History TabletopGame / UnknownArmies

* FaceHeelTurn/HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:One of the biggest events in 3rd edition was the Freak and the Comte Saint-Germain switching places and inverting morality. The Freak is now an idealistic androgine that calls hirself the Human Eternal and is in charge of being the new First and Last Man (the only constant between universes), and the Comte is a [[GrumpyOldMan bitter, cranky old lady]] called Old Mother [[MeaningfulName Apocalypse]] who wants to make the current universe eternal and stop new ones from being created, by killing all of humanity if necessary.]]

* CosmicHorrorStory: Subverted. It's the anti-Lovecraft: you aren't scared because the cosmic powers that can crush you like a bug without noticing it are inhuman horrors from the depth of the cosmos. You are scared because they [[spoiler:were humans like you, and are living metaphor of what being human means. You aren't mortified because you're helpless, but because [[ArcWords you did it]]!]]

* AdultFear: Possibly more common than unnatural fear. Sure, you might have your body torn to bits by an [[EldritchAbomination Unspeakable Servant]], but there's a much higher probability that you'll just lose your mind, become a recluse whose divorce from society is directly tied to a divorce from reality, and watch everything you loved or cared about slip away from you, until all you've got left is [[LonelyAtTheTop your power]]. And that's if you're ''successful.''
** This trope runs rampant in the Weep scenario "Garden Full of Weeds." - the city district of Garden View is an example of extreme urban decay made worse by supernatural phenomena. This means that there's a serial killer who traps peoples' souls in his sunglasses, but it also means that just about everyone is below the poverty line, every family is abusive, and extreme racism is coupled with rampant gang violence. Oh, and a Loogaroo running around murdering children under six months old.

* AIIsACrapshoot / InstantAIJustAddWater: GNOMON, a strange governmental data miner program that somehow not only became sentient, but became the focus of an entire adept school focused around the concept of identity, knowledge, and espionage (you dicker with it for charges, and you use the search bar for spells). Not malevolent, but definitely has its own agenda, uncaring of its makers, and is a bit of a MadScientist.

* AttackDrone: A common Mechanomancer toy.
* BadassNormal: Most non-Adept and non-Avatar [[PlayerCharacter PCs]] in a Cosmic game.
** Hell, being one is a prerequisite for being one of the true leaders of The New Inquisition. Their leader realizes that putting [[CloudCuckooLander actual mages]] in charge of his group is a very, very bad idea.

* BecomingTheMask: A constant worry if you're a Personamancer.

* {{Biomanipulation}}[=/=]BodyHorror:

* ChunkySalsaRule

* DeusSexMachina: Pornomancy. Subverted in that pornomantic sex rituals aren't much fun at all to their practitioner, and having ''regular'' sex is taboo to them.
** [[BlessedWithSuck "Real shame about love, isn't it?"]]

* EasyAmnesia: The Personomancer spell The Mirror, Crack'd is a magical case of retrograde amnesia with some interesting side effects.

* FaceHeelTurn / HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:One of the biggest events in 3rd edition was the Freak and the Comte Saint-Germain switching places and inverting morality. The Freak is now an idealistic androgine that calls hirself the Human Eternal and is in charge of being the new First and Last Man (the only constant between universes), and the Comte is a [[GrumpyOldMan bitter, cranky old lady]] called Old Mother [[MeaningfulName Apocalypse]] who wants to make the current universe eternal and stop new ones from being created, by killing all of humanity if necessary.]]

* GoMadFromTheRevelation: "Sanity cannot exist for long under conditions of absolute reality." There are a lot of things that can cause you to gain some notches on the madness meters, but suddenly gaining an understanding of some cosmic truth is the most likely to cause a FreakOut.

* GunsAreWorthless: Averted, at least for more skilled users. Someone with poor skill needs extreme luck to do much damage with a gun, though.
** Which is pretty realistic. Guns are surprisingly unwieldy and hard to use for people that haven't practiced with them, a problem that becomes ten times worse when threatened and under pressure.

* HealingFactor[=/=]HealingHands: Epideromancers can do both (in the case of the former, this excludes self-inflicted wounds.)

* InverseLawOfUtilityAndLethality
* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade: The Sleepers' MO.

* MisappliedPhlebotinum

* MugglesDoItBetter: Because technology is more reliable and cconsistent. But adepts do it in ways that [[ConfusionFu defy logic]]. Nobody gets to have it both ways.
*** Also averted with some high-level Avatars.

