Line #40 Literature/BrothersOfTheSnake


1	[[quoteright:330:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_bros-of-the-snake_9807.jpg]]
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3	''Brothers Of The Snake'' is a ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' novel by Creator/DanAbnett, the adventures of Priad, a brother and then sergeant of the Iron Snakes SpaceMarine chapter.
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5	----
6	!!Tropes included
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8	* AccidentalPun: InUniverse: the Children of Khorne, a Chaos cult from a planet whose main produce is... yes, corn. The Inquisitor sent to investigate laments that the pun seems lost on everyone but him.
9	* AchillesInHisTent: A variation: Priad doesn't nominate his squad for the honor of first deployment because he's still pissed at them over the trench dive incident. Petrok later remarks that it might actually have been a good thing, as the first twenty-five squads to be deployed ended up surrounded by greenskins and needed Damocles and other squads to help extract them.
10	* AfterActionPatchup: Priad explains something to Petrok while being patched up after a battle.
11	* AngryGuardDog: A heroic one Priad has to calm down and turns friendly. It helps him in his mission, and later returns as a plot element.
12	* ArmorIsUseless: Discussed and averted, as light weaponry fails to penetrate the PowerArmour. Played straight, however, when Snakes fight the Black Tusks, one of which has a weapon that makes a giant hole in one of the Space Marines.
13	* AttackPatternAlpha:
14	-->''"Damocles, form and cover, Hades spread!"''
15	* BackForTheDead: [[spoiler:Inquisitor Mabuse]] shows up in one story, then reappears in another only to die by the end of it.
16	* BecauseDestinySaysSo: Why Petrok insists on bringing Damocles squad to battle, even when Priad insists they're not combat-ready.
17	* BigBad: The [[SpaceElves Dark Eldar]], or more specifically, an unnamed [[EvilOverlord Archon]]. While they have been raiding and plaguing the Reef Stars for decades, they eventually lured an entire WAAAGH! there to make life difficult for the Iron Snakes. That was a plan that was [[TheLongGame at least]] ''[[TheLongGame 50 years]]'' [[TheLongGame in the works]].
18	%%* BloodFromTheMouth: As always a sign of Chaos.
19	* BlueBlood: A whole swathe of them in the chapter [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Blue Blood"]]. Turns out Imperial aristocrats have a hard time with being told "no" by other Imperial servants, even by Space Marines, who are by no means required to answer to them.
20	* BoobyTrap: While the Iron Snakes were trying to retake a city from them, some Dark Eldar mine a critical location before withdrawing. They were clever enough to place them in phosphor vent so the entire city would have blown up, so the Iron Snakes had to physically carry the bombs out and hope that they don't go off.
21	* BookEnds:
22	** Both first and last story end up on Baal Solock, and in both Priad refuses to take part in post-battle festivities to his honor.
23	** The last story opens and closes with a trench dive, although it's two different people who make it.
24	* CallARabbitASmeerp: In the Reef Stars, the Dark Eldar are known as ''primuls''.
25	* CasualDangerDialogue: When they first meet, Petrok takes a moment to compliment Priad's hunting skills after having one-shotted a wyrm as an initiate, much to Priad's flattery, while they were under Dark Eldar suppressive fire. Turns out there was a point: Priad's squad and Petrok were under fire because they failed an ambush to destroy the Dark Eldar's hard point with one shot from a plasma cannon, and Priad needed to be reminded that hitting it multiple times was going to be necessary rather than just taking for granted that the tactic failed altogether.
26	* ChekhovsGun:
27	** The Orkish artifact from the first story [[spoiler:is being used by Dark Eldar to lure a WAAAGH! to the Reef Worlds.]]
28	** The venom from snake bite one of the Marines gets early in the story saves his life by the end of the book.
29	* ColdBloodedTorture: A Khorne-devoted village tortures one of the Snakes to sacrifice him for their god.
30	* ColourfulThemeNaming: The chapter names ("Black Gold", "Blue Blood", "Crimson Wake", etc.), each of which were a different mission, or otherwise an adventure that Squad Damocles goes through.
31	%%* CombatMedic: Both space marines are easily the equal of their brothers in combat.
32	* ComeToGawk: Khiron thinks that this is what Priad's doing when he comes to his cell. Subverted, as Priad has come to [[spoiler:recruit him for his squad.]]
33	%%** How the Imperial nobles react to seeing Space Marines for the first time.
34	* DeadpanSnarker: Autolochus the Venerable Dreadnought, of all people.
35	-->''I'm always awake. Noise you idiots make, it's hard to slumber.''
