Crystal ball
( 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | crystal ball |
| Appearance | glass orb |
| Base price | 60 zm |
| Weight | 150 |
| Material | glass |
| Monster use | Will not be used by monsters. |
A crystal ball is a type of tool that appears in NetHack. It is a magical tool that is made of glass, and appears as a glass orb when unidentified.
The crystal ball is the base item for three artifacts:
- The Orb of Detection, the Archeologist quest artifact
- The Orb of Fate, the Valkyrie quest artifact
- The Palantir of Westernesse, the defunct quest artifact for the Elf
Generation
Crystal balls make up 3⁄200 of all tools that are randomly generated on the ground, in general shops or as death drops. Hardware stores can also stock crystal balls. A randomly generated crystal ball will have 3-7 charges and has a 1⁄4 chance of being blessed, a 1⁄2 chance of being uncursed, and a 1⁄4 chance of being cursed.[1]
The fourth map of Medusa's Island always generates a crystal ball during level creation, where it is placed underwater in the kraken's dwelling on the square just outside its door.[2]
Elven monarchs have a 1⁄50 chance of being generated with a crystal ball.[3]
Description
A crystal ball is fragile, and throwing, kicking or dropping it from a height (e.g. while levitating) will cause it to break, as will doing the same to any non-magical container that has a crystal ball inside.[4]
A hero that applies or invokes a charged crystal ball while they are not blind is subjected to an intelligence check:[5][6] the intelligence check rolls against a d8 if the crystal ball is the quest artifact of that hero's role, a d16 if the crystal ball is blessed and not the hero's quest artifact, and a d20 otherwise[7]—this check is failed if the hero's intelligence is below the result of that role, or if the crystal ball is cursed, and otherwise the hero will be prompted for the glyph of an object, monster, trap, cloaked mimic (via the right square bracket, ], for strange objects), or dungeon feature to search for on the current level, with the crystal ball having its object type identified.[8][9] Applying or invoking a crystal ball consumes a single charge from the item regardless of the intelligence check's outcome.[10][11][12]
One of the following effects will occur alongside an accompanying message if the hero fails the intelligence check, with an equal probability of each outcome and any impairments lasting for an amount of turns equal to 100 - (3*INT):[7][13]
- No further effect occurs.[14]
- <The crystal ball is> too much to comprehend!
- <The crystal ball> confuses you!
- <The crystal ball> damages your vision!
- You were blinded by the crystal ball.
- <The crystal ball> assaults your vision!
- You are unaffected!
- As above, but you have some form of blindness resistance.
- The hero hallucinates.[17]
- <The crystal ball> zaps your mind!
- If the crystal ball is not an artifact, it explodes, destroying it and dealing up to 30 HP of damage (subject to half physical damage).[18]
- <The crystal ball> explodes!
If the hero passes the check and selects an applicable glyph to scry for, the locations of the selected item, monster or trap in question will be marked and displayed against a black map, with scrying for a dungeon feature displaying all dungeon features present on the level including the type chosen (if applicable).[19][20][21][22][23] Stale object markings of the applicable type are always cleared when mapping item locations from this effect.[24][25][26][27] The hero will be entranced and rendered immobile for up to 10 turns upon leaving this display screen.[28]
Using an uncharged crystal ball will always "pass" the intelligence check, but only entrances the hero for up to 2 turns regardless of what they search for and produces no other effect beyond printing a message.[7][28][29] Using a crystal ball while blind will fail harmlessly without consuming a charge or producing any other effects.[6] Using a charged crystal ball while hallucinating uses up a charge and entrances the hero for 4 turns, and failing the intelligence check has the usual effects while passing the check simply prints one of six messages with no other effect.[7][13][30] Using an uncharged crystal ball while hallucinating entranced the hero for 2 turns and prints a message with no other effect.[31]
Using a crystal ball that is cancelled under any circumstances will produce the same results as an uncharged one, and also causes the object to implode afterward even if the hero is hallucinating or the crystal ball is an artifact:[32][33] this destroys the crystal ball with no damage dealt to the hero, although they will still be entranced from using the item.
