Line #65 VideoGame/GemsOfWar


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gems_of_war.jpg]]
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3	''Gems of War'' is a PuzzleGame (specifically, a MatchThreeGame) with RPGElements. It is developed by Infinite Interactive (with various associates), and is [[SpiritualSuccessor similar]] to the same studio's earlier ''VideoGame/PuzzleQuest'' games. It's an online game with both single-player and multi-player components together, although players can largely ignore the multi-player and stick to single-player if they prefer.
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5	The game revolves around battles in which each side has up to four troops present. Each troop has stats for health, armour, attack, and so forth. Matching three "skull" gems causes a direct attack by your first troop against the first enemy troop, while matching coloured gems [[LimitBreak charges special moves]] (attacks, buffs, heals, etc) for each troop, depending on their particular colour affinity. When a unit has no health left, it's removed; when all are removed, that side loses. Winning a battle produces rewards like experience and gold.
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7	The context for these battles is an [[PointAndClickMap array of kingdoms]] which players can move between, each with its own theme. Each kingdom has a plotline consisting of a series of fixed battles against AI opponents (progression through which also unlocks the ability to re-fight those battles at tougher levels and for more rewards). Kingdoms have to be unlocked with in-game currency, which comes on a regular basis but is more plentiful if you upgrade various things. Troops can be acquired and levelled-up with other kinds of in-game currency (both of which can be won in battles). On the multi-player front, you can raid other people, defend against raids, and join guilds which are rewarded for accomplishing certain tasks.
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9	The game was originally released on Platform/{{Steam}}, Platform/{{iOS}}, and Platform/{{Android}} in November 2014. Afterwards, it was ported to [[Platform/PlayStation4 PS4]] and Platform/XboxOne in November 2015, and to Platform/NintendoSwitch in March 2019. It is FreeToPlay on all platforms.
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11	Tropes relating to specific characters, their quest-lines (which aren't connected), and to troops (i.e. recruitable or fightable units), can go on the [[Characters/GemsOfWar Characters page]].
12
13	!!''Gems of War'' provides examples of:
14	* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap:
15	** Seen on {{Superboss}}es. The player's {{cap}} is Level 20. In Dungeons, the enemy team can reach level 40, which is bad enough. In Epic Trials, the max is 350. In Delves? The max level is ''500''.
16	** The PlayerCharacter has, in theory, no maximum level, but the stat boosts from levels slow down ''dramatically'' around Lv.400 to prevent the player character — whom, remember, you can deploy as a Troop in combat — from becoming a PhysicalGod.
17	* AncientEgypt: The kingdom of Khetar has a loose ancient Egyptian theme, although you don't necessarily notice it over the more conspicuous [[TheUndead land-of-the-undead]] theme.
18	* ArmorPiercingAttack: Some units have special attacks which ignore enemy armour (called "true damage"). The armour will still be there to protect against other normal attacks, but that doesn't matter if health reaches zero — that causes death, even if the unit still has a ton of armour on it.
19	** The Grave Knight takes this up to eleven with Shattering Blow, which specifically takes away all of an enemy's armor as its first step, then deals damage.
20	** The sword weapon, Mang, does the same, with the additional effect of adding the removed armor score to your player's attack.
21	* ArtificialBrilliance: It's actually a fairly smart AI; the AI will go after matches that use skulls above all others, then go for matches that give it mana it can use, before it takes matches that are useless to it (for example, matching brown gems in an all-green army). The AI will also take 4 of a kinds wherever it sees them, even matches that ''aren't'' useful for it, simply to deny them from you.
22	* ArtificialStupidity: But for all its smarts, the AI has its flaws. Notably, the targeting for various abilities seems to be at the whim of the AIRoulette, even when a targeted spell could get a kill on a weakened unit. Also, the AI has problems figuring out how cascades will go: if a match would cause another gem to fall down and create a four of a kind, the AI will more often than not take another match. Finally, it will make questionable plays, such as using [[http://gems-of-war.wikia.com/wiki/Black_Beast this]] [[EatingTheEnemy Eating My Ally]] spell on an allied MookMaker.
23	* AttackReflector:
24	** The Legendary troop Gloom Leaf has a Trait called "Thorns" which causes him to return 50% of incoming damage caused by making skull matches.
25	** The troop Wall of Bones has the Trait Infernal Armor, reflecting 25% of Skull Damage.
26	** The Reflect StatusBuff causes 50% of the next instance of damage on the affected troop to be returned to the attacker, regardless of whether the attack is a skull match or a spell. However, it only works once per application.
