People of secondary interest to NetHack
This article is a list of various notable people of secondary interest to the game of NetHack and its variants, explaining each person's works and the contributions to the game that they inspired.
Contents
Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert (October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986) was an American science fiction author, best known for the 1965 novel Dune and its five sequels. He also wrote short stories and worked as a newspaper journalist, photographer, book reviewer, ecological consultant, and lecturer.
Dune is the best-selling science fiction novel of all time, and considered to be among the classics of the genre. Set in the distant future, it explores various themes: humanity's evolution; planetary science and ecology; and the intersection of religion, politics, economics and power in a future where humankind has undertaken the colonization of space.
The most noteworthy features adapted from Dune are the long worm, its teeth and the crysknives that can be fashioned from them. A quote from Frank Herbert's The Dosadi Experiment also provides the encyclopedia entry for the gas spore and its fellow spheres.
Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock (b. 18 December 1939) is an English writer of science fiction and fantasy who has published literary novels, and is also a successful musician. His best selling works are the Elric of Melniboné stories centered around the titular sorcerer, who is frail, anemic and albino - Elric represents a deliberate reversal of clichés associated with Tolkien-inspired fantasy adventures.
As emperor of Melniboné, Elric can call upon Arioch, a Lord of Chaos and Duke of Hell who serves as the traditional patron of the rulership and alternates between aiding Elric and antagonizing him. Elric is also the wielder of the demonic black blade Stormbringer, which is similarly his greatest asset and greatest hindrance: it confers enough strength and vitality for Elric to shake off his otherwise-required herbal regimen - as well as augmenting his fighting prowess - but the blade instead feeds on the souls of intelligent beings. A recurring theme in the series is how this codependency between sword and wielder brings doom to everything Elric holds dear, despite his best intentions.
A significant amount of Moorcock's influence on fantasy is based in his portrayals of the metaphyisical conflict between Law and Chaos - among many other things, this has partly and indirectly influenced the chaotic alignment's portrayal in NetHack. Stormbringer is the weapon gifted to a crowned chaotic character, who their god declares a soul-stealer for "the Glory of Arioch"; this may also reflect Elric's role as the Eternal Champion. The Hand and Eye of Vecna in variants of Nethack may also have been inspired by similar items from Moorcock's works, specifically, the Hand of Kwll and the Eye of Rhynn.
Jack Vance
John Holbrook "Jack" Vance (August 28, 1916 – May 26, 2013) was an award-winning American mystery, fantasy, and science fiction writer who published most of his work under the name Jack Vance. Among Vance's many achievements are the 1984 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement; Guest of Honor at the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention in Orlando, Florida; becoming the 15th Grand Master of the The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1997; and induction into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2001.
Jack Vance's main influence on fiction that is most relevant to NetHack is the "Vancian" magic system, which can be seen in Dungeons & Dragons - the magic system in use is explicitly inspired by Vance's Dying Earth series, where magic users forget learned spells immediately upon casting them, and must re-study in order to cast them again. A Vancian-style system for spellcasting was present in NetHack from versions 1.3d to 3.2.3 - spells had to be learned or transcribed from spellbooks, and successfully learning the spell granted the user a limited number of castings before they had to relearn the spell. This was phased out with NetHack 3.3.0's integration of the Wizard Patch and its revamp of the spellcasting system into one that uses a more traditional system with magic points rather than a set number of uses; however, knowledge of the spell lasts a limited amount of turns, and can be refreshed when necessary by reading the appropriate spellbook (which can themselves only be read a limited amount of times).
Vance's works have had other varying, indirect influences on NetHack:
- The Monk quest artifact, The Eyes of the Overworld, is derived from the story of the same name written by Vance.
- The sandestin is also derived from the Dying Earth series, with the encyclopedia entry using an excerpt from another of his stories, Rhialto the Marvellous.
Many other monsters and features in variants of NetHack were indirectly influenced by Vance and his works as well.
