Even in a world of terror and madness, the pusillanimous spread of memes like a cancerous growth is inevitable.
Memes present in Darkest Dungeon
- How does a cauldron dodge?! It's a magic cauldron.note Until it got fixed in a patch, the Hag's cauldron could dodge attacks.
- Truly, this is the Dankest Dungeon.
- The Bone Courtier (WELL STRESSED MY FRIEND
) and "HOW QUICKLY THE TIDE TURNS!" - The Narrator/Ancestor is very quotable, thanks to his dramatic, flowery way of speaking, and if he's not directly quoted in a discussion about this game, someone is still bound to try and imitate it.
- REMIND YOURSELF THAT OVERCONFIDENCE IS A SLOW AND INSIDIOUS KILLER. ExplanationOne of the Ancestor's more iconic quotes, due to how true it is in this game. People who post about their success are told to remind themselves before the game decides to stop being nice.
- THE BUFFOON IS FLUMMOXED! ExplanationThe Ancestor says this in The Butcher's Circus whenever one player takes too long to act. Considering the nature of the game and its emphasis on careful decision-making, you'll hear this a lot.
- In time, you will know the tragic extent of my failings... ExplanationThe Ancestor often says this when you return to the Hamlet; considering the fact that he more or less created most of the horrors that you'll have to fight over the course of the game, this quickly became a commonly quoted line whenever someone makes a particularly egriegous Understatement.
- To follow with the Ancestor's quotability, some of his more memorable quotes have been "graphed out" like so◊.
- As noted above, fanart and memes usually show that the Collector spends its time waiting around until it's called to ruin a run. ExplanationThe Collector can appear at any time in any dungeon, so long as your pack has 13 slots full. This includes showing up just before a Boss Battle or just after a fight which leaves half your party with Death's Door debuffs; since it's also a complete bastard of a boss if your part isn't well-suited to its fight, the Collector arriving can very easily cause a run to go horribly awry.
- 0 Bleed. ExplanationMost of the time anyone's speaking of the Occultist class, they'll be talking about said class healing for 0 and inflicting◊ bleed, probably on a party member at Death's Door. While rarer, there's also the occasional defender bringing up the other side of the coin in the form of critical heals that could bring a dying Leper to full health in one shot.
- The Bounty Hunter and his plentiful *snort*ing. ExplanationHalf of the Bounty Hunter's have him snort, grumble "Hmph," or respond with Visible Silence. It's supposed to represent him grunting to signify his indifference to everything, but it's way funnier to imagine him loudly oinking like a pig anytime he does something. Since he specialises in critting against Marked targets, you're going to hear him snort a lot.
- Local Man Ruins Everything.◊ While this was a separate meme, it's particularly popular among Darkest Dungeon fans because of just how much it applies to the Ancestor; when accidentally kickstarting the apocalypse from sheer boredom is merely the cherry on top, "everything" is Not Hyperbole at all.
- THE WALL ExplanationA named party composition consisting of (from left to right) a Vestal, Man-at-Arms, Crusader and Leper which quickly gained notoriety for being a party of Stone Walls who could abuse Protection boosts to have enemies deal 1 to 2 damage to them at a time, while not sacrificing attack power in any way whatsoever. Use of this party is almost always accompanied by the song "The Wall" by Heet Mob. The meme experienced a resurgence after the release of The Binding Blade for II after the re-addition of the Crusader to the game in turn re-added the party composition.
- The Pain TrainExplanationA party composition of four Hellions which garnered a reputation for also being a Game-Breaker due to the Hellion's Glass Cannon abilities and the fact that her Breakthrough ability could deal high damage to three ranks at once, meaning as long as all the Hellions had a surprise round or high enough Speed compared to their enemies they could end most battles before they began. Unsurprisingly, this one was nerfed into the ground by giving Breakthrough a cooldown and a battle-persistent debuff which is applied on use.
- The Leper missing. ExplanationThe Leper is one of the strongest-hitting characters in the game, even being able to One-Hit Kill the Final Boss with the right trinkets and buffs at one point. He also has one of the lowest base accuracies in the game, meaning that he's extremely prone to missing — particularly when you really need him to hit.
- Reynauld, the Crusader given to you at the start the of the game, and his kleptomaniac habits. Found some gems you wanted to bring back home? Reynauld's going to steal them for himself instead. Is someone bleeding to death and you need bandages from the curio to save them? Reynauld will steal that too. Found a secret room, spent your key on the chest and rolled 3 puzzling trapezohedrons and a rare head trinket? Reynauld will be taking that. In the Crimson Court, and finally found the colored key needed to fight the areas boss battle and progress further into the DLC? Reynauld won't allow that. Stumbled upon Jerusalem by some odd coincidence? Reynauld will seize it. Reynauld became a vampire and killed one of your party members to satiate his blood? He couldn't find anything to steal, so he stole a life instead.
- *whistles* is also associated with the triggering of Kleptomania.
- The Crusader's Zealous Accusation skill. The fact that he is damaging an enemy by holding up an accusing scroll is either hilariously goofy◊ or incredibly badass◊.
- Because unexpectedly horny nuns are funny, it's rare that people will mention the Vestal and not her internal Covert Pervert conflicts, or just make her a more out-and-out pervert. Not helped by the fact her "salacious diary" trinket gives her a sizeable bonus to stress relief when camping.
