                     Dungeon Crawl version 2.51
                  (Copyright 1997 Linley Henzell)

Crawl is a fun little game in the grand tradition of games like Rogue, PCHack 
and Moria. Your objective is to travel deep into a subterranean cave complex 
and retrieve one of the magical orbs of power, each of which is guarded by 
many horrible and hideous creatures. 

This file contains detailed instructions for playing Crawl. If you are 
completely new to this kind of game, it may be worth your while to read at 
least part (although it will probably confuse you somewhat), otherwise you 
should probably just dive into the game and use the '?' command to give a list 
of keys to use. 

Character Species:
You have a number of different character races to choose from. This affects
a number of different characteristics including:
Your choice of classes;
Your initial attributes (strength etc);
Occasional extra points added to some abilities;
The amount of hit points and magic you get as you increase in level;
Your inital equipment;
Your rate of level advancement;
Your rate of skill advancement.

Human:
The human is the most versatile race. Humans advance quickly in levels and
have equal abilities in all skills. Humans can also be of any class.

Elf:
Elves have good intelligence and dexterity, but suffer a bit in strength. They 
have slightly less hp and slightly more magic than humans, and advance in 
experience a bit more slowly as well. They are especially good at fighting 
with short and long swords, although not so good at other weapons, and are 
adept at bows and darts. Their quickness makes them good at dodging, and they 
possess natural elven stealth as well. Their nature also gives them 
proficiency with magic, especially enchantments, but they are poor at using 
necromancy. 

There are also a number of related types of elves.

High elves are a powerful elven race who advance in levels very slowly - 
requiring half again as much experience as do humans. They are similar to 
common elves in most respects, but their strengths and weaknesses tend to be 
more emphasised. 

Grey elves also advance slowly, but more quickly than high elves. They are 
generally poor at fighting - although they are still good at short and long 
swords and bows - but are excellent at all forms of magic except for 
necromancy. 

Deep elves are poor at fighting but excellent at bows, crossbows, darts, and 
especially magic. They are the only elven subtype who are skilled at using 
necromancy, and are particularly good at enchantment magic. They advance in 
levels at the same rate as grey elves. Deep elves are not physically robust, 
but have great reserves of magical energy. 

Sludge elves are a bit like common elves, but not quite as good at most 
things. They advance in level slightly faster, though. 

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. Elven bows are 
particularly effective in conjunction with elven arrows. Elves cannot wear 
some types of heavy armour, but are especially effective when using elven 
weapons. 

All elves are skilled at using air elemental magic, and are okay at fire and 
ice magic. They are also poor at earth magic with the exceptions of deep and 
sludge elves, who can use earth magic well. 

Hill dwarves are extremely robust but are poor at using magic. They are 
excellent at hand combat, especially favouring axes, and are good at using 
armour and shields, but are poor at missile combat or at using polearms (which 
are usually too big for them to wield comfortably). The only form of magic 
which they can use with any aptitude is conjuration, but they are still far 
worse than humans at using it. They advance in levels at a similar rate to 
common elves. 

Mountain dwarves are almost as robust as hill dwarves and have similar 
aptitudes, but are slightly better at the things that hill dwarves don't do 
very well, and slightly worse at the things that hill dwarves are good at. 
They advance in levels at a rate between that of elves and humans. 

Dwarven weapons and armours are very durable, and do not rust or corrode 
easily. Dwarves are especially effective when using dwarven weaponry.

Dwarves are relatively good at fire and particularly earth elemental magic.

Halflings are very small and, with deep elves and kobolds, are the least 
robust of any character race. Although fair to poor 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 
most types of magic (except enchantments and translocations). They advance in 
levels as rapidly as humans. Halflings cannot wield large weapons or wear most 
armours heavier than chainmail. 

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. They are as robust as the hill dwarves, but have very low 
reserves of magical energy. Their forte is fighting, and they are skilled at 
using most hand weapons (with the exception of short blades, at which they are 
only fair, and missile weapons, at which they are not particularly good). They 
are poor at using most types of magic with the exception of conjurations and 
necromancy. They advance as quickly as humans. 

Orcish bows/crossbows are particularly effective in combination with orcish 
arrows/bolts. Orcs are especially good at using orcish weapons.

