Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* MonsterProgenitor: In a non-evil example, King Steam is the forefather of all Free State steammen, and personally approves and programs every one of them (except the occasional "mutable"; see GrewBeyondTheirProgramming). It's not known where ''he'' came from, but he's definitely thousands of years old at least.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
* FantasticRacism: The otherwise-moral steammen have no tolerance for dead or damaged steammen whose bodies have been "contaminated" by human-crafted or siltempter replacement parts. Such "desecrations" are shunned if they refuse to commit suicide as social pressure dictates. "Mutables" - mu-bodies who achieve consciousness through repeated use, rather than being designed by King Steam - aren't very welcomed either.
Changed line(s) 62 (click to see context) from:
* HumanSubspecies: Craynarbians and graspers are offshoots of humanity, adapted for survival in (respectively) the HungryJungle of Liongeli and underground caverns that offered shelter from an ice age. Gill-necks are an ocean-adapted variant that pre-dated the Ice Age by thousands of years.
to:
* HumanSubspecies: Craynarbians and graspers are offshoots of humanity, adapted for survival in (respectively) the HungryJungle of Liongeli and underground caverns that offered shelter from an ice age. Gill-necks are an ocean-adapted variant that pre-dated the Ice Age by thousands of years. Ursines are obliquely implied to be related to humans, at least in being descended from primates.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
* SharkMan: The praetorian guard of the Caliph Eternal consists entirely of ogre-sized shark/human hybrids, cooked up by womb mages and programmed for absolute loyalty to the true Caliph. [[spoiler: Which is why the grand vizier tries to have them all dirt-gassed when he does away with the duplicate he's been manipulating.]]
Changed line(s) 105 (click to see context) from:
* TooImportantToWalk: The Baroness of the House of Ush. The Caliph Eternal of Cassarabia too.
to:
* TimeAbyss: The earliest prehistoric civilizations of Jackels' Earth to be referenced in the books date back ''at least'' five million years. Even its all-but-forgotten ancient cities were built on top of the fragmentary remnants of ''previous'' ancient cities.
* TooImportantToWalk: The Baroness of the House of Ush. The Caliph Eternal of Cassarabia too. The Great Sage of Kaliban rides a self-hovering litter; justified because he's ''really really'' old.
* TooImportantToWalk: The Baroness of the House of Ush. The Caliph Eternal of Cassarabia too. The Great Sage of Kaliban rides a self-hovering litter; justified because he's ''really really'' old.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* BearsAreBadNews: Especially when they're immense, vicious, and alarmingly-crafty ursks, which roam in packs rather than alone like regular bears.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* NewChildLeftBehind: [[spoiler: Purity Drake is the daughter of Jared Black, by way of this trope. Infiltrating the royal breeding house in his youth, he became involved with an interned female co-conspirator, but believed she'd died in the crossfire when his spy operation was exposed. Jared doesn't learn that his lover had survived being shot ''or'' that she was pregnant until Purity turns up on his doorstep, unaware they're related and motherless since the events of book 1.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* CallingCard: Charlotte leaves cards with her art-thief alias "Sable Caracal" at the scenes of each robbery, to the delight of the Middlesteel press. Deconstructed in that she's ''not'' just doing so to be theatrical and/or to taunt the police, but to ensure that potential purchasers of the artwork she steals will know it's the '''Cat'''-gibbon they should speak to in order to make an offer for it.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* AlienSea: The Fire Sea is a region of ocean underlain by intense volcanic activity, dominated by submarine-cooking Boils and fast-growing mutant corals that thrive on heat.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* FictionalEarth: ''Possibly'' the case, as implied by a smattering of references to artifacts, lost cities, and age-old beliefs ... but if it ''is'' Earth, it's so far into the future that ''even long-vanished Camlantis'' only knew of our own era from sparse archaeological evidence.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* TownWithADarkSecret: Wainsmouth, during the Army of Shadows' occupation of Jackels.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* GoingNative: An accusation leveled at the Observer and Septimoth for having spent too much time among humans.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* [[TheMagicGoesAway The Science Goes Away]]: The laws of (meta)physics are said to have changed since ancient times, with the Black-Oil Horde's petroleum-powered vehicles and gunpowder weapons being non-functional in the current era. Electricity, implied to have once been safely utilized, has become so unpredictable and dangerous - on par with it being ''radioactive'' - that only the terminally-reckless or the transaction-engine operators of Jago still risk being near it.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: Camlantis had this reputation. [[spoiler: And apparently lived up to it for a good long time ... at least, until their civil war.]]
