Rub

#rub is the extended command which allows you to rub an object. This has two main uses:

• Rubbing a lamp can have special effects, depending on whether it is an oil lamp or a magic lamp. An oil lamp will always produce the message "Nothing happens"; a magic lamp will sometimes produce the message "You see a puff of smoke," and sometimes produce a djinni.
  • Rubbing a brass lantern will produce the message "Rubbing the electric lamp is not particularly rewarding. Anyway, nothing exciting happens." This is a reference to the result of trying to RUB LAMP in Colossal Cave Adventure, one of the earliest text adventure games.
• Rubbing with a gray stone is useful for identification. If you have a blessed, identified touchstone (there are exceptions, see the main article for details), you can rub unidentified gems on it to identify them. In addition, a "scritch, scritch" message when you rub an iron item on a gray stone indicates it is a touchstone.

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.

Rubbing royal jelly on an egg now affects the egg. A killer bee egg will become a queen bee egg, giving the appropriate 'quivers' message below. Cursed royal jelly will kill the egg ('The egg quivers feebly'), non-cursed jelly will revive it ('The egg quivers briefly'), and blessed jelly will make the newborn creature think you are its parent, so it is guaranteed to hatch tame.

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.4. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-364}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.