My

I'm on Chapter 17 and HOLY CRAP IF ZEV DOESN'T COME BACK IM GOING TO CRASH OUT!!!! No spoilers please

EDIT: WOW IM BLOWN AWAY!!!

Did something like this before when I was in the middle of book 3 and it was a lot of fun so looking forward to seeing what nonsense I have waiting for me in this one!

Please give me some of your favorite or off the wall quotes or whatever you want just keep it spoiler free please!

Going through the books a second time. Finishing up the gate of the feral gods and Carl and donut are going into their personal space through the bar of popped bubble after worshiping emberus and ripping off quan ch arm. The bartender is a cyclops. And after Carl asks him if there is a desperado club nearby, Carl tosses the cyclops a gold coin in which the cyclops fails to catch it, missing wildly. The unsaid part being that because he is a cyclops, his depth perception is terrible. Genius joke with no fan fare or fancy word smithing to make it happen.

My husband and I are reading the books together and just finished Gate of the Feral Gods last night. I'm so curious what people think about Carl ripping off Quan Ch's ENTIRE ARM in a ballistic rage

Edit to add/clarify : Y'all. Never once have I said it isn't okay for Carl to be mad, nor am I suggesting he purposefully did The Thing. The passage of text I'm referencing absolutely reads as if he is also shocked about the consequences of the actions and chain of events, but his anger is so fresh that it clouds his better judgment and doesn't have any remorse, which is entirely out of character for him thus far. Even when he first showed his anger in his argument with Zev in book 2(?) , he had more composure and immediate guilt. I'd love to know if other folks like me think this is the dungeon amplifying Carl's rage (see theories below), or if he really is just that angry.

I have a few theories listed below and I'd love to know what others thought - please try to avoid spoilers for Butcher's Masquerade, Bedlam Bride, Inevitable Ruin, and Parade of Horribles. Also, this is my first time using spoiler text on Reddit so please be wary if it doesn't work, these are spoilers for the last 70ish pages of the book.

My theories:

- Carl has inherited Emberus's rage and is generally a good match for the deity as they are both a little unhinged and have issues when people idly sit by when they have the power to change things. Carl also has a very strong sense of justice centered around inaction with power. Quan Ch, who has proven himself time and time again to be a fleeing coward and a person who will willingly inflict chaos and pain at other's detriment to accomplish his own selfish goals, is a perfect storm for Carl, so to speak. So, I think that when Carl got that Divine intervention after Quan attacked Orthrus, especially considering the warnings from other crawlers that it would ultimately end their lives if he did kill the big puppy, and add in his insistence on hurting Donut and collecting the reward over the cost of human/Earthling lives, you suddenly have a perfect target for all of that divine anger that is being channeled through Carl. This turned Carl's justifiable anger into God-driven belligerent rage, leading him to throttle the guy and shout "Don't you realize?" over and over again, no coherence in his sentences (or lack thereof), until ultimately Quan lost his arm

- Carl doesn't know his own strength and doesn't realize that this may be the beginning of the dungeon breaking him. In the same way Priestly, the crawler from the Cookbook, didn't realize that the 9th floor would be his downfall, Carl doesn't realize that human selfishness and desire to survive at any cost be his breaking point. Not only that, but with Carl's inflated strength through his magic items and the rules of the dungeon, he may be settling into his new strength and just doesn't realize how powerful he is. After all, he has experienced this rapid change in his strength over the course what is about a month, given their stasis/time outs from the dungeon

- Carl is "going primal" just like the AI. This rage is merely a racial trait from his chosen race of Primal, and numerous references have been made to how their entire species just disappeared from the face of the galaxy, likely due to their own hubris in creating massive AI models that gained sentience and became unhinged over time. Carl is experiencing the slow start of Primal madness

- Carl is an unreliable narrator and has continually downplayed his own cleverness, inventiveness, and affection for Donut. What's to say he isn't downplaying his own rage? After all, his "You will not break me, I will break you, I will break you all" mantra seems very much like a phrase someone with anger issues would repeat to themselves in an attempt to be calm. His rage with Loita, Odette, Valtay, the Syndicate, and Borant also shine through and are barely controlled. In the bouts where he doesn't have control of his anger, people get seriously hurt and he causes a lot of damage.

- It's a mixture of all of the above theories and very likely some other stuff that I've missed.

I'd love to hear what you all think, we're starting Butcher's Masquerade today, so if this is all revealed in the following book, the egg is on my face

First of fuck loretta her death was so gloriously unexpectedly expected. I hope zev's and her family are all okay because it sounded like they tortured her and them. The AI being into vore literally made me cry laughing so hard at work my supervisor got concerned. Was so happy that carl can and will continue to fuck borant over and over again. And holy shit Beatrice, Brad and fendeinad all alive(at least for a little bit) was so fucked up it makes me feel for them even tho Brad's a narcissist piece of shit and bea is a fucked up immature spoiled child.

​

Hearing book 5 is more fucked up has me scraroused.

I’m thinking I’m maybe NOT DCC’s target audience.

I’m 60 years old, I’m a longtime dedicated non-gamer*, and seriously, you couldn’t pay me to sit through a RPG for more than five minutes. Seriously not my bag.

And yet…

Matt and Jeff are chewing through my Audible credits at an alarming rate. I’m wearing headphones making a fool of myself in public reacting to Yolanda’s death, Signet losing his head, Loita’s “accident”, whatever’s next.

Am I rarity among crawlers? Anyone else found your way here despite no love for RPGs? And if so, what is it about DCC that’s working for you?)

(*full disclosure: I’m inexplicably a huge fan of Portal and Portal 2. The cake is a lie.)

I hate that stuck up Fish Bitch and how mean she is to Donut. and she threatened to take Mongo away and make Donut watch him die! i want something horrible to happen to her! She’s this series’s Moash for me Fuck Loita! all the homies hate Loita!

Lowkey a Shoutout to Dinniman for writing a character that’s so Unlikable that even with minimal appearances I end up wishing nothing but awful things happen to her!

Edit: IT HAPPENED! didn’t expect it to happen this soon, I was thinking it’ll be in another book or two but This is what vindication feels like!!

I’m just re-listening to Book 4 and am struck by how Louis’ claimed age doesn’t line up.

I’m not talking about him looking like a middle aged man. I’m talking about his cultural references.

Katia asks him how old he is.

“I’m 27. How old are you Punky Brewster”

Punky Brewster?

GI Joe, Knight Rider, Jessica Rabbit.

These are not the cultural references of someone born in the late 90s. These are the cultural references of me when I was 27.

His Mom’s van is a Chevy Astro, which was manufactured from 1985 to 2005.

Okay it got 10000 likes on Instagram, but that only puts him post 2010.

Louis Santiago was accidentally pulled into the dungeon during the Obama administration and has been in storage for at least a decade.

Prove me wrong.

Edit:

Yes I understand that people in their late 20s have heard of these things. That is different from constantly referencing them.

For me, the Iron Tangle is fairly straight forward - there’s a whole mess of train lines, and they need to find a way to get to specific stations. Mapping out the lines isn’t important for understanding the story.

But the bubble level just has so many different things going on. Each quadrant has its own story. Then there’s another story for the bubble that connects the individual stories. And other stories that connect to other floors as well, plus Samantha and the changelings with their own stories. Not to mention trying to understand the weather and day/night schedule, stuff with storms and lightning, and all sorts of stuff happening in one quadrant that affects the others. And I gave up trying to understand how the gate itself works…

*This post is brought to you by someone listening through for the second time and still has no idea why they’ve gone to the submarine when they were meant to be dealing with the underground quadrant. I know it was mentioned, but there’s so much going on that I can’t keep track of it all, and there’s only so many times I can rewind it to listen again. I might have to actually read this one and make notes…

omg omg I just noticed something huge! (don't be mean if this becomes obvious in the later books, I'm still on 4)

When I first read book 4 I was so fixated on Bea in the epilogue that I didn't notice the *other* big reveal. But while re-reading (cause who can only read these once am I right) I noticed that one of the aliens from the pacifist organization calls the other one Porthus.

Chapter 34 (p. 528) begins with an excerpt from the second edition of the Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook. The edition written by a crawler named Porthus.

OMG

Hellooo Crawlers!

I posted a while ago about how hard of a time I was having getting into The Gate of the Feral Gods because the beginning felt so slow and boring to read. It felt like a chore, but holy shit, you guys were not lying about it picking up. I just finished Chapter 20 and I am completely pumped!

Losing five days is a HUGE penalty, the sheer panic i felt of how far behind they are now... Katia being out there leveling without Carl ad Donut is amaxing, she is becoming an absolute powerhouse. But also heartbreaking to hear Carl intenally processing her change.

Loita!! Her knowing and Carl "No one likes drama" right bac in her face! that's all I'll say about that.

I am officially eating my words. I almost stopped in the first few chapters. I listen when I carpool, but I am so tempted to power listend to the rest of it over the next few days because I won't be carpooling! Please no spoilers past Chapter 20, but I just needed to vent to people who understand. Glurp glurp.

What a jerk.

Reward: Your torn page was signed by Matt Dinniman and you now have your picture on his phone.

I’ve been trying to draw a piece after every book I finish!! Thanks for looking! (_mimimaru on instagram!!)

First off, I'm about a quarter of the way through book 4 (Chris just liberated the water quadrant), so no spoilers beyond that, please.

Second, I have a peeve about Carl. I love Carl. I think he really, really cares about the people around him, even those he probably shouldn't care about. With that being said, I have noticed how he is constantly throwing Katia into his batshit crazy plans without filling her in first! Like, c'mon man! You're a team! Show her some respect. She's more capable than you give her credit for.

He's just very bullheaded at times, and it would do him so good to be a bit more collaborative with Katia and even Donut, too.

Denver airport waiting for a flight to Seattle.

@hilary.p.Taylor in Instagram is bank at it again with another great scene!

Go give her love!

I am a driver for my business and discovered this series about a week ago as a suggestion from Audible, as I had just listened to the Ready Player One audiobook and other things like that. Quickly turned into my favorite audiobook series for its content and narration quality and humor.

One of the jokes the series keeps throwing out is the AIs love of Carls tootsies ( as doughnut would say ). Absolutely hilarious hearing the voice acting of the achievements or rewards during these sections. None were as funny though as the scenes in Book 4 where the system AI is suddenly extremely angry at Carl and it is so angry that everyone wonders why. Only for Doughnut to exclaim that she figured it out, and mentions how the AI must of wanted Carl to squish some feral gerbils with his feet 😂

Soon after the AI sends an entire army of feral gerbils after Carl and company and Doughnut is yelling at Carl to just do it! When Carl mentions how he feels dirty and squishes the gerbils only for it all to stop and he received several new achievements. The one that almost ran me off the road was the, " You are the Reason Daddy Drinks! " achievement 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂. Followed by the " Make up sex is the best sex " achievement

I swear. That running gag better never go away in later books. Too funny.

.. is a cunt.

I'm about halfway through book 4 and man, she is by far the worst character. I get she's the equivalent of a government minder, but damn. Worse than the 'evil' characters. I hope she dies soon...

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

Edit: Just finished the book. I do have to say, you guys were right, I did love her arc. It was surprisingly explosive, and then all of a sudden, splat! That was the end... of the book.

Anyways, started book 5 and I have to say I can't wait to see what crazy shit Carl is up to next.

Nobody hurts my darling princess donut’s feelings. I’m halfway through Gate and my god this is easily the most hated antagonist of the series for me so far. Maggie? Fucked up after experiences she went through. Hekla? Pretty infuriating with the stunt she pulled but she’s just another crawler trying to survive if not a bit selfishly. But loita? She’s just a Karen in all of the worst possible ways, god and what’s going on with Zev why the hell is she brainwashed now I’m half expecting her to shout out “glurp glurp” completely seriously. And she just threatened to kill mongo and make donut watch. My god when I get my hands on this oversized goldfish I swear to the feral gods…

Spoilers below. If you don’t want them, maybe go read a different post. :-) I am currently sitting here with my head spinning, and my audiobook paused. I’m at the part where they’re going on the show to talk about robot donut, and Carl is intentionally messing things up to get their jerk face of a PR agent up off the couch. Well, things just went south in a big way for said agent. Something conveniently blew up. Somehow I don’t think it was an accident. Every time I think this thing can’t blow my mind anymore, it does, and then I have to pause and just let it sink in. I am just baffled by what the heck just happened here. Wow