Web Animation / Dingo Doodles

Dingo Doodles is an animation channel hosted by Dingo, the founder of Electric Bunny Comics. Inspired by the likes of Puffin Forest and Animated Spellbook, Dingo creates animated stories based around her personal life as well as her Dungeons & Dragons campaign, titled "Fools' Gold". Initially beginning in October 2017, Dingo quickly garnered a lot of popularity, much to her shock. Her channel and her web comic can be found in the links above.

In 2021, Dingo and her boyfriend and DM Felix teamed up with Hit Point Press to give the world "Fool's Gold: Into the Bellowing Wilds", a setting sourcebook for playing in the same setting as the Fool's Gold campaign..... Which was almost a thousand percent funded within an hour. By the end of the month, it was the second most funded Kickstarter RPG ever.

In February 2023, Cryodon Games (the Canadian video game division of Fool's Gold Inc., led by Felix Irnich) released a demo for a Dating Sim Visual Novel based on the "Fool's Gold" campaign: Fool's Gold: Dice, Death & Dating. In January 2024, it was then announced that the project would be transitioning into a Kickstarter-backed, Roguelike video game, under the title Fool's Gold: SOULBREAKER, but the original demo would remain as promotional material. Said demo is available to download via itch.io, Steam, and Hit Point Press.

On February 13th 2024, the channel launched a new Actual Play podcast called Fool's Gold: Sands, set in the same world as the original Fool's Gold at an unspecified point in time, using the same heavily homebrewed Dungeons & Dragons 3.5th edition system as the original campaign. It stars Felix as the DM, with Dingo and Avery (Gothi) as players, and is available both as a podcast and as semi-animated videos on the main channel, with art by Dingo.

Not to be confused with Dingo Pictures.

Beware of unmarked spoilers.

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Dingo Doodles provides examples of:

• Action Girl:
  • The two female characters in the Fools' Gold campaign, Erina and Gothi.
  • Not to mention the villain of the first five episodes, Quinn-Ora.
  • Bouclaire and her personal guards, the princesses Eyes and Ears, are all dangerous opponents.
• Adopted into Royalty: Bouclaire. Unfortunately, she's both a Royal Brat and a Self-Made Orphan. She also had older, adopted siblings, who "voluntarily" refused the throne.
• Afterlife Antechamber: In Episode 31, as the rest of the party is trying to find a way to save Sips' soul from being consumed by his curse, the rapidly-dying Sips wakes up in a room with trinkets from his past, as well as a sleeping Sneeze and the figure of Elowen, who acts as a psychopomp and helps Sips realize that his life was worth living even with all the hardship he's endured before showing him a literal Death's Door he steps through.
• Agony of the Feet: When Sips is trying to talk down Eyes, she uses a portal to stab him through the foot.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Sips sang drunken karaoke so badly, in Dingo's eyes, that he kickstarted the apocalypse by waking up the Tarrasque that was sealed away under the town of Alchemist Quarry.
• All Just a Dream: The Halloween episode. The mansion the group was trapped in is real, as are the scars from the fights they got into, but the event itself was a magically induced dream that Sips, Erena, and Gothi all shared. They decide to destroy the mansion with the giant mech dragon just to be sure.
• Alpha Bitch:
  • Quinn-Ora, the villain of the first five episodes of Fools' Gold. She awakened Sips by replacing his hand with a crocodile arm, which is slowly cursing Sips, and treats the act like it was barely worth remembering.
  • Bouclaire from the Kylandria arc. She usurped the throne, murders anyone who even THINKS about rebelling (not just the initial rebel, but everyone in the town they live in), had Erina’s parents executed, and covered the nation in pink glitter while speaking in a horrible French accent.
• Ambiguous Species: Sneeze is Sips’ best and oldest friend, and no one, not even Dingo who created him, knows what he is.
• And the Adventure Continues: Quinn-Ora was defeated, but Sneeze died, forcing Sips and Gothi to go on a quest to get Sneeze's soul back.
• And Your Reward Is Infancy: By the end of Episode 31, Sips is freed from the curse and 'renewed' as his friends find him reborn as a baby monkey inside the husk of his former cursed body.
• Anything but That!:
  • Sips tries to convince Erina against calling Mr. Wizardly to help them figure out how to get Sneeze's soul out of a crystal. When Erina ignores him, Sips just screams.
  • The same thing happens when Erina decides to go clothes shopping for the party being thrown in their honor: Sips frantically tries to stop her, screams when she drags him along, and spends the shopping trip in the corner looking grumpy.
• An Arm and a Leg: Sips gains sentience and magic powers at the same time as having his right hand cut off and replaced with a cursed crocodile hand.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • In episode 29 Gothi and Erina asking Sips in the midst of one of his rage induced moments when he's being pushed by Xanu to chase after the crystal that Jack and Masika have escaped with through the portal "What do you want?" has him breaking down and admitting he just wants all the stress of his situation to be over and that he wants to make a difference, so that he can feel that his life is worth something.
  • In episode 30 Xanu attempts to give one to Gothi, asking if she's still unwilling to commit genocide if it means Foreclaimers like Goddrick III will continue their cruelty. Gothi then suggests they Take a Third Option, and then asks which one Xanu is willing to let go: his anger, or her. Xanu starts crying, and chooses to let go of his anger, ending his plan to commit genocide.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Erina listing off Bouclaire's crimes during their fight.
  Erina: You killed my parents! You took over my home! You made everything pink! ...And your not! Even! French!
• Art Evolution: The Fool's Gold characters were a lot more rough-and-ready at the beginning of the series, with Dingo's drawings having improved significantly since the beginning.
• Attack Its Weak Point: While fighting Bouclaire, Erina specifically aimed to remove her crown under the assumption she'd hidden her power crystal inside it. Bouclaire, after losing the crown, reveals she had the crystal hidden elsewhere on her person, specifically in her heart.
• Awful Truth: Implied. In episode 15, when Sips tells her about the vision he saw, Gothi starts to remember the events that lead up to her memory loss. ...Only, she theorizes she might've blocked her memories in order to cope with her past. And one cannot blame her when it's revealed her face was carved off.
• Ax-Crazy: Sips has a bit of a temper. This conversation between him and Erina involving an NPC named Belmont pretty much sums it up.
  Sips: I knew I should have murdered him.
  Erina: You think you should murder everyone all the time.
  Sips: I should listen to my instinct more.
• Back from the Dead: This is Sips' and Gothi's main goal from Episode 6 onwards, bringing back Sneeze, who was killed in the final battle with Quinn-Ora.
• Badass Normal: Bouclaire/Potato Girl, a 10-year-old human girl who managed to put up a fight against Gothi. (Granted, this was Old Gothi, but still.)
• Badass Transplant: Sips' arm might be cursed, detrimental to solidly predictable casting and seems to eat away at his alignment, identity and, arguably, sanity, but it did awaken him and also gave him his awesome sorcerer abilities in the first place...
