Wand of undead turning
| / | |
|---|---|
| Name | undead turning |
| Appearance | random |
| Abundance | 5% |
| Base price | 150 zm |
| Weight | 7 |
| Type | beam |
| Maximum charges | 8 |
| Spell | turn undead |
| Monster use | Will not be used by monsters. |
A wand of undead turning is a type of wand that appears in NetHack.
Contents
Generation
Wizards may be given a wand of undead turning as the random wand in their starting inventory.[1]
Wands of undead turning make up 1⁄20 (5%) of all randomly-generated wands. General stores and "quality apparel and accessories" shops can sell wands of undead turning.
Wands of undead turning are created with 4 to 8 charges.
Description
A hero zapping a wand of undead turning will be prompted for a direction to zap the beam in, and the beam deals 1d8 damage to any undead monsters in its path, including shapeshifted vampires, followed by scaring them into fleeing if they fail a check against their MR score.[2][3][4] Monsters will not use this wand.
The wand's beam can also "unturn dead", and will both rejuvenate eggs and revive corpses into their appropriate monsters.[5][6][7] The ghost of a hero whose bones are found can be revived as a player monster this way if they are close enough to their original body.[8][9] Sea monsters will only revive from their corpses if they are in a pool or moat.[10] Only one corpse in a stack will be revived at a time.[11] Reviving any corpse with the wand will auto-identify it, and a Healer that revives the corpse of a living monster they cannot see with the wand will be given a message and also auto-identify the wand.[12]
A hero zapping the wand at themselves will auto-identify the wand, revive corpses and rejuvenate eggs in their inventory as above, and will stun themselves for up to 30 more turns if they are polymorphed into an undead monster, with no effect on them otherwise beyond a printed message.[13][14]
Breaking a charged wand of undead turning by applying it–or wresting one last charge from an applied wand–will cause an explosion that deals anywhere between 1 and (4×<charges>) damage, inflicts further damage to undead monsters within the explosion range and potentially scares them, and also revives corpses and rejuvenates eggs within the explosion range.[15][16]
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.
Per commit dc6b2f5d and commit d83f1c17, intelligent monsters with hands that have a wand of undead turning will zap the hero with it if they are carrying any corpses, reviving one corpse from each stack as normal. Per commit ea93c17f, they will also zap corpses lying on the floor if both the hero and the corpses are in range of the wand's beam.Strategy
The wand of undead turning is not especially useful as an offensive tool, as most other attack wands and attack spells can deal more damage to undead monsters. One of the most common uses for this wand is to revive the corpse of a fallen pet (though it may need to be re-tamed depending on their previous tameness and any pet abuse), or else resurrect a very large hostile monster such as a giant or dragon to kill again so that it leaves a fresher corpse to eat or sacrifice.
Though the spell can be used to farm unicorns and adult dragons for unicorn horns and dragon scales respectively, there is a significant drawback: revived unicorns have a 1⁄2 chance of not dropping a horn upon death, and the horns that do drop will count as non-magical tools for polypiling purposes, while revived dragons will only drop scales 1⁄20 of the time.[17] The wand also has some optional niche uses in credit cloning: leave some gold in a shop to establish credit, then have a hostile gold lover monster take it—lure the monster out, kill them, replace the gold within the shop, then revive the monster and repeat as necessary; best results are achieved using larger gold-loving monsters such as centaurs, dragons and ogres.
Identification
Engraving with a wand of undead turning generates no message or effect. If you zap a wand that has no message or effect at yourself and reanimate a corpse in your inventory, stun yourself while undead, or else get a specific message, the wand will auto-identify as undead turning.
History
The wand of undead turning first appears in Hack for PDP-11, which is based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and is included in the initial item list for Hack 1.0.
The additional auto-identification of the wand for Healers is introduced in NetHack 3.6.0 via commit b4c2f74c and commit 043a2944.[18]
Messages
- <One of> <the corpse(s)> glows iridescently.
- You zapped a wand of undead turning at a corpse or stack of corpses.
- <The corpse> twitches feebly.
- You zapped the wand at a sea monster's corpse while it was on land.
- <The monster> is resurrected!
- The corpse is successfully revived.
- <The corpse> disappears.
- As above, but you cannot see the resulting monster (e.g. it is invisible or outside your line of sight).
- <The monster> appears.
- As above, but the corpse was not visible to you and revived into a monster that was visible.
- You hear <a monster> reviving.
- You revived a corpse with the wand, but you are a Healer and the corpse's location was not visible.
- You hear a defibrillator.
- As above, while hallucinating.
- You shudder in dread.
- You zapped a wand of undead turning at yourself.
- You feel <even more> frightened and stunned.
- As above, but you are in the form of an undead monster and become stunned for up to 30 (more) turns.
Variants
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, engraving with a wand of undead turning will give a message and auto-identify the wand.
Monster corpses that are drained by a vampire hero may fail to revive when subjected to the turn undead spell, and has a chance of being destroyed instead—the chance of failure is 1⁄3 for partially drained corpses and 2⁄3 for fully drained ones, with a subsequent 1⁄2 chance of the corpse being destroyed.
Messages
- The dead bugs on the floor start moving!
- You engraved with a wand of undead turning
- The drained bite-covered <foo> corpse stirs with life, but doesn't have enough blood to survive.
- You attempted to revive a drained corpse by zapping the wand.
NetHack Fourk
In NetHack Fourk, which incorporates the Wands Balance Patch, a wand of undead turning zapped at Skilled level or higher will destroy undead monsters that fail to resist its effects, scaring them otherwise. This also applies to FIQHack.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, Undertakers start each game with a wand of undead turning.
References
- ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 164
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 209
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 212
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 218
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 207
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 961: unturn_dead function
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2002
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 877
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 885
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 786
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 988
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2032
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2463
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2467
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3353
- ↑ src/apply.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3388
- ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 325
- ↑ src/zap.c in NetHack 3.6.0, line 1890
