History VideoGame / DarkestDungeon

* InexplicableTreasureChests: Many curios hold treasures in the dungeons granted you use the good supply to guarantee the treasure. Some of these stashes include old tree stumps, corpses, or chariot full of rotting bodies.

* HeroicBSOD: When a hero's stress reaches capacity, his or her resolve is tested. One of two things may happen. One of them is becoming completely stressed out will cause a negative affliction that will cause extremely negative effecs towards the party and themselves. They can become abusive, suicidal, depressed and more.

* SanityMeter: Called 'Stress' in-game. Characters will suffer 'stress damage' from attacks, random events and so on. If their stress bar fills up their resolve is tested and they either [[HeroicBSOD break down]] (which can damage the sanity of other party members) or [[HeroicWillpower get motivated]] to kick more ass and inspire others. If it fills up ''again'', then they die of a heart attack. You can reduce stress by resting, scoring critical hits or (sometimes) killing enemies.

Visit their website [[http://www.darkestdungeon.com/ here.]] On February 3, 2015, the Steam version was released as an Early Access title. The game was fully released on January 19, 2016 for Microsoft Windows and OS X computers, with a Linux release on April 26th, 2016, and a release for UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/PlayStationVita consoles on September 27th, 2016. A paid DLC expansion named ''The Crimson Court'' was released on June 19th, 2017 for computers, and on August 22nd, 2017 for consoles. The [=iPad=] version was released on August 24th, 2017, and ''The Crimson Court'' is scheduled to be released later this year. A UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch version was released on January 18th, 2018.

Visit their website [[http://www.darkestdungeon.com/ here.]] On February 3, 2015, the Steam version was released as an Early Access title. The game was fully released on January 19, 2016 for Microsoft Windows and OS X computers, with a Linux release on April 26th, 2016, and a release for UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/PlayStationVita consoles on September 27th, 2016. A paid DLC expansion named ''The Crimson Court'' was released on June 19th, 2017 for computers, and on August 22nd, 2017 for consoles. The [=iPad=] version was released on August 24th, 2017, and ''The Crimson Court'' is scheduled to be released later this year. A UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch version is set for release on January 18th 2018.

Visit their website [[http://www.darkestdungeon.com/ here.]] On February 3, 2015, the Steam version was released as an Early Access title. The game was fully released on January 19, 2016 for Microsoft Windows and OS X computers, with a Linux release on April 26th, 2016, and a release for UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/PlayStationVita consoles on September 27th, 2016. A paid DLC expansion named ''The Crimson Court'' was released on June 19th, 2017 for computers, and on August 22nd, 2017 for consoles. The [=iPad=] version was released on August 24th, 2017, and ''The Crimson Court'' is scheduled to be released later this year. A UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch version is in development.

** The "Never Go Back" trait is either this trope or BlessedWithSuck, depending on the player. [[spoiler:All heroes who have successfully completed (not attempted, for whatever reason) a mission in the Darkest Dungeon will refuse to ever go back and will no longer count as part of the roster. These heroes are to grind money in high level dungeons to help foster their replacements up to level 6. You can have a roster size of ''thirty nine mercenaries,'' but you still must invest the time and gold into shaping up the replacement heroes to send into the final dungeon.]]

* AllDeathsFinal: There's no resurrection magic save for a very rare town event that revives one dead character. If your favorite hero that you've invested lots of money in dies, that's it. To somewhat compensate, reaching zero HitPoints doesn't result in instant death or even a knockout--the character is still awake and functional, but at their [[LastChanceHitPoint Death's Door]], where any subsequent damage may kill them. Healing even a single hit point removes the danger (but it leaves a severe debuff in turn that can only be healed by certain campfire skills), but having a heart attack will automatically bump them down to Death's Door, and a heart attack while on death's door is 100% fatal.

** Each character has one sprite showing them sitting by the campfire, slightly from the side. To create an illusion that characters are sitting in a circle, sprites on the right side of the campfire are mirrored. It's usually very hard to actually notice, since the characters are resting and seldom doing something that would ex. show them using their dominant hands, but it does become slightly eerie when you have two characters of the same class sitting opposite on the opposite sides--they'll appear as perfect mirrors of each other. And it's glaringly obvious in case of man-at-arms, since his eyepatch switches eyes.