* OurDemonsAreDifferent: They're actually this world's version of [[OurGhostsAreDifferent ghosts]], and are universally [[strike: quite bitter about not being able to move on]] terrified of moving on to the next life.
** Third Edition adds Fiends, monstrous byproducts of cruel magick use who feed on fear and pain, and Whisperers, symbiotes with demons who drive potential victims mad with shame and allow the demons to hop in.

* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Being based in "the real world, except [[MindScrew real]]", 9/11 cast a pretty tall shadow over some of the events of the game. This particularly affects Mac Attax, who saved the world in 2000 only for the end to suddenly loom that much taller in 2k1.
** The scenario Fly From Heaven appears to reference 9/11, but it was written long before it.
* RealityWarper: The Entropomancy spell Edit the World. Also the random magick of many schools, if you've got enough charges.
** Get a major charge and this is the kind of effect you're looking at.

* RevolversAreJustBetter: Averted. Revolvers have all the flaws they do in real life (low ammunition capacity, bulk, and ect.), making pistols and, for that matter, automatic weapons far more usefull.
** Entropomancers love revolvers though. To their minds, what good is owning a gun if you can't play Russian Roulette with it?

* RocksFallEveryoneDies: The players piss off The Freak, [[spoiler: the number of Archetypes in the Invisible Clergy hits [[ArcNumber 333]]]], pop in a CD full of Alter language...
** The characters piss off the Comte, get a unfiltered vision of [[spoiler: The Statosphere]], screw up a magick roll with a Major charge...
*** The Cruel Ones show up.
* {{Room101}}: The Otherside Room is a mystically empowered version, showing any fool with weak beliefs trapped in it the very worst of his or her beliefs. This is non-partisan and all-accepting, by the way; stick a Christian and a Communist in there, and both will walk out with their beliefs torn down.
** Many of the other Rooms of Renunciation work by similar principles; e.g. the Room of Cold Reflection forces the victim to face the consequences of their selfishness, while the Room of Rusted Things shakes up apathetic people.

* SanityHasAdvantages: No [[WeaksauceWeakness Taboo]] to break, for example. Playing a BadassNormal in this game is perfectly feasible.
** The New Inquisition's power lies in this. Alex Abel, their leader, is neither an adept or an avatar, so he's better suited to run a high-level organization than most of the characters in the cast. Additionally, [[spoiler: the further up you go in the TNI, the less adepts you find, to the point that there are none in the highest tier of leadership.]]

* ScaledUp: The Herpemancy formula, "I am become Typhon" - "Sometimes you just gotta turn into a giant snake."
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Plutomancy, where holding down a good-paying job fuels your magic (and spending too much for any one object is taboo; most live in modest homes to avoid wiping their power with their mortgage payment).
** Alex Abel, eccentric billionaire, created a powerful occult cabal from scratch - the New Inquisition - that embodies this trope.

** See also CanonWelding, above.

* {{Sourcebook}}

* UnfazedEveryman: [[spoiler: Depending on the outcome of To Go, this archetype may just ascend to the pantheon.]]. Further spoilers: [[spoiler: A side-effect of this is that adepts can suddenly turn ten minor charges into sigs, making magick immeasurably more powerful.]]
** On a less spoilery note, everyone in a campaign who is directly involved in magic but [[BadassNormal doesn't practice it]] is automatically this.
* UnreliableNarrator
* UrbanFantasy

* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: And with great insanity comes great power.
** And often the other way around too. Just ask Jeeter...

The game is often compared to ''[[TabletopGame/OverTheEdge Over the Edge]]'', due to both games featuring an abundance of surface level weirdness and protagonist empowerment, along with a do-it-yourself skills list. Both Tynes and Stolze also were writers for ''TabletopGame/DeltaGreen'', with Tynes begin one of the original writers creating the first Delta Green scenario ever, ''Convergence'', and Stolze would write for the 2016 edition. Some level of influence can be seen from Delta Green to Unknown Armies and vice-versa: A hidden occult world, gritty and grim ambience, destructive magic and with the 2016 edition of Delta Green, a level of PersonalHorror with its own SanityMeter.

* TheVillainMakesThePlot: Averted. While there are cool, ManipulativeBastard factions [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans trying to create a perfect world by any means necessary]], they are presented very sympathetically and as PC options, particularly for global and cosmic games. Real, pure villain groups are actually kind of pathetic (infernomancers are portrayed as more dangerous to themselves than anything, while demons are immensely petty creatures who are actually harmless in the grand scheme of things).

