There are tons of rumors but they're a bit of a shoddy thing to rely on, so I'm not just asking to add more true romors. I want there to be more legit ways a player might be encouraged to experiment with stuff in particular ways that leads towards interesting things.
Here are a few I can think of right now:
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Elven Dagger and Elven Broadsword should have some indication they can turn into artifact weapons.
Elven Dagger and Elvish Broadsword not having a seperate entry from a normal Dagger or Broadsword makes it difficult to add information
Maybe peaceful hobbits could talk about the power of naming elvish weapons and mention the great folk hero Bilbo's Sting and his company's Ocrist or something
that's a rough idea and I would like someone more familiar with LOTR to say if that makes sense or not since I have a very surface level understanding.
It seems like Bilbo named Sting after he killed his first enemy with it, so maybe it could even ask you to give it a name after you get your first kill in melee combat with an Elven Dagger. That's probably too invasive. No idea. Just something to try to get you to understand that naming it might be significant.
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make it more obvious what object could be multiple things
For example, a new player wouldn't know that "a gray stone" is an incomplete type, they might assume it's a full type like "a dagger" or "a long sword". I think a conceptionally easy (though perhaps annoying) change would be to give all items without randomized names that still have multiple forms (i.e gray stone, blue gem, lamp) a name like "a lamp of some kind" or "2 gray stones of some kind".
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engrave testing wands
it would be cool if, say, peaceful monsters who generate with with wands would sometimes engrave messages with their wands. This could (quite unrealistically) not use up any charges to not annoy players who might want those charges for themselves. You would get a message like
The peaceful hobbit engraves with his [type] wand!
A lit field surrounds him
This would introduce a lot of complexity though I would imagine since a slightly modified messages would need to be added for each engraving as well as deciding what they're engraving in the first place (maybe random rumors? Those are always fun!).
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An indication that you're taking a luck penalty in Sokoban
Now, luck is not quite alignment but it's still quite linked to the Gods
so maybe it would make sense to have something like "[Your god] is dissapointed..." or "You hear a tremendous boo from beyond the walls" if you are hallucinating or something. Otherwise there is, as far as I know, no way to even realise your luck is going down from breaking the rules!
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A hint on making holy water by praying on an altar with water potions on it
Maybe if you have cursed or uncursed water in your inventory and you pray at an altar, the game can say "Your clear potion glows faintly with the altar, but is too far away" or something cheesy like that. Maybe a cursed water can say something like "You can feel the clear potion hiss with the glow of the altar". Maybe this could even be a way for someone to find out that dropping stuff on an altar identifies it's beautude by dropping their clear potion on it for the first time.
(The messages shouldnt care whether the clear potion or it's beautude is identified. It gives no information the player can't get immediately anyway).
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A hint about Elebereth
So, this is in the guidebook and there are already quite a few hints in rumors already, but this is such an essential tool (or maybe i'm just bad lol) that I feel like there should be some simple ways to find out about it. The hard part is that, as far as I understand, Elbereth is supposed to be a distant diety who doesn't directly do anything, so she can't ever reveal herself in the game or anything like that.
Maybe if you're very low on HP and it's like dungeon level 4, once a game, there will be an event like "[Your god] takes your hand and creates an engraving on the ground" and it'll be a gaurenteed 0-turn Elbereth (but again, this won't actually be a strategy since it only happens once and only on low dungeon levels. It might still help with a weak early character though which is maybe a good thing)
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There are loads of things your character should know, maybe he can help you
There could be a whole set of "[Your character] instinctively..." messages
like if you're stuck in a spider web and have a sword or dagger that can instantly tear the web apart, there might be a message like "[Your character] instinctively reaches for [his/her] dagger" as a hint that you can equip the dagger and fight the spider web. There can also be stuff like if you're a knight, there might be a hint about Excalibur like if you're right next on a fountain with a long sword equipped and are at level 5 or higher it might say "[Your character] has a sudden urge to dip his sword". If you equip a weapon for the first time that you can get expert skill in, maybe your character can say "[Your character] feels right at home weilding this weapon". etc. It opens up a lot of possibilities and is something that would have an option in the NETHACKRC file to toggle on or off so it shouldnt annoy veteran players too much.