** [[spoiler: However, the mere existence of the Transcendent Terror and its one line, "Time--an endless cycle! Ia! Iaaa!" doesn't paint anything optimistic whatsoever, especially since at one point it could only be accessed by beating the game once.]]

** Dungeons have three different difficulty levels (1, 3, and 5), which correspond roughly to a difficulty intended to match the stats of a party of the same average level. To avoid the player gaining easy experience, estate items, and money by farming over and over low level dungeons with an overpowered party, a level 3[=/=]4 hero will refuse venturing inside a level 1 dungeon, and a level 5[=/=]6 will only accept entering a level 5 dungeon. This can cause serious problems if the early dungeon bosses are not killed in a reasonable timeframe--if all your heroes are level 3 or above and you don't have any space in your roster, the only way to progress in the game is to dismiss some of your higher-level characters so you can recruit more cannon fodder to try and do it before they too outlevel the boss! The only ways around this are playing on Radiant mode, which allows heroes up to level 4 to enter Apprentice level expeditions and anyone of any level to go on a Veteran level mission, and the Helping Hand town event that completely removes level restrictions for one dungeon foray.

** Rabies is an obtainable Quirk. It is randomly contracted when being hit by a rabid dog, its effect (more damage inflicted, lower accuracy rating) are shown immediately, and it won't kill the character by itself, no matter how long it stays uncured, but can be cured anytime. In real life, rabies manifests itself several weeks after receiving an infected wound (the virus must reach the brain after travelling along the nerves), doesn't necessarily turn you into a berserker, kills you after a couple of weeks, and can't be cured when the symptoms have appeared. [[note]]Technically, there is a treatment but it requires a medically induced coma and being pumped full of psychoactive drugs, since the damage caused by the disease is thought to be due to abnormal brain activity--so just make it inactive in the infected areas. However, the survival rate is fairly low and side effects include having to relearn to walk and balance.[[/note]] Also, none of the diseases progress (your character is either infected or not and remaining infected for weeks at a time has no additional effect) and none are contagious.

* BedlamHouse: SubvertedTrope--one of the nine buildings in the hamlet is a Sanitarium, where you can spend a week and a big chunk of gold getting rid of diseases and personality quirks. Despite a few dialogue lines of a bit of a fearful nature from looking at what it has in store for them, heroes that get sent there will simply lose the targeted quirk/disease as advertised. The quirk and disease treatment were later separated into two different wards in an update. The medical ward isn't even regarded with the slightest bit of fear (apart from the hero's somewhat dark joke about putting faith in gnarled, warty hands).

** The Shambler's attacks deal very little damage--but they all target the whole party and afflict them with very high levels of blight, bleed, and stress, which stack very quickly.
** It also summons minions, which start very fragile and weak--but get stronger with each turn. If you decide to ignore them and go after the boss, you'll soon find they're one-shotting your characters, while you can barely scratch them.

* CannonFodder: The level 0 heroes that arrive on the stagecoach every week can be this if you wish--you can send them in with no supplies, training, or equipment upgrades just to grab as much loot as they can before fleeing. Even if they succeed in a mission, chances are they'll be so stressed and psychologically damaged it's better to just dismiss them and recruit a new set than treat them afterwards.

* CherryTapping: Prior to the Fiends and Frenzy update, every offensive action, even debuffs, do at least 1 damage. So if a creature (or one of your heroes) is at one hitpoint or less, you can kill someone by having the Hellion shout at them, for example. Egregious with [[PigMan Wilbur]], who can stunlock--and potentially ''kill''--your party just ''by squealing at them''!

* CombatExclusiveHealing: Healing abilities don't cost anything but the turn your healer spends performing them, but the only ways to restore HP out of battle are food (which restores very little and won't count for staving off hunger if you don't eat it while already hungry) and camping. Dragging the encounter out to heal is risky--after a certain point, the party will start taking stress damage (saying "Let's finish this rabble already!") or the foe may receive reinforcements, even a single weak enemy can get lucky crits in (causing more stress), and characters have to do something each round (even if only switching position) to avoid a stress hit--but if you have a lot of healing/destressing abilities and a pair of weak enemies, it can be worth the risk.

