# Shirt
A shirt is a piece of armor worn underneath body armor. There are two types of shirt in NetHack: the T-shirt and the Hawaiian shirt. Both are functionally identical.
0.2% of all randomly generated armor items are T-shirts, while 0.8% are Hawaiian shirts.

Contents

1 T-shirt

1.1 T-shirt texts
1.2 History

2 Hawaiian shirt
3 Strategy
4 Variants

4.1 Convict patch
4.2 dNetHack
4.3 SLASH'EM
4.4 SlashTHEM
4.5 SpliceHack

5 Encyclopedia entry

5.1 Hawaiian shirt

6 References

T-shirt

[   T-shirt   

Appearance

T-shirt

Slot

shirt

AC

0

Special

readableshop markup

Base price

2 zm

Weight

5

Material

cloth

A T-shirt is the first of the two shirts. T-shirts can be read. If you go shopping when wearing a T-shirt and the shopkeeper sees it (i.e., there is no body armor or cloak over it), he will charge an extra 1/3 markup and buy things for 1/3 of the base price.
Reading a T-shirt will display a message. The message is dependent on the item's object ID, so it will remain consistent for any one T-shirt.[1] If the shirt is eroded, some of the text might be altered, just as an engraving would be.[2] Reading a T-shirt breaks the illiterate conduct.

T-shirt texts
The possible messages are:[3]

"I explored the Dungeons of Doom and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!"
"Is that Mjollnir in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
"It's not the size of your sword, it's how #enhance’d you are with it."
"Madame Elvira's House O' Succubi Lifetime Customer"
"Madame Elvira's House O' Succubi Employee of the Month"
"Ludios Vault Guards Do It In Small, Dark Rooms"
"Yendor Military Soldiers Do It In Large Groups"
"I survived Yendor Military Boot Camp"
"Ludios Accounting School Intra-Mural Lacrosse Team"
"Oracle(TM) Fountains 10th Annual Wet T-Shirt Contest"
"Hey, black dragon! Disintegrate THIS!"
"I'm With Stupid --&gt;"
"Don't blame me, I voted for Izchak!"
"Don't Panic"
"Furinkan High School Athletic Dept."
"Hel-LOOO, Nurse!"
"=^.^=",
"100% goblin hair - do not wash"
"Aberzombie and Fitch"
"cK -- Cockatrice touches the Kop"
"Don't ask me, I only adventure here"
"Down with pants!"
"d, your dog or a killer?"
"FREE PUG AND NEWT!"
"Go team ant!"
"Got newt?"
"Hello, my darlings!"
"Hey!  Nymphs!  Steal This T-Shirt!"
"I &lt;3 Dungeon of Doom"
"I &lt;3 Maud"
"I am a Valkyrie.  If you see me running, try to keep up."
"I am not a pack rat - I am a collector"
"I bounced off a rubber tree"
"Plunder Island Brimstone Beach Club"
"If you can read this, I can hit you with my polearm"
"I'm confused!"
"I scored with the princess"
"I want to live forever or die in the attempt."
"Lichen Park"
"LOST IN THOUGHT - please send search party"
"Meat is Mordor"
"Minetown Better Business Bureau"
"Minetown Watch"
"Ms. Palm's House of Negotiable Affection -- A Very Reputable House Of Disrepute"
"Protection Racketeer"
"Real men love Crom"
"Somebody stole my Mojo!"
"The Hellhound Gang"
"The Werewolves"
"They Might Be Storm Giants"
"Weapons don't kill people, I kill people"
"White Zombie"
"You're killing me!"
"Anhur State University - Home of the Fighting Fire Ants!"
"FREE HUGS"
"Serial Ascender"
"Real men are valkyries"
"Young Men's Cavedigging Association"
"Occupy Fort Ludios"
"I couldn't afford this T-shirt so I stole it!"
"Mind flayers suck"
"I'm not wearing any pants"
"Down with the living!"
"Pudding farmer"
"Vegetarian"
"Hello, I'm War!"
"It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness"
"It is easier to curse the darkness than to light a candle"
"rock--paper--scissors--lizard--Spock!"
"/Valar morghulis/ -- /Valar dohaeris/"
History
The t-shirt was added as an item in NetHack 3.2.0 in April 1996.
The extra T-shirt messages were added in NetHack 3.4.0 from a patch by Scott Bigham. Previously, the only messages were:[4]

