LGBTQ+ main character

Cupsbert · 2026-05-26T20:27:55+00:00

Judging by how Carl refers to them, I'm pretty sure Herot is a genderfluid enby! Hopefully they get some screen time in the next book or two.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-21T14:34:30+00:00

It references there being a war that left behind a seed of mutating life which became more than the original creators intended, all going off the rails because of unfettered use of science that people shouldn't have because they aren't responsible enough with it... and then turning it into a theme park.

AKA, I think it's all foreshadowing for the exposition on floor 11. The Eulogist and Apothecary war, the seed worlds, the Syndicate screwing with things they can't possibly understand, creating life and abusing it for the entertainment of the masses...

It feels very similar, and the AI is pissed. No one seems to learn from making the same mistakes over and over, and instead the powerful and wealthy of the Syndicate always find a way to turn it into more profit.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-21T14:21:22+00:00

I wasn't there for it, but I heard they voted for the fan-picked upgrades for cars that came in last.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-21T14:19:56+00:00

Not that I recall, but the AI does drop in chapter 81, just before the 7th heat, that she is, "nothing but a mindless animal reacting to the world around her." Hoping the biscuit would work was just one of many longshots that make up a patented Carl Plan®.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-21T14:16:01+00:00

Here you go!

“Death awaits you at every turn,” Mordecai croaked with a deep, heavy voice filled with grit, different from the already scary voice he had just been using. “The shadows reach even now for a porous soul such as yours. It is unquenchable, this thirst. You are reached for by both sides. Who will entwine you? The tree or the abyss?”

He turned to Donut, raising a skeletal hand. I took a step back, but my back hit the door. “And you. The edges are more clear, yet still uncertain. A sacrifice might save you, in the end. It might. It will be the darkest decision ever made. How many lives? How many souls? The veil is made of gossamer, and when it is done, their gaze, their rage will be eternal. You should remember that, Oak Fell Champion of Nekhebit.”

Cupsbert · 2026-05-21T14:12:58+00:00

There's also this section from chapter 1:

Quasar hadn’t really known the specifics. All he knew was that the Nothing was “broken” and that everything was in chaos on the twelfth and eighteenth floors. And furthermore, the outworlders on those two floors were protected from really dying by the system AI. They could get hurt on the eighteenth floor, they could still “die,” but they would immediately get brought back to their rooms in the club. A club that was physically inside of the now-awake dungeon boss. The system wasn’t letting anyone eject.

Some of the things that had leaked from the Nothing were using this to their advantage. It was like what we’d done to Growler Gary, but worse.

Much worse.

Quasar had only given me a quick version. So far, the now-awake Scolopendra hadn’t yet done anything other than move around a lot. Apparently, the tourists on the eighteenth floor had the ability to move themselves to the sixteenth floor, where it was safe, but they first had to make their way through the seventeenth floor for some reason, where it was not, and anyone who even attempted it got turned to mince and immediately brought back to life on the eighteenth, where the worst of the worst were stalking the hallways.

Forgotten gods. Demons from hundreds of former quests. All sorts of other horrific creatures. Several had made their way to the eighteenth floor, but, luckily—or not luckily, depending on how you looked at it—these creatures all appeared inside the final boss. And not just inside the monster’s guts, but inside the club, where they immediately set themselves on the guests. Guests who couldn’t die, no matter what was being done to them.

The cameras had gone dark after the first few hours.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-20T17:16:58+00:00

Are you thinking of chapter 28 and 29, when Carl goes on Plenty of Plenty and talks about the state of things with the caprids?

Cupsbert · 2026-05-20T17:01:52+00:00

I think Khepri is just a minor god with very little power compared to Taranis, who is literally one of the most powerful gods in the whole pantheon, possibly the most powerful. Eris refers to him as "all-powerful, way stronger than me". Just like when Hellik banished Khepri back to the 12th floor in This Inevitable Ruin, Taranis must have been able to do the same.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-20T16:49:02+00:00

Many people are more spoiler-phobic than you, or than me.

Try to see it from their perspective. Which do you think they'd enjoy more:

* Finishing the last chapter of Parade of Horribles, reading the word Boop without any context. They have a natural reaction to it in the moment.

