When running or traveling using the travel command, the hero should not stop to read any engravings or gravestones they happen to pass over.

Certain deaths (i.e. most HP deaths, but not things like disintegration or sliming) should let you scrawl a bit of player-chosen text in the dirt with your finger which persists in the bones file. This engraving is of blood if your current form has blood, and dust otherwise.

This is slightly technically complicated because the bones file gravestone also stores an engraving and there cannot be two engravings on one space; one solution is to engrave the message on an adjacent square.

In regular dungeon levels, a certain engraving can occasionally generate which has treasure buried beneath it.

(Note: This idea predates 3.7 themed rooms, and could likely be done as a themed room. One themed room is similar, containing buried treasure but no engraving.)

Grimtooth can be used to engrave a special name, similar to Elbereth, that scares only elves and hobbits.

You should be able to kick downwards, presuming you can reach the floor, to deliberately scuff an engraving beneath you. This will be most useful on semi-permanent engravings since a dust engraving can just be wiped out easily and a burnt engraving won’t scuff.

A monster, possibly called a “maid”, that cleans up the dungeon. It will pick items lying around on the floor, move chests and boxes into corners, wipe out engravings it finds on the floor, and so forth.

Engraving with a wand of create monster on top of a single-letter engraving has a chance of creating a monster of that letter class. (If it fails to do this, it will create random monsters as normal for the wand.)

Possibly, the chance of it succeeding depends on the engraving type: dust engravings almost never work, carved only seldom, burnt or graffitied offering the best chance.

Engravings are visible from a distance, having their own glyph which renders only when there is an engraving on top of “uninteresting” terrain (floor or corridor). In ASCII, they render as a “, or possibly a ~, but their color varies based on what type of engraving it is.

• Dust engravings: brown
• Actual engraving (e.g. athame): gray
• Burnt engraving: black
• Scrawl of blood: red
• Graffiti: bright green, bright blue, or bright purple

Put engravings outside or nearby inaccessible closets so that you know that something’s there.

Random piles of loot can sometimes generate buried in the floor or behind walls on spaces not adjoining any walkable spaces. Nearby engravings are generated to indicate that there is something in the vicinity. Archeologists get an alignment bonus for digging out these items.

You scuff engravings less when wearing elven boots because you are walking very quietly.

A role whose main mechanic is engraving and carving different magical runes on the ground.

Engraving (or ward) that is bad/cursed, and it causes bad things to happen on or around it. Anti-Elbereth of sorts. Monsters may deliberately engrave it to hurt the player.

Some means of leaving an engraving on the ground for the next player who reaches that floor to encounter (not a bones file, just a random engraving).

Vomiting erases any dust engravings on your current square.

Digging downwards destroys any existing engraving on the square.

Random engraving: “This ASCII tile was donated by [user].”, where user is either a name of someone that has contributed to nethack in real life, or just pulled from the high score list.

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.

Engraving with Fire Brand creates a burnt engraving as a wand of fire does (but still degrades the sharpness of the blade).