Artifact

In NetHack, an artifact is a rare, magical and unique version of a specific object, with special qualities compared to their mundane counterparts. Each role that a player can select for their hero also has their own special quest artifact associated with them.

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Generation

Items that are randomly generated on the ground have a base ¹⁄₂₀ chance (5%) of being made into an appropriate artifact, with an equal probability for each artifact if there are multiple that match the item's type. Sting and Orcrist can be created by naming their base items, while Excalibur is not randomly generated and can only be created by certain methods (as detailed in its article).

The odds of an artifact being generated on the ground are affected by the amount of artifacts that already exist in the current game, and the more artifacts that have been generated, the less likely it is for another artifact to be generated. This also applies to wishing for artifacts: the odds of obtaining an artifact with a wish steadily decrease for each artifact generated after the second - see the linked section for further details. Artifact generation odds do not apply to the creation of artifacts by methods other than random generation or wishing.

For the hero, their role quest artifact and any guaranteed sacrifice gifts are adjusted to their starting alignment, e.g. Magicbane and The Eye of the Aethiopica are generated as chaotic for chaotic Wizards. Artifacts that have their alignment changed revert to their base alignment if left in bones files.

Only one of each artifact can be generated in a given game even if that artifact is destroyed or lost afterward, and artifacts will not generate under their normal circumstances if they already exist elsewhere in the game. Conversely, if a bones level is loaded and contains any artifacts that have either already generated in the current character's game or act as that character's quest artifact, those artifacts will be reverted to their base item.

Sacrifice gifts

Heroes that sacrifice to their god while their prayer timeout is zero may be given an artifact as a gift, increasing the prayer timeout; some roles have guaranteed first sacrifice gifts that they will always receive if it has not yet been generated. All candidates for sacrifice gifts are weapons, and such gifts will always be created non-cursed and erosion-proofed, with a minimum enchantment of +0; the hero will also be unrestricted in the appropriate weapon skill if necessary. A god will never gift an artifact to a hero that attacks the hero's current form, i.e. elven heroes will never be gifted Grimtooth, and orcish heroes will not be gifted Sting or Orcrist.

A gifted artifact will always be either unaligned or the same alignment as the hero, and the hero's first sacrifice gift will always match their alignment, including their guaranteed gift if applicable. The odds of receiving an artifact gift become lower based on the amount of artifacts already gifted and the total amount of artifacts generated in the game.

Crowning

If a hero prays to their god while they are piously aligned and have at least 10 Luck, there is a chance that they will be crowned, which usually results in an artifact being gifted - the artifact and its generation method depend on the hero's alignment, and both are described in the article linked above.

Quest artifacts

Each role has a special artifact that they are tasked with retrieving for their Quest: these artifacts are only generated on their respective quests, where they will always be found on the square of the quest nemesis at level creation. Quest artifacts can be wished for or left behind in a bones file - a hero cannot ever wish for their role's own quest artifact, and the quest artifact of their role will revert to its base item if they encounter a bones level containing the artifact.

Monsters with artifacts

Items in the starting inventory of angelic beings, as well as player monsters generated on the Astral Plane, can be made into artifacts. Monsters will not normally generate with an artifact outside of these cases, though they can still pick up artifacts that are unaligned or of the same alignment as them; if a bones level is created with a monster carrying an artifact, they will retain that artifact once the bones file is loaded.

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Description

An artifact is a magical version of its base item with additional properties layered on top of the base item's properties, and appear as a named version of that base item while unidentified: for example, Excalibur will appear as "a long sword named Excalibur". Attempting to give an object the name of an artifact will fail if it is of the same base item type as that artifact, with the exception of Sting and Orcrist, and changing an existing artifact's name always fails - these mechanics are the basis for the naming artifacts trick.

Artifacts in shops are sold for four times the normal price, and can be sold to shops for only ¹⁄₄ of their normal base price.

Artifact intelligence and powers

Artifacts are imbued with varying levels of magic powers - see the list below for a table of artifact effects. Some artifacts have special effects that can be used by invoking the artifact, and many can magically blast heroes that try to pick them up without meeting certain conditions.

A non-intelligent artifact that is one of the three alignments has a ¹⁄₄ chance of blasting a cross-aligned hero that touches it for 4d4 damage; Sting and Orcrist are exceptions, as they will only ever blast orcs. Intelligent artifacts - Excalibur, Stormbringer, and all quest artifacts - will always blast heroes that touch them for 4d10 magical damage and abuse wisdom if the artifact is cross-aligned or attuned to a different role from that of the hero. The damage from artifact blasts are 'halved' to 2d10 by magic resistance.

