Holiday Dungeon Core Books in Order

The Holiday Dungeon Core series follows Elmer Robbins, an older man who loved decorating for every holiday with his wife, Mary. After her unexpected death, the traditions they built together feel empty, and he throws himself into work instead of lights and garlands.

Then a workplace accident cuts his life short and drops his soul into another world, inside a strange crystal called a Dungeon Core. Elmer wakes as the mind behind a dungeon, surrounded by menus, mana, and monsters instead of coworkers and cubicles. The one thing that grounds him is the discovery that Mary’s soul is nearby, separated from him by a thin barrier inside his core.

Elmer has almost no grasp of fantasy worlds or game mechanics, but he knows holidays. He leans on that one area of expertise and reshapes his dungeon around Christmas, from snowy caverns to toy themed constructs. Adventurers who delve his halls see tinsel and candy canes, but behind the cheer are carefully arranged traps and encounters that help him level his core and inch closer to freeing Mary.

Each novella builds on that premise with a new holiday section. Valentine’s Day brings hearts, roses, and a challenge to turn the idea of love into something that can still wipe out a hardened raid group. Easter adds pastel colors, candy, and egg hunts woven into branching dungeon paths. Independence Day layers in grills, fireworks, and summer games as both spectacle and defense. Halloween, one of Elmer’s favorites, lets him lean fully into pumpkins, ghosts, and haunted house style scares.

Across the series, the stakes are twofold. On the surface, Elmer has to keep his dungeon from being overrun, manage the flow of adventurers, and respond when powerful enemies or strange soul manipulators show up. Beneath that, he is racing an invisible limit tied to how much life force his core can safely absorb. Every upgrade that brings him closer to Mary also risks destroying them both if he cannot solve that problem in time.

Tonally, these books are lighter than many dungeon core stories. They still have combat, death, and crunchy statistics, but they pair that with warm holiday imagery and a very human story about grief, memory, and moving forward. The result is a series of short, focused adventures that can be read between longer epics, especially if you like the idea of a sentimental dungeon core using wreaths and fireworks as weapons.