,11
iron bars
121811,9
iron safe
122093,5
ishtar
122348,7
issek
122715,13
itlachiayaque
123465,8
izchak
123943,19
jabberwock
125133,20
jacinth*
125753,9
jackal
126022,13
*jackboot*
126746,7
jade*
127166,10
jaguar
127740,4
jellyfish
127958,5
juiblex
jubilex
128135,6
k-ration
k ration
128477,9
kabuto
128951,19
katana
130095,3
kelp*
130262,14
ki-rin
131175,4
king arthur
*arthur
131394,23
knife
stiletto
132595,15
knight
* knight
133195,10
~kobold ??m*
*kobold*
133547,5
*kop*
133816,28
kos
135473,6
koto
135788,1
kraken
135806,16
*lady
offler
136499,30
*lamp
137812,15
lance
138504,14
*lantern
139282,3
lava
* lava
139465,21
law*
140826,10
leash
141305,9
lembas*
141837,18
lemure
larvae
142860,9
leocrotta
leu*otta
143442,7
leprechaun
143830,18
*lich
144835,26
lichen
146390,7
~* of light
light
* light
146749,3
gecko
iguana
lizard
146875,9
loki
147402,14
*longbow of diana
148204,2
looking glass
mirror
148341,13
lord carnarvon
148791,8
lord sato
149253,3
lord surt*
149431,9
lug*
149912,8
lurker*
150385,3
lycanthrope
were*
human were*
*were
150541,17
lynx
151534,6
~*sceptre of might
mace
sceptre
151856,7
magicbane
152244,5
magic marker
152525,2
magic mirror of merlin
152603,21
mail d*emon
153547,2
ma*annan*
153637,7
manes
154002,10
marduk
154510,10
marilith
155076,5
mars
155328,7
master assassin
155725,19
master key of thievery
156628,5
master of thieves
156911,11
mastodon
157535,14
meat*
huge chunk of meat
158260,5
medusa
perseus
158429,22
melon
159622,10
mercury
160153,3
*mimic
160308,6
*mind flayer
160652,6
mine*
gnomish mines
160986,12
minotaur
161701,9
mit*ra*
162198,16
*mithril*
163046,6
*mitre of holiness
163381,4
mjollnir
163627,14
~slime mold
*mold
164467,6
mol?ch
164800,16
monk
* monk
grand master
master kaen
165636,37
monkey
167406,15
morning star
168308,14
mugger
169090,4
mumak*
169282,8
*mummy
169738,14
mummy wrapping
170480,15
*naga*
*naja*
171320,4
naginata
171561,18
nalfeshnee
172508,2
nalzok
172626,7
nazgul
173029,17
neanderthal*
173995,3
neferet
neferet the green
174174,7
newt
174584,13
ninja
175027,3
ninja-to
175200,1
*norn
175224,14
nunchaku
175974,1
*nymph
naiad
175993,23
obsidian*
177284,10
ochre jelly
177866,8
odin
178333,22
ogre*
179552,16
oilskin cloak
180451,9
oilskin sack
180966,9
olog-hai
181457,13
oracle
delphi
p*thia
182251,9
orange
pear
182730,11
*orb of fate
183355,7
goblin king
orcrist
183755,9
orcus
184257,3
~orc ??m*
~orcish barbarian
~orcish ranger
~orcish rogue
~orcish wizard
orc*
* orc
uruk*hai
184434,15
orion
sirius
185276,19
osaku
186238,1
owlbear
186284,6
page
186597,5
*pall
186859,6
panther
187178,9
*paper
187497,11
pelias
188239,18
pick*ax*
broad pick
189243,5
crystal pick
189426,7
*piercer
189759,8
piranha
190166,8
pit
spiked pit
190591,10
pit fiend
191170,4
platinum yendorian express card
191357,7
pony
191747,14
*portal
192380,6
poseido*n
192720,17
~*booze
~*sleep*
*potion*
193644,12
pray*
194309,3
priest*
* priest*
acolyte
194474,16
prisoner
195424,15
ptah
195783,9
pumpkin
196260,2
punisher
196391,5
*purple worm
196644,6
pyrolisk
196975,18
python
197983,11
quadruped
198587,5
quantum mechanic
198878,16
quasit
199749,2
*quest
199869,13
quetzalcoatl
200602,13
quit*
201391,8
raijin
raiden
201737,7
ranger
* ranger
202186,14
ranseur
203013,10
rat
* rat
* unusual size
203649,16
raven
204408,7
~*invisibility
*ring
ring of *
204816,9
ring of invisibl*
205248,17
robe
206318,11
rock
206905,21
rock mole
208113,6
rogue
* rogue
208455,11
rothe
209077,3
*royal jelly
209219,14
ruby
sapphire
209790,7
~stormbringer
~orcrist
rune*sword
210172,8
rust monster
210529,3
*saber
*sabre
210667,14
saddle
211075,9
sake
211343,1
salamander
211364,7
samurai
* samurai
211715,11
sandestin
212378,31
sasquatch
213717,18
*sceptre of might
214796,6
scimitar
215099,5
scorpio*
215354,5
scorpius
215628,6
~*amnesia
~*genocide
~*paper
~stamped scroll
unlabeled scroll
scroll*
215983,18
set
seth
216787,11
shad*
217536,4
shaman karnov
217729,3
shan*lai*ching
217884,5
shark
218142,15
shito
218907,1
shrieker
218935,7
silver
219337,6
shopkeeper
219635,24
skeleton
220940,4
slasher
221183,17
*sleep*
222161,5
*slime
222328,9
slime mold
222872,10
sling
223432,11
*snake
serpent
water moccasin
pit viper
223969,24
snickersnee
225367,6
sokoban
225589,5
*soldier
sergeant
lieutenant
captain
225806,8
*spear
javelin
226266,18
*spellbook*
227297,16
*spider
228181,10
*spore
*sphere
228611,4
squeaky board
228791,8
~*aesculapius
*staff
229203,18
*staff of aesculapius
230291,5
stair*
ladder
230562,20
stalker
231595,8
starveling cat
232079,4
~statue trap
statue*
232364,17
sting
233378,12
stormbringer
233998,16
*strange object
234899,6
straw golem
235196,10
susano*o
235821,6
~excalibur
~giantslayer
~vorpal*
sword
* sword
236126,3
tanko
236276,1
*temple
236334,7
tengu
236556,7
thoth
236948,19
thoth*amon
238006,5
thug
238258,9
*throne
238771,16
tiger
239436,12
tin
tin of *
tinning kit
239934,8
tin opener
240270,20
titan
241201,11
topaz
241795,10
touch*stone
242374,2
tourist
* tourist
242446,18
towel
243409,20
*tower
*tower of darkness
244487,7
trap*door
244893,8
trapper
trapper or lurker above
245349,5
tree
245652,13
tripe
tripe ration
246080,10
*troll
246672,15
*tsurugi of muramasa
247495,5
~*muramasa
tsurugi
247800,6
~*spellbook
turquoise*
248109,10
*turtle
248609,11
twoflower
guide
249263,23
typo*
t*t*v*llus
250278,4
tyr
250478,14
*hulk
251287,5
*unicorn
unicorn horn
251557,26
uranium imp
252972,8
valkyrie
* valkyrie
253313,13
vampire
vampire bat
vampire lord
253958,5
venus
254230,11
violet fungus
254840,5
vlad*
255079,9
vorpal*
255624,14
*vortex
vortices
256364,6
voulge
256706,6
vrock
257082,4
wakizashi
257276,2
~*sleep
wand of *
*wand
257389,10
warg
257966,17
~mjollnir
war*hammer
258814,13
*watcher*
259566,8
water
260024,11
water demon
260319,21
*water walking*
261489,8
weapon
262014,2
web
262119,29
weeping *angel
263029,19
*wight
263990,13
~gnomish wizard
wizard
* wizard
apprentice
264657,8
wizard of yendor
265118,10
wolf
*wolf
*wolf cub
265698,5
*wolfsbane
265951,8
wood golem
266414,19
woodchuck
267004,13
~*purple worm
*worm
long worm tail
267635,9
worm tooth
crysknife
268124,6
wraith
nazgul
268456,17
*wumpus
269422,11
xan
269943,12
xorn
270568,5
ya
270833,2
yeenoghu
270944,5
yeti
271209,15
*yugake
272080,3
yumi
272265,4
*zombie
272474,5
zruty
272718,2
.
272811,0
For it had been long apparent to Count Landulf that nothing
could be done with his seventh son Thomas, except to make him
an Abbot or something of that kind. Born in 1226, he had from
childhood a mysterious objection to becoming a predatory eagle,
or even to taking an ordinary interest in falconry or tilting
or any other gentlemanly pursuits. He was a large and heavy and
quiet boy, and phenomenally silent, scarcely opening his mouth
except to say suddenly to his schoolmaster in an explosive
manner, "What is God?" The answer is not recorded but it is
probable that the asker went on worrying out answers for himself.
[ The Runaway Abbot, by G. K. Chesterton ]
"The last spot on the school jousting team came down to another
boy and me. He was poor, and his only armor was a blanket his
mother had made him from her hair. I, on the other hand, had
a brand new suit of chain mail. Just before our joust, I asked
him what he'd do if he made the team. (I was hoping to be more
popular with the ladies.) He said he would be able to save the
town from dragons and be able to afford some water for his 20
brothers and sisters.
Well, a sense of compassion came over me. I insisted we swap
armor. He was forced to accept, as it would have been an
insult not to do so.
On the battlefield, we charged at each other and we both connected
with our lances.
Lying there on the mud mortally wounded, I learned what true armor
class was that day."
[ When Help Collides, by J. D. Berry ]
A short studded or spiked club attached to a cord allowing
it to be drawn back to the wielder after having been thrown.
It should not be confused with the atlatl, which is a device
used to throw spears for longer distances.
Translucent, cryptocrystalline variety of quartz and a subvariety
of chalcedony. Agates are identical in chemical structure to jasper,
flint, chert, petrified wood, and tiger's-eye, and are often found in
association with opal. The colorful, banded rocks are used as a
semiprecious gemstone and in the manufacture of grinding equipment.
An agate's banding forms as silica from solution is slowly deposited
into cavities and veins in older rock.
[ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ]
Said to be a doppelganger sent to inflict divine punishment
for alignment violations.
Altars are of three types:
1. In Temples. These are for Sacrifices [...]. The stone
top will have grooves for blood, and the whole will be covered
with _dry brown stains of a troubling kind_ from former
Sacrifices.
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?
[ Lays of Ancient Rome, by Thomas B. Macaulay ]
The Shinto sun goddess, Amaterasu Omikami is the central
figure of Shintoism and the ancestral deity of the imperial
house. One of the daughters of the primordial god Izanagi
and said to be his favourite offspring, she was born from
his left eye.
[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
"Tree sap," Wu explained, "often flows over insects and traps
them. The insects are then perfectly preserved within the
fossil. One finds all kinds of insects in amber - including
biting insects that have sucked blood from larger animals."
[ Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton ]
The twelfth foundation is amethyst. Isidorus says of it: Among
purple stones, the Indian amethyst holds first position; it is,
indeed, purple but of mixed coloration, giving forth violet and
rose-coloured lights; it is easy to engrave. For this reason the
humility of the saints is signified by it;
[ The Aberdeen Bestiary, translated by Colin McLaren ]
Get thee hence, nor come again,
Mix not memory with doubt,
Pass, thou deathlike type of pain,
Pass and cease to move about!
'Tis the blot upon the brain
That will show itself without.
...
For, Maud, so tender and true,
As long as my life endures
I feel I shall owe you a debt,
That I never can hope to pay;
And if ever I should forget
That I owe this debt to you
And for your sweet sake to yours;
O then, what then shall I say? -
If ever I should forget,
May God make me more wretched
Than ever I have been yet!
[ Maud, And Other Poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson ]
"The complete Amulet can keep off all the things that make
people unhappy -- jealousy, bad temper, pride, disagreeableness,
greediness, selfishness, laziness. Evil spirits, people called
them when the Amulet was made. Don't you think it would be nice
to have it?"
"Very," said the children, quite without enthusiasm.
"And it can give you strength and courage."
"That's better," said Cyril.
"And virtue."
"I suppose it's nice to have that," said Jane, but not with much
interest.
"And it can give you your heart's desire."
"Now you're talking," said Robert.
[ The Story of the Amulet, by Edith Nesbit ]
This mysterious talisman is the object of your quest. It is
said to possess powers which mere mortals can scarcely
comprehend, let alone utilize. The gods will grant the gift of
immortality to the adventurer who can deliver it from the
depths of Moloch's Sanctum and offer it on the appropriate high
altar on the Astral Plane.
Alternatively, it is said that by calling upon its power whilst
at the high altars of the Astral Plane, the Amulet will give
a road back home for those adventurers who would prefer a
mortal existence.
He answered and said unto them, he that soweth the good seed
is the Son of man; the field is the world, and the good seed
are the children of the kingdom; but the weeds are the
children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the
devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers
are the angels. As therefore the weeds are gathered and
burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
[...] So shall it be at the end of the world; the angels
shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,
and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be
wailing and gnashing of teeth.
[ The Gospel According to Matthew, 13:37-42, 49-50 ]
An Egyptian god of war and a great hunter, few gods can match
his fury. Unlike many gods of war, he is a force for good.
The wrath of Anhur is slow to come, but it is inescapable
once earned. Anhur is a mighty figure with four arms. He
is often seen with a powerful lance that requires both of
his right arms to wield and which is tipped with a fragment
of the sun. He is married to Mehut, a lion-headed goddess.
The twin city of Ankh-Morpork, foremost of all the cities
bounding the Circle Sea, was as a matter of course the home
of a large number of gangs, thieves' guilds, syndicates and
similar organisations. This was one of the reasons for its
wealth. Most of the humbler folk on the widdershin side of
the river, in Morpork's mazy alleys, supplemented their
meagre incomes by filling some small role for one or other
of the competing gangs.
[ The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett ]
A primordial Babylonian-Akkadian deity, Anshar is mentioned
in the Babylonian creation epic _Enuma Elish_ as one of a
pair of offspring (with Kishar) of Lahmu and Lahamu. Anshar
is linked with heaven while Kishar is identified with earth.
[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
This giant variety of the ordinary ant will fight just as
fiercely as its small, distant cousin. Various varieties
exist, and they are known and feared for their relentless
persecution of their victims.
Anu was the Babylonian god of the heavens, the monarch of
the north star. He was the oldest of the Babylonian gods,
the father of all gods, and the ruler of heaven and destiny.
Anu features strongly in the _atiku_ festival in
Babylon, Uruk and other cities.
The most highly evolved of all the primates, as shown by
all their anatomical characters and particularly the
development of the brain. Both arboreal and terrestrial,
the apes have the forelimbs much better developed than
the hind limbs. Tail entirely absent. Growth is slow
and sexual maturity reached at quite an advanced age.
[ A Field Guide to the Larger Mammals of Africa by Dorst ]
Aldo the gorilla had a plan. It was a good plan. It was
right. He knew it. He smacked his lips in anticipation as
he thought of it. Yes. Apes should be strong. Apes should
be masters. Apes should be proud. Apes should make the
Earth shake when they walked. Apes should _rule_ the Earth.
[ Battle for the Planet of the Apes,
by David Gerrold ]
Four-handed, tailless, mammal of the order of Primates, of the
sub-order of _Anthropoidea_, which of all mammals most closely
resembles man (both in appearance and in behaviour).
[ Van Dale's Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal ]
I will sing of stately Aphrodite, gold-crowned and beautiful,
whose dominion is the walled cities of all sea-set Cyprus.
There the moist breath of the western wind wafted her over
the waves of the loud moaning sea in soft foam, and there
the gold-filleted Hours welcomed her joyously. They clothed
her with heavenly garments: on her head they put a fine,
well-wrought crown of gold, and in her pierced ears they
hung ornaments of orichalc and precious gold, and adorned
her with golden necklaces over her soft neck and snow-white
breasts, jewels which the gold-filleted Hours wear themselves
whenever they go to their father's house to join the lovely
dances of the gods. And when they had fully decked her, they
brought her to the gods, who welcomed her when they saw her,
giving her their hands. Each one of them prayed that he might
lead her home to be his wedded wife, so greatly were they
amazed at the beauty of violet-crowned Cytherea.
[ Homeric Hymn VI, to Aphrodite,
translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White ]
NEWTONIAN, adj. Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe
invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall
to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors
and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say
when.
[ The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce ]
Archeology is the search for fact, not truth. [...]
So forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel,
and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried
treasure, and X never, ever, marks the spot.
[ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ]
Archons are the predominant inhabitants of the heavens.
However unusual their appearance, they are not generally
evil. They are beings at peace with themselves and their
surroundings.
Arioch, the patron demon of Elric's ancestors; one of the most
powerful of all the Dukes of Hell, who was called Knight of
the Swords, Lord of the Seven Darks, Lord of the Higher Hell
and many more names besides.
[ Elric of Melnibone, by Michael Moorcock ]
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
[ The Arrow and the Song,
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
Ashikaga Takauji was a daimyo of the Minamoto clan who
joined forces with the Go-Daigo to defeat the Hojo armies.
Later when Go-Daigo attempted to reduce the powers of the
samurai clans he rebelled against him. He defeated Go-
Daigo and established the emperor Komyo on the throne.
Go-Daigo eventually escaped and established another
government in the town of Yoshino. This period of dual
governments was known as the Nambokucho.
[ Samurai - The Story of a Warrior Tradition, by Cook ]
It is said that Asmodeus is the overlord over all of hell.
His appearance, unlike many other demons and devils, is
human apart from his horns and tail. He can freeze flesh
with a touch.
The evil demon who appears in the Apocryphal book of _Tobit_
and is derived from the Persian _Aeshma_. In _Tobit_ Asmodeus
falls in love with Sara, daughter of Raguel, and causes the
death of seven husbands in succession, each on his bridal night.
He was finally driven from Egypt through a charm made by Tobias
of the heart and liver of a fish burned on purfumed ashes, as
described by Milton in _Paradise Lost_ (IV, 167-71). Hence
Asmodeus often figures as the spirit of matrimonial jealousy
or unhappiness.
[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
The consecrated ritual knife of a Wiccan initiate (one of
four basic tools, together with the wand, chalice and
pentacle). Traditionally, the athame is a double-edged,
black-handled, cross-hilted dagger of between six and
eighteen inches length.
A belt made from a twisted braid of silken threads of gold
wound around her waist, and a dark-handled knife rested on
a slant at her hip through a loop in the belt.
[...]
She arched her brows. "You should know better, dear godchild.
You know I cannot speak what is untrue. During our last
encounter I returned to Faerie with great power and upset
vital balances. Those balances had to be redressed, and your
debt was the mechanism that the Queen chose to employ."
I frowned at her for a minute. "Returned with great power."
My eyes fell to the knife at her waist. "That thing the
vampires gave you?"
She rested her fingers lightly on the knife's hilt. "Don't
cheapen it. This athame was no creation of theirs. And it
was less a gift than a trade."
"Amoracchius and that thing are in the same league?" Gulp.
My faerie godmother was dangerous enough without a big-time
artifact of magic.
[ Summer Knight, by Jim Butcher ]
Athene was the offspring of Zeus, and without a mother. She
sprang forth from his head completely armed. Her favourite
bird was the owl, and the plant sacred to her is the olive.
[ Bulfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch ]
Athena, the Greek goddess of war and peace, the peaceful arts, and
wisdom. Patron defender of many Greek cities, Athens in particular
(then called Pallas Athena), she is a major goddess of the Greek
pantheon and, according to Hesiod, the daughter of Metis (Wisdom)
and Zeus, born fully armed from his head. A goddess of battle and
allegedly a snake goddess, she is a deity who also stands for
discipline against the more unruly conduct of such as Hermes and
Poseidon.
Her symbol is the Aegis, the skin of a sacrificial goat. She is
also associated with ship-building and domestic crafts.
[ after the Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
"For every silver ringing blow,
"Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree!
"When rust hath gnawed me deep and red,
"His crown the very Heavens shall smite,
"Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree;
[ The Axe, by Isabella Valancey Crawford ]
A mundane salamander, harmless.
"Now, this third handkerchief," Mein Herr proceeded, "has also
four edges, which you can trace continuously round and round:
all you need do is to join its four edges to the four edges of
the opening. The Purse is then complete, and its outer
surface--"
"I see!" Lady Muriel eagerly interrupted. "Its outer surface
will be continuous with its inner surface! But it will take
time. I'll sew it up after tea." She laid aside the bag, and
resumed her cup of tea. "But why do you call it Fortunatus's
Purse, Mein Herr?"
The dear old man beamed upon her, with a jolly smile, looking
more exactly like the Professor than ever. "Don't you see,
my child--I should say Miladi? Whatever is inside that Purse,
is outside it; and whatever is outside it, is inside it. So
you have all the wealth of the world in that leetle Purse!"
[ Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, by Lewis Carroll ]
The "lord of the flies" is a translation of the Hebrew
Ba'alzevuv (Beelzebub in Greek). It has been suggested that
it was a mistranslation of a mistransliterated word which
gave us this pungent and suggestive name of the Devil, a
devil whose name suggests that he is devoted to decay,
destruction, demoralization, hysteria and panic...
[ Notes on _Lord of the Flies_, by E. L. Epstein ]
... It came to the edge of the fire and the light faded as
if a cloud had bent over it. Then with a rush it leaped
the fissure. The flames roared up to greet it, and wreathed
about it; and a black smoke swirled in the air. Its streaming
mane kindled, and blazed behind it. In its right hand
was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left it
held a whip of many thongs.
'Ai, ai!' wailed Legolas. 'A Balrog! A Balrog is come!'
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
Extinct rhinos include a variety of forms, the most
spectacular being _Baluchitherium_ from the Oligocene of
Asia, which is the largest known land mammal. Its body, 18
feet high at the shoulder and carried on massive limbs,
allowed the 4-foot-long head to browse on the higher branches
of trees. Though not as enormous, the titanotheres of the
early Tertiary were also large perissodactyls, _Brontotherium_
of the Oligocene being 8 feet high at the shoulder.
[ Prehistoric Animals, by Barry Cox ]
He took another step and she cocked her right wrist in
viciously. She heard the spring click. Weight slapped into
her hand.
"Here!" she shrieked hysterically, and brought her arm up in
a hard sweep, meaning to gut him, leaving him to blunder
around the room with his intestines hanging out in steaming
loops. Instead he roared laughter, hands on his hips,
flaming face cocked back, squeezing and contorting with great
good humor.
"Oh, my dear!" he cried, and went off into another gale of
laughter.
She looked stupidly down at her hand. It held a firm yellow
banana with a blue and white Chiquita sticker on it. She
dropped it, horrified, to the carpet, where it became a
sickly yellow grin, miming Flagg's own.
"You'll tell," he whispered. "Oh yes indeed you will."
And Dayna knew he was right.
[ The Stand, by Stephen King ]
In Irish folklore and that of the Western Highlands of Scotland,
a female fairy who announces her presence by shrieking and wailing
under the windows of a house when one of its occupants is awaiting
death. The word is a phonetic spelling of the Irish _beansidhe_, a
woman of the fairies.
[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
They dressed alike -- in buckskin boots, leathern breeks and
deerskin shirts, with broad girdles that held axes and short
swords; and they were all gaunt and scarred and hard-eyed;
sinewy and taciturn.
They were wild men, of a sort, yet there was still a wide
gulf between them and the Cimmerian. They were sons of
civilization, reverted to a semi-barbarism. He was a
barbarian of a thousand generations of barbarians. They had
acquired stealth and craft, but he had been born to these
things. He excelled them even in lithe economy of motion.
They were wolves, but he was a tiger.
[ Conan - The Warrior, by Robert E. Howard ]
Hrun the Barbarian crept soundlessly along the corridors, which
were lit with a light so violet that it was almost black. his
earlier confusion was gone. This was obviously a magical temple,
and that explained everything.
[...]
Observe Hrun, as he leaps cat-footed across a suspicious tunnel
mouth. Even in this violet light his skin gleams coppery. There is
much gold about his person, in the form of anklets and wristlets,
but otherwise he is naked except for a leopardskin loincloth. He
took that in the steaming forests of Howondaland, after killing
its owner with his teeth.
In his right hand he carried the magical black sword Kring, which
was forged from a thunderbolt and has a soul but suffers no
scabbard. Hrun had stolen it only three days before from the
impregnable palace of the Archmandrite of B'Ituni, and he was
already regretting it. It was beginning to get on his nerves.
"I tell you it went down that last passage on the right," hissed
Kring in a voice like the scrape of a blade over stone.
"Be silent!"
"All I said was -"
"Shut up!"
[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
Barbed devils lack any real special abilities, though they
are quite difficult to kill.
A bat, flitting in the darkness outside, took the wrong turn
as it made its nightly rounds and came in through the window
which had been left healthfully open. It then proceeded to
circle the room in the aimless fat-headed fashion habitual
with bats, who are notoriously among the less intellectually
gifted of God's creatures. Show me a bat, says the old
proverb, and I will show you something that ought to be in
some kind of a home.
[ A Pelican at Blandings, by P. G. Wodehouse ]
This giant variety of its useful normal cousin normally
appears in small groups, looking for raw material to produce
the royal jelly needed to feed their queen. On rare
occasions, one may stumble upon a bee-hive, in which the
queen bee is being well provided for, and guarded against
intruders.
[ The Creator ] has an inordinate fondness for beetles.
[ attributed to biologist J.B.S. Haldane ]
The common name for the insects with wings shaped like
shields (_Coleoptera_), one of the ten sub-species into
which the insects are divided. They are characterized by
the shields (the front pair of wings) under which the back
wings are folded.
[ Van Dale's Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal ]
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece
of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by
the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's
death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for
thee.
[ For Whom The Bell Tolls, by John Donne ]
_Bell, book and candle._ The popular phrase for ceremonial
excommunication in the Roman Catholic Church. After pronouncing
sentence the officiating clergy closes his book, quenches the candle
by throwing it to the ground and tolls the bell as for one who has
died. The book symbolizes the book of life, the candle that the soul
is removed from the sight of God as the candle from the sight of man.
[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
"A bell, book and candle job."
The Bursar sighed. "We tried that, Archchancellor."
The Archchancellor leaned towards him.
"Eh?" he said.
"I _said_, we tried that Archchancellor," said the Bursar loudly,
directing his voice at the old man's ear. "After dinner, you
remember? We used Humptemper's _Names of the Ants_ and rang Old
Tom."*
"Did we, indeed. Worked, did it?"
"_No_, Archchancellor."
* Old Tom was the single cracked bronze bell in the University
bell tower.
[ Eric, by Terry Pratchett ]
The blindfolding was performed by binding a piece of the
yellowish linen whereof those of the Amahagger who condescended
to wear anything in particular made their dresses tightly round
the eyes. This linen I afterwards discovered was taken from the
tombs, and was not, as I had first supposed, of native
manufacture. The bandage was then knotted at the back of the
head, and finally brought down again and the ends bound under
the chin to prevent its slipping. Ustane was, by the way, also
blindfolded, I do not know why, unless it was from fear that she
should impart the secrets of the route to us.
[ She, by H. Rider Haggard ]
On this particular day Blind Io, by dint of constant vigilance
the chief of the gods, sat with his chin on his hand
and looked at the gaming board on the red marble table in
front of him. Blind Io had got his name because, where his
eye sockets should have been, there were nothing but two
areas of blank skin. His eyes, of which he had an impressively
large number, led a semi-independent life of their
own. Several were currently hovering above the table.
[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
These giant amoeboid creatures look like nothing more than
puddles of slime, but they both live and move, feeding on
metal or wood as well as the occasional dungeon explorer to
supplement their diet.
