









                         A Guide to the Mazes of Menace
                            (Guidebook for NetHack)


                       Original version - Eric S. Raymond
     (Edited and expanded for NetHack 3.7.0 by Mike Stephenson and others)

                                January 02, 2024



     1.  Introduction

          Recently, you have begun to find yourself unfulfilled and distant
     in  your  daily  occupation.  Strange dreams of prospecting, stealing,
     crusading, and combat have haunted you in your sleep for many  months,
     but  you  aren't  sure  of the reason.  You wonder whether you have in
     fact been having those dreams all your life, and  somehow  managed  to
     forget  about them until now.  Some nights you awaken suddenly and cry
     out, terrified at the vivid recollection of the strange  and  powerful
     creatures  that  seem to be lurking behind every corner of the dungeon
     in your dream.  Could these details haunting your dreams be real?   As
     each night passes, you feel the desire to enter the mysterious caverns
     near  the ruins grow stronger.  Each morning, however, you quickly put
     the idea out of your head as you recall the tales of those who entered
     the caverns before you and did not return.  Eventually you can  resist
     the yearning to seek out the fantastic place in your dreams no longer.
     After  all,  when  other adventurers came back this way after spending
     time in the caverns, they usually seemed better  off  than  when  they
     passed  through  the first time.  And who was to say that all of those
     who did not return had not just kept going?

          Asking around, you hear about a bauble, called the Amulet of Yen-
     dor by some, which, if you can find it, will bring you  great  wealth.
     One  legend  you  were  told even mentioned that the one who finds the
     amulet will be granted immortality by the gods.  The amulet is rumored
     to be somewhere beyond the Valley of Gehennom, deep within  the  Mazes
     of  Menace.   Upon  hearing  the legends, you immediately realize that
     there is some profound and undiscovered reason that you are to descend
     into the caverns and seek out that amulet of which they  spoke.   Even
     if  the  rumors of the amulet's powers are untrue, you decide that you
     should at least be able to sell the tales of your  adventures  to  the
     local minstrels for a tidy sum, especially if you encounter any of the
     terrifying  and  magical  creatures of your dreams along the way.  You
     spend one last night fortifying yourself at the  local  inn,  becoming
     more  and  more  depressed as you watch the odds of your success being
     posted on the inn's walls getting lower and lower.

          In the morning you awake, collect your belongings,  and  set  off
     for the dungeon.  After several days of uneventful travel, you see the


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     ancient  ruins  that  mark the entrance to the Mazes of Menace.  It is
     late at night, so you make camp at the entrance and  spend  the  night
     sleeping  under the open skies.  In the morning, you gather your gear,
     eat what may be your last meal outside, and enter the dungeon....

     2.  What is going on here?

          You have just begun a game of NetHack.  Your goal is to  grab  as
     much  treasure  as  you can, retrieve the Amulet of Yendor, and escape
     the Mazes of Menace alive.

          Your abilities and strengths for dealing with the hazards of  ad-
     venture will vary with your background and training:

          Archeologists  understand dungeons pretty well; this enables them
     to move quickly and  sneak  up  on  the  local  nasties.   They  start
     equipped with the tools for a proper scientific expedition.

          Barbarians  are  warriors out of the hinterland, hardened to bat-
     tle.  They begin their quests with naught  but  uncommon  strength,  a
     trusty hauberk, and a great two-handed sword.

          Cavemen and Cavewomen start with exceptional strength but, unfor-
     tunately, with neolithic weapons.

          Healers are wise in medicine and apothecary.  They know the herbs
     and  simples  that  can  restore vitality, ease pain, anesthetize, and
     neutralize poisons; and with their instruments, they can divine a  be-
     ing's  state of health or sickness.  Their medical practice earns them
     quite reasonable amounts of money, with which they enter the dungeon.

          Knights are distinguished from the common skirmisher by their de-
     votion to the ideals of chivalry and by the surpassing  excellence  of
     their armor.

          Monks are ascetics, who by rigorous practice of physical and men-
     tal disciplines have become capable of fighting as effectively without
     weapons as with.  They wear no armor but make up for it with increased
     mobility.

          Priests and Priestesses are clerics militant, crusaders advancing
     the  cause  of  righteousness with arms, armor, and arts thaumaturgic.
     Their ability to commune with deities via prayer  occasionally  extri-
     cates them from peril, but can also put them in it.

          Rangers  are most at home in the woods, and some say slightly out
     of place in a dungeon.  They are, however, experts in archery as  well
     as tracking and stealthy movement.

          Rogues  are  agile and stealthy thieves, with knowledge of locks,
     traps, and poisons.  Their advantage lies in surprise, which they  em-
     ploy to great advantage.




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          Samurai  are  the  elite  warriors  of  feudal  Nippon.  They are
     lightly armored and quick, and wear the dai-sho,  two  swords  of  the
     deadliest keenness.

          Tourists  start  out  with  lots  of  gold (suitable for shopping
     with), a credit card, lots of food, some maps, and an  expensive  cam-
     era.  Most monsters don't like being photographed.

          Valkyries are hardy warrior women.  Their upbringing in the harsh
     Northlands makes them strong, inures them to extremes of cold, and in-
     stills in them stealth and cunning.

          Wizards start out with a knowledge of magic, a selection of magi-
     cal items, and a particular affinity for dweomercraft.  Although seem-
     ingly  weak and easy to overcome at first sight, an experienced Wizard
     is a deadly foe.

          You may also choose the race of your  character  (within  limits;
     most roles have restrictions on which races are eligible for them):

          Dwarves  are  smaller  than  humans  or elves, but are stocky and
     solid individuals.  Dwarves' most notable trait is their great  exper-
     tise  in mining and metalwork.  Dwarvish armor is said to be second in
     quality not even to the mithril armor of the Elves.

          Elves are agile, quick, and perceptive; very little of what  goes
     on will escape an Elf.  The quality of Elven craftsmanship often gives
     them an advantage in arms and armor.

          Gnomes are smaller than but generally similar to dwarves.  Gnomes
     are  known  to  be expert miners, and it is known that a secret under-
     ground mine complex built by this race exists within the Mazes of Men-
     ace, filled with both riches and danger.

          Humans are by far the most common race of the surface world,  and
     are  thus  the norm to which other races are often compared.  Although
     they have no special abilities, they can succeed in any role.

          Orcs are a cruel and barbaric race that hate every  living  thing
     (including other orcs).  Above all others, Orcs hate Elves with a pas-
     sion  unequalled,  and will go out of their way to kill one at any op-
     portunity.  The armor and weapons fashioned by the Orcs are  typically
     of inferior quality.

     3.  What do all those things on the screen mean?

          On  the  screen is kept a map of where you have been and what you
     have seen on the current dungeon level; as you  explore  more  of  the
     level, it appears on the screen in front of you.

          When NetHack's ancestor rogue first appeared, its screen orienta-
     tion  was  almost  unique  among  computer fantasy games.  Since then,
     screen orientation has become the  norm  rather  than  the  exception;
     NetHack  continues  this  fine tradition.  Unlike text adventure games


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     that accept commands in pseudo-English sentences and explain  the  re-
     sults in words, NetHack commands are all one or two keystrokes and the
     results  are  displayed  graphically  on the screen.  A minimum screen
     size of 24 lines by 80  columns  is  recommended;  if  the  screen  is
     larger, only a 21x80 section will be used for the map.

          NetHack  can even be played by blind players, with the assistance
     of Braille readers or speech synthesisers.  Instructions for configur-
     ing NetHack for the blind are included later in this document.

          NetHack generates a new dungeon every time you play it; even  the
     authors still find it an entertaining and exciting game despite having
     won several times.

          NetHack  offers a variety of display options.  The options avail-
     able to you will vary from port to port, depending on the capabilities
     of your hardware and software, and whether  various  compile-time  op-
     tions were enabled when your executable was created.  The three possi-
     ble  display  options  are:  a monochrome character interface, a color
     character interface, and a graphical interface  using  small  pictures
     called  tiles.   The  two  character interfaces allow fonts with other
     characters to be substituted, but the default assignments use standard
     ASCII characters to represent everything.  There is no difference  be-
     tween  the various display options with respect to game play.  Because
     we cannot reproduce the tiles or colors in the Guidebook, and  because
     it  is  common  to all ports, we will use the default ASCII characters
     from the monochrome character display when  referring  to  things  you
     might see on the screen during your game.

          In  order  to  understand  what is going on in NetHack, first you
     must understand what NetHack is doing with the  screen.   The  NetHack
     screen  replaces  the  "You  see  ..."  descriptions of text adventure
     games.  Figure 1 is a sample of what a NetHack screen might look like.
     The way the screen looks for you depends on your platform.


      +----------------------------------------------------------------+
      | The bat bites!                                                 |
      |                                                                |
      |     ------                                                     |
      |     |....|    ----------                                       |
      |     |.<..|####...@...$.|                                       |
      |     |....-#   |...B....+                                       |
      |     |....|    |.d......|                                       |
      |     ------    -------|--                                       |
      |                                                                |
      |                                                                |
      |                                                                |
      | Player the Rambler   St:12 Dx:7 Co:18 In:11 Wi:9 Ch:15 Neutral |
      | Dlvl:1 $:993 HP:9(12) Pw:3(3) AC:10 Exp:1/19 T:752 Hungry Conf |
      +----------------------------------------------------------------+
                                    Figure 1




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      +----------------------------------------------------------------+
      | Player the Rambler   St:12 Dx:7 Co:18 In:11 Wi:9 Ch:15         |
      | Neutral $:993 HP:9(12) Pw:3(3) AC:10 Exp:1/19 Hungry           |
      | Dlvl:1 T:752                                  Conf             |
      +----------------------------------------------------------------+
                                    Figure 2

     3.1.  The status lines (bottom)

          The bottom two (or three) lines of  the  screen  contain  several
     cryptic  pieces of information describing your current status.  Figure
     1 shows the traditional two-line status area below the map.  Figure  2
     shows just the status area, when the statuslines:3 option has been set
     (not  all interfaces support this option).  If any status line becomes
     wider than the screen, you might not see all of it due to  truncation.
     When  the numbers grow bigger and multiple conditions are present, the
     two-line format will run out of room on  the  second  line,  but  sta-
     tuslines:2  is the default because a basic 24-line terminal isn't tall
     enough for the third line.

          Here are explanations of what the various status items mean:

     Title
          Your character's name and professional ranking (based on role and
          experience level, see below).

     Strength
          A measure of your character's strength; one of your six basic at-
          tributes.  A human character's attributes can range from 3 to  18
          inclusive;  non-humans  may exceed these limits (occasionally you
          may get super-strengths of the form 18/xx,  and  magic  can  also
          cause  attributes  to exceed the normal limits).  The higher your
          strength, the stronger you are.  Strength  affects  how  success-
          fully  you perform physical tasks, how much damage you do in com-
          bat, and how much loot you can carry.

     Dexterity
          Dexterity affects your chances to hit in combat, to avoid  traps,
          and do other tasks requiring agility or manipulation of objects.

     Constitution
          Constitution  affects  your  ability to recover from injuries and
          other strains on your stamina.  When strength is low  or  modest,
          constitution  also  affects  how much you can carry.  With suffi-
          ciently high strength, the contribution to carrying capacity from
          your constitution no longer matters.

     Intelligence
          Intelligence affects your ability to cast spells and read  spell-
          books.

     Wisdom
          Wisdom  comes  from  your  practical  experience (especially when
          dealing with magic).  It affects your magical energy.


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     Charisma
          Charisma affects how certain creatures react toward you.  In par-
          ticular, it can affect the prices shopkeepers offer you.

     Alignment
          Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic.  Often, Lawful is taken as good  and
          Chaotic  as  evil,  but legal and ethical do not always coincide.
          Your alignment influences how other monsters  react  toward  you.
          Monsters  of  a  like alignment are more likely to be non-aggres-
          sive, while those of an opposing alignment are more likely to  be
          seriously offended at your presence.

     Dungeon Level
          How  deep you are in the dungeon.  You start at level one and the
          number increases as you go deeper into the dungeon.  Some  levels
          are  special, and are identified by a name and not a number.  The
          Amulet of Yendor is reputed to be somewhere beneath the twentieth
          level.

     Gold
          The number of gold pieces you are openly  carrying.   Gold  which
          you have concealed in containers is not counted.

     Hit Points
          Your  current  and  maximum  hit points.  Hit points indicate how
          much damage you can take before you die.  The more you get hit in
          a fight, the lower they get.  You can regain hit points by  rest-
          ing,  or by using certain magical items or spells.  The number in
          parentheses is the maximum number your hit points can reach.

     Power
          Spell points.  This tells you how much mystic energy  (mana)  you
          have available for spell casting.  Again, resting will regenerate
          the amount available.

     Armor Class
          A  measure  of  how  effectively  your armor stops blows from un-
          friendly creatures.  The lower this number is, the more effective
          the armor; it is quite possible to  have  negative  armor  class.
          See the Armor subsection of Objects for more information.

     Experience
          Your  current experience level.  If the showexp option is set, it
          will be followed by a slash and experience points.  As you adven-
          ture, you gain experience points.  At  certain  experience  point
          totals,  you  gain an experience level.  The more experienced you
          are, the better you fight and withstand magical attacks.  (By the
          time your level reaches double digits, the usefulness of  showing
          the  points  with  it has dropped significantly.  You can use the
          `O' command to turn showexp off to avoid  using  up  the  limited
          status line space.)

     Time
          The  number  of  turns  elapsed so far, displayed if you have the


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          time option set.

     Status
          Hunger: your current hunger status.   Values  are  Satiated,  Not
          Hungry  (or  Normal), Hungry, Weak, and Fainting.  Not shown when
          Normal.

          Encumbrance: an indication of how what you are  carrying  affects
          your   ability  to  move.   Values  are  Unencumbered,  Burdened,
          Stressed, Strained, Overtaxed, and Overloaded.   Not  shown  when
          Unencumbered.

          Fatal conditions: Stone (aka Petrifying, turning to stone), Slime
          (turning  into  green  slime), Strngl (being strangled), FoodPois
          (suffering from acute food poisoning), TermIll (suffering from  a
          terminal illness).

          Non-fatal  conditions: Blind (can't see), Deaf (can't hear), Stun
          (stunned), Conf (confused), Hallu (hallucinating).

          Movement modifiers: Lev (levitating), Fly  (flying),  Ride  (rid-
          ing).

          Other conditions and modifiers exist, but there isn't enough room
          to display them with the other status fields.

     The  #attributes command (default key ^X) will show all current status
     information in unabbreviated format.  It also shows other  information
     which might be included on the status lines if those had more room.

     3.2.  The message line (top)

          The top line of the screen is reserved for messages that describe
     things  that  are  impossible  to  represent  visually.   If you see a
     "--More--" on the top line, this means that NetHack has  another  mes-
     sage  to  display  on  the  screen,  but it wants to make certain that
     you've read the one that is there first.  To read  the  next  message,
     just press the space bar.

          To  change  how  and what messages are shown on the message line,
     see "Configuring Message Types" and the verbose option.

     3.3.  The map (rest of the screen)

          The rest of the screen is the map of the level as  you  have  ex-
     plored  it  so  far.   Each symbol on the screen represents something.
     You can set various graphics options to change some of the symbols the
     game uses; otherwise, the game will use default symbols.   Here  is  a
     list of what the default symbols mean:

     - and |
          The walls of a room, or an open door.  Or a grave (|).




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     .    The floor of a room, ice, or a doorless doorway.

     #    A  corridor,  or iron bars, or a tree, or possibly a kitchen sink
          (if your dungeon has sinks), or a drawbridge.

     >    Stairs down: a way to the next level.

     <    Stairs up: a way to the previous level.

     +    A closed door, or a spellbook containing a spell you may be  able
          to learn.

     @    Your character or a human.

     $    A pile of gold.

     ^    A trap (once you have detected it).

     )    A weapon.

     [    A suit or piece of armor.

     %    Something edible (not necessarily healthy).

     ?    A scroll.

     /    A wand.

     =    A ring.

     !    A potion.

     (    A useful item (pick-axe, key, lamp...).

     "    An amulet or a spider web.

     *    A gem or rock (possibly valuable, possibly worthless).

     `    A boulder or statue.

     0    An iron ball.

     _    An altar, or an iron chain.

     {    A fountain.

     }    A pool of water or moat or a pool of lava.

     \    An opulent throne.

     a-zA-Z and other symbols
          Letters  and  certain other symbols represent the various inhabi-
          tants of the Mazes of Menace.  Watch out, they can be  nasty  and
          vicious.  Sometimes, however, they can be helpful.


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     I    This  marks  the last known location of an invisible or otherwise
          unseen monster.  Note that the monster could have moved.  The `F'
          and `m' commands may be useful here.

          You need not memorize all these symbols; you  can  ask  the  game
     what  any symbol represents with the `/' command (see the next section
     for more info).

     4.  Commands

          Commands can be initiated by typing  one  or  two  characters  to
     which  the  command is bound to, or typing the command name in the ex-
     tended commands entry.  Some commands, like "search", do  not  require
     that  any  more  information  be collected by NetHack.  Other commands
     might require additional information, for example a direction,  or  an
     object  to be used.  For those commands that require additional infor-
     mation, NetHack will present you with either a menu of choices or with
     a command line prompt requesting information.  Which you are presented
     with will depend chiefly on how you have set the menustyle option.

          For example, a common question, in the form "What do you want  to
     use? [a-zA-Z ?*]",  asks  you  to  choose  an object you are carrying.
     Here, "a-zA-Z" are the inventory letters  of  your  possible  choices.
     Typing  `?' gives you an inventory list of these items, so you can see
     what each letter refers to.  In this example, there is also a `*'  in-
     dicating  that you may choose an object not on the list, if you wanted
     to use something unexpected.  Typing a `*' lists  your  entire  inven-
     tory, so you can see the inventory letters of every object you're car-
     rying.   Finally, if you change your mind and decide you don't want to
     do this command after all, you can press the ESC key to abort the com-
     mand.

          You can put a number before some commands  to  repeat  them  that
     many times; for example, "10s" will search ten times.  If you have the
     number_pad option set, you must type `n' to prefix a count, so the ex-
     ample  above would be typed "n10s" instead.  Commands for which counts
     make no sense ignore them.  In addition, movement commands can be pre-
     fixed for greater control (see below).  To cancel a count or a prefix,
     press the ESC key.

          The list of commands is rather long, but it can be  read  at  any
     time during the game through the `?' command, which accesses a menu of
     helpful texts.  Here are the default key bindings for your reference:

     ?    Help menu:  display one of several help texts available.

     /    The  "whatis" command, to tell what a symbol represents.  You may
          choose to specify a location or type a symbol (or  even  a  whole
          word)  to  explain.   Specifying a location is done by moving the
          cursor to a particular spot on the map and then pressing  one  of
          `.', `,', `;', or `:'.  `.' will explain the symbol at the chosen
          location,  conditionally  check  for  "More info?" depending upon
          whether the help option is on, and then you will be asked to pick
          another location; `,'  will  explain  the  symbol  but  skip  any


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          additional  information,  then let you pick another location; `;'
          will skip additional info and  also  not  bother  asking  you  to
          choose  another  location  to  examine;  `:' will show additional
          info, if any, without asking for confirmation.   When  picking  a
          location,  pressing  the  ESC key will terminate this command, or
          pressing `?' will give a brief reminder about how it works.

          If the autodescribe option is on, a short description of what you
          see at each location is shown as you move the cursor.  Typing `#'
          while picking a location will toggle that option on or off.   The
          whatis_coord  option  controls  whether the short description in-
          cludes map coordinates.

          Specifying a name rather than a location always gives  any  addi-
          tional information available about that name.

          You  may  also request a description of nearby monsters, all mon-
          sters currently displayed, nearby objects, or all  objects.   The
          whatis_coord  option  controls  which format of map coordinate is
          included with their descriptions.

     &    Tell what a command does.

     <    Go up to the previous level (if you are on a  staircase  or  lad-
          der).

     >    Go down to the next level (if you are on a staircase or ladder).

     [yuhjklbn]
          Go  one  step  in the direction indicated (see Figure 3).  If you
          sense or remember a monster there, you will fight the monster in-
          stead.  Only these one-step movement commands cause you to  fight
          monsters; the others (below) are "safe."
               +-----------------------------------------------------+
               |     y  k  u                             7  8  9     |
               |      \ | /                               \ | /      |
               |     h- . -l                             4- . -6     |
               |      / | \                               / | \      |
               |     b  j  n                             1  2  3     |
               | (number_pad off)                    (number_pad on) |
               +-----------------------------------------------------+
                                      Figure 3

     [YUHJKLBN]
          Go in that direction until you hit a wall or run into something.

     m[yuhjklbn]
          Prefix:  move without picking up objects or fighting (even if you
          remember a monster there).

          A few non-movement commands use the `m' prefix to request operat-
          ing  via  menu (to temporarily override the menustyle:traditional
          option).  Primarily useful for `,' (pickup) when  there  is  only
          one  class  of  objects  present  (where there won't be any "what


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          kinds of objects?"  prompt, so no opportunity to  answer  `m'  at
          that prompt).

          The prefix will make "#travel" command show a menu of interesting
          targets  in sight.  It can also be used with the `\' (known, show
          a list of all discovered objects) and the ``' (knownclass, show a
          list of discovered objects in a particular class) commands to of-
          fer a menu of several sorting  alternatives  (which  sets  a  new
          value for the sortdiscoveries option); also for "#vanquished" and
          "#genocided" commands to offer a sorting menu.

          A  few  other commands (eat food, offer sacrifice, apply tinning-
          kit, drink/quaff, dip, tip container) use the `m' prefix to  skip
          checking  for  applicable objects on the floor and go straight to
          checking inventory, or (for "#loot" to  remove  a  saddle),  skip
          containers and go straight to adjacent monsters.

          In  debug  mode  (aka  "wizard mode"), the `m' prefix may also be
          used with the "#teleport" and "#wizlevelport" commands.

     F[yuhjklbn]
          Prefix:  fight a monster (even if you only guess one is there).

     g[yuhjklbn]
          Prefix:  move until something interesting is found.

     G[yuhjklbn] or <Control>+[yuhjklbn]
          Prefix:  similar to `g', but forking of corridors is not  consid-
          ered interesting.

          Note:   <Control>+<key> means holding the <Control> or <Ctrl> key
          down like <Shift> while typing and releasing <key>, then  releas-
          ing  <Control>.  ^<key>  is  used  as  shorthand elsewhere in the
          Guidebook to mean the same thing.  Control characters  are  case-
          insensitive so ^x and ^X are the same.

     M[yuhjklbn]
          Old  versions  supported  `M' as a movement prefix which combined
          the effect of `m' with <Control>+<direction>.  That is no  longer
          supported as a prefix but similar effect can be achieved by using
          `m'  and G<direction> in combination.  m can also be used in com-
          bination    with    g<direction>,    <Control>+<direction>,    or
          <Shift>+<direction>.

     _    Travel to a map location via a shortest-path algorithm.

          The  shortest  path is computed over map locations the hero knows
          about (e.g. seen or previously traversed).  If there is no  known
          path,  a guess is made instead.  Stops on most of the same condi-
          tions as the `G' prefix, but without picking up objects,  so  im-
          plicitly  forces  the  `m' prefix.  For ports with mouse support,
          the command is also invoked when a mouse-click takes place  on  a
          location other than the current position.



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     .    Wait or rest, do nothing for one turn.  Precede with the `m' pre-
          fix  to  wait  for  a  turn  even  next  to a hostile monster, if
          safe_wait is on.

     a    Apply (use) a tool (pick-axe, key, lamp...).

          If used on a wand, that wand will be broken, releasing its  magic
          in the process.  Confirmation is required.

     A    Remove one or more worn items, such as armor.

          Use  `T'  (take  off)  to take off only one piece of armor or `R'
          (remove) to take off only one accessory.

     ^A   Repeat the previous command.

     c    Close a door.

     C    Call (name) a monster, an individual object, or a type of object.

          Same as extended command "#name".

     ^C   Panic button.  Quit the game.

     d    Drop something.

          For example "d7a" means drop seven items of object a.

     D    Drop several things.

          In answer to the question

          "What kinds of things do you want to drop? [!%= BUCXPaium]"

          you should type zero or more object symbols possibly followed  by
          `a'  and/or  `i' and/or `u' and/or `m'.  In addition, one or more
          of the blessed/uncursed/cursed groups may be typed.

          DB  - drop all objects known to be blessed.
          DU  - drop all objects known to be uncursed.
          DC  - drop all objects known to be cursed.
          DX  - drop all objects of unknown B/U/C status.
          DP  - drop objects picked up last.
          Da  - drop all objects, without asking for confirmation.
          Di  - examine your inventory before dropping anything.
          Du  - drop only unpaid objects (when in a shop).
          Dm  - use a menu to pick which object(s) to drop.
          D%u - drop only unpaid food.

          The last example shows a combination.  There are four  categories
          of object filtering: class (`!' for potions, `?' for scrolls, and
          so on), shop status (`u' for unpaid, in other words, owned by the
          shop), bless/curse state (`B', `U', `C', and `X' as shown above),
          and novelty (`P', recently picked up items; controlled by picking


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          up or dropping things rather than by any time factor).

          If  you  specify  more than one value in a category (such as "!?"
          for potions and scrolls or "BU" for blessed and uncursed), an in-
          ventory object will meet the criteria if it matches  any  of  the
          specified values (so "!?" means `!' or `?').  If you specify more
          than one category, an inventory object must meet each of the cat-
          egory criteria (so "%u" means class `%' and unpaid `u').  Lastly,
          you  may  specify  multiple  values  within  multiple categories:
          "!?BU" will select all potions and scrolls which are known to  be
          blessed  or uncursed.  (In versions prior to 3.6, filter combina-
          tions behaved differently.)

     ^D   Kick something (usually a door).

     e    Eat food.

          Normally checks for edible item(s) on the floor, then if none are
          found or none are chosen, checks for edible item(s) in inventory.
          Precede `e' with the `m' prefix to bypass attempting to eat  any-
          thing off the floor.

          If  you attempt to eat while already satiated, you might choke to
          death.  If you risk it, you will be asked  whether  to  "continue
          eating?"  if  you  survive the first bite.  You can set the para-
          noid_confirmation:eating option to require a response of yes  in-
          stead of just y.

     E    Engrave a message on the floor.

               E- - write in the dust with your fingers.

          Engraving the word "Elbereth" will cause most monsters to not at-
          tack  you  hand-to-hand (but if you attack, you will rub it out);
          this is often useful to give yourself a breather.

     f    Fire (shoot or throw) one of the objects placed  in  your  quiver
          (or  quiver sack, or that you have at the ready).  You may select
          ammunition with a previous `Q' command, or let the computer  pick
          something  appropriate  if  autoquiver  is true.  If your wielded
          weapon has the throw-and-return property, your quiver  is  empty,
          and  autoquiver  is false, you will throw that wielded weapon in-
          stead of filling the quiver.  This will also automatically use  a
          polearm if wielded.  If fireassist is true, firing will automati-
          cally  try  to  wield  a launcher (for example, a bow or a sling)
          matching the ammo in the quiver; this might take multiple  turns,
          and  get interrupted by a monster.  Remember to swap back to your
          main melee weapon afterwards.

          See also `t' (throw) for more general throwing and shooting.

     i    List your inventory (everything you're carrying).




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     I    List selected parts of your inventory, usually be specifying  the
          character  for a particular set of objects, like `[' for armor or
          `!' for potions.

          I* - list all gems in inventory;
          Iu - list all unpaid items;
          Ix - list all used up items that are on your shopping bill;
          IB - list all items known to be blessed;
          IU - list all items known to be uncursed;
          IC - list all items known to be cursed;
          IX - list all items whose bless/curse status is unknown;
          IP - list items picked up last;
          I$ - count your money.

     o    Open a door.

     O    Set options.

