









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


                         Original version - Eric S. Raymond
             (Edited and expanded for 3.7 by Mike Stephenson and others)

                                  October 11, 2021



          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 recollec-
          tion of the strange and powerful creatures that seem to be  lurk-
          ing  behind  every  corner  of  the dungeon in your dream.  Could
          these details haunting your dreams be real?  As each night  pass-
          es,  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 en-
          tered 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
          Yendor  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.


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               In  the  morning you awake, collect your belongings, and set
          off for the dungeon.  After several days  of  uneventful  travel,
          you  see the 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 morn-
          ing, you gather your gear, eat what may be your  last  meal  out-
          side, 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
          adventure 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
          battle.   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,
          unfortunately, with neolithic weapons.

               Healers  are wise in medicine and apothecary.  They know the
          herbs and simples that can restore  vitality,  ease  pain,  anes-
          thetize, and neutralize poisons; and with their instruments, they
          can divine a being'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  devotion  to  the ideals of chivalry and by the surpassing
          excellence of their armor.

               Monks are ascetics, who by rigorous practice of physical and
          mental 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 ad-
          vancing the cause of righteousness with  arms,  armor,  and  arts
          thaumaturgic.   Their  ability to commune with deities via prayer
          occasionally extricates 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.



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

               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
          camera.  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 instills in them stealth and cunning.

               Wizards  start out with a knowledge of magic, a selection of
          magical items, and a particular affinity for  dweomercraft.   Al-
          though seemingly weak and easy to overcome at first sight, an ex-
          perienced Wizard is a deadly foe.

               You may also choose the race of your character (within  lim-
          its; 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
          expertise 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  se-
          cret  underground  mine  complex built by this race exists within
          the Mazes of Menace, 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  passion unequalled, and will go out of their way to kill
          one at any opportunity.  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


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          of the level, it appears on the screen in front of you.

               When  NetHack's  ancestor  rogue  first appeared, its screen
          orientation 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 that accept commands in pseudo-English sen-
          tences and explain the results 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 assis-
          tance  of  Braille  readers or speech synthesisers.  Instructions
          for configuring 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  de-
          spite having won several times.

               NetHack  offers  a  variety of display options.  The options
          available to you will vary from port to port,  depending  on  the
          capabilities  of  your hardware and software, and whether various
          compile-time options were enabled when your executable was creat-
          ed.  The three possible display options are: a monochrome charac-
          ter interface, a color character interface, and a  graphical  in-
          terface using small pictures called tiles.  The two character in-
          terfaces allow fonts with other characters to be substituted, but
          the  default  assignments use standard ASCII characters to repre-
          sent everything.  There is no difference between the various dis-
          play options with respect to game play.  Because we cannot repro-
          duce the tiles or colors in the Guidebook, and because it is com-
          mon  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.












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          +---------------------------------------------------------------+
          |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----------------------------+


          +---------------------------------------------------------------+
          |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 sever-
          al  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 statuslines:2 is the default  be-
          cause  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 ba-
               sic attributes.  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  successfully  you  perform  physical
               tasks, how much damage you do in combat, and how  much  loot
               you can carry.



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          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 sufficiently high strength, the contribution to  carry-
               ing capacity from your constitution no longer matters.

          Intelligence
               Intelligence  affects  your  ability to cast spells and read
               spellbooks.

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

          Charisma
               Charisma affects how certain creatures react toward you.  In
               particular, 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 co-
               incide.  Your alignment influences how other monsters  react
               toward you.  Monsters of a like alignment are more likely to
               be non-aggressive, 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  some-
               where 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  resting,  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


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               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  ef-
               fective the armor; it is quite possible to have negative ar-
               mor class.  See the Armor subsection of Objects for more in-
               formation.

          Experience
               Your  current  experience  level.   If the showexp option is
               set, it will be followed by a slash and  experience  points.
               As  you  adventure,  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 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 af-
               fects your ability to move.  Values are Unencumbered, Encum-
               bered,  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
               (riding).

               Other conditions and modifiers exist, but there isn't enough
               room to display them with the other status fields.  The `^X'
               command shows all relevant status conditions.

          3.2.  The message line (top)

               The top line of the screen is reserved for messages that de-
          scribe things that are impossible to represent visually.  If  you


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          see a "--More--" on the top line, this means that NetHack has an-
          other message to display on the screen, but it wants to make cer-
          tain  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
          explored it so far.  Each symbol on the screen  represents  some-
          thing.   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 (|).

          .    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...).




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          "    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 in-
               habitants of the Mazes of Menace.  Watch out,  they  can  be
               nasty and vicious.  Sometimes, however, they can be helpful.

          I    This marks the last known location of an invisible or other-
               wise 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
          extended  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 di-
          rection, or an object to be used.  For those  commands  that  re-
          quire  additional  information, NetHack will present you with ei-
          ther 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  pos-
          sible  choices.   Typing `?' gives you an inventory list of these
          items, so you can see what each letter refers to.  In this  exam-
          ple, there is also a `*' indicating that you may choose an object
          not on the list, if you wanted to use something unexpected.  Typ-
          ing  a `*' lists your entire inventory, so you can see the inven-
          tory letters of every object you're carrying.   Finally,  if  you
          change your mind and decide you don't want to do this command af-
          ter all, you can press the ESC key to abort the command.



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               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 example above would be typed "n10s" instead.  Com-
          mands for which counts make no sense ignore them.   In  addition,
          movement  commands  can  be prefixed for greater control (see be-
          low).  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 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 ask-
               ing 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  cur-
               sor.   Typing  `#' while picking a location will toggle that
               option on or off.  The whatis_coord option controls  whether
               the short description includes map coordinates.

               Specifying  a  name  rather than a location always gives any
               additional information available about that name.

               You may also request a description of nearby  monsters,  all
               monsters  currently  displayed,  nearby  objects, or all ob-
               jects.  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
               ladder).

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




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          [yuhjklbn]
               Go  one  step in the direction indicated (see Figure 3).  If
               you sense or remember a monster there, you  will  fight  the
               monster  instead.   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
                                                     (if number_pad is set)
                                         Figure 3

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

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

               The prefix will make "#travel" command show a menu of inter-
               esting 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 particu-
               lar  class)  commands to offer a menu of several sorting al-
               ternatives (which sets a new value for  the  sortdiscoveries
               option).

               A  few other commands (eat food, offer sacrifice, apply tin-
               ning-kit) 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).

          M[yuhjklbn]
               Prefix:  move far, no pickup.




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

          G[yuhjklbn] or <CONTROL->[yuhjklbn]
               Prefix:   same  as `g', but forking of corridors is not con-
               sidered interesting.

          _    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 conditions as the `G' command, but without picking
               up objects, similar to the  `M'  command.   For  ports  with
               mouse  support,  the  command  is also invoked when a mouse-
               click takes place on a location other than the current posi-
               tion.

          .    Wait  or rest, do nothing for one turn. Precede with the `m'
               prefix 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   Redo 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? [!%= BUCXaium]"




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               you should type zero or more object  symbols  possibly  fol-
               lowed 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 three cate-
               gories of object filtering: class (`!' for potions, `?'  for
               scrolls,  and  so on), shop status (`u' for unpaid, in other
               words, owned by the shop), and bless/curse state (`B',  `U',
               `C',  and `X' as shown above).  If you specify more than one
               value in a category (such as "!?" for potions and scrolls or
               "BU"  for  blessed  and  uncursed), an inventory 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 category
               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,  fil-
               ter combinations 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 at-
               tempting to eat anything 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 paranoid_confirmation:eating option to require a
               response of yes instead 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 attack you hand-to-hand (but if you attack, you will rub
               it out); this is often useful to give yourself a breather.


