History Sandbox / IntoTheShadowlands

* MultiethnicName: "Kōnane" is a Hawaiian name that means "moonlight" and "Ching" is a Chinese surname.

** Lady Renée de Winter is a twofer: her name means "reborn/born again", which is what Daphne hopes to make of her, and she has a daughter named Isabelle. [[Literature/{{Twilight}} Bella Swan's mother is Renée Dwyer.]]

* PunnyName: The Bargewright Inn (no relation to the establishment in the Forgotten Realms), with a lampshade hung upon it Lady de Winter.

* Rhin Liu, dhampir Path of the Beast barbarian

* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Rhin disappears after the party exits St. Pavel's Orphanage because the player had to go on hiatus for personal reasons.

* CainAndAbel: Camille is the Cain and Alois is the Abel of the de Varennes royal family. While Alois was generous, good-hearted, and open-minded up until his murder, Camille started off as the dutiful oldest child who followed the family trade of conquering who had a cordial at worst and loving at best with their younger brother. However, Camille slowly became twisted by the "advice" of his advisors and the entity calling itself Death. On the other side, Xuan Huong (known to the court as Daphne) was educating Alois and getting him to change his mind, take his family, and leave Xinghua. Alois came around to her opinion in a HeelRealization just in time for Camille to get it into his head that Alois and Daphne are plotting to remove him and install themselves as the new power couple rulers. Prompted by "Death", Camille murdered Alois to seal a dark pact and became the first vampire.

** Anya has a Band of the Dryad, a wooden ring that looks like intertwining ivy vines, with a perfect small rose blooming as a jewel. It recharges once per day, and she can use it to heal someone she can touch. Once the charge is expended, the rose wilts away, and reblooms at dawn.
** Kōnane wields the Blade of Heaven's Will that she saved from the ruined temple of the Ordo Lunaris. It deals additional damage to undead. She also has a ''leiomano'' - a wooden sword edged in shark teeth, which is the weapon she reaches for first in combat.
* ItsAllMyFault: Both Father Solberg and Mai Hoa blame themselves for the "death" (turning) of Alexandra. Mai Hoa feels guilty for indulging a young Sasha's heroic dreams. Father Solberg regrets sheltering the wizard and her rebellion that got so many people killed, and being unable to stop Sasha from joining them.

** The Sun was forced to shoot down his brothers, who had transformed into suns and were slowly killing all life on Earth. The Moon tried to fight the false Suns, but was severely wounded in a nine-on-one battle, and ran into the caves to recuperate, only to get dragged to trial right after she has recovered. For their attempts to protect the mortals in their care, they get sentenced to the fate of StarCrossedLovers, and KickedUpstairs for additional new duties. The Sun became the Archer, whose light would smite away evil. The Moon became the Weaver, who decides the fate of all in the Mortal Realm.

* VocalDissonance: While presenting as a young woman that borders on girlish, Camille has a low, purring AltoVillainess voice.

* CainAndAbel: Camille is the Cain and Sylvain is the Abel of the de Varennes royal family. While Sylvain was generous, good-hearted, and open-minded up until his murder, Camille started off as the dutiful oldest child who followed the family trade of conquering who had a cordial at worst and loving at best with their younger brother. However, Camille slowly became twisted by the "advice" of his advisors and the entity calling itself Death. On the other side, Xuan Huong (known to the court as Daphne) was educating Sylvain and getting him to change his mind, take his family, and leave Xinghua. Sylvain came around to her opinion in a HeelRealization just in time for Camille to get it into his head that Sylvain and Daphne are plotting to remove him and install themselves as the new power couple rulers. Prompted by "Death", Camille murdered Sylvain to seal a dark pact and became the first vampire.

* KillAndReplace: A circuitous version of this trope. Camille killed Sylvain as part of the deal they made with Death, but they still love their little brother (twisted as this emotion may be), so his guise as Stefan von Achterberg is identical to Sylvain in both looks and temperament. Camille is essentially attempting to roleplay Sylvain but evil, while benefiting from being able to present as male(-coded).

** Sylvain de Varennes' Sunbow (the canon counterpart to the Sunsword) is a MacGuffin that the party must acquire.

* PrincelyYoungMan: By all accounts, Sylvain de Varennes was exactly as handsome, gentle, and chivalrous as Stefan von Achterberg presents himself as. Madame Astra's reading explicitly refers to him as "a sleeping prince". While he's not legally a prince in the rest of Yue'nan, he served as the equivalent of a Crown Prince up until his death.

* CainAndAbel: Camille is the Cain and Sylvain is the Abel of the de Varennes royal family. While Sylvain was generous, good-hearted, and open-minded up until his murder, Camille started off as the dutiful oldest child who followed the family trade of conquering who had a cordial at worst and loving at best with their younger brother. However, Camille slowly became twisted by the "advice" of his advisors and the entity calling itself Death. On the other side, Xuan Huong (known to the court as Daphne) was educating Sylvain and getting him to change his mind, take his family, and leave Xinghua. Sylvain came around to her opinion in a HeelRealization just in time for Camille to get it into his head that Sylvain and Daphne are plotting to remove him and install themselves as the new power couple rulers. Prompted by "Death", Camille murders Sylvain to seal a dark pact and became the first vampire.

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacters: Armani, full stop. She gets poisoned for a full day because she ate the hags' pastries. A few hours after the poison wears off, she's taking candy from Headmistress Ward's plate, reasoning that there's no way she'd be poisoned by strangers twice in a row. Her party members react with annoyance at this. Luckily, while Ward ''is'' in the pay of de Varennes, she has no intention to directly harm anyone.

