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''[[Darkest Dungeon]]'' is a 2016 [[Roguelike]]/[[Dungeon Crawling]] video game by Red Hook Games in which the player takes on the role of an heir to a once-proud but now-fallen noble house. The heir is summoned to the old estate by a letter from his ancestor, which explains that he heard rumors of great power dwelling beneath the manor, spent the family fortune excavating it, and unearthed terrible things. The player then recruits, equips and dispatches teams of heroes into various dungeons surrounding the manor to put down the monsters that have come to dwell there, and clean up the Ancestor's mess.
DLC
A sequel has been announced for release late in 2021. Confirmed for this sequel is Wayne June reprising his role as the Ancestor, and Grave Robber, Hellion, Highwayman, Leper, Man-at-Arms, and Plague Doctor returning as playable heroes. Promotional material seems to suggest the heroes will be delving far beyond the Hamlet of the first game, that they will be embarking on a "grueling journey" in which they would see the "supernatural apocalypse twisting and distorting the world beyond the estate".
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* [[Ascended Meme]]: Wayne June, the voice of the narrator/Ancestor, recorded a set of ''Darkest Dungeon''-themed [https://web.archive.org/web/20161015201237/http://www.darkestdungeon.com/ancestral-bestowment voice notifications] for streamers. It includes some [[Shout-Out]]s to ''[[Undertale]]'', ''[[Dark Souls]]'' and "Truly, this is the Dankest Dungeon."
* [[Announcer Chatter]]: The Ancestor provides commentary on battles, encounters and town events, but he doesn't really "chatter": he makes ominous, portentous comments about victory and/or doom.
* [[Anti-Grinding]]: Missions are designed to discourage loitering. A completed mission rewards the same amount of Resolve XP no matter how many monsters you slay. Your inventory is limited which puts a cap on the rewards you get from additional encounters. Extended trips in a dungeon drains away the light level which makes combat riskier and piles on the Stress.
* [[Arc Symbol]]: The "Stress" symbol (which is, incidentally, an "arc symbol" with lines through it, resembling a thorny halo) begins to figure more and more prominently on enemy attire and the architecture as the heroes plumb greater depths of the dungeons.
* [[Armor-Piercing Attack]]: The Shieldbreaker's "Pierce" skill and Grave Robber's "Pick to the Face" skill completely ignore the [[Damage Reduction|enemy PROT stat]], making them highly effective against enemy tanks. The Shieldbreaker's "Snake Eyes" Camp buff also allows her allies to temporarily bypass up to 15% of enemy PROT.
* [[Army of Thieves and Whores]]: The brigands which inhabit the Weald are such an army, and the player's roster of heroes may not be much better.
* [[Awesome but Impractical]]/[[Boring but Practical]]: There is almost always a trade between effectiveness and reliability when it comes to heroes. The Vestal, for example, has two reliable healing abilities, but only heals for a few HP each turn. The Occultist, on the other hand, can heal a hero up to 100%, or heal for zero HP, or even inflict bleeding, depending on the whims of the [[Random Number God]]. Likewise, heavy-hitting heroes tend to be squishy, inaccurate, or costly or limited in some other way.
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* [[Bonus Boss]]:
** Should you be curious, confident, or foolish enough to either sacrifice a torch to a Shambler's Altar or wander the dungeons at zero light, you will encounter the Shambler. Its unusual mechanics and introduction of increasingly deadly tentacles make it a very tough boss to fight, and serves as a deterrent to going full darkness. But should you best it, you are awarded with a unique Ancestral Trinket.
** The Shrieker is a giant crow mutated by the corruption of the Weald. Defeating it is very difficult due to its high Dodge and PROT, on top of the fact that [[Time Limit Boss|it escapes in four turns]]. However, your main objective is usually to destroy its nest to reap
* [[Book Ends]]: "Ruin has come to our family." It's the first thing you hear when you start the game, {{spoiler|and the last line of the post-final boss cutscene.}}
* [[Combat Exclusive Healing]]: Your strongest sources of healing typically come from combat. Food doesn't restore much unless you're camping. You can deliberately stall a battle to buy extra in-combat turns to heal, but the game will trigger enemy reinforcements if you don't finish the battle soon.
