History Literature / Xenos

** When the Dark lodges decide to make a point, the offender is placed somewhere public, has his arms and legs broken, is eviscerated and an enchanted scepter is planted in the ground through the living body. The resulting artifact serves as a Dark energy beacon while keeping the victim alive, conscious and in debilitating pain until their entire flesh has rotten to dust. This can only be done to Dark cultists or collaborators.

* WarriorPrince: Orkhet of Miora, fifth son of the king. Neither willing to join the Church nor to serve Miora nor to participate in the power struggles of his siblings, Orkhet used his personal wealth to found a mercenary group he called "Gray Company". Orkhet became famous for the Gray Company's power, skill and loyalty to him and to each other as well as for being unpredictable in both accepting and declining candidates to his Gray Company. Orkhet's crowning achievement was a bold raid as never seen before: the Gray Company was the second large unit after the Interregnum to enter the Blight. But instead of following a quest with suicidal determination, as the forces of the Council of Loyals did, the Gray Company returned. Orkhet's tactical skill became apparent - he created a unit capable of raiding the Blight for {{Plunder}}.

* AnIcePerson: secondary Ice school, combining Air and Water.

*** During the festive tourney in Diora, capital of Litiya, the engagement of Shator, heir-prince of Litiya to Asmina, princess of Velariya, is announced as LoveAtFirstSight. Darin, Shator's close friend, notes that the entire affair was arranged in a "civilized manner", i.e. both Shator and Asmina are effectively expected to have lovers for fun and pleasure.
*** Averted with Kert III. and Cheyta of Dekara. Kert, [[spoiler: then a HiddenBackupPrince posing as a minor Borderlander baron]], was wounded during a tourney and submitted to the care of the local Saint Auna's branch. Cheyta, the daughter of a minor noble, was assigned to Kert as a healer, and for them it was LoveAtFirstSight. Vlad, learning their story and checking the personnel list of the nearest Saint Auna's branch, notes that Saint Auna's Order must have a long-standing policy of matching healers with patients, doubling as Arland's largest matchmaking facility.
** Similarly common among nobles for equally political reasons. Werebeast clans have bigger marriage issues than other nobles due to following long-standing pedigree plans to ensure their survival. Several notable Hunters and Rangers of noble and high-noble birth have left their families to avoid marriage.
*** Deconstructed with Arna "Black". Her clan's plans for Arna's future ended as she fell in love with a boy from another clan. Her refusal to submit to marriage within the clan ended with a murder and a duel. Arna is technically a renegade by clan law.

*** A peasant kid called Dils lost his entire family at the hands of a Dark lodge. The cultists simply didn't bother to finish off the boy, who survived to become a Death Lord and master Hunter Dils "Gloomy", one of the most powerful Hunters. Dils is known for hunting Dark cultists and human servants of the Fallen, often ignoring mindless tainted monsters and undead.

* LivingLieDetector: Mind mages detect lies easily. Blood and Life mages can read individuals by monitoring their vitals, but are rarely proficient in doing so. Mind Mages can also defend themselves from detection. Working with MetaphoricallyTrue statements and abusing the ExactWords of the question works unless the Mind mage goes from questioning to [[MindProbe forced memory scanning]].

** After Vlad beats up several young nobles from Narina in Matvey's inn, sir Berg, the commandant of Belgor, issues a Hunter-Apprentice's amulet to Vlad. This instantly elevates Vlad to membership of the Hunters' Guild and thus to nobility, allowing the nobles to challenge Vlad. For sir Berg, this allows to resolve the situation with Vlad, technically a commoner, assaulting nobles, and is acceptable within the ethics of the Hunters and within the written law of the Orkhet and Narina kingdoms.

* MagicIsMental: with the exception of the clergy and the servants of the Fallen, this holds true. Mages have to learn, understand and downright trust their incantations, gestures, rituals and runes, since merely having a pool of {{Mana}} and the affinity to an element doesn't make a mage. Dunya, Matvey's daughter, has the potential to be a Death Lady, but lacks training. Kolar er Kilam, during his first meeting with Vlad, needs several minutes to cast a simple fireball, as he lived through months of being systematically tortured with a PowerNullifier.
** Dark lodges utilize the trust aspect in breaking captured mages by submitting them to a RestrainingBolt artifact.

** All mages of the Hunters' Guild are {{MagicKnight}}s by necessity. Non-mages and weak mages compensate by e.g. being werebeasts, using lots of magical amulets and having ImplausibleFencingPowers.

** Subverted with Aliana el Chanor, adopted princess of Melor. Officially, the king of Melor found a dying woman with a baby in her arms during a hunt. The woman's last request was to raise the child as his own. While Vlad points out how unlikely it was for the king's bodyguards to miss a woman with a newborn child, and popular rumor calls Aliana Torin's bastard child, she is indeed adopted and not related to him by blood.

* {{Mana}}, RegeneratingMana and {{ManaPotion}}s: Mana is used to describe the reserves of magical energy of an individual, but not their skill level. The mana reserves are almost impossible to increase, while skill and experience accumulate. Mages can exhaust themselves and need to recover, as to Vlad's surprise alchemists have not discovered a recipe for mana potions. There are three ways to rapidly recover mana:
** Rare gems called "Taya's Tears" will accumulate mana and, when fully charged, completely recharge any mage upon use. Since the gems work regardless of the user's mana reserves and can not be split among mages, recharging a weaker mage of a crucial element or skill is feasible. "Taya's Tears" are a trademark of Arland's druids, [[spoiler: and actually grow on unique plants]].

** Life Lords and Ladies can essentially bottle their magic into expensive potions known as "Pink Fog". These will completely heal and restore mana; drinking a fraction of the dose works as a partial healing. Life mages are rare, Life Lords and Ladies are even rarer, and producing a "Pink Fog" supposedly exhausts them completely.
* TheMedic: Order of Saint Auna. This Order will accept sentients regardless of race, gender or personal history. The Order of Saint Auna will provide medical help to all sentients at no condition, except for being loyal to the Creator, and at no cost. Saint Auna's Order members will equally walk land and city, welcome and never hindered from entering both field and battlefield.
It is customary to leave donations for the order at any of their branches. Vlad notes that Saint Auna was a genius administrator, and Saint Auna's Order is among the few organizations he genuinely respects.

* RandomlyGifted: Magic runs at random on Arland. About one child in 1000 is born a mage. Among the Hunters' Guild prominent mages Kar "Volcano" is a noble, Ins "Ice" hails from a backwater mountain tribe, Dils "Gloomy" was a peasant boy and Arna "Black" is a werewolf royal and a Water mage. The access to spells seems to be random among clerics, but obviously influences promotion chances. Mages are born more often among nobles, and Mother Erita of Saint Auna's Order tells Vlad that two mages are statistically more likely to have gifted children; [[spoiler: the chance increases if the mages are of the same element]]. Magic seems to run in the genes, as two otherwise unrelated and isolated communities, the Lynx clan and the clan Ins "Ice" came from, both show an increased share of mages.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-zagged]]. While most nobles and knights' orders play the trope straight, the more cynical characters note that life, even as a sex slave, is preferable to having your soul sacrificed to the Fallen.

* ReallyGetsAround for being a PoliticallyActivePrincess: Aliana el Chanor, princess of Melor. Due to being adopted, she has no claims to the throne whatsoever and seems to live a life of various pleasures as a token royal. Most embassies at the court of Melor have taken the hint and have surprisingly handsome "diplomats" on staff. Unknown to the general public, though, Eliana is a royal envoy, an accomplished Life mage, a trained seductress, spy and assassin, has the potential to become a Saint in her own lifetime and has married [[spoiler: Vlad "Lightning" by the rite of Saint Auna]], later performing a soul bind to her husband. Much to said husband's chagrin, her training as FemmeFatale often takes over.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Common on the Baros island under the local ReligionOfEvil, as the effect of the regularly performed Life Extension ritual. Said ritual is Fueled by HumanSacrifice in a case of EquivalentExchange, and hence extremely rare everywhere except Baros. Life extension is rarely granted for ruling monarchs, using e.g. a serial killer as the sacrifice.
* RebelliousPrincess: Arna "Black", master Huntress hailing from the Black Wolf clan. Arna fell in love with a White Wolf and declined the arranged marriage set up for her. After the death of the White Wolf, Arna joined the Hunters. Her master title "Black" was obviously assigned due to fighting in the shape of a black she-wolf. Arna ends up in charge of the Artua county, as the original count el Artua deemed a Black Wolf princess fit to rule and correctly deduced that she has been educated to become a ruler of the clan from the start.

* SacredHospitality: standard part of morals among nobles on Arland. Vlad notes that some of the events during the tourney in Diora were likely orchestrated to accuse somebody of breaking the hospitality customs.

* SuperpowerfulGenetics: downplayed. About one child in 1000 is born with enough magic to use for work or combat, less than one in 100 has some magic at all. Most people on Arland believe that mages are more likely to beget mages. Mages occur more often among nobles. Some nobles believe that before the Interregnum all nobles were mages.
** Morals on Arland have loosened after the Interregnum, and mages are a coveted resource. As the Hunters' Guild has mages both powerful and untainted, it's common for women to visit Belgor for the chance to bear mage offspring.
** Vlad assumes that isolated societies tend to accumulate magic-enabling genes, and harsh conditions make mages more likely to live long enough or to be chosen as parents. Several cases seem to support this idea:
*** The native tribe of Ice Lord master Hunter Ins "Ice" seems to support this belief; according to Ins, one in three members of his tribe has the potential of Ice magic to at least the bachelor degree. The tribe has been isolated since long before the Interregnum. Tribal legends also claim blood relations to mysterious Ice Overlords.
*** The totem clans of the Wild Island have a higher percentage of mages. The clans, isolated on the Wild Island since the Interregnum, have adopted the policy of raising all children communally and equally, regardless of biological parents, possibly allowing for covertly polygamous mages.
*** The survivors of the original Tariya duchy. As Dark armies attacked, the duke and his court found refuge inside an enormous cave system, which they fortified and expanded until now. As the court had nobles and mages to spare, their descendants have an increased fraction of mages now, although they are beginning to suffer from inbreeding.
** A professor of the university of Riniya performed the required statistical research. According to him, a couple of mages has about one chance in 30 to beget a mage, and one chance in 10 if the mages are of the same School. The professor trusted just one pupil with his results, though.

* DontFearTheReaper: as Death visits the Stoka castle, she does so to inform Vlad that the results of his mission in Tariya caused some entity to break the "Covenant" in an attempt at his life. Death negates the attack and the immediate second attack against Vlad and does something apparently lethal to the attackers. Then she informs Vlad that while there's a place reserved for him in [[NorseMythology Niflheim]], she's will only accept Vlad's death by the rules and is rather keen to see his story unfold.

** This was how Torin of Melor adopted Aliana - he found her mother dying in the woods and taking care of the baby as his own was the woman's last wish. Contrary to popular rumors about Aliana being Torin's bastard and her mother's death his fault, this actually happened. Vlad is GenreSavvy enough to doubt that a dying woman with a newborn child simply managed to stumble into a king in the guarded forest, though.

** Aliana el Chanor, adopted princess of Melor. Officially, the king of Melor found a dying woman with a baby in her arms during a hunt. The woman's last request was to raise the child as his own. The story is suspicious, as Vlad points out how unlikely it was for the king's bodyguards to miss a woman with a newborn child during the sweep of the area.
** Magically gifted children are born more often to mages. Since Belgor has an abnormally high amount of masters and Lords of various magic schools, women often visit the city to become pregnant. This includes married nobles, as the benefit of a mage outweighs the ethical issues and the Hunters' Guild doesn't raise ancestry issues.

** Averted within the vampire clans. Vampire couples often dissolve after childbirth; female vampires may switch partners and clans. Clans raise all children born on their lands equally.

* NarrativeProfanityFilter with euphemisms, [[CurseCutShort unfinished obscenities]] and requests to PardonMyKlingon: Vlad's speech has frequent euphemisms and first letters or syllables of obscenities. When listening to someone, Vlad comments on people swearing. In addition, a language on Arland seems to exist solely for swearing, and is unrelated to the CommonTongue. On rare occasions that the language is quoted, it sounds entirely illegible.

