Painted fantasy concept art: deep in a timber-shored mine, five small adventurers with torches and a lantern face a colossal round stone door set into the cavern wall. Cracks in the door glow cold cyan, huge stone claws grip its rim, and two glowing eyes stare down from the darkness above it.

DESCEND TOGETHER

Hollowdeep Mine

Some doors should stay sealed.

5 players · 4 bosses · About 30 minutes · Levels 8-13

Open nowENTER HOLLOWDEEP

Concept art

Further below.

Five adventurers. One way through.

Painted fantasy concept art: in a volcanic crater at dusk, five adventurers stand at the foot of a ramp with cart rails leading up to a towering black basalt arch covered in hundreds of bronze handprints, one of them red. Inside the arch, the forge fire roars into the shape of a fanged mouth.

The Bloodforge

Embercrag · Levels 8-13

Hundreds of hands have been pressed into the basalt arch, rubbed to shining bronze over generations. One mark is new, and red. Inside the crater forge, rival clans fight over stations that never cool, and something in the oldest fire has learned how to speak.

Painted fantasy concept art: at twilight, five adventurers stand at the foot of a stone stair climbing a cliff in a forest of blue-glowing pines. At the top, a cleft in the rock glows amber between giant doors of living root, a ghostly stag stands in the light, and deer lie asleep all along the slope.

Temple of the Sleeping Grove

Luminwood · Levels 11-16

Climb the switchback stair to the cleft at the top of the cliff, where amber light breathes in and out of the mountain. Thorns as thick as a man's waist have forced the old root doors apart. The deer on the slope sleep facing the gap. Something under Luminwood is dreaming, and the forest has started dreaming with it.

Painted fantasy concept art: five adventurers walk a rope-railed ledge behind a towering waterfall lit gold and green by sunrise, toward a warm-glowing cave mouth braced with timber and bone charms, guarded by tall crested salamander-folk with spears.

Riverfang Warrens

Greenwater Basin · Levels 17-23

The path runs along a rope-railed ledge and then behind the waterfall. Past the curtain, a cave braced with lashed timber and fish-bone charms breathes warm steam. The Riverfang are waiting inside, and something huge stirs in their sacred pool.

Painted fantasy concept art: at dusk where a grey river and a green river meet, a dark stone prison tower shaped like the prow of a ship splits the water, its barred windows glowing and a prisoner signalling from a hanging cage, as five adventurers row toward it in a small boat.

Ashwater Gaol

Amberfield · Levels 18-24

A grey stone tower shaped like the prow of a ship splits the two rivers where they meet, and families on the quay waiting for prisoners who never come out. Watch the guards' lanterns, learn the bastion rota, then choose your way in: the front gate, the sewers or the breach. It's a rescue, not a raid.

Painted fantasy concept art: at sunset in a brick invention works, a round brick tower with a copper dome has torn loose and floats above the yard, crackling with violet lightning, held down by four huge chains and ship anchors, while crates and a goat float up around it and five adventurers stand at the gate under cheerful picture warning signs.

Experimental Works No. 7

Cogmere · Levels 19-25

Every warning sign in Cogmere's most ambitious workshop is accurate, and that is the problem. Today the central tower is trying to fly away, held down by four ship's anchors, a safety inspector engine audits you as you bleed, an inventor throws switches with alarming enthusiasm, and at the bottom of the shaft hums the Completely Safe Reactor.

Painted fantasy concept art: in a snowstorm at dusk on a mountain pithead, a colossal stone-and-iron hauler with a glowing furnace in its chest steps out of the mine and tips an ore cart onto a huge spoil heap, still working long after the miners left, as five adventurers walk up the snowy cart road past empty cottages.

The Abandoned Delve

Ironvale Highlands · Levels 21-27

High on a silent spur, the great winding wheel has stopped and every lamp on the pithead rack is gone, yet a great stone hauler still walks out of the adit with its load every evening. Below, the mine's machines kept working after the miners left: stone haulers still carry ore, an overseer still hands out work orders, and in the deepest hall the Heart Engine's pistons beat faster every year.

Painted fantasy concept art: under a turquoise sky, five adventurers stand in the desert before a colossal seated stone king holding out his open hand, with golden sand pouring from his crown. Robed stone sentinels with spears line the avenue, and scavengers have dug a ramp to a sealed door between his feet.

Tomb of the Sand King

The Dustlands · Levels 23-29

Walk the avenue of sentinels to the seated king, as tall as a cathedral, his hand raised in greeting for a thousand years. At noon, gold sand pours from his crown. Scavengers have dug a ramp between his feet to a broken seal, and one of the sentinels has started to turn its head.

