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Characters

The main cast, the people who recur, and everyone else the books name. Through book 5.

The party

The supporting cast

The people the story keeps coming back to.

With them from the start

Joined along the way

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 14
  • 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.
  • 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.'
  • 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 16
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
Book 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook 33
  • Astrid — A level-125 Bloodlust Sprite with cardiovascular magic — 'one of the most metal things ever' — who hovers over Donut at the Desperado Club on behalf of management, refunds four hundred of five hundred gold and grants complimentary security. The club's assistant manager.
  • Babababoons this book only — 'A standard earth baboon crossed with the population from a Florida jail drunk tank' — the AI is proud of this one — in ripped T-shirts, the first mobs seen in stage two of the DTs and the first inside a transit station.
  • Bin the producer this book only — A grey who produces Planet Beautiful: he began it alone to record the cultures being erased, and now Titan wants ratings, an AI writes the scripts, and he is being punished for succeeding.
  • Chaco — Host of the Prize Carousel: a winged, wolf-headed Song Bard, level 66, 'giver-of-prizes, slayer of gods, former Crawler champion,' in a checkered leisure suit. Mordecai throws a chair at him on sight. '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.'
  • Dismember this book only — The war mage in the third car of the Dismemberment Limited, silver-haired and elf-looking though he says he is not, who has eaten six parties and needs eight more iterations 'and you'll know exactly what we are.' Beheaded through Donut's Hole spell mid-monologue. Every named train, Carl guesses from the recap, has one of his kind.
  • Donita Grace this book only — A crawler on Carl's chat who could not tell a colour from a name ('The Fulvous line is a subway'), and whose last message came from station 24: 'Millions of them.'
  • Dreks this book only — Level-6 demonic babies in packs of fifty at Sirin Station, who cannot open a sliding door until one of them can; scraped to paste by a Protective Shell cast on a moving train, along with a hedgehog ogre called a Psycho Sticker.
  • Fire Brandy this book only — Fire(wo)man of the Nightmare Express: a level-75 Lesser Demon MILF sealed in the boiler, giving birth every five minutes for sixty days, one in ten thousand viable, the rest becoming the Sheol Bricks the train burns. A German accent, two and then three living children, a contract she takes seriously, and — once Tizquick tells her about his daughter — the memory of a boat and a castle and other children who never came back. She drives her train into the abyss.
  • Fleshers this book only — Skins torn from fallen soldiers by a ninth-floor war-mage spell, sentient, looking for bones; hundreds of them slap at a gangway chock on the Dismemberment Limited. A Flesher that finds a skeleton becomes a Symbiote — Levi — and each resleeving makes the next one smarter.
  • Forkith — Author of the Cookbook's 20th edition, an Urgyle Sapper who reached at least the eleventh floor, annotated the whole book, taught readers how to append notes to passages, and mourns his sister Barkith.
  • Gore-Gore this book only — Ochre line engineer, a ManTauR — a man's body with a second torso and pair of arms where the neck should be, blue Braveheart paint, Wolverine claws — level 40, an adherent of Grull, who explains the abyss gate to 'Princess Donut' and then, told who crashed his train, fights as a neighbourhood boss. Electrocuted on the third rail with a war god ten seconds from arriving. The mantaurs are the last employees to 'hold the faith.'
  • Ji-Hoon this book only — A level-21 Knife Sharpener, twenty-five, who put a backstab dagger into Donut on the Desperado dance floor while a companion stunned the guards. Donut's Cockroach skill held, and he died on the floor with his throat slashed: Donut's first skull.
  • Jikininki — The Tangle's janitor ghouls: seven-foot, chattering, in conductor's suits, who leave you alone if you don't bleed, litter or trespass. They board at station 12, swarm the wrecks at the bottom of the abyss, and are generated at 12 by a soul crystal — the word 'ghoul' on this floor covers them, the Festering, Blister and Wrath kinds, and worse.
  • Levi the Seventh this book only — Driver of the Dismemberment Limited: a Troll Flesher wearing a hobgoblin skeleton, the seventh iteration of a war-mage spell called You're Not Done Yet, who begs every party not to board and screams for the whole trip. Saved, once, when Carl pulls the war mage's head through a hole.
  • Limp Richard this book only — Mole Man general-store keeper at station 83 with sixteen Earth paperbacks, one missing its ending, who trades five for five Louis L'Amours and later the Battery Fabricator for the rest and a jug of moonshine. 'There are a lot of my kind on this floor… They're all book hogs!'
  • Madison this book only — Iron Tangle Human Resources Associate, level 10: a soccer mom in a white dress and one heel whose description is a divorce, Pilates and a book club, who tells dwarves that overtime is mandatory, invented the gold armband that marks troublemakers as edible, and, Carl suspects, has never seen her apartment. Left at station 60 to wait for Rod; hanged there by the dwarves and gremlins once they understood.
  • Pierre this book only — Yellow line porter, a Grapple — 'your everyday quarter giant,' a slave race bred down from hill giants — who hands out one suitcase per crawler per line from the Porters' Reward Room in car 10. Number one held lingerie and an invisibility potion; number eight held Literal Fire Ants.
  • Princess Formidable — The youngest child of King Rust, sister of Prince Stalwart and Prince Maestro, and Katia's sponsor from the fourth floor: her first gift is one crossbow bolt, 1 of 100, that pauses a god's invulnerability if it hits the eye. 'I'm starting to think the sister isn't a huge fan of her big brother.'
  • Red Cornets this book only — Banshee Station's mobs: skinless, eyeless, human-sized rabbits, a devolved Lepus with an echolocation attack that renders everyone but Mongo Queasy, tapping empty vials of their fix. Cleared for science.
  • Silfa this book only — A fifty-year-old Wisteria Fairy Holistic Healer of Brynhild's Daughters, half Donut's size, who owns a bakery and has two mage daughters in the party. Told to stop healing Katia and to hide in the mantaur's apartment; the bait in Hekla's plan, Carl believes, and the one who tells Carl the party is over.
  • Sinjin — Author of the Cookbook's 15th edition: the sapper's-table recipe for a hobgoblin smoke curtain soaked in healing potion that mass-kills undead.
  • Terminus this book only — Station 433, the 'last transit station' every employee tells you to get off at: one of six station mimics — a city boss, level 90, 23,000 crawler deaths — that swallows the first twenty of Bautista's four hundred like cheese rings, and later, as a railroad crossing on the tracks, is scooped whole into Trainyard E. Cut in half by Grull. Its minions are mouths on centipede legs that double when halved.
  • The Desperado Club cretins — The other two of the four Desperado Club cretins delivered as mercenaries: switched from the party to Donut's own minions, keepers of the sleep-potion ball Samantha refused to carry, and the stagehands who raise a painted mainsail over thirty velociraptors.
  • The earlier editions this book only — The twenty-four crawlers whose notes fill the Cookbook: Porthus the Rogue who received it as a blank sketchbook; Forkith, an Urgyle sapper who lost his sister Barkith and asked readers to kill an enemy in her honour; Drakea under the Naga — 'Once lit, a fire is easier to stoke than it is to extinguish'; York on the hive that never meets except in the book; Herot's Worn Path Method; Coolie on deities. Carl is the twenty-fifth.
  • The Kravyad this book only — Not bosses but Human Resources: blue, six-armed naga who hypnotise conductors and porters into a 'pre-production stupor' between shifts, are paid in a dwarf or two a shift, and are lifebound to the employee portal at station 435 — kill one and it closes. Bautista's group's did.
  • The Night Wyrm — A name on a ring: the Enchanted Night Wyrm's Ring of Divine Suffering, Frank Q's revenge, 'for the discerning Crawler Killer', whose owners, Mordecai says, are the first the sixth-floor hunters track down.
  • Tin — Author of the Cookbook's 21st edition, who noticed that the gods and goddesses are Soul Armor — bodies worn by off-world drivers — and could in theory be stripped with an armour-removing spell once their invulnerability is beaten.
  • Tito this book only — Wheel of Fortune croupier at the Desperado casino, a one-toothed human mountain: 'Also, the guy who will stab you.' Nothing! on his wheel is a trapdoor.
  • Tizquick this book only — A Mango line conductor weeping on the floor of station 60 because his little girl was never real. He stays to guide crawlers from line to line, helps Elle find the blown 72, tells Fire Brandy what he learned, and rides the Nightmare into the abyss with her: 'I know how this works.'
  • Vernon this book only — Yellow line train conductor, a dwarf, level 32, who drinks in the employee break room from station 10 to 435 and does it again: the first NPC to explain the loop — the train resets, he does not — and the duplicating drawing of a wife Carl takes for a made-up phantom. Burned to death by Donut's suitcase of fire ants.
  • Wendita this book only — The Bopca of station 83's Nirula's, talked from 50,000 to 37,500 by Donut and then paid with a coupon; in tears at the upgrades. 'I knew when you talked me into paying my own money it was nothing but a test.'
  • Widget this book only — Grease Gremlin technician at Trainyard E, level 19, Zev-sized under a wrench three times his length, who slides down a chain in a purse to tell the party the station is closed, the ghouls are near critical mass, and there was always an easier way — the Escape Velocity train. Beheaded by a ghoul Donut had already killed once, mid-wave.
  • York — Author of the Cookbook's 10th edition: pages of rambling philosophical essays by someone hive-born and alone, of which the one passage that stays with Carl calls the book a hive of those who will never cross paths except in its pages.
Book 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods 37
  • Batbilge — Author of the Cookbook's 12th edition, whose warning that the marketplace interface tags the book as an heirloom worth some fifty million gold is, by Allister's note, the last thing Batbilge wrote.
  • Bogdon Ro — A human Legatus, ninth on the leaderboard at level 31 and eighth by the end of the floor. Carl does not know who he is.
  • Bonnie — Commandant Kane's daughter, orphaned on the fifth floor and taken in by the changelings; on the sixth she builds a ballista from the Twister's garage-door opener, guts spider automatons on the guildhall counter while a bear cub tells her she will burn, and fights the mantises from the airship. Safe on the castle roof, and gone with the castle to the ninth floor.
  • Brad this book only — The man Bea went to the Bahamas with: filming a homeless man's arrest in an airport parking garage when the world went, too near a dungeon entrance he now dreams of ('I am a king'), stuck a month in a tent in New Queen Anne with a woman who cries herself to sleep. Shot by Lexis going for a pirate's pistol and left to bleed out.
