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"In AQWorlds you can train up your fishing AND cooking at the same time! FIREBAAAAALLLLLLL! *BOOOOM SPLASH FISHY FISHY SIZZLE SIZZLE CHOM YUM GOODY FUN!*"
Artix, creator of AE and AQW.

AdventureQuest Worlds is an expanded universe of Artix Entertainment, a company originally created for single player flash games, and it's their first step into the MMO market. Launched five years after the company's first game, AdventureQuest, the game follows its own chaotic storyline, but with NPCs from all their previous AE games (AQ, DragonFable [a walkaround RPG] and MechQuest, a Giant Robots RPG, (or DF IN SPACE!). The monsters are much more recognisable here.

The game follows your character on their path to become The Hero of a legend. After saving a dragon from a princess (Yes.), they moves to Swordhaven, in hope of getting their reward... Instead, they found a burning city filled with undead and a giant, flying dracolich hovering just above the King's medieval castle. As they journeys inside it, they now start watching the overwhelming number of undead try to destroy the city, while the local Paladin, Artix — (yes, that one) — tries fighting them all in vain. The Hero goes to the throne-room to 'help the King', but instead they get to watch the legendary battle of Good vs Evil unfold: King Alteon, king of Swordhaven and all of his Pactagonal Knights versus Sepulchure, lord of the legendary ShadowScythe and proclaimed Master of the Undead. The two arch-enemies fight a fierce battle, with neither gaining advantage over the other, although they apparently pause long enough for you to decide which side you're fighting on. As they proceed to unleash their most powerful techniques... Something unexpected happens...

Well, without spoiling much, a terribly unforeseen event happens to both of them. Now, Good and Evil must both work together to defeat a threat much greater than any other disaster... so far? The game focuses a lot on the character's decisions, even if it doesn't affect the main storyline at all. Each side has its own shop with their own outfits and weapons, and its own respective NPC in some cutscenes. The game, so far, follows the company tradition of Lampshade Hanging, Hurricane of Puns and the direct interaction of the audience in the game's development.

One of the primary features of the game is the abundance of main Classes that one can pick and choose from. Since classes are treated much like any other item in your inventory (with the only stipulation that you must have a class and a weapon equipped at all times), it is quite possible for your character to have many different classes (as opposed to just one or two for the entirety of their in-game career like in other MMO games), with the only major limitations being that you can only have one class equipped at any given time and you cannot change classes (or any other items in your inventory for that matter) while bonking monsters in mid-battle.

Alongside the events of the main storyline, AQWorlds also hosts weekly updates consisting of items, a player suggestion shop, random holidays (like Taco Day and Pancake Day), and their world-famous Live Events. They so far have had six Friday the 13th Events (all of which had special guests Voltaire) and the Mythsong Finale - Live Event with One Eyed Doll (they also appeared in the July 2010 Friday the 13th event), the 2nd Birthday Live Event with Paul and Storm and Jonathan Coulton, the Fear-Chaser event with Ayi Jihu and the direct crossover with web-comic Ctrl+Alt+Del, which all include voice acting and rare items to coincide with the events. George Lowe has also done advertisement and was also a special guest in the August 2010 Friday the 13th Event...ArcAttack (known for their third-place victory in 2010 America's Got Talent) became part of a musical number near the Doomwood finale. Other live events which also include rare items were held featuring the Third Birthday event with They Might Be Giants, the 2012 Heroes Heart Day event with Mia J. Park, and The Magic Thief event starring Conn, Benet, Rowan, Pettivox, and the Duchess.

As of yet, they have also released a card-game based on the MMORPG game (Otherwise known as the AdventureQuest Worlds Anything Goes Battle On Battle-Card Game) and there are also some rumors swirling about an animated series in the work...


This series provides examples of:

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    # to C 
  • Absurdly-Spacious Sewer: The sewer area beneath the castle town of Swordhaven.
  • Accidental Aiming Skills: After being defeated, Vath is about to use his Chaos Dragon Amulet to sic Stalagbite on The Hero. In retaliation, The Hero throws Vath's Sword of Dragon Control and it hits the amulet, shattering the both of them. The Hero then comments that they were aiming for Vath.
  • Accidental Misnaming: In the BattleOff cutscene, the Hero says Paul and Storm's names wrong as Saul and Corn during the initial meeting/confrontation with Mirror Drakath and Storm tries to correct The Hero.
  • Affably Evil:
    • Drakath.
    • Gravelyn.
    • Miltonius/Nulgath and Dage the Evil.
    • Zorbak shows signs of this after completing Zomboda's Quest.
    • Sally helped create Vordred but is more than happy to be friends with you by selling you her wares of Necromancy.
    • Players that side with Evil.
    • The Collector acts like a nice guy yet captures and collects things from different time periods - even the Hero!
    • Deady can also be viewed as this. Oh, and Sleezter Bunny as well. To be fair, Sleezter is also Stupid Evil.
  • Ambiguously Brown:
    • Most of the Sandsea NPCs.
    • One of the skin color choices offered by the MMORPG's color system.
  • Ambidextrous Sprite: Pretty much any character in the game with a non-symmetrical feature on their design will have it flipped when they face the other way.
  • And I Must Scream:
    • This rather humiliating and embarrassing fate happens to most of the Chaos Lords so far: Escherion was turned into a frog, Kitsune was sealed away in the rift taking him back to the Yokai world, Wolfwing was reduced to a pile of ashes by Shadowslayer Z until the Mystic Wolf Moon began slowly restoring his remains, and Ledgermayne was converted back into the raw mana from which it was made.
    • And there are some equally humiliating and and embarrassing examples with those who weren't Chaos Lords. One example is the fate of the revived Noxus, whose head was taken off his undead body and used to make a weapon. Gravelyn even gives the weapon to the Hero in a Non-Canon Ending the Doomwood finale.
  • Angels, Devils and Squid: Good, Evil, and Chaos.
  • An Ice Person: Queen Aisha, Garaja, Dead Morice, and Kezeroth.
  • Animal-Eared Headband: A couple of these are helms.
  • Animal Motifs:
    • David, J6's cousin, who at first did not know what motif he would be. He went from dog, vulture, alligator and then finally chose the Chicken.
    • The Lion for the Lionfang Clan.
    • And dragons for Nythera and Ryuuji, given their half-dragon heritage.
    • There is also Galanoth with his dragon-like armor.
    • There are also Heroes with Animal Motifs.
  • Apologetic Attacker: The hero apologizes to Lord Ovthedance after realizing that the Great Godfather of Soul lied to him/her and conned him/her into doing his dirty work.
  • As Long as There Is Evil: Or rather, in this case, As Long As There Is Fear. The main boss of the Fear Chaser event, a giant winged skeletal entity simply called FEAR, mentions that life is fear, fear has existed ever since the first moment the first creature appeared, and even after his defeat, he's not going anywhere despite how easy it is for a truly fearless hero to overcome fear, because most people need fear as fear is a part of life.
  • Awesome Moment of Crowning: In the most unlike events ever, Gravelyn gives Chuckles—yes THAT Chuckles—a promotion by swapping his skull with Noxus's!
