Webcomic / Suppression

Suppression is a 3D webcomic.

The town of Ebon Creek has been struck by a horrible plague. The ground's turned to mud and the whole town is sinking. There are demonic monsters roaming the streets that may or may not have once been human. But a lucky few have come out of it all with a wide variety of powers. Not that they can really enjoy it with an army of mooks hunting them down to be quarantined in the re-purposed asylum on the edge of town.

Nearly every page is an awesome, negated awesome, Oh, Crap! or Exposition-laden moment, often overlapping.

The original run ended in April 2016, with a reboot starting on January 2019. Unfortunately, the reboot would cease on October 2021, with the website eventually going down as well.

The original run can be read from the start on Internet Archive here.

The reboot can be read from the start on Internet Archive here.

Note that as of writing, all listed tropes currently relate to the original run.

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Suppression contains examples of:

• Achievements in Ignorance: Phylo is counting on this; the Ebon Creek crew have no knowledge of magic whatsoever, and any limits they have they haven't found... in sheer contrast of the people usually applying for an apprenticeship. As the rules of magic depend heavily on the mindset of the practitioner, and the rules of the plague are unknown to the cast, Phylo is thrilled to find a pupil that can actually learn and might give him a surprise down the line.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: The Undead and Plague users have this.
• Aerith and Bob: Thal'nasia sports strange names with families consisting of common names like Kevin, Trevor, Eric and John alongside Solstice, Figaro, Azgrut and Torblad.
• Alliterative Name: Many characters sport these kinds of names from Morris Miller (was actually lampshaded in his instance), William Wight and Garret "Iggy" Grenner
• All There in the Manual: The character page on the site has relevant information on the characters listed there and some odd ball trivia like how King Figaro grew his beard after watching The Lord of the Rings and Kevin being Good with Numbers.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Conversed by Iggy here. It's even the title of the page.
• Animal Motif: Azgrut and scorpions. His prosthetic eye has seven optics (making for a total of eight) and when he gets serious in a fight, he summons scorpion legs (complete with tail). Also, presuming he was responsible for the Demonslayer mechs, they also have a rather distinctive shape.
• Anti-Hero: The majority of the protagonists are this, such as Bael and Charlie.
• Anti-Magic: Ley Stone explicitly does this.
• Anti-Villain: Grenner is this half of the time. The other half is walking nightmare fuel.
  • The Wight King Law exhibits a shade of this it is revealed that he sacrificed his entire empire to stop the Forever War between the Wights and Thal'nasians and the monsters either side created in that war.
• Artificial Limbs: Phylo has a menacing-looking clawed arm replacing the one he lost during the Red Rebellion; he even calls it 'the freak hand' once (during a demand for coffee).
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Nick has red hair, Charlie's looks like he stuck his finger in a light socket and Victus has a very blue-themed outfit. Semi-justified with the plague users in Ebon Creek due to the Plague changing their appearance; the flashback arc shows them before they got the plague.
  • Whenever Kirk is holding or using Morty, a third forelock appears, dyed red. No one seems to notice...
• Authority in Name Only: Conversed about, mainly by the King of Thal'nasia, about how being royalty isn't all that great. He states the Royal Family of Thal'nasia does have some authority but it looks like it's mostly used to babysit The Council. The King then comments on how he's Surrounded by Idiots in political meetings.
  • The King being Surrounded by Idiots gets subverted (sort of), ironically, when Victus — the General of Rationality and Logic — is not at the first Council Meeting the humans attend. See Conservation of Competence.
• Badass Bookworm: Eric Duril.
• Badass Normal: Pre-plague Bael takes on a huge swarm of demons with little more than a lead pipe. He doesn't win, but dang if that scene doesn't take your respect for the guy up a notch.
  • Santris has this down to a pat. He's so far shown no sign of using magic or being infected with the Plague, and regardless seems to be masterminding half the plot around.
• Barrier-Busting Blow: Iggy does not have very much success with walls in Ebon Creek. The Demonslayer stands up to shoot over it, and Grenner just shatters the thing effortlessly. Justified in that he's working with either dried soil or mud, neither of which are particularly helpful. He implies that this happened the first time he made a wall, too.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Santris, Grenner, and Maxwell are pretty much equals, with the as-of undefined Bartleby as an equally powerful fourth agent. Now with the addition of the ancient Wight's King Law and Sigvaldi the Exile adding possibly more major villains with differing agendas.