          A menu showing the current option values will be displayed.   You
          can change most values simply by selecting the menu entry for the
          given  option  (ie, by typing its letter or clicking upon it, de-
          pending on your user interface).  For the non-boolean choices,  a
          further  menu or prompt will appear once you've closed this menu.
          The available options are listed later in  this  Guidebook.   Op-
          tions  are  usually  set before the game rather than with the `O'
          command; see the section on options below.  Precede `O' with  the
          `m' prefix to show advanced options.

     ^O   Show overview.

          Shortcut  for  "#overview":  list interesting dungeon levels vis-
          ited.

          (Prior to 3.6.0, `^O' was a debug mode command which  listed  the
          placement  of  all  special  levels.  Use "#wizwhere" to run that
          command.)

     p    Pay your shopping bill.

     P    Put on an accessory (ring, amulet, or blindfold).

          This command may also be used to  wear  armor.   The  prompt  for
          which  inventory  item  to  use  will  only list accessories, but
          choosing an unlisted item of armor will attempt to wear it.  (See
          the `W' command below.  It lists armor as the  inventory  choices
          but will accept an accessory and attempt to put that on.)

     ^P   Repeat previous message.

          Subsequent  `^P's  repeat earlier messages.  For some interfaces,
          the behavior can be varied via the msg_window option.

     q    Quaff (drink) something (potion, water, etc).



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          When there is a fountain or sink  present,  it  asks  whether  to
          drink from that.  If that is declined, then it offers a chance to
          choose  a potion from inventory.  Precede `q' with the `m' prefix
          to skip asking about drinking from a fountain or sink.

     Q    Select an object for your quiver, quiver sack, or just  generally
          at the ready (only one of these is available at a time).  You can
          then throw this (or one of these) using the `f' command.

     r    Read a scroll or spellbook.

     R    Remove a worn accessory (ring, amulet, or blindfold).

          If you're wearing more than one, you'll be prompted for which one
          to remove.  When you're only wearing one, then by default it will
          be removed without asking, but you can set the paranoid_confirma-
          tion:Remove option to require a prompt.

          This  command may also be used to take off armor.  The prompt for
          which inventory item to remove only lists worn  accessories,  but
          an item of worn armor can be chosen.  (See the `T' command below.
          It lists armor as the inventory choices but will accept an acces-
          sory and attempt to remove it.)

     ^R   Redraw the screen.

     s    Search  for  secret doors and traps around you.  It usually takes
          several tries to find something.  Precede with the `m' prefix  to
          search for a turn even next to a hostile monster, if safe_wait is
          on.

          Can  also  be used to figure out whether there is still a monster
          at an adjacent "remembered, unseen monster" marker.

     S    Save the game (which suspends play and exits the  program).   The
          saved  game will be restored automatically the next time you play
          using the same character name.

          In normal play, once a saved game is restored the  file  used  to
          hold  the  saved data is deleted.  In explore mode, once restora-
          tion is accomplished you are asked whether to keep or delete  the
          file.   Keeping  the  file  makes it feasible to play for a while
          then quit without saving and later restore again.

          There is no "save current game state and keep  playing"  command,
          not  even  in explore mode where saved game files can be kept and
          re-used.

     t    Throw an object or shoot a projectile.

          There's no separate "shoot" command.  If you throw an arrow while
          wielding a bow, you are shooting that arrow and any weapon  skill
          bonus  or  penalty  for bow applies.  If you throw an arrow while
          not wielding a bow, you are throwing  it  by  hand  and  it  will


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          generally be less effective than when shot.

          See also `f' (fire) for throwing or shooting an item pre-selected
          via the `Q' (quiver) command, with some extra assistance.

     T    Take off armor.

          If  you're  wearing  more  than one piece, you'll be prompted for
          which one to take off.  (Note that this treats a cloak covering a
          suit and/or a shirt, or a suit covering a shirt, as if the under-
          lying items weren't there.)  When you're only wearing  one,  then
          by  default  it will be taken off without asking, but you can set
          the paranoid_confirmation:Remove option to require a prompt.

          This command may also be used to remove accessories.  The  prompt
          for which inventory item to take off only lists worn armor, but a
          worn  accessory  can  be chosen.  (See the `R' command above.  It
          lists accessories as the inventory choices  but  will  accept  an
          item of armor and attempt to take it off.)

     ^T   Teleport, if you have the ability.

     v    Display version number.

     V    Display the game history.

     w    Wield weapon.

               w- - wield nothing, use your bare (or gloved) hands.

          Some  characters  can wield two weapons at once; use the `X' com-
          mand (or the "#twoweapon" extended command) to do so.

     W    Wear armor.

          This command may also be used  to  put  on  an  accessory  (ring,
          amulet,  or  blindfold).   The prompt for which inventory item to
          use will only list armor, but choosing an unlisted accessory will
          attempt to put it on.  (See the `P' command above.  It lists  ac-
          cessories as the inventory choices but will accept an item of ar-
          mor and attempt to wear it.)

     x    Exchange  your  wielded  weapon  with  the item in your alternate
          weapon slot.

          The latter is used as your secondary weapon when engaging in two-
          weapon combat.  Note that if one of these slots is empty, the ex-
          change still takes place.

     X    Toggle two-weapon combat, if your  character  can  do  it.   Also
          available via the "#twoweapon" extended command.

          (In  versions  prior  to  3.6  this  keystroke ran the command to
          switch  from  normal  play  to  "explore  mode",  also  known  as


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          "discovery  mode", which has now been moved to "#exploremode" and
          M-X.)

     ^X   Display basic information about your character.

          Displays name, role, race, gender (unless role  name  makes  that
          redundant,  such  as  Caveman or Priestess), and alignment, along
          with your patron deity and his or her opposition.  It also  shows
          most  of the various items of information from the status line(s)
          in a less terse form, including several additional  things  which
          don't appear in the normal status display due to space considera-
          tions.

          In  normal play, that's all that `^X' displays.  In explore mode,
          the role and status feedback is augmented by the information pro-
          vided by enlightenment magic.

     z    Zap a wand.

               z. - to aim at yourself, use `.' for the direction.

     Z    Zap (cast) a spell.

               Z. - to cast at yourself, use `.' for the direction.

     ^Z   Suspend the game (UNIX(R) versions with job control  only).   See
          "#suspend" below for more details.

     :    Look at what is here.

     ;    Show what type of thing a visible symbol corresponds to.

     ,    Pick up some things from the floor beneath you.

          May be preceded by `m' to force a selection menu.

     @    Toggle the autopickup option on and off.

     ^    Ask for the type of an adjacent trap you found earlier.

     )    Tell what weapon you are wielding.

     [    Tell what armor you are wearing.

     =    Tell what rings you are wearing.

     "    Tell what amulet you are wearing.

     (    Tell what tools you are using.



     __________
     (R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.


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     *    Tell what equipment you are using.

          Combines the preceding five type-specific commands into one.

     $    Report the gold you're carrying, possibly shop credit and/or debt
          too.

     +    List the spells you know.

          Using  this  command,  you  can also rearrange the order in which
          your spells are listed, either by sorting the entire list  or  by
          picking  one  spell  from  the  menu then picking another to swap
          places with it.  Swapping pairs of spells changes  their  casting
          letters,  so  the change lasts after the current `+' command fin-
          ishes.  Sorting the whole list is temporary.  To  make  the  most
          recent  sort order persist beyond the current `+' command, choose
          the sort option again and then pick "reassign  casting  letters".
          (Any  spells  learned  after that will be added to the end of the
          list rather than be inserted into the sorted ordering.)

     \    Show what types of objects have been discovered.

          May be preceded by `m' to select preferred display order.

     `    Show discovered types for one class of objects.

          May be preceded by `m' to select preferred display order.

     |    If persistent inventory display is supported  and  enabled  (with
          the  perm_invent  option),  interact  with it instead of with the
          map.

          Allows scrolling with  the  menu_first_page,  menu_previous_page,
          menu_next_page,  and  menu_last_page  keys (`^', `<', `>', `|' by
          default).   Some  interfaces  also  support  menu_shift_left  and
          menu_shift_right  keys  (`{' and `}' by default).  Use the Return
          (aka Enter) or Escape key to resume play.

     !    Escape to a shell.  See "#shell" below for more details.

     Del  Show map without obstructions.  You can view the explored portion
          of the current level's map without monsters; without monsters and
          objects; or without monsters, objects, and traps.

          The <del> key is also shown as  <delete>  on  some  keyboards  or
          <rubout>  on others.  It is sometimes displayed as ^? even though
          that is not an actual control character.

          Many terminals have an option to swap  the  <delete>  and  <back-
          space>  keys, so typing the <del> key might not execute this com-
          mand.  If that happens, you can use the extended  command  "#ter-
          rain" instead.




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     #    Perform an extended command.



          As  you  can see, the authors of NetHack used up all the letters,
     so this is a way to introduce the less frequently used commands.  What
     extended commands are available depends on what features the game  was
     compiled with.

     #adjust
          Adjust  inventory  letters (most useful when the fixinv option is
          "on").  Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-a'.

          This command allows you to move an item from one  particular  in-
          ventory  slot  to  another  so that it has a letter which is more
          meaningful for you or that it will appear in a  particular  loca-
          tion  when  inventory  listings are displayed.  You can move to a
          currently empty slot, or  if  the  destination  is  occupied--and
          won't  merge--the  item  there will swap slots with the one being
          moved.  "#adjust" can also be used to split a stack  of  objects;
          when choosing the item to adjust, enter a count prior to its let-
          ter.

          Adjusting  without  a count used to collect all compatible stacks
          when moving to the destination.  That behavior has been  changed;
          to  gather  compatible stacks, "#adjust" a stack into its own in-
          ventory slot.  If it has a name assigned, other stacks  with  the
          same  name  or  with  no  name will merge provided that all their
          other attributes match.  If it does not have a name,  only  other
          stacks with no name are eligible.  In either case, otherwise com-
          patible  stacks  with  a different name will not be merged.  This
          contrasts with using "#adjust" to move from one slot to a differ-
          ent slot.  In that situation, moving (no count given) a  compati-
          ble  stack  will  merge if either stack has a name when the other
          doesn't and give that name to the result, while splitting  (count
          given)  will ignore the source stack's name when deciding whether
          to merge with the destination stack.

     #annotate
          Allows you to specify one line of text to associate with the cur-
          rent dungeon level.  All levels with annotations are displayed by
          the "#overview" command.  Autocompletes.  Default key  is  `M-A',
          and also `^N' if number_pad is on.

     #apply
          Apply (use) a tool such as a pick-axe, a key, or a lamp.  Default
          key is `a'.

          If the tool used acts on items on the floor, using the `m' prefix
          skips those items.

          If  used on a wand, that wand will be broken, releasing its magic
          in the process.  Confirmation is required.



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     #attributes
          Show your attributes.  Default key is `^X'.

     #autopickup
          Toggle the autopickup option on/off.  Default key is `@'.

     #call
          Call (name) a monster, or an object in inventory, on  the  floor,
          or  in the discoveries list, or add an annotation for the current
          level (same as "#annotate").  Default key is `C'.

     #cast
          Cast a spell.  Default key is `Z'.

     #chat
          Talk to someone.  Default key is `M-c'.

     #chronicle
          Show a list of important game events.

     #close
          Close a door.  Default key is `c'.

     #conduct
          List voluntary challenges you  have  maintained.   Autocompletes.
          Default key is `M-C'.

          See the section below entitled "Conduct" for details.

     #debugfuzzer
          Start the fuzz tester.  Debug mode only.

     #dip
          Dip an object into something.  Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-
          d'.

          The  `m' prefix skips dipping into a fountain or pool if there is
          one at your location.

     #down
          Go down a staircase.  Default key is `>'.

     #drop
          Drop an item.  Default key is `d'.

     #droptype
          Drop specific item types.  Default key is `D'.

     #eat
          Eat something.  Default key is `e'.  The `m' prefix skips  eating
          items on the floor.

     #engrave
          Engrave writing on the floor.  Default key is `E'.


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     #enhance
          Advance  or  check  weapon and spell skills.  Autocompletes.  De-
          fault key is `M-e'.

     #exploremode
          Switch from normal play to non-scoring explore mode.  Default key
          is `M-X'.

          Requires confirmation; default response is  n  (no).   To  really
          switch  to  explore  mode, respond with y.  You can set the para-
          noid_confirmation:quit option to require a response  of  yes  in-
          stead.

     #fight
          Prefix key to force fight a direction, even if you see nothing to
          fight there.  Default key is `F', or `-' with number_pad

     #fire
          Fire ammunition from quiver, possibly autowielding a launcher, or
          hit with a wielded polearm.  Default key is `f'.

     #force
          Force a lock.  Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-f'.

     #genocided
          List  any  monster  types  which have been genocided.  In explore
          mode and debug mode it also shows types  which  have  become  ex-
          tinct.

          The display order is the same as is used by #vanquished.  The `m'
          prefix  brings  up  a menu of available sorting orders, and doing
          that for either #genocided or #vanquished changes the  order  for
          both.

          If  the  sorting  order  is  "count high to low" or "count low to
          high" (which are applicable for #vanquished), that  will  be  ig-
          nored  for #genocided and alphabetical will be used instead.  The
          menu omits those two choices when used for #genocide.

          Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-g'.

     #glance
          Show what type of thing a map symbol corresponds to.  Default key
          is `;'.

     #help
          Show the help menu.  Default key is `?', and  also  `h'  if  num-
          ber_pad is on.

     #herecmdmenu
          Show  a  menu  of possible actions directed at your current loca-
          tion.  The menu is limited to a subset of the likeliest  actions,
          not an exhaustive set of all possibilities.  Autocompletes.



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          If  mouse  support  is enabled and the herecmd_menu option is On,
          clicking on the hero (or steed when mounted)  will  execute  this
          command.

     #history
          Show long version and game history.  Default key is `V'.

     #inventory
          Show your inventory.  Default key is `i'.

     #inventtype
          Inventory specific item types.  Default key is `I'.

     #invoke
          Invoke  an  object's special powers.  Autocompletes.  Default key
          is `M-i'.

     #jump
          Jump to another location.  Autocompletes.  Default key is  `M-j',
          and also `j' if number_pad is on.

     #kick
          Kick  something.   Default  key is `^D', and `k' if number_pad is
          on.

     #known
          Show what object types have been discovered.  Default key is `\'.

          The `m' prefix allows assigning a new value to the  sortdiscover-
          ies option to control the order in which the discoveries are dis-
          played.

     #knownclass
          Show  discovered  types for one class of objects.  Default key is
          ``'.

          The `m' prefix operates the same as for "#known".

     #levelchange
          Change your experience level.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.

     #lightsources
          Show mobile light sources.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.

     #look
          Look at what is here, under you.  Default key is `:'.

     #loot
          Loot a box or bag on the floor beneath you, or the saddle from  a
          steed standing next to you.  Autocompletes.  Precede with the `m'
          prefix to skip containers at your location and go directly to re-
          moving  a  saddle.   Default  key  is `M-l', and also `l' if num-
          ber_pad is on.



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     #monster
          Use a monster's special ability (when  polymorphed  into  monster
          form).  Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-m'.

     #name
          Name  a monster, an individual object, or a type of object.  Same
          as "#call".  Autocompletes.  Default keys are `N', `M-n', and `M-
          N'.

     #offer
          Offer a sacrifice to the gods.  Autocompletes.   Default  key  is
          `M-o'.

          You'll  need  to  find  an  altar  to have any chance at success.
          Corpses of recently killed monsters are the fodder of choice.

          The `m' prefix skips offering any items which are on the altar.

     #open
          Open a door.  Default key is `o'.

     #options
          Show and change option settings.  Default key  is  `O'.   Precede
          with the `m' prefix to show advanced options.

     #optionsfull
          Show  advanced  game  option  settings.  No default key.  Precede
          with the `m' prefix  to  execute  the  simpler  options  command.
          (Mainly  useful  if  you  use BINDING=O:optionsfull to switch `O'
          from simple options back to traditional advanced options.)

     #overview
          Display information you've discovered  about  the  dungeon.   Any
          visited  level  with  an  annotation is included, and many things
          (altars, thrones, fountains, and so on; extra stairs  leading  to
          another dungeon branch) trigger an automatic annotation.  If dun-
          geon overview is chosen during end-of-game disclosure, every vis-
          ited level will be included regardless of annotations.

          Precede  #overview  with  the  `m'  prefix to display the dungeon
          overview as a menu where you can select any visited level to  add
          or  remove an annotation without needing to return to that level.
          This will also force all visited levels to  be  displayed  rather
          than just the "interesting" subset.

          Autocompletes.  Default keys are `^O', and `M-O'.

     #panic
          Test  the  panic routine.  Terminates the current game.  Autocom-
          pletes.  Debug mode only.

          Asks for confirmation; default is n (no); continue  playing.   To
          really panic, respond with y.  You can set the paranoid_confirma-
          tion:quit option to require a response of yes instead.


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     #pay
          Pay your shopping bill.  Default key is `p'.

     #perminv
          If  persistent  inventory  display is supported and enabled (with
          the perm_invent option), interact with it  instead  of  with  the
          map.   You'll  be  prompted for menu scrolling keystrokes such as
          `>' and `<'.  Press Return or Escape to resume normal play.   De-
          fault key is `|'.

     #pickup
          Pick up things at the current location.  Default key is `,'.  The
          `m' prefix forces use of a menu.

     #polyself
          Polymorph self.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.

     #pray
          Pray to the gods for help.  Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-p'.

          Praying  too  soon  after  receiving  prior  help  is a bad idea.
          (Hint: entering the dungeon alive is treated as  having  received
          help.   You  probably  shouldn't  start off a new game by praying
          right away.)  Since using this  command  by  accident  can  cause
          trouble,  there  is an option to make you confirm your intent be-
          fore praying.  It is enabled by default, and you  can  reset  the
          paranoid_confirmation option to disable it.

     #prevmsg
          Show previously displayed game messages.  Default key is `^P'.

     #puton
          Put on an accessory (ring, amulet, etc).  Default key is `P'.

     #quaff
          Quaff (drink) something.  Default key is `q'.

          The `m' prefix skips drinking from a fountain or sink if there is
          one at your location.

     #quit
          Quit the program without saving your game.  Autocompletes.

          Since using this command by accident would throw away the current
          game,  you are asked to confirm your intent before quitting.  De-
          fault response is n (no); continue playing.  To really quit,  re-
          spond  with y.  You can set the paranoid_confirmation:quit option
          to require a response of yes instead.

     #quiver
          Select ammunition for quiver.  Default key is `Q'.

     #read
          Read a scroll, a spellbook, or something else.   Default  key  is


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          `r'.

     #redraw
          Redraw  the  screen.   Default key is `^R', and also `^L' if num-
          ber_pad is on.

     #remove
          Remove an accessory (ring, amulet, etc).  Default key is `R'.

     #repeat
          Repeat the previous command.  Default key is `^A'.

     #reqmenu
          Prefix key to modify the behavior or request menu from some  com-
          mands.   Prevents  autopickup  when  used with movement commands.
          Default key is `m'.

     #retravel
          Travel to a previously selected travel destination.  Default  key
          is `C-_'.  See also #travel.

     #ride
          Ride  (or  stop  riding) a saddled creature.  Autocompletes.  De-
          fault key is `M-R'.

     #rub
          Rub a lamp or a stone.  Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-r'.

     #run
          Prefix key to run towards a direction.  Default key is  `G'  when
          number_pad  is  off, `5' when number_pad is set to 1 or 3, other-
          wise `M-5' when it is set to 2 or 4.

     #rush
          Prefix key to rush towards a direction.  Default is `g' when num-
          ber_pad is off, `M-5' when number_pad is set to 1 or 3, otherwise
          `5' when it is set to 2 or 4.

     #save
          Save the game and exit the program.  Default key is `S'.

     #saveoptions
          Save configuration options to the config file.  This  will  over-
          write  the  file,  removing all comments, so if you have manually
          edited the config file, don't use this.

     #search
          Search for traps and secret doors around  you.   Default  key  is
          `s'.

     #seeall
          Show all equipment in use.  Default key is `*'.




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          Will display in-use items in a menu even when there is only one.

     #seeamulet
          Show the amulet currently worn.  Default key is `"'.

          Using the `m' prefix will force the display of a worn amulet in a
          menu rather than with just a message.

     #seearmor
          Show the armor currently worn.  Default key is `['.

          Will  display  worn armor in a menu even when there is only thing
          worn.

     #seerings
          Show the ring(s) currently worn.  Default key is `='.

          Will display worn rings in a menu if there are two (or  there  is
          just  one and is a meat ring rather than a "real" ring).  Use the
          `m' prefix to force a menu for one ring.

     #seetools
          Show the tools currently in use.  Default key is `('.

          Will display the result in a message if there is one tool in  use
          (worn blindfold or towel or lenses, lit lamp(s) and/or candle(s),
          leashes attached to pets).  Will display a menu if there are more
          than one or if the command is preceded by the `m' prefix.

     #seeweapon
          Show the weapon currently wielded.  Default key is `)'.

          If  dual-wielding,  a separate message about the secondary weapon
          will be given.  Using the `m' prefix will force  a  menu  and  it
          will include primary weapon, alternate weapon even when not dual-
          wielding,  and  also whatever is currently assigned to the quiver
          slot.

     #shell
          Do a shell escape, switching from NetHack to a  subprocess.   Can
          be  disabled at the time the program is built.  When enabled, ac-
          cess for specific users can be controlled by the system  configu-
          ration file.  Use the shell command `exit' to return to the game.
          Default key is `!'.

     #showgold
          Report  the gold in your inventory, including gold you know about
          in containers you're carrying.  If you are inside a shop,  report
          any credit or debt you have in that shop.  Default key is `$'.

     #showspells
          List and reorder known spells.  Default key is `+'.




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     #showtrap
          Describe  an adjacent trap, possibly covered by objects or a mon-
          ster.  To be eligible, the trap must already be discovered.  (The
          "#terrain" command can display your map with all objects and mon-
          sters temporarily removed, making it possible to see all  discov-
          ered traps.)  Default key is `^'.

     #sit
          Sit down.  Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-s'.

     #stats
          Show memory usage statistics.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.

     #suspend
          Suspend  the  game, switching from NetHack to the terminal it was
          started from without performing save-and-exit.  Can  be  disabled
          at  the  time  the program is built.  When enabled, mainly useful
          for tty and curses interfaces on UNIX.   Use  the  shell  command
          `fg' to return to the game.  Default key is `^Z'.

     #swap
          Swap wielded and secondary weapons.  Default key is `x'.

     #takeoff
          Take off one piece of armor.  Default key is `T'.

     #takeoffall
          Remove all armor.  Default key is `A'.

     #teleport
          Teleport around the level.  Default key is `^T'.

     #terrain
          Show  map  without obstructions.  In normal play you can view the
          explored portion of the current  level's  map  without  monsters;
          without  monsters  and objects; or without monsters, objects, and
          traps.

          In explore mode, you can choose to view the full map rather  than
          just  its  explored  portion.  In debug mode there are additional
          choices.

          Autocompletes.  Default key is `<del>'  or  `<delete>'  (see  Del
          above).

     #therecmdmenu
          Show  a  menu  of possible actions directed at a location next to
          you.  The menu is limited to a subset of the  likeliest  actions,
          not an exhaustive set of all possibilities.  Autocompletes.

     #throw
          Throw something.  Default key is `t'.




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     #timeout
          Look at the timeout queue.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.

     #tip
          Tip over a container (bag or box) to pour out its contents.  When
          there  are  containers on the floor, the game will prompt to pick
          one of them or "tip something being carried".  If the  latter  is
          chosen,  there  will be another prompt for which item from inven-
          tory to tip.

          The `m' prefix makes the command skip containers on the floor and
          pick  one  from  inventory,  except  for  the  special  case   of
          menustyle:traditional  with  two or more containers present; that
          situation will start with the floor container menu.

          Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-T'.

     #travel
          Travel to a specific location on the map.  Default  key  is  `_'.
          Using  the "request menu" prefix shows a menu of interesting tar-
          gets in sight without asking to move the cursor.  When picking  a
          target  with  cursor  and  the autodescribe option is on, the top
          line will show "(no travel path)" if your character does not know
          of a path to that location.  See also #retravel.

     #turn
          Turn undead away.  Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-t'.

     #twoweapon
          Toggle two-weapon combat on or off.  Autocompletes.  Default  key
          is `X', and also `M-2' if number_pad is off.

          Note  that you must use suitable weapons for this type of combat,
          or it will be automatically turned off.

     #untrap
          Untrap something (trap, door, or chest).  Default key  is  `M-u',
          and `u' if number_pad is on.

          In  some circumstances it can also be used to rescue trapped mon-
          sters.

     #up
          Go up a staircase.  Default key is `<'.

     #vanquished
          List vanquished monsters by type and count.

          Note that the vanquished  monsters  list  includes  all  monsters
          killed  by  traps and each other as well as by you, and omits any
          which got removed from the game without being killed (perhaps  by
          genocide,  or by a mollified shopkeeper dismissing summoned Kops)
          or were already corpses when placed on the map.



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          Using the "request menu" prefix prior to #vanquished brings up  a
          menu  of  sorting  orders available (provided that the vanquished
          monsters  list  contains  at  least  two  types   of   monsters).
          Whichever  ordering is picked gets assigned to the sortvanquished
          option so is remembered for subsequent #vanquished requests.  The
          "#genocided" command shares this sorting order.

          During end-of-game disclosure, when asked whether  to  show  van-
          quished  monsters answering `a' will let you choose from the sort
          menu.

          Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-V'.

     #version
          Print compile time options for this version of NetHack.

          The second paragraph lists the user  interface(s)  that  are  in-
          cluded.   If  there are more than one, you can use the windowtype
          option in your run-time configuration file to select the one  you
          want.

          Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-v'.

     #versionshort
          Show  the  program's  version number, plus the date and time that
          the running copy was built from sources (not  the  version's  re-
          lease date).  Default key is `v'.

     #vision
          Show vision array.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.

     #wait
          Rest  one move while doing nothing.  Default key is `.', and also
          ` ' if rest_on_space is on.

     #wear
          Wear a piece of armor.  Default key is `W'.

     #whatdoes
          Tell what a key does.  Default key is `&'.

     #whatis
          Show what type of thing a symbol corresponds to.  Default key  is
          `/'.

     #wield
          Wield a weapon.  Default key is `w'.

     #wipe
          Wipe off your face.  Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-w'.

     #wizborn
          Show monster birth, death, genocide, and extinct statistics.  De-
          bug mode only.


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     #wizbury
          Bury  objects  under  and around you.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode
          only.

     #wizcast
          Cast any spell.  Debug mode only.

     #wizdetect
          Reveal hidden things (secret doors or traps or  unseen  monsters)
          within  a modest radius.  No time elapses.  Autocompletes.  Debug
          mode only.  Default key is `^E'.

     #wizgenesis
          Create a monster.  May be prefixed by a count to create more than
          one.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.  Default key is `^G'.

     #wizidentify
          Identify all items  in  inventory.   Autocompletes.   Debug  mode
          only.  Default key is `^I'.

     #wizintrinsic
          Set one or more intrinsic attributes.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode
          only.

     #wizkill
          Remove  monsters  from play by just pointing at them.  By default
          the hero gets credit or blame for killing the  targets.   Precede
          this  command  with  the  `m'  prefix to override that.  Autocom-
          pletes.  Debug mode only.

     #wizlevelport
          Teleport to another level.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.  De-
          fault key is `^V'.

     #wizmap
          Map the level.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.  Default key  is
          `^F'.

     #wizrumorcheck
          Verify  rumor boundaries by displaying first and last true rumors
          and first and last false rumors.

          Also displays first, second, and  last  random  engravings,  epi-
          taphs, and hallucinatory monsters.

          Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.

     #wizseenv
          Show  map  locations'  seen  vectors.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode
          only.

     #wizsmell
          Smell monster.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.



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     #wizwhere
          Show locations of special  levels.   Autocompletes.   Debug  mode
          only.

     #wizwish
          Wish  for  something.   Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.  Default
          key is `^W'.

     #wmode
          Show wall modes.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.

     #zap
          Zap a wand.  Default key is `z'.

