Every floor of the Gnomish Mines should have a small chance of generating a “mining accident”: a smallish area containing scattered rocks and boulders, at least 1 dwarf corpse with regular starting inventory, and 50% chance each of a digging tool and a potion of booze. Ideally, this will be near or against a wall rather than out in the middle of an open area.

Guarantee a pick-axe or dwarvish mattock to be either generated on one of the Mines levels above Minetown, or in a shop in Minetown (though part of the motivation for this idea was guaranteeing a way to get into Orcish Town, and a pick spawning inside that town doesn’t really help much, so maybe it can spawn near the upstairs.)

Dwarvish shopkeepers never ask you to leave your pick-axe outside if you are also a dwarf, because they understand the deep cultural offensiveness of asking a dwarf to set aside their pick.

Archeologists should start the game recognizing mattocks.

Rename mattocks to ‘cutter mattock’ and pick-axe to ‘pick’ to make them less ambiguous.

Wands of striking and digging tools deal double damage to all stony monsters like earth elementals, clay golems, stone golems, xorns, and gargoyles.