History HeraldsOfValdemar / TropesAToE

* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Both Daddy and Mommy, in a highly {{Justified}} example. In ''Beyond'', Kordas and Ilsa have three sons, but less than a handful of people know that, not even the boys themselves, who are told they are the children of Kordas' illegitimate cousin/right hand man Hakkon. By Imperial decree, all heirs to a title must be sent to court at age 13 to be 'properly educated' - in reality held hostage to keep their parents in line. The Court is horrifically abusive and neglectful of it's young hostages; Ilsa's twin brother died of illness, along with his personal attendant, and no one even noticed until Kordas managed a visit to come check on him. Kordas and Ilsa both vowed their children would never be put through that, which means never announcing their existence. Once everyone's safely out of the Empire's reach at the end of the book, Ilsa and Kordas tell their sons who they really are. Turns out their eldest (who will later become one of the first three Heralds) has already figured it out and told his next-youngest brother.

* CombatPragmatist: The main philosophy of Herald-Weaponmasters Alberich and Kerowyn -- forget grace, dignity, or any illusions about a "fair fight"; just attack for maximum damage with whatever you've got on hand. It's probably not a coincidence that they were both successful professional warriors [[note]] Alberich was the youngest ever Captain in the Karsite Army, despite having no connections or wealth to fuel his rise, and Kerowyn was the Captain of a successful mercenary company [[/note]] before they were Chosen

** ''The Last Herald-Mage'' trilogy ends with Vanyel dead and [[TheMagicGoesAway True Magic no longer known in Valdemar]], but he leaves the country so well guarded against magic that it doesn't suffer a serious major incursion for centuries. Also, Vanyel and his lover Stefan get a personal happy ending, serving as a spirit guardians of the northern border together along with the spirit of Vanyel's faithful Companion Yfandes. The resolution of ''Storm Breaking'' releases them from this duty to pass on together, at which point Lackey has stated they've gone "to Bermuda."

** A pre-pubertal Skif, in ''Take A Thief'', manages to convince Alberich that the best way to catch a ring of child-slavers is for Skif to pretend to be a particularly sad StreetUrchin and get abducted, with Alberich following the snatchers to their boss.

** ''The Last Herald-Mage'' trilogy ends with Vanyel dead and [[TheMagicGoesAway True Magic no longer known in Valdemar]], but he leaves the country so well guarded against magic that it doesn't suffer a serious major incursion for centuries. Also, Vanyel gets a personal happy ending, serving as a spirit guardian of the northern border with his lover by his side. Made just a shade more bitter by the ending of the Mage Storms, which has one fleeting mention that they were bound to that border, almost always with no other company, for seven hundred years, ''much'' longer than they expected.

** Evil mages who have the means to change their appearances consistently make themselves pretty. There seems to be the expectation that anyone who does this is inherently evil. When Darkwind meets Nyara it's after she's been hurt saving people he's sworn to protect, but he sees her CatGirl features, realizes she's hot, and in sudden hatred says if she's done this to herself he'll kill her.

* {{Bishonen}}: Very common among the androgynous, long-haired Tayledras. Vanyel (not a Tayledras) and Firesong are the most prominent examples. Especially Firesong, who is described as though he stepped right out of a medieval fantasy anime. Very few readers were surprised to find out that Firesong is Vanyel's descendant.

* DistressedDamsel: Happens on occasion - Dierna in ''By the Sword'' and Lady Myria in ''The Oathbound'' play it particularly straight - but in most cases the damsel in question does more than just sit around waiting for rescue. In one notable incident from the ''Oathblood'' anthology, the kidnapped girls manage to leave a scent trail for their rescuers to track them by, and then poison their kidnappers to slow them down for the rescue team to catch up, without being suspected until it was much too late.

* BasedOnADream: In the forward to some editions of ''Arrows of the Queen'' Creator/MercedesLackey says this is where her initial idea for the book came from, and expresses irritation for this as a cliche.

* BasedOnADream: In the foreward to some editions of ''Arrows of the Queen'' Creator/MercedesLackey says this is where her initial idea for the book came from, and expresses irritation for this as a cliche.

** Arrows also suggests that [[TheMagicGoesAway magic has been absent]] in the whole setting rather than just in Valdemar, with Ancar's mages talked about as hushed, astonishing rumors ''in Hardorn'', by people native to that country, complete with some of the same phrasing about "old magic".

** Kerowyn has a more realistic first time as a teenager with an also-teenaged partner barely more experienced than her. It hurts a little without being as pronounced as above, but she feels frustrated and disappointed afterward because she subconsciously desires to [[PsychicPowers connect with him in mind as well as body]]; a desire he can't fulfill (and isn't even aware of). As the relationship continues, he becomes more skilled and she lowers her expectations until they're both satisfied. But she never gets what she truly wants out of sex until she meets Herald Eldan.

