Gold (material)

Gold is a material that appears in NetHack.

Description

Gold is an inherently erosion-proofed type of metal, though few items in the game are made of gold - outside of the gold pieces used as currency for zorkmids, rings with the randomized appearance of "gold ring" are made of gold, as is the Candelabrum of Invocation. Spellbooks with the randomized appearance of a "gold spellbook" are still made of paper like most others.

Metallivores can eat any gold item minus the Candelabrum, which tends to occur in the form of rock moles and xorns eating any gold they encounter while tunneling or phasing.

A noncursed scroll of gold detection will reveal all gold pieces and gold golems on the level; a blessed scroll will additionally reveal other items made of gold. Polypiling enough gold items may create a gold golem.

Strategy

Depending on which ring they represent, gold rings may be worth eating for their intrinsics.

Variants

Variants often add other items made of gold, and the object materials system used in many variants incorporates gold as a potential material for metallic objects. Monster interactions with gold are also altered depending on the variant:

• Leprechauns and other monsters with gold-based attacks can target items made of gold as well as money - this also applies to a player polymorphed into those forms.
• Croesus is often given a set of gold armor, sometimes with a gold weapon to boot.
• Gold golems may drop other items made of gold alongside gold coins upon death.

GruntHack

In GruntHack, iron objects including those of dwarvish make have a very rare chance to be made of gold, as do elven weapons and shields. Gold is a heavy material and tends to be impractical as armor - gold armor has 2 less AC compared to its iron counterparts (minimum 0).

dNetHack

In dNetHack, gold weapons have greater damage bonuses to applicable targets depending on beatitude: a blessed gold weapon deals +1d20 damage, while a cursed gold weapon deals +2d9.

Gold golems are often generated with gold weapons, and Aurumach Rilmani (including Center of All) will generate with gold weapons and armor. Ara Kamerel project their images onto gold golems, and will also generate with gold items.

xNetHack

In xNetHack, gold is similarly heavy, with 50% more weight compared to iron, and gives 2 less AC as armor - however, blunt weapons made of gold gain a +2 damage bonus. As of version 8.0, cursed gold items will "stick" to your inventory and cannot be dropped or bagged, similar to the loadstone in vanilla NetHack (which is not present in xNetHack).

Two new randomized appearances for wands, the "gold wand" and the "gilded wand", are composed of gold. Itlachiayaque, the Archeologist quest artifact for the variant, is a gold shield of reflection; Sunsword has its base material changed to gold. Leprechauns are also capable of stealing any item that is made of gold in addition to your money.

Croesus will always generate with a gold two-handed sword and gold body armor - the armor has a ¹⁄₈ to be plate mail, and will otherwise be chain mail.

Blessed thiefstones are capable of "stealing" gold coins and other items made of gold and teleporting them to a "stash" square if you apply or rub one against them. They can also teleport gold golems to their keyed square if you hit them with a wielded or thrown blessed thiefstone - you can also teleport yourself this way if you rub it on your hand while polymorphed into a gold golem.

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, goldbugs can eat any gold objects in your inventory using their bite attack.