History VideoGame / DungeonSiege

An ActionRPG series created by Chris Taylor and developed by Creator/GasPoweredGames, published in April 2002. It was innovative in its open character building system not restricted to preselected classes, a continuous open world with no loading screens, and having the player instruct the party ahead of time while the characters act autonomously in combat.

* AdvancedAncientAcropolis: The Agallans were far more technologically advanced than previously shown. Creating {{Living Statue}}s and water-powered mechanical bridges aren't their only feats. [[spoiler:Not only are there just straight up {{Killer Robot}}s in areas related to Agalla, there's also the Megalith, a giant machine that powered the FloatingContinent of Agalla]].

* CompositeCharacter: The Vagar are essentially the Hak'u by way of the Morden. A race of tribal humanoids who worship an {{Evil God}}ess who were peaceful before driven mad by her increasing influence since the [[WorldWreckingWave Second Cataclysm]] happened, leading to them suddenly becoming organized instead of segregated into remote tribes. Much like the Morden, they went to war with the Citadel of Drahn in the Fallen Kingdom region utilizing crude catapults with Armored Bugs (Durvlas in all but name) and bulky humanoid beasts as their muscle, laying a siege that left only a dozen soldiers alive in a tiny hall of their citadel.
* DiscOneFinalDungeon: This game's got a couple of them in the first act:
** Act I has the Black Tree, a pivotal location to the {{Main Character}}s' initial motivations. It's home to the Black Druid, the first major boss of the game. The story takes on a massive shift past it.

* FetchQuest: What most of the game's quests devolve into.

* NewWorkRecycledGraphics: 95% of the enemy designs are taken straight from the first two games. The Vagar and Malith herself are some of the few new designs made for the game. ''All'' of the music is taken from the previous games as well.

The four classes are: Fighter, Ranger (archer,) Nature Mage (mostly defensive magic and some offensive magic) and Combat Mage (the reverse of Nature Mage.) The ExpansionPack to ''Dungeon Siege II'', ''Broken World'', adds two more: Fist of Stone (combination of Fighter and Nature Mage) and Blood Assassin (combination of Ranger and Combat Mage.) You can also create a party of eight hireable companions (six in ''DS II'') plus a pack mule to carry all your extra stuff.

** On the other hand, the main game had some dashes of CrapsaccharineWorld. You may think the Dryads are sweet and lovely plant girls, right? Not in this game; a lot of them are a stern and no-nonsense AmazonBrigade. For example, Warden Celia equips prisoners with Rings of Submission, which can sense your intentions before you've even thought of them and then do painful and even deadly stuff to you accordingly. When did this turn into ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''?

** Taar and Finala, being the default mages of the party. Befitting to her calm and gentle temperament, Taar is a [[WhiteMagic Nature Mage]], and the temperamental and no-nonsense Finala is a [[LadyOfBlackMagic Combat Mage]].

* TheEeyore: Amren in ''Broken World''. Heck, ''every'' elf you can talk to in the expansion is morbidly depressed, except for [[HotBlooded Finala]].

** Finala the Elven machine expert also shows shades of this in her conversations with the player character. [[JerkassHasAPoint She is not entirely faultless however, given how the main character and Drevin worked with the Morden knowing that they were up to no good, so her hatred and mistrust towards them is justified.]] Thankfully, she does start to loosen up just before offering to join your party.

* BloodKnight: When the normally passive Taar says she fights the Morden because she must, Finala gives the near psychopathic response that she fights them because she can and has personal reasons to do so. Ever her personal quests involves eliminating them.

* BloodKnight: When the normally passive Taar says she fights the Morden because she must, Finala gives the near psychopathic response that she fights them because she can and has personal reasons to do so.

** Act I has the Black Tree, a pivotal location to the {{Main Character}}s' initial motivations. It's home to the Black Druid, the first major boss of the game. Story story takes on a massive shift past it.

* DiscOneFinalDungeon: This game's got a couple of thme in the first act:

* PurposefullyOverpowered: The items obtained in the DevelopersRoom, at least on Mercenary Difficulty (since they don't scale up with better items on higher difficulties), when they don't fall into LethalJokeItem territory, particularly the Spirit of Bolivar and [[MoreDakka Gremal Gun]]; the former not only is a fast attacking sword with +15 max damage, but also gives the wielder +18% resistance to all elements, while the latter, despite not giving any stat increases, is a ranged weapon with a 0.5 second attack speed and 1 extra meter of range, both highest of any weapon in the entire game. Get Shade's Agility and a crapton of Dexterity increasing equipment, and you got yourself a weapon that can melt through enemies solo. To obtain them, you need to know Colombian trivia to answer a quiz and play a [[InteractiveFiction text dventure game]], respectively.

