Scroll

Version 0.15: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A disposable arcane formula inscribed on parchment by a professional scribe or sorceror. Anyone can evoke the power of the arcane formula by reading it out loud, but the nature of that power is not a priori apparent.

Scrolls are consumable items which, when read (command r), provide a wide variety of magical effects. They can be found as randomly generated loot or bought in certain shops. Unidentified scrolls will have gibberish names until you've identified them, either by reading them or through use of a scroll of identify. These names are randomly generated each game, and provide no clues as to the scroll's effect.

Unlike certain other roguelikes, in Crawl every character is able to read by default. However, you will have difficulty reading scrolls under the following circumstances:

• The Blurry Vision mutation will cause your attempts to read scrolls to fail (20% chance per rank). This does not waste the scroll.
• The brainless status effect gives you a flat 80% failure rate.
• Reading any scroll while confused will make the scroll function like a scroll of random uselessness.

The following status effects disable scroll-reading entirely:

• Berserk
• Silence
• Certain bad forms

Once read, a scroll is almost always destroyed. If you read a scroll with an effect that requires you to make a decision, however, you can usually change your mind safely by pressing Escape. In most cases, this does not waste the scroll, but doing so with an unidentified scroll or a scroll of acquirement will still destroy the scroll.

List of Scrolls

• Scroll of acquirement
• Scroll of amnesia
• Scroll of blinking
• Scroll of brand weapon
• Scroll of curse armour
• Scroll of curse jewellery
• Scroll of curse weapon
• Scroll of enchant armour
• Scroll of enchant weapon
• Scroll of fear
• Scroll of fog
• Scroll of holy word
• Scroll of identify
• Scroll of immolation
• Scroll of magic mapping
• Scroll of noise
• Scroll of random uselessness
• Scroll of recharging
• Scroll of remove curse
• Scroll of silence
• Scroll of summoning
• Scroll of teleportation
• Scroll of torment
• Scroll of vulnerability

History

Prior to 0.15, any time you suffered fire or hellfire damage, there was a chance your scrolls would be subject to item destruction. The conservation intrinsic reduced the chance of this happening, as did having a high AC.

Prior to 0.14, reading scrolls at inappropriate times (a scroll of remove curse when you have no cursed items equipped, for example) would waste the scroll without actually identifying it.

• Prior to 0.10, reading scrolls was the only way for a character without magical abilities to gain access to them, allowing you to train Spellcasting.

Obsolete Scrolls

• Scroll of detect curse - Removed in 0.11.
• Scroll of enchant weapon I/II/III - These were merged into the scroll of enchant weapon in 0.15.
• Scroll of paper - Removed in 0.7.
  • Scroll of old paper - Technically never existed in a stable game version.
• Scroll of unholy creation - This briefly replaced the scroll of summoning (0.11 only)
• Scroll of vorpalise weapon - Changed to scroll of brand weapon in 0.13.