Randomized appearance
A major part of NetHack is identifying items. To make this more difficult, the appearances of scrolls, potions, rings, amulets, wands, spellbooks, and some armor are randomly shuffled at game start. This page lists the possible randomized appearances - each object has a "default" starting appearance prior to being shuffled, listed next to it in src/objects.c (as can be seen in the source code on-wiki).
In some cases, an item's appearance affects its function beyond its identified type.
Scrolls
Scrolls of mail and blank paper are the only ones that have fixed appearances.[1] All others may appear as one of the following, which are shuffled into use at the start of a game:[2]
ZELGO MER JUYED AWK YACC NR 9 XIXAXA XOXAXA XUXAXA PRATYAVAYAH DAIYEN FOOELS LEP GEX VEN ZEA PRIRUTSENIE ELBIB YLOH VERR YED HORRE VENZAR BORGAVVE THARR YUM YUM KERNOD WEL ELAM EBOW DUAM XNAHT ANDOVA BEGARIN KIRJE VE FORBRYDERNE HACKEM MUCHE VELOX NEB FOOBIE BLETCH TEMOV GARVEN DEH READ ME ETAOIN SHRDLU LOREM IPSUM FNORD KO BATE ABRA KA DABRA ASHPD SODALG MAPIRO MAHAMA DIROMAT GNIK SISI VLE HAPAX LEGOMENON EIRIS SAZUN IDISI PHOL ENDE WODAN GHOTI ZLORFIK VAS CORP BET MANI STRC PRST SKRZ KRK XOR OTA
For the meanings and origins of some of these names, see scroll origins.
Potions
A potion of water is always a "clear potion".[3] Other potions have one of these descriptions:[4]
ruby pink orange yellow emerald dark green cyan sky blue brilliant blue magenta purple-red puce milky swirly bubbly smoky cloudy effervescent black golden brown fizzy dark white murky
Of these, the smoky potion and milky potion are special in all games regardless of their actual identity. A smoky potion may contain a djinni, and a milky potion may contain a ghost.
Spellbooks
The Book of the Dead, novels and blank spellbooks all have a fixed description.[5] The cover of a regular spellbook will appear as one of the following:[6]
parchment vellum ragged dog eared mottled stained cloth leather white pink red orange yellow velvet light green dark green turquoise cyan light blue dark blue indigo magenta purple violet tan plaid light brown dark brown gray wrinkled dusty bronze copper silver gold glittering shining dull thin thick
The dull spellbook may cause the player to fall asleep when reading it. Vellum and parchment spellbooks have pages made of leather, rather than paper as all the others are, and will break vegetarian conduct if eaten.[7][8]
The source code also contains appearances for the deferred spellbooks of flame sphere and freeze sphere, which are canvas and hardcover respectively.[9] These will presumably be randomized if the spellbooks are enabled.
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.
commit 0d508cc9 introduces a new spellbook, and thus a new appearance: "checkered".Rings
Rings other than the meat ring will randomly take one of the following appearances:[10]
pearl iron twisted steel wire engagement shiny bronze brass copper silver gold wooden granite opal clay coral black onyx moonstone tiger eye jade agate topaz sapphire ruby diamond ivory emerald
Of these, topaz, sapphire, ruby, steel, diamond and emerald rings can be used to semi-permanently engrave something on the floor.
If you are wearing a silver ring and are not wearing gloves, you will do extra damage to silver-hating monsters with bare-handed and martial arts attacks.[11]
The appearance of rings determines what monsters can eat them, and also influences golem creation when polypiling. The former is especially important, as you can sometimes gain intrinsics from eating rings while you are polymorphed. Pearl, iron, twisted, steel, wire, engagement, and shiny rings can be eaten by any metallivore (rock mole, xorn, or rust monster). Bronze, brass, copper, silver, and gold can be eaten by any metallivore not restricted to rustable metals (rock mole and xorn). Additionally, gelatinous cubes can eat wooden rings.
Amulets
Amulets other than the Amulet of Yendor and its imitation have the following appearances:[12][13]
circular spherical oval triangular pyramidal square concave hexagonal octagonal
Except for the Amulet of Yendor and its imitation, they can all be eaten by metallivores. You have a chance of gaining intrinsics from eating amulets while polymorphed.
Wands
Wands take one of the following appearances:[14]
aluminum balsa brass copper crystal curved ebony forked glass hexagonal iridium iron jeweled long maple marble oak pine platinum runed short silver spiked steel tin uranium zinc
Glass and crystal wands are fragile and can break - this is significant in some cases, especially if you kick the chest that stores the wand of wishing in the castle. The appearance of wands also determines what monsters can eat them, and also influences golem creation when polypiling. Eating a wand while polymorphed has no effect besides nutrition, however. Balsa wands require only 5 strength to break, while other wands require 10.
Armor
The material of armor is determined by its type, not by its appearance. This is significant for gloves and boots: gauntlets of power and kicking boots are iron, the rest are leather. Some appearances have additional effects.
Helms
Four helms are randomized: the helmet, helm of brilliance, helm of opposite alignment, and helm of telepathy. Each has one of the following randomized appearances:[15]
plumed helmet etched helmet crested helmet visored helmet
Of these, the visored helmet is always special. It protects against the blinding attack of ravens and the venom-spitting attack of cobras.
Cloaks
Four cloaks have random appearances: the cloak of displacement, cloak of invisibility, cloak of magic resistance and cloak of protection. They are chosen from the following:[16]
tattered cape ornamental cope opera cloak piece of cloth
Cloaks of displacement and a cloak of protection of any AC will auto-identify themselves when worn, as will cloaks of invisibility unless you are already invisible. Otherwise, a worn cloak that does not auto-identify is the cloak of magic resistance.
Gloves
The appearances of all gloves are randomized:[17]
old gloves padded gloves riding gloves fencing gloves
Of these, the riding gloves are special, increasing the chance of successfully saddling a steed.
Boots
The appearance of the magical boots is randomized from the following set:[18]
mud boots snow boots riding boots buckled boots hiking boots combat boots jungle boots
Of these, snow boots and riding boots are special. The former prevents the fumbling effect of ice and the latter increases the chance of successfully saddling a steed. However, this bonus is not cumulative with the riding gloves.
History
In NetHack 3.6.0, the dull spellbook's reading effect ignored sleep resistance, which was bug C360-15.
The change to vellum and parchment spellbooks that make them leather was added in Nethack 3.6.2.
SLASH'EM
SLASH'EM adds several new items, with accompanying item appearances (including randomized ones) to match.
The cloak that happens to have the randomized appearance "opera cloak" will appear much more often than its base type's frequency suggests, because many vampires will be generated with one. At least in the case of cloaks of invisibility and magic resistance, it also means many vampires will be invisible or magic resistant.
References
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 877
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 849
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 818
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 788
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 999
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 899
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 907
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 909
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 991
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 536
- ↑ src/uhitm.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 712
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 604
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 618
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 1012
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 355
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 464
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 493
- ↑ src/objects.c in NetHack 3.6.6, line 513
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