Necklace of Bloodlust

Version 0.30: 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

Forces berserk (on 50% 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 that a melee character would want to use regularly. While +6 slay and Will++ are excellent properties, the berserkitis makes it a risky piece of gear. Undead players and those with clarity won't go berserk, so they can take "full" advantage of Bloodlust's other properties. For other melee characters, you can swap it in when the berserk is helpful (such as before taking on a ghost vault), though it takes 5 turns to do so.

Ranged weapon users will greatly appreciate this artefact, since ranged attacks benefit from slay, but don't trigger berserk. Casters, in a similar vein, can use this amulet for the Will++; the -3 intelligence penalty is too small to matter.

History

• Prior to 0.28, the amulet only forced berserk on 5% of melee attacks, but had evocable berserk.
• Prior to the removal of curses in 0.27, this item would curse on equip.
• Prior to 0.25, this amulet's base type was an amulet of rage.
• Prior to 0.20, the amulet only gave +3 slaying and +40 magic resistance.
• Prior to 0.19, the amulet had a +2 strength buff was removed and only a -2 intelligence malus.
• Prior to 0.18, the forced berserk chances were decreased from 9% to 5%.
• Prior to 0.15, the amulet had a stealth penalty of -20.
• Prior to 0.14, the amulet only gave 30 MR.
• In 0.12 the odds of the amulet causing berserk were changed.