Set

Religion in NetHack
priests alignment alignment record altars atheism anger gods sacrifice prayer turn undead

In NetHack, Set is the chaotic god of the Barbarian pantheon.

History

In NetHack 3.4.3 and previous versions, including some variants based on those versions, Set is one of two gods not to have an in-game encyclopedia entry, with the other being Mog.

Origin

Set's portrayal in NetHack is primarily based on the major deity from the Conan the Barbarian stories of Robert E. Howard and the later Marvel Comics series - the encyclopedia entry refers to the Egyptian god Set (also known as Seth or Sutekh), who is the Conan deity's namesake. In the Conan series, Set is an ancient deity that is often depicted as a gigantic serpent, sometimes with seven heads, and is the arch-enemy of the gods of light known as Atum, Ibis, and Mitra. Sometimes known as Father Set or the Old Serpent among other monikers, he is the primary god revered in Stygia, and he is also known and worshipped as Damballah in the Black Kingdoms to the south.

Set makes his debut in one of the original Conan tales, "The Phoenix on the Sword" - the story also introduces Thoth-Amon, a priest of Set who would come to be known as Conan's arch-nemesis (and the Barbarian quest nemesis) despite their only encounter coming during the events of the tale. When the long-dead Epemitreus the Sage appears to Conan in the latter's dreams, he warns Conan of the danger and darkness looming around him, particularly from the forces of the god Set and his followers. Seth is also implied in the same stories to be one of H. P. Lovecraft's Great Old Ones, and has since reappeared as an infernal antagonist, particularly throughout the later Marvel-based Conan comics.

Set is a cruel, jealous god who demands constant sacrifice from his subjects, with his worship consisting of human sacrifice and veneration of serpents: killing a snake is even considered a mortal sin in Stygia, and if one slithers into the cities or to the streets, Set's subjects will lay prostrate before them, hoping to be found worthy of their bite. His priests are similarly frightening and fanatical, with the clergy running Stygia as a theocracy built on fear and an indiscriminate willingness to sacrifice their own people. Cells and cults devoted to set also occur in kingdoms beyond Stygia, and though they must practice covertly, they are just as dangerous.

Variants

dNetHack

In dNetHack and notdNetHack, Set is an unholy chaotic god, and his minions consist of standard chaotic demons: manes, quasits, vrocks, hezrou, nalfeshnees, mariliths, and balrogs.

Encyclopedia entry

The ancient Egyptian god of chaos (Set), the embodiment of hostility and even of outright evil. He is also a god of war, deserts, storms, and foreign lands. ... In the Book of the Dead, Seth is called "Lord of the Northern Sky" and is held responsible for storms and cloudy weather. ... Seth was portrayed as a man with the head of undeterminable origin, although some see in it the head of an aardvark. He had a curved snout, erect square-tipped ears and a long forked tail. He was sometimes entirely in animal form with the body similar to that of a greyhound. Animals sacred to this god were the dog, the jackal, the gazelle, the donkey, the crocodile, the hippopotamus, and the pig.

[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]