History Sandbox / Aazkaal

* EvilVersusEvil: After the Heresy, Imperial Fists turned on Iron Warriors, using them [[TheScapegoat being the chief cause of the Siege failing]] as excuse to avenge old grudges. This conflict leads to the forces under Dorn being nearly wiped out; only Dorn finally understanding how much his pride had costed him, and [[KnowWhenToFoldEm retreating while he still has a chance]] avoids his own death and that of the few survivors other than those who stayed at Inwit under Sigismund.

* GoodThingYouCanHeal: Vulkan's powers manifests when he gets attacked by Magnus, who lifts him into air with his psychic power, and drops on his sword, piercing both hearts at once. Vulkan dies... and resurrects, albeit not in time to stop Magnus from escaping. Malcador later explains him that it's his Perpetual power, and that it's not the first time it manifested: he was unaware, but he actually ''was'' killed in Commorragh multiple times, but his ability allowed him to shrug off the death itself. He would actively exploit this ability during enemy's attempt to assault Terra through Webway.

* HateAtFirstSight: Rogal Dorn despises Konrad Curze from the moment the two had met at Nostramo, and doesn't even try to hide it. Konrad asks Horus to arrange for their meeting, so he can prove that he and his legion are more than just a bunch of thugs and murderers, which Horus grants.

** Kelbor-Hal, when he and Ferrus Manus are about to be outnumbered by traitors, teleports Ferrus off-planet, while he gets surrounded. Later it gets revealed that he didn't make it.
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: InUniverse, Roboute Guilliman's destroying of Monarchia eventually develops from him executing an order from the Emperor (even if he took sadistic pleasure at hurting his brother's feelings) to unprovoked attack from the traitors wanting to defile the sacred place of the true faith. Despite not even Word Bearers seeing it that way.
* HitAndRunTactics: Jaghatai uses hit-and-run tactic to harass Death Guard, slowly bleeding it out. Mortarion only survives thanks to the help of Space Wolves survivors.

* HorrifyingTheHorror: Konrad Curze, before Emperor too measures to deal with his insanity, was ''the'' most nasty and gruesome Primarch. But even he gets uncomfortable when, instead of the horrible visions surrounding Jaghatai (him being betrayed and killed by Guilliman), Lorgar (a shining hero hated by, again, Guilliman) Rogal Dorn (a hero who would damn himself while seeking answers which only Chaos can give) and Ferrus Manus (living metal spreading further and covering his body), for Lion El'Jonson he... sees nothing, only feels some horrible ''wrongness''. He also sees him as a fellow hunter, just as dangerous as Konrad himself.
* AHouseDivided: As Khorne corruption strengthens, Blood Angels divides into two groups who barely tolerates each other, let along cooperates: one, led by Azkaellon, is supporting Sanguinius in following Khorne's teaching and spilling blood for the sake of spilling, disregarding their original goal, another, led by Raldoron, believes that they're wasting time and resources, while they should go to Terra to overthrow False Emperor; meanwhile, third group, led by Nassir Amit, chose to stay neutral, believing that picking either side would hurt them. The two eventually ''do'' go into open war at first excuse they could find, and only gets prevented from mutual extermination by Perturabo intervening to remind Blood Angels that Lion needs them, ''now''.

* InSpiteOfANail: Imperial Army still gets split into fleet and Imperial Guard, with Astartes no longer having authority over neither; this time, it's Horus who proposes it, instead of now-traitorous Guilliman.
* KarmicDeath: Atina spent years corrupting Roboute Guilliman and preparing him to embrace Chaos. He uses her as a sacrifice to fuel Rinstorm: the man she had made him into sees nothing wrong with throwing his mother under the bus; he already did that with his father and grandfather before, both under her influence.

** In canon, citizens of Khur had plenty of time to evacuate; here, Roboute just shoots the population without even bothering to contact them. He only spares one city, Monarchia, so Lorgar can arrive and see for himself how it gets destroyed too. Then he further mocks Lorgar, provoking him into attacking, and then threatens to get "cruel" if he wouldn't submit. The Emperor has to step in.

*** Mortarion tries to deny the other Legions access to genetic laboratories, claiming them "not deserving" it, as they "don't know the meaning of sacrifice".
*** When Leman Russ calls Mortarion on his selfishness and points that his son, Calas Typhon, knew much more about the "meaning of sacrifice" than his own primarch, Mortarion tries to insult Typhon, stating that he was a fool who trusted some "witch visions" and "wasted" the lives of his men. Russ, who owes much to Typhon, doesn't take it well.
* LastSecondChance: Just like Emperor tried to convince Magnus in canon, here Malcador tries to convince Rogal Dorn, knowing that he was manipulated into joining the traitors, and it's not too late to choose the right side. Unfortunately, Dorn is too far gone by this point and sees only another lie, another hipocrisy.
* LateToTheTragedy: Sanguinius, when looking for missing Corvus Corax and Angron, finds the broken and charred spaceships of Raven Guard and World Eaters, but no traces of either Legion. Then World Eaters emerges and ambushes him, and Angron personally boards his flagship, revealing that he murdered Corvus and took his scalp as a trophy.

** Vulkan doesn't stop at just beating Dark Eldar raiders (like it was in canon); he pursues them to their ship, steals one himself (instinctively figuring out how to use it), and follows them into Webway. He ends up in Commorragh, gaining some unlikely allies while trying to survive (later revealed to be Azdrubael Vect and those who would later form his Cabal), and only escapes due to seeing some strange figure (later revealed to be the Emperor), and follows it, ending up on Luna (which replaces his canon meeting with the Emperor). Much later, it gets revealed that he ''was'' killed, more than once, and only his Perpetuality prevented it from sticking.

* TheLoad: As Guilliman's corruption grows, he stops bothering with doing ''any'' progress at the Great Crusade, wasting time on "triumphs" and self-indulging, which leads to Word Bearers and Night Lords coming to check on him. Later, he becomes equally useless for the traitors, due to his Slaaneshi corruption making him too lazy and too insane to invest into their campaign -- and then he ascends and starts doing fun at the kingdom of his patron god(dess), so Lion has to send Perturabo to bring him back by force, by using his True Name (the act Guilliman forgives to neither of them)... which ultimately does little, as Ultramarines still finds a way to concentrate on wiping out civilians, and, once the massacre fuels some kind of ritual which bonds the Legion to Guilliman, escapes (while Primarch just vanishes).
* LoadBearingBoss: Horus finds the place of a battlefield between Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists; the two Legions seemingly massacred each other, but then Horus finds a fortress of Iron Hands, with Perturabo daring Horus to attack him. Horus takes the challenge, finds Perturabo and overpowers him... only for him to end up being a [[ActuallyADoombot robotic decoy]], and activate a bomb with countdown too short to escape. Horus just calmly accepts death, then the bomb goes off. The reinforcements only finds Horus' weapon, and a single gauntlet.

* MadeASlave:
** Angron still becomes a gladiator, but circumstances are different than in canon.
** When Raven Guard storms Chemos, they finds the ''countless'' corpses of people (mainly young and elders), clearly overworked to death, as well as many corpses of those who starved to death, both with horrible scars from leashing.
* MagicMustDefeatMagic: Ahriman suggests that since Horus' injury is Warp-born, the cure must be Warp-born, too. His arguments sounds reasonable and convinces some, but gets rejected as soon as he suggests to break Edict of Nikaea; this proves to be good decision, as Thousand Sons are already rogue by this point.

** Lion's Gate spaceport gets renamed "Raven's Gate", both in honour of Corvus Corax and Raven Guard slaughtered on Isstvan, and to distance from Lion El'Jonson.

* MisplacedRetribution: Rogal Dorn vents off after becoming a runner up for both the position of Warmaster and the position of Praetorian by destroying the conquered worlds, [[BlatantLies stating that they had refused to submit]]. This finally ends with him going into conflict with Konrad Curze at Cheraut.
* TheMole:

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: It was uncertain which side Mortarion would take, given him disliking pretty much everyone. But Lion and Jaghatai enrages him with attempts to recruit him, which ensures that he would take the opposite site, so he stays loyal.
* NothingIsScarier: Just what Ferrus Manus saw in the Noctis Labyrinthus never gets revealed, but it managed to scare Ferrus Manus, who only says that he now knows why the Emperor warned him to not trust the Star Gods.

* NotSoDifferentRemark: Jaghatai tries to convince Mortarion to join him by pointing that he's psychic, too, that he was always the freedom-loving outrider just like Jaghatai himself, and that the "False Emperor" had put the taint in them all on their creation; Mortarion has nothing of it.
* NotSoStoic: Leman Russ, since his misadventures, is notoriously cold and stoic, yet when Mortarion [[SpeakIllOfTheDead insults Typhon]] (thanks to whose HeroicSacrifice so many Space Wolves are still alive), he ''explodes'', but manages to regain composure.
* NumberTwo: Horus appoints Lion as his deputy, trusting him to become his voice during Crusade. This severely backfires later, as this gives Lion an opportunity to screw over ''every'' loyalist Legion.

** Konrad Curze kills Fulgrim during battle for Nostramo by beheading him. Unfortunately, he immediately realises that this "death" wasn't final: in fact, it only triggered his Ascension, and he would later show up as Daemon-Prince of Nurgle.

* PreAsskickingOneLiner: Fulgrim expects to execute comatose Curze. Too bad, Konrad wakes up just in time to tell him that he wouldn't make it out alive, and attack.

** Vulkan disappeared after preventing the Orks from destroying Terra during the War of the Beast. He's presumed dead, but given that he's Perpetual, he would certainly return some day.

Unlike most alternate Heresy fics, it reverses the order in which Legions gets introduced, starting with Alpha Legion and slowly going towards Dark Angels, with last chapter released being the one about Blood Angels.

* ActuallyADoombot: When Horus "kills" Perturabo, turns out that it was a robotic decoy.
* AdaptationalContextChange: The Iron Cage conflict between Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors still occurs, but Dorn's motivation for it is to punish the one whom he believes [[TheScapegoat the chief cause of the Siege failing]]. Otherwise, it goes just as disastrously as in canon (if not even more so).

* AllYourPowersCombined: Shortly before the Heresy, Horus creates a new group, so-called Legion Auxilia, which includes a chapter from every Legion; it's led by Mournival Majoris -- essentially, original Mournival expanded to include representatives from each Legion, albeit with original four still on top and serving same purpose. The idea is that it gives Horus access to wisdom of every Legion.

** Vulkan exploits the rivalry between Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists by tricking the Imperial Fists into retreating from one line of attack to another to not let their rivals to break through first; this also results in infighting between two traitor legions.
** Vulkan deliberately prohibits any Primarchs personally joining the fight, keeping them in reserve, knowing that otherwise traitors would send theirs (they don't, so far, as they think that situation doesn't require it, possibly for same reasons). Mortarion reacts badly to this plan, misinterpreting it as personal disrespect, but obeys.

* BeyondRedemption: When the Emperor sees Konrad Curze killed by Lion, he realises that it's of no use to try and talk his son down; for as long as he lives, the bloodshed would not stop.

** Initially disappearing (for reasons revealed in their own chapter), Night Lords later catches up with Word Bearers and assists them against Ultramarines; there was a massive battle over Macragge, after which Konrad Curze had vanished. Soon, they also gets joined by Alpha Legion forces.
** During Shadow Crusade, joint Word Bearers / Night Lords / Alpha Legion fleet runs into a group of Ultramarines ships attacking unknown ship clearly built with the mix of human and Aeldari technologies. When they destroys the traitors and contacts the ship... turns out that there's Leman Russ on board, long considered dead and/or rogue.

* CallToAdventure: Merir Astelan comes to Prism and alerts Night Lords that Dark Angels are gathering their forces once again -- and it's up to Night Lords to stop them. Legion Master Decimus is obviously unwilling to trust someone wearing ArchEnemy's colours, and and divert forces when they may face Tyranids any moment, but gets told that, as Konrad Curze would've said (Merir knew him when he was alive), one can't wait to see what future would bring: sometimes, your help is required in the present.

* CavalryBetrayal: When Blood Angels goes insane and starts shooting at Sons of Horus, Horus receives reinforcements from Lion El'Jonson and his Dark Angels... who ''also'' opens fire on him. Realising that he stands no chance against two Legions at once, Horus retreats from Davin and sets sail to Terra.
* CharacterDevelopment: It's pointed that most Primarchs who stayed loyal are those who recognised their negative traits, and overcame them.
* ChekhovMIA: Konrad vanishes in the Ruinstorm soon after arriving to Ultramar. He returns just to confront Lion on Terra, and albeit he dies, this warns the Emperor to not try to talk to Lion, and fight to the death.

** Konrad Curze dies during Siege of Terra, instead of surviving for some time past the conclusion of Heresy.

** Colonel Brom and Sindri Myr from ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' shows up in the chapter about Alpha Legion, with Brom [[DeathByCameo dying in battle]]. Brom is presumably alive in canon.

* DeathByCameo: Alpha Legion chapter has a scene starring [[VideoGame/DawnOfWar Colonel Brom of Tartarus' PDF, and (loyalist) Librarian Sindri Myr]]; Brom [[DeathByAdaptation dies in battle]].

* DecapitationPresentation: Sanguinius takes Angron's severed head as a proof of World Eaters' treachery, and presents it to Horus. Horus' reaction to it "confirms" Lion's lies, and Sanguinius attacks him.

--->'''Sevatar''': Did you expect a speech? Forgiveness perhaps? We were murderer first, last and always. Frak you, you honorless bastard.

* DoWrongRight: Lorgar manages to forgive the Emperor for ordering to destroy Monarchia, but he ''does not'' forgive Guilliman for doing so: while he realises that it had to be destroyed as a stern lesson, Roboute clearly [[{{Jerkass}} enjoyed the pain it caused to Lorgar]] while executing that order.
* TheDreaded: Imperial Fists received nickname "Crimson Fists" for their cruelty: it symbolises all the blood on their hands. It eventually sticks as their new official name.
* DueToTheDead: It's believed that Sigismund, as a sign of respect to Sevatar being a WorthyOpponent, preserved his body rather than leave it to rot, or desecrating it.

* EvilVersusEvil: After the Heresy, Imperial Fists turned on Iron Warriors, using them [[TheScapegoat being the chief cause of the Siege]] failing as excuse to avenge old grudges. This conflict leads to the forces under Dorn being nearly wiped out; only Dorn finally understaing how much his pride costed him, and [[KnowWhenToFoldEm retreating while he still has a chance]] avoids his own death and that of the few survivors other than those who stayed at Inwit under Sigismund.

* FalseFriend: The time Corvus spends with Angron during Isstvan campaign seems to make the Raven Guard and World Eaters Legions close friends, who've learned to greatly cooperate with each other. Then, as soon as the victory gets achieved, Angron orders to open fire on the forces below, composed of not only Raven Guards, but also World Eaters who've bonded the most with their allies, and thus became not reliable enough to let to live. The Raven Guard fleet on orbit is too shocked to even believe that something like that is possible, which Angron uses to shoot at them, too. The effectiveness of this betrayal makes Corvus realise that it was prepared in advance.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Konrad lives past his AxCrazy canon personality, and never turns traitor.

** Sevatar dies during his LastStand on Cadia, holding back traitorous forces of Black Templar, knowing that he'd die there, but the new would make it back and alert the Imperium.

** When he sees what happened on Nostramo in his absence, instead of performing Exterminatus, Curze descends on the planet personally and starts the second purge, as Night Haunter. This allows the Emperor to apprehend him and finally set him straight (instead of allowing him to escape and succumb to growing corruption); Emperor erases Night Haunter entirely as part of the soul-binding process, finally showing Konrad what he was meant to be.
** While Konrad was on "rehab", his legion fell under Horus' command, who took measures to purge it of scum dropped on it by Nostraman "nobility", leaving only those worth of being Astartes, and setting up proper command structure (thus, creation of Kyroptera).
* GoodCostumeSwitch: To symbolise his redemption, Konrad ditches his signature morbid armour decorated with ribs and covered with gut in favour of more noble one decorated with lightnings. He also gets healthy skin, instead of staying creepily-pale.
* GoodIsNotNice: Night Lords have zero tolerance for lawbreakers and rebels, and openly dislike Imperial Guard, as it can't live up to their standards (albeit they do have few rather crazy human regiments under their control; which [[DoubleStandard kinda goes against the rules]]).
* InSpiteOfANail: Konrad never destroys his world for "failing him"... but he still has to destroy it towards the end of the Heresy, due to planet being overrun by Nurgle corruption beyond any hope.
* JumpJetPack: Just like Raven Guard, Night Lords uses large amount of Assault Marines. Unlike them, they equip them primely with ranged weapons, sending them into enemy's backline to act as fire support.
* MarkOfShame: Feeling shame for failing to protect Nostramo, many Night Lords painted their fists red; before, it was a mark of someone atoning for past sins or failures. By contrast, Konrad Curze ''pardons'' Sevatar for what happened on Tsagualsa, removing the red marks which he was wearing up until then. When Curze dies, with no one able to "pardon" Night Lords, they keep wearing those marks permanently. After the Heresy, this practice nearly became legion-wide, requiring taking measures to prevent it. Subsequently, they resumed original practice of using red gauntlets for those who've failed somehow.
* MythologyGag: New homeworld of Night Lords has three-quorters of the planet covered with thick jungles filled with the worst monsters of them all: humans, who let their inner evil overcome them. It's a subtle reference to ''Literature/HeartOfDarkness'' and ''Film/ApocalypseNow'', which gave Konrad Curze his name; both are set in the jungle and both are dealing with the lows to which a human can fall.

* AppropriatedAppellation: During the Heresy, Imperial Fists gets renamed "Crimson Fists", the name derived from how Imperials called them for their savagery.
* BrokenPedestal: In the aftermath of the Iron Cage fiasco, Sigismund rejected Rogal Dorn and formed his own legion, naming it Black Templars, as he now sees his primarch as a failure. Unlike canon Black Legion, Black Templars exists alongside Dorn's loyalists (who're called the Crimson Fists).
* DeathByAdaptation: Mathias has died at some point during the Great Crusade, crushed beneath a glacier on Inwit (the planet became ''extremely'' seismically-unstable). As no catastrophes of such scale happened to Inwit in canon, he presumably survived the Heresy there.
* DoomedHometown: Rogal Dorn's arrival on Inwit doesn't go as smoothly; stasis pod lands in such a way that it provokes earthquakes (killing a lot of people) and starting massive non-stopping volcanic activity, which slowly renders planet uninhabitable, both from getting even colder and from air being unbreathable (to the point that many elderly suffocates to death, including Dorn's adoptive grandfather). It gets estimated that in few centuries, local humans would go extinct, so Don has to evacuate those who're still alive to ''Phalanx'' and abandon the planet. The planet remains in use after contact with Imperium, but conditions on Inwit never improves. Ultimately it gets destroyed the Imperium during Great Scouring: the planet gets nuked, which triggers the planetary core overheating and exploding.

* DudeWheresMyRespect: Dorn's fate is somewhat similar to that of Perturabo in canon, but if Perturabo never had respect to begin with, Rogal Dorn gradually lost it after Cheraut campaign went poorly. Respected, but not ''liked'' (due to his BrutalHonesty), Dorn accumulated many enemies over years, who readily believed when the rumours started spreading about him being "weak" due to Konrad Curze beating him at Cheraut (unlike canon, the news leaked out), while his legion got its reputation ruined as atrocities committed by Night Lords allies were attributed ''to them''. Facing hatred and lack of acknowledgement on every turn, he starts losing passion to the Great Crusade. He sees a chance to prove himself when the Ullanor Crusade gets announced... but Horus refuses his offer, as he already recruited [[TheRival Perturabo]], who simply asked first, and Horus knows that the two can't stand each other; this spoils their relationship and makes Dorn dislike him, while in canon he was one of those who openly supported him being appointed a Warmaster. At Nikaea, the Emperor appoints Vulkan as Praetorian, instead of Dorn or Perturabo, being disappointed in both; Dorn, at this point accustomed to see mockery everywhere, takes this as personal insult, and angrily rejects the explanation Malcador tries to give him. The traitors shows him not much respect, either, as, by betraying Imperium and the Emperor, he deserves none. Later he outright states the lack of acknowledgement as the reason behind his betrayal, pointing that Curze and Lorgar, the wrongdoers, were forgiven and embraced, while his flawless service was ignored.

** Rogal Dorn being defeated by Konrad Curze in their duel on Cheraut doesn't stay secret (unlike canon), and seriously spoils Dorn's reputation, as his detractors (chief amongst them [[TheRival Perturabo]] used it to call him a "weakling", in which many actually believed. With Curze's reputation quickly improving after his "rehab" by the Emperor, entire Cheraut incident starts being viewed differently, with [[HeroWithBadPublicity Imperial Fists]] as the butchers and Night Lords as protectors, while it was the other way around.
** Rogal Dorn, after series of campaigns in the worlds destroyed by the Orks, grew to hate greenskins above any other xenos. He sees a chance to strike at them by joining the Ullanor Crusade... but [[TheRival Perturabo]] beats him to it, and his offer of help gets declined: Horus knows that [[WeAreStrugglingTogether having them both together is a receipt for disaster]]. Angry at such blatant disrespect, Rogal Dorn even considers to cease operating at all, as [[DudeWheresMyRespect he doesn't see the reason why his sons should die for the people who don't see any value in their sacrifices]], but resists it. Neither of the two Primarchs participated in it in canon.

* HeroWithBadPublicity: Major contributor to Dorn's downfall was his reputation, which took major hit after Cheraut incident (both because he was accused of being "weak" for being defeated by Curze, and because blame for the massacre was put ''on Imperial Fists'' rather than Night Lords), not in the small turn because of his detractors, chief amongst them Perturabo. As Dorn's infamous BrutalHonesty made no one willing to be his friend, no one took offence at it and tried to protect him, instead believing the lies.
* HighTurnoverRate: Post-Heresy Crimson Fists never stays on Plahanx with their Primarch for long; after certain amount of time, each of them gets his memory wiped and joins Sigismund's Black Templar, with new recruits replacing them; Sigismund doesn't know why is this happening, but doesn't object, as it ensures that he has a steady supply of reliable and hardened warriors.
* MirrorCharacter: In their mindless rivalry, Rogal Dorn and Perturabo shed so much blood, it washed away most of their differences, making the two almost the same brutal siege-masters and butchers, to the point that the two becomes almost interchangeable.
* NayTheist: Initially unwilling to admit that the Chaos Gods even exists, Rogal Dorn and his legion did admit it eventually -- but chose to master the Warp rather than submit to it and any of the Dark Gods.
* NeverMyFault: Malcador rightfully tells Dorn that he and Perturabo let their rivalry with to define them and eclipse their own virtues and accomplishments, and that's why neither of them was chosen as Praetorian. Unfortunately, Dorn is too far gone by this point to see his wisdom, and when Malcador tries to prevent him from leaving, he ''pushes'' him, which, had it not for him being more than a mere old man, certainly would've killed him. After the Heresy, he similarly blames everyone but himself for the Siege failing (chiefly [[TheRival Perturabo]].

* SeriousBusiness: It's noted that, unlike other traitors, Imperial Fists takes their wows ''very'' seriously, not breaking them under any circumstances; the same applies to their sense of duty.
* TeamKiller: After his fall to Chaos, Rogal Dorn occasionally puts his rivalry with Perturabo above common goal, to the point of attacking the forces under him ''in the middle of operation'' (which the loyalists exploits).

* WithUsOrAgainstUs: During the Heresy, Imperial Fists gives the planets they attack a single chance to surrender, with very little time to think it over, and if someone fails to submit in time, they just slaughters the planet entirely.

* AdaptationalNameChange: During the Heresy, Imperial Fists quickly attains nickname "Crimson Fists" for their brutality; it sticks to the point that it replaces their original name. Then, when Sigismund takes over, he renames the legion "Black Templars".

* AmbiguousStartOfDarkness: No one knows for sure just ''what'' was the key contributor to Dorn's betrayal. Amongst possible versions are being a runner up for position of Praetorian, others states his old feeling of [[DudeWheresMyRespect not being respected and appreciated]], which was doomed to burst out sooner or later.
* AppropriatedAppellation: During the Heresy, Imperial Fists gets renamed "Crimson Fists", the name derived from how Imperials called them for their savagery. It would later be replaced with Black Templar when Sigismund would take over.

* DoomedHometown: Rogal Dorn's arrival on Inwit doesn't go as smoothly; stasis pod lands in such a way that it provokes earthquakes (killing a lot of people) and starting massive non-stopping volcanic activity, which slowly renders planet uninhabitable, both from getting even colder and from air being unbreathable (to the point that many elderly suffocates to death, including Dorn's adoptive grandfather). It gets estimated that in few centuries, local human would go extinct, so Don has to evacuate those who're still alive to ''Phalanx'' and abandon the planet. Nothing like this happens in canon.
* DragonInChief: Rogal Dorn [[OrcusOnHisThrone secluded in his fortress]], so it's up to Sigismund to lead the legion in his absence. For all intents and purposes, Sigismund fulfils the role which Abaddon played in canon, even though he's not from a legion of Heresy's BigBad and his Primarch is still alive.
* DudeWheresMyRespect: Similarly to Perturabo in canon, Rogal Dorn faces lack of respect and acknowledgement for his achievements, albeit in different manner. While respected, Dorn was never liked, due to his BrutalHonesty; so when Cheraut campaign ends in disaster and his detractors uses the chance to paint him black, everyone believes it, now thinking that he's "weak", for being beaten by Curze, while his legion takes hit to reputation, as Night Lords' atrocities gets attributed ''to them''. Later, he fails to join the Ullanor Crusade because Perturabo does it first, and Horus reasonably decides to not have two Pirmarchs who hates each other in same team, but by this point he's too bitter to see it, and instead thinks that it's also due to lack of respect (he almost quits the Great Crusade, as why bother, if no one cares?). Then he becomes a runner-up for both position of Warmaster ''and'' Praetorian; by this point, he's too bitter to just accept the explanation Malcador gives him. The traitors shows him not much respect, either, as by that point, he deserves none. Later he outright states the lack of acknowledgement as the reason behind his betrayal, pointing that Curze and Lorgar, the wrongdoers, were forgiven and embraced, while his flawless service was ignored.

* FallenHero: He was noble and heroic, but his own insecurities eventually brought him to damnation. When he just joins the traitors' cause, he still has some innate nobility left, but over time it withers as he starts caring less and less about blood he spills (to the point his legion gets nicknamed "Crimson Fists").
* FatalFlaw: Rogal Dorn grows too obsessed with undoing and besting Perturabo to concentrate on salvaging his own already-crumbling reputation. When he joins the traitors, their rivalry goes hot -- and Perturabo, who's cold and rational, consistently bests him, as ''he'' doesn't let his grudges blind him.
* FlatEarthAtheist: Rogal Dorn refuses to believe that such things as "gods" can exist, even when the other traitors starts worshipping them, and receiving their "gifts". But he becomes interested in just what else they may be, if not gods, and decides to study them.

** Rogal Dorn being defeated by Konrad Curze in their duel on Cheraut doesn't stay secret (unlike canon), and seriously spoils Dorn's reputation, as his detractors (chief amongst them [[TheRival Perturabo]] used it to call him a "weakling". With Curze's reputation quickly improving after his "rehab" by the Emperor, entire Cheraut incident starts being viewed differently, with [[HeroWithBadPublicity Imperial Fists]] as the butchers and Night Lords as protectors, while it was the other way around]].

** As by the point when Nikaea takes place, Rogal Dorn is no longer the stoic and professional man he was at beginning of the Crusade, letting his rivalry with Perturabo to consume him, Horus can't just give either him or Perturabo to build amphitheatre, and instead he makes them do it together... only for them to botch everything, due to zero efforts made to cooperate, so it's Vulkan who has to fix things up. When the two continues conflict at Nikae council as well, it seals neither of them being approved for position of Praetorian -- which, perhaps, was the last straw for Dorn.

* NeverMyFault: Malcador rightfully tells Dorn that he and Perturabo let their rivalry with to define them and eclipse their own virtues and accomplishments, and that's why neither of them was chosen as Praetorian. Unfortunately, Dorn is too far gone by this point to see his wisdom, and when Malcador tries to prevent him from leaving, he ''pushes'' him, which, had it not for him being more than a mere old man, certainly would've killed him.

''[[VideoGame/OvergrownGenesis Overgrown: Genesis]]''

Active ravaging of Amazon rainforests led to parasitic fungus (named "novel ophiocordyceps unilateralis", but now known simply as "the parasite") being released and spreading to crops, which then were spread around the world, spreading the parasite with them. At first, the parasite was incapable of hurting humans, but as soon as its host suffers from any serious illness or injury, the parasite strikes in. Males suffer from all kinds of health ailments, as well as start slowly covering with fungal growths, while females suffer from amnesia and uncontrolled carnal desires; scientists were unable to understand what's going on, while process rapidly escalated, eventually spreading to 60% of the population.

Then, infected, who became highly aggressive, broke out of quarantine all across the world, and started attacking still healthy humans. After several days, police forces in all major cities were overwhelmed. After several weeks, fell most of the world armies. Now, only few stable sanctuaries remains, run by the former officials and administrators, collectively called "the Suits"; amongst them is Brookside sanctuary. But life goes worse and worse with every day, with supplies running low and no hope in sight...

Juno Townsend, a former engineer, is one of survivors who found shelter in Brookside. Food supplies at home run out, and only chance to get more is by taking some risky job which the Suits are willing to offer. Unfortunately, her very first outing goes disastrously due to Juno being backstabbed by the people who were supposed to protect her, and now, abandoned and alone, she must find a way back home -- or die trying...

''Overgrown: Genesis'' is an HGame in the setting of ZombieApocalypse; gameplaye-wise, it's SurvivalHorror with emphasis on stealth and supplies scavenging (with more focus on action in the final third of the game). It was developed by Dystopian Project using UsefulNotes/RPGMaker, and published by [=TinyHat Studious=]. As of May 2020, it's available on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}.

