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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/realm_of_the_mad_god.jpg]]
2The MadGod [[BigBad Oryx]] has transported you to his realm as food for his vile minions. Will you proceed quietly to your fate or fight back?
3
4''Realm of the Mad God'' is a free-to-play {{MMORPG}} which can be found [[http://www.realmofthemadgod.com/ here]], as well as on [[http://www.kongregate.com/games/Wild_Shadow/realm-of-the-mad-god Kongregate]] and Steam. Gameplay takes cues from both the {{Roguelike}} and BulletHell genres, with {{Permadeath}} in effect for everyone. The game is small and embedded on that page, so you can play right away unless you don't have Flash installed.
5
6When DECA studios took over publishing, a Steam version was released, which runs as an application and thus does not need the now defunct Flash. A Unity port, titled ''Realm of the Mad God: Exalt'', entered its open beta phase on April 15, 2020, and reached its official release on July 22, 2020.
7
8Not to be confused with the web series ''WebVideo/MadGod''.
9
10----
11!! This game provides examples of:
12* OneUp: In the early days when the game was still run by Wildshadow, there used to be the Amulet of Resurrection, an item sold for 11250 Fame in the Nexus that, when equipped, would instantly resurrect its owner in the Nexus upon death, with equipment and inventory intact (except for the Amulet of Resurrection itself, which was consumed). After Kabam took over, it was changed, first into the Cursed Amulet of Resurrection (which only cost 1000 Fame but does not always work and might turn the owner into a zombie instead) and later into the Cursed Amulet of Zombification (which would always turn the character into a zombie). It currently exists as the Amulet of Dispersion, a standard UT ring dropped by the Ghost of Skuld with the Amulet of Resurrection's stats but not the resurrection ability.
13* AbnormalAmmo: Common among vanity items. Weapon projectiles include chicken legs[[note]](Chicken Leg of Doom)[[/note]], leaves[[note]](KoalaPOW and Leaf Bow)[[/note]], cats[[note]](Stringstick)[[/note]], 1s and 0s[[note]](Robobow)[[/note]], eyeballs[[note]](Corrupted Cleaver)[[/note]], character sprites[[note]](Arbiters Wrath)[[/note]], ducks[[note]](Anatis)[[/note]], eggs[[note]](Wand of Egg-celence)[[/note]], bears[[note]](Doctor Swordsworth)[[/note]], berries[[note]](Vinesword)[[/note]], and fiery skulls[[note]](Skull-Splitter)[[/note]].
14* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap:
15** While raising a character to the level cap of 20 is a piece of cake, Exaltations are a whole other can of worms, granting permanent stat buffs that carry over between lives for clearing endgame content with an 8/8. To fully boost one stat, you need to complete ''25'' times a dungeon that is difficult to access and beat, and you have to do this for all 8 dungeons that each represent one of the stats (particularly, maxing life needs you to clear Oryx's Sanctuary or Moonlight Village[[note]]with Sage Genji as the last dancer on Normal difficulty[[/note]] 25 times) to fully exalt a character. And then you have to do this on an 8/8 ''for every class'' to get all the Exaltations - this totals up to ''hundreds'' of Exaltations that need you to complete dungeons ''in the thousands'' if you want to fully exalt every class. Needless to say, this is a ''very'' long-term goal for most players, especially since it demands a steady stream of 8/8 characters unless you're very good at not dying on them...although fortunately, while death will stall your progress, it won't reset it.
16** Your pet has 3 abilities that each cap out at level 100, each of which has to be unlocked sequentially by maxing the previous abilities by feeding it, fusing the pet with another pet that ''also'' has maxed levels to increase its rank, and then repeating the process every time the level cap goes up or a new ability is unlocked. The amount of feed power required for the highest levels gets painfully high, to the point where it's considered outright infeasible to get a 100/100/100 Divine pet without a ''massive'' amount of invested time [[BribingYourWayToVictory or cash]].
17* AbsurdlyLowLevelCap: Level 20, the highest attainable, can be achieved within as little as thirty minutes. Maxing out all of your stats will take much longer (but still relatively little time compared to other {{MMORPG}}s). Necessary, considering the {{Permadeath}} system.
18* AcidPool: Mad Labs have a single room of these on the way to the boss. The alien planet Forax is also filled with acid water. Other hazards like Dead Water from the Deadwater Docks and [[MadeOfEvil Corruption]] by the Avatar, Shatters and Void also count.
19* AchillesHeel:
20** Some classes are particularly vulnerable to certain StatusEffects:
21*** Armor Broken is the bane of melee classes such as Knights, as every hit ignores their sky-high defenses while the effect is applied. The effect is enough to turn attacks that would normally be survivable for these tanky classes into death within a split second. To a lesser extent, Armor Piercing attacks are also this to them.
22*** Quiet and Silenced[[note]]Silenced doesn't empty your MP bar, unlike Quiet[[/note]] can spell doom for classes that rely on their abilities for healing such as Priests or Necromancers, since without their abilities, they lose a lot of their staying power, and thus their advantage over more DPS-oriented ranged classes like the Wizard.
23** The same applies to bosses. Armor Broken and Armor Pierce makes short work of anything that relies on its DEF to survive (like the Avatar, which loses most of its MarathonBoss properties if you strip away its high 135 DEF), Slowed cripples fast bosses like the Crystal Worm Mother, Dazed takes out stun-immune bosses that fire lots of projectiles like the Killer Bee Queen, and the like. Unfortunately, [[ContractualBossImmunity most endgame bosses are immune to just about every serious debuff there is]].
24* ActionBomb: There are many enemies that are designed to run up to you and self-destruct for potentially massive damage; special mention goes to the Grey Blob, which is a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin grey blob]] that loves to show up in swarms in the midlands and end low-level players.
25* AlienInvasion: The evil alien overlord Commander Calbrik can sometimes try to take over the Realm. Multiple waves of alien invaders need to be defeated to progress, eventually culminating in a fight against Commander Calbrik's [[FlyingSaucer UFO]]. After destroying his UFO and causing him to retreat, you can turn the tables and invade one of four alien planets under his control.
26* AllDeathsFinal: If your character dies, he is gone for good. (There is an exception for a player's first death, however.) Before Amulets of Resurrection were removed, this was very often {{Subverted}}--all deaths were final, unless you were rich enough to possess an Amulet.
27* AllPowerfulBystander: The Daeva, a race of divine beings who silently observe the affairs of the world and refuse to intervene in them, even with regards to the likes of Oryx's takeover. In Month of the Mad God 2021, the GodzillaThreshold was crossed by the Void's influence spreading across all the realms, forcing the Daeva to take action.
28* AllThereInTheManual: The story of the Lost Halls (including an explanation for why the {{Mook}}s of the dungeon fight the player) is mostly contained within a series of texts outside of the game. Asking the Realm Eye about the Lost Halls will only give a BroadStrokes retelling of the very beginning of its story, and implicitly hint at said texts.
29* AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield: The Sprite World is filled with moving conveyor belt tiles and trees that are all sorts of colors.
30* AnachronismStew: Although the game mostly follows a high fantasy setting, there's liberal sprinkling of more modern and even futuristic elements like firearms, machinery, and alien technology.
31* AncientArtifact: A few according to the item lore.
32* AndYourRewardIsClothes: A variation with two limited dungeons, the Battle for the Nexus and Belladonna's Garden. The former's rewards are a bunch of rare and limited weapons with extremely weak stats, while the latter's are mostly reskinned versions of tier 9 weapons equally as useless to maxed characters who can topple the dungeons. A few dungeons (and the Halloween event Zombie Horde) have a rare chance at dropping alternate skins for some characters, such as the Puppet Master's Theater.
33* AntagonistTitle: The game is all about working to get to the titular Mad God and kill him.
34* AntiRegeneration: Sick is a status effect that prevents your HP from recovering by any means.
35* ArmorPiercingAttack: Many attacks from both players and enemies have a property that causes them to ignore the target's DEF, which is visually shown as their damage numbers being purple instead of red. The Armor Break debuff also temporarily nullifies the target's DEF, turning ''every subsequent attack on them'' into this.
36* TheArtifact: Because of the evolving nature of the game, and the relatively laid-back original dev team, there were a number of unusual artifacts lying around, such as Tome Paladins[[note]]Paladins equipped with a Tome, from before Seals were added- rare mostly because equipping a seal would permanently make them a regular Paladin[[/note]] or Wand Wizards. Between attrition of actively played characters and database migrations, (particularly ones that required actively logging in to ensure your account data would remain) it's unknown if any still exist.
37* AssistCharacter: As of Release 12, pets with abilities were introduced, coming in [[http://pfiffel.com/pets/ a variety of forms]]. Each pet is invincible and has three unlockable abilities, which range from healing to enemy paralysis.
38* AsteroidsMonster: Plenty.
39* AttackAttackAttack: Enough players in a group can do this to virtually anything in the game without taking any casualties.
40** Low-level (or health) players still have to watch out for enemy "bomb" attacks such as the one the Medusa fires, or piercing shots.