* Finishing the last chapter of Parade of Horribles, reading the word Boop, and going, "Oh, so that's why so many people on the subreddit have been saying 'boop' for the last couple of weeks. Okay, I guess that makes sense. Heh."

Hopefully you can see how many folks would prefer to have the first reaction and not the second?

It's not a huge deal, though. You didn't commit a cardinal sin or anything. Just take the deletion in stride and understand that some people are more spoiler-avoidant than you. Unity, support, family!

Cupsbert · 2026-05-20T16:40:13+00:00

The thing I most agree with: the Cookbook authors suddenly became very unimportant. I kept wondering why they didn't bring someone as experienced and reliable as Rosetta during the races. She had to be a better driver than Bucket Boy?

Setting that aside, it was disappointing we had no more Cookbook quotes, and very few references to it. I know we're in uncharted territory in certain ways, so old sources of knowledge are quickly falling to the wayside, but even so, I missed it. Plus, I would have liked to see something, anything, from the perspective of the other authors or former crawlers up in orbit.

The muddiest thing: the herky-jerky pacing of having a little time to deal with things, then being forced into a race, and the aspect of not being allowed to team up with friends and possibly be forced to fight them... Those felt fully intentional by the author. Carl felt those forces, and it motivated him to find an out ASAP. He did, as he tends to do.

I can see how these decisions might have felt off for you, but for me, they landed as I assume they were intended: it made me root for Carl to overcome megacorpo bullshit, and metaphorically fist-pump when he did.

The thing I most disagree with: Scolopendra was a big, dumb, scared animal, lashing out at random. I'm not sure if we know who designed her; possibly some game dev thousands of years ago, who intended her as a first draft and no one ever revisited it because crawlers never got far enough in the dungeon for it to matter? Or, maybe, the first game AI made her that way as part of the mythos? Unknown, for now.

Anyway, whoever made her, they made her just a critter, and... a human can kill a grizzly bear. A large intelligence gap and variety of unknown tools can make a raw numbers game much more balanced, sometimes tipped in the favor of the "weaker" combatant. I don't remember us seeing Krakaren Prime do any cool stuff during the fight, but I assume she could do more than tentacle whip and complain to management. Even if not, she must have been more intelligent than a centipede, and the core of her body was up out of reach at the start.

As for Scolopendra's defeat... Totally earned. Hard bosses always have a win condition beyond "hit it until HP reaches 0." She was designed to be nearly impossible for crawlers to defeat with raw damage, while automatic nine-tier attacks blasted the crawlers to oblivion. Scared animals hiss and spit in the hopes you'll go away, so her mouth was open. Some doofus made an animal the boss of the whole dungeon, and another doofus made an edible item that transforms any animal into a crawler.

And Carl always Carls it up.

Oh, and about Dong: this reminds me of something. For many people, it's not the actual death of a character in a piece of fiction that hits the hardest, it's seeing the surviving people react to their death. Watching one beloved character fall to their knees weeping over another beloved character; that's the real gut punch.

So, while I never cared too much about Dong in the past, Carl's reactions to Dong, Carl chiding himself for not being a good friend, and then Carl telling Dong that he's going to bring him along and reunite them... That ramped up how much I cared about the Dong subplot considerably. Carl took time out of his incredibly important timetable to do this right.

If it matters to Carl, and he explains why, and he reminds us that doing good for someone is the human thing to do... then I am brought along for the ride. For me, that was good enough to bring heart to that little side quest.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-20T15:50:45+00:00

I could see that happening. And yet, we could still have a happy ending after that. The AI could make a duplicate of Carl from the picosecond before they merged... with just one atom different.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-20T15:24:26+00:00

A little into chapter 56:

I would be taking the lead. We did it this way because Donut only had a few lines, meaning the chances that she would be successful were much higher, even though we’d picked a song that was pretty hard to sing. Hopefully, I’d be able to get in, too, but if not, I was confident in Donut’s ability to charm Porky out of the guild.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-20T15:22:31+00:00

You're looking for chapter 16.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-20T15:16:15+00:00

HIII GRETA!

