Brand

Version 0.22: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Armour brands are also called egos. See the ego page for armour brands.

A brand is a special enhancement that weapons can have, granting them additional effects. Usually, these effects amount to increasing the damage they deal, but other effects do exist.

These are separate from enchantment levels (the -X or +X before a weapon's name), and much harder to modify. While you can increase a weapon's enchantment level by reading a scroll of enchant weapon, you can only add or modify a weapon's brand through the following methods:

• Reading a scroll of brand weapon will give a weapon a randomly selected brand, replacing any existing brand if there is one.
• Casting Excruciating Wounds will temporarily give your currently wielded non-artefact weapon the pain brand.
• Worshipers of the Shining One, Kikubaaqudgha, and Lugonu can have one weapon "blessed" per game, which will apply the holy wrath, pain, or distortion brands, respectively.
• Worshipers of Xom may randomly "receive" chaos-branded weapons. However, they usually arrive in the hands of enemies in your line of sight.

Under no circumstances can a normal weapon have more than one brand. All randarts are guaranteed to have a brand, as do almost all unrandarts; some unrandarts, such as Maxwell's Thermic Engine or the storm bow, even have multiple brands. Brands are always identified as soon as you, or an enemy in your line of sight, wields a weapon.

Brands are one of the biggest differences between unarmed combat and armed combat: in most circumstances, an unarmed fighter cannot benefit from brands (though certain transformations may have them).

List of Brands

Melee Weapons

Brand	Description
Antimagic	Trog's special brand; causes monsters to fail their spells and temporarily reduces the player's maximum MP while wielded.
Chaos	Xom's special brand; can inflict different effects with each attack.
Disruption	Adds an average of 67% extra damage to undead. Found only on the unrandart great mace Undeadhunter.
Distortion	Lugonu's special brand. Can have multiple damaging and Translocations-related effects upon a successful hit, including Banishment to the Abyss.
Dragon slaying	Inflicts 75% more damage to dragons and dragon-like monsters. Found only on the unrandart lance Wyrmbane.
Draining	Adds an average of 25% extra negative energy damage per attack, as well as draining the monster if susceptible.
Electrocution	Inflicts 8-20 additional electricity damage on 33% of successful attacks (independent of the damage dealt).
Flaming	Adds an average of 25% extra fire damage per attack. Prevents hydras from regrowing heads.
Freezing	Adds an average of 25% extra cold damage per attack. Can temporarily slow cold-blooded monsters.
Holy wrath	The Shining One's special brand. Inflicts an average of 75% extra damage to demonic and undead monsters.
Pain	Kikubaaqudgha's special brand. Inflicts additional negative energy damage based on the player's Necromancy skill.
Protection	Gives the wielder +7 AC for a short period after hitting with the weapon.
Reaping	Raises creatures slain with it as allied zombies if they produce a corpse. Found only on the unrandart Sword of Zonguldrok.
Speed	Reduces weapon attack delay by 50%. Found only on short blades, staves, and some artefacts.
Vampiricism	When attacking enemies that bleed, heals the player for a portion of the inflicted damage on 60% of attacks.
Venom	Poisons monsters on attack, dealing extra damage over time.
Vorpal	Adds an average of 16.67% extra untyped damage per attack.

Some brands are more desirable on certain melee weapons than others. For example, brands such as flaming or freezing add a percentage damage bonus dependent on the weapon's base damage. Others add a special effect that triggers on a successful attack, such as distortion, electrocution, or pain. As such, a flaming executioner's axe is generally superior to a flaming dagger because of its high base damage, while electrocution triggers far more often on a quick blade than a bardiche because of its low base delay. Choose weapon brands accordingly.

All added brand damage is calculated after AC reduction and is not further reduced by AC.

Launchers

Brand	Description
Chaos	Applies different effects with each attack. Only available through scrolls of brand weapon.
Electrocution	Inflicts 8-20 additional electricity damage on 33% of successful attacks. Only available through scrolls of brand weapon, on artefact crossbows, and the storm bow.
Flaming	Adds an average of 25% extra fire damage per attack.
Freezing	Adds an average of 25% extra cold damage per attack.
Holy wrath	Adds an average of 75% extra damage to demons and the undead. Only available with the Shining One's blessing.
Penetration	Attacks fired from this weapon pass through all creatures in their path. Only available on artefact crossbows and the storm bow.
Speed	Reduces attack delay by 50%. Only available on artefacts.
Venom	Poisons targets, dealing extra damage over time.
Vorpal	Adds an average 16.67% extra untyped damage per attack.

Ranged weapon brands are similar to melee weapon brands, but lack some of the rare special cases. Note that even though the Shining One's blessing can be applied to ranged weapons, the same is not true of Kikubaaqudgha or Lugonu's abilities.

Thrown Weapons

Brand	Description
Dispersal	Blinks the target when struck. Only appears on boomerangs.
Silver	Adds 30% extra damage to most monsters and roughly 75% more to monsters weak to silver.

Only boomerangs and javelins can have brands; stones and large rocks are all unbranded. (Exception: one of the Dungeon Sprint maps offers a large rock of returning. Naturally, it's being used against you.).

Additionally, both boomerangs and javelins have inherent properties that act much like brands -- boomerangs have the returning property, while javelins have the penetration property.

Darts

Brand	Description
Poisoned	Inflicts poison, dealing damage over time.
Curare	Poisons, deals asphyxiation damage, and slows.
Atropa	Inflicts blindness and may confuse.
Datura	Inflicts frenzy.

Darts are a specialized form of thrown weapon that are designed to inflict status effects rather than deal damage. The effectiveness of darts is based on both your Throwing and Stealth skills, and is resisted by monster hit dice.

• The chance of success is: 100 - 100 * (HD - 2) / (4 + pow), where pow = (Throwing + Stealth) * 2 / 3
• There is an additional 3% chance of affecting any monster with 14 or lower HD
• No darts can affect monsters that are undead, nonliving, or resistant to poison

Some statistics: with no skill you’re still at 100% to succeed on monsters with HD1 or HD2 (gnoll, most D:1 monsters), 75% on HD3 (Sigmund), 50% on HD4 (Duvessa), and 25% on HD5 (ogre). With a combined skill of 6 as a starting Assassin, you’re up to 62.5% on an ogre, or 50% on a yak.

History

• Prior to 0.24, throwing weapons could generate with the exploding and steel brands. Additionally, tomahawks were reworked into boomerangs (which innately have the returning property), all javelins were given the penetration property, blowguns were removed and needles were reworked into the new version of darts, removing the confusion, frenzy, and paralysis, and sleep brands.
• Prior to 0.18, ranged weapon ammo could have brands, but they would be overridden by launcher brands other than Vorpal, Speed, or Penetration.
• Prior to 0.16, drawing a Blade card would apply one of several temporary brands to your weapon.
• Prior to 0.14, there was a reaching brand for whips and demon whips, allowing them to make reaching attacks.
• Prior to 0.10, polearms needed the reaching brand to make reaching attacks.
• All needle types except "poisoned" were introduced in version 0.6.