A grue is a fictional predator from the Zork series of interactive fiction games by Infocom. The word grue was first used in modern times as a fictional predator from Jack Vance's Dying Earth universe. Vance probably took the name from an archaic/dialectal English verb derived from a Scandinavian word meaning to feel horror, shudder (OED), now most commonly encountered in the word "gruesome". Zork universe Zork games Zork Anthology Zork trilogy Zork I   Zork II   Zork III Beyond Zork   Zork Zero Enchanter trilogy Enchanter   Sorcerer   Spellbreaker Other games Wishbringer   Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis   Zork Grand Inquisitor Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Topics in Zork Encyclopedia Frobozzica Characters   Kings   Creatures Timeline   Magic   Calendar Zorkmid... FicTioNaL is a Gaming Legend. ... This snapping turtle is trying to make a meal of a Canada goose, but the goose is too wary. ... John Holbrook Vance (born August 28, 1916 in San Francisco, California) is generally described as an American fantasy and science fiction author, though Vance himself has reportedly objected to such labels. ... Dying Earth is a series of fantasy books by Jack Vance. ... In language, an archaism is the deliberate use of an older form that has fallen out of current use. ... A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος) is a variant, or variety, of a language spoken in a certain geographical area. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The North Germanic languages (also Scandinavian languages or Nordic languages) is a branch of the Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia, parts of Finland and on the Faroe Islands and Iceland. ...

Dave Lebling introduced a similar monster, whose name was borrowed from Vance's grues, into the interactive fiction computer game Zork. Zork's grues fear light and are ravenous devourers of adventurers, making it impossible to explore the game's dark areas without a light source. Dave Lebling, ca 1985 Dave Lebling (born 1949) was an interactive fiction game designer, or implementor, at Infocom. ... Zork I is one of the first interactive fiction games, as well as being one of the first commercially sold. ... A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ... Zork universe Zork games Zork Anthology Zork trilogy Zork I • Zork II • Zork III Beyond Zork • Zork Zero Enchanter trilogy Enchanter • Sorcerer • Spellbreaker Other games Wishbringer • Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis • Zork Grand Inquisitor Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Topics in Zork Encyclopedia Frobozzica Characters • Kings • Creatures Timeline • Magic • Calendar Zorkmid... Even Soldiers of Fortune have to sing! 1958 record album An adventurer or adventuress is a term that usually takes one of three meanings: One whose travels are unusual and often exotic, though not so unique as to qualify as exploration. ...

Due to Zork's prominent position in hacker history and lore, its grues have served as models for monsters in many subsequent games, such as roguelike games and MUDs. This article is about computer hacking. ... A roguelike is a computer game that borrows some of the elements of the 1980s computer game Rogue. ... This article is about a type of online computer game. ...

Origin

The first mention of grues in the Zork games is the following ominous line: Zork universe Zork games Zork Anthology Zork trilogy Zork I • Zork II • Zork III Beyond Zork • Zork Zero Enchanter trilogy Enchanter • Sorcerer • Spellbreaker Other games Wishbringer • Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis • Zork Grand Inquisitor Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Topics in Zork Encyclopedia Frobozzica Characters • Kings • Creatures Timeline • Magic • Calendar Zorkmid...

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Further investigation will reveal more about their nature:

> what is a grue?

The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is adventurers, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its fear of light. No grue has ever been seen by the light of day, and few have survived its fearsome jaws to tell the tale.

This warning is not to be taken lightly. If the player attempts to continue moving through a dark place rather than returning to a lit area or activating a light source, there is a high probability he will be caught and eaten by a grue. Originally, grues were not a threat as long as one remained still and didn't leave one's location, but in later games it has been possible, in certain situations, to be eaten by a grue simply by waiting around in the dark.

Grues were invented to limit players' options when faced with unlit areas. Without them, a player might attempt to blunder about in the darkness, perhaps (for example) to reach a lighted area beyond a dark passage. The presence of grues ensures that such tactics will fail, and forces players to solve any light-related puzzles first. For comparison, Zork's predecessor, Adventure, used pits to achieve the same result. An adventurer who attempted to move about in darkness in that game had a high chance of falling down a pit and dying. This article is about an early text based computer game. ...

