Crysknife

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Name	crysknife
Appearance	crysknife
Damage vs. small	1d10
Damage vs. large	1d10
To-hit bonus	+3
Weapon skill	knife
Size	one-handed
Base price	100 zm (+10/positive enchant)
Weight	20
Material	bone

A crysknife is a type of weapon that appears in NetHack. The crysknife is a one-handed melee weapon that can also be thrown, and uses the knife skill. It is made of bone.

Generation

Crysknives are not randomly generated, though they can be wished for or found in bones files.

The crysknife can only be created from a worm tooth using the process described below.

Description

A crysknife deals 1d10 damage to all monsters, and has a +3 to-hit bonus. It is not subject to normal erosion due to its properties, but can be wished for in a damaged state. Opening a tin to eat while wielding a crysknife takes 3 actions.

A crysknife can normally only be created by a hero reading a non-cursed scroll of enchant weapon while wielding a worm tooth: this will uncurse the worm tooth if it is cursed, remove any erosion-proofing and transform it into a crysknife, but does not affect the weapon's enchantment (i.e. it will never evaporate when transforming into a crysknife). Reading the scroll while wielding a stack of worm teeth will merge them into a single crysknife, so each tooth in the stack must be split up via the adjust command to create multiple crysknives from them. Reading a cursed scroll of enchant weapon while wielding a crysknife will transform it into a worm tooth, with a stack of wielded crysknives fusing in the same manner.

Monsters will not create crysknives from worm teeth on their own, but will wield any intact crysknives that they come across as normal—in terms of monster weapon preference, they will choose a crysknife over a trident, and will choose a katana, a unicorn horn (if they can currently wield a two-handed weapon) or better over the crysknife.

Reverting to a worm tooth

A crysknife that leaves a hero or monster's inventory and hits the ground will always revert to a worm tooth, retaining its previous enchantment—this includes a crysknife that is inside a container within their inventory, if that container then leaves their possession. A hero placing a crysknife in a container within their inventory will not cause it to revert to a worm tooth, but a crysknife within a container will revert if that container leaves its user's inventory at any point. A crysknife will also not revert to a worm tooth if it is transferred directly from one inventory to another (e.g., from being stolen via item theft or seduction theft).

Erosion-proofing a crysknife will "fix" it: a fixed crysknife will only revert to a worm tooth ¹⁄₁₀ of the time, and a fixed crysknife that reverts to a worm tooth loses its fixed status. Dropping a stack of crysknives will make a single reversion roll for the entire stack, but throwing multiple crysknives via multishot will roll independently for each individual weapon.

Strategy

The crysknife's +3 to-hit bonus and consistent d10 damage against both small and large monsters makes it a nice choice for two weapon combat. As the most powerful knife weapon in the game, roles such as Healers and Rogues may even consider it for a primary weapon choice.

Though crysknives count as throwing weapons and get a to-hit bonus when thrown that makes them more powerful than even the rare shuriken and the somewhat-cumbersome boomerang, the reversion property typically makes throwing them a bad idea: it takes several read scrolls of enchant weapon to sharpen each individual worm tooth, plus one more scroll to 'fix' the entire stack, and on average each crysknife will last 10 throws before they must be sharpened and fixed again. Even then, most roles that can advance in knife skill have better and more convenient ranged options—Healers in particular can reach a multishot level of 3 only by using knives, but are better off considering the magic missile spell and/or a stack of enchanted normal knives.

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	Average damage
+0 crysknife	$\frac{1+10}{2}=\mathbf{𝟓}\mathbf{.}\mathbf{𝟓}$
+7 crysknife	$\frac{1+10}{2}+7=\mathbf{𝟏}\mathbf{𝟐}\mathbf{.}\mathbf{𝟓}$
+9 crysknife	$\frac{1+10}{2}+9=\mathbf{𝟏}\mathbf{𝟒}\mathbf{.}\mathbf{𝟓}$

History

The crysknife and its means of production are introduced in Hack 1.0. From this version to NetHack 3.4.3, including some variants based on these versions, worm teeth and crysknives do not stack—NetHack 3.6.0 enables stacking for both items via commit 5ce14e99.

