Video Game / Sabres of Infinity

Artist Credits go to Paul Wang

Sabres of Infinity is an independently produced Story Branching game written by Paul Wang and hosted by Choice of Games' user submitted label Hosted Games.

The game takes place in a low fantasy world known as the Infinite Sea, where a war rages between the protagonist's country, the Unified Kingdom of Tierra, and the League of Antar. You play as a newly-enlisted junior cavalry officer in the Tierran army, who is soon to participate in the war. Throughout the story you must make numerous strategic decisions based on your chosen skills, the ability of your selected men, and your relationships with your fellow officers. You must also make certain moral decisions centered around the war's rules of engagement. Success can be rewarded with promotions, decorations, and recognition; failure can result in obscurity, disgrace or even death.

The game is available here.

The sequel, titled Guns of Infinity, was released on March 25, 2016.

A third game, Lords of Infinity, was released on March 2, 2023.

It shares a universe with the webgame Shadow Regiment, which takes place in a non-canon alternate future. There you play as an operative of the titular Antari resistance movement blowing up supply depots in increasingly creative ways to resist the Big Bad of both games. However, it is not considered canon for the wider universe.

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The Dragoon Saga provides examples of the following tropes:

The Dragoon Saga

• Anyone Can Die: There's a war going on. Named characters are not safe.
• Armor Is Useless: Averted with banehardened armor, which renders the wearer extremely effective protection against conventional weapons.
• Army of Thieves and Whores: As the war drags on, Tierra is forced to rely on conscription of convicts and vagrants to replace its losses, to the detriment of its overall quality of recruits.
• Artistic License – Military: Subverted, Paul has put lots of his time into researching the writing in this book for pre-Napoleonic warfare, and all its facets. It is as close to realistic as possible, given limited time and resources. He has put a faithful representation of it in for a CYOA game.
• Bastard Bastard: Caius d'al Cazarosta is a deathborn child of an adulterous countess. He is also a ruthless, murderous religious zealot who will do whatever it takes to destroy the enemy, Articles of War be damned.
• Beneath the Mask: After being promoted to lieutenant, Cazarosta is forced to play the role of a more verbose and approachable officer in order to gain the acceptance of his men and fellow officers, when asked about the change in attitude, he likens his behaviour to this trope:
  Cazarosta: It suits my purposes, Banebloods treat me with something more approaching civility if I pretend to act like them, I put on a face and it makes people listen to me, I take it off when I no longer need it.
• Big Bad: Mikhail Khorobirit in both games.
  • Takara and Kian in general. Tierra is changing the world order, and they do not appreciate the attempts.
• Character Customization: Based on your character's name, age, background, family gift, and aptitude in Soldiering, Intellect and Charisma.
• The Cynic: Cazarosta and Captain Lefebvre.
  • Actually, as explained by Paul Wang, Cazarosta actually is an Idealist. He holds his ideals on the highest level. It's just that his ideals are being a tool to the Gods of the setting, and he will go to any means to accomplish them.
• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: Choose Harlech or Lanzerel as your sergeant, and you have this situation. Villanueva, too, though in a more cynical manner.
• The Caretaker: Sergeant Fenton appears to see himself as this towards you, to the point where he'll refuse to obey certain orders that would place you in danger.
• Civil War:The covenant of Mhidi'yos is in one with one side being royalist and the other primarily being driven by religious orders.
• Dismissing a Compliment: Cazarosta's typical response to praise, insisting that he is only doing his duty as a soldier.
  Cazarosta: I merely did as I was bid to do as an officer of the King's Army, is that not so?
• Death Glare:
  • Making up excuses about your lateness to Captain Montez produces this response.
  • If you humiliate Cazarosta during the mock charge, he responds in this way.
  • It is possible for the player to gain one from Lord Cassius, by insulting his country and calling them all degenerates.
• Despair Event Horizon: Elson undergoes this after he learns the full size of Prince Khorobirit's army. He copes by constructing a dream of a great victory, and attempting a storybook-perfect charge against the Church Hussars that leads to his squadron being more than half annihilated and him going MIA.
• Digging Yourself Deeper:
  • Lying to Captain Montez about your reasons for being late damages your reputation even further.