* [[Boring but Practical]]: Scouting bonuses don't contribute to battle, but it gives you the ability to see what's coming for the next passageway or two. This information helps you plan routes to optimize use of your supplies, and a random scouting trigger can rarely reveal a secret room that holds very valuable treasure.▼
* [[Combat Sadomasochist]]: Flagellant is a sort of extremist monk who becomes stronger via self-mutilation. It's not pretty, but it works, the pain making him a [[Blood Knight]] bruiser who [[Determinator|does not know when to quit.]]
* [[Cosmic Horror Story]]: Creepy ancient manor? Check. Eccentric ancestor unleashed horrible eldritch things from beneath it? Check. {{spoiler|The end of the world is inevitable, if not now, then some generations later? Check. Things become even more cosmic in ''The Color of Madness'', where you fight incredibly alien monstrosities.}}
* [[Critical Existence Failure]]: Downplayed. When a character falls to Death's Door, they are still able to fight and may even shake off would-be Deathblows if you're lucky. However, that character is still saddled with significant debuffs until you heal them to take them off Death's Door, on top of the risk of any other point of damage having a chance to finish them off. If you heal a character off Death's Door, you're not completely in the clear, since they will still have a Death's Door Recovery debuff that is less severe but persists for the rest of the mission.
* [[Critical Hit]]: A significant game mechanic. Enemy critical hits not only inflict more damage, they'll spread Stress around the party on top of whatever they do normally. On the other hand, your critical hits not just deal extra damage, but also provide some Stress relief to the one dealing the crit and maybe the rest of your party. Your healing skills can crit as well, restoring double the usual amount and removing some stress from the recipient.
* [[Critical Status Buff]]: If the Flagellant falls to low health, he'll enjoy a DMG and CRIT bonus while at that health threshold. If he falls to Death's Door, he gains even more buffs on top, and is exempt from the regular Death's Door debuffs. This encourages his [[The Berserker|deadly but risky play style]].
* [[Damage Over Time]]: The Blight and Bleed effects do this to the heroes, but they can inflict both on monsters too. Bleed doesn't work on skeletons, but it does work on the [[Mushroom Men]] in the Weald.
* [[Dem Bones]]: Skeletons will likely be the first mooks you encounter in the Ruins, which will likely be the first dungeon you tackle. Bone Rabble are the weakest, followed by Bone Soldiers, Bone Courtiers, Bone Arbalists, Bone Defenders, Bone Captains, Bone Spearmen, and Bone Bearers. [[Necromancy|The Necromancer]] is the boss behind all Dem Bones.
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* [[Easter Egg]]: The long winding corridor leading to the [[Final Boss]] has an unmarked secret room. Inside is {{spoiler|a note from Red Hook thanking the player}}.
* [[Evil Is Not Well Lit]]: Naturally, [[Title Drop|these dungeons are pretty dark]]. Exploring them without a light source will actually gain your party more treasure, but will also stress them faster.
* [[Exact Words]]: Boss missions are completed if you defeat the associated boss. If it's a [[Flunky Boss]] whose minions don't disappear with it, it's also possible to get wiped out by that minion ''after'' your team has killed it. The mission will still be marked as a success, but the team wipe that happened can make that a [[Pyrrhic Victory]].
* [[Face Death with Dignity]]: {{spoiler|If you are forced to sacrifice a hero to "Come Unto Your Maker", they will say their last words as you hover over them while thinking over your decision. Some beg to be spared, while others are ready to go out in a blaze of glory. Some, like the Leper and Man-at-Arms, calmly receive their death.}}
* [[Fate Worse Than Death]]: Purposely sending your loyal minions to their deaths is bad enough, Dismissing them - an easy way to get rid of a hero who isn’t worth healing - might be even worse. The Ancestor describes dismissed heroes as [[Empty Shell|“Slumped shoulders, wild eyes, and a stumbling gait]] — this one is no more good to us.”