• Big Brother Instinct: Alaster has a huge case of this, especially when it concerns his lovable sister, Meredith "Merry" Wight.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Kirk. Charlie and Alaster probably count, since they're equal parts wacky and dangerous.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Wights, along with Badass Family.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Arrie, Cerene, and Sally.
• Blood Knight: Alaster proceeds to kill a mook and then continue chatting up the guy's corpse.
  • Red Cerene, Sally, Demon King Grenner in the flashbacks... it is safe to say that, if they have the plague, they have a little (or not-so-little) voice in the back of their heads that is one of these; it can, and has, taken over and turned the infected into bloodthirsty monsters. Even Morris, but he managed to go back to how he was, and even help Sally return to "normal".
• Bloody Murder: Jericho's blood is acidic. He melts a sword in half while being cut. It's also purple.
  Trevor: Right through to the chainmail... dammit, I liked this shirt.
• Blood Magic: Arthur.
• Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: Kevin's Nightmare Sequence in the Hiatus Comic features a brief moment where Solstice as a child is wearing a damaged white sundress and is covered in blood.
• Body Horror: All over the place. The 'powers' introduced so far are either elemental manipulation or something horrifyingly organic. There's also the chance that demons actually are plagued humans who went too far.
• Body Snatcher: Bael does it in an especially Squicky manner; Word of God states that their body just goes under the host's skin and moves them around like they're some kind of body suit. Chew on that mental image.
• Born into Slavery: Charlie was born into a Fate Worse than Death, being a Meat Puppet for super zombie William Wight and forced to dig out an off-shoot of the Ley Line.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Seems to be Arthur's M.O. He complains in a mopey tone about how everything is going wrong and then just as casually says "anyway, time to rip your soul from your living flesh."
• Calling Your Attacks: Some, but not others. Kirk seems to do it mainly, but Trevor does it once. Incidentally, both were using Morty at the time.
  • It's a popular fandom theory that Morty comes up with the names.
• Cast Herd: While having numerous characters, Suppression does break them up into smaller groups and swaps focus between them.
• Chessmaster Sidekick: Maggie the Gravity Librarian is this for the head of the elven revolutionary group.
• Chess Motifs: Solstice's Shadow Golems have been named and modeled after chess pieces.
• Chew Toy: Nick. Poor Nick. He sort of earns it by running scared in the first few real scenes he gets, including flashbacks.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Torblad Corkwinder is the resident crazy person who speaks entirely in Word-Salad Humor. However, his strangeness is implied to be caused by some kind of incident that made him lose his marbles, and he's still aware of what is going on — maybe even to a heightened degree.
  • The revolutionary Lexi is worried that a Cuckoolander Was Right incident will occur and the criminal activity that she and her compatriots are doing will be revealed by him, especially since the city has no good places to hide in.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Cerene can 'prism' her personality into Red, Blue, and Grey Cerene, colored appropriately. Also, the flashback arc shows that many of the main characters' appearances have changed color from exposure to the Plague.
  • Also justified with mana, explanation starting here and continuing onto the next page. Incidentally, all the magic using characters have a "wavelength"/aura color that corresponds with the color mana they use and it identifies some of their personality traits at a glance. Many mage characters wear their wavelength color on their clothing, and it's particularly evident in the Elves. Natural Elven eye color is determined primarily by mana wavelength. See Technicolor Eyes.
• Conservation of Competence: Subverted. Surprisingly, the Council has been described as idiots by everyone and only earned the title of 'Prestigious Idiots' because their most prominent roles are as politicians which they are terrible at being. This makes it look like the only people that are competent at meetings are the military Generals. Otherwise, they are relatively intelligent, reasonable people.
  • Cerene plays this trope straight and manages to do this with herself, using her 'Mind Prism' to divide her personality traits. Red is her aggressiveness and her "cool badass beat-up-everyone ideas", grey is her stealth and cynicism, and blue is left with only her people skills and "the ditz brain".
• Cultural Posturing: Bartleby just oozes this when he doesn't even acknowledge the humans as relevant when scheming with Maggie about their evil plot. You can't argue with Bartleby after all because Thal'nasians are clearly better than everyone else.
