Scythe of Curses

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

A scythe surrounded by an ominous aura of dread. It carries a terrible and highly irritating curse, which it busily inflicts on both the wielder and their enemies.

the +13 Scythe of Curses

+13 scythe

Draining brand
Cursed, 33% chance to recurse itself on equip
Periodically curses random equipment in your inventory
Inflicts Necromancy miscast effects on monsters. Shadows, reapers, and soul eaters that spawn as a result will be allied with you.
Evil

Desirability

The scythe of Curses will often drain monsters, in addition to inflicting Necromancy miscasts on them a la mummy death curses (slow, rot, summoned undead and demonic allies). These summoned allies, coupled with the weapon's excellent enchantment bonuses, can devastate opponents, and the scythe's reach allows you to comfortably use your allies as meat shields. Unfortunately, it will also curse random inventory items every so often and has a terrible weapon as its base type. Only consider it if you already have very high skill in polearms, really don't care about your inventory being cursed constantly, and are facing opponents which will actually be affected by the Necromancy miscasts (though summoned reapers and soul eaters are always useful).

Ashenzari blocks the curses, preventing them from affecting worshippers.