Mail daemon
& mail daemon 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 26 |
| Attacks |
None |
| Base level | 25 |
| Base experience | 1 |
| Speed | 24 |
| Base AC | 10 |
| Base MR | 127 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | Not through normal means (see article) |
| Weight | 600 |
| Nutritional value | 300 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | Fire, Cold, Shock, Sleep, Poison, Stoning |
| Resistances conveyed |
None |
|
A mail daemon:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line2773 |
The mail daemon is a monster that appears in NetHack. It has many unusual properties, some of which are related to its very specific purpose of delivering mail to players.
Contents
Generation
The mail daemon is not normally randomly generated. On multi-user systems where the MAIL compile-time option is defined, the mail daemon will deliver a scroll of mail when the player receives an email. Reading the scroll will typically launch the user's preferred mail reader. After closing the reader, the player may continue their game.
On a public server, users observing another player's session may be able to send messages to that player. The message is displayed in the in-game message bar when the scroll is read.
MS-DOS and Amiga are single-user operating systems with no built-in mail support. On these platforms, a mail demon will appear every 2000-5000 turns, delivering a scroll with a meaningless "junk" message.
It is possible to wish for a statue of a mail daemon, which can then be re-animated by casting stone to flesh.
Mail daemons will not appear if MAIL is undefined when compiling the game, or if the mail option is set to false. If MAIL is not defined, any attempts to reference them within that game (e.g. wishing for a statue, generating them in wizard mode) will treat them as a non-existent monster; the encyclopedia entry for mail daemons will still be present. The official Windows binaries do not define MAIL.
Delivering mail
When an item of mail needs to be delivered, the daemon is placed on a square just out of sight of the player, rushes over to their location and moving through any monster in its path - upon reaching the player, it hands them the scroll, rushes back to its starting square and disappears. If it cannot maneuver next to the player for some reason, it will "throw" the scroll to the player. This all takes place within the space of one move - as the mail daemon is capable of flight, swimming, can see invisible and is breathless, it can deliver mail in any environment.
On public servers such as nethack.alt.org, a user may observe other users' games and communicate with them by sending mail. The player cannot send mail back to the spectator, but the # command can be used to type arbitrary messages visible to the observing user(s) - this command does not need to be executed, only seen by the spectator(s).
Strategy
While the mail daemon themselves will not factor in the strategy of a mass majority of players, some seek out ways to successfully kill them (primarily for bragging rights). The only way to do this is to stone to flesh a mail daemon statue, as mentioned above; the resulting mail daemon will normally disappear in one turn unless attacked. If you step away from them after attacking, they will also disappear. A player looking to kill the mail daemon must do so quickly, keeping in mind that they possess all forms of elemental resistance.
Killing a mail daemon will automatically genocide them with no announcement, breaking genocideless conduct and preventing any further mail delivery for the duration of that game.
The services of mail daemons can also be used to generate scrolls of mail for certain somewhat-niche purposes, such as using them to propel yourself while levitating.[1]
Origin
The monster and its default tile are based on a pun - on Unix-like operating systems, a daemon is a program that runs in the background, performing various tasks such as managing log files, performing timed maintenance tasks or answering incoming network connection requests. The program responsible for receiving mail and dispatching it to the correct location is commonly referred to as the "mail daemon".
History
In NetHack 3.4.3, a mail daemon could be created when creating random demons on a special level; these mail daemons would immediately disappear as soon as the player moved. This was bug C343-415.
Messages
- Gangway! Look out! Pardon me!
- The daemon pushed past another monster.
- Excuse me.
- The daemon pushed past you to get to a square near you.
- This place's too crowded. I'm outta here.
- The daemon left because it couldn't get close enough to you.
- <Hello>, <player>! I have some mail for you.
- The daemon delivered a scroll of mail.
- Catch!
- The daemon couldn't get next to you, so it threw the scroll from a distance.
- I'm late!
- A mail daemon that was not generated via normal means disappeared from the level.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, in addition to delivering mail, the mail daemon can also deliver one hint scroll per game (assuming that this option is enabled). This "helpful hint" behavior has earned the mail daemon the nickname "Unclippy - the helpful hint daemon" (as a pejorative reference to the infamous Microsoft Word "helper", Clippy).
Encyclopaedia entry
It is rumoured that these strange creatures can be harmed by
domesticated canines only.
External links
- Spam — A short story by Virgo Vardja, set in the NetHack universe
- Mail daemons in the Extinctionist Spoiler
