Chrysalis Rino Z / Tropes G To O

Tropes A to F | Tropes G to O | Tropes P to Z

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G - H

• Gender Bender: Downplayed; Anthony takes quite some time to realise that all the ants are biologically female, and is initially startled by it, but soon shrugs it off since it's rarely important (especially as monsters do not use sexual reproduction), and the story continues to use male pronouns.
• Genocide Dilemma: Titus has made his choice, and most of the Legionaries serving with him likewise; they're content to completely massacre any monster species, including sapient ones, to prevent them arising later as a threat. Morrelia, however, is more torn, especially as she has seen firsthand that the Colony is not acting as a threat — but still, she takes seriously her father's greater experience, and isn't ignorant of the Colony's potential for exponential growth. Especially once she learns that the Ancients have the ability to control other monster species; there have been previous attempts to raise servant species, but the Ancients caused them to break free and slaughter their masters.
  The Colony was peaceful, she knew that, yet the Legion insisted that they be wiped out before they became a greater threat. The ants were peaceful for now, but what about in the future? What if Anthony died, and the Colony were left without the leader that held them back? What then?
• Giant Wall of Watery Doom: This is one of the traps at the Colony's gate. With twenty million litres of acid, not water, for extra impact. Oh, and they have holding tanks underneath, so given enough time, they can pump the acid back up and reset the trap.
• Gilded Cage: Sarah has been a combination guest and prisoner of the Worm Cult for decades. Since she was previously alone and fallen into madness, she's content with her lot and grateful to them. Until times change, and they start becoming less hospitable...
• Glass Cannon: As a Lightning Fist Ape, Tiny has extreme strength, but paired with only moderate toughness. He's very useful, especially against elite monsters, but needs supervision to stop him from getting himself killed by charging at opponents — or groups of opponents — that are too much for him. Anthony partially addresses the problem by recruiting a dedicated magic user, as a healer and Barrier Warrior, and later commissioning a suit of armour (until Tiny outgrows it).
• Glomp: When Crinis reaches level 80 and is ready to evolve, she leaps onto Anthony and gives him a thousand-tentacle hug. Anthony actually finds it quite comfortable, but assumes that it looks horrifying from outside. A short time later, Tiny reaches the same milestone, and they go for a group hug (even including Invidia).
• The Gloves Come Off: When Anthony discovers that the Endless have served him a tainted cake to throw him off his Tunnel Ball game, he decides it's time to stop playing nice. He breaks the rules himself, pinning the Endless down with gravity magic so they can barely move as he trounces them.
  Time for the Eldest to teach a lesson...
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Morrelia's eyes glow with red light when she's berserking — along with her whole body manifesting a glowing red aura that smells like blood. Anthony is impressed.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: One of the paths to the world-shaking power level of the Ancients is to take evolutions and organs that allow a monster to gain strength from others. Anthony's path, the Colony Paragon, is one example, empowering him based on the faith and goodwill of ants, and later other species, within range. When he's alone, he's a fairly ordinary monster of a decent tier and with a strong core. But when he's surrounded by hundreds of thousands of family members, he's a juggernaut who can simultaneously tackle multiple monsters at higher evolutionary tiers than himself. He also later discovers the ability to read the intentions of anyone who is empowering him (since their goodwill is being funneled to him), and talk back to them.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: The Legion's secret cure for mana saturation sickness is to place a prospective Legionary in a basin of liquid mana, with powerful healing enchantments inscribed into it. For 24 hours, their cells are constantly and painfully broken down by the mana overload and rebuilt by the basin, until they emerge reborn as Dungeon denizens, stronger and faster and adapted to high mana concentrations. And the process only has a 20% mortality rate! (Including Morrelia's brother.)
• Good Versus Good: The Colony is pacifying the Dungeon, protecting the neighbours, and seeking peaceful food supplies, albeit being quite willing to use lethal force in self defence. The Abyssal Legion put their lives on the line daily to curb monster outbreaks and keep the surface dwellers safe. Unfortunately, from the Legion's point of view, the Colony is a spectacularly dangerous monster outbreak... Morrelia feels particularly torn; her father is a senior Legionary, but she has lived among the refugees of her home country and seen the ants repeatedly save them from final extermination.
  Grey: It is rare indeed to find the individual who walks on a path that they know to be wrong.
• Gravity Master: Anthony gets lucky enough to access a gland that slowly turns regular mana into a supply of gravity mana, providing him with various interesting effects, from the "gravity domain" that makes nearby enemies (but not allies) overwhelmingly heavy, to the "gravity bomb" that launches a temporary miniature black hole. At his tier 7 evolution, he reforges his body to improve his gravity affinity, and is rewarded with the ability to create zones where he has total control of gravity, enough to float monsters in the air or crush them flat.
• Greed: Technically, Invidia is an envy demon, but in practice, it translates into a burning desire to have everything, whether material or abstract. He later narrows his obsession, when evolving, to focus specifically on wanting to have approval and friendship.
  Invidia: [You have knowledge. I shall have it.]
  Anthony: [Yeah, yeah. We were just talking about your home strata. You want to get back to Demon… Town… or whatever?]
  Invidia: [I will follow the Master.]
  Anthony: [Well, yeah. You know what? Just go back to practicing healing.]
  Invidia: [Level ups. They will be mine!]
• Green-Eyed Monster: Invidia the Envy Demon is literally a floating green eyeball who embodies the desire for what others have.
  Invidia: [I see your family. I see your siblings. The warmth. The support. I see how nice it issssss.]
  Anthony: [Yes. It's nice. How do you see that anyway?]
  Invidia: [I WANT IT. I WILL TAKE IT ALL!]
• Guilt-Free Extermination War: The Colony carefully manages and nurtures most types of spawn point, in order to farm XP and biomass, but Anthony has a special grudge against centipedes, so they instead get camped and eradicated. He even posts open bounties for others to join in killing them.
• Happy Fun Ball:
  • Anthony's ball-shaped pet monster, Crinis, is so sweet and affectionate and shy! Just a compliment from her beloved master is enough to send her into a tizzy, possibly even collapsing in a quivering heap. Those who threaten her master, on the other hand, will probably get the (brief) chance to see her unfold into a mass of independently mobile razor-barbed tentacles of shadow flesh, imbued with fear magic and tipped with "soul seeker cilia" that drive into an enemy's brain and push them over the brink of sanity, before tossing them into the maw of teeth that makes up her centre. Anthony crafts a custom evolution for her, which he names "Special Death Ball", and the System extrapolates from it to give later evolutions names like "Gratuitous Murder Sphere".