* CriticalExistenceFailure: AvertedTrope once a hero hits 0 health and is at Death's Door--they aren't dead ''yet'' (and in fact can potentially survive several more hits if the RandomNumberGod smiles upon you), but they'll have a significant stat penalty.
* CriticalHit: A ''very'' big mechanic in this game--in addition to doing more damage from them and generally messing with the statistic as is fairly normal for RPG games, critical hits from the players' characters can reduce the party's stress while enemies doing critical hits are also liable to cause stress to them. Causing more critical hits is also a redeeming factor to letting the light get lower (which makes monsters become stronger) in addition to finding more loot. After the Fiends and Frenzy update, even healing skills can crit, and in their case, the targeted hero gets 4 stress relieved (enemies can crit-heal too, but they only benefit from the increased health gain).

* DarkIsEvil: Used for a gameplay mechanic for venturing deeper into the dungeons--better loot is found as your party trudges lower... while their torch struggles more and more to actually provide light. As the light gets lower, monsters get faster, hit harder, and are more likely to surprise the characters and less likely to be surprised themselves, and characters will get more stressed.

** If a hero breaks under the strain, very often their reactions cause stress in their companions, who can then break, in turn causing more stress--you can end up with all four of your heroes severely compromised by afflictions.

** The first loot chest you encounter (during the tutorial) is always booby trapped and, unless a defeated bandit just ''happened'' to drop a key (extremely unlikely), there's no way to safely open it--a very pointed lesson that this game is not generous to you at all.

* FaceDeathWithDignity: Some of the classes--most notably the Man-at-Arms, Occultist, and Leper--are very accepting of [[spoiler:being utterly destroyed by the Final Boss' one-hit-kill]]. Others, not so much.

* FinalDeath: If a hero dies, [[KilledOffForReal they STAY dead.]] There is a rare town event that can bring back ONE fallen hero, but they are raised with an affliction and NO skills--they have to be rebought from the ground up.

*** Somehow it's easier to find more stuff when the characters can barely see what's in front of them. One of {{The Narrator}}'s quotes seems to HandWave it by saying that it's easier to notice glinting gold--but nothing would glint in complete darkness.
*** Conversely, it's easier to surprise enemies if you carry a blazing light with you--even if normally it would make you visible from a much larger distance while crippling your ability to see anything beyond the illuminated area.

* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Tomes, artifacts, and occult scrawlings occasionally impart knowledge of ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow to the character that interacts with them, increasing their stress and bestowing potentially harmful quirks. The "Prophet" boss also has this in his back story--the Ancestor showed him what lay beneath the manor and his intentions, driving him mad.

* MeaningfulName: One of the two starting characters is a Highwayman named Dismas. This is the traditional name of the "Penitent Thief" from [[UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}} Christian]] mythology who was crucified alongside Jesus. The other character is a crusader named Reynauld--this is most likely a reference to Raynald of Châtillon, a controversial crusader knight who was eventually executed by Saladin himself. The fact that both historical characters met untimely ends is of course [[BlatantLies purely coincidental...]]

* OneHitPolykill: There are several abilities that can hit several mooks[=/=]heroes at the same time, like the Highwayman's Grape Shot Blast (a gunshot which scatters through up to three enemies in the front); targeting a group of very weakened enemies with one of those attacks can have interesting results. Conversely there are many enemy attacks that can hit multiple characters at once--if you have more than one at Death's Door, you could lose them all.

* [[RuinsForRuinsSAke Ruins for Ruins' Sake]]: The Cove shelters the ruins of former huge buildings, but why they are here isn't explained.

--> "[[spoiler:Time--an endless cycle.]] [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Ia Iaaaa!]]"

