When you engrave with a wand of polymorph and mutate a preexisting engraving into a rumor, the rumor should always be true if the wand is blessed, false if it’s cursed, and random if it’s uncursed.
Cavemen should be able to make cave paintings on the ground with blood (possibly their own blood, dealing damage to them, if they have a sharp object with which to draw blood). The available paintings are selectable from a menu, and each type grants a unique buff to Cavemen who stand on it, sort of like wards in dNetHack except not necessarily focused on warding off monsters. You learn more powerful paintings as you level up.
Engraving with a bladed weapon in a dirt floor should degrade it more slowly than in a stone floor, requiring 6 characters to lose 1 enchantment point instead of 2 characters.
When polyformed into a vampire, or when playing as a vampire in variants that implement that: Engraving on the ground in a scrawl of blood should expend nutrition proportional to the number of characters engraved, probably just 1 nutrition point per character.
Healers have a reduced chance to engrave a given character in the dust correctly, because of the stereotype about doctors having terrible handwriting.
Grimtooth can be used to engrave a special name, similar to Elbereth, that scares only elves and hobbits.
Engraving with a wand of probing should produce the same “You probe beneath the floor” effect that you get when zapping probing at the floor, and should likewise automatically identify the wand.
Add YAFMs:
Lawfuls get an alignment penalty for writing graffiti with a marker, even if it’s Elbereth or something else useful.
Convicts get an alignment bonus by writing graffiti. (Graffiti has to come from a magic marker, or a felt marker in variants that have it.)
| In addition to the “x” and “X” characters being suitable for engraving, you can also engrave other basic shapes: “o”, “O”, “l” (lowercase L), “I” (capital i). Possibly also “-“, “ | ”, “/”, “". |
When you engrave with a wand of digging, you engrave it just fine, but you also create and get stuck in a pit on your square.
Engraving with a blade made of softer metals such as gold or silver should dull it faster than an iron blade.
If polymorphed into a strong clawed monster like a dragon, you can make semipermanent engravings with “-“. However, if your form does not have hands, this will be slower than an athame or wand of digging can do.
If you’re being stuck, hugged or grabbed by a monster, you can’t engrave anything.
Athames are a chargeable weapon-tool, or just a tool. Has tinning kit levels of charges and recharging. Once out of charges, it can’t be used to make a semi-permanent engraving anymore.
A role whose main mechanic is engraving and carving different magical runes on the ground.
When polymorphed into a paper golem, you can’t write on the floor with your finger because it would get too dirty.
Vorpal and bisecting weapons don’t get dull when you engrave with them.
If you have slippery fingers, your chance of failing to engraving the text you wanted in the dust is higher.
Engraving should be an occupation rather than weirdly leaving the player paralyzed but still writing until it’s finished. If it is an occupation, the usual interruptions will make the player stop engraving.
You can engrave on walls or doors. Elbereth on walls or doors doesn’t work. You can read it by standing on the nearest space. Random graffiti, if it generates on a floor square next to a wall or door, may say “Something is written on the wall here.” instead of the floor. Graffiti could render as ~ or something similar.
If the player is polymorphed into a red or blue dragon and has sufficient energy to use their breath weapon, they should be able to burn-engrave on the floor with their fire/lightning breath.
Engraving with Fire Brand should create a burnt engraving like a wand of fire does (it still degrades the sharpness of the blade, though).
