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Characters

The main cast, the people who recur, and everyone else the books name. Through book 2.

The party

The supporting cast

The people the story keeps coming back to.

With them from the start

Recurring

Present in three or more of the books read, by how often.

Everyone else

Everyone else the books name, grouped by the book that first names them. Open a book, or type a name.

Book 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl 27
  • Agatha — A homeless woman with a shopping cart, an IKEA bag of spray paint and a pink flamingo with an arrow through its head, who set fire to the eldercare facility and walked down the dungeon's stairs cackling. Level two without ever going through the tutorial. She is edited out of the recap episode, and her cart is not what it seems.
  • Bea — Beatrice, Carl's ex-girlfriend, Donut's owner and handler, in the Bahamas, with her ex-boyfriend along, when the world ends. Never on the page in person; present in Carl's resentment and in every one of Donut's sentences that begins 'Miss Beatrice.'
  • Brandon — Brandon An — a maintenance man at Meadow Lark with a comically large lightning hammer, whose group spray-painted 'Stairs + People' on the walls, and who will not leave the surviving residents behind. He builds the redoubt with Carl and names it the Speedbump.
  • Chris — Chris Andrews 2 — Brandon's older brother, near-silent ('Silent Bob'), who casts a magic spear and pulls the residents' train in a tuskling pig harness.
  • Ferdinand — Someone Donut loved from the moment she first saw him, whom she invokes on her deathbed after the Juicer and in her drunken confession under the Krakaren, and ranks above Carl. Carl asks, 'Who the hell is Ferdinand?' She will not say.
  • Frank Q and Maggie My — A married couple — whom Carl takes for police by their bearing — who stumbled into the dungeon with their teenage daughter and were told by their guide that the only way to survive was to kill other crawlers. Frank has three skulls when Carl meets him; Maggie has five. Their daughter, Yvette, would not.
  • Hekla — An Icelandic woman in a Valkyrie helmet with a repeating crossbow that shoots firebolts, whom the show dresses as a shieldmaiden and who gathers an all-female party, Brynhild's Daughters. Seen only on screen in the first book.
  • Jack this book only — A Meadow Lark resident in a Cincinnati Bengals hat who pokes the women and asks 'You still alive, Marybeth?' He urinates on a dungeon wall on the second floor after the system has announced that doing so summons a Rage Elemental.
  • King Rust — King Rust of the Skull Empire, 'who recently arrived in earth orbit': the orc king named on Odette's show, quiet about his son being called Carl's Naughty Little Piggie.
  • Lexis — Odette's associate producer, a thin not-quite-human woman with a tablet who walks the guests to the couch and tells them where the invisible walls are.
  • Meadow Lark (party) — The party of night-staff and residents from the Meadow Lark eldercare facility in Wenatchee, Washington, camped at the borough boss's stairwell on the first floor when Carl and Donut find them: four able-bodied workers, Agatha and thirty-three elderly residents, with about thirty more in a Waffle House safe room nearby. The Royal Court of Princess Donut fights beside them without ever joining them.
  • Mistress Tiatha — 'Our tutorial guide lady, Mistress Tiatha': the Meadow Lark party's guide, whom Brandon calls their guildmaster, and who told them where the stairwells are.
  • Mrs. Parsons this book only — Carl's first-floor neighbour, leaning out of her window to complain about the howling cat when the building is crushed. She is the first person he watches die.
  • Mukta this book only — The Admin who substitutes for Zev during her suspension, overrides her booking, and puts Carl and Donut on the Maestro's show with the words 'You seem to be under the impression that you have a say in this, crawler.'
  • Prince Maestro — Host of Death Watch Extreme Dungeon Mayhem, a gold-tusked orc in a pink silk shirt who calls his teenage audience 'piglets' and makes doomed crawlers guess who dies for the chance to save one another. A prince of the Skull Empire, bound for the ninth floor, and — after Carl humiliates him on air and an anonymous 'snick' goes viral — known across the tunnels as Carl's Naughty Little Piggie.
  • Prince Stalwart — Crown Prince of the Skull Empire and the Maestro's older brother, who, Zev says, owns the production behind the Maestro's show. Carl wonders whether the voice that threatened to drown him and Donut when they tried to walk off it was his.
  • Ralph this book only — Level 11 Neighborhood Boss: a frenzied gerbil, champion of the kobold fighting pits, whose mouth opens as wide as a dingo's. Swallowed by a freed dingo, blown out of it, stunned, and smushed under Carl's bare foot.
  • Randall this book only — A Meadow Lark resident with a walker who pushes into the boss arena to see if the kids are all right; killed beside Yolanda by the Rage Elemental.
  • Rebecca W this book only — A level-3 crawler with a koi-and-crane sleeve tattoo, found naked and dead against a wall 200 metres from a safe room with an apple core in her inventory and Killed by Crawler Frank Q over her corpse. Frank's story makes her a human trafficker; the Maestro's footage shows she was just afraid.
