TomeNET

(5.12) Curses                                                                   
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Several items you find will be {cursed}!
Cursed items usually have bad effects that outweigh or dominate their useful
abilities, and you cannot take them off once you equipped them, as long as
the curse isn't broken. Cursed artifacts and ego items are pseudo-ID'ed as
{terrible}. Shops won't buy cursed items, they might buy the item after the
curse is broken, however.
If you equip an unidentified item and it carries a curse your character will
notice 'Oops, it feels deadly cold!'.

Note: Instead of dropping an item which curse you have successfully broken,
      you may of course also just outright destroy it with 'k' key instead.
      You cannot destroy artifacts though (for example Rings of Power dropped
      by Nazgul).

There are different types of curses:
CURSED          can be broken by a regular 'remove curse'.
                Item cannot be taken off or destroyed (via 'k' key) until the
                curse is broken.
HEAVY_CURSE     requires a strong '*remove curse*' to be broken.
                Item cannot be removed until the curse is broken.
                On weapons, there is a high chance of resisting disarming.
                See the hint regarding the use of enchant scrolls to break a
                heavy curse instead of using a *rc* scroll, written at the
                bottom of this paragraph!
PERMA_CURSE     This curse can never be broken.
                Item can never be taken off or otherwise removed again!
                Mimics polymorphing into a form that cannot wear the specific
                item won't succeed getting rid of it either, instead they will
                still have the item equipped!
                There is absolutely no way to get rid of this item. If you
                find a way then you found a bug =).
CURSE_NO_DROP   these items cannot be dropped from inventory as long as the
                curse isn't broken. CURSE_NO_DROP occurs together with
                CURSED or HEAVY_CURSE.
AUTO_CURSE      occurs together with CURSED or HEAVY_CURSE.
                If the curse is broken, AUTO_CURSE items will automatically
                recurse themselves as soon as the item is equipped, taken off,
                or picked up. To get rid of an AUTO_CURSEd item that you don't
                need anymore (d)rop it to the ground after the curse has been
                broken. If you had the item equipped, don't take it off but
                (d)rop it to the ground right from your equipment! Otherwise
                it will recurse itself.
                To drop directly from your equipment, press '/' key at the
                "drop what?" prompt, which will switch to equipment (and back
                to inventory if pressed again).
TY_CURSE        "It carries an ancient foul curse."
                Randomly drains stats sometimes, even if the item is uncursed.
                (TY_CURSE will stay, even if the 'normal' curse is broken!)
                Lowers the items value by 15000 Au.
                This curse will be on hold while you're in a town, and will
                also occur rather rarely while you're on the world surface,
                ie not within a dungeon or tower.
                Note that your saving throw has a chance to suppress it.
                Having 'Holy Support' skill at 40.000 or better will completely
                negate TY_CURSE effects.
DG_CURSE        "It carries an ancient morgothian curse."
                Rarely summons a random non-unique monster on you, even if
                uncursed. The monster will yield no credit, xp or loot.
                Monster groups (escorts or friends) cannot be summoned by this
                curse, so it will always just be a single monster.
                The maximum (randomized) monster level will be..
                (player level * 7 / 5 + dungeon_level) / 2 + 5.
                (DG_CURSE will stay, even if the 'normal' curse is broken!)
                Greatly lowers the items value by 25000 Au.
                This curse will be on hold while you're in a town area.
                Note that an anti-magic field has a chance to suppress it.
                Having 'Holy Support' skill at 40.000 or better will completely
                negate DG_CURSE effects.

If 'CURSED' or 'HEAVY_CURSE' occurs on an enchantable item such as a weapon or
armour piece, the curses can alternatively be broken by enchanting the item's
stats above +0 manually. (Note: The enchant service of shops CANNOT do this!)
Each enchantment of any of their stats (to-hit, to-dam, to-ac) above +0 has
a certain chance to break the curse. This can often be cheaper than buying a
*Remove Curse* scroll for HEAVY_CURSE items.
This is an especially commonly used trick for getting rid of Morgul weapons.
Just pick the stat that is already higher. Example:
A Dagger of Morgul (-33,-15) -> You'd enchant its damage to +0 or higher,
since it requires you to buy less scrolls (15+) than going for to-hit (33+).
If the item you want to enchant is among your equipment instead of your
inventory, press '/' key at the "enchant what?" prompt, which will switch to
equipment (and back to inventory if pressed again).

Vampires and Hell Knights have a special take on heavy curses:
If an item is heavily cursed and it is NOT the "of nothingness" type (weapons)
then if a vampire or Hell Knight (true one, not mimicked) equips it its
negative boni will flip to positive numbers. Also vampires tend to greatly
resist certain bad effects that heavily cursed items may exert, making for
example Morgul weapons and some heavily cursed true artifacts quite useful.
Randarts however will not get 'flipped' but rather rerolled completely! This
follows three rules:
a) the resulting randart won't be cursed,
b) the resulting randart won't drain hitpoints of undead or demon users,
c) the resulting randart keeps all 'good' abilities it might have had.
In rare cases rerolling the randart might fail and it will stay cursed, oops!
Note that the curse must be heavy, not normal, for all of this bonus-flipping
and rerolling to work.
Look up the Vampire race description in (7.4) for more information.