Natural Dungeon Residents

Naturals · Natural people

Some apparent NPCs may be real populations bound into recurring dungeon roles rather than freshly generated characters.

Story so far

Carl connects Damascus's family revelation to Ossie's old note about the dungeon's reused layers. The bopcas openly say aliens offered their people dungeon lives, but Ossie suspected other populations received similar or worse arrangements.

Astrid, the Night Wyrm, Damascus, and Anaconda appear to be one such family despite occupying four different in-game races. Their long service, promise of eventual freedom, retained property interests, and fear of assignment changes all point to lives continuing beneath temporary dungeon roles.

Mordecai previously called such people naturals and said altering their memories was illegal, unless they had signed away those rights. Carl therefore suspects some residents may not know their own origin after binding contracts and repeated role changes.

Appearance

Layered silhouettes of real people beneath changing fantasy bodies and recycled dungeon costumes.

Role

The concept reframes NPC encounters as possible contact with exploited people whose identities are hidden by the crawl.

Relationships

Astrid — Her family history suggests she was a natural resident.

Bopcas — They are the clearest known population recruited into dungeon service.

Ossie — Ossie's note proposes that many more groups share the bopcas' fate.

Mordecai — He supplied the term and the rule about memory alteration.

Sources — 1 recorded facts, by chapter

Chapter 36

Some apparent NPCs may be real populations bound into recurring dungeon roles rather than freshly generated characters.