path: root/crawl-ref/docs/crawl_manual.txt

Missing/wrong information or comments denoted by '>>':
*	Find author names for Axcrawl and Tile Crawl
*	Unarmed combat will necessarily stay fuzzy for a while
*	Ranged combat likewise, but _needs_ text.
.............................................................................

                        DUNGEON CRAWL Stone Soup
                             - the manual -

Contents
--------
A.      Overview
B.      Starting Screen
C.      Abilities and Stats
D.      Dungeon Exploration
E.      Experience and Skills
F.      Monsters
G.      Items
H.      Spellcasting
I.      Religion
J.      Mutations
K.      Keymaps, Macros, Options, Performance
L.      Licence, Contact, History
M.      Philosophy

Appendices
1.      List of Species
2.      List of Classes
3.      List of Skills
4.      Keys and Commands
5.      List of Enchantments 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A.                      OVERVIEW
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crawl is a fun game in the grand tradition of games like Rogue,
Hack and Moria.  Your objective is to travel deep into a subterranean
cave complex and retrieve the Orb of Zot, which is guarded by many
horrible and hideous creatures.

If you have never played Crawl (or a similar game) before, you may
want to try out a tutorial. These are accessed by entering 'T' in
the class or species selection screens. You can choose among three
quite popular and rather straight forward combinations: a strong
melee fighter with the additional help of a mighty war god, a Centaur
hunter using bow and arrows, and an Elven battle magician. The
tutorials are primarily intended to explain Crawl's interface.  They
do not focus on 'optimal' gameplay (also, many experienced players
share different views on the latter). The tutorial has a special
help screen (viewed by pressing '?') and ends when you reach the
fifth experience level.

Detailed instructions for playing Crawl follow. If you want to get
the most important facts more quickly, read the quick-start guide
(quickstart.txt) and learn as you play. Otherwise, it may be worth
your while to read at least part of this file (although it will
probably confuse you somewhat). Read at least the disclaimer in
section L of this document and the licence.txt file, though.

While Dungeon Crawl is a strict single player game, you can play
on a server together with many others. The relevant webpage and
telnet address are:

    http://crawl.akrasiac.org
    telnet://crawl.akrasiac.org

This has several interesting consequences: you can
 o watch other players, and even communicate with them
 o replay games from you or others
 o meet ghosts of other players
 o compete using a common score list

The server carries no guarantees, though it is pretty much always
running and no one has lost their save file yet. :) More information
is available at the URL above.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B.                      STARTING SCREEN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After starting Crawl, you'll be asked to type in a name. If you
wish to choose a name after deciding on the species and class of
your new character, press Enter.  You will see a full list of all
saved games is displayed, which you can navigate with the cursor
Up and Down keys, and entering a name that is already attached to
a save game will continue that game. Otherwise, enter a new name,
and you will proceed to choose a race and class for a new character.
You can make these two choices in either order, and you can randomize
your choice of class, race, or both if you would rather the game
decided for you.

The choice of species affects several important characteristics,
in particular the speed at which you learn different skills. This
is very important, and helps to differentiate clearly the many
available races. The following factors are species-dependent:

Major:  o  Your choice of classes
        o  Your rate of level advancement
        o  Your rate of skill advancement
        o  Your initial primary attributes (this also depends on class)

Minor:  o  Occasional bonus points added to some primary attributes
        o  The amount of hit points you get each level
        o  The amount of magic points you get each level
        o  Your initial equipment (this also depends on class)
        o  Various special abilities and powers

Note that Humans are the average to which all other races are compared. 

The choice of class is definitely less decisive than that of species
in Crawl.  Basically, class determines what the character has learned
prior to entering the dungeon (i.e. the starting skills), and also
helps determine equipment and hit/magic points at start.

Some species are slower than humans in most/all skills. For some
classes these races may seem to have very few skills because they
haven't quite earned the first level of several of their skills
(Centaurs are notable in this regard...  although non-human Wanderers
can appear to start with no apparent skills at all). This isn't a
bug or an oversight, these species are just particularly weaker
than humans at these classes. They may have other advantages beyond
skill development, though in some cases they may not.

You will notice that no species (except Humans) has access to all
classes.  Looking at the available combinations should give you a
rough impression about the weaknesses and strengths of the different
races.

For some combinations of race and class, you must make additional
choices before starting the game: for example,  you must pick a
starting god for Chaos Knights, or a starting weapon for Fighters.

You can choose a tutorial from both the species and class selection
screens by pressing 'T'. There are three different tutorial
combinations available.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C.                      ATTRIBUTES AND STATS 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The stat area to the right of the playing map shows a lot of numbers.
These describe different aspects of the hero. The most basic ones
are

Hit points:     A measure of life force. You die if your hit points drop 
-----------     to zero or less (although there are additional ways to die). 
                The main screen shows hit points in the format HP: 8/10,
                showing that your character's maximum hit points are 10, and 
                the character currently has 8. Resting (by pressing 's', 
                '.', Del) will slowly restore hit points; for longer resting 
                use '5' or Shift-Num-5.

                Some very battle-fixated characters may end up with more than 
                250 hit points, yet some spellcasters are known to have 
                finished the game victorious with less than 100 hit points.

Magic points:   A measure of magic or other intrinsic power. This is used 
-------------   primarily for spellcasting, but is sometimes also used for
                berserking and invoking of many other special 
                abilities. They are displayed in the same way as hit points;
                nothing bad happens if these drop to zero. (Except, of course,
                that you can't cast any spells...) Resting restores these, too.

                It is uncommon to have more than 50 magic points (without using 
                external devices).

Level:          Starting characters have experience level 1; the highest 
------          possible level is 27. The current level is displayed in the 
                stat area after "Experience". Gaining a level nets additional 
                hit and magic points, and will sometimes grant spell slots 
                or primary attributes (see immediately below).

Primary attributes describe the abilities of a character to fight,
dodge, learn spells etc. They grow permanently from gaining levels,
and temporarily from using appropriate artifacts or abilities. Crawl
has only three:

Strength:       Affects the amount of damage you do in combat, as well as how
---------       much stuff you can carry.

Intelligence:   Affects how well you can cast spells as well as your ability 
-------------   to use some magical items.

Dexterity:      Affects your accuracy in combat, your general effectiveness 
----------      with missile weapons, your ability to dodge attacks aimed at 
                you, and your ability to use thiefly skills such as 
                backstabbing and disarming traps. Although your dexterity does 
                not affect your evasion score (EV) directly, any calculation
                involving your EV score also takes account of your dexterity.

If any one of these drops to zero, you die. Note that upon gaining
Levels 3, 6, 9 etc. you get to choose one of these attributes to
raise. Random increases can also occur (which levels give an increase
is determined by race, as is the attribute(s) to be increased).

The following numbers provide additional information about your character.

Armour Class:   Also called AC; when something injures you, your AC reduces the 
-------------   amount of damage you suffer. The number next to your AC is a 
                measure of how good your shield (if any) is at blocking attacks. 
                In both cases, more is better.

Evasion:        Also called EV, this helps you to avoid being hit by unpleasant 
--------        things (but will not reduce the amount of damage you suffer if
                you do get hit).

Gold:           This is how much money you're carrying. Money adds to your 
-----           final score and can be used to purchase items in shops.

Magic Resistance: Affects your ability to resist the effects of enchantments and
----------------- similar magic directed at you. Although your magic resistance 
                increases with your level to an extent determined by your 
                character's species, the creatures you will meet deeper in the 
                dungeon are better at casting spells and are more likely to be 
                able to affect you. MR is an internal variable, so you can't 
                see what yours is, but you can get a rough idea by pressing '@'.

Stealth:	  Another internal variable like Magic Resistance. First, 
--------	  there is a Stealth skill which every character can learn (but 
		  again, the different races' aptitudes for this vary greatly).
		  Next, some armour affects Stealth in a positive way (all Elven
		  pieces are notable in this regard), while all heavy armours 
                  will hamper it. Stealth's effects include allowing your
                  character to move through the dungeon undetected.

Sometimes characters will be able to use special abilities, for
example the Naga's ability to spit poison, or the magical power to
turn invisible granted by a ring. These are accessed through the
'a' command.

There are many ailments or enchantments that can temporarily befall
you. These are noted in the stats area below the experience line.
Many of them are self-explaining, like Pray, or Hungry. Many others,
however, can be subtle, and a full list with explanations is given
in Appendix 5.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D.                      EXPLORING THE DUNGEON
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Movement:
---------
You can make your character walk around with the numeric keypad
(try both Numlock on and off) or the "Rogue" keys (hjklyubn). If
this is too slow, you can make your character walk repeatedly by
pressing Shift and a direction. You will walk in that direction
until any of a number of things happen: a hostile monster is visible
on the screen, a message is sent to the message window for any
reason, you type a key, or you are about to step on anything other
than normal floor or an undiscovered trap and it is not your first
move of the long walk.  Note that this is functionally equivalent
to just pressing the direction key several times.

Resting and Searching:
----------------------
If you press Shift and '5' on the numeric keypad (or just the number
'5' on the keyboard) you rest for 100 turns or until your hit points
or magic return to full, whichever is sooner. You can rest for just
one turn by pressing '.', Delete, 's', or '5' on the keypad. Whenever
you are resting, you are assumed to be observing your surroundings,
so you have a chance of detecting any traps or secret doors adjacent
to you.

Examining:
----------
The section of the viewing window which is coloured (with the '@'
representing you at the centre) is what you can see around you. The
dark grey around it is the parts of the level which you have visited,
but cannot currently see. The 'x' command lets you move the cursor
around to get a description of the various dungeon features, and
typing '?' when the cursor is over a monster brings up a short
description of that monster. You can get a map of the whole level
(which shows where you've already been) by typing the 'X' key. This
map specially colour-codes stairs and known traps, even if something
is on top of them.

>> This is not true anymore. As I've said before, the optimal default
IMO would be to treat the '>' and '<' as on top of a pile, where
the pile is shown per the heap_brand setting. <<

Staircases and Portals:
-----------------------
You can make your way between levels by using staircases, which
appear as '>' (down) and '<' (up), by pressing the '>' or '<' keys.
If you ascend an up staircase on level one, you will leave the
dungeon forever; if you are carrying the magical Orb of Zot, you
win the game by doing this. Otherwise, the game ends, and you lose.

Besides the dungeon you start in, Crawl's dungeon has many branches.
All of them are themed and host opponents of some special sort. It
is not mandatory to visit any particular branch, but you must explore
some of them: progress to the Realms of Zot (where the Orb is
located) is only possible for adventurers who have at least three
magical runes of Zot. The bottoms of several branches contain such
runes.

