Long worm

w baby long worm
Difficulty	9
Attacks	Bite: 1d6

w baby long worm
Difficulty	9
Attacks	Bite: 1d6
Base level	8
Base experience	113
Speed	3
Base AC	5
Base MR	0
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	Extremely rare(0)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	600
Nutritional value	250
Size	large
Resistances	None
Resistances conveyed	None
no limbs cannot pick up objects carnivore

w long worm
Difficulty	9
Attacks	Bite: 1d4

w long worm
Difficulty	9
Attacks	Bite: 1d4
Base level	8
Base experience	169
Speed	3
Base AC	5
Base MR	10
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	Quite rare
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	1500
Nutritional value	500
Size	gigantic
Resistances	None
Resistances conveyed	None
no limbs cannot pick up objects carnivore

A Long worm, w~~~~ , is a monster that occupies several squares. Only its head can hurt you, but if you hit it in the middle, you might merely cut it in half, creating two shorter long worms instead of one. The tail segment is free game, and a good way to kill long worms. Unlike the purple worm, the long worm does not engulf its victims.

The earthly remains of this monster include an edible corpse and a worm tooth, which can be enchanted into a crysknife.

Neither long worms nor baby long worms can be saddled (and thus, neither can be ridden).

The DevTeam intended the whole length of a long worm to be dangerous, but currently software limitations prevent this .

Previously, splitting a long worm could be dangerous, as it would cause the game to crash under certain circumstances (see bug C343-324). This bug has since been fixed

Mythology

The long worm represents the sandworm from Frank Herbert's Dune series of novels. As well as long worms being excessively large, this can be seen from the encyclopedia entry, and the fact they drop a worm tooth, which may be made into a crysknife, as in the novels.

In the novels, sandworms may be ridden. As noted above, this feature is not replicated in NetHack.

Encyclopedia entry

       [The crysknife] is manufactured in two forms from teeth taken
       from dead sandworms.  The two forms are "fixed" and "unfixed".
       An unfixed knife requires proximity to a human body's
       electrical field to prevent disintegration.  Fixed knives
       are treated for storage.  All are about 20 centimeters long.
               [ Dune, by Frank Herbert ]

References

This page is based on a spoiler by J. Ali Harlow.

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-343}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.