  • Ax-Crazy: The second part of the Giant storyline gives your character a bout of the crazy with his or her somewhat horrific suggestions for how to handle the giant problem. See the What the Hell, Hero? entry for details.
  • Back from the Dead:
    • Noxus, now as a lich.
    • Sepulchure came back in Doomwood II, but was Killed Off for Real when he sacrificed himself to save Gravelyn from being killed by Drakath.
    • The Hero, who comes back from the Underworld as the new Death for the final battle after being killed by Drakath.
  • The Bad Guy Wins:
  • Badass Boast:
    • Sepulchure gets one right before Drakath kills him.
      "I AM DARKNESS! I AM DOOM! NO FORCE IN THIS WORLD CAN DESTROY WHAT I AM! LONG UNLIVE THE SHADOWSCYTHE!"
    • Drakath has one in one of the ads: "End the World in 2012? Why should I wait THAT LONG?"
    • And the Hero gets one at the beginning of the final battle with Drakath:
      "You just don't get it, Drakath. Nothing will stop me from defeating you! I AM the Eternal Dragon of Time! I AM Death! I AM YOUR END!"
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: Heroes wearing tuxedos are shown to be this.
  • Barbie Doll Anatomy:
    • The Male Heroes lack nipples.
    • There is also Vordred when his armor is destroyed he notably lacks nipples and a genitalia.
  • Bears Are Bad News: There's plenty of different species of bears found throughout the different locations of Lore, and the Void even has these.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Artix says this word for word in the final cutscene in the Doom War.
  • Bedsheet Ghost: One of the Halloween Armors is this.
  • The Berserker: The Berserker Class as well as Beta Berserker there are also The Berserker armors the most famous example is The Berserker Champion Armor
  • BFS: As per usual AE standards, but never like this before. Weapons like Caladbolg and the Ungodly Reavers of Nulgath dance on the line between looking really cool and looking really silly. Some of these things have to be at least ten feet long, and you can even dual wield a few of the more ridiculous ones.
    • Special mention to the Overlord's Doomblade; it's so big, your hand doesn't even fit over the hilt.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Probably the unlikeliest hero of all comes to Gravelyn's rescue at the end of the Shadowfall War: Chuckles.
    • And a truly epic one of these goes down in the Chaos Finale in the form of you coming Back from the Dead — as the new Death — to save Gravelyn and the Alliance from being destroyed by Drakath in the final battle.
  • Big Red Devil: Faust
  • Big "NO!":
    • Gravelyn lets out one of these when Drakath kills her father.
      • And again, this time twice when Drakath does the same thing again in the Alternate Universe created by him, and the second time she does so, she sprouts angelic wings as a sign of rage towards Drakath.
    • Kitsune when he's about to be sucked into the rift leading him back to the Yokai world.
    • Dr. Voltabolt after the Dental Driller's defeat.
    • Kimberly, the true Chaos Lord of Mythsong, gets one while trying to rid of the chaos tune drakath put in her head.
    • The Hero when Ledgermayne interrupts him/her as soon as he/she is about to earn the Chaos Focus Gem, and when he/she is too late to prevent Zhoom from apparently falling to what is believed to be his "death" after he is blasted to the edge of a cliff by Sek Duat.
      • Also, when FEAR captures and traps Ayi in his ribcage.
      • And again upon Vordred using his signature spell upon Artix. As it turns out, it didn't work.
      • Once again after King Alteon pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to save him/her from Sepulchure's attack.
      • And he/she does this twice during the Thunderforge Saga, once when he/she ends up too late to stop Lionfang from stealing what appears to be the Tears of the Mother (which actually isn't), and again when he/she is unable to stop him from crossing the Moral Event Horizon by wasting the true Tears of the Mother on Drakath.
      • In the Frostspawn storyline, he/she blurts this out again when Karok prepares to cross the Moral Event Horizon himself by killing Lorentz and destroying the Horologium gate that he/she and Syrrus were trying to send the Frostspawn back through.
    • Ledgermayne after Drakath focuses his Chaos Energy into the Supreme Arcane Staff, allowing it to convert it back into the raw mana from which it was made.
    • Blizzy's reaction to Lionfang's Kick the Dog moment of burning the Frostval gifts. Cue the hero hitting Lionfang with a This Is Unforgivable!.
      • And Blizzy does it again when Lionfang crosses the Moral Event Horizon by knocking the snow globe containing the Spirit of Frostval out of the hero's hands and shattering it.
    • Nyctox when Twilly voices that it's not the dark he's afraid of at all, leading to Nyctox's Critical Existence Failure courtesy of Twilly's Pre-Mortem One-Liner. It's quite hilarious, really, as his variation is rather high-pitched.
    • Stratos when Granny V (the Dreamweaver in disguise) makes him relive his nightmares of a certain day in his earlier years, hospitalizing him afterwards.
      Granny V: Your dreams might not be so sweet when you're living IN them, my dears!
      Stratos: NOOOOO! Not THIS day!
    • Warlic just before Desoloth bites off Galanoth's arm.
    • Noxus shouts this to Chaos Vordred in Doomwood Part 2 trying to order him to stand down before Chaos Vordred gets destroyed by the Sepulchure look-alike.
    • The DoomBlade states this when Sepulchure lowers it as a sign of refusal to slay his own daughter, and again just before being purified into the Blade of Destiny by Gravelyn.
    • Kezeroth when he discovers that Elim spoke truly when he corrected him by saying that it was the aim of Kezeroth's stone at Quetzal's comet that was off.
    • In the Swordhaven saga, Princess Brittany screams this when she sees for herself that her father King Alteon has become the 12th Lord of Chaos.
  • Big "WHAT?!":
    • Twilly says this when Ayi explains that he defeated Nyctox, the representation of the fear of the dark.
    • Then there's the one that the hero and Artix scream out when Vordred tells about who Artix really is.
  • Bittersweet Ending:
    • 13 Lords of Chaos Saga: The Chaos finale ends with the hero finally getting revenge on Drakath for the tragic events in Swordhaven and all the other terrible things Chaos did to the rest of Lore for him by defeating him in the Chaos Realm, only to find out that the Queen of Monsters has already been set free into Lore once more, and that the Ancient Elemental Titans will soon run rampant on Lore with the Queen herself in command, so now the hero must face the Titans and defeat the Queen in order to save Lore and restore his/her powers as the Eternal Dragon of Time.
    • Brightoak Grove: Nevanna has been freed from the Queen of Monsters' influence by Aven Greywhorl's spirit and pulls off a Heel–Face Turn by entering the Mana Core and restoring the Celestial Horn of Balance to the World Tree in order to set everything right again. However, Brightoak is in ruins due to the Queen's influence on her along with Aven's death, and Nevanna still blames herself for all of the atrocities she committed against Brightoak, its people, and especially Aven while she was under the Queen's control. Thus, she decides she can no longer stay in Brightoak and instead vows to travel with Gaiazor to prevent the Queen from causing more despair, pain and suffering to other lands.
    • Laken's saga: The good news? The World Soul is saved, therefore enabling Lore to be saved as well, and Dage, who had decided to help preserve the balance between the living and the dead and sever his contract with Nulgath instead of destroying him and conquering Lore like he originally intended, has reclaimed the Dark Shard, the last thing he needs in order to be free of him for good. The bad news? The Seraphic Paladins have lost their leader Laken, who had lost his sanity due to discovering his master's change of plans and was corrupted by said insanity beyond saving. Ada therefore has to put down Laken in the end, but is both heartbroken over his death and enraged at the Undead Legion and the heroes who were involved in that death as well for what had to be done at the same time, and, unable to get over the death of the very man who took such good care of her, refuses to forgive them, vowing to come for them to make them and those who sided with them pay someday, thus providing us with a possible Sequel Hook.
    • Shadows of War: Malgor has been defeated and sent back in time to the moment of the Queen of Monsters' death, ensuring a stable time loop and erasing the Shadowflame's influence upon Lore in the process, and Lore is therefore saved and the Mana Crisis is finally averted. Of course, Lore and its people are going to be busy recovering from the suffering they had to endure as a result of the crisis itself for a while. The alliance between Good and Evil is dissolved, Tara and Brentan have renounced their claims to the throne of Swordhaven, Gravelyn and Drakath are going to take a while to recover from their injuries during their parts in the fight against the Old World Order, Tyndarius has sacrificed himself to help the heroes in the search for and fight against Malgor, with his helm being held by a grieving Elius with Abel feeling bad for him, and Kyanos appeared to be dying during said search the last time we saw him. At least Victoria was glad to hear that Tara had survived her death at the hands of the infernals and got to reunite with her, even if it was briefly. And as for the hero, they're now out to tend to their duties as the Eternal Dragon of Time to make up for what happened because of the Mana Crisis, and Tara is travelling with them to remind them of it every once in a while and to be easy on themselves as well.
  • Black Mage: Mage class.
  • Black Knight:
    • The special versions of Artix and Sepulchure Figures have black armor and they show up in Gravelyn's Dream. Later the Doomblade takes control of Sepulchure, changing his armor from red to black. This makes it likely that Artix at some point will gain black armor. During the 8th Birthday event, Artix is wearing that armor, along with an Obsidian Light of Destiny. Players could also get it through farming.
    • There is also a boss called The Black Knight, whose armor you can get your hands on.
    • There is also an army of black knights at the member expansion of the guardian tower.
    • The Death Knight class, and quite a few armors allow a player to be one of these.
  • The Blacksmith: Yulgar and Cysero.
  • Bland-Name Product: The Chopping Maul is, unsurprisingly, full of these, including: GraveStop, Left 4 Undead 2, World of DoomKnightsnote , YBox, funplatform3, Wee, Scarbucks Coffee, Bloodbath & Body Works, Mortisha's Secret, Waldencrooks, Radioactive Shack, The Body Shopnote , Painless ShoeSource, GNCnote  and DEKAY Jewelers.
  • Boring, but Practical: The free Oracle class seems to be mostly relegated to support, except their first skill makes all of their attacks become a Critical Hit for a short duration, and has a short cooldown. Since critical hits restore a lot more mana than usual, an Oracle can keep their mana up for plenty of heals, evasion boosts, and damage mitigation, making them excellent in both support and soloing.
  • Brainwashed: A couple of bad guys have this as an ability. Most notably are Kitsune (using it to control the Emperor), Discordia and by extension Kimberly, Tibicenas (he's a djinn) and Drakath.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Along with anyone who fell victim to Discordia's songnote , this happens to the player in the beginning of the Doomwood saga by Vordred
  • Brought Down to Normal: This happens to Tibicenas at the hands of the Efreet as a result of the Hero's wish, stripping him of his Djinn powers and bringing him down from a godlike Chaos-powered being to something that the Hero can actually defeat.
  • Build Like an Egyptian: The Pyramid hidden within the Sandsea desert.
  • But Now I Must Go: The hero saying his/her farewells to Princess Miko and Emperor Daisho before running off into the sunset after defeating Ryoku and becoming the Dragon Koi tournament champion at the end of the Yokai Island storyline.
  • The Caligula: Vath.
  • Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Several of the bunny-like Eldritch Abominations inhabiting Darkon’s Garden are called “bunnies,” by Fa and a few of the temporary quest item names.
  • Camp Straight: Andrew
  • Cats Are Mean:
    • Lampshaded in the fact that Maximilian Lionfang's armor is based off of a lion.
    • The first boss of the Giant Tale storyline is a giant cat.
    • Not to mention the Skello Kitties in the Yokai Graveyard.
  • Catchphrase:
    • Everyone: "Battle on!"
    • Shadowscythe: "Long un-live the Shadowscythe!"
    • Bloodtusk Horcs: "Free and strong!"
  • Can't Catch Up: New players can have a hard time getting into the storyline, especially since the game advances weekly, and there's a glorious lack of Dynamic Difficulty in the newer regions; starting at the beginning of the story is practically required, but gets harder and harder as older players move ahead without you. It can easily become a vicious cycle and many quit because of this.
    • It certainly doesn't help the fact that most newer players are completely unaware of the existence older lower leveled story based regions designed specifically for them, or even outright ignore the story altogether. Also having a really bad first impression on Bribing Your Way to Victory to help overcome such an obvious level gap simply doesn't work, at all.
  • Cap: The current cap for levels is 85, while ranks in classes and factions can go as high as 10.
  • Celebrity Star: Voltaire, One-Eyed Doll, ArcAttack, George Lowe, and They Might Be Giants, and many other stars who have game releases based around them.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: This game is much darker than any of Artix Entertainment's other games. As soon as the first chapter, characters get killed on-screen with Family Unfriendly Deaths, getting disintegrated or turned undead. This includes Sepulchure.
  • Chaos Is Evil: Drakath and most of his Chaos Lords are very much this, but good Chaos NPCs (such as Nythera) exist, and even the Good Hero can get in on the act with the Chaos Shaper and other Chaos-style classes and armors, subverting the trope.
  • Char Clone: J6 and Korin of MQ plus J6 is revealed to have a Char-Scar.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • The magic mirror from Cornelis in chapter 2, which was mentioned briefly in the end of the quests there, is later used to reflect the First Lord of Chaos' attack and finish him.
    • Here's one: The Book of Lore that every player gets in their first quest that's used to track down their history? Well let's flash forward to the Doomwood temple and it's used to translate an ancient book written in Dragon language that tells of the Elemental Champions. By EATING it!
  • Chekhov's Gunman: In The Span, it is said that when Galanoth slew the Eternal Dragon of Time, it created the world of AdventureQuest, or at least this iteration. Drakath reveals that the Hero is actually the Eternal Dragon of Time
  • Christmas Episode:
  • Climax Boss:
    • The Chaos Lord battles.
    • Also Baron Luca, the four Prime Dragons, and Desoloth.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander:
    • Cysero, Cysero and CYSERO. In his wedding event he disguised his portable magic forge as A POTATO. When the player asks why, he explains that if he made it a fork, it'd be indistinguishable from other forks. Nursey lampshades her husband-to-be's craziness as to why she's going to marry him.
