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Help save Wizard City!note 

En Magus nos Fides
Ravenwood Motto

Wizard101 is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game developed and published by Kings Isle Entertainment that is targeted towards children and preteens. The player is a student of the Ravenwood School of Magical Arts in the world of Wizard City, where they enlist as a student of one of the seven Personality Powers-based schools of magic, then set off to complete quests and learn new spells. The combat system has very simple roots, similar to action-based RPG games, and relies on cards that correlate to spells and magic points that you collect each turn to use the cards with. The cards work in a Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors power arrangement based on the game's primary magic schools: Fire, Ice, Storm, Life, Death, Myth, and Balance.

Despite the graphics being rather telling of their time (that have been improved upon as more worlds are released) and some rather tedious quests, the game is engrossing and fun to play. The main alignment of your character's magic does affect the plot and the spells to which you have access, though you are able to learn some spells from other schools as well in exchange for training points earned as you level up. Wizard101 also has an active Player Versus Player community, considered by some to be the main draw of the game.

The game was originally released in 2008. Updates for the game, such as new worlds, quests and items, are constantly released. The most recent story update, Wallaru, was released in November 2023 while summer and fall updates in 2019 completely revamped the beginning of the main questline to better appeal to new players.

Has a sister game in Pirate101, which it shares a universe and continuity with - though the two do not interact.

Not to be confused with the older video game Sorcery 101, which was a point-and-click adventure game.


Wizard101 contains examples of the following tropes:

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  • 11th-Hour Superpower: During Arc 3's Darkest Hour, when the Storm Titan is transformed by the hatred and animosity between his parents, Raven and Spider, and becomes the extremely powerful and omnicidal Aethyr Titan, Bartleby reveals he knows how to combat the new threat on equal footing: He has Mellori and Bat focus their opposing semi-primordial forces into you, obtaining a Physical God Super Mode known as The Divine Paradox, with over 50,000 Health, mastery over all schools, and unknown but presumably absurdly high attack power.
  • The Ace: Stallion Quartermane is one of the most highly respected Adventurer Archaeologists ever, to the point where The Great Old One personally hired him to help in his endeavor to restore Lemuria. He's also a brilliant mathematician, hand-to-hand combatant, and flutist.
  • Adaptational Nice Girl: In her original folk tales, Baba Yaga was a villainous, baby-eating witch. But in this game, she's a kindly adoptive mother and magical scholar dedicated to raising her daughter well and watching over The Spiral.note 
  • Adults Are Useless: Zig-Zagged. Most of the adults in the game are rather competent at what they do, and in fact assist in the story on many occasions. But for some strange reason, they enlist you (an ambiguously aged teenager) to lead the charge against the Spiral's greatest enemies.
  • Aerith and Bob: In spades, ranging from player names, to NPC names. A notable example is Cyrus and Malistaire.
  • Affectionate Parody: The entire game is a parody of many fantasy books and games, including Harry Potter, and the worlds in themselves are parodies of both real life and mythical locations.
  • After the End:
    • By the time the player reaches Dragonspyre, it has been destroyed by the Dragon Titan and only some of his army is still alive. Only two of the original residents are still alive, and one of them is the guy that summoned the Dragon Titan.
    • Celestia is another case based on Atlantis. When the Celestians tried to ally with the Storm Titan to stop Morganthe, the titan, after helping them, betrayed them and flooded their world for the hell of it.
    • In addition, Azteca becomes this - You end up being late to stop Morganthe on Xibalba, and the sky is darkened with comet shards raining down forever afterwards.
  • The Alleged Expert: The Seal Team talks themselves up as an elite fighting force without equal, but when you team up with them to capture Rasputin and each member of the Seal Team fails at their supposed "specialties", it becomes clear that their expertise is exaggerated.
  • Allegedly Free Game:
    • At about level 10, unless you fork over some cash, no other areas will be available, and half of your current quests will all be moot. The only real gameplay left will be free PvP, simple games and Level Grinding with no real hope of further advancing the plot.
      • In a recent update, the developers have removed Pv P entirely for low levels. Instead, they are now only allowing people in certain level ranges to Pv P. This is likely due to people exploiting the system previously.
  • Alliterative Name: Velma von Venkman, the Arcanum's resident Shadow Scholar.
  • Always Night: It's always nighttime in both Marleybone and Darkmoor.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Captain Pork. After meeting Ione again after She's All Grown Up, he asks if her brother matured like she did in an interested tone.
  • Ancient Conspiracy: The Cabal, an ancient sect dedicated to recreating the First World who encouraged Malistaire to steal the Eye of History and told him about the Krokonomicon.
  • And I Must Scream:
    • Dragonspyre's knowledge crystals absorb and store souls. It is not outright stated, but many of the souls seem quite aware that a long time has passed while they were stored. However, the horror aspect is removed since most are fine with being in the crystals and teaching students.
    • Played straighter in the Wizard City Underground, where some Dragonspyre crystals have become sentient thanks to discarded alchemical waste. Whenever someone unfamiliar comes near them, forcing them to acknowledge that they are just recorded memories, they lash out and try to destroy them. Notably, some of the recordings request that the crystals be smashed, suggesting that they prefer death over their current existence.
    • Implied with the mouse citizens of Bastion in Khrysalis when they're turned into crystal statues. None of the dialogue indicates whether they're conscious, but if you stand close to one, you can hear a heartbeat.
  • Anti-Anti-Christ: The Co-Dragons for the Big Bad of Arc 3, Grandfather Spider, are his three sons: Father Rat, Father Scorpion, and Father Bat. However, Empyrea reveals that Father Bat is Good All Along, doing everything he can to undermine his father. Although Bat wants to prevent the Spiral from being destroyed, he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist willing to do unsavory things to do so, such as trying (but failing) to kill Mellori because she's a Living Macguffin considered Too Powerful to Live.
  • Apocalypse How: Risked a few times, usually a worst case scenario if the Wizard were to fail their mission - though it occurs at least once.
    • Class 0: Happens to Samsara Village in Empyrea after Dynt fires the Storm Cannon to successfully break the Life-Death Paradox Chain.
    • Class3a: Caused on both Dragonspyre and Celestia long ago due to Titans. Most of the worlds of the spiral risk this if a Titan were to be allowed free reign.
    • Class 6/Class X: The ultimate fate of Azteca. For gameplay reasons, however, all the player sees is shards of Xibalba raining from the sky, the world operating as normal.
    • Class X-4: What would happen if Old Cob or his Chaos Heart dies.
  • "Arabian Nights" Days: Mirage, in a high fantasy sort of way. One early quest there has you visit a genie who just lives in a nondescript tent within walking distance of a large gathering of nomads.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
    • When Zebu Blackstripes talks about the Imperial War Fan he received from the Emperor of Mooshu, he says he used it to "signal my warriors, fend off spears, and cool myself in the hot sun."
    • When you and the Patriótes apprehend Empress Ansukette in the Imperial Palace, Danton accuses her of tyranny, gluttony, unfair monopolization of the fish trade, and "poor taste".
    • The minions for Doctor Demented are physical manifestations of Captain Pork's worst fears: Fear Of Being Surpassed (A penguin version of Jean-Luc Picard), Fear Of The Future (An older Pork who is a lounge singer), and Fear Of Gremlins (A Gremlin).
    • Vanitus describes Admiral Dynt as "mad, foul, and likely not even a real Admiral". But being a high-ranking member of the Cabal, he likely exaggerated like that to keep up his façade.
    • Stallion Quartmane is described as "a master archaeologist, mathematician, hand-to-hand combatant, and flutist".
    • When you find Stallion Quartermane in Suspended Animation, The Nothing notes that he's still alive because his "chemical reactions, electrical charges, and musical notes" are still active.
  • Art Shift: When Celestia was released, it signaled a shift to world environments with a more robust and open feel.
  • Ascended Glitch: At one point, people discovered the infamous "rug glitch" in houses where you could use items you could walk on like rugs and allow you to build well beyond the intended limits of the house, allowing people to make creative houses that go out of bounds. The developers have acknowledged this glitch and saying that they are fine with it. Later on, they even made it into an actual function people can use called "advanced movement", allowing people to do exactly this without any kind of glitch or set up.
  • Auto-Revive: The Guardian Spirit spell will automatically revive a the recipient with 15% health when they are defeated.
    • Additionally, if a player in PVE is defeated while an ally is alive and defeats the enemy shortly after, the defeated player will come back to life with 1 health, rather than being sent back to the starting area.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: A lot of spells that are either dropped or crafted. While they may be rare and provide a flashy animation, the power they have for the pips they cost often isn't worth it compared to the more mainstream spells.
  • Bad Powers, Good People:
    • Death Wizards may specialize in replenishing their health by draining it from their enemies, which could be considered pretty evil (especially since most death spells feature spooky monsters that wouldn't look out of place in a horror movie), but players who choose Necromancy as their school are all about saving the Spiral just like any other school.
    • You, Velma von Venkman, and the Bat are possibly the only beings alive who use shadow magic for good instead of evil, though the latter is more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
  • Balance Between Good and Evil: According to The Omniscient Bartleby, it would be disastrous for The Spiral if Light/Order or Shadow/Chaos (as well as their respective personifications, Grandmother Raven and Grandfather Spider) gained a significant advantage over the other.
  • Bait-and-Switch: Some spells in the game take the appearance of other spells but then another creature introduces itself and interrupts the original creature summoned.note 
  • Barefoot Cartoon Animal:
    • A good portion of the animal characters, especially (but not necessarily or limited to) ones from worlds that are analouges for more primitive cultures. Myrella Windspar lampshades her own case of this while giving the player a tour of the Dragon's Fjord house, mentioning that the rainbow bridge makes her feet tingle.
    • Dyvim Whitehart is an odd case. When you first meet him, he's wearing a prison uniform that includes shoes. He then starts going barepawed once he gets some battle armor.
  • Bears Are Bad News: Both inverted and played straight: while the majority of Grizzleheim's bear population is friendly towards you-albeit wary, you being an outsider and all-sooner or later you run into the Red Claw, a faction of rogue bears hell-bent on waging war against you and anyone else who gets in their way.