41* AwesomeButImpractical:
42** Most weapons that trade range for high damage can be this, but special mention goes to the Staff of Extreme Prejudice (EP) - it fires ten shots at once and deals obscenely high damage should they all hit, but are fired ''around'' the character. The player has to practically stand on monsters to maximize damage, in a game where standing on most high-level monsters will quickly kill you. While it used to have a niche usage getting soulbound damage on loot chests, the lowering of SB thresholds and outright removal of most loot chests have removed even that, leaving it basically reserved for pummeling enemies that are staggered or otherwise can't fight back.
43** The Sorcerer class in general could be considered this. It hasn't had a balance change since pets were introduced, leading to an incredible Vitality stat that's rendered almost useless by even a Rare pet, not enough DPS to compete with its ranged brethren, and an ability which is useful for moderate damage across a large number of enemies but is worse than even the Necromancer's Skull at inflicting singe-target damage; in fact, it's ''worse'' than useless in the Tomb of the Ancients as using it will chain the lightning between all three bosses, causing the other two to wake up if they haven't been already. However, Sorcerer eventually received a wisdom modifier on his Scepter, increasing its damage, and if Wisdom is high enough, increasing the number of targets. In addition, there are multiple UT Scepters that are very good, like the Scepter of Fulmination and the Scepter of Devastation, making the Sorcerer a viable option. Sorcerer indirectly got buffed again in the Reconstruction update, which increased the damage of his wands and added Vital Combat to let Sorcerer make use of his high VIT...only for the Summoner to be added later, who [[PowerCreep eclipses the Sorcerer]] in damage output while retaining the same range and crowd-clearing abilities.
44* BeeAfraid: The Hive and The Nest are dungeons themed around Bees. Very big deadly bees in the latter case.
45* {{BFS}}: Many of the available swords, such as the Demon Blade.
46* BigBad:
47** Oryx the Mad God, who only appears when the event bosses have been defeated on a single server. He has three sequential forms which increase in difficulty from "easier than most lategame bosses" to "single hardest enemy in the game".
48** The Void Entity serves as a version of this, as he is more malevolent than Oryx, arguably just as strong if not stronger, actively works against him to destroy the Realm, and has orchestrated a number of its events.
49* BigNo: Oryx's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z2ao0raJLY "No! This cannot be!"]]
50* BigRedButton: Activates the treasure room boss in the Snake Pit.
51* BonusStage: Santa's Workshop is a dungeon with no enemies. Instead, you race against time to destroy as many loot-containing presents within 120 seconds.
52* BoringButPractical:
53** The Knight's default Wooden Shield. Although there are many higher-tier shields that do more damage and have more range, the fact that the basic Wooden Shield has the same stun duration for a significantly lower cost often results in some Knights preferring to keep their starter shield, even when they have high-tier alternatives.
54** Likewise, the Huntress and Necromancer each conserve a lot of MP when using lower-tier abilities, while still either inflicting slow status or healing.
55** The Ninja's shuriken costs the same amount of MP to use the Speedy ability, but a higher amount per tier to throw the shuriken, so a low-tier shuriken is good if you aren't worried about the damage.
56** Unless one is using the prism for its decoy, a Trickster's best option is the starter prism because all tiers have the same teleport ability.
57* BossBanter: Most the bosses (and some of the minor enemies) have some kind of dialogue, usually either insults/threats towards players or boasts about their strength. Oryx is especially fond of this.
58* BossInMookClothing:
59** The Gods are the most powerful random monsters that only spawn in the central Godlands. Though still classified as {{Mooks}}, they are very powerful compared to other monsters, being able to easily kill even level 20 characters.
60** There are generally a few enemies in dungeons that are much more powerful than the other ones, mostly in endgame dungeons (eg. Mecha Squirrels, Enforcer Bots, Crawling Grey Spiders, the Henchmen of Oryx, etc.) In addition, most enemies in the hardest dungeons have stats superior to that of lower-level dungeon bosses (for example, Shatters Adepts have almost as much health as Archdemon Malphas, and hit much harder!)
61* BossOnlyLevel: Several dungeons only consist of boss(es) and their minions. Some examples include Court of Oryx dungeons (Lair of Shaitan, Puppet Master's Encore, Cnidarian Reef, Secluded Thicket, High Tech Terror), the Lair of Draconis, Battle for the Nexus, Ice Tomb, Mad God Mayhem, and Belladonna's Garden.
62* BossRoom: Oryx's Chamber is a classic example.
63* BossRush: The Battle for the Nexus limited dungeon consists of four consecutive boss fights against powered-up versions of in-game bosses. Mad God Mayhem follows a similar concept, and the Secluded Thicket has you fight the three bosses back to back.
64* BraggingRightsReward: Downplayed most of the time. Getting one of the ultra-rare items like the Helm of the Juggernaut becomes this if you don't actually use it. Getting any UT that has...[[PowerUpLetdown debatable usefulness is this by default]].
65* BribingYourWayToVictory: Real money is used to purchase Realm Gold, which can be spent in several ways, some of which affect gameplay:
66** You lose everything on your person when you die; a vault enables you to retain items between deaths. Realm Gold can be used to purchase extra vault slots.
67** Dungeons can be opened by killing related enemies, or by purchasing their keys directly with Realm Gold.
68** XP boosters can be bought to double your EXP rate and get to [[AbsurdlyLowLevelCap level 20]] much quicker.
69** [[DiscOneNuke High- (and often top-) tier equipment]] can be purchased for Realm Gold.
70** Extra character slots can be purchased, which make recovering from death far easier.
71** Pet eggs and pet food are also purchasable; While it's possible to find eggs (even all the way up to the insanely rare Legendary Pet Eggs, which have the lowest drop rate of anything in the game) food is only purchasable in the Nexus. Feeding your pet is cheaper if you use gold instead of Fame, as is fusing your pet. It's often considered silly to try and fully max a 100/100/100 Divine pet without using Realm Gold simply due to the immense amount of time it takes to for everything involved. (finding the egg, finding high-Feed items that you can afford to part with, and farming the Fame you'll use to level the pet). While doing this is going to make you more-or-less invincible, you'd better prepare to fork over some ''serious'' cash to do it; levelling from scratch is estimated to cost around a thousand dollars even if you buy the various sale packs.
72* BrutalBonusLevel: The Exaltation dungeons[[note]]The Nest, Fungal Cavern, Crystal Cavern, Kogbold Steamworks, Lost Halls, Cultist Hideout, The Void, Moonlight Village, The Shatters, and Oryx's Sanctuary[[/note]] are considerably harder than anything normally run for stat maxing, and for some of the hardest ones will eat through 8/8 maxed characters like cannon fodder. In general, expect them to be lengthy affairs where they have an abnormally strong Event boss dropping them, a host of enemies almost exclusively composed of EliteMooks stronger than mid-tier dungeon bosses, layout or terrain that can range from confusing to outright hostile, and bosses far surpassing anything before it. In exchange, they're the sources for top-of-the-line gear and Exaltations for permanent progression. To elaborate on a few:
73** The Abandoned Mineshaft is this and a MarathonLevel - it's an extremely long, 2-part gauntlet riddled with hordes of enemies that can easily kill the unprepared in a heartbeat. The first part, the Fungal Cavern, is full of mushrooms that gleefully swarm players and can handily pound Knights to death with sheer numbers and firepower, and the boss fight is a chaotic, projectile-flooding shootout that can easily kill off anyone not prepared. The second part, the Crystal Cavern, also packs a variety of very sturdy and hard-hitting mooks that use unorthodox bullet patterns and love StatusEffects, while the boss has mini-boss guardians of its own and takes the game's BulletHell aspect to its logical extreme.
74** The Lost Halls is a massive, confusing complex stuffed to the brim with traps and extremely painful enemy swarms, with a total of 3 bosses and 2 minibosses spread out over 3 sub-areas. The main boss battle of the dungeon is a grueling MarathonBoss, and while the secret boss isn't that bad, the TrueFinalBoss is one of the hardest bosses in the game.
75** The Moonlight Village is a BossOnlyLevel consisting of the most extreme BulletHell in the game, with bosses that follow unconventional battle mechanics which value endurance and practice more than damage.
76** The Shatters after its 2021 rework is the logical extreme, dropping valuable potions, a huge number of extremely powerful UT items, and some of the highest tiered gear in the game. In exchange, it's the single biggest MarathonLevel in the game and boasts unholy levels of difficulty, with three huge areas packing different objectives that are required to proceed, dozens upon dozens of {{Elite Mook}}s that will swarm you with impunity and use complex attack patterns, and three bosses which stand among the toughest adversaries in the entire game, capable of tearing through maxed characters in a heartbeat.
77** Oryx's Sanctuary, replacing the Wine Cellar as TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, is the other logical extreme example. While the Wine Cellar is presented as the de facto 'final dungeon', [[note]]The locked Wine Cellar is the portal Oryx 1 drops, while Oryx 2 drops a portal to the Nexus[[/note]] to access Oryx's Sanctuary you must assemble three separate Runes- two of which are only available from other Epic-chest dungeons. And if you enter for a chance at some of the strongest items in the game, you best be prepared for a grueling fight through hordes of deadly EliteMooks, one of four elite minibosses arguably stronger than the bosses of the aforementioned Lost Halls, and of course the head honcho himself, who will make you wish you were fighting the Void Entity.
