# Rumors
Rumors are a way to learn about the game without reading spoilers. Rumors are classified as either "true" or "false". True rumors are useful hints, while false ones are useless or incorrect.

Contents

1 Getting rumors
2 Examples

2.1 True rumors
2.2 False rumors

3 See also
4 External links

Getting rumors
The Oracle always tells you a true rumor when you pay for a minor consultation.
The following items give you a true rumor if blessed, a false rumor if cursed and either if uncursed:
Fortune cookies contain a rumor that is revealed when you eat the cookie. You may also just read the cookie, if you want to keep the vegan or foodless conduct.
Two quest artifacts, the Magic Mirror of Merlin and the Master Key of Thievery, give a rumor when applied or wielded.
You can sometimes find rumors written as graffiti on the floor. Sometimes these can be difficult to read.
You can write something on the dungeon floor, then engrave with a wand of polymorph to get a rumor.
Examples
True rumors
Rumor #330: Throwing food at a wild dog might tame him.
This encourages the player to throw tripe at dogs to tame them.

Rumor #47: Eating a freezing sphere is like eating a yeti.
This suggests that by eating a freezing sphere or a yeti you may get the cold resistance. Unfortunately, freezing spheres never leave corpses.

Rumor #326: They say the gods get angry if you kill your dog.
This suggests that if you kill a pet, you get an alignment record penalty (−15 to be exact, and also lose 1 point of Luck).

False rumors
Rumor #7: A cockatrice corpse is guaranteed to be untainted!
This encourages the player to eat a cockatrice corpse, which will almost certainly cause death by stoning.

Rumor #157: Sorry, no fortune this time.  Better luck next cookie!
This is just plain useless.

Rumor #195: They say that a hacker named David once slew a giant with a sling and a rock.
Some false rumors are just random references to random things. (Slings and rocks have no special effect against giants.)

See also
Source:rumors.tru — the data file that contains all the true rumors
Source:rumors.fal — the data file that contains all the false rumors
Rumor messages — explains the meaning of each rumor
External links
alt.org - NetHack Addi(c)tion: Random Messages

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It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.
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