Dark Legacy Comics - Television Tropes & Idioms

Dark Legacy Comics is a World of Warcraft-based Webcomic, maintained by Arad Keydar. It follows the adventures of Keydar's guild, Dark Legacy (which the author left in-game since the webcomic's creation). The regular cast includes the creator's character, Keydar, a human rogue, Gigzara (or Gigz), an elven priest with a Hair-Trigger Temper, Mijikai and Narya, respectively a gnome warrior and mage, Nyteblade (or Nyte), Narya's human wife, Krom, a rather grumpy human paladin, and Donald, an increasingly stupid representation of the Noob player.

The comic usually sticks to the gag-per-day/week format, however there have been two major arcs: The Horace Hypocrisy - which details what would happen if the NPCs started a revolution - and Bill #307a, in which Keydar helps The Society For The Betterment of NPCs pass a bill which outlaws the killing of any NPC. As a result of the guild's favourite game mechanics, Keydar quickly realizes that was a bad idea.

This show provides examples of:

Aerith and Bob
All Just a Dream /Deus ex Machina: Lampshaded here.
Art Evolution: The first comics were generally made up of simply drawn characters on a plain white background, but since then the art has become a lot better, and nicer to look at. For an example, see one of the updated comics above the original.
Aside Glance: "What do you think this is, some kind of badly written melodrama?!"
Author Avatar: Justified, in that Keydar is the creator's character.
Badass Adorable: Miji's past self, from when the comic characters were still drawn super-deformed.
Berserk Button: Never tell Donald that a raid boss ate Santa. Here's why.
Butt Monkey: If something comically bad is going to happen to someone, about 70% of time it'll be Keydar, the other 30% is Narya. granted most of the time they bring it on themselves.
Critical Failure: In World Of Warcraft, engineer-made gadgets have a slim chance of critically malfunctioning whenever they are used. Notably, the Ultrasafe Transporter has a high probability of critical failures, including transporting you a hundred yards in the air over your expected arrival point. This is parodied here.
Narya: Nothing says 'engineering' like a 20% chance to fail.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Donald. Getting him to be an effective fighter only works once a year... luckily.
The Ditz: Donald.
Five-Man Band:
- The Hero: Keydar
- The Lancer: Krom
- The Smart Guy: Narya
- The Big Guy: Miji
- The Chick: Nyte
- Team Pet: Donald
- The Medic: Gigz
Flanderization: Your Mileage May Vary, but Donald was originally just a character representing a terrible player and throughout the run of the comic, has become a hopeless Man Child with a Speech Impediment.
- Apparently his Man Child persona was caused by freak time-travel accident. [1]
Flat "What.": Narya's response to Donald's attempt at Symbol Swearing.
Flowers for Algernon Syndrome: Donald gets one here
Fountain of Youth: Used in "The Quest Chain" arc.
Funny Background Event: In this comic, Narya and Krom discuss a previous arc while Donald ballet dances in the background.
I'm a Humanitarian: Gigz is a night elf. Most of her recipes involve cooking druids, which are usually other night elves, or feeding gnomes to Miji, who's a gnome. This started off as a joke and has slowly gotten more frightening over time.
- Fridge Brilliance: Night elves evolved from trolls. Trolls are cannibals.
Jerkass: Krom, mostly from constantly being the Only Sane Man.
Lethal Chef: While Gigz's food is quite good, the method's she uses to procure it are quite lethal
Meaningful Name: Mijikai means 'short' in Japanese (though not used in the context of size).
Mirror Self: It turns out that the characters have mirror selves on the other side. The protagonists are Alliance characters in World of Warcraft, so their mirror selves are Horde. This make at least one character frustrated and at least one (*2) character(s) happy.
Only Sane Man: Krom, occasionally Nyte as well.
Oh Crap: Narya when he realizes Mijikai didn't know Darnassus was built atop a giant tree. Miji creates a tidal wave by cannonballing off Teldrassil.
Precision F-Strike: Coming from a boot, of all things when Donald becomes its new owner.
Prematurely Bald: Poor Narya.
Rouge Angles of Satin: Parodied.
Running Gag:
- The 'Gigz' Kitchen' skit.
- Narya's changes of hairstyles, which have now become a T-Shirt design.
Shoot the Medic First: This is part of Phase One of the NPCs' revolution.
Shout Out:
- To Captain Planet and the Planeteers, here.
- There's also one to Star Wars here.
- And one from Final Fantasy VII here.
- Also one for Pokémon here.
Spoof Aesop: "So remember: Whenever you choose NOT to kill a bunny... Somewhere in the world, a cute little gnome is mauled to death and subsequently devoured by a genetically modified super-wolf."
Straight Gay: Keydar asks out men on two separate occasions. The second time, the guy calls him a fag. See the WeReallyDoCare entry below for how hilariously badly that ends for him.
Symbol Swearing: This episode has Donald stub his toe and yell "And dollars at star number!" After repeating it a few times, another character tells him he really needs to turn off his &$@*# profanity filter.
Too Dumb to Live: Seriously Keydar, how hard is it to resist licking you fingers after coating your knives in poison?
The Un Smile: Krom tried to smile once.
We Really Do Care: A rather... unorthodox example, but when a high level warrior Keydar admired broke his heart, the rest of the group made him very sorry for it. There's something twistedly cathartic about seeing a group of Heroic Sociopaths who are normally hyper-antagonistic toward one another come together like that.
Zombie Advocate: Keydar joins a group that supports NPC rights, culminating in violence towards NPCs being made illegal. Of course, in the world of an MMO, killing NPCs is integral to society, so the economy crumbles and people starve since they can't get meat or loot anything.