78** Certain Exaltation dungeons also have an Advanced variant that will drop alongside the original. Advanced dungeons have enemies with major buffs to HP and damage, alterations to enemy and boss behavior as well as terrain, and even new enemies that weren't there before. In exchange, they'll drop considerably more loot, and are the main way to obtain valuable Enchanting material or exclusive Engravings.
79* BulletHell: Every attack in the game is a projectile[[note]]including contact damage, which fires invisible projectiles to simulate the effect[[/note]], and hordes of enemies can quickly flood the screen with bullets and grenades. Later on, most bosses and even some high-level enemies are able to do this by themselves.
80* ChestMonster: The Treasure Mimic in the Cave of a Thousand Treasures.
81* CognizantLimbs: Shaitan's hands shoot out and must be fought.
82* ConservationOfNinjutsu: Almost every enemy in the game has summons. The Realm Gods, the strongest non-boss enemies in the main Realm, do not summon. Appropriately enough, neither do the strongest dungeon enemies (The Shatters mage-type enemies) outside of making a portal to attack you at range with.
83* ContinuingIsPainful: {{Downplayed|Trope}}. If you die, you restart, losing your current gear and any boosted stats. However, you can keep spare gear in your vault, and the maximum level is easy to attain, especially with [[DiscOneNuke spare endgame items from previous lives]].
84* ContractualBossImmunity: The majority of Dungeon and Event bosses are immune to most status effects that would normally work on enemies. Higher-level ones tend to be immune to all of the serious negative effects (Stun, Paralyze, Stasis, and Slow), although there are certain (but mostly unorthodox) ways of bypassing their immunities. Taken to an absolute head with the Void Entity, which is immune to ''every status effect in the game.'' Strangely enough, until he gains Void Entity levels of immunity in his third incarnation, the FinalBoss Oryx the Mad God is vulnerable to all debuffs except Stasis, although he gains immunity in some phases.
85* CoolOldGuy: The Tinkerer was once a warrior in the realm before retiring to host Daily Quests.
86* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler: The game is far from the most blatant example, and has plenty of LovecraftLite, but the lore implies this is basically what's going on. Oryx rules over millions of dimensions and has inverted the normal rules of video games making it so that his enemies can die permanently while his minions can be endlessly resurrected. While it's possible to free individual worlds from him, he doesn't really care as he has millions more and he can't actually be killed himself, so any loss he suffers is really just a setback to him. And there's a Void even he fears.]]
87* CrapsaccharineWorld: The Candyland Hunting Grounds. The Candyland Hunting Grounds is a dungeon made of candy, full of unicorns, fairies and living food. They all want to kill you.
88** The Magic Woods: A forest filled with colorful faeries that are all hostile.
89* CreepyCemetery: The Haunted Cemetery, where you fight waves of undead enemies.
90* CrystalLandscape: The Crystal Cavern is an underground cavern full of pretty crystals. [[BrutalBonusLevel Don't get distracted by them.]]
91* DamageIncreasingDebuff: Cursed and Exposed, which increase damage taken by 25% and decrease target DEF by 20, respectively. Assassins' poisons can also inflict this, although only for themselves.
92* DarkIsNotEvil:
93** ''All'' Necromancers are good. Those that fall to TheDarkSide are called Deathmages.
94** A lot of weapons hint at having dark histories behind them, such as the Phylactery Mystic set and the Dagger of Foul Malevolence. Others are outright stated to be cursed, or imbued with malicious powers.
95** The Paladin's untiered Seal, the Seal of Blasphemous Prayer[[note]]aka the Oreo, because it looks like an Oreo cookie[[/note]] is pitch black and is described as dangerous, but it still provides healing to you and your friends while making you invincible.
96** In a similar vein, the UT Orb of Conflict is said to have a dark history of twisting its users. In game, it has no negative effects, and heavily boosts a Mystic's offensive abilities.
97** A number of the items in the game have you outright tap into power from the Void. Unlike [[DemonicPossession what usually happens to those who make deals with the Void]], your characters are no worse for wear.
98** Some of the unlockable skins are this, such as the Dark Elf Huntress, the Infected Assassin or even the Death skin for Ninjas.
99* DeathAsGameMechanic: Death is the only way to obtain the currency Fame, which can be spent on special items and pet upgrades.
100* DegradedBoss: Dwarf Kings, who lead groups of mid-leveled enemies, but are summoned as stronger Undead versions along with their former minions by a high-level leader. Before its removal, the Arena sort-of invoked this; in later waves you'd get various dungeon bosses either on their own or in groups. This included even late-game dungeon bosses like Oryx 2.
101* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Throughout the game, a skilled player will obliterate countless gods and deities, up to and including the titular MadGod and the embodiment of evil itself. Some gods are even demoted to weaker Mooks, while others are powerful bosses that can nonetheless be stampeded by a horde of supposedly mortal warriors armed with nothing but magic and sharp weapons.
102* DiscOneNuke: Mid-tier items, which are fairly unremarkable finds for a level-capped character, can still be used to breeze through the trek to level 20 without much effort. However, they won't help you much in the quest for the game's [[InfinityPlusOneSword ultimate weapons]].
103* DoppelgangerAttack: The Crystal Prisoner, the Puppet Master, and the Trickster Puppet from the Puppet Master's Encore can use this.
104* DoppelgangerSpin: {{Downplayed}} with the Trickster, who can summon a single decoy. Or two, with the untiered Prism of Dancing Swords.
105* DownTheDrain: The Toxic Sewers, a sewer system filled with living slime, goblins, and rats.
106* DrunkenMaster: According to the "official" fan lore, much of Oryx's power comes from copious consumption of wine. Even official lore soon established him as never sober except during crucial moments - hell, he's even seen drinking wine before his final battle.
107* DualBoss: The Stone Guardians in the Castle, the Jade and Garnet Statues, et cetera..
108* DumpStat: Vitality/VIT used to be this as one of the eight stats you can max, and it helps you regenerate health faster. In a game where every bit of survivability counts and can mean the difference between a safe trip to the Nexus and a lost character, VIT would seem like an important stat, but it's usually unwise to get rings or armor to try to maximize it, since it used to boost your character's health regeneration too slightly for it to matter much over other equipment that increase other stats, like Defense or HP, which both help your character survive more sudden bursts of damage which tend to be game-enders. Additionally, investing a lot into a Pet with Heal used to be enough to match (or often surpass) the healing provided by your character's natural VIT, enabling players to face-tank several bosses that didn't OneHitKill them. Pure VIT rings are rarely traded as anything other than Feed Power [[note]]Feeding your pet increases its power permanently, which in the long run is going to be better for regeneration than VIT[[/note]] and defense-minded players often overlook armor which capitalizes on Vitality [[labelnote:Except]]The Fungal Breastplate, which provides such a massive bonus (+30) to VIT that it's a worthy swapout to regenerate faster out of combat[[/labelnote]] in comparison to pieces of armor which increase other defensive stats [[labelnote:Such as]]The Breastplate of New Life, which offers a massive 160 HP bonus that helps survive Armor Broken or enemies that ignore defense[[/labelnote]]. This changed as of the Reconstruction update, where Vitality's healing power was doubled if the player doesn't take damage (past a certain threshold) recently, and Pets took much longer to heal if the player ''did'' take damage recently, making VIT an important stat provided the player can dodge hits. In addition, not only does VIT decrease the time spent with weakened recovery after taking damage, the passive health and mana of Vitality and Wisdom was doubled, allowing players to recover significant amounts of HP/MP as long as they didn't get hit, even without a pet.
109* DungeonCrawling: The game once had over 20 dungeons, and throughout the game's history, it's expanded to more than double that number, with more on the way.
110* EasterEgg:
111** Oryx's statue in the vault, only accessible through teleporting. [[DevelopersForesight It vanishes whenever the Month of the Mad God is in season]], being whisked away to power the Oryx Horde.
112** There's an extremely rare chance that a sword shrine can generate in the Woodland Labyrinth, likely a reference to either the location of the Master Sword in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' or the acquisition method of the [[VideoGame/{{Terraria}} Terragrim and Enchanted Sword]]. Destroying it grants a tier 11 Skysplitter Sword.
113* EliteFour: Chancellor Dammah, Archbishop Leucoryx, Treasurer Gemsbok, and Chief Beisa, Oryx's closest and most powerful allies. You'll have to defeat one of them at random in Oryx's Sanctuary to get a shot at taking out the big guy himself, but none of them will let you pass easily.
114* EquipmentBasedProgression: The game is intentionally designed such that it is easy to reach the max level in less than a few hours, before the main focus switches to fighting monsters to farm stat potions. If you manage to max all eight stats on a character (commonly abbreviated as 8/8) then you have reached the endgame and will switch full-time to acquiring better and better equipment.