- "Friendliest Dungeon"/"Color of Friendship" (and other variations, after Color of Madness removed the limitation of the religious classes refusing to party with the Abomination).
- Whenever anyone brings up party suggestions, someone is bound to suggest Quad Lepers, the joke originating form the fact that the Leper is a dedicated front lineman, not even able to function at all in the back line, making four of them literally the worst possible team composition in the game.
- "Dild", an edit of Reynauld and Dismas' sprites that resulted in a midget consisting of Reynauld's legs and Dismas' head. This got so memetic that it resulted in a mod on Steam.
- Due to Hidden Eyes being a prominent part of the aesthetic, whenever any fanart or mod averts that trope, some fans jokingly react with confusion or revulsion.
Memes present in Darkest Dungeon II
- Like the Ancestor, the Academic has his fair share of memetic lines:
- "Many fall in the face of Chaos, but not this one. Not today."ExplanationA line that the Academic says when one of your heroes becomes Resolute. It quickly became perhaps his most iconic line not only for being incredibly badass, but also for expressing nearly the exact opposite sentiment of the Ancestor's "Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer" line. Worth noting is that this is actually a slight rephrasing of one of the Ancestor's lines.
- "Spend what you can, for wealth no longer has meaning—If indeed it ever did."ExplanationA line the Academic says when selecting items at the Provisioner. It's grown in reputation not only because the player will be hearing it a lot, but it also makes the Academic sound like he has Anti-Capitalist tendencies outside of, you know, trying to save the world and all.
- "Tread carefully and quickly—this is Swine country".ExplanationA phase the Academic utters upon entering the Sluice, people like to make crossover jokes with "Bat Country" from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, especially since the latter used to be a Region Plight in the game.
- "An opportunity, squandered."ExplanationThe Academic says this when one of your heroes misses, making it sound like he's blaming you for rolling poorly in terms of RNG.
- Dismas is jacked.ExplanationThe Highwayman's model in this game is notably bulkier than his relatively petite build in the first game, which is especially apparent in the flashback segments, where he's seen without the coat. The fandom immediately took notice, and made jokes galore about how Dismas has seemingly been hitting the gym
- "Stealing my glory, eh?" ExplanationOne of the more annoying ways for the heroes to start hating on each other is by killing enemies, which is difficult to avoid considering that's the only way to win fights.
- Chad Leper ExplanationLeper is presented as an unambiguously good character who chooses to do good in spite of his suffering, and is unashamed of his past. The fact that he doesn't recoil when struck and he's a mechanical powerhouse makes him appear even more badass.
- Grave Robber eats corpses. ExplanationThe "Dead of Night" skill allows the Grave Robber to gain health by destroying gravestones. Somehow. The community ran with this explanation.
- After reading the roadmap the only way I can think to save this mess is to scrap this game and create an updated version of DD1. Then just use this mini game as the stage coach to bring characters to the hamlet and the real game.ExplanationCopy of a particularly negative post in the official Discord's feedback channel, which most fans consider hilariously hyperbolic.
- Bounty Hunter eats candles. ExplanationThe Bounty Hunter takes candles of hope for his fee. Fans have come up with joking theories for what he's using them for, this being one of them.
- The Bounty Hunter is a Swine in disguiseExplanationThis game plays up a lot more of the Bounty Hunter's Ambiguously Human aspects, and with his already known penchant for snorting frequently, jokes have been made about him being the only good Swine who dresses up in heavy garments to conceal his identity from the rest of your party and his frequent snorting being a Furry Reminder that gives it away.
- Coomer CardinalExplanation Since one of the Cardinal's arms is much larger and more swollen than the other, it becomes easy to make jokes about him having a severe masturbation addiction and to make comparisons to the "Coomer" meme.
- "Whoo, it is hot as hell in this fucky-ass hot-ass room I'm in. IS THAT THE GRIM R-"Explanation A meme lampooning both the Flagellant's resting pose in an Inn (where he is completely collapsed in a chair looking exhausted) and his Enemies with Death status causing Death to show up at the worst times imaginable.
- "I AM A CHIRURGEON!!!!"ExplanationWith the addition of the Chirurgeon to the list of the game's bosses and "Chirurgeon" just being an archaic word for "Surgeon", fans quickly started overlapping the Chirurgeon with the infamous "I AM A SURGEON" scene from The Good Doctor. Given that the Chirurgeon's go-to solutions for basically all ailments are leeches, trepanation or amputation, it's also common to see him portrayed as a whiny Know-Nothing Know-It-All who insists he's a qualified surgeon.
- The Collector likes fish sticksExplanationA joke about how the Collector's spawn mechanic works in II, namely that he has a chance to spawn at a Road Battle if you have a Trophy equipped or in your inventory. Normally this makes perfect sense since most of the trophies in the game are severed boss heads (which the Collector is a collector of), but the Leviathan's trophies are instead one of its severed fingers since its head is far too big to mount on the the back of the Stagecoach. The obvious explanation for why the Collector still has a chance to spawn if you have a Leviathan trophy equipped is that the Collector also just likes eating seafood on top of his head-stealing habits.
- Daddy Reynauld came back with the milkExplanationFans were overjoyed to see the Crusader return in The Binding Blade after being absent from the game since its Early Access period, with many comparisons being made to the "me when my dad returns after 20 years with the milk" meme.
