Boojum (SporkHack)
| J boojum (No tile) | |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 22 |
| Attacks |
bite 3d10 physical, claw 3d10 physical, claw 3d10 physical, claw 0d0 teleport |
| Base level | 18 |
| Base experience | ? |
| Speed | 15 |
| Base AC | 0 |
| Base MR | 90 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 400 |
| Nutritional value | 200 |
| Size | large |
| Resistances | fire resistance, shock resistance, disintegration resistance |
| Resistances conveyed | fire resistance (+5%), shock resistance (+5%), disintegration resistance (+5%) |
|
A boojum:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line1651 |
- For the monster in EvilHack and Hack'EM, see Boojum (EvilHack).
A boojum, J, is a type of monster that appears in SporkHack and SlashTHEM. The boojum is a type of jabberwock that shares most of its traits with the namesake monster of its class, though it does not collect items, cannot be used as a steed for riding, and can also see invisible.
Boojums have a strong bite attack, two strong claw attacks, and a claw attack that deals no damage but teleports the victim and temporarily turns them invisible. Boojums possess fire resistance, shock resistance and disintegration resistance.
Eating a boojum corpse or tin grants 1⁄20 each (+5%) of additional fire resistance, shock resistance and disintegration resistance in SporkHack, and has an equal probability of granting each resistance in SlashTHEM.
Generation
Boojums are not randomly generated and only appear when a snark transforms into one, which occurs very rarely when they are adjacent to the hero. They are not a valid target for polymorph or genocide.
Strategy
While boojums cannot be removed by genocide, genocide of snarks will prevent boojums from ever generating.
Origin
The snark is a fictional animal species created by Lewis Carroll, with the name "snark" being a portmanteau of "snake" and "shark". It is the titular creature of Carroll's nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark. According to Carroll himself, the initial inspiration to write the poem was what would be used as its final line: "For the snark was a boojum, you see."
Over the years Carroll was asked repeatedly to explain the snark's appearance, and in all cases his answer was that he did not know and could not explain—he is also cited as stating that his descriptions of the snark and other creatures within the poem were "unimaginable" and intended to remain so. Even so, later commentators have offered many analyses of the work as a whole: one notable criticism suggests that it may be a product of Carroll's grief at the loss of his favourite uncle, Skeffington Lutwidge.
The boojum is described as a particular variety of snark that causes one of the other characters (the Baker) to "softly and suddenly vanish away, and never be met with again" at the end of the poem. This is the basis for its special teleporting claw attack in variants of NetHack, as well as the ability for a snark to "become" a boojum upon getting close enough: the hero discovers the boojum at the last possible moment, just as the Baker does in the poem.
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