History Literature / Mogworld

* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Not Jim, as it's made pretty clear from the start he's not too pleased being wrenched back from the dead. [[spoiler:The rest of the world is like this to a greater or lesser extent, as for the past fifteen years since "The Infusion", no-one can die, or even age. They just respawn at the nearest church]].
** [[spoiler:Taken to an extreme as Jim starts to get towards the end of his quest. They spot flyers for ways to commit suicide, and people who offer ways of mutilating yourself. After all, you'll only respawn if you die - so ''why not''? Jim considers it a little unsettling when he thinks about it.]]

->''And that was the first time I died.''

''Mogworld'' from 2010 is the first published novel from CausticCritic [[Creator/BenCroshaw Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw]], famous for his online VideoGame critique series ''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation'', introducing us to the world within a popular {{fantasy}}-themed online {{MMORPG}} Mogworld (which is basically ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' in all but name). There, the {{Non Player Character}}s go about their daily lives, unaware that some of the people among them -- thought to suffer from a strange syndrome -- are {{Player Character}}s controlled by beings from another universe: [[HumansAreCthulhu us]].

It's the story of Jim, a minor character in the game, who dies when an army attacks his magic school only to be resurrected sixty years later by a "rogue necromancer" named Lord Dreadgrave, and now all he wants is to find a way to die again, preferably for good this time, which is not an easy thing to do, since death seems only to be a temporary state in Mogworld. In his quest, he's accompanied by a pair of other undead (an [[TheDitz airheaded]] girl named Meryl and a self-righteous priest named Thaddeus) and the inept thief Slippery John -- whether he likes it or not.

Not only has the flood of preorders meant that the success of the book is even more inevitable than it already has been, but it also kicked off the branch of Dark Horse Comics known as Dark Horse Books, who are also publishing books based off ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'', ''Franchise/MassEffect'', and ''WebVideo/TheGuild''. As Yahtzee has said in response to a question on Website/{{Twitter}}, ''Mogworld'' is the first book published by Dark Horse Books.

* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:By the end of the story, everyone in Mogworld is dead, deleted or erased by the ResetButton. The programmers fortunately are able to restore everything afterwords.]]

* TheDitz: Meryl
* TheDragon: Barry

%%* JerkAss: Simon.
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: Barry starts out as a barely respected vicar who is a total wimp and has a slight case of religious mania. [[spoiler:After Simon gets his hands on him, Barry becomes an unhinged GameBreaker who attempts to bring all of Mogworld under Simon's rule, and is willing to kill anyone to due so.]]

* UncannyValley: Syndrome victims. TheReveal just makes it worse.

* BalefulPolymorph: Jim's Bunnymorph spell turns people into rabbits.

* AwesomeMcCoolname:
** Lord Brutus Dreadgrave,
** Baron Carnax Winchester Civious,
** [[spoiler:Thaddeus Praise-His-Name]] God[[spoiler:botherer III]].

* AGodIAmNot [[spoiler:Dub and the other devs. While Dub refers to himself as a god while explaining things to Jim, Slippery John and Thaddeus, it's only because it's the easiest way to explain things without confusing them.]]
* AndIMustScream: Jim is afraid having his body destroyed will lead to this, as he would be a sentient pile of ash unable to move or communicate with the world.
** [[spoiler:And indeed it does. Fortunately, he and Thaddeus are permanently deleted before too long.]]

* [[spoiler:KillEmAll]]: [[spoiler:By the end of the story, everyone in Mogworld is dead, deleted or erased by the ResetButton. The programmers fortunately are able to restore everything afterwords.]]

* [[spoiler:ResetButton]]: [[spoiler:Jim introducing his corrupt code into the Nexus causes this, but not in the context of time - The Mogworld game is sent back to an extremely early pre-alpha build, embodied by a featureless, lifeless wasteland.]]

* RunningGag: "'''OH GOD YOUR EYES HURRAAARRGLAB!'''"

* ShoutOut: Both to WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation and [[VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft the obvious]].
** Some of the people who work at [[spoiler:Loincloth Entertainment]] are named [[VideoGame/SilentHill1 Mason]], [[VideoGame/SilentHill2 Sunderland]], and [[VideoGame/SilentHill4 Townshend]].

* KnifeNut: [[PsychoForHire Mr. Wonderful]] is never seen without twirling around a butterfly knife. He even [[SelfHarm uses them on himself]] when he doesn't have an excuse to use it on somebody else, to the point where ''[[RefugeInAudacity he chops off his own hand]]'' when he was particularly emotional.

* JerkAss: Simon.

* StepfordSmiler: Meryl.

