Malignus · Systems

Food

There are two kinds of food, meat and roughage. Cooking turns them into grubs.

Brew isn't food. Drinking it is recreation, so it refills Fun, not Food.

Raw food

Meat: from hunting, fishing and scrapping carcasses.

Roughage: fungi, blooms and vines, from foraging.

A minion who eats raw meat or roughage gets 30 nutrition. Nutrition is how much a meal fills the Food bar, and a full Food bar is 100. If their Food bar is still under 50 after eating, they eat a second piece of raw food right away.

A carnivore, such as a gnoll, gets 100 nutrition from any meat. They eat meat before any other food, grubs included.

Humanoid meat can't be cooked. A minion who isn't a carnivore eats it only when they're Starving and can't reach other food.

Campfires

You can cook at a campfire, but the botch chance is 10% higher. For example, a 5% botch chance becomes 15%. Use a campfire when you have no cooking table.

Minions can't cook or eat at a campfire that is out. A minion on Drudgery duty refills the fuel and lights the fire again.

Where they eat

A minion picks the grub that fills their Food bar the most without going over 100. At 20 Food, a medium grub (75) brings them to 95. A small grub (50) brings them to 70, and a large grub (100) would go over. So the medium grub is best, then the small grub, then the large one. Each step down this order is worth 16 tiles of walking. So a minion walks up to 16 tiles farther for a medium grub than for a small one. They walk up to 32 tiles farther for the medium grub than for a large one. Any grub comes before raw food, such as raw meat or fungi. A carnivore, such as a gnoll, is the exception and eats meat before any grub. The Largest meal setting in Dungeon Management can limit grub sizes.

A Starving minion takes the closest food of any kind.

Before bed, a minion eats if their Food bar would reach 0 while they sleep.

They carry their food to a table or a campfire within a 20-tile walk of the food. If no table or campfire is that close, they eat the food where they picked it up.

Eating anywhere except at a table or a campfire leaves filth on the floor.

Minions eat 15% faster at a table or a campfire than on the floor. A seat at the table or campfire adds another 15%, so a seated meal is 30% faster. Seats are the chair, the sitting stool, the sitting stone, the small bench and the long bench.

Needs and grumbling

Every minion has three needs and a spite meter. Needs drain toward 0 until the minion refills them. Spite climbs toward 10, and it takes work to bring it back down.

The needs

The three needs are Food, Sleep and Fun. A full bar is fine, and an empty bar is a crisis.

When a need drops low enough, the minion stops what they're doing. Then they eat, go to bed or look for recreation.

Lowering spite

Each of these can lower a minion's spite by 1 point.

Oversee: an Overseer visits the minion, and the visit isn't botched. Each minion can get one visit a day.

Gold: the minion gets gold, even 1 coin. For example, they pick up coins or find some while they work. Gold can lower a minion's spite by only 1 point each day.

Treasure: the minion walks within 3 tiles of a treasure outside the sanctum. They then have a 25% chance to lose 1 spite point. After they lose a point this way, it can't happen again until the next day.

Throne: the minion comes within 3 tiles of the throne while your Boss sits on it. They then have a 25% chance to lose 1 spite point, at most once a day.

Pyre: the minion sees a pyre start to burn the body of a minion or your Boss. Minions nearby stop and walk over to watch, so more of them see it.

Orcs: an orc loses 1 spite point when someone they hit in the last hour is knocked out or killed.

New Boss: one of the minion's Buddies becomes the new Boss.

A lashing that isn't botched lowers spite more. The lashed minion loses 5 spite, and each minion who watches loses 1.

Breaks

When a minion's spite reaches 7 or more, they can break. They stop working and cause trouble for a while. There are 14 breaks in three groups, by how bad they are.

Minor: small trouble. The minion bothers workers, eats too much, holds a feast, starts a fist fight or refuses all work.

Major: costs you something. The minion plays tricks on you, steals gold or wrecks structures. Some attack a minion they hate, a creature or a captive.

Extreme: the worst kind. The minion leaves your dungeon, goes feral, goes on a rampage or starts an uprising against you.

A minion who breaks never attacks a herald.

Dungeon Duties

Every minion has one priority for each duty. A priority doesn't schedule work. It decides which duties the minion does, and in what order they look for them.

