Since Esteban's discovery of the effects of the Muramasa Blade and the Lynx Ring -- two items that I (and probably a lot of others) had always believed were just examples of bugs or incomplete coding -- I've started to suspect that perhaps Bane was very well put together, so if something else doesn't appear quite right, we are missing something. This leads to at least three puzzles:

1. The wrist rocket and cuckoo's call (among some other items) appear NOWHERE in the game. Based on Apsen's decoding of all treasures, certain items will never appear in a chest and will never be dropped by a monster, yet they ARE in the item list, and if you "hack" them into a character, you can use them. Query: is there some hidden way to manufacture these items that we have overlooked? (One hypothesis I've entertained about the wrist rocket -- which has so far failed to pan out -- is that the extra rubber strand may be used as a component. After all, why are there 5 rubber beasts when you only need 4 to make a rubber band?

2. The book of poetry "doesn't work." Experimenting with this, I've found that if I hack the description to make the BoP "equippable," it can be equipped and invoked, and will increase intelligence, but I doubt DWB had that approach in mind. I noticed on what I'm guessing was a Japanese site that the Japanese version of Bane has an additional item, the Ankh of Poetry, which is somehow related to the Book of Poetry. Was this ankh inadvertedently omitted from the English Bane? Is there supposed to be some other way to use the BoP? (I don't credit one use that has been proferred: that the BoP can be used before or during combat with certain female NPCs to weaken their response. This did not work in my testing.) Anyone who wants to check the "Japanese" site, I will try to paste the URL:

http://www.fsinet.or.jp/~emonoya/item/6/6book.html

• RE: Musing about Wrist Rocket, Book of Poetry & Cuckoo's Call,Ogre (Guest), 02:23 PM, Apr-05-02
• RE: Musing about Wrist Rocket, Book of Poetry & Cuckoo's Call,Kennedy (Guest), 04:29 AM, Apr-06-02

I had only 1 time an "effect" with the Book of Poetry. That was with Saeron. She seemed to freeze in place when I fought her to see what she had. That is the ONLY time I ever seen an effect from the Book. On no other Female did I see any results. A 1 time deal could be for many other reasons. So I agree about not being credited
Ogre

I ran the page through a translator and this is what I got:

BOOKofPoetry
SP: The INT+1 (being to be equipment failure, use failure)
Preparation: In SFC edition ANKHofPoetry

I guess they weren't able to equip it either.
Then I followed some links and found an entry for the Ankh of Poetry:

ANKHofPoetry
Resistance: Sleeping * super 25
SP: INT+1
Preparation: Other than SFC edition
BOOKofPoetry