Needle

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Name	Needle
Launcher	blowgun
Base damage	0

A thin piece of metal, typically coated in some harmful substance. It does little damage if thrown by hand, but when launched from a blowgun it can be deadly, delivering its toxins into the bloodstream of a living or demonic being. "I pray that, risen from the dead, I may in glory stand- A crown, perhaps, upon my head, But a needle in my hand. -Eugene Field, "Grandma's Prayer". late 19th cent.

Needles are a form of ammunition fired from blowguns that do no direct damage, but may be coated with a variety of toxins, which act as needle-specific brands. Randomly-generated needles always have a brand, with poison being the default (and the only needle brand which occurs on other kinds of missiles).

Undead and non-living creatures are immune to the effects of any kind of needle, but demons can still be affected.

Special needle brands are:

• Sleeping: puts creatures to sleep.
• Slowing: slows creatures.
• Sickness: sickens creatures.
• Confusion: confuses creatures.
• Paralysis: paralyzes creatures.
• Frenzy: causes living creatures to turn neutral and berserk, meaning they will attack other monsters (use it from afar against groups of enemies).
• Curare: poisons, asphyxiates, and slows creatures. Unlike the previous brands, this brand doesn't check your blowgun's enchantment or your throwing skill. Instead, the only requisites are that the inflicted damage must be greater than 0, and the monster must not have any level of poison resistance. Creatures that need to breathe take 2d6 extra damage from asphyxiation. Curare-tipped needles are so dangerous that the default configuration adds an autopickup rule to keep them out of the hands of monsters.

The chance of affecting creatures with these brands (except Poison and Curare) depends on your throwing skill, the blowgun's enchantment, and the monster's hit dice; see Brand for details. The duration of the effect depends on your Throwing skill and the blowgun's enchantment.

Tips & Tricks

Curare needles are so rare and valuable that it may be useful to place the "!*" inscription upon them, lest you fire or drop them by accident. To have this done automatically, place this line in your startup file:

autoinscribe = curare:!*