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* CoolSword: Kellen ends up with one called The Light At The Heart Of The Mountain.
* CreativeSterility: It's said, in a line barely changed from Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium, that "The Endarkened cannot make, they can only mar".
* CreativeSterility: It's said, in a line barely changed from Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium, that "The Endarkened cannot make, they can only mar".
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* CoolSword: Kellen ends up with one called The Light At The Heart Of The Mountain.
Mountain, given to him by [[DefeatMeansFriendship Belephariel]]. It has a waves and ocean motif and Kellen initially regards it as more like jewelry than a sword, but he falls in love the moment he draws it.
--> "Her name is The Light at the Heart of the Mountain. She has always been victorious. It is said that she fought at Vel-al-Amion, but as to that, no one can say in truth. She is a thousand-year sword, forged when we knew to craft weapons of war, forged to teach the Enemy the taste of defeat and dissolution."
--> He felt himself automatically settle into guard position, as if the sword were alive. His last weapon had been a good one but this was better than that. A ''great'' weapon. Ancient. Perfect. She answered to him exactly as if he and she were one being; he knew precisely where every atom of her was, even with his eyes closed. ''How can you bear to part with this?'' he thought.
* CreativeSterility: It's said, in a line barely changed from Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium, that "The Endarkened cannot make, they can only mar". That said they're certainly capable of novel strategy. Elves can create, but their long memories and reliance on tradition means that while individual Elves are often flexible and adaptive, their government and armies tend to be rather hidebound and slow to change.
--> "Her name is The Light at the Heart of the Mountain. She has always been victorious. It is said that she fought at Vel-al-Amion, but as to that, no one can say in truth. She is a thousand-year sword, forged when we knew to craft weapons of war, forged to teach the Enemy the taste of defeat and dissolution."
--> He felt himself automatically settle into guard position, as if the sword were alive. His last weapon had been a good one but this was better than that. A ''great'' weapon. Ancient. Perfect. She answered to him exactly as if he and she were one being; he knew precisely where every atom of her was, even with his eyes closed. ''How can you bear to part with this?'' he thought.
* CreativeSterility: It's said, in a line barely changed from Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium, that "The Endarkened cannot make, they can only mar". That said they're certainly capable of novel strategy. Elves can create, but their long memories and reliance on tradition means that while individual Elves are often flexible and adaptive, their government and armies tend to be rather hidebound and slow to change.
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* DefeatMeansFriendship: The only Elf that Kellen has any real conflict with is Belepharion, one of the subcommanders, who keeps trying to downplay the threat and questioning Kellen's abilities. After the Wild Magic works through Kellen and he rebukes Belepharion and challenges him to a duel, the Elf concedes stiffly and withdraws. The next time he and Kellen speak it's much more civilly and with the reasons for Belepharion's reticince laid bare and acknowledged by both of them, and Belepharion gives Kellen his ancestral sword, the Light At The Heart Of The Mountain.
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* DefeatMeansFriendship: The only Elf that Kellen has any real conflict with is Belepharion, one of the subcommanders, who keeps trying to downplay the threat and questioning Kellen's abilities. After the Wild Magic works through Kellen and he rebukes Belepharion and challenges him to a duel, the Elf concedes stiffly and withdraws. The next time he and Kellen speak it's much more civilly and with the reasons for Belepharion's reticince reticence laid bare and acknowledged by both of them, and Belepharion gives Kellen the spurs of a Knight and his ancestral sword, the Light At The Heart Of The Mountain.
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* ZergRush: The Endarkened themselves are each extremely difficult to fight, but many of their creatures are weaker than Elven Knights, Goblins and Shadowed Elves in particular. These creatures are numerous but quite fragile and largely effective because of poison, propensity for traps and ambushes, and sheer numbers.
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* DefeatMeansFriendship: The only Elf that Kellen has any real conflict with is Belepharion, one of the subcommanders, who keeps trying to downplay the threat and questioning Kellen's abilities. After the Wild Magic works through Kellen and he rebukes Belepharion and challenges him to a duel, the Elf concedes stiffly and withdraws. The next time he and Kellen speak it's much more civilly and with the reasons for Belepharion's reticince laid bare and acknowledged by both of them, and Belepharion gives Kellen his ancestral sword, the Light At The Heart Of The Mountain.
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* FaunsAndSatyrs: Fauns are maybe the most common of the Otherfolk and can speak but are not civilized.
* FriendlyNeighborhoodSpider: The Crystal Spiders encountered in ''To Light A Candle'', who immediately [[spoiler: come and rescue Idalia from a duergar, then start sharing intelligence about the Shadowed Elves]]. Conveniently, [[LightIsGood they're white]] and glow in various other colors.
* HouseFey: They rarely appear, but the Otherfolk include tiny humanoids who very long ago sometimes used to live with humans.
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* OurCentaursAreDifferent: Centaurs are the first of the nonhuman heroic races to appear and are very similar to the rustic humans they often harmoniously share farming villages and small towns with. Households that have both humans and Centaurs have high tables for the Centaurs to eat at and put the humans on extra-tall stools. Centaurs keep horses to pull ploughs and carry heavy burdens and are often talented weaves and woodcarvers. Some have skill in archery but battlewise more focus is placed on swordsmanship, though only their men fight. They have no inherent magic of their own, but there's a single Centaur Wildmage who can't really cast spells but has "Knowings" and "Tasks". None depicted are evil or even worse than one who's a minor bully who mends his ways when taught a lesson. Some are flirtatious towards human allies in a teasing, consensual way.
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* OurFaeriesAreDifferent: The Otherfolk is the general category for various peoples who non-mages often can't see, including fauns, dryads, air sprites, and selkies. Benign and shy, they mostly avoid humans and keep to communities of Otherfolk, and are vulnerable to the Endarkened. After the first book they don't appear a whole lot.
* OurCentaursAreDifferent: Centaurs are the first of the nonhuman heroic races to appear and are very similar to the rustic humans they often harmoniously share farming villages and small towns with. Households that have both humans and Centaurs have high tables for the Centaurs to eat at and put the humans on extra-tall stools. Centaurs keep horses to pull ploughs and carry heavy burdens and are often talented weaves and woodcarvers. Some have skill in archery but battlewise more focus is placed on swordsmanship, though only their men fight. They have no inherent magic of their own, but there's a single Centaur Wildmage who can't really cast spells but has "Knowings" and "Tasks". None depicted are evil or even worse thanone who's a minor bully who mends his ways when taught a lesson. Some are flirtatious towards human allies in a teasing, consensual way.
* OurCentaursAreDifferent: Centaurs are the first of the nonhuman heroic races to appear and are very similar to the rustic humans they often harmoniously share farming villages and small towns with. Households that have both humans and Centaurs have high tables for the Centaurs to eat at and put the humans on extra-tall stools. Centaurs keep horses to pull ploughs and carry heavy burdens and are often talented weaves and woodcarvers. Some have skill in archery but battlewise more focus is placed on swordsmanship, though only their men fight. They have no inherent magic of their own, but there's a single Centaur Wildmage who can't really cast spells but has "Knowings" and "Tasks". None depicted are evil or even worse than
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* OurDemonsAreDifferent: The Endarkened are {{Big Red Devil}}s - Greater Endarkened are winged, Lesser Endarkened have hooved feet, both have red or black scales or skin, HornsOfVillainy, claws, barbed tails, a very classic demon look. They can appear in other guises, are always powerful mages using BloodMagic, tend to be [[HornyDevils uncomfortably horny]], worship their creator [[GodOfEvil He Who Is]], and live in a place that's not quite of the same world as most of the story. There is a line that after the Elves heard humans call them 'Demons' and explained what they meant, the Elves agreed that it fit, even if the Endarkened aren't truly and exactly that. The Endarkened are burned by contact with unicorn hair and killed by the touch of a living unicorn's horn.
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* {{Precursors}}: The Elves have the oldest civilization and were once much more violent and conquest-minded than they are by this trilogy.
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* AllTrollsAreDifferent: 'Ice-trolls', in this case. They're blue, vulnerable to sunlight and heat - which just means that their Endarkened masters have to give them talismans to protect them - with a thing for bones.
* CulturalPosturing: Armethaliehens tend to be strongly convinced that theirs is true civilization and that even the people of the Home Farms right outside their walls, who grow their food, are backwards barbarians at best. They also call nonhumans the Lesser Races.
** Elves are much gentler about their sense of superiority and more inclined to live and let live, but some are more tolerant of human directness than others and a mild condescension is not uncommon.
** Then there's the Endarkened, who hold that anyone not created by He Who Is - in other words, anyone not of the Endarkened - is an abomination, at best fit to be slaves.
