History VideoGame / IcewindDale

** Zigzagged. The yuan-ti in the Dragon's Eye are the halfblood daughters of the women taken captive in the first game, who were raped on Yxonomai's orders. When they were born, the menfolk of Kuldahar wanted to kill all of the half-yuan-ti girls, and were only stopped because A: their mothers fled with them to Dragon's Eye, and B: the druid Iselore demanded the menfolk leave them alone. Even then, the women and the halfbloods were forced to hide in Dragon's Eye on pain of death if they left. Not surprisingly, they threw in with the Legion of the Chimera, and were eager to attack Kuldahar for revenge when the Legion turned violent.

* WhenTreesAttack: Evil ents. Best way to rid of them is [[KillItWithFire using fire]].

* TragicVillain: The Legion of the Chimera as a whole. For the most part, they're just people who are sick and tired of being hurt, abused and tormented for their mixed-race ancestry and want to be treated with equal rites. It's telling that the whole plot of the game was kicked off when the mayor of one of the Ten-Towns decided that he'd rather ''assassinate the Legion's leaders'' than sign a peace treaty with them.

* SiblingYinYang: Isair is clever, cool-headed, learned, creative in his villainy, and likes using five dollar words. Madae is bloodthirsty, quick to anger, dislikes reading, and solves most of her problems with murder. Interesting, Lysara considers Madae to be the better half of the Legion of the Chimera's leadership.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: In the backstory, it's explained that a priestess from the previous game, Mother Egenia, buried EVERYONE that were killed in the first game. However, she resurrected Ilmadia, one of the BigBad's generals of the first game, out of sorrow. This led to the birth of [[DualBoss Isair and Madae]], the Big Bads for this game.]]

** Firtha Kedros mentions that in her dreams, she's seen visions of what is clearly meant to be [[TabletopGame/{{Planescape}} Sigil]], more noticeably ?[[VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment a brambled garden, blacker than ink]], and even goes as far as to unknowingly imply that [[spoiler:she may be another of Ravel Puzzlewell's avatars]]. The latter was [[http://www.bootstrike.com/Torment/Online/ravelpuzzlewell%20.html confirmed]] by WordOfGod.

* HappyEndingOverride: [[spoiler:In the first game, you've rescued kidnapped townfolk of Kuldahar from the monsters of Dragon Eye. The sequel revealed that the kidnapped women gave birth to yuan-ti halfbreed not long after. The men's town were angry and wanted to exterminate the halfbreeds, while the women wanted to protect them. They took the halfbreed to the only place in Faerûn where they'd be safe: Dragon Eye. Just to drive the point further, 30 years later, the new party of adventurers have no choice but to enter Dragon Eye and slaughter those now-adult halfbreeds.]]

* MuggedForDisguise: After killing some Yuan-ti initiates, you can wear their cloaks to infiltrate their temple... unless a Paladin is in the party. He'll refuse on the basis that it is an act of cowardice... [[LoopholeAbuse Of course you can always multiclass your Paladin, then he'll have no problem with the deception.]]

** During the introduction you can come across a dead cat. Any experienced player would probably pick the thing up and keep it with them hoping it'd be the solution to some quest and he'd get some easy experience. After solving the, err, "mystery" of how the cat died, the "culprit" asks you why the hells are you carrying a dead cat around, to which your response is that you were kind of hoping it'd be the solution to somebody's problem and that you could learn something from the experience. And sure enough, the cat's owner ''is'' wondering about what happened to it, and you can get 300 XP for bringing the carcass to her and telling her who the culprit is after you have obtained his confession.

* HappyEndingOverride: [[spoiler:In the first game, you've rescued kidnapped townfolk of Kuldahar from the monsters of Dragon Eye. The sequel revealed that the kidnapped women gave birth to yuan-ti halfbreed not long after. The men's town were angry and wanted to exterminate the halfbreeds, while the women wanted to protect them. They took the halfbreed to the only place in Faerûn where they'll be safe: Dragon Eye. Just to drive the point further, 30 years later, the new party of adventurers have no choice but to enter Dragon Eye and slaughter those now-adult halfbreed.]]

** During the introduction you can come across a dead cat. Any experienced player would probably pick the thing up and keep it with him hoping it's be the solution to some quest and he'd get some easy experience. After solving the, err, "mystery" of how the cat died, the "culprit" asks you why the hells are you carrying a dead cat around, to which your response is that you were kind of hoping it'd be the solution to somebody's problem and that you could learn something from the experience. And sure enough, the cat's owner ''is'' wondering about what happened to it, and you can get 300 XP for bringing the carcass to her and telling her who the culprit is after you have obtained his confession.

* InterspeciesRomance: The Legion of Chimera encourage this, since they would rather half-breeds be born of love (or at least mutually amicable lust) than the usual [[ChildByRape forcible procreation]]. Most prominently, there's Saablic Tan (human Red Wizard of Thay) and Dracein (half-dragon). There's also a half-goblin who hooked up with, yet another half-dragon.

* InterspeciesRomance: The Legion of Chimera encourage this, since they would rather half-breeds be born of love (or at least mutually amicable lust) than the usual [[ChildByRape forcibly procreation]]. Most prominently, there's Saablic Tan (human Red Wizard of Thay) and Dracein (half-dragon). There's also a half-goblin who hooked up with, yet another half-dragon.