    • And of course, KIMBERLY. Only she decides to carry around a toy triceratops and her Chaos Beast being named Pony Gary Yellow. Also in her story for the July 2010 Friday the 13th Event, she was freaking out cause the inn was out of Moglinberry Smoothies.
  • The Collector: The main bad guy of the 3rd Birthday Event, who collects people with a great destiny, including The Hero, John and John from They Might Be Giants, and the Big Bad in cute kid form.
  • Combat Medic: The Healer class since they heal and use weapons to fight.
  • Comet of Doom: Drakath hurls TWO comets toward Battleon to destroy it after a suggestion from the chaos turned Xing and Xang.
    • Quetzal's Comet from the 2012 Frostval event. The threat isn't the comet itself, but the beast that lives in it.
  • Composite Character: Ryoku is based on both Goku from Dragon Ball and Ryu from Street Fighter.
    • Drakath is both AQ and DF Drakath since he has his AQ Dragon Wings and possibly his AQ Streath and he has his DF Human Half.
      • Jorxlol, for those who have read the Forgotten Realms series is a complete and utter expy of Jarlaxle, the infamous rainbow-cape wearing rogue drow and leader of Breagan D'arthe. He is depicted as bald and wearing an eyepatch in-game, but sadly without his epic rainbow cape or feathered hat.
  • Container Maze: The Warehouse in the Ctrl+Alt+Del event
  • Continuity Nod:
    • In the May 2011 Friday the 13th event, it starts with a couple of miners finding a ship in the desert. The ship is the very similar to the one from the first Friday the 13th Event in 2009 (as Voltaire lampshades it by saying he just can't get away from Pirate ships).
    • In a cutscene for Yulgar's Inn, Twig is shown falling down the stairs. This is a nod back to the original AdventureQuest, where Twig also did so in the background.
    • AQW's past shares the same continuity with Book 1 DragonFable, with several events referenced in AQW. These include:
      • Artix slaying the Spirits of Frostval in DragonFable's 2007 Frostval event.
      • Moglins turning into Moglinsters as a result of the Cauldron Sister's sabotaged candy, though the culprit behind it is Dr. Voltabolt rather than Zorbak.
      • Reens still making you gather the same alchemy ingredients. She even comments how training beginner alchemists gave her some weird déjà vu.
      • Warlic and Xan's feud over Jaania, with Xan even confusing the AdventureQuestWorld Hero for the DragonFable version.
      • The Water Breather potions being spilled into the ocean allowing everyone to breathe underwater.
      • Sally's hometown being Moonridge and how she finds the Necropolis after Vayle's army invaded her hometown (with archive DragonFable footage being shown).
      • Sek Duat XV's tyrannical reign and eventual defeat.
      • Zhoom's Heel–Face Turn where he was once a Bounty Hunter Only in It for the Money, before the DragonFable Hero showed him a better path of being a hero.
      • Artix destroying Vayle's Soul Crystal that held her brother's soul.
      • Warlic dying in the Elemental War arc.
      • Zorbak obtaining Drakonnan's helm as his throne.
      • Baron Au'Mydas Bayconn being turned into a pig.
      • Kathool Atchoo being sent into a slumber after his defeat, before awakening again years later in AQW.
      • Tomix's fight against the Chaos Weavers in RavenLoss.
      • Drakath's betrayal of Sepulchure and eventual death in the Book 1 finale.
      • Sepulchure's mysterious past as one of King Alteon's knights, Sir Valen, and his connection with Queen Lynaria, as well as how he became a DoomKnight, is finally explained.
      • Lim and Cysero's Magic Versus Science War, which created a Blackhole Portal.
      • Zorbak having the Hero babysit his baby Dracolich legion (also with archive DragonFable footage being shown).
      • Galanoth's home being destroyed by Akriloth.
      • Bubble the cat having a relationship with Verlyrus.
      • Ice Master Yeti kidnapping the Frostvale Moglins before reforming himself and befriending Chilly. Although the AQW Hero has no recollection of this, leading Ice Master Yeti to comment how that may have only happened in DragonFable.
      • The Hero and Galanoth recount the events of the Fire War from DragonFable. Although unlike other examples, the AQW Hero did partake in this one, with the quest chain being a retelling of how Akriloth and Drakonnan spread fire throughout the lands.
      • In addition, the plot of the one destined to destroy the world aligning with Good, and the one destined to save it being on the side of Evil. Sounds an awfully lot like what happened to the Dragons that hatched out of the Black and White Dragon Boxes in DragonFable.
  • Cool Airship: Captain Stratos' ship, the Phereless, which also once belonged to his father.
  • Cosmic Retcon: Galanoth killing "the Dragon of Time." made AQW a mix of all the other AE games.
  • Critical Existence Failure: Wolfwing, the fifth Chaos Lord, gets turned to dust by an arrow fired by Shadowslayer Z, but sometime later the moon comes over him and begins slowly restoring his remains.
    • Tibicenas, the eighth Chaos Lord, achieves this by exploding into many shards of Chaos after being defeated. In-game, both Discordia, the fake sixth Chaos Lord, and Ledgermayne, the seventh Chaos Lord, also explode for their death animations when defeated.
    • After defeat, the Void Dragon also explodes in the cutscene afterwards - this one into many Void Splinters.
  • Crossover: with Ctrl+Alt+Del, Romeo and Juliet and The Magic Thief.
  • Cross Player: Some players are this.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: And a rather funny one at that. It is said that anyone who enters Grimskull's dungeons and tries to get to the end often ends up facing a comical and embarrassing death that Grimskull gets to laugh at on his "Big Scream TV", after which he adds those numbers to his Scorror Board.
  • Cue the Sun: After defeating Vordred.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Saahir, the supposedly mighty Djinn who the Hero and Zhoom had enlisted to help them against Tibicenas, doesn't even last five seconds against him.
    • Later, Sepulchure delivers an awesome one to Chaos Vordred to the shock and disbelief of Sally.
      • Except that is not Sepulchure as Gravelyn stated but rather a clone of him.
    • Drakath does a LOT of curbstomping during the course of the final battle before the Hero comes Back from the Dead to clean house. He one-shots Stalagbite and even Vordred!

    D to K 
  • Daddy's Little Villain: Gravelyn is Sepulchure's kid. She even wishes to avenge her father when he is destroyed.
  • Darker and Edgier: Doomwood is starting to become this. To start: We have a powerful undead badass by the name of Vordred, known as the Paladin Slayer, that has killed every High Paladin but one — Artix. Then we have the hero becoming an undead slave to Vordred — who is also immune to undead slaying magic. Oh and we have someone who wants Artix dead for her own personal reasons. And this is just the FIRST part of the arc!
    • Can it get worse? YES. When the player reaches the Tower of Necromancy, they find out that Sally from DragonFable is there. She's not only revived Noxus, but also is the reason that Vordred is invulnerable to paladin magic. Oh and Artix is the only one that's blocking him from being invincible AND Artix isn't just a paladin...he could probably be something dark also.