** Elves are much gentler about their sense of superiority and more inclined to live and let live, but some are more tolerant of human directness than others and a mild condescension is not uncommon.
** Then there's the Endarkened, who hold that anyone not created by He Who Is - in other words, anyone not of the Endarkened - is an abomination, at best fit to be slaves.
* {{Elfeminate}}: Human characters tend to struggle to tell Elves apart at first and that includes male from female, not helped by the fact that Elves are apparently the only heroic race that has women fighting in combat and those dress like the men do while in the field. Even humans who've learned to tell struggle with ''older'' elves, as they get more androgynous with age.
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** Wild Magic requires appealing to what various Wildmage characters consider "the Gods" - different Wildmages invoke different ones - and Kellen considers simply "the Wild Magic", an inhuman presence with a will and a desire to set the world right. It tasks a Wildmage with an obligation known as "Mageprice", which can be anything from helping get a cat out of a tree for a little girl to forgiving an enemy. A majority of the Mageprices incurred by the Wildmage characters in the trilogy help their efforts against Shadow Mountain somehow in the end; for example, Kellen's price for healing Jermayan is to rescue Vestakia, and she ends up essential for the triumph of good.
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** Wild Magic requires appealing to what various Wildmage characters consider "the Gods" - different Wildmages invoke different ones - and Kellen considers simply "the Wild Magic", an inhuman presence with a will and a desire to set the world right. It tasks a Wildmage with an obligation known as "Mageprice", which can be anything from helping get a cat out of a tree for a little girl to forgiving an enemy. A majority of the Mageprices incurred by the Wildmage characters in the trilogy help their efforts against Shadow Mountain somehow in the end; for example, Kellen's price for healing Jermayan is to rescue Vestakia, and she ends up essential for the triumph of good. The less the Wildmage asks for the less their Mageprice has to be in exchange.
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** Endarkened Magic is fueled by pain and death, so they do a lot of torture and murder. The Endarkened can turn to each other or to their own creatures to generate this, but they prefer maintaining extensive slave pens and regularly raiding the World Above to stock them. Possibly because they have this reserve and thus don't have to pay personal costs, they're usually regarded as the most powerful mages in the setting, and it's not heartening that [[MageSpecies all of them are like this]].
* FantasticRacism: Elves can be condescending towards humans, though it's generally a condescension with a great deal of sympathy attached. They're happy enough to host Wildmages but many are stiffly polite and brusque when they finally have to call on allies to cross onto their lands. Meanwhile, Armethalieh outright considers nonhumans to be 'Lesser Races', flawed versions of humanity created as examples, and only the kindest Armethaliehans are even ready to extend enough compassion to outsiders to decide that they can't help being barbarians and should be protected from anything at all.
* FantasticRacism: Elves can be condescending towards humans, though it's generally a condescension with a great deal of sympathy attached. They're happy enough to host Wildmages but many are stiffly polite and brusque when they finally have to call on allies to cross onto their lands. Meanwhile, Armethalieh outright considers nonhumans to be 'Lesser Races', flawed versions of humanity created as examples, and only the kindest Armethaliehans are even ready to extend enough compassion to outsiders to decide that they can't help being barbarians and should be protected from anything at all.
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** Endarkened Magic is fueled by pain and death, so they do a lot of torture and murder. The Endarkened can turn to each other or to their own creatures to generate this, but they prefer maintaining extensive slave pens and regularly raiding the World Above to stock them. Possibly because they have this reserve and thus don't have to pay personal costs, they're usually regarded as the most powerful mages in the setting, and it's not heartening that [[MageSpecies all of them are have magic]].
* TheFairFolk: The Endarkened come off likethis]].
this sometimes. Mages who don't like to pay the prices inherent to other forms of magic sometimes come to them instead. This ''only'' works out for the Endarkened. Interestingly, like the Fair Folk it's generally considered risky to call them by what they are. Few outsiders call them the Endarkened and may think of them as Demons but rarely use that word for fear of getting their attention. Elves call them Them and the Enemy, while Lostlanders, raided regularly by them, call them the Dark Folk.
* FantasticRacism: Elves can be condescending towards humans, though it's generally a condescension with a great deal of sympathy attached. They're happy enough to host Wildmages but many are stiffly polite and brusque when they finally have to call on allies to cross onto their lands. Meanwhile, Armethalieh outright considers nonhumans to be 'Lesser Races', flawed versions of humanity created as examples, and only the kindest Armethaliehans are even ready to extend enough compassion to outsiders to decide that they can't help being barbarians and should be protected from anything at all. Then there's the Endarkened, of course.
* TheFairFolk: The Endarkened come off like
* FantasticRacism: Elves can be condescending towards humans, though it's generally a condescension with a great deal of sympathy attached. They're happy enough to host Wildmages but many are stiffly polite and brusque when they finally have to call on allies to cross onto their lands. Meanwhile, Armethalieh outright considers nonhumans to be 'Lesser Races', flawed versions of humanity created as examples, and only the kindest Armethaliehans are even ready to extend enough compassion to outsiders to decide that they can't help being barbarians and should be protected from anything at all. Then there's the Endarkened, of course.
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* DecadentCourt: Savilla's court, which is of course just how she likes it.
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* EquivalentExchange: Magic in this setting comes at a cost. Small things, like kindling a fire on flammable material right at hand, have a minor cost in personal energy. Larger things require some outside source to supply the power, but just using it also takes a personal energetic cost that can exhaust most mages.
** Wild Magic requires appealing to what various Wildmage characters consider "the Gods" - different Wildmages invoke different ones - and Kellen considers simply "the Wild Magic", an inhuman presence with a will and a desire to set the world right. It tasks a Wildmage with an obligation known as "Mageprice", which can be anything from helping get a cat out of a tree for a little girl to forgiving an enemy. A majority of the Mageprices incurred by the Wildmage characters in the trilogy help their efforts against Shadow Mountain somehow in the end; for example, Kellen's price for healing Jermayan is to rescue Vestakia, and she ends up essential for the triumph of good.
*** A Wildmage doing a working can also ask other people to lend strength; their donations of energy can lighten the load and usually reduce the magnitude of the Mageprice, but participating may also require something of them, though that's largely abandoned after the first half of the first book. In the first one, Cormo's Healing comes at the cost of him needing to help an old lady take her cart to market whenever she needs it for a year.
** High Magic is powered entirely by donations, without Mageprice, and without requiring the consent of those donating it. Because of the small, regular nature of these donations, though, said donors don't feel the exhaustion of those voluntarily lending their strength to a Wildmage's working. Since High Mages can also link with each other and share in the workings, they only feel the strain of working magic when they're doing something very big. The main downsides, for a High Mage, is that they have to learn and abide by much more elaborate rituals and use many more props than the others and must study to get anywhere, and their culture is harshly repressive.
*** War Magic, which High Magic descended from, is powered by magic granted by elemental or otherplanar allies. This is potent but not good for the mage, who'll burn out inside of a decade of regular use unless and until they can switch sources.
** Dragon Magic is taken from [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a dragon]] and is available only to a mage who's bonded with one. This is repeatedly stated to be unlimited but clearly isn't, as creating a portal that can allow an army to go from one side of a mountain range to another [[spoiler: permanently drains Jermayan's magic and keeps him from working any more... until he's hit by Idalia's WorldHealingWave and it comes back]]. Still, it does skip over some of the restrictions of other forms and allows a dragon mage to do things like make stone burn.
** Endarkened Magic is fueled by pain and death, so they do a lot of torture and murder. The Endarkened can turn to each other or to their own creatures to generate this, but they prefer maintaining extensive slave pens and regularly raiding the World Above to stock them. Possibly because they have this reserve and thus don't have to pay personal costs, they're usually regarded as the most powerful mages in the setting, and it's not heartening that [[MageSpecies all of them are like this]].
** Wild Magic requires appealing to what various Wildmage characters consider "the Gods" - different Wildmages invoke different ones - and Kellen considers simply "the Wild Magic", an inhuman presence with a will and a desire to set the world right. It tasks a Wildmage with an obligation known as "Mageprice", which can be anything from helping get a cat out of a tree for a little girl to forgiving an enemy. A majority of the Mageprices incurred by the Wildmage characters in the trilogy help their efforts against Shadow Mountain somehow in the end; for example, Kellen's price for healing Jermayan is to rescue Vestakia, and she ends up essential for the triumph of good.
*** A Wildmage doing a working can also ask other people to lend strength; their donations of energy can lighten the load and usually reduce the magnitude of the Mageprice, but participating may also require something of them, though that's largely abandoned after the first half of the first book. In the first one, Cormo's Healing comes at the cost of him needing to help an old lady take her cart to market whenever she needs it for a year.
