| 1 | Hack & Quest data file - version 1.0.3 |
| 2 | @ human (or you) |
| 3 | - a wall |
| 4 | | a wall |
| 5 | + a door |
| 6 | . the floor of a room |
| 7 | a dark part of a room |
| 8 | # a corridor |
| 9 | } water filled area |
| 10 | < the staircase to the previous level |
| 11 | > the staircase to the next level |
| 12 | ^ a trap |
| 13 | $ a pile, pot or chest of gold |
| 14 | %% a piece of food |
| 15 | ! a potion |
| 16 | * a gem |
| 17 | ? a scroll |
| 18 | = a ring |
| 19 | / a wand |
| 20 | [ a suit of armor |
| 21 | ) a weapon |
| 22 | ( a useful item (camera, key, rope etc.) |
| 23 | 0 an iron ball |
| 24 | _ an iron chain |
| 25 | ` an enormous rock |
| 26 | " an amulet |
| 27 | , a trapper |
| 28 | : a chameleon |
| 29 | ; a giant eel |
| 30 | ' a lurker above |
| 31 | & a demon |
| 32 | A a giant ant |
| 33 | B a giant bat |
| 34 | C a centaur; |
| 35 | Of all the monsters put together by the Greek imagination |
| 36 | the Centaurs (Kentauroi) constituted a class in themselves. |
| 37 | Despite a strong streak of sensuality in their make-up, |
| 38 | their normal behaviour was moral, and they took a kindly |
| 39 | thought of man's welfare. The attempted outrage of Nessos on |
| 40 | Deianeira, and that of the whole tribe of Centaurs on the |
| 41 | Lapith women, are more than offset by the hospitality of |
| 42 | Pholos and by the wisdom of Cheiron, physician, prophet, |
| 43 | lyrist, and the instructor of Achilles. Further, the Cen- |
| 44 | taurs were peculiar in that their nature, which united the |
| 45 | body of a horse with the trunk and head of a man, involved |
| 46 | an unthinkable duplication of vital organs and important |
| 47 | members. So grotesque a combination seems almost un-Greek. |
| 48 | These strange creatures were said to live in the caves and |
| 49 | clefts of the mountains, myths associating them especially |
| 50 | with the hills of Thessaly and the range of Erymanthos. |
| 51 | [Mythology of all races, Vol. 1, pp. 270-271] |
| 52 | D a dragon; |
| 53 | In the West the dragon was the natural enemy of man. Although |
| 54 | preferring to live in bleak and desolate regions, whenever it was |
| 55 | seen among men it left in its wake a trail of destruction and |
| 56 | disease. Yet any attempt to slay this beast was a perilous under- |
| 57 | taking. For the dragon's assailant had to contend not only with |
| 58 | clouds of sulphurous fumes pouring from its fire-breathing nos- |
| 59 | trils, but also with the thrashings of its tail, the most deadly |
| 60 | part of its serpent-like body. |
| 61 | [From: Mythical Beasts by Deirdre Headon (The Leprechaun Library)] |
| 62 | E a floating eye |
| 63 | F a freezing sphere |
| 64 | G a gnome; |
| 65 | ... And then a gnome came by, carrying a bundle, an old fellow |
| 66 | three times as large as an imp and wearing clothes of a sort, |
| 67 | especially a hat. And he was clearly just as frightened as the |
| 68 | imps though he could not go so fast. Ramon Alonzo saw that there |
| 69 | must be some great trouble that was vexing magical things; and, |
| 70 | since gnomes speak the language of men, and will answer if spoken |
| 71 | to gently, he raised his hat, and asked of the gnome his name. |
| 72 | The gnome did not stop his hasty shuffle a moment as he answered |
| 73 | 'Alaraba' and grabbed the rim of his hat but forgot to doff it. |
| 74 | 'What is the trouble, Alaraba?' said Ramon Alonzo. |
| 75 | 'White magic. Run!' said the gnome ... |
| 76 | [From: The Charwoman's Shadow, by Lord Dunsany.] |
| 77 | H a hobgoblin; |
| 78 | Hobgoblin. Used by the Puritans and in later times for |
| 79 | wicked goblin spirits, as in Bunyan's 'Hobgoblin nor foul |
| 80 | friend', but its more correct use is for the friendly spir- |