  • Beast Man: Almost all NPCs and enemies that aren't from Wizard City or Dragonspyre (and in the latter's case, it's still a 50/50 chance of whether or not it's going to be a Draconian or human).
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: Grandfather Spider genuinely considers you a friend after you freed him from his prison in Khrysalis (admittedly, it was an accident, you didn't know who he was at the time, and you were too busy dealing with Morganthe to care) to the point where he goes out of his way to either avoid you and not involve you in his plans to ensure he doesn't hurt you or offer you a place at this side.
  • Beef Gate: Downplayed; It is possible to begin Wintertusk just after completing Ravenscar in Grizzleheim. Doing the latter only requires you to be Level 40, and if you've done nothing else, you'll only have gained 2 or 3 levels. Wintertusk itself, however, is meant to be started at at least Level 50, meaning players who attempt to start it right away won't get immediately decimated, but will really struggle.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Befitting his nature as the Big Good, Bartleby is one of the kindest beings in the entire Spiral. However, even he has limits, especially when it involves making sure the Spiral continues to exist. According to History of Death Magic, Bartleby personally punished an Apocalypse Cult hellbent on destroying the Spiral by granting them eternal life and sealing them away in a soundproof prison.
  • Big Bad: Malistaire Drake for Arc 1, Morganthe for Arc 2, then Grandfather Spider for Arc 3, and finally, The Old One for Arc 4.
  • Big, Thin, Short Trio:
    • The three Mystics of Azteca in the order of Tezcat Threestar, Zaylin Reedwalker and Pacal Redmask.
    • The three male Spiral leaders on Novus utilize this trope with Mario Di Mario, Rottingham Weiler and Don Manzana
  • Bilingual Bonus: A notable example is right in the Darkmoor introduction quest. You read a "arcane phrase" which is literally just German. The phrase is "Denn die todten reiten schnell", which means "the dead travel fast". Fitting considering what it is that you fight there.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Murdak and Nashkurgal appear to be kind and benevolent Djinn who only want what's best for Mirage and do their best to convince the Qhat houses to join the Aggrobah Alliance against Xerxes. Later, it's revealed that they, along with Shamiss, are part of a Djinn conspiracy that involves betraying their masters and allying themselves with Grandfather Spider (albeit because they were promised freedom in exchange for their help).
  • Bizarre Alien Biology: The Monstrology tome's description of the Gobbler Gorger is "It's said to have ten stomachs. By the time the last one's full, the first one's empty."
  • Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism:
    • Fire elf males are about two to three feet tall and and look like Santa's elves with short bows, while females can be more than twice as tall and could be mistaken for humans if not for the pointed ears and gravity defying hair.
    • Dryads have a severe case of Masculine Lines, Feminine Curves to start, but by looking at Greenbeard and his wife, the other differences become even more clear. Greenbeard is one and a half stories tall and looks like his bark is in thick stacked layers that come to jagged points. In contrast, his wife is only about eight feet tall with smooth bark that naturally indents in a way that it give her a shape that is reminiscent of bared midriffs.
  • Bizarro World: Lemuria is full of creatures you've seen before, but with radically different cultures than what you're used to. Bears, who you've known to be proud warriors in other words, are peaceful, laid back beach-dwellers here. Manders, who were a Slave Race to the Kroks, have become hardened barbarians. And Water Moles, who elsewhere are a primitive tribal folk, live in a futuristic society reminiscent of The Jetsons.
  • Black Blood:invoked A variation occurs in the form of the Blood Bat spell, which spits green blood. According to Word of God, it was originally meant to red, but it was changed in order to ensure an E or E10+ rating.
  • Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The Sirens spell features three mermaids: one with blonde hair, one with brown hair, and one with red hair.
  • Bodyguard Betrayal: After you defeat him, Krokhotep (now a ghost) agrees to help you enter the Temple of Storms and take down Krokopatra, the only remaining obstacle standing between you and the Krokonomicon, which you're trying to retrieve from her before Malistaire does. You fail to do so, of course, which leads you into Marleybone to continue the pursuit.
  • Bonus Dungeon: There are many that open up along the way, and are typically much harder than any other area in the world they are situated in:
    • Wizard City has the Sunken City, a haunted city where the mythical Grubb is said to reside.
    • Aquila is a world dedicated to bonus dungeons, consisting of Mount Olympus, Atlantea, and Tartarus.
    • The Four Dungeons expansion added bonus dungeons to Wizard City, Krokotopia, Marleybone, and Mooshu.
  • Boring, but Practical: The Balance School. Their specialty lies not in their attack power, but in the blades, traps, and shields they can supply their teammates that either boost their power or heavily protect them.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: The optional instances are notoriously difficult because of these, especially Kensington Park. It's all too easy to go in unprepared and have your rear end handed to you within the first ten minutes. Some of the later worlds (namely, Dragonspyre and Celestia) also have them roaming about, which can make certain quests anywhere from annoying to downright painful to complete.
  • Brick Joke: When completing the first few quests to get to Avalon, Gamma tells you that Morganthe once tried to hit him with a Wooly Mammoth. When you get to Ghost Avalon, you have to go into a past version of the castle disguised as Gamma. One of the bosses is a young Morganthe, who frequently interrupts the duel to use a few good Wooly Mammoths on you.
  • Call-Back: In Wizard City, one of the sidequests is to retrieve a sword, the Spirit of Mookogawa, from one of the skeletons for a collector. In Mooshu, Rikugun tells the player about how he had lost his sword and that a collector from Wizard City returned it to him.
  • Came Back Strong: When Malistaire is brought back as a Lich by Morganthe, he is much more powerful than he was originally and he is completely invulnerable to attack. Literally the only reason that the player is able to win the fight is the damage done to the battlefield while killing his minions causes the ground to break under him when he tries to finish the player off. Fortunately, by the time the player faces off with him a second time, they've caught up to him in terms of power (mostly due to now possessing Reality Warper abilities), though he still puts up a hard fight.
  • The Cameo:
    • Mister Gandry appears as an extra in Polaris, and Boochbeard does the same in Mirage.
    • A tiny Frankie Forearms (a character from another Kings Isle Entertainment game, Rise and Destroy) can be seen wandering the Arcanum, as well as being available as a pet for a limited time.
  • Cap:
    • While it isn't completely restricting, there is a limit of the amount of gold one can hold; it starts at 300,000, then goes up with your level until maxing out at 525,000.
    • After an experiment using many base and enhanced blades and traps and by using an enhanced attack, the limit for any attack is 1,000,000. There's even a badge for hitting this cap with either healing or damage.
      • Later, they increased the damage cap to 2,000,000. It's unknown why, but it does allow wizards to get both of the badges for healing for 1 million and damaging an enemy for 1 million at the same time through the usage of a powered up drain spell. Additionally, this is only possible once a certain (currently unknown) level has been reached.
  • Cassandra Truth: When Khan returns to Zanadu, many of the Alphoi refuse to believe that it's really him until Alyvia, the muse Khan put in charge of his kingdom while he was away, personally vouches for him. Justified in that Khan has been gone for many years, and according to some civilians, there have been several Khan impersonators.
  • Cast from Hit Points: This is a minor specialty of the Death School. Examples include: Sacrificenote , Empowernote , Dark Pactnote , and Bad Jujunote .
  • Catch-22 Dilemma: The paradox of the Forge of Legends. Due to the Forge's uncommon design and unique composition, it can only be successfully operated by a Legendary Crafter. However, the only way a Crafter can obtain that rank is by using the Forge of Legends. As it turns out, solving the dilemma is as easy as just stepping up to try and use the forge.
  • Cats Are Mean: The O'Leary gang, Marleybone's resident band of thieving felines—which, oddly enough, also includes rats in its ranks. Inverted with Baxter, a member of the gang who uses his inside information to help you try and stop gang leader Pops O'Leary's plan to bust Meowiarty, Marleybone's Big Bad, out of prison.
  • Challenge Run: In a recent update, the developers have allowed people to lock the level of their wizard, as long as they have at least 1 wizard on their account at level 50 or above. Some creative players have created level 1 characters that lock their level that way and try to get as far as I can. Saint2th is the first person known to get through the entirety of the game while still remaining level 1. However, some players do not stop there. Some also try to get as many badges as they can while under these restrictions or fight bosses that are way beyond the level that they are supposed to be fought at. Fellspawn (a secret boss in the Catacombs) is intended to be fought as a challenge with a group of level 130s for a chance of getting gear. However, it has been proven to be possible to solo his fight as a level 1. This challenge severely limits your options that you can use. Without leveling up, you cannot learn spells from any teacher that are gated by a level requirement, you can only learn ones that are given through the main quest line which are very limited. Most schools will be unable to get their blades or traps, and they usually will not have many attack options either without item cards or treasure cards.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Your background as a wizard from Earth. It is only mentioned at the beginning of the game and never brought up again...Until the end of Empyrea Part 1. When Grandmother Raven brings Mellori's Essence to the Astral Plane, the Arcanum wants to mount a rescue. However, Qyburn Stellargaze states that no being originating from the Spiral can enter the Astral Plane, but as it just so happens, Earth is not part of the Spiral. You can probably see where this is going.
  • Child Mage: Player characters seem to be teenagers.
  • The Chosen One:
    • Throughout Azteca, many of its denizens will refer to you as "Azure Shining One". It isn't until you complete the sidequest "Count of Days" will you understand the true significance: It's the title of Azteca's Chosen One who the Lords of Night long ago predicted would arrive and become a champion of light.
    • It's heavily implied that you are the child spoken of in Grandfather Spider's prophecy.
  • The Chosen Wannabe: Morganthe was absolutely convinced that she was the child spoken of in the Grand Prophecy. She's not. You are.
  • City Noir: Heap in Lemuria is one, with cows and bulls leading crime gangs and Dog Tracy trying and failing to keep them under control. It takes his assistant, The Shadoe, to improve the city by having the criminals confront their past and the true reasons for doing what they do.
  • Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Since the Myth Chain in Empyrea is Myth magic in its purest form, which is itself powered by imagination, it can be affected by the thoughts and dreams from denizens within its proximity. If the thoughts and dreams are strong enough, the Myth Chain can bring them to life.