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          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 prop-
               erty,  your  quiver  is  empty, and autoquiver is false, you
               will throw  that  wielded  weapon  instead  of  filling  the
               quiver.   If  fireassist  is true, firing will automatically
               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).

          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  en-
               try for the given option (ie, by typing its letter or click-
               ing upon it, depending 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.  Options are usually set be-
               fore the game rather than with the `O' command; see the sec-
               tion on options below.

          ^O   Show overview.

               Shortcut  for  "#overview":  list interesting dungeon levels
               visited.

               (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.)



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          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 inter-
               faces, the behavior can be varied via the msg_window option.

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

          Q    Select an object for your quiver, quiver sack, or just  gen-
               erally  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_confirmation 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 acces-
               sories, 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 accessory 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 mon-
               ster 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


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               restoration 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" com-
               mand, 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 generally be less effective than when shot.

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

          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 underlying 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 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 choic-
               es  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'
               command (or the "#twoweapon" extended command) to do so.

          W    Wear armor.




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               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 acces-
               sory will attempt to put it on.  (See the `P' command above.
               It  lists  accessories as the inventory choices but will ac-
               cept an item of armor 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  emp-
               ty, the exchange 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
               "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  align-
               ment,  along  with  your patron deity and his or her opposi-
               tion.  It also shows most of the various items  of  informa-
               tion 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 considerations.

               In  normal  play, that's all that `^X' displays.  In explore
               mode, the role and status feedback is augmented by  the  in-
               formation provided 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.


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


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          ,    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.

          *    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 an-
               other to swap places with  it.   Swapping  pairs  of  spells
               changes their casting letters, so the change lasts after the
               current `+' command finishes.  Sorting  the  whole  list  is
               temporary.   To  make the most recent sort order persist be-
               yond 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_previ-
               ous_page, menu_next_page, and menu_last_page keys (`^', `<',
               `>',   `|'   by  default).   Some  interfaces  also  support


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               menu_shift_left and menu_shift_right keys (`{'  and  `}'  by
               default).   Use  the Return (aka Enter) or Escape key to re-
               sume 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
               <backspace> keys, so typing the <del> key might not  execute
               this  command.   If  that  happens, you can use the extended
               command "#terrain" instead.

          #    Perform an extended command.



               As you can see, the authors of NetHack used up all the  let-
          ters, so this is a way to introduce the less frequently used com-
          mands.  What extended commands are available depends on what fea-
          tures 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
               inventory  slot  to another so that it has a letter which is
               more meaningful for you or that it will appear in a particu-
               lar location when inventory listings are displayed.  You can
               move to a currently empty slot, or if the destination is oc-
               cupied--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 letter.

               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  inventory  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  eligi-
               ble.   In  either  case,  otherwise compatible stacks with a
               different name will not be merged.  This contrasts with  us-
               ing "#adjust" to move from one slot to a different slot.  In
               that situation, moving (no count given) a  compatible  stack


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               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
               current dungeon level.  All levels with annotations are dis-
               played 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.

          #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'.

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

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

               See the section below entitled "Conduct" for details.

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

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


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          #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'.

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

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

               Requires confirmation; default response is n (no).  To real-
               ly  switch to explore mode, respond with y.  You can set the
               paranoid_confirmation:quit option to require a  response  of
               yes instead.

          #fire
               Fire ammunition from quiver, possibly autowielding a launch-
               er.  Default key is `f'.

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

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

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

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

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

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



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          #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 sortdis-
               coveries option to control the order in which the  discover-
               ies are displayed.

          #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 removing a saddle.  Default key is `M-l', and
               also `l' if number_pad is on.

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




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          #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 al-
               tar.

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

          #options
               Show and change option settings.  Default key is `O'.

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

          #panic
               Test the panic routine.  Terminates the current game.  Auto-
               completes.  Debug mode only.

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

          #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 key-
               strokes such as `>' and `<'.  Press Return or Escape to  re-
               sume normal play.  Default key is `|'.

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


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          #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  re-
               ceived 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 before 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'.

          #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.  Default response is n (no); continue playing.  To
               really  quit, respond with y.  You can set the paranoid_con-
               firmation: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 `r'.

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

          #showgold
               Report  the  gold  in your inventory and if you are inside a
               shop, report any credit or debt you have in that shop.  Does
               not  report  on  any gold inside containers you're carrying.
               Default key is `$'.

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

          #showtrap
               Describe an adjacent trap, possibly covered by objects or  a
               monster.   To  be eligible, the trap must already be discov-
               ered.  (The "#terrain" command can display your map with all
               objects and monsters temporarily removed, making it possible


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               to see all discovered 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 mon-
               sters; 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 ad-
               ditional 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.   Auto-
               completes.

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

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



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          #tip
               Tip  over a container (bag or box) to pour out its contents.
               Autocompletes.  Default key is `M-T'.  The `m' prefix  makes
               the command use a menu.

          #travel
               Travel  to  a  specific location on the map.  Default key is
               `_'.  Using the "request menu" prefix shows a menu of inter-
               esting  targets  in sight without asking to move the cursor.
               When picking a target with cursor and the  autodescribe  op-
               tion  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
               monsters.

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

          #vanquished
               List vanquished monsters.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.

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

               The  second  paragraph  lists the user interface(s) that are
               included.  If there are more than one, you can use the  win-
               dowtype 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 ver-
               sion's release date).  Default key is `v'.

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


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          #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.
               Debug mode only.

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

          #wizdetect
               Reveal hidden things (secret doors or traps or  unseen  mon-
               sters)  within  a modest radius.  No time elapses.  Autocom-
               pletes.  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.

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

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



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          #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,
               epitaphs, and hallucinatory monsters.

               Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.

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

          #wizsmell
               Smell monster.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode only.

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

          #wizwish
               Wish for something.  Autocompletes.  Debug mode  only.   De-
               fault 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 com-
          bination 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  fol-
          lowed  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 something 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 low-
          er-case equivalent is used for another command, so the three  key
          combination meta+shift+letter is needed.


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          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

          M-e  #enhance

          M-f  #force

          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-w  #wipe

          M-X  #exploremode





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               If  the number_pad option is on, some additional letter com-
          mands are available:

          h    #help

          j    #jump

          k    #kick

          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 corridors 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.  Multiple search attempts may be needed.  When searching is
          successful, secret corridors become ordinary open corridor  loca-
          tions.   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 at-
          tribute.

               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 (described 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 us-
          ing  an  unlocking  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.   Alternatively,  you  can break a closed door


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          (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
          attempt  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.  (If you decline, you effec-
          tively forget that a trap was found there.)

               Closed doors can be useful for shutting out monsters.   Most
          monsters  cannot  open closed doors, although a few don't need to
          (for example, 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
          inside  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 equivalent to normal doors.  Mapping magic  does  not
          reveal secret doors.

          5.2.  Traps (`^')

               There  are  traps throughout the dungeon to snare the unwary
          intruder.  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) command (multiple attempts are often needed;  if
          your  luck is poor, many attempts might be needed).  Wands of se-
          cret 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, usual-
          ly 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  adja-
          cent spot and repeat as needed; eventually you will get free.

