Quest.txt format

quest.txt is a text data file residing in the NetHack source dat-directory. It contains text messages for the quest leaders, nemeses and guardians to say, and other texts related to the quests. It also contains angelic and demonic maledictions.

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Text Replacement Formatting

The messages can contain special characters that will be replaced at run-time with some other data. For example in a string "Hello, %p" the "%p" would be replaced by the player's name.

Code	Explanation
%p	Player's name
%c	Player's role, eg. "Archeologist"
%r	Player's current rank title, eg. for an archeologist it could be "Field Worker"
%R	Rank title required to get on the quest.
%s	"sister" or "brother"
%S	"daughter" or "son"
%l	Name of the quest leader
%i	Name of the intermediate level, eg. "the Tomb of the Toltec Kings"
%o	Name of the quest artifact
%n	Name of the quest nemesis
%g	Name of the quest guardians
%G	"god" or "goddess", depending on player's original alignment
%H	Name of the quest home level
%a	Player's original alignment
%A	Player's current alignment
%d	Player's original god
%D	Name of the lawful god
%C	"chaotic"
%L	"lawful"
%N	"neutral"
%x	"see", or "sense" if player is blind
%Z	Name of the first dungeon ("Dungeons of Doom")
%%	"%"

The special replacement codes above can be immediately followed by some modifiers. For example "%NC" would show "Neutral" - %N shows normally "neutral", but the modifier C capitalizes the first letter.

Formatting code modifiers
Code	Explanation
A	Prefix with "A " or "An "
a	Prefix with "a " or "an "
C	Capitalize the first letter
p	Pluralize
P	Pluralize and capitalize the first letter
s	Append possessive suffix
S	Append possessive suffix and capitalize the first letter
t	Remove "the " prefix

• Source:NetHack 3.4.3/dat/quest.txt