Inheritance

Inheritance is a mechanic that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack, and notnotdNetHack, and allows a hero to start the game with an artifact in their possession in return for a much more difficult early game. Such a hero may also be referred to as a descendant, which is the name used for the option in-game.

Description

When starting a game, the player will be prompted whether or not they want to start with an artifact during character creation—if they elect to do so, once the hero is generated, they are then prompted for one of the following artifacts to choose from:

• The Marauder's Map
• Dragonlance
• The Vampire Killer
• The Singing Sword
• Staff of Necromancy
• Fuma-itto no Ken
• The Golden Sword of Y'ha-Talla
• Tensa Zangetsu
• Sode no Shirayuki
• Tobiume
• The Silver Sky
• The Sky Reflected
• The Holy Moonlight Sword
• Bloodletter
• Fallingstar Mandibles
• The Silence Glaive
• Helping Hand
• The Blade Singer's Saber
• The Beastmaster's Duster
• The Scorpion Carapace
• Hammerfeet
• Ring of Thror
• The Rod of Seven Parts
• Silver Starlight
• Yorshka's Spear
• Great Claws of Urdlen

Heroes that are Anachrononauts, Binders or Cavepeople cannot inherit artifacts this way.

A hero that starts the game with an inherited artifact will have their effective dungeon level depth raised by 10, i.e. they are treated as if they are currently on dungeon level 11, which effectively increases level difficulty by 5. They will also have their experience gain reduced to ¹⁄₁₀ of the normal rate until they are no longer a beginner. The amount of points distributed among their starting attributes is also reduced:

• Orcish heroes are given 5 fewer points, since their normal allotment of attribute points is already lower than other starting races at 55.
• Android heroes ('clockwork' Anachrononauts) are given 15 fewer points, since their normal allotment of attribute points is much higher than other starting race-role combinations at 95. This is generally a moot point, since they cannot inherit artifacts normally.
• Otherwise, the hero is given 10 fewer points than normal.

Some roles and role-race combinations have their inherited artifact placed in their Quest branch instead, so they are given reduced effects compared to other descendant heroes: Convicts, Drow Healers and Madpeople have their experience gain reduced to ¹⁄₂, and the increase in effective depth does not occur until they reach experience level 14, though starting attribute reductions are applied as above.