Occasionally you will find an archway ('\'); these lead to special
places like shops, magical labyrinths, and Hell. Depending on which
type of archway it is, you can enter it by typing '<' or '>'.

Doors and Traps:
----------------
Doors can be opened with the 'o' command and closed with the 'c'
command.  Pressing Control plus a direction also opens doors. If
there is no closed door in the indicated space, you will attempt
to attack any monster which may be standing there (this is the only
way to attack a friendly creature hand-to- hand). If there is no
creature there, you will attempt to disarm any trap in the target
square. If there is apparently nothing there you will still attack
it, just in case there's something invisible lurking around. (There
is.)

A variety of dangerous and irritating traps are hidden around the
dungeon. Traps look like normal floor until discovered. Some traps
can be disarmed with the control-direction commands.

Shops:
------
When you are in a shop, you are given a list of the shopkeeper's
stock from which to choose. Unfortunately the shopkeepers all have
an enterprise bargaining agreement with the dungeon teamsters union
which prevents them using non-union labour to obtain stock, so you
can't sell anything in a shop (but what shopkeeper would buy goods
from a disreputable adventurer like you, anyway?) In shops you have
access to the shop's inventory and to your list of already discovered
items. You can purchase items by pressing the letter of each item in the
shop menu; by pressing 'v' and then the letter, you can get information
about the item you are considering purchasing.

Automated Travel and Exploration:
---------------------------------
Crawl has an extensive automated travel system: pressing Ctrl-G
lets you chose any dungeon level; the game will then take the
shortest path to reach this destination. You can also use autotravel
on the level map ('X'): move the cursor to the place where you want
to go and hit Enter. There are several shortcuts when choosing
destinations: try '<' and '>' to quickly reach the staircases. When
your autotravel gets interrupted, Crawl will remember the previous
destination.  Hitting Ctrl-G again and following with Enter puts
the cursor on that square.  See Appendix 4 for all commands and
shortcuts in level-map mode.

Another use of autotravel is exploration: Ctrl-O makes your character
move to the nearest unexplored area. This can be dangerous - do not
use it when known hostiles are around! Also note that this algorithm
is not optimal: by manual exploration you can save turns, but
auto-explore will usually save real time.

Stashes and Searching:
----------------------
Since you can only carry 52 items, you will occassionally want to
safely stash things away (by dropping them with the 'd' command).
When you want to search for something in your stashes, you can do
this with the Find command (Ctrl-F). The parser even accepts regular
expressions, although you will mostly just need strings like
'mutation', 'heal wounds' etc. You will be presented with a list
of all places where objects matching the search are (or have been)
located; you can then travel there or examine the pile. The Find
command will also search in shop inventories. Furthermore, you can
search for skills like 'long blades' (this will find all weapons
that train the long blades skill) or general terms like 'artefact'.

The above assumes that you use the default option 'stash_tracking
= all'. If for some reasons (e.g. to speed up performance) the value
has been changed, you can press Ctrl-S to tell Crawl that a given
square is considered a stash. Ctrl-E will manually erase stashes.

The Goal:
---------
Your goal is to locate the Orb of Zot, which is held somewhere deep
beneath the world's surface. The Orb is an ancient and incredibly
powerful artifact, and the legends promise great things for anyone
brave enough to extract it from the fearsome Dungeon. Some say it
will grant immortality or even godhood to the one who carries it
into the sunlight; many undead creatures seek it in the hope that
it will restore them to life. But then, some people will believe
anything. Good luck!

Further Help:
-------------
To access Crawl's help menu, press '?'. To get the list of all
commands, press '?' again. A different, more verbose description
of the commands also appears in Appendix 4 of this text. Various
other help texts are available as well, including this manual. You
can also read your character's logbook from there by pressing ':'.
Note that both level map mode and targeting interface have their
own help screens; again, press '?'.

If you don't like the standard keyset (either because some keys do
not work properly, or because you want to decrease the amount of
typing necessary), you can use keymaps and macros. See macro.txt
in the Docs directory, or read it from the in-game help menu.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E.                      EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you kill monsters, you gain experience points (XP). You receive
half normal experience for monsters killed by friendly creatures.
When you get enough XP, you gain an experience level, making your
character more powerful. As they gain levels, characters gain more
hit points, magic points, and spell levels.

Additionally, the experience you gain goes into your experience
pool. This pool of points is used up whenever you practice a skill.
These skills represent proficiency with all areas of endeavour an
ambitious adventurer might need in the dungeons. They range from
different weapon skills (both for close and ranged combat) to many
magical skills and several additional activities like Dodging or
Stabbing. See Appendix 3 for a detailed description of all skills
present in Crawl. The ease with which a character learns a skill
depends solely on race. These aptitudes are hinted at in the list
of species (see Appendix 1).

You can see your character's skills by pressing the 'm' key; the
higher the level of a skill, the better you are at it. Every time
your character gains experience points, those points become available
to increase skills. You convert experience points into skill levels
by practising the skill in question (e.g.  fight with a certain
type of weapon, cast a certain type of spell, or walk around wearing
light armour to practise stealth). The amount of unassigned experience
points is shown next to your experience total on the main screen
as well as on the skills screen, and the number in blue next to
each skill counts up from 0% to 100% as you get closer to gaining
a level in that skill.

You can elect not to practise a particular skill by selecting it
in the skill screen (making it turn dark grey). This means that you
will be less likely to increase that skill when you practise it
(and will also not spend as many experience points on it). This can
be useful for skills like stealth which use up points whenever you
move. It can also be used on a specific weapon skill if you want
to spend more points on Fighting, and similarly with magic skills
and Spellcasting.

Occasionally you fill a manual of a skill which allows to make quick
progress in this area. Whenever you read it, all free experience
is transferred into exercising this particular skill. This can be
done until the manual crumbles, which will occur after a random
number of uses.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
F.                      MONSTERS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the caverns of Crawl, you will find a great variety of creatures,
most of which are displayed by capital or small letters of the
alphabet. Many of them would very much like to eat you. To stop
them from doing this, you will generally need to fight them. To
attack a monster, stand next to it and move in its direction; this
makes you attack it with your wielded weapon. Of course, some
monsters are just too nasty to beat, and you will find that discretion
is often the better part of valour.

There are several other less dangerous methods you can use to kill
monsters. Hunters and similarly oriented characters will prefer
ranged combat to mindless bashing. When wielding some launcher, the
'f' command will fire appropriate missiles. See the section on
Targeting in the Items Chapter for more on this. Likewise, many
magicians will prefer to use spells from a safe distance. They can
use 'Z' to cast spells previously memorised. Again, see the Targeting
section.

Some monsters can be friendly; friendly monsters will follow you
around and fight on your behalf (you gain half the normal experience
points for any kills they make). You can command your allies using
the '!' key, which lets you either shout to attract them or tell
them who to attack. You can also shout to get the attention of all
sleeping monsters in range if, for some reason, you wanted to do
that.

Some special monsters are Uniques. You can identify a unique because
he or she will have a name and personality. Many of these come up
with very nasty ideas how to rid the dungeon of you. Treat them
very carefully, particularly if you meet a unique for the first
time.

Other, even rarer, obstacles are statues. A variety of statues can
appear, ranging from harmless granite ones (who still often signify
something of interest) to really dreadful ones. Be alert whenever
seeing such a statue. The best method to destroy statues is by using
wands of disintegration; you can also bash one into pieces by brute
force, however.

When playing Crawl, you will undoubtedly want to develop a feeling
for the different monster types. For example, some monsters leave
edible corpses, others don't, and still others so sometimes. Guided
by intuition, you will soon figure out which monsters make the best
meals. Likewise, ranged or magic attackers will prove a different
kind of threat from closed combateers. Learn from past deaths and
remember which monsters pose the most problems. Try to treat problem
opponents with different measures in future encounters.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
G.                      ITEMS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the dungeons of Crawl there are many different kinds of normal
and magical artifacts to be found and used. Some of them are useful,
some are nasty, and some give great power, but at a price. Some
items are unique; these have interesting properties which can make
your life rather bizarre for a while.  They all fall into several
classes of items, each of which is used in a different way. Here
is a general list of what you might find in the course of your
adventures, how these are displayed, and what commands there are
to use them:

)       weapons         (use 'w'ield)
(       ammunition      (use 't'hrow or 'f'ire)
[       armour          (use 'W'ear and 'T'ake off)
%       food            (use 'e'at; also 'D'issect for corpses)
?       scrolls         (use 'r'ead)
!       potions         (use 'q'uaff)
/       wands           (use 'z'ap)
=       rings           (use 'P'ut on and 'R'emove)
"       amulets         (use 'P'ut on and 'R'emove)
\       staves, rods    (use 'w'ield for staves; 'E'voke for rods)
+       spellbooks      (use 'r'ead and 'M'emorise and 'Z'ap)
}       miscellaneous   (use generally 'w'ield and 'E'voke)

There are several general keys for item management:
'd'     drop item
'g'     pick up item from the ground (also with the comma key ',')
        for several items press 'g' or ',' twice to get a pickup menu
'='     reassign item slot (works also for spells slots)
'i'     shows inventory
'v'     examine item
'}'     inscribe item
'\'     check list of already discovered items

Item usage:
-----------
You pick items up with the 'g'et or ',' (comma) command and drop
them with the 'd'rop command. When you are given a prompt like "drop
which item?", if you type a number before the letter of the item,
you will drop that quantity of the item.  (similarly when picking
up). Note that picking up items from one square takes exactly one
turn. You can drop multiple items by pressing 'd' and then '@';
dropping several items in one go takes _more_ turns, so be careful
here.

Typing 'i' displays your inventory (what you are carrying). When
you are given a prompt like "Throw [or wield, wear, etc] which
item?", you usually get a list of all available options (this
behaviour can be changed with the auto_list option).  You can press
'*' in case you want to wield something unusual. When the inventory
screen shows "-more-", to show you that there is another page of
items, you can type the letter of the item you want, even if it is
not visible, instead of pressing Space or Enter to see the next
page.

You can carry at most 52 items at once, and the total weight is
bounded by your carrying capacity. Both of these are printed at the
top of the inventory screen.

You can use the adjust command (the '=' key) to change the letters
to which your possessions are assigned. This command can be used
to change spell letters, too.

Some items can be stickycursed, in which case they weld themselves
to your body when you use them. Such items usually carry some kind
of disadvantage: a weapon or armour may be damaged or negatively
enchanted, while rings can have all manner of unpleasant effects
on you. If you are lucky, you might find magic which can rid you
of cursedness for welded items.

