Dark source

Dark sources, or darkness sources, are items that appear in variants of NetHack, and magically darken an area around them, behaving as the opposite of light sources.

Darkness in NetHack

In vanilla NetHack, rooms can naturally generate as unlit during level creation, with the frequency of such rooms increasing as the hero delves deeper into the Dungeons of Doom.

The only way for a hero to spread darkness in NetHack is to read a cursed scroll of light, or else read a scroll of light of any beatitude while they are confused, which will darken lit squares in a 5-square circular radius around the hero and extinguishes any active light sources other than the wielded Sunsword:

...xxxxx...
..xxxxxxx..
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xxxxx@xxxxx
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.xxxxxxxxx.
..xxxxxxx..
...xxxxx...

Area darkened by cursed scroll

Darkness in variants

Many variants of NetHack add several more methods to both temporarily and permanently darken lit squares, and some monsters can also emit an aura of darkness the way that monsters like lights and fire elementals can emit light.

Drow monsters are often given the ability to spread darkness, as well as a weakness to light in some form—drow heroes generally share similar abilities as well. Drow and similar monsters may also have the ability to see as well in the dark as other beings can see in the light, and their vision may be outright better in the darkness. The following sections will not list monsters that can darken areas at will, instead focusing on items and monsters that passively emit dark auras, though the items described are likely to be of significant use to heroes and monsters that seek to expand dark areas.

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dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, the following items act as darkness sources:

• Chunks of fossil dark indefinitely emit darkness in a circular 2-square radius around them.
• The shadowlander's torch temporarily emits darkness in a circular 4-square radius around it while it is "lit".
• The lanterns of the dwarvish helms that duergars, duergar stoneguards and duergar deepkings are generated with will temporarily emit darkness in a circular 3-square radius around them.

The following monsters emit auras of darkenss:

• Edderkops emit an 8-square radius of darkness around them.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, the following items act as darkness sources:

• A cursed magic lamp emits darkness in the same radius around it that a non-cursed magic lamp would emit light.
• Worn shadow dragon scales emit darkness in a circular 3-square radius around the wearer, while worn shadow dragon-scaled armor emits darkness in a circular 4-square radius around the wearer.
• For a hero that started the game as a drow, wielding The Staff of the Archmagi emits darkness in a circular 2-square radius around the wielder.

Baby shadow dragons and adult shadow dragons are monsters that emit natural auras of darkness around them, with the baby dragon's aura covering a circular 2-square radius and the adult dragon's aura covering a circular 3-square radius.