27	* AwesomeButImpractical: Almost everything with base rarities of Legendary or Mythic winds up being this, at least as far as their spells go (their third traits can be a different story). Their spells are typically awesome enough to swing the game back in your favor… which they need to be, because by the time you've collected enough mana to pay their hideously large casting costs, you're halfway to losing. In the meanwhile, your opponent, equipped with Commons and other spells that can be charged in only two matches, has fired things off about fifty times. On the other hand, this ''can'' be circumvented by bringing in a generator troop or two that has the Empowered trait (starts with full mana), and making sure the legendary/mythic troop is positioned to get first dibs on the sudden spate of relevant matches.
28	* BarbieDollAnatomy: If there's a glitch and armor is not displayed, even though you normally cannot appear without armor, breasts are without nipples.
29	* BodyArmorAsHitPoints: Played straight. However, some spells deal "True Damage", which bypasses Armor, and others only damage Armor.
30	* BoringButPractical: Luther, the QuestGiver from the very first kingdom, and likely your first brown troop, is a viable choice no matter what level you are or who you're facing. His Traits, unlocked, allow him to tank effectively, and his spell increases ATK values, which can rarely hurt.
31	* CharacterLevel: Player characters have levels, with increases providing boosts to stats like health and attack. Experience is gained from battles (including defeats, albeit in different quantities). Other troops also have their own levels, but they work differently — they have to be specifically leveled up by spending Souls, which can be obtained from battles and other places. You'll generally have more troops than Souls to level them (and once you unlock the Soulforge, you'll find that most of its ItemCrafting requires exorbitant amounts of Souls), so you have to choose which ones to focus on.
32	* ClassAndLevelSystem: Multiple:
33	** In an odd sort of way: the player has their own level, and after completing certain questlines, can complete one more quest to learn a new class, which have their ''own'' levels entirely separate from the player. These classes are leveled up the same way troops are (see CharacterLevel above), using souls. Class levels add extra stats to the hero.
34	*** Extra mana gain depending on the class (Warlord gives extra Red Mana, Sorcerer gives extra Purple, etc).
35	*** The advent of Talent Trees gave the Player even ''more'' bonuses and special abilities, such as Random Poison, Summoning (% chance), Banishment (disenchant), and so on. These experience points are earned by winning battles with the class equipped (the PlayerCharacter needs to be on the team).
36	*** Winning 250 Victories as a class earns the player a special weapon.
37	** Additionally, the larger majority of cards have both a Class and a Race, which are used to calculate certain bonuses. (See SetBonus below.)
38	** There are also Champion Levels for each class, which allow you to unlock skill trees with even more bonuses. You gain these simply by winning battles while in that class.
39	* ColorCodedWizardry: Multiple:
40	** The six gem/mana colours each seem to link to a certain theme (not quite ElementalPowers, but similar). Roughly speaking: red for PlayingWithFire, brown for DishingOutDirt, yellow for LightEmUp[=/=]BlowYouAway, green for GreenThumb, blue for MakingASplash, and purple for BlackMagic. Troops generally have a colour or colours which is appropriate to them.
41	** Each color also has an "Elemental Construct" troop which embodies an emblematic quality about it. Yellow is Humility, Blue is Justice, Purple is Sacrifice, Red is Courage, Brown is Honor, and Green is Loyalty.
42	* CripplingOverspecialization: It is entirely possible for a team composition to fall into this if three or even ''two'' of its members use the same colors of mana. When you match three, the mana automatically goes to whichever team member is closest to the top of the stack and can actually use that color; you don't choose which character gets the power-up. Additionally, the fewer colors your team uses, the easier it is for the opponent to simply mana-screw you by prioritizing those colors themselves. This is actually one of the ways the single-player campaign modulates difficulty; the further you get down a quest-line, the more colors the opposition uses.
43	* DamageReduction: Some Troops have Traits that will do this, such as the "Armored" trait which reduces damage produced by matching Skulls by 25%. Luther, mentioned above, is one such.
44	* DiscOneNuke: Some troops are powerful at the start of the match, but scale downwards as it progresses.
45	** The [[http://gems-of-war.wikia.com/wiki/Ranger Ranger]] has an attack spell that actually gets ''weaker'' every time an enemy dies.
46	** The [[http://gems-of-war.wikia.com/wiki/Blade_Dancer Blade Dancer]]'s attack spell is boosted by enemy Armor quantities — which is something which damage will inevitably reduce.