** Subverted in the [[spoiler:Swine Prince]] fight. When the battle starts, you're pitted against two enemies--[[spoiler:The Swine Prince himself,]] who does 99% of the fighting; [[spoiler:and Wilbur]], who will sit in the back, mark your characters, and cause them to take extra damage from [[spoiler:the Swine Prince]]'s attacks. [[spoiler:Wilbur]] is by far the easier of the two to kill, but if you do, [[spoiler:the Swine Prince]] will get [[BerserkButton a little annoyed]] and start pummeling you with a much more dangerous attack that hits ''every charater, every turn.''

* WeaponsKitchenSink: The adventurers have equipment spanning centuries--from full plate armour and longswords to duster coats and flintlocks, Renaissance garb and gas grenades to furs and a glaive.

* WizardNeedsFoodBadly: At some point during the dungeon run, your party may feel hungry. You can then choose to either eat, which restores health and consumes food as usual, or let your characters starve and take a severe hit to their hit points and stats, which is what will happen if your food supplies run out. This can be very frustrating as it appears to be randomly triggered rather than on a time basis--it's entirely possible to do two similar length missions--one where the party never gets hungry and another where they want three meals making it hard to judge how much food to carry. You can also manually feed your characters food to recover health. However the game does not take this into account when deciding your characters want a meal, meaning its possible to feed a character your last food to save them only for the game to ''immediately'' declare the party is hungry and you not having food to comply.

* HorrorHunger: Heroes affected by the Crimson Curse will thirst for The Blood like they hunger for food. As their cravings mount, they may become increasingly erratic--to the point of potentially attacking their allies. Actually consuming The Blood sends them into "Bloodlust", a temporary affliction-like state unrelated to stress that'll make them act erratically in exchange for a number of buffs.

* RuinsForRuinsSAke: The Cove shelters the ruins of former huge buildings, but why they are here isn't explained.

!!''Darkest Dungeon'' provides examples of:

* AllDeathsFinal: There's no resurrection magic save for a very rare town event that revives one dead character. If your favorite hero that you've invested lots of money in dies, that's it. To somewhat compensate, reaching zero HitPoints doesn't result in instant death or even a knockout -- the character is still awake and functional, but at their [[LastChanceHitPoint Death's Door]], where any subsequent damage may kill them. Healing even a single hit point removes the danger (but it leaves a severe debuff in turn that can only be healed by certain campfire skills), but having a heart attack will automatically bump them down to Death's Door, and a heart attack while on death's door is 100% fatal.

** Each character has one sprite showing them sitting by the campfire, slightly from the side. To create an illusion that characters are sitting in a circle, sprites on the right side of the campfire are mirrored. It's usually very hard to actually notice, since the characters are resting and seldom doing something that would ex. show them using their dominant hands, but it does become slightly eerie when you have two characters of the same class sitting opposite on the opposite sides -- they'll appear as perfect mirrors of each other. And it's glaringly obvious in case of man-at-arms, since his eyepatch switches eyes.

** [[spoiler: However, the mere existence of the Transcendent Terror and its one line, "Time - an endless cycle! Ia! Iaaa!" doesn't paint anything optimistic whatsoever, especially since at one point it could only be accessed by beating the game once.]]

** Dungeons have three different difficulty levels (1, 3, and 5), which correspond roughly to a difficulty intended to match the stats of a party of the same average level. To avoid the player gaining easy experience, estate items, and money by farming over and over low level dungeons with an overpowered party, a level 3[=/=]4 hero will refuse venturing inside a level 1 dungeon, and a level 5[=/=]6 will only accept entering a level 5 dungeon. This can cause serious problems if the early dungeon bosses are not killed in a reasonable timeframe -- if all your heroes are level 3 or above and you don't have any space in your roster, the only way to progress in the game is to dismiss some of your higher-level characters so you can recruit more cannon fodder to try and do it before they too outlevel the boss! The only ways around this are playing on Radiant mode, which allows heroes up to level 4 to enter Apprentice level expeditions and anyone of any level to go on a Veteran level mission, and the Helping Hand town event that completely removes level restrictions for one dungeon foray.

