History Literature / BjornWestlanderAgentRetriever

* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame - played with. Dwarven women don't have beards, instead of underground lairs dwarves live in stone-walled forts (although usually with a sizable underground part), but they're still {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s who have AnAxeToGrind with goblins.

More notable tropes involved:
* AdventurerArchaeologist - Bjorn. "Retriever Agent", because his (low paid and dangerous) job is based on retrieving ancient artifacts from ancient ruins for the Royal College of Magic.
* ApocalypseHow, Class 1 - roughly six centuries earlier, the [[AristocratsAreEvil Duke of Ascaron]] and his EvilChancellor used a magical equivalent of a WMD to [[TheTokyoFireball nuke the Imperial capital of Cair Olanna]]. Disturbances in the BackgroundMagicField caused [[SoiledCityOnAHill magical feedback of proportional size to tear the whole province apart]], destroyed or severely damaged human {{Magitek}} devices, caused a deadly illness among the elves and threw the magic-dependent human society into disorder.
* AnArmAndALeg - Enis loses her right arm and eye to a malfunctioning firelance wand.

* BrainyBrunette - [[spoiler:Dianthe Auvert/Annathea Vico. A self-taught adept, who patched up Bjorn when he was injured in an avalanche.]]
* CameBackWrong - [[spoiler:Dianthe Auvert/Annathea Vico. Trying to save her from a mortal wound, Bjorn [[DamagedSoul accidentally absorbed part of her soul]] (thing that often happens to necromancers trying to raise the dead), [[HeroicBSOD going mad]] for some time (he got better, though) and sending her into a state of FauxDeath. A real necromancer, Sartorius Vico, brings her to life later, amnesiac and subconsciously seeking Bjorn to get the missing shard of her soul back and with it, her memories.]]
** LossOfIdentity - [[spoiler:Annathea Vico. After Bjorn accidentally absorbs her memories, Dianthe is manipulated by Sartorius Vico's attempt of "restoring" her memories (in fact, feeding her with FakeMemories) and assumes identity of Vico's student and lover.]]
** EmbarrassingTattoo - [[spoiler: Annathea Vico. She has a necromantic seal (the Sigil of Scoran Daith) tattooed around the spear wound on her back by Sartorius Vico as a failsafe should she ever try to get away from him. Bjorn "disarms" it when he gives the missing part of Dianthe's soul back, but the symbol itself stays.]]
* CharacterTitle - in case you were wondering...

* FiveManBand - slightly subverted, as even if they're TheHero's friends, they rarely appear as a band.
** TheHero - Bjorn
** TheLancer - Angelo, who usually serves as a by-the-book StraightMan to ChaoticGood and reckless Bjorn.
** TheBigGuy - Collech, a very typical Dwarf.
** TheSmartGuy - [[spoiler: Dianthe]]
** TheChick - Enis Kalder, the DisabledLoveInterest with an EyepatchOfPower. [[spoiler: Bjorn helps her overcome her fear of magic and pulls some of the few strings he has at his disposal at the College to provide her with real magic training. Then she becomes his assistant.]]
* KnightInShiningArmor - Angelo, being a paladin and a [[CircuitJudge Royal Assessor]]. Befriends Bjorn during one of his investigations.
* LadyOfBlackMagic - [[spoiler:Dianthe Auvert/Annathea Vico. After being [[BrokenBird messed up big time]] by her two lovers, she decides she'll do best on her own.]]
* MagicKnight - Bjorn. In addition to his archaeological knowledge and mechanical skills (mostly based around lockpicking), he can handle a sword and some simple spells (night vision, [[ElementalPunch instant KO punch]], braking the fall with a magical salvo directed straight downwards, etc).
** FullContactMagic - whenever Bjorn needs to rip a chunk of magic out of the environment and hurl it somewhere, he does so with a wide swing.

** ElvesVsDwarves - [[{{Subversion}} subverted]], although only in creator's notes.
* OurGoblinsAreDifferent - yeah. They're a [[FantasyCounterpartCulture fantasy equivalent]] of your typical [[TheHorde barbarian horde]] - they raid or, if they're not numerous enough, steal.
* OurOrcsAreDifferent - close to the Blizzard version, dark-skinned {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s from the South, often falling victim to human and dark elven slavers.
* OurZombiesAreDifferent[[OverlyLongGag , too]] - they come in two kinds: [[DemonicPossession demonically possessed]] Revenants (type R) and mindless, automaton-like Servants (type V). And then, there's [[spoiler: Dianthe]] [[CameBackWrong coming back wrong...]]
* PsychicNosebleed - happens to Bjorn if he overtaxes himself using magic. In "The Black Tower" he gets one casting a haste spell.
* {{Retcon}} - of ''Literature/SarrissFromTheBlackHarbor''. A lot of things is taken from there, then hammered into new things.
* TheRightHandOfDoom - Bjorn's armored gauntlet (actually, the LEFT hand of doom). He uses it to deflect sword strikes and as a filter for magical energy for casting his spells.