If a hero that is not hallucinating applies a charged crystal ball and passes the intelligence check attempts to search for anything other than an item, monster, trap, or dungeon feature, they will instead receive a message hinting at the location for one of Delphi, Medusa's Lair, the Castle, or the Wizard's Tower selected at random[34][35][36]—the exact message for the selected location's dungeon level is determined based on the hero's current dungeon branch and the information in the following table:
| Dlvl difference | Message (in the same branch) | Message (not in the same branch) |
|---|---|---|
| greater than 8-10[35] | "You see <location>, far <below/above>." | "You see <location>, far away." |
| greater than 1 but no greater than the above number | "You see <location>, <below/above> you." | "You see <location>, away <below/above> you." |
| 1 | "You see <location>, just <below/above>." | "You see <location>, in the distance." |
| 0 | "You see <location>, near you." | "You see <location>, in the distance." This particular message is possible when e.g. the hero is in Sokoban and the target level is the Oracle level.[37][38] |
Using a crystal ball successfully and not revealing anything has a 1⁄100 chance of printing a message about the Wizard of Yendor gazing at them, which has no other effect and is deliberately intended to unnerve.[39]
Charging a crystal ball with an uncursed source of charging will add one or two charges up to a maximum of 7, while a blessed scroll will always bless the crystal ball and set it to 7 charges, and cursed charging will remove all charges and curse the crystal ball.[40] Crystal balls can be charged an unlimited amount of times, although the counter will stop updating after reaching 7.[41]
Strategy
The crystal ball is characterized by its shortcomings as much as its strengths: it is quite heavy at 150 aum, and a successful use of the crystal ball leaves the hero helpless for a significant period of time. Additionally, the intelligence check can be rather prohibitive depending on the player's current build of hero. Even so, crystal balls can be a valuable form of detection for traps–including magic portals to the Quest or Fort Ludios–or as a means to reveal the presence of specific objects and items (e.g. gold in vaults, altars, thrones, etc.) on a freshly-entered level and prioritize or steer clear of them accordingly, all dependent on the hero's needs.
Crystal balls have some slight advantages over other consumable detection items, in that they can be used repeatedly as long as it has charges and the hero has sufficient intelligence, and successful detection cannot be fooled or "backfire" by any means: this includes mistaking disguised mimics for objects as with a cursed potion of object detection, monsters awakening from sleep in response to quaffing a cursed potion of monster detection, or traps being disguised as "gold" from reading a cursed scroll of gold detection (although this may be done intentionally in some cases). The spells of detect monsters and detect treasure tend to be just as reliable if not more so, with blessed monster detection being a constant effect (the same as quaffing the blessed potion), but this comes at the cost of the hero's energy.
Even so, spells and consumables also do not leave the hero temporarily immobilized on use: failing the intelligence check for a crystal ball even once can prove deadly, especially for low-level characters. Do not use a crystal ball if you are unsure of its beatitude, in a position where you could be attacked in the next 10 turns, and/or have less than 31 HP, and even when using an identified crystal ball, have a quick cure for impairments such as a unicorn horn on hand unless your intelligence is at the threshold for guaranteed success. As a magical tool, crystal balls can also make enticing polyfodder for players trying to obtain a magic marker.
For reliable use of an uncursed crystal ball, only elves can raise their intelligence to 20 naturally without aid from a worn helm of brilliance. Heroes of other races at their maximum intelligence will have a non-trivial chance of failure when using the crystal ball without a worn helm of brilliance:[7] 1⁄5 or 20% for orcs and dwarves, 1⁄10 or 10% for humans, and 1⁄20 or 5% for gnomes. Blessing a crystal ball makes the intelligence check noticeably less stringent, which is valuable for spellcasting heroes and other INT-focused character builds—even orcs are able to reach the required intelligence of 16 to guarantee success, although this still requires that they maximize said intelligence in the first place.
Crystal balls may be preferred as tools for players that do not yet know the scroll of gold detection, or else lack any other means of object detection, and it may be favored for specific conduct play, such as illiterate and/or pacifist. Tourists are in a somewhat unique position to employ a crystal ball if they wish: The Platinum Yendorian Express Card grants almost-unlimited access to charging, and crystal balls do not explode from overcharging. Players looking to hold on to a crystal ball for the long term must handle them with care, especially if they are in the hero's open inventory or within a non-magical container, and this is all the more true if the hero is punished and attempts to move down a stair case[4]—be sure to identify the crystal ball so you can keep track of its charges, especially if it becomes cancelled!