115* EscapeRope: The Nexus hotkey functions as this, whisking players to safety in the Nexus from any overworld location or dungeon, at the cost of losing access to any unobtained loot or experience in the encounter.
116* EternalRecurrence: Oryx and his minions have to be defeated again and again, his curse on the Realm having given him and all his allies the ability to live countless lives in countless recurrences of the Realm. Two minutes after an old Realm is closed, another opens.
117* EnemyCivilWar: Between the 22nd and 29th of March 2021, the Son of Arachna and the Crystal Prisoner both detected a new source of power outside of Oryx's sight and prepared accordingly for whatever might happen next. The problem is that the Son wants to take it for himself and his cohorts (and also because [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas he wants to cure Arachna]] despite his exile), while the Prisoner wants to investigate it further in case Oryx or a GreaterScopeVillain might be behind it. Both are reasonable approaches, thus dragging the Realmers into a proxy war between the two. However, considering how starkly different this paints the two of them compared to their established lore, the event is debatably canon at best.
118* EquipmentUpgrade: The Kogbold Enhancement Core and Concentrated Soul Fire, dropped by the Factory Control Core and Kitsune Umi, can be used in the forge to upgrade specific untiered weapons. Weapons upgraded by the former gain flat damage bonuses, while the latter provides entirely new functions.
119* EverythingTryingToKillYou: If it moves and isn't a player, it's an enemy.[[note]]Except for pets. And sheep.[[/note]]
120* EvilLaugh: Many bosses do this, such as the Twilight Archmage and Forgotten King.
121* EvilOverlord: Oryx, again.
122* EvilVersusOblivion: The main beef between the two main [[BigBad Big Bads]] of the story. While Oryx is an EvilOverlord who wants to subjugate the realm and feed his endless ego, the Void Entity is an OmnicidalManiac that just wants to annihilate all existence. This has put them firmly at odds ever since they became aware of each other, and Oryx has actively taken measures to keep the Void at bay - not that it earns him any brownie points with the heroes.
123* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: Many dungeons. No prizes for guessing what enemies are in the Spider Den or Snake Pit.
124* ExcusePlot: While there ''is'' lore that is growing more extensive by the day, none of it has an actual part in gameplay. All that you need to understand is that you're stuck in the [[TitleDrop Realm of the Mad God]], whose minions want to eat you. Here's how you move, shoot, and loot corpses. Now go kill things.
125* ExperienceBooster: XP Boosters are consumable items that double the amount of experience points a character earns, either for 20 minutes, 1 hour, or permanently (until the character reaches level 20).
126* EyesDoNotBelongThere:
127** The Pentaract Towers are surrounded by a swarm of eyes. [[EverythingTryingToKillYou Which will shoot you.]]
128** The Corrupted Cleaver shoots eyeballs.
129* FantasyKitchenSink: Along with the gods (invented or imported from myth), there are [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]], [[OurZombiesAreDifferent undead]], [[OurGhostsAreDifferent ghosts]], [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]], {{hobbits}}, a [[OurFairiesAreDifferent fairy or two]], a [[MadScientist mad scientist]], and sumo wrestlers.
130* FantasyMetals
131** {{Mithril}}, "the strongest and most desirable of all metals." Or at least, the description claims- Mithril is mostly alluded to in mid-tier items, and the GameBreaker Mithril Sword was removed relatively early in development, eventually being replaced by the Crystal Sword.
132* FictionalEarth: The game is explicitly set on Earth, though not one history would recognize.
133* FinalBoss: Oryx the Mad God teleports players to his castle when the event bosses are killed, after which the server restarts. Meanwhile, those teleported begin a fight against him and his servants that spans multiple stages, but has multiple stopping points and [[TrueFinalBoss can only be fully completed with specific access keys and powerful equipment]].
134* FoeTossingCharge: The common practice of player 'trains', so called because they consist of a horde of players charging through the godlands or roads and shooting everything that moves. [[CurbStompBattle Anything found near these will be consumed as if by a swarm of army ants.]]
135* FragileSpeedster: Rogues, Assassins, Tricksters, Ninjas, and Mystics with the Orb of Conflict.
136* FunWithAcronyms: The Ancient Stone Sword. Obviously, the community has never let it go.
137* GameBreakingBug:
138** While duping itself is [[GameBreaker only this in terms of breaking the economy]], ''facilitating'' it leads to a number of these, as the most accessible and reliable dupe glitch is one caused by trading during a server crash.
139** When the Cursed Library was first released, asking the Realm Eye about the Golden Dagger would cause a realm-wide crash that lasted for 5-10 minutes. If the dungeon was opened in the Nexus, it would instead ''crash the entire server''.
140** A bug with the T3 Mace during the release of Month of the Mad God 2021 caused a bug where players could be '''instantly killed''' by virtually any enemy at seemingly complete random due to the cat summons catching shots and transferring the damage to nearby players. Naturally, a hotfix was pushed out mere hours later, but the hours where the bug persisted had to be seen to be believed.
141* GameChanger: At a meta level, the first [[NoFairCheating duping]] [[GoodBadBugs outbreak]] was one for the community. Normally incredibly precious items such as the Helm of the Juggernaut were being duped in such huge numbers that people were ''dropping them on the ground.'' This led directly to the soulbinding of Untiered items and the removal of Amulets of Resurrection. Even now, the aftereffects of this public discovery are still felt- about 99% of all Unbound Rings of Health are duped, as well as a lot of other top-tier equipment.
142* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: The Realm Eye's responses make numerous references to the game's out-of-universe history and functions, framing them as having occurred in-universe off-screen:
143** The "original" Battle for the Nexus, in which a hacker named [=SwatSecOne=] spawned a horde of powerful bosses in the Nexus itself, is explained as being the result of a rogue adventurer making an opening for Oryx. The dungeon itself is meant to be a window in time to the day of the invasion itself, with a more orderly enemy structure.
144** The ContentLeak of the Lair of Draconis is explained in-universe as Oryx accidentally releasing a bunch of keys while the Lair was still under construction. The keys themselves being changed to go to the Consolation of Draconis (an empty chamber sans one stat potion) were the result of Oryx then cursing the keys to keep adventurers out of the Lair.
145** Lord Ruthven is explained as being responsible for lag and the deaths caused by it.
146** When first launched, the Realm Eye would leave a realm inaccessible for ten minutes if someone attempted to ask him about the Golden Dagger. When this bug was fixed, his response was rewritten to mention the dagger being a tool for ritualistic disruptions of the space-time continuum.
147** The Haunted Cemetery was apparently constructed in-universe to put up with grave robbers, an actual mechanic with dead players from the earliest builds that were quickly removed [[LootDrama for obvious reasons]].
148** Prior to Exalt ver. 1.1, Obsidian Daggers fired at 150% firerate, an oddity for a tiered weapon. The Realm Eye explains that this is because of a now-taboo trick where realmers would pile up multiple daggers and toss them all at once.
149** In a similar manner, the Glass Sword's previous odd damage variance (which, again, is strange for a tiered weapon) is explained by being made out of fulgurite (glass spires created when lightning strikes sand) rather than being 100% manually forged.
150** Servers and dungeons repeat themselves over and over again because Oryx stole a ResurrectiveImmortality enchantment meant for the realmers.
151* GameplayAndStorySegregation: ZigZagged with the Royal Guard's Cuirass. Its description mentions it's the armor used by the Bridge Sentinel boss, but the Bridge Sentinel does not actually drop it. He ''does'' however drop blueprints that allow you to craft the armor.
152* GenreMashup: BulletHell + {{Roguelike}} + {{MMORPG}} + {{Retraux}}.
153* GiantSpider: Arachna and her son, the bosses of the Spider Den and Crawling Depths, respectively.
154* GoForTheEye: DoubleSubverted with the Rock Dragon event boss. You have to attack its body segments first, ''then'' shoot its eye.
155* GlassCannon:
156** Wizards (and to a lesser extent, Sorcerers) have extremely high offensive ability in exchange for pitiful defense and HP. Thankfully, their range mitigates some of the danger, but misstep while trading fire with an enemy, and these classes will feel the hurt more than other classes which could heal off the damage or tank the hit. Sorcerers have higher VIT that lets them recover from injuries faster, but they still aren't much better in terms of taking hits.
157** Among melee classes, Ninjas. They're quick on their feet and dish out a lot of damage at high rates with their high max Attack and Dexterity, but their leather armor offers less defensive bonuses than the heavy armor melee classes use, and coupled with their short range, getting caught in the wrong place against a dangerous enemy or event boss could mean game over for a Ninja where another melee class could survive the hit. Yes, they have a ranged Shuriken which can deal high damage, but its high mana cost relegates it to a RangedEmergencyWeapon when not being used as a speed-boosting tool.
158** Strangely enough, both bosses and players become this in the endgame. While there are very few bosses that will be able to stand for more than a few seconds against a horde of players, it will usually only take 2 or 3 well-placed shots to kill any player.
159* GrimyWater: Evil Water, dark water found in the Deadwater Docks, harms you like lava if you touch it.
160* HardModeFiller: The epic dungeons: Deadwater Docks, Woodland Labyrinth, and Crawling Depths are essentially reskins of the three lowest level dungeons: the Pirate Cave, Forest Maze, and Spider Den.
