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Character profile
- Race
- Doppelganger
- Before the dungeon
- Art teacher
- First joins Carl and Donut
- Book 2
Current Status
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Introduction
Katia Grim is a former art teacher who joins Carl and Donut on the third floor. She arrives as a level-nine Doppelganger and Monster Truck Driver, struggling to control a body she must shape by hand.
With practice, she becomes the party’s navigator, mechanic and a versatile defender. Her Gearhead hobby supplies technical knowledge, while her own persistence helps turn it into skills the group can rely on.[1]
Appearance and Personality
Katia initially looks like a misshapen human because she has not learned to sculpt her Doppelganger body. Carl gives her a hand mirror, and Mordecai teaches her to move and redistribute its material. She eventually creates a face for her interview rather than simply recovering her original appearance.
She was an art teacher before the collapse, with no comparable mechanical background. Gearhead gives her knowledge of machines, but she still needs practice using it.[2]
Katia persists through painful training and failed attempts to handle extra mass. She practices protecting a holographic puppy and redirecting attacks. Her museum work, studies and time in Moscow also help the party outside combat.
Producers push her toward a mohawk and bodysuit to make her more entertaining. Later, the broadcast presents Hekla’s death as revenge, despite Katia’s insistence that she struck the wrong person. She struggles to keep control over both her choices and the version of her life shown to viewers.[3]
She becomes willing to challenge Carl’s judgment while remaining loyal to him. She rejects “Katia Prime” as a name, warns him against promises he cannot keep and disputes the claim that she should have killed Chris immediately.
Her concern for children grows out of infertility, a planned adoption and a marriage damaged by conflicting hopes for parenthood. Those experiences remain important as she takes responsibility for a team of her own.[4]
Katia wants revenge on Eva but restrains herself under the masquerade’s divine truce. Her relationship with Bautista brings comfort, though neither his affection nor Eva’s death resolves the danger of the crown forced onto her.[5]
Katia hides the crown until a crisis makes her confess. Her use of dungeon substances leads to unconsciousness and withdrawal, threatening her memories, attributes and skills. She calls herself broken; Carl tells her he will not give up on her.
Even while struggling, she decides to finish the assassination needed for the orchid and later delays leaving so she can help her squad. These choices are made under pressure from the crown, Huanxin and her fear of losing the people she loves.[6]
The shared memory of Annie reveals how deeply Katia loved the child and how painful the loss remains. She says treatment has brought some peace and calls Daniel, Carl and Donut her family. Hostile leaders later replay the private memory without her consent.
When the orchid ritual restores her human body, it reveals her missing right arm, lower right leg and ear, previously concealed by her reshaped form. Bautista’s prepared cybernetic arm fits and works.[7]
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Attributes and Abilities
As a Doppelganger, Katia manually reshapes her body and incorporated equipment. She cannot copy a creature by touch or gain its nonphysical abilities as a Changeling might. Equipment adds mass, though the original description excludes weapons.
Her initial attributes are Strength 11, Intelligence 8, Constitution 51, Dexterity 30 and Charisma 3. Her ring, class and other benefits account for much of that Constitution, which does not protect her from drowning or being knocked aside. Rush turns her into a battering ram with a thirty-hour cooldown. Second Fuel Tank absorbs and reflects some damage once per fight, Pathfinder helps her find stairs, and she is immune to psionic effects.[8]
Her momentum benefit works aboard a moving train even when she stands still inside it, initially doubling her Constitution from 51 to 102. The bonus ends when the train stops.
Katia can redistribute absorbed armor while preserving the required proportions and connections. Carl builds equipment recognized by the system as additional mass, increasing her Strength at a cost to Dexterity. It takes practice to carry and reshape the load, and fast changes hurt.
Her transformations do not regenerate lost flesh. After Gore-Gore cuts away armor and biological material, healing leaves her fingers missing. She makes replacements from the flesh she still has. She can also form extra eyes for a wider view, though controlling as many as twelve strains her.[9]
Pathfinder trains only while a map is open. Katia’s experience with transit systems helps her navigate the Iron Tangle, and her insistence on considering its three-dimensional shape helps reveal what lies beneath the stairs.
As a train plow, Katia spreads most of her mass across the front while keeping her flesh in a small padded extension, with exposed eyes to see. She also forms a tripod platform for her crossbow. Her disguises can distract powerful enemies, as when she impersonates Elle during the fight with Grull.
A convincing disguise does not satisfy a biological lock. Her nearly complete gnoll form still cannot operate the restricted repair cart.[10]
Gearhead helps Katia build the Royal Chariot. Driving it requires rear-facing eyes, shifts in weight and the ability to shed mass. She distinguishes knowing how a machine works from learning to use it. Copying a flying creature’s shape would not necessarily let her fly.
