Fantasy
Free to startA dwarf forge gone cold, an elven wood that will not turn, a dragon awake under the mountain.
The armory
Gold banks home from every descent. Spend it on the weapon, armor or charm you carry next.
Text RPG for iPhone and Android
Every door opens onto a chapter written for you.
Sub Rosa is a LitRPG you read and play. Walk richly written dungeons room by room, choose how to fight or talk your way through, and watch your character level up across a whole book of adventures.
22books to read
12genres, from fantasy to the Viking Age
20descents in every book
~27hof story per book
How it plays
A book you walk, not a run you repeat
One character carries you through five chapters. Your progress stays with you between sessions.
i.
Pick a book
Choose a world and name your protagonist. Place four stats by hand: attack, defense, charisma and intellect.
ii.
Descend, room by room
Read each room, pick a door, and decide how to face what is behind it: strike, brace, speak or study. Dice decide the rest.
iii.
Grow between chapters
Level up mid-descent, unlock traits, spend gold in the armory, and carry relics home into the next chapter.
Written whole
Dungeons with a story that holds together
Every dungeon is written in full before you step in, so a clue in the fourth room can pay off in the nineteenth. The road out of one chapter is the road into the next.
The Merrow road climbs west from the coaching inn into the hills, and at a cairn of white quartz the mine track leaves it.
Real progression
Numbers you can see climbing
The prose stays clean. Underneath it, a compact system block shows the rolls, the damage and the experience you earned.
- Experience from kills and well-read checks
- Level up in the room that earned it
- New traits at levels 3, 5 and 7
- Five callings: duelist, scholar, silver tongue, warden, delver
Combat
Every round is a choice
Strike, brace, speak or study. Each action rolls against a difficulty set by the enemy, and the result decides what you take and what you give. Deeper in, spells and rare special strikes open up.
Fall in battle and you lose a breath, not your character. Your level, gear, gold and relics always stay.
And more
Everything you keep
Relics
Bring up to three relics home from a victory. Each one changes the next descent in a small way.
Hidden truths
Notes, inscriptions and dialogue add up. Find enough and the dungeon's secret comes out before its boss does.
The chronicle
Every finished descent is saved in the words you read it in. A finished book reads back as a book.
The study
Creatures, truths and endings you have met are collected in one place, whether you won or fell.
Harder roads
Trials with stacking bindings, and ironman descents with one breath and bigger rewards.
The shelf
Twelve genres, twenty-four books
Start free with Fantasy, Pirates or Western. Subscribers can open every shelf.
Pirates
Free to startThe Nassau shore, a silver fleet on the reef, and a king's pardon with a deadline.
Western
Free to startA cattle drive north to the railhead, a railroad west into the mountains.
Sci-Fi
SubscribersIce on the Moon, dust on Mars, the long dark out to Jupiter.
Horror
SubscribersAn island through its year of old rites, a valley before the water comes.
Feudal Japan
SubscribersLacquered keeps, oni shrines on the pass, the long quiet of a closed gate.
Steampunk
SubscribersA smoke city of mills, sewers and wires, and the great iron ship that crossed the ocean.
Atomic Era
SubscribersA winter in a city cut in two, and a radar line across the Arctic.
Mythic Antiquity
SubscribersBronze-age labyrinths, oracles still mid-sentence, tombs not done speaking.
Renaissance Venice
SubscribersPlague islands, glass furnaces, masked palaces, the wine vaults at the end of the galley road.
The Outbreak
SubscribersNight wards, stopped motorways, a broadcast promising a ferry to somewhere safe.
The Viking Age
SubscribersA longhouse in the polar night, a ship bound west for Vinland, silver on the river road east.
The weekly descent
One dungeon. Everyone. Seven days.
Each Monday a new dungeon is drawn, the same for every player. One attempt a week counts toward your standing; the rest are practice. Placers earn coin, and a paragon’s name is kept on a dated trophy.
Included with a subscription. Past weeks stay open as unranked practice.
- Paragonthe few who go furthest
- Ascendant
- Contender
- Survivor
Pricing
Start free. Go deeper when you are ready.
Billed through the App Store or Google Play. What you earn while free comes with you.
Free
Try a full chapter
$0
- The whole first chapter of one book, every depth
- About five and a half hours of play
- Fantasy, Pirates or Western
- Your character and relics are kept
Monthly
Every book, cancel anytime
$4.99/ month
- All 24 books and every chapter
- Every chapter at every depth
- The weekly ranked descent and its prizes
- Ironman descents
- A new book each month
Lifetime
Pay once, keep it forever
$19.99one time
- Everything in Monthly, forever
- Over 600 hours of play across 24 books
- Costs about four months of Monthly
- Restore on any device you sign in to
- No subscription to cancel
Lifetime is per account and restores on any device you sign in to.
Is it multiplayer?
No. Sub Rosa is single-player. The weekly descent lets you compare standings with everyone who played the same dungeon, but you always walk it alone.
Does it need an internet connection?
Yes. Your character, your book and every room live on our servers, so each descent needs a connection.
What happens if I die?
Each dungeon gives you breaths: one for a small descent, up to four for an epic. Falling uses one and sends you back to the last rest at full health. When they run out the chapter starts again, but your character keeps their level, stats, gold and relics.
Is every descent different?
Within a book, each chapter at each depth is one fixed dungeon, the same way a book reads the same for everyone. The weekly descent is the exception: a new one every week.
What carries between descents?
Your protagonist: their level, stats, traits, gear, gold and relics persist across all twenty descents of their book. Each book has its own protagonist. Your study and your chronicle are shared across every book.
How long does a descent take?
Small: 15 to 30 minutes. Medium: 45 to 60. Large: 90 to 120. Epic: two hours or more. A whole book is about twenty-seven hours.
Can I cancel Monthly anytime?
Yes, from your App Store or Google Play account. It ends at the close of the current billing period.