But we were not on a station platform. We were on the track ahead
as the nightmare, plastic column of fetid black iridescence oozed
tightly onward through its fifteen-foot sinus, gathering unholy
speed and driving before it a spiral, re-thickening cloud of the
pallid abyss vapor. It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster
than any subway train -- a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic
bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes
forming and unforming as pustules of greenish light all over the
tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic
penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its
kind had swept so evilly free of all litter.
[ At the Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft ]
Bone devils attack with weapons and with a great hooked tail
which causes a loss of strength to those they sting.
A collection of ancient Egyptian texts, both religious and magical,
concerned with guidance for the safe conduct of the soul through
Amenti (the Egyptian Hades). The Egyptians called it _The Book
of Going Forth By Day_ and copies, or parts of it, were buried with
the mummy. There is a variety of texts.
[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
In Fantasyland these are remarkable in that they seldom or
never wear out and are suitable for riding or walking in
without the need of Socks. Boots never pinch, rub, or get
stones in them; nor do nails stick upwards into the feet from
the soles. They are customarily mid-calf length or knee-high,
slip on and off easily and never smell of feet. Unfortunately,
the formula for making this splendid footwear is a closely
guarded secret, possibly derived from nonhumans (see Dwarfs,
Elves, and Gnomes).
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he had
first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes-it was
a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering
among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting
the pure mountain breeze. "Surely," thought Rip, "I have not
slept here all night." He recalled the occurrences before he fell
asleep. The strange man with a keg of liquor-the mountain ravine-
the wild retreat among the rocks-the woe-begone party at ninepins-
the flagon-"Oh! that flagon! that wicked flagon!" thought Rip
-"what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle!"
[ Rip Van Winkle, a Posthumous Writing
of Diedrich Knickerbocker, by Washington Irving ]
I worked the lever well under, and stretched my back; the end
of the stone rose up, and I kicked the fulcrum under. Then,
when I was going to bear down, I remembered there was
something to get out from below; when I let go of the lever,
the stone would fall again. I sat down to think, on the root
of the oak tree; and, seeing it stand about the ground, I saw
my way. It was lucky I had brought a longer lever. It would
just reach to wedge under the oak root.
Bearing it down so far would have been easy for a heavy man,
but was a hard fight for me. But this time I meant to do it
if it killed me, because I knew it could be done. Twice I
got it nearly there, and twice the weight bore it up again;
but when I flung myself on it the third time, I heard in my
ears the sea-sound of Poseidon. Then I knew this time I
would do it; and so I did.
[ The King Must Die, by Mary Renault ]
"Stand to it, my hearts of gold," said the old bowman as he
passed from knot to knot. "By my hilt! we are in luck this
journey. Bear in mind the old saying of the Company."
"What is that, Aylward?" cried several, leaning on their bows
and laughing at him.
"'Tis the master-bowyer's rede: 'Every bow well bent. Every
shaft well sent. Every stave well nocked. Every string well
locked.' There, with that jingle in his head, a bracer on
his left hand, a shooting glove on his right, and a
farthing's-worth of wax in his girdle, what more doth a
bowman need?"
"It would not be amiss," said Hordle John, "if under his
girdle he had four farthings'-worth of wine."
[ The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ]
Brigit (Brigid, Bride, Banfile), which means the Exalted One,
was the Celtic (continental European and Irish) fertility
goddess. She was originally celebrated on February first in
the festival of Imbolc, which coincided with the beginning
of lactation in ewes and was regarded in Scotland as the date
on which Brigit deposed the blue-faced hag of winter. The
Christian calendar adopted the same date for the Feast of St.
Brigit. There is no record that a Christian saint ever
actually existed, but in Irish mythology she became the
midwife to the Virgin Mary.
[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
Bring me my broadsword
And clear understanding.
Bring me my cross of gold,
As a talisman.
[ "Broadsword" (refrain) by Ian Anderson ]
Bugbears are relatives of goblins, although they tend to be
larger and more hairy. They are aggressive carnivores and
sometimes kill just for the treasure their victims may be
carrying.
'I read you by your bugle horn
And by your palfrey good,
I read you for a Ranger sworn
To keep the King's green-wood.'
'A Ranger, Lady, winds his horn,
And 'tis at peep of light;
His blast is heard at merry morn,
And mine at dead of night.'
[ Brignall Banks, by Sir Walter Scott ]
A classical Mesoamerican Aztec god, also known as Mixcoatl-
Camaxtli (the Cloud Serpent), Camaxtli is the god of war. He
is also a deity of hunting and fire who received human
sacrifice of captured prisoners. According to tradition, the
sun god Tezcatlipoca transformed himself into Mixcoatl-Camaxtli
to make fire by twirling the sacred fire sticks.
[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
The seat of Arthur's power in medieval romance. The name is of
unknown origin and refers to the castle but also includes the
surrounding town.
[...]
Camelot appears, most significantly, as a personal capital as
opposed to a permanent or national one. It is Arthur's and
Arthur's alone. There are no previous lords and Arthur's
successor, Constantine, does not take up residence there.
Camelot is actually said to have been demolished after Arthur
and Lancelot were gone by Mark. Fazio degli Uberti, the Italian
poet, claims to have seen the ruins in the 14th century.
[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
Faustus: Come on Mephistopheles. What shall we do?
Mephistopheles: Nay, I know not. We shall be cursed with bell,
book, and candle.
Faustus: How? Bell, book, and candle, candle, book, and bell,
Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell.
Anon you shall hear a hog grunt, a calf bleat, and an ass bray,
Because it is Saint Peter's holy day.
(Enter all the Friars to sing the dirge)
[ Doctor Faustus and Other Plays, by Christopher Marlowe ]
My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.
Only once a year, on his birthday, did Charlie Bucket ever
get to taste a bit of chocolate. The whole family saved up
their money for that special occasion, and when the great
day arrived, Charlie was always presented with one small
chocolate bar to eat all by himself. And each time he
received it, on those marvelous birthday mornings, he would
place it carefully in a small wooden box that he owned, and
treasure it as though it were a bar of solid gold; and for
the next few days, he would allow himself only to look at it,
but never to touch it. Then at last, when he could stand it
no longer, he would peel back a tiny bit of the paper
wrapping at one corner to expose a tiny bit of chocolate, and
then he would take a tiny nibble - just enough to allow the
lovely sweet taste to spread out slowly over his tongue. The
next day, he would take another tiny nibble, and so on, and
so on. And in this way, Charlie would make his ten-cent bar
of birthday chocolate last him for more than a month.
[ Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl ]
In World War II, Britain's air ministry spread the word that a diet of
these vegetables helped pilots see Nazi bombers attacking at night. That
was a lie intended to cover the real matter of what was underpinning the
Royal Air Force's successes: Airborne Interception Radar, also known as
AI. ... British Intelligence didn't want the Germans to find out
about the superior new technology helping protect the nation, so they
created a rumor to afford a somewhat plausible-sounding explanation
for the sudden increase in bombers being shot down. ...
The disinformation was so persuasive that the English public took to
eating carrots to help them find their way during the blackouts.
[ Urban Legends Reference Pages ]
Imagine a sealed container, so perfectly constructed that no
physical influence can pass either inwards or outwards across its
walls. Imagine that inside the container is a cat, and also a
device that can be triggered by some quantum event. If that event
takes place, then the device smashes a phial containing cyanide and
the cat is killed. If the event does not take place, the cat lives
on. In Schroedinger's original version, the quantum event was the
decay of a radioactive atom. ... To the outside observer, the cat
is indeed in a linear combination of being alive and dead, and only
when the container is finally opened would the cat's state vector
collapse into one or the other. On the other hand, to a (suitably
protected) observer inside the container, the cat's state-vector
would have collapsed much earlier, and the outside observer's
linear combination has no relevance.
[ The Emperor's New Mind, by Roger Penrose ]
Well-known quadruped domestic animal from the family of
predatory felines (_Felis ochreata domestica_), with a thick,
soft pelt; often kept as a pet. Various folklores have the
cat associated with magic and the gods of ancient Egypt.
So Ulthar went to sleep in vain anger; and when the people
awakened at dawn - behold! Every cat was back at his
accustomed hearth! Large and small, black, grey, striped,
yellow and white, none was missing. Very sleek and fat did
the cats appear, and sonorous with purring content.
[ The Cats of Ulthar, by H.P. Lovecraft ]
Now it was light enough to leave. Moon-Watcher picked up
the shriveled corpse and dragged it after him as he bent
under the low overhang of the cave. Once outside, he
threw the body over his shoulder and stood upright - the
only animal in all this world able to do so.
Among his kind, Moon-Watcher was almost a giant. He was
nearly five feet high, and though badly undernourished
weighed over a hundred pounds. His hairy, muscular body
was halfway between ape and man, but his head was already
much nearer to man than ape. The forehead was low, and
there were ridges over the eye sockets, yet he unmistakably
held in his genes the promise of humanity.
[ 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke ]
'Twas in a land unkempt of life's red dawn;
Where in his sanded cave he dwelt alone;
Sleeping by day, or sometimes worked upon
His flint-head arrows and his knives of stone;
By night stole forth and slew the savage boar,
So that he loomed a hunter of loud fame,
And many a skin of wolf and wild-cat wore,
And counted many a flint-head to his name;
Wherefore he walked the envy of the band,
Hated and feared, but matchless in his skill.
Till lo! one night deep in that shaggy land,
He tracked a yearling bear and made his kill;
Then over-worn he rested by a stream,
And sank into a sleep too deep for dream.
[ The Dreamer, by Robert Service ]
Of all the monsters put together by the Greek imagination
the Centaurs (Kentauroi) constituted a class in themselves.
Despite a strong streak of sensuality, in their make-up,
their normal behaviour was moral, and they took a kindly
thought of man's welfare. The attempted outrage of Nessos on
Deianeira, and that of the whole tribe of Centaurs on the
Lapith women, are more than offset by the hospitality of
Pholos and by the wisdom of Cheiron, physician, prophet,
lyrist, and the instructor of Achilles. Further, the
Centaurs were peculiar in that their nature, which united the
body of a horse with the trunk and head of a man, involved
an unthinkable duplication of vital organs and important
members. So grotesque a combination seems almost un-Greek.
These strange creatures were said to live in the caves and
clefts of the mountains, myths associating them especially
with the hills of Thessaly and the range of Erymanthos.
[ Mythology of all races, Vol. 1, pp. 270-271 ]
I observed here, what I had often seen before, that certain
districts abound in centipedes. Here they have light
reddish bodies and blue legs; great myriapedes are seen
crawling every where. Although they do no harm, they excite
in man a feeling of loathing. Perhaps our appearance
produces a similar feeling in the elephant and other large
animals. Where they have been much disturbed, they
certainly look upon us with great distrust, as the horrid
biped that ruins their peace.
[ Travels and Researches in South Africa,
by Dr. David Livingstone ]
Cerberus, (or Kerberos in Greek), was the three-headed dog
that guarded the Gates of Hell. He allowed any dead to enter,
and likewise prevented them all from ever leaving. He was
bested only twice: once when Orpheus put him to sleep by
playing bewitching music on his lyre, and the other time when
Hercules confronted him and took him to the world of the
living (as his twelfth and last labor).
Name of a family (_Chameleonidae_) and race (_Chameleo_) of
scaly lizards, especially the _Chameleo vulgaris_ species,
with a short neck, claws, a grasping tail, a long, extendible
tongue and mutually independent moving eyes. When it is
scared or angry, it inflates itself and its transparent skin
shows its blood: the skin first appears greenish, then
gradually changes color until it is a spotted red. The final
color depends on the background color as well, hence the
(figurative) implication of unreliability. [Capitalized:]
a constellation of the southern hemisphere (Chameleo).
[ Van Dale's Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal ]
A small lizard perched on a brown stone. Feeling threatened by
the approach of human beings along the path, it metamorphosed
into a stingray beetle, then into a stench-puffer, then into a
fiery salamander.
Bink smiled. These conversions weren't real. It had assumed the
forms of obnoxious little monsters, but not their essence. It
could not sting, stink or burn. It was a chameleon, using its
magic to mimic creatures of genuine threat.
Yet as it shifted into the form of a basilisk it glared at him
with such ferocity that Bink's mirth abated. If its malice
could strike him, he would be horribly dead.
[ A Spell for Chameleon, by Piers Anthony ]
When an ancient Greek died, his soul went to the nether world:
the Hades. To reach the nether world, the souls had to cross
the river Styx, the river that separated the living from the
dead. The Styx could be crossed by ferry, whose shabby ferry-
man, advanced in age, was called Charon. The deceased's next-
of-kin would place a coin under his tongue, to pay the ferry-
man.
Dantes rapidly cleared away the earth around the chest. Soon
the center lock appeared, then the handles at each end, all
delicately wrought in the manner of that period when art made
precious even the basest of metals. He took the chest by the
two handles and tried to lift it, but it was impossible. He
tried to open it; it was locked. He inserted the sharp end
of his pickaxe between the chest and the lid and pushed down
on the handle. The lid creaked, then flew open.
Dantes was seized with a sort of giddy fever. He cocked his
gun and placed it beside him. Then he closed his eyes like a
child, opened them and stood dumbfounded.
The chest was divided into three compartments. In the first
were shining gold coins. In the second, unpolished gold
ingots packed in orderly stacks. From the third compartment,
which was half full, Dantes picked up handfuls of diamonds,
pearls and rubies. As they fell through his fingers in a
glittering cascade, they gave forth the sound of hail beating
against the windowpanes.
[ The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas ]
A character in Chinese mythology noted for bringing about the end
of a terrible drought which threatened the survival of the people.
He achieved this by means of sprinkling the earth with water from a
bowl, using the branch of a tree to do so. He became the heavenly
controller of the rain, and lived with other celestial beings in
their paradise on Mount Kunlun.
[ The Illustrated Who's Who In Mythology,
by Michael Senior ]
Chillbugs are insects that are native residents of Sheol.
They are said to be composed of liquid ice. Their ability to
quickly regenerate has puzzled many humans and non-humans
alike.
Chillbugs are cool.
Avaricious, supremely vain, and profoundly Lawful Evil, Tiamat
proclaims herself the creator of all evil dragonkind, and
certainly many evil dragons revere her as their creator and patron
deity. She infests the uppermost of the Nine Hells with her
consorts, each a Great Wyrm of different colour - one red, one
white, one green, one blue, and one black.
Tiamat's Avatar appears as a gigantic five-headed dragon with one
head of each of the chromatic (evil) dragon types. Each head's
colour runs the length of the neck and into the forepart of het
body as stripes, gradually blending to three stripes of grey,
blue-green, and purple over her back and hind-quarters, then
merging into a muddy dark brown tail. Her underbelly and legs are
greenish white fading into her upper body colours.
[ Monster Mythology, by TSR inc. ]
Fearsome dragons who are channeling the powers of lesser dragons
like their mother Tiamat. Legends tell of a far away realm where
these creatures can be found in large numbers.
A pale yellow variety of crystalline quartz resembling topaz.
Cloaks are the universal outer garb of everyone who is not a
Barbarian. It is hard to see why. They are open in front
and require you at most times to use one hand to hold them
shut. On horseback they leave the shirt-sleeved arms and
most of the torso exposed to wind and Weather. The OMTs
[ Official Management Terms ] for Cloaks well express their
difficulties. They are constantly _swirling and dripping_
and becoming _heavy with water_ in rainy Weather, _entangling
with trees_ or _swords_, or needing to be _pulled close
around her/his shivering body_. This seems to suggest they
are less than practical for anyone on an arduous Tour.
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
[ I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, by William Wordsworth ]
Darzee and his wife only cowered down in the nest without
answering, for from the thick grass at the foot of the bush
there came a low hiss -- a horrid cold sound that made
Rikki-tikki jump back two clear feet. Then inch by inch out of
the grass rose up the head and spread hood of Nag, the big
black cobra, and he was five feet long from tongue to tail.
When he had lifted one-third of himself clear of the ground,
he stayed balancing to and fro exactly as a dandelion-tuft
balances in the wind, and he looked at Rikki-tikki with the
wicked snake's eyes that never change their expression,
whatever the snake may be thinking of.
'Who is Nag?' said he. '_I_ am Nag. The great God Brahm put
his mark upon all our people, when the first cobra spread his
hood to keep the sun off Brahm as he slept. Look, and be
afraid!'
[ Rikki-tikki-tavi, by Rudyard Kipling ]
Once in a great while, when the positions of the stars are
just right, a seven-year-old rooster will lay an egg. Then,
along will come a snake, to coil around the egg, or a toad,
to squat upon the egg, keeping it warm and helping it to
hatch. When it hatches, out comes a creature called basilisk,
or cockatrice, the most deadly of all creatures. A single
glance from its yellow, piercing toad's eyes will kill both
man and beast. Its power of destruction is said to be so
great that sometimes simply to hear its hiss can prove fatal.
Its breath is so venomous that it causes all vegetation
to wither.
There is, however, one creature which can withstand the
basilisk's deadly gaze, and this is the weasel. No one knows
why this is so, but although the fierce weasel can slay the
basilisk, it will itself be killed in the struggle. Perhaps
the weasel knows the basilisk's fatal weakness: if it ever
sees its own reflection in a mirror it will perish instantly.
But even a dead basilisk is dangerous, for it is said that
merely touching its lifeless body can cause a person to
sicken and die.
[ Mythical Beasts by Deirdre Headon (The Leprechaun Library)
and other sources ]
This beastie is the recently-hatched broodling of a cockatrice, a
creature feared by adventurers great and small for its petrifying
peck.
[ The New Bestiary, Wizard Endlebrook ]
The coin bears the likeness of Belwit the Flat, along with the
inscriptions, "One Zorkmid," and "699 GUE [ Great Underground
Empire ]." On the other side, the coin depicts Egreth Castle,
and says "In Frobs We Trust" in several languages.
[ Zork Zero, by Infocom ]
He was dressed in a flowing gown with fur tippets which had
the signs of the zodiac embroidered over it, with various
cabalistic signs, such as triangles with eyes in them, queer
crosses, leaves of trees, bones of birds and animals, and a
planetarium whose stars shone like bits of looking-glass with
the sun on them. He had a pointed hat like a dunce's cap, or
like the headgear worn by ladies of that time, except that
the ladies were accustomed to have a bit of veil floating
from the top of it.
[ The Once and Future King, by T.H. White ]
"A wizard!" Dooley exclaimed, astounded.
"At your service, sirs," said the wizard. "How
perceptive of you to notice. I suppose my hat rather gives me
away. Something of a beacon, I don't doubt." His hat was
pretty much that, tall and cone-shaped with stars and crescent
moons all over it. All in all, it couldn't have been more
wizardish.
[ The Elfin Ship, James P. Blaylock ]
So rare as to be considered almost legendary, the couatl is one
of the most beautiful creatures in existence. It has the body of
a long serpent and feathered wings the color of the rainbow.
... This winged serpent is native to warm, jungle-like regions but
can also be found flying through the ether. Their intelligence and
goodness have made them objects of reverence by the natives of the
regions which they inhabit. Considered to be divine, there are many
legends in which the couatl is the benefactor of mankind and the
bestower of such precious gifts as agriculture and medicine. There
are even shrines in certain areas dedicated to the couatl, and any
who attack or harm a couatl are automatically viewed as the blackest
of villains.
[ Monstrous Manual, by TSR inc. ]
This carnivore is known for its voracious appetite and
inflated view of its own intelligence.
If you want to know what cram is, I can only say that I don't
know the recipe; but it is biscuitish, keeps good indefinitely,
is supposed to be sustaining, and is certainly not entertaining,
being in fact very uninteresting except as a chewing
exercise. It was made by the Lake-men for long journeys.
[ The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
A big animal with the appearance of a lizard, constituting
an order of the reptiles (_Loricata_ or _Crocodylia_), the
crocodile is a large, dangerous predator native to tropical
and subtropical climes. It spends most of its time in large
bodies of water.
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!
[ How Doth The Little Crocodile, by Lewis Carroll ]
Croesus (in Greek: Kroisos), the wealthy last king of Lydia;
his empire was destroyed when he attacked Cyrus in 549, after
the Oracle of Delphi (q.v.) had told him: "if you attack the
Persians, you will destroy a mighty empire". Herodotus
relates of his legendary conversation with Solon of Athens,
who impressed upon him that being rich does not imply being
happy and that no one should be considered fortunate before
his death.
Warily Conan scanned his surroundings, all of his senses alert
for signs of possible danger. Off in the distance, he could
see the familiar shapes of the Camp of the Duali tribe.
Suddenly, the hairs on his neck stand on end as he detects the
aura of evil magic in the air. Without thought, he readies
his weapon, and mutters under his breath:
"By Crom, there will be blood spilt today."
[ Conan the Avenger by Robert E. Howard,
Bjorn Nyberg, and L. Sprague de Camp ]
... Crom was their chief, and he lived on a great mountain, whence he
sent forth dooms and death. It was useless to call on Crom, because
he was a gloomy, savage god, and he hated weaklings. But he gave a
man courage at birth, and the will and might to kill his enemies,
which, in the Cimmerian's mind, was all any god should be expected
to do.
[ The Tower of the Elephant, by Robert E. Howard ]
"God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus! -
Why look'st thou so?" - With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross.
[ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge ]
You look into one of these and see _vapours swirling like
clouds_. These shortly clear away to show a sort of video
without sound of something that is going to happen to you
soon. It is seldom good news.
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
"The Thing cannot be described -- there is no language for such
abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch
contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order. A
mountain walked or stumbled. God!... the Thing of the idols,
the green, sticky spawn of the stars, had awakened to claim
his own. The stars were right again... great Cthulhu was
loose again, and ravening for delight."
[ The Call of Cthulhu, by H.P. Lovecraft ]
The exact origins of Cthulhu are lost to time, but it is
known that in aeons long past a race of space faring
beings came to this world and Cthulhu was amongst their
number as the high priest who interceded between them
and the dark gods they worshipped. Whether Cthulhu is
a long lived individual or a title of office, is not
known, but a creature bearing this name lives on,
trapped in eternal slumber in the ruins of his great
city.
Curses are longstanding ill-wishings which, in Fantasyland,
often manifest as semisentient. They have to be broken or
dispelled. The method varies according to the type and
origin of the Curse:
[...]
4. Curses on Rings and Swords. You have problems. Rings
have to be returned whence they came, preferably at over a
thousand degrees Fahrenheit, and the Curse means you won't
want to do this. Swords usually resist all attempts to
raise their Curses. Your best source is to hide the Sword
or give it to someone you dislike.
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
A pack of snow-white, red-eared spectral hounds which
sometimes took part in the kidnappings and raids the
inhabitants of the underworld sometimes make on this world
(the Wild Hunt). They are associated in Wales with the sounds
of migrating wild geese, and are said to be leading the souls
of the damned to hell. The phantom chase is usually heard or
seen in midwinter and is accompanied by a howling wind.
[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
And after he had milked his cattle swiftly,
he again took hold of two of my men
and had them as his supper.
Then I went, with a tub of red wine,
to stand before the Cyclops, saying:
"A drop of wine after all this human meat,
so you can taste the delicious wine
that is stored in our ship, Cyclops."
He took the tub and emptied it.
He appreciated the priceless wine that much
that he promptly asked me for a second tub.
"Give it", he said, "and give me your name as well".
...
Thrice I filled the tub,
and after the wine had clouded his mind,
I said to him, in a tone as sweet as honey:
"You have asked my name, Cyclops? Well,
my name is very well known. I'll give it to you,
if you give me the gift you promised me as a guest.
My name is Nobody. All call me thus:
my father and my mother and my friends."
Ruthlessly he answered to this:
"Nobody, I will eat you last of all;
your host of friends will completely precede you.
That will be my present to you, my friend."
And after these words he fell down backwards,
restrained by the all-restrainer Hupnos.
His monstrous neck slid into the dust;
the red wine squirted from his throat;
the drunk vomited lumps of human flesh.
[ The Odyssey, (chapter Epsilon), by Homer ]
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
[ Macbeth, by William Shakespeare ]
When we have understood about free will, we shall see how silly
it is to ask, as somebody once asked me: 'Why did God make a
creature of such rotten stuff that it went wrong?' The better
stuff a creature is made of -- the cleverer and stronger and freer
it is -- then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the
worse it will be if it goes wrong. A cow cannot be very good or
very bad; a dog can be both better and worse; a child better and
worse still; an ordinary man, still more so; a man of genius,
still more so; a superhuman spirit best -- or worst -- of all.
[ Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis ]
... But he ruled rather by force and fear, if they might
avail; and those who perceived his shadow spreading over the
world called him the Dark Lord and named him the Enemy; and
he gathered again under his government all the evil things of
the days of Morgoth that remained on earth or beneath it,
and the Orcs were at his command and multiplied like flies.
Thus the Black Years began ...
[ The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
Against my foe I hurled a murderous dart.
He caught it in his hand--I heard him laugh--
I saw the thing that should have pierced his heart
Turn to a golden staff.
[ Gifts, by Mary Coleridge ]
The demilich is not, as the name implies, a weaker form of the lich.
Rather, it is the stage into which a lich will eventually evolve as
the power which has sustained its physical form gradually begins to
fail. In most cases, all that remains of a demilich's body are a skull,
some bones, and a pile of dust.
When it has learned all that it feels it can in its undead life, the
lich will continue its quest for power in strange planes unknown to
even the wisest of sages. Since it has no use for its physical body
at this point, the lich leaves it to decay as it should have done
centuries ago.
[ Monstrous Manual, by TSR inc. ]
Demogorgon, the prince of demons, wallows in filth and can
spread a quickly fatal illness to his victims while rending
them. He is a mighty spellcaster, and he can drain the life
of mortals with a touch of his tail.
A terrible deity, whose very name was capable of producing the
most horrible effects. He is first mentioned by the 4th-century
Christian writer, Lactantius, who in doing so broke with the
superstition that the very reference to Demogorgon by name
brought death and disaster.
[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
It is often very hard to discover what any given Demon looks
like, apart from a general impression of large size, huge
fangs, staring eyes, many limbs, and an odd color; but all
accounts agree that Demons are very powerful, very Magic (in
a nonhuman manner), and made of some substance that can squeeze
through a keyhole yet not be pierced with a Sword. This makes
them difficult to deal with, even on the rare occasions when
they are friendly.
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
"Stop moving!" Hermione ordered them. "I know what this is --
it's Devil's Snare!"
"Oh, I'm so glad we know what it's called, that's a great help,"
snarled Ron, leaning back, trying to stop the plant from curling
around his neck.
"Shut up, I'm trying to remember how to kill it!" said Hermione.
"Well, hurry up, I can't breathe!" Harry gasped, wrestling with
it as it curled around his chest.
"Devil's Snare, Devil's Snare . . . what did Professor Sprout
say? -- it likes the dark and the damp --"
"So light a fire!" Harry choked.
"Yes -- of course -- but there's no wood!" Hermione cried,
wringing her hands.
"HAVE YOU GONE MAD?" Ron bellowed. "ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?"
[ Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, by J. K. Rowling ]
The hardest known mineral (with a hardness of 10 on Mohs' scale). It
is an allotropic form of pure carbon that has crystallized in the
cubic system, usually as octahedra or cubes, under great pressure.
[ A Concise Dictionary of Physics ]
The diamond, _adamas_ or _dyamas_, is a transparent stone, like crystal,
but having the colour of polished iron, but it cannot be destroyed by
iron, fire or any other means, unless it is placed in the hot blood
of a goat; with sharp pieces of diamond other stones are engraved and
polished. It is no greater than a small nut. There are six kinds,
however Adamant attracts metal; it expels venom; it produces amber
(and is efficacious against empty fears and for those resisting spells).
It is found in India, in Greece and in Cyprus, where magicians make use
of it. It gives you courage; it averts apparitions; it removes anger and
quarrels; it heals the mad; it defends you from your enemies. It should be
set in gold or silver and worn on the left arm. It is likewise found
in Arabia.
