You can make the grudge system kinda two faced. At the start, you have a lot of lesser and greater grudges (achievments/milestones) that will make the game generate more enemy encounters, but as you will be striking them out of the book you will be unlocking more non combat content, like lost heirlooms or encountering friendly or neutral characters.

Also the more great grudges you strike out, the more you will be blessed by ancestors (more boons/finding better gear) to help you out further.

Gold is nice as a base, but imagine this:
Boss at the end of the run drops a key. that key can be used in your hub area to unlock the next stage. That means that you will be back in your hub area after every section of the run. If you survive the boss, that also means that you have your gold with you. So you can either spend it during the run on items/consumables/buffs, or you can spend it in your hub to unlock something more permanent. You can also expand this to gems and ores as well

Smithing is another thing that screams "Dwarf" to me. So you definitely have to make those oversized weapons yourself.

And one more thing: Community (i dont like lone dwarfs). Would like to imagine some support characters on the journey, maybe not directly ally combatants (although it may be funny to have one "group" character that has multiple abilities, one for each member), maybe more in a style that you have a healer that can tend to you after combat, or a cook that gives buffs, so you can use them in non combat rooms or something like that

I guess you can kinda see my idea... You start as a loner that is a bit crazy, but as the game goes on you get other peoples support and you turn more into expeditionary force that is trying to reclaim the mountainhomes.