Mordecai

Mordecai is a Level 50 Guild Master and currently Princess Donut's Manager. He is currently on his last tour of crawl duty.

Description

Mordecai is Carl and Donut’s Game Guide in the dungeon. He is an indentured employee of Borant Corporation, tasked with helping the corporation run crawls. Originally an avian race called a Skyfowl, Mordecai chose Changeling as his race when he was a crawler. Now, Borant assigns a new race to him every time he transfers floors; his race is always a mob on the current floor. His chosen area of expertise during his crawl was potion making, but that expertise has grown over hundreds of years to cover most aspects of the crawl. According to Odette, he is one of the most knowledgeable guides in the Dungeon.

Normally Mordecai is a Game Guide for the first three floors and a magic guild master on the later floors, where he has relative freedom to follow his own pursuits in potion making and catch up with friends.[1] Following Odette’s advice, Carl and Donut made Mordecai into Donut’s Manager during the class selection process on the Third Floor, forcing him to stay on as Donut's advisor. They had to make it look like an accident, as Odette warned them that he is only useful to them if he wants to help, and if he ever learns that they made him a manager on purpose, he will turn his resentment to them and refuse to help any further.[2]

He is committed to helping Carl and Donut survive the crawl, even if they don’t always take his advice. Potion brewing is a time-consuming process, but he regularly brews potions for them, which have helped the Royal Court of Princess Donut out of many situations. His specific knowledge about the crawl is very useful when Carl is trying to make plans or understand how dangerous a situation is. After Carl received the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, Carl began covering his new knowledge by guiding conversations to make it look like Mordecai is providing the information instead.

Mordecai’s general advice is conservative, aimed at surviving as long as possible while minimizing risk. This is increasingly at odds with Carl’s desire to take risks to accumulate power, save as many lives as possible, and tear down the whole concept of the crawl. The many unprecedented situations Carl gets himself into are starting to make Mordecai feel irrelevant.

Personality

Mordecai is generally grumpy but tends to perk up when talking about potions. He gets emotional when he’s drunk, thinking about the loss of his family. He was traumatized during his time as a crawler. Hundreds of years later, he still holds a grudge against his former allies, whom he blames for the death of his brother. This includes Odette, his former Manager. It is implied that part of why he hates the idea of being Manager is because of his resentment toward her. At some point he testified against her at her trial. He lashes out against his former allies when given a chance.

Appearance

I was a kua-tin once, and I had to spend the floor in a glass pitcher. Another time I was a skreich ghast, and I kept teleporting away against my will.”[3]

Born a centurion Skyfowl, Mordecai's natural form is eagle-like, with dark gold feathers, large angel-like wings, and large talons.[1][4]

Although Mordecai took the Changeling race during his crawl, he is unable to change his shape at will; instead, his shape changes when each new level begins. He always takes the shape of a type of mob from the Dungeon's current floor.[1] There do not appear to be any shared traits or characteristics across the different forms, with the exception of his accent (in the audiobooks only).

Text Description of Appearance by Floor and Race
Floor Race Description
1 Rat-kin As a rat-kin, Mordecai is bearded and a head shorter than Carl. He wears a black vest, blue pants, and well-worn sandals.[5] This is one of few floors on which Mordecai is assigned a new race and class; specifically, the AI identifies him as a "Rat Hooligan."
2 Bugaboo Mordecai is a 7' (2.13m) tall, obsidian-haired, owl-eyed creature "like a bear with no neck" and absurdly thin limbs.[6]
3 Incubus As an incubus, Mordecai is a "well-built, young and disgustingly handsome" man, standing at approximately 6' 3" (190.5 cm). He has dusky gray skin, long gray/black hair in a ponytail, smoldering eyes, short devil horns high on his forehead, a barbed tail, and black bat-like wings. His voice is deeper. He wears a tuxedo, but seems to shed his jacket and tie and unbutton his shirt at every opportunity.[2] As incubi have a lower alcohol tolerance than he is accustomed to, he smells "like the floor of a biker bar" within 24 hours of the floor opening.[7]
4 Grulke Identified as "Grulke Infantry," Mordecai appears as a 5' (152.4 cm) "mud-colored, warty, slimy toad-looking thing, complete with hanging jowls and a throat pouch under his wide face that looked as if it could fill with air."[8]
5 Skyfowl As a rock edge skyfowl, Mordecai looks like a large light brown and beige eagle. Although similar to his natural form, he appears to have a cleric class, so his wings are clipped.[4]
6 Pocket Kuma "He was a fuzzy, brown and white, knee-height, chubby, bipedal bear thing with elf ears and a monkey tail" plus oversized eyes and buckteeth.[9]
7 Slime As a slime, Mordecai does not have arms.
8 Hills Cyclops Large in height and width, with bright pink skin and a white shirt stretched across a wide belly. His cone-shaped head is bald, with a thick unibrow over a single brown eye. His voice sounds like Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants.[10]