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Or in Xanu's case, Ken Doll Anatomy. Sips is disturbed to see his illusion naked, regardless of this trope.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Gothi is the only person Xanu is willing to spare from his intended genocide of the Foreclaimers, because her “defect” of empathy led her to befriend him.
  • In episode 26 Xanu cites this reason for why he will give Gothi an opportunity to convince him not to unleash his vengeance on the descendants of the Foreclaimers
• Berserk Button:
  • When it comes to Sips, just about anything to do with Quinn-Ora will set him off. But, anybody else messing with Sneeze? Hoo, boy...
  • Also, Xanu hits a raw nerve when he brings up Sips' mother. Apparently, she's a touchy subject for him.
  • Gothi may be the most level-headed of the group, but if you so much as THINK about hurting Jawbone, she will end you.
  • Erina tends to coast through life with few blow-ups of her own (she mainly causes other people to want to go nuclear on her). But, don't try to obliquely tell her who she can or cannot date. Her beeswax. Not yours.
  • Sips was captured and sold by beast masters prior to his awakening. As a result he absolutely despises beast masters.
• Better to Kill Than Frighten: Discussed in "Ep 24 - Taking out a Town [Fool's Gold]", when Sips whose curse has increased to 60%, casually suggests killing someone instead of simply intimidating them to leave town so they can safely open the portal. He justifies it by saying the man has proven too stubborn to frighten and if he stays, he could become a problem for the party. Gothi talks him off the ledge, reminding him that he's only ever killed people who truly deserve it. Sips maintains he will still kill as a last resort.
• Big Bad: Quinn-Ora for the first five episodes of Fools' Gold. In the backstory they also fought Gresh, a green dragon who had spent years extorting the city of Bundariko.
  • Bouclaire, the Potato Girl turns into this in the Khylandria arc.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Played for Laughs regarding the Rascam Guard Captain, who slipped the 'Bearon' a Bloodmoon Berry (leading to the incident where Sips used his cursed hairbrush to change his alignment to Lawful Good) with the intent of taking over the city after the bear his would-be-boss had transformed into was killed — he bursts into tears when it becomes apparent that the party don't care at all about him.
• Big Ball of Violence: The battle between the party's dragon mech and the dragon Gresh, since Dingo does not have time to animate it.
• Big Damn Heroes: Gorthan (who’s currently cursed into yrthak-form) saves Julian and Abby from falling to their deaths.
• Big Eater: Sips and Sneeze gorge themselves on what they think is an extravagant feast.
• Big Fun: Though we only see him for a little bit before he gets turned into a monster thanks to Sips, the crystal golem Gorthan gives off this vibe, considering he's also the largest of the group.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Bouclaire. She doesn't bother much when it comes to the Fool's Gold party, but she was clearly good at charming if she could convince a royal family to adopt her. ...And then murder the king and queen to take their throne.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Episode 5 of Fools' Gold. Quinn-Ora is defeated, Sips' curse is removed, but Sneeze is very dead.
  • Episode 14. Bouclaire is defeated, Erina's home is saved and her parents avenged, but Sips is inexplicably dying of what seems like a heart attack.
  • Episode 30. Gothi convinces Xanu to let go of his anger and not commit genocide, but Sips' soul was consumed by his curse, and the strain from having used Xanu's power to fight it off so long has made his body's death imminent.
• Blunt "Yes": When Sips asks Xanu if the current Foreclaimers deserve to die for the sins of their ancestors generations ago, he replies yes without hesitation.
• Body Horror: The images of Foreclaimer experiments prior to perfecting their crystal technology show them cutting one another up and then stitching them back together. In one case a Foreclaimer is undergoing a vivisection.
• Born Unlucky: Sips. Simply put, if anything can go wrong, you can guarantee Sips will be the one it happens to.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: The Baron was originally an evil despot and enemy of the party. Sips used a cursed item to reverse his alignment, turning him from Evil to Good. Faced with sudden guilt over his previous behavior, the then-Bear Bear-on reformed and is now both a benevolent ruler and ally of the party.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The DM describes to Dingo each of Sips's five senses as he stands in a room: The beauty before his eyes, the sound of birds in the distance, the smell of perfume, the softness of the carpet... and the taste of blood from involuntarily eating Bouclaire's heart.
• Breaking the Fellowship: After learning about Xanu, Sips leaves the others (including Sneeze) to sort out his own mess. Erina suddenly and awkwardly decides to leave as well, giving Gothi a crystal to keep in touch with her. Also, guest NPC Abby leaves Erina after the latter throws Bouclaire's corpse into the streets to celebrate her death.
• Brick Joke: During a flashback, it is revealed Old Gothi had a pet rock named "Dwayne". Several episodes later, the New Society Foreclaimers gift Gothi with a new pet rock named "Johnson".
• Brought Down to Normal: Two instances of this in Episode 32. First is Erina, who gives up her magical girl powers to complete Xanu's crystal and materialize his new vessel, and then Xanu himself, having lost access to his powers after gaining his new body.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Sips has some pretty bad luck, especially when it comes to his wild magic.
  • Poor Jack just can't seem to catch a break either.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": The sheep periodically mentioned in the campaign are revealed to be man-eating monsters rather than domesticated herbivores.
• The Cameo: Puffin Forest as the disembodied voice in the Halloween episode.
  • There are other YouTubers who cameo on Dingo's channel, mostly as collabs to talk about their own adventures, like Puffin Forest, Ice Cream Sandwich, and Jo Cat.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Episode 1 is a lighthearted retelling of how Dingo's character, Sips, accidentially released a tarrasque through wild magic shenanigans. By episode 20, there's talk about genocide, tyranny, the nature of empathy, and several other topics that's decidedly not played for laughs.
• Chaotic Good:invoked According to Dingo, the party is this at best.
• Character Class System: The Fool's Gold campaign uses Dungeons & Dragons', with a few modifications due to Homebrew. 3.5^th edition, which they play, was particularly infamous for its ludicrous amount of classes.
  • While Sips is not officially confirmed as a Sorcerer until the ninth video, all of his powers point to him being a Wild Magic Sorcerer even before then.
  • Gothi is confirmed as a Druid in episode 7, with Jawbone as her Animal Companion.
  • Julian is implied to be something similar to an Artificer of some kind.
  • Erina is confirmed to be a spellcaster, eventually, but her exact class is unknown. Her love of Seduction and reliance on charisma suggest she may be a Bard. Episode 12 confirms her to be a homebrew "magical girl" class that Dingo refuses to release the build for because it's "OP as f***".
  • Gorthan and Sneeze are unknown, but Sneeze's mannerisms and love of crime imply a Rogue of some kind, while Gorthan's consistent lack of clothing implies he's either a Barbarian or a Monk due to both of those classes getting bonuses from wearing no armor.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Dingo tends to bring up important stuff just before it gets important in the story, so they don't tend to stay this trope for long.
