Characters / Gems of War

A character sheet for Gems of War, including generic troops. They're sorted by the kingdom the game deems them affiliated with, but in fact, it's possible to encounter them elsewhere as well.

Kingdoms

Adana

A city of scholars and technologists.

Sparkgrinder

• Gadgeteer Genius: A gifted inventor, but not very good at controlling his inventions.
• Hands Off My Fluffy!: Sparkgrinder's quests are all about stopping something called Carnex from destroying Adana, but he's shocked at the idea of destroying it. It turns out to be one of his mechanical creations run riot, and he's adamant that he can fix it.
• Mundane Utility: He originally built the Carnex to hunt down cats… because he can't stand cats.
• Summon Bigger Fish: It turns out that Sparkgrinder's plan to stop Carnex (his rogue mechanical construct) is to build "Mega-Carnex", an even more dangerous version. He insists it'll work as planned, this time.

Others

• Alchemy Is Magic: The city is home to a lot of alchemists, some of whom fight you; their special ability, appropriately, transmutes one colour of gem into another and generates gold.
• Porky Pig Pronunciation: The Royal Engineer's Flavor Text is "I'm an Engeneer... Enginere... Enjineer... I'm good with math."
• Steampunk: Adana is more technologically advanced than the other kingdoms, and its units are often mechanical (e.g. the Flame Cannon or the Steam Turret) and/or armed with guns (e.g. the Musketeer).

Blackhawk

Li'l Johnny Bronze

• Abhorrent Admirer: Towards Azura in the Merlantis storyline.
• A Girl in Every Port: Implied with his trouble remembering Marid's mother, although he finally figures out whom that is.
• Hook Hand: It's replacing a hand he lost to the Serpents near Blackhawk.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Ends up the subject of one in the Blackhawk storyline. Somehow, Skullbeard's treasure turned out to be an elaborate prank on Bronze. Left flat broke, he has no choice but to join the Hero.

Others

• Action Girl: Amongst the horde of pirates of Blackhawk, there are also women such as Bonnie Rose and Charlotte the Red.
• Kraken and Leviathan: Well, just the Kraken, which is a Giant Squid. The Leviathan is a massive sea dragon found in Merlantis (whose campaign still has Bronze as one of the main characters).
• Punny Name: The Scurvy Sea Dog is a unit and a Wargare, meaning that his title is literal.

Blighted Lands

A hellish, Daemon-infested realm.

Herald of Chaos

• Black Knight: Has the looks of a demonic knight, but is a good guy at heart
• The Comically Serious: Starts to develop into one thanks to
• Cool Sword: Wields one according to his magic attack.
• Fighting Your Friend: He's mind-controlled by the King of Hell as the penultimate boss.
• Heel–Face Turn: Although initially pretending that the various fights he leads the player to are just "tests", he eventually decides that players deserve to know the truth.
• Noble Demon: A demon knight who's still valiant, noble and ultimately sides with the player.

Others

• Fallen Hero: The Blighted Lands have a way of turning any heroes who go there into twisted monsters. That's the plan for the player as well, although it doesn't turn out like that.
• Incendiary Exponent: Quite a number of troops from the Blighted Lands are on fire. The Hellhound and the Hellcat, for example. It fits the "hell" theme.
• Satan: The King of Hell is the final boss, though as the Herald mentions, he has Resurrective Immortality, and will eventually reform.
• Succubi and Incubi: One of the troops from the Blighted Lands is the Succubus, who has a Kiss of Death ability which drains a target's mana and leaves it vulnerable.

Bright Forest

Prince Ethoras

• Take That, Scrappy!: In-Universe, during the exploration of the Wild Court, the hero ends up using him as a bait to drag out the boss, Wendigo.
• Upper-Class Twit: Ye gods. He seriously believes his beauty and status are paramount beyond all else, and despite the magical greatsword he carries, he expects the Hero to do all the fighting against the Bright Forest bosses. And before that, he genuinely believed that Queen Titania would be swayed by his looks, despite having learned what kind of people the Summer Court were.
• Warrior Prince: For all his faults, he is a warrior.

Other

• Barrier Warrior: The Summer Knight is a unit whose magic gives her Barrier and raises both her attack and armor depending on how many red gems she destroyed: with some luck, she can turn into a Nigh-Invulnerable Stone Wall with an absurdly high attack.
• Boss Rush: Compared to the other realms, you have to fight against several boss opponents, some of them barely related to this place.
• The Fair Folk: The people of the Summer Court, lead by Titania. A few of them are animals, such as the Cu Sith.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Emperor Scorpius was sealed beneath a cavern in the middle of nowhere... until you accidentally break the seal and unleash him on Titania's army.

Broken Spire

A volcanic island ruled by a Lava Wyrm and the ogres who worship her. It's the starting kingdom.

Luther

• Big Damn Heroes: During Dark Song's campaign, he will appear to help you when the Gurakk's kidnapped. He also appears in other campaigns, such as Sin of Maraj.
• The Exile: Luther, the quest-giver for Broken Spire, is an exiled knight out to redeem himself by completing his original job—taking Sheggra's heart as an antidote for the poison Queen Ysabelle is afflicted with.
• It's Personal: How he feels about conquering the Broken Spire.
• Kill It with Fire: After seeing that the Ettins have reanimated his companions as mindless undead, he decides to burn down the keep to destroy their desecrated remains and honor their memory.
• The Leader: Invoked by his skill, which gives a generous boost to all his allies.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He mistakenly believes the seals of the Lords of Sin in Maraj are maintaining a portal. They're actually keeping it sealed, and when he and the Hero break them, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are unleashed.

Others

• Mix-and-Match Critters: The Rhynax is apparently some sort of bull/rhinoceros combo.
• Necromancer: An Ettin Cabal on the island has revived Luther's former men as undead troops.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The boss of the island is a gigantic dragon made of stone and magma named Sheggra.
• Rock Monster: Stone Giants are what they sound like. They carry uprooted trees as clubs, and judging by their icons, hit hard enough to crack the ground.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Ogres wear human skulls on their necklaces, which their card's text notes to be a good way of conveying "Don’t mess with me".

Darkstone

A island of evil knights and slave-lords, corrupted from its noble past by demonic influences.

Dimetraxia

• Our Dragons Are Different: She's a massive female red dragon who breathes fire and is trying to forget about her corrupted family.
• Repressed Memories: She went to Darkstone to try to find someone to do this to herself. Specifically, she's trying to forget about her mate and offspring, who were warped into Fell Dragons by the forces of Chaos. Her mate, by the way, is one of the Blighted Lands bosses, Venbarak.

Others

• Amphibian at Large: Dagon is a unique demon from Darkstone resembling an oversized monstrous toad.
• Battle Thralls: One of the troops associated with Darkstone is the Thrall; they're presumably not happy to be fighting, and their special move actually hurts them (in addition to other effects).
• Cleavage Window: The Sister of Shadows is a cute-looking rogue whose dress has a glaring gap between her corset and her hood, leaving her upper cleavage exposed.
• Deadly Doctor: Magnus, Legendary unit from Darkstone, is dressed like a plague doctor and his magic infects all enemies with poison and illness, becoming even more damaging for every enemy already poisoned or diseased.
• Eldritch Abomination: Psion, the mind-controlling entity behind the King of Darkstone.
• Magic Cauldron: The Hag unit is depicted carrying a sort of mini-cauldron, overflowing with a bubbling, glowing, purple substance.
• No Peripheral Vision: The impracticality of the Dark Master's eye-holes-only helmet is lampshaded by his card's text.

Dhrak-Zum

A distant and icy underground kingdom of Dwarves, at war with monsters emerging from the dephts of the earth.

Gemhammer

• Action Girl: Keghammer's cousin, she's a powerful monster slayer who's eager to fight with the undead and giant monsters.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: She's small and, for dwarven standards, waifish, but she still packs quite a punch.

Others

• An Ice Person: Most of the monsters from here are frost-themed.
• Dug Too Deep: Why there's Glacyon running around and king Bloodhammer is currently a ghoulish wraith.
• Expy: Glacyon, the final boss, is essentially an ice-based counterpart of the Balrog of Moria.
• Night of the Living Mooks: Dhrak-Zum has plenty of undead dwarves, including zombies, ghostly slayers and the Bone Collectors.

Divinion Fields

A wide expanse inhabited mainly by centaurs, who are generally peaceful but do like to hunt.

Atlanta

• Due to the Dead: She isn't pleased to find that the crew who died when her ship was wrecked have been raised as undead, which she considers a desecration.
• In the Hood: Her attire include a cape with a hood, which she wears on always.
• Ms. Fanservice: An attractive redhead with large breasts and clothes showing off a generous amount of skin.
• Pirate Girl: It turns out that she is one, before being shipwrecked in Divinion Fields, or rather a corsair. She doesn't look particularly piratical now, though. She does appear as a boss in Little John Bronze's storyline in Blackhawk, and guides the hero through the Sunken Fleet.

