History Literature / Dragaera

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Some aspects of the world had not been completely fleshed out when Brust wrote ''Jhereg'', resulting in a little bit of weirdness on rereads. For example, the Phoenix Guards are simply called Imperial Guards. Vlad also seems to characterize assassinations a lot more lightly than they're taken in the rest of the series, implying that you might get assassinated simply as a warning. Kragar refers to Mellar's late mother as "a whore" as if it's disgraceful, yet "tag" work is shown by later books to be unstigmatized in Dragaeran society, with Kragar himself ''dating'' one of Vlad's sex workers.

* FoodPorn: Brust is a noted gourmand and Vlad is a cook who spends a lot of time in restaurants, leading to some obvious AuthorAppeal. The framing tale of ''Dzur'' is a single meal at the world's most luxurious restaurant. Each chapter represents a course. You ''will'' get hungry reading it.
** Occasionally inverted into Food ''Gorn'' when epicurian Vlad despairs over having to subsist on army rations, linseed-soaked everything, or prison food.

* FoodPorn: Brust is a noted gourmand and Vlad is a cook who spends a lot of time in restaurants, leading to some obvious AuthorAppeal. The framing tale of ''Dzur'' is a single meal at the world's most luxurious restaurant. Each chapter represents a course. You ''will'' get hungry reading it. Occasionally inverted into Food ''Gorn'' when epicurian Vlad despairs over having to subsist on army rations, linseed-soaked everything, or prison food.

* FoodPorn: Brust is a noted gourmand and Vlad is a cook who spends a lot of time in restaurants, leading to some obvious AuthorAppeal. The framing tale of ''Dzur'' is a single meal at the world's most luxurious restaurant. Each chapter represents a course. You ''will'' get hungry reading it.

* HufflepuffHouse: With ''seventeen'' Dragaeran Houses, it's inevitable that at least some of them will end up stuck with this. As a general rule, the Houses whose [[PlanetOfHats hats]] are fighting, magic, and politics get more attention than the others. The rest are on a sliding scale--the Teckla have gotten more screen-time in recent books, while the Jhegaala and the Chreotha are still basically set dressing.

* SophisticatedAsHell: Vlad
* SoulCuttingBlade: Morganti weapons.

** In ''Taltos'', whenever anyone in the Paths of the Death notes that Vlad and Morrolan are alive, Vlad replies "How can you tell?" Only [[PhysicalGod Verra]] likes the joke.

Dragaera is a fantasy world dominated by two major sentient races. The first are the Dragaerans, who are tall, long-lived, and vaguely elven. The second are the Easterners, who are human for all intents and purposes. Interestingly, ''both'' species call themselves "human," and use the formal name for the other. Most Dragaerans live in the vast and powerful Dragaeran Empire, which covers most of the main continent, and the rest inhabit some of the independent islands off the southern coast. Most Easterners live (surprise) to the east, in several small kingdoms, although some have emigrated to the Empire. Both the series take place largely in the Empire. ''Brokedown Palace'' takes place in the Eastern kingdom of Fenario.

* SecretKeeper: As of ''Orca'', Vlad knows that [[spoiler: Kiera is actually Sethra Lavode]]. Played with in that, while he and [[spoiler: Kiera/Sethra]] both know that he knows, they maintain the facade even during private conversations, as it helps the latter maintain the role and helps Vlad keep the two personas straight in his head. (It doesn't stop him from obliquely joking about it, such as [[spoiler:telling Sethra that he picked up a habit of biting his thumb from Kiera, when everyone knows [[BlatentLies he's lying his ass off]]]].

** The Empire's old capital city was destroyed when a ChaosMagic spell misfired, reducing the region to a permanently impassible [[MadeOfMagic lake of raw chaos]] that dissolves anything it touches.

* DeadlyScratch: The slightest cut from a Morganti blade allows the weapon to [[YourSoulIsMine eat the victim's soul]]. Worse, the weapons are somewhat sentient and actively hungry, and Vlad can sometimes sense them straining to reach the closest person.

* BadassMustache: Vlad wears a signature mustache. Since Dragaerans cannot grow facial hair, it's a statement of racial pride and defiance.

* NotSoDifferent: While Vlad hates his father for toadying to Dragaerans, Vlad's refusal to join Cawti's rebellious activities demonstrates that he is more within the system than he would like to admit. ''Jhegaala'' is a book-length example, where Vlad, who had an idealized vision of life in Fenario, encounters just as much corruption and cruelty there as he had among Dragaerans.

** Zerika IV and her Easterner lover Brimfrod/Lazslo, while not actually married as such, suffer from this. Grita leaks knowledge of their relationship to the Lyorn Heir, who [[spoiler: promptly withdraws his support]]. However, after the war, it's not such a problem because everyone who knows either doesn't care or refuses to insult their lawful Empress.

* PlanetOfHats: Each house has distinctive personality traits. It's suspected that the different houses actually have different strains of animal magically included in their bloodline by the Jenoine. The Jhegaala are unusual in that their hat is that they change hats over time. Dragaerans outside of the Empire do not have houses, which can be confusing for citizens of the Empire. Kelly, a human within the Empire, accuses the House hats of being artificial constructions.

** The position of Emperor/Empress rotates through the Houses; each full progression if 17 rulers is called a "Cycle" and ends with a "Decadent Phoenix" ruling. 17 Cycles constitutes a "Great Cycle" and ends with a "Phoenix Reborn" on the throne instead.

* VoiceOfTheLegion: Verra, whose voice sounds like two people speaking slightly out of sync. Has the added bonus that a group of different people, all listening to her at once, will all hear different things. And respond to what they hear. As Vlad put it, "She's the only person I know who makes those around her incomprehensible."
** Although she's ''not'' the only creature in this particular Verse who does so: Bolk from ''Brokedown Palace'' and the talking athyra which Morrolan and Vlad encounter on the Paths of the Dead have this same quality.

* BlatantLies: In ''Hawk'', Vlad tells Daymar that he used a coin for the location-spell because it was an experiment ... just after telling the reader that he'd forgotten to have a crystal ready and had to improvise.

* HypocriticalHumor: In ''The Baron of Magister Valley'', Paardi ends a humanitarian AuthorFilibuster against cruel and unusual punishment against all citizens of the empire... except Teckla, "who do not feel pain as gentlemen do."

* HypocriticalHumor: Paarfi's lengthy rants about how he will waste no words in his storytelling. He also tends to go back on his promises to the reader, e.g. saying he'll refrain from describing horses and explaining why he won't, then describing Khaavren's steed later in the same chapter. Heavily [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by an essay following one of the novels in which the case is made that Paarfi ''really is'' being terse and laconic by Dragaeran standards. The entire novel is presented as being "one of his notebooks" for a work that needs expanding "by an additional eight or nine volumes" before publication! ''Jhegaala'' suggests that a "brief" survey for a Dragaeran is at least six volumes.

* PurpleProse: Paarfi gets a little overenthusiastic sometimes. This is usually both intentional and played for laughs.

--> -- '''Vlad Taltos''', ''Teckla''

* SecretKeeper: As of ''Orca'', Vlad knows that [[spoiler: Kiera is actually Sethra Lavode]]. Played with in that, while he and [[spoiler: Kiera/Sethra]] both know that he knows, they maintain the facade even during private conversations, as it helps the latter maintain the role and helps Vlad keep the two personas straight in his head.