Add “jackal kills” as a feature or themed room that generates rarely on early dungeon floors: a corpse of a playable race surrounded by a few jackals. If fake bones piles are added, make this a fake bones pile with “killed by a jackal” on the headstone.

In the uppermost levels of the dungeon, there should be (randomly generated and not guaranteed) fake bones piles which contain starting equipment from some role. Gear is eroded or biased towards negative enchantment, most magical items are removed, and perhaps one or two non-starting items are added. Then the whole pile is mostly cursed as usual.

Note: This has been implemented in 3.6.1 but differently; it places random cursed items instead of selecting starting gear.

Several things relating to making the upper dungeon feel more “eroded” or exposed to the elements/other adventurers, in keeping with NetHack flavor that other people have been seeking the Amulet:

• Falling rock traps on shallow levels come “pre-disarmed”, which is to say that they have already been used up and so should consist of a pile of rocks on the ground underneath a falling rock trap with no rocks left in it.
• Rolling boulder traps on shallow levels generate without boulders or with out-of-line boulders.
• Traps with ammunition can have a few pieces of that ammunition lying on the appropriate space.
• Dilapidated armories.
• Monsters on these levels are likely to generate with zero-charge or low-charge wands or other items.
• Fewer items lying around.
• Randomly destroyed walls.
• Fake bones piles (see below).

Note that this has been partially implemented in 3.6.1 with the addition of fake bones piles that come with a pre-disarmed trap if applicable, although that was aimed less at adding ambiance and more at helping players avoid early traps.