Motif · from book 3

The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

A recipe book to the showrunners and a manual to its holder, read in bathroom stalls: passed from crawler to crawler across seasons, each adding an edition — Carl's is the 25th — invisible to the showrunners, not to the AI, and erased if its holder tells anyone.

First appears: Book 3

Series arc

As of book 4. The title of book 3: the 24th edition of a hidden book passed between crawls since the fifteenth season, handed to Carl by a prize carousel, invisible to the showrunners but not to the current AI, priced at a page of his own notes. Book 4 reads it as a company of authors: Batbilge's last note, Herot on NPCs, Coolie's notes as a manual for killing an administrator — which Carl follows, and counts 'One.' — Drakea's kerchief and rants, Justice Light on what killing an innocent costs, Priestly on what caring too much does to a mind, Sinjin and Azin on worship, Rickard, and Porthus, whose second-edition note accepts 'the deal', a hundred seasons of servitude, and swears to end the horror. The Syndicate's liaison wants the source named and offers a Legendary box for it; Carl refuses. In the epilogue the second author is alive outside the dungeon, president of the pacifist NFC that sponsors Carl, 'going all in on him.' The 25th edition has begun.

Open threads

Status is open or resolved; the chapter after it is the last one that moved the thread.

All threads: Open threads.

The editions

Through book 4, of 25 editions: 16 have an author the books name outright, 1 by inference, 1 is the system's own, 7 are not yet named. Known from is the first place the text says who wrote it.

Where the text disagrees

• 22nd edition. Carl does not know Drakea's sex from the notes, then settles on 'he' without learning more. “he (or she, I wasn’t really sure) was also a crawler during the final naga-controlled season” (B4 ch. 28) “Drakea had more comments in the cookbook than anybody else. He commented on everything.” (B4 ch. 28)

How the book works

• What the showrunners see: a recipe book — “» The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook by Anonymous.” (B3 ch. 7)
• The hidden text appears when Escape Plan activates — “Hello, Crawler. As you’re about to find, this is a very special book. […] this book has found its way into your hands for one purpose and one purpose only.” (B3 ch. 7)
• How it passes between holders — “It has been passed down from dungeon to dungeon. […] It will disappear from your inventory upon death or retirement where it will find its way to a worthy recipient in a future crawl.” (B3 ch. 8)
• The price of an edition — “There is only one price for access to these pages. You must pass your own knowledge on.” (B3 ch. 8)
• The hidden second scratchpad page is the next edition — “Anything you add to this second page will be included in the 25th edition of this book.” (B3 ch. 8)
• Invisible to the showrunners, not to the AI — “While the true contents of this guide are invisible to the showrunners and to the viewers, it is not invisible to the current System AI.” (B3 ch. 8)
• Tell anyone and it erases — “if you tell anyone about the existence of this book, the information within will erase, and you will forever lose access to the hidden text.” (B3 ch. 8)
• Every recipe must look like the holder's own — “Every recipe, every secret, if utilized, must be presented to the outside world as if you are discovering this all on your own.” (B3 ch. 8)
• Recipes by chapter, then every edition's notes in order — “It was presented in curated chapters. All the potion recipes in one, all the explosives in another, and so forth.” (B3 ch. 8)
• It takes a different form for each holder: a sketchbook, a deck of cards, scrolls, a prayer projection — “I knew the cookbook manifested itself in different forms. For Allister, it appeared as a massive deck of playing cards from his home planet.” (B4 ch. 3)
• Who receives it: not clerics — “There was very little information about this stuff in the cookbook, likely because this was all cleric territory, a class that’d never receive the book in the first place.” (B4 ch. 32)

Notes in the text

Every note header in the books so far, with the note's opening line. Carl's own entries are under his edition below.

Book 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

• B3 ch. 8 — Drakea (22nd): “The saferoom restrooms are a good place to read. Just don’t take long or you’ll get pinched. The rats say there’s a Syndicate rule that they can’t…”
• B3 ch. 8 — Sinjin (15th): “A level 3 sapper’s table lets you infuse bombs. Soak a hobgoblin smoke curtain in a healing potion, let it dry, and it mass kills undead like you…”
• B3 ch. 8 — Forkith (20th): “Confirmed. Works with bombs too but smoke works better. Doesn’t kill high-level undead, but they get mad. I use these to clear rooms of those…”
• B3 ch. 13 — Rosetta (9th): “Comrades, you know the high-level madness satchels, the bronze tier ones with the big yield? They are not as useless as they look. Because they…”
• B3 ch. 13 — Allister (13th): “There is no longer a 15-second waiting period for removing items from inventory, so this advice is mostly moot. I can confirm that backpacks do still…”
• B3 ch. 13 — Forkith (20th): “Backpacks only slow destabilization now, not negate it. Found that out the hard way. Rest well, little sister. I pray those who read this kill an…”
• B3 ch. 26 — Azin (17th): “Some NPCs are indestructible. You can kill them, and they regenerate in a matter of minutes. If you find one of those, it means they have something…”
• B3 ch. 26 — Drakea (22nd): “We found one of them and tied him to the front of our shield. Ha. The next day the Nagas patched it. Didn’t make an announcement or anything, but the…”
• B3 ch. 27 — Milk (6th): “Portals are hard to understand. It seems like there are dozens of different types that all work in different ways. Sometimes they’re like doors, and…”
• B3 ch. 32 — Coolie (19th): “There are three types of deity summonings. Avoid all three. Only idiots deal with deities. Some of them are genuine NPCs, but the big ones like Apito…”
• B3 ch. 32 — Forkith (20th): “They may be invulnerable, but they still feel pain. They still bleed. The drivers of these bodies suffer. In honor of my sister, I pray I make it to…”
• B3 ch. 32 — Tin (21st): “I have noticed something quite curious. The gods and goddesses are Soul Armor. So when the aliens inhabit the bodies of the gods, they do so like the…”

Book 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods

• B4 ch. 3 — Batbilge (12th): “Be careful with the marketplace interface. It uses a different system to value items than whatever you might have installed into your UI. It tags…”
• B4 ch. 3 — Allister (13th): “I don’t know if this is the cause, but this appears to be Batbilge’s last entry into the Cookbook. I’ve been leaving the cards casually on my bed…”
• B4 ch. 18 — Coolie (19th): “I went on a program tonight. They transported me to a ship that floats in low orbit over the planet. The ship has an open window with no glass that…”
• B4 ch. 18 — Coolie (19th): “I am going on another program tonight. I have secreted bugbear paste into my boots. I will detonate them while I am in orbit. There will be two…”
• B4 ch. 18 — Coolie (19th): “I have failed. I have blown the ship, and my skill indeed protected me, but the forcefield around the ship has prevented it from fully breaking…”
• B4 ch. 30 — Sinjin (15th): “I now worship the goddess Kuraokami. Worst decision ever. The goddess is sponsored by some male soother twat who is treating it like I really worship…”
• B4 ch. 30 — Azin (17th): “This is Sinjin’s last entry. A person in my party was smote by his god, and it made his blindness debuff permanent.”
• B4 ch. 32 — Justice Light (8th): “I made a mistake today. I killed an NPC I shouldn’t have. We are a strong people, the skyfowl of the white cliffs. We do not take insults without…”
• B4 ch. 33 — Priestly (14th): “Larracos is like a dream. It is a living, breathing poem. A song. One that marks itself indelibly onto your bones the moment you experience it the…”
• B4 ch. 34 — Porthus (2nd): “I don’t know why this journal came to me, but I don’t feel it will ever be enough. I have done my best, adding little things here and there to the…”

Carl's edition

The 25th edition, in the order the books print it; the last entry is where the book stands as of book 4.

• B3 ch. 34 — signed: “- Crawler Carl, 25th Edition of The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook”
• B4 ch. 18 — entry: “Coolie. I know you can’t read this, but I want you and every future reader to know that I used the information from your passage to help plan the…”
• B4 ch. 18 — entry: “One.”

Where they appear

By book