Potion of holy water
! 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | holy water |
| Appearance | blessed clear potion |
| Base price | 100 zm |
| Weight | 20 |
| Monster use | Will not be used by monsters. |
A potion of holy water is a type of potion that appears in NetHack. It is a blessed potion of water, and appears as a "blessed clear potion" when unidentified.[1]
Contents
Generation
Priests and Priestesses start the game with 4 potions of holy water.[2] Wizards may be given a potion of holy water, since any of the three random potions in their starting inventory can generate as blessed.[3]
1⁄8 of all potions of water will be generated blessed, so potions of holy water make up 23⁄1000 (2.3%) of all randomly generated potions. General stores, liquor emporiums and delicatessens can sell potions of holy water.
Dipping uncursed potions of water into holy water will convert the dipped potions into holy water, using up the potion that was dipped into.
Successful prayer while standing on an altar belonging to the hero's deity will bless any potions of water currently on that altar's square.
Applying a charged and blessed horn of plenty has a 31⁄1000 chance (3.1%) of generating 1-2 potions of holy water.[4]
Description
Quaffing a potion of holy water cures lycanthropy, and it cures illness and exercises constitution and wisdom for non-chaotic heroes, while chaotic heroes take 2d6 damage and abuse constitution—quaffing the potion will prompt the player to type-name it.
Dipping an item or stack of items into holy water will uncurse them if they are cursed or bless them otherwise, using up the potion and prompting the player to type-name it—dipping an already-blessed object into holy water will not use up the potion.
Monsters hit with a potion of holy water take 2d6 damage if they are a demon, undead monster (including a shapeshifted vampire) or werecreature, and werecreatures additionally shift to their human form. Inhaling vapors from a potion of holy water reverts a hero with lycanthropy to their human form if applicable. Monsters will not use this potion.
Strategy
Holy water is one of many curse removal methods and one of the few means of blessing objects, so it is considered essential for almost any hero to have. When blessing and/or uncursing objects, always be sure to #adjust them into a single stack first, and use #name to un-name objects if necessary. 53% of all games will randomly generate holy water somewhere in the dungeon above Medusa's Island.
Obtaining water
The article linked above describes how you can obtain potions of uncursed water—below, a non-exhaustive list describes ways to make them into holy water:
- As mentioned above, you can dip a stack of uncursed water into a single potion of holy water—though this uses up the potion being dipped into, it does not violate conducts and ensures you can maintain a stock with just one potion.
- Similarly, praying successfully on your god's altar blesses any potions of water or unholy water on that altar—this is reliant on prayer timeout and breaks atheist conduct, but does require any other resources.
- Reading a blessed scroll of remove curse while confused can alter the beatitude of each item or item stack in your main inventory:[5] each item has a 1⁄4 chance of being blessed, a 1⁄4 chance of being cursed, or a 1⁄2 chance of being unchanged, and all items in inventory have their beatitude unidentified. Using this method, there is a 94.3% chance of obtaining at least one potion of holy water from 10 non-stacked uncursed potions of water.
- This method is often used to create both holy and unholy water, and requires the hero to drop and/or stash their uncursed inventory, including any armor, weapons, jewelry or leashes. Once done, you can use the #adjust command to stack each of the potions and re-identify their beatitude by using an altar, pet testing them and/or dip-testing.
- For atheist conducts, this is one of the most reliable ways to obtain holy water and bless other items, since they cannot use an altar in any way.
The following table below is a list of methods for obtaining water and which conducts they violate:
| Violates | Method |
|---|---|
| Atheist | Water prayer |
| Pacifist | Death drops |
| Illiterate | Reading a confused scroll of remove curse |
| Polypile | Polypile blessed potions |
| Wishless | Wish for it directly |
| "Scumming" | Start with the potion (3.6% for Wizards or always for Priests and Priestesses), find it in shops, or retrieve them from bones files. |
Blessing and uncursing items
From the mid-game on, consider dedicating a separate container such as a sack to holding holy water and other curse-removing items: you can tip out the items at will to uncurse inventory even if you have a cursed item(s) in both hands, e.g. a cursed two-handed weapon. If you lack reasonable access to such a container, it may be worth keeping holy water and other forms of curse removal in small caches on the current level or other levels, so that you can easily access them if you urgently need to uncurse items.
Even once your primary tools and kit are blessed, you will benefit from keeping a few potions of holy water on hand, often to bless any useful items found later on, and especially to deal with curse-slinging spellcasting monsters. Even for items that would display little to no real difference in function (such as most armor), blessing them can still offer vital protection after the essentials are covered: blessed objects that are targeted by a cursing effect other than quaffing from a fountain will only become uncursed.
Identification
In shops, a hero can easily price-identify holy water, since uncursed potions of water have a base price of 0 and are sold for 5zm before adjustments, and holy and unholy water have a base price of 100—a pet can easily reveal the beatitude of a 100zm clear potion.
Dip-testing can be used to informally identify the beatitude of water, and is best done after pet testing for any unholy water, using a blessed, non-iron item: holy water will only produce a message without consuming the potion, while dipping an item into uncursed water that does not react to water will print a message without consuming the potion. In theory, potions can be dipped to test if they are blessed before quaffing them, but in practice this risks diluting the potion(s) and using up the water in the process—this is also not practical for testing if other unidentified items are blessed, as such blessed items are usually discovered this way by accident.
