A

Printable ASCII characters
~	!	@	#	$	%	^	&	*	(	)	_	+	space
`	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	-	=	{	}	|
	Qq	Ww	Ee	Rr	Tt	Yy	Uu	Ii	Oo	Pp	:	"	[	]	\
	Aa	Ss	Dd	Ff	Gg	Hh	Jj	Kk	Ll	?	;	'	Ctrl
	Zz	Xx	Cc	Vv	Bb	Nn	Mm	,	.	/	<	>	Alt

In NetHack, the letter A serves the following purposes:

• a represents an insect:
  • a giant ant
  • a killer bee
  • a soldier ant
  • a fire ant
  • a giant beetle
  • a queen bee

• A represents an angelic being:
  • A couatl
  • A Aleax
  • A Angel
  • A ki-rin
  • A Archon

• It is also used for the following keyboard controls:
  • Press A to use or apply an item.
  • Press shift + A to take off multiple items at once.
  • Press ctrl + A to redo the previous command entered.

Historical uses

In hack121 and PDP-11 Hack, variants of Jay Fenlason's Hack, acid blobs and giant ants used the a and A glyphs respectively, and continued to from Hack 1.0 to NetHack 2.3e.

In NetHack 3.0.0, acid blobs are moved to b, and giant ants are moved to a with other insects including the giant beetle (formerly b prior to 3.0.0) - A is used for the apelike creatures, which consists of the ape and carnivorous ape in this version. NetHack 3.1.0 introduces the angelic being monster class and gives them the A glyph, moving apelike creatures to Y; the yeti is merged into the monster class, which uses its former monster class macro.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, there are 14 new monsters that use a and 5 that use A:

• a insect:
  • a assassin bug
  • a black wasp
  • a giant flea
  • a giant louse
  • a giant tick
  • a giant wasp
  • a killer beetle
  • a migo drone
  • a migo queen
  • a migo warrior
  • a snow ant
  • a spitting beetle
  • a tsetse fly
  • a yellow jacket
• A angelic being:
  • A movanic deva
  • A monadic deva
  • A astral deva
  • A Planetar
  • A Solar

SporkHack

SporkHack adds a new monster that uses the a glyph:

• a insect:
  • a locust

UnNetHack

UnNetHack adds new monsters that use the a and A glyphs:

• a insect:
  • a snow ant
  • a locust
• A angelic being:
  • A Dark Angel
  • A weeping angel
  • A weeping archangel