Delverium Beginner Guide: Your First Shelter, Tools and Cave

Updated October 3, 2026 · Delverium Guide

Talk to the Forager near your starting area, activate the nearby Journey Shrine, then build a small valid shelter in the Plains. Prepare a weapon, armour and food before exploring the first cave for copper. This order gives you a return route and a place to organise supplies before deeper progression.

Early Access · community reference observed October 3, 2026; later official changes take precedence

Choose the kind of run you want

Use Start for solo or local play and Online for a hosted online or mixed session. Character creation and world creation are separate: choose your death penalty for the character, then choose the world's difficulty, size and Horde option. A larger world is not established here as an easier one.

Complete the first settlement loop

1. Speak to the nearby Forager and read the advice offered. Activate the starting Journey Shrine so later discoveries have a useful return destination.
2. Use the axe for trees and the pick for stone and ore. The hammer removes placed items; it does not replace the mining tool.
3. Choose a Plains site near the shrine. Build walls, flooring, a door, light and a bed around an internal area of at least 2×3 tiles. Follow the room checklist if the game rejects it.
4. Use the bed for the shelter's spawn/sleep functions and prepare a separate room when recruiting an NPC. A house outline without the required furniture is not enough.
5. Craft a proper weapon and armour rather than relying on the starting tools for combat. Carry usable healing food.

Make a short first-cave trip

Look for copper, useful chest contents and a villager in the nearby cave. Your starting pick can mine copper. Return to the base to use a furnace and the crafting list; collecting ore does not mean the finished bar is already in your inventory. The copper guide explains the four-ore bar recipe.

Keep the first expedition short enough to bring supplies home. A small planted plot and a Cookpot make the next trip easier to prepare; neither requires building a large town first.

Pick the next guide by the obstacle

If a recipe is unavailable, check ingredients and stations. If a villager will not settle, check the room and assignment. If you have equipment but no progression clue, follow the lore-marker route. Those problems have different solutions; another hour collecting wood will not solve all three.