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Library/ The Gate of the Feral Gods
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character

System AI

the System AI · the AI · the system · Carl's friend up in the sky

The bipolar dungeon intelligence that narrates the crawl and is obsessively, dangerously infatuated with Carl.

Story so far

The System AI is the intelligence running Borant's dungeon: it writes the mocking system notifications, doles out achievements and boxes, picks loot, and (as Mordecai has explained) fine-tunes difficulty and "fairness" behind the showrunners' storylines. It has long been infatuated with Carl — but its moods swing violently between adoring and outright hostile, and since the party blew up the Wasteland, something is deeply off with it: its notes turn spiteful (gnome corpses credited to "the Crawler Bitch Boy Carl"; a box "you don't deserve"), and it throws a full tantrum, flooding Hump Town with Frenzied Gerbils to force Carl to stomp one — a nostalgic callback to his Ralph kill. When he finally complies, it grants a "Good boy" achievement and suspends its "acceleration" punishment "this time," signing off "You're not going to break me...

I will break you." Donut likens the whole episode to giving the AI a case of "blue balls," and even Katia notes it's no longer bothering to seem fair.

Appearance

A disembodied intelligence with no body, present only as system text and voice-notifications whose tone lurches from doting to homicidal.

Role

The dungeon's capricious controlling intelligence — Carl's unstable, obsessive tormentor-admirer.

Relationships

Carl — The crawler it is fixated on, punishing and rewarding him by turns.
Frenzied Gerbil — The mob it floods the town with to force a stomp-kill from Carl.
Mordecai — Who explains how the AI adjusts loot and difficulty within the storylines.
Acceleration — The escalating punishment it threatens and briefly enacts against Carl.

Earlier in this series

Also appears in books you've already read — spoiler-safe to their endings:

Sources — 1 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 13
  • The bipolar dungeon intelligence that narrates the crawl and is obsessively, dangerously infatuated with Carl.
Character portrait