• Cute Bruiser: Sally seems to swing between this and Blood Knight; puppy cute one minute and gleefully quoting Breaking Benjamin and punching out mooks the next. Though, the cute side seems only reserved for Bael.
• The Corruption: The Plague
• Dark Is Not Evil: Seemingly all sympathetic characters have shades of this, but especially Kirk. See that guy? The one in the spiky mook armor with a demon following him around? He's one of the nicest, not to mention funniest, characters introduced, and the resident Ensemble Dark Horse.
  • Morty himself could count, as he's a red-eyed Extreme Omnivore demon, and absolutely adorable. Also? The reason he's with Kirk is because Kirk was in a good mood and gave him a hug when they met.
  • Morris indirectly explains a secret to beating the madness of the plague: it's to not think of it strictly as a darkness infecting your mind, and instead as a part of who you are.
• Deader than Dead: The fate of Maxwell. His soul gets chugged by Arthur who assimilates his entire existence so he can't be raised.
• Death by Origin Story: A third of the Thal'nasian population via the Blood Red Rebellion (which for all intensive purposes is the Origin Story for many of the Thal'nasians), which includes several people like Azgrut: Royal Prince, the previous Red General: Horace Tyburn, and the majority of the Kuin and Brinks Family Lines.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Maxwell is killed by a sudden falling mook. Arthur proceeds to poke his corpse with one foot, sigh, and complain. Justified since they're a family of necromancers.
• Death Is Cheap: The villains have necromancers. An entire family of Necromancers. On top of that, even the protagonists seem to have ways of just coming back in the story. Take a look at Trevor's brother Eric who was killed and came back within five pages.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Charlie vs William Wight. It's also our first real indication that Charlie's been through more than he's letting on, and makes his Madness/Survival Mantra actually mean something.
• Doing in the Scientist / Doing In the Wizard: Played with- there are both scientific and magical explanations given.
• The Dragon: Maggie Tyburn for Bartleby.
• Dysfunction Junction: Everyone has a Dark and Troubled Past, period. No exceptions. What is scary is that all the events that causes everyone's problems might all be related to each other...
• Early-Bird Cameo: Sally can be seen punching Kirk in the face long before he's introduced as a significant character. Arthur also mentions Bartleby offhandedly before he's introduced in the Flashback Arc. Morris was also mentioned quite early on by Iggy before we actually see him.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Alaster, Gray Cerene, Merry and Arthur.
• Elemental Powers: A good number of the main cast
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Earthart Iggy, King Law Wight
  • Playing with Fire: Nick Adler, Arthur Wight and Bael in Victus's body.
  • Shock and Awe: Charlie Sergheist
  • An Ice Person: General John Victus
  • Casting a Shadow: Maxwell Wight, Solstice Disglair
  • Blow You Away: Meredith "Merry" Wight
  • Gravity Master: Maggie Tyburn
• Empathic Weapon / Equippable Ally: Morty seems to fit this role. So far he's been an arm cannon, a drill and a sword, also making him a Shapeshifter Weapon.
• Enforced Technology Levels: Trevor explains his frustrations with Thal'nasia's technology level to Nick where if they don't have a magical version of things like cellphones or computers, they plain do not have it. Trevor claims the elves are really a kind of magical-Amish and that human technology is more practical and will rant at length about it.
• Enigmatic Minion: Alaster, possibly. His intentions with those meat hooks may not be pure, but at least he seems to have his own ideas...
• Exotic Eye Designs: Seems to be a racial trait of the Thal'nasians. If you look carefully, Trevor, Arrie, and Victus have a darker band of color around the outside of their eye, making it look like their eyes are glowing. Arthur identifies Arrie as Thal'nasian at a glance, mentioning her eyes. Azgrut also has these same eyes, as does Bartleby Hayse. Victus also states that Azgrut is "clearly Thal'nasian".
• Exposition Fairy / Mr. Exposition: Pretty much any new character with new information is going to have to fill the other players in. Lampshaded often.
  • Solstice herself is practically Mr. Exposition to the point where she'll even cut in on the exposition of other characters to elaborate heavily on the topic at hand, as seen with Sigvaldi's Magic Lessons.
  Solstice: Would it be okay if I use another page for the rest of this discussion?
  Sigvaldi: You do realize it's called "Sigvaldi's" magic lesson, right?
