Building Deep Delves

The Delve file type is the dungeon layer: a site framework that generates a different run every visit, restocks forever, and never runs dry. Build the framework; the table generates the site.

What a Delve file is

A delve is zones, pools, and rules — not a fixed dungeon. The zones are depth bands from entrance to core, each with a threat band, an encounter pool, hazards, finds, and a restock clock. The pools reference real Random Encounter files; the boss and minibosses are real Boss files; the loot is real Loot Table files. Everything at the table rolls fresh.

Design intents to respect:

• Variation is structural, not flavored. Encounters roll per visit from the zone's pool, plus procedural rolls per the Deep Delve System. A delve whose every run is identical is built wrong.
• Restock is the feature. restockBeats per zone; restocked zones re-roll inhabitants, hazards, and layout. This is what makes delve work a repeatable career rather than content that expires — the site makes more of itself indefinitely.
• Depth is open-ended. The last mapped zone is a suggestion. Procedural depth: every two depths past the entrance step the band up one rung (Street → Cosmic), escalate hazards, roll rare finds. Record the deepest reached depth as the new edge.
• Price by band, not by party. threatBand and rankRequired price the site; Enemy Scaling handles individual encounters. A delve is not balanced to the party — it is priced, and the party decides.

Encounter pools

Reference real random-encounter files — pools are contracts, not vibes. Three to five per zone is plenty; zones with empty pools are a statement (the deep bands generate procedurally, which is intentional and good). Give shallow zones social and environmental encounters (scavengers, dead-drops, spore drifts) so runs vary in kind, not just in combat.

Bosses and minibosses

Bosses follow Building Bosses: two-file pair, mechanics and counters only on the dossier, never pinned. A delve boss should express the site — a derelict ship's custodian AI, a lab's last containment failure. Minibosses are Boss files with role: Mini-boss, one per middle zone, each with its own special loot table. Roll miniboss presence per arc; a delve does not need every miniboss home every run.

Special loot

Three tables per delve: bossLoot (guaranteed signature drop plus rolls — price the clean-kill version), one loot table per miniboss (hoards, hardware, stolen things), and deepLoot (exploration finds, weighted so deeper rolls favor rarity). Loot tables are plain text items — name things the economy can price, and let the desk quarantine the ones that should worry people.

Forms and reskinning

delveForm is a dial: derelict-ship, derelict-station, abandoned-lab, undercity-warren, mine-quarry, ruin-vault, wreck-field, sealed-arcology, wilderness-lair. The mechanics never change with the paint — a fantasy world reskins derelict ships as drowned keeps; a post-collapse world turns labs into vaults. Derive zones from the form: a ship yields engine cathedrals and dead passenger decks; a warren yields collapsed burrows. The form should generate both the hazards and the salvage.

Knowledge control

The Guild's maps are records, and records lag. What the desk believes about a site (the boss is dead, the deep zone is collapsed) should be wrong in interesting ways, discoverable through rumor, intel, and heat. Keep the truth in gmNotes and the dossier; keep the lie in the entry rules and briefing. Never let the Delve file's public text leak what only divers who came back could know.

After the run

Update the file: status, deepest depth reached, which minibosses rolled, restock clocks started. The Delve file is a living site — its play state is part of the world.