  • Lying to Duke Cunaris about breaking the rules of engagement has the potential to get you into serious trouble.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Sergeant Hernandes is a harsh, unlikeable disciplinarian who is thoroughly disliked by his men.
• Downer Ending:
  • If your reputation is ruined during training in Fernandescourt, you are judged unfit for military service, and are cashiered in disgrace before even entering the war.
  • If you fail to reach lieutenant rank after completing patrol and reserve duty you will be considered a lost cause by your superiors and sent back to Tierra to live a boring life of obscurity, with nothing to show for your military career.
  • If you report Captain Lefebvre to Major Hunter for sanctioning illegal anti-partisan activity, and fail to convince Hunter of your claims, you will be cashiered for slandering a superior officer and sent home in disgrace.
  • If the player is disgraced by deserting in the final battle, they are left a pistol by their superiors with the implication that committing suicide is the only escape from their shame, the player can choose to take this option.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • If you humiliate Cazarosta during the mock charge, he attempts to murder you if you participate in the boarding action.
  • If one of your men steals a pig from a local Antari freeholder, you can have him hanged.
• Divided We Fall: The only reason Tierra has held on as long as it has in the Antari war is because the Congress of the League of Antar is a horribly divided mess, and Prince Khorobirit isn't getting the support he needs to throw the Tierrans back into the sea.
• Everyone Has Standards: Tierran society believes that baneless commoners, which make up the enlisted ranks, are inherently inferior to the baneblooded nobility, which makes up the officer ranks. Given that, they are still to be treated as people. Any predatory actions(such as keeping all loot or reward money for yourself) or callous disregard for their safety(such as abandoning Lt. Lewes and his men because he's baneless commoner with a brevet promotion to lieutenant) results in serious losses in reputation.
• A Father to His Men: Raise your men's loyalty stat high enough and they will come to see you as this.
  Sergeant Lanzerel: Begging your pardon sir, but we missed you. It'd be a fine honour to serve under your command again.
• Foil:
  • Elson and Cazarosta. Elson is sociable, emotional, and places a high value on honourable conduct in war, Cazarosta is cold, stoic, and believes that in war, expediency comes before honour.
  • Major Hunter and Captain Lefebvre. Major Hunter is bold, friendly, and effusive, Captain Lefebvre is cold, cautious, and reserved.
• Functional Magic: The Bane is a magical force that exists in all living creatures, but only those with a considerable potency in their blood (known as Banecasters) can use it to manipulate their surroundings.
• Friendly Rivalry: Your interactions with Elson and Cazarosta can result in this.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Elson and Cazarosta have the potential to become this towards the player.
• The Fundamentalist: Cazarosta's attitude towards the Antari and their religion is rigidly scornful to say the least, as demonstrated by his defacement of a considerable number of Antari religious idols.
• The Fatalist: Demonstrated by Cazarosta in his speech at the military ceremony:
  Cazarosta: We are sabres in the hands of infinity, to move and act as we are bid. The fact that we sometimes have second thoughts in the obeying gives us the delusion that we have some ability to determine our fates, that we are born with a freedom to choose our actions: to be kind or cruel, good or evil. That is mankind's most glorious and beautiful dream, but it is a delusion nonetheless.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: All over the place. Most prominently:
  • The Unified Kingdom of Tierra is a mixture of the British United Kingdom and Hapsburg Spain. Their military more fits the United Kingdom's model (a small, elite force that's on the verge of becoming very innovative, very fast), but culturally they have a lot in common with Spain as well.
  • The League of Antar is the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth mixed with Tsarist Russia, a lumbering titan with vast amounts of resources from farmland to men, famed heavy cavalry, and a dysfunctional mess of an oligarchic council for a government. Tierra has to stay one step ahead of and fight cleverly or get crushed by sheer weight of numbers.
  • The elves of Takara are a combination of the German Empire and the United States; a militarized society with German-esque titles and a parliamentary monarchy, but they are a democratic state and the most powerful nation in the world (except possibly for their Kian rivals, who they're fighting a cold war with), with an overwhelming superiority complex towards everyone else.
  • The Kian are the Chinese Empire populated and cultured mostly by Ancien Regime France.
  • The Mhidi'yos are combination of various mediterranean states near the coast and inland culture being more influnced by Persian and Mughal India in the southern regions.