In addition to the above, a hero that is of a different role from the one an intelligent quest artifact is attuned to and is either cross-aligned or has a negative alignment record will be unable to touch that artifact: if the artifact is in their open inventory, it cannot be worn, wielded, applied, or invoked, and will unequip itself if possible; if it is in a container or outside the hero's main inventory, it will evade their grasp altogether, though the container can still be tipped to move the artifact onto the floor. The effects of such an artifact that apply while carried in open inventory will still apply as long as it remains in open inventory.

Independent of the above, a hero also cannot wear or wield any artifact that hates their current form, regardless of alignment, and attempting to do so deals d10 damage and abuses constitution. Monsters will never touch artifacts that attack them or are cross-aligned to them.

Most artifacts resist certain magical effects targeted at them: an artifact has a ¹⁹⁄₂₀ chance of resisting polymorph or disintegration, and an intelligent artifact will also resist being cursed by the curse items monster spell effect ⁴⁄₅ of the time.

Artifact weapons

An artifact weapon is a generally a weapon that has enhanced damage and to-hit versus their mundane counterpart, and the damage is applied either to all monsters or to a specific subset of monsters - the latter type of artifact weapons are often known as Banes, due to the naming scheme used for some of them. Artifact weapons cannot be wielded in the offhand when twoweaponing.

Unique items

While not considered artifacts, there are objects with unique item types that also only appear once per game, and will always revert to mundane items if left behind in a bones file.

List of artifacts

Below is a list of artifacts available in NetHack, their effects and the means by which they can be obtained - see each artifact's linked article for more specific details.

Artifact name	Base item type	Alignment	Intelligent	Special properties			Obtaining
				Carried	Used (worn, wielded, applied, or read)	Invoked
Cleaver	battle-axe (two-headed axe)	neutral	No		+d3 to-hit and +d6 damage. Arc-swing hits up to 3 monsters at once		First sacrifice gift for Barbarians.
Demonbane	long sword	lawful	No		+d5 to-hit and double damage to major demons. Blocks demon gating.		May be given to a new angelic being.
Dragonbane	broadsword	unaligned	No		+d5 to-hit and double damage to dragons. Reflection.
Excalibur	long sword	lawful	Yes		+d5 to-hit and +d10 damage. Drain resistance. Searching. Hostile demon princes. Monsters track player.		May be produced for lawful adventurers at fountains. Lawful crowning gift.
The Eye of the Aethiopica	amulet of ESP (random amulet)	neutral	Yes	Energy regeneration. Half spell damage.	Magic resistance. Telepathy.	Branchport.	Quest artifact of Wizards.
The Eyes of the Overworld	pair of lenses	neutral	Yes		Astral vision. Protection against blindness and gazes. Magic resistance.	Enlightenment.	Quest artifact of Monks.
Fire Brand	long sword	unaligned	No		+d5 to-hit and double damage to non-fire-resistant monsters. Fire resistance.
Frost Brand	long sword	unaligned	No		+d5 to-hit and double damage to non-cold-resistant monsters. Cold resistance.
Giantslayer	long sword	neutral	No		+d5 to-hit and double damage to giants.
Grayswandir	silver saber	lawful	No		+d5 to-hit and double damage. Protection against hallucination. Silver damage
Grimtooth	orcish dagger (crude dagger)	chaotic	No		+d2 to-hit and +d6 damage. Warning of elves.
The Heart of Ahriman	luckstone (random gray stone)	neutral	Yes	Stealth.	As projectile, +d5 to-hit and double damage.	Levitation.	Quest artifact of Barbarians.
The Longbow of Diana	bow	chaotic	Yes	Telepathy.	+d5 to-hit. Reflection.	Create arrows.	Quest artifact of Rangers.
The Magic Mirror of Merlin	mirror (looking glass)	lawful	Yes	Magic resistance. Telepathy. ×2 to some spell damage.	Rumors.		Quest artifact of Knights.
Magicbane	athame	neutral	No		+d3 to-hit. Special damage. Magic resistance. Protects against cursing.		First sacrifice gift for Wizards.
The Master Key of Thievery	skeleton key (key)	chaotic	Yes	Warning. Half physical damage. Teleport control.	Rumors. As of 3.6.1, automatically untraps when used to unlock.	Untraps.	Quest artifact of Rogues.
The Mitre of Holiness	helm of brilliance (random helmet)	lawful	Yes	Fire resistance.	Protection (+1 to MC up to MC3). Half damage from undead and demons.	Energy boost.	Quest artifact of Priests.
Mjollnir	war hammer	neutral	No		+d5 to-hit and +d24 damage to non-shock-resistant monsters. Can return when thrown.		First sacrifice gift for Valkyries.
Ogresmasher	war hammer	unaligned	No		+d5 to-hit and double damage to ogres. 25 constitution when wielded.
The Orb of Detection	crystal ball (glass orb)	lawful	Yes	Magic resistance. Half spell damage. Telepathy.		Invisibility.	Quest artifact of Archeologists.
The Orb of Fate	crystal ball (glass orb)	neutral	Yes	Half physical damage. Half spell damage. Warning. Luck.		Level teleport.	Quest artifact of Valkyries.
Orcrist	elven broadsword (runed broadsword)	chaotic	No		+d5 to-hit and double damage to orcs. Warning of orcs.		May be produced by naming an ordinary elven broadsword Orcrist.
The Platinum Yendorian Express Card	credit card	neutral	Yes	Magic resistance. Half spell damage. Telepathy.		Charging.	Quest artifact of Tourists.
The Sceptre of Might	mace	lawful	Yes	(Magic resistance prior to v3.6.0)	+d5 to-hit and double damage to cross-aligned monsters. Magic resistance	Conflict.	Quest artifact of Cavepeople.
Snickersnee	katana (samurai sword)	lawful	No		+d8 damage.		First sacrifice gift for Samurai.
The Staff of Aesculapius	quarterstaff (staff)	neutral	Yes		Double damage and level drain to non-drain-resistant monsters. Hungerless regeneration. Drain resistance.	Healing, cures sickness, blindness, and sliming.	Quest artifact of Healers.
Sting	elven dagger (runed dagger)	chaotic	No		+d5 to-hit and double damage to orcs. Warning of orcs. Cuts through webs.		May be produced by naming an ordinary elven dagger Sting.
Stormbringer	runesword	chaotic	Yes		+d5 to-hit, +d2 damage and level drain to non-drain-resistant monsters. Drain resistance. Bloodthirsty.		Chaotic crowning gift.
Sunsword	long sword	lawful	No		+d5 to-hit and double damage to undead. Light. Protection from light-based blinding.		May be given to a new angelic being.
Trollsbane	morning star	unaligned	No		+d5 to-hit and double damage to trolls. Prevents trolls from reviving.
The Tsurugi of Muramasa	tsurugi (long samurai sword)	lawful	Yes	Luck.	Protection (+1 to MC up to MC3). +d8 damage. 5% chance of bisection.		Quest artifact for Samurai.
Vorpal Blade	long sword	neutral	No		+d5 to-hit and +1 damage. 5% chance of beheading (100% for jabberwocks).		Neutral crowning gift.
Werebane	silver saber	unaligned	No		+d5 to-hit and double damage to werecreatures. Silver damage