[ The Aberdeen Bestiary, translated by Colin McLaren ]
The most famous and the first to be named of the imaginary
"minerals" of Star Trek is dilithium. ... Because of this
mineral's central role in the storyline, a whole mythology
surrounds it. It is, however, a naturally occurring substance
within the mythology, as there are various episodes that
make reference to the mining of dilithium deposits. ...
This name itself is imaginary and gives no real information on
the structure or make-up of this substance other than that this
version of the name implies a lithium and iron-bearing
aluminosilicate of some sort. That said, the real mineral that
most closely matches the descriptive elements of this name is
ferroholmquistite which is a dilithium triferrodiallosilicate.
If one goes on the premise that nature follows certain general
norms, then one could extrapolate that dilithium might have a
similar number of silicon atoms in its structure.
Keeping seven (i.e. hepto) ferrous irons and balancing the
oxygens would give a theoretical formula of Li2Fe7Al2Si8O27. A
mineral with this composition could theoretically exist, although
it is doubtful that it would possess the more fantastic properties
ascribed to dilithium.
[ The Mineralogy of Star Trek, by Jeffrey de Fourestier ]
A wolflike wild dog, Canis dingo, of Australia, having a
reddish- or yellowish-brown coat, believed to have been
introduced by the aborigines.
[Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language]
Ask not, what your magic can do to it. Ask what it can do to your magic.
>>when you *dream about* the game
>>Not just the "Hey, I'm in Nethack!" dream (haven't we *all*
>>had that one?) but the "sitting at the computer playing" dream.
(...)
>>All of a sudden, a bright green R approached. "Bright green?"
>>thought I. And I threw a couple darts at it:
>> The blessed rustproof +4 dart hits the disintegrator!
>> The blessed rustproof +4 dart disintegrates!
(...)
>> The disintegrator hits! Your cloak crumbles and turns to dust!
>> The disintegrator hits! Your armor turns to dust and
>> falls to the floor!
>>Engrave the E-word?
>> Wield what? b - the blessed +2 Magicbane
>> The disintegrator hits! The blessed +2 Magicbane dissolves!
>> The disintegrator hits! You fall apart!
>> DYWYPI?
>>Then I woke up and thanked Thoth there's no such thing as
>>disintegrators.
>I smell a sadistic YANI. DON'T GIVE THE D*VT**M IDEAS!!!!
Too late. It is killable, though. At least in wizard mode.
[ rec.games.roguelike.nethack,
by kcolrawyksthgin, g33kd00d and Nicholas Aodhagan Webb ]
Dispater is an arch-devil who rules the city of Dis. He is
a powerful mage.
The Roman ruler of the underworld and fortune, similar to the Greek
Hades. Every hundred years, the Ludi Tarentini were celebrated in his
honor. The Gauls regarded Dis Pater as their ancestor.
The name is a contraction of the Latin Dives, "the wealthy", Dives
Pater, "the wealthy father", or "Fater Wealth". It refers to the
wealth of precious stone below the earth.
[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
The djinn are genies from the elemental plane of Air. There,
among their kind, they have their own societies. They are
sometimes encountered on earth and may even be summoned here
to perform some service for powerful wizards. The wizards
often leave them about for later service, safely tucked away
in a flask or lamp. Once in a while, such a tool is found by
a lucky rogue, and some djinn are known to be so grateful
when released that they might grant their rescuer a wish.
A domestic animal, the _tame dog_ (_Canis familiaris_), of
which numerous breeds exist. The male is called a dog,
while the female is called a bitch. Because of its known
loyalty to man and gentleness with children, it is the
world's most popular domestic animal. It can easily be
trained to perform various tasks.
Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
[ The Inferno, from The Divine Comedy of Dante
Alighieri, translated by H.F. Cary ]
"Then we can only give thanks that this is Antarctica, where
there is not one, single, solitary, living thing for it to
imitate, except these animals in camp."
"Us," Blair giggled. "It can imitate us. Dogs can't make four
hundred miles to the sea; there's no food. There aren't any
skua gulls to imitate at this season. There aren't any
penguins this far inland. There's nothing that can reach the
sea from this point - except us. We've got brains. We can do
it. Don't you see - it's got to imitate us - it's got to be one
of us - that's the only way it can fly an airplane - fly a plane
for two hours, and rule - be - all Earth's inhabitants. A world
for the taking - if it imitates us!
[ Who Goes There?, by John W. Campbell ]
Xander: Let go! I have to kill the demon bot!
Xander Double (grabbing the gun): Anya, get out of the way.
Buffy: Xander!
Xander Double: That's all right, Buffy. I have him.
Xander: No, Buffy, I'm me. Help me!
Anya: My gun, he's got my gun.
Riley: You own a gun?
Buffy: Xander, gun holding Xander, give it to me.
Anya: Buffy, which one's real?
Xander: I am.
Xander Double: No, _I_ am.
[ Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Episode 5.03, "The Replacement" ]
In the West the dragon was the natural enemy of man. Although
preferring to live in bleak and desolate regions, whenever it
was seen among men it left in its wake a trail of destruction
and disease. Yet any attempt to slay this beast was a perilous
undertaking. For the dragon's assailant had to contend
not only with clouds of sulphurous fumes pouring from its fire
breathing nostrils, but also with the thrashings of its tail,
the most deadly part of its serpent-like body.
[ Mythical Beasts by Deirdre Headon (The Leprechaun Library) ]
"One whom the dragons will speak with," he said, "that is a
dragonlord, or at least that is the center of the matter. It's
not a trick of mastering the dragons, as most people think.
Dragons have no masters. The question is always the same, with
a dragon: will he talk to you or will he eat you? If you can
count upon his doing the former, and not doing the latter, why
then you're a dragonlord."
[ The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula K. Le Guin ]
Many travelers have seen the drums of the great apes, and
some have heard the sounds of their beating and the noise of
the wild, weird revelry of these first lords of the jungle,
but Tarzan, Lord Greystoke, is, doubtless, the only human
being who ever joined in the fierce, mad, intoxicating revel
of the Dum-Dum.
[ Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs ]
At once as far as Angels kenn he views
The dismal Situation waste and wilde,
A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Serv'd only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery Deluge, fed
With ever-burning Sulphur unconsum'd:
Such place Eternal Justice had prepar'd
For those rebellious, here their Prison ordain'd
In utter darkness, and their portion set
As far remov'd from God and light of Heav'n
As from the Center thrice to th' utmost Pole.
[ Paradise Lost, by John Milton ]
Dwarfs have faces like men (ugly men, with wrinkled, leathery
skins), but are generally either flat-footed, duck-footed, or
have feet pointing backwards. They are of the earth, earthy,
living in the darkest of caverns and venturing forth only
with the cloaks by which they can make themselves invisible,
and others disguised as toads. Miners often come across them,
and sometimes establish reasonably close relations with them.
... The miners of Cornwall were always delighted to hear a
bucca busily mining away, for all dwarfs have an infallible
nose for precious metals.
Among other things, dwarfs are rightly valued for their skill
as blacksmiths and jewellers: they made Odin his famous spear
Gungnir, and Thor his hammer; for Freya they designed a
magnificent necklace, and for Frey a golden boar. And in their
spare time they are excellent bakers. Ironically, despite
their odd feet, they are particularly fond of dancing. They
can also see into the future, and consequently are excellent
meteorologists. They can be free with presents to people
they like, and a dwarvish gift is likely to turn to gold in
the hand. But on the whole they are a snappish lot.
[ The Immortals, by Derek and Julia Parker ]
In after days, when because of the triumph of Morgoth Elves and
Men became estranged, as he most wished, those of the Elven-race
that lived still in Middle-earth waned and faded, and Men usurped
the sunlight. Then the Quendi wandered in the lonely places of the
great lands and the isles, and took to the moonlight and the
starlight, and to the woods and the caves, becoming as shadows
and memories, save those who ever and anon set sail into the West
and vanished from Middle-earth. But in the dawn of years Elves
and Men were allies and held themselves akin, and there were some
among Men that learned the wisdom of the Eldar, and became great
and valiant among the captains of the Noldor. And in the glory
and beauty of the Elves, and in their fate, full share had the
offspring of elf and mortal, Earendil, and Elwing, and Elrond
their child.
[ The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
Mostly Harmless.
[ Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams ]
The behaviour of eels in fresh water extends the air of
mystery surrounding them. They move freely into muddy, silty
bottoms of lakes, lying buried in the daylight hours in summer.
[...] Eels are voracious carnivores, feeding mainly at
night and consuming a wide variety of fishes and invertebrate
creatures. Contrary to earlier thinking, eels seek living
rather than dead creatures and are not habitual eaters of
carrion.
[ Freshwater Fishes of Canada, by Scott and Crossman ]
But I asked why not keep it and let the hen sit on it till it
hatched, and then we could see what would come out of it.
"Nothing good, I'm certain of that," Mom said. "It would
probably be something horrible. But just remember, if it's a
crocodile or a dragon or something like that, I won't have it
in my house for one minute."
[ The Enormous Egg, by Oliver Butterworth ]
... Even as they stepped over the threshold a single clear
voice rose in song.
A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
silivren penna miriel
o menel aglar elenath!
Na-chaered palan-diriel
o galadhremmin ennorath,
Fanuilos, le linnathon
nef aear, si nef aearon!
Frodo halted for a moment, looking back. Elrond was in his
chair and the fire was on his face like summer-light upon the
trees. Near him sat the Lady Arwen. [...]
He stood still enchanted, while the sweet syllables of the
elvish song fell like clear jewels of blended word and melody.
"It is a song to Elbereth," said Bilbo. "They will sing that,
and other songs of the Blessed Realm, many times tonight.
Come on!"
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
South-American fish (_Gymnotus electricus_), living in fresh
water. Shaped like a serpent, it can grow up to 2 metres.
This eel is known for its electrical organ which enables it
to paralyse creatures up to the size of a horse.
[ Van Dale's Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal ]
Elementals are manifestations of the basic nature of the
universe. There are four known forms of elementals: air, fire,
water, and earth. Some mystics have postulated the necessity
for a fifth type, the spirit elemental, but none have ever
been encountered, at least on this plane of existence.
The Elves sat round the fire upon the grass or upon the sawn
rings of old trunks. Some went to and fro bearing cups and
pouring drinks; others brought food on heaped plates and
dishes.
"This is poor fare," they said to the hobbits; "for we are
lodging in the greenwood far from our halls. If ever you are
our guests at home, we will treat you better."
"It seems to me good enough for a birthday-party," said Frodo.
Pippin afterwards recalled little of either food or drink, for
his mind was filled with the light upon the elf-faces, and the
sound of voices so various and so beautiful that he felt in a
waking dream. [...]
Sam could never describe in words, nor picture clearly to
himself, what he felt or thought that night, though it remained
in his memory as one of the chief events of his life. The
nearest he ever got was to say: "Well, sir, if I could grow
apples like that, I would call myself a gardener. But it was
the singing that went to my heart, if you know what I mean."
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
The Elves next unwrapped and gave to each of the Company the
clothes they had brought. For each they had provided a hood
and cloak, made according to his size, of the light but warm
silken stuff that the Galadrim wove. It was hard to say of
what colour they were: grey with the hue of twilight under
the trees they seemed to be; and yet if they were moved, or
set in another light, they were green as shadowed leaves, or
brown as fallow fields by night, dusk-silver as water under
the stars.
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
'Put off that mask of burning gold
With emerald eyes.'
'O no, my dear, you make so bold
To find if hearts be wild and wise,
And yet not cold.'
'I would but find what's there to find,
Love or deceit.'
'It was the mask engaged your mind,
And after set your heart to beat,
Not what's behind.'
'But lest you are my enemy,
I must enquire.'
'O no, my dear, let all that be;
What matter, so there is but fire
In you, in me?'
[ The Mask, by W.B. Yeats ]
Presently we reached a place where the beach narrowed; the sea
almost came up to the foot of the cliffs, leaving a passage no
wider than a couple of yards. Between two projecting rocks we
caught sight of the entrance to a dark tunnel.
There, on a slab of granite, appeared two mysterious letters, half
eaten away by time - the two initials of the bold, adventurous
traveller:
A.S.
'A.S.,' cried my uncle. 'Arne Saknussemm! Arne Saknussemm again!'
[...] at the sight of those two letters, carved there three hundred
years before, I stood in utter stupefication. Not only was the
signature of the learned alchemist legible on the rock, but I
held in my hand the dagger which had traced it. Without showing
the most appaling bad faith, I could no longer doubt the existence
of the traveller and the reality of his journey.
[ Journey to the Centre of the Earth, by Jules Verne,
translated by Robert Baldick ]
These female-seeming devils named after the Furies of mythology
attack hand to hand and poison their unwary victims as well.
The two-headed giant, or ettin, is a vicious and unpredictable
hunter that stalks by night and eats any meat it can catch.
Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye,
neither desire thou his dainty meats.
[ Proverbs, 23:6 ]
At first only its tip was visible, but then it rose, straight,
proud, all that was noble and great and wondrous. The tip of
the blade pointed toward the moon, as if it would cleave it
in two. The blade itself gleamed like a beacon in the night.
There was no light source for the sword to be reflecting
from, for the moon had darted behind a cloud in fear. The
sword was glowing from the intensity of its strength and
power and knowledge that it was justice incarnate, and that
after a slumber of uncounted years its time had again come.
After the blade broke the surface, the hilt was visible, and
holding the sword was a single strong, yet feminine hand,
wearing several rings that bore jewels sparkling with the
blue-green color of the ocean.
[ Knight Life, by Peter David ]
Executioners like to immediately execute adventurers who get
trapped in their icy lairs. Challenging them in direct
hand-to-hand combat would be headlessly stupid.
'Executioners execute!'
[ Adeon ]
There was a time when Rincewind had quite liked the iconoscope.
He believed, against all experience, that the world was
fundamentally understandable, and that if he could only equip
himself with the right mental toolbox he could take the back off
and see how it worked. He was, of course, dead wrong. The
iconoscope didn't take pictures by letting light fall onto
specially treated paper, as he had surmised, but by the far
simpler method of imprisoning a small demon with a good eye for
colour and a speedy hand with a paintbrush. He had been very
upset to find that out.
[ The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett ]
This is a powerful amulet of ESP. In addition to its standard
powers, it regenerates the energy of anyone who carries
it, allowing them to cast spells more often. It also reduces
any spell damage to the person who carries it by half, and
protects from magic missiles. Finally, when invoked it has
the power to instantly open a portal to any other area of the
dungeon, allowing its invoker to travel quickly between
areas.
... and finally there is "the Eyes of the Overworld". This
obscure artifact pushes the wearer's view sense into the
"overworld" -- another name for a segment of the Astral Plane.
Usually, there is nothing to be seen. However, the wearer
is also able to look back and see the area around herself,
much like looking on a map. Why anyone would want to ...
This weapon is a development of the scythe or sickle. Set
upon a long pole, the curving blade of a fauchard can be
used for both cutting and thrusting. The weapon offers little
in the way of parrying or catching/holding and has no provision
for dismounting opponents, though it is quite useful for crippling
their mounts.
These dreadful weeds have been driven to extinction on the
surface, yet deep within the dark and damp of the dungeon
they still flourish. When it detects the motion of nearby
creatures, the dungeon fern releases a deadly, poisonous
spore, which quickly detonates to propagate the species.
Residents of the dungeon have learned how not to disturb
the dungeon fern, and will attack its spores on sight to
keep them from overtaking their home.
More than one variety of this plant is known to exist.
Then it appeared in Paris at just about the time that Paris
was full of Carlists who had to get out of Spain. One of
them must have brought it with him, but, whoever he was, it's
likely he knew nothing about its real value. It had been --
no doubt as a precaution during the Carlist trouble in Spain
-- painted or enameled over to look like nothing more than a
fairly interesting black statuette. And in that disguise,
sir, it was, you might say, kicked around Paris for seventy
years by private owners and dealers too stupid to see what
it was under the skin.
[ The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett ]
'Let him be for a while,' said Cohen. 'I reckon the fish disagreed
with him.'
'Don't see why,' said Truckle. 'I pulled him out before it'd hardly
chewed him. And he must've dried out nicely in that corridor. You know,
the one where the flames shot up out of the floor unexpectedly.'
'I reckon our bard wasn't expecting flames to shoot out of the floor
unexpectedly,' said Cohen.
Truckle shrugged theatrically. '_Well_, if you're not going to expect
unexpected flames, what's the point of going _anywhere_?'
[ The Last Hero, by Terry Pratchett ]
One of a pair of legendary swords that possess the powers of elemental
flame and ice, and will grant these to whoever is fortunate enough
to wield them.
Floating eyes, not surprisingly, are large, floating eyeballs
which drift about the dungeon. Though not dangerous in and
of themselves, their power to paralyse those who gaze at
their large eye in combat is widely feared. Many are the
tales of those who struck a floating eye, were paralysed by
its mystic powers, and then nibbled to death by some other
creature that lurked around nearby.
With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected
the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark
of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was
already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against
the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the
glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow
eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive
motion agitated its limbs.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how
delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I
had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I
had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!--Great God!
His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and
arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and
flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances
only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that
seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in
which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight
black lips.
[ Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ]
An emerald is as green as grass;
A ruby red as blood;
A sapphire shines as blue as heaven;
A flint lies in the mud.
A diamond is a brilliant stone,
To catch the world's desire;
An opal holds a fiery spark;
But a flint holds all the fire.
[ Precious Stones, by Christina Giorgina Rossetti ]
With this thou canst do mighty deeds
And change men's passions for thy needs:
A man's despair with joy allay,
Turn bachelors old to lovers gay.
[ The Magic Flute, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ]
There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. Its knack lies
in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Clearly,
it is this second part, the missing, that provides the difficulties.
[ Life, the Universe and Everything, by Douglas Adams ]
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
[ Fog, by Carl Sandburg ]
The little girl stood on tip-toe and picked one of the nicest and
biggest lunch-boxes, and then she sat down upon the ground and eagerly
opened it. Inside she found, nicely wrapped in white papers, a ham
sandwich, a piece of sponge-cake, a pickle, a slice of new cheese and
an apple. Each thing had a separate stem, and so had to be picked off
the side of the box; but Dorothy found them all to be delicious, and
she ate every bit of luncheon in the box before she had finished.
[ Ozma of Oz, by L. Frank Baum ]
Rest! This little Fountain runs
Thus for aye: -- It never stays
For the look of summer suns,
Nor the cold of winter days.
Whose'er shall wander near,
When the Syrian heat is worst,
Let him hither come, nor fear
Lest he may not slake his thirst:
He will find this little river
Running still, as bright as ever.
Let him drink, and onward hie,
Bearing but in thought, that I,
Erotas, bade the Naiad fall,
And thank the great god Pan for all!
[ For a Fountain, by Bryan Waller Procter ]
One hot summer's day a Fox was strolling through an orchard
till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine
which had been trained over a lofty branch. "Just the thing
to quench my thirst," quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he
took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning
round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with
no greater success. Again and again he tried after the
tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked
away with his nose in the air, saying: "I am sure they are
sour."
[ Aesop's Fables ]
Fungi, division of simple plants that lack chlorophyll, true
stems, roots, and leaves. Unlike algae, fungi cannot
photosynthesize, and live as parasites or saprophytes. The
division comprises the slime molds and true fungi. True
fungi are multicellular (with the exception of yeasts); the
body of most true fungi consists of slender cottony
filaments, or hyphae. All fungi are capable of asexual
reproduction by cell division, budding, fragmentation, or
spores. Those that reproduce sexually alternate a sexual
generation (gametophyte) with a spore-producing one. The
four classes of true fungi are the algaelike fungi (e.g.,
black bread mold and downy mildew), sac fungi (e.g., yeasts,
powdery mildews, truffles, and blue and green molds such as
Penicillium), basidium fungi (e.g., mushrooms and puffballs)
and imperfect fungi (e.g., species that cause athlete's foot
and ringworm). Fungi help decompose organic matter (important
in soil renewal); are valuable as a source of antibiotics,
vitamins, and various chemicals; and for their role in
fermentation, e.g., in bread and alcoholic beverage
production.
[ The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia ]
And so it came to pass that while Man ruled on Earth, the
gargoyles waited, lurking, hidden from the light. Reborn
every 600 years in Man's reckoning of time, the gargoyles
joined battle against Man to gain dominion over the Earth.
In each coming, the gargoyles were nearly destroyed by Men
who flourished in greater numbers. Now it has been so many
hundreds of years that it seems the ancient statues and
paintings of gargoyles are just products of Man's
imagination. In this year, with Man's thoughts turned toward
the many ills he has brought among himself, Man has forgotten
his most ancient adversary, the gargoyles.
[ Excerpt from the opening narration to the movie
_Gargoyles_, written by Stephen and Elinor Karpf ]
1 November - All day long we have travelled, and at a good
speed. The horses seem to know that they are being kindly
treated, for they go willingly their full stage at best
speed. We have now had so many changes and find the same
thing so constantly that we are encouraged to think that the
journey will be an easy one. Dr. Van Helsing is laconic, he
tells the farmers that he is hurrying to Bistritz, and pays
them well to make the exchange of horses. We get hot soup,
or coffee, or tea, and off we go. It is a lovely country.
Full of beauties of all imaginable kinds, and the people are
brave, and strong, and simple, and seem full of nice
qualities. They are very, very superstitious. In the first
house where we stopped, when the woman who served us saw the
scar on my forehead, she crossed herself and put out two
fingers towards me, to keep off the evil eye. I believe they
went to the trouble of putting an extra amount of garlic into
our food, and I can't abide garlic. Ever since then I have
taken care not to take off my hat or veil, and so have
escaped their suspicions.
[ Dracula, by Bram Stoker ]
"Place of Torment." The Valley of Hinnom, south-west of Jerusalem,
where Solomon, king of Israel, built "a high place", or place of
worship, for the gods Chemosh and Moloch. The valley came to be
regarded as a place of abomination because some of the Israelites
sacrificed their children to Moloch there. In a later period it
was made a refuse dump and perpetual fires were maintained there
to prevent pestilence. Thus, in the New Testament, Gehenna became
synonymous with hell.
[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
"The difference between false memories and true ones is the same
as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real,
the most brilliant."
[ Salvador Dali ]
A word invented by Professor Raphael Lemkin of Duke University,
U.S.A., and used in the drafting of the official indictment of war
criminals in 1945. It is a combination of Gr. _genos_, race; and
Lat. _caedere_, to kill. It is defined as acts intended to destroy,
in whole or in part, national, ethnical, racial, or religious
groups, and in 1948 was declared by the United Nations General
Assembly to be a crime of international law.
[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
Geryon is an arch-devil sometimes called the Wild Beast,
attacking with his claws and poison sting. His ranking in
Hell is rumored to be quite low.
Forthwith that image vile of fraud appear'd,
His head and upper part expos'd on land,
But laid not on the shore his bestial train.
His face the semblance of a just man's wore,
So kind and gracious was its outward cheer;
The rest was serpent all: two shaggy claws
Reach'd to the armpits, and the back and breast,
And either side, were painted o'er with nodes
And orbits. Colours variegated more
Nor Turks nor Tartars e'er on cloth of state
With interchangeable embroidery wove,
Nor spread Arachne o'er her curious loom.
As ofttimes a light skiff, moor'd to the shore,
Stands part in water, part upon the land;
Or, as where dwells the greedy German boor,
The beaver settles watching for his prey;
So on the rim, that fenc'd the sand with rock,
Sat perch'd the fiend of evil. In the void
Glancing, his tail upturn'd its venomous fork,
With sting like scorpion's arm'd. Then thus my guide:
"Now need our way must turn few steps apart,
Far as to that ill beast, who couches there."
[ The Inferno, from The Divine Comedy of Dante
Alighieri, translated by H.F. Cary ]
And now the souls of the dead who had gone below came swarming
up from Erebus -- fresh brides, unmarried youths, old men
with life's long suffering behind them, tender young girls
still nursing this first anguish in their hearts, and a great
throng of warriors killed in battle, their spear-wounds gaping
yet and all their armour stained with blood. From this
multitude of souls, as they fluttered to and fro by the
trench, there came a moaning that was horrible to hear.
Panic drained the blood from my cheeks.
[ The Odyssey, (chapter Lambda), by Homer ]
The forces of the gloom know each other, and are strangely
balanced by each other. Teeth and claws fear what they cannot
grasp. Blood-drinking bestiality, voracious appetites, hunger
in search of prey, the armed instincts of nails and jaws which
have for source and aim the belly, glare and smell out
uneasily the impassive spectral forms straying beneath a
shroud, erect in its vague and shuddering robe, and which seem
to them to live with a dead and terrible life. These
brutalities, which are only matter, entertain a confused fear
of having to deal with the immense obscurity condensed into an
unknown being. A black figure barring the way stops the wild
beast short. That which emerges from the cemetery intimidates
and disconcerts that which emerges from the cave; the
ferocious fear the sinister; wolves recoil when they encounter
a ghoul.
[ Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo ]
Giants have always walked the earth, though they are rare in
these times. They range in size from little over nine feet
to a towering twenty feet or more. The larger ones use huge
boulders as weapons, hurling them over large distances. All
types of giants share a love for men - roasted, boiled, or
fried. Their table manners are legendary.
He traveled over high hills, and on the third day he came to a
large and spacious forest through which his road lay. Scarcely
had he entered the forest when he beheld a monstrous giant
dragging along by the hair of their heads a handsome knight
and his lady. Jack alighted from his horse, and tying him to an
oak tree, put on his invisible coat, under which he carried his
sword of sharpness.
When he came up to the giant he made several strokes at him, but
could not reach his body, but wounded his thighs in several places;
and at length, putting both hands to his sword and aiming with all
his might, he cut off both his legs. Then Jack, setting his foot
upon his neck, plunged his sword into the giant's body, when the
monster gave a groan and expired.
[ The History of Jack the Giant-Killer,
from The Blue Fairy Book, ed. Andrew Lang ]
The glass golem is very nearly a work of art. Built in the form of
a stained glass knight, the creature is often built into a window
fashioned from such glass. Thus, it usually acts as the guardian of
a given location -- often a church or shrine.
Glass golems, like most others, never speak or communicate in any
way. When they move, however, they are said to produce a tinkling
sound like that made by delicate crystal wind chimes. If moving
through a lighted area, they strobe and flicker as the light
striking them is broken into its component hues.
[ Monstrous Manual, by TSR inc. ]
The glaive is a knife-bladed spear. It has the thrusting
function of the spear, and the secondary cutting function of
the convex blade of the knife. The weapon was rapidly enlarged
in the blade in order to give it a greater cutting function as
well as a cleaving attack. As with a spear or fauchard, however,
it is not overly effective at holding opponents back, nor does
it have the piercing or dismounting capabilities.
... And then a gnome came by, carrying a bundle, an old
fellow three times as large as an imp and wearing clothes of
a sort, especially a hat. And he was clearly just as frightened
as the imps though he could not go so fast. Ramon Alonzo
saw that there must be some great trouble that was vexing
magical things; and, since gnomes speak the language of men, and
will answer if spoken to gently, he raised his hat, and asked
of the gnome his name. The gnome did not stop his hasty
shuffle a moment as he answered 'Alaraba' and grabbed the rim
of his hat but forgot to doff it.
'What is the trouble, Alaraba?' said Ramon Alonzo.
'White magic. Run!' said the gnome ..
[ The Charwoman's Shadow, by Lord Dunsany ]
"Muggles have garden gnomes, too, you know," Harry told Ron as
they crossed the lawn.
"Yeah, I've seen those things they think are gnomes," said Ron,
bent double with his head in a peony bush, "like fat little
Santa Clauses with fishing rods..."
There was a violent scuffling noise, the peony bush shuddered,
and Ron straightened up. "This is a gnome," he said grimly.
"Geroff me! Gerroff me!" squealed the gnome.
It was certainly nothing like Santa Claus. It was small and
leathery looking, with a large, knobby, bald head exactly like
a potato. Ron held it at arm's length as it kicked out at him
with its horny little feet; he grasped it around the ankles
and turned it upside down.
[ Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J. K. Rowling ]
Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make
no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. They
can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled
dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are usually
untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes,
tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well,
or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and
slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and
light.
[ The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
Goddesses and Gods operate in ones, threesomes, or whole
pantheons of nine or more (see Religion). Most of them claim
to have made the world, and this is indeed a likely claim in
the case of threesomes or pantheons: Fantasyland does have
the air of having been made by a committee. But all Goddesses
and Gods, whether they say they made the world or not, have
very detailed short-term plans for it which they are determined
to carry out. Consequently they tend to push people into the
required actions by the use of coincidence or Prophecy, or just
by narrowing down your available choices of what to do next:
if a deity is pushing you, things will go miserably badly until
there is only one choice left to you.
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
A metal of characteristic yellow colour, the most precious
metal used as a common commercial medium of exchange. Symbol,
Au; at. no. 79; at. wt. 197.2. It is the most malleable
and ductile of all metals, and very heavy (sp. gr., 19.3).
It is quite unalterable by heat, moisture, and most
corrosive agents, and therefore well suited for its use in
coin and jewelry.
[ Webster's New International Dictionary
of the English Language, Second Edition ]
The bellows he set away from the fire, and gathered all the tools
wherewith he wrought into a silver chest; and with a sponge wiped
he his face and his two hands withal, and his mighty neck and
shaggy breast, and put upon him a tunic, and grasped a stout staff,
and went forth halting; but there moved swiftly to support their
lord handmaidens wrought of gold in the semblance of living maids.
In them is understanding in their hearts, and in them speech and
strength, and they know cunning handiwork by gift of the immortal
gods.
[ The Iliad, by Homer ]
"The original story harks back, so they say, to the sixteenth
century. Using long-lost formulas from the Kabbala, a rabbi is
said to have made an artificial man -- the so-called Golem -- to
help ring the bells in the Synagogue and for all kinds of other
menial work.
"But he hadn't made a full man, and it was animated by some sort
of vegetable half-life. What life it had, too, so the story
runs, was only derived from the magic charm placed behind its
teeth each day, that drew down to itself what was known as the
`free sidereal strength of the universe.'
"One evening, before evening prayers, the rabbi forgot to take
the charm out of the Golem's mouth, and it fell into a frenzy.
It raged through the dark streets, smashing everything in its
path, until the rabbi caught up with it, removed the charm, and
destroyed it. Then the Golem collapsed, lifeless. All that was
left of it was a small clay image, which you can still see in
the Old Synagogue." ...
[ The Golem, by Gustav Meyrink ]
"Who'd care to dig 'em," said the old, old man,
"Those six feet marked in chalk?
Much I talk, more I walk;
Time I were buried," said the old, old man.
[ Three Songs to the Same Tune, by W.B. Yeats ]
Why had I been wearing Grayswandir? Would another weapon have
affected a Logrus-ghost as strongly? Had it really been my
father, then, who had brought me here? And had he felt I might
need the extra edge his weapon could provide? I wanted to
think so, to believe that he had been more than a Pattern-ghost.
[ Knight of Shadows, by Roger Zelazny ]
ANOINT, v.t. To grease a king or other great functionary
already sufficiently slippery.
[ The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce ]
The gremlin is a highly intelligent and completely evil
creature. It lives to torment other creatures and will go
to great lengths to inflict pain or cause injury.
Suddenly, Wilson thought about war, about the newspaper
stories which recounted the alleged existence of creatures in
the sky who plagued the Allied pilots in their duties. They
called them gremlins, he remembered. Were there, actually,
such beings? Did they, truly, exist up here, never falling,
riding on the wind, apparently of bulk and weight, yet
impervious to gravity?
He was thinking that when the man appeared again.
[ Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, by Richard Matheson ]
Grey elves have either silver hair and amber eyes, or pale
golden hair and violet eyes (the violet-eyed ones are known as
faerie elves). They favor bright garments of white, gold, silver,
or yellow, and wear cloaks of deep blue or purple. Grey elves are
the rarest of elves, and they have little to do with the world
outside their forests. They value intelligence very highly, and,
unlike other elves, devote much time to study and contemplation.
Their treatises on nature are astounding.
[ Monstrous Manual, by TSR inc. ]
These electronically based creatures are not native to this
universe. They appear to come from a world whose laws of
motion are radically different from ours.
Tron looked to his mate and pilot. "I'm going to check on
the beam connection, Yori. You two can keep a watch out for
grid bugs." Tron paced forward along the slender catwalk
that still seemed awfully insubstantial to Flynn, though he
knew it to be amazingly sturdy. He gazed after Tron, asking
himself what in the world a grid bug was, and hoping that the
beam connection -- to which he'd given no thought whatsoever
until this moment -- was healthy and sound."
[ Tron, novel by Brian Daley, story by Steven Lisberger ]
Despite its crude appearance and laughable reputation, this
dagger should by no means be underestimated. Its uneven edge
is permanently poisoned, doing great -- and often instantly
fatal -- damage against foes not immune to its effects.
Grimtooth has a natural affinity with orcs everywhere.
The samurai's last meal before battle. It was usually made
up of cooked chestnuts, dried seaweed, and sake.
Hachi was a dog that went with his master, a professor, to
the Shibuya train station every morning. In the afternoon,
when his master was to return from work Hachi would be there
waiting. One day his master died at the office, and did not
return. For over ten years Hachi returned to the station
every afternoon to wait for his master. When Hachi died a
statue was erected on the station platform in his honor. It
is said to bring you luck if you touch his statue.
A triangular stringed instrument, often Magic. Even when not
Magic, a Harp is surprisingly portable and tough and can be
carried everywhere on the back of the Bard or Harper in all
weathers. A Harp seldom goes out of tune and never warps.
Its strings break only in very rare instances, usually
because the Harper is sulking or crossed in love. This is
just as well as no one seems to make or sell spare strings.
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
After breakfast was over, the ogre called out: "Wife, wife,
bring me my golden harp." So she brought it and put it on
the table before him. Then he said: "Sing!" and the golden
harp sang most beautifully. And it went on singing till the
ogre fell asleep, and commenced to snore like thunder.
Then Jack lifted up the copper-lid very quietly and got down
like a mouse and crept on hands and knees till he came to the
table, when up he crawled, caught hold of the golden harp and
dashed with it towards the door. But the harp called out
quite loud: "Master! Master!" and the ogre woke up just in
time to see Jack running off with his harp.
[ Jack and the Beanstalk, from English Fairy Tales,
by Joseph Jacobs ]
This form of a pole axe is seen as a convex-headed broad axe
in early examples, but the head is set at a convenient angle,
considering the point where the blade is most likely to impact
upon an enemy. This alone makes it quite distinct from an
ordinary long-hafted axe. The whole weapon reaches 8 feet in length,
and is nearly always topped with a long spear point and backed by
a spike, which was often angled or hooked slightly downward.
The spear point is, of course, designed to keep opponents at bay
and deliver a thrusting attack (this proves quite useless when
opposing mounted knights armed with lances). The opposing spike was
for penetration of heavy plate armor, with a secondary function as a
hook for dismounting opponents.
'One of the things he can't do, he can't ride a horse,' he said.
Then he stiffened as if sandbagged by a sudden recollection,
gave a small yelp of terror and dashed into the gloom. When he
returned, the being called Twoflower was hanging limply over his
shoulder. It was small and skinny, and dressed very oddly in a
pair of knee-length britches and a shirt in such a violent and
vivid conflict of colours that the Weasel's fastidious eye was
offended even in the half-light.
[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius, and Health,
and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according
to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this
stipulation -- to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear
to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve
his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the
same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if
they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and
that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction,
I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those
of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath
according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will
follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and
judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain
from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. [...]
[ Hippocrates' Oath, translated by Francis Adams ]
PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our
dogs when well.
[ The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce ]
The other three drew in their breath sharply, and the dark,
powerful man who stood at the head of the sarcophagus whispered:
"The Heart of Ahriman!" The other lifted a quick hand
for silence. Somewhere a dog began howling dolefully, and a
stealthy step padded outside the barred and bolted door. ...
But none looked aside from the mummy case over which the man
in the ermine-trimmed robe was now moving the great flaming
jewel, while he muttered an incantation that was old when
Atlantis sank. The glare of the gem dazzled their eyes, so
that they could not be sure what they saw; but with a
splintering crash, the carven lid of the sarcophagus burst
outward as if from some irresistible pressure applied from
within and the four men, bending eagerly forward, saw the
occupant -- a huddled, withered, wizened shape, with dried
brown limbs like dead wood showing through moldering bandages.
"Bring that thing back?" muttered the small dark man who
stood on the right, with a short, sardonic laugh. "It is
ready to crumble at a touch. We are fools ---"
[ Conan The Conqueror, by Robert E. Howard ]
Hell hounds are fire-breathing canines from another plane of
existence brought here in the service of evil beings. A hell
hound resembles a large hound with rust-red or red-brown fur,
and red, glowing eyes. The markings, teeth, and tongue are
soot black. It stands two to three feet high at the shoulder
and has a distinct odour of smoke and sulphur. The baying
sounds it makes have an eerie, hollow tone that sends a shiver
through any who hear them.
But suddenly they started forward in a rigid, fixed stare, and his
lips parted in amazement. At the same instant Lestrade gave a yell
of terror and threw himself face downward upon the ground. I sprang
to my feet, my inert hand grasping my pistol, my mind paralyzed by
the dreadful shape which had sprung out upon us from the shadows of
the fog. A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not
such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its
open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle
and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame. Never
in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more
savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived than that dark
form and savage face which broke upon us out of the wall of fog.
[ The Hound of the Baskervilles,
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. ]
Messenger and herald of the Olympians. Being required to do
a great deal of travelling and speaking in public, he became
the god of eloquence, travellers, merchants, and thieves. He
was one of the most energetic of the Greek gods, a
Machiavellian character full of trickery and sexual vigour.
Like other Greek gods, he is endowed with not-inconsiderable
sexual prowess which he directs towards countryside nymphs.
He is a god of boundaries, guardian of graves and patron deity
of shepherds. He is usually depicted as a handsome young
man wearing winged golden sandals and holding a magical
herald's staff consisting of intertwined serpents, the
kerykeion. He is reputedly the only being able to find his way
to the underworld ferry of Charon and back again. He is said
to have invented, among other things, the lyre, Pan's Pipes,
numbers, the alphabet, weights and measures, and sacrificing.
"Hezrou" is the common name for the type II demon. It is
among the weaker of demons, but still quite formidable.
Greek physician, recognized as the father of medicine. He
is believed to have been born on the island of Cos, to have
studied under his father, a physician, to have traveled for
some time, perhaps studying in Athens, and to have then
returned to practice, teach, and write at Cos. The
Hippocratic or Coan school that formed around him was of
enormous importance in separating medicine from superstition
and philosophic speculation, placing it on a strictly
scientific plane based on objective observation and critical
deductive reasoning.
[ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ]
Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more
numerous formerly than they are today; for they love peace
and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-
farmed countryside was their favourite haunt. They do not
and did not understand or like machines more complicated
than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a handloom, although
they were skillful with tools. Even in ancient days they
were, as a rule, shy of "the Big Folk", as they call us, and
now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find.
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
Hobgoblin. Used by the Puritans and in later times for
wicked goblin spirits, as in Bunyan's "Hobgoblin nor foul
friend", but its more correct use is for the friendly spirits
of the brownie type. In "A midsummer night's dream" a
fairy says to Shakespeare's Puck:
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
Are you not he?
and obviously Puck would not wish to be called a hobgoblin
if that was an ill-omened word.
Hobgoblins are on the whole, good-humoured and ready to be
helpful, but fond of practical joking, and like most of the
fairies rather nasty people to annoy. Boggarts hover on the
verge of hobgoblindom. Bogles are just over the edge.
One Hob mentioned by Henderson, was Hob Headless who haunted
the road between Hurworth and Neasham, but could not cross
the little river Kent, which flowed into the Tess. He was
exorcised and laid under a large stone by the roadside for
ninety-nine years and a day. If anyone was so unwary as to
sit on that stone, he would be unable to quit it for ever.
The ninety-nine years is nearly up, so trouble may soon be
heard of on the road between Hurworth and Neasham.
[ A Dictionary of Fairies, by Katharine Briggs ]
"We want a word with you," said Ligur (in a tone of voice
intended to imply that "word" was synonymous with "horrifically
painful eternity"), and the squat demon pushed open the office
door.
The bucket teetered, then fell neatly on Ligur's head.
Drop a lump of sodium in water. Watch it flame and burn and
spin around crazily, flaring and sputtering. This was like
that, just nastier.
The demon peeled and flared and flickered. Oily brown smoke
oozed from it, and it screamed and it screamed and it screamed.
Then it crumpled, folded in on itself, and what was left lay
glistening on the burnt and blackened circle of carpet, looking
like a handful of mashed slugs.
"Hi," said Crowley to Hastur, who had been walking behind Ligur,
and had unfortunately not been so much as splashed.
There are some things that are unthinkable; there are some
depths that not even demons would believe other demons would
stoop to.
". . . Holy water. You bastard," said Hastur. "You complete
_bastard_. He hadn't never done nothing to _you_."
"Yet," corrected Crowley.
[ Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett ]
A homunculus is a creature summoned by a mage to perform some
particular task. They are particularly good at spying. They
are smallish creatures, but very agile. They can put their
victims to sleep with a venomous bite, but due to their size,
the effect does not last long on humans.
"Tothapis cut him off. 'Be still and hearken. You will travel
aboard the sacred wingboat. Of it you may not have heard; but
it will bear you thither in a night and a day and a night.
With you will go a homunculus that can relay your words to me,
and mine to you, across the leagues between at the speed of
thought.'"
[ Conan the Rebel, by Poul Anderson ]
But as for Queequeg -- why, Queequeg sat there among them --
at the head of the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an
icicle. To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding. His
greatest admirer could not have cordially justified his
bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him, and using it
there without ceremony; reaching over the table with it, to
the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the
beefsteaks towards him.
[ Moby Dick, by Herman Melville ]
Roland hath set the Olifant to his mouth,
He grasps it well, and with great virtue sounds.
High are those peaks, afar it rings and loud,
Thirty great leagues they hear its echoes mount.
So Charles heard, and all his comrades round;
Then said that King: "Battle they do, our counts!"
And Guenelun answered, contrarious:
"That were a lie, in any other mouth."
[ The Song of Roland ]
... The infant Zeus was fed with goat's milk by Amalthea,
daughter of Melisseus, King of Crete. Zeus, in gratitude,
broke off one of the goat's horns, and gave it to Amalthea,
promising that the possessor should always have in abundance
everything desired.
[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
... When Amalthea's horn
O'er hill and dale the rose-crowned flora pours,
And scatters corn and wine, and fruits and flowers.
[ Os Lusiadas, by Luis Vaz de Camoes ]
Horned devils lack any real special abilities, though they
are quite difficult to kill.
Despite its eldritch appearance, the shambling horror is
among the most harmless inhabitants of the Dungeons of
Doom. Many adventurers who have returned from the depths
can attest to the varied yet innocuous aspects of this
creature. It is speculated by some that the shambling
horror may occasionally possess abilities that are quite
lethal, but if this is true, no one has yet observed
them and survived to document it.
King Richard III: A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
Catesby: Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.
King Richard III: Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die:
I think there be six Richmonds in the field;
Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
[ King Richard III, by William Shakespeare ]
[Pestilence:] And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals,
and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four
beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white
horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given
unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
[War:] And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the
second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another
horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon
to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one
another: and there was given unto him a great sword.
[Famine:] And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the
third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black
horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his
hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say,
A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley
for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
[Death:] And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the
voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and
behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death,
and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over
the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with
hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
[ Revelations of John, 6:1-8 ]
The first of five mythical Chinese emperors, Huan Ti is known
as the yellow emperor. He rules the _moving_ heavens, as
opposed to the _dark_ heavens. He is an inventor, said to
have given mankind among other things, the wheel, armour, and
the compass. He is the god of fortune telling and war.
Huehuetotl, or Huhetotl, which means Old God, was the Aztec
(classical Mesoamerican) god of fire. He is generally
associated with paternalism and one of the group classed
as the Xiuhtecuhtli complex. He is known to send his
minions to wreak havoc upon ordinary humans.
[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
Humanoids are all approximately the size of a human, and may
be mistaken for one at a distance. They are usually of a
tribal nature, and will fiercely defend their lairs. Usually
hostile, they may even band together to raid and pillage
human settlements.
These strange creatures live mostly on the surface of the
earth, gathering together in societies of various forms, but
occasionally a stray will descend into the depths and commit
mayhem among the dungeon residents who, naturally, often
resent the intrusion of such beasts. They are capable of
using weapons and magic, and it is even rumored that the
Wizard of Yendor is a member of this species.
What of the hunting, hunter bold?
Brother, the watch was long and cold.
What of the quarry ye went to kill?
Brother, he crops in the jungle still.
Where is the power that made your pride?
Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side.
Where is the haste that ye hurry by?
Brother, I go to my lair to die.
[ The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling ]
I'm Mister White Christmas,
I'm Mister Snow.
I'm Mister Icicle,
I'm Mister Ten Below.
Friends call me Snow Miser.
Whatever I touch,
Turns to snow in my clutch!
I'm too much!
[ The Year Without a Santa Claus, directed by Jules Bass
and Arthur Rankin Jr., written by William Keenan ]
Mr. Freeze: I will blanket the city in endless winter. First
Gotham, and then the world!
Poison Ivy: Just what I had in mind. Everything dead on Earth,
except us. A chance for Mother Nature to start again. Behold,
the dawn of a new age. My mutant plants have the strength of
the deadliest animals. Once you have frozen mankind, these
babies will overrun the globe, and we shall rule them, for we
will be the only two people left in the world.
Mr. Freeze: Yes, Adam and Evil!
[ Batman & Robin, directed by Joel Schumacher,
written by Akiva Goldsman ]
Ice devils are large semi-insectoid creatures, who are
equally at home in the fires of Hell and the cold of Limbo,
and who can cause the traveller to feel the latter with just
a touch of their tail.
... imps ... little creatures of two feet high that could
gambol and jump prodigiously; ...
[ The Charwoman's Shadow, by Lord Dunsany ]
An 'imp' is an off-shoot or cutting. Thus an 'ymp tree' was
a grafted tree, or one grown from a cutting, not from seed.
'Imp' properly means a small devil, an off-shoot of Satan,
but the distinction between goblins or bogles and imps from
hell is hard to make, and many in the Celtic countries as
well as the English Puritans regarded all fairies as devils.
The fairies of tradition often hover uneasily between the
ghostly and the diabolic state.
[ A Dictionary of Fairies, by Katharine Briggs ]
The incubus and succubus are male and female versions of the
same demon, one who lies with a human for its own purposes,
usually to the detriment of the mortals who are unwise in
their dealings with them.
The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to
constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at
every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with
a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the
constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should
the value of pi change.
[ FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers ]
A minute invertebrate animal; one of the class _Insecta_. The
true insects or hexapods have the body divided into a head,
a thorax of 3 segments, each of which bears a pair of legs,
and an abdomen of 7 to 11 segments, and in development usually
pass through a metamorphosis. There are usually 2 pairs of wings,
sometimes one pair or none.
[ Webster's Comprehensive International Dictionary
of the English Language ]
Else, if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, to morrow will
I bring the locusts into thy coast:
And they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able
to see the earth: and they shall eat the residue of that which is
escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail, and shall eat every
tree which groweth for you out of the field:
And they shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all thy servants,
and the houses of all the Egyptians; which neither thy fathers, nor
thy fathers' fathers have seen, since the day that they were upon the
earth unto this day. And he turned himself, and went out from Pharaoh.
[ Exodus, 10:4-6 ]
"You are fettered, " said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?"
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I
made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my
own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its
pattern strange to you?"
Scrooge trembled more and more.
"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and
length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as
heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You
have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"
[ A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens ]
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.
[ To Althea from Prison, iv., by Richard Lovelace ]
Chief: Larabee, you're wasting your time. That door is a
foot thick and it's constructed of iron and laminated steel.
You'll never open it with a quarter.
Larabee: How about two dimes and a nickel?
[ Get Smart, Episode 5.23, "Do I Hear a Vaults?" ]
Ishtar (the star of heaven) is the Mesopotamian goddess of
fertility and war. She is usually depicted with wings and
weapon cases at her shoulders, carrying a ceremonial double-
headed mace-scimitar embellished with lion heads, frequently
being accompanied by a lion. She is symbolized by an eight-
pointed star.
[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
Now Issek of the Jug, whom Fafhrd chose to serve, was once
of the most lowly and unsuccessful of the gods, godlets
rather, in Lankhmar. He had dwelt there for about thirteen
years, during which time he had traveled only two squares up
the Street of the Gods and was now back again, ready for
oblivion. He is not to be confused with Issek the Armless,
Issek of the Burnt Legs, Flayed Issek, or any other of the
numerous and colorfully mutilated divinities of that name.
Indeed, his unpopularity may have been due in part to the
fact that the manner of his death -- racking -- was not
deemed particularly spectacular. ... However, after Fafhrd
became his acolyte, things somehow began to change.
[ Swords In The Mist, by Fritz Leiber ]
Tezcatlipoca (Fiery Mirror) was undoubtedly the Jupiter of the
Nahua pantheon. He carried a mirror or shield [ Itlachiayaque ],
from which he took his name, and in which he was supposed to see
reflected the actions and deeds of mankind. The evolution of this
god from the status of a spirit of wind or air to that of the
supreme deity of the Aztec people presents many points of deep
interest to students of mythology.
[ The Myths of Mexico and Peru, by Lewis Spence ]
The shopkeeper of the lighting shop in the town level of the
gnomish mines is a tribute to Izchak Miller, a founding member
of the NetHack development team and a personal friend of a large
number of us. Izchak contributed greatly to the game, coding a
large amount of the shopkeep logic (hence the nature of the tribute)
as well as a good part of the alignment system, the prayer code and
the rewrite of "hell" in the 3.1 release. Izchak was a professor
of Philosophy, who taught at many respected institutions, including
MIT and Stanford, and who also worked, for a period of time, at
Xerox PARC. Izchak was the first "librarian" of the NetHack project,
and was a founding member of the DevTeam, joining in 1986 while he
was working at the University of Pennsylvania (hence our former
mailing list address). Until the 3.1.3 release, Izchak carefully
kept all of the code synchronized and arbitrated disputes between
members of the development teams. Izchak Miller passed away at the
age of 58, in the early morning hours of April 1, 1994 from
complications due to cancer. We then dedicated NetHack 3.2 in his
memory.
[ Mike Stephenson, for the NetHack DevTeam ]
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
[ Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll ]
Sweet in the rough weather
The voice of the turtle-dove-
'Beautiful altogether
Is my Love.
His Hands are open spread for love
And full of jacinth stones-
As the apple-tree among trees of the grove
Is He among the sons.'
[ The Beloved, by May Probyn ]
In Asiatic folktale, jackal provides for the lion; he scares
up game, which the lion kills and eats, and receives what is
left as reward. In stories from northern India he is
sometimes termed "minister to the king," i.e. to the lion.
From the legend that he does not kill his own food has arisen
the legend of his cowardice. Jackal's heart must never be
eaten, for instance, in the belief of peoples indigenous to
the regions where the jackal abounds. ... In Hausa Negro
folktale Jackal plays the role of sagacious judge and is
called "O Learned One of the Forest." The Bushmen say that
Jackal goes around behaving the way he does "because he is
Jackal".
[ Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore ]
A large boot extending over the knee, acting as protective
armour for the leg, worn by troopers in the 17th and 18th
centuries and later. It is still the type of boot worn by the
Household Cavalry and was adopted by fishermen and others
before the advent of gum boots. Figuratively, _to be under the
jack-boot_ is to be controlled by a brutal military regime.
[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
Nothing grew among the ruins of the city. The streets were
broken and the walls of the houses had fallen, but there were
no weeds flowering in the cracks and it seemed that the city
had but recently been brought down by an earthquake. Only
one thing still stood intact, towering over the ruins. It
was a gigantic statue of white, gray and green jade - the
statue of a naked youth with a face of almost feminine beauty
that turned sightless eyes toward the north.
"The eyes!" Duke Avan Astran said. "They're gone!"
[ The Jade Man's Eyes, by Michael Moorcock ]
Large, flesh-eating animal of the cat family, of Central and
South America. This feline predator (_Panthera onca_) is
sometimes incorrectly called a panther.
[ Van Dale's Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal ]
I do not care to share the seas
With jellyfishes such as these;
Particularly Portuguese.
[ Lines on Meeting a Portuguese Man-o'-war while
Bathing, by Michael Flanders ]
Little is known about the Faceless Lord, even the correct
spelling of his name. He does not have a physical form as
we know it, and those who have peered into his realm claim
he is a slime-like creature who swallows other creatures
alive, spits acidic secretions, and causes disease in his
victims which can be almost instantly fatal.
The K ration was the [ Quartermaster Subsistence Research
and Development Laboratory's ] answer to the demand for an
individual, easy-to-carry ration that could be used in assault
and combat operations. It was noted for compactness and superior
packaging and was acknowledged as the ration that provided the
greatest variety of nutritionally balanced components within the
smallest space.
[ Special Rations for the Armed Forces, 1946-53,
by Franz A. Koehler ]
The kabuto is the helmet worn by the samurai. It was
characterized by a prominent beaked front which jutted out over
the brow to protect the wearer's face; a feature that gives
rise to their modern Japanese name of 'shokaku tsuki kabuto'
(battering-ram helmet). Their main constructional element
was an oval plate, the shokaku bo, slightly domed for the
head with a narrow prolongation in front that curved forwards
and downwards where it developed a pronounced central
fold. Two horizontal strips encircling the head were riveted
to this frontal strip: the lower one, the koshimaki (hip
wrap), formed the lower edge of the helmet bowl; the other,
the do maki (body wrap), was set at about the level of the
temples. Filling the gaps between these strips and the shokaku
bo were small plates, sometimes triangular but more commonly
rectangular in shape. Because the front projected so
far from the head, the triangular gap beneath was filled by
a small plate, the shoshaku tei ita, whose rear edge bent
downwards into a flange that rested against the forehead.
[ Arms & Armour of the Samurai, by Bottomley & Hopson ]
The katana is a long, single-edged samurai sword with a
slightly curved blade. Its long handle is designed to allow
it to be wielded with either one or two hands.
The kelps generally include the many large brown seaweeds and
are among the most familiar forms found on North American coasts.
Some have fronds up to 200 ft (61 m) long, e.g., the Pacific coast
Nereocystis and Macrocystis, found also off the Cape of Good Hope.
Common Atlantic species include Laminaria and Agarum (devil's apron).
The kelps are a source of salts of iodine and potassium and, to a
lesser extent, other minerals. When the seaweed is burned, the
soluble mineral compounds are removed from the ashes (also called kelp)
by washing. They are used chiefly as chemical reagents and for
dietary deficiencies in people and in livestock. Kelp is also a
commercial source of potash, fertilizer, and medicines made from its
vitamin and mineral content. Kelps are especially abundant in Japan,
and various foods known as kombu are made from them.
[ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ]
The ki-rin is a strange-looking flying creature. It has
scales, a mane like a lion, a tail, hooves, and a horn. It
is brightly colored, and can usually be found flying in the
sky looking for good deeds to reward.
Ector took both his sons to the church before which the
anvil had been placed. There, standing before the anvil, he
commanded Kay: "Put the sword back into the steel if you
really think the throne is yours!" But the sword glanced
off the steel. "Now it is your turn", Ector said facing
Arthur.
The young man lifted the sword and thrust with both arms; the
blade whizzed through the air with a flash and drilled the
metal as if it were mere butter. Ector and Kay dropped to
their knees before Arthur.
"Why, father and brother, do you bow before me?", Arthur asked
with wonder in his voice.