Artifacts
The two artifact crystal balls are much easier to integrate into a player's strategy, as all quest artifacts resist item-cursing effects 4⁄5 of the time. Valkyries using The Orb of Fate will appreciate the intelligence requirement of 8 for reliable scrying and at worst will only need to boost their intelligence slightly, and can combine it with the artifact's ability to level teleport upon invoking it, as well as a source of teleport control: they can quickly jump several levels towards the vibrating square and detect its location, or else more precisely narrow down possible locations for Vlad's Tower after reaching the level through other means and detecting the vibrating square—they can also use it to find magic portals on the Elemental Planes during their ascension run.
Archeologists often start with fairly high intelligence and can guarantee successful use of their quest artifact, The Orb of Detection, upon obtaining it. Though it is not considered as strong as the Orb of Fate, with toggled invisibility paling in comparison to levelporting, warning, half physical damage and half spell damage, it still offers an Archeologist some useful properties in magic resistance, telepathy and half spell damage, and they can also apply the artifact for much of the same purposes with regards to detecting traps and portals.
History
The crystal ball first appears in NetHack 3.0.0. According to a comment in the code of current versions, a crystal ball can be used in several patches of NetHack 3.0.0 to find the location of the Wizard of Yendor relative to the hero, since he guards the Amulet of Yendor within a random maze level set in Hell in these versions.[42] In versions following these patches up to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, crystal balls function much differently, being closer to their modern incarnations with the following differences:
- They are generated with 1-5 charges.[43]
- Crystal balls use the same intelligence check regardless of their beatitude or whether they are an artifact.[44]
- The hero cannot search for dungeon features, and inputting the glyph of a dungeon feature will instead result in a message describing the location of a special level[45]—inputting _ will search for chain objects (i.e. iron chains) instead of altars.[46]
- Using a crystal ball will always entrance the hero for up to 10 turns, even if it is uncharged.[47]
- Applying a cancelled crystal ball has the same effects as an uncharged one.[48]
- Uncursed charging of a crystal ball will add one charge up to a maximum of 5, while blessed charging will always set the crystal ball to 6 charges, and cursed charging will always set it to 0 charges.[49]
NetHack 5.0.0 establishes all current behavior for the crystal ball via commit 28fb6fc6.
Origin
The crystal ball is typically associated with the art of scrying (known in this form as "crystal gazing" or "crystallomancy"), with a history of such going back to the writings of Pliny the Elder in the 1st century CE; crystal gazing was a particular popular pastime in the Victorian era as well. The crystal ball served as a medium through which thoughts were focused, with the intent of detecting significant messages or visions for various purposes: personal guidance, prophecy, revelation, inspiration, or even divination and fortune-telling.
The small chance that elven monarchs will be generated with a crystal ball is based on the palantír, a fictional magical artifact from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth novels that appears as an indestructible ball of crystal, and is used for communicating and viewing the past and future. This serves as the inspiration for the Palantir of Westernesse, the quest artifact for the defunct elf role.
The crystal ball placed in Medusa's domain may be an allusion to the Graeae, three daughters of the sea-deities Phorcys and Ceto and sisters to the Gorgons. The Graeae shared a single eye and tooth, and Perseus stole their shared eye in order to ransom it for information; depending on the telling, this information entailed the whereabouts of either Medusa herself or the three objects needed to slay her. This may also partly explain why her location and others can be randomly seen if a hero fails to reveal anything when successfully applying the crystal ball.
Messages
- Too bad you can't see <the crystal ball>.
- You applied a crystal ball while blind.
- The vision is unclear.
- You applied a crystal ball without any charges, or else successfully peered into one but did not reveal anything.
- You may look for an object or monster symbol.
- You successfully peered into a crystal ball, and may select a symbol to search for.
- You see the Wizard of Yendor gazing out at you.
- This has a 1% chance of occurring on a successful peer that does not reveal anything.[39]
- All you see is funky <color> haze.
- You applied an uncharged crystal ball while hallucinating.
- Whoa! Psychedelic colors, <dude/babe>!
- You grok some groovy globs of incandescent lava.
- The crystal pulses with sinister <color> light!
- You see goldfish swimming above fluorescent rocks.
- You see tiny snowflakes spinning around a miniature farmhouse.
- Oh wow... like a kaleidoscope!
- One of these six messages is printed if you "successfully" peered into a charged crystal ball while hallucinating.
Variants
NetHack variants based on versions prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may retain the behavior of crystal balls from those versions, and some variants may reduce the item's weight or change its functions independently of vanilla NetHack.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, crystal balls behave as they do in NetHack 3.4.3 and prior contemporary versions. They are notably the only type of tool that is not affected by the amnesia-inducing waters of the Castle's moat, which typically strip charges from affected magical items.