161* HealingPotion: One of the stackable items.
162* HealingSpring: The fountains in the Nexus constantly heal any characters that stand near them without being at full health.
163* HealThyself: The Priest and Paladins have healing abilities, which heal themselves and other people in the spell's range.
164* HelpingHands: Shaitan's hands move independently from him, and he spawns smaller hands as well.
165* {{Hobbits}}: Low-level enemies near the beach.
166* HollywoodAcid: Found in a pool in a Mad Lab room.
167* HolyWater: Holy Water is a consumable item that drops in the Manor of the Immortals, and can be used to cure status effects and heal yourself.
168* HPToOne: Enemies that inflict the Bleeding status effect can cause this as your health drains.
169** A version of this can be self-inflicted by putting a Cheater Robe on a Level 1 character. It brings the character's health down to 0, and any damage will kill it.
170* HubLevel: The Nexus.
171* HulkingOut: The Horrific Creation and Crusher Abominations in the Mad Lab, who start out weak but get bigger (and deal more damage, in the Abominations' case) as they are closer to death.
172* ICannotSelfTerminate: Esben begs for death in order to banish the spirit possessing him. The Helpless Souls also demand to be killed.
173* ImpossibleItemDrop: Items and consumables all come from bags dropped by monsters. Certain bosses spawn loot chests once they die, which must be destroyed in order for players to receive rewards.
174* InexplicableTreasureChests: In the realm, treasure chests appear in some regions occupied by quest monsters (Deathmages, Coil Snakes, Liches, Oasis Giants, Phoenixes, Cyclops Gods, and Red Demons). Occasionally, there are also special events that involve chests appearing from nowhere at the end of certain dungeons.
175* InfinityPlusOneSword:
176** As of now, Tier 14 Weapons, Tier 15 Armors, and Tier 7 Abilities. They only drop from [[TrueFinalBoss Oryx the Mad God 3]] in his Sanctuary, but perform considerably better than the gear right below their tier, and sometimes even better than ''UT items''. They also can't be traded, so you'll have to challenge Oryx 3 yourself to get your hands on them.
177** Untiered items that drop from dungeon and event bosses, often in the coveted white bag. These are exceptionally rare and generally have effects different from normal weapons: the Crystal Sword, for example, has a longer range than other swords (See the below entry on SwordBeam on why it ItMakesSenseInContext). These are highly sought after, and most can't be traded, adding to the challenge of finding them. Several (such as the Coral Bow) are considered upgrades to standard tiered weapons, or unlock very powerful abilities for the wielder (such as the Seal of Blasphemous Prayer, which makes the player ''completely invincible'' for between one and two seconds). Untiered items from endgame dungeons tend to be even more exorbitantly powerful, especially those from Oryx's Sanctuary which tend to be best-in-slot options.
178* InfinityMinusOneSword: Tier 11 and Tier 12 weapons are dropped from high-level dungeons such as the Wine Cellar. Not as powerful as the two tiers above them, but they can be traded at a relatively benign cost, which means with a little luck or grinding on your part, you can grab one of these weapons very easily for your character if you trade your spoils for one. Tier 12 weapons in particular are common enough to be the gold standard when it comes to DPS and range, and many Untiered items are compared to them when it comes to opportunity cost for an inventory slot. Tier 13/14 weapons and armor were made tradable in Month of the Mad God 2021, but aren't as common and thus tend to be much more expensive to trade for.
179* InstantDeathRadius: Many enemies fire multiple shots at once, usually in a cone. Obviously, you don't want to be so close that you get "shotgunned" by getting hit by all of these bullets at once. DoubleSubverted by Dr. Terrible: The doctor himself does not possess an instant death radius, but the Green Potions that he throws are lethal if stood on.
180* InstantGravestone: A gravestone will instantly appear when a character dies. Stronger characters get bigger, more impressive gravestones. Due to the game's use of {{Permadeath}}, players will often pay respects to a particularly strong character.
181* InterfaceScrew:
182** Being inflicted with Confusion will rotate your controls 90 degrees, which is exploited with devastating effect whenever high-level bosses use it. Thankfully, the effect usually doesn't last very long, but the bats in the Manor of the Immortals confuse you for several seconds.
183** Enemies in the [[JungleJapes Forbidden Jungle]] also have an attack that causes "Hallucinating", which switches every sprite on the screen with another one at random. This includes the trees and vines the area is covered with, making the overall effect quite distracting. With one of the Paladin's Seals, it used to be possible to inflict this on ''yourself''.
184** Blind or Darkness statuses darken the screen. The Darkness status is more severe, as it not only darkens the screen, but also prevents enemies from appearing as red dots on your minimap. All entities outside your vision are completely invisible, but their shots won't appear on your screen (unless they're quest bosses or are in your vision).
185** [[IntoxicationMechanic Drunk status]], especially with Hardware Acceleration turned on. With it off, your screen blurs. With it ''on...''
186* InventoryManagementPuzzle: Your character has eight inventory slots (16 if they have a Backpack equipped), and the Vault contains an additional eight by default. Seeing as anything in your character's inventory is lost on death, and nearly all equipment is restricted to certain classes, it often becomes a challenge to decide what loot to store in the Vault to use when your current character inevitably kicks the bucket and you start anew. The Vault and inventory ''can'' be significantly expanded, but doing so requires gold, which can only be obtained with real-world money.
187* InvisibilityCloak: The rogue's special ability.
188* InvisibilityWithDrawbacks: Ghost Pirate Rum turns the player invisible to enemies, while inflicting the Drunk status effect (blurring or warping the screen).
189* InvoluntaryShapeshifting: Caused by green pools in the Mad Lab, attacks from the Desire Troll in the Candyland Hunting Grounds, and by Transformation Potions. The Pet Stasis effect turns your pet into a chicken temporarily.
190* ItemAmplifier: The Wisdom stat not only boosts MP regeneration, but also increases the potency of many abilities.
191* JerkassGods: ''All'' of them. [[JokeCharacter Except the Masked Party God]].
192* JokeCharacter: The Evil Chicken God, Masked Party God, and Giant Oryx Chicken.
193* JokeItem: The UT items dropped by the Glitch and Null, which are associated with April Fool's Day, have humorous descriptions, and are either extremely situational, outright useless, or actively harmful when used.
194* JungleJapes: The Forbidden Jungle and Secluded Thicket dungeons, home to tribesmen and basilisks.
195* KaizoTrap: The Lord of the Lost Lands, when he's on his dying phase, shoots big red spinning bullets, which deal around 250 damage each, cause bleeding, and pierce armor. [[YetAnotherStupidDeath Make sure you don't stand right next to him]].
196** A number of later bosses do this as their parting move, including all of the Shatters bosses (and the Avatar of the Forgotten King), the Puppet Master (and his clones in his incredibly dangerous DopplegangerSpin phase), and Shaitan the Advisor.
197* LargeHam: Oryx seems to be the God of this. Most enemies with dialogue are hams as well.
198* LaserBlade: Oryx's signature weapon that he wields in his final form is an energy sword named Divinity. In the hands of a player, it can call down beams of holy light to devastate enemies.
199* LeakedExperience: Everyone who is in the vicinity of an enemy gets a set number of experience points (regardless of how many players there are, how much damage they've done, or even if they've attacked it at all) when it's slain.
200* LethalLavaLand: Some parts of the Realm, the Abyss of Demons and the Lair of Shaitan contain lava (or the more damaging Magma).
201* LettingTheAirOutOfTheBand: The ''Exalt'' client has the music cut out in this fashion whenever you die, picking back up when continuing with another slot or going to the character creation screen.
202* LevelAte: The Candyland Hunting Grounds has donuts and gumball machines scattered around, and features Creampuffs as enemies.
203* LevelScaling: All Realm bosses, all dungeon bosses, and some major enemies will scale their HP to match the number of players present with them. In endgame dungeons, every single enemy will do this as well.
204* LifeDrain: Necromancers can use their ability to deal damage and also heal themselves. Skulls heal for a set amount, with its damage and healing range increasing with wisdom. Lord Ruthven and Malus' Cult turn this against you, using certain shots to steal health from you.
205* LightningBruiser:
206** Warriors can swap between this and MightyGlacier depending on whether they have a regular helm or the Helm of the Juggernaut equipped. Even with the Helm of the Juggernaut equipped, which offers Armored in place of Speedy as a buff, the helm itself offers +5 Speed as a bonus, raising their speed from "sluggish" to "passable."
207* LightEmUp: The Month of the Mad God reskins of the Doom Bow and Demon Blade, the Bow of the Morning Star and the Blade of Illumination.
208* LostTechnology: The secrets of the Wand of the Bulwark, according to its description.
209* MadeOfEvil: Corruption, the concentrated essence of evil from the domain of the Void.
210* MadeOfExplodium: Dr. Terrible's Rampage Cyborgs, which blow up when low on health.
211* MadGod: Natch.
212* MadScientist: Dr. Terrible, found (appropriately) in the Mad Lab.
