Someone broke the seal before you got here, and did not come back up.

Forty-one steps down, and then three floors chosen by a word you pick yourself. Every room is a square chamber with a door in one wall or two, and there are no corridors — you move like a token on a board, because that is what you are. Six numbers. Four slots. Flat damage on both sides, so the only question in a fight is whether you connect. No experience, no levels, no camp, no town. What improves between runs is you. Traps fire before you act. The water heals you and usually takes something for it. Nothing that dies down there comes back, and neither do you.

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Player's HandbookVolume IHow this system plays — the rules, the dials, and the intent, straight from its author.Open Builder's ManualVolume IIHow to build on this system — its conventions, extension points, and design intent, for creators adopting it.Open CompendiumReferenceEvery entry this system ships with, rendered exactly as your project will inherit them.Open

Author's note

Gravebind started as a proof that a grid dungeon could be dealt out of authored parts rather than hard-coded. Everything in it is a file: the chambers, the things in them, and the rules the Warden follows. Every image sits on black, uses one warm colour and never more, and looks like it came off a machine that could not afford a second one.