The dungeon
Rooms & hazards
Loose gold is picked up with the room. A rich room keeps its treasure in a chest, and only a chest can be trapped, so choose who opens it with care. Traps hurt more deeper down and on harder settings.
Chests and trapsBath of FatesLiving StatueVaultsDoors and wordsStairs and maps
Chests
10 ways a chest bites back
Loose gold is picked up with the room; a rich room keeps its treasure in a chest, and only a chest can be trapped. When a trap springs, the member who opened the chest gets a chance to dodge it: the base chance is Newcomer 48%, Medium 32%, Hardest 16%, and a rogue adds 20 points. Traps hurt more on deeper floors, as the last two columns show.
| Trap | Chance | What it does | Floor 1 | Floor 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Explosion | 10% | Wounds every member | 1 to 4 | 1 to 16 |
| Deadfall | 20% | Wounds one member | 1 to 4 | 1 to 16 |
| Pit Trap | 20% | Wounds one member | 1 to 4 | 1 to 16 |
| Acid Spray | 5% | Takes shield protection from one member | 1 | 1 to 4 |
| Fungus | 10% | Takes maximum health from one member | 1 to 4 | 1 to 16 |
| Forget Gas | 10% | Takes experience from one member | 1 to 100 | 1 to 400 |
| Metal Mold | 5% | Takes weapon damage from one member | 1 | 1 to 4 |
| Curse | 5% | Takes attack bonus from one member | 1 | 1 to 4 |
| Transmute | 10% | Takes rations from the party | 1 | 1 to 4 |
| Curse | 5% | Takes magic protection from one member | 1 | 1 to 4 |
Fountains
The Bath of Fates
A Bath of Fates offers any living member a drink. The commonest drink heals, other drinks raise or lower other things than health, and a basin can run dry. A basin gives 5 drinks at most, and every drink has a chance (Newcomer 6%, Medium 5%, Hardest 10%, by difficulty) of souring the basin a step for good, so milking one is a poor idea. There are two kinds of basin: the plain basin stands on every floor; the kinder basin stands on floors 1 to 7.
| Fate | What it does | Floor 1 | Floor 10 | the plain basin | the kinder basin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heal wounds | Heals wounds on one member | 1 to 4 | 1 to 16 | 46% | 54% |
| Gain luck | Adds luck to one member | 1 to 2 | 1 to 8 | 7% | 7% |
| Gain max HP | Adds maximum health to one member | 1 to 4 | 1 to 16 | 4% | 4% |
| Gain experience | Adds experience to one member | 1 to 100 | 1 to 400 | 7% | 7% |
| Gain mana | Adds mana to one member | 1 to 6 | 1 to 6 | 6% | 8% |
| Take wounds | Wounds one member | 1 to 4 | 1 to 16 | 17% | 8% |
| Lose luck | Takes luck from one member | 1 to 2 | 1 to 8 | 4% | 4% |
| Lose experience | Takes experience from one member | 1 to 100 | 1 to 400 | 4% | 4% |
| Lose mana | Takes mana from one member | 1 to 4 | 1 to 4 | 5% | 4% |
Four trades, all in gold
The Living Statue
Carved stone that listens. The statue never leaves its room and deals only in gold. It will name a magic item nobody else can name, mend a member, make a member something else, or call a fallen member back. It answers as often as it is paid.
Step up to one and it asks WHAT DO YOU ASK OF THE STATUE? The party may answer:
- WE PLEAD FOR A LIFE
- WE HAVE AN OBJECT TO IDENTIFY
- WE WOULD LIKE A CLASS CHANGE
- WE HAVE WOUNDS TO MEND
A life
Rare magic and a Living Statue, for a stated price, can raise the dead. Ordinary healing never can, nobody can be raised more than three times, and a raised caster comes back with an empty well of mana. The one you went down to save cannot be raised at all, that soul was held in a cell too long to come back.
Its stated price: 100 gold on floor 1, rising 50 a floor to 550 on floor 10.
A name
A Living Statue will say what a magic item does, for gold, but it never names its price. Offer too little and it keeps the gold silently. Offer far too little and the item is destroyed. It will also mend a member, ten gold at a time, or raise a fallen one, and those prices it states plainly.
The fair price grows with the floor, from 30 gold on floor 1 to 130 on floor 10.
A new class
Any fighter, wizard or rogue can become another for 1,000 gold, and a fighter of level 20 can become the hero for 2,000. The class changes.
Mending
10 gold buys 3 health and 1 mana, as much as the purse will stand.
Vaults
Two kinds of lock
Half the vaults open to a number lock, where a wrong guess brings hints and may wound the guesser. The rest have a lock plate, where you push each key to its keyhole, taking a push back wounds the hand, and a hint costs gold. The one you came to save is behind the deepest vault. A store stall sells on a few floors down. Torn pages lie in plain view, and a map may be in the open or in a chest.
A number lock grows from 3 digits on floor 1 to 5 on floor 10, and each wrong digit wounds the guesser (Newcomer 1, Medium 2, Hardest 3, by difficulty). A rogue is handed the first digit. A lock plate is a sliding board: push every key into its keyhole. Pulling a key back costs 1 wound, starting over costs 2, and a hint is for sale. Each floor's lock sizes.
Doors
Listening, sneaking, and words spoken at doors
You walk the halls one step at a time. The whole party enters a room at once, and a room with something alive in it sees you coming about one time in four. Sneak instead and one member goes in alone while the rest wait at the door. The third sneak into one room is expected, and what waits there moves first. Listening at the door ahead can tell you what waits behind it. The noise may draw monsters. Listening tells you what waits 30% of the time.
A WORD is magic spoken at a door the party has heard monsters through, and it changes what waits behind it. There are 5:
Stairs, maps and stalls
The way down
The stairs down open only when your maps reach the floor you stand on. Maps are found in the dungeon, never sold, and one or two wait on every floor. Some stairs down are guarded. The guards must be beaten or bought off before the stairs will carry you. Some walls hide doors. Searching the spot you stand on can reveal one.
Store stalls stand on floors 3, 6, 9, each stocking a little more than the one above. Who keeps them.