    • Vordred is trying to become the Champion of Darkness, and the only thing he needs to do is kill Artix — because Artix is the Champion of Darkness, but swore himself to the cause of Good long ago.
    • Out of the Chaos Lord storylines, the Bloodtusk Ravine storyline is the darkest. We have Xing and Mirror Xang manipulating the Alliance leaders and the leaders of both Horc and Troll factions all so they can stall for time and prepare the 9th Chaos Lord.
    • The Etherstorm Storyline, where we see a priest of the Air Realm have his entire body crushed beneath Desoloth's foot. Desoloth also bites off Galanoth's arm, and the ending of the saga is much more dark and mature than any of those before it.
    • And if you thought Doomwood was bad, Doomwood Part 2 is even darker! Sally recreated Vordred and fused him Chaos Magic, then Gravelyn wished for her father to be revived, and then Selphulcure has created a Zombie Apocalypse which involves killing Death and all but the main character, Twilly, Gravelyn and Artix are the only ones standing between him and the destruction of the world.
    • The 2012 Frostval event is even darker than previous Frostval events because it features a powerful and despicable villain utterly lacking in a sympathetic backstory. Kezeroth the World Ender proves to be almost unstoppable and doesn't know when to lay down and die, even after his defeat, and he plans to use the Beast Quetzal to freeze all of Lore and therefore live up to his name. It definitely doesn't help either that he's especially brutal, seeing how he beats Elim to death to show that he means business. And did we mention Athon's Heroic Sacrifice at the end of the event?
    • It gets even worse in the Thunderforge storyline. To start things off, Maximilian Lionfang, the leader of the Golden Onslaught, becomes a Chaos Lord and starts slaughtering massive amounts of Darkblood. And that doesn't even stop there; he chaorrupts the Old Primarch, kills Logash in a huge dick move, feeds Chaos energy to his Chaos Manticore that he's been training to hunt the Darkblood and Gravelyn's forces from the air, threatens to kill the hero after he/she has slain said manticore, and finally crosses the Moral Event Horizon by wasting the very last vial of the Tears of the Mother on Drakath, whom they will not be able to effect at all due to him being revealed to have been remade as the Avatar of Chaos by the Queen of Monsters, who is revealed to be his master waiting for him to free her. Due to this despicable act, this means that there will never be a cure for Chaorruption again, which is not good, because it eventually becomes a setup for a series of tragic events in Swordhaven. Speaking of which...
    • The Swordhaven arc seems to be among the darkest ones yet. To summarize, Alteon has finally succumbed to chaorruption. He became the 12th Lord of Chaos, and in his madness he killed his eldest daughter. In the end he was slain as well. And it appears that by the end of the war, what's left of Alteon's kingdom will crumble due to infighting among the power-hungry and those seeking revenge.
    • And the 13th Lord of Chaos saga is probably the darkest of them all, with THE HERO being turned to Chaos and running roughshod all over Lore, getting killed by Drakath in a colossal dick move, and the Alliance facing disaster as Drakath's forces rise to destroy everything.
    • The "Stolen Screams" event released by Cysero seems to be darker than several early major chapters of the "Ancient Evils" storyline, as it takes place in a bleak ghost town overrun by ghosts and spiders, and the event's main villain is a man-bat working for the Queen of Monsters named Chamat. It also features the tragic death of an innocent girl in a flashback, and when she later becomes a banshee, she kills Chamat by wailing at him, which melts his face right off. Creepy, right?
    • The Brightoak Grove saga is even darker than previous chapters in the "Ancient Evils" storyline as it begins with a former heroine named Nevanna, who has become twisted by the Queen of Monsters, stealing the Celestial Horn of Balance, leaving the forest to start rotting away. And to prevent the heroes from recovering the horn, she actually kills her own former friend, Aven! And because of this act, along with the loss of Ravinos' healing powers, Brightoak and the rest of Lore are in more danger than ever, as Brightoak faces disaster as Nevanna's forces launch a final attack. And what's next? She awakens the Earth Titan, Gaiazor, and unleashes even more horrible destruction upon Brightoak through him, leaving it in ruins.* Damage-Sponge Boss: The Void Dragon as well as the Chaos Sphinx. Also, Miltonius/Nulgath and J6.
  • Dark Is Evil: The Shadowscythe Empire under Sepulchure at the start of the game.
    • Also, the fear manifestations of Heights, Darkness, and Death, and the ultimate embodiment of Fear Itself.
    • Not to mention Vordred and Noxus.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: The good heroes wearing/using dark items.
    • You can also buy items from Dusk's DoomKnight shops and Dage the Evil's Undead Legion shops even if your character is aligned with Good. Then again, the only Evil shops Good characters can't access are an undead soldier's Evil shop and Gravelyn's Evil shop.
    • Vayle, the Necromantress, as well as Bal Gravestorm and Wez, the Necromancer that King Alteon ordered to investigate the Chaos Marsh to help Swordhaven with its research on the Chaos infection.
    • Anyone who is affiliated with Good can use the DoomKnight class as well as the Necromancer class.
    • Artix is revealed as The Champion of Darkness. But he has not used a single Darkness spell, and as Artix tells us, he never will.
    • If you choose to spare the Eggs after Duncan sends you to destroy them and then complete Ferzana the female Draconian's Good quests, she'll let you buy the Onyx Dragon-related items in her shop which all have to do with darkness.
    • Zorbak may have caused trouble but he is not evil just Ebil and he sometimes helped The Hero
    • Discordia is pretty much not evil just mind controlled
    • While not of The Element of DarknessExcept Wolfwing some chaos infected are not that evil and its invoked by the chaotic body horror and Chaotic Demon Wings and Horns Even some of The Chaos Lords like Wolfwing(Who is more of a Dark Based Chaos Lord) and Kimberly with her makeup and red and black motif
    • An item in Quibble's Mirror Realm shop is called the Sword of Despair, which is the Mirror Realm counterpart of the main universe's Sword of Hope. It is a weapon of darkness, which is the exact opposite of the Sword of Hope being a weapon of light. BUT! That doesn't stray this sword from being an item of goodness like its main-universe counterpart already is, and the description that proves it reads:
    "This sword has been waiting for you since it was forged and placed at the heart of FlameHigh Dungeon countless ages ago. It might be your only hope of saving Kezeroth and helping his plan to save Lore."
    • The Nocturan Creed are pretty much this
  • Deadpan Snarker: Ayi Jihu dips into this in her Fear Chaser event.
  • Deal with the Devil: Don Giovanni's deal with Faust.
    • Also Miltonius/Nulgath with his Leery Contracts that the player has to sign in order to access certain rewards.
  • Deceptive Disciple: Possibly Invidia. To be fair, she is the Dreamweaver in disguise.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Kimberly joined the players' side after being defeated. Getting that Chaos Ear Worm out of her head went a long way toward doing so. We also have Khassandra, the only Chaos Lord to join the players' side while still Chaorrupted.invoked
  • Deflector Shield: The Mirror Shield is used to deflect Escherion's inversion magic and turn him into a frog.
