Gargadusa's Tower · published
I am very excited for this feature to see the light of day and it is live now on Beta (on Live next Wednsday).
Surface Breaches were originally designed as the first playable DLC for GT1 and introduce new mechanics, new lore, new storylines, and new features. But! I decided they were too fun and added too much substance to the base game that I decided to add it. (Note, if you fall in love with this feature as much as I have, you can pretend its a DLC and donate via Stripe here.)
As we learned in "The Shield of Hiltcrest", Hiltcrest sits on old ground.
Mines, cellars, chapel vaults and cisterns run under the whole town. Mana travels through the land in slow-flowing currents, but sometimes, that mana begins to pool creating perfect conditions for a surface dungeon.
And, lately, Tower monsters have started to find their way out.
Surface Breach is a new kind of high risk, high difficulty World Event. The ground opens somewhere in or near town, a clock starts and five of your heroes go down to close the hole. They fight chamber by chamber in one sitting, carrying every wound (and death) from one fight into the next.
At the bottom awaits high-end rewards and a Legendary Monster.
Roughly twice a year the ground gives way somewhere in Hiltcrest and Legendary Monster or Floor Boss Variant find its way out. Each breach rolls its own unique run of chambers, so no two descents are the same.
A breach does not arrive quietly. The week one opens, the Week Summary gives way to a full-screen painting of the hole with the site's name, its size and the weeks you have before it spills. One click takes you to its dossier on the Raid Board.
NOTE: all Surface Breach events will be found in the Raids tab in the Quests tab.
Each size has its own pool of four paintings, twelve in all. Every breach draws one by its own seed. The same breach always shows the same painting. The next one may not.
Breaches come in three size bands:
Size
Chambers
Seal it
Let it Breach
Crack (F, D and C-Tier)
3-5
+20 renown, +10 Crown standing
−40 renown
Breach (C, B and A-Tier)
5-8
+40 renown, +20 Crown standing
−80 renown
Chasm (A and S-Tier)
8-11
+70 renown, +35 Crown standing
−120 renown and a building in town burns
A breach also chokes the town's gathering for three weeks. The deeper the hole, the more it pays and the more it costs to ignore.
A breach goes to the top of the Raid Board with a card of its own: a painting of the scene, the site, its alarm and the weeks left before it spills. Open it and you get the dossier.
Your scouts grade a breach the way they grade a raid, F to S. Their read is only as good as your Scouting Post. A small post can get the grade wrong. At Scouting Post tier 3 you get the true rank and the exact ROVR.
If you have a Tactician on staff, the dossier opens with their report: how deep they make it and what the scouts have heard. Without a Tactician you get the scouts' unsigned word.
Nobody knows what waits at the bottom. Not the scouts, not your Tactician, not the town. Every screen before the descent says the same thing: Waiting below: nobody has seen it yet. You find out what it is when your party reaches its door.
What comes up the stairs is hearsay. If the scouts have heard what the thing flinches from, they pass it on: the scouts swear it flinches from Holy. The rumor holds. It is the one clue you get when you choose who to send.
There are two ways to know it before you go. A Legendary Monster that got away from your guild previously comes back with its name on the card. A party that reached its door and turned back brings the name home for the next party.
The depth is a guess too. The card shows the size's range of chambers and never the real count. You learn the count at the bottom.
The briefing also carries the rumors. Every breach comes up with one or two omens and each one bends the rules of the run. There are ten. A few of them:
Choking Dark. Pressure builds half again as fast. The loot is richer for it.
Teeming. One more enemy in every fight.
Rich Vein. Caches turn up far more often.
Unstable. Three times the traps and one chamber fewer.
Hungry Heart. The Legend is tougher and its lair pays half again as much.
Whispering. The walls talk. Some of it is true.
A breach takes a full party of five. Pick them one at a time from the roster or call up a party you already run. Anyone who cannot go is grayed out with the reason.
As the party fills, the read card sets its OVR against the breach's grade and gives you a risk word. Every chamber is tougher than the last and nothing heals between them (without potions), so a breach asks more of a party than a raid of the same rank. The risk words were measured on breaches alone.
Then the loadout. Choose the formation your five take into every chamber (Shield Wall, Skirmish Line or one of the others) and fill the pack.
The pack has 8 slots. A Warehouse at tier 2 adds one and tier 3 adds another. Supplies go in first. Anything you find below has to fit in what is left. Four kinds of supply go down with you:
Healing Potions. One hero heals 30% between chambers.
Meals. Two make a camp. Everyone heals 25% and Pressure eases by 15. Share a Feast at the fire and it eases 10 more.
Lantern Oil. Shows you the next chamber before you walk in. A lit party is not caught off guard.
Reagents. Open a curio safely instead of touching it bare-handed.
A descent is played in one sitting. The week does not turn until the party comes back up.
The party goes down one chamber at a time. HP and wounds carry from each chamber into the next. Nothing heals on its own.
A chamber can be:
A fight. Whatever lives at that depth.
Something big. An elite and its escort.