Crystal balls can be upgraded to magic markers and vice versa, and a magic marker that is upgraded into a crystal ball will have 10-12 charges. This makes crystal balls a useful source of markers for heroes that either have spare potions of gain level, or are gnomish heroes with access to the tinker technique. A crystal ball's low initial charges mean that a hero will get at most one low-value scroll out of the resulting marker before recharging it back to 50 charges, but this is still more than useful enough for most purposes. A once-charged marker that does not have enough ink for additional scrolls or even engraving Elbereth can be upgraded into a crystal ball (and then further polymorphed if desired) in order to get some use out of its remaining charges.
SLASH'EM's precursors, NetHack Plus and SLASH 6, have additional items that share the same appearance as the crystal ball: the orb of charging, orb of destruction and orb of enchantment. These glass orbs have a base price of 750 zm and weigh 75 aum, making it somewhat easy to tell an actual crystal ball apart from them via weight testing or price identification—they remain in the code of SLASH'EM as deferred features.[50][51]
NetHack brass
In NetHack brass, the crystal ball has its weight reduced to 75 aum and otherwise behaves as it does in NetHack 3.4.3 and prior contemporary versions. NetHack brass also adds the other glass orb items from the precursor variants of SLASH'EM, making price identification the most reliable method to informally identify a glass orb as a crystal ball.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, crystal balls have their weight significantly reduced to 50 aum, and behave as they do in NetHack 3.4.3.
The Palantir of Westernesse is re-introduced and can be obtained from the Elvish Racial Quest by elven heroes of certain roles, and a set of five artifact crystal balls appear in the Temple of Chaos variant of the Chaos Quest.
xNetHack
In xNetHack, crystal balls are generated with up to 25 charges and weigh only 100 aum. Gazing into them no longer immobilizes the hero, and the beatitude of the crystal ball is also a factor in successful checks, with a +5 bonus applied toward the intelligence check when blessed, or a −5 penalty when cursed. A crystal ball will also never explode on failure unless it is cursed, and entering an invalid character to search for in a crystal ball will prompt the hero again rather than wasting the charge. Uncursed charging of a crystal ball will add 6-10 charges.
One of Itlachiayaque's invocation effects allows the holder to gaze into it for the same effect as a crystal ball of the same beatitude, akin to the Orb of Detection (which it replaces as the Archeologist quest artifact).
notdNetHack
In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, in addition to dNetHack details, crystal balls can be resized with an upgrade kit.
Encyclopedia entry
You look into one of these and see _vapours swirling like
clouds_. These shortly clear away to show a sort of video
without sound of something that is going to happen to you
soon. It is seldom good news.
References
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1032-L1035
- ↑ dat/medusa.lua in NetHack 5.0.0, line 81
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 260-L261
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 src/dothrow.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2576-L2609: breaktest() function
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1205-L1368: use_crystal_ball() function
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1213-L1216
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1217-L1219
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1198
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1297-L1306
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1254-L1255
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1292
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1332
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1221-L1257
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1222-L1224
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1225-L1228
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1229-L1239
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1240-L1244
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1245-L1252
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1334-L1352: calls detection functions as needed
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 596-L789: object_detect() function
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 791-L862: monster_detect() function
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1005-L1088: trap_detect() function
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1090-L1134: furniture_detect() function
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 311-L331: clear_stale_map() function
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 343: call from gold_detect()
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 448: call from food_detect()
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 686: call from object_detect() if there were no stale markings to clear
- ↑ 28.0 28.1 src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1313
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1317-L1318
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1259-L1295
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1259-L1265
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1266-L1267
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1320-L1325
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1353-L1358
- ↑ 35.0 35.1 src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1136-L1185: level_distance() function—the level difference is compared with the random roll (8 + rn2(3))
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1187-L1203: struct crystalballlevels
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1159
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1174
- ↑ 39.0 39.1 src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1361-L1362
- ↑ src/read.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 916-L965
- ↑ src/read.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 838-L842
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1136-L1140: comments in level_distance() function refer to "3.0.0plN" (patch level N)
- ↑ src/mkobj.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 940
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1106
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1219-L1225
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1340-L1341: "checking furniture before objects allows '_' to find altars (along with other furniture) instead of finding iron chains"
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1189
- ↑ src/detect.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1192-L1193
- ↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 651-L664
- ↑ apply.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 3570
- ↑ objects.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 858
