Unicorn horn

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(
Name	unicorn horn
Appearance	unicorn horn
Damage vs. small	1d12
Damage vs. large	1d12
To-hit bonus	+1
Weapon skill	unicorn horn
Size	two-handed
Base price	100 zm (+10/positive enchant)
Weight	20
Material	bone

A unicorn horn, sometimes called a unihorn, is a type of weapon-tool that appears in NetHack. It is made of bone.

Generation

Unicorn horns are not randomly generated and can only be obtained from a unicorn, which leaves an uncursed +0 unicorn horn behind if killed in a way that leaves a corpse. Horns obtained from unicorns that were not revived via undead turning or polymorphed are considered magical items. Revived or polymorphed unicorns only have a 50% chance of leaving one upon death; the rest of the time, its horn will crumble to dust.

Healer player monsters have a ¹⁄₁₆ to be generated with a unicorn horn in place of their melee weapon.

Unicorn horn skill

Unicorn horn
Max	Role
Basic	Caveman
Skilled	Archeologist, Priest, Tourist
Expert	Healer

The unicorn horn has a dedicated weapon skill which only it uses.

Description

As a weapon, the unicorn horn is two-handed, has +1 to-hit, and deals d12 damage to small and large monsters.

As a tool, applying a noncursed unicorn horn can cure multiple negative status properties:

• Blindness, except from cream pies and venom
• Deafness
• Confusion
• Hallucination
• Stunning
• Sickness
• Nausea (from eating tripe/eggs)
• Lost attribute points

A unicorn horn cannot cure:

• Stoning
• Sliming
• Lycanthropy
• Wounded legs
• Amnesia

Applying an uncursed unicorn horn will fix rn2(2d2) ailments, whilst a blessed one can heal rn2(2d4) ailments. If the actual number of ailments is less than this, all of them are fixed, otherwise the ailments to heal are randomly selected.

In case of lost attribute points, each lost attribute point up to 3 is considered a separate ailment. For example, if a player has lost 10 points of strength and 2 points of dexterity, and is also blind and deaf, it is counted as 7 ailments (3 ailments of strength loss, 2 ailments of dexterity loss, 1 ailment of blindness and 1 ailment of deafness).

After selecting the ailments to fix, whenever the ailment is lost attribute points, the attribute is increased by one, otherwise the ailment is completely healed.

A cursed unicorn horn, when applied, inflicts one of the following ailments: blindness, deafness, confusion, stunning, hallucination, sickness, or attribute loss. The chance is 1/13 for deafness, 2/13 for each other ailment. Attribute loss reduces a random attribute by 1 point. Sickness, if the player is already sick and expected to die in N turns, reduces the duration to N/3 + 1 turns. Other ailments last 10-99 (more) turns.

If a player is wearing a ring of sustain ability, a unicorn horn will not affect your attributes.

When used by an intelligent monster with hands, noncursed unicorn horns are guaranteed to work on the first try; monsters will not use cursed unicorn horns.

Dipping a noncursed unicorn horn into certain potions can "cure" them as well: dipping one into a potion of sickness changes it to a potion of fruit juice, and dipping one into a potion of blindness, confusion, or hallucination will turn it into a potion of water.

Unicorns can use their own horn to heal status effects, as can a player polymorphed into a unicorn via the #monster; these produce the same effect as applying an uncursed unicorn horn.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.

Unicorn horns can no longer restore reduced attributes. Alternatives include restore ability or gain ability potions, the restore ability spell, or prayer.

Cursed unicorn horns also no longer reduce attributes, and can additionally induce nausea (which currently gives no message).

Strategy

The unicorn horn is an important tool for almost any ascension kit - not only for its restorative abilities, but for its potential as a solid backup weapon and an aid in potion identification.

Obtaining and maintaining horns

Unicorns that generate as hostile can be somewhat difficult foes to deal with early on, due to their movement patterns, speed and teleportation ability. Most such unicorns will be cross-aligned, although circumstances involving bones or polymorphing can result in a hostile co-aligned unicorn; in either case, a thrown gem (ideally ones you suspect to be worthless glass) can pacify them.

