Slime mold
Slime mold is the default name for the customizable fruit in NetHack.
This fruit is a comestible worth 250 nutrition points and is consumed in a single turn. NetHack treats the fruit as vegan for conduct purposes, regardless of its name.
Contents
Generation
In a game where Orctown is generated, the named orc-captain that leads the invading horde may have some fruit in their inventory, named either "paddle cactus" or "dwarven root".[1]
Naming
You can change the name with the fruit option to almost anything you like. You could choose "slice of pizza", "bowl of gruel", or "leg of ham", and the game will identify pizza, gruel, and ham as the food part, so that quaffing certain potions results in messages such as "This tastes like ham juice". However, NetHack will prevent you from naming your fruit after a corpse or tin, or with a word indicating BUC status. If you try, you will have a candied corpse, tin, or blessed/cursed/uncursed fruit instead.[2] The name you choose has no impact on gameplay, except that differently-named fruit don't stack. If you want to wish for a fruit, you must wish for a "fruit", regardless of its current name.
If you leave a bones file with any custom fruit in it, the name will be preserved for the player who finds it. Most bones file fruit on public servers are "slime mold".
If you change the fruit option, existing fruit will keep their name, while newly generated fruit will use the new name.
You may find silly suggestions for fruit names on nethack.alt.org.
Origin
Slime molds are living organism that creep around until they find a rotten food source, such as old wood; they then grow into a plant-like form and make spores.
Angband also features edible slime molds, but has no option to rename the item. Because slime molds are defenseless living creatures in the game, some players do not eat them – this has lead to the tradition of naming individual slime molds and keeping them as pets.
History
The possibility for an Orc Town orc-captain to generate with pre-named slime molds was introduced in NetHack 3.6.2.
Encyclopedia entry
Slime mold
Slime mold or slime fungus, organism usually classified with
the fungi, but showing equal affinity to the protozoa. Slime
molds have complex life cycles with an animal-like motile
phase, in which feeding and growth occur, and a plant-like
immotile reproductive phase. The motile phase, commonly
found under rotting logs and damp leaves, consists of either
solitary amoebalike cells or a brightly colored multinucleate
mass of protoplasm called a plasmodium, which creeps about
and feeds by amoeboid movement.
Paddle cactus
Opuntia, commonly called prickly pear, is a genus in the cactus
family, Cactaceae. Prickly pears are also known as tuna (fruit),
sabra, nopal (paddle, plural nopales) from the Nahuatl word
nopalli for the pads, or nostle, from the Nahuatl word nochtli
for the fruit; or paddle cactus.
Dwarven root
But when they were cooked these roots proved good to eat,
somewhat like bread; and the outlaws were glad of them, for
they had long lacked bread save when they could steal it.
"Wild Elves know them not; Grey-elves have not found them;
the proud ones from over the Sea are too proud to delve,"
said Mim.
"What is their name?" said Turin. Mim looked at him sidelong.
"They have no name, save in the Dwarf-tongue, which we do not
teach," he said. "And we not teach Men to find them, for Men
are greedy and thriftless, and would not spare till all the
plants had perished; whereas now they pass them by as they go
blundering in the wild. No more will you learn of me; but you
may have enough of my bounty, as long as you speak fair and
do not spy or steal." Then again he laughed in his throat.
"They are of great worth." he said. "More than gold in the
hungry winter, for they may be hoarded like the nuts of a
squirrel, and already we were building our store from the
first that are ripe."
See also
- Notable ascensions includes a few cases of slime mold ASCII art.
References
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.