• Fantastic Racism: The Takarans are prone to this.
• Fantastic Slurs: The deathborn, (children of a baneblooded mother who are unable to sense the Bane) are subject to this.
  • It is especially noticeable in the way other officers treat Cazarosta, despite his exceptional skill as a soldier.
  Elson: A deathborn, with all the disadvantages of his scandalous birth, including a complete lack of manners. I'd stay clear of him, my dear fellow.
• Freudian Trio: If you have the right stats, your relationship with Elson and Cazarosta can be considered this with Elson being the Id, you the Superego, and Cazarosta as the Ego. This is most evident when you gain the opportunity to form a plan of your own that combines their plans for battle which results in no deaths or hold ups that only work by placing Elson and Carzarosta where their respective roles of the trio.
• Gaslamp Fantasy: A world in the Age Of Sail with magic.
• Glory Hound: Cazarosta sees Elson as this due to his foolhardy behavior.
  • The basis of the Tierran Army, too. Self-preservation is shunned at, as dying in battle is considered one of the highest honors.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the final battle, If you fail the stat check to defeat your Church Hussar opponent, your Staff Sergeant intervenes to save you, at the cost of his life.
• Heir Club for Men: Tierran inheritance laws tend to be like this. Seems they follow a salic code of Inheritance in which even if a female does end up up inheriting it, it is often held in trust by their liege lord or the Crown.
• Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Type B, Cazarosta, as a Deathborn, his inability to sense or manipulate the Bane and the social stigma would be expected to considerably hamper his military career, yet his skill as a soldier is such, that he frequently outclasses you in combat drills and never falls behind you in rank.
• Interservice Rivalry: A big one between the Navy and the Army as well as the Royal Marines and Army. Basically Everyone likes to shit on the Army. Even within the Army itself, there is rivalry between the Calvary and Infantry units.
  • And in the cavalry, there's a budding rivalry between the Royal Dragoons and the White Rose Lancers, after the former's actions in the Battle of Blogia.
• Jerkass: Sergeant Hernandes has very few likeable traits, when asked for advice a how to deal with a situation with your men, he will always suggest the harshest option.
• Last Stand: You get to make one with Cazarosta at the castle in order to guard the Tierran army's retreat after their defeat at the hands of the Antari
• Make an Example of Them: You can hang a soldier for stealing a pig, which is a good way to instill discipline in the rest of the men. You can also arrange for the disappearance of a soldier who attempts to frag you, which tells the survivors that you are not to be crossed.
• Martyrdom Culture: The religion of the Saints is this. The ultimate accomplishment of a baneblooded hero's life is a heroic death, either in battle or some other noble endeavor, that may elevate them to the ranks of the Saints. The Saints of the Red, in particular, are those elevated for martyrdom in battle.
• Military Maverick:
  • Sergeant Harlech has little respect for authority or discipline, and has the lowest loyalty stat of of the available sergeants.
  • Sergeant Lanzerel is loyal to you if you choose him as your sergeant, but he has absolutely no patience for idiots with commissions, which can get you into trouble later.
  • Caius d'al Cazarosta has very little respect for the chain of command, the Articles of War, the lives of his brother officers, or anything that gets in the way of getting the job done.
• Mounted Combat: What you usually do though and what the game is about, you also do quite a bit of combat dismounted as well.
• Muggles: The baneless, who are unable to either sense or manipulate the Bane, and largely made up of commoners.
• Muggle Born of Mages: The deathborn are the equivalent of this.
• The Neidermeyer: Lieutenant Carrecort, also potentially the player, should they treat their men poorly enough.
• No Sense of Humor: Cazarosta, even if you and he have a strong relationship, will rarely so much as smile regardless of the situation.
• Not Bad: If Cazarosta respects you enough to let you command the boarding party in his place, he has this to say:
  Cazarosta: You are tolerable company, try to avoid dying.
• Obsessively Organized: Sergeant Hernandes seems to be quite neurotic about rigidly following all the rules at all times, and appears to have an obsession with insignificant details, such as correcting minuscule imperfections in your men's uniforms.
• Officer and a Gentleman: Elson is highly educated, well-spoken, and generally friendly towards the player.
  • Lieutenant-Colonel Hunter. The man is considered well-spoken, dashing and relatively smart. He is one of the firsts senior officers who recognize the player's talent.