* AgeGapRomance: Vanyel (early thirties) and Stefan (17); Talia (18) and Dirk (mid-30s) [[note]] There's some dispute on this. When Talia first comes to the Collegiem, she's told Kris' NeverLiveItDown story and he's mentioned as having recently got his Whites. During Talia's internship with Kris as her mentor, he mentions that he and Dirk met shortly after being Chosen, when Kris was thirteen and Dirk was eleven. Usually Herald training takes about five years. By that reckoning, Dirk is only three years older than Talia.[[/note]]

* CoolHorse: Shin'a'in horses are consistently praised and coveted by anyone who knows horses. Shin'a'in battlesteeds much more so. Bred with magical assistance for intelligence first and ability second, they're repeatedly stated to be very large, very ugly beasts with huge heads. They're noted to act more like dogs than horses at times. Intact males are almost ''never'' allowed to leave the Plains. Companions would count too, but [[InsistentTerminology they are NOT horses]].

*** The coolness of the Sword That Sings is played straight in the short story ''Trust Your Instincts'', where it starts off with decorations intact and empathically instills an intense, inescapable desire for a minor local mage-noble who presented it to the true Queen a year ago to come pick it up again and carry it off into the mountains. The man dies there with the knowledge that the sword never meant him to survive, leaving it to be found by Tarma and Kethry many years later.

* {{Crossover}}: The short story ''A Dragon In Distress'', penned by Mercedes Lackey and Elisabeth Waters and published in ''Sword and Sorceress XII'', has Tarma and Kethry compelled by Need to enter a portal into the main setting of Waters' own work to help, well, a distressed female dragon whose adopted princess has been kidnapped by a prince. As this story mostly doesn't take place in Velgarth it's not included in any of the official anthologies, but has appeared elsewhere including [[https://www.amazon.com/product/dp/B004HKIINU/ as an ebook]].

* DeusAngstMachina: Winterhart's backstory in ''The Black Gryphon'', thoroughly justified by the CrapsackWorld setting at the time. Amberdrake, too, although he deals with it differently. Vanyel's upbringing is equally angst-ridden but is mainly [[TraumaCongaLine told in the story]].

* DividedWeFall: The Kaled'a'in clans converging on the glassy crater that was all that remained of their ancestral homelands after the Cataclysm had diametrically opposite ideologies regarding the use of magic, and split into the magic-loving Tayledras and magic-shunning Shin'a'in do this. They maintain semifriendly relations for two thousand years mostly thanks to living apart from each other and because there are plenty of individuals willing to bridge the divide. Shin'a'in are expected to send mage-talented children who don't agree to become shamans or have their magic removed to the Tayledras, but broadly regard them as uncanny and distant people, and there's plenty of social pressure for their children to stay. It takes a direct order of their Goddess to get more of them to start working together.

* DoppelgangerReplacementLoveInterest: Inverted somewhat with Stefen, who does not resemble Tylendel all that much but ''is'' his reincarnation, making his lifebond with Vanyel not so much a ''replacement'' lifebond as a ''re''-lifebond. The middle book does have Vanyel meeting a boy who closely resembles Tylendel, but they don't hook up.

** A type of mushroom which neutralizes Mind Magic appears in ''Arrow's Fall''. This is never mentioned or used again. It caused some real grief for the Heralds, who would've been motivated to render it extinct even if it survived the rough conditions Hardorn went through after that, but it also doesn't come up at all in books set ''earlier'' and it's not even clear whether the mushrooms were fed to Talia as a deliberate ploy or not. If she'd eaten them while at Court or after being imprisoned things would have gone very badly for her, but it happened on the road and early enough that the effects wore off before reaching the capital, so it caused her some distress but didn't actually keep her from discovering or doing anything. Considering that Ancar dedicated a mage to neutralizing Talia while she was tortured, you'd think he'd have been interested in knowing that feeding her these mushrooms could do the same job.

** The Arrows trilogy also takes pains to state that Heralds can only have casual flings or rare, intense lifebonds because between their bonds with their Companions and the requirements of their duty they don't have space in their hearts for normal love. Unless a Herald gets love at first sight with someone, they're never going to fall in love with them at all, and in fact Herald Teren's wife and children ''left him'' after he was Chosen. Later books completely ignore this and many Heralds court and marry, restricted only by the need to find partners who can understand that Duty comes first.

* ElsewhereFic: A majority of the characters found in the anthology novels, especially those written by guest authors, are about original characters. Many of them recur or have an overarching story that continues across several books, making miniseries. Some are referenced by Mercedes Lackey's main-series novels, making them {{Canon Immigrant}}s.

** Tayledras crank this trait up to the point where Herald Elspeth has to fight down her own scandalized embarassment. The Shin'a'in refer to the Tayledras as being as shameless and randy as kestrels.

* EvilerThanThou: Ancar and Hulda, meet Mornelithe Falconsbane. Among several other examples, he takes their WeHaveReserves strategy to truly epic heights.

