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Dive deep. Extract alive. Consecrate your spoils.

DELVE is a browser-based extraction-RPG with real permadeath and a real-money season economy. Every artifact you carry out of the dark is unrealized winnings — and everything on you is lost the moment you die. This is the manual.

▶ Play DELVE Understand the loop How payouts work

What’s New — Bigger Threats & New Enemies

The roster is growing. New telegraphed area-denial foes — dodge the ground-ring or pay for it.

• The Bonecaller. An artillery necromancer that roots at range, chants a telegraphed cast, then lobs a magenta skull-fireball that detonates into a necrotic AoE plus a blinding cloud. Stalks the Blight and the deep dungeon.
• Mutant Revenant. A hulking undead melee elite — now rendered at full looming size — that soaks hits and punishes a missed step. Blight + dungeon.
• Gazer. A hovering flying-eye that kites at range and pelts you with bolts. Forest & Swamp.
• Goblin Bombthrower. A short windup, then a lobbed firebomb that bursts in a small AoE — the teaching-version of the Bonecaller. Forest.
• Sporeling. A rooted mushroom that spits poison spores — easy to ignore, painful if you linger. Swamp.

What’s New — Level 30, Prestige & Wings

The end-game just got deeper, deadlier, and more rewarding.

• Level cap is now 30. The XP curve and rewards are retuned around the new ceiling.
• Prestige & Wings. At level 30, prestige at the Herald in town: reset to level 1 and earn a set of animated Wings. Prestige again for the next tier — T1 feathered, T2 bat, T3 radiant (3 total). Worn wings grant +2.5% attack & cast speed and +25 max HP / +25 max MP. Wings, prestige rank, and fame are all lost on death — the stakes stay real.
• Fame & Leaderboards. Reach the cap and don’t prestige, and every kill earns Fame. Talk to the Herald (or press L) for the Hall of Legends: Holy Spirit (with live estimated USDC payout), Fame (fallen heroes), and PvP Kills.
• Harder end-game. Wilds T4/T5 hit harder and last longer, and the T5 Demon Lord and other heavy melee now wield real gap-closing and spinning attacks. Player base HP was halved so positioning matters — with a no-one-shot safety floor.
• Polish. Quickslots show consumable icons, potions burst into a red/blue magic swirl, the Bow’s Jump has its own sound, loot bags lost their floating labels, and every placed prop now blocks movement (no more mobs spawning inside scenery).

What is DELVE?

DELVE is a 2D top-down extraction-RPG you play in your browser — no install. It fuses four ideas: RotMG's permadeath, Tarkov's extraction tension, Diablo's combat & loot, and a Cambria-style risk-to-earn wrapper where the stakes are real money.

You spawn in a safe hub Town, then choose where to dive: the open Wilds (five escalating biomes, T1–T5) or the procedurally-generated Dungeon (five floors, two bosses). Deeper means richer drops — and a far higher chance of never coming back.

The Core Loop

Spend → dive → drop → extract → consecrate → claim.

Quickstart

1. Open the game at dlv.gg and create an account.
2. Pick a class — Warrior, Ranger, or Mage. Each plays completely differently.
3. Learn the controls in Town (no danger there):

Input	Action
WASD	Move · Shift to sprint (doubles as a dodge, costs Stamina)
Left-click	Basic attack toward the cursor · interact with nodes/NPCs
Q / E / R	Abilities — Q & E are core, R is your ultimate
I	Open inventory · Esc to close
T	Chat · Enter to send
F	Enter the Dungeon (from the portal)

Start in T1 Forest or Dungeon F1. Get a feel for combat, grab a few low-tier artifacts, and practice the extraction timer before you risk anything valuable.

Classes & Abilities

Three classes, each with four abilities: a basic (left-click), Q, E, and an R ultimate. Your class is fixed for the character.

Warrior — the bruiser

Closes gaps and trades HP for kills. High survivability, melee range.

Key	Ability	What it does	Mana
Click	Slash	Multi-target forward cone	0
Q	Lunge	Leap forward, damage + brief stun on first hit	60
E	Blind Rage	20s buff: ×2 move/attack speed, +25% damage	100
R	Whirlwind	Spin: 6 AOE pulses around you	30/pulse

Ranger — the kiter

Controls space and punishes from afar. Fragile up close, lethal at range.