  • Class and Level System: Naturally, but with a more streamlined and simplified approach for younger gamers.
  • Clockwork Creature:
    • Many of the creatures in Marleybone, beginning with Chelsea Court.
    • There are, occasionally, these types of creatures lurking within Dragonspyre's many dungeons.
    • The Golem Tower in Golem Court has the Wooden Constructs, Clockwork Golems, and the Iron Golem.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Enemies have name tags of differing colors depending on their overall strength for their rank. Yellow names signify a relatively weak enemy, orange names signify normal strength, red names are for Elite Mooks, and purple names are for bosses.
  • Color-Coded Wizardry:
    • Ice wizards are white/blue, the Fire school has red/orange/pink, Storm has purple/yellow, Balance is maroon/tan, Life is green/brown, Death is black/white, and Myth is blue/yellow. Subverted, however, by the fact that players don't necessarily have to follow the color codes of their respective schools. For a price, players can dye their clothes into different colors, allowing an Ice wizard to wear Death-colored gear, a Life wizard to make Storm-colored robes, etc.
    • Also subverted in the high definition commercials. The two wizards dueling Malistaire are dressed like Myth and Ice but the number of pips have and the spells they cast reveal that they are actually Storm and Fire.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Many bosses will cheat in a variety of ways, penalizing those who join the duel late, switching the traps on a feint, interrupting the turn cycle, casting spells with 0 pips, or even summoning minionsnote . The ways they can be triggered vary, some will do it when you cast a certain spell, kill a minion, etc.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Each story arc does this with its Big Bad.
    • Arc 2 features Morganthe as cruel, vindictive, and driven by a thirst for power in contrast with the ultimately tragic figure of Malistaire, who had the sympathetic motivation of wanting his deceased wife back.
    • Arc 3 then contrasts both of the previous antagonists, whom you didn't meet until they were neck-deep in evil schemes, with Grandfather Spider, the first Big Bad to develop some personal history with you before being revealed as a villain. He regards you with genuine respect and a level of fondness and ultimately lives to attain a degree of redemption, unlike the previous examples.
    • While still in progress, Arc 4's villain is thus far presented as a Hero Antagonist, a sympathetic character who unintentionally causes a great deal of trouble while simply trying to figure out how to interact with the Everything. The other candidate for this arc's Big Bad is more of a Greater-Scope Villain who suffers a Disney Death at the beginning of the arc and leaves only the posthumous consequences of his schemes behind.
  • Convenient Questing: This trope is in such effect that you don't even have to accept some of the storyline quests.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Karamelle's storyline is built around this. The entire world is one massive MegaCorp headed by Grandnana. However, Grandnana is focusing on expansion and profit at the expense of everything else. As a result, workers are being replaced by automated gummies that are defective and turn hostile at unexpected times, production facilities are Cutting Corners to meet quotas at the expense of product quality, and the mass production of Karamelle's signature goodies is causing equally massive pollution. All of this is carefully hidden behind a shiny facade intended to attract customers. Workers are unionizing to push for reform, but until you show up, they aren't making much headway due to having to constantly dodge Grandnana's enforcers. At the end, the union succeeds in deposing Grandnana and begins planning to fix the damage she's done to their world.
  • Crazy Cat Lady:
    • Qhatlady is a literal one, being an insane anthropomorphic cat.
    • Eleanor Abernathy is a crazy firecat lady on Firecat Alley, who owns five Firekitties that have run away.
  • Cthulhumanoid: The form of the Old One, which The Nothing takes up.
  • Cute, but Cacophonic: Aeriel is a very beautiful seraph with the voice of Janice from Friends.
  • Damage Over Time: Every school has at least one attack that deals damage over three rounds, but Fire is the one that specializes in it. Life (and, to a lesser degree, Balance) invert the trope with spells that heal over time.
  • Damage-Sponge Boss: Ice and Life bosses, due to their ability to cast heals and armors. This goes for PvP, too. Despite both schools losing out on damage, their defenses are so beefy, that they can tilt a battle wildly. While Shoot the Medic First is an option for dealing with Life wizards, this tactic tends to fall short for Ice, who can take so long to finally succumb that you'll leave feeling like you're the one who lost.
  • Damned by Faint Praise: In order to reach the Water Cavern and rescue King Pyat MourningSword, you need to bypass the Round Dance Shrine, which can only be done by restoring it and preforming the Waggle Dance. After Zam teaches the dance to you, he only has this to say...
    Zam: Not... bad. Well, nothing says it has to be done well, at any rate. Just... do the best you can.
  • Dance Party Ending: The end of the limited time Selena Gomez event ends with Selena and the crabs of Crab Alley dancing to "Round & Round".
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!
After the developers revamped the friends list, they made a "feature" that doesn't allow people to view the stats of others in pvp matches. They moved the other buttons up, so when players mean to teleport to another friend, that accidentally send a group request instead
  • Darker and Edgier:
    • Although not to the same levels as most other cases of this trope, Dragonspyre has much less humorous dialogue and a much darker story than the rest of the worlds of the Spiral. It didn't help that almost every NPC was already a ghost by the time you get there.
    • After this, came not one, but two, of these types of worlds. First came Azteca, in which there is an imminent threat looming over. Specifically, the end of the world.. After that, there was Khrysalis, the darkest world yet, in which Morganthe is finally defeated, and killed, by way of falling through a crack caused by her becoming so overwhelmed with power, and you experience both the near-death of a major ally, as well as learning an ancient and incredibly powerful magic: Shadow, which is literally the force that forms reality. In addition, a major character betrays you. Old Cob is the traitor; he is revealed to have only helped you to further his own goals of destroying the Spiral, with the help of his children, leading into the next story arc.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Despite all of its spells featuring monsters straight out of horror movies, the Death School, at its core, is all about knowing that death is inevitable and that Death Wizards should strive to face it without fear.
  • Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: When you or your team is defeated, you're warped back to the world hub with one Hit Point and however much mana you had left. If you flee, your health remains intact at the cost of losing all of your mana.
  • Death or Glory Attack:
    • The Storm school-exclusive spell Wild Bolt. Originally, it had a base chance of hitting of only 10% (equipment and spells could boost it, however) but it could do 1000 base damage (again, this could be boosted even more) at the cost of only two mana and pips. It was recently changed to a 70% chance of hitting but it only had a 33% chance of 1000 damage; the rest of the time it does only 100 or even a meager 10 damage and uses up any boosts.
      • This was recently changed as of April 20 2022. According toa leaker, it has been changed to have a 50% chance of doing 100 damage, 25% chance of doing 10 and 25% chance of 1000.
    • Exaggerated with Insane Bolt, use to do 1125 damage to the target... or it has a 20% chance of 10000 damage to the caster. Only Neutral/Moon Boost/Resist affects the damage, and thus the spell usually kills the caster if it backfires. Subverted in the Spring 2021 update when Insane Bolt got changed to 145 damage three times with a 20% chance to hit the caster.
  • Deliberately Monochrome: The City of Heap in Lemuria, barring the occasional Splash of Color from characters, enemies, and establishment signs.
  • Deus ex machina: In the Skeleton Key introductory quest, Diego the Duelmaster's twin brother Roberto is hiding behind a Skeleton Lock, a powerful enchanted lock that can only be opened by a Skeleton Key. Luckily, the newly hired Librarian's Assistant who just so happens to be an expert on the subject has a Skeleton Key on hand that he gives to you. Hilariously Lampshaded by Diego at the end of the quest.
    Diego: It's a good thing that Librarian's Assistant that no one had ever heard of before literally had the key to solving this problem, no?
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: You have an odd habit of taking down monsters as old as the Spiral itself.
  • Disciplines of Magic: There exist multiple classes of elemental magic, which perform different roles in the card-based combat system. A player can choose two: A main class and a support class. They are:
    • Fire, which specializes in damage over time.
    • Storm, which does heavy damage but lacks in accuracy.
    • Myth, which uses minions to heal, buff, and defend.
    • Ice, which has weaker attacks, but higher hit points and defenses.
    • Life, which is known for healing.
    • Death, which is a complicated and advanced class with many capabilities through the use of combinations and traps.
    • Balance, which has a wide variety of spells, including those from other classes.
  • Disney Villain Death: Morganthe. Not that she didn't deserve it.
  • Downer Ending: While most worlds have Bittersweet Endings where the player saves whatever world of the Spiral they're on from the powers of the Big Bad but fail to stop the BigBad's long term goal, the story for the world of Azteca is a full downer. The player fails to stop the villain's attack which results in that world being destroyed. The villain even gloats that before the player even got the chance step onto the villain's lair the ritual had already been completed.
  • The Dreaded: The Hoarder from the Level 68 spell quest is terrifying that Milos Bookwyrm, a ghost, wouldn't mess with him.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: Sooner or later, everyone gets a quest from Cyrus Drake. Other NPCs are guilty of this as well. When an NPC isn't thankful, it often means you have to fight them.
  • Dumbass No More: Romulus was a complete moron prior to the Summer 2021 update; he allows the player to see General Akilles after seeing a pass you stole from a Warhorn. After the Summer 2021 update overhauled the remainder of the Wizard City storyline, he’s a much more helpful character that lets you in because he knows General Akilles isn’t acting like himself.
  • Easy-Mode Mockery: In the summer update of 2022, new bosses have been added that scale to the level of the lowest level player present. Should a higher level join, they can still go through the fight, but the only drop will be a participation trophy reagent with the description "You Tried".
  • Eats Babies: An offhand remark made by Baba Yaga in a memory has her mentioning that she wasn't hungry when given a baby Mellori from Grandmother Raven. Very much Truth in Television as the real Baba Yaga (or as real as fairy tale figure can get) was known to eat children.
  • Elemental Powers
  • Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors:
    • A spell will only do minor damage against monsters of the same affinity, but will do massive damage to a creature of the opposite affinity: storm >< myth, fire >< ice, life >< death. Balance is the odd one out, doing and taking slightly more damage to and from myth, life, and death.
    • In worlds and areas released since Celestia, each enemy affinity developed a weakness to an additional two schools of magic.