This made sense in Adventure's environment, which took place entirely inside a natural cave with all of a cave's many nooks and crannies. However, when the original Zork mainframe game adopted this practice by killing players with "bottomless pits", it was quickly pointed out that these pits appeared to exist in unlikely places such as the attic of a house, with no evidence of holes in the ceiling in the room directly below.

Dave Lebling quickly invented the concept of a wandering, light-fearing monster that would be a plausible replacement for the immobile bottomless pits, and, taking the name from Vance's work as having the right connotations, introduced grues in the next version of Zork. The version update document made a humorous reference to the "dungeon maintainers" painstakingly filling up the bottomless pits and restocking the dungeon with grues. Years later, the Zork prequel game, Zork Zero, would feature the protagonist doing exactly that — forced to use a magic device to seal up the realm's bottomless pits that are blocking his path, he unwittingly forces out the myriad colonies of grues that have been nesting there, leaving them to wander the underground caverns searching for food. Dave Lebling, ca 1985 Dave Lebling (born 1949) was an interactive fiction game designer, or implementor, at Infocom. ... Zork universe Zork games Zork Anthology Zork trilogy Zork I   Zork II   Zork III Beyond Zork   Zork Zero   Planetfall Enchanter trilogy Enchanter   Sorcerer   Spellbreaker Other games Wishbringer   Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis   Zork Grand Inquisitor Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Topics in Zork Encyclopedia Frobozzica Characters   Kings   Creatures Timeline   Magic   Calendar...

Zork lore

Grues have been featured in each of the Zork games (with the possible exception of Enchanter) and many other of Infocom's games, becoming a company trademark or in-joke, often referred to with the stock phrases of "slavering fangs", "razor-sharp claws" and "horrible gurgling noises". The science fiction title Starcross reuses both the "You are likely to be eaten by a grue" line and the grue's description, replacing the word "adventurer" with the current job title of the protagonist. Additionally, Planetfall makes reference to grues having been unwittingly taken from their home planet (which is implied to be the world on which Zork takes place) and introduced to Earth by the alien ship in Starcross, then subsequently spread around the galaxy alongside man and become a universal pest for human civilizations. The term crops up as an in-joke in other contexts as well, such as a racehorse named "Lurking Grue" in the modern-day murder mystery Suspect. Enchanter is a 1983 interactive fiction computer game written by Marc Blank and Dave Lebling and published by Infocom. ... An in joke is a joke whose humour is clear only to those people who are in a group that has some prior knowledge (not known by the whole population) that makes the joke humorous. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Starcross is a 1982 interactive fiction game designed and implemented by Dave Lebling and published by Infocom. ... Starcross is a 1982 interactive fiction game designed and implemented by Dave Lebling and published by Infocom. ... Suspect is an interactive fiction computer game designed by Dave Lebling and published by Infocom in 1984. ...

Much is made of the idea that grues have such an aversion to light that no one has ever seen one and it is impossible to gain a firsthand physical description of one and that, conversely, grues are such formidable predators that light is the only possible means of avoiding them. Neither of these ideas held absolutely true throughout the entire Infocom line of games. For instance, the game Sorcerer, which provided a wide variety of humorous responses to creative uses of magic spells, allowed the player to cast the Frotz spell on a grue, causing a "horrible, multi-fanged creature" from just outside the range of vision to run through the room "gurgling in agony and tearing at its fur". The game similarly provided a potion that granted the ability to see in darkness as a trap for players who forgot that the main purpose of a light source in the Zork games is not to preserve one's own vision but to repel grues; taking the night vision potion and turning off one's light source results in the almost immediate sight of, and subsequent devouring by, a grue. Near the end of the game, it is revealed that the main villain's plot for conquering the world involves manufacturing an army of light-resistant grues using a conveniently provided Frobozz Magic Company device. Zork universe Zork games Zork trilogy Zork I Zork II Zork III Enchanter trilogy Enchanter Sorcerer Spellbreaker Wishbringer Beyond Zork Zork Zero Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis Zork Grand Inquisitor Encyclopedia Encyclopedia Frobozzica Miscellaneous Timeline   Calendar   Magic Double Fanucci Companies Infocom   Activision This article is about the computer game. ... Windows Frotz, playing Zork This article discusses the adventure game engine named Frotz. ...

