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 4. '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; book 3's god himself — Grull, summoned by accident and then on purpose, sponsored by the Maestro — and the rules: thousands exist and most never leave the twelfth floor, a god grows to fill his chamber, one bolt can pause his invulnerability, gods are Soul Armor the aliens wear like clothes. Book 4 gives the pantheon a shape and Carl a god. The feral gods are the beasts from before, banished into the Nothing by the pantheon that made the world, mad from it, and loosed one at a time when the Gate closes. Emberus — blind, level 250, locked to sponsors, Taranis's youngest brother and Hellik's twin — walks the Lacuna for his murdered son's puppy and becomes Carl's god on a falling biplane, with a tithe, a shrine, two sun tattoos and two quests: find Geyrun's killer, and kill Hellik before the twelfth floor. Algos, the god of pain, is what Maggie's grenade would have summoned; Psamathe, a minor deity banished by her father, lives as half a sex doll's head; Ysalte is blocked by a patch note. Clerics and paladins pick a god at class selection; gods lose their invulnerability on the twelfth floor; gods that meet fight or mate.
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 · B4 ch. 32 — Carl worships one: Emberus, taken on a falling biplane, with a tithe and two quests. |
| King Rust's deity sponsorship, and the Grull gauntlet | B2 ch. 26 | open · B4 ch. 14 — Both princes sponsor Maggie and arm her with a grenade for Algos; their sister's bolts stop it. |
| Mordecai's 'unfortunate' experience with gods | B2 ch. 26 | open · B4 ch. 32 — Mordecai explains withering spirits, feral gods and the Ascendency; the conversation about his own history is still deferred. |
| The Bolt of Ophiotaurus | B3 ch. 29 | open · B4 ch. 31 — Not used on Emberus; Katia keeps it. |
| The Maestro is alive, and drives Grull | B3 ch. 33 | open · B4 ch. 31 — Not seen; his grenade summons Carl's god instead of his. |
| Emberus's two quests: who killed Geyrun, and kill Hellik | B4 ch. 32 | open — A smite if Carl leaves the eighteenth floor without the first; a smite if Hellik lives past the twelfth. A tithe, a shrine, a high cleric at Club Vanquisher. |
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.
Through book 4
The feral gods, banished before the pantheon and loosed by a closing gate (B4 ch. 15); a minor deity split in two (B4 ch. 24); a Celestial Grenade and Algos (B4 ch. 14); Sinjin's and Azin's notes on worship (B4 ch. 30); Emberus, blind, summoned, and taken by Carl as his god, with two quests (B4 ch. 31, B4 ch. 32); gods that fight or mate when they meet; a turkey; Ysalte blocked (B4 ch. 33).
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. |
| Book 4, Ch. 14 | It’s not Grull. She worships another god called Algos. | Chris from inside: Maggie's grenade would summon the god of pain; both her sponsors are Skull Empire princes. |
| Book 4, Ch. 15 | They are the gods from before. The immortal beasts who roamed the heavens before the pantheon banished them into the Nothing and created the world. | Juice Box on the feral gods. |
| Book 4, Ch. 28 | all gods lose their invulnerability on the 12th | Mordecai, asked whether a feral god is invulnerable like a regular god. |
| Book 4, Ch. 31 | » This is a locked god. There will be no sponsors of this deity this season. | Emberus's card in the Lacuna. |
| Book 4, Ch. 32 | » You have a received a boon from your god! | Carl has a god. |
| Book 4, Ch. 33 | The feral gods who’ve been escaping are random, and sometimes new even to us. | The patch note after the bubble escapes; some secondary summonings blocked, Ysalte among them. |
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 |
| 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods | 14/35 | 1–2, 4–5, 12–14, 21, 23–24, 31–34 · 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).
The gods in book 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods
What the fifth floor says a god is
A tab to worship Grull; Pawna, goddess of peace, his sister and enemy; 'the other deities tend to notice' (ch. 2). The feral gods: the ones from before the pantheon, banished into the Nothing and driven mad, who come through when a gate closes (ch. 15); Psamathe, a lesser deity, split in two, who lies about who she is (ch. 21, ch. 24); the Celestial Ascendency on the twelfth floor, 'whackadoodle business' (ch. 24); a Celestial Grenade that summons the wielder's god; Algos, god of pain; Enyo's nuns (ch. 14). Sinjin's note on worship — rules, boons, smiting — and Azin's: 'Stay the fuck away from gods' (ch. 30).
Emberus
Geyrun murdered, Emberus blinded, Orthrus lost; a blind god walking the Lacuna (ch. 28, ch. 29); summoned into a biplane's path by a grenade after Carl takes him as his god (ch. 31); two quests, a tithe, a shrine (ch. 32). Gods that fight or mate when they meet outside the twelfth floor and unsummon; a turkey god killed by Prepotente; Ysalte, the Vinegar Bitch, an extinction event Borant blocks (ch. 32, ch. 33). Samantha's mother tears a demon in two for her (ch. 34).