Scrolls

Spoiler Warning: This page contains spoilers which may affect your IVAN experience negatively

Scrolls are items made of parchment which contain a magical writing. You can release the spell contained in the scroll by reading it, but the scroll will vanish after use.

Reading scrolls trains your intelligence and intelligence is also required to read the scroll quickly - the more powerful the scroll is, the less it is common to find, takes longer to read successfully but raise your intelligence more. You cannot read scrolls while confused and certain monsters cannot read scrolls at all.

Scrolls cannot be harmed by physical damage (e.g. kicking them), but being made of parchment, they are highly flammable. Kamikaze Dwarves with their explosions are especially dangerous to unprotected scrolls - put your scrolls into any chest before engaging them.

Types of Scrolls

Scroll Name	Effect
Body Switch	Prompts you for a direction and attempts to switch your body with the chosen creature. Requires the same Int and Cha check to be successful as a scroll of taming (see below). Note that this body switching is permanent and thus can leave you in a weaker body if you choose poorly.
Change Material	Allows you to change the material of any single item or limb. You must have a certain amount of intelligence for the transmutation to be successful. Paired items (e.g. two identical boots) will be transmuted both.
Charging	Recharges any Wand up to the maximum number of charges it previously had.
Detect Material	Detects and highlights all items, structures and monsters made of the requested material present on the current floor.
Earthquake	Causes an earthquake if read underground.
Enchant Armor	Enchants a piece of armor of your choice. Paired items (e.g. two identical boots) will be enchanted both. Enchanting is guaranteed to succeed up to +5, beyond that it becomes less likely the higher it should be enchanted. Unsuccesful enchanting will waste the scroll but the item remains intact.
Enchant Weapon	Enchants the weapon of your choice, otherwise mimicking the effects of the scroll of enchant armor.
Golem Creation	Allows you to create a friendly Golem out of any item, the material of which will be used for the golem's flesh.
Harden Material	Hardens the material of any item or limb you pick. You must have a certain amount of intelligence in order to harden the material successfully. Otherwise, the same rules as for scroll of change material apply.
Immolation	Let's you pick a single creature you can see, then causes an explosion centered on said creature.
Repair	Repairs all damage done to a single item or artificial limb. Paired items (e.g. two identical boots) will be repaired both.
Taming	Allows you to tame a single adjacent creature, but the taming is not guaranteed to be successful - you need a sufficiently high Int and Cha for the creature to be tamed, with more powerful or unique creatures requiring higher attributes.
Teleportation	Teleports you to a random square on the current level, unless you have TeleControl.
Wishing	Grants you a single wish.

Special Scrolls

Encrypted Scroll

• You are given this scroll at the beginning of the game to deliver it to Petrus. It cannot be read or destroyed.

Strategy

Work in progress!

Tips and Tricks

• Note that the Wand of Teleportation is superior to the scroll in that it takes only one turn to zap while the scroll can take some time to read. On the other hand, you need no limbs to read a scroll, unlike zapping a wand.

• Scrolls of wishing, charging and body switch cannot be wished for nor can they be cloned, to prevent abuse.

• The material detection can be useful while fighting the Enner Beast or mystic dark frogs, cutting the time you have to endure their powers to minimum, as you will know their location. Simply detect e.g. enner beast flesh. It can be used as well to find any hidden loot or to magically map the level, if you ask to detect the wall material.
  • Note that attempting to detect any material that is present in large quantities (e.g the floor or tunnel walls' material) will result in the player being hit with "an enormous burst of geographical information" resulting in confusion and the scrambling of your floor layout memory. The chance of this happening can be mitigated by having a higher intelligence.

• For the effects that affect paired items, the items must be perfectly identical. For instance, you would have to have two boots of agility +2, both broken and covered in water.