Dungeon Crawler World

Dungeon Crawler World is the galactic tunnel sensation about survival! New seasons of the show debut every 2.25 Earth Years to an audience of quintillions of Syndicate citizens.[1] The current season is Dungeon Crawler World: Earth. The previous season was run by the Squim Conglomerate called Battle for Planet Aryl. [2]

Overview

The program Dungeon Crawler World is owned by the Syndicate Council and overseen by a Syndicate subcommittee called the Crawl Council, but each season is produced by a different corporation.[3][4] Each corporation puts their own spin on the production, but must choose a type of "Dungeon" outlined in the Indigenous Planetary Species Protection Act and must submit a detailed proposal outlining each level in advance.[5][6]

Regardless of production company, the show's basic premise is always the same: thousands of years after a planet is seeded (typically with one of six basic starter species, such as Humans or Skyfowl), the producing company mines the planet for rare primal resources via a planetwide collection (i.e. the Transformation). Survivors are then given their legal right to "reclaim" their planet's resources by conquering a Dungeon, which is broadcast to the universe as Dungeon Crawler World.[5][1] The Dungeon, whatever form it takes, is overseen by a Macro AI.

Basic Starter Species

1. Human
2. Skyfowl
3.
4.
5.
6.

Dungeon Options

How to Watch

While the crawl has always been popular, it used to be aired on delay (of an hour or a year) to everyone outside of the Center System. A few hundred seasons ago, the Plenty introduced the modern tunneling system, making it possible for everyone in the universe to view the crawl (and follow their favorite crawlers) in real-time.[8]

Beginning on the Second Floor of the 18-Level Dungeon, all crawlers can be viewed by anyone at almost any time.

The Crawl is filmed with the best Syndicate technology, allowing viewers to feel truly immersed in the action. Viewers can choose to watch from a bird's eye view, with full control of zoom and angles, or viewers can choose to stand inside the action, experiencing the smells and every sensation short of physical pain.[2]

Revenue

The host company receives income from the mining operation as well as advertising income, a stipend from the Syndicate government, and commission on every credit spent by patrons, viewers, and tourists.[1] Private production companies may pay an advertising stipend to produce their own shows about the crawl, such as Dungeon Crawler After Hours with Odette, as well as additional fees to pull specific crawlers from the dungeon.[3]

The host company does not receive any revenue generated by the show until after the season is over, but is required to pay taxes to the Syndicate on every non-sponsored loot box distributed to crawlers.[9][10]

Rules & Restrictions

  1. Several hundred cycles ago, the Syndicate changed how NPC pools work. Previously, anyone who took a contract to feature as an NPC on the program could appear on any season, regardless of which company was managing the Dungeon. Following the revision, NPCs can only serve in Dungeons managed by the company that they signed a contract with. This has had the unfortunate result of extending many indentureship contracts.[7]
  2. 250 cycles ago, the Syndicate introduced a rule forbidding surveillance in bathrooms.[11]
  3. Relatively recently, following the particularly brutal incident with Crawler Hoon in a Valtay Dungeon, the Syndicate has banned using collected children and pregnant women in the game.[12]

Production Companies & Trends

The most recent seasons have been hosted by, in order from oldest to current:

  1. Fortent
  2. Squim Conglomerate - Dungeon Crawler World: Aryl
  3. Borant - Dungeon Crawler World: Earth
  4. Valtay - Next Season, TBD

Borant Corporation

The Borant Corporation favors a fantasy-themed 18 Level World Dungeon, and is known for "making the most elaborate, most entertaining dungeons." Borant is typically selected to host one of every fifteen seasons (with at least seven cycles between Borant-hosted seasons), including Dungeon Crawler World: Earth.[1][13]

Borant invests a great deal of time and resources into preparing each dungeon and tailoring it to suit the world it takes place on. At any given time, five forward teams are deployed to candidate planets, where they study the locals and - when needed - directly influence pop culture to ensure that the inhabitants will understand the game and its notifications when the time comes.[1][14] The first prep team arrived on Earth in 1937.[1]

Previous Borant-hosted seasons have featured six or seven other human-seeded worlds and at least two skyfowl-seeded worlds.[14] They typically aim to have ten million crawlers enter the Dungeon, but a complete wipe-out in the Ninth Floor Faction Wars is not uncommon.[1]

The last dungeon that Borant managed was a mess; not only were there no rest areas (which is why toilet paper is complimentary and restrooms are everywhere in the current dungeon), but also the slot-based inventory system had weight restrictions, limited capacity, and allowed food to expire, so thousands of crawlers starved to death.[1][15] The entire fourth floor took place inside of a living creature that developed a bacterial infection, causing the walls to cave in and sections to fill with gore as crawlers navigated its intestines and organs.[16]

