Beginner Guide
The first three dungeons in the right order, lantern and sanity meters, gold, and death etiquette.
The first three dungeons, in the right order
Stop 1 · Shadow Dungeon floors 1-3
Tutorial zone, no mercy anyway: floor 3's spike gallery is the first reading-the-map test. Ration lamp oil — the first merchant sells the most expensive oil in the game.
Stop 2 · Ancient Temple outskirts
Easier than the dungeon, but sanity starts meaning it here: temple whispers drain 2 sanity per 30s. Below 30 you see false monsters — do not fight them, walk away.
Stop 3 · back to dungeon floors 4-6
Return with your first temple relic and floor 4's difficulty falls off a cliff. Out-of-order players average 11 deaths on floor 4 — not a skill wall, an ordering problem.
Lantern & sanity: the two hidden budgets
| Budget | Effect | Rule | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lamp oil | Light radius + shadow-repel | Shadow monsters only spawn outside your circle — saving oil gifts them ambush spots | Merchant oil $12/bottle; free pickups exist in the temple |
| Sanity | Below 30: hallucinations | Fighting phantoms DRAINS sanity; walk past and it recovers | Temple whispers drain it, the dungeon barely does — counter-intuitive |
| Carry weight | Artifacts take slots | Two relics is enough early; save slots for potions | The town portal scroll always earns one slot — insurance, not backup |
| Gold | Death drops 30% | This is the real death cost, more than XP | Spent money cannot drop: buying potions before a risky floor IS banking, literally |
🕯 Week-one consensus, lesson one: spend your money BEFORE you die. Hoarding overnight = paying dungeon tax.
Death etiquette (camp law, unwritten)
Do not loot corpses
Gear dropped by another delver's death stays put — camp custom is to leave it near their respawn. Keepers of loot end up on the camp blacklist.
Report new traps
Post coordinates of any new trap on the board. You are saving not one life but the week's whole map completeness.
Never chase phantoms
Hallucinations below 30 sanity have no health bar — only YOUR sanity drains. Chasing always ends in double loss. Walk away; it recovers in minutes.
Lamp oil: borrow one, return two
Camp custom. Not interest — solidarity. In week one, oil outvalues gold.
Camp Q&A
What do I lose on death?
APPROVED30% of gold plus carried (unequipped) drops — retrievable at your corpse. No XP, no levels. Week-one death leaderboard #1 died 47 times; he is now the atlas page's honorary cartographer.
Can I respec?
APPROVEDYes — first camp merchant, 2,000 gold. Community advice: die at least ten times before the first respec. Half the time it is not the build, it is the pattern you have not memorized yet.
Can I solo everything?
APPROVEDThe game is single-player by design (the message board simulates community — and in week one it became real: everyone treats it as the forum). All content is soloable.
Is the mana-loop build real?
PENDINGReal and strong (full config on the Builds page), but it is a tightrope: powerful BECAUSE the cycle has zero forgiveness. Mortals: graduate as a Templar tank first, then come back.