Disintegration

Disintegration is a way items and creatures can be destroyed. Disintegration is one kind of instadeath, which occurs when you are hit by a blast of disintegration. The only possible sources of such a blast are a black dragon's breath or a particular flavor of your God's wrath - wide-angle disintegration beam (which can also destroy worn armor, helmets and shields, even if you are reflective or disintegration-resistant); there are no spells or wands of disintegration. Magic resistance does not save you from disintegration.

Reflection will reflect a blast of disintegration, but not a wide angle disintegration beam. You can gain disintegration resistance, by wearing black dragon scales, black dragon scale mail or by eating a black dragon corpse (this will protect you from both sources of disintegration).

Certain items can also disintegrate; a spellbook has a chance to disintegrate when you fail to read it. A uncursed scroll of scare monster disintegrates when picked up if it both is uncursed and already has been picked up once, and a cursed one always disintegrates when picked up.

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