• Spoilers
• Curses

CURSES

Cursed items are... cursed. If you wear or wield such an item, you get the message "Oops, it feels deathly cold!". You will not be able to take it off again until it has been uncursed, if in fact it can be uncursed at all. When pseudo-ID'd or ID'd, a cursed item has "{cursed}" after its name.

Though most {cursed} items are bad, not all are bad to have or use. Examples:

1. You get +40% mana from a certain cursed amulet. Though it re-curses itself all the time, you want the mana and are not going to be swapping it out. Who cares if it's cursed?

2. You are a Possessor. Wearing a cursed item will prevent you from being knocked out of your body, even if you run out of mana. (The "Cursed" prefix is good for this; see below.) Note: If you try this, your hitpoints will be reduced to 1, so it is a perilous practice at best.

At low character level, feel free to discard every {cursed} item you run into, but at mid to late game you should keep a look out for a few cursed items. When in doubt, try to destroy the item. If it is indestructible, you may want to ID it. In any case, you must be very careful as the game progresses, as you may well run into increasingly nasty curses.

There are a few very useful items with negatives that can be destroyed, but they are rare, and similar egos will come up again anyway (Vampiric weapons of fury come to mind as they give extra blows and drain hit points from monsters to heal you. Also, their life penalty can be flipped).

Curse

"It is cursed."

The overwhelming majority of cursed items are garden-variety "bad" items -- armour with negative AC, or weaponry with negative to-hit and/or to-damage modifiers -- but nothing else is wrong with them. In a pinch, you can uncurse these, enchant them up and have a serviceable item.... for a fair chunk of AU, that is. Rarely, it's worth it to do so.

The object's other aspects are not affected by cursing. A ring of speed +12 {cursed} is still +12 to your speed. On the other hand, there may well be other bad aspects of the item to start with. When in doubt, *ID* it!

To remove the curse on a {cursed} item, you must read or cast _Remove Curse_ or _*Remove Curses*_, and the spell must succeed. (It does not always succeed.) You can only un-equip the object when the curse is removed.

Heavy curse

"It is heavily cursed."

Exactly the same as a {cursed} item, but you need _*Remove Curse*_ to get rid of it, as the weaker _Remove Curse_ won't work.

A heavy curse might arise at object creation, or as the result of _Cursed_ equipment being cursed again (often as a result of the "Cursed" prefix).

Auto-curse

"It can re-curse itself."

There is a ring/amulet ego, "Cursed" (e.g. Cursed Aumlet of Weaponmastery) which grants this curse.

This item usually has a basic curse to start with. Even if it does not, if you wear it, it'll become cursed over time via recursing. If the item already has a curse, recursing will change the basic curse into a heavy curse. A heavy curse, however, will never become a permacurse.

The object's other aspects are not affected. For example, a Cursed Ring of Speed (+12) {cursed} is still +12 to your speed.

Permacurse

"It is permanently cursed."

This curse cannot be removed. Ever. When worn, the cursed item cannot be removed. Ever. It is appears only on a very few items such as the One Ring or the Massive Iron Crown of Morgoth.

Aggravate

"It aggravates nearby monsters."

Rings of aggravate monsters (which also start out normally cursed) and various artifacts have this flag. Also, Morgul weapons and cursed randarts almost always carry this flag.

While wearing an item with this curse, all monsters including pets and companions and coaligned immediately become angry at you (they become flagged enemy), and all sleeping monsters are woken. This occurs one per normal speed turn and symbiants with speed have been known to summon and hypnotize a pet before it turns hostile.

Aggravate from a worn item will not go away if you use morphing potions or mimicry. But those tricks work if the aggravate is on you (as in Maia race).

If your play style is to kill everything in sight anyways, aggravate isn't so bad. But be careful at low levels, aggravate drives breeders mad.

Curse_no_drop

"It cannot be dropped while cursed."

An object with this curse and one of the standard curses (_Curse_, _Heavy Curse_, or _Permacurse_) cannot be dropped or destroyed. Once the standard curse is removed, the item can be dropped or destroyed (or sold!) at will; on the other hand, Curse_no_drop can never be removed.

This curse is mostly seen on Amulets of Doom, but also appears on the Ringwraith rings and on the One Ring, which is also permacursed and thus can never be dropped!

Random teleportation

"It induces random teleportation."