Painted fantasy concept art: at dusk in a jungle, a cliff of red stone is carved into the open jaws of a giant beast set with huge real fangs, a candlelit feast laid out inside, while two enormous glowing eyes open in the dark canopy above and five adventurers approach.

Temple of Teeth

Bloodroot Jungle · Levels 23-30

The cult carved a whole cliff of blood-red stone into the jaws of a beast, set with real fangs taller than a house, and every dusk they lay the feast table in front of it. The cult built a temple to the thing that eats them. Every dusk its roar shakes the trees, and it still comes to dinner.

Painted fantasy concept art: in a vast gothic crypt, a colossal oak has grown down through the vaults. A crowned king's face is half absorbed into its trunk, and its glowing green-gold roots grip his stone coffin, while veiled mourning spirits stand in the arches and five adventurers approach through shallow water.

The Rootbound Crypt

Thornwood · Levels 24-30

They buried a king beneath Thornwood's oldest oak, and the oak kept him. Walk under roots as tall as towers, past mourning shades and coffins wrapped in living wood, to the heart of the oak, where the King Beneath the Roots has grown into the trunk, crowned and half bark, still holding his own coffin in his roots.

Painted fantasy concept art: under a blazing sunset, a red-rock fortress climbs a cliff while two armies with siege engines face each other on either side. Below the castle, the curved ribs of something enormous and ancient burst out of the cliff, glowing pale, and five adventurers stand before it.

Ochrewatch Keep

Redstone Marches · Levels 28-35

Two armies fight over a red-rock fortress that climbs its cliff to a lightning-struck spire. Between their sandbag walls, a ragged breach in the rock breathes warm air, and the stone underneath the keep is older and stranger than anything either side built.

Painted fantasy concept art: a split view at the waterline of a ship graveyard at sunset. Above, five adventurers walk a broken plank walkway past a wrecked ship with a carved sea-serpent prow. Below, in clear green water, drowned sailors in old naval coats stand on a sunken deck, and the nearest one looks up and raises his hand to wave at them.

The Drowned Fleet

Stormbreak Coast · Levels 28-35

The salvagers' rules are nailed to the first plank. No swimming after dark. No swimming. If a dead man waves, do not wave back. Walk the lantern-lit hull-walk out through a forest of broken masts, over water so clear you can see the crews still working the sunken decks below.

Painted fantasy concept art: high in snowy mountains, five adventurers look up a long ramp toward a stepped stone gate behind a veil of golden meltwater. A colossal carved stone king beside the ramp has turned his head toward them, his eyes glowing, with rubble falling from his neck.

Stoneward Halls

Whitecrown Peaks · Levels 33-40

Two stone kings lie on their backs in the snowy mountainside, faces to the sky and swords on their chests, and the ramp climbs between them. Warm meltwater veils the great door. Two armies went in. Their footprints go in and none come out, and lately the kings' heads have started to turn.

Painted fantasy concept art: at night in a terraced open-cut mine lit by strings of lamps, a colossal giant made of black basalt columns with glowing magma seams tears itself up out of the pit floor, and five adventurers stand on the terrace below it.

The Basalt Cut

Blackstone Barrens · Levels 33-40

A terraced pit of black stone, gantries and swinging ore buckets, where two expeditions dug from opposite sides toward the same treasure. Now the work lamps are going out one by one, and the ground is digging back.

Painted fantasy concept art: at sunset on a black swamp lake, a tall bell-spire leans out of the water with a glowing cyan whirlpool spinning inside it, huge drowned stone heads rise from the water, and five adventurers wade toward it along a sunken roof.

The Mere Chantry

Mistfen · Levels 37-45

Wade the drowned roof ridge through a black lake, past drowned stone heads that all face one way, to a leaning spire. Climb its outer stair to the open bell chamber 46 metres above the water, where a whirlpool hangs in the air, pulsing cold blue.

Painted fantasy concept art: five adventurers stand at a glowing line where the colour drains out of a valley: behind them is warm autumn colour, ahead everything is grey, leading to a giant root arch over a cave glowing silver, ringed by wisps of light, with a robed figure standing inside.

The Spirit Warrens

Spiritwood · Levels 38-45

The colour drains out of the valley before you reach the door. Under the arch of a giant ash root, silver light leaks from a cave while hundreds of wisps circle it like moths around a lamp, and beside it stands a second, mirrored cave that leads nowhere at all.

