Fanfic / March of the Inevitable

March of the Inevitable is a Crossover Fanfic of Dragon Age and Warhammer written by SpartAl412. The story begins with the High Elf Chracian warrior Khorieus inadvertently flung through the Realms of Chaos by a Lord of Change following a hunt on a Chaos cultist and lands in Denerim. Initially, he along with city elf Kallian Tabris attempt to find a way back to his world while running afoul of the Templars but only to encounter others from his world who also find themselves in the same predicament. It is gradually reveal that higher forces are at work in guiding these heroes to face something that the world of Thedas isn't prepare for.

• Blood of the Phoenix
• An Oath of Stone
• A War in Winter
• Ninety Nine Blades

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Tropes:

• Anticlimax: The siege of Isammar endes with the Vanguard having his head blown off by Vanyra, and causing the Vanguard's leaderless officers to fighting each other for leadership and leaving the entire Darkspawn army fall into disarray, thus making the Legion of the Dead to easily rout them before The Cavalry from Orzammar arrived. The Legion and including Sereda even deemed the whole thing a "disappointment."
• Asshole Victim:
  • The Blood Mage Marius wants to summon some demons to help him stop some pursuing Templars, but can only open a portal to and stare in utter horror at the Realm of Chaos before getting skewered by a Templar's blade. It seems that his death spared him from a Fate Worse than Death, but his soul is presumably punished with eternal damnation.
  • Vaughan Kendells gets his comeuppance as in Origins, but this time he gets brutally rounded up by Khorieus "until blood matted his gauntlet" and finally "gutted like a pig" by Shianni. Even the Templars, who are investigating his death, have zero sympathy for the bastard.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses: This happens figuratively when Kallian journeys into Khorieus' mind and finds the bodies of all the enemies that he has slain throughout his life.
• Badass Boast:
  • Khorieus: "I am Khorieus Alatanrieth! And you will bettered by death you waste!"
  • Rahkan-hotep: "I am Rahkan-hotep, barbarians! Let justice in Phakth's name be done!"
  • Melusine: "I have fought and slain many demons, Herr Templar. I have conflagrated barbarian champions of the Ruinous Powers, savage warlords of the greenskins, undead horrors that stalk the night, piratical elves from across the ocean and the dwarves of the dark east. Take this message to your fellows, do not follow us for if you do, then I will be less than merciful."
  • Haakon takes the cake.
    "Is that the best you got!? I've met Grombolgi^note translation: halfings tougher than you lot!"
  • Haakon again, to a mercenary.
    Random mercenary: You better give yourself up dwarf! You're just going to make it worse for yourself!
    Haakon: Give up!? Ha! Now you're funny manling! I will kill you last.
• Bar Brawl:
  • Kallian meets with Sereda at a bar and proceed to work together in beating up some very rude patrons who were accosting her.
  • Melusine killed some pursuing Templars at a inn called the Dancing Cow.
  • Haakon is first introduce this way as he deals with some sellswords that are looking for him and Aedan.
• Battle in the Rain: Subverted during the fight between Haakon and Karsten. It actually rain after both combatants had finished their fight.
• Beastly Bloodsports: While being pursued by militiamen, Kallian runs into a cockfighting ring which has nugs instead of roosters.
• The Chosen Many: The Warhammer heroes are known as the "Ninety-Nine" and are part of the cosmic game between the Crone and the Raven. The Thedasians that traveled with the Ninety-Nine are specifically chosen by the Warhammer gods and are called the 'God-Marked.' For example Kallian and Solona are have Khaine and Hoeth as their patrons, respectively.
• Continuity Nod: The author's stories generally contain many of these to Black Library novels and army books and RPG games.
  • The Crone/Morai-Heg mentions the involvement of the Kreeqar-gan, which is a name used in the Time of Legends series for one of the Warhammer setting's greatest evils, Nagash.
  • Haakon lampshades that his and Aedan's journey is turning out to be like something out of My Travels with Gotrek.
• Cosmic Chess Game: The sudden appearance of Warhammer characters in Thedas is all deliberately part of a conflict between the 'Crone' (Morai-Heg) and the 'Raven' (Tzeentch). It is clearly implied that the Raven has destroyed an unspeakable number of realities, and Thedas is the only recent reality facing imminent destruction. This is why the Crone is determined not to lose and is why she has chosen the 'Ninety-Nine' and their companions, the God-Marked, to prevent the Raven from claiming the 'Dragonsoul' (the Archdemon's soul). Both use a game board to plot the "pieces" of their destinies.
• Culture Clash:
  • Khorieus is really put off by the alienage in Denerim.
  • Kallian is quite surprised of the concept of humans being bound into servitude towards elves in the Warhammer world.
  • Illenya was surprised and disgusted to learn that interspecies breeding between elves and humans exists in Thedas.^note Human/elf interbreeding does exist in the Warhammer world, but is rare. In Gilead's Blood by Dan Abnett, there is a half elf character who was thought by some and even the elves to be human.
  • Sereda can't fathom the idea that commoner dwarves are allowed to fight, as among Thedan dwarves only the Warrior and Noble caste are allowed to bear arms and go into battle, while other castes solely fulfill their given roles, such as the blacksmiths that makes and provide the weapons. Vanyra finds this incredulous, as in the Warhammer world every dwarf regardless of their occupation and background should learn how to fight (given to lots of enemies and monsters roaming about), and finds Sereda's views (and Thedas dwarfs in general) to sound like those of umgi.
  • The Warhammer dwarfs are shocked to see beardless male dwarves, as they deeply value their beards. Vanyra also finds it appalling that deadly inter-fighting occurs between Thedas dwarves (although she reluctantly admits that there is one case where Dawi grow violent against their own kind — the Chaos Dwarfs). Also, dwarven alcohol sucks.
• Decapitated Army: The death of the Darkspawn Vanguard thanks to Vanyra caused the Alphas to turn on each other for leadership, leaving the entire Darkspawn army that were besieging Isammar to fell apart.
• Developing Doomed Characters: The writer shows from the POV's of villains, Mooks, and even Hero Antagonists of their backgrounds and personalities, even if they are moments from being killed by the protagonists.
• Everyone Meets Everyone / One Degree of Separation: Khorieus, Illenya, Yransair, and Vanyra are well acquainted with each other and are really surprise of encountering each other. According to Word of God, this is justified because everyone on the Ninety-Nine are connected to each other in some way.
• Fanservice: Khorieus and Yransair has a shirtless spar at the dalish camp. This leads to Kallian going off for some "private" time.
• Floorboard Failure: Melusine dealt with one Templar this way by burning the floor he is on, plus added by the weight of his armor.
• Foreshadowing: After meeting Yransair, he, Khorieus, and Illenya discussed the possibility of more people from their world dragged into Thedas, especially concerning on the likes of Orcs, Skavens, Dark Elves, Vampires, and Chaos. They are right with the recent mention of the Lizard Men by the Qunari, the vampire bard Alejandro Cassimere, some apparently Chaos-converted human tribesmen that were encountered by Yasmine and Rahkan-Hotep, and an army of dwarves encountering a horde of Orcs.
• Genre Shift: What began as a story of someone stranded in another world and trying to return to their home but in fact to be part of a complex Saving the World(s) plot.
• Giving Radio to the Romans:
  • Vanyra intially considered of giving her knowledge of gunpowder weapons to the Thedas dwarves, but later decided not to because she doesn't trust them to use it for good use when they could possibly use them against each other over their petty infighting.
  • Dorandor Ironheart, however, plays it straight by giving away grenades, muskets, and drakeguns to House Arekan in turning the war against the Darkspawn.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Following after Khorieus' arrival, a Circle Mage, Marissa Theo, has the misfortune to peer into the Realm of Chaos and became a hopeless babbling wreck. After having scrawled her entire quarters with blood she was put out of her misery by Darius.
• Good Versus Good: The entire premise of "Blood of the Phoenix". Due to initial misunderstandings when Khorieus arrived in Thedas he killed several Templars in self-defense, and the Templars branded him as a criminal.
• Good Is Not Nice: Khorieus is a worshiper of Khaine and definite Blood Knight who has no aversion to things like torture.
• Gorn: Considering that this is a Warhammer crossover, the author's stories in general tend to go into horrific detail about the battles being fought and the way things get killed. So expect Ludicrous Gibs, Body Horror, and Nausea Fuel.
• Groin Attack: Haakon gives an elbow strike to a mercenary's groin (cue high-pitched scream) before chopping his head.
• Hero Antagonist: The Templars in Blood of the Phoenix, most specifically Jacob Darius and Elena Magdalene.
• Hero of Another Story: Each of the Ninety-Nine are characters from the author's other Warhammer stories. Some of them are the protagonists of their own stories while others are Ascended Extras and Early Bird Cameos.
• Hired Guns: The Red Storms and Black Hounds. The former are a rather noble example while the latter are a straight out bunch of cutthroats and killers.
• Hope Spot: House Arekan are almost close to retaking Arekan Thaig from the Darkspawn with guns provided by Dorandor Ironheart until a horde of Orcs shows up.
• Humans Are Special: When discussing of Solona agreeing to come to the Warhammer world, Illenya ask if she is ready for the wars of their world to which Yransair replies: "She is a human, she will adapt and learn."
• The Homeward Journey: The goal of every Warhammer character.
• I Choose to Stay:
  • Solona Amell ultimately intended to go with the High Elves to the Warhammer world, where magic is generally accepted (depending on the location and custom) rather than being put on the run by the Templars and Chantry.
  • Khorieus briefly considers bringing some elves of the Sabrae clan to his world, but quickly dismisses the idea given the exact nature of his world.
• Indy Ploy:
  Khorieus: Due to circumstances, it seems that making things up as they happen has been my grand strategy for today.
• Interspecies Romance: Solona and Theron.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique / Cold-Blooded Torture: Khorieus have an offscreen interrogation with Bernard Marquand in which he eventually learned about the Templars that are coming after him. Unfortunately for Bernard, he knows too much about Khorieus' association with Kallian and her family. The 'offscreen' part is subverted as the manner of Bernard's corpse is later described in graphic detail.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: Kallian inadvertently ventured into Khorieus' mind after using her blood to save his life. The ramifications of this is witnessing her bondage to the elven war god Khaine.
• Language Barrier: Fortunately, both denizens of Thedas and the Warhammer world share the same language (Brettonia/Orlais, Albion/Ferelden, etc.). However, the Ferelden language is difficult to grasp for most of the Warhammer natives because Ferelden's counterpart, Albion, is a small, isolated island in which the Albion language is not very common.
• Mauve Shirt: In Blood of the Phoenix, The people that are after Khorieus have expanded backgrounds and do have genuine reasons for hunting him down either that they have lost a loved one fell by Khorieus or they are in it for the bounty on his head. This ultimately leads to Alas, Poor Yorick given that some of them are sympathetic if not heroic..
• Meaningful Name: Each chapter of Blood of the Phoenix and An Oath of Stone is based on a rune or a word in the languages of the Elves or the Dwarfs which sums up what the chapter is about.
• Mushroom Samba: While suffering the flu Kallian was scammed into buying a cure from a snake-oil merchant in which she went through a hallucinatory episode of having to "fight a pack of Dire Bunnies under the command of Ser Long John the Serpently Endowed."
• Mythology Gag: Khorieus straight out call Darius a mon-keigh.
• Nemean Skinning: For Khorieus and Albrecht which is a standard practice for White Lions and Knights of the White Wolves.
• No Escape but Down: Khorieus and Kallian escaped Denerim by climbing down its walls after trying to pass the gatehouse is out of the original plan.
• Noodle Incident: There are certain events the Warhammer characters will mention about their pasts which are only explained in the various non-crossover stories.
• No-Sell:
  • The lack of the Winds of Magic in Thedas is a concerning point for some of the Warhammer natives, who are for instance unable to creating runes without the Winds. However, there are some magic-users that have no problems wielding their brand of magic.
  • While not immune to the Templars' Anti-Magic abilities, the Warhammer natives are not completely hampered by them. This is demonstrated when the Templars that fought Yransair were still able to resist a number of his spells.
• Off with His Head!: Happens a lot and this is how Jacob Darius dies.
• One-Man Army: Generally the Warhammer characters, but special mention should go to Vanyra Skorrisdottir for single-handedly annihilating nearly an entire Darkspawn war band within the span of a single chapter.
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • The Ninety-Nine.
  • The Chaos Gods and their pawns.
  • The Templars sees the High Elves as such in Blood of the Phoenix.
• Poor Communication Kills: Khorieus got the ire of the Templars is when he first came to Thedas, he appeared in the middle of a Templar raid on a blood mage's hideout and was immediately mistaken for a demon (because he so happens to be cover in gore from traveling through the Realm of Chaos).
  • The Templars attacked Yransair Stormwing because they saw him use magic to heal himself before he could talk to them.
• The Power of the Sun: The Templars have the Circle mages in creating an artificial sun to attack the High Elves during the night. In response, Yransair created a bigger sun ^note namely a Purple Sun of Xereus which instantly crystallized any living being in its blast radius.
• Prequel: Blood of the Phoenix and An Oath of Stone sets prior to the Battle of Ostagar, but occurs around (more or less) the same events of the Origins characters' origin story.
• Redshirt Army: Denerim's City Guards and the Templars in Blood of the Phoenix.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Khorieus goes to rescue Kallian and her friends from Vaughan Kendells.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Many of the Ninety-Nine are members of their respective nation's aristocracy. This also applies for many characters of the Dragon Age setting as well.
• Running Gag: Apparently, the Ninety-Nine that are sent to Thedas has to go through a Lord of Change first. Said Lord of Change, the same one in fact, seems to be getting very rather annoyed with the huge number of people that keep (involuntarily) coming to his library.
• Save the Day, Turn Away: Vanyra saved Isammar from the Darkspawn by killing the leading Vanguard, but she cannot allow to give away her knowledge on gunpowder weapons to the Orzammar dwarfs as this will cause more harm in their interspecies feud than on the Darkspawn, and sees to leaving to be the best solution. Olek Vorne, the engineer she befriended, didn't take too well of her decision and tried to force her to stay with the use of his golems. But Vanyra destroyed his golem control rod in self-defense, thereby losing Olek's heirloom and control over the golems. The situation was nearly stopped from escalating by Reasonable Authority Figure Legion Commander Brodens, who realized Vanyra's concerns and had her banished.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Red Storms and Black Hounds knew that they are completely and utterly screwed when Yransair unleashed his own brand of magic and called quits on the spot.
• Shout-Out:
  • Alejandro calls out to his Tevinter captors "Are you not entertained!?"
  • Haakon fights a giant red-armored warrior who turns out to be a female Qunari.
  • Jurgen pulls in an undead enemy with a axe-chain while shouting "Come here!"
• Spared by the Adaptation: Tamlen lives though he is still partially tainted thanks to Illenya's healing magic.
• Start of Darkness: Strongly implied for Kallian due to having her life divinely tied to Khaine.
• Stern Chase: The premise of Blood of the Phoenix.
• This Is My Boomstick:
  • Vanyra introduce the Darkspawn with pistols, grenades, poison gas, Drakefire, and a Rapid Rotary Repeater Rifle. All in one chapter of her introduction.
  • Krodien has his gyrobomber in which he used it to escape with Natia from Qunari agents, whom he has the courtesy of dropping bombs on them.
• Trapped in Another World: The premise of the story is that a number of residents of the Warhammer world become stranded in Thedas.
• Wham Line: "WAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!." Chapter 10 of "Ninety Nine Blades".
• What Measure Is a Mook?: The author focuses on the perspectives of the adversaries that antagonized the Ninety-Nine, especially in "Blood of the Phoenix" as those that got killed by Khorieus were given names and have friends and families, who in turn went on a avenging warpath on finding their loved ones' killer.
• What the Hell Are You?: Anyone that is a Templar, a mercenary, or just unlucky enough to face any Warhammer badass ends up wondering what the hell are they up against.
  • Elena Magdalene's Last Request to Yransair is to know what the High Elves are.
    Elena: What are you?
    Yransair: We are the Asur, human. The High Elves of Ulthuan, the Children of Isha, the Heirs of Asuryan, we have come from another plane of reality and we seek our way home.
  • Flemeth's reaction when she sees the 'Crone' and the 'Raven' for the first time. She is clearly not pleased by their intentions.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Khorieus cuts open a (headless) dead man's guts and uses his entrails as a measuring unit to see if he and Kallian could climb down from Denerim's walls rather than using the rope he has because it would be a waste of time to throw down the rope and pulling it back up. Kallian (and to extent the viewers) is still justly shocked about it. This comes back to bite him as he gets poisoned by the mother of said aforementioned dead man.
• You Are Not Ready: Vanyra reluctantly decided that sharing her knowledge on gunpowder technology to the Thedasian dwarfs, while useful in their war against the Darkspawns, would only exacerbated the inter-rivalry between the feuding dwarf families by using it against each other more so than the Darkspawns.
• You Killed My Father: Interesting inverted. The Guardsman Daltyn that Khorieus killed and used his intestines as a measuring unit brought the wrath of his elven mother Lirena. After she poisoned Khorieus, she suddenly had a change of heart when she recognized Kallian (as she knew her mother) and learned that Khorieus saved her from Vaughan, and allowed herself to be killed by Illenya for atonement as there is no known cure for the poison.

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