Reference: content tables

Audience       Anyone editing content. Look things up here; do not
               read it end to end.
Prerequisites  None.
Status         Describes the tables as they are in the source. If
               this page and the source disagree, the source is
               right and this page is a bug.

Every table in the game, every field, every default.

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flowchart LR
  SEED(["seed + depth"]):::cold --> LAY["layout_rng"]:::cold
  LAY --> GEN["generate<br/><i>rooms, corridors,<br/>stairs, the dark</i>"]
  SEED --> CON["content_rng<br/><i>+ staircases taken</i>"]:::cold
  CON --> POP["population<br/><i>how many, and where</i>"]
  POP --> BEST["BESTIARY<br/>MonsterDef::pick"]:::peril
  POP --> DROPS["DROPS<br/>roll_item"]:::magic
  POP --> TRAPS["TRAPS<br/>TrapDef::pick"]:::peril
  DROPS --> CAT["POTIONS · SCROLLS · RUNES · WANDS<br/>WEAPONS · AMMO · LAUNCHERS<br/>ARMORS · RINGS · COINS"]:::magic
  GEN --> FLOOR(["a floor"]):::hero
  BEST --> FLOOR
  CAT --> FLOOR
  TRAPS --> FLOOR
  classDef hero fill:#3a3418,stroke:#d7ba4a,color:#e8dfa8
  classDef peril fill:#3a1f1f,stroke:#c05050,color:#f0c8c8
  classDef magic fill:#2f2038,stroke:#a86fc0,color:#e6cdf0
  classDef cold  fill:#17323a,stroke:#4aa3c0,color:#bfe4f0

Where everything is

For the live contents of any of them:

cargo run -p nihilurk -- -content

BESTIARY — MonsterDef

Constructor: MonsterDef::row(name, glyph, color, movement, hp, power, power_bonus, armor, armor_bonus, min_depth), then optional chains.

Chains: .grants(&[...]), .invisible(), .weight(n).

Combat: damage = (1d[power] + power_bonus) - (1d[armor] + armor_bonus), both sides rolled independently. Nothing ever misses.

Spawning a row attaches: Name, Mob, Fighter, Renderable, Position, Faction::Monster, Blood, Grants, Speed(Normal), plus each granted effect component, plus Invisible if the row asked.

MovementType::Aggravated { tx, ty } exists but is applied at run time by the scroll of aggravate monsters. Never put it in a row.

A species’ whole special behaviour is its grants. The aquator is the one whose grant reaches for the player’s gear rather than the player: RustsArmor means every blow it lands calls equipment::corrode_armor on what it hit, taking a point off the worn armour’s ArmorBonus (never its die — ruined plate is still plate, and the plus can go negative). A scroll of enchant armour mends it; a ring of maintain armor (SustainsArmor) stops it; a wand of cancellation takes the corrosion out of the aquator.

Item tables

Every row implements ItemDef, which supplies:

fn name(&self) -> &'static str            required
fn spawn(&self, world, pos) -> Entity      required
fn weight(&self) -> u32                    default 10
fn min_depth(&self) -> u8                  default 1
fn spawn_as_loot(&self, world, rng, pos)   default: calls spawn

Only the scroll of identify and the scroll of remove curse override weight (twice the baseline); no item row overrides min_depth. Every other row picks evenly on purpose.

POTIONS — PotionDef

Draws !. Attaches Item, Potion, Consume. Mechanic: apply_potion_effect in models/src/items/potions.rs. That match has no catch-all, so a new PotionEffect variant will not compile until it has an arm — same rule as TrapEffect above. An arm is allowed to do nothing on purpose (FruitJuice and Water are a log line and a taste); every other arm bites.

