The Silver Flame

The Silver Flame is a lawfully aligned cult in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack.

Location

The Silver Flame is always located in the main branch of the dungeon, and can be sought out by applying a mirror at yourself while at over 10 insight: doing so will report the location of a "silver light", depending on where you are relevant to the cult:

• If you are not on the same floor, it will report the location as (far) below or above you.
• If you are on the correct dungeon level, it will instead report the cardinal direction of a specific square on that floor, e.g. "far to the west", "to the south", "two steps east and one step north".
• If you are on the correct square, you can then follow the directions below to begin following the Silver Flame.

Basic mechanics

To begin following the Silver Flame, you must have a suitable weapon. The Silver Flame can only take up residence in suitable mithril, silver and platinum objects—once it does so, your mirror will be converted to a purified mirror, which appears as a silver disk when unidentified. The Silver Flame-enhanced object will have "shining" prepended to their material, e.g. "shining mithril". Acceptable items are any plausible weapon - so weapon-tools, gloves, boots (kicking) and helmets (headbutting) are accepted.

Vanquishing certain monsters with a Silver Flame weapon has a chance of instantly sacrificing that monster to the Flame, preventing them from leaving a corpse; their inventory will be dropped as normal. A successful sacrifice this way angers any non-lawful deity, unless you are a Binder, Anachrononaut or an unaligned Madman—wearing a helm of opposite alignment to become lawful and sacrificing to the Silver Flame does not anger your god. Sacrifices will allow you to claim boons from the Silver Flame, but with diminishing returns for consecutive sacrifices.

Care must be taken not to accidentally kill monsters in shops (particularly mimics) this way if you lack the gold to pay for the destroyed corpse.

Silver Flame boons

Every sacrifice increases your standing with the Silver Flame in the form of favor, which is not reported to the player directly. You can consult the silver flame by applying your purified mirror. If you have less than 50 favor, nothing happens and a message is printed. Otherwise, a menu of boons is displayed for you to select. When you have at least 50 favor (the minimum required to claim a minor boon), the mirror will appear as "glinting"—when you have enough devotion (lifetime favor) to claim a major boon, this will change to "shining". Note that even though some minor boons cost less than 50 favor, you must still have 50 favor to select any.

The base favor gained from a sacrifice to the Silver Flame is equal to the monster's difficulty. This is modified by two factors: your insight, and the amount of favor you currently have. The formula is (value * insight)/(insight + current favor), meaning that at 10 insight (the minimum to join the Silver Flame cult), if you already have 50 favor, you will only get ¹⁄₆ of the favor you would gain if you had 0 favor stored. At higher insight, this ratio gets better, but even at 50 insight you only gain ¹⁄₂ of the value you'd otherwise get. This means it is essential to spend your favor as frequently as you can to get major boons, since favor accrued suffers harsh diminishing returns with favor banked, and major boons require increasingly high lifetime favor acquired totals to unlock.

Consulting the Silver Flame and applying its boons does not break the atheism conduct.

All boons other than the burning aura & material conversion boons require that the item in question be made of silver, mithril or platinum. The boons will be temporarily deactivated if the material changes post-application (such as due to Mammon's breath), but will remain dormant on the weapon until the material is changed back. Since the material conversion boons require that the item in question already be any metallic material, they cannot be used on non-metallic items (e.g. anything wooden or leather). All of the offensive boons (including the basic reflected silver flame property) merely require that the item in question be a plausible weapon, not strictly a weapon-class item - the same criteria as the initially offered weapon apply (weapon, weapon-tool, boots, gloves, helmet).

List of minor boons

Boon	Cost	Description
Smelt away impurity	50	Sets any metallic object's material to silver
Smelt away imperfection	50	Sets any metallic object's material to platinum
Smelt away immobility	50	Sets any metallic object's material to mithril
Spread the reflected silver flame	25	Imbues any suitable weapon, pair of gloves or mirror with the Silver Flame. This is identical to the effects of the first weapon sanctified, granting it an object property that sacrifices certain slain monsters to the Silver Flame.
Burn aura	10	Unblesses and uncurses an item.

List of major boons

This only becomes available once your devotion (lifetime total accumulated favor) reaches a specific level.

Boon	Cost	Description
Burn on a curse-proof glaze	25	Applies curse resistance to any suitable body armor.
Mirror-finish a surface	50	Applies reflection to any suitable weapon, weapon tool, body armor, or shield. Unlike the offensive boons, gloves etc. are not acceptable.
Focus the light to reveal righteous wrath	50	Applies a property that boosts attribute-based damage bonus by 50% to gloves. For example, a one-handed weapon at 25 strength typically gets +8, which is now +12. You must remain a lawful character of at least pious alignment record to continue to benefit from this property.
Focus the light to share burdens	50	Applies a property that boosts your carrying capacity by 20%, up to +200 carrying capacity. Applicable to suitable boots. You must remain a lawful character of at least pious alignment record to continue to benefit from this property.
Focus the light to preserve life	50	Applies a property to an item that grants a life saving effect when wearing the item. Applicable to helms. The property will be consumed if the lifesaving effect triggers, but the item it was applied to will remain intact, and the property can be re-purchased for the cost of another major boon.
Focus the light to reveal mortality	50	Selected weapon drains 1d2 levels from attacked monsters. The weapon in question must already be imbued with the Silver Flame via the minor boon.
Focus the light to reveal true death	50	Selected weapon adds an extra 2d7 + base damage as irresistible bonus damage against undead. The weapon in question must already be imbued with the Silver Flame via the minor boon.
Focus the light to reveal the unworthy	50	Selected weapon adds double base damage to minions (including angels and other spiritual beings), demons and mortal races (intelligent living non-primordials) as disintegration damage to gloves/boots/weapon. Damage is converted into armor damage at a ratio of approximately 4 damage to 1 negative enchantment, destroying non-artifact non-disintegration-proof armor if it is reduced to 0 AC/DR. This will always add a minimum of half of the base damage dealt as bonus damage, even if all armor has not been fully destroyed. The weapon in question must already be imbued with the Silver Flame via the minor boon.

Messages

<monster> burns from within, consumed by silver fire!

A monster was killed by a Silver Flame weapon.

The silver flame is distant and uninterested.

You applied your silver disk, but did not have enough favor.