Getting started

Your first adventurer is not going to win, and that is fine. What follows is enough to stop you dying without knowing what you were meant to do. The rules themselves are in the in-game help.

1. Start in beginner mode

Choose beginner mode on the first screen. Making a character gets shorter, you level faster, and it turns on coffee-break mode, which drops the wilderness. There is only one dungeon, so there is nothing to get lost among. Move to the normal mode once a few characters have taught you the shape of the game.

2. Race and class

Do not agonise over the race. The old standbys offered in beginner mode are all solid and will carry any class well enough. If you cannot decide, take a Klackon: they are born fast and born resistant to confusion, and confusion kills new players.

The class is another matter — it decides everything that follows. Any of these three is a reasonable first pick.

• Warrior — hit things. The easiest start. Strength, dexterity and constitution are what matter; once you are past the early levels you will want a little intelligence to use magic devices.
• Rogue or ninja — move quietly, and still fight well up close. The ninja learns its own arts as it levels; the rogue picks a realm of magic. A rogue not taking burglary should put points into intelligence too.
• Mage — everything rides on the spells. Fragile early on, and it asks for patience. Take Chaos or Armageddon as the first realm, Sorcery as the second.

The normal mode also asks for a personality. Avoid Lazy, Fearless, Sexy, Chaotic, Split-personality and Munchkin to begin with. Unless you are a pure fighter, you can skip Ordinary as well.

3. What to buy in town

You start standing in a town with your kit already on. Spend what is left on ways to run and ways to recover. Nothing else comes first.

• The alchemist — scrolls of teleportation and phase door. These are what you read the moment you realise you cannot win the fight. Without them, a corner you cannot get out of is simply death.
• The temple — potions of cure serious wounds.
• The weaponsmith — if your class shoots, a sling, some shots, and a quiver to keep them in.

What you buy goes in your pack. i looks inside; how you use a thing depends on what it is (q to quaff, r to read, u to use a staff, a to aim a wand, z to zap a rod).

4. Where to dive first

The normal mode has 44 dungeons, which is a lot to choose between. These are the ones you can enter at character level 1 and which start shallow.

• Warrens — depth 1-9
• Hideout — depth 8-18
• Man cave — depth 8-18
• Icky cave — depth 10-20

Working through them from the shallowest is the safe way. When a dungeon with a low floor limit runs out, move to another. The full list is under dungeons.

5. What kills you early

Even on shallow floors, monsters with the following tricks will end a careless adventurer. Get into the habit of pressing * to look up a symbol you do not recognise.

• They paralyse you — you are held still and beaten to death. This is the most common way to die. Until you find gear that stops paralysis, do not stand next to these.
  Floating eye (depth 1), Portuguese man-o-war (depth 9), Gazer (depth 12)
• They blind or confuse you — you cannot read a scroll, so you cannot run either.
  Novice mage (depth 2), Novice mage (depth 3), Novice mindcrafter (depth 4), Novice mindcrafter (depth 6), Dark elf (depth 7), Dark elven mage (depth 10)
• They are fast — two moves for every one of yours. You will not outrun them.
  Raving lunatic (depth 0), Bomb mosquito (depth 1), Fruit bat (depth 1), Insect swarm (depth 1), Cave spider (depth 2), Crow (depth 2)
• They steal and vanish — not fatal in itself, but losing the scrolls you just bought is what kills you on the next floor.
  Agent of black market (depth 0), Filthy street urchin (depth 0), Noborta Kesyta, the Yeek President (depth 0), Novice rogue (depth 2), Scruffy looking hobbit (depth 3), Smeagol (depth 3)

6. Worth remembering

• +10 speed is twice the moves. Get hold of speed early.
• Every level is built fresh. Learn the monsters, not the map.
• Running away is not losing. Death is the end; nothing brings you back.
• Do not test unknown things in a tight spot. Try potions and scrolls somewhere safe.