    • Played with for astral school enemies since they usually do have weaknesses to different schools but it varies from enemy to enemy.
  • Elite Mooks: Literally identified as such by their rank, and they've also sometimes been palette swapped.
  • Engineered Public Confession: During the hostile takeover against Grandnana in Karamelle, you use this against one of her underlings as part of the plan to turn the people against her.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
    • Everything Malistaire does in the first arc is part of his efforts to resurrect his deceased wife, Sylvia.
    • As dark and chaotic as he is, Grandfather Spider does genuinely love his children, and would never forcibly submit any of them to his will (anyone else is fair game, though). When Grandmother Raven goes onto do exactly that, he calls her out on it.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Due to your custom name, everybody will refer to you as "Wizard". In the Arcanum, you'll also be referred to as "Initiate" or "Understudy".
  • Evil Brit: Besides the enemies in Marleybone, for some reason the the jackal Mooks in Zafaria have an upper class British accent.
  • Evil Is Petty: In Mirage, Grandfather Spider actually gives you a chance to stop him simply because he believes he'll win and then brag about it to you afterwards.
    Mellori: Really, you'd risk your master plan of destroying the Spiral just for the opportunity to rub our noses in it?
    Grandfather Spider: I would. It's one of the prerogatives of being a Primal Divine Force. I can be as petty and absurd as I want.
  • Evil Twin:
  • Expansion Pack World: Due to the geography of the Spiral, it is very easy to add new settings, cultures, and technologies to the Spiral. Of all the worlds that have been named only a fraction have been visited in either Wizard101 or Pirate101.
  • Expy:
    • There are a few, but most obviously is the teacher of the myth school as a certain irritable potions master.
    • Empyrea has you dealing with a character known as The Bat, who later assists you in fights against characters named Qhatlady, Poison Oak, Le Pingouin, and Quizzler.
    • In the Drains of Wizard City, there's a side quest based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, except they are replaced with pigs. The quest is even named "TMNP".
    • Lemuria has a side quest in The Heap that references the Power Rangers series with a quest named "Go Go Power Grazers"
      • The same world also has a side boss named the Snow Queen which references Elsa from the Frozen movies. She even has cheats that references lines in her movies, like "Do you want to battle a snowman?" or "Let the Storm Rage On".
      • Khrysalis also references her in a similar way. A main quest boss blatantly says that "the cold never bothered them anyway".
  • Extreme Omnivore:invoked Gobblers. Sure, they eat normal food (just look around inside Gobblestone Castle—crates of chickens/pies/ice cream sundaes and piles of jellybeans are everywhere), but it isn't long before one starts to notice the lampposts and houses with sizable chunks bitten out of them... not to mention King Gobblestone himself, who has apparently developed a taste for stone towers since moving in. Word of God justifies this. Their homeworld is a Level Ate so they're new to the idea of buildings not being food.
    • Also present in the side boss The Devourer. His monstrology entry explicitly states "Literally eats everything - animals, plants, the abstract concept of love. Everything."
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • Fartillery: Skinny variants of the Gobbler monsters (i.e. Gobbler Scavengers, Gobbler Scouters, and Gobbler Munchers) have a natural attack that deals damage by farting on the player. There also exists a Gobbler treasure card, allowing the player to summon a Gobbler to fart on an enemy.
  • Fate Worse than Death: According to History of Death Magic, Bartleby personally punished an Apocalypse Cult determined to destroy the Spiral by granting them eternal life and sealing them away in a soundproof prison.
  • Fetch Quest: There are numerous quests that require a player to go locate an item and bring it back, only to find out that they need to get something else. The myth school in particular is notorious for doing this, as Cyrus Drake, teacher for the school of myth, would rather send the students away than interact with them. The myth quests could even be labeled Snipe Hunt, except Ivan, the tree of myth, helps the students complete the quests to Cyrus Drake's surprise.
  • Final Boss:
  • Fire, Ice, Lightning: The Fire, Ice, and Storm schools, with Fire and Ice having both an advantage and disadvantage with each other, while Storm takes on Myth in the same way.
  • For Science!: The reason Doctor Zigmund tampered with the Storm Batteries powering Wizard City in the Crab Alley questline. After you, in his own words, "wallop some sense into him", he devotes himself to repairing the batteries for science! And also to fix the damage he caused and make the area safe again. The trope is even name-dropped in one of the quests he gives you.
  • Furry Confusion:
    • One of the doglike Marleybonians has a pet dog. We don't get to see it, however.
    • Since mounts were released the player could buy a feral lion or lioness. When Zafaria was later released players can encounter anthromorphic lions and lionesses.
    • Mirage takes this in a weird direction, with a room full of non-anthro kittens, all apparently siblings numbering in at least the teens, and the implication that they'll grow up into anthro cats.
    • Players can also have pet versions of some of the denizens of the Spiral.
  • Furry Reminder: Myrella Windspar occasionally mentions her hatred of getting wet.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • Everything you fight uses magic spells to fight back, even the wildlife.
    • According to Private Connelly, Dorothy Gale keeps her lights on because she doesn't like all the Lost Souls roaming around. On the part of Unicorn Way where she lives, there are no Lost Souls to be found, but instead Skeletal Pirates.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar:invoked The game applies various rules to the text chat to filter out cursing, offensive language, and for some reason the word "Hell". Naturally, players figured out ways around this.
    • Clever capitalization (ex. HELLo), until this was fixed in a patch.
    • In many cases it's as simple as changing a letter. There are quite a few players saying "crop".
    • Players are not allowed to say "I hate you," yet "I hate ya" gets past the censor just fine.
    • Someone on Reddit leaked the contents of the text chat and open chat filters, revealing many oddities. For example, you cannot say in text chat "I will buy you crowns" or "I will really buy you crowns". However, they don't stop players from using contractions, so "I'll buy you crowns" is perfectly acceptable.
    • For the first testing phase for the summer update (July 2023), the developers were implementing new names for players (implementing the ability to change your name once). However, it got heavily abused despite the fact that you could only choose from a pre selected list of names, people found combinations that weren't appropriate, including but not limited to slurs and innuendos. The developers have since altered some names to prevent this.
  • Gilded Cage: After being arrested, Empress Antuskette of Polaris was placed under house arrest in the Imperial Palace in exchange for helping capture her former Evil Chancellor Rasputin/The Rat. Considering it was either that or being sent to the Basstille, one can understand why she made the choice she did. This way, she can at least live out her prison sentence comfortably.
  • Glass Cannon:
    • The Storm school. Their spells have the highest damage output of all the schools (at the cost of having the lowest accuracy), but Storm wizards have the lowest health of all the classes.
    • The Fire school as well, although not to the same extent on either end. Their spells hit very hard, and many of them deal damage over time to boost their damage output even further. However, Fire wizards have below average health.
  • Gold and White Are Divine: Your Divine Paradox form is white and gold (along with some blue).
  • Gone Horribly Right: A few members of the Dragonspyre Council of Wizards, Warriors, and King attempted to summon and control the Dragon Titan. The summoning worked perfectly, but unfortunately, the "control" part did not go as intended.
  • The Goomba: Lost Souls have the lowest health of any enemy in the game (only 55, allowing even the weakest wizards to defeat one in a single hit) and are usually the first enemies faced in combat.
  • Gosh Darn It to Heck!: King Thermidor complains about being trapped by "the dratted eels."
  • Great Offscreen War: Multiple.
    • The War of the Titans destroyed the First World and killed every last Fire Dragon, Frost Giant, and Storm Triton except for the last remaining three in Dragonspyre, Wintertusk, and Grizzleheim.
    • The aforementioned Dragon Titan was also responsible for the fall of Dragonspyre, with their armies still patrolling by the time you arrive.
  • Green Aesop: Karamelle's storyline features one about how rampant exploitation of resources and Cutting Corners in the name of profit just makes things worse for everybody in the long run.
  • Green-Skinned Space Babe: The Nimbari in Empyrea are a race of purple-skinned, humanoid, and militaristic people.
  • Green Thumb:
    • Many Life spells are themed around flora and fauna, which wizards can use to either deal damage or heal teammates.
    • The gardening skill allows wizards of all schools to have one by using magic to grow plants.
  • Gullible Lemmings:
    • While this game has a few, an honorable mention has to go to Crab Alley. None of its inhabitants figure out that their king is an impostor, despite his odd behavior and radically different appearance, until you point it out. Up to that point, they continue to obey him without question. It's made more believable by the "king" refusing to see anyone and having people who comment on his strange behavior locked up, but still.
    • The icing on the stupidity cake is that they are the reason that Wizard City has power. Yes, these morons are entrusted with keeping the energy of one of the most important worlds in the Spiral flowing. Frankly, it's a miracle that Sohomer Sunblade doesn't have to go down there every week to just get the power back on.
    • Even worse is some people got the chance to see what the king looked like when Crab Alley opened the first time.
  • Hidden Purpose Test: Cyrus Drake's first couple of tests are literally impossible to perform. The reason he is so harsh to new students is so he can weed out those that do not have the will to become true Conjurers.
  • Horsemen of the Apocalypse: A sidequest involves Expies of the Four Horsemen called the Four Horseguys: Pesky Pete, Mane the Mauler, Earl the Eater, and their leader, Mr. Dead.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: Bat clearly regrets having tried to kill Mellori, but he justifies his attempt on the basis that Grandfather Spider wanted Mellori's Semi-Divine power to help him complete his plan, so it would severely damage his plan (perhaps even beyond repair) if something happened that would permanently keep Mellori out of Spider's reach.
  • I Know You Know I Know: Between Medulla and Bat.
    Medulla: Oh, hello, Bat. Wizard. Surprised to see me? I know you thought I'd be running around investigating your sabotage, but I'm too smart for that.
    Bat: Perhaps. Or did we want you to think that, knowing you'd overthink things, thus playing right into our hand?
    Medulla: No! It's what I said! It's my hand that's been played into! I have you right where I want you. Prepare to bear witness to my genius!
  • I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!: In an Istanboa sidequest, when you defeat a street viper, he tells you that you may have defeated him, but he'll never tell you that the wedding between the Kobra Kommander's daughter and the General is taking place in the officer's club.
