Staff of Dispater

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Type	Magical staves
Name	staff of Dispater
Icon

A legendary staff, granting power to unleash damnation -- although not without draining the wielder's vitality in the process.

The staff of Dispater is a powerful artefact staff which contains dangerous demonic magic. It can only be acquired by slaying Dispater, the lord of Dis. It is considered an evil item, so the good gods frown on its use.

The staff may be used in combat, functioning as a +4 staff. You can improve your melee performance with this staff by training Fighting and Staves, though by the time you're capable of fighting Dispater, you'll have found any number of weapons that are far more effective.

The staff's primary purpose is to be evoked to launch Damnation at a monster, dealing a potentially massive amount of damage (max 3-171) that very few enemies are resistant to. However, it comes at a cost to HP as well as MP and food.

Spell Power: Evocations×8
Damage: 3d(8+Spell Power/5)
Cost: 5-23 HP (Average 14, but never fatal), 2-6 MP (Average 4), 100 food
Restrictions: You cannot evoke this item if you have less than 12 HP, 5 MP, or if you are under the effects of Death's Door

Strategy

This item allows a character with high Evocations skill to quickly deal tremendous damage that very few creatures can resist. This can be particularly helpful against monsters with high defenses, whether high AC, EV, or just resistance to multiple elements/magical effects. Of course, if you have this staff, you've managed to successfully kill one of the lords of Hell; chances are you have other ways of fighting highly dangerous creatures that don't involve gradually killing yourself.

Be aware that some end-game monsters are completely immune to its effects, though this mostly consists of the various demons that are capable of using damnation themselves. See the list here.