TomeNET

(4.11a) Black Breath                                                            
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Black Breath is a deadly spiritual malady, making your character flicker dark
(which is visible to other players and yourself) with the following effects:

- It will randomly drain your stats in slow but steady intervals persistently,
  requiring you to use some means of restoration (such as potions from the
  alchemist town shop).

- It will permanently drain your experience in slow but steady intervals,
  so it cannot be restored (eg via 'Restore Life Levels' or equivalent means).

  You can lose levels this way and if you drop below zero XP you will die.

  The amount of XP lost is independant of your race/class experience factors
  so high-penalty characters (eg Maia race) suffer the most as they have a
  harder time (re)gaining experience.

  Taking such an xp hit will break rogue's 'cloaking'.

- In fixed intervals you will see a message:
    "The Black Breath saps your soul!"
  which disturbs any resting you might be doing.
  At the same time players nearby you will see the warning message:
    "A dark aura seems to surround <your name>!"


Undead characters and hobbits, that includes mimicked monster forms, have less
chance of getting infected and will less frequently suffer from the infection.

Training 'Holy Curing' to 50.000 will further reduce the frequency of suffering
from Black Breath infection (also stacks with the hobbit/undead advantage).


Black Breath can be inflicted on the player in four ways:

- coming in contact with a Nazgul (high chance to get infected, very high even
  for martial arts users as they tend to come into contact more directly with
  hands, feet and limbs).

- coming in contact with a high level undead monster (very low chance to get
  infected. Also, the halloween event monster 'The Great Pumpkin' will never
  inflict Black Breath despite being a level 127 undead monster in theory.)

- another player bumping into you, switching places with you or pushing past
  you (or trying to).
  However, there are exceptions when players cannot infect other players:
  - if they are in Bree or in the 'Training Tower' dungeon or in Valinor.
  - if the target character is in a town in 'afk' state (eg via the /afk slash
    command or auto_afk setting kicking in).
  - if the target character level is lower than 25.

- equipping an item that inflicts black breath.
  Currently only weapons of Morgul do this.
  Note that the black breath cannot be cured until you unequip the item.


Some characters are even completely immune to Black Breath:

- Vampires (player race, not mimicked) are immune to Black Breath.
- Players under the effect of 'Martyr' prayer are immune to new infections
  (casting Martyr won't heal an existing infection though).


There are several possibilities to cure Black Breath:

- Eating a Sprig of Athelas.
- 'Soul Curing' prayer, ask a friendly priest to cast it on you.
- 'Herbal Tea' druid spell, ask a friendly druid to cast it on you.
- Visiting the Earth-Dome in Gondolin which offers 'Herbal Healing'
  for a (somewhat steep) price (also see (4.5a about special town shops)).
- Quaffing a potion of Life.

(However, note that you cannot cure black breath for as long as you have an
item equipped that inflicts it, ie a weapon of Morgul. Take it off first,
then cure it.)