Vorpal Blade
Revision as of 13:15, 16 June 2006 by 195.194.222.10 (talk)
This is a very useful weapon. It's an ordinary neutral long sword, but there's a 5% chance of instantaneously killing monsters by beheading. It is shunned by some players because it only does +1 damage and d5 to-hit, but others find the insta-kill to be quite useful.
A Vorpal Blade originally appears in the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. In the poem, an unnamed adventurer "took his vorpal sword" in hand and sought the dangerous Jabberwock:
- "One, two! One, two! And through and through
- The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
- He left it dead, and with its head
- He went galumphing back."
The implication is that the vorpal blade beheaded the Jabberwock. Because of the origin of this weapon, in Nethack it has a 100% chance to behead Jabberwocks.
