nethack apocrypha and history

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I want to make sure that this is just apocrypha rather than something
obscure and cited somewhere in the annals of usenet.

Was there ever a time where Nethack had bananas which left peels usable as
traps to slip up monsters?

Was there a Christian version of Nethack where the only deity choice was
from the Christian pantheon?

Was there a time in Nethack's past where a new release took longer than a
year?

 

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Haakon Studebaker <heptapod@gmail.com> writes:
> I want to make sure that this is just apocrypha rather than something
> obscure and cited somewhere in the annals of usenet.
>
> Was there ever a time where Nethack had bananas which left peels usable as
> traps to slip up monsters?
>
> Was there a Christian version of Nethack where the only deity choice was
> from the Christian pantheon?

Neither of these have been in any version of NetHack released by the
DevTeam. (Nor in any variant I'm aware of, but I'm not ruling that
out.) However, "Be careful when eating bananas. Monsters might slip on
the peels." has been a false rumour since aeb Hack.

> Was there a time in Nethack's past where a new release took longer than a
> year?

Between every 3.x.<last> and 3.x+1.0, from 3.0 on. (Discounting the
3.2.3 Y2K fix.)

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Haakon Studebaker wrote:

> Was there a Christian version of Nethack where the only deity choice was
> from the Christian pantheon?

'Christian pantheon' is an oxymoron. Christianity is monotheistic.

Raisse, killed by the wrath of Thoth

--
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Status of Raisse (piously neutral): Level 8 HP 63(67) AC -3, fast.

 

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In article <4258ca34$0$147$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl>,
Raisse the Thaumaturge <raisse@valdyas.org> wrote:

> Haakon Studebaker wrote:
>
> > Was there a Christian version of Nethack where the only deity choice was
> > from the Christian pantheon?
>
> 'Christian pantheon' is an oxymoron. Christianity is monotheistic.

A little twitchy for Catholics specifically, though.

--
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cover of Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut." "Not Now John" is especially sublime.

 

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On Sun, 10 Apr 2005, Raisse the Thaumaturge wrote:
> Haakon Studebaker wrote:
>
>> Was there a Christian version of Nethack where the only deity choice was
>> from the Christian pantheon?
> 'Christian pantheon' is an oxymoron. Christianity is monotheistic.

If you take "deity" as an all-powerful being, then it is -- at least in
the vanilla Christianity, as for example the Manichean heresy names Satan
to be as powerful as the "good" God.

However, NetHack's concept of gods follows more the ancient concept, where
gods were not omniescent, not omni-present and their powers had limits.
They could be harmed, and in some religions, even killed.

Thus, this kind of gods would rather fit the traditional Christian setting
-- until quite recently, the "popular" (ie, shared by common people
and not theologists) view of Christianity involved a feudal system, with
aristocracy and princes ruled by a monarch. In fact, we even have the
most powerful of the princes rebelling against the rightful king, and
taking his allies and minions with him.
Under feudal rules, everywhere except for England, "the vassal of my
vassal is not my vassal" -- and thus, minion angels were obliged to
loyalty to their direct superior instead of the king. Within this
viewpoint, we have "fallen angels" belong to the same species as the
"good" ones, differing by just the loyalty and perhaps uniform (the latter
applies only if you antropomorphize) -- as opposed to the urban/peasant
view where devils have horns, pitchforks and hooves.

This said, it is a bad idea to have "Christian" powerful beings as Nethack
gods, because of:
* not adhering to the ancient concept of gods
* the stress on hierarchy as opposed to a set of individuals as in most
ancient pantheons
* the fact that we already _do_ have a number of beings from the Christian
tradition, all from the bad side -- this may be mixed with Kaballah and
similar sources, but that was the case with medieval theology as well.

KiloByte, killed by the wrath of $DEITY

--
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