In a recent article, I blathered on vaguely about the joys of Nethack, and may have left some of you confused.

This new feature will not unconfuse you all that much. For that I recommend Fargo, whose article on the topic of nethack is probably funnier than mine shall be, and certainly contains the useful graphics that I am both too lazy and too minimalist to make.

However, I doubt the verity of Spyke, Fargo’s ASCII archeologist, and his adventures. While they all COULD happen in nethack, they seem unlikely. I mean, a werejackal walkin’ around with TWO wands, both of them useful? Yeah, right!

So I’ve decided to bring you what may very well be the first Reality Nethack Blogcast. It may not last very long, depending on Esk, her kitten Piwacket, her god Anhur, and her luck. Updates on Esk will appear daily or something until she goes to the big score-list in the sky.

So, meet Esk: @. And her little cat, Piwacket: f. It is turn #1, and this intrepid young wizard, a chaotic elf, has descended into the dreaded Mazes of Menace, there to seek out the Bell of Opening, the Candelabrum of Invocation, and the Book of the Dead, to bring them to the stairway to Gehennom, open the way to the Underworld, and from thence bear the Amulet of Yendor, yea, even unto the High Altar of Heaven, there to sacrifice it for the Glory of her God, Anhur! In short, she’s frickin’ insane. But, you know, she also is motivated by the desire for knowledge—her wizard teachers have really not prepared her very well, and she knows the dungeons have spellbooks and scrolls just sitting around!

Let’s have a look at how meagerly the wizards have equipped their brave little sprout:
Weapons
a – a blessed +1 quarterstaff (weapon in hands) —Standard ish.
Armor
b – an uncursed +0 cloak of magic resistance (being worn)—Ditto. V. useful.
Scrolls
i – 2 uncursed scrolls of light
j – an uncursed scroll of magic mapping -You get 3 randomly generated scrolls - 2 of “light” is pretty weak.
Spellbooks
k – a blessed spellbook of force bolt -Standard - is a decent attack and breaks doors, boulders, et cetera. Pretty useful.
l – a blessed spellbook of magic missile—A pretty kick-ass attack spell. Maybe the old wizard profs aren’t so bad.
Potions
f – an uncursed potion of enlightenment —All it does is tell you your alignment and magical abilities and such.
g – an uncursed potion of gain ability —Nice. I’ll probably hold off on quaffing it until I can bless it, though. That way it raises each of your abilities by one!
h – an uncursed potion of object detection —Enh. Mildly useful, and easy to identify in-game, as almost all nymphs carry ‘em around.
Rings
d – an uncursed ring of polymorph -If I get lucky and find a ring of polymorph control, this baby is my ticket to greatness! You can polymorph into really gnarly critters with great intrinsic abilities - like dragons, for instance - great armor, can still wear amulets, rings, et cetera, can FLY, are very strong, have a breath weapon - and if you’re lucky, you’re a girl dragon, and you can lay loyal little dragonlings! Of course, without polymorph control, you could just as easily polymorph into a newt.
e – an uncursed ring of teleport control-Very very nice! This means I can freely eat nymphs and leprechauns. Both have a good chance of conferring intrinsic teleport - which is the pits, unless you can control it—in which case it’s very useful indeed.
Wands
c – a wand of striking (0:4) —Same effect as my spell, force bolt. No great shakes.
Tools
m – an uncursed leather drum —Another randomly generated perk of being a wizard. What is it for? It awakens any monsters that may be sleeping nearby, or scares them if I’m lucky, and it makes it more likely that the game will lower my wisdom. In short, it’s there to confuse people until they’ve identified the drum of earthquake.

In short, not a bad starting kit. You will notice I have no food - wizards never do to start, and often starve. Oh, and no gold, either. You may have noticed my references to “identifying” items. These items, that I start with, come identified. Almost all the others I encounter won’t be - I can do tricks to identify them, try them out if I dare, or use a scroll or spell of identify to give me the rundown. For instance, scrolls I haven’t identified say things like “VENZAR BORGAVVE” and “TEMOV” - randomly assigned labels - and both types of drum look alike. The blessed/uncursed/cursed status of items is also revealed by identifying. In general, cursed stuff is bad (DUH). For potions, scrolls, et cetera, it gives a bad version or a bad twist on the effect—for armor, rings, amulets, and so forth, you can’t take it off! Many of the items that appear in the dungeon at random are cursed and bad. Just to make it more interesting. Well, that’s a run-down on Esk’s starting luck. Good luck, Esk! More bulletins as events warrant!