Shop

Version 0.28: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A shop in the dungeon, beyond sight of the world above, manned by a secretive and reclusive shopkeeper who cannot be bargained with, grants no refunds, and is interested in nothing you may have to sell. Some shops hawk antiques of unknown provenance, and offer little hint as to the quality or nature of their goods.

Courageous merchants have opened shops throughout the Dungeon and its branches. You can enter a shop by using the same keys for going up and down stairs (< and >). Each floor has roughly a 20% chance of containing at least one shop and a 4% chance of multiple shops. You may also be lucky and find a portal to a bazaar, which always features several shops, but which is only accessible once.

Unlike certain other roguelikes, players cannot sell items to shops, nor is there any way to rob them. Shops are given a random multiplier for their prices when defined ('greed'), so prices for the same item will vary between shops.

Types of Shops

Shops fall broadly into two categories. Most of the shops you'll find are randomly placed by the dungeon generator. There are also vault-defined shops; these only appear in specific vaults and usually contain an unusual or themed array of goods.

There is some degree of overlap, in that a vault-defined shop can vary from being simply in a vault that calls for a specific type of normal shop (e.g. a bazaar that has a guaranteed wand shop, or even the shops on Orc:2) to a shop that is of a completely new type, with mostly pre-defined items. However, for the purposes of this article, vault-defined shops are those that appear as a completely new type of shop.

Normal Shops

• General shops sell a random selection of items, all identified.
• Book shops sell identified spellbooks and occasionally manuals.
• Armour shops sell identified armour (sometimes magical or artefacts).
• Weapon shops sell identified weapons (sometimes branded or artefacts).
• Assorted antique shops are similar to general shops, but their items are all unidentified, although you will be able to see item types you have identified. For jewellery, only the base type (not any enchantments) will be shown, and artefacts will always be unidentified.
• Antique armour shops are similar to armour shops, but the stock is discounted and unidentified. With luck, you can acquire powerful gear here cheaply (or waste gold buying garbage).
• Antique weapon shops are similar to antique armour shops, but for weapons.
• Distilleries sell identified potions.
• Scroll shops sell identified scrolls.
• Jewellery shops sell identified rings and amulets (sometimes artefacts).

Vault-Defined Shops

• Alphabet shops sell items that all begin with the same letter. They have alliterative names.
• Barding shops sell bardings.
• Blood Bar sells vampiric weapons and Necromancy spell books.
• CLEARANCE SALE! everything must go, including the single item they have left.
• Changing Room sells items related to transmutation and transformation, such as Transmutation spell books, potions of lignification, and wands of polymorph.
• Demolitions Depot sells Conjurations-heavy books and destructive wands.
• Elemental Accessories sells four items, each related to one of the four elements..
• Evil shops sell weapons with evil items such as weapons of draining, demon weapons, and Necromancy spell books.
• Hallowed Reliquary sells good items such as weapons of holy wrath, silver ammunition, and sources of healing.
• Hydra Hut sells flaming-branded weapons.
• Island Escapes sells various items useful for fleeing from fights, such as scrolls of teleportation and potions of haste.
• Pet Rocks sells stones, sling bullets, Earth Magic books, and miscellaneous other earth-related items.
• Serpentskin Sales sells items pertaining to the infliction of and resistance to poison.
• Superior Scales sells dragon scales.
• Last-Chance Deals sells amazing artefacts for one gold piece... on Zot:5.
• Some shops appear near altars:
  • Cheibriados's Comfort Zone sells highly enchanted armour of ponderousness.
  • Gozag's Platinum Reserve sells outrageously expensive artefacts.
  • Zin's Purification Station sells potions of curing.
• A few shops can be found in "grated communities":
  • Legendary Smithy sells poor-quality weapons and armour (though they may be rare equipment like quick blades or demon blades).
  • Miraculous Elixirs sells potions of mutation.

In addition, there are two things that appear to be shops, but aren't:

• Shop mimics resemble shops, and disappear as soon as you step adjacent to them.
• Abandoned shops sell no items and cannot be entered. They are very rarely generated, mostly found in the Abyss or in bazaars, but also appear when you buy out the entire stock of any other shop, or abandon Gozag. There is no way to interact with them, and they will never be restocked.

Supply

Shops and bazaar portals are only ever randomly generated in specific finite branches: the main dungeon, the Depths, the Elven Halls, the Orcish Mines, the Vaults, the Shoals, and the Snake Pit (but not the Swamp or the Spider's Nest); a pregenerated vault could place a shop anywhere, but in practice don't outside these branches. Thus, once you have explored these branches, you have almost certainly found all the shops there are to find unless you convert to Gozag and pay to call in merchants. Thus, unless you are saving for a conversion to Gozag or Zin, you might as well blow all your gold on the items you want, as you will have no other use for it.

Tips & Tricks

• Shops often sell items that you haven't identified yet. Purchasing these will identify them for you from that point on. This is very useful for scrolls and potions, saving you from risky experiments or wasted scrolls of identify. As undesirable goods are often extremely cheap, you can almost always afford to use this tactic. Antique shops are an exception; these sell unidentified items (even artefacts), but at a discount.
• Unidentified artefacts for sale will have unique descriptions displayed in white text, even when unidentified. Be careful though, as they may have undesirable properties.
• If you lack the gold to buy something in a shop, you can use the menu to add it to your shopping list. The game will then remind you about the item when you've acquired enough gold. You can use the $ command at any time to review your current shopping list.
• You can examine what's for sale at any shop you've already visited. Simply press CTRL+f, search for "shop", press ! to look into descriptions, and then press the letter of the shop you're interested in.
• If you get messages about a "tolling bell" when exploring, that means a bazaar portal is on your level - hurry up and find it, as it will not stay open forever. If you find a bazaar that is unannounced, the portal will last until you choose to enter it. It's usually best to enter immediately if you have a moderate amount of gold (around 1000-2000); this will let you buy just about any awesome item or a large number of consumables, and the potential benefit to immediate survivability is usually well worth the tiny risk of losing out on particularly awesome (un)randart because you didn't have enough gold.
• Buying items at a shop takes no time.

History

• In 0.28, the average number of items in a shop was reduced; from 4 + 3d12/3 to 4 + 3d8/3.
• Prior to 0.27, the first three floors of the Dungeon couldn't have shops. Also, gadget shops were removed in this version.
• In 0.14, wand shops were merged into gadget shops. Gadget shops could also sell rods.
• Gadget shops were added in 0.13.
• Prior to 0.9, all undesirable scrolls and potions cost 1 gold.