Talking in chat

Anything you type in the chat box without a / or @ prefix is normal table chatter — your party sees it, the Dungeon AI might react if it's something interesting (a kill, a crit, a scene change).

By design, the Dungeon AI is silent >95% of the time so it doesn't get annoying. If you want it to speak on demand, mention it directly:

Mentions are case-insensitive. @AI works too.

Slash commands

Slash commands run actual game mechanics — they're the way to roll dice, attack, heal, etc. They don't ask the AI for permission; they just execute and post the result to chat.

Most of these have buttons in the command bar above the chat input — use them as shortcuts. Anything not listed here shows up in /help.

Combat

Combat runs in 6 phases per round, in order:

1. Surprise — first round only, only the surprising side acts.
2. Mob Action Declaration — GM declares what mobs are attempting.
3. Crawler Reaction Phase — players can use reactions (interrupts, parries).
4. Mob Attack Resolution — mob attacks resolve. Use /damage N if you take a hit.
5. Crawler Action Phase — players act. Use /attack, /check, etc. You get 2 actions per round.
6. Clean Up — apply ongoing effects, then back to phase 2 for round +1.

Use /phase to advance. The phase bar in the Combat panel highlights the current phase.

Action economy: the panel shows actions remaining for each crawler. Each /attack spends one action.

Auto-end: when the last mob hits 0 HB, combat ends automatically and loot unlocks.

How to start combat: the GM (room creator) clicks Generate Encounter in the lobby panel. It spawns floor-appropriate mobs and a loot table.

How stats affect combat

• Attack to-hit: uses your weapon's ranks + stat mod (from the Combat tab).
• Mob Evade: each monster has its own evade score (shown in the HUD). You must roll ≥ evade to hit.
• Mob DR: some monsters have Damage Reduction — their DR absorbs that much damage per hit. Crits bypass DR.
• Your DR: when you take /damage, your DR total is subtracted from incoming damage.
• Level bonus: your level ÷ 3 (rounded down) is added to all skill checks and initiative rolls. Level 6 = +2 bonus.
• Initiative: set automatically when combat starts (d20 + DEX mod + level bonus per combatant); /initiative shows the current order.
• Death: at 0 HB you're incapacitated — you can't attack until healed with /heal.

Loot

When an encounter is generated, the loot drops appear in the Loot panel — but they're locked until all enemies are defeated. (We added this rule because Stockton tried to loot before killing the mushroom zombies. Lesson learned.)

You'll see a 🔒 "Defeat all enemies to claim loot" message and the Pick Up buttons will be greyed out until combat ends.

Once combat ends:

1. The Pick Up buttons go green and become clickable.
2. Clicking Pick Up adds the item to your character's Deep Inventory.
3. It's permanent and synced across all players.

If you really need to grab something mid-combat (boss puzzle, cursed item drop), use /endcombat to end combat manually. Or have the GM rule it.

Character Sheet

Click My Character in the top right. There are six tabs that mirror the official PDF:

• Identity — name, race, class, level, crawler number, the 5 stats (STR/INT/CON/DEX/CHA), HB track.
• Combat — evade, DR, move, step, AI Favor, mana, your attacks list (this is what /attack uses).
• Skills — your skills with ranks and governing stats (this is what /check uses).
• Inventory — Hotlist (10 items), Deep Inventory (unlimited), gear slots (head/torso/arms/hands/legs/feet), accessories.
• RP & Bio — sponsors, popularity, trauma, regrets, backstory, notes, personal space.
• ✨ Sheet Assistant — see next page.

Stat modifiers: use the standard d20 formula floor((unenhanced - 10) / 2). Enter unenhanced + enhanced; the mod field is yours to set or you can ask the Sheet Assistant to recalc it.

HB track: click the slot circles at the top of the Identity tab to toggle damage. Or use /damage and /heal in chat.

Save: hit the green Save Character button at the bottom. Saves are synced to your room instantly.

✨ AI Sheet Assistant

The character sheet has a lot of fields. Filling them all by hand is tedious. The Sheet Assistant lets you describe what you want in plain English and drafts the changes for you.

