Dwarf Forged

System Reference Document

Version 1.0
Written by Anna Blackwell
Logo by Ed-Lynden Bell
Blackwellwriter.com
Twitter.com/BlackwellWriter

Introduction
Dwarf Forged is a System Reference Document for
DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game (and its sister
games RISE: A Solo Game of Spreading Evil and
UMBRA: A Solo Game of Final Frontiers).
You are free to make use of the Dwarf Forged logo in
your games and promotional materials etc. The
Dwarf Forged logo can be downloaded from XXX
If you use the Dwarf Forged logo in your game, also
add the following text:

This SRD explains the mechanics and underlying DELVE: A solo Map Drawing Game™ is a
design philosophy of DELVE in a way that should, trademark of Anna Blackwell. The Dwarf Forged
hopefully, explain how to maintain the feel and logo is © Anna Blackwell, and is used with
balance. permission.

This SRD is aimed at designers, writers, and You are free to colour and resize the logo to suit your
publishers who’d like to create their own expansions project, but the logo should not be materially altered
for DELVE, RISE, or UMBRA. in any other way.

Any games created under this license are officially
referred to as Dwarf Forged games.
And, as DELVE is an ongoing project with many
official expansions planned, there may be times
where an official expansion covers the same
mechanics/ concept as your work. To minimise
conflict, a list of planned expansions will be hosted
on Blackwellwriter.com and the Blackwell Games
Discord.
All the text should be the same size as the rest of
your copyright section, and not redacted or obscured
in any way.
If you’re publishing electronically you can make
“Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
license” a link to http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/3.0/ and “DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing
Game” a link to https://blackwellwriter.com instead
of printing the URLs separately.