• Extreme Omnivore: Justified in that demons incorporate what they eat into their anatomy. Morty's position as a weapon is because his diet seems to consist mostly of guns and a paper cutter, fed to him by an observant Kirk.
• Faceless Goons: Subverted. When Bael slaughters a group of mooks, Kirk proceeds to stop and give a touching eulogy "From one nobody to another" Of course, then they turn out to be zombies...
• Figure It Out Yourself: When Bael suggests to copy Charlie's abilities, albeit to get Victus a new body, Charlie outright refuses. You can't blame him though after he got body hijacked by Bael before and wasn't happy about it.
• First-Name Basis: It's noted that Coin is the only person that seems to identify Victus by his first-name and the plainness of the name is Lampshaded by Charlie.
  Coin: Wait. Are you saying you know what happened to John?
  Charlie: Zzzhahahahaha! You're kidding me! His name is something as fucking normal as John?
• Four-Star Badass: The Generals of Thal'nasia. It has been mentioned that Victus alone could freeze the entirety of Ebon Creek.
• Funny Background Event: A rather serious standoff between Iggy and Bael is interspersed by comments from Kirk and Nick. Nick does this so often it could be his M.O.
• Gas Mask Mooks: Kirk before losing his mask, along with the rest of the troop that got taken out.
• Glass Cannon: Charlie could almost qualify as a Squishy Wizard.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Occasionally shown with the mages that Bael supercharges with his Plague abilities (i.e. Iggy in the asylum elevator).
• Golem: These are things that exist and the creation of them are actually specialities of certain characters. William in particular is a prime example from Sigvaldi.
  • Solstice creates adorable Shadow Elemental ones that do chores.
  • Azgrut has been credited with making death robots that are actually a type of Golem within the context of the world.
• Good Is Not Nice: While Bael may be helping the main characters, he's certainly not pulling any punches. Word of God even compares him to Jet in that aspect.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Deconstructed, as it's shown that regenerating your body through Plague powers actually furthers the infection, but people do certainly seem to walk off a lot of pretty nasty wounds like getting your hands cut off, for example, though Charlie was really not happy about that. There comes a point in which your whole body will be made entirely of Plague Bile; should the infected maintain a grip on their sanity, like Cerene...
  Cerene: (With bars running her through the gut and chest) Just because I can't feel this doesn't mean I'm not completely pissed you did that...
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Mara Kuin. This mainly is due to Mara taking the place of Horace Tyburn who is pretty universally reviled in Thal'nasia for his actions when he was still around but the Red Division is implied to have a poor reputation as a whole with Tyburn not being an isolated case.
  Trevor: As for General Kuin... red is red.
• Heroic Willpower: Not quite heroic, but Grenner managed to retain his mind despite The Corruption hitting him hard, and even falling into the Ley Line and being assaulted by all of its demons couldn't drown out his voice. Even William Wight, for all of his power, was repelled by his sheer will. Pointed out via Alt Text.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: This troper very nearly ships Flashback-arc Iggy and Bael.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: No one knows what the hell is up with Santris. He just makes weapons and looks cool occasionally, but is in contact with every high-profile villain in the comic.
• Hidden Elf Village: Thal'nasia is an entire city/country of elves in hiding because of their previous conflict with the Wights. It's also reinforced that they don't like Humans because of the Wights. See Untrusting Community
• How Do I Shot Web?: Iggy figured out how to use his power because he "would have killed for a wall" at the time. Kirk makes it very apparent that he has no idea what he's doing, but it doesn't seem to slow him down much.
  Kirk: Do you have any idea what that means? Well, the fun truth of it is, I don't have a clue either. *cue Slasher Smile* Let's find out together, huh?
  Iggy: For the record, that's the dumbest threat I've ever heard.
• I Always Wanted to Say That: BEHOLD AN ELF WITH A BEARD! Trevor tops it off saying he always thought the king was kidding when he always wanted to say that.
• Improbable Age: Mara Kuin is only in her teens but is General of the Red Division of Thal'nasia militia.
• Innate Night Vision: Solstice Disglair allegedly has this and is actually quite comfortable doing paperwork in pitch-black darkness. She's even called out for it by other people.
