Apollo
| Religion in NetHack |
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In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, Apollo is the lawful god for the pantheon of Rangers that are not gnomish, elven or drow.
Description
Apollo is a lawful god of holy holiness, and his minions consist of plains centaurs, mountain centaurs, oreads, Trumpet Archons, and Light Archons. His crowning gift is Sunbeam, a lawful Ranger-favoring intelligent artifact whose base item is a set of 20 golden arrows: Sunbeams have +1d10 to-hit and double damage bonuses, and are permanently covered in poison and sickness-inducing filth, and grant drain resistance while carried. They are never lost when thrown or fired, petrify trolls (except for Olog-hai and wood trolls) and vaporize gremlins on hit, and will automatically return to the hero's quiver after being fired on a cooldown of rnz(20).
Origin
Apollo is one of the Olympian deities of classical Greek and Roman religion and mythology. He is considered to be the most beautiful god, and is the son of Zeus and Leto and the twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Apollo is a god of archery, which he and Artemis are credited with inventing - he is also a god of music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, and poetry among many other aspects, and is one of the most important and complex of the Greek gods. As the patron deity of Delphi (Apollo Pythios), Apollo is also an oracular god, serving as the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle and the deity of ritual purification; his oracles were often consulted for guidance in various matters. He was in general seen as the god who affords help and wards off evil.
Apollo is usually described as carrying a silver or golden bow and a quiver of silver or golden arrows. Though Apollo was associated with medicine and healing (either through himself or his son Asclepius, who lends his name to an artifact in NetHack) and delivered people from epidemics, he could bring ill health and deadly plague with his arrows. These both serve as the basis for Sunbeam in dNetHack and its variants.