See Also: Fan Art for Mordecai

Story

Crawl History

SPOILERS FOR BOOK 6
Mordecai and his brother, Uzzi, entered a Borant Corporation-run Dungeon hundreds of cycles ago,[12] only two seasons after Rosetta Thagra[13]. The brothers partnered with Chaco and Hold Steady, and accepted Odette's offer to serve as Mordecai's Manager.[14][12] Over the course of his time in the Dungeon, Mordecai took the shapes of Skyfowl, Raven Slakes, and Humans.[14] He learned the Protective Shell Spell (which saved him "more than once"), and the "Final Blow" Skill.[6][14] He acquired almost 30 million followers and four sponsors.[11]

Indentureship

When Mordecai reached the eleventh floor, he took an Exit Deal to become a guildmaster for a certain number of seasons of Dungeon Crawler World. As a guildmaster, he acts as a Game Guide for the first three floors and his personal space is redefined as a Tutorial Guild Hall; then, he is transported to a much deeper floor to run a magic guild and his personal space expands.[1][2] As part of the deal, Borant recreated his destroyed home and gave him a few minutes to retrieve any possessions he wanted for his personal space; he chose his mother's ashes and a photo of his brother.[1]

A few cycles after he took the deal, the rules changed, extending his contract; where he could previously work on any season of Dungeon Crawler World, he could now only work on seasons hosted by Borant Corporation, or approximately one of every fifteen seasons.[12][1] For centuries now, Mordecai has been coping with the trauma of the Dungeon by drinking himself into oblivion and crying over everyone he lost.[12]

Mordecai was dispatched to Earth in 1964 to prepare for his final season of Dungeon Crawler World. When he was permitted to visit the surface, he stole James Bond videos from a Blockbuster.[11] If he survives this season, he will become a full Syndicate citizen and receive a moderate stipend (see also [12] for additional income).

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

SPOILERS FOR BOOK 3

Book 4

SPOILERS FOR BOOK 4

Book 5

SPOILERS FOR BOOK 5

Book 6

SPOILERS FOR BOOK 6

Book 7

SPOILERS FOR BOOK 7
Mordecai is a Human on the 9th floor.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Chapter 3)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Dinniman, Matt. Carl's Doomsday Scenario (Chapter 1)
  3. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (p. 27). Dandy House. Kindle Edition.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Dinniman, Matt. The Gate of the Feral Gods (Chapter 1)
  5. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Chapter 2)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Chapter 35)
  7. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. Carl's Doomsday Scenario (Chapter 8)
  8. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (p. 23). Dandy House. Kindle Edition.
  9. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Butcher's Masquerade (pp. 25-26). Dandy House. Kindle Edition.
  10. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Chapter 2)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Dinniman, Matt. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Chapter 4)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Chapter 37)
  13. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Chapter 12)
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Dinniman, Matt. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Prologue)
  15. ↑ Dinniman, Matt. This Inevitable Ruin (Chapter 57)
ALL CHARACTERS
Royal Court Carl • Donut • Mordecai • Mongo • Samantha • Sir Rendlegore
Aliens All Aliens • Dungeon Admins • Former Crawlers • God Sponsors
Crawlers Earth Crawlers • Former Crawlers • Former Cookbook Authors
Earth All Earth Characters • Earth Crawlers
NPCs All NPCs • Bosses • Deities • Demons • Desperado Club Employees • Pets
Mechanics: Bosses • Crawlers • Elites • NPCs
Keyword Definitions: Feral • Vorpal