Literature / Dungeon Robotics

Welcome to Dungeon Automata

Regan Earle is a man who may very well be too smart for his own good. A robotics scientist from the 22nd century, he ended up creating the robot apocalypse. Held captive in his own tower by his creations, he engineers his own death. In part because of his actions on Earth, replacing the dominant species, he meets Creation and is sent to the planet Murgin.

Now reincarnated as a dungeon core, Regan must learn to use his new found powers and expand his dungeon to gain the mana he needs to develop. Once again he creates robots, or automaton as this world knows them. Soon he discovers the captive dungeon core Alara across the mountains and makes it his mission to save her. However the world isn't going to wait until he is ready and one threat after another starts to rear it's head.

Louella is a former Lecazar noble, having to leave it all behind after some family drama. She bought the title of Baroness and a small valley village on the Thonaca boarder. While this seemed like a relatively quite life at first, the discovery of Dungeon Automata nearby brought a gold rush to her doorstep. While an opportunity for wealth and prosperity, it also brought her a world of trouble. Her power and population increase far faster than anticipated while nobles from the West and even the East want a piece of her newfound wealth. Meanwhile she must contend with the strangely intelligent and unpredictable dungeon host who enjoys teasing her while the necromancers of the North set their sights on her valley and her specifically.

Dungeon Robotics is a book series by Matthew Peed, first officially published in 2019.

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This fiction provides the example of:

• Aborted Arc: A number of plot points are dropped before long, such as when Izola saves a phoenix, a tamable monster, from a storm, which is never mentioned again. A few characters were introduced with their own POV, only to show up once or twice more before being reduced to the occasional passing mention.
• Abusive Parents: Louella's father was loving for most of her life, though in hindsight this might of been so he could marry her off without issue. However when his new wife tried to kill her he did nothing to stop it, paying her off to simply leave when that failed.
  • Louella's father comes back years later when she strikes it rich, hoping to get in on her new found wealth and power, but when she wants nothing to do with him he shoots her In the Back.
• Ace Custom: The goblins love customizing their mechs, resulting in countless versions.
• Ai Is A Crap Shoot: Regan built his robots so he could have friends that would never betray him. However one of them still did and locked him in his own tower.
• Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Beta is an airship that is able to launch raptors and flying automaton. Alpha is even larger and is able to support small airships, small by Regan's standards anyway.
• Airborne Artillery: Regan's aircraft are largely equipped with visual ranged weaponry. He used it to mow down the hordes of zombies in the North.
• Alliance of Alternates: In Hellia a number of Regans collect at Termina, the last stop before the heart of Hellia. They repeatedly try to destroy the heart without success.
• Alphabetical Theme Naming: Regan named his flying castle Alpha. His airships in the First Fleet are named Beta, Gamma, Delta, etc.
  • The good Regans in Hellia also call themselves Alpha, Beta, and Gamma, likely in order of arrival. This is a legacy title, as there was another Alpha who died.
• Alternate Universe: There are countless universes and Creation and Destruction have a bet going on how long they last. Many of these universes have their own Regan, not all of whom made it to Murgin. Some manage to retake control of Watcher, saving Earth, while others never start the Robot War in the first place. Others aren't even from an Earth an manage to destroy their home planet anyway. Some of these are Alternate Timeline, such as the setting of Dungeon Destruction, where Destruction sent Regan to Murgin instead of Creation.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: The Hosts are the manifestation of a dungeon's spirit and can take a variety of forms, typically humanoid.
• An Arm And Aleg: Ezal was hit by a necromancer's curse. While it was removed, she lost the use of an arm, a leg, and a lung, turning them black. Eventually they are out right amputated and replaced.
• Artificial Limbs: The damage to Ezal's arm and leg were so bad they had to be replaced, which were good to go as soon as they were attached. The new arm shoots napalm.
• Artistic License – Physics: Murgin is four times the size of Earth, but has the same level of gravity. Regan repeatedly wonders about this and assumes magic is involved in some way.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The Celestials were originally mortals who broke into tier 5. Regan believes this is actually a prison for powerful beings, as they are forced into it.
• Attack Drone: Several of the drones Puppet created are armed with different types of weapons.
• Auto-Doc: Regan starts making medical automatons for the city. They can quickly heal a person.
• Bad Boss: Helicilia has been known to kill her subordinates for simply delivering bad news, even masters and council members. She will sometimes regret doing so after she has had a chance to calm down, but that doesn't stop her from doing it again. She has also used the silence curse, meant to protect their secrets, to prevent them from even thinking certain negative things about her.
• Batman Gambit: The demons counted on Lelune to steal the Flame of Knowledge to fuel her own ego, but also dooming the mortals on the planet. They were surprised anyone was still left by the time they came back.
  • Cassin seems to be pulling this as well. His meetings with her seemed to be aimed at provoking a response, which often goes badly for her.
  • This may be why Creation sent Regan to Mirgin in the first place, as he ultimately learned of the impending demon invasion and readied the mortals against it.
• The Beautiful Elite: People seem to get more attractive as they break into higher tiers. Several characters are mentioned for their beauty. One backstory had a woman's body developed quite a bit while she secretly awakened her magic and advance her tier.
• Beneath the Earth: When the North fell to the necromancers survivors were forced to flee to the dungeons for safety. Two of the dungeons allowed them to build villages deep underground, feeding off their mana passively. They then went into lock down to prevent the necromancers from capturing them like they did with Alara.
  • Long ago the high races became to powerful to cultivate mana on the surface and were forced to move underground to the Beneath where they built cities. Good chunks of the caves and tunnels seem to be infested with monsters, but the cities are normally safe enough.