Items like scrolls, potions, and some other types each have a
characteristic, like a label or a colour, which will let you tell
them apart on the basis of their function. However, these characteristics
change between each game, so while in one game every potion of
healing may be yellow, in another game they might all be purple and
bubbly. Once you have discovered the function of such an item, you
will remember it for the rest of the current game. You can access
your item discoveries with the '\' key.

The 'v' key, which gives you a description of what an item does,
is very useful. Try this when comparing different types of armours
and weapons, but don't expect too much information from examining
unidentified items.

Another useful command is the '{' key, which lets you inscribe items
with a comment. You can also inscribe commands; in particular
inscribing '=k' will cause the item to be completely ignored from
then on (it can only be picked up if all items on that square have
the '=k' mark). An item with '@w9' can be wielded with the command
'w9', regardless of its actual item slot (here 'w'ield could be
replaced by any sensible command key, using '*' signifies all keys
at once; and any digit could be substituted for '9'). An item with
'!w' demands confirmation before wielding. For more on this, and
especially auto-inscription, see crawl-options.txt.

) Weapons:
----------
These are rather important. You will find a variety of weapons in
the dungeon, ranging from small and quick daggers to huge, cumbersome
battleaxes and pole-arms. Each type of weapon does a different
amount of damage, has a different chance of hitting its target, and
takes a different amount of time to swing. There are several weapon
skills (press 'm' to show a list of those that you are training)
like Short Blades, Long Blades, Axes, Unarmed Combat etc.  These
skills affect damage, accuracy, and speed.

Weapons can be enchanted; when they are identified, they have values
which tell you how much more effective they are than an unenchanted
version. The first number is the enchantment to-hit, which affects
the weapon's accuracy, and the second is its damage enchantment;
weapons which are not enchanted are simply '+0'. Some weapons also
have special magical effects which make them very effective in
certain situations. Some types of hand weapons (especially daggers,
spears and hand axes) are quite effective when thrown.

You can wield weapons with the 'w' command, which is a very quick
action. If for some reason you want to go bare-handed, type 'w'
followed by a hyphen ('-').  Note that weapons are not the only
class of item which you can wield.

The ' (apostrophe) key is a shortcut which automatically wields
item a. If item a is being wielded, ' causes you to wield item b
instead, if possible. Try assigning the letter a to your primary
weapon, and b to your bow or something else you need to wield only
sometimes. Note that this is just a typing shortcut and is not
functionally different to wielding these items normally.

You can press '(' or ')' to show your primary (wielded) and secondary
(slot b) weapons, as well as the preferred missiles (to be shot
when using 'f' to fire).

( Ammunition:
-------------
If you would rather pick off monsters from a safe distance, you
will need ammunition for your sling, bow, or other appropriate
launcher. Darts are effective when simply thrown; other kinds of
ammunition require you to wield an appropriate device to inflict
worthwhile damage. Ammunition has only one "plus" value, which
affects both accuracy and damage. If you have ammunition suitable
for what you are wielding, the 'f' command will choose the first
lot in your inventory, or you can use the 't' command to throw
anything. If you are using the right kind of hand weapon, you will
"shoot" the ammunition, otherwise you "throw" it. At times it also
sensible to throw weapons like spears, daggers, or hand axes.

The following paragraph describes how to target monsters using your
ranged attack. The same interface is employed for the casting of
many spells, and the zapping of certain wands.

Targeting:
----------
When throwing something, you are asked for a direction. There are several ways 
to tell Crawl which monster to target:
 - Typing Shift-direction on your keypad fires straight away in that direction.
 - Pressing 'p', 't' or 'f' fires at the previous target (if still possible).
 - Pressing '+' or '=' cycles between hostile monsters, starting from the one 
   closest to you and proceeding to monster farther away; '-' cycles backwards. 
   Press '.' (period) or Del or Enter or Space to fire at the target. If you 
   press '!', you also fire, but the spell/missile will stop at the target's 
   square if it misses. This is the only way to attack submerged creatures.
   Use Ctrl-F to change which monsters are cycled: hostiles, friends, all.
 - Any direction key will move the cursor; press one of '.', Del, Enter, Space,
   '!' as above if you have selected your target. It is possible to target empty
   spaces, if you want (this can become useful for spells). 
 - Simply pressing '.' or Del or Enter at the prompt causes you to target
   yourself. This can be useful when zapping certain wands (see below). If the
   action looks more like an accident, you will be asked for confirmation.

[ Armour:
---------
This is also rather important. Most worn armour improves your Armour
Class, which decreases the amount of damage you take when something
injures you.  Unfortunately, the heavier types of armour also hamper
your movement, making it easier for monsters to hit you (i.e.
reducing your evasion score) and making it harder for you to hit
monsters. These effects can be mitigated by a high Armour skill.
Wearing heavy armour also increases your chances of miscasting
spells, an effect which is not reduced by your Armour skill.

A Shield normally affects neither your AC or your evasion, but it
lets you block some of the attacks aimed at you and absorbs some
of the damage you would otherwise receive from things like dragon
breath and lightning bolts. Wearing a shield (especially a large
shield) makes you less effective in hand combat.  Shields are more
effective when you're fighting a small number of foes than when
you're surrounded. There are three types: bucklers, shields, and
large shields.  While it is possible to use bows (or other launchers)
and rods while wearing a shield, you will be much less effective.

Some magical armours have special powers. These powers are sometimes
automatic, affecting you whenever you wear the armour, and sometimes
must be activated with the 'a' command.

You can wear armour with the 'W' command, and take it off with the
'T' command.  With '[' you can have a quick look at your current
gear.

% Food and Carrion:
-------------------
Food is extremely important. You can find many different kinds of
food in the dungeon. If you don't eat when you get hungry, you will
eventually die of starvation. Fighting, carrying heavy loads, casting
spells, and using some magical items will make you hungry. When you
are starving, you fight less effectively as well. You can eat food
with the 'e' command.

You may wish to dine on the corpses of your casualties (unless you
are a Spriggan - these despise meat). Despite the fact that corpses
are represented by the same '%' sign as food, you can't eat them
without first cutting them into pieces with the 'D' command. Being
extremely hungry helps you choke down the raw flesh. Even then, you
should choose your homemade food with great care. In order to dissect
a corpse with the 'D' command, you need to have a proper tool (like
a knife or short sword). Cutting off the least bad parts will take
some turns and produce a number of 'chunks' eventually. These can
then be eaten with 'e' command as above. Crawl will automatically
switch to an uncursed butchering tool when you type 'D', and it
will also switch back to your previous weapon as long as you didn't
get interrupted.

Some classes are less restricted about selfmade food: Trolls can
use their claws, so do not need a cutting device. Also Trolls, Orcs,
Ogres, and Kobolds care less (in different degrees) about the quality
of the corpse. Ogres and Trolls are happy to have corpse-snacks
anytime. This does not apply to Ogre Mages, as that race separated
itself from the brutish traits of their distant relatives.

? Magical Scrolls:
------------------
Scrolls have many different magical spells enscribed on them, some
good and some bad. One of the most useful scrolls is the scroll of
Identify, which will tell you the function of any item you have in
your inventory; save these up for the more powerful and inscrutable
magic items, like rings. You can read scrolls (and by doing so
invoke their magic) with the 'r' command.

! Magical Potions:
------------------
While scrolls tend to affect your equipment or your environment,
most potions affect your character in some way. The most common
type is the simple healing potion, which restores some hit points
and cures many ailments, but there are many other varieties of
potions to be found. Potions can be quaffed (drunk) with the 'q'
command. Try to avoid drinking poisonous potions!  By the way, you
can also drink from fountains you encounter in the dungeon.

/ Wands:
--------
Sometimes you will be lucky enough to find a stick which contains
stored magical energies. Wands each have a certain amount of charges,
and a wand will cease to function when its charges run out. You
must identify a wand to find out how many uses it has left. Wands
are aimed in the same way as missile weapons, and you can invoke
the power of a wand by 'z'apping it. There are a number of beneficial
wands like hasting which can be sensibly targeted at yourself.

=" Rings and Amulets:
---------------------
Magical rings are among the most useful of the items you will find
in the dungeon, but can also be some of the most hazardous. They
transfer various magical abilities onto their wearer, but powerful
rings like rings of regeneration or invisibility make you hunger
very quickly when they are activated. Use the 'P' command to put
on rings, and 'R' to remove them.  You can wear up to two rings
simultaneously, one on each hand; which hand you put a ring on is
immaterial to its function. If you try to put on a ring while both
ring fingers are full, you will be asked which one to remove. Some
rings function automatically, while others require activation (the
'a' command).

Amulets are similar to rings, but have a different range of effects
(which tend to be more subtle). Amulets are worn around the neck,
and you can wear only one at a time.

You can press '"' to quickly check what jewellry you're wearing.

\ Staves:
---------
There are a number of types of magical staves. Some enhance your
general spellcasting ability, while some greatly increase the power
of a certain class of spells (and possibly reduce your effectiveness
with others).

Some are spell staves (called 'rods' in the game), and hold spells
which you can cast without having to memorise them first and without
consuming food. You must wield a rod like a weapon in order to gain
from its power, and magical staves are as effective as +0 quarterstaves
in combat. Rods can be invoked with the 'E' command while you are
wielding them. They have a pool of magical energy which regenerates
rather quickly when you are wielding it (drawing from your own
Magic), or at a much slower rate when it just sits in your backpack.

+ Books:
--------
Most books contain magical spells which your character may be able
to learn. You can read a book with the 'r' command, which lets you
access a description of each spell, or memorise spells from it with
the 'M' command. Use 'Z' to cast previously memorised spells. For
spells demanding a target, the comments on using missile weapons
apply.

Some books have other special effects, and powerful spellbooks have
been known to punish the attentions of incompetent magicians.
Occasionally you will find manuals of some skill. Reading these
will cause your free experience to go straight into that skill.

{ Miscellaneous:
----------------
These are items which don't fall into any other category. You can
use many of them by wielding and 'E'voking them. You can also use
some other special items (such as some weapons) by invoking them
in this way. Runes, a particular item in this category, have no
function whatsoever except to open the endgame.  You must collect
at least three in order to enter the Realm of Zot.

Racial Items:
-------------
Some items have been crafted by members of a gifted race, and have
special properties. In addition, items made by a specific race work
better in the hands of people of that race.

Dwarven weapons and armours are very durable, and do not rust or
corrode easily.

Orcish (cross)bows are particularly effective with orcish arrows/bolts.
In general, Orcs do better with gear from their own kin.

Elven armour is unusually light, and does not affect the dodging
or stealth of its wearer to the extent that other armours do. Elven
cloaks and boots are particularly useful to those who wish to be
stealthy, and elven bows are particularly effective in conjunction
with elven arrows.