47	** The Adana kingdom Troop Tesla's attack is boosted by all enemy and ally armor. While she attacks every enemy troop with True Damage (damage to life that bypasses armor), she inevitably gets weaker as the game progresses.
48	* DeathOrGloryAttack: Several troops have "Hurt the enemy or myself" type spells. In particular, the Dullahan, whose spell will OneHitKO the first enemy troop or the first on his side, even if ''he's'' the first.
49	* EatingTheEnemy: Troops with the "Devour" ability can OneHitKill an enemy troop and gain their HP, ATK, and ARM for their own. (Weirdly, this counts as a damage-dealing ability and can be deflected with Barrier.) For balance, most Devour troops either 1) have a limited probability of proccing the Devour, or 2) [[ItOnlyWorksOnce can only do it once]] per battle.
50	* ElementalRockPaperScissors: Occasionally, Troops and Weapons deal triple damage to the element they're strong against. Blue -> Red -> Green -> Brown; Yellow/White and Purple oppose each other.
51	* EmptyLevels: Nothing happens when moving between Class Champion Levels unless they're hitting the specific levels of 1, 5, 10, 20, 40, 70, and 100 to unlock new talents.
52	* EvilSorcerer: Karakoth is lousy with them. They have towers all over the place, and use them as bases for excavating ancient ruins full of things better left undisturbed. The Warlock's flavor text even lampshades some of the nature of the EvilSorcerer.
53	--> "If you're wise, powerful, and enjoy inflicting pain on the helpless, you're either a dentist, or a Warlock."
54	* ExperienceBooster: The PlayerCharacter can wear armor that has this effect.
55	* ExtraTurn:
56	** This is the Goblins' [[PlanetOfHats Hat]], gameplay-wise; their spells almost always provide one. Since some of them also give you ways to (re)charge said spells, a Goblin comp can spiral out of control in a hurry.
57	** Every player has access to extra turns, though: just match 4 or more gems.
58	* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Some kingdoms have parallels in the real world; for example, Stormheim is Norse-themed.
59	* FantasyWorldMap: The game map (a PointAndClickMap on which the icons of the various kingdoms are displayed) features the usual grasslands, forests, mountains, and seas. Parts of it which you can't access yet are partly covered in cloud.
60	* FlavorText: Every troop has a snippet of it that appears when you click on them and then move to their picture in the Troops menu.
61	* FunWithAcronyms: DRACOS 1337: Draconic Robot Assistant, Courtesy Of Sparkgrinder…
62	* GeoEffects:
63	** Each Kingdom counts as a battlefield, and has three specific colors of mana which are more likely to appear there. Combined with the CripplingOverspecialization above, it can make some team comps essentially untenable.
64	** There are troops which can also (temporarily) raise the chances that gems of a specific color will appear, by summoning a Color Storm.
65	* GirlsWithMoustaches: the "Apothecary," a Dwarf Mystic, is portrayed as a woman with a pointed beard and OdangoHair.
66	* GlobalCurrency: The description for Gold starts with "The currency of Krystara", Krystara being the initial location the game starts in.
67	* HeartsAreHealth: The symbol for HitPoints is a HeartSymbol.
68	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Several troops have abilities that are boosted by the target's Skills.
69	** The Rakshanin's "Crouching Tiger" attack does 1 extra point of damage for every 2 points of Life the target has.
70	** Faunessa does the same for every ''1'' point of Attack, ''and'' grants life to her entire team based on the amount of damage she dealt.
71	** The Hydra's attack is boosted by ''missing'' life. Got him down to 10 points of life and his mana fills? OhCrap.
72	** Can occur with enemy troops that change gem colors: if it's a gem type you use, or one of your troops has an ability that's boosted by the presence of certain gems, or if the enemy accidentally sets up a lot of extra turns for you ([[FromBadToWorse or any combination of the three!]]), the troop who used that ability is in for a rough time.
73	* HorsemenOfTheApocalypse: The four members of the Apocalypse "kingdom" are Death, Famine, Plague, and War, references to the Biblical horsemen of the apocalypse of those very names.
74	* ItemCrafting: Introduced in August 2017, the Soulforge lets you craft a rotation of Legendary and Mythic-Rare troops and limited-time weapons which have been previously released, plus some troops and weapons that can ''only'' be obtained there, and -- most important -- a bunch of reagents which are used in upgrading or producing all these things, not to mention upgrading kingdoms.
75	* ItOnlyWorksOnce: One-Shot spells, which can only be used once per battle.
