Dungeon warnings and where harder delves appear

Read the warning in the dungeon header

Dungeon warnings run from Easy through Moderate, Challenging, Dangerous and Deadly to Brutal. The header first uses a special atmosphere or danger supplied for the current cave. Otherwise, a recognised rating on the entrance takes precedence over the ordinary dungeon-level label. A warning word alone does not tell you the enemy statistics or the floor count.

Seven fallback levels

When the header needs the ordinary fallback, level 1 reads Easy, level 2 Moderate, level 3 Challenging and level 4 Dangerous. Both levels 5 and 6 read Deadly. Level 7 and higher read Brutal.

Distance from starting villages

New procedural dungeons normally become harder farther from the nearest starting village. The distance is measured in a straight line. The first tier covers distances below 1200 world tiles, the second from 1200 to below 2600, the third from 2600 to below 5000 and the fourth from 5000 to below 8000. The fifth begins at 8000. These are starting rules. Authored zones and the land around a dungeon can change the result.

Havens, volcanic ground and dangerous country

Volcanic ground whose base danger remains 5 is checked first and gives new procedural dungeons tier 5 with dungeon level 6. Otherwise, the nearest starting village keeps a haven below 1200 tiles. Outside that haven, an authored zone can supply its own tier and level. Away from those zones, the second distance band stays tier 2 even in dangerous country. Beyond it, the higher of the distance tier and the base land danger is used. Changes from war or souring do not continually redraw this field.

Generated Adventure worlds with villages

The curated world has a fixed list of starting villages and a small set of authored dungeon zones. A generated Adventure world with villages uses its own tier 1 and 2 villages as distance anchors, falling back to all its villages if none qualify, and disables that curated zone list. The volcanic and base-danger rules still apply.

Dungeon floors and warning levels

Ordinary tier 1 to 5 procedural dungeons have 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 floors. Procedural towers instead have five storeys, and holdfasts have one yard. A stamped floor count takes precedence when the game reads an existing entrance. Named and special dungeons can have their own count.

Previously placed dungeons keep their records

When an existing procedural dungeon is drawn into a regenerated area, its registered tier, level and warning are reused. Newly generated country can therefore differ from dungeons placed in an older save. The older one-time tier repair also skips dungeons that have been visited or cleared and uses its older, wider distance bands.

Cheese caves use atmosphere as well as danger

A cheese cave can read Working, Quiet, Hollow, Strange, Still or Hushed instead of an ordinary dungeon warning. A high enemy tier changes this to Dangerous, a middle tier to Tense, and a floor named Shuttered takes precedence over both. These labels describe the current cave rather than adding extra steps to the ordinary difficulty ladder.