Slime mold
"Slime mold" is the default name for the customizable fruit that appears in NetHack.
Contents
Generation
In addition to random generation, health food shops and delicatessens often stock nameable fruit.
If you leave a bones file with any custom fruit in it, the name will be preserved for the player who finds it; in turn, fruit with names other than what you have chosen can occur in bones levels that you encounter.
A game where Orctown is generated may give the named orc-captain that leads the invading horde some fruit in their inventory, named either "paddle cactus" or "dwarven root".[1][2]
The horn of plenty has a 6.9% overall chance of dispensing one or more nameable fruits when applied.
Description
The nameable fruit is a comestible that gives 250 nutrition and is consumed in a single turn; this fruit is always vegan for conduct purposes. It can be thrown at any horse to tame them.
In addition to messages from you or a monster eating a nameable fruit, the fruit's name is also used for messages related to the following:
- The potion of fruit juice, made from the nameable fruit
- The potion of see invisible, which uses the same messages as fruit juice
- The potion of sickness, which is stated to be stale or contaminated fruit juice
Naming
You can use the fruit option to change the name of the fruit to almost anything you like. If you change the fruit option with a game in progress, existing fruit will keep their name, while newly generated fruit will use the new name. The name you choose has no impact on gameplay, except that differently-named fruits do not stack. If you want to wish for a nameable fruit, you must wish for a "fruit" regardless of its current name.
The game will properly parse phrases such as "slice of pizza", "bowl of gruel", and "leg of ham" and return the appropriate output for relevant messages (e.g., "This tastes like ham juice" when quaffing fruit juice with your fruit being named "leg of ham". However, NetHack will prevent you from naming your fruit after a corpse or tin, or with a word indicating beatitude status - you will instead be given a candied corpse, tin, or blessed/cursed/uncursed fruit.[3]
You may find silly suggestions for fruit names on nethack.alt.org.
History
The possibility for an Orc Town orc-captain to generate with pre-named slime molds was introduced in NetHack 3.6.2.[4]
Origin
Slime molds are living organism that creep around until they find a rotten food source, such as old wood; they then grow into a plant-like form and make spores.
Angband also features edible slime molds, but has no option to rename the item. Because slime molds are defenseless living creatures in the game, some players do not eat them – this has lead to the tradition of naming individual slime molds and keeping them as pets.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, slime molds can be generated in the fungus farm special room.
Encyclopedia entry
Slime mold
Slime mold or slime fungus, organism usually classified with the fungi, but showing equal affinity to the protozoa. Slime molds have complex life cycles with an animal-like motile phase, in which feeding and growth occur, and a plant-like immotile reproductive phase. The motile phase, commonly found under rotting logs and damp leaves, consists of either solitary amoebalike cells or a brightly colored multinucleate mass of protoplasm called a plasmodium, which creeps about and feeds by amoeboid movement.
Paddle cactus
Opuntia, commonly called prickly pear, is a genus in the cactus family, Cactaceae. Prickly pears are also known as tuna (fruit), sabra, nopal (paddle, plural nopales) from the Nahuatl word nopalli for the pads, or nostle, from the Nahuatl word nochtli for the fruit; or paddle cactus.
Dwarven root
But when they were cooked these roots proved good to eat, somewhat like bread; and the outlaws were glad of them, for they had long lacked bread save when they could steal it. "Wild Elves know them not; Grey-elves have not found them; the proud ones from over the Sea are too proud to delve," said Mim.
"What is their name?" said Turin.
Mim looked at him sidelong. "They have no name, save in the Dwarf-tongue, which we do not teach," he said. "And we do not teach Men to find them, for Men are greedy and thriftless, and would not spare till all the plants had perished; whereas now they pass them by as they go blundering in the wild. No more will you learn of me; but you may have enough of my bounty, as long as you speak fair and do not spy or steal." Then again he laughed in his throat.
"They are of great worth." he said. "More than gold in the hungry winter, for they may be hoarded like the nuts of a squirrel, and already we were building our store from the first that are ripe."
See also
- Notable ascensions includes a few cases of slime mold ASCII art.
