Randomized appearance
A major part of NetHack is identifying items. To make this more difficult, the appearances of scrolls, potions, rings, amulets, wands, spellbooks, and some armor are randomly shuffled at game start. This page lists the possible appearances.
In a few cases, an item's appearance affects its function beyond its identified type.
Scrolls
Scrolls of mail and blank paper have fixed appearances; all others appear as one of the following:
ZELGO MER JUYED AWK YACC NR 9 XIXAXA XOXAXA XUXAXA PRATYAVAYAH DAIYEN FOOELS LEP GEX VEN ZEA PRIRUTSENIE ELBIB YLOH VERR YED HORRE VENZAR BORGAVVE THARR YUM YUM KERNOD WEL ELAM EBOW DUAM XNAHT ANDOVA BEGARIN KIRJE VE FORBRYDERNE HACKEM MUCHE VELOX NEB FOOBIE BLETCH TEMOV GARVEN DEH READ ME ETAOIN SHRDLU LOREM IPSUM FNORD KO BATE ABRA KA DABRA ASHPD SODALG MAPIRO MAHAMA DIROMAT GNIK SISI VLE HAPAX LEGOMENON EIRIS SAZUN IDISI PHOL ENDE WODAN GHOTI ZLORFIK VAS CORP BET MANI STRC PRST SKRZ KRK XOR OTA
For the meanings and origins of some of these, see scroll origins.
Potions
A potion of water is always a "clear potion". Other potions have one of these descriptions:
ruby pink orange yellow emerald dark green cyan sky blue brilliant blue magenta purple-red puce milky swirly bubbly smoky cloudy effervescent black golden brown fizzy dark white murky
Of these, the smoky potion and milky potion are special in all games regardless of their actual identity. A smoky potion may contain a djinni and a milky potion a ghost.
Spellbooks
The Book of the Dead, novels and blank spellbooks all have a fixed description. Regular spellbooks will appear as one of the following:
parchment vellum ragged dog eared mottled stained cloth leather white pink red orange yellow velvet light green dark green turquoise cyan light blue dark blue indigo magenta purple violet tan plaid light brown dark brown gray wrinkled dusty bronze copper silver gold glittering shining dull thin thick
Of these, the dull spellbook may cause the player to fall asleep when reading it. This currently ignores sleep resistance, which is bug C360-15 in NetHack 3.6.0. In Nethack 3.6.2 and later, the vellum and parchment spellbooks are made of leather rather than paper as all the others are; this is because vellum and parchment are both made from animal skin.
The source code also contains appearances for the deferred spellbooks of flame sphere and freeze sphere, which are canvas and hardcover respectively. These will presumably be randomized if the spellbooks are enabled.
Rings
Rings (other than the meat ring) will randomly take one of the following appearances:
pearl iron twisted steel wire engagement shiny bronze brass copper silver gold wooden granite opal clay coral black onyx moonstone tiger eye jade agate topaz sapphire ruby diamond ivory emerald
Of these, topaz, sapphire, ruby, steel, diamond and emerald rings can be used to semi-permanently engrave something on the floor.
If you are wearing a silver ring and are not wearing gloves[1], you will do extra damage to silver-hating monsters with bare-handed and martial arts attacks.
The appearance of rings determines what monsters can eat them, and also influences golem creation when polypiling. The former is especially important because you can sometimes gain intrinsics from eating rings while you are polymorphed. Pearl, iron, twisted, steel, wire, engagement, and shiny can be eaten by any metallivore (rock mole, xorn, or rust monster). Bronze, brass, copper, silver, and gold can be eaten by any metallivore not restricted to rustable metals (rock mole and xorn). Additionally, gelatinous cubes can eat wooden rings.
Amulets
Amulets, other than the Amulet of Yendor and its imitation, have the following appearances:
circular spherical oval triangular pyramidal square concave hexagonal octagonal
Except for the Amulet of Yendor and its imitation, they can all be eaten by metallivores. You have a chance of gaining intrinsics from eating amulets while polymorphed.
Wands
Wands take one of the following appearances:
aluminum balsa brass copper crystal curved ebony forked glass hexagonal iridium iron jeweled long maple marble oak pine platinum runed short silver spiked steel tin uranium zinc
Glass and crystal wands are fragile so they can break. This is significant if you kick the chest that stores the wand of wishing in the castle. The appearance of wands also determines what monsters can eat them, and also influences golem creation when polypiling. Eating a wand while polymorphed however has no effect besides nutrition. Balsa wands require only 5 strength to break, while other wands require 10.
Armor
The material of armor is determined by its type, not by its appearance. This is significant for gloves and boots: gauntlets of power and kicking boots are iron, the rest are leather. Some appearances have additional effects.
Helms
Four helms are randomized: the helmet, helm of brilliance, helm of opposite alignment, and helm of telepathy Each has one of the following randomized appearances:
plumed helmet etched helmet crested helmet visored helmet
Of these, the visored helmet is always special. It protects against the blinding attack of ravens and the venom-spitting attack of cobras.
Cloaks
Four cloaks have random appearances: the cloak of displacement, cloak of invisibility, cloak of magic resistance and cloak of protection. They are chosen from the following:
tattered cape ornamental cope opera cloak piece of cloth
Cloaks of displacement and protection automatically identify themselves when worn, and cloaks of invisibility will too unless you are already invisible. Even a -3 cloak of protection, which grants no change in AC, is identified upon wearing. Otherwise, if you find yourself wearing any of those randomized appearance cloaks as-is, it is the cloak of magic resistance.
Gloves
Appearances of all gloves are randomized:
old gloves padded gloves riding gloves fencing gloves
Of these, the riding gloves are special, increasing the chance of successfully saddling a steed.
Boots
The appearance of the magical boots is randomized from the following set:
mud boots snow boots riding boots buckled boots hiking boots combat boots jungle boots
Of these, snow boots and riding boots are special. The former prevents the fumbling effect of ice and the latter increases the chance of successfully saddling a steed. However, this bonus is not cumulative with the riding gloves.
SLASH'EM
Due to the many new items in SLASH'EM, new randomized appearances were added. See that article for more information.
The cloak that happens to have the randomized appearance "opera cloak" will appear much more often than its base type's frequency suggests, because many vampires will be generated with one. At least in the case of cloaks of invisibility and magic resistance, it also means many vampires will be invisible or magic resistant.
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:
- The original contributors to any spoiler must continue to be credited.
- Any modifications to the spoiler must be acknowledged and credited.
References
This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.0. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-360}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.
