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 |
This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-343}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.
