Shattered PD - Curses

	Shattered Pixel Dungeon/Curses
	Unidentified equipment can be upgraded or enchanted if you're lucky, or it might be cursed! Scrolls of identify, upgrade, or remove curse are very useful if you want to reduce the risk of using unidentified items.

- except from "Identifying Items" (Tome of Dungeon Mastery)

A cursed item is an item that, once equipped, cannot be unequipped. In Shattered Pixel Dungeon, the items will not have a negative level, but cursed items can, and most often will, have other negative effects. All items have a static 30% chance to be cursed under normal circumstances.

Identification

If an item is known to be cursed, the item's background will be red and the description box will give the information: "You can feel a malevolent magic lurking within this item." Inversely, if an item is known to be uncursed, it will have a blue background and give the information: "This item is free of malevolent magic."

• You can discover if the item is cursed by stepping into a well of awareness (reveals all cursed items in the inventory) or identifying it.
• Alternatively, you can just equip an item or zap a wand to check, but you probably shouldn't do this unless you have a way to remove the curse or are willing to deal with it. Zapping a wand is slightly less dangerous as it won't bind to you, but some possible effects are quite harmful so you should only do it with enough health.
• Items found in flooded vaults, trap rooms, dropped by animated/armored statues or crystal mimics, received from sad ghost or old wandmaker or bought in the shop are never cursed (They will be marked as so).
  • At least one item that appears inside the skeletal remains of a chasm vault will always be cursed if a wraith appears; if that does not happen, the items are free of curse.
• Items from skeletal remains (and Hero's remains) that have a Wraith spawn, as well as rings from the Ambitious imp, and armor found in crypts are always cursed (They will be marked as so).
• Enchanted items that didn't come from the above sources are never cursed, unless they got cursed by a cursing trap.

Removal

You can use a scroll of remove curse to lift the curse off from one selected artifact, weapon, armor, wand, or ring. All other items will remain cursed.

You can also use a scroll of upgrade to weaken weapon and armor curses, allowing them to be unequipped but keeping the curse enchantment. It can also completely remove curses from any cursed upgradable item with a ¹∕₃ chance.

If the weakening is successful, and the curse stays, the description will instead say "Despite the curse, you can unequip this item."

A scroll of anti-magic will allow you to unequip cursed items. If you find yourself stuck with multiple, this may be preferable to removing the curse from a single item.

Throwing a cursed item into a well of health will lift the curse off from that item. If it was never cursed, the well will go to waste.

Drinking from a well of health will cause all curses on equipped gear to be cleansed regardless of how many equipped items are cursed.

Using a stone of enchantment on a cursed weapon or armor will replace the cursed enchantment with a beneficial one, however, it will not remove the curse itself, meaning the item still cannot be removed normally once equipped.

Weapon

Sacrificial

Sacrificial weapons will demand blood from the wearer in return for attacking foes. The more healthy the wearer is, the more blood the curse will take.

This has a ¹∕₁₀ chance of causing the wielder to become afflicted by Bleeding, where the initial amount of damage is 1/8 * (HP^2/max HP). This makes the curse quite easy to handle at low HP, but at high HP, the Hero can lose a significant portion of max HP.

Wayward

A wayward weapon has a very hard time finding its mark, making it extremely inaccurate unless the attack is guaranteed to succeed.

This curse has ¹∕₄ chance of causing the wayward debuff, which reduces attacker's accuracy by 80% for 10 turns. However, surprise attacks are still possible and landing a successful attack instantly cures the debuff.

Displacing

Displacing weapons are infused with chaotic teleportation magic, possessing the ability to warp enemies around the floor randomly.

This curse can be more irritating than harmful to the user, for all it does is teleport the enemy away with a 1/12 chance while doing 0 damage on that hit. At best, it can get the user out of a dire situation, but at worst it can cause a Thief to get away with important items or a ranged enemy to gain distance.

Annoying

Annoying weapons are capable of speech, but they're a bit too energetic. They will often draw attention to you without meaning to.