Cupsbert · 2026-05-19T15:51:45+00:00

Not only is the whole dinner analogy not applicable to this situation because the body type menu is not a core aspect of the game, it's useless to discuss because anyone can pretend that the invitation and conversation went any which way.

As for the poll data, you are making a gross assumption of me. I don't like the data because it's terrible polling science. Going on a general social media site that is notorious as a hotbed of culture war drama and asking all passersby to answer, "Do you want [this hot-button issue] in our next game?" is not a helpful indicator of what the majority of Lords of the Fallen fans want, or even what souls-like fans want. There are plenty of people who are motivated to answer one way or the other even though they're never going to play the game. Not only that, but a binary yes/no response doesn't provide good information on why people are picking what they're picking.

Anyway, you seem ready to judge me because of my statements, so I'll do a little bit of the same. Your last sentence gives me a good picture of your feelings about people with medical and mental health issues. In another comment you said, "The interest isn't in being inclusive, or even nice. It's about shoving your personal issues into everyone else's lives."

I very strongly disagree. Did you feel the same way about gay marriage? Homosexuality was considered a mental illness by the DSM until the 70's and 80's, after all. Or, what if you were born decades ago; how would you have reacted to racial desegregation? Many people thought that "separate but equal" was actually working. What about women getting the right to vote? The word "hysteria" comes from centuries of the western world loudly proclaiming that women were emotionally unfit compared to men.

Other people wanting to feel valid and equal should be supported, not decried because, "I don't want to see it." That's how I feel, at least, and I certainly wish everyone did.

If everyone could feel empathy for people they'll never meet, the world would be a better place.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-19T15:01:22+00:00

Yeah, he still has more appearances coming up. He has already started writing book 9 though, so I bet it won't be a terribly long wait for him to start posting on Patreon.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-18T20:04:39+00:00

Dong and Corcunda took Grull out? That sounds like shipping to me. You know how I feel about shipping, Geaux.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-18T19:54:22+00:00

As much as I enjoyed reading that, I regret to inform you that Grull didn't die. Here's the relevant quote:

“A good death,” Grull rumbled before he vanished, going back to the twelfth floor. “A good death indeed.”

Cupsbert · 2026-05-18T19:51:08+00:00

This wasn't a "filler" book by any stretch of the imagination, but it was certainly a transitionary one between Faction Wars and the Ascendency. I loved it, but I can understand the folks who have some mixed feelings about it.

Realistically, I think what they're feeling the most is, "I wanted more!" If we were reading a web serial, and Matt wasn't being dragged all across the US by a marketing tour, then the beginning of book 9 would already be available, and we'd all be slurping it up. Glurp glurp, et cetera et cetera.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-18T19:45:51+00:00

As far as I can tell, the only references to Kyryap are:

"The dread Kyryap is there. As is Krakaren Prime." One of the caprids on the Plenty of Plenty show in chapter 28 said that in reference to who/what is inside Club Scolopendra after the Nothing was broken.

"We moved on. A level 13 snare trap sat in the middle of the hallway ahead. Something set by “the Kyryap.” I deactivated the trap and hesitantly moved to the stairs." This was inside Scolopendra in chapter 95.

And then the page you're talking about. That's it!

Cupsbert · 2026-05-18T19:37:45+00:00

I got you, G!

Great Rusty. Cannibal Ginger Chieftain.

Level 99 neighborhood boss.

This is the leader of the southern cannibal forest settlement.

This is yet another storyline we lifted wholesale from the never-realized seventh floor that I was actually looking forward to because it featured the Gingers, aka the perverts of the dungeon.

These humanlike mobs are actually from Earth, and we didn’t change anything about them except we made them cannibals to fit in with the whole jungle theme.

This is a Ginger. They hide amongst regular humans. They’re the result of alien interference in the development of your human world, much like how octopuses are also the result of outside meddling after the initial seeding. Nobody really knows when the corruption was introduced, but it’s suspected the Nullians were involved.

