is there a look command?

[Maahes]

Specifically for the text version. I'd like to be able to look at the
various letters to see what they are. Also it would be nice to be able
to just swap places with neutral creatures, for instance worms if you
worship aries.

[Mario Donick]

You can press 'L' (uppercase) for looking at the tiles next to you.
You can't enter some kind of "look" mode where you could identify all
tiles on the screen.

Sorry about this -- I think here it becomes obvious that I tend to
focus more on the graphical mode of the game ;)

Swapping places can be done indirectly. Often, you can simply wait for
some turns (press . key for waiting one turn, press r for waiting a
defined number of turns), and the neutral creature will move away.