Lichen

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Revision as of 12:24, 2 June 2019 by Andrio Celos (talk | contribs) (A lichen corpse is an acid indicator.)
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A lichen (not to be confused with a lich) is one of the easiest monsters in the game. They are extremely slow and incapable of dealing any actual damage; their main attack is a sticky attack which holds you in one place, but this is trivial considering they are easy to beat. It does, however, prevent you from attacking any target except the lichen, wasting the turn you attempted to attack the other monster (for a minimal impact of two turns as you realise you need to dispose of the lichen first).

Lichen corpses are not considered meat and, unlike most corpses, never rot (but they do become old for the purposes of sacrificing). They can be carried indefinitely as normal comestibles which are always safe to eat, and also used to tame horses. Eat the lichen corpse first however, because it is the same weight as a food ration for a quarter the nutrition.

There is no such thing as a master lichen.

Since NetHack 3.6.0, dipping a lichen corpse into a potion of acid causes it to 'turn red around the edges', or orange if the potion is somehow diluted. This does not consume the potion.[1]

Encyclopedia entry

The chamber was of unhewn rock, round, as near as might
be, eighteen or twenty feet across, and gay with rich
variety of fern and moss and lichen. The fern was in
its winter still, or coiling for the spring-tide; but
moss was in abundant life, some feathering, and some
gobleted, and some with fringe of red to it.

[ Lorna Doone, by R.D. Blackmore ]

Variants

Slash'EM Extended has stronger variants of the lichen: aggressive lichen, water lichen, poison lichen, venom lichen, ore lichen, patched lichen, master lichen, grandmaster lichen, sensei lichen and arch-lichen, in increasing order of strength.

The arch-lichen can also be patched in by using the arch-lichen patch (by Nodey) for NetHack 3.4.3.

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 Information on this page may be out of date.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.