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If the guy wearing blue asks you if you want to join his guild, answer "No".
From left to right: Couette, Sparadrap, Gaea, Arthéon, Omega Zell and Ivy.

Noob started out as a French Web Original in late 2008 and has mutated into a full fledged cross-media franchise by getting its first novel in 2009, its first comic in 2010 and starting the development of a video game the same year. The media, all written by Fabien Fournier, have a Broad Strokes relation to each other, keeping important events in common but varying in the exact way they happened, their connection to each other and/or time periods covered. This franchise has no relation to The Noob aside from also being set in a MMORPG.

The story follows the eponymous Noob Guild, a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits that is the worst guild of a fictional MMORPG named Horizon (nothing to do with the anime) in early installments, then can't get rid of their reputation as such even as they make slow but steady progress. The team is mostly held together by the fact that it's near impossible to reach level 100 without being part of a guild, resulting in both Teeth-Clenched Teamwork and With Friends Like These.... The cast quickly expands beyond the Noob Guild alone as the ambitions held by each of its members make them establish relationships, both good and bad, with other players. These connections, as well as their leader's attention to detail, get the Noob Guild more involved in major game events that one would expect for a low-level guild whose numbers never go beyond seven plus a Honorary True Companion.

Several cycles are planned. The first one, whose plot starts with Noob's recruitment of Gaea, consists of:

  • Noob webseries: The five-season webseries, that ended in march 2014. (the only to have gotten some English translation effort)
  • Noob novel: Four novels, the latest of which is situated between Season 5 prologue and episode 1. The fifth, to be released in 2016, will be the final one of the cycle.
  • Noob comic: Eleven comics, with the most recent release covering the equivalent of the end of Season 3 of the webseries.

The events seen in the different media are organised into the following rough chronological order:

     Noob chronology, first cycle 
  • Season 1 of the webseries (full season)
  • First novel: Saison 1.5: La Pierre des âges (Season 1.5: The Stone of Ages)
  • Season 2 of the webseries (full season)
  • Comics 1 to 3:
  • Video game project: La légende du Comte de Paröw (The legend of the Count of Paröw)
  • Second novel: Saison 2.5: Le Continent sans Retour (Season 2.5: The Continent of No Return)
  • Comics 4 and 5:
    • Les crédits ou la vie (Credits or life)
    • La coupe de Fluxball (The Fluxball cup)
  • Season 3 of the webseries (episodes 1 to 3)
  • Comic 6: Desordre en Olydri (Disruption in Olydri)
  • Season 3 of the webseries (episodes 4 and 5)
  • A franchise-wide Wham Episode and its aftermath that includes a memorable Guest-Star Party Member for the Noob Guild, covered by all three media that focus on different aspects:
    • Season 3 of the webseries (episodes 6 to final) (mostly the Noob guild's point of view of events, focus on the direct aftermath; ends with the Empire-Coalition war)
    • First half of the third novel: Saison 3.5: Les fantômes du passé (Season 3.5: Ghosts of the past) (Added Justice Guild, Roxxor Guild and Non-Player Character perspective, otherwise covers same periods as Season 3)
    • Comics 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 (Additional focus Noob Guild's Guest-Star Party Member):
      • La chute de l'Empire (The fall of the Empire)
      • Retour à la case départ (Back to square one)
      • Mauvaise réputation (Bad reputation)
      • A la guerre comme à la guerre (At war like at war)
      • Trois factions, trois champions une légende (Three factions, three champions, one legend)
      • Le tournoi des espoirs (The hopeful's tournament)
  • Second half of the third novel that takes place between the Season 3 finale and Season 4 premiere.
  • Season 4 of the webseries (full season)
  • Season 5 prologue
  • Fourth novel: Saison 4.5: La faction du Chaos (The faction of Chaos)
  • Season 5 of the webseries (full season excluding prologue)

The second cycle consists of three movies financed by a crowdfunding campaign that ran from May 2013 to July 2013 that made 19 times its original goal.

Released:

A third cycle is covered in the form of webseries named Noob Rush. It takes place after La croisée des destins, but got its early episodes released before it due to being much less in need of special effects. The main characters from before get Demoted to Extra while secondary characters get a little more focus.

Several spin-offs are planned. Three of them have been released in some form:

  • Le blog de Gaea (Gaea's blog), a series of videos made by Gaea's player for the blog she's frequently mentioned to have. It is focused on what the players are up to when they are not playing Horizon.
  • The first Neogicia novel is available since April 2014 and a comic has been released in Feburary 2016. Is focuses on Horizon's Non-Player Character cast.
  • Noob Reroll planned in Light Novel form, is basically a setting-wide Spin-Offspring in which Horizon has been ported to virtual reality under the name Horizon Reborn. It starts in 2060, where most of the original cast is either very old or has been claimed by old age. Its current format is a downloadable-for-free prologue for the first Light Novel.

The franchise has a character sheet, a recap page and an official wiki (in French ''and'' under construction) that gets checked by by the author from time to time. For another work by the same creator, see WarpZone Project.


Tropes present in several media include:

