Adventurer mode

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This is a detailed reference guide for Adventurer Mode. For a beginner tutorial, see Adventure mode quick start, or see Adventure mode quick reference to quickly look up key commands.

A player-controlled adventurer about to embark on a journey with a somewhat predictable end, not realizing the fun nature of the game.
Art by HonorbruSudoku

Adventurer mode (also called "Adventure mode" or simply "Adventure") allows you to embark on an open world roguelike adventure to explore the worlds you have generated. You create a character, or party^v0.47.01, from any race playable in that world (dwarf, human, elf, goblin, necromantic experiment, animal person, etc.), then visit any part of the world, where you can learn about what ails the inhabitants, and optionally go on quests to end those troubles (or get brutally slaughtered trying).

You may venture into the wilderness to find caves, caverns, shrines, lairs, abandoned towers, other towns and settlements, and more—you can even visit your previously abandoned or retired fortresses and take all the precious items you yourself once created. You and your companions can also build camps^v0.43.01, though building and crafting options are currently quite limited compared to dwarf fortress mode (without mods).

As of v50.01, Adventurer Mode has been temporarily disabled, pending a future update that will overhaul its UI and menus. As of April 17 2024, the premium version has a beta that allows players to play in adventure mode.

World selection

You can play adventure mode in any world that has a civilization with the [ALL_MAIN_POPS_CONTROLLABLE] token (which are dwarf, human, and elf). Each species has its own preferred style of settlement:

• Dwarves are spread between fortresses (which are built into the surface and almost always connect to the underground), "deep sites" (which sometimes do not contain a direct connection to the surface), and "hill dwarves" (who inhabit a loose collection of mounds built into hillsides).
• Elves inhabit forest retreats.
• Humans inhabit cities, towns, and the occasional above-ground fortress.
• Goblins typically live in dark fortresses and dark pits.
• Lastly, animal people can live with any civilization, in virtually any location.

Human cities and towns, and dwarven fortresses, are currently the only sites with shops and other places to officially buy goods, not including taverns (which can also exist in elven sites but only sell rooms and drinks). If you have previously built a fort in the world that you select, your adventurer will be able to go visit it. The activity levels of the fortress will depend on whether you decided to "retire" it or abandon it:

• If retired, you will likely be able to encounter all the inhabitants from the year of retirement in Fortress Mode, though likely not at the same level of activity as before.
• If abandoned, the fortress will be considered deserted (which pretty much means "don't abandon, if you were planning to have any further interaction whatsoever").

Character creation

Race and civilization

Party members can be of any race that is a member of a playable civilization, which usually includes dwarves, elves, and humans—adventurers of any race can complete the same quests. More races can be made playable (e.g. angels) by conquering their sites in fortress mode.

• Dwarves can usually start with steel weapons, enter a martial trance when fighting multiple foes at once, and can see in the dark. As a smaller creature, they're unable to wear human clothing and armor, but wear the same size as elves and goblins.

• Elves have higher natural speed, a notably sharper sense of smell, and a natural friendliness with wild animals, but start with very weak wooden weapons and have a more limited list of weapon skills during character creation. Like dwarves, they wear smaller-sized clothing.

• Humans begin with copper, bronze, or iron weapons, and the widest variety of weapon skills. Humans are larger than the other main races, meaning armor from other civilizations is too small, but that also means they are slightly better in combat.

• Intelligent Wilderness Creatures, or animal people, come in various sizes, shapes and abilities, and therefore, may not be able to wear armor sized for the more common races (with some exceptions, that you can find in this list of creatures by adult size). The very largest of them can be very good in combat, especially if with armor made for them in a player fortress. Some will be carnivorous or herbivorous which will limit their food options.

• Outsiders are humans who are not part of any civilization. Playing as an outsider has some initial limitations—they possess no pre-existing relationships or cultural knowledge, such as rumors, wildlife, art, musical forms, musical instruments, clothing types, etc.; including cultural practices, such as hair styles and trimming nails. When selecting skills for outsiders during creation, many more (or far fewer)^[Verify] skills may be available than would otherwise be if they were part of a civilization. They will also have access to all possible pets (although some cost more character creation points than are available), and weapons and armor made from most every metal available, including some you cannot normally use. However, they will not have access to any other items, including the very important backpack and waterskin. Be aware that outsiders can't claim sites unless they become a member of a civilization.

• Goblins and Experiments that have joined one of the playable civilizations will also be playable. Goblins do not need to eat or drink, and wear the same size armor/clothing as dwarves and elves. Experiments vary in size and details. The main race of the civilization they joined will determine what equipment will be available in character creation; if they joined the dwarves, steel may be available, but if they joined the elves, only wood will be available.

