History VideoGame / KingdomofLoathing

** All-Hallow's Steve is the personification of the [[YouCanPanicNow fear of the other in modern day Halloween.]] [[RazorApples Apples with razors, candies with syringes and xanax, etc.]]

* Disco Bandits (Offensive [[GuileHero Moxie]]), rogues who fight with [[KnifeNut knives]] or [[ArcherArchetype ranged weapons]], along with [[DanceBattler a variety of debilitating dance moves]]. They are the only class specializing in booze, capable of learning the Advanced, Superhuman, and Salacious Cocktailcrafting skills.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Seals.
** There's one seal that you can take and raise as a familiar, but it's still viciously violent, just directed at your enemies instead. So at least they're loyal. However, a later update made it so that it won't attack other seals. [[CursedWithAwesome Though this is actually an upside]], since it means they won't ruin the [[TwentyBearAsses seal parts]] you need to collect for the next part of the Nemesis quest chain you get the baby seal from in the first place.

* TheDragon: Each of the villains in the nemesis quest has one of these, who will give you a map to their lair, a unique familiar, and [[VendorTrash an item with a nice resale value]] when beaten.

* AdultFear: One of the darker zones comes from using a psychoanalytic jar to explore the psychoses of the Crackpot Mystic, an old man who lives in a shack and gives players access to the 8-Bit Realm, a low-level zone full of references to old-school video games. The game's trademark HurricaneOfPuns and [[ReferenceOverdosed smarmy pop-culture references]] largely goes out the window in favor of a sidequest to fight embodiments of the Mystic's Anger, Fear, Doubt, and Regret, which have apparently overwhelmed him. Said embodiments take the form of pixellated monsters and power-ups which will taunt you repeatedly as you fight them, and some of their taunts might hit a little too close to home for the player. For instance, one of the monsters you can encounter is the morbid skull, representing the Crackpot Mystic's fears over his own mortality, and here are some of its hit messages:
-->"Soon. Sooner with every passing day," it whispers. Your stomach churns.
-->"It'll happen," it whispers. "To you, and to everyone you know. It is inevitable." You bristle with horror.
-->"Nothing," it whispers. "Forever." You shudder.
** There's also the 2016 Crimbo event, which had you fighting off the embodiments of your own insecurities, like "The realization that everyone you love will die someday".

* TheMan: It turns out you can fight him, after all.

* PrestigeClass: Certain Special Challenge Paths, chosen at the Bureau of Reincarnation [[NewGamePlus after you beat the game.]] A few are straight-up restrictions, but quite a few others are special classes, such as the "Way of the Suprising Fist," which turns you into a BareFistedMonk, the "Zombie Slayer," which makes you an EliteZombie, and the three "Avatar of-" paths, which turn you into one of the heroic archetypes the game's classes based themselves on (Boris for Muscle, Jarlesberg for Mysticality, and Sneaky Pete for Moxie). There's also a few ShoutOut-based SCP classes, like "Liscence to Adventure" which makes you a [[Franchise/JamesBond 00-agent]], "The Source" which makes you into [[Film/TheMatrix Neo]], "Path of the Plumber," which turns you into [[Franchise/SuperMarioBrothers Super Mario]], "Pocket Familliars" makes you a ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' trainer, and a fourth Avatar of- class that makes you into a gunslinger from a [[TheWestern Western flick,]] a promo for Assymetric's own ''VideoGame/WestOfLoathing,'' which is set in the same universe. A further few change your race. "Gelatinous Noob" makes you a [[SlimeGirl slime-person]] who upgrades by absorbing certain things, "You, Robot" makes you a junkyard robot with modular body parts, "Nuclear Autumn" makes you a {{Mutant}} who is both harmed and enhanced by the nuclear fallout, and "Dark Gyft" makes you a vampre.

