Chests

A chest stands on its own spot on the floor, as a door stands in a doorway. Shut (⊟), it is in your way. Open (⊔) or smashed (⊠), you can step onto it, and what it held lies there. Chests are never picked up and carried.

What a chest is called

Every chest has a level: the level of the place it stands in (the dungeon floor’s depth). Its level gives its name, its colour, and how sturdy it is. Look at one (l) to see what it is: a coffer on the first floors, a hutch or a banded chest deeper, a strongbox deeper still. The old names are for old things:

You never see what a shut chest holds, or whether it is locked or trapped, until you try it (or search it).

Where chests are found

About one dungeon floor in five has a chest standing out in the open, in the middle of a room or a cavern. A chest is never in a doorway or a corridor, by the stairs, in a shop, or in a vault. Each dungeon says how often:

A treasure room holds one or two more, behind its secret doors. A greater treasure room, walled up with no way in but through a wall, holds two to four. A few of the dungeons’ own halls and hoards keep chests of their own besides, locked or trapped as their owners left them. Those are of the level of the floor they stand on too, and are never mimics.

A chest found on a floor is of that floor’s level. Many come locked, more often the deeper you go. Some are trapped with one of the traps that dungeon hides on its floors; a dungeon without traps has no trapped chests. A few are no chest at all but a mimic, which is never locked or trapped:

What a chest holds

A chest holds a few things rolled by dice, a purse of gold coins, and now and then loose gems. Its items are found as loot is anywhere, so some may turn out to be gems. They are of the floor’s level, or a few levels above it for the greater chests, and a share of them is sure to be magic or rare. Talents that make your finds richer (Treasure hunter, Hoard sense) count for what is in a chest too.

A coffer holds about a floor’s worth of loot and a handful of coins. A banded chest holds two floors’ worth, a quarter of it magic. The coins and gems are what make kicking a chest worth it: a boot spares them, a fireball does not (below).

Opening a chest

Walk into a shut chest, or press o and its direction, to lift the lid:

You open the coffer.
Inside you find a dagger and 12 gold coins.

That takes 6 seconds at a normal pace. Whatever it held now lies in the open chest as a pile. Pick it up as any other: step in and press g. Nothing in it is identified for you. An open chest stays open.

Locked chests

Many chests are locked:

The coffer is locked.

Trying takes no time. Only a skeleton key opens a chest’s lock, unless the place gave that chest a lock of its own; then its own key opens it too. Unlocking and opening take 12 seconds together:

You unlock the coffer with your skeleton key and open it.

Without a key:

• Pick lock works on a chest’s lock exactly as on a door’s (see Doors): You pick the lock and open the coffer.
• Knock is the wizard’s word of unbinding, from level 4, for 5 mana and the time of a spell (see Classes). Choose it in the abilities menu (a) and a direction, and the lock there, of a chest or a door, springs open: The lock springs open with a click. Nothing opens by itself; open it afterwards as an unlocked one. Where nothing locked stands, Knock is refused and costs nothing: There is no lock there to spring.
• Kick it open (below).

Kicking a chest open

Press k and a chest’s direction to kick it, as you kick a door: 6 seconds, and just as loud. Your chance to break it is your Strength against its sturdiness. Your Athletics skill and the Lockbreaker talent add to your Strength for this, as for a door. A chest that holds says You kick the coffer. It holds., and nothing else happens, so kick as often as you like.

A chest that breaks is smashed: The coffer bursts apart! Its lock is gone, and each stack inside has an even chance to break, one after another. The rest lies in the splinters. Coins and loose gems never break under a boot. The Lockbreaker talent (Strength 12) halves the chance.

The coffer bursts apart!
The potion of healing and the scroll of fireball are destroyed.
Inside you find a dagger and 12 gold coins.

Blasts

A blast, such as a fireball trap’s or a scroll of fireball’s, blows apart a shut chest it reaches if it is stronger than the chest’s hardness (the last column above): The coffer is blown apart! Each stack inside breaks with the same even chance, and nothing is spared, the coins and the gems included. A fireball’s blast (1000) blows apart anything up to a strongbox; the great chests outlast it.

You cannot dig into a chest.

Trapped chests

Some chests are trapped, with the same traps that doors have: an arrow, spears, a fireball, frost, lightning, an alarm bell, or a teleport, but never a pit. The trap is hidden, and goes off at you:

• when you open the chest, with a key, without one, or after picking its lock. Knock only springs the lock; the trap waits for the lid;
• when your kick breaks it open, as the kick lands. A kick that holds sets nothing off;
• when you fail badly to disarm it.

The trap comes out of the chest at whoever is beside it. An arrow shoots out of the box itself, spears strike at you, lightning runs from the chest through you, and a fireball or frost bursts around the chest. Walking past never sets it off.

A fireball or frost trap goes off inside the box and blows the chest apart, however it was set off: The coffer is blown apart! Each stack inside breaks with an even chance, and nothing is spared, coins and gems included, as in a blast. The other traps leave the chest as they found it: open if you opened it, smashed if you kicked it.

You open the coffer.
A fireball explodes!
The fireball burns you.
The coffer is blown apart!
The 12 gold coins are destroyed.
Inside you find a dagger.

A chest blown apart by a blast from somewhere else (a scroll of fireball, another trap) sets off its own trap at no one: the trap is simply gone with the lid.

Searching, helped by your Detect traps skill, finds a chest’s trap like any hidden trap (You notice that the coffer is trapped: an arrow trap.). Once you know it, look mode says so: “A coffer, trapped: an arrow trap.” The chest keeps its own look on the map. A known trap on a chest can be disarmed like any other (see Traps), and the chest is then an ordinary shut chest. Trap sense halves a chest trap’s blow, as any trap’s.

The Chest-wise talent

With the Chest-wise talent (Intelligence 11 or Detect traps 15), you can tell at a glance whether a shut chest you see is locked. Look mode calls it “a locked coffer” or “an unlocked coffer”. A trapped chest gives itself away as soon as you see it, with no search and no chance of missing it: You notice that the coffer is trapped: a fireball trap.

See also: Doors, Traps, and Mimics.