You are alone in a dungeon generated from a seed. Go down floor by floor, find the Heart of the Mountain on the deepest floor, and take it from the thing that guards it.

Who you are

Pick a class and a background. The class decides what you can wield and cast; each card says in a word how it plays, and for your first few runs the Fighter and the Cleric, who forgive mistakes best, are marked as a good first hero. The background is the life you had before the first stair: it gives you one lasting advantage, colours the opening, and decides how your story is told at the end.

The way in

A new run opens on your hero coming down the passage into the mountain, walking on by themselves. At its end the roof comes down behind them, and the first floor begins with fallen rock where the stair back up would be: there is no way out but down. Tap the view, or any button, to skip it.

Moving

The d-pad turns you and steps you one square at a time. Walk into doors to open them, into locked doors to use a matching key (with none, walking straight at one throws your shoulder against it; a step aside or back into it does not), and into a staircase to take it. Stairs are set into the walls, so you have to be facing them: if you step up beside a staircase the log says which side it is on, and the Use button changes its name to say what it will do — Descend, Open, Trade and so on. Hold a button to keep walking. You can also swipe on the view: left or right to turn, up or down to step. Tap the view to act on what is in front of you. Left-handed? Menu › Controls swaps the d-pad and the buttons to the other sides. Map, or a tap on the little map in the corner of the view, shows all you have explored; pinch it, or press +, to look closer, and drag it about.

Finds

Walking onto a square picks up what lies there, except what you put down yourself and gear your class can never use: those stay where they lie and show in the Take row at the foot of the view whenever you stand on them. A tap on the row lifts everything, and a trader will buy all you cannot use in one go.

Dungeon puzzles are optional at the first stair of each new custom or Quick Start run. Tick Include dungeon puzzles to put rune sequences, watchfire patterns and keeper seals on some existing gold and gem caches. Stand on a cache or face it and press Puzzle (Use). Its inscription holds every clue, and the dungeon waits while you read. Start again clears a guess; Leave for later keeps your progress. A wrong answer costs nothing, and you may retry as often as you like. Open the cache, then choose its gold and gems or, when its purse covers it, a Potion of Healing or unidentified gear with any remaining coins. The item replaces some coins; choose once, then step onto the cache or press Take to collect your share. You may leave the choice for later; a full pack leaves the treasure on the floor. Keys, relics, passages, stairs and the Heart never need a puzzle solved. Daily and Weekly challenges keep puzzles off.

A barrel, crate or urn breaks to a blow when there is nothing to fight in front of you, or to Use (the button says Break), and walking into one kicks it over. Most hold nothing; now and then a little gold, a meal, or very rarely a healing draught.

Secrets

Some walls hide secret doors leading to treasure vaults. Walk into a suspicious wall or press Use facing it to search; at a dead end, walled on three sides, the button says Search, since that is where the builders liked to hide a door. Thieves often notice them just by walking past. Fountains set into the walls restore you fully, once.

Rooms come in many shapes: halls with rows of pillars to put between you and a blow, caverns, long galleries, rooms with niches in their walls. The corridors loop, so there is usually more than one way round. Past the divided stair each road builds after its own fashion: the Crypts in burial niches, long galleries and straight passages, the Warrens in burrows and crooked tunnels. Every floor holds one set piece: a block of cells along an aisle, each behind a barred gate; a shrine with a basin at its back; a cistern where the water carries lightning and freezes under cold; or a hall half fallen in, with something left at the back of the stone. Each comes in versions: cells made kennels or storerooms, a shrine defiled or still kept, a cistern brimming over or silted up, a fall that buried someone or that someone tried to shore. Each keeps a find worth the detour.

Survival

Walking makes you hungry. Eat rations from your pack or you will start to starve. Your wounds close on their own only up to half your life (more for the Heartsworn); past that it takes a potion, a prayer or a Rest. Resting costs food and is impossible with enemies close by. A floor's wear carries: the first rest on a floor restores up to two thirds of your life and spell points, the second a third, the third a sixth, and after that the dark is too close to sleep until you find the next floor (on Easy a rest restores everything, then half, then a quarter). Only a night by a trader's lamp makes you whole. The longer you linger, the likelier something finds you asleep. The Rest button shows how much the next rest will do; with anything close it dims and says foes near, and it never drinks for you. Drink in a fight from the Pack, or in one tap: anyone carrying a healing potion they know gets a red Drink button beside the life bar, which says how many they carry, and beats when your life is below a quarter. Watch for traps in corridors. Now and then someone who knows a floor tells you where its traps lie: they show on the map as a red ×, and you step round them. A trap goes off under whatever walks onto it, not only under you: lead a chase across one you know of, and the dart, the pit or the gong takes the creature instead (what flies goes over, and a kobold's own wire is not sprung by its kind).

The deep takes the measure of whoever comes down. Arrive on a floor far stronger than most who reach it and what waits there is readier for you: sturdier, surer, and more often a champion. Clearing every corner still pays, just not for free.

Keyboard

W/S or arrows to move, A/D to turn, Q/E to sidestep, Space to attack, U to use, C to cast, T to take what lies underfoot, R to rest, X to drink a healing potion, Z to read a scroll (or coat a bare blade as a fight starts), M map, I pack, P spells, H hero, J journal, L the log, Esc to close (or to go back, on any other screen). What a key opens takes the focus, so Tab and Enter work inside it.

Controller

A controller works everywhere once it is plugged in and a button pressed. In the dungeon: the left stick or the d-pad steps forward and back and turns, LB and RB step aside, A attacks (hold it to keep swinging), X uses, Y casts, B takes what lies underfoot, LT drinks a healing potion, RT reads the scroll at hand, the right stick's click rests and the left stick's opens the log. Menu pauses and opens the Menu; View puts a gold ring on the buttons along the bottom (the map, the pack, the spells, the hero, the journal, Rest), to move along and press with A.

Everywhere else, in every screen and every window that opens, the d-pad or stick moves the ring from button to button, A presses, B goes back or closes (a level's choice and an encounter wait to be answered), and the right stick scrolls a long page. On a list to pick from, A steps to its next choice and LB/RB step back and on. A touch puts the ring away again.

On a phone, the back gesture closes whatever is open, and in the dungeon it opens the Menu (pausing the game) rather than leaving it. Put the phone away with something awake close by and you come back to the Menu too, with the fight waiting for you.

How it ends

How the delve ends is yours to choose. On the floor before the last of any delve of four floors or more (on a Long Delve a floor further up, in the dark elves' halls, while the floor below them keeps the old smiths' forge, cold, with something left by its doors), one of the old smiths who lit the Heart sits kept at a cold anvil, and has two things to give, of which you may carry one: his quench, which puts the Heart out for good, or the way the smiths stayed to keep it. (The Pale One's bargain teaches the second too.) With either, the Heart asks you, once its keeper is down: carry it up, put it out, or stay and keep it. Each ending has its own card, Hall entry and feat, and none scores more than another. Walk away from the choice and it waits for you.

The same seed with the same choices makes the same dungeon. When a run ends, Share this run passes on a line with its seed and any choices you changed (through your phone's share sheet, or copied if it has none), so a friend can try the same halls. Share a picture makes a card of the run instead: the hero, how far they got and what brought them down (or the Heart they lifted), to send or to keep.

Fighting

Everything happens in real time. Attack strikes the square in front of you. Monsters that reach you will hit back; step away, close doors behind you, or fight in corridors where only one can reach you. A red chevron at the edge of the view marks anything close on your flanks or behind you: it pulses when the thing is right beside you. A blow from one you cannot see lights that side of the view red for a moment, and on a phone that can, buzzes twice. A creature that wakes up growls a moment before it attacks, so turn toward the sound. Thieves move quietly, so monsters notice them late, and they deal double damage to sleeping foes.