For the balloon deception, Katia forms a seat, Wynne and a false Henrik while hiding her real flesh and using a corpse to satisfy magical inspection. Carl must still carry her weight. Later she shapes herself into a diving bell and elevator, managing currents and pressure to move the party to Akula.[11]
Katia keeps Monster Truck Driver with a Hazmat endorsement. Delayed experience from the flood raises her from level 44 to 52, while Steely Skin and her Constitution improve. Her automatic-equipment ability still follows ownership and equipment rules, preventing Louis’s proposed trick of instantly dropping equipped armor onto an enemy.
A benefactor’s toy grants a percentage stat bonus and I Need My Personal Space, and Katia absorbs it into her body. She later receives a separate protective beanie.[12]
Katia prepares a short deck for Astrid’s assassination so she can quickly finish playing it, regain her normal transformation and inventory access, and store the body as proof. Her summons distract and disable Astrid while she delivers the killing blow.
Against Ysalte, Katia equips and directs Paz, using the Bolt of Ophiotaurus to improve his gear. Paz receives credit for killing the goddess.[13]
Katia helps build mobility equipment for Tran and Jamal, prepares skill tattoos and works on the charging-pillow process. She distinguishes eligible attributes from enhancement bonuses so the process does not mistakenly count temporary benefits.
The Orchid of Eileithyia’s Grace offers several ways out of her crisis. Katia chooses pregnancy so she can leave the crawl and reach the surface children. She and Louis consent to the required human parent roles. Her restored human body becomes pregnant, and the system removes her as an ineligible crawler.[14]
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History
Book 2
Carl’s Doomsday Scenario
Joining the party and surviving Remex
Hekla sends Katia to gain levels with Carl and Donut because distance prevents the Daughters from sharing experience with her. She joins at level nine, with high Constitution but little Strength or control over her body. Carl gives her a mirror so she can practice shaping her face.
The party leaves Katia with the remote outside the suspected mind-control range during the guard-depot investigation. When Remex’s crisis escalates, Carl and Donut stay because she cannot enter the Desperado Club. A pulse triggers her Rush through the stair building, and she activates the final remote before descending. Shared experience takes her to level 21.[15]
Choose Book 2 or later above to read this part of the history.
Book 3
The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook
Building strength and a place to stay
In the Iron Tangle, Katia’s mapping skills and the Constitution bonus from moving trains make her immediately useful. She contributes her room and a training upgrade to the shared space while keeping ownership.
She practices intercepting attacks, protects Carl and studies the railway. Gore-Gore tears away flesh that healing cannot replace, forcing her to reshape what remains. Carl’s new mass equipment adds material and Strength, but her first attempt to use it collapses awkwardly.
Producers push her toward a mohawk and bodysuit, a persona far removed from her previous life teaching art and working in museums.[16]
Choosing the plow and killing the wrong target
Katia tells the party she had been preparing to adopt. She also admits that she does not want to return to the Daughters, although she feels obligated to Hekla. Carl’s protective instincts create another conflict when she offers to become the rescue train’s plow.
She insists on choosing the risk herself. Spreading her armor and mass across the train lets it push through the horde, but her health keeps dropping despite healing. Donut’s goggles reveal hidden bolts responsible for the continuing injury and damaged memory.
When confronted, Eva admits using Katia and humiliates her while Hekla tries to reassert control. Katia launches Rush at Eva but strikes and kills Hekla. The death gives her a player-killer skull and new levels, leaving her distraught. Donut comforts her, and Katia takes Hekla’s gear and the key needed for the evacuation.[17]
The broadcast’s revenge story and the final rescue
The recap portrays the killing as deliberate revenge, which Katia rejects. Her riot-themed rewards offer useful crowd control while mocking the death she is struggling to process.
She continues helping with the escape. Gearhead lets her dismantle equipment, her model of the floor reveals the danger beneath the stairs, and her disguise as Elle distracts Grull while Carl is rescued. She reaches the next floor with Carl and Donut, hoping for a chance to make milkshakes amid the work.[18]
Choose Book 3 or later above to read this part of the history.
Book 4
The Gate of the Feral Gods
The Royal Chariot, the balloon and Chris
In the Bubbles, Katia provides maps, mechanical designs and emergency protection. She scouts in disguise, points out flaws in the stealth plan and shares directions with stranded crawlers. The Royal Chariot depends on her carefully shifting and shedding mass.
Her balloon disguise creates several apparent people and objects at once, with real tissue incorporated to survive inspection. She later helps contain Chris with anti-petrification supplies and stops a grenade attack, refusing to accept that killing him immediately was the only option.