    Anthony: Such an innocent looking little ball of endless despair. Who could possibly imagine that this tennis ball sized black orb would contain so much terror?
  • The first monster he encounters in the Shadow Sea is a basketball-sized rock formation, somewhat like coral, with tiny tentacles poking out.
    It'd almost be adorable, if not for the staring eyes that tip half of the stalks, and the mouths full of razor fangs atop the others.
• Happiness in Slavery:
  • All pets are bound to obey and be loyal to their masters, and even the Sophos, consummate masters of the associated Skills, have not found any way to break the bond. This is clearly visible when Invidia, an Envy Demon, wants to take everything — except what is Master's, because that is off limits. Crinis, however, needs no binding. She adores her master, is infuriated when anyone fails to respect him, wants to attach herself to him and throw herself in the way of anything that could hurt him, and is traumatised by the very idea of practising her attacks on him.
  • The relationship between the ka'armodo and their setsulah "bonded ones" is apparently more complex and nuanced than a simple master-slave relationship, although it outwardly looks like one. The setsulah fulfil every whim and command they're given, even being telepathically directed in some cases, but they strongly object to being called slaves or referring to the ka'armodo as their masters, and are apparently pleased and honoured to serve. Anthony is dubious, but decides he has higher priorities than digging into the details.
• Healing Shiv: Anthony is excited when he learns that some of the healer caste of ants have obtained mutations that turn their acid spray into regenerative fluid.
  They've literally got medic guns! The things that are possible in this world, I tell you.
• He Knows Too Much: The Legion does not force any candidate to go through with the horrifically painful process of becoming a full Legionary. But they don't allow anyone to walk away with knowledge about that process, either. If someone wants to back out, all they have to do is volunteer and receive a quick death instead.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • This is the instinct of all ants, even when sacrifice isn't necessary, much to Anthony's concern. Even when they become sapient, ants still emerge from their pupae declaring their readiness to die for the Colony, until they're reeducated to save death for when it's actually needed.
  • Grant being killed by Garralosh and thus buying time actually had a legitimate purpose, though.
  • Subverted for laughs with the Immortals. They all took the Phoenix Flame evolutionary upgrade, but didn't Read the Fine Print; instead of taking their enemies with them, it revived them with full health.
  • Possibly played straight before the story starts, although it could be argued to instead be a Stupid Sacrifice, when Anthony gave his last food to his ant farm, and starved to death. He still doesn't see any problem with this.
• Hero Secret Service: Operation Silent Shield. Anthony is powerful enough to be an important strategic military asset, but often gets himself into scrapes, so the Council trained a group of twenty elite ants with a special stealth organ that allows them to surround and guard him without being noticed. Anthony eventually spots them and is exasperated, but instead of trying to send them away, he just tells them that they need to do more Level Grinding to keep up with him.
• His Name Is...: Subverted when fellow reincarnator Janice, on her deathbed, is about to tell Anthony her name, and he doesn't want to know.
  Janice: [… My… My… Name… My …. Name… was…]
  Anthony: [Her name, was Grant.]
  CHOMP!
• Hit-and-Run Tactics:
  • The ants use guerrilla warfare to slow the advance of Garralosh's horde.
    • Their opening strike includes a gravity bomb from Anthony, followed by full salvos of acid from a team of scouts, then soaking the horde with water magic and blasting them with lightning, Crinis striking from concealment — and then, when the horde approaches, they fall back underground through small tunnels, where only the smallest of monsters can follow, until they reach open chambers where enemies can emerge one at a time and be set upon from all sides (including the ceiling). And then they collapse the tunnels.
    • They later discover that the mages controlling the horde have a limited range, and the monsters will turn back when they hit the limit, making it possible to lure the horde to the edge and then farm them with minimal threat.
  • Anthony and his pets use the third stratum demons as a training opportunity, by coming in fast, fighting until the demons' numbers start to get overwhelming, then dropping a gravity bomb to cover their retreat.
  • Vibrant and her squad never stop running if they can help it. Their battle strategies, such as they are, include constantly remaining mobile as a standard feature, just biting and killing things on the go without actually pausing to slug it out.
  • The ants greatly struggle to penetrate the Powered Armor of the Abyssal Legion, making them unable to completely stop the Legion's advance. However, they employ harassment and guerrilla tactics to make that advance a nightmarish experience for the Legionaries involved.
    The traps, the secret tunnels, the ambush attempts, the constant probing on the flanks, sneak attacks trying to cut off their supplies, attempted tunnel collapses, mental assaults, barrages of spells, reinforced stone walls bristling with spikes. It was brutal, draining and constant. At any moment there could be four or five tunneling attempts going on in different locations throughout the area of Dungeon they'd captured. Not a single one had ever succeeded, but the ants didn't stop trying. At first Myrrin had thought they were just being stupid, but she'd seen how draining it had been for the mages and auxiliaries to haul their detecting equipment around, setting it up all over again every time the front moved. They even had to staff the thing in rotating shifts, not for a single moment allowing the array to be unattended.
    If their vigilance ever slipped, even for a period of minutes, the ants would be behind them, filling the tunnels in an instant and crawling over every wall and ceiling as they sought to inflict any damage they could.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Anthony panics when he spots a horde of drill slugs rushing toward him, and flings an empowered gravity bomb at them — much closer than a safe range. He berates himself for such carelessness while clinging for dear life to a wall that he's trying to magically reinforce, and reckons it's the closest he's ever come to falling in.
• Hold the Line: The Abyssal Legion is a millennia-old worldwide army that routinely fights in the deep dungeon, and can't really be beaten by anything short of an Ancient. But by pulling out every trick in the book and getting help from old and new allies, the Colony holds out just long enough that the next Dungeon wave starts and the attacking Legionaries are needed elsewhere.
• Horde of Alien Locusts: Titus of the Abyssal Legion considers the Colony to be essentially this type of threat, capable of growing exponentially to consume all biomass in their path. The more they expand, the more queens they can hatch and feed, which lets them expand faster... Since even regular ant colonies have been able to consume nations before if not rapidly exterminated, he may have a point.
• Horrifying the Horror: Once Crinis goes to work with her barbed tentacles like a chainsaw, it's not unusual for even creatures like giant monstrous spiders to flee in fear. (It's also not unusual for them to fail to get away.)
• Hostage Situation: Granin is brought out in front of the ants, and his execution is promised if Anthony doesn't come out to personally duel the High Blade, on the assumption that Anthony has become attached enough that he won't want Granin to die. The ants don't even pass the message on to Anthony, though, seeing no reason to play along. Ultimately, Grey pressures the High Blade into accepting himself as a substitute for Anthony.

I - L

• I Did What I Had to Do: Titus recognises that measuring kill rates vs losses thus far and making calculations to improve the numbers seems callous, and new recruits may struggle to accept such cold-blooded planning, but that's how a Legion commander has to operate in the Dungeon. Death is an inevitable part of combat.
  To do anything less than confront the harsh reality the Legionaries faced with unemotional logic would be an unthinkable abrogation of responsibility.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: This is an important contribution to Wallace's surrender; he knows full well that if the ants wanted to eat everyone, they could have done it already, so he's willing to believe that surrender brings at least a small chance of survival.
• I'll Kill You!: Irette Plamine is very unhappy at Anthony for taking her junior Triad member as a hostage, invoking this trope verbatim. Anthony finds her strong reaction intriguing, and figures that if she cares so much about her junior, he might have more leverage than he realised.
• Immortality Through Memory: Anthony has mixed feelings about absorbing the core of Garralosh, leaving no physical trace that she ever existed.
  When this core is gone, there really will be nothing left of her. Nothing except for the profile that was unlocked when I consumed her.^note He has to reread that profile, reminding at least himself about her, before he can bring himself to do it.
• Insect Queen: Played with; the ant Queen is, on the one hand, merely the source of eggs, not an administrator, but on the other hand, she is the mother (or grandmother, etc) of every other ant, so she is greatly revered. Her children actually value her importance more than she herself does; she considers herself eminently expendable once there are more queens, but to her children she is the most precious ant of all and worthy of the very best protection.
• Instant Waking Skills: Unlike Earth ants, which take multiple power-naps, Pangeran monster ants benefit from a full eight hours of torpor. However, once that eight hours is up, they're immediately ready for action.
  HIYAH! I'm up! I'm ready! It's time to take on a new day.
• Insult Backfire:
  • Not that Anthony was trying to hurt Crinis' feelings or anything, but when he tells her that she should remain motionless while meeting with their latest prisoners, because "I can't imagine anything you might do that wouldn't be scary to most organisms," she's pleased by the compliment.
  • A merchant tries to argue that the Colony's goods will have to be discounted, because as monsters they don't have proper hygiene standards. Anthony retorts that as tunnel dwellers, the ants are very aware of the need for cleanliness, and are in fact the only species on the planet to constantly acid-wash themselves and their homes — as the ants around him are doing right now, because the city they're in doesn't feel clean enough.
    Anthony: Anyway, we need to discuss compensation from the city for imposing its poor hygiene on us, who should I speak to about that?
• Intangibility: It costs mana, but the "Immaterial Flesh" of some fourth stratum monsters is able to pass through solid objects. Crinis gets the opportunity to replace her "Shadow Flesh" with it, too.
• I Think You Broke Him: Whenever Anthony is generous with his praise, Crinis is so overwhelmed at her Master's approval that she freezes in place, often falling over.
  I'll need to give controlled doses of positive reinforcement over the next week or so to build up some level of tolerance within her, because this is just ridiculous.
• It's All My Fault: Sarah blames herself for Jim selling the Colony out to the Golgari, believing that he did it for her. Anthony insists that he didn't really, that ultimately it was just selfishness, and that she shouldn't feel responsible for it.
• It's Personal:
  • For all Commander Titus' fury, his campaign against the Colony remains on a professional basis; it's his job to eradicate dangerous monsters. The same isn't true of the Balta family of the Empire of Stone, who have a personal grudge against Anthony. Titus doesn't specifically object to that, but he insists that their vendetta not get in the way of his job.
  • Anthony carries a grudge of his own after the first outposts fall to the Legion advance, with many ant casualties.
    It was already personal. Now it's... more personal.
• Jack of All Stats:
  • Crinis' evolutions tend to offer equal or similar bonuses to all her basic stats. She is dangerous in melee, but can't deal as much heavy damage as Tiny's punches. She has access to shadow magic and mind magic, but without Anthony's devastating gravity bomb or Invidia's enhanced parallel processing brains. Her shadow flesh gives her toughness beyond what is usual for first-stratum monsters, and can be easily regenerated, but it can't match demonic chitin, or Anthony's diamond carapace. What she really excels at is fighting large numbers of weaker enemies, with her many semi-autonomous tentacle clusters capable of slaughtering even the most desperate Zerg Rush.
  • Anthony himself is something of a generalist against the Worm Cult's tournament. He's not as tough as the Rhinosergradon, but he's smarter and has more options. He's not as fast as the Clawed Leaping Beast, but he's tough enough, with his limited precognition, to survive its initial pounce and lay a beatdown on it. He doesn't have the spellcasting skill of the Envy Demon, but he has enough physical prowess to pop it like a balloon when he gets close enough. And he doesn't have the debilitating aura of the Death Creeper, but he has his own trump card, the Gravity Bomb.
• Jack of All Trades: There are many different ways to mutate ant mandibles, such as the Guillotine mutation that makes them excellent at cutting, or Spiked to give long "teeth" designed to pierce armour. However, Anthony instead favours the Savage mutation, which simply makes them a bit better at everything — gripping, crushing, piercing, slicing, and even digging.
• Just in Time: The Dungeon wave and Garralosh's influence results in a tremendous horde of monsters rushing through a tunnel at once. Even though Anthony and Tiny are much stronger than them individually, there are just too many to fight. Until Crinis announces that her growth phase is finished and she's ready for combat at last — whereupon her swarm of tentacles rips through the monsters like a combine harvester.
• Karmic Thief: The Colony decides that the problem with the city of Rylleh is that the wealthy noble class are complacent and useless, so the ants proceed to kidnap them all, loot their mansions to bedrock, and hold new elections. The general populace watches and cheers.
• Kicked Upstairs: Leeroy believes she's being entrusted with guarding the sleeping form of the Eldest because she's the strongest fighter of the Council. It's actually to keep her out of the way so she doesn't disrupt complex plans.
• Kill Steal: The Dungeon operates on strict "last hit gets all the experience" rules.
  • Anthony and the Colony exploit this extensively for farming experience, with stronger combatants disabling enemies and bringing them to hatchlings — or to the Queen — for a finishing blow. (Especially important since stronger monsters get smaller XP rewards, so the most efficient option is to have a strong ant disable the enemy and a weak ant kill it.)
  • Anthony gets quite alarmed when Morrelia seems likely to land the final blow on a Garralosh Praeceptorum, and rushes to finish it off himself, not wanting to miss out on so much experience.
  • When his team sees a hippo-turtle get into a fight with some crocodiles, they could just sit back and watch, but instead, they intervene — taking the opportunity to kill off both sides and get all the rewards.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Janice is initially unwilling to tell Anthony her name, but as she's dying, she tries to get it out. Anthony doesn't let her finish, though, interrupting her words and finishing her off to avenge Grant's sacrifice.
• Killing Intent: With enough levels, beings can become powerful enough that their presence and attention can become tangible. Commander Titus is particularly notable for displaying murderous intent that "weighed on everyone like a ton of bricks." Powerful monsters can also exert an aura that crushes the wills of weaker monsters and dominates them.
• Kill It Through Its Stomach: Leeroy attempts to heroically sacrifice herself by leaping down the gullet of a giant worm, but all the other Immortals have the same idea, resulting in the worm having a stomach stretched to bursting with metal-clad ants — and then their Phoenix Fire activates, and it's burnt up from the inside.
• Klatchian Coffee: Overexposure to high levels of ambient mana without a proper adjustment period results in "the blues" — named not for any depression, but because the sufferer's skin literally gains a blue tinge. It's actually quite the opposite of depressing, although it is a form of poisoning and thus highly dangerous.
  Through it all, they felt no pain, only a giddy, inexhaustible nervous energy. The blues didn't make people feel tired, as the name might suggest. Rather, the Mana suffusing their body and brain numbed them and gave them the jitters, as if they'd been drinking five cups of coffee every hour. They couldn't sleep, couldn't rest, couldn't think clearly, they were both more exhausted than they'd ever been in their lives and completely unable to rest.
• Klingon Scientists Get No Respect: The Golgari look down on their magic-using Shaper caste, even though magic is vitally important to their society, eg enabling the portal gates that give them access to the Dungeon. Granin believes it's an attitude carried over from the first appearance of the Dungeon, which led the Golgari to look at magic as a foreign intrusion into their society.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: Beyn's first impression of the newcomers to the village of Renewal is that their leader's "shoulders were broad, her arms thick and her jaw could possibly cut bread." Anthony later thinks to himself that her jawline could probably cut steel.
  Whoever her parents were, they had some serious jaw genes going on.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Anthony kept an ant farm in his first life, and even gave them his last scraps of food, so he becomes an ant in his second life. Gandalf later confirms that this was intentional, in hopes that Anthony would find that form comforting.
  • When his side of the deal is complete, Anthony cautions Queen Verita to consider her next actions carefully, explaining the meaning of the phrase "tit for tat". It doesn't help; she still tries to have him killed by her guards to cover up his involvement in her return to the throne, and he responds by wrecking her palace and emptying her treasury before fleeing.
    Anthony: [It means that should one be treated well, they will return that goodwill, but should one be treated poorly, similarly it will be returned in kind.]
• Laugh Themselves Sick:
  • When Sarah sees Anthony's early attempts at gravity-based flight, she collapses on the ground, incoherent with laughter even over telepathy.
    [Ha-hah! I mean… the legs… I can’t!]
    Her stubby legs rise up and kick helplessly.
    [It’s not that funny! Look, none of my siblings are laughing!]
    They are, however, continuing to not look at me directly.
  • When Granin learns about the Colony Paragon evolutionary chain, he collapses on the ground catatonic for several minutes, then laughs uncontrollably for several more, before gradually regaining the ability to speak.
    Granin: I'd laugh some more, but it's unhealthy.
• The Leader: Some monsters, known as "champions" or "brutes", are born with enhanced stats and a natural charisma, drawing other monsters to follow them. Vibrant is impulsive and scatterbrained, but other ants feel a pull to join her, and thanks to her Status Buff auras, it actually works out pretty well for them.
• Leeroy Jenkins:
  • Tiny, being a Blood Knight, is always eager to skip the planning and go straight to the punching.
    I think the best course of action is to lure them into the tunnel group by group, keeping the combat out of sight so we don't draw the lot of them down on our heads at once. Nice and steady, that's the play.
    
    So why is Tiny over there punching a titan-croc in the face?
  • Lampshaded with an ant who never really adjusts to the "dying is bad" mindset, and continually wants to make a Heroic Sacrifice for the Colony; Anthony names her "Leeroy".
  • Anthony is not intentionally suicidal, but does sometimes tend to rush into things. Fortunately, the Colony is very good at organising, planning, and picking up the slack.
    Anthony: Look, I'm just as ready to leap into some hare-brained invasion of a stratum that is far too strong for me at the drop of a hat, but that doesn't seem like a good policy for the Colony as a whole!
  • He's also willing to follow Tiny's lead on occasion and forgo complex plans in favour of just charging in and smashing everything, such as when cleansing an underground expanse of crocodiles.
    Actually. You know what? Who cares!? Instead of chipping away at the enemy tactically over an extended period of time, THIS stratagem has a little more chest hair! I'm with you Tiny! Bring it on!
• Leave Him to Me!: Anthony has to instruct Tiny, naturally enough, to back off from a tier six demon and let Anthony fight it.
  Anthony: [You stay here! This one's mine!]
• Literal Disarming:
  • In their first meeting, Beyn thinks Anthony is a gift of experience from the Dungeon and hits him with a ceremonial mace — so Anthony bites his arm off. The Queen heals the stump, but it's not so easy for humans to grow limbs back.
    I mean, he hit me on the head with his stupid mace! What exactly did he think was going to happen?
  • By default, Formica ant mandibles are designed for gripping, rather than piercing or cutting — so a horde of ants can seize their enemies from all directions and pull their limbs off. Anthony, however, mutates his mandibles to be more multi-purpose.
  • Anthony's first encounter with Morrelia is tense, and he's particularly concerned about what she'll do to the village if she thinks they're being controlled by the ants. Since he's become rather attached to Enid, he doesn't like the idea of her being harmed, and makes that clear.
    Anthony: I'll talk to her. But tell her if she gets too handsy with you I'll be taking that hand with me.
• Literalist Snarking: Lord Korbell, confident in his city's defences, proudly declares that no ant will ever set foot in Ironwall.
  Wallace: Well, of course. They don't have feet.
  <ants flood into the city>
• Little Bit Beastly: The Folk have a wide variety of animalistic traits, some with double jointed legs and tails, but others merely having somewhat angular faces. Anthony is a little surprised at first to see so much variation, then concludes that it doesn't really matter what they look like.
  To one degree or another, every member of the Folk is some blend of humanoid and animal, with the slider between the two set to random.
• Lizard Folk: The Ka'armodo are one of the races who pre-date the Dungeon, and resemble large bipedal lizards, with either two arms or four, depending on age. They are also very proud, which leads most of them to be condescending and dismissive toward the Colony — except for the followers of the Red Truth, such as Ivran'tep and Rassan'tep, who want to help Anthony reach the core of the world and ascend to the rank of Ancient.
• Look Both Ways: Odin Malum was a Professional Killer in his first life, and apparently died when he was so focused on his target that he didn't notice an approaching ice-cream van. (Naturally, having been hit by a truck, his next step is to Reincarnate in Another World.)
  I can only hope the shot I squeezed off as I was crushed beneath the tires was enough to finish off my contract. Odin Malum hasn't failed a job yet, and even dead, that's a record I'd like to keep intact.
• Look Behind You: Morrelia reacts with "Nice try," when Anthony tells her that her Abhorrent Admirer Isaac is behind her, but unfortunately for her, he wasn't joking.
  Morrelia: [You expect me to turn around and AGAAA!]
• Loophole Abuse:
  • When the team finds a 15-metre crocodile, Tiny wants to fight it, but Anthony wants to be more cautious, and strictly orders him to "plant your big ape butt right here in the dirt". Tiny is displeased, but complies — hard enough to make a noise that attracts the crocodile's attention. Anthony can't say for sure whether it's deliberate.
    If he didn't have the Cunning of brick forged out of smaller bricks that were themselves made of the distilled energy of pure stupid, I'd believe he might be capable of such an act of duplicity. I think he just got lucky.
  • The System gives experience faster for actions used in combat, rather than just training, but its definition of "combat" is apparently quite fuzzy.
    I can shape the earth beneath Torrina's feet over and over again, and hey, that counts.
• Lost in Translation: Anthony is entirely capable of translating mind-speech from Grey into pheromones for his siblings, but he's not especially focused, so details may be missed.
  Anthony: Ah… this is… some important guy, whose name is super long. Feather something.
  Grey: [Are you passing all of this on?]
  Anthony: [Of course!]
• Lost My Appetite: Upon seeing the results of an empowered gravity well, Anthony is too disgusted to feel like eating the unlucky (flattened) monsters. The chapter is even titled, "I May Never Eat Pancakes Again."
  For some reason… I'm just not hungry.
• Lured into a Trap:
  • One of Anthony's first big contributions to the Colony is a series of pit traps linked by narrow tunnels. When a monster falls into one, it's injured and in a confined space, making it easy prey for ants emerging from the tunnels. Then a fragment of its biomass will be left as bait to reset the trap...
  • Anthony follows Vibrant's scent trail, and has to fight off an ambush. Turns out that the ka'armodo had their pet termites lay a false pheromone trail, so that whichever ants followed it could be isolated and killed for experience. Fortunately, Anthony's intervention turns the tables, slaughtering termites and ka'armodo with a gravity bomb and creating an opening for Vibrant to escape.
  • He later advances deep into termite territory, and instead of immediately facing him head-on, they send just enough troops to keep him busy while quietly englobing him on all sides. Except that Anthony intended all along for them to do that, and has already planned with the Colony to take advantage of their forces being out of position, to conquer their territory and break the trap from the outside.
  • When Anthony chases down the three heralds of Arconidem, he reflects that after all the effort he's put in to get this far, it had better be a trap, or he'll be quite annoyed.
    Anthony: Hey, Al, I just had a thought, is it a trap, if you know it's a trap?
  • One of Solant's early contributions to the defence against the wave is her "tea and biscuits" strategy for handling stronger-than-average monsters. An ant with a strong core is placed in an apparently vulnerable position, baiting the monster to rush forward in pursuit of a quick snack (thus the name) — only to be surrounded and quickly put down.
• Luxury Prison Suite: The ants don't really have any experience with prisoners, so when they do take some, they end up placing them in suites that are decorated in the same way as they would to house their allies. The door also isn't locked, although that's more because it's unnecessary; "If someone can escape from the middle of a nest with tens of thousands of monsters flooding every tunnel, room and surface within, fair play to them, they deserve to get out."
  I reach out with mind mana and find the two people within the, as it turns out, quite extensive chambers. Wherever the ants have taken their interior decorating tips from (I suspect Enid), they've really taken the style to heart. As I enter the rooms in which our not-quite-willing guests have been stationed, I find them once again to be lavishly decorated with fine, carved wooden furniture, lush woven rugs and plump cushions on every chair.

M - O

• Mad Love: Morrelia doesn't actually hate Isaac, but she doesn't return his interest, and can't get him to leave her alone as long as she's on the surface, ever since he saw how strong she is. His desire to become strong enough to impress her eventually drives him deeper and deeper into the Dungeon, following the Colony through a string of wars, always driven by the hope of catching up to her level. (She isn't aware of most of it.)
  Morrelia: I just want to go one day without having to punch you.
  Isaac: I thought those were love taps!
• Mad Scientist:
  • Anthony mentions feeling a little like a mad scientist after creating the first batch of Formica Sapiens.
  • Brilliant starts out as just a Bratty Half-Pint, obsessed with knowing everything there is to know, which translates into constantly running away and getting into dangerous situations. But her insatiable curiosity eventually produces results, albeit with a generous helping of maniacal cackling, as she expands the Colony's understanding of dimensional magic. She devises the magical 'hook' that catches Jim the earthworm, and makes great strides in understanding the portal gates used by other races to travel quickly around the Dungeon.
• Made of Diamond: Due to Anthony's choice of mutations, his carapace is literally diamond, starting out as just tiny glittering points and expanding with each mutation until he's entirely coated in diamond armour (and later reinforced with a supportive inner plating that makes it thicker and less brittle). It doesn't actually make him invulnerable, especially against magic, but it does let him shrug off many lesser physical attacks.
• Made of Indestructium: No-one knows what the pillars of the third stratum are made of, but they have proved to be utterly impervious to anything that anyone has brought to bear, in all the thousands of years that the Dungeon has existed. The first and second strata, uncountable millions of tons of rock, are resting on top of of them.
  The outside of the pillars appear to be a layer of self-regenerating stone, similar to granite, with a very high resistance to temperature.
  This outer layer can be removed with some effort, only to reveal a black rock that lies within. It is this stuff that none have ever damaged, though it's possible that the secret has been uncovered and is held very close to the chest by those who have it, since such knowledge would surely shake the world. It isn't known if the black rock, which is known by many names, is even the final layer, or if an even greater secret is held within.
• Magikarp Power:
  • Insect monsters in general tend to have this potential, starting with masses of very weak drones, then with higher-tier evolutions being quite powerful — but it largely goes unrealised, focusing instead on Zerg Rush tactics.
    Granin: High tier insect monsters are very rarely seen, but without exception, they are powerful.
  • The Colony, unlike other insects, has a strong emphasis on helping all its members to gain experience and levels; they don't even allow new ants to leave the nursery without forming a core and evolving twice. As a result, when ants start reaching tier six en masse, Granin notes that they're getting unusually good evolution options, because the System expects tier six ants to be extremely rare.
    Granin: We have a monster type achieving heights that the Dungeon considers rare, and thus rewards, as well as them having weak starting positions, which accelerates the quality of their evolutions. Across every caste, their options have been good. It's almost unheard of.
  • It's possible for ants to sacrifice even more short term gains for long term power, by using a special core in the first evolution and evolving into a Superior Hatchling instead of a mature species. There's not much immediate benefit, but it strengthens all future evolutions.
• Magitek: Magical devices based on monster cores (which naturally gather and concentrate mana) are expensive but widespread. Queen Verita's palace has core-based lights, partly as a display of wealth, and the ants devise heating enchantments for their brood chambers, since actual fire isn't desirable underground due to the smoke. The Travelling Tolly chapters show a mana-powered high speed elevator.
• Mainlining the Monster: Anthony pioneers the idea of partitioning off Dungeon rooms as farms, to intentionally allow monsters to spawn so they can be harvested for XP, biomass, and sometimes cores. The Twenty latch onto the concept and massively expand it before Anthony even knows what's happening, establishing a resource base that allows the Colony to rapidly grow its numbers.
• Major Injury Underreaction:
  • To a certain extent this is justified, given how much can be accomplished with monster Healing Factors and healing magic. ("Having my legs get eaten is still irritating.") Still, Mendant is unimpressed with how blasé Anthony is about being blown up and sliced apart to the point where what's left of him has to be carried into the hospital.
    Anthony: Some sort of laser thing. Absolute rubbish. Anyway, spot of healing, I'll be fine. Hit me up Mendant and I'll be on my way.
    Mendant: You'll be here for at least a day. I'm assuming your healing gland is empty?
    Anthony: I think it needs to regrow…
  • Tiny is even less concerned about his own wellbeing, he just loves combat.
    In his own opinion, the previous fight had been a magnificent success. Much face was smashed, many blows landed upon the enemy. Tiny had punched until his fists bled and wrists cracked, the rage within him all but spent. Yet the Master was more concerned with 'near fatal wounds' and 'catastrophic loss of blood,' things Tiny didn’t deem nearly as important.
• Mama Bear: Ants may not have traditional family roles, especially monster ants with asexual reproduction, but their first queen still views them all as her children, and she goes on the warpath when they are threatened by Garralosh. She still doesn't have the raw power to win, but she's able to break through Garralosh's armour and draw blood, the first wound Garralosh has suffered in many years.
• Man-Eating Plant: Quite a bit of the vegetation in the Dungeon is just as vicious as the animal life, although it tends to use less direct methods, such as lying in ambush or using mental attacks, instead of a frontal assault with brute force.
  Vines string across the tunnel, dangling moss in our faces and the rock walls are barely visible beneath layers of leaves and shrubs. Here and there are truly massive flowers and ferns that sway with the breeze.
  
  Hang on… we’re underground. There is no breeze!
  
  The lightbulb goes on in my head just as the many plants and vines start shifting and moving, almost unfolding as they reveal hideous plant mouths laced with razor sharp teeth.
• Manly Tears: Subverted when Anthony feels like shedding "a single, manly tear" at seeing Crinis' progress toward self-reliance and independence — but monsters can't cry, so he doesn't.
• Meaningful Name: Ants have typically not had names before; even the Queen has only her title. When Anthony trains the twenty, though, he gives them individual names related to their evolutions — each including "ant" somewhere, such as Propellant the fire mage.
• The Medic: The Colony develops an entire caste of ants dedicated to healing. They're small, physically weak, and even their acid glands have been converted into regenerative fluid sprays, so they definitely aren't Combat Medics, but the Legion is rightfully concerned to learn about them, because they can attach themselves to the underbellies of the much larger soldier ants in the front lines, keeping the soldiers intact and fighting for vastly longer. Even Anthony needs the healers' attentions from time to time.
• Mind Control: Monsters with a powerful core can crush the will of much weaker monsters and force them to obey, merely by being nearby.
  • Garralosh brings hundreds of thousands of weaker monsters to assault the Colony, resulting in a huge and costly battle before she even enters the scene. However, the Colony is able to exploit the slow-moving horde for Level Grinding long before it reaches the nest.
  • A big part of why the Legion fears the Colony is the possibility that the Ancients will rise up and turn all the ants into their slaves.
• Mirror Match: Crinis gets into a fight against a second "JellyMaw", resulting in a conflict that looks like "an enormous pile of shoelaces actively tying themselves into knots." For even more similarity, the second monster turns out to also be a pet. (And the owner isn't happy about losing it.)
• Missing Time: When Sarah uses her Asura to become The Berserker, she'll eventually fall unconscious, then wake without remembering what she did during her rage. Which, knowing what she's capable of doing even to allies in that state, is quite stressful for her.
  Anthony: [Hey Sarah. Welcome back to the world of the waking.]
  Sarah: [Wait! What happened!? Is everyone okay?!]
• Mistaken for Profound: When Anthony forfeits his Tunnel Ball turns by breaking the ball, or hurling it through the backstop, the spectators assume he's playing mind games with his opponents, taunting them. In reality, he's just not used to the rules, and is strong enough to crush a solid stone ball by accident.
• Mood Whiplash: From one scene to the next, the narrative of the invasion of Rylleh goes from terror and screaming and despair, to Anthony marvelling at the scenery and all the magitek on display.
