Droven dagger

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Name	droven dagger
Appearance	<obsidian> dagger
Damage vs. small	1d8
Damage vs. large	1d6
Damage type	piercing
To-hit bonus	+0
Weapon skill	dagger
Primary attribute	strength
Magical item?	no
Properties	(none)
Base size	small
Base price	12 zm (+10/positive enchant)
Default weight	5
Base material	obsidian

For the weapon in SLASH'EM, SpliceHack and SlashTHEM, see dark elven dagger (SLASH'EM).

For the weapon in EvilHack, see dark elven dagger (EvilHack).

A droven dagger is a type of weapon that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. It is a small and stackable weapon that can either be thrown or wielded in melee (where it is one-handed for a medium-sized hero), and uses the dagger skill. It has a default material of obsidian, and appears as a "dagger" with its material displayed when unidentified.

Generation

Drow and hedrow Binders start each game with an uncursed +0 droven dagger. Drow in roles that start with athames, daggers or knives will receive drug-coated droven daggers to replace them—this applies to drow Nobles and hedrow Nobles, as well as Rangers, Rogues, and Wizards.

Other drow heroes start with knowledge of the droven dagger—drow Madpeople that open their quest box will regain their knowledge of the droven dagger.

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

A hero or monster digging through the walls of Belial's lair with any implement other than a form of lightsaber-style item will often leave behind piles of 20–39 obsidian droven daggers.

Droven daggers have a base ¹⁄₃₃ chance of being generated by the arrow rain monster spell.

Droven daggers can be found in multiple (usually drow-related) Quest branches:

• Three droven daggers are generated on the lower filler levels of the Anachrononaut quest and Android quest during level creation, where they are each placed randomly among the buried items in the secret corridors.
• Six droven daggers are each randomly placed on the locate level of the Drow Noble quest during level creation, and another three are randomly placed on each of the lower filler levels during level creation.
• Three droven daggers are each randomly placed on each of the upper filler levels of the Hedrow Shared quest during level creation.
• Three droven daggers are each randomly placed on the locate level of the Hedrow Noble quest during level creation, and another three are randomly placed on each of the lower filler levels during level creation.
• Drow Madpeople that start the game as female will find a +2 droven dagger among the belongings placed in their special quest box on the Madman quest.

Droven daggers can be generated in the magic item vaults within the Avatar of Lolth's lair during level creation if the lair appears as the second Abyss level.

Several drow and other monsters can be generated with droven daggers:

• A'salom always generates with two separate droven daggers.
• Hedrow wizards, hedrow master-wizards and hedrow blademasters always generate with a droven dagger.
• Houseless drow have a ¹⁄₆ chance of generating with a droven dagger.
• Y-cultist fighters and other drow that do not have a defined starting inventory have a roughly ¹⁄₂ chance of generating with a droven dagger, along with an independent ¹⁄₃ chance of a weapon kit that has two separate droven daggers.
• Y-cultist wizards always generate with a droven dagger.
• Y-cultist matrons that generate with a six-headed viperwhip (which is a ¹⁄₂₀ chance) will always be given 3 separate droven daggers alongside it.
• Drow matrons and drow matron-mothers are always generated with a droven dagger, along with an independent ¹⁄₂₀ chance of being given a viperwhip that is accompanied by 3 separate droven daggers.
• Deminymphs that are given "mad drow priestess" kits will always generate with a droven dagger that has an enchantment ranging from +1 to +3.

Description

A droven dagger inflicts piercing damage, dealing 1d8 damage versus small monsters and 1d6 versus large ones, and has a base +4 to-hit bonus. Thrown droven daggers are given a +2 to-hit bonus. A hero that wields a droven dagger at Skilled or better in daggers gains the "quick", "second" and "focus fire" expert traits.

In terms of monster weapon preference, monsters attacking in melee will favor the droven dagger over a carcosan sting and will prefer a hunter's axe or better to the droven dagger—for ranged weapons, monsters will favor throwing droven daggers to shooting ya and will prefer shuriken or better over droven daggers.

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