How it works:

1. Open My Character → click the ✨ Sheet Assistant tab.
2. Type what you want, e.g. "Add a fire sword that does 2d6+3 damage, +5 to hit".
3. Click Generate Draft. The AI proposes a JSON patch.
4. Review the explanation, the warnings, and the JSON itself. Edit it if you want — it's just a textarea.
5. Click ✅ Approve & Apply to merge the patch into your sheet, or ❌ Discard to throw it away.

What it can do:

• Add or modify attacks (with proper to-hit and damage formatting).
• Add or modify skills (with the right governing stat).
• Adjust stats and recalculate modifiers.
• Add items to your Hotlist, Deep Inventory, Accessories, or Gear slots.
• Set your backstory, sponsors, popularity, trauma, etc.
• Bump level, HB max, mana, etc.

What it won't do: the AI is a drafter, not an authority. It never applies changes without your approval. It will list its assumptions in the warnings section so you can sanity-check.

Tip: when adding to a list (skills, attacks, inventory), the AI is instructed to preserve your existing entries. But always glance at the JSON — if you see your old skills missing, edit them back in before approving.

Feature systems

Every feature below is a capability — a per-world switch chosen at setup. If you don't see a button for one, that world has it turned off (see Worlds & Forges).

🏘️ Town Hub — a safe rest stop between floors. Open it from the Extras panel. Browse shopkeepers' wares and buy with your gold, pick up side quests from the notice board (any member can Accept; the GM marks them Complete and the reward gold is split across the party), and hear rumors that hint at what's below.

📅 Daily Dungeon — one shared run per real-world day, same seed and gameplay modifier for everyone. Start it from the lobby card. Your best floor is recorded to the daily leaderboard automatically as you descend — scores come from the server, so no fibbing — and your first score each day pays a gold bonus.

⚔️ PvP Arena — non-lethal ranked duels. Open it from Extras in a world with the Arena enabled. Fight live opponents or "ghosts" (snapshots of other delvers), climb the Elo ladder. Duels restore everyone to pre-fight condition afterward.

🎬 Recap Reels — one click writes a dramatic recap of the session so far ("previously, in the dungeon…"). Great for the start of session two.

🧠 NPC Memory — recurring NPCs remember your conversations and bring them up later. Talk to people; it pays off.

🖼️ Scene Art & Portraits — generate a portrait for your delver from their sheet, or ask the Visualizer for a scene image (the DM approves what goes on the shared screen).

✂ Split the Party — the GM can split the group into separate rooms that share ONE world. Your character travels with you to the branch room and comes home on Merge with everything earned — gold, loot, achievements. World-changing events in one branch echo into the others ("Meanwhile…").

Achievements, Deeds, Standing & Gold

🏆 Achievements — earned automatically from real play: kills, crits, fumbles survived, floors reached, bosses dropped, gold spent, NPCs befriended, and rarer feats. They pop on screen when earned and live in your trophy case panel. Rarities: common → uncommon → rare → legendary (legendary comes only from authored content — the System does not hand those out for flattery).

📓 Deeds Journal — the game quietly records HOW you play (sneaking, healing allies, poisoning things, smashing doors). In crawl-mode worlds, your Class is revealed at level 3 from your deeds — you become what you did, not what you picked.

★ Standing — the System's opinion of you, tracked only in broadcast/gameshow-flavored worlds. Earn it through style, spectacle, and quest work; it unlocks favors and reactions. Displayed on your party card when the world tracks it.

◉ Gold — everyone starts with a modest purse (25g). Kills pay out at combat end (bosses pay five times more), quests pay on completion, and town shopkeepers will happily take it all back. Your purse shows on your party card and in the Town screen.

🔓 NPC unlocks — some NPCs only appear after you've explored enough rooms, won enough fights, or killed a specific something. When one unlocks you'll see a "NPC Discovered" notice in chat.

🎲 Requested rolls — when the GM calls for a check, a glowing card appears above YOUR chat box with the skill, the DC, and the stakes. Click Roll — those are your dice. Within 2 of the DC is a partial success: you succeed, at a cost.

✦ Inspiration — awarded by the GM for clever, brave, or in-character play (never on request — asking is mocked). While you hold it, requested rolls show an ✦ Inspire checkbox: spend it for advantage.