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* [[Interchangeable Antimatter Keys]]: Not only are they single-use, but each one costs money during provisioning. Sometimes the [[Random Number God]] will smile and bestow extras during a dungeon, but in general, it's up to the player to guess how many they will probably need for the coming mission and purchase accordingly.
* [[Inventory Management Puzzle]]: You have limited inventory space to carry your party's supplies, including food, torches, shovels, and keys. Any treasure you find also takes up inventory space. Eventually you will be forced to a [[Sadistic Choice]]: Will you discard some supplies to make room for loot?
{{quote|Ancestor: "Packs
* [[Inverse Law of Sharpness and Accuracy]]: The Leper is a class you'll have accuracy from the start, and while he is ''very'' strong and deals a lot of damage when he hits an enemy, his accuracy isn't so hot, and he tends to miss his target about a fourth of the time.
* [[Kleptomaniac Hero]]: Your starting Crusader, Reynauld, is guaranteed to come with the "Kleptomania" negative quirk, and he may randomly steal the loot you'd normally acquire from a curio or treasure chest, denying you the spoils. The Sanitarium doesn't unlock until after you've gone on a few quests, giving the game enough opportunity for this quirk to trigger and demonstrate the importance of managing your heroes' quirks.
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* [[Martial Medic]]: Plague Doctor is this, ''full stop''. She's a decent healer who can cure disease, bleeding, and blight, but also has AOE attacks that can stun enemies, blight them, or even shuffle their positions.
* [[Marathon Level]]: The penultimate mission is so long that its length is labelled "Exhausting" (one step above "Long") and you get ''four'' sets of firewood for the occasion! It involves traversing a massive map that is guarded by mini-bosses that love to teleport you to another corner of the map, disorienting you on your journey to reach the goal.
* [[Metal Slime]]: To be frank, the first time you fight the Collector isn't going to be the last, but at least its defeat yields a very valuable crystal. The Shambler is almost as bad, but at least you are guaranteed to gain an Ancestral Trinket if you defeat him.
* [[Mysterious Backer]]: The Ancestor starts out this way. As your heroes explore, however, you find out more and more about him, and probably wish he had ''stayed'' "mysterious".
* [[Obvious Rule Patch]]:
** Stuns forced an enemy to skip its turn, and if you've stunned the entire enemy party you basically have a free turn for setup or to heal. This led to players stalling battles by chain-stunning stragglers so that they can top up the party with [[Combat Exclusive Healing]]. The strategy has since been nerfed by making combatants harder to stun in succession, and by adding a chance for enemy reinforcements to arrive if the player drags out a fight for too long.
** The Brigand Pounder used to have 50% PROT. With the introduction of the Armor Piercing attribute in the update that came with the Shieldbreaker DLC, the Pounder was edited to have 25% PROT (that can be bypassed by Armor Piercing) and a unique -25% DMG received buff (which cannot be bypassed).
** A battle with the Shrieker could be trivialized by deploying a single Grave Robber and spamming Shadow Fade to stay Stealthed until the Shrieker flies off. A patch in 2018 allowed all of the Shrieker's skills to bypass Stealth to counter this strategy.
* [[Pig Man]]: The Swine King and his minions are incredibly ugly versions of this found in the Warrens. According to the Ancestor, these are the result of his attempts to summon beings from the "outer spheres" using common pigs as vessels. Clearly, it didn't go as he planned... This area is not based on a Lovecraft work, but on William Hope Hodgson's ''[[The House on the Borderland]]'', a work that did inspire Lovecraft.
* [[Police Are Useless]]: Downplayed. At first, the Ancestor was able to bribe the constabulary, but as his atrocities became more blatant and more horrendous, they turned against him. This led to him making deals with the Brigands
* [[Posthumous Narration]]: The Ancestor is implied to have committed suicide shortly after writing the letter that summoned the Heir, but that doesn't stop him from commenting on everything that his Heir does. {{spoiler|Or maybe he's not so 'posthumous' after all}}.