Random teleportation is the mildest self-activating curse around. When the object is conventionally or heavily cursed, it will teleport you around at random times as if you had read a teleport scroll. When the object is not cursed it will ask you if you want to teleport. Leaning on space bar counts as no, so that won't teleport you against your will. Some people are annoyed by the prompts, but the inscription {!.} automatically gets rid of them. It can even be sensible to keep receiving prompts, just in case one comes up when one is in an otherwise doomed position. This curse saved my character's life once, long ago.

Of course, if your item gets cursed again, it will start teleporting you randomly again, and ignore any inscriptions.

Objects with random teleportation are usually cursed to begin with, but if they are uncursed and have no further curses or minuses, they can be sold in shops.

Ancient Foul Curse (in char sheet, shows up as TY_CURSE)

"It carries an ancient foul curse."

This is a dangerous curse (invented by Zangband's creator Topi Ylinen, hence the TY) that can still sometimes considered worth it if the object it comes with is powerful enough. This curse can never be removed from an object and it triggers periodically at random interwalls. To avoid the curse triggering needlessly, it can be a good idea to use the cursed item as a swap for tough situations and carry scrolls of *Remove Curse* for guaranteed unequipping.

It can have the following effects (note that more than one at once may happen):

• aggravate nearby monsters
• summon hostile creatures
• high summon (that's greater demons, greater undeads or greater dragons, ants, spiders, hound)
• drain 1/16th of your experience points
• paralyze for 1-3 turns with free action, 1-13 otherwise. Note that you get a saving throw to avoid this *if* you have free action
• decrease a random stat
• amnesia

• summon greater demons, only on Dungeon Level > 65

• a random loss (very likely more than one point) in every stat

Ancient Morgothian curse (in char sheet, shows up as DG_CURSE)

"It carries an ancient Morgothian curse."

This extremely nasty and sadistic curse can do the following (note that more than one effect at once is possible):

• Replicate to some of your other worn equipment. There is no cure, you either throw equipement away or you have to live with the curse!
• Drain 1/12th of your XP and sometimes causes Black Breath. Not resistable.
• Paralyze you for 1 to 13 turns (1 to 3 turns if you have free action).
• Confuse you for 1 to 26 turns regardless of resists
• Lose some stats -- half the time it's a permanent loss
• Make your weapon useless

• In DL 26 or deeper, summons hostile Thunderlords. If this effect occurs, it has a 50% chance to trigger again, summoning yet more Thunderlords.

• Aggravate nearby creatures
• place a normal (heavy?) curse on your other worn equipment
• Amnesia

This is the most powerful and most annoying curse in the game. However, you can unequip the item freely if it doesn't have curse or heavy curse.

Black Breath

"It fills you with the Black Breath."

Found on all morgul weapons and some artifacts, the description of items is "It fills you with the Black Breath." Ringwraiths and some high-level undead can also give it to you. When you contract the Black Breath from a monster you get a gray message "Your foe calls for your soul!"

Black Breath activates periodically and can drain hp, drain a stat or lower experience permanently. I have also seen stats lowered permanently. Sustains prevent stat-drain.

To get rid of Black Breath you can:

• go to the herbal shop for "herbal healing"

• use the Elfstone Elessar (which activates to cure black breath)

• eat a Sprig of Athleas
• drink a potion of Life
• avoid it in the first place!

Curing the Black Breath will only take it away from your character. The item that gave it to you is not uncursed -- it still has the capacity to give you the Black Breath again.

Hobbits are supposed to be resistant to the Black Breath, but they aren't immune.

Flipping cursed items

Both _Remove Curse_ and _*Remove Curse*_ have an equal chance to flip the sign of the item's power value, its AC, its to-hit bonus, and its to-damage bonus. Artifacts cannot be flipped.

The probability of flipping is 1 / (55 - your level), so at level 50 an item wil flip 1 time in 5.

An Amulet of Doom [-8] (-9) can be flipped into an Amulet of Doom [+8] (+9) -- +9 to all stats!!! So they're worth keeping around; eventually you'll be able to get *remove* curses. It will keep re-cursing itself after being flipped, though.

You can flip even partially good items. For instance, a Shadow Blade (+1, -9) (+4 to stealth) {cursed} will flip to (+1, +9) (+4 to stealth).