Centaurs and Nagas have uniquely shaped bodies. With luck, however,
a character of these species might find a Centaur or Naga barding.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
H.                      SPELLCASTING
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Magical spells are a very important part of surviving in the dungeon.
Every character class can make use of magical spells, although those
who enter the dungeon without magical skills must practise by reading
scrolls before they can attempt spellcasting.

There are many skills related to magic, the principal one being
Spellcasting.  This determines the number of Magic available and
higher Spellcasting helps at several places when spells are involved.
Next there are several general areas (Conjuration, Enchantment,
Summoning, Necromancy, Translocation, Transmigration, and Divination)
as well as several elemental areas (Fire, Ice, Air, and Earth) and,
finally, Poison. A particular spell can belong (and thus train) to
up to three areas. Being good in the areas of a spell will improve
the casting chance and in many cases the effect as well.

Spells are stored in books, which you will occasionally find in the
dungeon. You can read books with 'r' to check what spells they
contain; doing so will allow you to read the individual spells'
desriptions. In order to try to memorise a certain spell, use the
'M' command. Memorising can take a while.

Each spell has a Level. A spell's level denotes the amount of skill
required to use it and indicates how powerful it may be. You can
only memorise a certain number of levels of spells; type 'M' to
find out how many. When you gain experience levels or advance the
Spellcasting skill, your maximum increases; you will need to save
up for several levels to memorise the more powerful spells. When
you cast a spell, you temporarily expend some of your magical energy
as well as becoming hungrier (although more intelligent spellcasters
hunger less quickly from using magic).

You activate a memorised spell by pressing 'Z' (for Zap). The spells
available are labelled with letters; you are free to change this
labelling with the '=' command. You can assign both lowercase and
uppercase letters to spells. Some spells, for example most damage
dealing ones, require a target. This is done in the same way as
throwing projectiles: choose a target with the '+' or '-' keys or
just move the cursor there manually and press '.' (or Enter or Space
or Del) to fire; or press Shift-direction to shoot straight away
in that direction.  Press '?' for targeting help or see appendix 4
for a list of all commands.

High level spells are difficult to cast, and you may miscast them
every once in a while (resulting in a waste of magic and possibly
dangerous side-effects).  Your chance of failing to cast a spell
properly depends on your skills, your intelligence, the level of
the spell and whether you are wearing heavy armour.  Failing to
cast a spell exercises your spell skills, but not by as much as
casting it successfully.

Many of the more powerful spells carry disadvantages or risks; you
should read the spell description (obtained by reading the spellbook
in which you found the spell) before casting anything.

There is a completely different way to the use spells: via rods.
These are magical staves holding a number of spells. Rods store a
certain number of magic points, which are used for powering the
spells they contain; when not fully charged, they regenerate magic
points from their holder's pool (this happens much more quickly if
the rod is wielded.) You can spend scrolls of recharging on rods
in order to increase the maximal size of their magical reservoir.
The effectiveness of your rod's spells are gouverned by your
Evocations skill.

Be careful of magic-using enemies! Some of them can use magic just
as well as you, if not better, and often use it intelligently.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I.                      RELIGION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are a number of Gods, Demons, and other assorted Powers who
will accept your character's worship, and sometimes give out favours
in exchange. You can use the '^' command to check the requirements
of whoever it is that you worship, and if you find religion to be
an inconvenience you can always renounce your faith (use the 'a'
command - but some Gods resent being scorned!).

The 'p' command lets you pray to your God. Anything you do while
praying, you do in your God's name - this is how you dedicate your
kills or corpse-sacrifices ('D' command) to your God, for example.
Note that not all gods like this.  Praying also gives you a sense
of what your God thinks of you, and can be used to sacrifice things
at altars.

To use any powers which your God deems you fit for, access the
abilities menu with the 'a' command; God-given abilities are listed
as invocations.

Some classes start out religious; others have to pray at an altar
to dedicate themselves to a life of servitude. There are altars
scattered all over the dungeon, and your character has heard rumours
of a special temple somewhere near the surface. At an altar, you
can read a description of that god's general attitude by pressing
'p'. You will be asked afterwards if you really want to attend this
circle.

If you like to start the game with a religion, choose your class
from healer, priest, paladin, berserker, or chaos knight.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J.                      MUTATIONS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although it would doubtless be a nice thing if you could remain
genetically pure, there are too many toxic wastes and mutagenic
radiations in the Dungeon for that to be possible. If your character
is so affected by these that he or she undergoes physiological
change, you can use the 'A' command to see how much of a freak
they've become and the 'a' command to activate any mutations which
can be controlled. Many mutations are actually beneficial to the
characters, but there are plenty of nasty ones as well. Many mutations
have three levels, each of which counts as a single mutation. Some
changes to the primary attributes Strength, Intelligence, and
Dexterity (apart from those by levelling) are also handled as
mutations - in particular, these are not necessarily permanent.

You can also become mutated by overusing certain powerful enchantments,
particularly Haste (not the kind you get from being berserk) and
Invisibility, as your system absorbs too much magical energy - but
you would have to spend almost all of your time hasted or invisible
to be affected. However, some powerful items radiate dangerous
levels of magical energy. More often than not, the mutations caused
by magical radiations express harmfully.

Furthermore, certain corpses are mutagenic, and there are traps
with mutation effects. There are some spells invoking mutations.

It is much more difficult to get rid of bad mutations. A lucky
mutation attempt can actually remove mutations. However, the only
sure-fire way is to quaff a potion of cure mutation, which will
attempt to remove three random mutations.

A special case are Demonspawn. Characters of this species get certain
special powers during their career; these are listed in red. They
are permanent and can never be removed. If one of your Demonspawn
powers has been augmented by a mutation, it is displayed in a lighter
red colour.

Many a race starts with some special intrinsic feats, like the
greater speed of Centaurs or Spriggans and the eating habits of
Trolls, Ogres, and others.  These are often, but not always, like
a preset mutation. In case such an innate feature gets amplified
by an ordinary mutation, it is displayed in a light blue colour.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
K.                      KEYMAPS, MACROS, OPTIONS, PERFORMANCE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crawl supports redefining keys via key maps. This is useful when
your keyboard layout makes some key awkward to use. You can also
define macros: these are command sequences which can make playing
a great deal more convenient. Note that mapping 'a' to some other
key will treat almost all pressings of 'a' in that new way (including
dropping and wielding etc.), so is not recommended.  Macroing 'a'
to some other key will only change the command key 'a'.

You can set up key maps and macros in-game with the ~ key; this
also allows for saving all current key bindings and macros.
Alternatively, you can directly edit the macros.txt file. For more
information on both and for examples, see crawl_macros.txt.

Crawl supports a large number of options that allow for great
flexibility in the interface. They are fully documented in the file
crawl_options.txt.  The options themselves are set in the file
~/.crawlrc (for UNIX systems - copy over init.txt to ~/.crawlrc)
or init.txt (for Windows).

Several interface routines are outsourced to external Lua scripts.
The standard distribution has them in the Lua directory. Have a
look at the single scripts for short descriptions.

Generally, Crawl should run swiftly on all machines (it compiles
out of the box for Linux, Windows, OS/X, and to some lesser extent
DOS and Unix). If, for some reason, you find Crawl runs unacceptably
slowly on your machine, there are a few measures which may improve
the situation:
 - avoid greedy autoexplore 
 - set the option stash_tracking = explicit 
 - set travel_delay = 0 to avoid screen output (this might 
   be useful if playing on a remote server)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
L.                      LICENCE, CONTACT, HISTORY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Licence:        Read Licence.txt for information about the Crawl licence (which 
                is practically identical to the Nethack GPL).

Disclaimer:     This software is provided as is, with absolutely no warranty 
                express or implied. Use of it is at the sole risk of the user. 
                No liability is accepted for any damage to the user or to any 
                of the user's possessions.

If you want to discuss Crawl, it's best to stick to the long-standing newsgroup 
                rec.games.roguelike.misc.
Flag queries with -crawl- as other games are discussed there, as well. All 
topics related to this game usually meet a warm response there, including tales
of victories (going under 'YAVP', i.e. 'Yet Another Victory Post'), especially
first victories (YAFVP) as well as sad stories of deceased characters (being
'YAAD' or 'YASD', i.e. 'Yet Another Annoying/Stupid Death'). 
Some players, especially those on crawl.akrasiac.org, also frequent ##crawl
on IRC's freenode network.

The Stone Soup branch of Dungeon Crawl has its own homepage located at
                http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net
Use this page for direct links to downloads of the most recent version. You can
also submit bug reports and feature requests there. Be sure to make sure that 
your bug/feature isn't already in the list. For more complicated requests, it 
might be a good idea to discuss them in the newsgroup first.

The history of Crawl is somewhat twisted, as is the case with many
open-source projects of this size. It started in 1995, when Australian
based Linley Henzell decided to create a game that takes its cue
from Angband and Nethack but avoids several things annoying him in
both these games. Progress was made rapidly, and Linley produced
Crawl versions up to 3.30 in March 1999. During this time all of
the basic design principles discussed in the next section were
already established. Further work was then carried out by a group
of developers who released 3.40 in February 2000. Of them, Brent
Ross emerged as the single maintainer, producing versions until
4.0.0.beta26 in 2002. After a long period of silent work, he went
a great step by releasing 4.1.2alpha in August 2005.  This version
is generally considered unplayable due to severe balancing issues.
It is likewise accepted, however, that 4.1.2 contained many valuable
ideas for future progress. In the meantime, several patchers appeared,
improving Crawl's interface tremendously. Several of them formed a
new devteam; after figuring out that rebalancing 4.1.2 threatened
to become an impossible task, they created a new branch. This was
coined Stone Soup for some reason, and is the game this manual
describes.

It should be mentioned that there have been other Crawl variants
over the years, among them Ax-Crawl by... and Tile Crawl by....

>> Find names and dates (I think it shows generosity if we allude to the other 
>> branches. We are creating the Right Crawl, of course :)
>> Mention the current TileCrawl adaption of Stone Soup.
>> [r] Is there any reason not to explain the name "Stone Soup?"

