Container

A container usually means one of the following items: large box, chest, ice box, sack, oilskin sack or bag of holding. Each can store an unlimited number of items, but may become too heavy to lift as a consequence. Note that even though the bag of tricks is defined with the CONTAINER-macro in objects.c, you cannot put items in it.

A statue can also function as a container; this causes DYWYPI messages like, "The statue of the grid bug is empty." The contents correspond to the inventory of that monster before it was stoned. Some statues are generated with spellbooks inside.

Not all containers fit into other containers. Large boxes, ice boxes and chests are too big to fit into any other container.

All of the containers except ice boxes can be eaten by gelatinous cubes; the contents will be engulfed but unharmed.

If a container (other than a bag of holding) is kicked, thrown, or dropped from a height, fragile contents (glass items, other than worthless glass, and eggs) may be destroyed. Kicking a locked large box or chest may also break it open.

The unique items cannot be placed into containers. The cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor can, however; this may be used to tell it from the real thing.

Generation

Containers are generated uncursed, with the contents as described below. Containers will not be generated containing tools, weapons, armour or rocks. Containers in your initial inventory will be empty. If the container can be locked, then there is an 80% chance that it will be generated locked and a different 10% chance that it will be trapped.

Container	Contents	Lockable	Probability
sack	0-1 items	No	3.5%
large box	0-3 items	Yes	4.0%
chest	0-5 items	Yes	3.5%
ice box	0-20 corpses	No	0.5%
bag of holding	0-1 items	No	2.0%
bag of tricks	1-20 charges	No	2.0%
oilskin sack	0-1 items	No	0.5%

Tools can be generated in the main dungeon (8% of all objects) and Gehennom (12% of all objects). Each tool has the given probability of being a container.

Quantum mechanics may carry a large box containing a housecat named Schrödinger's Cat.

Unlocking

To unlock a chest or large box, you can:

• Apply some unlocking tool to it.
• Zap a wand of opening at it.
• Kick it. Because this often destroys some of the items (e.g. potions) inside, it's not the best method.
• #force the lock with a weapon.
• Cast knock at it

Large box

(
Name	large box
Appearance	large box
Base price	8 zm
Weight	350
Material	[[{{{material}}}]]
Monster use	Will not be used by monsters.

Large boxes are waterproof, and an excellent stash container - they are slightly more common than chests and lighter for transporting to a convenient altar.

Chest

(
Name	chest
Appearance	chest
Base price	16 zm
Weight	600
Material	[[{{{material}}}]]
Monster use	Will not be used by monsters.

Chests are waterproof.

Ice box

(
Name	ice box
Appearance	ice box
Base price	42 zm
Weight	900
Material	[[{{{material}}}]]
Monster use	Will not be used by monsters.

An ice box is a very heavy container, the main use of which is to keep corpses fresh. Corpses in an ice box will not age and will remain fit to eat or sacrifice indefinitely. They will continue decaying where they left off when removed from the box, and will be tainted if they were before being placed in the box.

Ice boxes are rare, but are occasionally randomly generated in the dungeons and can also appear in general stores, delicatessens, and hardware stores.

Some players bring an ice box containing booze and snacks for the demigod bar when they ascend. Because ice boxes are heavy, this is a challenge.

Ice boxes are waterproof. They have no locks.

In Slash'EM, there is a new type of shop, the frozen food store, which contains mainly ice boxes.

Sack

(
Name	sack
Appearance	bag
Base price	2 zm
Weight	15
Material	[[{{{material}}}]]
Monster use	Will not be used by monsters.

A sack is the simplest kind of container. It merely stores items; its main function is to avoid the 52-item inventory limit, though it also protects its contents from being destroyed by fire, cold or lightning. Therefore, it is extremely cheap.

When non-greased sacks get wet, their contents may get wet. Greasing the sack protects against this, but the grease may wear off. Sacks should be upgraded to oilskin sacks or preferably bags of holding as soon as possible.