Also, although all the negative values of an item can be flipped, detrimental non-pval-related flags are unremovable. For instance, a flipped Morgul weapon will have plusses to hit, to dam, to AC, and to Luck, but it will still aggravate, cause black breath, and drain experience.

If you don't manage to flip a cursed item on the first try, there are several things that you can still do:

• If it has auto-curse (Amulets of Doom, weapons of Morgul, "Cursed"-ego jewelry) then you can wield it until it re-curses itself, then try again. This can be done indefinitely, so these items are easy to flip.
• If you really want this item flipped, you *can* wander around in Berserk mode (for low saving throw) in areas with low level wounds-and-cursing monsters, e.g. Novice Priests. Eventually, the desired item will be cursed. However, this is very time consuming.
• If it's not auto-cursing and you're not willing to use the other strategy, it's best to wait until level 50 for better chances to flip significantly (anti)powerful cursed items.

• Also, DON'T use Scrolls of Curse Weapon / Curse Armour - although they curse the item, they also re-roll its to-hit, to-dam, and to-ac, zero its damage dice or base AC, and remove some egos. (By the way, Scrolls of Curse Weapon / Curse Armour have the possibility of creating armor with two prefix egos, in the case of double ego equipment. Not that this is useful.)

Weapons with no blows

There are some items (the "of Nothingness" ego springs to mind) which can be flipped to create amazing to-hit/to-dam stats, but they still cannot hit in melee due to a flag whose description is "It cannot attack".

They can still be used to make extremely powerful boomerangs, or uncursed (no flip, keep the negatives) on Dark Swords to give 100% antimagic effect with only 1 skill level of antimagic. This is very convenient and very powerful for archers and various loremaster-type characters.

Flipped weapons of Nothingness can be thrown at a nearby monster for full damage.

Mana drain, XP drain, HP drain

Some cursed items drain mana, experience points or hit points. This is frequently a cost of doing business for getting a cool power of the item (such as "Elemental" weapons, which drain mana), but on very bad items it can be considered part of a curse.

• Medium to level characters can practically disregard experience drains. The curse drains experience far slower than most characters gain it, except at very low levels. Maia characters at level 20 get that flag anyways so they can ignore it on equipment.
• Warrior types can usually ignore the mana drain, because they do not rely on mana much. High level wizard types can sometimes ignore mana drain since they regenerate mana so fast.
• The drain hit points effect can be tolerated for a while if you wish to pass thru nonpermanent obstacles using spectral weapons. It can also be tolerated by high level characters who regenerate hitpoints faster than the curse drains them.

Ringwraith rings always drain experience.

Curse weapon/armor

Some traps and scrolls will make your armor or weapon useless and usually heavy cursed. The affected item cannot be repaired in any way, even if it was a powerful artifact. Artifacts get a saving throw against getting ruined (only in case of traps?).

Chatter

MayLith: Someone please check my statement about Possessors. I think I got it right?? Nice work, Simon!

• RedNaga: yes, it was right. I added the missing 1 hit-point penalty, though.

RedNaga: i'm not changing it because i'm not sure, but i think that the statement about thunderlord summoning under morgothian curse is wrong. There is not a 50% percent chance that more thunderlords are summoned, but rather a 50% chance no other effects are applied from the curse (this time, of course). Can someone please check this?

PaulMoore: Silly question, but the 'Black Breath' section says how to get rid of it, but not what it does. What does it do?

FeathinSilyar: On the flipping of cursed items, it seems to indicate that all stats on an object will be flipped together, whenever flipping occurs. However, I've twice flipped (Theme) Sorcerous Amulets of Foo (-X,-X)(X%)(X%)(+X) to Sorcerous Amulets of Foo (+X,+X)(X%)(X%)(+X), so only the negatives flipped. These two times are the only times I've flipped Sorcerous Amulets (and I've never actually done flipping before; the first of these was accidental), so I've never observed all stats flipping.

• ElvishPillager: I've checked up on that. Flips are all good in standard ToME 2.3 as well. I have updated the flipping section again.

SimonSorc: "Sorcerous Amulets"???

FeathinSilyar: They are just in Theme, and very rare. It's an ego type, so can be on whatever kind of amulet, and usually gives very large negatives to hit and dam, mul life and mul mana, and increases spellpower. So they'd normally be awesome for just magic types, but since flipping seems to flip only the negatives they are amazing for all classes.