!Tropes
* AboveTheInfluence: If Juno agrees to drink with Barton and later takes hot shower, she decides to seduce Barton. Barton at first tries to refuse, stating that she's drunk and he shouldn't take advantage of it, but she insists and he gives in.
* AfterTheEnd: The story takes place unspecified amount of time after the ZombieApocalypse; it's known that at least several months have passed.
* AllForNothing: That generator you restarted in Prologue? Dr. Feinstein later reveals that the generator was required to restart communication with his lab (so he and Dr. Peters may continue working on the cure), but it didn't work in the end. When Juno arrives to the sanctuary, she learns that the reason for that is Gavin's uprising, which led to near-collapse of the sanctuary.
* AlmostDeadGuy:
** During Act 1, Juno finds a lone injured survivor in the massacred shelter, who lasts for ''just'' long enough to tell what's happened there, and give her the key she needs.
** During Act 2, Juno encounters mortally wounded Billy in the former Suits HQ; he tells how he ended this way, and gives her the keycard she needs to send zombies after Gavin. Billy then realises that he's infected and that he already started transforming (his wounds are healing), and he [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled shoots himself]].
* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
** Enemies dies after successful attack, to prevent the CycleOfHurting situations and give the player a chance for comeback.
** Some supplies respawns if the player has exactly zero of those:
*** The container with batteries in Subway (that one in the room the player originally gets the flashlight) spawns more batteries if the player has none. It's because the level is extremely dark and full of Crawlers, while the player is yet to build up a supply of batteries.
*** There are some ammo pickups during [[WolfpackBoss boss fight with Elite Hivelings]]. If the player wastes all ammo, those pickups respawns, so the game doesn't become unwinnable (as the player is stuck on arena until all five Hivelings dies).
* AnyLastWords: During his trial, [[EvilutionaryBiologist Dr. Feinstein]] gets allowed to say his last words. He says that he regrets nothing, and he still believes that [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans he was doing the right thing and what's better for humankind]]; Peters has nothing of it. Ultimately, Feinstein accepts defeat and says that it's up to Peters to lead humanity now, but whether it's genuine acceptance, or stealth insult, is unknown, and then Feinstein gets executed by a firing squad, taking this secret to his grave.
-->'''Dr. Feinstein''': Everything I did... Everything I tried to do... I did it because I deemed it the best course of action for humanity's continued survival.\\
'''Dr. Peters''': Feinstein, come now. I saw what you had planned. You were going to arm enough missiles with the weaponised HAF serum to destroy the world! At least go with a clear conscience... Old friend.\\
'''Dr. Feinstein''': My conscience ''is'' clear, Theodore. I was going to purify the world. Rid it, once and for all, of the virus that brought us to our knees!\\
'''Dr. Peters''': You would have destroyed nearly all life on the planet! Wiped out nearly all that remained of humankind!\\
'''Dr. Feinstein''': A necessary sacrifice! The world would have been reborn, anyway! With stronger genetic material! The weak disposed of! Evolution as it was intended!\\
'''Dr. Peters''': You cannot play god with the lives of everyone on the planet! ''You'' do not get to decide the path that humankind goes down, Feinstein...!\\
'''Dr. Feinstein''': No. You're right. I don't get to decide... Not anymore. That's your right, now.
* ApocalypticLog: Various notes and computer terminals which the player may find across the game contains interesting information, mostly regarding backstory, including on how exactly things ended up as bad as they're now:
** David's diary documents his early days of survival once he got locked in the Subway's safehouse: him observing zombies starting slowing down and mutating (from Runners to Walkers to Crawlers), his friend and colleague Leslie dying from unknown infection (it's unknown whether it's ''the'' Infection, or some other sickness, but he died on the next day after showing symptoms), and ultimately David himself [[SanitySlippage going nuts]].
** Computer in the Cold Pines safehouse contains the log made by the local ranger team, which explains why exactly there's so many zombie dogs (most of those are former domestic dogs gone wild; people abandoned them when shit hit the fan). It ends with last of them, named Sullivan, going outside to save his colleague Sophie O'Hara (who was snatched when attempt to gas the dog lair in old cabin gone bad). You enter safehouse using the ID you loot from his bloodied bag, meaning that he didn't succeed.
** Kerry's diary describes how she'd lost her family during early days of the outbreak, and had to survive on her own with only dog Rex by her side. Then Rex got infected, and she had to watch how he slowly turns into zombie and becomes hostile to her, without understanding why he's acting like this; and she can't even leave to gather supplies, as the car keys are in the same part of the house where she locked him. The last entry is about Kerry (who by this point already started showing signs of Infection) deciding to take the risk and crawl in while Rex is asleep (she put a camera to watch him remotely). Computer to which camera is connected reveals that the plan went... poorly.
** While visiting the police department, the player may check the computers and learn about Gavin's uprising from the police and Suits' point of view.
** While restarting the water treatment plant on Sophia's request, the player may find a note from the group of Suits who've tried to take shelter there; it starts with them running from the rioters (with two of them being caught, one man and one woman), and ends with them being attacked by Reptiles, which killed two of them.
** While doing side quests before evacuation, the player may find the corpse of a little girl Wendy, who clearly starved to death; nearby, they may find the diary, which tells how exactly she ended like this, with the last entry being about her feeling "dizzy" and going to "take a little nap".
* AssholeVictim: While Gavin and Billy are clearly in the wrong and cause only death and suffering by their uprising, [[{{Jerkass}} the Suits]] makes everything in their power (both before and after) to be as unlikable as possible and make the player think that most of them had it coming. There's bureaucracy, there's corruption, there's pride, and there's distain for "lesser people" and aversion to being on equal terms with them.
-->''The rioters still try to break down my barricade every now and then. They shout that they know I'm in here. Those scum. How dare they. Upstart fucks rising against their betters...''
* AttemptedRape: As soon as Juno restarts the generator, Gavin decides to "celebrate" by raping her along with his goons, and then leave her for dead. Juno can submit to her fate (she's alone, and they're armed)... or resist and even take Gavin's pistol, forcing him to retreat (he ''can't'' actually shoot her, and has little time to escape due to the generator restarting and starting making heavy noise).
* BackInTheSaddle: During assault on the Area 66, Lindsey Taylor joins the attackers instead of staying on the base, much to [[BigBrotherInstinct her brother's annoyance]].
* TheBadGuyWins: Endings A and B are results of either Dr. Zara or Dr. Feinstein (respectively) achieving their goals; Zara wants for humans to die out, leaving the planet to Dryads, Feinstein wants to cleanse it of all infected life (including most of humanity) and then repopulate it with his chosen people.
* BaitAndSwitch:
** In the endings D and E, Geoff gets asked how it feels to work under Cassie. He says that she's like slave driver... and then says that nothing less would make the job done, and he's proud of being her subordinate.
** Donny puts a gun at Juno and demands her removing shirt... and everything else. Another pervert? Nope, he's checking to make sure that she's not infected, by looking for open wounds; he already had to put down several people he used to know, and wants to take no risk. Juno just tells him that women don't turn into zombies, and they change topic to that instead.
* BavarianFireDrill: When Juno comes to ask Billy for favour, the guard tries to forbid her from entering. She tells him that if Billy learns that he turned Juno away when she came with an offer, he would likely be punished so badly, he wouldn't be able to stand afterwards. He decides to not test his luck and informs Billy -- who indeed invites Juno to talk.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Geoff says that deep inside, he still hopes that his wife is still waiting for him, even though the only reasonable course of action would be to seek shelter. If Barton's sidequest gets finished, when the two comes to check, turns out that she did wait for him... and it ended fatally for her; Geoff was only able to give her proper burial, with Barton helping.
* ToBeLawfulOrGood: In the ending C, Juno gets torn between her loyalty to the military, and her duty for the people, who're looking at her with hope; choosing the civilians leads to the ending C1, choosing the military to the ending C2, but neither leads to a nice outcome.
* BelievingTheirOwnLies: In the ending C2, Juno gives up on hope to stop the radicals and joins them. To silence her conscience, she starts telling herself lies that all the bad things (like her former friends and comrades being enslaved) are "justified" and necessary. Ultimately, she believes in it and becomes [[FaceHeelTurn no better]] than the rest of her new "colleagues".
* BetterToDieThanBeKilled:
** Sarah Kane chose to shoot herself rather than end up in the hands of zombies; finding her suicide note is a requirement for one of side quests and getting the [[GoldenEnding best ending]].
** In luxury flat, there's a man-shaped hole in the window. Juno immediately guesses that whoever lived there, chose to jump out rather than wait till zombies take them.
** Billy realises that he's infected as his mortal wounds starts healing, so he shoots himself before he turns into a zombie.
--->'''Billy''': Damn, I was hoping to bleed to death before it came to this, but it looks like the infection's taken hold, and my body is actually recovering... and mutating. Well, looks like this is the end of the line, sweetheart. I'll be damned if I'm going to turn into a freakshow, so... See you later.
** One of captives in the Hive tried to free herself; as the process of transformation already started, it killed her.
* BittersweetEnding: Ending D. Juno stops both Zara and Feinstein, and prevents radicals amongst military from taking over, but General Hawke never copes with not being able to cure Eva, and either [[DrivenToSuicide shoots himself once he accidentally kills her as the cure backfires]], or seals himself away with her (depending on whether he received Zara's research or not). Juno manages to put up a fight against Dryads, but never comes quite close to complete victory, merely a stalemate, and no one knows for how long the war would last...
* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: When Dr. Feinstein reveals to Juno his plan to purge the world via HAF-2 and start anew with carefully-chosen humans (and Juno herself being used in his SuperBreedingProgram, obviously against her will), Juno calls him heartless bastard. He only says that he prefers the term "morally indifferent".
* BlackoutBasement: Some parts of the game are almost pitch-dark (save for occasional light sources), requiring Juno to use flashlight to navigate. Unfortunately, batteries are in limited supply (one battery lasts for 100 steps). Certain levels uses such darkness as major part of the challenge:
** Subway is the first dark area Juno encounters, and also where she obtains the flashlight. Tunnels are narrow, and full of Crawlers, while the player at this point has limited ammo. Fortunately, most of them are in the side area, so player only has to face them if they wish to find more supplies.
** As Juno arrives to Cold Pines park at night, it would be very dark, requiring the flashlight. Good news: there's no Crawlers. Bad news: this level is populated by lots of [[FragileSpeedster Dogs]].
** University is out of power, and thus is mostly dark. Instead of other zombies, you're pursued by a single dangerous entity, the Dryad.
* BlatantLies: Gavin claimed that convoy was attacked by zombies, resulting in some casualties. As pointed by Rebecca, unless the zombies suddenly learned how to use guns, it was clearly made by humans; and since the guns were police issue, it was an inside job.
* BodyHorror:
** Fungal growths which covers the zombies' bodies are extremely creepy and unnatural; Crawlers have it worst, as not only their bodies are almost entirely covered with fungi, but they also partly mutated, with one of mutations being their extremely long, frog-like tongues.
** Fate of the women captured by zombies and brought to the Hive is to be merged with plant growths to the point those become inseparable from their bodies, and be turned into living incubators. All victims whom Juno manages to save before this happens develop PTSD (with one attending therapy), while those whose process goes far enough have to be euthanised they can't live without a Hive anyway; all the other captives dies as soon as the Hive gets destroyed.
* BossOnlyLevel: There's no other zombies in the University, only a single Dryad -- and she's the most dangerous enemy you would face in the entire game.
* BotanicalAbomination: General Hawke has no way to describe the monstrosity that is the Hive and its defenders, other than call it "something... alien"; it's just that unnatural and hostile to everything human. It's not just some zombies, it's the true face of horror.
* BreakableWeapons: All melee weapons breaks after certain number of uses: 1 for Knife, 2 for Crowbar and 3 for Axe.
* BreedingSlave:
** It's believed in-univers that zombies abducts women for reproduction, being instincts-driven monsters. Later it turns out that it's more complex than that: women are required as catalysts for creation of the Hive.
** Dryads can reproduce with humans, with offsprings always being other Dryads; more sinister of them uses their mind control powers to break the willpower of captured humans to turn them into unwilling slaves for both pleasure and reproduction.
** In the ending B, Juno gets used for Dr. Feinstein's program of repopulating Earth after cleansing it of all infected life. Naturally, no one asks her opinion on that.
* ButThouMust: On Dr. Feinstein's trial, Juno can either agree that he's too dangerous to keep alive, or insist on sparing him (killing such mind is a waste), and instead make him join the efforts to find the cure. But if she tries the second option, General Hawke and Dr. Peters would overrule her, saying that he's too dangerous, and thus it's two votes versus one. He then gets executed by a firing squad for high treason and all the crimes against humanity.
* CallBack: Juno would mention her last meeting with Gavin as the reason why she would never work for him; what she actually says depends on whether Gavin raped her, or Juno managed to fight back.
* CannonFodder: In the ending C, radical militaries takes over and forcibly conscripts all even remotely fit male civilians, not caring about neither experience nor fight capabilities, and sends them to the frontline (along with those militaries who resisted them), compensating for the lack of quality with quantity; it doesn't quite work out, and this militia gets slaughtered.
* TheCavalry: General Hawke and entirety of his people (including [[BackInTheSaddle Lindsey Taylor]]) arrives to storm Area 66 and arrest Dr. Feinstein. This is why Juno has to face relatively few enemies, instead of entire army.
* ChekhovsGun:
** In the Prologue, Cassie is annoyed by Suits providing no resources to fix the fence which is about to collapse on its own. By the time you return to Brookside, it would be already broken -- in fact, this hole is how you enter the now-overrun sanctuary.
** Just before Juno goes on the mission in National University, General Hawke gives her his daughter's locket, in hope that ''maybe'' it can bring her luck. When Feinstein turns on Juno and captures her, it gets revealed that the locket contains a beacon, which military uses to track her down and attack the Area 66 base.
* ChildSoldier: In the ending C, the military under radicals do so poor job at fighting the Dryads and suffer so massive attrition, they're forced to recruit children; quoting one officer, it's "child soldiers or no soldiers".
* CitywideEvacuation: It ultimately gets decided to abandon Brookside (what's left of it) and evacuate to military base at Fort Patton. However, certain preparations must be made, or it's gonna end in disaster.
* CloneArmy: Before it was decided to use androids, Feinstein and his allies were relying on cloned operatives (so-called project Gemini); they were absolutely loyal, but had estimated lifespan of 5 years, with no chance to replace them when they finally expire. This explains all those operatives you've seen before.
* CloudcuckoolandersMinder: In the endings D and E, Barton ends as Dr. Peters' deputy. When asked why he was chosen, of all people, he says that while Dr. Peters handles theory, Barton is here to remind him about practice, and prevent him from building AwesomeButImpractical tech.
* CollectionSidequest: One of requirements for the GoldenEnding is collecting 8 notes scattered across the game; some of the notes [[PermanentlyMissableContent can be easily missed if certain actions weren't taken while still having a chance]].
* TheCoup: While Juno was busy making it back to Brookside, Gavin performed a coup in the sanctuary (backed by Billy); he gave all the Suits who failed to escape to the angry mob from Stanton (who promptly lynched them), including former sanctuary's leader, Richard Harvey, and started ruling as a tyrant, raping and enslaving people left and right. His reign ended when he had a fallout with Billy over a disagreement regarding whether Billy gets his share in Suits' stockpiles or not, and, after being fired at, Billy [[TakingYouWithMe exploded the bombs]] he had preinstalled across the sanctuary, which allowed the zombies inside.
* CrazyPrepared: {{Subverted|Trope}} with the Subway shelter; surely it stockpiled food for years to come... but whoever did the preparations, didn't bother to stockpile ''any'' medicine, so by the fourth day, Leslie develope unknown sickness, and by the next day he died, leaving David alone.
* CriticalAnnoyance: When the Infection level is high (5 or more), edges of the screen covers with pulsating green vines.
* CriticalHesitationBlunder: General Hawke hesitated to attack the Hive, and as result, he retrieved his daughter Eva already being half-turned into Dryad.
* DespairEventHorizon: If Juno runs out of Morale, she would be too demoralised to keep struggling if a zombie manages to actually subdue her, causing game over.
-->'''Juno''': I'm done fighting. I'm done struggling. I'm... I'm done.
* DevelopersForesight:
** At the Subway, there're two places which, instead of random loot, always contains one pack of cigarettes; both are along essential paths. This ensures that the player [[{{Unwinnable}} wouldn't be screwed out of doing David's quest]] just because they were unlucky with random loot.
** At Downtown, if the player didn't bring any Bleach with them, or wasted it, they can find more in the hotel's restroom. If they wastes that, too, it respawns. The reason for that is because there's plot-essential entrance blocked by fungal growth.
* DidntThinkThisThrough:
** It takes Gavin by surprise that generator goes fully online -- and ''very'' noisy -- just when he decides to "celebrate" by raping Juno; he and his goons barely escapes with their lives.
** Sullivan suggests to ask Porters for help and use their fumigant to just kill the dogs in old cabin with gas. As he himself writes in the log after barely escaping, he forgot that ventilation shouldn't be operational after so much time without maintenance. The team wastes precious time on repair and gets ambushed, which results in Mr. Porter being killed and Mrs. Porter snatched; Sophie O'Hara gets snatched too, but manages to escape... or, rather, the dogs lets her to escape, and then traces her to the house and attacks Sullivan as soon as he decides to play hero and exit to help Sophie. No one of them made it out alive.
* DontCelebrateJustYet: When convoy finally reaches Fort Patton... military refuses to let refugees in: they can't let any potentially infected people inside. They only reconsiders when Dr. Peters asks to tell their commander about him and and that he brought the HAF research data; turns out, General Hawke is aware of Peters' work, so he orders to make an exception just this time.
* DownerEnding: Every ending below D would suck in one way or another:
** Endings A and B are outright TheBadGuysWin cases, with humanity either succumbing to Dryads (ending A) or being "purged" by Feinstein, who wants to start anew (ending B); in both of them, Juno gets enslaved by the winning side.
** Ending C comes in two variants. Both involve General Hawke shooting himself, and radicals amongst military taking over and enslaving civilians (former leaders, like Natasha, Cassie and Sophia, are outright turned into {{Sex Slave}}s for daring to oppose them). Juno can try to stop this... and just share their fate (ending C1), or accept it as inevitable evil and join the radicals, who reluctantly accepts her as one of them (ending C2) due to her having just that much of support; ending C2, due to Juno staying free, also shows just how bad things are, with no hope for better tomorrow anywhere in sight: ForeverWar with the usage of mass conscription and ultimately {{Child Soldier}}s, people being worked to death on the factories or starving to death due to barely being fed, etc. And on top of it, the once noble and heroic Juno is now [[FallenHero just as cruel as the other radical militaries]].
* DownTheDrain: There are several sections where Juno has to navigate the sewers; first and final ones are safe, but others are inhabited by Reptiles -- mutant alligators. To make things worse, deep water slows Juno down.
* DrivenToSuicide:
** As soon as Gavin abandons Juno, the player may find a shaft leading to safe room; there would be a corpse of a woman, a discarded gun, and suicide note which reveals that her name was Sarah Kane and she did this out of desperation: she's the only survivor in the zombie-infested town, with no chance to escape.
** Donny shoots himself once told that Sarah committed suicide, as he has nothing to live for anymore; alternative is to let him stay and wait for his deceased fiance who would never come back, and grow progressively more insane (he already occasionally sees hallucinations).
** If General Hawke doesn't read Dr. Zara's research on Dryads, he would ultimately try to use HAF-2 on her despite all warnings, which, unsurprisingly, kills her, with the last thing he sees on her face is the expression of utter betrayal. He can't live with it, and he blows his brains out.
* DrowningMySorrows: If radicals manages to take over the military and enslave civilians, and Juno sides with them (ending C2), Dr. Peters (whose research was weaponised to fight Dryads, instead of helping humanity) becomes heavy drinker to deal with depression. It doesn't help that in this ending, his former assistant Sophia was turned into SexSlave as a punishment for opposing the military junta.
* DueToTheDead: One of the ways Juno can earn favours with military is by retrieving the dog tags of the fallen.
* EarlyBirdCameo: There are several Dogs in the park in Hamilton, next to a corpse (setting right away that they're not friendly); those are the only ones on entire level. The level next after Hamilton, Cold Pines, is entirely built around surviving dark forest full with zombie dogs.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: The best outcome requires the player to be really thorough in exploring the game, but achieves happy peaceful life for everyone, and gives Juno and her allies a new meaning in life.
* TheElitesJumpShip: How Feinstein got the sponsoring for the Area 66? By promising to use it as safe haven for the world's rich elites in the upcoming purge. In truth, they became his test subjects, explaining just where he got so many people to experiment upon.
-->''The proposal is simple - pay the fee, and you get a safe haven when it all goes to shit. The plan has proven immensely successful thus far. Dignitaries, celebrities, and leading businessmen have started to sign on one after the other. Cash flow will now cease to be a problem. Of course, they do not know that their conditions will be... less than luxurious. Still, all we need is their money. And they won't see the true nature of their accomodations till it's too late to complain.
* EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: Endings A and B both ends with different flavours of apocalypse:
** The ending A leads to humanity (left without its only chance to fight back and create a cure, as Dr. Zara destroys HAF-2 prototype) being mostly exterminated by Dryads, with what's left of it used as breeding slaves.
** The ending B leads to Dr. Feinstein wiping out nearly all life on Earth via HAF-2 he put into ICBM, so he can reseed the world with his own, approved branch of humanity.
* EnemyCivilWar: Gavin and Billy eventually were on the same side, pre-planning the coup against the Suits. Billy turned on Gavin when he failed to deliver what he promised -- give people the food they wanted. The conflict essentially destroyed both factions: Billy's gang was gunned down in nearly entirety, but Billy [[TakingYouWithMe detonated the bombs he'd preinstalled across the sanctuary]], allowing zombies to breach defences. To add insult into injury, while two groups were busy wiping each other out, what's left of sanctuary survivors (led by Dr. Peters, Natasha and Cassie) managed to secure the warehouse which the whole fuss was about, leaving them nothing.
* EntitledBastard: In the civilian shelter, you can encounter a couple of former Suits who... complains that the military appointed Juno as the shelter's leader instead of one of the Suits, completely ignoring everything she did for them before. Those two would stay here and say all the same things even if you fully upgrade the shelter; this also means that they're amongst few people who [[TheLoad don't bother with finding a job in the shelter]] and earning their stay, preferring to whine about being treated "unfairly" because they're accustomed to luxury.
-->'''Former Suit''': This is an outrage! The military should have appointed us the leaders of this shelter, not you and your ragtag bunch!
* EstablishingCharacterMoment:
** As soon as Gavin opens his mouth, it becomes clear that he's blatant sexist, sociopath and just jerk. It would only go downhill from there.
** The first time you meet Dryad is when you arrive to the University, and see ''all'' militaries sent before you being massacred. Then you see Dryad herself abducting a soldier who tries to escape and, when it fails, shoot, only to realise that she run out of ammo. You're now gonna face that Dryad yourself, ''alone'', in the darkness.
* EverytownAmerica: The story takes place in several fictional towns; all of them are rather generic small towns without major differences.
* EvilAllAlong: When Juno finds Feinstein and Zara in the University, both would insist that the other one is evil and dangerous... but Juno has to trust one of them, as Dr. Peters can't finish the cure with just his data alone. The catch is that ''both'' are evil, but in different ways:
** From the day one, Zara was [[TheMole undermining the efforts to stop the Infection, and speeding up demise of humanity]]: provoking research centers being attacked by infected, and sabotaging any search for the cure by falsifying or destroying data. Now, she tries to destroy HAF-2 project. If Juno trusts her instead of Feinstein, Zara would reveal her true colours after destroying the material entrusted to her, immediately triggering [[TheBadGuyWins the ending A]].
** Despite Dr. Zara mostly lying to Juno in order to gain her trust, she's not lying about Feinstein planning to release HAF-2 into atmosphere, disregarding how toxic it is to any life containing even smallest pieces of the parasite; as soon as Dryad dies, he gathers her biomaterial to finish perfecting his new weapon, and abducts Juno, whom he needs to immunise the people he's planning to keep alive after the... cleansing. Unlike what Zara does, it still leaves enough time to salvage the situation, leading to the endgame. At the Area 66 base, the computers contains the data revealing that Feinstein and his backers knew about upcoming collapse of civilisation in advance, and prepared this facility as an arc of sorts, as well as already were working on the plans to exterminate the infected with zero regards for common people's survival. Feinstein was ready to abduct Peters and ''force'' him to join the project if he wouldn't be cooperative.
* EvilVersusEvil:
** Bandits and Gavin's loyalists eventually turned on each other, resulting in both sides being almost wiped out. By the time you reach the Suits HQ, Gavin and few survivors amongst his loyalists are holed up in the well-barricated room, while Billy is bleeding to death in the cleaning closet, with few survivors of his gang escaping to join the sanctuary.
** By the time you reach the University, Dr. Zara and Dr. Feinstein are at each other's throats. Both would try to convince you that other one is [[EvilAllAlong dangerous lunatic with world-ending goals]]; both are right. The player has to side with Feinstein, however, as at this point, he at least shares the goal with you, while helping Zara triggers NonstandardGameOver.
* ExactWords: When accused of planning to release HAF-2 into atmosphere, knowing about it being deadly poisonous to any life at current stage, not just infected, Feinstein, instead of denying it, asks how he's supposed to do it with resources at his disposal. Well, he doesn't plan to do it from ''this'' laboratory; he has an ICBM elsewhere.
* FaceHeelTurn: In the ending C2, when conflict between civilians and military occurs, Juno sides with military, seeing no hope to prevail if she keeps fighting, and trying to convince herself that it's the only possible choice. As the time goes on, [[BelievingTheirOwnLies she gradually believes what she was telling herself]], and becomes just as cruel as the militaries; [[FallenHero noble and heroic Juno is gone]].
* FateWorseThanDeath: Only males can turn into zombies (when not killed outright); females instead becomes mindless broodmothers. It's generally accepted that shooting yourself in the head is preferable fate in either case.
* FireForgedFriends: In the ending D, radicals tries to accuse Taylors of siding with civilians over "their own". They gets a response that those civilians ''are'' their own.
-->'''Radical Leader''': Hmph, I should've known you Taylor brats would betray our own for a bunch of civilians!\\
'''Thompson''': And where are these civilians you speak of? All I see around our side are hardened soldiers who have fought through countless campaigns with us side-by-side!
* ForcedToWatch: According to the notes Juno can find while restarting the water treatment plant on Sophia's request, during Gavin's uprising, a group of Suits tried to run to the HQ, but their branch manager and his assistant Rita were caught by rioters. The guy was lynched on the spot, ''slowly'', with Rita being forced to watch the entire process of execution. The rest escaped just when Rita was ordered to strip down and "service" all rioters to not end like her boss.
* ForcedTransformation:
** The Infection transmitted from Dogs sometimes works weirdly, turning infected females into werewolf-like creatures. Such beasts exhibit improved strength, resilience... and aggression. They also quickly degrade to the dog level of intelligence, so they're likely unintentional dead-end mutation.
** The women chosen to become Dryads gets enclosed in the Hives and gradually transformed. Eva was in process of becoming a Dryad, too, but was taken out and put into anabiosis before it could finish.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** During the Prologue, one of survivors (a firefighter), if approached, says that he has to take care of his sick friend's daughter, but has nearly nothing to feed her with. In the Act 2, it's possible to find what's happened to this family; turns out, the sick friend turned zombie, the firefighter died protecting the girl, and the girl herself actually starved to death. We also learn that the firefighter was named "Mr. Kelly", and the girl was named Wendy.
** The note which Juno can find in the Prologue while doing Billy's errand tells about planned uprising long before it happens, albeit it omits who's gonna perform it.
** Dr. Peters, if approached in the sanctuary during the Prologue, reluctantly shares "non-classified" info on the Infection. Just what information on it can require being classified? Well, the fact that ''every human in the world is infected'', which he would reveal much later, and confirm that he kept it secret to not provoke panic, as it doesn't actually change anything, yet can make things worse if revealed to the general public.
** There are some hints at Dr. Feinstein is untrustworthy long before he backstabs you, and before you learn about his ''very'' [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate unethical experiments]]:
*** Reading the notes in the hospital and later paying attention to Dr. Feinstein's dialogues in the laboratory under Hamilton hospital reveals that he shows zero regards for infected, seeing them as nothing more than test subjects.
*** Dr. Peters wonders how Feinstein managed to create the HAF virus; doing something like that would require very specific samples...
** It's pretty clear that Feinstein and Zara did ''something'' with Juno while she was asleep, mentioning some "assets" and calling Juno "bearer". Later it gets revealed that they injected her with HAF-1, so by contact with her blood it would turn into vaccine.
* ForeverWar: The ending D has the humans and Dryads being in the state of eternal stalemate, with neither side gaining upper hand in years. It's an improvement [[HopelessWar over ending C]], as unlike the military junta, Juno knows that it's not a good idea to go on offensive against Dryads: you don't want to fight them on their territory; instead, you want to trick them into attacking you, wear them down and only then finish off. Dryads learned to not mess with humans after multiple defeats. There's a hope that one day, the HAF research would allow to fully reclaim the planet, but it definitely wouldn't happen in the near future.
* ForScience: The scientists under Dr. Feinstein chose to explore how and why the Infection spreads to certain animal breeds (namely, dogs and alligators) and why they targets humans, by breeding more of them with the usage of unwilling test subjects. They got no useful data out of it, even after ''many'' failed experiments. The player may read the logs to see just how messed-up those experiments were; fortunately, we're spared details.
* FragileSpeedster: Both Dogs and Runners are very frail (having only 1 and 2 HP, respectively), but are much faster than Walkers (albeit both have limitations: Dogs ignore everything outside of their territory; while Runners quickly give up if lose visual contact, and return to their "patrol" area). {{Justified|Trope}}, as the Dogs are barely mutated at all, while Runners are the early stage of the Infection, and are yet to be covered by fungi which is both the source of toughness and reason for slowness.
* FriendOrFoe: Rebecca and the other imprisoned cops don't trust Juno at first: they're in the enemy's lair, and too many people have proved themselves untrustworthy. Juno asks them whether any sane woman would work under [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain Gavin]], which they finds good enough argument to trust her (that, and her knowing Natasha).
* FungiArePlants: The parasite is explicitly a fungus (it even gets compared to сordyceps), and fungal growth is the reason behind zombies' toughness, regeneration and slowness; despite this, it's occasionally called a "plant", zombies can feed via photosynthesis, both the Hive and Hivelings are plant-based, and Dryads are half-humans, half-plants.
* FunWithAcronyms: Androids are code-named "The Automated Cybernetic Enforcement", or ACE for short. They're the strongest non-boss enemies in the game.
* GaiasVengeance: The "Infection" is the indirect results of ravaging of Amazon forests: the parasite which would later start it all was released when its habitat was destroyed, infected the crops, and from them, gradually spread across the world. Later it gets revealed that it's the planet retaliating against humanity's predatory behaviour, with Infection being the way to cleanse or at least cull humanity, while Dryads are intended as our replacement, who would reseed the planet with life and keep protecting it. Whether this plan succeeds depends on the ending: in the ending A, it comes to fruition, in the ending B the Infection and Dryads gets wiped out (along with almost all other life, including most of humanity), ending C and D have humans and Dryads in the state of eternal conflict, and the ending E has them negotiating for peace.
* GameplayAndStoryIntegration:
** Juno is an engineer, so many puzzles involves her gathering spare parts and fixing broken equipment.
** Uncontrolled lust is amongst symptoms of the Infection in females; at high Infection level, the player may lose control over Juno, even in the middle of the outing, which leaves her vulnerable.
** Juno's max Morale increases as she grows in confidence that she can make it (by going through main story), or when something shows her that this world is not as bad as it seems; and conversely, it can decrease from certain traumatic events.
** It's not possible to get a game over by sleeping with high Infection in the sanctuary, both because Dr. Peters has means to treat it, and because Juno can't just run away like she does in such situations in the other areas.
** Military base has enough supplies to ensure that Infection and hunger are no longer the problem; as such, the player no longer needs to manage Hunger and can rest freely.
** Wendy's father was already injured by the time you find him; due to that, he has only 1 HP instead of standard 2 other Runners have.
* GlassCannon:
** {{Downplayed|Trope}} with Dogs; they deal nowhere as much Morale damage as the other enemies (35, versus 50 for Walkers and Runners, and 75 for Crawlers and Hivelings), but they rises Infection by 2 instead of 1, which is harder to deal with, causes extra dangers due to control disruption, and can make the player unable to rest (sleeping with 5+ Infection means instant game over).
** Hivelings have the same health as Walkers, one of the weakest enemies, and are just as slow as the Crawlers; but they can cause whopping 75 Morale damage and 2 Infection if they manage to capture Juno.
* GoBackToTheSource: Downtown is where the Infection originally started in this country, and now it's where another Hive is about to hatch. General Hawke sends Juno on the operation there, in hope to obtain crucial data and stop whatever monstrosity the infected are growing there.
* GoldenEnding: If the player manage to collect all 8 notes, complete ''all'' sidequests, stop the apocalypse and talk General Hawke out of committing suicide by bringing him crucial data on Eva's condition, they would achieve the ending where humans and Dryads negotiate for peace, Juno would be elected new president and reform society, and Hawke would retire to spend time with daughter and the little Dryads.
-->''Here, the actions you've made, the people you've met, and the relationships you've forged during the course of the game, are now yours to reflect upon. Enjoy!''
* GoodbyeCruelWorld: Just after being abandoned by Gavin, Juno can find a saferoom by traveling through an air vent, where she finds a corpse of a woman right next to a pistol, and a note nearby, which reveals that she was named Sarah Kane, and that she's the last surviving worker of this power plant, who chose to end her life on own terms rather than wait till [[FateWorseThanDeath zombies take her]]. Later, Juno may encounter Sarah's fiance who spent several months waiting for her, in vain.
* GracefulLoser: During the trial, Feinstein, when accused of playing god, gets told that it's not up to him to decide the fate of humanity. He says that Peters is right: it's not up to him... now it's up to Peters and his friends. Then he just closes his eyes and waits for guns to fire.
* GreenThumb: Dryads can trigger rapid plant growth; that's the reason why they were created -- to reseed the planet with plant life and reclaim the territories "conquered" by humans.
* HalfHumanHybrid: Just before going to plant C4 to destroy mainframe keeping androids online (thus allowing Hawke's men to assault the base and stop ICBM from launching), Juno can find a computer with research notes from Feinstein's team -- specifically, on their experiments on Dogs and Reptiles, in attempts to find out just ''why'' the Infection targeted them; they got... interesting results:
** Dog branch of the Infection, on rare occasions, can trigger mutations in human females, turning them into werewolf-like creatures (explaining what's happened to Kerry). Those creatures are no longer capable of transmitting Infection to male humans (females aren't so lucky), nor they're capable of reproducing with humans; all of them demonstrates greatly increased strength, resilience and aggression, but also massive degrease in intelligence, nearly to that of a dog (still an improvement over common zombies). After Feinstein's research group, [[ForScience just out of curiosity]], tried to breed them with Dogs instead, it ''somehow'' succeeded (on the 10,316th attempt), producing healthy offspring of a great strength, who then proceeded to took over the leadership over the pack; scared, the researchers decided to terminate all test subjects and not explore this field further.
** Reptiles are capable of reproducing with humans (it's explained as them "corrupting" human ovum, which turns it into actual egg), producing what is essentially a Reptile, but with few human-like features (like opposing thumbs, or being capable of walking upright). But they're still dumb as a brick, and researchers dismisses it as the evolutionary dead-end.
* HealingFactor:
** Lore-wise, it's why zombies can't be reliably killed without shooting them in the head, even though they aren't undead: not only fungal growths acts as natural armour, but it quickly covers any open wounds, preventing the zombie from bleeding to death.
** Dryads can recover from any wounds which fails to kill them outright; the only way to gain reasonable chances against them is by using HAF-2b (weaponised HAF-2), either in gas form or as special ammo, which would cause enough damage that Dryad wouldn't be able to recover from it even with their enhanced regeneration. The Dryad whom Juno encounters in the University is no exception, and as special ammo wouldn't be invented until ''after'' the story's done, [[PuzzleBoss Juno has to find a way to spread the gas around University to poison her]].
** Story-wise, Androids are so unkillable due to quick self-repair; facing two-three is already a challenge, but there's an army of them. However, once shut down, they stay dead.
* HeelRaceTurn: In the ending E, under Eva's influence, Dryads (initially hostile) ceased to act hostile to humans, and negotiated for peace.
* HeKnowsTooMuch: Even if Juno submits to Gavin (she's alone, and he and his goons are armed), he would decide to leave her for death anyway: if she tells [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil what he did to her]], not even his boss (who otherwise ignores his antics) would tolerate it. He can't kill her, as gunshot would attract zombies, and the next group would ask questions when it finds the corpse with gun wounds, but [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident the zombies would do it for him]]. Later, when Juno learns about Gavin's coup, it becomes apparent that he planned to dispose of Juno anyway to get rid of everyone who may sabotage his scheme (this outing was used to dispose of non-loyal officers, and keeping Juno alive may lead to her alerting Gavin's enemies).
* HeroicBSOD: When Juno reaches safehouse in East Greer, she just collapses, cries and then falls asleep due to exhaustion, lamenting all the crap which just collapsed onto her.
* HeroicWillpower: While exploring the danger zone in preparation to evacuation, Juno can encounter a lone Runner-type zombie who's acting weirdly and mixes zombie-like noises with calling for someone named "Wendy"; avoiding him and entering the hole in the wall reveals a corpse of the little girl (she starved to death), her discarded doll (with nametag "Wendy" on it) and diary telling her story and revealing that the zombie is actually her father. When the zombie sees the doll, he, rather than attack, manages to ask where's Wendy, and rushes to her once told; he then... begs Juno to terminate him, so he and Wendy would be TogetherInDeath; she grants it, but loses 10 Morale.
* HPToOne: After surviving attack of the Dryad, Juno would lose all Morale and gain 5 Infection, bringing her on the brink of death. This may happen up to two times, third encounter is invariably fatal.
* HiveMind: It's observed that the Dog packs have so great coordination as if they share same mind. Given what's known about the parasite, it may indeed be true.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Dr. Zara released Dryad from captivity to use her against Dr. Feinstein, believing that they may become allies. Dryad later [[LaserGuidedKarma brainwashes her and turns into a part of her harem]].
* HopelessWar: The ending C has humans and Dryads being in the state of eternal war; unlike the ending D, which also has them at war, military junta is nowhere as competent at fighting Dryads as Juno (who knows their tactics, and is better at reinstalling infrastructure), and suffers massive attrition during (mostly futile) attempts to fight Dryads on their territory. They've lost ''a lot'' of people and must recruit {{Child Soldier}}s to have ''any'' army at all, while everyone are slowly starving to death as after everyone fit was sent to frontline, leftovers were left to work on factories and farms in horrible conditions.
* ImpressedByTheCivilian: Thompson at first is sceptical about Juno being assigned to work with him, thinking that she's just a civilian, while the task she's about to do is considered a suicide mission, due to sheer amount of infected around the bridge, on the bridge, and in the bridge control tower and tunnels beneath it. When she ''does'' pull if off, he and the soldiers under him openly says that she's badass. Eventually, she develops this reputation amongst most of the military, even those who normally despise civilians.
-->'''Thompson''': Well! The General was right about you. You actually pulled this one off!\\
'''Soldier''': Base is going to go nuts when they hear of this one! Lone woman op, holy fucking shit!\\
'''Juno''': Just doing my thing.\\
'''Soldier''': Well ma'am, keep on doing it and I feel like you're gonna save the shit out of humanity.
* IDidWhatIHadToDo:
** One of the notes Juno can find in the Subway is from a guy named Hansen, who, when the buttload of zombies arrived to the station, locked it up, sealing all those zombies (and few survivors) inside. It ends with him asking for forgiveness for doing what must be done. The note can be found close to [[PosthumousCharacter his corpse]]; he bleed to death from the wounds sustained when attempt to hold off the zombies failed miserably.
** After operation to lower the Jamesway Bridge, General Hawke admits that he knew about Dr. Peters' research, but didn't try to rescue him and the others until now, because he saw no need for it: Peters wasn't in immediate danger, his research was only ''potential'' asset (he had no progress up until he got the data from Feinstein and Zara), and evacuation was massive risk for the military base, which is Hawke's ''direct'' responsibility. It may look unethical, but that's how military duty works.
** At the Fort Patton, Dr. Peters admits that performing experiments on live infected is repulsive; sadly, there's simply no way to gather necessary data to produce the cure otherwise; he only has as much data as he has now because Feinstein and Zara did the same before.
** When General Hawke receives Dr. Zara's research, he admits that he knew what's the purpose of the Hive, and that, had Juno arrived later, it was fully possible for her to kill Ellie without realising what's going on. He says that he knows how ugly it looks, but he would do everything to save his daughter; he feels sorry for not telling Juno, but not for the operation itself.
--->'''General Hawke''': I will answer for my crimes, Townsend, when my daughter is healed. Until then, I will continue to make the hard choices. Even if they are despicable choices.
* TheImmune: While performing experiments on Juno, Feinstein and Zara learns that Juno is naturally immune to HAF. They injects her with it, and later uses her blood to make vaccine from HAF-2, which is poisonous to any life with even a smallest traces of Infection, including all "healthy" humans.
* ItCanThink:
** Dogs barely changed physically after being infected (if not counting them being capable of feeding via photosynthesis, a trait shared with most other infected save for Reptiles), but got significant increase in intelligence, particularly, their ability to hunt as a team, as if they're the part of same organism. For example, they have exterminated the entire population of the refugee camp in Cold Pines via hit-and-run tactic, and then ambushed and destroyed most of the team trying to exterminate them, with only one escaping -- whom they then tracked down by releasing one of the captives and following her to the safehouse. Additionally, when Juno later checks the ventilation which the aforementioned group tried to fix, turns out that the wires were ''chewed'': dogs ''purposely'' disabled it.
** During operation in the Downtown, Thompson's unit gets ambushed and barely avoids being wiped out. Given that normal zombies are too dumb to open a closed door... Soon enough, Juno finds out the reason for such intelligence: there's some clearly sentient force which controls the Hive and its creations.
* ItsAWonderfulFailure:
** {{Downplayed|Trope}} if the player fails to do side quests to secure the evacuation convoy; the player gets told the horrible consequences of their failures, but the game keeps on... albeit now you're locked into bad ending no matter what.
*** If the player failed to retrieve Cassie's tools (so she may reinforce the more vulnerable vehicles), some vehicles would fall back and get attack by zombies, who successfully breaches inside.
---->The noise of the convoy's movement begins to attract the infected. They swarm and overrun the weaker vehicles in the convoy! To stop and help would doom the rest of the convoy. Without any other choice left to them, the convoy keeps moving, leaving the screaming victims to their fate as their car doors are prised open... (...) Lives that could have been saved, have been lost...
*** Sophia tasks Juno with repairing water treatment plant, so the sanctuary would have supply of fresh water. Not doing so ensures that many people would fall sick and die en route to Fort Patton.
*** Near the end of the journey, convoy runs out of food. If Rebecca was rescued, she and Natasha would organise salvaging parties which returns with much-needed supplies; but if not, Natasha would fail to do it by alone (Rebecca was invaluable for her logistics skills), and the group returns with heavy loses and next to zero supplies.
** All endings for the main story starts with narration to what's happened -- including endings [[TheBadGuyWins A and B]]:
*** Ending A tells how the Dryads matured up en masse -- and, without HAF-2, humanity stands no chance against them in open combat, nor they have a cure from the Infection. Soon, humanity was almost entirely wiped out, and what's left became enslaved.
*** Ending B tells how Dr. Feinstein succeeded at launching ICBM with HAF-2 and exterminated all life on Earth, so he can then reseed the planet anew, according to his own views.
* KangarooCourt: If Juno fails to prevent the radicals from gaining support and then tries to work against them, she would be put on trial (explicitly called "kangaroo court" in-game) for "treason", and promptly sentenced to lifetime of slavery, alongside the other former civilian leaders.
* KarmicDeath: Gavin gets killed by the zombies (who're here because he indirectly caused sanctuary being overrun) whom Juno (who's here because he previously backstabbed her) redirects to his hideout, making his crimes finally bite him in the ass.
* KilledOffscreen: [[PlayableEpilogue Interactive part of the ending C2]] reveals that Thompson Taylor died in a battle at some point; his death hurt Juno a lot. He's alive and well in the endings D and E.
* KissingUnderTheInfluence: Juno and Thompson gets drunk and start talking about the past, with topic of Juno's part-time jobs to pay for college coming up. When she tells that she was also an assistant of a dominatrix (it was way less disgusting than working under Billy, due to lack of jerks), Thompson shows interest to the idea (specifically, roleplay part of it), and Juno (just as drunk as him) decides to show him how it works. One thing leads to another.
* KryptoniteFactor: If Juno stops both Zara and Feinstain, HAF-2 would be modified after conclusion of the main story, making it safe for humans, while retaining its deadliness to zombies and Dryads. While Dryads remains formidable foes, they ceases to be invincible: if it bleeds, it can be killed.
* LandslideElection: In the endings D and E, Juno gets elected a new president of (what's left of) the country by overwhelming majority, despite Juno herself wanting nothing to do with it and not even running for it.
* LastSecondEndingChoice: The ending C ultimately branches into endings C1 (where Juno tries to oppose the military junta, and loses) and C2 (where Juno sides with junta); which one would play is determined by the player themselves during the ending itself.
* LateToTheTragedy: During the course of her travel, Juno would encounter several other places ravaged either by infected or the other humans; sometimes, she can learn what exactly happened from various notes and computer terminals.
** By the time you arrive to West Greer power plant, it's completely abandoned, and in the hidden safehouse, you can find a corpse of some girl who'd committed suicide. By reading her suicide note, you'd learn that she was named Sarah Kane, and she was a worker on this power plant; realising [[FateWorseThanDeath what's gonna happen when the zombies finds her]], she chose to [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled die rather than let it happen]].
** Subway is entirely dark and filled with countless Crawlers (it's the first time you meet them, albeit not the last). Later you would find two dead security guards, and one alive (but insane); by reading the notes spread around, you would get the picture of how exactly the station turned into a hellhole.
** When you arrive to the Cold Pines national park, you would see massacred camp, and a corpse of a ranger not far away from it. Reading the logs in the safehouse (which you unlock with said ranger's ID) reveals backstory behind those events, and tells why there're so many zombie dogs.
** Juno would return to Brookside by the moment when it's already overrun, with zombies on the loose and many people being dead. She would soon catch up with survivors and learn about Gavin and Billy cooperating to take over the sanctuary, which ultimately resulted in what you see around when they turned on each other. You would find some extra horrors while exploring the now-overrun parts of Brookside.
* LectureAsExposition: Dr. Peters gives Juno a lecture about how the Infection and zombie "evolution" works, and what's their end-goal: zombies' [[{{Metamorphosis}} transformation stages, why they abduct women, and how the Hive is working. He also tells that the Hive isn't the final stage either: it's an egg of sort; and what ''is'' the final stage, can only be discovered by going to the University, as it's the only place they know where they can find yet-to-hatch Hive.
* LifeMeter: The game lacks health points as such, but instead makes the player manage Morale (MP) and Hunger (HP) points. Of those, Morale is the closest player has to "health", as it symbolises Juno's willingness to keep struggling, and drains from certain traumatic events, including close encounters with enemies; player doesn't lose immediately when Morale drops to zero, instead, game over triggers when they gets caught while already having zero Morale. Morale can be replenished by using consumables, but those are rare; the main way to do so is by resting, which drains Hunger Points (Juno has maximum 200 HP at any moment, and must have above 100 to rest), and, during Prologue and Act 1, can trigger immediate game over if she sleeps while having 5 or more Infection.
* LightningBruiser:
** PlayedWith regarding Reptiles. While their basic speed is rather slow, they invariably shows up in flooded areas, where Juno can't run; and at walking speed, it's equal to Juno running away from Dogs or Runners. As such locations are also rather narrow, Juno has no option but to fight them -- which isn't easy either, as they have whopping 5 HP. If they catch her, they deal less Morale damage than most enemies, but cause higher Infection.
** Elite Hivelings are as fast as the Runners and as tough as the Reptiles, while also having OneHitKill attack; the group of those serves as the WolfpackBoss.
** Androids have just as much speed as Runners, and even more HP than Reptiles. The only weapons which can reliably kill them in one hit are melee weapons and upgraded shotgun, but androids are amongst the enemies you ''don't'' want to get close, due to their OneHitKill attack.
* TheLoad: The driving point of conflict between military and civilians; militaries refuses to feed civilians who don't contribute to survival of the base (read: sick and injured), giving only bare minimum of supplies which wouldn't feed everyone. Resolving this issue (by proving your worth and improving conditions in the civilian shelter ''without'' begging militaries for help) is one of requirements to get any ending above [[DownerEnding C]].
** One of the first conflicts occurs soon after arrival, when military provides ''just'' enough supplies to feed those who did some jobs in the shelter... which means everyone else has to starve. Juno temporarily resolves it by asking whether she'd earned extra rations for what she did on the Jamesway Bridge, and, when confirmed, requests those, so she can share them with the hungry people.
--->'''Natasha''': We ''need'' more supplies. You know that these aren't enough.\\
'''Sergeant''': Then, earn them. Or feed only those who contribute. No point sharing among people who don't deserve it.
** As it's clear that conflict with sergeant wasn't an one-time occurrence, it gets suggested to make the shelter as independent as possible, so it wouldn't rely on militaries to do everything. This includes setting up a hospital and training paramedics (Sophia's task) to deal with sick people who can't work, and setting up work station (Cassie's task) to give recently-healed people some means to contribute and earn their rations. Sadly, conflict doesn't end just here, either, as some jerks continues abusing civilians just because, requiring to also install military police (Natasha's task).
* LockAndKeyPuzzle: At several points, Juno has to search for the key or keycard to proceed.
** In the Prologue, Juno has to restart the generator in West Greer, but it needs a keycard. It serves as tutorial to the mechanic, as the keycard is the room to the side.
** In the Subway, Juno can only unlock the door which leads towards exit from a terminal, but for that, she has to find the password from it. The password can be obtained from the other terminal, which has its own password put in plain sight (the dude wasn't good with passwords). Then the player has to trade the key from exit from deranged guy David (who wants a pack of cigarettes).
** To navigate Grand Hotel in the Downton, you have to free specific captives and use the "Plant Hearts" you get this way to open specific doors.
* MaddenIntoMisanthropy: Dryad from the University is the first Dryad to finish her incubation (Eva was taken out prematurely)... and she ended up in the hands of Dr. Feinstein and Dr. Zara, who used her for their experiment; you can actually read the logs in Feinstein's hideout and learn that those were... not exactly ethical. Firstly, they locked the Hive in the containment room, filling it with HAF-2 which kept killing any Hivelings until the Hive [[ItCanThink gave up on trying to free itself]] and concentrated on incubation. Then, when process was finished, they sucked out all air, almost suffocating newborn Dryad to weaken her, and then leaving just enough to survive. The Dryad is a telepath, so she knows [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate what kind of people]] she's dealing with, and that they don't see her as a human being, only as a resource to use and discard. Much later, it would also be revealed that she wasn't captured by zombies; ''Feinstein'' did that, killing her father right in front of her and putting her into the Hive against her will. And Dr. Zara set this powder keg on fire by feeding her with her EcoTerrorist propaganda.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident:
** Gavin can't shoot Juno; if next group finds the corpse with bullet wounds, he wouldn't be able to explain what the hell it was. Instead, he tries to make it look like she was snatched by the zombies, as it's both plausible and hard to check, plus if zombies actually attacks Juno, it may distract them from Gavin himself.
** Reading the logs in the police HQ during Act 2 reveals that Gavin tried to dispose of the other participants of the outing whom he can't trust to be a part of his coup, passing it as the zombie attack; amongst them Natasha. It obviously failed, as you'd find Natasha alive and well long before you read this entry. Neither he succeeded at deception: as pointed by Rebecca in the same logs, [[BlatantLies unless infected suddenly learned how to use guns, it was an inside job]]: the guns used were ''police issue''.
* MaximumHPReduction: Begging the military for help with upgrading the shelter (instead of paying for it with "favours") predictably makes them demand [[SexForServices very specific "payment"]]; the experience is so traumatic for Juno, it ''permanently'' reduces her maximum Morale.
* MercyKill: During operation in the Hive, Juno encounters several previously captured female soldiers; some can be rescued, some are too far gone (being merged with the plants and turned into living incubators) and can only be granted quick death.
* MercyRewarded: Helping Brookside survivors, both before and after evacuation, provides Juno with a boost to maximum Morale, as it shows her that not all hope is lost, and rewards with free supplies she wouldn't have otherwise. This is also the only way to get any ending above [[DownerEnding C]].
* {{Metamorphosis}}. Fresh infectees are called "Runners", but as the fungal growth covers more and more of their body, they gradually become tougher, but slower (so-called "Walkers"), and gain ability for photosynthesis; alternatively, if they end up in some dark space, fungus drains the body of nutrients, crippling the body and creating "Crawlers". Both types eventually dies and decomposes, and that biomass assembles into a Hive. That's also why zombies captures women: Hive needs them to spread growth further, and [[BreedingSlave to spawn more hivelings for its defence]]. Hives themselves are then used to transform specifically-chosen girls into Dryads.
* MightyGlacier: Crawlers have 4 health (more than Walkers), and cause whopping 75 Morale damage (default maximum is 100), but they're slowest enemies in the game. What makes them dangerous is that they're ''always'' showing up in the dark rooms, and can smell Juno from a distance, so they generally notice you before you notice ''them''.
* MilitaryCoup: In both endings C and D, radicals amongst the military tries to perform a coup to depose civilian leaders of the new society, thinking that ''they'' deserve power better; in the ending C, they succeed, while in the ending D, too many other militaries [[FireForgedFriends sides with civilians]], leaving them a minority which easily gets arrested and imprisoned for treason. In the ending E, they never takes the risk, likely too afraid to mess with General Hawke (as his absence in the other endings is stated as one of hte key factors why the coup happened in the first place).
* MindRape: Dryad in the University tries to assault Juno's mind via telepathy, in attempt to break her resistance.
* MultipleEndings: The story has several endings, marked with letters, ranging from "A" (the worst) to "E" (the best). Would it be utter apocalypse (ending A), purge and restart of civilisation (ending B), military dictatorship (ending C), uneasy stalemate (ending D) or new era of peace (ending E), depends entirely on the player's actions.
* MurderousMalfunctioningMachine: The final level lacks zombies; instead, Juno faces androids, who're equally hostile to both attackers and defenders, [[UnfinishedUntestedUsedAnyway due to lacking "Friend-or-Foe" system]].
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: If General Hawke wasn't convinced that, despite her halfway turning into Dryad, there's still humanity left in Eva, he would grow too desperate and try to use the cure on her anyway, in the blind hope that ''maybe'' it's gonna work, despite it being previously stated that it's likely gonna kill her -- and it does, with the last thing he sees is the look of betrayal on her face. This proves too much for him, and [[DrivenToSuicide he shoots himself in the head]].
* NiceJobBreakingItHero:
** At Stanton, the locals rebelled against the Suits out of protest for them reducing rations ''and'' opportunities to obtain more by doing various jobs (particularly, they no longer hire ''any'' unskilled laborers, so those may as well starve). All they achieved is to break the spare generator, break half the town and cause many people get killed or injured. It's also why Juno gets sent on the outing to restart a generator in West Greer.
** Why there's so many zombie dogs in Cold Pines? In the wake of the outbreak, people started abandoning their dogs in the park, hoping that maybe they would somehow fend for themselves (by then, many people were no longer capable of supporting their pets). Guess what? The dogs did fend for themselves -- by starting hunting on the people who gathered in the park after escaping from overrun cities; and the effects of Infection on their mental capacity made them quite efficient hunters. By the time you arrive in the park, there's exactly one non-dead person, and, had she stayed sane, [[FateWorseThanDeath she would've wished for death instead]].
* NoFairCheating: {{Zigzagged|Trope}}. Game has two types of cheats: cheat menu (accessible at any time from menu), and cheat room (accessible from the house where you begin the game), which works differently:
** Cheat menu has cheats to add ammo (and melee weapons) and manage Juno's stats, and can be used liberally with no penalties.
** Cheat room offers free weapons (including upgraded ones), batteries, details and military base's currency, as well as allows to complete all side quests, but has some limitations which it openly acknowledges:
*** There is a button to unlock all notes; if you click it, you'd instead get a mocking message from the developer, saying that it's not ''that'' easy, and if you want the best ending, gonna actually ''play'' the game and find them legitimately.
*** The only way to exit the cheat room is by skipping some parts of the game, with earliest part being West Greer. However, when you do this, you get cut off from the parts you skipped (officially, to avoid bugs due to missed event flags), and can't explore them, even to find missing notes. And the first note (necessary for the best ending) is ''before'' West Greer. You can safely use the room ''after'' doing Billy's errand, but by this point you'd already complete most of the Prologue.
* NonstandardGameOver: Normally, the player loses if Juno gets caught by the enemies with zero Morale, or (during Act 1) tries to sleep while having 5 or more Infection. But there are some special cases:
** Every zombie enemy (excluding Hivelings; those get different one instead) has once-per-game RoomFullOfZombies situation, when you can run into a horde of those (so-called "swarm game-overs"), which triggers immediate game over with a different narration than if you simply run out of Morale. All of them can be either avoided or safely neutralised, in one way or another.
** Attempt to take David's key by force leads to him attacking Juno, and ultimately turning her into his SexSlave; given that he's showing the signs of succumbing to the Infection, it's gonna become even nastier than this very soon.
** Approaching Kerry triggers her to immediately attack and infect Juno; the player does receive a warning to stay away, but the border isn't clearly marked.
** Losing to [[WolfpackBoss "elite" Hivelings]] leads to instant game over instead of merely losing some Morale and gaining some Infection; Juno becomes a part of the Hive. It replaces usual "swarm" game over.
** Going to sleep with too high Infection while at Cold Pines triggers different game over than doing the same in East Greer or Hamilton, as there're no human zombies, only zombie dogs.
** Juno can survive up to two encounters with Dryad, but on the third defeat, she would be finally brainwashed, triggering game over.
** Attempt to rescue Dryad's captives ([[SchmuckBait who're so conveniently in the open and not guarded]]) leads to them attacking Juno and infecting her. This game over plays slightly differently if it happens after Dr. Zara gets captured.
** Trusting Dr. Zara and giving her HAF-2 prototype leads to her shattering it, saying that humanity deserves being cast away as the dominant species. It leads to the apocalypse, as the Dryads ultimately overrun what's left of humanity. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Dr. Zara is amongst those who were enslaved]].
** Losing to one of Feinstein's Androids leads to Juno being captured, and Feinstein fulfilling his plan, leading to the second-worst ending and ending the game immediately.
* NoOntologicalInertia: Hivelings can't be killed permanently, as they fully heal soon afterwards. But if you destroy a Hive Node, all Hivelings connected to it would wither and die, and destroying the main Hive kills the entire system. {{Justified|Trope}}, as they're extension of the Hive, and Hive is the only thing keeping them alive.
* NotAlwaysEvil: On the path to GoldenEnding, Juno realises that Dryads aren't some evil alien creatures; they're still human enough to negotiate with them -- one just has to try; surely, that Dryad they encountered before was murderous, but they also know that, before gaining all this power, she was MaddenIntoMisanthropy by the cruel experiments performed on her. She uses this knowledge to convince Hawke to give Eva a chance and free her from captivity: Dryad or not, she ''knows'' that he's her father, and trusts him. He reluctantly tries... and she, even after finishing the transformation, embraces him. This event leads to peace negotiations between two species and prevents the ForeverWar which happens in the endings D and C.
* NotEvilJustMisunderstood: Before expiring, Dryad in the University tells Junot that humans are monsters who destroys the planet out of own greed and hubris. Juno wonders, whether she was truly evil, or just misguided in her hatred (she's basically repeating [[EcoTerrorist Dr. Zara's]] rhetoric). If she finds Dr. Zara's research, she confirms the latter (Dryads ''do'' have their humanity left in them, they just need a push to awake it).
* NoticeThis: Most (but not all) interactive objects are marked by sparkles (including stashes with items), and exits are often marked with big bright arrows.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: The Brookside sanctuary is run by the remnants of government (collectively called "the Suits", and universally despised), who provides people with jobs, and pays for them in food. In the Prologue, Juno (who run out of rations) goes to them to get something, only for them to demand the documents proving her qualification (knowing that those weren't amongst top-priority things during evacuation), on the loose justification that one dude tried to scam them by posing as researcher. Despite Juno ''already'' working for them in the past, and them being perfectly fine with it. Juno comments on the fact that, after the fricking apocalypse, she was fucked by petty bureaucracy, of all things. That's why she has to ask Billy for help.
-->'''Juno''': Damn it... Am I seriously being screwed over by petty bureaucracy in the middle of an apocalypse?!
* OnceMoreWithClarity:
** Dr. Peters' exposition about the Infection repeats many points of Juno's narration from the game's opening scene, but now tells why it happened the way it happened.
** Research logs in the Area 66 base retells past events, including what Juno came through, but from Feinstein's point of view, finally putting the missing pieces of the puzzle into place.
* OneGenderRace: All Dryads are feminine-lookng hermaphrodites; while first generation is entirely made of transformed human females, the same applies to any naturally-born Dryads.
* OneHitKill:
** All three melee weapons deals 9 points of damage; the only enemy in the game who can survive it is the Dryad (having 10 HP), and she's a boss. Any other enemy would be destroyed in one hit.
** Shotgun deals 5 point of damage, which is enough to kill even Reptile (second-toughest common enemy). Tactical shotgun can one-shot Androids, too.
** Both Elite Hivelings and Androids, if they manage to successfully attack Juno, causes immediate game over.
* OneManArmy: It's stated that a single Dryad can wipe out entire squad of infantry with zero efforts; even if they have HAF-based ammo, they would only have ''a chance'' to fight back. Chances becomes more reasonable if not trying to attack Dryad on her territory, and instead make her fight in urban environment where she can't exploit her powers to get extra advantage.
* OneSteveLimit: {{Averted|Trope}}, several characters who never interacts with each other shares surnames, which may or may not indicate them being related (the plot happens on relatively small territory):
** Natasha and [[PosthumousCharacter Sarah]] share surname Kane; Sarah has moved to West Greer shortly before the outbreak, and at least some of the cops in Brookside used to live there before it was overrun.
** One of the cops attacked by Gavin soon after the outing in West Greer is named Jules Freemantle; he shares surname with [[PosthumousCharacter Leslie Freemantle]], David's co-worker on the Easter Greer subway station, who died from unknown infection.
* OurZombiesAreDifferent: The Infection was originally caused by parasitic fungi infecting the crops, and then humans eating the food produced from those; the parasite targets the brain, but can't actually take it over until the host gets weakened by some other infection or injury. Once it intercepts the body functions, it starts gradually covering the host with fungal growths, which slows it down, but gives heavy protection, as well as allows to quickly "patch up" any wounds. Once zombified, people becomes contagious: scratches or contact with body fluids would expose the victim to strengthened strain, which would overwhelm their immune system. The zombies can sustain themselves via photosynthesis, albeit they would still try to eat flesh if have a chance. Only males turns into actual zombies, and they always attack the other males with intent to infect or kill them; females instead undergoes mental degradation and become consumed with desire for reproduction: the parasite needs them as the incubators and relay nods. Male zombies eventually dies and gets recycled into fuel to create the Hive, which is the entire purpose for the Infection's existence: there, carefully-selected female children gets turned into Dryads, the ultimate life form intended to surpass humans. The Infection also targets dogs and alligators, but first ones seems to the tools to infect more humans, and latter are evolutionary dead-end.
* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: The player, when accessing computers in the Subway, can read correspondence between David and Leslie. According to it, David was publicly reprimanded for using "123abc" as his password by his boss, Judy Taka, who was tasked with improving security by installing decent passwords on every terminal. The new password is "die judy" (blatantly violating another instruction, not using spaces), which he put on a sticky note and attached to a monitor (which is how you access it).
* PayEvilUntoEvil: Juno deals with Gavin by using security alarm to send Runners into his hideout, where they massacres both Gavin and his few surviving goons.
* PermanentlyMissableContent:
** One of requirements for the best ending is to find all 8 notes (not counting Sarah's suicide note, which is a part of sidequest), which are spread across the game. Due to [[PointOfNoReturn earlier areas becoming inaccessible past certain points]], notes must be retrieved before passing them, with some being easier to miss than the others:
*** Very first note can be found as early as in the Prologue, but the only way to gain it is by refusing Billy's advances and doing an errand for him. Due to the way the cheat room works, using it before doing the errand (read: almost entirety of the Prologue) would also skip the note.
*** There are three notes which must be retrieved before going to Cold Pines; two in Subway are across essential path anyway, but one in the Hospital is in a side room which player may easily miss if they just grab the medkit for Geoff and run with it (especially since it's in a small room with zombie inside, and no other useful supplies).
*** Two of the notes can only be retrieved while doing side quests just before evacuation; both requires going out of your way to actually find them, and taking major risk.
*** The final note is in the University; it has to be retrieved before the player kills Dryad and checks on her body, because as soon as the player does that, [[EvilAllAlong Dr. Feinstein would reveal his true colours]] and backstab Juno, automatically leading to the final level.
** Once the player moves to Cold Pines, helping Donny to find out what's happened to Sarah, and Barton what's happened with survivors he was trading with becomes impossible, cutting away the best ending (which requires all side quests being completed).
** Cassie, Natasha and Sophia each have a side tasks how to make the upcoming evacuation of Brookside safer; not completing all three before [[PointOfNoReturn proceeding with evacuation]] locks the player in the bad ending.
** During the operation in Downtown, Thompson would ask to find survivors who went missing; the player is free to leave and return as much as they want while operation is ongoing, but once it's finished, you [[PointOfNoReturn can only leave the area permanently]]; if you didn't finish the quest yet, it would be failed, locking you out of best ending. Fortunately, all hostiles dies once you deal with the Hive.
** If you plan to get any ending above C, you have to fully upgrade the shelter ''before'' finishing the assignment in the University, as [[PointOfNoReturn you wouldn't get a chance to return afterwards]].
** Looking for Dr. Zara's research for General Hawke is necessary to obtain the best ending, but it must be done before you kill the Dryad and check on her in the main campus, as it's when Dr. Feinstein reveals his true colours. You then have to give that data to General Hawke; if you missed the chance to give it to him at the base, you can do it during the final mission, but it must be done before proceeding to the final push.
* PlantMooks: Hivelings (also known as the "grunts") aren't zombified humans; the Hive grows them as needed, and recycles them when they dies.
* PlayableEpilogue: Every ending, after the credits, allows the player to wander around and see for themselves how things went afterwards.
* PointOfNoReturn: At several point, the player gets warned that there's no way to turn back and retrieve the missed loot or complete missed side quest once they proceed.
** Before using the cheat room, player gets warned that they wouldn't be able to return if they enter, and given a chance to reconsider.
** Once the player goes back to the Suits HQ and gets recruited for outing, there's no way to go back and stockpile missed supplies. Juno wouldn't return there until Act 2, by which point sanctuary would be mostly overrun.
** Moving to Cold Pines on a boat cuts off everything in the previous areas. Likewise, once Juno leaves Cold Pines on a car, she leaves behind whatever she didn't pick up, including one of the notes.
** Before evacuation to the military base, the player gets a chance to stockpile and complete the side quests to improve the chances for successful evacuation; not doing this cuts those options off, as well as the better endings.
** Before leaving the Jamesway Bridge, the player gets warned that they wouldn't be able to return. Unlike the other similar cases, it has no plot-critical items, so the player would only miss on supplies they could've recovered.
** Before leaving the Downtown, you would be warned that you wouldn't return there, and that any ongoing quests in this area (namely, Thompson's quest to look for survivors) would be failed.
** You can go back and forth as much as you want during operation in the University, but as soon as you complete your task there, Juno would be captured by one of the scientists backstabbing her, and the game would proceed to the final level. If the player didn't give General Hawke's Zara's research yet (which is obtainable in the University), they can do it now, but all other tasks are forfeit: if you didn't do them before, then it's already too late.
** Once you exit the laboratory you start in at the Area 66 base, you can't return back.
* PoisonedWeapons: When Hivelings attacks with intent to kill rather than capture, they use strong poison which not only paralyses the body, but can cause cardiac arrest (that's why Juno has to use adrenaline to help some victims).
* PosthumousCharacter: There are multiple plot-important characters who're dead or [[FateWorseThanDeath worse]] by the time you learn about their existence:
** Sarah Kane [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled chose to shoot herself rather than be captured by zombies]]; you can find her suicide note, and tell about her fate to her fiance, who feels relief that at least it was painless (he spent months waiting for her in vain, expecting the worst), and then follows her into death.
** Out of several named characters in the Subway, only David is [[SoleSurvivor still alive]], yet insane; one of his higher-ups, Hansen, bleed to death due to injuries sustained during attack (but not before sealing the station to prevent all those hordes from spreading further), his friend Leslie succumbed to Infection and died, and Anna was [[FateWorseThanDeath snatched by the zombies]] due to David [[DirtyCoward locking the door on her to save his skin]].
** The log Juno finds in the Cold Pines safehouse tells about the team of rangers (Bryce, Sullivan and Sophie O'Hara), and Porter family which agreed to help them. Bryce was killed early on, leaving Sullivan in charge, and then operation to gas the dogs in the cabin went poorly and resulted in Mr. Porter being killed and Mrs. Porter snatched; Sophie was captured too, but briefly released, [[ItCanThink so the dogs could track her to the safehouse]]. Sullivan (who initially fled in panic) tried to go out and help Sophie; all that has to be said about it is that you loot his ID to enter safehouse from his mutilated corpse.
** By the time you learn about Richard Harvey (the head of sanctuary), he's already dead, torn apart by the angry mob during Gavin's coup.
** While exploring the dangerzone, you can find the corpse of a little girl (nametag on her doll identifies her as Wendy), and read the diary which confirms that she starved to death. Close nearby is her zombified father, and the corpse of his friend who died protecting Wendy.
* PracticalCurrency: During the Acts 1 and 2, booze and cigarettes serves as a currency of sort, as Juno can exchange them for ammo. In the Act 3, they cease to serve as such, and instead can be sold for Base Points (virtual "currency" which represents Juno's standing with the military).
* PressXToDie:
** Whenever you go to sleep during Act 1, you receive a warning that trying it with high Infection is a bad idea. The player may try to do it anyway, only to get immediate game over.
** If you enter inside after Donny [[DrivenToSuicide shoots himself]], [[DownplayedTrope you'd lose some Morale]] when Juno would see his corpse. There's no reason to do that, as he already gave you all his supplies, so it's either greed or unhealthy curiosity.
** There are plenty of options which only hurts the player, but some are blatant and obvious traps which leads to well-deserved NonstandardGameOver if taken:
*** In the school, there's a locked door to restroom with "[[Series/TheWalkingDead2010 Don't open; dead inside]]" written on it; the player even receives a warning when they attempt to unlock it. If they go inside anyway, they would find out that survivors locked inside truckload of zombies who promptly ambush Juno with no chance to escape.
*** David is clearly deranged and highly unstable, and gets very angry when he thinks that someone may try to steal his precious key. The player may try to steal it anyway (rather than negotiate with him; he readily trades it for cigarettes), which leads to him attacking Juno and easily overpowering.
*** If you read the log in Cold Pines safehouse, you would learn that the dogs which massacred the camp you previously encountered have set up their lair in the old cabin on the lakeside. While you do need to go there in order to obtain the fuel for your car, nothing stops you from going inside without doing what [[PosthumousCharacter Sullivan]] failed and gassing them first; as may be expected, you would never come back.
*** In Kerry's house, you have to read Kerry's diary to find out the password from the computer to unlock the locked door (it's her mother's maiden name). Once in the bedroom, you immediately hear strange sounds and see Kerry's portrait, which clearly shows that she was mutated into human/canine hybrid; it's even more blatant if you also saw security footage from her computer. Nothing stops you from coming closer in attempt to help her, only to get immediately attacked by both Kerry and Rex, and share Kerry's fate.
*** The door to evidence storage room has the remote alarm right outside, which redirects the zombies there further down the corridor. The player may try to check where the zombies went, and enter interrogation room... and promptly get attacked by all the zombies which gathered in that room.
*** The terminal which you must use to send zombies after Gavin has an option to send those zombies into ''your'' room; [[SubvertedTrope if you try it anyway, turns out that only alarm in Gavin's hideout is still operational]].
*** By the time the player reaches Jamesway Bridge, they already know that if there's a button close to a door, better check it first; this one reveals that control room is flooded, and can't be un-flooded without a keycard. You may try to enter control room anyway, and get an immediate game over when you run into a pack of gators. [[DevelopersForesight Even if you somehow survive]], Juno would comment that the panel wouldn't work because of water, so you still have to backtrack and do it the intended way (with unflooding also removing the gators).
* PressXToNotDie: When the player gets attacked by an enemy, a QTE triggers to push them off, giving Juno a chance to either kill it or run away. However, this mechanic has 30 seconds cooldown. This mechanic works for every enemy, including the Dryad and Androids.
* ThePurge: By the time Juno returns to the sanctuary, Gavin had killed a lot of people who didn't side with him:
** During the ill-fated outing in West Greer, he sent Natasha and her group into ambush, where their transports were gunned down by Gavin's co-conspirators. He failed to actually kill her, and her group later rejoined the survivors in Brookside when Gavin's coup collapsed on itself. He also planned to kill Dr. Peters and Sophia, but they insisted on going with Natasha to gather more samples, which saved their lives. In light of this, it also becomes clear why he chose to backstab Juno in the first place: [[HeKnowsTooMuch she's not on the plan, and he can't take any risks]].
** Gavin imprisoned, tortured, interrogated and then killed most cops who refused to submit to him.
** After successful coup, Gavin and Billy disposed of all captured Suits, including former leader of the sanctuary, Richard Harvey.
* PuzzleBoss: As the Dryad can't be permanently defeated by conventional means, the goal is to find a way to poison her with HAF-2b. This requires using a boiler, which has to be turned on first -- all while being pursued by the Dryad in almost utter darkness.
* RandomDrop: While some sources of the loot are fixed, most would randomly give you cigarettes, beer or whiskey (some people, namely Barton, accepts it in return for ammo, and later those can traded for "base point"), bleach (used to get rid of fungi blocking the way), desinfectant (lowers Infection), painkillers (used to restore Morale) or food.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: In the ending C, some sane military officers, like Lindsay and Thompson Taylor, were reassigned far away from their units, on some minor and insignificant positions. It's still better than what they did to the opposition amongst civilians...
* RedEyesTakeWarning: All infected dogs have glowing red eyes. Kerry and Juno, in Kerry's NonstandardGameOver scene, gains those too as part of the mutation.
* RemovingTheHeadOrDestroyingTheBrain: It's of no use to shoot zombies anywhere but the head: the wounds would be quickly sealed by fungus. But destroying the brain destroys the parasite driving the zombie.
* ReviveKillsZombie: When Dr. Peters manages to use the HAF-2 research to make viable cure, turns out that it can't help those whose Infection has progressed too far; it would kill them instead, shutting down their body organs. This includes Dryads, so if General Hawke wouldn't be convinced that Eva turning into Dryad wouldn't strip her of her humanity, he would try to use it on her out of desperation -- with disastrous consequences.
* RevivingEnemy: The Hive, when threatened, would create Hivelings for its protection, repeatedly.
** Juno would run into Hivelings during operation in the Downtown (they're the only enemy she would encounter there). Hivelings can't die for real for as long as the Hive Nod controlling them is alive; they would respawn 5 seconds later. But if the Nod dies (or the Hive itself gets destroyed), they perish permanently.
** {{Defied|Trope}} by Dr. Feinstein when trying to make the Hive he managed to capture mature without attacking: he put it into containment filled with HAF-2, which keeps killing any Hivelings spawned; just as he expected, the Hive [[ItCanThink was intelligent enough]] to stop this useless bruteforcing, and concentrated on incubating instead.
* RoomFullOfZombies: Every non-boss zombie (excluding Swarmlings, who instead have unique game over during boss fight against "elites") has exactly one NonstandardGameOver caused by running into a room full of this kind of zombies; all such cases can be either avoided or neutralised:
** In East Greer school, there's a locked door with "[[Series/TheWalkingDead2010 don't open; dead inside]]" warning. Unfortunately, if Juno [[PressXToDie disregards the warning and own bad feeling, and opens it anyway]], turns out that zombies are pretty much alive...
** In the Subway, [[SchmuckBait there's a shotgun in some dead end]]. Unfortunately, attempt to go there leads to floor breaking, and Juno falling somewhere deep and getting surrounded by Crawlers; ''many'' Crawlers. It doesn't happen if the player previously found the note about that part of subway being in the state of disrepair, as Juno would just jump over safely, otherwise, there's no chance to avoid it, and it ''would'' catch the player by surprise if they try to grab it.
** During Cold Pines level (which concludes the Act 1), Juno eventually encounters a building which suspiciously still has light coming from its windows; if you read the logs in the safehouse, you'd know that it's a lair of the local dogs. If Juno [[PressXToDie tries to enter anyway]], she would promptly get ambushed by huge dog pack. You ''do'' need to get inside, but only after dealing with the dogs via DeadlyGas.
** The Brookside's police station's evidence storage is full of Runners, who immediately ambush Juno if she enters inside without redirecting them to interrogation room via remote alarm right outside; afterwards, the player may [[PressXToDie enter the interrogation room]].
** Early in the Act 3, Juno participates in the operation on the Jamesway Bridge, which needs to be lowered. Unfortunately, if she's not careful, she may end up in the flooded room full of mutant alligators.
* RuleOfThree: The player can survive two encounters with Dryad; third one would be invariably fatal, as Dryad would finally succeed at breaking Juno's willpower via her psychic powers.
* RunOrDie:
** Hivelings can be temporarily stopped, but not destroyed. They only die for real if you destroy the Hive they're attached to. So, the best course of action is to avoid them, as, while frail, they hit like a truck, and ammo is highly limited.
** Dryad is easily the most dangerous enemy in the game, being able to easily catch up with you and annihilate you; even if you put her down (which wouldn't be easy), she would soon regenerate back and resume pursuit. Finding the way to kill her is [[PuzzleBoss part of the challenge]].
* SanitySlippage: Kerry's [[ApocalypticLog diary]] is divided into 10 chapters, from earlier days, to just shortly before your arrival. The last couple of entries reveals that she was infected by Rex and shows early signs of succumbing to the Infection; by that time, she starts using somewhat weird choice of words, with the Entry 10 in particular also having numerous spelling errors and missing spaces. Much later, it would be revealed that intellect degradation is amongst symptoms of dog-transmitted strain of Infection: Kerry was doomed even before Rex overwhelmed her.
* SchmuckBait:
** The dark, but empty corridor in the Subway with sudden free shotgun on the other side? Try to go there without knowing of the damaged floor, and floor would break as soon as Juno steps on it, leading to her falling into some room below filled with Crawlers and without any exits.
** Attempt to save Dryad's captives (who lies in the open, completely unprotected) results in them attacking Juno and infecting her; turns out, they're just too far gone by this point.
* SchrodingersGun: If you resist Gavin and take his gun, Sarah's gun would be rusty and broken beyond repair, providing only ammo; if you don't, Sarah's gun would be perfectly operational. This is to ensure that the player wouldn't get two pistols and screw the scripts.
* SewerGator: The reason why all Reptiles (mutant alligators) are in the sewers, and not in the wild -- because those ''are'' mutant sewer gators; parasite only bothers with mutating animals because it makes easier to spread Infection on humans (or, failing that, kill them).
* SexForServices: At several points, Juno and/or her friends may pay with body for certain favours, as "easier" solution to the current problem. It's ''always'' strictly harmful option, both in short-terms and long-terms; begging the military for aid in improving the shelter has especially bad negative effects.
* SexSlave:
** David, already [[{{Jerkass}} not exactly nice guy]], went [[AxCrazy completely insane]] after what he survived in the Subway. If Juno tries to take away his key by force, he beats her up and ties, to use as his playtoy. [[NonstandardGameOver It ends the game prematurely]].
** The ending C has radicals amongst the military overthrowing civilian leaders when they opposed their brutality, and condemning them to serving as public slaves for the military. If Juno tries to defend them, she shares their fate, otherwise, she has to comfort herself with the lie that it was "necessary" and that "they were punished for endangering the war efforts".
* SexualExtortion: Billy agrees to do fake documents for Juno, but only if she would "please" him (he doesn't care about just getting more food rations, but he has... certain interest to Juno herself). When she understandably reacts with disgust, he offers alternative solution: go to Stanton through the sewers and bring back a package; choice is hers. Player may do either, but actually submitting to Billy not only drains Morale, but also cuts off the best ending.
* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Shotgun has ''the'' highest base damage amongst firearms, allowing to kill any enemy save for Dryad and Androids in one hit. Upgraded shotgun one-shots Androids, too.
* ShoutOut:
** The locked restroom has "[[Series/TheWalkingDead2010 Don't open; dead inside"]] written on the door. Unlike Rick, Juno [[PressXToDie may try to actually open it]]. Even the map's internal name is a reference, as it's called "High School of the Dead".
** Apparently, Thompson is a Creator/MontyPython fan, as he makes several quotes of their works; he asks Juno to not tell anyone, ''especially'' his sister.
* ShowerOfLove: The mix of having a first hot shower since the outbreak, dealing with gentleman instead of another jerk for once, and, of course, the alcohol consumed, leads to Juno trying to seduce Barton while taking a shower (they agreed that he would take it once she finishes, but she calls him prematurely). He tries to resist, [[AboveTheInfluence refusing to take advantage of her being drunk]], but ultimately gives in. This intimacy with someone loving and caring for once greatly increases Juno's resolve, [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration permanently increasing max Morale]].
* StealthBasedGame: While the player eventually stockpiles enough weapons to fight their way through most enemies, generally best course of action is to just avoid confrontations altogether. This, obviously, doesn't work with Androids, as you can't avoid them, and they stand between you and your goal.
* SuddenlyVoiced: Dryad in University has all her lines voiced; no character before or after her does that.
* SurvivalHorror: The story takes place after a ZombieApocalypse, with [[PlayerCharacter Juno]] having to survive in zombie-infested ruins of now-overrun towns, carefully managing limited ammo and flashlight batteries and avoiding being snatched or infected by zombies (and sometimes humans who're worse than zombies). Sometimes, Juno's adventures brings her to the dark, narrow tunnels with the slow, but resilient pursuers lurking just out of sight, and to the flooded undergrounds where she can't even run, while the danger is always close...
* TakingYouWithMe:
** When Billy's attempt to force Gavin to fulfil his end of bargain ended with Gavin gunning down him and his gang, Billy detonated the bombs he preinstalled across the sanctuary, which allowed all kinds of zombies to breach it. By the time you reach the former Suits HQ, only Gavin himself and few his supporters are still alive, holing up in one of the rooms, while mortally wounded Billy is bleeding in the janitor closer.
** When asked why he's helping Juno with taking out Gavin, by giving her the keycard she needs to send zombies after him, Billy says that he's about to expire, but he can avenge his death by Juno's hands.
* TechnicallyLivingZombie: Zombies aren't undead; their bodies are alive, while their brain is controlled by the parasite. Their bodies gradually gets consumed by fungi, which then dissolves them to fuel creation of the Hive.
* TeleportingKeycardSquad: As soon as you restart water treatment plant, several Runners spawns on your way to exit: the noise attracted the zombies.
* TemptingFate: The final note is from the dean of University, who took his mute daughter with him, thinking that it's the safest place for her, while he was participating in experiments to stop the Infection; he claims that with their supplies, they can last for years. By the time you arrive there, he's dead, University is overrun, and said daughter is that same Dryad you're facing.
* TimeSkip: All endings takes place several years after conclusion of the main story.
* TornApartByTheMob: According to Cassie, the first thing Gavin did after taking over the Suits HQ is to give over every captured Suit to the angry mob from Stanton, who see the Suits as the source of their problems; they were promptly lynched, with the former leader of the sanctuary, Richard Harvey (who made the last attempt at negotiations), in particular, being ''literally'' torn apart, limb by limb.
-->'''Cassie''': Funny how sometimes an angry mob of regular humans will do way worse to you than infected monsters...
* TragicMonster:
** If you read Kerry's diary, you would learn that she has a dog named Rex who was heavily protective of her after the outbreak, even refused to eat until she eats first, and later went out for hunting. But you just know that things aren't gonna end well when diary mentions Rex being wounded (you already encountered plenty of zombie dogs before). Sure enough, the rest of diary describes how he turned into a zombie, ''slowly'', being aware that something is wrong with him and trying to resist, or, failing that, warn Kerry to stay away, feeling that the danger now comes from himself. Then he succumbs. All this time, Kerry (who already lost everyone but Rex) is unaware just what's going on and why her fateful dog is suddenly betraying her.
** One of the zombies you can encounter in Brookside is a father, who, despite recently being zombified, still has some sanity left. He reacts if he sees Juno with the doll which belonged to his daughter Wendy (by the time Juno finds her, she's dead from starvation), and rushes to check on Wendy instead of attacking Juno... and then uses his last strength of will to ''beg to being killed''.
** The Dryad from University, once you read Feinstein's research logs, becomes hard to not sympathise with. She ''wasn't'' captured by the zombies; Feinstein killed her father right in front of her (surprisingly, he wasn't okay with idea to use his daughter as guinea pig), and forcibly put her into artificially-created Hive; in fact, when you first step into the University, Dryad would stand near his coffin. Feinstein then grew her in extremely horrific conditions, and performed cruel experiments on her. Zara, meanwhile, whispered her poisonous lies into the girl's ears, hoping to use her as a tool against Feinstein and anti-Infection efforts. Neither takes into account that she's a telepath. While she does believe in Zara's EcoTerrorist cause and that humanity should be stopped, she doesn't see her as a friend, and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard easily betrays]]. Not even Juno finds her truly evil, despite being directly threatened by her.
* UnfinishedUntestedUsedAnyway: The androids never were finished, lacking proper Friend-or-Foe system and thus attacking everything that moves (obeying only the person holding special beacon, which are in limited supply due to safety concerns), yet Dr. Feinstein still ordered to release them as the last ditch attempt to buy time to launch ICBM with weaponised HAF-2... and they proceeded with attacking everything that moves. One of survivors defects to Hawke's people and tells about this, but Hawke says that he [[HoistByHisOwnPetard has zero compassion for them]].
* UnfriendlyFire: Gavin ordered to shoot at his own convoy, to get rid of the officers he can't trust (amongst them Natasha), and [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident passed it as the zombie attack]]. It didn't quite work, but it became a moot point when he started an open coup.
* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: If the player forces [[PlayerCharacter Juno]] into (avoidable) traumatic situations, it ''always'' severely penalises them:
** Billy (whom Juno openly hates and asks for help out of desperation) offers two options how she can pay for his assistance in gaining the documents she needs, one involves [[SexForServices "servicing" him]], another involves doing errand job; taking errand job is part of requirement for the GoldenEnding, while other option drains 50 Morale (out of default 100).
** Submitting to Gavin drains 50 Morale; fighting to the end not only costs you nothing, but gives a free pistol and extra ammo.
** Military despises civilians, thinking them as TheLoad, and refuses to share and assist in improving civilian shelter. Juno can beg for help (even after a warning that it's ''not'' a good idea), or work hard to earn respect; guess which option penalises maximum Morale (as the military demands [[SexForServices very specific kind of "payment"]]) and locks you in the bad endint, and which makes everyone happy and rewards the player.
* TheVirus:
** Called simply "the Infection", the disease exists as both driving force of the plot and as actual gameplay mechanic.
*** The disease (caused by microscopic fungus) originally spread when the once-dormant parasite was accidentally disturbed and infected the crops in South America, which then were distributed across the world. The parasite is incapable of hurting its host right away, but instead hides in their brain, waiting till something else weakens them (injury, other disease...), which allows it to take the body over. Men turn into your typical zombies: rabid and attacking anyone on sight which isn't them, to either kill or spread disease, while women become sex-crawing and gradually go insane; either can spread the Infection further via body fluids (blood, saliva, etc). The true purpose of those "zombies" is even more sinister: men are used as organic fuel to grow a Hive, and women as the Hive's incubators, to produce its defenders; the ultimate goal of the Hive is to hatch a Dryad, created from abducted and carefully transformed female children.
*** The game tracks Juno's level of Infection, representing it as the scale from 0 to 10. When the infection level reaches at least 5, Juno may occasionally lose control over herself, even in the middle of the battle, which may be extremely dangerous. During Act 1, there's also another risk: attempt to sleep with high Infection leads to immediate game over. It can be partially removed with desinfectants (common consumables), or fully by suppressants (rare consumables), but generally the best protection is to simply avoid it altogether. Every enemy spreads it on contact, with some causing extra Infection.
** As the countermeasure against the Infection, the special virus (Hyperevolutionary Antiparasite Formula, or just HAF for short) was created; idea is that, once project is complete, the virus would be capable of catch up with constantly-evolving Infection, and destroy it. It goes through multiple stages of development:
*** First stage, HAF-1, simply doesn't work, being too weak at this stage. However, it's this weak form which Feinstein uses to create vaccine from it, which becomes crucial for his plans later.
*** Feinstein continues working on HAF on his own, and makes it actually work... and also makes it extremely lethal ''to humans'' (not even gas mask ensures enough protection): the virus, int the current state, can't tell apart infected and "healthy" humans, due to similarities in DNA. Feinstein has to weaken it, which makes it possible to actually study it, but also renders it incapable of spreading around.
*** When Dr. Feinstein manages to improve it using the samples received from Dr. Peters (creating HAF-2b), it gets used against Dryad when Juno helps him to spread it around University. He then further improves it with Dryad's genetic material, making it capable of survive in the atmosphere, and tries to use it as a weapon of mass destruction (not caring about human casualties); stopping him is the goal on final level.
*** If Feinstein gets stopped, research gets continued, but it gets discovered that even after resolving issue with lethality to humans, it still remains poisonous to infected, Dryads included. Whether Dr. Peters would focus on weaponising it further, or improving the cure, depends on the ending the player achieves.
* WasOnceAMan: All Dryads were originally female children, abducted and put into incubators, where they gradually undergo transformation and emerge fully-adult. They do keep some traces of original personalities, which can be reawakened if they meet the persons who used to know them, and gets approached with love rather than hatred and fear.
* WeHaveReserves: Military junta in the ending C2 has little regards for casualties.
-->'''Soldier''': Alright team, huddle close and listen up! We get one shot and one shot only! Team A will advance as Team B flanks and Team C provides covering fire! We expect to lose Team A completely! This is a necessary sacrifice for us to take down the enemy asset! Your name and legacy will be honoured forever! Be brave! Be valiant! Now - Draw ballots for who goes in Team A!
* WeUsedtoBeFriends: Feinstein and Peters were friends before the outbreak; it doesn't get elaborated upon, but it's rather clear that Peters was hurt by revelation of Feinstein's goals and methods, judging by how he talks to him during the trial.
* WhamLine: At Fort Patton, Dr. Peters reveals that ''everyone'' is infected; the parasite is already within every human, but can't overcome them until they either grow weak from some other illness or injury, or come into contact with body fluids from the zombie (saliva, blood, etc).
-->'''Dr. Peters''': I did not think disseminating that information would have been helpful. After all, it does nothing but spread needless panic. Juno... ''Everyone'' is infected. The entire human population. From the first days of the outbreak, it spread like wildfire.
* WhatTheHellHero: General Hawke understandably gets called out on not warning about what to expect in the Downtown, during attack on active Hivemind, as it costed many lives and nearly killed Juno herself. He tells that ''he'' didn't encounter the Hivelings (Eva was so close to completing her incubation, the Hive risked to redirect all resources to that instead of defence, which was a fatal mistake), so he was caught by surprise just as Juno; but she then tells that he knew what the Hive is doing to humans, yet didn't warn Juno, which could've resulted in her killing Ellie had she started incubating. He has nothing to say to it, other than that he takes all the fault for this, but it was his only shot to find a way to save ''his'' daughter.
* WolfpackBoss: When the player reaches the Hive, they have to fight five "elite" Hivelings. Those move faster and have twice as much HP, but wouldn't regenerate once killed. The player has to defeat all five, while having limited space for mobility, and [[OneHitKill no right for mistake]].
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Geoff blames himself for being too late to save his wife, but Juno comforts him, saying that he did everything in his power.
-->'''Juno''': At the very least -- she believed in you and waited for you till the very end. And you met that expectation, no matter how long it took. That means something.\\
'''Geoff''': Yes. I have to look on the bright side. Be strong, and live on. In her memory. Thank you, Juno.
* YouAreInCommandNow:
** In the endings D and E, due to General Hawke either committing suicide, shutting himself with his daughter or retiring, major Lindsay Taylor gets assigned to "temporarily" replace him; after TimeSkip, she's still holding that position, despite never being formally promoted.
** As Dryads had no leadership to begin with, Eva gets chosen as their representative due to having both connections and motivation. She's frequently addressed as "Dryad princess".
* ZergRush: Dogs often come in packs, which compensates for them being killable with one shot: it's enough if at least one reaches you and successfully attacks, and struggle has a cooldown.
* ZombieApocalypse: The story takes place at least several months after the Infection destroyed most of humanity and forced humans out of large cities.