* [[Random Number God]]: Hitting, critting, dodging, blighting, bleeding, debuffing, stressing, hero deaths and in some cases ''healing'' are all based on rolls of the dice. The player can upgrade hero equipment and skills, and use trinkets or certain supplies to improve their odds, but rarely is any action truly ''certain'' to succeed.
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* [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]]: The Ancestor has a pretty severe case of it, sometimes. "Monstrous size has no intrinsic merit, unless inordinate exsanguination be considered a virtue."
* [[Sex for Solace]]: The brothel is expensive, but it can lower a party member's [[Sanity Meter]] back to safe levels quickly.
* [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]]: Party members who succeed in a mission in the actual Darkest Dungeon, will gain a torch icon next to their name; unless you are playing at Radiant difficulty, these members will refuse to enter the Darkest Dungeon again. However, for all other dungeons, they become a bolster to morale granting 50% more XP party members without the icon. They also no longer take up a space in the Barracks.
* [[Shoot the Medic First]]: Subverted with the Swine King. It always comes with its spotter Wilbur who marks your team to get it to strike your party, so most players would figure that it'll be helpless if Wilbur is taken care of first. However, the Swine King ''will'' retaliate whenever Wilbur is attacked, and if Wilbur dies before it does, it [[Turns Red]] and bashes your party over and over again with stronger attacks. If you do provoke a retaliation, your heroes will actively note that the Swine King is protecting its spotter and discourage you from going after Wilbur.
* [[Shout-Out]]:
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** Losing a hero to Wilbur earns the achievement "[[Babe|That'll do, pig...]]"
** Defeating a Squiffy Ghast with a Jester earns the achievement "[[This Is Spinal Tap|Mine Goes to 11]]".
* [[Simple Yet Awesome]]:
*
▲*
* [[Sistine Steal]]: The icon of the Occultist's "Unspeakable Commune" skill shows his finger reaching out towards a tentacle. {{spoiler|Appropriate, given the allegation that humanity is born from the eldritch Thing that the Ancestor discovered}}.
* [[Trauma Inn]]: Enforced. The tavern - be it the Bar, Brothel, or Gambling Hall - is the fastest but most expensive way to stabilize a hero's [[Sanity Meter]].
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** A common tactic to rack up resources and break out of [[Early Game Hell]] is to make a team of fresh recruits from the stagecoach, run a mission without spending anything on supplies, and try to get as much loot as you can before you either complete the mission or are forced to retreat. Spend nothing on maintaining those recruits; if they're no longer of use to you, just dismiss them and repeat the cycle.
** There is a Steam achievement, "Lambs to the Slaughter", obtained by sending a team of Level 0 recruits to the Darkest Dungeon.
** If a hero has died and they were holding very valuable one-of-a-kind Trinkets, you can still recover them — equip a bunch of low-level recruits with cheap Trinkets and send them to their deaths. Once a total of 8 or more Trinkets (including the ones you want to retrieve) are lost through hero deaths, the Shrieker will pick them up and become available to fight, and then it's a matter of surviving the four turns to recover what you need.
** If the "Wolves at the Door" mission is active but you don't have a team ready to handle it, you can always send a team of recruits to their death in this mission. Aborting or ignoring the quest otherwise would undo several of your building upgrades, while a party wipe will merely delay it.
* [[Villain Protagonist]]: In many ways, the Ancestor is far more the central character of this story than the Heir is.
* [[Villainous Glutton]]: The Pig Men of the Warrens will gladly consume their victims, but they also steal any other foodstuffs they can get their hands on, like grain. A possible Quest for the Warrens is to rob their grain pantries to starve them out and bolster the Hamlet’s supplies.
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{{tropelist|page=The Crimson Court DLC}}
* [[Blood Magic]]: The Blood is a rare drop that can be found anywhere, though it is only useful for dealing with the cravings caused by the Crimson Curse.
