The Master Key of Thievery

(   The Master Key of Thievery   (No tile)
Base item	skeleton key
Affiliation	chaotic Rogue intelligent
When carried	warning teleport control half physical damage
When applied	gives random rumor
When invoked	untraps with 100% success
Base price	3500 zm
Weight	3

The Master Key of Thievery is the Rogue quest artifact. It is the prize for completing the Rogue quest, and its default alignment is chaotic. Its base item type is a skeleton key.

Generation

For Rogues, The Master Key of Thievery always generates blessed on the Rogue quest goal level, where it is placed on the square of the Master Assassin in the middle of the map at level creation.

Description

While carried, The Master Key of Thievery grants warning, teleport control and half physical damage, and Rogues carrying The Master Key of Thievery also gain a bonus when using the #untrap extended command to disarm traps on the floor; applying the Master Key of Thievery to unlock doors will always succeed. Carrying The Master Key of Thievery has additional effects if the artifact is non-cursed for Rogues or blessed for other roles:

• Locking or unlocking a trapped door or container with the Key automatically detects and offers to remove the trap, which is guaranteed to succeed if selected.
• Untrapping doors and chests manually will always succeed.
• Wielding the artifact while not wearing gloves will print messages that hint at the presence of unseen traps nearby.

Monsters using The Master Key of Thievery will untrap any door they are trying to open.

Invoking The Master Key of Thievery and selecting an adjacent door or container removes all traps from that object.

Strategy

For optimized invocation, see Invoke#Optimum invocation schedule.

For Rogues that are willing to brave the high amount of shapeshifters and guardian nagas on their quest, The Master Key of Thievery is well worth the trouble: it is a slotless and lightweight source of the rare half physical damage property, which is especially useful for Rogues that are low on maximum HP and/or built towards melee fighting. Slotless warning and teleport control are generally useful as well: the former can easily complement any telepathy the hero has and reliably detect hostile monsters, while the latter allows easy navigation within and between dungeon floors. The Master Key of Thievery also trivializes trap detection and makes removing floor traps far easier; while not as vital a property and thus easier to forget about, a Rogue will still consider it a nice boon.

The Master Key of Thievery is a useful wish candidate for any other chaotic hero for much of the same reasons - half physical damage is particularly appreciated for more fragile roles such as Wizards and Priests. A hero that is intent on obtaining the Key via artifact wish may want to hold off on sacrificing, as they can obtain one other artifact at most before the odds of a successful artifact wish begin decreasing - they will also not be able to use it as an unlocking tool or untrapping tool consistently due to the artifact blasts, so they should hold on to any key or lock pick they have already obtained.

History

The Master Key of Thievery is introduced along with most of the other quest artifacts in NetHack 3.1.0.

The artifact's special effects when blessed are added in NetHack 3.6.1.

Variants

Variants of NetHack based on NetHack 3.4.3 may not include The Master Key of Thievery's ability to automatically detect and remove traps when using it on a container or door.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, invoking The Master Key of Thievery can be used to unbolt a magic chest after it is unlocked.

FIQHack

In FIQHack, The Master Key of Thievery makes the carrier completely immune to traps, and its invocation effect is changed to branchporting.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, The Master Key of Thievery can be used to lock and unlock crystal chests.

Encyclopedia entry

This skeleton key was fashioned in ages past and imbued with a powerful magic which allows it to open any lock. When carried, it grants its owner warning, teleport control, and reduces all physical damage by half. Finally, when invoked, it has the ability to disarm any trap.