The Eye of the Aethiopica
" The Eye of the Aethiopica 
| |
|---|---|
| Base item | amulet of ESP |
| Affiliation | |
| When carried |
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| When worn | |
| When invoked |
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| 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, and its default alignment is neutral. Its base item is an amulet of ESP.
Generation
For Wizards, The Eye of the Aethiopica is always generated on the goal level of the Wizard quest, where it is placed on the same square as the Dark One.
Description
While carried, The Eye of the Aethiopica grants half spell damage and fast power regeneration that restores at least one point of power per turn. While worn, the Eye also grants magic resistance alongside the base item's normal extrinsic telepathy., it further grants magic resistance. Invoking The Eye of the Aethiopica allows the hero to branchport, which can warp them to another dungeon branch that they have visited.
Strategy
- For optimized invocation, see Invoke#Optimum invocation schedule.
The Eye of the Aethiopica is a powerful artifact for Wizards, especially compared to the relative weakness of the Dark One they must retrieve it from: since the artifact must be worn to grant magic resistance, they can easily dispose of him with a wand of death or finger of death among various other methods. See the Dark One's article for more details.
A Wizard with The Eye of the Aethiopica is not only well guarded against a majority of magical damage, but can cast spells much more frequently due to its power regeneration, making them a mystical tour de force that can use magic missiles to blast their way through most hostiles with ease and more efficiently utilize higher-level spells such as cancellation and polymorph. The power regeneration, magic resistance, half spell damage, and telepathy also makes the Eye of the Aethiopica a highly sought-after artifact wish for neutral spellcasting builds—if you plan to wish for it, take note of the second "the" in its name.
Branchporting using the Eye is a common method to transport wraiths from the Valley of the Dead, so they are more likely to leave corpses, and it makes Sokoban a more accessible and ideal stash location. Since this is at quite a shallow depth, you can usually return quickly by digging down with a pick-axe, or else branchporting back to the last dungeon level you were previously on. You can also transport foocubi to Sokoban or another level where a lack of armor is less instantly hazardous.
History
The Eye of the Aethiopica is introduced along with most of the other quest artifacts in NetHack 3.1.0. From this version to NetHack 3.4.3, including variants based on those versions, The Eye of the Aethiopica grants magic resistance while carried, and branchporting to Sokoban or Vlad's Tower would always bring the hero to the branch's bottom floor.[1]
Origin
The artifact is likely named for the Aethiopica (Αἰθιοπικά, Aithiopiká or "Ethiopian Stories"), a highly-influential ancient Greek novel which has been dated to the 220s or 370s AD and is the only known work by Heliodorus of Emesa. The novel takes place in ancient Ethiopia (or Aethiopia) at various points, and follows an eloping couple: Chariclea, the daughter of King Calasiris and Queen Persinna of Aethiopia, and Theagenes, a noble from Thessaly.
The Aethiopica is known for its rapid succession of events, a variety of characters, vivid descriptions of manners and of scenery, a simple elegant writing style, and the fact that the novel opens in the middle of the story ("in medias res"), tying the plot together with various characters describing their prior adventures through retrospective narratives or dialogues. Homer utilized the aforementioned techniques in both his epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, and the novel had clear influences on the structure, events, and themes of the European adventure novel genre in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
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.