               Other  traps  can  send  you  to different locations.  Tele-
          porters send you elsewhere on  the  same  dungeon  level.   Level
          teleporters  send  you to a random dungeon level, the destination


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          chosen from a few levels lower all the  way  to  the  top.   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.  All of these traps choose a
          new destination each time they're activated.  Magic portals  also
          send  you to a different level but behave differently.  Some por-
          tals are two-way and their remote destination is always the same:
          another  portal  which can take you back.  Others are one-way and
          send you to a specific destination level but not necessarily to a
          specific location there.

               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 obstacles 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 directions, 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 traditional 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 in-
          to 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  section  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 in-
          stance, fairly early in the dungeon you will find  a  level  with
          two down staircases, one continuing into the dungeon and the oth-
          er 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  dun-
          geon.

               When  you  traverse a set of stairs, or trigger a trap which
          sends you to another level, the level you're leaving will be  de-
          activated  and  stored  in a file on disk.  If you're moving to a


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          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 de-
          scribed  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 below) and some other monsters  will  follow  along  if
          they're close enough when you travel up or down stairs, and occa-
          sionally one of these creatures  will  displace  you  during  the
          climb.  When that occurs, the pet 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 us-
          ing the "#chat" command while standing on it.  Using an item pri-
          or 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 shopkeeper 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
          carrying (in inventory, not inside bags or boxes), will also show
          current  shop debt or credit, if any.  The "Iu" command lists un-
          paid items (those which still belong to the shop) if you are car-
          rying  any.   The "Ix" command shows an inventory-like display of


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          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
            generally ignore any other customers.

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

          * Shops do not get restocked with new items, regardless of inven-
            tory 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 num-
          ber  refers  to  the  count of separate stacks of objects present
          rather than the sum of the quantities of those stacks (so  7  ar-
          rows  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  loca-
          tion).

               The  "nopickup" command prefix (default `m') can be used be-
          fore 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


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          fountain or an altar or various other things doesn't elicit  any-
          thing  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 ob-
          jects, 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.

               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 at-
          tack  (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 re-
          drawn 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  inspira-
          tion rogue.

               It  is usually displayed differently from other levels: pos-
          sibly in characters instead of  tiles,  or  without  line-drawing
          symbols if already 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 radius 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


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          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  com-
          mand  "#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 remove any prior name.

               The extended command "#chat" can be used to interact with an
          adjacent monster.  There is no actual dialog (in other words, you
          don't get to choose what you'll say), but chatting with some mon-
          sters  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 unless you attack them.  Some of them are very dangerous
          when angered.  Remember:  discretion is the better part of valor.

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

               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 mon-
          ster 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  re-
          member 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 mon-
          sters with you.  Like you, your pet needs food to survive.   Dogs
          and  cats  usually  feed  themselves  on  fresh carrion and other
          meats; horses need vegetarian 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


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          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-adjacent 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 rid-
          den 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  or-
          der to forge the alliance.  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
          section on Weapon proficiency for more information about that.

               Use the `a' (apply) command and pick a saddle in your inven-
          tory  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  adventur-
          ers (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.
          Moving 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


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          noggin--a special "remembered, unseen  monster"  marker  will  be
          displayed  at the location where you think it is.  That will per-
          sist 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 location 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 `,'
          command.  If autopickup option is on, you will automatically pick
          up the object by walking over, unless you move with the `m'  pre-
          fix.

               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 de-
          pends 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 encum-
          ber you.  Your reactions will get slower and you'll burn calories
          faster,  requiring food more frequently to cope with it.  Eventu-
          ally, you'll be so overloaded that you'll either have to  discard
          some of what you're carrying or collapse 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 display.

               When you pick up an object, it is assigned an inventory let-
          ter.   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 pre-
          sented with a list of inventory letters to choose from (see  Com-
          mands, above).

               Some  objects,  such  as weapons, are easily differentiated.
          Others, like scrolls and potions, are  given  descriptions  which
          vary  according to type.  During a game, any two objects with the
          same description 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
          extremely  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


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          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  in-
          stead 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  en-
          chantments 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
          objects, 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 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 inven-
          tory with no prefix.  An item which you know the state of will be
          distinguished  in  your  inventory  by  the  presence of the word
          cursed, uncursed, or blessed in the description of the item.   In
          some  cases  uncursed  will  be  omitted  as being redundant when
          enough other information is displayed.  The implicit_uncursed op-
          tion  can be used to control 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
          gratuitously try to kill you.  You need weapons for  self-defense
          (killing  them  first).   Without  a  weapon, you do only 1-2 hit


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          points of damage (plus bonuses, if any).  Monk characters are  an
          exception;  they  normally  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  cross-
          bow 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 iden-
          tified  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  (en-
          chantment and/or erosion), experience level, strength, dexterity,
          encumbrance, and proficiency (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  exchanges  your primary (the one being
          wielded) and alternate weapons.  And if you have  proficiency  in
          the  "two weapon combat" skill, you may wield both weapons simul-
          taneously as primary and secondary; use the `X' command to engage
          or  disengage  that.   Only some types of characters (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' com-
          mand 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 dam-
          age  to  monsters  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).


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          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  inventory  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  de-
          pends mainly on the type of object 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 Mjollnir; when thrown by a Valkyrie it will return too.
          However, aklyses and Mjollnir occasionally fail to  return.   Re-
          turning  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 returns when thrown, you will
          throw  that  weapon instead of filling the quiver.  The fire com-
          mand also has extra assistance, if fireassist is 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 ar-
          rows, in crossbow skill if you're wielding one to shoot bolts, or
          in sling skill if you're wielding one to shoot stones).  The num-
          ber 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  exam-
          ple,  "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.


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          7.2.2.  Weapon proficiency

               You will have varying degrees of skill in the weapons avail-
          able.   Weapon proficiency, or weapon skills, affect how well you
          can use particular types of weapons, and you'll be  able  to  im-
          prove  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"  (some-
          times also referred to as "restricted", because you won't be able
          to advance), "unskilled", "basic", "skilled", and "expert".   Re-
          stricted skills simply will not appear in the list shown by "#en-
          hance".   (Divine  intervention  might  unrestrict  a  particular
          skill, in which case it will start at unskilled 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
          incur 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 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  to-
          tal  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" com-
          mand.   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 sec-
          ondary  is  just an item in your inventory that's been designated


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          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 secondary, swap it to off hand, and then
          wield the primary.

               The whole process can be simplified via  use  of  the  push-
          weapon option.  When it is enabled, then using `w' to wield some-
          thing causes the currently wielded weapon to become  your  alter-
          nate 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 posi-
          tion.

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

          7.3.  Armor (`[')

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

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


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          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 corrosion to suits worn un-
          der them and against some monster touch attacks.

               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  immediately  find  out  the  armor class and any
          "plusses" it provides.  Cursed pieces of armor usually have nega-
          tive enchantments (minuses) in addition 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  in-
          hibit spell casting.

               The  nudist  option  can be set (prior to game start) to at-
          tempt to play the entire game without wearing any armor (a  self-
          imposed challenge 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 nor-
          mally 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 usual-
          ly 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 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.  Veg-
          etarian  monsters  will typically never eat animal corpses, while
          vegetarian players can, but with some rather unpleasant  side-ef-
          fects.

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

               The command to eat food is `e'.




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          7.5.  Scrolls (`?')

               Scrolls are labeled with various titles, probably chosen  by
          ancient wizards for their amusement value (for example "READ ME,"
          or "THANX MAUD" backwards).  Scrolls  disappear  after  you  read
          them (except 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 ob-
          jects of subtle enchantment 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" en-
          vironment variable to the file name of your mailbox.  You may al-
          so  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).