* ReallyGetsAround: These types of people are in The Maelstrom of Lovers area in the Suburbs of Dis, which is accessible by using the devilish folio item. There's Bettie Barulio, who had a tendency towards sexual harassment; Marvin J. Sunny, who was also a DirtyOldMan, Mortimer Strauss, who had ''hundreds'' of lovers, and Wonderful Winifred Wongle, who also liked to dress in extremely {{Stripperific}} clothes. The lone exception is Marcus Macurgeon. People ''thought'' he was this trope based on all the kinky porn he wrote, but it turned out he was virgin his whole life.

* RottenReincarnation: Inverted. Valhalla is incredibly boring (bland food, no adventures, etc), so they've set up a Bureau of Reincarnation so the players can go back to their endless cycle of rescuing the King as a different {{Splat}} this time. They even get to choose their Zodiac sign this go-around, which determines which NewGamePlus area they can access.

* SavingChristmas: Since 2005, [[YouMeanXMas Crimbo]] has been one disaster after another, and the HolidayMode content invariably revolves around getting Uncle Crimbo out of the hole he's dug for himself. Mixing Hallow'een and Crimbo resulted in horrible misfit toys that are so scary they are used as weapons, a space-ship crashing into Crimbo Town resulted in the kingdom's near-subjugation by relentless [[Franchise/StarTrek Borg]] [[CaptainErsatz look-alikes]], and attempting to make a Grimacite-powered toy factory resulted in stomach-turning mutant elves running amok (along with Mob Penguins looking to collect the money Uncle Crimbo borrowed from them). And that was just the years 2006-2008...

* SelfDamagingAttackBackfire: Every weapon has a chance of a Fumble, which causes the character to drop their weapon on (insert body part here) and hurt themselves.

* SenselessViolins: Subverted with the penguin mafioso enemy. One of his attacks involves opening a violin case, taking out a ''violin'', and beating you with it ala InstrumentOfMurder. One of the miss messages describes him finding a gun inside the case instead, which apparently makes him "shocked and disappointed".

** The Nemesis quest. It is discovered that your Nemesis has stolen [[MacGuffin an artifact of great power]], so your guild sends you to retrieve it and destroy your Nemesis. After solving some puzzles, fighting some goons, and beating your Nemesis ''four times'', it is revealed that [[spoiler: Larry, a hitherto-unseen fellow member of your guild, had sent the artifact out for cleaning and not told anyone. Larry's new.]] Your character is not pleased to hear this.

* ShowsDamage: Ed The "UNDYING!"

* SpeakOfTheDevil: Guy Made of Bees.

* StevenUlyssesPerhero: Bart Ender .
* StockWeaponNames: "Frostbrand" is parodied with the "Frost™ brand sword".
* SturdyAndSteadyTurtles: Turtle Tames are the defensive Muscle class, and have skills themed around turtle motifs, including ones focusing on [[BreadEggsMilkSquick armor, patience, and communing with ancient turtle spirits.]]

** You can pickpocket the Guy Made Of Bees, and thus receive a handful of bees. The item description is shocked that you were insane enough to do this in the first place.

** The "plinking" strategy, which relies on making basically everything you need in combat dependent on [[MinMaxing a single maximized stat]], Moxie, and not even bothering to use special attacks.

** The Vanya's Castle area fom the "Map to Vanya's Castle" item is one for 8-bit ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaI''.

* WilliamTelling: One of the possible minigames (all of which have the exact same function of distributing 99.9% of the bet money to one of the two players completely at random) in the Money Making Game has the player that accepts the bet trying to do this to the player that placed it. If he hits the apple, he wins. If he misses the apple, the other player wins. And if he misses the apple, he always hits the other player.

#The game possesses a sense of humor that is at times snarky, scathingly satirical, and loaded with pop culture references, including parodies of other [=RPGs=]. For example, the Dungeons of Doom are homages to the game ''VideoGame/NetHack'', while another zone is the "Penultimate Fantasy Airship", with monsters that take the piss out of Creator/SquareEnix games (mainly ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' and ''VideoGame/DragonQuest''). In fact, it has been described as "VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft as written by Creator/MontyPython and illustrated by Webcomic/{{xkcd}}".

