This is a ‘LitRPG experience’ (aka solo journaling adventure actual-play) using the official “Evermorph Dungeon Solo Rules“.
- Player/Writer: Arthur P. Dutton
- Game Played: 6/21/2026
- Character Name: Thiovar Adra
- Traits: Curious, self-controlled, trusting but guarded, loyal, and observant
- Stats: Vitality: 4, Grit: 4, Gear: 4, Dungeon Stability: 4
- Goal: Slay a Beast
- Objective: Reach Tile F9 and return to the start
[Begin on F5, per Goal rules]
Thiovar wakes up in a cold, damp cell. He knows he is deep below ground, but senses an other-worldliness about this place. He senses his prey, too, but knows not what he hunts. He trusts his gut and it leads him through winding corridors, up and down random stairs, past a small altar to an unknown god or saint, and then up a wide, tall set of stairs.
[F5 to E2: Horror, damages Grit, Base 0 (due to lower/same number tile)]
A shadow dwells here. It may not shelter Thiovar’s quarry, yet it may hunt him in turn. Most would have missed the signs of this dread, but his father taught him of such creatures. He lets the shadow follow him, feigning ignorance. Then he traps the shadow in a circular chamber by setting alight the candles all about and fleeing through the far door.
[E2 to A2: Foes, damages Vitality, Base 0]
The candle light reflects off hidden mirrors and alerts the dungeon’s denizens traversing the wide corridor ahead. Thiovar rushes the werewolves before they can set themselves for battle. He cuts down two with his blade and the other three retreat. He barrels down the passage ahead that will lead to his prey. Unfortunately, that is the same direction the werewolves fled. East.
[A2 to C5: Supernatural, damages Grit, Base 1 (tile number increased <4)]
Thiovar pursues the wolfmen down wide stairs and sees the last of them turn north. There is a door ahead of him, to the east, where the corridor narrows and he knows that is the direction of his prey. As Thiovar reaches the north passage, he peers up it and sees an altar room beyond an open door. A goblin priest, clad in blood-soaked raiment, summons a dark spirit. Thiovar should run, but his curiosity keeps him fixed. The spirit sees him and speaks his name, “Thiovar Adra… you will die!”
The curse shakes his courage and he flies through the door. He wants to keep running, but his mother’s teachings return to him in his need. He shuts the door behind him even as he feels that dark presence moving closer. He staves the door with cold-wrought iron from his pack, then rubs it with a holly sprig and drops the spent foliage to the hewn stone floor.
The moans at the door grow loud at first, then fade as the spirit is barred this portal. Only then does Thiovar turn from it to take in his surroundings. This large chamber was once a garden and high above a shaft leads up away to a disk of open sky and light. Little grows here now besides moss, but the site restores Thiovar and bolsters his spirit. Somehow, he knows the light is from the east and of the dawn. Onward!
His prey is close and many paths could lead him to it. He ventures south and senses worse omens in that direction, so turns east again towards the unseen morning warmth.
[Result: Grit -1, then +2 for center square (max 4); Dungeon Stability -1 (due to failed ‘Taking a Risk’ that I didn’t write down and wasn’t allowed to attempt in a tile numbered 1 through 7!)]
- Vitality: 4
- Grit: 4
- Gear: 4
- Dungeon Stability: 3
[C5 to B8: Mechanisms, damages Gear, Base 2 (due to tile numbers 8 or 9), Stability -1 (also due to tile numbers 8 or 9)]
Thiovar finds another wide passage, with stairs leading down. Runes on the walls ward against spirits here, and just in time! The goblin-summoned wraith appears behind him and Thiovar leaps over the entire stair, rolling into the corridor below. The dark spirit howls and the wind from its bellow snuffs out the torches along the long hall, now dark.
Not trusting the runes to hold the spirit long, he dives towards the passage south that he spotted before the light was snatched away. His hands find a stair leading up and Thiovar stumbles up it in the dark. As he climbs back to his feet, he steadies himself on wall sconce. A click and he feels something shift beneath his feet and through the wall.
[Took a risk and failed; Dungeon Stability -1]
The stairs collapse as Thiovar scrambles onto the landing. He pulls a torch from his pack and lights it, finding two doors here. He trusts the hidden light of the east again and ventures through that gate. Inside a misshapen room, clockwork guards turn and march in patterns of metal gears unseen. Thiovar has little knowledge of such things, but thinks he guesses their next moves. He takes his chance for the exit south but steps onto a disguised stone that springs the trap. The pattern of the guards changes and an automaton’s axe assails him! He raises his shield, but it is cleaved by the first guard’s axe then ripped from him by the metal hands of another clockwork soldier.
[Result: 1 damage to Gear and 2 damage to Dungeon Stability]
- Vitality: 4
- Grit: 4
- Gear: 3
- Dungeon Stability: 1
[B8 to F9: Beasts, damages Vitality, Base 2; Stability -1 (which hits zero and triggers a rotation)]
As Thiovar escapes the metal men, he tumbles into the passage south and feels the world spin. The floor and ceiling trade spots and as he flies between them he grabs for another sconce (despite the treachery of the last hidden lever). This one holds firm and helps him keep his wits.