⬆️ XP & leveling — kills, quests, and floor advances pay XP (your green bar). Level N→N+1 at N×100. A ding grants +1 max HB (+1 mana for casters) and a full restore.

📜 Quest Log — the sidebar panel tracking every accepted town job and story goal. The GM closes them; rewards pay the whole party.

🤫 Whispers — sometimes the System leans close and only YOU hear it: private perception results, temptations, secrets. What you do with them is up to you.

💬 Talking to NPCs — beyond the dialogue buttons, every NPC card has a "Say anything…" box. They answer in character, remember the conversation, and have heard the gossip about you.

🏛️ Your legend — save a character to My Characters and their story (epithet, famed deeds, scars) travels with them: the next campaign's DM knows exactly who just walked in.

Worlds, capabilities & the forges

The campaign stack — every room is built from: a world preset (31 settings, each with its own framing and starting scenario) × a rule pack (stat systems — D&D-flavored, cultivation, psionics…) × tropes (81 genre dials like time loops or "you are the dungeon") × campaign settings (tone, difficulty, permadeath, session length) × capabilities × free-text house rules.

Capabilities — per-world feature switches, set at the wizard's Capabilities step and shown as chips on the HUD. A quick glossary of the big ones:

• dice_tower — animated dice for every roll · battle_map — GM-drawn tactical grid
• death_saves — 0 HP means death saves, not instant death · environmental_hazards — rooms fight back (toxic air, slippery stone…)
• standing_favor — track Standing · loot_drops — mobs drop items and gold
• town_hub / daily_dungeon / pvp_arena / recap_reels / npc_memory / split_party — the features on the Features tab
• portrait_generator / landscape_visualizer / scene_doors — AI imagery
• ai_class_manager / ai_race_manager / ai_spell_manager — the three forges below
• difficulty_director — encounters scale to your party's true power, not just head-count

🔥 The three forges — describe what you want; the AI drafts it; the engine enforces a power budget so forged content is never stronger than standard options at your level:

• Class Forge — a bespoke, evolving class. New abilities unlock as you level, always inside budget.
• Race Forge — an original ancestry with traits balanced against the standard roster.
• Spellsmith — custom spells costed by the engine (damage, range, and effects all priced).

GM modes — Solo: the AI runs everything (mob turns and phases auto-resolve). Copilot: a human GM drives; the AI referees and suggests. Tutorial: like solo, but every rule is explained as it happens.

GM tools (GM only, top bar) — narrate scenes in the System's voice, puppet NPC dialogue, build custom encounters from the full bestiary, toggle the battle map, emit world events to sibling rooms, and tune the System's personality sliders (snark, enthusiasm, cruelty, verbosity).

Tips & FAQ

Q: The AI never speaks.
Typed actions always get an answer in solo and AI-GM games. Over voice (Live Listen) it deliberately stays quiet ~95% of the time — speak @ai or @gm to demand a response, or type your action instead.

Q: My attack says "No attack configured".
You haven't added any attacks to your sheet yet. Open My Character → Combat tab and add at least one. Or use the Sheet Assistant: "Add a basic punch attack, 1d4+0 damage".

Q: What if /check doesn't know my skill?
An unrecognized skill is handed to the GM to interpret (it'll pick a sensible stat + DC). For a guaranteed raw stat check, use /check STR 12.

Q: I want to GM, not play.
The room creator is the GM. Click the GM Tools button (visible only to the GM) for scene narration, NPC puppeting, secret rolls, fog of war, and more.

Q: Can I bring my character to other rooms?
Yes! Use My Characters in the lobby to save, load, and export persistent characters across rooms.

Q: How do I talk to the companion?
Type @companion or @pet to talk to your companion AI directly. It also chimes in automatically during combat.

Q: The AI suggested something weird.
It's a draft. Edit the JSON before approving, or click Discard. Nothing changes without your green-light.

Q: Where's voice / TTS?
Click the 🔊 button by the chat box — The System reads AI narration aloud using your browser's voices (no account needed). Hold 🎤 to speak instead of typing (Chrome/Edge transcribe locally). Premium voices (ElevenLabs) and always-on Live Listen (Deepgram) switch on automatically when the server has API keys.

Built for the deep dark. Roll well, delver.