• Oh, Crap!: In the final chapter, the collective response of your men upon seeing the size of the massive Antari army.
  • the reaction of Khorobirit's army when the Tierran cavalry appeared out of nowhere and charged their flank at Second Kharangia.
• Path of Most Resistance: Taking the riskiest, most dangerous paths (such as taking command of the boarding party), require high stat checks and can backfire badly if you fail, but they also offer the best opportunities to win medals and boost your reputation.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Your command as a lieutenant largely consists of disgruntled conscripts in place of eager volunteers, turning them into professional soldiers is a challenge.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • You can deliver a brief one to Lieutenant Carrecort to inspire his troops to rebel against him and rally to you.
  • If you disrupt the mock charge to save Elson, you receive a blistering one from Captain Montez:
  Captain Montez: Perhaps you have forgotten, Cornet, but we are about to sail off to war. Would you sacrifice the lives of countless others in the face of enemy fire if it meant rescuing a personal acquaintance in such a stupidly reckless manner?
  • If Cazarosta leads the boarding party, he receives an especially cruel one from Captain Walken:
  Captain Walken: Half a dozen of my marines are dead including my best sergeant, another eight wounded. All because some entitled death-born idiot wanted to play officer! Good men are dead because you did not know your place. It is my opinion that the rotten fruit of such hideous miscegenation should have no place in His Majesty's Army!
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Captain Montez, Major Hunter and Duke Cunaris.
• Relationship Values: Elson and Cazarosta are subject to this, particularly in the beginning, where befriending one will alienate the other. Duke Cunaris's opinion of you is also tracked.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Elson and Cazarosta.
  • Major Hunter and Captain Lefebvre.
• Smart People Play Chess: Quie is a Kian strategy game, and winning it requires having a high Intellect score.
• Sergeant Rock: Sergeant Lanzerel is an hot-headed, experienced soldier, and is a good choice for maintaining an equal mix of good discipline, morale, and loyalty.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The player themselves has one of these in the stats screen, which changes according to their philosophy and conduct in the war.
• The Stoic: Aside from expressing his contempt of Elson, Cazarosta has few moments when he shows even an ounce of emotion in the story, working hard to gain his trust can make him open up a little more.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Cazarosta's hatred of the Antari, indifference to the horrors of war and his casual disregard of the rules of engagement amount to this.
• Speech Impediment: Sergeant Hernandes suffers from this, which is needless to say, an unfortunate trait for a Drill Sergeant Nasty to have.
• Unfriendly Fire:
  • On multiple occasions, your men can attempt to frag you if you don't earn their loyalty. Sometimes they succeed.
  • In the final battle, the Antari employ this against their own troops to stop them retreating from the front line.
  • If you make an enemy of him, Cazarosta will arrange your death the first chance he gets. Try not to give him one. Conversely, if you get in the proper position and have made Caz your enemy, you can attempt to arrange his death, though it goes nowhere.
• Undying Loyalty: Your Sergeants, especially Fenton, can demonstrate this depending on your treatment of them.
• Video Game Caring Potential: You may choose to be an honourable soldier and a fair, generous leader, abiding by the rules of engagement, with his men's best interests at heart.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You may choose to disregard the rules of engagement, mistreat their men while ignoring their needs, and take every opportunity to profit from the war.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Bloodthirsty behaviour that violates the rules of engagement (such as killing civilians and executing prisoners), will damage your reputation, while ignoring your men's needs and/or being excessively harsh towards them may cause them to rebel against you or undermine their combat effectiveness.
• War Is Glorious: Elson's general attitude to the war between Tierra and Antar, at least at first. Hunter also rather enjoys it.
• War Is Hell:
  • Demonstrated by the town of Noringia, which has been heavily bombed and looted by Tierran forces, starvation and poverty is rampant among the refugees still living there.
  • In the final battle, If you successfully repel the Antari assault, the aftermath shows you surrounded by the corpses of the majority of your men, possibly including your Staff Sergeant, and most of the survivors badly wounded, at that point, a horribly maimed Cazarosta suggests piling the corpses into a makeshift barricade to repel the next attack, War Is Hell indeed.

