Maud
Maud is the object of affection in a poem of the same name by Alfred Lord Tennyson, which describes the narrator's descent into fractured consciousness at the thought of his beloved. In NetHack, Maud's name occurs in various aspects of the game:
- One of the unidentified scroll labels is DUAM XNAHT, or "THANX MAUD" written backwards, and is the default label for the scroll of amnesia in the source code.
- The scroll of amnesia itself produces one of two messages referencing the poem when read:
- Who was that Maud person anyway?
Thinking of Maud you forget everything else. -
- Additionally, if the name of the hero is Maud, a different message is printed:
- As your mind turns inward on itself, you forget everything else.
- Maud is one of the possible default names for a ghost, as well as one of the default names given to player monsters on the Astral Plane.
Encyclopedia entry
Get thee hence, nor come again,
Mix not memory with doubt,
Pass, thou deathlike type of pain,
Pass and cease to move about!
'Tis the blot upon the brain
That will show itself without.
...
For, Maud, so tender and true,
As long as my life endures
I feel I shall owe you a debt,
That I never can hope to pay;
And if ever I should forget
That I owe this debt to you
And for your sweet sake to yours;
O then, what then shall I say? -
If ever I should forget,
May God make me more wretched
Than ever I have been yet!
