Literature / The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

"Let what you do mean something." - King Kong Bundy

Hello, Crawler. As you're about to find, this is a very special book. If you're reading these words, it means this book has found its way into your hands for one purpose and one purpose only.
Together, we will burn it all to the ground.

— The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

After the debacle of the last floor, Carl and Mordecai are hoping for a simple, easy floor. Instead, the Royal Court find themselves in the Iron Tangle, a confusing mess of thousands of different railway tracks, tunneled directly through the stone. The entire floor is one massive, moving puzzle, just waiting to break before the crawlers have a chance to solve it.

The newest member of the Royal Court, Katia, proves to be more of an asset than anyone expected. With Carl finding exploits for her race and class, and Donut coaching her on her image, she rises to become a popular and useful crawler. Unfortunately, eventually she will return to Brynhild's Daughters, and Carl still remembers Odette's warning about Hekla.

As problems mount and everything begins to spiral out of control even more than usual, they lose access to Mordecai for almost the entire floor. But in the process, Carl finds something interesting. Something that might be the secret they need to survive not just the floor, but the entire dungeon.

It is called The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook.

Dungeon Crawler Carl: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook is the third book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman. It covers the fourth floor of the Dungeon. The sequel is The Gate Of The Feral Gods.

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This novel provides examples of:

• And This Is for...: Forkith, 20th edition, wrote an entry in which he hoped to make it to the 12th floor so he could punch a god in the dick and tell him "This is for my sister.".
• All-Loving Hero: Earlier, Carl just saved people he encountered, helping Meadowlark get down the stairs. Now he's deliberately choosing to traverse the Tangle to save thousands of people. Repeatedly.
• An Arm and a Leg: Some Pollyslogs learn the hard way that these train doors don't work like normal doors back on Earth used to.
• Badass Boast: Carl tells his memory of Mordecai's statement that "You can't save them all." to go fuck himself. Then he tells Li Jun...
  Carl: We have some more friends who are trapped all the way at the end of the line. We’re going to save them. Each and every one.
• Berserk Button: Donut loses her shit when she learns Hekla was planning on betraying Katia to her death. Carl realizes why she's freaking out so badly. She knew Bea was planning on selling her as a breeder and getting another kitten.
• Bond One-Liner: After Carl deals with the god he summoned. "Glurp glurp, mother fucker."
• Cassandra Truth: Thanks to the recaps painting him as a Mad Bomber and Axe-Crazy murderer, a lot of the crawlers don't believe Carl when he figures out the fourth floor's endgame.
  Gwendolyn Duet: The bomber guy warned all of you dumbasses. Fall back to the train lines. Hold them at the choke points.
  Ronaldo Qu: He didn't say it would happen this bad.
  Gwendolyn Duet: Are you on crack? This is exactly what he said was going to happen. It's literally the exact thing he warned you about. Now clear the chat.
• Chekhov's Gun: Early on, Mordecai gifts Carl and Donut with potions that are almost, but not quite, guarantees of immortality. Carl survives being the wishbone between a Province Boss and an angry God thanks to that potion.
• Driven to Suicide: We finally learn a dark secret from Carl's past. His father was such an abusive piece of shit that his mother attempted to kill the man and herself... and got the job half done. On Carl's birthday.
• Fictional Colour: Subverted. Zomp actually is a color. It's a shade of blue-green. #39A78E
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: The ManTauR is kind of (?) a horse based race, even though he's half man and half man. The real clue is how he's always talking about glorious combat and is covered in blue paint. After a brief conversation, he screams "For the glory of Grull!" before attacking.
  Donut: Isn't that?
  Carl: Yup.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Before he left the Meadowlark group, Chris kept insisting that he knew Carl was a short distance south of them. How he knew that, Imani doesn't know.
  • When Carl derails a train, he gets an achievement that hints at things to come.
    Let’s hope this doesn’t set off some sort of unforeseen domino effect that will ripple throughout the rest of the floor, leading to mass confusion and death amongst you and your fellow crawlers.
  • One of the notes in the Cookbook is that gods are worn like armor by their sponsors, meaning that that armor can be ripped off by certain spells, leaving the sponsor vulnerable.
  • Odette gets pissed with Loita interfering with her show and tries to drop a hint to Carl and Donut about Chris.
    Odette: Your grandmother wasn’t nearly as high-strung as you are. We’re talking as friends. It’s not about the crawl. It’s not like I warned them that Chris… [Odette went mute]
  • In its text about the Krakaren grubs, the AI says that the original Krakaren was thought of by the natives of its home planet as the Apothecary due to its ability to synthesize different substances when it ate different creatures. The Apothecary will be revealed near the end of book 6 to be the name of a member of the Primal race, the opponent (and alleged traitor) of Agatha's faction. Is this just a memory of a legend of a memory or is it a hint at deeper lore?
• Friendship Moment: Not the first between Carl and Donut, and certainly not the last.
  Carl: You shouldn’t have done that, Donut. You risked yourselves, and you risked the cart.
  Donut: I wasn’t just going to abandon you, Carl. Who do you think I am? Miss Beatrice?
• Genre Savvy:
  • Knowing video games, and having learned from Mordecai how the mobs work, Carl realizes that the drug system is intended to keep them on a cycle, riding up the tracks for their fix, so that they present a constant threat to crawlers. He also gathers from Elle's information that they're like the brindle grubs from the second floor; initially mostly harmless, but destined to become much, much worse if the system ever gets derailed.
  • Given his choice of various prizes, Carl is tempted by a bunch of very useful or emotionally relevant rewards, but he opts for the seemingly useless book of goblin recipes because he knows it's either absolutely worthless or the most valuable prize of the bunch. He wins that coin toss.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Carl teaches Donut the mechanics of a Portal Cut and uses it to take down a War Mage. A number of mobs also learn the hard way that train doors do not have the safety rules common on subway cars. This also ends up being the final fate of Hekla.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • When Growler Gary learns why Carl keeps killing him... he volunteers and simply asks that they make it painless.
  • Tizquick and Brandy likewise learn the truth of their existence as sentient NPC mobs and decide to blow the Abyss rather than live with the truth of the lie.
• Heroic Safe Mode: When Carl learns that Brandon died at the end of the third floor, holding the line so the rest of Meadowlark could escape, he stalks into the training room for a brutal Bare Knuckles training session, unbuffed.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Hekla really fucked up with Carl, believing the recap show's portrayal of him rather than trusting what she observed and what Katia told her.
• Informed Ability: Hekla's a psychiatrist, which should include the ability to read people, not just manipulate them. It should also include the requirement to help people become better, rather than worse. Not only does Hekla fail to understand Carl's true personality, she also turns Eva, who had anger issues requiring Hekla's treatment before coming into the dungeon, into a weapon to be wielded against her fellow crawlers.
• Insistent Terminology: Hekla keeps reminding Donut that crossbows fire bolts, not arrows.
• Irony: Hekla thought that she could goad Carl into attacking her by betraying Katia, giving herself the excuse to kill him and claim Donut (and Mordecai) for her team. Instead, Carl's the calm one and it's Donut who loses her shit and Katia who kills her.
• It's Personal: During Donut's meltdown over Hekla's betrayal of Katia, Carl realizes why she's so upset; she remembers what Bea was going to do to her.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Hekla had a meticulous plan of manipulation and betrayal. Because she misjudged the recaps and thus misjudged Carl, the woman she betrayed ended up much stronger than she anticipated, and reacted to the betrayal such that Hekla ended up dead.
• Loophole Abuse: The Cookbook does not violate the Crawl's rules... but whoever first created it knew this was only because no one knew about it. If the showrunners find out about it, they'll definitely patch it out.
