Essay

The pantheon

Every god the books have named so far (through book 6), with what the text says of each, the relations the books state, and the mythology as it accumulates: sponsor channels and deity messages, locked deities and the Thorn Room, retainers, punishment in person, the sacrament and the Martyr's Path, vorpals, Sheol and its princes, and how a god is killed. 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

Minor and banished deities

Demigods outside the pantheon

The feral gods

Demons

Creatures of the pantheon

Figures of doctrine and stage

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
    pawna["Pawna"]
    pawna ---|sibling| grull
    hellik["Hellik"]
    hellik ---|sibling| taranis
    emberus["Emberus"]
    emberus ---|sibling| taranis
    emberus ---|twin| hellik
    geyrun["Geyrun"]
    emberus -->|parent of| geyrun
    orthrus["Orthrus"]
    geyrun -.->|pet| orthrus
    cerberus["Cerberus"]
    orthrus ---|sibling| cerberus
    samantha["Psamathe (Samantha)"]
    psamathes_mother["Psamathe's mother"]
    psamathes_mother -->|parent of| samantha
    samantha ---|kin| emberus
    apito ---|consort| taranis
    apito -->|parent of| grull
    yarilo["Yarilo"]
    taranis -->|parent of| yarilo
    diwata["Diwata"]
    diwata ---|kin| apito
    emberus -->|parent of| geyrun
    ogun["Ogun"]
    yemaya["Yemaya"]
    ogun ---|sibling| yemaya
    asojano["Asojano"]
    yemaya ---|sibling| asojano
    legba["Legba"]
    oshun["Oshun"]
    legba ---|sibling| oshun
    ysalte["Ysalte"]
    ysalte ---|kin| taranis
    amayon["Amayon"]
    ysalte ---|consort| amayon
    emberus -->|parent of| geyrun
    pawna -.-x|enemy| grull
    hellik -.-x|enemy| emberus
    hellik -.-x|enemy| taranis
    the_oak_fell["The Oak Fell"]
    the_oak_fell -.-x|enemy| apito
    hellik -.-x|enemy| emberus
    nekhebit["Nekhebit"]
    nekhebit -.-x|enemy| apito
    amayon -.-x|enemy| emberus

Sponsors and worshippers

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).

The pantheon, the Nothing and the feral gods

Book 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods. Book 4 gives the pantheon a shape. It is a family: Taranis, god of thunder and regent to the Celestial Throne, is the eldest of three brothers; Emberus, Sun and Ash, the youngest, thinks himself the better candidate; Hellik, Sun and Life, is Emberus's twin and wants both dead (B4 ch. 31, B4 ch. 32). The two suns of bubble 543 are Taranis and Hellik, one chasing the other across the sky until, at the Red Equinox, Taranis is caught and the days go mostly dark, though the dromedarian's words are that he 'will be gone for but four hours a day' (B4 ch. 3). Grull is Taranis's son (B3 ch. 33); Pawna, peace, is Grull's sister and arch-enemy (B4 ch. 2). Emberus's favourite son Geyrun was murdered while Hellik sat in council, and Emberus plucked out his own eyes (B4 ch. 28, B4 ch. 32). Samantha's family is the same family seen from below: a minor deity banished by her father for a king's child, a mother who was sleeping with the same king, a great uncle who is also, she thinks, a cousin (B4 ch. 24, B4 ch. 28, B4 ch. 34). Mordecai: 'Think of the pantheon like a rich guy's country club'; the halls of the Celestial Ascendency on the twelfth floor are where 'some serious whackadoodle business' happens, and all gods lose their invulnerability there (B4 ch. 24, B4 ch. 28).

The Nothing

Book 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods. Before the pantheon there were 'the gods from before. The immortal beasts who roamed the heavens'; the pantheon banished them into the Nothing and created the world, and the banishment drove them mad (B4 ch. 15). The Nothing is where the pantheon puts what it will not keep: the feral gods, the demons of 'the original Ascendency' such as Slit and Gash, Yarilo the god of lust, Psamathe, and Geyrun's puppy the day his master died (B4 ch. 21, B4 ch. 24, B4 ch. 29, B4 ch. 34). Anything in it for more than a few minutes goes crazy; everything summoned out of it is crazy and 'very good at pretending they're somebody they are not' (B4 ch. 20, B4 ch. 21). The Gate of the Feral Gods opens a door from one place to another at the cost of a hole into the Nothing: when the gate closes a feral god comes through on the opening side, and the portal lingers, two-way, until something comes through (B4 ch. 15, B4 ch. 23). Other gods hate feral gods and react to their release; each feral has a two-in-three chance of summoning a corresponding deity, which is how Ysalte nearly arrived and why the Syndicate blocked some secondary summonings (B4 ch. 27, B4 ch. 33). In book 3 the Nothing was only a spot on the Desperado Club's roulette wheel (B3 ch. 9).

Worship

Book 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods. Seeing a god, finding a temple, or finding a scroll of prayer unlocks the option to worship (B4 ch. 30); a Divine Epiphany achievement gives Carl the option to worship Grull (B4 ch. 2). Clerics and paladins must pick a god at class selection, and the only temples Carl has seen are the entrances to Club Vanquisher (B4 ch. 32). Sinjin's note gives the rules: miss a day and the god turns her back, two days a debuff, three a fall from grace with a coin-flip smiting; leaving the faith is an automatic smite; a sponsor can treat the worship as his own; Azin's note after it: 'Stay the fuck away from gods' (B4 ch. 30). Carl becomes an adherent of Emberus on a falling biplane: Acolyte rank, no ascending past Devotee without a cleric or paladin class, a five per cent tithe, church quests, a shrine that appears in the saferoom — a sun disk with a cup and a skull — two sun tattoos, a boon, and two quests: find out who killed Geyrun, and kill Hellik before the twelfth floor for a Celestial God Box, with a warning that killing a god may have unintended consequences for all crawlers (B4 ch. 31, B4 ch. 32). A Celestial Grenade — developed by the nuns of Enyo when the gods competed for worshippers — summons the thrower's god for sixty seconds, or a random god if the thrower worships none (B4 ch. 14); Maggie's would have summoned Algos, Carl's summons Emberus onto the nose of a biplane (B4 ch. 14, B4 ch. 31).

The Butcher's Masquerade

Book 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade. Apito's holiest sacrament, told by the cleric who cast it. The first masquerade was held in the Halls of Ascendency by Taranis and his wife Apito for children who are always vying for control; Grull asked why a party without masks was called one, and Apito's answer is gospel — 'the masks we wear are the smiles upon our faces and the goodwill we present to each other this evening'; Yarilo, drunk, tried to force himself on another god's familiar, Apito banished him to the Nothing, Taranis raged, and every mortal and demigod present was slaughtered (B5 ch. 65). Now it is a spell only the most divine may cast, once in a life: the goddess writes the guest list to sow discord, appears in person to deliver invitations, sets a celestial peace seal that feeds any breaker into the Nothing, and grants a boon — rumoured to be immortality — to a host who gets through the night without violence, which Signet says has never happened (B5 ch. 65, B5 ch. 67, B5 ch. 68). When Signet cuts her own throat the seal breaks, 'Apito has turned her back', the spell fails to cast, and the cleric is shunned (B5 ch. 74, B5 ch. 76).

Soul armour and the driver

Book 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade. Book 3's rule that gods are Soul Armor the aliens wear is made literal. Diwata on the sixth floor is Circe Took: sponsored by her, born through a hunter used as a vessel, and worn by her into the castle. Removing a god's own armour would need a stripping spell at twenty; but 'the god was the armor, and it would remain intact. She just needed to remove it off the person underneath', and a god's invulnerability does not protect its driver — Tin's 21st edition was wrong about that (B5 ch. 76). Laundry Day at fifteen sends Diwata home and leaves Circe standing in soap bubbles for her own children to eat. Samantha's aside that Hehaka wears the beaver god Capa as a hat is the same mechanic among the gods themselves (B5 ch. 24).

Gods in the realm

Book 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade. An adherent is told when his god enters the realm and when he returns to the Halls of the Ascendency (B5 ch. 10); an enemy of a church gets the same notice with a hunt attached (B5 ch. 61). A god called in by worshippers has minutes; Mordecai finds the loophole that keeps one — a god who has cast a spell stays until it finishes, so Diwata, having cured her daughter as a male mantis and turned female, stays in the realm for as long as she keeps giving birth (B5 ch. 70). All-trees whisper an apostate's position to the deity (B5 ch. 55). In the pit she is announced as 'Level 250 Immortal', Grull's tier (B5 ch. 76).

Shunned

Book 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade. The cost of a god. Vrah summons Emberus over Zockau so the town guards may worship him, and hunters who saw the appearance take him as a shield (B5 ch. 10, B5 ch. 60). Carl kills one and is Shunned: the boon cancelled, fifteen hours of Penitence, tithes doubled for thirty, a smite at a third kill inside the probation, the word over his head (B5 ch. 60). The queen's boss card also calls her 'shunned by her goddess' after the failed party (B5 ch. 76).

Memorial crystals

Book 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade. Soul crystals, the ones the elves power their castle with, are mined from Scolopendra's lair: the souls of certain people who die, filtered through the centipede's body. Memorial crystals are made by fallen gods and demigods, hold god-tier spells and knowledge, and are read by charging them with kills (B5 ch. 69); the Night Wyrm's cult keeps them, and a whole seventh floor once turned on raising that god with them (B5 ch. 8). The queen's necklace, offered as the masquerade's greatest prize, is a Memorial Crystal: Apito — 'which is impossible. As far as anyone is aware, the goddess isn't dead' — and Emberus folds it into the search for Geyrun's killer (B5 ch. 77).

The head of the Ascendency

Book 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade. Samantha on why the pantheon resents Diwata: gods and demons give birth to demigods and mongrels for fun, but Diwata, mating as a male and birthing as a female, gives birth to ordinary versions of whatever she last mated with — 'It's a dangerous power, even for a god. It's a power that's supposed to be consigned to the head of the Ascendency' (B5 ch. 62). Book 5 does not say who that is; book 4's regent to the Celestial Throne is Taranis. Her own kinship is left vague — one of Apito's brood but not a direct child, something to do with the Vinegar Bitch and Eileithyia.

Sponsor channels and deity messages

Book 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. Two channels the system may not read. Sponsor communications for the Ascendency are off limits by law — 'they were legally forbidden from monitoring Ascendency sponsor communications' — which is how Armita brokered Odette's deal with Huanxin on another season's tenth floor (B6 ch. 0). And a god may send a deity message: 'the system is not allowed to monitor this message. Do not respond, because they can see your response. This is a deity message, and it will disappear' — though it can be copied to a scratchpad (B6 ch. 17). Eileithyia's spider quest exists only so that she can keep sending them.

Locked deities and the Thorn Room

Book 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. A Celestial Thorn Room holds the broken shrines of forgotten gods, seven at the Colón cemetery, and lets crawlers repair exactly one; the repaired god ascends, or does not, and the rest are gone. The shrines are the orishas — Ogun, already in the Halls and wanting none of them back; Legba, Shango, Oshun; Asojano, who will not be allowed back; Inle, bound for the Nothing again; Yemaya, whose friend Eileithyia wants her (B6 ch. 15). 'The Goddess Yemaya has re-ascended. She is welcomed into the family by all' is the first of six or seven such messages on the floor (the count comes with Semiramis's in ch. 25), and Carl reads them right: 'those assholes on the 12th floor playing the Ascendency game, getting crawlers to wake up ancient gods' (B6 ch. 25). The AI's card for the Mother of Waters says the same with contempt: 'Rose her from the dead and sent her off to the Celestial Ascendency so she can assist a psychopath win that boring, tedious game' (B6 ch. 55).

Retainers

Book 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. Mordecai on the new rule: of thousands of gods, 'only some of them are really equipped for the Ascendency game', and this season a sponsored deity may 'recruit a second, unsponsored god to help them once the Ascendency games begin on the 12th floor' — retainer minions, to even the field and attract players. 'Eileithyia's retainer appears to be Yemaya, and Huanxin needed to find a way to get her resurrected' (B6 ch. 19). The Ascendency's prize is a ten-season seat on the crawl council; the Faction Wars winner gets cash and bragging rights; 'The real winner of all this is the bookies' (B6 ch. 19). Nekhebit is nobody's retainer and will have her own (B6 ch. 36); Ysalte wants a prince of hell for hers (B6 ch. 66).

Punishment in person, and Black Nimbus

Book 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. 'Ogun strongly believes all punishments should be handed out in person': a god may enter the realm to smite, Shelve a crawler for six minutes, heal and then withdraw his grace (B6 ch. 16). Against it there is Black Nimbus, a spell on the nipple ring from Diwata's apostate box that 'would temporarily remove all the benefits of being a worshipper of a god', which Carl casts on Anton; Ogun answers that all it did was remove the man from his protection, and crushes him (B6 ch. 16).

The sacrament and the Martyr's Path

Book 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. Pater Coal washes Carl's feet in the boiling fountain of the Emberus High Temple of the Ending Sun: 'You are a martyr of Emberus, and I am paying respect'; 'The other gods cannot eavesdrop when I am performing this sacrament' (B6 ch. 18). The floor boon that follows, the Martyr's Path, marks every outdoor step on the map and lets a crawler at five per cent health release fire from each of them (B6 ch. 18) — which is how Carl feeds a demon prince (B6 ch. 69). Rank comes with closeness: 'You have grown closer to your god, Emberus […] Your new rank: Devotee', and a temple will lend a martyr 990,000 gold interest-free against a long-worn ring, with no renouncing while in debt (B6 ch. 47, B6 ch. 56).

Vorpals

Book 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. 'Vorpal is a condition, not a species. Like feral means it has been touched by the Nothing, vorpal means they've been... deputized by the gods. […] turned into suicide bombers' — celestial guards of any race, hidden until a demon is near, drawn to demons and stronger beside them, sent back to the celestial realm once fed demon blood, and explosive if they think they are losing (B6 ch. 33). Astrid lets them loose on the Desperado's second floor (B6 ch. 32).

Sheol, its princes and Demon Eviction

Book 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. Sheol has a queen and four crown princes — the oldest 'calls himself the King even though his mommy is in charge' — and the princes' old harem of demons was banished to the Nothing by one of the brothers; Amayon, Samantha thinks, is the youngest, and he and Emberus 'don't like each other' (B6 ch. 58). 'Due to an excess of death, Demon Eviction is commencing. All recently-fallen and weakened are now subject to random possession […] All evicted demons who wish to return to Sheol may only do so by dragging an additional soul back down with them' (B6 ch. 54) — an event Mordecai says belongs to the end of the ninth floor and will come earlier each floor as the Ascendency approaches. The announcers say a zombie outbreak and the AI's counting crab sperm as a mob kicked it off (B6 ch. 55, B6 ch. 68). A prince expelled by a brother 'rides the river' home only on a tithe of souls, and a world too dead to pay it traps him (B6 ch. 62, B6 ch. 67). 'Hopefully an all-out war in Sheol won't spill outside the 15th floor' (B6 ch. 72).

Killing a god

Book 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. A god summoned for a boss event 'will return to the Ascendency upon completion of the event' and 'You can't kill the god, so you have to hold out' (B6 ch. 66) — and then Paz Lo does, with the Bolt of Ophiotaurus: 'Crawler Paz Lo has slain the goddess, Ysalte. He has been marked for death by all deities except sworn enemies of the late goddess.' A Memorial Crystal is generated for a future floor; her worshippers are permanently Despondent; the vinegar she made of every potion turns to a stronger version (B6 ch. 69). Which answers book 5's rule that a crystal means a dead god and leaves Apito's — 'Apito lives, yet there is a crystal made by her. How is that possible?' — as Carl's quest (B6 ch. 18).

See also the gods (the mechanic, traced from book 1), sponsorship and the Gate of the Feral Gods.