Orcs are poor at using air elemental magic, but okay at other kinds (and good 
at earth magic).

Kobolds are small, ugly creatures with few redeeming features. They have poor 
abilities and have similar aptitudes to halflings, without the excellent 
agility. However, they are slightly better than halflings at using some types 
of magic, particularly summonings and necromancy. They often live as 
scavengers, surviving on carrion, but are carnivorous and can only eat meat. 
They advance in levels as quickly as humans. 

Mummies are undead creatures who travel into the depths in search of revenge, 
redemption, or just because they want to. Being undead, they are immune to 
poisons and negative energy, have little warmth left to be affected by 
cold, and are not susceptible to reductions in their physical or mental 
abilities. However, their dessicated bodies are highly flammable. They also do 
not need to eat or drink, and in any case are unable to. 

Mummies progress very slowly in level (as slow as High Elves) and 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 
holy magic or some types of necromancy which only affect living creatures (if 
they are unable to use a spell, they will usually be unable to memorise it). 
The side effects of necromantic magic tend to be relatively harmless to 
mummies.

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, although they 
advance in experience levels very slowly. 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 speed; all other actions are at normal 
speed). Their body shape also prevents them from gaining full protection from 
most armour. Every now and then, a naga can spit poison (command 'A'); the 
range, accuracy and damage of this poison increases with the naga's experience 
level. 

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 of their 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 (command 'A'); this ability increases in power as they gain 
experience levels. 

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. As you gain experience, your skills will increase as determined by 
your class.

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

The Priest is a competent fighter and can use magic quite effectively. Priests 
descend into the dungeons to fight evil wherever they may find it. Priests are 
especially good at casting holy spells, and every few levels the gods will 
grant their Priests with one (which does take up spell space). 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. 

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 dagger, some throwing darts, and leather armour. 

The 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. There are various kinds of magicians: 
 The Wizard is a magician who does not specialise in any area of magic. 
They start with a variety of magical skills and the magic dart spell in memory. 
 The Conjurer specialises in the violent and destructive magic of conjuration 
spells. Like the Wizard, the Conjurer starts with the magic dart spell. 
 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. As there are no useful enchantment 
spells of the first level, the Enchanter does not begin with any memorised 
magic but has a magic wand to help survive until he or she can start learning 
to use the craft properly, and is equipped with lightly enchanted weapons and 
armour.
 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. 
 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 are magicians who specialise in one of the four types of 
elemental magic.
 
The Paladin is a cross between the Fighter and the Priest, a sort of militant 
religious crusader. He or she enters the dungeon with a sword, a shield, a 
robe, and a healing potion, and is occasionally granted holy spells. 

The Gladiator is well trained in the art of fighting but is not so good at 
other things. 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. 

The Berserker is a hardy warrior who fights well with many weapons. At the 
eighth level of experience, Berserkers can attempt to go berserk (the 'O' 
key); this gives them a great boost of speed as well as huge physical 
strength, but leaves them completely drained when the effect wears off. They 
enter the dungeon with a club, some spears, and a set of leather armour. 

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

An Assassin is a thief who is especially good at killing. Assassins are like 
thieves in most respects, but begin more skilled at hand combat.

The Crusader is a decent fighter who also has some aptitude in the magical 
arts. Crusaders start out with a book of martial spells.

The Death knight is a fighter who aligns him or herself with the powers of 
death. Death knights start out with a book of death magic.

Experience: When you kill monsters, you gain experience points (xp) (you also 
receive one half experience for monsters killed by your controlled or 
summoned 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, skills, and spell levels.

Skills: Your character has a number of skills which affect his or her ability 
to perform certain tasks. You can see your character's skills by pressing the 
'm' key; the higher the skill 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 (eg 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 on the skills 
screen. This experience is not affected by the skill gains you receive when 
your experience level increases.
 You can elect not to practice 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). You will also not gain experience in that 
skill when your experience level increases (that experience is shared out 
among other skills) if the skill is one of: a weapon skill (not fighting), a 
missile skill (not throwing), a magical specialisation skill (not 
spellcasting), armour, dodging, shields or stealth.

The race you have chosen for your character has a significant effect on
your rate of advancement in each skill. Some races are very good at some
skills and poor at others. If your character's race is good at a skill, they
will require less experience and take less time to advance in it; being bad
at a skill has the opposite result.

There are a few different types of skills. 
  - Fighting skills - "Fighting" is the basic skill used in hand-to-hand 
combat, and applies no matter which weapon your character is wielding. It is 
also the skill which 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). In addition, 
there are a number of weapon skills which affect your ability to fight with 
specific weapons. 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: 
 All sword skills;
 Maces & flails and Axes;
 Polearms and Axes;
 Staves and Polearms.
 Being good at a specific weapon improves the speed with which you can use it 
by from 5-10% 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.
  - Throwing skills - "Throwing" is the basic skill used when throwing things, 
and there are a number of individual weapon skills for missile weapons as 
well. 
  - 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. 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. Note that 
Poison and Holy spells do not have associated skills. 
 Elemental magic is a special case here. 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 - This includes a variety of skills:
 Armour : Having a high armour skill means that you are used to wearing heavy 
armour, so you gain more AC from it and lose less evasion while wearing it.
 Dodging : When you are wearing light armour, a high dodging skill increases 
your evasion score.
 Stealth : Helps you avoid being noticed. Try not to wear heavy armour (or be 
encumbered) if you want to be stealthy.
 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.
 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.

If your character does not have a particular skill, they can gain it by 
practising as above.


Abilities:
Your character is further defined by his or her abilities, which initially 
vary according to class. 

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, and your ability to dodge attacks aimed at you. Although 
 your dexterity does not affect your evasion score (Ev) directly, any 
 calculation involving your Ev score also takes account of your dexterity. 
AC: This stands for Armour Class. When you 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.
EV: This is your evasion score. It helps you to avoid being hit by unpleasant 
 things. 
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 race, 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.
 

Exploring the dungeon:

You can make your character walk around with the numeric keypad (turn numlock 
off). If this is too slow, you can make your character walk repeatedly by 
typing shift and a direction. They 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 repeatedly. 

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. 

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 (these are all rather sketchy; 
I'll write better descriptions when I have time). 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. 

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 one of the magical orbs of power, you win the game by doing this. 

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 can be opened with the 'o' 
command and closed with the 'c' command, and typing control plus a direction 
will either open or close a door in that direction.

A variety of dangerous and irritating traps are hidden around the dungeon.
Traps look like normal floor until discovered (usually by activating them). A
discovered trap can be disarmed with the '^' command, although not all traps
can be affected in this way.

When you are in a shop, you are given a list of the shopkeeper's stock from 
which to choose, and a list of instructions. You can leave the shop and even 
the level and come back later if you want. 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 trust a scummy adventurer like 
you, anyway?). 

Your goal is to locate one of the Magical Orbs of Power which reputedly exist 
somewhere in the dungeon of Crawl and get back to the surface with it in your 
possession. It is possible that these ancient artefacts are held somewhere in 
one of the various Hells, in which case you're going to have to go down there 
and bring them back out. There are also rumored to be some Orbs floating 
around in the Abyss, and in the possession of certain of the demon lords of 
Pandemonium. Oh, and don't be fooled; a crystal ball, however magical, is 
*not* one of the Orbs! When you find an Orb, you will be told what you have to 
do next. 

A full list of the commands available to you can be accessed by typing '?' 
(question mark).

Items:

In the dungeons of Crawl there are many different kinds of normal and magical 
artefacts to be found and used. Some of them are unequivocally useful, some 
are nasty, and some give you 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: 

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 differing amount of damage, has a different 
chance of hitting its target, and takes a different amount of time to swing. 
You should choose your weapons carefully; trying to hit a bat with a 
greatsword is about as clever as bashing a dragon with a club. For this reason
it is wise to have a good mixture of weapon skills. 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 weapon (especially 
daggers, spears and hand axes) are quite effective when thrown. You can wield 
weapons with the 'w' command. 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.

Ammunition:
If you would rather pick off monsters from a distance, you will need 
ammunition for your sling or bow. 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. 
 When throwing something, you are asked for a direction. You can either enter 
one of the directions on your keypad, or type '*' and move the cursor over 
your target if they are not in a direct line with you. When the cursor is on 
them, press '.' (period) or delete to target them (you can also target an 
empty space if you want). If you press '>' instead of  '.', the missile will 
stop at that space even if it misses, and if the target space is water, it may 
hit anything which might be lurking beneath the surface (which would otherwise 
be missed completely). If you type '.' (or del) instead of a direction or '*', 
or if you target yourself as described above, you throw whatever it is at 
yourself (this can be useful when zapping some wands; see later). Also, if you 
type 'p' instead of a direction or '*', you will target your previous target 
(if still possible). 