The object of your quest in Crawl (the Orb of Zot) was taken from
Wizard's Castle, a text adventure written in BASIC.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
M.                      PHILOSOPHY (pas de faq)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You may ponder about the wisdom of certain design decisions of
Crawl. This section tries to explain some of them. It could also
be of interest if you are used to other roguelikes and want a bit
of background on the differences. In a nutshell, prime mainstays
of Crawl development are the following, most of which are explained
in more detail below. Note that almost of all of these date back
to Linley's first versions.

 o avoidance of grinding (a.k.a. scumming)
 o in particular, permalevels, shops won't buy, food clock
 o clarity, i.e. playability without access to spoilers
>> o consistency
 o class/race differentiation using skills and aptitudes
 o killing no-brainers (well, we try), in particular, no permanent intrinsics
 o replayability (using branches, extended endgames, different styles, and gods)
 o out of depth monsters
 o gameplay supporting interface _and_ newbie support

One basic design principle is avoidance of grinding (also known as
scumming).  These are activities that have low risk, take a lot of
time, and bring some reward. This is bad for a game's design because
it encourages players to bore themselves. We try to avoid this!

This explains why shops don't buy: otherwise players would hoover
the dungeon for items to sell. Of course, there are gods accepting
all kinds of sacrifices (and thus altar hoovering) but there are
generally better ways to increase piety there. Another instance:
there's no infinite commodity available: food, monster and item
generation is generally not enough to support infinite play. Not
messing with lighting also falls into this category: there might
be a benefit to mood when players have to carry candles/torches,
but we don't see any gameplay benefit as yet. The deep tactical
gameplay Crawl aims for necessitates permanent dungeon levels.  Many
a time characters have to choose between descending or battling.
While caution is a virtue in Crawl, as it is in many other roguelikes,
there are strong forces driving characters deeper.

Another key feature is clarity: things ought to work in an intuitive
way.  Crawl definitely is winnable without spoiler access (unlike
some other games).  Concerning important but hidden details (i.e.
facts subject to spoilers) our policy is this: the joy of discovering
something spoily is nice, once. (And disappears before it can start
if you feel you need to/must read spoilers - a legitimate feeling.)
The joy of dealing with ever-changing, unexpected, and challenging
strategic and tactical situations that arise out of transparent
rules, on the other hand, is nice again and again.

>> Consistency: this ws brought up by Erik, but the paragraph is still missing.

The skills and aptitude system is one factor encouraging strategic
play. It also serves to clearly differentiate the many species,
thus providing replayability, in particular since the class/race
combinations are by no means homogeneous in difficulty. Note that
a rough idea about aptitudes is definitely enough to win, yet players
can optimise here, as well. It can be said that race differentiation
is still not finished - what sets the High and Grey Elves really
apart?  A weak spot of the current skill system is 'victory dancing',
where characters spend experience accumulated in a big battle with
stupid actions (like casting Magic Dart at the wall) in order to
increase specific skills.

A very important point in Crawl is steering away from nobrainers.
Speaking about games in general, wherever there's a no-brainer,
that means the development team put a lot of effort into providing
a "choice" that's really not an interesting choice at all. And
that's a horrible lost opportunity for fun.  Examples for this are
the resistances: there are very few permanent sources, most involve
a choice (like rings or specific armour) or are only semi-permanent
(like mutations). Another example is the absence of clearcut best
items, which comes from the fact that most artifacts are randomly
generated. Furthermore, even fixed artifacts cannot be wished for,
as scrolls of acquirement produce random items in general. Likewise,
there are no sure-fire means of life saving (the closest equivalent
are controlled blinks, and good religious standings for some deities).

Concerning replayability again, Crawl's dungeon layout was also
constructed with this in mind: even veteran players will find the
Hells exciting (which themselves are construed such that life
endangering situations can always pop up - this tries to avoid the
walking tank phenomenon). Another strong point is the religous
system, because Crawl allows you to choose gods in the game,
regardless of class or race (and even to switch to other gods).
Likewise, there are many fundamentally different playing styles to
discover (melee oriented fighter, stabber, etc.). There have been
even deliberate design choices that allow meta-styles: For example,
Mummies do not need to eat and so are principally suited for a
infinite play. On the precise opposite end, players who prefer to
be rewarded for accepting a more severe "clock" can play Demigods
with their near-godly stats, or centaurs, with amazing missile
skills and the speed to take advantage of them. Draconians, on the
other hand, reveal their adult form (including aptitudes, and
sometimes resistances) only at level 7.  These are a deviation from
the usual rule that after choosing a race, the complete future of
that character lies in the hand of the player. Nearly every race
in the game "offers" a style of its own like the above! Sadly,
however, at present some do so far less than others.

From time to time a discussion about Crawl's unfair OOD (out of
depth) monsters turns up, like a dragon on the second dungeon level.
These are not bugs! They serve as motivation, first of all: in many
cases, such a situation can be survived somehow and the mental bond
to the character will then surely grow. OOD monsters also help to
keep more experienced players on their toes. The same can be said
of uniques.

Finally, the interface of Crawl is designed to be understood at a
glance and to support gameplay as far as possible. In particular,
it should make tedious activities (like making notes of important
stashed items, or doing long travels) less tedious. This is how
interlevel travel, autoexplore, the stash tracker, the dump file,
inscriptions, and macros got into the game.

Still, we make a lot of effort to care for new players (who naturally
have no access to most of these utilities). In particular, all
information should be clearly available and documented in-game. We
hope to have achieved this at least partially.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.                      LIST OF CHARACTER SPECIES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Human:
------
Humans tend to be hardworking and industrious, and learn new things
quickly. The human race is the most versatile of all the species
available to players: humans can be of any class. Humans advance
quickly in levels and have equal abilities in all skills.

Elves:
------
There are a number of distinct races of elf. Elves are all physically
slight but long-lived people, quicker-witted than humans but sometimes
slower to learn new things. Elves are especially good at using those
skills which require a degree of finesse, such as stealth,
sword-fighting and archery, but tend to be poor at using brute force
and inelegant forms of combat. They find heavy armour to be
uncomfortable, and make the finest, lightest armours to be found
anywhere. Elves are particularly good at using elven weapons.

Due to their fey natures, all elves are good at using enchantments
and air elemental magic and most are poor at invoking the powers
of earth and death (necromancy).

  (Common) Elves:
  ---------------
  Those of the most common strain are referred to simply as elves or, when 
  they're not listening, common elves. Common elves have good intelligence
  and dexterity, but suffer a bit in strength. They have slightly fewer HP and
  slightly more magic than humans, and advance in experience a bit more slowly.

  High Elves:
  -----------
  High elves are a tall and powerful elven race who advance in levels very
  slowly, requiring half again as much experience as do humans. They share the
  same attributes as common elves in most respects, but their strengths and
  weaknesses tend to be more pronounced.

  Grey Elves:
  -----------
  Grey elves also advance slowly, but not as slowly as high elves. They excel
  at using short and long swords and bows, but are poor at other fighting
  skills. They are excellent at all forms of magic except for necromancy.

  Deep Elves:
  -----------
  The deep elves are an elven race who long ago fled the overworld to live in
  darkness underground. There they developed their mental powers, evolving a
  natural gift for all forms of magic (including necromancy and earth magic),
  and adapted physically to their new environment, becoming shorter and weaker
  than other elves and losing all colouration. They are poor at hand-to-hand
  combat but excellent at fighting from a distance.
 
  Sludge Elves:
  -------------
  Sludge elves are a somewhat degenerate race of elves. They are mirror images
  of normal elves in some respects: they have no special proficiency with bows
  or swords (long or short), nor do they have any aptitude in the traditional
  areas of high elven magic (enchantments, conjurations and divinations). On
  the other hand, they are superlative transmuters, and are comfortable
  dabbling in necromantic, poison and elemental magic. As fighters they are
  often more dangerous unarmed than armed. They advance in level slightly
  faster than their common brethren.

Dwarves:
--------
Dwarves are short, hardy people. They love to fight, and often
venture forth from their subterranean cities to seek fame and fortune
through battle. Their armour and weapons are very well-crafted and
much more durable than the products of lesser artisans. Dwarves are
particularly dangerous when using dwarven weaponry.

  Hill Dwarves:
  -------------
  Hill dwarves are extremely robust but are poor at using magic. They are
  excellent at hand combat, especially favouring axes or bludgeoning weapons,
  and are good at using armour and shields, but are poor at missile combat or at
  using pole-arms (which are usually too big for them to wield comfortably).
  The only forms of magic which they can use with even a minimal degree of
  aptitude are earth, fire, and conjurations. They advance in levels at a 
  similar rate to common elves.

  Mountain Dwarves:
  -----------------
  Mountain dwarves come from the larger, more civilised communities of the
  mountains. They advance slightly more quickly than hill dwarves and are almost
  as robust while having similar aptitudes, but are slightly worse at fighting 
  while being slightly better at more civilised pursuits.

Halflings:
----------
Halflings, who are named for being about half the size of humans,
live in small villages. They live simple lives and have simple
interests. Sometimes a particularly restless halfling will leave
his or her village in search of adventure.

Halflings are very small and are among the least robust of any
character species. Although only average at most fighting skills,
they can use short blades well and are good at all forms of missile
combat. They are also very stealthy and good at dodging and stabbing,
but are poor at magic (except enchantments and, for some reason,
translocations). They advance in levels as rapidly as humans.
Halflings cannot wield large weapons.

Gnomes:
-------
Gnomes are an underground-dwelling race of creatures, related to
the dwarves but even more closely in touch with the earth.

They are quite small, and share many characteristics with halflings
(except for the great agility), although they advance slightly more
slowly in experience levels. They are okay at most skills, but
excellent at earth elemental magic and very poor at air magic.

Occasionally they can use their empathy with the earth to sense
their surroundings; this ability increases in power as they gain
experience levels.

Hill Orcs:
----------
Hill orcs are orcs from the upper world who, jealous of the riches
which their cousins the cave orcs possess below the ground, descend
in search of plunder and adventure.

Hill orcs are as robust as the hill dwarves, but have very low
reserves of magical energy. Their forte is brute-force fighting,
and they are skilled at using most hand weapons (with the exception
of short blades, at which they are only fair), although they are
not particularly good at using missile weapons.  They prefer to use
their own weapons. Orcs are poor at using most types of magic with
the exception of conjurations, necromancy, and earth and fire
elemental magic. They advance as quickly as humans.

Kobolds:
--------
Kobolds are small, ugly creatures with few redeeming features. They
are not the sort of people you would want to spend much time with,
unless you happened to be a kobold yourself.

They have poor abilities and have similar aptitudes to halflings
without the excellent agility. However, they are better than halflings
at using some types of magic, particularly summonings and necromancy.
They often live as scavengers, surviving on carrion (which they can
eat even when not hungry), but are carnivorous and can only eat
meat. They advance in levels as quickly as humans.

The Undead:
-----------
As creatures brought back from beyond the grave they are naturally
immune to poisons, negative energy and torment, have little warmth
left to be affected by cold, and are not susceptible to mutations.

There are two type of undead available to players: Mummies and Ghouls.