** High Magic is powered entirely by donations, without Mageprice, and without requiring the consent of those donating it. Because of the small, regular nature of these donations, though, said donors don't feel the exhaustion of those voluntarily lending their strength to a Wildmage's working. Since High Mages can also link with each other and share in the workings, they only feel the strain of working magic when they're doing something very big. The main downsides, for a High Mage, is that they have to learn and abide by much more elaborate rituals and use many more props than the others and must study to get anywhere, and their culture is harshly repressive.
*** War Magic, which High Magic descended from, is powered by magic granted by elemental or otherplanar allies. This is potent but not good for the mage, who'll burn out inside of a decade of regular use unless and until they can switch sources.
** Dragon Magic is taken from [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a dragon]] and is available only to a mage who's bonded with one. This is repeatedly stated to be unlimited but clearly isn't, as creating a portal that can allow an army to go from one side of a mountain range to another [[spoiler: permanently drains Jermayan's magic and keeps him from working any more... until he's hit by Idalia's WorldHealingWave and it comes back]]. Still, it does skip over some of the restrictions of other forms and allows a dragon mage to do things like make stone burn.
** Endarkened Magic is fueled by pain and death, so they do a lot of torture and murder. The Endarkened can turn to each other or to their own creatures to generate this, but they prefer maintaining extensive slave pens and regularly raiding the World Above to stock them. Possibly because they have this reserve and thus don't have to pay personal costs, they're usually regarded as the most powerful mages in the setting, and it's not heartening that [[MageSpecies all of them are like this]].
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* MageSpecies: All Endarkened are mages. [[BloodMagic Pain and death fuel their magic]], and their power to kidnap people to provide it means they can spend it much more freely than most other mages.
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* TheShortWar: The war against Endarkened forces and against the Endarkened themselves barely lasts longer than the winter - the instigating incident was during the first snowfall, and the final battle was marked by flowers starting to bloom, though mop-up efforts stretched things out a few months more. This is ''much'' shorter than the great war a thousand years ago, which took most of a century, and doesn't bear nearly as many casualties.
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* TheShortWar: The war against Endarkened forces and against the Endarkened themselves barely lasts longer than the winter - the instigating incident was during the first snowfall, and the final battle was marked by flowers starting to bloom, though mop-up efforts stretched things out a few months more. This is ''much'' shorter than the great war a thousand years ago, which took most of a century, and doesn't bear nearly as many casualties. Good thing, too, because of the heroic races who survived the previous war at all, none of them have recovered back to their pre-war numbers after a thousand years.
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* AlwaysChaoticEvil: All of the Endarkened and all of their pawns. Discussed briefly in ''The Outstretched Shadow'', where a rumor is repeated, that an imp taken young enough and raised well might not be evil, but that's the only time. When [[OurOrcsAreDifferent 'orcs' or 'dark elves']] are discovered, hybrids of elf and goblin, the elves immediately assume that their 'poor cousins' are inherently evil and slaughter the noncombatants, down to the infants. This is a series with BlackAndWhiteMorality, so they're right, but that they don't so much as consider alternatives is a bit unsettling.
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* AlwaysChaoticEvil: All of the Endarkened and all of their pawns. Discussed briefly in ''The Outstretched Shadow'', where a rumor is repeated, that an imp taken young enough and raised well might not be evil, but that's the only time. When [[OurOrcsAreDifferent 'orcs' or 'dark elves']] are discovered, hybrids of elf and goblin, the elves immediately assume that their 'poor cousins' are inherently evil and slaughter the noncombatants, down to the infants. This is a series with BlackAndWhiteMorality, so they're right, even toddlers immediately try to kill the heroes, but that they don't so much as consider alternatives is it's a bit unsettling.unsettling that said heroes decide to murder them all ''before'' finding this out.
* AnyoneCanDie: Of the key cast listed above [[spoiler: only Idalia dies and it's as a willing HeroicSacrifice late in the third book. But there are LoadsAndLoads of [[RedShirt supporting characters]] in the various armies, some of them [[MauveShirt more distinguished and personable than others]], and none of them are safe.]]
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* BlessedWithSuck: Unicorns have trouble with the proximity of people who are not chaste, celibate virgins - meaning their companions must be not just virgins, but unmarried virgins without romantic or lustful thoughts. Just how much trouble depends on the scene. Shalkan is able to accustom himself to stay only a few feet from Idalia, and a small herd with a broken-legged colt was able to approach her for healing as long as she didn't touch the colt, but later unicorns struggle to fight non-virginal enemies and can't be healed except by virgins. Later still they have no problem at all fighting very non-virginal demons.
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* BlessedWithSuck: Unicorns have trouble with the proximity of people who are not chaste, celibate virgins - meaning their companions must be not just virgins, but unmarried virgins without romantic or lustful thoughts. Just how much trouble depends on the scene. Shalkan is able to accustom himself to stay only a few feet from Idalia, and a small herd with a broken-legged colt was able to approach her for healing as long as she didn't touch the colt, but colt. It's inconsistent later - in ''To Light A Candle'' unicorns struggle to fight non-virginal enemies and can't can only be healed except by virgins. Later still In the third book they have no problem at all fighting very non-virginal demons.Demons, who're as debauched as they come.
** Vestakia's DetectEvil ability manifests as a feeling of nausea and sickness that's often painful and debilitating. She learns to push through it and remain functional, but sometimes vomits or passes out.
* BloodMagic: The Endarkened draw their power from pain and death and so engage in torture and murder for fun and to build up their magical reserves. Anigrel contacts Savilla by killing something and filling a bowl with its blood, which she appears in.
** Vestakia's DetectEvil ability manifests as a feeling of nausea and sickness that's often painful and debilitating. She learns to push through it and remain functional, but sometimes vomits or passes out.
* BloodMagic: The Endarkened draw their power from pain and death and so engage in torture and murder for fun and to build up their magical reserves. Anigrel contacts Savilla by killing something and filling a bowl with its blood, which she appears in.
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** Greater Endarkened versus any of the Children of the Light, as shown in the disastrous [[spoiler: attack on Stonehearth]]. It seems like they work so extensively through proxies more so they can lounge around in the World Without Sun then out of need to do otherwise. Between some of the most powerful magic in the setting which allows them to wreak mayhem and prevent Wildmage spells from working on them, ridiculous personal strength and apparent immunity to most weapons, HealingFactor, and {{Flight}}, a single Demon seems gleefully unchallenged by a Wildmage and a party of warriors. [[spoiler: If Cilarnen hadn't been there to have his magic, specifically designed to be able to harm Demons, return than nothing would have been left alive. As it is he manages to reduce the maurauder to a still-living charred skeleton which a human Wildmage manages to freeze in place long enough to be garotted by a rope of unicorn hair.]]
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** Greater Endarkened versus any of the Children of the Light, as shown in the disastrous [[spoiler: attack on Stonehearth]]. It seems like they work so extensively through proxies more so they can lounge around in the World Without Sun then out of need to do otherwise. Between some of the most powerful magic in the setting which allows them to wreak mayhem and prevent Wildmage spells from working on them, ridiculous personal strength and apparent immunity to most weapons, HealingFactor, and {{Flight}}, a single Demon seems gleefully unchallenged by a Wildmage and a party of warriors. [[spoiler: If Cilarnen hadn't been there to have his magic, specifically designed to be able to harm Demons, return than nothing would have been left alive. As it is he manages to reduce the maurauder marauder to a still-living charred skeleton which a human Wildmage manages to freeze in place long enough to be garotted by a rope of unicorn hair.]]
* FieldPromotion: Kellen's in for a lot of these.
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* LoveMakesYouEvil: Again, Anigrel, thanks to a corrupting spell from the Endarkened Queen. It may be the other way around, though.
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* LoveMakesYouEvil: Again, Anigrel, thanks to a corrupting spell from the Endarkened Queen. It may be the other way around, though.She first contacted him when he was eight years old and he was instantly enthralled - so maybe it's Evil Makes You Love.
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* OurOrcsAreDifferent: Whether they're closer to orcs or drow, they're called "Shadowed Elves", and are the barely-sapient descendants of Elven prisoners from the last war, mixed with Goblins and Lesser Endarkened. Physically weaker than their cousins, they're maggot-pale, dislike light, have bulging eyes, and their muzzles of needle-like teeth restrict them to their own language, which sounds like barking. [[spoiler:All of them were exterminated by the Elves and their allies, as part of the Endarkened EvilPlan.]]
