Daniel (@dungeondive) descends into the second edition of Downcrawl by Aaron A. Reed—a system-agnostic setting for endless adventures in a bizarre subterranean world where routes are not roads and volumes are your major points of interest. The game excels at structured sandbox play: you can set your own goals, but the journey-and-volume system provides containers of rules and narrative outcomes that make GMless and solo play surprisingly robust.
Daniel demonstrates the oracle cards (optional but gorgeous), the way danger lurks and manifests into encounters, and how he’s stress-testing his own ‘Land in Peril’ rules alongside the Downcrawl setting. His playthrough features Brother Barttok, a monk-botanist charged with delivering seeds of the dead to a warrior giant in the Lonely Gardens—seeds containing transplanted souls awaiting resurrection. The weirdness is palpable: scorch marks portend flame traps, phase-shifted anomalies swallow supplies, and a friend named Shara cultivates rare plants in the Weeping Wilds. It’s Fraggle Rock meets cosmic horror, and Daniel is absolutely smitten.
What’s the strangest underground civilisation you’ve ever conjured—or encountered—in a solo RPG?