Necklace of Bloodlust

Version 0.27: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A necklace made of bloodstained human and animal teeth, and something that appears to be a piece of spine.

the necklace of Bloodlust

Amulet of rage
Forces berserk (on 5% of melee attacks)
-3 intelligence
+80 willpower (Will++)
+6 slaying
Extends berserk on 50% of kills for (1 + 1d4) / 2 turns

Desirability

The necklace of Bloodlust is definitely not the sort of item you'd want to use regularly, but it can still be situationally useful. Although +6 slaying and +80 willpower on an amulet are both excellent properties, the berserkitis makes it a risky piece of gear for any character who isn't undead or doesn't have clarity to wear for any extended period of time. However, it may be useful for characters who find themselves facing a particularly nasty lone melee threat: the slaying bonus will be quite helpful, and moreover, going berserk would likely be useful in this situation instead of harmful. However, at a 5% chance per attack, it is not a good idea to rely on the berserkitis from this item to start a rage; fortunately, the amulet can also be evoked like a mundane amulet of rage.

Tips & Tricks

• The berserk effect won't trigger with ranged attacks. This makes the necklace an interesting proposition for characters primarily relying on ranged combat, giving them easy access to berserk rage while always providing a bonus to slaying and willpower.

History

• In 0.27 curses were removed from all items outside of Ashenzari curses, including unrands such as this one.
• In 0.20 the slaying was increased from +3 to +6 and the magic resistance increased from +40 to +80 (MR+ to MR++).
• In 0.19 the +2 strength buff was removed and the -2 intelligence became -3.
• In 0.18 the forced berserk chances were decreased from 9% to 5%.
• In 0.15 the stealth penalty of -20 was removed.
• In 0.14 the amount of MR given was increased from 30 to 40.
• In 0.12 the odds of the amulet causing berserk were changed.