The dials the arms read — how much ceiling a dose of healing is worth, how much power poison takes — are constants::potions. Five arms reach straight into Fighter (healing, extra healing, gain strength, poison, restore strength) and one into Magic (the potion of magic, which fills the pool and lifts its ceiling the way gain strength lifts the arm’s), three hand off to crate::conditions (blindness, confusion, paralysis — and haste, via hasten), two tag things Detected, one lends SeesInvisible for the floor, and RaiseLevel calls transition_level upward (and, on Depth 1 with the Element of Yoord in the pack, wins the run outright).

SCROLLS — ScrollDef

Draws ?, always white — a scroll has no colour field. Attaches Item, Scroll, Consume. Mechanic: apply_scroll_effect in models/src/items/scrolls.rs. That match has no catch-all, so a new ScrollEffect variant will not compile until it has an arm — same rule as TrapEffect above. Every row bites; BlankPaper is the only arm that does nothing, and it says so.

Each scroll has a flourish of its own — which one, and why that one, is ../explanation/the-feel-layer.md.

The dials the arms read — what one enchantment is worth, how long sleep and hold last, how often sleep backfires — are constants::scrolls. Three arms go off across whatever the reader can see (scare monster, hold monster, sleep, via helpers::hostiles_in_view), two reach into the gear in a slot (the enchantments), one arms the reader’s next blow (monster confusion, spent by the ON_HIT_ABILITIES row below), two tag things Detected — food detection takes precisely what a potion of magic detection rejects, so between them they find every item on the floor exactly once, with the Element of Yoord deliberately turning up for both.

RUNES — RuneDef

Draws ', always white. Attaches Item and Rune { effect, charged: true }, and no Consume: reading a rune spends its charge (item_system clears charged), and it stays in its pack slot, shown as (inert). A staircase wakes every spent rune in the pack (items::recharge_runes, called from transition_level for LevelChange::Stairs only: a trapdoor or a portal does not). r reads scrolls and runes. Mechanic: apply_rune_effect in models/src/items/runes.rs, exhaustive with no catch-all like apply_scroll_effect.

There is no row for RuneEffect::Blank. A wand of cancellation makes one out of any rune the player carries, and a blank rune never wakes. Displacement is a scroll of teleportation; Chaos and Ice cast Haste Self and Frost Nova for free; Recharging adds RECHARGE_STEP to every wand’s Battery up to RECHARGE_CAP; Justice lends ExplodesOnDeath to everything in view; Protection lends Protected for PROTECTION_TURNS. The dials are constants::runes. Runes drop from floor 3 (see DROPS). Only the player invokes one: a monster that catches a thrown rune does nothing with it.

WANDS — WandDef

Draws /. Attaches Item, Wand, Ranged, Battery. Every wand spawns full, with WAND_CHARGES, however it was made. Zap damage dice and both blast radii live in models/src/constants.rs → wands (see constants.md). Whether zapping opens the reticle: WandEffect::needs_target, which is true for everything except the wand of light. Mechanic: apply_wand_effect in models/src/items/wands.rs. That match has no catch-all, so a new WandEffect variant will not compile until it has an arm — same rule as TrapEffect above; every existing variant already does something real. Throwing a wand is resolved in models/src/items/throwing.rs (resolve_wand_throw), a narrower, still-_-fallback dispatch over only the six utility effects a thrown blast can carry (apply_thrown_wand_effect) — it is not the “unwired effect” checkpoint; apply_wand_effect is.

Every wand’s zap, burst, poof and blast palette is described in ../explanation/the-feel-layer.md; none of it is a field on this table.

A thrown one bursts only on impact like any wand, so aim it at the rock. A zapped wand of digging (dig_tunnel) turns every wall on the aim’s line, out to DIG_RANGE tiles, into passage, and never what Map::diggable refuses: the map’s outer wall, and the floor and bounding walls of any room whose SpecialRoom::undiggable marker is set. Only the red room sets it. A tunnel is not in the seed, so the save carries it (dug_tiles, found by diffing the live map against map::pristine_tiles).

A zapped wand of swapping (swap_with_target) trades the zapper’s tile for that of one thing on the aimed tile: a creature first, then a trap somebody has found, then an item. A hidden trap is passed over, the same rule as traps::detonate_at. Nobody is set down where they could not stand (can_stand: a phasing creature anywhere, a swimmer in deep water too, everyone and everything else on dry floor), so a ghost in the rock refuses the swap. Like a teleport, it springs no trap and lifts every hold (effects::HOLDS) on both sides.

Neither a zap nor a throw can be aimed at the player’s own tile: the engine refuses it with “Great idea! But no.” and no turn passes.

Thrown, a wand bursts on impact and spends every remaining charge at once. Which blast it makes is three rows:

Dials: constants::wands. Resolution: resolve_wand_throw and apply_thrown_wand_effect in models/src/items/throwing.rs. What each of those looks like on screen is ../explanation/the-feel-layer.md; what a condition does to the player it lands on is components.md.

SPELLS — SpellDef

The one catalog row that never spawns anything: a spell carries no Item, no Position, no pack slot. It lives permanently in whoever’s Spellset it’s in (the player’s, taught by a hero coin — see “COINS” above) and is triggered from there (the Z menu, by row letter).

One row per SpellEffect, in four Magic-cost tiers, any of which a coin or spirit may teach (SpellDef::learnable). SpellEffect::needs_target says whether a spell opens the aiming reticle at all (an attack aimed at a tile) or fires on the caster/everyone-in-view the instant its slot is pressed (a self-cast skill, or a room-wide attack like Circle of Death) — the same courtesy WandEffect::needs_target gives the wand of light.

Mechanic: apply_spell_effect in models/src/items/spells.rs, keyed by SpellEffect, exhaustive with no catch-all like every other effect table in the game. Several rows are literally another category’s own mechanic under a different name rather than a reinvention — Identify and Magic Mapping call straight into scrolls::apply_scroll_effect; Lux and Meteor Strike call wands::elemental_blast with a stand-in charge count, because a spell has no battery to read one off. Sting borrows the dart trap’s own formula (traps::trap_damage_tier) rather than a fresh roll.

MagicWard (the spell) is an EFFECTS row like any other marker, lent for Lifetime::Floor by effects::lend, and it is checked in exactly two places — helpers::apply_hit (every Hit whose magical flag is set, zapped, thrown, breathed or cast, bounces off with a cosmetic ricochet, wands::ward_ricochet) and abilities::fire_on_hit (nothing a monster’s landed blow carries with it takes hold). Lifted at the next staircase like any other floor-scoped effect, and named on the way out as a boon rather than an affliction (conditions::FLOOR_BOONS, conditions::clear_player_conditions).

Bided (Bide) is likewise a plain marker: combat::fold_matchup folds constants::combat::BIDE_ATTACK_BONUS into the bearer’s next attack roll, and combat::resolve_attack removes the marker the instant that roll is folded — hit, glancing or miss, and before a double-striking estoc or a cleave can see it twice. Anything else the bearer does with a turn instead of landing an attack — a plain step, a used or thrown item, another move cast — spends it unfired: equipment::reset_momentum strips it on the same occasions it zeroes a rapier’s Momentum.

A scroll of amnesia (ScrollEffect::Amnesia) is the one thing that un-teaches a spell: scrolls::read_amnesia drops one random entry from the reader’s Spellset and clears their Viewshed::revealed_tiles for the current floor in the same breath.

WEAPONS — WeaponDef

Constructor: WeaponDef::new(name, color, power_die), then chains.

Chains: .missile(die) sets thrown_die and projectile; .piercing(), .returning(), .reach(tiles), .reach_piercing(), .grants(&[...]), .on_wear(...), .on_doff(...) each set the field they name.

Draws ). Attaches Item, Equipped::loose(Slot::Hand), PowerDie, ThrownDamage, and Projectile / Piercing / Returns / Reach / ReachPiercing / Grants / OnWear / OnDoff when asked. A floor drop is enchanted (see below). grants, on_wear and on_doff are all re-read from the row on load (catalog::restore_from_catalog), never stored in the save.