Warning marks

No blow comes without warning. A monster about to strike draws back and a warning mark appears over it, a triangle that fills from the bottom and turns from yellow to red as the blow comes; you also hear it. Step back or sidestep before it lands and it hits empty air — mostly. A few follow a step straight back: a rat pounces, a ghoul or a wraith lunges after you, and the lich's touch reaches two squares down a line. Against those, step to the side. Goblins and orcs never draw back the same way twice, so watch the mark, not the rhythm. An archer drawing its bow misses if you step out of its line. A blow coming from your side or behind makes the red chevron at that edge flash fast.

The dice

Every swing is a twenty-sided die plus your bonus against the target's armour class, and the log can show the working: (d20 14+5 vs AC 13). A natural one always misses and a natural twenty is always a critical hit (the log calls it a telling blow), so those say so instead of printing a sum. Monsters roll the same way against your armour class, and their blows show it too, except that on the first two floors a monster's natural twenty still hits but does not do double damage. Watch the numbers to learn what you are up against — if your bonus is barely clearing its armour, something heavier or a different approach will serve you better, and if everything is landing on you, your armour has fallen behind the depth. The working is hidden to begin with: turn on Combat rolls under Menu to see it.

Two blades

A Fighter can put a second light weapon — a dagger, club or short sword — in the off hand instead of a shield. Open the pack, choose the blade and press Off hand. The second blade follows every blow of the first, hit or miss, but it swings wilder (wilder still when the first has missed and left you off balance) and carries none of your strength, and holding two slows your main hand. The second blade parries too, for one point of armour class, less than any shield but a buckler. It clears a room of soft targets faster than anything else; against something well armoured a two-handed weapon still lands the better blow, and a real shield still keeps you alive longer.

A Thief carries no shield but a buckler, the smallest, strapped to the forearm where it does not slow the hands: one more point of armour class. Anything bigger is too much for the work.

The Ranger

A Ranger fights with a bow: an arrow flies to the first foe down the corridor ahead, and Dexterity lands it and adds to it, whatever the weapon. A shot from a bow or a sling at a foe two squares off or more bites harder (Steady Aim, +1, and +2 from three squares off on a delve of eight floors or fewer on Normal or Easy; not throwing knives, which are thrown, not aimed), so the ranger's art is keeping the distance, and a bow's long reach gives the most shots before anything arrives. The pack counts Steady Aim when it compares a bow with a blade, and says how much further the bow reaches, which its damage figure cannot count.

Light armour, no shield (a bow needs both hands), and a dagger, a sword or a spear for when something gets close; like a thief, a ranger grows harder to hit with every few levels.

On the Cast button, Snare throws a weighted cord at the first foe down the corridor, five squares at most: it stands caught for two and a half seconds, and any blow it was drawing back is broken off. It comes back after sixteen seconds.

A Sharpshooter's arrows bite harder still from three squares off, their critical hits come a number sooner, their first arrow at a foe that has not seen them never misses, and their snare reaches two squares further and holds a second and a half longer; a Warden is harder to hit, their snare bites, holds a second longer and comes back three seconds sooner, and a snared foe takes 2 more from every blow and arrow of theirs.

The Druid

A Druid keeps the old ways, and Wisdom answers them: it lands the druid's blows (with a spear, a staff, a club or a dagger), as faith does a cleric's, and fills their spell points. Light armour and a buckler at most.

Wild Shape is a spell like the others, and makes a bear of you for forty seconds: you strike with its claws (1d8, and Wisdom or Strength behind them) instead of what you hold, your armour class is 2 better, and its hide takes the blows before you do, a few points thicker every level (the status line shows the time and the hide left). It ends when its time runs out, when a blow tears through the hide (the rest of that blow reaches you), or when you cast any other spell: a bear cannot say the words, so the druid lets it go to speak. What rides on your weapon, a relic's power or an oil, stays behind with it while you are a bear, and so does your shield: a bear holds nothing, so a rustmaw finds no blade or shield on it to eat. The hide keeps out blows, darts and falling stone, not hunger or poison, which work from inside. A bear can still drink a draught or read a scroll.

The other spells: Thorn Lash, a whip of thorns at the first foe within four squares; Mending Moss, which heals you and your companion alike; Entangle, roots that hold the first foe ahead for three and a half seconds and break off the blow it was drawing back (a foe that saves by its strength tears free in two thirds of the time, a boss in half); Call Lightning; and at seventh level Insect Plague, a swarm that fills the corridor ahead.

A companion at a druid's side is half again as tough, comes to them a floor further on in what it knows, and is mended by their healing. A Shapeshifter takes the bear a point more cheaply and for longer, with harder claws, but finds the words for every other spell a point dearer; a Grovewarden is harder to hit, their companion is twice as tough as at another's side and bites harder, their moss heals more, their thorns hold back what they strike and their roots hold longer. Two relics are made for druids alone: Oakheart, a staff whose Wild power lengthens the bear and thickens its hide (it goes into the shape as you take it, though the bear holds nothing), and the Mossmantle, living moss over soft hide that mends you and keeps poison out. A druid knows the old stone, the pale caps and the lie of the land, and has a better chance with each.

Class moves

A Fighter and a Thief have no spells, but each has a move of their own on the Cast button, which comes back after a few seconds. The fighter's Bash strikes with shield or pommel: it breaks off any blow or trick the foe in front is drawing back and sets it reeling back a moment (a shield rings it harder; a Knight's sets it back longer; a Berserker's bash is a blow of its own). It comes back after fifteen seconds. The thief's Smoke makes everything within three squares lose them for three seconds, as good as asleep: slip away, or land the double blow a sleeping foe takes. A blow already being drawn back still comes, so throw it before the mark, not after (an Assassin's smoke hangs longer; a Trickster's comes back sooner). The lich and the Goblin Warlord see through smoke, though it holds them back a moment and breaks off what they were drawing back (not the lich's rite). Each has a talent to build on it: a fighter's Shield Slam brings Bash back in ten seconds and knocks the foe a square back, dazed a second longer, and a thief's Choking Cloud leaves whatever lost them in the smoke coughing, its first move a second and a half late.

Magic

Mages and Clerics have spell points that return slowly as you walk, or fully when you Rest. Cast repeats your last spell. Casting takes time, like a swing: a mage's words are quick, a cleric's prayers slower, and you cannot swing and cast at the same moment. Anyone can read scrolls from their pack.

The Heart

The Heart of the Mountain waits on the deepest floor, on a dais at the far end of a long pillared hall with one way in, held fast by the Dread Lich: it will not come loose while the lich stands. It is the delve's last and hardest fight: on Normal and Hard it hits surer and harder than the creatures of its floor would, and on any difficulty fewer of them stand between you and it. The lich fights in three acts. At two thirds of its life it raises guards and throws grave-cold from behind them; at one third it calls a wraith, puts out its torches and tries to drink the Heart's light to mend itself — strike it to break the rite. A vigil lamp burns in the room nearest its hall, for the gold you have left. Bring it down, lift the Heart, and the run is won.

Take the Warrens at the divided stair and it is not the lich at the bottom but the Goblin Warlord, who has taken the Heart's hall and keeps it chained to his hoard. He hits as hard as the lich, on the same terms, and fights in three acts of his own. He beats a war-drum to call a pair of goblins, twice at most: strike him while the stick is raised and the beat dies. At two thirds he leaps onto his throne behind two orc shield-bearers, who turn every blow meant for him, and throws spears from it: cut them down and he must come down. A spell flies over their heads and reaches him there, and his spears break on a mage's Shield. At one third he kicks open his war-chest and fights in a frenzy, quicker than before. When he falls his warband runs, and his hoard is yours.

Groups

From the second floor down, goblins, rats, skeletons and bats go about in groups of two, and deeper in threes, sharing one square. You fight the one in front; when it falls the next steps up, and the square is clear only when the last is down. They draw back together and swing in a quick volley, every one of them, so a group hits hard; step away while the warning mark is up and the whole volley misses. And a spell that fills the square hits every one of them at once: a mage's Burning Hands, Lightning Bolt and Cone of Cold, a cleric's Flame Strike, and a Scroll of Fire. Lightning and cold carry on down the corridor into any group behind.