The four priorities

Critical: a minion looks for these jobs first. When a new job of a Critical duty appears, they stop lower-priority work to do it. A job you gave one minion with a right-click isn't stopped.

High: a minion looks for these jobs next. They take any High job they can reach before they look at Normal.

Normal: a minion looks for these jobs after High.

Off: the minion never takes jobs of this duty by themselves.

New minions arrive with each duty at High, Normal or Off. Only you can set a duty to Critical.

How minions find jobs

Minions find their own work. You mark jobs in the world, and minions find and take them by themselves. The one exception is a forced order. You select one minion, right-click a job and pick it from the menu.

A minion picks their next job when they finish the last one. A priority change takes effect at their next choice. But if you set a duty to Off, a minion doing that duty stops at once. A minion with a duty at Critical stops lower-priority work when a new job of that duty appears.

If nobody takes a job, there are usually three reasons. The minions who could do it have that duty set to Off, or they can't reach it. They can also be busy with work they have at a higher priority.

Job titles

A minion's job title comes from one duty at their highest priority, such as Builder, Miner or Sentry.

If several duties share that priority, the one set to it first gives the title. Duties the minion arrived with count as set first. Among those, the one they're best at wins.

To switch to the next of those duties, click the job title on the minion's pinned card.

Drudge: the minion has more than two duties turned on, all at the same priority.

A minion with every duty set to Off is also a Drudge.

Clicking a cell

Left-click: raises that minion's priority for that duty by one step.

Right-click: lowers it by one step.

After Critical, a left-click goes back to Off. After Off, a right-click goes to Critical.

Set all to off: sets every duty of every minion to Off at once. Then you can turn on only the duties you want.

A faded Hunting cell: that minion holds no ranged weapon, wand or staff, so they can't hunt. If Hunting isn't Off for them, the cell also shows a warning mark.

Clicking a duty name

Left-click a duty name to sort the minions by their rating for that duty, highest first. Click again to reverse the order. Click a third time to go back to name order.

Ctrl-click a duty name to change that duty for every minion at once.

If their priorities differ, Ctrl-left-click and Ctrl-right-click both set them all to Normal.

If their priorities all match, Ctrl-left-click raises them all one step. Ctrl-right-click lowers them all one step.

Saved duties

The dungeon keeps one saved set of duties.

Duties saved: the table matches the saved set. Both buttons are grayed out.

Unsaved changes: at least one cell is different. Both buttons light up.

Save duties: stores the current table in place of the old set.

Revert: puts every minion back on the saved set.

A minion who joins later is added to the saved set with the duties they arrived with. Revert returns them to those duties.

Clicking a minion

Left-click a name: highlights the row and selects that minion in the world. Click the name again to clear the highlight.

Double-click: selects the minion, moves the camera to them and closes the Dungeon Duties window.

Right-click: opens a menu with Select, Zoom to and Pin.

Click the Minion header to clear any sort and go back to name order.

Stats and ratings

Each duty is rated by one stat. A minion's rating is that stat plus any bonuses, for example from gear.

Columns that share a stat sit under one band. The bands are Hunt, Labor, Craft, Occult and Cruelty.

Drudgery, Hauling and Guard Duty have no rating, so they come last with no band.

Fill color: how high that minion's rating is.

Corner number: the rating. The Show ratings toggle at the bottom hides it.

Hover a cell to see how the rating adds up.

Building

Building has two stages. First, minions on Hauling or Building duty bring the materials to the build site. Then a builder works on the site until the structure is finished.

Materials

The build site lists what it needs. Minions bring each material from storage or from stacks lying on the ground. Work starts only when every material is at the site.

If a site never starts, a material is usually missing, or no walking path leads to the material. Minions never use a stack marked Forbid Hauling.

Why a site stalls

A build site stalls if a material is missing, or if no walking path reaches the site.

It also stalls if every minion has Building set to Off in Dungeon Duties. For traps and padlocks, it stalls if every minion has Traps set to Off.

An item marked Forbid Hauling on the site stops the build, because minions won't move it. You get a letter about it.

A build also waits if finishing it would trap minions in a closed space. It also waits if it would block the only path to a blueprint, a Mine mark or another order. You get a letter about both.

