Your first season is won between the delves

The campaign route

Five checkpoints, in order

1. I

   Read the opening position

   Know what your charter gave you, what your permanent background and company multipliers reward, and how thin the roster really is.

2. II

   Protect one complete party

   Your immediate floor is four usable heroes. A brilliant specialist on the bench cannot replace a missing tank, damage dealer or healer in the next party.

3. III

   Treat the first delve as information

   Record who returned Worn, which attributes failed their jobs, and what the trip did to the next settlement. Do not answer every weakness with another immediate delve.

4. IV

   Use the quiet days deliberately

   Recover heroes who crossed state thresholds; Train broad Ability gaps; Hone the one attribute that is blocking a role. Empty calendar space is a resource.

5. V

   Close the season solvent

   A promotion is welcome, but a stable four-hero core, a non-collapsing settlement and a usable bench are the real signs that season two can begin.

After a bad delve

Stop the collapse in this order

1. 1 · Count

   Separate injured and away heroes from merely Worn ones.

2. 2 · Recover

   Spend yard capacity on the heroes who restore a complete party.

3. 3 · Rebudget

   Recalculate the next settlement before signing a rescue roster.

4. 4 · Resume

   Return with role coverage, not just the first four names available.

Community reports repeatedly describe the same failure pattern after the first dungeon. That evidence identifies a real onboarding pain point, but it does not prove a hidden catch-up penalty or fixed death rate. This route addresses the controllable systems instead.

Do not optimise too early

Three traps that look like progress