Monster tricks

Many monsters have a trick of their own. It gets a bigger warning mark, a violet spiked burst rather than a triangle, a deeper sound and a line in the log, and every trick has an answer — usually a step, sometimes a weapon or a spell. The first time you meet each trick, and the first time anything swings at you, a tip over the log says what to do and time runs slow until the moment has passed (unless tips are off). The very first tip, about the controls, holds the dungeon still while you read it, until you move or it fades. A few monsters have a nature rather than a trick, like the troll that grows its wounds back. The first four floors each have a creature whose answer is not a step back, so the deep's lessons are first met where they cost little: a glimmer moth whose wings flare (turn away, or you are dazzled a few seconds and your blows go wide), a thornhog whose quills rise (hold your blow), a gutter imp that steps out of the air at your back (turn and face it), and a goblin pikeman whose pike reaches two squares down its line (close in under the point, or step out of the line). From the second floor down a goblin cutpurse may reach for your purse: step back and its hand closes on air; robbed, bring it down before it gets well away and it drops what it took, or it is gone into the dark with your gold. A goblin lookout that sees you turns and runs for the nearest of its sleeping kin, and a whistle wakes them all: catch it, or shoot it, before it gets there. A goblin hexer shakes its bones and chants a hex from down your line: on a hero who has cast a spell it binds the tongue, and no spell can be said for a few seconds; on anyone else it slows steps and blows. Strike it as it chants and the chant is broken; out of its sight when the chant ends, and the hex falls on the stones. Your Bestiary, in the Journal and on the title screen, writes each trick down once you have seen it, and the answer once you have beaten it. Tap a creature's picture there to look closer.

The way down

A floor's Size (Small, Medium or Large, when you make your hero) changes how much there is of it, not how hard it is. A small floor is quicker to cross, with fewer rooms, creatures, locked doors and traps and a lesser great hall, though as many hidden rooms and encounters as a medium one; a large one has more of everything, and its long corridors have recesses in their walls to step aside into.

For a quick game, choose 2 floors: a quick delve. The first floor is an ordinary first floor; the second is a little deeper than that, and at its far end a lesser lich, not yet come into its full strength, keeps the Heart. You learn three times as fast, so a good delve still reaches a path. It is over in a quarter of an hour or so. A win there goes in the Hall, but trophies, titles and what a win opens wait for four floors or more.

Choose 12 or 16 floors when you make your hero for the Long Delve: the same dungeon drawn out, so every kind of creature has floors of its own before the last (the trolls, the ogres and the minotaur come in their turn rather than all at the bottom), and three named champions hold floors on the way down instead of two (and the dark elves' High Priestess a fourth, near the bottom, and in sixteen floors the lizardfolk's Marsh-Mother and the grey dwarves' Forge-Thane a fifth and sixth). Below the divided stair the deep has two regions of its own, with walls and halls unlike any above: the Drowned Halls, always flooded, where the drowned lie under the black water (the seventh floor of twelve, the ninth of sixteen), and the Old Forges, the old smiths' own, whose cracks always smoulder and where emberlings live (the eighth of twelve, the thirteenth of sixteen). A long delve has no other flooded or smouldering floor. It is the harder road: from the seventh floor its creatures hit surer, and every floor past the sixth they are a little sturdier. On Hard the deep answers magic too: from the seventh floor spells, and a cleric's blows, strike and heal 6% harder for every floor past the sixth (a cleric's 4%, and a mage's 4% on twelve floors); a fighter's blows grow 6% a floor there, a druid's 4% and a ranger's shots and blows 3.5% (both 5% on sixteen floors). Below the twelfth floor of sixteen the deep answers on any difficulty: spells and a cleric's blows 6% a floor past the twelfth, a fighter's blows and a druid's 6%, a ranger's 5% (for a fighter, a mage, a druid and a ranger it begins past the tenth). And past the sixth floor of sixteen, on any difficulty, what sleeps there sleeps lightly: a sneak blow is one less, so a thief with no talent, path or relic to add to it strikes there as any blow. At its bottom, down either road, neither the lich nor the Warlord keeps the Heart: the Heartforged does, an iron giant with a furnace in its chest. When it raises its hammer, fire runs out along the floor down all four of its lines: step off its lines and it is left open. At two thirds it lets embers out of its furnace (emberlings) and its hall's floor splits: the cracks glow, then flare over themselves and the four squares beside them, as a smouldering floor's do, until it falls (cold seals one a while); at one third it glows white, quicker, and its fire runs further. Cold hurts it. A win on it, on Normal or Hard, is a feat with its own trophy in the Hall.

Down either road, two floors above the bottom of the Long Delve (the tenth of twelve, the fourteenth of sixteen), lies the Dark Elf Halls, and nothing lives there but the dark elves. A dark elf warrior fights with two blades; when it crosses them in a guard, hold your blow: a blow struck into the guard is answered with a cut, and if you wait, the guard falls open. A dark elf mage keeps its distance, throws violet fire, and weaves webs of shadow that hold you where you stand. Their champion is Vaelith, the High Priestess, with two warriors at her side: she lashes with shadow from afar and knits her own wounds and theirs with a dark chant, which any wound you give her breaks. They were raised among spells, and a spell you cast can slide off one of them as if it were not there, doing nothing at all: off a warrior one time in five, a mage one in four, Vaelith one in three. Steel never slides off, nor Entangle's roots, which are the stone's own. A fallen warrior now and then leaves its scimitar (a quick curved blade) or its elven chain (light armour as good as a soldier's chain), and a mage its shadow-spun cloak (+1 armour class, and sleeping things notice you a square later) or its hand crossbow (one-handed, for fighters, thieves and rangers; one bolt in four that lands at range leaves a living foe drowsy, its next move a second late). Vaelith drops the Spider Pendant: +3 to every saving throw, and no web holds its wearer. Their Spider Altar stands somewhere on the floor: drink its wine, pry out its garnet eyes or cast it down, each with its risk.

In a delve of sixteen floors, five above the bottom (the eleventh), lies the Grey Hold, and nothing lives there but the grey dwarves. A grey dwarf is short, broad and slow, in mail too heavy for anyone taller, with a war hammer; when it mutters and begins to swell, strike it: any wound breaks the working. If it grows to twice its height its blows fall half as hard again for a few seconds; give it room until it shrinks. A grey dwarf arbalest keeps back with a crossbow, and when it takes careful aim, step out of its line: the bolt that follows hits twice as hard, and if you have moved it cracks off the stone and leaves the arbalest open. Grey dwarves are stout: venom on your blade never takes on them, nor a dark elf's sleeping poison, and they ride out a blast of magic more often than others as sure with their arms. Their champion is Durgrim, the Forge-Thane, who swells as his warriors do, with two arbalests at his back. A fallen warrior now and then leaves its Dwarven Hammer (for fighters and clerics) or its Dwarven Plate (the best armour there is, and as heavy), and an arbalest its Rune-Cut Shield (your life cannot be drained). Durgrim drops his ring, Durgrim's Ring: +2 to hit and to damage, and a wyrm's fire does half as much to you. Their Great Anvil stands somewhere on the floor: temper your weapon on it, take their ingots or drink their ale, each with its risk.

And on the fifth floor of sixteen, before the stair divides, lies the Sunless Marsh: walls of wattle and mud, black water standing in every room, and nothing there but the lizardfolk. A lizardfolk warrior fights with spear and shell; when it coils its tail, step back out of its reach: the tail lashes empty air and leaves it open, where a hero who stays is struck hard and may be knocked flat. A lizardfolk shaman keeps back, chants over its kin's wounds (wound it to break the chant), and calls lightning down into the water you stand in: step out of it. Their champion is Hissra, the Marsh-Mother, with two shamans at her side. A warrior now and then leaves its marsh-hide armour (light, and poison cannot take hold of you), and a shaman its fang charm; Hissra drops her tooth: a wound closes a little every few seconds, and poison cannot take hold (a find beyond the Collector's set, as Durgrim's Ring is). A clutch of eggs lies somewhere in the water: take one to sell, warm your hands at the mound, or smash them.

