Eating jewelry
Eating jewelry is a method to permanently gain the intrinsics conveyed by wearing some rings and amulets. To eat a ring or amulet, one must first polymorph into a creature that can eat the material of the ring or amulet.
The material of a ring is dependent upon its randomized appearance, not its function. Not all rings are edible, so the set of rings that can be eaten varies from game to game. All amulets are iron so are edible by metallivores, specifically rock moles, rust monsters, and xorns.
Eating a ring has a one in three chance of conveying its powers to the eater, while eating an amulet only has a one in five chance of conveying its powers. If the intrinsic is granted, you get the following message: "Magic spreads through your body as you digest the {ring|amulet}" as opposed to the traditional intrinsic gain message.
Eating other metal items only confers nutrition.
CAUTION: Artifacts are treated as their base items for eating purposes. This means that you can accidentally eat your great weapon or quest artifact. It will then be lost forever.
Contents
Edible rings
The edible rings, and who can eat them, are given in the following table:
| Appearance | Material | Consumable by |
|---|---|---|
| pearl | iron | metallivore (rock mole, rust monster, xorn) |
| iron | iron | metallivore |
| twisted | iron | metallivore |
| steel | iron | metallivore |
| wire | iron | metallivore |
| engagement | iron | metallivore |
| shiny | iron | metallivore |
| bronze | copper | metallivore not restricted to rustprone metals (rock mole, xorn) |
| brass | copper | metallivore not restricted to rustprone metals |
| copper | copper | metallivore not restricted to rustprone metals |
| silver | silver | metallivore not restricted to rustprone metals |
| gold | gold | metallivore not restricted to rustprone metals |
| wooden | wood | gelatinous cube |
| granite | mineral | inedible |
| clay | mineral | inedible |
| coral | mineral | inedible |
| moonstone | mineral | inedible |
| opal | mineral | inedible |
| black onyx | mineral | inedible |
| jade | gemstone | inedible |
| agate | gemstone | inedible |
| topaz | gemstone | inedible |
| sapphire | gemstone | inedible |
| ruby | gemstone | inedible |
| diamond | gemstone | inedible |
| emerald | gemstone | inedible |
| tiger eye | gemstone | inedible |
| ivory | bone | inedible |
Effects of eating rings
Beware: eating a ring of conflict, ring of regeneration, or ring of hunger will permanently increase your nutrition consumption.
Note: If you eat a ring of adornment, ring of gain strength, or ring of gain constitution and then return to your normal form, you will lose the changes to your stats.
Effects of eating amulets
| Amulet | Effect | |
|---|---|---|
| amulet of change | change gender | |
| amulet of ESP | gain telepathy | |
| amulet of life saving | no effect | |
| amulet of magical breathing | gain magical breathing | |
| amulet of reflection | no effect | |
| amulet of restful sleep | gain restful sleep | |
| amulet of strangulation | immediately choke | |
| amulet of unchanging | unpolymorph | |
| amulet versus poison |
gain poison resistance | |
| cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor | inedible | |
| Amulet of Yendor |
inedible | |
| amulet of flying (slashem) | no effect | |
| amulet of drain resistance (slashem) | no effect | |
| amulet of polymorph (slashem) | no effect | |
| amulet versus stone (slashem) | reverse stoning | |
Strategy
At 1/3 odds (ring), to be ~80% certain to get the intrinsic in question you would have to eat four copies. For ~95% certainty you could need as many as seven. At 1/5 odds (amulet), to be ~80% certain you would have to eat seven copies. For ~95% certainty, as many as thirteen. If you are limited in ways to polymorph yourself it's important to have duplicates. Short of polypiling it is unlikeley you'll have enough to be almost certain (~95%) to get the intrinsic for amulets.
Limitations
A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:
"There was a rgrn thread some time ago stating protection does not wrap around, i. e. it is stored in a 16-bit integer and clipped to 8 bit after the fact."
The amount of protection or damage and accuracy bonus you can obtain this way is only limited by the number of rings in the game (provided they have an edible appearance). However, these attributes are stored in a signed integer, so you do not want your total bonus (including weapon / armor type and enchantment, skill level, worn rings etc) to exceed +127 lest it wrap around and become negative.
This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-343}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.