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* OurOrcsAreDifferent: Whether they're closer to These could be counted as orcs or drow, they're as drow. They're called "Shadowed Elves", and are the barely-sapient descendants of Elven prisoners from the last war, mixed with Goblins and Lesser Endarkened. Physically weaker than their cousins, they're maggot-pale, dislike light, have bulging eyes, and their muzzles of needle-like teeth restrict them to their own language, which sounds like barking. [[spoiler:All of them were exterminated by the Elves and their allies, as part of the Endarkened EvilPlan.]]]]
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Virtually every Elf with any degree of power over others. They're formal and strange and expect Kellen to follow their customs as best he can. In the second book he contrives to ask King Andoreniel to allow a population of embattled non-Wildmages to cross Elven lands and settle somewhere safer, freeing up their warriors and mages to help, and forgets to run this past the army's general Redhelwar first. Going around his commanding officer ruffles feathers, as does the suggestion itself as the Elves consider their borders inviolate and are clearly pained at the idea. But they're also all reasonable enough people to understand ''why'' Kellen did both and manage to move on.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Virtually every Elf with any degree of power over others. They're formal and strange and expect Kellen to follow their customs as best he can. In the second book he contrives to ask King Andoreniel to allow a population of embattled non-Wildmages to cross Elven lands and settle somewhere safer, freeing up their warriors and mages to help, and forgets to run this past the army's general Redhelwar first. Going around his commanding officer ruffles feathers, as does the suggestion itself as the Elves consider their borders inviolate and are clearly pained at the idea. But they're also all reasonable enough people to understand ''why'' Kellen did both and manage to move on.
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* WouldHurtAChild: Everybody! The Endarkened delight in it, of course. The Elves are also prepared to exterminate all the Shadowed Elves, infants included, without even checking to see if they're AlwaysChaoticEvil first, but are emotionally upset by it. Kellen insists after the first time he kills some that young Shadowed Elves ''aren't'' children and therefore he's not a baby-murderer and quickly stops feeling bad about it.
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* OurCentaursAreDifferent: Centaurs are the first of the nonhuman heroic races to appear and are very similar to the rustic humans they often harmoniously share farming villages and small towns with. Households that have both humans and Centaurs have high tables for the Centaurs to eat at and put the humans on extra-tall stools. Centaurs keep horses to pull ploughs and carry heavy burdens and are often talented weaves and woodcarvers. Some have skill in archery but battlewise more focus is placed on swordsmanship, though only their men fight. They have no inherent magic of their own, but there's a single Centaur Wildmage who can't really cast spells but has "Knowings" and "Tasks". None depicted are evil or even worse than one who's a minor bully who mends his ways when taught a lesson. Some are flirtatious towards human allies in a teasing, consensual way.
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* CurbStompBattle: Once he's had his month or two of formal training in the House of Sword and Shield, Kellen versus frail, animalistic, completely unprepared Shadowed Elves is no contest. At a very early point right after slaughtering one party he encounters a larger one and the narration points out that even ''fourteen to one'' the fight is completely unbalanced and he comes out the other end without a scratch. [[spoiler: Alas for the Elves, they have a more existential difficulty facing their degraded cousins, who are actually ready for them and able to bring their weapons to bear in future battles.]]
** Greater Endarkened versus any of the Children of the Light, as shown in the disastrous [[spoiler: attack on Stonehearth]]. It seems like they work so extensively through proxies more so they can lounge around in the World Without Sun then out of need to do otherwise. Between some of the most powerful magic in the setting which allows them to wreak mayhem and prevent Wildmage spells from working on them, ridiculous personal strength and apparent immunity to most weapons, HealingFactor, and {{Flight}}, a single Demon seems gleefully unchallenged by a Wildmage and a party of warriors. [[spoiler: If Cilarnen hadn't been there to have his magic, specifically designed to be able to harm Demons, return than nothing would have been left alive. As it is he manages to reduce the maurauder to a still-living charred skeleton which a human Wildmage manages to freeze in place long enough to be garotted by a rope of unicorn hair.]]
** Greater Endarkened versus any of the Children of the Light, as shown in the disastrous [[spoiler: attack on Stonehearth]]. It seems like they work so extensively through proxies more so they can lounge around in the World Without Sun then out of need to do otherwise. Between some of the most powerful magic in the setting which allows them to wreak mayhem and prevent Wildmage spells from working on them, ridiculous personal strength and apparent immunity to most weapons, HealingFactor, and {{Flight}}, a single Demon seems gleefully unchallenged by a Wildmage and a party of warriors. [[spoiler: If Cilarnen hadn't been there to have his magic, specifically designed to be able to harm Demons, return than nothing would have been left alive. As it is he manages to reduce the maurauder to a still-living charred skeleton which a human Wildmage manages to freeze in place long enough to be garotted by a rope of unicorn hair.]]
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* FantasticRacism: Elves can be condescending towards humans, though it's generally a condescension with a great deal of sympathy attached. Meanwhile, Armethalieh outright considers nonhumans to be 'Lesser Races', flawed versions of humanity created as examples, and only the kindest Armethaliehans are even ready to extend enough compassion to outsiders to decide that they can't help being barbarians.
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* FantasticRacism: Elves can be condescending towards humans, though it's generally a condescension with a great deal of sympathy attached. They're happy enough to host Wildmages but many are stiffly polite and brusque when they finally have to call on allies to cross onto their lands. Meanwhile, Armethalieh outright considers nonhumans to be 'Lesser Races', flawed versions of humanity created as examples, and only the kindest Armethaliehans are even ready to extend enough compassion to outsiders to decide that they can't help being barbarians.barbarians and should be protected from anything at all.
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** If you happen to meet a dragon who has a compatible personality (or something along those lines), you can become a Dragon Mage. Dragon Magic is part Inherent Gift, but mostly Force Magic.
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** If you happen to meet a dragon who has a compatible personality you are destined to bond with (or something along those lines), you can become a Dragon Mage. Dragon Magic is part Inherent Gift, but mostly Force Magic.
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* OrcusOnHisThrone: In the first two books POV sections of Queen Savilla, and most of Zyperis, mostly entail lounging around in the World Without Sun, scrying on and discussing plans for their proxies to move against the Children of the Light, and gloating while being generally depraved and tormenting captives and disfavored members of their court.
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* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: The first few unicorns to appear are dazzling white, but later Kellen meets ones that come in many different colors, including vibrant red, and realizes their coats come in the same colors as horses, but much more vibrant.
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** Subverted with Ancaladar, an iridescent black dragon. Some unicorns are black as well, but none are major characters.
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* DoorStopper: Each book runs long. ''To Light A Candle'', the longest of the trilogy, has 922 pages and in audiobook form takes almost ''thirty five hours'' to complete.
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* AllergicToGood: The Endarkened and many of their minions are vulnerable to the touch of unicorns. [[spoiler:Idalia's sacrifice causes, essentially, a mass allergy attack among the Endarkened]].
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* AllergicToGood: The Endarkened and many of their minions are vulnerable to the touch of unicorns. Even their hair has an effect, one Wildmage managing to kill an Endarkened with a unicorn hair garotte. [[spoiler:Idalia's sacrifice causes, essentially, a mass allergy attack among the Endarkened]].
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* AlwaysChaoticEvil: All of the Endarkened and all of their pawns. Discussed briefly in ''The Outstretched Shadow'', where a rumor is repeated, that an imp taken young enough and raised well might not be evil, but that's the only time. When [[OurOrcsAreDifferent 'orcs' or 'dark elves']] are discovered, hybrids of elf and goblin, the elves immediately assume that their 'poor cousins' are inherently evil and slaughter the noncombatants, down to the smallest children. This is a series with BlackAndWhiteMorality, so they're right.
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* AlwaysChaoticEvil: All of the Endarkened and all of their pawns. Discussed briefly in ''The Outstretched Shadow'', where a rumor is repeated, that an imp taken young enough and raised well might not be evil, but that's the only time. When [[OurOrcsAreDifferent 'orcs' or 'dark elves']] are discovered, hybrids of elf and goblin, the elves immediately assume that their 'poor cousins' are inherently evil and slaughter the noncombatants, down to the smallest children. infants. This is a series with BlackAndWhiteMorality, so they're right.right, but that they don't so much as consider alternatives is a bit unsettling.
* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Doesn't always apply to humans but much is made of unicorns and Elves being very beautiful, as are Otherfolk and dragons. Meanwhile the Endarkened's forces are almost universally described as hideous, though characters do admire the pelts of Coldwarg once separated from the beasts and made into cloaks. The very evil Endarkened consider each other beautiful, but the other characters don't seem to agree.
