History Literature / NoMoreHeroes

* GrimUpNorth: Kurn's stronghold and The Circle itself are of course, In The North

* HereThereBeDragons: Actually spoken by Howie when he realises they are on Avia
* HighFantasy: Avia is a world of magic, myth and monsters
* ICallItVera: Frank
* ImmuneToFate: Averted and/or or played straight, or averted again... [[spoiler: or is it?]]
* ImpossiblyTackyClothes: When Eddie attempts to dress heroically

* TheJuggernaut: Hox
* LawOfAlienNames: Lots (this is a fantasy universe which also contains a section of a Lovecraftian universe)

* MagicalLand: Avia

* MorningRoutine: Eddie's routine for getting out of bed is described in painstaking detail
* {{Mordor}}: Everything inside the circle is Kurn's domain and effectively populated by his psychopathic Black Dagger guards. Although the barrier they have to travel through to get there is actually [[EldritchLocation even worse]]
* TheMultiverse: Earth, Avia, Ko'Thaggor, and countless others are implied. Eddie illustrates with strings on a harp
* NamedWeapons: Vortus, Frank, Velkran

* OnceUponATime: The title of the opening chapter (although with a Bon Jovi twist)
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: Puff dragons are like big floating cows. That can explode
* OurDwarvesAreDifferent: Humboldt

* ScrewDestiny: Literally spoken by Sally
* ThePawn:
* TheQuest: Played straight, inverted and possibly subverted as our heroes have to complete a Quest that they don't care about and isnt even for their world, simply to get home.

* SlidingScaleOfFreeWillVsFate: A central question in the story
* SquishyWizard

* WanderingMinstrel

* WizardDuel

* YouCantFightFate: A central tenet on Avia

* HeroesWantRedheads: Portissia

* {{Heroes}}: All sorts, played straight, inverted, reluctant etc AccidentalHero, NerdActionHero, ActionSurvivor, TheAtoner, BadassBookworm, PluckyGirl, HopeBringer, SociallyAwkwardHero, Unlikely Hero

* MindControl: Eddie is placed under a form of this, also Sokol has several people in Brighton uder a Thrall spell

* EldritchAbomination: The things which live in The Circle, the denizens of [[CosmicHorrorStory Ko’Thaggor]]

** [[{{Necromancer}} The Necromancer]]: Kurn

* DungeonCrawling: The Crypts of Ramen are the very embodiment of this trope (the layout is based loosely on the dungeon in Literature/{{Fighting Fantasy}} novel ''Deathtrap Dungeon'')

In this brutal fantasy land they encounter monsters, magic, mercenaries and mind-shattering dimensions of horror, and all they have to help them are an iPod, a management strategy certification and a passing knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons. But in a land of fantasy their normality makes them extraordinary and their belief that even fate itself can be defied starts to affect a world...

* AnAdventurerIsYou: The entire book is the equivalent of a Dungeons and Dragons adventure - characters with a modern everyday mindset making generally terrible tactical decisions in a world of swords and sorcery

* GenreSavvy: Our protagonists are a Computer Game Developer, an ex DungeonsandDragons DungeonMaster and a history graduate with a wide knowledge of classical mythology. But their genre savviness is mostly negated by their inability to form anything approaching a coherent plan

* AMinorKidroduction: We open in flashback with one of the characters as a kid playing Dungeons and Dragons

* HPLovecraft: The world/universe of Ko’Thaggor is pure Lovecraft and will [[GoMadFromTheRevelation drive people insane]] just from proximity. Actually going there would be A FateWorseThanDeath. One of the statues in the Dungeon also implies that the existence of further [[EldritchAbomination Lovecraftian entities]] and [[EldritchLocation places]] have been somehow sensed by the inhabitants of Avia.

* YouAllMeetInAnInn: Played incredibly straight as homage to/deconstruction of the fantasy genre. We first meet our heroes in a Brighton pub and this is also where they first meet Razz

In this brutal fantasy land they encounter monsters, magic, mercenaries and mind-shattering dimensions of horror, and all they have to help them are an iPod, a management strategy certification and a passing knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons. But in a land of fantasy their normality makes them extraordinary and their belief that even fate itself can be changed starts to affect a world...

Howie, Eddie and Sally have their dull daily lives of commuting, personal issues and tedious routine shattered when they are accidentally transported from their home town of Brighton to a mythical and terrifying dimension of wizardry and swords by Razz, a naive apprentice mage who is searching for legendary magical beings to save his world from an unimaginably horrific apocalypse.

Howie, Eddie and Sally have their dull daily lives of commuting, personal issues and tedious routine shattered when they are accidentally transported from their home town of Brighton to a mythical and terrifying world of High Fantasy by Razz, a naive apprentice mage who is searching for legendary magical beings to save his world from an unimaginably horrific apocalypse.

* DualWielding: Two powerful magical swords are ultimately dual-wielded. It is implied this has never been done before on Avia - this may be because it comes with a cost...

* DualWielding: Two powerful magical swords are ultimately dual-wielded. It is implied this has never been done before on Avia

* CrapSackWorld: Avia is a brutal world with a barely functioning economy under military occupation by mercenary armies who will kill you as soon as look at you. And there are all sorts of dangerous creatures. And lethal dungeons filled with traps and monsters. And then there’s The Circle which is a protrusion into the sanity-destroying hell world of Ko'Thaggor which is filled with eldritch abominations that can drive you mad just by seeing them. Also there’s the Evil Overlord who plans on killing absolutely everyone horribly. There are also dragons ([[OurDragonsAreDifferent but these aren’t too dangerous]]).