  • I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: Beans, being a parody of the Trope Namer Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, naturally does this often.
  • Inept Mage: It's a known fact that most graduates of Pigswick Academy are too inept to become full-fledged wizards. This is mostly due to the school's extremely lax teaching method, which would horrify even the most Apathetic Teacher note .
  • Infernal Retaliation: The Fire school-only spell Immolate. It deals 200 damage to the caster in exchange for 600 to the target.
  • Interface Screw:
    • A side boss in Catmandu gives you cards with gibberish names and descriptions. For example, one of them is just called "Uioweajdsfamdsa".
  • Inverse Law of Sharpness and Accuracy: For damage spells, higher damage almost always means lower accuracy. Storm has the lowest accuracy (70%) and the highest damage, while Life has the highest accuracy (90%) and some of the lowest damage.
  • Irrelevant Sidequest: The game is full of them. While some sidequests have legitimate purposes, like showing players other parts of the worlds that are not touched in the main quests, there are quite a few that have no impact on the storyline or gameplay at all other than granting some gold and/or experience and trinkets to sell.
  • Jack of All Stats: The Balance school is designed to be this.
  • Jerkass: Most lines of dialogue from Librarian Fitzhume are him snarking about either the player or other NPCs.Rottingham Weiler is the egotistical governor of New Vicorgia.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Cyrus Drake. Given who he's based off of, this is a given. He initially started out as a Sadist Teacher who strongly disliked you, even trying to get you expelled simply because you were bothering him about missing students. When you reach Dragonspyre, however, he sets aside his dislike so that the both of you can work together to take down his brother, Malistaire. After Malistaire is defeated, Cyrus admits he was wrong about you and has even come around to respecting you.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Jerk:
    • Nolan Stormgate spends all of the Cyclops Lane quest line talking down to you and making you do all his work. But he's a good guy at heart, right? Nope. Once you've saved the kidnapped students, he immediately tries to take the credit.
    • Shamiss originally came off as a gruff but not unreasonable Djinn who seemed all for the Aggrobah Alliance after some convincing, but as mentioned above, he was part of the Djinn conspiracy.
  • Karma Houdini: Raven and Spider are pretty Easily Forgiven, despite the fact that they were both attempting to destroy the Spiral, albeit for different reasons.
  • Lampshade Hanging: At one point in the Azteca plot line, you have to rescue a Jaguar from a giant toucan. Just before you confront the toucan, the narrator says: "The signs of scuffle lead you to this cave. Always a cave. Never someplace nice."
  • Land, Sea, Sky:
    • The three world from Arc 3. Mirage, Polaris & Empyrea in that order.
    • Also the dungeon from Aquila in reverse level requirement order: Tartarus, Atlantea & Mount Olympus. Including the main bosses Hades, Poseidon & Zeus.
  • Large Ham: A few of the voice actors (especially villain voice actors) go a bit over the top. But the winner has Grubb, who sounds like Zim after going through puberty.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: At two points during the Dead Archives dungeon, the player's path is blocked by a Wall of Text, literally a wall made out of numerous copies of the word "text". The way to get past them is by pressing a nearby "enter" button, one of the keys used to skip to the next line of quest dialogue. Librarian Fitzume even goes so far as to say that if it doesn't work the first time, to try rapidly mashing it, which is exactly what players who don't care about dialogue do.
  • Life Drain:
    • The main specialty of the Death school. Interestingly, they can do it in reverse to heal themselves or others. For example, Sacrifice, which causes 250 damage to be taken to the caster, and 750 health be given to its target.
    • Pyromancers learn Immolate, which deals 200 damage to you and 600 to your target, as well.
  • Light/Darkness Juxtaposition: Grandmother Raven and Grandfather Spider, alongside their respective children, Mellori and Bat, are the personifications of Light and Order and Shadow and Chaos, respectively.
  • Lighter and Softer: After the foreboding emotional rollercoaster that was Empyrea, Karamelle majorly dials things back, with the world being a colorful Candy-Land-like Level Ate and its story being self-contained and having much lower-stakes.
  • Literal Genie: The entire world of Novus is this. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it's an incompetent genie. When the Polarians ask for fish to eat, it creates monsters that look like fish with legs wearing boots. When the Valencians ask it to produce naturally occuring Valencian Steel, it does so, but puts it on the Monquistan side of the colony.
  • The Lonely Door: Spiral doors, which go to any world you want...as long as it has an intact door and key.
  • Long Song, Short Scene: The music that plays during the balloon car rides in Marleybone is actually around the same length as other music loops in the game, but the rides are to short to do it justice. To hear the whole thing, you need to either play its music scroll or go to a Bonus Dungeon.
  • Love Makes You Evil: Malistaire Drake's (the first Big Bad) purpose in turning evil is to get enough power to bring back his dead wife Sylvia.
  • Luke Nounverber:
    • For the sake of keeping things PG-rated, the game forces names to be chosen from a list in this fashion.
    • "Luke Skywalker" is actually a valid name arrangement, and you can imagine how many are running around.
    • As is "Taylor Swift" which, given the game's target demographic, in a strange twist is not nearly as common as the above example.
  • Mad Libs Catchphrase: Captain K'torr J'rrol is fond of saying "Waugh! You stink of ____!" every time you talk to him.
  • Magic Feather: Heavily Implied but not confirmed with the Helm of Rodorick. The Helm was originally created by a Summoner and given to a Cowardly Lion named Rodoric who used it to become a great warrior. When you find it and give it to Eoin Gentlewind, he doesn't feel anything, but says that having a powerful ally like you gives him confidence.
  • Mana: Like most other stats, the player's maximum increases with their level. It can be refilled by drinking potions, playing minigames, or collecting wisps.
  • Meaningful Name: You can give yourself one, and there's quite a few in-game.
  • Men Use Violence, Women Use Communication: This summarizes the difference between Dog Tracy, who throws criminals in jail, and the Shadoe, who convinces them to reform by addressing the reasons they turned to crime to begin with. While the Shadoe's approach is overall presented as more effective, some people aren't receptive to communication, forcing you to handle the situation Dog Tracy's way.
  • Mini-Game:
    • Eight of them, and there's a "fairground" in each world with sigils that the player uses to access them. Playing them fully restores your mana and refills your potion bottles for free, and also rewards you with gold and items if you can score high enough, so they're definitely worth the effort.
    • There's also a ninth minigame, Shock-a-Lock, and a tenth, Catch-a-Key, which are only accessible via silver chests and which you have to play (and win) if you want what's in the chest. Though at the higher levels, the sheer amount of time needed to play minigames for potion refills exceeds the time it would take to beat up something for the cash instead.
    • There are also several pet training minigames in the Pet Pavilion right off of The Commons.
  • Morton's Fork: During the quest that introduces Skeleton Keys, Diego the Duelmaster is presented with a problem: Diego's Evil Twin Brother Roberto has stolen a family heirloom from the former. Diego cannot go after Roberto because both of the twins made an oath to their mother on her deathbed to never take up arms against family, but he also cannot do nothing because the twins also made an oath to their father on his deathbed, promising him that they'll never back down from a challenge (also, he really wants the heirloom back). After some deliberation, Diego decides to Take a Third Option and send you as a proxy, figuring that it won't violate either of the oaths.
  • Mundane Solution: When Lieutenant Snow, the Alleged Demolitions Expert of the Seal Team, fails to blow up the underwater access grate leading to the Kataba IceBlock, Ivan the Great simply opts to punch the grate, and succeeds where the lieutenant had failed. Snow tries to save face by claiming to have loosened it.

     N-Z 
  • Narrator All Along: The Grandmother Raven in Wintertusk.
  • Nature Hero: Life wizards, who are also the healing class.
  • Never Learned to Read:
    • You, it seems sometimes; many Irrelevant Sidequests could be averted entirely if the player simply read what they were being asked to deliver, particularly where Cyrus Drake is involved.
    • Even worse for the Orthrus spell quest for Myth wizards. They literally write an essay about Orthrus but still need Cyrus to tell them what the two items needed to summon Orthrus the first time are.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Istar tries, bless her heart, but she constantly messes up the negotiations with the Qhats and makes things worse due to being The Ditz. Turns out, the Sultana was justified in making you the lead negotiator instead of her. And that's not even getting into the fact that she lied to you and agreed to help the House Djinn steal the Chronoshards from their masters and hide them in the palace treasury, where she was to give them to Ali Baboon in exchange for their help with the alliance; And, surprise surprise, she was betrayed. The Djinn were actually working with Eerkala, who in turn, was working with Grandfather Spider.
  • No Fair Cheating:
    • Although this game hasn't been big on the anti cheating measures, there have been some instances that were notable in the community.
      • One person was given a code to be able to redeem a lot of crowns for free by the developers. However, there was an oversight in the code where they forgot to put a cap on how many times it could be used per person. This person discovered this and shared it with people, most of which redeemed it many times. One even redeemed it so many times that they were able to reach several million crowns (which would cost several thousand dollars of real life money to get legitimately). The person who abused this knowingly got banned (especially after using it to get real world items out of it like gift cards), but most people who redeemed it several times simply just had their crowns taken away.
      • One developer inadvertently leaked a file that was supposed to be exclusive to customer support, revealing what all they could do. There's a video showing one person using it to take their character to the max level (at the time, which was 130), and then giving themselves the best gear in the game. Since then, it has been patched, making it so if you even think about using it, your account gets permanently banned.
      • There have been pictures going around showing that the game publicly calls people out for cheating if they use programs to modify the speed of the game or walk through walls or something. This only seems to show up in certain competitive modes however.
      • A very controversial move from the developers was in Azteca. There was a bugged item that kept infinitely respawning so people could pick it up repeatedly and sell it for gold infinitely. Many people found this to be controversial because although it could be considered an exploit, it wasn't something hard to do, the game just flat out allowed you to pick the items up repeatedly.