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* TheChessmaster: Savilla, Queen of Shadow Mountain, has spent literally centuries setting up the various surviving Races Of The Light to deal with multiple [[XanatosGambit no-win situations]] at the same time. Chired Anigrel only looks like an understudy compared to her.
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* TheChessmaster: Savilla, Queen of Shadow Mountain, has spent literally centuries setting up the various surviving Races Of The Light to deal with multiple [[XanatosGambit no-win situations]] at the same time. Chired Anigrel only looks like an understudy compared to her.her, and indeed [[spoiler: his gambit with Cilarnen backfires badly in the end]].
* CreativeSterility: It's said, in a line barely changed from Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium, that "The Endarkened cannot make, they can only mar".
* DefrostingIceQueen: Cilarnen has absorbed City propaganda about the proper ways to do things and the inferiority of non-humans much more thoroughly than Kellen had, so when he's first cast from the city he regards the Elf and Centaurs who saved him with horror and disgust that he carefully hides under a distant, civil mask. He's smart enough to recognize the kindness of the Centaurs who take him in and starts to thaw begrudgingly. [[spoiler: The Demon attack on Stonehearth completes the melting process.]] Cilarnen remains on the prickly, superior side and never fully warms to Elves and non-City ways but he becomes more fair-minded overall.
* FantasticRacism: Elves can be condescending towards humans, though it's generally a condescension with a great deal of sympathy attached. Meanwhile, Armethalieh outright considers nonhumans to be 'Lesser Races', flawed versions of humanity created as examples, and only the kindest Armethaliehans are even ready to extend enough compassion to outsiders to decide that they can't help being barbarians.
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* FriendlessBackground: Kellen in Armethalieh at the beginning, as is common with Mercedes Lackey's writing.
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* FriendlessBackground: Kellen in Armethalieh at the beginning, as is common with Mercedes Lackey's writing. Cilarnen to a lesser extent. His peers are less hostile to him but he counts allies rather than friends, until he gets manipulated into joining a conspiracy.
** Played straight in Vestakia's backstory; her mother wore a unicorn hair charm to bed one night and her lover, on touching it, was burned and showed his true form before vanishing.
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* InstantExpert: Kellen's Knight-Mage powers give him an inherent advantage with combat and battle strategy in general. He's not truly ''instantly'' an expert but it takes less than a season for him to go from picking up a sword for the first time to being equal to or better than Elven Knights who've trained for years or decades. In his very first combat training session he impresses his teacher, and in his second nearly kills him.
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* InstantExpert: Kellen's Knight-Mage powers give him an inherent advantage with combat and battle strategy in general. He's not truly ''instantly'' an expert but it takes less than a season absurdly little time for him to go from picking up a sword for the first time to being equal to or better than Elven Knights who've trained for years or decades. In his very first combat training session he impresses his teacher, and in his second nearly kills him.him, which carries through to his more formal training, where he's immediately better than multiple seasoned warriors and managed to fight the OldMaster to a draw.
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* NiceJobFixingItVillain: The only reason the Alliance ended up with a High Mage on their side is because Anigrel elected to use one of his patsies as a living booby trap for Kellen Tavadon.
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* NiceJobFixingItVillain: The only reason the Alliance ended up with a High Mage on their side - and High Magic is one of the very few things that works well on Demons - is because Anigrel elected to use one of his patsies as a living booby trap for Kellen Tavadon.
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* AllergicToEvil: Vestakia started suffering from this at puberty, and she rapidly learned to use the discomfort as a warning[=/=]tracking tool. Unicorns have a less directional version of this, uncomfortable in the presence of 'taint' but without her ability to pinpoint it.
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* AllergicToEvil: Vestakia started suffering from this [[PubertySuperpower at puberty, puberty]], and she rapidly learned to use the discomfort as a warning[=/=]tracking tool. Unicorns have a less directional version of this, uncomfortable in the presence of 'taint' but without her ability to pinpoint it.
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* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Idalia, to prevent Queen Savilla from sacrificing Lycaelon in order to bring He Who Is back into the world.]]
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* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Idalia, As with any Mercedes Lackey heroes, the good-aligned characters are always extremely willing to give their lives in service of the cause, whether that's a lifetime of helping others or a painful death. Sometimes just being wholeheartedly willing to die is enough and the would-be sacrifice is spared. [[spoiler:Idalia is not spared, dying to prevent Queen Savilla from sacrificing Lycaelon in order to bring He Who Is back into the world.]]
* InstantExpert: Kellen's Knight-Mage powers give him an inherent advantage with combat and battle strategy in general. He's not truly ''instantly'' an expert but it takes less than a season for him to go from picking up a sword for the first time to being equal to or better than Elven Knights who've trained for years or decades. In his very first combat training session he impresses his teacher, and in his second nearly kills him.
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* TheShortWar: The war against Endarkened forces and against the Endarkened themselves barely lasts longer than the winter - the instigating incident was during the first snowfall, and the final battle was marked by flowers starting to bloom, though mop-up efforts stretched things out a few months more. This is ''much'' shorter than the great war a thousand years ago, which took most of a century.
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* TheShortWar: The war against Endarkened forces and against the Endarkened themselves barely lasts longer than the winter - the instigating incident was during the first snowfall, and the final battle was marked by flowers starting to bloom, though mop-up efforts stretched things out a few months more. This is ''much'' shorter than the great war a thousand years ago, which took most of a century.century, and doesn't bear nearly as many casualties.
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* YouAreACreditToYourRace: Iletel the Elf potter explains Armethalieh's issues as stemming from the shortsightedness of humans, who "have no time to dream, to plan, no time for Art" and are too short-lived to care about others, except for the most magnanimous who can try to look after their fellows within their lifetimes. Much as Kellen resents the High Mages, he protests that not all humans are like that and is assured that Wildmages like him are some of the rare few who can look beyond themselves and to be commended. He's not really comfortable with this and ultimately rejects it.
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* YouAreACreditToYourRace: Iletel the Elf potter explains Armethalieh's issues as stemming from the shortsightedness of humans, who "have no time to dream, to plan, no time for Art" and are too short-lived to care about others, except for the most magnanimous who can try to look after their fellows within their lifetimes. Much as Kellen resents the High Mages, he protests that not all humans are like that and is assured that Wildmages like him are some of the rare few who can look beyond themselves and to be commended. He's Kellen's not really comfortable with this and ultimately rejects it.
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* HalfHumanHybrid: Vestakia's mother was a Wildmage, and her father, the Demon Prince Zyperis. After realizing this, her mother cast a Wild Magic spell for a solution, and was given the choice between giving the child a human appearance and demonic personality, or a demonic appearance and a human personality. She chose the latter, and Vestakia was born one of the nicest people in the series and with the ability to DetectEvil.
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* HumanMomNonhumanDad: Vestakia's mother was a Wildmage, and her father, the Demon Prince Zyperis. After realizing this, her mother cast a Wild Magic spell for a solution, and was given the choice between giving the child a human appearance and demonic personality, or a demonic appearance and a human personality. She chose the latter, and Vestakia was born one of the nicest people in the series and with the ability to DetectEvil.
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* YouAreACreditToYourRace: Iletel the Elf potter explains Armethalieh's issues as stemming from the shortsightedness of humans, who "have no time to dream, to plan, no time for Art" and are too short-lived to care about others, except for the most magnanimous who can try to look after their fellows within their lifetimes. Much as Kellen resents the High Mages, he protests that not all humans are like that and is assured that Wildmages like him are some of the rare few who can look beyond themselves and to be commended. He's not really comfortable with this but YouCantArgueWithElves.
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* YouAreACreditToYourRace: Iletel the Elf potter explains Armethalieh's issues as stemming from the shortsightedness of humans, who "have no time to dream, to plan, no time for Art" and are too short-lived to care about others, except for the most magnanimous who can try to look after their fellows within their lifetimes. Much as Kellen resents the High Mages, he protests that not all humans are like that and is assured that Wildmages like him are some of the rare few who can look beyond themselves and to be commended. He's not really comfortable with this but YouCantArgueWithElves.and ultimately rejects it.
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* ForgottenFallenFriend: The author Perulan, who Kellen befriended while on an errand from the Wild Magic, helps foment his discontent with the City and to have serious problems with the High Mages, as well as to start thinking about the world beyond Armethalieh. Lycaelon then has him murdered. Kellen barely thinks about him in passing after he's exiled, never so much as wondering what he would have thought about things Kellen sees.
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* MutuallyExclusiveMagic: High Magick and Wild Magic, for the most part. Kellen starts out as a High Magick student but isn't very good at it. He has more luck with Wild Magic but isn't as good at it as his sister, since his true talent is as a rare subset of Wildmage, Knight-Mage.
