Dungeon Flippers - TV Tropes

Narrator: As the realm of Splendore falls into chaos, a hero shall rise and speak aloft the three magic words...
Maulie: Location, location, location!

Dungeon Flippers is a Fantastic Comedy Work Com by Travis Fowler. Have you ever wondered where Dark Lords, Tyrannical Wizards and Dragons actually get their castles, towers and such? Well, if they live in the magical land of Splendore they call the Dungeon Flippers, the best real estate agency for all your magical needs. One of their best employees is Maulie the Manticore, a cheerful creature who wants to earn enough money to repair the family dungeon after it was destroyed in her parents' divorce.

Can be viewed here. In November 2024, a succesfull Kickstarter campaign to fund the second episode began.

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Dungeon Flippers provides examples of:

• Affably Evil:
  • Maulie and Cleaveland are people who are setting up bases for various fantasy villains and monsters, and don't quibble with "locals to terrorize" as a want for their clients, but they themselves are just normal friendly folk who are doing their jobs.
  • The Ace of Wands murders humans on sight and loves doing so, yet he trusts the Dungeon Flippers to do their jobs, keeps working with them even after they get him crushed by giant clock gears, and accepts a very overly harsh critique of himself. (Granted, that last one has more to do with insecurity than humility.)
• Berserk Button: Maulie's is people who lack creativity, specifically when they have the ability to do anything they want. Her Breaking Speech to the Ace of Wands implies this is because she herself has a huge imagination but feels powerless to rebuild her family dungeon, so she sees unimaginative but powerful people as wasting their potential.
• Bewitched Amphibians: A hapless peasant near the troll bridge gets turned into a frog by the Ace of Wands.
• Breaking Speech: Maulie gives one to the Ace of Wands when he finally pushes her too far, calling him out for having tons of power but no imagination on how to use it to get the kind of home he wants due to his lack of imagination. Unusually for the trope, she catches herself and apologizes, as he is her client, but the Ace still takes it to heart...a little too much, accidentally willing himself into non-existence in the Void.
• Came Back Wrong: When the Ace of Wands erases himself in the Void Maulie tries to recreate him but creates an Oddball Doppelgänger instead. Cleaveland suggests another powerful wizard or a god could have done a better job.

  Not!Ace of Wands: Yay! Me is saved.