Go here for tropes exclusive to the webseries

Go here for tropes exclusive to the novels

Go here for tropes exclusive to the comics

Go here for tropes exclusive to the first movie

Go here for tropes exclusive to the second movie

Go here for tropes exclusive to the third movie

    open/close all folders 

    Tropes A-M 
  • Accidental Murder: Master Zen's Appliance Defenestration.
  • The Ace: Fantöm for the overall game until Season 3/novel 3/comic 7, Amaras for the Coalition and later the entire game, Spectre for the Order.
  • Adaptation Explanation Extrication: The added value of following as many media as possible frequently hinges on this and its inversion (e.g. not explaining the event the first time it's shown or mentioned, but explaining it in a later depiction).
  • An Adventurer Is You:
    • Noob Guild: Nuker (Gaea / Ivy), Tank (Arthéon), DPS (Omega Zell), Healer (Sparadrap / Couette). Later: Nuker (Ivy), Tank (Spärädräp / EarthBuild!Couette), DPS (Ystös), Distance DPS (Gaëa), Healer (Sparadrap / Couette).
    • Justice Guild main roster: Nuker (Heimdäl), Tank (Fantöm / Saphir while he's absent), Buffer (Saphir), Healer (Ystos) , DPS (Omega Zell).
    • Roxxor Guild main roster: Nuker (Roxana), Tank (Amaras), DPS (Decklan), Healer (Battos).
    • Relic Hunter Guild: Nuker (Master Zen), Tank (Valentin, presumably as a warrior), Distance DPS (Nazetrîme), Healer (Elyx, presumably as a druid).
  • Alchemy Is Magic: Bartémulius, Nostariat and Moulinof, that are the best alchemists known in the setting, are shown using powders and sometimes plants to get results that are basically whatever is needed for the plot to advance.
  • Alliterative Name: Max Middle a.k.a. Fantöm.
  • Arc Welding: The first novel did this to some episodes of the webseries, making it part of the Horizon storyline. When an episode of Season 1 needed to show a character doing a Fetch Quest (which happened three or four times out of twenty often stand-alone episodes) the Quest Giver always happened to be In the Hood and dressed in a Black Cloak, something that could easily be normal for the game and/or due to No Budget. The first novel, chronologically set after the first season, reveals that the black cloak is actually a trademark for a group that is after the Dismantled MacGuffin central to the first novel; some of the pieces were used as decoration for random objects that they sometimes couldn't go get themselves without attracting attention, hence the fetch quests.
  • Armless Biped: Smourbiffs.
  • Appliance Defenestration: Deconstructed: Master Zen, Noob's former Guild Master, landed in prison for accidentally killing someone with a thrown computer monitor. Now he only lives for revenge over the guy whose sheer stupidity led him to flip out and ruined his life.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever:
    • The ogre attacking a village in one of the early comic short stories.
    • Some of the dungeon bosses.
    • Leviathans, which often attack boats between Piratas and Forpitas.
    • A 1000m high Eldritch Abomination in the fourth novel.
    • The key keeper from the Echo dungeon in comic 10 is a huge dragon.
  • Awkward Father-Son Bonding Activity:
    • Played with in the Tenshirock and Judge Dead storyline. The webseries explains that the father tried this after the death of his wife, but the two of them happened to have the worst possible personality combination for that kind of thing: "Well Done, Son" Guy and Inferiority Superiority Complex. As a result, it just made them grow even further apart. The father decided to secretly go Archnemesis Dad on his son because he considered that better than not interacting with him at all and the son didn't want to talk to him at that point.
    • The two of them have started going to therapy in Noob: Le Conseil des Trois Factions and their therapist's first reaction to their situation is "have you guys considered board games?". When he realizes that they both like playing Horizon, he tells them to make new avatars in the same faction and play casually.
  • Battle Cry: For each of the factions: "Les ennemis de l'Empire doivent perir" (Enemies of the Empire must perish), "Coalition! Destruction!" and "L'Ordre dominera Olydri! L'Ordre est infini!" (The Order will dominate Olydri / The Order is infinite; made official in the fourth novel).
  • The Big Guy: Look no further than the official team tank for them.
    • Arthéon for Noob. Alternates are Nazetrîme for the time she lasted, Spärädräp/Warrior!Sparadrap, Couette's earth build and nominally Fantöm, though the latter has yet to act the part in presence of the audience. Also Golgotha sometimes.
    • Fantöm, Saphir for a time, Mist (comic version) for Justice.
    • Valentin for Relic Hunter.
    • Amaras for Roxxor.
  • Binomium ridiculus: sometimes has the recurring alchemists use fictional Latin-sounding names for plants, as a parallel to Latin scientific names from real life.
  • Bland-Name Product: These brands appear mainly in the comics. They are rare but not completely absent in the other media.
  • Broad Strokes: The media are meant to be readable on their own while covering different time periods. As a consequence, things that made up the whole plot in one media installment will be merely mentioned to have happened in another, and get oversimplified, changed and/or have important details omitted so they can get revealed at a time that works better for the in-media storytelling.
  • Cardboard Prison: A character whose backstory explicitly includes being recently sent to jail for Accidental Murder in the webseries and novels has a character sheet in two of the factions.
  • Caught on Tape: Gloating about being the one behind the Wham Episode / Novel Chapter / Comic events in front of someone who regularly makes embarrassing videos of one of her guild mates, especially when you framed her so everyone would think she is responsible for said events, is a bad idea.
  • Childhood Friends: Gaea and Golgotha.
  • Class and Level System