An ambush. The fight starts in the dark with your formation scattered.
A cache. Supplies and loot for the taking, if the pack has room.
A curio. Something old left down there. Touch it and take your chances, or open it safely with a reagent.
A trap. It draws blood unless someone sees it first.
The lair. The last chamber. The Legend lives there.
Every chamber is deeper than the last and worse for it. Fights play out on the hex battle board. You can watch any of them back.
Fear builds on the way down. Every chamber adds Pressure and a bigger hole adds more. An ambush adds more again. A friend falling adds the most.
Pressure
State
What it does
0-39
Steady
Nothing yet
40-69
Shaken
The party fights 5% weaker
70-99
Fraying
10% weaker. Before each chamber a hero may refuse to fight.
100
Broken
Nobody goes deeper. The party turns back.
Pressure follows them home too. Every survivor loses morale for what they saw down there.
At every crossroads you choose. Press on. Drink a potion. Make camp with two meals to heal everyone and ease the Pressure. Light the lantern to see what is next: a lit chamber adds half the Pressure, an ambush loses its surprise and a trap gets walked around.
Or turn back. A party that walks out keeps everything in the pack. If it cleared at least half the chambers, the breach is contained and closes quietly. Short of that it stays open. Next week another party can try again from the top, as long as the fuse lasts.
Lose a fight and the party is routed. The survivors run for their lives and leave the pack behind, supplies and all. That is what makes turning back a real choice.
A hero who falls has a roll to be spared at Death's Door. They stay in the run with a critical wound, barely standing. Some are not spared.
Every breach ends in a lair and every lair has a Legendary Monster (or "Legend"). A Legend is a named monster with its own story, its own abilities and an escort. Kill it and its trophy comes home with you.
You meet it at its door. When your party clears the chamber before the lair, the screen turns to the Legend's painting and its name for the first time. Then you choose: go in, or turn back with what you carry.
A Legend you went down after and did not kill gets away. Turn back, break or lose anywhere on the way down and it is still out there. Your guild keeps a list of the ones at large.
A later breach may bring one back up. It takes the lair under its own name and it comes back harder for every escape: more health and a higher ROVR, up to three times over. It never returns in a smaller hole than the one it left. The card, the dossier and the Legend's own card all say it plainly. It remembers you.
Kill it and it is gone for good. Its name goes into the Legends Slain ledger with its trophy and the number of times it got away first.
Every chamber comes with legit rewards. Mostly gold and the materials of whatever lived there. Caches hold more. All of it has to fit in the pack, so sooner or later the question becomes what to leave behind.
The lair pays best. Kill the Legend and you take its trophy, a heavy purse and a piece of gear that gets better with the size of the hole:
Size
Lair gear
Grimoire
Soul Shards
Crack
Rare or better
1 chance in 4
1
Breach
Epic or better
1 chance in 2
2
Chasm
Legendary
Every time
3
Sealing the breach pays the bounty on top: renown, standing with the Crown and experience for every hero who walked out. The survivors need a week or two of rest after.
A rout brings none of it home. That is the bargain at every crossroads.
Some of what comes up out of a breach is not gold. A Soul Shard is a sliver of crystal with something alive moving in it. A sealed lair gives up one, two or three of them by size. Now and then an elite chamber gives up another.
Shards go into one reserve for the whole guild. Each one holds the soul of the next hero who would die, after every other save has failed. That hero lives, badly hurt. It holds wherever a hero can fall: on quests and raids, in the garrison, in the Tower and down a breach.
Or you can keep them.
Ten shards forge a Soul Crystal. A Crystal binds to one hero for life.
A soul-bound hero cannot die. A blow that would kill them lands as a critical wound instead, on every field the game has. They still grow old and they can still retire. But they never leave Hiltcrest. No trade, sale or release can move them and no rival can lure them away. The Crystal never moves to anyone else either.
The reserve and the forge sit in the Gear tab under Grimoires once your guild holds its first shard. One switch decides whether the shards save the fallen or wait for the Crystal. Choose the hero with care. The forge says it plainly: This cannot be undone.
A breach gives you three weeks. You get one attempt a week, so three tries at most. A party that comes up short leaves the hole open for the next one.
With one week left the Front Desk sends word: The things in the Chapel Catacombs have found the stairs. If you cannot field five to send down, it says that too.
When the fuse runs out, someone else may go down in your place. A rival guild strong enough for the lair can answer the breach. If it seals the hole, Hiltcrest is spared and the rival banks the renown in the year's race. The Legend dies by its hand and the Legends Slain ledger names the rival. The town remembers who did not answer. Your guild loses half of what a breach would have cost.
If no rival goes down or one goes down and comes back short, the breach opens. Monsters reach the streets and the guild loses renown for it. For three weeks the gatherers bring in a fifth less. Out of a Chasm comes something that burns a building on its way out. It stays damaged until you repair it.
A Legend you met and failed to kill gets away when its breach opens. A Legend nobody went down after is simply forgotten.
Breaches open where riches pile up. A guild that hoards the Tower's crystals will see them more often.