** Rabies is an obtainable Quirk. It is randomly contracted when being hit by a rabid dog, its effect (more damage inflicted, lower accuracy rating) are shown immediately, and it won't kill the character by itself, no matter how long it stays uncured, but can be cured anytime. In real life, rabies manifests itself several weeks after receiving an infected wound (the virus must reach the brain after travelling along the nerves), doesn't necessarily turn you into a berserker, kills you after a couple of weeks, and can't be cured when the symptoms have appeared. [[note]]Technically, there is a treatment but it requires a medically induced coma and being pumped full of psychoactive drugs, since the damage caused by the disease is thought to be due to abnormal brain activity -- so just make it inactive in the infected areas. However, the survival rate is fairly low and side effects include having to relearn to walk and balance.[[/note]] Also, none of the diseases progress (your character is either infected or not and remaining infected for weeks at a time has no additional effect) and none are contagious.

* BedlamHouse: SubvertedTrope -- one of the nine buildings in the hamlet is a Sanitarium, where you can spend a week and a big chunk of gold getting rid of diseases and personality quirks. Despite a few dialogue lines of a bit of a fearful nature from looking at what it has in store for them, heroes that get sent there will simply lose the targeted quirk/disease as advertised. The quirk and disease treatment were later separated into two different wards in an update. The medical ward isn't even regarded with the slightest bit of fear (apart from the hero's somewhat dark joke about putting faith in gnarled, warty hands).

** The Shambler's attacks deal very little damage -- but they all target the whole party and afflict them with very high levels of blight, bleed, and stress, which stack very quickly.
** It also summons minions, which start very fragile and weak -- but get stronger with each turn. If you decide to ignore them and go after the boss, you'll soon find they're one-shotting your characters, while you can barely scratch them.

* CannonFodder: The level 0 heroes that arrive on the stagecoach every week can be this if you wish -- you can send them in with no supplies, training, or equipment upgrades just to grab as much loot as they can before fleeing. Even if they succeed in a mission, chances are they'll be so stressed and psychologically damaged it's better to just dismiss them and recruit a new set than treat them afterwards.

* CherryTapping: Prior to the Fiends and Frenzy update, every offensive action, even debuffs, do at least 1 damage. So if a creature (or one of your heroes) is at one hitpoint or less, you can kill someone by having the Hellion shout at them, for example. Egregious with [[PigMan Wilbur]], who can stunlock -- and potentially ''kill'' -- your party just ''by squealing at them''!

* CombatExclusiveHealing: Healing abilities don't cost anything but the turn your healer spends performing them, but the only ways to restore HP out of battle are food (which restores very little and won't count for staving off hunger if you don't eat it while already hungry) and camping. Dragging the encounter out to heal is risky -- after a certain point, the party will start taking stress damage (saying "Let's finish this rabble already!") or the foe may receive reinforcements, even a single weak enemy can get lucky crits in (causing more stress), and characters have to do something each round (even if only switching position) to avoid a stress hit -- but if you have a lot of healing/destressing abilities and a pair of weak enemies, it can be worth the risk.

* CriticalExistenceFailure: AvertedTrope once a hero hits 0 health and is at Death's Door -- they aren't dead ''yet'' (and in fact can potentially survive several more hits if the RandomNumberGod smiles upon you), but they'll have a significant stat penalty.
* CriticalHit: A ''very'' big mechanic in this game -- in addition to doing more damage from them and generally messing with the statistic as is fairly normal for RPG games, critical hits from the players' characters can reduce the party's stress while enemies doing critical hits are also liable to cause stress to them. Causing more critical hits is also a redeeming factor to letting the light get lower (which makes monsters become stronger) in addition to finding more loot. After the Fiends and Frenzy update, even healing skills can crit, and in their case, the targeted hero gets 4 stress relieved (enemies can crit-heal too, but they only benefit from the increased health gain).

* DarkIsEvil: Used for a gameplay mechanic for venturing deeper into the dungeons -- better loot is found as your party trudges lower... while their torch struggles more and more to actually provide light. As the light gets lower, monsters get faster, hit harder, and are more likely to surprise the characters and less likely to be surprised themselves, and characters will get more stressed.

** If a hero breaks under the strain, very often their reactions cause stress in their companions, who can then break, in turn causing more stress - you can end up with all four of your heroes severely compromised by afflictions.