Darkness doesn't stop the work, but it makes a botch more likely.

Large rooms need pillars

Any space you dug needs pillars or braces if a square of 6 by 6 tiles fits inside it. For example, a hall 6 tiles wide and 6 tiles long needs them. The space doesn't have to be a room.

The square still counts with up to 3 rock or wall tiles inside it. So a few rock tiles left in a large space don't make it safe.

Each pillar or brace holds up the ceiling over every tile within 3 tiles of it, diagonal tiles included.

In that space, 70% of the tiles that no pillar or brace holds up get a cracked ceiling. The cracked tiles are the ones nearest the middle of the space. You get a letter.

If pillars or braces hold up every tile of the space before the cracked part falls, the cracks go away.

While you place a Mine order, the game marks each tile that the dig would leave unsafe.

The cracked part falls: 3 game hours after the letter

The fallen part fills with: stone, which you can mine

Everyone under it: takes a Major wound, the middle kind, and bleeds

Already has a Major wound: takes an Extreme wound, the worst kind

Already has an Extreme wound: dies

A natural cave is one you didn't dig, and it never cracks.

Fog and sight

On the dungeon map, a thin fog covers every place that is out of your sight right now. The ground still shows through it. Adventurers and wild creatures in the fog are hidden.

Your Boss, your minions and the creatures on your side give you sight. Guardposts, lights and the ghostly eyes of the Eye Scouts boon do too. So you often can't see where an invasion party comes in.

You can still hear sounds from inside the fog.

What the fog hides

Hidden: everyone from outside your dungeon, such as adventurers and wild creatures

Always shown: your Boss, minions, lair beasts, prisoners and pets

Some outsiders still show in the fog:

A dead body always shows.

A creature you mark with the Hunt order always shows. Minions on Hunting duty then hunt it. A Harvesting Post with its hunt button on also marks the wild creatures within a 20-tile walk of it.

An invasion party always shows once you spot it. You spot a party when your Boss, a minion or a creature on your side sees one of its members. A ghostly eye from the Eye Scouts boon can spot the party too. The Invasions section of this page lists more ways. After that, the party shows until it leaves the map, even when its members run away.

Enemies that trigger an alarm trap always show until they leave the map.

When the fog covers someone, they fade out. You can't select them, and the minimap doesn't show them. They fade back in when the fog clears from where they stand.

Who sees, and how far

Your Boss, your minions and the creatures on your side clear the fog within their sight range.

Range: 3 tiles, plus 2 tiles for each point of their Hunt (HNT)

Guard Duty: 4 more tiles for a minion with Guard Duty turned on in Dungeon Duties

Darkness doesn't shorten this range.

Walls block sight. Anyone who is knocked out, blind or away on a raid sees nothing.

Guardposts

A guardpost carries a torch. While the torch burns, the guardpost keeps the fog away within 8 tiles, except behind walls. This works anywhere on the map, even with no minion at the post.

The torch burns fuel like any other torch. A minion on Drudgery duty refills it, even outside your domain.

Lights in your domain

A light that you build inside your domain keeps the fog off the lit area around it. Every kind of torch, brazier, lantern and candle counts.

Outside your domain, a guardpost's torch is the only light that clears the fog.

Most lights burn fuel, but Everflame lights never do. A light with no fuel goes dark, and the fog comes back until a minion on Drudgery duty refills it.

Alarm traps

When an alarm trap triggers, the fog within 6 tiles of it clears for 1 in-game hour. At normal speed, that's 60 seconds. The clear area stops at walls. After the hour, the fog comes back.

Any enemy that triggers an alarm trap stays visible in the fog until they leave the map.

When the fog comes back

When you see a place, the fog there clears in less than a second.

When you stop seeing it, the fog waits, then slowly fills back in.

Outside your domain: the fog waits 3 in-game minutes, then takes 4 more minutes to fill in.

Inside your domain: the fog waits 45 in-game minutes, then takes 15 more minutes to fill in.

At normal speed, 1 in-game minute is 1 real second. So outside your domain, the fog is back 7 seconds after you stop seeing a place. While the fog fills in, adventurers and creatures there fade out with it.

Where you last saw them

When an enemy goes out of sight into the fog, footprints appear where you last saw them. The toes point the way they were walking. The footprints show where they were, not where they are now.

