wand of nothing

Of all the bizarre items to be found in NetHack, this could quite possibly be the biggest disappointment of all. This wand literally does nothing -- I guess it lives up to its name better than most of the other wands, if you want to think of it that way. I think it comes with several hundred charges.

Fortunately, there is some code in the character generation file (u_init.c) that prevents a hapless wizard from starting out with one.

Actually, the Wand of Nothing, like many other wands (see http://www.steelypips.org/nethack/wan1-331.html), has 15 charges. However, as with any other wand, when it is empty, it will display the message "Nothing happens" unless a 1/127 chance comes up, in which case the last charge is wrested and the wand is destroyed. This explains why one can indeed zap a Wand of Nothing several hundred times.