! Civilians
[[folder:Juno Townsend]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_juno.png]]
Juno used to be an engineer before the apocalypse.

* ActionGirl: While scared and just struggling to survive at first, she eventually becomes one-woman-army and humanity's best chance at survival. Both Barton and Thompson voices her being so badass as part of her charm, while General Hawke at one moment comments on Dr. Peters trying to volunteer to go with her by pointing that it's ''he'' who would slow down ''her''.
* ActionSurvivor: She never was outside of safezone before that ill-fated outing under Gavin, being just an engineer. Yet she quickly learns how to stand her ground and ultimately becomes one of humanity's best fighters and leaders.
* ChekhovsSkill: {{Inverted|Trope}}; her learning how to use guns so quickly gets explained in the Act 3 as her using to work on the gun range (amongst... other, [[IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney more embarrassing jobs]]).
* TheEngineer: She's a former engineer (specialising in electrics), and [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration actually uses her skills to solve in-game problems]].
* IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney: Back in the days, she had to work as a stripper in Billy's now-defunct strip-club to pay for college (she was very low on money after her mother passed away); she prefers to forget about it, while he tries to push things further. This period of her life is why she hates Billy so much. Besides that, she also tried two other jobs; of those, one was a honest job at a gun range (which explains why she knows how to use guns), and another was that of a dominatrix's assistant (which she liked much more as at least the clients knew how to behave).
* LivingLegend: Juno managing to perform the impossible time and time again quickly makes everyone around her praise her for her heroism. It's of little surprise that she gets elected a new president in the endings D and E.
* MissingDad: Her father abandoned family when she was 10 years-old, so she was risen by mother (who passed away around the time when Juno went to college).
* MsFanservice: Other characters wears modest and practical outfits. Juno wears short tank top and shorts, which, while not ridiculously revealing, certainly don't look like something you would put on for dangerous field operation. She continues dressing like this even if she gets elected a president.
-->'''Soldier''': Man, the infected are gonna have at you like kids at a breakfast buffet...
* PlayerCharacter: She's the character we're playing as.
* PowerfulPeopleAreSubs: Besides having to work for Billy (something she'd rather forget), she had to work as a dominatrix (well, assistant of the one, as part-time, but who cares); according to her, there were many rich and powerful people you'd never suspect to show such interests. Thompson quickly gets interested.
* TokenGoodTeammate: Even in the ending C2, where she sides with radical militaries, she preserves some of her principles, namely, she's the only one to refuse employing {{Child Soldier}}s; one of the officers calls her out on this, saying that they can't afford being picky: it's child soldiers, or no soldiers, attrition is just that bad.
* TookALevelInBadass: Juno comes from scared woman on the brink of mental breakdown who was just left for death far away from home, to grizzled survivor and fighter, to one of the leaders of remnants of mankind. The cover art for each act reflects it, showing her progressively more self-confident, and it's further reinforced by her gradually increasing the max Morale over the course of the game, symbolising her resolve strengthening.
* {{Workaholic}}: If she gets elected a president (in the endings D and E), several characters points that she's overworking herself and needs some rest and proper dinners (particularly Sophia, who insists on cooking for her, so she would at least feed healthily).

[[folder:Cassie]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_cassie.png]]
Chief mechanic from Brookside sanctuary.

* ButchLesbian: She's a possible love interest for Juno, and the most tomboyish and aggressive female character in the cast.
* FieryRedhead: She has rather [[HotBlooded fiery temper]].
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: While she may be seen as early as in Prologue, she wouldn't be properly introduced until Act 2.
* WrenchWench: She's a resident mechanic; her sidequest even involves finding her missing tools, so she may upgrade the transports before evacuation. If assisted in establishing the working station in the civilian shelter, she would provide a free Axe for Juno whenever she has none.

[[folder:Sophia]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_sophia.png]]
Dr. Peters' assistant.

