Offler
| Religion in NetHack |
|---|
In NetHack, Offler is the chaotic god of the Tourist pantheon.
Origin
Offler is a crocodile-headed god in the setting of the Discworld series created by Terry Pratchett. He is the principal deity of Klatch, a "continent" that consists of the portion of the Discworld bordering the Circle Sea, and is based on Africa - likewise, Offler is based on the Egyptian god Sobek, who is associated with the Nile crocodile or the West African crocodile and is represented either in the form of those animals or as a human with a crocodile head.
Offler is worshipped all over the Disc, especially in lands with warm climate and great rivers. He is an old god that speaks with a distinctive lisp due to his crocodile head, and is keenly aware that people who worship gods prefer commandments to rules that they are certainly going to break; as such, his worshippers the Offlians are primarily forbidden to eat broccoli, which is easily obeyed since very few people (if any) willingly do so. According to Hogfather, some of his followers also abstain from alcohol, and formed Offler's League of Temperance as a means of promoting such abstinence. Like many of the major gods, some of Offler's worshippers have also migrated to Ankh-Morpork, leading to the development of the colloquialism "Is the high priest an Offlian?", which is a parody of "Is the Pope Catholic?" (a rhetorical question used to mean an emphatic yes).
A Lost Jewelled Temple of Offler exists somewhere deep in the jungles of Howondaland within Klatch, where two priests reside in this Lost Temple and take turns at being the High Priest. Offler also has a flock of holy birds that bring him news and keep his teeth clean; this is based on the supposed relationship betweewn crocodiles and the Egyptian plover or "crocodile bird". His preferred burnt offering is a pound of sausages, which is derived from the crocodile that appears on the "Punch and Judy" puppet show.
Variants
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, Offler is a chaotic god of holy holiness, and his minions consist of baby crocodiles, adult crocodiles, zruties, mariliths, and ammits.
Encyclopedia entry
The Lady and Offler share an encyclopedia entry:
Blind Io took up the dice-box, which was a skull whose various
orifices had been stoppered with rubies, and with several of
his eyes on the Lady he rolled three fives. She smiled. This
was the nature of the Lady's eyes: they were bright green,
lacking iris or pupil, and they glowed from within.
The room was silent as she scrabbled in her box of pieces and,
from the very bottom, produced a couple that she set down on
the board with two decisive clicks. The rest of the players,
as one God, craned forward to peer at them.
"A wenegade wiffard and fome fort of clerk," said Offler the
Crocodile God, hindered as usual by his tusks. "Well,
weally!" With one claw he pushed a pile of bone-white tokens
into the centre of the table.
The Lady nodded slightly. She picked up the dice-cup and held
it as steady as a rock, yet all the Gods could hear the three
cubes rattling about inside. And then she sent them bouncing
across the table.
A six. A three. A five.
Something was happening to the five, however. Battered by the
chance collision of several billion molecules, the die flipped
onto a point, spun gently and came down a seven. Blind Io
picked up the cube and counted the sides.
"Come _on_," he said wearily, "Play fair."