76	** Special shout-out to the Dwarven Slayer card, whose spell reads, "Deal 40 (+ my Magic) damage to an enemy and die gloriously. Can only be cast once (obviously)." The exact math depends on things like what level the Dwarven Slayer and his opponent are, but this is a OneHitKill in more than half of all cases, and the rest will definitely be hanging on by a thread. MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning!
77	** Tassarion creates his Magic (x 3) gems of a selected magic color, and gives all other allies 3 Magic. He can only cast once. He's not completely useless afterwards; he sports a hefty Attack score, enabling him to inflict a nasty amount of Skull Damage. Or you can use another card to Sacrifice him.
78	* JokeCharacter: Mythic troops arguably fall into this category, because many of their spells are AwesomeButImpractical: Gargantuar, for instance, does [[http://gowdb.com/troops/6472 more damage]] for [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning each ally and enemy killed]], but powering it up is difficult, and without buffs, it is actually ''outdamaged'' by lesser troops and comps. Having said that, some achieve the LethalJokeCharacter status by means of their traits; Infernus, for instance, [[KillItWithFire sets the entire enemy team on fire]] every time you make a 4+ match, and Queen Aurora makes you gain extra mana every time you make a match. These guys are included on teams not to use their spells, but simply because you want their side effects. And there are some Mythics — for instance, see under the "LevelScaling" trope — whose benefits outweigh their impracticality.
79	* LawOfChromaticSuperiority: the game uses the coloring system put in place by ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': grey/white, green, blue, purple, orange. Mythic cards are a sort of pale blue-green that is meant to evoke steel.
80	* LeakedExperience: a very limited but very useful form. Once you win 250 victories while your Hero is using a Character Class, you unlock a fancy and awesome weapon. ''Your Hero does not have to be a part of your team for this to happen;'' simply winning the match, using anyone, counts. (And there are 34 classes planned thus far, one for each kingdom, so this will ''definitely'' take a while!)
81	* LethalLavaLand: The island of Broken Spire is volcanic, and seems to have plentiful lava; whether the resident Lava Wrym is a cause or a consequence isn't stated.
82	* LevelGrinding: Zigzagged.
83	** Though the Player Character earns EXP and can be deployed as a Troop, actual Troops don't gain levels. Instead, you spend "Souls" on them to level them up. Consequently, Troops that help you gain Souls efficiently can be very valuable; some of them generate Souls when they cast their spells, and those with the "Necromancy" trait multiply the number of Souls generated.
84	** ItemFarming used to center around Traitstones, which [[RandomDrop Randomly Drop]] when you complete a level. There are four rarities of Traitstone, and Traits require three types of them (and multiples of each type) to unlock. Needless to say, getting enough to Trait up the most powerful cards would take a while. Now that ItemCrafting has been introduced, you can craft Traitstones at the Soulforge; doing so consumes — it's [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin in the name]] — Souls, but it's easier to get those than Traitstones, so it's still a step up.
85	* LevelScaling: A rare case of the ''player'' having access to it. There are weapons which destroy the enemy's Armor — just, boom, gone — and then provide bonuses that scale with the amount of Armor removed. While these can obviously be quite powerful in PVP combat, their main value (and design intent) was for use in post-game PVE content such as Dungeons and Delves, where teams have the AbsurdlyHighLevelCap of 500… even though ''your'' team still can't break Level ''20''. Against such foes, weapons with LevelScaling are of obvious utility.
86	** The current king combination of this trope is Earth's Fury — "Destroy all armor on one target, and give everyone on your team +1 Attack for every 3 armor destroyed this way" — and the Mythic troop High King Irongut — "Deal some damage to an enemy, with a chance to [[EatingMyEnemy Devour]] them which is equal to… my current Attack." The fact that you can get said Attack above 100 (and thus [[OneHitKO above a 100% proc rate]]) seems absurd… until we point out that, again, your Lv.20 Irongut might be contending with a ''Lv. 500'' enemy, who can kill you just as easily.
87	* LimitBreak: In addition to "basic" attacks, each troop has its own special ability which is gradually charged by matching gems of an appropriate colour. These can be attacks, but can also provide heals, buffs, and other effects. Using them takes up a turn, so when they're charged, you have to choose between employing them and making a regular move.
88	* TheLostWoods: There are four forest areas in the game, with varying characters. The Forest of Thorns is fairly benign, inhabited by elves and talking trees. The Maugrim Woods are cold and harsh, inhabited by hostile wolf-people. Zhul'Kari is perpetually dark, conspicuously evil (as opposed to simply unforgiving), and full of spider-esque horrors. Finally, Bright Forest is inhabited by TheFairFolk.