As time went on the games became increasingly bold in their treatment of grues — Wishbringer allows the player to stumble upon a baby grue and get a good look at it before its parents return (described as a "horrid little beast with red eyes and slavering fangs"). (Zork: The Undiscovered Underground, a freeware game that was released 12 years later, incorrectly states that the character in that game is the first person to see a grue.) Spellbreaker, which had the player traveling through magical planes that represented various elements and principles, had the plane of darkness almost entirely populated by grues and forced the player to survive by using magic to take the form of one of the beasts. Zork universe Zork games Zork trilogy Zork I Zork II Zork III Enchanter trilogy Enchanter Sorcerer Spellbreaker Wishbringer Beyond Zork Zork Zero Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis Zork Grand Inquisitor Encyclopedia Encyclopedia Frobozzica Miscellaneous Timeline   Calendar   Magic Double Fanucci Companies Infocom   Activision Wishbringer: The Magick Stone of Dreams is an... Zork universe Zork games Zork Anthology Zork trilogy Zork I   Zork II   Zork III Beyond Zork   Zork Zero   Planetfall Enchanter trilogy Enchanter   Sorcerer   Spellbreaker Other games Wishbringer   Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis   Zork Grand Inquisitor Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Topics in Zork Encyclopedia Frobozzica Characters   Kings   Creatures Timeline   Magic   Calendar... In metaphysics and esoteric cosmology, a plane of existence (sometimes called simply a plane, dimension, vibrating plane, or an inner, invisible, spiritual, supraphysical world, or egg) is conceived as a subtle region of space (and/or consciousness) beyond, but permeating, the known physical universe (or a portion of the physical... Many ancient philosophies used a set of archetypal classical elements to explain patterns in nature. ... A principle (not principal) is something, usually a rule or norm, that is part of the basis for something else. ...

One of the repeated references in Zork's backstory was to the ancient king Entharion the Wise and the legendary blade Grueslayer, which he used to directly fight grues in combat; this feat would not be repeated until the interactive fiction/RPG hybrid Beyond Zork, which allows a player who has advanced sufficiently in level and acquired certain items to boldly walk into the dark and kill grues that attack. (This feat required the acquisition of the Pheehelm, a device that boosted the player's intelligence and allowed him or her to sense the grues' movements telepathically without seeing them.) It also introduced as its primary villain the Ur-Grue, an evil god of darkness who ruled over the world's grues. Finally, the modern-day game Zork: The Undiscovered Underground created as a promotion for Zork Grand Inquisitor featured an extended reference to a line in Zork III about "a whole convention of grues" in a certain location, by having the player infiltrate a literal grue convention, complete with lectures, entertainment and souvenirs. This article is about games in which one plays the role of a character. ... Zork universe Zork games Zork Anthology Zork trilogy Zork I   Zork II   Zork III Beyond Zork   Zork Zero   Planetfall Enchanter trilogy Enchanter   Sorcerer   Spellbreaker Other games Wishbringer   Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis   Zork Grand Inquisitor Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Topics in Zork Encyclopedia Frobozzica Characters   Kings   Creatures Timeline   Magic   Calendar... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Grue. ... Zork universe Zork games Zork Anthology Zork trilogy Zork I   Zork II   Zork III Beyond Zork   Zork Zero   Planetfall Enchanter trilogy Enchanter   Sorcerer   Spellbreaker Other games Wishbringer   Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis   Zork Grand Inquisitor Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Topics in Zork Encyclopedia Frobozzica Characters   Kings   Creatures Timeline   Magic   Calendar...

That game was the first to give a detailed description of how grues looked, having the player disguise himself as a grue after seeing one and noting that it had a "fish-mouthed head, razor-sharp claws and glowing fur all over". (The reference to light-hating grues themselves glowing appears to be a mistaken interpretation of Sorcerer describing a grue glowing after a light spell has been cast on it -- although Spellbreaker does mention that grues' eyes give off a very small amount of light that lets them navigate in darkness.) However, an actual illustration of a grue had been seen previously, although in an obscure source -- one of Steve Meretzky's Zork gamebooks purposely included a section where the protagonists see a grue face-to-face before being eaten by it, presumably as a way to make the book attractive to Zork fans. Presumably these are not the only instances in the Zork games when grues have been seen — one event in Sorcerer has the player finding a Frobozz Magic Company "anti-grue kit" (admittedly a secret, experimental prototype) that contains a grue costume, with which the player can don and travel among grues unharmed. (The player in Zork: The Undiscovered Underground replicates this feat, albeit imperfectly.) Steve Meretzky Steven Eric Meretzky (born May 1, 1957) is an American computer game designer, with dozens of titles to his credit. ... A gamebook is a book with a branching storyline that serves as a medium for gameplay. ... Zork universe Zork games Zork Anthology Zork trilogy Zork I   Zork II   Zork III Beyond Zork   Zork Zero   Planetfall Enchanter trilogy Enchanter   Sorcerer   Spellbreaker Other games Wishbringer   Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis   Zork Grand Inquisitor Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Topics in Zork Encyclopedia Frobozzica Characters   Kings   Creatures Timeline   Magic   Calendar...