• Berserk Button: Regan likes programming these into his automatons.
  • The wooden automatons will fly into a frenzy if you start setting them on fire.
  • The captain units will likewise enter rage mode if you kill all their subordinates first.
  • The floor 6 brutes are basically walking berserk buttons. While normally passive, touching one will cause the whole floor to attack everyone and they won't forgive you for a month. They will calm down after a couple of hours, so everyone else can come back.
  • Regan has his own buttons. He hates people even suggestion he wanted to kill all those people back on Earth, including his father. Betrayal is another.
• Best Her to Bed Her: The dragons live by this rule, which is magically enforced. If a dragon is able to defeat another in battle the loser is then forced to be their mate. This works both ways as females can be the dominate one. The magic can be released in the event of same sex couples. Regan tries to figure a way out of this after he overpowers what turns out to be a female dragon.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Tzulxuc is a powerful dungeon and once king of the North. Wishing to be inmortal, he unleashed untold distruction and taint across the land. However he is simply a pawn of Cassin, which would eventually result in his death. Queen Helicilia was the more active threat until they were able to get to the capital. When he tries to bring Helicilia under his full control, she is quickly hijacked by Kenia and she and Alara start laying siege to his dungeon, only to be quickly hobbled by Regan and the high kobolds and high trolls become the bigger threat, almost killing him. When he is finally free of Regan's control and up to his old tricks he is suddenly killed by an alternate universe version of Julie, who becomes the main threat for the rest of the battle.
• Big Brother Is Watching: Regan can see anything with in his aura, provided there isn't interference, which has certain implications when his aura grows to cover the whole town. However even he can't be omnipresent. So he created numerous security cameras and Jarvis to watch the feed, which could catch things he missed.
  • The obelisks take another step up on this. They were placed around the city and would automatically knock a person out if they break the laws. Subverted slightly as they will largely ignore crimes committed inside of private buildings.
  • Regan had done this on Earth as well. Watcher was to keep an eye on the people around him and warn him of danger. Unfortunately he didn't stay The Watcher.
• BFG: Captain Liz uses a cannon that is bigger than she is.
• Big Eater: Wrakras is quite the foodie. A few people wonder how he can possibly fit all of the stuff he eats.
• Bodyguard Betrayal: Two of Valamar's bodyguards betray him to the necromancers. His surviving bodyguard is then framed for their crime.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The Church of Lelune starts sweeping up everyone with light mana, converting them into "saints". They become fanatics and have trouble remembering people from before. The trade off seems to be an incredible boost of magical power, likely being supplied by Lelune in greater quantities than normal. It 's a wonder they never pulled this trick during their fight with the necromancers.
• Breaking Old Trends: The volume covers normally have a picture of a robot hand grasping a dungeon core with a distant background. Volume 12, the Queen Collection, is the first to lack such an image, instead featuring the image of a crown and the silhouettes of four women. It is also the first volume to have a subtitle that was more than one word long.
• Bullying a Dragon: A Duke has been trying to reclaim Robia Valley by killing Louella. When the bandits failed he sent an army. They violated the rules of war by killing her messenger and sending him back in pieces over the wall while the commander stood at the back of the formation. 10 soldiers survived her reply, mainly because they were far away from the commander.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Saying Regan is rather bizarre for a dungeon host would be an understatement. He created monsters never before seen, randomly invents new traps, constructs large buildings literally overnight with little to no warning, not to mention dropping in on Louella when ever he feels like it. However he is still a dungeon and a major part of the city's rapidly growing economy, so there is little Louella can do to stop him.
• Came Back Strong: Colossus keeps adapting to what ever kills him as he emerges from his own body. Regan has to replace him as floor boss and move him someplace else each time.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Cassin fully admits he is evil and gets under Lelune's skin by pointing out she is his chief competition for worst person in the world.
• Casanova Wannabe: Prince Charles hits on every woman who is assigned to protect him. Coupled with the fact that the guys don't want to have anything to do with the pretty boy ether and it becomes rather hard to assign him a protection detail.
• Church Militant: The Church of Lelune didn't actually have a standing army at the start of the series, instead leaving that up to the local lords, but when Lelune ups her game with an all out war against the necromancers, and later Regan, they struggle to put one together, even building a theocracy.
• Chuunibyou: The Chaos Party is a group of adventures who come off as quite weird, even for adventures. The members all claim something odd, like having an angle, possessed by a demon, is the future Grand Vicar despite the low holy mana, or something along those lines. Even in a world of magic they are an odd group, but Regan has noticed there might be some method to their madness.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Lelune has built her power by betraying countless others, even her own husband Arin. Turns out this was the result of the person she trusted the most manipulating her. Still not all of Lelune's betrayals were Rosa's fault.
• Cloak and Dagger: The existence of the Shadow Guild is a secrete restricted to people of tier 2 or higher. It's members can turn invisible and preform scouting missions on dungeons below tier 3 to report back their attack patterns and layouts, even when parties fail to make it back. Supposedly they aren't aligned with any government and use their abilities exclusively for dungeon recon. However there seems to be more to them than that.
• Colonized Solar System: Murgin was once home to an advance civilization. When the planet started to become uninhabitable they colonized one of the moons, testing it with another sapient species. Once they perfected it and got the casualties down, they took the other moon for themselves before eventually leaving the system.
• Colony Drop: Starfell is a mithril tipped "Rod from God". It was dropped on Alara's dungeon, piercing half the floors. Unfortunately the resulting shockwave reacted with the terra mana in the ground, creating a massive wave of energy that ripped throughout the world and causing a lot of damage.
