Lore
The story of Dungeons & Dragons & Dices — the Riftborn, the Loop, the Guardians, the five Memory Fragments, and the four endings.
Lore
You gambled and lost. The only way out is down.
The premise
You played a dice game against something you shouldn't have. You lost. Now your soul belongs to whatever sits beneath the ground. Each floor deeper buys back a piece of yourself. Reach the bottom and you're free. Die, and the debt resets.
The irony: the same dice that damned you are your only weapon. Every roll is both your sentence and your way out.
The Riftborn
Long before you, the Riftborn discovered that reality can be rewritten if you roll enough times. The cost of each roll isn't time or gold — it's souls.
The greatest of them, the Riftborn Number God (RNG), crafted an infinite loop:
- Scattered dice across the world
- Placed the God Dice on the Throne
- Anyone who touches the dice hungers for more power — specifically the God Dice and the Throne itself
Every time you roll, a shard of soul is stripped away. After defeating the final boss, the player sits on the Throne and becomes the next boss — their soul too fragmented to resist the call. Those soul shards flow back to RNG, who studies them like a researcher studies specimens.
The Loop: player → defeats the Guardians → sits on the Throne → gets reborn as the next challenger → repeats forever. RNG wins either way.
You're in iteration n. You don't know your name. You don't know your crime. You only know you rolled the wrong dice and now have to settle accounts.
The Guardians
The three Guardians of the descent are former players — people who did what you're doing, beat the Guardians before them, sat on the Throne, and became bosses. They serve RNG now whether they want to or not.
| Act | Guardian | Who they were |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Beholder | A former accountant who traded their eyes for power — now collects debts from the dead |
| 2 | The House | Built the underground casinos, cheats with loaded dice, ran the game that damned you |
| 3 | The Shadow Kraken | Gatekeeper to the deep, tentacles in every casino and crypt — the final test |
See Bosses for the tactical view of each fight.
Kill or Save
When you beat a Guardian, you face a choice no one told you you'd face:
- Kill — they give up their remaining soul power to you for the rest of the run. Narratively, you murder a trapped person. Karma drops. The soul is lost forever.
- Save — you refuse the kill. They hand over a Memory Fragment instead — a piece of your past. Karma rises.
Kill is the strong choice this fight. Save is the strong choice for the whole story.
Memory Fragments
There are five Memory Fragments in total, collected from Guardians and from Memory Shrines (a variant shrine that appears on floor 4 of Acts 1 and 2). Each one reveals a piece of who you were before the Loop:
| # | Source | Fragment | What you learn |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Act 1 Guardian — The Beholder | Your name | You had an identity before this |
| 2 | Act 1 Memory Shrine (F4) | Your origin | You were a gambler who challenged RNG |
| 3 | Act 2 Guardian — The House | Your crime | You tried to cheat the system |
| 4 | Act 2 Memory Shrine (F4) | The Collector | Previous players became bosses when they took the Throne |
| 5 | Act 3 Guardian — The Shadow Kraken | The Truth | The Loop can be broken — but only by refusing the Throne |
Collect 3 or more Memory Fragments and a secret path opens beyond the Shadow Kraken.
Karma
Karma tracks moral choices beyond the dice. The game remembers.
| Action | Karma |
|---|---|
| Buy at full price | +1 |
| Complete a run without robbing | +2 |
| Save a Guardian | +15 |
| Shrine Atonement (pay 50 gold) | +15 |
| Rob the merchant (flee without winning) | 0 |
| Rob the merchant (win) | −10 |
| Kill a Guardian | −15 |
Karma affects:
- Shop prices — low karma scales them up
- Guardian dialogue — they grow guarded or hostile at low karma
- Ending eligibility — the good ending requires positive karma
You can atone for past robberies at shrines when your karma drops below −5 (see Shrine Blessings § Atonement). But murder stays with you in ways shops can't buy off.
The world
The Hub — The Camp
A crossroads camp at the mouth of the descent. A campfire. Old dice scattered around the fire pit. A gate that pulls at you. You rest here between attempts. The debt doesn't let you leave — only descend or wait.
The Camp doesn't change much between runs. But over many runs you notice things you didn't before. A new tombstone. A line of dice you don't remember arranging. Whispers that sound like your own voice.
Act 1 — The Graveyard
Where those who owed before you are buried. Fresh graves and old crypts. The monsters are debtors who couldn't pay — risen, twisted, still trying to claw their way out of the dirt. Tombstones are etched with dice.
The Beholder collects what's owed from the dead.
Act 2 — The Dicing Hall
Underground casinos where the desperate gamble away their souls. High stakes, loaded dice, rigged games. Casino tables stretching into darkness. The dealers don't have eyes either. You recognize the smell of the place from somewhere you can't quite place.
The House runs the illegal tables. They were the one who dealt to you. You're almost certain.
Act 3 — The Wasteland
The remains of a civilization that tried to cheat the debt. They built walls, temples, armies. All failed. The monsters here are their corrupted guardians and war machines, still running on broken oaths. Broken dice half-buried in the sand. Statues of gamblers with coins for eyes.
The Shadow Kraken guards the passage deeper. If you beat the Shadow Kraken without the Memory Fragments, the run ends and you walk out. If you beat it with enough fragments, a portal opens.
Beyond the Wasteland — The Rift & The Throne
Only reachable via the Defy the Gods path (3+ Memory Fragments when you beat the Shadow Kraken).
The Rift is where reality fractures. Dice glow with otherworldly light. Space bends. You fight your way through the fragments of the Loop itself.
The Throne sits at the end, in a dark obsidian citadel bound in chains. The Riftborn Number God sits on the God Dice, watching. RNG is not evil in the traditional sense — it is the Loop's architect. It offered power on credit, and now it collects. The Throne is the seat of the original bargain.
The four endings
After the Shadow Kraken, the game branches. Your Memory Fragments and your karma decide which endings are available to you.
| Ending | Requirements | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Freedom | Any | You walk out of the dungeon. The "normal" ending. |
| Serve the Gods | Any | You sit on the Throne and become the next Collector. The Loop continues with you as a boss for the next player. |
| Defy — Save the Lands | 3+ Memory Fragments, positive karma | You confront RNG. You sacrifice yourself to destroy RNG. The Loop finally breaks. |
| Defy — Take His Place | 3+ Memory Fragments, negative karma | You confront RNG. You kill RNG and absorb their power. You become the new Number God. The Loop continues with you as its architect. |
See Bosses for the mechanical gating of each path.
Tone
A note on how the story is told, for what it's worth:
- No monologues. Short, punchy lines.
- The player character speaks in fragments. Practical, not poetic.
- Environmental storytelling over exposition. The Graveyard tells its own story through tombstones and ruins.
- Dark but not grim. There's dark humor in gambling against your own debt.
- The speaker tag is "You" — no name, no chosen one. Just someone who rolled the wrong dice at the wrong time.
- Memory Fragments play as flashbacks when you Save a Guardian — brief visions of your past life.
- Players who want lore can read tombstones. Players who just want to roll dice can skip everything.
Related: Bosses · Shrine Blessings · Run Structure
