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, cave[wo]man, 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.