The Blood Sultanate

Donut puts on the Crown of the Sepsis Whore in ch. 7 and Carl reads the price: a permanent place in the royal line of the Blood Sultanate on the ninth floor, bound there until every other member is dead, including the Sultan. It gives her attacks a 15% chance of Sepsis. Carl names it as the only thing before the Rev-Up moonshine that clues them in about the deeper floors (ch. 32). The Maestro, a Skull Clan prince, laughs at it: the Sultanate is almost always first of the nine factions eliminated, 'You idiots have been dead since the moment she put on that crown' (ch. 43). Donut heard Mordecai say Carl could leave her over it (ch. 44).

Odette's history: the Naga ran the first crawl to lose money, 250 cycles ago, and hold their Faction Wars seat only because they bought it early (epilogue). The tiara narrows Donut's class list (ch. 1), is 'fleeting' — remove it and it passes to another crawler (ch. 25) — and is destroyed by the third pulse just after she agrees to take it off. She is still a princess, the description said.

D'nadia's gift is addressed 'to Princess Donut of the Blood Sultanate' (ch. 15). Nothing else this floor.

A poor faction that brings only twenty of its own people to the ninth floor (ch. 24); the Naga are not among the seven who sued, so Carl knows eight of nine teams (ch. 28); the Syndicate collected a large sum from them for Drakea's death (ch. 28).

The crown's clause, recited: no leaving the ninth floor while a royal naga lives (ch. 12, ch. 42); a naga reporter's brother married in (ch. 42); Co-Warlord Donut flagged as its royalty (ch. 77); and the crown on a second head (epilogue).

Donut's tiara upgrade needs a jeweler in the Desperado (ch. 2); the revolutionary look (ch. 4); Katia's message that she has the Crown and a way out through Yemaya (ch. 15, ch. 17, ch. 18); Donut going rigid at the purple tiara (ch. 19); Rishi at the warlords' table — 'Or your companion, Katia' (ch. 21); a terrorism doctrine (ch. 22); the Sultanate tries to quit (ch. 48).

A court of assassins whose Sultana no spy has seen, who vanishes every season through a door (ch. 8, ch. 46); a constitutional monarchy playing its bloody history for tourism (ch. 8); Blood Hunter Holdings (ch. 44); a plan to steal a fleet, leaked (ch. 53); a temple, a trap, a hatchet (ch. 52–ch. 55); a usurper with a treaty (ch. 58). Its assets go to Donut and Katia and then to the Posse (ch. 55).

A coup: Chandra's uncle is now the Sultan, and she was of no relation to the late Vinata; the Ventilator, a class-C rapid-attack battle cruiser, was damaged in the short, violent change of government (ch. 1).