History Literature / TheShadowCampaigns

* WholesomeCrossdresser: When Winter could legitimately drop the disguise after becoming CO of the Girls' Own, she chooses not to, as by that point she'd spent almost half her life passing as male.

* ActionGirl: Loads: Winter, Jane, Bobby, Sothe, and the entire company of the Girls' Own.

* AmazonBrigade: The "Girls' Own" (officially the Royal Vordanai Fifth Volunteer Battalion) in ''The Price of Valor.'' Initially suffers from a massive amount of RagtagBandOfMisfits and StayInTheKitchen due to the prejudices of male officers and rankers alike, later rises to become one of the toughest units in the Vordanai army.

** Abby also qualifies, and as revealed in book 4, so do [[spoiler:Fitz]] and [[spoiler:Cyte]].

** In ''The Shadow Campaign'', Resinia notes mentally that Marcus would make a good archetypal "good king" if he wasn't a commoner. [[spoiler:In ''Guns of Empire'', she proposes to him, social rank be damned]].

"Flintlock fantasy" series by Django Wexler, covering four full-length novels thus far (''The Thousand Names,'' ''The Shadow Throne,'' ''The Price of Valor'' and ''The Guns of Empire'') and three novellas (''The Penitent Damned'', ''The Shadow of Elysium'', and ''The First Kill'').

* MilitaryMaverick: Andy, or Andria, feels free to ignore military procedure and has a HeyKingDude approach to talking with all the superior officers, but Marcus keeps her as his NumberTwo because she's an excellent staff lieutenant.

* EmbarrassingName: Cyte's true first name is [[spoiler:Temperance]], which is why she insists that Cytomandiclea is the real one.

* EmbarassingName: Cyte's true first name is [[spoiler:Temperance]], which is why she insists that Cytomandiclea is the real one.

* LovedEpiphany: Marcus has one after Andy asks him if he's in love with [[spoiler:the Queen]] and he finally admits to himself that yes, he's been for a while.

* EmbarrassingName: Cyte's true first name is [[spoiler:Temperance]], which is why she insists that Cytomandiclea is the real one.

* KingIncogito: While hiding from Maurisk in the third book, Raesinia poses as a courier girl working for the Exchange. Funnily enough, she's the one who has to remind Marcus not to treat her like a queen.

* PartingFromConsciousnessWords: When Janus is poisoned, his last words before falling unconscious is "I don't feel very well".

* SmallNo: This is Marcus' first answer to [[spoiler:Raesinia's marriage proposal.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The Beast is referred to in brief discussions of religion and numerous invocations of profanity for several books before it is revealed that it's real, [[spoiler:and it's gotten loose]].

* MoodSwinger: Janus has some symptoms of the bipolar disorder; he can go for weeks being perfectly calm, then have a period of mania where he's either extremely cheerful and affable or jumps into raging fury at the drop of a hat, only to be perfectly friendly and nice the following day.

* GambitPileup: Arguably, the entire series is an extended one, but it comes to a head in book 4. Janus, Raesinia, the Borels, Orlanko, and the Pontifex of the Black all have gambits going that clash in spectacular, destructive fashion. [[spoiler:Surprisingly and fascinatingly, Janus ''loses''.]]

* BadassGay:

* PsychoLesbian: 'Mad' Jane, leader of the Leatherbacks, is this trope in spades. It's outright stated in ''The Shadow Throne'' and turned UpToEleven in ''The Price of Valor.''

* LaResistance: Several, including Raesinia's own band of students, as well as the Leathernecks and the Docksiders.

* PrisonRiot: Mad Jane armed the entire population of Mrs. Wilmore's (a hundred-odd girls and young women) with improvised shivs and coshes, marched up to the prefects and demanded to be let out or else. The prefects complied; it was the first time someone had actually had the wherewithal to defy them in numbers. The escapees went on to form the Leathernecks, with Mad Jane at their head.
* PsychoLesbian: 'Mad' Jane, leader of the Leathernecks, is this trope in spades. It's outright stated in ''The Shadow Throne'' and turned UpToEleven in ''The Price of Valor.''

* RecursiveCrossdressing: In ''The Shadow Throne'', Janus sends Winter undercover to infiltrate the Leathernecks, a notorious all-female band of terrorists and crime lords in Vordan City. Winter comments amusedly at first that she's a girl passing as a guy who's going undercover as a girl, but ''actually panics'' when she first goes out in public wearing women's clothing. She's not sure which scares her more: being busted as a male (and blowing her assignment), or being busted as a female (and getting thrown out of the Army).

* RecursiveCrossdressing: In ''The Shadow Throne', Janus sends Winter undercover to infiltrate the Leathernecks, a notorious all-female band of terrorists and crime lords in Vordan City. Winter comments amusedly at first that she's a girl passing as a guy who's going undercover as a girl, but ''actually panics'' when she first goes out in public wearing women's clothing. She's not sure which scares her more: being busted as a male (and blowing her assignment), or being busted as a female (and getting thrown out of the Army).

* BigBadDuumvirate: Duke Orlanko and the Pontifex of the Black are in an alliance with each other to keep Vordan under the control of the Sworn Church.