** Ol't, a baker in Belgor, has been a grain producer somewhere in the south of Satum. Being a necromancer, he bought corpses of deceased or executed criminals from prisons and cleanly reanimated them to work the fields. Ol't's profits and magic gift called the attention of some inquisitors to him, forcing Ol't to abandon business and seek refuge in Belgor. Vlad persuades him to quit baking and start training as a combat necromancer.

* NeuralImplanting: a complicated spell from the Life school allows to copy a skill, e.g. fencing, from person to person, including reflexes and muscle memory. In rare cases of compatible magic abilities, a proficiency in a magic school can also be transferred.
** A Life Lord (Life school archmage) serves as a knowledge and skill repository of the Hunters' Guild, and often pesters Vlad to share his experiences and new skills.
** The Black Dragon Guards from the Wild Island made a tradition of this. Every retiring guardsman passes his entire skills and abilities to his successor, adding a life's worth of new skills to the inherited ones.
** Vlad finds himself on the receiving end of an involuntary implanting, as a former Black Dragon offers him the entire skill set. Vlad declines, thus passing a test of character. Turns out that the Black Dragons can perform a forced emergency implanting.

* NotAfraidToDie: Vlad was descibed by Father Estor as not seeking death, but ready to give his life for a reason he deems worthy, which includes material and moral issues.
* NotQuiteFlight: True flight is very expensive in terms of {{Mana}}. Levitation spells are common enough, used e.g. to silently climb walls.
* OnlyOneName: Hunters, Rangers, priests, monks and members of church-related orders go by their rank and a single name. Nobles may keep their family names, but rarely use them. Vlad notes that during a formal introduction, the first affiliation stated is the most important to the person.

*** An elite mercenary unit, called "Gray Hawks", raided the Blight some 800 years ago. Their loot allowed the commander, Orkhet, to found his own kingdom, and his men to become the new kingdom's nobility. The Orkhet kingdom is home to the Hunters' Guild, and the kings remember well how their dynasty began.

* StormingTheCastle: Vlad's subjects, over the course of the series, have become experts at raiding castles. Preferred tactics include finding entrances to secret passages, scaling unguarded walls or bypassing wards with superior stealth spells. Once inside, the storming proceeds by suppressing the castle's mages and instantly going for choke-points and for the chain of command. The advanced tactics, magical superiority and unparalleled discipline shown during raids allowed the more capable heads of secret services on Arland to start making connections between [[IHaveManyNames Vlad "Lightning", Dalv "Jester", Vlad el Artua, Vlad er Joker and Maitre]].

* UrbanLegendLoveLife: both princess Aliana of Melor and dwarven princess Anita of Lazurite are rumored to change lovers like gloves - daily or more often when fashionable. Vlad, through some incidents, happens to learn that both ladies were virgins on their respective wedding nights, and the rumors part of playing the RoyalBrat.
* VillainsDyingGrace: Nork, a master assassin from the Baros island, repents his life after being captured by Hunters. While awaiting his execution, Nork confesses his sins. As a part of his confession, Nork reveals the network of informants who work for the princedom of Baros, his own knowledge about Baros and his insights about corruption within the Church in exchange for a quicker death. Vlad notes that Nork's repentance might have just moved his soul's final destiny from hell to purgatory.

* WarriorPrince: Orkhet of Miora, fifth son of the king. Neither willing to join the Church nor to serve Miora nor to participate in the power struggles of his siblings, Orkhet used his personal wealth to found a mercenary group he called "Gray Company". Orkhet became famous for the Gray Company's power, skill and loyalty to him and to each other as well as for being unpredictable in both accepting and declining candidates to his Gray Company. Orkhet's crowning achievement was a bold raid as never seen before: the Gray Company was the second large unit after the Interregnum to enter the Blight. But instead of following a quest with suicidal determination, as the forces of the Council of Loyals did, the Gray Company returned. Orkhet's tactical skill became apparent - he created a unit capable of raiding the Blight for {{Plunder}}. The Gray Company emerged from the Blight not unscathed, but victorious. Their loot made Orkhet richer than kings of his time, and his men rich enough to rival dukes and counts. Orkhet and the Gray Company proceeded to found a new kingdom, claiming the north-eastern part of Satum. The mostly tainted lands from the borders of Velariya and Litiya in the south to the northern shore of the continent, and from Miora in the east to the Median Mountains in the west, became the new Orkhet kingdom. Orkhet I, now of Orkhet, proceeded to found the city of Belgor and the Hunters' Guild. While large parts of northern Orkhet remain tainted and uninhabitable, Orkhet is technically the largest cohesive country of northern Satum.

** During the battle in the Red Caves, Vlad observed Servants to use Light-infused magic instead of the pure power of the Maker. According to Bishop Aner of Belgor, usage of this magic is a heresy and power struggles within the Church regarding this power have contributed to [[spoiler: the beginning of the Interregnum some 1500 years ago]].

** Vladislav Istrin has accumulated several names over his time on Arland. He's master Hunter Vlad "Lightning", [[spoiler: reincarnated Hellaren, the Ice Tour[[hottip:*:note the similarity between "Istr", Vlad's surname's basis, and "Ice Tour", the way Vlad is called. "Ice Tour" is rendered in latinic letters in the novels.]]]], master Ranger [[SdrawkcabAlias Dalv]] "Jester", baron el Vira, later baron el Stoka, later count el Artua, founder of the Joker magic school Vlad er Joker, Maitre (an otherwise nameless mercenary and assassin), and Slav, a freelancer. Note that due to Vlad and Slav both being short forms of Vladislav, both introductions pass {{LivingLieDetector}}s.

** During the rite of Saint Auna, Vlad is asked about his marital status. His answer is: "I solemnly state that no woman is my wife [[ExactWords on Arland's soil]]."
** The King's Crowns kill the wearer after twenty years unless either removed or manipulated. While the removal can be performed easily by most clerics, the manipulations require a person possessing a "pure soul" and related to the wearer. The second condition, however, can be fulfilled by marriage.

* RandomlyGifted: Magic runs at random on Arland. About one child in 1000 is born a mage. Among the Hunters' Guild prominent mages Kar "Volcano" is a noble, Ins "Ice" hails from a backwater mountain tribe, Dils "Gloomy" was a peasant boy and Arna "Black" is a werewolf Water mage. The access to spells seems to be random among clerics, but obviously influences promotion chances. Mages are born more often among nobles, and Mother Erita of Saint Auna's Order tells Vlad that two mages are statistically more likely to have gifted children; [[spoiler: the chance increases if the mages are of the same element]]. Magic seems to run in the genes, as two otherwise unrelated and isolated communities, the Lynx clan and the clan Ins "Ice" came from, both show an increased share of mages, up to one in 100.

* ReallyGetsAround for being a PoliticallyActivePrincess: Eliana el Chanor, princess of Melor. Due to being adopted, she has no claims to the throne whatsoever and seems to live a life of various pleasures as a token royal. Most embassies at the court of Melor have taken the hint and have surprisingly handsome "diplomats" on staff. Unknown to the general public, though, Eliana is a royal envoy, an accomplished Life mage, a trained seductress, spy and assassin, has the potential to become a Saint in her own lifetime and has married [[spoiler: Vlad "Lightning" by the rite of Saint Auna]], later performing a soul bind to her husband. Much to said husband's chagrin, her training as FemmeFatale often takes over.

** Matvey "Skin" has retired from the Hunters' Guild after the death of his wife and [[spoiler: as a precondition to join the Council of the Loyals]].

* SlidingScaleOfVampireFriendliness checklist for vampire clans of Arland:

* CodeName: Vlad and his subordinates have used code names or made-up military titles for some missions. Justified with "Vlad" being a rare name. Justified for Vlad's lieutenants of the Lynx clan, who have changed their names due to their clan's traditions and are now called Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth. While Lynx clan's members are otherwise indistinguishable from natives of Satum, Vlad correctly assumes that their behaviour and names could give him away.

** Vlad fondly remembers his close-quarters combat instructor form the russian army, quoting: "What are you doing with the properly executed high kicks? Trying to arouse the enemy with the sight of your testicles? Kick him in the shins instead!"

* CommonTongue: All races and nations on Arland share the language given to them by the world's Creator. Priests assigned to the "blighted spots" are also responsible for imprinting the CommonTongue on people appearing there with a clerical spell.

* CoolOldLady: Lady Loviya, Grandmother Queen of Litiya, born princess of Karosa, who became queen by arranged marriage to the king of Litiya. As nobles of Litiya rebelled, Loviya lost her husband, two sons and only daughter in the civil war. The only other royal survivor was her 5-year-old grandson. Loviya took command of the armies and nobles loyal to the dynasty. For two months, Litiya was covered in blood. Loviya reclaimed the throne, exterminated the rebellious noble houses and ruled the country until her grandson came of age. While technically retired, Lady Loviya is a political force in her own right now.
* CorruptChurch: the Order of the Maker's Servants, according to Vlad the closest thing to inquisition on Arland, is engaged in plays for power both within the Church and outside it. Vlad is slightly shocked to find Servants collaborating with an actual Dark lodge in Tariya.

** Played straight with mages of the Blood, Death, Necromancy and Demonology schools - their affiliations and actions depend on personality and history and aren't solely defined by their powers. The Rangers' second-in-command is a Blood mage, Matvey's daughter Dunya, Shedar of the Lynx clan and master Hunter Dils "Gloomy" are Death mages, Ol't from Belgor is a necromancer, but they all work against the forces of the Fallen.

* DealWithTheDevil: modus operandi of Dark lodges. Worship of the Fallen offers a quick way to power, riches, influence and various benefits. Nork, master assassin from Baros island, initially accepted a little help to avenge his family and then gradually became a Dark battle-mage. Nork repents his life after being captured by Hunters, and as a part of his confession, reveals the network of informants who work for the princedom of Baros, his own knowledge about Baros and his insights about corruption within the Church in exchange for a quick death. Vlad notes that Nork's repentance might have just moved his soul's final destiny from hell to purgatory.

* DetectEvil: priests capable of clerical magic can perform a spell called "Test of loyalty to the Creator". The amplified version of the spell also includes a memory scan. The Order of Maker's Servants uses this effect of the amplified spell to gather political and financial secrets etc.

** Valit "Lightning", a retired Hunter and Dekara kingdom's loathed and feared, then deposed and recently reinstated head of secret service.

* KrakenAndLeviathan: sometime during the Interregnum somebody decided to take control of northern Satum's river system. Northern Satum has only two major rivers, flowing from the West and the East toward the middle of the continent. The rivers meet in the Sweetwater Sea with the Krays island in the middle of the sea's southern part. The Kraken, a partially sapient manifestation of raw Water magic, was summoned at the northern tip of the Sweetwater Sea, effectively ending waterway travels. The Kraken summoning wasn't an act of spite or despair, but a strategic decision, as at least one amulet to control the Kraken survived the Interregnum and upon resurfacing, became the focal point of a 5-sided free-for-all power struggle.

** Arna "Black", master Huntress, later countess er Artua. Her team, the She-Wolves, also qualify, as other female Hunters.

** The Joker magic school is unusual in training both male and female mages for armed and magical combat. Female students of this school hence become this trope as female {{MagicKnight}}s.
** The chaussers of the Dragons' Ridge on Ritum and the elven empire they oppose both have female warriors. Vlad met a former chasseur, now [[spoiler: mother superior of the Saint Auna's Order's branch]], in the Artua county.

** After the Slaughtering of Siluien, Vlad reassigned his duties as [[spoiler: baron el Stoka, count el Artua and head of the Joker school]] to Third of the Lynx clan, Arna "Black" and Kolar er Kilam respectively, and entered the Closed Forest with the single desire to take as many druids with him as he could. The druids decided [[spoiler: that Vlad's actions were justified, his destiny on Arland not yet fulfilled, and just let him go.]]
** Vlad mentions the russian proverb "умирать, так с музыкой!" (literally "to die with music", meaning "to go out with a bang") to Nork, a captured assassin from the Baros island after Nork repented, confessed and awaits his execution. Nork, with some surprise, notes that this is the favorite proverb and acceptable modus operandi of Kriy, prince of Baros island.

