Character · from book 1
Mordecai
The tutorial guide assigned to Carl and Donut: a former crawler, born skyfowl, who chose Changeling and reached the eleventh floor of his own season, now serving out an indentureship as a shapeshifting NPC in a guild room with his mother's ashes and a photograph of his brother. He is bound by rules about what he may say, and he says as much as he can.
Race and class, since book 3: Grulke · Infantry
First appears: Book 1
Series arc
As of book 3. Guide, then manager, then absent for a week: an Incubus, and on the fourth floor a Grulke toad, who gets his own door when the party's space reaches level five. Book 1 set the rules and two facts beneath them — a contract, and a history with Odette; book 2 rewrote the contract and let the history leak; book 3 puts him in a room with Chaco, the Prize Carousel's host, at whom he throws a chair mid-introduction, and Chaco's apology, left with Carl, is the book's one new fact: something was done to Mordecai on his manager's orders so that Odette would not be lost. Back, he reads the floor as the Syndicate's map and Borant's cartoon, explains the rules of summoning as something he learned 'The hardest way possible.', and slaps Carl over the Ring of Divine Suffering without freezing. The conversation about gods is still deferred.
Open threads
Status is open or resolved; the chapter after it is the last one that moved the thread.
| Thread | Opened | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Mordecai's advice to leave Donut before the ninth floor | B1 ch. 7 | open · B3 ch. 21 — Carl admits he never warned Donut about Hekla because he thought she might be better off. |
| 'There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege' | B1 ch. 25 | open · B3 ch. 32 — Mordecai's rules of summoning; the Cookbook's; Grull himself. |
| Mordecai's contract, and his history with Odette and his brother | B1 ch. 29 | open · B3 ch. 7 — Seven days in time-out for a chair thrown at Chaco; he only gets one warning, Clarabelle thinks. |
| King Rust's deity sponsorship, and the Grull gauntlet | B2 ch. 26 | open · B3 ch. 33 — The sponsor turns out to be the Maestro, not the king; Grull summoned twice and ejected. |
| Mordecai's 'unfortunate' experience with gods | B2 ch. 26 | open · B3 ch. 32 — 'I learned it the hard way. The hardest way possible' — and Chaco's apology names Odette. |
| What Chaco did to Mordecai, on his manager's orders | B3 ch. 7 | open — 'If I hadn't done it, he'd have died. And then we'd all have lost her.' Mordecai will not discuss it. |
| The Ring of Divine Suffering, to be talked about on the fifth floor | B3 ch. 19 | open — Frank's revenge; Mordecai: the sixth-floor hunters come for its owners. |
All threads: Open threads.
Through book 1
The guide whose help is always shaped by what he may not say. Book 1 establishes the rules of that shape (no boss weaknesses in advance, nothing about the next floor, nothing when the cameras are on) and the two things underneath it: his contract only counts if a crawler reaches the fourth floor (B1 ch. 29), and his history with Odette and with a brother who was a crawler (B1 ch. 47, B1 ch. 48). Two sentences of his: 'There will always be clues' and 'There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege' (B1 ch. 25).
Through book 2
Book 2 changes his contract twice: from guide to manager by Donut's trick (B2 ch. 1), and from indentured to free by Donut reaching the fourth floor (B2 ch. 25). Between, an Incubus with a drinking problem and a stolen newsletter who supplies every trick that keeps them alive. The history keeps leaking: Odette was with him on the sixth floor (B2 ch. 13); the manager benefit upset him for reasons he will not give (B2 ch. 15); and, from Odette, 'He has a lot of experience in the subject' — gods — 'unfortunately' (B2 ch. 26). Free, protected, and still bound to Donut's saferooms, he goes down to the fourth floor with them.
Through book 3
A Grulke toad on the fourth floor (B3 ch. 2); his own door at last when the space hits level five (B3 ch. 3); and then seven days in time-out for throwing a chair at Chaco, the Prize Carousel's host, whom the fans voted into the room on purpose (B3 ch. 7). Chaco's apology, left with Carl for the absent Mordecai, is the book's one new fact about his history: 'I was just doing what his manager told me to do. If I hadn't done it, he'd have died. And then we'd all have lost her. We'd have lost Odette.' Back, he reads the floor as the Syndicate's map and Borant's political cartoon (B3 ch. 30), explains the rules of summoning as someone who learned them 'The hardest way possible.' (B3 ch. 32), and slaps Carl over the Ring of Divine Suffering — 'It is evil' — without freezing (B3 ch. 30). He admires the landmines and does not ask where they came from.
Trace
The thread line by line, in reading order: its presence before anyone could see it, and the lines that made it legible. Each line is verbatim from the cited book.
