DeathOnAStick

DeathOnAStick is probably most famous for his year-and-a-half-long game on nethack.alt.org, from 2004-04-17 to 2005-11-27. He spent much of this time polypiling rocks into gems and collecting pet giants to carry the bags of gems for him, since there were so many.

This is where the tale takes a sad turn. While wading through some monsters on dungeon level 1, he got a potion of gain level from a death drop. Casually drinking it without fully identifying it first, he found out it was cursed.

At this point, he apparently left his computer for some time. We can only speculate on what he was doing, but banging his head off a wall may have been involved. Eventually, he returned. A few of his entourage of giants had been close enough to be dragged into the Planes with him, but unfortunately they were either killed off or left behind at the inter-plane portals. The only gems DeathOnAStick had at his ascension were 2 dilithium crystals.

If anyone knows who he is in real life, please give him a hug from the denizens of #nethack.