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: [[AxeCrazy Mr. Wonderful]] and [[TheComicallySerious Bowg]]. Subverted in that [[TeethClenchedTeamWork they don't actually like each other at all]] - at one point, Mr. Wonderful snaps and yells at Bowg to cut it out with the DelusionsOfEloquence because it's driving him crazy. [[spoiler:He later turns on Bowg and kills him.]]

** William Williams' name and his screen name "DoubleBill" are likely a reference to the ZP episode of ''The Saboteur'', in which the addendum asks whether William Grover-Williams, the real-life inspiration for main character Sean Devlin, liked to be known as "Double Bill".

** William Williams' name and his screen name "DoubleBill" are likely a reference to the ZP episode of TheSaboteur, in which the addendum asks whether William Grover-Williams, the real-life inspiration for main character Sean Devlin, liked to be known as "Double Bill".

''Mogworld'' from 2010 is the first published novel from CausticCritic [[Creator/BenCroshaw Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw]], famous for his online VideoGame critique series ''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation'', introducing us to the world within a popular {{fantasy}}-themed online {{MMORPG}} Mogworld (which is basically ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' in all but name). There, the {{NPC}}s go about their daily lives, unaware that some of the people among them -- thought to suffer from a strange syndrome -- are {{Player Character}}s controlled by beings from another universe: [[HumansAreCthulhu us]].

* {{Deconstruction}}: A surprisingly dark one of the conventions of [[{{MMORPG}} MMORPGs]], and video games in general. [[spoiler:What were originally {{NPC}}s became living, sentient beings, driven mad by the painful cycle of murder and plunder. Real thinking entities unable to escape a wretched existence, without the escape of death as an option. Entire lives ruined, all for a ''game''.]]

** Appropriately, it's a clip of two {{NPC}}s killing one another.

* CompletelyMissingThePoint: For comic effect, a lot of reviewers review the book with the expectations of a video game, disregarding how it isn't interactive. [[spoiler:In an InUniverse example, a review of the Mogworld game closes off the book, in which the game gets 9 for innovation, 4 for gameplay and 3 for lastability, concluding with a score of [[EightPointEight 72.85%]]]].

* WildMagic: Magic is said to have a will of its own, and gets "upset" if a spell is finished by another person if the original caster is incapacitated in some way. It ''really'' doesn't like being used by corpses (i.e., the caster is killed midway through, and someone aims their severed forearm at their enemy and finishes the spell. Although that's only for properly dead people; it has no beef with being used by self-aware {{Undead}}).

* AGodAmI[=/=]GodhoodSeeker: [[spoiler:Simon's ego leads him to try to make himself into "Lord Si-Mon", the god of Mogworld.]]
* AGodIAmNot [[spoiler:Dub and the other devs. While Dub refers to himself as a god while explaining things to Jim, Slippery John and Thaddeus, it's only because it's the easiest way to explain things without confusing them.]]

* ExactWords/ LanguageOfMagic: The way magic works in ''Mogworld''. For example, the spell for "Fireball" is ''Arcanus Inferus Telechus''. However, you don't have to say those words immediately after each other, or even say all three if you're knocked out, and someone else says the rest for you. [[spoiler:This loophole allows Jim to discretely cast spells by saying words that ''sound'' like the spell words, disguised as normal conversation.]]

->''"And that was the first time I died."''

''Mogworld'' from 2010 is the first published novel from CausticCritic [[Creator/BenCroshaw Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw]], famous for his online VideoGame critique series ''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation'', introducing us to the world within a popular {{fantasy}}-themed online {{MMORPG}} Mogworld (which is basically ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' in all but name). There, the {{NPC}}s go about their daily lives, unaware that some of the people among them -- thought to suffer from a strange syndrome -- are [[PlayerCharacter player characters]] controlled by beings from another universe: [[HumansAreCthulhu us]].

* OurElvesAreBetter: Averted in the case of [[PsychoForHire Mr. Wonderful]].

* ParadoxicalBeing: Thaddeus is a zombie preist of a GodOfGood.

* AerithAndBob: We get names like Jim, Meryl, and Barry, mixed with names such as Drylda, Bowg, Mr. Wonderful, and Thaddeus [[spoiler:Praise-His-Name Godbotherer III]].

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Lord Brutus Dreadgrave, Baron Carnax Winchester Civious, [[spoiler:Thaddeus Praise-His-Name Godbotherer III]].

* AGodAmI: [[spoiler:Simon's ego leads him to try to make himself into "Lord Si-Mon", the god of Mogworld.]]
** [[spoiler:Averted by Dub and the other devs. While Dub refers to himself as a god while explaining things to Jim, Slippery John and Thaddeus, it's only because it's the easiest way to explain things without confusing them.]]