  Mummies:
  --------
  Mummies are undead creatures who travel into the depths in search of revenge, 
  redemption, or just because they want to.

  Mummies progress very slowly in level, half again as slowly as humans in
  all skills except fighting, spellcasting and necromancy. As they increase in
  level they become increasingly in touch with the powers of death, but cannot
  use some types of necromancy which only affect living creatures. The side
  effects of necromantic magic tend to be relatively harmless to mummies.
  However, their dessicated bodies are highly flammable. They also do not need
  to eat or drink, and in any case are incapable of doing so.

  Ghouls:
  -------
  Ghouls are horrible undead creatures, slowly rotting away. Although ghouls
  can sleep in their graves for years on end, when they rise to walk among the
  living they must eat flesh to survive. Raw flesh is preferred, especially
  rotting or tainted meat, and ghouls gain strength from consuming it.

  They aren't very good at doing most things, although they make decent fighters
  and, due to their contact with the grave, can use ice, earth and death magic 
  without too many difficulties.

Naga:
-----
Nagas are a hybrid race: humanoid from the waist up with a
large snake tail instead of legs.

They are reasonably good at most things and advance in experience
levels at a decent rate. They are naturally immune to poisons, can
see invisible creatures, and have tough skin, but their tails are
relatively slow and cannot move them around as quickly as can other
creatures' legs (this only affects their movement rate; all other
actions are at normal speed). Their body shape also prevents them
from gaining full protection from most armour. A Naga's biggest
forte is stealth: Nagas are very good at moving unnoticed.

Every now and then, a naga can spit poison; the range, accuracy and
damage of this poison increases with the naga's experience level.

Ogres and Ogre Mages:
---------------------
Ogres are huge, chunky creatures related to orcs. They are terrible
monsters who usually live to do nothing more than smash, smash,
smash, and destroy.

They have great physical strength, but are bad at almost everything
except fighting and learn quite slowly. Because of their large size
they can only wear loose robes, cloaks and animal skins. Although
ogres can eat almost anything, their size means that they need to
do so more frequently than smaller folk.

Ogre-mages are a separate race of ogres who are unique among the
beefier species in their ability to use magic, especially enchantments.
Although slighter than their common ogre relatives they nevertheless
have great strength and can survive a lot of punishment. They advance
in level as slowly as high elves. In contrast to their Ogre cousins,
Ogre Mages have lost the ability to digest corpses when not hungry.

Trolls:
-------
Trolls are like ogres, but even nastier. They have thick, knobbly
skins of any colour from putrid green to mucky brown and their
mouths are full of ichor-dripping fangs.

They can rip creatures apart with their claws, and regenerate very
quickly from even the most terrible wounds. They learn very slowly
indeed - even more slowly than high elves - and need a great amount
of food to survive.

Draconians:
-----------
Draconians are human-dragon hybrids: humanoid in form and approximately
human-sized, with wings, tails and scaly skins. Draconians start
out in an immature form with brown scales, but as they grow in power
they take on a variety of colours. This happens at an early stage
in their career, and the colour is determined by chromosomes, not
by behaviour.

Some types of draconians have breath weapons or special resistances.
Draconians advance very slowly in level, but are reasonably good
at all skills but armour (most types of which they cannot wear) and
missile weapons. Still, each colour has its own strengths and some
have complementary weaknesses, which sometimes requires a bit of
flexibility on the part of the player.

  Red Draconians feel at home in fiery surroundings. They're bad with ice magic
      but very proficient with fire. 
  
  White Draconians stem from frost-bitten lands, and are naturally resistant to
      frost. They are versed in ice magic, but bad at fire.

  Green Draconians are used to venomous surroundings. They are especially 
      good in the arts of poison and without deficiencies in other magic realms.

  Yellow Draconians have sulphurous breath. Unlike other Draconians, they
      need no time to gain back their breath. They are acid resistant, too.

  Grey Draconians have no particular weaknesses or strengths when it comes to
      learning, and they get no breath weapon. Their scales, however, become 
      particularly hard over time, they gain more HP than other draconians, 
      and they grow a spiked tail, making them particularly fit for battle.

  Black Draconians command lightning bolts and are naturally insulated. They are
      good at air magic but feel cumbersome with earth magic.

  Mottled Draconians are somewhat in touch with fire, yet are not weak with 
      ice. Their breath consists of special sticky fire which burns the target.

  Purple Draconians are highly adapted to all spellcasting in general, and to
      Enchantments in particular. They are a bit better at invoking things than
      most other draconians.

  Pale Draconians are slightly biased towards fire magic, and have no 
      restrictions otherwise. They breath steam and have, like their Purple
      cousins, a slight advantage at Evocations.

Centaurs:
---------
The Centaurs are another race of hybrid creatures: horses with a
human torso. They usually live in forests, surviving by hunting.

Centaurs can move very quickly on their four legs, and are excellent
with bows and other missile weapons; they are also reasonable at
the Fighting skill while being slow learners at specific weapon
skills. They advance quite slowly in experience level and are rather
sub-average at using magic. Due to their large bulk, they need a
little extra food to survive.

Demigods:
---------
Demigods are mortals (humans, orcs, or elves, for example) with some
divine or angelic ancestry, however distant; they can be created
by a number of processes including magical experiments and the
time-honoured practice of interplanar miscegenation.

Demigods look more or less like members of their mortal part's race,
but have excellent attributes (strength, int, dex) and are extremely
robust; they can also draw on great supplies of magical energy. On
the downside they advance very slowly in experience, gain skills
slightly less quickly than humans, and due to their status cannot
worship the various Gods and Powers available to other classes of
being.

Spriggans:
----------
Spriggans are small magical creatures distantly related to elves.
They love to frolic and cast mischevious spells.

They are poor fighters, have little physical resilience, and are
terrible at destructive magic - conjurations, summonings, necromancy
and elemental spells.  On the other hand, they are excellent at
other forms of magic and are very good at moving silently and
quickly. So great is their speed that a spriggan can overtake a
centaur.

Minotaurs:
----------
The minotaur is yet another hybrid - a human body with a bovine
head. It delves into the Dungeon because of its instinctive love
of twisting passageways.

Minotaurs are extremely good at all forms of physical combat, but
are awful at using any type of magic. They can wear all armour
except for some headgear.

Demonspawn:
-----------
Demonspawn are horrible half-mortal, half-infernal creatures - the
flip side of the Demigods. Demonspawn can be created in any number
of ways: magical experiments, breeding, unholy pacts, etc. Although
many demonspawn may be indistinguishable from those of pure mortal
stock, they often grow horns, scales or other unusual features.
Powerful members of this class of beings also develop a range of
unholy abilities, which are listed as mutations (and can sometimes
be activated with the 'a' command).

Demonspawn advance quite slowly in experience and learn most skills
at about the same rate as do Demigods. However, they are a little
better at fighting and much better at conjurations, summonings,
necromancy and invocations.

Kenku:
------
The Kenku are an ancient and feared race of bird-people with a
legendary propensity for violence. Basically humanoid with bird-like
heads and clawed feet, the kenku can wear all types of armour except
helmets and boots. Despite their lack of wings, powerful kenku can
fly and very powerful members of this race can stay in the air for
as long as they wish to do so.

They are experts at all forms of fighting, including the magical
arts of combat (conjurations, summonings and, to a lesser extent,
necromancy). They are good at air and fire elemental magic, but
poor at ice and earth magic. Kenku do not appreciate any form of
servitude, and so are poor at using invocations. Their light avian
bodies cannot sustain a great deal of injury.

Merfolk:
--------
The Merfolk are a hybrid race of half-human, half-fish that typically
live in the oceans and rivers and seldom come onto the land. The
merfolk aren't as limited on land as some myths suggest, their tails
will quickly reform into legs once they leave the water (and,
likewise, their legs will quickly reform into a tail should they
ever enter water). Their agility is often misjudged, and they tend
to be surprising nimble on land as well as in the water. Experts
at swimming, they need not fear drowning as they can quickly slip
out of any encumbering armour during the transformation into their
half-fish form.

The Merfolk have developed their martial arts strongly on thrusting
and grappling, since those are the most efficient ways to fight
underwater. They therefore prefer polearms and short swords above
all other weapons, although they can also use longer swords quite
well.

As spellcasters, they tend to be quite good in specific areas. Their
mystical relationship with water makes it easier for them to use
divination, poison, and ice magics... which use water occasionally
as a material component. The legendary water magic of the merfolk
was lost in ancient times, but some of that affinity still remains.
The instability of their own morphogenic matrix has made them very
accomplished transmuters, but most other magics seem foreign to
them.

Note:  Some species have special abilities which can be accessed by the 'a'
-----  abilities menu. Some also have physical characteristics which allow 
       them to make extra attacks using the Unarmed Combat skill.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.                      LIST OF CHARACTER CLASSES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In your quest, you play as one of a number of different types of
characters.  Although each has its own strengths and weaknesses,
some are definitely easier than others, at least to begin with. The
best classes for a beginner are probably Gladiators, Fighters, and
Berserkers; if you really want to play a magician, try a Conjurer.
Each class starts out with a different set of skills and items, but
from there you can shape them as you will.

Fighters:
---------
Fighters start with a decent weapon, a suit of armour, and a shield.
They have a good general grounding in the arts of fighting.

Gladiators:
-----------
The Gladiator is trained to fight in the ring, and so is an expert
in the art of fighting but is not so good at anything else. In fact,
Gladiators are pretty terrible at anything except bashing monsters
with heavy things. They start with a nasty weapon, a small shield,
and armour.

Berserkers:
-----------
Berserkers are hardy warriors who worship Trog the Wrathful, from
whom they get the power to go berserk (as well as a number of other
powers should they prove worthy) but who forbids the use of spell
magic. They enter the dungeon with an axe and a set of leather
armour.

Hunters:
--------
The Hunter is a type of fighter who specialises in missile weapons.
A Hunter starts with a bow and some arrows, as well as a hunting
knife and a set of leathers.

Monks:
------
The Monk is a member of an ascetic order dedicated to the perfection
of one's body and soul through the discipline of the martial arts.
Monks start with very little equipment, but can survive without the
weighty weapons and spellbooks needed by other classes.

Thieves:
--------
The Thief is one of the trickiest classes to play. Thieves start
out with a large variety of useful skills, and need to use all of
them to survive. Thieves start with a short sword, some throwing
darts, and light armour.

Assassin:
---------
An Assassin is a thief who is especially good at killing. Assassins
are like thieves in most respects, but are more dangerous in combat.

Stalkers:
---------
The stalker is an assassin who has trained in the use of poison magic.