• In-Series Nickname: "Merry" is an Affectionate Nickname from her brother Alaster, to which she insists on being called by it rather than her real name. "Sammy" for Samantha Wight is also another one, but instead she insists on being called her first name. Charlie as The Nicknamer conveniently gives everyone meaningful nicknames in the form of mythological references. "Sol" may or may not be an Affectionate Nickname from Kevin for Solstice (so far, no one has asked if it is).
• Insanity Immunity: Charlie has this in spades and people are rather interested in also acquiring this immunity due to the fact that William the super zombie will take over people's minds and kill them from the inside without it.
• Insistent Terminology: "Earth-art" Iggy; of course, it's pretty hard to tell what anyone's real name is.
• Instant Runes: Appear whenever Trevor summons his weapons. Said runes are also all over the resulting object.
• It's All My Fault: Trevor seems to think so, concerning Arrie's brother.
• Lampshading: On its way to Better than a Bare Bulb; notably when Arrie is the only one who is called out on using "action movie lines", apparently because she sucks at them.
• Large Ham: Coin is shown to become a Large Ham when he tries to be The Idealist and is constantly harped for it by his peers. Kevin also turns into one when he tries to Invoke various superhero tropes.
• Last-Name Basis: General John Victus often just goes by General Victus or just plain Victus and is better known as Victus.
• Light Is Not Good: So far, two people show up in a white suit. Charlie sports one in the Flashback Arc, where he's completely nuts, and Bartleby, who has already shown several telltale signs of being a powerful dangerous villain.
• Lethal Harmless Powers: Arrie makes portals. She killed Maxwell with nothing but that and a bit of handy terminal velocity.
• Ley Line: Important part of the plot and backstory. Thal'nasia has an artificial Ley Line of admittedly lesser yield when compared to a natural one. The Wights' and Santris Industries's attempt to dig into a natural one caused the mana in Ebon Creek to stop flowing, which is the source of the demons.
• Little Dead Riding Hood: Averted with Red Cerene, who is both aggressive and has some nasty looking claws. She doesn't quite fit Lady in Red, either.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: What the Plague hands out like candy to it's victims. But most notably Kirk, Cerene, Bael, Grenner and Kolt.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Inverted. Nathan Grenner and Iggy are Father and Son respectively and are highly aware of this fact. The only people who didn't know about this were the main cast and the audience.
• Magical Incantation: Lampshaded. Eric refers to Magical Incantation as an outdated form of spellcasting but is forced to use it anyway when the spell he wants to cast requires it.
• Magitech: If the elves don't have a magical version of certain technologies, they plain don't have them and is one of the reasons Thal'nasia seems to be so incredibly backwater.
• Mana: Source of life, magic and a force of nature, flowing through the Leylines in various ways.
  • Demons and the Bile associated with them are actually mana so thick it has become sludge.
• Magic Prerequisite: To become a spellslinger in the world of Suppression, it turns out magic works exactly how you think it does with the most common Magic Prerequisite being a strong desire for something/a solution to a problem; the key to unlocking magical powers being you need to be in a high-mana environment when this thought process occurs. Usually, being in those specific conditions will cause you to develop a specific style of magic as a response to wanting to change reality in a specific way.
• Mental World: As there are body jumpers with The Plague, you often dive into the heads of various characters and see their mental landscape as they converse with who they jump into. The one seen the most is Victus', as both he and Bael have a Symbiotic Possession thing going on with the second being Cerene because Charlie hangs out in her head(s) quite often.
• Mind-Control Eyes: People controlled by William get large, blank round ones.
• Mook–Face Turn: Happens off screen to Kirk when he's left for dead after a fight early in the story.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: It's hard to believe Dr. Kolt ever actually helped people. Grenner, on the other hand, is so far the nicest introduced villain, not counting Azgrut who seems to just want to be left alone.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: A few characters have quite the set of gnashers, most noticeably Alaster. Sally also sports these, but that's only when her temper runs unchecked (or possibly her bloodlust; she smiles with prominent fangs in an early scene after beating an entire troop of mooks.
• Mundane Utility: Iggy uses his powers to sculpt; later, Nick is seen using his to see better in a dark tunnel.
  • Everything produced by Trevor's Hammerspace is covered in runes. Up to and including a clipboard and pen he uses to write a letter.
  • Solstice's Golems are used for everything from filing papers to serving coffee and snacks.