Sabres of Infinity

• Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving: If you abandon the charge to save Elson at the start of the game.
  Montez: Cornet, what you did this morning was a display of initiative and quick-thinking far above the call of duty. It was an action which places you among the ranks of the finest of men. Don't do it again.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Captain Hunter manages to hold his own against Karol of Loch, a highly skilled Antari commander, during the supply caravan ambush.
• BFG: You have a chance in the game to acquire one in one of the sidequests as a reward.
• Boarding Party: Takes place early in the story, you may command it, participate in it, or simply sit it out.
• Break the Cutie: Elson doesn't take well to the realities of army life.
• Compassionate Critic: Perform poorly in soldering drills after befriending Cazarosta, and he proves to be this, the same occurs with poor intellect if the player befriended Elson.
• Child Soldiers: With a minimum enlistment age of 14, the player character themselves can be this.
• Corporal Punishment: Sergeant Hernandes can be heard threatening his men with this.
• Driven to Suicide: If the player deserts during the final battle, they will be disgraced and given the option to resolve to regain their status or commit suicide with a pistol.
• Freudian Trio: Potentially, with Elson as the Id, you as the Ego, and Cazarosta as The Superego.
• Glory Seeker: Elson is very open about being this, frequently putting him and his men in dangerous situations.
• Honour Before Reason: Elson demonstrates this with his preference of open combat against very poor odds, as opposed to "less honorable" stealth and guerrilla warfare tactics.
• I Did What I Had to Do: You can say this in response to Duke Cunaris when he confronts the player for breaking the rules of engagement.
• Majorly Awesome: Major Hunter.
• Never Found the Body: Captain Elson, missing and presumed dead after the Battle of Blogia.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Elson, a friendly Perpetual Smiler, gets EXTREMELY angry at you if you break the rules of engagement, particularly if you disobeyed his direct orders in doing so.
  Elson: I shall write to Grenadier Square of this. Next time, if there is a next time, you will follow orders, or I will see your sword broken, your career in tatters and what's left of you on a ship southwards so that you may live the rest of your life in infamy. Am I understood?
• Post-Victory Collapse: After holding off the Antari attacks for several hours. You promptly collapse at the first chance you get.
• Try Not to Die: Said by Cazarosta if he allows you to take his place leading the boarding party.
• Take a Third Option: When Elson and Cazarosta are arguing which strategy to use against the Antari camp, you can resolve the situation without taking sides by proposing a plan of your own.
• To Win Without Fighting: The player's plan to capture the Antari camp consists of this.
• Title Drop: Cazarosta does this in his philosophical speech towards the player at the military ceremony.
• Upper-Class Twit: Elson fits the trope at first. He partially grows out of it by the end.
• Worthy Opponent: Karol of Loch will consider Captain Hunter this if he is captured. While Karol thinks that the whole war is a stupid mess, his battle against you and Hunter was nonetheless a well-fought engagement and one he was proud to take part in.
• You Shall Not Pass!: At one point in the battle of Blogia, Cazarosta reckons that the Tierran army's retreat will become a rout if the Antari are able to hit their flank, and decides to sacrifice himself and the men with him to delay the Antari and prevent this. As he himself says, "Eighty lives are a cheap enough price."