     #?
          Help menu:  get the list of available extended commands.



          If your keyboard has a meta key (which, when pressed in  combina-
     tion  with  another  key,  modifies  it by setting the "meta" [8th, or
     "high"] bit), you can invoke many extended commands  by  meta-ing  the
     first letter of the command.

          On Windows and MS-DOS, the "Alt" key can be used in this fashion.
     On  other  systems,  if  typing "Alt" plus another key transmits a two
     character sequence consisting of an Escape followed by the other  key,
     you  may  set  the  altmeta  option  to have NetHack combine them into
     meta+<key>.  (This combining action only takes place when  NetHack  is
     expecting a command to execute, not when accepting input to name some-
     thing or to make a wish.)

          Unlike control characters, where ^x and ^X denote the same thing,
     meta  characters  are case-sensitive:  M-x and M-X represent different
     things.  Some commands which can be run via a meta  character  require
     that  the  letter  be capitalized because the lower-case equivalent is
     used   for   another   command,   so   the   three   key   combination
     meta+Shift+<letter> is needed.


     M-?  #? (not supported by all platforms)

     M-2  #twoweapon (unless the number_pad option is enabled)

     M-a  #adjust

     M-A  #annotate

     M-c  #chat

     M-C  #conduct

     M-d  #dip



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     M-e  #enhance

     M-f  #force

     M-g  #genocided

     M-i  #invoke

     M-j  #jump

     M-l  #loot

     M-m  #monster

     M-n  #name

     M-o  #offer

     M-O  #overview

     M-p  #pray

     M-r  #rub

     M-R  #ride

     M-s  #sit

     M-t  #turn

     M-T  #tip

     M-u  #untrap

     M-v  #version

     M-V  #vanquished

     M-w  #wipe

     M-X  #exploremode



          If  the  number_pad option is on, some additional letter commands
     are available:

     h    #help

     j    #jump

     k    #kick




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     l    #loot

     N    #name

     u    #untrap


     5.  Rooms and corridors

          Rooms and corridors in the dungeon are either lit or  dark.   Any
     lit  areas within your line of sight will be displayed; dark areas are
     only displayed if they are within one space of you.  Walls and  corri-
     dors remain on the map as you explore them.

          Secret corridors are hidden and appear to be solid rock.  You can
     find them with the `s' (search) command when adjacent to them.  Multi-
     ple  search attempts may be needed.  When searching is successful, se-
     cret corridors become ordinary open corridor locations.  Mapping magic
     reveals secret corridors, so converts them into ordinary corridors and
     shows them as such.

     5.1.  Doorways

          Doorways connect rooms and  corridors.   Some  doorways  have  no
     doors;  you  can walk right through.  Others have doors in them, which
     may be open, closed, or locked.  To open a closed door,  use  the  `o'
     (open)  command;  to  close it again, use the `c' (close) command.  By
     default the autoopen option is enabled, so simply attempting  to  walk
     onto  a closed door's location will attempt to open it without needing
     `o'.  Opening via autoopen will  not  work  if  you  are  confused  or
     stunned or suffer from the fumbling attribute.

          Open  doors  cannot be entered diagonally; you must approach them
     straight on, horizontally or vertically.  Doorways without  doors  are
     not  restricted  in  this  fashion except on one particular level (de-
     scribed by "#overview" as "a primitive area").

          Unlocking magic exists but usually won't be available  early  on.
     You  can get through a locked door without magic by first using an un-
     locking tool with the `a' (apply) command, and then  opening  it.   By
     default  the  autounlock  option is also enabled, so if you attempt to
     open (via `o' or autoopen) a locked door while carrying  an  unlocking
     tool,  you'll be asked whether to use it on the door's lock.  Alterna-
     tively, you can break a closed door (whether locked or  not)  down  by
     kicking  it via the `^D' (kick) command.  Kicking down a door destroys
     it and makes a lot of noise which might wake sleeping monsters.

          Some closed doors are booby-trapped and will explode  if  an  at-
     tempt  is made to open (when unlocked) or unlock (when locked) or kick
     down.  Like kicking, an explosion destroys the door and makes a lot of
     noise.  The "#untrap" command can be used to search a door  for  traps
     but  might  take  multiple  attempts  to find one.  When one is found,
     you'll be asked whether to try to disarm it.  If you  accede,  success
     will eliminate the trap but failure will set off the trap's explosion.


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     (If you decline, you effectively forget that a trap was found there.)

          Closed  doors can be useful for shutting out monsters.  Most mon-
     sters cannot open closed doors, although a few don't need to (for  ex-
     ample,  ghosts  can  walk  through doors and fog clouds can flow under
     them).  Some monsters who can open doors can also use unlocking tools.
     And some (giants) can smash doors.

          Secret doors are hidden and appear to be ordinary wall (from  in-
     side a room) or solid rock (from outside).  You can find them with the
     `s'  (search)  command but it might take multiple tries (possibly many
     tries if your luck is poor).  Once found they are in all ways  equiva-
     lent to normal doors.  Mapping magic does not reveal secret doors.

     5.2.  Traps (`^')

          There  are  traps  throughout the dungeon to snare the unwary in-
     truder.  For example, you may suddenly fall into a pit  and  be  stuck
     for a few turns trying to climb out (see below).  A trap usually won't
     appear  on  your  map  until you trigger it by moving onto it, you see
     someone else trigger it, or you discover it with the `s' (search) com-
     mand (multiple attempts are often needed; if your luck is  poor,  many
     attempts  might  be needed).  Wands of secret door detection and spell
     of detect unseen also reveal traps within a modest radius but only  if
     the trap is also within line-of-sight (whether you can see at the time
     or not).  There is also other magic which can reveal traps.

          Monsters  can  fall  prey to traps, too, which can potentially be
     used as a defensive strategy.  Unfortunately traps can be  harmful  to
     your  pet(s)  as  well.   Monsters, including pets, usually will avoid
     moving onto a trap which is shown on your map if they have encountered
     that type of trap before.

          Some traps such as pits, bear traps, and webs  hold  you  in  one
     place.   You  can  escape by simply trying to move to an adjacent spot
     and repeat as needed; eventually you will get free.

          Other traps can send you  to  different  locations.   Teleporters
     send  you elsewhere on the same dungeon level.  Level teleporters send
     you to a random dungeon level, the destination chosen from a few  lev-
     els  lower  all the way to the top.  These traps choose a new destina-
     tion each time they're activated.  Trap doors and holes also send  you
     to  another  level,  but  one which is always below the current level.
     Usually that will be the next level down but it can be  farther.   Un-
     like  (level)  teleporters, the destination level of a particular trap
     door or hole is persistent, so falling into one will bring you to  the
     same  level  each  time--though  not  necessarily the same spot on the
     level.  Magic portals behave similarly, but with some additional vari-
     ation.  Some portals are two-way and their remote destination  is  al-
     ways  the  same:  another  portal which can take you back.  Others are
     one-way and send you to a specific destination level but not necessar-
     ily to a specific location there.




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          There is a special multi-level branch of the  dungeon  with  pre-
     mapped  levels  based on the classic computer game "Sokoban."  In that
     game, you operate as a warehouse worker who pushes crates  around  ob-
     stacles  to  position  them  at designated locations.  In NetHack, the
     goal is to push boulders into pits or holes until those traps have all
     been nullified, giving access to whatever  is  beyond  them.   In  the
     Sokoban  game,  you  can only move in the four cardinal compass direc-
     tions, and a crate in its final destination blocks further  access  to
     that  spot.  In the Sokoban levels of NetHack, you can move diagonally
     (unless that would let you pass between two neighboring boulders)  but
     you  can  only  push  boulders  in the four cardinal directions, and a
     boulder which fills a pit or hole removes both  the  boulder  and  the
     trap  so opens up normal access to that spot.  With careful foresight,
     it is possible to complete all of the levels according to  the  tradi-
     tional  rules  of Sokoban.  (Hint: to solve Sokoban puzzles, you often
     need to move things away from their eventual destinations in order  to
     open  up  more  room  to maneuver.)  Since NetHack does not support an
     undo capability, some allowances are permitted in case you get  stuck.
     For  example,  each level has at least one extra boulder.  Also, it is
     possible to drop everything in order to be able to  squeeze  into  the
     same  location  as a boulder (and then presumably move past it), or to
     destroy a boulder with magic or tools, or to create new boulders  with
     a  scroll  of  earth.  However, doing such things will lower your luck
     without any specific message given about that.  See the  Conduct  sec-
     tion  for  information  about  getting  feedback  for  your actions in
     Sokoban.

     5.3.  Stairs and ladders (`<', `>')

          In general, each level in the dungeon will have a staircase going
     up (`<') to the previous level and another going  down  (`>')  to  the
     next  level.   There are some exceptions though.  For instance, fairly
     early in the dungeon you will find a level with two  down  staircases,
     one  continuing  into the dungeon and the other branching into an area
     known as the Gnomish Mines.  Those mines eventually hit a dead end, so
     after exploring them (if you choose to do so), you'll  need  to  climb
     back up to the main dungeon.

          When  you traverse a set of stairs, or trigger a trap which sends
     you to another level, the level you're leaving will be deactivated and
     stored in a file on disk.  If you're moving to  a  previously  visited
     level,  it  will  be loaded from its file on disk and reactivated.  If
     you're moving to a level which has not yet been visited,  it  will  be
     created (from scratch for most random levels, from a template for some
     "special"  levels, or loaded from the remains of an earlier game for a
     "bones" level as briefly described below).  Monsters are  only  active
     on  the  current  level;  those on other levels are essentially placed
     into stasis.

          Ordinarily when you climb a set of stairs, you will arrive on the
     corresponding staircase at your destination.  However, pets  (see  be-
     low) and some other monsters will follow along if they're close enough
     when you travel up or down stairs, and occasionally one of these crea-
     tures  will  displace you during the climb.  When that occurs, the pet


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     or other monster will arrive on the staircase  and  you  will  end  up
     nearby.

          Ladders  serve  the same purpose as staircases, and the two types
     of inter-level connections are nearly  indistinguishable  during  game
     play.

     5.4.  Shops and shopping

          Occasionally  you  will  run across a room with a shopkeeper near
     the door and many items lying on the floor.   You  can  buy  items  by
     picking them up and then using the `p' command.  You can inquire about
     the  price of an item prior to picking it up by using the "#chat" com-
     mand while standing on it.  Using an item prior to paying for it  will
     incur  a  charge, and the shopkeeper won't allow you to leave the shop
     until you have paid any debt you owe.

          You can sell items to a shopkeeper by dropping them to the  floor
     while inside a shop.  You will either be offered an amount of gold and
     asked whether you're willing to sell, or you'll be told that the shop-
     keeper  isn't  interested (generally, your item needs to be compatible
     with the type of merchandise carried by the shop).

          If you drop something in a shop by accident, the shopkeeper  will
     usually  claim  ownership  without  offering any compensation.  You'll
     have to buy it back if you want to reclaim it.

          Shopkeepers sometime run out of money.  When that happens, you'll
     be offered credit instead of gold when  you  try  to  sell  something.
     Credit  can  be  used to pay for purchases, but it is only good in the
     shop where it was obtained; other shopkeepers won't honor it.  (If you
     happen to find a "credit card" in the dungeon, don't bother trying  to
     use it in shops; shopkeepers will not accept it.)

          The  `$' command, which reports the amount of gold you are carry-
     ing, will also show current shop debt or credit,  if  any.   The  "Iu"
     command  lists  unpaid items (those which still belong to the shop) if
     you are carrying any.  The "Ix" command shows an  inventory-like  dis-
     play  of  any  unpaid  items which have been used up, along with other
     shop fees, if any.

     5.4.1.  Shop idiosyncrasies

          Several aspects of shop behavior might be unexpected.

     * The price of a given item can vary due to a variety of factors.

     * A shopkeeper treats the spot immediately inside the door  as  if  it
       were outside the shop.

     * While  the shopkeeper watches you like a hawk, he or she will gener-
       ally ignore any other customers.




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     * If a shop is "closed for inventory," it will not open of its own ac-
       cord.

     * Shops do not get restocked with new items, regardless  of  inventory
       depletion.

     5.5.  Movement feedback

          Moving  around  the  map usually provides no feedback--other than
     drawing the hero at the new location--unless you step on an object  or
     pile  of objects, or on a trap, or attempt to move onto a spot where a
     monster is located.  There are several options which can  be  used  to
     augment the normal feedback.

          The  pile_limit  option  controls  how  many  objects can be in a
     pile--sharing the same map location--for the game to state "there  are
     objects  here" instead of listing them.  The default is 5.  Setting it
     to 1 would always give that message instead of  listing  any  objects.
     Setting  it  to 0 is a special case which will always list all objects
     no matter how big a pile is.  Note that the number refers to the count
     of separate stacks of objects present rather than the sum of the quan-
     tities of those stacks (so 7 arrows or 25 gold pieces will each  count
     as  1  rather than as 7 and 25, respectively, and total to 2 when both
     are at the same location).

          The "nopickup" command prefix (default `m') can be used before  a
     movement  direction  to step on objects without attempting auto-pickup
     and without giving feedback about them.

          The mention_walls option controls whether you get feedback if you
     try to walk into a wall or solid stone or off the  edge  of  the  map.
     Normally  nothing  happens  (unless  the  hero is blind and no wall is
     shown, then the wall that is being bumped into will be  drawn  on  the
     map).   This  option also gives feedback when rushing or running stops
     for some non-obvious reason.

          The mention_decor option controls whether you get  feedback  when
     walking  on  "furniture."  Normally stepping onto stairs or a fountain
     or an altar or various other things doesn't elicit anything unless  it
     is  covered by one or more objects so is obscured on the map.  Setting
     this option to true will describe such things even  when  they  aren't
     obscured.   Doorless  doorways and open doors aren't considered worthy
     of mention; closed doors (if you can move onto their spots) and broken
     doors are.  Assuming that you're able to do so, moving onto  water  or
     lava  or ice will give feedback if not yet on that type of terrain but
     not repeat it (unless there has been some  intervening  message)  when
     moving  from  water  to another water spot, or lava to lava, or ice to
     ice.  Moving off of any of those back onto "normal" terrain will  give
     one  message  too, unless there is feedback about one or more objects,
     in which case the back on land circumstance is implied.

          The confirm and safe_pet options control what  happens  when  you
     try to move onto a peaceful monster's spot or a tame one's spot.



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          The  "nopickup"  command  prefix  (default `m') is also the move-
     without-attacking prefix and can be used to try to step onto a visible
     monster's spot without the move being considered an  attack  (see  the
     Fighting  subsection  of  Monsters below).  The "fight" command prefix
     (default `F'; also `-' if number_pad is on) can be used  to  force  an
     attack,  when guessing where an unseen monster is or when deliberately
     attacking a peaceful or tame creature.

          The run_mode option controls how frequently the map gets  redrawn
     when  moving  more than one step in a single command (so when rushing,
     running, or traveling).

     5.6.  Rogue level

          One dungeon level (occurring in mid to late  teens  of  the  main
     dungeon) is a tribute to the ancestor game hack's inspiration rogue.

          It  is  usually displayed differently from other levels: possibly
     in characters instead of tiles, or without line-drawing symbols if al-
     ready in characters; also, gold is shown as * rather than $ and stairs
     are shown as % rather than < and >.  There are some minor  differences
     in  actual game play: doorways lack doors; a scroll, wand, or spell of
     light used in a room lights up the whole room rather than within a ra-
     dius around your character.  And monsters  represented  by  lower-case
     letters aren't randomly generated on the rogue level.

          The slight strangeness of this level is a feature, not a bug....

     6.  Monsters

          Monsters you cannot see are not displayed on the screen.  Beware!
     You  may suddenly come upon one in a dark place.  Some magic items can
     help you locate them before they locate you (which some  monsters  can
     do very well).

          The  commands `/' and `;' may be used to obtain information about
     those monsters who are displayed on the screen.  The  command  "#name"
     (by  default  bound to `C'), allows you to assign a name to a monster,
     which may be useful to help distinguish one from another when multiple
     monsters are present.  Assigning a name which is just a space will re-
     move any prior name.

          The extended command "#chat" can be used to interact with an  ad-
     jacent  monster.  There is no actual dialog (in other words, you don't
     get to choose what you'll say), but chatting with some  monsters  such
     as a shopkeeper or the Oracle of Delphi can produce useful results.

     6.1.  Fighting

          If  you  see  a monster and you wish to fight it, just attempt to
     walk into it.  Many monsters you find will mind their own business un-
     less you attack them.  Some of them are very dangerous  when  angered.
     Remember:  discretion is the better part of valor.



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          In  most  circumstances, if you attempt to attack a peaceful mon-
     ster by moving into its location, you'll be asked to confirm your  in-
     tent.  By default an answer of `y' acknowledges that intent, which can
     be  error  prone  if  you're using `y' to move.  You can set the para-
     noid_confirmation:attack option to require a  response  of  "yes"  in-
     stead.

          If  you  can't  see  a monster (if it is invisible, or if you are
     blinded), the symbol `I' will be shown when you learn of its presence.
     If you attempt to walk into it, you will try to fight it just  like  a
     monster  that  you  can  see; of course, if the monster has moved, you
     will attack empty air.  If you guess that the monster  has  moved  and
     you  don't  wish to fight, you can use the `m' command to move without
     fighting; likewise, if you don't remember a monster but  want  to  try
     fighting anyway, you can use the `F' command.

     6.2.  Your pet

          You start the game with a little dog (`d'), kitten (`f'), or pony
     (`u'),  which  follows  you about the dungeon and fights monsters with
     you.  Like you, your pet needs food to survive.  Dogs and cats usually
     feed themselves on fresh carrion and other meats; horses need vegetar-
     ian food which is harder to come by.  If you're worried about your pet
     or want to train it, you can feed it, too, by  throwing  it  food.   A
     properly trained pet can be very useful under certain circumstances.

          Your  pet  also  gains  experience from killing monsters, and can
     grow over time, gaining hit points and doing more damage.   Initially,
     your  pet  may  even be better at killing things than you, which makes
     pets useful for low-level characters.

          Your pet will follow you up and down staircases if it is next  to
     you when you move.  Otherwise your pet will be stranded and may become
     wild.   Similarly, when you trigger certain types of traps which alter
     your location (for instance, a trap door which drops you  to  a  lower
     dungeon  level), any adjacent pet will accompany you and any non-adja-
     cent pet will be left behind.  Your pet may trigger such traps itself;
     you will not be carried along with it even if adjacent at the time.

     6.3.  Steeds

          Some types of creatures in the dungeon can actually be ridden  if
     you  have  the  right equipment and skill.  Convincing a wild beast to
     let you saddle it up is difficult to say the least.  Many a dungeoneer
     has had to resort to magic and wizardry in  order  to  forge  the  al-
     liance.   Once  you  do have the beast under your control however, you
     can easily climb in and out of the saddle with  the  "#ride"  command.
     Lead  the  beast around the dungeon when riding, in the same manner as
     you would move yourself.  It is the beast that you will see  displayed
     on the map.

          Riding  skill is managed by the "#enhance" command.  See the sec-
     tion on Weapon proficiency for more information about that.



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          Use the `a' (apply) command and pick a saddle in  your  inventory
     to attempt to put that saddle on an adjacent creature.  If successful,
     it will be transferred to that creature's inventory.

          Use  the  "#loot" command while adjacent to a saddled creature to
     try to remove the saddle from that creature.  If successful,  it  will
     be transferred to your inventory.

     6.4.  Bones levels

          You may encounter the shades and corpses of other adventurers (or
     even  former  incarnations  of  yourself!) and their personal effects.
     Ghosts are hard to kill, but easy to avoid, since they're slow and  do
     little damage.  You can plunder the deceased adventurer's possessions;
     however,  they are likely to be cursed.  Beware of whatever killed the
     former player; it is probably still lurking around, gloating over  its
     last victory.

     6.5.  Persistence of Monsters

          Monsters  (a  generic  reference  which  also includes humans and
     pets) are only shown while they can be seen or otherwise sensed.  Mov-
     ing to a location where you can't see or sense a monster any more will
     result in it disappearing from your map, similarly if it  is  the  one
     who moved rather than you.

          However,  if  you  encounter  a  monster  which  you can't see or
     sense--perhaps it is invisible and has just tapped you on the noggin--
     a special "remembered, unseen monster" marker will be displayed at the
     location where you think it is.  That  will  persist  until  you  have
     proven  that  there  is  no  monster there, even if the unseen monster
     moves to another location or you move to a spot where the marker's lo-
     cation ordinarily wouldn't be seen any more.

     7.  Objects

          When you find something in the dungeon, it is common to  want  to
     pick  it  up.   In NetHack, this is accomplished by using the `,' com-
     mand.  If autopickup option is on, you will automatically pick up  the
     object by walking over, unless you move with the `m' prefix.

          If  you're  carrying too many items, NetHack will tell you so and
     you won't be able to pick up anything more.  Otherwise,  it  will  add
     the object(s) to your pack and tell you what you just picked up.

          As  you  add  items to your inventory, you also add the weight of
     that object to your load.  The amount that you can  carry  depends  on
     your  strength  and  your constitution.  The stronger and sturdier you
     are, the less the additional load will  affect  you.   There  comes  a
     point,  though,  when the weight of all of that stuff you are carrying
     around with you through the dungeon will encumber you.  Your reactions
     will get slower and you'll burn calories faster, requiring  food  more
     frequently  to cope with it.  Eventually, you'll be so overloaded that
     you'll either have to discard some of what you're carrying or collapse


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     under its weight.

          NetHack will tell you how badly you have loaded yourself.  If you
     are encumbered, one of the conditions  Burdened,  Stressed,  Strained,
     Overtaxed,  or Overloaded will be shown on the bottom line status dis-
     play.

          When you pick up an object, it is assigned an  inventory  letter.
     Many  commands  that operate on objects must ask you to find out which
     object you want to use.  When NetHack asks you to choose a  particular
     object  you are carrying, you are usually presented with a list of in-
     ventory letters to choose from (see Commands, above).

          Some objects, such as weapons, are easily  differentiated.   Oth-
     ers,  like  scrolls and potions, are given descriptions which vary ac-
     cording to type.  During a game, any two objects  with  the  same  de-
     scription are the same type.  However, the descriptions will vary from
     game to game.

          When  you  use  one  of  these objects, if its effect is obvious,
     NetHack will remember what it is for you.  If  its  effect  isn't  ex-
     tremely  obvious, you will be asked what you want to call this type of
     object so you will recognize it later.  You can also use  the  "#name"
     command,  for  the  same purpose at any time, to name all objects of a
     particular type or just an individual object.  When you use "#name" on
     an object which has already been named,  specifying  a  space  as  the
     value will remove the prior name instead of assigning a new one.

     7.1.  Curses and Blessings

          Any  object  that  you  find may be cursed, even if the object is
     otherwise helpful.  The most common effect of a curse is  being  stuck
     with  (and  to) the item.  Cursed weapons weld themselves to your hand
     when wielded, so you cannot unwield them.  Any cursed item you wear is
     not removable by ordinary means.  In addition, cursed arms  and  armor
     usually,  but  not  always,  bear negative enchantments that make them
     less effective in combat.  Other cursed  objects  may  act  poorly  or
     detrimentally in other ways.

          Objects  can also be blessed instead.  Blessed items usually work
     better or more beneficially than normal uncursed items.  For  example,
     a blessed weapon will do slightly more damage against demons.

          Objects  which  are neither cursed nor blessed are referred to as
     uncursed.  They could just as easily have been described as unblessed,
     but the uncursed designation is what you will see within the game.   A
     "glass half full versus glass half empty" situation; make of that what
     you will.

          There  are magical means of bestowing or removing curses upon ob-
     jects, so even if you are stuck with one, you can still have the curse
     lifted and the item removed.  Priests and Priestesses have  an  innate
     sensitivity  to  this  property in any object, so they can more easily
     avoid cursed objects than other  character  roles.   Dropping  objects


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     onto an altar will reveal their bless or curse state provided that you
     can see them land.

          An  item  with  unknown status will be reported in your inventory
     with no prefix.  An item which you know the state of will  be  distin-
     guished  in  your  inventory  by  the presence of the word cursed, un-
     cursed, or blessed in the description of the item.  In some cases  un-
     cursed  will  be omitted as being redundant when enough other informa-
     tion is displayed.  The implicit_uncursed option can be used  to  con-
     trol  this; toggle it off to have uncursed be displayed even when that
     can be deduced from other attributes.

          Sometimes the bless or curse state of objects is referred  to  as
     their  "BUC"  attribute,  for  Blessed,  Uncursed, or Cursed state, or
     "BUCX" for Blessed, Uncursed, Cursed, or unknown.  (The term beatitude
     is occasionally used as well.)

     7.2.  Weapons (`)')

          Given a chance, most monsters in the Mazes of Menace will  gratu-
     itously  try  to kill you.  You need weapons for self-defense (killing
     them first).  Without a weapon, you do only 1-2 hit points  of  damage
     (plus  bonuses,  if any).  Monk characters are an exception; they nor-
     mally do more damage with bare (or gloved) hands  than  they  do  with
     weapons.

          There  are  wielded  weapons,  like  maces and swords, and thrown
     weapons, like arrows and spears.  To hit monsters with a  weapon,  you
     must  wield  it  and attack them, or throw it at them.  You can simply
     elect to throw a spear.  To shoot an arrow, you should first  wield  a
     bow,  then  throw  the arrow.  Crossbows shoot crossbow bolts.  Slings
     hurl rocks and (other) stones (like gems).

          Enchanted weapons have a "plus" (or "to  hit  enhancement"  which
     can  be  either  positive or negative) that adds to your chance to hit
     and the damage you do to a monster.   The  only  way  to  determine  a
     weapon's enchantment is to have it magically identified somehow.  Most
     weapons  are subject to some type of damage like rust.  Such "erosion"
     damage can be repaired.

          The chance that an attack will successfully hit  a  monster,  and
     the  amount  of  damage such a hit will do, depends upon many factors.
     Among them are: type of weapon, quality of weapon (enchantment  and/or
     erosion), experience level, strength, dexterity, encumbrance, and pro-
     ficiency  (see  below).   The monster's armor class--a general defense
     rating, not necessarily due to wearing  of  armor--is  a  factor  too;
     also,  some  monsters  are particularly vulnerable to certain types of
     weapons.

          Many weapons can be wielded in one hand; some require both hands.
     When wielding a two-handed weapon, you can not wear a shield, and vice
     versa.  When wielding a one-handed weapon, you can have another weapon
     ready to use by setting things up with  the  `x'  command,  which  ex-
     changes  your  primary  (the one being wielded) and alternate weapons.


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     And if you have proficiency in the "two weapon combat" skill, you  may
     wield  both  weapons  simultaneously as primary and secondary; use the
     `X' command to engage or disengage that.  Only some types  of  charac-
     ters  (barbarians,  for  instance) have the necessary skill available.
     Even with that skill, using two weapons at once incurs  a  penalty  in
     the  chance  to hit your target compared to using just one weapon at a
     time.

          There might be times when you'd rather not wield  any  weapon  at
     all.  To accomplish that, wield `-', or else use the `A' command which
     allows  you  to  unwield  the current weapon in addition to taking off
     other worn items.

          Those of you in the audience who are AD&D players, be aware  that
     each weapon which existed in AD&D does roughly the same damage to mon-
     sters  in  NetHack.   Some  of  the  more obscure weapons (such as the
     aklys, lucern hammer, and bec-de-corbin) are defined in an appendix to
     Unearthed Arcana, an AD&D supplement.

          The commands to use weapons are `w'  (wield),  `t'  (throw),  `f'
     (fire),  `Q' (quiver), `x' (exchange), `X' (twoweapon), and "#enhance"
     (see below).

