Understanding how simple molecules are pieced together in organisms may aid biotechnological manipulation and synthetic approaches to complex natural products. The mantis-associated fungus Daldinia eschscholzii IFB-TL01 produces the unusually structured immunosuppressants (±)-dalesconols A and B, along with their congener (±)-dalesconol C, with the (-)-enantiomers in excess. Here we report that these structural and stereochemical peculiarities of dalesconols A-C are a result of promiscuous and atropselective couplings of radicals derived from 1,3,6,8-tetrahydroxynaphthalene, 1,3,8-trihydroxynaphthalene and 1,8-dihydroxynaphthalene. The observed (-)-enantiomeric excess is found to depend on the dominance of particular conformers of naphthol dimer intermediates, which are ligands of laccase.