Destiny

Affects the level of guidance and direction received. All destinies have access to the same features, with higher destinies providing stronger guidance and starting conditions.

• Chosen: Adventurer receives the aid of a supernatural parent or patron, and all benefits of Hero mode. Requires temples to have been built.
• Hero: Some direction for a quick start. Compass directs to nearby sites. Starts as a hearthperson from a market site if possible. companion recruitment is easier.
• Ordinary: Sandbox. No special mechanics or added restrictions on character creation.

Difficulty

Determines the number of starting skill, attribute points, and equipment points which do not change based on race:

• Hard: 15 attribute, 35 skill, 55 equipment
• Normal: 35 attribute, 95 skill, 255 equipment
• Easy: 105 attribute, 161 skill, 1255 equipment

The number of skill points is less significant than the number of attribute points, because the time it takes to go from Hard to Easy in skill terms is much less than what it would take to go from Hard to Easy in attribute terms.

Archetypes

There are a number of predefined archetypes that an adventurer can select, corresponding to a choice of weapon or performance specialization. In addition to providing a set of skills and attributes relevant to the choice, archetypes also add one level in swimmer and in reader.

Attributes and skills can be further customized after choosing an archetype, either from a sample archetype or from a blank slate.

Starting attributes

See this page for more info about adventurer mode starting attributes, or this page for full info about attributes

A creature has numerous attributes which affect its performance at various tasks, split into physical factors associated with the body, and mental factors associated with the soul.

Body

• Strength: Improves melee attack damage, damage resistance and encumbrance limits. Increases leg strength to movement velocity, but increased muscle layer mass reduces speed.
• Agility: Improves movement speed, attack velocity and potential attack rate. All combat skills, especially defensive ones, rely on it.
• Toughness: Reduces physical damage inflicted on you, and also relates to defensive combat skills.
• Endurance: Reduces the rate at which the adventurer becomes exhausted—exhaustion progressively penalizes physical skills and rate of movement, to the point of immobility and unconsciousness.
• Recuperation: Increases the rate of wound healing.
• Disease Resistance: Reduces risk of contracting syndromes (including infection) and the negative effects when active (including alcohol-induced.)

Soul

Some of these are demonstrably useful for adventure-mode-applicable skills, but the effects of the attributes aren't clearly understood. For ideas on how they may be applied, see a list of skills organized by attributes..

• Analytical Ability: Useful for Tracker, Knapping and Student.
• Focus: Affects Archer, Ambusher, Observer. Makes it easier to become focused from fulfilled needs.
• Willpower: Affects melee combat(as in, Fighter), Crutch Walker and Swimmer to a minor extent. Willpower helps resist the negative effects of status ailments such as Pain, Stunned, Unconscious, and all states of exhaustion and food/drink/sleep deprivation.
• Creativity: This influences quality of poems, songs, dances, and crafts.
• Intuition: Helps with Observer, which aids in spotting concealed enemies, ambushes, and identifying attacks from opponents.
• Linguistic Ability: Affects any speaking and writing ability, improves the ability to communicate thoughts and feelings to listeners/readers.
• Spatial Sense: Important. Affects combat skills, Ambusher, Crutch Walker, Swimmer, Observer, and Knapping
• Musicality: Influences the adventurer's ability to perform music and song well.
• Kinesthetic Sense: Affects most combat skills, crutch-walking, swimming and dancing to a greater extent.
• Empathy: Affects social skills, such as Persuader, Flatterer, Judge of Intent, and other Social skills that may not be applicable in adventurer mode.
• Social Awareness: Increases the number of followers you can have at a given fame level.
• Memory: Increases how much local area information you can maintain before it begins to be overwritten—important to navigate fortresses and underground mazes.
• Patience: Not useful for players. Determines how well or long a non-player character will tolerate negative dialogue towards them, such as insulting or ignoring them.

Starting skills

See this page for more info about adventurer mode starting skills, or this and this pages for full info about skills.

Not all races have the same sets of skills available at character creation time, but keep in mind that almost all starting skills, as well as ones not available at character creation, can be improved through use in-game (except for skills that require you to already have some experience to improve further, such as swimming or reading).

This section will specifically address starting skills as they relate to adventure mode. For a full description of combat skills, see Combat skill.

Weapon

Includes Axeman, Bowman, Crossbowman, Hammerman, Knife User, Lasher, Maceman, Pikeman, Spearman and Swordsman.

