Scroll of fear

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Type	Scroll
Name	scroll of fear
Icon

A scroll that causes great fear in those who see the one who reads it, even if the reader is invisible. Allies of the reader will remain unaffected. Monsters that are non-living, undead, plants, berserk, or frenzied cannot be feared.

Reading a scroll of fear causes most natural, demonic, and holy monsters in the reader's view to become frightened and flee for a few turns. This will not affect friendly targets, such as summons. This effect can be resisted by the monster's willpower.

The following monsters are immune to fear:

• Undead, nonliving, and plant holiness monsters.
• Monsters that are berserk or under frenzy
• Black bears and polar bears (which go berserk as an emergency ability, immediately ending fear)

Reading this scroll has the same effect as casting the Cause Fear spell with 200 spellpower. This equates to 96 "enchantment power". A scroll of fear always has a chance of failing, even against 0 will monsters. The higher the monster's willpower, the less likely the scroll is to succeed. See the Willpower article for more details.

Strategy

• Scrolls of fear are very useful if the player is swarmed early in the game (perhaps more useful than a scroll of blinking), and should be saved for dangerous situations. In the late game, monsters with high willpower will often resist this scroll.
• If you are able, consider your positioning before reading this scroll. Try to give your targets a suitable path for which to flee; if a fleeing monster finds itself cornered, it will turn around and fight.
• You can check the chance of affecting nearby monsters by quivering a scroll of fear. Press Q* to open your inventory, then select the scroll to quiver it. Press f to highlight susceptible monsters and activate targeting mode where you can move the cursor and check the chance.

History

• Prior to 0.27, fleeing enemies could use scrolls of teleportation and blinking.