| 81 | its of the brownie type. In 'A midsummer night's dream' a |
| 82 | fairy says to Shakespeare's Puck: |
| 83 | Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, |
| 84 | You do their work, and they shall have good luck: |
| 85 | Are you not he? |
| 86 | and obviously Puck would not wish to be called a hobgoblin |
| 87 | if that was an ill-omened word. |
| 88 | Hobgoblins are on the whole, good-humoured and ready to be |
| 89 | helpful, but fond of practical joking, and like most of the |
| 90 | fairies rather nasty people to annoy. Boggarts hover on the |
| 91 | verge of hobgoblindom. Bogles are just over the edge. |
| 92 | One Hob mentioned by Henderson, was Hob Headless who haunted |
| 93 | the road between Hurworth and Neasham, but could not cross |
| 94 | the little river Kent, which flowed into the Tess. He was |
| 95 | exorcised and laid under a large stone by the roadside for |
| 96 | ninety-nine years and a day. If anyone was so unwary as to |
| 97 | sit on that stone, he would be unable to quit it for ever. |
| 98 | The ninety-nine years is nearly up, so trouble may soon be |
| 99 | heard of on the road between Hurworth and Neasham. |
| 100 | [Katharine Briggs, A dictionary of Fairies] |
| 101 | I an invisible stalker |
| 102 | J a jackal |
| 103 | K a kobold |
| 104 | L a leprechaun; |
| 105 | The Irish Leprechaun is the Faeries' shoemaker and is known |
| 106 | under various names in different parts of Ireland: Cluri- |
| 107 | caune in Cork, Lurican in Kerry, Lurikeen in Kildare and Lu- |
| 108 | rigadaun in Tipperary. Although he works for the Faeries, |
| 109 | the Leprechaun is not of the same species. He is small, has |
| 110 | dark skin and wears strange clothes. His nature has some- |
| 111 | thing of the manic-depressive about it: first he is quite |
| 112 | happy, whistling merrily as he nails a sole on to a shoe; a |
| 113 | few minutes later, he is sullen and morose, drunk on his |
| 114 | home-made heather ale. The Leprechaun's two great loves are |
| 115 | tobacco and whiskey, and he is a first-rate con-man, impos- |
| 116 | sible to out-fox. No one, no matter how clever, has ever |
| 117 | managed to cheat him out of his hidden pot of gold or his |
| 118 | magic shilling. At the last minute he always thinks of some |
| 119 | way to divert his captor's attention and vanishes in the |
| 120 | twinkling of an eye. |
| 121 | [From: A Field Guide to the Little People |
| 122 | by Nancy Arrowsmith & George Moorse. ] |
| 123 | M a mimic |
| 124 | N a nymph |
| 125 | O an orc |
| 126 | P a purple worm |
| 127 | Q a quasit |
| 128 | R a rust monster |
| 129 | S a snake |
| 130 | T a troll |
| 131 | U an umber hulk |
| 132 | V a vampire |
| 133 | W a wraith |
| 134 | X a xorn |
| 135 | Y a yeti |
| 136 | Z a zombie |
| 137 | a an acid blob |
| 138 | b a giant beetle |
| 139 | c a cockatrice; |
| 140 | Once in a great while, when the positions of the stars are |
| 141 | just right, a seven-year-old rooster will lay an egg. Then, |
| 142 | along will come a snake, to coil around the egg, or a toad, |
| 143 | to squat upon the egg, keeping it warm and helping it to |
| 144 | hatch. When it hatches, out comes a creature called basil- |
| 145 | isk, or cockatrice, the most deadly of all creatures. A sin- |
| 146 | gle glance from its yellow, piercing toad's eyes will kill |
| 147 | both man and beast. Its power of destruction is said to be |
| 148 | so great that sometimes simply to hear its hiss can prove |
| 149 | fatal. Its breath is so venomous that it causes all vege- |
| 150 | tation to wither. |
| 151 | There is, however, one creature which can withstand the |
| 152 | basilisk's deadly gaze, and this is the weasel. No one knows |
| 153 | why this is so, but although the fierce weasel can slay the |
| 154 | basilisk, it will itself be killed in the struggle. Perhaps |