Key	Ability	What it does	Mana
Click	Rapid Shot / Quick Shot	A burst of 4 arrows fired straight down your aim — plus a free single-arrow auto-attack on left-click	40 / 0
Q	Jump	Pure mobility leap — reposition instantly, with brief i-frames	80
E	Snipe	Instant long-range piercing shot that freezes everything it passes through	360
R	Rain of Arrows	4-second AOE zone on a target area	220

Mage — the caster

Burst, blink, and damage-over-time. Mana-hungry, high ceiling.

Key	Ability	What it does	Mana
Click	Shadow Beam	Hitscan ray — must connect with a target	12
Q	Teleport	Blink with brief invulnerability frames	70
E	Poison Cloud	Ground damage-over-time zone	110
R	Burn	Lock-on DoT on up to 4 targets	180

Combat & Death

Combat is real-time and skill-expressive: aim with the cursor, weave abilities around cooldowns, and use sprint to dodge. Three resources govern a fight:

Resource	Role	Notes
HP	Your life	Scales with level + gear. Hit zero and you die.
Mana	Powers abilities	Most abilities cost mana; the ultimate costs the most.
Stamina	Powers sprint / dodge	Regenerates faster out of combat.

Damage mitigation stacks multiplicatively (armor, defense, dodge, block), and there's a 5% minimum-damage floor — no instant one-shots. Crits, lifesteal, and elemental effects (poison, burn, slow, blind) all come from gear and abilities.

Extraction

To bank a run, reach an extraction ladder and stand on it through a short timer. Taking any damage restarts the timer. Extracting returns you to Town with your haul intact — that's the only way carried loot becomes safe. Running out of Energy force-extracts you (a soft fail; you keep your cargo), but dying is the hard fail that loses it.

The World

Three kinds of space: safe Town, the open Wilds, and the Dungeon.

Town

A persistent, always-safe hub. No PvP, no energy drain, no risk. Here you manage your stash, shop, smith, gather at starter nodes, and — crucially — visit the Priest to consecrate artifacts. Nothing is lost in Town.

The Wilds — five biome tiers

Chained open biomes, each deadlier and more rewarding than the last. Walk the SE portal to descend a tier; the NW portal ropes back toward Town.

Tier	Biome	Danger	~Level	Sample threats
T1	Forest	1.0×	1–8	Wolf, Wood Goblin, Sylvan Archer
T2	Swamp	1.8×	8–15	Lizardfolk, Bog Hag, Mire Shaman
T3	Blight	3.2×	16–24	Plagued Druid, Wraith Hunter, Treant
T4	Castle Approach	5.5×	25–35	Demon Imps, Hellforged Brute, Pyre Adept
T5	Castle Interior	8.5×	36–50	Iron Sentinel, Soul Reaver, Demon Lord

The Dungeon — five floors

Procedurally generated each run, five floors deep. Each floor has passable tiles, walls, a descent point (deeper), and an extraction ladder (back to Town). Danger climbs sharply per floor.

• Crypt Lord — boss on Floor 3.
• Void Lich — terminal boss on Floor 5.
• Treasure goblins flee on sight and drop fat purses if you can catch them.

Gear & Loot

Gear is your power curve. Eight equip slots — weapon, armor, amulet, helm, boots, offhand, and two rings — plus a 4×4 inventory you carry into the field and a larger account stash that survives death.

Rarities & stats

Stats are deterministic and set-in-stone: two items with the same name and rarity are always identical — no random rolls, no gambling for a good copy. Rarity decides a base item's power and how many bonus affixes it carries, and legendaries get a unique silhouette plus a signature affix.

Rarity	Affixes	Feel
Common	2	Base stats only
Uncommon	2–3	A small edge
Rare	3–4	Build-shaping bonuses
Epic	5–6	Strong, specialized
Legendary	7–8	Unique silhouette + signature affix

Affixes cover damage, attack speed, crit chance/damage, armor, HP, mana, dodge, luck, move speed, lifesteal, and regen — capped per class so builds stay distinct. Rings carry the advanced stats: spell damage, lifesteal, mana-steal, cast/attack speed, and on-hit stun. Legendaries are gated to deep zones: T5 bosses drop them often; T1–T2 never do.

Loot bags (RotMG-style)

Kills aren't guaranteed drops — gold and items roll independently, and a bag only spawns if something rolls. Bag color reflects the best item inside: brown → green → blue → purple → gold (legendary). The killer gets a short loot-priority window, then it's free-for-all; bags despawn after a few minutes.

Professions

Account-level skills that persist across characters and feed your gear economy.