* CavalryOfficer: Captain Stokes (nicknamed Give-Em-Hell by the Colonials) is one; generally he's portrayed as very over-eager and prone to bluster and overestimating the capabilities of his forces, but he's also effective, with his cavalry managing to start the rout of an enemy army in Book Three.

* RecycledInSpace: The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars WITH MAGIC! AND NAPOLEON IS A GOOD GUY!
** FantasyCounterpartCulture: Lots. Khandar is a fairly obvious {{Expy}} of the Near and Middle East, complete with a crumbling, decadent VestigialEmpire, a whole bunch of religious fanatics bent on holy war, veiled women, nomadic desert tribesmen, and a bunch of not-European colonial forces trying to hold the whole mess together. Vordan, of course, is Bourbon/Napoleonic France with a big pinch of Great Britain thrown in. Hamvelt is the Holy Roman Empire, Antova and the Free Cities are equivalent to Venice and Genoa, and the Free Churches/Sworn Church schism stands in for Protestantism vs. Catholicism.
** FantasyConflictCounterpart: Amusingly, ''not'' to a Napoleonic campaign, although Napoleon's armies spent plenty of time in Egypt. The whole Khandarai adventure, instead, looks an awful lot like the Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1880).
* RecursiveCrossdressing: The B plot of ''The Shadow Throne.'' Colonel Vhalnich sends Winter undercover to infiltrate The Leathernecks, a notorious all-female band of terrorists and crime lords in Vordan City. Winter comments amusedly at first that she's a girl passing as a guy who's going undercover as a girl, but ''actually panics'' when she first goes out in public wearing women's clothing. She's not sure which scares her more: being busted as a male (and blowing her assignment), or being busted as a female (and getting thrown out of the Army).

* SecretPolice: The Concordat, the enforcement arm of the Ministry of Information. They even have their own paramilitary "Special Branch," which functions as Duke Orlanko's private StateSec.

* TheSquad: The Colonials, as befitting a military series, of course.
** ColonelBadass: Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich, Count of Mieran. Starts out playing himself off as an UpperClassTwit; later reveals himself to be a crazy brilliant strategist, deadly with just about any weapon you'd care to name, and a student of magic to boot. Later becomes a FourStarBadass in ''The Price of Valor.''
** TheCaptain: Captain Marcus d'Ivoire, CO of the First Battalion. Probably the series' most LawfulGood character; he's repeatedly characterized as a knight born into the wrong era.
** TheNeidermeyer: Captain Adrecht Roston, CO of the Fourth Battalion. An alcoholic, effete ladies' man who's actually a decent officer when he makes the effort, but generally can't be bothered to do so. After nearly losing his entire battalion to negligence (after which only the other captains' intervention saves him), he finally gets cashiered for mutiny and is forced to march into the desert, along with all the mutineers he led. They NeverFoundTheBody, though...
** BloodKnight: Captain Harry "Give-Em-Hell" Stokes, captain of [[CavalryOfficer the Colonials' cavalry battalion.]] Stokes is a pigeon-chested, bow-legged guy who frequently has to be physically restrained when the battle's joined, and firmly believes that there is no problem in warfare that cannot be solved by repeated application of cavalry charges and screams of "Give 'em hell!"
** ReligiousBruiser: Captain "Preacher" Vahkerson of the artillery battalion, who has the entire Wisdoms of Karis the Savior (this universe's version of TheBible) memorized, names each of his cannons for a passage out of the Wisdoms (said passages then being engraved on the cannons), forbids drinking, smoking, swearing, gambling and wenching in his battalion. Write him off as a pious kook at your peril; he's a frighteningly competent artillery officer (and later an instructor turning out even ''more'' frighteningly competent artillerymen).
** BadassBureaucrat: Lieutenant Fitzhugh Warus, the man who actually makes the Colonials run. He coordinates the supply shipments, collects and collates the intelligence, and handles the paperwork for the entire regiment. He's also a very skilled officer in his own right.
** SergeantRock: Sergeant Winter Ihernglass, after her FieldPromotion in the beginning of ''The Thousand Names.''
** PluckyMiddie: Corporal Bobby Forester, who is painfully gung-ho and spit-and-polish, and repeatedly described as "only a boy" by the other Colonials. [[spoiler: Bobby's boyish appearance makes a lot more sense when it's revealed that "Bobby" is short for Roberta, not Robert.]]
** TheBigGuy: Corporals James Folsom and Drake Graff, who tower head and shoulders over practically every other soldier in the Colonials.

* AerithAndBob: We have Jane, Bobby, Marcus, Jennifer, Ben, James, and Anton.....as well as Feor, Sothe, Raesinia, and ''Cytomandiclea''.
* TheAlcoholic: Adrecht in the first book is one. Maurisk becomes one as his paranoia mounts. Jane shows evidence of heading this way as well.
* AllMythsAreTrue: [[spoiler: Demons are real. And the Beast of Judgement is very, very real.]]