About a third of the way down, the stair divides, after your path is chosen (reach it first and the path is asked there). Each road's card names the champions that hold its floors, the keeper at its bottom and the relic found nowhere else. Take it and you choose: down into the Crypts, old burial halls where the dead and the spiders keep house, or into the Warrens, goblin tunnels and orc halls with bigger things further down. The floors that follow, until the last two, lean that way: their walls (the dead stacked skull on skull in the Crypts, dug earth propped with timber in the Warrens), their creatures, the champions that hold them, what the traders keep, one encounter met nowhere else, and on the road's last floor a relic found nowhere else: the Sexton's Locket down the Crypts, the Warchief's Knuckle down the Warrens. A smouldering floor keeps one of its own too, lying furthest from the way in: the Cinder Ring, whose wearer walks through fire on the floor unburned, and takes half from an emberling's flare or the Heartforged's stamp. The roads meet again near the bottom. A win by each road is a feat of its own.

Now and then a middle floor is not like the others, and the log says so as you arrive: a dark floor has most of its torches out (harder to see, but sleeping things notice you a square later), a flooded one has everything wading, you too, a quarter slower, the restless dead have raised many of a floor's creatures as undead, a goblin market means a trader who sells cheaper than most, and an overgrown floor, roots through the stone and moss over everything, hides its traps under the moss (harder to spot, except for a druid, who reads it), grows pale caps you can eat, and is a druid's own ground: their spells cost a point less there. From the third floor down a floor of tremors shudders now and then, and rock comes down from the roof: the squares it will land on are ringed with grit a moment first, your own among them, so step onto one that is not. It falls on whatever stands there, your foes too, who never look up. Deep down, near the end of the delve, a floor may smoulder: cracks in its stones glow, and now and then one heats up, brightening and spreading a glow over the squares round it, then flares fire over its own square and the four beside it. Step clear while it glows; cold striking by a crack (a spell at a creature beside it, or one cast at the crack itself) seals it a while. Emberlings live there, knots of burning rock that fire barely touches and cold hurts badly: when one blazes white-hot, step two squares off or quench it with cold, and mind the square it dies on, which bursts into flame. On the deep floors you may also find a forge-spirit, which tempers a blade or a coat one step past where the traders' hammers stop; the Heartwell, where the Heart's warmth rises from far below (breathe it with a strong chest for more life, or rest by it); the Last Delver, who came down long ago and never went back up (share a meal and they draw you the floor and its traps; ask badly, or try to rob them, and they wake it); and a wyrm's warm egg (smash it for a deal of experience, but its mother wakes the floor). On a dark floor eyeless stalkers hunt by sound: every step, blow, spell or door tells them where you are, and a hero who stands still is lost to them (turning on the spot is silent), unless one blunders up beside you. On a flooded floor the drowned lie sunk in the black water, seen only as a ripple that does not settle, and rise to seize whoever comes within two squares: go round the ripple, strike into it first, or step back as it lurches. Puffcaps grow on an overgrown floor, slow fungi that burst in spores when a blow lands on them from beside them (a Constitution save, or poisoned): burn them, shoot them, or keep a cure handy. Fire on your blade sears the spores, and a druid breathes them unharmed. A chip at the top of the view reminds you while you are there.

From the second floor down, now and then a creature is a champion, tinted the colour of its mark, tougher than its kind and worth more. Each mark also changes how it fights, and the bar says which while one is near: a Feral one lowers its head and charges down a line whatever its kind (step aside); an Armoured one's plates turn the first blow that finds them (a spell, fire or venom goes past them, and a thief's blow from the shadows finds the gaps); an Ancient one uses its trick twice as often; and a Rabid one never breaks and runs, however hurt.

Now and then, from the second floor down, a champion leads a warband of two or three of its own kind, close about it (on a sixteen-floor delve one always waits on the second or third floor). They wake when it does, and the bar says it leads them; bring it down and the rest break and scatter.

Named champions

About a third of the way down, and again about two thirds, one floor is held by a named champion: a goblin king, a web-mother, an orc warchief, a ghoul lord and worse, each one of its kind grown great. The log names it when you arrive, and it sleeps in a room of its own, away from the stairs, with some of its kin. It is bigger than its kind and washed in its own colour, and once it wakes its life runs across the top of the view. Each has its kind's trick sharpened — webs twice as often, a claw every other blow, a horn to call its kin — warned of and answered like any other, and it leads with that trick the moment it wakes. At two thirds of its life it changes the ground: the Goblin King spills lamp oil round his own feet (fire it), the Warchief, the Elder Wyrm and the Forge-Thane scatter flames, the Troll-Father and the Marsh-Mother bring black water welling up round you both (lightning runs through it, cold freezes it), and the others call one of their kin to their side. Below a third it makes its last stand, quicker and harder: finish it. Bring it down and it leaves something fine where it falls: a relic the traders were keeping for you, or a well-made piece and a purse of gold; and once you walk a path, the first champion you bring down leaves that path's legend as well.

Your dead come back. The last hero you lost outside the Daily Delve is remembered on this device. In a later run (again, not a daily one) their bones lie on the floor where they fell, still wearing their weapon and armour and, if they wore one, a ring or an amulet, and their shade keeps watch over them. The log warns you when you arrive. The shade is as strong as its floor and fights as its hero did: a fighter's charges, a mage's throws cold fire, a cleric's mends itself, a thief's is quick and follows a step back, a ranger's shoots. Lay it to rest and the gear is yours, though you will not know how good it is until you study it, and a curse it carried is carried still. A relic does not come back with them: each is one of a kind. They are never met on the first floor or the lich's: a death on the first floor waits on the second, and one on the lich's floor or deeper waits on the floor above it. A newer death takes the older one's place. The Hall of Heroes says who is still down there.

Fire, cold and lightning

Burning Hands, Flame Strike, a Scroll of Fire, a flaming blade and a mage's Kindling are fire; Cone of Cold, a Scroll of Frost and a frost-oiled blade are cold; Lightning Bolt and a Scroll of Lightning are lightning, so every class can bring each element to bear. Some things take half as much again from one of them and some only half: rot and web burn well, the dead barely feel the cold, and metal in the belly draws the lightning. The first time you find out, the number over the creature says weak! or resists and the log says why, and the Bestiary remembers. The cold works both ways: a wraith's touch, the lich's grave-cold and its storm are cold, and a Ring of Warmth halves them.

The dungeon answers them

The elements act on the place as well as on what they strike. Lightning striking something that stands in water (all of a flooded floor, or a puddle) runs through it to everything else standing in water within two squares, at half the force: you too, if you are wading that close, so strike from further off. Cold striking something in water freezes the water round it for a few seconds: whatever stands there is held fast (your own feet too, if you are beside it), a drowned one cannot rise through the ice, and ice carries no lightning.

Fire sets moss and spilt oil alight: a fire spell where it lands, whether it strikes something or not; a flaming blade or a fire-oiled shot under what it strikes; a cave wyrm's breath all down its line but the square under its jaws. The flames spread to the fuel beside them and burn whatever stands in them, you too, and leave ash that will not burn again. Moss burns out two squares from where it caught (strike from three squares off and you are clear of it); oil burns as far as the oil goes. A shut wooden door beside a fire may catch: it burns a while and falls in, leaving an open doorway, and a locked door loses its lock with it. Fire beneath you burns away a web that holds you.

About a third of the barrels are oil casks, painted red with a flame: break one and oil spills round it, and a fire that reaches one whole bursts it. Traders sell flasks of lamp oil (and a barrel sometimes holds one): Throw one from your pack and it smashes up to three squares ahead, or on the first thing in the way, and spills its oil there (on water it floats, and burns there as well). Fire oil worked into a bow or sling lights oil where the shot lands.

The living will not walk into fire, and one caught in it gets out: a line of burning oil or moss across a passage holds them back while it burns, and one charging down it pulls up short and is left open. The undead, the lich and the Warlord come on through it.