The staff is the only row with an on_doff, and the reason is worth repeating: it multiplies what every attacking spell costs and what it does (constants::spells::TURBO_MAGIC_COST_MULT and TURBO_MAGIC_POWER_MULT), and neither multiplier shows anywhere on the HUD. The two log lines are the whole of the player’s notice, which is why the taking-off needs one as much as the putting-on. OnDoff fires only on the deliberate path (equipment::toggle_equipped), never from force_unequip — dropping, being disarmed and dying are not ceremonies, the same asymmetry OnWear already has against equip_silently.

Every throw ignores the target’s armour die, but the armour plus is always subtracted. A thing not made for throwing rolls IMPROVISED_THROW_DIE plus its own plus, and so does ammunition lobbed by hand; armour thrown does no damage. Projectile means two things at once: the missile is spent on what it hits, and nothing can catch it. A non-projectile throw can be caught and used against you.

AMMO — AmmoDef

Draws ). Attaches Item, ThrownDamage, LaunchedDamage, Projectile, LaunchedBy, Stack { count: 1 }, and Envenomed when venom is set. No PowerDie and no Equipped — there is nothing to wield and nothing to wear.

Stacks to STACK_LIMIT per pack slot. A floor drop arrives as a bundle of AMMO_BUNDLE_MIN..=AMMO_BUNDLE_MAX (constants::loot) — never a lone arrow, because finding one arrow is not finding ammunition.

LAUNCHERS — LauncherDef

Draws }. Attaches Item, Equipped::loose(Slot::Hand), Launcher, ThrowBonus(0), Grants, MeleeCap. Contributes no attack or armour die at all — its enchantment therefore lands on ThrowBonus.

melee_cap becomes a MeleeCap component, which clamps the wielder’s melee damage however the dice fell. A launcher takes the hand a sword would have had; this is what that hand costs.

ARMORS — ArmorDef

Draws ]. Attaches Item, Equipped::loose(Slot::Body), ArmorDie, and Grants when the row has any.

RINGS — RingDef

Constructor: RingDef::new(effect, name), then chains.

Draws =, always yellow. Attaches Item, Ring, Equipped::loose(Slot::Finger), each non-zero modifier, Grants when non-empty, and OnWear when the row has one. A zero modifier attaches nothing. grants and on_wear are both re-read from the row on load, never stored in the save.

Every ring is live, and all but adornment are pure table — a modifier combat already folds, or a marker some system already asks about:

The only ring behaviour code in the tree is models/src/items/rings.rs, and it holds four verbs, not a match on RingEffect: the adornment flourish (which the victory climb also calls), the regeneration tick, the teleportitis jump and the polymorphitis roll. Nothing outside that file asks which ring it has.

do_it_with_style is the flourish, and two things call it: wearing the ring, and map::levels::win_with_style (both ways out of the dungeon — the last stair, and a potion of raise level drunk on Depth 1). What it looks like is ../explanation/the-feel-layer.md; what it is worth is score::double.

COINS — CoinDef

Coins are the whole pickup category: an item that is never carried, works where it lies, and is gone. See components.md, “Components — items on the floor and in the pack”.

Draws $. Attaches Item, Pickup, and — for a treasure coin only — Value, which is the component the score reads (the relic carries the same one).

Mechanic: apply in models/src/items/pickups.rs, an exhaustive match with no catch-all — a new PickupEffect does not build until it does something.

One of them is not left to chance. Every floor is stocked with a coin for the body before its item budget is spent — a blue one on the odd floors, a red one on the even. The last floor of each difficulty tier (DIFFICULTY_TIER_LAST_DEPTH, constants::progression) also gets one draw from catalog::PROGRESSION_ITEMS: the platinum, forge and hero coins, the three potions that raise a ceiling (healing, magic, gain strength), and the three scrolls that sharpen gear for good (the two enchantments and vorpalize weapon). Neither comes out of the budget. See ../how-to/tune-rarity-and-depth.md, “Dial 1”.

A coin that would do nothing is not taken. pickups::would_help gates every one of them: a red coin at full health, a rosé coin with nothing wrong with you, a platinum coin when you already hold the promise. The coin stays on the floor, silently, and auto-explore skips it too (autoexplore::known_item_tiles) until the day it would help.

A full pack is no obstacle, because there is nothing to find room for. This is the one thing on the floor a full pack can still answer.

TREATS — TreatDef

A treat is only ever thrown. It is an offer of loyalty: see “Helpers” below.

Draws %. Attaches Item, Treat and Stack: treats stack like ammo, and split_one throws one at a time. restore_from_catalog puts Treat back on load.

Treats share the coins’ old slice of the drop table (Rogue’s food slot). The coin guaranteed to every floor, and the coins in a hoard, are still coins.

Use on a treat, or on ammunition (anything with LaunchedBy), logs that it is for throwing and costs no turn (items::use_refusal).

Helpers. A treat that lands on the right kind of monster, thrown by the player, is eaten. On a constants::helpers::ACCEPT_CHANCE roll the monster becomes the player’s Helper (companion::recruit): Faction::Ally plus the Helper component. Anything else the treat bounces off, and it lands. Only one ordinary Helper at a time: recruiting a second explodes the first, cosmetically. A creature with PriorityHelper (the dog) is never that first one and any number can stand beside you; recruiting one explodes the ordinary Helper. AlwaysTamed makes every treat take, AlwaysHelper makes a charm or a conjuring the Helper outright, and ShapeshiftOnKill rolls constants::helpers::SHAPESHIFT_CHANCE on each melee kill to turn the dog into another monster (monsters::shapeshift, which keeps whichever of the five grants it held, and its side). FaerieOnDeath is the reveal: when the dog dies it is revealed as a faerie shapeshifter and is gone, the way a spirit poofs: no corpse, no gore, no score, no blood even from the wounds before (combat::reveal_faerie). The faerie has no body: it is a log line only, in pink (LogCategory::Faerie), “It was never a dog, but a faerie shapeshifter!”, and it stands in for the kill line. The (d) is a (d)oppelganger, or rather a dogppelganger: a faerie shapeshifter wearing a dog. That is why nothing cancels what makes it a dog, why a kill can change its shape, and why no dog ever dies. What “dies” was never a dog. Each is its own grant. All but ShapeshiftOnKill are identity effects that no cancellation strips; the dog row is just all five (monsters::DOG_GRANTS). The mirror hound (monsters::MIRROR_HOUND_GRANTS) swaps ShapeshiftOnKill for MirrorOnKill: each melee kill rolls SHAPESHIFT_CHANCE (25%) to turn it into exactly the species it killed (monsters::mirror), keeping its side and its other grants. Either shapeshift happens once: the changed creature has lost ShapeshiftOnKill or MirrorOnKill. Cancel either first and it never changes shape. A Helper:

• goes for the nearest monster on a tile the player can see, shooting if it holds a launcher, and otherwise comes back to the player’s side (the HELPER rule set in agents.rs);
• is hit back by a monster next to it that is not next to the player;
• trades places with the player who walks into it, and is never hit by the player’s cleave, whirl, lunge, or auto-fight;
• every Helper follows the player to every new floor at full HP (companion::follow_downstairs), gear and all;
• pays no score when it dies (companion::mourn).

Helper is a plain component, saved as its own field, not an EFFECTS row: a wand of cancellation does not undo loyalty.

The relic

Not a table — one function, spawn_element_of_yoord. Draws " in magenta, carries a Value and an Amulet. Its name is the constant ELEMENT_OF_YOORD. Spawned in place of the down-stair on the deepest floor (FINAL_DEPTH, constants::progression).

TRAPS — TrapDef

A trap entity carries Name, Renderable, Position, Trap, Hidden. It is never an Item and never a tile type.

