Delve: Dungeon Crawl Generator

Explore a dungeon one area at a time. Open a door and the tool draws the next room on the map, in its own shape and size, with its own exits. Then you ask: what do I see, who is here, what do I find? Place the tokens yourself and let the oracle decide what happens when you try something.

Lighting the torches...

How a delve works

  1. Choose your dungeon. Pick the kind of place, how long the delve should be and how dangerous, or let the dice choose. You start at the foot of the entrance stair with a goal to reach.
  2. Travel on. Pick an exit marked with a gold question mark. The next area is drawn on the map: a cramped cell, a long hall, an L-shaped room, a round chamber or a winding passage, each with its own doors and openings.
  3. Ask what is there. What do I see? gives you the sight, sound and smell of the place. Who is here? rolls for monsters, strangers or just signs of them. What do I find? searches for loot, clues and traps. Nothing happens until you ask.
  4. Try things. Say what your character tries, choose how likely it is, and the yes/no oracle answers. Use your own game's rules and the dice roller for fights and checks.
  5. Place your tokens. Put yourself, foes, allies, treasure, traps and notes on the map wherever they belong. Open a room on the battlemap when a fight breaks out.
  6. Reach your goal. Somewhere past the halfway point is the heart of the dungeon. Find what you came for, then write the delve into your Campaign Notebook.

Why play this way?

A dungeon you discover one door at a time is a dungeon even you cannot predict. The map grows as you explore, so you never see the whole place in advance, and every choice of exit matters. Because you ask the questions, the pace is yours: a quick dash for the goal, or a careful search of every room.

There are 15 kinds of dungeon (crypt, cave, wizard tower, ruined temple, sewer, mine, fortress, shipwreck, prison, library, vault, laboratory, warren, sunken city, lair), each with its own rooms and dangers drawn from our dungeon room generators, monsters from the monster pages, and loot and traps from the loot and trap generators.

Works with your game

Delve has no statistics, hit points or combat rules. It decides what is there; your game decides how it goes. Track your hero in the notebook, roll your game's checks with the dice roller, and treat the results here as the dungeon's answer. It is an original procedure written for this site, and it works alongside any solo game or on its own.

Your delves are saved on this device and work offline. Nothing is uploaded.

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