* ThemeNaming - accidental up to [[spoiler: Dianthe]].
** AlphabeticalThemeNaming - see above. It came out purely by accident, with the exception of Enis, who was renamed from "Anis" to fit better.
** {{Tuckerization}} - the first four are named after the author and his friends. Angelo and Bjorn are named after Pete The Paladin's and @/NotSoBadassLongcoat's old D&D characters (although Angelo's surname is changed from the original). Collech derives from Dan The Barrel's surname. [[spoiler:Dianthe Auvert is named after Blue Oni's old blog title (Green Carnation - "carnation" in Latin is "dianthus", and "au vert" is French for "in green")]].
** ReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming - Angelo's surname, "van Logenswaard" means "Lakesword" in the fictional Haernian language and is a reference to the [[Myth/KingArthur Arthurian myth]]. His name is actually less symbolic.
* ThunderboltIron - Bjorn's sword is made from starsteel, an alloy of meteoric iron and trace amounts of mithril. Yes, magically crafted. No, not an InfinityPlusOneSword.
* WizardingSchool - The Haern Royal College Of Magic.

* ChildhoodNickname - "Copperblade" for Bjorn. When he was a kid, his father, a blacksmith, made a kid-sized copper sword for him. Rest of the neighborhood kids had wooden ones.

** ReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming - Angelo's surname, "van Logenswaard" means "Lakesword" in the fictional Haernian language and is a reference to the [[KingArthur Arthurian myth]]. His name is actually less symbolic.

A fantasy series by @/NotSoBadassLongcoat. Bjorn Westlander, a failed magic student (but not by his own fault), becomes a [[AdventurerArchaeologist retriever agent]] for the Royal College of Magic, searching for artifacts from a previous era in a world shaken up by a [[ApocalypseHow large-scale magical disaster]]. Jokingly described as a crossover between IndianaJones and [[TheWitcher Geralt]], Bjorn is a witty, dashing rogue with both fighting abilities and basic magic powers.

* OurElvesAreDifferent - there are five elven tribes: dark-skinned High Elves who live on a large tropical island south of the Black Harbor, Dark Elves who look identical to High Elves but are [[EvilCounterpart way nastier]] and were exiled east to the fantasy counterpart of Africa, noticeably paler Sea Elves who live near or together with humans and are known as skilled sailors and traders, Wood Elves who (CaptainObvious) live in forests and Snow Elves - living in stone fortresses in the mountains. With Dwarves.

* OurOrcsAreDifferent - close to the Blizzard version, dark-skinned {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s from the South, often falling victim to human and dark elven slavers. [[UnfortunateImplications Uh oh.]]

* {{Conlang}} - boy howdy. Haernian, used for surnames and some geographical names, sounds like a mixture of Dutch, German and some English. Elven is mostly English made to sound like Gaelic, although with some references thrown in (ie. "saim" means "snake" and "hann" means "home", so [[{{Warhammer40000}} Saim-]][[OurElvesAreDifferent Hann]] means roughly "home of the snake"). Imperial is based on Latin and Greek - Angelo's name is derived from "''an celos''", meaning "of the skies", with "c" being pronounced "tch". Also, most of this stuff gets improvised as the writing goes along and then edited for consistency.

* ApocalypseHow, Class 1 - roughly six centuries earlier, the [[AristocratsAreEvil Duke of Ascaron]] and his EvilChancellor used a magical equivalent of a WMD to [[TheTokyoFireball nuke the Imperial capital of Cair Olanna]]. Disturbances in the BackgroundMagicField caused [[SoiledCityOnAHill magical feedback of proportional size to tear the whole province apart]], destroyed or severely damaged human {{Magitek}} devices, caused a deadly illness among the elves and threw the magic-dependent human society into disorder.

* DarkAndTroubledPast - Enis is afraid of using magic after a malfunctioning wand blew off her whole right arm and damaged her right eye. This doesn't stop her from unleashing a telekinetic storm around when scared. Also, when first introduced, she's a beggar.

* RetCon - of ''Literature/SarrissFromTheBlackHarbor''. A lot of things is taken from there, then hammered into new things.

* ShoutOut - one of the scholars responsible for modern theory of magic is named [[Webcomic/OrderOfTheStick Varsuvius of Boerloo]].

* TakeThatMe - author's low-paid government job is way more boring and doesn't allow any extra income "on the side".

** TheChick - Enis Kalder, the DisabledHottie with an EyepatchOfPower. [[spoiler: Bjorn helps her overcome her fear of magic and pulls some of the few strings he has at his disposal at the College to provide her with real magic training. Then she becomes his assistant.]]

* CameBackWrong - [[spoiler:Dianthe Auvert/Annathea Vico. Trying to save her from a mortal wound, Bjorn [[DamagedSoul accidentally absorbed part of her soul]] (thing that often happens to necromancers trying to raise the dead), [[HeroicBSOD going mad]] for some time ([[IGotBetter he got better]], though) and sending her into a state of FauxDeath. A real necromancer, Sartorius Vico, brings her to life later, amnesiac and subconsciously seeking Bjorn to get the missing shard of her soul back and with it, her memories.]]