  • Britney Proskurina — The Pit Fighter from the water quadrant who attached herself to Firas; on the sixth floor Donut's plus-one in a jacket of stuffed Slate Butterflies, a guitar virtuoso, the one who kills the ballroom's warning light, reaches the top fifty in time to be spared by the queen, and draws the last lightning with the rest of her coat. Her face does not heal; Firas dies beside her.
  • Clay this book only — Dromedarian gatekeeper of Hump Town, level 30, a Joe Camel with a homemade anti-air bazooka and five guided rockets on a string, who takes a blitz stick as the toll, tells the party to stay out of city hall, and laughs about it with his friends: the first scam of the floor.
  • Commandant Kane this book only — Commander of the dreadnaught Wasteland, holder of the second pocket watch and the other half of the hostage code, whose gnomes bombed the Bactrian town and who, by rumour, ordered the bombing of the changeling village, slept in a Texan plumber's bed with a drawing of his own wife and baby in the stolen frame, and was ripped to shreds by the goose his daughter kept as a pet. 'Ripped to shreds by Denise.'
  • Crixus this book only — The Vahana's level-52 Sniper Captain, in a black half-helmet like Carl's father's, with a wide-bore Tickle Stick and a bandolier of Live Ammo Balls; Hicks is the pilot. Both fall through the floor of their own basket.
  • Denise this book only — A white goose in a bloodied blue bonnet — the Feral Goose Mother, level 53 Borough Boss — Emperor Anser's granddaughter, plucked from the seventh floor through a magical gate and left too long in the Nothing, captured by the gnomes long ago and one of the pets Kane got Bonnie after Sausage. Magic cannot hurt her; the house's own objects can; she fires her teeth like shot. Killed head-first in a garbage disposal with one second on the clock.
  • Emberus — God of Sun and Ash, level 250, youngest brother of Taranis and twin of Hellik: blind since he plucked out his own eyes when his favourite son Geyrun was murdered, 'one of the most unhinged of all the pantheon', a locked god no sponsor may buy this season. He walks through the Lacuna shouting for his dead son's puppy, and becomes, by Carl's choice on a falling biplane, Carl's god.
  • Emerald this book only — A level-30 dromedarian woman digging through the rubble of city hall for a hostage who is already dead, who explains, once Donut compliments her headscarf, that proof of collateral goes to the gnomes every sunrise and that without it 'what happened to the Bactrians will happen to us.'
  • Gennrik this book only — A tentacle-faced saccathian pirate hunting the Walk-On List with Sadir to earn the Prism's buy-in bid, who lets the wrong cat go and says of the crawl that his family does this because they like it. Shot through the chest in Bea's tent by Lexis.
  • Ghazi this book only — The Mad Dune Mage: a level-43 human Glass Mage of the Larracos College of Magecraft, an unkempt man in a bathrobe with a fictional bard tattooed across his chest, who told his college he sought the Gate for teleportation research and in truth wanted to bargain with a lust god for a woman from a play. He summoned Psamathe instead, married her ooze by mistake, turned his castle to glass and himself to sand, and watches cartoons in his basement while his wife eats him. Punched out for the winding box; killed by Katia; turned to sand.
  • Gideon — A human tank-class crawler, active in the chats, allergic to dogs, who stays up in the Lacuna long enough to report a hairless gorilla god killed by a snake with Woody Harrelson's head, and a whip-carrying monster knocked loose from a bubble by the fight.
  • Gravo and Liddi this book only — Two Soothers hosting the Veriluxx New Toys Showcase, a toy commercial made to play at fueling depots: Gravo, a deadpan sheriff in a Styrofoam cowboy hat and a badge spelled 'Sherif', and 'Professor Liddi' in a Wish-dot-com Superman suit with cow-print cape, whose two favourite feeds are Donut's and Lucia Mar's.
  • Hellik — Emberus's twin, god of Sun and Life, the red brother who, in a dromedarian's telling of bubble 543's sky, chases Taranis and catches him four hours before dark — 'quite obsessed with killing both Emberus and big brother Taranis' — and the obvious suspect in Geyrun's murder, who was in council when it happened; Carl's god quest is to kill him.
  • Henrik this book only — An old changeling principal wearing a level-30 dromedarian, the true leader of Hump Town's shadow government, keeper of the pocket watch and of Wynne, the gnome hostage who cooperated for years and whom he drugged with Mairmei mushrooms once he resisted, visiting him in other shapes. 'Sometimes we do things that are not of our nature to protect our own.' Juice Box's brother. He goes into the tomb after the ghost and dies on the Akula's bridge, and the third piece of the Gate is looted from his faceless body.
  • Justice Light — Author of the Cookbook's eighth edition, a skyfowl of the white cliffs, whose note confesses a mistake: an NPC killed in anger who did not deserve it.
  • Kevin and Magnificent Troy — The recap's announcers — an orange four-eyed lizard and an orc in a sportscoat and tie — who narrate the submarine fight live, mugshots on fire, laughing while babies eat each other: 'We are live, ladies and gentlemen!'
