Venus
| Religion in NetHack |
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In NetHack, Venus is the neutral goddess of the Ranger pantheon.
Origin
Venus is a Roman goddess whose domains encompass love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory; she was considered the ancestor of the Roman people through her son Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and fled to Italy, and Julius Caesar also claimed her as his ancestor. In the later classical tradition of the West, Venus became one of the most widely referenced deities of Greco-Roman mythology as the embodiment of love and sexuality - as such, she is usually depicted nude in paintings. Her cults may represent the religiously legitimized charm and seduction of the divine by mortals as a contrast to the formal and contractual relations between most members of Rome's official pantheon and the state, as well as a contrast to the manipulation of divine forces through magic.
Venus was central to many religious festivals, and was revered in Roman religion under numerous cult titles: she has been described as perhaps "the most original creation of the Roman pantheon", and seems to have had no origin myth until the Romans adapted the myths and iconography of her Greek counterpart Aphrodite in their art and literature - this includes her genesis from the sea foam produced by the castration of Caelus (the Roman counterpart to Uranus), as well as the story of how she became the consort of Vulcan (Roman equivalent to Hephaestus).
Variants
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, Venus is replaced by Yavanna for elven Rangers, Kiaransali and Vhaeraun for drow and hedrow Rangers, Garl Glittergold for gnome Rangers, and Latona for other Rangers.
Encyclopedia entry
Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, was the daughter of
Jupiter and Dione. Others say that Venus sprang from the
foam of the sea. The zephyr wafted her along the waves to
the Isle of Cyprus, where she was received and attired by
the Seasons, and then led to the assembly of the gods. All
were charmed with her beauty, and each one demanded her
for his wife. Jupiter gave her to Vulcan, in gratitude for
the service he had rendered in forging thunderbolts. So
the most beautiful of the goddesses became the wife of the
most ill-favoured of gods.