** One notable fan-made school of magick from the website is "[[http://ua.johntynes.com/content_comments.php?id=3139_0_3_0_C1 Tropamancy]]". Yup. Inspired by this very wiki.

* {{Biomancy}}[=/=]BodyHorror: Various, but Epideromancy is the #1 source in the game. It's a magic style revolving around molding the bodies of others (and oneself) like clay and powered by self-mutilation... think about it. Its signature attack spell ''isn't'' the one that lets you break bones or tear flesh just by touching someone, it's the spell that lets you mold flesh about the area of your palm. Its most common use? ''Seal someone's mouth and nose.''
** The Freak from the novelization ''Godwalker'' demonstrates this power via shapeshifting, gendershifting as well as healing of self and others.

The game is often compared to ''[[TabletopGame/OverTheEdge Over the Edge]]'', due to both games featuring an abundance of surface level weirdness and protagonist empowerment, along with a do-it-yourself skills list.

* TheConspiracy: Unknown Armies' theme that the supernatural world was, in many ways, a lot less amazing than it might first sound extended to its conspiracies. Whereas settings like the WorldOfDarkness were filled to the brim with occult organizations so ancient and powerful [[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy it's a wonder history happened without them]], the conspiracies that dominate the Occult Underground tended to be rather down-to-Earth. The very biggest one consisted of about 400 people, total, and considered comparatively powerless due to the impracticality of trying to keep track of so many "agents" (it didn't help they were mostly clueless amateurs in it for the lulz). Most couldn't even scratch 100. The "ancient" conspiracy [[spoiler: was less than a century old and just thrumming up its own reputation as mystical badasses]], and even the ones with millions of dollars to throw around were simply too ''practical'' to bother with Hollywood bullshit like sending attack helicopters and squads of mercenaries after people where a hired thug with a silenced pistol tends to be enough to do the trick. It goes without saying that there's not a single organization in the entire setting that wouldn't be ''squashed like a bug'' if they ever pissed off the mundane authorities. There's a reason the Occult Underground remains that way.

** MugglesDoItBetter: But adepts do it in ways that [[ConfusionFu defy logic]]. Nobody gets to have it both ways.

* ObstructiveCodeofConduct: The Taboo of any magick-user is basically this. There are some behaviors that you cannot engage in, ever, or you weaken your power in some way. On a meta level, the Self meter is meant to be this for the players, to prevent them from doing just anything (destroying own life's work, cannibalism, public denying their most deeply held beliefs) with their characters.

* MagicAIsMagicA: Played with, Adepts ''must'' embrace symbolic paradox and paying a price for their powers and avatars ''must'' act out their Stratospheric patron's archetype... but the very basis of magick working is the internal logic of the universe not always fitting together right. Unnatural phenomenon (side effects of uncontrolled magickal energy) are, by definition, devoid of all but symbolic logic and there's absolutely no law some otherwise completely normal person can't have a supernatural ability nobody can explain.

* BetterThanItSoundsTabletopGames: If David Cronenberg, Tim Powers, Christopher Nolan, Thomas Pynchon and the late Robert Anton Wilson met at a role-playing convention, that's what they would play.

* TheConspiracy: nknown Armies' theme that the supernatural world was, in many ways, a lot less amazing than it might first sound extended to its conspiracies. Whereas settings like the WorldOfDarkness were filled to the brim with occult organizations so ancient and powerful [[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy it's a wonder history happened without them]], the conspiracies that dominate the Occult Underground tended to be rather down-to-Earth. The very biggest one consisted of about 400 people, total, and considered comparatively powerless due to the impracticality of trying to keep track of so many "agents" (it didn't help they were mostly clueless amateurs in it for the lulz). Most couldn't even scratch 100. The "ancient" conspiracy [[spoiler: was less than a century old and just thrumming up its own reputation as mystical badasses]], and even the ones with millions of dollars to throw around were simply too ''practical'' to bother with Hollywood bullshit like sending attack helicopters and squads of mercenaries after people where a hired thug with a silenced pistol tends to be enough to do the trick. It goes without saying that there's not a single organization in the entire setting that wouldn't be ''squashed like a bug'' if they ever pissed off the mundane authorities. There's a reason the Occult Underground remains that way.

