this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2026
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Dungeon Crawler Carl!

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A place for fans of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman.

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I'm midway through book 6, so no spoilers beyond that please.

I've been trying to game out, in my mind, how this series can end. For the most part, each book has been one floor. The first book was the first two floors. Another book covers two floors in a different way. The dungeon is said to have 18 floors, and Dinniman has said the series will end with the 10th book.

So, setting aside my predictions (because predictions reference spoilers, even without declaring them), a couple things have become apparent to me the more I think about them.

Firstly, Carl is said to be a Coast Guard veteran, and a lot of military guys identify themselves and each other by rank and last name. We don't know either, which is super weird given his background. They've never been mentioned once.

Second, nobody seems to have a smartphone or watch or anything like that. I just came across a scene where Carl guesses at the date. Smart watches might only last hours (or days?), but some regular watches have 10 year batteries. The date should be a known quantity. Also, someone with a phone could just switch it off, and only turn it on when they need something, even if it's just to look at their photos.

My theory on these anachronisms is that these details would just get in the way of keeping the story moving forward at the pace it is, since it never really slows down. But, it still makes me curious why they aren't mentioned.

I'm probably missing some. Anyone else catch anything that seems to be missing?

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[–] Dojan@pawb.social 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

First thing that comes to mind to me is the whole stasis thing that can happen if you cross the stairs too early. There are also a lot of crawlers from across the world, so if we go by regular Earth timekeeping standards, time zones throw a wrench in the spokes.

Then there’s the overall stress and trauma of it all. By the time someone felt stable enough to start keeping time, they may have already forgotten what time it was when it all started. Likely, there’d be many different accounts of what the time actually is, so the “real” date is probably not fully known to the crawlers.

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So the second one just plays into the watch thing. If somebody had a watch, they could set the record straight.

You could be onto something with time zones. Carl and Donut were in Seattle when they went down the stairs. But, where was Floor 1 physically? It could have been under Africa for all we know. Since each previous floor collapses, the "floors" could be all over the place. GPS wouldn't work in the dungeon, so it's not like an iPhone would say "hey you're in Africa now, would you like to update your time/date settings?" (Or rather I think it would do that automatically.)

[–] Dojan@pawb.social 1 points 1 week ago

Depends on the kind of watch. Like you said, smartwatches aren't necessarily going to be reliable. Most analogue watches don't keep date. Those that do, might be affected by the stasis between floors. It doesn't seem like most people wait until last minute to cross to different floors. Watches could also break, there's lots of fighting, so I think people have more important things to focus on, other than dates.

Small spoiler regarding timekeepingThere is a segment in one of the books, not entirely sure, where they're trying to figure out what date it is.

[–] Nefara@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

As far as the rate of travel through floors, there's no rule saying that there has to be a consistent 1-2 floors per book. There's also no rule that they have to progress through each one in order.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I am on book 5 and I see it going 3 ways.

The copout : Carl is killed. Worst ending. Maybe Donuts goes out with him but with Carl dead her world shatters.

The Deal: Carl and Donut take a deal like it seems many people do on lower floors.

The next collapse: We know the current show runner is in dire straights and they fully collapse before the crawl finishes. With Carl's interactions with the Skull Empire and what Donut is up to the wider galactic community seems less stable then we are lead to believe.

I see the second one happening to close out the book cleanly and allow for a new series should Matt decide on an offshoot.

[–] Exulion@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

This message was written by a deceased crawler.

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm not so far ahead of you that I can say anything you don't already know. But regarding your theories:

Carl killed

I had this one guessed since about book 3. Before Book 1 Donut was just a cat. Now she's fully capable of being a citizen of the universe. My take on this theory is the whole point is for her to see that she doesn't need a human (Bea or Carl or anyone). I think Dinniman hinted at this by making her stronger in a few ways.

The Deal

I feel like this is the real copout here. Dinniman wants to call it quits after book 10 so he has them take a deal. There's something that happens in Book 6 that hints to that (Dinniman burnout) but I don't want to believe it. I'll spoiler tag it. If you click it, you'll see it's a weak connection. But some people prefer to read blind, so, take my word it's a weak connection or click, up to you.

spoilerCarl remarks that the AI is starting to lose it. DCC is a LitRPG which means you're reading about/listening to people basically play D&D. So that makes the AI the Game/Dungeon Master, though he's not really the master of the dungeon. That would be the mudskippers. But he still tells the backstories. So he could be Dinniman's self insert character (if it's not Carl).

Borant collapse

I won't really comment on this one, mainly because I don't like it. So, what, they just kinda end the crawl? I don't think anybody would like that. Plus, if a big company is about to go under, another company can just buy it up. I don't see why that wouldn't happen.

Bouncing off your first idea and last sentence, I wonder if the first 10 books would be Dungeon Crawler Carl and the next however-many books would be Dungeon Crawler Donut (or similar). The fans would be there for it.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

Bouncing off your first idea and last sentence, I wonder if the first 10 books would be Dungeon Crawler Carl and the next however-many books would be Dungeon Crawler Donut (or similar). The fans would be there for it.

Doesn't have to be Donut, could be an entire other species. I just listened to a part where they said the fantasy dungeon they are in now is not the only kind, they have had sci-fi so that may be a direction for a spinoff to go.