Skill	Train by	Yields
Mining	Striking ore veins with a pickaxe	Ore (Copper → Rune)
Smithing	Crafting at the anvil	Bars, then weapons & armor — higher skill yields better rarities
Fishing	Fishing at spots	Fish — cook for heal-over-time
Dungeoneering	Clearing floors & killing dungeon monsters	Loot-luck bonus (more rolls, higher rarity)

Three Currencies

DELVE keeps three currencies strictly separate. Conflating them breaks the economy — so the game never does.

Currency	What it is	Real value?	Resets?
Gold	In-game soft currency for shops, repairs, NPC services	None	Per season
Holy Spirit	Your share of the real prize pool	Yes — pays USDC at season end	Per season
Blessings	Account-level prestige points, earned by everyone	None (cash)	Persists forever

Charters & Energy

Two things you buy with real money — and they're what fund the prize pool. 88% of every dollar goes into the pool; 12% to treasury (ops, infra, gas, audits).

Pilgrim's Charter — the season pass

Your gate to redeemable play. One purchase per season unlocks Holy Spirit eligibility.

Tier	Price	Grants
Standard	$25	6,000 starting energy · 1,500/day regen · HS eligibility · season seal cosmetic
Founder	$75	20,000 starting energy · 2,500/day regen · cosmetic set · +10% Blessings · early access

Energy — the sink and the clock

Energy drains per second while you're outside Town, faster the deeper you go. "How long do I dare stay?" is the core economic decision.

Wilds zone	Energy/sec	Dungeon floor	Energy/sec
Town	0	F1	1.5
T1 Forest	1.0	F2	2.2
T2 Swamp	1.6	F3 (Crypt Lord)	3.2
T3 Blight	2.6	F4	4.5
T4 Castle Approach	4.0	F5 (Void Lich)	6.5
T5 Castle Interior	6.0	—	—

Drain pauses on extraction tiles and cleared safe rooms. At 0 energy you're force-extracted — yanked safely to Town with your cargo intact (you don't die). Energy Orbs ($5 / $20 / $50, bulk-discounted) top you up mid-season and also fund the pool.

Free, no Charter: a small demo energy bar, T1 only, earning Blessings only — no Holy Spirit, no consecration-value artifacts. It's the on-ramp, fully decoupled from the pool so free players never dilute it.

Artifacts

Artifacts are a distinct item category — shiny collectibles whose only purpose is consecration. They take inventory space, so carrying them is the risk, and they're wiped on death like any loot.

Tier	Name	Holy Spirit	Look
T1	Mote of Spirit	50–150	Small glowing wisp
T2	Spirit Shard	200–600	Faceted crystal shard
T3	Sacred Relic	800–2,400	Ornate reliquary fragment
T4	Hallowed Reliquary	3,000–9,000	Gilded, radiant relic
T5	Divine Idol	12,000–40,000	Animated halo, lights the screen

Drops fire on ~20% of kills (elites ×2; bosses guarantee 1–3 at the zone's top tier). Deeper zones roll higher tiers. Then there's the jackpot layer:

Ascended variants are pure variance on the share unit — they cost the pool nothing (still just Holy Spirit), so we make them as loud as we like.

Consecration

The payoff screen. Once you've extracted, walk to the Priest in Town and consecrate. This is the only place Holy Spirit is ever minted.

Holy Spirit & The Prize Pool

DELVE's prize pool is pari-mutuel: everyone's money goes into one pot, and at season's end the pot is split by each player's share of all Holy Spirit minted.

prize_pool   = season_seed + 0.88 × Σ(all Charter + Orb purchases)
player_pool  = 0.95 × prize_pool      ← distributed to players
               3% → creators / affiliates
               2% → bug bounty
treasury     = 0.12 × Σ purchases     ← ops, gas, audits, next seed

The pool is player-funded and uncapped — more spend, bigger pot. Season 1 is bootstrapped with a real cash seed so it's visibly +EV for the first cohort.

The payout math

share_i  = HS_i / Σ HS                  your fraction of all Holy Spirit
gross_i  = share_i × player_pool        your slice of the player pool
payout_i = gross_i  if ≥ $10, else 0    (sub-$10 dust redistributes pro-rata)

Worked example

• Player pool: $250,000 · total Holy Spirit minted: 9.75 billion
• Your Holy Spirit: 1,303,198 → share = 0.01337%
• Payout = 0.0001337 × $250,000 = ≈ $33.41 USDC

The absolute Holy Spirit numbers are arbitrary — only the ratio pays — but big numbers feel good, so a strong run reads in the millions and a season in the billions.

