The Orb of Fate

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(   The Orb of Fate
Base item	crystal ball
Affiliation	neutral Valkyrie intelligent
When carried	warning half spell damage half physical damage acts as luckstone
When applied	selective detection of items, objects and dungeon features
When invoked	level teleport
Base price	3500 zm
Weight	150
Material	glass

The Orb of Fate is the Valkyrie quest artifact. It is the prize for completing the Valkyrie quest, and its default alignment is neutral. Its base item type is a crystal ball.

Generation

For Valkyries, the blessed Orb of Fate is always generated with 5 charges and set on the goal level of the Valkyrie quest, where it is placed on the same square as Lord Surtur along with the Bell of Opening during level creation. If a Valkyrie loads a bones level containing the quest artifact, it will always be reverted to its base item.

Description

While carried, The Orb of Fate grants warning, half spell damage, half physical damage, and acts as a luckstone. Applying the Orb of Fate behaves similarly to applying any crystal ball of the same beatitude, with one exception: Valkyries applying the artifact are subject to an intelligence check against the result of a d8, while other roles are checked against the roll of a d16. Invoking the Orb causes the hero to level teleport. Applying the Orb of Fate while it is cancelled will cause it to implode and be destroyed, as with any other crystal ball.

Reading the artifact breaks illiterate conduct and reveals the divine signature of the god Odin, even if the hero is blind.

Strategy

For optimized invocation, see Invoke#Optimum invocation schedule.

The Orb of Fate is extremely useful, serving as a crystal ball and luckstone while also providing massive defensive utility by granting both half damage properties. Warning is valuable for spotting approaching or hidden hostile monsters ahead of time, including mindless monsters that telepathy cannot detect, and the ability to level teleport is especially useful with teleport control for speedy travel that can save on cursed scrolls of teleportation. One of the artifact's primary drawbacks is that it is also quite heavy due to its 150 aum base item, and is often called the Orb of Weight by some players, since it must be in the hero's main inventory (i.e. not in a container) to grant its effects.

Valkyries can reliably use their quest artifact to scry for traps, magic portals (such as those on the Elemental Planes) and the vibrating square if their intelligence is moderately high, which can save them resources such as magic marker ink that would be spent on writing or obtaining scrolls of gold detection for cursed or confused reading during the late game and end game stages. As an artifact wish candidate for other roles, neutral heroes with lower HP than average may consider wishing for the Orb of Fate after obtaining both magic resistance and reflection, and neutral character builds that have 16 intelligence can reliably apply the Orb of Fate to detect traps and portals.

History

The Orb of Fate is introduced along with most of the other quest artifacts in NetHack 3.1.0. From this version to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, applying the Orb of Fate as a crystal ball functioned the same as with any other crystal ball, excluding the chance of explosion on a failed intelligence check. NetHack 5.0.0 applies several buffs to crystal balls via commit 28fb6fc6 so that quest artifact crystal balls have lower rolls for intelligence checks (with even lower ones for the quest artifact of the hero's role) and can be applied more reliably, and crystal balls that are artifacts or blessed cannot be destroyed as a result of a failed intelligence check—the commit also introduces the implosion effect of applying a cancelled crystal ball.

Messages

It is signed:

"Odin."

You read the Orb of Fate.

You feel the engraved signature:

This replaces the first line above if you read the artifact while blind.

Variants

xNetHack

xNetHack replaces The Orb of Fate with Sol Valtiva, which similarly grants both half damage properties and can be invoked to level teleport.

EvilHack

EvilHack replaces The Orb of Fate with Gjallar, a neutral tooled horn. This also applies to Hack'EM.

Encyclopedia entry

Some say that Odin himself created this ancient crystal ball,
although others argue that Loki created it and forged Odin's
signature on the bottom. In any case, it is a powerful
artifact. Anyone who carries it is granted the gift of
warning, and damage, both spell and physical, is partially
absorbed by the orb itself. When invoked it has the power
to teleport the invoker between levels.