** After [[spoiler: Maurisk's ]] coup is stopped, the position he held in the government is maintained but is now occupied by an elderly politician who is respected but not very effectual. He is a figurehead without any real power.
* BadassGay: Winter Ihernglass is a lesbian who is also an exceptional officer, a skilled and utterly badass fighter and [[spoiler: host to one of the most powerful demons in the series.]] "Mad" Jane Verity, Winter's old lover, is equally badass and leads an all female gang that takes no dirt from anyone.
* BatmanGambit: '''loads'''

* BigBad: Orlanko, the Pontifex of the Black.
** BiggerBad: [[spoiler:The Beast of Judgement]].
** TheDragon: The BiggerBad's host. [[spoiler:It's Mad Jane, which nearly gives Winter a HeroicBSOD.]]

** ChurchMilitant: The Penitent Damned, who willingly bind demons (thereby eternally condemning themselves to Hell) in order to battle the Church's enemies, real or perceived. The novella ''The Penitent Damned'' explores their role in more detail.
** SinisterMinister: Any priest of the Sworn Church has a decent chance of being this. Taken UpToEleven with the Obsidian Order.

** AuthorityInNameOnly: Since Captain of the Vordan City police is a political appointment, with the average post holder being promoted, dismissed or transferred after a year and a half, most authority in regards to day to day affairs has devolved to the second in command, who is a career police officer who's been in the service for twenty years.

* EmergencyTransformation: Winter binds the demon Infernivore as a last-ditch effort to save Vhalnich and d'Ivoire from a demon-possessed Concordat agent. It works.
** Bobby is another, perhaps straighter example: after Bobby suffers an apparently fatal gunshot wound, the Khandarai priestess Feor effects a demon binding as a last-ditch lifesaving measure (it's depicted as a DangerousForbiddenTechnique to boot). PlayedForDrama in that Bobby appears to be somewhat less than human afterward.

* HollywoodHistory: Raesinia deliberately glosses over some of the details of Vordan's history during her speech to the Deputies-General about how the throne's power derives from the people (Like the fact that the original Deputies-General were untitled landowners, not peasants, and their objections to the nobles had nothing to do with the oppressed peasants and everything to do with the nobles usurping the landowner's prerogatives).

* MagicAIsMagicA: Demons are bound to humans by reading the demon's name aloud. Once bound, the demon is stuck with that human for the rest of the human's life; the only known method of removing a demon from a person without killing the host are to feed the demon to the Infernivore, which generally reduces the host to a mindless vegetable (This tends to be eventually fatal as well) or [[spoiler:being taken over by the Beast of Judgement, which is basically replacing the original demon with a much nastier one]].

** CastFromHitPoints: The demon Caryatid does this. The host gains a supernatural HealingFactor, SuperStrength and [[WingedHumanoid angel-like flight]], but at a cost: using the power progressively turns the host into a marble-like substance, until s/he eventually winds up [[TakenForGranite turning into a statue.]]

* OddJobGods: Leaders of the Redeemer Cult rename themselves after angels. One person who works with them wonders what they'll do when they run out of angels with impressive portfolios like Vengeance and Victory and are left with lesser ones like the Angel of Small Crafts and the Angel of Sisterly Affection.

** GreatEscape: Winter's plot, which involved hiding in a cart full of laundry, scaling a twenty-foot stone wall, and hiding in the gutters until she could stow away on a coach to the nearest army recruiting station.
** PrisonRiot: Mad Jane's method, in which she armed the entire population of the Home (a hundred-odd girls and young women) with improvised shivs and coshes, marched up to the prefects and demanded to be let out or else. The prefects complied; it was the first time someone had actually had the wherewithal to defy them in numbers. The escapees went on to form the Leathernecks, with Mad Jane at their head.
* OverrankedSoldier: Through a combination of luck, skill, and coming into the orbit of the greatest general of the age, Winter goes from common Ranker to Division (one star) General before the age of twenty-five.
** Somewhat mitigated by the fact that the series is based on the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, where such things did really happen - NapoleonBonaparte was only one year older when he was given command of the entire Italian theatre, for example. What makes Winter remarkable is that she went from Ranker (Private) to Division-General (the third-highest rank in the army) in ''one year'', partly though proximity to Janus, partly through that proximity letting her display her competence. And she has yet to be shown as having reached the limits of her abilities - she's only lost one battle, and that was to the greatest general of the previous generation.

* RankUp: Winter, Bobby and Graff all achieve this numerous times. Winter goes from Ranker (this universe's equivalent of Private) through Senior Sergeant, earns a battlefield commission as a lieutenant, and eventually ends up a Division General (Roughly equivalent to a Brigadier General in RL army ranks). Bobby and Graff start out as corporals and end up as lieutenants.

** PuttingOnTheReich: Uniformed Concordat agents wear black and silver military uniforms with black leather greatcoats. Just in case you had any questions about their level of evil.

** Winter might even fall closer to WholesomeCrossdresser: when she could legitimately drop the disguise after becoming CO of the Girls' Own, she chooses not to, as by that point she'd spent almost half her life passing as male.
** SweetOnPollyOliver: Graff develops this for [[spoiler: Bobby,]] who eventually drops the disguise after transferring from the Colonials to the Girls' Own.