Dungeon Crawler Carl: A LitRPG/Gamelit Adventure

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Game Master: The Syndicate AI. It doesn't have completely arbitrary power, it has to be more or less fair to the crawlers, but since it can see everything that happens everywhere and can control loot, random encounters, and information, it can easily make or break someone's crawl. Too bad it's showing signs of becoming increasingly insane. With a foot fetish and a crush on Carl. The Reveal: As the series continues, we learn a lot about the various characters and their relationships to one another and the larger universe. Roswell Greys are apparently a species of aliens known as "nulls", whom other species dislike. Roswell happened because they weren't careful enough — but they take their widespread depiction in Earth culture as evidence that humans hate them too. Arc Words: Carl often repeats the phrase "You will not break me" to himself. It slowly starts appearing elsewhere in different variations, especially once it becomes apparent that he is part of a Secret Legacy.

Donut: I'M A BARD! ISN'T IT GREAT! IT'S NOT A NECROBARD LIKE THEY OFFERED ME BEFORE, BUT IT'S BETTER. I'M A LEGENDARY DIVA. THAT'S WHAT THE CLASS IS CALLED. LEGENDARY DIVA. I SING! Grievous Harm with a Body: When Hekla's husband didn't survive the first floor, she proceeded to kill the monsters responsible using one of his ribs. The AI was impressed, and rewarded her with a highly magical crossbow.

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Only a few dare venture inside. Once you’re in, you can’t get out. And what’s worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it’s game over. In this game, it’s not about your strength or your dexterity; it’s about your followers, your views. Your clout. It’s about building an audience and killing those goblins with style. Unspoken Plan Guarantee: In-Universe example when Carl is talking to an out-of-dungeon audience about how to deal with the impending ambush by hunter mantises. Information is not meant to be leaked into the Dungeon, but in practice it happens, so he can get ideas but can't afford to decide on his real plan in public. The characters are well developed and human enough to make me feel a wide range of emotions. I enjoy how Donut grew as a character and became one of my favorites after starting out as someone I would have been fine without. Same with Katia. Evil Gloating: Actually justified when Hunter Vrah has Carl in her sights; they're being watched by a galactic audience, and she wants his death to send a message. She still doesn't spend very long talking, but long enough to be a mistake.

Tran loses his legs in the Country Boss fight at the end of the sixth floor, but survives thanks to a heal spell and gets a flying wheelchair from a benefactor. Ascended Meme: In universe. At one point, while meeting with their attorney out of the dungeon, the pair encounter a huge Donut stan wearing a T Shirt with the caption "Goddamnit Donut!" in huge letters. Plink, plink, plink. The icons of hunters started to get X'd out as they splattered against the ground. Each floor is atomised and "reclaimed" when its timer runs out, which can vary from days to weeks; any crawlers who haven't gone down a staircase by that time are dead. Mordecai notes that the sponsors seem to be in a hurry this season, with timers being unusually short. Due to the biscuit and realizing that her life beforehand was nothing but just laying about doing nothing special, Donut was rather rude towards Carl. Almost to the point where Carl wanted to leave Donut behind in the dungeon to strike out on his own. She apologized and they have been working together (with some hiccups) to survive. While Donut has moments where she can charm NPCs to give the group what she wants, she can also be extremely abrasive in less than opportune moments.The air castle is fine, but it's the mess that happens between that and the sand castle that slows things down. Carl decides to kill a show host, which takes away five days of grinding while his case is evaluated. Devoured by the Horde: A crawler is mentioned in passing to have been killed by a trap that injected a tube into his stomach and filled him with "Finger-sized Flesh Weasels". Metaphorically True: The description of the Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook isn't exactly lying when it claims that, "Each recipe is accompanied by a hilarious tale by the anonymous author, recounting some of the zany and madcap misadventures they experienced gathering these mouth-watering recipes." It's just that unlike what it implies, the recipes are less about making food, and more about Loophole Abuse— both inside the dungeon and outside.

The Meadowlark residents. These are septa-, octa-, and nona-genarians who were all on the edge of death from old age. Those that made it to the third floor got new races and classes that rejuvenated them, quite literally, and gave them a lot of power. Tip of the hat to Elle McGibbons, who made it to the top ten with her ice princess class/race. We have too little interaction between crawlers in the first volume. In the second volume we get a new main character Katia, but two volumes later, I do not feel she intergrated well. It is still mostly Carl and Donut. Katia does not feel as her own independent character. It feels as if she just steals line, that could be as well atributed to Carl and she steals time, that could have been Donuts. Donut has also the growing problem now, that for the past volumes, she struggles to find a place to shine. Yes she is necessary, but feels more like a side character, then a main one. We need more interaction between crawlers, but most of it happens off screen. And even if it is on screen, it is in form of chats and messages. The third floor struggles with this, clearly in hindsight there were possibilities to distribute solution of the puzzle to more crawlers and make it more like a team effort.

Anyone who was inside an enclosed structure during the collapse belongs to Borant, but if one of those who survived and didn't enter the dungeon becomes interesting, then Borant may offer rewards for bringing them in. It's illegal to interfere with the remaining humans, but no one bothers to enforce that. Carl's ex-girlfriend and Donut's former owner Bea gets collected with the intent of turning her into a Country Boss for Carl and Donut to fight, just to tug at the heartstrings, but those hunters are intercepted by a second group with different motivations. Does This Remind You of Anything?: The story is predicated on a galactic capitalism with the brakes off, a naked, unstoppable colonialism that provides us a Jerry Springer with no shame.

Even Evil Has Standards: One of the few things that is actually banned from the crawls is using "collected" children or pregnant women as NPCs. (Although considering what's still allowed, that restriction seems a bit arbitrary.) There's not enough detail to know for sure, but apparently Lucia Mar received a similar deal to Carl when she killed two admins. Unlike Carl, she took it, and that's likely why she's so overpowered. Most races give stat boosts compared to remaining human. Carl instead chooses one that gives him a small penalty across the board, but in return allows all skills to be eventually trained up to level 20 rather than 15. (The real reason he chose it, though, is because it's the bogeyman of the show producers, the race that scares children.)You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy. Manipulative Editing: The dungeon broadcasts often do this. Carl notes that not only does the first broadcast for Earth show only the most impoverished and crime-ridden parts of the world, but they're lifting some images straight out of disaster movies, all to make the planet look like a dump that was beyond saving. Mentor in Sour Armor: Mordecai is fairly grumpy, and specifically unhappy about becoming Donut's manager, which is delaying his retirement, but is very knowledgeable and does prove to be quite helpful. How much of that is because he actually cares about them, vs how much is because he gets financial incentives to help them get as far as possible, is hard to say.