Video Game / Rise of Immortals

Rise of Immortals (or RoI), later renamed Battle for Graxia, was an online, free-to-play PC game running from 2011 to 2013 that expands on the hit Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre with new, innovative features designed to appeal to both core and casual players. It is Petroglyph's (of the Command & Conquer and Universe at War fame) first attempt on the genre.

Rise of Immortals was set in the world of Graxia, 300 years after the events of “Guardians of Graxia,” Petroglyph’s fantasy-based PC game released the previous year. Rise of Immortals featured the popular action-strategy gameplay of traditional MOBA games, but added enhanced socialization features, along with persistent character progression – a first for the MOBA genre. Instead of an account- based leveling system, players could advance their Immortals through a diverse, persistent skill tree, customizing and upgrading the characters to unlock unique abilities that persist from match to match.

In addition, Rise of Immortals featured a social hub where players could show off their enhanced Immortals, chat, emote, browse leaderboards, shop, manage friend and guild lists and more. Players also had the option of taking their Immortals through cooperative Player versus Environment (PvE) scenarios to learn the game, try out new abilities, and earn persistent experience before jumping into Player versus Player (PvP) matches online.

Players could purchase items via the in-game store to further enhance their Immortals, including new Immortal skins and consumable items like in-game boosters and elixirs. Petroglyph planned to release new content on a regular basis, including additional Immortals, arenas, skins, sound packs, pets and more.

The game was shut down on June 27, 2013 and is no longer available to play.

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This video game contains examples of:

• Action Bomb: Azcadelia can detonate her Shadelings to do massive damage to anything nearby.

• Air Guitar: In Lazarus' dance animation, he makes use of the "substitute guitar" variety with his scythe.
• Arch-Enemy: Lazarus and Kyrie, Vezin and Netheurgist, Pycon and Kavashiir. If one character is mentioned as having a specific enemy in their Back Story you can expect to see that enemy in the roster soon.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Averted; Vezin is a pretty nice guy once you get past the 'undead wraith' part.
• Arrows on Fire: Nyssus's Hellfire Arrow.
• Art Evolution: Compare this◊ to this◊ and other new arts for BFG to RoI's old ones.

• Bad Powers, Good People: Lord Vezin, despite having death and unholiness all over his theme, seems to be depicted as a sympathetic champion. Tzai is also a decent guy despite having powers that come from Demonic Possession.

• BFS:
  • Kyrie owns one named Blood Storm. Also an Ancestral Weapon. She can hold it with one hand.◊
  • Nauria's Misery also fits into this and is also a Whip Sword. Nauria also used to be Ilsaelle's servant like Kyrie so perhaps a BFS is a standard equipment for them.
• Big Damn Heroes: Aislynn is not only excellent at being a Big Damn Hero ingame, but now she's done this in the lore too, saving Trovoc from being killed by elves.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead:
  • Aislynn (white hair, lightest shade), Talia (Blonde) , Kyrie (Brunette), and Tatiana (Redhead) in their default skins
  • Aislynn's skins: Default and Patriot Aislynn's (white hair, lightest shade); Aftermath Aislynn (Brunette, darkest shade); Miss America Aislynn (Blonde, but moderate when compared to the other skins)
  • Kyrie's skins fit the trope better: School Girl Kyrie (Blonde); Default Skin, Zombie Kyrie, and Ninja Kyrie (Brunette); Fighter Kyrie (Redhead)
  • Tatiana's skins: Default and Tatiana Genie (lightest shade); Leather Tatiana (Brunette), Mermaid and Witch Tatiana's (Redhead)
  • Talia only has two though: Default Talia (Blonde); Bride Talia (Redhead with Blonde streak)