  • The party learns that souls drawn into Foreclaimer crystals remain sentient long after death. The crystal in Sips's head contains the soul of the being who destroyed the Foreclaimers.
  • Erina's crystal, which she uses to transform, is brought up in her backstory video. They turn out to be vitally important in the next arc as both Bouclaire and her guards have even larger crystals. They're all fragments of a Foreclaimer crystal embedded in Sips's head.
• Chekhov's Gunman: It's mentioned in passing that the crystal fragments all originate from a single crystal once owned by a powerful being which wreaked havoc. That being is finally revealed in Episode 15 to be the being who not only destroyed the Foreclaimer civilization but is also currently pseudo-possessing Sips.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Gothi was one before Ohio Jack stabbed her with a crystal. She was constantly distracted and scatterbrained (bordering on senile), her potions weren't very trustworthy, and several other quirks.
  Dingo: She had, like, 28 ducks.
  Gothi: Heh. I stole dem!
  • Still comes through sometimes, like in Episode 25 when she casts Locusts to destroy a fruit merchant's stand to convince him to leave the area.
• Connected All Along: Episode 15 has a flashback that shows the main trio have connected backstories; the crystal shards that Erina and the other Kylandrians use came from a threat to the Forerunners that Gothi personally experienced, and Sips has a massive chunk of it/him in his brain.
• Content Warnings: Dingo starts of especially violent episodes by drawing attention to the series being meant for 14+ audiences. ^note While she gave content warnings before 2020, they were more trigger warnings. Her giving specific warnings about mature audiences from 2020 on might be due to some at the time recent youtube controversy that required videos to either be for kids or for adults, and videos that didn't specify that distinction early on could get hit with lawsuits

• Cooldown Hug: Gothi gives one to Xanu in Episode 30 when trying to convince him to forgive the Foreclaimer species.
• Create Your Own Villain: Bouclaire started off evil but it was Gothi who enabled her to actually pursue her dreams by giving her an extremely powerful poison and the first potato for her to cultivate.
• Cross Player: At least three of the Fool's Gold crew (Sips, Julian and Erina) are played by members of the opposite sex.
• Crossover: She has several longer videos, mostly Q&As, with other D&D YouTubers, like Ben from Puffin Forest, Zee Bashew and JoCat. For the holidays of 2018 and Halloween of 2019, Felix ran a oneshot with her, Ben and Zee.
• Crystal Spires and Togas: Emphasis on the "crystal" part for the Foreclaimers, who used Power Crystals for pretty much anything.
• Cursed with Awesome: Sips' new arm gives him the ability to cast magic spells and gives him sentience. Too bad it also slowly turns him into a reptilian monstrosity and his magic has a tendency to go wild.
• Dark World:
  • The foreclaimers created dark crystals that absorb the souls of anyone who dies nearby. The souls are kept in a Soul Cairn-like demiplane filled with despair and misery, and everything is purple.
  • While trying to clean up his temporary housing, Sips accidentally opens a portal to the Shadow Plane (called Shadowfell in later editions), a realm paralelling the material plane but filled with no emotions but despair.
• Deadpan Snarker: Really, just about everyone has something sarcastic to say for any given situation. It makes sense for Sips, as he's a cynical monkey boy, but not so much for Erina or Gothi.
• Didn't Think This Through: A lot of it, as befits a D&D campaign.
  • Sips set a room full of poisonous potatoes on fire, not thinking about the extremely noxious fumes it would release.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Quinn-Ora is the main villain for the first arc of Fools' Gold.
• Dismantled MacGuffin: The crystal shards used by Erina and the other "magical girl" characters are all fragments of a single crystal which belonged to the being who destroyed the Foreclaimers.
• Disney Villain Death: Quinn-Ora is killed by Erina throwing her through an open one-way portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire. Since she's a pretty high level spell caster, it's not unlikely that she can Plane Shift out of there. If the heat doesn't kill her first, which it very well might have; her clothes and equipment were switched for Gothi's (Gothi isn't a habitual planes traveller with all the wearable bells and whistles and, on top of that, all of Quinn-Ora's creeptastic stuff that maybe could protect her wound up on Gothi), she was out for the count and was already just clinging to her HP thanks to Sips' beat-down of her. Yet, maybe she could have got exceedingly lucky...
• Disproportionate Retribution: A single person protesting against Bouclaire's rule is grounds for her to poison the local water supply and kill everyone in the area.
• Damned By a Fool's Praise: Erina initially wants the party to bring the mech dragon with them through the foreclaimer portal, despite Gothi and Jack's objections. She changes her mind when Sips says it's a good idea.
• Double-Meaning Title:
  • The title for Episode 30, "Letting It All Go...", has multiple different meanings, including Sips being unable to handle his curse without Xanu and letting his humanity go, Xanu being persuaded to let go of his anger before it consumes him, and Gothi being told to let go of her attachment to Sips when she learns his soul has burnt out and he's dying.
  • The title for Episode 31, "BREAKING the characters AND PLAYERS", shows the characters and players emotionally broken after the events of the previous episode. The ending features them being broken in a different way: Erina physically breaks open the remains of Sips' body with a sledgehammer.
• Do with Him as You Will: Erina attempts this with Bouclaire's corpse by giving it to the townsfolk in episode 16. It mostly just freaks the townsfolk out.
• Dreaming of Times Gone By: During his death in episode 15, Sips experiences the memories of a Forerunner massacre, from the perspective of the one they feared.
• Due to the Dead: The party ends up paying 21,000 gold to get a scroll that can bring Sneeze back. Mind you, this is almost all of their funds.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Old Gothi appears briefly in Episode 6, during the flashback to when the group acquired the mech dragon. She would be officially introduced in the next episode.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first video of the series didn't establish the other party members. As a result generic stand ins are used in place of Gothi and Erina.
• Either "World Domination", or Something About Bananas: In "Making more FRIENDS", the party encounters a group speaking the Foreclaimer language and Gothi attempts to translate their speech for the party:
  Gothi: I think they said we're their prisoners... or something about a bathtub... (lots of weapons are brandished at the party) ... nope, definitely prisoners.
• Enfant Terrible: Bouclaire was just 10 years old when she developed and executed her plan to poison her way from street urchin to queen. After seizing power she set about conquering the neighboring lands while executing anyone she found disloyal.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Listening to Sips' recount of his Dreaming of Times Gone By awakens Gothi's memories of that very event, and how an old family friend named Goddrick betrayed them.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Sips is shocked that Bouclaire would grow poisonous potatoes. Old Gothi thinks it was a good idea.
  • For all her love of all things glitter, Erina sees it as a fashion faux pas that Bouclaire turned all of Kylandria pink and glittery.
• Evil Poacher: The Beast Masters, a group who make their living from killing or trapping wild animals, in order to use them as trade goods or make them fight one another for Beastly Bloodsports. Sips has a particular hatred for them, since one sold him to Quinn-Ora when he was an ordinary monkey.