  • Dem Bones: Many, many undead.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: The AdventureQuest Worlds 'Anything Goes Battle On Battle Card Game' comes to mine. (whether it's a lampshade or parody is up to opinion.)
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: So far your player has beaten a battlemage, a Hydra, a Chaos sorcerer, a Cyclops and Imp Warlord, a drow Chaos DragonLord and his dragon, a Roc, several powerful Yokai, a giant skeleton Yokai, a Kitsune Chaos Samurai, a chaorrupted werewolf and vampire, a sparkly vampire champion, a Dracowerepyre, an immensely powerful Chaorrupted Werepyre, another Chaos Demon (of the sell your soul variety), a fake Chaos Lord, a Triceratops, a chaorrupted Drummer and Bassist, a mind controlled Chaos Lord rock star, a giant furry yeti-like creature known as Wendigo, a giant leech, a Lochness-like monster, a dragon even worse than the Red Dragon, a mana elemental, a chaorrupted being of mana incarnate, a powerful dragon of the Void, an immortal mummy lich god-king, a chaorrupted Sphinx, a powerful chaorrupted Djinn, the manifestations of the fears of Heights, Darkness and Death, Fear Itself, a zombified abomination created by Zorbak, a Dracolich, a lich cryptkeeper, an immortal arch-lich, a Paladin Slayer who is the most powerful undead being in all of Lore, a chaorrupted troll, two generals of Good and Evil, a chaorrupted Medusa, a Chaos Lord troll prophetess, the prime fire dragon, an electric tornado, a sea monster, a crystallized form of the prime earth dragon, a powerful four-element dragon, an insane wizard living in the palace near Wellmet, a five-headed dracolich, and a chaorrupted version of the most powerful undead being in all of Lore.
    • During the Fear Chaser event, Twilly does the same thing through an innocent Pre-Mortem One-Liner in the form of "Hey, you're right! It's not the dark that Twilly is afraid of at all!" that causes Nyctox to suffer a Critical Existence Failure while screeching a rather hilarious high-pitched Big "NO!".
    Ayi: Twilly defeated Nyctox.
    Twilly: WHAT?!
    • Also, you get to punch out the Desterrat Moya, which is a creature very similar to Cthulhu itself.
    • In an Alternate Universe, Sepulchure kills Death to trigger a Zombie Apocalypse!
    • In Frostval 2012, the great beast Quetzal, the weapon Kezeroth the World Ender tried to use to end Lore, is brought down by the heroes in a furious battle.
  • Disc-One Final Dungeon: Done three times during the Chaos saga’s finale, first with Mount Doomskull, then Battleon during an invasion, and finally Death’s realm.
  • Disney Death: Tibicenas states that djinn cannot be killed and will return in a few thousend years like Saahir and Tibicenas himself. Well, Tibicenas would have if the Hero hadn't made the wish to take away Tibicenas's djinn powers.
  • Down in the Dumps: One of the areas in Akiba have you face off against Yokai based on discarded items (like shoes and umbrellas).
  • Downer Ending: The Swordhaven storyline has a rather tragic one, in fact. Princess Brittany has been killed by her own father in a fit of Chaos-induced madness, Swordhaven has been destroyed and left in flames by the Chaos Dragon, Alteon has been forced to be slain when the Chaos proves too much for him, and therefore Swordhaven will most likely never know peace for a while due to the nobles fighting in a conflict to decide who will rule Swordhaven next. The Chaos saga guide on the official website even lampshades this type of ending.
    "Oh dear. Swordhaven has fallen, the king is gone. This doesn't seem like much of a victory..."
  • Dream Land: Twilly's Nightmare makes the hero go into Twilly's dreams.
  • The Dragon: The Chaos Beasts to the Chaos Lords, and possibly the Queen of Monsters to Drakath or the other way around.
    • Undead Artix to Mirror Alteon.
    • Vordred to Noxus.
    • Doomwood Part II revealed that Drakath is this to some unknown master
  • Dracolich: There's a few of them in this game:
    • Death can turn your Red Dragon pet into one.
    • Shadowfall is built upon a Dracolich which used to be an ancient great dragon's corpse that Sepulchure found which is revealed in DragonFable.
    • Doomwood's Temple has one as the area's main boss. It also has a brother which is destroyed by Artix.
    • As of the end of the Etherstorm saga, Desoloth has become Desolich a powerful chaotic Dracolich courtesy of Drakath.
  • Died Standing Up: Subverted in the asylum as Cysero is sleeping standing up and is not dead standing up.
  • Dual Boss: The Bruise Brothers on the Lead Zeppelin at the Stairway to Haven area of Mythsong Canyon.
  • Duel Boss: Vordred. The Doomwood finale is basically a series of back-to-back duels with him.
  • Easily Forgiven:
    • When the hero chooses to hear Garaja out over choosing to say "Of course he did.", Garaja explains that he had no choice but to give Maximilian Lionfang one of his snow globes because he couldn't allow him to break all of the snow globes as he threatened. Garaja promised Lionfang whatever he wanted as long as he left him with his memories. Blizzy and the hero forgive him and the hero even gives him a hug and helps him back up on his feet, reminding him that everyone has to stand up to bullies like Lionfang or they will rule their lives, and pleading to him to tell him/her where Lionfang is or Frostval will be his forever.
    • In the dwarves versus giants quest, two of the dwarfs' comrades betray the team by leaving a magic item that drains dwarves of their strength and attempting to beat up the human stand in in return for the giants' treasure. After they are defeated, the rest of the team lets them off with little more than a minor reprimand.
  • Ear Worm: Kimberly, lead singer of One Eyed Doll and the true Chaos Lord of the Mythsong saga, turns out to have been under mind control because Drakath planted one of these in her head in the form of a Chaos tune. Only by defeating her do you manage to get the tune out of her head.
  • Elemental Powers: Lots, to be precise.
    • And one of the main themes of Etherstorm Wastes.
  • Elves Versus Dwarves: More like Drow (Dark Elves) Vs. Dwarves, which happened in Dwarfhold.
  • Empathy Doll Shot: During the Fire War flashbacks, a burned teddy bear is seen among a village that had been destroyed by Akriloth.
  • Episode of the Dead: The "AQW Zombies" Saga explores a what-if Alternate Timeline where Drakath didn't interfere in the Cold Open fight between Alteon and Sepulchure. The result is Sepulchure kills Alteon, followed by the Grim Reaper himself when he comes to escort Alteon's soul to the afterlife. With Death gone, the souls have nowhere to go and the dead all rise as zombies. This was Sepulchure's plan all along, to zombify the Earth and weed out The Champion of Light who would be immune. The player tries to fight against the Zombie Apocalypse only to find all of their allies getting zombified one-by-one. Eventually the player, Artix, and Gravelyn (Sepulchure's daughter and the Champion of Light) end up in a Last Stand defending the last survivor stronghold against the entire world's zombie population. The Zombie Apocalypse gets resolved with the revelation that it was Drakath who created the Alternate Timeline for his own amusement. However Drakath ends up awakening Gravelyn's Champion of Light powers when he kills her father Sepulchure and in this new form she manages to hurt him. Drakath flees by giving her the Sadistic Choice of killing him and letting her friends die or saving her friends and letting him escape, and once he leaves the timeline gets restored to the proper events and the Zombie Apocalypse undone.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Drakath helps the hero defeat Ledgermayne by focusing his Chaos powers through the Supreme Arcane Staff.