Armour:
This is also rather important. When worn, most 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 (ie reducing your evasion score). 
This effect can be mitigated by a high 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 large shield makes you less effective in hand combat.

You can wear armour with the 'W' command, and take it off with the 'T' 
command. 

Food:
This 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. 

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, but there are many other varieties of 
potions to be found. Try to avoid drinking poisonous potions! Potions can be 
quaffed (drunk) with the 'q' command. 

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 the 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. You invoke the power of a wand by 'z'apping it. 

Rings:
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 in return cause you to consume food 
faster. Most rings only speed your metabolism slightly, but powerful rings 
like rings of regeneration or invisibility make you hunger very quickly. You 
can put on rings with the 'P' command, and remove them by typing 'R'. You can 
wear up to two rings simultaneously, one on each hand; which hand you put a 
ring on is immaterial to its function. 

Amulets are similar to rings, but have a different range of effects (which 
tend to be more subtle). They do not tend to increase your rate of food 
consumption. Amulets are worn around the neck, and you can wear only one at
a time.

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, and hold spells which you can cast without having to memorise 
them first, and also without consuming food. You must wield a staff like a 
weapon in order to gain from its power, and magical staves are as effective as 
quarterstaves in combat. Spell staves can be Invoked with the 'I' command 
while you are wielding them. 

Books:
Books contain magical spells which your character can 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. Some books have other special 
effects.

Carrion:
If you manage to kill a monster delicately enough to avoid scattering bits of 
it around the room, it may leave a corpse behind for you to play with. 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, and 
being extremely hungry helps as well. Even then, you should choose your 
homemade food with great care. 

Miscellaneous:
These are items which don't fall into any other category. You can use them by 
wielding and 'I'nvoking them. You can also use some other special items (such 
as some weapons) by invoking them in this way.

You pick items up with the ',' (comma) command and drop them with the 'd'rop 
command. When you are given a prompt like "drop which item?" or "pick up 
<x>?", if you type a number before either the letter of the item, or 'y' or 
'n' for yes or no, you will drop or get that quantity of the item.

Typing 'i' gives you an inventory of what you are carrying. When you 
are given a prompt like "Throw [or wield, wear, etc] which item?", you can 
type the letter of the item, or you can type '?' or '*' to get an inventory 
list. '?' lists all appropriate items, while '*' lists all items, appropriate 
or not. When the inventory screen is showing "-more-", to show you that there 
is another page of items, you can type the letter of the item you want instead 
of space or enter.

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 cursed 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. 

A very useful command is the 'V' key, which gives you a description of what an 
item does. This is particularly useful when comparing different types of 
weapons, but don't expect too much information from examining unidentified 
items.

Spellcasting:

Magical spells are a very important part of surviving in the dungeon. Every 
character class can make use of magical spells. Spells are stored in books, 
which you will occasionally find in the dungeon. Each spell has a Level, which 
denotes the amount of skill required to use it as well as indicating 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, you 
can memorise more, and 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 powerful 
spellcasters hunger less quickly from using magic). 

High level spells are difficult to cast, and you may miscast them every once 
in a while (resulting in a waste of magic and a possibly dangerous side-
effect). Your chance of failing to cast a spell properly depends on your 
level, your skills, your intelligence, and the level of the spell. 

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. 

Some spells are directional, and require you to enter a direction in the same 
way as you would when shooting a missile or zapping a wand. Some spells 
require the proper materials to be present before they will work; for example, 
to animate a skeleton with the necromantic spell, you must stand on a space 
where a skeleton is on the top of the stack of items. 

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. 

Monsters:

In the caverns of Crawl, you will find a great variety of creatures, many of 
whom would very much like to eat you. To stop them doing this, you will need 
to fight. To attack a monster, stand next to it and move in its direction; 
this makes you attack it with your wielded weapon. Of course, sometimes 
monsters are just too nasty to beat, and you will find that discretion is 
often the better part of valour. 