Mechanic: apply_trap_effect in models/src/traps.rs. That match has no catch-all, so a new TrapEffect variant will not compile until it has an arm. A snaring trap reads its duration straight off the row, so it stays a one-file change.

Reveal style is rolled per trap at spawn, equal odds, not per row: Sight / Adjacent / Triggered.

A sprung trap gives out TRAP_BREAK_CHANCE of the time — the entity despawns and the log says "The dart trap breaks!" when the player can see it. The bear trap is exempt: it always bites once and is gone, quietly.

A trap set off from a distance — a missile that lands on it, a wand’s blast that covers it, another burst chaining into it — has nobody standing on it to bite, so it bursts instead: detonate_trap deals TRICK_SHOT_DAMAGE_DICE d TRICK_SHOT_DAMAGE_SIDES (armour-ignoring) over the TRICK_SHOT_RADIUS around its tile and then runs the mechanic once per creature caught. Dials: constants::traps.

Trick shots — what a landing missile can set off

traps::detonate_at(world, pos, shooter) is the whole of it, called by items::throwing::resolve_throw for every throw, whatever was thrown. It returns a TrickShot saying what went off, or None. shooter is Option<Entity> because a chain reaction can run past the last thing its author was around for.

A missile stops on the first creature in its way, so the tile handed to detonate_at is that creature’s tile: hitting a monster standing on a trap, a coin or the relic sets the thing underneath off with the blow. That is what the renderer’s magenta cell is advertising (see rendering.md, layer 9a).

Only a trap the player has found can be aimed at. detonate_at skips one still carrying Hidden and returns None — the shot lands and nothing happens. Lining a shot up on a mechanism nobody has discovered would be the dungeon setting off its own trap on the player’s behalf. Blasts and chain reactions are under no such rule.

A shot that sets anything off with something other than ammunition — a dagger, a potion, somebody’s spare ring — logs “Very clever.” Firing an arrow into a trap is what arrows are for; doing it with the rest of your kit is a choice.

A shot that kills two or more ends the turn on the combo line, and the log folds down to the shout and that line (GameLog::fold_into_trick_shot): the deaths, the dropped gear, the coins and “Very clever.” between them are dropped. A coin shot for nothing (a red one at full health) pays nothing and says nothing.

The ULTIMATE TRICK SHOT (traps::ultimate_burst) is what the relic does when a missile comes down on it (traps::ultimate_trick_shot), and what a hero coin does when one comes down on it — the one pickup worth shooting for the shot rather than the payout. The coin, unlike the relic, does not survive saying it: it teaches the shooter its spell, logs “The hero coin gives up everything it knows at once.”, and is gone. The shape is one wide burst where it lies, then a second burst centred on every creature that one caught, then a third on one of them (the first in reading order). Each can catch somebody the last one missed. All three burn in BlastPalette::Ultimate — white through magenta to dark magenta, the only blast no wand can produce — and the primary leaves a Smoke puff over every tile it covered. Only the first burst shouts — BAM!, or WHY! when the player is standing in their own blast; one shot is one trick shot however many times it goes off.

Chain reactions. Everything that blows up, flies or zaps ends by setting off everything in its own footprint that a shot could have set off (traps::chain_react), whatever the footprint’s size: a blast’s disc (traps::burst, wands::elemental_blast), a bolt’s line (the bolt wands, Force Lance), the one tile of a Sting or Thunderbolt, the victims’ tiles under Frost Nova and Circle of Death. Traps first, then coins, then potions, then ice cubes (a fire blast scorches them), and the author is carried through: a coin your chain reaches still pays you. A trap nobody has found is a valid link — the Hidden rule is about aiming, and a blast rolling over a tile does not have to know what is buried in it. The chain always ends, because every link is despawned before its own burst opens, so nothing is ever a link twice. The Element of Yoord is deliberately not a link: it is never spent, and a burst that reached it would answer itself forever.