"Because now I know for sure that you are the king, not only
by birth but also by law", Ector said. "You are no son of
mine nor are you Kay's brother. Immediately after your birth,
Merlin the Wise brought you to me to be raised safely. And
though it was me that named you Arthur when you were baptized,
you are really the son of brave king Uther Pendragon and queen
Igraine..."
And after these words, the lord rose and went to see the arch-
bishop to impart to him what had passed.
[ Van Gouden Tijden Zingen de Harpen, by Vladimir Hulpach,
Emanuel Frynta, and Vackav Cibula ]
Possibly perceiving an expression of dubiosity on their
faces, the globetrotter went on adhering to his adventures.
-- And I seen a man killed in Trieste by an Italian chap.
Knife in his back. Knife like that.
Whilst speaking he produced a dangerous looking clasp knife,
quite in keeping with his character, and held it in the
striking position.
-- In a knockingshop it was count of a tryon between two
smugglers. Fellow hid behind a door, come up behind him.
Like that. Prepare to meet your God, says he. Chuck! It
went into his back up to the butt.
[ Ulysses, by James Joyce ]
Here lies the noble fearless knight,
Whose valour rose to such a height;
When Death at last had struck him down,
His was the victory and renown.
He reck'd the world of little prize,
And was a bugbear in men's eyes;
But had the fortune in his age
To live a fool and die a sage.
[ Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miquel de
Cervantes Saavedra ]
The race of kobolds are reputed to be an artificial creation
of a master wizard (demi-god?). They are about 3' tall with
a vaguely dog-like face. They bear a violent dislike of the
Elven race, and will go out of their way to cause trouble
for Elves at any time.
The Kops are a brilliant concept. To take a gaggle of inept
policemen and display them over and over again in a series of
riotously funny physical punishments plays equally well to the
peanut gallery and the expensive box seats. People hate cops.
Even people who have never had anything to do with cops hate
them. Of course, we count on them to keep order and to protect
us when we need protecting, and we love them on television shows
in which they have nerves of steel and hearts of gold, but in
the abstract, as a nation, collectively we hate them. They are
too much like high school principals. We're very happy to see
their pants fall down, and they look good to us with pie on
their faces. The Keystone Kops turn up--and they get punished
for it, as they crash into each other, fall down, and suffer
indignity after indignity. Here is pure movie satisfaction.
The Kops are very skillfully presented. The comic originality
and timing in one of their chase scenes requires imagination
to think up, talent to execute, understanding of the medium,
and, of course, raw courage to perform. The Kops are madmen
presented as incompetents, and they're madmen rushing around
in modern machines. What's more, the machines they were operating
in their routines were newly invented and not yet experienced
by the average moviegoer. (In the early days of automobiles,
it was reported that there were only two cars registered in all
of Kansas City, and they ran into each other. There is both
poetry and philosophy in this fact, but most of all, there is
humor. Sennett got the humor.)
[ Silent Stars, by Jeanine Basinger ]
"I am not a coward!" he cried. "I'll dare Thieves' House
and fetch you Krovas' head and toss it with blood a-drip at
Vlana's feet. I swear that, witness me, Kos the god of
dooms, by the brown bones of Nalgron my father and by his
sword Graywand here at my side!"
[ Swords and Deviltry, by Fritz Leiber ]
A Japanese harp.
"Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die."
[ The Kraken, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson ]
Blind Io took up the dice-box, which was a skull whose various
orifices had been stoppered with rubies, and with several of
his eyes on the Lady he rolled three fives. She smiled. This
was the nature of the Lady's eyes: they were bright green,
lacking iris or pupil, and they glowed from within.
The room was silent as she scrabbled in her box of pieces and,
from the very bottom, produced a couple that she set down on
the board with two decisive clicks. The rest of the players,
as one God, craned forward to peer at them.
"A wenegade wiffard and fome fort of clerk," said Offler the
Crocodile God, hindered as usual by his tusks. "Well,
weally!" With one claw he pushed a pile of bone-white tokens
into the centre of the table.
The Lady nodded slightly. She picked up the dice-cup and held
it as steady as a rock, yet all the Gods could hear the three
cubes rattling about inside. And then she sent them bouncing
across the table.
A six. A three. A five.
Something was happening to the five, however. Battered by the
chance collision of several billion molecules, the die flipped
onto a point, spun gently and came down a seven. Blind Io
picked up the cube and counted the sides.
"Come _on_," he said wearily, "Play fair."
[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
When he came to himself he told his mother what had passed,
and showed her the lamp and the fruits he had gathered in the
garden, which were in reality precious stones. He then asked
for some food.
"Alas! child," she said, "I have nothing in the house, but I
have spun a little cotton and will go and sell it."
Aladdin bade her keep her cotton, for he would sell the lamp
instead. As it was very dirty she began to rub it, that it
might fetch a higher price. Instantly a hideous genie
appeared, and asked what she would have. She fainted away,
but Aladdin, snatching the lamp, said boldly:
"Fetch me something to eat!"
[ Aladdin, from The Arabian Nights, by Andrew Lang ]
With this the wind increased, and the mill sails began to turn
about; which Don Quixote espying, said, 'Although thou movest
more arms than the giant Briareus thou shalt stoop to me.'
And, after saying this, and commending himself most devoutly
to his Lady Dulcinea, desiring her to succor him in that trance,
covering himself well with his buckler, and setting his lance
on his rest, he spurred on Rozinante, and encountered with the
first mill that was before him, and, striking his lance into
the sail, the wind swung it about with such fury, that it broke
his lance into shivers, carrying him and his horse after it,
and finally tumbled him a good way off from it on the field in
evil plight.
[ Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miquel de
Cervantes Saavedra ]
While pretending to be a fancy safety lamp, it is in fact battery powered.
A discreet little switch is marked "on/off" in elaborate lettering.
[ Adventure 770, by Mike Arnautov ]
You are on the edge of a breath-taking view. Far below you is an
active volcano, from which great gouts of molten lava come surging
out, cascading back down into the depths. The glowing rock fills the
farthest reaches of the cavern with a blood-red glare, giving
everything an eerie, macabre appearance. The air is filled with
flickering sparks of ash and a heavy smell of brimstone. The walls
are hot to the touch, and the thundering of the volcano drowns out
all other sounds. Embedded in the jagged roof far overhead are
myriad twisted formations composed of pure white alabaster, which
scatter the murky light into sinister apparitions upon the walls. To
one side is a deep gorge, filled with a bizarre chaos of tortured
rock which seems to have been crafted by the devil himself. An
immense river of fire crashes out from the depths of the volcano,
burns its way through the gorge, and plummets into a bottomless pit
far off to your left. To the right, an immense geyser of blistering
steam erupts continuously from a barren island in the center of a
sulfurous lake, which bubbles ominously. The far right wall is aflame
with an incandescence of its own, which lends an additional infernal
splendor to the already hellish scene. A dark, forboding passage
exits to the south.
[ Adventure, by Will Crowther and Doug Woods. ]
Then a lawyer said, But what of our Laws, master?
And he answered:
You delight in laying down laws.
Yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers
with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.
But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand
to the shore, And when you destroy them the ocean laughs with you.
Verily the ocean laughs with the innocent.
[ The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran ]
They had splendid heads, fine shoulders, strong legs, and
straight tails. The spots on their bodies were jet-black and
mostly the size of a two-shilling piece; they had smaller
spots on their heads, legs, and tails. Their noses and eye-
rims were black. Missis had a most winning expression.
Pongo, though a dog born to command, had a twinkle in his
eye. They walked side by side with great dignity, only
putting the Dearlys on the leash to lead them over crossings.
[ The Hundred and One Dalmatians, by Dodie Smith ]
In the morning, as they were beginning to pack their slender
goods, Elves that could speak their tongue came to them and
brought them many gifts of food and clothing for their
journey. The food was mostly in the form of very thin cakes,
made of a meal that was baked a light brown on the outside,
and inside was the colour of cream. Gimli took up one of the
cakes and looked at it with a doubtful eye.
'Cram,' he said under his breath, as he broke off a crisp
corner and nibbled at it. His expression quickly changed,
and he ate all the rest of the cake with relish.
'No more, no more!' cried the Elves laughing. 'You have
eaten enough already for a long day's march.'
'I thought it was only a kind of cram, such as the Dalemen
make for journeys in the wild,' said the Dwarf.
'So it is,' they answered. 'But we call it lembas or
waybread, and it is more strengthening than any foods made by
Men, and it is more pleasant than cram, by all accounts.'
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
The Larvae (Lemures) are Roman spirits of deceased family members.
These malignant spirits dwell throughout the house and frighten the
inhabitants. People tried to reconcile or avert the Larvae with
strange ceremonies which took place on May 9, 11, and 13; this
was called the "Feast of the Lemures". The master of the house
usually performed these ceremonies, either by offering black beans
to the spirits or chasing them away by making a lot of noise. Their
counterparts are the Lares, friendly and beneficent house spirits.
[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
... the leucrocotta, a wild beast of extraordinary swiftness,
the size of the wild ass, with the legs of a Stag, the neck,
tail, and breast of a lion, the head of a badger, a cloven
hoof, the mouth slit up as far as the ears, and one continuous
bone instead of teeth; it is said, too, that this animal can
imitate the human voice.
[ Curious Creatures in Zoology, by John Ashton ]
The Irish Leprechaun is the Faeries' shoemaker and is known
under various names in different parts of Ireland:
Cluricaune in Cork, Lurican in Kerry, Lurikeen in Kildare
and Lurigadaun in Tipperary. Although he works for the
Faeries, the Leprechaun is not of the same species. He is
small, has dark skin and wears strange clothes. His nature
has something of the manic-depressive about it: first he
is quite happy, whistling merrily as he nails a sole on to a
shoe; a few minutes later, he is sullen and morose, drunk
on his home-made heather ale. The Leprechaun's two great
loves are tobacco and whiskey, and he is a first-rate con-man,
impossible to out-fox. No one, no matter how clever, has ever
managed to cheat him out of his hidden pot of gold or his
magic shilling. At the last minute he always thinks of some
way to divert his captor's attention and vanishes in the
twinkling of an eye.
[ A Field Guide to the Little People
by Nancy Arrowsmith & George Moorse ]
Once in a great while, an evil master wizard or priest will
manage through use of great magics to extend his or her life
far beyond the normal span of a human. The usual effect of
this is to transform the human, over time, into an undead of
great magical power. A Lich hates life in any form; even a
touch from one of these creatures will cause a numbing cold
in the victim. They all possess the capability to use magic.
But on its heels ere the sunset faded, there came a second
apparition, striding with incredible strides and halting when
it loomed almost upon me in the red twilight-the monstrous mummy
of some ancient king still crowned with untarnished gold but
turning to my gaze a visage that more than time or the worm had
wasted. Broken swathings flapped about the skeleton legs, and
above the crown that was set with sapphires and orange rubies, a
black something swayed and nodded horribly; but, for an instant,
I did not dream what it was. Then, in its middle, two oblique
and scarlet eyes opened and glowed like hellish coals, and two
ophidian fangs glittered in an ape-like mouth. A squat, furless,
shapeless head on a neck of disproportionate extent leaned
unspeakably down and whispered in the mummy's ear. Then, with
one stride, the titanic lich took half the distance between us,
and from out the folds of the tattered sere-cloth a gaunt arm
arose, and fleshless, taloned fingers laden with glowering gems,
reached out and fumbled for my throat . . .
[ The Abominations of Yondo, Clark Ashton Smith, 1926 ]
The chamber was of unhewn rock, round, as near as might
be, eighteen or twenty feet across, and gay with rich
variety of fern and moss and lichen. The fern was in
its winter still, or coiling for the spring-tide; but
moss was in abundant life, some feathering, and some
gobleted, and some with fringe of red to it.
[ Lorna Doone, by R.D. Blackmore ]
Strange creatures formed from energy rather than matter,
lights are given to self-destructive behavior when battling
foes.
Lizards, snakes and the burrowing amphisbaenids make up the
order Squamata, meaning the scaly ones. The elongate, slim,
long-tailed bodies of lizards have become modified to enable
them to live in a wide range of habitats. Lizards can be
expert burrowers, runners, swimmers and climbers, and a few
can manage crude, short-distance gliding on rib-supported
"wings". Most are carnivores, feeding on invertebrate and
small vertebrate prey, but others feed on vegetation.
[ Macmillan Illustrated Animal Encyclopedia ]
Loki, or Lopt, is described in Snorri's _Edda_ as being
"pleasing and handsome in appearance, evil in character, and
very capricious in behaviour". He is the son of the giant
Farbauti and of Laufey.
Loki is the Norse god of cunning, evil, thieves, and fire.
He hated the other gods and wanted to ruin them and overthrow
the universe. He committed many murders. As a thief, he
stole Freyja's necklace, Thor's belt and gauntlets of power,
and the apples of youth. Able to shapechange at will, he is
said to have impersonated at various times a mare, flea, fly,
falcon, seal, and an old crone. As a mare he gave birth to
Odin's horse Sleipnir. He also allegedly sired the serpent
Midgard, the mistress of the netherworld, Hel, and the wolf
Fenrir, who will devour the sun at Ragnarok.
This legendary bow grants ESP when carried and can reflect magical
attacks when wielded. When invoked it provides a supply of arrows.
But as Snow White grew, she became more and more beautiful,
and by the time she was seven years old she was as beautiful
as the day and more beautiful than the queen herself. One
day when the queen said to her mirror:
"Mirror, Mirror, here I stand.
Who is the fairest in the land?" -
the mirror replied:
"You, O Queen, are the fairest here,
But Snow White is a thousand times more fair."
[ Snow White, by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm ]
Lord Carnarvon was a personality who could have been produced
nowhere but in England, a mixture of sportsman and collector,
gentleman and world traveler, a realist in action and a
romantic in feeling. ... In 1903 he went for the first time
to Egypt in search of a mild climate and while there visited
the excavation sites of several archaeological expeditions.
... In 1906 he began his own excavations.
[ Gods, Graves, and Scholars, by C. W. Ceram ]
Lord Sato was the family head of the Taro Clan, and a mighty
daimyo. He is a loyal servant of the Emperor, and will do
everything in his power to further the imperial cause.
Yet first was the world in the southern region, which was
named Muspell; it is light and hot; that region is glowing
and burning, and impassable to such as are outlanders and
have not their holdings there. He who sits there at the
land's-end, to defend the land, is called Surtr; he brandishes
a flaming sword, and at the end of the world he shall go forth
and harry, and overcome all the gods, and burn all the
world with fire.
[ The Prose Edda, by Snorri Sturluson ]
Lugh, or Lug, was the sun god of the Irish Celts. One of his
weapons was a rod-sling which worshippers sometimes saw in
the sky as a rainbow. As a tribal god, he was particularly
skilled in the use of his massive, invincible spear, which
fought on its own accord. One of his epithets is _lamfhada_
(of the long arm). He was a young and apparently more
attractive deity than Dagda, the father of the gods. Being
able to shapeshift, his name translates as lynx.
These dungeon scavengers are very adept at blending into the
surrounding walls and ceilings of the dungeon due to the
stone-like coloring of their skin.
In 1573, the Parliament of Dole published a decree, permitting
the inhabitants of the Franche-Comte to pursue and kill a
were-wolf or loup-garou, which infested that province,
"notwithstanding the existing laws concerning the chase."
The people were empowered to "assemble with javelins,
halberds, pikes, arquebuses and clubs, to hunt and pursue the
said were-wolf in all places where they could find it, and to
take, burn, and kill it, without incurring any fine or other
penalty." The hunt seems to have been successful, if we may
judge from the fact that the same tribunal in the following
year condemned to be burned a man named Giles Garnier, who
ran on all fours in the forest and fields and devoured little
children, "even on Friday." The poor lycanthrope, it appears,
had as slight respect for ecclesiastical feasts as the French
pig, which was not restrained by any feeling of piety from
eating infants on a fast day.
[ The History of Vampires, by Dudley Wright ]
To dream of seeing a lynx, enemies are undermining your
business and disrupting your home affairs. For a woman,
this dream indicates that she has a wary woman rivaling her
in the affections of her lover. If she kills the lynx, she
will overcome her rival.
[ 10,000 Dreams Interpreted, by Gustavus Hindman Miller ]
Originally a club armed with iron, and used in war; now a staff
of office pertaining to certain dignitaries, as the Speaker of
the House of Commons, Lord Mayors, Mayors etc. Both sword and
mace are symbols of dignity, suited to the times when men went
about in armour, and sovereigns needed champions to vindicate
their rights.
[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
A highly enchanted athame said to hold the power to channel
and direct magical energy. It is said by some that this
artifact is less useful when imbued with other magics, an
assertation that is fiercely debated among the most wise
and learned of those familiar with its lore.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
[ Richelieu, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]
This powerful mirror was created by Merlin, the druid, in ages
past, when trees sang and rocks danced. It protects all who
carry it from magic missiles, and gives them ESP.
[...] In Dehenbarth (that now South Wales is hight,
What time King Ryence reigned, and dealed right)
The great magician Merlin had devised,
By his deep science, and hell-dreaded might,
A looking-glass, right wondrously aguised,
Whose virtues through the wide world soon were solemnized.
It virtue had to show in perfect sight
Whatever thing was in the world contained,
Betwixt the lowest earth and heaven's height,
So that it to the looker appertained;
Whatever foe had wrought, or friend had fained,
Therein discovered was, nor aught might pass,
Nor aught in secret from the same remained;
For-thy it round and hollow shaped was,
Like the world itself, and seemed a world of glass.
[ The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spencer ]
It is rumoured that these strange creatures can be harmed by
domesticated canines only.
Normally called Manannan, Ler's son was the patron of
merchants and sailors. Manannan had a sword which never
failed to slay, a boat which propelled itself wherever its
owner wished, a horse which was swifter than the wind, and
magic armour which no sword could pierce. He later became
god of the sea, beneath which he lived in Tir na nOc, the
underworld.
The gnats of the dungeon, these swarming monsters are rarely
seen alone.
Manes or Di Manes ("good ones") is the euphemistic description
of the souls of the deceased, worshipped as divinities. The
formula D.M. ( = Dis Manibus; "dedicated to the Manes-gods")
can often be found on tombstones. Manes also means metaphorically
'underworld' or 'realm of death'. Festivals in honor of the dead
were the Parentalia and the Feralia, celebrated in February.
[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
First insisting on recognition as supreme commander, Marduk
defeated the Dragon, cut her body in two, and from it created
heaven and earth, peopling the world with human beings who not
unnaturally showed intense gratitude for their lives. The
gods were also properly grateful, invested him with many
titles, and eventually permitted themselves to be embodied in
him, so that he became supreme god, plotting the whole course
of known life from the paths of the planets to the daily
events in the lives of men.
[ The Immortals, by Derek and Julia Parker ]
The marilith has a torso shaped like that of a human female,
and the lower body of a great snake. It has multiple arms,
and can freely attack with all of them. Since it is
intelligent enough to use weapons, this means it can cause
great damage.
The god of war, and one of the most prominent and worshipped
gods. In early Roman history he was a god of spring, growth in
nature, and fertility, and the protector of cattle. Mars is
also mentioned as a chthonic god (earth-god) and this could
explain why he became a god of death and finally a god of war.
He is the son of Jupiter and Juno.
[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
He strolled down the stairs, followed by a number of assassins.
When he was directly in front of Ymor he said: "I've come for
the tourist." ...
"One step more and you'll leave here with fewer eyeballs than
you came with," said the thiefmaster. "So sit down and have
a drink, Zlorf, and let's talk about this sensibly. _I_
thought we had an agreement. You don't rob -- I don't kill.
Not for payment, that is," he added after a pause.
Zlorf took the proffered beer.
"So?" he said. "I'll kill him. Then you rob him. Is he that
funny looking one over there?"
"Yes."
Zlorf stared at Twoflower, who grinned at him. He shrugged.
He seldom wasted time wondering why people wanted other people
dead. It was just a living.
"Who is your client, may I ask?" said Ymor.
Zlorf held up a hand. "Please!" he protested. "Professional
etiquette."
[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
This skeleton key was fashioned in ages past and imbued with
a powerful magic which allows it to open any lock. When
carried, it grants its owner warning, teleport control, and
reduces all physical damage by half. Finally, when invoked,
it has the ability to disarm any trap.
There was a flutter of wings at the window. Ymor shifted his
bulk out of the chair and crossed the room, coming back with
a large raven. After he'd unfastened the message capsule from
its leg it flew up to join its fellows lurking among the
rafters. Withel regarded it without love. Ymor's ravens were
notoriously loyal to their master, to the extent that Withel's
one attempt to promote himself to the rank of greatest thief
in Ankh-Morpork had cost their master's right hand man his
left eye. But not his life, however. Ymor never grudged a
man his ambitions.
[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
Any large, elephantlike mammal of the genera Mammut, Mastodon,
etc., from the Oligocene and Pleistocene epochs, having
conical projections on the molar teeth.
[ Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary
of the English Language ]
Yakwawi, the Mastodon, was placed on the world to be useful
to man; but the great monstrous beast was fierce, powerful and
invincible. Its hide was so strong and so thick that the sharpest
spears and arrows could hardly penetrate it. This terrible
creature made war against all the other animals that lived in
the woods and on the plains; other animals that the Creator put
here to be used as meat for the Lenape people.)
[ From Legends of the Lenape Native Americans ]
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some would eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.
[ Grace Before Meat, by Robert Burns ]
Medusa, one of the three Gorgons or Graeae, is the only one
of her sisters to have assumed mortal form and inhabited the
dungeon world.
When Perseus was grown up Polydectes sent him to attempt the
conquest of Medusa, a terrible monster who had laid waste the
country. She was once a beautiful maiden whose hair was her
chief glory, but as she dared to vie in beauty with Minerva,
the goddess deprived her of her charms and changed her
beautiful ringlets into hissing serpents. She became a cruel
monster of so frightful an aspect that no living thing could
behold her without being turned into stone. All around the
cavern where she dwelt might be seen the stony figures of men
and animals which had chanced to catch a glimpse of her and
had been petrified with the sight. Perseus, favoured by
Minerva and Mercury, the former of whom lent him her shield
and the latter his winged shoes, approached Medusa while she
slept and taking care not to look directly at her, but guided
by her image reflected in the bright shield which he bore, he
cut off her head and gave it to Minerva, who fixed it in the
middle of her Aegis.
[ Bulfinch's Mythology, by Thomas Bulfinch ]
"What is it, Umbopa, son of a fool?" I shouted in Zulu.
"It is food and water, Macumazahn," and again he waved the
green thing.
Then I saw what he had got. It was a melon. We had hit upon
a patch of wild melons, thousands of them, and dead ripe.
"Melons!" I yelled to Good, who was next me; and in another
second he had his false teeth fixed in one.
I think we ate about six each before we had done, and, poor
fruit as they were, I doubt if I ever thought anything nicer.
[ King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard ]
Roman god of commerce, trade and travellers. He is commonly
depicted carrying a caduceus (a staff with two snakes
intertwining around it) and a purse.
The ancestors of the modern day chameleon, these creatures can
assume the form of anything in their surroundings. They may
assume the shape of objects or dungeon features. Unlike the
chameleon though, which assumes the shape of another creature
and goes in hunt of food, the mimic waits patiently for its
meals to come in search of it.
This creature has a humanoid body, tentacles around its
covered mouth, and three long fingers on each hand. Mind
flayers are telepathic, and love to devour intelligent beings,
especially humans. If they hit their victim with a tentacle,
the mind flayer will slowly drain it of all intelligence,
eventually killing its victim.
Made by Dwarfs. The Rule here is that the Mine is either long
deserted or at most is inhabited by a few survivors who will
make confused claims to have been driven out/decimated by humans/
other Dwarfs/Minions of the Dark Lord. Inhabited or not, this
Mine will be very complex, with many levels of galleries,
beautifully carved and engineered. What was being mined here
is not always evident, but at least some of the time it will
appear to have been Jewels, since it is customary to find
unwanted emeralds, etc., still embedded in the rock of the
walls. Metal will also be present, but only when made up into
armor and weapons (_wondrous_).
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
The Minotaur was a monster, half bull, half human, the
offspring of Minos' wife Pasiphae and a wonderfully beautiful
bull. ... When the Minotaur was born Minos did not kill him.
He had Daedalus, a great architect and inventor, construct a
place of confinement for him from which escape was impossible.
Daedalus built the Labyrinth, famous throughout the world.
Once inside, one would go endlessly along its twisting paths
without ever finding the exit.
[ Mythology, by Edith Hamilton ]
Originating in India (Mitra), Mithra is a god of light who
was translated into the attendant of the god Ahura Mazda in
the light religion of Persia; from this he was adopted as
the Roman deity Mithras. He is not generally regarded as a
sky god but a personification of the fertilizing power of
warm, light air. According to the _Avesta_, he possesses
10,000 eyes and ears and rides in a chariot drawn by white
horses. Mithra, according to Zarathustra, is concerned with
the endless battle between light and dark forces: he
represents truth. He is responsible for the keeping of oaths
and contracts. He is attributed with the creation of both
plants and animals. His chief adversary is Ahriman, the
power of darkness.
[ The Encyclopaedia of Myths and Legends of All
Nations, by Herbert Spencer Robinson and
Knox Wilson ]
_Mithril_! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like
copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make
of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel.
Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty
of _mithril_ did not tarnish or grow dim.
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
This helm of brilliance performs all of the normal functions
of a helm of brilliance, but also has the ability to protect
anyone who carries it from fire. When invoked, it boosts
the energy of the invoker, allowing them to cast more spells.
Forged by the dwarves Eitri and Brokk, in response to Loki's
challenge, Mjollnir is an indestructible war hammer. It has
two magical properties: when thrown it always returned to
Thor's hand; and it could be made to shrink in size until it
could fit inside Thor's shirt. Its only flaw is that it has
a short handle. The other gods judged Mjollnir the winner of
the contest because, of all the treasures created, it alone had
the power to protect them from the giants. As the legends
surrounding Mjollnir grew, it began to take on the quality of
"vigja", or consecration. Thor used it to consecrate births,
weddings, and even to raise his goats from the dead. In the
Norse mythologies Mjollnir is considered to represent Thor's
governance over the entire cycle of life - fertility, birth,
destruction, and resurrection.
Mold, multicellular organism of the division Fungi, typified
by plant bodies composed of a network of cottony filaments.
The colors of molds are due to spores borne on the filaments.
Most molds are saprophytes. Some species (e.g., penicillium)
are used in making cheese and antibiotics.
[ The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia ]
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever
he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that
sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech;
he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall
stone him with stones.
And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off
from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto
Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name.
And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes
from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill
him not:
Then I will set my face against that man, and against his
family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after
him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people.
[ Leviticus 20:1-5 ]
One day, an army general invited the Buddhist monk I-Hsiu
(literally, "One Rest") to his military head office for a
dinner. I-Hsiu was not accustomed to wearing luxurious
clothings and so he just put on an old ordinary casual
robe to go to the military base. To him, "form is void".
As he approached the base, two soldiers appeared before him
and shouted, "Where does this beggar came from? Identify
yourself! You do not have permission to be around here!"
"My name is I-Hsiu Dharma Master. I am invited by your
general for a supper."
The two soldiers examined the monk closely and said, "You
liar. How come my general invites such a shabby monk to
dinner? He invites the very solemn venerable I-Hsiu to our
base for a great ceremony today, not you. Now, get out!"
I-Hsiu was unable to convince the soldiers that he was
indeed the invited guest, so he returned to the temple
and changed to a very formal solemn ceremonial robe for
the dinner. And as he returned to the military base, the
soldiers observed that he was such a great Buddhist monk,
let him in with honour.
At the dinner, I-Hsiu sat in front of the table full of
food but, instead of putting the food into his month, he
picked up the food with his chopsticks and put it into
his sleeves. The general was curious, and whispered to
him, "This is very embarrassing. Do you want to take
some food back to the temple? I will order the cook to
prepare some take out orders for you." "No" replied the
monk. "When I came here, I was not allowed into the
base by your soldiers until I wear this ceremonial robe.