Changed line(s) 38 (click to see context) from:
* EmpathicWeapon: Several. Notably in ''The Court of the Air'', a legendary Steaman weapon is shown to be sentient, and it seems that the others are as well.
to:
* EmpathicWeapon: Several. Notably in ''The Court of the Air'', a legendary Steaman Steamman weapon is shown to be sentient, and it seems that the others are as well.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* TheAce: Business tycoon, aeronautical designer, and [[spoiler: UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans OmnicidalManiac]] Abraham Quest.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* TwoLinesNoWaiting: Each novel mainly focuses on two protagonists who are having separate, yet ultimately linked, adventures.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* BookEnds: ''The Kingdom Beyond The Waves'' both starts and ends with one of its dual protagonists giving their faithful companion an unothodox-to-Jackelians funeral appropriate to their culture: Amelia leaves her archaeological sidekick Mombiko to return to Nature where he lies, and Cornelius [[spoiler: has Damson Beeton serve up Septimoth's roasted carcass at a banquet]].
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* CouldntFindAPen: Jared Black duels and impales a villain near the first novel's ending, in the middle of a snowy field. The villain attempts to leave a DyingClue as to Black's true identity, but the snow on which he scrawls his bloody message melts away before anyone finds his body.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 31 (click to see context) from:
* CrystalDragonJesus: The Circlist Church doesn't believe in gods, yet it ''does'' have parsons, archbishops, confessionals and sermons ... they just confess to ''irrational'' thoughts, not sinful ones. The defunct Child of Light faith from pre-Commonshare Quatershift has Christian overtones. Cassarabia has some of the motifs of Crystal Dragon Islam.
to:
* CrystalDragonJesus: The Circlist Church doesn't believe in gods, yet it ''does'' have parsons, archbishops, confessionals and sermons ... they just confess to ''irrational'' thoughts, not sinful ones. The defunct Child of Light faith from pre-Commonshare Quatershift has Christian overtones. Cassarabia has some of the motifs of Crystal Dragon Islam.Islam, and the faith of the steammen has Crystal Dragon Vodou elements.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
** The subterranean Chimecan Empire that ruled Jackels' continent during the Ice Age exploited the scattered surface peoples as slave labor, sacrifices, and a food source.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* TheMorlocks: The ab-locks of Jago owe their name to this trope, [[spoiler: and are likewise the degenerate descendants of humans from a long-dead civilization. Ursks are also this trope, but applied to ursines rather than humans.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* GeniusLoci: Jackals itself, as manifested by the spirit of Elizica of the Jackeni.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* MyBrainIsBig: The sea-bishops are called that because their heads have evolved a miter-like shape to house their enlarged brains.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* BerserkButton: Literal example: Boxiron's "top gear" turns him from a clumsy, lurching hulk to a nigh-unstoppable whirlwind of brutal destruction. Which can be a problem, as when he "fights in five", the lever that shifts him ''out'' of top gear tends to get stuck there...
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
* AllOfThem: Used word-for-word by one of Quest's minions to say how many lashlites are attacking.
Changed line(s) 10 (click to see context) from:
* AllOfThem: Used word-for-word by one of Quest's minions to say how many lashlites are attacking.
to:
* AllOfThem: Used word-for-word by one AnnoyingArrows: It takes a ''lot'' of Quest's minions crossbow bolts to say how many lashlites are attacking.bring Henry Tempest down.
Added DiffLines:
* OneManArmy: Henry Tempest, who plows his way through claw-guards like they're a pack of kittens.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* BioAugmentation: This trope is practically Cassarabia's Hat, used by desert nomads to adapt their bodies to survive sandstorms and lack of water, and by the judicial system to equip convicts for punishment labor, e.g. giving extra arms to someone condemned to be a slave porter.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 45 (click to see context) from:
* HenchmanRace: Slats are this for the Army of Shadows, while two different variants of shark/man biologicks serve this purpose in Cassarabia.
to:
* HenchmanRace: HenchmenRace: Slats are this for the Army of Shadows, while two different variants of shark/man biologicks serve this purpose in Cassarabia.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong: Dick Tull's suspicions are always off-target.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* HenchmanRace: Slats are this for the Army of Shadows, while two different variants of shark/man biologicks serve this purpose in Cassarabia.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* ChildSoldiers: Jared Black leads a handful of pubescent Jagonese militia cadets against the Pericurian invasion. He has little choice, as the children they're defending are even younger.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 14 (click to see context) from:
* BetterToDieThanToBeKilled: The hapless Jagonese "exiled" by the insane First Speaker opt to throw themselves ''and their children'' into Hermetica City's electrified defensive wall rather than be mangled by the approaching ursks.
to:
* BetterToDieThanToBeKilled: BetterToDieThanBeKilled: The hapless Jagonese "exiled" by the insane First Speaker opt to throw themselves ''and their children'' into Hermetica City's electrified defensive wall rather than be mangled mauled by the approaching ursks.