Upon attacking, this has a ¹∕₂₀ chance to yell loudly, waking and drawing all creatures on the same floor to the user's current position. The line yelled by the weapon is selected randomly from a list, with common ones having ~10% chance to be used and rare ones having ~1% chance.

Lines:

Common

• "OOH, ARE WE FIGHTING SOMETHING!?"
• "YEAH, GET THEM!"
• "HEY, LISTEN!"
• "ARE WE AT THE BOSS YET!?"
• "OUCH, DON'T SWING ME SO HARD!"
• "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
• "WELL STRUCK!"
• "POW, HAHA!"
• "DIE, INSECT!"
• "CAN WE TAKE A BREAK!?"

Rare

• "I didn't want to be a weapon, I wanted to be a lumberjack's axe"
• "Remember, overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer."
• "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!"

Polarized

A polarized weapon is affected by magic that causes its attack to either deal 50% more damage, or no damage at all.

Every hit has a 50% chance to do +50% damage and a 50% chance to do 0 damage. The +50% is not enough to offset the reliability loss, yielding a net 25% decrease in DPS.

This curse isn't terrible, per se, so it's probably one of the better curses to have (if you must), for fast weapons at least. On slow weapons, however, this enchantment is extremely likely to get you killed unless you have good armor.

Friendly

Friendly weapons are best suited for pacifists, occasionally triggering magic that makes it impossible to fight.

This has a 10% chance of inflicting the Charmed debuff on the user for 10 turns and the enemy for 5 turns, preventing the user from attacking them with melee attacks while also preventing the enemy from attacking the user by any means. However, wands and ranged weapons can still be used, and the hero can use the 5 turns to try to save themselves or slow the enemy and run away.

Dazzling

Dazzling weapons will sometimes flash with dazzling light, blinding everything that can see them.

This curse has a 10% chance to inflict blinded debuff on the attacker for 5 turns and any creature in its FoV for 10 turns.

Explosive

Explosive weapons steadily build up power and explode, damaging the wearer and enemy. 100-51: Your weapon is currently cool to the touch. 50-11: Your weapon is building energy and getting warm... 10-0: Your weapon is hot! It's about to explode!

Every weapon with this curse has an invisible countdown and causes an explosion when it reaches 0. The countdown always starts at 100 and is subtracted by a random number between 0 and 10 with each attack meaning an explosion happens on average every 20 attacks.

The explosion always happens 1 tile in front of the target, which is usually where the Hero is standing. Therefore, the explosion deals full damage to the Hero and 67% damage their target as well as any creature adjacent to them. If, however, the weapon has an extra reach or it's a ranged weapon, the Hero can be safely outside of blast radius. You can tell roughly how close is a weapon from causing another explosion in the description.

Armor

Anti-entropy

Anti-entropy curse works against the forces of the universe, pulling energy away from the attacker and into the wearer. This briefly freezes the attacker, but sets the wearer on fire!

An extremely harmful curse when not near water, and a useful curse when near it, this curse freezes the target for 10 turns while also igniting the wearer. This has a significant ¹∕₈ chance of activating, which means that it'll probably activate at least every other skirmish with enemies.

Corrosion

Armor of corrosion is capable of bursting with corrosive fluid, coating everything in the area with sticky acidic ooze.

This curse has a 10% chance of causing every character within 3x3 area around the wearer, and including the wearer, to become afflicted by Caustic Ooze for 10 turns. This can be easily mitigated by the user by shattering a potion on top of them or by stepping in water, and when this is successfully done it can be extremely helpful, especially when in crowded rooms, causing all those mobs to eventually succumb to Ooze damage. Otherwise, it is extremely lethal, for you will die with those mobs.

Displacement

The curse of displacement attempts to move the wearer to safety when they are attacked. It is a bit too effective however, randomly teleporting the user around the level.