  • Langley — Leader of six car salesmen from Helsinki — himself Ukrainian — who all chose Archer because the loot only ever gave them bows: level 24 when met, 32 when he leaves to hunt player-killer groups. His crew cover rooftops, fire the ground salvo that clears the Wasteland's escort, guard a stairwell in a closet, drag it across the sand, and escort every rescued crawler down the stairs. All six live.
  • Leon the Commissar this book only — Level-44 Dirigible Gnome Negotiator and chief political officer of the Wasteland — 'might have been a tax attorney in another life' — who comes down in the Vahana to inspect a hostage with a changeling-detecting spell, smells of perfume over a man rationed a gallon of water a week, calls the camels Anser's slaves, and is pushed off the rim of a hole in his own basket by an Astral Paw.
  • Lika this book only — A half-naiad trobairitz — a bard cleric under a vow of celibacy — and the fictional heroine of a popular series of Larracos stage plays, loosely based on a garbled history of Psamathe. Ghazi's Lika was a personal companion device made in her likeness, with a soul trapped inside, kept in a fountain as a cleaning pod, crystallised, and toppled by Mongo. Her head is Samantha.
  • Orren — A Syndicate Liaison: a hooded, purple-handed, British-voiced fact-finder — 'Not quite a sheriff. Not quite an attorney. Not quite a judge' — who investigates when the kua-tin's report and the AI's disagree, and who applauds the murder he cannot prove. Under the hood, a bowl of liquid and a Valtay worm.
  • Priestly — Author of the Cookbook's 14th edition and Carl's best source on the ninth floor: a note written in awe of Larracos — a living poem, a play to see before expulsion, a promised map — and a last entry, after the city fell, that was an incoherent jumble.
  • Quetzalcoatlus this book only — Emperor Anser's wife, buried alive with his court and now a screaming, bird-shaped ghost that walks through the tomb's walls: a Wailing Shrieker, the kind of ghost paranoid kings bred by plying women with affection so they would die of grief on hallowed ground beside the corpse. Killed by exorcism, banishment, the destruction of the lover's body, or electric shock; neutralised by any flesh-giving spell. She kills seven on the Akula's bridge, six of them changeling principals, turns a leviathan around, and dies when lightning reaches the water.
  • Rickard — Author of the Cookbook's most recent edition before Carl's, who added little but recorded that he entered the dungeon with his pregnant wife and that she vanished the moment he passed through the gate.
  • Ruby — A changeling orphan girl with Compression Sickness — a birth defect of the changelings' new world that leaves her without arms and with a sunken head in human form — patted on the head by Juice Box while a god screams outside.
  • Sadir this book only — A Null — a grey, guitar-pick-headed 'Roswell' alien, of a race whole systems bar — with children in a null commune in the Filt system and two strikes against him, who hunts the season's Walk-On List for a bounty crew in Seattle's freezing rain because the orcs raised the resident alien tax. He sees Beatrice and stammers her name; Odette's people frame him and plan to buy his warrant.
  • Shamus Chaindrive this book only — A paranoid, greedy bugbear treasure hunter who trusted only constructs, spent twenty years under the sea hunting the Gate of the Feral Gods, docked his great submarine against an underwater entrance to the tomb, and loosed Ruckus on his rivals. Long dead: a head in a jar on mechanical spider legs, broken by Chris on the Akula's bridge.
  • Skarn — A level-3 changeling juvenile in Hump Town whose village the gnomes bombed and whom a camel named Flint raises to charge a gold coin for anything: the salvaged FarSeerer on his roof, a look at the castle, the gold coin Carl promised every child who went to the shelter. He takes your own shape when you knock. By the end he is flying the Twister and charging the other children for rides.
  • Svern this book only — A level-49 Changeling Principal guarding the basement of city hall in a camel's shape, whose card is an essay about a widow's collection and the empty slot that eats at her. Killed asleep by Carl's foot; his corpse plays Henrik's under a robe on the sand.
  • The tomb raiders this book only — Five of the crawlers who started in the subterranean quadrant: Low Thi, a level-25 D-Bag Geek who speared the hostage; Tyler Storm, a Weather Engineer; Mike Barnes 3, a Banana Farmer in a banana costume; Morris Sp, an Arachnid Freelance Psychiatrist; and Bobby D.J., a twitching Spy who was the only one who could find traps. Possessed, drowned out, hunted by a ghost and by Maggie, they die one by one; the last two die connecting the cable that electrifies the tomb. 'All crawlers who originated in the Subterranean Quadrant may now freely travel to the other quadrants. […] Oh, wait. They're all dead!'
  • Tish this book only — The woman who was 'here the whole time': a colleague of Ghazi's who writes under the council's letter — 'Scolopendra will never be defeated now. We needed that artifact, and all you could think about was your cock' — and to whom his last note and the winding box were meant to go. Donut is outraged on her behalf.
  • Tran — The tired Swashbuckler from Gwen's team who went down the stairs with Katia's party; at the masquerade with the guild, he loses both legs in the pit and a healing scroll does not grow them back.
  • Vadim Zbar this book only — A level-28 Kuhli — a spotted gecko-like race — Gut Rearranger covered in daggers: a Ukrainian cosmetic surgeon famous for botched surgeries and, per Langley, fifty children; one of the Akula's three survivors and the only one who will go back. He leads the way, runs for the last escape pod when the sharktopus comes, fires it through the dead boss, and dies in it with a pain amplifier jelly.