          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, however, 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,  at-
          tempts  to use the wand will usually result in nothing happening.
          Occasionally, however, it may be possible to squeeze the last few
          mana  points  from  an otherwise spent wand, destroying it in the


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          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 cer-
          tainly cause a catastrophic release of magical energies.

               When you have fully identified a particular wand,  inventory
          display  will  include additional information in parentheses: the
          number of times it has been recharged followed  by  a  colon  and
          then by its current 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 per-
          manent 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 manually take them off before putting on or  remov-
          ing  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.

          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 backfires.  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


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          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 ad-
          ditional food.  Casting of spells also requires  practice.   With
          practice,  your  skill in each category of spell casting will im-
          prove.  Over time, however, your memory of each spell  will  dim,
          and you will need to relearn it.

               Some spells require a direction in which to cast them, simi-
          lar to wands.  To cast one at yourself, just give a  `.'  or  `s'
          for the direction.  A few spells require you to pick a target lo-
          cation 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  affect  all spells within the group.  Advanced skill
          may increase the potency 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
          various 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)  com-
          mand 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
          example,  lamps burn out after a while.  Other tools are contain-
          ers, which objects can be placed into or taken out of.

               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
          challenge which is very difficult to accomplish).


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               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  com-
          mand  when  you  are  standing on top of it (that is, on the same
          floor spot), or with the `a' (apply) command when you are  carry-
          ing  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' command, or by using a weapon  to  force
          the lock with the "#force" extended 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 benefi-
          cial, 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 normally 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 projec-
          tile weapons (if you have a sling).  In  the  most  desperate  of
          cases, you can still throw them by hand.

          7.13.  Large rocks (``')

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



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               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 ac-
          tion 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 de-
          scribed as uncursed 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 lo-
          cation  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 ex-
          ception is that if the object gets covered  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  there,
          then once you see or feel that location again you will re-discov-
          er the object and resume remembering it.




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               The situation is the same for a pile of objects, except that
          only  the top item of the pile is displayed.  The hilite_pile op-
          tion 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 challenges, 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 physiological need for water; thus there is no  restriction  on
          drinking  beverages,  even  if they provide some minor food bene-
          fits.  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 animals.  The primary source of nutrition is fruits and veg-
          etables.  The corpses and tins of blobs (`b'), jellies (`j'), and
          fungi (`F') are also considered to be vegetable matter.   Certain
          human  food  is  prepared 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 con-
          sidered  vegan  food.   Note however that eating such items still
          counts against foodless conduct.

               Vegetarians do not eat animals; however, they are  less  se-
          lective  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
          foodless  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 polymorphed is treated as if you ate the creature's
          corpse.   Eating  leather, dragon hide, or bone items while poly-
          morphed into a creature that can digest  it,  or  eating  monster
          brains while polymorphed into a mind flayer, is considered eating


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          an animal, although wax is only an animal byproduct.

               Regardless of conduct, there will be some  items  which  are
          indigestible,  and  others  which  are hazardous to eat.  Using a
          swallow-and-digest attack against a monster is equivalent to eat-
          ing  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 contain milk, so they are
          compatible  with  a  vegan  diet.   Slime molds or player-defined
          "fruits", although they could  be  anything  from  "cherries"  to
          "pork chops", are also assumed to be vegan.

               An atheist is one who rejects religion.  This means that you
          cannot #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  con-
          duct;  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 be-
          ing 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 in-
          cludes reading a scroll, spellbook, fortune cookie message, or t-
          shirt; writing 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 assumed 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  men-
          tioned 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


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          diagonally.  Other rules can, such as not smashing boulders  with
          magic  or tools, but doing so causes you to receive a luck penal-
          ty.  No message about that is  given  at  the  time,  but  it  is
          tracked  as a conduct.  The #conduct command and end of game dis-
          closure will report whether you have abided by the special  rules
          of Sokoban, and if not, how many times you violated them, provid-
          ing you with a way to discover which actions incur  bad  luck  so
          that you can be better informed about whether or not to avoid re-
          peating 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 disclosed conduct even if you haven't done any-
          thing 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 geno-
          cide;  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 considered challenges.  Polymor-
          phing 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 challenge, as is  a
          game  without wishing for an artifact (even if the artifact imme-
          diately 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  achieve-
          ments  representing  progress  toward  ultimate ascension, if any
          have been attained.  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


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                       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.
          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.
          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  ex-
          perience levels 1, 3, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, and 30.  The one for
          experience level 1 is not recorded  as  an  achievement.   Losing
          enough  levels  to  revert  to lower rank(s) does not discard the
          corresponding achievement(s).

               There's no guaranteed Novel so the achievement to  read  one
          might not always be attainable (except perhaps by wishing).  Sim-
          ilarly, 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 rea-
          son, even if you are not directly responsible, and  only  if  she
          dies.

               Blind and Nudist are also conducts, and they can only be en-
          abled by setting the correspondingly named option  in  NETHACKOP-
          TIONS or run-time configuration file prior to game start.  In the
          case of Blind, the option also enforces the conduct.  They aren't
          really significant accomplishments unless/until you make substan-
          tial progress into the dungeon.

          9.  Options

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


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          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 vari-
          able.  Some versions of NetHack also have front-end programs that
          allow  you  to  set  options before starting the game or a global
          configuration for system administrators.

          9.2.  Using a configuration file

               The default name of the configuration file varies on differ-
          ent operating systems.

               On  UNIX,  Linux, and Mac OS X it is ".nethackrc" in the us-
          er'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,  it  is  ".nethackrc" in the folder "\%USERPRO-
          FILE%\NetHack\3.6".  The file may not exist, but it is  a  normal
          ASCII  text  file can can be created with any text editor.  After
          running NetHack for the first time, you  should  find  a  default
          template  for  the configuration file named ".nethackrc.template"
          in "\%USERPROFILE%\NetHack\3.6".  If you had not created the con-
          figuration  file,  NetHack will create the configuration file 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 directive and their names are case  insensi-
          tive.  Lines after a section marker belong to that section up un-
          til another section starts or a marker without a name is  encoun-
          tered or the file ends.  Lines within sections are ignored unless
          a CHOOSE directive has selected that section.

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

               Here is a list of allowed directives:




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          OPTIONS
            There  are  two types of options, boolean and compound options.
            Boolean options toggle a setting on or off, while compound  op-
            tions  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 per-
            sistent, and apply only to new games.  You can specify multiple
            OPTIONS directives, and multiple options separated by commas in
            a single OPTIONS directive.  (Comma separated options are  pro-
            cessed 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 neces-
            sary 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.  Autocom-
            pletion has no effect for the X11 windowport.  You can  specify
            multiple  autocompletions.   To enable autocompletion, list the
            extended command.  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 "Configur-
            ing Autopickup Exceptions" section.

          BINDINGS
            Change the key bindings of some special  keys,  menu  accelera-
            tors, or extended commands.  You can specify multiple bindings.
            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 sec-
            tions.  Otherwise the last section extends to the  end  of  the
            options file.

          MENUCOLOR
            Highlight menu lines with different colors.  See the "Configur-
            ing 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 SYM-
            BOLS below.

          SOUND
            Define a sound mapping.  See the "Configuring User Sounds" sec-
            tion.

          SOUNDDIR
            Define  the  directory  that contains the sound files.  See the
            "Configuring User Sounds" section.



