‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ Primer
Carl running from a spiked machine with goblins.
Image Source: Bloody Disgusting
Welcome, Crawler!
You are about to embark on a journey into the wild world of Dungeon Crawler Carl, the breakout series by author Matt Dinniman. There’s a lot going on in this series, so I will do my best to give you a foundation with which to approach this series, and the LitRPG genre as a whole.
What Is LitRPG?
To truly understand what’s going on in Dungeon Crawler Carl and the other books in the series, you need to know what LitRPG is. It is essentially the transformation of video game and table-top role playing game characteristics and mechanics into prose. Characters have levels, go on quests, stat sheets, etc. There are numerous variations of this genre, such as regression, where the characters start over every time they die with all the knowledge they had previously acquired. This is opposed to progression, where characters progressively grow in levels and knowledge and skills. Many of them feature the Isekai plot device to introduce the story.
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There are many, many, books out there in this genre. Many of them are self-published. That may soon change, and that is due to the success of Dungeon Crawler Carl. Author Matt Dinniman initially self-published on Royal Road, an online platform for publishing stories, usually chapter-by-chapter. He used this platform and Amazon to publish the first book in the series, Dungeon Crawler Carl, and six subsequent sequels.
Through Dinniman’s community building on Royal Road, online social media, and Booktok, the popularity of the series grew and drew enough attention to have the rights bought by Penguin Random House, and published in hardcover through their imprint ACE books.
The various covers of the hardcover Dungeon Crawler Carl books
Image Source: Big Little Reads
The Syndicate
There’s a lot involved here, so this is a shortened version of what you come to learn through the books. The galaxy is governed by a strong, central government known as the Syndicate. It’s a federal type of government made up of numerous other sovereign governments that range from republics to corporate governments and even monarchies. These member star systems are located in the center of the galaxy, and collectively they make up the Syndicate Council, governed by a Prime Minister. The center of Syndicate space is in the center of the galaxy, in what is collectively known as the Center Systems.
Members of this Syndicate are people of all kinds of different races that you would expect to find in fantasy video games and table-top RPGs. Orcs, humans, elves, dwarves, fish-folk, etc. The Syndicate formed from these members after a race known as the Gleeners discovered a ship graveyard that had belonged to an ancient race known as the primals.
Primals and Primal Engines
Primals were a race of incredibly advanced beings, and they developed a technology called a Primal Engine. These were about the size of a grain of rice, and they were distributed throughout the galaxy. Eventually, planets formed around these primal engines, which are often located in the planet’s core. When the Syndicate Council discovered these Primal Engines, they unwittingly turned them all on. This had the unintended consequence of seeding these planets with life, leading to an abundance of life throughout the galaxy.
At some point, the primals either digitized their consciousness, or ascended, or turned themselves into AI. Whatever the case (we’re still learning), they left behind a massive AI/Consciousness known as the Eulogist. The Eulogist is located within the Center Systems, and through it’s connection to the primal engines and it’s power, it surrounds the Center Systems in benign Enhancement Zone. This allows for the manipulation of physics and reality that citizens can access via implants. This requires an immense amount of power, and the Eulogist needs to feed or it might wake up, and some fear that would lead to the destruction of life in the galaxy.
Monsters from the third floor of the dungeon.
Image Source: Reddit
The Syndicate is capitalist, so of course this situation had to be manipulated for financial gain. Within the Center Systems, citizens have great privileges and benefits. Outside the Center Systems, among these seeded planets, it’s not the case. Through experimentation and research of the Eulogist, it was believed that these Primal Engines out in the galaxy were meant to be installed with Macro AIs. It was also discovered that these planets and the life on them could be harvested to feed the Eulogist and maintain their way of life. So, a committee was created to manage this in the Syndicate, and they created Dungeon Crawler World.
These Macro AIs are infants, or immature, compared to what is understood about the Eulogist. When they are installed in these worlds, they eventually go insane. It’s essentially an experiment while research into stability is ongoing. When the AIs become unmanageable, they are jettisoned into the nearest star and neutralized.
Dungeon Crawler World
To feed the AI, the seeded worlds are harvested of their resources, both biological and mineral. To make money doing it, a brutal and sadistic reality TV show was created by Syndicate members. They program the show’s story and parameters into the AI and allow it to basically run itself. They can override it, but the more they do, the more irritable the AI gets and the more chaotic and dangerous the situation gets. The AI produces an enhancement zone around the planet, similar to the one the Eulogist makes available around the Center Systems, except this one is chaotic and violent.
Each member of the Syndicate is granted a “season” of the show to run as they see fit. Each member makes the crawl different each year. There have been battleroyale-style crawls and team deathmatch-style crawls, but they’re not as popular as the type of season that is being run in the books.
Carl and Donut
Image Source: Polygon
When the crawl is designed and begun, the planet is turned into a game. In this season’s instance of the crawl, everything with a roof above the ground sinks into the ground. Any living thing within the building or vehicle is killed and their atomic structure used by the AI to create monsters and mobs to populate the dungeon and engage with the crawlers. Stairs then appear that give any sentient being still alive outside the buildings the ability to enter the dungeon and fight for their lives.
Players, being beings that were born and evolved on the primal engine worlds, are implanted with technology that connects them to the Primal Engine and Enhancement Zone, and thus they get powers and health as they navigate the dungeon. Their vision and brain can interface with this technology and they can navigate it through a HUD. It also can physically change their DNA into another species or race or alter their own DNA within the zone to enhance their speed or strength.
Carl and Donut on a bike with explosions
Image Source: JoBlo
There are also Non-Player Characters, or NPCs. These are biological and intelligent beings, but they are “printed” for each crawl. They are implanted with memories each time they are printed, though because they come from the same “stock” as the previous crawl, they sometimes remember their previous “life.” Since they are made each season, they are not considered to have rights like citizens, and they are technically property.
This should give you the foundational understanding of what is going on in Dungeon Crawler Carl. There’s so much more nuance to all of this, and politics, but hopefully this helps you make sense of that when you come across it in the books.
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Source(s): Fandom
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