  • Wynne this book only — Level-50 Dirigible Gnome Flesh Mechanic, Commandant Kane's favourite uncle and Hump Town's hostage for years, chained under city hall, starved and drugged so that he would cast the spell that gives flesh to a ghost. He tricks a stranger into spearing him rather than cast it, and his head, retrieved from a flooding tomb, is raised by Donut to fool his own people.
  • Xander this book only — A ragged, human-sized cyclops who keeps the All-Seeing Spleen under a hatch in the Soulless Prophet's land quadrant, cannot catch a thrown coin, and has only Jimbo soup and crackers: the prophet is dead, the Rat Queen died, and bloodworms hold the tunnels.
Book 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade 66
  • Ajib this book only — A one-legged level-29 Prodromoi from a popped bubble, second to last in the staging area's line.
  • Akland this book only — Moon Elf, level 51, Artillery Specialist of the Dream: an accountant who did well at fantasy hunter camp, won a place in the Faction Wars army and was paid to come somewhere that 'was supposed to be easy'. Caught by Samantha, handcuffed to a pole, and marked; his inventory holds biscuits and a gonorrhoea arrow meant for Louis.
  • Areson the Wise — Apollon's brother, a level-45 ogre strongman and an elite in Signet's crew, in the Hunting Grounds when Scolopendra struck: he ranges north keeping the trail clear, comes back with an arrow in his head and a hunter over his shoulder ('Yummy'), carries the sacrifice, is last seen on the head of the boss Carl's Protective Shell launches into the sky, and names Big Tina. A third of a dead nodling, born a toddler.
  • Arwick this book only — A hunter of the Dream carried into Signet's camp over the shoulder of Areson, who has an arrow in his own head, 'smooshed a little to de-bleat him': a poisoned arrow, and a children's menu from a Canadian diner with the hunters' map of the floor drawn on the back.
  • Bianca — Bianca Del Ciao, Prepotente's Hellspawn Familiar, level 32 when Carl first sees her: a goat with black flames that rise off her back at a threat, who pulls the cart Carl wakes in after his coma, and later a winged, saddled mount that looks like a dragon.
  • Biff this book only — Valtay Porter Bot 6.ff, who seats Carl at a table for four before a packed stadium with an empty space beside his chair: 'This is where you'll be sitting, Carl.'
  • Big Tina — An eight-year-old Ursine dancer transformed into an allosaurus in a pink boa and tutu, who runs away from the raptor pack, eats the bears of the towns downriver, becomes a vampire and then a level-80 Immortalized child summoning her dead back in pieces, and is owed a recital. The quest's answer is not the dance but her mother; at the party she finally says 'Mommy?' She leaves with the castle, still a dinosaur.
  • Bravvo this book only — A level-50 unaffiliated yenk hunter shot from the sky and tied half-burned across Nadine's saddles: dexterity his highest stat, nine Levitation potions and a slot inventory of health and mana in his pockets, a naked corpse in Carl's inventory afterwards.
  • Cascadia — A name on a stick — the Enchanted Stick of Cascadia's Screams — and then a voice: the woman who gives the daily updates, to Prepotente 'a nasty little woman who thinks she's smarter than everyone', who screams over the announcement system as the seventh floor comes apart. Mordecai knows of one Cascadia connected to the crawl.
  • Chin'Dua this book only — A level-50 Draconian Striver, unaffiliated, found snoring on a barrel with a Dirty Shirley in Zockau and used as bait: beaten to death and his head crushed as the barrels go off. His scaled hand is a trophy.
  • Circe Took — A minor hive queen of the mantis people: a businesswoman who owns an amusement park and whose family runs a fantasy hunter camp on a moon the Dream rents once a cycle, once a famous hunter, moderator of CrawlCon's 'Crawling Through the Ages' panel, and mother of Hunter Xindy and of Vrah. She cleaves a table through Carl on camera, sues to free her daughter, sponsors the god Diwata (selling half of all she owns to do it, Empress D'Nadia tells Donut), and dies in the castle pit torn apart by the god's children, screaming Carl's name.
  • Claude Sludgington the Fourth this book only — Eryops Gigantis, level 65 Borough Boss: a river squatter who came to the Naiad Confederacy's fundraising ball — thrown because their aversion to taxes left no money for the castle — and never left the throne room. Killed in thirty seconds.
  • Cleiton this book only — A Brazilian crawler of Team Flamengo in sapphire armour, first act of the talent show with an unprepared knock-knock joke ('I am poor knee'); dead in the pit beside Gwen. His teammate with the stone hawk Gimli — Osvaldo, a Curupira ranger — took the memorial crystal from Imogen's body before Prepotente could.
  • Clint Smashgrab — Level 50, Were-Kin, Light Recon Specialist: a three-foot warrior in studded leather and a Rambo bandana with a metal bar for a foot, one of six schoolboys of the Chee transfigured into were-castors by Imogen's own spell before her cleansers were sent in, bald and one-legged when not a beaver. He upgrades Point Mongo's southern wall and puts out a burning leg with his tail; torn apart under Fort Freedom in front of Holger, his body never found. He lives on as a child in Signet's ink.