Crusaders:
----------
The Crusader is a decent fighter who can use the magical art of
enchantment to become more dangerous in battle. Crusaders start out
lightly armed and armoured, but equipped with a book of martial
spells.

Reavers:
--------
Reavers are warriors who learn the magics of destruction in order
to complement their deadliness in hand combat.

Death Knights:
--------------
The Death Knight is a fighter who aligns him or herself with the
powers of death. There are two types of Death Knights: those who
worship and draw their abilities from the Demon-God Yredelemnul,
and those who study the fearsome arts of necromancy.

Chaos Knights:
--------------
The Chaos Knight is a fighter who chooses to serve one of the Gods
of Chaos.  There are two choices: Xom or Makhleb. Xom is a very
unpredictable (and possibly psychotic) entity who rewards or punishes
according to whim. Makhleb the Destroyer is a more purposeful God,
who appreciates destruction and offers a variety of very violent
powers to the faithful.

Paladins:
---------
The Paladin is a servant of the Shining One, and has many of the
abilities of the Fighter and the Priest. He or she enters the dungeon
with a sword, a shield, a robe, and a healing potion.

Priests:
--------
Priests serve either Zin, the ancient and revered God of Law, or
the rather less pleasant Death-God Yredelemnul. Although priests
enter the dungeon with a mace (as well as a priestly robe and a few
healing potions), this is purely the result of an archaic tradition
the reason for which has been lost in the mists of time; Priests
are not in any way restricted in their choice of weapon skills.

Healers:
--------
The Healer is a priest of Elyvilon. Healers begin with minor healing
powers, but can gain far greater abilities in the long run.

Magicians: These are not a class, but a type of class, including
Wizards, Conjurers, Enchanters, Summoners, Necromancers, various
Elementalists, Venom Mages, Transmuters and Warpers. A magician is
the best at using magic. Magicians start with a dagger, a robe, and
a book of spells which should see them through the first several
levels.

Wizard:
-------
A Wizard is a magician who does not specialise in any area of magic.
Wizards start with a variety of magical skills and the magic dart
spell in memory.

Conjurer:
---------
The Conjurer specialises in the violent and destructive magic of
conjuration spells. Like the Wizard, the Conjurer starts with the
magic dart spell.

Enchanter:
----------
The Enchanter specialises in the more subtle area of enchantment
magic.  Although not as directly powerful as conjurations, high-level
enchantments offer a wide range of very handy effects. The Enchanter
begins with lightly enchanted weapons and armour, but no direct
damage spell (since enchantments do not deal with direct attacks).
Instead they begin with the "confusing touch" spell and some enchanted
darts, which should help them out until they can use the higher
level enchantment spells.

Summoner:
---------
The Summoner specialises in calling creatures from this and other
worlds to give assistance. Although they can at first summon only
very wimpy creatures, the more advanced summoning spells allow
summoners to call on such powers as elementals and demons.

Necromancer:
------------
The Necromancer is a magician who specialises in the less pleasant
side of magic. Necromantic spells are a varied bunch, but many
involve some degree of risk or harm to the caster.

Elementalists:
--------------
Elementalists are magicians who specialise in one of the four types
of elemental magic: air, fire, earth, or ice.

    Fire Magic tends towards destructive conjurations.

    Ice Magic offers a balance between destructive conjurations and
    protective enchantments.

    Air Magic provides many useful enchantments in addition to some
    unique destructive capabilities.

    Earth Magic is a mixed bag, with destructive, defensive and utility
    spells available.

Venom Mages:
------------
Venom mages specialise in poison magic, which is extremely useful
in the shallower levels of the dungeon where few creatures are
immune to it. Poison is especially effective when used against
insects.

Transmuters:
------------
Transmuters specialise in transmigrations, and can cause strange
changes in themselves and others.

Warpers:
--------
Warpers specialise in translocations, and are experts in travelling
long distances and positioning themselves precisely.

Wanderers:
----------
Wanderers are people who have not learned a specific trade.  Instead,
they've travelled around becoming "Jacks-of-all-trades, masters of
none". They start the game with a large assortment of skills and
maybe some small items they picked up along the way, but other than
that they're pretty much on their own.  Non-human wanderers might
not even know which skills they have (since they haven't quite
learned enough for one full level), and therefore make for an
additional challenge. You shouldn't expect human wanderers to be
easy either, as this class is typically harder to play than the
other classes.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.                      LIST OF SKILLS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is a description of the skills you may have. You can check
your current skills with the 'm' command, and therein toggle between
progress display and aptitude display using '!'. You can also read
the table of aptitudes from the help menu using '?%'.

Fighting skills:
----------------  
Fighting is the basic skill used in hand-to-hand combat, and applies
no matter which weapon your character is wielding (if any). Fighting is
also the skill that determines the number of hit points your
character gets as they increase in level (note that this is calculated
so that you don't get a long run advantage by starting out with a
high fighting skill).

Weapon skills affect your ability to fight with specific melee weapons.
Weapon skills include:

     o  Short Blades
     o  Long Blades
     o  Maces & Flails
     o  Axes
     o  Staves
     o  Polearms

If you are already good at a weapon, say a long sword, and you
practise for a while with similar weapon such as a short sword,
your practise will be speeded up (and will require less experience)
until both skills are equal. Similar types of weapons include:

     o  Short Blades and Long Blades
     o  Maces & Flails and Axes
     o  Polearms and Axes
     o  Staves and Polearms

Being good at a specific weapon improves the speed with which you
can use it by about 10% every two skill levels. Although lighter
weapons are easier to use initially, as they strike quickly and
accurately, heavier weapons increase in damage potential very quickly
as you improve your skill with them.

Unarmed Combat is a special fighting skill. It allows your character
to make a powerful attack when unarmed and also to make special
secondary attacks (and increases the power of those attacks for
characters who get them anyway). You can practise Unarmed Combat
by attacking empty-handed, and it is also exercised when you make
a secondary attack (a kick, punch etc). Unarmed combat is particularly
difficult to use in combination with heavy armour or shields or
very big weapons.

Ranged combat skills:
---------------------
Ranged Combat is the basic skill used when throwing or shooting
things, and there are a number of individual weapon skills for
missile weapons as well:

     o  Darts
     o  Bows
     o  Crossbows
     o  Slings

>> There must be more here, but I seriously do not know what to write.
>> Time crunch for this release, but I can write more soon [r]

Magic skills:
-------------
Spellcasting is the basic skill for magic use, and affects your
reserves of magical energy in the same way that Fighting affects
your hit points. Every time you increase your spellcasting skill
you gain some magic points and spell levels. Spellcasting is a very
difficult skill to learn, and requires a large amount of practice
and experience.

Only those characters with at least one magic skill at level one
or above can learn magical spells. If your character has no magic
skills, he or she can learn the basic principles of the hermetic
arts by reading and reciting the spells inscribed on magical scrolls
(this stops being useful once you reach level one in Spellcasting).

There are also individual skills for each different type of magic;
the higher the skill, the more powerful the spell. Multidisciplinary
spells use an average of the two or three skills.

Elemental magic is a special case. When you practise an elemental
magic skill (fire, ice, air or earth magic) you will improve much
less quickly than normal if you already have one or more elemental
magic skills higher than the one you are practising. This is
especially true if those skills are 'opposed' to the one you're
practising: fire and ice are mutually opposed, as are earth and
air.

  Say you have level 2 fire magic, level 4 ice magic, and level 1
  air magic.  Practising ice magic won't be a problem. Practising
  air magic will be a bit slow, as you have other elemental skills
  at higher levels. Practising fire magic will be very slow, as you
  have a higher level in ice magic. Right?

Miscellaneous skills:

Armour:
-------
Having a high Armour skill means that you are used to wearing heavy
armour, allowing you to move more freely and gain more protection.
When you look at an armour's description with the 'v' command, this
will in particularly show you how cumbersome it is. This is measured
by the Evasion modifier. Usually, all armours with EV penalty of
0, -1, or -2 are considered light. All others are considered heavy
except for Elven armour (which is light). Walking and fighting in
heavy armour will train the Armour skill.

Dodging:
--------
When you are wearing light armour, a high dodging skill helps you
evade attacks.  See the paragraph above on the Armour skill for
which armours are light.

Stealth:
--------
Helps you avoid being noticed. Try not to wear heavy armour or be
encumbered if you want to be stealthy. Big creatures (like trolls)
are bad at stealth.

Stabbing:
---------
Lets you make a very powerful first strike against a sleeping/resting
monster who hasn't noticed you yet. This is most effective with a
dagger, slightly less effective with a short sword, and less useful
(although by no means of negligible effect) with any other weapon.

Shields:
--------
Affects the amount of protection you gain by using a shield, and
the degree to which it hinders you.

Traps & Doors:
--------------
Affects your ability to notice hidden traps and doors and to disarm
traps when you find them. With this skill at a high level you will
often find hidden things without actively looking for them. 
The area covered by a manual search ('s' or '.') gets larger with higher
Traps & Doors skill. (Without the skill, you search only the adjacent
squares.)

Invocations:
------------
An easy-to-learn skill which affects your ability to call on your
God for aid.  Those skilled at invoking have reduced fail rates and
produce more powerful effects. The Invocations skill affects your
supply of magic in the same way to the Spellcasting skill and to
a greater extent, but the two are not cumulative - whichever gives
the greater increase is used. Some Gods (such as Trog) do not require
followers to learn this skill.

Evocations
----------
This skill lets you use wands much more effectively both in terms
of damage as well as in terms of precision. Furthermore, with high
Evocations, you can easily deduce the number of charges in a wand 
through usage. Similarly, all other items that have certain powers 
(like crystal balls) work better for characters trained in this skill.

If your character does not have a particular skill, s/he can gain
it by practising the activities mentioned above. 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.                      LIST OF KEYS AND COMMANDS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Main screen
-----------
Crawl has many commands to be issued by single key strokes. This
can become confusing, since there are also several modes; here is
the full list. Some commands are particularly useful in combination
with certain interface options; such options are mentioned in the
list. For a description of them, please look into crawl_options.txt.
For a more terse list, use '??' in.game.

Saving games:
        S               Save game with query and exit.
        Ctrl-X          Save game without query and exit.
        Q               Quit without saving (you're asked for confirmation).

Movement:
        direction       Moves one square, direction is either one of the 
                        numpad cursor keys (try both Numlock on and off) or 
                        one of the Rogue vi keys (hjklyubn).
    Shift-direction     This moves straight until something interesting is
    or  / direction     found (like a monster).
        Ctrl-G          Interlevel travel (to arbitrary dungeon levels or
                        waypoints). Remembers old destinations if interrupted.
        Ctrl-O          Auto-explore. Setting the option explore_greedy to true
                        makes Ctrl-O also run to interesting items (those that
                        get picked up automatically) or piles (checking the 
                        contents). Autoexploration will open doors on its own
                        except if you set easy_open to false.
        Ctrl-W          Set waypoint (check the option show_waypoints).