** The first loot chest you encounter (during the tutorial) is always booby trapped and, unless a defeated bandit just ''happened'' to drop a key (extremely unlikely), there's no way to safely open it -- a very pointed lesson that this game is not generous to you at all.

* FaceDeathWithDignity: Some of the classes -- most notably the Man-at-Arms, Occultist, and Leper -- are very accepting of [[spoiler:being utterly destroyed by the Final Boss's one-hit-kill]]. Others, not so much.

* FinalDeath: If a hero dies, [[KilledOffForReal they STAY dead.]] There is a rare town event that can bring back ONE fallen hero, but they are raised with an affliction and NO skills -- they have to be rebought from the ground up.

*** Somehow it's easier to find more stuff when the characters can barely see what's in front of them. One of {{The Narrator}}'s quotes seems to HandWave it by saying that it's easier to notice glinting gold -- but nothing would glint in complete darkness.
*** Conversely, it's easier to surprise enemies if you carry a blazing light with you -- even if normally it would make you visible from a much larger distance while crippling your ability to see anything beyond the illuminated area.

* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Tomes, artifacts, and occult scrawlings occasionally impart knowledge of ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow to the character that interacts with them, increasing their stress and bestowing potentially harmful quirks. The "Prophet" boss also has this in his back story -- the Ancestor showed him what lay beneath the manor and his intentions, driving him mad.

* MeaningfulName: One of the two starting characters is a Highwayman named Dismas. This is the traditional name of the "Penitent Thief" from [[UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}} Christian]] mythology who was crucified alongside Jesus. The other character is a crusader named Reynauld -- this is most likely a reference to Raynald of Châtillon, a controversial crusader knight who was eventually executed by Saladin himself. The fact that both historical characters met untimely ends is of course [[BlatantLies purely coincidental...]]

** UnwinnableByDesign: Already having [[spoiler: 11]] heroes dead by the time you reach the final expedition will eventually result in a game over, no matter what [[spoiler:thanks to the final boss's OneHitKill striking twice]]

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Nothing can ruin a seemingly successful expedition like your own heroes if one of them snaps under pressure and develops a particularly unmanageable affliction, like [[JerkAss Abusive]] or [[CloudCuckooLander Irrational.]]

** Stress effects are completely random. Your hero might shrug off his stress and become courageous, inspiring the rest of the party...or your tank could [[DirtyCoward become Fearful, fleeing to the back of the formation]], your healer becomes a {{Sadist}}, [[LeeroyJenkins bum-rushing the enemy with her dinky club]], and your damage dealer turns into a Masochist [[SelfHarm and gleefully turns her knives on herself]]. God help you if you get an [[DisasterDominoes Abusive]] hero...

* NoCasualtiesRun: Nearly impossible as of the current version. [[spoiler:Even if you are lucky and skilled enough to reach the final boss without getting a single hero killed, you will always lose at least two heroes to it's insta-kill attacks. It ''is'' possible to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGsTZtH8308 beat it without anyone dying]], however.]]

* OneHitPolykill: There are several abilities that can hit several mooks[=/=]heroes at the same time, like the Highwayman's Grape Shot Blast (a gunshot which scatters through up to three enemies in the front); targeting a group of very weakened enemies with one of those attacks can have interesting results. Conversely there are many enemy attacks that can hit multiple characters at once - if you have more than one at Death's Door, you could lose them all.

* OurGargoylesRock: [[RockMonster Literally]]...which makes them highly resistant to regular attacks and bleed, and a real pain to try and stun. Fortunately, they're also undead, so the Crusader can tear them apart and the Plague Doctor can blight them.

** The negative quirk of "Thanatophobia" (fear of death) is randomly gained when looking into an opened sarcophagus. It grants a higher stress gain when health is low...which of course can make things go from bad to worse.

--> "[[spoiler:Time - an endless cycle.]] [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Ia Iaaaa!]]"

* WackyWaysideTribe: The Brigands used to be this, randomly mugging the party [[ViolationOfCommonSense in the depths of monster-infested dungeons]], but as of the Fiends and Frenzy patch it is revealed that the Ancestor hired them as mercenaries to intimidate the restless Hamlet denizens into submission and were probably...affected to stay being around the place when the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s came out in full force.