     7.2.1.  Throwing and shooting

          You can throw just about anything via the `t' command.   It  will
     prompt for the item to throw; picking `?' will list things in your in-
     ventory  which are considered likely to be thrown, or picking `*' will
     list your entire inventory.  After you've chosen what  to  throw,  you
     will  be  prompted  for a direction rather than for a specific target.
     The distance something can be thrown depends mainly on the type of ob-
     ject and your strength.  Arrows can be thrown  by  hand,  but  can  be
     thrown  much  farther and will be more likely to hit when thrown while
     you are wielding a bow.

          Some weapons will return when thrown.  A  boomerang--provided  it
     fails  to  hit  anything--is an obvious example.  If an aklys (thonged
     club) is thrown while it is wielded, it will return even when it  hits
     something.   A sufficiently strong hero can throw the warhammer Mjoll-
     nir; when thrown by a Valkyrie it will return too.   However,  aklyses
     and  Mjollnir  occasionally  fail to return.  Returning thrown objects
     occasionally fail to be caught, sometimes even  hitting  the  thrower,
     but when caught they become re-wielded.

          You  can simplify the throwing operation by using the `Q' command
     to select your preferred "missile", then  using  the  `f'  command  to
     throw  it.  You'll be prompted for a direction as above, but you don't
     have to specify which item to throw each time you use `f'.   There  is
     also  an  option, autoquiver, which has NetHack choose another item to
     automatically fill your quiver (or quiver sack, or have at the  ready)
     when  the  inventory  slot  used  for `Q' runs out.  If your quiver is
     empty, autoquiver is false, and you are wielding a  weapon  which  re-
     turns  when  thrown, you will throw that weapon instead of filling the
     quiver.  The fire command also has extra assistance, if fireassist  is


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     on it will try to wield a launcher matching the ammo in the quiver.

          Some  characters  have  the ability to throw or shoot a volley of
     multiple items (from the same stack) in a single action.  Knowing  how
     to load several rounds of ammunition at once--or hold several missiles
     in your hand--and still hit a target is not an easy task.  Rangers are
     among those who are adept at this task, as are those with a high level
     of  proficiency  in  the relevant weapon skill (in bow skill if you're
     wielding one to shoot arrows, in crossbow skill if you're wielding one
     to shoot bolts, or in sling skill if  you're  wielding  one  to  shoot
     stones).   The number of items that the character has a chance to fire
     varies from turn to turn.  You can  explicitly  limit  the  number  of
     shots  by  using  a numeric prefix before the `t' or `f' command.  For
     example, "2f" (or "n2f" if using number_pad mode) would ensure that at
     most 2 arrows are shot even if you could have fired 3.  If you specify
     a larger number than would have been  shot  ("4f"  in  this  example),
     you'll  just  end up shooting the same number (3, here) as if no limit
     had been specified.  Once the volley is in motion, all  of  the  items
     will  travel  in the same direction; if the first ones kill a monster,
     the others can still continue beyond that spot.

     7.2.2.  Weapon proficiency

          You will have varying degrees of skill in the weapons  available.
     Weapon proficiency, or weapon skills, affect how well you can use par-
     ticular types of weapons, and you'll be able to improve your skills as
     you  progress  through a game, depending on your role, your experience
     level, and use of the weapons.

          For the purposes of proficiency, weapons  have  been  divided  up
     into  various groups such as daggers, broadswords, and polearms.  Each
     role has a limit on what level of proficiency a character can  achieve
     for  each  group.   For instance, wizards can become highly skilled in
     daggers or staves but not in swords or bows.

          The "#enhance" extended command is used to review current weapons
     proficiency (also spell proficiency) and to choose which  skill(s)  to
     improve  when you've used one or more skills enough to become eligible
     to do so.  The skill rankings are "none" (sometimes also  referred  to
     as  "restricted",  because you won't be able to advance), "unskilled",
     "basic", "skilled", and "expert".  Restricted skills simply  will  not
     appear  in  the  list shown by "#enhance".  (Divine intervention might
     unrestrict a particular skill, in which case  it  will  start  at  un-
     skilled  and  be limited to basic.)  Some characters can enhance their
     barehanded combat or martial arts skill beyond expert to  "master"  or
     "grand master".

          Use  of a weapon in which you're restricted or unskilled will in-
     cur a modest penalty in the chance to hit a monster and  also  in  the
     amount  of  damage  done  when you do hit; at basic level, there is no
     penalty or bonus; at skilled level, you receive a modest bonus in  the
     chance to hit and amount of damage done; at expert level, the bonus is
     higher.   A successful hit has a chance to boost your training towards
     the next skill level (unless you've already reached the limit for this


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     skill).  Once such training reaches the threshold for that next level,
     you'll be told that you feel more confident in your skills.   At  that
     point  you  can  use  "#enhance" to increase one or more skills.  Such
     skills are not increased automatically because there  is  a  limit  to
     your total overall skills, so you need to actively choose which skills
     to enhance and which to ignore.

     7.2.3.  Two-Weapon combat

          Some  characters  can use two weapons at once.  Setting things up
     to do so can seem cumbersome but becomes second nature with  use.   To
     wield  two  weapons,  you  need  to use the "#twoweapon" command.  But
     first you need to have a weapon in each hand.   (Note  that  your  two
     weapons  are  not  fully equal; the one in the hand you normally wield
     with is considered primary and the other one is considered  secondary.
     The most noticeable difference is after you stop--or before you begin,
     for  that  matter--wielding  two weapons at once.  The primary is your
     wielded weapon and the secondary is just an  item  in  your  inventory
     that's been designated as alternate weapon.)

          If  your  primary weapon is wielded but your off hand is empty or
     has the wrong weapon, use the sequence `x', `w',  `x'  to  first  swap
     your  primary into your off hand, wield whatever you want as secondary
     weapon, then swap them both back into the  intended  hands.   If  your
     secondary  or alternate weapon is correct but your primary one is not,
     simply use `w' to wield the primary.  Lastly, if  neither  hand  holds
     the correct weapon, use `w', `x', `w' to first wield the intended sec-
     ondary, swap it to off hand, and then wield the primary.

          The whole process can be simplified via use of the pushweapon op-
     tion.   When  it  is enabled, then using `w' to wield something causes
     the currently wielded weapon to become your alternate weapon.  So  the
     sequence  `w', `w' can be used to first wield the weapon you intend to
     be secondary, and then wield the one you want as  primary  which  will
     push the first into secondary position.

          When  in  two-weapon  combat  mode, using the `X' command toggles
     back to single-weapon  mode.   Throwing  or  dropping  either  of  the
     weapons  or  having  one of them be stolen or destroyed will also make
     you revert to single-weapon combat.

     7.3.  Armor (`[')

          Lots of unfriendly things lurk about; you need armor  to  protect
     yourself  from  their blows.  Some types of armor offer better protec-
     tion than others.  Your armor class is a measure of  this  protection.
     Armor  class (AC) is measured as in AD&D, with 10 being the equivalent
     of no armor, and lower numbers meaning better armor.  Each suit of ar-
     mor which exists in AD&D gives the same protection in NetHack.

          Here is a list of the armor class values provided by suits of ar-
     mor:
                   Dragon scale mail                         1



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                   Plate mail, Crystal plate mail            3
                   Bronze plate mail, Splint mail,
                      Banded mail, Dwarvish mithril-coat     4
                   Chain mail, Elven mithril-coat            5
                   Scale mail, Orcish chain mail             6
                   Ring mail, Studded leather armor,
                      Dragon scales                          7
                   Leather armor, Orcish ring mail           8
                   Leather jacket                            9
                   none                                     10

          You can also wear other pieces of armor (cloak over  suit,  shirt
     under  suit,  helmet, gloves, boots, shield) to lower your armor class
     even further.  Most of these provide a one or two point improvement to
     AC (making the overall value smaller and eventually negative) but  can
     also  be  enchanted.   Shirts are an exception; they don't provide any
     protection unless enchanted.  Some cloaks also don't improve  AC  when
     unenchanted  but all cloaks offer some protection against rust or cor-
     rosion to suits worn under them and against  some  monster  touch  at-
     tacks.

          If  a  piece  of armor is enchanted, its armor protection will be
     better (or worse) than normal, and its "plus" (or minus) will subtract
     from your armor class.  For example, a +1 chain mail  would  give  you
     better  protection  than  normal chain mail, lowering your armor class
     one unit further to 4.  When you put on a piece of armor, you  immedi-
     ately  find out the armor class and any "plusses" it provides.  Cursed
     pieces of armor usually have negative enchantments (minuses) in  addi-
     tion to being unremovable.

          Many types of armor are subject to some kind of damage like rust.
     Such  damage  can  be repaired.  Some types of armor may inhibit spell
     casting.

          The nudist option can be set (prior to game start) to attempt  to
     play  the  entire game without wearing any armor (a self-imposed chal-
     lenge which is extremely difficult to accomplish).

          The commands to use armor are `W' (wear) and `T' (take off).  The
     `A' command can be used to take off armor as well as other worn items.
     Also, `P' (put on) and `R' (remove) which are normally for accessories
     can be used for armor, but pieces of armor won't be  shown  as  likely
     candidates in a prompt for choosing what to put on or remove.

     7.4.  Food (`%')

          Food  is necessary to survive.  If you go too long without eating
     you will faint, and eventually die of starvation.  Some types of  food
     will  spoil,  and  become  unhealthy  to  eat, if not protected.  Food
     stored in ice boxes or tins ("cans") will usually stay fresh, but  ice
     boxes are heavy, and tins take a while to open.

          When you kill monsters, they usually leave corpses which are also
     "food."   Many,  but  not all, of these are edible; some also give you


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     special powers when you eat them.  A good rule of thumb  is  "you  are
     what you eat."

          Some  character roles and some monsters are vegetarian.  Vegetar-
     ian monsters will typically never eat animal corpses, while vegetarian
     players can, but with some rather unpleasant side-effects.

          You can name one food item after something you like to  eat  with
     the fruit option.

          The command to eat food is `e'.

     7.5.  Scrolls (`?')

          Scrolls  are  labeled with various titles, probably chosen by an-
     cient wizards for their amusement value (for  example  "READ  ME,"  or
     "THANX  MAUD"  backwards).  Scrolls disappear after you read them (ex-
     cept for blank ones, without magic spells on them).

          One of the most useful of these is the scroll of identify,  which
     can  be used to determine what another object is, whether it is cursed
     or blessed, and how many uses it has left.  Some objects of subtle en-
     chantment are difficult to identify without these.

          A mail daemon may run up and deliver mail to you as a  scroll  of
     mail (on versions compiled with this feature).  To use this feature on
     versions  where  NetHack mail delivery is triggered by electronic mail
     appearing in your system mailbox, you must let NetHack know  where  to
     look  for  new  mail by setting the "MAIL" environment variable to the
     file name of your mailbox.  You may also want to set the  "MAILREADER"
     environment  variable  to  the  file  name of your favorite reader, so
     NetHack can shell to it when you read  the  scroll.   On  versions  of
     NetHack  where  mail is randomly generated internal to the game, these
     environment variables are ignored.  You can disable the mail daemon by
     turning off the mail option.

          The command to read a scroll is `r'.

     7.6.  Potions (`!')

          Potions are distinguished by the color of the liquid  inside  the
     flask.  They disappear after you quaff them.

          Clear  potions are potions of water.  Sometimes these are blessed
     or cursed, resulting in holy or unholy water.  Holy water is the  bane
     of the undead, so potions of holy water are good things to throw (`t')
     at  them.   It is also sometimes very useful to dip ("#dip") an object
     into a potion.

          The command to drink a potion is `q' (quaff).






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     7.7.  Wands (`/')

          Wands usually have multiple magical charges.  Some types of wands
     require a direction in which to zap them.  You can also  zap  them  at
     yourself  (just give a `.' or `s' for the direction).  Be warned, how-
     ever, for this is often unwise.  Other types of wands don't require  a
     direction.  The number of charges in a wand is random and decreases by
     one whenever you use it.

          When  the number of charges left in a wand becomes zero, attempts
     to use the wand will usually result in nothing  happening.   Occasion-
     ally,  however, it may be possible to squeeze the last few mana points
     from an otherwise spent wand, destroying it in the  process.   A  wand
     may  be  recharged by using suitable magic, but doing so runs the risk
     of causing it to explode.  The chance for such an explosion starts out
     very small and increases each time the wand is recharged.

          In a truly desperate situation, when your back is up against  the
     wall,  you  might decide to go for broke and break your wand.  This is
     not for the faint of heart.  Doing so will almost  certainly  cause  a
     catastrophic release of magical energies.

          When  you have fully identified a particular wand, inventory dis-
     play will include additional information in parentheses: the number of
     times it has been recharged followed by a colon and then by  its  cur-
     rent  number  of  charges.   A current charge count of -1 is a special
     case indicating that the wand has been cancelled.

          The command to use a wand is `z' (zap).  To break  one,  use  the
     `a' (apply) command.

     7.8.  Rings (`=')

          Rings  are very useful items, since they are relatively permanent
     magic, unlike the usually fleeting effects of  potions,  scrolls,  and
     wands.

          Putting  on a ring activates its magic.  You can wear at most two
     rings at any time, one on the ring finger of each hand.

          Most worn rings also cause you to grow hungry more  rapidly,  the
     rate varying with the type of ring.

          When  wearing  gloves,  rings are worn underneath.  If the gloves
     are cursed, rings cannot be put on and any already being  worn  cannot
     be  removed.   When worn gloves aren't cursed, you don't have to manu-
     ally take them off before putting on or removing a ring and  then  re-
     wear them after.  That's done implicitly to avoid unnecessary tedium.

          The  commands  to  use  rings  are `P' (put on) and `R' (remove).
     `A', `W', and `T' can also be used; see Amulets.





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     7.9.  Spellbooks (`+')

          Spellbooks are tomes of mighty magic.  When studied with the  `r'
     (read)  command,  they transfer to the reader the knowledge of a spell
     (and therefore eventually become unreadable)--unless the attempt back-
     fires.  Reading a cursed spellbook or one  with  mystic  runes  beyond
     your ken can be harmful to your health!

          A  spell  (even when learned) can also backfire when you cast it.
     If you attempt to cast a spell well above your experience level, or if
     you have little skill with the appropriate spell type, or cast it at a
     time when your luck is particularly bad, you can end up  wasting  both
     the energy and the time required in casting.

          Casting  a  spell  calls  forth magical energies and focuses them
     with your naked mind.  Some of the magical energy released comes  from
     within you.  Casting temporarily drains your magical power, which will
     slowly  be recovered, and causes you to need additional food.  Casting
     of spells also requires practice.  With practice, your skill  in  each
     category of spell casting will improve.  Over time, however, your mem-
     ory of each spell will dim, and you will need to relearn it.

          Some spells require a direction in which to cast them, similar to
     wands.  To cast one at yourself, just give a `.' or `s' for the direc-
     tion.   A few spells require you to pick a target location rather than
     just specify a particular direction.  Other spells don't  require  any
     direction or target.

          Just  as weapons are divided into groups in which a character can
     become proficient (to varying degrees), spells are similarly  grouped.
     Successfully  casting  a  spell  exercises  its skill group; using the
     "#enhance" command to advance a sufficiently exercised skill will  af-
     fect all spells within the group.  Advanced skill may increase the po-
     tency of spells, reduce their risk of failure during casting attempts,
     and improve the accuracy of the estimate for how much longer they will
     be  retained  in  your  memory.   Skill  slots are shared with weapons
     skills.  (See also the section on "Weapon proficiency".)

          Casting a spell also requires flexible movement, and wearing var-
     ious types of armor may interfere with that.

          The command to read a spellbook is the same as for  scrolls,  `r'
     (read).   The  `+'  command  lists  each spell you know along with its
     level, skill category, chance of failure when casting, and an estimate
     of how strongly it is remembered.  The  `Z'  (cast)  command  casts  a
     spell.

     7.10.  Tools (`(')

          Tools  are  miscellaneous  objects  with  various purposes.  Some
     tools have a limited number of uses, akin to wand charges.  For  exam-
     ple,  lamps burn out after a while.  Other tools are containers, which
     objects can be placed into or taken out of.



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          Some tools (such as a blindfold) can be worn and can  be  put  on
     and  removed  like  other  accessories  (rings, amulets); see Amulets.
     Other tools (such as pick-axe) can be wielded as weapons  in  addition
     to  being  applied  for their usual purpose, and in some cases (again,
     pick-axe) become wielded as a weapon even when applied.

          The blind option can be set (prior to game start) to  attempt  to
     play  the  entire game without being able to see (a self-imposed chal-
     lenge which is very difficult to accomplish).

          The command to use a tool is `a' (apply).

     7.10.1.  Containers

          You may encounter bags, boxes, and chests  in  your  travels.   A
     tool of this sort can be opened with the "#loot" extended command when
     you  are  standing  on top of it (that is, on the same floor spot), or
     with the `a' (apply) command  when  you  are  carrying  it.   However,
     chests  are  often  locked, and are in any case unwieldy objects.  You
     must set one down before unlocking it by using a key  or  lock-picking
     tool  with  the  `a' (apply) command, by kicking it with the `^D' com-
     mand, or by using a weapon to force the lock  with  the  "#force"  ex-
     tended command.

          Some  chests are trapped, causing nasty things to happen when you
     unlock or open them.  You can check for and try  to  deactivate  traps
     with the "#untrap" extended command.

     7.11.  Amulets (`"')

          Amulets are very similar to rings, and often more powerful.  Like
     rings,  amulets have various magical properties, some beneficial, some
     harmful, which are activated by putting them on.

          Only one amulet may be worn at a time, around  your  neck.   Like
     wearing  rings, wearing an amulet affects your metabolism, causing you
     to grow hungry more rapidly.

          The commands to use amulets are the same as for rings,  `P'  (put
     on)  and  `R'  (remove).  `A' can be used to remove various worn items
     including amulets.  Also, `W' (wear) and `T' (take off) which are nor-
     mally for armor can be used for amulets and other  accessories  (rings
     and eyewear), but accessories won't be shown as likely candidates in a
     prompt for choosing what to wear or take off.

     7.12.  Gems (`*')

          Some  gems are valuable, and can be sold for a lot of gold.  They
     are also a far more efficient way of carrying your  riches.   Valuable
     gems increase your score if you bring them with you when you exit.

          Other small rocks are also categorized as gems, but they are much
     less  valuable.  All rocks, however, can be used as projectile weapons
     (if you have a sling).  In the most desperate of cases, you can  still


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     throw them by hand.

     7.13.  Large rocks (``')

          Statues  and boulders are not particularly useful, and are gener-
     ally heavy.  It is rumored that some statues are not what they seem.

          Boulders occasionally block your path.  You can push one  forward
     (by attempting to walk onto its spot) when nothing blocks its path, or
     you  can  smash it into a pile of small rocks with breaking magic or a
     pick-axe.  It is possible to move onto a boulder's location if certain
     conditions are met; ordinarily one of those conditions is that pushing
     it any further be blocked.  Using the  move-without-picking-up  prefix
     (default  key  `m') prior to the direction of movement will attempt to
     move to a boulder's location without pushing it  in  addition  to  the
     prefix's usual action of suppressing auto-pickup at the destination.

          Very  large  humanoids  (giants and their ilk) have been known to
     pick up boulders and use them as missile weapons.

          Unlike boulders, statues can't be pushed, but don't  need  to  be
     because  they  don't  block  movement.  They can be smashed into rocks
     though.

          For some configurations of the program,  statues  are  no  longer
     shown  as  ``'  but by the letter representing the monster they depict
     instead.

     7.14.  Gold (`$')

          Gold adds to your score, and you can buy things in shops with it.
     There are a number of monsters in the dungeon that may  be  influenced
     by the amount of gold you are carrying (shopkeepers aside).

          Gold  pieces  are the only type of object where bless/curse state
     does not apply.  They're always uncursed but never  described  as  un-
     cursed even if you turn off the implicit_uncursed option.  You can set
     the  goldX  option  if  you  prefer  to have gold pieces be treated as
     bless/curse state unknown rather than as known to be  uncursed.   Only
     matters  when  you're using an object selection prompt that can filter
     by "BUCX" state.

     7.15.  Persistence of Objects

          Normally, if you have seen an object at a particular map location
     and move to another location where you can't directly see that  object
     any  more, it will continue to be displayed on your map.  That remains
     the case even if it is not actually there any more--perhaps a  monster
     has picked it up or it has rotted away--until you can see or feel that
     location again.  One notable exception is that if the object gets cov-
     ered  by the "remembered, unseen monster" marker.  When that marker is
     later removed after you've verified that no monster is there, you will
     have forgotten that there was any object there regardless  of  whether
     the  unseen  monster actually took the object.  If the object is still


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     there, then once you see or feel that location again you will  re-dis-
     cover the object and resume remembering it.

          The situation is the same for a pile of objects, except that only
     the  top item of the pile is displayed.  The hilite_pile option can be
     enabled in order to show an item differently when it is the top one of
     a pile.

     8.  Conduct

          As if winning NetHack were not difficult enough, certain  players
     seek  to challenge themselves by imposing restrictions on the way they
     play the game.  The game automatically  tracks  some  of  these  chal-
     lenges,  which can be checked at any time with the #conduct command or
     at the end of the game.  When you perform an  action  which  breaks  a
     challenge,  it  will  no  longer  be listed.  This gives players extra
     "bragging rights" for winning the game with  these  challenges.   Note
     that  it  is perfectly acceptable to win the game without resorting to
     these restrictions and that it is unusual for  players  to  adhere  to
     challenges the first time they win the game.

          Several  of  the  challenges are related to eating behavior.  The
     most difficult of these is the foodless challenge.  Although creatures
     can survive long periods of time without food, there is a  physiologi-
     cal  need  for  water; thus there is no restriction on drinking bever-
     ages, even if they provide some minor  food  benefits.   Calling  upon
     your god for help with starvation does not violate any food challenges
     either.

          A strict vegan diet is one which avoids any food derived from an-
     imals.  The primary source of nutrition is fruits and vegetables.  The
     corpses  and  tins  of blobs (`b'), jellies (`j'), and fungi (`F') are
     also considered to be vegetable matter.  Certain human  food  is  pre-
     pared  without  animal  products; namely, lembas wafers, cram rations,
     food rations (gunyoki), K-rations, and C-rations.   Metal  or  another
     normally indigestible material eaten while polymorphed into a creature
     that  can  digest it is also considered vegan food.  Note however that
     eating such items still counts against foodless conduct.

          Vegetarians do not eat animals; however, they are less  selective
     about  eating animal byproducts than vegans.  In addition to the vegan
     items listed above, they may eat any kind of pudding (`P') other  than
     the  black puddings, eggs and food made from eggs (fortune cookies and
     pancakes), food made with milk (cream pies and candy bars), and  lumps
     of royal jelly.  Monks are expected to observe a vegetarian diet.

          Eating any kind of meat violates the vegetarian, vegan, and food-
     less  conducts.   This  includes tripe rations, the corpses or tins of
     any monsters not mentioned above, and the various other chunks of meat
     found in the dungeon.  Swallowing and digesting a monster while  poly-
     morphed  is  treated  as  if  you  ate  the creature's corpse.  Eating
     leather, dragon hide, or bone items while polymorphed into a  creature
     that  can digest it, or eating monster brains while polymorphed into a
     mind flayer, is considered eating an animal, although wax is  only  an


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     animal byproduct.

          Regardless  of  conduct, there will be some items which are indi-
     gestible, and others which are hazardous to eat.  Using a swallow-and-
     digest attack against a monster is equivalent to eating the  monster's
     corpse.   Please  note  that the term "vegan" is used here only in the
     context of diet.  You are still free to choose  not  to  use  or  wear
     items  derived  from  animals (e.g. leather, dragon hide, bone, horns,
     coral), but the game will not keep track of this for you.   Also  note
     that  "milky" potions may be a translucent white, but they do not con-
     tain milk, so they are compatible with a vegan diet.  Slime  molds  or
     player-defined  "fruits",  although they could be anything from "cher-
     ries" to "pork chops", are also assumed to be vegan.

          An atheist is one who rejects religion.  This means that you can-
     not #pray, #offer sacrifices to any god, #turn undead, or #chat with a
     priest.  Particularly selective readers may argue that playing Monk or
     Priest characters should violate this conduct; that is a  choice  left
     to the player.  Offering the Amulet of Yendor to your god is necessary
     to win the game and is not counted against this conduct.  You are also
     not  penalized  for  being  spoken to by an angry god, priest(ess), or
     other religious figure; a true atheist would hear the words but attach
     no special meaning to them.

          Most players fight with a wielded weapon (or tool intended to  be
     wielded  as  a  weapon).  Another challenge is to win the game without
     using such a wielded weapon.  You are still permitted to throw,  fire,
     and  kick  weapons; use a wand, spell, or other type of item; or fight
     with your hands and feet.

          In NetHack, a pacifist refuses to cause the death  of  any  other
     monster  (i.e.  if you would get experience for the death).  This is a
     particularly difficult challenge, although it  is  still  possible  to
     gain experience by other means.

          An  illiterate  character  does not read or write.  This includes
     reading a scroll, spellbook, fortune cookie message, or t-shirt; writ-
     ing a scroll; or making an engraving of anything other than  a  single
     "X"  (the  traditional signature of an illiterate person).  Reading an
     engraving, or any item that is absolutely necessary to win  the  game,
     is  not  counted  against  this  conduct.  The identity of scrolls and
     spellbooks (and knowledge of spells) in your starting inventory is as-
     sumed to be learned from your teachers prior to the start of the  game
     and isn't counted.

          There  is  a  side-branch  to  the main dungeon called "Sokoban,"
     briefly described in the earlier section about  Traps.   As  mentioned
     there,  the  goal  is  to push boulders into pits and/or holes to plug
     those in order to both get the boulders out of the way and be able  to
     go  past  the  traps.   There are some special "rules" that are active
     when in that branch of the dungeon.  Some  rules  can't  be  bypassed,
     such  as  being unable to push a boulder diagonally.  Other rules can,
     such as not smashing boulders with magic or tools, but doing so causes
     you to receive a luck penalty.  No message about that is given at  the


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     time, but it is tracked as a conduct.  The #conduct command and end of
     game  disclosure  will  report  whether you have abided by the special
     rules of Sokoban, and if not, how many times you violated  them,  pro-
     viding you with a way to discover which actions incur bad luck so that
     you  can  be  better  informed about whether or not to avoid repeating
     those actions in the future.  (Note:  the Sokoban conduct will only be
     displayed if you have entered the Sokoban branch of the dungeon during
     the current game.  Once that has happened, it  becomes  part  of  dis-
     closed  conduct  even  if you haven't done anything interesting there.
     Ending the game with "never broke the Sokoban rules" conduct  is  most
     meaningful  if  you  also  manage to perform the "obtained the Sokoban
     prize" achievement (see Achievements below).)

          There are several other challenges tracked by the  game.   It  is
     possible  to  eliminate  one  or more species of monsters by genocide;
     playing without this feature is considered a challenge.  When the game
     offers you an opportunity to genocide monsters, you may  respond  with
     the  monster  type  "none" if you want to decline.  You can change the
     form of an item into another item of the same type  ("polypiling")  or
     the  form of your own body into another creature ("polyself") by wand,
     spell, or potion of polymorph; avoiding these effects are each consid-
     ered challenges.  Polymorphing  monsters,  including  pets,  does  not
     break  either of these challenges.  Finally, you may sometimes receive
     wishes; a game without an attempt to wish for any  items  is  a  chal-
     lenge, as is a game without wishing for an artifact (even if the arti-
     fact immediately disappears).  When the game offers you an opportunity
     to  make  a  wish for an item, you may choose "nothing" if you want to
     decline.

     8.1.  Achievements

          End of game disclosure will  also  display  various  achievements
     representing  progress toward ultimate ascension, if any have been at-
     tained.  They aren't directly related to conduct but are grouped  with
     it  because  they fall into the same category of "bragging rights" and
     to limit the number  of  questions  during  disclosure.   Listed  here
     roughly  in  order  of  difficulty and not necessarily in the order in
     which you might accomplish them.