She discusses infertility, her marriage and the adoption she had planned, explaining why the surviving children matter so much to her.[19]
Leading without Carl and reaching Akula
During Carl’s five-day detention, Katia leads the party and moves the house into Land. She waits for his return before the decisive castle choice. Her conflict with Gwen brings back memories of Hekla’s controlling behavior.
After the castle collapses and separates the party, Katia becomes a diving bell and elevator to carry Carl, Tran and Vadim to Akula. She returns through the airlock despite the evacuation order and helps launch the trapped group out with the recovered saw. The unexpected angle kills the queen. Katia escapes through the Gate and returns at level 44.[20]
A separate team and the hidden Gate
Katia decides to form a new party, protect former Daughters and pursue Eva. Carl and Donut are sad to lose her but support her choice. Their shared space lets them stay in touch.
Before descending, she anchors the real underwater Gate and handles its timed transfer while a decoy hides the operation. Her work makes the flood aimed at Larracos possible.[21]
Choose Book 4 or later above to read this part of the history.
Book 5
The Butcher’s Masquerade
The coalition and Bautista
The flood’s delayed experience raises Katia to level 52 before she leaves in a caravan with Chris and the others. She leads a strained coalition while keeping contact with her old party. Eva charms a town into attacking them; Imani removes the glamour, but Eva escapes.
Katia continues sewing patches and helping Carl’s group with equipment. She coordinates allies during the Creeper crisis and later reveals that she and Bautista are together. Carl assures them he is not a romantic rival.[22]
Revenge and the second crown
At the masquerade, Florin and Bautista hold Katia back when she tries to attack Eva. Carl calms her down, and she agrees to wait despite Eva’s taunts. She has poisoned flechettes ready and equips her protective beanie before the teleportation plan.
After the battle, Katia finds Eva buried and kills her. Eva forces a crown onto her before dying, trapping her in the same succession contest as Donut. Katia keeps it secret at the book’s end, turning to the alternative memories offered by blitz sticks as the crisis adds to her earlier grief.[23]
Choose Book 5 or later above to read this part of the history.
Book 6
The Eye of the Bedlam Bride
The confession and the orchid bargain
Katia gathers and shares cards while hiding her distress. During a timed crisis, she finally admits to Carl that she has the crown and apologizes for concealing it. She tells Donut too, promising that she will never fight her.
She reveals a celestial lockbox earned from the Larracos flood, with two seals already broken. Opening the last requires an assassination. The orchid inside appears to offer an escape from the crown, but Huanxin’s involvement makes it hard to trust.[24]
Withdrawal and Astrid’s death
After a secret merchant visit, Katia becomes unresponsive and Imani cares for her. Mordecai identifies four addictions and prepares treatment for their memory and stat effects. Bautista objects to continuing the mission during her withdrawal, but Katia chooses to proceed with her friends’ help.
Katia asks whether Carl feels guilty about killing Astrid and admits she never wanted to hurt anyone except Eva. When Samantha draws a demon into the casino, Katia insists they finish the contract before it kills their target.
Astrid protects Carl and the frightened staff, then asks him to look after her children. Carl tears off her wings, Katia’s summon blinds her, and Katia kills her. After exhausting the short deck, she stores the body and turns it in for the orchid. They have succeeded by betraying someone trying to help them.[25]
Postponing departure and helping the escape
Katia postpones using the orchid rather than leave her squad on Floor Eight. Her group wins its key, but she comes to Cuba to help Carl’s escape plan. Carl and Bautista still want another way to save her.
In the final battle, she equips Paz with the upgraded weapon and directs him against Ysalte. He receives credit for the goddess’s death. Shi Maria’s fire later burns Katia severely, but she survives and reaches the next floor with her own crisis unresolved.[26]
Choose Book 6 or later above to read this part of the history.
Book 7
This Inevitable Ruin
Building adaptations and revisiting Annie
Katia uses Carl’s gifted automaton table to work on mobility equipment for Tran and Jamal. She also prepares for treatment of the memory damage left by Glory Bound.
The treatment returns her to the failed adoption and Annie, an abandoned baby with aggressive brain cancer whom she loved as her own. Katia calls the memory devastating but precious and says treatment has brought peace after suicidal thoughts. She names Daniel, Carl and Donut as family. Enemy leaders later replay the intimate experience without her consent.[27]
Insisting on the rescue
Katia prepares equipment and a skill tattoo while discussing Li Na’s grief and Carl’s responsibilities. She insists on joining the rescue. With Huanxin blocking her intended escape, she privately asks Carl to give Donut the flower if their attempt fails.
