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.

You can find a list of scrolls here.

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

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.