Decently strong pets can be used to run down a unicorn without incurring Luck penalties, though the pet will be in danger from counterattacks. Once a player has solid AC, they can approach hostiles unicorn in melee or make use of tools such as invisibility, displacement, traps, and even rebounds from spells and wands to dispatch them. As you kill more unicorns, it will be worth carrying a couple of backup horns with you, handing spare ones to humanoid pets, and stashing others in the event you need to retrieve a spare later

If you informally identify a noncursed unicorn horn, especially from a bones pile, be sure to formally identify its beatitude as soon as possible so you will know if it becomes cursed later on. It is also advised to bless your unicorn horn the first chance you get; in addition to reliability, blessing it will provide extra protection against becoming cursed by hostile spellcasters, as with most items. Some players may consider wielding it during prayer - your god may bless your wielded weapon as a successful prayer boon.

Monsters and pets

Intelligent monsters with hands can use unicorn horns, including pets 0 they will keep the first unicorn horn that they pick up in their inventory, and use them immediately when confused or stunned; hallucination that affects monsters is treated as confusion instead. Monsters may optionally even wield the unicorn horn as a weapon, if it is their best available option and they are not wearing a shield.

Be sure to give applicable pets any spare unicorn horns you find - a black light sneaking up on you and confusing your pet is a potential worst-case scenario, leaving you immediately adjacent to danger with little warning unless they can use the horn to immediately cure themselves. Remember that tame monsters do not respect Elbereth, but can be scared by other means.

As a curative item

A unicorn horn is among one of the most valuable general assets in terms of healing status effects: though even a blessed one is not 100% guaranteed to cure at least one status affliction on use, it is the most reliable such item accessible to any character and role. As a reusable cure, the unicorn horn can also help preserve magic power, prayer, and other resources for later use. Most of what outmatches a blessed unicorn horn in reliability is dependent on the character in some manner, e.g., healing spells such as cure sickness cast at 0% failure rate are reliant on the caster - innate ability, wisdom/intelligence, skill level, armor selection, etc.

The approximate cumulative odds of curing a single ailment are listed below; each status property counts as one ailment, and each lowered attribute is counted as a separate ailment.

Uncursed

Attempts	1	2	3	4	5
Cures	64.6%	87.5%	95.638%	98.43%	99.44%

Blessed

Attempts	1	2	3	4	5
Cures	77.4%	94.89%	98.85%	99.74%	99.94%

As a weapon

The unicorn horn is respectable as a weapon—it is a good lightweight, non-artifact option, especially for roles not restricted in the skill, and may occasionally even be a primary choice for certain characters such as Healers. Unenchanted unicorn horns are especially handy as a backup against monsters such as rust monsters or disenchanters that you do not want to risk your main weapon against.

The average damage calculations in the following table do not include bonuses from weapon skills, strength, or from using a blessed weapon against undead or demons.

Weapon	Average damage
+0 unicorn horn	$\frac{1+12}{2}=\bold{6.5}$
+7 unicorn horn	$\frac{1+12}{2}+7=\bold{13.5}$

Potion identification

Once you possess a noncursed unicorn horn, you can use one to identify potions as described above; if you have enough spare horns, you can also use them to dip-test for other potions. The potion of polymorph in particular requires certain considerations: players without a spare horn will want to use junk items to dip-test first and identify it beforehand. Dipping ammunition such as darts and arrows this way has the added benefit of potentially identifying potions of sickness (which will poison the item).

Players with spare unicorn horns can freely use them to dip-test for polymorph unless they are adhering to polypileless conduct, and may receive another useful magical tool out of the deal.

Polypiling

Spare unicorn horns also make great fodder for polypiling, as long as they did not come from a revived or polymorphed unicorn. However, polypiling with many horns and other bone items in a single pile may generate a skeleton; this is best avoided by spreading them between the piles prior to polymorphing.

Cursed unicorn horns

A unicorn horn found in a bones pile is very likely to be cursed, and ideally should not be used until you can #dip it in holy water, find an altar or otherwise test its beatitude. With some luck, you may be able to liberate any spare ones the former character had from a container(s) within the pile; you can also use a noncursed scroll of remove curse or cast the spell in order to restore the horn. Otherwise, you can group it with the other bones items you wish to uncurse or blank and zap a wand of cancellation at the pile.

If your only unicorn horn is cursed and you lack a source of curse removal or spare horns, you can wield it and pray after it welds to your hands – having no free hands counts as a major trouble, and praying successfully will uncurse the horn. However, be absolutely sure that you are in good standing with your god beforehand!