  • Phylo uses his claw hand to stab a muffin and eat it, the casualness of the whole thing implying that he uses his claw (likely enchanted or the product of Magitek) instead of a fork.
• Must Have Caffeine: Phylo enters the scene telling Solstice that "coffee better find its way to the good hand or your neck is going to find its way to the freak hand", and Kevin almost made it to the council chamber and is later seen imbibing dozens of cups of coffee. Justified since they were called at 4 AM.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: Almost as often as the actual moments. Notably whatever Kirk was going to do to break down the doors and pretty much any time Iggy uses his powers in battle. He still manages to somehow be a badass, though.
• Nightmare Sequence: Kevin's dream in the Hiatus Comic which has elements of a Flashback Nightmare. He also acknowledges that the nightmare is an incorrect account of past events and is indicative of something different than what it is.
  Kevin: Of course... That wasn't real. You would think of all things my head would get that right if I'm really that hung up about it.
• No-Respect Guy: Nick can't even get attention when he lights himself on fire.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Arthur mostly just mopes and complains. He gets bossed around by nearly everyone, including his own daughter. He's also an extremely powerful necromancer and one of the most dangerous villains in the whole comic.
• Official Couple: Bael and Sally; Trevor and Arrie may be... the alt text pointed out a She Is Not My Girlfriend moment.
• Oh, Crap!: "Unfortunately this is a pretty accurate re-enactment."
  • The appearance of William Wight, boogeyman of the magical community. And his reputation is well deserved.
• Only Sane Man: Nick may be approaching this; while Iggy, Kirk, and Trevor are pretty sane themselves, they just tend to roll with the weirdness as it goes on. Of course, Trevor is an elf who lives in a community of crazy people. He has to be able to roll with the weird.
  • Arrie seems to be shaping up as an Only Sane Woman for the Asylum team.
• Personality Powers: Downplayed with Nick as it's shown that Nick has a temper, but he's not nearly as hotheaded as the classic 'Fire person' is. Inverted with Sally as Sally's violent tendencies are because of her Plague infection, rather than the other way around. Inverted with Charlie as well as Charlie was batshit insane in the flashback arc, but seems to have since gained coherence if nothing else.
• Playing with Syringes: One of the many, many things that makes Kolt really unnerving.
• Plot-Based Voice Cancellation: It's very clear that Kevin and Solstice had a conversation during his Nightmare Sequence but it's purposely obscured. Clearly the dialogue was enough to reveal a small portion of Solstice's back story, but not enough to fully understand what they were talking about before he wakes up.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Morty is positively tiny compared to the demons we've seen so far and yet has been instrumental in killing one and wiped the smirk off of Nigh-Invulnerable Jericho. Admittedly, he's been working with Kirk, but still.
• Pointy Ears: All the elves, unsurprisingly, have long pointed ears, which is noted by Trevor as one of the differences between them and humans. The other being their strangely Genre Savvy, geek-like, over-the-top culture but a culture with Enforced Technology Levels that favors Magic-only tech.
• Poisonous Person: Jericho
• Power Glows: With in-universe explanation, see Color-Coded for Your Convenience.
• Promotion to Parent: Phylo raised Mara, his niece, since she was toddler... Unfortunately, also gearing her up to be a child soldier because it was cool.
• Psychic Static: Charlie is too chaotic, insane, and/or determined to be mind-controlled, even by a monster like William. Directly referenced. Heck, even his eyes and mouth are displaying TV static all the time.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Azgrut appears, berates the heroes for beating up on his killer robot, and then tells them to shut up and go upstairs. He's so far made no effort whatsoever to stop the heroes.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Ebon Creek crew is composed completely out of survivors of an apocalyptic event. The Council of Thal'nasia is also composed of people who are designated representatives of their organizations but are terrible at being politicians and are incredibly disorganized.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: The demons and the plagued, mostly. Invoked but Subverted For Laughs with Morty and all weapons and armor derived from him, while Red Cerene and Full Demon mode Sally are a regular subversion. Justified In-Universe: Plague Bile, being concentrated stagnant Mana (which is really bad) is black, and red mana corresponds to primal forces of nature and raw instincts; both of them combine to produce the demons, and they happen to have an adverse effect on the human psyche.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Red is the go-to color for people who have the Plague such as Sally, Bael, Red Cerene; Arthur's glasses flash red when he's about to get nasty. Also subverted with Morty, who is ridiculously lovable, and Grenner, who despite being a villain, seems to be one of the more moral, sympathetic characters introduced so far.