Monsters use fire too: from the third floor down, a goblin on its own may light a pot of oil and throw it at where you stand, to burst in flames there and on the square behind (step aside while its mark is up), and a goblin archer looses a burning arrow at your feet when you stand on moss or oil. The cold and the lightning come for you too: a wraith breathes a grave-cold across the stones at your feet from a few squares off (step aside, or be frozen fast a moment), and a dark acolyte calls lightning down into water you stand in (get out of the water, or on a flooded floor step aside: water beside the strike still carries half). You cannot see what is under your own feet, so the status line says so when you stand in oil or a puddle.

On the middle floors, not every barrel is a barrel. A mimic waits among the others, and creaks when you come within a few squares: strike it from where you stand (a shot, a spell, a thrown flask), and caught shut it takes the blow twice over. Touch it or stand beside it and it springs and seizes you. From the second floor, many a secret vault keeps its gold and its best find in an old chest: a blow or a kick breaks it open. Now and then the chest is the mimic, and it keeps what the chest held until it falls. A kobold trapper keeps its distance, steps back when you close, flings darts, and sets wire snares on the square before you. A snare glints where it lies: go round it, or stand before it and press Disarm. Walk into one and it holds you a moment, unless you are quick. A kobold's snares go slack when it dies.

Now and then a floor lays out a scene for fire: oil casks standing among a sleeping group, the way into a lair slick with spilt oil, casks stacked against a locked door. The log names it as you come within sight of it; what to do is yours.

Your six scores

Your six scores are rolled when you make your hero, the best of them in your class's key score; roll again as often as you like. Or choose Point buy: every score starts at 8, and 27 points raise them to 17 at most, dearer near the top. Some lessons raise a score as you level, and Self-Taught gives two points to put wherever you choose, though no score takes more than two from it in a run.

Every score matters, fighting or not. Strength lands harder blows, forces doors, keeps your feet when something charges into you and tears you out of a grip. Dexterity keeps you out of reach, your fingers quick, dodges a trap that goes off under you (a pit is only half a fall), and slips you out of a grip if you are quicker than you are strong; it also halves a web, a storm of fire, an emberling's flare or lightning through the water that catches you. Constitution is your hit points and your stomach, fights off venom, a numbing claw and a gaze of stone, and cracks a wraith's grave-cold off your feet in half the time. These are saves: a d20 and the score, harder the deeper you go. A monster's trick is still best answered by getting out of its way; a save only softens what lands. Monsters save too, against the spells that fill a square or a corridor (Burning Hands, Lightning Bolt, Cone of Cold, Flame Strike, Insect Plague): one that saves takes three quarters, and the log and a saves over it say so. Your number to beat is 10, half your level and your casting score's bonus, so a sharper caster is harder to ride out; the surer a creature's blows, the better it saves, and a named champion or the Heart's keeper better still. Magic Missile, Holy Smite, Thorn Lash and Call Lightning, each at a single foe, are never saved against. Intelligence powers a mage's spells and lets anyone work out an unknown potion or scroll — choose Study in your pack rather than finding out by drinking it. Wisdom powers a cleric's prayers, spots traps before you step on them and holds your life together against the drain of the dead. Charisma changes what traders charge you and pay you, and talks you through many encounters. Your class and background give a knack for some things: a thief picks locks well, a cleric's prayers are heard, the tombwise read old writing.

Growing

Experience raises your hit points and unlocks spells on its own. Every level also teaches you something: you choose one of three lessons, most of which change a rule (your first blow at a foe that has not struck you cannot miss; the first trap on each floor never goes off under you; nothing holds you; every potion known by its smell; the stairs on your map from the first step), and a few a number (hit points, a surer eye, two points to place where you like). On every even level you choose a talent instead, one of three from your class's own, and one of the two you passed over is held for the next offer. Talents change how you fight — a fighter's Cleave that carries into the next of a group, a mage's Mirror Image, a thief's Shadow Step that turns a sidestep into a blow from the shadows — and each is yours for the rest of the run. Your talents and lessons are listed under Hero.

At level 3 every class chooses its path, in place of that level's lesson (or at the divided stair, if you reach it first: the roads part after the path, never before it): a fighter becomes a Knight, shield up and hard to move, or a Berserker who hits harder the more they bleed and guards less; a cleric a Templar who smites harder, blesses for longer and bites the undead, or a Healer; a mage a Pyromancer whose fire burns on and whose Burning Hands reach three squares for a point more, or a Frostweaver whose cold holds things back; a thief an Assassin who strikes from the dark, or a Trickster who is never quite where the blow lands; a ranger a Sharpshooter, deadliest from afar, or a Warden whose snare holds the line; a druid a Shapeshifter, more bear than not, or a Grovewarden, who keeps their companion and the green things. Each path changes two or three things, listed on the level-up card and under Hero, and it is chosen once, for the rest of the run. At level 7 a hero on a path masters it, again in place of the lesson: one of two capstones, each a rule of its own: a Knight's shield that staggers whatever it catches a blow from, a Healer's miracle that once on each floor turns a killing blow into half their life back, an Assassin's critical hit that ends a foe at a third of its life, a Trickster whom every foe's first blow misses.

Level 12 is the top. Past it your experience still counts: every 1500 more brings a rank of renown, shown as a star beside your level (12 ★1, ★2...), with the same golden light and a choice of three small gains, each for good: a few more hit points or spell points, +1 to hit, a swing a little quicker, +1 to every saving throw, wounds that close faster between fights, or your class move back a little sooner. The sharper ones can be taken twice at most. A long delve brings you to the top near its end, so renown is mostly earned on its last and hardest floors; your rank is kept in the Hall of Heroes.

Encounters

Not everything down here wants to fight. On most floors something waits to be dealt with: a survivor under fallen stone, a shrine that still takes offerings, words cut into a wall, a voice in the dark that knows your name. Walk up to it or press Examine. Each choice says what it tests and how likely it is to go well — Strength: 55% chance, and with Combat rolls on, the dice behind it too — and some cost gold or blood before you roll. There is always a way to walk away, and you have to choose one: once you have looked, the moment has to be answered. Each encounter is met at most once in a run.

On the second floor you may find a starving hound. Share your food with it (a meal from your pack, or, with none, a quarter of your hunger bar and never the last of it), or win it over, and it follows you for the rest of the run: it bites whatever stands beside it, takes the blows of anything that reaches it before you, grows as you do, and heals when you rest (a hurt hound is reason enough to rest). If you walk on, it leaves the fight and comes after you. Face it and press Use to tell it to stay (it will wait there, even if you go down the stair) or to come; walk into it and it steps into your place. A hound at your heel is not quiet: sleeping things hear you a square sooner, so tell it to stay when you mean to creep up on something. If it falls, it is gone for the run. When it is hurt or waiting, its name shows under your bars, and your map marks where it is.

In a delve with no hound, you may find a caged goblin about halfway down instead. Let it out (wrench the bars, or pick the padlock) and it follows you as the hound does, though it is no fighter: it stabs, it takes blows badly, and it is quiet on its feet. Its gifts are its fingers. Face a locked door with no key while it is near and press Pick: it opens the lock, quietly. And it makes safe any trap it comes within two squares of, and lends its fingers to any Dexterity test at an encounter while it is close by (+2). You only ever have one companion.

On the middle floors a sellsword may be waiting for hire (with a companion already at your side, they will only talk). Pay their price (it rises the deeper you are), or try to haggle them down to half with Charisma: fail, and they keep their sword and you your coin. A sellsword is slow but armoured, hard to kill and heavy when they land a blow. Blooded, they learn to Guard: one ordinary blow in three at you, from a foe standing beside them too, lands on them instead. A veteran gets a Second Wind: once a floor, the blow that should fell them leaves them standing at half their life. A trader who sees a sellsword at your side brings out a whetstone for them to wear (+3 to every cut; no other companion has a use for it). In a boss fight a sellsword's cut, once, breaks the lich's rite or the Warlord's drumbeat as your own blow would. Below the eighth floor of a Long Delve they want a wage at each new floor (four gold for each floor down: 36 on the ninth); if you cannot pay, they will not Guard until you can, and take what is owed as soon as you have it.