     <Rank>     - Attained rank title <Rank>.
     Shop       - Entered a shop.
     Temple     - Entered a temple.
     Mines      - Entered the Gnomish Mines.
     Town       - Entered Mine Town.
     Oracle     - Consulted the Oracle of Delphi.
     Novel      - Read a passage from a Discworld Novel.
     Sokoban    - Entered Sokoban.
     Big Room   - Entered the Big Room.
     Soko-Prize - Explored to the top of Sokoban
                  and found a special item there.
     Mines' End - Explored to the bottom of the Gnomish Mines
                  and found a special item there.
     Medusa     - Defeated Medusa.
     Tune       - Discovered the tune that can be used to  open  and  close


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                  the drawbridge on the Castle level.
     Bell       - Acquired the Bell of Opening.
     Gehennom   - Entered Gehennom.
     Candle     - Acquired the Candelabrum of Invocation.
     Book       - Acquired the Book of the Dead.
     Invocation - Gained access to the bottommost level of Gehennom.
     Amulet     - Acquired the fabled Amulet of Yendor.
     Endgame    - Reached the Elemental Planes.
     Astral     - Reached the Astral Plane level.
     Blind      - Blind from birth.
     Deaf       - Deaf from birth.
     Nudist     - Never wore any armor.
     Ascended   - Delivered the Amulet to its final destination.

     Notes:

          Achievements  are recorded and subsequently reported in the order
     in which they happen during your current game rather  than  the  order
     listed here.

          There  are  nine <Rank> titles for each role, bestowed at experi-
     ence levels 1, 3, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, and 30.  The one for  experi-
     ence  level 1 is not recorded as an achievement.  Losing enough levels
     to revert to lower rank(s) does not discard the corresponding achieve-
     ment(s).

          There's no guaranteed Novel so the achievement to read one  might
     not  always be attainable (except perhaps by wishing).  Similarly, the
     Big Room level is not always present.  Unlike with the Novel,  there's
     no way to wish for this opportunity.

          The  "special  items"  hidden  in  Mines' End and Sokoban are not
     unique but are considered to be prizes or rewards for exploring  those
     levels  since doing so is not necessary to complete the game.  Finding
     other instances of the same objects doesn't record  the  corresponding
     achievement.

          The  Medusa  achievement  is recorded if she dies for any reason,
     even if you are not directly responsible, and only if she dies.

          The 5-note tune can be learned via trial and error with a musical
     instrument played closely enough--but not too  close!--to  the  Castle
     level's drawbridge or can be given to you via prayer boon.

          Blind,  Deaf,  and Nudist are also conducts, and they can only be
     enabled by setting the correspondingly named option in  NETHACKOPTIONS
     or  run-time  configuration  file prior to game start.  In the case of
     Blind and Deaf, the option also enforces the conduct.  They aren't re-
     ally significant accomplishments  unless/until  you  make  substantial
     progress into the dungeon.






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     9.  Options

          Due  to  variations  in  personal  tastes  and conceptions of how
     NetHack should do things, there are options you can set to change  how
     NetHack behaves.

     9.1.  Setting the options

          Options may be set in a number of ways.  Within the game, the `O'
     command  allows  you to view all options and change most of them.  You
     can also set options automatically by placing them in a  configuration
     file, or in the NETHACKOPTIONS environment variable.  Some versions of
     NetHack also have front-end programs that allow you to set options be-
     fore  starting  the game or a global configuration for system adminis-
     trators.

     9.2.  Using a configuration file

          The default name of the configuration file  varies  on  different
     operating systems.

          On  UNIX,  Linux, and macOS it is ".nethackrc" in the user's home
     directory.  The file may not exist, but it is a normal ASCII text file
     and can be created with any text editor.

          On Windows, the  name  is  ".nethackrc"  located  in  the  folder
     "%USERPROFILE%\NetHack\".   The file may not exist, but it is a normal
     ASCII text file can can be created with any text editor.   After  run-
     ning  NetHack  for  the first time, you should find a default template
     for   the   configuration   file   named   ".nethackrc.template"    in
     "%USERPROFILE%\NetHack\".   If  you have not created the configuration
     file, NetHack will create one for you using the default template file.

          On MS-DOS, it is "defaults.nh" in the same folder as nethack.exe.

          Any line in the configuration file starting with `#'  is  treated
     as a comment and ignored.  Empty lines are ignored.

          Any line beginning with `[' and ending in `]' is a section marker
     (the  closing  `]' can be followed by whitespace and then an arbitrary
     comment beginning with `#').  The text between the square brackets  is
     the  section  name.  Section markers are only valid after a CHOOSE di-
     rective and their names are case insensitive.  Lines after  a  section
     marker  belong  to  that  section up until another section starts or a
     marker without a name is encountered or the file ends.   Lines  within
     sections  are ignored unless a CHOOSE directive has selected that sec-
     tion.

          You can use different configuration directives in the file,  some
     of  which  can be used multiple times.  In general, the directives are
     written in capital letters, followed by an equals  sign,  followed  by
     settings particular to that directive.




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          Here is a list of allowed directives:

     OPTIONS
       There  are  two  types  of  options,  boolean  and compound options.
       Boolean options toggle a setting on or off, while  compound  options
       take  more diverse values.  Prefix a boolean option with "no" or `!'
       to turn it off.  For compound options, the option name and value are
       separated by a colon.  Some options are persistent, and  apply  only
       to new games.  You can specify multiple OPTIONS directives, and mul-
       tiple  options  separated  by  commas in a single OPTIONS directive.
       (Comma separated options are processed from right to left.)

       Example:

            OPTIONS=dogname:Fido
            OPTIONS=!legacy,autopickup,pickup_types:$"=/!?+

     HACKDIR
       Default location of files NetHack needs. On Windows HACKDIR defaults
       to the location of the NetHack.exe or NetHackw.exe file  so  setting
       HACKDIR to override that is not usually necessary or recommended.

     LEVELDIR
       The  location  that  in-progress level files are stored. Defaults to
       HACKDIR, must be writable.

     SAVEDIR
       The location where saved games are kept. Defaults to  HACKDIR,  must
       be writable.

     BONESDIR
       The location that bones files are kept. Defaults to HACKDIR, must be
       writable.

     LOCKDIR
       The location that file synchronization locks are stored. Defaults to
       HACKDIR, must be writable.

     TROUBLEDIR
       The  location  that  a record of game aborts and self-diagnosed game
       problems is kept. Defaults to HACKDIR, must be writable.

     AUTOCOMPLETE
       Enable or disable an extended command  autocompletion.   Autocomple-
       tion has no effect for the X11 windowport.  You can specify multiple
       autocompletions.   To  enable autocompletion, list the extended com-
       mand.  Prefix the command with "!" to disable the autocompletion for
       that command.

       Example:

            AUTOCOMPLETE=zap,!annotate




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     AUTOPICKUP_EXCEPTION
       Set exceptions to the pickup_types option.  See the "Configuring Au-
       topickup Exceptions" section.

     BINDINGS
       Change the key bindings of some special keys, menu accelerators, ex-
       tended commands, or mouse buttons.  You can specify  multiple  bind-
       ings.   Format is key followed by the command, separated by a colon.
       See the "Changing Key Bindings" section for more information.

       Example:

            BIND=^X:getpos.autodescribe

     CHOOSE
       Chooses at random one of the comma-separated parameters as an active
       section name.  Lines in other sections are ignored.

       Example:

            OPTIONS=color
            CHOOSE=char A,char B
            [char A]
            OPTIONS=role:arc,race:dwa,align:law,gender:fem
            [char B]
            OPTIONS=role:wiz,race:elf,align:cha,gender:mal
            [] #end of CHOOSE
            OPTIONS=!rest_on_space

       If [] is present, the preceding section is closed and no new section
       begins; whatever follows will be common to all sections.   Otherwise
       the last section extends to the end of the options file.

     MENUCOLOR
       Highlight  menu  lines  with different colors.  See the "Configuring
       Menu Colors" section.

     MSGTYPE
       Change the way messages are shown in the top status line.   See  the
       "Configuring Message Types" section.

     ROGUESYMBOLS
       Custom  symbols  for  for the rogue level's symbol set.  See SYMBOLS
       below.

     SOUND
       Define a sound mapping.  See the "Configuring User Sounds" section.

     SOUNDDIR
       Define the directory that contains the sound files.  See  the  "Con-
       figuring User Sounds" section.

     SYMBOLS
       Override  one or more symbols in the symbol set used for all dungeon


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       levels except for the  special  rogue  level.   See  the  "Modifying
       NetHack Symbols" section.

       Example:

            # replace small punctuation (tick marks) with digits
            SYMBOLS=S_boulder:0,S_golem:7

     WIZKIT
       Debug mode only:  extra items to add to initial inventory.  Value is
       the  name  of  a  text file containing a list of item names, one per
       line, up to a maximum of 128 lines.  Each line is processed  by  the
       function that handles wishing.

       Example:

            WIZKIT=~/wizkit.txt



     Here is an example of configuration file contents:

     # Set your character's role, race, gender, and alignment.
     OPTIONS=role:Valkyrie, race:Human, gender:female, align:lawful
     #
     # Turn on autopickup, set automatically picked up object types
     OPTIONS=autopickup,pickup_types:$"=/!?+
     #
     # Map customization
     OPTIONS=color           # Display things in color if possible
     OPTIONS=lit_corridor    # Show lit corridors differently
     OPTIONS=hilite_pet,hilite_pile
     # Replace small punctuation (tick marks) with digits
     SYMBOLS=S_boulder:0,S_golem:7
     #
     # No startup splash screen. Windows GUI only.
     OPTIONS=!splash_screen



     9.3.  Using the NETHACKOPTIONS environment variable

          The  NETHACKOPTIONS variable is a comma-separated list of initial
     values for the various options.  Some can only be turned  on  or  off.
     You turn one of these on by adding the name of the option to the list,
     and  turn it off by typing a `!' or "no" before the name.  Others take
     a character string as a value.  You can set string options  by  typing
     the  option  name,  a  colon or equals sign, and then the value of the
     string.  The value is terminated by the  next  comma  or  the  end  of
     string.

          For  example,  to set up an environment variable so that color is
     on, legacy is off, character name is set to "Blue Meanie",  and  named
     fruit is set to "lime", you would enter the command


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     % setenv NETHACKOPTIONS "color,\!leg,name:Blue Meanie,fruit:lime"

     in  csh  (note  the  need to escape the `!' since it's special to that
     shell), or the pair of commands

     $ NETHACKOPTIONS="color,!leg,name:Blue Meanie,fruit:lime"
     $ export NETHACKOPTIONS

     in sh, ksh, or bash.

          The NETHACKOPTIONS value is effectively the same as a single  OP-
     TIONS directive in a configuration file.  The "OPTIONS=" prefix is im-
     plied  and  comma  separated options are processed from right to left.
     Other types of configuration directives such as BIND  or  MSGTYPE  are
     not allowed.

          Instead  of a comma-separated list of options, NETHACKOPTIONS can
     be set to the full name of a configuration file you want to  use.   If
     that  full  name  doesn't start with a slash, precede it with `@' (at-
     sign) to let NetHack know that the rest is intended as  a  file  name.
     If it does start with `/', the at-sign is optional.

     9.4.  Customization options

          Here  are explanations of what the various options do.  Character
     strings that are too long may  be  truncated.   Some  of  the  options
     listed may be inactive in your dungeon.

          Some  options  are  persistent,  and are saved and reloaded along
     with the game.  Changing a persistent option in the configuration file
     applies only to new games.

     accessiblemsg
       Add location or direction information to messages (default is off).

     acoustics
       Enable messages about what your character hears (default on).   Note
       that this has nothing to do with your computer's audio capabilities.
       Persistent.

     alignment
       Your    starting    alignment   (align:lawful,   align:neutral,   or
       align:chaotic).  You may specify just the first letter.  Many  roles
       and  the non-human races restrict which alignments are allowed.  See
       role for a description of how to use negation to exclude choices.

       Default is random.  Cannot be set with the `O' command.  Persistent.

     autodescribe
       Automatically describe the terrain under cursor when asked to get  a
       location  on  the  map (default true).  The whatis_coord option con-
       trols whether the description includes map coordinates.




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     autodig
       Automatically dig if you are wielding a digging tool and moving into
       a place that can be dug (default false).  Persistent.

     autoopen
       Walking into a closed door attempts to open it (default true).  Per-
       sistent.

     autopickup
       Automatically pick up things onto  which  you  move  (default  off).
       Persistent.

       See  pickup_types  and  also autopickup_exception for ways to refine
       the behavior.

       Note: prior to version 3.7.0, the default for autopickup was on.

     autoquiver
       This option controls what happens when you attempt  the  `f'  (fire)
       command  when  nothing is quivered or readied (default false).  When
       true, the computer will fill your quiver  or  quiver  sack  or  make
       ready some suitable weapon.  Note that it will not take into account
       the  blessed/cursed  status,  enchantment, damage, or quality of the
       weapon; you are free to manually fill your quiver or quiver sack  or
       make  ready  with the `Q' command instead.  If no weapon is found or
       the option is false, the `t' (throw) command  is  executed  instead.
       Persistent.

     autounlock
       Controls  what  action to take when attempting to walk into a locked
       door or to loot a locked container.   Takes  a  plus-sign  separated
       list of values:

       Untrap    - prompt about whether to attempt to find a trap; it might
                   fail to find one even when present; if it does find one,
                   it  will ask whether you want to try to disarm the trap;
                   if you decline, your character will forget that the door
                   or box is trapped;
       Apply-Key - if carrying a key or other unlocking tool, prompt  about
                   using it;
       Kick      - kick  the door (if you omit untrap or decline to attempt
                   untrap and you omit apply-key or you lack a key  or  you
                   decline to use the key; has no effect on containers);
       Force     - try  to  force  a  container's  lid  with your currently
                   wielded weapon (if you omit untrap or decline to attempt
                   untrap and you omit apply-key or you lack a key  or  you
                   decline to use the key; has no effect on doors);
       None      - none  of  the  above;  can't  be combined with the other
                   choices.

       Omitting the value is treated as if autounlock:apply-key.  Preceding
       autounlock with `!' or "no" is treated as autounlock:none.




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       Applying a key might set off a trap if  the  door  or  container  is
       trapped.   Successfully  kicking  a  door  will break it and wake up
       nearby monsters.  Successfully forcing a container open  will  break
       its  lock and might also destroy some of its contents or damage your
       weapon or both.

       The default is Apply-Key.  Persistent.

     blind
       Start the character permanently blind (default false).  Persistent.

     bones
       Allow saving and loading bones files (default true).  Persistent.

     boulder
       Set the character used to display boulders (default  is  the  "large
       rock" class symbol, ``').

     catname
       Name  your  starting  cat (for example "catname:Morris").  Cannot be
       set with the `O' command.

     character
       Synonym for "role" to pick the type of your character  (for  example
       "character:Monk").  See role for more details.

     checkpoint
       Save game state after each level change, for possible recovery after
       program crash (default on).  Persistent.

     cmdassist
       Have  the  game  provide  some additional command assistance for new
       players if it detects some anticipated mistakes (default on).

     confirm
       Have user confirm attacks on pets, shopkeepers, and other  peaceable
       creatures (default on).  Persistent.

     dark_room
       Show out-of-sight areas of lit rooms (default on).  Persistent.

     deaf
       Start the character permanently deaf (default false).  Persistent.

     dropped_nopick
       If  this  option  is on, items you dropped will not be automatically
       picked  up,  even  if  autopickup  is  also  on  and  they  are   in
       pickup_types  or match a positive autopickup exception (defualt on).
       Persistent.

     disclose
       Controls what information the program reveals when  the  game  ends.
       Value is a space separated list of prompting/category pairs (default
       is "ni na nv ng nc no", prompt with default response of `n' for each


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       candidate).  Persistent.  The possibilities are:

            i - disclose your inventory;
            a - disclose your attributes;
            v - summarize monsters that have been vanquished;
            g - list monster species that have been genocided;
            c - display your conduct; also achievements, if any;
            o - display dungeon overview.

       Each  disclosure  possibility can optionally be preceded by a prefix
       which lets you refine how it behaves.  Here are the valid prefixes:

            y - prompt you and default to yes on the prompt;
            n - prompt you and default to no on the prompt;
            + - disclose it without prompting;
            - - do not disclose it and do not prompt.

       The listings of vanquished monsters and of genocided  types  can  be
       sorted, so there are two additional choices for `v' and `g':

            ? - prompt you and default to ask on the prompt;
            # - disclose it without prompting, ask for sort order.

       Asking  refers to picking one of the orderings from a menu.  The `+'
       disclose without prompting choice, or being prompted  and  answering
       `y'  rather  than `a', will default to showing monsters in the order
       specified by the sortvanquished option.

       Omitted categories are implicitly added with `n' prefix.   Specified
       categories  with omitted prefix implicitly use `+' prefix.  Order of
       the disclosure categories does not matter, program display for  end-
       of-game disclosure follows a set sequence.

       (for example "disclose:yi na +v -g o") The example sets inventory to
       prompt  and  default to yes, attributes to prompt and default to no,
       vanquished to disclose without prompting, genocided to not  disclose
       and  not prompt, conduct to implicitly prompt and default to no, and
       overview to disclose without prompting.

       Note that the vanquished monsters list includes all monsters  killed
       by traps and each other as well as by you.  And the dungeon overview
       shows  all  levels  you had visited but does not reveal things about
       them that you hadn't discovered.

     dogname
       Name your starting dog (for example "dogname:Fang").  Cannot be  set
       with the `O' command.

     extmenu
       Changes  the  extended commands interface to pop-up a menu of avail-
       able commands.  It is keystroke compatible with the traditional  in-
       terface  except  that it does not require that you hit Enter.  It is
       implemented for the tty interface (default off).



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       For the X11 interface, which always uses a menu for choosing an  ex-
       tended  command,  it  controls  whether the menu shows all available
       commands (on) or just the subset of commands which  have  tradition-
       ally been considered extended ones (off).

     female
       An obsolete synonym for "gender:female".  Cannot be set with the `O'
       command.

     fireassist
       This  option  controls  what happens when you attempt the `f' (fire)
       and don't have an appropriate launcher, such as a bow  or  a  sling,
       wielded.   If on, you will automatically wield the launcher. Default
       is on.

     fixinv
       An object's inventory letter sticks to it when it's dropped (default
       on).  If this is off, dropping an object shifts  all  the  remaining
       inventory letters.  Persistent.

     force_invmenu
       Commands  asking for an inventory item show a menu instead of a text
       query with possible menu letters. Default is off.

     fruit
       Name  a  fruit  after  something  you  enjoy  eating  (for   example
       "fruit:mango") (default "slime mold").  Basically a nostalgic whimsy
       that  NetHack  uses from time to time.  You should set this to some-
       thing you find more appetizing than slime  mold.   Apples,  oranges,
       pears,  bananas,  and  melons already exist in NetHack, so don't use
       those.

     gender
       Your starting gender (gender:male or gender:female).  You may  spec-
       ify  just the first letter.  Although you can still denote your gen-
       der using either of the deprecated male and female options,  if  the
       gender option is also present it will take precedence.  See role for
       a description of how to use negation to exclude choices.

       Default is random.  Cannot be set with the `O' command.  Persistent.

     goldX
       When filtering objects based on bless/curse state (BUCX), whether to
       treat  gold  pieces as X (unknown bless/curse state, when "on") or U
       (known to be uncursed, when "off",  the  default).   Gold  is  never
       blessed  or  cursed, but it is not described as "uncursed" even when
       the implicit_uncursed option is "off".

     help
       If more information is available for an object looked  at  with  the
       `/'  command,  ask if you want to see it (default on).  Turning help
       off makes just looking at things faster,  since  you  aren't  inter-
       rupted  with  the  "More  info?"  prompt, but it also means that you
       might  miss   some   interesting   and/or   important   information.


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       Persistent.

     herecmd_menu
       When using a windowport that supports mouse and clicking on yourself
       or  next  to  you, show a menu of possible actions for the location.
       Same as "#herecmdmenu" and "#therecmdmenu" commands.

     hilite_pet
       Visually distinguish pets from similar animals (default  off).   The
       behavior  of  this  option depends on the type of windowing you use.
       In text windowing, text highlighting or inverse video is often used;
       with tiles, generally displays a heart symbol near pets.

       With the curses interface, the petattr option controls how to  high-
       light  pets and setting it will turn the hilite_pet option on or off
       as warranted.

     hilite_pile
       Visually distinguish piles of objects from individual  objects  (de-
       fault off).  The behavior of this option depends on the type of win-
       dowing  you  use.   In  text windowing, text highlighting or inverse
       video is often used; with tiles, generally displays  a  small  plus-
       symbol beside the object on the top of the pile.

     hitpointbar
       Show  a hit point bar graph behind your name and title.  Only avail-
       able for TTY and Windows GUI, and only when statushilites is on.

     horsename
       Name your starting horse (for example "horsename:Trigger").   Cannot
       be set with the `O' command.

     ignintr
       Ignore  interrupt  signals, including breaks (default off).  Persis-
       tent.

     implicit_uncursed
       Omit "uncursed" from object descriptions when it can be deduced from
       other aspects of the description (default on).  Persistent.

       If you use menu coloring, you may want to turn this off.

     legacy
       Display an introductory message when starting the game (default on).
       Persistent.

     lit_corridor
       Show corridor squares seen by night vision or a light source held by
       your character as lit (default off).  Persistent.

     lootabc
       When using a menu to interact with a container,  use  the  old  `a',
       `b',  and `c' keyboard shortcuts rather than the mnemonics `o', `i',
       and `b' (default off).  Persistent.


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     mail
       Enable mail delivery during the game (default on).  Persistent.

     male
       An obsolete synonym for "gender:male".  Cannot be set with  the  `O'
       command.

     mention_decor
       Give  feedback  when  walking  onto various dungeon features such as
       stairs, fountains, or altars which  are  ordinarily  only  described
       when  covered  by  one or more objects (default off).  Cannot be set
       with the `O' command.  Persistent.

     mention_walls
       Give feedback when walking against a wall  (default  off).   Persis-
       tent.

     menucolors
       Enable  coloring  menu  lines  (default off).  See "Configuring Menu
       Colors" on how to configure the colors.

     menustyle
       Controls the method used when you need to choose various objects (in
       response to the Drop (aka droptype)  command,  for  instance).   The
       value  specified should be the first letter of one of the following:
       traditional, combination, full, or partial.  Default is full.   Per-
       sistent.

       Traditional  was  the only method available for very early versions;
       it consists of a prompt for object class characters, followed by  an
       object-by-object  prompt  for all items matching the selected object
       class(es).  Combination starts with a prompt for object class(es) of
       interest, but then displays a menu of matching objects  rather  than
       prompting one-by-one.  Full displays a menu of object classes rather
       than a character prompt, and then a menu of matching objects for se-
       lection.  (Choosing its `A' (Autoselect-All) choice skips the second
       menu.   To avoid choosing that by accident, set paranoid_confirm:Au-
       toAll to require confirmation.)  Partial skips the object class fil-
       tering and immediately displays a menu of all objects.

     menu_deselect_all
       Key to deselect all items in a menu.  Default `-'.

     menu_deselect_page
       Key to deselect all items on this page of a menu.  Default `\'.

     menu_first_page
       Key to jump to the first page in a menu.  Default `^'.

     menu_headings
       Controls how the headings in a menu are highlighted.  Takes  a  text
       attribute,  or text color and attribute separated by ampersand.  For
       allowed attributes and colors, see "Configuring Menu  Colors".   Not
       all ports can actually display all types.


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     menu_invert_all
       Key to invert all items in a menu.  Default `@'.

     menu_invert_page
       Key to invert all items on this page of a menu.  Default `~'.

     menu_last_page
       Key to jump to the last page in a menu.  Default `|'.

     menu_next_page
       Key to go to the next menu page.  Default `>'.

     menu_objsyms
       Show  object symbols in menu headings in menus where the object sym-
       bols act as menu accelerators (default off).

     menu_overlay
       Do not clear the screen before drawing menus, and align menus to the
       right edge of the screen. Only for the tty port.  (default on)

     menu_previous_page
       Key to go to the previous menu page.  Default `<'.

     menu_search
       Key to search for some text and toggle selection state  of  matching
       menu items.  Default `:'.

     menu_select_all
       Key to select all items in a menu.  Default `.'.

     menu_select_page
       Key to select all items on this page of a menu.  Default `,'.

     menu_shift_left
       Key to scroll a menu--one which has been scrolled right--back to the
       left.   Implemented for perm_invent only by curses and X11.  Default
       `{'.

     menu_shift_right
       Key to scroll a menu which has text beyond the  right  edge  to  the
       right.  Implemented for perm_invent only by curses and X11.  Default
       `}'.

     monpolycontrol
       Prompt  for  new  form  whenever  any monster changes shape (default
       off).  Debug mode only.

     montelecontrol
       Prompt for destination whenever any monster gets teleported (default
       off).  Debug mode only.

     mouse_support
       Allow use of the mouse for input and travel.  Valid settings are:



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            0 - disabled
            1 - enabled and make OS adjustments to support mouse use
            2 - like 1 but does not make any OS adjustments

       Omitting a value is the same as specifying 1 and negating mouse_sup-
       port is the same as specifying 0.

     msghistory
       The number of top line messages to keep (and be able to recall  with
       `^P') (default 20).  Cannot be set with the `O' command.

     msg_window
       Allows  you to change the way recalled messages are displayed.  Cur-
       rently it is only supported for  tty  (all  four  choices)  and  for
       curses (`f' and `r' choices, default `r').  The possible values are:

            s - single message (default; only choice prior to 3.4.0);
            c - combination, two messages as "single", then as "full";
            f - full window, oldest message first;
            r - full window reversed, newest message first.

       For  backward  compatibility,  no value needs to be specified (which
       defaults to "full"), or it can be negated (which defaults  to  "sin-
       gle").

     name
       Set  your  character's  name  (defaults to your user name).  You can
       also set your character's role by appending a dash and one  or  more
       letters  of the role (that is, by suffixing one of -A -B -C -H -K -M
       -P -Ra -Ro -S -T -V -W).  If -@ is used for the role, then a  random
       one  will  be automatically chosen.  Cannot be set with the `O' com-
       mand.

     news
       Read the NetHack news file, if present (default on).  Since the news
       is shown at the beginning of the game, there's no point  in  setting
       this with the `O' command.

     nudist
       Start the character with no armor (default false).  Persistent.

     null
       Send padding nulls to the terminal (default on).  Persistent.

     number_pad
       Use digit keys instead of letters to move (default 0 or off).  Valid
       settings are:

        0 - move by letters; "yuhjklbn"
        1 - move by numbers; digit `5' acts as `G' movement prefix
        2 - like 1 but `5' works as `g' prefix instead of as `G'
        3 - by numbers using phone key layout; 123 above, 789 below
        4 - combines 3 with 2; phone layout plus MS-DOS compatibility
       -1 - by letters but use `z' to go northwest, `y' to zap wands


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       For backward compatibility, omitting a value is the same as specify-
       ing  1  and  negating number_pad is the same as specifying 0.  (Set-
       tings 2 and 4 are for compatibility with MS-DOS or old PC  Hack;  in
       addition  to the different behavior for `5', `Alt-5' acts as `G' and
       `Alt-0' acts as `I'.  Setting -1 is to accommodate some QWERTZ  key-
       boards  which  have  the  location of the `y' and `z' keys swapped.)
       When moving by numbers, to enter a count prefix for  those  commands
       which  accept one (such as "12s" to search twelve times), precede it
       with the letter `n' ("n12s").

     packorder
       Specify   the   order   to   list   object   types    in    (default
       "")[%?+!=/(*`0_").  The value of this option should be a string con-
       taining the symbols for the various object types.  Any omitted types
       are filled in at the end from the previous order.

     paranoid_confirmation
       A  space  separated  list  of  specific  situations  where alternate
       prompting is desired.  The  default  is  "paranoid_confirmation:pray
       swim".