• Expressive Mask: Gothi, especially in episodes 9 and 10 when Sips bought her a fancier mask for a party. Despite her normal mask appearing to be nothing but a slab of wood, her eyes and sometimes eyebrows are perfectly visible.
• Eye Scream: In episode 13, Bouclaire (formerly "Potato Girl") fought with old Gothi by stabbing a screwdriver through the eyehole of her mask. Sips reacted with appropriate horror.
• Face Death with Dignity: When it becomes clear the party’s Mech Dragon won't start up in time to recover from its fall, Julian simply notes that he’s “lived a good life” as he plummets to his (supposed) death.
• Face–Heel Turn: In a flashback in Episode 15, Gothi experienced this first-hand at the hands of Goddrick.
• The Faceless: Gothi is never seen without her trademark wooden mask, with any hints of her true face being quickly covered up. Come Episode 15, her status as this trope is revealed to be disturbingly literal.
• Faux Affably Evil: Quinn-Ora acts friendly towards Sips and the party but is more than ready to murder or experiment on them for her own amusement.
• Fauxreigner: Bouclaire naturally has a heavy American South drawl but after seizing the throne puts on a fake French accent.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Emperor Godrick III possessing two power crystals in his body is foreshadowed by how the markings on his body are both pink and blue.
• Fluffy the Terrible: In the video Fave Nat 1's & 20's!, Dingo discusses a campaign in which Felix's character had a nightmare, aka a demon-horse with a burning mane... her name was Buttercup.
• Foil: Between Stella's Children and the Old Society. Although both were cut from the same cloth of Foreclaimers who escaped and survived the fall of their civilization, each one went about the fall-out differently. Stella's Children learned from their mistakes and decided to be a more empathetic society. The Old Society believe they should've taken steps to control Xanu, and double down on their opportunistic ways. Stella's Children adapted to their environment by gently coaxing nature at their own expense, while the Old Society use technology to force nature out of the stone at the test subject's own expense.
  • There's also a contrast between the two factions' leaders. When our heroes first meet Emperor Godrick III, he's established as a cold, perfectionist sociopath who has an iron-fisted viewpoint on achieving flawlessness and looks down on those who are flawed and "defective". Meanwhile, Elowyn has no such delusions that she's better than anyone else, but has a wiser, warm-hearted philosophy that there's no shame in asking for help or growing from one's mistakes.
• Forced Transformation:
  • The swamp village of Alchemist Quarry, besides being a town where everything is magical, is home to a number of people that Quinn-Ora has turned into anthropomorphic animals. She tried the same thing on Sips in the past, and he is understandably a little upset about it.
  • Also, Sips accidentally curses Gorthan into a Ythrak for a while. It actually lets him save the day at one point.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In Episode 5, when Quinn-Ora's chanting causes Sips's curse to grow, Dingo mentions the chanting has something to do with "the God of the Second Sun", before Sips is overtaken by an agonizing pain in his head. The god in question turns out to be Xanu, a being created by the Foreclaimers (the race the gang has been searching for for most of the campaign) from the energy of a sun. And the pain likely came from the huge chunk of Xanu's crystal that Quinn-Ora had placed in Sips's head the night he was awakened in the hopes of controlling the god. None of this gets revealed until at least 10 episodes later.
  • When Erina uses Detect Magic while meeting Bouclaire, she can sense a massive amount of magic from a crystal shard. The fact that the DM did not confirm where the shard was hinted at the presence of the main shard in Sips's head.
  • When Sips begrudgingly decides Erina should be the one to kill Bouclaire, he mentions "Now, as much as I'd like to rip that girl's heart out..." Guess what he does in the next episode to Bouclaire's corpse.
  • Gothi wears a perfectly flat mask rather than one shaped to match a normal face. This is because her face was carved off, meaning her nose won't get in the way.
  • Vicky claiming with child-like abandon that she'd commit genocide on the Foreclaimers on the innocent grounds of protecting those she loves foreshadows how she becomes Sip's reason for deciding to go through with the Foreclaimers genocide in order to protect Vicky (as it's theorized the Foreclaimers would eliminate her for being "defective").
• Forgot About His Powers: Sips forgot that he had the Locate Object spell, and could use it to track down his missing hand (the spell has limited range, so he couldn't use it until he knew Quinn-Ora was within 400 feet, plus 40 feet per level Sips is above second).
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: The Foreclaimer scientist Xanu's tale focuses on when talking about his inhumane treatment wears a reflective pair of goggles which makes his constant staring that much more unnerving.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Episode 30 has a brief cutaway to the game table. Dingo's character sheet for Sips can be seen on the table with one legible bit of text: The name "Sips" crossed out next to "(DEAD) PROB?".
• Freudian Excuse: Xanu's plan to commit genocide on the Foreclaimers isn't just out of spite or even simple logic. He was created by them, and in wake of his existence, they enslaved and experimented on him, making his every waking moment torturous.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Bouclaire started out as a young girl with ambitions in some nowhere town. Thanks to a single poisoned potato that survived Sips' inferno, she made her way to a different country, charmed her way into the royal family, removed the king and queen and forced her older adoptive sisters into giving up the throne and becoming her guards. Then she killed Erina's family and waged war against the neighbouring country, all the while ruling her nation with an iron fist.
• Gender Bender: An option on Dingo's random curse table (because of course it is) which Wizardly is subjected to. Being a 20th level wizard, he later polymorphs back to normal.
• Glass Cannon: Erina fights an old man wielding an anime-sized giant sword whose first blow deals 34 damage to her. She struggles for the fight before finally getting in a single hit, killing him instantly - turns out he had ridiculous AC but only one hit point.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Bouclaire seized control of all food and water supplies in the kingdom when she came to power. If even one person agitated against her, she would poison the local water supply and kill everyone in the area.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Erina feeds Sips a Bloodmoon Berry as a prank. It activates his Superpowered Evil Side, causing mass chaos, panic and looming plot.
  Erina: I thought it would be funny!
• Grumpy Old Man: Mr. Wizardly to a T.
  • Though Erina thinks he's not so grumpy.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Sips, again.
• Hate Sink: Bouclaire may be the most despicable character we've seen so far. And the Fool's Gold party has met a demon, literally Always Chaotic Evil.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Sneeze allows himself to be killed by Quinn-Ora to save Sips.
• Hidden Depths: In "Episode 19", after Xanu shares his plans to kill the Foreclaimers for what they did to him, Sips has some reservations about going through with this plan. First, Sips has nothing to do with them directly. Second, there's no telling if the Foreclaimers are still alive. Third, even if they were alive, after more than two thousand years they'd be dealing with an entirely new generation; is it really right to kill them if weren't even born until after Xanu broke free? Bear in mind that these questions are coming from Sips, who knows better than anyone what it's like to want revenge.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The fate of the Foreclaimer empire. They created legions of soul-powered constructs to serve as their military might, distributed to every city, temple, and outpost. Their other creation, Xanu seized control of all the constructs and used them to slaughter their creators.
• Honest John's Dealership: As a merchant Sips is not above selling cursed items along with his other items of questionable providence.
• Horrible Judge of Character: The Bearon. Even after the Fool's Gold party has caused large scale chaos and death and/or destruction twice in Rascam alone, he still sends them on a diplomatic mission. Subverted because he is basically asking the party to murder the leader under the pretense of "diplomacy."
• Horrifying the Horror: Xanu is a borderline sociopath obsessed with getting revenge and having no moral qualms about killing anyone who gets in his way. Despite this he seems visibly unnerved after witnessing Sips embrace his curse.
• Humongous Mecha: The group has a giant mech dragon they found in one of the Foreclaimers' ruined temples.
• Hypocritical Humor: Once Sips wakes up after getting his hand reattached, it is revealed that Sips' right iris has changed into a crocodile's iris. Erina, the magical girl in the party (who is confirmed to be a reference to Jojo, calls him weeb trash for this.
• I Ate WHAT?!: While exploring a haunted mansion, Sneeze and Sips eat from what they believe is an extravagant feast, only for Sips to barf everything out of his and Sneeze's stomachs when he realizes they were eating maggot filled meat that was illusioned to look like a delicious feast.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: When Erina asks Wizardly to fix Sips' curse, he informs her that he's a wizard, not a cleric. He can warp reality through his arcane mastery, but he can not heal.
• Improbable Weapon User: Erina is shown fighting with a pair of metal spheres almost like shot puts.
  • As a Druid, Gothi using her faithful Jawbone in battle to double-team is always cool, no question about it. However, what about all those ducks she used to have? Um...
• In Medias Res: Although the series begins with the Tarrasque incident, it was not the team's first adventure, and multiple moments from the team's past (such as meeting "the Potato Girl") are recounted when relevant to more immediate events.
• Ironic Name: The twin princesses, Eyes and Ears. Eyes is blind while Ears is deaf. It's not their real names, however.
• Irony: In episode 14, when Gothi and Sips figure Bouclaire has her crystal inside her, Erina turns down the idea and says it's probably on her person. Not only does Erina learn first hand that Bouclaire's crystal wasn't in her crown, but the next episode reveals it was within her heart.
• It Began with a Twist of Fate: In the first Fool's Gold episode, the Tarrasque awakening and all the chaos caused by it showing up was caused by Dingo casting Dancing Lights in a drunken stupor and Felix rolling just bellow the percentage chance of Sips' wild magic.
• It Works Better with Bullets: Jack's first attempt at firing a crossbow goes poorly because he forgot to load the bolt first.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Not so much "Interrogation" as it is "make your death as painful as possible", but Sips spends most of the final battle with Quinn-Ora gutting her and breaking her arm.
  • Sneeze also has a pair of switchblades ready for in case they have to do something like this.
• Jerkass: Sips meanders across a jerkass spectrum of his own: from being a fairly playful Jerkass with a Heart of Gold much of the time (especially where Gothi and Sneeze are concerned) to a vanilla all-rounder with more than a few hints of Jerkass Woobie (distrusting, insulting and/or wishing to stab/electrocute strangers on general principle when he feels they're deliberately impeding him or when he feels the need to hide insecurity) to going extra heavy on the jerk spice when running across people like the overly bombastic Belmont or the extremely apathetic Mr Wizardly or any given nemesis... to becoming an outright bloodthirsty murder-machine with absolutely no ability to discern friend from foe (when his curse has hit him particularly hard).
  • Mr Wizardly: a consummate Jerk with a Heart of Jerk who is up there with Squidward when it comes to complete apathy and a disregard for others' emotional toes (even when getting paid). There's a reason why he and Sips don't get alternative along.
• Karmic Death: As Xanu so pointed out, the Foreclaimers prided themselves on perfection and creating the perfect technology. Using his ability to create souls and control them, Xanu used the Foreclaimers' "perfect" war machines to begin the genocide.
• Killer Game Master: Zigzagged with Felix. On one hand, he is out to make the party suffer. On the other, he is not out to kill them, just make a good story. The players all consider him a great DM, and letting them survive the Tarrasque would require him to bend over backwards narratively.
  Erina: I didn't know our dm was this evil!
  Felix: [Evil chuckle]
• Kill It with Fire: Quinn-Ora is tossed into a one-way portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire.
• Lack of Empathy: Actually enforced by the Foreclaimers. Turns out things like ethics and empathy stand in the way of things like scientific progress.
• Magical Girl: Erina's class is flavored after this trope though we don't see her do a lot of magical girl stuff. The transformation itself isn't shown until Episode 14, where she's shown to fight by throwing orbs and has a blinged out trenchcoat, hat, and glasses.
• Malicious Misnaming: When approached by a shadowy figure who refuses to reveal his name, Sips decides to call him "Bucket". When the figure offers an actual name, Sips says he missed his chance and now he's Bucket, with the other players all agreeing to the DM's dismay.
• Meaningful Echo: "Foreclaimers don't lie. It's inefficient." First time, it's said by Emperor Godrick III to drive home that foreclaimers are rather inhuman by nature. The second time, Gothi says it when the Emperor accuses her of lying that her source of immortality came from Xanu. If anything, she's trying to point out that if he was incapable of lying, he wouldn't be so quick to accuse someone else of doing it.
• Meaningful Name: Mr. Wizardly... He's a wizard.
  • Stout, the barkeeper of Bundariko. Also the mayor. According to Dingo, he is one hundred percent a walking pun.
• Mineral MacGuffin: Erina's magical girl powers stem from a crystal in one of her rings. Bouclaire and her bodyguards have shards of the same crystal, only they're larger and more powerful. They all come from a single large Foreclaimer crystal that once belonged to the being that destroyed their race and is now embedded in Sips's brain.
• Mistaken for Gay: Trans, actually. But yeah, after Wizardly touches Sips' cursed arm, its wild magic turns him into a woman. Sips immediately vocally supports her on what he assumes to be Wizardly coming out when he wakes up.
• Motor Mouth: Ben from Puffin Forest describes the Fast Talk skill from Call of Cthulhu like this. One of his players, Dick Tracy, used it to spew out a long string of ridiculous claims with the intent of confusing the other person.
• My Nayme Is: Quinn-Ora's named is spelled... Like that, instead of something reasonable like Kinora, Cinora or Qinora.
• Mysterious Past:
  • Gothi’s backstory is teased through the videos from episode 2 onwards. Even after it is revealed in her eponymous episode "Gothi" that she is a Foreclaimer, what she looks like behind her wooden mask is kept unknown. We do see one eye when it breaks a little in episode 10, and finally get a full reveal in episode 15. Her full story is explained in later episodes.