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* MutuallyExclusiveMagic: High Magick and Wild Magic, for the most part. Kellen starts out as a High Magick student but isn't very good at it. He has more luck with Wild Magic but isn't as good at it as his sister, since his true talent is as a rare action-oriented subset of Wildmage, Knight-Mage.
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* CantArgueWithElves: Or it's very hard, anyway! Kellen and Idalia are extremely taken with elves and their beauty, kindness, and the way they've perfected living, with Idalia having learned offscreen that they do still have faults as individuals and as a race. Kellen starts to pick up on the, not hauteur but gentle, pitying condescension one regards humans with and is unable to argue, because it's expressed with such sympathy and the Elf changes the subject when he protests.
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* HighFantasy: This hits most of the beats, though there's also some attention to troop movements and tactics.
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* HighFantasy: This hits most of the beats, though there's also some beats. There's a lot of attention to troop movements and tactics.tactics and Kellen's leadership, but ultimately the crucial victory is accomplished by a few people.
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* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: ''The Outstretched Shadow'' has the fewest, limited because only a few characters in Armethalieh are important and Kellen spends much of the book with Idalia at her wild home and encounters only a handful of named characters in Merryvale or even the Elf capital of Sentarshadeen, then only one new one when he leaves it. The other two books, with their much stronger focus on armies and more POV sections from other characters, have ''many'' more.
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* YouAreACreditToYourRace: Iletel the Elf potter explains Armethalieh's issues as stemming from the shortsightedness of humans, who "have no time to dream, to plan, no time for Art" and are too short-lived to care about others, except for the most magnanimous who can try to look after their fellows within their lifetimes. Much as Kellen resents the High Mages, he protests that not all humans are like that and is assured that Wildmages like him are some of the rare few who can look beyond themselves and to be commended. He's not really comfortable with this but YouCantArgueWithElves.
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* BlessedWithSuck: Unicorns have trouble with the proximity of people who are not chaste, celibate virgins - meaning their companions must be not just virgins, but unmarried virgins without romantic or lustful thoughts. Just how much trouble depends on the scene. Shalkan is able to accustom himself to stay only a few feet from Idalia, and a small herd with a broken-legged colt was able to approach her for healing as long as only a virgin actually touched the colt, but later unicorns struggle to fight non-virginal enemies and can't be healed except by virgins. Later still they have no problem at all fighting very non-virginal demons.
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* BlessedWithSuck: Unicorns have trouble with the proximity of people who are not chaste, celibate virgins - meaning their companions must be not just virgins, but unmarried virgins without romantic or lustful thoughts. Just how much trouble depends on the scene. Shalkan is able to accustom himself to stay only a few feet from Idalia, and a small herd with a broken-legged colt was able to approach her for healing as long as only a virgin actually touched she didn't touch the colt, but later unicorns struggle to fight non-virginal enemies and can't be healed except by virgins. Later still they have no problem at all fighting very non-virginal demons.
* CoolSword: Kellen ends up with one called The Light At The Heart Of The Mountain.
* HighFantasy: This hits most of the beats, though there's also some attention to troop movements and tactics.
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* MissingMom: Kellen and Idalia's mother, Alance.
* MutuallyExclusiveMagic: High Magick and Wild Magic, for the most part. Kellen starts out as a High Magick student but isn't very good at it, since his true talent is as a Knight-Mage.
* MutuallyExclusiveMagic: High Magick and Wild Magic, for the most part. Kellen starts out as a High Magick student but isn't very good at it, since his true talent is as a Knight-Mage.
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* MissingMom: Kellen and Idalia's mother, Alance.
Alance. She came from outside of the City, back in the days when it wasn't so isolationist, and was apparently happy with Lycaelon until they had a son and he started to change. Having a severe falling out with her husband, she fled the city in the night. Idalia speculates that she was a Wildmage. Unfortunately, she doesn't actually appear again and her fate is unknown.
* MutuallyExclusiveMagic: High Magick and Wild Magic, for the most part. Kellen starts out as a High Magick student but isn't very good atit, it. He has more luck with Wild Magic but isn't as good at it as his sister, since his true talent is as a rare subset of Wildmage, Knight-Mage.
* MutuallyExclusiveMagic: High Magick and Wild Magic, for the most part. Kellen starts out as a High Magick student but isn't very good at
** Different Elf cities also have markedly different cultures. Ysterialpoerin is so grandly, extravagantly formal that other Elves can struggle talking to them, and the workarounds Kellen's picked up to be able to ask questions without ''asking questions'' are still too abrupt and rude for them.
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* ReleasedToElsewhere: Banishment from Armethalieh ostensibly means you have one night to leave the City's lands and never come back, and if you loiter, the stone golem hounds called the Outlaw Hunt will escort you out. In reality, it's (nearly) impossible to reach the border before dawn, and when you don't, the Hunt tears you to pieces.
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* ReleasedToElsewhere: Banishment from Armethalieh ostensibly means you have one night to leave the City's lands and never come back, and if you loiter, the stone golem hounds called the Outlaw Hunt will escort you out. In reality, it's (nearly) impossible to reach the border before dawn, and when you don't, the Hunt tears you to pieces. It was not always this way; sixteen years ago Armethalieh didn't claim nearly as much territory and it was more possible to leave.
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* {{Unicorn}}: Unicorns in this setting are pony-sized, luminous, and have the power of speech. They are somewhat repulsed by the presence of any non-unicorn who is not a virgin (and yes, having sex while transformed counts) and extremely repulsed with any contact with anyone who is evil. They're also very stealthy and quite dangerous in a fight. The isolationist elves allow free passage into their territory only to Wild Mages and unicorns, the latter of whom sometimes bond with virgin elves.
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* {{Unicorn}}: Unicorns in this setting are pony-sized, luminous, can neutralize both poison and magic with their horns, and have the power of speech. They are somewhat repulsed by the presence of any non-unicorn who is not a virgin (and yes, having sex while transformed counts) and extremely repulsed with any contact with anyone who is evil. They're also very stealthy and quite dangerous in a fight. The isolationist elves allow free passage into their territory only to Wild Mages and unicorns, the latter of whom sometimes bond with virgin elves.
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%%* VillainousIncest: Savilla and Zyperis.
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** The Outlaw Hunt is a rather more mundane version. Also rather sadistic as fleeing to safety beyond the lands of Armethalieh (and thus beyond their reach) really is not an option despite the official claims that it is exile.
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** The Outlaw Hunt is a rather more mundane version.version, being a great pack of animate stone dog statues. Also rather sadistic as fleeing to safety beyond the lands of Armethalieh (and thus beyond their reach) really is not an option despite the official claims that it is exile.
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!! The Obsidian Trilogy provides examples of:
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!! The Obsidian Trilogy ''Obsidian Trilogy'' provides examples of:
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Disambiguating; deleting and renaming wicks as appropriate. Moved to discussion
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* InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons: Are you an Elven warrior who's already ninja-esque in your badassedness? Just add a dragon, and you become a badass warrior-mage with practically unlimited power.
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Don't think Departmentof Redundancy Department covers that. Clear YMMV on the main page.
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* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: The audiobook for ''The Outstretched Shadow'' is thirty hours long. This is because the narration has to state and restate every point repeatedly within a scene, and then rephrase and repeat in later scenes. Apparently an editor was found for the other two books, because they're not like that.
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* UnicornsPreferVirgins: Kellen summons a unicorn, Shalkan, to help him escape the territory of Armathalieh. Shalkan informs him that the mage-price for his help is to remain both celibate and chaste for a year and a day. Unicorns explicitly cannot touch humanoids who are not virgins: Shalkan can't touch Kellen's long-lost sister Idalia because her own mage-price to escape Armathalieh while [[VoluntaryShapeshifting shapeshifted into an eagle]] was to hatch and raise a clutch of chicks, which involved mating with a male eagle.
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* VillainousIncest: Savilla and Zyperis.
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fix spoiler tags in several places, edit bloated Wild Magic bullet
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* {{Reincarnation}}: Idalia's Mageprice for a great work of Wild Magic in the third book proves to be [[spoiler:HeroicSacrifice of herself to ruin the Endarkened Queen's final rite, which required an ''unwilling'' sacrifice. But whatever force rules the Wild Magic isn't cruel: at the end of the trilogy she's reincarnated as the newborn daughter of the Queen of the Elves, solving the MayflyDecemberRomance problem between her and Jermayan as well.]]