89	* LuckBasedMission: A side effect of the "looping" (IE ExtraTurn) MetaGame is that most matches devolve into this. If you don't get the mana you need in the first couple of turns, well, you might not get a third before the opponent cripples you with five or six turns' worth of spellcasts.
90	** Beating the higher Delve levels (to get the full faction bonus) - especially with the Tinker Town faction, due to Tink Steamwhistle's ability to spam troop summons (and increases the remaining party's armor and life points at the same time), making it hard to do skull damage. Also, given that every faction troop other than Steamwhistle has a random chance to self-destruct, only two of them have offensive specials and only one of them can choose its target, it can turn into a war of attrition to destroy the enemy Steamwhitle, that can last more than an hour. Assuming, of course, you can keep your Steamwhistle alive long enough.
91	** Beating the Epic Trial levels. Not only do the enemies start at 250, you have to beat them with a pre-assembled team.
92	* MagikarpPower: Several examples.
93	** Some Troops get stronger as the match progresses because of how their spells work. The dwarven Lady Ironbeard, for instance, deals a certain amount of damage to a single target… or ''triple'' that if her Armor is higher than theirs. It takes some doing, but it's totally possible to get her Armor high enough / her opponent's low enough that she can start dispensing {{One Hit Kill}}s.
94	** Some troops can simply strengthen their Skills. Sunweaver, Princess Fizzbang, and Nax, for instance, can boost their own stats; the latter two can, additionally, increase the ''amount'' by which those stats get boosted. It takes some doing before they can run away with a match — Fizzy can add on much larger bonuses, but picks a random troop to target, whereas the other two have to take a slow-and-steady approach — so you need to build up a team of meat shields.
95	** The Owleth is a more traditional example, since it needs to gain levels to come into its own. Its spell comes in two parts. Its second half, the important one, says, "Decrease a random skill" (IE stat) "on all enemies by [my Magic skill / 2]." Obviously, this is quite powerful, being a permanent debuff… which is probably why the Owleth starts with a Magic skill of 1 — which, when divided by 2, rounds down to ''zero'' — and doesn't get bigger until you promote it to Lv.10, an investment of around 1000 souls. Thankfully, at that point, it starts gaining 1 Magic every 2 levels or so, maxing out at 6. (The first half of its spell also increases the likelihood of the board spawning Purple gems for quite a few turns, making it at least useful as a support troop for the first half of its life.)
96	* {{Microtransactions}}: The game is free to play, but has optional purchases. Spending real money gets you things a lot quicker, but in theory, almost everything can be acquired by other means if you keep at it long enough.
97	* MoneyMultiplier: again, player-character armor.
98	* {{Mordor}}: The island kingdom of Darkstone has been corrupted to this; it was once "a shining beacon", but its knights fell under demonic influence, becoming tyrants and slavers.
99	* MsFanservice: Many of the female characters and creatures are rather attractive, often sporting skimpy outfits. Egregious cases include the heroine Atlanta (a tall, stunning redhead with revealing clothes and large breasts) and the Devoted unit (which even lampshades this in her flavour text).
100	* MultiPlatform: Originally built in Adobe AIR, the game was later ported to MediaNotes/{{Unity}} (partially because Android discontinued support for Adobe AIR in its Oreo 8.0 release). Both platforms function equally well in iOS, Android, and Platform/MicrosoftWindows.
101	* MyRulesAreNotYourRules: The enemy teams you face in Campaign will typically outlevel you, but they may also have enhanced abilities. For instance, the AI-controlled version of [[EldritchAbomination Gorgotha]] can charge its 15-mana spell off ''any'' color of mana; since said spell allows Gorgotha to absorb a minimum of ''36'' gems, it can recharge itself on the spot, and will cast it every turn forever. The version of the card ''you'' can deploy uses the conventional two colors of mana, which puts a major damper on your ability to spam it the way the AI did. (Thankfully, the spell itself isn't all that useful, merely doing damage equal to the number of Skulls there were amongst the absorbed gems.)
102	** On the flip side, only player-controlled teams can benefit from [[SetBonus Set Bonuses]], Campaign Artifacts, Kingdom Bonuses, and other such flat boosts that can help to close the level gap.
103	* NoBulkDiscounts: As an Omnipresent trope, Aversions are what's notable: Gem Chests are 10 Gems for 1, 95 for 10, and 450 for 50.