* PurposefullyOverpowered: The items obtained in the DevelopersRoom, at least on Mercenary Difficulty (since they don't scale up with better items on higher difficulties), when they don't fall into LethalJokeItem territory, particularly the Spirit of Bolivar and [[MoreDakka Gremal Gun]]; the former not only is a fast attacking sword with +15 max damage, but also gives the wielder +18% resistance to all elements, while the latter, despite not giving any stat increases, is a ranged weapon with a 0.5 second attack speed and 1 extra meter of range, both highest of any weapon in the entire game. Get Shade's Agility and a crapton of Dexterity increasing equipment, and you got yourself a weapon that can melt through enemies solo. To obtain them, you need to know trivia about the country of UsefulNotes/Colombia to answer a quiz and play a [[InteractiveFiction text dventure game]], respectively.

* PurposefullyOverpowered: The items obtained in the DevelopersRoom, at least on Mercenary Difficulty (since they don't scale up with better items on higher difficulties), when they don't fall into LethalJokeItem territory, particularly the Spirit of Bolivar and [[MoreDakka Gremal Gun]]; the former not only is a fast attacking sword with +15 max damage, but also gives the wielder +18% resistance to all elements, while the latter, despite not giving any stat increases, is a ranged weapon with a 0.5 second attack speed and 1 extra meter of range, both highest of any weapon in the entire game. Get Shade's Agility and a crapton of Dexterity increasing equipment, and you got yourself a weapon that can melt through enemies solo. To obtain them, you need to know [[UsefulNotes/Columbia Columbian trivia]] to answer a quiz and play a [[InteractiveFiction text dventure game]], respectively.

* VendorTrash: The Gold Chalice found in one of an underground shelter in Act III, despite having its own unique model and inventory icon, serves zero purpose besides being sold for a paltry sum of 1000 gold.

* PurposefullyOverpowered: The items obtained in the DevelopersRoom, at least on Mercenary Difficulty (since they don't scale up with better items on higher difficulties), when they don't fall into LethalJokeItem territory, particularly the Spirit of Bolivar and [[MoreDakka Gremal Gun]]; the former not only is a fast attacking sword with +15 max damage, but also gives the wielder +18% resistance to all elements, while the latter, despite not giving any stat increases, is a ranged weapon with a 0.5 second attack speed and 1 extra meter of range, both highest of any weapon in the entire game. Get Shade's Agility and a crapton of Dexterity increasing equipment, and you got yourself a weapon that can melt through enemies solo. To obtain them, you need to know [[UsefulNotes/Columbia Columbian trivia]] in a quiz and play a TextAdventureGame, respectively.

** At the expansion, the player character once again considers the [[spoiler: the Azunite Scholar, who is revealed to be a Dark Wizard as this. This is due of him manipulating the player into assembling the shield and comes contact once more with Zaramoth's sword, creating a cataclysmic event that nearly destroys various civilizations across Aranna. They spend much of the expansion hunting him while fixing the mistake that they unwittingly caused at Aranna.]]

** In Act III, during your trek through the DungeonTown of Darthrul, a secondary quest will have you come across two Morden Riders and a Klask who are tired of the barbaric ways of the rest of the Morden after being exhiled from their home as punishment for arriving late to the siege of Snowbrook Haven due to their leader's faulty map causing them to take ''two weeks'' to reach their destination. The PlayerCharacter even [[LampshadeHanging comments]] on how uncharacteristically civilized they're acting for their race. They ask for retrieving supplies from lockers spread throughout the districts so they can travel without issue, eventually settling on taking a vacation on the continent of Ehb.

* TheWarSequence: The siege of Snowbrook Haven, which is a fight between the Morden and the Humans of the Northern Reaches. The Morden are succeeding in the siege, [[SpannerInTheWorks until you come in and thwart their plans]]. [[spoiler:[[DiabolusExMachina And then out of nowhere]], a singular Crystal Shard is jolted into the middle of the remainder of Snowbrook Haven's forces atop the castle, [[ShaggyDoggyStory leaving your efforts to saving them from the Morden null]].]]

* TreetopTown: The Dryads live in one, called Eirulan.

* ShellShockedVeteran: Throughout the course of both campaigns, Vix becomes this. Not only did he [[WarIsHell suffer the horrors of war]], he had his personal squad infected and killed with the Plague before his very eyes, and witnessed both the fortress he was a warrior for ''and'' LaResistance befall the same fate as his comrades, turning him into one ''extremely'' paranoid if HotBlooded warrior. ''Broken World'' has him witness the effects the [[WorldSundering Cataclysm]] had on the world and the [[BodyHorror Bound creatures]] spawned from it, [[SanitySlippage snuffing whatever sanity the man had left]]. Most of his dialogue in the latter involves him being a NervousWreck who says they're all gonna die a horrific death, and right before entering the [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon City of the Cinbri]] in Part 3, he has a vivid war flashback. His portion of the WhereAreTheyNow ending even has the narrator explain that he never recovered from his mental scars, being last seen charging into a pack of Klasks while shouting Xeria's name before disappearing.