Every link of a chain opens on the same frame, and each link’s dead fall with it: the whole chain goes off at once, as one blast. The only wait is the missile’s flight, which holds the batch until it lands; whatever the shot sets off stays on the floor until then.

A wand’s blast sets off everything it covers, traps first and then coins (wands::elemental_blast, via traps::things_in), and the coins pay the zapper — the blast’s author is the shooter. A potion in the footprint splashes through elemental_blast in its turn, so a blast can re-enter it; the chain still ends because the potion is despawned first.

A coin set off with no author at all is simply spent: detonate_pickup takes an Option<Entity> and pays nobody when there is nobody to pay.

Damage traps are missiles: they ignore the defender’s armour die but still subtract the armour plus (total_armor_plus). Their bite also scales with depth in three bands (floors 1-4, 5-8, 9-13): each band adds a point to the arrow trap’s roll and a point to the dart trap’s permanent power drain. Dial: constants::traps (TRAP_DAMAGE_TIER_LAST_DEPTH and the per-tier steps).

The Trap, TrapEffect and TrapReveal types are defined in components.rs, not traps.rs — see components.md. The holds a trap applies (Asleep, Pinned, Rooted) are effects, in effects.rs.

DROPS — DropCategory

models/src/spawn.rs

Three further fields are function pointers filled in by the category! macro from the table’s name. Never write them by hand.

Current weights, which total 1110 from floor 3 down. Runes drop from floor 3, so floors 1 and 2 total 1060 and every share there is a little higher:

The share column is derived, not maintained.

EFFECTS — the marker registry

models/src/effects.rs

Each row pairs a stable string id with the component it attaches, and that id is what the save file stores. Rows may be reordered and retired freely; the one rule is never rename an id, the same rule a bestiary row lives by. There is no ceiling on how many effects there can be.

A row may also carry the line the player reads when it runs out of turns, in brackets after the type:

"asleep" => Asleep ["You shake off the drowsiness and come to."],

Identity effects: parts nothing can cancel. A wand of cancellation strips every effect a creature holds, except the ones whose id is listed in IDENTITY_EFFECTS in effects.rs. revoke_all removes the rest, then puts the identity ones back with their ledger entry, so they are still saved. Today that is lurk (the lurk’s body) and the four that make a dog: always_tamed, always_helper, priority_helper and faerie_on_death. The dog’s shapeshifting (shapeshift_on_kill, and the mirror hound’s mirror_on_kill) is magic, not identity: a wand of cancellation stops it. The rule of thumb: an identity effect is what a creature is, not magic it merely has. A dragon’s FireImmune stays cancellable on purpose. To make a part of a monster uncancellable, write the effect as usual (../how-to/add-an-effect.md), list its id in IDENTITY_EFFECTS, and grant it from the bestiary row (../how-to/add-a-monster.md).

Cap components — ceilings the dice cannot beat. Folded with min, not +, because the strictest one wins. Not in EFFECTS, not bits:

MeleeCap     most the bearer can deal in one melee blow (a bow: 1)

Modifier components — numbers that stack across equipped gear, folded by equipped_total::<C>(). Not in EFFECTS, not bits:

PowerDie     adds to the attack die size
PowerBonus   flat, added once to the damage roll
ArmorDie     adds to the defence die size
ArmorBonus   flat, added once to the armour roll
ThrowBonus   flat, added once to anything thrown
MaxHpBonus   max hp lent while worn, not folded: put on, the plus joins max and current hp; taken off, only the max drops (ring of health)

ABILITIES — Ability

models/src/abilities.rs

What an effect does on its own, one list for every moment there is.

The bool action returns is what lets a row that often has nothing to do (a ring of regeneration on an unhurt player, rolling every other turn) stay silent instead of narrating a non-event.

Moment — one variant per moment the game has:

There is no moment for a decision. What a creature chooses to do with its turn — a dragon’s fireball included — is its rule set’s business, not an ability’s: see agents.md.

ability_system drives EachTurn at the tail of the turn schedule, after ai and before visibility_system — so a passive that moves its bearer lands the jump at the top of the bearer’s next turn, and the player acts from the new tile before anything on the floor moves again.

