World War X: The War To End All Wars is a series of forum roleplays on the TV Tropes Forum. It is, essentially, an Alternate History version of World War II set in a Magitek universe.
It began with the thread ITT: We are the Soviet Technocrats VS. The Nazi Occult Empire
, which was Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Later on, a spin-off, We Are The Elven and Freemason Allies VS. The Roman Axis, chronicling the attempted allied invasion of Gibraltar, held by the New Roman Empire.
The Pacific Theatre is We Are The Japanese Spirit Warriors VS. The Raygun Gothic Allies. The African Theatre, We Are The Allies, Axis, And Resistance, All Hunting The Ark, is just that—a three-way battle between the Colonial British forces, the Nazi Occult Empire, and the African Resistance & Emancipation Movement, all of them searching for The Ark of the Covenant in order to win this crazy war. The fifth front in Central and South America: WE ARE THE JOINT AMERICAN-AZTEC FORCES VS THE ARGENTINE-NAZI HORDE.
There's also Nazi Occultists, Soviet Mad Scientists, Fey Royal Marines, Freemasons, a Magical Native American special forces team, insane noblemen, captive eldritch abominations, warring gods, and monkeys.
As a result of this, it has a character sheet. SEE THE PERSONAS OF HEROES AND VILLAINS IN STARK BLACK AND WHITE!
World War X provides examples of the following tropes:
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General
- All Myths Are True: Given how many of the Greco-Roman, Basque, Norse, Slavic, Japanese, and Aztec Pantheons have shown up, as well as Angels, it's a safe bet that this is in effect.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: A few characters have fallen victim to this, usually because their player left the thread.
- Crossover Cosmology: Slavic gods, Norse gods, Roman gods, angels, and more.
- Kill Sat: The Romans have these in the form of the Hand Of Jupiter and the Wrath Of Apollo. Also, the Mir space station is one in this universe.
- The Magic Versus Technology War: Started out this way, but has since developed as such that each side has some of each.
- No Indoor Voice: Most gods speak in booming voices. CZERNOBOG IN PARTICULAR.
- Physical God: The only gods mentioned so far who aren't one of these are the Abrahamic God and Huracan, the Mayan wind god.
- Those Wacky Nazis: Played straight, subverted, and zig-zagged. Sometimes they are the hams of film, other times they are as coldly and hatefully evil as they were perceived in Real Life. Sometimes, they are just soldiers trying to get through a completely mad war. Depends on the character, and on which theatre they're on.
Soviet Technocrats vs. the Nazi Occult Empire
- Breath Weapon: Sleipnir. Whether gouts of searing flame jetting from his nostrils or bolts of lightning shooting out of his mouth, one can't deny that this is the horse's favourite battle tactic.
- *Click* Hello: One of the Commissars has a disturbing tendency to interrupt complainers and possible morale-breakers with a very audible gun cocking.
- Colony Drop: The Wrath Of Apollo gets thrown at Erzengel. By Atlas.
- Demonic Possession:
- Eavle is able to do this, first possessing Rusalka, then Sleipnir and a veritable legion of zombified Sonderkommandos. It has the potential to backfire spectacularly, however, as Chabal proved when he shot the possessed Sleipnir in the eye.
- Czernobog is also capable of doing this, remote-piloting a stoned-out-of-his-mind commissar.
- Enemy Mine: Wotan and Czernobog must team up to kill Niddhogg, then the Nazis and Soviets to kill Eavle.
- Ghostapo: Possessed tanks, summoning rituals, and daemon-powered air dreadnoughts, a smooth blending with Stupid Jetpack Hitler.
- Mook Maker: The Ophanim have a weird version of this, being able to release dozens of Virtues which aren't much smaller than themselves.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Wotan delivers one of these to Samyaza, after learning just who was powering Erzengel.
- Our Angels Are Different:
- Samyaza rocks it Old Testament style. As do all of the other angels. Phanuel, for example, has six wings, metallic blue skin, has permanently closed eyes, no lower body, and a wheel covered in eyes where his waist would be. It gets weirder from there.
- The Ophanim are even weirder. They are completely made up of wheels covered in eyes, can shoot flaming swords out of said eyes, and serves as a Clown Car for the smaller Virtues (which are androgynous crystalline Winged Humanoids).
- Papa Wolf: Wotan. Mess with his progeny and he will grind you into dust.
- Sadly Mythtaken: Wotan gets lightning powers, Czernobog gets fire, ice and necromancy.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Sleipnir responds to the Ressurected Eavle's rant about Rusalka by jumping into the air and biting his leg off.
- Starfish Aliens: Sirus, a sapient, mutagenic liquid that apparently controls a small portion of the universe beyond Earth.
- Taking You with Me: Eavle seems to be attempting this with his activation of the horrifically powerful Erzengel. It didn't work.
- Tank Goodness: The Soviet's bread-and-butter vehicle, on scales as huge as a naval destroyer, as seen with the landship Marx.
