Hearing

You hear things you cannot see: footsteps in the dark, a door closing behind a wall. The creatures around you hear too.

What makes noise

• Footsteps. Every step makes noise, yours and the creatures’. Some creatures are heavier on their feet than others, and some, such as bats, which fly, make no sound at all. A heavy load makes steps louder: a quarter louder when burdened, half again as loud when strained (see Burden).
• Doors. Opening a door makes noise, and closing one is louder still. Kicking a door is louder than either. The bang comes from the door itself and is heard on both sides, whether the door holds or breaks (see Doors).
• Stealth. The stealth skill makes your footsteps and the doors you open and close quieter, the more the higher it is. Your attacks are as loud as ever.
• Fighting. Attacks are noisy. You may hear fighting, a bowstring, or chanting (a spell) where you cannot see it. A throw sounds like fighting, but quieter. See Creatures.
• Digging. Digging into a wall is loud, louder than fighting (see Digging and walls).
• Traps. Some traps are loud when they go off. An alarm’s bell carries farther than anything. A fireball explodes, lightning cracks like thunder, and an arrow trap twangs like a bowstring (“You hear an explosion to the west.”). See Traps.
• Flasks. A thrown potion shatters with a crash of glass where it breaks, as loud as a throw.
• Voices. People muttering to themselves can be heard a few cells away. If you hear one you cannot see, you hear a voice, and its words unless it was faint: “You hear a voice to the north: “Weeds. Always the weeds.”“ See People and talk.
• Songs. A bard’s song (inspire, the lullaby) is sung aloud, a voice louder than muttering, heard where the bard stands. Creatures that hear it and cannot see the singer come to look. Stealth does not quiet it.
• A cackle. A witch’s cackle is a voice louder than muttering (60), heard where she stands. Those who hear it come to look. Stealth does not quiet it either.

How loud a step is also depends on what you step onto. Wading through water splashes, and crashing through bushes or over loose rubble is loud. Grass, flowers, the forest floor, a dirt road, and dust soften your steps. Steps on anything not listed here, such as stone floor, flagstones, and stairs, sound normal (100%). A step’s loudness is the walker’s footsteps times the terrain’s share, rounded down:

Where a noise is made matters too. Everything is twice as loud in an echoing hall, and much quieter in a hushed chamber (see Special rooms).

The overworld is silent: its steps are journeys, not footsteps.

How loud

The game only ever tells you that a sound is faint, clear, or loud. Behind that, every noise has a loudness where it is made. The table says how far you hear each one in the open, with the hearing you start with; the listen skill makes your hearing keener.

A load makes your footsteps louder (above, and Burden), stealth takes its share off your steps and doors, and a special room multiplies everything made in it. Creatures’ footsteps and hearing are on Creatures in numbers.

How sound travels

A sound spreads out from where it was made and grows fainter with every cell it travels. It goes around corners through open space, but never through walls or solid rock. A closed door muffles it heavily, so through a closed door you only hear what happens close behind it. An open door lets sound through freely.

Sound takes the easiest way, so a noise behind a long wall may still reach you around its end. The exact numbers:

• A sound loses 10 loudness for every cell it travels straight and 14 for every diagonal one, more where something muffles it (below), and nothing carries farther than 30 cells.
• Whoever it reaches at their hearing or louder hears it: the lower your hearing, the fainter the sounds you hear.
• You hear a sound that reaches you at 30 or more above your hearing as loud, placed where it was made; at 10 or more above it as clear, placed up to a cell off; otherwise faintly, placed up to two cells off.
• A sound is no news, and gets no message, if you heard the same kind of sound near the same place within the last 10 turns.

What muffles sound:

What you hear

You only notice sounds whose source you cannot see. If you see the creature walking, you see what happens, and there is nothing more to hear. So hearing tells you about creatures in the dark, around corners, and behind doors.

A sound you hear shows on the map as a faint dotted ring, ◌, until your next turn:

• It marks roughly where the sound came from, not exactly. A loud sound is placed where it was made; a clear one up to a cell off; a faint one up to two cells off. A marker is never put on a cell you can see.
• Fainter sounds have fainter markers.
• It never tells you what made the sound.
• With glyph animation on, a ring ripples out of the marker when you hear it. With reduced effects the marker is simply still; it never disappears, because it is information.

Look mode (l) describes a marker: “You hear footsteps here.”, “You faintly hear footsteps here.”, or “You hear footsteps here, where you remember a stone floor.”

Messages

New sounds are written to the message line, with the direction they came from:

You hear footsteps to the north-east.
You faintly hear a door close to the west.

Only news gets a message. A sound is not news if you heard the same kind of sound near the same place within the last 10 turns, allowing for whatever made it to have moved a couple of cells each turn. So a creature walking back and forth behind a door is reported once each time it comes back into earshot, not on every step.

Listening at a door

Anyone trained in Listen can stop at a closed door next to them and listen. Choose Listen at a door in the abilities menu, then a direction. It takes a turn, as waiting does.

For that turn, a sound that reaches you through that door counts as louder. Your hearing threshold for it is lower by what Listen gives (one for every 10 points), and by 2 more. Every sound you hear that turn is told, new or not, with its marker on the map as usual. If there is none, you are told you hear nothing beyond the door. Listening always earns a training mark in Listen, whatever you hear.

Resting

A message stops a rest, so a new sound wakes you. A sound you already know about, such as footsteps you have been hearing for a few turns, does not.

Creatures hear you

Your footsteps, the doors you open and close, and your attacks reach the creatures around you by the same rules. The listen skill lets you, or a creature, hear fainter sounds. A creature with enemies that hears something it cannot see goes to have a look. Walk softly, and mind the doors. See Creatures.

Throwing your voice

You can make a voice sound somewhere else. Throw your voice in the abilities menu (a) aims a cursor, as a shot does. The place must be one you see, not a wall, and at most 6 cells away (the same disc as missile ranges).

The voice is made there, as loud as someone muttering to themselves (loudness 50; a sound loses 10 a cell, 14 diagonally). It spreads from there by the rules above, and nothing is heard where you stand. Every creature it reaches hears it. One with enemies that cannot see that spot goes to have a look, as at any noise, so throw it past a corner to draw a guard away from where you want to go. One that can see the spot sees nothing there and stays.

You made the voice, so you do not hear it, but the map marks where it sounded with the same dotted ring until your next turn. It takes a normal action (6 seconds at a normal pace). It is refused, taking no time, on yourself, out of reach, at a place you do not see, and on the overworld, which is silent.

See also: What skills give, How creatures behave, and Sight and memory.