Pale horse (SpliceHack)
| u pale horse (No tile) | |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 21 |
| Attacks |
Kick 2d8 physical, kick 2d8 physical, bite 1d6 drain life |
| Base level | 18 |
| Base experience | ? |
| Speed | 24 |
| Base AC | 0 |
| Base MR | 70 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 1800 |
| Nutritional value | 350 |
| Size | Large |
| Resistances | cold resistance, poison resistance |
| Resistances conveyed | None |
|
A pale horse:
| |
| Reference | SpliceHack 1.2.0 - src/monst.c, line 1437 |
- For the monster in EvilHack, see Pale Horse (EvilHack).
A pale horse, u, is a type of monster that appears in SpliceHack. The pale horse is a horse that serves as the steed of Death: it is strong, capable of flight, and can be seen via infravision.
A pale horse has two kick attacks that deal physical damage and a bite attack that drains life. It has cold resistance and poison resistance.
Generation
Pale horses are always generated hostile, and are not a valid polymorph form or genocide target.
Only one pale horse is encountered on the Astral Plane, where Death is generated riding atop it during level creation.
Origin
The "pale horse" refers to the steed of Death, who is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (or the Riders of the Apocalypse) that appear in The Book of Revelation, the last book of most common versions of the Christian Bible. The sixth chapter of the book has verses describing Death and the other Riders as they appear when the Lamb (representing Jesus) opens six of the seven seals of the Apocalypse—these quotes serve as the encyclopedia entry for the Riders and their steeds in NetHack and its variants, and are cited from the New International Version. The passage describing Death and his horse is as follows:
- I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him.
- Revelation 6:8
The colour of Death's horse is written as pàllidus in Latin and as χλωρός (khlōrós, latinized as "chlōrus"; root word of "chlorophyll" and "chlorine") in the original Koine Greek: this can mean either green/greenish-yellow or pale/pallid in both languages, and the colour is often translated as "pale", though "ashen", "pale green", and "yellowish green" are other possible interpretations—in some modern artistic depictions, the horse is distinctly green. Based on the uses of the word in ancient Greek medical literature, several scholars suggest that the colour reflects the sickly pallor of a corpse; in the NetHack variants where a representative of Death's horse appears, this may be the basis for the grey color of the monster's glyph.
Encyclopedia entry
You're Hell's Angels, then? What chapter are you from?
REVELATIONS. CHAPTER SIX.
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