You do not invite me for a dinner. You invite my robe.
Therefore, my robe is eating the food, not me."
[ Dining with a General - a Zen Buddhism Koan ]
"Listen, man-cub," said the Bear, and his voice rumbled like
thunder on a hot night. "I have taught thee all the Law of
the Jungle for all the peoples of the jungle--except the
Monkey-Folk who live in the trees. They have no law. They
are outcasts. They have no speech of their own, but use the
stolen words which they overhear when they listen, and peep,
and wait up above in the branches. Their way is not our way.
They are without leaders. They have no remembrance. They
boast and chatter and pretend that they are a great people
about to do great affairs in the jungle, but the falling of
a nut turns their minds to laughter and all is forgotten.
We of the jungle have no dealings with them. We do not drink
where the monkeys drink; we do not go where the monkeys go;
we do not hunt where they hunt; we do not die where they die...."
[ The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling ]
The morning star was a medieval weapon resembling a mace, but
with a large spike on the end and smaller spikes around the
circumference. It was also known as the goedendag (from the
Dutch word for "good day") and the holy water sprinkler (from its
resemblance to the aspergillum sometimes used in the Catholic Mass).
It was used by both cavalry and infantry; the horseman's weapon
typically had a shorter haft than the footman's, which might be up
to six feet long. It came into use in the beginning of the 14th
century.
The name "morning star" is often erroneously applied to the
military flail (also known as the therscol), a similar weapon,
but with the head attached by a short chain.
[ Dictionary of Medieval Knighthood and Chivalry,
by Bradford Broughton ]
"A man says to another man, 'Can you tell me how to get to
Central Park?' The guy says no. 'All right,' says the first,
'I'll mug you here.'"
[ Take My Life, Please!, by Henny Youngman ]
... the Mumak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and
the like of him does not walk now in Middle-Earth; his kin
that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth
and majesty. On he came, ... his great legs like trees,
enormous sail-like ears spread out, long snout upraised like
a huge serpent about to strike, his small red eyes raging.
His upturned hornlike tusks ... dripped with blood.
[ The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
But for an account of the manner in which the body was
bandaged, and a list of the unguents and other materials
employed in the process, and the words of power which were
spoken as each bandage was laid in its place, we must have
recourse to a very interesting papyrus which has been edited
and translated by M. Maspero under the title of Le Rituel de
l'Embaumement. ...
Everything that could be done to preserve the body was now
done, and every member of it was, by means of the words of
power which changed perishable substances into imperishable,
protected to all eternity; when the final covering of purple
or white linen had been fastened upon it, the body was ready
for the tomb.
[ Egyptian Magic, by E.A. Wallis Budge ]
He held a white cloth -- it was a serviette he had brought
with him -- over the lower part of his face, so that his
mouth and jaws were completely hidden, and that was the
reason for his muffled voice. But it was not that which
startled Mrs. Hall. It was the fact that all his forehead
above his blue glasses was covered by a white bandage, and
that another covered his ears, leaving not a scrap of his
face exposed excepting only his pink, peaked nose. It was
bright, pink, and shiny just as it had been at first. He
wore a dark-brown velvet jacket with a high, black, linen-
lined collar turned up about his neck. The thick black
hair, escaping as it could below and between the cross
bandages, project in curious tails and horns, giving him
the strangest appearance conceivable.
[ The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells ]
The naga is a mystical creature with the body of a snake and
the head of a man or woman. They will fiercely protect the
territory they consider their own. Some nagas can be forced
to serve as guardians by a spellcaster of great power.
A Japanese pole-arm, fitted with a curved single-edged blade.
The blades ranged in length from two to four feet, mounted on
shafts about four to five feet long. The naginata were cut
with a series of short grooves near to the tang, above which
the back edge was thinned, but not sharpened, so that the
greater part of the blade was a flattened diamond shape in
section. Seen in profile, the curve is slight or non-
existent near the tang, becoming more pronounced towards the
point.
"With his naginata he killed five, but with the sixth it
snapped asunder in the midst and, flinging it away, he drew
his sword, wielding it in the zigzag style, the interlacing,
cross, reversed dragonfly, waterwheel, and eight-sides-at-
once styles of fencing and cutting down eight men; but as he
brought down the ninth with a mighty blow on the helmet, the
blade snapped at the hilt."
[ Story of Tsutsui no Jomio Meishu from Tales of Heike ]
Not only do these demons do physical damage with their claws
and bite, but they are capable of using magic as well.
Nalzok is Moloch's cunning and unfailingly loyal battle
lieutenant, to whom he trusts the command of warfare when he
does not wish to exercise it himself. Nalzok is a major
demon, known to command the undead. He is hungry for power,
and secretly covets Moloch's position. Moloch doesn't trust
him, but, trusting his own power enough, chooses to allow
Nalzok his position because he is useful.
Immediately, though everything else remained as before, dim
and dark, the shapes became terribly clear. He was able to
see beneath their black wrappings. There were five tall
figures: two standing on the lip of the dell, three advancing.
In their white faces burned keen and merciless eyes; under
their mantles were long grey robes; upon their grey hairs
were helms of silver; in their haggard hands were swords of
steel. Their eyes fell on him and pierced him, as they
rushed towards him. Desperate, he drew his own sword, and
it seemed to him that it flickered red, as if it was a
firebrand. Two of the figures halted. The third was taller
than the others: his hair was long and gleaming and on his
helm was a crown. In one hand he held a long sword, and in
the other a knife; both the knife and the hand that held it
glowed with a pale light. He sprang forward and bore down
on Frodo.
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
1. Valley between Duesseldorf and Elberfeld in Germany,
where an ancient skull of a prehistoric ancestor to modern
man was found. 2. Human(oid) of the race mentioned above.
Neferet the Green holds office in her hidden tower, only
reachable by magical means, where she teaches her apprentices
the enigmatic skills of occultism. Despite her many years, she
continues to investigate new spells, especially those involving
translocation. It is further rumored that when she was an
apprentice herself, she accidentally turned her skin green, and
has kept it that way ever since.
(kinds of) small animal, like a lizard, which spends most of
its time in the water.
[ Oxford's Student's Dictionary of Current English ]
"Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."
[ Macbeth, by William Shakespeare ]
Ninja are the spy-assassins of Japan. They are quick and
stealthy, though not as strong as fighters. Their characteristic
weapon is the deadly shuriken or throwing-star.
A Japanese broadsword.
The Norns were the three Norse Fates, or the goddesses of fate.
Female giants, they brought the wonderful Golden Age to an end.
They cast lots over the cradle of every child that was born,
and placed gifts in the cradle. Their names were Urda,
Verdandi, and Skuld, representing the past, the present, and
the future. Urda and Verdandi were kindly disposed, but Skuld
was cruel and savage. Their tasks were to sew the web of
fate, to water the sacred ash, Yggdrasil, and to keep it in
good condition by placing fresh earth around it daily. In her
fury, Skuld often spoiled the work of her sisters by tearing
the web to shreds.
[ The Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends of All
Nations by Herbert Spencer Robinson and Knox
Wilson ]
A Japanese flail.
A female creature from Roman and Greek mythology, the nymph
occupied rivers, forests, ponds, etc. A nymph's beauty is
beyond words: an ever-young woman with sleek figure and
long, thick hair, radiant skin and perfect teeth, full lips
and gentle eyes. A nymph's scent is delightful, and her
long robe glows, hemmed with golden threads and embroidered
with rainbow hues of unearthly magnificence. A nymph's
demeanour is graceful and charming, her mind quick and witty.
"Theseus felt her voice pulling him down into fathoms of
sleep. The song was the skeleton of his dream, and the dream
was full of terror. Demon girls were after him, and a bull-
man was goring him. Everywhere there was blood. There was
pain. There was fear. But his head was in the nymph's lap
and her musk was about him, her voice weaving the dream. He
knew then that she had been sent to tell him of something
dreadful that was to happen to him later. Her song was a
warning. But she had brought him a new kind of joy, one that
made him see everything differently. The boy, who was to
become a hero, suddenly knew then what most heroes learn
later -- and some too late -- that joy blots suffering and
that the road to nymphs is beset by monsters."
[ The Minotaur by Bernard Evslin ]
A volcanic glass, homogeneous in texture and having a low water
content, with a vitreous luster and a conchoidal fracture. The
color is commonly black, but may be some shade of red or brown,
and cut sections sometimes appear to be green. Like other volcanic
glasses, obsidian is a lava that has cooled too quickly for the
contained minerals to crystallize. In chemical composition it is
rich in silica and similar to granite. It is favored by primitive
peoples for knives, arrowheads, spearheads, and other weapons
and tools.
[ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ]
This monster resembles a giant amoeba, seeping through darkened
corridors, through cracks and under doors, searching for flesh or
cellulose to devour. ... Voraciously dissolving all types of carrion
and trash, this monster is sometimes tolerated in inhabited subterranean
areas for its janitorial services, but this activity is difficult to
organize and is usually not appreciated by the inhabitants because of
its danger.
[ Monstrous Manual, by TSR inc. ]
Also called Sigtyr (god of Victory), Val-father (father of
the slain), One-Eyed, Hanga-god (god of the hanged), Farma-
god (god of cargoes), Hapta-god (god of prisoners), and
Othin. He is the prime god of the Norsemen: god of war and
victory, wisdom and prophecy, poetry, the dead, air and wind,
hospitality, and magic.
As the god of war and victory, Odin is ruler of the Valkyries,
warrior-maidens who lived in the halls of Valhalla in Asgard,
the hall of dead heroes where he held his court.
These chosen ones will defend the realm of the gods against
the Frost Giants on the final day of reckoning, Ragnarok.
As god of the wind, Odin rides through the air on his eight-
footed horse, Sleipnir, wielding Gungner, his spear, normally
accompanied by his ravens, Hugin and Munin, who he would also
use as his spies.
As a god of hospitality, he enjoys visiting the earth in
disguise to see how people were behaving and to see how they
would treat him, not knowing who he was.
Odin is usually represented as a one-eyed wise old man with a
long white beard and a wide-brimmed hat (he gave one of his
eyes to Mimir, the guardian of the well of wisdom in Hel, in
exchange for a draught of knowledge).
Anyone who has met a gluttonous, nude, angry ogre, will not
easily forget this encounter -- if he survives it at all.
Both male and female ogres can easily grow as tall as three
metres. Build and facial expressions would remind one of a
Neanderthal. Its small, pointy, keen teeth are striking.
Since ogres avoid direct sunlight, their ragged, unfurry
skin is as white as a sheet. They enjoy coating their body
with lard and usually wear nothing but a loin-cloth. An elf
would smell its rancid stench at ten metres distance.
Ogres are solitary creatures: very rarely one may encounter
a female with two or three young. They are the only real
carnivores among the humanoids, and its favourite meal is --
not surprisingly -- human flesh. They sometimes ally with
orcs or goblins, but only when they anticipate a good meaty
meal.
[ het Boek van de Regels; Het Oog des Meesters ]
During our watches below we overhauled our clothes, and made
and mended everything for bad weather. Each of us had made
for himself a suit of oil-cloth or tarpaulin, and these we
got out, and gave thorough coatings of oil or tar, and hung
upon the stays to dry. Our stout boots, too, we covered
over with a thick mixture of melted grease and tar. Thus we
took advantage of the warm sun and fine weather of the
Pacific to prepare for its other face.
[ Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana ]
Summer passed all too quickly. On the last day of camp, Mr.
Brickle called his counselors together and paid them what he
owed them. Louis received one hundred dollars - the first
money he had ever earned. He had no wallet and no pockets,
so Mr. Brickle placed the money in a waterproof bag that had
a drawstring. He hung this moneybag around Louis' neck,
along with the trumpet, the slate, the chalk pencil, and the
lifesaving medal.
[ The Trumpet of the Swan, by E.B. White ]
But at the end of the Third Age a troll-race not before seen
appeared in southern Mirkwood and in the mountain borders of
Mordor. Olog-hai they were called in the Black Speech. That
Sauron bred them none doubted, though from what stock was not
known. Some held that they were not Trolls but giant Orcs;
but the Olog-hai were in fashion of body and mind quite unlike
even the largest of Orc-kind, whom they far surpassed in size
and power. Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will
of their master: a fell race, strong, agile, fierce and
cunning, but harder than stone. Unlike the older race of the
Twilight they could endure the Sun.... They spoke little,
and the only tongue they knew was the Black Speech of Barad-dur.
[ The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
Delphi under towering Parnassus, where Apollo's oracle was,
plays an important part in mythology. Castalia was its
sacred spring; Cephissus its river. It was held to be the
center of the world, so many pilgrims came to it, from
foreign countries as well as Greece. No other shrine rivaled
it. The answers to the questions asked by the anxious
seekers for Truth were delivered by a priestess who went into
a trance before she spoke.
[ Mythology, by Edith Hamilton ]
What was the fruit like? Unfortunately, no one can describe
a taste. All I can say is that, compared with those fruits,
the freshest grapefruit you've ever eaten was dull, and the
juiciest orange was dry, and the most melting pear was hard
and woody, and the sweetest wild strawberry was sour. And
there were no seeds or stones, and no wasps. If you had once
eaten that fruit, all the nicest things in this world would
taste like medicines after it. But I can't describe it. You
can't find out what it is like unless you can get to that
country and taste it for yourself.
[ The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis ]
Some say that Odin himself created this ancient crystal ball,
although others argue that Loki created it and forged Odin's
signature on the bottom. In any case, it is a powerful
artifact. Anyone who carries it is granted the gift of
warning, and damage, both spell and physical, is partially
absorbed by the orb itself. When invoked it has the power
to teleport the invoker between levels.
The Great Goblin gave a truly awful howl of rage when he
looked at it, and all his soldiers gnashed their teeth,
clashed their shields, and stamped. They knew the sword at
once. It had killed hundreds of goblins in its time, when
the fair elves of Gondolin hunted them in the hills or did
battle before their walls. They had called it Orcrist,
Goblin-cleaver, but the goblins called it simply Biter.
They hated it and hated worse any one that carried it.
[ The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
Orcus, Prince of the Undead, has a ram's head and a poison
stinger. He is most feared, though, for his powerful magic
abilities. His wand causes death to those he chooses.
Orcs, bipeds with a humanoid appearance, are related to the
goblins, but much bigger and more dangerous. The average orc
is only moderately intelligent, has broad, muscled shoulders,
a short neck, a sloping forehead and a thick, dark fur.
Their lower eye-teeth are pointing forward, like a boar's.
Female orcs are more lightly built and bare-chested. Not
needing any clothing, they do like to dress in variegated
apparels. Suspicious by nature, orcs live in tribes or
hordes. They tend to live underground as well as above
ground (but they dislike sunlight). Orcs can use all weapons,
tools and armours that are used by men. Since they don't have
the talent to fashion these themselves, they are constantly
hunting for them. There is nothing a horde of orcs cannot
use.
[ het Boek van de Regels; Het Oog des Meesters ]
Orion was the son of Neptune. He was a handsome giant and a
mighty hunter. His father gave him the power of wading
through the depths of the sea, or, as others say, of
walking on its surface.
He dwelt as a hunter with Diana (Artemis), with whom he
was a favourite, and it is even said she was about to marry
him. Her brother was highly displeased and often chid her,
but to no purpose. One day, observing Orion wading through
the sea with his head just above the water, Apollo pointed
it out to his sister and maintained that she could not hit
that black thing on the sea. The archer-goddess discharged
a shaft with fatal aim. The waves rolled the dead body of
Orion to the land, and bewailing her fatal error with many
tears, Diana placed him among the stars, where he appears
as a giant, with a girdle, sword, lion's skin, and
club. Sirius, his dog, follows him, and the Pleiads fly
before him.
[ Bulfinch's Mythology, by Thomas Bulfinch ]
The osaku is a small tool for picking locks.
Owlbears are probably the crossbreed creation of a demented
wizard; given the lethal nature of this creation, it is quite
likely the wizard who created them is no longer alive. As
the name might already suggest, owlbears are a cross between
a giant owl and a bear. They are covered with fur and
feathers.
A male servant or attendant; specifically, in chivalry,
a lad or young man in training for knighthood, or a youth
of gentle parentage attending a royal or princely personage.
[ Webster's Comprehensive International Dictionary
of the English Language ]
_Pallium._ The Roman name for a square woollen cloak worn by
men in ancient Greece, especially by philosophers and
courtesans, corresponding to the Roman toga. Hence the Greeks
called themselves _gens palliata,_ and the Romans called
themselves _gens togata._
[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
And lo! almost where the ascent began,
A panther light and swift exceedingly,
Which with a spotted skin was covered o'er!
And never moved she from before my face,
Nay, rather did impede so much my way,
That many times I to return had turned.
[ Dante's Inferno, as translated
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
Some players, who unconsciously perceive Paper as weak or a sign of
surrender, will shy away from using it entirely or drop it from their
game when they are falling behind. On the other hand, Paper also
connects with a player's perceptions about writing. There is a quiet
power in the printed word. It has the ability to lay off thousands of
employees, declare war against nations, spread scandal or confess love.
Paper, in short, has power over masses. The fate of the entire world is
determined by print. As such, some players perceive Paper as a subtle
attack, the victory of modern culture over barbarism. Such players
may use Paper to assert their superiority and dignity.
[ The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide ]
Conan cried out sharply and recoiled, thrusting his companion
back. Before them rose the great shimmering white form of Satha,
an ageless hate in its eyes. Conan tensed himself for one mad
berserker onslaught -- to thrust the glowing faggot into that
fiendish countenance and throw his life into the ripping sword-
stroke. But the snake was not looking at him. It was glaring
over his shoulder at the man called Pelias, who stood with his
arms folded, smiling. And in the great, cold, yellow eyes
slowly the hate died out in a glitter of pure fear -- the only
time Conan ever saw such an expression in a reptile's eyes.
With a swirling rush like the sweep of a strong wind, the great
snake was gone.
"What did he see to frighten him?" asked Conan, eyeing his
companion uneasily.
"The scaled people see what escapes the mortal eye," answered
Pelias cryptically. "You see my fleshy guise, he saw my naked
soul."
[ Conan the Usurper, by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp ]
The mine is full of holes;
With the wound of pickaxes.
But look at the goldsmith's store.
There, there is gold everywhere.
[ Divan-i Kebir Meter 2, by Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi ]
A pick-axe made of magic. It is pretty. It destroys universes
in one round. It can violate the first law of thermodynamics.
It was once the High Emperor of the megaultraverse and everyone
bowed to it and shouted in unison: 'Crystal Pick! Crystal Pick!
Crystal Piiiick!'.
The previous description may have been exaggerated.
Ye Piercer doth look like unto a stalactyte, and hangeth
from the roofs of caves and caverns. Unto the height of a
man, and thicker than a man's thigh do they grow, and in
groups do they hang. If a creature doth pass beneath them,
they will by its heat and noise perceive it, and fall upon
it to kill and devour it, though in any other way they move
but exceeding slow.
[ the Bestiary of Xygag ]
They live in "schools." Many times they will wait for prey
to come to the shallow water of the river. Then the large
group of piranhas will attack. These large groups are able
to kill large animals... Their lower teeth fit perfectly
into the spaces of their upper teeth, creating a tremendous
vice-like bite... Piranhas are attracted to any disturbance
in the water.
[ http://www.animalsoftherainforest.com ]
Amid the thought of the fiery destruction that impended, the
idea of the coolness of the well came over my soul like balm.
I rushed to its deadly brink. I threw my straining vision
below. The glare from the enkindled roof illumined its inmost
recesses. Yet, for a wild moment, did my spirit refuse to
comprehend the meaning of what I saw. At length it forced --
it wrestled its way into my soul -- it burned itself in upon my
shuddering reason. Oh! for a voice to speak! -- oh! horror! --
oh! any horror but this!
[ The Pit and the Pendulum, by Edgar Allan Poe ]
Pit fiends are among the more powerful of devils, capable of
attacking twice with weapons as well as grabbing and crushing
the life out of those unwary enough to enter their
domains.
This is an ancient artifact made of an unknown material. It
is rectangular in shape, very thin, and inscribed with
unreadable ancient runes. When carried, it grants the one
who carries it ESP, and reduces all spell induced damage done to
the carrier by half. It also protects from magic missile
attacks. Finally, its power is such that when invoked, it
can charge other objects.
Hey! now! Come hoy now! Whither do you wander?
Up, down, near or far, here, there or yonder?
Sharp-ears, Wise-nose, Swish-tail and Bumpkin,
White-socks my little lad, and old Fatty Lumpkin!
[...]
Tom called them one by one and they climbed over the brow and
stood in a line. Then Tom bowed to the hobbits.
"Here are your ponies, now!" he said. "They've more sense (in some
ways) than you wandering hobbits have -- more sense in their noses.
For they sniff danger ahead which you walk right into; and if they
run to save themselves, then they run the right way."
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
Portals can be Mirrors, Pictures, Standing Stones, Stone
Circles, Windows, and special gates set up for the purpose.
You will travel through them both to distant parts of the
continent and to and from our own world. The precise manner
of their working is a Management secret.
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
Poseido(o)n, lord of the seas and father of rivers and
fountains, was the son of Chronos and Rhea, brother of Zeus,
Hades, Hera, Hestia and Demeter. His rank of ruler of the
waves he received by lot at the Council Meeting of the Gods,
at which Zeus took the upper world for himself and gave
dominion over the lower world to Hades.
Poseidon is associated in many ways with horses and thus is
the god of horses. He taught men how to ride and manage the
animal he invented and is looked upon as the originator and
guardian deity of horse races.
His symbol is the familiar trident or three-pronged spear
with which he can split rocks, cause or quell storms, and
shake the earth, a power which makes him the god of
earthquakes as well. Physically, he is shown as a strong and
powerful ruler, every inch a king.
[ The Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends of All
Nations, by Herbert Robinson and Knox Wilson ]
POTABLE, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be
potable; indeed, some declare it our natural beverage,
although even they find it palatable only when suffering
from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it
is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and diligent
ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all
countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the
invention of substitutes for water. To hold that this
general aversion to that liquid has no basis in the
preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific --
and without science we are as the snakes and toads.
[ The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce ]
Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer
reduces itself to this: Great God, grant that twice two be not four.
[ Ivan Sergeyevich Urgenev ]
[...] For the two priests were talking exactly like priests,
piously, with learning and leisure, about the most aerial
enigmas of theology. The little Essex priest spoke the more
simply, with his round face turned to the strengthening stars;
the other talked with his head bowed, as if he were not even
worthy to look at them. But no more innocently clerical
conversation could have been heard in any white Italian cloister
or black Spanish cathedral. The first he heard was the tail of
one of Father Brown's sentences, which ended: "... what they
really meant in the Middle Ages by the heavens being
incorruptible." The taller priest nodded his bowed head and
said: "Ah, yes, these modern infidels appeal to their reason;
but who can look at those millions of worlds and not feel that
there may well be wonderful universes above us where reason is
utterly unreasonable?"
[ The Innocence of Father Brown, by G.K. Chesterton ]
Where am I?
In the Village.
What do you want?
Information.
Whose side are you on?
That would be telling. We want information ...
information ...
You won't get it.
By hook or by crook, we will.
Who are you?
The new Number 2.
Who is Number 1?
You are Number 6.
I am not a number! I am a free man!
[ The Prisoner, by Patrick McGoohan ]
Known under various names (Nu, Neph, Cenubis, Amen-Kneph,
Khery-Bakef), Ptah is the creator god and god of craftsmen.
He is usually depicted as wearing a closely fitting robe
with only his hands free. His most distinctive features are
the invariable skull-cap exposing only his face and ears,
and the _was_ or rod of domination which he holds,
consisting of a staff surmounted by the _ankh_ symbol of
life. He is otherwise symbolized by his sacred animal, the
bull.
You are quite certain there has never been a pumpkin in UnNetHack,
and never will be. Quite frankly, you find the notion absurd.
Former wizards of the dark pits, the Punishers are immortal
statues of great magical abilities. Their most feared
ability is to conjure up a big, ugly and rusty iron ball
that is chained around adventurers; adding to the heaviness
of their duties.
A gargantuan version of the harmless rain-worm, the purple
worm poses a huge threat to the ordinary adventurer. It is
known to swallow whole and digest its victims within only a
few minutes. These worms are always on guard, sensitive
to the most minute vibrations in the earth, but may also
be awakened by a remote shriek.
A single glance from this red-feathered cockatrice can cause even
the bravest adventurer to burst into flames, their flesh withering
and blackening and curling beneath the creature's baleful gaze.
[ The New Bestiary, Wizard Endlebrook ]
At first glance around the corner, I thought it was another
cockatrice. I had encountered the wretched creatures two or
three times since leaving the open area. I quickly ducked my
head back and considered what to do next. My heart had begun
to thump audibly as I patted my pack to make sure I still had
the dead lizards at close reach. A check of my attire showed
no obvious holes or damage. I had to keep moving. One deep
breath, and a count of three, two, one, and around the corner
I bolted. But it was no cockatrice! I felt a sudden intense
searing of the skin around my face, and flames began to leap
from my pack. I tossed it to the ground, and quickly retreated
back, around that corner, desperately striving to get out of
its sight.
A monstrous serpent in Greek mythology, and the child of Gaia,
the goddess earth. It was produced from the slime and mud that
was left on the earth by the great flood of Deucalion. It lived
in a cave and guarded the oracle of Delphi on mount Parnassus.
No man dared to approach the beast and the people asked Apollo
for help. He came down from Mount Olympus with his silver bow
and golden arrows. With using only one arrow he killed the serpent
and claimed the oracle for himself. ... The old name of
Delphi, Pytho, refers to the serpent.
[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
The woodlands and other regions are inhabited by multitudes
of four-legged creatures which cannot be simply classified.
They might not have fiery breath or deadly stings, but
adventurers have nevertheless met their end numerous times
due to the claws, hooves, or bites of such animals.
These creatures are not native to this universe; they seem
to have strangely derived powers, and unknown motives.
_Uncertainty Principle_ The principle that it is not possible
to know with unlimited accuracy both the position and momentum
of a particle. ... An explanation of the uncertainty is that
in order to locate a particle exactly, an observer must be
able to bounce off it a photon of radiation; this act of
location itself alters the position of the particle
in an unpredictable way. To locate the position accurately,
photons of short wavelength would have to be used. The high
momentum of such photons would cause a large effect on the
position. On the other hand, using photons of lower momenta
would have less effect on the particle's position, but would
be less accurate because of the lower wavelength.
[ A Concise Dictionary of Physics ]
Quasits are small, evil creatures, related to imps. Their
talons release a very toxic poison when used in an attack.
Many, possibly most, Tours are organized as a Quest. This
is like a large-scale treasure hunt, with clues scattered
all over the continent, a few false leads, Mystical Masters
as game-show hosts, and the Dark Lord and the Terrain to
make the Quest interestingly difficult. [...]
In order to be assured of your future custom, the Management
has a further Rule: Tourists, far from being rewarded for
achieving their Quest Object, must then go on to conquer
the Dark Lord or set about Saving the World, or both. And
why not? By then you will have had a lot of practice in
that sort of thing and, besides, the Quest Object is usually
designed to help you do it.
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
One of the principal Aztec-Toltec gods was the great and wise
Quetzalcoatl, who was called Kukumatz in Guatemala, and
Kukulcan in Yucatan. His image, the plumed serpent, is found
on both the oldest and the most recent Indian edifices. ...
The legend tells how the Indian deity Quetzalcoatl came from
the "Land of the Rising Sun". He wore a long white robe and
had a beard; he taught the people crafts and customs and laid
down wise laws. He created an empire in which the ears of
corn were as long as men are tall, and caused bolls of colored
cotton to grow on cotton plants. But for some reason or other
he had to leave his empire. ... But all the legends of
Quetzalcoatl unanimously agree that he promised to come again.
