Make coffee not war.
Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes is a Slice of Life Fantasy novel by Travis Baldree. It follows the trials of Viv, an orc Barbarian Hero, who retires from the life of an adventurer and moves to Thune, opening the city's first coffee shop.
Despite Viv's best efforts, adventure follows her anyway, as she gets tangled up with the city's Thieves' Guild, and is threatened by one of her old adventuring companions, who wants to steal a magical object Viv is using to ensure her shop's success.
Legends & Lattes contains examples of the following tropes:
- Affably Evil:
- Lack of the Madrigal's Thieves' Guild is quite friendly and prefers words to violence. He actually gets annoyed with Kellin over his aversion of this.
- This applies to the Madrigal herself, who wants to find an arrangement other than breaking legs and burning down shops.
- Barbarian Hero: Viv was one of these as an adventurer, and was the brutal tank of the group.
- City of Adventure: Thune is a city populated with orcs, succubi, dwarves, elves, and other races in a D&D-like fantasy setting.
- Cool Old Lady: The Madrigal is an elderly lady and a lot more Affably Evil than Viv expected.
- Darkest Hour: When Viv's coffee shop is burned down by Fennus and the Scalvert's Stone stolen. Viv is bankrupt due to having spent her life savings building it up, and turns on her friends in anger.
- Didn't Think This Through: Viv makes and carries out careful plans to get the shop itself up and running, but has no idea how to promote and advertise, assuming that people will just come. Fortunately, Tandri has the business savvy and artistic talent to get things running.
- Don't Make Me Destroy You: The problem with the Madrigal's protection racket isn't that Viv can't handle it—between herself and her friends she could easily destroy the whole mob—but that she doesn't want to go back to that life or to get her coffee shop caught up in it. The Madrigal winds up negotiating with her to give payment in pastries instead.
- Equivalent Exchange: Tandri mentions a principle called Thaumic Reciprocity, wherein any energy expended in creating a magical effect eventually rebounds. Much of magical study is figuring out how to redirect or minimize the blowback. When the shop burns down, Viv initially thinks it's her good luck reversing thanks to the Scalvert's Stone, but this turns out to be untrue.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The Madrigal might run a protection racket, but she appreciates Viv's attitude, she negotiates payment in pastries, and she hates assholes like Kellin and Fennus.
- Everyone Can See It: Friends and acquaintances as diverse as the shop's carpenter Cal, the retired adventurer Durias, and even Viv's old flame Gallina pick up on Viv and Tandri's growing attraction, and try to nudge Viv into noticing it for herself.
- Fantastic Racism: Averted in Thune, which is a bit more cosmopolitan, but Viv has experienced this in the past and instinctively downplays her fangs to avoid scaring people. Tandri the succubus does get some of this, as everyone assumes she Really Gets Around. It actually drove her from university.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Amity, a gigantic dire cat that takes up semi-residence in the shop. It lives up to its name, as long as patrons have good intentions, but it helps chase off Kellin and Fennus. And kills Fennus in the epilogue.
- Friendly Neighborhood Gangster: The Madrigal turns out to be far more reasonable and practical than Viv expected, as she's willing to take payment in confections. She also helps rebuild the store after Fennus burns it down. It turns out she actually was hoping to revive the area, and the coffee shop fits perfectly into her plans.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Fennus was disliked by everybody in Viv's old adventuring party, but they put up with him because he was competent.
- Gaslamp Fantasy:
- The story is set in a high fantasy kingdom, but gnomes have invented Steampunk coffee machines as well as stove-powered ceiling fans and refrigeration.
- The prequel short story "Pages to Fill" is set in the gnomish city of Azimuth, which does indeed have gas lamps on streets (which all alight at once in the evening) and in houses, and is generally technologically ahead of Thune, which still employs people to light lamps manually.
- Greed: Fennus believes the Scalvert's Stone is something far more valuable than treasure and wants it beyond anything else. This despite the fact there's no proof it has any actual powers, and Viv took only the stone, leaving a vast fortune amassed from the Scalvert's victims for Fennus and her other companions to divide.
- Klatchian Coffee: What everyone assumes coffee will be like for those who have heard of it at all. This is a society where it is a completely unknown concept outside of gnomish lands.
- Hate Sink: Fennus is the only character in the book with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Kellin is a complete creep towards Tandri, but is swiftly put in his place.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Since the Scalvert's Stone draws like-minded people to its holder, Fennus taking it ends in a swift death.
- Implied Death Threat: Viv puts her sword, Blackblood, on the wall as a warning to the Madrigal's gang. She actually doesn't want to kill them all, though.
- It Will Never Catch On:
- A lot of the people in Thune think coffee is something that will never catch on, not understanding how it differentiates from tea even when it's explained to them.
- Pendrick invents rock music and quite possibly the heavy metal guitar. Viv encourages him to stick to a symphonic electric guitar in the coffee shop.
- Ley Line: Dropped by name as one of the sources of magic. Viv builds her shop on a confluence of ley lines to draw power to the Scalvert's Stone.
- Macguffin: The Scalvert's Stone is formed in the forehead of a Scalvert Queen (a ravening monster with a huge head containing many Extra Eyes). Supposedly, if placed in the right location it will bring good luck and fortune to its owner. It actually draws people with similar natures to the owner, so Viv finds herself awash in optimistic dreamers.
- Magic Feather: It's implied that Viv's attempt to use the Scalvert's Stone to induce luck for her shop is this. Though the actual truth is more complicated. It doesn't draw luck, but like-minded people.
- Magitek: Apparently, combining the two is not uncommon, with one example being an electric guitar (or "thaumic lute").