Others

• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: The entire Divinion storyline consist in your hero and Atlanta joining forces to survive the hunt Orion has started against them and eventually kill him.
• Egomaniac Hunter: Orion, leader of the centaurs; this extends to hunting Atlanta, the quest-giver.
• Night of the Living Mooks: Orion will summon the dead to join the Hunt.
• Our Centaurs Are Different: Divinion Fields, as noted, is the land of centaurs. True to common form, they're avid hunters (although most of them aren't depicted using bows. Unlike some depictions, there are female centaurs (the Star Gazer troop).
• Pegasus: One of the non-centaur troops from Divinion Fields is the pegasus. Whether they're intelligent like the centaurs or are simply used by them (albeit not, presumably, as mounts) isn't stated.

Dragon's Claw

The domain of the Dragons.

Visk

• Flaming Sword: His sword is named after fire and when used in his magic attack he can deal further damage and set enemies on fire if they use Yellow Mana.
• The Ingenue: He's easily tricked by Raven into giving him access to his people's eggs and treasures, all while still believing him to be a doctor capable of helping the madness of his people.
• Monster Knight: A Draconian with the Knight type.
• Overly Long Name: His full name is Viskandarius-y-Amon.
• Terrible Judge Of Character: He thinks that Raven is just trying to help him.
• Undying Loyalty: Subverted, while he's loyal to his people and the Dragon Soul, he ultimately decides that slaying his god is the only way to stop the madness infecting his people.

Others

• Boss Rush: Halfway through the story mission you must fight off a huge number of unique dragons, such as Sheggra, Emperyna and Borealis.
• Draconic Humanoid: The Draconians seems to be a whole race of this. They also avert Non-Mammal Mammaries as the few female draconians are almost identical to males.
• Mad God: The Dragon Soul is the god of Dragon's Claw, but has gone insane and said madness is spreading to the inhabitants.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The Claw includes normal dragons, Draconians and other strage creatures such as the Dragotaur and the Droggo (a dog-like dragon beast).

Drifting Sands

A ruined kingdom in the desert.

Marid

• Big Brother Instinct: He still goes after Tyri when she's swallowed by the Great Maw, or when she charges through the Deep Hive.
• Sibling Rivalry: Has some of this going on with Tyri (his sister met in Zhul'Kari). He sees himself as the responsible side of a Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling situation (and could certainly be argued to be right).

Others

• "Arabian Nights" Days: The general theme of the kingdom, shown in particular by the Djinn and Ifrit units.
• Cute Monster Girl: The Djinn who looks like a human female with an electric-blue body and Fog Feet.
• Fog Feet: The Djinn unit with her bottom half ending in some fog like thing, as seen in the picture.
• Giant Flyer: In keeping with the theme, the Roc (out of Middle Eastern folklore) is found as a troop.
• Sand Is Water: One of the troops found in this kingdom is the Sand Shark.
• Sand Worm: The Great Maw, which may well be inspired by that of Dune. (The card text is "Arrakis called. It wants its worm back.")

Forest of Thorns

A woodland area inhabited by elves and other nature-y beings.

Rowanne

• Find the Cure!: The bulk of the Forest of Thorns quest-line involves Rowanne's attempts to find a cure to the corruption there. It also involves fighting off elves who think looking for a cure is a dead end.
• Hands Off My Fluffy!: Rowanne wants to cure Gloom Leaf, the corrupted treant. The elves, on the other hand, think he needs destroying, which leads to conflict.
• My God, What Have I Done?: It turns out that Gloom Leaf's corruption was an accidental result of Rowanne's meddling; she wanted to change his mind about something and tried to use magic.
• Plant Person: Rowanne is part-way to being a tree, but is considerably more human-like than the treants. (On the other hand, she's more tree-like than the standard Dryad troop, who seem to have skin.)
• Reverse Shrapnel: Rowanne's magic seemingly weaponizes her bark to shoot out a volley of bullet-like splinters. The higher her armour, the better the damage.

Others

• Garden Garment: Dryads "wear" leaves. The text for their card wonders what they do in autumn.
• Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: The card for Owlbears says that the question of how they arose "boggles the mind".
• Our Elves Are Different: The elves of the Forest of Thorns, being close to nature and suchlike. They're antagonists in the relevant quest-line, since they want to end the main antagonist's threat by killing him rather than curing him (as the quest-giver wants).
• Treants: One of the troops associated with the Forest of Thorns is the Treant, a walking, talking tree. One of them is the main antagonist of the Forest of Thorns quest line, having been corrupted.
• Tree Top Town: The Forest of Thorns is supposed to contain these, although we don't actually see them in the course of gameplay.
• You Wanna Get Sued?: The fact that the Glade Warden troop is pretty clearly Orlando Bloom's Legolas is lampshaded by the card text this way.

Glacial Peaks

A frozen, Fey-inhabited land ruled by the Winter Queen.

Tassarion

• The Archmage: The most powerful wizard the elves has, and his one-shot magic greatly boosts his allies' magic. He's also the only elf with a sizeable beard.
• Break the Haughty: Upon realizing that the spell he has just learnt broke the barrier between the worlds and allowed the invasion of the Infernal King, Tassarion finally realizes the full extent of his folly.
• Insufferable Genius: Much to Emperina's discomfort, he's full of himself and contemptuous.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He genuinely regrets putting you into danger for dabbling with the glacial fairy folk.

Others

• An Ice Person: Mab, the Winter Queen, is naturally this. The Snow Sprite qualifies as well.
• Expy: Of Maleficent: she's a cold fairy monarch whose pet raven can turn into a dragon. Unlike Maleficent, though, she's an antagonist, albeit a Well-Intentioned Extremist (she doesn't want to risk a repeat of the spell that let the Infernal King into Krystala).
• The Dragon: Her pet raven is actually the monstrous Borealis.
• Fearsome Critters of American Folklore: The Jackelope troop is, naturally, based on the mythical jackalope (with a slight spelling difference).
• Trial by Combat: In the campaign, the Fairies try to execute your party by having them fight a lot of troops topped by Mab and Borealis. When you defeat them, they have no choice but to let you go.

Ghulvania

A dark, gloomy country ruled by tyrannical vampires.

Avina

• Enemy Mine: Averted, possibly by Idiot Ball: while you run across inquisitors from Whitehelm fighting the undead, Avina asks you to take them out so that they won't create much confusion. The option of explaining herself and joining forces is never offered. On the other hand, considering that the Zealots think the entire Ghulvanian populace is tainted (and, in a sense, they're not wrong)...
• My Greatest Failure: She was one of the children offered as sacrifices to the Purple Bat, but she was able to escape, at the cost of leaving all the others behind.
• Torches and Pitchforks: Players first meet Avina when she's being chased by an angry mob of citizens.
• Vampire Hunter: Avina is trying to oppose the vampire lords who rule Ghulvania, but isn't getting much local support (since the villages fear retaliation).
• Wooden Stake: Her spell, which deals a lot of damage and twice as much against the undead.

Others

• Bat Out of Hell: The Purple Bat, a monstrous demonic entity of a cult terrorizing Ghulvania, as well as the Final Boss.
• Brain Food : Zombies have this as their special attack, Eat Brains: not only it does heal them but increases a random skill (suggesting that they've absorbed something from the brains' owners).
• Flesh Golem: One of the troops associated with Ghulvania; three limbs, one-and-a-half heads, and surplus mouths.
• Monster Progenitor: The Purple Bat is this to the entire Vampire clan.
• Our Banshees Are Louder: The Banshee troop has Scream as a special attack which does direct damage.
• Our Vampires Are Different: They range from humanoid to monstrous Nosferatu expies to sexy vampiresses to chiropteric humanoids. Interestingly enough, their ancestor is the Purple Bat.
• The Undead: Troops associated with Ghulvania include Ghouls, Zombies, and skeletal Grave Knights.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Nosferatu's magic turns him into either a Bat Swarm or into a Shadow Wolf. The magic of both creatures can turn them back into Nosferatu, which means that you have three troops at the price of one. ^note That being said, you must power them all up so to not fall behind when the troops transform.

Grosh-Nak

A ruined kingdom whose people were transformed into orcs.

Dark Song

• Amazonian Beauty: Despite being an Orc, she's rather attractive if muscular.
• Badass in Distress: You encounter her on the run from an Orcish warlord who wants to forcibly marry her and is sending wave after wave of troops to capture her. Later on, she's captured by Grok'Nar's minions and you must crash the wedding party to save her.
• Blood Knight: She states that she loves fighting. Her way to get rid of her Stalker with a Crush is beating up his minions and burning their bases to the ground.
• Irisless Eye Mask Of Mystery: Her eyes glow blue through the holes of her mask.
• Ms. Fanservice: Not only is she quite attractive in spite of being a Gurakk, but this is a point In-Universe, as Grok'Nar's in love with her and wants to make her his bride.
• Underboobs: Her outfit shows the lower side of her breasts.

Others

• And Now You Must Marry Me: Grok'Nar's entire motivation is to forcibly marry Dark Song, even to the point of force-feeding her a Love Potion to make her love him.
• Cyclops: One of the troops associated with Grosh-Nak. The depth-perception problem is lampshaded by their card.
• Full-Boar Action: Grosh-Nak includes armored War Boars and the dreaded, tusk-filled Dire Boar. Both have a line-destroying attack which deals extra damage to the first enemy troops.
• Not Good with Rejection: You and Dark Song bring down a whole garrison and set it ablaze. Grok'Nar thinks it must be a love message to him.
• Was Once a Man: The orcs of Grosh-Nak were once... well, not human, but something less violent and nasty than orcs. Specifically, Gurakk, a playable race.

Hellcrag

A lost kingdom near the Blighted Lands. Formerly called Zhand, its entire population was turned to stone by a curse in order to stop the Daemons of the Blight from taking over.

Herald of Torpor

• Ambiguously Evil: The Herald of Chaos warns you not to trust him, but he's not really that much more deceptive than any of the other Heralds.
• The Atoner: After you complete your quest with him, he chooses to stay on to make up for his past misdeeds.

Others

• Taken for Granite: When the Blight came, the three Naga who ruled over Zhand - Medusa, Euryale, and Stheno - cast a curse that turned every living thing in the kingdom to stone.

Karakoth

A barren land full of evil warlocks and ruins.

Ferit

• Amnesiac Dissonance: When Ferit finds out that he was once one of the slave-keeping, horror-summoning warlocks he now fights, he's not at all pleased.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: On top of his amnesia, Ferit isn't quite all sane, hearing things which aren't really there. It turns out that these are echoes of what he used to know.
• Identity Amnesia: Ferit doesn't know his own background, but hears "whispers" which are probably remnants of his lost memories.
• Slave Liberation: Ferit may not quite know who he is or what the situation is, but he knows that slavery must be opposed.
• Summoning Ritual: The thing which Ferit vaguely knows must be stopped turns out to be an attempt to raise Abhorath, an evil god-like thing.
• Tastes Like Purple: He can feel premonitions in the surrounding environment... through unusually employed senses... such as "tasting the wind" or "smelling the stones" and so on.

Others

• Attack of the Monster Appendage: The Wall of Tentacles is a barrage of several blue tentacles coming from below the ground. According to the descriptor it's part Demon and part Construct.
• Blob Monster: The betentacled Green Slime and the Gelatinous Cube both come from Karakoth.
• Eldritch Abomination: Several of them lie dormant under Karakoth, and a rather big one called Abhorath is the Final Boss.
• Evil Sorcerer: Karakoth is lousy with them. They have towers all over the place, and use them as bases for excavating ancient ruins full of things better left undisturbed.
• Expy: The Void Portal is an Oblivion Gate, right down to the artwork and suspiciously similar name.
• Golem: One of the troops associated with Karakoth, though these ones are decidedly rocky rather than clay-y.
• Planet Eater: Abhorath, if his special skill "World Eater" is anything to go by.
• Sinister Scythe: Sorcerers uses one as their weapon of choice to channel spells. True to that, Necromancer and Sorcerers are advantaged with Scythes.

Khaziel

An underground kingdom of the dwarves.

Emperina

• Breath Weapon: Subverted, her breath has healing powers.
• Dragon Hoard: Emperina has lost one of these to the dwarves. The player is recruited to help recover it (which isn't usually the side of the equation that protagonists are on).
• Volleying Insults: She also cannot stand Tassarion being an insufferable racist during her permanence in Glacial Peaks.

Others

• Dig Attack: The Rock Worm troop (which seems to be a Sand Worm, except for rock) has Burrow as its special attack, which allows it to attack the rearmost enemy of the other side.
• Dug Too Deep: Leave it to the Dwarves to being mesmerized into digging a hole and releasing a demonic god-tier Elemental Embodiment of magma and rock.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: The dwarven troops fit the typical image of fantasy dwarves exactly — bearded, grumpy, interested in subterranean wealth acquisition, technologically inclined.
• This Is a Drill: The Deep Borer troop has a pair of drills at the end of each limb, and its special attack is to use them.

Khetar

A fallen kingdom full of undead.

Alastair

• The Paladin: He is first encountered guarding the borders of Khetar, trying to prevent anyone from getting in.
• Stone Wall: His magic will consume purple gems to both give himself Barrier (which prevents damage dealt to him from the next source) and increase the armor of all his allies.
• Tomato in the Mirror: He's undead too. However, his Paladin oaths won out, keeping him sane and relatively on-mission even when his soul was ripped from his body.

Others

• Dracolich: One of the troops associated with Khetar is the Bone Dragon, which is exactly what it sounds like.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Khetar has a heavy Ancient Egyptian flavor to it
• The Undead: The Skeleton, Revenant, Wight, and Bone Dragon troops, naturally.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: The Soul Master is collecting the souls of the dead of Khetar for his plans.

Leonis Empire

A desert empire with a religious bent.

Amira

• Fantastic Foxes: She's a fox-woman belonging to the Wargare race.
• Hitman with a Heart: Near the end, she confesses that she was hired to assassinate Emperor Khoresh, but after seeing how brutal and wrong the rebels are, she opts for faking his death and letting him escape.

Others

• Horse of a Different Color: The Lion Prince troop rides giant, armoured lions. Emperor Khoresh rides an even bigger, more ferocious monster.
• Kukris Are Kool: If "kukri" can be extended as far as the Egyptian khopesh, then the Khopeshi troop counts. Its special ability makes use of the hook to "pull" other troops (rearranging the enemy's team).
• Ms. Fanservice: The Devoted unit: a beautiful woman with large breasts clothed in a skimpy outfit composed of cloth straps and golden plates. Ditto for the rarer Divine Ishbaala.
• Our Manticores Are Spinier: The Manticore is a troop for the Leonis Empire. It's the kind with bat-wings, and also has the "melodic voice" aspect found in some of the stories (since its special ability is a song attack). A later add on includes the Manticore Puppies and the Manticore Guardian, a massive armored Manticore which counts as a Monster/Knight creature.
• Religion of Evil: Zigzagged, the followers of Orpheus have turned against Khoresh and have sided with the rebellion, but it's unknown why they're doing that.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: A violent riot is taking place in Leonis, though ultimately the Emperor is a fair ruler and the rebels are the bad guys.

Maugrim Woods

A cold forested area inhabited by wolf-people.

Scarlett

• Action Girl: One that looks more like a melee fighter, thanks to her sword, shield, and armor.
• Enemy Mine: In the Urskaya campaign, she joins forces with Baba Yaga against the enemies.
• Little Red Fighting Hood: The plotline of Maugrim Woods references the story of Little Red Riding Hood; the quest-giver is a young woman named Scarlett (complete with red hooded cloak) in a land of wolf-people.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In the Werewoods, she initially thinks that Torben and his werebeasts are evil or corrupted by a magic force... but upon realizing that this wasn't the case she understands that she's the assaulter and her order was moved by petty prejudism. Even if she honor her orders by defeating Torben, she swears to put an end to these practices when she becomes the new leader.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Upon realizing that the Wargare sacrificed her grandmother to summon Cerberus, she decides to make them pay and send the beast back to Hell.
  • Deconstructed in the Werewoods, where she initially attacks the werebeasts because of her order's command and her grandmother's vengeance, but ultimately realizes that the assault was actually unprovoked.
• Sinister Scimitar: Averted, she's part of an order hunting evil beasts and monsters.

Others

• Breath Weapon: Cockatrices have a breath attack. ^note In mythology, they usually have a Deadly Gaze instead, but not always.
• Dire Beast: The Dire Wolf is, as per its card, "like a wolf, only more dire". They're distinct from the wolf-people who live in the same area.
• Expy: The Forest Guardian is a rather blatant expy of the Spirit of the Forest from Princess Mononoke, complete with an attack that spreads both life gems and skull gems at the same time, much like the Spirit's footsteps in the film spread both plant growth and rot.
• Hellhound: Cerberus, the demonic entity worshipped by the Wargare. There are also the Warg, skinless demonic-looking wolves.
• Wolf Man: The population of Maugrim Woods seems to be mainly wolf-people (called Wargare).
• Bears Are Bad News: One exception to the wolf theme is the Barbearius troop, which (as you'd expect from the name) is bear-based.

Merlantis

The kingdom under the waves, which few people from the surface can reach.

Azura

• Curse: Her spell and traits invoke this.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: She's rather fish-like, covered in scales and with no hair, but still attractive enough for Bronze to hit on her, much to her disgust.
• Mundane Utility: Teaches your character the secrets of being a Tidemaster... so that they can use their newfound powers to send Bronze far away with it.
• What the Hell, Hero?: She asked the heroes to help her seal the Leviathan. She's less than pleased to learn that Bronze has released the beast just so that he could defeat it and hit on her.

Others

• Giant Enemy Crab: Gigantic crustaceans are present as troops, including a mantis shrimp.
• Kraken and Leviathan: Leviathan is a Merman/Dragon hybrid and the boss of Merlantis.
• Lord of the Ocean: Undine, the king of the merpeople.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: Most of them are monstrous-looking and fish like, even the females.
• Sea Monster: Most of the troops which aren't mermen or crabs are this.
• Shark Man: The Mershark, a troop which is also found in the Underworld counterpart of Merlantis, the Sea of Sorrow.

Mist of Scales

A swamp inhabited by Nagas and other venomous things.

Raven

• Bad Liar: Initially, he's not obviously terrible. But since the first thing that happens in each dialogue after the first is admitting to the lie from the last dialogue, he quickly becomes impossible to take seriously.
• Devious Daggers: He wields curved daggers in combat and is an assassin. No wait, rogue. Both, possibly.
• In the Hood: To add to his untrustworthy stranger looks, he wears a hood.
• Kick the Dog: During the Dragon's Claw storyline, he pretty much tricks a trusting Visk into giving him Dragon Eggs and other important ingredients under the pretense of curing his people of their madness. He does it again in the Fell Roost storyline, this time under the pretense of "helping" Nocturnia and the Fell Dragons (who really just want to be left alone).
• Mr. Vice Guy: He's quite greedy and ready to abuse Visk's naïveté to steal Dragon Eggs and possibly other treasures.
• Running Gag: Him making up a story on the moment when he speaks to you, only to later contradict himself and reveal that he lied. Or had he?

Others

• Charm Person: The Lamia troop has this as her special attack; it compels one enemy troop to make a single attack on his/her neighboring troops.
• Deadly Gas: Venoxia has a Breath Weapon which uses this, doing damage to all enemies regardless of armour.
• Gorgeous Gorgon: The mythic unit Euryale is a green-skinned, buxom woman with snake-like hair and wings made of bones.
• Kiss of Death: Viper's magic implies this, and she's also depicted with prominent black lips.
• Man-Eating Plant: The Swamplash troop is an unpleasant-looking mass of twisting tendrils that form a sort of mouth, wrapped in giant petals.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Many of the enemies in the Mist of Scales are reptilian people; the Lamia and Poison Master are Snake People, while the Scale Guard seems to be Lizard Folk, and Algorak the Slayer is a bona-fide crocodile man.
• Snakes Are Sexy: Averted with male Naga, though some of the female Naga tend to have more attractive, human-like featureres and Non-Mammal Mammaries, such as Marilith, Viper, and Vassara.

Mydnight

A lost kingdom cursed to fade in and out of the mortal realm. Its inhabitants are a mixture of demons, undead, and fey.

Feyr

• I Owe You My Life: After the player completes the quest and takes down the Queen of Mydnight, Feyr pledges to join their quest as a way to repay them.

Other

• God Save Us from the Queen!: The Queen of Mydnight rules over it with an iron fistm and her arrogance is what led to the kingdom being cursed in the first place.
• Vanishing Village: When first encountered, Mydnight is under a curse that causes it to vanish in and out of the mortal plane every few centuries. After Khronos is defeated, the intervals shorten to every few days. After the queen is overthrown, Mydnight finally settles in the region of Geheron, east of Zhul'Kari

Pan's Vale

A land of satyrs and nymphs, generally concerned with their own entertainment.

Elwyn

• Dreadful Musician: His music is apparently bad enough to cause entire villages of satyrs to attack him out of the blue. Even his magic involves highly damaging music.
• Hidden Depths: He knows quite a lot of lore concerning the Stonesong Eyrie.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he does tell you to pretty much raid the Vale just so he can find inspiration for a song, he eventually realizes that something's amiss and helps you killing the Silent One.
• Wandering Minstrel: Elwyn is a musician and poet, although he isn't much appreciated in this capacity.

Others

• Dumb Struck: The special attack of the Silent One is to apply the Silence effect to all enemies — but also himself.
• Fauns and Satyrs: Pan's Vale is home to them (as befits a place named after the Greek god Pan), and some of the troops connected with it reflect this.
• In the Hood: The Silent One's face is completely obscured by a hood.
• Meaningful Name: The Silent One. Lampshaded by his flavour text, which reads: "...."
• Our Sirens Are Different: The Siren troop is depicted as a winged humanoid and has Lure as its special ability, damaging a selected target.

Pridelands

A savannah-like area home to tribes of lion-people and similar.

Finley

• All for Nothing: Ultimately, his caravan fails because the Behemoth devoured the spices he was transporting.
• Intrepid Merchant: Finley is found trying to cross the Pridelands with a caravan, and needs an escort.
• Nice Guy: Compared to most of the other heroes, Finley is straightforward and honest, and the only thing he neglects to mention is that he's been paid by a moneylender (who sends his thugs after him when he thinks that he lost the cargo).
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He couldn't imagine that the rare elven spices he was carrying would be so good they'd awaken the Behemoth from his years-long slumber.

Others

• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Behemoth, the boss of the area, is a colossal monster who lives in the plains.
• Cat Folk: The inhabitants of the Pridelands are often some sort of feline/humanoid combination known as Raksha; the Pride Hunter and Rex Warrior are lion-esque, while the Shadow Hunter is black-panther-esque. (There are also sabertooth lions, but they're just that, not cat folk.)

Shetang

A montainous kingdom resembling the far East inhabitated by wildfolk and winged Celestial Elves.

Penglong

• All-Powerful Bystander: To the Sky Elves. As the quest goes on he clarifes he stopped trying to help the elves because they refused to listen to what he had to say..
• Dragons Are Divine: He has both the Dragon and the Divine types.
• The Four Gods: On your quest to help the Winged Elves, you have to visit Hermits related to three of the Chinese Four Gods save for the eastern Sage... who's really Peng Long, the Azure Dragon.
• Hermit Guru: Implied, but now he's traveling with you and had has no more advice to give to the Elves.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The only clearly Eastern Dragon in the game.

Others

• Break the Haughty: The Celestial Elves's hunger for magic is apparently corrupting their lives (their unique trait Ascension makes them trade 2 life points for magic whenever they put 4 or more gems together), but they cannot see a way out without renouncing their quest for more magic and are trying to get an answer from Penglong.
  • It's eventually revealed that the Sky Elves' issue is twofold: The danger from the demons and their own arrogance, which not only increases their vulnerability to the demon threat, but increases the chances ascencion will turn them into creatures like Yao Guai. Penglong thinks having a human (the player) defeat the corruption will give them humility needed to avoid the corruption themselves, going forward.
• Monkey King Lite: The Monkey Disciple. The myth unit Tien Yi is closer to the real deal.
• Our Elves Are Different: Celestial Elves have wings and a great aptitude to magic, so much that their unique trait sacrifices life for magic, but this apparently is driving their race to an early demise.
• Town with a Dark Secret: The elves can reach new peaks of magic... but they don't know that this magic is attracting demons who are more than happy to drain it and corrupt the Celestial Elves into monsters. Once you defeat the demons, it's implied by Penglong that the Elves may recover.
• Was Once a Man: The final boss Yao Guai was a Celestial Elf whose quest for more magic turned him into a fiery oni-like demon.
• Winged Humanoid: All celestial Elves have massive feathery wings.
• Wutai: Essentially Krystara's equivalent of ancient China.

Silverglade

Princess Elspeth

• Lack of Empathy: Over the course of her adventure she has you kill Naga for their skin, enslave Raksha and Wargare, try to use Centaurs to draw her carriage and is completely insensitive to your trouble with her own guards, came to bring her home.
• Lady and Knight: Cruelly invoked; her magic allows her to sacrifice an ally and summon a random Knight to her side.
• Upper-Class Twit: It must run in the Silverglade royal bloodline, since that seems to be Ethoras's house (his dragon ally Krystenax is associated with Silverglade).
• Valley Girl: Has the mannerism and speech of one.

Others

• Our Dragons Are Different: Krystenax is the dragon protecting the Royal family and is made of crystals.
• Ms. Fanservice: Several female units from Silverglade are drop-dead gorgeus, such as the Enchantress.
• Unicorn: Silverglade has unicorns as mystic/beast troops, as well as black unicorns, able to curse their enemies.

Sins of Maraj

A forgotten and demonic land where demons based on the Seven Deadly Sins reside. There's no hero to unlock, but Luther comes with you.

Others

• Black Swords Are Better: Soldier of Wrath wields a massive black sword embedded with skulls which, in his magic, allows him to perform an Armor-Piercing Attack.
• Burning with Anger: Wrath is partly fiery and his magic makes all allies furious and burn all enemies.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Lust is fought early on before taking the last Four Sins, but she re-appears with a proper boss introduction right before you face Pride.
• Eating the Enemy: Gluttony's magic has a chance to devour an enemy.
• Distaff Counterpart: The Queen of Sin to the Infernal King.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: According to the story, Scorpius was the Emperor of Maraj before its fall during the war against The Fair Folk of Bright Forest, but Scorpius himself isn't a troop from the Sins, but from Drifting Sands.
• Gender Bender: Lust's magic has a chance of transforming enemies into either Incubus or Succubus, which may result in this or a standard boring Forced Transformation.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Envy, whose magic is stronger if there are enemies with full health or mana. The magic shares the same name as the trope.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: According to the chronicles, Maraj was once a huge empire which ruled over the entire southern continent, except for Zhul'Kari. Then, continuous exposure to Gluttony, Pride, and Greed spawned a war against the Fairy Folk — a war which resulted in the fall of the Empire, which is now a mass of ruins and wastelands.
• Mana Drain: Sloth's magic does this to everyone.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: As expected Lust's outfit has a plunging neckline that reaches her navel, to better to show off her endowments.
• Our Demons Are Different: Unlike the ones from the Blighted Lands, these demons aren't part of the Legions of Hell.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Each of the Sin Lords carries a seal: as long as they're intact, the Underworld is kept shut and the Four Horsemen are locked away within.
• Seven Deadly Sins: There are seven demons representing and named after the sins (in order of power/rarity, Sloth, Greed, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Wrath, and Pride), plus another set of sin-related, more specific demons (such as the Sybil of Lust or the Soldier of Wrath).
• Slouch of Villainy: Sloth is a skeletal, black-robed demon slouched on a stone throne.
• Villainous Glutton: Gluttony, as expected, is a massive bloated demon with a gargantuan maw.

Stormheim

A cold, mountainous place with Norse-inspired giants.

Keghammer

• Blood Knight: Really enjoys beating the tar out of Giants.
• Boisterous Bruiser: He rushes into battle with no fear for his death.
• Expy: Of Trollslayers from Warhammer.
• Not Quite Dead: Parodied, he believed he was wounded to death and even asks you to fight off the Valkyries here to reclaim his body... then he realizes that he wasn't wounded, his booze flask was broken.

Others

• An Ice Person: The Ice Witch troop is covered with icicles and has a special ability called Aura of Ice.
• Our Giants Are Bigger: Stormheim features Frost Giants as a general troop. There's also Jarl Firemantle, a fire giant. Both carry large axes.
• Valkyries: One of the troops connected with Stormheim, in keeping with its Norse theme, are Valkyries — although these ones are depicted with actual wings, which they didn't traditionally have.

Suncrest

The kingdom of the Stryx.

Tezca

• Blatant Lies: You first meet her as she's being attacked by a patrol of Stryxes and needs rescuing. Once you defeat her attackers, she claims she had everything under control and you got the wrong impression.
• Break the Haughty: Her entire motivation for fighting Garuda, humiliating him, and defiling the Stryx's temple? She thinks that he's overly arrogant and that it is her duty to put an end to that. She also mentions that she'll be following the player in case they become too full of themself.
• Little Bit Beastly: She's essentially a human woman with prominent bunny ears.
• Moral Myopia: She seems to despise arrogance and wants to punish Garuda for this. Yet, apparently nobody asked her and her actions end up damaging the whole Stryx race. She's also pretty much making you do all the work and protect her.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: In the class mission, she has you learn Storm magic to fry another Stryx noble, and only then she tells you that she saw him using his thunder magic to harass some centaurs.

Others

• Awesome Ego: In-Universe, Emperor Garuda claims to be omniscient and undefeated. You have to deflate his ego by using a silly riddle for the first boast and by kicking his ass for the latter.
• Bird People: Stryxes are humanoid bird people with varied appearences, looking like birds of prey, owls or herons.
• God-Emperor: Garuda has this title and quite an ego.
• Harping on About Harpies: Harpies are among the denizes of Suncrest, especially its Underworld counterpart, the Eagles's Nest, where their queen appears as a boss.
• Mayincatec: The buildings have a mesoamerican look and some troops include the literal, heart-ripping Jaguar Warrior.
• Morton's Fork: You put Garuda into one to defuse the notion that he knows everything by asking him "What is the only thing Garuda won't say?". The only possible answer apparently is "I don't know", which Tezca intends the other Stryx in earshot to interpret as proof that he's not omniscient.
• Shock and Awe: Many of the Stryx employ lightning and can summon "Storms", turns during which gems of a certain color drop more frequently.

Sword's Edge

A feudal kingdom full of knights.

Tau

• Blood Knight: He's come to Sword's Edge to test his skill against all sorts of enemies and monsters.
• Buffy Speak: Tend to substitute proper nouns with "[descriptor]+things".
• Cat Folk: Tau is a lion-person, presumably having come from the Pridelands next door to the kingdom in which he's found. He's certainly proud and combative, fitting the image.
• Dumb Muscle: He's not the smartest Raksha around, and finds proper nouns to be confusing and annoying.

Others

• Barrier Warrior: The Knight Captain and Sir Cygnea (both Action Girl) can raise a Barrier to protect others/themselves and rise the armor, making them perfect tanks.
• Cool Sword: Being full of knights, most of them have their own unique swords.
• Giant Flyer: Griffin Knights ride what they're named after, and have a special attack called Death Dive.
• Jousting Lance: The Lance Knight, as its name would indicate, carries one of these.
• Kingdom With a Dark Secret: While Sword's Edge is a kingdom of righteous knights and paladins, the story of Tau reveals that apparently the Knights Coronet come from the aura created by the eldritch Shadow Dragon. Back in the Broken Spire storyline, Luther revealed that the Knights Coronet he brought with him attacked the Dragon Knights while they tried to reach Sheggra—which in light of everything suggests that they poisoned Queen Ysabelle. The Crypt Keepers storyline also reveals that one of their kings betrayed Lady Moranna, one of their best knights, despite the fact that she saved them from Ghulvania.
• Magic Knight: The Knights Coronet, in addition to being tough-looking armoured figures, have an aura of magic around them.
• Innate Night Vision: Wolf Knights have it, according to their card, although the absence of a day/night mechanic in the game means that it's only interesting as background information.

Urskaya

A frigid, mountainous kingdom inhabited by sentient bears.

Baba Yaga

• The Chessmaster: She was the one who caused the dream that sent the Hero to Urskaya in the first place, all to dispatch King Mikhail.
• Fantastic Racism: She ultimately believes that the Urskaya people, especially under King Mikhail, are simply too brutal and dangerous to interact with other species and should be confined within their own realm.

Others

• Bears Are Bad News: Urska are a race of bear people. The ones in Shentang are more panda-like.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: King Mikhail, leader of the Urskaya, wears a suit of golden armor.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Urskaya is heavily inspired by Russian and Slavic folklore, with the kingdoms non-Urska inhabitants being creatures like the vodyanoy, the domovoi, and Baba Yaga. The Urska also have Russian or Slavic names like Mikhail and Vlasta.

Whitehelm

A land of temples, paladins, and clerics (plus at least one angry vampire).

Sapphira

• And Now You Must Marry Me: It turns out that Moloch, the daemon who is mind-controlling the authorities in Whitehelm, wants Sapphira to be this. The exact reasons aren't explained, but she's certainly not interested (especially after he drove the whole city to commit Van Helsing Hate Crimes on her).
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In the penultimate mission, she succumbs to Moloch's call and you're forced to beat the spell out of her.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: According to Sapphira, vampires have lived peacefully in Whitehelm for years, and it's only recently that she has come under attack by religious authorities. If she was once "friendly", though, she's not now.
• Hot-Blooded: Sapphira, the local quest-giver, is rather impulsive and reckless; after she was attacked by religious warriors, her response was to immediately attack the nearest town and burn down its temple, ignoring both short-term outnumbered-ness and long-term consequences. (As her card's text says: "Not all vampires are evil, some are just crazy.")
• The Nose Knows: At one point, Sapphira tracks down the next set of enemies by following blood, which she can do as a vampire.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Sapphira, a vampire aristocrat in Whitehelm, was attacked by the religious authorities despite traditionally being at peace with them, and doesn't know what has changed. She's quite pissed off, and isn't the type to take it quietly; her retaliation involves fighting large numbers of holy warriors and burning down a temple. (She does eventually accept arrest, but un-accepts it when a proper trial isn't forthcoming.)
• Trial by Combat: When the authorities in Whitehelm won't give her a proper trial (for whatever it is she's even accused of — they were slow in saying), she insists on trial by combat instead. The authorities undermine even this by insisting that it be in daylight (and she's a vampire).
• Van Helsing Hate Crimes: The quest-giver for Whitehelm is Sapphira, a vampire noblewoman. She says that vampires have traditionally lived in peace with other residents of Whitehelm, and is outraged (and vengeful) that the religious authorities are trying to do away with her. It's actually not because she's a vampire; it's because they're under demonic influence.
• Weakened by the Light: When Sapphira insists on Trial by Combat (having been refused a proper trial), her accusers insist that it be fought in broad daylight. Since she's a vampire, this is a problem for her.
• Wrongful Accusation Insurance: Averted. Sapphira's resistance to being "arrested" by the Whitehelm authorities is proven legitimate (since they were under demonic possession), but because she's not the type not to pull punches when hitting back, her resistance involved killing a lot of paladins and priestesses, plus burning down a temple just to piss them off. As such, she acknowledges that she's still going to be rather unpopular for a while, and she joins the player's army rather than stay in Whitehelm.

Others

• Blindfolded Vision: The priestesses of Whitehelm wear blindfolds, but can still go into battle.
• Church Militant: Several units include clergymen and women such as the Inquisitor, the Bishop, War Clerics, Priestesses and even Nuns.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Whitehelm's Templar and Paladin troops fit this archetype, being good-aligned religious crusaders.
• Knight Templar: Aside from the literal templars, soldiers from Whitehelm play this role during the Ghulvania main mission, where they think that the entire population of Ghulvania is tainted, even the peasants (who are just too afraid of the Vampire Lords to oppose them).
• Living Statue: One of the troops from Whitehelm is the Archon Statue, an animate statue of an angel-like being with a big sword.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Whitehelm's Sacred Guardians are lions with wings.
• The Paladin: One of Whitehelm's troops, and explicitly dedicated to good. However, they appear as opponents in the Whitehelm questline, being sent to arrest Sapphira thanks to being under demonic possession.
• Physical God: The Avatar of Gaard is from this kingdom, resembling a towering human clad head to toe in a shiny white armor.
• Religion is Magic: The priestesses of Whitehelm have healing and protective magic.
• Winged Humanoid: Most divine units from Whitehelm take the form of beautiful, winged women.

Wild Plains

An open area inhabited mainly by tribes of shamanistic minotaurs.

Sunweaver

• Amazing Technicolor Population: Possibly on account of her undeath, she has furless green skin.
• Barred from the Afterlife: If she cannot recount the story of how she fell in battle, she'll be stuck as a mindless ghost forever.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: She's a female minotaur for once, and she's looking for the thing that killed her in combat.
• Unfinished Business: She cannot pass on because even if she died in combat, she didn't learn the identity of whatever killed her. Before she can be laid to rest, she must learn the identity of her killer, the Hydra.

Others

• Hydra Problem: There's a Hydra troop, and its famous feature is represented in its special attack; the base damage is boosted by however much damage to its health the troop has taken, reflecting the extra heads which the Hydra now has. The Hydra doesn't actually gain any extra health to represent the increased difficulty in killing it, however.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: Wild Plains is home to minotaur, specifically the Tauros and Soothsayer troops.
• Witch Doctor: The minotaurs are noted for their shamanistic beliefs, and the Soothsayer troop can use Soul Power magic.

Zaejin

A stretch of coast along which chaotic, ramshackle goblin towns are perched.

Brian the Lucky

• The Alcoholic: He cheers at every turn and victory. Heck, his spell is cheers!
• Panty Thief: His secondary mission to unlock the Thief class involves stealing his socks and underwear back from a bunch of gnomes.
• The Pollyanna: Possibly because of alcohol, but he doesn't seem too broken over learning that the Knights Coronet wanted him to die.
• Suicide Mission: When you're attacked by the Knights Coronet, Brian realizes, much to his dismay, that he wasn't sent into Zaejin to prove his worth, but to get him killed. This further foreshadows the true, malevolent nature of the Knights Coronet, as opposed to just the squad who betrayed Luther.
• Uriah Gambit: The Knights Coronet sent Sir Brian off to Zaejin in the hopes that he would get killed off.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Early on, Brian claims to be terrified speechless of Black Beasts, and asks you to help him overcome his fear.
• Wrecked Weapon: His weapon of choice seems to be a broken broadsword.

Others

• Adipose Rex: The Goblin King is notably bulkier than other goblin troops, which is reflected in him not getting a free turn after special attacks (as all other goblins do). Also, the Queen and the High King, following the Large and in Charge trope to a T.
• Cute Monster Girl: The Goblin Princess Fizzbang, surprisingly enough, is this.
• Devour the Dragon: Inverted, Black Beasts can devour an ally, obtaining all his magic, armor, attack, and residual life. Since the Goblin King has one of those beasts in his ranks during the final battle, it's not rare for the Black Beast to devour the King to increase in power.
• Fragile Speedster: Goblins tend to be this, reflected in the way all their units (except the obese Goblin King) gain an extra turn after using their special attack (in effect getting the attack while still allowing you to make a regular move).
• Horse of a Different Color: Some of the goblins ride into battle on boars.
• Hybrid Monster: Bugbears are half-Orc half-Goblin hybrids who counts as both Orcs and Goblins

Zhul'Kari

A perpetually dark, spider-filled forest.

Tyri

• Greed: She's actually used by Luther as a detector to find out where the demon of Greed lives.
• Lethal Joke Character: Tyri has an ability, Treasure Hunt, which destroys gems, always gives a small amount of money, and might give a treasure map. At first, this seems useless since it wastes an attack and only gives a map 20% of the time. However, once she has enough magic to destroy enough gems to fill her own magic meter, a Tyri at the front of the group can spam that ability nearly constantly when she is alive, giving you piles of Treasure Maps much quicker than the slow way, and allowing you to farm the Treasure Hunting mini game for premium currency. To make it even easier, putting together a team made of other unique elf characters, other unique Zhul'Kari residents, or both (Zhul'Kari has a number of Elves) gives you even more magic, to the point where in addition to refilling her own meter, she starts giving mana to the others on the team.
• Lovable Rogue: She's pretty cheerful and easygoing for a treasure hunter (and would-be thief) in the middle of a dark, horror-filled forest.
• Portal Door: The jewel that Tyri spends her quest looking for turns out to be on the other side of one — and it's the anchor for that portal, meaning that taking it will collapse the portal and leave the taker trapped.
• Running Gag: She inexpectedly pops up in certain campaigns as soon as "Treasure" is mentioned.

Others

• All Webbed Up: Invoked by many troops from Zhul'Kari, which can either web enemies up or even inflict extra damage to webbed enemies.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Implied with the Dark Elves, as (aside from the troops) there's not a main Dark Elf character avaible.
• Bad Boss: The Widow Queen unit: her magic allows her to sacrifice another troop to deal damage to all opponents, powered up by said troop's life. In a case of Pragmatic Villainy, she then proceeds to summon another troop from Zhul'kari to replace the sacrificed troop.
• Giant Spider: One of the troops found in Zhul'Kari.
• Spider People: Two troops from Zhul'Kari, the Dark Maiden and the Spider Queen. The former can poison people, while the latter can ensnare them in webs. There's also the Arachnotaur as a male example.

Underworld

In General

• Evil Counterpart: Some of the kingdoms there are a twisted or even more "primal" counterpart of other kingdoms.
• Dungeon Crawling: Once you complete them, you can perform a "Delve", exploring a dungeon while fighting progressively tougher groups of enemies to gain resources and troops.
• Superboss: Each level has a powerful boss related to it, but they're not part of the "main" storyline, which you get by completing the surface. You also must complete the Sins of Maraj to access the Underworld.

All-Seeing Eye

A dark and creepy temple where the Ocularens live and breed to create more of their kind, it's located under Darkstone.

• Combat Tentacles: Aside from the Watch Mothers, all the troops here have tentacles, tipped with either mouths or stingers.
• Eldritch Location: An ancient temple where the servants of the Old Gods live, Ferit can sense/feel/hear/taste many weird energies there.
• Extra Eyes: Ocularen have eyes on the tip of each tentacles.
• Ignorance Is Bliss: At first, Ferit is determinated to slay Xerodar for the eldritch knowledge it may bestow him... but has enough memory of his past to decide that he may be better off without that knowledge.
• King Mook: Xerodar, undead lord of the Ocularen.

Amanithrax

A wild expanse of Mushrooms where weird mushroom people and goblins live. Located under Zaejin.