Miscellaneous stuff:

The files included with Crawl are:
CRAWL.EXE    - main executable
CRAWL.TXT    - this file
CWSDPMI.EXE  - a file reqired to run Crawl
CWSDPMI.DOC  - the documentation for a file required to run Crawl
LICENCE.TXT  - the Crawl licence (practically identical to that of nethack)

The scores file does not have to be present (as of 2.02). You can unpack the 
zip file into your old crawl directory and the new version will keep using the 
old scores file (scores files from any version are usable by any other 
version). 

To play Crawl you will need a 386 or better running DRDOS or MSDOS. It has 
been tested on the following computers:
 A 686/100(P120+) with 16MB RAM running MSDOS 6.22
 A 386DX/33 with 4MB RAM running DRDOS 6.0
 A 386SX/20 laptop with 2MB RAM running MSDOS 5.0 (a bit slow, but playable)
 A Linux version (ported by Svante Gerhard) is available, and should be
  easily adaptable to other similar systems.

Any offers to write ports to other systems are extremely welcome!
I've heard that it will also work under PCDOS and OS/2.
I don't know the minimum memory requirements, but the more the merrier. 
A colour monitor helps, but is not absolutely vital. 
Sorry, I can't make a 286 version available, because I *need* more than 64Kb 
for my code modules! 

One strange thing you may notice about Crawl is that it does not keep your 
saved games if you die. This is not a bug, it is a feature! If you could 
restore your game after dying, you would probably finish the game rather 
quickly and lose interest, because most of the fun in Crawl is in the 
discovery of its bizarre secrets while taking risks with your characters. It 
is possible to cheat by messing around with the save files, but you're only 
cheating yourself out of experiencing this game as it was supposed to be 
played. If you think Crawl is too difficult, tell me!

Crawl was compiled using the djgpp compiler, and comes with the files 
CWSDPMI.EXE and CWSDPMI.DOC. You can contact the author of CWSDPMI.EXE at 
sandmann@clio.rice.edu. Read CWSDPMI.DOC for more details.

Although version 2 of Crawl is a complete and finished game, it probably 
contains a few unwanted features which crept in without me noticing (all of 
the earlier versions did). So, if you find anything which you think may be a 
bug, please send details of it to me, including version number, details of 
your system, what you were doing (in the game) when it happened, and just what 
exactly did happen. Hopefully this will never be necessary, but if it is you 
can (as of 1/10/97) reach me at zel@olis.net.au. You can discuss this game on 
the newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.misc. I would also appreciate any comments 
or suggestions you have about the game, as I intend to continue improving it. 

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

A lot of people have been sending me feedback and bug reports, which is 
extremely encouraging. I really appreciate that people have been taking the 
time to play my game. Keep it up! 

Log of Changes:
The name after each bug is the person who found it and told me first. If you 
find a bug and for some reason don't want to be credited, just tell me on the 
bug report. 

1.0 (2/10/97)
first (rather buggy) version

1.01 (3/10/97)
Shields were changed
Items were made more common
monsters were made less common (this was a bug)
cursed weapons were made less common (this was just bad planning)
I changed the name to make it a bit less egotistical
Bugs removed include:
 a debugging feature of the 'x' command was unintentionally left in;
 the summon scorpions spell summoned a vampire (oops) (Haran Pilpel);
 sometimes +50 armour could be generated (oops again) (Haran Pilpel);
 the inventory item counter was not decremented when you dropped something! 
  This would lead to you being unable to pick things up after a while (Darren 
  Hebden); 
 a bug with detect curse scrolls (Darren Hebden)
 slime creatures and jellies were a bit weak;
 killing normal (not spitting) plants gave you far too much xp;
 your rate of regeneration was not saved properly;
 about half of the rings could never be generated;
 the 's' command would sometimes make you repeat your last move (Haran 
  Pilpel);
 I forgot to mention the walk-in-place function in any documentation;
 I set the level builder to put 100 monsters on each new level for 
  debugging, and forgot to reset it - I really should playtest more!;
 If you tried to cast spell 'z', you cast the identify spell (Lucas Ackerman);
 plus a few more which I forget right now.