Guns of Infinity

• After Action Patch Up: In the aftermath of the Battle of Kharingia if you were injured you are healed by banehealers before you head off to the ceremonial surrender of the city.
• Anyone Can Die: Make the wrong choices and a lot of named characters can end up dead, either way someone you know is going to be dead by the end of this game.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: The MC definitely becomes this as he rapidly rises in the ranks of the Royal Dragoons due to his actions.
• Bookworm: Lieutenant Sandoral, to the point of reading high literature to his troop as part of his style of training.
• Broken Pedestal: Renard doesn't take to well to many of the actions that can be undertaken by the MC in chapter 10a.
• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: Shown with the well-spoken Major Reyes and his boisterous subordinate Lieutenant Lewes.
• Darker and Edgier: This game is a lot darker than it's predecessor in terms of just how vicious the consequences are and the fallout of your decisions are given more weight.
• Decisive Battle: What this game is culminating towards as both sides try to gain any advantages they can for the final battle that will decide the victor of the conflict.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Lieutenant Blaylock, shown to be perfectly willing to abuse his men with little provocation, enforcing discipline in his troop directly using threats and acts of violence.
• Expy: Lieutenant Lewes is one for Richard Sharpe as both are common born soldiers elevated to the rank of officers. Both are also part of green-jacketed rifle regiments.
• Freudian Trio: A potential new one in the form of your lieutenants.
• Lovable Rogue: Lieutenant Garret, while he is often shown to be lazy, dishonest, and eager to engage in profitable criminal activities, he is also a charming, talented officer, with at least some degree of concern for his men's well-being.
• Oh, Crap!: The Tierran army reaction to the Antari line infantry.
  • On the other side, the Antari Army reaction to the Tierran Cavalry appearing on their flank despite there being a river between both armies.
• Old Soldier: No matter what age you start off as in the first one. By the end of the game if your stats are enough your experiences has marked you as a hardened veteran of many battles. Especially seen in the scenes before the final battle where some of your acquaintances ask you for your advice.
• Press-Ganged: Tierra has resorted to conscription in an effort to build up numbers in the disastrous aftermath of Battle of Blogia. Which leads to your units stats being much lower in this than the last one.
• Sequel Escalation: Has much more battles and action sequences as well as being longer and more winding choices for the player.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Lieutenant-colonel Keane is increasingly subject to this, eventually suffering a breakdown at the start of the battle of Kharangia.
• Suicide Mission: The Forlorn Hope at the battle of Kharangia, a small volunteer force to lead the first wave of the attack, securing a breach in the walls for the main force to enter, it is an extremely dangerous assignment and one of the most challenging missions in the story.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: According to Word of God, one of the characters you meet is this. Why is not known at this time.
  • There is a hint that this character may very well be Elson; looking at the romance flags in the startup text files as well as the save flags shows the romance tracker for Katarina (caz_rom), Welles (welles_rom), and one other (elson_rom). Whether or not it is a sibling of Davis remains to be seen. Keep in mind that Elson's own house is in a similar situation as the protagonist's and that Elson was the first son at 18, suggesting that Elson's joining the dragoons may have been an act of desperation for the family, though Elson may have had personal desires of glory as well. This possible truth coincides well with trackers for pro-feminine and pro-progress reforms the MC encounters when he meets Lady Welles and may very well be a crucial junction of choice in the upcoming Lords of Infinity.
  • There is evidence that it's Captain Adalberto d'al Garret. When you go see Welles the night before the final battle, she is talking to Garret in very familiar terms and is worried about him getting hurt. He says he has to show manly courage and all that. He has a voice that is only slightly deeper than Welles. If you think that they are only friends your characters even mentions that if they were the same sex, they wouldn't think anything of their familiarity. If you are disgraced, Garret is your third lieutenant instead of Renard. His mentor event is asking you for distilled vinegar, off the record, for a "private matter". A high enough intelligence realizes that distilled vinegar can be used to wash blood out of clothes.
    • confirmed in Lords of Infinity, Garret is the crossdressing Dragoon, using her brother name as her alias.
• Take a Third Option: Instead of either you or Cazarosta doing the Forlorn hope by yourselves, you can if you have high rep and a good relationship score with Cazarosta convince Havenport to have both of you lead the mission instead.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can commit some horrifying atrocities in this game. But, of course, War Is Hell.
• Won the War, Lost the Peace: Remains to be seen as even though Tierra manages to achieve victory it came at a cost. The Crown is heavily in debt, the populace is restless under numerous war taxes, and there is heavy discontent in the nobility against the king.
• You Are in Command Now: If you decide not to go on the secret mission you will be granted overall command of the regiment in the final battle.