On the early and middle floors a healer may be kneeling by a dead lamp, left behind by their party. Share your food with them, or talk them round with Charisma (a cleric or a druid finds it easier), and they follow you; if you fail, or already have a companion, they will still see to your wounds. A healer fights badly, but between fights, close by you and with nothing awake near, they tend your wounds, a little every few seconds, from a satchel that holds about a third of your life on each new floor. Blooded, they learn the Poultice: they draw poison out of you as they tend. A veteran puts on a Field Dressing: once a floor, when a blow leaves you under a quarter of your life and they are within three squares, they bind it at once for a quarter of your life back.

Two floors above the dark elves' halls on a Long Delve (the eighth of twelve, the twelfth of sixteen), a dark elf outcast waits, cast out for amber eyes. Pay their price, or promise them the High Priestess's death with Charisma (a thief or a ranger finds it easier), and the renegade follows you: quick and sure with two blades, and come this far alone, so they join you already blooded, knowing Sleep Poison (one cut in three that lands leaves a living foe drowsy, its next move a second late; not the dead, a boss or a champion). Two floors on, as you reach their people, they learn Kinslayer: 4 more on every cut at a dark elf. If they are at your side when the High Priestess falls, they have what they came down for: they are mended whole, and the valley will remember it. Even without hiring them, they will tell you of the halls below and where traps lie.

A Druid in a delve with no hound is found at the first stair by a grey wolf, which follows as a hound does but hunts quietly (no panting to wake the sleepers) and learns different things: blooded, Pack Hunter; a veteran, Savage, a bite 2 harder at anything below half its life. One companion at a time: a goblin let out of its cage while another already follows you (even one waiting on another floor) thinks better of it and slips off into the dark.

A companion grows with every new floor it comes down at your side (one told to stay has not come). After two it is blooded, after four a veteran: each time it is mended whole, grows a little tougher and learns a trick. A hound learns to hamstring (one bite in three that lands holds its foe back a moment), then to hunt as a pack (you have +2 to hit anything it stands beside). A goblin learns to backstab (double damage to anything at your side), then to scrounge (on each new floor it finds you some gold, a flask or a scroll). The Hero sheet says how far it has to go.

Traders sometimes keep a charm for a companion: an Iron-Studded Collar (blows find it harder to land), a Fang Charm (2 more on every blow) or a Rowan Knot (its wounds close by themselves). Choose Give to from the charm in your pack while your companion is on the floor with you. It wears one at a time, and the one it wore comes back to your pack; if it falls, what it wore is left where it fell.

Some choices follow you down. A guildsman you dig out goes ahead and marks the next floor; a captive you free puts in a word with the traders below; a crew you stop to bury is with you at the end; the Lampfolk hear of what you do for one of their own in the dark, and of what you take from them; a lost mule you lead on is known, and paid for, by the next trader below; and whatever you take from the pale thing in the narrow passage, the lich will be the stronger for. Others come back two floors on, waiting where you come down the stair: a goblin you spare marks the traps and watches your back, dropping out of the dark onto the first foe that draws back a blow at you; the captive you free unbars a locked door ahead of you; a toll paid sends word ahead, so that floor's goblins let you by (they step aside for you, and fight only if one of them is struck) and the stair down is chalked on your map, and a toll crossed sends the goblins' big friend to wait for you; a vow sworn to the weeping knight leads you to its blade; an offering at the old stone is answered with a spring opened in the wall by the stair, to drink when you have need (it heals, and watches over you a while); the last delver repays a shared meal with a page of their own that shows every hidden door and trap on that floor, or sends their shade for what you stole; and a smashed wyrm's egg brings its mother. The Hero sheet lists what is still following you, and the story at the end remembers.

Gold

Traders set up shop on some floors. Most are Lampfolk: small grey people with eyes like lanterns, who have always lived in the deep and trade with anything that pays, so nothing down there harms them. On a goblin market floor the trader is a goblin pedlar, and cheaper. Partway down every delve but a quick one, one of the Lampfolk is Wick, older than the rest, with a brass lamp on a crook and a scarf the colour of rust. Wick remembers: the last of your heroes it met and how they fared, and a tale more each time you come by. From the third of your heroes it has met, it asks a regular a tenth less (not in a Daily). The Hall of Heroes keeps its tales. Walk into a trader to open the shop. They sell potions, scrolls, food and the occasional weapon, and buy anything you do not want, for about a quarter of what they would ask for it. Their forge will hone your weapon or reinforce your armour, up to +3, for more each time. From the fourth floor down each trader will also sell you one draught of a bitter tonic, four more hit points for good, and a caster can pay to read their books for three more spell points. For gold you can also sleep safe by the trader's lamp, once a floor: a whole night, and nothing finds you. You can carry five of any one potion. Gold you never spend counts for nothing, not even on your gravestone.

A trader may also have a job for the floor below, at the top of its services: slay the champion that keeps a lair there, kill a number of its creatures, or find a satchel one of the Lampfolk lost there (it lies far from the stair). Taking it costs nothing. It is for that floor only: go on down, or back up, with it undone and it is lost. Once it is done, the next trader you meet, on any floor below, pays in gold and a flask or a scroll. The line under the bars shows how it goes while you are on its floor, and the Hero sheet keeps it.

Relics

A few pieces of gear down here have names: Grimtooth, Rustwarden Mail, the Ogre's Toll. Each is a weapon, armour, a shield, or a mage's robe or focus you could use anyway, better made and with a power of its own — striking the undead harder, drinking back health, keeping poison out of your blood. Their names show in gold, and they hover where they lie. A handful wait on the floors of every run, always ones your class can use, usually on the pile furthest from the stairs. The traders sell the rest to anyone with the coin, and the trader on the floor before the last always has one on the shelf. Look at one in your pack to read its powers and its story.

Three pairs of relics were made to go together, and do more worn at once: the Stairwarden's Arms (Kest's Bulwark and Rustwarden Mail, +2 armour class), the Nightwalk (Whisper and Shadowskin, a strike from the shadows hits a step harder: double damage becomes triple) and the Order of the Dawn (Dawnbringer and the Sisters' Buckler, stronger healing and more against the undead). A relic's card names its other half.

From the third floor down a well-made piece may carry a quality of its make, named in front once you know its make: a Heavy weapon deals one more damage, a True one hits one more often, Sturdy armour or a sturdy shield adds a point of armour class, and a Blessed one adds one to every saving throw. With a power as well, it reads like Heavy Mace of Flame +2. From the second floor down a trader's forge will also work a quality into the weapon or armour you wear, if it is plain and known and not a relic, for a good deal of gold: the quality on offer depends on the trader.

Every relic any of your heroes picks up or buys goes in the codex, kept from one delve to the next: open it from the Hall of Heroes or the Journal's Relics tab. The ones still missing show only whether they are a weapon, armour, a shield, a ring or an amulet, and which road a road's own relic waits down.

Ordinary gear can carry a power too. From the second floor down, some well-made pieces are of Keenness, of Thirst, of Flame, of Warding and the like, each with one power a relic might have. Like any found gear its quality is hidden until you wear it, study it or have a trader look, and a powered piece is worth far more to sell. Everything your gear gives is listed under Hero.

What you find wears the colour of its grade in the pack, the trader's list and the floor: fine (a good enchantment), rare (a quality of make or a power), a relic, and a legend. Gear whose quality is still hidden shows plain until you know it. The Hero sheet keeps this run's finds, everything rare or better you have known, even once it is sold.