| Where | The line | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Book 1, Ch. 12 | "He had that photo of his brother cradled in his rat arm, and a pile of empty bottles littered the floor." | The brother is on the shelf from the first guild room (ch. 3) and in Mordecai's arms when they wake him after the Hoarder; nothing is said about him. |
| Book 1, Ch. 25 | "There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege." | Said solemnly after the Grull gauntlet, in answer to Carl's question whether it makes a difference; Carl cannot make sense of it. |
| Book 1, Ch. 47 | "I almost chose a skyfowl class, something called a Storm Commander. But Odette talked me out of it. My brother ended up picking it instead, on her recommendation." | The brother was a crawler, and Odette steered him; Mordecai will not continue. |
| Book 1, Ch. 48 | "But the short answer is I pushed him too hard, and he paid dearly for it." | Odette's own account of what she owes Mordecai, in one sentence. |
| Book 2, Ch. 13 | "Odette made me spend a lot of time learning about that stuff when we made it to that floor." | A slip: Odette was with him on the sixth floor of his own crawl. Carl and Donut both catch it and say nothing. |
| Book 2, Ch. 15 | "It's not you," he finally said. "It's complicated." | Why the manager benefit upset him: not the party, something he will not name. |
| Book 2, Ch. 26 | "He has a lot of experience in the subject, unfortunately." | Odette, on gods: Mordecai has a lot of experience of them, unfortunately; what kind she does not say. |
| Book 3, Ch. 7 | I was just doing what his manager told me to do. If I hadn’t done it, he’d have died. And then we’d all have lost her. We’d have lost Odette. | Chaco, to Carl after Mordecai's chair and time-out: something was done to Mordecai on his manager's orders, for Odette's sake. |
| Book 3, Ch. 32 | This… this is very important to know. I learned it the hard way. The hardest way possible. | On a god pulled from one summoning to another. |
Where they appear
| Book | Chapters they are in (of the book's) | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl | 32/48 | 2–8, 11–15, 20–21, 25–30, 32–33, 35–37, 40, 43–48 · the book's own page |
| 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario | 26/26 | 1–26 · the book's own page |
| 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook | 28/35 | 1–10, 12–13, 15–16, 18, 20–21, 23–25, 27, 29–35 · the book's own page |
By book
Mordecai in book 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl
Part 1 — the drunk in the guild room
A level-50 Rat Hooligan with a photograph of his brother and an urn of his mother's ashes (ch. 3), Mordecai is the book's exposition and its conscience. He tells Carl what the crawl is, that it is his last tour, that the deepest any crawler has gone is floor 13; he explains species, stats and ratings (ch. 4), inventory and safe rooms (ch. 5), and is cut off mid-warning as the tiara goes on (ch. 7): 'You can always leave the party.'
He is bound: he may not name a boss's weakness before the fight (ch. 25), may not discuss the Desperado Club or the third floor, and answers the question of whether the bosses will always be people with 'there will be a lot of… recycling' (ch. 12). Within those limits he gives the book its method — 'There will always be clues. Look for them' — and its warning: 'There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege' (ch. 25).
Part 2 — the Bugaboo
On the second floor he is a seven-foot obsidian Bugaboo with a tidied room (ch. 35, ch. 47) and a history. Odette was his trainer; he would rather devour his own children than work for her again (ch. 35), and she admits she pushed him too hard and he paid dearly (epilogue). His brother was a crawler who took the Storm Commander class on her advice (ch. 47); he will not say more. Damien is a name he flinches at.
With the cameras off in Zev's presence he says what he cannot otherwise: the Bloom, the badges, the bankrupt kua-tin system, and Borant forced by its own government to end the game as fast as it can (ch. 36). Odette has told Carl the rest — Mordecai's contract only counts if one of his crawlers reaches the fourth floor (ch. 29) — which is the motive under every piece of help he gives.
Mordecai in book 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario
The manager
An Incubus in a tuxedo, three hours in formal wear, waiting to run the jury room (ch. 1) — and then, tricked, Donut's manager: no codex, no television, teleported to every saferoom she enters, and paid by her survival. His first act as manager is to get blackout drunk in twenty minutes and materialise with his pants down (ch. 4); his second is to drug a bopca and steal the newsletter (ch. 8). 'Managers only have one rule.'
What he gives the party is the whole floor's method: the finger-breaking trick (ch. 6), the Elites lecture (ch. 7), the Pestiferous Vine's poisoned-blood weakness (ch. 10), Eklund's name for the program and the Satch Toad cure (ch. 9), the cinnamon-and-thistle potion that saves Mongo (ch. 12), doppelgangers and wombats in buckets (ch. 21), Suppurating Eye (ch. 21), liches who never shut up (ch. 23). He is wrong about the lich and says so.
His own story leaks out sideways: Odette taught him the sixth floor's plants — she was with him there (ch. 13); Quint remembers when he was supposed to be free (ch. 15); the manager benefit upset him for reasons that are 'complicated' and 'nothing to do with you' (ch. 15). Managers are system-protected from the fourth floor and freed the moment their ward reaches it. Carl's last chat message on the floor: 'Congratulations' (ch. 25). Odette's last word on him: 'He has a lot of experience in the subject, unfortunately' — the subject being gods (epilogue).
Mordecai in book 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook
The toad
A Grulke — five feet of warty toad, level 50 — no newsletter as a manager, only court notices (ch. 2). He engineers the conjoined level-five space and gets his own door back: 'Thank the gods' (ch. 3); a schedule on a whiteboard, a map of the lines that outgrows the board (ch. 3, ch. 7); Special Brew, stat potions and Fragmenting Potion Balls from a level-three alchemy table (ch. 7). Then Chaco walks into the room and Mordecai's tongue throws a chair: Naughty, seven days, his room gone with him (ch. 7). 'He sure knows how to hold a grudge, that’s for sure. It’s been hundreds of cycles […] If I hadn’t done it, he’d have died. And then we’d all have lost her. We’d have lost Odette.' Clarabelle: he gets one warning, she thinks (ch. 8).
Back
He returns to two skulls, a blood-soaked room and a recipe book (ch. 29), and within minutes sees the ring on Carl's hand. Divine Suffering rings are what the sixth-floor hunters come for; every Faction Wars champion wears one; 'It is evil.' He smacks Carl on the side of the head and does not freeze — 'Don't touch me ever again' (ch. 30). Over Katia's map he reads the floor as the Syndicate's own history — the logo, the H'lene waystations, the Apothecary and the Plenty — and calls it a racist political cartoon (ch. 30). He admires the landmines and the healing smoke and says nothing about where they came from. On summoning he knows more than the Cookbook does, and why: 'I learned it the hard way. The hardest way possible' (ch. 32). 'If it's a Carl idea, it's probably a brilliant idea that's going to get you killed' (ch. 31).