• Commonality Connection: Parodied, Maulie and Cleaveland try to sell the Ace of Wands on a swamp house because its pointy roof looks like his hat. The Ace is more concerned about the local bugs and accidentally sets the house on fire when trying to incinerate one.
• Creepy Shadowed Under Eyes: The Ace of Wands comes with these, probably as a sign of Evil Old Folks.
• Cute Monster Girl: Maulie is a bipedal manticore and has a pretty friendly personality.
• Dungeon-Based Economy: The show's about a real estate company that sells dungeons to fantasy villains.
• Earworm: He's the Aaaace of Waaands...
• Evil Is Sterile: The Ace of Wands may be a powerful wizard, but what makes him a nightmare to work with for the Dungeon Flippers is he has zero imagination, he judges all the real estate at face value and doesn't consider he could just change the minor details he doesn't like, when they get to the Void this causes Maulie to reach her Rage Breaking Point and give him a Breaking Speech.
• Evil Wizard: The Ace of Wands is by his own admission a crazy, reclusive wizard who spent years trying to make a perfect Magic Wand to terrorize people with, by the time he's finished he realizes the "reclusive" part means he's too far away from anyone he could terrorize, forcing him to find a home closer to potential targets and call the Dungeon Flippers. Thankfully, he also happens to have a massive amount of treasure available to pay with.
• Exotic Eye Designs: Maulie has horizontal, oval pupils.
• Extraordinary World, Ordinary Problems: The characters live in a fantasy setting but have fairly mundane problems. Maulie wants to fix the family dungeon, the Ace of Wands' lack of imagination is hindering his ambitions, and Word of God says Cleaveland has been working for the Dungeon Flippers literally since the day he was hatched and is now worried there's nothing else to him but his job.
• Fantastic Racism: Averted. Humans and monsters prey on each other, but it's just that- prey. There is no social interaction between the sides or shared personhood for racists to attack. It's like thorns; you hate a thorn that pricks you, but you don't feel personally oppressed by the thorn, or expect it to act any differently. All characters shown consider the human/monster divide an equitable and desirable status quo.
• Flat Character: In-universe, Cleaveland worries he might be this since he has apparently been selling dungeons literally from the day he was hatched and fears there is nothing else to his personality except that. During the conversation about the dream eating Artifact of Doom he mentions he has no dreams to be eaten.
• Furry Female Mane: Maulie has a lion's mane, admittedly typical for a manticore in fiction, serving as her hair.
• Funny Background Event: When Maulie and Cleaveland accidentally show the Ace of Wands a wizard tower that is still occupied he ends up zapping the other wizard leaving only his hat behind, while Maulie and Cleaveland are talking you can see the Ace of Wands repeatedly zapping the wizard hat.
• Golem: Emma, the Dungeon Flippers stone mason is one, humorously she has a jewish accent.
• Hailfire Peaks: One scene in the trailer has Maulie jumping across stone platforms going down a lava river and off a lavafall and landing on a glacier on the other side off a cliff.
• Horned Humanoid: Maulie the manticore has two fiendish horns on her brow.
• Ice Palace: The trailer shows this is one of the examples of the real estate for sale.
• Idea Bulb: The Void conjures a torch above Maulie's head when she realizes how to save the Ace of Wands.
• Impossible Hourglass Figure: Maulie has an unusually tiny waist for her buff torso and sturdy lower body. With her cinched work jacket on it's maybe a third of her shoulders and double her hips. While slightly wider in a sweatshirt, it's still noticeably small compared to the rest of her.
• Jerkass Realization: The Ace of Wands realizes he's been extremely unhelpful and lacking in any personal inspiration after Maulie, fed up with how even the Primordial Chaos of the Void can't inspire him, gives him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech. Unfortunately, he's also in the Void, which erases him.
• Kneel Before Zod: Parodied in the Episode 2 trailer. While talking to his boss and mother, Cleaveland is kneeling with his head bowed. She eventually gets confused and asks why he's doing that. He just dropped his pen and had trouble finding it due to all the low lying smoke in the room.
• Large and in Charge: Cairn, leader of the Dungeon Flippers, is shown to be rather round in her flashback to her "negotiations" over a newly acquired dungeon. Given she's also the one who trashed it, he's probably pretty powerful, too.
• Mage Species: The Ace of Wands is some sort of humanoid magic user with clawed hands and feet whose beard melds with his face. Also he's blue.
• Meaningful Name: The author has pointed out that Cleaveland's name is fitting for a real estate agent because the world "cleave" is contranym meaning "to separate" or "to adhere".
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Manticores have several rows of razor-sharp teeth and Maulie is no exception; whenever a shot focuses on her (oft-smiling) face it's easy to see she has fangs to spare.
• Mr. Imagination: Maulie's got quite the imagination for construction and renovation, and is more than happy to use it at work whenever she needs to sell a customer on a place that needs some work. It's most notable when they enter the Void, where you can will things into existence; she creates an entire castle in seconds pretty much by accident.
  • Notably while she can make illusionary renovations similar to mock-ups from real life renovation shows, they are for whatever reason only visible to Cleaveland (and the viewers). This is still explicitly noted to be a magical ability of hers.
• My Nayme Is: We have Maulie (prononuced Molly), Cleaveland, (pronounced Cleveland), and their boss Cairn (pronounced not like the word cairn, but instead like Karen).
• Necromancer: Mort, the Dungeon Flippers "Human Resources" manager.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: A useful skill for a dungeon flipper, since part of the job description is being able to spin any feature of a dungeon into a selling point. When Maulie discovers a client selling his dungeon has a room full of previous victims she assures him that Necromancers would consider that a positive, later, when Cleaveland notes the dungeon has an Artifact of Doom that eats dreams that they'll need to remove, Maulie suggests they sell to someone who doesn't dream instead.
• Plant Person: Laurel, the Dungeon Flippers secretary.
• Puff of Logic: Happens to The Ace of Wands in The Void after Maulie gives him a Breaking Speech, fortunately this is reversible by doing and saying things that return his will to live.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Maulie and Cleaveland are perfectly nice, ordinary realtors who just so happen to make their trade selling evil lairs to villains. They don't do anything particularly villainous themselves, but aren't put off by their clients explicitly wanting to use their lairs for nefarious purposes or murdering passerbies.
• Rimshot: When being shown a bridge with a built in dungeon, the Ace of Wands kicks a small stone off the bridge as he asks "Under a bridge...doesn't that sound a little...beneath me?", at which point the stone lands in a wooden bucket, giving off a rim shot sound.
• Robbing the Dead: Not in the traditional sense, but several of the previous owners of the places the Dungeon Flippers sell did get killed in home invasions by adventurers.
• Running on All Fours: Maulie does this, as a manticore.
• Shout-Out: Among the Ace's wands are the Moon Stick and the Butterfly wand.
• Sinister Silhouettes: Cairn is introduced this way in the Episode 2 trailer...only for a flashback to fully show her as she nervously looks around at the property she just wrecked. When we cut back, she stays totally shadowed. It may just be how she likes her office, as Cleaveland notes it's hard to see in there.
• Super-Strength: Maulie pulls a cart of stone blocks with just her two oxen feet.
• Theme Music Power-Up: Maulie sings the Ace of Wands theme song in an attempt to restore him to existence in The Void.
• Utility Magic: The Dungeon Flippers use an oracle to find contacts for potential buyers, their stone mason is an earth elemental, and their "human resources" manager is a necromancer who supplies undead labor.
• Void Between the Worlds: One of the locations on sale, it can create anything you can think of and allow a skilled wizard to open portals anywhere they like. Unfortunately, it can also erase an inhabitant who loses their will to live.
• When He Smiles: The Ace of Wands agrees to take the final home with a small, supremely grateful smile.
• Who's on First?: The Witch War. Which War? Exactly.
• Wizard Classic: The Ace of Wands has a long beard, full length robes, and a pointy hat. Even his "ultimate wand" is really more of a staff, completing the look.

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