if (index < 0)

    if (offset < 0)

As of Stone Soup 0.3 the previously hard-coded monster 
speech has been outsourced into shout.txt and speak.txt by 
Matthew Cline. This makes changing existing messages, or 
adding new ones really easy. This file will hopefully help 
you in this endeavour.

As of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.3 the previously hard-coded 
monster speech has been outsourced by Matthew Cline into 
shout.txt and speak.txt. This makes changing existing  
messages, or adding new ones really easy. This file will 
hopefully help you in this endeavour.

look at an xample:

look at an example:

Now let's have a look at these in more detail:

Now let's look at this entry's components in more detail:

  A '#' sign at the beginning of line means this line will 
  be ignored, so it's used as a comment.

  A '#' sign at the beginning of a line means that this line 
  will be ignored, so it is used to place comments.

  most common ones. 

  most common type of minor demons.

  capital letters), then a a group description (such as 
  insect or humanoid) defined by the monster's body shape. 
  The latter is entirely hardcoded, though.

  capital letters), then a group description (such as insect 
  or humanoid) defined by the monster's body shape (winged, 
  tailed etc). The latter is entirely hardcoded, though.

  string, then reading from left to right the combinations 
  are tested, beginning at three prefixes and ending at 
  none, at which time the prefix "default" is used instead. 
  For the last round (shape comparison, e.g. winged humanoid 
  etc.) a prefix on intelligence gets added. If in this last 
  round still nothing has been found, the monster stays 
  silent.

  string, then, reading from left to right, combinations are
  tested, beginning at three prefixes and ending at none, at 
  which time the prefix "default" is used instead. 
  Only keys that match a searching string perfectly 
  (ignoring upper/lower cases) will be found!
  For the last round (shape comparison, e.g. winged 
  humanoid) occasionally an additional intelligence estimate 
  ("stupid", "smart") is prefixed to the search string. If 
  in this last round still nothing has been found, the 
  monster stays silent.

  __MORE : enforce a "-- More --" prompt

  __MORE : enforce a "--more--" prompt

  others.

  others. For the shouting messages, Crawl looks up the
  noises a given monster can produce and looks for keys 
  that match the string, i.e. __SHOUT, __BARK and so on.

  Other variables can be defined in the form of @variable@. 
  The "@_friendly_imp_@" above is key to another entry in 
  the database entitled "_friendly_imp_" (without those '@' 
  signs) that actually has imps talking. Their speech 
  includes messages such as the following.

  More variables can be defined in the form of @variable@. 
  The "@_friendly_imp_@" above is a reference to another 
  entry in the database that has the key "_friendly_imp_" 
  (without those '@' signs) that actually has imps talking. 
  Their speech includes messages such as the following.

The message entries themselves can be longer than a line, 
though Crawl will simply truncate it should it exceed the 
screen width (assuming 80 columns or less). The actual 
message length will usually differ from the one defining an 
entry as parameters can be stripped from the entry or 
replaced by other values, as explained in the following 
section.

  ENCHANT :  MSGCH_ENCHANT

  ENCHANT :  MSGCH_MONSTER_ENCHANT

  The channels have been assigned different colours and are
  sometimes treated differently, e.g. any of MSGCH_TALK,
  MSGCH_SOUND and MSGCH_TALK_VISUAL will never interrupt 
  resting or travel unless specifically added in the options
  file.

  VISUAL SPELL   : MSGCH_SPELL

  VISUAL ENCHANT : MSGCH_MONSTER_ENCHANT
  VISUAL SPELL   : MSGCH_MONSTER_SPELL

  VISUAL ENCHANT : MSGCH_ENCHANT

  Note, though, that these rarely will take effect as 
  usually the "silenced humanoid" types will take 
  precedence. In the case of silenced monsters, first the 
  database is searched for the monster key along with 
  several prefixes including "silenced", and only if no 
  message can be found through all iterations of monster 
  name, glyph and group description, the search will repeat 
  ignoring the "silenced" prefix and only then these special 
  VISUAL cases can apply.