213* MagicalLibrary: The Cursed Library dungeon.
214* MechaMooks: Doc Terrible's creations in the Mad Lab. Also the Mecha Squirrel in the Woodland Labyrinth.
215* ManaBurn: The Quiet status effect effectively nullifies your MP pool for its duration, preventing you from using abilities and forcing you to recover your MP from zero when it wears out.
216* ManaPotion: One of the stackable items.
217* MarathonBoss: The Avatar of the Forgotten King was infamous for this before it underwent a {{nerf}}. Even now, it has significantly more HP than any other non-seasonal Realm enemy in the game[[note]]Packing 150,000 HP, while the other events generally range from 16,000 to 60,000, and the Lost Sentry has 125,000 HP[[/note]], a massive amount of DEF, a powerful spiral of shots and lethal firebombs, four phases with four types of deadly minions, and immunity to the Knight's Stun ability to boot. It's still easier than its previous form, which had an even more titanic amount of health, even more defense, was almost always invulnerable, and was a required kill in order to access [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Oryx's Castle]].
218* MarathonLevel:
219** The Shatters is filled with {{Mook}}s as powerful as Gods and is ''incredibly'' long, with an extensive map consisting of three lengthy areas each with their own objectives and incredibly dangerous bosses. Because of this, it's nigh impossible to complete the dungeon without a strong group, and solo completions are almost unheard of.
220** The Lost Halls is composed of an uncountable number of identical rooms, filled with enemies more powerful than most mid-level bosses, and with several bosses that embody MarathonBoss with a passion. Good runs may still take upwards of 10-20 minutes, and bad runs won't even complete the dungeon.
221** Now properly invoked with the Abandoned Mineshaft, the first "true" multi-floor dungeon to exist. The first part, the Fungal Cavern, has the player tracking down and destroying 25 pink crystals to open the way to the boss, all while avoiding or dispatching the hordes of incredibly lethal mushrooms and BigCreepyCrawlies roaming the cave. The boss itself, the Crystal Worm Mother, is an incredibly dangerous one whose fight will put most players through the wringer. Once it's dead, the Worm drops the portal to the Crystal Cavern, which has players do the same thing as before, but now with even stronger crystalline monsters hounding them at all times. This culminates in the final fight with the Crystal Entity, a brutal fight that embodies BulletHell with a passion.
222* MerchantCity: The Nexus often serves as a player trading market, especially in the always-crowded [=USWest3=] server.
223* MercyInvincibility: Or rather, a lack of it. Getting hit by a large number of shots in a split second (either through getting shotgunned or multiple enemies) is the most common cause of death.
224* MetalSlime: The very rare Candy Gnome that runs away from you and drops the entrance to the Candyland Hunting grounds.
225* MightyGlacier:
226** Knights and Paladins. Their swords have high damage despite the two classes having low max Attack and Dexterity, and the Knight's stun deals high damage and can make most dangerous foes a sitting duck, while the Paladin can boost their damage, health regeneration, and max [=HP=] through the use of their Seal. On the defensive side, Knights are famous for their monumental max HP and Defense, which are among the highest attainable in the game, and while the Paladin has lower defensive stats compared to the Knight, the Seal's defensive abilities can help them stomach more hits. Both classes also wear Heavy Armor to boost their defenses even further. On the other hand, their low max Speeds of 50 and 55 mean that they can't traverse the map as quickly as other classes without items to boost their Speed.
227** Archers and Huntresses. They have high Attack, and their bows can deal devastating damage at point blank, while still being capable damage dealers at range (assisted by several [=UT=] Bows like the Warmonger). Their abilities also damage and and paralyze foes which makes them easier to hit (Archer), or deal damage to and slow crowds of enemies (Huntress). Additionally, the Leather Armor they equip makes them safer to play than robe classes like Wizards. However, their low max Speed of 50 makes their ability to traverse the map poor. Untiered Armors like the Beehemoth Armor can remedy this somewhat, at the cost of other stats like Defense or DPS.
228* MonstersEverywhere
229* MookMaker: Most bosses summon minions of some sort, although the most notable example is the Cube God, a massive blue cube that summons smaller orange Overseer cubes that summon even smaller yellow cubes and smaller-than-that blue cubes.
230* MookMedic:
231** Escaped Experiments in the Mad Lab, Worshiping Priests and Priestesses in the Tomb of the Ancients, and Parrots in the Deadwater Docks. Killing them first is essential to save firepower on priority targets like Crusher Abominations and Sarcophagi.
232** The Priest Puppets in the Puppet Master's Theater boss fight. Regular ones will only heal themselves, but the ones spawned by the Puppet Master will heal him every few seconds.
233* {{Multishot}}: Most higher-tier bows fire three arrows at a rapid rate. Other untiered weapons can do this as well.
234* MutagenicGoo: The Mad Lab contains pools of green goo that transforms your character into a random creature, increases your speed and disables your weapon until you step into some blue goo.
235* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The dungeon bosses include such friendly folks as Bonegrind the Butcher, Dr. Terrible, Feargus the Demented, Pyrr the Wicked, Nikao the Defiler, Limoz the Plague Bearer, the Murderous Megamoth, and of course, Oryx the Mad God.
236* NiceGuy: Craig, Intern of the Mad God. Possibly the only one in the realm.
237* NighInvulnerable:
238** Quite a few bosses can go invulnerable, making them impervious to any damage. This is indicated by a blue shield above the mob's head.
239** There are a handful of items that allow players to go invulnerable, [[NecessaryDrawback temporarily and with a high price]]. The Seal of Blasphemous Prayer and Crystal Shield give invulnerability at will, but both have a high MP cost, and the latter also disables MP recovery when used. The Royal Guard's Cuirass gives a few seconds of invulnerability just by using your weapon, but it's on a whopping 15 second cooldown. Some players make it a sport to go invulnerable and get close to a InstantDeathRadius type of boss as close as possible.
240* NintendoHard: The game can easily slip into this when your level goes into the double digits (assuming you keep following the quests alone) and ''especially'' when you get into the endgame. Especially since, unlike other {{MMORPG}}s, [[{{Permadeath}} death is permanent]].
241* NoCureForEvil: Averted. A number of the bosses can heal themselves, either simply through normal means or through summoning {{Mook Medic}}s, while it is usually the latter.
242* NoFairCheating:
243** If the game catches you cheating, it disconnects you and temporarily locks you out. Unfortunately, it's easy to bypass the detection.
244** Upon entering a new server, players need to wait two minutes before teleporting to other players. This prevents people using notifier cheats from dogpiling events and dungeons across servers.
245** Upon entering a Cloth Bazaar, players need to wait thirty seconds before entering portals, the same amount of time portals currently last. This is also a stopgap measure against notifier cheats, this time in a more serious context as the Bazaar is also used for hosting private dungeons, where unauthorized entrants can easily prove disastrous.
246* NoItemUseForYou: When affected by Drought, players cannot use consumable items.
247* NonIndicativeName: The fourth equipment slot, consisting of items that can be equipped by all classes, is called Ring. While all tiered items in this slot are indeed rings, the untiered and set tier items can be anything from rings to necklaces, gemstones, headgear, musical instruments (both distinct from the Warrior's Helm and the Bard's Lute), among others.
248* NoobCave: The Pirate Cave and Forest Maze are the easiest dungeons in the game and can both be reasonably soloed with starter equipment.
249* NotTheIntendedUse: The Untiered E.Y.E. ring dropped in High Tech Terror fires a counterattack whenever the wearer is hit, intended to be a more defensive feature to let them hit back whenever they take damage. Players were quick to discover that it [[LoopholeAbuse never said the hit had to deal damage]]. Cue Knights with the Crystal Shield (invulnerability at the cost of rapid MP drain) making builds designed to increase their MP as much as possible, before activating the shield, sitting on high-level enemies while they're firing volumes of shots, and watching as the unsuspecting baddie takes catastrophic damage from the sheer number of counterattacks that trigger.
250* ObviousRulePatch: Dungeons were changed in an update in 2020 to have their bosses subject to quadratic HP scaling[[labelnote:Explanation]]Rather than increase by a flat/linear amount, the amount the boss's HP is raised per player increases with each player. In a worst-case scenario, an extra player can add a whopping '''111.6%''' of the boss's base health, a far cry from the starting 10.8%.[[/labelnote]] instead of linear scaling. For the eight Exaltation dungeons (the Shatters, Lost Halls, Cultist Hideout, Nest, Crystal/Fungal Caverns, Oryx's Sanctuary, and the Void), most of enemies themselves were also given this scaling, because of an update in 2020 specifically intended to target and {{Nerf}} raids organized through external platforms.
251* OddJobGods: A lot are reasonable, such as the Ghost God, Mermaid Goddess, and Ent God, but then you have the Cube God, the Hermit God, the [[JokeCharacter Evil Chicken God]]...
252* OfCorsetsSexy: The Metal-plated Corset leather armor, a reskin of the Hollyhock Hide and part of the [[VampireHunter Cursed]] [[HunterOfHisOwnKind Cursebreaker]] Huntress set. It doesn't provide much in the way of defense, but it does give a sizable DEX boost, plus a small SPD and VIT buff. Since this game has a {{Retraux}} art style where player characers have either 8x8 or 16x16 pixels, the {{Fanservice}} aspect is very much downplayed.
