History Literature / Acacia

* TitleConfusion: The first book is named ''The War With The Main'', but many editions relegate that to a subtitle or even omit it altogether, opting to call it simply ''Acacia''.

Acacia is the first fantasy series by David Anthony Durham. It begins with the story of the four royal children of the Acacian Empire listening to the confession of their father about the sins of their empire and his desire to atone for this, the subsequent overthrow of their house and years later the retaking of the throne. Then subsequent adventures take place years after...

* TwoPartTrilogy: Intentionally written this way. The ending of the first book has a sense of closure, although there are a couple of loose ends. However, the second ends on a massive cliffhanger.

* BiggerBad: The Lothan Aklun [[spoiler: are not it, the real bigger bads are the League who had toppled the Lothan Aklun and are running the global slave trade. And the other bigger bad are people of the Other Land, of which the Numrek are part of. The people of the Other Land buy the slaves to consume their souls to fuel their immortality, and now they want to conquer the world.]]

* BadassFamily: All four of the Akaran children are this. Aliver becomes a tribal chieftain and messiah figure amongst the Talay people that take him in. Mena becomes the top sword wielder of their world. Dariel grows up to be a feared pirate who greatly destabilizes the slave and drug economy. Corinn [[spoiler: despite being held captive by the Meins, is the one how actually overthrows them and restores the throne by declaring herself queen.]]

* BiggerBad: The Lothan Aklun [[spoiler: are not it, the real bigger bads are the League who had toppled the Lothan Aklun and are running the slave trade. And the other bigger bad are people of the Other Land, of which the Numrek are part of. The people of the Other Land buy slaves to consume their souls to fuel their immortality, and now they want to conquer the world.]]

* DarkSecret: What starts the series, the old king Leodan Akaran intends to tell his children their empire's industrial base relies on slavery. The only reason why there is so little rebellion is that the Acacians have a deal with the sinister Lothan Aklun who have much of the population mentally numbed and addicted to a drug that only they can provide. In return the Acacians trade a tithe of the population over to them.

* TheUnfought: The League mentions of a race of evil sorcerers called the Lothan Aklun, who live on the other side of the world. The League says that it's the fault of the Lothan Aklun that slavery is such big business and they're an evil that must be fought, [[spoiler but it turns out that Lothan Aklun had been extinct for years. All of them were wiped out by a plague made by the League, who hungered for all the profits of slavery.]]

* BiggerBad: The Lothan Aklun[[spoiler are not it, the real bigger bads are the League who had toppled the Lothan Aklun and are running the slave trade. And the other bigger bad are people of the Other Land, of which the Numrek are part of. The people of the Other Land buy slaves to consume their souls to fuel their immortality, and now they want to conquer the world.]]

* Bigger Bad: The Lothan Aklun[[spoiler are not it, the real bigger bads are the League who had toppled the Lothan Aklun and are running the slave trade. And the other bigger bad are people of the Other Land, of which the Numrek are part of. The people of the Other Land buy slaves to consume their souls to fuel their immortality, and now they want to conquer the world.]]

* ButtMonkey: Rialus Neptos just can't catch a break.

* TheJuggernaut: The Santoth are a warband of immortal warrior-wizards and they are completely roll over any force in their way.

* LinearWarriorQuadraticWizard: Skilled warriors are commonplace and can be trained in a fairly short time. Becoming a wizard requires long study of the "Song of Elenet" as recorded in the Book of Elenet, or taught by the first Akaran king (who only taught a limited variety of spells to his select soldiers). However a single talented wizard can easily wipe out a city or army with a few spells.

* LotusMachine: Literally. Guildsmen who earn enough wealth can buy their own "afterlife" where they are placed in isolation chambers that pump in vapors of lotus essence. In these chambers, the Guildsmen will spend their life dreaming out their fondest fantasies.

* ChosenOne: [[spoiler: Dariel.]]
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: The Numrek. This race turn on no less than 2 different parties by misleading them into thinking that they are compliant and satisfied with deals of new land before hitting their ex-employers when a better deal comes along or [[spoiler: when they feel it's time to rule the world in their own right and take back their immortality.]]

* ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow: ''The Song of Elenet''.

* EvilEmpire: The Acacian Empire who deal in slavery and drugging the population as well dealing in black magic in the past. They're not the only evil empire in this book though and they're certainly not the worst...

* TwoPartTrilogy: Intentionally written this way. The ending of the first book has a sense of closure, although there are a couple of loose ends. However, the second ends on a massive cliffhanger.

* BadassFamily: All four of the Akaran children are this. Aliver becomes a tribal chieftain and messiah figure amongst the Talay people that take him in. Mena becomes the top sword wielder of their world. Dariel grows up to be a feared pirate who greatly destabilizes the slave and drug economy. Corinn [[spoiler: despite being held captive by the Meins, is the one how actually overthrows them and restores the throne by declaring herself queen]]

* DarkSecret: What starts the series, the old king Leodan Akaran tells his children [[spoiler: their empire's industrial base relies on slavery. The only reason why there is so little rebellion is that the Acacians have a deal with the sinister Lothan Aklun who have much of the population mentally numbed and addicted to a drug that only they can provide. In return the Acacians trade a tithe of the population over to them.]]
* EvilEmpire: The Acacian Empire [[spoiler: who deal in slavery and drugging the population as well dealing in black magic in the past. They're not the only evil empire in this book though and they're certainly not the worst...]]
* IAmAHumanitarian: The Numrek eat human flesh
* IdealHero: Aliver Akaran, [[spoiler:the man is compassionate, honours his word, forgives his enemies without hesitation...etc. He dies for that, but gets better in the end before dying again though not before reforming the Acacian empire and bringing world peace]]
* MonoChromeCasting: Averted in the series. The three main ethnic groups looked at in the series are the Acacians who are brown in varying shades, the Mein who are white and the Talay who are black of varying shades not to mention that people who are of mixed ancestry have further colour variations. Even the main characters of Aliver, Corinn, Mena and Dariel Akaran are either a dark or light brown due to their ethnicity. That's not to mention the people who have been physically altered with surgery and sorcery by the Lothan Aklun

