Draft:Staff of Enchantment

Omega 0.90.4

Staff of Enchantment&TypeArtifactBase value (Au)2000Item level5Weight100Unidentified appearanceScintillating StaffCursed nameStaff of Enchantment

The Staff of Enchantment is a reusable artifact with a white end for enchantment and a black end for dispelling. It uses a shared clock-hour limit rather than ordinary wand charges. Identification and blessing matter: unidentified activation dispels the user's temporary benefits, and a cursed staff makes both ends harmful.

Generation

The Scintillating Staff is an item-level-5 random artifact, initially eligible for unique generation and blocked from that route after one is generated. It is excluded from the repeatable random monster-possession pool. A newly generated staff is neutral and unidentified. Normal acquirement cannot select artifacts, and the pawn shop does not create them as automatic stock.

Choosing an end

Use A → a with the staff accessible. After identification, answer w or b; the end prompt accepts those two lowercase letters and does not offer Escape cancellation. The staff records the current hour before this choice. An unidentified attempt also records the hour, then applies harmful dispelling without offering a target.

Staff state	White end	Black end
Neutral, identified	Normal enchantment: +2 to a surviving non-artifact target	Dispelling strength 0
Blessing +1, identified	Normal enchantment: +4 to a surviving non-artifact target	Dispelling strength 1
Higher positive blessing B, identified	Normal enchantment: +2B + 2 to a surviving non-artifact target	Dispelling strength B
Cursed, identified	Random accessible-item disenchantment	Harmful dispelling of the player
Unidentified, any blessing	No choice of end; harmful dispelling of the player	No choice of end

The staff's enchantment value does not increase either end's power. The following limits are part of the effects, not removed by identification.

White end

Choose an accessible item or money. A non-artifact with current enchantment p first faces the ordinary over-enchantment test: no explosion chance at +1 or below, (p − 1)/20 at +2 through +20, and certain explosion at +21 or above. A successful result raises enchantment by 2B + 2; a target able to hold charges also gains that amount times one random integer from 1 through 10. Neutral use therefore gives 2, 4, ..., 20 charges, while blessing +1 gives 4, 8, ..., 40. Blessing raises the improvement, not the safe starting threshold.

An artifact instead regains its stripped original power, or causes a mana-storm backlash if already intact. Selecting the staff itself is not a way to improve it or reset its hour. Money follows the normal enchantment gamble; cancelling item selection still spends this hour's opportunity. The enchantment article explains those shared target rules and the cursed random-item disenchantment exclusions.

Black end

Noncursed use selects a square. Targeting yourself removes a curse from each currently equipped item when the curse magnitude is at most B + 1. It does not uncurse unused or packed items. Against a creature, the strict condition is creature level < 3B: a neutral staff cannot suppress a nonnegative-level creature, and blessing +1 affects only levels below 3. Success strips special and ranged attacks, immunities, invisibility and intangibility, and turns an existing melee attack into ordinary melee; it does not pacify or kill.

On an unoccupied square, the black end can neutralize fire, teleportation and disintegration traps, an awakening statue, or a magic pool. A creature takes precedence over the terrain. Unlike a dispelling scroll, the staff supplies exactly its blessing strength, with no extra random 0–2 bonus. Confirm a valid target with . rather than attempting Escape after this target prompt.

Unidentified use or a cursed black-end use instead shortens several temporary benefits and immediately runs a ten-minute status update. This can end breathing, levitation, invisibility and other protections; it is not the useful self-targeted removal of equipment curses. Some affected counters use other periodic updates, so they need not all expire at the same instant.

Reuse and strategy

The staff is retained and consumes no mana or finite charge. All copies share one last-use 24-hour clock-hour marker, initially unused. At the same recorded hour it refuses to operate, even on another date if no intervening different-hour use occurred. White and black ends share that limit, so enchanting equipment can leave dispelling unavailable for the rest of the current hour. Ordinary charging only selects wands, rods and ordinary staves, not this artifact.

Prepare a known noncursed staff before relying on it. For equipment at +1 or below, a blessed white-end use can deliver a larger safe initial improvement; subsequent attempts still face the now-higher enchantment's explosion chance. The black end offers reusable removal of suitable worn curses and magical traps, but calculate its actual strength before choosing a monster target. Preserve independent scrolls or spells when an emergency may occur after using either end.