  • Rory and Lorelai this book only — Two level-7 goblin shamankas — one pierced fifty times, one in a bone necklace — whom Donut charms into tears and a chopper by asking whether the piercings are a daddy thing. They start a meth war with the llamas on her word.
  • Tally this book only — Bopca Protector of the first safe room Carl and Donut find, a hairy, motionless gnome in a paper hat with a Slavic accent who makes the best vindaloo Carl has ever eaten, special-orders salmon for Her Highness, and explains what happened to the last planet the Squim Conglomerate ran.
  • The Ball of Swine this book only — Level 15 Borough Boss: thirty tuskling knights and courtesans fused by war magic into a rolling sphere of flesh that guards the stairwell to floor two. Popped like a balloon by the Speedbump, then slaughtered in their tuxedos and gowns.
  • The Hoarder this book only — Level 7 Neighborhood Boss: a fifteen-foot woman in PINK sweatpants buried in a room of garbage, vomiting Scatterers, begging in Spanish to be sent to Jesus. Carl beats her to death with his fists and a dog leash, and never forgets it.
  • The Juicer this book only — Level 9 Neighborhood Boss: a troglodyte fused with a bodybuilder, curling in a gym boss room and throwing flaming weight plates. 'Bro, I need a spot, bro.' Donut opens his neck vein and nearly dies of it.
  • The Rage Elemental this book only — Level 93 penalty mob summoned by urinating on a dungeon wall, a six-legged badger skull in purple smoke that dissipates only after 666 souls. Kills Yolanda and Randall, besieges a chicken restaurant for most of a day, and is lured into a stairwell to dissolve.
  • Yolanda Martinez this book only — Yolanda Martinez 13, a four-foot-eleven CNA from Meadow Lark with a bow and a quiver that drags on the floor. She is the one who has to shoot Jack. She dies standing over Randall when the Rage Elemental comes, and the book stops to give her an obituary.
  • Yvette this book only — Frank and Maggie's teenage daughter, who wept in the tutorial guild, refused the gun her mother put in her hand, hid under Maggie's stealth field in the safe room, and was hurt by Carl's rat-corpse trap before her mother strangled her.
Book 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario 26
  • Apollon the Mighty this book only — The circus strongman, an ogre Elite with a vine growing from his neck, who sells cones of writhing white worms — 'Iced Cream' — from a stand in the big top. Carl eats one. His face is the middle head of Signet's three-headed ogre tattoo.
  • Burgundy this book only — A dark-haired human clerk with one blue eye and one brown, who wishes Carl luck on the magistrate's stairs — and is, by night, a krasue: a woman lured from another town with the promise of work at the Desperado Club, twisted by Remex, and cursed. She gives Carl the truth from the wreckage with her legs burned to charcoal and asks Donut to kill her while she is still mortal.
  • Clarabelle — The crocodilian on the Desperado Club's door, a level-40 employee who recognises Mordecai in any body — 'You know that disguise can't fool me' — and wants Mongo kept in his carrier.
  • Eklund this book only — A game guide in the skyfowl town, Mordecai's old friend, 'too smart for his own good,' who tells him the name of the program Carl has walked into: Vengeance of the Daughter.
  • Eunice and Ricky Joe this book only — The family next door to the elves' temple: Eunice, a level-30 Fathom Dwarf, heavily pregnant mother of fifteen, who takes a rolling pin to the elf whose spell bounced a rock off her boy's head and goes into labour that evening; and Ricky Joe, level 2, who ties his pet salamander Benjamin to a stick, punches a velociraptor, and loses his arm to Mongo, who swallows it along with Benjamin, eaten for the second time, and gives it back when Ricky Joe demands it.
  • Fitz this book only — The fat, bald, level-30 human on the sign of the One-Eyed Narwhal and behind its bar, who has never had royalty in the Narwhal, strokes the photo of Bea, weeps for GumGum, trades free rooms for Hair-of-the-Dog potions, and raises the night patrol against a lich that isn't one.
  • Gordo this book only — Bopca Protector of the Belly-Rubbed Pug, who has to ask Mordecai to sheath his sword, drinks himself under the table with him, and is dosed with a potion so Mordecai can read the bopcas' newsletter in his kitchen. 'You two are so dead.'
  • GumGum this book only — A level-5 orc, blood-stained and drunk, who piles the twisted bodies of murdered out-of-town prostitutes outside the gates each morning because nobody else will, and asks the adventurers for help. Her mother, a lady of the night too, was stabbed and crawled home to die on their stoop. Tortured and killed by the city elves within hours of Carl accepting her quest.
  • Heather the Bear this book only — Grimaldi's roller-skating black bear, weeks from retirement when the cataclysm came: now a level-19 boss with a skull for a face, a pink clown hat fused to the bone, worms for claws and a tutu. Carl fights her alone so that Signet can use her blood as the sacrifice; a splat of healing custard frees the old bear from the worms, and she asks with her eyes to be finished.
  • Ifechi — Eighth on the first leaderboard: a human Physicker, level 18, whom Carl does not yet know.