Payouts & Claiming

The money is on-chain; the game is off-chain. The blockchain touches exactly two moments per season: publishing the results, and letting you claim.

• Chain: Base (Coinbase L2) — native USDC, a built-in fiat → USDC on-ramp, and low gas.
• Wallet: link yours with a Sign-In-With-Ethereum signature. DELVE never custodies your keys.
• Settlement: after the season locks, shares are computed and audited off-chain (1–3 days), then a Merkle root is published to that season's distributor contract.
• Claim: submit a proof and the contract pays you. You have a 90-day window.

The distributor uses Uniswap's canonical, battle-tested Merkle-distributor pattern and is security-audited before mainnet. We write no novel money logic.

Seasons

DELVE runs in seasons — a fresh, fair start each time, classic battle-pass cadence.

Phase	Length	What happens
Live	14 days	Play, dive, consecrate, accrue Holy Spirit
Lockout	instant	Holy Spirit supply frozen; no more earning
Computation	1–3 days	Shares computed, ledger audited, Merkle tree built
Claim	90 days	Root published on-chain; claim your USDC anytime
Intermission	3–4 days	Patches & balance; next season seeded

Resets each season: characters, levels, gear, gold, Holy Spirit. Persists across seasons: Blessings, cosmetics, account prestige, your linked wallet. Unclaimed USDC after 90 days rolls into the next season's seed.

Blessings

The non-cash progression layer, earned by everyone — including free players. Blessings come from any play, quests, achievements, first-clears, and leaderboard placement.

Spend them on cosmetics, account prestige/titles, and future-token allocation. They are never redeemable for the prize pool — which is exactly what lets free players engage fully without diluting a pool they didn't fund.

Verifiability

Trust is the product, so DELVE surfaces it everywhere:

Balances are derived from an append-only, idempotent event ledger — never edited in place. Every payout is something you can verify yourself.

PvP & Stakes

PvP lives in designated high-stakes zones. The economy-safe rule is simple:

• Kill a player and you can take their carried, un-consecrated artifacts — a transfer of artifacts that already exist.
• Holy Spirit is never minted by PvP. It only ever mints at the Priest, from extracted artifacts.

Anti-Abuse

Vector	Why it doesn't work
Sybil / multi-account	The Charter is a paid gate; free value is capped (T1-only, Blessings-only). Multi-accounting costs real money per account for zero rate advantage.
Bots	Real-money entry taxes bots; all drops are server-rolled; behavioral rate-limits apply; the $10 floor erases micro-farms.
PvP collusion	Holy Spirit is never minted by PvP — collusion only moves existing artifacts.
Whales	Self-limiting under pari-mutuel; no Holy Spirit rate advantage from spend; skill-gating keeps it from being pay-to-win.
Payout disputes	Append-only ledger + published Merkle leaves mean anyone can verify their own number.

FAQ

Do I need crypto experience to play?

No. DELVE plays in your browser like any game. The prize pool settles in USDC on Base with a built-in fiat on-ramp — you can buy in with a card and cash out without ever touching a crypto exchange.

Can I lose more than I spend?

You can lose what you spent on Charters and Energy (that's the entry cost, like a tournament buy-in). You can't go negative — there are no loans, no leverage. What you risk in a run is your carried loot and time, not extra money.

What exactly do I lose when I die?

Everything your character is carrying: gear, gold, and all un-consecrated artifacts, and the character drops to level 1. Your account stash, stashed gold, Blessings, and already-consecrated Holy Spirit are safe. Town is always safe.

Is the payout guaranteed?

Your share is guaranteed; the dollar value depends on the final pool size and total Holy Spirit, since it's pari-mutuel. The pool can always cover every payout because Holy Spirit is a share, not a priced coin — the system is solvent by construction.

Can a whale just buy first place?

No. Money buys energy (time in the field), not a better Holy Spirit rate. Converting energy into Holy Spirit takes surviving deep dives — that's the skill axis. Under pari-mutuel, a whale who farms most of the pool mostly wins back their own deposit minus the cut.

What happens to free players?

Free play is a real demo: T1 only, earning Blessings (cosmetics/prestige), never Holy Spirit. Free players never dilute the prize pool because they never mint into it.

When and how do I get paid?

After the season's short computation window, a Merkle root is published on-chain and you claim your USDC with one signature, anytime within 90 days.