    • While Sepulchure tends to do evil things every other day and night, he does seem to have a kind, gentle side that shows up every Frostval, and shares with the rest of the Shadowscythe the joy of Frostval. Even Gravelyn gets into the spirit of Frostval as well, despite her heart now being so cold as to be as cold as her father's was back then that she may not have the experience to share the joy of Frostval any longer.
      • And in the finale of Doomwood Part 2, Sepulchure has a difficult time deciding whether he should slay his daughter or not. Finally, he refuses to do so and lowers his DoomBlade instead. The DoomBlade does not take that well.
  • Evil Counterpart: ShadowScythe Reaver to Phoenix Plate
    • Evil Alteon to Good King Alteon Undead Artix to Artix
    • A lot of other items can have Evil Counterparts as well as Chaos Counterparts
    • Even players can become evil counterparts of each other.
    • Sleezter Bunny is Deady's eviler counterpart since he and Deady have an almost similar design
    • Gravelyn is one to Artix
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: After Zhoom destroys Zahart's magic ring, he unknowingly ends up doing a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero by freeing Tibicenas, who then proceeds to enslave Zahart and use him to finish his plan to take over his home in the Djinn world. Way to go, sucker.
    • And in the "Stolen Screams" event, Chamat learns this the hard way when he attempts to harness the screams of Mallora as a weapon for the Queen of Monsters only to be nailed by her death wail, which reduces his face to a mere puddle. As Cysero points out, the "bad guy underestimates the power he's trying to harness and gets destroyed by it. You gotta appreciate the classics."
  • Evil Knockoff: The Chaotic Blade of Doom is a Chaos Knockoff to Necrotic Blade of Doom and the Necrotic Blade of Doom is evil to begin with.
  • Evil Redhead: Gravelyn
  • Evil Versus Evil: The Shadowfall War event, where the players fight to save Gravelyn from Noxus and Vordred.
    • The Dage the Evil vs. Nulgath war.
  • Exact Words: Noxus states that he controlled all of Sepulchure's forces and that not one obeyed Gravelyn...he learned the VERY hard way that Gravelyn actually created an undead minion of her own...Chuckles!
  • Expecting Someone Taller: Vordred is Expecting Artix to be taller and with a deep voice
    • In Gravelyn's Doomwood Ending Gravelyn is also expecting the same thing
  • Expy: The Bone Sword and The Bone Axe are Expy's of The Necrotic Blade of Doom and The ShadowReaper of Doom from DragonFable. Character-wise, the Dracowerepyre is an Expy to NightBane and Discordia, who we are led to believe is the sixth Chaos Lord, is an Expy of Erik, The Phantom of the Opera.
    • Chainsaw Artix is an Expy of Ash from Evil Dead and at Friday the 13th there is a Quest called "Ebil Dread".
    • Twiggy Krueger is a Moglinster Expy of Freddy Krueger. The Story he is in is called "Nightmare on Twig's Street: The Dweam Swayers" which is a spoof to A Nightmare on Elm Street
    • Chaos Lord Ledgermayne is an Expy of Mysterio
    • Chaos Lord Vath is quite possibly an Expy of Dragon Master Frostscythe from DragonFable, since they're both elves (Drow and Half Ice Elf respectively), enslaves their dragons and uses a false Dragon Amulet (a genuine Dragon Amulet does not break).
    • The Winter-een-mas event has at least four Expies: the Snapper Shrubs are expies of the Piranha Plants from the Super Mario Bros. series, the Megadudes are expies of Mega Man (Classic), the Blue Hedgehogs are expies of Sonic the Hedgehog, and, of course, the main boss, the Orc Plumber, is an expy of Mario himself.
    • The Sandsea saga has Expies of Aladdin villains, with Zahart being one of Abis Mal and his minion Tibicenas, the eighth Lord of Chaos, being an expy of Genie Jafar.
    • Karag Battle Axe is an Expy of The Blinding Light of Destiny
    • Capt. 000000Beard looks similar to Davy Bones from DragonFable
    • Desoloth, Giant evil black dragon with a massive chin, orange effects all around him, and who wants to destroy the world. Sound familiar?
    • The L.O.S.E.R.s in J6's third mission resemble the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
  • Eyes Do Not Belong There: Drakath has an eye on his chest
  • Eye Scream: Constantine does this to the previous Werewolf King, plucking his eyes out with his claws.
  • Fan Disservice: In Chopping Maul, you really need not see two skeletons posing in lingerie displayed outside Mortisha's Secret...
  • Fanservice: Gravelyne's Slave Bikini which looks similar to Leia's Slave Bikini
  • Fantastic Racism: The theme for the Bloodtusk Ravine storyline, between the cultured trolls and the proud Horc warriors.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Noxus was replaced by Chuckles as a lich, and Gravelyn plans to give him to Cysero to become a new weapon for her.
  • First Town: The town of Battleon.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: Kimberly's Chaos Beast is a dragceratops(dragon/triceratops hybrid) known as 'Pony Gary Yellow'.
    • There is even Fluffy The Dracolich
  • Fog of Doom: Lionfang's defense against the hero in the 1st Birthday event is a fog that would kill anyone. Luckily, Gravelyn discovered that it didn't work on those who were already Undead.
  • Foreshadowing: Regarding Artix being the Champion of Darkness in Doomwood saga. To list: In the beginning, King Alteon doesn't want Artix to go near Doomwood fearing it might awaken his dark powers somehow. When meeting Sally in the Tower of Necromancy, she hinted that Artix was more than just a paladin and the key to Vordred's true invincibility. In Necro U, the lecturers mentioned the art of necromancy involving the Darkness Realm and trapping spirit orbs to reanimate the undead, meantime revealing Artix's axe having hosted multiple spirit orbs gained from slaying the undead. And finally, in the Temple of Doomwood, the Stone Paladin recalls Lady Celestia from DragonFable bringing in young Artix to the Paladin Order and his apparent inability to cast light spells as the Hero learns of elemental champions and Artix's "Paladin" abilities come from the spirit orbs from the undead he had slain.
    • Also, at the finale of the 2nd AQworlds Birthday Event, Mirror Drakath asks if his Chaos counterpart has a specific power. He was most likely talking about if Chaos Drakath can rip a hole into dimensions since he replaced Xang with her mirror counterpart.
  • Four Is Death: Kitsune is the fourth Chaos Lord plus he hails from the Japanese-themed Yokai Island. Makes perfect sense as the number four is considered unlucky in both Japanese and Chinese superstitions.