"I explored the Dungeons of Doom, and never did any laundry..."
if hallucinating and currently wearing the T-shirt
"I explored the Dungeons of Doom, and couldn't find my way out"
if hallucinating and not currently wearing the T-shirt
"I explored the Dungeons of Doom, but all I got was this lousy T-shirt"
otherwise
Pasi Kallinen and Pat Rankin added more messages in NetHack 3.6.0 and NetHack 3.6.1.

Hawaiian shirt

[   Hawaiian shirt   

Appearance

Hawaiian shirt

Slot

shirt

AC

0

Special

shop markup

Base price

3 zm

Weight

5

Material

cloth

All Tourists start with a +0 Hawaiian shirt.
If you go shopping when wearing a Hawaiian shirt and the shopkeeper sees it (i.e., there is no body armor or cloak over it), he will charge an extra 1/3 markup and buy things for 1/3 of the base price.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

Reading a Hawaiian shirt will print its design.
Strategy
Shirts are not valuable in the early game before obtaining protection from polymorph traps, since they will be destroyed if you polymorph into a large form. It may be better to enchant other armor items instead, like a helm, boots, or gloves.
Later in the game when most of your gear is fully enchanted and you have magic resistance to protect from polymorph traps, shirts can provide a useful AC bonus if enchanted.
Those not averse to polypiling should also note that a shirt is non-magical and is therefore fairly easy to obtain by polymorphing a large pile of armor objects (try the Castle or Fort Ludios). See the table below for a breakdown of probabilities of success from polypiling.
The armor storeroom in the Castle level, which has fourteen randomly selected armors, makes for a significant 13.13% chance of having either a Hawaiian shirt or a T-shirt. The random general store items in Orcus Town may also produce a shirt.
A Hawaiian shirt in a bones pile is a strong indicator that the deceased was a Tourist.

Confidence
25%
50%
75%
95%

Polymorphs

28.62

68.97

137.94

298.07

Armors needed (blessed)

3.59

8.66

17.32

37.41

Armors needed (uncursed)

5.51

13.29

26.58

57.42

Variants
Other variants add new types of shirts.

Convict patch
The striped shirt is worn by Convicts. It is thus present in UnNetHack, DynaHack, dNetHack, EvilHack, SpliceHack, and SlashTHEM.

dNetHack
In dNetHack, the ruffled shirt grants a +1 bonus to charisma and can be enchanted to raise AC like any other shirt. Victorian underwear grants a charisma bonus of +2 and MC 3 (maximum magic cancellation), at the cost of a -2 penalty to AC and reduction of the AC bonus from dexterity.
The bodyglove is future tech available to Anachrononauts.
dNetHack also includes the black dress, which is worn by female drow nobles.

SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, if the Guild of Disgruntled Adventurers is generated (50%), then it has a guaranteed two Hawaiian shirts, from the two guaranteed tourists.

SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, the ruffled shirt behaves as an ordinary shirt, with no unusual bonuses or penalties. The Victorian underwear grants MC3—making it the "shirt" with the highest MC in the game—at the cost of an AC penalty. SlashTHEM also adds the expensive suit from the obsolete variant NetHack-- for Undertakers.

SpliceHack
SpliceHack adds two shirt-slot armors, the dress and the tuxedo, but these don't have any special effects.

Encyclopedia entry
Hawaiian shirt

'One of the things he can't do, he can't ride a horse,' he
said.  Then he stiffened as if sandbagged by a sudden
recollection, gave a small yelp of terror and dashed into
the gloom.  When he returned, the being called Twoflower was
hanging limply over his shoulder.  It was small and skinny,
and dressed very oddly in a pair of knee-length britches and
a shirt in such a violent and vivid conflict of colours that
the Weasel's fastidious eye was offended even in the half-light.

[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ] 

References

↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 161

↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 162

↑ src/read.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 81

↑ read.c in NetHack 3.3.0, line 86