Painted fantasy concept art: at sunset on a turquoise lagoon, a white cliff full of glowing round windows opens in one giant keyhole-shaped gate, with a feast table laid and lit on the quay, an empty boat drifting on the water and no one anywhere, as five adventurers stand on the steps.

Ruins of Telassar

The Lost Shore · Levels 38-45

A white water-gate stands open at the edge of a turquoise lagoon. At dusk its lamps light themselves, the mooring rings are polished and the windows glow warm. Everything has been kept perfectly for the people who left, and in one lit window, someone is still standing.

Painted fantasy concept art: under a stormy violet sky, an abbey built across a colossal sea-arch is under siege by dark-sailed warships, while a beam of gold light and a swirling ring of light rise from its bell tower, and five adventurers wade through the surf toward it.

The Sanctum of Saint Ardyn

The Crownlands · Levels 41-51

An abbey built across a great sea-arch, one holy order and one rite that must not finish. Wade the causeway under falling stones while your own side's trebuchets shake the walls, then fight your way through Cloister, Reliquary, Bastion and Cathedral to learn what the order is really guarding.

Painted fantasy concept art: five adventurers walk out of a spiked gate between two black beast statues into a sunlit sand arena ringed by tiers of roaring crowd and banner masts, where a huge champion with an axe waits beside a chained beast.

The Iron Arena

The Great Steppe · Levels 43-50

Twelve chain masts, a sand floor and three tiers of roaring crowd. The odds are chalked on the board outside, and they are not in your favour. Walk out through the Beast Gate and face whatever the announcer calls next.

Painted fantasy concept art: in bright snowy mountains, a black stone fortress gate has been burst open by a glacier, which pours through it in a glowing blue tongue of ice with soldiers frozen inside. Five adventurers stand on the ice before the gate and its frozen portcullis.

Rimehold

Frostmere · Levels 48-55

The glacier came through the garrison's front gate and stayed. Duck under the portcullis frozen in mid-drop, past the duty roster iced to the wall, into a fortress where the ice remembers the soldiers and something vast sleeps behind the deepest wall.

Painted fantasy concept art: at dusk inside a volcanic caldera of lava rivers, a great ash-grey dragon with glowing ember cracks lies coiled around the top of a black rock spire like a crown, wings raised, while five adventurers stand on a stair beside a broken offering altar and a torn banner.

The Cinder Crown

Dragonspine · Levels 48-55

At the heart of the caldera, an ash-grey dragon lies coiled around the tallest spire like a crown, wings raised, ember light running through the cracks in its hide. Poachers have chained the sanctuary's young, and the eldest of the caldera has stopped asking politely.

Painted fantasy concept art: at night above the clouds, a giant brass telescope juts down from a domed observatory on a rock spire, its glowing lens like an eye casting a beam of light on five adventurers on the cliff path below, under constellations linked by lines of light.

Observatory of Stars

Skyreach · Levels 51-58

Cross a cable bridge over 900 metres of air to a white dome on a needle of rock. At night the constellations lock into place like the gears of a clock. Its great lens was never built to look up at the stars. It looks down at the world.

Painted fantasy concept art: at dawn in a roofless gothic cathedral on a sea cliff, ash falls like snow over rows of grey kneeling worshippers while a robed cantor raises his arms at the altar. Five adventurers enter past a huge black door whose iron hinges are shaped like hands.

Cathedral of Ash

The Ashen Coast · Levels 52-58

On a sea cliff stands a roofless cathedral where ash falls like snow and the dawn hymn never ends. The congregation never left the service. Push through the great black door and walk the nave between the kneeling rows to the cantor who is still leading them.

Painted fantasy concept art: under a violet storm at sunset, waves smash against a black island prison hung with iron cages and sick green lamps. On top of its gatehouse stands a giant, gaunt, starving prisoner in chains, lit by a lightning bolt, as five adventurers approach along the rocky shore.

Blackwake Prison

The Ashen Coast · Levels 53-60

Take the ferry across the Sound, or the drowned steps at low tide, to an island prison of black basalt in an endless storm. Each lightning flash shows you something new on the gallows. They never executed the headsman. They just stopped feeding him.

Painted fantasy concept art: at dusk in a desert, five adventurers approach a vast cracked pearl dome flanked by two towering faceless guardian statues with spears. Through its tall pointed gate, an empty golden city glows, every street and window lit, with no one there.