1.02 (4/10/97)
A few more items and traps have been added;
The game now uses the rogue keys (hjklyubn) properly;
You used to be able to throw and zap straight when confused. No longer!

1.03 (4/10/97)
Some unique items were added;
A silly bug, by which your item knowledge was not saved, was fixed (Darren 
Hebden);
Teleport traps now work properly;
I think I fixed another bug, but I can't remember.

1.04 (6/10/97)
A few really nasty bugs with saved games were fixed. The game would not save 
 enchantments affecting monsters, and would mess up the items carried by the 
 monsters (Adam Horowitz);
A bug with the enchanting/corroding of shields was fixed;
A '<=' instead of a '<' led to characters not using shields occasionally 
 blocking trap missiles (Adam Horowitz);
You can now type '+' or '-' in the map screen to move around faster (Adam 
 Horowitz);
The direction function now accepts '.' as well as delete (Adam Horowitz);
During your first step while long-walking, you can walk on anything (still 
 prompts for water etc, though) (Adam Horowitz);
I think that was all.

1.05 (7/10/97)
A minor display bug was fixed;
A bug with restoring clouds from saved games was fixed;
A major bug which caused a segment violation when restoring saved games if 
 there were any magical traps on the level was finally discovered and fixed. 
Those pathetic worms you see around level 6 are now nastier, and jackals now 
 tend to appear in packs.
This time, your item memory really does work.

1.1 (14/10/97)
Several new items and monsters were added;
Labyrinths were added;
Magical weapons are now less powerful;
Some bugs have been fixed - I forget what they were right now;
The source was released, and Crawl is now under the GPL (see Licence.txt for 
 details); 

1.2 (2/10/97)
The monster and cloud location bits have been completely rewritten, a process 
 which turned out to be rather easier than I thought it would be. The new 
 system is much more flexible;
Monsters are now a bit more intelligent, especially in the way they treat 
 clouds;
Several monsters have been added;
Several items and two new classes of items (Carrion and Miscellaneous) have 
 been added;
Several spells, most of them necromantic, have been added;
The Gladiator, Necromancer, and Paladin classes have been added;
A spell type system has been implemented, and several new staves to specialise 
 in particular types of magic have been added (conjuration, summoning etc).
New unique items have been added, and a bug (actually, a mistype) which 
 prevented some from being generated has been removed;
A few bugs have been removed;
Several other changes have been made, too numerous to mention here.

2.0 (9/12/97)
There have been so many additions in this version that I'm not going to list 
 them all, but here is a very incomplete list of bugs and things rectified: 
Characters could cause an excessive amount of damage empty-handed (Bridget 
 Farace);
Darts didn't fire properly when character not wielding anything (Bridget 
 Farace);
Hand crossbows didn't work properly;
Fireballs always did the same amount of damage (0-27), regardless of who cast 
 them and how powerful they were;
Going to Hell could have unexpected results due to an out-of-bounds reference 
 to levels_exist [].

2.01 (12/12/97)
I had wanted version 2.0 to be a stable and bug-less release, but this was not 
to be. Anyway, 2.01 fixes these bugs:
Zapping a wand of polymorph at yourself caused problems (polymorph self hasn't 
 been implemented anyway) (Saradon);
Polymorph other didn't work properly;
Choosing a non-existent item in a shop crashed the game (but only sometimes, 
 which was why I didn't notice it) (Saradon);
Spell descriptions weren't working properly (Saradon);
Some messages were misspelt due to an indiscriminate search/replace (Adam 
 Horowitz);
Detect curse didn't detect curses on unrecognised rings (this bug had 
 been present right from version 1.0);
Sometimes, a special weapon in the hands of a monster would not function 
 properly (watch out for creatures wielding weapons of draining!); 
The use of the control key was not mentioned in the command list (it 
 opens/closes doors, like in Angband);
And a few others (if I haven't credited someone, please tell me).
Also, a few new things were added, as suggested by Saradon: A shout command 
('!') to attract your followers (and enemies!), and better equipment for the 
enchanter. Also, you are now given a difficulty message and prompted when 
memorising spells, so you will know which spells you won't be able to cast 
reliably before you memorise them.