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* {{Reincarnation}}: Idalia's [[spoiler:Idalia]]'s Mageprice for a great work of Wild Magic in the third first book proves to be [[spoiler:HeroicSacrifice of herself to ruin the Endarkened Queen's final rite, which required an ''unwilling'' sacrifice. But whatever force rules the Wild Magic isn't cruel: at the end of the trilogy she's reincarnated as the newborn daughter of the Queen of the Elves, solving the MayflyDecemberRomance problem between her and Jermayan as well.]]
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** The Starry Hunt, summoned by Idalia [[spoiler:in the third book]]. They're FULL OF STARS! And also badass.
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** The [[spoiler:The Starry Hunt, summoned by Idalia [[spoiler:in in the third book]].book. They're FULL OF STARS! And also badass.]]
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* WildMagic: A fundamental part of the world. Wild Magic is essentially the consciousness of all life in the world, and works to ensure as much life survives as possible. Using Wild Magic is essentially a series of bargains; whenever it does something for you, you have to do something for it in return; what that something ''is'' isn't revealed until you cast the spell, and is rarely if ever the same twice. For instance, a spell to heal a minor injury may cost "Plant twelve acorns" one day, and "Travel in this direction until you find something to help, then help it" the next. The costs are extremely variable, but are always, ''always'' fair. At one point, [[spoiler: Idalia Tavadon]] casts a spell to stop a huge, long-lasting drought which has turned a rainforest into a tinderbox; this spell carries the cost of [[HeroicSacrifice "you must die"]]. The time of death isn't specified, however; all the caster knows is that Wild Magic will inform them when the time comes. The next spell they cast, and any subsequent spell up until their now-inevitable death, ends up being ''free'', or more precisely "This spell has already been paid for", due to the immense worth in dying [[spoiler: to permanently prevent demons from ''ever'' invading the world]]. [[spoiler:And there's even an element of outright kindness in the Wild Magic: after dying to ruin the demons' plan, the Wild Magic reincarnates her as the newborn daughter of the Queen of the Elves, which lets her and Jermayan have a HappilyEverAfter (once the JailbaitWait is over).]]
** However sometimes when it calls for a HeroicSacrifice that seems rather pointless, with the Wildmage dying in a time or for a reason that [[SenselessSacrifice does not appear to be needful]].
** However sometimes when it calls for a HeroicSacrifice that seems rather pointless, with the Wildmage dying in a time or for a reason that [[SenselessSacrifice does not appear to be needful]].
to:
* WildMagic: A fundamental part of the world. Wild Magic is essentially the consciousness of all life in the world, and works to ensure as much life survives as possible. Using Wild Magic is essentially a series of bargains; whenever it does something for you, you have to do something for it in return; what that something ''is'' isn't revealed until you cast the spell, and is rarely if ever the same twice. For instance, a spell to heal a minor injury may cost "Plant twelve acorns" one day, and "Travel in this direction until you find something to help, then help it" the next. The costs are extremely variable, but are always, ''always'' fair. At one point, [[spoiler: Idalia Tavadon]] casts a spell to stop a huge, long-lasting drought which has turned a rainforest into a tinderbox; this spell carries the cost of [[HeroicSacrifice "you must die"]]. The time of death isn't specified, however; all the caster knows is that Wild Magic will inform them when the time comes. The next spell they cast, and any subsequent spell up until their now-inevitable death, ends up being ''free'', or more precisely "This spell has already been paid for", due to the immense worth in dying [[spoiler: to permanently prevent demons from ''ever'' invading the world]]. [[spoiler:And there's even an element of outright kindness in the Wild Magic: after dying to ruin the demons' plan, the Wild Magic reincarnates her as the newborn daughter of the Queen of the Elves, which lets her and Jermayan have a HappilyEverAfter (once the JailbaitWait is over).]]\n** However sometimes when it calls for a HeroicSacrifice that seems rather pointless, with the Wildmage dying in a time or for a reason that [[SenselessSacrifice does not appear to be needful]].
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fix reference to Jerkass in Jerk With A Heart Of Gold
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* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Cilarnen is (initially) a bigoted, spoilt brat, only barely managing to be polite to the centaurs who take him in. After a few [[CallARabbitASmeerp moonturns]] their kindness wears him down, but it takes a demon attack for him to realize these are his friends and he cares about them. Cilarnen struggles more working with the Elves and Wildmages but does so out of his love for his city. He eventually completely loses Jerkass status by overcoming his prejudiced upbringing, learning to see the 'Lesser Races' as valuable equals and even admitting that Kellen has become his best friend.
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* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Cilarnen is (initially) a bigoted, spoilt spoiled brat, only barely managing to be polite to the centaurs who take him in. After a few [[CallARabbitASmeerp moonturns]] their kindness wears him down, but it takes a demon attack for him to realize these are his friends and he cares about them. Cilarnen struggles more working with the Elves and Wildmages but does so out of his love for his city. He eventually completely loses Jerkass {{Jerkass}} status by overcoming his prejudiced upbringing, learning to see the 'Lesser Races' as valuable equals and even admitting that Kellen has become his best friend.
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remove reference to authors, add spoiler tag for series climax in Imperfect Ritual
Changed line(s) 58 (click to see context) from:
* ImperfectRitual: {{Invoked|Trope}} at the climax of ''When Darkness Falls'' by Creator/MercedesLackey and Creator/JamesMallory. The Demons' ritual to free their god from imprisonment requires an unwilling human sacrifice. Idalia spoils it by casting a spell to have her change places with the sacrifice (her father) at the last second and [[HeroicSacrifice dying willingly]].
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* ImperfectRitual: {{Invoked|Trope}} at the climax of ''When Darkness Falls'' by Creator/MercedesLackey and Creator/JamesMallory. Falls''. The Demons' Endarkened's ritual to free their god from imprisonment requires an [[spoiler:an unwilling human sacrifice. Idalia spoils it by casting a spell to have her change places with the sacrifice (her father) at the last second and [[HeroicSacrifice dying willingly]]. ]]
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* DragonRider: All Mages who have bonded with a Dragon; for instance, [[spoiler:Jermayan]]. The bonding between a dragon and its Mage is such that not only their minds are linked, but their lives - if one dies, so does the other.
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* DragonRider: All Mages who have bonded with a Dragon; for instance, [[spoiler:Jermayan]]. The bonding between a dragon and its Mage is such that not only their minds are linked, but their lives - -- if one dies, so does the other.
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* FiveRaces: There were more races before the Great War a thousand years ago, but as it stands humans are the Mundane (of course), centaurs are the Stout, elves are the High Men, and while the Otherfolk don't contribute a whole lot to the war in the second two books, they're firmly the Fairy.
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There should be no spoiler text in the main body of the description or above the Examples line. See Handling Spoilers.
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* Kellen Tavadon: The main protagonist from the beginning of the series, Kellen starts out as the disappointing son of Armethalieh's Archmage, Lycaelon Tavadon. As the series continues, he [[spoiler:discovers that he is, firstly, a Wildmage, and secondly (after being banished from Armethalieh for being a Wildmage), a special kind of Wildmage called a Knight-Mage]]. Knowing this, he [[spoiler:leads the combined armies of the Allies against the Endarkened]]. He is in love with Vestakia.
* Idalia Tavadon: Kellen's older sister, Idalia is [[spoiler:also a Wildmage]], and is in love with the Elf Jermayan. [[spoiler:Ends the conflict by willingly sacrificing herself to save her father. Shortly thereafter, she is reincarnated as the daughter of the Elven King.]]
* Shalkan: A snarky unicorn, Shalkan enters the story when [[spoiler:Kellen needs help escaping Armethalieh's lands]]. He is practically addicted to sweets.
* Jermayan: Jermayan begins as a garden-variety Elven Knight in the first book, who also happens to be in love with Idalia. In the second book, he [[spoiler:meets and bonds with Ancaladar, an ancient dragon, thus becoming the first Elven Mage in millenia.]] Later, in the third book, he [[spoiler:nearly dies and loses his magic, before having it restored to him by Idalia's sacrifice]].
* Ancaladar: In the last war against the Endarkened, most of the Dragons and their bondmates died. Ancaladar didn't, but he feels very guilty about that. Fortunately for his guilt, he [[spoiler:bonds with Jermayan]], and fights for the Allies.
* Idalia Tavadon: Kellen's older sister, Idalia is [[spoiler:also a Wildmage]], and is in love with the Elf Jermayan. [[spoiler:Ends the conflict by willingly sacrificing herself to save her father. Shortly thereafter, she is reincarnated as the daughter of the Elven King.]]
* Shalkan: A snarky unicorn, Shalkan enters the story when [[spoiler:Kellen needs help escaping Armethalieh's lands]]. He is practically addicted to sweets.