* ClosestThingWeGot: As she's the only person in the Brookside sanctuary with prior medical education (she's a former nurse), Dr. Peters had no one else to appoint his assistant than her. In the endings D and E, she becomes the new minister of medicine for pretty much the same reason.
* TheMedic: She was the nurse before the outbreak; now, she serves as Dr. Peters' assistant in running the hospital and doing medical research. If assisted in setting up the medical station in civilian shelter, she'd also share some free Morale-restoring items whenever Juno runs out of them.
* PlatonicLifePartners: She's impassionate with working under Dr. Peters, whom she adores as a genius dedicated to his mission, but their relationship is strictly professional; in fact, the only person to whom she ever shows attraction is Juno (Sophia is a possible love interest for her).

[[folder:Geoff]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_geoff.png]]
Geoff used to work as a janitor in the office building in Hamilton.

* TheAlcoholic: Shortly before the outbreak, he was kicked from the house by his wife for drinking too much. He supposedly quit drinking afterwards, not in the last turn because him not being near his wife is what got her killed.
* OptionalPartyMember: If Juno finishes Barton's side quest, Geoff and Barton would arrive at the last moment to join the evacuation convoy; otherwise, he'd disappear from the story. However, due to oversight, he shows up in the ending D even if said quest wasn't done.
* PoorCommunicationKills: Geoff, while on the outing, found a group of survivors. He tried to crawl up to them to not provoke aggression... and accidentally scared them, which resulted in one of them shooting, hitting fuel tank of Geoff's car. This resulted in the car exploding, Geoff getting grievously wounded (Juno finds him bleeding in the janitor closet in the office building), and survivors being attacked by infected (Juno later finds their shelter, where AlmostDeadGuy explains that males were slaughtered and females abducted).

[[folder:Barton]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_barton.png]]
A gun store owner in Hamilton Close.

* ArmsDealer: He's a gun store owner. He can also sell ammo to Juno, in return for [[PracticalCurrency booze and cigarettes]].
* FamilyBusiness: His family runs a gun store for four generations, and he wouldn't let some zombies or marauders take it over now! He only changes his mind if he realises that the last group of survivors he was trading with is now gone (if Juno brings him evidence of their fate), and later joins the survivors.
* GentleGiant: He's big and threatening. He's also the most gentleman-like character in the cast.
* OptionalPartyMember: It's possible to complete the game without ever meeting him, let alone doing his side quest (which leads to him joining the evacuation convoy at the last moment). However, due to oversight, he shows up in the ending D regardless of player's actions.
* PracticalCurrency: He sells Juno ammo in return for booze and cigarettes: food and water he has in plenty supply, but other things are rare luxuries nowadays.

! Scientists
[[folder:Dr. Theodore Peters]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_peters.png]]
Chief of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention CDC]]. Originally meant to join the team working on the cure for infection in Hamilton, but never made it there, stuck in Brookside, and keeps working solo from there on.

* AdmiringTheAbomination: He admits that, had it wasn't the world-ending treat which turns living humans into monsters, the infection would've been a truly fascinating thing to research, given its ability to mutate its host in such a way.
-->'''Dr. Peters''': The flesh of those infected by the plant parasite... They've actually undergone... evolution, you could say. It would be a most fascinating topic... if not for the fact that this plant parasite is trying to wipe us out.
* FindTheCure: Even in absence of his colleagues and adequate equipment, he keeps working on finding the cure by studying occasional dead zombies; he has some progress: creation of suppressants is attributed to him.
* GoodCounterpart: If [[EvilutionaryBiologist Feinstein]] and [[EcoTerrorist Zara]] both [[KnightTemplar represents horrible extremes]], Peters advocates for peace and saving the planet for us all. He's also the only of the three scientists involved in the project to actually try and work on the ''cure'': Zara wants the project shut down, and Feinstein wants to turn it into a weapon.
* ScienceHero: He's determined to find the cure from the infection -- and he succeeds, giving humanity the chance to survive. With the revelation of the true goals of his colleagues, it becomes clear that he's the only one doing so.
* TokenGoodTeammate: Out of the three people involved in HAF-2 project, one is an EcoTerrorist trying to undermine team's efforts, and one plans to use it as a weapon; only Dr. Peters actually wants to make it into what it's advertised as, and he's also the sole one to condemn unethical experiments, ''never'' experimenting on humans and only studying zombies after realising that he can't gather required data otherwise.

[[folder:Dr. Erwyn Harland Feinstein]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_feinstein.png]]
Representative from [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention CDC]], sent to replace Dr. Peters. Part of research team working on finding the cure for infection.

* ArcVillain: In the Act 3, he decides to use the HAF-2b to destroy all infected on the planet, zombies and humans alike, and restart anew with the genestock he gathered on his base. The final task is to stop him.
* EvilutionaryBiologist: Feinstein admits that Zara was right about the cause of Infection (it's the nature retaliating against humanity growing too much and polluting the planet); but he takes the different approach to this problem: rather than let humanity go extinct, he wants to purge the all infected life (which includes most of humanity) and restart anew with carefully-chosen genestock and build new civilisation via careful eugenics and population control, so that problem wouldn't happen again.
-->'''Dr. Feinstein''': The infection... It's just the start of things. The Earth has begun to detest our very existence... We may stop this armageddon... But another will come. And another. And another. Our only salvation, therefore, Townsend... Is to start over with a rigidly controlled society, one dictated by flawless principles of science. But for us to start over, we need only a small, select control group... Everybody else... And that means everyone outside of Area 66... They are not necessary.
* KnightTemplar: He sincerely believes that wiping out what's left of humanity and rebuilding anew from the "best of the best" he had gathered on his base is the best choice: the nature created Infection as retaliation against humanity spreading and growing like cancer, and would come up with something else if they stop it; the only solution is to purge humanity of everyone who can be sacrificed, and start anew with strictly-controlled society which would value its habitat. He insists on doing "what's best for humanity" even on his trial, just before he faces a firing squad.
-->'''Dr. Feinstein''': As much of a raving lunatic as Dr. Zara was, she was correct about one thing... Humankind is a plague. Overpopulation, pollution, global warming, the list goes on... The damages dealt to the planet are quite substantial. However... In the wake of the infection, the planet has begun to recover. Do you know why? It's because most of the population is dead, or infected. Thereby reducing our carbon footprint by a fairly monumental degree. Yet... If I were to work with Dr. Peters, and produce a 'cure', if you will... Then humanity will recover, and rebound... And the planet will wilt.
* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Dr. Feinstein is doing extremely unethical human experiments in order to figure out how the infection works, and ultimately plans to wipe the planet out of most humans, as it's easier to start anew than fix the existing problems. For extra points, he actually calls it "final solution" in his research log at the Area 66 base.
* NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist: For someone claiming that he's doing what's better for humanity, he's way too dismissive of the other humans' lives, and too enthusiastic about being the one to rebuild it once the world dies in agony. Dr. Peters doesn't fall for it, and tells him to just admit the truth and at least not die a liar.
* TryToFitThatOnABusinessCard: In the Area 66, Juno can find the (rather long) list of his titles; she comments on it.
-->''Dr. Erwyn Harland Feinstein, DS., MBBS., [=PhD=]., Chair of the Neurosurgery & Neurology Committee, Head of the Society of Clinical Immunology & Allergy, Professor of Applied Biotechnology & Biochemistry''\\
'''Juno''': And board-certified, Grade-A asshole who wants to end the world.
* WouldHurtAChild: When he realises that grown-ups can't survive process of turning into Dryads, he decides to throw a child into Hive, right after killing her father in front of her. It comes as a surprise to him when she turns on him.

[[folder:Dr. Emmeline Zara]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_zara.png]]
Representative from the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization WHO]], part of research team working on finding the cure for infection.

* BlackShirt: She sincerely believes that Dryads deserve enslaving humanity and inherit the planet, calls them "gods", and thinks that by assisting them willingly, she would become their servant rather than slave. [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness She ends up being wrong]].
* TheCorruptor: She's at least partially responsible for the Dryad from University hating humans so much: besides being a part of experiments performing on her, she's the one who indoctrinated her with all this "[[EcoTerrorist save the tree, kill the lumberjack]]" propaganda.
* EcoTerrorist: Her motivation to sabotage the efforts to cure the Infection pretty much amounts to saving the nature at the cost of humanity; in fact, she was the one who originally caused the Infected to break out of quarantine, which was what destroyed the original civilisation. She sees the Dryads as deserving to inherit the planet when humans go extinct.
* GenocideFromTheInside: She single-handedly almost wiped out humanity by starting the original outbreak (releasing massive horde of infected which were locked in the hospital). If she gets entrusted with HAF-2 prototype, she would finish the job by destroying the only hope to fight back the infection. Why? Because [[EcoTerrorist she believes that humanity is a cancer and should be expunged]].
* KnightTemplar: She believes that Infection is the nature's retaliation against humanity, and that humans are like cancer and deserve to be cleansed and replaced by Dryads; she openly admits it once Juno comes after her:
-->'''Dr. Zara''': Juno! JUNO! You are merely delaying the inevitable! The inexorable march of Mother Nature cannot be stopped! The infection is her way of declaring war! We, the human species, are a plague, Juno! A plague on the earth! And the Dryad, borne of the infection, is here to cleanse us!
* LaserGuidedKarma: Regardless of how things goes, she gets captured by the Dryad and driven irreversibly insane, getting first-hand experience of the "great future" she planned to create.
* ManipulativeBitch: In the University, she would try to put Juno against Dr. Feinstein and convince to give her the research (which she would then destroy if trusted); while some things she says about him are true, she either omits some crucial details, or mixes truth with lies:
** She tells that HAF-2, in its gas form, is highly toxic and would kill any life in comes in contact with; Dr. Feinstein doesn't care and plans to release it into atmosphere, so she just had to go against him to stop the apocalypse. Both are true; but she lies about circumstances of their conflict, or Dryad being released: instead of Feinstein attacking her for [[HeKnowsTooMuch knowing too much about his project and opposing him]] and releasing the Dryad by accident when shooting at Zara, Dryad was released by Zara herself, on purpose, and shooting was directed at Dryad.
** When telling about the gas, Zara accentuates on Feinstein doing experiments on Juno with injecting HAF-1 into her blood; she omits the part that he did it in cooperation with Zara herself. Feinstein, when asked, tells about the experiment right away, not thinking of it as some important secret.
* {{Matricide}}: One of computers on the Area 66 base reveals that Zara's mother (then-current head of the WHO) was a part of the team. This means that by sabotaging the laboratory, Zara had doomed her, too.
* MisanthropeSupreme: She believes that infection is the nature's attempt to cull the humanity, and it's her duty to assist in that, by sabotaging the efforts to stop the infection and find the cure.
* TheMole: Nearly all failures in attempts to find the cure can be traced to her: infected breaking out of quarantine, research dead-ends due to her tampering with data and falsifying reports, etc. All of this to ruin any chances to save humanity, as she doesn't believe that it's worth saving.
* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Dr. Zara is a dangerous fanatic who believes that humanity should go extinct and free space for new species, and uses her scientific skills to sabotage all efforts to cure the Infection. She participates in Feinstein's research, making zero complaints regarding his methods, as for her, human life is worthless; she only turns on him when he endangers a Dryad they succeeded at creating.
* SoleSurvivor: She's the only person left alive in the hospital she was originally working in: everyone else were killed/snatched by zombies; of course, later it gets revealed that it's her who orchestrated the original outbreak in the first place.

! Police
[[folder:Natasha Kane]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_natasha.png]]
A friendly cop who takes Juno under her protection.

* BattleCouple: She's Rebecca's partner, both on duty and in bed.
* BrainsAndBrawn: In her duo with Rebecca, she's the "brawns', acting as a field commander.
* LipstickLesbian: Almost as feminine as her partner (in both senses) Rebecca, within police dress code.
* NiceGirl: We meet her right before [[{{Slimeball}} Gavin]], and, in contrast to him, she's nice and friendly, trying to comfort Juno if she shows being nervous, promising to keep her protected and even giving her advices how to better deal with the zombies.
* TwoferTokenMinority: She's both black and lesbian (with Rebecca as her girlfriend). She actually acknowledges how hard it's to be one in (predominantly male) police, given how many jerks there are, especially after most good men have died actually fighting the zombies.

[[folder:Rebecca Hopkins]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_rebecca.png]]
Natasha's partner (in both senses) in the police.

* BattleCouple: She's Natasha's partner, both on duty and in bed.
* BrainsAndBrawn: In her duo with Natasha, she's the "brains", managing logistics and organisation.
* LipstickLesbian: She's as feminine as is allowed by police dress-code, and in relationship with Natasha.
* OptionalPartyMember: It's possible to complete the game without rescuing her, albeit it locks the player in [[DownerEnding the ending C]].

[[folder:Gavin]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_gavin.png]]
A police officer in charge of the outing to fix a generator in West Greer.

* ArcVillain: Part of the Act 2 involves putting him down, as he's in control of the only transport which can be used for evacuation of the sanctuary.
* BigBadWannabe: He's nowhere as cool and dangerous as he thinks: he fails to disposes of Juno, fails to dispose of the opposition amongst cops until ''after'' taking over with Billy's help (and even then, most of those just flee to the territories he doesn't control), and then gets his new empire collapsing when he backstabs Billy, only for Billy to [[TakingYouWithMe sabotage defensive perimeter and let the zombies inside]]. When you meet him again, he's cornered in the Suits HQ, in a room he managed to barricade with few surviving supporters, and all it takes to finish him off is a single button push to send the horde after him.
* CardCarryingJerkass: He proudly admits that he's sexist and feels no shame for it.
* DirtyCop: Judging from his comments, he was an asshole long before the outbreak. He actually likes how things are now more, as there's no one to scold him for, say, sexual harassment.
* TheHeavy: Pretty much every trouble Juno faces in the Prologue and Acts 1 and 2 are directly or indirectly caused by him. He's the one who leaves her for dead in West Greer, and he later tries to perform a coup in sanctuary, which causes ''massive'' casualties, messes everything up and allows infected to overrun it, necessitating an evacuation (which can't start before Juno reclaims an [=APC=] stolen by him). However, Gavin himself is pathetic and barely poses a threat once Juno comes back, this time armed.
* ItsAllAboutMe: Everything Gavin ever does is motivated by either his lust or his power hunger, and he has absolutely zero regards for how many people he gets hurt or killed in process.
* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: He's openly sexist and hates feminists, thinking that they're dumb and useless. In his introduction scene, he "jokes" that there're no feminists around because no one liked them and let zombies take them. Juno calls him sick.
* {{Slimeball}}: He's disgustingly sleazy man who acts like a creep towards Juno from the first minute. He would only get worse later on.
* TeamKiller: Gavin does more damage to the Brookside sanctuary than zombies ever did, despite being a part of security forces:
** In the Prologue, he backstabs Juno and leaves her for dead; the sole reason he doesn't kill her outright is that it's much harder to cover up for a corpse with bullet wounds than for someone snatched by zombies.
** By the Act 2, he performed a coup and took over the sanctuary; but due to [[EnemyCivilWar disagreement with Billy's gang]], it didn't last for long, and soon the sanctuary was overrun. Both during and after the coup, he caused so many cops to die, they barely can protect even now-drastically decreased territory.

! Military
[[folder:General Nathan Hawke]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_hawke.png]]
The general leading remnants of the military based on the Fort Patton base.

* FrontlineGeneral: In backstory, he personally led the attack on the Hive which was incubating his daughter. In the climax of the story, he leads the attack on the Base 66.
* MyGreatestFailure: He blames himself for what happened to Eva: [[CriticalHesitationBlunder he hesitated for too long]], and she was partially made into Dryad.
* PapaWolf: Much of his motivation comes from his desire to help his daughter Eva, at all cost.
* {{Workaholic}}: In the ending E, it gets revealed that he was a workaholic prior to retirement, working himself to exhaustion. Not wishing for Juno to repeat his experience, he suggests her to delegate some of her duties to others when she can afford it, as everyone should have an occasional day off.
* YouAreInCommandNow: He was forced to assume command of what's left of national army, even the units originally unrelated to him (those who managed to reach Fort Patton).

[[folder:Thompson Taylor]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_thompson.png]]
A young captain from the Fort Patton base.

* BigBrotherInstinct: Despite being younger sibling, and Lindsey being [[BigSisterBully not exactly nice to him]], he's protective of her. When she participates in the final battle, he's very vocal in insisting on her not being supposed to take active combat role (she's supposed to be a quartermaster).
* EmbarrassingFirstName: His name sounds normally... until you learn that he was named after ''Tommy-gun'' (his grandpa had weird sense of humour, and liked old gangster movies). With that context, the name like this becomes clear target for mocking.
* FireForgedFriends: He and Juno becomes close friends after what they went together if she helps to find and recover missed and captured militaries during the operation in Downtown. It then turns into something bigger.
* FirstNameBasis: Even before the two comes along, to not cause confusion with his older sister (who, conversely, insists on [[LastNameBasis being addressed by surname]]), he lets Juno call him just Thompson.
* FamilyHonor: His family traces back the history of military service to ''at least'' Civil War.
* MilitaryBrat: He came from a family where serving in the military is a long-lasting tradition; his parents and grandparents were military, so should he.
* MommasBoy: He always looked to his mother for protection when he was a kid, primely when Lindsey were bullying him.
* NaughtyByNight: Drunk talk with Juno makes him interested in BDSM (specifically, roleplaying aspect, with Juno as his "Mistress"); the two keeps it their private secret.
* NiceGuy: Comparing to many other militaries Juno can encounter, he's always nice, friendly and fiercely loyal to Juno; the two comes along very quickly, and he's a possible love interest for Juno.

[[folder:Major Lindsey Taylor]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_lindsey.png]]
Thompson's big sister; the fact that she outranks him causes a lot of tension, as she ''does'' use it as argument in their conflicts. She serves as Fort Patton base's quartermaster, and the source of ammo.

* ArmsDealer: Juno can buy ammo from her using special local "currency" (so-called "base points"); she can also buy the weapons she's missing this way. Additionally, when Juno is out of ammo for Pistol, Lindsey would share some for free (as such was the order).
* BigSisterBully: Judging from her dialogues, she was always abusive towards Thompson (back at childhood, he was protected by their mother), even before they enlisted; and when they did, she ended up his CO, which gave her extra power over him.
* DefrostingIceQueen: She acts cold and hostile to Juno at first (Juno is a civilian who took her old position, which belonged to Lindsey before she was delegated to desk job after being injured on duty), but quits it by the time of final battle. She's also noticeably friendlier in the endings D and E.
* EmbarrassingFirstName: She ''hates'' being called Lindsey, insisting on [[LastNameBasis being addressed by last name]]. Thompson, while drinking with Juno, reveals that it's because she was named after grandma, which she finds embarrassing.
* EyeScream: It's obstructed by shades, but she had lost one eye during a mission gone wrong.
* {{Jerkass}}: In contrast with her brother Thompson, she's cold and hostile to Juno from the get-go, seeing her as another useless civilian who wastes precious ammo supply which was entrusted to her (then again, what quartermaster ''wouldn't'' act like this?), only giving it because it's an order. One of the militaries, when asked, reveals that Juno "stole" her position as Hawke's ringer, so it's animosity with Juno specifically.
* FamilyHonor: Her family traces back the history of military service to ''at least'' Civil War.
* LastNameBasis: She hates being called "Lindsey", and insists on being called "Taylor". Thompson reveals that it's because she [[EmbarrassingFirstName finds embarrassing that she was named after grandma]].
* MilitaryBrat: She came from a family where serving in the military is a long-lasting tradition; her parents and grandparents were military, so should she.
* ReassignedToAntarctica:
** She wasn't always a quartermaster; she was appointed on this position after some mission which gone horribly wrong for her. She's still bitter over it, so when Juno (a newcomer) gets her old position, it gives Taylor immediate reason to hate her.
--->'''Soldier''': Major Taylor used to be a total badass, I hear. The "lead by example, be the first on the battlefield, last off it", kinda deal. But then a mission went wrong, and she got benched by Hawke. And now she gets to spend all day yelling at us to lift using our backs...
** In the ending C2, she gets reassigned to some other place for opposing the radical militaries.
* SunglassesAtNight: She's always wearing shades, even indoors. One of the militaries, when asked, reveals that it's to hide that she'd lost one eye during one of the missions which went wrong.

! Other characters
[[folder:Billy]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_billy.png]]
A gang leader from Stanton. Former strip-club manager-turned-pimp.

* AssholeVictim: He gets mortally wounded and infected during his conflict with Gavin. Just before he shoots himself to avoid turning into zombie, Juno makes it pretty clear that after everything he did in the past, she doesn't care what happens to him; given his actions in his first appearance, and his role in the sanctuary's downfall, the player is likely to agree with her.
* CosyCatastrophe: Not much has changed for him after the outbreak; he just had to change the sphere of business from strip-club manager to a pimp. And, with the food ''and'' work shortage, women are willing to do ''anything'' to get food, so if anything, he has even easier time finding "workers".
* DenOfIniquity: His base of operations in Stanton also doubles as brothel, with one of his guards fulfilling "face-control" functions; Juno only makes it inside to see Billy by employing some BavarianFireDrill tactic.
* FauxAffablyEvil: Billy is always polite and friendly to Juno, and does help her at two points. But he's still a gangster and pimp, and she never forgets it -- especially since behind this politeness, hides a creep who always had (unrequited) lust for her.
* FriendInTheBlackMarket: He originally gets involved in the plot because he's the best shot Juno has at obtaining a forgery of her diploma (which was lost during the evacuation). Later Natasha says that he's notorious black market merchant.
* PoliteVillainsRudeHeroes: Billy always acts friendly to Juno; she doesn't even bother with hiding her disdain for him and his "business", openly insulting him to his face (which he ignores).
* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: He sided with Gavin during the coup, in hope to get his share in Suits' stockpiles of food and water, and assisted him in overthrowing the Suits. But when he asked for Gavin to fulfil his end of bargain, he got fired upon. That's why you find him on the brink of death.

[[folder:Donny]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_donny.png]]
A lone survivor whom Juno finds in East Greer.

* {{Hallucinations}}: He refuses to let Juno inside, not trusting his own sanity: she may as well be another hallucination of his, and as soon as he opens, the zombies would come in next.
* ShootTheShaggyDog: He spent all this time in East Greer, waiting for his fiance Sarah to return, unaware that she committed suicide out of despair when West Greer was overrun by zombies. When he learns about it, he [[DrivenToSuicide commits suicide]], seeing nothing worth living for anymore.
* SmallRoleBigImpact: His role in the story is very minor, with him being involved in a sole short side quest. But his story is amongst key events which gives Juno confidence to convince General Hawke to give Eva a chance.
* SoleSurvivor: He's the sole living person whom Juno encounters in either West or East Greer. He had a fiance working in West Greer, but, unknowingly to him, [[PosthumousCharacter she's dead by this point]].
* StakingTheLovedOne: He had to put down some people he used to know when they became zombies.

[[folder:David Lowe]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_david.png]]
Insane subway worker.

* AxCrazy: By the time we meet him, he's a deranged psycho who's ready to attack Juno at first provocation.
* DirtyCoward: He was so scared for his life, he locked the door of the shelter and didn't let his colleague Anna inside, abandoning her to the zombies; when his other colleague, Leslie, tried to open the door, he beat him up. In his diary, he says that Anna had no chance, and "she was a bitch anyway, so fuck her".
* GoMadFromTheIsolation: His insanity is caused by the combination of his sense of guilt, and him spending too much time locked in the shelter without outside contact, with everyone outside it being dead or zombified; he had a friend there, but he died from unknown disease (possibly the Infection), and his corpse is still lying there, rotting. Him eating fungi which gradually infects him does not help either.
* {{Hallucinations}}: According to his diary, he originally started seeing nightmares with Anna (his former colleague whom he [[DirtyCoward leaved to the zombies to save his skin]] just standing by his side, silently judging him; she's now covered with some thick fungi. Then she started showing up while he's awake. ''Then'', he started seeing another colleague, Leslie, who died from Infection while in the shelter with David.
* {{Jerkass}}: He was an entitled jerk long before he went insane.
* NeverMyFault: He refuses to admit being at fault when he [[DirtyCoward closed the shelter door right in front of his female colleague Anna]], stating that she was doomed, and "she was a bitch anyway". [[SubvertedTrope But then]] his guilty conscience started sending him {{hallucinations}} of Anna (now covered with fungi), just staring at him.
* SanitySlippage: Reading his diary reveals how he gradually went insane.
* SoleSurvivor: By the time you meet him, he's a sole living non-zombie person in the subway. Giving the fact that he's showing the signs of Infection, it likely wouldn't stay that way for long.
* ZombieInfectee: In his [[NonstandardGameOver bad end]], he reveals early signs of infection; he lacks bite marks, but he consumes local fungi, which is likely how he got infected.

[[folder:Ellie]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_elly.png]]
A little girl freed from the Hive in Downtown, before the Hive has time to turn her into Dryad.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: Ellie shows up in two scenes total, but it's thanks to her that contact with Eva gets established.
* TouchedByVorlons: She was planned to become a new Dryad, but Juno interrupts the process before it started. General Hawke hopes that maybe she already inherited some Dryad-like powers (which they can use to establish contact with Eva); [[SubvertedTrope she didn't]]. It becomes irrelevant, as Eva contacts them first, taking over Ellie's body via ''her'' psychic powers.
* VoiceForTheVoiceless: Happens to poor girl twice:
** The Hive somehow attaches itself to her body thorough her neck, and uses her to threaten Juno just before the battle. Contact gets severed when the Hive dies.
** Eva briefly intercepts control over Ellie's body via psychic powers, allowing her to communicate with General Hawke. It's less traumatic than first time, albeit Ellie catches a glimpse of Eva's own feelings -- namely, [[AndIMustScream her loneliness and suffering]].

[[folder:Eva Hawke]]
[[quoteright:140:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/og_eva.png]]
General Hawke's daughter, who was saved from the Hive -- but not before partially transforming into a Dryad. She's kept captive since then, frozen to suspend the transformation, while her father is looking for a way to reverse process.

* AndIMustScream: Due to process of turning into Dryad never finishing properly before she was imprisoned and put into anabiosis, she's stuck between two forms. She's fully self-aware and suffering.
* {{Telepathy}}: Like all Dryads, she's unable to communicate verbally, but she can communicate via telepathy, or, before completion of her transformation, by taking over someone else who can talk for her.
* TokenHeroicOrc: She's a Dryad (well, half-Dryad; her transformation didn't finish), but she's not villainous and still recognise her father and cares about him. Convincing General Hawke to just believe in her, and give her a chance, is necessary to negotiate for peace and get the best ending -- in which she helps to convince the other Dryads to give humanity a second chance, revealing that quite a few of them also remembers their past lives and old families.
* TwoFaced: As her metamorphosis never finished, she's part-human, part-Dryad (in roughly 50/50 proportions), including her face and hair; some ugly scars serves as the "border" of sort. She transforms into Dryad fully in the best ending.
[[/folder]]
----

* FridgeBrilliance: Leslie dying so quickly when he got sick makes sense even if it was indeed the Infection: human zombies mainly feeds via photosynthesis, and when there's not enough light, the parasite starts crippling the host (resulting in creation of Crawlers). But for weakened host (at the very least, it's known that he was beaten into submission by his "friend" David) whose mutation ''starts'' in the dark basement, the process was proven fatal.

----
''Fanfic/TheLeonineHeresy''
----
Unlike most alternate Heresy fics, it reverses the order in which Legions gets introduced, starting with Alpha Legion and slowly going towards Dark Angels, with last chapter released being the one about Blood Angels.

