The Marauder's Map (dNetHack)
? The Marauder's Map 
| |
|---|---|
| Base item | scroll of magic mapping |
| Affiliation | |
| When carried | (none) |
| When read |
|
| When invoked |
|
| Base price | 2000 zm |
| Weight | 5 |
| Material | paper |
- For the artifact in each version of the Pirate patch and other variants of NetHack, see The Marauder's Map.
The Marauder's Map is an artifact that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, adapted from the Pirate role patch made by dNetHack developer ChrisANG. Its default alignment is chaotic, and its base item is a scroll of magic mapping with the appearance of a parchment scroll.
Generation
A scroll of magic mapping randomly generated on the ground, in shops or as a death drop has a base 1⁄20 chance of being made into an artifact unless the hero is a Pirate, and the scroll will always be The Marauder's Map if it has not yet generated.
The Marauder's Map is the guaranteed first sacrifice gift for Pirates, and any chaotic hero can also receive the artifact as a gift. Uniquely to Pirates, it is the only artifact that they can be gifted by means of sacrificing.
Description
When read, rather than normal magic mapping, The Marauder's Map details the hero's immediate surroundings as if they had cast the clairvoyance spell: this magically maps a roughly-circular 19-by-11 area centered on the hero's location, with the location of monsters in the mapped area marked by an I glyph, while any items detected within the area are described by their object types (e.g., "a scroll", "a wand"). The scroll will not be used up when read, and reading The Marauder's Map starts a cooldown timer of 3d10 turns: attempting to read it again during this period will print a message, immobilize the hero for up to 3 turns and add another 3d10 turns to the cooldown timer.
The mapping done by reading The Marauder's Map is treated as reading a scroll of magic mapping (including auto-identifying the scroll type), so it is not blocked by a worn cornuthaum like actual clairvoyance, but unlike clairvoyance (and like other sources of magic mapping) it is blocked on non-mappable levels. The artifact also cannot be read while blind, unlike a scroll known to be a scroll of magic mapping.
Invoking The Marauder's Map first grants object detection as with a potion of the same beatitude, and then detects the presence of any other artifacts on the level among those objects.
As an artifact, The Marauder's Map cannot be subjected to blanking or destruction by fire.
Strategy
The intent of the weaker read effect for The Marauder's Map and the associated cooldown timer is to compensate for the scroll being 'infinite-use', while the artifact detection is partial compensation for the Pirate's inability to receive sacrifice gifts other than the Map: this limits them to random generation and wishes for discovering artifacts, and in return the base generation rate of artifacts is additionally boosted up to 1⁄5 (20%) for Pirate heroes only. Invoking The Marauder's Map thus gives them a way to check a level for generated artifacts that they may have missed, and the ability to detect objects and artifacts by invoking the artifact also makes it usable for illiterate conduct play.
Origin
The Marauder's Map is a magical item from Harry Potter, a franchise originating from a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author Joanne Rowling (who is sometimes known by "Joanne Murray" and the pen name "J. K. Rowling"). The novels chronicle the lives of the titular young wizard as he attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and learns of his connection to Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who intends to become immortal and subjugate the wizarding world and "mundane" world alike.
Within the setting, the Marauder's Map is a magical map of Hogwarts (as reflected by the base item being a scroll of magical mapping) that was created by a group of wizards while they were still students at the school, and Harry is given the map in the third book by his best friend's twin brothers so he can travel to Hogsmeade through a hidden passageway. The map is a blank piece of parchment when not in use, but it becomes a detailed layout of Hogwarts when it is activated using the phrase "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good". It shows the locations of secret passages and instructions on how to access them, and it also reveals the presence and identity of every individual at Hogwarts by not only marking their exact location alongside their names, but also tracking their movements in real-time.
Messages
The messages below reflect what is printed depending on whether or not the hero is a Pirate.
- <You/Ye> examine the Marauder's Map.
- You read The Marauder's Map.
- Being blind, <you/ye> cannot see the Marauder's Map.
- You attempted to read The Marauder's Map while blind.
- The map <is/be> hard to see.
- You read The Marauder's Map while it was on cooldown from being read previously.