- Mega Neko: A dire-cat (a cat roughly the size of a wolf) starts hanging around the shop, so Tandri names her Amity and feeds her pastries. She occasionally scares off unsavory customers, wakes Viv and Tandri when the coffee shop goes up in flames, and kills Fennus.
- Mundane Made Awesome:
- It is the story of a woman opening up a coffee shop. It's just she's an orc barbarian and it's in a high fantasy setting.
- Coffee itself is depicted as a magical substance no one has ever heard of before, as are Thimble's pastries and chocolate.
- Must Have Caffeine: Averted, surprisingly. Coffee entices Viv less for its caffeine than the general taste and aroma of it. When she does drink several cups in a row out of nervousness, she gets so jittery she almost fumbles Tandri's job interview.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Tandri is a succubus who doesn't have any of their Really Gets Around qualities and Gallina is a gnome who is a knife expert with no interest in science.
- Non-Linear Character: Durias the retired adventurer is often seen playing chess with himself, but Tandri never sees him move the pieces. It turns out he's playing chess with a version of himself sometime in the past. He also mentions that he "can't remember which go-round this is" and has Time-Travel Tense Trouble regarding whether he's had this experience already.
- Orphaned Etymology: In this universe, the word "latte" came from its inventor, a gnome named Latte Diameter.
- Overcomplicated Menu Order: Averted. Since no one in Thune knows any more about coffee than Viv does, they happily order from her simple menu of black coffee and lattes, hot or iced.
- The Place: Legends & Lattes is an Alliterative Title in the vein of Dungeons & Dragons, but in-universe it's the name of Viv's café, invented by Cal complete with a sword-and-shield motif for the sign.
- The Power of Friendship: Is actually induced by Viv via her use of the Scalvert's Stone, though that wasn't her intention (and most of her old adventuring party were inclined to help anyway).
- Punch-Clock Villain: The Madrigal's gang doesn't really want to engage in any of the criminal activity they're threatening to do, as that is far less profitable in the long run.
- Pragmatic Villainy: The Madrigal would prefer to just have Viv pay up, and gives her an extended deadline because a confrontation wouldn't work out for anyone. In the end, she accepts free food in lieu of payment. It turns out not to be entirely selfless on her part because she recognizes the coffee shop is raising the quality of the area and attracting new businesses to her territory.
- Precision F-Strike: While she's not shy about swearing, Viv only uses "fuck" when she wants to make a point. When Tandri talks about how she was driven from university, Viv says "Fuck those motherfuckers" to make her laugh. When the shop burns down, she starts using it again as a sign of her reverting to her Barbarian Hero instincts in the wake of losing everything.
- Real Men Take It Black: Averted. Viv keeps trying to point out customers can add milk and not be diluting it.
- Retired Badass: Viv opens the adventure wanting to become one of these. Her efforts to stay retired drive much of the plot's drama.
- Running Gag: Tandri repeatedly updating the menu with elaborate descriptions of the new menu items.
- Severely Specialized Store: At opening, Legends & Lattes sells coffee in two varieties (with or without milk), and nothing else. Once Viv hires a baker, they begin steadily expanding the menu with cinnamon rolls and other pastries, but the drinks menu remains sparse until Viv acquires a supply of ice to add cold coffees as an option. Since almost no one in Thune has heard of coffee before, there isn't any demand for more specialized varieties Viv doesn't have experience with.
- Shame If Something Happened: Parodied. When Viv suggests that she'll happily kill all of the local mob enforcers threatening her, Kellin points out they'll just burn down her shop. His boss Lack irritatedly reminds him he's supposed to imply, not state.
- Simple Solution Won't Work: Upon having her new café threatened by the local Protection Racket, Viv's first instinct is to grab her BFS off the wall and start breaking heads. Tandri advises that she could do that, but it would likely end either with her dead, or un-retired (the whole point of the café was to get out of the adventuring business). Luckily, it turns out the local mob boss is open to accepting payment in free pastries.
- Slice of Life: The story is about an orc barbarian opening a coffee shop. Nothing more or less. In between the plotlines dealing with the Madrigal's thugs and Viv's former teammate Fennus are many scenes depicting the renovation of the shop out of a neglected livery, the trials and tribulations of getting the good citizens of Thune to try Viv's weird gnomish "bean-water," and the day-to-day running of the shop, including interactions with regular customers. And rebuilding the place from the foundations after Fennus burns it down.
- Stalker with a Crush: Kellin insists that Tandri is as attracted to him as he is to her. Tandri is quite emphatic this is not the case. Kellin, unfortunately, is a member of the Thieves' Guild. Viv makes him back off by threatening to tell the Madrigal about him, as she doesn't like assholes.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Gallina thinks that Viv and her old adventuring party could wipe out the entirety of the Madrigal's gang. Which Viv agrees is possible (though it'd be tricky to get them all before they torch the shop or attack one of Viv's employees), but not something she wants to do because she's put that life behind her.
- Supreme Chef: Thimble, the rattkin baker who agrees to start working for the shop in exchange for a living wage and free coffee, and because he feels that the menu needs expanding. The cafe's business really takes off when he starts adding his heavenly cinnamon rolls to the menu, and he invents biscotti, which they name "thimblets".
- Take the Third Option: Stuck between paying the Madrigal protection money or going back to her old violent ways, Viv settles for paying off the Madrigal in pastries.
- Thieves' Guild: The Madrigal's gang, which operates like normal mobsters in the fantasy city of Thune.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Tandri and Viv develop this, which puts Viv in an awkward position because Tandri has suffered sexual harrassment everywhere she's gone and was driven out of the university by it.
- Will They or Won't They?: Tandri and Viv after they start sharing living space to protect the shop and while they're rebuilding it after it burns down. They do.