| 155 | the weasel knows the basilisk's fatal weakness: if it ever |
| 156 | sees its own reflection in a mirror it will perish instant- |
| 157 | ly. But even a dead basilisk is dangerous, for it is said |
| 158 | that merely touching its lifeless body can cause a person to |
| 159 | sicken and die. |
| 160 | [From: Mythical Beasts by Deirdre Headon (The Leprechaun |
| 161 | Library) and other sources. ] |
| 162 | d a dog |
| 163 | e an ettin |
| 164 | f a fog cloud |
| 165 | g a gelatinous cube |
| 166 | h a homunculus |
| 167 | i an imp; |
| 168 | ... imps ... little creatures of two feet high that could |
| 169 | gambol and jump prodigiously; ... |
| 170 | [From: The Charwoman's Shadow, by Lord Dunsany.] |
| 171 | |
| 172 | An 'imp' is an off-shoot or cutting. Thus an 'ymp tree' was |
| 173 | a grafted tree, or one grown from a cutting, not from seed. |
| 174 | 'Imp' properly means a small devil, an off-shoot of Satan, |
| 175 | but the distinction between goblins or bogles and imps from |
| 176 | hell is hard to make, and many in the Celtic countries as |
| 177 | well as the English Puritans regarded all fairies as devils. |
| 178 | The fairies of tradition often hover uneasily between the |
| 179 | ghostly and the diabolic state. |
| 180 | [Katharine Briggs, A dictionary of Fairies] |
| 181 | j a jaguar |
| 182 | k a killer bee |
| 183 | l a leocrotta |
| 184 | m a minotaur |
| 185 | n a nurse |
| 186 | o an owlbear |
| 187 | p a piercer |
| 188 | q a quivering blob |
| 189 | r a giant rat |
| 190 | s a scorpion |
| 191 | t a tengu; |
| 192 | The tengu was the most troublesome creature of Japanese |
| 193 | legend. Part bird and part man, with red beak for a nose |
| 194 | and flashing eyes, the tengu was notorious for stirring up |
| 195 | feuds and prolonging enmity between families. Indeed, the |
| 196 | belligerent tengus were supposed to have been man's first |
| 197 | instructors in the use of arms. |
| 198 | [From: Mythical Beasts by Deirdre Headon |
| 199 | (The Leprechaun Library). ] |
| 200 | u a unicorn; |
| 201 | Men have always sought the elusive unicorn, for the single |
| 202 | twisted horn which projected from its forehead was thought |
| 203 | to be a powerful talisman. It was said that the unicorn had |
| 204 | simply to dip the tip of its horn in a muddy pool for the |
| 205 | water to become pure. Men also believed that to drink from |
| 206 | this horn was a protection against all sickness, and that if |
| 207 | the horn was ground to a powder it would act as an antidote |
| 208 | to all poisons. Less than 200 years ago in France, the horn |
| 209 | of a unicorn was used in a ceremony to test the royal food |
| 210 | for poison. |
| 211 | Although only the size of a small horse, the unicorn is a |
| 212 | very fierce beast, capable of killing an elephant with a |
| 213 | single thrust from its horn. Its fleetness of foot also |
| 214 | makes this solitary creature difficult to capture. However, |
| 215 | it can be tamed and captured by a maiden. Made gentle by the |
| 216 | sight of a virgin, the unicorn can be lured to lay its head |
| 217 | in her lap, and in this docile mood, the maiden may secure |
| 218 | it with a golden rope. |
| 219 | [From: Mythical Beasts by Deirdre Headon |
| 220 | (The Leprechaun Library). ] |
| 221 | v a violet fungi |
| 222 | w a long worm; |
| 223 | From its teeth the crysknife can be manufactured. |
| 224 | ~ the tail of a long worm |
| 225 | x a xan; |
| 226 | The xan were animals sent to prick the legs of the Lords of Xibalba. |
| 227 | y a yellow light |
| 228 | z a zruty; |
| 229 | The zruty are wild and gigantic beings, living in the wildernesses |
| 230 | of the Tatra mountains. |
| 231 | 1 The wizard of Yendor |
| 232 | 2 The mail daemon |