       Confirm     - for  any prompts which are set to require "yes" rather
                     than `y', also require "no" to reject instead  of  ac-
                     cepting  any  non-yes response as no; changes pray and
                     AutoAll to require "yes" or `no' too;
       quit        - require "yes" rather than `y' to confirm quitting  the
                     game or switching into non-scoring explore mode;
       die         - require  "yes"  rather  than `y' to confirm dying (not
                     useful in normal play; applies to explore mode);
       bones       - require "yes" rather than `y' to confirm saving  bones
                     data when dying in debug mode;
       attack      - require  "yes"  rather than `y' to confirm attacking a
                     peaceful monster;
       wand-break  - require "yes" rather than `y' to  confirm  breaking  a
                     wand with the apply command;
       eating      - require  "yes"  rather  than `y' to confirm whether to
                     continue eating;
       Were-change - require "yes" rather than `y' to confirm changing form
                     due to lycanthropy when hero has polymorph control;
       pray        - require `y' to confirm an attempt to pray rather  than
                     immediately  praying; on by default; (to require "yes"
                     rather than just `y', set Confirm too);
       trap        - require `y' to confirm an attempt to move into or onto
                     a known trap, unless doing  so  is  considered  to  be
                     harmless;  (to require "yes" rather than just `y', set
                     Confirm too); confirmation can be skipped by using the
                     `m' movement prefix;
       swim        - prevent walking into water or lava; on by default; (to
                     deliberately step onto/into such terrain when this  is
                     set, use the `m' movement prefix when adjacent);
       AutoAll     - require  confirmation  when  the  `A' (Autoselect-All)
                     choice is selected in object class filtering menus for
                     menustyle:Full; (to require  "yes"  rather  than  just
                     `y', set Confirm too);


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       Remove      - require  selection from inventory for `R' and `T' com-
                     mands even when wearing just one applicable item;
       all         - turn on all of the above.

       By default, the pray and swim choices are enabled, the  others  dis-
       abled.   To  disable  them without setting any of the other choices,
       use paranoid_confirmation:none.  To keep them enabled while  setting
       any  of  the  others,  you can include them in the new list, such as
       paranoid_confirmation:attack pray swim Remove or you can precede the
       first entry in the list with a plus sign, paranoid_confirmation:+at-
       tack Remove.  To remove an entry that has been previously set  with-
       out  removing others, precede the first entry in the list with a mi-
       nus sign, paranoid_confirmation:-swim.  To both add some new entries
       and remove some old ones, you can use mulitple paranoid_confirmation
       option settings, or you can use the `+' form and list entries to  be
       added  by their name and entries to be removed by `!' and name.  The
       positive (no `!') and negative (with `!') entries can be intermixed.

     perm_invent
       If true, always display your current inventory in a window  (default
       false).

       This only makes sense for windowing system interfaces that implement
       this  feature.   For  those  that do, the perminv_mode option can be
       used to refine what gets displayed for perm_invent.  Setting that to
       a value other than none while perm_invent is false will change it to
       true.

     perminv_mode
       Augments the perm_invent option.  Value is one of

       none   - behave as if perm_invent is false;
       all    - show all inventory except for gold;
       full   - show full inventory including gold;
       in-use - only show items which are in use (worn, wielded, lit lamp).

       Default is none but if perm_invent gets set to true while it is none
       it will be changed to all.

       Note: if gold has been equipped in quiver/ammo-pouch then it will be
       included for all despite that mode normally omitting gold.

     petattr
       Specifies one or more text highlighting attributes to use when show-
       ing pets on the map.   Effectively  a  superset  of  the  hilite_pet
       boolean  option.  Curses interface only; value is one or more of the
       following letters.









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            n - Normal text (no highlighting)
            i - Inverse video (default)
            b - Bold text
            u - Underlined text
            k - blinKing text
            d - Dim text
            t - iTalic text
            l - Left line indicator
            r - Right line indicator

       Some of those choices might not work, particularly the final  three,
       depending upon terminal hardware or terminal emulation software.

       Currently multiple highlight-style letters can be combined by simply
       stringing  them together (for example, "bk"), but in the future they
       might require being separated by plus signs (such  as  "b+k",  which
       works  already).   When using the `n' choice, it should be specified
       on its own, not in combination with any of the other letters.

     pettype
       Specify the type of your initial pet, if you are playing a character
       class that uses multiple types of pets; or choose to have no initial
       pet at all.  Possible values are "cat", "dog", "horse", and  "none".
       If the choice is not allowed for the role you are currently playing,
       it will be silently ignored.  For example, "horse" will only be hon-
       ored when playing a knight.  Cannot be set with the `O' command.

     pickup_burden
       When  you  pick  up an item that would exceed this encumbrance level
       (Unencumbered, Burdened, streSsed,  straiNed,  overTaxed,  or  over-
       Loaded),  you will be asked if you want to continue.  (Default `S').
       Persistent.

     pickup_stolen
       If this option is on and autopickup is  also  on,  try  to  pick  up
       things  that  a  monster  stole  from  you,  even  if they aren't in
       pickup_types or match an autopickup exception.  Default is on.  Per-
       sistent.

     pickup_thrown
       If this option is on and autopickup is  also  on,  try  to  pick  up
       things  that you threw, even if they aren't in pickup_types or match
       an autopickup exception.  Default is on.  Persistent.

     pickup_types
       Specify the object types to be picked up when autopickup is on.  De-
       fault is all types.  Persistent.

       The value is a list of object symbols, such as  pickup_types:$?!  to
       pick  up  gold, scrolls, and potions.  You can use autopickup_excep-
       tion configuration file lines to further refine autopickup behavior.

       There is no way to set pickup_types to "none".  (Setting  it  to  an
       empty  value  reverts to "all".)  If you want to avoid automatically


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       picking up any types of items but do want to have autopickup  on  in
       order  to have autopickup_exception settings control what you do and
       don't pick up, you can set pickup_types to `.'.  That  is  the  type
       symbol  for venom and you won't come across any venom items so won't
       unintentionally pick such up.

     pile_limit
       When walking across a pile of objects on  the  floor,  threshold  at
       which the message "there are few/several/many objects here" is given
       instead  of  showing  a  popup  list of those objects.  A value of 0
       means "no limit" (always list the objects); a value of 1 effectively
       means "never show the objects" since the pile size will always be at
       least that big; default value is 5.  Persistent.

     playmode
       Values are "normal", "explore", or "debug".  Allows selection of ex-
       plore mode (also known as discovery mode) or debug mode (also  known
       as  wizard  mode)  instead of normal play.  Debug mode might only be
       allowed for someone logged in  under  a  particular  user  name  (on
       multi-user  systems)  or  specifying a particular character name (on
       single-user systems) or it might be disabled  entirely.   Requesting
       it when not allowed or not possible results in explore mode instead.
       Default is normal play.

     pushweapon
       Using the `w' (wield) command when already wielding something pushes
       the  old  item into your alternate weapon slot (default off).  Like-
       wise for the `a' (apply) command if it causes the  applied  item  to
       become wielded.  Persistent.

     quick_farsight
       When set, usually prevents the "you sense your surroundings" message
       where  play pauses to allow you to browse the map whenever clairvoy-
       ance randomly activates.  Some situations, such as being  underwater
       or  engulfed,  ignore this option.  It does not affect the clairvoy-
       ance spell where pausing to examine revealed objects or monsters  is
       less intrusive.  Default is off.  Persistent.

     race
       Selects  your  race  (for  example, race:human).  Choices are human,
       dwarf, elf, gnome, and orc but most roles restrict which of the non-
       human races are allowed.  See role for a description of how  to  use
       negation to exclude choices.

       Default is random.  Cannot be set with the `O' command.  Persistent.

     rest_on_space
       Make  the  space  bar a synonym for the `.' (#wait) command (default
       off).  Persistent.

     role
       Pick your type of character (for example, role:Samurai); synonym for
       character.  See name for an  alternate  method  of  specifying  your
       role.


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       This  option can also be used to limit selection when role is chosen
       randomly.  Use a space-separated list of  roles  and  either  negate
       each  one  or  negate the option itself instead.  Negation is accom-
       plished in the same manner as with boolean options, by prefixing the
       option or its value(s) with `!' or "no".
       Examples:

            OPTIONS=role:!arc !bar !kni
            OPTIONS=!role:arc bar kni

       There can be multiple instances of the role option  if  they're  all
       negations.

       Default is random.  Cannot be set with the `O' command.  Persistent.

     roguesymset
       This option may be used to select one of the named symbol sets found
       within "symbols" to alter the symbols displayed on the screen on the
       rogue level.

     rlecomp
       When  writing out a save file, perform run length compression of the
       map.  Not all ports support run length compression. It has no effect
       on reading an existing save file.

     runmode
       Controls the amount of screen updating for the map window  when  en-
       gaged  in  multi-turn  movement (running via shift+direction or con-
       trol+direction and so forth, or via  the  travel  command  or  mouse
       click).  The possible values are:

       teleport - update the map after movement has finished;
       run      - update the map after every seven or so steps;
       walk     - update the map after each step;
       crawl    - like walk, but pause briefly after each step.

       This  option  only affects the game's screen display, not the actual
       results of moving.  The default is "run"; versions  prior  to  3.4.1
       used  "teleport" only.  Whether or not the effect is noticeable will
       depend upon the window port used or on the type of  terminal.   Per-
       sistent.

     safe_pet
       Prevent you from (knowingly) attacking your pets (default on).  Per-
       sistent.

     safe_wait
       Prevents  you  from waiting or searching when next to a hostile mon-
       ster (default on). Persistent.

     sanity_check
       Evaluate monsters, objects, and map  prior  to  each  turn  (default
       off).  Debug mode only.



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     scores
       Control  what  parts of the score list you are shown at the end (for
       example "scores:5 top scores/4 around my score/own  scores").   Only
       the  first  letter of each category (`t', `a', or `o') is necessary.
       Persistent.

     showexp
       Show your accumulated experience  points  on  bottom  line  (default
       off).  Persistent.

     showrace
       Display  yourself  as the glyph for your race, rather than the glyph
       for your role (default off).  Note that this  setting  affects  only
       the  appearance  of  the  display,  not the way the game treats you.
       Persistent.

     showscore
       Show your approximate accumulated  score  on  bottom  line  (default
       off).  Persistent.

     silent
       Suppress terminal beeps (default on).  Persistent.

     sortdiscoveries
       Controls the sorting behavior for the output of the `\' and ``' com-
       mands.  Persistent.

       The possible values are:

       o - list  object  types  by  class,  in  discovery order within each
           class; default;
       s - list object types by sortloot classification: by class, by  sub-
           class  within class for classes which have substantial groupings
           (like helmets, boots, gloves, and so forth for armor), with  ob-
           ject  types  partly-discovered  via  assigned name coming before
           fully identified types;
       c - list by class, alphabetically within each class;
       a - list alphabetically across all classes.

       Can be interactively set via the `O' command or via  using  the  `m'
       prefix before the `\' or ``' command.

     sortloot
       Controls  the sorting behavior of the pickup lists for inventory and
       #loot commands and some others.  Persistent.

       The possible values are:

       full - always sort the lists;
       loot - only sort the lists that don't use  inventory  letters,  like
              with the #loot and pickup commands;
       none - show lists the traditional way without sorting; default.




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     sortpack
       Sort  the  pack  contents by type when displaying inventory (default
       on).  Persistent.

     sortvanquished
       Controls the sorting behavior for the output of the #vanquished com-
       mand and also for the #genocided command.  Persistent.

       The possible values are:

       t - traditional--order by monster level; ties are broken by internal
           monster index; default;
       d - order by monster difficulty rating; ties broken by internal  in-
           dex;
       a - order  alphabetically,  first  any  unique monsters then all the
           others;
       c - order by monster class, by low to high level within each class;
       n - order by count, high to low; ties are broken by internal monster
           index;
       z - order by count, low to high; ties broken by internal index.

       Can be interactively set via the `m O' command or via using the  `m'
       prefix  before either the #vanquished command or the #genocided com-
       mand.

     sounds
       Allow sounds to be emitted from an integrated sound library (default
       on).

     sparkle
       Display a sparkly effect when a monster (including yourself) is  hit
       by an attack to which it is resistant (default on).  Persistent.

     standout
       Boldface monsters and "--More--" (default off).  Persistent.

     statushilites
       Controls how many turns status hilite behaviors highlight the field.
       If negated or set to zero, disables status hiliting.  See "Configur-
       ing Status Hilites" for further information.

     status_updates
       Allow  updates  to the status lines at the bottom of the screen (de-
       fault true).

     suppress_alert
       This option may be set to a NetHack version level to suppress  alert
       notification  messages about feature changes for that and prior ver-
       sions (for example "suppress_alert:3.3.1").

     symset
       This option may be used to select one of the named symbol sets found
       within "symbols" to alter the symbols displayed on the screen.   Use
       "symset:default" to explicitly select the default symbols.


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     time
       Show  the  elapsed  game time in turns on bottom line (default off).
       Persistent.

     timed_delay
       When pausing momentarily for display effect, such as with explosions
       and moving objects, use a timer rather than sending extra characters
       to the screen.  (Applies to  "tty"  and  "curses"  interfaces  only;
       "X11"  interface always uses a timer-based delay.  The default is on
       if configured into the program.)  Persistent.

     tips
       Show some helpful tips during gameplay (default on).  Persistent.

     tombstone
       Draw a tombstone graphic upon your death (default on).  Persistent.

     toptenwin
       Put the ending display in a NetHack window instead of on stdout (de-
       fault off).  Setting this option makes the score list visible when a
       windowing version of NetHack is started without a parent window, but
       it no longer leaves the score list around after game end on a termi-
       nal or emulating window.

     travel
       Allow the travel command via mouse click (default on).  Turning this
       option off will prevent the game from attempting unintended moves if
       you make inadvertent mouse clicks on the map window.  Does  not  af-
       fect traveling via the `_' ("#travel") command.  Persistent.

     tutorial
       Play a tutorial level at the start of the game.  Setting this option
       on or off in the config file will skip the query.

     verbose
       Provide more commentary during the game (default on).  Persistent.

     whatis_coord
       When  using  the  `/' or `;' commands to look around on the map with
       autodescribe on, display coordinates after  the  description.   Also
       works in other situations where you are asked to pick a location.

       The possible settings are:

            c - compass ("east" or "3s" or "2n,4w");
            f - full compass ("east" or "3south" or "2north,4west");
            m - map <x,y> (map column x=0 is not used);
            s - screen [row,column] (row is offset to match tty usage);
            n - none (no coordinates shown) [default].

       The  whatis_coord option is also used with the "/m", "/M", "/o", and
       "/O" sub-commands of `/', where the  "none"  setting  is  overridden
       with "map".



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     whatis_filter
       When  getting  a  location  on  the map, and using the keys to cycle
       through next and previous targets,  allows  filtering  the  possible
       targets.

            n - no filtering [default]
            v - in view only
            a - in same area only

       The  area-filter tries to be slightly predictive--if you're standing
       on a doorway, it will consider the area on the side of the door  you
       were last moving towards.

       Filtering can also be changed when getting a location with the "get-
       pos.filter" key.

     whatis_menu
       When getting a location on the map, and using a key to cycle through
       next  and  previous  targets,  use  a menu instead to pick a target.
       (default off)

     whatis_moveskip
       When getting a location on the map, and using shifted movement  keys
       or  meta-digit  keys  to  fast-move,  instead of moving 8 units at a
       time, move by skipping the same glyphs.  (default off)

     windowtype
       When the program has been built to support multiple interfaces,  se-
       lect  which  one  to use, such as "tty" or "X11" (default depends on
       build-time settings; use "#version" to check).  Cannot be  set  with
       the `O' command.

       When  used,  it should be the first option set since its value might
       enable or disable the availability of various  other  options.   For
       multiple lines in a configuration file, that would be the first non-
       comment  line.   For  a comma-separated list in NETHACKOPTIONS or an
       OPTIONS line in a configuration file, that would  be  the  rightmost
       option in the list.

     wizweight
       Augment  object  descriptions  with  their  objects' weight (default
       off).  Debug mode only.

     zerocomp
       When writing out a save file, perform zero-comp compression  of  the
       contents. Not all ports support zero-comp compression. It has no ef-
       fect on reading an existing save file.

     9.5.  Window Port Customization options

          Here  are  explanations  of  the various options that are used to
     customize and change the characteristics of the  windowtype  that  you
     have  chosen.   Character  strings that are too long may be truncated.
     Not all window ports will adjust for all settings  listed  here.   You


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     can safely add any of these options to your configuration file, and if
     the  window  port is capable of adjusting to suit your preferences, it
     will attempt to do so. If it can't it will silently  ignore  it.   You
     can find out if an option is supported by the window port that you are
     currently using by checking to see if it shows up in the Options list.
     Some options are dynamic and can be specified during the game with the
     `O' command.

     align_message
       Where  to  align  or place the message window (top, bottom, left, or
       right)

     align_status
       Where to align or place the status window  (top,  bottom,  left,  or
       right).

     ascii_map
       If  NetHack  can,  it should display the map using simple characters
       (letters and punctuation)  rather  than  tiles  graphics.   In  some
       cases,  characters  can  be augmented with line-drawing symbols; use
       the symset option to select a symbol  set  such  as  DECgraphics  or
       IBMgraphics  if  your  display  supports them.  Setting ascii_map to
       True forces tiled_map to be False.

     color
       If NetHack can, it should display color if it can for different mon-
       sters, objects, and dungeon features (default on).

     eight_bit_tty
       If NetHack can, it should pass eight-bit character values (for exam-
       ple, specified with the traps option) straight through to your  ter-
       minal (default off).

     font_map
       if  NetHack can, it should use a font by the chosen name for the map
       window.

     font_menu
       If NetHack can, it should use a font by the  chosen  name  for  menu
       windows.

     font_message
       If NetHack can, it should use a font by the chosen name for the mes-
       sage window.

     font_status
       If NetHack can, it should use a font by the chosen name for the sta-
       tus window.

     font_text
       If  NetHack  can,  it  should use a font by the chosen name for text
       windows.




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     font_size_map
       If NetHack can, it should use this size font for the map window.

     font_size_menu
       If NetHack can, it should use this size font for menu windows.

     font_size_message
       If NetHack can, it should use this size font for the message window.

     font_size_status
       If NetHack can, it should use this size font for the status window.

     font_size_text
       If NetHack can, it should use this size font for text windows.

     fullscreen
       If NetHack can, it should try  and  display  on  the  entire  screen
       rather than in a window.

     guicolor
       Use  color  text and/or highlighting attributes when displaying some
       non-map data (such as  menu  selector  letters).   Curses  interface
       only; default is on.

     large_font
       If NetHack can, it should use a large font.

     map_mode
       If NetHack can, it should display the map in the manner specified.

     player_selection
       If  NetHack  can,  it should pop up dialog boxes, or use prompts for
       character selection.

     popup_dialog
       If NetHack can, it should pop up dialog boxes for input.

     preload_tiles
       If NetHack can, it should preload tiles into memory.   For  example,
       in the protected mode MS-DOS version, control whether tiles get pre-
       loaded into RAM at the start of the game.  Doing so enhances perfor-
       mance  of  the  tile  graphics,  but uses more memory. (default on).
       Cannot be set with the `O' command.

     scroll_amount
       If NetHack can, it should scroll the display by this number of cells
       when the hero reaches the scroll_margin.

     scroll_margin
       If NetHack can, it should scroll the display when the hero or cursor
       is this number of cells away from the edge of the window.

     selectsaved
       If NetHack can, it should display a menu of existing saved games for


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       the player to choose from at game startup, if it can.  Not all ports
       support this option.

     softkeyboard
       Display an onscreen keyboard.  Handhelds are most likely to  support
       this option.

     splash_screen
       If  NetHack  can, it should display an opening splash screen when it
       starts up (default yes).

     statuslines
       Number of lines for traditional below-the-map status  display.   Ac-
       ceptable values are 2 and 3 (default is 2).

       When set to 3, the tty interface moves some fields around and mainly
       shows  status  conditions  on  their own line.  A display capable of
       showing at least 25 lines is recommended.  The value can be  toggled
       back and forth during the game with the `O' command.

       The curses interface does likewise if the align_status option is set
       to top or bottom but ignores statuslines when set to left or right.

       The  Qt  interface  already displays more than 3 lines for status so
       uses the statuslines value differently.  A value of 3 renders status
       in the Qt interface's original format, with the status window spread
       out vertically.  A value of 2 makes status  be  slightly  condensed,
       moving  some  fields to different lines to eliminate one whole line,
       reducing the height needed.  (If NetHack has been built using a ver-
       sion of Qt older than qt-5.9, statuslines can only  be  set  in  the
       run-time  configuration  file or via NETHACKOPTIONS, not during play
       with the `O' command.)

     term_cols  and

     term_rows
       Curses interface only.  Number of columns and rows to  use  for  the
       display.   Curses will attempt to resize to the values specified but
       will settle for smaller sizes if they are too big.  Default  is  the
       current window size.

     tile_file
       Specify  the  name  of  an alternative tile file to override the de-
       fault.

       Note: the X11 interface uses X resources rather than  NetHack's  op-
       tions  to select an alternate tile file.  See NetHack.ad, the sample
       X "application defaults" file.

     tile_height
       Specify the preferred height of each tile in a tile capable port.

     tile_width
       Specify the preferred width of each tile in a tile capable port


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     tiled_map
       If NetHack can, it should  display  the  map  using  tiles  graphics
       rather  than  simple  characters  (letters and punctuation, possibly
       augmented by  line-drawing  symbols).   Setting  tiled_map  to  True
       forces ascii_map to be False.

     use_darkgray
       Use bold black instead of blue for black glyphs (TTY only).

     use_inverse
       If  NetHack  can,  it should display inverse when the game specifies
       it.

     vary_msgcount
       If NetHack can, it should display this number of messages at a  time
       in the message window.

     windowborders
       Whether to draw boxes around the map, status area, message area, and
       persistent inventory window if enabled.  Curses interface only.  Ac-
       ceptable values are

            0 - off, never show borders
            1 - on, always show borders
            2 - auto, on if display is at least (24+2)x(80+2) [default]
            3 - on, except forced off for perm_invent
            4 - auto, except forced off for perm_invent

       (The  26x82  size  threshold  for  `2'  refers to number of rows and
       columns of the display.  A width of at least 110 columns (80+2+26+2)
       is needed to show borders if align_status is set to left or right.)

       The persistent inventory window, when enabled, can grow until it  is
       too big to fit on most displays, resulting in truncation of its con-
       tents.  If borders are forced on (1) or the display is big enough to
       show them (2), setting the value to 3 or 4 instead will keep borders
       for the map, message, and status windows but have room for two addi-
       tional  lines  of  inventory  plus  widen each inventory line by two
       columns.

     windowcolors
       If NetHack can, it should display windows with the  specified  fore-
       ground/background colors.  Windows GUI only.  The format is

          OPTION=windowcolors:wintype foreground/background

          where  wintype  is one of "menu", "message", "status", or "text",
     and  foreground  and  background  are  colors,  either  a  hexadecimal
     \'#rrggbb',  one  of the named colors (black, red, green, brown, blue,
     magenta, cyan, orange, brightgreen, yellow, brightblue, brightmagenta,
     brightcyan, white, trueblack, gray, purple, silver,  maroon,  fuchsia,
     lime,  olive,  navy, teal, aqua), or one of Windows UI colors (active-
     border, activecaption, appworkspace, background,  btnface,  btnshadow,
     btntext,  captiontext,  graytext,  greytext, highlight, highlighttext,


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     inactiveborder, inactivecaption, menu,  menutext,  scrollbar,  window,
     windowframe, windowtext).

     wraptext
       If  NetHack can, it should wrap long lines of text if they don't fit
       in the visible area of the window.

     9.6.  Platform-specific Customization options

          Here are explanations of options that are used by specific  plat-
     forms or ports to customize and change the port behavior.

     altkeyhandling
       Select  an  alternate  way  to  handle keystrokes (Win32 tty NetHack
       only).  The name of the handling type is one  of  "default",  "ray",
       "340".

     altmeta
       On  systems  where  this  option is available, it can be set to tell
       NetHack to convert a two character sequence beginning with ESC  into
       a meta-shifted version of the second character (default off).

       This  conversion  is  only  done  for  commands, not for other input
       prompts.  Note that typing one or more  digits  as  a  count  prefix
       prior  to a command--preceded by n if the number_pad option is set--
       is also subject to this conversion, so attempting to abort the count
       by typing ESC will leave NetHack waiting for  another  character  to
       complete  the  two  character sequence.  Type a second ESC to finish
       cancelling such a count.  At other prompts a single ESC suffices.

     BIOS
       Use BIOS calls to update the screen display quickly and to read  the
       keyboard  (allowing  the use of arrow keys to move) on machines with
       an IBM PC compatible BIOS ROM (default off, OS/2, PC, and ST NetHack
       only).

     rawio
       Force raw (non-cbreak) mode for faster output and  more  bulletproof
       input  (MS-DOS sometimes treats `^P' as a printer toggle without it)
       (default off, OS/2, PC, and ST NetHack only).  Note:   DEC  Rainbows
       hang if this is turned on.  Cannot be set with the `O' command.

     subkeyvalue
       (Win32  tty  NetHack  only).  May be used to alter the value of key-
       strokes that the operating system returns to NetHack to help compen-
       sate for international keyboard issues.   OPTIONS=subkeyvalue:171/92
       will  return  92  to  NetHack, if 171 was originally going to be re-
       turned.  You can use multiple subkeyvalue assignments in the config-
       uration file if needed.  Cannot be set with the `O' command.

     video
       Set the video mode used (PC NetHack only).  Values are "autodetect",
       "default", "vga", or "vesa".  Setting "vesa" will cause the game  to
       display  tiles,  using  the  full  capability  of  the VGA hardware.


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       Setting "vga" will cause the game to display tiles, fixed at 640x480
       in 16 colors, a mode that is compatible with all VGA hardware. Third
       party tilesets will probably not  work.   Setting  "autodetect"  at-
       tempts  "vesa", then "vga", and finally sets "default" if neither of
       those modes works.  Cannot be set with the `O' command.

     video_height
       Set the VGA mode resolution height (MS-DOS only, with video:vesa)

     video_width
       Set the VGA mode resolution width (MS-DOS only, with video:vesa)

     videocolors
       Set the  color  palette  for  PC  systems  using  NO_TERMS  (default
       4-2-6-1-5-3-15-12-10-14-9-13-11,  (PC  NetHack  only).  The order of
       colors is red, green,  brown,  blue,  magenta,  cyan,  bright.white,
       bright.red,  bright.green,  yellow, bright.blue, bright.magenta, and
       bright.cyan.  Cannot be set with the `O' command.

     videoshades
       Set the intensity level of the three gray scales available  (default
       dark  normal light, PC NetHack only).  If the game display is diffi-
       cult to read, try adjusting these scales; if this does  not  correct
       the problem, try !color.  Cannot be set with the `O' command.

     9.7.  Regular Expressions

          Regular  expressions  are normally POSIX extended regular expres-
     sions. It is possible to compile NetHack  without  regular  expression
     support  on  a  platform where there is no regular expression library.
     While this is not true of any modern platform,  if  your  NetHack  was
     built  this  way,  patterns are instead glob patterns. This applies to
     Autopickup exceptions, Message types, Menu colors, and User sounds.

     9.8.  Configuring Autopickup Exceptions

          You can further refine the behavior of the autopickup option  be-
     yond what is available through the pickup_types option.

          By placing autopickup_exception lines in your configuration file,
     you  can  define  patterns to be checked when the game is about to au-
     topickup something.

     autopickup_exception
       Sets an exception to the pickup_types option.  The autopickup_excep-
       tion option should be followed by a regular expression to be used as
       a pattern to match against the singular form of the  description  of
       an object at your location.

       In  addition, some characters are treated specially if they occur as
       the first character in the pattern, specifically:

            < - always pickup an object that matches rest of pattern;
            > - never pickup an object that matches rest of pattern.


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            The autopickup_exception rules are processed in  the  order  in
            which  they  appear in your configuration file, thus allowing a
            later rule to override an earlier rule.