** Vlad, being a history buff of the Middle Ages, knows some general facts about medieval metallurgy as well. He drops bits and hints of knowledge around Korin, a young dwarven smithing genius trying to make a name in Belgor. Korin, having both a steady supply of pre-Interregnum steel, expert Hunters and expert Hunter-affiliated smiths to both guide and goad him, makes several breakthroughs, e.g. rediscovering the damascene steel.

** Nata's death becomes Vlad's BerserkButton, reinforced by RepressedMemories of another green-eyed girl back home in Russia, who also died in his hands. Reinforced again by the death of [[spoiler: Kenara. These memories now trigger Vlad's emotionless descent into the Ice Overlord state]].

* SummonMagic and SummoningRitual: Demonology is a well-known magical school. Results vary with power and time available for the ritual: with a pre-existing summoning circle, a bachelor of Demonology whips up a lesser demon within minutes, and Vlad remarks that a magister of the same school would either have summoned something nastier, or scrammed faster. Demons on Arland are Dark servants of the Fallen and thus very unlikely to attack equally Dark summoners.

** The Orkhet kingdom notably has a customized dueling codex to account for the Hunters. All Hunters are treated as nobility, thus exempt from serf laws and allowed to duel with nobles. Hunters are limited in challenging nobles to account for their exceptional skill, and giving regular nobles the chance to avoid confrontation without loosing face. This becomes a plot point as Vlad, shortly after his arrival in Belgor, beats up a group of young foreign nobles in Matvey's inn after they insulted Dunya. Anywhere else on Arland, Vlad would be executed as a commoner for assaulting a noble. Belgor's commandant, sir Berg, finds a solution conforming both to the Hunters' ethics and to the current relations with Narina kingdom the young nobles came from. Sir Berg issues a Hunter's Apprentice's amulet to Vlad, making Vlad an instant member of the Hunters' Guild, an [[LoopholeAbuse instant noble and a legit target for a challenge]]. Several [[DuelToTheDeath duels]] follow.

* TheTourney: usually held annually by royals. Tourneys usually consist of a jousting tournament, a war-game similar to "capture the flag" between two teams of knights, and a tournament for mages. The winner of the jousting tournament usually wins the honors to proclaim the "fairest lady" among the present noblewomen, although this ceremony most often falls victim to the political interests of the country holding the tourney.
* TranslationConvention: After receiving the CommonTongue by NeuralImplantation, Vlad perceives everything as Russian. After an adaptation period, he is able to switch languages at will, and notes when doing so.
* TrappedInAnotherWorld and YouCantGoHomeAgain: premise of the series. An interlude shows a conversation between two clerics addressing each other as "Es" and "Neer", most likely [[spoiler: Father Estor and the current [[ThePope Maker's Deputy]] ]]. They are discussing the phenomenon of people cropping up in the "blighted spots", which has been happening for several centuries and is well-known enough to have contributed the word "derg", meaning "alien", to the CommonTongue. The Church has often taken interest in these "aliens", [[spoiler: with Vlad's release "into the wild" with the bare minimum of information and no further training being an exception]].

* BloodKnight: Subverted: Vlad initially describes his fellow Borderlander baron Sheyk el Loran as appearing to seek battle and violence under the flimsiest of excuses, later noting that Sheyk is too smart to be this bloody-minded. Later facing a choice between killing an enemy scout now, letting the scout pass to ambush the entire unit or letting the scout and the unit pass to have them walk into a third-party ambush, Sheyk opts for letting the third-party ambush happen. Vlad notes that Sheyk is fully capable of choosing larger gains over larger bloodshed, but simply prefers larger bloodshed with equal gains.
* BloodMagic: Blood is the secondary school using Earth and Water. Kolar handles this as a profound revelation, yielding a mere: "Really understandable. Water in the human body and the elements composing the body. That's easy." from Vlad. Blood mages are rather rare, as adding the General school would move a mage to the less controversial and far better accepted Mind school.

* BlueBlood: Nobles use the article "el" with the name of the property as part of the title. For example, the Hunters' guild-master is addressed as Kar, duke el Raysa, but insists to be called Guild-master Kar "Volcano" instead. Vlad notes that nobles are plenty and titles rather common among Hunters; Hunters are proud to EarnYourTitle and will only use hereditary titles when absolutely required by etiquette.

* MakingASplash: the primary Water school and the related secondary Storm school.

* NotQuiteFlight: True flight is prohibitively expensive in mana, but levitation spells are common enough, used e.g. to silently climb walls.

* OurWerebeastsAreDifferent: Werebeasts of Arland are several separate WitchSpecies with the innate power of VoluntaryShapeshifting, limited to one animal form each. Werebeasts are organized in patriarchal clans, in turn organized by totem. While numerous before the Interregnum, only two totems survived, the Bear and the Wolf. The Bear totem consists of two clans, Cave and Forest Bears. The Wolf totem consists of three clans: White, Gray and Black Wolves. The transformation appears to simply switch the human body [[ShapeshifterBaggage with clothing, armor and weapons]] for the animal body and back again. Equipment remains unchanged on transforming back and forth; dirt, blood and other traces of battle carry over from form to form. This ability is not related to regular magic of the elements, and magic abilities are as random among the werebeasts as among humans, e.g. master Hunter Arna "Black" is a Black Wolf and a mediocre Water mage, and master Hunter Glavk "Bear" is a Cave Bear incapable of magic. The largest problem of the werebeast clans is their survival, since they can [[WitchSpecies only produce healthy offspring with members of the same clan]].

** Vlad, as a baron in the Northern Borderlands neighboring the Dekara kingdom, votes for the Borderlands' barons to join the king's side in the civil war. After the king's army emerges victorious and successfully recaptures the capital from the rebels, the king's chief general grants the Borderlands' barons the rights to plunder the city palaces of those nobles who joined the rebellion.

** According to Kolar er Kilam, this is the result of a failed Element Fusion ritual for Fire mages, as they become an omnicidal manifestation of pure Fire until put down.

* Both the russian "принц" and "князь" translate to "prince". The former is a heir to a kingdom or to an empire, while the latter is the ruler of a princedom.

* AerithAndBob: justified as people from our world have appeared on Arland for centuries. After meeting Father Estor and his paladins Lon and Senar, Vlad is surprised to meet Matvey, Matvey's daughter Yevdokiya "Dunya" and later the noblewoman Tanya[[hottip:*:Matvey and Yevdokiya are slightly archaic russian names, Dunya is the common short form of the latter, Tanya is the common short form of Tat'yana]]. Matvey explains that his grandfather came to Arland almost a century ago, and just happens to be Vlad's compatriot from Russia. Tanya's ancestor has also most likely been a Russian and passed down the rule of naming firstborn daughters of the family this way.

* MagicAIsMagicA: magic on Arland has well-understood rules and is taught in universities and schools with people graduating as bachelors and magisters of an element. A mage to make a significant contribution to a school of magic is awarded the title of master. The ability to summon a primary (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) elemental or the equal amounts of {{Mana}} and skill for other schools are acknowledged with the title of a Lord or Lady of an element. Legends tell of people capable of breaking basic rules of magic and having infinite mana resources, called Overlords.
* MagicIsMental: with the exception of the clergy and the servants of the Fallen, this holds true. Mages have to learn, understand and downright trust their incantations, gestures, rituals and runes, since merely having a pool of {{Mana}} and the affinity to an element doesn't make a mage, e.g. Dunya, Matvey's daughter, has the potential to be a Death Lady, but no training.

** Since dwarves provide most precious metals on Arland, they have also founded banks, resulting in permanent conflicts of interests between clans of dwarven banks and the influential Merchants' Guild of Krays island.[[hottip:*: the russian word "гном" corresponds to the english "gnome", but there is no better word for "dwarf". Since Tolkien, dwarves became gnomes in russian texts. On Arland, there is no other subterranean humanoid species, and dwarves exhibit tropes of both dwarves and gnomes of western fantasy.]]

* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: After Vlad rescued Gil "Goody" and Kolar er Kilam from the Blight, he asks them about Ruv, the Dark mage who took them captive. Kolar breaks into a paragraph of [[TechnoBabble Magi Babble]]exposition, which Gil sums up as: "If Ruv entered the Blight with active magical shields, he'd attract creatures not forbidden by their Lords from attacking him. Ruv wasn't important enough to be granted safe passage by all Lords, just given a single safe route. So Ruv had no shields up, and was to slow to cast them as you attacked."

* TheStrategist: Baron Igar el Tars, supreme commander-in-chief of Dekara. Vlad nicknames him [[AlexanderTheGreat Macedon]] [[Creator/GaiusJuliusCaesar son of Caesar]] [[GenghisKhan of the Genghis clan]], later just "Macedon". Baron el Tars, unwilling to deal with the DeadlyDecadentCourt under Queen Al'sa, retired to his barony. He returned to lead the loyalists during the civil war in Dekara and won the decisive battle on the Field of Vengeance.

* SuperpowerfulGenetics: About one child in 1000 is born with enough magic to use for work or combat, less than one in 100 has some magic at all. Most people on Arland believe that mages are more likely to beget mages. Mages occur more often among nobles. Some nobles believe that before the Interregnum all nobles were mages.

** The Orkhet kingdom notably has a customized dueling codex to account for the Hunters. All Hunters are treated as nobility, thus exempt from serf laws and allowed to duel with nobles. Hunters are limited in challenging nobles to account for their exceptional skill, and giving regular nobles the chance to avoid confrontation without loosing face. This becomes a plot point as Vlad, shortly after his arrival in Belgor, beats up a group of young foreign nobles in Matvey's inn after they insulted Dunya. Anywhere else on Arland, Vlad would be executed as a commoner for assaulting a noble. Belgor's commandant, sir Berg, finds a solution conforming both to the Hunters' ethics and to the current relations with Narina kingdom the young nobles came from. Sir Berg issues an Apprentice's amulet of the Hunters to Vlad, making Vlad an instant member of the Hunters' Guild, an instant noble and a legit target for a challenge. Several [[DuelToTheDeath duels]] follow.
** During a mission in Litiya, Vlad visits a ball, where he runs into Darin, a friendly knight from Litiya, and Rens and Ley, a couple of fellow Hunters invited to the ball as scions of nobles. A quartet of elves, three men and a woman, visits the ball. As Vlad, Darin, Rens and Ley are about to leave, the elven leader taunts Darin. As Darin is forbidden from challenging the elf due to being [[SacredHospitality a vassal of the host]], Vlad intervenes. Vlad's insults and the suggestion to pay 5 gold pieces to have the elven woman [[BerserkButton use her ears during intercourse]] enrage the 3 male elves enough to challenge Vlad, Rens and Ley. The Hunters proceed to quickly dispatch the elves.

* TheBeforetimes: the time before the Interregnum, roughly 1500-2000 years ago. Mostly invoked when speaking of Nirum, the continent destroyed during [[GreatOffscreenWar the Interregnum]]. The islands of Baros and Kilam and the Wild Island are remnants of this continent.

** All mages of the Hunters' Guild are {{MagicKnight}}s by necessity. Non-mages and weak mages compensate by being werebeasts, using lots of magical amulets and having ImplausibleFencingPowers.

** The Council of Loyals was instrumental in ending the Interregnum and later in banishing the Heart of the Destroyer. Afterwards the Council supposedly was dissolved, but Vlad encounters more and more hints that they have simply moved to the [[AncientTradition background]]. After proving his worth and loyalty again and again, Vlad is treated to the reveal that [[spoiler: both former heads of the Hunters' and the Rangers' Guilds, Matvey "Leather" and Nils "Old Man" are full members, and current heads of the Guilds, Kar "Volcano" and Yens "Quiet One" are acolytes of the Council]].

** Caused by the Soul Bind spell, described as "the most useless of the most dangerous spells from the Life school" by Kolar er Kilam. Depending on consent of each partner, the amount of shared thoughts and emotions varies, e.g. with a consenting female and unaware male she gets some of his thoughts, while he gets some of her emotions. The danger comes from two additional conditions: firstly, the Soul Bind can only be removed by the Life mage who performed the spell; secondly, the death of one partner permanently removes the bound part of the other. In the above asymmetric case, the death of the male would permanently render the female unable to think, reducing her either to a vegetable state and most likely killing her. On the other hand, the death of the female would permanently render the male unable to experience any emotion, which may not be lethal.

