History Literature / AChorusOfDragons

* CastFullOfGay: Most of the main cast are somewhere on the LGBT spectrum; Kihrin and Janel are bi (though it takes Kihrin a while to realize this), Tereath is [[AnythingThatMoves pansexual]], Senera is a romantic asexual (and Thurvishar might be, too) among others.

* AnythingThatMoves: Tereath's sexual interests basically boil down to 'anyone or anything capable of reciprocating.' Vane in general seem to have this attitude, having a culture with a very casual attitude towards sex and sexual experimentation, but Tereath gets the most focus since he's a main character (and the two primary ''objects'' of his interest are Kihrin and Janel, also main characters).

* ThatsNoMoon: Dragons are so big that people tend to mistake them for parts of the landscape until they move. When Sharanakal is introduced, Kihrin first mistakes him for a craggy island... until the island opens its eyes.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: The only way to win the crown of Quur; when the Emperor dies, the Crown and Scepter are teleported to an arena in the capital, and the first person to grab them becomes the next Emperor. Doing so is easier said than done, since you have to fight off every ''other'' claimant to get there.

** Apparantly normal humans who have a special connection with one of the immortals are called "angels".[[spoiler: Dorna]] is one, although she doesn't show many special powers most of the time.

** The sword Urthaenriel makes it's wielder immune to magic, but also prevents them from using magic themselves. The undead [[spoiler: Xivan]] couldn't feed on souls while carrying the sword, and had to hand it over to [[spoiler: Talia]]. Later, when [[spoiler:Khaemezra]] picked up the sword during a battle it broke the spell she was using to control [[Tereath]] and enabled him to kill her.

* DragonInChief: In theory, Relos Var works for Duke Azhen Kaen as his CourtMage. In practice, Kaen is merely following the agenda set by the far smarter and more powerful Var; it's unclear how much of this Kaen realizes.

* EvilMentor: A popular move of Relos Var's; he's Senera's magic teacher and as [[spoiler: Father Zajhaera]] was both Janel's and Brother Qown's teacher. [[spoiler: All of them eventually see through him]].

** The Stone of Shackles' powers correspond to ''slavery'' and enables the casting of gaeshes.
** Warheart may be even worse; its powers can encompass an entire nation and turn everyone in it into paranoid, bloodthirsty nationalists fanatically loyal to whoever holds the stone and implacably hostile to everyone else. The God-King Nemesan used it back in the day to raise an empire that posed a genuine threat to early Quur.

* BalefulPolymorph: Wyrga is always accompanied by a polar bear cub that never seems to age; Senera and Janel eventually discover that the cub was originally human. [[spoiler: It turns out that this is actually her ''husband'', Cherthog, cursed into this form. When Quur invaded Yor, Cherthog demanded that Wyrga -- aka Suless -- hide him from the invaders, as she was a greater wizard than he was but he had her under a gaesh to ensure her obedience. Unfortunately for him, the way he worded the order was sufficiently vague that Suless fulfilled it by turning him into the cub, in which form the Quuros indeed never found him -- but, being unable to speak, use his magic or change back, he was also unable to command Suless ever again]].

* BigBadWannabe: Gadrith has convinced himself that ''he'', not Kaen, Relos Var or [[spoiler: Kihrin]] is [[TheAntichrist the Hellwarrior]] and that he's destined to rule first Quur and then the world. He's very, very wrong about this, and is defeated by the end of the first book. [[spoiler: In ''The Discord of Gods'' he gets brought back... by Relos Var to use as minion, and he ends up getting offed ''again'' without accomplishing much of significance]].

* GodEmperor: The god-kings, as their name suggests, who ruled most of the world prior to the rise of Quur. Suless, Cherthog, Qhuaras, Khorsal and Ynis were among the most prominent. Most of the god-kings were killed or overthrown by Quur during its expansion; those who survive mostly keep a low profile, focusing more on the "god" part rather than "king" by continuing to run their cults but mostly staying out of politics.

** Nobody's quite sure what pronouns to use for the demon Xaltorath, who can and does appear as male, female or neither depending on mood and whim. [[spoiler: It turns out Xaltorath was originally female, but has since absorbed countless souls of every gender into their MindHive, so 'they' is probably the most accurate in every sense of the word]].

* ArtifactOfDoom: The Cornerstones are a group of powerful artifacts linked to the souls of the dragons. Not all of them are especially doom-y (the Name of All Things is fairly benign and is only dangerous if you don't know how to work it properly) but some are -- the Stone of Shackles, whose powers correspond to ''slavery'' and which enables the casting of gaeshes, is a good example.

* TheBigBadShuffle: With so many antagonistic forces with constantly shifting allegiances running around, it can be hard to pick out just who is actually going to represent the biggest threat to the world at large. [[spoiler: By the end of ''House of Always'' it's mostly settled into a BigBadEnsemble with Relos Var and Xaltorath between them being responsible for most of the series' conflict, but also opposing each other. Across the earlier books, Gadrith, Azhen Kaen and Suless all have their hands in the pot as well, in addition to Vol Karoth as the SealedEvilInACan several of the above want to take advantage of in some fashion; sometimes these people work together, and sometimes at cross purposes]].