This is probably the most desirable of the curses, as its "negative effect" is teleporting the wearer on hit (and causing the attack that proc'ed it to deal 0 damage). These two effects together mean that this curse can potentially save the user from certain doom; however, the teleportation effect can make the situation worse by teleporting the user into another room with enemies.

This has a ¹∕₂₀ chance of activating when struck by an attack.

Metabolism

The metabolism curse directly converts satiety into health when the wearer is injured, providing a boost of healing, but quickly causing starvation.

This has a ¹∕₆ chance of instantly healing 4 HP at the cost of 10% of the wearer's max hunger if they are not starving. While this may not seem too harmful at first glance, it is actually quite cumbersome. The really low healing entails a massive hunger cost, causing the user to begin starving after only ten activations from full satiety. This, combined with the extremely high activation rate, makes this potentially the most dangerous curse if you do not have reliable ranged damage.

Despite all of that, it still can be used effectively: A Horn of Plenty can easily remove the drawback of the curse. 1 charge from the Horn will cancel out the hunger loss caused by a single proc of the curse, resulting in a net boost to the Hero's survivability in combat due to the consistency of Metabolism's procs.

Multiplicity

Armor cursed with multiplicity contains dangerous duplication magic. It will sometimes create a mirror image of the wearer, but is equally likely to duplicate the attacker!

This armor has a ¹∕₂₀ chance of duplicating either the wearer or the attacker. This is much more harmful than helpful, for while the Hero duplications are merely Mirror Images that have only one hp, enemy duplications are completely new mobs. When activating in favor of bosses, minibosses, Animated Statues, or Mimics, a random mob will be spawned in (if possible) instead of duplicating them.

Stench

Armor cursed with stench will release clouds of noxious gas, which is hazardous to everything caught in the cloud.

This has a ¹∕₈ chance of causing a cloud of 250 units of Toxic Gas to appear at the user's location. When this happens, run away or drink a potion of purity.

Overgrowth

Armor of overgrowth is covered in various blooming plants. While this effect certainly looks interesting, it does nothing for defence, and these plants will randomly activate in combat!

This has a ¹∕₂₀ chance of causing a random plant to activate underneath you, excluding Starflower, Rotfruit, and Blandfruit. While this can certainly be helpful if that plant is Fadeleaf, Earthroot, Sungrass, or Dreamfoil, it can also be harmful. This is especially true with Firebloom and Sorrowmoss, and Blindweed activation can be extremely hazardous to the Mage, Huntress, and Freerunner classes. Freerunner will also especially dislike Stormvine. Plant effects also will never trigger Warden's barkskin or special seed perks.

Bulk

Armor of bulk looks larger and more imposing, but doesn't actually have enhanced defence. Even worse, the added size makes moving through doorways very difficult.

This causes the user's movement speed to be reduced by ²∕₃ when moving through doors, making doorway warfare effectively impossible and punishing you for attempting it. Instead of surprise attacking the mob on the other side, they will effectively get a free attack on you.

Ring

Main article: Rings

A cursed ring will be treated as −3 at +0, −2 at +1, and −1 at +2 and higher. −1 rings do nothing. It is important to note that this is the only category of curses where the upgrade level actually matters in how severe the curse effect is.

Wand

A new feature of wands in Shattered Pixel Dungeon is that they can now be cursed like other equipment and gear. Zapping a cursed wand will cause a random effect to occur, with highly varying effects on both the Hero and the target. Some effects may be beneficial, but many can be outright dangerous to the Hero. The Wondrous Resin trinket adds a chance for any uncursed wand to produce a cursed wand effect when zapped in addition to its normal effect. It also has a chance to make some cursed wand effects less harmful (see Wondrous Resin section for these effects).

While a cursed wand cannot be imbued on a Mage Staff directly, the Staff with any imbue can be cursed via cursing traps or a Curse Infusion spell.