  Note, though, that these hardly ever take effect as 
  usually the "silenced humanoid" types take precedence. 
  Only if no message for the silenced monster type is found 
  these special VISUAL cases will apply.

  changed to MSGCH_TALK_VISUAL for monsters that don't 
  speak, and manually set to MSGCH_SOUND for all those 
  variants of "You hear a shout!"

  automatically changed to MSGCH_TALK_VISUAL for monsters 
  that can't speak (animals, usually), and manually set to 
  MSGCH_SOUND for all those variants of "You hear a shout!"

  Like with @_friendly_imp_@ above, variables have been 
  defined to allow for greater flexibility. When the speech 
  code encounters an '@' sign it will first search the 
  database for a variable of that name and execute the 
  necessary replacement. Note that recursive replacement of 
  one variable with another is possible, so try to avoid 
  loops. The remaining variables it was unable to find in 
  the database are hardcoded and will be replaced before 
  output. If you add a new variable make sure to also add a 
  database entry for it (without those '@' marks around!);
  otherwise it won't get replaced and just look weird.

  Like with @_friendly_imp_@ above, a number of variables 
  has been defined to allow for greater flexibility. 
  Whenever the speech code encounters an '@' sign it will 
  search the database for a variable of that name and 
  execute the necessary replacement. Note that recursive 
  replacement of one variable with another is possible, so 
  try to avoid loops. The remaining variables it was unable 
  to find in the database are hardcoded and will be replaced 
  before output. 
  If you add a new variable make sure to also add a database 
  entry for it (without those '@' marks around!); otherwise 
  it won't get replaced and just look weird.

  @The_monster@ which is hardcoded and will be replaced with 

  @The_monster@, which is hardcoded and will be replaced by 

  variable you can see in this example is @surface@ which 

  variable you can see in this example is @surface@, which 

@the_monster@   : replaced with definite article plus 
                  monster name for non-unique monsters
@Monster@       : as above, but capitalized
@the_monster@   : replaced with monster name
@The_monster@   : replaced with capitalized monster name
@a_monster@     : replaced with indefinite article plus
                  monster name, if several can exist
@A_monster@     : as above, but capitalized
@Monster@       : replaced with plain monster name
@monster@       : es above, but capitalized

@monster@     : replaced by plain monster name, 
                e.g. "rat" or "Sigmund"
@Monster@     : as above, but capitalized
@the_monster@ : replaced by definite article plus 
                monster name, or only the name if it is
                unique, e.g. "the rat" or "Sigmund"
@The_monster@ : as above, but capitalized
@a_monster@   : replaced by indefinite article plus
                monster name, if more than one can exist,
                e.g. "a rat" or (again) "Sigmund"
@A_monster@   : as above, but capitalized

For friendly monsters an additional "your"/"Your" is 
placed before the monster name, respecting capitalization 
and grammar (only for the_xxx).

For friendly monsters a special case takes effect. Instead
of adding the definite article for @the_xxx@ constructs, 
"your" or "Your" is used, respecting both capitalization and 
grammar.

@surface@ : replaced with whatever the monster stands on
@feature@ : replaced with the monster's square's feature 

@surface@ : replaced by whatever the monster stands on
@feature@ : replaced by the monster's square's feature 

@pronoun@     : replaced be it, she, he as appropriate
@Pronoun@     : replaced be It, She, He, as appropriate
@possessive@  : replaced by its, her, his as appropriate

@pronoun@     : replaced by it, she, he, as appropriate
@Pronoun@     : replaced by It, She, He, as appropriate
@possessive@  : replaced by its, her, his, as appropriate

_friendly_imp_, _hostile_imp_, _tormentor_. There are also a 
few synonyms defined at the beginning of speak.txt such as 
for @ATTACK@, @pointless@, @shouts@, @wails@, @yells@ and 

_friendly_imp_, _hostile_imp_, and _tormentor_. There are 
also a few synonyms defined at the beginning of speak.txt 
such as for @ATTACK@, @pointless@, @shouts@, @wails@, and