  • Sips seems to have a clear origin story, being the test subject of an insane witch doctor which resulted in him being awakened. However Quinn-Ora states that there are parts of his awakening that Sips does not remember which factor into his intelligence and ability to use magic. Quinn-Ora had also implanted a large fragment of Xanu's crystal in Sips in an attempt to create a superpowered minion, but Xanu unexpectedly granted Sips true intelligence and magic.
• Nature vs. Technology: In D&D Story: Fools Gold, the Foreclaimers are an ancient race of techno elves who lack empathy, their society was built on technology and advancement above all else, at the expense of nature.
  • This came to a head when they created an artificial god out of their second sun, Stella, and kept him locked up for experiments. The god, Xanu, eventually turned their technology against them, slaughtering many but unable to wipe them out entirely when escaped through a portal. Still, Xanu as a force of nature was able to nearly destroy their entire society, but he still considers any surviving Foreclaimer society a threat to the Bellowing Wilds.
  • When the Fools Gold team reopen the portal 3,000 years later, they discover the Foreclaimers split into two camps in the wake of the attempted genocide: One, the Old Society, continued to value technology above all else, while the other, Stella?s Children, believed having empathy and kindness would have stopped the disaster from occurring and decided to forego enhancements in favor of living more in tune with the earth and trying to develop empathy. Even their methods of getting food from petrified rock are juxtaposed: While the Old Society use tech to zap plants out of rock faster, the plants lack flavor and die faster. Stella's Children use druidic magic to coax nature out of the rock, which takes longer but leads to a better crop. Downplayed, since Stella's Children still struggle with empathy, which Sips points out means they could still slide back into their old ways.
• Near-Death Experience: One of Dingo's earliest videos was her talking about a few of these that she's had. In order:
  • Choking on a lollipop at the age of 3. Why? Because when her dad told her not to talk or it might get stuck in her throat, she looked at him and said "Okay". Her dad had to flush it out with a hose, which Dingo originally refused to have done because she had always been told "Don't drink from the hose".
  • At age 5, she was on a field trip that involved a hike up a mountain. When it was time to go down, Dingo decided to run as fast as she could, which resulted in her tripping. It was only because the teacher managed to grab her just in time that Dingo didn't fall off a cliff into pointy rocks of death.
  • Also at age 5, while sledding, Dingo got buried under a pile of 13 year old kids. The only reason she didn't suffocate was because one of the older kids pulled her out.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Dingo won't explain why there are sheep inside the soul gem in episode 7, other than "they got what they deserved". They reappear in episode 13 while listing the early encounters of the group; a curious commenter appears on screen and is angrily shushed. The module release finally explains at least why you would remember killing some sheep since they're man-eating jungle sheep.
  • Julian knows what elf meat tastes like. No reason is given, but if leaves Sips a bit disturbed.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: In the aforementioned "Near-Death Experience" video, Dingo had this to say when she was buried under a bunch of older kids.
  Dingo: No joke, the thought going through my head at that moment was "So this is how I die? I'm okay with this."
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Episode 7 of the Fools Gold campaign tells of the epic battle between the party in their mech-dragon versus the dragon Gresh, which Dingo refuses to animate because she is one woman so get off her back.
• Off with His Head!: Sneeze lets himself be decapitated by Quinn-Ora to save Sips.
• Oh, Crap!: Often combined with a Little "No" for this group as "Oh no." Usually when they realize someone failed an important save or Sips curses someone without meaning to. Or the GM realizes the implications of something that just happened.
• One Curse Limit: One of the rules of Felix's world is that curses don't stack with each other. Hence, Vicky can touch Sips' cursed arm without suffering ill effects because she's already a werewolf.
• One-Winged Angel: Bouclaire does this by consuming a blood moon berry and turning into a truly monstrous spider monster hybrid.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In episode 29, at one point during their conversation, Sips grows unnerved at Emperor Godrick III's exceptional curiosity as to who the monkey doesn't want them to battle. Not many enemies faze Sips, but this is different: for a moment, there was a frightening possibility this cold, ruthless Emperor would readily wage war with the Bellowing Wilds if it benefited him most.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Big time for the Soulprowler Mercury Dragon. Like the metal it's named for, it amalgamates with other things, particularly souls, resulting in it being a Mind Hive with each soul constantly vying for dominance.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Vashinco, the vampire casino owner in episode 11, is pretty standard. Drinks blood, can cast Dominate Person by looking into their eyes. He can, however, go in the sunlight, as long as he regularly drinks blood.
  • The walking pun is also darkly punny: a classic horror creature is a bloodsucking casino owner and Eastern European mobster who isn't exactly hiding, what with being Mr Hammer Horror Set, Esq. Or is Konami. Take your pick of Evil; bad-to-know, rich, open, banal and/or systemic. Also... hilariously, majorly and scarily outgunned.
• Poor Communication Kills: Sips never tells anyone about Xanu being the only thing holding the curse at bay. As a result, Gothi was taken by surprise when removing Xanu's crystal from Sips allows the curse to consume him.
• Portal Network: Erina has Kylandria pay Mr. Wizardly to open a series of portals between the major cities of the campaign.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: The purple Foreclaimer crystals are powered by absorbing the souls of anyone who dies nearby.
• Precursors: The Fool's Gold campaign has some, known as the Foreclaimers. The party has been hired to search for their artifacts. Some are actually still around, unless Gothi is an isolated case.
• Precursor Killers: In Episode 15 Sips witnesses what destroyed the Foreclaimer empire, a single black-skinned being with white lines on his body like a Foreclaimer and a single large gem in his forehead. A being filled with a need for revenge on the Foreclaimers and who now resides inside Sips.
  • The above spoiler is given more context in Episode 18; Xanu, the being described, was an artificial god created when the Foreclaimers yanked the missing second sun out of the sky and siphoned its magical power into his creation. However, they did not do this to worship him, but to ceaselessly experiment on him to test his limits and use his mastery over souls to create their technological marvels. Eventually Xanu snapped, condemned all the Foreclaimers to death, and used his mastery over souls to set all of the Foreclaimers' soul-powered automata against them to wipe them out. However, he missed a sizable portion of their populace who fled to the other side of a massive portal, which closed on Xanu when he tried to follow them through and shattered the crystal that is the focal point of his consciousness and power. Pieces of him have been passed around through the ages, and now enough of them are coming together that he can manifest his consciousness in Sips's body, who holds the largest piece, to finish his genocide of the Foreclaimers.
• Pretty Princess Powerhouse: Eyes and Ears appear to be sheltered princesses at first glance, but are soon revealed to possess strong power crystals and impressive skills in combat.
• Princesses Prefer Pink: Invoked to the point of using an anvil of extreme pinkness on an entire capital city. A very glittery, rhinestone-encrusted anvil with a veritable colour-swatch of every available pink ribbon attached to it. Evil royal little girls rarely come pinker. Or poofier. It's so extreme, that many, many commentators strongly suspect that Obfuscating Glittery Pinkness is in effect. Crystals of power are a major aspect of the campaign, and glitter with lots of pink bling can hide, well...
