Spoiler Warning
This is a character guide to The Gate of the Feral Gods, by Matt Dinniman, book four of Dungeon Crawler Carl. It spoils book four, including who dies, and says nothing about later books. The book has heavy swearing and gore.
The short answer: this floor brings two drunk crawlers, a shape-shifting orphan, a gnome with a very bad week, a love doll head with a goddess inside, and a two-headed puppy who starts a god’s rampage.
I cite each person by chapter, using the book’s own numbering, and I checked every detail against the text. Anything I could not confirm is left out. I did not read book three, so I only call someone new when this book introduces them in a first-meeting scene.
Louis And Firas: Chapter Three
Louis Santiago and Firas M are the first new crawlers Carl meets, in a bar called the Toe. They are drunk, about twenty-five, and both level twenty-two. Louis is an overweight, balding Pest Exterminator with a spell called Cloud of Exhaust. Firas is a tall Hammersmith with a mace and a teleport spell.
Mordecai chews them out in chapter five, because neither knows what a Bactrian is, or what collateral means. They are the comic relief, but they also become Carl’s closest allies on the floor. They fly the half house the team calls the Twister.
Juice Box: Chapters One To Thirty-Four
Juice Box is the Toe’s only prostitute, a changeling who sits pouting in a corner in chapter one. A changeling can change shape and borrow some abilities of what it copies. By chapter five Carl knows what she is.
She is the heart of the book. Her brother Henrik belongs to a group called the Principals. In chapter fifteen she explains the Gate of the Feral Gods. When Louis opens her eyes to what the dungeon really is, she makes Carl promise to bring her people down every floor. In chapter thirty-four she announces that she is in love with Louis.
Skarn And The Kids: Chapter Two
Skarn is a level three changeling juvenile. He has a telescope on a roof in Hump Town, and he asks for a gold coin to look through it. He tells Carl the gnomes bombed his village.
Later he is the kid who pilots the Twister. Skarn, Ruby and the other children from Hump Town end up in Carl’s personal space.
Wynne, Leon And Bonnie: The Gnomes
Wynne is a dirigible gnome, a Flesh Mechanic, and the great uncle of Commandant Kane of the Wasteland. A changeling holds him in the town hall basement in chapter six. A crawler named Low Thi kills him in front of Carl.
Leon is a level forty-four dirigible gnome negotiator, the envoy who comes to check on the hostage in chapter eleven. Carl tricks him in chapter twelve.
Bonnie is a juvenile gnome, level five, whom Carl meets in chapter sixteen. She is alone in a house hanging from balloons, under a spell, with her father dead on the floor. She loves her pet pig Sausage and getting what she wants. The killer is a goose boss named Denise, in a baby blue bonnet.
Henrik, Ghazi And Samantha: The Gate
Henrik is a level fifty changeling Principal, and he carries one pocket watch of the gate. Quetzalcoatlus, the ghost of an emperor’s wife, kills him inside the Akula, in chapter twenty-six.
Ghazi is the Mad Dune Mage, who holds the winding box in his sandcastle. In chapter twenty-one he explains that he summoned a goddess named Psamathe by mistake. Her spirit ends up in a talking love doll head, and Carl calls her Samantha. She is rude, funny, and keeps promising to kill Carl’s mother. By chapter thirty-four Carl has hired her as staff.
The Quadrant Teams: Chapters Twenty And Twenty-Five
Gwen is not new. Carl says in chapter twenty that he met her on the previous floor. But her team is new to him. Tran is a level twenty-eight Swashbuckler with a metal-detecting ability. Low Thi and Morris Sp are among the underground survivors.
The sea quadrant has two survivors besides Chris. Vadim Zbar is a gecko-like Kuhli, a level twenty-eight Gut Rearranger, and a cosmetic surgeon back on Earth. Britney Proskurina is a level twenty-seven Pit Fighter in a fur bikini. Vadim dies at the Akula, and Britney ends up with Louis and Firas.
The Underground Team: Chapter Seven
Five male crawlers burst into the tomb in chapter seven, all between levels twenty-three and twenty-six. Low Thi is a level twenty-five D-Bag Geek, which is the real class name. Tyler Storm is a Weather Engineer. Mike Barnes the Third is a Banana Farmer. Morris Sp is a half-tarantula Freelance Psychiatrist, and he and Bobby, a Spy, are the only two with Desperado Club access. Morris is the last crawler left in the tomb when lightning fills it, and he does not survive.
Langley And The Archers: Chapter Three
Langley is a stocky Finnish archer, about forty-five, who leads a team of archers Carl meets in a bar. He is quiet next to Louis and Firas. By chapter thirty-four he has gained eight levels and is level thirty-two, and he leaves the floor with his team.
The Bosses: Ruckus, Denise And Lusca
Ruckus, in chapter nine, is a giant buzz-ard with a buzzsaw. Denise is the goose boss of chapter sixteen. Lusca, in chapter twenty-six, is an octopus-shark brood mother queen, and the book gives her a pair of sports commentators. Each boss belongs to a quadrant, and each has a cheat that makes the fight easier.
Orthrus And Emberus: Chapters Twenty-Eight To Thirty-One
Orthrus is a puppy with two heads, as big as half a bubble. He belongs to the murdered son of the sun god Emberus, and the gate lets him out of the Nothing.
Emberus is a blind god of sun and ash, who tore out his own eyes when his son died. He is the youngest brother of Taranis, with a twin named Hellik. After Carl worships him in chapter thirty-one, Emberus gives Carl two quests.
The Pacifist Sponsors And Orren
In chapter seven a new sponsor appears: the Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network, an NFC, which stands for Not for Conquest. Its Dr. Hu opens the epilogue, saying the group is going all in on Carl.
Orren, in chapter nineteen, is a hooded Syndicate liaison with dark purple hands and a British professor’s voice. He tells Carl he does not work for Borant. He questions Carl about the death of the admin Loita.
Returning Faces
Some people who matter here are not new. Katia, Donut, Mongo and Mordecai are the core team. Imani and Elle still look after the old care home group. Chris, from that group, returns in a scary new form, with Maggie in his head. Quan, Zev and Loita return too.
The Last Word
If you only remember one name, make it Juice Box. If this helped, subscribe, tap like, and tell me below: who was your favorite new face, Samantha or Orthrus?
