Motif · from book 1
The gods
'There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege.' A gauntlet that can transfigure a worshipper of the war god Grull into the god himself; a deity-sponsorship program that opens on the fourth floor; a tree goddess whose banished elves think Donut is the antichrist. What the in-game gods really are is a subject Mordecai keeps putting off; the Cookbook says the big ones are sponsored by rich off-worlders who pay to play a game called the Celestial Ascendency, and Tin writes: 'The aliens are wearing the gods like clothes.'
Every god the books have named, their family and enemies, and the mythology: the pantheon.
First appears: Book 1 · Seen for what it is: Book 2
Series arc
In hindsight, after book 2
Read after book 2, the gauntlet's warning and Mordecai's solemn aside in book 1 are the first two mentions of a mechanic the series keeps deferring. Book 1 has the line ('There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege.') and a throwaway from Zev about deity sponsorship; book 2 has Mordecai putting the subject off twice, a Divine Guardian on the twelfth floor, an elf cult's Oak Mother, and Odette's parting warning that King Rust has bought a god — probably Grull — to get at Carl, and that Mordecai's experience of the subject is 'unfortunately.' The Trace below has the lines. What the in-game gods are is still unexplained; who pays for them is not.
As of book 3. 'There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege.' Book 1's gauntlet warning and Mordecai's insistence; book 2's deferrals and Odette's warning that King Rust has bought a god; and in book 3 the god himself: the gauntlet's counter is cumulative, Grull is nearly summoned by accident — a ten-second countdown Carl beats by killing the vessel — and then summoned on purpose into a portal, and his sponsor is the Maestro. What the books now say a god is: thousands exist and most never leave the twelfth floor; an involuntary summoning lasts vessel level plus god level in seconds; a god grows to fill his chamber, has no cooldown, and can be pulled from one vessel to another; one bolt can pause his invulnerability; and, per Tin's note in the Cookbook, gods are Soul Armor the aliens wear like clothes. Mordecai learned the rules 'The hardest way possible.' and has not said how.
Open threads
Status is open or resolved; the chapter after it is the last one that moved the thread.
| Thread | Opened | Status |
|---|---|---|
| '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. |
| 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. |
| The Bolt of Ophiotaurus | B3 ch. 29 | open — One bolt, 1 of 100, for a god's eye; a sister's message to her brothers. |
| The Maestro is alive, and drives Grull | B3 ch. 33 | open — 'my brother had already brought me into the dungeon.' A third humiliation. |
All threads: Open threads.
Through book 1
Through book 3
Mana Genita on a tiara and 'Most of them never leave the 12th floor' (B3 ch. 2); the gauntlet's counter is cumulative and starts a ten-second summoning of Grull that Carl beats by killing the vessel (B3 ch. 11); a bolt for a god's eye (B3 ch. 29); the Cookbook's three summonings and Tin's Soul Armor theory (B3 ch. 32); Mordecai's arithmetic and his 'hardest way possible' (B3 ch. 32); Grull himself, sponsored by the Maestro, ejected by a second vessel (B3 ch. 33). The conversation Carl was supposed to have with Mordecai is still deferred.
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. 25 | "Warning: if you use this weapon to strike adherents of the war god Grull, you have a 1.5% chance to transfigure your target into the deity himself. […] You don't want to do that." | The gauntlet's card. A god that can be summoned by accident, in an item Carl is still wearing at the end of book 2. |
| Book 1, Ch. 25 | "There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege." | Mordecai, suddenly solemn, answering Carl's 'Does that really make a difference?' Read after book 2: a description of deity sponsorship before anyone names it. |
| Book 1, Ch. 44 | "Not until the sixth floor. Or if they spring for a deity sponsorship this season." | Zev, listing what a hostile government can do to Carl. The mechanism, named in passing. |
| Book 2, Ch. 3 | "That's a whole different thing, and those don't appear until the fourth floor. I'll explain that later." | Mordecai's first deferral, when Carl asks about gods on the walk into the Over City. |
| Book 2, Ch. 17 | "Gods and goddesses. In-game deities. We'll get to what they really are later." | The second deferral, mid-lecture on Apito. 'What they really are' is the phrase to hold on to. |
| Book 2, Ch. 26 | "And King Rust has apparently just spent a lot of money on a deity sponsorship." | Odette's warning. The privilege has been paid for, by the man Carl called a pussy on live television. |
| Book 2, Ch. 26 | "He has a lot of experience in the subject, unfortunately." | Odette on Mordecai and gods. The thread joins Mordecai's own. |
| Book 3, Ch. 2 | There’s thousands of them. Gods, I mean. Only a few are dungeon regulars. Most of them never leave the 12th floor. | Mordecai on Mana Genita's tiara, before deferring the conversation again. |
| Book 3, Ch. 11 | The description never said it was a cumulative chance. | The gauntlet's counter reaches ten percent; a ten-second countdown to Grull, beaten by killing the vessel. |
| Book 3, Ch. 32 | Once he’s summoned and then unsummoned, you can bring him back right away. There’s no cooldown. | Mordecai's rules of summoning, on the last day. |
| Book 3, Ch. 32 | The gods and goddesses are Soul Armor. | Tin's note in the Cookbook: what a god is, and why a spell could strip the alien out. |
Where they appear
| Book | Chapters they are in (of the book's) | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl | 2/48 | Ch. 25, Ch. 44 · the book's own page |
| 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario | 6/26 | Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 7, Ch. 17, Ch. 20, Ch. 26 · the book's own page |
| 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook | 6/35 | Ch. 11, Ch. 24, Ch. 29, Ch. 32, Ch. 33, Ch. 35 · the book's own page |
By book
The gods in book 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl
Two mentions, both sidelong. The Enchanted War Gauntlet of the Exalted Grull warns that striking a worshipper of the war god has a 1.5% chance of transfiguring the target into the god himself, and Mordecai, suddenly solemn, adds that Grull is not a real god — 'There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege' (ch. 25). Zev, listing what other governments cannot do to Carl before the sixth floor: 'Or if they spring for a deity sponsorship this season' (ch. 44).
The gods in book 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario
'What about gods?' — 'That's a whole different thing, and those don't appear until the fourth floor' (ch. 3). A Divine Guardian on the twelfth floor, a Country Boss (ch. 7). Mordecai defers again on 'in-game deities. We'll get to what they really are later' (ch. 17) while explaining Apito the Oak Mother; her antichrist, the Oak Fell, comes in chat (ch. 20). Odette, off air: King Rust has bought a deity sponsorship, probably Grull; be careful with the gauntlet; Mordecai has a lot of experience in the subject, unfortunately (epilogue).
The gods in book 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook
Mana Genita on a tiara — 'a pretty obscure one […] Most of them never leave the 12th floor' (ch. 2); the gauntlet's counter revealed as cumulative and a god summoned into Gore-Gore for ten seconds (ch. 11); Nekhebit and Apito on a crossbow's card (ch. 24); a bolt for a god's eye (ch. 29); the Cookbook's three kinds of summoning, Forkith's oath, Tin's theory that the gods are Soul Armor the aliens wear (ch. 32); Mordecai's arithmetic — vessel level plus god level in seconds, no cooldown, a second summoning steals the first, 'I learned it the hard way' (ch. 32). Then Grull himself: child of Taranis and Apito, level 250, invulnerable on this floor, sponsored by a prince, ejected by a second vessel (ch. 33). 'Yeah, I'm supposed to ask you about gods.' 'That can wait' (ch. 2).