# DEEPFALL — Rulebook *Reikhelm, the deep hold, is sinking into the Maw. Delve fast, hold ground, and know when to die. The deepest grave is the brightest glory.* **Players:** 2–6 · **Time:** 45–75 min · **Ages:** 12+ > This is the playtest rulebook. Every number here is grounded in the DEEPFALL balance > simulator (`deepfall-sim`); see `FINDINGS.md` for what the data said and `DESIGN.md` > for the deeper why. Where the sim used continuous coefficients, this rulebook rounds > them to clean tabletop integers. --- ## 1. The idea & how you win You lead a **delve-company** plundering a collapsing megadungeon. Beneath the deepest floor waits **the Maw**, a rising hunger that devours the hold one floor at a time, **from the bottom up** — so the richest, deepest rooms are doomed *first*. You don't win by surviving. You win by **Glory**, and the surest fortunes come from spending a company deliberately: send a crew quietly **to ground** with its loot, or hurl it into a **Worthy End** at the bottom and let the Maw take it gloriously. Nobody is ever eliminated — a dead crew becomes Glory and silent territory, and you muster a fresh one. **The game ends when the Maw eats Floor 1. Most Glory wins.** --- ## 2. Components | Component | Count | Notes | |---|---|---| | **Room tiles** | ~48 deck | 10 themes (Threshold → Throne); each shows value, ⚔ threat, 🜏 lock, produce icon | | **Floor strips** (or trays) | 6 | The dungeon, top (Floor 1) to bottom (Floor 6) | | **The Maw marker** + **Dread track** | 1 | The doom clock | | **Delve dice** | 7 types | Recruit / Warrior / Scholar / Priest / Rogue / Champion / Relic (see §5) | | **Dice bags** | 1 per player | Your bag is your engine | | **Lineage cards** | 6 | Your "race" half | | **Calling cards** | 6 | Your "class/faction" half | | **Player mats** | 1 per player | Party, held rooms, Mettle, hand | | **Control markers** + **Fallen (skull) markers** | per player | Claim rooms / mark your dead | | **Mettle & Loot tokens**, **Glory track**, **Denizen rep tracks** | shared | The economy | The six dice **faces**: ⚔ **Steel** · 🜏 **Cunning** · ✚ **Faith** · 💰 **Greed** · ✦ **Mettle** · ☠ **Dread**. --- ## 3. Setup 1. **Build the dungeon.** Stock the six floor strips, **rooms-per-floor = number of players** (so a 4-player game has 4 rooms per floor, a 6-player game has 6). Draw room tiles weighted richer with depth: Floor 1 is mostly Threshold/Stone; Floor 6 holds the Throne and the Vaults. *(Easiest: use the **reikhelm Generator Companion** — give it a seed and it prints the exact layout. Every game, a new dungeon.)* 2. **Depth track.** Each floor has a **Depth Value** printed beside it: | Floor | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | **Depth Value** | ×1 | ×2 | ×2 | ×3 | ×3 | ×4 | A room's **Glory at collapse = its tile value × its floor's Depth Value.** (A Vault, value 6, on Floor 6 is worth `6 × 4 = 24`.) 3. **The Maw** starts just below Floor 6. Set the shared **Dread track** to 0; its length is **3 + number of players** (see §9). 4. **Draft your company.** Each player takes one **Lineage** + one **Calling** (deal 2 of each, keep 1 of each, or draft) and builds their **starting dice bag** as printed on the Lineage card. 5. Give each player their markers, a player mat, and 0 Glory. Seed the shared **Recruit Pool** with dice of each recruitable type. Pick a first player; pass the marker clockwise each round. --- ## 4. The company: Lineage × Calling Two halves smash into one identity. Each grants an **advantage** and a **cost** — no free builds. ### Lineages (the "race" — sets your starting bag + a passive) | Lineage | Advantage | Cost | |---|---|---| | **Dvergar** | Ignore 1 point of a room's ⚔ threat when claiming | −1 ✚ Faith (courts Dread) | | **Wisp** | Draw +1 die every hand | Bigger hand rolls more ☠ Dread | | **Revenant** | Convert leftover ☠ Dread into ✦ Mettle (peril as fuel) | Cannot cancel Dread with Faith | | **Gnoll** | +Loot when you claim a **combat** room (Den/Forge/Crypt/Throne) | −1 ✚ Faith | | **Sylphid** | +1 Move and +1 🜏 Cunning | Fragile: a Setback sheds an extra die | | **Golem-born** | Never lose dice to a Setback | −1 hand size (rigid) | ### Callings (the "class/faction" — special + recruit pool) | Calling | Special | Recruits | |---|---|---| | **Reaver** | Pillage: gain Loot every time you claim a room | Warrior (cheap) | | **Lorekeeper** | Open **Vaults solo** — no trinity needed | Scholar | | **Wardancer** | Free **Last Stand**; Worthy End **×2.2**; +1 marker strength; +1 Move | Champion | | **Hierophant** | Cancel +1 Dread; heal Setbacks; +25% held-room production | Priest | | **Warden** | Your control markers count **double** for majority | Champion | | **Prospector** | Cheaper recruits; +1 hand; can find **Relic** dice | Relic | 6 × 6 = **36 companies.