  • And played terrifyingly straight with Demon Form Grenner. HUGE red eyes that take up the majority of his face. No discernible irises or sclera. Looks like Slenderman. Need I say more?
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: A lot of characters fit the bill for both Red Oni and Blue Oni and usually have a normal pairing which are but not limited to: Bael/Victus, Sally/Arrie, Sally/Morris, Coin/Mara, Coin/Victus, Alaster/Merry and Kevin/Solstice
• Required Secondary Powers: Pretty much anyone with powers has them.
  • General John Victus is immune to freezing himself
  • Nick doesn't burn himself or his clothes using his fire abilities. Very handy.
  • Maggie Tyburn is relatively immune to the effects of gravity. That has to be a requirement when you make black holes of doom.
  • Charlie can't shock himself into oblivion... Which is mostly true... It's subverted in his flashback as he's telling the other characters of his personal history to an extent. He fried himself to death then because he was standing in water when he used his powers.
  • Bael conveniently gives immunity to the abilities he uses to the host he possesses.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Trevor.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Happens with Arthur ALL THE TIME. ALL THE TIME.
• Seven Deadly Sins: Confirmed by the author here. All the major villains and ex-villains are/were at some point, the representatives for one of the sins.
  • Envy: Bartleby
  • Gluttony: Demon King (Or some demon based villain)
  • Lust: Kolt
  • Pride: Maxwell
  • Sloth: Arthur
• Shout-Out: Some characters seem to have frequent references to a specific show/game/what have you.
  • Kirk and Homestuck
  • Trevor and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, though that's probably because of his blatant use of DRILLS.
  • Arrie and Portal, understandably.
  • Charlie has/gives a few well-placed One Piece references. The author has confirmed this.
  • Sally misses playing Silent Hill. Often quotes Heavy Metal as well.
• Shown Their Work: The explanation on why mana glows is very well thought-out. Also, Charlie clearly needs either a connection with his target or electricity to already be present before he can zap it- he doesn't shoot lightning.
• Sigil Spam: The logos for the Wight Family and Santris Industries, a Slasher Smile mask and a skull shaped gear respectively, can be found everywhere. All the Wights wear some trinket with the mask on it and the Gas Mask Mooks wear both symbols. Thal'nasia has the symbol for the city EVERYWHERE.
• Sinister Scythe: Lampshaded and Discussed. Merry's weapon is a scythe and she KNOWS it's a terrible weapon, to the point of practically quoting the page this trope uses to define it.
  Merry: It's a farming tool. It's reputation is just an extended metaphor for the harvesting of the undead.
  Alaster: And these are meat hooks; they're used to hang meat. Your argument is invalid.
  Merry: It's not a good weapon! You can't kill things with symbolism!
• Smug Super: Jericho is Nigh-Invulnerable. He's also a huge jerk about it.
• Soul Bottle: As there are liches involved, it was to be expected. The soul is bound to a medium like water, then stored for ease of revival. It can be done to any soul, it's just that liches are necromancers capable of raising themselves.
• Spikes of Villainy: Morris's Demon form (whom the author admits looks very demonic), given his powers, and Kirk's/Morty's Ragnarok Aegis, which was deliberately designed to look as villainous as possible despite their actual disposition.
• Symbiotic Possession: Victus and Bael.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Bael gets immobilized, yet his mouth still works, a fact which he takes full advantage of.
• Technicolor Eyes: The various Elves and mages can sport a myriad of different eye colors due to being able to change their eye color at-will. On top of that, the natural color of eyes for Elves is a reflection of what mana wavelength they have, with the most common being Blue and Green but with cases of bright Gold and Yellow eyes for some.
• There Are No Therapists: Poor, poor everyone. Justified in that everyone lived in a closed off society where everyone else is dead or horrifyingly undead (Ebon Creek), or lived in an "ideal" society that never really expected anything bad to happen (Thal'nasia)... Or they are Demon King Grenner, who is an actual therapist, but is in no position to help anyone with their emotional trauma. Grenner, rather, creates emotional trauma just with his presence.
• The Undead/Elite Zombie: The Wights thematic. All of them except their two necromancers are undead, and each one plays to a different archetype.