36	* DeclarationOfProtection: Priad gives one to the farmers. [[spoiler: He's forced to rescind it once he realizes that they're the Chaos cultists he's been hunting]].
37	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The use of boy slaves as ammo loaders and servants is constantly mentioned. Fortunately the pederasty implications aren't there.
38	* DieLaughing: One of the dark eldar raiders killed by Priad and Antoni on Baal Solock has the last laugh after realising that [[spoiler:the plan to lure in a WAAAGH! using an Ork relic will succeed,]] and the locals just destroyed the only chance they had at turning it away, despite the entire raiding party being wiped out.
39	* DistantFinale: The last story ends with the narrator describing events ten years later.
40	* DistressedDude: Khiron is this for a moment, given that he's standing on a rock staring at giant sea wyrms trying to eat him, carrying just a spear.
41	* TheDreaded: The Inquisition; Priad reflects wryly that the Princess Royal who is arrogant and sheltered enough to not be afraid of Space Marines (in fact, she thinks she can order them around) runs away screaming when she sees an Inquisitorial sigil.
42	* DreamingOfThingsToCome: Librarian Petrok, whose job partly is using his powers for prognostication.
43	* DueToTheDead: The Snakes collect gene-seed and burn the body, then throw the ashes into the oceans of Ithaka. If a sea wyrm eats them, it's considered a good omen.
44	* DugTooDeep: In ''Black Gold'', the refinery crew [[spoiler:dug out some Chaos substance which proceeded to possess them all]].
45	* EnemyCivilWar: The orks keep fighting each other, but the Astartes can't find a way to take advantage of it.
46	* ErmineCapeEffect: Antoni inverts this, putting away her official portrait for being too good.
47	* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Autolochus' line as cited under DeadpanSnarker? The second thing he says upon his arrival, in fact.
48	* EvilDetectingDog: Priad's Chapter apparently trains its men in the use of dogs to fight Dark Eldar.
49	* TheEvilPrince: Upon learning that the old queen was murdered, Priad guesses that the new king is the murderer. The Inquisitor tells him to leave the investigation to him, since that conclusion was all too obvious (and from what we see of him, the new king is too much of an UpperClassTwit to be behind it).
50	* EyeScream: [[spoiler: Natus]] loses both of his eyes in fight against the greenskins, but has his hearing improved to compensate for it before artificial replacements can be put in place. The impact was so strong, his head has to be wrapped in metal bands so that the skull won't fall apart. He later gets hooked up with a jury-rigged camera that gives him black-and-white vision and depth perception (and makes him look like a cyclops to boot).
51	* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The Iron Snakes are a high-tech version of Ancient Greece. Even their names are slightly-off names of figures of Antiquity or myth (especially characters from Literature/TheIliad): Priad -> Priam, Andromak -> Andromache, Seydon -> Poseidon, Khiron -> Chiron, etc. The way the squad leaders argue among each other is reminiscent of the Greek chieftains arguing in the Iliad.
52	* FearlessFool: Khiron observes that folly and courage are not always distinguishable.
53	%%* FireForgedFriends: Antoni and Priad, human clerk and Space Marine.%%Are examples how?
54	* FirstNameBasis: Petrok insists on this with Priad, who doesn't always obey, given that one is the Chief Librarian of the chapter, and the other is a "mere" Brother-Sergeant.
55	* FishOutOfWater: The entire squad when dealing with the environment Imperial nobles built around themselves. Space Marines live a very spartan life dedicated to war and training. When put into an environment of luxury and intrigue, all they can do is stare in curiosity and try not to step on anybody's toes.
56	* FlashedBadgeHijack: The Inquisitor does this on their behalf.
57	* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: Priad smacks Natus across the head to get his mind off the blasphemous texts on the Khorne-doll when the latter is [[BrownNote frozen in terror by looking at them]].
58	* GlamourFailure: Seeing the chaos beast with the naked eye among the cultists. Also, the one that infiltrated the Chapter.
59	* HeroicBystander: Antoni, who insists on watching Priad in action and blows up two ''primuls'' herself.
60	* HeroicDog: Princeps, the attack dog who follows Antoni and Priad on their errand, in the first story.
61	* HollywoodTactics: The Iron Snakes attempt to take back a world from at least two ork Waaaghs! with a total of thirty ten-Marine squads and no ''vehicles''. Even more noticeable as the first story gave Priad a Land Speeder for his OneRiotOneRanger deployment.
62	* HotBlooded:
63	** Xander has little patience and is quick to get annoyed.
64	** Once Autolochus is awoken, he can't stay in one place and keeps on prowling the ship from one end to the other.