  • Kimaris — A charred glass case from Miss Quill's collection in the magistrate's office, holding a plush armoured man on a black horse, tagged Kimaris: the most valuable thing in Carl's inventory when it is sorted by value.
  • Magistrate Featherfall this book only — The medium skyfowl settlement's magistrate, a dark cleric who wanted more control of the guards and was killed by the feedback of the spell he cast to get it — long before Carl arrives. Found hanging naked and mummified in a bone dreamcatcher, a fetish keeping the krasue bodies safe by night.
  • Manasa this book only — A famed naga singer, cobra-headed, her latest single ranked eighth in the universe — and a Valtay contract: the real Manasa died long ago and a worm drives her body. She swaps production trailers with Carl and Donut so they can shower, and dies by Prince Stalwart's pulse in their place. Her last performance is played a cappella to a silent studio.
  • Miriam Dom — The woman who brought fifteen goats into the dungeon and, by the third floor, has five left, three unchanged, one an armoured biped and one a hellspawn familiar; a human Shepherd, fifth on the leaderboard.
  • Miss Quill this book only — Level-30 skyfowl 'assistant to the Magistrate,' keeper of three hundred beanie babies and the gate to Featherfall's office, granddaughter of the Over City's royal family and the real power in the settlement: a mage with a forgery spell, a dead husband for a battery, an army of krasue, and a three-generation genocide spell two nights from completion. Killed by three sticks of dynamite hidden in her own shelves.
  • Princess D'nadia — A Saccathian — a Sac — princess of the small Prism kingdom and regular on Danger Zone: tentacle-faced, outspoken, a fan of Carl and Donut, and Manasa's oldest friend. Condemns the Skull Empire on air the night her friend is killed.
  • Pustule — Level-30 hobgoblin proprietor of Hobgobs and Boom Sticks on the Silk Road: a weeping sore on her cheek, a unicorn T-shirt, excellent hearing, a dead mother who bit the head off a vorpal muskrat, and tables of goblin and hobgoblin dynamite, smoke bombs, detonators and claymore-like mines. Sells him hob-lobbers and smoke curtains and licks his boom jug.
  • Quan Ch — An Imperial Security Trooper, level 15 on the third floor, who calls Carl and Donut fucking assholes in the quest chat, is blocked by Donut, survives the wild-magic burst with his own gear turned against him, and opens the one Celestial box Borant cannot veto.
  • Quint — The Desperado Club's pharmacist: a level-75 half-djinn, half garbage-scowl — an opossum head on a small tornado — and a former crawler who chose it as a race. Mordecai's old friend and supplier. Advises Carl and Donut not to make a deal on the tenth floor.
  • Remex the Grand this book only — Miss Quill's late husband and the magistrate before Featherfall, yanked back from death as a Soul Leech Capacitor — a featherless, smoking skyfowl huddled above the swordsmen's warehouse, storing the soul power of everything that dies in town. Not a lich, not a boss, a bereft minion, and once a crawler: 'a tenner.' He has to tell the whole story before he is allowed to end.
  • Ringmaster Grimaldi — Redstone Grimaldi, dwarf ringmaster of the Over City's beloved travelling circus, transformed by Scolopendra's cloud into a level-85 Pestiferous Vine filling the centre ring of his own big top — and, through spores and worms, keeping his transformed family alive and obedient. An Elite and a city boss; the love of Signet's life. Carl poisons him, un-poisons him, and talks to him from the inside.
  • Ripper Wonton — Host of Danger Zone, a disgustingly cute Setonix — a quokka — in an orange Fred-from-Scooby-Doo scarf, fair to his guests and furious at his friend's murder. His director Evo is a Soother, a glowing, hairless race whose likeness turns up in Earth's alien stories; the Null, Evo says, are the ones humans called the Grays. The show's round table is where Carl gives the speech.
  • Scolopendra — The monster at the bottom of the volcano in the Over City's founding story, whose nine-tier poison cloud transformed ninety per cent of the kingdom; named, never seen. Every mold lion, clown and city-elf superstition on the third floor traces back to the cataclysm.
  • The 201st Security Group this book only — A doomsday cult of banished city elves in fake military uniforms who worship the skyfowl as angels of Apito the Oak Mother and believe Donut — wearer of an oakwood anklet — is the Oak Fell, the antichrist. Twelve, then nine. Their champion Vicente loses his head to a Magic Missile; the rest burn outside their own temple.
  • Tsarina Signet — A level-60 Elite of the Over City — half naiad, half high elf, naked but for a thong and a skin of living tattoos that are her Blood-Magic battle squad. Star of the scripted drama Vengeance of the Daughter; runaway to Grimaldi's circus; the bastard daughter of a high-elf king with business on the Hunting Grounds. She tries to bleed Carl for a spell before she trusts him.
  • Tucker this book only — A stuffy human stand-up comedian on the Danger Zone panel who objects to a pet on the panel and is called Butler for half an hour. Sides with the kua-tin, warns Carl that advocating sedition is a crime, and is told to shut the fuck up by a princess.