Howie, Eddie and Sally have their dull daily lives of commuting, personal issues and tedious routine shattered when they are accidentally transported from their home town of Brighton to a magical and terrifying world of High Fantasy by Razz, a naive apprentice mage who is searching for legendary magical beings to save his world from an unimaginably horrific apocalypse.

->''‘This other place... the mage tells me it exists and I believe him. But I do not think it is a place as we know it. Not a location on our charts or even in our skies.’ He sat back and stared out of the tiny cabin window.''

As much a deconstruction of the [[{{Fantasy}} fantasy genre]] as it is a straight adventure across magical worlds, ''No More Heroes'' deliberately invokes, parodies and inverts many of the main tropes of [[{{Fantasy}} Fantasy Novels]] and [[RoleplayingGame Roleplaying Games]], occasionally crossing over into [[CosmicHorrorStory Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror]].

In this brutal fantasy land they encounter monsters, magic, mercenaries and mind-shattering dimensions of incomprehensible horror, and all they have to help them are an iPod, a management strategy certification and a passing knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons. But in a land of fantasy their normality makes them extraordinary and their belief that even fate itself can be changed starts to affect a world...

In modern-day Brighton Howie, Eddie and Sally have their dull lives shattered when they are accidentally transported to a world of High Fantasy by Razz, a naive apprentice mage who is searching for legendary magical beings to save his world from an unimaginably horrific apocalypse.

->''The captain leaned forward and looked at the map. ‘This other place... the mage tells me it exists and I believe him. But I do not think it is a place as we know it. Not a location on our charts or even in our skies.’ He sat back and stared out of the tiny cabin window.''
->''‘There are other worlds, other skies. Places we could not comprehend.’ He looked back at the mate with eyes hollowed from lack of sleep. ‘From what little I have been told I believe it to be a realm beyond our understanding. A realm of almost pure chaos.’''

* TurnUndead: Averted extremely hard – Their only response to a terrifying and debilitating vampire is [[spoiler: an extremely hard kick in the balls]]

* HPLovecraft: The world/universe of Ko’Thaggor is pure Lovecraft and will [[GoMadFromTheRevelation drive people insane]] just from proximity. Actually going there would be A FateWorseThanDeath. One of the statues in the Dungeon also implies that the existence of further [[EdritchAbomination Lovecraftian entities]] and [[EldritchLocation places]] have been somehow sensed by the inhabitants of Avia.

* AnAdventurerIsYou

* BigDamnHeroes: Played straight and also inverted by the heroes group calling themselves Vengeance

* TheChosenOne: Averted – On several occasions Razz is openly angry that he ended up with Eddie, Howie and Sally instead of Heroes with actual useful skills. Also Razz's entire quest [[spoiler: which is a hunt for True Heroes]]
* TheChosenZero: Eddie who lacks even a useful magical item, although he is quite good with Excel
* CrapSackWorld: Avia is a brutal world with a barely functioning economy under military occupation by mercenary armies who will kill you as soon as look at you. And there are all sorts of dangerous creatures. And lethal dungeons filled with traps and monsters. And then there’s The Circle which is a protrusion into the sanity-destroying hell world of Ko'Thaggor which is filled with eldritch abominations that can drive you mad just by seeing them. And then there’s the Evil Overlord who plans on killing absolutely everyone horribly. There are also dragons ([[OurDragonsAreDifferent but these aren’t too dangerous]]).

* DungeonCrawling: The Crypts of Ramen are the very embodiment of this trope (the layout based loosely on the dungeon in Literature/{{Fighting Fantasy}} novel ''Deathtrap Dungeon'')

* GenreSavvy: Our protagonists are a Computer Game Developer, an ex DungeonsandDragons DungeonMaster and a medieval history graduate. But their genre savviness is mostly negated by their inability to form anything approaching a coherent plan

* {{Hell}}: The dimension of [[EldritchLocation Ko’Thaggor]] which, if not actually hell, is pretty much the same. [[GoMadFromTheRevelation A place which can drive you insane even just by being near to it…]]

* {{Heroes}}: All sorts, played straight, inverted, reluctant etc[Accidental Hero], [Nerd Action Hero], [Action Survivor], [The Atoner], [Badass Bookworm], [Plucky Girl], [Hope Bringer], [Socially Awkward Hero], [Unlikely Hero]

* HPLovecraft: The world/universe of Ko’Thaggor is pure Lovecraft and will [[GoMadFromTheRevelation drive people insane]] just from proximity. Actually going there would be A FateWorseThanDeath. One of the statues in the Dungeon also implies the existence of other [[Edritch Abomination]] Lovecraftian entities and [[Eldritch Location places]] have been somehow sensed by the inhabitants of Avia.

In this strange fantasy land they encounter monsters, magic, mercenaries and mind-shattering dimensions of incomprehensible horror, and all they have to help them are an iPod, a management strategy certification and a passing knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons. But in a land of fantasy their normality makes them extraordinary and their belief that even fate itself can be changed starts to affect a world...

* CrapSackWorld: Avia is a brutal world with a barely functioning economy under military occupation by mercenary armies who will kill you as soon as look at you. And there are all sorts of dangerous creatures. And lethal dungeons filled with traps and monsters. And then there’s The Circle which is a protrusion into the sanity-destroying hell world of Ko'Thaggor which is filled with eldritch abominations. And then there’s the Evil Overlord who plans on killing absolutely everyone horribly. There are also dragons ([[OurDragonsAreDifferent but these aren’t too dangerous]])