Each of the twelve paths has one legendary piece, made for the way that path fights: the Knight's Bastion catches a blow on the shield whole, the Berserker's Red Harvest heals with every kill below half your life, the Templar's Sunhammer sets the undead burning, the Healer's Lantern of Mercy keeps healing past full life as a ward, the Pyromancer's Cinderheart bursts the burning dead, the Frostweaver's Rimebound Grimoire leaves the cold-held brittle and shatters them, the Assassin's Last Word slips back into the shadows after a kill from them, the Trickster's Motley leaves a foe open when you slip its blow, the Sharpshooter's Farstrider sends an arrow on through what it kills, the Warden's Thornbinder pulls a snare tighter with every blow, the Shapeshifter's Moonbound Torc feeds the bear on its kills, and the Grovewarden's Heartroot makes the roots bite for you and your companion. A legend is never on a floor or a shelf: once you walk a path, the first champion you bring down drops yours, and now and then a marked one (feral, armoured, ancient, rabid) does. One a run. The codex keeps the legends apart from the Collector's count.

Each class also has one Mythic, shown in lavender and named as such: the fighter's Last Gate, the cleric's Mercy's Oath, the mage's Bloodstar, the thief's Nightglass, the ranger's Horizon and the druid's Elderseed. Each changes a way of fighting and carries a drawback; its description says both. Only one can be worn at a time. In a custom delve of eight floors or more, the final Vigil Lamp offers an optional trial: an extra ogre after choosing the lamp's usual aid at its usual cost. Defeat it for your class's piece. You may decline. Short delves, Daily and Weekly runs have no trial, and Mythics never appear in shops or as starting relics.

Combinations are where two things meet and make more than either: lightning cast into water, cold freezing it round your foes, fire set to spilt oil, a Bash that breaks off a blow being drawn back, a Warden's blows on a snared foe, Silver Wash against the dead, a legend working with its path. Each is named in the log the first time it happens in a run, and kept in the Journal's Combinations tab from one delve to the next; one not yet found there gives a hint of what goes into it. The Hero sheet lists this run's, and the end of a run names your build in a line: your path, a legend if you carried one, and the combinations you leaned on most.

Oils come in squat flasks stoppered with a rag, found among the scrolls and sold by traders. Choose Coat weapon in your pack (or, as a fight starts with your blade bare, tap the flask at the left end of the log) and the oil rides on your next 20 blows that land, bow and sling included; the count is shown under the bars. Fire Oil burns for 1d4 more on every blow and stops a troll's wounds closing; Silver Wash deals 1d6 more to the undead and nothing to anything else; Blade Venom poisons the living one blow in three; Frost Oil chills for 1d4 more, holds the foe back a moment, and freezes the water round it, so a Warden's snare and a frozen foe are both its prey. A new oil wipes off the old one, and the oil stays on the weapon it was put on: take up another and it does not have it. A Crypts trader keeps more silver, a Warrens one more fire and venom.

Robes

A mage cannot wear armour, but wears robes: an Apprentice's Robe to begin with, and better ones now and then on a pile or a trader's shelf, in a mage's dungeon only. A Silk Robe adds four spell points, a Warded Robe more armour, and the rare Robe of the Magi both, with six spell points, and makes the great workings, spells of five points or more, cost one less. A found robe hides its make, as any found armour does, and can be cursed.

The free hand

A mage who puts the staff away for a dagger has a hand free for a focus: a Spellbook brings spell points back a quarter faster as you walk, a Crystal Orb adds one to each of a spell's dice, up to two, and the rare Orb of Storms drives Lightning Bolt and Cone of Cold a fifth harder and holds what they hit a moment longer. A cleric may carry a holy symbol in place of the shield, trading most of its armour (a symbol still turns one point's worth) for the faith's: a Holy Symbol makes healing spells heal a quarter more, a Silver Sunburst makes Holy Smite and Flame Strike strike a quarter harder, and a Reliquary does both. They turn up only in that caster's dungeon, and a trader may keep one a little finer than the floors around it offer, and a found one can be cursed.

Cloaks

Anyone can wear a cloak over everything else, and it is known at a glance. A Cloak of Protection gives a point of armour class on top of anything else, a Ring of Protection included; an Elven Cloak lets you pass a square closer before sleeping things notice you; a Cloak of Warmth halves what cold does to you. One turns up now and then on a pile or a trader's shelf. An Elven Cloak and a Ring of Stealth do not add up, and nor do a Cloak of Warmth and a Ring of Warmth.

The deep's own beasts leave something of themselves now and then. A fallen cave wyrm may leave its scales, laced into Wyrm-Scale Mail: light armour that halves a wyrm's fire. A fallen quillback may leave its quills on a Quill Shield, which pricks whatever strikes you in close combat. Neither is ever found lying about or sold.

Rings and amulets

Anyone can wear two rings and an amulet, whatever their class: a mage in robes can still wear a Ring of Protection. From the second floor down one turns up now and then on a pile, and traders sometimes keep one. A found one is known only by its look — a jade ring, an amber amulet — until you put it on or Study it, and which look is which changes every run. Rings of Protection, Might, Evasion (every saving throw) and the Seer (traps and hidden doors) come in amounts and can be finely made, or cursed; Regeneration, Stealth and Warmth rings, and the amulets of Warding and Wizardry, simply do what they say. A Gallows Ring is always cursed: three to hit and to damage with every blow, but once it is on it stays on until the curse is broken, and while you wear it your wounds close only by a draught, a spell or a prayer, never by themselves or with rest. Two rings of one kind do not add up: only the better one counts. An Amulet of Life Saving takes the blow that would have killed you, leaves you at half your life, and crumbles. An unknown ring sells for a trinket's price: the trader will not tell you what you had.

Curses

Gear you find keeps its quality to itself: the pack marks it with a ?. It might be finely made, it might be ordinary, and from the second floor down it might be cursed. Put it on and you find out at once, but a cursed piece will not come off again until the curse is broken. Safer ways to know: Study it from your pack (an Intelligence check), or pay a trader to appraise it. To break a curse, read a Scroll of Remove Curse, pray at a shrine, or pay a trader to lift it. Gear bought from a trader is always what it says.

The crews who went first

Four guild crews came down before you and none came back. Every floor holds one page of what they left behind, so a short delve holds fewer. Pick them up and read them in the Journal, where they tell the story in three acts: the crews, then the road you take (the Crypts tell who keeps the Heart, the Warrens what the deep folk fear of it), then on the last two floors the Heart itself. A page still to find shows which floor it waits on. On a Long Delve each people's floor holds a page of its own. Whether you carry them out is part of how your run is remembered, and the Hall of Heroes keeps every page any of your heroes has found.

One life

Permadeath is on unless you untick it when you make your hero. The run is still saved whenever you change floors or put the game away, so you can close it and pick up where you were with Continue. What you cannot do is go back: Load Game stays shut, and when you die the save is erased. Untick permadeath for a gentler run where you can save from the menu and load it again after a death.

To carry a hero to another phone or browser, open Menu › Save code and copy the code (or save it as a file), then choose Load from code on the other one's title screen. It replaces any hero waiting there. A code cannot take back a permadeath run: this device will not load one for a hero who has already died here, or one older than how far you have played them here.

Difficulty

Choose it when you make your hero. Easy leaves more to find, and the monsters never grow with you. Normal is the delve as it was meant. Hard has sturdier monsters, thinner rests, and a last foe (the lich, the Warlord or the Heartforged) at full strength; from the fourth floor down its creatures hit surer still. A fighter's blows grow to meet it: from the sixth floor, 4% harder for every floor past the fifth.

Past Hard is a ladder of five rungs, Hard+1 to Hard+5, each adding one rule and keeping every rule below it: +1 traders ask twice for everything they sell and do; +2 one rest a floor, not two; +3 a rest wakes whatever is near enough to hear it (about twenty steps), and what it wakes comes looking, so rest where nothing is left near, or beside the stairs; +4 a draught drunk beside a foe gives it a blow, so step out of reach first; +5 no lamp makes you whole: no trader sells a night by theirs (the Returned, given theirs, keep it) and the vigil lamp by the last halls is out. A class opens Hard+1 with a win on Hard, and each rung after with a win on the one below it; pick the rung under the difficulty on the New Game screen. Each rung adds a tenth to the run's score, and the Hall marks the highest rung each class has won. The Daily Delve stands on no rung.

