Shrine

The dwarven shrine, generally called the shrine, is the main objective of the game as a whole. Dwarves are meant to defend the shrine, while monsters aim to capture it. Most maps, though not all, have more than one shrine which must be captured in order. Once all the shrines are captured the game ends in the dwarves loss, as there is no way for dwarves to keep monsters at bay forever.

Shrine Order

Shrines have different amounts of health, capture rates, and dwarf to monster ratios depending on the order they are in on a map.

First shrines, depending on the map, are usually strong in that they have a large amount of shrine health, but weak in that they cannot be quickly regenerated by dwarves. Monsters standing on the first shrine will do long lasting damage to their health even if it does not capture it. One single monster is also capable of causing more damage than a number of dwarves can counteract. Most first shrines are also outside and ranged combat is much more effective than on later shrines to stop the monsters, but monsters also get a much larger amount of area to traverse.

The interim shrines, once again depending on the map, are usually faster to regenerate but have a lower amount of health. Less dwarves are necessary to counteract the monsters capturing it but monsters can capture the shrine much faster. These shrines vary in location from outdoors and indoors so their general combat defense can also vary, but the areas are usually more restrictive in where the monsters can move around in.

The final shrine almost always has the least health of any shrine and regenerates much faster than the others, as well as requiring the least amount of dwarves to counteract capturing monsters. Final shrine rooms are generally small and only have a few entrances to give the last remaining dwarves an advantageous battleground before they eventually fall.

All monsters except for Infiltrator Skeletons with the final level of their Infiltrator upgrade are instantly killed by the dwarven gods if they stray too far beyond the currently active shrine.

Shrine Mechanics

In order to capture a shrine, monsters only have to stand on or directly around the shrine blocks. The easiest way to know if the monster is within range to capture the shrine is to check if the monster is gaining one additional monster mana per second than usual, as the shrine provides this to incentivize monsters to stand on the shrine and progress the game.

For dwarves, shrines generally provide light and also deny Zombies from the ability to use their final upgrade, Furious, in order to deal additional damage to isolated dwarves. Dwarves can also put Gold into the shrine by right clicking the item on the shrine blocks of an active shrine. Any shrine that is behind the currently active shrine does not allow gold to be deposited.