      • As mentioned below, another known trick was used in the final boss of Novus. It has a mechanic where it required people to do a very complex phase where they lost all of their spells and were changed into a different form. It wasn't entirely clear how you were supposed to change back into your regular form. It didn't take long for people to find that you could bypass that phase of the fight. Players weren't entirely sure at the time as to if it could be banned over, because although you are skipping over the fight, the method of doing so was extremely easy. Easy enough that it could be done on accident. In this case though, the developers said that it was on them (referring to themselves), and that people wouldn't be banned. Although the method of skipping the first phase did get patched originally, they also made the fight easier as a lot of players deemed it to be too confusing and it took excessively long for a chance at drops.
      • In one patch, the developers made a severe mistake with raids. In the Crying Sky Raid at one point, a mistake was made where it was impossible to start the raid. However, that's because there was a bug where the game considered it to be completed, except at the time, even though it was out for 3 months, even the most hardcore players have not completed it. The issue is that when it was completed, a second chance chest appears, which allows people to put in crowns for another roll at item drops. Some people did this repeatedly in order to get the gear. Anyone who did this more than 3 times faced a month long ban. However, people who did it still were allowed to keep the items, basically making it a slap on the wrist since they get to return with more powerful items than anyone else had at the time. This really annoyed people who tried to farm for the gear fairly since no one else got it except for those who basically paid money to get gear that's supposed to have been available as a reward for high skill.
  • Non-Indicative Name: Fire Lionesses, contrary to what their name would suggest, belong to the Death school. They have their name because they are Distaff Counterparts to the Fire Lion Ravagers, which do specialize in Fire magic.
    • Multiple areas in Wizard City were poked fun at over this thing. Cyclops Lane has Cyclopes that could be fought. However, there are no fightable Unicorns in Unicorn Way, no Triton's in Triton Avenue, and so on.
    • The Rotting Fodders in Triton Avenue use storm magic and are classified as storm, despite clearly looking undead (most undead creatures are death). Justified though, as it's explained in the story that they were wearing special medallions that gave them access to storm magic.
  • Noodle Incident: In the updated Cyclops Avenue questline, Cyrus Drake's parting words to you are a dry reminder to tell Nolan not to get eaten by his own Humongofrog this time. This advice seems to go over Nolan's head, and the prior incident is never elaborated on.
  • No Ontological Inertia: When a wizard that has summoned a minion has been defeated, the minion vanishes too. Seems to occasionally be Averted with cheating bosses that summon minions, which you still have to fight after the boss dies.
  • "Not So Different" Remark:
    • Morganthe notes how she used to be like you, Ravenwood's most promising student, and offers to take you under her wing because of the similarities.
    • Doctor Jackall believes you are like him: someone who truly understands the call of power.
  • Obvious Rule Patch:
    • Lots of players found exploits to make certain battles easier than intended.
      • The side boss Renegade Druid has 3 minions (each have 1 HP) that are intended to be defeated after killing the boss, as the boss uses a spell that makes it so any damage aimed toward them would be moved back to the boss (which already has an insane 140000 health). Players found that using spells like Supernova (which removes aura spells and deals damage) would bypass this, killing them off. The developers responded to this by making it so doing that would result in the boss using a heal on his allies, effectively permanently countering this plan.
      • Another side boss called Drowned Dan requires you to enter a code in order to win his fight. To learn the code (it changes each time), you have to defeat his minions. Any attempt at using any Area of Effect spell to attack multiple of them would not be allowed as he would just heal them unless defeated properly. Clever players learned that by using special spells that allowed you to choose how many and which enemies you attack (like Iron Sultan or Lamassu) didn't count as an Area of Effect, allowing players to learn the code much faster. This was patched by also not allowing those spells.
      • Some spells exist that allow you to sacrifice summoned minions for the player's gain, such as health or pips. One of item card versions of them at one point was horribly bugged to the point that rather than targeting your own minion, you could target the boss, which worked in a very large majority of fights, especially final bosses. This is basically an instant win button for any fight a player attempts it in.
    • There are also plenty of fights that got bugged as a result of the developers implementing a system where people could join fights and be able to take their turn if they joined during the spell selection screen.
      • An infamous example of this is the final boss of Novus. Normally, you get polymorphed into 1 of 4 different forms, and to change back into your wizard form, you have to defeat 1 enemy or wait 20 rounds to change back. By doing the previously mentioned trick, you used to be able to bypass that phase. People took advantage of this to make what is normally a 15-30 minute fight be winnable in 1 or 2 rounds because it dropped the best hats, robes and wands available for that world.
      • This was also done in the Maxine Rockhoppierre fight. Normally, she summons a minion and gives herself a permanent aura that gives her 200% resistance to every school, making her invincible (unless you are clever enough to circumvent that). Again, as mentioned earlier, by joining "late", this aura wouldn't get applied.
    • The Storm Titan fight in Empyrea also had a glaring issue. His fight is set so he has 1,000,000 health. The intended way to beat him is to hit him 3 times for at least 20,000 damage. However, it was found that by hitting 1,000,000 damage exactly, you could just defeat him earlier than intended. This was fixed by making it so there's a special global spell always in play that makes it so you can't hit harder than 949,999 damage specifically for that fight.
    • In the summer of 2023, the ability to change the player's name was added, alongside new names being added. It didn't take very long for players to discover inappropriate name combinations. A lot of the new names ended up being removed or changed in the test server to prevent exactly this, while the game developers opened a Discord channel dedicated to posting inappropriate name combinations for them to remove from the game. Some examples were Ebony (a common remark is that outside of Skyrim, the only time they have heard that word was in porn, resulting in NSFW references) to be replaced with Ekani, Nia being replaced with Navi (likely because they would have a hard time preventing certain slurs in the chat), Rei being changed to Reiden Because people made the name Rei Tea Yard, which if sounded out slowly sounds like a certain slur, shatter being changed to splinter (likely because of the combination shatterpants which sounds like shat her pants), Gate being changed to Bridge (probably due to the Ocean Gate submarine event), as well as Disaster being changed to Venom (probably the same reason), among others.
  • Oh, Crap!: The Kalamar Elder of Samsara has this reaction to finding out that Mellori is dying. For context, the Kalamar believe that life and death are connected segments of a great cycle, and that no one should be afraid of, or try to prevent, death. Once the Elder recognizes Mellori as the Raven Child, however, she quickly changes her tune because she realizes that Mellori is too important to die, lest everyone else follow suit.
  • Older Sidekick: Ozzy (a floating, talking skull) outright admits that he considers himself your sidekick.
    Ozzy: Running about with you, I've really settled into this sort of Wise-Beyond-His-Hundreds-Of-Years Sidekick kind of role.
  • One-Winged Angel: Warlord Katsumori and two other ninja pig warlords do this by turning into Oni when you defeat them. But the big surprise is when The Emperor of Mooshu does this because he was possessed by the Jade Oni.
  • Only Mostly Dead: Namedropped several times when used to describe an unconscious Mellori knocked out by Grandfather Spider after trying and failing to kill him.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping:invoked Averted. Most accents are done by people that naturally have the accent. Word of God is that Texans imitating Eastern European accents starts to sound like "Dracula with a Southern Draw after a few sentences."
  • Our Banshees Are Louder: Banshees are occasionally seen as ghost enemies associated with The Undead. You also get to use your own against your enemies as a Necromancer.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: The first Dragon was the Fire Titan. Smaller dragons are referred to by not only "Dragon", but also "Drake" and "Wyrm".
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: Always transparent, sometimes a Monochrome Apparition. Ghost enemies are usually either differently colored Bedsheet Ghosts or Wraiths, which look like The Grim Reaper.
  • Overly Long Fighting Animation: Most spells, though some of them do look pretty awesome the first ten times or so. However, several updates have averted this for certain commonly casted spells.
  • Overly Long Name: In Avalon, there will be a quest in which you will have to go to the Shrine to Justice For All On a System of Might For Right Rather Than The the Old System of Might Makes Right. And that's just the most Egregious case among the shrines.
  • Pals with Jesus: By the end of Arc 3, you're definitely on good terms with all three creators of the Spiral, as well as being best friends with with In-Universe equivalents of Jesus Christ (Mellori) and the Anti-Anti-Christ (Bat).
  • Panthera Awesome: Zafaria is home to a wide variety of anthropomorphic lions.
  • The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Apparently, "Open Sesame" is a very common password for hidden places in Mirage, according to Ozzy, who says it after it surprisingly works for the Thieves' Den.
  • Personality Powers: Unless, of course, you skip the little quiz and choose from the list. Just as the Maestro told Dalia Falmea to do in the Wizard City B.O.X. instance.
  • Pet the Dog: Rat and Scorpion offer to bring both Mellori and Bat (but not you) to the Shadow realm with them, where they will survive The End of the Spiral as We Know It.note 
  • Phlebotinum Overload:
    • Morganthe's ultimate downfall.
    • "No, no, wait, it's too much! The Shadow burns cold! The Song is too loud! I cannot hold it all! I cannot- NO!"
  • Physical God: After becoming the Divine Paradox, you have possibly become one of the most powerful beings in the Spiral, formed from Mellori and Bat's demi-primordial power so that you can combat the Aethyr Titan (a being so powerful that he easily curb stomped both Grandmother Raven and Grandfather Spider) on equal footing.
  • Play Every Day: There are daily quests that can earn you gold, crowns, reagents, or other items for entering an area or defeating a monster in a certain area.
  • Playing with Fire: Fire wizards, as their name suggests, have numerous attack spells themed around fire.
  • Plot-Triggering Death: The first arc of the game (and Malistaire's Face–Heel Turn) ultimately began with the death of Sylvia Drake, Malistaire's wife. Originally a Cool Teacher and a loving husband, Malistaire went insane after his wife passed away from disease, eventually convincing himself that he could resurrect her if he became more powerful, thus leading to the events of the game.
  • Portal Network: Quite a few worlds in the game have a portal network that you can access to get to different areas within that world. Dragonspyre in particular has a portal network that can take you through the different sections of the world as long as you have the portal stone for the area you're trying to reach. Empyrea makes setting them up a plot point; the portals don't conveniently appear for your convenience as you and Sparck have to set them up for them to work.
  • Powerful, but Inaccurate: Storm spells are very powerful, but have the lowest accuracy of any school. Fire spells are a more minor case, having slightly more accuracy and less power.