• Put on a Bus: Gorthan and Julian had to leave because their players had a baby. Presumably through adoption or childbirth, but knowing this party, stealing one is a possibility.
• Railroading: Weirdly played with, as Jack (played by the GM) wanted the group to ignore the mech marching off towards Rascam (controlled by the GM) and the players refuted Jack by noting that the mech was obviously a plot hook leading them that way, away from the ruins plot for a while. So the GM was offering for them to not take the plot hook, and they refused hard to save a town they liked.
• Random Number God: It's a recounted homebrew D&D campaign, so... Yeah — memorably devastating/ awesome dice rolls comes with the turf. But, Sips' entire build just adds to the degree of significance that dice charts hold.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Occurs for the Fool's Gold campaign, where Julian and Gorthan had to be written out because their players had a baby and that took up all their time.
• Really Royalty Reveal: Gothi, real name Gothica Dio Sol, was foreclaimer royalty before she lost her memories.
• Remember the New Guy?: While locked up in jail with Jack, Sips tells Erina to go find Sneeze, who hadn't been mentioned before. Erina spends a good 30 seconds talking about this.
• Rent-a-Zilla: The Tarrasque, per D&D standard. Although Dingo described it more in terms of Physical God.
• Rescued from the Underworld: Episode 6 revolves around Gothi and Sips freeing Sneeze's soul from the crystal it had been imprisoned in.
• Retired Badass: Mr. Wizardly is a 20th level former adventurer (the highest level in D&D) who is just done, and now sends adventurers on quests he doesn’t want to bother with.
• The Reveal:
  • In Episode 15 we finally learn the secret of Sips's magic that Quinn-Ora talked about, the source of the calm voice that talked to him, and how it all ties into the plot. Embedded in his head is a shattered crystal that belonged to the being who destroyed the Foreclaimer civilization, its other fragments being used by the "magic girl" characters. That is the source of his magic and also where the spirit of the destroyer still lingers. Also in the same episode, we learn that Gothi was present during the destruction and wears a mask because someone close to her carved out her face.
  • Episode 19 finally reveals the details of the night Sips Awakened, the nature of his curse, and where the crystal in his head came from. Quinn-Ora planned to use the cursed hand transformation and a large number of shards from Xanu's crystal to convert Sips into a powerful but easily controlled minion. However, Xanu was able to give Sips a full mind, beyond that of an Awakened animal, and their combined wills were enough to hold back Quinn-Ora's curse. The curse itself is an almost living magic actually bound to Sips's soul, which is why it returned even after removing the cursed hand. Whenever his will weakens due to extreme emotions, the curse is able to gain ground.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Dingo's parents when they realize they had to get in a canoe and cross a lake...with their extremely hydrophobic daughter.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Faced with the Mercury Dragon's ultimatum to make a wish and restore her mother or fight it, Erina runs for it because fuck that.
• Self-Made Orphan: It's unclear what happened to Bouclaire's actual parents (a flashback shows two graves behind her, but those might be fake), but Dingo is fully convinced that she murdered her adoptive parents.
• Sensory Overload: After Sips eats Bouclaire's heart he shares senses with the three crystal bearers in the same room as him. The resulting overlapping senses cause intense pain until he manages to control them.
• Shout-Out:
  • Erina is explicitly stated to be a JoJo reference. Most noticeable in episode 8, where she flirts in anime terms and outright references the anime that inspired her.
  • When it's revealed that they have to destroy a town and a good deal of the land around to open the Foreclaimer portal, Sips calls it "Genocide run", the Fan Nickname for Undertale's bad ending.
• The Sleepless: Dingo wonders if Griffin Macaulay, the guy behind the Griffon's Saddlebag, is this, considering that he made 365 magic items, 12 new subclasses, two new settings and an antagonistic NPC.
  Dingo: My god, Griffin, do you even f*cking sleep?
• Sound Effects Bleep: A duck quack is Dingo's go-to for this trope.
• Spider Limbs: Bouclaire gets these, along with clawed hands and dark (possibly exoskeleton) skin when she eats a bloodmoon berry. Considering that those berries turn people into animals that reflect their nature...
• Stealth Pun: Old Gothi had a pet rock named Dwayne.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: The climax of Episode 31. Following the Wham that ended Episode 30, the party tries their best to avert Sips' passing on, to no avail. The music swells dramatically as the party realizes the truth of the situation, with Gothi lamenting that there's nothing more she can do. Elowen, who they sought out for help, then states there is one thing...leading the the music suddenly stopping with the Mood Whiplash that she wants Gothi to break apart Sips' cracked remains with a sledgehammer. When Gothi hesitates, Erina eagerly takes up the duty in order to relieve an entire campaign's worth of tension towards Sips. More uplifting music then starts playing to show the "renewed" Sips freed from within, only to suddenly stop again as Erina, Gothi, and the entire group of real-life players squeal at the cuteness.
• Superpowered Evil Side: In episode 10, a prank gone wrong leads to Sips losing all control, leading to a massacre and strange shift in personality. It makes another brief appearance in episode 15, as Sips has finished Dreaming of Times Gone By, to devour Bouclaire's crystal. Turns out he has two evil sides. The Chaotic Evil curse from Quinn-Ora's crocodile hand and Xanu, who would be decent except for his desire to commit genocide.
• Synchronization: The reason Sips briefly died is that the crystal shards synchronize the people carrying them on some level. When worn as jewelry this doesn't matter much, but when they're placed inside the body, such as the one in Bouclaire's heart and Sips's head, if one dies it will kill the other as well.
• Take a Third Option: Namedropped and utilized in Episode 30. Gothica convinces Xanu that, rather than either committing genocide or letting the Foreclaimers led by Goddrick III run rampant, they can just take out Goddrick III and destroy his empire, forcing a "hard reset" that will leave the rest powerless but with a chance for redemption.
• Take That!: While talking about the Griffon's Saddlebag, a third party D&D book full of balanced magic items, she takes an aside to tell Felix he has no excuse for not giving out balanced loot.
• Tear Off Your Face: A poignant scene in episode 15. Gothi's true face has been gone all along, cut off with a knife by former family friend Goddrick.
• Teleport Spam: Ears and Eyes use their crystals to teleport their weapons to attack from unexpected angles. Dingo implies that they can teleport themselves too.
• Token Heroic Orc: Gothi is this to the Foreclaimers, though it’s deconstructed in that her sense of empathy is literally a birth defect by their culture’s standards. If not for her rank, she would have been put aside, exiled, or worse.
• Toppled Statue: On returning to Alchemist's Quarry, Gothi witnesses the people pulling down a statue of Quinn-Ora.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Old Gothi had a thing for potatoes.
• Tragic Villain: Xanu, who destroyed the Foreclaimers, was driven by a need for revenge for their constant torture of him for his entire life.
• Troll:
  • Erina clearly enjoys messing with Sips. This leads to the trouble of episode 10, after she ends episode 9 with something she "thought would be funny" and very much goes wrong.
