Nymph (monster class)

The nymph is a monster class in NetHack represented by the lowercase 'n' glyph (n). The class contains three nymph species:

• n water nymph
• n wood nymph
• n mountain nymph

Common traits

All nymphs are almost exactly the same in terms of stats and generation, with the exception of the water nymph's ability to swim. The monster class is defined by the macro S_NYMPH in include/monsym.h.

Nymphs have no directly damaging attacks and poor AC, but are nevertheless very dangerous - they can charm you into removing your armor, stealing it and/or other items before attempting to teleport away. They are also capable of using said items and will putt on armor and amulets, zap wands and quaff potions.

Nymphs will teleport at random while moving, making them hard to track down. Eating a nymph's corpse has a chance of giving you teleportitis.

History

The nymph is introduced in Hack for PDP-11, a variant of Jay Fenlason's Hack. From Hack 1.0 to NetHack 2.3e, nymphs used the N glyph - the monster was replaced with the three distinct subtypes in NetHack 3.0.0, and they were moved to the n glyph.

Variants

Many variants add new monsters to the nymph class and expand on their common traits, taking cues from the ancient Greek folklore they originated in - Aphrodite and the nymph level are also common additions to variants, first appearing in SLASH'EM.

SLASH'EM

SLASH'EM adds some new monsters to the nymph monster class, as well as Aphrodite and the nymph level:

• n pixie
• n brownie
• n quickling
• n Aphrodite

UnNetHack

UnNetHack includes Aphrodite and the nymph level as well, but does not add any other new monsters to the class.

dNetHack

dNetHack renames and changes the three nymphs from vanilla, and adds several other monsters:

• n quickling
• n dryad
• n naiad
• n oread
• n swamp nymph
• n yuki-onna
• n deminymph
• n neverwas
• n thriae
• n selkie
• n oceanid
• n intoner
• Unique monsters
  • n Aglaope
  • n Nimune
• Unused nymphs:
  • n Echo

EvilHack

EvilHack also contains Aphrodite and her nymph level, and adds a couple of other new nymphs:

• n ice nymph
• n nymph

The ice nymph primarily appears in the Ice Queen's Realm and Geryon's Lair, while the "plain" nymph is a placeholder used for racial shopkeepers.

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, nymphs are among the new playable races of monster. SlashTHEM also retains the nymphs added in SLASH'EM, and includes a "plain" nymph to correspond to the nymph starting race. SlashTHEM also adds a couple of other new monsters to the group:

• n satyr
• n nymph queen