# The Platinum Yendorian Express Card

(   The Platinum Yendorian Express Card   

Base item

credit card

Affiliation

neutralTouristintelligent

When carried

telepathymagic resistancehalf spell damage

When applied

(none)

When invoked

charging

Base price

7000 zm

Weight

1

The Platinum Yendorian Express Card (informally PYEC) is the Tourist quest artifact. It is the prize for completing the Tourist quest, and is neutral for wishing purposes. Its base item type is a credit card.
The Platinum Yendorian Express Card is the only quest artifact whose name is not of the form “The X of [the] Y.”

Contents

1 Effects
2 Strategy

2.1 Conducts

3 History
4 Origin
5 Variants

5.1 SLASH'EM
5.2 SlashTHEM
5.3 dNetHack
5.4 xNetHack
5.5 EvilHack

6 Encyclopedia entry
7 References

Effects
When carried, The Platinum Yendorian Express Card confers magic resistance, telepathy and half spell damage. Invoking the Card can charge objects like a scroll of charging, with different effects based on the Card's beatitude for Tourists; for non-Tourists, the blessed Card only charges like an uncursed scroll.[1] Unlike the scroll, the Card has no special effect if it is invoked while you are confused.

Strategy
Main article: Invoke#Optimal invocation schedule
The Platinum Yendorian Express Card is considered one of the best artifacts in the game due to its unique invoke, incredibly light weight and valuable properties, making it an enticing and somewhat common artifact wish for neutral players - be sure to wish for it with fireproofing! It is a powerful aid when altar farming using a bag of tricks or wand of create monster, or polypiling for certain weapons and/or magical tools; players eating jewelry tend to use the Card to charge any applicable rings. 
Tourists completing their Quest are in a particularly good position, as the Master of Thieves lacks any other resistances beyond stoning resistance and the magic resistance from picking up the Card. Tourists also get the most out of the artifact by far, and can use blessed charging from the Card's invoke to efficiently recharge their wand of wishing or magic marker(s) with at least 20 charges left (to try and boost to 75); any other role will normally want to use a blessed scroll of charging for this instead.[2] The artifact also grants more mileage from various wands and certain stat-boosting rings, as well as practically-infinite use of charged tools, without using scrolls or marker charges; this makes uncursed charging and artifact blasts worth dealing with for non-Tourists far more often than not.
With all the above perks in mind, The Platinum Yendorian Express Card is a luxury for neutral non-Tourists (albeit an excellent one): they should prioritize wishes that increase survivability where possible, though lucky players (especially ones that get early wishes) may find themselves with a spare wish that can be spent on the Card if so desired. Any role using the Card should have other sources of magic resistance and telepathy available alongside the Card—the Wizard of Yendor can swipe it from you and becomes far more troublesome to deal with if he does, so it is typically a good idea to bag it during the late game and ascension run.

Conducts
Neutral conduct play opens up several other considerations for using The Platinum Yendorian Express Card:

For illiterate conduct players, The Platinum Yendorian Express Card is the only method of charging available, particularly for various wands such as the wand of wishing and wand of death.
Liquid-diet foodless players may seek the Card in order to sustain their stock of nutrition-giving potions, usually by invoking it to recharge a horn of plenty.
Pacifists are more reliant on wands than most, and will want to wish for it in order to charge essential wands and other objects, e.g. wands of fire and lightning for engraving, teleportation wands for escaping, and The Orb of Fate as an unlimited-use crystal ball that has no risk of exploding (on top of its valuable defensive properties).
Eating jewelry as mentioned above can overlap with one or more conducts in other ways (e.g., obtaining resistances for pacifists, or boosting AC for nudists).
History
The Platinum Yendorian Express Card was introduced along with most of the other quest artifacts in NetHack 3.1.0.
In NetHack 3.4.3, earlier versions and some variants based on them, the Wizard of Yendor would only steal the quest artifact of your current role, making the Card much safer to carry in open inventory.

Origin
The artifact gets its name from the Commodore 64 version of the game Wizardry, whose manual states that players start with limited gold because "few adventurers have a Platinum Yendorian Express Card". The name is based off the American Express suite of credit cards - certain types of credit cards are also known as charge cards, hence the artifact's ability when invoked. Somewhat funnily, the tiles representation of credit cards is modeled after a Mastercard, which is a credit card but not a charge card.

Variants
The Platinum Yendorian Express Card is usually not a rare exception to the “X of [the] Y” rule in variants that introduce other artifacts. More importantly, some 3.4.3-derived variants have the Wizard of Yendor follow that version's for his artifact theft attack.

SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, the charging provided by The Platinum Yendorian Express Card can enable practical long-term use of lightsabers for Jedi and other players that unrestrict the skill via crowning. Alongside the fact that the Wizard of Yendor follows 3.4.3 rules for his Amulet-stealing attack, the Card is even more enticing as a wishing candidate; however, artifact blast damage is heavily buffed as well, doing up to 8d10 damage (or 6d10 if you have magic resistance).

SlashTHEM
In addition to SLASH'EM changes, SlashTHEM introduces another artifact, the Gourd of Infinity, that can be invoked to charge items; this makes the Card somewhat less unique.

dNetHack
In dNetHack, The Platinum Yendorian Express Card is silvered, but is otherwise unchanged. Like other quest artifacts in dNetHack, it cannot be obtained by wishing, and can only be found outside the Tourist quest in the appropriate bones; however, the Wizard of Yendor's Amulet-stealing attack no longer targets quest artifacts, making it a valuable resource for Tourists and a stellar bones find for any other role.

xNetHack
In xNetHack, The Platinum Yendorian Express Card is made of actual platinum, but is otherwise unchanged.

EvilHack
In EvilHack, changes to artifact wishing means that wishing for The Platinum Yendorian Express Card will cause a hostile Twoflower to generate with it. He now has sleep resistance and poison resistance like all quest leaders, alongside the Card's magic resistance - though not especially difficult to defeat compared to other quest leaders, this makes spending a very early wish on the artifact quite a bad idea.

Encyclopedia entry

This is an ancient artifact made of an unknown material.  It is rectangular in shape, very thin, and inscribed with unreadable ancient runes.  When carried, it grants the one who carries it ESP, and reduces all spell induced damage done to the carrier by half.  It also protects from magic missile attacks.  Finally, its power is such that when invoked, it can charge other objects.

 

References

↑ src/artifact.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1502

↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 602