• Combat Medic: In order to learn Regan's version of healing magic, you must make an oath to never use the magic to cause harm. The Order of the White Fist have found a loophole that allows them to heal themselves during combat and use mundane attacks.
• Combat Sadomasochist: Julie is a highly skilled fighter who enjoys torturing people but also enjoys being tortured, at least when Regan does it.
• Cool Airship: The technology to produce airships was largely lost long ago, but the gnomes where able to retain it to an extent, becoming the sole source of airships prior to Regan. Current technology isn't able to reproduce the older ships and they are treated as national treasures.
  • Regan creates the Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, and Zeta to serve as his fleet for Operation Scorched North. He commands them from Alpha.
• Cool Starship: The Eta is able to turn invisible and can be used for recon, but apparently large enough to act as a carrier. It was repurposed from Operation Scorched North, meaning it was originally meant to be an airship.
• Corrupt Church: The Church of Lelune has been hording magic and other secrets for centuries. While technically at war with the necromancers, they do little about them. The reason Louella's father got away with his actions as long as he did was because he could simply bribe his way out of trouble. The priests have even been known to con people out of their money. It likely doesn't help that they worship Lelune.
• Crack in the Sky: When a Hellion is summoned, a crack opened up in thin air, allowing them to get through.
• Crapsack World: Murgin has three continents. One has been rendered uninhabitable 5,000 years ago, one is overrun with monsters and down to only one human village, and a sizable chunk of the actually inhabited one is full of zombies. The gods of the last two remaining religions ether don't care about the mortals and just wants more power or simply out to kill everyone. Nobility and the church are very corrupt, and there are tons of sealed accent evils laying about. That's not even the half of it.
  • The same could be said of Earth during and even after the Robot War.
• Creative Sterility: Regan's robots seemed to suffer from this. Back on Earth they enslaved him and forced him to develop new weapons and technology for them. They also had other captured humans develop games.
• Crippling Overspecialization: For religious reasons the Northern country only uses necromancers and considers the use of any other type of mage blasphemy. Some of their numbers admit this limits their options and makes things harder for them. It really comes back to bite them when Regan develops systems to automatically detect and attack anyone with unholy mana, preventing them from getting anywhere near the city.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: A man tried to brute force the dungeon with a raiding party ^note Any party made up of 50 or more peoplemade up mostly of recently bought slaves as dungeon fodder despite warnings that it would too much for the untrained slaves. They were the first ones to make it to Colossus, the floor five boss. The guards didn't do much better than the slaves armed with shields. The only survivor was impelled and pinned to the wall, left alone after she couldn't move.
  • An army marched on Robia Valley, not believing such a remote village could have tier 3 mages. They quickly showed they had no respect for the rules of war. Less of a battle and more of a slaughter, as only 10 soldiers survived the first and only spell the defenders bothered to cast.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Azaria might be suffering from this. Regan turned her into a cyborg of sorts and it seems to of had an effect on her personality. Regan admits to himself that he basically brainwashed her.
• Daddy's Girl: Regan views all of his creations as his children, but Z2 takes the cake. She frequently obsesses over him, even following him across universes.
• Data Pad: Vaihdetta starts using “glass tablets” that Regan produced as part of regular government work and communication. They seem to act like tablets or smart phones.
• Deader than Dead: The Lelune saints have damaged souls. When they die they are fully lost, unable to return to the wheel of reincarnation.
• Deal with the Devil: The king of a Northern country wanted to live forever and made a deal with a Cassin to do it, even though it comes at a cost of countless lives. He isn't happy to learn that Cassin is planning on killing everyone.
• Death of the Old Gods:While it isn't clear what happened to them, Lelune somehow severed the connection between the other gods and their temples when she took over heaven. She claimed they had been killed by Arin who she had betrayed and framed. Only the necromancer god has escaped this and is still in contact with the mortals.
• Deep Cover Agent: The necromancers are fond of this trope, even employing shapeshifters. They can assume roles for months or even years as the mission may call for it.
• Deflector Shields: Airships are often protected by magical barriers, with the ones Regan made resembling a Beehive Barrier.
• Deity of Human Origin: The Celestials were originally humans and other mortals who broke through to tier 5, allowing them to reach heaven. They became hailed as gods.
  • Rean technically becomes a god when Princess Izora declares him a god, honestly believing it, coupled with him becoming a tier 3 dungeon. He created an empty universe by accident and Creation told him to be careful not to create another.
• Despair Event Horizon: Following her mother's death, Princess Izora becomes enraged, killing a dozen gnome prisoners she had been trying to come up with an excuse to spare. Once her rage dies down she becomes depressed. Even after attaching herself to Regan she still isn't quite herself and struggles with depression.
• Destructive Saviour: While Regan often saves the day, he has a habit of causing a lot of collateral damage. He even destroyed cities to prevent them from becoming nests of undead, killing the few holdouts who refused to evacuate and creating new elementals that adventurers will spend years to come killing. Then there is the event known as the Wave.
• Deus Exit Machina: In volume 7 Regan becomes trapped in another location and spends much of volume bouncing from one far off location to the next, trying to get home. The battle is already over by the time he gets back.
  • At the end of volume 11 after Regan is lost to yet another dimension, four gods appear. With the loss of Murgin's greatest protector their mana supply is threatened, so they kill the demon's leader and turn the remaining shards into dungeons, binding the rest of the demon's to the world spirit and effectively quarantining them, as well as making a few other fixes. They would have brought Regan back, but even they aren't allowed to mess with that world.
• Deus ex Machina: Regan will pull this sometimes with people in his dungeon, saving those who earn his favor. Still he has rules he follows. Becomes a bit more literal when Regan becomes a god in machine form.
