Wanted: Hand of Gozag

[Chicken]

This artifact is a -1 club that cannot be altered by any means. It has one interesting power, which is that anything killed by it does not leave a corpse, but gold coins, as happens for Gozag worshippers.

The artifact is not literally the hand of Gozag the god, of course, but the still technically living hand and forearm of a _follower_ of Gozag who unfortunately stumbled into a room permanently filled with petrification dust (as per a catoblepas), where over the years it got snapped off. If it can be arranged, it might be cute to actually have this room as a dungeon feature, with the Hand and a few random items strewn around next to living petrified adventurer statues in the room full of dust. In order to get the Hand, you have to rush into the dust, grab it, and make it back out before you petrify ... or else you're not coming back. Or you can apport it. Or teleport out, even after petrifying? Hmmm, does stasis work? - I don't know.

Yeah, giving adventurers a big boost to cash income probably has destabilizing effects ... does it? I mean, how often are you really unable to buy the stuff you want? Usually there are no shops with anything good, and you end up buying random blue items in the hope they might be something cool, but rarely is it so. I think that if the artifact (and room it comes in, if you do this) is rare, its effect isn't too much to have, and I think it would be cool.

[Arrhythmia]

The combination of having an effect on enemy death, and doing basically no damage, means that you're going to want to last-hit as much as possible with this weapon, which sounds super shitty.

[byrel]

I rarely buy everything I'd like to buy in the game... there's usually a book shop somewhere with something I'd like. Tack on a couple artifacts and a manual, and you're looking at a lot of money.

[bcadren]

The combination of having an effect on enemy death, and doing basically no damage, means that you're going to want to last-hit as much as possible with this weapon, which sounds super shitty.

So Sword of Zonguldrok (well, back when it was a long sword; I guess as a double sword you're less likely for that.)

[Chicken]

Yeah, if you find shops with books and manuals they can run up to a large sum. But... well, manuals are always good but they're really overpriced considering what they do, which is just help for a few levels of one skill. And books tend to duplicate spells to the extent that you rarely really need to buy many of them.

It's true that last-hitting with the Hand could get pretty dull... I'm thinking of it more for scenic effect and maybe to help you push over the threshold to buy some one thing you really want, than as something you'd take through the whole dungeon with you.

[Sar]

This sounds like it would work better as an inherent disadvantage of a very strong item... kind of like it's supposed to work with Gozag.

[Kate]

The combination of having an effect on enemy death, and doing basically no damage, means that you're going to want to last-hit as much as possible with this weapon, which sounds super shitty.

So Sword of Zonguldrok (well, back when it was a long sword; I guess as a double sword you're less likely for that.)

Reaping hasn't worked like that for 4 years.

[tasonir]

In order to get the Hand, you have to rush into the dust, grab it, and make it back out before you petrify ... or else you're not coming back. Or you can apport it. Or teleport out, even after petrifying? Hmmm, does stasis work? - I don't know.

Statue form grants immunity to petrification, and I imagine being a gargoyle would do the same.

[dynast]

I imagine the hand on top of a pile of gold, as if trying to reach for something to escape from it... or to drag it in.

[Igxfl]

To solve the last-hitting problem, make the hand a glove.

As long as you wear it, corpses turn to gold, but removing it destroys all your money.