This is part of the running gag of a series of mostly failed attempts to find some sort of alternate means of protection against grues in the event one's light source fails, most famously in Zork II where a can of Frobozz Magic Grue Repellent was included as a red herring — useless, since it would only last for one game turn after one's light source expired, during which the player couldn't see his location anyway.

The actual reason light acts as such a potent Achilles' heel for grues is inconsistently given — some games imply that grues find levels of light ordinary for humans to be intolerably, blindingly painful but can nonetheless survive it (such as in Planetfall, where an obviously grue-like creature exists in a lit laboratory, "squinting and cursing at the light"). Zork: The Undiscovered Underground goes to the other extreme, having a grue caught in the light spontaneously combust on the spot. This latter explanation seems closer to the canon established by the main Infocom game series, since in Spellbreaker, if the player is shapeshifted into a grue and remains in a lit area for too long the light eventually kills him (and it is implied that the amount of light to which he is exposed is so faint as to be invisible to human eyes). An Achilles’ heel is a fatal weakness in spite of overall strength, actually or potentially leading to downfall. ... Spontaneous combustion is a type of combustion which occurs without an external ignition source. ...

The question of how grues are able to survive undetected at all without being trapped in a dead end by a wandering human with a lantern has often been debated by fans, attributed either to their ability to squeeze through tunnels humans can't see or to use something akin to Dungeons & Dragons' "shadow jump" ability. This article is about the role-playing game. ...

The modern graphical adventure games in the Zork series continue references to grues, with gurgling and growling grue sound effects audible in most shadowy or gloomy places and many points at which players can meet a gruesome death by wandering without light. A possible parody of the concept appeared in one puzzle in Return To Zork, in which the player was in danger of being killed by a grue after turning the light off in their own bedroom in a hotel; the only solution is to place a piece of lightly glowing, magical rock on the nightstand, providing just enough light to ward off grues while still making it possible to sleep. The in-jokes continue as well, with Zork Nemesis continuing a running gag about failed attempts to capture or domesticate grues by including in a library a book, "Interview with a Grue", that sported an illustration captioned "The Grue In Its Natural Habitat" (a blank black square). Zork Grand Inquisitor added to grue trivia the idea of the game "Grue, Fire, Water", a variant of Rock, Paper, Scissors wherein "Grue drinks water, water douses fire, and fire scares grue." This is an article about a game company. ... Return to Zork is a 1993 adventure game in the Zork series for the PC and Apple Macintosh. ... Zork universe Zork games Zork trilogy Zork I Zork II Zork III Enchanter trilogy Enchanter Sorcerer Spellbreaker Wishbringer Beyond Zork Zork Zero Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis Zork Grand Inquisitor Encyclopedia Encyclopedia Frobozzica Miscellaneous Timeline   Calendar   Magic Double Fanucci Companies Infocom   Activision Zork: Nemesis is a 1996 graphical adventure game... Rock, Paper, Scissors chart Listen to this article ( info/dl) This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2006-07-13, and may not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ...

Other references

Grues are a common reference in hacker culture or among computer-savvy people. They have cropped up in other fantasy realms, though rarely, as they are seen as being strongly attached to the Zork universe, Infocom and the medium of interactive fiction in general. For this reason many modern interactive fiction works make extensive in-jokes referencing grues; most memorable was a parody work called Enlightenment, which takes place in a Zork-like universe where the protagonist has overloaded himself with an abundance of light sources—suddenly finding himself in need of help from grues to defeat a troll, he is forced to find a way to extinguish them all. For other uses, see Troll (disambiguation). ...