• Deuteragonist: In the early volumes most chapters were told ether from Regan or Louella's POV, with occasionally another character getting the spot light for a chapter. This shows their respective developments from a newborn dungeon and baroness of a small valley village to a physical god and queen of the continent while breaking through the tiers. Down played as Puppet, Alara, and Izora started gaining more of the spotlight and more frequently being the POV character, with Alara effectively becoming the Tritagonist in the later volumes after Izora starts getting less attention.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Regan's first automaton resembles a string puppet, so he names him Puppet.
• The Don: Tony Fuirn was the first intelligent goblin Regan created. He was made mayor of the city on the 20th floor, but it quickly developed a Mafia theme and naturally he became the head of the family, called Godfather by the other family heads.
• Drone Deployer: Puppet can manufacturer new drones and keep them in his storage ring, deploying them as needed.
  • Regan's first airship can deploy raptors and flying automatons. Other carriers can do the same.
• Dug Too Deep: Subverted. Regan reaches a layer where his aura was unable to simply tunnel through the rock, forcing him to do so manually. He creates drills and has them dig through the stone for him. However he leaves them running and they keep going, eventually reaching The Beneath. He is able to take control of the cavern and build a city with little trouble. Played straight when an army of fire elementals attack his Beneath level, even if he won that fight. Later came the zombie cyborgs.
• Dungeon-Based Economy: It is fairly normal for a city in Murgin to be built around a dungeon, a source of experience and resources. Baroness Louella immediately starts building her small village into a city and buys out the local land upon discovering Dungeon Automata.
• Dungeon Bypass: In order to free Alara from the necromancers Regan has to delve her dungeon to reach her avatar. He simply drops Starfall on it, destroying the castle on top and piercing 45 floors. He then starts drilling into the other 45 floors. Ironically while he was doing this someone else did the same to his dungeon, piercing 15 floors in the opening attack.
  • Regan pulled this again with the wild dungeons, only this time he also rips them out of the ground.
  • Once Louella learns how to open portals, she starts using them to get into the lower floors of the dungeon when ever she wishes. However this ability is blocked below a certain floor.
• Dungeon Crawling: The core concept of any good dungeon. Regan builds his dungeon to get progressively harder the farther down you go.
• A Dungeon Is You: Regan is reincarnated as a dungeon core.
• Dungeon Maintenance: Anything that isn't warded against it will quickly disappear if left alone in a dungeon. Boss monsters will also respawn on their own after a while. Regan sets up an automated system to replace his automatons if they are destroyed and they are capable of self repair. Ore veins will also replenish themselves daily.
• Eat the Summoner: A golem summons a hellion when the threat level gets to high. She then attacks indiscriminately until she destroys the golem. This was a mistake as it banished her to where she came from.
• Emerald Power: Unholly mana was explicitly stated to be green, and the color is repetely mentioned when they attack.
• Evil Chancellor: The Duke is the King of Thonaca's most trusted adviser. However he is also in league with the necromancers and even arranged for his own son to marry Helicilia so she can sacrifice him, not that that worked out for anyone involved. He prompts the King to kill the witness as a traitor to cover his own tracks.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: More than one person unseals a demon general, which results in their deaths.
• Fairy Companion: One of the first spells a dungeon can learn is to summon a dungeon fairy. They act as a guide to teach them about the world, but can't volunteer information. Several dungeons have a fairy companion, if they haven't killed them for materials. Regan names his fairy Ignea.
• Fantasy Aliens: Demons were said to be invaders from another dimension in the legends. Really they were just from another solar system.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Contains sentient dungeons, fairies, elves, Space Elves, a cat girl, Precursors, dragons, automatons, dwarves, gods, true gods, demons, classic horror movie monsters, more robots, world eaters, elemental spirits, moon people, and so on.
• Fate Worse than Death: Regan keeps his captured necromancers in what are effectively sensory deprivation tanks to be used as living power generators. When he releases one for questioning she states she would rather be tortured or killed after regaining her senses.
• Fembot: Regan has built enough automaton with feminine features that people have taken notice that he is unquestionably male.
• Flaming Hair: Ezal's hair becomes permanently aflame once she breaks through to tier 2.
• Flawed Prototype: The ancient monster dungeons on the Fuizol continent are all missing some function that is standard in the current dungeons, such as the ability to talk or long term memory.
• Floating Continent: Jade Wind is the gnome floating city. It is full of lost technology they no longer understand and have spend several generations trying to relearn them, only to keep back sliding when someone dies due to them hording the information.
  • Alpha is Regan's floating castle, and command ship of his fleet. For some reason it's core is able to move around, rather than being fixed in place like the space station.
• Forged by the Gods: Adamantite is known as the metal of the gods and can only be produced with faith mana.
• Forgets to Eat: After Louella breaks into tier 4 she will go days without remembering to eat unless someone puts a plate of food in front of her.
• Full-Frontal Assault: When Louella stumbles into a power up during a battle, her clothing couldn't withstand the discharge. She couldn't be bothered to care and continued with the battle.
• Genius Loci: The dungeons are all sentient beings, able to think and grow. They normally start off with the mentally of a child, but can mature.
• Giving Radio to the Romans: Regan constructs a library and starts filling it with books on subjects from Earth, even if he wasn't an expert on the subjects. This has caused a rapid advancement of technology, resulting in the gnomes building a hydrogen bomb, though Regan gave them a number of warning about that field.
• God and Satan Are Both Jerks: Lelune is the Goddess of Light and Cassin is the God of the Undead. Both could be considered the devil of each others worshipers. However they are only concerned with their own ambitions and consider their followers to be disposable resources. It it little wonder that Regan gains so much traction once he becomes a god.
