Purse

Your purse or wallet is the implied, non-physical item that acts as the inventory slot for the gold pieces you are carrying, and what the game will refer to for any interactions involving money on your person. The amount of gold in your purse/wallet appears on the status line.

The game uses both terms somewhat interchangeably, and as such the article will use the appropriate term based on the context and related messages. Any gold stashed in a bag or other container is not considered part of your purse or wallet, and thus not included in the count for relevant events; this article only refers to the open inventory unless otherwise specified.

Player actions

You can display the amount of gold you have in your wallet at any time by pressing $.

Relevant items

One of the failure effects of reading a spellbook, but failing to learn the spell, is removing all the gold in your inventory.

Gold and dungeon features

Dipping an item in a fountain may occasionally cause you to lose up to 10% of your current gold. If this occurs in a fountain you have already found gems or gold in, you will be able to find gems and gold in it again; remember that the fountain has a chance of drying up and disappearing with each dip.

Sitting on a throne may cause all the gold you have to vanish, similar to failure effects from reading a spellbook. Looting a throne while confused and carrying gold may generate a throne room monster; this deposits a random amount of your gold (up to all of it) into its inventory. However, if there is a chest on the level, the gold will be relocated to that chest instead of generating a monster.

Relevant monster actions

Leprechauns will approach you or run from you depending on if you have any gold; if your wallet is empty, they will try to evade you most of the time. If you have gold in your purse, they will approach and try to attack as normal; if a leprechaun successfully hits you while you are carrying gold, they will steal it and attempt to teleport away. The stolen gold will be added to the gold they were created with upon generation, and can be retrieved by killing them. Players can do the same to other monsters by polymorphing into a leprechaun.

If a vault guard enters the vault while you are inside, and your answer is not one of Croesus, Kroisos or Creosote, you will be asked to drop all of the gold you are carrying—this includes gold you also have stashed in carried containers, as opposed to just in your wallet. The guard will lead you out once you have done so, and will attack if you take too long.

Strategy

When you are in situations where you might lose your gold, you can protect it by removing it from your purse. If you have a bag, you can hide your gold in there. You could also stash your gold into a chest or large box, or just drop or throw it on the floor. Note that leprechauns can still snatch gold from underneath your feet, if you are standing directly on it.

Since demon lords seeking bribes only care about gold visible in your purse and will ask for an amount less than or equal to it, it may be worth carrying around a few gold pieces when you're about to encounter one, if you would prefer to pay them off.

Messages

Your wallet contains <x> zorkmid(s).

You used $ to check the gold you have on hand.

Your wallet is empty.

As above, but you have no gold.

You notice you have no <gold/money>!

You failed to learn a spell from reading a spellbook, or else sat on a throne, and the gold in your open inventory vanished. NetHack 3.6.0 uses "money", where all other versions use gold.

You feel a strange sensation.

As above, but you had no gold.

An urge to take a bath overwhelms you!
You lost some of your gold in the fountain!

You dipped into a fountain and lost some of your gold.

The exchequer accepts your contribution.

You looted a throne while confused and carrying gold, generating a throne room monster and placing some or all of your gold in its inventory.

{{message|Thank you for your contribution to reduce the debt|You looted a throne while confused and carrying gold,

Your purse feels lighter.

A leprechaun hit you and stole some or all of the gold in your open inventory.

Your purse feels heavier.

You stole some gold from a monster while polymorphed into a leprechaun.

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.4. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-364}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.