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          SYMBOLS
            Override one or more symbols in the symbol  set  used  for  all
            dungeon  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"  be-
          fore  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 ter-
          minated by the next comma or the end of string.




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               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

          % 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
          OPTIONS directive in a configuration file.  The "OPTIONS=" prefix
          is  implied  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 op-
          tional.

          9.4.  Customization options

               Here are explanations of what the various options do.  Char-
          acter  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 config-
          uration file applies only to new games.

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

          align
            Your  starting  alignment  (align:lawful,   align:neutral,   or
            align:chaotic).   You  may  specify just the first letter.  The
            default is to randomly pick an appropriate alignment.   If  you
            prefix the value with `!' or "no", you will exclude that align-
            ment from being picked randomly.  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 op-
            tion controls 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).
            Persistent.

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

            See pickup_types and also autopickup_exception  to  refine  the
            behavior.

          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, enchant-
            ment, damage, or quality of the weapon; you are free to manual-
            ly  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
            Walking  into a locked door or looting a locked container while
            carrying an unlocking tool (such as a key) will ask whether  to
            use  that  tool to unlock the door or container (default true).
            Persistent.

          blind
            Start the character permanently blind (default false).  Persis-
            tent.

          bones
            Allow  saving  and loading bones files (default true).  Persis-
            tent.

          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  ex-
            ample "character:Monk").  See role for more details.

          checkpoint
            Save  game state after each level change, for possible recovery


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            after program crash (default on).  Persistent.

          clicklook
            Allows looking at things on the screen by navigating the  mouse
            over them and clicking the right mouse button (default off).

          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.

          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  re-
            sponse of `n' for each candidate).  Persistent.  The possibili-
            ties 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 listing of vanquished monsters can be sorted, so there  are
            two additional choices for `v':

                 ? - 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 traditional order, from high level to low level.

            Omitted categories are implicitly added with `n' prefix.  Spec-
            ified categories with omitted prefix implicitly use `+' prefix.


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            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 inven-
            tory to prompt and default to yes, attributes to prompt and de-
            fault to no, vanquished to disclose without prompting, genocid-
            ed 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 dun-
            geon overview shows all levels you had visited but does not re-
            veal 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
            available commands.  It is keystroke compatible with the tradi-
            tional  interface  except that it does not require that you hit
            Enter.  It is implemented for the tty interface (default off).

            For the X11 interface, which always uses a menu for choosing an
            extended command, it controls whether the menu shows all avail-
            able commands (on) or just the subset of  commands  which  have
            traditionally 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  something  you  find more appetizing than slime mold.
            Apples, oranges, pears, bananas, and melons  already  exist  in


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            NetHack, so don't use those.

          gender
            Your  starting  gender (gender:male or gender:female).  You may
            specify just the first letter.  Although you can  still  denote
            your gender using the "male" and "female" options, the "gender"
            option will take precedence.  The default is to  randomly  pick
            an  appropriate  gender.   If  you prefix the value with `!' or
            "no", you will exclude that gender from being picked  randomly.
            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 de-
            fault).  Gold is never blessed or cursed, but  it  is  not  de-
            scribed 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).  Turn-
            ing help off makes just looking at  things  faster,  since  you
            aren't  interrupted  with  the "More info?" prompt, but it also
            means that you might miss some interesting and/or important in-
            formation.  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" com-
            mands.

          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
            highlight  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
            (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
            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
            available  for TTY and Windows GUI, and only when statushilites


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            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).  Per-
            sistent.

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

            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.

          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  de-
            scribed  when  covered  by  one  or more objects (default off).
            Persistent.

          mention_walls
            Give feedback when walking against a wall (default off).   Per-
            sistent.

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

          menustyle
            Controls the interface used when you need to choose various ob-
            jects  (in  response  to  the Drop command, for instance).  The


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            value specified should be the first letter of one of  the  fol-
            lowing:  traditional,  combination,  full, or partial.  Persis-
            tent.

            Traditional was the only interface  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 selection.
            Partial skips the object class filtering and  immediately  dis-
            plays 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.  Values
            are "none", "bold", "dim", "underline", "blink", or  "inverse".
            Not all ports can actually display all types.

          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
            symbols 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.  (de-
            fault on)

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




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          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.

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

                 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_support 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.
            Currently 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 "single").



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          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' command.

          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

            For backward compatibility, omitting a value  is  the  same  as
            specifying  1 and negating number_pad is the same as specifying
            0.  (Settings 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 accommo-
            date  some  QWERTZ keyboards 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
            containing the symbols for the various object types.  Any omit-
            ted 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_confirma-
            tion:pray.

            Confirm     - for any prompts which are set  to  require  "yes"
                          rather  than  `y',  also  require  "no" to reject


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                          instead of accepting any non-yes response as no
            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 attack-
                          ing a peaceful monster;
            wand-break  - require "yes" rather than `y' to confirm breaking
                          a wand;
            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;
            Remove      - require  selection from inventory for `R' and `T'
                          commands even when wearing  just  one  applicable
                          item.
            all         - turn on all of the above.

            By  default,  the  pray choice is enabled, the others disabled.
            To disable it without setting any of  the  other  choices,  use
            "paranoid_confirmation:none".  To keep it enabled while setting
            any of the others, include it  in  the  list,  such  as  "para-
            noid_confirmation:attack pray Remove".

          perm_invent
            If  true,  always  display  your current inventory in a window.
            This only makes sense for windowing system interfaces that  im-
            plement this feature.

          petattr
            Specifies  one or more text highlighting attributes to use when
            showing 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.

                 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


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            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 honored 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  overLoaded),  you  will  be  asked if you want to continue.
            (Default `S').  Persistent.

          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.
            Default 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  autopick-
            up_exception  configuration  file  lines  to further refine au-
            topickup 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 auto-
            matically picking up any types of items but do want to have au-
            topickup on in order to have autopickup_exception settings con-
            trol 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.


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          playmode
            Values are "normal", "explore", or "debug".   Allows  selection
            of  explore  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  re-
            sults 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).   Likewise  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 when-
            ever clairvoyance randomly activates.  Some situations, such as
            being  underwater or engulfed, ignore this option.  It does not
            affect the clairvoyance spell where pausing to examine revealed
            objects  or  monsters is less intrusive.  Default is off.  Per-
            sistent.

          race
            Selects your race (for example, "race:human").  Default is ran-
            dom.   If  you  prefix the value with `!' or "no", you will ex-
            clude that race from being picked randomly.  Cannot be set with
            the `O' command.  Persistent.

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

          role
            Pick your type of character (for example "role:Samurai");  syn-
            onym  for  "character".   See "name" for an alternate method of
            specifying your role.  Normally only the first  letter  of  the
            value  is examined; `r' is an exception with "Rogue", "Ranger",
            and "random" values.  If you prefix the value with `!' or "no",
            you  will exclude that role from being picked randomly.  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.



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          runmode
            Controls the amount of screen updating for the map window  when
            engaged  in multi-turn movement (running via shift+direction or
            control+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 ac-
            tual 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.  Persistent.

          safe_pet
            Prevent  you from (knowingly) attacking your pets (default on).
            Persistent.

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

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

          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 af-
            fects 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 ``'


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            commands.  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  object  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.

          sortpack
            Sort  the  pack contents by type when displaying inventory (de-
            fault on).  Persistent.

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

          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 "Configuring Status Hilites" for further information.

          status_updates
            Allow updates to the status lines at the bottom of  the  screen
            (default 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 versions (for example "suppress_alert:3.3.1").