* Jermayan: Jermayan begins as a garden-variety Elven Knight in the first book, who also happens to be in love with Idalia. In the second book, he [[spoiler:meets and bonds with Ancaladar, an ancient dragon, thus becoming the first Elven Mage in millenia.]] Later, in the third book, he [[spoiler:nearly dies and loses his magic, before having it restored to him by Idalia's sacrifice]].
* Ancaladar: In the last war against the Endarkened, most of the Dragons and their bondmates died. Ancaladar didn't, but he feels very guilty about that. Fortunately for his guilt, he [[spoiler:bonds with Jermayan]], and fights for the Allies.
to:
* Kellen Tavadon: The main protagonist from the beginning of the series, Kellen starts out as the disappointing son of Armethalieh's Archmage, Lycaelon Tavadon. As the series continues, he [[spoiler:discovers that he is, firstly, a Wildmage, and secondly (after being banished from Armethalieh for being a Wildmage), a special kind of Wildmage called a Knight-Mage]]. Knowing this, he [[spoiler:leads the combined armies of the Allies against the Endarkened]]. He is in love with Vestakia.
* Idalia Tavadon: Kellen's older sister, Idalia is[[spoiler:also also a Wildmage]], and is Wildmage in love with the Elf Jermayan. [[spoiler:Ends the conflict by willingly sacrificing herself to save her father. Shortly thereafter, she is reincarnated as the daughter of the Elven King.]]
Jermayan.
* Shalkan: A snarky unicorn, Shalkan enters the story when[[spoiler:Kellen Kellen needs help escaping Armethalieh's lands]].lands. He is practically addicted to sweets.
* Jermayan: Jermayan begins as a garden-variety Elven Knight in the first book, who also happens to be in love withIdalia. In the second book, he [[spoiler:meets and bonds with Ancaladar, an ancient dragon, thus becoming the first Elven Mage in millenia.]] Later, in the third book, he [[spoiler:nearly dies and loses his magic, before having it restored to him by Idalia's sacrifice]].
Idalia.
* Ancaladar: In the last war against the Endarkened, most of the Dragons and their bondmates died. Ancaladar didn't, but he feels very guilty about that. Fortunately for his guilt, he [[spoiler:bonds with Jermayan]], and fights for the Allies.
* Idalia Tavadon: Kellen's older sister, Idalia is
* Shalkan: A snarky unicorn, Shalkan enters the story when
* Jermayan: Jermayan begins as a garden-variety Elven Knight in the first book, who also happens to be in love with
* Ancaladar: In the last war against the Endarkened, most of the Dragons and their bondmates died. Ancaladar didn't, but he feels very guilty about that.
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* Cilarnen Volpiril: Cilarnen is only a minor character in the first book. In ''To Light A Candle'', though, we see a lot more of him, including [[spoiler:his banishment from Armethalieh for treason]].
to:
* Cilarnen Volpiril: Cilarnen is only a minor character in the first book. In ''To Light A a Candle'', though, we see a lot more of him, including [[spoiler:his banishment from Armethalieh for treason]].
him.
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dewicking Our Elves Are Better per trs
Changed line(s) 78 (click to see context) from:
* OurElvesAreBetter: Over ten thousand years before the trilogy the Elves used to live brief, warlike lives and were often powerful mages, but they made a deal with higher powers to shut [[GodOfEvil He Who Is]] out of the world by sacrificing most of their magic. In return they were granted peace and long lives. They usually live up to a thousand years (in peaceful times), and use that time to make living into an art. They are almost always perfect in whatever they do. Elf-made dishes, clothes, weapons, horses, fortresses - even mines, all better than anything humans can make. They make up for this awesomeness with a very, very convoluted system of politeness, considering questions and any sort of directness as extremely rude and only appropriate when time is short. While the more enlightened ones accept that other races won't understand everything, they all still try to train that formality into their allies. These elves all look very similar, too. To the untrained eye, except for the very old and the very young they're all alike as twins.
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* OurElvesAreBetter: OurElvesAreDifferent: Over ten thousand years before the trilogy the Elves used to live brief, warlike lives and were often powerful mages, but they made a deal with higher powers to shut [[GodOfEvil He Who Is]] out of the world by sacrificing most of their magic. In return they were granted peace and long lives. They usually live up to a thousand years (in peaceful times), and use that time to make living into an art. They are almost always perfect in whatever they do. Elf-made dishes, clothes, weapons, horses, fortresses - even mines, all better than anything humans can make. They make up for this awesomeness with a very, very convoluted system of politeness, considering questions and any sort of directness as extremely rude and only appropriate when time is short. While the more enlightened ones accept that other races won't understand everything, they all still try to train that formality into their allies. These elves all look very similar, too. To the untrained eye, except for the very old and the very young they're all alike as twins.
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None
Changed line(s) 58 (click to see context) from:
* HumanMomNonhumanDad: Vestakia's mother was a Wildmage, and her father, the Demon Prince Zyperis.
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* HumanMomNonhumanDad: Vestakia's mother was a Wildmage, and her father, the Demon Prince Zyperis. After realizing this, her mother cast a Wild Magic spell for a solution, and was given the choice between giving the child a human appearance and demonic personality, or a demonic appearance and a human personality. She chose the latter, and Vestakia was born one of the nicest people in the series and with the ability to DetectEvil.
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None
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* CelibateHero: Kellen's Mageprice [[spoiler:for receiving Shalkan's aid in escaping the Outlaw Hunt]] requires him to be this for a year and a day.
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* CelibateHero: Kellen's Mageprice [[spoiler:for receiving Shalkan's aid in escaping the Outlaw Hunt]] requires him to be this for a year and a day.AYearAndADay.
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* VowOfCelibacy: Kellen's Mageprice for Shalkan getting him clear of the Outlaw Hunt in ''Shadow'', on pain of castration. This causes a problem when he falls in love with Vestakia.
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* VowOfCelibacy: Kellen's Mageprice for Shalkan getting him clear of the Outlaw Hunt in ''Shadow'', on pain of castration. This causes a problem when he falls in love with Vestakia.Vestakia, though it thankfully isn't permanent, running for AYearAndADay.
Changed line(s) 106 (click to see context) from:
* TheWildHunt: The Starry Hunt, summoned by Idalia [[spoiler:in the third book]]. They're FULL OF STARS! And also badass.
to:
* TheWildHunt: TheWildHunt:
** The Starry Hunt, summoned by Idalia [[spoiler:in the third book]]. They're FULL OF STARS! And also badass.
** The Starry Hunt, summoned by Idalia [[spoiler:in the third book]]. They're FULL OF STARS! And also badass.
* WorldHealingWave: Idalia's [[spoiler:HeroicSacrifice which spoils Savilla's ritual to return the GodOfEvil to the world]] releases a great rush of power which kills many demons outright, weakens most of the rest, allows Kellen to [[spoiler:kill Prince Zyperis in one blow, restores Jermayan's power (allowing ''him'' to kill Savilla)]], refills the reserves of magic in Armethaliah, and, more slowly, heals the forest of the damage from the FinalBattle, causing new growth to sprout in the course of minutes to days.
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* XanatosGambit: The Endarkened placed enclaves of Shadowed Elves under Elven territory, and let them be discovered. Kellen instantly saw what this was - a tactic to drain Elf resources and distract them from whatever else the Endarkened were doing, while the Endarkened themselves sat safe - but also that this was not something that could be ignored.
to:
* XanatosGambit: The Endarkened placed enclaves of Shadowed Elves under Elven territory, and let them be discovered. Kellen instantly saw what this was - a was--a tactic to drain Elf resources and distract them from whatever else the Endarkened were doing, while the Endarkened themselves sat safe - but safe--but also that this was not something that could be ignored.ignored.
* AYearAndADay: The length of Kellen's VowOfCelibacy in exchange for Shalkan's help escaping the Armethaliehan lands. This period covers most of the trilogy, only running its course in the final chapter.
* AYearAndADay: The length of Kellen's VowOfCelibacy in exchange for Shalkan's help escaping the Armethaliehan lands. This period covers most of the trilogy, only running its course in the final chapter.
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Added DiffLines:
* AsYouKnow: In ''When Darkness Falls'', Cilarnen says to Kellen, "You know how the High Mages power their spells," and then proceeds to explain how they do so in detail. Kellen does indeed know (he was the one who clued Cilarnen in during the previous book), but he recognizes that this is just how Cilarnen marshals his thoughts to bring himself to the point, of how ''he'' plans to power his spells outside the City. That it handily recaps how High Magick works for the reader is a bonus.
