Beginner Guide
Your first job is to make the basic loop stable: break mountain, collect ore before it is reclaimed, spend gold, open dens, then turn mithril and PP into progress that survives longer.
First Run Priorities
Section titled “First Run Priorities”| Phase | Do This | What It Fixes |
|---|---|---|
| Start | Buy Miners and keep their damage moving. | Miners are the earliest reliable mountain damage and ore source. |
| Hauling | Unlock Runners through The Great Maw. | Ore that sits on the ground can be reclaimed, so damage without hauling wastes value. |
| Workforce | Build Underground Housing when dwarf costs start blocking buildings. | More dwarves means more staffed systems and fewer dead ends. |
| Dens | Clear dens as soon as you can kill them without stalling the mountain. | Dens are the cleanest early source of artifacts, mithril, and extra loot. |
| Permanent progress | Spend PP on early prestige that helps the next run start faster. | Prestige should reduce the part of the loop that keeps slowing you down. |
Read Your Bottleneck
Section titled “Read Your Bottleneck”| If This Is Happening | Likely Fix | Pages To Use |
|---|---|---|
| Mountains take too long to break. | Add miner, demodwarf, harpoon, cannon, flamer, or laser damage before buying more economy. | Best Upgrades · Dwarf and Weapon Stats |
| Ore disappears before it is collected. | Buy runner speed, carrying capacity, dodge, anti-rock defense, or Maw reclaim tools. | Ore Reclaim Pressure · The Great Maw |
| Mithril costs stop progress. | Prioritize dens, mithril-luck, spelunking, and guaranteed mithril sources. | How to Get Mithril · Mithril Drops |
| Artifact choices feel random. | Kill higher-value dens and improve artifact/drop support before chasing rare late artifacts. | Dens and Artifacts · Artifact Selection |
| Runs reset without much improvement. | Move PP into start-speed, miner damage, runner speed, den rewards, or mithril-luck. | Best Prestige Upgrades · Prestige Upgrades |
Rules Worth Knowing
Section titled “Rules Worth Knowing”| Mountain health | Mountain max HP uses a level-based base value, multiplies it by 1.115 per mountain level, rounds it, and never lets it fall below 1 HP. |
|---|---|
| Mithril drops | Each hit adds mithril progress based on damage dealt as a share of mountain max HP. The multiplier starts at 0.03, gains 0.06 per mithril-luck point, caps the luck term at 18, and each normal luck point adds 0.01 mithril luck. A mithril drop appears when progress beats a random threshold from 0.3 to 1.7. |
| Den count | Every mountain starts from one den roll, then makes up to three extra den rolls with chances that rise by level. Spelunker multi-den bonuses multiply those extra-roll chances, with a minimum multiplier of 1. |
| Artifact choices | Artifact-choice screens exclude owned, collected, and boss-only artifacts. Higher mountain level adds more weight to higher-tier artifacts, and the offered choices are unique. |