Rumors

Rumors are a way to learn about the game without reading spoilers. Rumors come in two forms: true and false. The true ones are useful hints, while the false ones are useless or incorrect.

Getting rumors

• The Oracle always tells you a true rumor when you pay for a minor consultation.
• The following items give you a true rumor if blessed, a false rumor if cursed and either if uncursed:
  • Fortune cookies contain a rumor that is revealed when you eat the cookie. You may also just read the cookie, if you want to keep the vegan conduct.
  • The Magic Mirror of Merlin and The Master Key of Thievery, the knight and rogue quest artifacts respectively, give you a rumor when applied or wielded.
• You can sometimes find rumors in the dust on the dungeon floor. Sometimes these can be difficult to read.
  • You can write something on the dungeon floor, then engrave with a wand of polymorph to get a rumor.

Examples

True rumors

Rumor #330: Throwing food at a wild dog might tame him.

This encourages the player to throw tripe at dogs to tame them.

Rumor #47: Eating a freezing sphere is like eating a yeti.

This suggests that by eating a freezing sphere or a yeti you may get the cold resistance. Unfortunately, freezing spheres never leave corpses.

Rumor #326: 'They say the gods get angry if you kill your dog.'

This suggests that if you kill a pet, you get an alignment penalty (-15 to be exact).

False rumors

Rumor #7: A cockatrice corpse is guaranteed to be untainted!

This encourages the player to eat a cockatrice corpse, which is a fatal mistake.

Rumor #157: Sorry, no fortune this time. Better luck next cookie!

This is just plain useless.

Rumor #195: They say that a hacker named David once slew a giant with a sling and a rock.

Some false rumours are just random references to random things.

See also

• Source:rumors.tru — the data file that contains all the true rumors
• Source:rumors.fal — the data file that contains all the false rumors
• Rumor messages — explains the meaning of each rumor

External links

• alt.org - NetHack Addi(c)tion: Random Messages