• Mook Horror Show:
  • When Crinis fights, Anthony frequently regrets having panoramic vision and no eyelids, with the forest of chainsaw-like blades, barbs, and teeth creating a grisly scene indeed. Many of her victims never see her tentacles coming, and some aren't even fully dead when they're tossed into her many mouths. Those that attempt to fight back, find that she can dodge everything with selective intangibility, and for those who try to run, she has already cut off their escape routes with a wall of tentacles. And then she stabs her ghostly cilia into their brains and drives them to screaming insanity, which makes her giggle.
    Anthony: I swear by the shining white beard of he with the pointiest hat that I'm giving myself eyelids the next time I evolve. It's not right that someone should be made to see this!
  • It's possibly even worse when she devours another monster of her own species.
    What I saw then, was not meant for mortal eyes. The process of one JellyMaw consuming another is, I can only imagine, the sort of thing dark gods whisper to each other at their evil clubs of nefariousness to make each other shiver. It was loud. It was messy. It was not quick.
• Moral Myopia:
  • Irette Plamine claims that Anthony has proved he is nothing more than a monster by leading a raid on the Golgari, taking valuable materials and liberating Sarah, after he escapes from his kidnapping and imprisonment and being forced into a death tournament — ignoring how her own Proud Warrior Race is obsessive about holding grudges and avenging perceived slights. If Anthony weren't more restrained and patient and ethical than she is, then she would already be dead.
  • Jim the earthworm thinks it's fine for him to kill infant ants, if it's okay for the ants to kill and eat other monsters, but is then outraged at the idea that the ants might want to kill him in turn. Nevermind the fact that the ants aren't hostile to anyone with peaceful intentions...
• Mordor: The fifth stratum is very rarely visited by anyone from the surface races. The high mana levels, very dangerous to non-monster life, would be bad enough. The local monsters are worse, a significant step up from the previous stratum; that's par for the course in the Dungeon. But the fact that the whole place is a poisonous wasteland inimical to life, believed to have been corrupted by Theorazzn, the ancient monster of decay...yeah, few people even try to cross it.
• Mundane Utility: The Savage mutation on Anthony's mandibles is intended for combat, but it also works well for chopping down trees for lumber. He and Tiny are able to provide a nearby human village with fifty trees in one day, including removing the stumps from the ground with Tiny's brute strength.
• My Brain Is Big: Anthony invests a great deal of evolutionary energy in expanding and improving his brain, and even purchases multiple extra brains to help him multitask. However, he is also a walking demonstration of the difference between intelligence and wisdom; his enhanced brains have the power to visualise the complex mana constructs needed for spellcasting, but that doesn't stop him from regularly being The Ditz.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: The Empire of Stone extends their "warmest welcome" to the representative of the brathian trading conglomeration...and pointedly says nothing at all about the hundreds of ants accompanying them, whom the visit is all about.
• The Needs of the Many: Sacrificing for the collective is inherent to ant psychology.
  • One of Anthony's major challenges is to persuade the ants to look for alternatives to sacrificing themselves. It becomes the first step in the Colony's educational programs, training the new hatchlings to recognise that they can give more to the Colony by living than dying, and has to be taught anew to each generation.
  • When the Colony first hears about the idea of taxation, it makes perfect sense to them, with each citizen contributing toward the collective. Their proposed tax rate is 100%, but Enid talks them down to 90%, before they see a merchant foaming at the mouth and passing out, and decide that there's just too much of a Culture Clash.
  • Rassan'tep notes the ants' lack of ego when he observes their armies crawling over each other to reach their destinations without a second thought — something his own Proud Warrior Race would never dream of doing.
• Negatives as a Positive: Crinis loves to gush about her Master, how he's strong, wise, savage, cruel, relentless, merciless, and ambitious. Anthony is taken aback when she gets to the "savage" and "cruel" parts, but in fairness, all of those traits do help a monster survive and thrive in a Dungeon where everything is a carnivore. Crinis doesn't even realise that he might find her description upsetting.
• Nepotism: Morrelia is embarrassed to hear that her mother, the Consul of the Abyssal Legion, has issued her father with specific orders to ensure that Morrelia doesn't die during his campaign.
  It was a scandal! Nepotism! It was… very like her.
• Never My Fault: Irette Plamine has a serious case of Moral Myopia about her treatment of Anthony and the consequences it has brought her. Anthony is bemused.
  Anthony: You seriously don't think you deserve just a little of the misfortune you've suffered?
• New Life in Another World Bonus: Anthony doesn't have any specific extra skills, but having a human mind in a monster ant body puts him in a uniquely powerful position. Monsters are naturally stronger and more magical than non-monster races, but intelligent monsters are rare and generally have other limitations, eg demons are sapient, but are hardwired to be obsessed with different vices, like greed, or slaughter. The deep Dungeon contains a number of intelligent species, but they can't survive in the weak mana closer to the surface. Anthony doesn't have those drawbacks (at least until his core is highly developed), leaving him free to munchkin the System as far as it allows. Furthermore, being an ant in particular is very exploitable; ants are workaholic social insects with a firm belief in The Needs of the Many, so he has a colony full of fanatically loyal allies. And they're one of the few monster species capable of independently breeding (exponentially fast, in fact) instead of just waiting for random spawns from the Dungeon, so they can go in a matter of months from a few hundred ants to millions, all of whom love and trust and protect him. It's a perfect storm of converging factors that set Anthony up for greatness; with a little bit of guidance from him, it doesn't take long for the Colony to become a new rising power in the world. With all of that, though, his favourite part is that he's part of a functioning and caring family, which he didn't have in his first life.
• No Biological Sex: All monsters seem to qualify; Anthony and Tiny use male pronouns, Crinis and Vibrant use female ones, but that's basically just preference. Earth ant workers are technically sterile females, but Pangera's monsters don't use sexual reproduction at all. Even the ant Queen has organs to directly convert consumed biomass into eggs, with no male involvement, and that ability is rare; most other monster species just spontaneously appear at spawn points, and there is no mention of any of them having genitals or libido.
• Nobody Poops: While contemplating the nature of Biomass, Anthony observes that his body doesn't produce any waste products at all, despite regularly consuming more than his own body weight, and concludes that he has no idea what's going on.
  I don't know! I just eat things!
• Nosebleed: The ant healers can well understand why Isaac is found unconscious and bleeding after Morrelia berserks into the ant lines, smashes Isaac to the ground, and then surrenders, telling him to capture her, but they aren't sure why there's so much blood around his nose even after healing him.
  A quirk of human physiology, they decided, and promptly forgot about it.
• No-Sell:
  • The biggest problem that the Colony has in fighting against the Abyssal Legion is that the Legionaries' Powered Armor shrugs off almost everything the ants can do. The ants can outnumber them a hundred to one and still not inflict any real damage, except for special attacks like Anthony's gravity bombs. In the aftermath of the siege, the Colony invests a lot of effort into developing soldier mutations with enough raw power to crack the armour, in hopes of avoiding a repeat.
    Magic hadn't affected them much, acid hadn't slowed them down, they just kept coming.
  • The brathians are a Proud Merchant Race famed for their ability to fleece anyone in a transaction, but their Skills don't work on ants, who have no readable body language and operate on different values.
• No Sense of Personal Space: The ants are repeatedly noted to be unconcerned about personal boundaries, crawling all over each other and not minding at all. When traveling by ship, they cram themselves in like sardines to take up less vessels, and in combat they make more efficient maneuvers by climbing over each other's ranks, and think nothing of it. It helps that they're all focused on The Needs of the Many.
• Not Afraid to Die: When the worker ants are called to combat, they are fearless.
  I turn and charge alongside my siblings. All around me now, they're silent with only the occasional clack of mandibles and the faint rasping of carapace. To my antennae though, they are roaring.
  FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! ENEMY! ENEMY! FIGHT!
• Nothing Is Scarier: Humans who visit the depths of the anthill are frequently unnerved by just how quiet it is. Nothing but the ticking steps of many ant legs. This is because all their speech is in pheromones; the air is actually full of conversations, but to those who can't interpret them, it just seems like an ominous silence. Isaac is particularly disturbed at seeing an ant dragged away by the torpor enforcers, silently screaming as it's dragged into the shadows.
  Absolutely chilling on a level he didn't quite understand.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Anthony isn't particularly interested in surface politics, or the morality of overturning a coup and restoring Queen Verita to her throne. He just cares that she has promised him a load of monster cores, which he can use to strengthen himself, his pets, and the other ants. And when it goes sour, he makes sure he gets away with the payment.
• Not So Above It All: Anthony initially reacts to the fabric-covered council chairs by deriding the fabric as being useless for ants, but then he realises that it means his shiny diamond carapace might get less scuffed...
  Anthony: It can stay.
• Now You Tell Me: Eating a new species of biomass for the first time unlocks the "basic profile" of that species, summarising their attributes and abilities. Which would have been very helpful to know before fighting one to the death.
  System: [Os Lacerti: Bone Lizard, This monster is famed for the powerful armour covering its body, its immense physical strength and the devastating power of the clubbed tail. Although not too powerful, the beast is capable of simple earth magic spells, be careful.]
  Anthony: Yeah, now they tell us.
• Nuclear Option: It takes time and substantial concentration to prepare a gravity bomb, and friendly fire is a big problem, and sufficiently powerful mages can unpick the spell in flight, but nothing Anthony's ever successfully hit with one has remained unscathed. And it keeps powering up as he gets stronger. It's his go-to weapon for enemies that just don't seem to be meaningfully hurt by regular attacks.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Before the Colony becomes widely known, they're able to pretend that their human allies are controlling them, to make them less frightening to others. A human commanding a monster army is still terrifying, but is a more comprehensible kind of threat than the Colony acting independently.
• Obviously Not Fine:
  • Anthony tries to reassure himself when the first Formica Sapiens are hatching. It doesn't work.
    In, out, in, out. Relax, Anthony, it's fine. You've either elevated your colony to the peak of the world or doomed them to collapse in savage internal strife that pits sibling against sibling.
    No stress.
  • Donnelan the mage insists that "I'm... FINE!" while he's so intoxicated that he's been trying to drink from a bowl of nuts, for the past fifteen minutes. Mirryn immediately calls him out.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Wallace is reluctant to agree to Rylleh's spatial gates being dismantled, but it's made clear to him that he can either agree to it, or he can watch the ants raze everything.
  Beyn: The gates will come down within the next hour, Captain. There are two ways that can happen. With your people aiding us, or we tear the city apart and destroy them ourselves.
• One-Man Army:
  • Senior Legionaries such as Commander Titus try not to take the front lines, because they don't want the newer younger recruits to get used to just relying on their leaders to fix everything, but when they do step forward, their power is on a whole different level. Titus' axe has been shown to cut through anything, including Anthony, every other ant with him, and their reinforced gate, in one blow — and it doesn't actually have to touch the target, it projects the blade beyond itself.
  • Anthony, as he evolves, quickly reaches a level of power where he can singlehandedly chew through hordes of mooks. He never does fight singlehandedly, though, if he can help it, preferring to have at least his pets and preferably several hundred of his family with him.
• One-Man Antdustrial Revolution: Played with; Anthony doesn't provide any of the technical information, but he does push the Colony into seeking out the right experts to learn it themselves. When Beyn first has the opportunity to come inside the anthill, he passes room after room of forges, workbenches, and similar signs of growing industry. Several months later, the ants have built immense smelters, processing hundreds of tons of rock every hour via magical conveyor belts and churning out enchanted metals that are then used in dozens of other equally busy industries.
• One-Word Title: As a bug-related word that relates to change, given how the protagonist is a force of change.
• "Open!" Says Me: When Minerva finally completes her term as Consul, and gets time off work, she rips the (reinforced bulkhead) door off Morrelia's room in her haste to come hug her daughter.
• Opponent Instruction: Anthony outclasses individual Legionaries in the arena far enough that he's comfortable giving them tips to improve after sending them flying into the walls.
  Anthony: [Nice attempt! Good speed, but you might want to work on your micro dashes. Puts a lot of strain on the body, but changing your angle of approach a few times instead of just charging straight in will help you in the long run.]
• Otaku: As part of their inherent nature, every demon has a fixation on one of the seven deadly sins or a similar vice. Within the framework of their obsession, they can often be fairly reasonable and civilised (eg Allocrix is content to hang around and help out so long as he's learning new things), but they will prioritise fulfilling it over everything else, often acting in a way that seems (by non-demon standards) to be against their own interests; this has given them a reputation for making deals and following the Exact Words, but ignoring the spirit of them. (Slaughter demons, for example, make very unreliable allies.)

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