Draft:Jane's guide to treasure

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Omega 0.90.4

Jane's guide to treasure teaches recognition of an entire random category of magical items. It is a scroll, despite its book-like name, and the category is chosen when it is read.[1]

Generation

The guide is an item-level-2 random scroll. It can also appear at Knight's Pawn Shop or be obtained through acquirement. Its outward inscription is randomized just like those of other scrolls.[2][3][4][5]

Description

Reading selects one of six volumes with equal probability: scrolls, potions, cloaks, boots, rings, or sticks. Every type in the chosen family becomes known, whether or not the player currently owns a copy. The guide displays the list of names it has taught and also identifies its own type. Blessing, curse and enchantment do not change the result.

This grants type knowledge rather than full identification of individual possessions. It does not reveal every copy's enchantment, charges or blessing. The potion volume covers the ordinary potion family, including Azoth, but not the potion-shaped artifacts Life and Death.

There is no selection of a preferred volume and no protection against drawing a category already known. Even a largely redundant reading uses up the guide.[6]

Strategy

Read an early guide when gaining broad type knowledge is valuable. It can save future identification expenditure and make an entire family of unknown appearances recognizable. Since it works equally while cursed, a curse does not by itself justify discarding a known guide or spending a blessing on it.

For a specific emergency item, use identification instead of relying on a one-in-six chance of the relevant category. Later in a run, when most families are known, selling another guide may be more useful than hoping to draw the remaining one. A blessed identification scroll remains useful after reading the guide because it reveals individual item properties as well.

References