Resting and Searching:
        s, Del          Rests and searches (these are the same) for one turn,
                        this is also done with '.' or Numpad-5.
        5 or            Long resting/searching (until both health and magic 
     Shift-Numpad 5     points are full or something is found or 100 turns are 
                        over).

Dungeon interaction:
        o               Open door. This is usually done automatically, unless
                        you set the option easy_open to false.
        c               Close door.
     Ctrl-direction     Tries to untrap a known trap on the specified square,
     or * direction     else opens door if there is one,
                        else attacks without move (even if no monster is seen).
        <               Use staircase to go higher, also enters shops. 
        >               Use staircase to go deeper, or enters shop/branch.  
        ;               Examine occupied tile, also causes auto-pickup.
        x               Examine surroundings mode (see below for its commands).
        X               Examine level map (see below for level map commands).                  
        O               Show dungeon overview (branches, shops, altars etc.).

Character information:
'display' below means usage of the message area,
'show' means usage of the whole screen.
        @               Display character status.
        [               Display worn armour.
        ( or )          Display wielded and secondary weapon, and first missiles.
        "               Display worn jewellery.
        C               Display experience info.
        ^               Show religion screen.
        A               Show abilities/mutations.
        a               Show current abilites menu.
        \               Show item knowledge.
        m               Show skill screen.
        i               Show inventory list.
	%               Show resistances and general character
			overview, including health, experience,
			gear, status, mutations, abilities (the
			latter three more  terse than with the
			command @, A, a).  This is a highly condensed
			conglomeration of the commands [, (, ", C,
			^, @, A, a, usually fitting on one screen.

Item interaction (inventory):
        v               View item description.
        {               Inscribe item (check the autoinscribe option).
        t               Throw/shoot an item.
        f               Fire first available appropriate missile.
        q               Quaff a potion.       
        e               Eat food (tries floor first, inventory next).
        z               Zap a wand.
        r               Read a scroll or book.
        M               Memorise a spell from a book.
        w               Wield an item ( - for none).       
        '               Wield item a, or switch to b.
        E               Evoke power of wielded item.
        W               Wear armour.
        T               Take off armour.
        P               Put on jewellery.
        R               Remove jewellery.

Item interaction (floor):
        d               Drop an item.
        d#              Drop exact number of items.
        g or ,          Pick up items; press twice for pick up menu.
                        You can use a prefix to pick up smaller quantities.
        D               Dissect a corpse. 

Other game-playing commands:
        a               Use special ability.
        p               Pray.
        Z               Cast a spell.
        !               Shout or command allies.

Non-game playing commands:
        ?               The help menu.
        V               Display version information.
        Ctrl-P          Show previous messages.
        Ctrl-R          Redraw screen.
        Ctrl-C          Clear main and level maps.
        #               Dump character to file (name.txt).
        :               Add note to dump file (see option take_notes).
        ?:              Read the notes in-game.
        ~               Add or save macros and key mappings.
        =               Reassign inventory/spell/abilities letters. 

In-game toggles:
        Ctrl-A          Toggle autopickup.
        Ctrl-V          Toggle auto-prayer. (You might want to set
                        runrest_ignore_message to ignore the prayer
                        message if you are using autoprayer.)

Stashes:
        Ctrl-F          Find (this searches in stashes and shops, you can use
                        regular expressions and also terms like 'long blades' 
                        or 'artifacts').
        Ctrl-S          Mark stash (only sensible with stash_tracking=explicit,
                        else this is automatically tracked).
        Ctrl-E          Erase stash (ignores the square from stash tracking).


Level map ('X')
---------------
The level map (brought up by 'X' in the main screen) uses the whole screen to
show the dungeon.
        Esc, Space      Leave level map.
        ?               Level map help.
        -               Scroll level map up
        +               Scroll level map down
        Direction       Moves cursor.
  Shift-Direction       Moves cursor in bigger steps (check the option 
  or / Direction        level_map_cursor_step).
        .               Travels to cursor (also Enter and Del and , and ;)   
                        (if the cursor is on the character, moves cursor to last 
                        travel destination instead).
        <               Cycle through up stairs.
        >               Cycle through down stairs.
        ^               Cycle through traps.
        _               Cycle through altars.
        Tab             Cycle through shops and portals.
        *               Cycle forwards through stashes (if the  option stash_tracking 
                        is  set to all, this cycles through all items and piles).
        /               Cycles backward through stashes.
        Ctrl-C          Clear level and main maps (from temporarily seen
                        monsters, clouds etc.).

Waypoints can be set on the level map. You can travel to waypoints using 
Ctrl-G. Check the option show_waypoints. The commands are
        Ctrl-W          Set waypoint.
        W               Cycle through waypoints.

Travel exclusions mark certain spots of the map as no-go areas for autotravel
and explore (the radius is set by the option travel_exclude_radius2).
        Ctrl-X          Set travel exclusion.
        Ctrl-E          Erase all travel exclusions at once.
        X               Cycle through travel exclusions.


Examining surroundings ('x')
----------------------------
When roaming the dungeon, the surroundings mode is activated by
'x'. It lets you have a look at items or monsters in line of sight.
You may also examine stashed items outside current view using the
options target_oos=true (if using this, check target_los_first).
        x, Esc, Space   Return to playing mode.
        ?               Special help screen.
        * or '          Cycle objects forward (check the options ....?).
>> ' doesn't work!!! And do some options interfere here?
        / or ;          Cycle objects backward.
        + or =          Cycle monsters forward.
        -               Cycle monsters backward.
        direction       Move cursor.
        . or Enter      Travel to cursor (also Del).
        v               Describe monster under cursor (also shows weapons, 
                        wounding and enchantments of the monster).
        >               Cycle downstairs.
        <               Cycle upstairs.
        _               Cycle through altars.
        *               Cycle forwards through stashes (if the option
                        stash_tracking is set to all, this cycles through all
                        items and piles).
        /               Cycles backward through stashes.
        Tab             Cycle shops and portals.

Targeting
---------
Targeting mode is similar to examining surroundings. It is activated whenever
you fire projectiles, zap a wand or cast spells which uses targets. All of the
commands described for examination of surroundings work, with the exception of
Space (which fires).
        Esc             Stop targeting.
        ?               Special help screen.
        . or Enter      Fire at cursor direction (also Del).
        !               Fires at cursor position, and stops there. This can be
                        useful to avoid damaging pets, or to attack submerged
                        water creatures.
        p or t or f     Fire at previous target (if still in sight).
        Ctrl-F          Toggle target modes (between enemies, all, friends; see
                        also option target_zero_exp).
     Shift-Direction    Fires straight in that direction. This is equivalent to 
                        pressing the direction key once and then Enter. You can
                        go back to the old targeting mode (allowing straight
                        firing by pressing just the direction key) using the
                        option target_unshifted_dirs.

Shortcuts in lists (like multidrop):
------------------------------------
When dropping (with the drop_mode=multi option), the drop menu accepts several
shortcuts.
        (               Selects all missiles.
        )               Selects all hand weapons.
        [               Selects all armour.
        ?               Selects all scrolls.
        %               Selects all food.
        &               Selects all carrion.
        +               Selects all books.
        /               Selects all wands.
        \               Selects all staves.
        !               Selects all potions.
        =               Selects all rings.
        "               Selects all amulets.
        }               Selects all miscellaneous items.
        ,               Global select (subject to the drop_filter option).
        -               Global deselect (subject to the drop_filter option).
        *               Invert selection. This will allow you to select all items
                        even if you use the drop_filter option.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.                      LIST OF ENCHANTMENTS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Below the amount of carried gold, the stats area has room for showing
the enchantments which you currently enjoy or have to suffer. Quite
generally, these are only shown for temporary effects. So a Kenku's
native flying ability is not noted, and neither is the effect of a
ring of regeneration.  Here is a list of these, as some are
abbreviations or may not be obvious:

General enchantments: satiation, velocity, encumbrance, poison
---------------------
Hungry          Most races can eat chunks of corpses only if hungry.
Starving        You should really eat something: death is not far away.
Full            You have eaten a lot.
Engorged        You can't eat any more for now.
Sick            You are sick (usually from bad food). Hit points don't
                regenerate until cured (wait it out or quaff a potion 
                of healing).
Poison          You are poisoned and continually lose hit points. There are
                several levels of poisoning. Cure with potions of healing or
                by waiting it out.
Pray            You are praying. Any action taken under prayer is done in the
                name of your god. For example, dissecting a corpse offers it.
                Depending on the scope of your religion, this may or may not 
                be a good idea.
Encumbered      Your load is heavy enough to slow you down. You also need more
                food then walking around encumbered. Try to avoid this!
Overloaded      You carry way too much to do anything sensible. Drop stuff!
Conf            You are confused. Actions may not work properly.
Fast            Your actions are twice as fast (this can cause magic
                contamination).
Swift           You move at a somewhat higher speed. (Only affects movement.)
Slow            All actions are slowed. Note that ending berserking will slow.
Paralyze        You are unable to move. Beware of the wasps!

Special enchantments:
---------------------
BWpn            Some characters have a breath weapon (like Nagas or experienced
                Draconians), which will show "BWpn" when used. Further breaths 
                have to wait until this disappears.
Invis           You are invisible (this can cause glowing, if used too much).
Holy            You repel undead.
Lev             You levitate, i.e. hover a few inches above the ground. While
                enough to cross water and lava, movement is not completely
                controlled. It will usually time out. Levitation provides a 
                speed bonus to swiftness.
Fly             You fly, gaining the benefits of levitation with none of the 
                drawbacks. This is only accessible for experienced kenku, lucky
                draconians, characters using Dragon form, or those levitating 
                while wearing an amulet of controlled flight.
Fire            You are plagued with sticky fire. It will time out.
Regen           You regenerate: health points will increase at an unnaturally
                fast rate. This is only shown for temporary regeneration.
Glow            You glow from mutagenic radiations: you'll mutate sometime soon.
RMsl            You repel missiles, i.e. there's a good chance to evade them.
DMsl            You deflect missiles, i.e. there's a great chance to evade them.
Rot             This is a very harmful, necromantic ailment. You will lose 
                maximum health points over time. Only potions of healing restore
                these. The rotting itself is cured itself if the maximal health
                is back to its initial value, and it also expires after a while.
Ins             You are insulated, i.e. immune to electric shocks.

There are several more enchantment messages for various spells. The description
of the spell causing the enchantment will explain these.