Sting

)   Sting
Base item	elven dagger
Damage vs. small	1d5 x2
Damage vs. large	1d3 x2
To-hit bonus	+1d5
Bonus versus	orcs
Weapon skill	dagger
Size	one-handed
Affiliation	chaotic elven
When carried	(none)
When wielded	detect orcs
When invoked	(none)
Base price	800 zm
Weight	10
Material	wood

Sting is an artifact weapon that appears in NetHack. Its base item is an elven dagger.

Generation

Sting may be granted as a sacrifice gift to chaotic non-orcish players.

Naming any single elven dagger "Sting" will turn it into the artifact if it has not been generated yet.

Effects

Sting has +d5 to hit and deals double damage to orcs. While wielding Sting, you can detect the location of any orc on the level, with a blue glow signifying their presence - additionally, if you're not strong enough to tear through a web you are trapped in, you'll escape it in at most one move.

Sting will never blast non-orcs, regardless of their alignment or alignment record. This is based on your current form, not your base race.

Strategy

Because all you need to make Sting is an elven dagger, it becomes available very early in the game. Elf Rangers start with an elven dagger that they can turn into Sting as early as their first turn, if they wish. Other characters can create Sting as soon as they find an elven dagger. Hobbits are a common source of elven daggers in the early game.

Advantages of creating Sting early are:

• You will not receive it from your god as a sacrifice gift, possibly receiving something more useful instead; this is only useful for chaotic characters as others will not receive Sting anyway.
• You can use it to #force open locks on chests and large boxes; an artifact weapon is 1/100 as likely to break as a non-artifact and Sting is an artifact that you can 'afford' to break.
• Sting will sell for more gold in a shop than a regular elven dagger. The difference is trivial in most situations, but could be useful for a character attempting the protection racket.

Disadvantages stem mainly from the fact that the number of artifacts that have already been generated in the game affects your chances of acquiring more artifacts:

• Sting is only useful against orcs, and many players can already kill orcs without too much trouble.
• The existence of Sting reduces the chance of receiving any sacrifice gift after the first for all alignments: if two or more artifacts exist in the game, you cannot reliably wish for an artifact, either.
• Chaotic monks and priests cannot unrestrict the dagger skill by receiving Sting as a gift.
• You could preclude all sacrifice gifts in some corner cases: If all eligible co-aligned, non-race-hating sacrifice gifts have already been created, no first sacrifice gift can be granted, and you will never receive any artifacts at all. This is usually only an issue for chaotic elves who name Sting and Orcrist to guarantee Stormbringer if the latter has already been created. As Stormbringer can only otherwise appear via a wish, crowning, or bones, players will almost invariably know if it exists.

Therefore, you should generally only create Sting if you are chaotic and/or a wizard.

If acquiring Sting in the mid to late-game, this artifact is the easiest available for overenchanting. Stacks of elven daggers can all be enchanted together, making it simple to enchant a stack of 20+ elven daggers together to +7, then enchant them individually until you can reach +9 on one of them without vaporizing it. You then have an artifact weapon with all of the basic advantages those have (e.g. extra score), which is also very low-weight, and still does reasonable damage. Creating Sting in the late-game can easily be done after you've already wished for all your artifacts.

Average damage calculation

The average damage calculations in the following table do not include bonuses from weapon skills, strength, or from using a blessed weapon against undead or demons.

Weapon	Small monster	Large monster
+0 Sting	$\frac{1+5}{2}=\bold{3}$	$\frac{1+3}{2}=\bold{2}$
+7 Sting	$\frac{1+5}{2}+7=\bold{10}$	$\frac{1+3}{2}+7=\bold{9}$
+9 Sting	$\frac{1+5}{2}+9=\bold{12}$	$\frac{1+3}{2}+9=\bold{11}$

While the base damage is quite low, the extra +2 nudges it up to be slightly more damage-competitive, comparable to the 11.5/13.5 average damage of a +7 long sword, but at 1/4 the weight.

Variants

dNetHack

In dNetHack, Sting also grants warning of arachnids (any s), in addition to the standard double damage.

SLASH'EM

Sting is lawful in SLASH'EM, and has a full +5 to-hit instead of +1d5.

FIQHack

In FIQHack, your god will never grant you a nameable artifact (Sting or Orcrist).

Encyclopedia entry

There was the usual dim grey light of the forest-day about
him when he came to his senses. The spider lay dead beside
him, and his sword-blade was stained black. Somehow the
killing of the giant spider, all alone and by himself in the
dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves or of
anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt
a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of
an empty stomach, as he wiped his sword on the grass and put
it back into its sheath.
"I will give you a name," he said to it, "and I shall call
you Sting."

[ The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]

Origin

"Sting" is the name of an Elven dagger from J.R.R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit and novel trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Sting was the usual weapon of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, when he found it, along with Orcrist and Glamdring, in a troll's hoard. In The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo gave the dagger to his nephew Frodo Baggins. It was also famously wielded by hobbit Samwise 'Sam' Gamgee in his fight against the spider-like Shelob. Shortly before, Frodo used it to cut through Shelob's web, which was preventing their passage.

The blade was first dubbed "Sting" after the giant spiders of Mirkwood Forest referred to it as Bilbo's "sting".

Sting radiated a blue glow whenever orcs were near; this was a feature of many elven blades made at the same time as Sting, which inspired its function in Nethack.

Dudley's dungeon

In the Dudley's dungeon strip of 18 June 2004, Sting will glow blue when Dudley inserts batteries, but batteries have not been invented yet.

Years later, in the strip of 8 March 2009, Dudley builds a battery and uses it to power Sting.

References

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

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.2. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-362}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.