From NetHack 3.0.0 to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, the crysknife has a material of mineral and is the only mineral item to be unaffected by the stone to flesh spell—per commit 83c28e6f, this is likely to be intentional. NetHack 5.0.0 changes crysknives to be made of bone via commit 60ec7256.

Origin

In Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune, the crysknife is the formal and sacred weapon of the desert-dwelling Fremen. A crysknife is a personally-tuned knife with a double-edged curved blade, ground from the crystal tooth of a sandworm. The crysknife comes in two forms, fixed and unfixed: Unfixed knives need to be stored in proximity to an electrical field produced by the human body, or they will disintegrate after a period of time—this is why NetHack crysknives revert to worm teeth when they leave the user's inventory. Fixed crysknives are put through chemical processes to keep them permanently intact, which is represented by fixed crysknives in NetHack only reverting 10% of the time.

Variants

NetHack variants based on versions prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may implement their own changes to the crysknife's material, and some variants may also add artifact crysknives that do not revert to worm teeth. Variants based on NetHack 3.4.3 and prior versions may not include the ability to stack crysknives that is introduced in later versions of NetHack.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, crysknives are made of mineral as in NetHack 3.4.3 and previous contemporary versions. They can be poisoned, and deal 1d20 damage against small monsters and 1d30 against large ones. In addition to creating one through the standard methods, crysknives can also be created by enchanting a worm tooth through shopkeeper services. Crysknives and worm teeth do not stack, so it is not possible to multishot them.

The increased damage puts the crysknife on par with some of SLASH'EM's better artifacts, although top-tier ones such as the Bat from Hell and Doomblade still exceed it in damage. For roles that can gain skill in knives, it is an excellent fallback in games where the RNG has failed to produce a good artifact weapon—this is particularly applicable to neutral-aligned roles in general or any role whose guaranteed first sacrifice gift is a non-weapon or a low-damage artifact; the crysknife is unambiguously a Healer's best choice of standard weapon, while Wizards, Ice Mages and Flame Mages may also consider a crysknife for their main weapon, and both Flame and Ice Mages among other roles can two-weapon it in the offhand.

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 monsters	Large monsters
+0 crysknife	$\frac{1+20}{2}=\mathbf{𝟏}\mathbf{𝟎}\mathbf{.}\mathbf{𝟓}$	$\frac{1+30}{2}=\mathbf{𝟏}\mathbf{𝟓}\mathbf{.}\mathbf{𝟓}$
+7 crysknife	$\frac{1+20}{2}+7=\mathbf{𝟏}\mathbf{𝟕}\mathbf{.}\mathbf{𝟓}$	$\frac{1+30}{2}+7=\mathbf{𝟐}\mathbf{𝟐}\mathbf{.}\mathbf{𝟓}$

NetHack: The Next Generation

NetHack: The Next Generation introduces the artifact crysknife Wormbiter, which is neutral-aligned and does additional physical damage to worms.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, both the crysknife and worm tooth are made of mineral.

A crysknife inflicts piercing damage, deals d10 damage versus all monsters, can be poisoned, and does not incur a to-hit penalty when thrown. A hero wielding a crysknife while they are at skilled or better in knives gains the "quick", "second" and "focus fire" expert traits.

Player monsters generated on the Astral Plane have a ¹⁄₂₀ chance of their melee weapon being made into a crysknife.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, the crysknife is made of bone, and uses the dagger skill since knife weapons are merged into the dagger skill set. Otherwise, the weapon largely functions as it does in vanilla NetHack.

SlashTHEM

In addition to SLASH'EM details, SlashTHEM adds Wormbiter, which functions as it does in NetHack: The Next Generation and has +5 to-hit against worms.

Encyclopedia entry

[The crysknife] is manufactured in two forms from teeth taken from dead sandworms. The two forms are "fixed" and "unfixed". An unfixed knife requires proximity to a human body's electrical field to prevent disintegration. Fixed knives are treated for storage. All are about 20 centimeters long.

[ Dune, by Frank Herbert ]