Ontology is the account of what exists in Delvehold and how it can become alive or capable of acting for itself. The setting’s supernatural beings and systems share an underlying process: mana allows patterns to take physical form. When those patterns persist, they retain memory. Feedback—what happens when a system acts and responds to its surroundings—can turn that memory into agency.
The articles below explain this process, from mana and local dungeon cores to larger living systems and divinity. This is a model of how the setting works, not knowledge everyone within it shares. Dungeon sentience remains a contentious fringe academic debate.
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Recognizing something as alive or capable of making choices does not establish that it is wise or innocent. An ancient planetary mind can be cruel. A civilization can itself be alive and still injure the dungeon it inhabits.
Nor does explaining a god as a persistent symbolic organism make its religious role or power disappear. It still receives worship and exercises divine power.