Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams was the person who created The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series of fiction. Most people know these as novels, though they also came as radio shows and in other formats. These stories the adventures of one Arthur Dent, who hitchhikes off our Earth and travels around the galaxy. The stories are not serious at all, but are filled with jokes, to the extent that the destruction of the Earth would not cause much concern. These jokes have become familiar to those people who know the importance of the number 42.

NetHack has an ancient fantasy setting, but does contain a few references to the works of Douglas Adams. The primary reference is the towel, a multipurpose generally useful item. The towel is not as useful in NetHack as the Hitchhiker's Guide would claim; the towel is actually the subject of a false rumor.

When your NetHack character is hallucinating, you might meet the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal or a microscopic space fleet. If you meet one, then you could blind yourself with a towel, and let some other monster kill you.

NetHack: The Next Generation
If you took anything, more strange than a towel, from the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash, then we might claim that it would not fit in the setting of NetHack. One person thought otherwise.

The year 1994, Sebastian Klein produced a variant of NetHack 3.1.3 entitled NetHack: The Next Generation. Along with several other Geek-related additions, NetHack TNG includes several monsters and elements from the works of Douglas Adams. The documentation says of them:


 * "I strongly believe that those added things enhance the game a lot. It certainly does not become ridicolous [sic]."