Strategy

An artifact's properties and availability, including artifact weapons and the range of monsters they are effective against, naturally influence their desirability for a given hero, and artifact weapons in particular are considered vital to many kits - of course, it is more than possible to win without ever using a single artifact. A hero's artifact selection is usually governed by their role and alignment as well, since cross-aligned quest artifacts from a different role will be useless to them; while artifact blasts are survivable with proper management, they can also be annoying to deal with.

Artifacts in shops are difficult to procure due to their inflated price, and it is somewhat common to use pets or other monsters in order to steal a shop artifact: this naturally poses several wrinkles if the artifact in question is cursed or of a different alignment from the hero's pet or other monster.

Artifact selection

Between the general rarity of artifacts to begin with and the presence of artifacts making it less likely that other artifacts can generate or be wished for, artifact selection for a hero is more often about finding one that is sufficient for their purposes than it is about reviewing the list and selecting one in advance. The latter generally only occurs if a hero obtains one or more wishes early enough, and even in those cases the "best" artifact to wish for depends on the hero's role, alignment, and whether or not the player is attempting any particular conduct.

For artifact weapons, the most desired ones usually have damage bonuses against all monsters or against a wide range of them, while ones with bonuses against narrower subsets of monsters are considered less valuable. A two-handed artifact weapon prevents the use of a shield and will require tipping an uncursing item(s) out of a bag on hand in order to uncurse it and free up the hero's hands; quest artifacts have a ⁴⁄₅ chance of resisting item-cursing effects, making them less potentially cumbersome in comparison.

Some artifacts that are not usually desired may be sought out as gifts in order to unlock weapon skills for other artifacts - this is most common with lawful heroes that plan to dip for Excalibur, since lawful heroes in roles without first gifts will always receive an artifact long sword. Other heroes may use a helm of opposite alignment to gain access to certain artifacts that they would be unable to use otherwise, though this is far more rare in practice.