Influence on variants
Vecna is a highly-notable D&D villain whose name is an anagram of "Vance" and is indirectly inspired by the author; he appears in SLASH, SLASH'EM, SlashTHEM, EvilHack and Hack'EM. In D&D lore, he is an incredibly powerful wizard-turned-lich who was betrayed and destroyed by his right-hand servant Kas, who used a powerful sword that Vecna either created or procured for him, depending on the source. Vecna's only remnants from the pitched battle were left hand and eye, which he never recovered even after resurfacing as a demigod - these became powerful artifacts known as The Hand of Vecna and The Eye of Vecna, and at least one can be obtained in each of those variants, typically only by killing Vecna.
The term "grue" originated in Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, used to describe a human-bat hybrid predator. The name was then borrowed for the 1977 computer game Zork, where it is most famously remembered as the darkness-dwelling monster that would eat the player character quickly if they ventured too far into any dark area without a light source. While only appearing as a hallucinatory monster in NetHack itself, the devnull tournament had an homage to Zork as one of the many challenges, and the Grue itself is an actual monster in dNetHack and notdNetHack.
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. (December 24, 1910 – September 5, 1992) was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He is considered one of the fathers of "sword and sorcery" fiction, coining the term in response to a 1961 letter from Michael Moorcock in the fanzine Amra. Moorcock initially proposed the term "epic fantasy" as a name for the sort of fantasy-adventure story written by Robert E. Howard - Leiber replied in the journal Ancalagon by suggesting "'sword-and-sorcery' as a good popular catchphrase for the field".
Leiber's greatest influence on the "sword and sorcery" genre is the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series of stories about a barbarian-and-thief pair of unlikely heroes, taking place in and around the city of Lankhmar - the two titular characters are based on Leiber and his friend, Harry Otto Fischer. Numerous writers have since paid homage to them and its characters - Terry Pratchett's city of Ankh-Morpork in particular bears more than a passing resemblance to Lankhmar; while Pratchett asserted this was unintended on his part, he does lean into it with the mention of a swordsman-thief "The Weasel" and his giant barbarian comrade "Bravd" in the opening scenes of the first Discworld novel.
Most of Leiber's influence on NetHack is naturally related to the Rogue role - The Master of Thieves serves as the Rogue quest leader, likely in acknowledgement of the above connection to Pratchett. The pantheon consists of Issek, Mog, and Kos, who are derived from the setting of the Fafhrd stories.
In terms of variants, SLASH 6 has the artifact rapier Scalpel, which was modeled after the Gray Mouser's weapon of choice - the artifact still exists as a deferred feature in the data of SLASH'EM, and is re-implemented in SlashTHEM and Hack'EM as the Mouser's Scalpel. In the Convict patch integrated into many variants, the role of lawful god is given to Ilmater, a deity from the Forgotten Realms setting of Dungeons & Dragons that is described as similar to the god Issek.
David S. H. Rosenthal
David Stuart Holmes Rosenthal (born 1948 in Cambridge, United Kingdom) is a notable British-American computer scientist who also works in digital preservation, and has worked at companies such as Nvidia and Sun. He was once a co-worker of Andries Brouwer, and David's Treasure Zoo is named for him; in Hack 1.0 and Hack 1.0.1, a player whose login name was "david" would encounter the treasure zoo much more frequently.[1] Versions of the game released long after include a rumor hinting at this.
The name also has a somewhat ironic connection: During the development of Hack 1.0, one of David's students at the Universiteit van Amsterdam used a wand of digging during their game to tunnel into a shop and steal its inventory, which was then sold back to the shopkeeper. At the time, the shopkeeper had a bottomless wallet and never got angry, so the student's character became extraordinarily rich overnight - this prompted early changes to shopkeeper behavior and inventory, including limiting the size of their wallet, increasing their stats, and making them turn hostile if the player attempts to steal items from them.