  • Combat Medic: Bound to happen in the MMORPG setting. On the Empire's side, Ystos fits the bill best, both because he's actually the best in the game and the two other Empire healers introduced are part of the Noob guild. Only one healer has been introduced in the Coalition and two in the Order (the novels mention that Kary is one too, which is quite ironic).
  • Comm Links: The game can be set so members of a guild can hear each other without accounting for distance between avatars. Noob and Justice however both have a roleplay practitioner as a Guild Master, so the setting is usually on the "off" position unless long-distance verbal communication is essential to make whatever is going on work.
  • Continuing is Painful: Cemetery resurrections involve loss of experience and reputation points, in addition to damage on equipped items. Resurrection stones can keep that from happening, but characters rarely have them around.
  • Cool Mask: Précieux, Heimdäl and Roxana. Ystos starts wearing one in battle in late Season 3 and Tabris has one over the bandages covering his body.
  • Cosmic Retcon: Tabris created one in the third novel and a Season 4 flashback, which is the reason for which the Source of Chaos is roaming in Olydri in the present day in later installments.
  • Creator Provincialism: When the residence of a player is mentioned or hinted at, it tends to be in the South-East of France. The known places:
    • Aix-en-Provence: Gaea and Golgotha
    • Biscarosse: Ivy
    • Cuers: Omega Zell
    • Le Lavandou: Couette
    • Marseille: Dark Avenger
    • Toulon (where creator Fabien Fournier happens to live): Fantöm, Sparadrap and Ystos who's the latter's younger brother.
    • Averted with Saphir and her sisters, who live in Paris.
  • Decapitated Army:
    • According to the novel version of the Centralis battle, one of the things the Coalition needs to do to take Centralis is to kill the Empire's Non-Player Character leader.
    • Something similar happens in some battlegrounds for the player randomly chosen to command the troops according to the comic.
  • Dead Character Walking: Horizon seems to have it as a straight game mechanism. One of Gaea's Dirty Coward tricks is to deliberately stay in that form to avoid withstanding extra damage.
  • Decade Dissonance: In the webseries, Centralis, the Empire's capital, is a futuristic city in an otherwise Medieval European Fantasy context. Other Empire strongholds are mentioned in the novels, but they're implied to be in the same situation as Centralis in terms of landscape.
  • Death Dealer: The general idea of the cartomancer class.
  • Deep-Immersion Gaming: Exaggerated by being the default situation.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Seems to be the case of the elementalist class. It starts out as a Jack of All Stats, then the player can choose different paths while keeping minor spells from the other elements: fire, water, earth or air. Once at level 100, they can take another specialization, making the number of different combinations no less than six. Roxana, whose ranking among players was never lower than number five during the story, has fire as first and water as second, making her a Glass Cannon who can heal herself, while Fantöm made the staying a Jack of All Stats up to level 100 work on his second avatar. Couette, on the other hand, leveled up as water and switched to earth later. That makes her good at staying alive, but gives her very little damage dealing power; T-Man shows that she can literally be beaten by someone hitting her long and hard enough. In addition, the fact that double specializations work basically as Multi Form Balance means that she has to switch back and forth between being able to heal and being damage-resistant.
  • Disaster Dominoes: The overreaching in-game story is caused by these:
    • Some time prior to Gaea's arrival, Sparadrap causes Master Zen to get annoyed enough to throw his computer out of the window and accidentally commit murder and end up in jail (that step in itself qualifies for the trope).
    • Once he comes back, Master Zen decides to take revenge on his former guildmates by making it look like Gaea posted a compromising video on the Internet.
    • The video causes the Empire to lose its top player, accused of cheating. The Empire ends up with such a bad reputation among players that many leave the faction in favor of the other ones.
    • The Coalition tries to destroy what's left of the Empire, the Empire manages to survive despite a Darkest Hour moment.
    • The Darkest Hour came with an energy drain that set free a Sealed Evil in a Can. Said Evil is now set on The End of the World as We Know It.
  • Divergent Character Evolution: Couette started off as Sparadrap's Distaff Counterpart in all three media, before starting to display bigger attention to her apperance, bigger knowledge of in-game trivia and a much less altruistic behaviour.
  • Deuteragonist: The Justice guild main roster (Fantöm's team) eventually becomes this.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: If this were a physical sports story, Fantöm would have been getting performance enhancement drugs slipped into his drinking water by Donteuil.
  • Dramatic Irony: The intended mutual independence of each media can make the same Reveal or Plot Twist happen up to three times from the point of view of someone following all three. The comic is so late on the two other that it slips into Foregone Conclusion.
  • Economy Cast: Justice is supposed to have something like 200 members, but as far as the story goes, they seem to only ever get help from the Noob guild and occasionally Castörga. The other 180-something members sometimes get mentioned, but never seen, to the point that quite a few fans think that the Justice guild only consists of Fantöm, Heimdäl, Saphir and Ystos (while Castörga helps as a friend of Heimdäl's). The reverse is also true, with the help the Noob guild can get in a pinch being Golgotha, the Justice guild main roster, or none at all. All other Empire characters last no more than one installment unless they are former of future members of either guild. The Guild of Gaea Admirers has an unspecified number of members, but Meuhmeuh is the only member regularly seen.
  • Ensemble Cast: Equal importance is given to all the members the Noob guild had during the two first seasons of the webseries, the first novel and four of the first comics. Once recruited, Ivy becomes a fifth member of the ensemble. The Justice guild main roster eventually becomes a Deuteragonist ensemble.
  • Equipment-Based Progression: Presumably the case for all level 100 characters. The Justice guild main roster is frequently seen renewing one piece of equipment or another.
  • Evil Wears Black: Mostly averted as long as it's not accompanied by red (that includes the character's cursor). The colour seems quite frequent on assassin outfits if Omega Zell and Ystös/Assassin!Ystos are anything to go by, obligatory for Twilight Warrior armour and some characters are hinted to do it for style. Spectre is the only non-Coalition member playing that trope straight, and that may have to do with his necromancer class, while Tenshirock seems to invoke it.
  • Fantastic Science: Basically the Empire's niche. The reason the Bio-Augmentation that creates neomancers works so well is that the new genetic material injected into the subjects comes from the kind of fauna one would expect to find in the world of a fantasy MMORPG and Physical Gods.
  • Feed the Mole: In the third novel and tenth comic, Amaras told everyone that he planned to attack Centralis five days later than he really intended to for the benefit of Empire spies. He revealed the real date the evening before it.
  • Fictional Video Game: Horizon. Defictionalization is a dream of both fans and creator, however.
  • Frame-Up: The franchise-wide Wham Episode includes the leader of Relic Hunter guild doing this to Gaea.
  • Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Sparadrap and Ystos.
  • Gaming Clan: All the guilds seen can be considered to be one. Noob and Relic Hunter guild are so small they contain a single Player Party while Roxxor and Justice are hinted to be quite big.
  • Gender-Blender Name:
    • Morgan Lavande a.k.a. Omega Zell. The feminine version is actually spelled "Morgane", but is pronounced in exactly the same way. And yes, his last name is French for "Lavender".
    • Possibly not done on purpose (or just to slide a subtle extra similarity), Gabrielle, Gaea's name, is homophone to the masculine "Gabriel".
  • Geodesic Cast: A direct consequence of An Adventurer Is You, that means quite a few four-person teams running around, four of which have been introduced so far (the Noob guild, team Fantöm, team Amaras and Relic Hunter guild). Also justified by the fact four players has also been stated to be both the maximum ordinary dungeons will take (not counting hired help) and the minimum size of parties that can enter special dungeons such as the Galamadriabuyak tower or the Dungeon of Chaos.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: There are different colored cursors for the members of each player faction (yellow for the Empire, red for the Coalition, green for the Order). The cursor turns grey if a player gets kicked out of their faction, which means they can be attacked by all three. Early-Installment Weirdness gave Game Masters blue ones.
  • Griefer: Basically Relic Hunter guild's reason to be. Not only that, but the Noob guild is the only one they're after. Also fits what Tenshirock would probably be if he were an actual player.
  • Guys Smash, Girls Shoot:
    • Female characters are either the nuker of the healer of their groups. The three notable exceptions are Golgotha, Omega Zelette and Nazetrîme who is a double subversion because her berserker isn't her real character. Saphir is a buffer rather than a DPSer before becoming her team's replacement tank and Nazetrîme is a Death Dealer. Roxana, Couette and Ivy have been seen getting into hand to hand combat on a single occasion.
    • Quite a few male characters are shooters also: Sparadrap, Ystos and Battos as healers, Master Zen, Précieux and Heimdäl as mages, and Amaras and Fantöm have distance attacks in their arsenal as Twilight Warriors. That makes both aspects of the trope are downplayed, with the "girls shoot" part closest to being played straight.
  • Hanging Judge: Arthéon has that view of Judge Dead and Game Masters in general. His backstory had him lose a high-level gaming avatar because it was permanently banned for Real Money Trade, which he considers a Felony Misdemeanor. He now seems convinced that calling a Game Master for one of the problems they're actually supposed to solve will somehow get his new gaming avatar and those of his guildmates banned. The only moment this was ever somewhat justified in the whole franchise was a webseries-only plotline in which his guild ended up with an illegally modified gaming item they couldn't get rid of thanks to The Cracker and had used it several times before discovering what it actually was.
  • Heal It with Water: Water elementalists are healing-oriented.
  • The Heart:
    • Sparadrap for Noob, being the nicest member and possibly the only one who genuinely sees his guildmates as True Companions.
    • Ystos for Justice, who was helping out the Noob guild members even while his guildmates were a little snobbish towards them.
  • Hidden Depths: This often comes into play when someone's real life is exposed.
  • Honorary True Companion: Golgotha, who won't join the Noob guild due to being a mercenary but hangs around with them a lot despite this. This is best shown in Season 3 of the webseries when Arthéon needs to be replaced, where stepping in doesn't cross her mind despite being well aware of the situation. However, when Arthéon wants to test a team configuration with Sparadrap as a warrior and Ystos as the healer, she insists on participating and acts surprised she wasn't asked to come along.
  • Hub City: Implied to be the case for each faction capital. For the Order, Galaé is the only actual town confirmed to still be standing.
  • Imagine Spotting: In the comic and webseries, both Gaea's Yaoi Fangirl fantasies and what comes into Sparadrap's mind when he misunderstands things sometimes seem to be visible to their guildmates.
  • Inadvertent Entrance Cue: In the webseries and novel versions, Elementalist!Fantöm's pursuit of a Soulless he's supposed to kill to finish a quest makes him run by the Noob guild members just after they finish discussing the fact that they badly need an extra player.
  • Inferred Survival: Info from the comics and novels causes a minor case in the webseries storyline. The webseries and novels both make a Tear Jerker out of the death of Sparadrap's pets. The novel and comics both show that Arthéon's banned level 100 avatar still exists, he just can't use it. Hence, one can find some kind of consolation in the fact that Sparadrap is actually on his second avatar when his pets are killed, the previous one being banned along with its pets in the webseries version of the story.
  • In-Series Nickname:
    • In the webseries and comic, thanks to Sparadrap, the Galamadriabuyak tower is also known as the Buyabuyak tower. Thanks to Golgotha, we have Gaga, Arthéfion, l'homme gazelle (literally "the gazelle man"), Sparamoule and Tenshicaillou. Fantöm and Amaras have some too. Just know that French also has a pejorative for homosexuals that starts with "f" (for Fantöm) and that the equivalent to the S-word starts with "m" (for Amaras).
    • The comic changed Fantöm's to "Fat homme". Couette has "Couic" in the second novel but got called "petit lapinou" (little bunny) in the Dungeon of Chaos arc from the webseries. Ivy got "Hippie" only in the second novel.
  • Involuntary Battle to the Death: Gets played with each time a Tournament Arc happens. The setting of course makes it a non-lethal variation.
    • Third comic: Golgotha mentions it would be funny if she and Gaea ended up fighting each other. She ends up fighting Omega Zell instead but both lose because they end up destroying their respective computers faster than they destroy each other's avatars.
    • Season 5 of the webseries: Sparadrap ends up facing one of his guildmates and offers the refusing to fight option, but the guildmate's reaction is basically "Hey, this is a tournament and you're a sitting duck right now, bye-bye". The tournament's finalists end up being Ivy and Omega Zell, who are technically allies but happen to not like each other that much.
  • It's All Upstairs From Here: The Galamadriabuyak tower, which is necessary to raise the guild's level cap. A Pick-Up Group is necessary to get inside for the game's rare solo players.
  • Keywords Conversation: The fictional MMORPG in which the franchise is set has a verbal variation. All media show players accepting a quest by telling "quest accepted" to a Quest Giver. The novels focus on this aspect a little more, the first one having Arthéon prononce the name of the Living MacGuffin as clearly as possible to every single Non-Player Character he runs into in hope of eliciting a reaction. The second novel had Sparadrap blurt out a string of potential keywords instead real sentences when short on time to get a Non-Player Character to follow him.
  • The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Fantöm and Spectre seem to have this going on for each other. Fantöm admires Spectre's Living Legend status and Spectre is impressed by Fantöm's accomplishments, even though he hasn't reached his own level quite yet.
  • The Lancer:
    • Jerkass bigot Omega Zell, then smart, lucid and lethargic Ivy for Noob to the more nuanced Arthéon and stupid, childish, energetic Sparadrap respectively.
    • The Perfectionist Saphir to Honor Before Reason oriented Heimdäl for Justice.
    • Calm Elyx to Hair Trigger Temper Master Zen for Relic Hunter.
    • Roxana is second of command for Roxxor, but neither she nor Amaras have been developed enough for any Foil dynamic to be evident between them before Gaea replaces the latter.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler:
    • The fourth novel's cover shows Gaea with a Coalition cursor.
    • The seventh and eigth comic hint at Fantöm's demise then his joining of the Noob guild.
  • The Leader: Overlaps with the guild master titles.
    • Arthéon and eventually Sparadrap for Noob.
    • Heimdäl for Justice.
    • Master Zen for Relic Hunter.
    • Amaras , later Gaea for Roxxor.
  • Manchild: Sparadrap.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • "Kevin" is an insult meant for younger gamers that sometimes takes the same meaning as "Noob" when the (at least mental) age part of the term no longer applies in one's mind. Before that, it was and still is a very frequent masculine name. With such a fact existing in France, it would have been hard to name Sparadrap something else.
      • His last name is French for "the pope". That makes his full name a not-so-remote synonym of "the Noob priest".
  • MĂȘlĂ©e Ă  Trois:
    • The dynamic between the player factions turns into this after the Order gets introduced.
    • Also the whole point of the battle between Spectre, Fantöm and Amaras in Season 5 finale.
  • Mistaken for Badass: In the webseries and comic, Dark Avenger's sole presence seems to make Sparadrap's luck literally spike. The main consequence is that Dark Avenger is convinced that Sparadrap is displaying Obfuscating Stupidity while everyone else (except Précieux) just sees him as the Noob he is. Gets even worse given that Sparadrap "beats" Dark Avenger mainly when the two are alone. If there are witnesses, they either arrive too late or are Sparadrap's very surprised guildmates, who have no good reason to go tell Dark Avenger's Guild Master and colleagues that he really did get defeated by accident. The trope gets deconstructed by the end of Season 4 of the webseries, as Sparadrap never picks up on what is happening while both Amaras and Roxana get fustrated by the situation.
  • Most Gamers Are Male: Frequently invoked by Omega Zell and played straight in the main cast from the sex ratio bias towards male characters. Gamer Chick is averted via the significant number of female characters, diverse personalities among them and their presence both at the top (Saphir and Roxana) and the bottom (Gaea, Couette, Ivy and Golgotha).
  • Mythology Gag: Due to the Broad Strokes situation, quite a few inter-media allusions qualify. Detailed lists can be found on the work's respective pages.

    Tropes N-Z 
  • NEET: Gets played around with.
    • Arthéon is probably one between getting out of boarding school and getting his job.
    • Fantöm is this during his time in the Noob guild. His Day in the Life from the comic explains that the employment office is refusing to help him find a job because his work experience as a professional gamer isn't taken seriously.
    • Sparadrap made himself look like one early on due to his source a revenue keeping him away from his computer for only a very short time each day.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In the Season 3 finale / midway through the third novel, the Noob guild ran into team Amaras (minus Amaras himself). Decklan stole the bag containing Sparadrap's pets and Roxana destroyed it Just For Evulz. Cue to it being Sparadrap's Berserk Button. While Heimdäl, Ystos and Saphir seemed to be Just In Time in the webseries, the extra dialogue from the novel reveals that they had time to find the group in part because team Amaras decided to bully the Noob guild instead of just killing them.
  • Nice Mean And In Between: The male members of the guild have Sparadrap as the nice one, Omega Zell as the mean one (he's quite a jerk even when the misogyny is ignored) and Arthéon as the mediator between the two (much nicer than Omega Zell without lapsing into Sparadrap's Stupid Good extreme).
  • Non-Combat EXP: Both exploring and quests have been shown to grant experience points.
  • Non-Player Character: A few, usually shopkeepers and quest givers.
  • One-Word Title: Noob
  • Online Alias: As the story is set in an online game, this is the only means by which most characters are known.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: The vast majority of the characters. The real names so far known are those of Fantöm (Max Middle), Arthéon (Stanislas Chatelain), Gaea (Gabrielle Jolivet), Omega Zell (Morgan Lavande), Sparadrap (Kevin Lepape), Golgotha (Catherine Mourru), Ystos (Thomas Lepape), Saphir (Penelope), Couette (Angélique Fleur), Ivy (Fanny Blanchet), Judge Dead (Théodore Saquebien) and Tenshirock. The game creator is the only character only called by his real name.
  • Only Sane Man: Arthéon is the most well-adjusted member of the guild as long as Game Masters don't get involved. The quirks of the other members affect their behaviour on a much more frequent basis. Ivy is a close second when she's awake and takes the mantle after Arthéon reaches his Rage Breaking Point.
  • Perpetual Poverty: Both Gaea in real life and the Noob guild. Gaea has a few money-making/saving schemes, but all profits go towards her Horizon subscription and all the manga-related stuff in her room. The Noob guild is broke in part because of Gaea constantly weaseling her way out of contributing and the only one who notices also being the one who always has a bad word towards her anyway. In addition, the few game credits they have are split between Sparadrap buying useless things and Golgotha deciding she wants to be paid right when the fact that she frequently tags along on her own may actually be useful.
    • And the previous is only what the webseries mentions, as the novels and the comic make matters even worse: Sparadrap's guild contribution is hinted to be better known as his "feed the pets" fund, Omega Zell's is revealed to be so sporadic that him promising Arthéon to pay without fault each week for a whole year was more than enough to convince the latter to not make any moves towards inviting Couette into the guild during said year.
  • Pet Baby Wild Animal: Baby cochoboules are mentioned to be part of Sparadrap's pet collection in both the novels and comics. Adult cochoboules are a recurring enemy in the comic and Gaea has one as her main summon creature.
  • Pick-Up Group: The Noob Guild's most memorable Guest-Star Party Member tried this before joining them in the webseries and novels.
  • Player Killing: Depicted in the webseries and comic, discussed in the novels. Roxana's guild, of which Dark Avenger, Précieux and Papy PK are members, is dedicated to the activity.
  • Player Party: The franchise-wide ones are the Noob guild, team Fantöm (Justice guild), team Amaras (Roxxor guild), Relic Hunter guild. Roxana is seen forming a party with Dark Avenger, Précieux and Papy PK in the eighth comic. Gaea also has a choice of an alternate set of human shields uh... teammates thanks to the existence of Gaea Worshippers' guild.
  • Pointy Ears: One of the features distinguishing Syriallians (the people the Order is made of) from other Olydrians. While played straight with NPCs, this is zig-zagged with the players, since a good half of them landed in the faction after a Hazy-Feel Turn and are used to using an avatar with normal ears.
  • Politically Incorrect Hero: Omega Zell thinks that women have nothing to do in MMORPGs and puts them on the same level as Noobs. It however backfires a lot with the person in charge of his dream guild's admissions being female and the Noob guild getting new female members some time after Gaea joins.
  • Port Town: Forpitas, whose main purpose seems to be the town from which players go to the Piratas island.
  • Publicly Discussing the Secret: Happens regularly.
    • The webseries had Donteuil discussing important matters with other people in-game, where passing players could overhear him and the other person.
    • All three media had Master Zen find out about a certain video simply from overhearing a casual conversation between Tenshirock and Gaea.
    • In Noob: Le Conseil des Trois Factions, a certain father-son pair chats around other players and casually mentions its other in-game role. So much for asking the two other people in the know to keep their mouths shut about it in Season 5.
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Noob guild. Only Sane Man leader with a fear of Game Masters? Check. Self-centered misogynist? Check. A Manipulative Bastard and Dirty Coward package deal? Check. Stupid Good Manchild? Got that too. May I suggest adding a narcoleptic Mad Bomber or a Leeroy Jenkins Psycho for Hire to your order?
  • Real Money Trade: The business of the farmerchinois.com site and the reason Arthéon's level 100 character got banned.
  • Recognizable by Sound: In the webseries and novels, when Fantöm first makes his second avatar but tries to play on his own, he runs into the Noob guild. One of its members asks him if he's the real Fantöm (since he could also have been someone copycatting the Online Alias and appearance) and he answers "No" in the hope of getting rid of them. Unfortunately, most of the Noob guild know him well enough to recognize his voice.
  • Red and Black and Evil All Over: Coalition members are conspiciously more prone to wearing red and black than players of other factions; when they wear only black, the red comes from the cursor. Also happens to be the colors of Gaea's dress starting Season 2, as well of those of the outfit she gets near the end of Noob: Le Conseil des Trois Factions.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Gaea (blue) and Golgotha (red) fit the trope quite well. A case can also be made for Omega Zell being red to Arthéon's blue.
  • Reference Overdosed: "Indeed" in the best way to put the webseries and novels, "WOW" best describes the comic. It can't even be called laziness in background character design when imitating known characters is Truth in Television for quite a few MMORPG players.
  • Remember the New Guy?: One of the consequences of keeping the timeline overlap to a minimum. The novel is the only media that gives Ivy a formal introduction while she appears out of thin air in the webseries and comic. The novels have that happen to Tenshirock and Nazetrîme, who got a proper introduction in the webseries and the comic.
  • Revealing Cover Up: As pointed out in the novel version of the franchise-wide event, it looks a little suspicious for Donteuil and Judge Dead to delete Fantöm's avatar the second he was accused of cheating and pin everything on him. The proper thing to do if they had nothing to do with it would have been to open an investigation on the issue. Instead, the outright permanent deletion basically says "we know the accusations are true because we're the guilty party".
  • Revive Kills Zombie
  • The Roleplayer: The cumulated info from the media makes Arthéon, Heimdäl and possibly the rest of the Justice guild main roster qualify.