* {{Necromancer}}: Necromancy is a fourth degree school consisting of Earth, Death and Mind, and overlaps with the Death school. While servants of the Fallen often use necromancy to interact with the undead, necromancy is not exclusively Dark. Necromancers can work in law enforcement or become Hunters due to their proficiency at banishing the undead. Sufficiently ruthless warlords and generals employ necromancers to turn fallen soldiers into readily available cannon fodder.
** Dils "Gloomy" is a Death Lord master Hunter, capable of some Necromancy but specialized in the close combat use of the Death school.
** Ol't, a baker in Belgor, has been a grain producer and bakery owner before. Being a necromancer, he bought corpses of deceased or executed criminals from prisons and cleanly reanimated them to work the fields. Vlad persuades him to quit baking and start training as a combat necromancer. Ol't is weaker than Dils "Gloomy", but capable of e.g. scanning memories from a corpse. During their exploits in Tariya, Vlad and Ol't happen upon a damaged Staff of the Dead, a pre-Interregnum [[AmplifierArtifact Necromancy-enhancing artifact]]. As Ol't manages to repair it, Vlad simply states: "You fixed it - you get to work with it" and later notes that Ol't, while wielding the artifact, would qualify as a Lord of the Dead (archmage necromancer).

** Spell rings, mass-produced by artifactors. A basic steel ring engraved with specific runes and containing a spell of a primary school. Matvey explains that this form follows the function: rings are made of steel as the mana deteriorates weaker metals, e.g. gold. Runes are the only way of permanently binding a spell to the item, which would be impossible with an incantation or a gesture. Primary schools since the speed at which rings loose charge increases drastically with each added element.

* RitualMagic: averted. Magic on Arland is an [[RandomlyGifted innate gift]], and the word "ritual" describes a method of casting spells by performing a ritual instead of saying incantations or performing gestures only. Complicated rituals may contain runic, verbal, gestic parts as well as sacrifices and geometric figures.

** Vlad befriends Kerin, a remote relative of the master blacksmith Dorn "Battleaxe". Kerin left the clan's settlement for Belgor after claiming that he has nothing more to learn at home. Those claims seem justified, as with hints from Vlad and old steel taken from various undead in the Blight, Kerin re-discovered the technology to produce bulat, a superior variety of damascene steel.

* EpicFlail: Vlad, preparing to enter the Blight for the first time, is looking for a weapon most likely to disable a skeleton or a basic zombie with the first strike. As master blacksmith Dorn "Battleaxe" suggests a [[BladeOnAStick heavy bladed polearm]], Vlad asks about a club on a chain instead. Dorn reacts with some amusement: "A flail, but I don't have one and don't know of another smith who'd have one to sell right now." This causes Kerin, who was previously browsing Dorn's wares, to interrupt them, and offer Vlad a flail he made just to stand out from Belgor's smiths. While a no-name in Belgor, Kerin turns out to be as good as he claimed, and will become Vlad's best friend among the dwarven smiths.

* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: averted. Vlad almost suffers a breakdown as the master blacksmith Dorn "Battleaxe" comments on his remote nephew Kerin with the comment of "He's too young at 55 years." It takes some time for Vlad to accept that Dorn and Kerin are dwarves, and Vlad promptly proceeds to recite the common dwarven tropes from Russian fantasy to Dorn and Kerin. The blacksmiths agree that dwarves are usually underground dwellers, masters of mining and smithing and [[StoutStrength very strong]], but they find Vlad's ideas on proper dwarves being short, very broad-shouldered and long-bearded utterly hilarious. Dorn and Kerin comment that Vlad's dwarves would be rather out of place in both mine and smithy. Dwarves are in general shorter than humans, but normally proportioned. Dwarven women are rather feminine and also interested in feminine things, with Kerin's bride Anita being an exception and an exceptional female smith in her own right.

** {{Doppelganger}} spell, used by Saint Auna's Order. While most people think "KillAndReplace" when the spell is mentioned, Saint Auna's Order investigated the effects of a doppelganger on the living original. They found out that the spell does not only replicate the body, but also establishes an empathic connection. The connection is one-way, slowly funneling the Darkest parts of the personality from original to doppelganger. While the doppelgangers were successfully used to treat mental disorders, the potential of abuse and the questionable ethics of creating disposable sentient life finally led to a ban on the technique. Highest-ranking members of Saint Auna's Order are introduced to doppelganger theory after promotion.

** As king Eran of Dekara took a new mistress called Al'sa, the court turned into this. As the queen died, allegedly poisoned, and the king married his mistress, she began gathering riches, allies and power. Queen Al'sa arranged for several key persons to either retire or be removed, although not before an old courtier managed to render her infertile with a poison. The rule of queen Al'sa culminates in the civil war in Dekara. Many events before, during and after the civil war bear the signature of a foreign influence, showing that another power is working against the kingdom.

While those few privy to the plans are awestruck, Vlad notes that by standards of TheNewRussia this is a fairly straightfroward raid technique from the armory of inter-enterprise hostilities.

** After a mission caused too much publicity, Vlad receives nasty letters from various friends and allies. He notes that Lady Loviya's letter is the only one not to contain any profanity at all, and then quotes the nicest phrase of the letter as "Vlad, dearest, since your poor crushed skull must have been pulled from your mother's womb with plumber's pliers by a drunken midwife..."

** Legends of Hellaren, the only known Ice Overlord, tell that Hellaren's power manifested as the "Ice Blades" spell on his weapons. The smallest wound he would then inflict became lethal instantly, leaving frozen statues. [[spoiler: Vlad, supposedly Hellaren reincarnated, has pulled this off by unleashing the Ice Overlord state]] after crossing his DespairEventHorizon in battle with the Maker's Servants.

The series concerns Vladislav "Vlad" Istrin, who is shown at a very low point in his life. Vlad looks at the only item reminding him of his former life, a combat knife, contemplates suicide, then decides against it and opts for [[UsefulNotes/AlcoholismAndAlcoholAbuse drinking his worries away again]]. He blacks out and comes to it in a strange church, watched by paladins in heavy armor. Vlad first thinks of a very elaborate prank, since some of [[TheNewRussia his rich and influential friends]] would have the resources to pull it off, but then gives it up upon seeing [[MagicalLand two moons in the night sky]].

** A Ranger, accompanied by an elven Life Lady (Life school archmagess, master healer) who carries a debt of life to the Ranger, and some loyal troops happens to save a coven of elven summoners from the House of Swords and their guard detail, including the heir of the House, from a band of desert spirits the summoners have lost control of. The Ranger's unit dispatches the spirits and the Life Lady patches the elves up. During the following night, the Swords, led by their prince, assault the Ranger and his troops, mortally wounding the elven magess. As she lays dying, her final wish is to marry the Ranger to repay at least a part of her debt. The Rangers' Guild recognizes the marriage as valid retroactively and calls for revenge to reinforce the lesson of Seren, lest someone decides that the Guilds no longer care. The Ranger forces assault the city-forest Siluien of Swords, capture the head of the House and his family, kill all armed Swords and take unarmed women and children captive. The head of the House calmly accepts the execution awaiting him and his sons, but asks the Ranger to spare his wife and daughter from the scenes of plundering and raping he believes to follow suit. The Ranger asks the elven lady if she is willing to go free and unharmed in exchange for the women and children of the clan, and the elven lady agrees. Isana, the elven princess, now faces the same choice, but she asks the Ranger to let any innocent elven girl go in her place, willing to submit herself to the destiny awaiting the captive elves. Surprised by Isana's decision, the Ranger has the head of the House, his wife and both sons executed, but orders the captives released on a single condition: Isana has to join Saint Auna's Order for five years. She agrees, ending her House, since by elven traditions Isana sheds her bloodline with her oath to Saint Auna. This event becomes known as the Slaughtering of Siluien. [[spoiler: The Ranger is Vlad, the Life Lady is Kenara.]]

* HiredGuns: in form of hired blades and occasional hired mages:

* HorseOfADifferentColor: A new species, the drakes, was created by the Chimera school with the explicit purpose to replace horses. Worked not entirely as advertised. Drakes are faster, stronger, by far harder to harm or to kill, smart and dangerous. Drakes are also empathic herd predators and form a single lifelong empathic bond with their only owner and rider.

** Dark sects use the participation in human sacrifice rituals as both proof of loyalty and source of power.

*** Magma mage Kar was the scion of the old, rich and powerful el Raysa family. Magic, power, money and nobility made Kar el Raysa an extremely popular and coveted bachelor, but he fell in love with Selita el Garon, the heiress of an impoverished ancient noble family. The spurned daughter of the el Oro family asked her brother Gray el Oro to get rid of Kar's beloved. Gray el Oro used his position as master of a Dark lodge to do so. Kar's RoaringRampageOfRevenge ended in Belgor, where he joined the Hunters to become the Guild-master Kar "Volcano". After Vlad captured Gray el Oro, who originally took refuge in the Blighted Catacombs, Kar states being in Vlad's debt.

** Vladislav Istrin has accumulated several names over his time on Arland. He's master Hunter Vlad "Lightning", [[spoiler: reincarnated Hellaren, the Ice Tour[[hottip:*:in Russian, there is a similarity between "Истр", Vlad's surname's basis, and "Ice Tour", the way Vlad is called. "Ice Tour" is rendered in latinic letters in the novels.]]]], master Ranger [[SdrawkcabAlias Dalv]] "Jester", baron el Vira, later baron el Stoka, later count el Artua, founder of the Joker magic school Vlad er Joker, Maitre (an otherwise nameless mercenary and assassin), and Slav, a freelancer. Note that due to Vlad and Slav both being short forms of Vladislav, both introductions pass {{LivingLieDetector}}s.
* InSeriesNickname with TheyCallHimSword, but you have to EarnYourTitle: The Hunters' and Rangers' Guild share a tradition of assigning a byname to a hunter or ranger promoted to master. This nickname is most often related to their WeaponOfChoice or magic school, but may be descriptive in some other way.

** Vlad has been named "Lightning" as princess Laera of Riara watched the [[SpellBlade lightning spell on his swords]]. Vlad joined the Rangers under the alias "Dalv"; after he killed a bkhut, the Rangers also promoted him to the master rank, nicknaming him "Jester" for his habit to describe enemies as "victims of our next jest".

* TheMedic: Order of Saint Auna. This Order will accept sentients regardless of race, gender or personal history. The Order of Saint Auna will provide medical help to all sentients at no condition except for being loyal to the Creator and at no cost. It is customary to leave a donation for the order upon leaving their care.

** The Order of the Lord's Hounds. Officially, this Order doesn't exist. They are mentioned during an interlude showing a conversation between two high-ranking clerics regarding the possible corruption of another high-ranking cleric in the Narina kingdom. Members have never been revealed until Vlad encountered a Lord's Hound as an undercover infiltrator in a dark sect. The Hounds deal with corruption within the Church and with missions where any other approach is unlikely to succeed.

** Isana, last living royal of the elven Swords' House of Ritum. Isana accepts the condition to join Saint Auna's Order and hence to [[DefectorFromDecadence help and heal any sentient being, regardless of race and origin]], in exchange for the safety of her subjects. To put Isana's decision in context, the elves have been fighting a [[AbsoluteXenophobe war of extinction against all other sapients]] for the last millenium, and joining Saint Auna's Order will reduce her from princess to less than a pariah. Vlad notes that regardless of the downfall of their House, survivors of the Swords, spared from rape, slavery and the altars of the Fallen on the Baros island, will worship her as if she were the Creator's next child. [[spoiler: Vlad never intended to sell elves to Baros, instead aiming to show the dissonance between elven royalty and commoners. Isana's decision serves Vlad]] to prove the point that elves may be redeemed.

* BeastOfBattle and SapientSteed: Drakes were created to replace horses on the battlefield, and this part of the task went right - drakes are stronger, faster, hard to kill, fearless, protected by scales harder than steel, naturally resistant to magic, have [[HornAttack sharp horns]], [[BewareMyStingerTail a spiked bone club at the tip of the tail]], sharp hooves and impressive fanged jaws. The downside is that drakes are in the wild aggressive herd predators, don't breed fertile offspring in captivity, and are sapient empaths who upon hatching from the egg form a lifelong bond with the first person they imprint at. If the imprinting misfires, a drake will turn against him or commit suicide; drakes will die with their imprintees or commit suicide if they failed to protect the imprintee.