Can be read [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14001243/1/The-Leonine-Heresy here]].
----
!Tropes:
* ActuallyADoombot: When Horus "kills" Perturabo, turns out that it was a robotic decoy.
* AdaptationalHeroism: Some characters who were villains in canon, became heroic figures in this timeline.
** It's Kelbor Hal who leads the forces of loyalist Mechanicum on Mars; Belisarius Cawl [[AdaptationalVillainy goes rogue]].
** Gog Vandier is now a hero instead of a tyrant, and saves Imperium from the greedy and ambitious corrupt Ecclersiarch... [[AdaptationalVillainy Sebastian Thor]].
* AdaptationalVillainy:
** It's Belisarius Cawl who leads the Dark Mechanicum; Kelbor Hal [[AdaptationalHeroism stays loyal]]. He's also the one to kill Amadeus [=DuCaine=].
** It's Sebastian Thor who goes drunk with power and starts the Days of Blood, with [[AdaptationalHeroism Gog Vandire]] stopping him.
** Thousand Sons managed to corrupt Solar Macharius and turn him against the Imperium; he was one of the greatest heroes of Imperial Guard in canon.
* AllYourPowersCombined: Shortly before the Heresy, Horus creates a new group, so-called Legion Auxilia, which includes a chapter from every Legion; it's led by Mournival Majoris -- essentially, original Mournival expanded to include representatives from each Legion, albeit with original four still on top and serving same purpose. The idea is that it gives Horus access to wisdom of every Legion.
* AttackAttackAttack: Infamous Gate 42 incident, where Raven Guards (then known as Pale Nomads), while fighting under Horus (all predominantly Terrans) gets massacred when trying to storm Rangdan fortress (which goes completely against Corvus' preferred style of combat). The two wouldn't talk or interact with each other until after Nikaea.
* BatmanGambit:
** Vulkan exploits the rivalry between Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists by tricking the Imperial Fists into retreating from one line of attack to another to not let their rivals to break through first; this also results in infighting between two traitor legions.
** Vulkan deliberately prohibits any Primarchs personally joining the fight, keeping them in reserve, knowing that otherwise traitors would send theirs (they don't, so far, as they think that situation doesn't require it, possibly for same reasons). Mortarion reacts badly to this plan, misinterpreting it as personal disrespect, but obeys.
** During the Scouring, Perturabo sets up the trap for Horus, knowing that he wouldn't reject a challenge, but instead of facing him himself (the battle he would lose), he sets up a [[ActuallyADoombot robotic decoy]] with a bomb prepared. Horus falls into this trap, and (presumably) dies.
* BeyondRedemption: When the Emperor sees Konrad Curze killed by Lion, he realises that it's of no use to try and talk his son down; for as long as he lives, the bloodshed would not stop.
* BigDamnHeroes:
** Initially disappearing (for reasons revealed in their own chapter), Night Lords later catches up with Word Bearers and assists them against Ultramarines; there was a massive battle over Macragge, after which Konrad Curze had vanished. Soon, they also gets joined by Alpha Legion forces.
** During Shadow Crusade, joint Word Bearers / Night Lords / Alpha Legion fleet runs into a group of Ultramarines ships attacking unknown ship clearly built with the mix of human and Aeldari technologies. When they destroys the traitors and contacts the ship... turns out that there's Leman Russ on board, long considered dead and/or rogue.
** Russ tells Lorgar about Ultramarines fortifying on Khur (clearly wishing to lure Lorgar into ambush), but still insists on going there... only for Lorgar to end up near Armatura instead, just in time to help another fleet of Word Bearers to force Ultramarines into retreat (and presumably kill Marius Gage). Then, with full forces, they moves to Khur.
** On Khur, Magnus (who was in process of claiming the energies surrounding this world for himself) attacks Lorgar and prepares to sacrifice him to ascend into daemonhood, but Argel Tal backstabs Magnus, distracting him. Magnus soon overpowers and kills him, but it buys enough time for Lorgar to realise what Leman meant by saying that "father was both right and wrong at the same time", and unlocks his own psychic potential to attack Magnus and force him into retreat.
** Lorgar and his fleet arrives towards the end of Siege, allowing to change balance of power into loyalists' favour and forcing the traitors to retreat.
** Typhon takes away some strange Warp artifact before it ends up in the hands of traitors. The artifact talks to him about important mission he has to perform, and leads him to Baal, where he sees the fleet of Space Wolves fighting Blood Angels, supported by ''Phalanx''. The artifact apologises before Typhon, as it's... sorry for that it has to end this way. Typhon and his followers dies in battle, [[HeroicSacrifice but it allows Space Wolves to escape certain doom]].
* BlownAcrossTheRoom: Magnus begins his attack on Vulkan by throwing him into a wall with his powers.
* TheBusCameBack: Kaedes Nes and Arkhas Fal returns after the end of the Heresy; in canon, they disappears permanently.
* CallToAdventure: Merir Astelan comes to Prism and alerts Night Lords that Dark Angels are gathering their forces once again -- and it's up to Night Lords to stop them. Legion Master Decimus is obviously unwilling to trust someone wearing ArchEnemy's colours, and and divert forces when they may face Tyranids any moment, but gets told that, as Konrad Curze would've said (Merir knew him when he was alive), one can't wait to see what future would bring: sometimes, your help is required in the present.
* TheCavalry: What's left of Night Lords are ready for their last stand on Nostramo, knowing that they stand no chance against Nurgle-empowered Emperor's Children. But then help comes from Arkhas Fal's Raven Guard exiles.
* CavalryBetrayal: When Blood Angels goes insane and starts shooting at Sons of Horus, Horus receives reinforcements from Lion El'Jonson and his Dark Angels... who ''also'' opens fire on him. Realising that he stands no chance against two Legions at once, Horus retreats from Davin and sets sail to Terra.
* CharacterDevelopment: It's pointed that most Primarchs who stayed loyal are those who recognised their negative traits, and overcame them.
* ChekhovMIA: Konrad vanishes in the Ruinstorm soon after arriving to Ultramar. He returns just to confront Lion on Terra, and albeit he dies, this warns the Emperor to not try to talk to Lion, and fight to the death.
* CurbStompBattle: On Molech, while traitors themselves gets defeated, Lion easily overwhelms both Horus and Mortarion, but, rather than kill them, takes the Eye from Horus' chest and Mortarion's gas mask, for reasons known only to himself.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Corvus' death is extremely nasty: Angron ''squeezes his head with bare hands'', to the point it [[YourHeadAsplode splats]].
* DarkestHour: Night Lords and their allies gets cornered on Nostramo, fighting a losing battle against Emperor's Children and Nurgle daemons, being forced to destroy hive after hive as they gets overrun, with ultimately only Nostramo Quintus remaining, and Curze remaining comatose after wounds sustained during previous battle against Dark Angels. But when Fulgrim fights his way inside and prepares to kill Curze, Konrad awakes and bests him in battle, beheading him. While Fulgrim doesn't truly die, this defeat forces Emperor's Children into retreat. Unfortunately, it's too late to save the planet, and Curze has to perform Exterminatus and take course to Terra.
* DeathByAdaptation:
** Angron kills Corvus Corax at the very beginning of the Heresy, ''and takes his scalp as a trophy''. Corvus is alive and active in canon.
** When Angron tries to attack Sanguinius on his flagship, it results in Sanguinisus succumbing to Red Thirst, going berserk and overwhelming Angron, after which he beheads him. Angron is still alive and active in canon.
** Before Horus banishes Sanguinius, Sanguinius kills Abaddon. In canon, Abaddon outlived them both.
** Konrad Curze dies during Siege of Terra, instead of surviving for some time past the conclusion of Heresy.
** Jaghatai Khan dies during the Heresy; in canon, he survived throughout its entirety and disappeared much later.
** Colonel Brom and Sindri Myr from ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' shows up in the chapter about Alpha Legion, with Brom [[DeathByCameo dying in battle]]. Brom is presumably alive in canon.
** Kelbor Hal is confirmed KIA during the Heresy; his canon fate is unknown.
* DeathByCameo: Alpha Legion chapter has a scene starring [[VideoGame/DawnOfWar Colonel Brom of Tartarus' PDF, and (loyalist) Librarian Sindri Myr]]; Brom [[DeathByAdaptation dies in battle]].
* DeathFromAbove:
** Horus gets so angry when Maloghurst gets killed and mutilated, along with the rest of diplomats, he orders to just nuke 63-19, not even bothering with assaulting it; in canon, there were ''three'' failed attempts at negotiations.
** During compliance of Isstvan, Corvus Corax descends to Isstvan III, along with those World Eaters who were the most accustomed to cooperate with Raven Guards, to suppress the enemy. As soon as they emerges victorious, Angron orders to open fire on those below. Then, exploiting their "allies" shock and disbelief, they opens fire on the Raven Guard fleet.
* DecapitatedArmy: The traitors were effective force while Lion was in charge, but as soon as he died, infighting ensued, most prominently [[TheRival between Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists]], who were barely able to tolerate each other even with him in charge.
* DecapitationPresentation: Sanguinius takes Angron's severed head as a proof of World Eaters' treachery, and presents it to Horus. Horus' reaction to it "confirms" Lion's lies, and Sanguinius attacks him.
* DefeatMeansFriendship:
** When Perturabo kills Kharn, other World Eaters agrees to work for him, impressed with his martial prowess.
** Sevatar befriended Abaddon after besting him in a duel.
* DefiantToTheEnd:
** Konrad Curze loses his duel with Lion and gets mortally wounded; attempt to stab Lion fails (albeit it damages his armour enough for Emperor to later exploit it), and Lion prepares to kill him, but not before telling that he's sad that they're not on the same side. Konrad uses his final words to tell him that he ''always'' knew that Lion is a monster, and Lion proved him right.
--->'''Konrad Curze''': I... always knew you were... a monster. Death... is nothing... compared to vindication.
** Sevatar (by that moment, ''very'' old even for Astartes) faces Sigismund on Cadia, in a duel he knows he has no chance to win. Mortally wounded, forced on his knees, his weapon broken, he finds the strength to spit into foe's face and tell his last "screw you" before dying.
--->'''Sevatar''': Did you expect a speech? Forgiveness perhaps? We were murderer first, last and always. Frak you, you honorless bastard.
* DevourTheDragon:
** Roboute Guilliman backstabs Jaghatai, who until then was important ally of his, and uses him as a sacrifice to fuel his ascension into daemonhood.
** Just before Siege, Lion sacrifices Corswain (his right hand-man in the legion) to get Dark Gods' blessing and safely reach Terra.
* DisappointedInYou: When Roboute nearly kills Angron, and later, when he bullies Lorgar, the Emperor just gives him disappointed look, as if Guilliman failed to live up to his expectations. [[NeverMyFault This makes Roboute furious]].
* DivideAndConquer: Alpha Legion, through infiltrations, manages to severely hurt the traitors' teamwork by provoking infighting.
* {{Doppelganger}}: At Signus, Sanguinius (who's ready to embrace Chaos) sees four copies of himself, each in colours of one of the Dark Gods, agitating him to choose their god above three others. Sanguinius rejects Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh (especially the last one, in whom he sees his greatest fear -- succumbing to Red Thirst), and demands the other choice, the choice which would free him from doubts for once; and he gets granted one: to become a chosen of Khorne and embrace his damnation, welcome the curse as the blessing. He accepts.
* DoWrongRight: Lorgar manages to forgive the Emperor for ordering to destroy Monarchia, but he ''does not'' forgive Guilliman for doing so: while he realises that it had to be destroyed as a stern lesson, Roboute clearly [[{{Jerkass}} enjoyed the pain it caused to Lorgar]] while executing that order.
* TheDreaded: Imperial Fists received nickname "Crimson Fists" for their cruelty: it symbolises all the blood on their hands. It eventually sticks as their new official name.
* DueToTheDead: It's believed that Sigismund, as a sign of respect to Sevatar being a WorthyOpponent, preserved his body rather than leave it to rot, or desecrating it.
* EarthShatteringKaboom: As part of their ambush on Isstvan III, World Eaters fires at the planet to make it explode and cause damage to Blood Angels' ships.
* EnemyMine:
** While surviving in Commoragh, Vulkan has to temporarily cooperate with a group of Dark Eldar who're also in opposition to everyone else, and are glad to accept any help. Later it gets revealed that their leader is Azdrubael Vect -- the future supreme leader of Dark Eldar.
** Leman Russ' clearly received some help from Eldar, but what it was likely wouldn't be revealed until Space Wolves chapter gets released.
* EyeScream:
** Horus loses an eye while fighting Sanguinius: post-corruption, Sanguinius' blood [[MyBloodRunsHot turned so hot, it can cause burns]] -- including burning Horus' eye out.
** Leman Russ, during his misadventures in the Warp, had lost one eye; there's a huge scar where it used to be.
* FalseFriend: The time Corvus spends with Angron during Isstvan campaign seems to make the Raven Guard and World Eaters Legions close friends, who've learned to greatly cooperate with each other. Then, as soon as the victory gets achieved, Angron orders to open fire on the forces below, composed of not only Raven Guards, but also World Eaters who've bonded the most with their allies, and thus became not reliable enough to let to live. The Raven Guard fleet on orbit is too shocked to even believe that something like that is possible, which Angron uses to shoot at them, too. The effectiveness of this betrayal makes Corvus realise that it was prepared in advance.
* TheFinalTemptation: Just before Konrad Curze goes to confront Lion El'Jonson, Chaos Gods tries to make the last attempt to convince him to join the traitors, by promising him that he can slay Lion once he kills the Emperor, and claim the Golden Throne for himself, becoming invincible ruler who can stop any rebellion before it starts. It gets acknowledged that it would've likely worked... had the Emperor not purged Dark Haunter, leaving only [[UndyingLoyalty Konrad Curze]].
* ForbiddenZone: What was once Ultramar is devoid of any life even long after Ruinstorm dissipating. Renamed "Sector XIII", it's kept under constant surveillance and is off-limits for any visitors and settlers -- for a good reason, as daemons frequently tries to attack from there, despite it supposedly being cleansed.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: When pursuing Cawl, Ferrus Manus disregards some beheaded Apothecary of the Emperor's Children who's weirdly devoid of Nurgle corruption. It's a clear setup for something which would happen once the fic starts talking about Emperor's Children in details.
* ForWantOfANail: Mortarion's presence on Terra (as ally rather than enemy) allows the Emperor to rely on Mortarion to utilise the Golden Throne instead of Malcador. [[SparedByTheAdaptation This prevents Malcador from dying]].
* FramingTheGuiltyParty: Soon after killing his father and becoming Gallan's co-consul, Roboute puts all the blame for Konor's assassination on him, which results in him being lynched by the angry mob. [[HeKnowsTooMuch This ensures that there's one less person who knows the truth]], not to mention, all the power ending up in his own hands.
* GoodThingYouCanHeal: Vulkan's powers manifests when he gets attacked by Magnus, who lifts him into air with his psychic power, and drops on his sword, piercing both hearts at once. Vulkan dies... and resurrects, albeit not in time to stop Magnus from escaping. Malcador later explains him that it's his Perpetual power, and that it's not the first time it manifested: he was unaware, but he actually ''was'' killed in Commorragh multiple times, but his ability allowed him to shrug off the death itself. He would actively exploit this ability during enemy's attempt to assault Terra through Webway.
* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: Roboute Guilliman, now Daemon-Prince of Slaanesh, tears Kor Phaeron in two when he tries to protect Lorgar, then, just to be sure, stomps what's left of him.
* HateAtFirstSight: Rogal Dorn despises Konrad Curze from the moment the two had met at Nostramo, and doesn't even try to hide it. Konrad asks Horus to arrange for their meeting, so he can prove that he and his legion are more than just a bunch of thugs and murderers, which Horus grants.
* HeroicSacrifice:
** Calas Typhon sacrifices himself and his ship to wipe out attacking Blood Angels and damage ''Phalanx''. This allows the rest of his fleet, as well as Space Wolves, who were the ones attacked by the traitors before Death Guards' arrival, to escape.
** Kelbor-Hal, when he and Ferrus Manus are about to be outnumbered by traitors, teleports Ferrus off-planet, while he gets surrounded. Later it gets revealed that he didn't make it.
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: InUniverse, Roboute Guilliman's destroying of Monarchia eventually develops from him executing an order from the Emperor (even if he took sadistic pleasure at hurting his brother's feelings) to unprovoked attack from the traitors wanting to defile the sacred place of the true faith. Despite not even Word Bearers seeing it that way.
* HitAndRunTactics: Jaghatai uses hit-and-run tactic to harass Death Guard, slowly bleeding it out. Mortarion only survives thanks to the help of Space Wolves survivors.
* HoldTheLine: During Siege of Terra, Death Guard holds the forces of traitors trying to assault the Palace at bay, at the cost of tremendous casualties.
* HorrifyingTheHorror: Konrad Curze, before Emperor too measures to deal with his insanity, was ''the'' most nasty and gruesome Primarch. But even he gets uncomfortable when, instead of the horrible visions surrounding Jaghatai (him being betrayed and killed by Guilliman), Lorgar (a shining hero hated by, again, Guilliman) Rogal Dorn (a hero who would damn himself while seeking answers which only Chaos can give) and Ferrus Manus (living metal spreading further and covering his body), for Lion El'Jonson he... sees nothing, only feels some horrible ''wrongness''. He also sees him as a fellow hunter, just as dangerous as Konrad himself.
* AHouseDivided: As Khorne corruption strengthens, Blood Angels divides into two groups who barely tolerates each other, let along cooperates: one, led by Azkaellon, is supporting Sanguinius in following Khorne's teaching and spilling blood for the sake of spilling, disregarding their original goal, another, led by Raldoron, believes that they're wasting time and resources, while they should go to Terra to overthrow False Emperor; meanwhile, third group, led by Nassir Amit, chose to stay neutral, believing that picking either side would hurt them. The two eventually ''do'' go into open war at first excuse they could find, and only gets prevented from mutual extermination by Perturabo intervening to remind Blood Angels that Lion needs them, ''now''.
* ImmuneToFate: Rangda proves themselves dangerous foe for Night Lords, as it's not possible to use their visions to see what they would do.
* InSpiteOfANail: Imperial Army still gets split into fleet and Imperial Guard, with Astartes no longer having authority over neither; this time, it's Horus who proposes it, instead of now-traitorous Guilliman.
* KarmicDeath: Atina spent years corrupting Roboute Guilliman and preparing him to embrace Chaos. He uses her as a sacrifice to fuel Rinstorm: the man she had made him into sees nothing wrong with throwing his mother under the bus; he already did that with his father and grandfather before, both under her influence.
* KickTheDog:
** In canon, citizens of Khur had plenty of time to evacuate; here, Roboute just shoots the population without even bothering to contact them. He only spares one city, Monarchia, so Lorgar can arrive and see for himself how it gets destroyed too. Then he further mocks Lorgar, provoking him into attacking, and then threatens to get "cruel" if he wouldn't submit. The Emperor has to step in.
--->'''Lorgar''': Does this senseless murder make you happy? Does it please you to witness my shame?\\
'''Guilliman''': Honestly, yes. You look so heartbroken over the deaths of these mortals. There's such a sad love, deep in your eyes...
** Two in quick succession from [[TokenEvilTeammate Mortarion]]:
*** Mortarion tries to deny the other Legions access to genetic laboratories, claiming them "not deserving" it, as they "don't know the meaning of sacrifice".
*** When Leman Russ calls Mortarion on his selfishness and points that his son, Calas Typhon, knew much more about the "meaning of sacrifice" than his own primarch, Mortarion tries to insult Typhon, stating that he was a fool who trusted some "witch visions" and "wasted" the lives of his men. Russ, who owes much to Typhon, doesn't take it well.
* LastSecondChance: Just like Emperor tried to convince Magnus in canon, here Malcador tries to convince Rogal Dorn, knowing that he was manipulated into joining the traitors, and it's not too late to choose the right side. Unfortunately, Dorn is too far gone by this point and sees only another lie, another hipocrisy.
* LateToTheTragedy: Sanguinius, when looking for missing Corvus Corax and Angron, finds the broken and charred spaceships of Raven Guard and World Eaters, but no traces of either Legion. Then World Eaters emerges and ambushes him, and Angron personally boards his flagship, revealing that he murdered Corvus and took his scalp as a trophy.
* LeeroyJenkins:
** Vulkan doesn't stop at just beating Dark Eldar raiders (like it was in canon); he pursues them to their ship, steals one himself (instinctively figuring out how to use it), and follows them into Webway. He ends up in Commorragh, gaining some unlikely allies while trying to survive (later revealed to be Azdrubael Vect and those who would later form his Cabal), and only escapes due to seeing some strange figure (later revealed to be the Emperor), and follows it, ending up on Luna (which replaces his canon meeting with the Emperor). Much later, it gets revealed that he ''was'' killed, more than once, and only his Perpetuality prevented it from sticking.
** Horus falls for obvious provocation from Perturabo. He does defeat him, but then Perturabo [[ActuallyADoombot reveals himself being a robotic decoy]], and explodes a bomb, which (presumably) kills Horus.
* TheLoad: As Guilliman's corruption grows, he stops bothering with doing ''any'' progress at the Great Crusade, wasting time on "triumphs" and self-indulging, which leads to Word Bearers and Night Lords coming to check on him. Later, he becomes equally useless for the traitors, due to his Slaaneshi corruption making him too lazy and too insane to invest into their campaign -- and then he ascends and starts doing fun at the kingdom of his patron god(dess), so Lion has to send Perturabo to bring him back by force, by using his True Name (the act Guilliman forgives to neither of them)... which ultimately does little, as Ultramarines still finds a way to concentrate on wiping out civilians, and, once the massacre fuels some kind of ritual which bonds the Legion to Guilliman, escapes (while Primarch just vanishes).
* LoadBearingBoss: Horus finds the place of a battlefield between Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists; the two Legions seemingly massacred each other, but then Horus finds a fortress of Iron Hands, with Perturabo daring Horus to attack him. Horus takes the challenge, finds Perturabo and overpowers him... only for him to end up being a [[ActuallyADoombot robotic decoy]], and activate a bomb with countdown too short to escape. Horus just calmly accepts death, then the bomb goes off. The reinforcements only finds Horus' weapon, and a single gauntlet.
* LuredIntoATrap:
** Ultramarines [[TheLoad stops pulling their weight]] in the Great Crusade, which attracts attention of Horus, who sends Lorgar and Curze to check on them. While Konrad disappears early on, Lorgar reaches the destination, only to get met by Marius Gage who keeps wasting his time for days... which quickly gets revealed as just stalling for time to finish the trap: release the hordes of daemons, and unleash the Ruinstorm. Lorgar barely survives the fight with Samus, and gets to fight not only daemons and Slaanesh-corrupted Ultramarines, but also his own men, a quarter of whom reveals that their allegiances lies with traitors.
** Perturabo sets up his [[ActuallyADoombot robotic decoy]] to lure Horus into a trap, then kills him with a bomb (or, at least, it seems so, as Sons of Horus finds no body, and discarded weapon).
* MadeASlave:
** Angron still becomes a gladiator, but circumstances are different than in canon.
** When Raven Guard storms Chemos, they finds the ''countless'' corpses of people (mainly young and elders), clearly overworked to death, as well as many corpses of those who starved to death, both with horrible scars from leashing.
* MagicMustDefeatMagic: Ahriman suggests that since Horus' injury is Warp-born, the cure must be Warp-born, too. His arguments sounds reasonable and convinces some, but gets rejected as soon as he suggests to break Edict of Nikaea; this proves to be good decision, as Thousand Sons are already rogue by this point.
* MeaningfulRename:
** Lion's Gate spaceport gets renamed "Raven's Gate", both in honour of Corvus Corax and Raven Guard slaughtered on Isstvan, and to distance from Lion El'Jonson.
** After changing his views, Lorgar rejects the title of "Urizen" in favour of "Urthona", after ancient sage from Colchis' mythology, known for his wisdom. The Legion also replaces their symbol -- a "Lectitio Divinitatus" book -- with a serrated sun, which symbolises a coming of a new day for the Imperium, and new light it brings in.
* MisplacedRetribution: Rogal Dorn vents off after becoming a runner up for both the position of Warmaster and the position of Praetorian by destroying the conquered worlds, [[BlatantLies stating that they had refused to submit]]. This finally ends with him going into conflict with Konrad Curze at Cheraut.
* TheMole:
** Alpharius pretends to side with Cabal to learn more about their plans, so they can be thwarted.
** During the Heresy, Alpha Legion installed many agents in the Traitor Legions, both to spy and to [[DivideAndConquer disrupt their teamwork]].
* MuggingTheMonster: Lucius brags before his foe (implied to be Vulkan in disguise), saying that he's "Lucius the Eternal" and that Nurgle granted him everlasting life. He gets killed and incinerated within ''a minute'', and gets finished off with a strike of a hammer.
* MutualKill: Lorgar manages to banish Guilliman by smashing his head with his crozius, but gets pierced with Guilliman's sword, which mortally wounds him, rendering him unable to survive without being put into stasis.
* MythologyGag: The fic occasionally references ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' and its events and characters:
** Alpha Legion fought on Tartarus alongside local PDF (commanded by Colonel Brom); the Librarian Sindri Myr witnesses [[DeathByCameo Brom's death]].
** Eliphas the Inheritor is [[RuleOfTwo one of the two current leaders of Word Bearers]].
** Word Bearers are mentioned to do a successful campaign on Kronus.
* NeverFoundTheBody: Horus presumably dies in Perturabo's trap, but as only his discarded weapon was found, it's uncertain. Either way, he wasn't seen ever since.
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: It was uncertain which side Mortarion would take, given him disliking pretty much everyone. But Lion and Jaghatai enrages him with attempts to recruit him, which ensures that he would take the opposite site, so he stays loyal.
* NothingIsScarier: Just what Ferrus Manus saw in the Noctis Labyrinthus never gets revealed, but it managed to scare Ferrus Manus, who only says that he now knows why the Emperor warned him to not trust the Star Gods.
* NotQuiteDead: It comes as unpleasant surprise for Magnus when it turns out that Leman Russ and Space Wolves didn't perish in the Warp (where he previously sent majority of their forces) -- and are ready to assault Prospero.
* NotSoDifferentRemark: Jaghatai tries to convince Mortarion to join him by pointing that he's psychic, too, that he was always the freedom-loving outrider just like Jaghatai himself, and that the "False Emperor" had put the taint in them all on their creation; Mortarion has nothing of it.
* NotSoStoic: Leman Russ, since his misadventures, is notoriously cold and stoic, yet when Mortarion [[SpeakIllOfTheDead insults Typhon]] (thanks to whose HeroicSacrifice so many Space Wolves are still alive), he ''explodes'', but manages to regain composure.
* NumberTwo: Horus appoints Lion as his deputy, trusting him to become his voice during Crusade. This severely backfires later, as this gives Lion an opportunity to screw over ''every'' loyalist Legion.
* OffWithHisHead:
** Sanguinius beheads Angron during their duel.
** Konrad Curze kills Fulgrim during battle for Nostramo by beheading him. Unfortunately, he immediately realises that this "death" wasn't final: in fact, it only triggered his Ascension, and he would later show up as Daemon-Prince of Nurgle.
* OpenMouthInsertFoot: It's possible that had Angron not insulted the court, the judge would've let him go (as it gets proven that he's not a runaway slave, they have nothing to condemn him for); instead, he gets sent to the pits, for insolence.
* OutsideContextProblem: Revelation that the daemons ''do'' exists almost makes Lorgar snap back to praying, but he manages to regain self-control.
* {{Patricide}}: After having a quarrel with his adoptive father, Roboute Guilliman snaps and stabs him, multiple times, before coming to his senses.
* PreAsskickingOneLiner: Fulgrim expects to execute comatose Curze. Too bad, Konrad wakes up just in time to tell him that he wouldn't make it out alive, and attack.
-->'''Konrad Curze''': Despair is amongst the greatest of all human sins. It is pernicious, bringing forth wickedness in those who might remain guiltless. Fulgrim of Chogoris, you are hereby sentenced to death.
* PreSacrificeFinalGoodbye: Before going to confront Lion, the Emperor telepathically contacts Vulkan, shows him his memories of Terra while it was still green and beautiful, and tells him that Vulkan is unlike any of his brothers, and Emperor wishes him to stay that way (clearly meaning him being the only one still having humanity in him, despite everything).
* PutOnABus:
** Alpharius disappeared after the Heresy, leaving somewhere with Eldar.
** Vulkan disappeared after preventing the Orks from destroying Terra during the War of the Beast. He's presumed dead, but given that he's Perpetual, he would certainly return some day.
** Mortarion disappeared in the Eye of Terra after growing disappointed with what's going on in the Imperium, deciding to continue his war by himself.
** Ferrus Manus was first Primarch to leave, taking the ship ''Sisypheum'' modified by Vulkan and going to the destination unknown. Later it turns out that he was captured by Szarekh.
* TheRemnant: Some loyalist Death Eaters survives the battle on Isstvan, and follows Raven Guards survivors to Deliverance, but don't stick around and soon departs, not feeling at home here, yet being unable to return to their own Legion either. It's unknown what's happened to them afterwards.
* TheRival: Even when working in the same team, Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors don't stop competing with each other, now using the amount of planet conquered as the measure of effectiveness. When the Heresy ends, they goes into open war against each other, not even waiting until they escape to the Eye. It costs them so much, they gets easily defeated by the Imperium; it's stated that if not for that, it would've took ''decades'' to breach their defences.
* SaltTheEarth: When Ultramarines realises that they have no chance to keep Percepton in their hands, they nukes it with phosphex -- the substance which not just burns everything, but keeps burning no matter what, with even vacuum failing to extinguish it; it's all but impossible to recover the planet from that. It's stated as yet another sign of their damnation, and quickly becomes standard practice.
* SanitySlippage:
** After succumbing to Red Thirst while fighting Angron, and then getting assaulted by daemons on the way to Davin, Sanguinius goes insane; he starts [[MadnessMantra repeating over and over that he wouldn't end up like his brother]], then starts crying tears of blood and attacks Horus. Similar insanity hits the rest of Blood Angels, too.
** As Guilliman spends more and more time in Ruinstorm during the Heresy, his sanity starts deteriorating, succumbing to (now obviously specifically Slaaneshi) corruption; where was discipline, comes decadence, pompous ceremonies goes way overboard, and comes unhealthy interests to obtaining all kinds of pleasures, progressively more harmful.
* ScrewDestiny:
** Mortarion confronts Malcador about the words once said to him by Jaghatai -- is he truly the creation of the Warp, and does he meant to be the Emperor's tool? Malcador says that yes, he was created using the Warp, and yes, he was designed for specific purpose -- but he grew beyond it, forging own path instead of what the Emperor or anyone else predestined for him, and that is what truly matters.
** Konrad's visions have told him that he would be arrested by Horus and Vulkan for his crimes; instead, he gets apprehended by the Emperor himself. His visions failing him for the first time makes Konrad question whether he can even trust them. And after soul-binding by the Emperor, he doesn't trust his visions stubbornly showing him Horus' downfall, knowing that they ''can'' be wrong, and so far, Horus did nothing to give those visions credibility.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere:
** Realising that the battle is lost, Ultramarines retreats from Armatura, abandoning their commander Marius Gage to get killed by Word Bearers; they destroys his ship, resulting in him being [[FateWorseThanDeath sucked into Warp]].
** During Siege of Terra, Ultramarines achieves what they wanted (slaughter enough civilians to fuel bonding the Legion to their Primarch), and escapes, without bothering to wait how the Siege even ends: they simply don't care, and only tag along because they were forced to.
** Mortarion gets tired of non-ending conflicts of his sons about whether to allow or ban the Librariums (both sides trying to push him into taking their side), which comes heated enough to possibly result in civil war, so he leaves them to decide by themselves. This seems to work, as, in his absence, they ''did'' come up with a compromise.
* ScrewYourUltimatum: When Perturabo comes to bring Blood Angels back to their senses and make them assist the traitors for once, one of the particularly corrupted Blood Angels, [[MeaningfulName Furio]], [[BullyingADragon insults Perturabo]], his legion, the Lion and everyone who's not Khorne worshipper in general, in a speech which goes for minutes non-stop. Perturabo calmly listens to this torrent of insults in its entirety, and then annihilates him from orbit. Then some other Blood Angels goes berserk and attacks only to get paralysed (with daemons who were accompanied them outright gunned down).
* SealedEvilInACan: Perturabo imprisons [[TheBerserker Sanguinius]] in the Cavea Ferrum, so he wouldn't cause any harm until the time comes to unleash him.
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: Magnus ensures that the outcome of Council of Nikaea would be maximally unpleasant for him by trying to use magic to ''lie'' to the Emperor about how magic isn't dangerous. This not only leads to the ban on Librariums (something Magnus tried to prevent), but disbandment of Thousand Sons altogether (they gets divided into Chapters, which then gets reassigned to work under other Legions), while Magnus gets imprisoned on Terra.
* ASharedSuffering: Lion tries to getting closer to Mortarion by discussing recently ended Rangdan Xenocide and the casualties his own Legion suffered during it. [[SubvertedTrope It fails]], as [[GoodIsNotNice Mortarion's]] reaction mostly amounts to "so what?". When Jaghatai tries to recruit him, much more blatantly, during the Heresy, he realises that it was not bonding, but the subtle attempt to corrupt him, which he evaded.
* ShootTheMessenger: Magnus snaps at Hathor Maat when he delivers the news of casualties suffered from Alpha Legion, and incinerates him.
* ShoutOut:
** Epigraph for the chapter about Death Guard has the line which almost word-by-word [[Film/TheTerminator quotes Kyle Reese's description of Terminator]], referring to [[ImplacableMan them being utterly unstoppable in destroying their foe]].
** The scene where Roboute kills Konor, usurping the power, almost word-by-word repeats the scene of [[VideoGame/WarCraft Arthas killing his father]].
* SparedByTheAdaptation: Malcador Sigillite survives the Heresy, due to not being put on the Throne (the Emperor uses Mortarion instead, who does get hurt, but survives). He disappears at some point later, but why or where is unknown.
* StormingTheCastle: Raven Guard's chapter describes their assault on the Star Hunters' base on Chemos. They catches them off-guard, resulting in bloody indoor fights, and enemy being forced to throw at them literally everything: Terminators, Scouts who don't have the fully equipment installed yet, even mortal servants.
* TakeAThirdOption:
** Rogal Dorn and Perturabo couldn't agree who of them should build the council chamber on Nikaea. Horus tried to just make them cooperate, but it ended in disaster, so he had to ask Vulkan instead.
** It was expected that the Emperor would choose as Praetorian either Rogal Dorn or Perturabo; instead, he choses Vulkan: he's known for being inventive yet diligent, and the Salamanders would inspire people by their mere presence. Neither of the two runner ups receives that decision well, and ''both'' ultimately ends up being traitors.
** Death Guard was unable to decide whether to allow or ban Librariums. Ultimately, they allowed them, but severely restricted and forced to stay separately from the others outside of battles.
** Konrad Curze, twice:
*** Doing as Horus asks and going to Ultramar means getting dangerously far away from him, while Konrad knows that something bad is about to happen. Not doing it means disobeying Emperor-appointed Warmaster. He deals with issue by dividing his legion, sending part of it (under Sevatar) to Nostramo, and leading the other part to Ultramar.
*** When Konrad separates with Lorgar to personally investigate what's going on, he learns about Guilliman's betrayal. Again, Curze faces difficult choice: go to warn Emperor, abandoning Lorgar, or to help Lorgar and leave Emperor in the dark; he deals with it by going to Emperor by alone, while Night Lords goes to assist Lorgar and reinforce him in fighting off Ultramarines.
* TakingYouWithMe: Iron Hands' flagship, ''Fist of Iron'', gets surrounded by Iron Warriors' ships, and then explodes its reactor to take as many of them out as possible, to weaken the traitors.
* TooManyCooksSpoilTheSoup: Horus tries to make Perturabo and Rogal Dorn cooperate and just build the council chamber on Nikaea together. Due to being [[WeAreStrugglingTogether too busy arguing and conflicting]] to actually cooperate (as neither respects the other one and his vision, and pushes for theirs), they creates complete mess which has to be redone by Vulkan.
* {{Troll}}: Guilliman deliberately gives Lorgar false rendezvous point coordinates (claiming that he'd be on Calth), hoping to waste his time and humiliate him. That's why Konrad Curze (who sees it in his visions) separates from Lorgar and goes straight to Macragge... where Guilliman's corruption reveals itself.
* UndyingLoyalty: A demi-company of Space Wolves (from the 13th Great Company) gets assigned to fight under Abaddon; they grows so close with their new commander that, when he dies by Sangunius' hands, they renames themselves "Hounds of Abaddon" in honour of him, and oaths to fight under Horus until their deaths, so they can avenge Abaddon.
* UnwantedFalseFaith: Lorgar at first tried to suppress the church of the God-Emperor, as he knew that the Emperor is not a god, and doesn't want worship; he eventually gives up, and lets it exist, realising that humanity needs ''something'' to believe into, a unifying symbol -- or they would seek it elsewhere. Memory of ''his own sons'' turning on him during the Heresy probably also played a role...
* UriahGambit: Roboute Guilliman gets rid of the Ultramarins who can't be entrusted with siding with him over the Emperor by sending them on intentionally suicidal missions, slowly getting rid of them.
* VillainExitStageLeft:
** Omegon defeats Sigismund on Pluto, but fails to kill him, and Sigismund escapes, promising to return to finish what he started.
** Before Leman Russ can finish Magnus off, Tzeentch saves him by transferring him to the Warp.
** Jaghatai somehow teleports away before Mortarion can kill him.
* VillainousBSOD: Magnus doesn't take well when Tzeentch reveals to him that all this time, all his perils and his achievements were parts of the great plan of the Architect of Fate; he asks Tzeentch to take that memory away... which he does, at the cost of driving Magnus insane.
* WeAreStrugglingTogether:
** Rivalry between Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors just keeps screwing both legions over:
*** Attempt by Rogal Dorn and Perturabo to build the council chamber of Nikaea together, as suggested by Horus, [[TooManyCooksSpoilTheSoup results in a mess]]: they're too busy arguing and trying to enforce their views to actually cooperate.
*** During the Siege, two legions are more concerned with not letting the other one win, than with actually winning themselves. This gets readily exploited by the loyalists, who provokes them into infighting.
*** During the Scouring, Horus finds remnants of the massive battle between Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists; the two fleets just massacred each other before the loyalists even discovered them, achieving nothing and only making Horus' job easier. However, Iron Warriors still manages to salvage the situation, by tricking Horus into a trap where he (presumably) dies.
** At one point, Death Guard and Word Bearers were too busy arguing instead of cooperating against White Consuls (Ultramarines warband); this allows White Consuls to irrepaireably poison the world they were supposed to protect. The two are on bad terms since then.
* WeWinBecauseYouDidnt:
** Rogal Dorn is ready to tell why he's in favour of allowing Librariums, but Perturabo beats him to it, using exactly same arguments. Believing that Perturabo did this just to screw with him (and to end on the winning side, regardless of what it's gonna be), as Dorn can't say the same things without being accused of "plagiarising" Perturabo, Rogal Dorn... breaks down his arguments, so he wouldn't believe himself a victor. Perturabo reacts just as immature, and Emperor has to kick them both out.
** Horus and Mortarion stops Lion from obtaining the powers of Molech by wiping out everything on the planet with Life-Eater virus.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: Sevatar and Corswain were friends before the Heresy; now, they're on the opposite sides in the Thramas Crusade, with Dark Angels trying to destroy Night Lords.
* WhatTheHellHero: Mortarion [[KickTheDog tries to deny the other Legions access to genetic laboratories]], stating them not "deserving" it by not "sacrificing enough". Leman Russ points how selfish it is, and also points that late Calas Typhon was much better man, who knew what "sacrifice" truly means. When Mortarion tries to insult Typhon, Leman explodes at him, and orders him to step aside, ''or else''. When others, from Malcador to Horus, sides with Russ, Mortarion submits.
* WreckedWeapon: Corvus manages to shatter one of Angron's chainaxes, Gorefather. It doesn't help him, as Angron kills him barehanded.
* WrittenByTheWinners: Post-Heresy, Imperium edited the history to make loyal Primarchs look good, and traitor Primarchs look bad, even at the cost of making it historically-accurate.
** Now, it's believed that destruction of Monarchia was an atrocity committed by then-already evil Guilliman, as an act of heresy and malevolence. While he indeed took sadistic pleasure in it, he did this on Emperor's orders, as back then, Imperial Cult didn't exist yet, and Lorgar was in the wrong by creating a religion worshipping his father; Ecclesiarchy took some liberty editing the history to match its dogmas. Word Bearers themselves, knowing the truth, don't believe in this story, even those who do worship the Emperor.
** In official archives, Cheraut massacre was performed by disobedient Imperial Fists elements who refused to obey Konrad Curze. In truth, it was Curze himself who committed it, and Sigizmund refused to obey the insane murderer and take part in his crimes. As Konrad remained loyal (and got his sanity restored), while Imperial Fists, including Sigizmund, got traitors, this event was described in such a way to whitewash loyal Primarch (who was only marginally better than Dorn post-betrayal), and paint black the traitors (who back then were still loyal).
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Lorgar thinks himself a failure: he didn't return to Terra soon enough to prevent his father being mortally wounded, and he broke the Edict by using psychic powers to defeat Magnus. The Emperor uses his last powers to telepathically contact Lorgar and, besides telling where to find his body, so he may put him on the Golden Throne, tells that Edict doesn't matter anymore (it already failed at intended purpose), while Cyrene Valantion tells Lorgar that, of all Primarchs, he resembles his father the most, and that he's exactly what the Emperor wanted him to be.
* YouAreInCommandNow: After the Heresy, Horus assigns returning Arkhas Fal as the new Legion Master of Raven Guard, with Branne Nev (a temporal commander until then, merely a Captain) submitting.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness:
** When Angron starts losing his duel against Sanguinius, he hears the voices in his head: "Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows". The Blood God just found a better champion, and no longer has any use for Angron.
** Roboute Guilliman grows tired of Atia, and uses her as sacrifice to fuel creation of Ruinstorm, by throwing her alive into the Warp: she used to be a good advisor, but he has no other use for her now.
* YourHeadAsplode: Angron kills Corvus by squeezing his head so much, the skull ''splats''.
* YouShallNotPass: Several Sons of Horus ships, led by Captains Tybalt Marr and Verulam Moy, sacrifices themselves by blocking the way for Dark Angels, so Horus can escape from an ambush. He symbolically salutes them before departing.
----
%%Characters
! Loyalists
[[folder: Leman Russ and Space Wolves]]
----
* CharacterDevelopment: What he had survived made him get rid of his original boisterousness and hot temper; Lorgar compares him to a wall of ice. Besides becoming more stoic, he also grows wiser and more analytical.
* KillItWithIce: Space Wolves have some unique weapon called "helfrost".
* PrematurelyGreyHaired: By the time he gets rediscovered by loyalists, Leman has ash-white hair and beard, as well as somewhat weathered face. Leman was blond before the Heresy.
* RuleOfSymbolism: Pre-Heresy Leman was akin to Thor: blonde, boisterous, HotBlooded, adventurous. After what he survived during the Heresy, he has [[PrematurelyGreyHaired ash-white hairs]], eyepatch to cover a missing eye, and even his character changes, with him becoming more wise and stoic; essentially, he's now Odin: wise, experienced leader who'd paid the great price for that wisdom. Further emphasised by him now using the spear which father gave him as his weapon, which also adds to his symbolism shifting from Thor to Odin.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Konrad Curze and Night Lords]]
What if Emperor deals with Konrad's insanity?
----
* AccuserOfTheBrethren: Post-Heresy, Night Lords despises criminals so much, they don't trust someone who was a criminal (or came from a family with criminal background) to be worthy of their attention; Raven Guard disagrees with them in that regard, as they use the criminals as stable source of recruits. While it ''is'' possible for them to be recruited, they would never rise high, as training them to be officers is considered a waste of time. By contrast, whenever possible, they take recruits from Prism's nobility; the reason for it is that Night Lords carefully built caste systems to ensure that local nobility would be built from the families with spotless criminal record. They still ensure that both types would receive gene-seed on equal terms (no preserving best pieces for best recruits).
* AdaptationalContextChange:
** Kyroptera gets created with the help of Horus, to have some command structure while Konrad is with Emperor to "fix" him. It stays active after his return. It was made by Night Lords and Curze themselves in canon.
** Nostramo still ends up destroyed by Konrad Curze, but it happens not due to his breakdown, but when he performs Exterminatus on it after it gets all but destroyed by Nurgle-aligned Emperor's Children and gets overrun by daemons beyond all hope.
** Konrad Curze ends up in a stasis coffin which then gets jettisoned into space. Unlike canon, where it was [[FateWorseThanDeath a punishment]], here, it gets done to travel towards Terra (his visions showed him that it would work, and he knows that he wouldn't be able to infiltrate the Palace if someone else goes with him), while his flagship, carrying what's left of the legion, proceeds further without him.
** "Death is nothing compared to vindication" line is used not when Konrad is [[FacingTheBulletsOneLiner about to be executed for his crimes]], but when he's about to be finished off by [[BigBad Lion]], to tell that [[DefiantToTheEnd he's not afraid of whatever he can throw at him]].
* AdaptationalHeroism: Konrad lives past his AxCrazy canon personality, and never turns traitor.
* ArchEnemy: Night Lords have special hatred to Dark Angels, both for events of Thramas Crusade, and for Lion killing Konrad Curze.
* BackFromTheBrink: Night Lords nearly got extinct during the Heresy. 10K years later, they're one of the most numerous legions. They, essentially, fulfil the role which Ultramarines played in canon, that of defenders of Ultima Segmentum, including during First Tyrannic War.
* BlindSeer: Being soul-binded to the Emperor [[EyeScream destroyed Konrad's eyes]] (he covers them with white blindfold), but also made him able to see things clearly without using his eyesight -- by relying on his precognition which is now much more stable and reliable, and allows him to see himself from a side. It's not absolute failureproof, but it works most of the time. This power only grows stronger during travel through the Warp, with him now being able to see things for ''hours'' in advance.
* TheConfidant: Arbiters (also known as Sin-Eaters) listens to their brethren's problems, and either forgives them, or assigns fitting punishment. Arbiters are explicitly forbidden to take any command roles, and disallowed to become Dreadnoughts, as the weight they put on their souls can corrupt machine spirit. This position has high turnover rate, as the more secrets they learn, the [[HeroicBSOD harder it becomes to live with them]], to the point of eventually starting [[DeathSeeker seeking a death in battle]] or, in some severe cases, outright [[DrivenToSuicide committing suicide]].
* DeathByAdaptation:
** Zso Sahaal gets killed by Fulgrim during battle for Nostramo. He survived the Heresy in canon.
** Sevatar dies during his LastStand on Cadia, holding back traitorous forces of Black Templar, knowing that he'd die there, but the new would make it back and alert the Imperium.
* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: Curze still dies, but it happens drastically differently than in canon; due to all the changes in loyalties amongst Primarchs, he fights on Terra and gets slain by Arch-Traitor Lion El'Jonson; while in canon, he lived until after the end of the Heresy, and was killed by Imperial Assassin.
* DoomedHometown: Emperor's Children besieges Nostramo during Siege of Terra, in attempt to wipe out what's left of Night Lords. They gets repelled, but the planet gets hopelessly overrun by Nurgle daemons, and Curze has to destroy the planet which is beyond saving (especially since he has to take course to Terra to aid in defending it). Subsequently, the legion found a new home on the planet Prism on the eastern fringe of the galaxy.
* FictionalHoliday: Instead of Sanguinala, there's now Curzemas, a holiday in honour of Curze's sacrifice. Amongst other traditions, it's traditional day to execute criminals... with the rule that if they fail to kill everyone until the end of a day, the rest may be spared... and put into penal legions instead. Considering that original Sanguinala was already a Christmas analogue, it's now even more blatant, thanks to the name.
* ForWantOfANail:
** When he sees what happened on Nostramo in his absence, instead of performing Exterminatus, Curze descends on the planet personally and starts the second purge, as Night Haunter. This allows the Emperor to apprehend him and finally set him straight (instead of allowing him to escape and succumb to growing corruption); Emperor erases Night Haunter entirely as part of the soul-binding process, finally showing Konrad what he was meant to be.
** While Konrad was on "rehab", his legion fell under Horus' command, who took measures to purge it of scum dropped on it by Nostraman "nobility", leaving only those worth of being Astartes, and setting up proper command structure (thus, creation of Kyroptera).
* GoodCostumeSwitch: To symbolise his redemption, Konrad ditches his signature morbid armour decorated with ribs and covered with gut in favour of more noble one decorated with lightnings. He also gets healthy skin, instead of staying creepily-pale.
* GoodIsNotNice: Night Lords have zero tolerance for lawbreakers and rebels, and openly dislike Imperial Guard, as it can't live up to their standards (albeit they do have few rather crazy human regiments under their control; which [[DoubleStandard kinda goes against the rules]]).
* InSpiteOfANail: Konrad never destroys his world for "failing him"... but he still has to destroy it towards the end of the Heresy, due to planet being overrun by Nurgle corruption beyond any hope.
* JumpJetPack: Just like Raven Guard, Night Lords uses large amount of Assault Marines. Unlike them, they equip them primely with ranged weapons, sending them into enemy's backline to act as fire support.
* MarkOfShame: Feeling shame for failing to protect Nostramo, many Night Lords painted their fists red; before, it was a mark of someone atoning for past sins or failures. By contrast, Konrad Curze ''pardons'' Sevatar for what happened on Tsagualsa, removing the red marks which he was wearing up until then. When Curze dies, with no one able to "pardon" Night Lords, they keep wearing those marks permanently. After the Heresy, this practice nearly became legion-wide, requiring taking measures to prevent it. Subsequently, they resumed original practice of using red gauntlets for those who've failed somehow.
* MythologyGag: New homeworld of Night Lords has three-quorters of the planet covered with thick jungles filled with the worst monsters of them all: humans, who let their inner evil overcome them. It's a subtle reference to ''Literature/HeartOfDarkness'' and ''Film/ApocalypseNow'', which gave Konrad Curze his name; both are set in the jungle and both are dealing with the lows to which a human can fall.
* OldSoldier: Sevatar, driven by his visions, abandons the rest of Night Lords to stay on guard on Cadia, knowing that Chaos ''would'' return some day, and Cadia would be their first stop. By the time it happens for the first (but certainly not the last) time, he's 1200 years old: the oldest not-Dreadnought Astartest still in service.
* RuleOfSymbolism: It's believed that order of things on Prism is deliberate choice from Night Lords: there's constant struggle between human civilisation, and flora which tries to overgrow and consume the cities, as a sign of struggle between order and chaos, and savages in the dark forests which have to be culled frequently, showing that no crime goes unpunished... and that as long as there're humans, there would be crimes -- and ones to stop them.
* {{Seers}}: Night Lords employ more Librarians than other legions, but almost exclusively train them in the field of Divination, believing that to be more like their Primarch, they should learn to see the future.
* StraightForTheCommander: {{Averted|Trope}}, unlike canon; while prior to Konrad Curze's "rehab", Night Lords were pretty much the same as in canon, afterwards, their tactics was changed as well, including stopping their signature "infiltrate the base, gut the enemy's leader, wait for enemy to surrender" approach, as dishonourable. They still rely on speed, but no longer base their tactics on terror and infiltration, leaving this to Raven Guard.
* TookALevelInKindness: After being cured by the Emperor, Konrad's much nicer, no longer practicing slaughtering civilians as a punitive measure and treating his sons much better than his canon self. He still only comes along with Vulkan and Horus, but mainly because he doesn't bother with befriending other ones.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Ferrus Manus and Iron Hands]]
What if Ferrus tames his temper and grows closer to mortals?
----
* AdaptationalNiceGuy:
** In this timeline, Ferrus Manus is less indifferent to other people's deaths than his canon counterpart. In fact, as time goes on, [[TheChainsOfCommand he starts getting tired of so many dying on his orders]] -- while he can't even suffer a scratch.
** Iron Hands have good relationship with Imperial Guard, and have their own mortal regiments (they used some loopholes to not violate Edicts Martial); such relationships with the mortals serves double purpose to preserve humanity no matter how heavily they augments themselves.
** It's stated that one of the defining traits of the Iron Hands is their optimism and belief that they can make the world a better place through their efforts.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Neither Iron Drakes nor Steel Confessors were traitors in canon.
* AdaptationOriginConnection:
** In canon, Iron Drakes were Salamanders Successor Chapter; here, they're [[RenegadeSplinterFaction Chaos warband of the renegade Iron Hands]].
** True origin of the Steel Confessors in canon is unclear, but believed to be Iron Hands; they're explicitly their [[RenegadeSplinterFaction Chaos warband]] here.
* ArchEnemy: While they mainly fights Iron Warriors, the most hated foes are Emperor's Children, due to [[WeUsedToBeFriends their foul betrayal]].
* BlessedWithSuck: Living metal on Ferrus' hands didn't stop on just his hands, slowly growing further, to his discomfort: what would happen when it covers him entirely? Thousands of years later, it ''does'', and starts growing ''inside him'', giving him machine empathy, but also slowly stripping him of human emotions.
* TheChainsOfCommand: Ferrus Manus is ''not'' okay with so many dying on his orders, [[SurvivorGuilt while he's essentially invulnerable]]. He doesn't let the others to see this, though.
* ExactWords: To avoid disbanding Chainveil (mortal regiments from Medusa), Iron Hands pushed for them being removed from under Astra Militarum jurisdiction, so ''technically'' they don't command any Imperial Guard regiments. Those people are used both to perform second wave of assault, and to maintain the Legion's fleet.
* ForWantOfANail:
** Ferrus Manus obtains some followers before he finds and kills Asirnoth. Shared challenges makes him somewhat more accepting to humans (he still despises weakness, but better understands their limits), and also makes him stay with a clan instead of remaining a nomad. He then takes some of his people and tries to explore Telstarax orbital ring, only for it to end in a bloodbath which only Ferrus survives (way too many hostile machines). This teaches him that being too rushy can end in one's undoing (the lesson his canon counterpart never learned), and causes him to be more cautious with people under his command. He also later teaches Iron Hands the importance of self-control. In canon, [[HotBlooded impulsiveness]] was the FatalFlaw of both primarch and his legion.
** Ferrus Manus lives for long enough to actually enforce his distrust to bionics. While he wouldn't purge this obsession with bionics completely, it would drastically decrease in commonality, especially after Moirai Schism.
* AHouseDivided: The Moirai Schism still happens, but goes differently than in canon. It's [[AdaptationalVillainy Clan Raukaan]] which supports heretechs (along with other Supremacists), calling themselves "Sons of Medusa", while [[AdaptationalHeroism Clan Morragul]] and other Purists calls themselves "Red Talons". Unlike canon, their conflict ''does'' result in the open warfare, destroying one-third of the Legion before Night Lords intervenes to stop it, after which the traitors gets purged.
* InSpiteOfANail: In canon, Iron Hands nearly went extinct due to losses suffered on Isstvan. Here, they comes to the same numbers through battles they fought in the last days of Heresy, including Mars Schism and Siege of Terra.
* ProHumanTranshuman: Ferrus Manus learned that, while flesh is weak, it doesn't matter that much when will is iron, and thus, grew to respect mortal humans for their ability to fight and prevail. Iron Hands (for the most part) still follows that mindset, which makes them close with Imperial Guard (they believe that it helps them stay human, no matter what) -- and rather cold with Mechanicum, who're certainly not on the side of "flesh", and don't understand that some forbidden tech should stay locked.
-->''The flesh is weak, but the spirit is strong!''
* SparedByTheAdaptation: Ferrus Manus survives entirety of the Heresy, instead of dying at the second major battle of it.
* SurvivorGuilt: Post-Telstarax, Ferrus feels guilt for the fact that he keeps surviving where people who trusts him don't. This is especially strong with Iron Hands, as he sees in them a reflection of his own flaws which led to the tragedy which was Telstarax expedition.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Mortarion and Death Guard]]
What if the Emperor doesn't "steal" Mortarion's vengeance against Witch-Lord?
----
* AdaptationalHeroism: Neither Mortarion nor his Legion turns traitor in this timeline.
* AdaptationOriginConnection: Marines Malevolent, instead of being loyalist Chapter of unknown origin, [[AdaptationalVillainy are renegades now]], originating from Death Guard; they don't worship Chaos, instead following their own insane creed.
* ArchEnemy: The only enemy whom they hate more than Thousand Sons and Emperor's Children (for being "witches" and for "mocking" their resilience, respectively) are White Scars, who nearly destroyed the sons of Mortarion during the Heresy.
* BattleCry: {{Averted|Trope}}; they're explicitly the only loyalist Legion to not use ''any'' battlecry when going into battle, fighting in complete silence. It adds to their creepy "grim reaper" motives.
* CoinsForTheDead: After performing Exterminatus on the once-human planet, Death Guard commander in charge always goes into vacuum and throws a coin (one of the countless pre-prepared) on the planet for all the dead left behind, as symbolic burial ritual. It's performed in silence, as no words can convey the grief they feel.
* CombatMedic: Death Guard is known for putting much more emphasis on Apothecaries than any other Legion -- understandably, as their choice of weaponry often results in injuries no one else would suffer.
* DeathByAdaptation: Kalas Typhon dies during he Heresy; he's still alive in canon.
* DoesNotLikeMagic:
** Mortarion calls Malcador "witch", and openly despises him. He somewhat softens to him after the Heresy, but they don't become friends either.
** Death Guard does allow Librarians in their ranks, but keep them isolated. Despite that, they do employ psykers as Apothecaries, who're only trained in the sphere of biomancy.
* ForWantOfANail: Mortarion fails the first attempt to storm Necare's castle, and decides to resort to war of attrition. But then the Emperor in disguise warns him that it's not gonna work (those monsters don't feed like humans, so they can't starve). He offers his help, but Mortarion rejects it, and Emperor leaves, saying that sometimes, it's fine to accept someone's help when you can't handle problem on your own. Mortarion tries to attack Necare personally (something which ended up disastrously in canon), but Emperor covertly assists him, reducing the level of sorcery-created poison Mortarion has to face. As result, Mortarion reaches Nakare still having strength to fight him and win. Only then the Emperor offers him to join. There's no humiliation that their bet was in canon, and there's no "kill-stealing", so Mortarion goes willingly; it doesn't make them friends, however.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Death Guards aren't liked even by the other Legions, due to their (well-deserved) reputation of jerks and loners. The only groups which willingly allies with them are Grey Knights (who're just as ruthless, and shares hatred for Chaos) and Mechanicum (who're just as sociopathic).
* GoodIsNotNice:
** Mortarion may be on the side of good guys this time, but he's still a jerk, with tendency for unwarranted pettiness. He does get called on this by Leman Russ.
** Death Guard specialises in destroying any and all threats to Humanity, not protection missions. When civilians ends up in the crossfire, it's just collateral damage, though they ''do''give them one day to try and escape, if there're any survivors left.
* HealingHands: Many Death Guard Apothecaries are trained biomants who uses their powers to heal their wounded.
* ImNotHereToMakeFriends: Mortarion doesn't even bother with coming along with any other Primarch, or even the Emperor. He has a duty, and he's gonna do it; that's all that matters.
* IWorkAlone: Just like Mortarion himself, Death Guards really don't like to work with someone outside of their structure, especially when they have to take subordinate role.
* MeaningfulAppearance: After what he survived on the Golden Throne, Mortarion becomes withered and thin, adding to his "grim reaper" appearance; it gets explicitly pointed in-text.
* MercyKill: Death Guard has death at the centre of their philosophy and culture, viewing it not as something terrible, but as the release from suffering that is the life. This puts their specialisation on performing Exterminatus on planets beyond salvation in the different light.
* MiseryBuildsCharacter: Present-day Death Guard shares Mortarion's believe that humans who survives whatever suffering the life throws at them through hard work and strength of will can grow stronger and better.
* OnlySaneEmployee: Originally, the Emperor [[InvokedTrope planned for Mortarion to be]] the only Primarch who stays an outsider and never lets his perception be blinded by affection to Imperium and Emperor -- so if something goes wrong, he would act as a failsafe. However, as pointed by Malcador, he'd forged his own path, becoming something more than merely that.
* SaltTheEarth: The Death Guards are called when any hope to hold the planet is lost, and all that's left is to deny it to the enemy, by utterly destroying it. Notably, they ''do'' give the locals a day to evacuate, despite usually being the resident jerks.
* ShootTheDog: Mortus Poisoners are permanently stationed on Barbarus, to cull any signs of taint (which is still presented, despite Witch-Lords long being gone) amongst civilians of Barbarus; being assigned to work as one is a punishment, reserved only for those already sinful, so the rest of the Legion wouldn't taint themselves with the blood and screams of dying.
* TokenGoodTeammate: Most Death Guards are jerk, even if loyal; Mortarion even more so. And yet, Calas Typhon, of all people, actually works to improve the Legion's reputation by cooperating with the other Legions, earning their approval.
* WeaponSpecialisation:
** Death Guard is the only Legion using the power scythes in battle, and using effectively.
** Death Guard puts much emphasis on destructive chemical and rad weaponry, which other Legions refuses to employ. Such weaponry sometimes causes self-harm.
* YouAreWhatYouHate: Mortarion always hated psykers, but after sitting on the Golden Throne, unlocks his own psychic potential. It doesn't make him accept the psykers, but he at least stops advocating for purging them.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Horus and Sons of Horus]]
What if Horus wouldn't fall to Chaos?
----
* AdaptationalHeroism: Horus recovers from attempt to corrupt him, and never turns traitor; and so is his Legion.
* AllowedInternalWar: Sons of Horus allows the gang wars on Chtonia to continue, as they encourages survival of the strongest, whom they then picks for inclusion into legion.
* ArchEnemy: Sons of Horus hates Iron Warriors above all other traitors, due to Perturabo killing Horus. Dark Angels, as architects of Heresy, are the close second.
* DeathByAdaptation:
** Maloghurst gets killed on the world 63-19 instead of [[SparedByTheAdaptation Hastur Sejanus]]; he survived in canon.
** Garviel Loken and Falkus Kibre are amongst Sons of Horus killed during the Heresy; in canon, Kibre is sill alive in the "present time", while Loken is implied to be one of original Grey Knights.
** Lev Goshen gets killed by Blood Angels; he survived the Heresy in canon, only to suffer FateWorseThanDeath later on.
** Abaddon dies during Siege of Terra, killed by Sanguinius; in canon, he outlived both Sanguinius and Horus, and is still alive in the "present" time.
* DemotedToExtra: Hastur Sejanus never dying prevents Garviel Loken to enter Mournival. Loken later gets KilledOffscreen.
* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: Iacton Qruze gets slain by Nassir Amit instead of Horus; Nassir [[ForcedToWatch broadcasts his screams of agony]] for enemy to listen.
* FatalFlaw: [[HotBlooded Passion]]; both Horus and his Legion are known for their passion, which gives them strength for heroic feats, but can also lead to their downfall.
** Perturabo exploited it by challenging Horus on a battle, only to use it as an opportunity to kill him with a bomb instead of actually facing him in battle. Since then, Sons of Horus have a special Terminator group, the Luperci ("Brotherhood of the Wolf"), which wears black armour and have iron self-control as a necessary condition for entering, to not suffer the same fate as their liege.
** Sons of Horus have a dubious honour of being the Legion with highest number of Chaos warbands splintering from them, amongst all loyalists. It's directly attributed to their passion, which may be easily exploited by the Ruinous Powers.
* ForWantOfANail: Horus sends Maloghurst to negotiate on 63-19 instead of Hastur, and when he gets betrayed and killed, Horus orders to just nuke the planet from orbit, instead of storming it. It saves the lives of Hastur and Jubal, which, in turn, saves Horus: Hastur Sejanus never dying, and generally higher distrust to sorcery post-Nikaea, makes Chaos unable to corrupt Horus: traitors simply never gets a chance beyond initial stabbing with corrupted dagger.
* InSpiteOfANail: Horus Aximand still gets beheaded, despite all changes in this timeline; this time, it's Sigismund who kills him.
* NeverFoundTheBody: Horus gets presumably killed by Perturabo's bomb, but as only his weapon and discarded gauntlet gets found, it's possible that he didn't actually die; when Primarchs and/or Chaos are involved, one can never be sure without seeing the death (and sometimes even then).
* PsychoKnifeNut: On Cthonia, the street gangs still exists, and still uses the battle knives in their fierce battles. Even when new recruits gets taken into the Legion (from those gangs), they keeps their old weapons, reforging them into power knives. When they dies, the knives gets melted and used as material for great wall listing the history of their feats.
* RuleOfSymbolism: The battle with Sanguinius costs him an eye; not only an eye is the symbol of the Legion post-renaming, it also adds to the symbolism of Horus' own name.
* SparedByTheAdaptation:
** Hastur Sejanus not only doesn't get killed on 63-19 ([[DeathByAdaptation Maloghurst gets]]), but he's the SoleSurvivor of the Mournival by the end of the Heresy. This also leads to Garviel Loken never joining it, as in canon, he was taken in explicitly to replace Hastur, due to each Mournival member representing certain archetype.
** Xavyer Jubal never gets possessed and killed, as he never descends onto 63-19. He fights on Terra.
** Horus survives the Heresy, albeit not unscarred. He later dies during the Scouring, however.
* StraightForTheCommander: Sons of Horus specialises in crushing the enemy with one swift strike by destroying their commanders, piercing their defences like a spear.
* WeaponSpecialisation: Sons of Horus are the only Legion which uses, alongside other melee weapons, the power knives for close combat (every single one of them, regardless of rank, has a personal power knife); it's a reflection of their Cthonian heritage, as every gang member -- from whom they recruits -- always keeps their knife with them; in fact, they don't even make new knives, but reforges the old ones.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Lorgar and Word Bearers]]
What if Emperor actually helped Lorgar to reconsider his faith, instead of just rejecting it?
----
* AdaptationalHeroism:
** Lorgar lives past his resentment of the Emperor for rejecting his faith, and never goes traitor.
** Kor Phaeron is neither Chaos worshipper nor an AbusiveParent.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Barthusa Narek defects with a full quarter of Word Bearers during the Heresy; they're still active even long after, as a Chaos warband. Barthusa was a loyalist and TheMole in canon.
* ArchEnemy: Their worst enemies are Ultramarines. Besides initial rivalry they had even prior to the Heresy, there's also the Shadow Crusade and later the death of Lorgar from Guilliman's hands.
* BigBookOfWar: Book of Lorgar, instead of being the collection of blasphemous teachings of Chaos, like it was in canon, is the collections of wisdom, both spiritual and military. For all intends and purposes, it's a Codex Astartes analogue.
* CharacterDevelopment: Lorgar lives past his resentment of the Emperor for rejecting his devotion, and learns to respect him ''as a man'', not a god.
* ChurchMilitant: Not Word Bearers themselves (who've long lived past their religiousness), but their allies; they notably never calls Imperial Guard for aid, instead working alongside Sisters of Battle, the military force of Ecclesiarchy.
* DeathByAdaptation:
** Kor Phaeron gets killed by Guilliman during battle for Macragge. He's still alive in canon.
** Lorgar gets mortally wounded by Roboute Guilliman during the battle for Macragge, and put into stasis on Khur, with no hope to save him with anything at the humans' disposal. In canon, Lorgar is still alive, albeit doesn't actively participate in any conflict.
* DualityMotif: Post-Heresy, only two out of original four groups of Word Bearers are still active, one based on Colchis, and one based on Khur, both run by their own Legion Masters; and both groups are vastly different. Group from Colchis (run by Zoa Grodna Anchorite) is known as supporters of Imperial Truth, and encourages same on the planet, with it still having traditional way of life and notably not worshipping the Emperor or Lorgar, while Khur (run by Zoa Thiriel [[VideoGame/DawnOfWar Torquill Eliphas the Inheritor]]) is all covered with shrines, and local Astartes are fierce believers of the God-Emperor, and known for being impulsive and zealous; they comes along just well, both because they know that faith isn't required to be the same as long as it's true, and because both agree that original Monarchia was a lesson to learn from. Even their colour schemes are different, with branch from Colchis using grey scheme (the one used before Lorgar, and which Lorgar reinstated after denouncing his faith), and branch from Khur using red scheme (the one used by Word Bearers while they were still on peak of their zealotry).
* DueToTheDead: Position of Zoa Urtha and his branch of Word Bearers were abolished after the death of Argel Tal and entire Gal Vorbak, as it's believed that replacing them would be disrespectful.
* ForWantOfANail:
** Lorgar's capsule drops right on the Covenant temple, destroying it and killing most of the priests. Kor Phaeron is amongst survivors, but witnessing what he can only perceive as a miracle, he reconsiders his faith, thus preventing him from becoming Chaos worshipper or [[AbusiveParents abusive jerk of a father]] he was in canon. Thus, he never tries to corrupt or subvert Lorgar.
** After destroying Monarchia, instead of just leaving Lorgar to fend for himself (a decision which, essentially, kickstarted the Heresy in canon), the Emperor temporarily assigns Word Bearers to humble and boring garrison duty, while Lorgar spends five years near the Emperor, observing his "god" in his everyday life. This makes him rethink his entire life; when the Emperor allows him to leave, he reorganises his legion and ditches all religious aspects which once were central for its ideology. They went a bit overzealous with it (as it often happens with them), now destroying the planets for refusing to give up on old faiths, going especially harsh on anyone whose faith closely resembles that of Covenant, though they went better with time.
* FourElementEnsemble: After ditching his religious worship of the Emperor, Lorgar divided his Legion into four groups, each run by the leader representing one of the four elements from Colchis' mythology: Zoa Fuzon (fire), Zoa Urtha (water), Zoa Grodna (air) and Zoa Thiriel (air). Zoa Fuzon ([[AdaptationalVillainy Barthusa Narek]]) defected along with his entire qroup, while Zoa Urtha (Argel Tal) was killed with entirety of his group, Gal Vorbak; both titles were abolished, one out of shame, one out of respect, and now only two other exists.
* KingInTheMountain: On Khur, many people believes that Lorgar isn't truly dead and would return to them one day, awakening from stasis. Word Bearers are highly sceptical of that, even the Khur branch, but they don't suppress this belief.
* RenegadeSplinterFaction: A full quarter of Word Bearers, commanded by Barthusa Narek, gets subverted into joining the traitors via the usage of warrior lodges (many off them took badly the lack of greater being to worship), renames themselves "Sons of Fuzon" (after a fire spirit from Colchis' mythology) and turns on their comrades on Calth, when they gets cornered by traitorous Ultramarines. Even long after the Heresy, they remains the fiercely hated foe, equally to Ultramarines. This wing of Word Bearers never gets rebuilt, as it gets too tainted by association with traitors.
* RememberTheAlamo: When facing Ultramarines, both branches uses "Remember Monarchia!" battlecry.
* RuleOfTwo: With the death of both Lorgar and Kor Phaeron, the only one fit for command was Erebus; but he wanted no such power, so he installed Zardu Layak as his co-commander. After their deaths, the tradition of having two commanders instead of one was continued and became standard practice. It's also reflected by them having two homeworlds, both of equal importance: Colchis and Khur.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: Cyrene Valantion survives the events of Heresy, and reassures Lorgar that he didn't fail his father: in fact, he's the closest to his designs of all Primarchs. She later also suggests him to not suppress the cult of the Emperor, arguing that humans needs ''something'' to believe in, and God-Emperor isn't the worst they can come up with (clearly hinting at Imperial Cult possibly being replaced by worship of Chaos).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Vulkan and Salamanders]]
What if Vulkan becomes Praetorian?
----
* AbsoluteXenophobe: Just as much as the Salamanders likes humans, they ''hates'' xenos, with especially burning hatred towards Eldar.
* AdaptationOriginConnection: The Unifiers (elite Mechanicum force) gets created on Vulkan's request after Magnus' betrayal, instead of during the Great Crusade on Emperor's.
* ArchEnemy: Out of all Traitor Legions, the most despised are Iron Warriors, for being so cruel towards common humans; they also remembers how Iron Warriors acted like petty jerks over Perturabo being passed by for position of Praetorian.
* BigGuy: Whenever they cooperates with Imperial Guard, the Salamanders redirects enemy's attention on themselves, knowing that they can take the hit, while their allies can't, after which Imperial Guard has to finish the enemy off. It's compared to an anvil and hammer.
* DeerInTheHeadlights: Post-Heresy, many Terrans have developed innate condition known as "Terra's Lament": basically, they completely freezes in terror in the presence of any Astartes, unable to do or say anything. Salamanders only recruits those who can suppress this condition and reach them on their own.
* {{Determinator}}: Salamanders are known for being extremely stubborn when doing what they believe being right (sometimes, to the point of ignoring contradictory orders, which may result in them being killed). Additionally, they're notoriously more prone to survive seemingly mortal wounds, which resulted in unusually high amount of Dreadnoughts in their ranks.
* ForWantOfANail:
** Salamanders never suffers decimation in traitors' ambush, which, by the time of the War of the Beast, allows them to become one of the ''largest'' Legions. [[SubvertedTrope Then they suffers massive casualties in the War of the Beast]], after which they never fully recovers, [[InSpiteOfANail now being one of the smallest Legions just like in canon]].
** Salamanders avoiding near extermination at the very beginning of Heresy allows them to play by far the larger role in the conflict and after it -- like replacing Imperial Fists in the War of the Beast and the War for Armageddon.
** Vulkan being put in the role of Praetorian later affects his Legion, which gains different gene-seed quirk than in canon: instead of being relatively slow to react, compared to the other Astartes, Salamanders develops extreme stubbornness, which sometimes even prevents them from dying.
** Vulkan never produces the artifacts for his sons to find (unlike canon), so Forgefathers instead gets used as substitute for Legion Master, making He'Stan the leader of Salamanders instead of a wanderer hero (Tu'Shan is still a Chapter Master, it's just that his rank isn't highest in the Legion anymore).
* InSpiteOfANail: Despite now having nothing to do with Nocturne, Salamanders still have pitch-black skin and glowing red eyes, as their new world, Venus, isn't much different in conditions from Nocturne (it even has salamanders analogue, Venus Dragons.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: For all intents and purposes, Venus is exactly the same as Nocturne: heat, lava, radiation and even dangerous dragons.
* VillainKiller: Salamanders are ''the'' best anti-Ork Legion, having facing (and defeating) them so often, and [[KillItWithFire their flamers ensuring that the Orks wouldn't just come back]].
* YouCantGoHomeAgain: While Vulkan is proud that he was chosen as Praetorian, he's sad that he can no longer visit his homeworld of Nocturne or fight side by side with his friend Ferrus Manus. Same applies to his Legion, which is now forced to base on Venus (the closest they could find to their homeworld's conditions).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Corvus Corax and Raven Guard]]
What if Corvus would perish on Isstvan?
----
* AdaptationalHeroism: Ashen Claws don't turn renegade in this timeline, and after Heresy, reintegrates into Raven Guard, albeit they never forgives Corvus for exiling them either. That being said, [[GoodIsNotNice they're massive jerks]], and spreads that attitude on the rest of the Legion.
* ArchEnemy: The most hated foes of all are the War Hounds (once known as World Eaters); when they gains a chance to avenge the massacre on Isstvan, not even High Lords of Terra can force them to withdraw from vengeance campaign.
* DeathByAdaptation: Corvus is the first casualty of Heresy, while in canon, he survived throughout its entirety and is still alive in the "present time".
* ExactWords: There are no Librarians in Raven Guard: the Emperor ordered to disband them; however, their Chaplains are psykers, as they believes (just like Word Bearers) that they provides the Emperor's will by interacting with Empyreans. They completely fails to see the difference, and [[DoubleStandard thinks that other Legions' Librarians are "tainted"]].
* ForWantOfANail:
** Corvus receives same treatment with which Alpharius was hit in canon: Guilliman and Russ thinks that he has no chance to catch up and dismisses him, Dorn and Perturabo dislikes his guerrilla tactics; but he finds a friend in Horus... only to spoil it after the battle for Gate 42. Then he makes a mistake of trusting Angron, who backstabs and kill him. Now, Raven Guard is highly unwilling to trust ''anyone'', making exception for Sons of Horus due to Horus sympathisers taking over after Corvus' death.
** Due to Corvus dying, so many of the Raven Guards succumbing to Sable Brand, and Arkhas Fal returning to assume command, the Raven Guard reverts to their old ways -- that of terror and brutal suppression.
* GoodIsNotNice: Under Akrhan Fal and his successor's influence, Raven Guard reverts to the old ways, from the days before Corvus reshaped the Legion:
** They're no longer the liberators Corvus dreamed them to be; once again, it's a Legion of enforcers.
** Deliverance was turned back into prison colony, with Raven Guards collecting prisoners for it across the galaxy to add fresh blood and encourage survival of the fittest. People from the other planets in the system gets assigned a debt from the moment they gets born, and they have to regularly pay up, or end up on Deliverance, where [[IndenturedServitude they're used to work in Mechanicum's forges]] (it's estimated that ~7% of population are prisoners or were prisoners at some point). Selling a son to become Astartes clears the debt instantly.
* NeverBeHurtAgain: After being backstabbed by World Eaters, the ones they grew to views as friends, the Raven Guards chose to exile themselves on Deliverance, unwilling to deal with anyone. They temporarily snaps out of it when Alpharius visits them and tells what's going on, asking whether they would join in to save Imperium; but once the Heresy ends, they reverts back to suspecting everyone.
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: Corvus Corax [[KickTheDog unfairly exiled Arkhas Fal]] due to wanting to get rid of everyone who reminds him about Horus and his Legion's old ways. Arkhas Fal returns only when he hears about Corvus' death, and, when Horus appoints him as new Legion Master, exploits it to get rid of his father's tactics and other legacy.
* SocialDarwinist: The Raven Guards despise those too weak to fight back against oppressors. They also encourages competition amongst their ranks, as only the most skilled, cunning, ambitious deserves to rise on the top.
* TerrorHero: Similarly to Night Lords, they strikes from the shadows, eliminates commanders and leaves the enemy scared and expecting ambush on every step.
* TraumaCongaLine: The ill-fated battle for Gates 42, massacre on Isstvan and loss of Primarch, the losses on Chemos, all to not make it in time to Terra and have so little survivors (less than three thousands) that they're barely a Legion now -- Raven Guard just can't catch a break.
* UnPerson: Arkhas Fal made a lot to erase Corvus Corax from the Legion's history, or at least its culture; he partially succeeded, as he's barely remembered now, with only some litanies (mainly those related to stealth) mentioning his name.
* UnscrupulousHero: For as long as their tactics achieves victory, the Raven Guards don't care about such things as collateral damage or amorality.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Corvus dies early in the story, before he gets a chance to develop past his pre-Heresy backstory. Idea is more of how his Legion would cope without him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Alpharius Omegon and Alpha Legion]]
What if Alpharius gets raised by Eldrad Ulthran?
----
* AdaptationalHeroism: Alpharius and Omegon spends most of the Heresy fighting in shadows, destabilising the traitors and thwarting their plans; a part of the Legion also greatly assists on Terra. After the Heresy, they helps with improving bureaucracy and Officio Assassinorum, as well as establishing Inquisition. And one Chapter is permanently stationed on Cadia.
* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Armillus Dynat, an Alpha Legion officer, while observing the campaign led by Marius Gage, realises where the enemy's leaders are hiding, and kills them first, swiftly and efficiently -- while Gage was stuck in that campaign ''for months'' without any achievements and with heavy losses. Guilliman gets infuriated, while Dynat earns much favour from Alpharius.
* FireForgedFriends: While initially Eldar (other than Eldrad, who adopted him) were cold to Alpharius, later he earned their respect -- in particular, he became close ally with the Harlequins, who've helped him greatly during the Heresy, at the conflict now known as the War in the Webway, when he fought against the Thousand Sons. After the Heresy, he disappeared, and last time he was sighted in M33 accompanied by Harlequins. As for Legion itself, they're noted to suspiciously rarely fight Eldar.
* ForWantOfANail: Alpharius (who gets abducted instead of Omegon, who stays on Terra) gets discovered and trained by Eldrad Ultran (and later Harlequins as well). The results are:
** Eldrad remains in contact with his student ever since, and warns him not to trust Cabal, saying that they've been manipulated. He suggests to exploit them by [[TheMole pretending that Alpharius sided with them]], so they can later dismantle whatever conspiracy their masters have planned from within. Which Alpharius later does.
** Prior connections makes Alpharius fight Thousand Sons in the Webway not alone, but accompanied by Harlequins. In canon, Eldars stays neutral in the conflict.
* ManchurianAgent: {{Inverted|Trope}} with Alpha-Legion's spies in Chaos Legions and warbands; they have their original personality suppressed and hidden, until the right time comes, with their programmed cover story taking over for duration of the operation. It usually works, but there's always a risk of [[BecomingTheMask your cover story stopping being the "cover"]].
* TheMole: The Alpha Legion managed to infiltrate their agents in every large group of traitors, even though they all have escaped into various Warp-Storms (Eye of Terror, Maelstrom, etc). The process is [[ManchurianAgent very complex]], but ensures surprisingly low percent of traitors (albeit it's [[BecomingTheMask not fail-proof]]).
* SparedByTheAdaptation: In canon, there were two notable cases when either Alpharius and/or Omegon were ''possibly'' slain -- on Eskrador, and on Pluto. Neither happens here, and only fake deaths are mentioned.
* StealingTheCredit: {{Inverted|Trope}} regarding Alpha Legion; they often hides their involvement, allowing other Legions to take credits for their operations, as they don't want unneeded attention. In one specific case, they hunted down the Daemon-Prince Kor'sarro, beheaded him and put his head on a pike -- but did it in such a way that everyone believed that it was done by the Raven Guard led by Captain Shrike.
[[/folder]]