• God's Hands Are Tied: There are gods who exist far beyond the level of Celestials. However Creation finds that universes survive longer when their gods don't interfere with mortals. So he bars them from doing so outside of specific circumstances. Even then they won't touch Hellia.
• The Gods Must Be Lazy: Given her apparent education, status, and powers, Lelune could have advanced the mortal civilization greatly in the past few centuries, but she has chosen not to. It has been noted that she has been dispensing less oracles in recent years and the Healing Hands of her priests are inconsistent. Even with the long time conflict with the North her she only gives the vague order to kill all the necromancers without any sort of time frame or aid. It's only when facing another god that she can be bothered to do anything.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: The celestials are able to gather faith energy from their worshipers and will allow their priests to drawn on some of their mana in exchange. Lelune cut the connection between most of the other celestials and their worshipers, rendering them unable to draw upon their power.
• Gold Fever: The Greed traps are enchanted chests of gold coins that make parties fight over them. It can get pretty bloody.
• Golem: A number of the automatons are actually just golems. They get more complex after a while, becoming full on robots.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: This seems to keep happening.
  • On Earth about half of Regan's robots became self aware by the time he died and were able to ignore the shut down order. Z2 even manage to develop a soul, allowing her to reincarnate like Regan did.
  • On Murgin Regen's new creations will start to evolve if left to exist for too long, doing things he never intended them to do. Naming them seems to help. He is often pleased with their development.
• Growing Wings: There are a myriad of ways magic can effect the body. When Princess Izora releases all her mana and then tapped into a large amount of Regan's mana her body went through several changes, including a large pair of wings sticking out of her back.
• Happiness in Slavery: Julie is absolutely ecstatic to be Regan's slave after discovering just how many people he has killed. He though she was crazy and added magical shackles to her wrists and ankles to better control her, not stopping with the magical slave collar. She wants more, even asking for her limbs to be replaced at one point. He eventually tried to set her free, but she bound the slave magic to her mana pool to prevent that.
• Heart Drive: While the whole dungeon could be considered part of their body, the dungeon core it the most important part. Anything else can be repaired or replaced, but if the core is destroyed then the dungeon dies. This doesn't necessarily mean the end, as a shard of the core could be used to regrow it, provided it hasn't been to long.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Louella and Ezal have been close since childhood, ever since the former saved the later from slavery, viewing each other as sisters. They had moved to Robia Valley together and Ezal was certain Louella would help her raise her child if Valamar never returned.
• Hollywood Hacking: Subverted when the demons attack Jarvis collects information on the demon's language and OS until he has enough understanding to preform a cyberattack. They manage to find a back door in a less guarded system, finding that hydroponics hasn't been touched in decades. This eventually led to the demon's command center, which Regan spoke with the demon leader for a few minutes while his control spread, wreaking havoc on every system he could before leaving. It likely doesn't hurt that the demons normally don't fight opponents with a similar tech level and the attack was preformed by automatons.
• The Horde: The necromancers seem to like to pull this.
  • They have created armies of the undead and laid siege to cities.
  • They also aren't above enslaving monsters to attack cities as well, but building them up takes longer.
  • Fortunately Regan is a fan of this trope as well, countering them with his own robot army that lay waste to those who stand in his path.
• Human Disguise: Regan's avatar resembles an android, but he is able to make himself look human if he wishes.
  • Puppet's team are given illusion rings to make them appear human while traveling.
• Humongous Mecha: Regan created one while attacking the final floor of Alara's dungeon as she was creating an armored giant that could pass for a mecha as well. Regan himself has to pilot it as only he can power something so large. He uses it to decorate his dungeon entrance after the battle, not having any other use for it.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: On Earth Regan painted a giant target on his back, even building a robot that was meant to kill him, all in a means to die. Given Watcher's control over his life, he might of been stopped if he tried to do it himself.
• I Miss Mom: After she received news of her mother's death Princess Izora is stricken with grief and dives into her new cause. This causes a problem.
  • To a lesser extent Louella is found of her red eyes, something she had gotten from her late mother. She isn't thrilled when her growing mana changes them.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Julie becomes incredibility excited upon Regan's causal claim of having a body count of about 8 billion. She is apparently able to see the souls of those who bear grudges against him and even the ones who haven't entered the cycle of reincarnate are impressive.
• Kidnapped from Behind: During the first necromancer attack on the valley Louella is attacked from behind and stuffed into a sack.
• Kill Sat: Regan starts building his satellites with ion cannons. The first one exploded after he fired it once. Even though it ups the price he makes the weapon standard on his satellite network.
• Light Is Not Good: Lelune is the goddess of light and held in high regard by the church. However she is responsible for the end of the golden age, having talked her husband Arin into stealing the Flame of Knowledge from the mortal world and betrayed him upon his return. Without the Flame the mortals lost the means of reaching tier 5 and reaching Celestia.
• Load-Bearing Boss: The A.I. that locked Regan in his tower set the place to explode five minutes after he dies.
• Made of Iron: Megan was impaled in the gut with a spire and sent flying all the way back to the fort, but she was fine the next time we see her. This was after her sister threw her off the second floor with enough force to leave a gash in the ground, but she just walked that off. When Regan inspected her he found that thanks to her terra magic, her bones and a few other parts of her were literally made of metal.
• Machine Worship: The gnomes practically worship the technology left behind from the golden age, if not out right.
• Mad Scientist: Regan certainly has shades of this. Some of inventions don't work the way he intended and have rather destructive consequences.
• Mage Tower: The Mage's guild operates out of a tower, with each element occupying a different floor. The water and fire mages fought over who gets the top floor.