 
The best way to learn about how variables and other concepts
can be used is probably to see how it has been done for 
existing messages.
TESTING YOUR CHANGES
Should you have a version of Stone Soup that has been 
compiled with the WIZARD mode defined, this could greatly 
simplify testing. You can check whether this is the case by 
pressing '&' during the game. If you are told that this is 
an "unknown command" you are out of luck and might consider 
compiling the game for yourself. You can download the source 
code from the Crawl homepage [1]. 
Read the "INSTALL" file in the main directory for 
instructions. Should you, after reading the documentation 
and checking the archives of the Crawl newsgroup [2], still 
have any questions, ask away! 
If you have WIZARD mode compiled in, you can simply answer 
"yes" to the safety question resulting from pressing '&', 
and then test to your heart's content. Pressing '&' followed 
by a number of other keys will execute wizard mode commands 
that are all listed in the wizard help menu (press '&?').
In particular, you can create a monster with '&M', and 
enforce behaviour on a monster by examining it (with 'x', 
as usual). In wizard mode this offers several new commands 
such as 'F' (make monster friendly/unfriendly) and 's' 
(make monster shout). These last two are of particular 
interest to monster speech designers.
You can also temporarily increase the likelihood of a given
message by adding a high weight value before it, e.g. w:500,
or equally temporarily push it into another channel (e.g. 
MSGCH_WARN) to make it more noticeable.
PUBLISHING YOUR ADDITIONS AND CHANGES
If you feel that your additions really add something to the
game and would like to make them available to the general 
public, you can post them (in the form of a diff file, or in 
plain text) in the newsgroup [2] or as a feature request on 
sourceforge.net [1].
[1] http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/crawl-ref
[2] rec.games.roguelike.misc
Since this newsgroup is being shared with a number of other 
roguelike games, it is generally considered polite to flag 
subjects of posts pertaining only to Crawl with "-crawl-" or 
a similar marker.

Ogres are huge, chunky creatures related to orcs. They are terrible
monsters who usually live to do nothing more than smash, smash, smash,
and destroy.

Genealogists would call these species Common Ogres and Sapient Ogres rather, 
yet the folklore labels stuck somehow. These two are genuinely different 
races stemming from a mythological progenitor, the Primordial Ogre. 
While crossbreeding is possible, it is generally frowned upon in Ogre 
societies: the resulting offspring is often ill-fated, and in very rare cases, even two-headed ogres result.
Ogres are huge, chunky creatures who usually live to do nothing more than 
smash, smash, smash, and destroy. They have great physical strength, but 
are bad at almost everything except fighting and mature quite slowly. 
Because of their large size they can only wear loose robes, cloaks and 
animal skins. Although ogres can eat almost anything, their size also 
means that they need to do so more frequently than smaller folk.

They have great physical strength, but are bad at almost everything
except fighting and learn quite slowly. Because of their large size
they can only wear loose robes, cloaks and animal skins. Although ogres
can eat almost anything, their size means that they need to do so more 
frequently than smaller folk.

Ogre Mages are slightly smaller and nimbler than their Common 
counterparts and grow a bit slower. They are unique among the beefier 
species in their ability to use magic, especially enchantments. Still, 
they also perform well in all types of melee combat, with a slight 
disadvantage at short blades. While they perform better than Ogres in all 
more civilised aspects of life, Ogre Mages have lost the ability to 
digest corpsed when not hungry.

Ogre-mages are a separate race of ogres who are unique among the beefier
species in their ability to use magic, especially enchantments. Although
slighter than their common ogre relatives they nevertheless have great 
strength and can survive a lot of punishment. They advance in level as 
slowly as high elves. In contrast to their Ogre cousins, Ogre Mages have
lost the ability to digest corpses when not hungry.

Most often, small bands of Common Ogres raid the countryside or
underground dungeons, accompanied by a Sapient Ogre. The latter is 
usually at once the undisputed spokesman, medicine man and shaman of the 
group. 

description of the spell causing the enchantment will explain these.

description of the spell causing the enchantment will explain these.