  • The Power of Rock: Guitars, and other instruments to a lesser extent, are potential wands you can get from various card packs.
  • Practical Taunt: Ice wizards, the tanking class, can get Taunt cards that make enemies target them, instead of their teammates.
  • Premium Currency: Crowns, which are mostly obtained with real-life money (although it is possible to obtain them for free by taking quizzes on the game's website) and used to buy in-game items.
  • Punny Name:
    • Quite a few. For example, the Ice tree is called Kelvin.
    • Lampshaded with the Earth school professor of Wysteria, named "Chester Droors" (say it out loud). Doubles as a bit of subtle Foreshadowing when you learn that he framed you for stealing the Spiral Cup using a class ring stolen from your dresser.
      Droors: I am Professor Droors...Chester Droors. What? Why are you smirking?
  • A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Morganthe, Big Bad of Arc 2, was Merle Ambrose's apprentice from before he even founded Ravenwood. Sadly, she was not content with her teacher's slow and cautious teaching method and sought more power. After an incident where she almost destroyed Wizard City using Astral Magic, Ambrose banished her from Ravenwood, and well, the rest is history.
  • Puppet King: Rasputin/The Rat of Polaris is clearly behind the tyranny of Empress Antuskette.
  • Puzzle Boss:invoked Many of the rulebreaking bosses have to be fought a specific way or they can punish the player if they don't fight the boss the right way. The most infamous of these is young Morganthe, who has a tendency to throw about a powerful Ice spell (Wooly Mammoth), that inflicts a good chunk of damage and stuns the target. The reason this cheat is so infamous is that, despite the boss being around for a while, even the best players haven't figured out all the triggers. (Word of God is that there is a pattern.)
  • Quest Giver: Like a lot of MMORPGs, they're all identified by a floating exclamation mark.
  • Rainbow Pimp Gear: Averted. Yes, when you first get a dropped item it may clash, but you can go to a shop in the main shopping district and dye it to match whatever else you have on, if you have the gold (by Krokotopia, you always will). This is good because it's almost always better to use drops instead of buying shop items (except in the case of decks and sometimes wands).
  • Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Khan was thought to have died on the Aeriel Shores by Captain Coleridge and Pork. When Pork finds out that he is alive and that he accidentally abandoned him, he has a massive My God, What Have I Done? moment.
  • Rewatch Bonus: A lot of the dialogue about the "dangerous" witches in Karamelle takes on a whole new meaning when you find out that the so-called "witches" are not actual witches at all, but members of a labor union called W.I.T.C.H. (which stands for Workers Interested in Tackling Corporate Hegemony), who are fighting against Nana's corruption.
  • Roaming Enemy: A few bosses roam around instead of being located in gauntlets. The earliest example is the Fairy Queen, an uncommon boss that roams Unicorn Way in Wizard City.
  • Robe and Wizard Hat: The standard player appearance consists of a robe and (usually pointy) hat.
  • The Runaway: A side quest in Khrysalis concerns a worried mother whose only daughter wants to join the Umbra Legion as a tribute and sends you to try and convince her otherwise. You fail to convince the daughter and she runs off to become a tribute, but a later quest has her regret her choice after finding out how badly tributes are treated and beg you to help her escape.
  • Scenery Porn:
    • While the graphics of the earlier worlds are moderate, Celestia and the following worlds have much greater detail and lusher backgrounds.
    • Later updates to the game went back and remodeled wizard city using more modern graphics, making the whole world look much smoother and vibrant.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can:
    • The Titans were forced into a deep sleep after their war that tore up the first world. The difference between this and the usual cans evil is stored in is these are very leaky since they can be summoned without completely breaking the seal. The ruins that now make up Dragonspyre and Celestia are the results of the Dragon Titan and Storm Titan, respectively, being released for short periods of time, the former in an attempt to Take Over the World and the latter because he's storm, and thus chaotic. Also the coven's plan to start the Everwinter revolve around waking the Ymir the Ice Father.
    • The Kroks in Krokotopia also demonstrate this, being cast into the great sleep by the Order of the Fang.
  • Secret A.I. Moves: Cheating bosses enforce this. They have the ability to use some downright ludicrous stuff if you violate their unsaid rules.
  • Secret Police: The Good Will Ambassador in Karamelle is outright called this by the Burgomaster, always watching and punishing workers who get bad ratings.
  • Serial Numbers Filed Off: In-universe, where Pigswick Academy in Wysteria has the same schools as Ravenwood, except they have different names: Tempest, Ember, Frost, Earth, Spirit, Chaos, and Equilibrium for Storm, Fire, Ice, Life, Death, Myth, and Balance, respectively. Naturally, their teacher insist that they are of course doing things differently, and that they're doing it right.
  • Serious Business: In Karamelle, ratings are everything. Receiving a bad rating will get you demoted at best, while giving a bad rating could get you killed.
  • Shattered World: Each "world" consists of one or more island rocks floating through space with its own unique theme. The worlds are connected by a set of stargate-like doors, while access to the other worlds is granted by obtaining the correct "Spiral Key" for the other doors. The Backstory was that fighting between the three ancient races tore the planet apart into the fragment worlds. Bartleby, the Grandfather Tree, and his sister, the Raven, weaved a spell that created the Spiral, which holds the remnants near each other and allows movement between them using the Spiral Doors.
  • Shout-Out: Way too many to even begin to list, but here are some of them.
    • Some of the more obvious ones occur early on in the game: Two quests on Unicorn Way involve you helping a girl named Dorothy Gale and a Wizard City guard named Private O'Ryan. On a larger scale, the world of Marleybone is arguably one giant shout-out to the Sherlock Holmes novels.
    • Wysteria has Pigswick Academy.
  • Sirens Are Mermaids: The animation for the Sirens spell features three mermaids.
  • Skippable Boss: One appears in the optional Kembaalung questline, on the steps of the Temple of Discord. The temple's guardian presents you with a puzzle that tests whether you were paying attention in the previous dungeon. Solve it correctly, and he congratulates you and lets you pass. Get it wrong, and you'll have to fight your way in.
    • Another version of this is available in the Midnight Sun Pagoda and Winterbane instances. The former requires you to pick up some graves in a specific order, doing so correctly allows you to skip a fight, otherwise you have to fight some enemies to progress. In the latter, you are tasked with making some stew for some gremlins. Failing to do so makes them angry and they'll fight the wizard as a punishment.
  • Snipe Hunt: Professor Drake sends new myth students on these all the time. He does it to weed out the ones that aren't dedicated enough. The sound of his voice when you bring him "truffula leaves" makes the quest Worth It.
  • Soul Jar: After Shane von Shane's unrequited love, Tatyana, was Driven to Suicide by Shane's actions (which included killing off her entire family), Shane trapped her spirit in a phylactery to prevent her from going to the afterlife and leaving him.
  • Speaking Simlish: Any magic creature you can summon that supposedly has the capacity to speak does this. This is only when creatures are summoned for spells. When actual dialogue is spoken, they are given full voice acting.
  • Spell My Name with a "The": After silently introducing yourself as "The Wizard" to Stallion Quartermane, that's what he proceeds to call you, "The" included, from that moment forward.
  • Stone Wall: The ice school. They have the highest health and defense of all the schools, but their spells do low damage and their accuracy is average. Makes sense, since they're supposed to be the tanking class.
  • Strictly Professional Relationship: Ozzy claims that the relationship between him and the Sultana is strictly official, but considering that he gave up putting his skeletal body back together, which would allow him more freedom of movement, simply because the Sultana called his stature "Unique" and "Fetching", there might be something a bit more going on.
  • Summoning Artifact: Some spell quests involve you getting or creating an artifact in order to get the attention of a specific monster to help create your spell. The Krokonomicon was implied to be one of these that can be used to summon the dragon titan.
  • Summoning Ritual:
    • Pretty much every quest to get a new spell from your school of magic involves summoning a creature to aid you in creating your spell. This is the Myth School's gimmick since most of their spells involve summoning a creature to either aid you as a minion or as an attack spell.
    • This is actually the plan of the first main villain, Malistaire. He stole the Krokonomicon to summon the dragon titan in hopes of resurrecting his wife Sylvia.
  • Summon Magic: Technically, 90% of all spells involve summoning a creature, though only for a single attack. Closer to this trope: while every class gets at least one minion spell, the myth school is built around it.
  • Suspicious Video-Game Generosity:
    • In the Waterworks, there are two instances were you can solve simple puzzles that will fill the room with red health wisps if you successfully complete them. These rooms appear moments before you have to go into one of the boss battles in the dungeon. Oh, and if you mess up the puzzle, monsters appear.
    • The hub of Darkmoor is filled to the brim with health and mana orbs. Considering how easily party members will die here, it could be seen as the dev team having mercy on you.
  • A Taste of Power: The tutorial has you casting Nature's Wrath, Unicorn, Meteor Strike, Fire Cat, Troll, and Balance Blade against enemies at Rank 4 that wield Weakness, Storm Shark, Skeletal Pirate, Frost Beetle, Scorpion, Minotaur, Ninja Pigs, Phoenix, and Centaur. Then you start the game proper with a starter deck, weakened versions of Rank 1 spells of all schools, your school's Rank 1 spell, and a Heartbeat spell.
  • A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Downplayed. Khan tells Pork to stay behind "for his own safety" while you and and the former head to the Comfort Zone to reach Alyvia. It's implied he did this to get back at Pork for accidentally abandoning him on the Aeriel Shore.
  • Technicolor Fire: The Fire Lion Ravagers and Fire Lionesses both emit blue flames.
  • Teleporters and Transporters:
    • The Spiral Doors that connect the worlds in the game function like the Stargate wormholes. As long as the player possesses the correct Spiral Key, they can access that world from any Spiral Door.
    • There are also portals as housing items.
    • Teleport Stones and Teleporters also serve as these in a more local manner, acting as a fast transport system between points in one area or across one whole world.
  • These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Grandmother Raven is rather miffed when you discover how she used Grandfather Spider's heart to power the Spiral, describing it as "knowledge unfit for any mortal".