* WeaponsKitchenSink: The adventurers have equipment spanning centuries - from full plate armour and longswords to duster coats and flintlocks, Renaissance garb and gas grenades to furs and a glaive.

* WizardNeedsFoodBadly: At some point during the dungeon run, your party may feel hungry. You can then choose to either eat, which restores health and consumes food as usual, or let your characters starve and take a severe hit to their hit points and stats, which is what will happen if your food supplies run out. This can be very frustrating as it appears to be randomly triggered rather than on a time basis - it's entirely possible to do two similar length missions - one where the party never gets hungry and another where they want three meals making it hard to judge how much food to carry. You can also manually feed your characters food to recover health. However the game does not take this into account when deciding your characters want a meal, meaning its possible to feed a character your last food to save them only for the game to ''immediately'' declare the party is hungry and you not having food to comply.

* HorrorHunger: Heroes affected by the Crimson Curse will thirst for The Blood like they hunger for food. As their cravings mount, they may become increasingly erratic - to the point of potentially attacking their allies. Actually consuming The Blood sends them into "Bloodlust", a temporary affliction-like state unrelated to stress that'll make them act erratically in exchange for a number of buffs.

* MustBeInvited: Inverted. After you complete the first Courtyard mission, the heroes's access to the Bloodsuckers' lair is forbidden until you obtain an invitation from a slain enemy.

** [[spoiler:The Heart of Darkness itself. The game outright points out it's a deceptive creature, and the Light and its followers having very real supernatural powers (as well as the Prophet receiving visions that would directly inhibit the Heart's plans if the Ancestor had listened) could be seen as evidence it's not being entirely truthful with its claims of being {{God}}, or at least the ''only'' one, unless it was providing power to the Light aligned characters itself for some unknown reason.]]

* UnreliableNarrator: [[spoiler: The Ancestor ''may'' be a complicated case of this; while he initially seems to be giving you sound advice and encouragement pushing you to confront and overcome the horrors of the Estate, when you raid the Darkest Dungeon he manifests as an enemy there suggesting that he is/was either absorbed by The Heart Of Darkness or was a projection of it all along manipulating you into sacrificing heroes to strengthen it. This puts the horrifying revelations and BreakingSpeech of the ending cutscene into a more questionable light, albeit not enough to prevent the Heir from committing suicide.]]

** You can also catch hemophilia from having a Swine vomit on you, or syphilis from [[{{Squick}} examining an animal corpse]].

* DownerEnding: If you [[AmbiguousEnding believe what the ending despicts]], [[spoiler: mankind is naught but an aberrant growth of the flesh of the Heart of Darkness, meaning as long as we exist, so will it, until it ultimately "hatches" in earnest, shattering the planet like an egg. Faced with this knowledege, the Heir appears to commit suicide like those before them, taking up a pointless vigil as another ghost trying to turn away the next "heir" from [[EternalRecurrence coming to the Estate to start all this again]].]]

* DownerEnding: If you [[AmbiguousEnding believe what the ending depicts]], [[spoiler: mankind is naught but an aberrant growth from the flesh of the Heart of Darkness, and defeating it merely puts it to sleep for a time, and ultimately it will eventually rise again until it finally fully awakens and destroys the world. This is followed by a scene that may be depicting the Heir committing suicide and then appearing as a ghost before the [[StableTimeLoop arriving again at the Estate on a stagecoach]].]]

* DownerEnding: If you believe what the ending says, [[spoiler: mankind is naught but an aberrant growth from the flesh of the Heart of Darkness, and defeating it merely puts it to sleep for a time, and ultimately it will eventually rise again until it finally fully awakens and destroys the world. This is followed by a scene that may be depicting the Heir committing suicide and then appearing as a ghost before the [[StableTimeLoop arriving again at the Estate on a stagecoach]].]] However, [[AmbiguousEnding much of this is open to interpretation, and the source itself admits it is a deceptive force that was already trying to trick you beforehand]].

