Player

The character is you, the player. You are represented by the @ symbol. There are also other characters represented by an @, such as your quest leader and the oracle, and if the showrace option is turned on, your symbol will instead be that of your race.

In another sense, a character is any printable ASCII symbol. Thus the @ that represents you, the player, is also a character. Monsters, items, and even dungeon features, are also represented by characters.

The player character can be any one of the archeologist, barbarian, caveman, healer, knight, monk, priest, ranger, rogue, samurai, tourist, valkyrie, or wizard classes. They each have varing difficulties, strengths, weaknesses, quests and starting items.

The player can also choose from the five races: human, elf, dwarf, gnome, or orc, and the three alignments: lawful, neutral or chaotic. The available races and alignments are dependent on the class one picks. The following table lists all possible combinations:

	Arc			Bar			Cav			Hea			Kni			Mon			Pri			Ran			Rog			Sam			Tou			Val			Wiz
	L	N	C	L	N	C	L	N	C	L	N	C	L	N	C	L	N	C	L	N	C	L	N	C	L	N	C	L	N	C	L	N	C	L	N	C	L	N	C
Human	*	*		*	*		*	*			*		*			*	*	*	*	*	*			*		*	*	*				*		*	*			*	*
Elf																					*						*												*
Dwarf	*						*																											*
Gnome		*						*			*															*												*
Orc						*																		*			*												*

One should bear in mind that the choice of class (and to a lesser extent, race and alignment) has a dramatic effect on the style of play. Although in the late game, the characters can be played almost the same way (with a few exceptions), during the early game it is crucial that one utilizes the varying abilities of each of the classes and/or races. For example, running up and bashing a monster as a wizard would likely result in YASD, and reading unidentified spellbooks as a valkyrie or samurai could lead to paralyzation and death by newt.