Can someone please explain to me how the Chalice Dungeons work?
I'm pretty sure I finished my first one... I put the Pthumeru Chalice down on a grave, got down to Layer 3 and killed W
of the O
L
on my first attempt (I found it really easy somehow).
What do I do now? I have two other chalices from my dungeon crawling. t's not explained at all.
Basically, completing a Chalice dungeon (up to the last one, obviously) will grant you one or more Chalices as a result of beating the bosses. Most likely, one of these will be a "Root" Chalice; this creates a randomized dungeon, probably the one you're currently playing, and generally isn't for progression.
The second Chalice that you get generates the next "progression" dungeon. For example, the last boss of the first Chalice dungeon should give you the Chalice you need to create the dungeon you need to do next, and so on and so forth. However, the process does become slightly non-linear because some of the Chalices (like Isz) are from the normal game content, not the Chalice dungeons themselves; as a result, you can skip a lot of the process if you can get the necessary materials to start these dungeons. (Though, you'll probably need to run the intermediate dungeons to get the Ritual materials, anyway...)
Basically, you want to progress to the end of Isz, then the Defiled Pthumerian Chalice, and then the final Pthumerian Chalice that unlocks from the end of that. Make sure you create at least one dungeon that uses Offerings along the way (Fetid/Rotted/Cursed) if you want to be able to enter dungeons with those modifiers.
There's not much point to the intermediate dungeons other than to progress to the end dungeons. There's very, very little loot before Depth 5; don't be surprised if you walk away with a set of Beast Claws and some garbage gems to show for the entire trip through to the end of the Defiled Chalice.
TL;DR: Unless you're enjoying the Chalice dungeons, you might want to look up a step-by-step guide to burning through to Depth 5 Pthumerian dungeons ASAP. Otherwise, you're in for a grind.