Each skill enables the character to use the appropriate weapon more effectively.

Note that different races have different names for their weapon skills: Axegoblin, Axedwarf etc. These names are defined in the creature raws, as can be seen in the dwarf raws, but Crossbowman is an exception—dwarves call this skill Marksdwarf, although bow skill is referred to as Bowdwarf, as you'd expect. Elite Axe and Hammerdwarves are referred to as Lords.

Since version 0.47, weapons may be chosen on the embark screen before starting an adventure. Before that, the weapon you got on start was dependent on the skills you selected.

General combat

Includes Fighter and Archer.

These skills improve effectiveness of melee (Fighter) or ranged (Archer) combat, regardless of the weapon used. Fighter skill also improves unarmed combat, Archer also improves throwing.

Defence skills

Including Shield User, Armor User and Dodger, these skills improve the character's ability to defend, using a shield, armor or dodging. Starting out with good ability in one (especially Shield User or Armor User) if not all, is strongly advised.

Unarmed combat and improvised weapons

Including Wrestler, Striker, Kicker, Biter, Thrower and Miscellaneous object user; while some of them come in handy at times, they can generally be raised fairly easily in-game, especially Wrestler and Thrower.

Movement and awareness

Includes Observer, Swimmer, Ambusher, Climber, Tracker and Crutch-walker.

Observer is hard to train, and adding some points here is advisable. Swimmer is almost impossible to train without at least Novice level, and Adequate level is advised because Adequate swimmers do not drown while stunned.

Other

Includes Knapper, Bone carver, Writer, Carpenter, Persuader, Judge of intent, Flatterer, Musician, Speaker, Poet, Singer, Dancer, Stringed instrumentalist, Wind Instrumentalist, Percussionist, Keyboardist, Reader (a Novice level of Reading is required in order to become a necromancer), Butcher and Wordsmith.

Personality

All the aspects of who an adventurer is as an individual, determining their wants, desires, and ultimate goals, as well as their tolerance for stimuli like combat, trauma, and death.

Gameplay

About key symbols

This wiki uses symbols that look like t or t to indicate what keys or interface buttons are used for an operation. Note that keys are case sensitive and to save space, Shift+t is shown as T. So t means "press the 't' key without the shift key" and T means "hold down shift and press the 't' key". Lowercase and uppercase keys will often perform different functions, so it is important to use the correct key. Sequences of keys will be in separate boxes, so abC means "press 'a', then press 'b', then hold shift and press 'c'"; while bT means "press 'b', then hold shift and press 'T'. A plus sign '+' between the boxes means to press them all together, so Shift+Enter means to hold shift and press 'Enter'. Other separators, such as ',' or '-', might be used but mean the same as no separator: to press the keys in sequence.

Keybindings can be seen and changed on the Keybindings tab in the Settings menu.

Menu navigation and selection

Esc or right mouse	Go back to the previous screen/menu
Mouse wheel	Scroll menu one line
Shift+mouse wheel	Scroll menu one page
Left mouse	Select menu option

Esc or right mouse will almost always return to the previous screen until you get to the top level of the UI, at which point Esc will display the options menu.

Moving around

You can move around using 8 2 4 6 7 9 1 3 or ↑ ↓ ← →. Use Shift + < or Shift+5 (num lock off) to ascend up the stairs and Shift+> or Ctrl+5 (num lock off) to descend. You can also fast travel—press T to enter fast travel mode and d to exit it. Entering fast travel mode will allow you to move large distances in a single keypress—of course, the same amount of time will go by, and you can also be interrupted (ambushed) while moving in fast travel mode.

Status and information

l	Look around
Space	Advance/Clear Messages
a	View Announcements
z	Status

Looking around

If you're not sure what a tile is, the look command will tell you. In addition to being useful for identifying tiles and creatures, you can also view creatures' equipment and what items are sitting on the ground in a given tile. If in doubt, try the look command:

Move the cursor to the tile you want to look at, using the direction keys and Shift+direction. It's possible to look up and down z-levels (assuming you have line of sight) using the < and > keys. This, for example, allows you to find out if any flying creatures are above you. Hit Esc to exit look mode and go back to movement mode.

Messages

The game makes frequent use of messages on the screen to tell you what's going on - if there are a lot of these, you may need to use Space to display the rest of the messages that won't fit on the screen. You can always go back and view old messages by pressing a.

Status screen

This screen shows your skills, attributes, wounded body parts, health (along with more detailed descriptions of your wounds), lets you view your description, and change your nickname if you want.

Saving the game

Hit the