* FaceHeelTurn / HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:One of the biggest events in 3rd edition was the Freak and the Comte Saint-Germain switching places and inverting morality. The Freak is now an idealistic androgine that calls hirself the Human Eternal and is in charge of being the new First and Last Man (the only constant between universes), and the Comte is a [[GrumpyOldMan bitter, cranky old lady]] called Old Mother [[MeaningfulName Apocalypse]] who wants to make the current universe eternal and stop new ones from being created, by killing all humanity if necessary.]]

* FaceHeelTurn/HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:One of the biggest events in 3rd edition was the Freak and the Comte Saint-Germain switching places and inverting morality. The Freak is now an idealistic androgine that calls hirself the Human Eternal and is in charge of being the new First and Last Man (the only constant between universes), and the Comte is a [[GrumpyOldMan bitter, cranky old lady]] called Old Mother [[MeaningfulName Apocalypse]] who wants to make the current universe eternal and stop new ones from being created, by killing all humanity if necessary.]]

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: GNOMON is always willing to offer charges in return for filling out one of its personality questionnaires...which always end in such pointed and personalized inquiries it forces a Stress check.

* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:One of the biggest events in 3rd edition was the Freak and the Comte Saint-Germain switching places and inverting morality. The Freak is now an idealistic androgine that calls hirself the Human Eternal, and the Comte is a [[GrumpyOldMan bitter, cranky old lady]] called Old Gran Apocalypse.]]

* MagicAIsMagicA: Played with, Adepts ''must'' embrace symbolic paradox and paying a price for their powers and avatars ''must'' act out their Stratospheric patron's archetype...but the very basis of magick working is the internal logic of the universe not always fitting together right. Unnatural phenomenon (side effects of uncontrolled magickal energy) are, by definition, devoid of all but symbolic logic and there's absolutely no law some otherwise completely normal person can't have a supernatural ability nobody can explain.

* SquishyWizard: Subverted with fleshworkers, who are usually enormously tough...but go down all too easily all too often because they CastFromHitPoints. Especially true if they go for the Major charge, which involves permanently damaging themselves in some hideous way. (Amputation's a popular one. The Freak ''drank acid.'')

* {{Cult}}: By the 3nd edition The New Inquisition has morphed into this, fueled by Alex Abel looking for perfect loyalty after having been betrayed by his bodyguard.

* ContractualGenreBlindness: The former is the taboo of the Cinemancy school-they see a potential for a cliche, they must finish it. Nothing says they can't ''avoid'' situations where a cliche would likely present itself, however, and all of their spells are based around invoking tropes in real life to their ultimate benefit (for example, using HesRightBehindMe to teleport another individual to their location, or TemptingFate to summon rain despite a drought).

** The New Inquisition's power lies in this. Alex Abel, their leader, is neither an adept or an avatar, so he's better suited to run a high-level organization than most of the characters in the cast. Additionally, [spoiler: the further up you go in the TNI, the less adepts you find, to the point that there are none in the highest tier of leadership]]

* BittersweetEnding: Mak Attax is in the aftermath of one in 3rd Edition: [[spoiler:They pulled off the Ritual of Light, resulting in a global DeconReconSwitch for the entire Occult Underground and making it so optimism is the driving force of most political agendas...but they couldn't stop the September 11th attacks, and the Underground is no less dangerous-nobody said "optimism" couldn't be "hopes of TakeOverTheWorld"...]]

** DeconReconSwitch: Thanks to Mak Attax, 3rd Edition has elements of this; when it comes down to it, Adepts are still [[{{Determinator}} the kind of people]] who look reality in the eye and tell it to get with ''their'' program...[[CrazyEnoughToWork and reality bows its head]]. Hence, they may not have power, but having power and getting what you want are two vastly different things.

* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:One of the biggest events in 3rd edition was the Freak and the Comte Saint-Germain switching places and inverting morality. The Freak is now an idealistic androgyene that calls hirself the Human Eternal, and the Comte is a [[GrumpyOldMan bitter, cranky old lady]] called Old Gran Apocalypse.]]

* AnthropomorphicPersonification: Each member of the [[spoiler: Invisible Clergy]] is one of these, personifying an idea of what a human being can be. The very concepts of things like TheFool, [[TheHecateSisters The Mother]] and TheTrickster (among others) are represented by ascended mortals in the[[spoiler: Clergy]].

* AnotherDimension: The Otherspaces are like alternate realities where the rules of existence are fundamentally different. Since they're disconnected from real time and space, they can be useful for transport... but they're generally difficult to reach, and they're often very dangerous, if not [[SanitySlippage maddening]].