  • In Erina's defense, Sips trolls her all the time, too. They practically communicate in snark, pranks and with the proceeds of crime. For instance... one Acid Splash to the face is a failed will save plus an illusion; two is for the sheer lulz.
• Unluckily Lucky: The whole party, mostly thanks to Sips' wild surges. (Not to mention the more general intervention of the God of Failed Will Saves). But, they often manage to make it work for them in some way (mainly because Felix goes ballistic finding a way to salvage the disaster, on top of the players' quick thinking). You get good at noticing potential opportunity within disasters when enough happen to you.
• The Unpronouncable: Downplayed. Dingo gives up trying to pronounce the name of the guy behind the Griffon's Saddlebag, even though it's really not that hard (Griffin Macaulay).
• The Unreveal: Quinn-Ora is initially surprised that Sips was a sorcerer, being certain at first he had no magic. When tracked down for their final encounter she claims to have worked out why he has magic and offers to reveal things Sips does not know or had forgotten. Sips ignores the offer and the secrets die along with her. Until it's revealed for real 14 episodes later.
• Uplifted Animal: Sips is a normal animal that, thanks to his transplanted arm, was subjected to the Awaken spell.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: Discussed in Episode 30. Gothi convinces Xanu to reconsider his plans for genocide by pointing out how he's consumed by anger despite that his original tormentors are all long dead, and how everyone in the campaign who took revenge on their respective tormentors did not achieve peace of mind. Sips was able to (allegedly) kill Quinora, but it didn't magically erase either his curse or the insecurity borne from it. Erina assassinated Bouclaire herself, but not only is her father still dead (and her mother is still inside a Mercury Dragon), but it failed to mend her abandonment issues. Ultimately, both are still pained by the actions of those who hurt them. Gothi wraps it up with this sobering philosophy:
  Gothi: Holding onto that anger and pain is like drinking poison while expecting the other person to die. You have to move on.
• Villain Has a Point: Although his accusation Stella's Children could regress to lack empathy is a generalization, Episode 29 drives home that Xanu isn't wrong about the Old Society foreclaimers. If their leader is anything to go by, they are unnervingly cold and lack empathy to a sociopathic degree. It's little wonder he wants to commit genocide on them.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: The whole party is a group of these. Sips regularly pranks Sneeze, but hurting him is one of Sips' Berserk Buttons; Erina and Sips more-or-less communicate through snark and trolling each other but obviously care about each other; and Gothi tends to respond to her party's shenanigans with ultra-dry snark, but she'll still throw down to protect them.
• The Voiceless: Sneeze has no tongue, so he can't talk. And yet, somehow, Sips knows what he's trying to say.
• Weaponized Teleportation: Eyes and Ears both utilize portals as part of their fighting style, using them to stab with daggers and throw shields, respectively, from odd angles.
• What Did I Do Last Night?: Magic means all kinds of shenanigans, often even at parties. Poor alcohol; so upstaged.
  • Sips has a moment of this when he sobers up after his apocalyptic karaoke session. Gothi has an exaggerated version when she has a Foreclaimer crystal inserted into her abdomen, asking Sips about what she did for the 'several years' her crystal was missing.
  • Sips has another one after Erina accidentally reactivated his curse and he went on a murderous rampage.
• Wham Episode: Dingo calls Episode 15 "a freefall". She's not kidding. Sips isn't dead, but he's got a Foreclaimer crystal that's apparently a chunk of the individual who destroyed their civilization lodged in his brain. And he's awake and aware inside Sips' head, calmly helping Sips recover from the adverse effects of said crystal. When Sips relates all of this to Gothi, it jars her memories and we learn exactly why she always wears a mask.
• Wham Line:
  • When Bouclaire offers Erina the role of court entertainer she points out that's her parents' job.
    Bouclaire: Oh no, I had them executed.
  • And in the next episode, after she’s defeated, everything seems fine and dandy, until Sips starts somehow dying from the same injuries Bouclaire just died of. And any hope of saving him is dashed when Felix asks this:
    Felix: So. What are your last words?
    Dingo: ...What?
  • Continuing in the next episode (to paraphrase Dingo, a transition from a roller coaster to a free fall), we finally learn something about Gothi's past.
    Dingo: As Sips describes to Gothi about what he saw - the destruction, the portal, the man - she starts to remember something. You see, she's heard of this before. Because in fact...she was there.
  • Not long afterwards in the same episode, we finally see what's behind Gothi's mask.
    Gothi: Because you see Sips, that's...that's why I don't have a face.
  • Sips wonders why Gothi (despite being viewed as "defective" by her people) wasn't kicked out, or worse. The ensuing conversation reveals something about Gothi.
    Xanu: It's because... she has rank.
    Sips: What do you mean by "rank"?
    Xanu: What I mean is, Gothica Dio Sol was royalty and the future ruler of the Foreclaimer empire. A princess.
  • Sips's reaction when he realizes he's still in control despite passing what he always assumed was the point of no return.
    Dingo: He's still here. And you know what the funny thing about it is? He had never felt more in control. He's a chaotic monkey anyway, right? Why fight it when you can just give into it?
  • Xanu explaining the end result of removing his crystal from Sips, allowing the curse to consume him.
    Xanu: There's no reversing this anymore.
    Gothi: What do you mean!?
    Xanu: Gothica, it's time to let go.
• Wham Shot: In Episode 21, as Vicky chains herself up in Sips' cabin, we see a shot of her looking outside with fearful anticipation, the window reflecting the full moon...
• What Were You Thinking?: Said by Erina to her mom, who sold her soul to a Soulprowler Mercury Dragon so that Erina would be safe.
  Erina's mom: In hindsight... it probably wasn't —the best decision.
  Erina: Oh. My God!
• Wild Magic: Thanks to his curse, Sips can't control his magic, and it has a certain percentile chance of going wild. Which it loves to do at the most inopportune times.
• Would Hurt a Child: Both Sips and Gothi were planning to kill Potato Girl. Sips because she hurt Sneeze, and Gothi because... she was still kinda crazy. When Potato Girl returns as Bouclaire, Erina takes the lead in killing her, although she has good justification.
  Sips: So I've never killed a kid before... but I'm open to new experiences.
  
  Erina: Let's kill a kid.
  
  Dingo: The group is hype to kill this ki— monster. Monster.
• The Worsening Curse Mark: Sips' cursed hand is reptilian and whenever he's stressed, the curse grows, with more of his body transforming and his magic becoming even more wild.
• You Are Not Alone:
  • Sips, of all people, says this word-for-word to Vicki when he tenderly places his crocodile hand on her angry and afraid werewolf form to calm her down.
  • In Episode 30, Gothi comforts Xanu by stating she's fully aware that being told to let go of your anger after you've suffered genuine trauma and it's been brewing for centuries is a monumental task, but the alternative is watching him become consumed by it with no going back, and she'll be there to support him.

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*lips smack* "Yeah."

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