** Father Solberg and Madame Astra as the final devotees of their deity in Lillefort. Solberg started as the village's kindly priest who aided a rebellion and was swiftly punished by Camille for his part. He spends the days trapped in his church, praying incessantly that his Lord will heal his daughter Sasha, with no sign that the Archer might hear him and grant him this boon. Madame Astra is intimately aware that there are still deities in this cursed land, because she's channeling one. She is adopting Luci, a promising child to replace her as the high priestess of the Lady of the Stars. She aids the party in their quest to return home (and overthrow the Sovereign), but at the same time still gives Camille unbiased readings when he approaches her because he is her half-sibling.
* HunterOfMonsters: The Liu family is renowned for being the peacekeepers of the Shadowlands, guarding the rest of Yue'nan against monsters and other threats. Rhin is thrown into conflict as she's a dhampir (albeit of the ''jiangshi'' kind rather than European vampire like Camille and their cohort). She also weaponizes her rage at the existence of monsters that harm innocent people in battle as a Barbarian, first demonstrated in her attack on Lea.

** Alexis de Varennes' Sunbow (the canon counterpart to the Sunsword) is a MacGuffin that the party must acquire.

* KillAndReplace: A circuitous version of this trope. Camille killed Alexis in a fit of rage, but they still love their little brother (twisted as this emotion may be), so his guise as Stefan von Achterberg is identical to Alexis in both looks and temperament. Camille is essentially attempting to roleplay Alexis, but evil, while benefiting from being able to present as male(-coded).

** Father Solberg and Madame Astra as the final devotees of their deity in Lillefort. Solberg started as the village's kindly priest who aided a rebellion and was swiftly punished by Camille for his part. He spends the days trapped in his church, praying incessantly that his Lord will heal his daughter Sasha, with no sign that the Archer might hear him and grant him this boon. Madame Astra is intimately aware that there are still deities in this cursed land, because she's channeling one.

** Alexis de Varennes' Moonbow (the canon counterpart to the Sunsword) is a MacGuffin that the party must acquire.

* {{Egopolis}}: Lillefort and its castle is named after Camille's mother, Lady Liliane de Varennes (née de Montfort).

** The were-ravens are part of the Ordo Solaris, an evil-fighting order that descended from the ravens that fell to earth after being shot by the Sun. They are determined to make amends for their ancestors' evil deed, following the lead of the Archer (who is technically ''their'' ancestor as well). The werewolves were once part of the Ordo Lunaris, a similar order that follows the banner of the Moonweaver, but ended up [[LesCollaborateurs aligning with de Varennes]] and contributed to the wiping out of their order, which included murdering any werewolf who stayed loyal to the Order.

** Camille de Varennes was named after composer Camille Saint-Saëns, French revolutionary Camille Desmoulins, and Alexandre Varenne, a former Governor-General of French Indochina that Hồ Chí Minh immortalized and ridiculed in a short story. The name was chosen because of its gender-neutral status and its resemblance to ''Literature/{{Carmilla}}'' was accidental.

* MeaningfulRename: De Varennes took over Xinghua, desecrated the shrines to the Mistresses, built an European-style castle that looks like Schloss Neuschwanstein on the mountains, and finally forcibly renamed the town Lillefort - erasing local culture and imposing his own on the town. "Xinghua" as a name is only spoken in secret by people trying to remember that they once were part of Yue'nan.

** The Sun was forced to shoot down his brothers, who had transformed into suns and was slowly killing all life on Earth. The Moon tried to fight the false Suns, but was severely wounded in a nine-on-one battle, and ran into the caves to recuperate, only to get dragged to trial right after she has recovered. For their attempts to protect the mortals in their care, they get sentenced to a fate of StarCrossedLovers, and KickedUpstairs for additional new duties. The Sun became the Archer, whose light would smite away evil. The Moon became the Weaver, who decides the fate of all in the Mortal Realm.
** Lillefort runs on the punishment of good deeds. Chief Gia Han tried to defend her people against the Sovereign's rule, and saved some tax money to fix crumbling infrastructure. She was effectively murdered for it, with the Sovereign weaponizing her heart condition to terrorize her to death. Mai Hoa encouraged a child Sasha Solberg's innocent heroic dreams, indirectly causing Sasha's transformation into a vampire spawn. Father Solberg sheltered a wizard and her rebellion, before the rebellion got quashed horrifically and his daughter got turned as punishment.

* VocalDissonance: While presenting as a young woman that borders on girlish, Camille has a low, purring AltoVillainess voice.

** Mai Hoa (Ireena). The ''mai'' flower is a symbol of spring in the South of Yue'nan. Her adoptive mother named her that because she seems like a bit of sunshine in miserable, dreary Lillefort. It's later revealed that her initial incarnation (Tatyana) was named Xuan Huong ("fragrance of spring"). Another incarnation, Sister Hanae of the Archer's Church, is flower-themed: her name is formed from kanji that means "flower" and "picture", and the party only knows her posthumously by her portrait.

* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: The Sun was forced to shoot down his brothers, who had transformed into suns and was slowly killing all life on Earth. The Moon tried to fight the false Suns, but was severely wounded in a nine-on-one battle, and ran into the caves to recuperate, only to get dragged to trial right after she has recovered. For their attempts to protect the mortals in their care, they get sentenced to a fate of StarCrossedLovers, and KickedUpstairs for additional new duties. The Sun became the Archer, whose light would smite away evil. The Moon became the Weaver, who decides the fate of all in the Mortal Realm.