       Exceptions can be set with the `O' command, but because they are not
       included in your configuration file, they won't be in effect if  you
       save and then restore your game.  autopickup_exception rules and not
       saved with the game.

     Here are some examples:

            autopickup_exception="<*arrow"
            autopickup_exception=">*corpse"
            autopickup_exception=">* cursed*"

          The  first example above will result in autopickup of any type of
     arrow.  The second example results in the exclusion of any corpse from
     autopickup.  The last example results in the exclusion of items  known
     to be cursed from autopickup.

     9.9.  Changing Key Bindings

          It is possible to change the default key bindings of some special
     commands,  menu accelerator keys, and extended commands, by using BIND
     stanzas in the configuration file.  Format is  key,  followed  by  the
     command  to  bind  to,  separated by a colon.  The key can be a single
     character ("x"), a control key ("^X", "C-x"), a meta  key  ("M-x"),  a
     mouse button, or a three-digit decimal ASCII code.

          For example:

          BIND=^X:getpos.autodescribe
          BIND=\:menu_first_page
          BIND=v:loot

     Extended command keys
       You  can  bind multiple keys to the same extended command.  Unbind a
       key by using "nothing" as the extended command to bind to.  You  can
       also bind the "<esc>", "<enter>", and "<space>" keys.

     Menu accelerator keys
       The menu control or accelerator keys can also be rebound via OPTIONS
       lines  in the configuration file.  You cannot bind object symbols or
       selection letters into menu accelerators.  Some interfaces only sup-
       port some of the menu accelerators.

     Mouse buttons
       You can bind "mouse1"  or  "mouse2"  to  "nothing",  "therecmdmenu",
       "clicklook", or "mouseaction".

     Special command keys
       Below  are the special commands you can rebind.  Some of them can be
       bound to same keys with no problems, others are in  the  same  "con-
       text", and if bound to same keys, only one of those commands will be


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       available.  Special command can only be bound to a single key.

     count
       Prefix  key  to  start a count, to repeat a command this many times.
       With number_pad only.  Default is `n'.

     getdir.help
       When asked for a direction, the key to show the  help.   Default  is
       `?'.

     getdir.mouse
       When  asked  for  a direction, the key to initiate a simulated mouse
       click.  You will be asked to pick a  location.   Use  movement  key-
       strokes  to  move  the  cursor  around  the  map, then type the get-
       pos.pick.once key (default `,') or the getpos.pick key (default `.')
       to finish as if performing a left or right click.  Only useful  when
       using the #therecmdmenu command.  Default is `_'.

     getdir.self
       When  asked for a direction, the key to target yourself.  Default is
       `.'.

     getdir.self2
       When asked for a direction, an alternate  key  to  target  yourself.
       Default is `s'.

     getpos.autodescribe
       When  asked for a location, the key to toggle autodescribe.  Default
       is `#'.

     getpos.all.next
       When asked for a location, the key to go to next closest interesting
       thing.  Default is `a'.

     getpos.all.prev
       When asked for a location, the key to go to previous closest  inter-
       esting thing.  Default is `A'.

     getpos.door.next
       When  asked  for  a  location, the key to go to next closest door or
       doorway.  Default is `d'.

     getpos.door.prev
       When asked for a location, the key to go to previous closest door or
       doorway.  Default is `D'.

     getpos.help
       When asked for a location, the key to show help.  Default is `?'.

     getpos.mon.next
       When asked for a location, the key to go to  next  closest  monster.
       Default is `m'.




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     getpos.mon.prev
       When  asked  for  a location, the key to go to previous closest mon-
       ster.  Default is `M'.

     getpos.obj.next
       When asked for a location, the key to go  to  next  closest  object.
       Default is `o'.

     getpos.obj.prev
       When asked for a location, the key to go to previous closest object.
       Default is `O'.

     getpos.menu
       When  asked  for  a  location, and using one of the next or previous
       keys to cycle through targets, toggle showing a menu  instead.   De-
       fault is `!'.

     getpos.moveskip
       When  asked  for  a location, and using the shifted movement keys or
       meta-digit keys to fast-move  around,  move  by  skipping  the  same
       glyphs instead of by 8 units.  Default is `*'.

     getpos.filter
       When  asked for a location, change the filtering mode when using one
       of the next or previous keys to cycle through targets.  Toggles  be-
       tween  no  filtering,  in view only, and in the same area only.  De-
       fault is `"'.

     getpos.pick
       When asked for a location, the key to choose the location, and  pos-
       sibly  ask for more info.  When simulating a mouse click after being
       asked for a direction (see getdir.mouse above), the key  to  use  to
       respond as right click.  Default is `.'.

     getpos.pick.once
       When  asked for a location, the key to choose the location, and skip
       asking for more info.  When simulating a  mouse  click  after  being
       asked for a direction, the key to respond as left click.  Default is
       `,'.

     getpos.pick.quick
       When asked for a location, the key to choose the location, skip ask-
       ing  for  more  info, and exit the location asking loop.  Default is
       `;'.

     getpos.pick.verbose
       When asked for a location, the key to choose the location, and  show
       more info without asking.  Default is `:'.

     getpos.self
       When  asked for a location, the key to go to your location.  Default
       is `@'.




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     getpos.unexplored.next
       When asked for a location, the key to go to next closest  unexplored
       location.  Default is `x'.

     getpos.unexplored.prev
       When  asked  for a location, the key to go to previous closest unex-
       plored location.  Default is `X'.

     getpos.valid
       When asked for a location, the key to go to show valid target  loca-
       tions.  Default is `$'.

     getpos.valid.next
       When asked for a location, the key to go to next closest valid loca-
       tion.  Default is `z'.

     getpos.valid.prev
       When  asked  for a location, the key to go to previous closest valid
       location.  Default is `Z'.

     9.10.  Configuring Message Types

          You can change the way the messages  are  shown  in  the  message
     area, when the message matches a user-defined pattern.

          In  general,  the configuration file entries to describe the mes-
     sage types look like this: MSGTYPE=type "pattern"

     type    - how the message should be shown;
     pattern - the pattern to match.

       The pattern should be a regular expression.

       Allowed types are:

       show  - show message normally;
       hide  - never show the message;
       stop  - wait for user with more-prompt;
       norep - show the message once, but not again if no other message  is
               shown in between.

       Here's  an example of message types using NetHack's internal pattern
       matching facility:

            MSGTYPE=stop "You feel hungry."
            MSGTYPE=hide "You displaced *."

       specifies that whenever a message "You feel hungry"  is  shown,  the
       user  is prompted with more-prompt, and a message matching "You dis-
       placed <something>." is not shown at all.

       The order of the defined MSGTYPE lines is important; the last match-
       ing rule is used. Put the general case first, exceptions below them.



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     9.11.  Configuring Menu Colors

          Some platforms allow you to define colors used in menu lines when
     the line matches a  user-defined  pattern.   At  this  time  the  tty,
     curses, win32tty and win32gui interfaces support this.

          In  general,  the configuration file entries to describe the menu
     color mappings look like this:

          MENUCOLOR="pattern"=color&attribute

            pattern    - the pattern to match;
            color      - the color to use for lines matching the pattern;
            attribute  - the attribute to use for lines matching  the  pat-
                         tern.  The attribute is optional, and if left out,
                         you must also leave out the  preceding  ampersand.
                         If no attribute is defined, no attribute is used.

       The pattern should be a regular expression.

       Allowed  colors  are  black, red, green, brown, blue, magenta, cyan,
       gray, orange, light-green, yellow, light-blue, light-magenta, light-
       cyan, and white.  And no-color, the default foreground color,  which
       isn't necessarily the same as any of the other colors.

       Allowed  attributes  are  none, bold, dim, italic, underline, blink,
       and inverse.  "Normal" is a synonym for "none".  Note that the plat-
       form used may interpret the attributes any way it wants.

       Here's an example of menu colors using  NetHack's  internal  pattern
       matching facility:

            MENUCOLOR="* blessed *"=green
            MENUCOLOR="* cursed *"=red
            MENUCOLOR="* cursed *(being worn)"=red&underline

       specifies  that  any menu line with " blessed " contained in it will
       be shown in green color, lines with " cursed " will be shown in red,
       and lines with " cursed " followed by "(being  worn)"  on  the  same
       line will be shown in red color and underlined.  You can have multi-
       ple MENUCOLOR entries in your configuration file, and the last MENU-
       COLOR line that matches a menu line will be used for the line.

          Note  that if you intend to have one or more color specifications
     match " uncursed ", you will probably want to  turn  the  implicit_un-
     cursed  option off so that all items known to be uncursed are actually
     displayed with the "uncursed" description.

     9.12.  Configuring User Sounds

          Some platforms allow you to define sound files to be played  when
     a message that matches a user-defined pattern is delivered to the mes-
     sage  window.   At this time the Qt port and the win32tty and win32gui
     ports support the use of user sounds.


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          The following configuration file entries are relevant to  mapping
     user sounds to messages:

     SOUNDDIR
       The directory that houses the sound files to be played.

     SOUND
       An entry that maps a sound file to a user-specified message pattern.
       Each SOUND entry is broken down into the following parts:

       MESG        - message  window  mapping  (the  only  one supported in
                     3.7.0);
       msgtype     - optional; message type to use, see  "Configuring  Mes-
                     sage Types"
       pattern     - the pattern to match;
       sound file  - the sound file to play;
       volume      - the volume to be set while playing the sound file;
       sound index - optional; the index corresponding to a sound file.

       The pattern should be a POSIX extended regular expression.

          For example:

          SOUNDDIR=C:\nethack\sounds
          SOUND=MESG "This door is locked" "lock.wav" 100
          SOUND=MESG hide "^You miss the " "swing.wav" 75



     9.13.  Configuring Status Hilites

          Your  copy  of  NetHack  may  have been compiled with support for
     "Status Hilites".  If so, you can customize your game display by  set-
     ting  thresholds  to  change  the color or appearance of fields in the
     status display.

          The format for defining status colors is:

     OPTION=hilite_status:field-name/behavior/color&attributes

          For example, the following line in your configuration  file  will
     cause  the  hitpoints  field  to display in the color red if your hit-
     points drop to or below a threshold of 30%:

     OPTION=hilite_status:hitpoints/<=30%/red/normal

     (That example is actually specifying  red&normal  for  <=30%  and  no-
     color&normal for >30%.)

          For  another  example,  the  following line in your configuration
     file will cause wisdom to be displayed red if it drops and green if it
     rises:

     OPTION=hilite_status:wisdom/down/red/up/green


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          Allowed colors are black, red, green, brown, blue, magenta, cyan,
     gray, orange, light-green, yellow, light-blue,  light-magenta,  light-
     cyan,  and white.  And "no-color", the default foreground color on the
     display, which is not necessarily the same as black or white or any of
     the other colors.

          Allowed attributes are none, bold, dim, underline, blink, and in-
     verse.  "Normal" is a synonym for "none"; they should not be  used  in
     combination with any of the other attributes.

          To  specify  both  a  color  and an attribute, use `&' to combine
     them.  To specify multiple attributes, use `+' to combine those.   For
     example: "magenta&inverse+dim".

          Note that the display may substitute or ignore particular attrib-
     utes depending upon its capabilities, and in general may interpret the
     attributes  any  way it wants.  For example, on some display systems a
     request for bold might yield blink or vice versa.  On others,  issuing
     an  attribute request while another is already set up will replace the
     earlier attribute rather than combine with it.  Since  NetHack  issues
     attribute  requests  sequentially  (at  least  with the tty interface)
     rather than all at once, the only way a situation  like  that  can  be
     controlled is to specify just one attribute.

          You can adjust the appearance of the following status fields:
                   title       dungeon-level   experience-level
                  strength         gold           experience
                 dexterity       hitpoints            HD
                constitution   hitpoints-max         time
                intelligence       power            hunger
                   wisdom        power-max     carrying-capacity
                  charisma      armor-class        condition
                 alignment                           score

       The  pseudo-field  "characteristics"  can  be used to set all six of
       Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, and Cha at once.  "HD" is  "hit  dice",  an
       approximation  of experience level displayed when polymorphed.  "ex-
       perience", "time", and "score" are conditionally displayed depending
       upon your other option settings.

       Instead of a behavior, "condition"  takes  the  following  condition
       flags:  stone,  slime, strngl, foodpois, termill, blind, deaf, stun,
       conf, hallu, lev, fly, and ride.  You can use "major_troubles" as an
       alias for stone through termill, "minor_troubles" for blind  through
       hallu, "movement" for lev, fly, and ride, and "all" for every condi-
       tion.

       Allowed  behaviors are "always", "up", "down", "changed", a percent-
       age or absolute number threshold, or text to match against.  For the
       hitpoints field, the additional behavior "criticalhp" is  available.
       It  overrides other behavior rules if hit points are at or below the
       major problem threshold (which varies  depending  upon  maximum  hit
       points and experience level).



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          * "always" will set the default attributes for that field.

          * "up",  "down" set the field attributes for when the field value
            changes upwards or downwards.  This attribute times  out  after
            statushilites turns.

          * "changed"  sets  the  field  attribute for when the field value
            changes.  This attribute times out after  statushilites  turns.
            (If  a  field  has  both a "changed" rule and an "up" or "down"
            rule which matches a change in the field's value, the  "up"  or
            "down" one takes precedence.)

          * percentage  sets  the  field  attribute  when  the  field value
            matches the percentage.  It is specified as a number between  0
            and  100, followed by `%' (percent sign).  If the percentage is
            prefixed with `<=' or `>=', it also matches when value is below
            or above the percentage.  Use prefix `<' or `>' to  match  when
            strictly  below  or  above.   (The  numeric  limit  is  relaxed
            slightly for those: >-1% and <101%  are  allowed.)   Only  four
            fields  support  percentage rules.  Percentages for "hitpoints"
            and "power" are straightforward; they're based  on  the  corre-
            sponding  maximum  field.   Percentage highlight rules are also
            allowed for "experience level" and "experience  points"  (valid
            when the showexp option is enabled).  For those, the percentage
            is  based on the progress from the start of the current experi-
            ence level to the start of the  next  level.   So  if  level  2
            starts  at 20 points and level 3 starts at 40 points, having 30
            points is 50% and 35 points is 75%.  100% is  unattainable  for
            experience  because  you'll  gain  a level and the calculations
            will be reset for that new level, but a rule for =100%  is  al-
            lowed  and  matches the special case of being exactly 1 experi-
            ence point short of the next level.

          * absolute value sets the attribute when the field value  matches
            that  number.   The number must be 0 or higher, except for "ar-
            mor-class' which allows negative values, and may optionally  be
            preceded by `='.  If the number is preceded by `<=' or `>=' in-
            stead,  it  also  matches when value is below or above.  If the
            prefix is `<' or `>', only match when strictly above or below.

          * criticalhp only applies to the hitpoints field  and  only  when
            current hit points are below a threshold (which varies by maxi-
            mum  hit  points  and experience level).  When the threshold is
            met, a criticalhp rule takes precedence  over  all  other  hit-
            points rules.

          * text  match sets the attribute when the field value matches the
            text.  Text matches can only be used for  "alignment",  "carry-
            ing-capacity", "hunger", "dungeon-level", and "title".  For ti-
            tle, only the role's rank title is tested; the character's name
            is ignored.

          The  in-game options menu can help you determine the correct syn-
     tax for a configuration file.


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          The whole feature can be disabled by setting option statushilites
     to 0.

          Example hilites:

          OPTION=hilite_status: gold/up/yellow/down/brown
          OPTION=hilite_status: characteristics/up/green/down/red
          OPTION=hilite_status: hitpoints/100%/gray&normal
          OPTION=hilite_status: hitpoints/<100%/green&normal
          OPTION=hilite_status: hitpoints/<66%/yellow&normal
          OPTION=hilite_status: hitpoints/<50%/orange&normal
          OPTION=hilite_status: hitpoints/<33%/red&bold
          OPTION=hilite_status: hitpoints/<15%/red&inverse
          OPTION=hilite_status: condition/major/orange&inverse
          OPTION=hilite_status: condition/lev+fly/red&inverse



     9.14.  Modifying NetHack Symbols

          NetHack can load entire symbol sets from the symbol file.

          The options that are used to select a particular symbol set  from
     the symbol file are:

     symset
       Set the name of the symbol set that you want to load.

     roguesymset
       Set  the name of the symbol set that you want to load for display on
       the rogue level.

          You can also override one or more symbols using the  SYMBOLS  and
     ROGUESYMBOLS  configuration  file  options.   Symbols are specified as
     name:value pairs.  Note that NetHack escape-processes the value string
     in conventional C fashion.  This means that \ is a prefix to take  the
     following  character literally.  Thus \ needs to be represented as \\.
     The special prefix form \m switches on the  meta  bit  in  the  symbol
     value,  and  the ^ prefix causes the following character to be treated
     as a control character.

        NetHack Symbols
           Symbol Name            Description
        -----------------------------------------------------------------
           S_air                  (air)
        _  S_altar                (altar)
        "  S_amulet               (amulet)
        A  S_angel                (angelic being)
        a  S_ant                  (ant or other insect)
        ^  S_anti_magic_trap      (anti-magic field)
        [  S_armor                (suit or piece of armor)
        [  S_armour               (suit or piece of armor)
        ^  S_arrow_trap           (arrow trap)



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        0  S_ball                 (iron ball)
        #  S_bars                 (iron bars)
        B  S_bat                  (bat or bird)
        ^  S_bear_trap            (bear trap)
        -  S_blcorn               (bottom left corner)
        b  S_blob                 (blob)
        +  S_book                 (spellbook)
        )  S_boomleft             (boomerang open left)
        (  S_boomright            (boomerang open right)
        `  S_boulder              (boulder)
        -  S_brcorn               (bottom right corner)
        >  S_brdnladder           (branch ladder down)
        >  S_brdnstair            (branch staircase down)
        <  S_brupladder           (branch ladder up)
        <  S_brupstair            (branch staircase up)
        C  S_centaur              (centaur)
        _  S_chain                (iron chain)
        #  S_cloud                (cloud)
        c  S_cockatrice           (cockatrice)
        $  S_coin                 (pile of coins)
        #  S_corr                 (corridor)
        -  S_crwall               (wall)
        #  S_darkroom             (dark room)
        ^  S_dart_trap            (dart trap)
        &  S_demon                (major demon)
        *  S_digbeam              (dig beam)
        >  S_dnladder             (ladder down)
        >  S_dnstair              (staircase down)
        d  S_dog                  (dog or other canine)
        D  S_dragon               (dragon)
        ;  S_eel                  (sea monster)
        E  S_elemental            (elemental)
        /  S_expl_tl              (explosion top left)
        -  S_expl_tc              (explosion top center)
        \  S_expl_tr              (explosion top right)
        |  S_expl_ml              (explosion middle left)
           S_expl_mc              (explosion middle center)
        |  S_expl_mr              (explosion middle right)
        \  S_expl_bl              (explosion bottom left)
        -  S_expl_bc              (explosion bottom center)
        /  S_expl_br              (explosion bottom right)
        e  S_eye                  (eye or sphere)
        ^  S_falling_rock_trap    (falling rock trap)
        f  S_feline               (cat or other feline)
        ^  S_fire_trap            (fire trap)
        !  S_flashbeam            (flash beam)
        %  S_food                 (piece of food)
        {  S_fountain             (fountain)
        F  S_fungus               (fungus or mold)
        *  S_gem                  (gem or rock)
           S_ghost                (ghost)
        H  S_giant                (giant humanoid)
        G  S_gnome                (gnome)



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        '  S_golem                (golem)
        |  S_grave                (grave)
        g  S_gremlin              (gremlin)
        -  S_hbeam                (horizontal beam [zap animation])
        #  S_hcdbridge            (horizontal raised drawbridge)
        +  S_hcdoor               (closed door in horizontal wall)
        .  S_hodbridge            (horizontal lowered drawbridge)
        |  S_hodoor               (open door in horizontal wall)
        ^  S_hole                 (hole)
        @  S_human                (human or elf)
        h  S_humanoid             (humanoid)
        -  S_hwall                (horizontal wall)
        .  S_ice                  (ice)
        i  S_imp                  (imp or minor demon)
        I  S_invisible            (invisible monster)
        J  S_jabberwock           (jabberwock)
        j  S_jelly                (jelly)
        k  S_kobold               (kobold)
        K  S_kop                  (Keystone Kop)
        ^  S_land_mine            (land mine)
        }  S_lava                 (molten lava)
        }  S_lavawall             (wall of lava)
        l  S_leprechaun           (leprechaun)
        ^  S_level_teleporter     (level teleporter)
        L  S_lich                 (lich)
        y  S_light                (light)
        #  S_litcorr              (lit corridor)
        :  S_lizard               (lizard)
        \  S_lslant               (diagonal beam [zap animation])
        ^  S_magic_portal         (magic portal)
        ^  S_magic_trap           (magic trap)
        m  S_mimic                (mimic)
        ]  S_mimic_def            (mimic)
        M  S_mummy                (mummy)
        N  S_naga                 (naga)
        .  S_ndoor                (doorway without door)
        n  S_nymph                (nymph)
        O  S_ogre                 (ogre)
        o  S_orc                  (orc)
        p  S_piercer              (piercer)
        ^  S_pit                  (pit)
        #  S_poisoncloud          (poison cloud)
        ^  S_polymorph_trap       (polymorph trap)
        }  S_pool                 (water)
        !  S_potion               (potion)
        P  S_pudding              (pudding or ooze)
        q  S_quadruped            (quadruped)
        Q  S_quantmech            (quantum mechanic)
        =  S_ring                 (ring)
        `  S_rock                 (boulder or statue)
        r  S_rodent               (rodent)
        ^  S_rolling_boulder_trap (rolling boulder trap)
        .  S_room                 (floor of a room)



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        /  S_rslant               (diagonal beam [zap animation])
        ^  S_rust_trap            (rust trap)
        R  S_rustmonst            (rust monster or disenchanter)
        ?  S_scroll               (scroll)
        #  S_sink                 (sink)
        ^  S_sleeping_gas_trap    (sleeping gas trap)
        S  S_snake                (snake)
        s  S_spider               (arachnid or centipede)
        ^  S_spiked_pit           (spiked pit)
        ^  S_squeaky_board        (squeaky board)
        0  S_ss1                  (magic shield 1 of 4)
        #  S_ss2                  (magic shield 2 of 4)
        @  S_ss3                  (magic shield 3 of 4)
        *  S_ss4                  (magic shield 4 of 4)
        ^  S_statue_trap          (statue trap)
           S_stone                (solid rock)
        ]  S_strange_obj          (strange object)
        -  S_sw_bc                (swallow bottom center)
        \  S_sw_bl                (swallow bottom left)
        /  S_sw_br                (swallow bottom right)
        |  S_sw_ml                (swallow middle left)
        |  S_sw_mr                (swallow middle right)
        -  S_sw_tc                (swallow top center)
        /  S_sw_tl                (swallow top left)
        \  S_sw_tr                (swallow top right)
        -  S_tdwall               (wall)
        ^  S_teleportation_trap   (teleportation trap)
        \  S_throne               (opulent throne)
        -  S_tlcorn               (top left corner)
        |  S_tlwall               (wall)
        (  S_tool                 (useful item (pick-axe, key, lamp...))
        ^  S_trap_door            (trap door)
        t  S_trapper              (trapper or lurker above)
        -  S_trcorn               (top right corner)
        #  S_tree                 (tree)
        T  S_troll                (troll)
        |  S_trwall               (wall)
        -  S_tuwall               (wall)
        U  S_umber                (umber hulk)
           S_unexplored           (unexplored terrain)
        u  S_unicorn              (unicorn or horse)
        <  S_upladder             (ladder up)
        <  S_upstair              (staircase up)
        V  S_vampire              (vampire)
        |  S_vbeam                (vertical beam [zap animation])
        #  S_vcdbridge            (vertical raised drawbridge)
        +  S_vcdoor               (closed door in vertical wall)
        .  S_venom                (splash of venom)
        ^  S_vibrating_square     (vibrating square)
        .  S_vodbridge            (vertical lowered drawbridge)
        -  S_vodoor               (open door in vertical wall)
        v  S_vortex               (vortex)
        |  S_vwall                (vertical wall)



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        /  S_wand                 (wand)
        }  S_water                (water)
        )  S_weapon               (weapon)
        "  S_web                  (web)
        w  S_worm                 (worm)
        ~  S_worm_tail            (long worm tail)
        W  S_wraith               (wraith)
        x  S_xan                  (xan or other extraordinary insect)
        X  S_xorn                 (xorn)
        Y  S_yeti                 (apelike creature)
        Z  S_zombie               (zombie)
        z  S_zruty                (zruty)
           S_pet_override         (any pet if ACCESSIBILITY=1 is set)
           S_hero_override        (hero if ACCESSIBILITY=1 is set)

     Notes:

     * Several symbols in this table appear to  be  blank.   They  are  the
       space character, except for S_pet_override and S_hero_override which
       don't  have any default value and can only be used if enabled in the
       "sysconf" file.

     * S_rock is misleadingly named; rocks and stones use  S_gem.   Statues
       and  boulders  are  the  rock  being  referred to, but since version
       3.6.0, statues are displayed as the monster they depict.  So  S_rock
       is  only  used for boulders and not used at all if overridden by the
       more specific S_boulder.

     9.15.  Customizing Map Glyph Representations Using Unicode

          If your platform or terminal supports the display of UTF-8  char-
     acter sequences, you can customize your game display by assigning Uni-
     code  codepoint  values and red-green-blue colors to glyph representa-
     tions. The customizations can be specified for use with a symset  that
     has  a UTF8 handler within the symbols file such as the enhanced1 set,
     or individually within your nethack.rc file.

          The format for defining a glyph representation is:

     OPTIONS=glyph:glyphid/U+nnnn/R-G-B

          The window port that is active needs to provide support for  dis-
     playing  UTF-8  character sequences and explicit red-green-blue colors
     in order for the glyph representation to be visible.  For example, the
     following line in your configuration file will cause the glyph  repre-
     sentation  for  glyphid G_pool to use Unicode codepoint U+224B and the
     color represented by R-G-B value 0-0-160:

     OPTIONS=glyph:G_pool/U+224B/0-0-160

     The list of acceptable glyphid's can be produced by  nethack  --dumpg-
     lyphids.  Individual NetHack glyphs can be specified using the G_ pre-
     fix,  or  you  can use an S_ symbol for a glyphid and store the custom
     representation  for  all  NetHack  glyphs  that  would  map  to   that


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     particular symbol.

          You  will  need  to select a symset with a UTF8 handler to enable
     the display of the customizations, such as the Enhanced symset.

     9.16.  Configuring NetHack for Play by the Blind

          NetHack can be set up to use only standard ASCII  characters  for
     making  maps  of  the dungeons. This makes even the MS-DOS versions of
     NetHack (which use special line-drawing characters  by  default)  com-
     pletely  accessible  to the blind who use speech and/or Braille access
     technologies.  Players will require a good working knowledge of  their
     screen-reader's review features, and will have to know how to navigate
     horizontally  and  vertically  character  by character. They will also
     find the search capabilities of their screen-readers to be quite valu-
     able. Be certain to examine this Guidebook before playing so you  have
     an idea what the screen layout is like. You'll also need to be able to
     locate  the  PC  cursor. It is always where your character is located.
     Merely searching for an @-sign will not  always  find  your  character
     since  there  are  other  humanoids represented by the same sign. Your
     screen-reader should also have a function which gives you the row  and
     column  of  your  review cursor and the PC cursor.  These co-ordinates
     are often useful in giving players a better sense of the overall loca-
     tion of items on the screen.

          NetHack can also be compiled with support for  sending  the  game
     messages to an external program, such as a text-to-speech synthesizer.
     If  the  "#version" extended command shows "external program as a mes-
     sage handler", your NetHack has been  compiled  with  the  capability.
     When  compiling  NetHack from source on Linux and other POSIX systems,
     define MSGHANDLER to enable it.  To use the capability, set the  envi-
     ronment  variable  NETHACK_MSGHANDLER  to an executable, which will be
     executed with the game message as the program's only parameter.