• Blue Blood: Lord Vezin isn't just a nickname - He's a prince.
• Cast from Hit Points: Lazarus for some of his skills and Scorpix has some as well. This is part of Talia's theme.
• Captain Geographic: Lazarus and Aislynn have skins based on the flags of the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In a setting where these countries don't even exist, no less.
  • At least not in Graxia. It is confirmed that Earth exists when Kaos came.
• Combat by Champion: Not that it will save more lives lore-wise.
• Crapsack World: Graxia is strongly implied to be a very unpleasant place to live.
• Creator In-Joke: The Canada Patriot Lazarus skin, and thus all the Patriot skins, started as a running joke among the early beta-testers because the main player of Lazarus was Canadian.
  • Several items and at least one Immortal feature the screen names of some well-known staff members.
  • Kavashiir's signature was one of the worst skills in the game at one point. Not worst signatures, worst skills. This led to the testing group jokingly saying it should be nerfed. So it was.
• Cursed with Awesome: Scorpix, the Cursed Emperor.
• Cyborg: Robo Scorpix skin◊. Balak also definitely counts.
• Deal with the Devil: One of Netheurgist's many possible pasts involves this.

• Distaff Counterpart: Played straight and subverted by Nauria, to Netheurgist. In a backstory sense it's played straight, with both having very similar outlooks, mentalities, goals, and beliefs; they also both look like elves. In gameplay terms it's subverted since they're complete opposites.
• Double Entendre: They never last long enough for Tatiana.
• Elemental Powers: There are some Immortals who control at least one element and then there's Kreed.
• Enemy Mine: In gameplay, it's not unusual for two arch-enemies in the lore to be fighting on the same team. For a long time Vezin and Netheurgist, two of the biggest enemies in lore, were also an unstoppable duo if they wound up on the same team.
• Excuse Plot: Structures called "Shrines" keep crystals that ensures a land's safety but the crystals must be reduced to a fewer number to focus its energy on the remaining ones to decelerate Graxia's destruction as a whole. The Immortals were chosen from lands near and far to fight for it.
  • Read more here.
• Expy: Nauria's overall theme is reminiscent of the Dark Eldar.
  • The lead designer also cited the drow as a major influence.
• Faux Affably Evil: Netheurgist is unfailingly calm and polite even when he's talking about how he's going to brutally torture someone.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Aislynn is a primitive Nubile Savage from a very early culture that didn't even have weapons before she showed up. Now that she's in Graxia, she fits in the Immortal roster right beside the cyborg dwarf with a sniper rifle and the Handicapped Badass in his Mini-Mecha.
  • KAOS is an actual US marine who somehow ended up in Graxia.

• Floating Continent: According to the lore, the lands of Graxia were these before the tragedy.

• Gentle Giant: Both Aislynn and Vezin have a large size advantage over the other human-ish Immortals, yet they're both among the least likely to seriously injure someone for looking at them.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny: Psychozen Gold: The King of Bling◊!
  • Kavashiir is wearing a huge amount of gold as well. Justified in that he's a sun priest.
• Good Powers, Bad People: Tatiana seems to fit in this category but given the morality, it is debatable. Still, she caused the death of millions, including women and children.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Everyone is trying to destroy each other's Shrine just to ensure their own survival.
  • Averted with the Immortals themselves; some are quite clearly good guys, others are pure evil, and it's usually not hard to figure out who goes where.
• Hailfire Peaks: The maps for 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 use this theme.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Kyrie has shurikens and wears a colorful dress. Her Ninja skin is even more obvious. A good Kyrie will subvert this in actual gameplay.
• Hub Level: There is a social hub in which you can wait and interact with other players before getting queued for a match.
• Hurricane of Puns: Ukkonen has a lot of punny lines, but he can't top Pycon; most of his lines have some sort of cow-related pun.

