Motif · Book 3, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

The gods

'There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege.' A war gauntlet that warns it can transfigure a worshipper of the god Grull into the god himself, and Mordecai's solemn insistence that Grull is not real — nor is any god in this game. Zev, in passing, mentions that a hostile government could 'spring for a deity sponsorship.'

Segment appearances

• Chapter 11 — Gore-Gore
• Chapter 24 — Brynhild's Daughters is no more
• Chapter 29 — The Bolt of Ophiotaurus
• Chapter 32 — Prepotente
• Chapter 33 — Death Challenge
• Epilogue — Epilogue: the wheel

Progression

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).