Lords of Infinity

• Arcadia: Downplayed, while your own estate is not always harmonious, it is still qualified as this. It is little wonder why your family had not being politically active before your investiture.
• Bag of Spilling: Deconstructed. The constant stress during the war had, ironically, being a critical factor why you managed to maintain your stats at high values. Now that the country is no longer at war, it is easy for you to become idle and letting your talent wasted away. Also, the negatives of aging comes in for older character build, making the effort to regain these abilities much harder. The stats of the army you lead are also suffering during peacetime, as most of the common soldiers are retired from the service, and those who aren't are struggling to settle in their home.
• The City vs. the Country: Aetoria City vs Your estate, in this case. Aetoria City provides you with ample opportunities to profits, gain influences, and courting nobles of higher title or promoting yourself as one, but it also provides your with plenty of risks draining your fortunes and ruining your reputation. Your estate, on the other hand, are dealing with more mundane issues and helping your tenants, but such endeavor won't grant you with the windfall that Aetoria City can provide.
• Darker and Edgier: Lords of Infinity took another level of this than either of the prequels. So much so that the author had to put out a content warning at the start of the game. It is no wartime brutality, but the Cortes Politics can be just as merciless and cruel, if not worse.
• Corrupt Politician: Cortes, the Parliament of Tierra, had no shortages of them. Including bribe-taking, double-crossing, and at times, outright murdering.
• The Coup: The event of the final chapters, almost every parts of the city were involved in this one way or another.
• Easy Logistics: The Army Reform Commission shows how very much this trope was averted during the war with Antar. Mismanagement at all levels of command led to the Tierran army only being able to bring a fraction of their might to bear against the Antari. A full third of their forces were stuck in Tierra during Second Kharangia because they lacked either equipment or transport to Antar.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: The Chapter 3 Estate storyline involves the barony being besieged by highwaymen. They don't appear if you are squiring Lord Renard. One can surmise that they decided to find easier prey than lands currently hosting a Duke's son with a squadron of dragoons under his command. You can even send the dragoon escort to patrol around your fiefdom just to make sure they stay away from it.
• Logic Bomb: The Kingdom grinds to a halt due to two conflicting laws making it unclear whether Queen Isobel has the powers of her position. The laws of succession are clear that she is the queen, but the laws of inheritance state that her titles and powers are to be held in trust by a higher authority until her marriage. As the queen, she has no higher authority. The Cortes attempted to use their precedent as regency government to hold that power, while Queen herself argue against the claim.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: The protagonist's father attempted to arrange a marriage between the protagonist and a neighboring Lord's daughter before it was interrupted by the war. You can choose whether the engagement went horribly wrong, nowhere, or was successful and how enthusiastic you are about it. The protagonist and his fiancé can play this trop straight by being madly in love from the beginning or warming up to each other over time. It can be averted by being merely cordial with no real affection or even devolve into an Awful Wedded Life.
  • Should you have a sister and squire Lord Renard, you have the option to introduce her to Captain Hawkins as a marriage prospect. The two hit it off immediately and wish to continue courting each other. Should you get married afterwards, they attend the wedding together and further progress their relationship.
• Praetorian Guard: If you side with Queen Isobel, succeed in the final battle, and have a high enough reputation with the Royalist faction, she declares the Dragoons to be her second personal regiment after the Grenadiers.
• Staged Populist Uprising: Wulfram seems to genuinely want to improve the lives of the commoners and claims to have their support in his attempts to impose his will over the Crown. Whether he actually has their support or not depends on the player's actions. Donating heavily during the first winter if you're in Aetoria, supporting the King's policies so he avoids using his veto power, successfully completing the charity storyline in the Reform Club, and resolving conflicts peacefully during the unrest following the King's death greatly diminish popular support for Wulfram, making his coup attempt this trope. Of course, doing the opposite increases popular support for Wulfram making his coup a real populist uprising.
• Time to Step Up, Commander: Once again, your protagonist is put into this position again, though intentionally done by your superior due to him being invalid. By the end of this game, you are essentially commanding the Dragoon Regiment rather than Duke of Cunaris, and possibly leading Queens army to drive out the Wulframite forces.
• Wedding Episode: chapter 5 is this when you choose to stay in your estate and get engaged. Majority of the chapter you spent is planning for the wedding and getting used to the life of a married man.