Artifact weapon damage calculations

The table below lists the mean damage for each artifact, calculated before any bonuses from strength, skill, and the weapon being blessed. Silver damage is indicated in italics. This table assumes that the artifact is enchanted to +7, and that the target monster is affected by the weapon's damage bonuses (including extra damage from level draining), with the damage to resistant monsters in parentheses if applicable.

Artifact name	Base item type	Alignment	Intelligent	Relevant special properties	Mean damage at +7
					vs. Small	vs. Large
Cleaver	battle-axe	neutral	No	+d3 to-hit & +d6 damage	17.5	19
Demonbane	long sword	lawful	No	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to demons	23 (11.5)	27 (13.5)
Dragonbane	broadsword	unaligned	No	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to dragons	24 (12)	23 (11.5)
Excalibur	long sword	lawful	Yes	+d5 to-hit & +d10 damage. Drain resistance. Searching. Hostile demon princes. Monster tracking.	17	19
Fire Brand	long sword	unaligned	No	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to targets without fire resistance	23 (11.5)	27 (13.5)
Frost Brand	long sword	unaligned	No	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to targets without cold resistance	23 (11.5)	27 (13.5)
Giantslayer	long sword	neutral	No	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to giants	23 (11.5)	27 (13.5)
Grayswandir	silver saber	lawful	No	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage	23 +10.5	23 +10.5
Grimtooth	orcish dagger	chaotic	No	+d2 to-hit & +d6 damage	12.5	12.5
The Longbow of Diana	bow	chaotic	Yes	+d5 to-hit	arrow damage	arrow damage
Magicbane	athame	neutral	No	+d3 to-hit, bonus effects on hit	13.40 (10.5)	12.90 (10)
Mjollnir	war hammer	neutral	No	+d5 to-hit & +d24 damage to non-shock-resistant monsters	23 (10.5)	22 (9.5)
Ogresmasher	war hammer	unaligned	No	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to ogres	21 (10.5)	19 (9.5)
Orcrist	elven broadsword (runed broadsword)	chaotic	No	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to orcs	26 (13)	23 (11.5)
The Sceptre of Might	mace	lawful	Yes	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to cross-aligned monsters	23 (11.5)	21 (10.5)
Snickersnee	katana (samurai sword)	lawful	No	+d8 damage	17	18
The Staff of Aesculapius	quarterstaff (staff)	neutral	Yes	x2 damage, level drain for +1d8 to targets without drain resistance	25.5 (10.5)	25.5 (10.5)
Sting	elven dagger (runed dagger)	chaotic	No	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to orcs	20 (10)	18 (9)
Stormbringer	runesword	chaotic	Yes	+d5 to-hit, +d2 damage & level drain for +1d8 to targets without drain resistance	18 (12)	17.5 (11.5)
Sunsword	long sword	lawful	No	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to undead	23 (11.5)	27 (13.5)
Trollsbane	morning star	unaligned	No	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to trolls	24 (12)	23 (11.5)
The Tsurugi of Muramasa	tsurugi (long samurai sword)	lawful	Yes	+d8 damage and 5% chance of double damage or instadeath via bisection, depending on target's size	instakill (20)	38.85 (19.425)
Vorpal Blade	long sword	neutral	No	+d5 to-hit & +1 damage, 5% chance of beheading corporeal monsters with heads, always instantly kills jabberwocks	instakill (12.5)	instakill (14.5)
Werebane	silver saber	unaligned	No	+d5 to-hit & x2 damage to werecreatures	23+10.5 (11.5+10.5)	23+10.5 (11.5+10.5)

Variants

Almost all variants change artifact mechanics and the properties of artifacts themselves in some manner, often adding new mechanics and artifacts as well - many variants also ease or remove the restrictions on twoweaponing with artifacts, as well as changing the mechanics of wishing for artifacts. Furthermore, many variants will implement artifact-related ideas suggested for NetHack by other players, many of which focus on improving less-used and less-viable artifacts.

The variant sections below give a very basic overview of changes to artifact mechanics, along with links to the article for that variant's list of artifacts. Artifact articles will also have information on changes made to them by variants in the appropriate sections.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, artifacts that roll for bonus damage are given flat damage bonuses instead, e.g. Excalibur deals a flat +10 damage, rather than +1d10.

Cross-aligned artifacts blast a hero for 8d6 damage (lowered to 6d6 with magic resistance), while intelligent artifacts blast a hero for 8d10 damage (lowered to 6d10 if they have magic resistance).