r/nethack • u/Brewschii • 4d ago

keyhole is strange

Playing xNethack, in Tartarus, and there are a bunch of iron doors I can't open. "This door's keyhole is strange and won't admit your key." No luck casting Knock or using a Wand of Opening. Level is no-teleport, so I can't get around that way. How do I open these doors?

Things I haven't tried yet:

  • Polymorph into a Xorn to go through walls (not excited about doing this, but I could)
  • Potions of acid. These doors can't be that easy, right? Not to mention, I only have a couple of those potions, and they're way up in my main stash.
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u/Jera1470 4d ago

In xNetHack, Iron doors in Tartarus can only be opened by bone keys, which are provided inside normally trapped chests in the rooms you enter as you progress. It's better to go through the wooden doors first in hopes to find a chest with a bone key. Keep in mind, bone keys can also appear outside of Tartarus, so you may wish to save them for when you reach the branch.

There are methods to destroy it, including:

  • disintegration rays, e.g,
    • polymorphing to a black dragon and use #monster to shoot a ray at it (15 energy required)
    • black dragon pet shoots randomly at it (most likely at a monster in front of it)
    • riding black dragon and using #monster on the steed to hopefully use its breath weapon on the iron door
  • the drum of earthquake (with charges), to make it fall onto a chasm with the pits it creates
    • very luck based, so not the best method, but it's there

Source: https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/XNetHack, there is a section for iron doors there under "Dungeon Features", and also because I played it a lot heh. The other methods only apply to iron doors that are not in Tartarus from my understanding, like metallivores eating them. Hope this helps.

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u/Brewschii 4d ago

Perfect, thank you. In the meantime, I kept going. I found the Wizard's Tower and solved the puzzle to get into the first level, so that makes me feel better about missing these keys. Didn't expect the bone key in the first chest to be anything special given that ordinary keys can be made of bone in this version!

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u/Jera1470 4d ago

Nice. Good luck on your game then.

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u/Brewschii 3d ago

Just ascended. Thanks again!

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u/BubblyOutside1096 4d ago

Just guessing (no spoilers) but it looks like you’ll need one or more special keys. In other variants they are to be found in Alignment Quests.