There are tons of rumors but they're a bit of a shoddy thing to rely on, so I'm not just asking to add more true romors. I want there to be more legit ways a player might be encouraged to experiment with stuff in particular ways that leads towards interesting things.
Here are a few I can think of right now:
Elven Dagger and Elven Broadsword should have some indication they can turn into artifact weapons.
Elven Dagger and Elvish Broadsword not having a seperate entry from a normal Dagger or Broadsword makes it difficult to add information
Maybe peaceful hobbits could talk about the power of naming elvish weapons and mention the great folk hero Bilbo's Sting and his company's Ocrist or something
that's a rough idea and I would like someone more familiar with LOTR to say if that makes sense or not since I have a very surface level understanding.
It seems like Bilbo named Sting after he killed his first enemy with it, so maybe it could even ask you to give it a name after you get your first kill in melee combat with an Elven Dagger. That's probably too invasive. No idea. Just something to try to get you to understand that naming it might be significant.
make it more obvious what object could be multiple things
For example, a new player wouldn't know that "a gray stone" is an incomplete type, they might assume it's a full type like "a dagger" or "a long sword". I think a conceptionally easy (though perhaps annoying) change would be to give all items without randomized names that still have multiple forms (i.e gray stone, blue gem, lamp) a name like "a lamp of some kind" or "2 gray stones of some kind".
engrave testing wands
it would be cool if, say, peaceful monsters who generate with with wands would sometimes engrave messages with their wands. This could (quite unrealistically) not use up any charges to not annoy players who might want those charges for themselves. You would get a message like
The peaceful hobbit engraves with his [type] wand!
A lit field surrounds him
This would introduce a lot of complexity though I would imagine since a slightly modified messages would need to be added for each engraving as well as deciding what they're engraving in the first place (maybe random rumors? Those are always fun!).
An indication that you're taking a luck penalty in Sokoban
Now, luck is not quite alignment but it's still quite linked to the Gods
so maybe it would make sense to have something like "[Your god] is dissapointed..." or "You hear a tremendous boo from beyond the walls" if you are hallucinating or something. Otherwise there is, as far as I know, no way to even realise your luck is going down from breaking the rules!
A hint on making holy water by praying on an altar with water potions on it
Maybe if you have cursed or uncursed water in your inventory and you pray at an altar, the game can say "Your clear potion glows faintly with the altar, but is too far away" or something cheesy like that. Maybe a cursed water can say something like "You can feel the clear potion hiss with the glow of the altar". Maybe this could even be a way for someone to find out that dropping stuff on an altar identifies it's beautude by dropping their clear potion on it for the first time.
(The messages shouldnt care whether the clear potion or it's beautude is identified. It gives no information the player can't get immediately anyway).
A hint about Elebereth
So, this is in the guidebook and there are already quite a few hints in rumors already, but this is such an essential tool (or maybe i'm just bad lol) that I feel like there should be some simple ways to find out about it. The hard part is that, as far as I understand, Elbereth is supposed to be a distant diety who doesn't directly do anything, so she can't ever reveal herself in the game or anything like that.
Maybe if you're very low on HP and it's like dungeon level 4, once a game, there will be an event like "[Your god] takes your hand and creates an engraving on the ground" and it'll be a gaurenteed 0-turn Elbereth (but again, this won't actually be a strategy since it only happens once and only on low dungeon levels. It might still help with a weak early character though which is maybe a good thing)
There are loads of things your character should know, maybe he can help you
There could be a whole set of "[Your character] instinctively..." messages
like if you're stuck in a spider web and have a sword or dagger that can instantly tear the web apart, there might be a message like "[Your character] instinctively reaches for [his/her] dagger" as a hint that you can equip the dagger and fight the spider web. There can also be stuff like if you're a knight, there might be a hint about Excalibur like if you're right next on a fountain with a long sword equipped and are at level 5 or higher it might say "[Your character] has a sudden urge to dip his sword". If you equip a weapon for the first time that you can get expert skill in, maybe your character can say "[Your character] feels right at home weilding this weapon". etc. It opens up a lot of possibilities and is something that would have an option in the NETHACKRC file to toggle on or off so it shouldnt annoy veteran players too much.