Bag of holding

(
Name	bag of holding
Appearance	bag
Base price	100 zm
Weight	15
Material	[[{{{material}}}]]
Monster use	Will not be used by monsters.

A bag of holding is one of the most coveted items in NetHack. Placing items into a bag of holding makes them weigh less; the effect is that you can carry more items.

Bags of holding, oilskin sacks and bags of tricks cost 100, while normal sacks cost 2. (Make sure there is nothing in the bag when you check the price.) Bags of tricks are easily identifiable, and if your encumbrance changes if you put something in the bag, it's a bag of holding and not an oilskin sack. At the end of Sokoban there's a 50% chance of being a bag of holding (the other 50% there's an Amulet of reflection).

The weight of a bag of holding (wgt) - including the 15 for the bag itself - depends on the weight of its contents (cwgt) and its BUC:

blessed:   wgt = 15 + cwgt/4 + 1
uncursed:  wgt = 15 + cwgt/2 + 1
cursed:    wgt = 15 + cwgt*2

Roughly speaking, bags of holding halve the weight of the objects contained, blessed bags divide it by four, and cursed bags double it. You may also lose items when you use a cursed bag of holding; each item in the bag has a 1/13 chance of disappearing each time you apply or loot the bag.

Some items should not be held in a bag of holding and may make the bag explode. These items are:

• other bags of holding
• bags of tricks with non-zero charges remaining
• wands of cancellation with non-zero charges remaining

The first two are straightforward; the wand can be trickier. To be safe, do not put any unidentified wands inside the bag that make engravings disappear (this includes cancellation, teleportation, and make invisible).

It is sometimes possible to put one of these items into nested sacks and/or oilskin sacks and then place them safely inside a bag of holding. The chance of an explosion occurring then depends on the amount of nesting:

 sacks:  0    1    2    3    4     5     6      7      8       n
 odds:  1/1  2/2  3/4  4/8  5/16  6/32  7/64  8/128  9/128  n+1/128

When non-greased bags of holding get wet, their contents may get wet. Greasing the bag protects against this, but the grease may wear off.

Bag of tricks

(
Name	bag of tricks
Appearance	bag
Base price	100 zm
Weight	15
Material	[[{{{material}}}]]
Monster use	Will not be used by monsters.

A bag of tricks looks like an ordinary bag, but contains nasty surprises for prospective #looters.

When a bag of tricks is #looted, it will bite you (1 to 10 hit points damage) and become identified. If you (a)pply it and it has charges left, it will create one monster (22/23 chance), or create 2 to 8 monsters (1/23 chance). "Nothing happens" when you apply a bag with zero charges. Bags of tricks are generated with 1 to 20 charges. If the bag has more than 10 charges, a blessed scroll of charging will add 6 to 10 charges, otherwise it will add 6 to 15 charges; an uncursed scroll will always add 1 to 5 charges. It cannot be charged higher than 50 charges.

Placing a bag of tricks with nonzero charges into a bag of holding will cause a magical explosion, destroying both bags and all their contents.

Strategy

If carrying a bag of holding, bags of tricks should be treated with the same caution as a wand of cancellation. Unless you need to create some monsters (for food, sacrifice or experience), they are often best left alone. A magical explosion can be a game-ending mistake.

Oilskin sack

(
Name	oilskin sack
Appearance	bag
Base price	100 zm
Weight	15
Material	[[{{{material}}}]]
Monster use	Will not be used by monsters.

The oilskin sack behaves exactly as the regular sack, with the exception that a blessed or uncursed oilskin sack will protect the items it contains from becoming wet. A cursed oilskin sack only protects its contents two-thirds of the time.

Source code references

This page is based on a spoiler by Dylan O'Donnell. The original license is:

Redistribution, copying, and editing of these spoilers, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. The original contributors to any spoiler must continue to be credited.
2. Any modifications to the spoiler must be acknowledged and credited.