Blood Sultanate of the Naga

Over 250 cycles ago, the Blood Sultanate ran the first Crawl to lose money. They have not financially recovered and have not run a single crawl since. Part of the extreme expense was that the Blood Sultanate distributed a record-breaking (18) Celestial Loot Boxes over the course of the season, and part was likely due to lawsuits filed against the Blood Sultanate for their "acceleration" of celebrated crawler Drakea.[10][11][17]

Fortent

Fortent hosted the show two seasons before Earth. Three dungeon admins died to a single crocodilian crawler when Fortent decided to use their own security force to subdue the crawler, rather than relying on the System AI.[18]

Squim Conglomerate

The Squim Conglomerate prefers battle royale-style fights with a single champion, which is great for ratings but less profitable than the World Dungeon because it does not include the Faction Wars or Celestial Ascendency segments.[1][19] After mining the planet and completing the show, the Squim Conglomerate leaves any survivors behind without resources or atmosphere.[2]

The Squim Conglomerate hosted the last season of Dungeon Crawler World approximately 2.25 Earth years ago on the planet Aryl, which was seeded with a gorilla-like species. The battle royale took place in a massive multilevel colosseum. Combatants were broken into groups and told their loved ones would be safe only if they killed each other.[2]

Valtay Corporation

Slated to run the next season of Dungeon Crawler World, the Valtay Corporation's version of the 18-Level World Dungeon is sci-fi themed with "android death machines and pulse rifles" and elevators instead of stairs.[20][12] Drick survived a Valtay season on an Iguanoid-seeded world some 400 seasons ago, but Valtay Dungeons are known for being particularly brutal.[21]

History

The Crawl started when the original Syndicate Council nations accidentally activated every Primal Engine at once, kicking off a chain reaction that lead to overpopulation across the galaxy.[21][22] The Council found that rare elements were a "byproduct of the biological overgrowth of the seeded systems," and eventually resolved to mine these seeded systems both for fuel and to cull the galaxy's population.[7][21] Failing to collect these resources could "kill half the known universe," which suggests that the fuel may be required to maintain the Eulogist.[7]

The entertainment aspect of the Crawl was introduced later, after the Mantids asked the Syndicate Council for permission to field test Macro AI-controlled Enhancement Zones. This prompted the development of a Syndicate subcommittee, and ultimately resulted in a complex tangle of laws such as the Indigenous Planetary Species Protection Act and the creation of Dungeon Crawler World.[21][7]

For the first few seasons of Dungeon Crawler World, presumably as a tribute to its origins, all contestants started as the Primal race.[23] Several of these early seasons also featured a Scolopendra's Nymph as the Dungeon's final boss.[24]

For more about the history of the crawl, check out A Petite Chronicle of the Crawl: One Lady's Journey into Enlightenment through Knowledge and Scholarship and Three-Beat Poetry by Sydnee Iglacia, as endorsed by Crawler Carl![21]

Trivia

  • Only one crawler in the history of Dungeon Crawler World has reached the Thirteenth Floor of an 18-Level World Dungeon. He was a human crawler, and died within thirty minutes of entering the level.[1]
  • It's a tradition to have sponsors pay for Personal Space upgrades in the first Benefactor Box given to crawlers. [25]
  • Several seasons ago, a Dungeon had a level in which every weapon found on the floor was possessed by a Withering Spirit.[26]
  • Many seasons ago, the entire seventh floor was themed around the Guild of Suffering attempting to raise their god, the Night Wyrm.[27]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Chapter 4)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Chapter 14)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Chapter 28)
  4. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Butcher's Masquerade (Chapter 60)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Chapter 1)
  6. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Chapter 40)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Chapter 37)
  8. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Chapter 30)
  9. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Chapter 36)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Dinniman, Matt. Carl's Doomsday Scenario (Epilogue)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Chapter 8)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Dinniman, Matt. The Gate of the Feral Gods (Epilogue)
  13. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Chapter 29)
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Chapter 3)
  15. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Chapter 5)
  16. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. Carl's Doomsday Scenario (Chapter 14)
  17. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Gate of the Feral Gods (Chapter 28)
  18. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Gate of the Feral Gods (Chapter 19)
  19. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Chapter 43)
  20. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Epilogue)
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 Dinniman, Matt. The Butcher's Masquerade (Chapter 33)
  22. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Chapter 48)
  23. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. Carl's Doomsday Scenario (Chapter 2)
  24. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Chapter 46)
  25. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Chapter 2)
  26. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Gate of the Feral Gods (Chapter 24)
  27. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Butcher's Masquerade (Chapter 8)