! Traitors
[[folder: Lion El'Jonson and Dark Angels]]
----
* AdaptationalHeroism: Merir Astelan is amongst those Dark Angels who stays loyal to the Emperor, even when the rest of the legion [[AdaptationalVillainy goes traitor]]; he's a Fallen Angel in canon.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Lion was amongst most fiercely loyal Primarchs in canon; here, he's the initiator of the Heresy.
* BigBad: He's the Arch-Traitor in this timeline, and architect of the Heresy.
* TheChessmaster: Lion nearly achieves victory through his manipulations alone, by dividing the loyalists in such a way that they can't help each other, and nearly slaughtering them one by one -- long before the Siege of Terra.
** Angron and Corvus ends up in Isstvan system, where most of Raven Guard, Corvus included, gets killed when World Eaters backstabs them. When Sangunius comes to investigate, it ends with his own corruption, even if at the cost of Angron's life.
** Lorgar and Konrad comes to investigate what's going on in Ultramar. They gets separated, with Konrad trapped in the Ruinstorm, and Lorgar nearly overwhelmed with the might of Slaanesh-worshipping Ultramarines.
** Space Wolves not only suffers massive casualties, but gets declared traitors themselves (as them being silent suspiciously resembles behaviour of other traitors), and only cleans up their name when Mortarion (himself nearly killed by Star Hunters raiders) pledges for them.
** Horus almost gets corrupted or disposed of multiple times. He gets stabbed on Davin, as per canon, and almost gets corrupted, ''twice''. Then he almost gets intercepted on the way to Terra to heal him. Later, when he returns to Davin, now-corrupted Sanguinius attacks him with his Blood Angels, soon joined by Dark Angels; Horus barely escapes alive.
* TheCorruptor: He's directly behind several Primarchs' downfall, exploiting their flaws or insecurities to turn them against Emperor.
** Lion convinces Sanguinius that him succumbing to Red Thirst would be seen as the sign of corruption, and they all know what happens to corrupt ones; but Lion would cover for him, Sanguinius just has to trust him. He then reinforces his doubts by convincing him that Horus is a power-hungry tyrant who's ready to condemn people for just failing to respond to communications (omitting ''why'' he's doing this), and that Sanguinius (whose secrets Horus knows) may be the next target once Horus learns about what happened on Isstvan. Sanguinius follows him in his plan to "save" Imperium, but only damns himself completely.
** Lion exploits Guilliman's {{pride}}, by appealing to his ego and lying that the Emperor plans to exploit him and throw away; it works so well because it's exactly how Guilliman himself treats other people, so it's easy for him to expect the same in turn.
** Lion and his legion are behind the downfall of Magnus and Thousand Sons:
*** Dark Angels slowly subverts Thousand Sons into serving Tzeentch, starting from Amon.
*** Lion sends Magnus the fake "prophetic" dreams about his future as the corpse on the Golden Throne, and later releases him, knowing that Magnus would make all the wrong assumptions when he sees the Webway project.
* EvilCounterpart: To Konrad Curze. Both grew on the cruel, savage planets, both were untouched by civilisation until much later; but Lion let his inner beast consume him, while Curze had changed once he entrusted the Emperor. Lion outright admits it before killing Curze, albeit he fails to take the lessons out of it.
* GreenEyedMonster: Lion wasn't satisfied with being appointed as Horus' second-in-command: he wanted more, he wanted to be the Warmaster himself.
* HeroKiller: Lion slays Konrad in their duel on Terra, and later mortally wounds the Emperor. Konrad gets buried on Terra, as his homeworld was already destroyed in the aftermath of Night Lords' battle against Emperor's Children.
* PrematurelyGreyHaired: Amongst other signs of his Chaos corruption, Lion gains grey hairs (he was blond) and elderly-looking face.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Fulgrim and Emperor's Children]]
----
* EvilCostumeSwitch: Post-corruption, Emperor's Children, who once wore bright and noble purple armour, now wears the armour coloured like "old bruise", reflecting them falling to Nurgle, god of sickness and death.
* InSpiteOfANail: Somehow, Fulgrim still ends up with the same name, despite it originating from the mythology of Chemos, while he ends up on Chogoris.
* TakeAThirdOption: Meta example. As Fulgrim ended up on Chogoris instead of Chemos in this timeline (Jaghatai instead ends up on Chemos), the question arise how to build his backstory: being adopted by tribesmen was Jaghatai's backstory in canon, and being adopted by Palatine was already done by another fic, so the author instead invents new China-themed faction which also solves the issue just how Fulgrim can fit in on Mongolian-themed planet.
* WalkingWasteland: Post-corruption, Fulgrim spreads death and plague wherever he goes.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Perturabo and Iron Warriors]]
----
* DefectorFromDecadence: One of Iron Warriors' officers (known only as "Honorable Soulaka"), along with his entire battalion, chose to abandon Perturabo after learning of his treachery, and join the loyalists' efforts; they're amongst forces assisting in battle for Nostramo.
* TheDragon: Perturabo serves as Lion's right-hand man, and helps him with to force into compliance some particularly rabid and disobedient legions and Primarchs.
* HeroKiller: Perturabo succeeded at what all other Primarchs failed: he killed Horus.
* MirrorCharacter: In their mindless rivalry, Rogal Dorn and Perturabo shed so much blood, it washed away most of their differences, making the two almost the same brutal siege-masters and butchers, to the point that the two becomes almost interchangeable.
* WeHaveReserves: One of the reasons why Ferrus Manus despises Perturabo in this timeline is his callous disregard for the lives of people under his command -- something Ferrus grew to avoid.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Jaghatai Khan and White Scars]]
----
* AdaptationalContextChange: Jaghatai doesn't rename them "White Scars", unlike canon; they pick this name after his death, not as initiation ritual (as they have nothing to do with Chogoris in this timeline), but as memory of their fallen.
* AdaptationalNameChange: Unlike canon, Jaghatai doesn't rename his Legion "White Scars", as his new backstory gives him no reason for that. [[SubvertedTrope They renames themselves "White Scars" after the Heresy]], albeit they're also known as "Red Corsairs".
* AdaptationalVillainy:
** In canon, Jaghatai was one of the loyalists, rejecting the traitors if nout out loyalty, then for their instanity alone.
** Saul Tarvitz (here, one of White Scars, due to Fulgrim and Jaghatai ending up on each other's homeworlds) was loyalist in canon, even though most of his legion (Emperor's Children in canon) went traitor. Here, he follows his Primarch into damnation.
* DeathByAdaptation: Jaghatai ends up backstabbed and killed by Guilliman to fuel his ascension; he survived entirety of Heresy in canon.
* DoomedHometown: Raven Guard destroys Chemos during the Heresy; though Jaghatai doesn't live to see it, as Guilliman already backstabbed and killed him by this point.
* ForWantOfANail: Jaghatai ends up on Chemos instead of Chogoris (swapping places with Fulgrim). As result, the planet never improves from bring polluted mess, with its people becoming scrappers scavengers. It's pointed in-text that perhaps, in different timeline it could've been different.
* HatedHometown: It's stated that Jaghatai hates Chemos, to the point that he prefers to stay away from it, and avoid recruiting its people.
* InSpiteOfANail: Somehow, Jaghatai still ends up with the same name (minus "Khan" part of it), despite ending up on Chemos instead of Chogoris, which uses the different language.
* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: Jaghatai's "reward" for joining the traitors is getting him and most of his legion killed by Ultramarines, being viewed as tools to use and discard, rather than allies.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Rogal Dorn and Imperial Fists]]
----
* AdaptationalNameChange: During the Heresy, Imperial Fists quickly attains nickname "Crimson Fists" for their brutality; it sticks to the point that it replaces their original name. Then, when Sigismund takes over, he renames the legion "Black Templars".
* AdaptationalVillainy: In canon, not only Rogal was amongst most fiercely loyal Primarchs, but he was Praetorian of Terra.
* AmbiguousStartOfDarkness: No one knows for sure just ''what'' was the key contributor to Dorn's betrayal. Amongst possible versions are being a runner up for position of Praetorian, others states his old feeling of [[DudeWheresMyRespect not being respected and appreciated]], which was doomed to burst out sooner or later.
* AppropriatedAppellation: During the Heresy, Imperial Fists gets renamed "Crimson Fists", the name derived from how Imperials called them for their savagery. It would later be replaced with Black Templar when Sigismund would take over.
* DeathByAdaptation: Mathias has died at some point during the Great Crusade, crushed beneath a glacier on Inwit (the planet became ''extremely'' seismically-unstable). As no catastrophes of such scale happened to Inwit in canon, he presumably survived the Heresy there.
* DoomedHometown: Rogal Dorn's arrival on Inwit doesn't go as smoothly; stasis pod lands in such a way that it provokes earthquakes (killing a lot of people) and starting massive non-stopping volcanic activity, which slowly renders planet uninhabitable, both from getting even colder and from air being unbreathable (to the point that many elderly suffocates to death, including Dorn's adoptive grandfather). It gets estimated that in few centuries, local human would go extinct, so Don has to evacuate those who're still alive to ''Phalanx'' and abandon the planet. Nothing like this happens in canon.
* DragonInChief: Rogal Dorn [[OrcusOnHisThrone secluded in his fortress]], so it's up to Sigismund to lead the legion in his absence. For all intents and purposes, Sigismund fulfils the role which Abaddon played in canon, even though he's not from a legion of Heresy's BigBad and his Primarch is still alive.
* DudeWheresMyRespect: Similarly to Perturabo in canon, Rogal Dorn faces lack of respect and acknowledgement for his achievements, albeit in different manner. While respected, Dorn was never liked, due to his BrutalHonesty; so when Cheraut campaign ends in disaster and his detractors uses the chance to paint him black, everyone believes it, now thinking that he's "weak", for being beaten by Curze, while his legion takes hit to reputation, as Night Lords' atrocities gets attributed ''to them''. Later, he fails to join the Ullanor Crusade because Perturabo does it first, and Horus reasonably decides to not have two Pirmarchs who hates each other in same team, but by this point he's too bitter to see it, and instead thinks that it's also due to lack of respect (he almost quits the Great Crusade, as why bother, if no one cares?). Then he becomes a runner-up for both position of Warmaster ''and'' Praetorian; by this point, he's too bitter to just accept the explanation Malcador gives him. The traitors shows him not much respect, either, as by that point, he deserves none. Later he outright states the lack of acknowledgement as the reason behind his betrayal, pointing that Curze and Lorgar, the wrongdoers, were forgiven and embraced, while his flawless service was ignored.
-->'''Malcador''': I have come to beg you to change your course before it is too late. You alone have this choice, for your father understands what you have been through.\\
'''Rogal Dorn''': He understands nothing. I served Imperium loyally for centuries, and was repaid with betrayal. Curze and Lorgar flout his decrees without penalty, whereas my sons and I are insulted and demeaned.
* EvilCostumeSwitch: As they starts succumbing to Lion's corruption, Imperial Fists gradually ditches their signature yellow colour in favour of stone-grey. Sigismund would later replace that with pitch black, as they turn into Black Templars.
* FallenHero: He was noble and heroic, but his own insecurities eventually brought him to damnation. When he just joins the traitors' cause, he still has some innate nobility left, but over time it withers as he starts caring less and less about blood he spills (to the point his legion gets nicknamed "Crimson Fists").
* FatalFlaw: Rogal Dorn grows too obsessed with undoing and besting Perturabo to concentrate on salvaging his own already-crumbling reputation. When he joins the traitors, their rivalry goes hot -- and Perturabo, who's cold and rational, consistently bests him, as ''he'' doesn't let his grudges blind him.
* FlatEarthAtheist: Rogal Dorn refuses to believe that such things as "gods" can exist, even when the other traitors starts worshipping them, and receiving their "gifts". But he becomes interested in just what else they may be, if not gods, and decides to study them.
* ForWantOfANail: Several changes contributes to Rogal Dorn losing his loyalty to the Emperor and joining traitors:
** Rogal Dorn being defeated by Konrad Curze in their duel on Cheraut doesn't stay secret (unlike canon), and seriously spoils Dorn's reputation, as his detractors (chief amongst them [[TheRival Perturabo]] used it to call him a "weakling". With Curze's reputation quickly improving after his "rehab" by the Emperor, entire Cheraut incident starts being viewed differently, with [[HeroWithBadPublicity Imperial Fists]] as the butchers and Night Lords as protectors, while it was the other way around]].
** Rogal Dorn, after series of campaigns in the worlds destroyed by the Orks, grew to hate greenskins above any other xenos. He sees a chance to strike at them by joining the Ullanor Crusade... but [[TheRival Perturabo]] beats him to it, and his offer of help gets declined: Horus knows that [[WeAreStrugglingTogether having them both together is a receipt for disaster]]. Angry at such blatant disrespect, Rogal Dorn even considers to cease operating at all, as [[DudeWheresMyRespect he doesn't see the reason why his sons should die for the people who don't see any value in their sacrifices]], but resists it. Neither of the two Primarchs participated in it in canon.
** As by the point when Nikaea takes place, Rogal Dorn is no longer the stoic and professional man he was at beginning of the Crusade, letting his rivalry with Perturabo to consume him, Horus can't just give either him or Perturabo to build amphitheatre, and instead he makes them do it together... only for them to botch everything, due to zero efforts made to cooperate, so it's Vulkan who has to fix things up. When the two continues conflict at Nikae council as well, it seals neither of them being approved for position of Praetorian -- which, perhaps, was the last straw for Dorn.
* HeroWithBadPublicity: Major contributor to Dorn's downfall was his reputation, which took major hit after Cheraut incident (both because he was accused of being "weak" for being defeated by Curze, and because blame for the massacre was put ''on Imperial Fists'' rather than Night Lords), not in the small turn because of his detractors, chief amongst them Perturabo. As Dorn's infamous BrutalHonesty made no one willing to be his friend, no one took offence at it and tried to protect him, instead believing the lies.
* MirrorCharacter: In their mindless rivalry, Rogal Dorn and Perturabo shed so much blood, it washed away most of their differences, making the two almost the same brutal siege-masters and butchers, to the point that the two becomes almost interchangeable.
* NeverMyFault: Malcador rightfully tells Dorn that he and Perturabo let their rivalry with to define them and eclipse their own virtues and accomplishments, and that's why neither of them was chosen as Praetorian. Unfortunately, Dorn is too far gone by this point to see his wisdom, and when Malcador tries to prevent him from leaving, he ''pushes'' him, which, had it not for him being more than a mere old man, certainly would've killed him.
-->'''Rogal Dorn''': You want me on the wall, you NEED me on that wall! You speak of honor and loyalty, and then turn around and stab me in the back again and again!\\
'''Malcador''': Please Rogal, you need to calm down. I have known you for over a hundred and sixty years. You and I are far closer than any of your brothers, have I not given you sound advice in the past?\\
'''Rogal Dorn''': Then why was I not chosen? Keep in mind, Regent, that refusing to answer the questions of Imperials of high stature is punishable by death.\\
'''Malcador''': It is good to see your humour is still intact. Ever since the incident on Cheraut, you have allowed anger to rule your heart. Konrad is not the man you believe him to be, nor is Perturabo. In a way, the Emperor's decision is your own, Rogal. You refuse to change, or to admit others have changed, and that is why you were not chosen as Praetorian.
* TeamKiller: After his fall to Chaos, Rogal Dorn occasionally puts his rivalry with Perturabo above common goal, to the point of attacking the forces under him ''in the middle of operation'' (which the loyalists exploits).
* UnreliableExpositor: One of the reasons why information on Imperial Fists is so unreliable is because much of it comes from captured Ygethmor the Deceiver.
* WithUsOrAgainstUs: During the Heresy, Imperial Fists gives the planets they attack a single chance to surrender, with very little time to think it over, and if someone fails to submit in time, they just slaughters the planet entirely.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Sanguinius and Blood Angels]]
What if Sanguinius would be discovered by mutants rather than humans?
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* AbusiveParents: Post-Heresy, Sanguinius despises Blood Angels (in heavy contrast to his canon self), thinking them weak and pathetic; most of them unaware of this and, in vain, tries to earn his favour, while some, like Nassir Amit, are aware, and prefer to keep their distance.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Sanguinius was one of the nicest and most heroic Primarchs in canon, the symbol of hope. Here, he goes murderously insane.
* AdaptedOut: There's no Dante; according to the author, there was no way to incorporate him into this timeline: in canon, he was notoriously old even for Astartes, but it's not gonna work here.
* ArchEnemy:
** Blood Angels wants revenge for their defeat on Terra, with Sons of Horus (whose Primarch was the one to defeat Sanguinius) being the the prime target of their hatred; it's one-sided, however, as Sons of Horus hates Iron Warriors much more, as Horus was in turn killed by Perturabo.
** Ka'Bandha plots to destroy Blood Angels, being unable to forgive humiliation at Signus; he's hated in turn, but nowhere near to same degree (he loses competition to several much more loathed foes).
* TheBerserker: Sanguinius' sanity takes major hits on Isstvan and later on Davin, but he completely loses it on Signus, becoming bloodthirsty berserker. Unsurprisingly, he becomes the chosen of Khorne.
* BloodMagic: Appropriately-name Gore-Magic are the Khornate priests who uses blood and intestines to predict where the next battle would happen, and to summon Khorne daemons. Khorne seems to tolerate them, as they don't go beyond that and into territory of actual sorcery, do fight on their own occasionally, and, well, thanks to them, Blood Angels always have fresh blood to spill.
* TheBrute: Both Sanguinius and the Blood Angels, under Khorne's corruption, became too furious to bother with any complex tactics, and too insane to bother with strategy beyond overwhelming the enemy with rage and strength, to the point that they have to be forced to abandon their quest for blood and join the campaign proper.
* TheChosenMany: In this timeline, Lamenters are the group of Khorne's chosen which originally manifested all the way back into the days of Heresy, instead of long after it. They're also immune to both Red Thirst and Black Rage, as a blessing from Khorne.
* CloudcuckoolandersMinder: Blood Magi (Khorne priests, tasked with various rites and daemon summoning) also serves the voice of reason, carefully guiding the otherwise mostly-berserk Blood Angels and choosing their targets; they're respected and obeyed, as even most insane Blood Angels understands that their wisdom is why sons of Sanguinius didn't go extinct yet.
* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: In canon, Ishidur Ossuros died protecting Sanguinius (with his body never recovered, it means he's KilledOffForReal); here, Sanguinius accidentally kills him himself when his first contact with legion goes poorly, and drains his body of all blood, learning his name in process.
* DragonAscendant: After Sanguinius was banished by Horus, legion essentially collapsed: Azkaellon, in aftermath of that, Ascended himself and immediately disappeared in the Warp, while Raldoron was later slain during power struggle, leaving Nassir Amit the only one still capable of uniting the warbands of those who once were Blood Angels into anything resembling a legion. Sanguinius briefly returns during First War for Armageddon, where he nearly kills Logan Grimnair, but gets banished again.
* FallenAngel: Before his FaceHeelTurn, Sangunius was known as the Angel, noble and beautiful, with massive wings behind his back. As he goes insane and embraces Khorne's corruption, he loses his wings, and then, when Horus defeats him on Terra, he falls from Eternity Wall, symbolically cast away and banished from the kingdom of the God-Emperor by His greatest son, into the depths of hell that is the Warp. Since then, every other Blood Angel shares the pain as if they had the wings too, and too had them torn off.
* ForWantOfANail: Sanguinius lands on Baal instead of it moon Baal Secundus, and gets adopted not by humans, but by mutants; it drastically reshapes his fate comparing to that in canon:
** The mutants readily takes him as their own, but completely lacks what it takes to build a civilisation, even with Sanguinius by their side: no amount of teaching Sanguinius gives them can prevail against their twisted nature and innate corruption. He wouldn't meet any normal humans until Blood Angels arrives on the planet and starts exterminating mutants, which results in him attacking, killing and draining of blood their then-commander. This makes him doubt his own nature, thinking that maybe he's a mutant too, an abomination; and he knows all too well what an end awaits a mutant... When the Red Thirst starts manifesting more and more often, Sanguinius starts wondering whether he would eventually succumb to it himself, and starts fearing to go into battle, not trusting his self-control... only to realise that if he wants to prevent the visions of dark future of war and death, he ''has'' to fight. Sanguinius' insecurity makes him more vulnerable when he ''does'' succumb to the Red Thirst (alongside his entire legion), and once the corruption starts, it becomes more and more easy to strengthen it, until he finally succumbs to Khorne, in search of freedom from doubts and fears -- with Khorne just letting him embrace his dark nature and rejoice.
** First contact between Sanguinius and his legion occurs when Blood Angels (by then not yet named that) purges Ball of mutants, and Sanguinius attacks them, before learning his true heritage. The memory of them slaughtering his adoptive family, and fierce hatred to mutants in general (while Sanguinius is so insecure regarding his own nature) prevents him from bonding with his legion, or even with Emperor, who does little to resolve his insecurities; he only forms some bonding with Horus, who learns about Red Thirst, [[SecretKeeper but promises to keep silent about it]]. As Sanguinius is less supportive of Emperor, he's not as understanding when Librarians gets banned, seeing it as forbidding people to be who they are (which is dangerously close to his own insecurities about mutants). Lion later exploits those insecurities, feeding his paranoia regarding not being accepted, both for his flaws and for slaying Angron (regardless of reasons).
* HorrorHunger: By giving in to Khorne, Sanguinius gave up on the hope to cure Red Thirst, and instead embraced it. Now, Blood Angels starts feeling pain if they don't taste blood for too long; that's why they keep so many human slaves, and always need more prisoners.
* HumanResources: Post-Heresy, Blood Angels uses their human slaves not only as, well, slaves, but also the source of blood to satisfy Red Thirst, and for various dark rituals. People of the planet Akeldama (Daemon World chosen by them as their new homeworld) generally agrees that being enslaved by them is FateWorseThanDeath.
* InSpiteOfANail: Sanguinius and Blood Angels ended up servicing Khorne, yet they still have mutual hatred with Ka'Bandha (and by proxy all Bloodthirsters): Ka'Bandha hates Sanguinius for refusing to bow to him and humiliating him, Sanguinius hates him for causing his downfall.
* TheJinx: In complete inversion of what they were in canon, Lamenters brings bad luck to those who oppose them, rather than suffer from it themselves: weapons keep breaking, jamming, missing, etc against them.
* LightIsNotGood:
** As some twisted joke, Blood Angels have barely mutated, still resembling pretty young-looking men they once were; this only adds to whole "fallen angel" motif, especially due to creepy bloody-red armour they wear.
** Sanguinary Guard breaks standard bloody-red colour scheme and wears golden armour instead... and all of them are half-daemons.
* MyBloodRunsHot: Post-ascension, Sanguinius' blood becomes so hot, it causes severe burns to anyone who comes into contact with it. Horus learns it [[EyeScream the hard way]] while fighting him on Terra.
* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: The reason why Blood Angels are at odds with Iron Warriors (besides generally terrible treatment during the Heresy); Sanguinius resents Perturabo for "stealing" his chance to kill Horus.
* OnlySaneMan: Nassir Amit (also known as "Flesh Tearer") was notoriously HotBlooded in canon (which is the source of the name), but, due to never fully succumbing to Red Thirst, he starts looking sane and stable by comparison to the rest of Blood Angels; this does not strip him of Khorne's favour (in fact, he's his chosen champion), even when the rest of the legion gets abandoned. When the feud starts, he refuses to take part in it, sparing his followers decimation in the internal war, and later assembles what's left of Star Hunters (who were leaderless in the wake of Jaghatai's presumed death) before Siege of Terra. Post-Heresy, he's the only leader still pursuing reuniting the Blood Angels. Inquisition generally agrees that without him, Blood Angels would've long since went extinct. According to the author, idea was to demonstrate Khorne's often-neglected aspect of the War God (instead of just "Blood God"), which Amit manifests through martial prowess, tactical insight and ability to lead ''not'' by killing anyone who refuses to submit.
* PhonyPsychic: PlayedWith. Some Inquisition believes that all the future-telling rituals (all involving mutilation and spilling blood, cause it's Khorne worshippers we're talking about) which Gore-Magic performs to tell where next battle would occur, are just the ruse, as it doesn't take a psychic to guess that wherever Blood Angels go, they would bring slaughter with them, and that those "magi" are just psykers trying to save their skin by finding non-"witch" explanation for their talents (Khorne tolerates them due to them never going beyond those rituals and daemon-summoning). Yet, those who insist on that fails to notice that, firstly, one of Sanguinius' gifts to his son is precognition, and secondly, their sheer success rate, including against magic users.
* ThePowerOfBlood: To contrast with canon World Eaters (who're all about wrath and hatred), Blood Angels puts less emphasis on rage, and more on blood: besides their name and heraldic, there's rampant Red Thirst, usage of blood as the fuel for everything, from tech to BloodMagic, and ritual offerings of blood to Khorne (in more ways that just spilling it).
* RuleOfSymbolism: Sanguinius was literally known as The Angel, but fell to Chaos:
** When Sanguinius agrees to pledge himself to Khorne, Ka'Bandha tears out his wings, after which he transforms into daemonic monstrosity himself.
** When Horus defeats Sanguinius on Terra, he throws him off the Eternity Wall, symbolically banishing him from the kingdom of God-Emperor, and Sanguinius sumberges into the hell that is the Warp.
* SkewedPriorities: Blood Angels are notoriously obsessed with blood, both to satisfy the Red Thirst, and to spill it in the name of Khorne -- sometimes, at the cost of actually ''winning'' the battle.
** Sanguinius was too buys making Hastur's death into a ritual sacrifice to Khorne to ensure that Horus actually died from his attack. This allows Horus to banish him -- also stopping him from actually finishing off Hastur.
** It's observed that often, Blood Angels neglect finishing off the enemy, instead preferring to exsanguinating the dead and injured amidst the battle. Additionally, many battles gets started with zero strategic value, but just because there's more blood to spill.
* SlowlySlippingIntoEvil: Sanguinius doesn't fall to Khorne immediately; each time he succumbs to his wrath to fight off whatever enemy, he comes closer to succumbing to corruption completely. Firstly, he succumbs to the Red Thirst himself for the first time while fighting Angron (and feels how his entire legion does the same while fighting World Eaters). Then, Warp corruption affects him while fighting Slaaneshi daemons while en route to Davin, with Angron's severed head sort of amplifying the effect. By the time he arrives to Signus, he's desperate enough to make the final choice and pledge himself to Khorne.
* SparedByAdaptation: Meros doesn't get killed, and instead becomes a Knight Errant.
* TearsOfBlood: As Sanguinius' corruption starts to manifest, he starts "crying" with blood (some blood also comes from him nose); the first time it manifests is when he gets exposed to corrupting effect of Angron's severed head while ambushed by Slaaneshi daemons en route to Davin.
* TragicVillain: Sanguinius' downfall is the result of his insecurities about own future and future of his legion, the fear that they're "damned" and wouldn't be forgiven, which Lion readily exploits. Decision to embrace Khorne, however, is his own: Sanguinius ultimately picks the easy way.
* YouKillItYouBoughtIt:
** Sanguinius and Angron always "shared" the title of "Red Angel", but Sanguinius thinks that he kinda "earned" it for himself after killing Angron. But he gained not only that title; by slaying Angron, he proved to Khorne that he's a better champion than Angron was, and becomes new target for corruption.
** One of the Blood Angels' relic is the Red Grail which contains the blood of Sanguinius from just before he was banished, as well as that of countless other Blood Angels. It always has the bearer, who has to slay the previous one and add his blood into it; current bearer, Corbulo, is well-aware that some day, his blood would end in it, too.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Angron and World Eaters]]
What if Angron gets killed before he leads his Legion to Khorne?
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* AdaptationalNameChange: After the Heresy, World Eaters [[MeaningfulRename ditches the name given to them by Angron]] and reverts to War Hounds, as they sees their dead Primarch as not worthy of their loyalty or worship.
* AdaptationalVillainy: While overall story of Angron stays the same, some moments are altered to make him look less sympathetic and add some crimes he didn't commit in canon:
** Angron exterminates all people of Desh'ea during his rebellion. Later he brutally conquers Nuceria and executes all noble houses which ever opposed them, down to the last person. To make the readers sympathise with him less, Desh'ea looks ''slightly'' more civilised, while many of Angron's problems gets shown as his own fault (like [[OpenMouthInsertFoot insulting the judge to his face]], ''when he was about to be declared non-guilty'').
** In canon, Angron attacks his sons in blind rage (with Gheer as first casualty), feeling that the man who took his family of choice from him is trying to replace it with them; here, he coldly orders his sons to beat Gheer to death -- for the "crime" of being "too devoted to Emperor".
** Angron is more active in his hatred for Emperor, and constantly insists that he doesn't care about his sosn and only sees them as tools; but in this timeline, the Emperor does nothing bad to him at any point: the only person he has any reason to loath is Roboute Guilliman, whom the Emperor stopped.
* AnarchyIsChaos: War Hounds respects and obeys no one, and are free to do as they please. What they do with this freedom? [[RapePillageAndBurn Slaughter, pillage and enslave every faction indiscriminately]], including other Chaos Legions: they absolutely can't tolerate any and all order and organisations, and seeks to destroy them, with religion of any kind (Imperial Cult, Machine Cult, all four Dark Gods) being the primary targets. This anarchy, however, makes it hard for them to cooperate, as no one is willing to submit to anyone. This mindset is most prominent amongst Zuvassines branch.
* ArchEnemy: It's stated that the War Hounds hates Raven Guard more than other Legion, as they exemplifies everything they swore to destroy -- order and and blind obedience; the hatred is mutual, as it was Angron who slew Corax.
* AscendedExtra: Kho'ren is a minor Chaos Lord in canon. Here, he's the closest War Hounds have to the leader.
* BattleCry: {{Averted|Trope}}, similarly to Death Guard; War Hounds deliberately chose not to use ''any'' battlecries, fighting in complete silence (and even making their armour to not produce any noise).
* BodyHorror: After Isstvan, all World Eaters with Butcher Nails installed have merged with their weapons, producing first Mutilators.
* BrokenPedestal: War Hounds ''hates'' Angron and dismisses his legacy in everything. They ditched the name he gave them, "World Eaters", and his excessive reliance on rage (as well as practice of using the Butcher Nails).
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Zuvassines made idea of constantly backstabbing everyone central to their "ideology"; and they spread same mindset on other people they interact with. As they can't make allies with Imperium (and thus, can't betray it), they mainly deals with other Chaos factions.
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Necohites wears white-with-black armour. Zuvassines wears black-with-white armour. Then there's Kho'ren Kraad (presumed to be the closest War Hounds have to a leader), whose followers wears the mix of white and black in roughly equal proportions, which blends to the point of looking closer to grey.
* DeathByAdaptation:
** Angron gets beheaded by Sanguinius early in the Heresy. He's still alive in canon.
** Perturabo kills Kharn when he and his followers tries to attack him on Saros. Kharn is still alive in canon.
* DemotedToExtra: World Eaters barely plays the role in the plot post-Isstvan, with only small portion of them showing up on Terra at all, only to get wiped out ''by the other traitors'', as Dorn is [[TeamKiller just that bad]] when he has to cooperate with Perturabo (and Kharn gets unceremoniously killed on his introduction). That being said, the ending of their chapter suggests that War Hounds may become a new major power in the conflict in the future, with some sinister plan being already set in motion.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: [[KnightTemplar Angron]] consistently fails to comprehend that Emperor ''isn't'' trying to create his personal empire, but rather works for humanity's better future, and keeps believing that he's [[EvilOverlord an evil tyrant who wants to enslave everyone]]. So he thinks that he should kill him to "save" the galaxy.
* EvilVersusEvil: What's remained of World Eaters (now calling themselves "War Hounds", reverting to their pre-Angron name) are still villains, but they hates Dark Gods just as much as Imperium, raiding every faction. They ''do'' use Chaos, but serves no God.
* ForWantOfANail: Angron gets discovered when his rebellion goes much smoother. This ensures that he's not as dysfunctional as he was in canon, so he doesn't start installing the Butcher Nails en-masse (still despising them), with only ~20% ever receiving them. When he [[DeathByAdaptation gets killed]], his Legion manages to shake off his legacy and not fall to Khorne, albeit they don't become good guys either.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: No Primarch comes along with Angron, either for him being a jerk, his Legion being a bunch of psychos, or Angron's total lack of respect for the Emperor.
* HatesEveryoneEqually: One of the two dominant "schools of thought" amongst War Hounds, Necohites, insists that they should hate every group equally, not accepting that some may be hated more than the others. Despite this, they tends to face Imperium most often, dedicated to destroy Imperial Cult.
* HeroKiller: Angron slays Corvus Corax on Isstvan III, and destroys most of the Raven Guard.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Angron despises those of his children who've installed Butcher Nails as "slaves to their anger". While one half indeed installed them on their own initiative in misguided attempt to imitate Angron, the other half was "rewarded" with those ''by Angron himself''.
* ImAHumanitarian: War Hounds often practices cannibalism.
* InSpiteOfANail: While Angron's story takes some changes, it doesn't prevent some key events from happening:
** Angron gets adopted by farmers, instead of being captured. After growing up, he gets sent to Desh'ea to find a better life, and starts helping people in the slums, sympathising with their suffering. Then the local government arrests him under first flimsy excuse they can find (him allegedly being a runaway slave and instigator of rebellion), and makes him a gladiator.
** Angron's rebellions starts before he starts going insane, so he's more competent at it. Then Guilliman arrives and suppresses it, with only Emperor's intervention stopping Roboute from killing Angron.
** In canon, Angron hates the Emperor from day one because the Emperor abducted him from the battlefield, leaving his people to die; here, he hates him from day one because his Butcher Nails reacts to his presence strangely, causing him extra pain, and he brings associations with High-Riders.
* KnightTemplar: Angron believes that he should free humanity from "enslavement"... with Imperium and Emperor being "slavers". And when fighting slavers, no method is too dirty, down to and including installing Butcher Nails.
* TheRemnant: After Angron's death, the Legion collapsed; some turned Black Shields (their subsequent fate unknown), some joined Perturabo (specifically, everyone with Butcher Nails installed), only to get wiped out on Terra by [[TeamKiller Imperial Fists]], but the rest are still alive and fighting, now serving no-one but themselves.
* SmallRoleBigImpact: Despite being killed and removed from the plot so early, Angron plays key role in shaping the Raven Guard into what they are in this timeline, by slaying Corvus Corax and wiping out so many of them on Isstvan.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: Lhorke has died during the Heresy in canon, but he's still alive in this timeline (albeit Blood Angels comes close to finish him off at one point).
* TheStarscream: Angron planned to kill Lion and usurp control over traitorous forces. His death by Sanguinius' hands prevents it.
* StrawNihilist: War Hounds hates everyone and everything -- including themselves. This world has no meaning, no purpose, and that's why it should be burned to the ground, starting with anything that pretends that there's something more, like religions or philosophies, human-made or Warp-born. This mindset is most prominent amongst Necohites.
* WeHardlyKnewYe:
** Angron dies at the very start of the Heresy, with little fanfare. He's more important through consequences of his death than he ever was in life.
** Kharn gets introduced as the first Mutilator -- only to get immediately killed by Perturabo.
* WhereIWasBornAndRazed: Upon receiving command of his Legion, Angron uses it to conquer Nuceria and slaughter all noble houses which ever opposed him, starting with Thal'kr. He then leaves the planet for his former Eaters of Cities to control as they sees fit, and departs with World Eaters.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Roboute Guilliman and Ultramarines]]
What if Roboute's family wouldn't give him as good influence as he had in canon?
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* AdaptationalJerkass: Roboute Guilliman is an arrogant jerk in this timeline, due to having [[LadyMacbeth much worse mother figure]] than what he had in canon. Notably, where in canon, destruction of Monarchia was [[ShootTheDog dirty business]], here, he takes sadistic pleasure at humiliating Lorgar.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Roboute was noble, heroic and wise leader in canon. Here, he's a tyrant, murderer (including of his own adoptive father) and just jerk. And that's ''before'' he turns traitor and embraces Slaanesh.
* AndIMustScream: For those who screws up particularly badly, Ultramarines have a special punishment: the coffin-like contraptions where they can lock people up for absolute sensory deprivation, including the sense of time. For sense-freaks all Slaaneshi worshippers are, it's literally the only punishment which can actually scare them.
* ArtifactName: Ultramarines were named after signature blue colour of Macragge's oceans, with armour reflecting it. There's no Macragge anymore, and they no longer wields old colours.
* ChallengeSeeker: Sometimes, Ultramarines deliberately attacks most fortified targets just to test themselves.
* ControlFreak: Guilliman's tendency for organisation and systematisation which he showed in canon, here degenerates into obsession with keeping everything under his control, as part of his narcissism. Even "Codex Astartes" analogue he writes, "Codex Catamitus", is mandatory for everyone to know and memorise.
* EvilCostumeSwitch: Post-corruption, Ultramarines no longer wears their signature ultramarine-blue armour, instead wearing common for Slaaneshi worshippers insane mess of mismatching bright colours. They keep the old name nonetheless.
* ForWantOfANail: Roboute's pod gets accompanied by (possibly even triggers) an earthquake which kills many people, [[DeathByAdaptation including Euten]]. Konor has to marry Gallan's daughter Atia. Atia has much worse influence on Roboute than Euten was in canon: Roboute would grow narcissistic and power-hungry. As result, Roboute sees other Primarchs as either being below him (most of them), the tools to use and discard (like Ferrus Manus or Rogal Dorn), or the rivals he has to compete against (Horus). He does not react well to being passed over for position of Warmaster.
* TheHedonist: As may be expected from Slaaneshi worshippers, Ultramarines often cares about nothing but indulging own's addiction to sensations. Some instead tries restricting themselves, but solely because indulging after self-denying feels even more sweet.
* HeroKiller: Roboute Guilliman kills Kor Phaeron and mortally wounds Lorgar, in the same battle.
* HighTurnoverRate: Post-Heresy, Ultramarines are known for recruiting massive numbers of new recruits, only to waste them all in the first major engagement; it's very rare for them to have any veterans at all. They can get away with it due to having so large numbers to begin with, and having a separate Warp storm all for themselves.
* {{Jerkass}}: Guilliman was a massive jerk and bully even before going traitor.
* LadyMacbeth: Gallan's daughter and Roboute's stepmother Atia encourages the worst in Roboute. She spoils him by encouraging his narcissism, and she sets him up against Konor by lying that Konor is planning to dump her and remarry, so new wife can bear him heirs; this results in [[{{Patricide}} Konor's death]]. Later she started inspiring essentially religious worshipping of Roboute as demigod of war and freedom; to surprise of no one, when Lion starts corrupting Roboute, Atia reveals herself being a Chaos worshipper, too.
* MalevolentMugshot: As his corruption grows, he starts installing countless statues of himself across Macragge, due to his overblown ego.
* {{Narcissist}}: This version of Roboute Guilliman is egocentric and narcissistic, believing in own greatness and seeing everyone else like inferior. Ultimately, Lion easily convinces him to embrace Chaos by appealing to his ego and resentment towards Horus, who passed over him for position of Warmaster. It would turn much, much worse after him embracing Slaanesh.
* SecretPolice: Under Roboute, Ultramar had secret police, Vigil Opertii, tasked with purging any and all dissidents.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Magnus and Thousand Sons]]
What if Nikaea goes ''even worse'' for Magnus?
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* AdaptationalContextChange: The Burning of Prospero; where in canon, it was the tragedy, here, it's well-deserved vengeance for Magnus' betrayal.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Magnus was a TragicVillain in canon, forced into joining the traitors after failed attempt to help, and only later he goes full-out villain. Here, pretty much all sympathetic moments are gone, and some new villainy is added on top, both before and during the Heresy:
** His fault in Librariums being outlawed by Nikaean Edict is even more poignant: he ''deliberately'' lies to the people presented about the dangers of the Warp by using the magic to make them easier to deceive, [[DidntThinkThisThrough not realising that the Emperor is strong enough psychic to see through it]], which predictably leads to the angry Emperor ruling against Magnus, disbanding his Legion (his warriors to be assigned to work under other Primarchs), and Magnus himself imprisoned.
** When Lion releases him from the prison, the first thing Magnus does after seeing the Webway project is to attack it, as he thinks that [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness the Emperor plans to either get rid of or enslave the psykers]]. While there is a factor of Lion deliberately sending Magnus fake "prophetic" nightmares [[BatmanGambit to provoke such reaction]], Magnus believed in them so easily because they merely played on his own ego and obsession with Warp. Other chapters showing that the Emperor ''can'' give the second chance to those willing to accept their screwups (something arrogant Magnus never would) only makes him even less sympathetic.
** Magnus doesn't just bow to the will of Tzeentch; he ''demands'' the power, consuming the power of Kairos (who lets him do it, knowing that it's merely temporarily and serves to further its God's ambitions); he does that not to save his Legion (which ''isn't'' in the danger at the moment), but to save ''himself''. He then attacks and kills Vulkan (it doesn't stick, [[ResurrectiveImmortality because it's Vulkan]]), feeling zero regret over it.
* ArchEnemy:
** Thousand Sons seek to destroy Space Wolves to avenge their defeat during the Heresy.
** Thousand Sons liberally employs daemons of Tzeentch... with a single exception: they ''hates'' Kairos Fateweaver, and are ready to do ''anything'' to hurt it, down to and including allying with their rivals; the reason for that is that they blames Kairos for their downfall.
* BodyHorror: In canon, Rubric was the spell which made any Thousand Sons without strong psychic gift into the set of animated armour; here, it's the "gift" of Tzeentch which makes people into hideous mutants (which comes in several variants), bound to serve the sorcerers.
* TheBrute: Since his ascension, Magnus is too insane to actually rule, so he gets unleashed when something needs to be destroyed, and nothing more. Other than that, he serves merely as a voice for Tzeentch, which Ahriman helps to interpret, and actual commanding is handled by the council of sorcerers.
* DefectorFromDecadence: Revuel Arvida witnesses his brothers committing the treason and slaughtering people on Terra, and refuses to participate in it, or even follow them in their escape. The Emperor notices it, and says that his loyalty didn't go unnoticed, and that he still has a chance to help the Imperium.
* DisabledInTheAdaptation: PlayedWith regarding Ahriman; he spends much of the Heresy just fine, but gets crippled by Argel Tal on Khur near the end of it, and has to be put into Dreadnought (something which didn't happen in canon).
* DragonInChief: Magnus is too insane to rule his legion; Ahriman has to lead in his stead, and, when Tzeentch speaks through Magnus, interprets those orders.
* ForWantOfANail:
** Tzeentch starts corrupting Magnus earlier, by offering his help during the war against the Psychneuein and giving Magnus the taste of power. This makes him more arrogant and dismissal of "lesser beings". As result, during Nikaea trials, Magnus doesn't even bother with making honest arguments (which didn't work even in canon), and instead tries to ''lie'' to the people presented via magic, which the Emperor notices and goes so angry, he outright disbands his Legion (assigning all his sons to the other Legions for supervision), and orders Magnus to be delivered to Terra.
** As Magnus joins the traitors before arrival of Space Wolves, he's allowed to prepare a trap, resulting in entire fleet of the 6th Legion being sucked into the Warp, disposing of it for some time, and preserving majority of Thousand Sons' strength.
* EvilIsNotAToy: Magnus' own {{pride}] made him play with powers way stronger and more cunning than him, and resulted in his downfall; he deemed himself the master, but ultimately had to pledge to Tzeentch to save his life, only for his new patron god to strip him of the last traces of his sanity, essentially making him the slave.
* InSpiteOfANail: Despite all changes, the Burning of Prospero and Magnus' defeat by Leman Russ still happens -- but much later than in canon.
* MouthOfSauron: Ahriman always sticks with Magnus, so he can interpret what he says (as Magnus serves as the voice of Tzeentch) and see the actual meaning in his insanity which he can then deliver to the other sorcerers of their Legion.
* TheNotableNumeral: Once Thousand Sons falls to Tzeentch completely, their patron god makes sure that they would never grow beyond 999 members, plus Magnus himself; whenever they tries to grow in numbers, something always results in their numbers staying unchanged.
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: Magnus fully succumbing to Tzeentch gave him more power than he ever had in material world, but also stripped him of the last traces of his sanity. However, Ahriman estimates that by the end of M41, Magnus would regain his sanity, having repaying his debt...
[[/folder]]
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%%YMMV