Licensing Requirements

You are free to create DELVE, RISE, and UMBRA
expansions. All I ask for is credit using the
Attribution Text from the next section.
The contents of the SRD are available for use under
the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license.
Attribution Text
Wherever you put your copyright notice, add the
following text:
This work is based on DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing
Game (found at https://blackwellwriter.com) and
licensed for our use under the Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
If you’re going to make and publish (even self-
publish for free on itch.io) content that uses the
DELVE system and want to show that it is
compatible. Include the attribution text and follow
these basic rules:
• You can’t imply or state that Anna Blackwell is
endorsing or sponsoring you or that your content is
official unless we’ve made a special arrangement.
• You can’t use the Blackwell Games logo (you
may instead use the Dwarf Forged logo)
• You may not use the SRD to create content that
would prejudicial to Anna Blackwell’s honour or
reputation. No idea what that means but its in every
other SRD so it must be important.
• You may not provide any content that is not
included in the SRD. So no giving away the rooms,
units, event tables, or any other content from
DELVE, RISE, UMBRA, or its expansions. You
must create your own new content and may provide
page references to the game or expansion in this
format:
(DELVE, page XX) or (U: Stations, page XX)
• Finally, you may not use the SRD to create
anything that could be considered sexist,
homophobic, transphobic, racist, or bigoted in any
way.
Overview
DELVE is a game about managing a dwarven hold
but more importantly, its about creating a story. From
the first room to the hold’s demise or completion, the
player is experiencing an emergent narrative by
interacting with the various systems that create the
simulated world around them.
The main design goal with DELVE was to create a
manageable but deep simulation. A Dwarf Fortress
without the intense book-keeping and resource
management. However, with each expansion, players
are give the option of introducing more complexity
as they feel comfortable with.
Theme
Inspired by Bay12 Games’ Dwarf Fortress, DELVE
is a game where losing is fun. The odds are not great
for a new hold as they must face ever increasing
dangers in the dark below the world.
However, victory is possible through luck and clever
planning and a cautious dwarf may find themselves
suitably rewarded… or unfairly punished.
Oh, and I use the term Defeated rather than Killed to
show that dwarves may just be injured or retreated.
Core Mechanics
DELVE assumes and requires the following:
• A writing implement
• 1” grid paper (though blank can be used)
• A standard deck of playing cards
• A form of notepad
DELVE makes mention of and can use D2 and D4s.
These, however, can be recreated using card draws
with D2 being Black or Red and D4 being the four
suits. DELVE does not use any other type of dice but
card draw tables may be organised in any format as
necessary with the most common being 13 or 6
results.
The goal of a DELVE game is to reach a certain
depth and find the Red Joker then draw two Face
Cards (Jack, Queen, King) in order to find that
game’s treasure.
Each DELVE game usually then has a further goal
beyond this which requires digging deeper or
accomplishing another task.
However, these are not the only goals a DELVE
game might have. An expansion might task the
player with creating a hold of a certain size or
amassing a certain amount of treasure or other
resource.
In order to achieve these goals, players fill out their
hold by exploring, building, hiring units, and taking
part in combat so lets look at each of those in turn in
order to understand the mechanics and balance of
DELVE.
Exploration
To represent the player’s search the Hold expands
into an adjacent unexplored grid space (a blank
square on the map). To explore they draw a card and
get one of 5 results:
♥ – gain resources
♦ – gain trade goods
♣ – find a Natural Formation i.e. cave, creature, etc
♠ – find a Remnant i.e. golem forge, lich tomb, etc
Joker - find an Ancient Monstrosity or Artefact
An expansion could place its Exploration content as
an alternative ♣ or ♠ table or as a sub-table to one of
the results.
Expanded Joker content, I would recommend
creating as alternative options or tables.
There is a 48% chance that the player finds a ♥ or a ♦
As the value of these rises as the player progresses,
we can make a rough assumption on how much ♥ or
♦ the player might have by a certain depth. However,
as the focus is on creating an emergent narrative
rather than a linear progression so don’t worry too
much about getting values perfectly balanced.
With that said, the average ♥ and ♦ income is 12 +
the depth bonus which rises by 1 for each depth. In
this fashion the player can be assumed to earn, on
average:
Depth Income
5 24
Certain 10 32
events may
contribute 15 42
income 20 52
bonuses and
these are only rough numbers so better to err on the
side of caution and price lower rather than higher.
Building
Rooms make up the majority of DELVE’s focus.
Rooms can provide bonuses like STR buffs, research,
magic, unlock new units, house units, etc.
In D: Feast & Famine and UMBRA, Rooms have a
Food cost that represents the workers stationed there.
New Rooms are easy to add but it is important to
consider their cost compared to their effect.
If the player is expected to have multiple of the
room, it should generally cost less than 30♥.
If the room is a one time purchase, its cost can be
much greater, often rising above 100♥.
Rooms are normally built with ♥ to represent the raw
resources used but some rooms may also have a ♦
cost to represent buying special equipment for the
room.
Traps
Traps are left as vague Damage or Stopping
descriptions so that players may create whatever they
see fit rather than being forced to just repeat the same
spike trap over and over again.
Likewise Barricades are left vague so players may
flavour them as they see fit.
Hiring Units
Units in DELVE are the dwarves, elves, creatures,
and machines that you can use to combat enemies. It
is assumed that there is a whole hold full of dwarves
that work in the various rooms, mine out grid spaces,
and generally serve as the economy behind your ♥
and ♦.
Background dwarves are generally not tracked unless
they provide some specific benefit or penalty like the
Drunk Adventurer who occupies a Tavern but does
not take part in combat.
A unit is presented as:
Name STR Cost ♦ Food Power
STR is how much damage it can do in combat and
how much health it has. Once this reaches 0 the unit
is defeated.
Cost ♦ is how many ♦ it costs to recruit this unit.
Food is how much Food will be removed from your
total while you have this unit.
Power normally shows if the unit is Ranged or has
the Shield ability but can have more creative and
situational abilities.
Balancing each of these can seem like a daunting
task but it is important to remember that DELVE is
not intended as a finely tuned videogame, rather, it is
more of a narrative simulation. Some things are just
better than others but there may be narrative reasons
you avoid using them.
Generally my advice would be: If it has a lot of STR
give it a relatively expensive ♦ or Food cost or give it
a Power that the player must maintain. A creature
that will turn against the player if not fed 5♥ each
turn or a foul machine that means no other units can
be housed in the same row.
Discoveries & Narrative
Simulation
For me, this concept is best summed up by the
phrase:
“Things happen”
You have the ability to say exactly what shape those
things are and how it affects the hold but each turn,
something happens and it moves the story of the hold
in unexpected ways.
Most of the time this creates little self contained
nuggets of randomness that don’t really do much for
creating an overarching story. But humans are great
at noticing patterns and narrative opportunities pop
up in the most unexpected places.
A forgotten crypt then a lich’s lair?! Clearly they’re
part of the same dark plot!
So when you’re creating Discovery tables (♣ or ♠),
don’t get caught up trying to create a narrative. Just
give the player enough wiggle room and they’ll make
one that is much more personalised and meaningful
than we can ever provide.
The best advice I can give is just keep to a general
understandable theme: Natural Formations,
Remnants of an intelligent force, Necromantic Ruins,
Dwarf Inventions, Lost Objects, Cats, etc. and just
have an idea of how you’d like the player to interact
with them.
For example, the Dark Sea Expansion takes place in
a deep underground cave sea that is meant to be so
dark and mysterious that most dwarves think it a
myth. So it is kept from the player until depth 30
which means I can make the discoveries pretty
rough. Rising sea levels, siren songs that take whole
Troops out into the depths, and worse await in the
wet.
Recommendations
Play games like Rimworld, Banished, Dwarf
Fortress, Dungeon Keeper and ask questions/ share
ideas in the DELVE Discord: discord.gg/
vDbjXRu6p9