  This is important. While this book's contents may be invisible, your actions are not. You must become an actor. Every recipe, every secret, if utilized, must be presented to the outside world as if you are discovering this all on your own. How you do that is up to you. Do not spend too much time staring at these pages.
• Mad Bomber: Okay, so Carl isn't the vicious whack job the program is making him out to be but... he does get up to some wild shit.
  Elle: On top of that, some crazy asshole who doesn't want everybody to think he's a crazy asshole is throwing a train full of explosives in our direction. So, you know. Typical day.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: While Katia was already upset that Hekla tried to kill her to get Carl pissed off enough that he attacked and she was allowed to kill him so that she could recruit Donut, what really sets her off is Eva's litany of petty bullshit, including razzing Katia for her husband leaving her for a student and not being allowed to adopt. She snaps and a second later has gained thirteen levels.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Regular train lines are just named after colors, but the special lines used to switch tracks have names like the Nightmare Express and the Misery. Unsurprisingly, they're full of much more dangerous monsters.
• Not Me This Time: In the climax, a few soul crystals explode and everyone looks at Carl.
  Carl: Why is it every time there's a big explosion, you immediately think I had something to do with it?
  Elle: Because it usually is you.
  Donut: She does have a point, Carl.
• Oh, Crap!: Carl and Donut learn a little too late that her Puddle Jumper spell's "line of sight" has some limitations. Donut makes it to the platform. Carl gets caught by the train.
• Our Centaurs Are Different: Behold, the noble ManTauR, mighty warrior, worshiper of Grull, heavy metal aficionado, train conductor. He's half human and ... half human? Kinda gross.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • Carl spends a minute asking Mordecai about summoning gods, then turns to the people with him:
    Carl: The plan has changed.
    Li Na: To what?
    Katia: Uh oh.
  • Mordecai has likewise learned to fear Carl's ideas.
    Carl: Holy shit I have a glorious idea.
    Mordecai: No.
    Carl: You don't know what it is yet.
    Mordecai: I don't care what it is. If it's a Carl idea, it's probably a brilliant idea that's going to get you killed. Donut told me about how you captured the Nightmare train. I bet you thought that was a glorious idea, too.
    Carl: No, that was a dumb idea. This is much better. Though it's funny you mention the Nightmare.
• Punny Name:
  • Donut's sponsor is Princess D'Nadia of the Prism Kingdom. Matt Dinniman knows some Spanish. She's "Princess You're Welcome". Or, more literally, she's princess "of nothing". She spends all her time touring talk shows and has a lot of wealth and power, but where does it come from?
  • The Mole Man who runs the general store where Carl trades in his books is named Limp Richard.
• Rage Breaking Point: Katia is simply confused at first when she learns about Hekla's betrayal. However, when Eva goes on an extended rant mocking Katia for always being confused and weak (Why did my husband leave me for a student? Why does my job suck? Why won't they let me adopt a child?), Katia snaps and tries to kill her. She kills Hekla instead.
• Rousseau Was Right: People are suspicious of Carl at first, because of the reputation the show gave him, and of course he's covered with gore after getting to Li's group, but once they learn what he needs the hats for, the crowd willingly gives them up to save the people trapped at the Abyss.
• Schmuck Bait: On entering level four, you get a useless hat, a kid's souvenir train conductor hat. And you can sell it for 5,000 gold. Turns out it's the key to a path to getting to the stairs and moving on to the fifth floor.
• Secret Legacy: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook turns out to be an artifact from previous iterations of the Dungeon, passed down through the system. Previous authors passed down recipes for potions, traps, bombs, and tips on exploits, in addition to simple words of comfort and wisdom.
  Potions, Explosives, Traps, Secret Societies, Dungeon Shortcuts, and more. Much more. This guide to creating chaos was originally generated into the system during the fifteenth season. It was awarded to the High Elf Crawler Porthus the Rogue on the ninth floor, disguised as a blank sketchbook. The fact you're reading this indicates that this book and the knowledge within remains active in the code. It has been passed down from dungeon to dungeon. It is automatically generated after a set of predetermined conditions have been met. It will disappear from your inventory upon death or retirement where it will find its way to a worthy recipient in a future crawl.
  There is only one price for access to these pages. You must pass your own knowledge on.
• Shown Their Work: At one point during the train ride with Katia acting as a scoop, Hekla says "There are many wonders in a cow's head.", which Eva answers with a grin, leaving Carl confused. It's an Icelandic expression (Það Eru Margar Undur Í Höfuðkúpu) that means "The world is nuts.".
• Skewed Priorities: After the bizarre encounter with Miriam and Prepotente, Donut only has one thing on her mind.
  Donut: Did you hear that? He called me delightful!
• Tempting Fate: Oh, Loita, no. Stop. Don't.
  Loita: You don’t scare me. I have a job to do, and I will make sure it’s done. I will make sure it’s done right this time.
  Carl: Ditto.
• Title Drop: Readers will recognize the prize Carl finds, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, as important the second he sees the name.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Katia joins Carl and Donut as an under-leveled, shy, scared woman, a pawn in Hekla's plan to recruit Donut. By the end of the book, she's mastered her new race, gained two dozen levels, and is a strong, capable badass who deserves her spot in the top ten.
  • When she first shows up, Katia has difficulty doing anything with her Doppelganger abilities. By the end of the book, she's casually shifting forms such that she can stick her tongue out at Carl then turn the end of it into a little hand with the middle finger extended.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Li Na tells Carl that he needs to tell everyone else the plan so they can carry it out in case he dies. So it's played doubly straight in that we still don't get to know the plan even as it's lampshaded that we don't know the plan.
• Unwinnable by Design: The showrunner notes that crawlers have begun derailing trains "earlier than usual" while apologizing that the cleanup crews are running slower than they should, and this means that the planned parade of withdrawal-maddened rage monsters will be showing up earlier than usual.
• Wham Line: "You tried to kill Katia, you fucking bitch!"
• Worst. Whatever. Ever!: Donut describes her prize (a suitcase full of an infinite number of Literal Fire Ants) as the worst prize ever.
• Zonk: Subverted. Carl selects a prize off a carousel; once he selects it, he gets the full description. The Cookbook is described as a book of goblin recipes written by an anonymous author. It seems like a dud that he wasted his choice on, but then it turns out it's actually a legacy item passed since down the fifteenth season of the Crawl.