T-shirt
A T-shirt is a type of shirt that appears in NetHack. It is made of cloth, and is nearly identical to the Hawaiian shirt.
Contents
Generation
The T-shirt makes up 0.2% of all randomly generated armor.
Description
While worn, a T-shirt provides no base AC.
T-shirts can be read, which breaks the illiterate conduct and displays a message describing the text on the shirt[1] - this message is dependent on the item's object ID, so it will remain consistent for any one T-shirt, and the text will be degraded if the shirt is eroded.[2]
Entering a shop with a visible worn T-shirt will cause the shopkeeper to charge an extra 1⁄3 markup and buy things for 1⁄3 of the base price.
T-shirt texts
The possible messages are:[3]
- "I explored the Dungeons of Doom and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!"
- "Is that Mjollnir in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
- "It's not the size of your sword, it's how #enhance’d you are with it."
- "Madame Elvira's House O' Succubi Lifetime Customer"
- "Madame Elvira's House O' Succubi Employee of the Month"
- "Ludios Vault Guards Do It In Small, Dark Rooms"
- "Yendor Military Soldiers Do It In Large Groups"
- "I survived Yendor Military Boot Camp"
- "Ludios Accounting School Intra-Mural Lacrosse Team"
- "Oracle(TM) Fountains 10th Annual Wet T-Shirt Contest"
- "Hey, black dragon! Disintegrate THIS!"
- "I'm With Stupid -->"
- "Don't blame me, I voted for Izchak!"
- "Don't Panic"
- "Furinkan High School Athletic Dept."
- "Hel-LOOO, Nurse!"
- "=^.^=",
- "100% goblin hair - do not wash"
- "Aberzombie and Fitch"
- "cK -- Cockatrice touches the Kop"
- "Don't ask me, I only adventure here"
- "Down with pants!"
- "d, your dog or a killer?"
- "FREE PUG AND NEWT!"
- "Go team ant!"
- "Got newt?"
- "Hello, my darlings!"
- "Hey! Nymphs! Steal This T-Shirt!"
- "I <3 Dungeon of Doom"
- "I <3 Maud"
- "I am a Valkyrie. If you see me running, try to keep up."
- "I am not a pack rat - I am a collector"
- "I bounced off a rubber tree"
- "Plunder Island Brimstone Beach Club"
- "If you can read this, I can hit you with my polearm"
- "I'm confused!"
- "I scored with the princess"
- "I want to live forever or die in the attempt."
- "Lichen Park"
- "LOST IN THOUGHT - please send search party"
- "Meat is Mordor"
- "Minetown Better Business Bureau"
- "Minetown Watch"
- "Ms. Palm's House of Negotiable Affection -- A Very Reputable House Of Disrepute"
- "Protection Racketeer"
- "Real men love Crom"
- "Somebody stole my Mojo!"
- "The Hellhound Gang"
- "The Werewolves"
- "They Might Be Storm Giants"
- "Weapons don't kill people, I kill people"
- "White Zombie"
- "You're killing me!"
- "Anhur State University - Home of the Fighting Fire Ants!"
- "FREE HUGS"
- "Serial Ascender"
- "Real men are valkyries"
- "Young Men's Cavedigging Association"
- "Occupy Fort Ludios"
- "I couldn't afford this T-shirt so I stole it!"
- "Mind flayers suck"
- "I'm not wearing any pants"
- "Down with the living!"
- "Pudding farmer"
- "Vegetarian"
- "Hello, I'm War!"
- "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness"
- "It is easier to curse the darkness than to light a candle"
- "rock--paper--scissors--lizard--Spock!" (The Big Bang Theory)
- "/Valar morghulis/ -- /Valar dohaeris/" (Common phrases from A Song of Ice and Fire series)
Strategy
Like the Hawaiian shirt, T-shirts are generally employed to enchant as an additional source of AC, but are best reserved until after a character obtains protection from polymorph traps - worn torso armor will be destroyed if they polymorph into a large form. In the early game, scrolls of enchant armor may be best reserved for other armor such as a helm, boots or gloves. T-shirts are typically most worth enchanting once a character has magic resistance, as well as solid enough enchantment on their other armor. An enchanted T-shirt may also be wished for in order to top off an otherwise-complete ascension kit.
For characters not averse to polypiling, shirts are fairly easy to obtain with a wand of polymorph (or the polymorph spell for powerful enough casters) and a large pile of armor, which is most easily obtained in the Castle or Fort Ludios. The Castle's armor storeroom in particular has a 13.13% chance of containing either a Hawaiian shirt or a T-shirt. The random general store items in Orcus Town may also have a T-shirt among them.
History
The T-shirt first appears in NetHack 3.2.0, where it generates if the TOURIST compile-time option is defined. From this version to NetHack 3.3.1, there are only three possible T-shirt messages:[4]
- "I explored the Dungeons of Doom, but all I got was this lousy T-shirt"
- The normal T-shirt message.
- "I explored the Dungeons of Doom, and never did any laundry..."
- You are hallucinating and currently wearing the T-shirt.
- "I explored the Dungeons of Doom, and couldn't find my way out"
- As above, but you are not currently wearing the T-shirt.
Many extra T-shirt messages are added in NetHack 3.4.0 from a patch by Scott Bigham, and several more are introduced in NetHack 3.6.0 and NetHack 3.6.1.
Variants
dNetHack
In dNetHack, the Tie-Dye Shirt of Shambhala is an unaligned artifact T-shirt that can be enchanted to +7, and alters carrying capacity while worn: it confers a 1⁄2 increase while blessed, a 1⁄4 increase while uncursed, and a 1⁄4 penalty while cursed. The shirt also enhances charisma if worn without body armor and enhances wisdom if worn with it, and can be read to cure status properties like a unicorn horn if not covered by non-crystal body armor. Invoking the Tie-Dye Shirt confers enlightenment.
The November NetHack Tournament
In The November NetHack Tournament, the reward for completing the DevTeam Office quest is the Really Cool Shirt, an artifact T-shirt that acts as a luck item while carried and provides warning while worn. Reading the Really Cool Shirt has a 49⁄50 chance of producing a random rumor according to its beatitude: true only if blessed, false only if cursed, or either if uncursed. Due to its generation method, it will revert to a normal T-shirt if left in a bones file.
The deathmatch opponent will have a blessed +4 or +5 erodeproof T-shirt if they represent a non-Tourist character that did not have a worn shirt.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, T-shirts can be made of other materials such as leather, which provides some base AC and may make them more valuable to wear early on. T-shirt wishes are just as popular as in NetHack if not more so: object materials and properties make the shirt slot valuable for non-giant characters. An example of such a wish is "blessed greased fixed +3 dragonhide T-shirt of decay" (which provides drain resistance).