** They are deliberately *spicy, not flat* — Dvergar and Reaver run a touch strong, Wardancer a touch swingy — but the sim confirms **every combo is viable** (no dead picks). --- ## 5. The dice Your bag holds delve dice. Each is a d6; the types differ only in their face mix: | Die (color) | ⚔ | 🜏 | ✚ | 💰 | ✦ | ☠ | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | **Recruit** (grey) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | **Warrior** (red) | 3 | – | – | 1 | 1 | 1 | | **Scholar** (blue) | – | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | **Priest** (white) | – | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | **Rogue** (green) | 1 | 1 | – | 2 | 1 | 1 | | **Champion** (gold) | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | – | | **Relic** (purple) | – | – | 1 | 3 | 2 | – | --- ## 6. A round A round has two phases. ### Phase A — The Delve (players take turns, clockwise) > *Speed tip:* roll your opening hand during the previous player's turn, so your turn is > decisions, not dice-fishing. With 5–6 players this keeps downtime low. On your turn: 1. **Draw & roll** a hand from your bag (default **4 dice**, ± Lineage/Calling). 2. **Press On?** *(push-your-luck)* You may draw & roll **another** hand for more symbols — as many times as you dare, stopping whenever you like. **But every Press On feeds the Maw** (add a Dread to the shared track), and rolling too much ☠ risks a **Setback**. 3. **Resolve Dread.** Cancel ☠ with ✚ Faith one-for-one (Hierophant cancels one extra; Revenant converts instead — see its card). If **3 or more ☠ remain**, suffer a **Setback**: return your lowest die to the box (Golem-born ignores this; Sylphid loses an extra; Hierophant heals one). 4. **Spend your symbols** in any order: - **Move** between floors. You get **1 Move** free (± Lineage/Calling); buy extra Moves with 🜏 Cunning or ✦ Mettle (1 each). - **Claim a room** on your current floor (see §7). - **Loot:** each 💰 Greed banks Loot, worth more the deeper you are. - **Recruit:** spend ✦ Mettle to add a die of your Calling's type to your bag (§8). 5. **Choose your exit** (see §7.3): **Stay**, **Cash Out**, or **declare a Last Stand**. ### Phase B — The Maw (everyone, together — the big moment) 1. **Advance the Maw.** The Maw rises **1 floor** automatically each round, **+1 more** if the shared **Dread track** is full (then reset it). *(It never eats more than one floor per round — see §9 — so "one floor away" is always an honest warning.)* 2. **Collapse** the floor it reaches: - **Score it.** For each room, whoever has the most marker strength takes its Glory (`tile value × Depth Value`). Ties split, rounding down. **Warden** markers count double; **Fallen** markers count as 1. - **Value rises.** Half the value of every **unclaimed** room **rises to the floor above** as refugee plunder (add a plunder token). *This is why the top floors swell into the richest finale — never abandon the shallows.* - **The Maw takes the floor**, and anyone still on it (see §7.3). 3. Pass the first-player marker. New round. The game ends the instant **Floor 1 collapses.** --- ## 7. The heart of the game ### 7.1 Claiming rooms (area control + the trinity) To **claim** a room you must, across this turn, produce: - **⚔ Steel ≥ the room's threat** (fight through the monsters), **and** - **🜏 Cunning ≥ the room's lock** (crack the mechanism). **Vaults** also demand the **trinity**: you must have rolled at least one ⚔, one 🜏, *and* one ✚ this turn (the EverQuest holy trinity, made literal) — unless you're a **Lorekeeper**. Place a **control marker**; its **strength = 1 + extra symbols you poured in** (Warden ×2). Didn't quite make it? Your Steel/Cunning **carry over as assault progress** — keep chipping at the same room next turn. A near-miss is never a total loss. Holding a room makes it **produce** each turn (a Forge throws Steel, a Library Cunning, a Vault Greed) — your engine grows on the ground you keep, right up until the Maw takes it. ### 7.2 Room tiles at a glance | Theme | Value | ⚔ Threat | 🜏 Lock | Produces | Note | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Threshold | 1 | 0 | 0 | – | safe mouth | | Stone | 2 | 1 | 0 | – | plain | | Cistern | 3 | 1 | 1 | ✦ | flooded | | Den | 3 | 3 | 0 | ⚔ | combat lair | | Crypt | 3 | 2 | 1 | ✚ | undead (combat) | | Hall | 4 | 1 | 1 | ✦ | pillared | | Library | 4 | 1 | 2 | 🜏 | loot-rich, locked | | Forge | 5 | 4 | 1 | ⚔ | lava (combat) | | **Vault** | 6 | 2 | 2 | 💰 | **needs trinity** | | **Throne** | 7 | 5 | 2 | 💰 | boss (combat), deepest | ### 7.3 The three exits (this is the game) Every turn, every crew faces the same choice. This triangle *is* DEEPFALL: - **STAY / Press On** — keep the crew active: keep recruiting, holding, producing. More upside, but the Maw is climbing, and a crew caught flat-footed loses **everything unbanked and all its active territory**. - **CASH OUT ("Go to Ground")** — retire the crew. **Bank** its Loot + a **depth dividend** (deepest floor reached × 2). Its markers become permanent **Fallen** markers (strength 1) that still score at every future collapse. Then muster a **fresh** company at the frontier. Safe, repeatable, keeps your dead earning. *(Decline, from Small World.)* - **WORTHY END ("Last Stand")** — declare it (free if you hold a Throne/Vault, or as a **Wardancer**). When the Maw **Takes** your active crew, score a huge **Worthy End**: `deepest floor × 2.5` (Wardancer ×2.2 on top), and **the Maw consumes your held rooms clean** so no rival inherits them. The single biggest payout — and all-or-nothing. *(Valhalla, from Blood Rage.)* Being Taken **without** a Last Stand is the game's one real disaster (lose loot + territory for nothing). The exits above are *always* offered, so a careful player never falls into it — and the simulator confirms it almost never happens. > **Design note:** under perfectly greedy play the bots treat Cash Out and Worthy End as > substitutes, so aggression slightly over-wins. At a human table the *denial* (salting a > rival's inheritance) and the sheer drama of a deep martyr make Worthy End pull its > weight. This is the one spot still under playtest — see `FINDINGS.md`. --- ## 8. Recruiting (building your bag) Spend ✦ **Mettle** (default cost 2) to take a die from the Recruit Pool into your bag — the type set by your **Calling** (Reaver→Warrior, Lorekeeper→Scholar, etc.; Prospector gets the rare **Relic**). A bigger, sharper bag means stronger hands *and* more Press-On fuel. This is your in-game engine (Quarriors' dice-building). --- ## 9. The Maw & player count The Maw rises **1 floor per round**, **+1** whenever the shared **Dread track** fills (then it resets). Players add Dread to the track every time they **Press On** and whenever uncanceled ☠ is rolled — so the table's collective greed literally pulls the doom down faster. **The Maw never collapses more than one floor in a single round.** **Scaling (validated to 11-round games at every count):** | Players | Rooms / floor | Dread track length | |---|---|---| | 2 | 4 | 5 | | 3 | 4 | 6 | | 4 | 4 | 7 | | 5 | 5 | 8 | | 6 | 6 | 9 | Rooms-per-floor scaling keeps contention (and the fight for majorities) constant; the longer Dread track on a bigger table absorbs the extra collective Dread so the game still ends in ~11 rounds with tight margins and a near-zero feel-bad rate. --- ## 10. Turn quick-reference ``` YOUR TURN (Delve Phase) 1. Roll hand (4 dice ± mods) 2. Press On? → +1 Dread to track, risk a Setback (repeat / stop) 3. Dread: cancel with Faith; 3+ left = Setback (lose a die) 4. Spend: Move · Claim a room · bank Loot (Greed) · Recruit (Mettle) 5. Exit: STAY / CASH OUT (bank + Fallen markers) / LAST STAND MAW PHASE (all together) • Maw rises 1 floor (+1 if Dread track full → reset) • Collapse: score majorities (value × depth) → unclaimed value RISES up → Take anyone still on the floor (Worthy Ends fire here) • Floor 1 collapses → GAME OVER, most Glory wins ``` --- ## 11. The generator companion (procgen) DEEPFALL's dungeon is a **real reikhelm dungeon**. The companion turns a seed into either: - a **Setup Sheet** ("Floor 6: Vault, Throne, Forge, Crypt…") you copy with the tile deck — 30-second setup, infinite dungeons from one box; or - a fully **AI-rendered board** for that seed (the deluxe one-off / campaign mode). Same generator that powers the reikhelm playground — so the board, the variety, and the art all come from the engine you already have.