** Some of the "ordinary" (loosest possible sense of the word) weapons have this as well. To cite one example, you can build a crossbow which fires ghuolash, which is [[EdibleAmmunition food]] (that is, if you're willing to eat [[IAteWhat the flesh of an undead monster that eats corpses]].)

* [[AllThereInTheManual All There In The Manuel]]: The Monster Manuel, a Mr. Store item that lets you see the monster stats and collect some fun trivia that are otherwise little or not mentioned about them.

* BottomlessBladder / NobodyPoops: Lampshaded at [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/No_Privacy The Road to the White Citadel]], as well as [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/You_Look_Flushed The Haunted Bathroom (Bad Moon only)]].

* [[ElementNumberFive Element Number Six]] - [[spoiler:Cute. Cute is, however, [[Film/TheFifthElement The Sixth Element]]]]

* EnemyScan: Monster Manuel, a Mr. Store item that permanently displays any monster's Attack, Defense, HP, combat initiative, elemental alignment, and phylum once you defeat it a single time. [[StopHavingFunGuys Some players]] derided it as a waste of ten dollars due to the existence of fan-created mod Mafia... until they saw the ''hilarious'' facts Manuel spits out for '''''every''''' monster in the game, even ones that nobody's fought in years. Let's see Mafia do ''that''.

* [[BeeAfraid Everything Is Worse With B(ee)s]]: Summer 2011 special challenge: Bees Hate You. Bees attack you every couple of turns, and they want to kill you. Even the ''b''s in any equipment you're wearing. Your character also has a phobia of using items or familiar with a "B" in it.
* [[EverythingTryingToKillYou Everything Trying To Beat You Up]]: There are loads of strange and unusual monsters in this game.

* {{Handicapped Badass}}/{{Never Mess with Granny}}: Granny Hackleton, the boss of the Wagon Train Escort Wanted telegraph available through the LT&T Office and matriarch of the criminal Hackleton clan. She may be a septuagenarian in a wheelchair, but she wields a gatling gun, your familiar will not fight her, and your character won't bring themselves to hitting or using combat skills/spells on an old lady. The only way to defeat her is via passive damage or certain items, and they can be used only once per encounter.

* [[JustAddWater Just Add Meatpaste]]: Most of the ItemCrafting variants.

* [[LethalJokeItem Lethal Joke Familiar]]: The [[Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt Homemade Robot]] familiar. It does absolutely nothing but drive around in circles and give cute messages during combat. It can though be upgraded to permanently be 100 pounds with piles of useless of robot parts and is affected by normal +Familiar Weight modifiers. The lethality comes when combined with the tiny costume wardrobe,allowing it to become a 100 lb. version of a random familiar every combat. [[http://forums.kingdomofloathing.com/vb/showthread.php?t=205797 With the right familiar weight buffs,]] this translates to 270% items drops, +10 substats per fight, and 536 damage per combat round.

* [[ZombieApocalypse Skeleton Apocalypse]]: The Halloween 2010 event.

* YourHeadAsplode: Happens to [[spoiler: Principal Mooney]] after beating [[spoiler: him,]] due to a combination of [[{{Film/TheBreakfastClub}} 'Don't You Forget About Me']] and [[{{Series/CSIMiami}} "YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!"]]

* ZombieApocalypse: The premise of the fall 2012 challenge path, Zombie Slayer.

* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: Sock Monkeys, Balloon Monkeys, Rhesus Monkeys, Hobo Monkeys (complete with tiny cigar, hobo vest, a top hat, and the wallet he just stole from you), and monkeys that play cymbals, as well as the insidious Jocko Homo.

* DoWellButNotPerfect: The [[VideoGame/{{Tamagotchi}} ChibiBuddy]] "dies" if any of its stats reach 0... but also if any of them reach 10.

* JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife: InUniverse. As mentioned above, one of the monsters for the 2010 Crimbo is the Tome of Tropes, a reference to [[Wiki/TVTropes this site]]. Part of the description for the monster reads "every entry contains several references to other cleverly-named tropes... and at some point you look up and see you're eight years older than when you started."