Grues make an appearance in the Dungeons & Dragons RPG, appearing as a species of intelligent, evil elementals from the Inner Planes, presented as an alternative to the usual neutral, nonsentient summonable elementals of D&D. Aside from a reference to their being "born in places of darkness" on the Inner Planes and a general sense of shapeless menace, they have very little to do with their Infocom namesakes, despite having been introduced soon after the first Zork games and presumably having been inspired by them. Grues also appear in the third edition of the RuneQuest RPG, in the book Gloranthan Bestiary, being the name given to a type of monster clearly based on the alien parasite from the movie Alien, which also hunted in darkness. The same creature also existed in the Gateway Bestiary, written for the second edition of the game, but was not at that time given the name "Grue". This article is about the role-playing game. ... This article is about games in which one plays the role of a character. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... This article is about the first film in a series. ...

Grues show up repeatedly in the roguelike game Ancient Domains of Mystery; originally only existing as an in-joke, "You are likely to be eaten by a grue" being one of the stock phrases one can encounter while traveling through the dark, eventually the classic Zork "lurking grue" was added to the game. Present in the dungeons but very rare, someone who is suffering under a serious bad-luck curse ("doomed") has a chance of being "eaten by a grue" at any time while moving through the dark, which is an instant, unavoidable death. Grues were also introduced as actual, very high-level monsters one could fight; among the menagerie of "elemental" monsters such as fire lizards or stone giants were "elemental grues" which were supposedly grues advanced enough in elemental (magic) power that they could "wreath themselves in shadows" and fight against players in the light; this was a combination of the Infocom grue and the D&D grues. A roguelike is a computer game that borrows some of the elements of the 1980s computer game Rogue. ... ADOM (short for Ancient Domains of Mystery) is a roguelike game in which the players aim is to stop the forces of Chaos which are invading the world of Ancardia. ...

Grues are also present in the roguelike NetHack, in which they are one of several monsters that the player may think he or she sees while hallucinating, and in the browser-based RPG Kingdom of Loathing, as a nocturnal fighting familiar that appears as a pair of glowing eyes in a patch of darkness (the Grue can only be acquired in a parodical text-based portion of the game that begins with the sentence "things get a little less... illustrated"). The Grue fights for you only if it is dark out, otherwise you will see the message "the grue cowers before the bright light." In the game "Eternal Lands" whenever a player lags out, other players receive a message that "he/she has been eaten by a grue (lagged out)." This article is about the role-playing game. ... Kingdom of Loathing (KoL) is a humorous, browser-based, multiplayer role playing game designed and operated by Asymmetric Publications, including creator Zack Jick Johnson and writer Josh Mr. ... Eternal Lands (EL) is a free to play multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) initially created by Radu Privantu in 2002/2003. ...

The chorus to nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot's song "It is Pitch Dark", about text adventures in general, repeats the phrase, "You are likely to be eaten by a grue. If this predicament seems particularly cruel, consider whose fault it could be: not a torch or a match in your inventory." The song appears on his second official album, Secrets from the Future. Nerdcore hip hop, or geeksta rap, is a subgenre of hip hop music that is performed by nerds or geeks, and is characterized by themes and subject matter considered to be of general interest to nerds, though it can appeal to others as well. ... This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. ... Zork I is one of the first interactive fiction games, as well as being one of the first commercially sold. ... Secrets from the Future is the second studio album from nerdcore hip hop artist MC Frontalot. ...

In the computer game The Journeyman Project, when an incoming maintenance transport kills a player the death message reads, "Well, at least you weren't eaten by a Grue!" This article is about the first computer game titled The Journeyman Project. For the entire series, see Journeyman Project franchise. ...

In the point-and-click Flash game The Coffin, players must use limited surroundings to escape from a coffin. Following escape, a grue devours the player on the way back home.

The television show Chuck frequently references Zork and the Grue. Chuck is an American science-fiction television program created by Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak. ...

In the Comic Strip User Friendly, the character A.J. Garrett is terrified of Grues and makes many references to them in the comics. Other characters occasionally mention them as well. For the concept in software engineering, see user-friendliness. ...

See also

• Ur-grue

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Grue. ...

External links

• Jargon File entry on grue
• HTML-based Zork online (complete). Meet a grue.
• Lyrics to MC Frontalot song "It Is Pitch Dark"
• Video for MC Frontalot song "It Is Pitch Dark"