Delving is not a free-for-all. The Guild Accord regulates who may enter which dungeon, both to keep delvers alive and to keep dungeon threats from spilling into the wider world.

Licensing. Anyone who wants to delve legally registers with the Guild Accord for a license. Newly found or especially rich sites are often put to auction or awarded by contract, and shifting dungeons like the Endless Abyss run on scheduled rotas so groups are not stumbling over one another. When a dungeon suddenly threatens the surrounding land, the Accord can grant emergency access or send a trained task force.

The Delver's Keystone. Every licensed delver carries a keystone, a palm-sized stone or medallion attuned to its holder. It proves your identity and rank, opens warded checkpoints you are cleared for, logs your delves, and can call for rescue if you are lost or in danger. Before entering, a party synchronizes their keystones so they share the same living map and can signal one another. This matters most when a dungeon shifts around you, and some dungeons have sync points where you can recalibrate to the current layout.

License tiers. Your keystone's tier rises with your standing in the Guild Accord, from the entry-level Foundling's Keystone up through Adventurer, Wanderer, Trailblazer, and the veteran Paragon's Keystone, each unlocking more upgrade slots and clearing you for greater depths. See the Delver's Keystone page for the full ladder, the requirements to rise, and the upgrades you can fit.

Where the gate is, and isn't. The dungeons that surface at random across the world, blooms, sanctified and stabilized sites, ancient ruins, are not gated by rank. A licensed delver may attempt any of them, and if you wander into something past your strength, your keystone's Emergency Beacon is how you call for help. The Elder Depths are the exception: they are gated by depth, because the deeper you go the worse the Riftblight punishes the climb back out. Your tier is the measure of how deep you are cleared to descend and still return, see The Riftblight Ascent for the depth bands.