  • Diwata this book only — A god of trees, squirrels and forest rats, one of Apito's brood but not a direct child, always changing sex, disliked by a pantheon that hates her power to give birth to ordinary new life: sponsored by Circe Took, born from a Crest hunter tricked into her temple as a birthing vessel, the dryads' blood flowing into his mouth, gone in five minutes to cure her daughter — as a male mantis — and stuck on the floor as a birthing female by her own spell. Mantises behead the security guards and Carl realises Diwata is in the castle; she is knocked out by Samantha's soul crystals, and is stripped from her driver by Laundry Day: 'has returned to the Halls of Ascendency.'
  • Dr. Ratchet this book only — A dwarf visiting the planet who borrows the studio for a demonstration and can see Carl there in the studio: 'Keep your head down.' His autographed Guide to Building Automatons for Fun and Profit is left in the empty studio on an Automaton Table, and its recipes become Spider Stalkers.
  • Drick — A bald dream elf on a CrawlCon panel with Carl, a former crawler from some four hundred seasons ago, stabbed in the back after a bar fight at a waystation and now under the control of a Valtay worm, who looks straight at Carl while he recites the Ballad of Survival and gives the advice Carl takes.
  • Edgar — A talking tortoise Donut chats with at Signet's camp — a Shell Mage whose secrecy spell hides an army, who sinks with the assault team, comes up with blood on his jaws like strawberry, and is the tattooist with the silver stick who sucks up the dead and inks them onto Signet's skin. He drew the castle map the whole plan runs on; Signet met him the night her mother died.
  • Edict this book only — Edict, Mantis, level 50, Merchant of the Dark Hive — 'I'm not a hunter' — an accountant of Deep Mind sent shivering to Carl's door as a salesman, who explains that finding the stars was the worst thing that ever happened to his people and chooses death in battle over three dishonours (ruin, revenge on his family, a forbidden mating): he lunges at Carl's crotch, is flagged Super Naughty, and is teleported naked into the nearest monster nest.
  • Effex this book only — A terrified soother who runs three and a half hours of autographs on animated photographs, mirrored across the galaxy by a magic Sharpie.
  • Eileithyia — A name in Samantha's half-remembered account of where Diwata came from — 'Something to do with the Vinegar Bitch and Eileithyia' — after which, sniffing at Katia, Samantha tells her she has her scent.
  • Elmer this book only — Mayor of the large Ursine settlement — level 40, pudgy, bespectacled, grey-muzzled — who takes Donut for a monkey and offers to execute both animals for 150 gold. Shoved off the town's edge by an Astral Paw, he finds every rock on the slope and dies at the water, where a naiad takes the body.
  • Epitome Tagg — Leader of the Dream and son of Epitome Noflex, whose photograph Louis snatched from Carl: he sends hunters onto the sixth floor, members of his family among them, not for the gear but to find Louis, who, a captured hunter says, besmirched his mother's honour.
  • Everly — Author of the Cookbook's fifth edition, an insectile crawler ('a spark in my chitin'): her notes on mercenaries, on a sponsor's box that saved her party, and on hope — then 'I take it back. I take it all back', her sponsor Dictum Waystation Controls, Limited having steered her toward a watched and heartrending death. Carl cannot stop thinking of her last entry as the masquerade nears.
  • Frito and Moxo this book only — Two gnoll guards on the Valtay vessel who install a tier-three bed panel and a door to the Ultimate Training Room, deliver a captain's regards, smoke on duty and leave a drugged vape behind ('The matter with the drug was business'). Moxo sings the Valtay jingle.
  • Future Huntress this book only — A level-50 Wire-Haired Orc of the Skull Empire, Boring Ol' Fighter, unlevelled, on her first battle, whose highest stat was charisma: the third orc at the all-tree, carried off as the sacrifice for Signet's spell.
  • G'valt this book only — A Bactrian camel who once wrote Session of Love, a play now performed only by NPCs on the ninth floor, who huffs smoke from a tumbler, says 'Eat my ass, Hurk', and passes out.
  • Garret — Tserendolgor's pet, a tummy acher received for going to CrawlCon: a level-20 lumpy meatball as tall as Carl, no arms, stubby legs, a giggling walk and a single-toothed mouth that could swallow him whole, and a tank for damage. 'People loved the thing.'
  • Goiter this book only — A bugbear council member hammering a roof in the bombed settlement, who says crawlers are not welcome until Carl says they are here to kill the hunters: 'This means we are friends.'
  • Haxor the Destroyer this book only — A level-50 unaffiliated Dreadnought merchant who walks out of the Desperado Club's men's room into Carl, who kicks him in the nuts, breaks his neck on the restroom floor, takes the body into his inventory and hides the cracked sink with a towel.
  • Holger — The were-castor with the mullet ('a sign of my dominance') and a sickle sword, who says the kindest thing anyone has said about Donut's singing ('You need lessons'), claims he can sense a spell being cast, has never heard the word beaver, and weeps for Clint and Miss Nadine 'like my mama died.' Back in his humanoid form and beaming when Carl and Donut reach the stairwell town.
  • Horton this book only — A mushroom crawler afraid of Elle, whose merch Ferdinand's hat resembles, and the second-to-last act: 'This is "Wonderwall,"' on a guitar missing a string, interrupted by the third floor exploding. Dead in the pit. 'It's always sad when we lose a fellow musician.'