* DeadpanSnarker: Lothar's seriousness is only matched by his dislike for Deru]]. He employs the most SarcasmMode in his dialogue out of all recruitable party members, one notable example being in Act I after meeting Sartan for the first time. After the main character asks him if he's met Sartan before, due to them both being Half-Giants; he sarcastically mentions that all Half-Giants know each other, and that they know a secret handshake too, causing the main character to feel bad for asking such a stupid question.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: In Broken World, even though a lot of peoples' friends and loved ones have been turned into murderous Bound creatures and insane [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity Rogue Magi]], said people still get mad at you for killing the Bound creatures. As a matter of fact, only the first questgiver in the game sees the wisdom of [[IDidWhatIHadToDo what you needed to do]].

* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: An early sidequest revolves around a Haku tribe that ''doesn't'' want to murder and devour everyone else.

* DemotedToExtra: [[MyNameIsQuestionMarks ???]], the level 100 thief who'd occasionally spawn when a rare item drops from a chest or enemy, and was involved in the main campaign's secret secondary quest "Mysterious Mystery" by way of dropping a key item required to reach the BrutalBonusDungeon, is still present in ''Broken World''. Unfortunately it no longer serves a purpose beyond being a nuisance, as there's no equivalent to said quest in the expansion; even though it can still drop the same item after being killed, it's no longer considered a key item, so it just gets put into your inventory.

* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Deru has the most vitriolic conversations with other party members, particularly with Lothar and Finala, who both have zero tolerance for stupid questions.

* CrystalLandscape: Present in all thee campaigns.

* BloodierAndGorier: The first game had BloodlessCarnage[[note]]Unless you used the proper cheat code[[/note]]. In the second dealing sufficient overkill to an enemy causes LudicrousGibs and leaves a puddle of blood where they once stood. The expansion to the second game is set in a post-apocalyptic world with EldritchAbomination monsters.
* BloodyMurder: the Blood Assassin's abilities.

* DeathActivatedSuperpower: The Familiars in ''Broken World'' have this. When they're killed, they come back to life three seconds later in a fiery blast. They resurrect with only a quarter of their hit points but twice their attack power. Fortunately, it only works once.

* TheDragon: The Cinbri Archmage.

* EvilChancellor: In Act III. While the PlayerCharacter is occupied with retrieving the final PlotCoupon, he even kills the ruler. Thankfully, the PlayerCharacter is GenreSavvy enough to recognize said chancellor as a villain and kills him.

* HerbivoresAreFriendly: Until they get infected with the plague.

* TreetopTown: The Dryads live in one.

* CrystalDragonJesus: Azunai/[[spoiler:The Radiant Youth.]]

* BrokenBridge: To an almost ridiculous extent. In the Kingdom of Ehb campaign, the first obstacle you encounter to impede your journey, sans the various beasties, is a bridge, [[IncendiaryExponent which was caught on fire]], and then had a wagon driven across it, [[TooDumbToLive with the monsters who did the catching riding it]]. The bridge collapsed, and you end up going through an army of the dead in order to reach the other side. The loot was nice, though. It doesn't end there, of course. Both games have many, many, [[RuleOfThree many]] broken bridges, in both the literal and figurative sense.
** The next major dungeon after the above is a fight through a DemonicSpider infested underground lair. The reason? A door was blocked by a rockslide. It gets cleared away later. Not that you'll ever go backwards in this game.

* CrystalLandscape: Present in all 3 campaigns.

** The Utraean Peninsula features two crystal caves, also following its snow lands. The aptly named Crystal Caverns are more or less a more boring version of Ehb's, with a Displacer platform instead of a temple. The Sulfur Tunnels are another, with far fewer crystalline opponents and more organic enemies. Every glowing crystal formation is a red or yellow not found in the other cave.

* BubblegloopSwamp: All 3 campaigns feature haunted swamps as their mid-story region, replete with mud, boardwalks, giant fungi, vicious wildlife, and loads of undead.

* MontyHaul: Even by videogame standards. In the first a
* OneGenderRace: All Dryads are female and all Half-Giants are male. Players can only play as male Dwarves, but female Dwarves are mentioned in the dialogue. All Archons are also female.nd second games, you had to bring along pack mules if you wanted any hope of carrying all the loot you'd find.