• Informed Ability: Tatiana is supposedly an oracle who can see the future, but none of her ingame abilities actually reflect this and she plays (and acts) like a standard ice mage.
• Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!: Psychozen
• Ironic Nursery Rhyme: Some of Azcadelia's responses, which goes well with her Fractured Fairy Tale theme and a Creepy Circus Music that plays in her dance animation. She also Came Back Wrong and has the voice of a Creepy Child despite being a lot older.
• Joke Character: CareBorg... He'll love you to death!
  • Karapyss is an even more successful example. Unlike Careborg, he's a real playable character based on a Penny Arcade comic strip satirizing the game and was released on April Fools. He's also quite dangerous in combat.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Talia dual wields them in her Bride Skin.
• Keet: Ukkonen, very much so. Movement-focused, small, brightly-colored, with a high-pitched voice and cheesy lines.
• Last of His Kind: Kyrie is the last of her people, Lazarus having killed the others. Lazarus is also the last of his kind; he killed them too. Trovoc is the last dragon (despite Krytheros' presence in the 3vE map). Ichorr, aptly named as Last of the Elementals (at least in Graxia). Ukkonen's appearance has added a second elemental but his Back Story implies that he's a non-Graxian and there's an entire race of them.
• Living Forever Is Awesome: From Talia's old description on the official site...
  The Queen of the Nightlife is a carefree spirit, one who has embraced her undeath as a blessing; one who truly lives even though she is by all rights dead.
• Magic Skirt: Kyrie, despite her jump-happy fighting style and occasional break-dancing in a ridiculously short skirt, never shows anything too suggestive.

• Mini-Mecha: Psychozen's robot is certainly more impressive than the average wheelchair.

• Mysterious Past: The Netheurgist's past is so mysterious that nobody knows who he is, what he is, what sort of magic he's actually using, or even what his real name is. Everything that is 'known' is speculation.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Lazarus the Lord of Oblivion? Kyrie the Angel of Vengeance? Nyssus the Destroyer of Worlds? Witch of Fate? Just run...
• Nubile Savage: Aislynn; the trope page may have very well been a How-To guide for her character designer.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Graxia seems to attract people who enjoy wiping out all sentient life within a few thousand miles: Scorpix and Lazarus are more obvious examples, Shard, Tatiana, and Psychozen are borderline cases, and Ichorr hopes to invoke the full-blown world-destroying variety to get the attention of his people.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Trovoc is pretty close to being a typical Western dragon except that he's only about the size of a motorcycle.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Balak toys with this. He fits most of the standard stereotypes, but he's just so friendly and good-natured it's hard to believe he's a dwarf.
• Our Elves Are Different: Or at least eviler. They hunted Graxia's dragons to near-extinction to steal their blood. The fact their only real appearance in the Tournament is the Netheurgist doesn't say much for them either.
  • Nauria looks elven, too. No, she doesn't make their reputation any better.

• Palette Swap: Vezin's three skins. Played perfectly straight with Count Vezin, who is simply Red Vezin. His other two skins have minor differences but are still basically White Vezin and Straw-Colored Vezin.
  • The developers admit to doing this with Ukkonen.
  • Kavashiir's skins as well, though they look different enough to not immediately tell.
• Panthera Awesome: Kavashiir, who is a humanoid lion.
• Parental Abandonment: Psychozen, abandoned because of his deformities.
  • Also Kyrie, whose mother was killed by Lazarus.
• Physical God: Lazarus, according to his Back Story. Aislynn is implied to be a demigod. Shard is the goddess of creeps.