* PragmaticHero: In contrast to her older brother Aliver who is an Ideal Hero , the Acacian princess Corinn is this. [[spoiler: While she still retains quite a bit of her morals, she's not one to worry too much about that. How so? She overthrows her family's usurpers through treachery, continues her empire's use of drugging the population to pacify them (though she concedes a bit by using less of them), mind-controls opponents and even her own siblings if they get out of line, and drops the equivalent of a magical nuke on an enemy city that does various horrible things including causing a victim to be flayed alive. However her pragmatism makes her queen while his idealism ends up getting her brother killed]]
* ResurrectiveImmortality: People from the 'Other Lands' have access to magical machines that can suck out a victim's soul and put it in them. This increases the person's life by the remainder of the victim's lifespan and if the person is killed, the soul they harvested is used bring them back to life instantly. Since a person can store many souls inside themselves and harvest more in the future, that person can potentially stay young forever and be killed an ungodly number of times until they run out of souls. One such immortal was killed permanently via beheading, with his stored souls constantly leaking out of him as he dies multiple times per second.

* ActionGirl: Mena Akkaran, starts off as a tomboy princess and through innate talent becomes the most devastating sword wielder in the world. How so? In a short span of time, she's gone from a complete neophyte to besting her swordsmaster trainer and later in the series, she easily cuts down warriors from a race noted for their superhuman strength and speed.
* BadassFamily: All four of the Akkaran children are this. Aliver becomes a tribal chieftain and messiah figure amongst the Talay people that take him in. Mena becomes the top sword wielder of their world. Dariel grows up to be a feared pirate who greatly destabilizes the slave and drug economy. Corinn [[spoiler: despite being held captive by the Meins, is the one how actually overthrows them and restores the throne by declaring herself queen]]

* DarkSecret: What starts the series, the old king Leodan Akkaran tells his children [[spoiler: their empire's industrial base relies on slavery. The only reason why there is so little rebellion is that the Acacians have a deal with the sinister Lothan Aklun who have much of the population mentally numbed and addicted to a drug that only they can provide. In return the Acacians trade a tithe of the population over to them.]]

* IdealHero: Aliver Akkaran, [[spoiler:the man is compassionate, honours his word, forgives his enemies without hesitation...etc. He dies for that, but gets better in the end before dying again though not before reforming the Acacian empire and bringing world peace]]
* MonoChromeCasting: Averted in the series. The three main ethnic groups looked at in the series are the Acacians who are brown in varying shades, the Mein who are white and the Talay who are black of varying shades not to mention that people who are of mixed ancestry have further colour variations. Even the main characters of Aliver, Corinn, Mena and Dariel Akkaran are either a dark or light brown due to their ethnicity. That's not to mention the people who have been physically altered with surgery and sorcery by the Lothan Aklun

* ''The War with the Mein (2007)''
* ''The Other Lands (2009)''
* ''The Sacred Band (2011)''

* RessurectiveImmortality: People from the 'Other Lands' have access to magical machines that can suck out a victim's soul and put it in them. This increases the person's life by the remainder of the victim's lifespan and if the person is killed, the soul they harvested is used bring them back to life instantly. Since a person can store many souls inside themselves and harvest more in the future, that person can potentially stay young forever and be killed an ungodly number of times until they run out of souls. One such immortal was killed permanently via beheading, with his stored souls constantly leaking out of him as he dies multiple times per second.

* DarkSecret: What starts the series, the old king Leodan Akkaran tells his children [[spoiler: their empire's industrial base relies on slavery. The only reason why there is so little rebellion is that the Acacians have a deal with the sinister Lothan Aklun who have the slaves addicted to a drug that only they can provide. In return the Acacians trade a tithe of the population over to them.]]
* EvilEmpire: The Acacian Empire

* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: The Numrek. This race turn on no less than 2 different parties by misleading them into thinking that they are nothing but comp.

* ActionGirl: Mena Akkaran
* BadassFamily: The Akkarans
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: The Numrek. These exiles turn on no less than 2 different parties.

* IAmAHumanitarian: The Numrek eat human flesh

* DarkSecret: What starts the series, the old king Leodan Akkaran [[spoiler: their empire's industrial base relies on slavery. The only reason why there is so little rebellion is that the Acacians have a deal with the sinister Lothan Aklun who have the slaves addicted to a drug that only they can provide. In return the Acacians trade a tithe of the population over to them.]]

* MonoChromeCasting: Averted, there more than just white people in this series. The three main ethnic groups looked at in the series are the Acacians who are brown in varying shades, the Mein who are white and the Talay who are black of varying shades as well as people who are of mixed ancestry who have further colour variations. Even the main characters of Aliver, Corinn, Mena and Dariel Akkaran are either a dark or light brown due to their ethnicity. That's not to mention the people who have been physically altered with surgery and sorcery by the Lothan Aklun

* ChronicBackStabbingSyndrome: The N

* MonoChromeCasting: Averted, there more than just white people in this series. Even the main characters of Aliver, Corinn, Mena and Dariel Akkaran are either a dark or light brown due to their ethnicity.