• Festering Fungus: The theme of the level, including mushroom men and the goblin fungomancers who use their spores to cast magic.
• Made of Explodium: Explosive Fungi which releases explosive spores at you!
• Wild Goose Chase: Sir Brian is certain there's a magical navy blue mushroom which can give him incredible power. The one who gave him this intel was… Raven.

The Black Heart

A knife-shaped fortress held by the assassin Bile Blackheart, located somewhere beneath Blackhawk.

• Alliterative Name: Bile Blackheart.
• Cute But Psycho: Bile's troops include Plaguecrafters, who look like cute little elf girls with Slasher Smiles and plague-based attacks, and Nightarrows, cute little drow archers.
• Expy: Deathblades are Drow assassins in the mold of Drizzt.

City of Thieves

A dark town beneath the streets of Leonis where thieves and rogues live and prosper. Located under the Leonis Empire.

• Amazon Brigade: Aside from the King of Thieves, all of the other unique units are women.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: The King of Thieves is the strongest unit from this faction.
• Cat Girl: One of the unique units of the City, aptly named Cat Burglar.
• Eldritch Location: Downplayed, though Raven mentions that the City is built on a necropolis of Al Maraji and that it tends to appear when least expected. This being Raven, though, it could be an exaggeration.
• Shout-Out: The Tomb Raider unit is a busty redhead with an adventurer's looks.
• Wretched Hive: Sort of, they even have a King.

Crypt Keepers

An ancient wraith-infested burial ground where great knights met their doom. Located under Sword's Edge.

• Fallen Hero: The Fallen Knights and Lady Moranna
• In the Hood: Nightshades, the basic mooks of the kingdom.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In life, Moranna led her troops against the invading undead from Ghulvania, saving thousands of innocents. Her king was so jealous that he had her killed and sealed away with her entire army.
• Touch of Death: Some of the troops inflict frozen or Death Mark status on their victims, and Moranna can even instakill her target, the chance of which is increased by the number of purple gems on the board.

Dark Pits

The Arena of the ferocious Rattigar, a race of cruel rat folks. Located under the Mist of Scales.

• Blade Below the Shoulder: Prostethic variation, Sledgepaw has a mean hammerhead in lieu of his hand.
• Blood Sport: The Rattigar run an Arena when they're not busy selling slaves to the Naga.
• Giant Mook: Sledgepaw, the largest and meanest Rattigar they could muster.
• Rat Folk: The Rattigar race, unique of this place.

The Deep Hive

A massive underground complex of burrows and hives where humanoid insects dwell. Located under the Shifting Sands.

• Bee People: Queen Beetrix, though technically she's a Wasp Person.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: The inectoid creatures running the Hive, with Beetle humanoids a fighters and mothmen as wizards.
• Humanoid Female Animal: Jarringly enough, Queen Beetrix has a very humanoid and curvaceous body paired with four segmented arms and a non-humanoid bee-like head.
• Immortality Inducer: The Royal Honey produced in the Hive not only can heal wounds and illnesses, but it is said that consuming a large enough quantity of it will turn you immortal.
• Insect Queen: Queen Beetrix, whose appearence invoke a queenly regalia (complete with a collar of fur around her neck.
• Non-Mammal Mammaries: Queen Beetrix has a massive pair of mammaries and also hips, paired with insectile head and arms.
• Punny Name: Queen Beetrix and her quote ("Honey, I'm home!"), atrociously so.

Depths of Sin

A hellish domain of fire and brimstone, home of demonic forces. Located under the Sins of Maraj.

• Big Red Devil: Tartarus' looks, more or less, except that he wields a curved knife in lieu of a pitchfork.
• Demon Lords And Arch Devils: Tartarus is the boss and ruler of the Depths of Sin. Any relationship with the Infernal King is unknown, except that apparently Tartarus is on his own.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: Plays the look very straight.
• Fun with Acronyms: The Iron Maw is also called by some "T.I.M.".
• Industrialized Evil: Tartatus spends millenia carefully and slowly crafting his machines and weapons of mass destruction. In the core of his kingdom, he's currently working on the ultimate machine, the one capable of ending the world, but he still lacks a soul strong enough to make it work.
• Mechanical Lifeforms: Two of the troops, including The Iron Maw, are living, demonic siege machines.
• Snake People: Deminaga is a Snake Demon (being half serpent half Big Red Devil).
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Tartarus reaps and collects souls to make his machines work, and is looking for the right soul to activate his masterpiece. One of his traits even generates souls each time skulls are combined.

Eldrazhor

A city deep in the underground inhabitated by Dark Elves who were exiled there. Located under Zhul'Kari.

• Even Evil Has Standards: The Dark Elves of Eldrazhor were banished there from Zhul'Kari. Repeat, these elves were so bad they were exiled by other dark elves!
• Evil Old Folks: Matron Velenne leading the Deep Elves is noticeably old-looking and covered in wrinkles.
• Expy: Of Menzoberrazan, with the Matron wielding a snake-whip as her weapon, recalling to mind the Drows from most settings.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The first units you encounter are stealthy hooded female elves with knives (Thief), then you meet armorer warriors riding giant spiders (Warrior) and finally the Deep Wizards (Mage).
• Giant Spider: Deep Hunters ride massive spiders in combat, and if their third trait is unlocked they can summon a Tomb Spider when they die.
• Meaningful Name: "Velenne" sounds similar to the italian "Veleno", which means both Venom and Poison, and she wields a snake-tipped whip.
• Snake Whip: Matron Velenne wields a multi-headed scourge tipped with live serpent heads.

Emperinazar

A hidden village of Kobolds who escaped persecution from the Dwarves and now worship Emperina the Dragon as their god. Located under Khaziel.

• Bad with the Bone: Standard Kobolds are armed with spears made of bones and their magic can multiply existing skulls.
• Cargo Cult: After Emperina helped the Kobolds escape the Dwarves out of pity (and mutual antagonism), the Kobolds worshipped her as their God, carving the cliff in their village to resemble her and wanting to attack you because they think you're kidnapping her.
• The Chosen One: The leader, Emperinazara (whose name, in mangled draconic, means "Emperina's Chosen"), is the final boss. Due to Kobolds' odd culture, it means she wants Emperina herself to eat her. The dragon in question is not amused.
• Draconic Humanoid: Kobolds of Krystara vaguely resemble short draconic humanoids, divided in simple Kobolds, knights and wizards. According to their classification, they're a hybrid of Naga and Goblins.
• Expy: After Illithia, Emperinazar seems to be themed after Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder when it comes to designing Kobolds.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Emperina's ultimate thought on the whole adventure, not helped by the hero apparently laughing his head off at the whole situation.
• Wacky Wayside Tribe: The entire campaign, contrasting the others, feels less like a peek in a dungeon or a fight against an half-sealed evil and more like this type of adventure.

Fang Moor

A primitive swamp inhabited by the Setauri, ancestors of the Naga and worshippers of Set. Located under Khetar.

• Goofy Feathered Dinosaur: The Priest of Set's spell, Feathered Frenzy, shows a crazed dinosaur partially covered in molten feathers, looking less like a menacing apex predator and more like a scared chicken.
• Lizard Folk: Despite being categorized as "Naga", the Setauri are more akin to ths trope.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: You have murderous lizard people, giant asps and massive dinoaur-like lizards and their boss, lizard-riding Chief Dagron.
• Swamps Are Evil: An ancient swampland dominated by a cold-blooded race of monsters.
• Weaponized Headgear: The Setauri wear horned skulls which they use to ram their enemies.

Fell Roosts

A demonic series of tunnels and caves in the Blighted Lands which serves as a spawning ground for those Dragons and Dragovians who fell to demonic corruption. Located under the Blighted Lands

• Adaptation Expansion: Sort of, in the vanilla game, Venbarak (Dimetraxia's partner) was the only corrupted Dragon the Blighted Lands had. In the Underworld, you find out that there's a whole nest of them.
• Dark Is Evil: Nocturnia's spell involves breathing a destructive mass of flame-like darkness.
• The Exile: Apparently, when the dragons realized they were corrupted, they escaped to Fell Roosts to keep themselves away from the other dragons.
• Mother of a Thousand Young: Implied with Nocturnia, the biggest and baddest of the Corrupted Dragons.
• Technicolor Fire: Corrupted Dragons breathe sickly green flames from the mouth. Nocturnia uses purple flames instead.

Frostfire Keep

The icy fortress in the deep north, where the High Elves went into exile. Located under Stormheim.

• All Trolls Are Different: Frostfire Trolls for once are female, though it's not easy to notice.
• Elemental Powers: The inhabitants of this keep wield the powers of ice and fire. The king can even freeze and burn targets with his magic and traits.
• Expy: The Frostfire Witch enemy looks suspiciously like Elsa.
• Our Elves Are Different: The king of the High Elves is fought there as a boss.
• Screw You, Elves!: Parodied, Keghammer threatens an humiliating death to all the inhabitants of the Keep... because the elves set out inside an abandoned giant castle, so he thought they had to be giants and reacts accordingly.