Elven and Freemason allies vs. the Roman Axis
- And This Is for...: Octavian dedicates his missile strike on the Wendigo to Vigilo Atticus, who the Wendigo killed. Mars does this in the battle with Mari. Who is the attack for? Mars' sword, Harry.
- Badass Normal: Used (at first) by the Blackwatch, subverted by the Royal Marine squad under the command of Sergeant Lewis Rotham (who currently seem to be horribly outclassed by the gods waging war around them). They are, however, slowly recovering.
- Bar Brawl: Having Heracles and Hercules drunk and bored is a bad idea (even though the WDM started it).
- Colossus Climb: Heracles subverts this by climbing up the Throne of Vulcan with a little assistance... that is, strapping himself into a missile and firing himself up there.
- Eye Scream: Cyclopes get shot or stabbed in the eyes a lot.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Fade has all his clothes burned away during a fight with Octavian, and spend the rest of the fight like this.
- Handicapped Badass: Octavian loses an arm to the Wendigo, and due to the nature of the wound, won't be able to regrow it with nanites for a long time.
- I Call It "Vera":
- Mars has a sword called Harry, of all things.
- Brontes' railgun is called Sophia.
- I Owe You My Life: The entire cyclopes race towards Octavian and his Century, who saved them from a life of slavery at the hands of the Greek Gods.
- Infernal Retaliation: Don't try to set Fade on fire. You wouldn't like the results.
- Maniac Monkeys: The Romans initially use battle-trained Barbary Macaques in Gibraltar.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Scylla is an unholy melding of tentacles and dog heads that can eat a battleship in two bites.
- Nanomachines: The Romans make heavy use of nanites, both for healing grievous injuries and disassembling enemies.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Lewis Rotham and his men, although they seem to be gradually recovering.
- Samus Is a Girl: Turns out that the Wendigo is a woman, and Fade's older sister.
- Those Two Guys: Hercules and Heracles seem to be taking a break from fighting and commenting on the battle, mostly involving potshots at the other's pantheon.
- Wendigo: It is summoned as a distraction by the Blackwatch. It can teleport, grows as it eats people, and is The Virus.
- Why Won't You Die?: The Wendigo's ability to return from seemingly certain defeat elicits this reaction from Octavian.
Japanese Spirit Warriors vs. The Raygun Gothic Allies
- Badass Santa: The Australians brought in Father Christmas to aid in the invasion of the Philippines.
- Combat Pragmatist: The Bushman has no qualms about running or using less honourable tactics against the things he fight. It's already saved his life at least once, and he's killed several of Shinshiro's personal guards and crippled a pair of warmechs using dishonourable tactics.
- Establishing Character Moment: when we first see Shinshiro, he is drinking tea in his command center when two subordinates burst in, bearing important information concerning the battle. He then calmly beheads the man who interrupted his tea, explains why he did so to the second man, gives said man a chance to avoid making the same mistake, then invites him to have some tea and explain the situation.
- Forced Transformation: The Bunyip turns a large number of Japanese soldiers into black swans.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: The Aberration sees us all as something just as horrific as we see it, and believed we were all out to torture and kill it, resulting in its homicidal rampage.
- Military Mashup Machine: The craft of Starbird Flight are submersible jet fighters. Their mothership is an aircraft carrier-submarine.
- Nuke 'em: Liberty Prime hurls mini-nukes around. One of them kills Shinshiro.
- Speech Impediment: Yugure has a very bad stutter.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Yugure kills Liberty Prime in this manner. Notably, this was at a range of at least a mile, and the sword went through Liberty Prime, impaling the main power core, and Liberty Prime is a Humongous Mecha.
- Youkai: Shinshiro employs Oni as bodyguards, and he's got other, weirder examples patrolling the forests.
The Allies, Axis, And Resistance, All Hunting The Ark
- Animal Mecha: G.O.R., Yaw Nwosu's sapient robotic silverback gorilla; serves as the Resistance leader's primary mode of transportation, bodyguard and pet.
- Catchphrase: DEATH TO ALL WHO OPPOSE for the Iron Warrior.
- Cool Boat: The HMS Implacable, the British battleship most of the British forces in Zanzibar fight from.
- Deal with the Devil: The Resistance members are presently bartering with Baron Samedi for the exact location of the Ark, and while the Baron sure as hell isn't evil, being the God of Resurrection and all, he certainly isn't nice.
- Making a Splash: The British onboard the Implacable appear to be able to manipulate water by singing Rule Britannia.
- Tank Goodness: The Nazis have one called the Iron Warrior, a Baneblade-sized monstrosity that is possessed by some manner of daemon.
Joint Aztec-American Forces vs. The Argentine-Nazi Horde
- Dem Bones: El Coronel's Mexican battalion, who are all brightly-painted Day Of The Dead-style skeletons.
- Human Sacrifice: It's the Aztecs, for crying out loud. In this particular case, someone needs to die to summon the Pantheon into their Physical God form, except for Xiuhcoatl, who comes as a bonus package for summoning Huitzilopochtli.
- Transforming Mecha: The Colossi Prototypes, which can transform from an aircraft into a mecha and back again.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Jaguar Warriors can transform into, well Jaguars.