* BlueBlood: Nobles use the article "el" with the name of the property as part of the title. For example, the Hunters' guild-master is addressed as Kar, duke el Raysa, but insists to be called Guild-master Kar "Volcano" instead. Vlad learns that nobles are plenty and titles rather common among Hunters; Hunters are proud to EarnYourTitle and will only use hereditary titles when absolutely required by etiquette.

* CoolOldLady: Lady Loviya, Grandmother Queen of Litiya, born princess of Karosa, who became queen by arranged marriage to the king of Litiya. As nobles of Litiya rebelled, Loviya lost her husband, two sons and only daughter in the civil war. The only other royal survivor was her 5-year-old grandson. Loviya took command of the armies and nobles loyal to the dynasty. For two months, Litiya was covered in blood. Loviya reclaimed the throne, exterminated the rebellious noble houses and ruled the country until her grandson came of age.
* CorruptChurch: the Order of the Maker's Servants, according to Vlad the closest thing to inquisition on Arland, is engaged in plays for power both within the Church and outside it. Vlad is slightly shocked to find Servants collaborating with an actual Dark lodge.
* CostumePorn: descriptions of armor and weapons. ShownTheirWork, as Igor' Dravin compiled the references into a separate booklet. Includes military tactics in later novels, with footnotes about historical battles, sieges and tourneys.

*** Magma mage Kar was the scion of the old, rich and powerful el Raysa family in the Miora kingdom. Magic, power, money and nobility made Kar el Raysa an extremely popular and coveted bachelor, but he fell in love with the daughter of an impoverished noble. The spurned daughter of the el Oro family asked her brother Gray el Oro to get rid of Kar's beloved. Gray el Oro used his position as master of a Dark lodge to do so. Kar's RoaringRampageOfRevenge ended in Belgor, where he joined the Hunters to become the Guild-master Kar "Volcano". After Vlad captured Gray el Oro, who originally took refuge in the Blighted Catacombs, Kar states being in Vlad's debt.

* AbsentMindedProfessor and TooCleverByHalf: Kolar er Kilam, a runic mage and genius magic theoretician. His efforts to restore pre-Interregnum knowledge caused him to conflict with the Church and the Dawn's Order, Arland's largest and most powerful union of mercenary mages. Kolar has tried to reach the druids of the Closed Forest, but was taken prisoner, hauled to the Blighted Catacombs, his magic was [[BreakTheHaughty broken]] and he was scheduled to be sacrificed. Kolar's luck turns as he's saved by Vlad, then in Belgor identifies Vlad as a potential mage and shows Vlad basic runic spells. Turns out that runic magic works by placing runes in spatial patterns and the forgotten pre-Interregnum knowledge contained at least [[spoiler: Cartesian coordinates and fractions]]. Now Kolar has sworn loyalty to Vlad and pursues his dream to restore magic to it's former glory, gladly forgetting anything else.

** Kenor and Laera, prince and princess of Riara, are wearing a matching set of full plate armor during an attack on their palace.

* CoolOldLady: Lady Loviya, Grandmother Queen of Litiya, born princess of Karosa, queen of Litiya by arranged marriage to the king of Litiya. As nobles of Litiya rebelled, Loviya lost her husband, two sons and only daughter in the civil war. The only other royal survivor was her 5-year-old grandson. Loviya took command of the armies and nobles loyal to the dynasty. For two months, Litiya was covered in blood. Loviya reclaimed the throne, exterminated the rebellious noble houses and ruled the country until her grandson came of age.

** A Ranger, accompanied by an elven Life Lady (Life school archmagess, master healer) who carries a debt of life to the Ranger, and some loyal troops happens to save a coven of elven summoners from the House of Swords and their guard detail, including the heir of the House, from a band of desert spirits the summoners have lost control of. The Ranger's unit dispatches the spirits and the Life Lady patches the elves up. During the following night, the Swords, led by their prince, assault the Ranger and his troops, mortally wounding the elven magess. As she lays dying, her final wish is to marry the Ranger to repay at least a part of her debt. The Rangers' Guild recognizes the marriage as valid retroactively and calls for revenge to reinforce the lesson of Seren, lest someone decides that the Guilds no longer care. The Ranger forces assault the city-forest Siluen of Swords, capture the head of the House and his family, kill all armed Swords and take unarmed women and children captive. The head of the House calmly accepts the execution awaiting him and his sons, but asks the Ranger to spare his wife and daughter from the scenes of plundering and raping he believes to follow suit. The Ranger asks the elven lady if she is willing to go free and unharmed in exchange for the women and children of the clan, and the elven lady agrees. Isana, the elven princess, now faces the same choice, but she asks the Ranger to let any innocent elven girl go in her place, willing to submit herself to the destiny awaiting the captive elves. Surprised by Isana's decision, the Ranger has the head of the House, his wife and both sons executed, but orders the captives released on a single condition: Isana has to join Saint Auna's Order for five years. She agrees, ending her House, since by elven traditions Isana sheds her bloodline with her oath to Saint Auna. This event becomes known as the Slaughtering of Siluen. [[spoiler: The Ranger is Vlad, the Life Lady is Kenara.]]

* HeKnowsTooMuch and LeaveNoWitnesses: common stratagem on Arland. Employed throughout the population, from criminals to royalty.

* HeWhoFightsMonsters and BecomingTheMask: a [[spoiler: priest of the Lord's Hounds]] called Khoriner has been sent to infiltrate a dark sect worshiping the Fallen in a remote location in the former County of Tariya. Then he managed to instigate an EnemyCivilWar involving the dark sect from Tariya, another dark sect from Karosa, corrupted Creator's Servants (inquisitors) and corrupted high-ranking members of the Merchants' Guild. Khoriner also timed the events to involve Vlad, Vlad's pupils, a clan of church-approved vampires and a clan of dragons, resulting in the annihilation of both dark sects, the corrupted priests and the corrupted merchants, also preventing a massive demon summoning. Khoriner then committed SuicideByCop, forcing Vlad to kill him. Khoriner confessed that he became too tainted himself; he originally accepted the mission [[spoiler: after emerging from a "blighted spot" decades before Vlad and deciding to use his skills from Earth to benefit the Church]].

** Dawn's Order and Blood's League, two large unions of mercenary mages. Disliked for having close to no standards about accepting customers; e.g. in Tariya a department of "dawnies" works for a Dark lodge.

** The chasseurs of the Dragons' Ridge are united forces of all non-elven states on Ritum, fighting against the elven empire of Ritum in the elves' [[AbsoluteXenophobe war of extermination]] against all other species on the continent. The conflict has focused on the Dragons' Ridge, an impassable mountain range dividing Ritum in two parts. The chasseurs have been holding the choke-point passes of the Dragons' Ridge until the present day.

** All mages of the Hunters' Guild are {{MagicKnight}}s by necessity. Non-mages compensate either by being werebeasts or using ImplausibleFencingPowers.

** Vlad takes his pupils through TrainingFromHell, as most of them started out as either RitualMagic users or came from schools rarely used in direct combat, e.g. Mind or Necromancy.

* TheMaker: the Creator's first son. The Creator creates worlds, but [[NoSuchThingAsWizardJesus his son made Arland into an inhabitable place and created the sapient species to inhabit it]]. According to the Church doctrine, the Creator's son created dragons, tritons, elves and dwarves, and then shared his soul with his last creation, the humans. Then he showed his works to the Creator and was named the Maker.

* OurElvesAreBetter: downplayed. Elves were among the first sapient species created by the Maker, and the Church doctrine describes them as "lords of the land", but they share this status with dragons, tritons and dwarves. Elves are humanoid with pointed ears, but lack the breath-taking beauty Vlad expects from fantasy works. They live in forest cities, but the cities aren't magical or mysterious and can be attacked and conquered, as shown in Siluen. Elves are skilled archers, but this results from longevity and practice, not supernatural abilities or innate gifts - during the decisive battle of the civil war in Dekara, a company of elven archers does some damage, but then falls victim to a well-timed and well-executed cavalry charge led by a few {{MagicKnight}}s. After the Interregnum, the elves on the Ritum continent have adopted an extremely xenophobic and racist world view, leading to a permanent conflict between them and other sapients. Due to the continent's geography, this war has concentrated on the Dragons' Ridge. Elves of Ritum have attempted crusades on Satum, but were defeated and forced off the continent. The elven empire on Ritum is in possession of one of the three surviving King's Crowns, legendary artifacts of pre-Interregnum origin. The indigenous Satum elves have retreated to an isolated enclave, and are tolerated to varying degrees in the human states; they are trying to break the isolation as recent events seem to advance hostilities between the elven empire of Ritum and human states even further.

* ScrewYouElves: Due to the events leading to the Slaughtering of Siluen and the reception of this event on the continent of Satum, the overall public opinion slowly shifts towards this trope.

* BagOfHolding: rare artifacts known as "Traveller's Sacks". While most likely invented before the Interregnum, this technology survived within the schools of runic style on the Kilam island. Kolar er Kilam crafted such a Traveller's Sack for Vlad.

** Life mages can control the hatching process and influence or postpone the imprinting. As a cargo of drake eggs is about to be delivered to Keyt "Lively", master Hunter and Life Lord in Belgor, a single egg breaks and the emerging baby drake successfully imprints on Vlad.

* ElementalPowers: The four classical elements, Water, Fire, Earth and Air, are commonly described as primary. According to Kolar er Kilam, a genius theoretician of magic, Life, Death, Light and Darkness are also primary, although the Church regards describing clerics as mages a heresy. Kolar most likely has a point, though, since servants and creatures of the Fallen can use dark-tainted spells. Clerics from the Order of the Maker's Servants (Arland's inquisition) have used clerical spells against humans while this power supposedly only works against the power of the Fallen.

** A heavily edited story of a master Ranger's relationship with an elven Life Lady, her death and the following [[DisproportionateRetribution Slaughtering]] [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge of Siluen]] becomes another legend to rival the story of the Hunters' Guild and their Slaughtering of Seren. [[spoiler: The master Ranger was Dalv "Jester", the Life Lady was Kenara]].

* HorseOfADifferentColor: A new species, the drakes, was created by the Chimera school with the stated purpose to replace horses. Worked not entirely as advertised. Drakes are faster, stronger, by far harder to harm or to kill, smart and dangerous. Drakes are also empathic herd predators and form a single lifelong empathic bond with their only owner and rider.

* MundaneUtility: During a month-long cross-terrain chase after a fleeing Life mage, Vlad and his companions note that none of them knows any spells to cook, clean or repair clothing, treat minor injuries or simply keep away vermin or mosquitoes. Justified as Hunters rarely spend more than a day in the Blighted Catacombs, and the city of Belgor provides for their day-to-day needs in exchange for their loot and fame.

** On rare occasions, {{Revenge}}, UnfinishedBusiness and enough willpower to resist taint can yield a sapient ghost. Vlad encounters the ghost of a powerful and vengeful mage who is haunting the place of his demise and killing wannabe tomb raiders. The deceased obtained four rare, possibly unique artifacts: [[spoiler: a Life Ring, a Chain of Elements, a [[KrakenAndLeviathan Kraken]]-controlling amulet and a key to an intact King's Crown]], hid them in a slightly tainted cave and was ambushed on his way home. Vlad ends up exorcising the ghost and later retrieving the artifacts.

* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Nork, master assassin from Baros Island. Nork joined the servants of the Fallen to avenge the death of his family at the hands of corrupt Maker's Servants (inquisitors) five centuries ago, but due to his personal moral code, remained human, possibly gaining eternal youth as an unexpected side effect from Dark artifacts.

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: as Arland is mostly a medieval society, the various royals do the actual ruling. Children of royalty are often diplomats or warlords as the situation demands. Notable contemporary occupations among royals would be the king of Orkhet also being the commander of the Hunters and the prince of Baros island also being the head priest of the island's ReligionOfEvil. Interludes show that some RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething use a generous helping of ObfuscatingStupidity to pass of as [[IdleRich lazy]] [[TheHedonist pleasure-obsessed]] brats.

