History Literature / DungeonCrawlerCarl

* {{Intangibility}}: Mordecai makes Paul a potion that allows him to pass effortlessly through [[spoiler:lava and molten rock -- including crawlers of the Coal Engine race]].

** Katia was an underpowered, underleveled filler character in Hekla's party. Hekla just gathered as many women around herself as possible to turn her crossbow into a killing machine, but that left everyone else trailing behind. Katia's race and class were ... underwhelming in Hekla's view, so she tossed her to Carl and Donut as part of a larger plan. However, with their help, she developed into a strong character and a strong person, able to lead the way on the fifth and sixth floors.

** Carl [[spoiler:''rips'' Quan Ch's arm off, after Quan almost gets hundreds of people killed by interfering with their quest]].

* UpliftedAnimal: Carl's cat, "Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk", gets an intelligence upgrade from the system AI as a reward for being the first cat in the dungeon. She actually ends up with a higher intelligence score than Carl himself, and insists on leading the party, which she renames to The Royal Court of Princess Donut.

* RidiculouslyPotentExplosive: Carl picks up [[spoiler:a soul crystal enclosed in a magical cage]] JustInTime before it goes off. If he ever takes it out of his inventory again, it will explode with enough force to "rattle the teeth of a god". [[spoiler:He's finally able to work with it once he gets an advanced bomb-making workshop that can hold the explosion in stasis.]]

** Donut [[spoiler:is jut a show-winning princess. Were you expecting an actual surprise here? Joke's on you. Now get out there and kill kill kill!]]

** In the distant past, Odette [[spoiler:was manager to Mordecai, his brother, and their friend Chaco. Desperate to earn enough money to live comfortably when she was free, she saved Mordecai's life by forcing Chaco to kill his brother. She's lived with the guilt ever since.]]

* {{Revenge}}:
** There's no bringing back Earth, but Carl is resolved to bring down the people responsible for taking it away.
---> '''Carl''': This I swear on my life. One by one, I will break you. I will break you all.
** He in turn picks up a hunter who swears a vendetta to eat his organs and take his head as a trophy, after [[spoiler:he kills her sister]].

* BenevolentPrecursors: We don't know enough about the Primals to judge who or what they are, but the mysterious creator of the ''Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook'' certainly counts. [[spoiler:The intro to the 24th edition, which Carl receives, making him the author of the 25th edition, says that "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." However, Porthus is described in the text as the author of the ''second'' edition. Someone before him managed to create the Cookbook and seed it into the programming of the crawl itself without leaving their name or any other information on its pages.]]

* CapsLock: Donut always uses the chat system in all-caps. Always. Later on, so does Samantha.

* BoringButPractical: Carl states outright that his preferred mode of operation is "quiet efficiency," contrasting with Donut's much more stage-friendly persona. Against single enemies, he punches or stomps them. Against bigger or more numerous enemies, he blows them up with cheap explosives. No messing around with magic or poison.

* AttentionWhore: Donut, being a prize-winning show cat, is ''far'' too addicted to the idea of being adored by legions of fans. But it's actually an asset in the Dungeon, where popularity means better loot boxes, and also means that the hosts may be more reluctant to arrange your death.

* SecretLegacy: [[spoiler:The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook is the latest in a long line of seemingly worthless items that have appeared in various crawls since the beginning. Each one appears innocuous except when read by the person it was meant for, and will disappear if that person talks about it, dies, or tries to share it. Crawlers can leave notes to each other from crawl to crawl, mostly recipes for important potions and explosives, but also monster information and--most importantly--secrets about how to circumvent system protections and eventually bring the entire system down. The exact criteria for the Cookbook are not explained, but each owner is essentially the same person, dedicated to vengeance for their destroyed world and passing everything they can to the next generation]].

* TruceZone: No one at the Butcher's Masquerade is allowed to attack anyone else, even though they're specifically selected for maximum interpersonal conflict and the host is a Country Boss.

* SelfDestruct: