Sometimes, one person can have the ultimate power, that consists of every single power ever. This is the case for Lanfeust, a young blacksmith gifted with the power of melting metal by looking at it, who, while mending the sword of a passing aristocrat, discovers that touching the sword's pommel, made with the ivory of the Magohamoth, the source of all magic in the world, grants him the ultimate power. Accompanied by Nicolède (the village sage), C'ian (Nicolède's older daughter and Lanfeust's fiancée, who can heal any wound after nightfall), Cixi (Nicolède's younger daughter, who can make water evaporate or freeze) and Hébus (a wild troll Nicolède enchanted), Lanfeust goes to Eckmül, Troy's capital, in order to study his power. But what he'll find there will be a tad bigger than that...
The original series was followed by:
- Trolls of Troy (Trolls de Troy) (1997-) A prequel series of sorts involving the adventures of Hebus's grandfather Tetram, his adoptive human daughter Waha, and her would-be boyfriend Profy.
- Gnomes of Troy (Gnomes de Troy) (2000-2014) - A comedic Spinoff Babies.
- Lanfeust of the Stars (Lanfeust des Étoiles) (2001-2008) - A sequel series about the adventures of Lanfeust, Cixi, Hébus, and Thanos beyond the world of Troy.
- Conquerors of Troy (Les Conquérants de Troy) (2005-2014) - A distant prequel about the the colonisation of the world of Troy.
- Lanfeust Quest (2007-2010) - A manga version of the original series.
- Lanfeust Odyssey (2009-2018) - The sequel series after Lanfeust returns to Troy.
- Cixi of Troy (Cixi de Troy) (2009-2011) - A series that focuses on Cixi from when she leaves the main band to when we meet with her again.
- Legends of Troy (Les Légendes de Troy) (2010-2014) - A series of stories set on Troy by different artists.
Other media includes:
- Jeu d'aventures de Lanfeust et du monde de Troy (2005) - The Roleplaying Game using rules similar to the d20 System.
- Trolls de Troy : La Cité de la mort rose (2007) - A Point-and-Click Game for PC
- Lanfeust de Troy (2007) - An action Adventure game for the Nintendo DS
- Lanfeust Quest (2013-2014) - A 26 episode season of a Denser and Wackier, Lighter and Softer All-CGI Cartoon, loosely based off the manga version.
- Trolls of Troy (2013-2014) An animated series loosely based off the series of the same name.
The Lanfeust universe provides examples of:
- All Trolls Are Different: Huge, anthropophagist, fur-covered humanoids with Super-Strength and a violent aversion to water. (It might make them clean and thus alienate their flies.) They can be enchanted by a sage, turning them into obedient servants, but DON'T let them get drunk. Trolls actually developed a highly advanced culture built around Heroic sociopathy: they can perfectly function in civilized human society, but unless they take a fancy to some of the locals, they may kill people at random to pass time. White trolls in Darshan, however, are Always Chaotic Evil.
- Bad to the Bone: Some trolls use big bones as blunt weapons.
- Big Eater: Trolls will eat anything that moves and drink everything that doesn't. It's not that they're evil, they're just very hungry. At one point, it is said they can eat or drink anything except water (it might make them CLEAN!). When a troll tries to eat something and it doesn't get digested properly it's a major plot point.
- Blessed with Suck: Some people have useless or ridiculous powers like making colorful farts.
- Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Trolls are Always Chaotic Evil creatures but sages can "enchant" them to have a strong companion.
- Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: The brutish trolls prefer to fight with brutal weapons such as clubs, giant bones, or axes.
- Cannot Cross Running Water: Parodied; Trolls from Troy avoid getting wet at all cost, but there is nothing supernatural about it: they are all The Pig-Pen and water could make them clean (thus alienating the flies they keep as pets). As such, water is often used to contain them, like by teleporting a tribe on a island or creating magical downpours around a building to keep a couple of young trolls in.
- Charm Person: A common spell used to make trolls very strong servants. Problem is, it doesn't stand up to alcohol. There's a stronger enchantment that can hold even if the troll drowns himself in booze, but by strongly diminishing their savagery, which weakens them. Granted, considering what trolls are, most of the time, it's not a problem.
- A subversion happens with Hébus himself. His enchantment breaks several times, usually at the worst possible moment, and has to be re-done in a hurry. By the end of the first series, it's explicitly stated that he wasn't re-enchanted after the last time it broke… but he's warmed up enough to his human buddies that he mostly behaves.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Darshanide gods exist simply because Darchanides believe in their existence. See Gods Need Prayer Badly below.
- Conditional Powers: It's rare, but a few characters can only use their magic power under certain conditions. C'ian can only use her magic during the night, Glin can only use it when he's angry and Léandre can only use it when he's scared.
- Dragon Variety Pack: Troy has plenty of dragons with numerous different designs. There are at least traditional European dragons, wyvern-like dragons, humanoid dragons, bat-like dragons and feathered dragons. They also come in various colors, but it's mentioned that white is an unusual color for dragons.
- Dumb Muscle: Trolls have natural Super-Strength, but almost all of them are complete idiots who can get headaches simply by attempting to think.
- Everyone Is a Super:
- It's close to Xanth in comic form. Almost everyone on the world of Troy has the potential for magic power, enabled by people who train as sages at a Wizarding School. Sages learn some charms and spells at school and "turn off" their own powers to allow people within a certain range to use theirs. They are valuable resources; for example, when trolls attack caravans, they often focus on the sages. There are also a few nations with cultural differences in how magic manifests.
- Darshanites, rather than having individual powers, subconsciously pool their power to create gods that intercede in daily life on that continent.
- The Baronies are opposed to magic for cultural reasons and don't allow sages among them. It's unclear whether people from there would discover their individual talents if they spent enough time in foreign lands, or whether people born there can't have magic powers at all, or what.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Troy's wildlife is incredibly diverse and inventive in the ways it tries to eat you. And let's not go into the trolls...
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: The Darshanide gods exist simply because there are people who believe in them. The more people revere the god, the more powerful he or she becomes, hence why Gods of trading, childbirth, war or sex are pretty much eternal. However, a god nobody believes in will disappear forever.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Humans and trolls can have hybrid offspring.
- Hates Baths: All trolls. They hate to take baths, but love to drink bathwater: as Hebus explains when he drinks C'ian and Cixi's bathwater, "It's like stew: when you're not allowed to eat the meat, you can still drink the broth."
- Heart Is an Awesome Power:
- Cixi's power is to change water's state between liquid, solid, and gas. Said like this, it doesn't seem that powerful, but it becomes horribly creepy when you realize humans are mostly made of water. At one point, Big Bad Thanos has her causing a man's blood to boil until he is literally burnt to death from the inside.
- Heck, the comic is filled with examples of the trope. For example, after Thanos manages to take over Troy's capital, a man whose power is reading the future in animal entrails (e.g. a haruspex
) uses said power (shown earlier to be somewhat useful but nothing special by the setting's standards) to run a very efficient underground insurgency, and one of his best elements is a big, middle-aged woman with the power induce horrible, crippling indigestion in people just by looking at them (something she does to mooks with great relish).
- I'm a Humanitarian:
- Trolls are known for their monstrous appetites regarding any kind of meat and are known for eating humans. They are not even above eating other trolls.
- The narration notes that colossal crabs sometimes eat each other.
- Informed Attribute: The most common Troll breed is called the "redhead trolls". While most of them do indeed have ginger hair, some of them have brown, grey or blond hair, but are still considered "redhead trolls".
- Made of Iron: Most things that can kill or permanently cripple a human are mere annoyances to a troll. It is possible to kill them by inflicting a clearly fatal wound and preventing them from getting treatment, but otherwise they'll always recover eventually.
- Meta Power: Every human has a randomly determined magic power, some more useful than others (heating metal by looking at it, teleporting, making people thirsty, farting from the ears...). These powers only work when in range of a sage, who ritually abandoned their own powers to become relays for magic. During Thanos' takeover of the world, the imprisoned sages attempted a mass reverse ritual, but were interrupted.
- Mundane Utility: Depending on the power you get, it pretty much determines your job. Lanfeust, who can melt metal, is a blacksmith, one girl whose power is to make people thirsty works in a tavern.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Used as mounts, they come in various shapes and forms, some being individual mounts and other being large enough to serve as airplanes.
- Physical God: The Darshanide gods, in addition to be a Fantasy Pantheon.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: Trolls dislike "subtlety". Given their Super-Strength and Nigh-Invulnerability, they solve most problems by charging at it/swinging blunt objects at it/eating it. Human powers, given their unpredictability, are pretty much the only reason humans have survived, see Everything Trying to Kill You.
- Punny Name: Every troll's name is such that, if you add "troll" to the front or end, you get a word or phrase; Hébus gives Trolleybus, Haïgwépa for Highway Patrol, Puitépée for "puits de pétrole" (oil rig), Gnondpom for "trognon de pomme" (apple core) and so. Some other characters, like the Darshanide ambassador, also count, but it's hard to figure out.
- Ridiculous Counter-Request: While in a cell, the troll chieftain says he wants to speak to the warlord holding them prisoner. The guard answers, "And I want to frolic among the Darshanid shah's harem."
- Shout-Out: Here.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The series is pretty cynical, people die, messily, and yet remains quite funny. Which is notable because unlike many examples, it starts out that way. The first issue prominently features a Miles Gloriosus, speculation about the Power Perversion Potential of Lanfeust's abilities, Lanfeust's leg getting chewed off by a Horde of Alien Locusts, Lanfeust personally killing hundreds of bandit Mooks, and more, equally funny and horrific, sometimes on the same page.
- Underground Monkey: There are multiple troll breeds: the most recurring one is the redhead troll. We also get a good sight of the Darshanide white trolls, who have the colors of pandas and are slightly weaker than redhead trolls, but still quite dangerous. There are even more troll breeds, but they barely get any focus.
- Villainous Gold Tooth: There's a slave trader with a gold tooth.
Lanfeust de Troy provides examples of:
- Acid Attack: Hebus's manages to dissolve some of Averroes's soldiers by peeing on them.
- Afraid of Needles: Hebus is a nine-foot-tall troll. He gets pierced by arrows, sliced by swords and axes and burned by magic nearly on a daily basis. Yet, he has such a fear of needles that his reaction when faced with a deadly illness is to take a butcher knife, cut his leg and say "It has to go in the blood, right? Then pour it there, that's better!"
- Angel Unaware: Sphax, Cixi's dragon, is actually the Darshanite god of ambassadors, sent by his fellow gods to bring Lanfeust in Darshan. He doesn't mind the ignorance.
- Annoying Arrows: Averted with humans, arrows and crossbow bolts are quite lethal when used against them. Played straight with trolls; Hébus refers to arrows stuck in his hide as "toothpicks".
- An Arm and a Leg:
- At the beginning of the adventure, Lanfeust gets a leg devoured by a creature. He has to spend a whole day with a missing leg before C'ian can use her magic to heal him back.
- When Lanfeust attempts to save C'ian from a forced wedding, he repeatedly loses his limbs during the fight. Thankfully it happen during nighttime, so C'ian can grow his limbs back as fast as he loses them.
- Ass Shove: The giant troll is defeated when Or-Azur rams a pointy branch and his sword up his backside. According to Hébus, the hemorroids are the weakpoint of trolls.
- Back from the Dead: Lanfeust, after inhaling the Magohamoth's breath.
- Badass Boast: Thanos has some pretty nice ones while posing as Averroes"Tomorrow, the virgins of Or-Azur won't be anymore... And torrents of blood will flood the castle's moat."
- Badass Bookworm: Thanos is a pirate king and thus no slouch in battle, but he's also quite intelligent and versed in magic, due to his former training as a sage.
- Badass Bystander:
- When Lanfeust attempts to interupt C'ian's forced wedding with Bugrenne, some members of the audience draw their swords to fight Lanfeust.
- When Thanos's army invades Eckmul, a random civilian uses her power to give diarrhea to some of Thanos's soldier. The narration notes that others citizen attempted to strife against the evil army.
- Badass Normal: The Or-Azur baron mixes this and Took a Level in Badass. He starts as a vain and weak young noble, but after Thanos kills his father and falling in love with C'ian, he turns into a ballsy and cunning warrior and is one of the only human main characters with no magic.
- Behemoth Battle: The climactic battle is fought between giant energy clones of Lanfeust and Thanos over Eckmül.
- The Blacksmith: Lanfeust starts the story as a blacksmith because his power is to melt metal.
- Bloody Hilarious: Whenever there's a carnage scene, or pretty much almost any death, expect to see liters of blood covering the place or gushing out of people's and creatures' bodies.
- After the Haruspex reads in the entrails of a still living guard, his men ask him what to do with him...
"Since he's still alive, just sew him up. We ain't monsters." - Breath Weapon: Swoog can breath fire.
- Bridal Carry:
- A rather twisted example: when Cixi kills Bascrean, she passes out and Thanos takes her to his room by carrying her in his arms.
- After the fight against the giant troll, C'ian falls from a branch into Or-Azur's arms. She stays there for a few seconds.
- Catapult to Glory: Hebus penetrates into the Or-Azur castle by being launched from a catapult.
- Childhood Friend: Technically both C'ian and Cixi for Lanfeust
- The Chosen One: Lanfeust, as well as Thanos.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Darshanide gods exist simply because Darchanides believe in their existance.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Both C'ian and Cixi get jealous when Lanfeust is next to another girl. The latter is rather Hypocrite because she's very flirting with other men. According to her, for girls it's just sexual but boys are more romantic and it's cheating.
- Cruel and Unusual Death:
- Being a sadist, Thanos enjoys giving painful death to people. He notably orders Cixi to kill Bascrean by using her power to boil his blood.
- Murne (Thanos' lieutenant) dies after La Résistance uses enchanted flesh-laying eggs insects enchanted to assassinate Thanos and fail. The guy is actually eaten to the bone by larvae.
- Depraved Bisexual: In the first book, Lanfeust's group is attacked by a group of bandits who are lusting on Ci'an and Cixi. At least one of the bandits seems also interested in Lanfeust.
- Didn't Think This Through: When Lanfeust sticks a rapier in Barbulio's neck, C'ian quickly heals Barbulio but realises too late that by doing so, Barbulio is now stuck with a rapier through his neck. Even after the rapier's extremities are cut off, he still has a metal stem permanently stuck inside his neck.
- Dirty Coward: When Thanos takes control of Eckmul, Plomynthe doesn't hesitate to join him after being captured. Thanos accepts him at his side while telling to Plomynthe that's he' too much of a coward to betray him. Plomynthe doesn't even deny it.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Falordelle denounces the presence of Lanfeust's group to Thanos's authorities just because Lanfeust does not return her feelings.
- Doomed by Canon: In her spin-off series, Cixi gets pregnant with Thanos' child never mentioned in the main series. You guess what happens next...
- Door Fu: Hebus the troll tries to break open a steel porticullis, and when that fails, to bend it. Cut to a guard leaning against the gears smugly mentioning he'll never get through, then back to Hebus simply grabbing and then lifting the grate, pulling the unfortunate guard's body into the gears as the mechanism is reversed.
- The Dragon: Thanos appears to be this to Averroes, until we learn that they're the same guy.
- Driven to Suicide: As the Or-Azur castle is invaded by Averroes's army, some women decide to kill themselves via poison to avoid being raped by the invading soldiers.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Hébus had red eyes when not enchanted in the early albums. This was dropped later as none of the wild trolls have red eyes. Trolls in general were shown as savage, monstrous beasts when not enchanted in the early days, when later books (Trolls de Troy in particular, obviously) portrayed them as decently civil and good-natured, but also walking disasters with a certain disregard for the life of things more fragile than them (unless they take a liking to it). Trolls also originally had their personalities altered to make them more loyal to whoever enchanted them. This is motly seen when Hébus is enchanted back and forth by Thanos and Nicèlede and his loyalty keeps shifting after each enchantment. In later stories, trolls keep their original personalities when enchanted, but they are magically forced to obey the first person who gives them an order after they are enchanted.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: After being absorbed by the Magohamoth, Lanfeust can use the ultimate power at will without a sage or the ivory pommel.
- Entitled to Have You: Bugrenne proposes to C'ian, despite her making it clear that she is not interested in him and that she's already in a relationship with Lanfeust. Bugrenne goes as far as putting C'ian through a forced wedding and trying to have Lanfeust killed.
- Everyone Has Standards: A prostitute refuses to offer her services to Thanos's soldiers because they happily serve an evil tyrant.
- Eye Scream: Thanos puts out Lanfeust's eyes (with an ivory blade, when he melts the metal one). Just one at first to torture him, then the other one because "I hate one-eyed people".
- Facial Composite Failure: Lanfeust and his group get wanted posters which are weirdly stylized. Thanos's soldiers even think that the Hébus on the poster is Or-Azur's servant with a few exaggerations, even though the two of them aren't even similar.
- Fanservice:
- Cixi. Among others, she appears nude in one scene, to C'ian's anger, Lanfeust's astonishment, and to our great delight.
- Cixi de Troy seems to run on this. The first volume gives us a hot Amazon Brigade who are big believers in Girl on Girl Is Hot and Stripperiffic outfits.
- Fastball Special: While trapped in Thanos's pirate lair, Lanfeust asks Hébus to throw him to a grid in the ceilling so he can make an escape route.
- Female Groin Invincibility: Used in the Cixi of Troy spin-off. When the titular character has to fight a Pirate Girl, she has the reflex to kick her opponent between the legs, which has absolutely no effect. Another Pirate Girl points out that this technique doesn't work with women.
- Fortune Teller: The Haruspex can read the future in the entrails of creatures (and yes, that's a real thing); notable in the fact that he is always right. He can also do it with human entrails, and will gladly do it if said human was an asshole.
- Flirtatious Smack on the Ass: Shlikah gives a tap on Hébus's butt right before having sex.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the second tome, a drawing of a Vitruvian Troll can be seen with text near it. Some of the text is upside-down. The normal text says "Don't you have anything better to do than read stuff that has nothing to do with the story?" and the upside-down text says "If you can read this, it means: 1) you have good eyes or 2) you're holding the book upside-down."
- Freudian Excuse: Discussed. When Bascréan accuses Lanfeust of being responsible for Thanos's comeback, Hebus tells Bascréan to shut up and says that maybe Thanos is evil because Bascréan stole his toys when they were children. Bascréan denies this implausible possibility.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Thanos can't teleport his clothes... yet he's still dangerous.
- Gainax Ending: Of the TV series. Lanfeust defeats his arch-enemy, Thanos, but for a price: all of his friends are dead, the land is devastated and the moon is sliced by half. Then, Lanfeust time-travels to the past, long before the fight, and defeats Thanos in a different way. His friends are alive, and the land is safe. When the heroes celebrate their victory, the camera shows us the moon... that is still sliced.
- Giant Enemy Crab: Lanfeust and his friends face a bunch of dangerous giant crabs appropriately called "Colossal crabs".
- A God Am I: How Thanos reacts to the ultimate power.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: The Darshanide Gods need believers to exist. The first time the heroes visit the divine court, they witness the goddess Lynrenö fading into nothingness as her last believer dies.
- God Was My Copilot: Sphax, the dragon Lanfeust magically created, turns out to be a Darshanide god all along. Lanfeust accidentally teleports Sphax by trying to create a white dragon, who then decides to pretend to be a normal dragon for a while.
- Green Thumb: A random Eckmul guard has the power of making plants grow out of people.
- Hellhound: Thanos' cheyreks. He likes to sic them on random innocent people to make an example.
- Hideous Hangover Cure: In order to pay the nomads, Nicolede cooks a magical one to cure their massive hangover following a party. It's pretty bland, but then he adds animal droppings in it...Nicolede: The more the medicine is disgusting, the more the patient thinks it works.
- If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: Thanos gives Cixi a nasty one when she joins him: no less than executing his own brother by boiling the blood inside his body.
- I Have Your Wife: After Thanos takes over Eckmül and the local sages start a ritual to give up their sage powers (denying Thanos the way to concentrate more magic), Thanos threatens their families in case some of them consider suicide to escape his wrath.
- I'm Standing Right Here: Lanfeust claim to be an atheist in front of the whole Darshanide pantheon. Cue massive Death Glare.
- Interspecies Romance: Well, not exactly romance per se, but one of the manuals give this as an explanation for the perpetual presence of darshanide trolls around Shlikäh, the Goddess of Pleasure. Then comes the explanation of why she saved Hébus and perpetually "cured" him of his appetite for human flesh: she started finding the darshanide trolls boring and a bit small and wanted to try a regular troll. She was thoroughly satisfied, though
she couldn't sit for three days afterwards. - ...In That Order: The Redbeard knockoffs have trouble with Rape, Pillage, and Burn."We rob'em, burn'em and rape'em, right cap'n?"
"Noooo, that's what you did last time!"
"Oh yeah, that wasn't much fun, especially towards the end." - I Taste Delicious: After C'ian heals Lanfeust and Hebus after they've been partially eaten by mermaids, Hebus tastes a few remains. He thinks that Lanfeust tastes a bit bland but finds himself delicious.
- Katanas Are Just Better: After he loses his sword, Lanfeust forges himself a new one and gives it the shape of a katana. Granted, at the time they're in the knockoff of China/Japan/Every Asian country related trope you can think of. Subverted when he sees the katanas forged by the personal smith of the emperor: he describes them as "cute toys", breaks in half one of the very obviously expensive swords in front of the shocked shop clerk, before forging an Eckmülian longsword for himself which only looks superficially like a Darshanide blade.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After healling Ci'an, Rognar decides to denounce Lanfeust's group's presence in the Baronies after they leave him. Then he dies in a stupid way right after getting a reward for snitching on them and his money is collected by an apathetic soldier.
- Lethal Harmless Powers: Cixi's power is turning water into ice or steam by changing the water's temperature. This doesn't seem too dangerous at first. Until Thanos tells Cixi that the human body is mainly composed of water. Then, Thanos orders Cixi to boil the blood of Thanos's own brother to prove her loyalty to him.
- Licking the Blade: After Averroes decapitates Baron Or-Azur, he licks the blood on his axe.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: The Magohamoth creates illusions to trap those who reach him into their greatest desires. The group falls prey to it (Or-Azur sees his father's castle, Ci'an and Hébus see their respective villages and Nicolède sees a legendary library). Lanfeust is immune due to him having the ultimate power.
- MacGuffin: The fragment of the Magohamoth's horn. It gives Lanfeust and Thanos the ultimate power.
- No Mouth: When Thanos gets tired of Karsya's corporal parroting everything Karsya says, he magically makes the corporal's mouth disappear.
- Not the Intended Use: Hébus attacks with crossbows by throwing them.
- Parents Walk In at the Worst Time: There's a moment where Nicolede catches his daughter Cixi and Lanfeust about to have sex. He's furious at Cixi, because Lanfeust is already in a relationship with Cixi's sister. He's also angry at Lanfeust for his inability to resist temptation.
- Pirate:
- Thanos's occupation when we first hear of him.
- As well as space pirates in Lanfeust des Étoiles.
- Cixi runs into (and joins) a band of man-hating female pirates.
- Pirate Girl: Cixi runs into (and joins) a band of man-hating female pirates.
- Potty Failure: There's a woman whose power is to give people diarrhea. She uses it on Thanos's soldiers as they invade Eckmul.
- Psychic Teleportation: Everyone on the planet is One Person, One Power, that's due to being psychic, but was first described as magic. The powers are as varited as healing at night, melting metal, boiling and freezing water, or causing Potty Failure. The Big Bad Thanos has the ability to teleport to any location he's seen previously, which he uses to good effect to impersonate that Tin Tyrant he's thought to be working for. This ability is later upgraded to teleporting to anywhere Lanfeust uses his Magohamoth powers, but he won't know where he's going (and once blindly teleported into the polar tundra, immediately coming back half-frozen demanding warm clothes).
- Punny Name:
- Also, mentioned once in the book and another time in the manual, the Darshanide goddess of labyrinths is Larakröft
- The Darshanide god of healing is called Anth-Ybio, as in "Antibiotic".
- Two random aerial soldiers from Thanos's army are called Thangosharly and Alfazulu, as in "Tango Charlie" and "Alpha Zulu", common code names in aviation.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: A common trait for almost every bad guy in the series, mooks included, is that they are rapists.
- La Résistance: After Thanos takes control of Eckmul, the Haruspex forms a secret group to fight back against Thanos and his army.
- Second Episode Introduction: Thanos is introduced in the second book.
- Second Love:
- Cixi is Lanfeust's second love interest.
- Or-Azur becomes the second love of Ci'an, who was Lanfeust's first love.
- Shown Their Work: At one point, Cixi must freeze seawater in order to form a bridge. She complains that's it's much harder than normal water because of the salt.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Nicolède's daughters are opposite in several ways. C'ian has a sweet and sensitive personality, is responsible, doesn't like violence, wants to have children, wears non-revealing blue dresses and has blonde hair. Cixi on the other hand, likes to annoy, tease and flirt with people, acts like a spoiled child before her Character Development, finds it fun to see people fighting, is interested in sex but doesn't want children, wears red Stripperiffic outfits and has black hair.
- Skewed Priorities: When Thanos's army invades Eckmul, Cixi is worried that they might mess up her villa.
- Spit Take: When Nicolède realises that the creatures the group is eating are the animals that are supposed to guide them to the Magohamoth, C'ian spits out the meat she was eating.
- Tin Tyrant: Averroes never removes his armor or face-concealing helm, for a good reason: he's Thanos.
- Undignified Death: Rognar dies in a rather random and embarrassing way for a fictional character. He trips in the stairs and falls on some spears.
- The Un-Favorite: Cixi believes that her father favors C'ian over her, though her father denies it. It's unclear who correct.
- Verbal Tic:
- Or-Azur's manservant has "Créfieu", a very distorted variant of the rural French swear "Sacré vingt dieux" (Holy twenty gods).
- The Haruspex likes to end his sentences with "Karaka-X", with X being a syllable riming with the last word of the sentence.
- Verbal Tic Name: The creature guiding the heroes to the Magohamoth always says "Gloof", so they call the creature a "Gloof".
- Walk on Water: One of Thanos's men has the power to walk on water and tries to use it to escape the heroes while they're on a boat. He didn't take into account that getting far away from Nicolede would disable his power and leave him to drown, since people need to be close to a sage to use their power.
- Wedding Smashers: When C'ian is forced to marry Bugrenne, Lanfeust interupts the ceremony and has to fight through the guests and Bugrenne's guards to save her. When Lanfeust loses hope as he's facing too many people at once and C'ian is unable to heal him with her magic, Hébus arrives in time to massacre some of Lanfeust's opponents and forces Bugrenne to divorce C'ian right as the wedding ceremony is completed.
- Whale Egg: Gloofs look like blue dogs, but they come from cocoons that are themselves contained in avian-like eggs.
Trolls of Troy provides examples of:
- Adopt the Food: Waha is a young human girl who was "accidentally" adopted by man-eating trolls who took her as a baby, planning to eat her but always pushing it for later (because she was too small a morsel), and finally starting to consider her a daughter. In the Animated Adaptation, the scatterbrained trolls don't even remember she was adopted to begin with and fully consider her a troll (albeit a hairless one).
- Death by Depower: One apprentice sage has the power to become likeable to anyone in short range, including trolls. While he survives in the troll village and nearly succeeds in getting the Big Bad's plan to enslave them to succeed, the other sage relaying his magic power is moved out of range, leaving the first one surrounded by suddenly very angry trolls.
- Even Evil Has Standards: When Venerable Fuquatou discovers that the courtesan blackmailing him is looking for Waha (their daughter!) in order to use her in her brothels, he kicks her out of the dragon they're flying on.
- Godiva Hair: Described as a "genetic trait" of mermaids in Trolls de Troy, and even applies if they're turned upside-down.
- Interspecies Romance: Pröfy is half-troll. His mother, a full troll, once caught a human nobleman but felt more lusty than hungry at the time... Several days later, the man eventually escaped with his life. And several broken bones. And no clothes whatsoever.
- Luring in Prey: One monster encountered by the Tetram and Waha is a swamp-dwelling beast whose lure is part of its back and shaped like a female dragon, luring male dragons to mate with it and be eaten. It's defeated after Tetram manages to twist its eyes around so its sees the lure and promptly attacks itself.
- Pimping the Offspring: "Waha's story" introduces Waha's biological mother, looking for her daughter. It turns out she's a former prostitute turned madam, and wants her daughter to succeed her after "working her way up the ranks". This disgusts even the Venerable Fuquatou, who throws her off his flying mount the minute he learns of her intentions.
Lanfeust of the Stars provides examples of:
- Alien Blood:
- Due to Inconsistent Coloring, goules are shown to have blue and black blood on top of red blood.
- Pathacelces have black blood.
- Antagonistic Offspring: Glin, Cixi and Lanfeust' son, is extremely hostile towards his father, resenting him for being absent for sixteen years of his life and being, generally speaking, akward to be around with. Takes a turn for the worse when Thanos kidnaps him and corrupts him into a violent drug addict who's ready to betray his own mother to get more drug.
- Apologetic Attacker: After being enchanted, Hébus is forced to attack Cixi, all while apologizing.
- The Artifact: The characters introduction doesnt update after the second issue. Quam doesnt appear despite joining the heroes and Glace still appears despite their death in the sixth issue and not being mentionned afterward.
- Assimilation Backfire: Prince Dheluu, who already and unknowingly hosts the conscience of a Dolphante inside his body, absorbs Thanos as a form of You Have Outlived Your Usefulness. Unfortunately for him, Thanos' conscience reaches the Dolphante's one and he regains all his magic, allowing him to turn the tables on Dheluu himself.
- Bait-and-Switch: At one point, we hear Dheluu and Ophredla (actually an impostor) saying things that imply that they are doing something kinky and sexual. We even get a close-up panel of Ophredla looking excited and saying "I love your games". Then the next panel reveals that Dheluu was merely playing a video game.
- Bear Hug: After Hébus breaks free from Thanos's enchantment, he gives a strong painful hug to Lanfeust and Swiip.
- Big Bad: Prince Dheluu. Surprisingly hijacked by Big Bad Wannabe Thanos in the final issue.
- Bittersweet Ending: Dheluu and Thanos are gone, the threat to galaxy is over and Lanfeust and Hebus get to return to Troy and have it removed from maps to keep it safe... but he has to leave his wife Cixi forever.
- Blood from the Mouth: When Lanfeust, Swiip and Qam are trying to travel back to the present, Qam passes out and coughs up blood. Lanfeust believes she died, but she quickly turns out fine.
- Catapult Nightmare: Lanfeust brutally wakes up from a nightmare.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover of "Le sang des comètes" depicts Lanfeust wearing armor and wielding a sword, ready to strike at something offscreen. At no point do the armor or the sword actually appear in the comic.
- Creepy Good: The dolphantes inhabit rotting creature corpses, giving them scary zombie-like appearences, but they are on the side of good.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The masterminds behind Lanfeust's birth appears as a bunch of grotesquely rotten living corpses... until we learn that they need to possess bodies to survive, and since they think that possess living sentient beings is unethical they rely on corpses, even if they decompose fast and force them to rely on replacements.
- Demoted to Dragon: Thanos becomes Prince Dheluu's Dragon after being the Big Bad from the previous story.
- Doing In the Wizard: The magic power of the inhabitants of Troy is retconned as Psychic Powers.
- Eye Scream: Thanos has one of his eyes destroyed by Lanfeust. Prince Dheluu later replaces it with an organic prosthetic.
- Fighting Your Friend: Halfway through, Thanos puts an enchantment on Hebus, forcing him to work as his ruthless lieutenent, known as The Butcher during this time period. Ice's death removes the enchantment.
- Happy Rain: "There it is, your ET shower!" (though the pun unfortunately doesn't work in English).
- I Am a Humanitarian: Qam says that her people eat male children. It's actually a joke though.
- Inconsistent Coloring: It seems like the colorist couldn't decide if goules have red, blue or black blood.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: When Lanfeust learns that he's an artificial being, Hébus gives him a drink. Despite the shock, Lanfeust pours his drink on the floor because his body can't stand alcohol.
- Informed Attribute: Normal rorskals are described as being blue, but they are clearly purple.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Acknowledged by Cixi and Lanfeust, while Glin's behaviour is far too immature and has disproportionate consequences in the long run, he's kinda right in the fact that after sixteen years full of events and changes, Lanfeust doesn't feel right alongside them, and it would be better if they separated.
- Kill It with Fire: Pathacelces are weak to fire.
- Kill Sat: When Lanfeust and Thanos are unable create a fire blast powerful enough to kill frost creatures, Lanfeust and Swiip opt to mentally hijack a satellite to destroy the ice creatures with a solar beam.
- Literal-Minded: An angry customer asks a waiter to "give the whip" to Cixi (who is posing as a waitress). The waiter literally hands over a whip to Cixi rather than actually whipping her like the customer wanted.
- Love Hurts: Glace ends up falling in love with Thanos, which causes much mental suffering for her since she know he's a heartless monster who's unable to love anyone. It gets worse when she sees a vision of the future of Thanos killing her, which turns out to be true.
- Made of Iron: Lanfeust and Qam come across a creature with a highly resistant body. Lanfeust concludes that this creature is literally mainly composed of metal.
- Nightmare Sequence: Lanfeust has a dream where he's surrounded by every attractive women he met during his adventures. When things are getting sexual, the women turn into human-sized chickens and eat Lanfeust alive, causing him to wake up.
- One-Winged Angel: During the final battle, Thanos merges with his own organic ship (the fourth evolution of a particular lifeform) and proceeds to evolve into a colossal Slaying Mantis seemingly made of diamond, impervious to all damage. Turns into Clipped-Wing Angel when he evolves further... and goes back to larval state, leaving him as a tiny white worm easily crushed by Lanfeust.
- Plot Hole: It's revealed that the reason why Thanos is sensitive to the Magohamoth, just like Lanfeust, is because they have the same grandfather, making them cousins. The problem is that the reason why Lanfeust is sensitive to the Magohamoth to begin with is because he was genetically modified while in his mother's womb, meaning that common ancestry shouldn't justify the fact that Thanos is sensitive to the Magohamoth, since he was not modified himself. What is particularly jarring is that both contradicting revelations happen in the same scene. The Dolphantes act like they modified Lanfeust and Thanos's grandfather (which would make sense), despite saying a minute earlier that they modified Lanfeust's direct parents' genes while Lanfeust's mother was pregnant.
- Proj Egg Tile: When Lanfeust and his friends learn that the hen produces eggs that can kill pathacelces, they build custom guns made to shoot said eggs.
- Punny Name: One of the Thirteen Princes the Prince Cenrhyr, which sounds like "pince-sans-rire", a French expression.
- Recycled In Space: Lanfeust of Troy in Space.
- Sea of Sand: The desert in the planet Dezunge (also known as Abraxar) is a literal Sea of Sands, complete with sailing ships, whale-like creature, and islands.
- Shapeshifting: Pathaceles have the ability to take the appearence of any creature.
- She Is the King: Out of the thirteen Merchant Princes, one of them is a woman, but insist on holding the title of "Prince", as much as she holds on her collection of fine pictures.
- Single-Biome Planet: Abraxar is a planet composed entirely of deserts.
- Spit Take: When Qam jokes that her village eats male children, Swiip spits what he's eating.
- Stable Time Loop: We learns that Lanfeust gave the absolute power to the Magohamoth in the past and the latter gave him back at the end of the first series.
- Tongue Trauma: When Cixi gets annoyed by Glace, she uses her power to freeze Glace's tongue.
- Trapped in the Past: While teleporting a whole planet, Lanfeust ends up teleporting himself and Swiip four thousands years into the past, and Lanfeust cannot use his power to go back to the present, meaning they have to find another way.
- Truth Serum: A pathacelce uses a serum on Oho Seth to force him to tell the truth. He ends up spouting unimportant secrets without saying what the pathacelces want to know.
- Wham Episode: Lanfeust and Swiip end up sixteen years in the future. It is never fixed, meaning Lanfeust has a son who's about his age, leading Cixi to eventually break up with him since she's spent the years making a name for herself in the future.
Lanfeust Odyssey provides examples of:
- Big Bad: Lylth the Eternal, a female space demon who feeds on magic and life-force, who enslaves everyone on Troye and nearly causes The End of the World as We Know It. She was sent by Glin, still influenced by Thanos. She does remain by far the biggest and most pressing threat ever faced by Lanfeust.
- The Big Bad Shuffle: In the first book, Sage Qynostre works for Sniyque who herself turns out to be working for the Banshee Queen. In the second book, both Sniyque and the Banshee Queen die. Qynostre seemingly becomes a Dragon Ascendant only to be killed by Lylth the Eternal who then remains the main antagonist for the rest of the series until the penultimate book reveals a mysterious armored figure who's behind Lylth.
- The Bus Came Back: Cixi returns in the seventh book. Qam and Glin returns in the next one. Sphax returns in the ninth one making his big return since Lanfeust of Troy.
- The Corrupter: Lylth's energy can make everyone submit to their darkest impulse. Up to Lanfeust himself, to his horror and shame as she made him kill his beloved mentor.
- Darker and Edgier: The comics always had violence, gore, dark humor and a few moments of nudity, but the Lanfeust Odyssey series takes it even further by having more violence, a darker story, children killed onscreen and a few sex scenes.
- Divergent Character Evolution: A radical one with Cian's daughter Cixi who starts as a carbon copy of her aunt in both appearance and personality. After becoming the Magohamoth's guardian, she changes her name to Tseu-Hi, turns her hair red, dresses as a warrior and becomes wiser.
- Fantasy Gun Control: When reunited with Cixi on Meirrion, Lanfeust insists not to bring technology to defeat Lylth because he doesn't want to expose Troy to the rest of the galaxy.
- Feeling Your Heartbeat: In volume 1, Cixi asks her suitor Ignatius to play a prank on the man she is forced to marry. As he shows reluctance, she tells him that doing so would make her heart beat very fast and takes his hand to put it on her breasts so he can feel it. Young Ignatius is so aroused that he has to put his hand in a barrel of water to cool it off. Cixi then tells him that once he's done he can check how fast her heart is beating again (and advises him to clean up the stain on his pants).
- Greater-Scope Villain: Thanos might have been Killed Off for Real, but his shadow still looms over Troy. Glin is still under his influence, and turns out to have sent the new Big Bad to Troye to avenge him, but he is quickly disposed off by side characters, making the whole ordeal a bit exagerated.
- Humanoid Abomination: Lylth the Eternal looks like a blue-skinned, yellow-eyed little girl, whose Rapid Aging makes her first look like a sexy, evil Cute Monster Girl, then a monstrous, obese Gonk. But she is in fact an eldritch, soul-devouring, magic-eating horror, whose aspect is only skin-deep.
- Mind Manipulation: Lylth's most terrifying power is her ability to make everyone who looks at her spheres her slaves. Within weeks, all of Eckmul's continent has fallen under her thrall.
- One Curse Limit: Discussed. Hébus is immune to Lilth's mind control, but he himself isn't sure if it's because he was already enchanted to begin with, or if simply being a troll makes him immune by default.
- Identical Grandson: Or identical niece. Cian's daughter, Cixi, shares her aunt's name, appearance and personality.
- Series Continuity Error: Hébus says he remembers M'otha from when Lanfeust travelled four thousands years into the past, even though Hébus did not travel to the past, only Lanfeust and Swiip did.
- Wham Episode: A possessed Lanfeust kills Nicolede in full view of everyone in Eckmul.
- Would Hurt a Child: Lylth feeds on the souls of the children. She builds a temple just to slaughter every child in Eckmul alone.
