Potion of unholy water

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Name	unholy water
Appearance	cursed clear potion
Base price	100 zm
Weight	20
Monster use	Will not be used by monsters.

A potion of unholy water (unidentified, a "cursed clear potion") is the cursed version of the potion of water; it has the inverse effect of holy water:

• Dip a blessed object into unholy water to make it uncursed.
• Dip an uncursed object into unholy water to make it cursed.

Thus, using the #dip command together with unholy water allows you to make cursed objects.

Possible uses

In general, unholy water is only useful for making cursed objects. An exception might be for intentionally healing a demon, undead, or lycanthrope, such as a pet, or a chaotic player. Although the vast majority of objects in the game are better when they are not cursed, there are some exceptions to this rule, and it is these exceptions that are of interest here.

• Cursed scrolls of teleportation allow a player to level teleport, which is often more useful than normal teleportation.
• Cursed scrolls of genocide allow a player to summon a number of monsters of his/her choice, which is occasionally useful (see reverse genocide).
• Cursed scrolls of destroy armor can produce fooproof armor.
• Cursed scrolls of gold detection can detect traps or magic portals. Note you can also get this effect from confused non-cursed gold detection, and the traps will not show up as gold.
• Cursed scrolls of enchant armor or scrolls of enchant weapon can lower the enchantment level of armor or weapons. This is occasionally useful if you want to (for example) raise a weapon's enchantment from +6 to +7, since the only safe way to do so requires first lowering the enchantment to +5. However, in most cases the best way to lower enchantments is to use #engraving or drain life.
• Cursed potions of gain level allow you to ascend dungeon levels.
• Cursed scrolls of create monster will create much more monsters (or acid blobs), useful for sacrifice.
• Cursed scrolls of confuse monster will confuse you. Combined with a scroll of gold detection, this is the safest way to detect the endgame portals.
• Cursed potions with negative effects will have longer-lasting effects, making them more potent against monsters.

A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:

"Do the effects of vapors on monsters really last longer? This is well-known for the player (quaffing only), but this kind of thing is not always the same for monsters and needs to be checked. In fact, the paralysis page recommends wielding a blessed potion. This may also have to do with to-hit chance."

Obtaining unholy water

One way is to grab it from a bones pile: it is likely that water dropped from a previous player will be cursed, and thus unholy. Bones containing dead priest(esse)s are especially good sources, as their starting potions of holy water might have become unholy.

With that first potion, it is easy to make more unholy water by dipping a stack of a few uncursed potions of water into unholy water.

Praying at an altar not of your alignment with potions of water on the altar is another method to make unholy water, but this will anger your god with the usual consequences. You can offset the anger point in a number of ways, such as by sacrificing a former pet on the cross-aligned altar (this neither converts the altar nor consumes the corpse nor angers a tending priest, but has its own disadvantages), but you will still have suffered the loss of any divine protection in addition to the harmful effects being smitten.

The safest way is to read a blessed scroll of remove curse while confused, which randomly blesses or curses items in the inventory, and hope that it curses some potions of water. This is of course best to do only after dropping all items whose B/U/C status you do not want to change. To increase your chances of getting unholy water, have many potions of water and individual-name each one with a different name so that they don't stack.

Yet another way is to wish for cursed potions of water.

A final method is to dip a potion into a fountain twice in order to dilute it; there is a chance that the resulting potion of water will be cursed. Be prepared for the monsters this can summon.

Diluting Unholy Water

Unlike most cursed potions, dipping unholy water will not cause it to dilute and lose its cursed status (becoming an ordinary potion of water). Cancellation will result in uncursed potion(s) of water, as will dipping a stack of unholy water into a potion of holy water (but this consumes the holy water)