Hall of Guardians

A marbled hall created by Gaard himself to guard a priceless tome. Located under Whitehelm.

• Golem: All the MacGuffin Guardians here and their boss, the Silent Sentinel.
• Light Is Not Good: Downplayed; the place looks like a brighty-lit, grandiose marble hall infested by killer statues and golems, but on the other hand, it is meant to be an off-limits place.
• Our Gargoyles Rock: Also there are Gargoyles here, depicted as horned humanoids made of stone.

Illithia

A grotesque keep where the monstrous, mind-bending betentacled horrors known as Illithian resides. Located under Dhrak-Zum.

• Brain Monster: The standard troops are floating brains armed with insectile arms. The boss is the Hive Mind, a larger version with tentacles and Mind Rape.
• Eldritch Abomination: An entire dimension of them.
• Expy: They're probably the closest thing this game could get to the Mind Flayers without getting sued to the ground by Wizards of the Coast.
• Golem: The Illithian Golem is a stone construct shaped like an Illithian.
• Obviously Evil: Invoked by Gemhammer, who claims that anything with tentacles or exposed brains has to be evil.
• Tentacled Terror: The Illithian are, basically, Mind Flayers (or Illithid, if you didn't get it before), and so have tentacles composing most of their face. Even the banner of Illithia is the "Banner of Tentacles".

The Labyrinth

A giant labyrinth dimension where the ancient minotaur Minos hid to avoid Death. Located under the Wild Plains.

• Beast in the Maze:In a variation, they're not merely there to kill intruders, but to guard Minos, who's hiding from his own death.
• The Maze: An entire dimension composed of a giant confusing labyrinth.
• Mortality Phobia: Contrasting the other taurs, Minos is deathly afraid of death, which is why he hid away in his labyrinth dimension rather than face his end like all other Minotaurs. When you do kill him, Sunweaver's descripion implies that he went to the netherworld kicking and screaming.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Most Minotaurs are honorable folks who are Not Afraid to Die and considers one's day of demise just as important as the day of his birth. Minos would rather live forever and avoid death altogether, thank you very much.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: King Minos and his minotaur-themed clockwork minions. The Labyrinth also has Rhinotaurs which, according to Sunweaver, are a deformed breed of Minotaurs.
• Rhino Rampage: Rhinotaurs are encountered as enemies. According to Sunweaver, they originated from a deformed breed of Minotaurs.

Lyrasza's Lair

The domain of the chaotic Urska sorceress Lyrasza, made by Baba Yaga. Located under Shetang.

• Chaos Is Evil: Lyrasza's magic is rooted in chaos, and spawns demented, monstrous versions of many other creatures and slowly corrupted the entire kingdom of Urskaya, making it festering with undead and demons.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: The domain of Lyrasza herself.
• Our Manticores Are Spinier: The Dementicore, a chaos-warped manticore whose song spreads madness.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Lyrasza was the most powerful Urska sorceress and her magic is the same type that corrupted King Mikhail. Then, Baba Yaga sealed her away in the Underworld, and now has to reinforce the seal to keep her shut in.
• Skull for a Head: Chaos Hounds are demonic beasts with no skin nor flesh on their heads.

Mirrored Halls

A mystic, mirror-filled court ruled by the Queen of Mirrors. Located under the Glacial Peaks.

• Attack Reflector: The Mirror Golems and the Queen of Mirrors can use the unique status "Reflection", which works similar to barrier, except that instead of preventing damage, it sends part of the damage (either by spell or by skulls) back to the attacker.
• Cat Girl: The Copycat enemy.
• Cute Monster Girl: One of the shapeshifting enemies, the Copycat takes the default form of a very curvaceous rose-haired girl with animal ears, a veil, and a short skirt.
• Doppelgänger: Some of the enemies encountered in the Halls.
• Golem: Mirror Golems, as in golems made from reflective glass.
• Vain Sorceress: The Queen is quite beautiful and so vain that the entire halls were built full of mirrors so that she could admire herself all day long.

Obsidian Depths

A long-forgotten realm under Hellcrag, where Medusa learned the curse that turned her people to stone.

• Taken for Granite: The kingdom's denizens are all made of obsidian.
• Dark Is Evil: The creatures of the depths are all black and malevolent.

Primal Rift

A place of old and powerful magic where odd wood creatures reside. Located under the Forest of Thorns.

• The Corrupter: The Alderfather, to the point that the Primal Rift is part of the Forest of Thorns he dragged into the Underworld.
• Dark Is Evil: The Alderfather has a noticeably dark coloration and is an evil force.
• When Trees Attack: All the enemies, including Corrupted Dryads, Wood Golems, and the Alderfather.

Sea of Sorrow

A dark palace in the abyss where a race of half-blind, ferocious merfolk resides. Located under Merlantis.

• Expy: The Deep King sounds suspiciously similar to Dagon, of Lovecraftian memory.
• Giant Enemy Crab: One of the enemies encountered here, ominously named "Hammerclaw".
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Deep King is kept locked in a cavern on the seafloor, with the merfolk watching over him.
• Shark Man: Both shark mermen and the Sea Witch.

Silver Necropolis

The forgotten tombs of the High Elves where their greatest archmage was buried. Located under Silverglade.

• Golem: Bone Golems, made of assorted skeletal remains.
• Night of the Living Mooks: Draugr (undead Elves), Necrocorn (undead Unicorns), and their boss, the now lichified archmage Vanya Soulmourn.
• Not Quite Dead: After you destroy Vanya Soulmourn, Thassalion specifies that since you didn't break her Soul Jar, she will probably reform somewhere in the depths and return.

Stonesong Eyrie

The secluded nest of the Harpies and their queen, Xochi. Located under Suncrest.

• Apocalypse How: The Temple itself is the physical representation of the "Incomplete Song", a mysterious tune the Harpies have been working on since the dawn of time: if completed, it could end the world after just one performance.
• Harping on About Harpies: Harpies abound here, including their Queen, who's the boss of the level.
• Ms. Fanservice: The Harpy Queen Xochi is a gorgeous, reclining, scantly-clad bird lady with an amazing chest.

Sunken Fleet

What's left of the invading fleet of Al Maraji, sunk by the Summer Queen and sealed in the Underworld. Located under Bright Forest.

• Bullying a Dragon: In the backstory, the fleet was a foolish attempt by the sin-driven Al Maraji to defeat the Fairies of the Bright Forest in their own domain.
• Ghost Ship: The Queen of Maraj, who's also the local Boss.
• Elemental Embodiment: Water Elementals, seemingly made by the enchanted seawater of the Bright Forest, are troops from this kingdom.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Crabfolk are part of the enemies there.

Tinkertown

An industrial maze of gears, machines, robots, and tinker dwarves led by their king. Located under Adana.

• For Science!: The battlecry of the boss, King Tink Steamwhistle.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Averted, the Dwarves from Tinkertown are like Sparkgrinder and specialze in making mechs and building machinery.
• Shout-Out: Tink's special ability summons a storm at the beginning of his turn and is called Flux Capacitator.
• Spider Tank: The King's throne is actually one of these.
• Steampunk: The whole theme of the area, located under Adana. Sparkgrinder is beyond himself with joy. Sadly, the residents are not eager to welcome him.

The Warrens

The underground domain of the Lapina. Located under Pan's Vale.

• Killer Rabbit: The Bunnycorns are small fluffy rabbits with massive horns on their heads.
• Moon Rabbit: Enforced, the Queen of the Lapina is called "Luna".
• You Can't Go Home Again: This is enforced on any Lapina that leave the Warrens, for fear of returnees bringing enemies back with them.

Werewoods

The sinister woods of shapechangers where beast and man combine. Located under Urskaya.

• Bishōnen Line: After facing monstrous werebeasts, the final boss is completely human-looking.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: The woods hosts Werebirds, Werebears, and Werecats.
• Voluntary Shapeshifter: All the troops from Werewoods can transform casually into Torben himself when they use their magic, while Torben himself can transform into any of them.
• What the Hell, Hero?: They repeatedly act as if they're the victim of an unprovoked attack… because that's what they actually are!

Wild Court

The haunt of the Wild Hunt, composed of Fairy Folk once ruled by Orion. Located under Divinion Fields.

• Continuity Nod: When you venture the place with Ethoras, he mentions that he heard that you and Atlanta killed Orion, the former Master of the Hunt.
• The Fair Folk: The area includes the Redcaps and the mischievous, mana-stealing Puka.
• Wendigo: The current lord of the Court, taking the appearence of a towering, furry humanoid with a wild mane of red hair and a Skull for a Head with antlers.