* EvilOverlord: At least some of the worst god-kings were like this. Cherthog and Suless had a well-deserved reputation for cruelty; Khorsal, god-king of Jorat, was apparently so bad that the Joratese were perfectly happy to become Quuros vassals if it meant getting rid of him; Qhuaras, who founded Quur itself, also seems to have been responsible for a lot of the problems that continue to plague Quuros society even if it didn't go full empire until after his death.

* FootnoteFever: All of the books are extensively footnoted by either Thurvishar (one and three) or Senera (two and four), providing context, additional worldbuilding and, especially when Senera's writing, snarky commentary.

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: The entire job description for the Emperor of Quur seems to be "please banish any demons that show up."

* SheIsTheKing: Joratese noble titles always take the masculine form, even if the holder is female. This is partially due to Joratese gender roles (which assign gender entirely independent of physical sex and consider ruling to be a masculine quality) and partly because, as Janel points out when explaining why she's a count rather than a countess, a 'count' is a ruler and a 'countess' is a ruler's consort -- they're different jobs.

* BigBadWannabe: Gadrith has convinced himself that ''he'', not Kaen, Relos Var or [[spoiler: Kihrin]] is [[TheAntichrist the Hellwarrior]] and that he's destined to rule first Quur and then the world. He's very, very wrong about this, and is defeated by the end of the first book.

* HiddenAgendaVillain: Even by ''The House of Always'' it's unclear exactly what [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils Xaltorath]] stands to gain from all of this; considering what [[AxCrazy they're]] [[ManipulativeBastard like]], it's almost certainly nothing good.

* OurDragonsAreDifferent: There are only eight [[spoiler: nine counting Relos Var]] of them in the whole world, which are immortal, the size of hills, and highly intelligent. They're ungodly powerful creatures, and generally treated as living cataclysms more than something that can be fought and killed. They spend most of their time sleeping, hoard treasure, and instead of breathing fire exhale volcanically hot air. It's revealed late in the first book that [[spoiler:they began their lives as a group of humanoids that tried to become gods, and failed very badly]].

* PronounTrouble: Nobody's quite sure what pronouns to use for the demon Xaltorath, who can and does appear as male, female or neither depending on mood and whim. [[spoiler: It turns out Xaltorath was originally female, but has since absorbed countless souls of every gender into their MindHive, so 'they' is probably the most accurate in every sense of the word]].

* TheVirus: Demons reproduce by infecting other creatures, who then transform into demons themselves. It's not clear what, exactly, the original demons may have been, but many of them now were once human, or close to it.

* ''The Discord of Gods'' (TBR Spring 2022)

* IAteWhat: Wyrga [[spoiler: aka Suless]] likes to trick people into eating things they would find abhorrent; she nearly tricks Janel into eating horse (for a Joratese, only a ''very'' small step below cannibalism) before Senera stops her (in the accompanying footnote, Senera advises her readers to ''never'' eat Wyrga's cooking).

* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: The vané have brightly colored hair in all the shades of the rainbow. The Manol vané tend to have hair in saturated or jewel tones, while the Kirpis vané have hair in paler pastel shades.

* ArtifactOfDoom: The Cornerstones are a group of powerful artifacts linked to the souls of the dragons. Not all of them are especially doom-y (the Name of All Things is fairly benign and is only dangerous if you don't know how to work it properly) but some are - the Stone of Shackles, whose powers correspond to ''slavery'' and which enables the casting of gaeshes, is a good example.

* BalefulPolymorph: Wyrga is always accompanied by a polar bear cub that never seems to age; Senera and Janel eventually discover that the cub was originally human. [[spoiler: It turns out that this is actually her ''husband'', Cherthog, cursed into this form. When Quur invaded Yor, Cherthog demanded that Wyrga - aka Suless - hide him from the invaders, as she was a greater wizard than he was but he had her under a gaesh to ensure her obedience. Unfortunately for him, the way he worded the order was sufficiently vague that Suless fulfilled it by turning him into the cub, in which form the Quuros indeed never found him - but, being unable to speak, use his magic or change back, he was also unable to command Suless ever again]].

* KickTheDog: Darzin is effectively a dog-kicking machine, reveling not just in his cruelty but his sheer ''pettiness'' - apparently, he bought Talea as a slave and deliberately ''didn't'' buy her twin sister Morea too, even though it was well within his capacity to do so, for no other reason than that he thought it would be funny to separate them.

* TheBigBadShuffle: With so many antagonistic forces with constantly shifting allegiances running around, it can be hard to pick out just who is actually going to represent the biggest threat to the world at large. [[spoiler: By the end of ''House of Always'' it's mostly settled into a BigBadEnsemble with Relos Var and Xaltorath between them being responsible for most of the series' conflict, but also opposing each other. Across the earlier books, Gadrith, Azhen Kaen and Suless all have their hands in the pot as well; sometimes these people work together, and sometimes at cross purposes]].

* TheBigBadShuffle: With so many antagonistic forces with constantly shifting allegiances running around, it can be hard to pick out just who is actually going to represent the biggest threat to the world at large. [[spoiler: By the end of ''House of Always'' it's mostly settled into a BigBadEnsemble with Relos Var and Xaltorath between them being responsible for most of the series' conflict, but also opposing each other]].