* CoolHorse: Shin'a'in horses are consistently praised as beautiful, capable, and smart through the series, by anyone who knows horses. Shin'a'in battlesteeds much more so. Bred with magical assistance for intelligence over all else and ability shortly after that, they're repeatedly stated to be very large, very ugly beasts with huge heads. They're noted to act more like dogs than horses at times. Stallions stay on the Plains, mares are exhaustively trained before leaving them. Companions readily acknowledge being cool, but [[InsistentTerminology tend to get bent out of shape over the horse thing]].

** Kerowyn has a more realistic first time as a teenager with an also-teenaged partner barely more experienced than her. It hurts a little without being as pronounced as above, and he doesn't bring her to completion, leaving her frustrated. As the relationship continues he improves and is able to satisfy her. However, she also has a constant sense of disappointment in all her partners because they aren't her true love.

* AccidentalProposal: Tremaine tries to preempt this trope early in ''Storm Rising''. When he puts out a call for volunteers among his troops to help with the harvest (which means his soldiers working side by side with farm women), he realizes he will need to have the volunteers briefed on local courting customs. Otherwise, it's too likely one person might think they're in a casual relationship when the other thinks they're engaged.

* AntiVillain: Grand Duke Tremaine, as decent a man as could survive in the [[DecadentCourt Imperial court]].

** Winter! Hardly a book goes by without time lovingly spent on some aspect of winter life, positive or negative. The north of Valdemar in particular gets some heavy snowfall. Special mention goes to Talia and Kris, getting snowed into a tiny cabin for a month and then having to shovel their way to the road, and to Duke Tremaine, who has to fortify a town that keeps getting assailed with storms.

* BloodMagic: One of the most potent forms of magic, this is based on the principles of CastFromHitPoints with a side of SympatheticMagic: blood is both a literal and symbolic sacrifice and a rich source of power. It's also a lot easier to handle than node magic, to the point where even people without mage gifts can use primitive forms of it. Of course, it's also [[TheDarkSide addictive]] and [[BlackMagic evil]], because unless it's a voluntary sacrifice, you're taking it from other people without their consent. For this reason, it also carries strong overtones of [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalism]] -- once you've practiced involuntary blood magic, it forever stains your soul.
** To magically earn the intervention of their Goddess, the four clans of soon to be Shin'a'in need all their surviving Elders to kill themselves. On hearing this, one Elder is inclined to refuse until he's told that if he doesn't, the clan's shaman will have to kill herself instead. With her being much more essential to the clan, he agrees. This sets off a precedent with the Shin'a'in, where BloodMagic worked with voluntary sacrifice or oneself is seen as heroic.

* CannotTellALie: Inflicted on Duke Tremaine by High Priest Solaris in retribution for his murder of her friend. The basic Heraldic Truth Spell will make any lie obvious; the advanced version ''forces'' someone to tell the truth. Deception is also impossible in mind-to-mind communication -- if you lie, the other person will know it. However, Gwena the Companion is able to lie and does so when her Chosen asks "Are you a mage?"

** Duke Tremaine defects from the Eastern Empire.

** In ''Arrows of the Queen'' it's repeatedly stated that the Monarch's Own Companion usually Chooses a new Monarch's Own from the ranks of the Heralds (i.e. someone who already has a Companion). In Vanyel's second book, a Companion consulted over a child with strong Gifts says she'll likely be Chosen soon but it will be an "unbonded" choosing since the Monarch's Own Companion will Choose her once the current Monarch's Own dies. In Van's third book, and in Mags', prospective Monarch's Owns are conspicuously not-Chosen, with those who need to know informed that she will get the Monarch's Own Companion at some future time. It may be related to how the Herald-Companion bond seems more tenuous in the first novel: newly-Chosen persons can elect to break the bond if Heraldry isn't for them, and Rolan isn't nearly as present in Talia's mind as later Companions are in their Heralds', so presumably exchanging one Companion for another is more feasible.

** The sword Need is consistently described as very plain. In a flashback to her human life she muses that it's absurd that her [[CoolSword unbreakable magic swords]] sell for much higher when other people fit them with fancy begemmed hilts. Every cover - she's on the same page image as Kero - gives her a gemstone pommel, hilt rings, and crescent-shaped decorative quillions. It's not just covers either, the books that have chapter illustrations featuring her, drawn by the author's husband, use the same design.

* AnimalThemedFightingStyle: '''The Black Gryphon''' gives us Zahneel, a female gryphon who manages to take down three [[EvilKnockoff makaar]] solo by using her greater speed and ability to gain altitude to perform strike and run kills on them. Skandrannon, another gryphon known for unusual fighting styles, likens this to a falcon diving after much larger, stronger prey. This serves as subtle foreshadowing that Zahneel's body type is deliberately based more off a falcon than the eagle traditionally associated with gryphons, both in the series and in real life.