Spoilers

Dungeon histories and expedition journals

In a newly created full game world, many dungeons carry a history through their rooms, furniture and abandoned camps. The first floor can name the builders, the place's former purpose, what befell it and who occupies it now. Deeper floors can describe the most common room uses. These clues help you read the place, but do not promise a particular treasure.

Where these histories appear

Older worlds keep the dungeon rules they were created with. The demo and scenarios do not gain this history pass. Cheese caves, Moon Towers, beset holdfasts and the long authored descents use their own layouts. Above ground sites and raid arenas also skip these room histories. Even in an eligible dungeon, each camp or featured room needs enough suitable space.

Builders, purpose and later occupants

The builders can belong to an older age, one of the Five Guilds, the Dominion or the Compact. A Crossing ruin can keep its shore's own guild and recorded history. A dungeon's purpose shapes the rooms you find, from mines and strongrooms to archives, shrines and ageing caves. Its present occupants are a separate part of its history. A place's builders do not necessarily live there now.

Expedition camps

A dungeon with at least two floors selects one floor before the last for an expedition camp. If a camp fits, it leaves bones, a bedroll and a journal. A roomier camp can also hold a cold brazier and arrows or scrap metal. An eligible animal may survive in a nearby cage. A mine prefers a Mine Canary when its rescue pool allows one. Neither the cage nor a particular animal is guaranteed.

Reading a journal

The journal's title combines its author's name with a book type, such as Daybook or Notebook. Its description names the old place and a deeper floor the expedition meant to reach. Taking it into your backpack displays that description. You can also read the description through Look on the ground or the item tooltip. The words about stores, racks or unexplored rooms are an explorer's account, rather than a new quest or a guaranteed reward.

Featured rooms and braziers

An eligible floor has a 75% chance to attempt a featured room, then must find a suitable space. Its dungeon purpose limits which of the five layouts can appear. Flooded pump rooms are excluded from lava floors. A brazier can be lit where the occupants tend fires, or where a shrine remains kept, provided there is room in the floor's light allowance. Other brazier positions become cold props.

Battles and interrupted rites

A history of siege, deserters or Ravenkin gives a floor a 60% chance to attempt battle remains in a suitable room. These can leave bones, scrap metal and arrows. A failed rite or cultist occupation gives a 70% chance to attempt an interrupted rite. That scene needs space for an altar, bones and a cold brazier. It can also leave a crystal shard where there is room. Its lantern only burns if the light allowance permits it. Both scenes can fail to fit.