Common effect (60%)

• Burn and freeze
  • 50% chance to get either burning or frozen debuff, while the opposite effect is applied to the target.
  • Wondrous Resin: Only the target recieves the debuff, not the user.
• Regrowth
  • Triggers the effect of a Wand of Regrowth spawning grass and rooting enemies at target location
• Random teleportation
  • Teleports either the user or the target with equal chances.
  • Wondrous Resin: Always teleports the target.
• Random gas
  • Seeds confusion gas (800 units), toxic gas (500 units), or paralytic gas (200 units) at target location, 1/3 chance each.
• Random elemental trap
  • Activates a Burning Trap , Chilling Trap, or Shocking Trap at target location, 1/3 chance each.
• Bubbles
  • Produces bubble particles at and around target location. This effect is purely visual.
• Random wand
  • Zaps a random wand with the level of the cursed wand (or level depth / 5 if the effect wasn't produced by a wand) at the target.
• Ooze
  • Activates an Ooze Trap at the caster's location.
  • Wondrous Resin: Doesn't debuff the Hero and allies.

Uncommon effect (30%)

• Random plant
  • Places a random plant in the space in front of the target (based on the bolt's path).
• Health transfer
  • Damages either the user or target for depth×2, then heals the opposite party for half as many HP. The healing is unaffected by how much damage the other side actually recieves.
  • Wondrous Resin: Always damages the target and heals the user.
• Explosion
  • Causes an explosion at the point of impact of the bolt.
• Lightning bolt
  • Deals 5 + depth/4 to 10 + depth/4 damage to the caster, target, and any character adjacent to them, and causes Paralysis for 5 turns. Chatracters standing next to both the caster and target won't get hit twice.
  • If this effect hits the Hero, it also grants 10 turns of Recharging.
  • Wondrous Resin: Doesn't damage or paralyse the Hero and allies.
• Geyser
  • Activates a Geyser Trap at target location.
• Sheep summoning
  • Activates a Flock Trap at target location.
• Levitate
  • Grants 20 turns of Levitation to the target. Targeting a Piranha with this effect always instantly kills it regardless of Wondrous Resin.
  • Wondrous Resin: Always levitates the Hero.
• Alarm
  • Beckons all creatures on the current floor to the caster's location.
  • Wondrous Resin: Also activates the effect of the Scroll of Challenge at the Hero's location.

Rare effect (9%)

• Polymorph target
  • Transforms the target into a sheep, which despawns after 10 turns. This cannot happen to bosses, minibosses, NPCs, or the Hero. Enemies won't drop items or grant experience when transformed.
• Equipment curse
  • The effect of a cursing trap is thrust upon the caster.
  • Wondrous Resin: Inflicts Hex to the target instead. The same happens if this effect is caused by a Chaos Elemental.
• Inter-level teleportation
  • Randomly teleports the caster to a floor up to 10 floors above the current one. Each floor further up is less likely to be chosen than the previous one.
  • If inter-level teleportation isn't allowed, or the effect happens at floor 1, it randomly teleports them across the current floor instead.
  • Wondrous Resin: Always teleports the Hero across the current floor.
• Summon enemies
  • Activates a summoning trap at the user's location.
  • Wondrous Resin: Spawns 2 Mirror Images instead.
• Cone of colors
  • Any character in a 90° wide, 8 tiles long cone in front of the caster receives a random debuff and takes 5 + depth, 10 + depth*2 of a corresponding damage type
  • The possible debuffs are: Burning, Frost, Ooze, Poison (for 3 + depth/2 damage), Paralysis.
  • Wondrous Resin: Doesn't harm or debuff allies.
• Mass invulnerability
  • Makes all creatures invulnerable for 10 turns and blessed for 30 turns.
• Petrification
  • Puts the caster into stasis for 100 turns. This effect can only happen to the Hero.

