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Henzell says...
  1. Ashenzari will intermittently offer various types of curses to worshippers (see [2]). Cursing a piece of equipment provides skill bonuses scaling with piety, but prevent you from removing the item normally. Cursed items can only be destroyed by using {shatter the chains}, which will permanently destroy them.
  2. Melee: all melee weapon skills + UC. Range: All ranged skills + Throwing. Elem: All elemental spell schools. Alch: Poison and Transmutations. Comp: Summoning and Necromancy. Bglg: Conjurations, Hexes, and Translocations. Self: Fighting and Spellcasting. Fort: Armour and Shields. Cun: Dodging and Stealth. Evo: Evo.
  3. In 0.26-, some items were cursed (usually items with negative properties) and could only be removed with scrolls of remove curse. In much older versions, mummy enemies' death curses would curse your equipped items.

Information based on master branch and the great LearnDB.
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