104	* NonPlayerCompanion: Every kingdom has one. If you complete that kingdom's quest chain, they join your party. They are inevitably of Epic rarity and are frequently useful; Tyri, mentioned above, is one of them.
105	* PercentBasedValues: Spells' numerical effects are sometimes based on a percentage of certain stats, rounded down. For example, the Widow Queen's spell does damage of [(Magic / 2) + (Sacrificed Troop's Life / 3) + 1].
106	* PinballProtagonist: The plot is linear, and the protagonist only speaks in the form of short sentences which fit on what is effectively a "continue" button. As such, the player character comes across as very laid-back and obliging to whichever character is serving as QuestGiver. ("Can I join you?" "Okay." "Will you help me?" "Sure, why not." "We must attack immediately!" "All right.") There are occasions where the player character attempts to point out the silliness of certain decisions, or snarks at the QuestGiver's logic or lack thereof, but he/she almost always gets carried along anyway.
107	* PlanetOfHats: Each kingdom has a particular theme, and some involve a "hat" — piety, invention, etc. However, the quest character for each kingdom is sometimes in opposition to that theme rather than an exemplar of it; for example, the kingdom of temples and paladins (Whitehelm) has you receive your quests from a vampire (Sapphira) who is being attacked by the pious folk.
108	* PlayerVersusPlayer: asynchronous. You choose one specific team of characters who will defend on your behalf; if you are attacked in [=PvP=], the AI plays for you.
109	* PointAndClickMap: The basic world map has icons on it for the various kingdoms; you can travel between them whenever you like, although they have to be unlocked with gold first.
110	* PowerEqualsRarity: ZigzaggedTrope. There are six levels of rarity in the game (Common, Rare, Ultra-Rare, Epic, Legendary, Mythic) and any card can be "ascended" to the next level of rarity by combining enough of them together; doing so increases their stats and level cap. Having said that, the ''usefulness'' of cards does not depend on their starting rarity, and while rarer cards ''tend'' to be better, the power curve is shallow enough that cards of equal level but lower rarity can still win (especially against the AI).
111	* ProudScholarRace: Adana is distinguished from its neighbours by its dedication to scholarship and technology. (Not necessarily ''peaceful'' technology, though -- it includes muskets.)
112	* QuestGiver: Each kingdom has a character to deliver that kingdom's story and issue objectives. At the end of the quest line, that character joins the player.
113	* RandomNumberGod: One of the primary ways TheComputerIsACheatingBastard. The game decides what gems drop in every time a match is made. At higher levels, it is ''far'' more likely to "coincidentally" give the enemy team large numbers of cascades.
114	* RandomSpeciesOffspring: One of the kingdoms nearest to your starting point is Zhul'Kari, where you meet Tyri, an Elf Rogue. When you reach the Drifting Sands kingdom, you meet her brother, Marid… who not only has stereotypically Arabic features and garb, but is explicitly a Human (Rogue). Finally, in Blackhawk, you meet their father, Lil' Johnny Bronze, also a Human Rogue. How Tyri managed to be an Elf is never addressed or even [[AGirlInEveryPort lampshaded]].
115	** On the other hand, the difficulty Bronze has in remembering Marid's mother (although he finally manages it) ''does'' imply he has AGirlInEveryPort, so the implication is definitely that Tyri and Marid are half-siblings.
116	* SandWorm: "The Great Maw." Its flavor text is, "[[Franchise/{{Dune}} Arrakis]] called. It wants its worm back."
117	* SetBonus: Each team of four (unique — no [[LoopholeAbuse building a team that's four of the same card]]) troops can get bonuses for a number of different reasons. The bonus applies to ''all'' members of the team, not just those that qualify for it (for example, the sole human surrounded by 3 dwarves would still get a Dwarf bonus). The bonus also scales with numbers; even if you only need two troops to secure it, it'll get bigger if you add a third or fourth. The Set Bonus applies for each criteria, even if a troop qualifies for more than one of them (most Troops have both a race and a class, as well as two mana colors). The criteria are:
118	** At least two of them are of the same Type (IE race and/or class). This gives bonuses to their Skills -- IE, HP, Armor, ATK, and/or MAG.
119	** At least three of them are from the same Kingdom. Again, the Skill bonuses are customized to the locale.
120	** [[FullSetBonus All four of them]] use the same color of Mana. This gives you a significant boost to your "Masteries," and increases the likelihood of getting bonus Mana when you match that color. Weapons wielded by your Hero count. Again, this stacks no matter how many colors of mana are in your team (and the Mythic-Rare troops all gain mana from ''three'' colors).
