Incantifier (starting race)

You can play dNetHack as an incantifier. Incantifiers can be any alignment or role, like humans. You will see yourself as @, and are considered the @ human or elf monster class for game purposes. Incantifiers are only available in the dNetHack variant.

According to the dNetHack text:

Incantifiers eat magic, not food, and do not heal naturally.

Source: DnD Planescape, Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour

Racial benefits and restrictions

Incantifiers do not regain energy or HP normally. They regain energy and some HP by draining magic items, and must otherwise regain HP through spellcasting, potions, or other magical means.

• Incantifiers begin the game with intrinsic magic resistance. They can naturally identify enchantment levels on weapons and armor, and can tell when a wand is empty.
• Incantifiers live on magic. They begin the game with over 1800 energy, and use their energy total in place of their nutrition total. They also gain much more energy per level than other races.
  • Incantifiers cannot eat regular food (with the exception of newt, aoa, and aoa droplet corpses/tins; see below), including corpses and rations. Instead, they must drain (with the e command) items, including positively enchanted weapons (except stackable ones, to prevent players from enchanting in bulk and gaining lots of energy) and armor, wands with charges, spellbooks, rings, and scrolls to regain energy. Each drained enchantment point of weapon or armor is worth around 250 nutrition, as is each scroll or draining of a book reading. Each wand charge is worth around 50 nutrition.
    • on weapons and armor this has the same effect as casting drain life on an item. On spellbooks it increments the read counter, like studying the spell or polymorphing, turning them into blank paper when it reaches maximum. Scrolls are turned blank immediately, and wands are merely emptied.
  • Incantifiers can #untrap magic, polymorph, teleport, and level teleport traps (but not magic portals). Untrapping one of these traps grants 500 energy.
  • Incantifiers may die of overeating, the same as any other race, though they explode rather than choke. They will become satiated at about half their mana pool, but can continue "filling up" to the maximum safely - but not a single point further!
  • Incantifiers are not able to drain artifacts.
  • Rings of Slow Digestion have no effect on incantifiers.
  • Incantifiers cannot gain nutrition by praying to their god.
  • Incantifiers can quaff potions of blood, made with tinning kits, to gain intrinsics.
    • Quaffing a potion of human blood counts as cannibalism for incantifiers!
  • Incantifiers can eat rings and amulets for intrinsics just as a player polymorphed into a metallivore can. Any ring or amulet can be eaten, not just metal ones. You can get intrinsic conflict or aggravate monster though, so be careful. Regeneration and conflict will consume an extra point of nutrition (pw) per odd turn, just as for non-incantifiers.
  • Incantifiers can drain newt, aoa, and aoa droplet corpses/tins for nutrition (power). Eaten corpses will never make you explode, but instead will increase your max power.
• All incantifiers, regardless of role, begin the game knowing Force bolt and Healing.
• All incantifiers have hungerless casting, though they still lose the normal spell cost of energy.
• All incantifiers can reach expert in all forms of magic, no matter the role restrictions. However, metal still blocks casting the same as any other race.
• All incantifiers, regardless of role, will benefit from wearing a cornuthaum like wizards.

Character race	Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma
Incantifier	18/**	18	18	18	18	18

Starting inventory

Incantifiers always begin the game with a spellbook of force bolt and a spellbook of healing in addition to any spellbooks that their role normally begins with. If the starting inventory for your role already includes a spellbook of force bolt (wizards) or a spellbook of healing (healers and possibly monks), it is replaced by a random spellbook from a school that is not restricted for your role.

For most roles, incantfiers begin the game with a robe instead of the role's usual body armor or cloak and scrolls of food detection in place of regular food. The details of substituted items and affected roles are listed in the following table:

Regular item	Substitute	Affected roles
Cloak of magic resistance	Robe	Wizard
Cloak of displacement	Robe	Ranger
Leather armor	Robe	Caveman/cavewoman, rogue, valkyrie
Leather jacket	Robe	Archeologist, pirate
Ring mail	Robe	Barbarian
Splint mail	Robe	Samurai
Food ration	Scroll of food detection	Archeologist, barbarian, monk, nobleman/noblewoman, valkyrie
Cram ration	Scroll of food detection	Binder, pirate, ranger
Tripe ration	Scroll of food detection	Binder
Banana	Scroll of food detection	Pirate
Orange	Scroll of food detection	Troubadour, monk
Potion of fruit juice	Scroll of food detection	none
Potion of booze	Scroll of food detection	Troubadour, pirate

Notable exceptions:

• Incantifier knights start with their usual chain mail instead of a robe
• Incantifier Binders start with their usual leather cloak instead of a robe
• Incantifier healers start with their usual healer uniform instead of a robe
• Incantifier nobles start with their usual array of gender-specific fancy duds, none of which are replaced with a robe
• Incantifier troubadours start with their usual leather cloak instead of a robe
• Incantifier tourists start with their usual random food assortment, none of which is changed into scrolls of food detection. You can eat your scrolls of magic mapping if you get desperate.

Encyclopedia entry

Several centuries ago, there existed a faction, now almost entirely extinct, called nowadays 'The Incantifers', then simply as The Magicians or The Wanters. They believed that magic, specifically arcane magic, was the key to power, indeed the only power that mattered in the multiverse. Gain enough knowledge of magic and skill in it and you could do anything. Even challenge The Lady....

According to legend, at least two members of the Wanters tried just that. They died, horribly and spectacularly. Legend also says that one of them almost succeeded.

Then one day, they vanished. Cutters looked up one morning and the Tower Sorcerous, the faction headquarters of the Wanters was simply gone. Nearly all of their members vanished with it, though a scant few remain to wander the planes.

[ Shemeska's Story Hour, by Todd Stewart ]

"They all ate magic. They ate other people's magic. Spells, items, anything they could buy, steal, or otherwise get a hold of. This place is sealed off from everything. There's no way out and you've got an entire faction of magic eating wizard suddenly bottled up with each other and no food source... except each other."

[ Shemeska's Story Hour, by Todd Stewart ]