Trophies

Claim the Heart and your class earns a trophy for that difficulty: six classes, three difficulties, eighteen in all, shown at the top of the Hall of Heroes. A win with each of the twelve paths is a trophy too, and a class won with both of its paths is mastered, a trophy of its own (once a class has a win, its card on the New Game screen says which path is still to win). So are the feats: the Long Delve, a win by each road (by the Warrens, past the Goblin Warlord), finding every relic over all your runs (the Collector; Durgrim's Ring and Hissra's Tooth, found only in a sixteen-floor delve, are finds beyond the set), a win with three traders' jobs done in the run (Friend of the Lampfolk), a win with a veteran companion still at your side (Old Campaigners), and a druid's win having taken the bear's shape thirty times in the run (Wildheart). A class won on Hard earns its title, worn on its card from then on: Blademaster, High Priest, Archmage, Shadowmaster, Deepstalker, Archdruid. Daily runs count as well. All six classes can be chosen from the start; four backgrounds are earned. The Returned opens after any win on Normal or Hard, and The Heartsworn after a win on Hard; The Lorekeeper (two scrolls to start with, and every scroll known) once you have found twelve combinations over all your runs, and The Legend-Seeker (the marked ones carry your path's legend twice as often) once you have found three legends. Until then they show on the New Game screen as locked, with how to earn them.

Wins open new ways to begin, never more power. A class won on Normal or Hard opens its second kit, chosen on the New Game screen in place of the usual one: the fighter's Raider's Kit (a battle axe, studded leather and fire oil), the cleric's Pilgrim's Kit (a war hammer and a holy symbol in place of the shield), the mage's Hedge-Wizard's Kit (a dagger and a spellbook), the thief's Cutpurse's Kit (a dagger, blade venom and lamp oil), the ranger's Trapper's Kit (a sling, a spear and lamp oil) and the druid's Herbalist's Kit (more draughts, no spear). A win with a veteran companion at your side opens a hound from the first stair: tick it, and a hound is waiting for you at the start. The Hall of Heroes lists all of them, open or not, with how each is earned. A Daily Delve starts with neither.

Each class has a mastery track of five stages, each named, each reached in turn: a win of any kind, a win on Normal or Hard (the second kit), a win on Hard (the class's title), a win with both its paths (a third kit, chosen on the New Game screen beside the other two: the fighter's Sentinel's Kit, the cleric's Crusader's, the mage's Battle-Mage's, the thief's Acrobat's, the ranger's Hunter's and the druid's Thornward Kit, each a different way to begin and none a stronger one), and a win on Hard+3 or higher (a run may begin with a relic once found, any in the codex the class can use but a path's legend: worn from the first stair, not to be found again in that run, and the run scores three quarters). The class's portrait wears a bronze frame from the first stage, silver from the third and gold at the last. None of these is ever in a Daily or a Weekly. The Hall shows every class's track, and the New Game screen says where the chosen class stands and what the next stage asks. The Hall keeps your fifty best runs; the buttons above them show one class's, or only the Daily and Weekly runs, each still marked with its place among all fifty.

After any win on Hard, vows open on the New Game screen: the Iron Vow (no resting, not even by a trader's lamp), the Pauper's Vow (no trader will deal with you), the Unaided Vow (no draught passes your lips), the Glass Vow (a quarter less life, at the start and from every level), the Hunted Vow (everything below moves a tenth quicker) and the Lone Vow (no companion will join you). Each one sworn adds its share to the run's score, from 15% to 30% more, shown beside it; swear as many as you like, and the shares add up. Each one kept to a win on one life, on Normal or Hard, is a trophy of its own. The Daily Delve takes no vows.

The Daily Delve

Everyone gets the same dungeon each day, with the same hero: class, background and scores all come from the date. Eight floors, normal difficulty, one life, and one try. When it is over the title screen shows how you did, and Share passes on a one-line result, through your phone's share sheet or copied to paste wherever you like. Play on consecutive days to build a streak.

Set the switch under the Daily Delve button to Ranger & Druid for the Ranger & Druid Daily: a second dungeon a day, the same for everyone, whose hero is always a Ranger or a Druid. It keeps its own record and its own streak, and the first Daily is dealt just as it always was.

The Weekly Challenge

One dungeon a week, Monday to Sunday, the same for everyone: the hero, the floors and a fixed set of modifiers all come from the week. Two vows are sworn for you (vows you have not opened yet are sworn all the same, but keeping them earns no trophy), and the delve may be large, crowded or poor in treasure. One life a try, but try as often as you like: the title screen shows your best and how many tries it took, and Share passes on the week's best in one line. Like the Daily, it meets nobody's dead and leaves none behind, and takes no hound, second kit or climb past Hard.

Settings

On a phone that can, the game buzzes in your hand when a blow lands on you, when you level up or die, and when you force a door. Vibration under Menu turns it off.

If the view's movement bothers you, Calm view under Menu stops the shake when a blow lands, the sway and bob of your hands, the sway and lean of the creatures, the drifting dust, the shimmer of standing water and the flicker of the torches, and every fade, pulse and slide of the screens and buttons. It starts on if your phone asks for less motion.

Text size under Menu goes from Small up to Double, twice the usual: the bars, the buttons and the log make room for it, and every page and window scrolls rather than cutting anything off. Pinching to zoom works on the pages off the dungeon too. Colours under Menu sets colours that every kind of colour blindness can tell apart: a blow's warning mark goes yellow to orange-red and a trick's light to dark blue, and the map's marks change with them (each still has its own sign as well).

On a wide screen (a tablet held sideways, a Steam Deck, a desktop window) the floor about you is mapped beside the view, larger than the corner map and kept up to date as you go; a tap on it opens the whole map. A tablet held upright has a larger corner map.

Controls under Menu puts the pad and the actions on the right or the left, or one-handed for either thumb: the actions and the quick drink sit in a row over the pad, all on that thumb's side, with the phone held upright. A screen reader hears the log line by line as it comes, what lies ahead in the view each time you move or turn, and the bars by their numbers; every window takes the focus when it opens and gives it back when it closes.

Send reports under Menu is off unless you turn it on. When on, the game sends a short note when a run ends (class, difficulty, how deep, what killed the hero, the combinations it made, how smooth the view ran) and when something breaks, so it can be tuned to real delves and its faults found. No account or hero-name field is sent. Error details can include text involved in a fault; only counts and crash signatures are public.

Combat numbers under Menu draws the damage and other words that rise off a struck creature larger, for a small screen. In the Pack, Sort puts like with like: what you fight with first, what you use up after. The title screen says how your last run ended.

For testing the game, Menu has a row of Testing tools, folded away until you open it (and open whenever one of them is on): Endless life, Endless spell points and Endless gold: each keeps that full while it is on (no blow kills you with endless life). Show every monster marks them all on the map, asleep (z) or awake (!), seen or not. Reveal this floor lays it all out on the map; Gain a level does what it says; Go takes you straight to the floor picked (past the divided stair, by the road picked beside it); Give puts the item picked in your pack, or a key for each locked door left on the floor. They are all switched off when a new run begins, or when a run that still counts is taken up again. While a run still counts, each of them asks first: the first tap only says what it will cost, and a second tap, within a few seconds, uses it. A run that has used any of them says Test run at the top of the view, and is not written in the Hall, earns no trophy, and leaves no bones for a later hero. A Daily tested so still spends the day's try, but keeps no result.

Voice is on by default. George reads the opening, your background, found Journal pages, new regions and relics, and the end of a delve. Each found page has a Listen button. Pause, replay or skip a reading; closing the Journal stops it. Discoveries wait until no enemy is near and stop for a warning. Voice in the Menu turns narration off; its volume is separate. Recordings work offline after the game has finished saving them. Personal names and exact counts remain on the page; the recordings speak of the hero.

The music follows the fight: quiet bells while nothing is near, a low pulse when something awake is close, a beat once it comes to blows, and a horn for a champion, a shade or the last foe (in the Warlord's hall, his war-drum leads it). When the fight is over it settles and goes quiet for a while, and it draws back whenever the game is paused. Music in the Menu turns it off, and Sound turns off everything.