  • Rotating Arcs: The later part of the story turns into this due to the old Noob guild splitting up. After this, Gaea and Arthéon are both doing their own thing, focus on Sparadrap becomes a package deal with New Noob guild focus and something similar happens with Omega Zell and Justice guild's arc.
  • Science Fantasy: Technically speaking. The novels are the only media fully showing it for now.
  • Serious Business: It's about MMORPG players, what do you expect? There are a few characters that insist on having it just be a fun game to play with your friends, such as Sparadrap.
  • Ship Tease: Despite the lack of official romance outside of short-lived Arthéon / Kary and the almost never mentioned one-sided one between two members of Relic Hunter guild, there are quite a few pairs (both heterosexual and homosexual) that will be far from being Strangled by the Red String if they happen:
    • Omega Zell and Fantöm: Supported in-universe by Gaea's Yaoi Fangirl side and the alternate interpretation of the fact that Omega Zell slips into Cannot Spit It Out in Fantöm's presence. Word of God stated that Omega Zell is "not homosexual" and Fantöm didn't seem to like the idea of a guy having a crush on him the two times Gaea suggested it. The events of Season 3 altered the situation towards Fantöm getting along with the Noob guild (and even explicitly considering them true friends in the third book), Omega Zell included. In Season 4, Fantöm not only pressures Saphir to let Omega Zell into Justice guild, but signs him up into its main roster behind her back, under the pretext it gives him the opportunity to pay the Noob guild back for its help.
    • Gaea and Golgotha: They're already established as old friends that have known each other since childhood according to the books and comic. A few facts hint to it being more than friendship at least on Golgotha's side between her general overprotectiveness towards Gaea in-game, the fact that she suddenly decided to move in with Gaea (which meant crossing half of France) over loss of in-game contact and her hugging Gaea's arm when they show up at the guild's real-life meeting. She even seems to easily forgive Gaea killing her in-game and even gets enthuastic at the idea of eventually fighting against her when she joins the Coalition. Also, penny-pinching Gaea is letting someone who seems to not know her own strength live in her apartment. Heterosexual Life-Partners is another possible explanation.
    • Golgotha and Sparadrap: While she started out apparently as annoyed by his attitude as Gaea and Omega Zell, she clearly has a soft spot for him by Season 2 and claims to miss both him and Gaea when they get kicked out of the game (but says nothing about Arthéon, whom she was somewhat replacing at the time). She also energically cheers Sparadrap on a few select occasions. Their cooperation during the Season 5 tournament added an extra layer that included Spardrap putting himself between Golgotha and an enemy blast. Add the fact that their actors are a married couple in the mix.
    • Golgotha and Omega Zell: While Omega Zell was quite mad at Arthéon for recruiting Couette and Ivy, he never complains when Golgotha joins the group and once asked if she could join him in a quest when nobody else was available. She's also the only person aside of him that seems fully aware of Gaea's excessive greed. When he has to interview a female gamer for his job and Gaea happens to be the closest, the first thing he asks after making sure he's at the right place if Golgotha is present. In the comic, he even states that he considers her to be a man stuck in a woman's body as justification of her not being included in his sexism. Some scenes have them standing next to each other for no apparent good reason, one of which had Omega Zell step away from Golgotha the second Gaea came to hide behind her.
    • Omega Zell and Gaea: Their overall relationship can be seen as Belligerent Sexual Tension. While the interview arc makes them meet in real life, the biggest tease they get is in the Season 4 episode during which they have a fight that makes Gaea sound jealous of Fantöm and leads Omega Zell to leave the guild, which seems to upset her quite a lot. Gaea also once suggested to Omega Zell that he may like her to tease him. The recurring element not helping is that they have shown to be able to have quite constructive casual conversations when they forget to fight.
      • This one specifically seems to be a fan favorite, this survey shows it: among six outcomes for a second duel between them, the top two answers are the loser of the first duel winning followed by them having a love story.
    • Omega Zell and Sparadrap: On the blatant end, they once (twice including a crossover with Flander's Company) ended up in a dancing duet thanks to Tenshirock. Thanks to "gay" commonly keeping its "joyful" meaning in French, Sparadrap claimed to qualify for the latter while Gaea was actually asking Omega Zell if he was the former. On the more subtle end, when Sparadrap had to make a second avatar in Season 2, Omega Zell gave him technical reasons he couldn't join the guild in Arthéon's absence before seeming to come back to his senses and basically telling him to get lost. Later, while feeling lonely, he hallucinated Sparadrap coming to speak to him. In Season 3, Omega Zell called Gaea a horrible person for having a money-oriented reaction to an event that greatly saddened Sparadrap. In Season 4, Sparadrap considered Omega Zell leaving the guild a bad enough matter to go tell Arthéon in real life while it looks like he only found out about Gaea after Kary having exams enabled him to join Sparadrap for a dungeon.
    • Ystos and Fantöm: In Season 3, he bursts into tears along with Omega Zell when Fantöm's name is pronounced in a quite empty Centralis. Later, he's basically the one who gets Fantöm to start playing again, believes the Noob guild's info that he could be innocent while admitting Saphir and Heimdäl may need solid evidence and welcomes him back into Horizon. The new character he creates in Season 4 is an assassin, the class Fantöm was playing before the first time he became a Twilight warrior.
    • Gaea and Fantöm: Fantöm was in the ad that got Gaea to buy the game and he appears in her Yaoi Fangirl fantasies. She also seems hung up on blackmailing Fantöm specifically, going up to getting Omega Zell to interview him for his job, knowing he'll have to bring her along to ask questions to be able to blackmail him again in Season 3 after she was forced to stop in Season 2. Also one of the real-life couples from the cast.
  • So Last Season: Both of the first movies have the latest means of fighting the Evil Shadow turning out to have gone obsolete as part of one of the subplots.
  • Spiritual Successor: To Lost Levels, a previous series made by Fabien Fournier, in which the game was a virtual reality rather than a classic MMORPG. Among the characters where a top player named Phantom, a white-clad man named Omega Zell, a magic user named Gaea, a hacker named Tenshirock and a player killer named Dark Avenger. Their Noob expys go from in name (and actor) only to someone closer to the Lost Levels version.
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Polaris. It's so cold there that not moving for a few seconds can make you freeze.
  • The Smart Guy:
    • Gaea (the brains that make her a Manipulative Bastard) and Ivy (gadget maker), sometimes Arthéon (who used to be The Strategist for Justice, after all) in Noob.
    • Heimdäl (team strategist) in Justice, but both Fantöm and Ystos have been seen pitching in.
  • Straw Misogynist: Omega Zell, for the reasons mentioned in Politically Incorrect Hero.
  • Stripperiffic: Averted with the main characters, but such outfits are shown to exist in the webseries and background characters of the comic confirm it as a possibility.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial:
    Kevin: No, no, mister, I'm not Sparadrap! You must be confusing me with another priest in another MMORPG.
    Balakior: As a completely objective referee who didn't get any bribes I... (leaves)
  • The Team: Every single Player Party.
