Essay

The pantheon

Every god the books have named so far (through book 3), with what the text says of each, the relations the books state, and the mythology as it accumulates: the pantheon and the Celestial Ascendency, sponsorship and worship. A god with a character page carries its pantheon section there; the rest have god pages. Relations are quoted and verified; the mythology sections are written as of the book that supports them.

The pantheon

Name	Domain	First appears	Page
Grull	war	B1 ch. 25	their page
Eris	chaos	B1 ch. 34	their page
Apito	the oak; mother of all gods	B2 ch. 17	their page
Mana Genita	lost children	B3 ch. 2	their page
Nekhebit	vultures; the scavenger mother	B3 ch. 24	their page
Taranis	thunder	B3 ch. 33	their page

Demons

Name	Domain	First appears	Page
Kimaris	a demon	B2 ch. 23	their page

Creatures of the pantheon

Name	Domain	First appears	Page
Cerberus	gate guardian	B2 ch. 18	their page

Figures of doctrine and stage

Name	Domain	First appears	Page
The Oak Fell	Apito's antichrist	B2 ch. 20	their page

Names not yet placed

Name	Domain	First appears	Page
The Night Wyrm	suffering	B3 ch. 19	their page

Family and enemies

Stated relations between named gods (solid: family; dotted: pets and enemies). Each god's page lists its rows with the chapter that states them.

graph TD
    grull["Grull"]
    taranis["Taranis"]
    taranis -->|parent of| grull
    apito["Apito"]
    apito -->|parent of| grull
    the_oak_fell["The Oak Fell"]
    the_oak_fell -.-x|enemy| apito

Sponsors and worshippers

God		Who	Source
Grull	worshipped-by	equine creatures	B3 ch. 33
Grull	sponsored-by	Prince Maestro of the Skull Empire	B3 ch. 33
Grull	worshipped-by	Gore-Gore the mantaur	B3 ch. 11
Apito	worshipped-by	the elves	B2 ch. 17
Nekhebit	worshipped-by	the elf mothers (before Apito)	B3 ch. 24
Mana Genita	worshipped-by	her worshippers (hostile by default)	B3 ch. 2

The mythology

No gods here

Book 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl. Book 1 has two gods' names and one rule. The names are on cards: the Enchanted War Gauntlet of the Exalted Grull, with its 1.5% chance to transfigure an adherent of the war god into the god himself, and the Krakaren's boss card, on which 'even Eris, Goddess of Chaos' wants nothing to do with the collective (B1 ch. 25, B1 ch. 34). The rule is Mordecai's, said carefully: 'Grull isn't a real god. There are no real gods in this game […] There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege' (B1 ch. 25). Zev adds the price: a hostile government can 'spring for a deity sponsorship this season' (B1 ch. 44). Prince Maestro names the Celestial Ascendancy as a season segment, like Faction Wars, that the Squim Conglomerate's Battle Royale lacks (B1 ch. 43).

The Oak Mother and the fourth floor

Book 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario. Gods 'don't appear until the fourth floor', Mordecai says, and defers the rest (B2 ch. 3). What the book gives instead is a religion: the elves worship Apito, the Oak Mother, the mother of all gods; three separate stories about her angels and the 'bless-ed' skyfowl, which the cult reads as making the skyfowl her angels; a sect of banished elves, the 201st Security Group, runs an Apito Education Center that the map labels a Corrupt Temple, eats acorns for a Magical Fervor buff, and awaits the Oak Fell, her antichrist, whom they identify as Donut (B2 ch. 17, B2 ch. 20). The angel was Miss Quill's illusion (B2 ch. 24). Beside the doctrine, the tiers: a Divine Guardian is a twelfth-floor Country Boss guarding a gate to the thirteenth (B2 ch. 7); clerics and paladins are barred from the Desperado Club (B2 ch. 2). Odette's last warning is that King Rust has bought a deity sponsorship, probably Grull, and that Carl's gauntlet can summon the god against his celebrants; Mordecai 'has a lot of experience in the subject, unfortunately' (B2 ch. 26).

Summoning, sponsorship and Soul Armor

Book 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook. Mordecai on Mana Genita's tiara: 'There's thousands of them. Gods, I mean. Only a few are dungeon regulars. Most of them never leave the 12th floor' (B3 ch. 2). The Cookbook's miscellaneous chapter gives the mechanics: three kinds of summoning — a celestial boon prayed for, an indentured summoning by a mage, an involuntary one by trap or luck — all of which, Crawler Coolie writes from his own short experience, end with the summoner dead; gods invulnerable below the twelfth floor; the big ones 'always sponsored by some rich prick who basically paid extra to play a game called the Celestial Ascendency', a game contained on the twelfth floor with its own followers and storyline; god-summoning gear salted through the dungeon as a revenue stream, deity slots sold to celebrities; and Crawler Tin's observation that gods are Soul Armor the aliens wear like clothes, removable in theory by a spell like Laundry Day (B3 ch. 32). Mordecai adds the arithmetic — an involuntary summoning lasts the vessel's level plus the god's in seconds; Grull is sanctum-tier, 250; a summoned god grows to fill his chamber; there is no cooldown; a god can be stolen from one summoning into another, 'I learned it the hard way. The hardest way possible' (B3 ch. 32). Grull's card in the Death Challenge gives the first genealogy — the child of Taranis and Apito, a trueborn heir to the Celestial Ascendency — and the first sponsor: Prince Maestro (B3 ch. 33). Nekhebit's crossbow tells the Fae Diaspora's origin (B3 ch. 24); Princess Formidable's Bolt of Ophiotaurus pauses a god's invulnerability for fifteen seconds if it strikes the eye (B3 ch. 29).

See also the gods (the mechanic, traced from book 1), sponsorship.