Fortune cookie
% 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | fortune cookie |
| Base price | 7 zm |
| Nutrition | 40 |
| Turns to eat | 1 |
| Weight | 1 |
| Conduct | vegetarian (literate) |
A fortune cookie is a type of comestible that appears in NetHack. It is veggy and considered vegetarian.
Contents
Generation
Fortune cookies make up 5.5% of all randomly-generated comestibles.
All Monks start with 3 to 6 fortune cookies.[1] Tourists can start with food rations among their initial stacks of food.[2]
General stores, delicatessens and health food stores can sell fortune cookies.
Applying a charged horn of plenty has a 51⁄1000 chance (5.1%) of generating a fortune cookie or two.[3]
Description
When eaten, a fortune cookie provides 40 nutrition and leaves behind a fortune that is automatically read unless the hero is blind. The fortune is a rumor whose veracity depends on the cookie's beatitude: Blessed fortune cookies always contain true rumors, cursed fortune cookies always contain false rumors, and uncursed fortune cookies may contain either with equal probability. Fortune cookies will never be rotten when eaten regardless of their beatitude.[4]
Characters can read fortune cookies manually, breaking the cookie and throwing away the pieces before reading the fortune inside. Reading the fortune through either method breaks illiterate conduct.
Thrown fortune cookies can be used to tame domestic canines and felines, despite being veggy.
Strategy
Fortune cookies are a lightweight means of taming domestic carnivores, and otherwise make a quick snack for non-vegan characters. Other characters can preserve vegan or foodless conduct by reading the cookie instead of eating it, while illiterate conduct can be preserved by using it solely to tame pets as above - if a fortune cookie must be eaten, the character can blind themselves before eating it.
History
The fortune cookie first appears in Hack 1.0.
Origin
A fortune cookie is a crisp and sugary cookie wafer made from flour, sugar, vanilla, and sesame seed oil, and usually contains a piece of paper with a "fortune", an aphorism or a vague prophecy. The message inside may also include a Chinese phrase with translation and/or a list of lucky numbers used by some as lottery numbers. Fortune cookies are often served as a dessert in Chinese restaurants in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries; there is also a Japanese variant that lacks the Chinese lucky numbers and were eaten with tea.
Despite the association with Chinese restaurants, they are not Chinese in origin - the exact origin of fortune cookies is unclear, with various immigrant groups in California claiming to have popularized them in the early 20th century; a comment in the code of NetHack attributes them to George Jung in Los Angeles, California in 1916.[5] David Jung, founder of the Hong Kong Noodle Company in Los Angeles, claims that he invented the cookie in 1918, while Seiichi Kito, the founder of Fugetsu-do of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, also claims to have invented the cookie by getting the idea from Omikuji (fortune slip) sold at temples and shrines in Japan.
Messages
- You ate a fortune cookie, with "terrible" used for cursed cookies.
- You "read" a fortune cookie.
- You read the fortune inside the cookie.
- What a pity you cannot read it!
- This replaces the second sentence if you read or eat the cookie while blind.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, fortune cookies give a "yes/no" prompt for their fortune when eaten, which allows characters to more easily maintain illiterate conduct. This also applies to SlashTHEM.
UnNetHack
UnNetHack incorporates the Free Fortune Cookie Patch, which gives szechuan tins a 1⁄2 chance of containing a free fortune cookie. It also incorporates the Advent calendar patch, which has a significant chance of generating a fortune cookie as the "prize" in each of the 23 small rooms prior to Christmas Eve.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, draugr Monks have their fortune cookies replaced with eggs.
Hack'EM
Hack'EM also incorporates the Free Fortune Cookie Patch, which gives szechuan tins a 1⁄2 chance of containing a free fortune cookie.
A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:
"Check if it incorporates the prompt from SLASH'EM"
Encyclopedia entry
Nemesis cracked another cookie and wrinkled her nose. "_You will
have great fortune when you least expect it,_" she read. "That's
exactly the sort of nonsense I hate. Someone opens a cookie, and
suddenly they have a prophecy that they'll be rich! I blame that
tramp Tyche. Always dispensing good luck to people who don't
deserve it!"
Leo looked at the mound of broken cookies. "Uh ... you know those
aren't real prophecies, right? They're just stuffed into the
cookies at some factory--"
"Don't try to excuse it!" Nemesis snapped. "It's just like Tyche
to get people's hopes up. No, no. I _must_ counter her." Nemesis
flicked a finger over the slip of paper, and the letters changed
to red. "_You will die painfully when you most expect it._
There! Much better."
References
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 97
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 144
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2219: any comestible that can be randomly generated is eligible
- ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2674
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 94