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          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.

          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 ex-
            plosions and moving objects, use a timer  rather  than  sending
            extra  characters  to  the screen.  (Applies to "tty" interface
            only; "X11" interface always uses a timer based delay.  The de-
            fault is on if configured into the program.)  Persistent.

          tombstone
            Draw a tombstone graphic upon your death (default on).  Persis-
            tent.

          toptenwin
            Put the ending display in a NetHack window instead of on stdout
            (default  off).  Setting this option makes the score list visi-
            ble 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 terminal or emulating window.

          travel
            Allow the travel command via mouse click (default on).  Turning
            this option off will prevent the game from attempting unintend-
            ed moves if you make inadvertent mouse clicks on the  map  win-
            dow.   Does  not  affect traveling via the `_' ("#travel") com-
            mand.  Persistent.

          verbose
            Provide more commentary during the game (default on).   Persis-
            tent.

          whatis_coord
            When  using  the  `/' or `;' commands to look around on the map
            with autodescribe on, display coordinates  after  the  descrip-
            tion.   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",


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            and "/O" sub-commands of `/', where the "none" setting is over-
            ridden with "map".

          whatis_filter
            When getting a location on the map, and using the keys to cycle
            through  next and previous targets, allows filtering the possi-
            ble 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
            "getpos.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,
            select which one to use, such as "tty" or  "X11"  (default  de-
            pends 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 op-
            tions.  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 effect on reading an existing save file.






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          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 can safely add any of  these  options  to  your
          configuration  file, and if the window port is capable of adjust-
          ing 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 charac-
            ters (letters and punctuation) rather than tiles graphics.   In
            some  cases, characters can be augmented with line-drawing sym-
            bols; use the symset option to select  a  symbol  set  such  as
            DECgraphics or IBMgraphics if your display supports them.  Set-
            ting ascii_map to True forces tiled_map to be False.

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

          eight_bit_tty
            If  NetHack can, it should pass eight-bit character values (for
            example, specified with the traps option) straight  through  to
            your terminal (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
            message window.

          font_status
            If NetHack can, it should use a font by the chosen name for the


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            status window.

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

          font_size_map
            If NetHack can, it should use this size font for the  map  win-
            dow.

          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 in-
            terface 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  speci-
            fied.

          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 exam-
            ple,  in  the  protected  mode  MS-DOS version, control whether
            tiles get pre-loaded into RAM at the start of the game.   Doing
            so  enhances  performance  of  the tile graphics, but uses more
            memory. (default on).  Cannot be set with the `O' command.



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          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  win-
            dow.

          selectsaved
            If  NetHack  can,  it  should  display a menu of existing saved
            games for 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.
            Acceptable 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' com-
            mand.

            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 ren-
            ders 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.

          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 spec-
            ified  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
            default.


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          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

          tiled_map
            If NetHack can, it should display the map using tiles  graphics
            rather  than simple characters (letters and punctuation, possi-
            bly 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 speci-
            fies 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  in-
            terface only.  Acceptable 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 contents.  If borders are forced on (1) or  the  display
            is big enough to show them (2), setting the value to 3 or 4 in-
            stead will keep borders for the map, message, and  status  win-
            dows  but  have room for two additional lines of inventory plus
            widen each inventory line by two columns.

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

               OPTION=windowcolors:wintype foreground/background



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

          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
          platforms or ports to customize and change the port behavior.

          altkeyhandler
            Select  an  alternate  keystroke handler dll to load (Win32 tty
            NetHack only).  The name of the handler  is  specified  without
            the .dll extension and without any path information.  Cannot be
            set with the `O' command.

          altmeta
            On Amiga, this option controls whether typing "Alt" plus anoth-
            er key functions as a meta-shift for that key (default on).

          altmeta
            On other (non-Amiga) 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 sec-
            ond 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  ma-
            chines  with  an IBM PC compatible BIOS ROM (default off, OS/2,
            PC, and ST NetHack only).

          flush
            (default off, Amiga NetHack only).


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          MACgraphics
            (default on, Mac NetHack only).

          page_wait
            (default on, Mac NetHack only).

          rawio
            Force raw (non-cbreak) mode for faster output and more  bullet-
            proof  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
            keystrokes that the operating system returns to NetHack to help
            compensate for international keyboard issues.   OPTIONS=subkey-
            value:171/92  will  return 92 to NetHack, if 171 was originally
            going to be returned.  You can use multiple subkeyvalue assign-
            ments  in the configuration file if needed.  Cannot be set with
            the `O' command.

          video
            Set the video mode used (PC NetHack only).  Values are "autode-
            tect",  "default", "vga", or "vesa".  Setting "vesa" will cause
            the game to display tiles, using the full capability of the VGA
            hardware.   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" attempts "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 (de-
            fault dark normal light, PC NetHack only).  If the game display
            is  difficult to read, try adjusting these scales; if this does
            not correct the problem, try !color.  Cannot be  set  with  the


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            `O' command.

          9.7.  Regular Expressions

               Regular  expressions are normally POSIX extended regular ex-
          pressions. It is possible to compile NetHack without regular  ex-
          pression  support on a platform where there is no regular expres-
          sion library. While this is not true of any modern  platform,  if
          your  NetHack  was built this way, patterns are instead glob pat-
          terns. 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
          beyond 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 autopickup something.

          autopickup_exception
            Sets an exception to the pickup_types  option.   The  autopick-
            up_exception  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 oc-
            cur 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.

            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_ex-
            ception 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 ex-
          clusion of items known to be cursed from autopickup.




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          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"), 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.  Un-
            bind 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 ob-
            ject symbols or selection letters into menu accelerators.  Some
            interfaces only support some of the menu accelerators.

          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  "context",  and  if bound to same keys, only one of those
            commands will be 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'.

          fight
            Prefix key to force fight a direction.  Default is `F'.

          fight.numpad
            Prefix key to force fight a direction.  With  number_pad  only.
            Default is `-'.

          getdir.help
            When  asked for a direction, the key to show the help.  Default
            is `?'.

          getdir.self
            When asked for a direction, the key to  target  yourself.   De-
            fault is `.'.




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          getdir.self2
            When  asked  for  a direction, the key to target yourself.  De-
            fault is `s'.

          getpos.autodescribe
            When asked for a location, the key to toggle autodescribe.  De-
            fault is `#'.

          getpos.all.next
            When asked for a location, the key to go to next closest inter-
            esting thing.  Default is `a'.

          getpos.all.prev
            When asked for a location, the key to go  to  previous  closest
            interesting 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  mon-
            ster.  Default is `m'.

          getpos.mon.prev
            When  asked  for  a location, the key to go to previous closest
            monster.  Default is `M'.

          getpos.obj.next
            When asked for a location, the key to go to  next  closest  ob-
            ject.  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  previ-
            ous  keys  to  cycle through targets, toggle showing a menu in-
            stead.  Default 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 `*'.