Adding a moment nobody has yet is a Moment variant and one arm in whatever drives it. Adding an ability at a moment that already exists is one row.

ConfusingTouch arms an OnHit row but is deliberately not in EFFECTS: it is a condition with its own save field (saveload), not a cancellable creature property. Grant::probe works either way — the registry is only about save bits and cancellation.

Enchantment

Rolled by enchant_equipment for every weapon, armour and launcher, and by enchant_ring for every ring, that arrives as a floor drop. Never for a spawn_named spawn. The odds and the bonus ranges are models/src/constants.rs → loot (see constants.md).

A MEGACURSED item is stuck on for good. Remove curse, a scroll of enchantment, cancellation, an angel’s test of faith and a Five Flush all leave the Curse on it (enchantment, cancellation and the flush still change the plus). Remove curse, the pink demon, a curse merge and the deck’s shivering ring never destroy it. A suit of armour taking the killing blow is the one way out. The MegaCurse tag marks it, and equipment::lift_curse is the one place a curse comes off.

A cursed item can roll better than a clean one; it simply cannot be taken off once equipped, short of a scroll of remove curse (which destroys it) or the matching scroll of enchantment (which lifts the Curse tag and mends any minus to +0 — see constants::scrolls::ENCHANT_BONUS).

The bonus lands on whichever roll the item feeds, read off the item itself: a thing with a PowerDie gets PowerBonus, a thing with an ArmorDie gets ArmorBonus, a Launcher gets ThrowBonus. Something that is two of those would get both. Never on the die size.

Rings

A ring rolls the same three qualities at the same odds, with its own numbers (constants::rings). Only a numeric ring (RingDef::is_numeric: protection, strength, increase damage, sharpshooting) has a plus to roll, and the plus is absolute: it replaces the row’s, it is not added to it.

A cursed ring never beats a plain one: its range stops at PLAIN_BONUS. The rows spell their number with PLAIN_BONUS, so the table and the roll cannot disagree.

Identification

models/src/identify.rs

Potions, scrolls, wands and rings are always shown by their true name — no cosmetic appearance, no per-effect knowledge to track, nothing to keep in step with the catalog when a row is added.

Identification is equipment-only: a weapon, suit of armour or launcher hides its enchantment plus and cursed status until KnownQuality says otherwise (set by wearing it, or by a scroll of identify) — and a ring, which enchant_ring curses and, for a numeric ring, gives a plus, hides both the same way. KnownQuality is per-instance — two rings of protection each rolled their own curse, so each needs its own.

A dud effect (PotionEffect::Water, ScrollEffect::BlankPaper, WandEffect::Nothing) is never a spawnable row; it only ever happens as the result of a wand of cancellation mutating a carried item in place (items/wands.rs::cancel_entity). Guarded by the_dungeon_never_generates_a_dud_as_normal_loot in models/tests/it/content.rs.

The colour palette

The save file packs a colour into one byte against this fixed list. Anything not on it draws correctly but reloads as White.

Black       DarkGrey    Grey        White
Red         DarkRed     Green       DarkGreen
Yellow      DarkYellow  Blue        DarkBlue
Magenta     DarkMagenta Cyan        DarkCyan

Dungeon constants

The numbers a content author meets most often, and where each one is defined. The values are deliberately not repeated here — constants.rs is the only place they live, and a copy in prose is a copy that goes stale the first time somebody rebalances.

Every one of them carries a doc comment saying what changing it costs you. See constants.md for the tour.

See also

../explanation/the-feel-layer.md what each of these looks like on screen spawn-api.md the functions that read these tables cli-and-env.md flags and environment variables input-and-turn-loop.md how confusion, snares, etc. play out at the keyboard ../how-to/add-an-item.md how to add a row to one of these ../explanation/adr-0006-effects-saved-by-id.md why an effect is saved by id