* GreaterScopeVillain: Iyachu Xvim, the main villains' patron deity. An evil party can side with him in the final chapter, which shifts his favour to you and causes him to withhold his power from your opponents in the final battle. A good party instead sanctifies his altar, dispelling the invincibility granted to his arch-minions, and Xvim's avatar materializes to fight you.

* InfinityMinusOneSword: If you don't have a Paladin to wield the ''Light of Cera Sumat'', you have to settle for the evil sword ''Scimitar of Souls'', from the corpse of Ichytu Xvim's avatar.

* MightMakesRight: Having abandoned worship of Ilmater, this is Madae's new philosophy gleaned from [[ReligionOfEvil Ichytu Xvim]].

* GoodCounterpart: Iselore to Isair and Maedae, although Madae at least considers it a [[NoSell false equivalence]] considering his relatively blasé human/elf parentage next to the twins' infernal heritage.

* GameBreakingBug: The whole secret passage into the Legion of the Chimera base. The original game would lag so badly that it would take days to get through this area. A player patch fixes this.

* ForScience: In the Dragon Eye levels, you rescue Nheero, a mage who allowed himself to get capture by the Yuan-ti. He wanted to be turned into a Yuan-ti slave creature, a histachii, so he could study the process and its effects. Of course, he's not ''that'' stupid. His partner was to make an altered brew so the transformation wouldn't be permanent, a task that falls onto you.

* FinalBossPreview: Twice actually, once at the Legion of the Chimera's fortress you see TheDragon, and then at the Barbarian camp you meet Isair and Madae. They don't hang around, but do kill all the village guards and raise them as undead, which you have to fight.

** Mavalon is a typical evil drow mage, but that doesn't stop him for caring for his sister Ginafae, as he ask you to rescue her.

** Members of the Legion of the Chimera have lovers despite the group practice slaughter, slavery, dabble with demons.

* BarefistedMonk: The PC can choose this class. You'll eventually run into the Black Raven monastery which are full of [[WarriorMonk monks]].

* ToBeLawfulOrGood: The party is confronted with a dilemma: kill Marketh, a cruel thief who works for the BigBad and abuses his lover Ginafae among other things. Several of his victims will want you to deliver justice to him. However, doing so will doom Ginafae as she's been cursed with a geas. Only by sparing Marketh will the party be given the option of freeing her.

* SoleSurvivor: When you clear the Kuldahar's Pass, you find a small boy named Jermsy. He's the lone survivor of his family who has been slain by orcs. You meet Jermsy 30 years later in ''Icewind Dale II''.

* TalkingWeapon: ''Heart of Winter'' added a broad sword with the trapped spirit of a pessimist master thief, appropriately called [[TheCynic Cynicism]]. Besides providing the wielder with thieving abilities, it randomly insults the wielder, which is why the weapon passed through so many owners. Sadly unlike its counsin [[VideoGame/BaldursGateII Lilarcor]], Cynicism is not voiced.

* RiddleForTheAges: Arundel send you on a quest to retrieve the Heartstone gem from the Temple of the Forgotten God. During the raid, you never learn the name of the God.

* NoobCave: Outside Easthaven you can find a small cave inhabited by a tribe of orcs with a few shaman among them and led by an ogre. It's your first taste of what the game will be like and an optional challenge to make sure your party can handle the much longer areas with more dangerous enemies to come.

** One that isn't your fault: in the Heart of Winter expansion, you find out that dragon's soul had been trapped at the bottom of the lake with the blade that killed her, only to recently be freed. This was because of the water spirit in the prologue, who brought the blade to the surface in order to give it to the descendant of the hero who wielded it (and in an ironic twist, if you've completed the core game already you can kill her again with the same sword).

** At one point, you are sent to investigate a series of crypts to find out if they are cause of the problems plaguing Kuldahar. After killing everything and reaching their master, Kresselack, you find out that not only is he is not involved at all, but you just destroyed the only defense between him and an ice priestess who wishes to plunge his tomb into darkness.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: In the opening cinematic, Arakon opened a portal to the Abyss to fight off the barbarians. This turn out to be his undoing as demons appeared and tore everyone apart.

* HiddenDepths: Spend some time to talk to the [=NPCs=], even the ones without names. Unsurprisingly, Creator/ChrisAvellone wrote all of the dialogue.

* ChekhovsGun: Yeah, all that stuff the priest in Easthaven says about Jerod's Stone? [[BlatantLies Totally not important]].

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Yxunomei [[spoiler:takes the form of a child as her avatar]] because she's observed that people are generally more hesitant to attack beings in that form, but this is merely her exploiting a weakness; she has no real concept of male, female, adult, or child on her home, and considers anything that lives fair game to kill in warfare. Where she comes from, physical shells are irrelevant, and she considers the PCs' "loose grasp on morality" indicative of their inability to truly grasp the nature of the universe.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Yxunomei [[spoiler:takes the form of a child as her avatar]] because she's observed that people are generally more hesitant to attack beings in that form, but this is merely her exploiting a weakness; she has no real concept of male, female, adult, or child on her home, and considers anything that lives fair game to kill in warfare. Where she comes from, physical shells are irrelevant, and she considers the PC's "loose grasp on morality" indicative of their inability to truly grasp the nature of the universe.