# Amulet of strangulation

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Name

amulet of strangulation

Appearance

random

Base price

150 zm

Weight

20

Wearing an amulet of strangulation quickly strangles you to death, unless you are headless or both breathless and mindless,[1] in six turns.[2] Removing it nullifies the effect; however, most of these amulets are generated cursed.

Contents

1 Generation
2 Identification
3 Messages
4 Strategy
5 History
6 References

Generation
There is a 13.5% chance that a randomly-generated amulet will be an amulet of strangulation. This amulet is generated cursed 90.5% of the time, uncursed 9% of the time, and blessed 0.5% of the time. There is a guaranteed amulet of strangulation on the middle level of Vlad's Tower. 

Identification
This amulet auto-identifies when worn.

Messages
The messages in the Alt. message column occur when you are breathless, and 2% of the time when you aren't.[3]

Message
Alt. message
Turns left to live

"It constricts your throat!"

"It constricts your throat!"

5

"You find it hard to breathe."

"Your neck is becoming constricted."

4

"You're gasping for air."

"Your blood is having trouble reaching your brain."

3

"You can no longer breathe."

"The pressure on your neck increases."

2

"You're turning blue."

"Your consciousness is fading."

1

"You suffocate."

"You suffocate."

0

Strategy
This amulet is dangerous, and one of (if not the) main reasons you should not put on amulets without knowing their BUC status. If cursed, you can pray (assuming it is safe) to have it destroyed. If you find a noncursed amulet of strangulation, though, it can be easily identified and taken off. Being strangled renders you unable to cast spells, so don't rely on the remove curse spell to save you.
Eating this amulet has a 19⁄20 chance of choking you to death immediately, unless you are breathless.
If it is cursed and you have a wand of cancellation, you can zap yourself to uncurse the amulet and then safely remove it. This also affects all other items in your inventory, so if you have time you may want to drop everything except the wand of cancellation and then zap yourself.
If you do manage to get the amulet off, your strength is still abused.

History
In NetHack 3.4.3 and derived variants, the amulet is always deadly when worn. Being breathless saves you from choking whiles eating the amulet, but not from wearing it.
The inability to cast spells while wearing one is introduced in NetHack 3.6.1.

References

↑ mondata.c in NetHack 3.6.1, line 354

↑ do_wear.c in NetHack 3.6.1, line 733

↑ timeout.c in NetHack 3.6.1, line 245

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