253* OneHitKill: Averted for the most part - few bullets will do enough damage to kill a player in a single blow. Just don't stand on anything, since the ''number'' of bullets each enemy fires makes taking a full burst a different story; even the relatively harmless Mysterious Crystal can kill you while you try to break it. Played straight if a low-level character goes into places they really shouldn't. It's very easy to lose a character to a stray bullet that does more damage than their entire health bar if you go into hard dungeons or the godlands below around level 5; it's why it's recommended to not give your best equipment to low-level characters.
254* OrcusOnHisThrone: {{Subverted}}. Oryx taunts you for most of the game, bragging about the power of his boss minions, but when you kill all the bosses on the map, he closes the realm and teleports you to his castle for a final showdown, and faces you in person.
255* OvershadowedByAwesome: Some of the Untiered items are overshadowed by other Untiered items. For instance, the Ninja's Ray Katana extends his sword range close to that of ''Bow'' weapons in exchange for a fair amount of power- but the more powerful Doku no Ken Katana ''also'' has a longer range than a normal Katana and does more damage to boot- all in exchange for having a 'wavy' shot that doesn't arc nearly enough for it to be an actual inconvenience in aiming.[[note]] To add insult to injury, the Doku no Ken is actually the more common item of the two, dropping at dungeon white bag rate (1/100~) from the Crawling Depths. The Ray Katana drops at Event white bag rate (1/1000~) from the significantly harder Rock Dragon[[/note]]
256** Also some classes. The Necromancer, Ninja, and Sorcerer in particular- the Ninja is a fast and hard-hitting JackOfAllStats class but loses out in general utility to the very similar Warrior, the Necromancer is beaten out in damage by Wizards and healing by Priests and only really remains viable as a beginner's class, and the Sorcerer comes up inferior to either Wizards or Priests in nearly every way.
257* OxygenatedUnderwaterBubbles: In the Ocean Trench and Cnidarian Reef.
258* OxygenMeter: The player has an oxygen meter in the Ocean Trench, Cnidarian Reef (which are underwater) and Katalund (which is covered in constantly moving [[DeadlyGas toxic clouds]]). Players need to move toward air pockets (in the former two) or the few constantly changing cloudless areas (in Katalund) in order to breath. If the oxygen runs out, you start losing health extremely rapidly until you're able to breath again.
259* QuicksandSucks: Quicksand appears all over in the Tomb of the Ancients. It doesn't kill directly, but the slowing effect can be very dangerous.
260* {{Panacea}}: Holy Water from the Manor of Immortals, which regenerates 100 HP and removes all negative status effects. In a rather ironic fashion as well, the flames from the Skull of Endless Torment will cure everyone within a certain radius of the caster if they hit four or more targets.
261* ThePawnsGoFirst: It's not until ''all'' his important minions in the Realm are killed that Oryx faces you himself.
262* PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling: The Godlands when overrun by trains of players.
263* PinataEnemy: The Gumball Machines in the Candyland Hunting Grounds, the Treasure Sarcophagi in the Tomb of the Ancients, the Coffins in the Manor of the Immortals, and the Masked Party God in his Beachzone, are all harmless[[note]]though coffins do spawn enemies when damaged[[/note]], and most drop useful items.
264* PlayerGeneratedEconomy: Centered in the [[MerchantCity Nexus]] and using stat potions as the base currency. It's known to suffer from wild fluctuations or even break entirely depending on in-game events.
265* PlayerVersusEnvironment
266* PoisonMushroom: Many of the April Fools items dropped by enemies in the Machine (collectively called Mistake Gear) tend to be harmful. The three Cheater's Armors do nothing but reduce HP by 100 when equipped; the Challenger Helm dazes and slows the user when used; the [=NSFWakizashi=] deals no damage to enemies while also inflicting the Exposed status effect on the user; the Lullaby reduces the user's DEF and attack range; and the Omni-Impotence Ring provides harsh penalties to all stats. In particular, the Omni-Impotence Ring is treated as an ST item, and will reduce stats even further when equipped alongside other Mistake Gear items.
267* PowerUpFood: Sold in the Nexus for pets.
268* PowerupLetdown: Some of the [[RandomlyDrops incredibly rare]] Untiered items aren't all you might expect them to be. If it hasn't dropped in a white bag, chances are that it's inferior to regular Tier 12/13 items.
269* PrestigeClass: You start out with the Wizard. Everything else must be unlocked by reaching X level with the preceding character(s).
270* PungeonMaster: Esben the Unwilling.
271-->'''Esben the Unwilling:''' "Bad puns I may use to cause offense, but the pain you will feel shall be immense!"
272* PuzzleBoss: Many of the higher-tier enemies and bosses have a specific gimmick. Examples include the Ghost Kings, which can only be damaged once the correct minion is killed, and the Construct Trio, who continuously heal each other unless one of them is frozen by a Mystic ([[MoreDakka or you deal massive amounts of damage]]).
273* RageAgainstTheAuthor: Such is attempted by the realmers inside the Machine once they manage to break into [[spoiler:the Inner Workings]], though they're unable to change anything due to Null and the Servers being [[ResurrectiveImmortality resurrectively immortal]] under Oryx's enchantment and the latter area being [[spoiler:a giant calculator and nothing else]].
274* RandomlyDrops: All items, aside from the ones you start with, are dropped by enemies. That includes all equipment, save the Ring of Minor Defense.
275* RareCandy: The Potion of Max Level instantly raises your character to level 20.
276* RareRandomDrop: Even in a game where everything is RNG, there are a few major standouts: particularly Event Whites and White Bags from the Exaltation dungeons.
277* ReducedManaCost: Certain items such as the Syndicate armor, Robe of the Mad Scientist, Twilight Gemstone and Kagenohikari can reduce the casting cost of abilities.
278* RegeneratingHealth: Courtesy of the Vitality stat and Healing buff.
279* RegeneratingMana: MP slowly refills over time. The Wisdom stat and Energized buff increases the rate of recovery.
280* RepeatableQuest: The Tinkerer in the Nexus sends you on these. You can complete up to three per day, for rewards that can be spent in the Alchemist's MiniGame.
281* RhymesOnADime: Esben the Unwilling.
282* RingOfPower: Come in six tiers, with variants that boost each stat. There's lots of untiered and set tiered ones as well.
283* {{Roguelike}}: Deaths are permanent, items can only be found from enemy drops, various classes are available, individual stats can be raised by grinding for stat potions, and the world map changes whenever the BigBad is defeated.
284* SchizoTech: Due to the game taking place in a FictionalEarth with supernatural and magic presences, it's unclear how advanced the world actually is. Although most modern technology present is explicitly imported from another world (Dr. Terrible) or outer space (Commander Calibrik), the Reconstruction event confirms the realmers know how to use guns and are aware of complicated construction equipment.
285* SchmuckBait:
286** "Pirate Rum - It seems like it would be a bad idea to drink this. [[PressXToDie Shift-click to use.]]" For the curious, it [[spoiler:makes the screen blurry for a minute or so.]]
287** Also, the occasionally-appearing Mysterious Crystal. This immobile crystal constantly self-regenerates and begs everybody in the world to attack and break it (players who find it often add their own pleas for help). The sheer effort required to break it usually means that if it breaks, most of the available players will be right there, including a lot of low-level ones who don't really know what's going on. And [[SealedEvilInACan it's not the crystal that's begging you to break it]]...
288* ScrewThisImOuttaHere:
289** The Bandit Leader will yell "Forget this... run for it!" and run away after taking a beating from you. You can still kill him, however.
290** If the situation gets too dangerous for a player, they can quickly hit the "Return To Nexus" key to leave.
291* SealedEvilInACan: The Crystal Prisoner, who begs to be let out of her crystal and slaughters unsuspecting players who comply.
292* SelfDeprecatingHumor: The cult of androids that serve Null known as the [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall Servers]] apparently have [[WetwareCPU potatoes for hearts]], hearts that you can eat to disrupt yourself and nearby enemies. In other words, [[VisualPun the servers are run on dysfunctional potato batteries]].
293* SelfDuplication: The Crystal Prisoner and Puppet Master do this in one of their phases. The real one is distinguishable by its status effects.
294* SetBonus:
295** Set Tier Items (with the exception of certain rings) are part of a special themed set that confers additional stat bonuses to the wearer when at least two pieces are worn. When all pieces are equipped together, the character will transform, adopting a set-specific skin and benefiting fully from the stat bonuses of the set.
296** The aforementioned rings instead offer stat bonuses if equipped alongside other pieces of themed equipment (most of which, with the exception of Agents of Oryx items, are reskinned versions of tiered equipment). Since the latter are Untiered Items, they offer no stat bonuses when worn together without the ring.
297** The three Syndicate rings are Untiered Items and do not provide a set bonus; instead, when equipped alongside a Syndicate weapon, the former empower the latter by providing additional projectiles.
