Artifact weapon

An artifact weapon is a rare unique weapon, often with special properties. It may be acquired by sacrifice, by finding in a bones file, by finding in the dungeon, by wishing for one, or at the end of a quest. Excalibur may be acquired by dipping an ordinary long sword, provided you are lawful and level 5 and it hasn't already been generated. Excalibur, Vorpal Blade and Stormbringer may be acquired by praying with very good Luck; this is known as crowning.

An artifact weapon resists being wielded as a second weapon when #twoweaponing.

Any artifact weapon given to you by your god will be noncursed and erodeproof, and you will be unrestricted in the appropriate weapon skill if necessary. Certain roles are guaranteed to receive a particular weapon as their first gift: Valkyries receive Mjollnir, Barbarians receive Cleaver, Wizards receive Magicbane, and Samurai receive Snickersnee.

Sunsword and Demonbane might be created in the possession of a humanoid angelic creature; Archons are sure to be generated with one. Sting and Orcrist may be created by #name'ing an ordinary elven dagger or elven broadsword.

You may wish for an artifact weapon, but you are not always guaranteed to succeed. See "Guaranteed Artifacts" below, also See Wish#Artifact wishing for more details.

List of artifact weapons

See Source:artilist.h, Source:artifact.c or the article for each artifact for more details.

Mean damage is calculated before any strength, skill, and blessed bonuses. Silver damage is indicated in italics. Assumes weapon enchanted to +7. Assumes monster is susceptible to special bonuses and includes them (i.e. double damage, +damage bonuses, and extra damage from a level draining attack) with the damage to resistant monsters in parentheses, if applicable.

Artifact name	Base item type	Alignment	Intelligent	Special properties			Mean damage at +7		Obtaining
				Carried	Wielded	Invoked	vs. Small	vs. Large
Cleaver	battle-axe (two-headed axe)	neutral	No		+d3 to-hit & +d6 damage. Attacks in an arc.		17.5	19	First sacrifice gift for Barbarians.
Demonbane	long sword	lawful	No		+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to major demons. Prevents demon gating.		23 (11.5)	27 (13.5)	May be given to a new angelic being.
Dragonbane	broadsword	unaligned	No		+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to dragons. Reflection.		24 (12)	23 (11.5)
Excalibur	long sword	lawful	Yes		+d5 to-hit & +d10 damage. Drain resistance. Searching. Hostile demon princes. Monster tracking.		17	19	May be produced for lawful adventurers at fountains. Lawful crowning gift.
Fire Brand	long sword	unaligned	No		+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to non-fire-resistant monsters. Fire resistance.		23 (11.5)	27 (13.5)
Frost Brand	long sword	unaligned	No		+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to non-cold-resistant monsters. Cold resistance.		23 (11.5)	27 (13.5)
Giantslayer	long sword	neutral	No		+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to giants.		23 (11.5)	27 (13.5)
Grayswandir	silver saber	lawful	No		+d5 to-hit & x2 damage. Protection against hallucination.		23+10.5	23+10.5
Grimtooth	orcish dagger (crude dagger)	chaotic	No		+d2 to-hit & +d6 damage. Warning of elves.		12.5	12.5
The Longbow of Diana	bow	chaotic	Yes	Telepathy.	+d5 to-hit. Reflection.	Creates arrows.	arrow damage	arrow damage	Quest artifact of Rangers.
Magicbane	athame	neutral	No		+d3 to-hit. Special damage. Magic resistance. Protects against cursing.		13.40 (10.5)	12.90 (10)	First sacrifice gift for Wizards.
Mjollnir	war hammer	neutral	No		+d5 to-hit & +d24 damage to non-shock-resistant monsters. Can return when thrown.		23 (10.5)	22 (9.5)	First sacrifice gift for Valkyries.
Ogresmasher	war hammer	unaligned	No		+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to ogres. Increases constitution to 25.		21 (10.5)	19 (9.5)
Orcrist	elven broadsword (runed broadsword)	chaotic	No		+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to orcs. Warning of orcs.		26 (13)	23 (11.5)	May be produced by naming an ordinary elven broadsword Orcrist.
The Sceptre of Might	mace	lawful	Yes	Magic resistance	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to cross-aligned monsters.	Conflict.	23 (11.5)	21 (10.5)	Quest artifact of Cavepeople.
Snickersnee	katana (samurai sword)	lawful	No		+d8 damage.		17	18	First sacrifice gift for Samurai.
The Staff of Aesculapius	quarterstaff (staff)	neutral	Yes		x2 damage & level drain to non-drain-resistant monsters (the draining itself causes an addition 1d8 damage to both current and max hp, and restores half that to your current hp, but this damage is NOT doubled.) Hungerless regeneration. Drain resistance.	Healing, cures sickness, blindness, & sliming.	25.5 (10.5)	25.5 (10.5)	Quest artifact of Healers.
Sting	elven dagger (runed dagger)	chaotic	No		+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to orcs. Warning of orcs. Cuts through webs.		20 (10)	18 (9)	May be produced by naming an ordinary elven dagger Sting.
Stormbringer	runesword	chaotic	Yes		+d5 to-hit, +d2 damage & level drain to non-drain-resistant monsters (the draining itself causes an addition 1d8 damage to both current and max hp, and restores half that to your current hp.) Drain resistance. Bloodthirsty.		18 (12)	17.5 (11.5)	Chaotic crowning gift.
Sunsword	long sword	lawful	No		+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to undead. Light. Protection from light-based blinding.		23 (11.5)	27 (13.5)	May be given to a new angelic being.
Trollsbane	morning star	unaligned	No		+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to trolls. Prevents trolls from reviving.		24 (12)	23 (11.5)
The Tsurugi of Muramasa	tsurugi (long samurai sword)	lawful	Yes	Luck	+d8 damage. 5% chance of double damage or instakill via bisection, depending on the size.		instakill (20)	38.85 (19.425)	Quest artifact for Samurai.
Vorpal Blade	long sword	neutral	No		+d5 to-hit & +1 damage. 5% chance of beheading monsters with heads. Instantly kills jabberwocks.		instakill(12.5)	instakill(14.5)	Neutral crowning gift.
Werebane	silver saber	unaligned	No		+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to werecreatures. Protects against lycanthropy attack.		23+10.5 (11.5+10.5)	23+10.5 (11.5+10.5)

Artifact Damage

Artifacts can be placed into three general categories for damage purposes:

Artifacts that deal additional damage to all targets, artifacts that affect most targets, and artifacts that only affect a very narrow group of targets.

When selecting an artifact a player will want to have a weapon that deals extra damage the most amount of monsters as possible.

Artifacts that deal extra damage and affects all targets are as follows: Cleaver, Excalibur, Magicbane, Vorpal Blade, Snickersnee, Greyswandir, The Tsurugi of Murumasa.

Artifacts that deal extra damage to most targets are as follows: Firebrand, Frostbrand, Mjollnir, The Sceptre of Might, The Staff of Aesculapis, Stormbringer.

Artifacts that only affect a narrow range of monsters are as follows: Demonbane, Dragonbane, Giantslayer, Grimtooth, Ogresmasher, Orcrist, Sting, Sunsword, Trollsbane, Werebane.

Weapon Drawbacks

Some Artifact Weapons have additional drawbacks. Some destroy items carried by monsters (such as Mjollnir, Frostbrand, and Firebrand). These weapons also can be disadvantageous in specific levels (Firebrand on the plane of fire) or against certain dangerous monsters (Stormbringer against a Lich). However, resistant monsters are rare. 90% of monsters cannot resist fire/cold/shock. Monsters that can resist level drain are slightly more common (Undead and Demons). Very few monsters have resistances in the early game. However, in the late game the riders, the wizard, a quest nemesis, demons and many Elementals in the planes have resistances. For this reason, acquiring a second artifact weapon, or a normal weapon with which the player has expert skill and is enchanted to +7 that can be switched in is desirable.

Guaranteed Artifacts

Several artifacts are guaranteed in Nethack provided certain conditions are met. Certain roles are guaranteed to receive a particular weapon as their first gift: Valkyries receive Mjollnir, Barbarians receive Cleaver, Wizards receive Magicbane, and Samurai receive Snickersnee.

For Lawfuls, they are guaranteed Excalibur so long as they are level 5 and can dip a longsword in a fountain (1/5 chance, but guaranteed as long as you have enough fountains). Note that this does not unrestrict the longsword skill (as crowning and sacrificing does) Excalibur is also the crowning gift for Lawfuls.

For Neutrals, Vorpal Blade is the crowning gift and though it can behead creatures and affects all monsters which have a head, it's damage bonus is only +1.

Chaotics have Stormbringer as a guaranteed sacrifice gift.

Elves can guarantee Stormbringer as their first sacrifice gift if they name Sting and Orcrist First. Elven Rangers start out with an Elven dagger (which they can name) making this even easier for them.

Note that of these guaranteed artifacts, all except Sting and Orcrist (which are guaranteed so long as you can find and name an Elven dagger or Elven broadsword) are in the top two damage categories, meaning that these guaranteed artifact weapons (excepting Orcrist and Sting) are worthy weapons possibly usable all the way to ascension.

Wishing for artifacts is only guaranteed if one artifact or less already exists in the current Nethack game. Obviously when wishing for an artifact weapon, a player will want to wish for one from the top two damage categories. Wishing early in the game for an artifact so as to guarantee that the player will get it, may be a poor use of resources if they already have a good artifact weapon guaranteed by their first sacrifice or crowning gift.

Selection

It is useful to obtain an artifact weapon that provides a bonus against most or all enemies, such as Excalibur, early in the game. However, wishing for one may not succeed if artifacts have been generated already (perhaps without your knowledge), and uses a valuable wish which normally could be used to considerably improve your defenses.

A two-handed weapon means that you cannot use a shield, and in the late game it can become cursed, requiring you to #tip an uncursing item out of your bag to regain use of your hands.

An intelligent cross-aligned artifact is unusable; an unintelligent cross-aligned artifact is annoying (and potentially dangerous) to use.

Cleaver and Stormbringer are both dangerous to use around pets or neutral monsters you don't want to anger.

Some artifact weapons provide a useful resistance or other ability. For example, Stormbringer's level drain resistance means that you might wield it to clear the Valley of the Dead - it does no bonus damage to undead, but it essentially eliminates any threat they pose. Sunsword only deals bonus damage to undead, but can be useful as a light source.

See also

• Artifact
• SLASH'EM Artifact weapons

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