Shadow Regiment

• Alternate Timeline: This game set in a timeline similar to the Dragoon Saga, with several changes in details. From pushing the timeline back by 5 years, to having Sir Caius Cazarosta restraining his army from pillaging(Caius prefers fighting in forlorn hope to take the breach of the city wall, so he had no part in the subsequent fighting within the city, especially without the intervention of the protagonist).
• Crusading Widower: This version of Mikhail Khorobirit is explicitly motivated not just by the national humiliation of losing the Dozen Year War to Tierra, but the fact that they killed his wife and nearly got his daughter.
• Character Class System: One can play through the missions with different types of characters with different skill sets.
• Darker and Edgier: Arguably a retroactive example. No part of the Infinite Sea lore is particularly lighthearted or soft, and Lords has taken a particularly dark turn with Tierra falling into civil war. However, Shadow Regiment focuses firmly on an alternate continuity Antar where the Big Bad of Sabers and Guns has responded to losing the war by massacring his peers and instituting a totalitarian dictatorship that crushes its own people in the name of revenge, while Antari resistance engage in bombings of their own people in an attempt to fight him. Tierra still has civil war in this timeline, but they are already over by the start of this game, with Royalist faction emerged victorious, and the country went into an era of industrial revolution.
• Dark Is Not Evil\Light Is Not Good: Alluded to. Khorobirit has christened himself The White King and his new totalitarian government promises to "light the bright flame of progress", which in practice means crushing all dissent and forcing the war-ravaged nation into breakneck industrialization and militarization in order to prepare for a genocidal revenge against Tierra. In contrast, the heroic Shadow Regiment opposing him hide in the darkness and talk about how every flame has a shadow.
• Day of the Jackboot: What happened in the backstory, and one of the main differences between this game's timeline and the canon one. After losing the war and fending off opportunistic former "allies", Mikhail of Korobirit takes advantage of his skills and residual popularity as the Only Sane Man in the League of Antar to march in to the Congress while it is in session, declare himself The White King, and massacre any opponent brave enough to speak out.
• The Emperor: Mikhail of Khorobirit has ascended from "merely" being a powerful, despotic feudal warlord in Antar to becoming its High King, "The White King." He rules as a totalitarian dictator crossed by the serf-knouting lord he was.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Borderline Evil Versus Evil. While the totalitarian government led by Khorobirit is bad, the incompetence of League of Congress is what cause Khorobirit losing his wife as well as the war. Furthermore, if the foundation of the League of Congress in canonical history can be applied here, House of Khorobirit is getting Laser-Guided Karma, while the rest of the Congress got the deserving end, since most, if not all of them, are responsible for rebelling against the Stanislaus IV and purging the entire royal family.
• La Résistance: The titular Shadow Regiment are Antari resistance fighters against "White King" Mikhail Khorobirit's tyranny.
• Master of Unlocking: The Burglar's hat. You'll often have to navigate through patrolled mazes of doors in order to get keys in order to progress. Or if you're the burglar, you can simply pop the door open.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Downplayed, in that the world still knows Mikhail, Lord of Khorobirit and his name and he is referred to such in the supplemental lore. However, in-game he is exclusively referred to as The White King by both enemies and allies alike.
• Secret Character: Completing all 20 stages will unlock a new character class: Assassin.
• Stealth-Based Gameplay: You die in a handful of shots, have points knocked off your score if detected, and deal with how only the secret, unlockable character has the ability to kill guards. This becomes a necessity.
• Klingon Promotion: What the Lord of Khorobirit does to essentially the entire Congress of Antar.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Your main job. Get in, set a bomb at a target (usually an ammunition dump of some description), get out.