2.02 (13/12/97)
I'm afraid that 2.01 didn't fully fix the bug in the shop code, but hopefully 
this version does. Just about the only differences between this version and 
2.01 are: 
Pressing r,s or t while in a shop really no longer crashes the game (Saradon & 
 Bridget Farace);
If the Scores file is not present, a new one is generated. I've stopped 
 including a scores file in the distribution, so that you can unpack the zip 
 file into your old crawl directory and keep on using the old score file.
Save games should be compatible with 2.01.

2.03 (22/12/97)
This version fixes a few bugs, and puts back the floating point emulation 
which was missing from previous version 2 releases (Daniel Josef Dekok and 
someone else noticed this). It also removes the debugging code which was 
accidentally included. 
Bugs fixed: 
Butterfly corpses were coloured black, making them invisible (Bridget 
 Farace);
Shadow lanterns were also coloured black, and kept on working even after you 
 unwielded them (Bridget Farace);
Items purchased from shops were not identified properly (Lord Gek, Timo 
 Laitila);
Scrolls of acquirement weren't being identified after being read;
When you got hit by a monster wielding a weapon of draining, events could 
 become confusing (Timo Laitila);
Finally, the '5' key on the keypad works as a rest key (Timo Laitila);
Names longer than 8 letters caused problems with saving and restoring games, 
 especially in Windows 95 (Lord Gek & Timo Laitila)

The following new features were also added:
When tame creatures kill monsters, you now get 1/3 xp (Howard Liu);
Orcish spellcasters have been downgraded a bit (lots of people recommended 
 this);
Specialist wizards are now slightly more powerful in their specialisation, 
 especially with magical staves (I can't find the usenet post which told me 
 about this).
And a few other minor changes.

2.10 (30/12/97)
Sorry to all of the many people who've been sending me bug reports, but it's 
become too tricky to list all bugs and credit their finder. I'm just getting 
too much email, and my mail reader has a strange way of eating some messages 
and making them very difficult to find. So from now on, I'll just list some of 
the major bugs fixed and major features added:
-A bug with wearing armour of fire/cold resistance was fixed;
-The properties of several items and spells were tweaked a bit;
-Specialist wizards were made even more powerful in their discipline;
-The dungeon was made deeper (36 levels now), and lots of new monsters were 
added to fill in the deeper levels;
-Several spells (mostly necromancy) were added;
-The dungeon architecture is a bit more varied, especially as you get deeper;
-A warning was added to labyrinths;
among other things.

2.11 - This was the first Linux release, ported to Linux by Svante Gerhard.

2.20 - This fixed a few very minor bugs and added a vast number of new 
features, like vaults, unique monsters, skills, the Abyss, Pandemonium, etc 
etc etc. The dungeon architecture is also a lot more varied.

2.21 - Various bugfixes and minor changes.

2.30 - Lots of cool stuff added.

2.31 - Lots of cool stuff fixed.

2.32 - Even more cool stuff fixed.

2.33, 2.34 - I forget right now, but these releases probably just fixed stuff.

2.40 - Kobold and Mummy races added, as well as elementalist and crusader 
classes. Heaps of spells, items and monsters added (as usual).
 - You now get 1/2 experience for monsters killed by tame monsters.
 - A large part of the monster and skills code was rewritten and generally 
cleaned up by $pellbinder (Wladimir van der Laan).

2.41 - bugs fixed

2.50 (3/5/98) - Changes made:
 - Character classes made much more relevant;
 - Monsters can now use more items;
 - Heaps of items, monsters, spells etc added;
 - Naga and Gnome character species added;
 - Bugs fixed (including, I hope, the infamous item bug);
 - Etcetera.

2.51 (18/5/98) - Purely a bug-fix version:
 - Item 1 no longer turns green on saving;
 - *Hopefully* the horrible item bug has been permanently removed (at least 
     parts of it have, anyway);
 - Repeatedly casting Deflect Missiles no longer causes problems;
 - Skill selection now works properly (there were some problems in 2.50);
 - A couple of bugs in monster teleportation have been fixed.

Licence:
Read Licence.txt for information about the Crawl licence (which is almost 
identical to the nethack one).

Source Code:
The source code for the current version of Crawl is, at the time of writing 
(30/12/97) available from the Crawl web site:
http://olis.net.au/~zel/index.html
Source for earlier versions can be obtained from me. 

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.

