Terrain

Every cell of the map has a terrain. It decides whether you can walk there, how long a step takes, how loud your steps are, whether it blocks sight and sound, and how tall it stands for shadows. The overworld has its own terrain, described on its page.

Doors

A closed door (+) blocks movement, sight, and light, and muffles sound: you hear only what happens close behind it. To open it, walk into it (which takes as long as opening it, 6 seconds) or press o and a direction. An open door (') lets you, your light, and sound through. Press c and a direction to close it again. You cannot close a door while something stands or lies in the doorway.

Opening and closing doors makes noise (see Hearing). Some creatures open doors too, but none closes them (see Creatures). Some doors are locked. Every closed door can be kicked in with k, leaving a broken door (,) that stays open for good. See Doors.

The game remembers a door as you last saw it. One you saw open stays drawn open until you see it closed.

Stairs

Stairs (> down, < up) join levels. Step onto them, then press > or < to use them. Using stairs is a normal action (6 seconds). Dungeon levels are made on your first visit, and each level you visit is kept as you left it. When you return, it is exactly as it was.

Stairs are no free escape. A hostile creature right beside you that knows you are there comes along. It arrives beside you and goes on hunting you, with the wounds and status effects it had. It pays for the climb as you do, so at the same pace you get to act first. It does not come if it is:

• asleep, held, webbed, pinned, stunned, surprised, or frightened;
• slipped past or otherwise unaware of you;
• a mimic, a creature that lurks and has not been hurt, one rooted to its place, a shopkeeper, or someone you can talk to by name;
• out of room. Only the cells right beside where you arrive will do, your allies take theirs first, and it never stands in a sanctuary. If no cell is left, it stays where it was.

Only stairs between levels do this. Nothing follows you out to the overworld, or when the floor gives way under you. A creature that followed you counts for a kill quest as if it died where it came from.

Walls

Walls block movement, sight, light, and sound. Most can be dug through, slowly, with a pick-axe, and a big explosion blows the softer ones apart. A broken wall becomes rubble. The edge of a level never breaks. See Digging and walls.

A worn statue stands in the way as a wall does, but you can see past it. Step up beside one and you are told what it is, and what is cut into it, if anything. Some carry words in the old tongue worth reading; one deep in Fyrdelf keeps an oath (see Prestige classes).

Water

Still water (ponds and pools) and running water (streams) can both be waded, but slowly. A step into either takes twice as long as a step on dry ground, and splashes loudly. Running water flows in a direction you can see in the ripples, and foams where it meets a bank or rock. The current does not push you. Water glints with nearby light. Swim spares some of the extra time of wading, here and in a marsh; Water walking spares all of it while it lasts.

Shallow water, ankle-deep over a stone floor, covers the floor of a flooded room (see Special rooms). It is paler than a pool. Wading through it is slower than walking but quicker than wading a pool, and it splashes just as loudly.

Deep water

Deep water is too deep to wade. Only someone trained in Swim may go in, and never while Strained or worse. “You cannot swim.” and “You would sink.” take no time. The game always asks before you step in from anything else, and no setting turns the question off. Staying back takes no time. Water you did not know was there (in the dark) stops you at its edge and tells you so, also taking no time, so that the next step can ask.

Going in takes twice a plain step’s time, is as loud as any water, and needs no check. It puts out your ready lantern, and no light can be lit while you swim. Spells’ light and everything else goes on.

Every step that starts in the water is a check, the step out onto the shore included. You roll 2d12 plus your Toughness modifier, your talents’ Toughness checks, and Swim’s points (the skills table’s Swim check), against 11, plus 2 for each level of burden above Unburdened.

• Made, you take the step. Its time gets wading’s discounts (Swim and the Swimmer, Strong swimmer, and Undertow talents).
• Failed, you spend the turn treading water and do not move. The cold takes 1 hit point, resisted as any cold, but never your last: nobody drowns.

With a Toughness modifier of +0 and no Swim points, the check succeeds 69 % of the time unburdened and 54 % Burdened; with +4, 90 % and 81 %. Waiting needs no check.

In the water you cannot drop or pick up anything (“It would sink.”), rest, search, or dig. All of that is refused and takes no time. You can still fight, shoot, cast, read, and wait, and you lose nothing you carry. Your burden is all that matters.

No creature goes in. They walk around it, wait on the shore nearest you, shoot and cast from there, and strike you if you swim beside them. Your allies wait ashore too, and none will swap places with you into the water. Deep water never freezes.

Deep water is rarer than pools of shallow water. About one cave floor in six has a pool with a deep middle (its shore stays shallow), and the middle of a lake beside a wilderness area is deep. Ponds, rivers, and brooks can always be waded, and no hand-made level, vault, or special room has deep water.

Ice

Below freezing, water grows ice: thin ice, ice, and thick ice, by how thick it is. You walk on it like dry ground, a little more carefully, but it holds only so much weight. Thin ice gives way under a person, and ice may under a heavy pack. Falling through hurts a little, and climbing back out takes a few turns. See Temperature and ice.

Plants and rock outdoors

Trees, pines, dead trees, boulders, crags (rock outcrops), and standing stones block your way, and all but dead trees block sight too. You can push through bushes, but slowly. Reeds, marsh, and rubble slow you a little. Their heights set how long their shadows are.

Anything you can neither walk on nor see through blocks sound: walls, solid rock, and the trees, boulders, crags, and stones above. Sound has to go around them. A closed door is the exception: it only muffles sound.

Some ground makes your steps louder: water, bushes, reeds, marsh, rubble, rocky ground, dry or tall grass, and creaking boards. Some softens them: grass, flowers, the forest floor, dirt roads, and dusty floors. See Hearing.

All terrain

Step times below are at a normal pace, which is yours: a normal step takes 6 seconds (see Turns and movement). “Walk on it” is yes for terrain you can enter, and for a closed door, which you open by walking into it. “Footsteps” is how loud a step onto it is: quiet, normal, loud, or very loud.

See also: Digging and walls, Temperature and ice, and Sight and memory.