The last hope for a dying empire.
Eternal
is an Interactive Fiction Gamebook, created by ChooseYourStory user End Master. Eternal takes place in a Dark Fantasy setting, inside the border of an ever-expanding empire, creatively called The Empire. In this game, you play as a young man, known only as The Eternal, who was taken from his home as a baby and placed in a sort of magical Super-Soldier program, known as The Eternal Program. There are three paths that can initially be taken and thirteen epilogues that can be achieved.
Tropes found in Eternal:
- After the End: One path takes place in this setting.
- Apocalyptic Log: The Eternal can read a few of these in one path.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: The Eternal, though plenty other characters have attained a position of authority through the exhibition of their combat abilities.
- Big Brother Is Watching: The Emperor is portrayed as an omnipresent overlord. In reality, he has his own Secret Police, The Shadow Guard, to ensure co-operation of the masses and assassinate The Emperor's enemies.
- Blood Knight: The Eternal has shades of this, as he tends to get bored when he's not killing something or engaging in general warfare.
- Book Ends: In the True Eternal Path, your very last choice is the same as your very first one: Beg, Die, or Struggle.
- Combat Sadomasochist: Mistress tends to be one of these, especially when she’s interacting with the Eternal.
- Crapsack World: Whether the Empire falls or survives, the world is always pretty ruthless no matter where one goes.
- Depraved Homosexual: A minor character Captain Pollo in the soldier's path, who abuses his rank to have Gerald for himself and is implied to have done such act several times in the past.
- Devour the Dragon: The Emperor tries to do this to you in the True Eternal path, assuming you choose to accompany him to the place of his birth. It fails, though.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Corporal Flevas, an Elven soldier, does this to a Dryad when she telepathically expresses her sorrow at the hardships that his people have been forced to endure.
- Dragon Ascendant: Given the right choices, you can become the new Emperor.
- Driven to Suicide: Klemto, eventually.
- Eats Babies: Though they don't necessarily eat them, Dark Elves have no problems doing horrendous things to the offspring of their Elven cousins. Baby Throwing Contests seem to be a sort of pastime to them.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The Eternal may be a cruel bastard who is absolutely unafraid of kicking the dog when it benefits him, but, in most paths, there is at least one person The Eternal feels close to or holds dearly.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Emperor, otherwise known as Casimir.
- Evil Mentor: The Emperor and Mistress both qualify. The Eternal can also be one, though he's nowhere near as bad as the other two.
- Fantastic Racism: There’s a lot of it towards regular elves, but special mention goes out to the Emperor’s feelings on gnomes. The Emperor demands that every gnome be rounded up and placed into a special camp. Not content with just killing them he wants to also send their very souls to oblivion. The Emperor REALLY hates gnomes. Turns out he once had a gnome lover who spurned him.
- Female Monster Surprise: In one path, the main character ends up in command of a group of rather insubordinate orcs. One of the orcs decides to pick a fight with the main character, before revealing, only a moment later, that she's "a fooking lady". So, understanding the orcs' patriarchal warrior culture, the character then identifies and beats up a male orc, in order to show dominance.
- Final Solution: One method employed by The Empire to handle some unruly enemies.
- Hero of Another Story: In one path the Eternal can face the God of Death. This Death God is actually the protagonist from Necromancer.
- I Am a Humanitarian: The entire wendigo barbarian clan is this. Of course it turns out they’re all just hosts to the evil wedigo spirits that hunger for any sort of flesh.
- Jerkass Gods: Dendrin, the God of the Shadows, is one of these. He doesn’t even care about The Shadow Guard by the time the Eternal meets him and only sticks around because he finds the Eternal interesting Turns out he’s not even a real god and is just a really powerful entity.
- Legacy Immortality: You establish this for your empire in the Eternal Patriot ending.
- Mad Scientist: Marik, the Derro (Dwarven) inventor, is one. Elam, as well.
- Mercy Kill: In one path, one of your fellow eternals will become possessed by a Wendigo. While he ignores it for a while, he eventually calls upon you, The Eternal, to end his suffering.
- Mind Rape: When The Eternal is confronted by The Death God, should he choose to struggle, he is sent to a black expanse where he is constantly haunted by twisted images of the people he knew in his life. Semra has also been known to use the mundane variety of mind rape, on The Eternal.
- My Country, Right or Wrong: The candidates of the Eternal program are taught to follow the emperor without question. That is not to say that all of them do, however.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Mistress, or Semra, as she is later known.
- Pet the Dog: The Eternal has a few moments where he does a few kind things then its usually right back to killing something.
- Pragmatic Villainy: The Eternal is nothing if not this, most of the time.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Orc captain Gruz is a wiser version of this. He’s proud warrior to be sure, but he also knows the rest of his fellow Orcs aren’t great thinkers and seeks to try to improve their status as Empire “meatshields” a bit.
- Pyrrhic Victory: The Eternal can achieve true immortality but only at the cost of being the Death God’s undying minion.
- Sanity Slippage: Sometimes wendigos are involved, sometimes they're not. But no matter which paths you take Kane always ended up batshit insane.
- Secret Police: The Shadow Guard, until they turn against The Empire. Later on, The Eyes fill this role.
- Schizo Tech: The world in general has a lot of this. You sometimes have accomplished wizards flinging fireballs right along side soldiers armed with muskets and being backed up by Zeppelins from Another World.
- Super-Soldier: Every eternal is one of these.
- The Chessmaster: The Emperor appears to be one of these, but Semra is much better at it
- The Chosen One: Subverted. While it seems, due to all the otherwise impossible things that The Eternal does, that he was chosen for greatness, his inclusion in The Eternal Program was a bureaucratic mistake.
- The Empire: Fits this trope to a T.
- The End of the World as We Know It: The Eternal can inadvertently bring about this.
- The Hermit: In one path, the Eternal can become one.
- Necromancer: Nicodemus is a rather neutral and non-power crazed example.
- The Remnant: If the Empire falls there usually is some form of it that still exists, including the Eternal.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The Shadow Guard and their allies are an example of this.
- Training from Hell: The main character's entire childhood is this. When the teacher isn't personally kicking his ass, she's forcing him to fight all of his classmates at once. But, the real cherry on top is when, in one path, said teacher engages in a sparring session with the character, seduces him into coitus in the middle of their fight, and then stabs him in the thigh with her dagger to make a point.
- Vestigial Empire: It was made clear since the start that The Empire was far from being in the best position. In the Soldier and Shadow's path, The Empire finally collapses thanks to a combination of their costly war with Felkan Kingdom, numerous uprisings, and various sabotages from the Shadows. Of course, in the third path it's possible for the player character to fix this situation.
- Villainous Crush: Mistress/ Semra has one of these on The Eternal, in the True Eternal path, at least.
- Villainous Incest: Semra's relationship with her father, which lead to a Freudian Excuse when he was killed. She also tends to refer to herself as The Eternal's "mother".
- Villain Protagonist: The Eternal is one of these in most paths. There are some paths where he is a little more on the darker shade of gray side.
- Warrior Monk: Members of The Shadow Guard are a sneakier version of this.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: The Eternal, in the Eternal Emperor epilogue, decides to stay on his homeworld and die, as opposed to leaving with a group of his followers and prolonging his life even further.
- Would Hurt a Child: Practically everyone, really. Among the standout example is the Mistress, who took sadistic pleasure in harming and humiliating the young Eternals under her care (apparently a common trait among the Svelk). The Main Character also rarely has qualms on harming or killing children himself, no matter which path the player takes. And if they're non-human children, all bets are off.
- Your Head Asplode: Master Ebon has a power like this among others. In one bad ending, he uses this power on you.