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Cyrus Drake in the updated version of the Cyclops Lane questline. In the original, he didn't care about the missing students and even tried to get you expelled when you asked him for help. He still tries to get you expelled in the new version, but it's because he thinks the situation is under control and you're making a fuss for no good reason. Once you get it across to him that Cyclops Lane is in real danger, he changes his tune immediately. While he still can't resist a few jabs, he does show genuine concern for the missing students and tells you everything he knows about what might have gone wrong.
  • Too Powerful to Live: A heroic version happens at the end of Empyrea Part 1, when Bat reveals how much of a Well-Intentioned Extremist he is when he tries to (albeit regretfully) kill Mellori because he considers her power to be extremely dangerous, especially if the enemy manages to utilize said power for their own ends. Luckily, he fails.
  • Total Party Kill:
    • If you stay around too long in the fight with Angrus Hollowsoul, he summons Exploding Embers, Fire Elementals that cast an 10,000 Damage Meteor Strike spell every 4th turn. If you don't prepare with tons of shields, like Spirit Armor, Fire Shield, and Frozen Armor, it can spell instant death for the entire team, sending everyone back to the Commons.
    • In the fight against Rasputin a.k.a. The Rat in Polaris, if you spend too many turns (30 rounds) trying to beat him, your entire party will be one-shotted by his Borealis Titan with 1,000,000 damage. If by some miracle you happen to survive this (usually through usage of Guardian Spirit), he will just do it every turn until you die for real.
    • Some bosses starting in Karamelle punish late players by simply dealing damage equivalent to their max health, ignoring resist entirely. This effectively will kill anyone who dares to come in late, making it impossible to return without the assistance of a healer.
      • An infamous example of this is in Karamelle. Near the middle of Gobblerton, you are tasked with defeating some elite minions literally called "Oogie Boogies". If you kill a single one, it will take 26% of everyone's health, ignoring resistances and shields. If you try to kill all 4 of them at the same time, then all party members will take damage 4 times, which will always kill the party, unless a spell like Guardian Spirit was used first to prevent everyone from dying.
  • Touché: When Bat becomes worried about the plan to get into Sepidious, Pork responds that if the plan does fail, Bat will be the only one to survive due to his Complete Immortality. You can probably guess what Bat's response is.
  • Troll: The Lumbering Trolls on Cyclops Lane are both a literal and a figurative example, according to Private Emerson in the side-quest "Don't Need the Trolls".
    Private Emerson: I don't care for these trolls. They keep making horribly mean, often inscrutable and poorly structured comments to strangers. For no reason! Just to pick fights! They're making the whole community of Cyclops Lane really angry and toxic. Can you go teach these trolls some proper community etiquette?
    • And then the Lumbering Trolls respond like this after defeating three of them:
      Lumbering Troll: Fine. Troll stop saying mean truths.
  • Truly Single Parent: Mellori turns out to be a physical manifestation of Grandmother Raven's love for Grandfather Spider, which Raven ripped from herself so that it wouldn't prevent her from killing Spider should the need arise.
  • 20 Bear Asses: Many quests involve recovering a number of a certain item from a certain mob.
  • Two Lines, No Waiting:invoked There is the primary story with the Malistaire and Morganthe arcs and the Grizzleheim arc. Thus far, there has been no interaction between the two of them. There has also been Wysteria serving as a Breather Episode (although it was far from a Breather Level).
  • Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: The elderly rat Taylor Coleridge is married to a younger and much prettier penguin named Cosette by the time you meet up with him again right before traveling to Empyrea.
  • Uncertain Doom: Morganthe's ultimate fate is a Disney Villain Death via following through a glass floor into the endless expanse of The Spiral. It is, however, ambiguous as to whether she really died or not; another character (Malistaire the Undying) survived a similar fate, meaning that survival is a possibility.
  • Unknown Rival: Ozzy was the original king of Mirage who Xerxes usurped, so when the latter challenges his nemesis to single battle, he thinks he's talking about him, making a dramatic reveal about it and everything. Then Xerxes reveals that he's the Scorpion, and that you were the nemesis that he was referring to.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Averted by other players during summoning a minion for a spell quest; anytime someone does this the game automatically turns all players not in battle toward the summoning.
  • Vampire Vords: Although not in the writing, many of the voice actors for Dragonspyre have this due to their Eastern European accents.
  • Victory Pose: You do a happy dance whenever you win a duel. And updates to the game added even more dance styles.
  • A Villain Named Khan: Khan was once Pork's mission partner, but he was accidentally abandoned on Aeriel Island when Pork left Empyrea. He vows revenge on Pork and the player for supporting him, but after they defeat him in his tower, he pulls a Heel–Face Turn after accepting Pork's apology and forgiving him, journeying with the player back to Zanadu to take back his throne.
  • Visual Pun: Dynt is a sky pirate who the Cabal mutated with digestive acid from Sepidious, which transformed him in to a zombie-like creature with both halves of his face (and likely, the rest of his body) two different colors. He at first seems helpful and willing to help you take down Medulla, but then it runs out that he is part of the Cabal. He's two-faced, just like the Batman villain he's a parody of!
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: At Level 22, Myth wizards get the Humongofrog spell, which involves a giant frog vomiting all over the entire opposing team.
  • The Von Trope Family:
    • Combined with Alliterative Name, the Arcanum Scholar for Shadow Magic is named Velma von Venkman.
    • Then there's Shane von Shane, The Dragon to Malistaire the Undying in Castle Darkmoor.
  • Waterfall into the Abyss: There's a lot of these because of the Shattered World setting.
  • We Can Rule Together:
    • At the end of Zafaria, Morganthe notices how much you and her are alike and offers to take you under her wing. Naturally, you don't have the option of accepting.
    • In the next arc, Grandfather Spider offers both Mellori and you the chance to rule over the new world as well as him saving anyone you desire if you simply help him get his heart back. Like the above, the two of you refuse.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Ivan the Greater, a Borealis Golem based on Ivan the Great, wants nothing more that to please his "father", Rasputin, but when he inadvertently helps you while trying to make up for his loss against you, Rasputin decides that he has outlived his usefulness and kills him.
  • Wham Shot: During Azetca, Morganthe is almost always seen in the company of a hooded, dark servant, with the only hint of who (or what) they are being that the narrator/Grandmother Raven describes them as oddly familiar. Come the final dungeon, the servant reveals themselves to be an undead Malistaire.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: There are quite a few quests that have no conclusion other than "good job", despite the quest itself setting the stage for further elaboration. Dragonspyre, in particular, contains multiple egregious examples of this, such as an evil wizard escaping, a boss that acts like he has been possessed, and whatever happened to the Krokonomicon that was used to attempt to wake up the Dragon Titan. The Krokonomicon, at least, does pop up again during an optional quest taking place after the Malistaire arc, confirming that it was returned to Krokotopia for further study.
  • When Trees Attack:
    • Nature's Wrath, a life class attack spell that summons a treant. Different varieties of treant also appear as enemies in Mooshu, Dragonspyre, and Grizzleheim.
    • The floating island in Celestia has some treants based on palm trees.
    • Wintertusk has some pine tree based treants.
    • A non-treant example shows up in the form of the rank 11 spells, which summon the tree of your wizard's respective school to attack (or heal, if you're a life user), with the total being doubled if certain requirements are met.
  • Winged Humanoid: Seraphs, the Judgement spell, or you if you're wearing a wing mount.
  • Wizard Beard: Headmaster Ambrose sports a long white beard.
  • Wizarding School: Ravenwood is the main place where players go to learn new spells, at least early on. Each professor teaches a different school of magic. It also has a rival school in the form of Pigswick Academy, which also teaches the same seven schools, albeit with different names.
  • Wolfpack Boss: Exaggerated; The final battle of Lemuria requires you to fight all 8 heroes of the world, with only 4 attacking per turn and allowed to be damaged. All of them cheat in ways never seen before, making it by far the most difficult battle in the entire game.
  • The Worf Effect: The Aethyr Titan establishes itself as a powerful and terrifying foe when it effortlessly defeats Grandmother Raven and Grandfather Spider, two of the most powerful beings in the Spiral.
  • World in the Sky: Lemuria's Sky City is held there by an Ascension Beam.
  • World Tree: Bartleby, who's referred to as such when you go inside him to go through a world door for the first time.
  • Worthy Opponent: Ozel Underwater Cat will hate the Aztecasaurs "from sun birth to sun death", but he still respects them. So much so that he'll willingly help you get into the Pyramid of Mother Moon if it means stopping Morganthe.
  • Would Hurt a Child: As your character is viewed as a young child, this makes just about every enemy you fight guilty of this.
  • Yandere: Shane von Shane is a Vampire Lord of Darkmoor who fell in love with a woman named Tatyana, but his love was unrequited, and Shane was soon driven to desperate measures such as destroying Tatyana's family. When Tatyana was Driven to Suicide by his actions, Shane refused to let her spirit enter the afterlife and chained her to Darkmoor using a phylactery until he could come up with a way to resurrect her, eventually allying himself with Malistaire the Undying to do so.
  • You Can Say That Again: After you defeat Qhreed in Mirage, he tells Rah'qui Bal'boa that he's beat and you're good. Rah'qui tells him he can say that again, and he does.
  • You Can See Me?: After the Wizard, Stallion and the Heroes, and Dasein enter the center facility containing the World Synthesizer, all of the other heroes become able to perceive Dasein.
  • You Can't Thwart Stage One: Twice in the first two acts.
    • You fail to keep the Krokonomicon out of Malistaire's hands, and he manages to get to the Dragon Titan with it.
    • Morganthe's prophecy is fulfilled before you defeat her.
    • Completely Averted in Mirage. Father Scorpion was prophesied to steal the sun, but you take him down before he even tries anything more than a simple military campaign.
  • You Didn't Ask: Played Straight, but not outright stated due to the fact that you don't (visibly) talk. Velma Von Venkman tells you about how Morganthe was the biggest threat to the Spiral when she was alive, unaware that you were the one who defeated her. She (and by extension, the rest of the Arcanum) doesn't learn about this fact until one of Morganthe's former henchmen reveals it to her.

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