  • Hurk this book only — A gleener in a tank, designer of the Desperado Club and 'perennial flower of the CrawlCon panel', blitzed, with a Shakespearean accent, co-judge of the juvenile quickdraw: he trades a perfect score for a compliment on his club, and sobers for a moment to say it has been a while since there was a crawler like Carl.
  • Ian this book only — A Bush Elf janitor in the staging area, once a human crawler, who breaks character to warn Carl: stay on the trail, stay out of Zockau, and beware Vrah, who killed his brother at a food stand last season.
  • Ikicha — Author of the Cookbook's 11th edition, a castrated male Yenk whose last entry is the sight of someone loved 'twisted and changed' and a warning that hope can be poison if it is blind.
  • Iota this book only — Hunter Iota, Crafter, level 50, Coin Tinker of the Crafter Alliance: a hairy, heart-headed cousin of the soothers with four pierced red nipples down his chest and a leg gone above the knee, teleported out of a saferoom pub into a pack of raptors, drunk enough to explain the primal AI before he dies mid-sentence. His nipple rings come out with a pop.
  • Jenn'ifer this book only — A human woman in her forties with a tentacle growing from the back of her head that has a Yorkie's topknot, a bow and a mouth, named Maggie; president of Princess Posse Inner System chapter 43, in a Society for the Eradication of Cocker Spaniels shirt. Orren summons Quasar into his office with her beside him, and both she and the tentacle burst into tears at the sight of the cat.
  • Keith H. this book only — Six or seven, a dead skunk for a haircut, who has drawn Carl being eaten by a brindle grub: 'My daddy says you're the cat's bitch.' Last place, with four.
  • Kibben — A level-50 High Elf Stablemancer in overalls, the first high elf with short hair, who cages the animals at the castle's freight door and lets Donut move her dinosaurs into the hunters' empty attendant ballroom.
  • Kiwi — A one-eyed level-60 mongoliensis pack leader with forty females behind her, Mongo's mate, charmed by Donut into a minion — and Big Tina's mother, an Ursine transformed with her daughter, who has followed the girl the whole time without her knowing. Turned back into a bear, pregnant, on the masquerade stage by the I Take It All Back potion; carried away with the castle to the ninth floor.
  • Lix this book only — A gnoll pup whose drawing of her pup-pop beating something, maybe an orc, to rid the universe of tax-avoiding scum, wins the juvenile quickdraw with ninety, by arrangement with her grandfather.
  • Miss Nadine — A Bearded Sage Caterpillar, level 50, waist-high, six saddles on her back — once the Chee day school's teacher, who chews the trail through the jungle with her boys riding her. Killed on the riverbank during the Fort Freedom assault, by the boss's lightning as she attacks it; worthy; remade by Edgar's stick as a blood and ink elemental, a young chee woman in a long skirt with a child behind it. She is given life on the masquerade floor: 'Forever. She gave us life.'
  • Nihit — A naga reporter for Elemental Collection Updates who bobs like a cobra, calls the Bea interview sedition and takes a pen in the neck: healed, pressing assault charges off system, a full citizen against a non-citizen, his brother married into the Blood Sultanate.
  • Ontario this book only — The hunter whose alarm traps mine the park around Zockau's stairwell; known only from his name on the cards.
  • Osvaldo — A Brazilian crawler of Team Flamengo, a level-60 Curupira ranger who looks human and puts his stats into dexterity: he brings his stone hawk Gimli to the masquerade's pet show ('He can turn people to stone'), and after the castle battle, Gimli eaten by Bianca, he is the one who takes the memorial crystal from Queen Imogen's body — the thing Prepotente says he needs against Scolopendra — and goes down the stairs with it.
  • Pearson this book only — A changeling once a dromedarian bartender, now in cretin form, who holds the Desperado's door and takes the map; dressed as a robed Signet in the last wagon to see whether the guards will attack her, and expelled from elf territory with an hour to leave, as Carl whispers to her, 'Get to the cave. Stick to the plan.'
  • Princess Lunette — Signet's mother, a true princess of the naiads, long dead — 'she taught me the meaning of grace and magic' — inked as a sad fish on Signet's wrist the night she died, and left on the ballroom floor as an Incomplete Flesh Golem: a weightless naiad body without a memory, in Carl's inventory for Samantha.
  • Prudence this book only — A barmaid of Prepotente Town Number Four hiding her cubs, Randy and Todd, who tells the story of Big Tina's recital and is given the guildhall; her cubs eat ice cream and tell the gnome girl she will burn. Never part of the plan to be saved, she is rescued anyway, and dies on the castle roof protecting two babies. Her Water Ballad is danced without her.
  • Quasar — A Null attorney in a hula-girl tie, hired after Carl says the magic words in Orren's office (he wants a lawyer), who sums up the job: 'I can't stop you from getting fucked. But I am the condom.' He calls a pending suit over private messages at fifty-fifty (it wins), secures an injunction against the hunters' outside help, licenses Sensation's Vengeance of the Daughter past the sixth floor, explains Zerzura and Remex the Grand's fall, and turns the Society for the Eradication of Cocker Spaniels into a non-profit that buys a Faction Wars spot. 'You're a taxpaying stockholder now.'
