History Literature / TheSpiritRing

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Ferrante's secretary and pet sorcerer Niccolo Vitelli is [[spoiler:Jacopo Sprenger, AKA Jacob Sprenger, one of the men credited with writing the ''Malleus Maleficarum'', or ''Hammer of Witches'', written in the late 15th Century with Heinrich Kramer. In truth, Sprenger's supposed authorship is suspect, with Kramer likely having added the other man's name after Sprenger's death to prop up his own work]]. Here, his research lead him to dark magic.

* GentleGiant: Ones first impression of Thur Ochs is that he is a very ''large'' young man, and quite strong -- when he reached his current height and strength "everyone spontaneously began assigning the heaviest tasks to him". However, while Thur is by no means a coward (one of the first things we see him do is risk his life to save men trapped in a mining cave-in) he has no desire to be a soldier, not because of the risks to ''himself'' but because he hates the thought of sticking a sword into another human being. His first reaction to anyone he meets (even kobolds, considered by many to be basically demons) is to be friendly. His body language tends strongly towards the nonthreatening -- he often hunches his shoulders or stoops down a bit so as not to loom so much.

* BedsheetLadder: Of the clothing variety: Two "stretched-out silk hose legs" tied together to form an improvised rope (albeit from one cell to another cell on a lower level rather than all the way down to the ground). Turns out Lord Pia did not actually fly out the window like a giant bat after all. (Although Pia has befriended kobolds, who have the ability to draw iron bars into stone "like sinking a spoon into porrige", which undoubtedly helped the non-bat-sized Pia fit through the window of his cell.)

Enter Thur Ochs, a Swiss miner--brother of Uri--come south to apprentice to Master Beneforte. Instead he finds himself caught up in the fight for Montefoglia, joining Fiametta and the monks of the monastery in opposing Ferrante's worldly and sorcerous ambitions.

* LockedInTheDungeon: After Thur is caught spying on behalf of Abbot Monreale (not to mention an improvised attempt at assassinating Uberto Ferrante) he is locked up in the dungeons of the castle of Montefoglia. He winds up a cellmate of Lord Pia, the former castellan (now held prisoner in the dungeons he would himself have once been master of as Duke Sandrino's castellan); fortunately for Thur, Pia is able to help him escape before [[spoiler:Ferrante and Vitelli can sacrifice Thur as part of the necromantic rites to create a new spirit ring]].

* BadassPreacher: Abbot-and-Bishop Monreale (two offices--Abbot of Saint Jerome and Bishop of Montefoglia--one man) had been a soldier in his youth, before making a vow to dedicate his life to God after being severely wounded. Monreale is still quite prepared to lead the men of Montefoglia in a night assault, and is also a capable mage (albeit overmatched by [[spoiler:a slain dark mage, turned into a demon and armed with the power of a very powerful spirit ring]]).

* FriendlyGhost: The ghost of Prospero Beneforte isn't precisely what you would call ''friendly''--Beneforte was a proud and rather irascible man in life--but he is helpful (and even ultimately loving) to Fiametta, whose first word when he first appears to her is "Papa?".

* GentleGiant: Ones first impression of Thur Ochs is that he is a very ''large'' young man, and quite strong--when he reached his current height and strength "everyone spontaneously began assigning the heaviest tasks to him". However, while Thur is by no means a coward (one of the first things we see him do is risk his life to save men trapped in a mining cave-in) he has no desire to be a soldier, not because of the risks to ''himself'' but because he hates the thought of sticking a sword into another human being. His first reaction to anyone he meets (even kobolds, considered by many to be basically demons) is to be friendly. His body language tends strongly towards the nonthreatening--he often hunches his shoulders or stoops down a bit so as not to loom so much.

* GroinAttack: Thur takes a knee to the groin from Ferrante (a much more experienced--and ruthlessly pragmatic--opponent). This rapidly takes Thur out of the fight, and he is stll struggling with the aftereffects for a considerable time thereafter.

* MagicIsMental: The book features several different sorts of magic (including BloodMagic, GeometricMagic, and {{Love Potion}}s), but Fiametta simply "orders her thoughts to an instant of calm" before casting a (minor) spell with a single word; later, when she improvises a spell on the fly, she thinks to herself that a spell involves not just "pure will" but also "focus" and a proper symbolic structure, which she is able to conjure up without any sacred diagrams or magic artifacts--just inward resolution, and whispering two meaningful words (and those seem as much a matter of ordering her own thoughts as of any sort of "abracadabra").

-->'''Fiametta:''' All the good men will be taken, and you'll sit on me till I'm old and fat, just to keep me handy for your spells. "Bleed your a little into this new greenwood bowl, love, just a drop"--till ''I'' drop. Virgin's blood. Virgin's hair. Virgin's spit. Virgin's piss. Some days I feel like a magic cow.

* Necromancer: Much of the most powerful magic in the book involves harnessing the souls of the dead (willingly or unwillingly), from the creation of the spirit rings of the title (which often although not necessarily involves enslaving the soul of a dead human being--including the enslavement of the soul of a murdered infant) to the creation of a Living Statue [[spoiler:with the willing cooperation of the spirit which is animating it]].

* PublicDomainArtifact: The novel features fictionalized versions of two of Benvenuto Cellini's works of art (in the book both the work of the fictional Prospero Beneforte): The magical saltcellar's physical form is taken directly from the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellini_Salt_Cellar Cellini Salt Cellar]], while Beneforte's great statue of Perseus is taken from Cellini's ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseus_with_the_Head_of_Medusa Perseus with the Head of Medusa]]''.