          The most crucial settings to make the game more accessible are:

     symset:plain
       Load a symbol set appropriate for use by blind players.

     menustyle:traditional
       This will assist in the interface to speech synthesizers.

     nomenu_overlay
       Show menus on a cleared screen and aligned to the left edge.

     number_pad
       A lot of speech access programs use the  number-pad  to  review  the
       screen.   If this is the case, disable the number_pad option and use
       the traditional Rogue-like commands.

     paranoid_confirmation:swim
       Prevent walking into water or lava.




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     accessiblemsg
       Adds direction or location information to messages.

     autodescribe
       Automatically describe the terrain under the cursor when targeting.

     mention_walls
       Give feedback messages when walking towards a wall  or  when  travel
       command was interrupted.

     whatis_coord:compass
       When  targeting with cursor, describe the cursor position with coor-
       dinates relative to your character.

     whatis_filter:area
       When targeting with cursor, filter possible locations so only  those
       in the same area (eg. same room, or same corridor) are considered.

     whatis_moveskip
       When targeting with cursor and using fast-move, skip the same glyphs
       instead of moving 8 units at a time.

     nostatus_updates
       Prevent  updates to the status lines at the bottom of the screen, if
       your screen-reader reads those lines. The same  information  can  be
       seen via the "#attributes" command.

     9.17.  Global Configuration for System Administrators

          If  NetHack  is compiled with the SYSCF option, a system adminis-
     trator should set up a global configuration; this is  a  file  in  the
     same  format  as  the  traditional  per-user  configuration  file (see
     above).  This file should be named sysconf and placed in the same  di-
     rectory as the other NetHack support files.  The options recognized in
     this file are listed below.  Any option not set uses a compiled-in de-
     fault (which may not be appropriate for your system).

       WIZARDS = A  space-separated  list  of user names who are allowed to
       play in debug mode (commonly referred to as wizard mode).   A  value
       of  a  single  asterisk  (*)  allows anyone to start a game in debug
       mode.

       SHELLERS = A list of users who are allowed to use the  shell  escape
       command (!).  The syntax is the same as WIZARDS.

       EXPLORERS = A list of users who are allowed to use the explore mode.
       The syntax is the same as WIZARDS.

       MAXPLAYERS = Limit  the  maximum number of games that can be running
       at the same time.

       SAVEFORMAT = A list of up to two  save  file  formats  separated  by
       space.   The  first format in the list will written as well as read.
       The second format will be read only if no save  file  in  the  first


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       format exists.  Valid choices are "historical" for binary writing of
       entire  structs,  "lendian" for binary writing of each field in lit-
       tle-endian order, "ascii" for writing the save file content in ascii
       text.

       BONESFORMAT = A list of up to two bones file  formats  separated  by
       space.   The  first format in the list will written as well as read.
       The second format will be read only if no bones files in  the  first
       format  exist.  Valid choices are "historical" for binary writing of
       entire structs, "lendian" for binary writing of each field  in  lit-
       tle-endian  order,  "ascii"  for  writing  the bones file content in
       ascii text.

       SUPPORT = A string explaining how to get local support  (no  default
       value).

       RECOVER = A  string  explaining how to recover a game on this system
       (no default value).

       SEDUCE = 0 or 1 to disable or enable, respectively, the  SEDUCE  op-
       tion.  When disabled, incubi and succubi behave like nymphs.

       CHECK_PLNAME = Setting  this  to 1 will make the EXPLORERS, WIZARDS,
       and SHELLERS check for the player name instead of the  user's  login
       name.

       CHECK_SAVE_UID = 0  or 1 to disable or enable, respectively, the UID
       (used identification number) checking for save files (to verify that
       the user who is restoring is the same one who saved).

          The following four options affect the score file:

       PERSMAX = Maximum number of entries for one person.

       ENTRYMAX = Maximum number of entries in the score file.

       POINTSMIN = Minimum number of points to get an entry  in  the  score
       file.

       PERS_IS_UID = 0  or  1 to use user names or numeric userids, respec-
       tively, to identify unique people for the score file.

       HIDEUSAGE = 0 or 1 to control whether the help menu entry  for  com-
       mand line usage is shown or suppressed.

       MAX_STATUENAME_RANK = Maximum  number  of  score file entries to use
       for random statue names (default is 10).

       ACCESSIBILITY = 0 or 1 to disable or enable, respectively, the abil-
       ity for players to set S_pet_override and S_hero_override symbols in
       their configuration file.

       PORTABLE_DEVICE_PATHS = 0 or 1 Windows OS only, the game  will  look
       for  all of its external files, and write to all of its output files


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       in one place rather than at the standard locations.

       DUMPLOGFILE = A filename where the  end-of-game  dumplog  is  saved.
       Not  defining  this  will  prevent dumplog from being created.  Only
       available if your game is compiled with DUMPLOG.  Allows the follow-
       ing placeholders:

           %% - literal `%'
           %v - version (eg. "3.7.0-0")
           %u - game UID
           %t - game start time, UNIX timestamp format
           %T - current time, UNIX timestamp format
           %d - game start time, YYYYMMDDhhmmss format
           %D - current time, YYYYMMDDhhmmss format
           %n - player name
           %N - first character of player name

       LIVELOG = A bit-mask of types of events that should  be  written  to
       the  livelog file if one is present.  The sample sysconf file accom-
       panying the program contains a comment which lists  the  meaning  of
       the  various  bits used.  Intended for server systems supporting si-
       multaneous play by multiple players (to be clear, each one running a
       separate single player game), for displaying their game progress  to
       observers.   Only relevant if the program was built with LIVELOG en-
       abled.  When available, it should be left commented  out  on  single
       player installations because over time the file could grow to be ex-
       tremely large unless it is actively maintained.

       CRASHREPORTURL = If   set   to   https://www.nethack.org/common/con-
       tact.html and support is compiled in, brings  up  a  browser  window
       populated  with  the  information  needed to report a problem if the
       game panics or ends up in an internally inconsistent state.

     10.  Scoring

          NetHack maintains a list of the top scores or scorers on your ma-
     chine, depending on how it is set up.  In the latter  case,  each  ac-
     count on the machine can post only one non-winning score on this list.
     If  you  score  higher  than someone else on this list, or better your
     previous score, you will be inserted in the proper  place  under  your
     current  name.   How  many  scores  are  kept  can also be set up when
     NetHack is compiled.

          Your score is chiefly based upon how much experience you  gained,
     how much loot you accumulated, how deep you explored, and how the game
     ended.  If you quit the game, you escape with all of your gold intact.
     If,  however,  you  get  killed in the Mazes of Menace, the guild will
     only hear about 90% of your gold when your corpse is  discovered  (ad-
     venturers  have  been  known  to collect finder's fees).  So, consider
     whether you want to take one last hit at  that  monster  and  possibly
     live,  or quit and stop with whatever you have.  If you quit, you keep
     all your gold, but if you swing and live, you might find more.




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          If you just want to see what the current top  players/games  list
     is, you can type nethack -s all on most versions.

     11.  Explore mode

          NetHack is an intricate and difficult game.  Novices might falter
     in fear, aware of their ignorance of the means to survive.  Well, fear
     not.   Your  dungeon  comes  equipped with an "explore" or "discovery"
     mode that enables you to keep old save files and cheat death,  at  the
     paltry cost of not getting on the high score list.

          There are two ways of enabling explore mode.  One is to start the
     game  with the -X command-line switch or with the playmode:explore op-
     tion.  The other is to issue the "#exploremode" extended command while
     already playing the game.  Starting a new game in  explore  mode  pro-
     vides  your  character  with  a  wand of wishing in initial inventory;
     switching during play does not.  The other benefits  of  explore  mode
     are left for the trepid reader to discover.

     11.1.  Debug mode

          Debug mode, also known as wizard mode, is undocumented aside from
     this  brief  description  and  the  various "debug mode only" commands
     listed among the command descriptions.  It is  intended  for  tracking
     down  problems within the program rather than to provide god-like pow-
     ers to your character, and players who attempt debugging are  expected
     to  figure  out how to use it themselves.  It is initiated by starting
     the game with the -D command-line switch or  with  the  playmode:debug
     option.

          For some systems, the player must be logged in under a particular
     user  name  to be allowed to use debug mode; for others, the hero must
     be given a particular character name (but may be any role; there's  no
     connection  between "wizard mode" and the Wizard role).  Attempting to
     start a game in debug mode when not allowed or not available will  re-
     sult in falling back to explore mode instead.

     12.  Credits

          The  original  hack  game  was modeled on the Berkeley UNIX rogue
     game.  Large portions of this document were shamelessly cribbed from A
     Guide to the Dungeons of Doom, by Michael C. Toy and Kenneth C. R.  C.
     Arnold.   Small  portions were adapted from Further Exploration of the
     Dungeons of Doom, by Ken Arromdee.

          NetHack is the product of  literally  scores  of  people's  work.
     Main events in the course of the game development are described below:

          Jay  Fenlason wrote the original Hack, with help from Kenny Wood-
     land, Mike Thome, and Jon Payne.

          Andries Brouwer did a major re-write while at Stichting  Mathema-
     tisch  Centrum (now Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica), transforming Hack
     into a very different game.  He published the Hack source code for use


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     on UNIX systems by posting that to Usenet newsgroup net.sources (later
     renamed comp.sources) releasing version 1.0 in December of 1984,  then
     versions  1.0.1,  1.0.2,  and  finally  1.0.3 in July of 1985.  Usenet
     newsgroup net.games.hack (later renamed rec.games.hack, eventually re-
     placed by rec.games.roguelike.nethack) was created for discussing it.

          Don G. Kneller ported Hack 1.0.3 to Microsoft C and MS-DOS,  pro-
     ducing  PC  HACK 1.01e, added support for DEC Rainbow graphics in ver-
     sion 1.03g, and went on to produce at least four more  versions  (3.0,
     3.2,  3.51, and 3.6; note that these are old Hack version numbers, not
     contemporary NetHack ones).

          R. Black  ported  PC  HACK  3.51  to  Lattice  C  and  the  Atari
     520/1040ST, producing ST Hack 1.03.

          Mike  Stephenson merged these various versions back together, in-
     corporating many of the added features, and produced  NetHack  version
     1.4 in 1987.  He then coordinated a cast of thousands in enhancing and
     debugging NetHack 1.4 and released NetHack versions 2.2 and 2.3.  Like
     Hack,  they were released by posting their source code to Usenet where
     they remained available in various archives  accessible  via  ftp  and
     uucp after expiring from the newsgroup.

          Later,  Mike  coordinated a major re-write of the game, heading a
     team which included Ken Arromdee, Jean-Christophe Collet, Steve Creps,
     Eric Hendrickson, Izchak Miller, Eric S. Raymond,  John  Rupley,  Mike
     Threepoint, and Janet Walz, to produce NetHack 3.0c.

          NetHack  3.0 was ported to the Atari by Eric R. Smith, to OS/2 by
     Timo Hakulinen, and to VMS by David Gentzel.  The three  of  them  and
     Kevin  Darcy later joined the main NetHack Development Team to produce
     subsequent revisions of 3.0.

          Olaf Seibert ported NetHack 2.3  and  3.0  to  the  Amiga.   Norm
     Meluch,  Stephen  Spackman  and Pierre Martineau designed overlay code
     for PC NetHack 3.0.  Johnny Lee ported NetHack 3.0 to  the  Macintosh.
     Along  with  various  other Dungeoneers, they continued to enhance the
     PC, Macintosh, and Amiga ports through the later revisions of 3.0.

          Version 3.0 went through ten relatively rapidly released  "patch-
     level" revisions.  Versions at the time were known as 3.0 for the base
     release  and  variously  as  "3.0a" through "3.0j", "3.0 patchlevel 1"
     through "3.0 patchlevel 10", or "3.0pl1" through "3.0pl10" rather than
     3.0.0 and 3.0.1 through 3.0.10; the three component  numbering  scheme
     began to be used with 3.1.0.

          Headed  by  Mike  Stephenson and coordinated by Izchak Miller and
     Janet Walz, the NetHack Development Team which now  included  Ken  Ar-
     romdee,  David  Cohrs,  Jean-Christophe Collet, Kevin Darcy, Matt Day,
     Timo Hakulinen, Steve Linhart, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin,  Eric  Raymond,
     and  Eric  Smith  undertook a radical revision of 3.0.  They re-struc-
     tured the game's design, and re-wrote major parts of the  code.   They
     added  multiple  dungeons, a new display, special individual character
     quests, a new endgame  and  many  other  new  features,  and  produced


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     NetHack 3.1.  Version 3.1.0 was released in January of 1993.

          Ken Lorber, Gregg Wonderly and Greg Olson, with help from Richard
     Addison,  Mike Passaretti, and Olaf Seibert, developed NetHack 3.1 for
     the Amiga.

          Norm Meluch and Kevin Smolkowski, with help  from  Carl  Schelin,
     Stephen  Spackman,  Steve VanDevender, and Paul Winner, ported NetHack
     3.1 to the PC.

          Jon W{tte and Hao-yang Wang, with help from Ross Brown, Mike Eng-
     ber, David Hairston, Michael Hamel, Jonathan Handler, Johnny Lee,  Tim
     Lennan,  Rob  Menke,  and  Andy Swanson, developed NetHack 3.1 for the
     Macintosh, porting it for MPW.  Building on  their  development,  Bart
     House added a Think C port.

          Timo  Hakulinen  ported  NetHack  3.1 to OS/2.  Eric Smith ported
     NetHack 3.1 to the Atari.  Pat  Rankin,  with  help  from  Joshua  De-
     lahunty,  was responsible for the VMS version of NetHack 3.1.  Michael
     Allison ported NetHack 3.1 to Windows NT.

          Dean Luick, with help from David Cohrs, developed NetHack 3.1 for
     X11.  It drew the map as text rather  than  graphically  but  included
     nh10.bdf,  an optionally used custom X11 font which has tiny images in
     place of letters and punctuation, a precursor of tiles.  Those  images
     don't extend to individual monster and object types, just replacements
     for  monster  and  object classes (so one custom image for all "a" in-
     sects and another for all "[" armor and so forth, not separate  images
     for beetles and ants or for cloaks and boots).

          Warwick  Allison wrote a graphically displayed version of NetHack
     for the Atari where the tiny pictures were described  as  "icons"  and
     were  distinct  for specific types of monsters and objects rather than
     just their classes.  He contributed them to  the  NetHack  Development
     Team  which rechristened them "tiles", original usage which has subse-
     quently been picked up by various other games.  NetHack's  tiles  sup-
     port  was  then  implemented  on other platforms (initially MS-DOS but
     eventually Windows, Qt, and X11 too).

          The 3.2 NetHack Development Team, comprised of  Michael  Allison,
     Ken  Arromdee,  David  Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Steve Creps, Kevin Darcy,
     Timo Hakulinen, Steve Linhart, Dean Luick,  Pat  Rankin,  Eric  Smith,
     Mike  Stephenson,  Janet Walz, and Paul Winner, released version 3.2.0
     in April of 1996.

          Version 3.2 marked the tenth anniversary of the formation of  the
     development team.  In a testament to their dedication to the game, all
     thirteen  members of the original NetHack Development Team remained on
     the team at the start of work on that release.   During  the  interval
     between the release of 3.1.3 and 3.2.0, one of the founding members of
     the  NetHack  Development  Team, Dr. Izchak Miller, was diagnosed with
     cancer and passed away.  That release of the game was dedicated to him
     by the development and porting teams.



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          Version 3.2 proved to be  more  stable  than  previous  versions.
     Many  bugs  were fixed, abuses eliminated, and game features tuned for
     better game play.

          During the lifespan of NetHack 3.1 and 3.2,  several  enthusiasts
     of  the  game added their own modifications to the game and made these
     "variants" publicly available:

          Tom Proudfoot and Yuval Oren created NetHack++, which was quickly
     renamed NetHack-- when some people incorrectly assumed that it  was  a
     conversion  of  the  C  source  code  to  C++.  Working independently,
     Stephen White wrote NetHack Plus.  Tom Proudfoot later merged  NetHack
     Plus  and his own NetHack-- to produce SLASH.  Larry Stewart-Zerba and
     Warwick Allison improved the spell  casting  system  with  the  Wizard
     Patch.  Warwick Allison also ported NetHack to use the Qt interface.

          Warren  Cheung  combined  SLASH  with the Wizard Patch to produce
     Slash'EM, and with the help of Kevin Hugo, added more features.  Kevin
     later joined the NetHack Development Team and incorporated the best of
     these ideas into NetHack 3.3.

          The final update to 3.2 was the bug fix release 3.2.3, which  was
     released  simultaneously  with 3.3.0 in December 1999 just in time for
     the Year 2000.  Because of the newer version, 3.2.3 was released as  a
     source  code  patch  only,  without any ready-to-play distribution for
     systems that usually had such.

          (To anyone considering resurrecting an old version:  all versions
     before 3.2.3 had a Y2K bug.  The high scores file  and  the  log  file
     contained  dates  which  were  formatted  using  a two-digit year, and
     1999's year 99 was followed by 2000's year 100.  That got written  out
     successfully  but it unintentionally introduced an extra column in the
     file layout which prevented score entries from being read back in cor-
     rectly, interfering with insertion of new high  scores  and  with  re-
     trieval  of  old  character  names  to use for random ghost and statue
     names in the current game.)

          The 3.3 NetHack Development Team, consisting of Michael  Allison,
     Ken  Arromdee,  David  Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Steve Creps, Kevin Darcy,
     Timo Hakulinen, Kevin Hugo, Steve Linhart, Ken Lorber, Dean Luick, Pat
     Rankin, Eric Smith, Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and Paul Winner,  re-
     leased 3.3.0 in December 1999 and 3.3.1 in August of 2000.

          Version 3.3 offered many firsts. It was the first version to sep-
     arate  race and profession. The Elf class was removed in preference to
     an elf race, and the races of dwarves, gnomes,  and  orcs  made  their
     first  appearance in the game alongside the familiar human race.  Monk
     and Ranger roles joined Archeologists, Barbarians,  Cavemen,  Healers,
     Knights,  Priests, Rogues, Samurai, Tourists, Valkyries and of course,
     Wizards.  It was also the first version to allow you to ride a  steed,
     and  was the first version to have a publicly available web-site list-
     ing all the bugs that had been discovered.   Despite  that  constantly
     growing  bug  list,  3.3  proved stable enough to last for more than a
     year and a half.


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          The 3.4 NetHack Development Team initially consisted  of  Michael
     Allison,  Ken  Arromdee,  David  Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Kevin Hugo, Ken
     Lorber, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and  Paul
     Winner,  with   Warwick  Allison  joining  just  before the release of
     NetHack 3.4.0 in March 2002.

          As with version 3.3, various people contributed to the game as  a
     whole  as  well  as  supporting  ports on the different platforms that
     NetHack runs on:

          Pat Rankin maintained 3.4 for VMS.

          Michael Allison maintained NetHack 3.4 for the  MS-DOS  platform.
     Paul Winner and Yitzhak Sapir provided encouragement.

          Dean  Luick, Mark Modrall, and Kevin Hugo maintained and enhanced
     the Macintosh port of 3.4.

          Michael Allison, David Cohrs, Alex  Kompel,  Dion  Nicolaas,  and
     Yitzhak  Sapir  maintained  and enhanced 3.4 for the Microsoft Windows
     platform.  Alex Kompel contributed a new graphical interface  for  the
     Windows  port.   Alex  Kompel  also  contributed a Windows CE port for
     3.4.1.

          Ron Van Iwaarden was the sole maintainer of NetHack for OS/2  the
     past  several  releases. Unfortunately Ron's last OS/2 machine stopped
     working in early 2006. A great many thanks to Ron for keeping  NetHack
     alive on OS/2 all these years.

          Janne  Salmijarvi  and  Teemu  Suikki maintained and enhanced the
     Amiga port of 3.4 after Janne Salmijarvi resurrected it for 3.3.1.

          Christian "Marvin" Bressler maintained 3.4 for the Atari after he
     resurrected it for 3.3.1.

          The release of NetHack 3.4.3 in December 2003 marked  the  begin-
     ning  of a long release hiatus. 3.4.3 proved to be a remarkably stable
     version that provided continued enjoyment by the  community  for  more
     than a decade. The NetHack Development Team slowly and quietly contin-
     ued  to work on the game behind the scenes during the tenure of 3.4.3.
     It was during that same  period  that  several  new  variants  emerged
     within  the  NetHack community. Notably sporkhack by Derek S. Ray, un-
     nethack by Patric Mueller, nitrohack and its successors originally  by
     Daniel  Thaler  and  then  by Alex Smith, and Dynahack by Tung Nguyen.
     Some of those variants continue to be developed, maintained,  and  en-
     joyed by the community to this day.

          In September 2014, an interim snapshot of the code under develop-
     ment  was  released  publicly by other parties.  Since that code was a
     work-in-progress and had not gone through the process of debugging  it
     as a suitable release, it was decided that the version numbers present
     on  that  code snapshot would be retired and never used in an official
     NetHack release.  An announcement was posted on the  NetHack  Develop-
     ment  Team's official nethack.org website to that effect, stating that


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     there would never be a 3.4.4, 3.5, or 3.5.0 official release version.

          In January 2015, preparation began for  the  release  of  NetHack
     3.6.

          At the beginning of development for what would eventually get re-
     leased as 3.6.0, the NetHack Development Team consisted of Warwick Al-
     lison,  Michael Allison, Ken Arromdee, David Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Ken
     Lorber, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and  Paul
     Winner.   In  early  2015,  ahead of the release of 3.6.0, new members
     Sean Hunt, Pasi Kallinen, and Derek S. Ray joined the NetHack Develop-
     ment Team.

          Near the end of the development of 3.6.0, one of the  significant
     inspirations  for  many  of the humorous and fun features found in the
     game, author Terry Pratchett, passed away.  NetHack 3.6.0 introduced a
     tribute to him.

          3.6.0 was released in December 2015, and merged work done by  the
     development  team  since the release of 3.4.3 with some of the beloved
     community patches. Many bugs were fixed and  some  code  was  restruc-
     tured.

          The  NetHack  Development  Team, as well as Steve VanDevender and
     Kevin Smolkowski, ensured that NetHack 3.6  continued  to  operate  on
     various UNIX flavors and maintained the X11 interface.

          Ken  Lorber,  Haoyang Wang, Pat Rankin, and Dean Luick maintained
     the port of NetHack 3.6 for MacOS.

          Michael Allison, David Cohrs, Bart  House,  Pasi  Kallinen,  Alex
     Kompel,  Dion  Nicolaas, Derek S. Ray and Yitzhak Sapir maintained the
     port of NetHack 3.6 for Microsoft Windows.

          Pat Rankin attempted to keep the VMS  port  running  for  NetHack
     3.6,  hindered  by  limited  access.  Kevin Smolkowski has updated and
     tested it for the most recent version of  OpenVMS  (V8.4  as  of  this
     writing) on Alpha and Integrity (aka Itanium aka IA64) but not VAX.

          Ray  Chason  resurrected  the MS-DOS port for 3.6 and contributed
     the necessary updates to the community at large.

          In late April 2018, several hundred bug fixes for 3.6.0 and  some
     new  features  were  assembled  and  released  as  NetHack 3.6.1.  The
     NetHack Development Team at the time of release of 3.6.1 consisted  of
     Warwick  Allison,  Michael  Allison, Ken Arromdee, David Cohrs, Jessie
     Collet, Pasi Kallinen, Ken Lorber, Dean  Luick,  Patric  Mueller,  Pat
     Rankin,  Derek  S.  Ray,  Alex Smith, Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and
     Paul Winner.

          In early May 2019, another 320 bug fixes along with some enhance-
     ments and the adopted curses window port, were released as 3.6.2.




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          Bart House, who had contributed to the game  as  a  porting  team
     participant  for  decades, joined the NetHack Development Team in late
     May 2019.

          NetHack 3.6.3 was released on December 5,  2019  containing  over
     190 bug fixes to NetHack 3.6.2.

          NetHack  3.6.4 was released on December 18, 2019 containing a se-
     curity fix and a few bug fixes.

          NetHack 3.6.5 was released on January 27,  2020  containing  some
     security fixes and a small number of bug fixes.

          NetHack 3.6.6 was released on March 8, 2020 containing a security
     fix and some bug fixes.

          NetHack  3.6.7 was released on February 16, 2023 containing a se-
     curity fix and some bug fixes.

          The official NetHack web site is  maintained  by  Ken  Lorber  at
     https://www.nethack.org/.


     12.1.  Special Thanks

          On  behalf  of  the  NetHack  community, thank you very much once
     again to M. Drew Streib and  Pasi  Kallinen  for  providing  a  public
     NetHack  server  at  nethack.alt.org. Thanks to Keith Simpson and Andy
     Thomson for hardfought.org. Thanks to all  those  unnamed  dungeoneers
     who  invest their time and effort into annual NetHack tournaments such
     as Junethack, The November NetHack Tournament, and in days  past,  de-
     vnull.net (gone for now, but not forgotten).


     12.2.  Dungeoneers

          From  time to time, some depraved individual out there in netland
     sends a particularly intriguing modification  to  help  out  with  the
     game.   The NetHack Development Team sometimes makes note of the names
     of the worst of these miscreants in this, the list of Dungeoneers:

            Adam Aronow           J. Ali Harlow          Mikko Juola
            Alex Kompel             Janet Walz           Nathan Eady
            Alex Smith           Janne Salmijarvi        Norm Meluch
           Andreas Dorn       Jean-Christophe Collet     Olaf Seibert
            Andy Church            Jeff Bailey          Pasi Kallinen
           Andy Swanson           Jochen Erwied           Pat Rankin
           Andy Thomson            John Kallen          Patric Mueller
           Ari Huttunen            John Rupley           Paul Winner
            Bart House             John S. Bien        Pierre Martineau
        Benson I. Margulies         Johnny Lee            Ralf Brown
             Bill Dyer              Jon W{tte             Ray Chason
         Boudewijn Waijers       Jonathan Handler      Richard Addison



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             Bruce Cox           Joshua Delahunty       Richard Beigel
          Bruce Holloway          Karl Garrison       Richard P. Hughey
          Bruce Mewborne          Keizo Yamamoto          Rob Menke
           Carl Schelin           Keith Simpson          Robin Bandy
            Chris Russo             Ken Arnold          Robin Johnson
            David Cohrs            Ken Arromdee       Roderick Schertler
          David Damerell            Ken Lorber          Roland McGrath
           David Gentzel          Ken Washikita        Ron Van Iwaarden
          David Hairston           Kevin Darcy          Ronnen Miller
            Dean Luick              Kevin Hugo            Ross Brown
             Del Lamb              Kevin Sitze         Sascha Wostmann
           Derek S. Ray          Kevin Smolkowski        Scott Bigham
           Deron Meranda           Kevin Sweet         Scott R. Turner
           Dion Nicolaas           Lars Huttar            Sean Hunt
          Dylan O'Donnell          Leon Arnott         Stephen Spackman
            Eric Backus           M. Drew Streib      Stefan Thielscher
         Eric Hendrickson          Malcolm Ryan         Stephen White
           Eric R. Smith          Mark Gooderum          Steve Creps
          Eric S. Raymond          Mark Modrall         Steve Linhart
           Erik Andersen         Marvin Bressler      Steve VanDevender
         Fredrik Ljungdahl         Matthew Day           Teemu Suikki
         Frederick Roeber          Merlyn LeRoy           Tim Lennan
            Gil Neiger           Michael Allison        Timo Hakulinen
            Greg Laskin            Michael Feir            Tom Almy
            Greg Olson            Michael Hamel            Tom West
          Gregg Wonderly         Michael Sokolov        Warren Cheung
           Hao-yang Wang           Mike Engber         Warwick Allison
           Helge Hafting           Mike Gallop          Yitzhak Sapir
       Irina Rempt-Drijfhout     Mike Passaretti
           Izchak Miller         Mike Stephenson



          Brand and product names are trademarks or  registered  trademarks
     of their respective holders.





















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