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          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 between no filtering, in view only,  and  in  the  same
            area only.  Default is `"'.

          getpos.pick
            When  asked for a location, the key to choose the location, and
            possibly ask for more info.  Default is `.'.

          getpos.pick.once
            When asked for a location, the key to choose the location,  and
            skip asking for more info.  Default is `,'.

          getpos.pick.quick
            When asked for a location, the key to choose the location, skip
            asking for more info, and exit the location asking  loop.   De-
            fault 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.  De-
            fault is `@'.

          getpos.unexplored.next
            When  asked for a location, the key to go to next closest unex-
            plored location.  Default is `x'.

          getpos.unexplored.prev
            When asked for a location, the key to go  to  previous  closest
            unexplored location.  Default is `X'.

          getpos.valid
            When  asked  for a location, the key to go to show valid target
            locations.  Default is `$'.

          getpos.valid.next
            When asked for a location, the key to go to next closest  valid
            location.  Default is `z'.

          getpos.valid.prev
            When  asked  for  a location, the key to go to previous closest
            valid location.  Default is `Z'.

          nopickup
            Prefix key to move without picking up items.  Default is `m'.

          redraw
            Key to redraw the screen.  Default is `^R'.




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          redraw.numpad
            Key to redraw the screen.  With number_pad  only.   Default  is
            `^L'.

          repeat
            Key to repeat previous command.  Default is `^A'.

          reqmenu
            Prefix key to request menu from some commands.  Default is `m'.

          run
            Prefix key to run towards a direction.  Default is `G'.

          run.nopickup
            Prefix  key to run towards a direction without picking up items
            on the way.  Default is `M'.

          run.numpad
            Prefix key to run towards a direction.  With number_pad only.

            Default is `5' when number_pad is set  to  1  or  3,  otherwise
            `M-5' when it is set to 2 or 4.

          rush
            Prefix key to rush towards a direction.  Default is `g'.

          rush.numpad
            Prefix key to rush towards a direction.  With number_pad only.

            Default  is  `M-5'  when number_pad is set to 1 or 3, otherwise
            `5' when it is set to 2 or 4.

          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
          message 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  mes-
                    sage is shown in between.




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            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 displaced <something>." is not shown at all.

            The order of the defined MSGTYPE lines is important;  the  last
            matching  rule  is used. Put the general case first, exceptions
            below them.

          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 pat-
                              tern;
                 attribute  - the attribute to use for lines  matching  the
                              pattern.  The  attribute  is optional, and if
                              left out, you must also leave out the preced-
                              ing  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-ma-
            genta, light-cyan, and white.  And no-color, the default  fore-
            ground  color,  which  isn't necessarily the same as any of the
            other colors.

            Allowed attributes are none, bold, dim, underline,  blink,  and
            inverse.   "Normal"  is  a  synonym  for "none".  Note that the
            platform used may interpret the attributes any way it wants.

            Here's an example of menu colors using NetHack's internal  pat-
            tern matching facility:

                 MENUCOLOR="* blessed *"=green
                 MENUCOLOR="* cursed *"=red
                 MENUCOLOR="* cursed *(being worn)"=red&underline

            specifies  that  any menu line with " blessed " contained in it


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            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  under-
            lined.  You can have multiple MENUCOLOR entries in your config-
            uration file, and the last MENUCOLOR line that matches  a  menu
            line will be used for the line.

               Note that if you intend to have one or more color specifica-
          tions match " uncursed ", you will probably want to turn the  im-
          plicit_uncursed 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 message window.  At this time the Qt port and the win32tty
          and win32gui ports support the use of user sounds.

               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
                          3.6);
            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.

          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
          setting 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


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          your hitpoints 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 configura-
          tion file will cause wisdom to be displayed red if it  drops  and
          green if it rises:

          OPTION=hilite_status:wisdom/down/red/up/green

               Allowed  colors are black, red, green, brown, blue, magenta,
          cyan, gray, orange, light-green, yellow, light-blue, light-magen-
          ta,  light-cyan,  and  white.   And "no-color", the default fore-
          ground 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 inverse.  "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
          attributes 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 ver-
          sa.  On others, issuing an attribute request while another is al-
          ready set up will replace the earlier attribute rather than  com-
          bine  with  it.   Since NetHack issues attribute requests sequen-
          tially (at least with the tty interface) rather than all at once,
          the only way a situation like that can be controlled is to speci-
          fy 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.  "experience", "time", and "score" are  condition-
            ally displayed depending upon your other option settings.


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            Instead  of  a behavior, "condition" takes the following condi-
            tion flags: stone, slime,  strngl,  foodpois,  termill,  blind,
            deaf,  stun, conf, hallu, lev, fly, and ride.  You can use "ma-
            jor_troubles" as an  alias  for  stone  through  termill,  "mi-
            nor_troubles" for blind through hallu, "movement" for lev, fly,
            and ride, and "all" for every condition.

            Allowed behaviors are "always", "up", "down", "changed", a per-
            centage or absolute number threshold, or text to match against.

               * "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 val-
                 ue 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  val-
                 ue, 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  be-
                 tween  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 corresponding  maxi-
                 mum  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 ex-
                 perience level to the start of the next level.  So if lev-
                 el 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 allowed and matches the  special  case
                 of being exactly 1 experience point short of the next lev-
                 el.

               * absolute value sets the attribute  when  the  field  value
                 matches  that number.  The number must be 0 or higher, ex-
                 cept for "armor-class' which allows negative  values,  and
                 may  optionally be preceded by `='.  If the number is pre-
                 ceded by `<=' or `>=' instead, it also matches when  value
                 is  below  or  above.   If  the prefix is `<' or `>', only
                 match when strictly above or below.




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               * text match sets the attribute when the field value matches
                 the  text.  Text matches can only be used for "alignment",
                 "carrying-capacity", "hunger", "dungeon-level",  and  "ti-
                 tle".   For  title,  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
          syntax for a configuration file.

               The  whole  feature  can  be disabled by setting option sta-
          tushilites 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 dis-
            play on the rogue level.

               You can also override one or more symbols using the  SYMBOLS
          and  ROGUESYMBOLS configuration file options.  Symbols are speci-
          fied 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)



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          "  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)
          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)



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          %  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)
          '  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)
          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)



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          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)
          /  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)



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          .  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)
          /  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 en-
            abled 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  de-
            pict.   So S_rock is only used for boulders and not used at all
            if overridden by the more specific S_boulder.

          9.15.  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 the MS-DOS versions
          of NetHack completely 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  capabili-
          ties  of their screen-readers to be quite valuable. 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 charac-
          ter 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 location of items on the screen.



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               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  message  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 environment  variable  NETHACK_MSGHANDLER
          to an executable, which will be executed with the game message as
          the program's only parameter.

               While it is not difficult for experienced users to edit  the
          defaults.nh  file  to accomplish this, novices may find this task
          somewhat daunting.  Included within the "symbols" file of all of-
          ficial distributions of NetHack is a symset called NHAccess.  Se-
          lecting that symset in your configuration  file  will  cause  the
          game  to run in a manner accessible to the blind.  After you have
          gained some experience with the game and with editing files,  you
          may want to alter settings via SYMBOLS= and ROGUESYMBOLS= in your
          configuration file to better suit your preferences.  See the pre-
          vious  section  for the special symbols S_pet_override to force a
          consistent symbol for all pets and  S_hero_override  to  force  a
          unique  symbol  for  the player character if accessibility is en-
          abled in the sysconf file.

               The most crucial settings to make the game  more  accessible
          are:

          symset:NHAccess
            Load a symbol set appropriate for use by blind players.

          roguesymset:NHAccess
            Load  a  symbol set for the rogue level that is 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.

          autodescribe
            Automatically describe the terrain under the cursor  when  tar-
            geting.

          mention_walls
            Give  feedback  messages  when  walking  towards a wall or when
            travel command was interrupted.




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          whatis_coord:compass
            When targeting with cursor, describe the cursor  position  with
            coordinates 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 in-
            formation can be seen via the "#attributes" command.

