Venom
Venom is a type of object that appears in NetHack and occupies the "venoms" inventory grouping. There are two forms of venom, both of which are stackable and made of liquid, and they each appear as a splash of venom when unidentified.
Each venom object acts as a transient object for the corresponding projectile attacks of certain monsters:
- Blinding venom is spit by guardian nagas and cobras, and a successful hit causes the venom to cover the target's face as blinding gunk similar to a cream pie.
- Acid venom is spit by black nagas and Juiblex, and a successful hit deals 2d6 acid damage.
Generation
Neither type of venom is randomly generated. Venom spit by monsters, including a hero in the form of an appropriate monster, will disappear upon reaching its target square, unless they land in a moat or pool. Venom can also be created by a wizard mode wish.
Description
Blinding venom and acid venom objects are intrinsically waterproof, and venom objects that are in water can be retrieved by diving in to pick them up, or by levitating and applying a bullwhip. Thrown venom objects will have the appropriate effects for its type, using up the item as if it were spit by a monster. Attempting to engrave with a venom object prints a YAFM before allowing the hero to write in the dust as normal.
Venom has strange interactions with containers: the code for looting or applying containers does not expect venom objects to exist, so they will not show up when entering a menu that lists items to place into a container or remove from a container, unless the menustyle option is set to "traditional". Tipping a container with venom objects will place them on the ground as normal.
Strategy
Venom objects in a hero's inventory are usually the result of a player seeking novelty or bragging rights, though they can still be used to blind monsters or inflict acidic damage.
History
Both types of venom firs appear in NetHack 3.0.0. From this version to NetHack 3.4.3, including some variants based on these versions, a container that has venom objects inside it will cause the game to experience a segmentation fault and crash when it has its contents listed while generating the dumplog at the end of a game—a player ascending with venom objects in their bags would have to move them out to their main inventory before they ascended, since the crash would occur immediately before the ascension is counted as complete in the server stats.[1] This bug is fixed in NetHack 3.6.0.
Message
- Writing a poison pen letter?
- You attempted to engrave with a venom object.
References
- ↑ incomplete dumplog due to NAO server segfaulting