* TVTropesWillRuinYourLife: As mentioned above, one of the monsters for the 2010 Crimbo is the Tome of Tropes, a reference to [[Wiki/TVTropes this site]]. Part of the description for the monster reads "every entry contains several references to other cleverly-named tropes... and at some point you look up and see you're eight years older than when you started."

* OverlyLongName / OverlyLongGag: Hangk's Ancestral Mini-Storage was ravaged by fire, hit by a comet, and flooded. Each disaster lengthened its name; after the third one, it was temporarily called "Hangk's [[OnlyMostlyDead Mostly-Burned-Down]]-then-[[ColonyDrop Hit-by-a-Chunk-of-a-Comet]]-then-[[UpToEleven Flooded-by-the-Melting-Comet]] Ancestral Mini-Storage."

* PrestigeClass: Certain Special Challenge Paths, chosen at the Bureau of Reincarnation [[NewGamePlus after you beat the game.]] A few are straight-up restrictions, but quite a few others are special classes, such as the "Way of the Suprising Fist," which turns you into a BareFistedMonk, the "Zombie Slayer," which makes you an EliteZombie, and the three "Avatar of-" paths, which turn you into one of the heroic archetypes the game's classes based themselves on (Boris for Muscle, Jarlesberg for Mysticality, and Sneaky Pete for Moxie). There's also a few ShoutOut-based SCP classes, like "Liscence to Adventure" which makes you a [[Franchise/JamesBond 00-agent]], "The Source" which makes you into [[Film/TheMatrix Neo]], "Path of the Plumber," which turns you into [[Franchise/SuperMarioBrothers Super Mario]], a ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' trainer, and a fourth Avatar of- class, which makes you into a gunslinger from a [[TheWestern Western flick,]] a promo for Assymetric's own ''VideoGame/WestOfLoathing,'' which is set in the same universe. A further few change your race. "Gelatinous Noob" makes you a [[SlimeGirl slime-person]] who upgrades by absorbing certain things, "You, Robot" makes you a junkyard robot with modular body parts, and "Nuclear Autumn" makes you a {{Mutant}} who is both harmed and enhanced by the nuclear fallout, and "Dark Gyft" makes you a vampre.

* RottenReincarnation: Inverted. Valhalla is incredibly boring (bland food, no adventures, etc), so they've set up a Bureau of Reincarnation so the players can go back to their endless cycle of rescuing the King as a different {{Splat}} this time. They even get to choose their Zodiac sign this go-around, which determines which NewGamePlus area they can access.

* PrestigeClass: Certain Special Challenge Paths, chosen at the Bureau of Reincarnation [[NewGamePlus after you beat the game.]] A few are straight-up restrictions, but quite a few others are special classes, such as the "Way of the Suprising Fist," which turns you into a BareFistedMonk, the "Zombie Slayer," which makes you an EliteZombie, and the three "Avatar of-" paths, which turn you into one of the heroic archetypes the game's classes based themselves on (Boris for Muscle, Jarlesberg for Mysticality, and Sneaky Pete for Moxie). There's also a few ShoutOut-based SCP classes, like "Liscence to Adventure" which makes you a [[Franchise/JamesBond 00-agent]], "The Source" which makes you into [[Film/TheMatrix Neo]], "Path of the Plumber," which turns you into [[Franchise/SuperMarioBrothers Super Mario]], a ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' trainer, and a fourth Avatar of- class, which makes you into a gunslinger from a [[TheWestern Western flick,]] a promo for Assymetric's own ''VideoGame/WestOfLoathing,'' which is set in the same universe. A further few change your race. "Gelatinous Noob" makes you a [[SlimeGirl slime-person]] who upgrades by absorbing certain things, "You, Robot" makes you a junkyard robot with modular body parts, and "Nuclear Autumn" makes you a {{Mutant}} who is both harmed and enhanced by the nuclear fallout.

* LuckyRabbitsFoot: The Lucky Rabbit's Foot increases item drop and money drops by 7%.

