Nymph (monster class)

The nymph is a monster class in NetHack represented by the lowercase 'n' glyph (n). Nymphs are designated internally by the macro S_NYMPH.

The class contains three types of nymph:

• n water nymph
• n wood nymph
• n mountain nymph

Common traits

All nymphs are almost exactly the same in terms of stats and generation, with the exception of the water nymph's ability to swim.

Nymphs have no directly damaging attacks, but can charm you into removing your armor, stealing it and/or other items before attempting to teleport away. They are also capable of using said items and will put on armor and amulets, zap wands and quaff potions. Nymphs will also teleport at random while moving, making them hard to track down - eating a nymph's corpse has a chance of giving you teleportitis.

Generation

Nymphs are generated asleep ⁴⁄₅ of the time unless you have the Amulet of Yendor. Nymphs have a ¹⁄₂ chance of being generated with a mirror, and an independent ¹⁄₂ chance of generating with a potion of object detection.

Strategy

Though most nymphs have poor AC and cannot physically harm you, they are nevertheless very dangerous - their charming abilities can strip you of critical items such as weapons and armor, leaving you vulnerable to much more direct threats.

History

The nymph is introduced in Hack for PDP-11, a variant of Jay Fenlason's Hack. From Hack 1.0 to NetHack 2.3e, nymphs used the N glyph; the three distinct subtypes are introduced in NetHack 3.0.0 and moved to the n glyph.

Variants

Many variants add new monsters to the nymph class and expand on their common traits, taking cues from the ancient Greek folklore they originated in - Aphrodite and the nymph level are also common additions to variants, first appearing in SLASH'EM.

SLASH'EM

SLASH'EM adds some new monsters to the nymph monster class, as well as Aphrodite and the nymph level:

• n pixie
• n brownie
• n quickling
• n Aphrodite

UnNetHack

UnNetHack includes Aphrodite and the nymph level as well, but does not add any other new monsters to the class.

dNetHack

dNetHack adds the yuki-onna as a playable race of nymph. dNetHack also renames and changes the three nymphs from NetHack, and adds several other monsters:

• n quickling
• n dryad
• n naiad
• n oread
• n swamp nymph
• n yuki-onna
• n deminymph
• n neverwas
• n thriae
• n selkie
• n oceanid
• n intoner
• Unique monsters
  • n Aglaope
  • n Nimune
• Unused nymphs:
  • n Echo

EvilHack

EvilHack also contains Aphrodite and her nymph level, and adds a couple of other new nymphs:

• n ice nymph
• n nymph

The ice nymph primarily appears in the Ice Queen's Realm and Geryon's Lair, while the "plain" nymph is a placeholder used for racial shopkeepers.

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, nymphs are among the new playable races of monster. SlashTHEM also retains the nymphs added in SLASH'EM, and includes a "plain" nymph to correspond to the nymph starting race. SlashTHEM also adds a couple of other new monsters to the group:

• n satyr
• n nymph queen