#120 : Deep Delving II: The Drowned Hold | A Solo Dwarf Dungeon Crawler and Dungeon Delver Game for 1-2 Players

The hold drowned a hundred years ago. Now the water is falling, and something still holds the gates.

Deep Delving II: The Drowned Hold is a solo dwarf dungeon crawler for one player, or two playing together, with no Game Master and zero prep. All you need is one d20, a pencil and some graph paper. Every room is rolled on a table, every fight is yours to win or lose, and every dwarf who falls hands their axe to the next one down the stair.

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Khazad Varn was the proudest dwarf hold under the mountain until an invading army broke into its deepest forges. King Varn the Ninth could not drive them out, so he broke the Floodgate Seal and let the river in. The water drowned the invaders, the forges, his own guard and the king himself. This spring the old floodgates began to fail. The dwarves have built a camp at the great door, the Lanternhall, and they pay good gold for any ore brought up from below.

Your lantern is your clock. It burns one oil per room, and when it runs dry you fight in the dark. Push one more room for a richer seam, or climb back to the light with what you carry. Explore enough of a level and its Warden's Gate opens. Beat the Warden and that level belongs to the dwarves again, for good.

Between delves you spend your haul at the Lanternhall: better steel, stronger brews, training for your stats, and gold toward restoring the Forge, the Map Room, the Brewery, the Shrine, the Vault and the Great Hall. The rooms you rebuild help every dwarf who comes after.

Four Wardens stand between you and the bottom: Old Bogtooth in the Drained Galleries, Forgemaster Hallek in the Silt Halls, the Cistern Mother in the Black Cisterns, and Varn the Drowned King himself on his throne in the Heart of Varn. Each fight is built to be won by a dwarf who prepared for it and lost by one who did not.

Play with a friend and every rule still works. Monsters get tougher, duo moves like Shield Wall and Rope Line turn a fight, and a downed partner can still be carried out alive. Coming from the first Deep Delving? Might, Grit and Reflex are back, along with d20 attacks, ore and permadeath, and you can bring your old dwarf's name down with you.

What's Inside:



• A complete, standalone game in 112 pages. You do not need the first Deep Delving or any other rulebook.
• Five dwarf archetypes, the Ironbreaker, Pathfinder, Runecaster, Tunneler and Brewmaster, each with a signature ability.
• Four drowned levels, each with 10 monsters, 6 hazards, its own ore and a Warden boss fight that changes when the Warden drops below half.
• Deep Horrors you build from tables, 20 special events, and Hollin the Peddler, who somehow always gets there first.
• The Lanternhall: a shop with four tiers of weapons and armor, brews and training, plus six Hold rooms you restore that stay restored when a dwarf dies.
• Legacy play: death ends a dwarf, not the campaign. Heirlooms, a Roll of the Fallen and the Iron Run for the dwarf who wins it all alone.
• The Delver's Journal: 20 story fragments found in the dark that reveal what really happened in the hold.
• Full rules for two players, with duo moves and a way to drag a downed partner out alive.
• Four difficulty modes, from Easy to Drowned, tuned over thousands of simulated campaigns.
• A complete example delve, a quick reference, and printable character sheet, Floodgate and Hold tracker and blank delve maps.
• About 30 minutes per delve. A full campaign runs 25 to 30 delves.

Perfect For:

Solo players who want a real campaign that lives in a notebook

Pairs and couples who want a co-op dungeon crawl with no Game Master

Fans of the first Deep Delving and of fifth edition style dungeon delves

A lunch break, a long commute or a quiet night in

Pick up your lantern. The hold is waiting.