Very rare effect (1%)

• Forest fire
  • Inflicts Rooted debuff to all creatures on the floor for 5 turns and grows tall grass on every empty tile. Fire is seeded randomly in a few spots on the floor.
  • Wondrous Resin: Doesn't start fire, only grows grass and roots creatures.
• Super Mimic
  • Summon a golden mimic containing a random weapon, armor, wand or ring
  • Wondrous Resin: The mimic spawns enthralled, but it doesn't drop any loot.
• Cursed wand error
  • Opens a fake error message window displaying a CURSED WAND ERROR and giving the player options to RETRY, ABORT or FAIL. Selecting either option crashes the game.
• Wand transmogrification
  • The wand is transformed into a random weapon, armor, ring, or artifact. This item is guaranteed to be both upgraded and cursed.
  • Wondrous Resin: Triggers the effect of a Scroll of Metamorphosis instead.
• Shapeshift
  • If the Hero is either caster or target, they get transformed into another random Hero for 1000 turns. This effect is purely visual.
• Supernova
  • Starts a 10 turn cooldown at the target location. After 10 turns, causes an explosion at every tile within 8 tiles of the target and with line of sight.
  • Wondrous Resin: Doesn't harm the Hero and allies.
• Sink Hole
  • Activates a Pitfall Trap at the caster's location.
  • Wondrous Resin: The Hero and allies won't fall.
• Gravity Chaos
  • For next 30-70 turns, all characters are pushed 3 tiles in a random direction (same for all characters) every 1-3 turns.
  • Wondrous Resin: Doesn't push the Hero and allies.

Artifact

Main article: Artifacts

Every artifact has its own negative effect, which varies between artifacts. Generally speaking, the artifact will do the opposite of the intended effect, although this isn't particularly straightforward for some. For the individual effects, please refer to artifacts.

Related badges

Icon	Name	Description	Rarity
	Friendly fire	Die to your own magical item	Silver
	Yet another sad death	Unlock all of the "cause of death" badges	Platinum

Trivia

• "DIE, INSECT!" is a reference to Ragnaros the Firelord in World of Warcraft.
• ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! quote is a reference to a poorly translated English release of Zero Wing.
• "Remember, overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer." quote is a reference to Darkest Dungeon.
• "I didn't want to be a weapon, I wanted to be a lumberjack's axe" quote is a reference to Monty Python's Lumberjack Song.
• Cursed Wand Error is a reference to an error message found in DOS operating systems.

History

Update	Change
v0.8.1	Changed: Friendly curse charm inflicted to user shornetd 10 turns fron 13 - 15 turns, charm on target prolonged to 5 turns from 3 - 5 turns
v0.8.0	Changed: Superpowered mimic wand curse effect now summons golden mimic, not regular mimic with increased stats
v0.7.2	Added: Polarized weapon curse effect (tweaked luck enchantment) Removed: Elastic weapon curse effect (became enchantment instead)
v0.7.0	Changed: Friendly curse charm inflicted to user prolonged to 13 - 15 turns fron 9 - 15 turns, always 10 turns longer that charm on target
v0.6.5	Added: Weapon curse effects Elastic Friendly Armor curse effects Bulk Overgrowth Changed: Wayward curse accuracy penalty reduced to 56% from 70%
v0.6.1	Changed: Shock and recharge wand curse effect now triggers a shocking trap, not lightning trap
v0.6.1	Changed: Cursed rings can't be degraded anymore, but now always act as such
v0.5.0	Changed: Exhausting curse proc chance increased to 1/15 from 1/20, weakness duration decreased to 5 - 20 from 5 - 25
v0.4.3	Changed: Wayward curse proc chance decreased to 1/12 from 1/10, bleeding decreased to 1 - HP/6 from 1 - HP/4
v0.4.0	Added: Weapon curse effects Exhausting sacrificial Wayward Displacing Annoying Fragile Armor curse effects Anti-entropy (tweaked glpyh of anti-entropy) Corrosion Displacement (tweaked glpyh of displacement) Metabolism (tweaked glpyh of metabolism) Multiplicity (tweaked glpyh of multiplicity) Stench (tweaked glpyh of stench) Changed: Cursed weapons and armor no longer degraded
v0.3.0	Added: Wands can now be cursed
v0.2.3	Added: Artifacts can now be cursed