121	** MinMaxing is averted, though. Even though several hundred Troops cards have been released as of this writing and at least one new one comes out every week, it is not possible to craft a team with four-person bonuses in all six criteria (Kingdom, Type 1, Type 2, Mana Color 1, Mana Color 2, Mana Color 3). In fact, it's not currently possible to craft a team that has more four bonuses whatsoever.
122	* SimpleYetAwesome: the "Mountain Crusher" weapon is gained by getting your Brown mastery to 17, which is a pretty easy way to unlock the single most useful weapon in the game. When used, it Explodes Brown gems equal to your Magic... and it's comparatively easy to get your Magic so high that it blows up ''every Brown gem there is''. This is often enough to charge it for a second cast, especially if combined with the "Duststorm" [[Geo Effect]] which increases the odds of spawning Brown gems -- which the Crusher can be upgraded to cause every time it is cast. There are also character classes which have the "Stone" talent tree, allowing them to unlock an ability where they gain a Barrier ''whenever they gain Brown mana'' -- for instance, when they use the Mountain Crusher. And in the meanwhile you're doing all the things an Explode weapon does: charging all your ''other'' troops, getting ScratchDamage by exploding Skulls, triggering any passives that require matching 4 or more gems. Once you get it, the Mountain Crusher becomes the foundation of a lot of your teams.
123	* SingleUseShield: the "Barrier" ability procs to absorb any incoming damage. It does ''not'' work against debuffs or status effects.
124	* ShoutOut: Numerous, particularly in the FlavorText on each unit's (virtual) card. A few examples:
125	** "He ain't nothing but a hound-dog" (for the Warhound) is a quote from an Music/ElvisPresley song.
126	** "No, swooping is not bad" (for the Hippogryph, which has Swoop as its special attack) refers to a quote from Alastair in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''.
127	** "Don't blink" (for the Archon Statue) refers to the Weeping Angels of ''Series/DoctorWho''.
128	** "Rumor is that she has a Girl Tattoo" (for Celestasia, a dragon) refers to the ''[[Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo]]''.
129	** When preparing to fight Gobtruffle, king of the mushrooms (ItMakesSenseInContext), Brian the Lucky proposes a toast to [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Jaylanstor]], God of [[TheKingslayer Regicide]].
130	** The flute-playing Elven Bard's FlavorText is a reference to flute-playing Michelle of ''Film/AmericanPie'''s and her uses of "one time, at band camp": "One time at Bard camp..."
131	* StatusEffects: There are a number in the game; any troop afflicted by them has a 10% chance to recover from them, with the chance going up by 10% every turn. The turn-based nature of the game prevents them from being UselessUsefulSpell.
132	** Burning: DamageOverTime, 3 per turn. Affects Armor first. This effect ''can'' inflict lethal damage.
133	** Death Mark: The troop has a 10% chance to suffer [[OneHitKill complete]] CriticalExistenceFailure on any given turn, regardless of its current Life and Armor.
134	** Disease: a form of AntiMagic that halves the troop's mana intake.
135	** Entangle: The troop's Attack skill is reduced to 0. You can still match Skulls with them, and if you get 4, then the "4 skulls gives +1 damage" thing applies and your troop will in fact do 1 damage (likewise, matching Doomskulls means that you do 5 damage), but under other circumstances, nothing happens. Any spells that increase the Entangled troop's Attack skill will also have no effect until Entangle wears off.
136	** Faerie Fire: A DamageIncreasingDebuff that increases incoming Spell damage by 50%.
137	** Frozen: A troop cannot grant extra turns, either by using its spell or by making 4+ matches. Note that this only applies to gems of its own mana color(s), and to skulls for the first troop.
138	** Hunter's Mark: Doubles damage taken from skull matches.
139	** Poison: The target has a 50% chance to take 1 damage per turn. This damage bypasses Armor and goes straight to the HitPoints. This ability ''can'' inflict lethal damage. It also ''never goes away'' on its own, unlike the other status effects.
140	** Silence: The target cannot gain mana or use its spells. Mana collected in its colors will bypass it and go to the next eligible troop in line. This ability ''does not'' drain the target's already-collected Mana (there's an ability called "Mana Drain" which does this).
