Spellbook of turn undead
| spellbook of + turn undead 
| |
|---|---|
| Appearance | random |
| Abundance | 1.62% |
| Base price | 600 zm |
| Weight | 50 |
| Turns to read | 48 |
| Ink to write | 30–59 |
| Spell type | clerical |
| Level | 6 |
| Power cost | 30 Pw |
| Direction | beam |
| Equivalent | wand of undead turning |
Allows you to learn the turn undead spell. This is the knight's special spell. It produces a beam which works like that from a wand of undead turning.
Turn undead creates a beam which deals 1d8 damage to undead monsters it hits (doubled for a knight with the Magic Mirror of Merlin), and causes them to flee if they fail a resistance check.
The beam has a second, less obvious, but arguably more useful function in NetHack: unturn dead [1]. This will revive corpses and rejuvenate eggs.
Strategy
The offensive function is almost useless because the spell causes very little damage and costs a lot of power to cast.
The corpse reviving ability can be quite useful, however. You can revive a dead pet if it left a corpse (though it may have to be retamed). You can also freshen a corpse for eating or sacrificing on an altar, although reviving and re-killing the monster runs the risk of not leaving a corpse.