  • Maxwell Wight is a Vampire.
  • Arthur Wight is a Necromancer, who later becomes a Lich.
  • Alaster Wight is a Ghoul or Feral Zombie.
  • Sammantha Wight is an Undead Child.
  • Jericho Wight is based on the "toxic zombie" archetype, although he works off toxic breath and blood rather than stomach juices.
  • King Law is a Death Knight.
  • Sigvaldi the Exile is a Lich.
  • William Wight is a Flesh Golem, with the added remix of being powered by Souls. Lots and lots of souls.
  • Eric Duril, while not a Wight, is raised by them, and becomes the token Ghost.
  • Azgrut, again, is not a wight, but his cybernetic appearance plays off the Artificial Zombie trope, even if he was raised the normal way. He was just missing a few parts that needed to be replaced afterwards.

• Transformation Trinket: Kevin's belt and bracelets.
• Undeathly Pallor: Apparently this is the main trait of the Wights. Samantha is greenish, Maxwell, Alaster, William and Jericho are gray, and Arthur just looks like a guy who could probably use a tan.
  • Azgrut may well have nothing to do with the Wights, but with the huge bags under his eye and the bluish skin, he Looks Like Cesare.
• Training the Gift of Magic: It's perfectly possible that one can try to work magic with theory and very rigid, technical magic such as runes and magic circles without fulfilling the Magic Prerequisite of obtaining your unique style of magic, but you won't get very far as told by Trevor.
  Trevor: Here I am, being the magic guy of the team and you and Iggy are the ones with actual elements. I just know runes.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Grenner notes how Mara's behavior is very troubling as she attempts to be threatening before stating he's going to be closely monitored.
• Untrusting Community: Thal'nasia and humans. Justified since their biggest confrontation with humans happened to be the Wights and their zombie legions. The party only gets a free pass because the Thal'nasian government doesn't believe they are harmful and because their laws were specifically created in response to humans who abuse magic; the party is only looking for help with their magical problems.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Even characters who are new to Ebon Creek tend to set aside the arbitrary scepticism fast. Arrie seems to take demon-form Sally right in stride, though she's visibly shaken at first.
  • Nick gets angry enough to spontaneously combust. Trevor nonchalantly continues the conversation and then, as an afterthought, asks him to put himself out, because he's writing on flammable paper.
• Wall of Blather: In full swing here thanks to Solstice's exposition tendencies. What makes it worse is that the author states there's apparently more than just plot relevant information that no one can see as they're obscured by the characters.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Grenner just 'really' wants to cure the Plague. After seeing what it can DO to people, and has already done to him, can you BLAME the guy?
• What's Up, King Dude?: Averted. The party can get an audience with the King and Council of Thal'nasia because they were with a renowned military General of Thal'nasia and Arrie, the Princess of Thal'nasia. Though, the King seems to have no qualms about who visits him as long as they're nice and won't murder everyone.
• Which Me?: Cerene's powers include having three slightly independent bodies. She/they have a lot of trouble deciding what pronouns to use for each other-self.
• White Shirt of Death: Flashback-arc Charlie is decked out in white when he picks a fight with Alaster and Merry; one comment even notes "you’re our man in the white suit, Charlie, time to get some stains." While Charlie doesn't die this encounter, he at least acknowledges the threat the Wight kids pose.
  • Solstice in Kevin's Nightmare Sequence very briefly shown wearing a damaged white sundress that has blood stains and is implied to be a memory from the Blood Red Rebellion where many people died in the crossfire between the Reds and everyone else.
• Willing Channeler: Sally for Bael.
• World of Snark: Almost all of the funny comes from the character reactions to what is otherwise a rather dark setting.
• Word-Salad Humor: Torblad Corkwinder speaks entirely in Word-Salad Humor and has his own Translator Buddy. The Translator Buddy looks very much like a Cloudcuckoolander's Minder too, as she tries to calm him down so he doesn't wake anyone in the middle of the night with his insane exclamations and doesn't seem happy to do it.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Santris sports some of these and is known to be a villain with a hidden agenda. Solstice is also known to naturally have Yellow-Gold eyes and actively hides them, possibly trying to defy this trope, as it's hinted that Yellow eyes have a strange stigma surrounding them in Thal'nasia that may or may not be true.

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