wand of cancellation

A NetHack item of very mixed usefulness and extreme power. This item is probably one of the most underrated in the game. Like all wands, you use it by zapping it at some target.

A wand of cancellation basically eliminates the magical or special powers of its target. Zapping a wand of cancellation at yourself cancels all of your items (see below) and removes any intrinsics, including luck modifiers. This is highly inadvisable unless you are desperate. It is also the number one reason not to zap yourself with random wands (what about the wand of death, I hear you asking? By the time you find one, you'll be past the zapping-self-with-random-wands phase). I did this once and walked away feeling depressingly mundane.

Zapping a wand of cancellation at an item removes that item's special powers. In particular:

• scrolls and spellbooks become blank
• rings stop working
• weapons and armor have all enchantments removed
• potions become ordinary water
• wands lose all charges
• item becomes uncursed

Zapping this wand at a monster suppresses just about anything that makes that monster special. For example:

• poison, blindness, paralysis, level drain, whatever attacks do not function
• The various spheres and lights cannot explode in your face
• the monster cannot steal from you
• the monster cannot seduce you
• the monster cannot rust or rot your belongings
• Medusa cannot turn you or herself into stone
• puddings cannot divide
• cockatrices cannot turn you to stone
• a demon cannot summon other demons (whew!)
• golems die

If you put a wand of cancellation inside a bag of holding, the whole thing explodes, doing you a bunch of damage. The bag, the wand, and all items that were in the bag disappear for good. Yes, I did this once too. Don't ever put unidentified wands inside your bag of holding.

Two good uses for a wand of cancellation:

1. Zap it at a bones pile, having first removed anything you do not want to be cancelled. As well as uncursing things like unicorn horns and luckstones, making them useful, this will convert a cursed bag of holding (which may well be too heavy to lift) into an uncursed bag of holding. The contents of the bag will not be cancelled and will not have been cursed when the bones pile was created either.
2. Collect junk potions and scrolls, and every so often, drop them and zap the pile with your wand of cancellation. Then make the resulting water holy and write on the blank scrolls.