Conserving holy water
Which items 'deserve' blessing the most depends heavily on the player and their approach; there are still certain items that serve a ubiquitous purpose, sometimes to the point of frequently appearing in ascension kits. It is often very important to establish what items you will bless ahead of time in order to conserve the amount of holy water used. The following items are among the most common targets for blessing:
- A blessed bag of holding will divide the effective weight of its contents by four, comparing to an uncursed bag halving its contents' weight; this confers a great advantage in how much you can carry, lifting upwards of 200 units of weight off your back.
- A blessed scroll of charging gives a recharged item more charges on average than an uncursed scroll, and thus has a better chance of restoring it to its maximum capacity of uses. This is most useful for saving a wish on blessed scrolls of charging from a wand of wishing.
- If you use ranged weapons, which have a chance of disappearing, blessing them drastically lowers the chances they will do so.
- A blessed horn of plenty will produce blessed food and potions, useful for foodless conduct.
- A blessed scroll of identify will usually identify more than one item, sometimes even your entire inventory.
- A blessed potion of gain level advances your experience level and gives a random amount of experience towards the next level, which can be useful when trying to boost HP, boost energy, gain intrinsics, and/or pushing to qualify for the Quest—after level 14 or 15, the experience requirements for advancing a level are steep enough that uncursed potions will be preferable.
- A blessed scroll of genocide will wipe out an entire monster class as opposed to only one species—liches and sea monsters are especially common targets.
History
The potion of holy water first appears in NetHack 1.3d. From this version to NetHack 2.3e, the potion of holy water is present as a separate item, and has a randomized appearance like other potions. NetHack 3.0.0 introduces uncursed and unholy water and ties all three potions to the same appearance.
Origin
The religion-related functions of holy water, and the fact that Priests start the game with some, are derived from the religious practices of water being blessed by a member of the clergy or other significant figure (or conversely, derived from a well or spring that considered holy). Said water is typically used for cleansing prior to baptism and spiritual cleansing in several religions, from Christianity to Sikhism; the use of holy water as a sacramental for protection against evil is common among Lutherans, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Christians.
Messages
- You feel full of awe.
- You quaffed a potion of holy water, and are lawful or neutral.
- This burns like acid!
- As above, but you are chaotic.
- <foo> glows amber.
- You dipped a cursed object into a potion of holy water, and it is now uncursed.
- <foo> glows light blue.
- You dipped an uncursed object into a potion of holy water, and it is now blessed.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, Undead Slayers start each game with four potions of holy water.[6] Flame Mages, Ice Mages and Necromancers may be given a potion of holy water, since any of the random potions in their starting inventories can generate as blessed.[7][8][9]
There are additional methods to obtain holy water aside from those described above:
- A potion of amnesia dilutes immediately into a potion of water when dipped into any water source, and retains its beatitude, allowing holy water to be created from blessed potions of amnesia.
- Some shops offer an uncursing service, with a base price of 150 zm before modifiers. If you are hallucinating, there is a 1⁄4 chance that the shopkeeper will be distracted and accidentally bless the item—this is best done with an on-demand source, e.g. the potion or tins of yellow mold or violet fungus, and also requires a good deal of credit with the shopkeeper, an engraved or burnt Elbereth to avoid accidents, and a unicorn horn to cure the hallucination after. Remember that hallucination in SLASH'EM also messes with the appearance of the inventory, and don't forget the inventory letter for your potions of water or unicorn horn.
- Occasionally upon sacrifice at an altar, your god will bless the object in your primary or off-hand, which can be used with wielded potions of water.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, a hero that has the spirit Marionette bound is forbidden from quaffing holy water.
The Windowless Tower generates four potions of holy water in a hidden niche on its second floor at level creation.
Shopkeeper services in these variants can be used as described in SLASH'EM to obtain holy water.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, player monster priests and some player monster wizards can be encountered carrying holy water.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, Paladins start each game with two blessed potions of water.
Encyclopedia entry
"We want a word with you," said Ligur (in a tone of voice
intended to imply that "word" was synonymous with "horrifically
painful eternity"), and the squat demon pushed open the office
door.
The bucket teetered, then fell neatly on Ligur's head.
Drop a lump of sodium in water. Watch it flame and burn and
spin around crazily, flaring and sputtering. This was like
that, just nastier.
The demon peeled and flared and flickered. Oily brown smoke
oozed from it, and it screamed and it screamed and it screamed.
Then it crumpled, folded in on itself, and what was left lay
glistening on the burnt and blackened circle of carpet, looking
like a handful of mashed slugs.
"Hi," said Crowley to Hastur, who had been walking behind Ligur,
and had unfortunately not been so much as splashed.
There are some things that are unthinkable; there are some
depths that not even demons would believe other demons would
stoop to.
". . . Holy water. You bastard," said Hastur. "You complete
_bastard_. He hadn't never done nothing to _you_."
"Yet," corrected Crowley.
References
- ↑ Jump up to: 1.0 1.1 src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 820
- Jump up ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 104
- Jump up ↑ src/u_init.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 166
- Jump up ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2212: chooses a random potion, discarding magical potions; rnd_class(POT_BOOZE, POT_WATER) chooses from all non-magical potions in objects.c[1]
- Jump up ↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1323
- Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 224
- Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 66
- Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 96
- Jump up ↑ u_init.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 137
