Fire and frost horn
( 
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|---|---|
| Name | fire horn |
| Appearance | horn |
| Base price | 50 zm |
| Weight | 18 |
| Material | bone |
| Monster use | May be used offensively by monsters. |
| (
| |
|---|---|
| Name | frost horn |
| Appearance | horn |
| Base price | 50 zm |
| Weight | 18 |
| Material | bone |
| Monster use | May be used offensively by monsters. |
The fire horn and frost horn are rare musical instruments that can deal elemental damage.
Generation
Fire and frost horns start with 4 to 8 charges.
Effects
Applying a fire or frost horn with charges left will prompt you to improvise; if you answer yes, the game will ask the player for a direction, and the horn will emit a ray of fire or cold respectively. This will auto-identify the fire horn. The ray can deal 6-66 damage, unlike the wand of fire and wand of cold which only deal 6-36 damage.
An uncharged horn behaves the same as a tooled horn; answering no to the "Improvise?" prompt also lets you play the horn as a musical instrument without using up any charges.
The horn can be recharged an unlimited number of times, but can only hold up to 20 charges at once.
Strategy
The fire and frost horns can double as offensive and defensive measures; they can be played as a tooled horn to drive off enemy monsters, who can then be picked off at a distance using the rays of fire or cold.
The fire horn can be used to scare monsters in lieu of engraving Elbereth with the wand of fire; this has the added advantage of scaring monsters that would not respect Elbereth otherwise.
Horns should be identified preferably as soon as possible. Like with all rays, however, be careful not to aim in the wrong direction and cause a potentially deadly rebound, whether you are identifying the horn or using it against monsters. This also makes it somewhat difficult to use fire and frost horns in tight corridors.
Monsters may use these horns against you, providing yet another incentive to not leave them lying around.