141	** Stun: This shuts down the troop's "Traits," which have to be unlocked by consuming Traitstones, but typically provide fairly serious bonuses (such as "Reduce Skull damage taken by 50%", "Gain 1 Attack upon taking damage", or [[AntiDebuff immunity to other status effects]]). There are some Troops whose Traits are considered their main value[[note]]The Possessed King, "Whenever you match 4+ gems, Explode 2 random Gems, meaning you're getting a ''crapton'' of {{mana}}"; Infernus, "Whenever you match 4+ gems, Burn ''all'' opponents"; Obsidius, "Whenever you match 4+ gems, ''Stun'' all opponents"[[/note]], so this Status Effect can all but shut down those Troops.
142	** Web: Entangle for magic. The Troop's Magic skill cannot be increased until the webbing dissolves. The troop's Magic is also reduced to 0, which sometimes makes the spell useless ("Deal damage equal to my Magic"), sometimes just weakens it ("Deal damage equal to 3 + my Magic"), and sometimes accomplishes nothing ("Convert all gems one color to another color, regardless of what my Magic is").
143	** Curse: [[StatusBuffDispel Removes all Status Buffs upon application]] and removes all status immunities while it remains, sort of like a more specific Stun. However, it also resets the chance of recovering from status effects when it's applied, and '''absolutely nothing is immune to it'''.
144	** Bleed: Removes 1 Life point per stack per round, like Poison, except it can stack up to 4 times and always removes Life instead of merely having a chance to. However, unlike Poison, it can wear off on its own.
145	** Lycanthropy: Similar to Death Mark, but the chance to go off on each round is 15% and instead of a OneHitKill, [[ForcedTransformation it changes the victim to a random Beast]] (which could still cripple the victim's team if they were dependent on its Spell and/or Traits).
146	* SummonMagic: Some troops let you summon another: IE Dragon Eggs, whose spell says, "Summon a random dragon." The summoning only works if at least one of your troops have already died, and the troop drops in without any of the Skill buffs you may have already deployed, but it works ''wonders'' as a meat shield in [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]]. It can also be of serious value in Delves, a DungeonCrawling campaign where slain Troops stay that way until you either beat the dungeon or lose. Lost one? Who cares if you can replace 'em!
147	* SuicideAttack: The Dwarven Slayer, as detailed above; see also the Bombot (which explodes to deal damage that scales with its armor), the Festival Cow (which sacrifices itself to buff the rest of your team's Skills), and Sacrificial Priest (which can sacrifice any troop, deals scatter damage based on the sacrificed troop's Attack, and has a 30% chance to summon a killer Daemon replacement). Curiously, the Dragon Eggs mentioned above are able to keep spawning more Dragons until the enemy succeeds in smashing them.
148	* SwampsAreEvil: The Mist of Scales region is a swamp, and it's full of venomous SnakePeople and [[ManEatingPlant Man-Eating Plants]]. Travel is hampered not just by the swampy ground, but by the fact that it's often shrouded in mist; getting lost is very easy.
149	* TakeYourTime: Each kingdom quest-line is generally presented as though it's a continuous event, with the next step sometimes being urgent, but in fact, there's nothing stopping you from wandering off to another kingdom and not coming back for ages.
150	* TechnicolorMagic: The Magic element is represented with purple orbs.
151	* ThirdPersonPerson: Tau, the Raksha QuestGiver from Sword's Edge.
152	* {{Uberwald}}: Ghulvania is ruled by evil vampire lords who keep the population terrorized. The "vania" part of the name is presumably a nod to Transylvania.
153	* UnpredictableResults: Many troops have spells that inflict random status effects, gives random buffs, summons a certain troop type or transforms enemies into random troops types. In the case of the troop transformations/summons, you could end up as a near-useless ComMon or get transformed into an OlympusMons[[note]]example: Goblin troop Goblin King can summon anything from a plain goblin to a Legendary like High King Irongut or The Flaming Oni[[/note]]
154	* WholePlotReference: the Maugrim Woods quest line involves helping a young woman, who wears [[Literature/LittleRedRidingHood a red cloak with a hood]], track down her grandmother, who (it turns out) has been eaten by wolf-daemons.
155	* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: In the Quest for the Nightweaver class, we find out The Commander has phobias for (in ascending order) spiders, birds, the dark and clowns.
156	* YouRequireMoreVespeneGas: "Gold" is, you know, Gold. "Lumber" is Souls, which are used to power up your recruited Troops. There's also "Traitstones," which are used to unlock significant powerups on Troops, but these can be produced via ItemCrafting at the Soulforge if you pay enough Souls, so they straddle the line between being a tertiary resource and being Lumber-and-a-half.

Context VideoGame / GemsOfWar