Amulet

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Item classes
" Amulets	[ Armor
% Comestibles	$ Coins
* Gems	! Potions
= Rings	? Scrolls
+ Spellbooks	` Statues
( Tools	` Boulders
) Weapons	/ Wands

An amulet is an item that a character can put on around his or her neck. It usually confers magical powers on the wearer, but amulets such as the amulet of strangulation can also be hazardous. Amulets are represented by a double quotation mark: ". This is also the command to display which amulet you are currently wearing.

Wearing any amulet will increase the rate at which you get hungry, by an extra 1 nutrition per 20 turns. Carrying the Amulet of Yendor consumes an additional 1 nutrition per 20 turns, regardless of whether you are wearing it.

All amulets have a weight of 20, are made of iron, and have a base price of 150 zorkmids, with the exception of cheap plastic imitations of the Amulet of Yendor (made of plastic and worth nothing) and the two artifact amulets, The Eye of the Aethiopica and the Amulet of Yendor.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

Wearing a cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor no longer incurs amulet hunger.

Table of amulets

Amulet	Relative probability	When eaten	Notes
amulet of change	13.0%	Changes gender	90.5% generated cursed
amulet of ESP	17.5%	Telepathy
amulet of life saving	7.5%	(no effect)
amulet of magical breathing	6.5%	Breathlessness
amulet of reflection	7.5%	(no effect)
amulet of restful sleep	13.5%	Restful sleep	90.5% generated cursed
amulet of strangulation	13.5%	Instantly choke	90.5% generated cursed
amulet of unchanging	4.5%	Revert to original form
amulet versus poison	16.5%	Poison resistance
cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor	0	(inedible)
Amulet of Yendor	0	(inedible)	Cannot be put in a container
The Eye of the Aethiopica	—	Telepathy	Wizard quest artifact

Most amulets can be eaten by polymorphing into a metallivore. Eaten amulets have a ¹⁄₅ chance of applying their effect permanently, except for the amulet of strangulation, which has a ¹⁹⁄₂₀ chance of choking you unless you are unbreathing.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

The following new amulets were added. Both auto-identify when worn, except the amulet of flying if you were already flying. The probabilities of other amulets have been adjusted: ESP to 12%; strangulation, restful sleep, versus poison, change to 11.5%; live saving, magical breathing to 7.5%; unchanging to 6%.

Amulet	Relative probability	When eaten	Notes
amulet of flying	7.5%	(no effect)
amulet of guarding	6.0%	+2 protection (+2 AC, +2 MC)	May be worn by monsters.

Generation

Amulets comprise 1% of all randomly-generated items in the main dungeon, 1% in containers, and 4% in Gehennom. The second column above is the relative probability of each subtype.

The ones generated 90.5% cursed are 9% uncursed and 0.5% blessed. All others are generated 5% cursed, 90% uncursed, 5% blessed.

The Amulet of Yendor is a unique item found only in Gehennom. Its fake counterpart is found only on the Rogue level, in the inventories of certain high-level monsters, and in the bones files of people who had a real or fake amulet themselves, where the real amulet is replaced with a fake one.

Identification

All amulets cost 150zm and weigh 20, so they cannot be distinguished using price identification. The appearance of the first 9 types of amulet in the table are randomized from the following descriptions:

circular    spherical   oval       
triangular  pyramidal   square 
concave     hexagonal   octagonal

Non-cursed amulets are safe to try on; the effect may become obvious after a while, such as for the amulet of ESP, and you can always remove it if it is strangulation or restful sleep. The only risk is a small chance of changing genders, which does not have an effect on gameplay for the most part. Once strangulation and restful sleep are ruled out, even cursed amulets can be worn safely and beneficially as long as you don't have another amulet you'd rather be wearing instead.

Amulets of change and strangulation always formally identify themselves when worn. Every other amulet (other than the real and fake Amulets of Yendor) adds a line to the enlightenment screen, although some lines can have other sources:

Amulet of...	produces the line...	Other sources
ESP	"You are telepathic."	Helm of telepathy, some quest artifacts, intrinsic
life saving	"Your life will be saved."	none
magical breathing	"You can survive without air."	none
reflection	"You have reflection."	silver dragon scale mail, shield of reflection, wielded Longbow of Diana or wielded Dragonbane (3.6.1)
restful sleep	"You fall asleep."	none
unchanging	"You can not change from your current form."	none
versus poison	"You are poison resistant."	green dragon scale mail, ring of poison resistance, alchemy smock, intrinsic

In addition, intelligent monsters will only pick up and put on life saving (if living) and reflection.

In NetHack 3.4.3, Amulets of ESP can be identified using the artifact naming trick, because they cannot be named "The Eye of the Aethiopica". In NetHack 3.6.0, no amulet can be named "The Eye of the Aethiopica", so this method is ineffective at identifying amulets of ESP. Note that it is exploiting a bug that may be fixed in variants—including NAO version of NetHack. Additionally it may be considered cheating.

The real Amulet of Yendor, unlike the fakes, cannot be placed in a container ("The Amulet of Yendor cannot be confined in such trappings.")

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

The new amulet appearances are pentagonal and cubical.

Strategy

Amulets cannot be destroyed by electric shocks, so unless stolen by a nymph or monkey they are reliable at conferring their effect.

Variants

SLASH'EM

SLASH'EM adds some more amulets.

Item	Symbol	Base type	Notes
Amulet of flying	"	Randomized	Grants flight.
Amulet of drain resistance	"	Randomized	Grants level drain resistance.
Amulet versus stone	"	Randomized	Saves your life if you're turned to stone, then alters its BUC status or disintegrates.

FIQHack

In FIQHack monsters can wear amulets.

Encyclopaedia entry

"The complete Amulet can keep off all the things that make people unhappy -- jealousy, bad temper, pride, disagreeableness, greediness, selfishness, laziness. Evil spirits, people called them when the Amulet was made. Don't you think it would be nice to have it?"
"Very," said the children, quite without enthusiasm.
"And it can give you strength and courage."
"That's better," said Cyril.
"And virtue."
"I suppose it's nice to have that," said Jane, but not with much interest.
"And it can give you your heart's desire."
"Now you're talking," said Robert.

[ The Story of the Amulet, by Edith Nesbit ]

References

This page is based on a spoiler by Dylan O'Donnell. The original license is:

Redistribution, copying, and editing of these spoilers, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. The original contributors to any spoiler must continue to be credited.
2. Any modifications to the spoiler must be acknowledged and credited.

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

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.1. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-361}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.