Crystals (dNetHack)
- For the object materials, see either glass or gemstone.
The Crystals are a set of five artifact crystal balls that appear in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, and are associated with the Temple of Chaos variant of the Chaos Quest.
Four of the Crystals are found early on in the quest, but attempting to pick them up will cause them to evade a hero's grasp and blast them—a Crystal can only be safely picked up once its guardian is defeated, rendering them useless if they appear in bones and the Chaos Quest in that game is a different variant.
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Generation
The first four Crystals are unaligned and found embedded within the walls of the Ruined Temple, while The Black Crystal is generated in the possession of Chaos.
As Chaos Quest artifacts, all five Crystals cannot be wished for since they are guaranteed to appear if the Chaos Temple is generated as the Chaos Quest branch; only the Black Crystal is counted towards the total number of artifacts generated in a game. Any of the Crystals can generate in bones files as mentioned above; if this occurs in a game with the Temple of Chaos as the Chaos Quest, the Crystals in question are replaced with normal crystal balls.
Description
All five Crystals each have a weight value different from the variants' standard 50 aum of a crystal ball. Each Crystal also has an #invoke ability and an extrinsic property that roughly matches their element; carrying each Crystal grants knowledge of a specific spell and provides bonuses to casting that spell, along with increasing the skill cap for certain skills by one point.
In addition, carrying all five Crystals grants a single use of life saving that stacks with the life saving property of the Black Crystal—the life saving of all five Crystals is used first if possible, and the Black Crystal's life saving is used otherwise. The Black Crystal and the other four Crystals will appear as "cracked" to show that their life saving has been used up, though cracked Crystals otherwise function as normal.
List of Crystals
| Name | Color | Guardian | Weight (aum) | Properties | Invoke | Taught Spell(s) | Boosted skills | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Initial | Purified | |||||||
| The Earth Crystal | ( | ( | Lich, the Fiend of Earth L | 100 | Half physical damage while carried | Earthquake | dig | martial arts upgrades bare-handed combat to martial arts attack spells healing spells clerical spells shuriken |
| The Fire Crystal | ( | ( | Kary, the Fiend of Fire & | 10 | Fire resistance while carried | Area-of-effect fire spell | fireball | long sword bow wand damage matter spells dagger |
| The Water Crystal | ( | ( | Kraken, the Fiend of Water ; | 40 | Cold resistance while carried | Area-of-effect ice spell | cone of cold | hammer spear broadsword clerical spells musicalize spell |
| The Air Crystal | ( | ( | Tiamat, the Fiend of Wind D | 20 | Shock resistance while carried | Area-of-effect shock spell | lightning bolt | bare-handed combat axe saber healing spells attack spells dagger |
| The Black Crystal | ( | ( | Chaos & | 30 | Magic resistance and warning while carried, life saving, deals double damage when thrown | Area-of-effect 'death' spell (similar to breaking a wand of death, flavored as a "disintegration field") | haste self extra healing |
two-handed sword escape spells |