Active ravaging of Amazon rainforests led to parasitic fungus (named "novel ophiocordyceps unilateralis", but now known simply as "the parasite") being released and spreading to crops, which then were spread around the world, spreading the parasite. At first, the parasite was incapable of hurting humans, but as soon as its host suffers from any serious illness or injury, the parasite strikes in. Males suffers from all kinds of health ailments, as well as slowly covering with fungal growths, while females suffers from amnesia and uncontrolled carnal desires; scientists were unable to understand what's going on, while process rapidly escalated, eventually spreading to 60% of the population.

Then, infected, who became highly aggressive, broke out of quarantine all across the world, and started attacking still healthy humans. After several days, police forces in all big cities were overwhelmed. After several weeks, fell most world armies. Now, only few stable sanctuaries remains, run by the former officials and administrators, now collectively called "the Suits"; amongst them is Brookside sanctuary. But life goes worse and worse with every day, with supplies running low and no hope in sight...

Juno Townsend, a former engineer, is one of survivors who found shelter in Brookside. Food supplies at home run out, and only hope to get more is by taking some risky job which the Suits are willing to offer. Unfortunately, her very first outing goes disastrously due to Juno being backstabbed by the people who were supposed to protect her, and now, abandoned and alone, she must find a way back home -- or die trying...

''Overgrown: Genesis'' is an HGame in the setting of ZombieApocalypse; gameplaye-wise, it's SurvivalHorror with emphasis on stealth and supplies scavenging. It was developed by Dystopian Project using UsefulNotes/RPGMaker, and published by [=TinyHat Studious=]. As of May 2020, it's available on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}.

* AboveTheInfluence: If Juno agrees to drink with Barton and later takes hot shower, she decides to seduce Barton. Barton would at first try to refuse, stating that she's drunk and he shouldn't take advantage of it, but she insists and he gives in.

* AllForNothing: That generator you restarted in Prologue? Dr. Feinstein later reveals that the generator was required to restart communication with his lab (so he and Dr. Peters may continue working on the cure), but it didn't work in the end. When Juno arrives to the sanctuary, she learns that reason for that is Gavin's uprising, which led to near-collapse of the sanctuary.

* AnyLastWords: During his trial, [[EvilutionaryBiologist Dr. Feinstein]] gets allowed to say his last words. He says that he regrets nothing, and he still believes that [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans he was doing the right thing and what's better for humankind]]; Peters has nothing of it. Ultimately, Feinstein accepts defeat and says that it's up to Peters to lead humanity now, but whether it's genuine acceptance, or stealth insult, is unknown; then Feinstein gets executed by a firing squad, and takes this secret to his grave.

* ApocalypticLog: Various notes and computer terminals which player may find across the game contains interesting information, mostly regarding backstory, including on how exactly things ended up as bad as they're now:
** David's diary documents his early days of survival once he got locked in the Subway's safehouse: him observing zombies starting slowing down and mutating (from Runners to Walkers to Crawlers), his friend and colleague Leslie dying from unknown infection (it's unknown whether it's ''the'' infection, or some other sickness, but it killed him in two days), and ultimately David himself [[SanitySlippage going nuts]].

** Kerry's diary describes how she'd lost her family during early days of the outbreak, and had to survive on her own with only dog Rex by her side. Then Rex got infected, and she had to watch how he slowly turns into zombie and becomes hostile to her, without understanding why he's acting like this; and she can't even leave to gather supplies, as the car keys are in the same part of the house where she locked him. The last entry is about Kerry (who by this point already started showing signs of infection) deciding to take the risk and crawl in while Rex is asleep (she put a camera to watch him remotely). Computer to which camera is connected reveals that the plan went... poorly.

** While restarting water treatment plant on Sophia's request, the player may find a note from the group of Suits who've tried to take shelter there; it starts with them running from the rioters (with two of them being caught, one man and one woman), and ends with them being attacked by Reptiles, which killed two of them.
** While doing side quests before evacuation, the player may find the corpse of a little girl Wendy, who clearly starved to death; nearby, they may find the diary, which tells how exactly she ended like this, with the last entry being literally about her feeling "dizzy" and going to "take a little nap".

* AttemptedRape: As soon as Juno restarts the generator, Gavin decides to "celebrate" by raping her along with his goons, and then leave her for dead. Juno can submit to her fate (she's alone, and they're armed)... or resist and even take Gavin's pistol, forcing him to retreat (he ''can't'' actually shoot her, and has little time to escape due to generator restarting and starting making heavy noise).

* TheBadGuyWins: Endings A and B are results of either Dr. Zara or Dr. Feinstein (respectively) achieving their goals; Zara wants for humans to die out, leaving planet to Dryads, Feinstein wants to cleanse it of all infected life (including most of humanity) and then repopulate it with his chosen people.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Geoff says that deep inside, he still hopes that his wife is still waiting for him, even though the only reasonable course of action would to seek shelter. If Barton's sidequest gets finished, when the two comes to check, turns out that she did wait for him... and it ended fatally for her; Geoff, with Barton's help, was only able to give her proper burial.
* ToBeLawfulOrGood: In the ending C, Juno gets torn between her loyalty to the military, and her duty for the people, who're looking at her with hope; choosing the civilans leads to ending C1, choosing the military to ending C2, but neither leads to nice outcome.

** Sarah Kane chose to shoot herself rather than end up in the hands of zombies; finding her suicide note is a requirement for one of side quests and getting GoldenEnding.

* BittersweetEnding: Ending D. Juno stops both Zara and Feinstein, and prevents radicals amongst military from taking over, but General Hawke never copes with not being able to cure Eva, and kills himself once he accidentally kills her as the cure backfires. Juno manages to put up a fight against Dryads, but never comes quite close to victory, merely a stalemate, and no one knows for how long the war would last...
* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: When Dr. Feinstein reveals to Juno his plan to purge the world via HAF-2 and start anew with carefully-chosen humans (and Juno herself being used in his SuperBreedingProgram, obviously against her will), Juno calls him heartless bastard. He only says that her prefer the term "morally indifferent".
* BlackoutBasement: Some parts of the game are pitch-dark (save for occasional light sources), requiring Juno to use flashlight to navigate. Unfortunately, batteries are in limited supply (one battery lasts for 100 steps). Certain levels uses such darkness as major part of the challenge:
** Subway is the first dark area Juno encounters, and also where she obtains the flashlight. Tunnels are narrow, and full of Crawlers, while the player at this point has limited ammo (albeit it's also where first Shotgun can be found). Fortunately, most of them are in the side area, so player only has to face them if they wish to find more supplies.

** University is out of power, and thus is mostly dark. Instead of other zombies, you're pursued by a single dangerous entity, the Dryad. As you restore power, it becomes easier to navigate, however.

** Fungal growths which covers the zombies' bodies are extremely creepy and unnatural; Crawlers have it worst, being the most mutated ones.
** Fate of the women captured by zombies and brought to the Hive is to be merged with plant growths to the point they become inseparable from their bodies, and turned into living incubators. All victims whom Juno manages to save before this happens develop PTSD (with one attending therapy), while those whose process goes far enough have to be euthanised. They can't live without a Hive anyway, as all the other captives dies as soon as it gets destroyed.
* BossOnlyLevel: There's no other zombies in the University, only a single Dryad -- and she's the most dangerous enemy you would face in entire game.

** It's believed in-univers that zombies abducts women for reproduction, being completely instincts-driven monsters. Later it turns out that it's more complex than that: women are required as catalysts for creation of the Hive.

* ButThouMust: On Dr. Feinstein's trial, Juno can either agree that he's too dangerous to keep alive, or insist on sparing him (killing such mind is a waste), and instead make him join the efforts to find the cure. But if she tries the second option, General Hawke and Dr. Peters would overrule her, saying that he's too dangerous, and thus it's two votes versus one. He then gets executed by firing squad for high treason and all the crimes against humanity.

* CannonFodder: In the ending C, radical militaries takes over and forcibly conscripts all even remotely fit male civilians, not caring about neither experience nor fight capabilities, and sends them to the frontline (along with those militaries who resisted them), compensating for lack of quality with quantity; it doesn't quite work out, and this militia gets slaughtered.

** Just before Juno goes on the mission in National University, General Hawke gives her his daughter's locket, in hope that ''maybe'' it can bring her luck. When Feinstein turns on Juno and captures her for his experiment, it gets revealed that the locket contains beacon, which military uses to attack the Area 66 base.

* TheCoup: While Juno was busy making it back to Brookside, Gavin performed a coup in the sanctuary (backed by Billy); he gave all the Suits who failed to escape to the angry mob from Stanton (who promptly lynched them), including former sanctuary's leader, Richard Harvey, and started ruling as a tyrant, raping and enslaving people left and right. His reign ended when he had a fallout with Billy over a disagreement regarding whether Billy gets his share in Suits' stockpiles or not, and, after being fired at, Billy exploded the bombs he had preinstalled across the sanctuary, which allowed the zombies inside.
* CrazyPrepared: {{Subverted|Trope}} with the Subway shelter; surely it stockpiled food for years to come... but whoever did the preparations, didn't bother to stockpile ''any'' medicine, so by the fourth day, Leslie develops unknown sickness, and by the next day he dies.
* CriticalAnnoyance: When Infection is high (5 or more), edges of the screen covers with pulsating green vines.

** At Subway, there're two places which, instead of random loot, always contains one pack of cigarettes; both are along essential paths. This ensures that player wouldn't be screwed out of doing David's quest just because they were unlucky with random loot.

** Sullivan suggests to ask Porters for help and use their fumigant to just kill the dogs in old cabin with gas. As he himself writes in the log after barely escaping, he forgot that ventilation shouldn't be operational after so much time without maintenance. The team wastes precious time on repair and gets ambushed, which results in Mr. Porter being killed and Mrs. Porter snatched; Sophie O'Hara gets snatched too, but manages to escape... or the dogs let her to escape, as they traces her to the house and attacks Sullivan as soon as he decides to play hero and exit to help Sophie. No one of them made it out alive.
* DontCelebrateJustYet: When convoy finally reaches Fort Patton... military refuses to let refugees in: they can't let any potentially infected people inside. They only reconsiders when Dr. Peters asks to tell their commander about him and him bringing HAF research with him; turns out, General Hawke is aware of Peters' work, so he orders to make an exception just this time.

** Endings A and B are outright TheBadGuysWin cases, with humanity either succumbing to Dryads (ending A) or being "purged" by Feinstein, who wants to start anew; in both of them, Juno gets enslaved by whoever wins.

* DownTheDrain: There are several sections where Juno has to navigate the sewers; first and last ones are safe, but others are inhabited by Reptiles -- mutant alligators. To make things worse, deep water slows Juno down.

** If General Hawke doesn't read Dr. Zara's research on Dryads, he would ultimately try to use HAF-2 on her despite all warnings, which, unsurprisingly, kills her, with the last thing he sees on her face is expression of utter betrayal. He can't live with it, and he blows his brains out right there and now.
* DrowningMySorrows: If radicals manages to take over military and enslaves civilians, and Juno sides with them (ending C2), Dr. Peters (whose research was weaponised to fight Dryads, instead of helping humanity) becomes heavy drinker to deal with depression. It doesn't help that in this ending, his former assistant Sophia was turned into SexSlave as a punishment for opposing the military junta.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: The best outcome requires the player to be really thorough in exploring the game, but achieves happy peaceful life for everyone, and gives every character a new meaning in life.

** Ending A leads to humanity (left without its only chance to fight back and create a cure, as Dr. Zara destroys HAF-2 prototype) being mostly exterminated by Dryads, with what's left of it used as breeding slaves.
** Ending B leads to Dr. Feinstein wiping out all life on Earth via HAF-2 he put into ICBM, so he can reseed the world with his own, approved branch of humanity.
* EnemyCivilWar: Gavin and Billy eventually were on the same side, pre-planning the coup against the Suits. Billy turned on Gavin when he failed to deliver what he promised -- give people the food they wanted. The conflict essentially destroyed both factions: Billy's gang was gunned down in nearly entirety, but Billy [[TakingYouWithMe detonated the bombs he'd preinstalled across the sanctuary]], allowing zombies to breach defences. To add insult into injury, while two groups were busy wiping each other out, what's left of sanctuary survivors (led by Dr. Peters, Natasha and Cassie) managed to secure warehouse which the whole fuss was about, leaving them nothing.
* EntitledBastard: In civilian shelter, you can encounter a couple of former Suits who... complains that the military appointed Juno as the shelter's leader instead of one of the Suits, completely ignoring everything she did for them before. Those two would stay here and say all the same things even if you fully upgrade the shelter; this also means that they're amongst few people who [[TheLoad don't bother with finding a job in the shelter]] and earning their stay, preferring to whine about being treated "unfairly" because they're accustomed to luxury.

** The first time you meet Dryad is when you arrive to University, and see ''all'' militaries sent before you being massacred. Then you see Dryad herself abducting a soldier who tries to escape and, when it fails, shoot, only to realise that she run out of ammo. You're now gonna face that Dryad yourself, ''alone'', in the darkness.

** From the day one, Zara was [[TheMole undermining the efforts to stop the infection, and speeding up demise of humanity]]: provoking research centres being attacked by infected, and sabotaging any search for the cure by falsifying or destroying data. Now, she tries to destroy HAF-2 project. If Juno trusts her instead of Feinstein, Zara would reveal her true colours after destroying the material entrusted to her, immediately triggering [[TheBadGuyWins the ending A]].
** Despite Dr. Zara mostly lying to Juno in order to gain her trust, she's not lying about Feinstein planning to release HAF-2 into atmosphere, disregarding how toxic it is to any life containing even smallest pieces of the parasite; as soon as Dryad dies, he gathers her biomaterial to finish perfecting his new weapon, and abducts Juno, whom he needs to immunise the people he's planning to keep alive after the... cleansing. Unlike what Zara does, it still leaves enough time to salvage the situation, leading to endgame. At the Area 66 base, the computers contains the data revealing that Feinstein and his backers knew about upcoming collapse of civilisation in advance, and prepared this facility as an arc of sorts, as well as already were working on plans to exterminate the infected with zero regards for common people's survival. Feinstein was ready to abduct Peters and ''force'' him to join the project if he wouldn't be cooperative.

** Bandits and Gavin's loyalists eventually turned on each other, resulting in both sides being almost wiped out. By the time you reach the Suits HQ, Gavin and few survivors are holed up in the well-barricated room, while Billy is bleeding to death in the cleaning closet, with few survivors of his gang escaping to join the sanctuary.
** By the time you reach University, Dr. Zara and Dr. Feinstein are at each other's throats; both would try to convince you that other one is [[EvilAllAlong dangerous lunatic with world-ending goals]]; both are right. The player has to side with Feinstein, however, as at this point, he at least shares the goal with you, while helping Zara triggers NonstandardGameOver.

* FaceHeelTurn: In the ending C2, when conflict between civilians and military occurs, Juno sides with military, seeing no hope to prevail if she keeps fighting, and trying to convince herself that it's the only possible choice. As the time goes on, she gradually believes what she was telling herself, and becomes just as cruel as the militaries; [[FallenHero noble and heroic Juno is gone]].

* ForcedToWatch: According to notes Juno can find while restarting water treatment plant on Sophia's request, during Gavin's uprising, a group of Suits tried to run to the HQ, but their branch manager and his assistant Rita were caught by rioters. The guy was lynched on the spot, ''slowly'', with Rita being forced to watch the entire process of execution. The rest escaped just when Rita was ordered to strip down and "service" all rioters to not end like her boss.

** Infection transmitted from Dogs sometimes works weirdly, turning infected females into werewolf-like creatures. Such beasts exhibit improved strength, resilience... and aggression. They also quickly degrade to the dog level of intelligence, so they're likely unintentional dead-end mutation.
** The women chosen to become Dryads gets enclosed in the Hives and gradually transformed. Eva was in process of becoming Dryad, too, but was taken out and put into anabyosis before it could finish.

** One of survivors in the Prologue (a firefighter), if approached, says that he has to care about his sick friend's daughter, but has nearly nothing to feed her with. In the Act 2, it's possible to find what's happened to this family; turns out, sick friend turned zombie, firefighter died protecting the girl, and girl herself actually starved to death. We also learn that the firefighter was named "Mr. Kelly", and girl was named Wendy.