Cursed unicorn horns may be useful as a source of status afflictions - negative effects from a cursed unicorn horn can be cured without too much trouble by a non-cursed one, and spare non-cursed unicorn horns are not hard to obtain once you and/or your pet are capable of reliably killing unicorns. In particular, cursed unicorn horns are a source of confusion that preserves the illiterate conduct for purposes such as throne farming - especially if you are playing a role with no starting spells.

In addition to the standard methods of cursing items, you can also curse a unicorn horn without breaking any conducts by dipping it in a fountain - this has a ¹⁄₃₀ chance of cursing the dipped item.

History

The unicorn horn is introduced in NetHack 3.0.6.

Origin

The unicorn's horn, also known as an "alicorn", is a legendary object in antiquity-era folktalkes - many healing powers and curative qualities were attributed to it that made it one of the most expensive and reputable remedies during Renaissance times, which is the primary reason that unicorns were such sought-after creatures. Belief in the power of the alicorn persisted until the 16th century, when it was discovered that in truth the horn was that of the narwhal, and was actually an extended tooth formed in the mouth of males and some females of the species.

Purported unicorn horns were given as diplomatic gifts, and horn chips and dust could be purchased at apothecaries as universal antidotes until the 18th century. Sections of horns were displayed in cabinets of curiosities, and they were used to create sceptres and other royal objects across European history. The unicorn horn has since been mentioned in various fantasy works, role-playing games, and video games, which make use of its legendary symbolism.

Messages

Unicorns

The tip of the <color> unicorn's horn glows!

A unicorn cured a status problem using its horn.

The <color> unicorn's recently regrown horn crumbles to dust.

A revived unicorn died, but did not drop a unicorn horn.

Non-cursed unicorn horns

Nothing happens.

You have no conditions that the unicorn horn can fix.

Nothing seems to happen.

You have a condition that could be fixed by the horn, but it was not cured.

This makes you feel great!

You had attribute points restored, and you have no other conditions.

This makes you feel better!

You had attribute points restored, but you still have other conditions (not necessarily ones that the horn can cure).

What a relief!

The unicorn horn cured you of sickness.

Cursed unicorn horns

You feel deathly sick.

You became ill; you have between 20 and (19+Con) turns left to live.

You feel <much/even> worse.

You were already ill; your turns to live have been reduced to 1/3 of their value.

A cloud of darkness falls upon you.

You were blinded.

You suddenly feel confused.

You became confused.

You stagger...

You became stunned.

Oh wow! Everything looks so cosmic!

You started hallucinating.

You are unable to hear anything.

You became deaf. This outcome is half as likely as the others.

Variants

Many variants remove or weaken the unicorn horn's ability to restore attributes in order to lower reliance on the item and make other options for restoring stats more viable.

In the Advent calendar patch and variants that incorporate it, a unicorn horn is one of the possible Christmas presents that may be found in room 24, and may appear very rarely in any of the other rooms.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, the probability of a unicorn horn curing ailments is changed. Blessed horns try to fix all problems, each with the given probability, and uncursed horns try to fix a single problem, with the same probability.

Enchantment	Chance
0 or less	30%
1	40%
2	50%
3	60%
4	70%
5	80%
6 or more	90%

SLASH'EM also adds an artifact unicorn horn, Nighthorn. It is lawful and confers reflection when wielded, and is obtained by killing Nightmare at the end of the Lawful Quest.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, a unicorn horn does not restore lost attribute points. As a result, the potion of restore ability and spellbook of restore ability are much more useful.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, unicorn horns are one-handed weapons and do not restore lost attribute points.

A blessed tin of jubjub bird meat is an item gives 600 nutrition and acts as a single-use unicorn horn.

Characters that have the spirit Echidna gain skill in unicorn horns.

Nightmare and the ancient of corruption have a headbutt attack that can inflict various status conditions by replicating the effects of applying a cursed horn.

FIQHack

In FIQHack, unicorn horns do not affect attributes in any way. In addition, uncursed unicorn horns are far less reliable, only having a 20% of curing an ailment per use; blessed unicorns horns will always cure all applicable ailments, but have a 10% chance of becoming uncursed afterward.

xNetHack

In xNetHack, unicorn horns do not restore lost attribute points; they also deal less damage when used as weapons (1d8/1d10), but are now one-handed as in dNetHack. A unicorn horn wielded in your main hand is passively auto-applied every turn if you are not wearing gloves, curing status problems without using an action.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, unicorn horns function as they do in xNetHack, minus the passive auto-application.

Encyclopedia entry

See the encyclopedia entry for unicorn.