When the divine trap becomes clear, Katia refuses Carl’s order to retreat. She keeps planning with Donut even though every expected orchid outcome would take her away from the party. Carl does not learn their final arrangement until the ritual.[28]
The orchid and the surface children
With destruction approaching, Katia eats the orchid before all her farewells are finished. Eileithyia appears under Huanxin’s control. Katia delays choosing while Donut uses Laundry Day to expel Huanxin. Prepared wards trap her, and the crossbow bolt kills her.
Katia chooses pregnancy so she can leave and help the surface children. She and Louis agree to the parent roles. Returning to human form reveals her missing arm, lower leg and ear; Bautista’s cybernetic arm works. Eileithyia tells them the child is a boy, and the system removes Katia as ineligible.
Katia leaves the dungeon alive. Later orders suggest allies are preparing support for a pregnant veteran on the surface, but her arrival with the children and their rescue have not been shown.[29]
Choose Book 7 or later above to read this part of the history.
Book 8
A Parade of Horribles
An absence in the workshop
While preparing for the race, Carl reaches instinctively for Katia’s help before remembering she is gone. Her practical judgment has become something he relies on. Book Eight gives no confirmed outcome for her surface mission.[30]
Choose Book 8 or later above to read this part of the history.
Relationships
Carl and Donut
Carl and Donut welcome Katia into their party and give her work she can contribute to. During the Remex crisis, they stay with her rather than use the Desperado Club she cannot enter. She gains levels quickly, but also finds people prepared to stand by her.[15]
When Carl tries to stop Katia from becoming the train’s plow, she insists the risk is hers to take, with Donut’s support. After Hekla’s death, Donut comforts her as someone who has also killed a crawler.[31]
Katia takes command while Carl is detained and later leaves to lead her own party. They remain close and continue working together even as she pursues goals of her own.[32]
Hekla and Eva
Eva is an old school friend, and Katia feels obligated to Hekla despite not wanting to rejoin the Daughters. Hekla’s return initially matters deeply to her. The hidden bolts and Eva’s admission reveal how badly that loyalty has been abused.
Katia aims Rush at Eva but kills Hekla instead. She grieves the unintended death while the show turns it into a straightforward revenge story.[35]
Bautista
Katia and Bautista share an affectionate exchange during the escape, giving her a moment of closeness amid the rescue work.[37]
They later confirm that they are together. Carl assures them he has no romantic rivalry with Bautista.[38]
Bautista objects to continuing the assassination while Katia is in withdrawal and fears what using the orchid will mean for her. She listens to him but makes her own decisions.[39]
Before her departure, Bautista makes a cybernetic arm that fits her restored human body, helping her prepare for life outside the dungeon.[40]
Her family before the collapse
Katia’s infertility and failed marriage shape her longstanding wish to become a parent. She was preparing to adopt before the collapse and is deeply concerned for children caught in the crawl.[41]
The shared memory reveals how Fannar’s infidelity ended the planned adoption. Katia had come to love Annie, an abandoned infant with aggressive brain cancer, as her own child. Her grief centers on Annie and the life they lost.[42]
Huanxin and Eileithyia
References
- Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, chapters 21. ↩
- Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, chapters 21; Epilogue. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 4, 6–7, 12–13, 18, 21–25. ↩
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, chapters 4, 14–15, 17, 33. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 8, 57, 63, 67; Epilogue. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 15, 27–33, 63–64. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 16, 18, 86; Several Days Earlier. ↩
- Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, chapters 21, 25. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 1–5, 10, 12–13, 16, 18. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 12, 21–22, 26–30, 33. ↩
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, chapters 3–5, 9, 11–12, 25–28. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 1–3, 36, 63, 76. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 22, 30–33, 69–72. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 5, 15, 40, 74, 84–86. ↩
- Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, chapters 21–25; Epilogue. ↩1 ↩2
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 1–13. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 16, 18, 21–24. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 25–34; Epilogue. ↩
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, chapters 1–15. ↩
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, chapters 19–28. ↩
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, chapters 33–34. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 1–12, 21, 36, 48–57. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 63, 67, 76–77; Epilogue. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 1, 8, 11, 15, 18–22. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 27–33. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 33, 48, 63–64, 69–72. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 5, 15–18; Several Days Earlier. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 40, 47, 53, 56, 75. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 84–87; Epilogue. ↩
- A Parade of Horribles, chapters 6. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 18, 21–24. ↩
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, chapters 19–20, 33–34. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 15, 19, 30–33, 63–64. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 16, 47, 75–87; Several Days Earlier. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 6, 18, 21–25. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 8, 21, 67, 77; Epilogue. ↩
- The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, chapters 28. ↩
- The Butcher’s Masquerade, chapters 57. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 30, 64. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, chapters 86. ↩1 ↩2
- The Gate of the Feral Gods, chapters 15. ↩
- This Inevitable Ruin, Several Days Earlier. ↩
- The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, chapters 18–19, 33, 64. ↩