Athame
) 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | athame |
| Appearance | athame |
| Damage vs. small | 1d4 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d3 |
| To-hit bonus | +2 |
| Weapon skill | dagger |
| Size | one-handed |
| Base price | 4 zm (+10/positive enchant) |
| Weight | 10 |
| Material | iron |
Athames are almost completely identical to daggers, even using the dagger weapon skill. However, athames are exceptionally suited for engraving with. Any non-cursed athame will not dull from engraving, (although any athame that has an enchantment of -3 or lower is too dull to engrave with, regardless of blessed/uncursed/cursed status) and athames engrave at up to 19 letters per turn rather than 1 letter per turn. They are useful for writing messages and, if your version has it compiled in, engraving "Elbereth."
Beware of picking up an athame found in bones or dropped by a lich--if it happens to be cursed, attempting to engrave Elbereth in a dangerous situation will immobilize you for a few turns and probably kill you. If you can't spare identify to check, you could dip it in a potion of holy water to make sure it's at least uncursed, or try engraving a single letter with it--if you get "Your athame gets dull. You finish engraving.", be sure to uncurse it before you use it any more!
Athames are rarer than daggers, as they are never randomly generated. However, the first gift that a wizard receives from his/her god is always Magicbane, a neutrally-aligned artifact athame, and master liches and arch liches have a chance of being generated with an athame. For master liches, the chance is 6/91 (about 6.6%); for arch liches it is 2/9 (about 22.2%).[1] In addition, there's a 1/260 chance of an arch-lich-dropped athame being the Magicbane. Newt, prisoner in the wizard quest end, often carries one.[2] Finally, prior to 3.3.0, wizards started out with athames.
See also
References
- ↑ makemon.c#line609 (liches generated with athames)
- ↑ Source:Mplayer.c#line213