** Nata's death becomes Vlad's BerserkButton, reinforced by RepressedMemories of another green-eyed girl back home in Russia, dead in his hands. Reinforced again by the death of [[spoiler: Kenara. These memories now trigger Vlad's emotionless descent into the Ice Overlord state]].

* ThrowingDownTheGauntlet: duels are common among nobles, and the proper rules have long been written down.

The series concerns Vladislav "Vlad" Istrin, who is shown at a very low point in his life. Vlad looks at the only item reminding him of his former life, a combat knife, contemplates suicide, then decides against it and begins [[UsefulNotes/AlcoholismAndAlcoholAbuse drinking his worries away again]]. He blacks out and comes to it in a strange church, watched by paladins in heavy armor. Vlad first thinks of a very elaborate prank, since some of [[TheNewRussia his rich and influential friends]] would have the resources to pull it off, but then gives it up upon seeing [[MagicalLand two moons in the night sky]].

** Dils "Gloomy" is a master necromancer and a master Hunter.
** Ol't, a baker in Belgor, has been a grain producer and bakery owner before. Being a necromancer, he bought corpses of deceased or executed criminals from prisons and reanimated them to do the hard work. Vlad persuades him to quit baking and start training as a combat necromancer. Ol't is weaker than Dils "Gloomy", but hasn't focused his studies on combat necromancy.
** During their exploits in Tariya, Vlad and Ol't happen upon a damaged Staff of the Dead, a pre-Interregnum Necromancy-enhancing artifact. As Ol't manages to repair it, Vlad simply states: "You fixed it - you get to work with it" and later notes that Ol't, while wielding the artifact, would qualify as a Lord of the Dead (archmage necromancer).

* {{Telepathy}}: Hypnosis and telepathic communication can be performed by all mages, limited by willpower and degree of familiarity with the person, and are thus assigned to the school of General magic. The Mind school specializes in all matters of offensive and defensive telepathy. Most Mind mages work for various investigative and intelligence-related agencies. Emotion and perception manipulations are used by rare combat-oriented Mind mages; Mind school illusionists obviously have a niche in the entertainment industry.

* ThrowingDownTheGauntlet: duels are common among nobles, and the proper rules have long been written down. The Orkhet kingdom notably has a customized dueling codex to account for the Hunters. All Hunters are treated as nobility, thus exempt from serf laws and allowed to duel with nobles. Hunters are limited in challenging nobles to account for their exceptional skill, and giving regular nobles the chance to avoid confrontation without loosing face.
** This becomes a plot point as Vlad, shortly after his arrival in Belgor, beats up a group of young foreign nobles in Matvey's inn after they insulted Dunya. Anywhere else on Arland, Vlad would be executed as a commoner for assaulting a noble. Belgor's commandant, sir Berg, finds a solution conforming both to the Hunters' ethics and to the current relations with Narina kingdom the young nobles came from. Sir Berg issues an Apprentice's amulet of the Hunters to Vlad, making Vlad an instant member of the Hunters' Guild, an instant noble and a legit target for a challenge. Several [[DuelToTheDeath duels]] follow.

* TrappedInAnotherWorld and YouCantGoHomeAgain: premise of the series. An interlude shows a conversation between two clerics addressing each other as "Es" and "Neer", most likely [[spoiler: Father Estor and the current [[ThePope Maker's Deputy]] ]]. They are discussing the phenomenon of people cropping up in the "blighted spots", which has been happening for several centuries and is well-known enough to have contributed the word "derg", meaning "alien", to the CommonTongue. The Church has often taken interest in these "aliens", with Vlad's release "into the wild" with the bare minimum of information and no further training being an exception.
* TheUndead: various forms of undead roam the Blighted areas. They vary by power and tactical role. A basic Hunter's manual alone mentions 7 families of undead: [[{{Mummy}} mummies]] (those lacking the skills to become either a lich or a death knight, retain basic intelligence), liches (mages voluntarily becoming undead), death knights (warriors voluntarily becoming undead), sluagh (warriors too cruel, too hateful and too battle-obsessed to die after falling in battle, retain intelligence), draughrs (revenants, raised ritually from fresh corpses, retain personality), zombies and skeletons (corpses raised by Dark taint, basically mindless killers).

* BlueBlood: Nobles use the article "el" with the name of the property as part of the title. For example, the Hunters' guild-master is addressed as Kar, duke el Raysa, and insists to be called Guild-master Kar "Volcano". Vlad learns that nobles are plenty and titles rather common among Hunters; Hunters are proud to EarnTheTitle and will only use hereditary titles when absolutely required by etiquette.

** The various guilds of thieves and assassins will not cooperate with worshipers of the Fallen, making a distinction between worldly sins that you can confess and seek forgiveness for, and transgressions that damn your soul once and for all.
** Attacking any member of the Order of Saint Auna will not be tolerated. After desperate thieves attacked an Auna's Order's healer and were scared off by a passerby warrior, the thieves' guild had sought forgiveness in their own way - by delivering the wannabe robbers' corpses and a generous donation to the Auna's Order's local branch.

** Dalv "Jester" led an expedition, including a Fire Lord and a powerful cleric from the Melor kingdom, to recover a legendary artifact from the lair of a bkhoot, an archdemon shapeshifter, killing said bkhoot in the process. Due to the expedition's mission and the artifact being state secrets, Dalv "Jester" became famed for besting the bkhoot and plundering the lair on his own.

* InSeriesNickname with TheyCallHimSword, but you have to EarnTheTitle: The Hunters' and Rangers' Guild share a tradition of assigning a byname to a hunter or ranger promoted to master. This nickname is most often related to their weapon of choice or magic school, but may be descriptive in some other way. Vlad has been named "Lightning" as princess Laera witnessed him kill undead warriors using a lightning spell on his swords. After being promoted to the master rank among Rangers, Vlad also goes by Dalv "Jester".

* OurLichesAreDifferent: Liches are mages who turned to the Fallen seeking immortality. The lich transformation grants undeath and vastly increases the mage's mana reserves and spell power, but lowers intelligence and makes casting complicated spells impossible. Liches accumulate taint and upon reaching some threshold become master-liches; their power grows and their spells become tainted. Repeating the accumulation of taint to a new threshold yields an arch-lich. Arch-liches no longer use elements in their spells, their magic is solely powered by the Fallen's power. Servants of the Fallen can perform a ritual to turn an arch-lich into a demon-lich. A demon-lich is a concentrated pool of taint embedded in the former lich's floating skull.

** After exiting the Blighted Catacombs, Vlad's team rides for Belgor to allow Bishop Aner to exorcise the rescued women and save their lives permanently. The Hunters are intercepted by a fanatic Maker's Servant (a member of Arland's inquisition), accompanied by Servant guards and several Maker's Hands (paladins). The Servant incapacitates the Hunters within a clerical spell's barrier and orders the women executed by piercing their hearts and beheading them, their tainted corpses exorcised and burned on the spot. Vlad unleashes a power he isn't supposed to have and proceeds to break the barrier, slaughter the Servant guards and the Hands and finally kill the inquisitor by breaking the clerical shielding spell.

* AbsoluteXenophobe: Elven empire on the Ritum continent. During the Interregnum, the elves on Ritum accused all the other sentients of having caused the war and began a war of extinction against them. The sentients of Ritum were forced to retreat behind the Dragons' Ridge, an impassable range of mountains dividing Ritum broken by a single easily defended pass. The war on the Dragons' Ridge has not stopped until now, just lost in intensity. \\

** As the physical manifestations of the Destroyer and the Maker battled on Arland, their blood fell to the world. The Destroyer's blood caused blights and "blighted spots", tainted and corrupted sentients. The Maker's blood blessed the ground and the sentients. Small portions of the Maker's blood have been intercepted and preserved, becoming powerful beacons of Light. Dark creatures can not approach them, and their proximity hurts servants of the Fallen.

* OurWerebeastsAreDifferent: Werebeasts of Arland are several separate WitchSpecies with the innate power of VoluntaryShapeshifting, limited to one animal form each. Werebeasts are organized in patriarchal clans, in turn organized by totem. While numerous before the Interregnum, only two totems survived, the Bear and the Wolf. The Bear totem consists of two clans, Cave and Forest Bears. The Wolf totem consists of three clans: White, Gray and Black Wolves. The transformation appears to simply switch the human body [[ShapeshifterBaggage with clothing, armor and weapons]] for the animal body and back again. Equipment remains unchanged on transforming back and forth; dirt, blood and other traces of battle carry over from form to form. This ability is not related to regular magic of the elements, and magic abilities are as random among the werebeasts as among humans, e.g. master Hunter Arna "Black" is a Black Wolf and a mediocre Water mage, and master Hunter Glavk "Bear" is a Bear of unstated clan and incapable of magic. The largest problem of the werebeast clans is their survival, since they can [[WitchSpecies only produce healthy offspring with members of the same clan]].

* ReallyGetsAround for being a PoliticallyActivePrincess: Eliana el Chanor, princess of Melor. Due to being adopted, she has no claims to the throne whatsoever and seems to live a life of various pleasures as a token royal. Most embassies at the court of Melor have taken the hint and have surprisingly handsome "diplomats" on staff. Unknown to the general public, though, Eliana is a royal envoy, an accomplished Life Lady, a trained seductress, spy and assassin, has the potential to become a Saint in her own lifetime and has married [[spoiler: Vlad "Lightning" by the rite of Saint Auna]], later performing a soul bind to her husband. Much to said husband's chagrin, her training as FemmeFatale often takes over.

* HiddenBackupPrince and NobleFugitive: after the wife of Eran of Dekara died, supposedly poisoned, the king married his mistress Al'sa. Courtiers loyal to the dynasty correctly assumed the life of the only prince to be in danger and faked the prince's demise. As queen Al'sa forced many courtiers to retire, among those was an innocuous Borderlands' baron retiring to his barony outside of Dekara to raise a son. As queen Al'sa was killed during the civil war, and king Eran is on his deathbed without a heir, the Rite of Closest Blood is performed in Dekara, and a young Borderlands' baron crops up.

*** An elite mercenary unit, called "Gray Company", raided the Blight some 800 years ago. Their loot allowed the commander, Orkhet, to found his own kingdom, and his men to become the new kingdom's nobility. The Orkhet kingdom is home to the Hunters' Guild, and the kings remember well how their dynasty began.

** Crime on Arland has been organized for several millenia. Assassins' guilds are organized by kingdoms, and to some degree immersed in local politics.
** The Gray Order is an international organization. This Order's assassins operate in groups of 5, containing a master warrior, usually a high vampire, and magister or Lord tier mages of 4 different elements. Rumors state that the Gray Order always consists of exactly 25 active assassins, grouped in 5 groups as described above. Each group has a dedicated intermediary, and all intermediaries answer personally to the Gray grandmaster. All active members are sleeper agents, living perfectly normal lives between missions. After killing a Gray team, Vlad reveals their corpses to the authorities to find out that e.g. the Water Lord of the team has been a respected professor of Water magic in university of Riniya.

** A successful rebellion in the Litiya kingdom almost destroyed the dynasty. The rebels only spared the king's widowed mother and his toddler son. This was a mistake, as the widowed queen found allies and reclaimed the throne in the name of her grandson. She then had all the captured noble rebels executed one after another on the exact date of their rebellion.

** Where the church, the Hunters' and the Rangers' guilds use rare gems for mana storage, the Dark lodges and affiliates use "gems of pain", created and charged with human sacrifices.

* MagicIsMental: with the exception of the clergy and the servants of the Fallen, this holds true. Mages have to learn their incantations, gestures, rituals and runes, since merely having a pool of {{Mana}} and the affinity to an element doesn't make a mage, e.g. Dunya, Matvey's daughter, has the potential to be a Death Lady, but no training.
** Dark lodges utilize this aspect in breaking captured mages by submitting them to a RestrainingBolt artifact.

* AdvancedAncientAcropolis: the Closed Forest where the druids dwell. Druids are survivors and descendants of the mages who didn't join any side during the Interregnum. They pretend to almost never interfere in things outside of the Closed Forest, although recent events seem to have stirred them.

