Droven short sword

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Name	droven short sword
Appearance	<obsidian> short sword
Damage vs. small	1d9
Damage vs. large	1d9
Damage type	piercing
To-hit bonus	+0
Weapon skill	short sword
Primary attribute	strength
Magical item?	no
Properties	(none)
Base size	small
Base price	10 zm (+10/positive enchant)
Default weight	15
Base material	obsidian

For the weapon in SLASH'EM, SpliceHack and SlashTHEM, see Dark elven short sword (SLASH'EM).

For the weapon in EvilHack, see Dark elven short sword (EvilHack).

A droven short sword is a type of weapon that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. It is a small-sized weapon, making it one-handed for a medium-sized hero, and uses the short sword skill. It has a default material of obsidian, and appears as a "short sword" with its material displayed when unidentified.

The droven short sword is the base item for the artifact Lolth's Fang.

Generation

Drow heroes that are not Madpeople start with knowledge of the droven short sword—drow heroes in roles that start with short swords or spears will receive a drug-coated droven short sword to replace them (which currently only applies to Rogues). Drow Madpeople that open their quest box will regain their knowledge of the droven short sword.

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

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

• A droven short sword is generated on the lower filler levels of the Anachrononaut quest and Android quest during level creation, where it is placed randomly among the buried items in the secret corridors.
• An uncursed silver +3 droven short sword is generated within a sack placed near the center of the Drow Healer quest goal level during level creation.
• Three droven short swords are each randomly placed on the locate level of the Drow Noble quest during level creation, and another is randomly placed on each of the lower filler levels during level creation.
• A droven short sword is randomly placed on each of the upper filler levels of the Hedrow Shared quest during level creation.
• Two droven short swords are each randomly placed on the home level of the Hedrow Noble quest during level creation, while a third is randomly placed on the locate level during level creation, and a fourth is placed on each of the lower filler levels during level creation.
• Drow Madpeople that start the game as male will find a +2 droven short sword among the belongings placed in their special quest box on the Madman quest.

Droven short swords 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 monsters can be generated with droven short swords:

• Hedrow wizards and hedrow master-wizards always generate with a droven short sword.
• Houseless drow have a ¹⁄₆ chance of generating with a droven short sword.
• Y-cultist fighters always generate with a droven short sword, and may receive another droven short sword in one of their weapon kits: there is a ²⁄₃ chance for the first kit to have one and a ¹⁄₄ chance for the third kit to have one, while the second kit always includes another droven short sword.
• Y-cultist wizards always generate with two separate droven short swords, and the first has a ¹⁄₂₀ chance of being filth-encrusted
• Y-cultist matrons, drow matrons and drow matron-mothers have a ¹⁹⁄₂₀ chance of generating with a droven short sword.
• Driders have a ³⁄₅ chance of generating with a droven short sword.
• The Avatar of Lolth generates with four blessed acrid +2 droven short swords and 2 blessed acrid +4 droven short swords among her many weapons—both sets of droven short swords will always be made of obsidian.
• Other drow that are capable of two-weapon combat and lack defined starting inventories will always generate with a droven short sword, and may receive another droven short sword in one of their weapon kits much like Y-cultist fighters: there is a ²⁄₃ chance for the first kit to have one and a ¹⁄₄ chance for the third kit to have one, while the second kit always includes another droven short sword.

Description

A droven short sword inflicts piercing damage, dealing 1d9 damage versus all monsters. A hero that wields a droven short sword at Skilled or better in short sword gains the "focus fire" and "create opening" expert traits.

In terms of monster weapon preference, monsters will favor the droven short sword over a dwarvish spear and will prefer a viperwhip or better (or a bardiche if they can use polearms in melee) to the droven short sword.

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