Only enemies leave footprints. Adventurers and creatures that attack your minions are enemies. Creatures that leave you alone, and visitors like a drifter at your gate, leave none.

After 2 in-game hours, the footprints are gone. They go away sooner when you can see that spot again. They also go away when you see that enemy again.

Invasions

An invasion party hides in the fog until you spot it. You spot a party when your Boss, a minion or a creature on your side sees one of its members. A ghostly eye from the Eye Scouts boon can spot the party too.

The letter "Adventurers spotted in your dungeon" comes only when you spot the party.

These also count as spotting it:

Fight: the party fights anyone on your side.

Alarm: a member of the party triggers an alarm trap.

Sanctum: the party walks into your sanctum.

Altar: the party smashes one of your altars.

After you spot the party, all of its members stay visible in the fog until they leave the map. They stay visible when they run away.

Lights in your domain, such as wall torches and braziers, clear the fog while they burn. So does a guardpost's torch. You can see a party in their light, but that alone doesn't spot it, so no letter comes. The party hides again when it leaves the light.

You get no letter about a party that you never spot. It can steal treasure and leave, and nothing tells you.

Hunt marks from a Harvesting Post

A Harvesting Post's area is the ground within a 20-tile walk of it. A new post marks no creatures. Press its "Hunt creatures in the area" button to turn hunting on. Then the post marks each wild creature in its area for Hunt. A creature that walks in later gets its mark the moment it enters. Minions on Hunting duty hunt them.

A creature with a Hunt mark shows through the fog. The mark ends when the creature leaves the area, and then the fog can hide it again.

The button stays on until you press it again. Turning it off ends the post's marks.

Storage and hauling

Loose items on the floor aren't stored. Storage is a structure, such as a shelf, a barrel, a weapon rack or a scrap pile. Minions on Hauling duty carry items into it.

Kinds of storage

Shelf, scrap pile: open storage that holds stacks you can see.

Barrel: one kind of item, up to its capacity.

Weapon rack: 4 weapons that minions borrow and return.

Bookshelf: books.

Filters

Each storage, and a feeding spot in a cell, has a Storage tab on its selection panel. There you choose which groups and items it accepts, such as all Food or only Raw food. Its Quality button sets the lowest quality it accepts.

A barrel holds one kind of item at a time. Its Keep button sets a number from 0 to 100, and a new barrel starts at 50. Minions fill the barrel until it holds that many items, then stop.

A barrel accepts nothing until you choose its item. A weapon rack takes only weapons, and a bookshelf takes only books. Every other storage accepts everything at first.

The haul job

Hauling has no rating, and hauling never botches. No stat changes how fast a minion hauls. A goblin's Fast Worker bonus still gives them +50% work speed.

A minion can carry a weight of 20. A minion wearing a harvester's rig can carry 40.

A full stack of any item weighs 20. A full stack is 20 stone, or 10 grubs, or 5 books. A carcass or a weapon also weighs 20.

A minion who carries less than a full stack can add other items. One trip can carry both stone and timber.

A minion picks up what their own work makes, such as the stone from a rock they mine. They hold it while they work. They carry it to storage when that work is done, or when they can't carry more.

On the walk to a job, a minion also picks up a stack on the ground close to their path. They do this only when storage for that stack is close to their path too. The extra walk is never more than 12 tiles.

A minion with Hauling set to Off doesn't carry items to storage. What they mine or harvest stays on the ground. With Building on, they still bring materials to build sites.

Forbid Hauling

Select an item and press Forbid Hauling. Minions won't carry it until you press Allow Hauling. Use this for items in places your minions shouldn't walk to.

Rooms and domain

You don't draw rooms. The game finds open spaces inside your domain and names each room by what's in it.

Work done inside a room goes 10% faster.

Lairs and attracting creatures

You don't recruit creatures. Instead, you place a lair inside a room, and the room becomes its den. One species from the lair's pool moves in and builds the lair.

Placing a lair

Place a lair inside a room, and the whole room becomes its den. You'll find lairs in the bottom toolbar: press the Dominion button, then Lairs.

Room: open space in your domain, up to 100 tiles. Because the lair is built in it, a space of 2 by 2 tiles is enough.

Build a feeding spot in the den too. No creature moves into a den without a feeding spot.

Each creature spends 75% of its time in the den, and that includes the time it sleeps. The rest of the time, it walks around your domain. When it gets hungry or tired, it goes back to the den, because it only eats and sleeps there.

No creature comes to a lair that isn't in a room. That lair shows a warning when you select it. When you build or dig the space around it into a room, that room becomes its den.

A den holds one lair. A cell, a vault (a room with a coffer) or your sanctum never becomes a den.

A room that grows past 100 tiles becomes a cavern, and a cavern can't be a den. If the room's floor stops being part of your domain, it stops being a den too. Then the den's creatures leave the map 2 days later.

Materials

Cost: 2 units of material

Each kind of lair needs its own materials. Placing a lair is free and instant. Haulers carry the materials to the lair marker.

The creature that moves in builds the lair, never a minion. The delivery order has no deadline, so it stays open until the materials arrive.

The path rule

A lair attracts a creature only when two things are true. There is unclaimed ground connected to the lair with room for the creature's body. A path wide enough for that body runs from there to the lair.

The den is claimed ground, so it needs a way out to unclaimed ground. A creature of 2 by 2 tiles needs a path 2 tiles wide and a whole lair to itself.

The lair

Each kind of lair has its own pool: a list of three or four species. Only a species from that pool can move in, and only if the lair has space for its body. The lair's hover box lists its pool.

The cave around the lair's room makes some species more likely. Every species in the pool that fits still has a chance.

For example, an ember pit in a cave with lava draws more fire elementals. In a cave with water and mud, it draws more giant snakes.

The arrival

Once a lair is placed and has a feeding spot, one species from its pool is picked at random. A creature of that species arrives within 2 hours. You don't choose the species, and you can't refuse it.

The creature appears somewhere on unclaimed ground that connects to the den. It walks to the lair, builds it once the materials are there, then sleeps in it. It can move in while the lair is still only a marker.

Packs

Some species arrive as a pack. Each species has its own range of pack sizes, and the space in the lair sets the upper limit.

Space in a lair: 4 creatures of 1 tile, or 1 creature of 2 by 2 tiles

The first creature moves in alone. The rest follow one at a time over the next day. They stop early if the lair runs out of space.

The claim outlives the creature

The first creature to arrive claims the lair for its species. When it dies, the lair stays built, and another creature of the same species arrives later on its own. A pack gets one replacement for each creature that dies.

While the claim stands, no other species can move in.

Dropping a claim

Select the den's feeding spot and press Clear Lair to end the claim. The creatures in the den become wild creatures again and are no longer part of your dungeon. No creature of their species comes to replace them.

The lair stays built. Later, a new creature moves in. Its species is picked at random from the lair's pool.

Creatures that need no lair

The gelatinous cube and the wraith never live in a lair. You can summon either one with the Rite of Summoning at a ritual circle.

For these two, the rite takes twice as many items as for other creatures. When you choose a creature for the rite, the list shows what it costs.

When an adventurer dies in your domain, there's a 2% chance that a wraith appears beside the body. A wraith like this stays for 5 days, and then it leaves the map. A wraith that you summon stays forever.

The cube and the wraith are both on your side. They wander your whole domain, the sanctum too, and fight adventurers. They never get hungry or tired.

About once a day, each wraith also does something bad to your dungeon. It changes a trap so that your own minions can set it off one time. Or it unlocks a door and leaves it open.

What the gelatinous cube cleans and eats

A gelatinous cube cleans every tile it moves onto. It removes everything a minion on Drudgery duty would clean there, including blood.

It also eats every dead body on those tiles, your own minions too. You can't order it to skip a body.

Research

You learn Dark Arts nodes with the books on your bookshelves. A bookshelf with 10 books and no node gives 1 lore, and each node costs 1 lore.

When you learn a node, your bookshelf with the most books and no node holds it. Learning doesn't use up the books. They stay on that shelf.

When you learn a rite, you can cast it at a ritual circle.

When you learn a spell node, such as Necromancy II, every minion who casts Necromancy spells gets the new spell.

You can use a node while the bookshelf that holds it has at least 10 books. If that shelf loses books, the node is unavailable until you put books back. If the bookshelf is destroyed, you lose the node and must spend lore to learn it again.