65	* HumanSacrifice: Some cultists catch and try to sacrifice an Iron Snake.
66	* IMeantToDoThat: When one of the Space Marines misses the shot that's supposed to blow the laid charges, he claims he was just checking the distance.
67	%%* InHarmsWay: Like all Space Marines.
68	* IntroOnlyPointOfView: The first story is from the POV of the human on the world Priad visits.
69	* ItIsDehumanizing: Played for laughs in the denouement. When Antoni, now the governor of her world, marvels at Autolochus, she refers to the dreadnought as "it", having never seen one before and not knowing there's a marine inside the vehicle shell. After a bit of this, Autolochus decides he's had enough and declares "IT can HEAR you", which gives Antoni quite a shock. At the end, when they are leaving the planet:
70	-->'''Antoni''': ''[whispering to Priad]'' Have I offended it?\
71	'''Autolochus''': '''Only by continuing to refer to me as an "it."'''
72	* KarmicDeath: The ''primuls'' which [[spoiler:lured the WAAAGH! to the Reef Stars are later slaughtered by the greenskins who were lured to their planet in the same way.]]
73	* KillItWithFire: The only way to ensure that [[spoiler:a daemon doesn't escape to another host]] is to burn it.
74	* LawOfInverseFertility: Antoni never had children [[spoiler: because of whatever Priad injects her with when she's suffering from radiation sickness at the end of the first chapter. It's implied that it's his own, genetically enhanced, blood causing it]].
75	* MalevolentMutilation: The Chaos Cult in the book has a way to etch Chaos sigils on their bones without disturbing the flesh over them. The Inquisitor investigating the Cult is very curious to know how they manage this.
76	%%* ManlyTears:%%Quotes aren't acceptable context.
77	%%-->''Salt-water ran from his eye corners. The Rite had begun. Removing his glove, Priad wiped the tears from his eye and marked the emblem of the Iron Snakes on the bulkhead. His men watched him do it.\
78	Sometimes the Rite was special. Sometimes, you didn't need the flask.''
79	%%* TheMedic: Apothecaries Memmon and Khiron.
80	%%* MobileMaze: Under Chaos, a labyrinth can't be trusted.
81	%%* TheMole: A Chaos thing.
82	* MoodWhiplash: The beginning of the last story starts with the Marines getting out-ambushed by their trainees and everyone laughing, but then suddenly turns serious when it turns out that one of the trainees used to commotion to attempt the trench dive and died as a result.
83	* MortonsFork: An ordeal will prove Khiron's innocence if it kills him; if he survives (the wyrms won't touch a Warp-tainted man), he's guilty.
84	* NiceToTheWaiter: Averted, a princess who tries to order the Space Marines around also strikes her guard for disagreeing with her.
85	* NonIndicativeName: The greenskins are noted to be so covered in ImprovisedArmor and what's not armored to be painted black and red and pink that they aren't even remotely green.
86	* NoPlaceForAWarrior: PlayedForLaughs in Part Six, when Damocles Squad is assigned to act as envoys to the court of a recently-crowned monarch, who invites them to "mingle freely" at the reception.
87	-->''"Mingle"? What in the Emperor's name does that mean?''
88	* NoSenseOfHumor:
89	** Priad doesn't understand humor even when it's quite obvious, like when Petrok claims he has killed four or five equerries for being annoying.
90	** Inverted with Petrok, who sometimes seems like the only Iron Snake with any sense of humor.
91	* NotSoAboveItAll: At the end of the novel, Priad demonstrates solidarity with his squad by making the forbidden trench dive.
92	* ObviouslyEvil: Ceres, the agri-world where Part IV takes place, has such a high concentration of iron in its geology that the soil, the water, and even the clouds in the sky are all exactly the color of human blood.
93	* OhNoYouDidnt: When the Princess Royal objects to Damocles Squad commandeering her vehicle, Priad tells her politely but firmly to go away. She responds by shooting him with a micro-laser gun. The laser barely scratches his armor, but instantly the squad has their bolters trained on her, and Priad's helmet display automatically plasters a target across the Princess' forehead, which he tries to ignore.
94	* OneRiotOneRanger: In the first story, the Iron Snakes decided that one green Battle-Brother (Priad) is enough to deal with ''primuls'' invasion of the planet. They are proven correct. Later inverted most of the Chapter proves to be entirely too little against a Waaagh! and suffers horrific casualties.
95	* TheOnlyBeliever: A furious Priad demands to know which man in his squad was stupid enough to do the trench dive. He discovers that he's the ''only'' one not to have done it. The entire squad gets punished as a result, which ends up saving quite a few lives.