* BeastOfBattle and SapientSteed: Drakes were created to replace horses on the battlefield, and this part of the task went right - drakes are stronger, faster, hard to kill, fearless, armored in scales, naturally resistant to magic, have [[HornAttack sharp horns]], [[BewareMyStingerTail a spiked bone club at the tip of the tail]], sharp hooves and impressive fanged jaws. The downside is that drakes are aggressive predators, don't breed fertile offspring in captivity, and are sapient empaths who form a lifelong bond with the first person they imprint at after hatching from the egg. If the imprint proves wrong, a drake will turn against him.
** Life Lords can control the hatching process and influence or postpone the imprinting. As a cargo of drake eggs is about to be delivered to Keyt "Lively", master Hunter and Life Lord in Belgor, a single egg breaks and the emerging baby drake successfully imprints on Vlad.

* BlackMagic: while Blood and Death magic and even necromancy can be used for good reasons (it's really important who you're fighting against, not how), the taint and the power of the Fallen fit this trope fully. Granted by the ReligionOfEvil, costing souls, focused through suffering, pain and HumanSacrifice and used to inflict pain, suffering, curses, disfigurement and (un)death.

* ChoiceOfTwoWeapons: Common skill on Arland, as the weaponry and weapon use are very close to Middle Ages on Earth. Required skill among Hunters and Rangers. As an example, Vlad usually carries a [[DualWielding couple of asymmetric swords]], a dozen of throwing knives in a harness, 2-4 light throwing axes, a dagger and a combat knife, using magic to both work at range and [[MagicKnight pack more punch into his comparatively light blades]].

* CoolOldLady and IWasQuiteALooker: Lady Loviya, widowed Grandmother Queen of Litiya kingdom. She, due to already being widowed at the time, was spared by rebels and talked them into sparing her grandson and granting them exile. Lady Loviya then found allies to retake the throne, exterminate the rebellious noble houses and rule the country until her grandson came of age. The means Lady Loviya [[FemmeFatale used to this end]] have earned her the whispered title "Crowned Whore". Vlad comments that even her enemies have learned to emphasize "Crowned" over the years.

* CrystalDragonJesus: the Church on Arland. Compared to Christianity, the Creator is God, the Maker close to Jesus and the Destroyer obviously Satan. The structure of the Church and the orders within are similar to the catholic church, but the presence of magic and the manifest powers of the Creator and the Destroyer make clerical life at least interesting.

* DemBones: Decayed corpses taken by the power of the Fallen may rise as weak undead, commonly known as skeletons. Their power varies with the level of taint around them. Old skeletons evolve into skeleton warriors. Various servants of the Fallen can turn warriors into skeleton knights, increasing speed, strength and martial skill and granting them basic magic skills. Skeleton knights evolve into skeleton mages after killing a certain amount of sentients, gaining taint-amplified basic spells, but loosing melee skills. A skeleton mage can be turned into a skeleton lord. Skeleton lords are strong mages providing local control for lower ranked skeletons, vastly increasing the combat potential of skeleton units.

* DualWielding: Most nobles carry a variation of "sword & dagger" as part of their appropriate attire. Justified by frequent duels and the basic etiquette of not carrying shields or heavy two-handed weapons on formal occasions. {{MagicKnight}}s using the gestic or verbal-gestic casting style (which is the fastest and hence most common in combat) often switch between DualWielding and the [[SwordAndGun Spell and Gun]] approach.
Averted with Hunters, Rangers and Borderlanders. Due to often dealing with undead, mutated or tainted opponents, they often carry something heavy and two-handed instead.

* ElementalEmbodiment: The schools of the four classical elements also allow to summon elementals. Those are not too bright, but extremely powerful. Skilled mages enhance the summoning by a telepathic link between summoner and elemental.

** The various guilds of thieves and murderers will not cooperate with worshipers of the Fallen, making a distinction between worldly sins that you can confess and seek forgiveness for, and transgressions that damn your soul once and for all.

** The Gray Order has declined contracts to assassinate the guild-master of the Krays island merchants' guild, the largest commercial organization on the continent. Maitre, an otherwise nameless assassin, has offended the Gray Order by taking the contract, succeeding and surviving to get paid.

** Runic magic, both for spellcasting and for enchanting, works by creating a spatial arrangement of runes, either in the caster's mind, or on the item itself.

** In a notable episode, the duke of Tariya has committed treason against the allied dragon clans which had their nests in the mountains surrounding his dukedom. As the dukedom was about to be overrun by forces of the Fallen, the dragon clans were gathering from all over the continent to strike back. As the dukedom has always relied on the isolation behind mountain passes and on the dragons, it had no army to speak of. The human population of the dukedom would fall victim to the Dark armies before the dragons arrived in force. In a desperate move, the duke released an imprisoned Dark mage and provided him with the exact locations and access methods to the dragons' nesting caves, which the Dark armies then attacked. Dragons, arriving in small groups, were killed one by one defending the nests. In the end, the dragons emerged victorious, but took terrible losses. They took revenge on the dukedom by barricading all mountain passes. The dragon survivors also swore an oath of forsaking all future interference in any conflicts with or among other species.
* GreenThumb: common skill among Life mages, practically the trademark of elven or drudic magic. Earth mages don't have this skill and could more accurately be described as "solid state" mages.

* HealingHands: basic skill of Life mages. Water and Blood mages can heal others to some limited extent.
* HealingPotion: elixirs of Life brewed by Life mages. Every Hunter carries at least 2 at all times. Since these elixirs are effectively bottled Life energy, they will also recover stamina and reduce hunger. For messengers it's rare, but not unheard of, to give Life elixirs to horses when delivering crucial information.

* HolyHandGrenade: clerics capable of magic are rather capable of hurting or outright destroying TheUndead and demonic enemies. Hunters and Rangers don't invite clerics for the simple reason that their power attracts tainted and demonic creatures in a large radius. And the Church would like the fact that the supposedly "divine" magic also works when fighting regular people under wraps.

** Where the church, the Hunters' and the Rangers' guilds use rare gems for mana storage, the Catacomb Lords and affiliates use "gems of pain", created and charged with human sacrifices.

** Dark sects use the participation in human sacrifice rituals as both proof of loyalty and blackmail material.

** Vladislav Istrin has accumulated several names over his time on Arland. He's master Hunter Vlad "Lightning", [[spoiler: reincarnated Hellaren, the Ice Aurochs[[hottip:*:in Russian, there is a similarity between "Истр", Vlad's surname's basis, and "Ice Tour", the way Vlad is adressed. This name is rendered in latinic letters in the novels.]]]], master Ranger [[SdrawkcabAlias Dalv]] "Jester", baron el Vira, baron el Stoka, count el Artua, founder of the Joker magic school Vlad er Joker, maitre (an otherwise nameless mercenary and assassin), and Slav, a freelancer. Note that due to Vlad and Slav both being short forms of Vladislav, both introductions pass {{LivingLieDetector}}s.
* InSeriesNickname with TheyCallHimSword: The Hunters' and Rangers' Guild share a tradition of assigning a byname to a hunter or ranger promoted to a master level. This nickname is most often related to their weapon of choice or magic school, but may be descriptive in some other way. Vlad has been named "Lightning" as princess Laera witnessed him kill undead warriors using a lightning spell on his swords. After being promoted to the master rank among Rangers, Vlad also goes by Dalv "Jester".

** As Vlad, with some mercenaries and friends, storms a castle, the castle's owner summons a low-tier demon to stall the attackers as he flees into a secret passage. Vlad notes that said owner luckily was just a bachelor of Demonology - a master or magister of the same school would either have run further or taken the same time to summon something much nastier.
* KillAndReplace: the {{Doppelganger}} spell can be used for this purpose as the doppelgängers are permanently loyal to their creator.

** Loviya, widow queen of Litiya. She owes Vlad and often provides crucial information generally not available outside of royal families.

* KrakenAndLeviathan: sometime during the Interregnum somebody decided to take control of northern Satum's river system. Northern Satum has only two major rivers, flowing from the West and the East toward the middle of the continent. The rivers meet in the Sweetwater Sea with the Krays island in the middle of the sea's southern part. The Kraken, a partially sapient manifestation of raw Water magic, was summoned at the northern tip of the Sweetwater Sea, effectively ending waterway travels. The Kraken summoning wasn't an act of spite or despair, but a strategic decision, as at least one amulet to control the Kraken survived the Interregnum and upon recurfacing, became the focal point of a 5-sided free-for-all power struggle.
* LadyOfWar: Arna "Black", master Huntress, later countess er Artua. Her former team, the She-Wolves, also qualified.

* LawOfChromaticSuperiority: Drake eggs are usually green, but on rare occasions there is a black one. From black eggs, equally black drakes hatch, and black drakes are stronger and more aggressive than regular green ones. Abu, a merchant dealing in drake eggs, refers to a black drake as a "demon of murder".

* LightEmUp: Magic worked by various clerics usually manifests as blinding white light. The Church claims to be above ElementalPowers and using divine WhiteMagic.
* LivingLieDetector: Mind mages detect lies easily. Blood and Life mages can read individuals by monitoring their vitals, but are rarely proficient in doing so. Mind Mages can defend themselves from detection, but working with MetaphoricallyTrue statements and abusing the ExactWords of the question works unless the Mind mage is actively interrogating you.
* LoyalAnimalCompanion of the BondCreatures variety: Drakes form an empathic bond with the first person they see upon hatching. The bonding is also a test of character, and if the human fails, the drake will try to kill the human, and failing that, will commit suicide.

* MagicAIsMagicA: magic on Arland has well-understood rules and is taught in universities and schools with people graduating as bachelors and magisters of an element. The ability to summon a primary (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) elemental or the equal amounts of {{Mana}} and skill for other schools are acknowledged with the title of a Lord or Lady of an element.

** Loviya, princess of Karosa. An arranged marriage resulted in Loviya becoming the queen of Litiya, then widowed mother queen. After a successful rebellion, Loviya was exiled from Litiya with her surviving toddler grandson, the last legit heir to the throne. During her exile, she fell in love with Prokopiy, a master Hunter from Belgor she believes to be Vlad's grandfather, but chose to remain a queen. Loviya chose the future of her grandson over her own and succeeded in reclaiming the throne. In a rare moment of unveiled truth, she calls Eliana, adopted princess of Melor, literally a "stupid cow" for messing up Eliana's relationship with Vlad, and tells Eliana: "I had no choice. Prokopiy - or my country, Hunter - or my grandson. You obviously understand whom and what I have chosen. You have the choice, don't loose Vlad."

* The RussianNamingConvention is in effect in the novels and in the list of tropes. Also see the AerithAndBob entry.

** As king Eran II of Dekara took a new mistress called Al'sa, the court turned into this. As the queen died, allegedly poisoned, and the king married his mistress, she began gathering riches, allies and power. Queen Al'sa arranged for several key persons to either retire or be removed, although not before an old courtier managed to render her infertile with a poison. The rule of queen Al'sa culminates in the civil war in Dekara. Many events before, during and after the civil war bear the signature of a foreign influence, showing that another power is working against the kingdom.

* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Al'sa, second wife to Eran II of Dekara. Previously his mistress, Al'sa had the queen poisoned and most likely ordered an attempt at the life of the only heir. With a remarkable degree of control over Eran, Al'sa removed most of the people loyal to the kingdom from the court, although an old courtier, who faithfully served Eran I and Eran II, retaliated by slipping Al'sa a permanent contraceptive potion, thus preventing her from beginning a new dynasty. Al'sa's rule was marked by nepotism and corruption until a rebellion blossomed into civil war.

* HiddenBackupPrince and NobleFugitive: after the wife of Eran II of Dekara died, supposedly poisoned, the king married his mistress Al'sa. Courtiers loyal to the dynasty correctly assumed the life of the only prince to be in danger and faked the prince's demise. As queen Al'sa forced many courtiers to retire, among those was an innocuous Borderlands' baron retiring to his barony outside of Dekara to raise a son. As queen Al'sa was killed during the civil war, and king Eran II is on his deathbed without a heir, the Rite of Closest Blood is performed in Dekara, and a young Borderlands' baron crops up.

