Wooden stake
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| |
|---|---|
| Name | wooden stake |
| Appearance | wooden stake |
| Damage vs. small | 1d6 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d6 |
| To-hit bonus | +0 |
| Weapon skill | dagger |
| Size | one-handed |
| Base price | 50 zm (+10/positive enchant) |
| Weight | 20 |
| Material | wood |
- For the weapon in Hack'EM, see Stake (Hack'EM).
A wooden stake is a type of weapon that appears in SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM. It is a one-handed weapon that uses the dagger skill, and is naturally made of wood.
The wooden stake is the base item for the artifact The Stake of Van Helsing.
Generation
Undead Slayers start each game with a +0 non-cursed wooden stake as their primary weapon.[1]
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, the wooden stake is not randomly generated, though it can be wished for or found in bones.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, the wooden stake is very rare and makes up 1⁄500 (0.2%) of all randomly-generated weapons. General stores, used armor dealerships and antique weapons outlets can sell wooden stakes.
Description
A wooden stake deals +1d6 bonus damage to all vampires, with an extra +2 damage and a 1⁄10 chance of inflicting instant death if the hero wielding or throwing it is an Undead Slayer, has Expert skill in daggers or is specifically wielding The Stake of Van Helsing.[2] Other monsters attacking a vampire (or a hero in the form of a vampire) with The Stake of Van Helsing have the same 1⁄10 chance of an instant kill.[3][4] Monsters and heroes instantly killed by wooden stakes do not leave behind corpses.
Origin
The wooden stake is a trademark weapon of one Professor Abraham Van Helsing, a fictional character from Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula. Commonly referred to as simply "Van Helsing", he is best known through many adaptations of the story as a vampire slayer, monster hunter and the arch-nemesis of Count Dracula. Van Helsing is derived from the image of the folkloric professional vampire hunter, and in turn became the prototypical and archetypal parapsychologist for subsequent works of paranormal fiction.
Vampire hunters in fiction, folklore and history alike often carry a kit of tools on hand that traditionally included s mallet and a wooden "stake", which is a pole of very short length that is made of hawthorn and sharpened at one end akin to a tent peg, and is used alongside the mallet in the staking of corpses. "Staking" refers to piercing the heart of a suspected vampire by stabbing the stake over its heart and driving it in using the mallet—one of the most popular depictions of a vampire being staked is the demise of Dracula at the hands of Van Helsing, which does not happen in the actual Dracula novel: though several vampires are indeed killed with a stake to the heart, Dracula himself is instead decapitated by a kukri while his heart is simultaneously pierced by a Bowie knife, destroying the Count and reducing him to dust.
Messages
- You drive your <stake> into <the monster>.
- Your wooden stake dealt bonus damage against a vampire.
- You plunge your <stake> into the heart of <the monster>.
- <The monster>'s body vaporizes!
- A vampire was instantly killed by a wooden stake.
- <The attacker> drives the stake into <the monster>.
- A monster hit a vampire with a wooden stake.
- <The attacker> plunges the stake <stake> into the heart of <the monster>.
- A monster instantly killed a vampire with a wooden stake.
- <The monster> drives the stake into you.
- A monster hit you with a stake while you were a vampire.
- <The monster> plunges the stake into your heart.
- As above, but you were instantly killed.