96	* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: Aekon hallucinates, briefly of one, before realizing it's Khiron.
97	* ThePowerOfFriendship: Petrok urges Priad to consider this in his squad's wrong doing.
98	* ThePromise: Priad promises to protect some civilians.
99	* PunnyName: Children of Khorne, from a corn-producing planet. The Inquisitor calls the little corn dolls they use as totem "Khorne dolls", but the pun is, sadly, lost on Space Marines.
100	* PyrrhicVictory: In ''Black Gold'' the Marines take the facility, but lose three of their own and it turns out that the refinery has to be destroyed either way, which could've been done from the orbit.
101	* RealMenWearPink: The orks are noted to be painted red and black and sugary pink. No explanation is given for the pink (black and red are known to have connotations of toughness and [[RedOnesGoFaster speed]] in ork culture).
102	* RequisiteRoyalRegalia: A sceptre and an orb, which are supposed to react if the heir is improper. They double as a can for {{Sealed Evil\|InACan}}.
103	* RoyalBrat: One princess at the coronation, who tries to shoot the Sergeant with a lasgun built into her ring when he refuses to kowtow to her. The marine's response can be summed up as "Did you ''really'' just do that?"
104	* SealedEvilInACan: The regalia was meant to contain this; they managed to seal it up before it escaped.
105	* ShoutOut: "The Children of Khorne", to Stephen King's ''Literature/ChildrenOfTheCorn''. As a bonus, they come from a corn-producing planet.
106	* TheSquad: Squad Damocles. Led by [[TheMentor Raphon]] when Priad joins up, who takes the torch-er, Lightning Claw fairly early in the narrative.
107	%%* StaffOfAuthority: One of the coronation regalia.
108	* TakeUpMySword: When Sergeant Raphon is mortally wounded, he detaches his [[AncestralWeapon relic Lightning Claw]] and gives it to Priad. It's implied that this is how leadership has been passed down for much of Damocles Squad's existence, since the Lightning claw originally belonged to Sergeant Damocles.
109	* TalkingInYourDreams: [[spoiler:When comatose]], Petrok sends his consciousness to Priad's dreams to warn him of [[spoiler:incoming Dark Eldar.]]
110	* TemptingFate: Discussed then played straight. When hunting for cultists and possibly more, [[spoiler: Memmon the apothecary]] removes his helmet to [[MySignificanceSenseIsTingling get a sniff of the air to get a sense of things]]. Priad notes that he would have berated anybody else for leaving his head unprotected, but [[spoiler: Memmon]]'s sense is good enough that he let's it go. For that very reason, he gets killed a few moments later.
111	* TimeSkip: There are huge time gaps between each story, ranging from two months to five years. Zigzagged and Lampshaded by Priad when he returns to Baal Solock. He's surprised to find that Antoni is now an elderly but still sprightly woman who became the ruler of the world after her adventures with Priad many decades before gave her prestige. Priad notes that he didn't really consider how fast time can move outside the warp or for non-Astartes (by his reckoning he's been a Space Marine for twelve years).
112	* TownWithADarkSecret: The township of Hekat [[spoiler:is a hotbed of Chaos cults.]]
113	* WeatherDissonance: At first rain on a desert world is taken as a good omen, but it soon becomes clear that something is wrong.
114	* WeDoNotKnowEachOther: An Inquisitor appears in two stories. In the second, he alerts Priad to his concealed identity.
115	%%* WithDueRespect: Priad, arguing with Petrok.
116	* WouldNotShootACivilian: They try to protect the farmers. Later almost averted when an irredeemably stupid aristocrat tries to browbeat and threaten Damocles Squad into guarding her.
117	* YouAllLookFamiliar: Governor Antoni thanks each member of Damocles Squad, then turns to Priad and whispers that they all look identical to each other, except of course the one who's missing an eye. Priad says they're not.
118	* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: Priad, after the Princess Royal tries to stop him from taking her vehicle by shooting him with a dinky laspistol.
119	* YouthIsWastedOnTheDumb: The trench dive, where young initiates and Iron Snakes dive a very deep trench and leave an offering at the bottom. It used to be an unofficial tradition of the chapter, but is now officially forbidden due to too many deaths attempting the dive. Aekon makes the trench dive in order to prove himself, given he's the youngest member of Damocles. Priad is incensed when he later learns that ''everyone'' in Damocles has done the trench dive except him and has them put through extra training and off combat duty as atonement. [[spoiler: He's also thrown for a loop when he learns that Chief Librarian Petrok has also made the dive. At the end of the story, he makes the dive himself.]]

Context Literature / BrothersOfTheSnake