• Power Crystal: The lore and designs revolve around the Graxian crystals, usually found in the structures and the creeps.
• Power Floats: Tatiana, Vezin, and Ukkonen. Netheurgist used to, but stopped.
• The Power of Rock: There's a Metal God skin◊ for Lazarus exclusive for closed beta testers.
• Product Placement: Psychozen was given an Alienware skin during an event. Justified since Alienware was a sponsor in that event.
• Proud Warrior Race Girl: Kyrie is the last of one.
• Psychic Powers: Psychozen.
• Revenge: Most of the Back Story of the currently revealed immortals has it involved. Check here. Especially Scorpix, whose Roaring Rampage of Revenge completely ruined his life.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge was even mentioned word for word in Trovoc's Back Story.
  • Azcadelia enacted her massacre to take revenge on behalf of the witch who resurrected her as an Eldritch Abomination.
• Sadly Mythtaken: On Big Download's exclusive:
  This character is called Nysuss and as you can see in the included screenshots from the game she a bit similar in terms of her looks to the Medusa creature from Greek myths.
  • Medusa of the Greek mythology is described to have snake-like hair but not a serpentine lower extremity nor four arms.
• Semper Fi: Kaos is from the US Marines. He's also a shout-out to the Command & Conquer series.
• Ship Tease: The developers have been known to spread rumors that Lazarus and Talia are dating.
• Shock and Awe/Ride the Lightning: Ukkonen's thing.
• Shout-Out: The design team absolutely loves these; for such a small game it has a massive number.
  • Scorpix to the The Scorpion King.
  • Nyssus looks a lot like Medusa of Defense of the Ancients.
    • ...Or Cassiopeia of League of Legends.
    • Diamond Back Nysuss is so similar to one of Cassiopeia's skins that it has to be deliberate.
  • The producer himself admitted to Netheurgist being inspired by some Buffy the Vampire Slayer villains.
    • The same character also has moonwalking as his dance animation.
    • One word: Thrilleurgist.
  • Netheurgist's Clown skin makes him look like The Joker.
  • Metal God Lazarus has a face paint similar to that of members of KISS.
  • There's a consumable named Tigerblood Potion that theoretically increases your chances of WINNING by 1%.
  • One of Aislynn's skins gives her a shield strongly resembling Captain America's. Now has a skin to go with it.
  • Rock It Sock It Psychozens.
  • I Dream of Tatiana.
  • Tatiana's Mermaid skin makes her look a good deal like Ariel.
  • Trovoc, the first Immortal released since the official launch, has a Plush skin that looks somewhere between Barney and Spyro the Dragon.
  • Talia's dance is said to be taken from Legally Blonde.
  • Talia's 'Bride' skin.
  • Kreed has quite a few as well. Oddly, they're not the obvious [Rocky two]], but his skins are references to Dragon Ball Z and Aladdin while his lines contain a nod to Kane and many, many more to He-Man.
• Sinister Scythe: Lazarus's weapon. His slow, cumbersome attacks show exactly how difficult it is to wield one as a weapon.
• Sizeshifter: Trovoc when using Divine Intervention. Kavashiir has a similar ability.
• Slasher Smile: The Netheurgist sports a great one made even more disturbing by his miniature Sinister Shades, though Vezin can do a pretty good one too.
• Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: The game goes back and forth on this scale from time to time, but generally favors the 'Silly' side.

• Squishy Wizard: Played straight with Tatiana, who is notoriously easy to blow up. Zig-zagged with Netheurgist; his spells require him to be close in, so he's usually relatively durable for a caster but not always. Defied by Vezin, who is one of the most durable characters in the game when built for it.
• Stripperiffic: Most of the female Immortals, but especially Tatiana. Her dance animation is her doing a quick pole-dance on her staff. After their redesign, even the creeps get in on this.
  • Finally averted by Azcadelia who is fully covered by a Pimped-Out Dress and a Masquerade mask, although since she's an Eldritch Abomination in human form this is probably a good thing.
• Voice of the Legion: Netheurgist seems to exhibit this as well as a Royal "We".
• When Trees Attack: Ichorr
• Wings Do Nothing: Subverted with Trovoc. Although he doesn't fly with his wings (except when Recalling) he makes use of it for his Wing Gust skill.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Psychozen's motivation is Parental Abandonment while Tatiana's family were slaughtered. Vezin shows hints of this as well, though he's simply powerful, not out to destroy anything (except Netheurgist).

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For ale! Fat little women! And glory!