Fire Brand

)   Fire Brand   (No tile)
Base item	long sword
Damage vs. small	1d8 ×2 (2-16)
Damage vs. large	1d12 ×2 (2-24)
To-hit bonus	+1d5
Bonus versus	targets without fire resistance
Weapon skill	long sword
Size	one-handed
Affiliation	non-aligned
When carried	(none)
When wielded	fire resistance
When invoked	(none)
Base price	3000 zm
Weight	40
Material	iron

Fire Brand is an artifact that appears in NetHack. It is non-aligned, and its base item type is a long sword.

Frost Brand is the cold-attuned counterpart of Fire Brand.

Generation

A long sword randomly generated on the ground (including in a shop) or as a death drop has a base ¹⁄₂₀ chance of being made into an artifact, which then has a ¹⁄₅ chance of being made into Fire Brand if no artifact long swords have been generated.

Fire Brand can be given to any hero as a sacrifice gift for a sacrifice with a value of 5 or higher—Fire Brand will not have anything added to its enchantment when randomly generated or given as a sacrifice gift, and heroes that do not have a guaranteed first gift are less likely to be gifted Fire Brand compared to a co-aligned artifact.

Player monsters on the Astral Plane that generate with a long sword have a ¹⁄₂ chance of that mace being turned into a compatible artifact, which then has a ¹⁄₅ chance of being made into Fire Brand if no artifact long swords have been generated.

Description

While wielded, Fire Brand grants fire resistance that has a ⁹⁹⁄₁₀₀ chance per item of preventing the wielder's open inventory from burning. As a weapon, the artifact has a +1d5 to-hit bonus and deals double damage against monsters without fire resistance—the fire damage burns away sliming and has a ¹⁄₄ chance of burning worn armor and destroying scrolls, spellbooks, potions and globs of green slime in the target's open inventory.

While wielding Fire Brand, a hero can destroy webs by force-fighting in their direction, and a hero that tries to untrap monsters from webs while wielding the artifact will always succeed. A hero engraving with Fire Brand will write messages with the same quality as a wand of fire, and will not reduce the artifact's enchantment by dulling the blade. A hero invoking Fire Brand can cast an Expert skill fireball spell at a targeted square.

Strategy

Though it is less popular than its counterpart Frost Brand due to many of Gehennom's denizens being fire-resistant major demons, and it can destroy a lot more valuable loot in a monster's inventory, Fire Brand is still a great artifact weapon throughout the game: it deals slightly more damage than Grayswandir against non-resistant large monsters that do not hate silver, and its engraving ability and extrinsic fire resistance can make it a valuable defensive tool that reliably writes permanent Elbereths in a single turn. Fire Brand's invoke ability can potentially blast through most of the hostile monsters within graveyards, most of which are likely to be undead with cold resistance but not fire resistance, and Fire Brand is also the stronger of the two Brands on the Astral Plane, where most of the monsters present similarly have a vulnerability to fire.

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	Fire-resistant		Not fire-resistant
	Small monster	Large monster	Small monster	Large monster
+0 Fire Brand	$\frac{1+8}{2}=\bold{4.5}$	$\frac{1+12}{2}=\bold{6.5}$	$\left (\frac{1+8}{2} \right )\times 2=\bold{9}$	$\left (\frac{1+12}{2} \right )\times 2=\bold{13}$
+7 Fire Brand	$\frac{1+8}{2}+7=\bold{11.5}$	$\frac{1+12}{2}+7=\bold{13.5}$	$\left (\frac{1+8}{2}+7\right )\times 2=\bold{23}$	$\left (\frac{1+12}{2}+7\right )\times 2=\bold{27}$

History

Fire Brand is introduced alongside Frost Brand in NetHack 3.0.0. From NetHack 3.0.3–which introduces alignments for artifacts–to NetHack 3.2.3, Fire Brand is neutral—NetHack 3.3.0 makes Fire Brand non-aligned.

In versions up to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, Fire Brand can be gifted to any hero for any sacrifice and will not be the first sacrifice gift for a hero under normal circumstances, since a hero's first gift must always match their alignment.

NetHack 5.0.0 reworks artifact balance and sacrifice gifts to their current behavior via commit d87cadaf and commit c2c797fa. This version also grants Fire Brand its engraving ability via commit 928677c8 and adds its invoked ability via commit 85de51a6, while its ability to burn webs is added via commit 13ff565a.

Messages

The fiery blade burns <you/the monster>!

Fire Brand was used to attack a hero or monster.

The fiery blade vaporizes part of <you/the monster>!

As above, but the target is a water elemental.

The fiery blade hits <you/the monster>.

As above, but the target has fire resistance.

Variants

Some NetHack variants enable a hero to pair Fire Brand with Frost Brand in some manner, and may even change the weapon types that both artifacts can generate as. Variants created prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may not include the engraving and invoking abilities from that version.

NetHack: The Next Generation

In NetHack: The Next Generation, Fire Brand is one of the artifacts that can be created by Duri at The Forge, with a base price of 6500 (slightly lower than Frost Brand). This also applies to SlashTHEM.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Fire Brand's to-hit bonus roll is converted to a flat bonus like most other artifact weapons, giving it +5 to-hit. Artifact weapons can also be wielded in the off-hand for two weapon combat, and Fire Brand is an incredibly stellar primary and secondary weapon option for this purpose.

In NetHack Plus, an ancestor of SLASH'EM, Fire Brand is the first guaranteed sacrifice for the Flame Mage.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, Fire Brand and Frost Brand can have multiple possible base items, but will always be generated as matching base items—Fire Brand can also be reshaped into a different base item by dipping it into a forge, with the available item types depending on what weapons the hero has type-identified or trained to Skilled level in. Some base item choices are only available to certain races, roles and alignments of hero. See the article linked at the top of the section for more details on how Fire Brand functions in these variants.

NetHack Fourk

In NetHack Fourk, Fire Brand can be wielded in two weapon combat with Frost Brand.

xNetHack

In xNetHack, Fire Brand has its base item changed to a short sword, and it can be wielded in two weapon combat with Frost Brand or Mirror Brand. Fire Brand instantly kills green slimes and flammable golems upon hitting them.

SpliceHack

In SpliceHack, Fire Brand can generate as any one-handed sword weapon, and can be combined with Frost Brand at a furnace to create Frostburn.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, Fire Brand has its base item changed to a steel short sword, and it can be wielded in two weapon combat with Frost Brand. Fire Brand and Frost Brand can be combined at a forge to create the artifact runesword Dichotomy, which has traits of both weapons.

Hack'EM

In Hack'EM, Fire Brand has its base item changed to a steel short sword and behaves as it does in EvilHack, including being twoweaponed with Frost Brand, and the artifact can be used to burn engravings into the floor without dulling it. Ice Mages cannot handle Fire Brand and will never receive it as a sacrifice gift.

Encyclopedia entry

Fire Brand and Frost Brand share the same encyclopedia entry:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

[ Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost ]