The final chapter of the first trilogy in the Threadbare saga.
Threadbare has gathered a cadre of loyal followers, almost all of them resurrected from the dead and placed in the bodies of toy golems. Now he needs to reach out to the dwarves, form an alliance, overthrow the king, and save the world.
Easy peasy.
Threadbare on the march to war
- Name: Threadbare
- Age: 5
- Jobs:
Greater Toy Golem Level 15
Cave Bear Level 12
Ruler Level 11
Scout Level 7
Tailor Level 11
Model Level 8
Necromancer Level 11
Duelist Level 6
Animator Level 12
Enchanter Level 10
Golemist Level 12
Smith Level 10
Sculptor Level 12 - Attributes:
- Strength: 124
- Intelligence: 216
- Dexterity: 147 (154)
- Charisma: 110 (145)
- Perception: 112
- Constitution: 138
- Wisdom: 201 (208)
- Agility: 112 (126)
- Willpower: 199
- Luck: 89 (96)
- Pools:
- Hit Points: 330 (410)
- Sanity: 417 (545)
- Stamina: 269 (373)
- Moxie: 309 (424)
- Fortune: 208 (295)
- Defenses
- Armor: 52 (59)
- Mental Fortitude: 42
- Endurance: 62
- Cool: 20 (47)
- Fate: 15 (22)
Are You Bear Enough for These Tropes?
- Action Dad/Action Mom: In the past, Melos and Amelia went on life-threatening adventures, then went home and paid their babysitter.
- Church Militant: The dwarfs at first appear to hate the idea of an army of golems and Doll Haunters helping them in the fight against Melos, because Aeterna hates the undead. Turns out, that was a ruse to trick The Lurker and King Grundi loves the idea of an unstoppable tide of sturdy golems!
- The Determinator: "Some people had determination. Grissle was determination."
- Elite Mooks: Though the Hand were mentioned in the second book, they weren't really discussed. Here, they're a major threat. They're five demons created from the dead remains of the Seven after Melos, the sole survivor, reanimated them following the battle with the lych Gristle had become.
- The Inquisitor: Anayse Layd'I, Melos's right hand.
- The Ninja: A ninja who does lethal sneak attack damage.
- The Legion: A summoner who calls upon a host of lesser demons.
- The Cataclysm: A fire junky who can melt battlefields.
- The Lurker: A skilled liar who infiltrates by killing someone and taking their place.
- Everyone Has Standards: King Grundi might be willing to be undwarfly enough to just give away a huge pile of valuable reagents so Threadbare and Celia can raise an army of Doll Haunters to fight against Melos, but he can't stomach kin-slaying.Celia: I have to stop him. But I'm sorry, he's my father. I can't kill him. I... if he won't surrender, I'll try to capture him.
Grundi: That answer... [Beat] ... was completely correct!
Celia: Wait, what?
Lass, I don't care how undwarfy we're getting here by giving up valuable reagents, there's still a line. Asking family to kill family is just wrong. - Flat "What": Threadbare sees a broken thing and casts Mend.Melos: ... what. You can't tell me it was that simple.
- Foreshadowing:
- Looking forward to the new Cylvania that will rise from Ragandor's ashes, Threadbare befriends the Gribbits rather than fighting them. Instead of a day spent grinding levels, it becomes a week of trading and planning.
- As Threadbare ruminates on not feeling guilt about killing dungeon monsters, he notes that they keep coming back from the dead. Like the Lurker.
- Four-Star Badass: Let it not be said that Melos didn't earn his position in the Seven. It took a full army to take him down.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Honestly, most of the heroes of this story count. Threadbare was just a teddy bear, Pulsivar was just a cat, and most of their golem troops were just villagers who happened to fall under the sway of an evil cult. Nevertheless, they form the core of the army that destroys The Hand, overthrows King Ragandor, and saves Cylvania from the damage done by a desperate, brilliant old wizard 15 years earlier.
- Humble Hero: Threadbare doesn't realize that he's one of the strongest, wisest, and most intelligent people in the kingdom, nor that he's the Magnetic Hero who has drawn this Ragtag Bunch of Misfits together, and humbly offers to put things to a vote.Threadbare: Nobody's really in charge here. We could talk it over and put it to a vote.
Glub: Calling frogshit on that one, boss. What you say usually goes. You're kind of the most important dude here.I think it's the hat. It's totally because of the hat, isn't it? - Indy Ploy: Anise finally betrays and kills Melos during the final Raid, forcing Threadbare to improvise the rest of the effort to save Cylvania.
- Internal Reveal: After her holy fire burns Anise and "Celia" the same way, and then when Emmet comes to talk to her about his doubts, Mastoya realizes how boned the kingdom is.
- Messianic Archetype: The undead cultists come to view Threadbare as their Savior. Thanks to him, they'll be Born Again as Doll Haunters, given new purpose saving Cylvania from the Oblivion.
- More Dakka: The tanks block Melos's strikes. The fighters wear him down. Eventually they get him to the point that all the Rangers and Pistoleros pummel him with lightning... and Melos finally falls. To Anise.
