Motif · from book 2
The hunters
The sixth-floor hunters, named by Mordecai over the Ring of Divine Suffering: every season a few of the rings are generated, and every season the crawlers who own them are the first the hunters track down. Rich off-worlders who pay to hunt crawlers and their gear on the Hunting Grounds.
First appears: Book 2
Series arc
As of book 7. Described by Mordecai in book 2 as tourists who pay to hunt crawlers on the sixth floor, and named by him in book 3 as the people who track rings like Carl's; a record number waiting with their fees paid at the end of book 4; a thousand released on the sixth floor in book 5, and none of them leave it. They turn out to be accountants and refugees with families who sponsor them — a beastmaster keeping his people's habitat alive, a merchant who chooses death over dishonour, a moon elf paid to come somewhere that was supposed to be easy. Vrah dies under two dinosaurs; her mother to the god's own children; the last, Zabit, by his own trap in the castle pit. Their tech is unlocked in book 6; book 7 has hunter-seekers, a huntress's honour guard and Lucia's twenty.
Open threads
Status is open or resolved; the chapter after it is the last one that moved the thread.
| Thread | Opened | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Every hunter on the sixth floor dead | B4 ch. 34 | resolved · B5 ch. 76 — Kept: a thousand hunters came to the sixth floor and none left it; the last, Zabit, halved by his own trap in the castle pit. |
All threads: Open threads.
Through book 2
Described by Mordecai with the Hunting Grounds: the sixth floor is the first where tourists, 'brave and insane', pay to hunt crawlers, unprotected, 'and every season a handful of rich dumbasses get themselves killed' (B2 ch. 3).
Through book 3
Named by Mordecai: the sixth-floor hunters track down the owners of rings like Carl's first (B3 ch. 30).
Through book 4
Through book 5
The pledge is kept. Hunters bumped to level 50, 360 on deck (B5 ch. 1) and 1013 at the release (B5 ch. 9), a floor divided on a children's menu (B5 ch. 15), five hundred crawlers dead in a week (B5 ch. 21) — and then an injunction, stranded families sponsoring guns (B5 ch. 60), a casualty rate over twenty-five per cent (B5 ch. 56), 290 left (B5 ch. 60). They turn out to be accountants, refugees, a beastmaster keeping a habitat alive, a merchant who chooses death over dishonour (B5 ch. 22, B5 ch. 38, B5 ch. 69). Costumed raptors take the party (B5 ch. 75); the last of seventy-five dies by his own trap in the pit (B5 ch. 76). None leave the floor.
Through book 6
Their tech unlocked (B6 ch. 52).
Through book 7
Where they appear
| Book | Chapters they are in (of the book's) | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario | 1/26 | Ch. 3 · the book's own page |
| 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook | 1/35 | Ch. 30 · the book's own page |
| 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods | 8/35 | Ch. 1, Ch. 8, Ch. 9, Ch. 24, Ch. 32, Ch. 33, Ch. 34, Ch. 35 · the book's own page |
| 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade | 64/78 | 1–11, 13–16, 18–22, 24–26, 29, 31–39, 41, 44–48, 50–54, 56–58, 60–70, 72–77 · the book's own page |
| 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride | 15/74 | 2–3, 5, 9, 11–12, 19, 21, 35–36, 52, 57, 59–60, 72 · the book's own page |
| 7 — This Inevitable Ruin | 14/89 | 1, 11, 15, 18, 25–26, 35, 40, 42, 44, 72, 79–80, 82 · the book's own page |
By book
The hunters in book 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario
Mordecai, explaining the volcano story on the third floor: the sixth floor is the Hunting Grounds, and the first level where 'brave and insane tourists can go to hunt crawlers' — expensive and dangerous, with no protections for the hunters, so that every season a handful of rich dumbasses get themselves killed (ch. 3).
The hunters in book 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook
Named by Mordecai in the argument over the ring: every season several Rings of Divine Suffering are generated, and every season the crawlers who own them are the first the sixth-floor hunters track down. Carl agrees to talk about selling it on the fifth floor, before the sixth (ch. 30).
The hunters in book 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods
Mordecai's answers: hunters start at level thirty, can sign up until the sixth floor opens, are the only rich who can really die, and sell what they win to the factions (ch. 24). A record number this season, entry fees paid by 'a generous, anonymous sponsor' (ch. 33). With Larracos's market drowned, the factions must send their own people down: 'seeding the pond' (ch. 34). Carl's pledge, on his life: every hunter on the sixth floor dead before it collapses.
The hunters in book 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade
Released
Sequestered in Zockau, bumped to level 50 in the spirit of fairness, released in thirty hours (ch. 1): the first pets are invisible weasels that hunt by smell (ch. 2); thirty-four die before the gates open (ch. 6); by the third day there are over a thousand and they spread from the city like a cloud (ch. 9). They have slot inventories and Levitation potions (ch. 14); they have divided the floor on a children's menu and claimed crawlers by colour (ch. 15); five hundred crawlers are dead in a week (ch. 21). Their outside contact is cut by injunction, and Quasar's second trick is harder: some are here on a licence, first crack at the top ten (ch. 25); some were paid to come to a fantasy camp that 'was supposed to be easy' (ch. 22).
Stranded
After Alucarda the Hive retreats (ch. 39); after the brambles they cannot hold towns and are trapped in clubs with credit chits (ch. 58); their families sponsor them with pulse rifles and anti-air guns bound to the individual (ch. 60); their casualty rate goes from a two per cent average to over twenty-five (ch. 56), and 290 remain (ch. 60). One is tricked into a church to birth a god (ch. 62). At the party 264 stand sullen at the buffet (ch. 64, ch. 67); an Atoll named Zabit, whose weasels paralysed Carl on the first day, explains that he hunts to keep his people's habitat alive, and other hunters snap at Vrah that they 'just want to go home' (ch. 69); the nymphs in the walls are their colleagues' children (ch. 70). Costumed raptors take them (ch. 75); in the pit their cards list home planets that are refugee camps, and the last of seventy-five, Zabit, dies by his own trap (ch. 76). Carl's promise from the fifth floor is kept.
The hunters in book 6 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride
A Legendary Hunter Champion Box for killing the most of them and the last of them (ch. 2, ch. 3); a dagger icon for a hunter killed (ch. 5); the Nebulars, faced as hunters on the last floor, in the same hats (ch. 9); a Crest, a common hunter type (ch. 12); Mordecai wondering what families of dead hunters might lurk among the sponsored gods (ch. 19); their tech unlocked with Cracker Jack scrolls (ch. 52).
The hunters in book 7 — This Inevitable Ruin
'The hunters killed everyone,' Porthus says of Larracos — every NPC in the city (ch. 1). The Posse's troopers wear the sixth-floor hunters' purple on the minimap, with a pink outline, and the credit chit came off an orc hunter (ch. 11); Prepotente has a score to settle with the lead producer of the Blood Hunter program (ch. 18), which the Blood Sultanate made (ch. 44). Carl's hunter-seeker automatons find D'Nadia's guards (ch. 25, ch. 26), and he reflects that the hunters, at least, never hid what they were (ch. 26). Vinata's honour guard are former hunters (ch. 46); Lucia has killed twenty (ch. 72); the Reavers run hunter-seeker dogs (ch. 80).