          9.16.  Global Configuration for System Administrators

               If NetHack is compiled with the SYSCF option, a  system  ad-
          ministrator  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 directory as the other NetHack support files.   The  options
          recognized in this file are listed below.  Any option not set us-
          es a compiled-in default (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 es-
            cape 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 run-
            ning 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 format exists.  Valid choices  are  "historical"  for
            binary  writing of entire structs, "lendian" for binary writing
            of each field in little-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


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            the first format exist.  Valid choices are "historical" for bi-
            nary writing of entire structs, "lendian" for binary writing of
            each field in little-endian  order,  "ascii"  for  writing  the
            bones file content in ascii text.

            SUPPORT = A  string explaining how to get local support (no de-
            fault 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
            option.  When disabled, incubi and succubi behave like nymphs.

            CHECK_PLNAME = Setting this to 1 will make the EXPLORERS,  WIZ-
            ARDS, and SHELLERS check for the player name instead of the us-
            er'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 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,  re-
            spectively, to identify unique people for the score file.

            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
            ability  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 in one place rather than  at  the  standard  loca-
            tions.

            DUMPLOGFILE = A  filename  where  the  end-of-game  dumplog  is
            saved.  Not defining this will prevent dumplog from being  cre-
            ated. Only available if your game is compiled with DUMPLOG. Al-
            lows the following placeholders:

            %% - literal `%'
            %v - version (eg. "3.6.3-0")


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            %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

          10.  Scoring

               NetHack maintains a list of the top  scores  or  scorers  on
          your machine, depending on how it is set up.  In the latter case,
          each account 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  (adventurers  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.

               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  play-
          mode:explore  option.   The  other is to issue the "#exploremode"
          extended command while already playing the game.  Starting a  new
          game in explore mode provides your character with a wand of wish-
          ing 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"


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          commands listed among the command descriptions.  It  is  intended
          for tracking down problems within the program rather than to pro-
          vide god-like powers 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 par-
          ticular 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 result 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
          Woodland, Mike Thome, and Jon Payne.

               Andries Brouwer did a  major  re-write  while  at  Stichting
          Mathematisch Centrum (now Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica), trans-
          forming Hack into a very different game.  He published  the  Hack
          source  code  for  use  on UNIX systems by posting that to Usenet
          newsgroup net.sources (later renamed comp.sources) releasing ver-
          sion 1.0 in December of 1984, then versions 1.0.1, 1.0.2, and fi-
          nally 1.0.3 in July of  1985.   Usenet  newsgroup  net.games.hack
          (later    renamed    rec.games.hack,   eventually   replaced   by
          rec.games.roguelike.nethack) was created for discussing it.

               Don G. Kneller ported Hack 1.0.3 to Microsoft C and  MS-DOS,
          producing  PC  HACK 1.01e, added support for DEC Rainbow graphics
          in version 1.03g, and went on to produce at least four more  ver-
          sions (3.0, 3.2, 3.51, and 3.6; note that these are old Hack ver-
          sion 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,
          incorporating 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


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          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,  head-
          ing  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  Arromdee,  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-structured 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 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  Sche-
          lin, 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
          Engber,  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 de-
          velopment, Bart House added a Think C port.



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               Timo Hakulinen ported NetHack 3.1 to OS/2.  Eric Smith port-
          ed  NetHack  3.1 to the Atari.  Pat Rankin, with help from Joshua
          Delahunty, 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 ob-
          ject types, just replacements for monster and object classes  (so
          one  custom image for all "a" insects and another for all "[" ar-
          mor 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 ob-
          jects rather than just their classes.  He contributed them to the
          NetHack  Development Team which rechristened them "tiles", origi-
          nal usage which has subsequently been picked up by various  other
          games.   NetHack's  tiles  support  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 Alli-
          son, Ken Arromdee, David Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Steve Creps, Kevin
          Darcy, Timo Hakulinen, Steve Linhart, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Er-
          ic 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.

               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 enthusi-
          asts 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.


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          Larry Stewart-Zerba and Warwick Allison improved the spell  cast-
          ing  system  with  the Wizard Patch.  Warwick Allison also ported
          NetHack to use the Qt interface.

               Warren Cheung combined SLASH with the Wizard Patch  to  pro-
          duce  Slash'EM,  and with the help of Kevin Hugo, added more fea-
          tures.  Kevin later joined the NetHack Development Team  and  in-
          corporated 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 intro-
          duced an extra column in the file layout  which  prevented  score
          entries  from  being read back in correctly, interfering with in-
          sertion of new high scores and with retrieval  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  Al-
          lison,  Ken  Arromdee,  David  Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Steve Creps,
          Kevin Darcy, Timo Hakulinen, Kevin Hugo, Steve Linhart, Ken  Lor-
          ber,  Dean  Luick, Pat Rankin, Eric Smith, Mike Stephenson, Janet
          Walz, and Paul Winner, released 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
          separate race and profession. The Elf class was removed in  pref-
          erence 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, Barbar-
          ians,  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 listing 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.

               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


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          that NetHack runs on:

               Pat Rankin maintained 3.4 for VMS.

               Michael Allison maintained NetHack 3.4 for the MS-DOS  plat-
          form.  Paul Winner and Yitzhak Sapir provided encouragement.

               Dean  Luick, Mark Modrall, and Kevin Hugo maintained and en-
          hanced 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 inter-
          face  for  the Windows port.  Alex Kompel also contributed a Win-
          dows 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 af-
          ter he resurrected it for 3.3.1.

               The release of NetHack 3.4.3 in December 2003 marked the be-
          ginning 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 continued 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, unnethack 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 con-
          tinue to be developed, maintained, and enjoyed by  the  community
          to this day.

               In September 2014, an interim snapshot of the code under de-
          velopment 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 Development Team's official nethack.org
          website to that effect, stating  that  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.



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          NetHack Guidebook                                             104



               At the beginning of development for  what  would  eventually
          get  released as 3.6.0, the NetHack Development Team consisted of
          Warwick Allison, Michael  Allison,  Ken  Arromdee,  David  Cohrs,
          Jessie  Collet, Ken Lorber, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Mike Stephen-
          son, 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 Development Team.

               Near the end of the development of 3.6.0, one of the signif-
          icant  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
          restructured.

               The NetHack Development Team, as well as  Steve  VanDevender
          and Kevin Smolkowski, ensured that NetHack 3.6 continued to oper-
          ate on various UNIX flavors and maintained the X11 interface.

               Ken Lorber, Haoyang Wang, Pat Rankin, and Dean  Luick  main-
          tained the port of NetHack 3.6 for Mac OSX.

               Michael  Allison,  David  Cohrs,  Bart House, Pasi Kallinen,
          Alex Kompel, Dion Nicolaas, Derek S. Ray and Yitzhak Sapir  main-
          tained 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 up-
          dated  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 contrib-
          uted 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 con-
          sisted  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 en-
          hancements  and  the adopted curses window port, were released as
          3.6.2.

               Bart House, who had contributed to the  game  as  a  porting
          team participant for decades, joined the NetHack Development Team
          in late May 2019.



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          NetHack Guidebook                                             105



               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
          security 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 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 dun-
          geoneers  who  invest  their  time and effort into annual NetHack
          tournaments such as Junethack, The November  NetHack  Tournament,
          and  in days past, devnull.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
                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



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          NetHack Guidebook                                             106



               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  trade-
          marks of their respective holders.


























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