** Dr. Peters, if approached in the sanctuary during Prologue, reluctantly shares "non-classified" info on the infection. Just what information on it can require being classified? Well, the fact that ''every human in the world is infected'', which he would reveal much later, and confirm that he kept it secret to not provoke panic, as it doesn't actually change anything, yet can make things worse if revealed to the general public.
** There are some hints at Dr. Feinstein and Dr. Zara being untrustworthy long before they backstab you, and before you learn about their ''very'' unethical experiments:

*** Dr. Peters wonders how Feinstein managed to make HAF virus; doing something would require very specific samples...

* ForeverWar: Ending D has the humans and Dryads being in the state of eternal stalemate, with neither side gaining upper hand in years. It's an improvement [[HopelessWar over ending C]], as unlike the military junta from this ending, Juno knows that it's not a good idea to go on offensive against Dryads: you don't want to fight them on their territory; instead, you want to trick them into attacking you, wear them down and only then finish off. Dryads learned to not mess with humans after multiple defeats. There's a hope that one day, HAF research would allow to fully reclaim the planet, but it definitely wouldn't happen in the near future.
* ForScience: Scientists under Dr. Feinstein chose to explore how and why infection spreads to certain animal breeds (namely, dogs and alligators) and why they targets humans, by breeding more of them with the usage of unwilling test subjects. They got no useful data out of it, even after ''many'' failed experiments. The player may read the logs to see just how messed-up those experiments were; fortunately, we're spared details.
* FragileSpeedster: Both Dogs and Runners are very frail (having only 1 and 2 HP, respectively), but are much faster than Walkers (albeit both have limitations: Dogs ignore everything outside of their territory; while Runners quickly give up if lose visual contact, and return to their "patrol" area). {{Justified|Trope}}, as the Dogs are barely mutated at all (later it gets revealed that infection targeted only their intellect), while Runners are the early stage of infection, and are yet to be covered by fungi which is both the source of toughness and reason for slowness.

* GaiasVengeance: The "infection" is the indirect results of ravaging of Amazon forests: the parasite which would later start it was released when its habitat was destroyed, infected the crops, and from them, gradually spread around the world. Later it gets revealed that it's the planet retaliating against humanity's predatory behaviour, with infection being the way to cleanse or at least cull humanity, while Dryads are intended as our replacement, who would reseed the planet with life and keep protecting it. In the ending A, this plan succeeds, while in ending E, humanity and Dryads learns to coexist.

** Uncontrolled lust is amongst symptoms of infection in females; at high infection, the player may lose control over Juno, even in the middle of the outing, which leaves her easy prey.

** It's not possible to get a game over by sleeping with high Infection in the sanctuary, both because Dr. Peters has means to treat it, and because Juno can't just run away like she does in such situations in other areas.
** Military base has enough supplies that infection and hunger are no longer the problem; as such, the player no longer needs to manage Hunger and can rest freely.

** Dogs do less Morale damage than any other enemy in the game (only half the damage of the normal zombies), but they cause twice more Infection than either Walkers, Crawlers or Runners; and their speed and numbers gives them a chance to actually strike. Fortunately, they also die from one hit from literally anything, including unapgraded Pistol.

* GoBackToTheSource: Downtown is where the infection originally started in this country, and now it's where another Hive is about to hatch. General Hawke sends Juno on operation there, in hope to obtain crucial data and stop whatever monstrosity the infected are growing there.

* GoodbyeCruelWorld: Just after being abandoned by Gavin, Juno can find a saferoom by traveling through air vent, where she finds a corpse of a woman right next to a pistol, and a note nearby, which reveals that she was named Sarah Kane, and that she's the last surviving worker of this power plant, who chose to end her life on own terms rather than wait till [[FateWorseThanDeath zombies take her]]. Later, Juno may encounter Sarah's fiance who spent several months waiting for her, in vain.
* GracefulLoser: During the trial, Feinstein, when accused of playing god, gets told that it's not up to him to decide the fate of humanity. He says that Peters is right: it's not up to him... now it's up to Peters and his friends. Then he just closes eyes and waits for guns to fire.
* GreenThumb: Dryads can trigger rapid plant growth; that's the reason why they were created -- to reseed the planet with plant life and reclaim territories "conquered" by humans.
* HalfHumanHybrid: Just before going to plant C4 to destroy mainframe keeping androids online (thus allowing Hawke's men to assault the base and stop ICBM from launching), Juno can find a computer with research notes from Feinstein's team -- specifically, on their experiments on Dogs and Reptiles, in attempts to find out just ''why'' infection targeted them; they got... interesting results:
** Dog branch of infection, on rare occasions, can trigger mutations in human females, turning them into werewolf-like creatures (explaining what's happened to Kerry). Those creatures are no longer capable of transmitting infection to humans (except for other females), nor they're capable of reproducing with humans; all of them demonstrates greatly increased strength, resilience and aggression, but also dog-level intelligence (still an improvement over common zombies). After Feinstein's research group, [[ForScience just out of curiosity]], tried to do it using Dogs, it ''somehow'' succeeded (on the 10,316th attempt), producing healthy offspring of great strength, who then proceeded to took over the leadership over the pack; scared, the researchers decided to terminate all test subjects and not explore this field further.

** Dryads can recover from any wounds which fails to kill them outright; the only way to gain reasonable chances against them is by using HAF-2b (weaponised HAF-2), either as gas or special ammo, which would cause enough damage that Dryad wouldn't be able to heal it. The Dryad whom Juno encounters in the University is no exception, and as special ammo wouldn't be invented until ''after'' the story's done, [[PuzzleBoss Juno has to find a way to spread the gas around University to poison her]].
** Story-wise, Androids are so unkillable due to quick self-repair; facing two-three is already a challenge, but there's an army of them. However, if they shuts down, they stay dead.

* HeroicWillpower: While exploring the danger zone in preparation to evacuation, Juno can encounter a lone Runner-type zombie who's acting weirdly and through zombie-like noises calling for someone named "Wendy"; avoiding him and entering the hole in the wall reveals a corpse of the little girl (she starved to death), her discarded doll (with nametag "Wendy" on it) and diary telling her story and revealing that the zombie is actually her father. When the zombie sees the doll, he, rather than attack, manages to ask where's Wendy, and rushes to her once told; he then... begs Juno to terminate him, so he and Wendy would be TogetherInDeath; she grants it, but loses 10 Morale.

* HiveMind: It's observed that Dog packs have so great coordination as if they share same mind. Given what's known about the parasite, it may indeed be true.

* HopelessWar: Ending C has humans and Dryads being in the state of eternal war; unlike ending D, which also has them at war, military junta is nowhere as competent at fighting Dryads as Juno (who knows their tactics), and suffers massive attrition during (mostly futile) attempts to fight Dryads on their territory. They've lost ''a lot'' of people and must recruit {{Child Soldier}}s to have ''any'' army at all, while everyone are slowly starving to death as after everyone fit was sent to frontline, leftovers were left to work on factories and farms in horrible conditions.
* ImpressedByTheCivilian: Thompson is sceptical about Juno being assigned to work with him, thinking that she's just a civilian, while the task she's about to do is considered suicidal mission, due to sheer amount of infected around the bridge, on the bridge, and in the bridge control tower and tunnels beneath it. When she ''does'' pull if off, he and soldiers under him openly says that she's badass. Eventually, she develops this reputation amongst most of the military, even those who normally despise civilians.

** One of the notes Juno can find in the Subway is from a guy named Hansen, who, when the buttload of zombies arrived to the station, locked it up, sealing all those zombies (and few survivors) inside. It ends with him asking for forgiveness for doing what must be done. The note can be found close to his corpse; he bleed to death from the wounds sustained when attempt to hold off the zombies failed miserably.

** At Fort Patton, Dr. Peters admits that performing experiments on live infected is repulsive; sadly, there's simply no way to gather necessary data to produce the cure otherwise; he only has as much data as he has now because Feinstein and Zara did the same before.

* TheImmune: While performing experiments on Juno, Feinstein and Zara learns that Juno is naturally immune to HAF. They injects her with it, and later uses her blood to make vaccine from HAF-2, which is poisonous to all life, infected or not.

** Dogs barely changed physically after being infected, but got significant increase in intelligence, particularly, their ability to hunt as a team, as if they're the part of same organism. For example, they have exterminated the entire population of the refugee camp in Cold Pines via hit-and-run tactic, and then ambushed and destroyed most of the team trying to exterminate them, with only one escaping -- whom they then tracked down by releasing one of the captives and following her to safehouse. Additionally, when Juno later checks the ventilation which the aforementioned group tried to fix, turns out that the wires were ''chewed'': dogs ''purposely'' disabled it.
** During operation in Downtown, Thompson's unit gets ambushed and barely avoids being wiped out. Given that normal zombies are too dumb to open a closed door... Soon enough, Juno finds out the reason for such intelligence: there's some clearly sentient force which controls the Hive and its creations.

*** Near the end of the journey, convoy runs out of food. If Rebecca was rescued, she and Natasha organises salvaging parties which returns with much-needed supplies; but if not, Natasha fails to do it by alone (Rebecca was invaluable for her logistics skills), and the group returns with heavy loses and next to zero supplies.

*** Ending A tells how the Dryads matured up en masse -- and, without HAF-2, humanity stands no chance against them in open combat, nor they have a cure from infection. Soon, humanity was almost entirely wiped out, and what's left became enslaved.
*** Ending B tells how Dr. Feinstein succeeded at launching ICBM with HAF-2 and exterminate all life on Earth, so he can then reseed the planet anew, according to his own views.

* KilledOffscreen: [[PlayableEpilogue Interactive part of the ending C2]] reveals that Thompson Taylor died in a battle at some point; his death hurt Juno a lot. He's alive and well in endings D and E.
* KissingUnderTheInfluence: Juno and Thompson gets drunk and start talking about the past, with topic of Juno's part-time jobs to pay for college coming up. When she tells that she was also an assistant of a dominatrix (it was way less disgusting than working under Billy, due to lack of jerks), Thompson shows interest to idea (specifically, roleplay part), and Juno (just as drunk as him) decides to show him how it works. One thing leads to another.

* LastSecondEndingChoice: Ending C ultimately branches into endings C1 (where Juno tries to oppose the military junta, and loses) and C2 (where Juno sides with junta); which one would play is determined by the player during the ending itself.

** By the time you arrive to West Greer power plant, it's completely abandoned, and in the hidden safehouse, you can find a corpse of some girl who'd committed suicide. By reading her suicide note, you'd learn that she was named Sarah Kane, and she was a worker on this power plant; realising what's gonna happen when the zombies finds her, she chose to die rather than let it happen.
** Subway is entirely dark and filled with countless Crawlers (it's the first time you meet them, albeit not last). Later you would find two dead security guards, and one alive (and insane) one; by reading the notes spread around, you would get the picture of how exactly the station turned into a hellhole.
** When you arrive to Cold Pines national park, you would see massacred camp, and corpse of a ranger not far away from it. Reading the logs in safehouse (which you unlock with said ranger's ID) reveals backstory behind those events, and tells why there're so many zombie dogs.
** Juno would return to Brookside by the moment when it's already overrun, with zombies on the loose and many people being dead. She would soon catch up with survivors and learn about Gavin and Billy cooperating to take over the sanctuary, which ultimately resulted in what you see around. You would find some extra horrors while exploring the now-overrun parts of Brookside.
* LectureAsExposition: Dr. Peters gives Juno a lecture about how infection and zombie "evolution" works, and what's their end-goal: zombies' [[{{Metamorphosis}} transformation stages, why they abduct women, and how the Hive is working. He also tells that Hive isn't the final stage either: it's an egg of sort; and what ''is'' the final stage, can only be discovered by going to the University, as it's the only place they know where they can find yet-to-hatch Hive.

** PlayedWith regarding Reptiles. While their basic speed is rather slow, they invariably show up in flooded areas, where Juno can't run; and at walking speed, it's equal to Juno running away from Dogs or Runners. As such locations are also rather narrow, Juno has no option but to fight them -- which isn't easy either, as they have whopping 5 HP. If they catch her, they deal less Morale damage than most enemies, but cause higher Infection.

** Androids have just as much speed as Runners, and even more HP than Reptiles. The only weapons which can reliably kill them in one hit are melee ones, and upgraded shotguns, but they're also amongst the enemies you ''don't'' want to get close.
* TheLoad: The driving point of conflict between military and civilians; militaries refuses to feed civilians who don't contribute to survival (read: sick and injured), giving only bare minimum of supplies which wouldn't feed everyone. Resolving this issue (by proving your worth and improving conditions in the civilian shelter ''without'' begging militaries for help) is one of requirements to get any ending above [[DownerEnding C]].

** As it's clear that conflict with sergeant wasn't one-time occurrence, it gets suggested to make the shelter as independent as possible, so it wouldn't rely on militaries to do everything. This includes setting up a hospital and training paramedics (Sophia's task) to deal with sick people who can't work, and setting up work station (Cassie's task) to give recently-healed people some meanings to contribute and earn their rations. Sadly, conflict doesn't end just here, either, as some jerks continues abusing civilians just because, requiring to also install military police (Natasha's task).

** In Prologue, Juno has to restart generator in West Greer, but it needs a keycard. It serves as tutorial to the mechanic, as the keycard is the room to the side.
** In Subway, Juno can only unlock the door which leads towards exit from a terminal, but for that, she has to find the password from it. The password can be obtained from other terminal, which has its own password put in plain sight. Then the player has to trade the key from exit from deranged guy David (who wants a pack of cigarettes).

* MaddenIntoMisanthropy: Dryad from the University is the first Dryad to finish her incubation (Eva was taken out prematurely)... and she ended up in the hands of Dr. Feinstein and Dr. Zara, who used her for their experiment; you can actually read the logs in Feinstein's hideout, which are... not exactly ethical. Firstly, they locked the Hive in the containment room, filling it with HAF-2 which kept killing any Hivelings until the Hive [[ItCanThink gave up on trying to free itself]] and concentrated on incubation. Then, when process was finished, they sucked out all air, almost suffocating newbowrn Dryad to weaken her, and then leaving just enough to survive. Dryad is telepath, so she knows [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate what kind of people]] she's dealing with, and that they don't see her as a human being, only as a resource to use and discard. Much later, it would also be revealed that she wasn't captured by zombies; ''Feinstein'' did that, killing her father right in front of her and putting her into Hive against her will.

** Gavin can't shoot Juno; if next group finds the corpse with bullet wounds, he wouldn't be able to explain what the hell it was. Instead, he tries to make it look like she was snatched by the zombies, as it's both plausible and hard to check, plus it may possible distract the zombies and make escaping easier.
** Reading the logs in police HQ during Act 2 reveals that Gavin tried to dispose of other participants of the outing whom he can't trust be part of his coup, passing it as the zombie attack; amongst them Natasha. It obviously failed, as you'd find Natasha alive and well long before you read this entry. Neither he succeeded at deception: as pointed by Rebecca in the same logs, unless infected suddenly learned how to use guns, it was an inside job: the guns used were ''police issue''.
* MaximumHPReduction: Begging the military for help with upgrading the shelter (instead of doing it yourself) predictably makes them demand [[SexForServices very specific "payment"]]; the event is so traumatic for Juno, it ''permanently'' reduces her maximum Morale.

* MercyRewarded: Helping Brookside survivors, both before and after evacuation, provides Juno with boost to maximum Morale, as it shows her that not all hope is lost, and with free supplies she wouldn't have otherwise. This is also the only way to get any ending above [[DownerEnding C]].
* {{Metamorphosis}}. Fresh infectees are called "Runners", but as the fungal growth covers more and more of their body, they gradually become tougher, but slower (so-called "Walkers"), and gain ability for photosynthesis; alternatively, if they end up in some dark space, fungus drains the body of nutritions, crippling the body and creating "Crawlers". Both types eventually dies and decomposes, and that biomass assembles into a Hive. That's also why zombies captures women: Hive needs them to spread growth further, and [[BreedingSlave to spawn more hivelings for its defence]]. Hives themselves are then used to transform specifically-chosen women into Dryads.

* MilitaryCoup: In both endings C and D, radicals amongst military tries to perform a coup to depose civilian leaders, thinking that ''they'' deserve power better; in the ending C, they succeed, while in ending D, too many other militaries [[FireForgedFriends sides with civilians]], leaving them a minority which easily gets arrested and imprisoned for treason. In the ending E, they never takes the risk.

* MultipleEndings: The story has several endings, marked with letters, ranging from "A" (the worst) to "E" (the best). Would it be utter apocalypse (ending A), purge and restart of civilisation (ending B), military dictatorship (ending C), uneasy stalemate (ending D) or new era of peace (ending E), depends entirely on player's actions.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: If General Hawke wasn't convinced that there's still humanity left in Eve, despite her halfway turning into Dryad, he would grow too desperate and try to use the cure on her anyway, in the blind hope that ''maybe'' it's gonna work, despite it being previously stated that it's likely gonna kill her -- and it does, with the last thing he sees is the look of betrayal on her face. This proves too much for him, and [[DrivenToSuicide he shoots himself in the head]].

** At Stanton, the locals rebelled against Suits out of protest for them reducing rations ''and'' opportunities to obtain more by doing various jobs. All they achieved is to break the spare generator, break half the town and cause many people get killed or injured. It's also why Juno gets sent on the outing for new generator: this rebellion somehow damaged the old one.
** Why there's so many zombie dogs in Cold Pines? In the wake of the outbreak, people started abandoning their dogs in the park, hoping that maybe they would somehow fend for themselves (by then, many people were no longer capable of supporting their pets). Guess what? The dogs did fend for themselves -- by starting hunting on the people who gathered in the park after escaping from overrun cities. By the time you arrive in the park, there's exactly one non-dead person, and, had she stayed sane, [[FateWorseThanDeath she would've wished for death instead]].
* NoFairCheating: {{Zigzagged|Trope}}. Game has two types of cheats: cheat menu, and cheat room, which works differently:
** Cheat menu has cheats to add ammo (and melee weapons), and manage Juno's stats, and can be used liberally with no penalties.

*** The only way to exit the cheat room is by skipping some parts of the game, with earliest part being West Greer. However, when you do this, you get cut off from the parts you skipped (officially, to avoid bugs due to missed event flags), and can't explore them, even to find missing notes. And first note (necessary for the best ending) is ''before'' West Greer. You can safely use the room ''after'' doing Billy's errand, but by this point you'd already complete most of the Prologue.

** Every zombie enemy (excluding Hivelings; they get different one instead) has once-per-game RoomFullOfZombies situation, when you can run into a horde of those (so-called "swarm game-overs"), which triggers immediate game over with a different narration than if you simply run out of Morale. All of them can be either avoided or safely neutralised, in one way or another.
** Attempt to take David's key by force leads to him attacking Juno, and ultimately turning her into his SexSlave; given him showing signs of succumbing to infection, it's gonna become even nastier than this very soon.

** Attempt to rescue Dryad's captives ([[SchmuckBait who're so conveniently are in the open and not guarded]]) leads to them attacking Juno and infecting her. This game over plays slightly differently if it happens after Dr. Zara gets captured.
** Trusting Dr. Zara and giving her HAF-2 prototype leads to her shattering it, saying that humanity deserves being cast away as the dominant species. It leads to apocalypse, as Dryads ultimately overrun what's left of humanity. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Dr. Zara is amongst those who were enslaved]].

* NoOntologicalInertia: Hivelings can't be permanently killed, as they heal up soon afterwards. But if you destroy a Hive Node, all Hivelings connected to it would wither and die, and destroying main Hive kills entire system. {{Justified|Trope}}, as they're extension of the Hive, and Hive is the only thing keeping them alive.

* NotEvilJustMisunderstood: Before expiring, Dryad in University tells Junot that humans are monsters who destroys the planet out of own greed and hubris. Juno wonders, whether she was truly evil, or just misguided in her hatred. If she finds Dr. Zara's research, she confirms the latter (Dryads ''do'' have their humanity left in them, they just need a push to awake it).
* NoticeThis: Most (but not all) interactive objects are marked by sparkles (including stashes with items), and exits are often marked with big arrows.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: The Brookside sanctuary is run by the remnants of government (collectively called "the Suits", and universally despised), who provides people with jobs, and pays for them in food. In Prologue, Juno (who run out of rations) goes to them to get something, only for them to demand the documents proving her qualification (knowing that those weren't amongst top-priority things during evacuation), on the loose justification that one dude tried to scam them by posing as researcher. Despite Juno ''already'' working for them in the past, and them being perfectly fine with it. Juno comments on the fact that, after the fricking apocalypse, she was fucked by petty bureaucracy, of all things. That's why she has to ask Billy for help.

** Dr. Peters' exposition about the infection repeats many points of Juno's narration from the game's opening scene, but now tells why it happened the way it happened.

* OneManArmy: It's stated that a single Dryad can wipe out entire squad of infantry with zero efforts; even if they have weaponised HAF-2b, they would only have ''a chance'' to fight back. Chances becomes more reasonable if not trying to attack Dryad on her territory, and instead make her fight in urban environment where she can't exploit her powers to get extra advantage.
* OneSteveLimit: {{Averted|Trope}}, several characters who never interacts with each other shares surnames, which may or may not indicate them being related:
** Natasha and [[PosthumousCharacter Sarah]] share surname Kane; Sarah has moved to West Greer shortly before the outbreak.
** One of the cops attacked by Gavin soon after the outing in West Greer is named Jules Freemantle; he shares surname with [[PosthumousCharacter Leslie Freemantle]], David's co-worker who died from infection.
* OurZombiesAreDifferent: Original infection was caused by parasitic fungi infecting the crops, and then humans eating the food produced from those; the parasite targets the brain, but can't actually take it over until the host gets weakened by some other infection or injury. Once it intercepts the body functions, it starts gradually covering the host with fungal growths, which slows it down, but gives heavy protection, as well as allows to quickly "patch up" any wounds. At this stage, zombies can sustain themselves via photosynthesis, albeit they would still try to eat flesh if have a chance. Only males turns into actual zombies, and they always attack the other males with intent to kill or, failing that, infect them; females instead undergoes mental degradation and become consumed with desire for reproduction: the parasite needs them as the incubators and relay nods. Male zombies eventually dies and gets recycled into fuel to create the Hive, which is the entire purpose for infection's existence: there, carefully-selected females gets turned into Dryad, the ultimate life form intended to surpass humans. Infection also targets dogs and gators, but first ones seems to the tools to infect more humans, and latter are evolutionary dead-end.
* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: Player, when accessing computers in the Subway, can read correspondence between David and Leslie. According to it, David was publicly reprimanded for using "123abc" as his password by his boss, Judy Taka, who was tasked with improving security by installing decent passwords on every terminal. The new password is "die judy" (blatantly violating another instruction, not using spaces), which he put on a sticky note and attached to monitor (which is how you access it).
* PayEvilUntoEvil: Juno deals with Gavin by using security alarm to send Runners into his hideout, where they massacre both Gavin and his few surviving goons.

** One of requirements for best ending is to find all 8 notes (not counting Sarah's suicide note), which are spread across the game. Due to [[PointOfNoReturn earlier areas becoming inaccessible past certain points]], notes must be retrieved before passing them, with some being easier to miss than the others:
*** Very first note can be found as early as in prologue, but the only way to gain it is by refusing Billy's advances and doing an errand for him. Due to the way the cheat room works, it can also be missed if it's used before accepting Billy's errand, as it has no exit, only option to skip forward, and earliest possible point is West Greer.
*** There are three notes which must be retrieved before going to Cold Pines; two in Subway are across essential path anyway, but one in the Hospital is in a side room which player may easily miss if they just grab the medkit for Geoff and run with it (especially since it's in a small room with zombie inside).

** During operation in Downtown, Thompson would ask to find survivors; player is free to leave and return as much as they want while operation is ongoing, but once it's finished, you [[PointOfNoReturn can only leave the area permanently]]; if you didn't finish the quest yet, it would be failed, locking you out of best ending.
** If you plan to get any ending above C, you have to fully upgrade the shelter ''before'' finishing the assignment in University, as [[PointOfNoReturn you wouldn't get a chance to return afterwards]].
** Looking for Dr. Zara's research for General Hawke is necessary to obtain best ending, but it must be done before you kill the Dryad and check on her in the main campus, as it's when Dr. Feinstein reveals his true colours. You then have to give that data to General Hawke; if you missed the chance to give it to him at the base, you can do it during the final mission, but it must be done before proceeding to the final push.
* PlantMooks: Hivelings (also known as "grunts") aren't zombified humans; the Hive grows them as needed, and recycles them when they dies.

** Before using the cheat room, player gets warned that they wouldn't be able to return if they enter, and gives a chance to reconsider.

** Moving to Cold Pines on a boat cuts off everything in the previous areas.
** Before evacuation to the military base, the player gets a chance to stockpile and complete the side quests to improve the chances for successful evacuation; not doing this cuts those options out, as well as the better endings.
** Before leaving Jamesway Bridge, the player gets warned that they wouldn't be able to return. Unlike the other similar cases, it has no plot-critical items, so the player would only miss on supplies they could've recovered.
** Before leaving Downtown, you would be warned that you wouldn't return there, and that any ongoing quests in this area (namely, Thompson's quest to look for survivors) would be failed.
** You can go back and forth as much as you want during operation in the University, but as soon as you complete your task there, Juno would be captured by one of the scientists backstabbing her, and the game would proceed to the final level. If the player didn't give General Hawke's Zara's research yet (which is obtainable in University), they can do it now, but all other tasks are forfeit: if you didn't do them before, then it's already too late.

** Out of several named characters in the Subway, only David is [[SoleSurvivor still alive]], yet insane; one of his higher-ups, Hansen, bleed to death due to injuries sustained during attack (but not before sealing the station to prevent all those hordes from spreading further), his friend Leslie succumbed to infection and died, and Anna was [[FateWorseThanDeath snatched by zombies]] due to David [[DirtyCoward locking the door on her to save his skin]].
** The log Juno finds in Cold Pines safehouse tells about the team of rangers (Bryce, Sullivan and Sophie O'Hara), and Porter family which agreed to help them. Bryce was killed early on, leaving Sullivan in charge, and then operation to gas the dogs in the cabin went poorly and resulted in Mr. Porter being killed and Mrs. Porter snatched; Sophie was captured too, but briefly released, [[ItCanThink so the dogs can track her to the safehouse]]. Sullivan (who initially fled in panic) tried to go out and help Sophie; all that has to be said about it is that you loot his ID to enter safehouse from his mutilated corpse.

** While exploring the dangerzone, you can find the corpse of little girl (nametag on her doll identifies her as Wendy), and read the diary which confirms that she starved to death. Close nearby is her zombified father, and the corpse of his friend who died protecting Wendy.
* PracticalCurrency: During Act 1 and Act 2, booze and cigarettes serves as a currency of sort, as Juno can exchange them for ammo. In the Act 3, they cease to serve as such, and instead can be sold for Base Points (virtual "currency" which represents Juno's standing with the military).

** Whenever you go to sleep during Act 1, you receive a warning that trying it with high Infection is a bad idea. Player may try to do it anyway, only to get immediate game over.

* PressXToNotDie: When the player gets attacked by an enemy, a QTE triggers to push them off, giving Juno a chance to either kill it or run away. However, this mechanic has 30 seconds cooldown. This mechanic works for every enemy, including Dryads and Androids.
* ThePurge: By the time Juno returned to sanctuary, Gavin killed a lot of people who didn't side with him:
** During the ill-fated outing in West Greer, he sent Natasha and her group into ambush, where their transports were gunned down. He failed to actually kill her, and her group later rejoined survivors in Brookside when Gavin's coup collapsed on itself. He also planned to kill Dr. Peters and Sophia, but they insisted on going with Natasha to gather more samples, which saved their lives. In light of this, it also becomes clear why he chose to backstab Juno in the first place: [[HeKnowsTooMuch she's not on the plan, and he can't take any risks]].

* PuzzleBoss: As Dryad can't be permanently defeated by conventional means, the goal is to find a way to poison her with HAF-2b. This requires using a boiler, which has to be turned on first -- all while being pursued by Dryad.
* RandomDrop: While some sources of loot are fixed, most would randomly give you cigarettes, beer or whiskey (some people, namely Baron, accepts it in return for ammo), bleach (used to get rid of fungi blocking the way), desinfectant (lowers Infection), painkillers (used to restore Morale) or food.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: In the ending C, some sane military officers, like Lindsay and Thompson Taylor, were reassigned far away from their units, on some minor and insignificant positions. It's still better than what they did to opposition amongst civilians...

* ReviveKillsZombie: When Dr. Peters manages to use the HAF-2 research to make viable cure, turns out that it can't help those whose infection has progressed too far; it would kill them instead, shutting down their body organs. This includes Dryads, so if General Hawke wouldn't be convinced that Eva turning into Dryad wouldn't strip her of her humanity, he would try to use it on her out of desperation -- with disastrous consequences.

** Juno would run into Hivelings during operation in Downtown (they're the only enemy she would encounter there). Hivelings can't die for real for as long as the Hive Nod controlling them is alive; they would respawn 5 seconds later. But if the Nod dies (or the Hive itself gets destroyed), they perish permanently.
** {{Defied|Trope}} by Dr. Feinstein when trying to make the Hive he managed to capture mature without attacking: he put it into containment filled with HAF-2, which keeps killing any Hivelings spawned; just as he expected, the Hive [[ItCanThink was intelligent enough]] to stop this useless bruteforcign, and concentrated on incubating instead.

** In East Greer school, there's a locked door with "[[Series/TheWalkingDead2010 don't open; dead inside]]" warning. Unfortunately, if Juno [[SchmuckBait disregards the warning and own bad feeling, and opens it anyway]], turns out that zombies are pretty much alive...
** In the Subway, there's a shotgun in some dead end. Unfortunately, attempt to go there leads to floor breaking, and Juno falling somewhere deep and getting surrounded by Crawlers; ''many'' Crawlers. It doesn't happen if the player previously found the note about that part of subway being in the state of disrepair, as Juno would just jump over safely.
** During Cold Pines level (which concludes the Act 1), Juno eventually encounters a building which suspiciously still has light coming from its windows. If she tries to enter anyway, she would promptly ambushed by huge dog pack. You ''do'' need to get inside, but only after dealing with the dogs via DeadlyGas.

* RuleOfThree: Assuming the player doesn't run out of Morale, they can survive two encounters with Dryad; third one would be invariably fatal, as Dryad would finally succeed at breaking Juno's willpower via her psychic powers.

* SanitySlippage: Carry's [[ApocalypticLog diary]] is divided into 10 chapters, from earlier days, to just shortly before you arrive. The last couple of entries reveals that she was infected by Rex and shows early signs of succumbing to the infection; by that time, she starts using somewhat weird choice of words, with the Entry 10 in particular also having numerous spelling errors and missing spaces. Much later, it would be revealed that intellect degradation is amongst symptoms: Kerry was doomed even before Rex overwhelmed her.

* SchrodingersGun: If you resist Gavin and take his gun, Sarah's gun would be rusty and broken beyond repair; if you don't, Sarah's gun would be perfectly operational. This is to ensure that the player wouldn't get two pistols (as the player always has at most one pistol, one shotgun and one rifle).
* SewerGator: The reason why all Reptiles (mutant alligators) are in the sewers, and not in the wild -- because those ''are'' mutant sewer gators; parasite only bothers with mutating animals because it makes easier to spread infection on humans (or, failing that, kill them).
* SexForServices: At several points, Juno and/or her friends may pay with body for certain favours, as "easier" solution to the current problem; it's ''always'' strictly harmful option, both in short-terms and long-terms; begging military for aid in improving the shelter has especially bad negative effects.

** Ending C has radicals amongst military overthrowing civilian leaders when they opposed their brutality, and condemning them to serving as public slaves for the military. If Juno tries to defend them, she shares their fate, otherwise, she has to comfort herself with the lie that it was "necessary" and that "they were punished for endangering the war efforts".

* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Shotgun has ''the'' highest base damage (only melee weapons do more), allowing to kill any enemy save for Dryad and Androids in one hit. Upgraded shotgun one-shots Androids, too.

** The locked restroom has "[[Series/TheWalkingDead2010 Don't open; dead inside"]] written on the door. Unlike Rick, Juno [[PressXToDie may try to actually open it]]. If opened in editor, the map is even named "High School of the Dead".
** Apparently, Thompson is Creator/MontyPython fan, as he makes several quotes of theirs; he asks Juno to not tell anyone, ''especially'' his sister.

* SurvivalHorror: The story takes place after ZombieApocalypse, with [[PlayerCharacter Juno]] having to survive in zombie-infested ruins of now-overrun towns, carefully managing limited ammo and flashlight batteries and avoiding being snatched or infected by zombies (and sometimes humans who're worse than zombies). Sometimes, Juno's adventures brings her to the dark, narrow tunnels with the slow, but resilient pursuers lurking just out of sight, and to the flooded undergrounds where she can't even run, while the danger is always close...

** When Billy's attempt to force Gavin to fulfil his end of bargained ended with Gavin gunning down him and his gang, Billy detonated the bombs he preinstalled across the sanctuary, which allowed all kinds of zombies to breach it. By the time you reach former Suits HQ, only Gavin himself and few his supporters are alive, holing up in one of the rooms, while mortally wounded Billy is waiting in the janitor closer.

* TeleportingKeycardSquad: As soon as you restart water treatment plant, several Runners spawns on your way to exit: the noise attracted some zombies.
* TemptingFate: The final note is from the dean of University, who took his mute daughter with him, thinking that it's safest place for her now, while he was participating in experiments to stop the infection; he claims that with their supplies, they can last for years. By the time you arrive there, he's dead, University is overrun, and said daughter is that same Dryad you're facing.

* TornApartByTheMob: According to Cassie, the first thing Gavin did after taking over the Suits HQ is to give over every captured Suit to the angry mob from Stanton, who sees the Suits as the source of their problems; they were promptly lynched, with the former leader of the sanctuary, Richard Harvey (who made the last attempt at negotiations), in particular, being ''literally'' torn apart, limb by limb.

** If you read Kerry's diary, you would learn that she has a dog named Rex who was heavily protective of her after the outbreak, even refused to eat until she eats first, and later went out for hunting. But you just know that things aren't gonna end well when diary mentions Rex being wounded (you already encountered plenty of zombie dogs before). Sure enough, the rest of diary describes how he turned into zombie, ''slowly'', being aware that something is wrong with him and trying to resist, or, failing that, warn Kerry to stay away, feeling that the danger now comes from himself. Then he succumbs. All this time, Kerry (who already lost everyone but Rex) is unaware just what's going on and why her fateful dog is suddenly betraying her.
** One of the zombies you can encounter in Brookside is a father, who, despite recently being zombified, still has some sanity left. He reacts when he sees Juno with the doll which belonged to his daughter Wendy (by the time Juno finds her, she's dead from starvation), and rushes to check on Wendy instead of attacking Juno... and then uses his last strength of will to ''beg to being killed''.
** The Dryad from University, once you read Feinstein's research logs, becomes hard to not sympathise with. She ''wasn't'' captured by the zombies; Feinstein killed her father right in front of her (surprisingly, he wasn't okay with idea to use his daughter as guinea pig), and forcibly put her into artificially-created Hive; in fact, when you first step into University, Dryad would stand near his coffin. He then grew her in extremely horrific conditions, and performed cruel experiments on her. Zara, meanwhile, whispered her poisonous lies into girl's ears, hoping to use her as a tool against Feinstein and anti-infection efforts. Neither takes into account that she's a telepath. While she does believe in Zara's EcoTerrorist cause and that humanity should be stopped, she doesn't see her as a friend, and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard easily betrays]]. Not even Juno finds her truly evil, despite being directly threatened by her.
* UnfinishedUntestedUsedAnyway: The androids never were finished, lacking proper Friend-or-Foe system and thus attacking everything that moves (obeying only the person holding special beacon, which are in limited supply due to safety concerns), yet Dr. Feinstein still ordered to release them as the last ditch attempt to buy time to launch ICBM with weaponised GAF-2... and they proceeded with attacking everything that moves. One of survivors defects to Hawke's people and tells about this, but Hawke says that he [[HoistByHisOwnPetard has zero compassion for them]].
* UnfriendlyFire: Gavin orders to shoot at his own convoy, to get rid of the officers he can't trust (amongst them Natasha), and [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident pass it as the zombie attack]]. It doesn't quite work, but it becomes a moot point when he starts an open coup.

** Billy (whom Juno openly hates and asks for help out of desperation) offers two options, one involves [[SexForServices "servicing" him]], another involves doing errand job; taking errand job is part of requirement for the GoldenEnding, while other option drains 50 Morale (out of default 100).

** Military despises civilians, thinking them as TheLoad, and refuses to share and assist in improving civilian shelter. Juno can beg for help (even after a warning that it's ''not'' a good idea), or work hard to earn respect; guess which option penalises maximum Morale (as the military demands [[SexForServices very specific kind of "payment"]]) and locks you in bad end, and which makes everyone happy and rewards the player.

** Called simply "the infection", the disease exists as both driving force of the plot and as actual gameplay mechanic.
*** The disease (caused by microscopic fungus) originally spread when the once-dormant parasite was accidentally disturbed and spread to the crops in South America, which then were distributed across the world. The parasite is incapable of hurting its host right away, but instead hides in their brain, waiting till something else weakens them (injury, other disease...), which allows it to take the body over. Men turns into your typical zombies: rabid and attacking anyone on sight which isn't them, to either kill or spread disease; women become sex-crawing and gradually go insane. The true purpose of those "zombies" is even more sinister: men are used as organic fuel to grow a Hive, and women as the Hive's incubators, to produce its defenders; only select few gets transformed into next stage of the evolution, [[HalfHumanHybrid Dryads]].
*** Game tracks Juno's level of infection, representing it as the scale from 0 to 10. When the infection level reaches at least 5, Juno may occasionally lose control over herself, even in the middle of battle, which may be extremely dangerous. But the most dangerous part comes when she tries to rest, to recover lost Morale; doing it with high Infection leads to her fully succumbing, and immediate game over (though that danger ceases to matter starting from return to Brookside). It can be partially removed with Desinfectants (common consumables), or fully by Suppressants (rare consumables), but generally best protection is to simply avoid it altogether. Every enemy spreads it on contact, with some causing extra Infection.
** As the countermeasure against infection, the special virus (Hyperevolutionary Antiparasite Formula, or just HAF for short) was created; idea is that, once project is complete, the virus would be capable of catch up with constantly-evolving infection, and destroy it. It goes through multiple stages of development:

*** Feinstein continues working on HAF on his own, and makes it actually work... and also makes it extremely lethal ''to humans'' (not even gas mask ensures enough protection): the virus, at the current state, can't tell apart infected and "healthy" humans, due to similarities in DNA. Feinstein has to weaken it, which makes it possible to actually study it, but also renders it incapable of spreading around.
*** When Dr. Feinstein manages to improve it using the samples received from Dr. Peters, it gets used against Dryad when Juno helps him to spread it around University. He then further improves it with Dryad's genetic material, making it capable of survive in the atmosphere, and tries to use it as weapon of mass destruction (not caring about human casualties); stopping him is the goal on final level.
*** If Feinstein gets stopped, research gets continued, but it gets discovered that even after solving issue with lethality to humans, it still remains poisonous to infected, Dryads included. Whether Dr. Peters would focus on weaponising it further, or improving the cure, depends on the ending the player achieves.
* WasOnceAMan: All Dryads were originally female children, abducted and put into incubators, where they gradually undergo transformation and emerge fully-adult. They do keep some traces of original personalities, which can be reawakened if they meet the persons who used to know them, and gets approached with love rather than hate and fear.

* WeUsedtoBeFriends: Feinstein and Peters were friends before the outbreak; it doesn't get elaborated upon, but it's rather clear that Peters was hurt by revelation of Feinstein's goals and methods.

* WhatTheHellHero: General Hawke understandably gets called out on not warning about what to expect in the Downtown, during attack on active Hivemind, as it costed many lives and nearly killed Juno herself. He tells that ''he'' didn't encounter the Hivelings (Eva was so close to completing her incubation, the Hive risked to redirect all resources to that instead of defence), so he was caught by surprise just as Juno; but she then tells that he knew what the Hive is doing to humans, yet didn't warn Juno, which could've resulted in her killing Ellie had she started incubating. He has nothing to say to it, other than that he takes all the fault for this, but it was his only shot to find a way to save ''his'' daughter.
* WolfpackBoss: When the player reaches the Hive, they have to fight five "elite" Hivelings. Those move faster and have twice as much HP, but wouldn't regenerate once killed. The player has to defeat all five, while having limited space for mobility.

-->'''Juno''': At the very least - she believed in you and waited for you till the very end. And you met that expectation, no matter how long it took. That means something.\\

** In the endings D and E, due to General Hawke either committing suicide or retiring, major Lindsay Taylor gets assigned to "temporarily" replace him; after TimeSkip, she's still holding that position, still not being formally promoted.
** As Dryads had no leadership to begin with, Eva gets chosen as their representative due to having both connections and motivation.

* ZombieApocalypse: The story takes place several months (possibly years, it never gets clear) after infection destroyed most of humanity and forced humans out of large cities.

* IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney: Back in the days, she had to work as a stripper in Billy's now-defunct strip-club to pay for college (she was very low on money after mother passed away); she prefers to forget about it, while he tries to push things further. This period of her life is why she hates Billy so much. Besides that, she also tried two other jobs; of those, one was honest job at a gun range (which explains why she knows how to use guns), and another was as part-time dominatrix.
* LivingLegend: Juno managing to perform the impossible time and time again quickly makes everyone around her prise her for her heroism.

* TookALevelInBadass: Juno comes from scared woman on the brink of mental breakdown who was just left for death far away from home, to grizzled survivor and fighter, to one of the leaders of remnants of mankind. The cover art for each act reflects it, showing her progressively more self-confident. This is further reinforced by her gradually increasing the max Morale over the course of the game, symbolising her resolve strengthening.
* {{Workaholic}}: If she gets elected a president (in endings D and E), several characters points that she's overworking herself and needs some rest and proper dinners (particularly Sophia, who insists on cooking for her, so she would at least feed healthily).

* WrenchWench: She's a resident mechanic; her sidequest even involves finding her missing tools, so she may upgrade the transports before evacuation. If assisted in establishing working station, she would provide a free Axe for Juno whenever she has none.

* TheMedic: She was the nurse before the outbreak; now, she serves as Dr. Peters' assistant in running the hospital and doing medical research. If assisted in setting up medical station in civilian shelter, she'd also share some free Morale-restoring items whenever Juno runs out of them.
* PlatonicLifePartners: She's impassionate with working under Dr. Peters, whom she adores as a genius dedicated to his mission, but their relationship is strictly professional.

* TheAlcoholic: Shortly before the outbreak, he was kicked from the house by his wife for drinking too much.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: His quest to go back home and find his wife ends with him only finding her corpse, and having to bury her. Previously, he said that deep inside, he hopes that she still waits for him; and she did, which doomed her.