298* ShiftingSandLand: Portions of the world map are this.
299** Ditto with the Tomb of the Ancients. And Katalund.
300* ShoutOut:
301** The Buster Katana is heavily implied to be a replica of its namesake from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''.
302** The premium-only skins are positively dripping with references to characters from other media, of which there are too many to list here.
303** The Karma Orb JokeItem has [[VideoGame/{{Undertale}} Sans]] visible in its reflection. Ironically, a Sans skin does exist, but not for Mystic (it's for the Assassin instead, representing Karmic Retribution.)
304** A DummiedOut UT dagger meant to drop from the Appetizer takes the form of a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhF1VidTWok comically large spoon]] Its FlavorText even reads "Only a spoonful."
305* SituationalSword: What Untiered and Set tiered weapons are supposed to be, an alternate option for when your normal weapon can't get the job done for one reason or another. ''Supposed'' to be- this doesn't always pan out, however.
306** Wand, Sword, and Staff UT items are almost always [[SituationalSword Situational Swords]] that are only useful in a couple of places or specific situations, such as the Demon Blade working very well on low-defense enemies you can sit on top of, the Esben Staff being very useful at hitting enemies around corners, the Conducting Wand working well on single targets, or Tezcacoatl's Tail working well against heavily armored enemies.
307** Bow UT items would play the trope pretty straight, if the standard tiered items didn't play the trope even straighter. Trying to use an Archer or Huntress without a Coral or Doom Bow is an exercise in frustration.
308** Dagger UT items all run along the same lines; the Spirit Dagger and Dirk of Cronus both exchange range for power. The ST Etherite Dagger does the same.
309** While early Katana UT items suffered from severe PowerUpLetdown once, they play it pretty straight- the Doku no Ken sacrifices damage for slightly longer range and DamageOverTime, the Ray Katana is a standard UT power-for-range exchange, the Void Blade deals massive damage if you bait enemies into its projectiles and the Celestial Blade has insane DPS if you're willing to put up with the lower accuracy lack of piercing.
310* SlippySlideyIceWorld: The Ice Cave and Ice Tomb.
311* SmashedEggsHatching: Disturbing the green eggs in a Spider Den causes baby hatchlings to awaken. More dangerous versions of these appear in the Crawling Depths.
312* SplashDamage: Many enemies (and player abilities) utilize thrown grenades and radial "burst" attacks that deal damage to everything in a certain area when they explode. This sometimes loops around to SplashDamageAbuse, especially when they're used to deal damage through impassible terrain.
313* StatGrinding: Done in the form of the various stat potions, which increase a certain stat. Obtaining them involves slaughtering the Gods of the Realm and dungeon bosses, and you'll need every last drop if you want to survive the BigBad and {{Bonus Dungeon}}s.
314* StationaryBoss: Often the case with dungeon and event bosses.
315* StoneWall: Priests. While they bear robes, which give the lowest defensive stat bonuses out of any armor type, the high range on their wands keep them in safety and give them time to dodge attacks. Their signature ability is their Tome, which heals them significantly and instantly, can be used in quick succession, and will heal even more on Priests with a high Wisdom stat. However, with wands' low base damage and Priests' poor max Attack, their rate at slaying bosses is slow, and unmaxed Priests often struggle to compete for Soulbound damage in large groups.
316* SwordBeam: Keeping in with the BulletHell-style of the game, ''everything'' shoots beams, even the melee weapons. It's just that swords and daggers have a small range, while staves and bows and the like have a much longer range.
317* TakeThat:
318** The Golden Archer ST collection from The Machine serves as this from DECA to the bundle of the same name sold during the Kabam era, which consisted entirely of mid-tier Archer equipment, a very weak ring, and a Wine Cellar Incantation for the ludicrous price of 1400 Gold, or about $14. Fittingly, the FlavorText praises the items in the set to high heaven despite them being completely useless.
319** The [[JustForFun/{{Bowsette}} Scalette Paladin]] skin has a few choice words to say about its origin:
320-->Sometimes you go too far. THIS is when you go too far.
321* TemporaryOnlineContent: The Bronze Medal, Silver Medal, Gold Medal and America Ring could only be obtained as prizes of one-time Kabam Guild Events: the former three for placing high in Synchronized Swimming and the final for winning Light Up the Realm. Both of them are one-time events, and it is no longer possible to obtain any of these items.
322* TemptingFate: Oryx often boasts that his minions will protect him, even as they're being killed.
323* ThisCannotBe: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z2ao0raJLY Yelled word for word by Oryx]] when you defeat him in his first incarnation. Variants of this are often used whenever you fell certain bosses.
324* ThrowingYourShieldAlwaysWorks: The Knight's special power is to do this, which normally stuns enemies.
325* ToServeMan: Oryx the Mad God means for the players to feed his minions. Many of the monsters in the Realm also mention eating human meat.
326* TransformationTrinket: The Transformation Potion.
327* TransformationRay: To counter pets' abilities, the "Pet Stasis" effect inflicted by certain bosses disables them by turning them into chickens.
328* TrueFinalBoss: Using a Wine Cellar Incantation to unlock the door that appears after you kill Oryx opens up a BonusDungeon which ends in a harder rematch with the Mad God. This then opens another locked door which needs 3 special Runes to unlock, which in turn leads to a extraordinarily difficult dungeon [[NintendoHard which eats maxed out characters like they're going out of style]], ending in a miniboss fight before a rematch against the souped-up BigBad himself. Bring health potions and lots of them.
329* TurnsRed: Several literal examples, where enemies turn red during their more powerful phases.
330** The Super Sumo engages "super mode", changing appearance and increasing his fire rate when close to death.
331** The [[HairRaisingHare Enraged Bunny]]. It [[IncendiaryExponent SETS ITSELF ON FIRE]] [[KillerRabbit AND ATTACKS]] [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential IF YOU SHOOT IT.]]
332** Ent Ancients, Liches, and Ghost Kings enter a brief evaluation period when first shot, while returning fire weakly. Once this phase is over, they fight using their normal attacks and strategies, but at a stronger or weaker level depending on how much damage they took during evaluation. If an Ent Ancient is hit by a single player with unmaxed stats, it is weaker than Realm Gods and summons worthless minions. If teamed up on by a group of more experienced players with maxed stats, it spams Greater Nature Sprites (stronger than many Realm Gods) that heal the Ancient and spawn Ent Elders.
333** The Crusher Abominations in the Mad Lab, who start out weak but get bigger and deal more damage as they are closer to death.
334** The Mammoth Megamoth is dangerous and fast. When its health gets depleted, it flashes red and becomes a Murderous Megamoth, which is even scarier.
335* UndergroundLevel: Several Dungeons are underground areas.
336* UnderTheSea: Thessal's home in the Ocean Trench dungeon. Same for the Cnidarian Reef.
337* TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: After defeating enough of his guardians, Oryx will prevent anyone from teleporting into the realm. Defeating ALL of the guardians results in him teleporting everyone in the realm at the time to his castle. After defeating Oryx, you can use a Wine Cellar Incantation to unlock the portal to the Wine Cellar, then defeat Oryx again at the Wine Cellar and use the three Oryx Runes to open the way to Oryx's Sanctuary. While the Wine Cellar Incantation (a rare drop from most dungeon bosses) is already a fairly uncommon item by itself, the Oryx Runes are only dropped by the highest-level bosses in the game (the Shield Rune from event and Court of Oryx bosses, the Helmet Rune from the Lost Halls, the Sword Rune from other endgame dungeons), meaning that one needs to run through the game's hardest dungeons at least a few times in order to get to the Sanctuary, where you can ''finally'' put the big guy down once and for all.
338* VideoGameCaringPotential:
339** Players have no way to sell excess items, which often results in higher-leveled players saving and giving them away for low-level characters to use. On the other hand, outright ''asking'' for free items is derided in the community.
340** You can ask the Realm Eye (who's been sealed in the Cursed Library for an indeterminate period of time with no one to talk to, despite existing himself for thousands of years) to talk about himself, a gesture he's visibly touched by.
341* WarmupBoss: Bonegrind the Butcher at the end of the tutorial.
342* WaveMotionGun: Many bosses will fire streams of shots to simulate this effect. The F.E.R.A.L. in High Tech Terror ''actually'' has one that deals massive continuous damage on contact.
343* YetAnotherStupidDeath: There are many, ''many'' ways to die quickly.
344* ZergRush: The "Fame Train", where dozens to hundreds of players gang up to cause as much devastation as humanly possible, can usually be found in the [=EUNorth2=] server.[[note]]It used to be a much more ad-hoc 'everyone in the realm groups up' kind of thing, but has standardized into its current form over time.[[/note]]
345** It also tends to happen once everyone is teleported to Oryx's castle. Seeing as a few of the players present will likely die from a good hit, bunching up and attacking as one is probably their best bet.
346** On occasions, the enemies get in on this as well in "XP storms". It's not so bad when the weaker group with a seemingly strong tendency to do so, the Sandsmen, is doing it; the problem comes when the enemies in the ''Godlands'' figure out this tactic.
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