The Eye of the Aethiopica

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"   The Eye of the Aethiopica   Circular amulet.png
Base item amulet of ESP
Affiliation
When carried
When worn
When invoked
  • branchport
Base price 4000 zm
Weight 20

The Eye of the Aethiopica is the wizard quest artifact. It is the prize for completing the wizard quest. It is neutral for wishing purposes; if you are a wizard, it will adjust its alignment to your starting alignment. A wizard cannot wish for the Eye.

Its base item type is amulet of ESP, so wearing it provides extrinsic telepathy.

Special effects

While carried, the Eye provides half spell damage and fast power regeneration. While worn, it further confers magic resistance and telepathy (in versions up to 3.4.3 the Eye's magic resistance is conferred simply by carrying it). With fast power regeneration, you restore at least one power per turn -- this is far quicker than you would otherwise.

Branchporting

You can invoke the Eye to branchport. In other words, you can immediately teleport to another branch of the dungeon that you have visited. You arrive on the entry level or the lowest previously-visited level of that branch, depending on whether your current location is above or below the target dungeon branch's entry level. This means you will always go to the lowest level of the Dungeons of Doom, Sokoban, and Vlad's Tower; and porting to Gehennom always brings you to the Valley of the Dead unless coming from Vlad's. Attempting to branchport to the branch you are currently in (or from the Endgame or carrying the Amulet of Yendor) gives the message "You feel very disoriented for a moment." and has no effect. Adjacent hostile monsters that normally follow you up stairs will follow you through the gate into the new branch; this is a common method to transport many wraiths from the Valley of the Dead so they are more likely to leave a corpse. The branchport ability of the Eye makes Sokoban an ideal stash location. Since this is at quite a shallow depth, you can usually return quickly by digging down with a pick-axe. Or you could branchport back to the lowest main dungeon level you saw, which might often be the place you interrupted exploring.

In 3.6.0, branchporting sends you to the TOP of the Sokoban and Vlad's Tower. In addition, when branchporting into the quest, if you are at or above the dungeon level of the portal, you arrive in the Home level.

A typical branchport menu might look like:

                                  Open a portal to which dungeon?
----------
|........-####      ------------- a - The Dungeons of Doom
|........|   #######-...........| b - Gehennom
|........|          |...........| c - The Gnomish Mines
----------          |..@........| d - The Quest
                    --------+---- e - Sokoban
                            #     f - Fort Ludios
                            #     (end)

Cautions

Like any quest artifact, if you don't match all of its affiliations, it will blast you for up to 40 damage (20 if you have magic resistance). For example a neutral ranger would be blasted for not being a wizard by the artifact when you pick it up, put it on or try to invoke it.

If you plan to wish for it, take note of the second "the" in the name.

Name

Aethiopica simply mean "Ethiopian" in ancient Greek (Αἰθιοπικά). There are a lot of "Aethiopica" floating around, but the most plausible explanation, is that it's a reference to the influential ancient Greek novel "Aethiopica". The novel takes place in ancient Egypt/Ethiopia/Greece. Charicleia, one of the main characters, has a dream about an eye being cut out.

History

Prior to v3.6.0, the Eye of the Aethiopica conferred magic resistance when carried (rather than worn.)

Encyclopedia entry

This is a powerful amulet of ESP. In addition to its standard
powers, it regenerates the energy of anyone who carries
it, allowing them to cast spells more often. It also reduces
any spell damage to the person who carries it by half, and
protects from magic missiles. Finally, when invoked it has
the power to instantly open a portal to any other area of the
dungeon, allowing its invoker to travel quickly between
areas.

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

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.0. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-360}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.