  • Temporary Online Content: Heavily implied to happen, Horizon being a MMORPG that regularly gets its setting updated. One set of characters moved from Quest Giver to Mook in the first novel, while ephemeral quests get mentioned in the comic. There are also secret quests, whose outcome actually influences the game's plot. Once someone finds and accepts them, Nothing Is the Same Anymore.
  • There Are No Therapists: Implied and played with in a few situations that get developed in the story:
    • In his backstory, Arthéon seems to have never considered getting therapy in dealing with his overbearing mother. He did see a few during the period following the loss of his first character, but they didn't help at all and he only got better once his mother got around giving him a little liberty on her own. He's seen attending a support group for players that lost an avatar to Real Money Trade in one of the comic short stories. However, his story is shown to make everyone else realize that their situation could be much worse and leave, while the chairman treats it as a Cassandra Truth.
    • Near the end of Season 5, we find out about a father and his teenage son who's an avid Horizon player. The wife/mother has recently died, no indication is given of how avid a player the son was before her death and the father seems to be trying to keep the household together on his own. The father tries to get on his son's good side by creating an Horizon avatar and only telling him once he's among the top three players, but the son is so embarrassed he ends up leaving both the game and home. Only then is the father seen... reading a magazine whose front page article is apparently about abusive practices in psychothereapy. The father then turns out to have diagnosed the condition that possibly lead to his wife's death in one of his guildmates and to have done the effort to go visit him in real life to talk and give him her doctor's number. Considering that these people are Tenshirock and Judge Dead in the present day, they could probably both still use that therapy: the finale reveals that Judge Dead's issue was a good old Inferiority Superiority Complex that his father becoming one of the Horizon top three only made worse.
    • Master Zen's jail turns out to be either next door to or sharing a building with a psych ward. That set-up would in theory give him easy access to a therapist, but the time he ended up spending there was only just enough to befriend Elyx and not enough to get effective treatment. Elyx is now the closest thing he has to a therapist and to her credit, she briefly seemed to have induced some kind of progress in the webseries..
  • Too Much Alike: Omega Zell is a misogynist and Gaea a woman who doesn't like being demeaned. Gaea, on the other hand, displays behaviours that Omega Zell tends to not approve of in general. Aside from this, the two don't get along simply from both being self-centered, ambitious and taking every opportunity they can to bring their goal closer. The situation is such that if one of them has an opportunity to make a big step toward their objective, they (often correctly) assume that the other has the same idea in mind.
  • Total Party Kill: Has happened to the Noob guild too many times to count.
  • Tournament Arc: One of the comic short stories and part of Season 5 of the webseries.
  • UltimateGamer386: Fantöm may first look like the trope being played straight. However...
    • Deconstructed: Fantöm is the fourth player to hold that position since Horizon got released according to the novels (Mist > Spectre > Amaras > Him). Since Amaras is still around and now number two, he frequently gets challenged by him and got close to losing to him at least once. Also, fear and respect are not the only reactions that the position generates: annoying fans and blackmailers exist too.
    • Downplayed: The fame aspect is shared with the other members of his party. The "someone one of the main characters already knows in real life" bonus is actually held by one of them rather than by Fantöm himself. Amaras is pretty much Fantöm's Coalition equivalent, and he has a party also. And Spectre comes back in Season 3.
    • Justified: For those who know how the story goes, that fact that the game's creators have been enhancing Fantöm's stats behind his back each time he got in enough trouble to put his number one rank at risk. This also deconstructs the trope a little further.
  • Unique Items: Mentioned several times to exist. They have so far shown up as rewards for non-repeatable quests or winning the Fluxball cup. Sourcelame is one also, for a very good reason.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: Sparadrap cares about his pets enough to go berserk when they get killed in front of him and goes an extra mile by trying be friendly to enemies whose sole purpose is to be killed by players.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Arthéon and the Justice guild, ever since the Real Money Trade incident. Saphir seemed to present herself as that one former friend that still speaks to him in an early episode of the webseries, but Ystos is the one who permanently took on that role in all three media.
  • Wham Episode:
    • The reason the "cover different periods of time" rule gets broken for Season 3, the first half of the third novel and comics seven and following.
    • Omega Zell's transfer from Noob to Justice, Gaea's Face Heel turn and Arthéon reaching his Rage Breaking Point were all shown onscreen in Season 4 of the webseries while the fourth novel starts about a week after the last of these happens and repairing the damage is already underway.
    • The novels all take place around one of these for the Non-Player Character part of the story. Three facts have however held true despite this: Lys and Ark'hen are powerless due to their strength being drained when the Stone of Ages exploded, all neogicians are magic-incapable, and the Empire needs the magic from the Sources to keep most of its technology working. All three of these status quo facts stop being true over the course of the fourth novel.
    • The first episode of Season 5 reveals the Online Alias of the other players from Spectre's old Coalition roster besides Amaras: Ash and Tenshirock.
    • The three last episodes of Season 5 each have their own Wham moment: Tenshirock turns out to be Judge Dead's estranged father who wants to make up with him. He also turns out to be the one who made Spectre stop playing when they were teammates, because the reason why Spectre is so good is also a threat to his player's health. Finally, Fantöm turns out to have intended to make Amaras win their battle with Spectre all along to make up for the trouble he went through while he was cheated without knowing it.
  • What Did You Expect When You Named It ____?: Just look at Master Zen's backstory. He names his guild "Noob", ends up having an actual noob in it, said noob end up pissing him off to the point that the infamous Appliance Defenestration happens; this is especially strange given that Master Zen later comes up with a much better name for his new guild. Gaea even lampshades the lousy name choice the first time she hears it in the series.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Sometimes gets answered later in another form of media.
  • Yaoi Fangirl: Gaea's imagination tends to run wild when it comes to Omega Zell's hero worship of Fantöm.
  • You ALL Look Familiar: More like the love child of this and New Job as the Plot Demands two tropes. The same male NPC seems to run all businesses in Olydri in the webseries and comics. In the webseries, when asked about it, he confirms that he's the same guy holding all the jobs at the same time. The novels and comic hint that this may be slowly turning into Uncanny Family Resemblance, as some jobs are now shown to be held by cousins of his that look more like twin siblings.
  • You ALL Share My Story: The context started out with a One Degree of Separation pocket that included the Noob guild and the Justice guild main roster, making it quite easy for the two groups to run into each other and by extension their respective acquaintances. The first meeting between team Amaras and the Noob guild occurs from them discreetely following team Fantöm during one of their quests, while other Coalition players become recurring opponents of the Noob guild.
  • You Will Be Spared: In all three media, the Noob guild gets that status in Tenshirock's eyes some time after the Wham Episode.

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