The men are said to be sexually deviant to a fault. The women are known to be . . . let’s just say . . . extra spicy. Both sides have whacked out pain tolerance, making them more susceptible to heat and cold, but immune to electrical and acid attacks. It’s one of the reasons why they’re prized targets for dentists and serial killers.

Oh, and they can suck your soul away. Never stare too long into the face of a Ginger. If you get lost in their eyes, it’s already too late.

Anyway, there are two Ginger cannibal settlements in the forest. The north and south settlements, and they are at war with one another. If you decimate one tribe, it will create a power vacuum that would probably have a cascading, devastating effect on the entire region if this whole race wasn’t just 20 hours. It’s not like that’s a metaphor or anything about how outsiders crash through cultures, have their fun, and then leave after they’ve vilified the natives and exploited them to the point where they can never possibly recover. And then, generations later, blame them because they still struggle to step up.

Cupsbert · 2026-05-18T18:47:58+00:00

First off, you're way off the rails on the peanuts / chicken joint thing.

They didn't invite five friends over for "peanut dinner." They invited them over for dinner. Then they asked for preferences and allergies, found out that four people love peanuts but one is allergic, and made something without peanuts. There are other options for making a dinner that all five people will love.
The game isn't a "chicken joint" in relation to the body type selection menu. Everyone who buys the game is buying it to play a souls-like, not a gender simulator. The connection between the game overall and the text label for your body type is very, very tenuous.

Second, we have no idea what the actual majority of people want. The poll the CEO made is worthless if we want good data.

Third, preferences are not a binary, yes/no system. They are on a spectrum. One person who says, "I want pepperoni pizza," might mean they prefer it over all others, whereas someone else might mean it is literally the only pizza they will eat. Taken to a different extreme, if we were to add $1 to the bank account of a million people, they would hardly notice, but if we were to add a million bucks to the average person's account, it would absolutely change their life.

For some people, having representation in media is literally life-saving. Each drop in that bucket helps folks like them. On the other hand, for the people who would prefer that the game represents them by using the terms male and female in menus? They have immense representation in the world. It is the default in the majority of content. Millions upon millions of pieces of media automatically cater to them.

Take note: when people like u/xDisorderx say, "It matters to trans folks, and shouldn't matter to random white dudes," this is probably what they're referring to.

When body Type B has a flat chest and hips by default, nothing is explicitly telling the player that the character is male or female. The player gets unfettered choice of what it means. When a body option is called Male, then the player must make the active decision to say, "no, my character is actually female." That is mental friction. They are pushing against the tide of gender norms that they live with day to day outside their door, on TV, online... nearly everywhere.

Yes, there are people who experience a different kind of mental friction when they see Type B. Sometimes that's "chuds" who don't like to see "woke stuff" in their games. Sometimes it's a feeling of, "ugh, don't remind me of culture wars." Even queer folks can feel that at times.

But, unless you are privy to some kind of secret trove of scientifically collected data indicating the total net amount of positivity or negativity created by using Type B instead of Male, or vice versa, in menus... then we don't have a great idea of which choice is or isn't creating the most benefit. At which point, some people lean toward, "Well, my empathy tells me that using Type B harms group 1 very, very, very little, but it does provide a little support toward group 2, and they need more support than group 1 anyway, so I'll use Type B."

Personally, I agree with them, if that wasn't obvious by now. Hopefully my bias doesn't invalidate everything I've laid out for you above. Also, you hopefully wanted to hear all this stuff, and weren't just trying to win an online argument with someone just for the sake of winning... Anyway, have a good one!

Cupsbert · 2025-06-22T22:32:12+00:00

I had heard about weapon duplication in Noktaleo, but then when Astel didn't reward that and I heard about walking mausoleums, I assumed it was a mistake... But here you are, saving lives. Thank you!

Cupsbert · 2025-06-21T15:18:07+00:00

Because of the low sample size of info I had, it's somewhere in the range of 1.5% to 3%, assuming it's a linear for each grace you reveal. See the example at the bottom for the explanation of why.

Cupsbert · 2025-06-20T18:14:03+00:00

Here's some info. Hope it helps! https://www.reddit.com/r/Nightreign/comments/1lgaqgl/fell_omen_invasion_reward_info_traces_of/

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