A node needs the node above it, both to learn it and to use it. If the node above it is unavailable or lost, this node is unavailable too.

What works now

Minions on Lore duty write books at a writing desk. Minions on Hauling duty carry the books to bookshelves. The Dark Arts screen counts the books on your shelves.

What doesn't work yet

Alchemy I to IV in the Dark Arts aren't in the game yet, so you can't learn them.

Wounds and healing

Each wound lands on one part of the body, called a body zone. A wound is Minor, Major or Extreme, from lightest to worst. The wound diagram on the selection panel shows where the wounds are.

Severity

A wound's severity comes from the damage roll minus the block roll.

Wound points: Minor 1, Major 2, Extreme 4

A wound that brings someone's total to 10 wound points leaves them unable to fight.

Stacking: a new wound is 1 level worse if that zone already has a wound of the same severity. A second Minor becomes a Major, and a second Major becomes an Extreme. So blows on one limb hurt far more than blows spread around.

Healing: after 12 hours with no new wound in a body zone, each wound there heals 1 level. Nothing heals while someone is sick or starving.

Undead wounds never heal, by any means.

Bleeding

Some wounds bleed. Anyone who is bleeding leaves blood on the ground behind them, and a bleeding body zone doesn't heal.

Bleed chance: 30% for a slash or pierce wound (a cut or a stab), 15% for any other wound

Every 1 to 3 game hours, the bleeding gets worse: each wound in that zone becomes 1 level worse. Each time, there's a 50% chance that the bleeding stops. A healer's operation also stops it, but the wound stays.

Bleeding knocks someone out when all their wounds add up to 10 wound points or more. Bleeding also knocks someone out when it gets worse in a zone where every wound is already Extreme. Once they're knocked out, the next time the bleeding gets worse, it kills them.

Bleeding never knocks out a creature, such as a wolf or a rat. When it would knock one out, it kills the creature instead. Minions and adventurers aren't creatures.

Bleeding never knocks out or kills the Boss. Their wounds still get worse, but only up to Extreme. Once every wound in the bleeding zone is Extreme, the bleeding stops.

Who never bleeds

A Minor wound never bleeds, and neither does a punch.

Undead never bleed. Neither do bodies with no blood, such as elementals and golems.

Trolls and Trollkin never bleed, because their wounds close too fast.

A fighter's Second Wind stops all of their bleeding.

Operations

The Healing duty uses the Occult stat. An operation never removes a wound.

On a bleeding body zone, an operation stops the bleed and does nothing else. On any other wounded zone, it puts on a bandage, and that zone heals 3x as fast. A new wound there tears the bandage off.

When healing goes wrong

When a healer botches an operation, they cut the patient by mistake. The cut counts as a slashing wound.

If the wound the healer was treating is Minor or Major, it gets 1 level worse. A Minor becomes a Major, and a Major becomes an Extreme. A wound made worse this way never knocks the patient out or kills them.

That body zone also starts to bleed, unless it's already bleeding or the patient never bleeds, like a skeleton.

An Extreme wound can't get worse. Instead, the botch adds one more Extreme wound to that zone. Then a roll decides whether the patient is knocked out or killed.

If the healer was treating a sickness, the botch also gives the patient a Minor wound. The operation doesn't treat the sickness, and no healer can treat it for the next 24 game hours.

A botch on the Boss works differently. Every wound on the Boss gets 1 level worse, up to Extreme. A botch never makes the Boss bleed, and it never knocks out or kills the Boss. Then no healer can operate on the Boss for 24 game hours.

Seeking help

A wounded minion lies on a free bonesaw table for treatment when their worst wound reaches a level you choose. Choose it with the Seek healing setting on the minion's Behavior tab. A sick minion goes too, even with no wounds.

Each game hour, a sick minion has a 10% chance to recover, or 20% while asleep in a bed. After a healer operates on them, the chances are 30% and 40% for 24 game hours. A starving minion can't recover.

Sickness gives them a wound every 2 game hours, or every 4 once treated. Plague does it twice as often: every hour, or every 2 hours once treated.

A minion in a fight doesn't go to a table. When you give a minion an order, they follow it and stop waiting for treatment. If you keep giving orders to a badly hurt minion, they never get treated.