Sword of Zonguldrok

Version 0.26: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A blade imbued with the essence of a legendary necromancer. Those slain in its presence are reanimated by its power and forced to fight on.

the +9 Sword of Zonguldrok

+9 double sword

Reaping brand
Evil

The sword of Zonguldrok can always be found in Zonguldrok's Shrine if it has not already generated elsewhere.

Desirability

The sword of Zonguldrok is a good weapon, but not a great one. Even with its high enchantment level, its lack of a damaging brand makes its damage output noticeably worse than a well-enchanted branded demon blade or double sword. Still, friendly zombies can be useful, particularly if you can clear the majority of a floor before using your army to storm a particularly nasty vault, but the sword doesn't do anything that casting Animate Dead or even Animate Skeleton doesn't do. Use this weapon if you have nothing better yet and don't have anything better to use those corpses for, or as a pseudo-spell enhancer to turn your attack spells into ally generators. (Even though the weapon's description reads like you have to kill your foes with it, wielding the sword is enough to trigger its effect on a kill. Using a fireball or other means of destruction works just as well.)

Due to the fact that it passively uses a necromantic effect each turn, even wielding it is enough to offend the good gods.

History

• Prior to 0.26 and the removal of the food/hunger system, having all slain monsters turned into zombies could create food problems.
• Prior to 0.19, the sword created hostile undead in your LOS, was cursed, and would recurse itself when wielded (33.3% chance).
• Prior to 0.9, this artefact was a long sword.