* [[Climax Boss]]: The Countess is the final boss of the Crimson Court, and her defeat unlocks the ability to treat the Crimson Curse as you would any normal disease. Prior to this point, anyone afflicted with the Crimson Curse is stuck with it until you beat one of the Crimson Court bosses.
* [[Cursed with Awesome]]: The Crimson Curse adds another layer of management, as you must collect vials of The Blood to sate the cravings of your heroes when they inevitably get affected by it. Giving The Blood to anyone in the craving stage of the Curse temporarily puts them in Bloodlust, which bestows potent buffs but also causes them to act erratically as if they were Afflicted.
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* [[Money Sink]]: The Districts are a new feature introduced with this DLC, but they take a lot of building upgrade resources to develop and are often a luxury to the player. Above all is the Red Hook district, which is the most expensive district to develop, costing an enormous amount of gold and Crests for no benefit (except for an achievement).
* [[Nasty Party]]: {{spoiler|Emphasis on "nasty". After killing the Countess, the Ancestor drained her blood, bottled it into wine bottles, and at the next gathering, served it to the other nobles. Whether this was out of disgust towards them for their behavior or him viewing them as parasites living off his wealth is hard to say, nor is it known what he hoped to accomplish. Possibly he just assumed her corrupt blood would prove a poison that would give them a slow, agonizing death. But it didn't quite go the way he'd hoped. When his guests drank it, they turned into demonic abominations like the Countess, and all turned on each other. In his horror, he dropped his own glass (which of course, he never intended to drink from) and a single drop flew into his mouth. That one small taste opened his eyes, letting him see the horror that lurked below the Hamlet, a vision that gave him the urge to learn more...}}
* [[Never Smile At a Crocodile]]: The Crocodilian is a [[Boss in Mook Clothing]] that stalks the Courtyard, possessing powerful attacks and a fairly tough hide while swimming about the vegetation to avoid attacks with strict positions. The first foray into the Courtyard guarantees an encounter with this creature to show how nasty the Courtyard can get; the Crocodilian can be found guarding valuable treasure in ''multiple'' parts of Epic Courtyard missions.
* [[Non-Indicative Difficulty]]: The Bloodmoon difficulty is the result of using Stygian modifiers in conjunction with the Crimson Court. To account for added content and its difficulty, the Game Over conditions have been relaxed ― You're only issued it if 16 (instead of 12) heroes die or you reach week 100 (instead of 86). You still only need to defeat the final boss of the main campaign to lift these limits, and the only consequence of completely ignoring the Crimson Court is an event that slightly weakens stress relief facilities and overrides all random events. To some, this makes Bloodmoon more lenient than Stygian.
* [[One-Curse Limit]]: If anyone is afflicted with the Crimson Curse, it overrides any other diseases they would have and prevents them from getting any other disease.
* [[Our Vampires Are Different]]: For one thing, they're [[Not Using the Z Word|Not Using the V Word]]. Vampirism is referred to as the "Crimson Curse", and enemy vampires have the "Bloodsucker" type. The bloodsuckers themselves are themed after insects rather than bats. Some of the enemies are simply giant insects, while others initially appear human but then morph into insectile forms after drinking the heroes' blood.
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** Several skills now inflict Stress on top of what they normally do. Every hero also has a base 0% Virtue chance to make inflicting Afflictions a viable end goal for Stress-based builds. If a hero is Virtuous but still hits 200 Stress, they will suffer from a Heart Attack normally like everyone else.
** Bleed and Poison no longer cause Deathblows; the opponent must deal the killing blow by themselves. Repeated Deathblow attempts will deplete a hero's Deathblow resistance until they get taken off Death's Door, such that five consecutive attempts ''will'' kill a hero. Several skills also gain a bonus to inflicting Deathblows to make it easier to finish anyone off.
** Dead heroes now leave corpses so that a Deathblow will not immediately throw a party's formation into disarray.
{{reflist}}
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