The Silent City

The Dead Expanse · Levels 54-60

Under a pearl dome in the desert, the streets are lit, the fountains run and the windows are warm. The script over the gate lights up letter by letter as you pass beneath it. Nobody has been home for a very long time, but a procession still walks in without leaving footprints.

Painted fantasy concept art: on a green sea headland, three colossal tilted rings of dark metal with gear teeth grind out of step above a deep spiral well full of blue light, throwing lightning into the stormy sea, as five adventurers approach across the grass.

The World Engine

World's Edge · Levels 54-60

Three colossal rings stand on the green headland, grinding out of step and throwing blue lightning into the sea. Beneath them a spiral ramp winds down a great well into light. It was built to keep the world running, and it is running badly. Every gauge inside tells the truth, and none of them is good.

Painted fantasy concept art: at sunset, five adventurers stand on a cliff ledge at the start of a chain bridge that crosses open sky to a glowing cyan door in an upside-down stone tower. The tower hangs from the underside of a floating rock island above a vast canyon of clouds, with lightning in the distance.

The Inverted Tower

The Broken Lands · Levels 54-60

A tower hangs upside down from the belly of a floating crag, its spire pointing into a bottomless chasm while waterfalls pour upward into it. Cross the chain-bridge over open sky to the glowing door at its root. The tower grows down, and so does the climb.

Painted fantasy concept art: in a vast crystal cave, a huge jagged magenta crystal hangs from roots of glass, with the shapes of past adventurers frozen inside it, as five adventurers stand on a ledge below beside a warm brazier.

Crystalheart Depths

The Crystal Wastes · Levels 54-60

Deep under the Crystal Wastes, a great crystal hangs from roots of glass and hums. It remembers everyone who came this way: you can see them inside it, still standing where they stopped. Some of them have started to look like you.

Painted fantasy concept art: deep underground, an old highway crosses a glowing blue abyss on a great stone viaduct lined with lamps and abandoned wagons, while a colossal pale centipede coils up through its arches toward five adventurers at the near end.

The Underroad

The Hollow Kingdom · Levels 54-60

Borrow a lamp at the ninth arch and step over the broken toll-gate. Beyond it, a highway runs for miles through the dark: bridges over abysses, lost caravans and districts no map remembers. The road continues. The caravans didn't.

Painted fantasy concept art: under a blood-red sky, an island sea fortress burns under a full assault of warships, siege towers and arcing fireballs, while five adventurers ride a landing boat through heavy surf toward the burning gate.

Siege of Kar'Dur

Kar'Dur, the island sea-fortress · Levels 60

The fortress has held the strait for a hundred years. Today the banners go up, the catapults fire and the sea-gate takes the first ram. Every assault is different, so pick your lane, breach the walls and take the bastion, or go down with the ships.

Painted fantasy concept art: seen from inside a giant round stone door that has been rolled aside, five adventurers with lanterns stand on a ledge looking out over an impossibly vast underground city of pale curving terraces and bridges glowing cold cyan.

The Depths of Hollowdeep

Briarhollow Reach · Levels 60

You were ten when you first stood at the bottom of Hollowdeep and looked at the door. Come back now. The door is open, and the mine was only ever the doorstep.

Painted fantasy concept art: five adventurers stand on the snow at the edge of a vast wall of clear blue glacier ice. Inside the ice lies a sleeping titan: a closed eye the size of a house and a red-gold heart glowing through the ice, with ladders and climbing rigs hanging from the rim above.

The Undersleep

Frostmere · Levels 60

For years, the only thing anyone could say about the long crevasse was that the ice is warm. Now it has split open, ladders hang down into the blue, and deep inside the glacier something enormous is breathing. The battlefield is its body.

Painted fantasy concept art: in a royal crypt of blue and gold, rows of crowned stone kings sit on either side of a stair that leads down to a towering pale door carved with smooth curves and glowing cyan lines, where a lone robed figure waits and five adventurers descend.

The King's Descent

Crownlands (beneath Highcourt) · Levels 60

Every king of Highcourt was buried in the royal crypt beneath the city. Follow the stair down past their effigies and their banners until the heraldry gives way to something smoother, paler and much older. Something was buried here before the first king.

Painted fantasy concept art: at the bottom of a spiral stair, a towering faceless guardian of pale stone stands in an ivory arch with one hand raised, while behind it an impossible ancient city curves around a vast hollow, and five adventurers stand small on the steps.

The First City's Lower District

The First City · Levels 60

The spiral stair winds down around the great buried drum of the First Gate into a district where the streets curve up into the walls and arch over your head. The city has rules. Learn them quickly, because they change.