* DownerEnding: "Victory... A hollow and ridiculous notion." [[spoiler:[[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness Assuming you can trust anything you've seen]], the heir and their army successfully purge the monstrosities from several of the the most screwed-up dungeons they've ever seen, though the heir is forced to sacrifice half their party to finish the Eldritch Abomination hiding in the center of the Earth you've accidentally been feeding with the dead left in your wake... only to find the devastating truth: Mankind is and always was an errant protrusion of flesh of said EldritchAbomination, and our rotting corpses will continue to revive and sustain our creator after our deaths, meaning it can never be killed as long we exist. One day, inevitably, WhenThePlanetsAlign, what sleeps will rouse once more to hatch from this fragile shell of earth and rock and bring about our inescapable end. Broken and psychotic, the heir commits suicide as their forefathers before them, and haunts the estate as another ghost, pointlessly trying to stop the next heir from starting this Eternal Recurrence again. "Ruin has come to our family," wrote the Ancestor, but the family in question is the whole of mankind.]]

* AmazonBrigade: Each hero class is either AlwaysMale or AlwaysFemale. Beside the obvious (and unadvised) solution of a monoclass party, you can create a relatively balanced women-only party by combining an Arbalest, a Hellion, a Grave Robber, a Vestal, and/or a Plague Doctor. The game will even acknowledge you've done so with the party name "[[FemmeFatale The Femme Fatales]]" or "{{Valkyries}}"

* DownerEnding: According to the Ancestor, once you've slain [[spoiler: the Heart of Darkness]], your victory is meaningless because [[spoiler: as the Heart is only merely defeated and sent back into slumber, to awaken later on to destroy the world.]] In addition, [[spoiler: the Heir is implied to have committed suicide and become a ghost haunting the Estate]]. Then again, [[spoiler: as it points out before the final battle begins, [[UnreliableNarrator the Heart is a deceptive monster and could easily be lying about everything]], and the scene where the Heir is implied to kill themselves is ambiguous as to whether it was from the Heir's perspective or the Ancestor's.]]
* DreadlockWarrior: The Hellion's hair on the sides of her head is arrayed into cornrows. The Arbalest has her dreadlocks pulled back into a ponytail.

* LetsPlay: Done by DiploRaptor with Jib being a long running game though Diplo admits they may never do the darkest dungeon because he would want too try the Leper thing. The series is currently on hiatus until someone buys Diplo the Crimson Court DLC

** Healing outside of battle is very limited, healing abilities are not cent per cent reliable, and any character who dies is lost forever.

** Your inventory is incredibly limited, leading to the dilemma of bringing enough torches and food to move through the dungeon and having enough space to gather the treasure from the dungeons. And if the lights go out, then your party will take constant stress damage, while both friend and foe gain high critical chances. On the other hand, treasure rewards are greatly increased...

** [[spoiler:This being said, the Heart of Darkness clearly empowers the Occultist's dark powers rather than the light (as the Occultist calls It the face of his tormentor), so this combined with the ''rather impious'' Ancestor's history makes for a virtual guarantee that the narration is unreliable, and the Ancestor (or the avatar masquerading as him), or the Heart, or both are lying. Given that the Ancestor speaks in the first person in the final boss fight, betrayal is certainly possible, even likely.]]
** [[spoiler:As the Heart of Darkness seems not to have planned to lose and the Light still supports the heroes until the end, it is pretty likely that there indeed is a God who is well meaning towards humans and the heart did lie. It really has no reason to tell all of the truth, after all, and it gave a breaking speech after its defeat. In addition, given its propensity for arrogance, it is very possible that it outsmarted itself in giving the Occultist his dark powers. Bonus points if the Occultist is the one to land the killing blow.]]
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Is also possible. [[NintendoHard Just very difficult to do so.]]

Visit their website [[http://www.darkestdungeon.com/ here.]] On February 3, 2015, the Steam version was released as an Early Access title. The game was fully released on January 19, 2016 for Microsoft Windows and OS X computers, with a Linux release on April 26th, 2016, and a release for UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/PlayStationVita consoles on September 27th, 2016. A paid DLC expansion named ''The Crimson Court'' was released on June 19th, 2017 for computers, and on August 22nd, 2017 for consoles. The [=iPad=] version was released on August 24th, 2017, and ''The Crimson Court'' is scheduled to be released later this year.