* PrestigeClass: Certain Special Challenge Paths, chosen at the Bureau of Reincarnation [[NewGamePlus after you beat the game.]] A few are straight-up restrictions, but quite a few others are special classes, such as the "Way of the Suprising Fist," which turns you into a BareFistedMonk, the "Zombie Slayer," which makes you an EliteZombie, and the three "Avatar of-" paths, which turn you into one of the heroic archetypes the game's classes based themselves on (Boris for Muscle, Jarlesberg for Mysticality, and Sneaky Pete for Moxie). There's also a few ShoutOut-based SCP classes, like "Liscence to Adventure" which makes you a [[Franchise/JamesBond 00-agent]], "The Source" which makes you into [[Film/TheMatrix Neo]], "Path of the Plumber," which turns you into [[Franchise/SuperMarioBrothers Super Mario]], a [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} trainer, and a fourth Avatar of- class, which makes you into a gunslinger from a [[TheWestern Western flick,]] a promo for Assymetric's own ''VideoGame/WestOfLoathing,'' which is set in the same universe. A further few change your race. "Gelatinous Noob" makes you a [[SlimeGirl slime-person]] who upgrades by absorbing certain things, "You, Robot" makes you a junkyard robot with modular body parts, and "Nuclear Autumn" makes you a {{Mutant}} who is both harmed and enhanced by the nuclear fallout.

* StandardStatusEffects: Averted with a ludicrous array of effects (and buffs) like "Beer In Your Shoes", "Tenuous Grip On Reality", and "Seal Clubbing Frenzy".

* StevenUlyssesPerhero: Bart Ender.

* SturdyAndSteadyTurtles: Turtle Tamers are the defensive Muscle class, and have skills themed around turtle motifs, including ones focusing on [[BreadEggsMilkSquick armor, patience, and communing with ancient turtle spirits.]]

* UniversalPoison: Used to be the case; now there are multiple kinds of being poisoned. And they stack. Instead of [[StandardStatusEffects sapping your HP]], it's a debuff to all stats.

** However, poisons that the player can use in combat, such as from the Snakewhip skill, the Poison Pen weapon, or the Lampblade effect, are HP-sapping effects rather than stat-decreasers. Most of them do most of their damage in the round they take effect, then drops in subsequent rounds, though a rare few (pufferfish spines and candycaine powder) geometrically increase in effect from round to round.

* AluminiumChristmasTrees: Asbestos really ''is'' mined, despite appearing in an improbable fantasy mine in which the other ores are chrome and linoleum. It does not come in huge ore chunks, though.
** Jick has admitted that he didn't know asbestos and chrome were mined when he wrote it.
** The real stuff probably wasn't made by subjecting fire-breathing dragons to the same process that got oil out of dinosaurs, though.

** Also, you need to get a skill called [[{{Whatevermancy}} Tempuramancy]] to learn how to ''deep fry.''
*** That is, learning to deep fry in ''a thermal vent on the ocean floor''.
** Similarly, Pastamastery is necessary to cook simple ramen dishes, even though lots of more complex cookings don't require any skills.
*** Inverted with most recipes, which can be "discovered" simply by putting the right ingredients together; you automatically know what to do with them, even if it really shouldn't be that simple. On the other hand, some dishes require you to learn the recipe first. Many of the latter kind are weird enough that this makes sense, but one would think that combining brownie mix and white chocolate chips wouldn't require [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Mother%27s_secret_recipe special instructions.]]

** A Suspicious-Looking Guy.

* FantasticDrug: ''Goofballs'', which gives you a nice 20% Muscle and Moxie boost that lasts 10 adventures. It's the withdrawal debuff that gets you tho- you lose 10% of '''all''' your stats until the game considers that you have officially kicked the addiction after going around with the debuff for 30 adventures. Also, the dealer that gives you the first bottle for free [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts subsequently increase the price of each bottle by 1000 meat with each purchase]]. (Note that it used to be a 50% debuff for 100 turns, but the devs decided that was too much of a "gotcha" for new players, so substantially lowered the penalty)