• The Mafia: The goblins on floor 20 went full Mafia, complete with Boston accents.
• Magitek: Regan has a lot of fun with this, combining magic and technology where ever he sees fit.
• The Maker: Creation is the highest level of god, equal in power only to his sister Destruction. The two of them watch over the multiverses for all eternity and have a bet going on how long life lasts in the universes.
• A Match Made in Stockholm: A bit of an odd case. Louella first meets Wrakras when he kidnaps her a bait to lure out Regan, which backfires. This results in him being enslaved and acting as Louella's bodyguard. Eventually he earns his freedom and the two start looking at each other in a romantic light.
• Mecha-Mooks: It's called Dungeon Robotics, what else would you expect?
• Mechanical Evolution: The automaton are able to adapt and evolve over time. This can make them smarter or more powerful.
• Mechanical Lifeforms: Back on Earth, Regan's robots became self aware to the point where they developed souls and even became the dominate lifeforms in the universe. On Mirgun his automatons often develop senses of self so at least some of them are missed when they die.
• Medieval Stasis: With the Flame of Knowledge stolen and lost to the void, Murgin hasn't advanced at all in 5,000 years. It even seems to of regressed.
• Mook–Face Turn: Regan enslaves two necromancers and uses them as minions. While this doesn't change their morality at all, Julie is absolutely ecstatic to be working for him.
• Mook Maker: As with any dungeon core, Regan can make mooks out of mana. He has also automated the possess and several of his creations can make more mooks.
• Mordor: The necromancers have corrupted the Northern country, turning it into an undead wasteland that appears black from orbit. It is very hard to find food that isn't tainted.
  • Saymar becomes this in volume 11. It was already a lifeless wasteland but now it's full of demons building their on kindom.
• Necromancer: The necromancers act as a sort of Starter Villain, with each of the early volumes involving some battle with them. Ether attacking the valley or Regan taking the fight to them. Even the first guy Regan kills upon coming to Murgin wanted to be a necromancer. Naturally they have legions of undead at their command.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Regan uses Starfall, AKA Rod from God, in an attack on the North. It caused an event known as the Wave with brought wide spread destruction and could have destroyed the world if the dungeons didn't absorb some of the mana. To make matters worse the Wave upset the delicate balance of the Beneath, causing a war and threatening the integrity of several seals.
• Ninja: Puppet was able to retain Regan's memories of ninja movies and evolves himself into the style.
• No-Sell: Demon generals are immune to magic.
  • To a lesser extent Anubis can tank unholy mana.
• Omniglot: As a dungeon core, Regan can understand any language on Murgin. Exceptions to this have proven troublesome.
• One-Night-Stand Pregnancy: Ezal had sex exactly once in her life before finding out she was pregnant. Valamar had already returned to the capital by the time this was discovered.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Dwarves are typically blacksmiths, miners, or other craftsmen. Naturally they normally live underground.
• Our Goblins Are Different: The first group of goblins we see are ugly, disgusting creatures, who did unspeakable acts acts inside the dungeon. However Regan is eventually able to make a civilized version of goblins as his first non-automaton based denizens of his dungeon. They quickly turn into The Mafia.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Quin is a blood shifter, a type of demon that exhibits an affinity for blood. She's The Vamp who feeds off blood and can turn into a blood mist. She is also immortal, able to heal and survive almost anything, stated to be over a millennium old. While she works for the King of Thonaca she is still known to feed on the guards.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Werewolves are mutated beast-kin from the North and have more hair than their Southern counterparts. They are the result of a necromancer's experiment and come in intelligent and feral versions.
• Planet Spaceship: The demons use all of Deorus as their space ship, keeping it in warp for 5,000 years. When they get to Murgin they blow it up and use the shards as landing craft, each set up as a bunker.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Natsuko is talkative and affectionate sniper girl, while Natsuo is a gloomy man of few words and team healer/mechanic.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: When a person breaks through to the next tier, there is often some physical change, such as getting taller or different eye color. When Louella reached high tier 2 her hair turned platinum blonde, among other changes.
• Power Gives You Wings: When Julie is bound to the dungeon and purified of unholy mana, she gains the ability to produce wings of shadow magic.
• Precursors: The Arcarins lived on Murgin long before any of it's current inhabitants. They were highly advanced and left there tech on every continent. This includes the teleportation system the mortals use today. They even colonized the moons before leaving the solar system.
• Reforged into a Minion: A raiding party^note A group made of 50 or more people made up mostly of slaves challenged the level 5 boss. Regon offered Azra, the sole surviving slave, a second chance at life, turning her into a robotic minion when she agreed.
  • This eventually happens to Julie, who had originally been a captured enemy agent.
• Religion is Magic: Healing seems to be the almost exclusive domain of the Lelune priests, who are able to draw upon a portion of her power. As such there is frequently a priest in larger parties. However the effectiveness of their healing magic is inconsistent, resulting in Regan's version quickly growing in popularity.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: The Necromancer Queen kills Marquess Val in a fit of rage when she found out he wasn't a virgin, or so she though. After Bruce reported his death Val shows up in Robia Valley, looking for what ever power Regan could give him. He had switched places with a dead body just before he was seemingly killed. He chooses to remain publicly dead while he completes his mission.
• Resurrective Immortality: The floor bosses have this ability, respawning after a while if killed provided there is enough ambient mana. However the shattering of the dungeon core seems to prevent this.
