By pressing r you can read something.
NetHack allows you to read objects in your inventory:
- fortune cookies, to read the fortune without eating the cookie.
- T-shirts, to examine the message on each shirt.
- scrolls, to activate them.
- spellbooks, to study them.[1]
You can try unsuccessfully to read other classes of objects.
In vanilla NetHack, you automatically read any floor engravings or headstones that you encounter. This does not use the r command, nor does it break illiterate conduct. (Though the read command does not break the conduct, the engrave command does.)
NetHack brass[]
In NetHack brass, you automatically read any floor engravings, but not headstones.[2] To read headstones, press r and then answer y to the question, "Do you want to read an epitaph on the grave?" In brass 040923, reading the epitaph does not break illiterate conduct.
SLASH'EM[]
SLASH'EM requires you to explicitly read floor engravings and headstones, by pressing r. Doing so breaks the illiterate conduct.[3]
By pressing r then ,, you can read objects that are on the floor. Thus, if you suddenly need to flee and you have no empty inventory slots, but luckily found a scroll of teleportation on the floor, SLASH'EM lets you activate it.
SLASH'EM lets you "read" rings. This is a feature to check the color of rings that you are currently wearing, otherwise "You can't see it!" or "Perhaps you should put it on first." Currently, only a mood ring will glow with color; any other ring gives the message, "There seems to be nothing special about this ring."[4]
Source code references[]
- ↑ read.c
- ↑ NetHack brass 040923/engrave.c#line212
- ↑ SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2/engrave.c#line372
- ↑ SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2/read.c#line80