Lump of royal jelly
% 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | lump of royal jelly |
| Base price | 15 zm |
| Nutrition | 200 |
| Turns to eat | 1 |
| Weight | 2 |
| Conduct | vegetarian |
A lump of royal jelly (sometimes simply royal jelly) is a type of comestible that appears in NetHack. It is veggy and non-vegan, but is safe for vegetarians.
Contents
Generation
Lumps of royal jelly are not randomly generated. Royal jelly is are primarily found within beehives, where each killer bee in the hive (including the queen bee) has a 1⁄3 chance of royal jelly being generated underneath them at level creation;[1] they can also be found in health food shops.[2]
Applying a horn of plenty may produce a lump of royal jelly.
Description
Eating a non-cursed lump of royal jelly grants 200 nutrition and has several other effects: it heals wounded legs and increases your strength by one point (unless it is already at its maximum), along with possibly restoring up to 20 HP;[3] if this would raise your base form's HP above its maximum, there is an additional 1⁄16 chance of increasing your maximum HP by 1. A cursed lump of royal jelly will instead lower strength by one point and may decrease your HP by up to 20.
Lumps of royal jelly can be used to tame carnivorous domestic animals.
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.
Per commit fe66443: Applying royal jelly to objects will smear it on them; as of commit d44c83d, the only applicable objects are monster eggs. Cursed royal jelly will kill an egg, while uncursed royal jelly will rejuvenate it; blessed royal jelly will additionally make the egg recognize you as its parent if it hatches in your inventory. Using royal jelly of any beatitude on a killer bee egg will turn it into a queen bee egg.
As of commit 4159dd9, killer bees will eat royal jelly and become queen bees if a queen bee is not present on the level; tame killer bees will seek out nearby lumps of royal jelly, while hostile killer bees will eat any royal that they move across when pursuing you. As of commit 5e26589, players polymorphed into killer bees can also become queen bees by eating royal jelly.Strategy
Royal jelly has a very good nutrition-to-weight ratio and can be eaten in one turn, making it a popular food item to store for the late game and ascension run.
History
The lump of royal jelly first appears in Hack 1.0.2 alongside the beehive.
Variants
The November NetHack Tournament
In The November NetHack Tournament, lumps of royal jelly are among one of the few acceptable food items for the swap chest.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, honey badgers will dig their way towards any beehives on the level in order to try and eat the royal jelly present.
Encyclopedia entry
"'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!"
