History Main / DepletedPhlebotinumShells

* [[PuppeteerParasite Las Plagas]] from ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' and ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil5 5]]'' are weak to UV light. The parasites never expose themselves during the day (at least in 4), flash grenades instantly kill exposed Plagas, and in all versions of ''4'' except the [=GameCube=], Leon can unlock a UV laser gun that instantly kills enemies when fully charged.

* ''Literature/MerkabahRider'': On the material plane, the Rider uses blessed salt shells that can destroy demonic hosts. On the astral plane, the Rider's gun shoots bolts of light that can kill spirit creatures.

This is a subtrope of WeaponOfXSlaying, and the supertrope to the SilverBullet, which is probably the original iteration of this, and in any case remains the most even today. See also AbnormalAmmo, ArmorPiercingAttack, ElementalWeapon, KillItWithFire and KillItWithIce. A similar trope is the ImmortalBreaker, a weapon that supersedes immortality. This trope usually utilises a specific item or property to kill a specific being, while Immortal Breakers simply call trumps over being immortal and is usually equally effective over all immortals.

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* ''WebComic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'':

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* ''FanFic/AeonEntelechyEvangelion'': there are warheads enhanced with ''Literature/TheColourOutOfSpace''.

* Subverted in ''FanFic/ToHellAndBackArrowverse''. Kara carries around a Kryptonite sword after learning there might be other Kryptonians on planet. She also wears Kryptonite-proof clothes to protect herself.

* ''FanFic/GateworldVirtualFleet'' has physics-defying Naqadah-Potassium warheads.

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* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'': Tatsumiya creates her own spell-imbued bullets for [[DemonSlaying exorcisms]] and the like. [[spoiler:Later, she gains a special ''time-displacement rounds'' use within one day, which work as an effective OneHitKill for the ultimate in battlefield removal]].

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* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'': Thousand Sons Rubric Marines use Inferno rounds, bolt rounds infused with sorcery which can burn through even the heaviest of armour, and is said to be able to burn souls as well.

* The ''Dawnguard'' DLC for ''VideoGame/{{Skyrim}}'' adds fire, lightning and ice-imbued ''crossbow bolts''. Y'know, for when those vampires just don't die fast enough.

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* Paralleled on occasion in some weapons against Superman developed from the spectograph of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rao_(comics) Rao]] ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton_(comics) Krypton's]] red sun) which takes away his powers until he is again exposed to solar rays. Notoriously used by the Soviet Union in Frank Miller's classic, ''[[Comicbook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns Batman: The Dark Knight Returns]]'' [[note]]in which Superman took his devotion to ''Truth, Justice and the American Way'' to include enforcing US Policy abroad.[[/note]] who had tempered a high-yield nuke to do as much ecological damage as possible. Effects included a hemisphere covering EMP and a dust cloud that blocked out the sun in very literal nuclear "winter" way. Since Superman was trying to intercept and redirect the ICBM, it almost kills him because he is left with almost no exposure to his solar power source (he somehow drains energy from some plants to get back on his feet, but is still noted to be operating well below his peak power weeks later).

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* The paramilitary vampire hunters in ''{{Series/Ultraviolet}}'' use charcoal-nosed bullets.

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* [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Metroids]] are typically weak to ice.

* [[PuppeteerParasite Las Plagas]] from ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' and ''[[ResidentEvil5 5]]'' are weak to UV light. The parasites never expose themselves during the day (at least in 4), flash grenades instantly kill exposed Plagas, and in all versions of ''4'' except the [=GameCube=], Leon can unlock a UV laser gun that instantly kills enemies when fully charged.

** In ''Literature/CarpeJugulum'', we encounter GenreSavvy vampyres who have trained themselves to resist holy symbols. This backfires later when [[spoiler:their conditioning is undone -- as a result, they now ''recognize'' hundreds of holy symbols, and start seeing them all over the place when they'd have been blissfully unaware and unaffected otherwise]]. At one point, a vampire is beheaded with a holy item created on the spur of the moment due to the powerful faith of the wielder.

* Played with against non-supernatural opponents in the Creator/RogerCorman film ''The St. Valentine's Day Massacre'': a croaky-voiced gangster (played by a young Creator/JackNicholson) notes the belief that the garlic he's rubbed his bullets with will poison the wounds-- kind of strange given what's known now about garlic...

This is a subtrope of WeaponOfXSlaying. SilverBullet is a subtrope of this trope. See also AbnormalAmmo, ArmorPiercingAttack, ElementalWeapon, KillItWithFire and KillItWithIce. A similar trope is the ImmortalBreaker, a weapon that supersedes immortality. This trope usually utilises a specific item or property to kill a specific being, while Immortal Breakers simply call trumps over being immortal and is usually equally effective over all immortals.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''

* This one [[TruthInTelevision actually happened]] in the Middle Ages, with relics (bones and personal items from saints) being used in the ornamentation of swords and other weapons. They were intended to be "blessed" with special powers (notably less successful than in fiction).

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* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'':
** Many weapons for dealing with the [[TheLegionsOfHell daemons]], who, while not ImmuneToBullets, are [[ImplacableMan damn hard to kill]]. The most obvious are the psycannon shells used by the Ordo Malleus. Depending on the source, these are either filled with various blessed materials or have anti-daemon runes and prayers carved onto them.
** Combining with KillItWithFire gives flamethrowers loaded with Holy [[ElementsDoNotWorkThatWay Promethium]] (napalm with the mystical properties of Holy Water). The Grey Knights' Incinerator is the best known example.
** The Imperium also has special psych-out grenades that [[PowerNullifier negate]] the PsychicPowers of those who are hit. It is said they are made using a material that is created as waste by the life support system of the Golden Throne and emanates negative psychic energy. Yes, The Emperor's shit kills psykers. He's ''that'' badass.
** The forces of Chaos sometimes make use of daemon shells, which are bullets or artillery shells with a daemon bound within them. When the shell hits the target, the daemon's energy is released, causing a very large explosion of warp energy.

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* ''WebComic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'':
** One quest featured:
### [[IncrediblyLamePun Nun]]chucks made from Mother Teresa's bones,
### A Bo staff made from the largest known piece of The True Cross,
### Sai made out of St. Peter's sword,
### And bullets that had been in the Pope's mouth(wash).
** The finale took it up a notch by weaponizing ''the Pope himself!''

* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}} High Tech'' has information on making iron bullets. They don't get better ballistics, and in fact reduce reliability in firearms... But if a FairFolk has a weakness to iron, they cover it.

* ''ComicBook/MightyAvengers:'' The Blue Marvel's last encounter with his arch-nemesis Evald Skorpion has the mad scientist shooting him with a bullet of neutronium -- essentially raw proto-matter, and Blue Marvel's weakness.

** The ''Nasuverse'' also contains "Conceptual Weapons", the highest class of offensive magical artifacts. One of the most powerful is a gun known as the "Black Barrel", which is specifically designed to kill immortal things, and becomes more powerful the more supernatural power its target possesses. In other words, it can OneHitKill {{Eldritch Abomination}}s. The catch is that only an ordinary human can wield it: anyone with magical power finds it harmful to the touch. This is important in the story where it is featured, ''Literature/AngelNotes'', set during a PostApocalyptic war against {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, where it is wielded by the protagonist, [[TheLastOfHisKind the one single normal human left]]. The rest of earth's population has since become transhuman, and thus, can't use it.

* In the movie ''Film/SilverBullet'', Gary Busey forges a silver bullet from some necklaces [[spoiler:to use against the werewolf]]. When the gun shop owner looks at him strangely, he tries to pass it off as "the kids really like the Lone Ranger." The other guy has a smirk that says, "Yeah, right."

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw9ZeXB2uKs&feature=player_embedded This]] Audi commercial.

* In ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency'', the Nazis, under attack from super-powerful vampires, develop shoulder-mounted ultraviolet lamps to be able to fight them.

* In ''Film/{{Daybreakers}}, LaResistance uses automatic crossbows that fire wood-tipped bolts to kill vampire soldiers with impressive accuracy. Their advantage is that vampires won't shoot to kill, since they need every surviving human to feed hundreds of millions of vampires across the world.

* In ''Series/TrueBlood'', the Fellowship of the Sun developed quite an arsenal of wood-tipped projectile weapons.
** They're not the only ones. When Bill decides to kill Sophie-Anne, the Vampire Queen of Louisiana, he brings in a whole SWAT team armed with assault rifles with wood ammo. Even an experienced and powerful vampire like her can't do much against MoreDakka of wood. Later, we're shown the the Vampire Authority has plenty of soldiers armed with similar guns.

* In ''[[http://www.grandt.com/Journey/stories/WhenTitansClash.html When Titans Clash]]'' by Tenhawk, the Knighthood used counter-supernatural artillery rounds that were "... ''based around a core of three kilos of military grade high explosive which was surrounded by a sphere of blessed silver segmented into frangible pieces approximately one cubic inch in volume. This was in turn surrounded by pure meteoric iron in a second sphere, segmented into similar pieces''."

* In ''Literature/TheGoodTheBadAndTheMediochre'', the tempomancer threatens to shoot [[{{Dhampyr}} Dhampinella]] with a tranquiliser dart loaded with garlic oil, citric acid and holy water. [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill With a crucifix motif]].

* ''Literature/TheFallOfTheHouseOfCabal'': In the Five Ways challenge, Leonie wields a shotgun with shells containing a mixture of every major anti-supernatual substance, from rock salt to blessed silver to demon-dissolving Leng metal from the Dreamlands. She [[ShotgunsAreJustBetter very much enjoys it]].

* In ''TabletopGame/TheDresdenFiles'' RPG, many types of supernatural creature have a power that improves their toughness and/or regeneration. Every one of these is required to have a "Catch" or critical weakness, which will prevent their durability or recovery from taking effect. Catches are rated on a [[PointBuy points system]] (helping to offset the cost of the original powers), with more common weaknesses providing a bigger refund. For instance, a creature that's weak against fire or sunlight gets a 4-point discount, because this is well-known and easy to find; one vulnerable to something more esoteric like True Love might only get 2 points, and someone vulnerable to only a specific, difficult-to-find object (such as the Noose of Barrabas) gets nothing. However, certain rare artifacts and powers allow a player to spend a fate point to simply ''declare'' that their next attack matches a given target's Catch, allowing them to penetrate whatever supernatural defenses it might have.

* One of Zazie's secret weapons in the ZOTT tournament in ''Anime/BattleAngelAlita Last Order'' is a pair of revolvers loaded with bullets with osmium tips (osmium being the densest naturally occurring metal.)

* In ''ComicBook/TheBoys'' it's shown that [[TropeNamer actual depleted uranium]] ammunition is a common weakness of superheroes.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons: Golems and other constructs are often impervious to attacks unless the weapon is made out of Adamantine.

* In ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', fae and ChaoticEvil demons usually have some measure of damage resistance that applies to all attacks, except for those made with cold iron weapons.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': any iron can be harmful to TheFairFolk (which makes Tiffany Aching's choice of a frying pan as a weapon an apt choice). However, some places are protected by a powerful magnetic field to keep any iron from entering. Nanny Ogg uses one of [[AC:Binky's]] horseshoes, which can go anywhere (like [[AC:[[TheGrimReaper Binky's Owner]]]]).

* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/NightWatch'', most of the stuff mentioned above is useless against vampires (in fact, they deliberately let {{Muggles}} think it works). Even silver doesn't kill them, though being shot with a SilverBullet hurts like hell. What's deadly against a vampire? Vodka. Luckily most of the novels take place in Russia, where [[VodkaDrunkenski vodka is everywhere]].

* ''Literature/NightWatch'': it's very difficult for an Other to be killed with human weapons, as their instinct is to jump into the magical dimension of the Gloom at the first sign of danger, where physical objects cannot reach. Only enchanted bullets have a real chance of killing an Other. A human working for an Other is given enchanted bullets for his submachinegun. These bullets end up killing a werewolf. Besides that, only a nuke can definitively kill an Other, because nuclear explosions somehow reach even the deepest levels of Gloom.

* In ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'', normal knives and bullets melt on contact with Koro-sensei, so the government developed a special substance that breaks down Koro-sensei's cells. The knives and ammunition used by his students charged with assassinating him are made entirely out of this substance.

A common way to kill vampires, using UV rounds, grenades, lamps, or other tricks. Effectively, this is a more modern and scientific version of the traditional[[WeakenedByTheSun vulnerability to sunlight]]. An additional implication is that a number of supernatural creatures are susceptible to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation ionizing radiation]] (by definition, light capable of tanning skin is ionizing), which is often used to sterilize tools and food - cloth hung in the sun to dry is cleansed of bacteria nearly as efficiently as soap - tying into the concept of supernatural creatures as plague carriers. It also means that someone should perhaps attempt to kill vampires with X-ray machines or plain 'ol [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium depleted uranium]].

A common way to kill vampires, using UV rounds, grenades, lamps, or other tricks. The implication is that a number of supernatural creatures are susceptible to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation ionizing radiation]] (by definition, light capable of tanning skin is ionizing), which is often used to sterilize tools and food - cloth hung in the sun to dry is cleansed of bacteria nearly as efficiently as soap - tying into the concept of supernatural creatures as plague carriers and giving a scientific gloss to the traditional vulnerability to sunlight. It also means that someone should perhaps attempt to kill vampires with X-ray machines or plain 'ol [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium depleted uranium]].

* In the movie ''Film/SilverBullet, Gary Busey forges a silver bullet from some necklaces [[spoiler:to use against the werewolf]]. When the gun shop owner looks at him strangely, he tries to pass it off as "the kids really like the Lone Ranger." The other guy has a smirk that says, "Yeah, right."

* In ''Film/CurseOfTheUndead'', Preacher Dan finally kills the vampire gunslinger Drake Robey by mounting the small wooden cross from his graduation button--made from a thorn growing at the site of the Crucifixtion--on the front of a bullet and shooting Robey in the heart.