- Never Live It Down: In-Universe, Melos was the least trusted of The Seven, thanks to his past as a cultist and his current status as a Demon Knight. It's no wonder, then, that everyone thought he had assassinated King Garamundi in order to seize the throne.
- No Biological Sex: Threadbare and Missus Fluffbear have never been anything but teddy bear Greater Toy Golems, so they have no real understanding of anything biological and just don't get all the fart and dick jokes flying around. They also never form romantic attachments like the Doll Haunters do.Beryl: Fuck me running with a pogo stick.
Threadbare: I'm sorry, to begin with I can't do anything like that, besides it sounds really uncomfortable to try to run at the same time, and I really have no idea what that last thing is. - The Power of Friendship: After the dungeon of Jotunher closes, the Jarl is understandably pissed at Threadbare for insulting and injuring her (it was the Lurker, of course). So Threadbare apologizes and gives her a hug, then asks her to join in on killing the guy who did it. It works. Then Threadbare does it again, helping the dwarfs and the giants secure a lasting peace and turning on Melos's wild kingdom.
- Pragmatic Hero: King Grundi is in a tight spot, and is willing to use every situation to his advantage. He has morals, he has standards, but he'll do what it takes to save his people.
- The Reveal: All of Cylvania is a dungeon, and Melos is the dungeon master. Gristle, the oldest and most intelligent of the Seven, went to the dwarfs for help and figured out how to use dungeon cores to turn Cylvania into a dungeon surrounded by dungeons. Their entrances were all inside the main dungeon, so no one from the outside could get in, and no one could get out. But then he turned himself into a lich in order to avoid dying of cancer, and almost all of the rest of the Seven died fighting him. Melos, faced with a damaged construct he couldn't understand, turned to his cultist past and resurrected most of his dead friends as incredibly powerful demons (the Hand), planted them in pillars as midbosses, and placed himself in the main pillar as the dungeon boss, starting his fifteen year nightmare.
- Rule of Cool: Zuula provided Threadbare with a sketch of the body she really wants. It has battle axes for hands and shoots lightning out of its eyes and fire from its ass.
- The Smart Guy: Grissle was a genius before the changeover. Then he took twenty-five levels in four different smart guy classes, unlocked the Experimenter class, and went to town. Nobody has been able to replicate his research in the fifteen years since everything went to hell because he was just that smart.
- Shout-Out:
- Two of the soldiers who join Mastoya for the fight in the machine bay are Wedge and Hicks.
- In the past, Jane had the ability to Naruto run.
- The Crown has Wark Knights mounted on big yellow birds.
- Stealth Pun: Celia builds a new Mini-Mecha, this time instead of showing them Reason, she'll be killing them with Kindness.
- Time Skip: There's a small gap between the second and third novels, as Threadbare spent a few weeks leveling up in sculptor and Fluffbear worked on being a woodworker so they could craft different kinds of bodies for Celia and Kayin.
- Token Human: With Celia and Kayin dead and resurrected as Doll Haunters, Graves is the only living human in the main party.
- Took a Level in Badass: All of the heroes, of course, and the undead cultists, but special mention goes to Pulsivar. He hits level twenty-five and becomes a Misplacer Beast. He's strong, he's not where he appears to be, and he's big.
- Tragic Flaw: If Melos had only told people what was going on, he wouldn't have been so trapped and alone. He just didn't trust people, because they didn't trust him.
- Tragic Villain: Melos has spent fifteen years locked in a nightmare thanks to Grissle not wanting to die.
- Twofer Token Minority: Several of the Doll Haunters qualify. Kayin is now an undead woman and a lesbian (former?), while Garon and Zuula are undead half-orcs (coded as mixed race black folk), and Madeline is a doubly undead vampire woman (monster, coded as a struggling underclass).
Threadbare as a bear of peace
Once upon a time, there was a teddy bear who worked hard and hoped to live happily ever after. But nothing truly ends, and so, wrapped in the arms of his little girl, he lay awake at night and pondered what was to come next. And to be ready, he whispered "Status, and this is what he saw:
- Name: Threadbare
- Age: 5
- Guild: Reclaimers Association of Generica
- Jobs:
Greater Toy Golem Level 17
Cave Bear Level 14
Ruler Level 16
Tailor Level 11
Model Level 11
Necromancer Level 11
Duelist Level 14
Animator Level 16
Enchanter Level 12
Golemist Level 25
Smith Level 11
Sculptor Level 13
Shaman Level 5 - Jobs Stored in Guild Registry
Scout Level 11 - Attributes:
- Strength: 177
- Intelligence: 303
- Dexterity: 200 (207)
- Charisma: 139 (168)
- Perception: 112
- Constitution: 175
- Wisdom: 233 (240)
- Agility: 137 (144)
- Willpower: 289
- Luck: 125 (142)
- Pools:
- Hit Points: 352 (462)
- Sanity: 536 (712)
- Stamina: 347 (471)
- Moxie: 428 (567)
- Fortune: 237 (354)
- Defenses
- Armor: 62 (76)
- Mental Fortitude: 52
- Endurance: 72
- Cool: 20 (55)
- Fate: 25 (32)
