Ice box
( 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | ice box |
| Appearance | ice box |
| Base price | 42 zm |
| Weight | 900 |
| Material | plastic |
| Monster use | Will not be used by monsters. |
An ice box is a type of tool that appears in NetHack. It is a container designed for comestible storage that is made of plastic.
Contents
Generation
Ice boxes make up 1⁄200 of all tools that are randomly generated on the ground, in general shops or as death drops. Delicatessens and hardware stores can also stock ice boxes, and delis have a 3⁄100 chance of generating an ice box on a given square.[1]
Randomly generated ice boxes are always generated uncursed outside of bones (including fake "bones" on early traps), and may be generated with up to 20 random corpses, the selection of which is determined using normal monster generation[2]—all corpses are generated uncursed and fresh (i.e. with 0 turns of age), including corpses that otherwise correspond to undead.[3]
Description
An ice box can store items like other containers and will additionally prevent them from becoming wet. Ice boxes are particularly designed to keep corpses fresh: any corpse or egg that is stored inside an ice box has its aging timer and any applicable revive timer paused until that item is removed from the ice box—eggs do not have their hatching timer paused, and will die if they are in an ice box on the turn it would have normally hatched.
Corpses that are tipped out of an ice box are made unfit for sacrifice.
Strategy
Ice boxes are prohibitively heavy at 900 aum, making them impractical to carry around even while empty, but are superb for corpse preservation as well as general stash usage: gelatinous cubes (including a hero polymorphed into one) cannot eat the plastic ice boxes and will at worst engulf them, leaving its contents unharmed, and corpses that are generated or placed inside an ice box while they are fresh enough to eat and/or sacrifice will remain so upon coming back to the ice box later.
A hero intent on moving a randomly-generated ice box from the spot where it was discovered will almost always have to loot the corpses and then drop them, eat them or feed them to a pet if possible—this usually includes buying them and the ice box from a shop if the ice box is generated in one. In addition to nutrition and sacrifice fodder, the corpses can be a useful source of intrinsics.
Some players that are about to ascend their hero will wish for an ice box and stock it with potions of booze and snacks for the demigod bar.
History
The ice box first appears in Hack 1.0. From this version to NetHack 2.3e, the Speleologist role (later known as the Archeologist) always starts with an ice box.[4] In these versions, the ice box is the only container available, but its weight and rarity can generally make using one or even moving it difficult, especially for a starting Archeologist.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, frozen food stores have a 9⁄10 chance of generating an ice box on a given square.[5]
An ice box is always generated in Frankenstein's Lab, where it is placed on Doctor Frankenstein's square at level creation.
Upgrading an ice box successfully will produce a chest, and vice versa.
All of the above information also applies to SlashTHEM.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, an ice box is generated on the last floor of the Ruins of Moria branch at level creation—the "intact" map always places the ice box in one of the chest caches of the altar room, while the "ruined" map only has a 3⁄4 chance of placing the ice box.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, the Convict quest locate level places an ice box in the warden's office at level creation that has four random eggs, two honeycombs, an apple, a pear, and a cream pie inside.
Encyclopedia entry
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