The world settles and the dust clears. Thiovar hears a growl. His prey had been alerted and is close at hand! He places his feet beneath him and sets his stance for battle, gripping his sword in two hands now that his shield is gone. He follows the passage west then south again and spies the beast circling the base of a raised dais. It has the head and arms of a werewolf but the body of a bull below it.
Thiovar rushes the stairs knowing height would be his only advantage! The beast is startled but recovers quickly and rakes Thiovar with a claw as he wins the dais.
[Took a risk and won, reducing damage to 1]
Bleeding, but alive and charged for battle, Thiovar swings his sword and scores strike after strike as the beast howls and presses, too dim to realize it is outmatched. It charges about and tries the stairs thrice, Thiovar rebuffs each attempt with his blade or a swift kick.
The beast tires, but still does not retreat. It tries to bite at Thiovar, a desperate last resort, and the hunter pierces its neck. The werewolf-chimera falls and the world shifts yet again.
[Result: -1 to Vitality, -1 Dungeon Stability (which resets to 4 after reaching zero triggers a rotation), Objective Complete, triggers another rotation (no change to Dungeon Stability)]
- Vitality: 3
- Grit: 4
- Gear: 3
- Dungeon Stability: 4
Thiovar awakes atop the slayed, foul beast. It stinks and he scrambles off it. He skins the head for a mask and takes its claws for a necklace. The pelt is spotty and rank, so he leaves it to rot.
He senses the labyrinthine dungeon has changed. Still, he does not dare risk again the metal men or the curses of the dark spirit summoned by the goblin priest. He sets off west and looks for signs that might lead him back to the beginning where he hopes this trial will end.
[F9 to D2: Environment, damages Gear, Base: 0]
The condition of the passage he follows changes from long-cared-for to rough-hewn to natural tunnels. The caves herein are fickle and stalactites fall and drip. Thiovar is swift and precise and avoids these hazards, though he nearly loses his pack to a jutting crag.
Finding wooden doors on the other side of the cave, he reads markings on them and thinks he sees a pattern that might lead him through and back. He chooses a door into a circular tunnel with many exits and more markings on the wall. This place begins to make sense to him.
[D2 to E5: Horror, damages Grit, Base 1]
Now he goes north, following the signs he thinks he can read. A stair down to the east but no markings either way. Not wishing to descend again, he tries west.
As the corridor west winds round a wind blows down it. On the wind, an echo. His father’s word, his mother’s fall, his leap into this world and its endless trials! He knows not what lay ahead but knows he must away and takes the stair down instead. That path too winds back and round the opposite way. Above Thiovar and always, echoes from the past assail him!
The bare walls seem to devour his torch’s light until he reaches another stair. It goes up into a room of peace where the echoes can not follow. He sits there upon a bench beside giant double doors of stone. As Thiovar takes his rest his keen eyes observe the intricate designs upon the doors of arms and armor, knights and stags. He realizes that therein is a shield to be had! He lifts it from its concealed hooks and finds it quite his match.
[Result: -1 to Grit, center tile restores +2 Gear (max 4)]
- Vitality: 3
- Grit: 3
- Gear: 4
- Dungeon Stability: 4
[E5 to C4: Supernatural, damages Grit, Base: 0]
Beyond the door is a maze of marble. Stairs and doors and rings round pools all even and the same. Thiovar senses spells that keep him turning, using symmetry to deceive. No marking clear that does not turn when spied. He shuts his eyes and counts his steps to bring him to another set of doors, like the first, and pushes them aside.
He opens his eyes and shuts the doors behind. These doors hold a shield, the twin of the one he carries, proving he has crossed through the ensorcelled, marble maze.
{The doors are both in C4—I took artistic license to have the shield acquired in E5 (+2 Gear) hang on the door just inside C4}
[C4 to B6: Mechanisms, damages Gear, Base 1]
West he goes and there he finds crumbling passages twice north, and stairs go up and up again, but to the west the stairs go down. Here the signs return and he reads that he’ll soon reach the starting room. In joy he rushes ahead and falls heedless to another trap! The hidden blade misses his head but claims his torch. He flees through the door beyond where light peaks through the jams.
- Vitality: 3
- Grit: 3
- Gear: 3
- Dungeon Stability: 4
[B6 to F5: Beasts, damages Vitality, Base 0]
Thiovar stands where he’s been before. The room where he awoke is beyond a door and down a stair and a turning corridor. To no other room before this has he returned. He knows well that the door that led him here led him somewhere else before. Thiovar marvels as he understands a bit of the design. He knows now not to return to the room where he first awoke. The runes have warned him. Another beast awaits there and its stench he smells through the door.
Instead, he goes to the strange altar he first espied. Thiovar knows from the markings he has learned that the altar has a twin in the opposite corridor. On each one he places a claw of the beast he slew. When he places the second, he lays down beneath that altar, his trial passed, and the twisting dungeon spins and snaps.
Thiovar Adra is free of it and the day is clear in a field of flower and grass. He still holds the shield and skin and claws around his neck to prove where he has been.
Photo of my markings on the Evermorph cube where the beginning meets the end!
The last page of the first adventure and the first page of the next one…
Read Part 2! [COMING SOON]
LitRPG Writing Through A Rubik’s Cube
Attribution:
Maps © Evermorph Studios (https://evermorphstudios.com)
Maps created with Dungeon Scrawl (https://dungeonscrawl.com) — used under CC BY 4.0 license.
Arthur P. Dutton 
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