* OurGryphonsAreDifferent: Gryphons are likely a creation of the Chimera school, one of the least known schools of magic. Their sole known nesting grounds are in the Karosa kingdom. Gryphons are smart, possibly borderline sentient, and are tamed by the military, making Karosa the only kingdom with a functioning air force. An adult gryphon can comfortably carry a basket or a net with several passengers or a load of cargo. Vlad compares a gryphon flock guarded by several dragons to a cargo helicopter squadron with an escort of gunships. Vlad's drake Fuzzy merely considers them a hard-to-catch delicacy.

** Crime on Arland has been organized for several millenia. Kingdoms have their own assassins' guilds.
** The Gray Order is an international organization. This Order always consists of exactly 25 members, grouped in 5 groups of 5, and each unit uses an intermediary to make their deals. Each group contains a master warrior, usually a high vampire, and master mages of the 4 primary elements. All members are sleeper agents living perfectly normal lives between missions. After killing a Gray team, Vlad reveals their corpses to the authorities to find out that the Water mage has been a respected professor of Water magic in one of the best known universities.
** Vlad gets suspicious about Zetr, the village elder of Vlad's Stoka village, since during an attack Zetr shows leadership and martial skill without having a soldiering or mercenary background. Zetr confesses being a wanted fugitive assassin hiding from former associates. Vlad has said associates "removed" and engages Zetr in building Vlad's personal copy of the Gray Order.

* ReallyGetsAround for being a PoliticallyActivePrincess: Eliana el Chanor, princess of Melor. Due to being adopted, she has no claims to the throne whatsoever and seems to live a life of various pleasures as a token royal. Most embassies at the court of Melor have surprisingly handsome "diplomats" on staff. Unknown to the general public, Eliana is a royal envoy, an accomplished Life Lady, a trained seductress, spy and assassin, has the potential to become a Saint in her own lifetime and has married [[spoiler: Vlad "Lightning" by the rite of Saint Auna]], later performing a soul bind to her husband. Much to said husband's chagrin, her training as FemmeFatale often takes over.

* CorruptChurch: the Order of the Maker's Servants, according to Vlad the closest thing to inquisition on Arland, is engaged in plays for power both within the Church and outside it. Vlad is slightly shocked to find Servants collaborating with an actual dark sect.

** As king Eyran II of Dekara took a new mistress called Il'sa, the court turned into this. As the queen died, allegedly poisoned, and the king married his mistress, she began gathering riches, allies and power. Queen Il'sa arranged for several key persons to either retire or be removed, although not before an old courtier managed to render her infertile with a poison. The rule of queen Il'sa culminates in the civil war in Dekara. Many events before, during and after the civil war bear the signature of a foreign influence, showing that another power is working against the kingdom.

** The World's Temple has been among other things a treasury and a museum. Due to reasonably common magical RagnarokProofing, most of the valuables remain intact in the Blighted Catacombs and in other lesser treasuries across the world of Arland. After the Destroyer's Heart was banished from the Catacombs, a new natural phenomenon manifested, called "Blight's Breath". On regular intervals, blighted and tainted creatures, but also tainted items will be teleported into the Catacombs. Hunters and Rangers make their livings partially from finding and cleansing such treasures.

** Vlad, as a baron in the Northern Borderlands of the Dekara kingdom, votes for the Borderlands' barons to join the king's side in the civil war. After the king's army emerges victorious and successfully recaptures the capital from the rebels, the king's chief general grants the Borderlands' barons the rights to plunder the city palaces of those nobles who joined the rebellion.

* AreaOfEffect: Trademark of powerful magic. Vlad notes that AoE skills don't need aiming.

* OurZombiesAreDifferent: Fresh corpses tainted by the power of the Fallen or corpses desecrated by certain rites may rise as zombies. Zombies don't have magic and can survive on human flesh in otherwise untainted areas. Tainted zombies are much faster, smarter and stronger than common ones. Upon consuming a certain amount of victims, a zombie becomes a master-zombie, becoming stronger and faster. Master-zombies exclude a lethal poison from their entire corpses. As with skeletons and mummies, a ritual can turn a master-zombie into a zombie lord. Zombie lords are extremely strong, control their own zombie units and can fire bursts of raw taint.

* RebelliousPrincess: Arna "Black", master Huntress. She joined the Hunters to avoid an unwanted marriage. Vlad later decides that she must have been taught to rule and puts her in charge of the Artua county.

* SecretTestOfCharacter: a retired and incapacitated Black Dragon offers Vlad to buy his skills by NeuralImplanting. Vlad declines and the Black Dragon tells him that he has passed and is worthy to inherit the Black Dragon's skills and oath of revenge.

* SplashDamage: Vlad has developed a spell to forcibly banish certain kinds of spirits. The banishment is quiet, but the material component of the spirit explodes, often dealing splash damage to other enemies. To Vlad's initial surprise, the explosion carries the effect of the spell, allowing for chain reactions.

** The clerics of Belgor, due to the city's unique status and the proximity of the Blighted Catacombs, are all proficient warriors.

** Played straight with Blood, Death and Necromancy mages - their affiliations and actions depend on personality and history and aren't solely defined by their powers. The Rangers' second-in-command is a Blood mage, Matvey's daughter Dunya and Shedar of the Lynx clan are Death mages, Dils "Gloomy" and Ol't from Belgor are necromancers, but they all work against the forces of the Fallen.
** Played straight with the vampire species. They have some creepy powers and drink blood, but vampires don't serve the Fallen. And since a Dark mage tried to enslave a clan wholesale, said clan joined the Borderlanders and got approved by the Church.

** The Ayra sultanate's court is dominated by the sultan's 4 wives. Since they all have at least one son suitable to inherit the throne, the court has descended into a tangle of intrigues and conspirations, culminating in fratricide.

** A Hunter seeking to obtain a plot of land to retire left his wife, son and daughter at an inn as he visited the required bureaucrats. A group of young noblemen happened to visit the inn and demanded the pretty young girl to "service" them. As Hunters and their families are exempt from serf laws, the family declined. The noblemen raped the girl and killed both her brother and mother. The Hunter beat the truth out of the inn-keeper, but was arrested and hanged under the pretense of revolting against the king. The Hunters' Guild responded by taking the city by storm and slaughtering the families of the responsible nobles, including the royal family who had denied to investigate the case properly. This event became proverbial as the Slaughtering of Seren.
** A Ranger, accompanied by an elven Life Lady (Life school archmagess, master healer) who carries a debt of life to the Ranger, and some loyal troops happens to save a coven of elven summoners and their guard detail from a band of desert spirits the summoners have lost control of. The Ranger's unit dispatches the spirits and the Life Lady patches the elves up. During the following night, the elven coven and guards assault the Hunter and his troops, mortally wounding the elven magess. As she lays dying, her final wish is to marry the Ranger to repay at least a part of her debt. The Rangers' Guild recognizes the marriage as valid retroactively and calls for revenge. While the Ranger in question would have the resources to avenge his own, the guild-master convinces him that the lesson of Seren must be reinforced, lest someone decides that the Guilds no longer care. The Guild's forces assault the territory of the elven clan responsible, destroy the elven army, storm the city-forest, capture the elven royals, kill the men and take women and children captive. As the elven royals face their subjects, the Rangers give them the choice - to be executed or to go free in exchange of having a quarter of their surviving subjects slaughtered for each royal. The elven king, queen and prince damn their subjects, while the princess chooses to save hers. The Rangers proceed by executing king, queen and prince and forcing the princess to join Saint Auna's Order, but spare all the elven survivors. This event becomes known as the Slaughtering of Siluen. [[spoiler: The Ranger is Vlad, the Life Lady is Kenara.]]

** Vlad baron el Stoka, count el Artua, earned the title "Death of the Goblins" after a goblin tribe laid siege to the Stoka castle and was decimated by warriors and mages of the Artua county.

** The Gray Order has declined offers to assassinate the guild-master of the Krays island merchants' guild, the largest commercial organization on the continent. Maitre, an otherwise nameless assassin, has offended the Gray Order by taking the contract and succeeding.
** [[spoiler: Vlad's problem is that he is Vlad "Lightning", Dalv "Jester", Vlad count el Artua and "Maitre" all in one person. According to Father Estor, Vlad, as other "aliens" before him]], is a catalyst of changes on Arland - the world itself puts him to the test, using friends, allies and loved ones as the stake, and he must fight to survive.
* GenreSavvy: Since fantasy has rapidly become more popular in modern Russia, Vlad has read his share of it, and also is a knowledgeable fan of medieval history. Vlad, after his introduction to the city of Belgor and to magic, actually complains that he didn't get any Marty Stu superpowers on Arland.
* GeometricMagic: many rituals use circles and patterns, usually including appropriate runes.

* CommonTongue: All races and nations on Arland share the language given to them by the world's Creator. Priests assigned to the "blighted spots" are also responsible for imprinting the CommonTongue on people appearing there with a divine spell.

* DetectEvil: priests capable of divine magic can perform a spell called "Test of loyalty to the Creator". The amplified version of the spell also includes a memory scan. The Order of Maker's Servants uses this effect of the amplified spell to gather political and financial secrets etc.

* ElementalPowers: The four classical elements, Water, Fire, Earth and Air, are commonly described as primary. According to Kolar er Kilam, a genius theoretician of magic, Life, Death, Light and Darkness are also primary, although the Church regards describing clerics as mages a heresy. Kolar most likely has a point, though, since servants and creatures of the Fallen can use dark-tainted spells. Clerics from the Order of the Maker's Servants (Arland's inquisition) have used divine-like spells against humans while this power supposedly only works against the power of the Fallen.

* HolyHandGrenade: clerics capable of divine magic are rather capable of hurting or outright destroying TheUndead and demonic enemies. Hunters and Rangers don't invite clerics for the simple reason that their power attracts tainted and demonic creatures in a large radius. And the Church would like the fact that the supposedly divine magic also works when fighting regular people under wraps.

* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: averted. Vlad almost suffers a breakdown as the master blacksmith Dorn "Battleaxe" comments on his remote nephew Kerin with the comment of "He's too young at 55 years."
Vlad blacks out, comes to it in a couple of minutes and proceeds to recite the common dwarven traits to Dorn and Kerin. The blacksmiths agree that dwarves are underground dwellers, masters of mining and blacksmithing and

* RandomlyGifted: Magic runs at random on Arland. About one child in 1000 is born a mage. Among the Hunters' Guild prominent mages Kar "Volcano" is a noble, Ins "Ice" hails from a backwater mountain tribe, Dils "Gloomy" was a peasant boy and Arna "Black" is a werewolf Water mage. The access to divine spells seems to be random among clerics, but obviously influences promotion chances. Mages are born more often among nobles, and Mother Erita of Saint Auna's Order tells Vlad that two mages are statistically more likely to have gifted children; [[spoiler: the chance increases if the mages are of the same element]]. Magic seems to run in the genes, as two otherwise unrelated and isolated communities, the Lynx clan and the clan Ins "Ice" came from, both show an increased share of mages, up to one in 100.

* RetiredBadass: Matvey has retired from the Hunters' Guild after the death of his wife and [[spoiler: as a precondition to join the Council of the Loyals]].

* RoaringRampageOfRescue: the kidnapping of the She-Wolves (an all-girl Hunter team) and Dunya for the Catacomb Lords' procreation ritual triggers this for the entire city of Belgor. In most cases, Hunters would try to find and MercyKill the women. After an almost suicidal distraction by the Hunters' Guild, Vlad leads a crack team of Hunters into the Catacombs. They find the lair of the Catacomb Lords, destroy the guards and save the women.

** After exiting the Catacombs, Vlad's team rides for Belgor to allow Bishop Aner to exorcise the rescued women and save their lives permanently. The Hunters are intercepted by a fanatic Creator's Servant (a member of Arland's inquisition), accompanied by Servant guards and several Creator's Hands (paladins). The Servant incapacitates the Hunters within a divine spell's barrier and orders the women executed by piercing their hearts and beheading them, their tainted corpses exorcised and burned on the spot. Vlad unleashes a magic power he isn't supposed to have and proceeds to break the barrier, slaughter the Servant guards and the Hands and finally kill the Servant by breaking the divine shielding spell.
** A successful rebellion in the Litia kingdom almost destroyed the dynasty. The rebels only spared the king's widowed mother and his toddler son. This was a mistake, as the widow queen found allies and reclaimed the throne in the name of her grandson. She then had all the captured noble rebels executed one after another on the exact date of their rebellion.