[ Gods, Graves, and Scholars, by C. W. Ceram ]
Maltar: [...] I remembered a little saying I learned my first
day at the academy.
Natalie: Yeah, yeah, I know. Winners never quit and quitters
never win.
Maltar: What? No! Winners never quit and quitters should be
cast into the flaming pit of death.
[ Snow Day, directed by Chris Koch,
written by Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi ]
The Japanese god of thunder (rai) and lightning (den). He prevented
the Mongols from invading Japan in 1274. Sitting on a cloud he sent
forth a shower of lightning arrows upon the invading fleet. Only three
men escaped. Raiden is portrayed as a red demon with sharp claws,
carrying a large drum. He is fond of eating human navels. The only
protection against him is to hide under a mosquito net.
[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
"Lonely men are we, Rangers of the wild, hunters -- but hunters
ever of the servants of the Enemy; for they are found in many
places, not in Mordor only.
If Gondor, Boromir, has been a stalwart tower, we have played
another part. Many evil things there are that your strong walls
and bright swords do not stay. You know little of the lands
beyond your bounds. Peace and freedom, do you say? The North
would have known them little but for us. Fear would have
destroyed them. But when dark things come from the houseless
hills, or creep from sunless woods, they fly from us. What
roads would any dare to tread, what safety would there be in
quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the
Dunedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave?"
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
A variant of the pike, the ranseur has a thin, double-edged
primary blade. Secondary blades are backward-hooking projections
set well below the large central blade, forming a crown-shape.
The spearing function of the weapon is apparent, and the
deflection includes the trapping of opponent weapons in the space
below the main blade, where a twist of the shaft would apply
pressure from it or the secondary projections to either break the
caught weapon or disarm its wielder. Additionally, the side
projections provide both a means of holding an opponent at long
range or of pulling mounted opponents off their steed.
Rats are long-tailed rodents. They are aggressive,
omnivorous, and adaptable, often carrying diseases.
"The rat," said O'Brien, still addressing his invisible
audience, "although a rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware
of that. You will have heard of the things that happen in
the poor quarters of this town. In some streets a woman dare
not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes.
The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time
they will strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or
dying people. They show astonishing intelligence in knowing
when a human being is helpless."
[ 1984, by George Orwell ]
"Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist."
[The Princess Bride, by William Goldman ]
But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered -- not a feather then he fluttered--
Till I scarcely more than muttered, 'other friends have flown before--
On the morrow *he* will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'
Then the bird said, 'Nevermore.'
[ The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe ]
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
[...] "When time came for the shepherds to hold their customary
assembly in order to prepare their monthly report to the king
about the state of the flocks, he came too, wearing this ring.
While he was sitting with the others, it chanced that he moved
the collet of the ring around toward himself into the inside of
his hand; having done this, he disappeared from the sight of
those who were sitting beside him, and they discussed of him as
of someone who had left. And he wondered and once again feeling
for the ring, he turned the collet outwards and, by turning it,
reappeared. Reflecting upon this, he put the ring to the test
to see if it indeed had such power, and he came to this conclusion
that, by turning the collet inwards, he became invisible, outwards,
visible. Having perceived this, he at once managed for himself to
become one of the envoys to the king; upon arrival, having seduced
his wife, with her help, he laid a hand on the king, murdered
him and took hold of the leadership."
[ The Republic, by Plato, translated by James Adam ]
Robes are the only garments, apart from Shirts, ever to have
sleeves. They have three uses:
1. As the official uniform of Priests, Priestesses, Monks,
Nuns (see Nunnery), and Wizards. The OMT [ Official Management
Term ] prescribed for the Robes of Priests and Nuns is that
they _fall in severe folds_; of Priestesses that they _float_;
and of Wizards that they _swirl_. You can thus see who you
are dealing with.
2. For Kings. The OMT here is _falling in stately folds_.
3. As the garb of Desert Nomads. [...]
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
Bilbo saw that the moment had come when he must do something.
He could not get up at the brutes and he had nothing to shoot
with; but looking about he saw that in this place there were
many stones lying in what appeared to be a now dry little
watercourse. Bilbo was a pretty fair shot with a stone, and
it did not take him long to find a nice smooth egg-shaped one
that fitted his hand cosily. As a boy he used to practise
throwing stones at things, until rabbits and squirrels, and
even birds, got out of his way as quick as lightning if they
saw him stoop; and even grownup he had still spent a deal of
his time at quoits, dart-throwing, shooting at the wand,
bowls, ninepins and other quiet games of the aiming and
throwing sort - indeed he could do lots of things, besides
blowing smoke-rings, asking riddles and cooking, that I
haven't time to tell you about. There is no time now. While
he was picking up stones, the spider had reached Bombur, and
soon he would have been dead. At that moment Bilbo threw.
The stone struck the spider plunk on the head, and it dropped
senseless off the tree, flop to the ground, with all its legs
curled up.
[ The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
A rock mole is a member of the rodent family. They get their
name from their ability to tunnel through rock in the same
fashion that a mole tunnels through earth. They are known to
eat anything they come across in their diggings, although it
is still unknown how they convert some of these things into
something of nutritional value.
I understand the business, I hear it: to have an open ear, a
quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cut-purse; a
good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for the other
senses. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth
thrive. <...> The prince himself is about a piece of iniquity,
stealing away from his father with his clog at his heels: if
I thought it were a piece of honesty to acquaint the king
withal, I would not do't: I hold it the more knavery to
conceal it; and therein am I constant to my profession.
[ Autolycus the Rogue, from The Winter's Tale by
William Shakespeare ]
The rothe (pronounced roth-AY) is a musk ox-like creature with
an aversion to light. It prefers to live underground near
lichen and moss.
"'Royal Jelly,'" he read aloud, "'must be a substance of
tremendous nourishing power, for on this diet alone, the
honey-bee larva increases in weight fifteen hundred times in
five days!'"
"How much?"
"Fifteen hundred times, Mabel. And you know what that means
if you put it in terms of a human being? It means," he said,
lowering his voice, leaning forward, fixing her with those
small pale eyes, "it means that in five days a baby weighing
seven and a half pounds to start off with would increase in
weight to five tons!"
[ Royal Jelly, by Roald Dahl ]
_Corundum._ Mineral, aluminum oxide, Al2O3. The clear varieties
are used as gems and the opaque as abrasive materials. Corundum
occurs in crystals of the hexagonal system and in masses. It is
transparent to opaque and has a vitreous to adamantine luster.
[...] The chief corundum gems are the ruby (red) and the
sapphire (blue).
[ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ]
Runes are an intensely magical form of writing. Anything
written in Runes is going to be a Spell.
[...]
6. Written on Rings and Swords. These Runes always
make words and nearly always mean trouble. Avoid any
artifact with Runes on it, even if the Runes prove only to
spell the maker's name.
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
These strange creatures live on a diet of metals. They can
turn a suit of armour into so much useless rusted scrap in no
time at all.
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sab'ring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery smoke,
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not--
Not the six hundred.
[ The Charge of the Light Brigade,
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson ]
The horseman serves the horse,
The neat-herd serves the neat,
The merchant serves the purse,
The eater serves his meat;
'Tis the day of the chattel,
Web to weave, and corn to grind,
Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.
[ Ode, by Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Japanese rice wine.
For hundreds of years, many people believed that salamanders
were magical. In England in the Middle Ages, people thought
that fire created salamanders. When they set fire to damp
logs, dozens of the slimy creatures scurried out. The word
salamander, in fact, comes from a Greek word meaning "fire
animal".
[ Salamanders, by Cherie Winner ]
By that time, Narahara had already slipped his arm from the
sleeve of his outer robe, drew out his two-and-a-half-foot
Fujiwara Tadahiro sword, and, brandishing it over his head,
began barreling toward the foreigners. In less than a minute,
he had charged upon them and cut one of them through the torso.
The man fled, clutching his bulging guts, finally to fall from
his horse at the foot of a pine tree about a thousand yards
away. Kaeda Takeji finished him off. The other two Englishmen
were severely wounded as they tried to flee. Only the woman
managed to escape virtually unscathed.
[ The Fox-horse, from Drunk as a Lord, by Ryotaro Shiba ]
Ildefonse left the terrace and almost immediately sounds
of contention came from the direction of the work-room.
Ildefonse presently returned to the terrace, followed by
Osherl and a second sandestin using the guise of a gaunt blue
bird-like creature, some six feet in height.
Ildefonse spoke in scathing tones: "Behold these two
creatures! They can roam the chronoplex as easily as you
or I can walk around the table; yet neither has the wit to
announce his presence upon arrival. I found Osherl asleep
in his fulgurite and Sarsem perched in the rafters."
[...]
"No matter," said Rhialto. "He has brought Sarsem, and this
was his requirement. In the main, Osherl, you have done well!"
"And my indenture point?"
"Much depends upon Sarsem's testimony. Sarsem, will you sit?"
"In this guise, I find it more convenient to stand."
"Then why not alter to human form and join us in comfort at
the table?"
"That is a good idea." Sarsem became a naked young epicene
in an integument of lavender scales with puffs of purple hair
like pom-poms growing down his back. He seated himself at
the table but declined refreshment. "This human semblance,
though typical, is after all, only a guise. If I were to put
such things inside myself, I might well become uneasy."
[ Rhialto the Marvellous, by Jack Vance ]
The name _Sasquatch_ doesn't really become important in Canada
until the 1930s, when it appeared in the works of J. W. Burns,
a British Columbian writer who used a great deal of Indian
lore in his stories. Burn's Sasquatch was a giant Indian who
lived in the wilderness. He was hairy only in the sense that
he had long hair on his head, and while this Sasquatch lived a
wild and primitive life, he was fully human.
Burns's character proved to be quite popular. There was a
Sasquatch Inn near the town of Harrison, British Columbia, and
Harrison even had a local celebration called "Sasquatch Days."
The celebration which had been dormant for years was revived
as part of British Columbia's centennial, and one of the
events was to be a Sasquatch hunt. The hunt never took place,
perhaps it was never supposed to, but the publicity about it
did bring out a number of people who said they had encountered
a Sasquatch -- not Burns's giant Indian, but the hairy apelike
creature that we have all come to know.
[ The Encyclopedia of Monsters, by Daniel Cohen ]
This mace was created aeons ago in some unknown cave,
and has been passed down from generation to generation of
cave dwellers. It is a very mighty mace indeed, and in
addition will protect anyone who carries it from magic
missile attacks. When invoked, it causes conflict in the
area around it.
Oh, how handsome, how noble was the Vizier Ali Tebelin,
my father, as he stood there in the midst of the shot, his
scimitar in his hand, his face black with powder! How his
enemies fled before him!
[ The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas ]
A sub-species of the spider (_Scorpionidae_), the scorpion
distinguishes itself from them by having a lower body that
ends in a long, jointed tail tapering to a poisonous stinger.
They have eight legs and pincers.
[ Van Dale's Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal ]
Since early times, the Scorpion has represented death, darkness,
and evil. Scorpius is the reputed slayer of Orion the Hunter.
[...] The gods put both scorpion and hunter among the stars, but
on opposite sides of the sky so they would never fight again.
As Scorpius rises in the east, Orion sets in the west.
[ 365 Starry Nights, by Chet Raymo ]
And I was gazing on the surges prone,
With many a scalding tear and many a groan,
When at my feet emerg'd an old man's hand,
Grasping this scroll, and this same slender wand.
I knelt with pain--reached out my hand--had grasp'd
Those treasures--touch'd the knuckles--they unclasp'd--
I caught a finger: but the downward weight
O'erpowered me--it sank. Then 'gan abate
The storm, and through chill aguish gloom outburst
The comfortable sun. I was athirst
To search the book, and in the warming air
Parted its dripping leaves with eager care.
Strange matters did it treat of, and drew on
My soul page after page, till well-nigh won
Into forgetfulness; when, stupefied,
I read these words, and read again, and tried
My eyes against the heavens, and read again.
[ Endymion, by John Keats ]
The ancient Egyptian god of chaos (Set), the embodiment of hostility
and even of outright evil. He is also a god of war, deserts, storms, and
foreign lands. ... In the Book of the Dead, Seth is called "Lord of
the Northern Sky" and is held responsible for storms and cloudy weather.
... Seth was portrayed as a man with the head of undeterminable origin,
although some see in it the head of an aardvark. He had a curved snout,
erect square-tipped ears and a long forked tail. He was sometimes
entirely in animal form with the body similar to that of a greyhound.
Animals sacred to this god were the dog, the jackal, the gazelle, the
donkey, the crocodile, the hippopotamus, and the pig.
[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
Shades are undead creatures. They differ from zombies in
that a zombie is an undead animation of a corpse, while a
shade is an undead creature magically created by the use
of black magic.
Making his quarters in the Caves of the Ancestors, Shaman
Karnov unceasingly tries to shield his neanderthal people
from Tiamat's minions' harassments.
The Chinese god of Mountains and Seas, also the name of an
old book (also Shan Hai Tjing), the book of mountains and
seas - which deals with the monster Kung Kung trying to
seize power from Yao, the fourth emperor.
[ Spectrum Atlas van de Mythologie ]
As the shark moved, its dark top reflected virtually no
light. The denticles on its skin muted the whoosh of its
movements as the shark rose, driven by the power of the
great tail sweeping from side to side, like a scythe.
The fish exploded upward.
Charles Bruder felt a slight vacuum tug in the motion of
the sea, noted it as a passing current, the pull of a wave,
the tickle of undertow. He could not have heard the faint
sucking rush of water not far beneath him. He couldn't
have seen or heard what was hurtling from the murk at
astonishing speed, jaws unhinging, widening, for the
enormous first bite. It was the classic attack
that no other creature in nature could make -- a bomb from
the depths.
[ Close to Shore, by Michael Capuzzo ]
A Japanese stabbing knife.
With a single, savage thrust of her spear, the warrior-woman
impaled the fungus, silencing it. However, it was too late:
the alarm had been raised[...]
Suddenly, a large, dark shape rose from the abyss before them,
its fetid bulk looming overhead...The monster was some kind of
great dark worm, but that was about all they were sure of.
[ The Adventurers, Epic IV, by Thomas A. Miller ]
A white, precious, metallic chemical element that is extremely
ductile and malleable, capable of high polish, and an excellent
conductor of heat and electricity: symbol, Ag; atomic weight,
107.880; atomic number, 47.
[ Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary Unabridged,
Second Edition]
There have been three general theories put forward to explain
the phenomenon of the wandering shops or, as they are generically
known, _tabernae vagantes._
The first postulates that many thousands of years ago there
evolved somewhere in the multiverse a race whose single talent
was to buy cheap and sell dear. Soon they controlled a vast
galactic empire or, as they put it, Emporium, and the more
advanced members of the species found a way to equip their very
shops with unique propulsion units that could break the dark
walls of space itself and open up vast new markets. And long
after the worlds of the Emporium perished in the heat death of
their particular universe, after one last defiant fire sale, the
wandering starshops still ply their trade, eating their way
through the pages of spacetime like a worm through a three-volume
novel.
The second is that they are the creation of a sympathetic Fate,
charged with the role of supplying exactly the right thing
at the right time.
The third is that they are simply a very clever way of getting
around the various Sunday Closing acts.
All these theories, diverse as they are, have two things in
common. They explain the observed facts, and they are completely
and utterly wrong.
[ The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett ]
A skeleton is a magically animated undead creature. Unlike
shades, only a humanoid creature can be used to create a
skeleton. No one knows why this is true, but it has become
an accepted fact amongst the practitioners of the black arts.
"That dog belonged to a settler who tried to build his cabin
on the bank of the river a few miles south of the fort,"
grunted Conan. ... "We took him to the fort and dressed his
wounds, but after he recovered he took to the woods and turned
wild. -- What now, Slasher, are you hunting the men who
killed your master?" ... "Let him come," muttered Conan.
"He can smell the devils before we can see them." ...
Slasher cleared the timbers with a bound and leaped into the
bushes. They were violently shaken and then the dog slunk
back to Balthus' side, his jaws crimson. ... "He was a man,"
said Conan. "I drink to his shade, and to the shade of the
dog, who knew no fear." He quaffed part of the wine, then
emptied the rest upon the floor, with a curious heathen
gesture, and smashed the goblet. "The heads of ten Picts
shall pay for this, and seven heads for the dog, who was a
better warrior than many a man."
[ Conan The Warrior, by Robert E Howard ]
Sleep is a death; oh, let me try
By sleeping, know what it is to die,
And as gently lay my head
On my grave, as now my bed.
[ Religio Medici, by Thomas Browne ]
A hideous growth, green slime is bright green, sticky, and wet. It
grows in dark subterranean places on walls, ceilings and floors.
... Green slime attaches itself to living flesh and in 1-4 melee
rounds turns the creature into green slime ... Green slime is an
infestation that all creatures avoid; it is burned out of caverns
or mines if found. Once it has infected an area, it has a tendency
to grow back, even after being frozen or burned away, because dormant
spores can germinate years later.
[ Monstrous Manual, by TSR inc. ]
Slime mold or slime fungus, organism usually classified with
the fungi, but showing equal affinity to the protozoa. Slime
molds have complex life cycles with an animal-like motile
phase, in which feeding and growth occur, and a plant-like
immotile reproductive phase. The motile phase, commonly
found under rotting logs and damp leaves, consists of either
solitary amoebalike cells or a brightly colored multinucleate
mass of protoplasm called a plasmodium, which creeps about
and feeds by amoeboid movement.
[ The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia ]
And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came and
drew nigh to meet David, that David hasted, and ran toward
the army to meet the Philistine.
And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone,
and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that
the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face
to the earth.
So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with
a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there
was no sword in the hand of David.
[ 1 Samuel 17:48-50 ]
Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field
which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea,
hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of
the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is
in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of
it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent
said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth
know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be
opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And
when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it
was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one
wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also
unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou
hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I
did eat. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou
hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above
every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and
dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put
enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her
seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
[ Genesis 3:1-6,13-15 ]
Ah, never shall I forget the cry,
or the shriek that shrieked he,
As I gnashed my teeth, and from my sheath
I drew my Snickersnee!
--Koko, Lord high executioner of Titipu
[ The Mikado, by Sir W.S. Gilbert ]
Sokoban (Japanese for "warehouse person") is a puzzle-type
game where the player must push around treasure to a goal
area. It apparently won first prize in a Japanese programming
contest.
[ Xsokoban web site ]
The soldiers of Yendor are well-trained in the art of war,
many trained by the Wizard himself. Some say the soldiers
are explorers who were unfortunate enough to be captured,
and put under the Wizard's spell. Those who have survived
encounters with soldiers say they travel together in platoons,
and are fierce fighters. Because of the load of their combat
gear, however, one can usually run away from them, and doing
so is considered a wise thing.
- they come together with great random, and a spear is brast,
and one party brake his shield and the other one goes down,
horse and man, over his horse-tail and brake his neck, and
then the next candidate comes randoming in, and brast his
spear, and the other man brast his shield, and down he goes,
horse and man, over his horse-tail, and brake his neck, and
then there's another elected, and another and another and
still another, till the material is all used up; and when you
come to figure up results, you can't tell one fight from
another, nor who whipped; and as a picture of living, raging,
roaring battle, sho! why it's pale and noiseless - just
ghosts scuffling in a fog. Dear me, what would this barren
vocabulary get out of the mightiest spectacle? - the burning
of Rome in Nero's time, for instance? Why, it would merely
say 'Town burned down; no insurance; boy brast a window,
fireman brake his neck!' Why, that ain't a picture!
[ A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by Mark
Twain ]
The Book of Three lay closed on the table. Taran had never
been allowed to read the volume for himself; now he was sure
it held more than Dallben chose to tell him. In the sun-
filled room, with Dallben still meditating and showing no
sign of stopping, Taran rose and moved through the shimmering
beams. From the forest came the monotonous tick of a beetle.
His hands reached for the cover. Taran gasped in pain and
snatched them away. They smarted as if each of his fingers
had been stung by hornets. He jumped back, stumbled against
the bench, and dropped to the floor, where he put his fingers
woefully into his mouth.
Dallben's eyes blinked open. He peered at Taran and yawned
slowly. "You had better see Coll about a lotion for those
hands," he advised. "Otherwise, I shouldn't be surprised if
they blistered."
[ The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander ]
Eight legged creature capable of spinning webs to trap prey.
"You mean you eat flies?" gasped Wilbur.
"Certainly. Flies, bugs, grasshoppers, choice beetles,
moths, butterflies, tasty cockroaches, gnats, midges, daddy
longlegs, centipedes, mosquitoes, crickets - anything that is
careless enough to get caught in my web. I have to live,
don't I?"
"Why, yes, of course," said Wilbur.
[ Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White ]
The attack by those who want to die -- this is the attack
against which you cannot prepare a perfect defense.
--Human aphorism
[ The Dosadi Experiment, by Frank Herbert ]
A floorboard creaked. Galder had spent many hours tuning them,
always a wise precaution with an ambitious assistant who walked
like a cat.
D flat. That meant he was just to the right of the door.
"Ah, Trymon," he said, without turning, and noted with some
satisfaction the faint indrawing of breath behind him. "Good
of you to come. Shut the door, will you?"
[ The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett ]
So they stood, each in his place, neither moving a finger's
breadth back, for one good hour, and many blows were given
and received by each in that time, till here and there were
sore bones and bumps, yet neither thought of crying "Enough,"
or seemed likely to fall from off the bridge. Now and then
they stopped to rest, and each thought that he never had seen
in all his life before such a hand at quarterstaff. At last
Robin gave the stranger a blow upon the ribs that made his
jacket smoke like a damp straw thatch in the sun. So shrewd
was the stroke that the stranger came within a hair's breadth
of falling off the bridge; but he regained himself right
quickly, and, by a dexterous blow, gave Robin a crack on the
crown that caused the blood to flow. Then Robin grew mad
with anger, and smote with all his might at the other; but
the stranger warded the blow, and once again thwacked Robin,
and this time so fairly that he fell heels over head into the
water, as the queen pin falls in a game of bowls.
[ The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle ]
This staff is considered sacred to all healers, as it truly
holds the powers of life and death. When wielded, it
protects its user from all life draining attacks, and
additionally gives the wielder the power of regeneration.
When invoked it performs healing magic.
Up he went -- very quickly at first -- then more slowly -- then
in a little while even more slowly than that -- and finally,
after many minutes of climbing up the endless stairway, one
weary foot was barely able to follow the other. Milo suddenly
realized that with all his effort he was no closer to the top
than when he began, and not a great deal further from the
bottom. But he struggled on for a while longer, until at last,
completely exhausted, he collapsed onto one of the steps.
"I should have known it," he mumbled, resting his tired legs
and filling his lungs with air. "This is just like the line
that goes on forever, and I'll never get there."
"You wouldn't like it much anyway," someone replied gently.
"Infinity is a dreadfully poor place. They can never manage to
make ends meet."
[ The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster ]
Dr. Ray Stantz: Hey, where do those stairs go?
Dr. Peter Venkman: They go up.
[ Ghostbusters, directed by Ivan Reitman,
written by Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis ]
The invisible stalker is a creature from the elemental plane of
Air. Those encountered on the Prime Material plane have almost
always been summoned by wizards to fulfill a specific task.
The true form of the invisible stalker is unknown. On the Material,
Astral, or Ethereal planes, the invisible stalker can only be
perceived as a shimmering air mass which looks much like the
refraction effect caused by hot air passing in front of cold.
[ Monstrous Manual, by TSR inc. ]
"The Starveling Cat! The Starveling Cat! It knows what we think! We don't like that!"
"The Starveling Cat! The Starveling Cat! It likes your bones! It prefers your fat!"
"The Starveling Cat! The Starveling Cat! Want to lose a hand? Give it a pat!"
[ Fallen London, by Failbetter]
Then at last he began to wonder why the lion was standing so
still - for it hadn't moved one inch since he first set eyes
on it. Edmund now ventured a little nearer, still keeping in
the shadow of the arch as much as he could. He now saw from
the way the lion was standing that it couldn't have been
looking at him at all. ("But supposing it turns its head?"
thought Edmund.) In fact it was staring at something else -
namely a little dwarf who stood with his back to it about
four feet away. "Aha!" thought Edmund. "When it springs at
the dwarf then will be my chance to escape." But still the
lion never moved, nor did the dwarf. And now at last Edmund
remembered what the others had said about the White Witch
turning people into stone. Perhaps this was only a stone
lion. And as soon as he had thought of that he noticed that
the lion's back and the top of its head were covered with
snow. Of course it must be only a statue!
[ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis ]
There was the usual dim grey light of the forest-day about
him when he came to his senses. The spider lay dead beside
him, and his sword-blade was stained black. Somehow the
killing of the giant spider, all alone and by himself in the
dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves or of
anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt
a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of
an empty stomach, as he wiped his sword on the grass and put
it back into its sheath.
"I will give you a name," he said to it, "and I shall call
you Sting."
[ The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
There were sounds in the distance, incongruent with the
sounds of even this nameless, timeless sea: thin sounds,
agonized and terrible, for all that they remained remote -
yet the ship followed them, as if drawn by them; they grew
louder - pain and despair were there, but terror was
predominant.
Elric had heard such sounds echoing from his cousin Yyrkoon's
sardonically named 'Pleasure Chambers' in the days before he
had fled the responsibilities of ruling all that remained of
the old Melnibonean Empire. These were the voices of men
whose very souls were under siege; men to whom death meant
not mere extinction, but a continuation of existence, forever
in thrall to some cruel and supernatural master. He had
heard men cry so when his salvation and his nemesis, his
great black battle-blade Stormbringer, drank their souls.
[ The Lands Beyond the World, by Michael Moorcock ]
He walked for some time through a long narrow corridor
without finding any one and was just going to call out,
when suddenly in a dark corner between an old cupboard
and the door he caught sight of a strange object which
seemed to be alive.
[ Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky ]
Dorothy leaned her chin upon her hand and gazed thoughtfully
at the Scarecrow. Its head was a small sack stuffed with straw,
with eyes, nose, and mouth painted on it to represent a face.
An old, pointed blue hat, that had belonged to some Munchkin,
was perched on his head, and the rest of the figure was a blue suit
of clothes, worn and faded, which had also been stuffed with straw.
On the feet were some old boots with blue tops, such as every man
wore in this country, and the figure was raised above the stalks
of corn by means of the pole stuck up its back.
[ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum ]
The Shinto chthonic and weather god and brother of the sun
goddess Amaterasu, he was born from the nose of the
primordial creator god Izanagi and represents the physical,
material world. He has been expelled from heaven and taken
up residence on earth.
[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place:
for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
[ Matthew, 26:52 ]
Samurai plate armor of the Yamato period (AD 300 - 710).
To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?
[ Lays of Ancient Rome, by Thomas B. Macaulay ]
The tengu was the most troublesome creature of Japanese
legend. Part bird and part man, with red beak for a nose
and flashing eyes, the tengu was notorious for stirring up
feuds and prolonging enmity between families. Indeed, the
belligerent tengu were supposed to have been man's first
instructors in the use of arms.
[ Mythical Beasts, by Deirdre Headon (The Leprechaun Library) ]
The Egyptian god of the moon and wisdom, Thoth is the patron
deity of scribes and of knowledge, including scientific,
medical and mathematical writing, and is said to have given
mankind the art of hieroglyphic writing. He is important as
a mediator and counsellor amongst the gods and is the scribe
of the Heliopolis Ennead pantheon. According to mythology,
he was born from the head of the god Seth. He may be
depicted in human form with the head of an ibis, wholly as an
ibis, or as a seated baboon sometimes with its torso covered
in feathers. His attributes include a crown which consists
of a crescent moon surmounted by a moon disc.
Thoth is generally regarded as a benign deity. He is also
scrupulously fair and is responsible not only for entering
in the record the souls who pass to afterlife, but of
adjudicating in the Hall of the Two Truths. The Pyramid
Texts reveal a violent side of his nature by which he
decapitates the adversaries of truth and wrenches out their
hearts.