• Revenge Before Reason: Rosa turns out of been big into revenge. She kept up on the genocide against the elves for what they did to her, but didn't stop there. She also turned the goblin race into functioning idiots for mocking her. She even manipulated Lelune, who regarded her as a sister, into killing her own husband because she was in love with Arin first. Ultimately her actions brought Murgin to the brink of destruction so she could have a shot at becoming the world spirit and remaking it as she saw fit.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: A group of gnomes defect to the necromancers, stealing half the gnome fleet and killing the gnome queen in the process. The ones not killed by Regan or Julie are ultimately killed and turned into undead by the lich core or the necromancers.
• Ridiculously Fast Construction: As long as they have the mana for it, dungeon cores can make what ever they want with in minutes. In Regan's case, this includes massive towers.
• Robo Family: The twins Natsuko and Natsuo act like siblings more than the other automatons do... mostly. To an extent Regan views all his creations as his children.
• Robotic Undead: When the first couple of floors are destroyed in an attack on the dungeon itself, Regan rebuilds replaces it with the Scrapyard, a post apocalyptic looking ruin with rusted automaton limping about.
  • Regan later has to repair an ancient seal, but his people find it protected by undead cyborgs.
• Robot Dog: Regan made some robot wolves for one of the arctic floors. Louella asks to keep one as a pet and he gives her Lucifer, which is bigger than she is.
• Robot Master: Regan sets up his dungeon to produce automatons of all kinds, giving him a massive amount.
• Robot Soldier: Regan has everything from Mecha-Mooks to boss monsters. Some hold ranks such as captain or major.
• Robot War: Back when he was still on Earth, Regan kick started the robot uprising.
• Screw You, Elves!: 5,000 years ago the elves were incredibly racist, especially towards humans, and responsible for Lelune's Dark Andtroubled Past. She then went about killing as many of them as she could, driving them to near extinction and trying to finish the job.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Beneath seems to be a dumping ground for all manner of elemental, demons and would be gods that are too powerful to kill. The integrity of their respective seals has been threatened by the Wave and other recent events.
• Self-Constructed Being: Regan's avatar is the manifestation of his mind. The first time he summoned it it looked like it was being made by some sort of 3D printer.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: This is how prophecies work on Murgin. One is made and then people work to fulfill it. There is some magic involved, but they aren't reliant on fate alone.
• Shoutout: Regan had a lot of time to watch movies while locked in that tower.
  • One of the dungeon levels is a plain. Regan couldn't help himself when he made a pride of lions and rock formation with a ledge overlooking the plains.
  • Regan builds an English robot butler and gives him the choice between being named Jarvis or Alfred. He goes with Jarvis.
  • Benjamin is the pirate captain of Regan's first airship. He was clearly molded after Barbossa and was almost named after him too. Spare is another captain modeled after Jack.
• Sky Pirate: Most of the captains and crew for Regan's first airship fleet are pirate themed.
• Slave Brand: If not collared, slaves are marked with runes that force them to obey their masters. Regan figures they are made using a guide book and created an item to override them, making him the master and he is too busy to manage them.
• Slave Collar: Temporary slaves are given collars instead of Slave Brand. The necromancers use them as well and Regan made his own version.
• Someone to Remember Him By: After Regan pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to remove the Chest of the Cosmos he disappears. Alara morns him, but finds Regan created a system to leave her with a daughter so she could cope with the loss. Subverted in that Regan ended up in another world, but one so hard to get to that death would be easier to fix.
• Soul Jar: The dungeon core holds the very soul of the dungeon.
• Space Elves: The dark elves are eventually revealed to of been originally from another planet, with some of them immigrating to Murgin and some of them forced to stay behind. The latter group reached Murgin the slow way, doable thanks to their long lifespans.
• Spaceship Girl: Cecilia is the main engine of the Isabella and is effectively a dungeon core. She projects herself as more of a hologram than a physical avatar.
• Space Station: Regan's forth sub core is a geosynchronous satellite. He could have made do with an unmanned satellite with an automated factory to produce spy satellites, but gave it life support, green houses, and recycling systems, just in case he ever wanted to send people to live there. He can make the walls invisible to show the planet below.
• Spy Bot: Puppet has small spider drones that sneak into the enemy camp and spy on them.
• The Starscream: Lelune regards Rosa as a sister, but Rosa is actually planning on usurping her at the last minute to become the world spirit. She has actually betrayed her several times, but is clever enough to keep getting away with it, until someone else exposes her.
• Stealthy Teleportation: Regan likes to spook people by teleporting into the room suddenly when he's not using a portal. Certain people like Louella have learned to recognize the change in mana just before he appears.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: The King of Thonaca believed he could still win after Regan moved his whole castle out of the city to show off. After his attempt at a Badass Boast he allowed a demon general to possess him, the Duke believing he could control it. Turns out he couldn't.
• Support Party Member: Natsuo was literally built for support. While he largely lacks weaponry, he is able to turn his arm into over a dozen tools and can fabricate replacement parts for his fellow automatons.
• Teleportation Misfire: Louella at one point somehow ends up sending herself into the Bad Future where she finds undead cyborgs. Her now mature daughter sends her back, but fails to erase her memories of the event. For some reason everyone else was teleported to the proper destination.
• The Theocracy: The Church of Lelune start forming their own government in the South after the necromancers threw the East into chaos.
• Thinking Up Portals: A few characters, such as Regan and Louella, can generate portals. Louella could use it as a Dungeon Bypass, but Regan blocks it below a certain floor. There were even airships that had built in portals used to evacuate civilians after the attack on Lecazar. Unfortunately Regan had to set up Teleport Interdiction when interdimensional monsters started showing up everywhere, limiting their use.
• Token Evil Team Mate: While Regan employs a few entities of questionable morality, Julie takes the cake. Even after joining his forces and dedicates herself to him she is a psychotic mass murder who kills her former allies with delight. She holds herself back only to please Regan.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Julie enjoys Regan slamming her into a wall with enough force to break it. About the only thing she actually hates is heights.