  • Queen Imogen this book only — Signet's half-sister, once King Finian's Sorcerer General, now Queen of the High Elves: High Elf Cleric Sorceress, Level 145 Country Boss, new this season and unseen until she fades into a wagon wearing the face of Ifechi's twin. The AI's card gives her no redeeming quality — a terrified girl afraid of dying like her father. She casts the Butcher's Masquerade for a boon nobody has earned, is sealed into her own party, and dies in the pit under blunt-force fire to a beat and a potion smashed into her face. Her prized necklace was a memorial crystal for Apito.
  • Sierra this book only — Sierra, Northropi Vampire, Level 65 Neighborhood Boss, 'a bereft minion of Viscount Fog': the mount of a vampire hunter, wounded and turned in a day, who fights to boss music of EDM, bongos and monkey screams while Carl lies frozen in the rain.
  • Skindle this book only — Zev's subordinate and the Popovs' associate at the autograph table, to whom Maxim complains they were left with one chicken.
  • Sydnee Iglacia — A small saccathian crawl historian in a dirty toga who scoffs through Circe's ten-minute lecture on primal engines, the overpopulated galaxy and the Indigenous Species Protection Act, is the one panellist who says she cares about it, and gets Carl's endorsement for the cover of A Petite Chronicle of the Crawl.
  • Tam this book only — A level-45 Light Cleric bear of Point Mongo who wants the naiad and dinosaur rules back and the holy shield of piety returned: the town was safe only because it did not sin, and 'a pagan monkey with a pet dinosaur' has ended that.
  • The Apothecary's spokeswoman this book only — A cloaked woman at the back of the panel, older than she looks, whom the audience shrinks from: she says 'Don't', identifies herself as one of Carl's sponsors and a sponsor of the con, and overrules the moderator. 'I have directed them to allow you to speak.'
  • The Funeral Bells this book only — Tall mushroom men with white-painted faces, level 95, the humourless day-and-night guards of the sixth floor's smaller settlements: paralysed like anyone else, put to sleep by Li Na's spore-smoke, and eaten by Big Tina while they sleep.
  • The Grand this book only — The title of the hunter who makes themselves mayor of Zockau, and the hunter who holds it this season: Vrah, level 70, invisible and flying over the rooftops with a star on her dot, who puts barbed, bleeding, poisoned crossbow bolts through Carl's shoulder and thigh and shoots down an incoming pet hawk to protect her kill. Carl names the mayor as Vrah when he wakes.
  • The head of security this book only — An older gnoll with a quarter-moon insignia and mandarin breath, head of security on the Valtay vessel, who asks one favour — look approvingly on his grandpup Lix's art contest entry — in exchange for overlooking Carl's habit of stealing from green rooms.
  • The Talent this book only — A Skull Empire orc who cast Lightning beside an all-tree and fried himself: 'Corpse of Hunter The Talent', 75,000 gold and a credit chit.
  • Theobold this book only — A level-35 High Elf Footman, nasal and patronising, who explains the goodwill ballroom in the caravan ('shoes for the event. And pants.'), returns in a white dress tuxedo as master of ceremonies, and calls the talent show with dirt on his jacket while the castle is stormed.
  • Uptown Hal this book only — An orange stick of gum with softball eyes, an ex-guide from before guides were former crawlers and host of Uptown Hal Talks Tactics, on the 'Crawling Through the Ages' panel: he reads the tactical situation aloud — 'You know you're fucked, right?… make sure you kill them all' — and calls the cloaked woman a representative of the collective, its spokeswoman, which Carl takes to mean the Apothecary.
  • Viscount Fog this book only — An elite vampire hunter, star of a program called Blood Hunter, who hunted Miriam Dom from the moment she landed and died of an inverted curse at sunset, leaving his mount to grieve.
  • Volteeg — Author of the Cookbook's seventh edition, whose single entry — 'I miss her. I miss her so goddamn much' — Drakea marks as his first, last and only.
  • Vrah — A mantis hunter of the Dark Hive, level 74, who has killed crawlers by the thousand over many seasons and wears the heads of the dead on her back — Langley's and Bogdon Ro's among them this floor. Warned of on the first day by a janitor whose brother she killed at a food stand; the killer, a few seasons back, of a fellow hunter in a fight ruled legal because it was in the Hunting Grounds; infected by an Arrow of Enthusiastic Double Gonorrhea and set on fire; cured by a god her mother bought. She dies at the Butcher's Masquerade under Mongo and Kiwi, gurgling 'How.'
  • Xindy this book only — Hunter Xindy, level 61, Blood Tracker of the Dark Hive, Vrah's little sister and Circe Took's daughter: a flare-casting mantis blown out of the sky over Zockau's street of pubs on the first night. Her claw is the first of the trophies. 'That was Vrah's little sister.'
  • Zabit this book only — A level-66 Beastmaster hunter of the Atoll — a tall, thin, four-armed race with three fingers a hand, a shovel face, a dozen nostrils and no mouth, speaking through a device by sign — whose invisible night-weasel gang is the first attack on the floor. He hunts to pay for his people's habitat: 'No, it doesn't make me feel tough or powerful.' Twenty-five scalps; a trap-module bandolier; the last hunter alive in the castle pit, torn in half by his own mine when Carl casts Tripper.