[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
Men say that he [Thutothmes] has opposed Thoth-Amon, who is
master of all priests of Set, and dwells in Luxor, and that
Thutothmes seeks hidden power [The Heart of Ahriman] to
overthrow the Great One.
[ Conan the Conqueror, by Robert E. Howard ]
A worshipper of Kali, who practised _thuggee_, the strangling
of human victims in the name of the religion. Robbery of the
victim provided the means of livelihood. They were also
called _Phansigars_ (Noose operators) from the method employed.
Vigorous suppression was begun by Lord William Bentinck in
1828, but the fraternity did not become completely extinct
for another 50 years or so.
In common parlance the word is used for any violent "tough".
[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne
Which mists and vapours from mine eyes did shroud--
Nor view of who might sit thereon allowed;
But all the steps and ground about were strown
With sights the ruefullest that flesh and bone
Ever put on; a miserable crowd,
Sick, hale, old, young, who cried before that cloud,
"Thou art our king,
O Death! to thee we groan."
Those steps I clomb; the mists before me gave
Smooth way; and I beheld the face of one
Sleeping alone within a mossy cave,
With her face up to heaven; that seemed to have
Pleasing remembrance of a thought foregone;
A lovely Beauty in a summer grave!
[ Sonnet, by William Wordsworth ]
1. A well-known tropical predator (_Felis tigris_): a
feline. It has a yellowish skin with darker spots or
stripes. 2. Figurative: _a paper tiger_, something that is
meant to scare, but has no really scaring effect whatsoever,
(after a statement by Mao Ze Dong, August 1946).
[ Van Dale's Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal ]
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
[ The Tyger, by William Blake ]
"You know salmon, Sarge," said Nobby.
"It is a fish of which I am aware, yes."
"You know they sell kind of slices of it in tins..."
"So I am given to understand, yes."
"Weell...how come all the tins are the same size? Salmon
gets thinner at both ends."
"Interesting point, Nobby. I think-"
[ Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett ]
Less than thirty Cat tribes now survived, roaming the cargo
decks on their hind legs in a desperate search for food.
But the food had gone.
The supplies were finished.
Weak and ailing, they prayed at the supply hold's silver
mountains: huge towering acres of metal rocks which, in their
pagan way, the mutant Cats believed watched over them.
Amid the wailing and the screeching one Cat stood up and held
aloft the sacred icon. The icon which had been passed down
as holy, and one day would make its use known.
It was a piece of V-shaped metal with a revolving handle on
its head.
He took down a silver rock from the silver mountain, while
the other Cats cowered and screamed at the blasphemy.
He placed the icon on the rim of the rock, and turned the
handle.
And the handle turned.
And the rock opened.
And inside the rock was Alphabetti spaghetti in tomato sauce.
[ Red Dwarf, by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor ]
Gaea, mother earth, arose from the Chaos and gave birth to
Uranus, heaven, who became her consort. Uranus hated all
their children, because he feared they might challenge his
own authority. Those children, the Titans, the Gigantes,
and the Cyclops, were banished to the nether world. Their
enraged mother eventually released the youngest titan,
Chronos (time), and encouraged him to castrate his father and
rule in his place. Later, he too was challenged by his own
son, Zeus, and he and his fellow titans were ousted from
Mount Olympus.
[ Greek Mythology, by Richard Patrick ]
Aluminum silicate mineral with either hydroxyl radicals or
fluorine, Al2SiO4(F,OH)2, used as a gem. It is commonly
colorless or some shade of pale yellow to wine-yellow;
[...] The stone is transparent with a vitreous luster. It has
perfect cleavage on the basal pinacoid, but it is nevertheless
hard and durable. The brilliant cut is commonly used. Topaz
crystals, which are of the orthorhombic system, occur in highly
acid igneous rocks, e.g., granites and rhyolites, and in
metamorphic rocks, e.g., gneisses and schists.
[ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ]
"Gold is tried by a touchstone, men by gold."
[ Chilon (c. 560 BC) ]
The road from Ankh-Morpork to Chrim is high, white and
winding, a thirty-league stretch of potholes and half-buried
rocks that spirals around mountains and dips into cool green
valleys of citrus trees, crosses liana-webbed gorges on
creaking rope bridges and is generally more picturesque than
useful.
Picturesque. That was a new word to Rincewind the wizard
(BMgc, Unseen University [failed]). It was one of a number
he had picked up since leaving the charred ruins of
Ankh-Morpork. Quaint was another one. Picturesque meant --
he decided after careful observation of the scenery that
inspired Twoflower to use the word -- that the landscape was
horribly precipitous. Quaint, when used to describe the
occasional village through which they passed, meant fever-
ridden and tumbledown.
Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the discworld.
Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant "idiot".
[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say
on the subject of towels.
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing
an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great
practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as
you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie
on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus
V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it
beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of
Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down down the slow heavy
River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it
round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze
of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly
stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't
see you - daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can
wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of
course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean
enough.
[ The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
by Douglas Adams ]
Towers (_brooding_, _dark_) stand alone in Waste Areas and
almost always belong to Wizards. All are several stories high,
round, doorless, virtually windowless, and composed of smooth
blocks of masonry that make them very hard to climb. [...]
You will have to go to a Tower and then break into it at some
point towards the end of your Tour.
[ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
I knew my Erik too well to feel at all comfortable on jumping
into his house. I knew what he had made of a certain palace at
Mazenderan. From being the most honest building conceivable, he
soon turned it into a house of the very devil, where you could
not utter a word but it was overheard or repeated by an echo.
With his trap-doors the monster was responsible for endless
tragedies of all kinds.
[ The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux ]
The trapper is a creature which has evolved a chameleon-like
ability to blend into the dungeon surroundings. It captures
its prey by remaining very still and blending into the
surrounding dungeon features, until an unsuspecting creature
passes by. It wraps itself around its prey and digests it.
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
[ Trees - Joyce Kilmer ]
If you start from scratch, cooking tripe is a long-drawn-out
affair. Fresh whole tripe calls for a minimum of 12 hours of
cooking, some time-honored recipes demanding as much as 24.
To prepare fresh tripe, trim if necessary. Wash it thoroughly,
soaking overnight, and blanch, for 1/2 hour in salted water.
Wash well again, drain and cut for cooking. When cooked, the
texture of tripe should be like that of soft gristle. More
often, alas, because the heat has not been kept low enough,
it has the consistency of wet shoe leather.
[ Joy of Cooking, by I Rombauer and M Becker ]
The troll shambled closer. He was perhaps eight feet tall,
perhaps more. His forward stoop, with arms dangling past
thick claw-footed legs to the ground, made it hard to tell.
The hairless green skin moved upon his body. His head was a
gash of a mouth, a yard-long nose, and two eyes which drank
the feeble torchlight and never gave back a gleam.
[...]
Like a huge green spider, the troll's severed hand ran on its
fingers. Across the mounded floor, up onto a log with one
taloned forefinger to hook it over the bark, down again it
scrambled, until it found the cut wrist. And there it grew
fast. The troll's smashed head seethed and knit together.
He clambered back on his feet and grinned at them. The
waning faggot cast red light over his fangs.
[ Three Hearts and Three Lions, by Poul Anderson ]
This most ancient of swords has been passed down through the
leadership of the Samurai legions for hundreds of years. It
is said to grant luck to its wielder, but its main power is
terrible to behold. It has the capability to cut in half any
creature it is wielded against, instantly killing them.
The tsurugi, also known as the long samurai sword, is an
extremely sharp, two-handed blade favored by the samurai.
It is made of hardened steel, and is manufactured using a
special process, causing it to never rust. The tsurugi is
rumored to be so sharp that it can occasionally cut
opponents in half!
TUBAL: There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company
to Venice that swear he cannot choose but break.
SHYLOCK: I am very glad of it; I'll plague him, I'll torture him;
I am glad of it.
TUBAL: One of them showed me a ring that he had of your
daughter for a monkey.
SHYLOCK: Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my
turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor; I would
not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.
[ The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare ]
Through the fathomless deeps of space swims the star turtle Great
A'Tuin, bearing on its back the four giant elephants who carry on
their shoulders the mass of the Discworld. A tiny sun and moon spin
around them, on a complicated orbit to induce seasons, so probably
nowhere else in the multiverse is it sometimes necessary for an
elephant to cock a leg to allow the sun to go past.
Exactly why this should be may never be known. Possibly the Creator
of the universe got bored with all the usual business of axial
inclination, albedos and rotational velocities, and decided to have
a bit of fun for once.
[ Wyrd Sisters, by Terry Pratchett ]
"Rincewind!"
Twoflower sprang off the bed. The wizard jumped back,
wrenching his features into a smile.
"My dear chap, right on time! We'll just have lunch, and
then I'm sure you've got a wonderful programme lined up for
this afternoon!"
"Er --"
"That's great!"
Rincewind took a deep breath. "Look," he said desperately,
"let's eat somewhere else. There's been a bit of a fight
down below."
"A tavern brawl? Why didn't you wake me up?"
"Well, you see, I - _what_?"
"I thought I made myself clear this morning, Rincewind. I
want to see genuine Morporkian life - the slave market, the
Whore Pits, the Temple of Small Gods, the Beggar's Guild...
and a genuine tavern brawl." A faint note of suspicion
entered Twoflower's voice. "You _do_ have them, don't you?
You know, people swinging on chandeliers, swordfights over
the table, the sort of thing Hrun the Barbarian and the
Weasel are always getting involved in. You know --
_excitement_."
[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
I am a poure dyuel, and my name ys Tytyvyllus ... I muste eche
day ... brynge my master a thousande pokes full of faylynges,
and of neglygences in syllables and wordes.
[ Myroure of Oure Ladye ]
Yet remains that one of the Aesir who is called Tyr:
he is most daring, and best in stoutness of heart, and he
has much authority over victory in battle; it is good for
men of valor to invoke him. It is a proverb, that he is
Tyr-valiant, who surpasses other men and does not waver.
He is wise, so that it is also said, that he that is wisest
is Tyr-prudent. This is one token of his daring: when the
Aesir enticed Fenris-Wolf to take upon him the fetter Gleipnir,
the wolf did not believe them, that they would loose him,
until they laid Tyr's hand into his mouth as a pledge. But
when the Aesir would not loose him, then he bit off the hand
at the place now called 'the wolf's joint;' and Tyr is one-
handed, and is not called a reconciler of men.
[ The Prose Edda, by Snorri Sturluson ]
Umber hulks are powerful subterranean predators whose
iron-like claws allow them to burrow through solid stone in
search of prey. They are tremendously strong; muscles bulge
beneath their thick, scaly hides and their powerful arms and
legs all end in great claws.
Men have always sought the elusive unicorn, for the single
twisted horn which projected from its forehead was thought to
be a powerful talisman. It was said that the unicorn had
simply to dip the tip of its horn in a muddy pool for the water
to become pure. Men also believed that to drink from this horn
was a protection against all sickness, and that if the horn was
ground to a powder it would act as an antidote to all poisons.
Less than 200 years ago in France, the horn of a unicorn was
used in a ceremony to test the royal food for poison.
Although only the size of a small horse, the unicorn is a very
fierce beast, capable of killing an elephant with a single
thrust from its horn. Its fleetness of foot also makes this
solitary creature difficult to capture. However, it can be
tamed and captured by a maiden. Made gentle by the sight of a
virgin, the unicorn can be lured to lay its head in her lap, and
in this docile mood, the maiden may secure it with a golden rope.
[ Mythical Beasts, by Deirdre Headon (The Leprechaun Library) ]
Martin took a small sip of beer. "Almost ready," he said.
"You hold your beer awfully well."
Tlingel laughed. "A unicorn's horn is a detoxicant. Its
possession is a universal remedy. I wait until I reach the
warm glow stage, then I use my horn to burn off any excess and
keep me right there."
[ Unicorn Variations, by Roger Zelazny ]
Despite being imbued with reality-warping powers by the Green Sun,
these trouble-making servants of darkness seem unaware of their
true power, and probably would run away if yelled at.
GG: those stupid things are impossible to kill :(
TG: no you can kill them
TG: youll get better dont worry
[ Homestuck Act 5, by Andrew Hussie ]
The Valkyries were the thirteen choosers of the slain, the
beautiful warrior-maids of Odin who rode through the air and
over the sea. They watched the progress of the battle and
selected the heroes who were to fall fighting. After they
were dead, the maidens rewarded the heroes by kissing them
and then led their souls to Valhalla, where the warriors
lived happily in an ideal existence, drinking and eating
without restraint and fighting over again the battles in
which they died and in which they had won their deathless
fame.
[ The Encyclopaedia of Myths and Legends of All
Nations, by Herbert Robinson and Knox
Wilson ]
The Oxford English Dictionary is quite unequivocal:
_vampire_ - "a preternatural being of a malignant nature (in
the original and usual form of the belief, a reanimated
corpse), supposed to seek nourishment, or do harm, by sucking
the blood of sleeping persons. ..."
Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, was the daughter of
Jupiter and Dione. Others say that Venus sprang from the
foam of the sea. The zephyr wafted her along the waves to
the Isle of Cyprus, where she was received and attired by
the Seasons, and then led to the assembly of the gods. All
were charmed with her beauty, and each one demanded her
for his wife. Jupiter gave her to Vulcan, in gratitude for
the service he had rendered in forging thunderbolts. So
the most beautiful of the goddesses became the wife of the
most ill-favoured of gods.
[ Bulfinch's Mythology, by Thomas Bulfinch ]
Violet fungus growths resemble shriekers, and are usually
encountered with them. The latter are immune to the touch of
violet fungi, and the two types of creatures complement each
other's existence.
[ Monstrous Manual, by TSR inc. ]
Vlad Dracula the Impaler was a 15th-Century monarch of the
Birgau region of the Carpathian Mountains, in what is now
Romania. In Romanian history he is best known for two things.
One was his skilled handling of the Ottoman Turks, which kept
them from making further inroads into Christian Europe. The
other was the ruthless manner in which he ran his fiefdom.
He dealt with perceived challengers to his rule by impaling
them upright on wooden stakes. Visiting dignitaries who
failed to doff their hats had them nailed to their head.
The Cat materialized at the far end of the bar, downed the
Hatter's drink, and said, "I hear the burbling, and eyes of
flame are drifting to the left."
I glanced at the mural, and I, too, saw the fiery eyes and heard
a peculiar sound.
"It could be any number of things," Luke remarked.
The Cat moved to a rack behind the bar and reached high up on
the wall to where a strange weapon hung, shimmering and shifting
in shadow. He lowered the thing and slid it along the bar; it came
to rest before Luke.
"Better have the Vorpal Sword in hand, that's all I can say."
Luke laughed, but I stared fascinated at the device which looked
as if it were made of moth wings and folded moonlight.
[ Sign of Chaos, by Roger Zelazny ]
Swirling clouds of pure elemental energies, the vortices are
thought to be related to the larger elementals. Though most
vortices do no damage when touched, they are noted for being
able to envelop unwary travellers. The hapless fool thus
swallowed by a vortex will soon perish from exposure to the
element the vortex is composed of.
Place a hefty cleaver at the end of a long, stout shaft, and
the leverage which the pole gives the wielder will enable him
to cleave through armor. The voulge has no provision to keep
the enemy at a distance in its basic model, but with the top
front or back edge is ground down so as to provide a pointed,
dagger-like tip, the weapon assumes a more complete form.
The vrock is one of the weaker forms of demon. It resembles
a cross between a human being and a vulture and does physical
damage by biting and by using the claws on both its arms and
feet.
The samurai warrior traditionally wears two swords; the
wakizashi is the shorter of the two. See also katana.
'Saruman!' he cried, and his voice grew in power and authority.
'Behold, I am not Gandalf the Grey, whom you betrayed. I am
Gandalf the White, who has returned from death. You have no
colour now, and I cast you from the order and from the Council.'
He raised his hand, and spoke slowly in a clear cold voice.
'Saruman, your staff is broken.' There was a crack, and the
staff split asunder in Saruman's hand, and the head of it
fell down at Gandalf's feet. 'Go!' said Gandalf. With a cry
Saruman fell back and crawled away.
[ The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
Suddenly Aragorn leapt to his feet. "How the wind howls!"
he cried. "It is howling with wolf-voices. The Wargs have
come west of the Mountains!"
"Need we wait until morning then?" said Gandalf. "It is as I
said. The hunt is up! Even if we live to see the dawn, who
now will wish to journey south by night with the wild wolves
on his trail?"
"How far is Moria?" asked Boromir.
"There was a door south-west of Caradhras, some fifteen miles
as the crow flies, and maybe twenty as the wolf runs,"
answered Gandalf grimly.
"Then let us start as soon as it is light tomorrow, if we can,"
said Boromir. "The wolf that one hears is worse than the orc
that one fears."
"True!" said Aragorn, loosening his sword in its sheath. "But
where the warg howls, there also the orc prowls."
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
They had come together at the ford of the Trident while the
battle crashed around them, Robert with his warhammer and his
great antlered helm, the Targaryen prince armored all in
black. On his breastplate was the three-headed dragon of his
House, wrought all in rubies that flashed like fire in the
sunlight. The waters of the Trident ran red around the
hooves of their destriers as they circled and clashed, again
and again, until at last a crushing blow from Robert's hammer
stove in the dragon and the chest behind it. When Ned had
finally come on the scene, Rhaegar lay dead in the stream,
while men of both armies scrambled in the swirling waters for
rubies knocked free of his armor.
[ A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin ]
Out from the water a long sinuous tentacle had crawled; it
was pale-green and luminous and wet. Its fingered end had
hold of Frodo's foot, and was dragging him into the water.
Sam on his knees was now slashing at it with a knife. The
arm let go of Frodo, and Sam pulled him away, crying out
for help. Twenty other arms came rippling out. The dark
water boiled, and there was a hideous stench.
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere
Nor any drop to drink.
[ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge ]
[ The monkey king ] walked along the bank, around the pond. He examined
the footprints of the animals that had gone into the water, and saw
that none came out again! So he realized this pond must be possessed
by a water demon. He said to the 80,000 monkeys, "This pond is
possessed by a water demon. Do not let anybody go into it."
After a little while, the water demon saw that none of the
monkeys went into the water to drink. So he rose out of the middle of
the pond, taking the shape of a frightening monster. He had a big blue
belly, a white face with bulging green eyes, and red claws and feet.
He said, "Why are you just sitting around? Come into the pond and drink
at once!"
The monkey king said to the horrible monster, "Are you the water
demon who owns this pond?" "Yes, I am," said he. "Do you eat whoever
goes into the water?" asked the king. "Yes, I do," he answered,
"including even birds. I eat them all. And when you are forced by your
thirst to come into the pond and drink, I will enjoy eating you, the
biggest monkey, most of all!" He grinned, and saliva dripped down his
hairy chin.
[ Buddhist Tales for Young and Old, Vol. 1 ]
And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto
thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out
of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw
the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried,
saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand,
and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore
didst thou doubt? And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.
[ Matthew, 14:28-32 ]
A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind.
[ The Vor Game, by Lois McMaster Bujold ]
I watch her in the corner there,
As, restless, bold, and unafraid,
She slips and floats along the air
Till all her subtile house is made
Her home, her bed, her daily food
All from that hidden store she draws;
She fashions it and knows it good,
By instinct's strong and sacred laws.
No tenuous threads to weave her nest,
She seeks and gathers there or here;
But spins it from her faithful breast,
Renewing still, till leaves are sere.
Then, worn with toil, and tired of life,
In vain her shining traps are set.
Her frost hath hushed the insect strife
And gilded flies her charm forget.
But swinging in the snares she spun,
She sways to every winter wind:
Her joy, her toil, her errand done,
Her corse the sport of storms unkind.
[ Arachne, by Rose Terry Cooke ]
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
[ Marmion, by Sir Walter Scott ]
Lonely assassins they used to be called. No one quite knows
where they came from, but they're as old as the universe. Or
very nearly, and they have survived this long because they
have the most perfect defense system ever evolved. They're
quantum locked. They don't exist when they're being observed,
in the moment they are seen by any other living creature
they freeze into rock. No choice, it's a fact that their
biology, in the sight of any other living thing they literally
turn to stone. And you can't kill a stone. 'Course a stone
can't kill you either, but then you turn your head away.
Then you blink. And oh yes it can.
[ Doctor Who, "Blink" ]
"This whole book, it's a warning about the weeping angels, so
why no pictures? Why not show us what to look out for?"
"There was a bit about images. What was that?"
"Yes. Hang on.... 'That which holds the image of an angel
becomes itself an angel.'"
[ Doctor Who, "The Time of Angels" ]
A wight is a fearsome undead spirit inhabiting the remains of a
deceased humanoid. Due to their corporeal nature, wights are able
to make use of both weapons and magic.
When he came to himself again, for a moment he could recall
nothing except a sense of dread. Then suddenly he knew that
he was imprisoned, caught hopelessly; he was in a barrow. A
Barrow-wight had taken him, and he was probably already under
the dreadful spells of the Barrow-wights about which whispered
tales spoke. He dared not move, but lay as he found himself:
flat on his back upon a cold stone with his hands on his
breast.
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
Ebenezum walked before me along the closest thing we could
find to a path in these overgrown woods. Every few paces he
would pause, so that I, burdened with a pack stuffed with
arcane and heavy paraphernalia, could catch up with his
wizardly strides. He, as usual, carried nothing, preferring,
as he often said, to keep his hands free for quick conjuring
and his mind free for the thoughts of a mage.
[ A Dealing with Demons, by Craig Shaw Gardner ]
No one knows how old this mighty wizard is, or from whence he
came. It is known that, having lived a span far greater than
any normal man's, he grew weary of lesser mortals; and so,
spurning all human company, he forsook the dwellings of men
and went to live in the depths of the Earth. He took with
him a dreadful artifact, the Book of the Dead, which is said
to hold great power indeed. Many have sought to find the
wizard and his treasure, but none have found him and lived to
tell the tale. Woe be to the incautious adventurer who
disturbs this mighty sorcerer!
The ancestors of the modern day domestic dog, wolves are
powerful muscular animals with bushy tails. Intelligent,
social animals, wolves live in family groups or packs made
up of multiple family units. These packs cooperate in hunting
down prey.
1. Any of various, usually poisonous perennial herbs of the
genus Aconitum, having tuberous roots, palmately lobed leaves,
blue or white flowers with large hoodlike upper sepals, and an
aggregate of follicles. 2. The dried leaves and roots of some
of these plants, which yield a poisonous alkaloid that was
formerly used medicinally. In both senses also called monkshood.
[ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language,
Fourth Edition. ]
Come, old broomstick, you are needed,
Take these rags and wrap them round you!
Long my orders you have heeded,
By my wishes now I've bound you.
Have two legs and stand,
And a head for you.
Run, and in your hand
Hold a bucket too.
...
See him, toward the shore he's racing
There, he's at the stream already,
Back like lightning he is chasing,
Pouring water fast and steady.
Once again he hastens!
How the water spills,
How the water basins
Brimming full he fills!
[ The Sorcerer's Apprentice, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
translation by Edwin Zeydel ]
The Usenet Oracle requires an answer to this question!
> How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could
> chuck wood?
"Oh, heck! I'll handle *this* one!" The Oracle spun the terminal
back toward himself, unlocked the ZOT-guard lock, and slid the
glass guard away from the ZOT key. "Ummmm....could you turn around
for a minute? ZOTs are too graphic for the uninitiated. Even *I*
get a little squeamish sometimes..." The neophyte turned around,
and heard the Oracle slam his finger on a computer key, followed
by a loud ZZZZOTTTTT and the smell of ozone.
[ Excerpted from Internet Oracularity 576.6 ]
Where the dunes began, perhaps fifty metres away at the foot of a
rock beach, a silver-gray curve broached from the desert, sending
rivers of sand and dust cascading all around. It lifted higher,
resolved into a giant, questing mouth. It was a round, black hole
with edges glistening in the moonlight.
The mouth snaked toward the narrow crack where Paul and Jessica
huddled. Cinnamon yelled in their nostrils. Moonlight flashed from
crystal teeth.
[ Dune, by Frank Herbert ]
[The crysknife] is manufactured in two forms from teeth taken
from dead sandworms. The two forms are "fixed" and "unfixed".
An unfixed knife requires proximity to a human body's
electrical field to prevent disintegration. Fixed knives
are treated for storage. All are about 20 centimeters long.
[ Dune, by Frank Herbert ]
Immediately, though everything else remained as before, dim
and dark, the shapes became terribly clear. He was able to
see beneath their black wrappings. There were five tall
figures: two standing on the lip of the dell, three advancing.
In their white faces burned keen and merciless eyes; under
their mantles were long grey robes; upon their grey hairs
were helms of silver; in their haggard hands were swords of
steel. Their eyes fell on him and pierced him, as they
rushed towards him. Desperate, he drew his own sword, and
it seemed to him that it flickered red, as if it was a
firebrand. Two of the figures halted. The third was taller
than the others: his hair was long and gleaming and on his
helm was a crown. In one hand he held a long sword, and in
the other a knife; both the knife and the hand that held it
glowed with a pale light. He sprang forward and bore down
on Frodo.
[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
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.
[ wump (6) -- "Hunt the Wumpus" ]
_Wumpus yobgregorii_, in the flesh...
Later, all you will be able to remember are its eyes. They are
rich mud-brown, and they hold your own without effort.
[ Hunter, In Darkness, by Andrew Plotkin ]
They sent their friend the mosquito [xan] ahead of them to
find out what lay ahead. "Since you are the one who sucks
the blood of men walking along paths," they told the mosquito,
"go and sting the men of Xibalba." The mosquito flew
down the dark road to the Underworld. Entering the house of
the Lords of Death, he stung the first person that he saw...
The mosquito stung this man as well, and when he yelled, the
man next to him asked, "Gathered Blood, what's wrong?" So
he flew along the row stinging all the seated men until he
knew the names of all twelve.
[ Popul Vuh, as translated by Ralph Nelson ]
A distant cousin of the earth elemental, the xorn has the
ability to shift the cells of its body around in such a way
that it becomes porous to inert material. This gives it the
ability to pass through any obstacle that might be between it
and its next meal.
The arrow of choice of the samurai, ya are made of very
straight bamboo, and are tipped with hardened steel.
Yeenoghu, the demon lord of gnolls, still exists although
all his followers have been wiped off the face of the earth.
He casts magic projectiles at those close to him, and a mere
gaze into his piercing eyes may hopelessly confuse the
battle-weary adventurer.
The Abominable Snowman, or yeti, is one of the truly great
unknown animals of the twentieth century. It is a large hairy
biped that lives in the Himalayan region of Asia ... The story
of the Abominable Snowman is filled with mysteries great and
small, and one of the most difficult of all is how it got that
awful name. The creature is neither particularly abominable,
nor does it necessarily live in the snows. _Yeti_ is a Tibetan
word which may apply either to a real, but unknown animal of
the Himalayas, or to a mountain spirit or demon -- no one is
quite sure which. And after nearly half a century in which
Westerners have trampled around looking for the yeti, and
asking all sorts of questions, the original native traditions
concerning the creature have become even more muddled and
confused.
[ The Encyclopedia of Monsters, by Daniel Cohen ]
Japanese leather archery gloves. Gloves made for use while
practicing had thumbs reinforced with horn. Those worn into
battle had thumbs reinforced with a double layer of leather.
The samurai is highly trained with a special type of bow,
the yumi. Like the ya, the yumi is made of bamboo. With
the yumi-ya, the bow and arrow, the samurai is an extremely
accurate and deadly warrior.
The zombi... is a soulless human corpse, still dead, but
taken from the grave and endowed by sorcery with a
mechanical semblance of life, -- it is a dead body which is
made to walk and act and move as if it were alive.
[ W. B. Seabrook ]
The zruty are wild and gigantic beings, living in the
wildernesses of the Tatra mountains.
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