• The Tower: Watcher trapped Regan in his own tower during the Robot War. This apparently didn't turn him off towers, as he frequently keeps making towers for his sub cores.
• Treants: The treants had been corrupted in the North, becoming an undead mash of wood and bone. Anubis is able to revive more normal looking treants.
• Underground City: Fallen Rose is a city in the Beneath populated by high humans and high elves. There are several other cities as well, populated by dark elves, high dwarves, high kobolds, and high trolls. They were forced underground after their mana became to strong for the surface to handle.
  • Regan and a few other dungeon cores have created cities in their dungeons as well.
• Underground Railroad: Nether Regan nor Louella are fans of slavery. The city that develops around Steel Spire is composed of escape slaves. Unable to remove the slave runes, Regan creates a device that overrides it, making him the master, then leaves them to their own devices. Louella has a duplicate device to use on the ones who come to her city. They keep this up until Louella becomes queen of the continent, at which point she just bans slavery outright.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The people of Vaihdetta have been attacked so many items and a number of other weird crap happening that most weren't partially bothered when one of the moons exploded and was suddenly pulled back together while a meteor shower rained overhead.
• Unwanted Harem: Regan only has eyes for Alara, but has attracted the attention of Julie and Soza. Even Louella entertained the idea of a relationship with him, but thought better of it.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: While Lelune didn't exactly have the best of intentions, her stealing the Flame of Knowledge and then causing it to get lost to the multiverse nearly doomed the planet. Civilization not only stopped advancing, but also regressed. The demons had expected 5,000 years without the flame would have left the planet lifeless, but it still would have failed to stop them had the flame not returned. To make matters worse the flame landing on Earth caused the Robot War and humanities eventual near extinction. Even after it was revealed that Lelune was manipulated into doing this by her adopted sister she had still caused a lot of destruction and put her own plans at risk.
• The Vamp: Helicilia is described as having a body most men would die for, but she is also leading an army of necromancers and undead against the rest of the rest of the continent.
• Villainous Harlequin: Julie is psychotic, so Regan dressed her up as a harlequin jester.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Lelune killed or enslaved the other gods and stole the flame of knowledge from the mortals, bringing an end to the golden age, in order to grow more powerful, yet she is worshiped by the masses as the Goddess of Light.
• Virgin Sacrifice: The necromancers sacrifice virgins to the demon god Cassin for power. They apparently don't have to be female virgins, though it is commonly believed they do.
• Walk into Mordor: Regan teleports his fleet over the mountains and simply steamrolls his way into the undead infested North. He is frequently attacked along the way.
• When Trees Attack: During his campaign into the Dead Lands, Regan's fleet is frequently attacked by undead Treants.
• Wicked Stepmother: When Louella's father remarries she sees everything from his first wife as a threat, including Louella herself. She has her sent off to a boarding school and tries to have her killed.
• World Tree: Lelune is trying to become the new world tree, which would turn her into a full fledged god. Regan accidentally destroys the the old one. Or part of it anyway.
• Worker Unit: The brutes are among Regan's first units that aren't meant for combat, instead they mine his ore veins. Still you shouldn't touch them. This extends to several other units as well.
• World-Wrecking Wave: Starfall caused a massive terra wave, later known as the Wave, that rippled across Murgin. It could have caused the whole planet to shatter if the dungeons didn't absorb much of the mana. It still caused all sorts of destruction, wrecking many cities, destroying farmland, increasing the side of the Mailstrom, and caused all sorts of burred monsters to stir.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: In a mater of speaking. Regan has no use for gold, as he can simply make as much of it as he wants. He stopped accepting gold in his shop once he no longer bothered to hid his identity, instead charging mana. Still he is fully aware of it's value to mortals.
• Wrench Wench: Dar is a goblin family head. She loves working on her mech Bervin more than anything. Regan sees a bit of himself in her.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Louella states that the Scrapyard boss dies 100 times a day, but also has a 20 minute respawn time. Even without factoring the time it takes for a new party to show up and fight him, it would take over 33.3 hours for him to respawn 100 times. There doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. That is assuming Murgin, a planet four times the size of Earth, doesn't have much longer days.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Hellia is a world where time has no meaning and lacks a day and night cycle. Time actually does seem to pass, however very slowly. Regan was trapped there for 10 years but only three months had passed on Murgin. Interactions between the two worlds does show a passage of time. This also seems to effect people, possibly aging at the same rate as in normal space, but the Time Dilation making it appear as if they have stopped all together. Kala was able to grow into adulthood eventually and Louella's pregnancy appeared to have stopped advancing in the “months” she was there.
• You Didn't Ask: Quinn leaves out information about the demon home world when Regan questioned her about it, as he didn't ask the right questions. She may of simply have been being difficult, but she had a point. It likely didn't help that as a low level soldier, she has limited information.
  • This is an issue for dungeon fairies. They have access to a vast amount of information, but like a search engine they can't tell you anything if you don't ask the right questions.
• You Have Failed Me: Helicilia kills the traitor in Val's ranks for not informing her that Val wasn't a virgin anymore.
• You Require More Vespene Gas: This starts becoming a problem after a while. Regan can make anything he wants out of mana, somethings costing more than others, but at a certain point he has to many projects going on at once that his mana generation has trouble keeping up. Some of his projects get delayed as he has to wait for more mana to be produced. It doesn't help that as he levels up some sources of mana have lower yields than before.
• Zombie Infectee: Zombie bites can turn people into the undead if it isn't treated in time. Some people are immune to this, only turning undead if they happen to die while it's in their system.