The Butcher's Masquerade

Matt Dinniman

The Butcher's Masquerade

Matt Dinniman
83 pages2-hour read
Fiction
Novel
Adult
Published in 2022

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Character List

Meet the key characters, with insights into their roles, motivations, and relationships—spoiler-free.

Major Characters

Carl is a former boat mechanic forced to fight for his life in a planetary game show. He selects the Agent Provocateur class, which enhances his skills with explosives and traps. Driven by a pragmatic survival instinct, he constantly weighs the need for tactical advantage against the entertainment demands of a galactic audience. He utilizes the Ring of Divine Suffering to gain power, treating combat as a necessary and increasingly ruthless calculation.

Key Relationships

Companion of Princess Donut

Guided by Mordecai

Ally of Katia Grim

Hunted by Vrah

Reluctant Ally of Prepotente

Former Romantic Partner of Beatrice

Princess Donut is Carl's Persian cat companion who gained human intelligence and speech inside the dungeon. She embraces the Legendary Diva bard class, requiring her to perform songs in key to cast spells. Theatrically inclined and fiercely protective, she acts as an emotional anchor for Carl. She leverages her fame to build alliances and direct military forces across the jungle floor.

Key Relationships

Companion of Carl

Owner of Mongo

Guided by Mordecai

Former Pet of Beatrice

Rival of Lucia Mar

Covert Friend of Zev

Katia is an Icelandic crawler who provides a grounding presence against Carl's chaotic impulses. She acts as a central coordinator for allied crawlers, organizing defenses and serving as an information hub. She prepares to lead her own independent team while managing personal vendettas against former friends turned enemies.

Key Relationships

Ally of Carl

Friend of Princess Donut

Enemy of Eva Sigrid

Teammate of Louis

Prepotente is a highly ranked humanoid goat crawler with a theatrical and abrasive personality. Operating as a Profane Vitiate, he rides a winged familiar named Bianca. His arrogant exterior covers a deep emotional dependency on his adoptive mother figure, driving him to extreme violence when his family unit is threatened.

Key Relationships

Adoptive Son of Miriam Dom

Reluctant Ally of Carl

Mordecai is the manager and mentor for Carl and Donut's party, currently stuck in the body of a diminutive Pocket Kuma. He provides logistical guidance and extensive knowledge of the dungeon's complex mechanics. He acts as the voice of reason against the risky plans of his team, attempting to steer them toward safer progression paths.

Key Relationships

Manager of Carl

Manager of Princess Donut

Signet is a half-naiad, half-High Elf summoner and elite NPC cursed with an inability to touch water. Exiled since childhood, she leads a group of loyal fighters and carries living ink elementals of her fallen companions on her skin. She devotes her existence to a quest to reclaim her mother's kingdom from her royal half-sister.

Key Relationships

Ally of Carl

Commander of Clint Smashgrab

Vrah is an elite mantis hunter and member of the Dark Hive. She leads a coordinated squad of warriors and uses her outside connections to gain tactical advantages. She collects the heads of her victims as grisly trophies, hunting crawlers with a singular focus on vengeance.

Key Relationships

Enemy of Carl

Daughter of Circe Took

Ally of Eva Sigrid

Imogen is the ruler of the High Elves and the primary target of Tsarina Signet's vengeance-driven questline. She utilizes immense magical power and political leverage to assert control over the floor's events, forcing attendees to comply with her strict rules during the masquerade.

Key Relationships

Half-Sister of Tsarina Signet

Master of Ferdinand

Supporting Characters

Eva is Katia's former colleague from Earth, now allied with the bloodthirsty Dark Hive of mantis hunters. She wears the skulls of her victims on her back and actively hunts her former friends, embracing the brutal mechanics of the dungeon.

Key Relationships

Enemy of Katia Grim

Ally of Vrah

Lucia is a top-ranked child crawler whose erratic behavior makes her a highly unpredictable threat. She sets clever teleportation traps and commands giant rottweilers, operating under the influence of a fractured consciousness that houses multiple identities.

Key Relationships

Miriam is a high-ranking crawler who has been afflicted with a vampirism infection. She acts as a fiercely protective mother figure to Prepotente, struggling to manage her spreading condition while keeping her companion safe from the surrounding threats.

Key Relationships

Adoptive Mother of Prepotente

Ally of Carl

Mongo is a velociraptor and Princess Donut's devoted pet. He provides significant physical muscle for the party while acting on unpredictable biological drives that occasionally disrupt defensive plans, particularly when wild velociraptors are nearby.

Key Relationships

Mate of Kiwi

Companion of Carl

Samantha is a banished deity currently inhabiting the detached head of a sex doll. Immortal and highly vocal, she rolls along the ground to serve as a chaotic scout and indestructible delivery system for explosives.

Key Relationships

Ally of Carl

Distant Relative of Tsarina Signet

Circe is a mantis hive queen and the mother of Vrah. She leverages her position at the convention and her influence over dungeon deities to target the crawlers who killed her offspring, using her administrative authority to bypass usual combat restrictions.

Key Relationships

Mother of Vrah

Enemy of Carl

Odette is an intergalactic talk-show host who manipulates the personal histories of crawlers to boost viewership. She utilizes surviving humans from Earth as leverage in high-stakes corporate negotiations, treating trauma strictly as content.

Key Relationships

Interviewer of Carl

Ferdinand is Queen Imogen's cat familiar, who wears a large golden turban and wields lightning magic. He acts as an emissary and spy for the High Elves during the events of the masquerade.

Key Relationships

Big Tina is a massive dinosaur wearing a pink feather boa. She terrorizes settlements while trying to fulfill a lingering desire from her past, demonstrating the dungeon's habit of twisting personal tragedy into monstrous encounters.

Key Relationships

Daughter of Kiwi

Kiwi is a level-60 mongoliensis velociraptor and the fierce leader of a wild pack in the jungle. Her maternal connections and control over the pack make her a critical factor in the floor's ecosystem.

Key Relationships

Mate of Mongo

Mother of Big Tina

Zev is an employee of the Borant Corporation who coordinates crawlers' television appearances. She secretly aides Princess Donut's efforts to manipulate the corporate structure governing the broadcast, providing quiet warnings to the crawlers.

Key Relationships

Covert Friend of Princess Donut

Handler of Carl

Louis is a crawler and member of the expanding allied guild. He utilizes specialized combat maneuvers and operates a flying house called the Twister to assist in large-scale aerial assaults and resource drops.

Key Relationships

Teammate of Katia Grim

Ally of Carl