    • To defeat Ledgermayne, you need to collect four items of the Arcane Staff. It's subverted because the fourth item, the chaos gem, is shattered by Ledgermayne, and its particles are too weak to use against him. However his comeuppance is due when Drakath gives the Chaos Gem enough power to destroy him.
    • In the beginning of the Doomwood Saga there are four heroes: Artix, Beleen, Cysero and the hero itself. There's lots of drama and darkness as we find out about Artix's past.
  • Friendly Pirate: Captain Rhubarb is the franchise's main pirate and he is generally civil in talking to the Player and will also train them in becoming a pirate. The only unpleasant thing he ever does is throw the Player overboard if they answer the pirate quiz incorrectly, and even then he gives them a second chance once they make it back onto the ship.
  • Freeing the Genie: This was doubtless what Zhoom had in mind when he destroyed Zahart's ring. Unfortunately, Tibicenas had an agenda of his own even worse than what Zahart had planned. Whoops!
  • Fur Against Fang: The conflict between the vampires and werewolves of Darkovia.
  • Game-Breaker: The Omni Knight class, the final spell of which is a nuke that stacks on auto attacks - and can apparently hit so hard at maximum stacks that it turns a boss invisible and resets the encounter.
  • Gashadokuro: O-Dokuro, the Chaos Beast of the Yokai saga, is this kind of youkai.
  • Genius Loci: The aptly-named Living Dungeon is not one, but two colossal living things locked in a constant battle with one another.
  • Get on the Boat: To get to Akiba, the player has to take a ship in Loloisa.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Typically, anyone of substantial power when newly Chaorrupted, and sometimes after. The color of choice is purple.
  • Gratuitous Foreign Language: Vaxt Ahas literally means Time Snake. With "Vaxt" coming from Azerbaijani, meaning time, while "Ahas" means snake in Tagalog.
  • God of Evil: The Desterrat Moya.
  • Going to Give It More Energy: The hero's plan in the Arc Attack event basically amounts to doing this to Vordred in hopes of giving him too much power for him to handle. It doesn't work. In fact, because of this, Vordred is even MORE POWERFUL than before. Nice Job Breaking It, YOU IDIOT!
  • Good Angel, Bad Angel: The twins Xing and Xang, at least before they were chaorrupted by Drakath and became the second lords of Chaos.
  • Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Being a child friendly game, profanity is never used, with even words like "damn" getting you muted. Though the word "crap" gets used a lot in cutscenes.
  • Grandpa God: Role Playing Game, The God of Gaming from The Ctrl+Alt+Del Event
  • Green-Eyed Monster: In the final cutscene of the second birthday event, Artix becomes jealous of the hero for defeating Undead Artix and not even taking him to fight him. To be fair, Artix couldn't fight Undead Artix anyway because if he went to the Mirror Realm he'd have to switch places with him.
  • Halloween Episode: Mogloween.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: After you bring Grams back in the Mogloween event Yulgar's Mother, she says these words. The story for Grams was released on November 25th, 2011. King Alteon formally falls to chaos and is slain by the Hero on October 24, 2013.
    Grams: Oh... Oh my dear. OH! *gasp* Your Grams will be alright. If the King can hold on... So can I! Now that I see you again, I won't ever leave.
  • Healing Hands: Gee, I wonder what the Healer Class does?
    • As well as Paladins. The Undead Slayer can also heal, but only himself, and only by using Spirit Orbs.
  • Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Just like any other Artix Entertainment game, including its newly-released sister game HeroSmash, you can choose what your character's name will be. In the game, however, the character in question is referred to simply as The Hero.
  • Hero Killer: Vordred, the Paladin Slayer. He's killed every High Paladin there is except one. (Well, two actually. There was one other that survived, but he was turned to stone.) See Last of His Kind for details.
  • Heroic Mime: The Hero in all Live-Events can't talk, who seemed bugged by this fact. As George Lowe soon explains, "We're all reading our lines... You gotta read your own."
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Elim in the 2012 Frostval event, as well as Athon, both to stop the towering Kezeroth the World Ender.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: King Alteon pulls this off to save the hero from Sepulchure's attempt to kill him/her in the alternate past created by Drakath during Doomwood Part 2.
  • Hidden Agenda Villain: Invidia, the newest Skyguard private, and the Dreamweaver, Master's Dragon, look familiar... they both have the same tiara, green eyes, and ominous smile. In fact, Invidia is actually, in fact, Dreamweaver herself, and she is working with Drakath.
  • Homage: Escherion and parts of Chiral Valley is based on M.C. Escher and his artwork.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight:
    • The "preview" fight with Vordred early on in Doomwood, which basically cancels out anything the players do to him.
      • When the player gets to the Necro Tower they soon know why: Sally from DragonFable has summoned Noxus and used her magic to bring back Vordred to be invulnerable to light-based magic. It's ultimately revealed that this invulnerability comes from the armor of skulls that he wears and the regenerative abilities of his Shadow form, and only by destroying the armor with Spirit Orbs and pinning down his Shadow is Vordred finally able to be defeated.
    • Your first battle against Drakath himself in the Chaos Realm (which was relocated to Mount DoomSkull).
    • And later, your first fight with Tyndarius in the Firestorm Forge (after that, though, you can fight him normally and get a sword drop from him).
    • In J6's Fear House, Akriloth's Head is unbeatable. It has a level of 99, 5 star rating, and health of 816,620. You only complete the quest by lowering Akriloth's HP to 85%, but strictly speaking you never beat it.
    • During the Fire War saga, you fight Akriloth again, and much like your first battle with him in Dragonfable, it's not designed to be winnable. His stats this time are truly off the scale: level 99, 5-star rating, health of 819,830,969, and his attacks do obscene amounts of damage — 177,383 to 180,259 damage, enough to drop even a high-tier max-level hero in one shot. Thankfully, the rematch puts him down to a much more manageable level so the hero can actually defeat him.
  • Humiliation Conga: So far, only a few villains have actually died. The rest have just been defeated and left with an unpleasant fate.
    • Escherion: The hero reflected his inversion spell back at him, inverting his powers, which eventually led to him turning himself into a frog.
    • Vath: After the hero threw his Legendary Sword of Dragon Control at his Chaos Dragon Amulet, destroying them both, he was betrayed by Stalagbite, who then carried him away from the Dwarfhold mountains to an unknown fate.
    • Kitsune: Got sucked into the rift leading him back to the Yokai world, after which the hero closed up the rift with the Hanzamune Dragon Koi Blade, sealing him inside.
    • Wolfwing: Got reduced to a pile of dust by an arrow fired at him by Shadowslayer Z. However, the Mystic Wolf Moon is slowly restoring his remains.
    • Discordia: His mask fell off and he revealed that he wasn't actually a Chaos Lord, he was actually hypnotized and controlled by Kimberly. Kimberly, the true Chaos Lord, was defeated when the Chaos Ear Worm was knocked out of her head.
    • Ledgermayne: Got converted back into the raw magic floating in the Para-Elemental Plane of Magic from which it was made by the Supreme Arcane Staff after Drakath focused his energy into it, replacing the shattered Chaos Focus Gem.
    • Tibicenas: Got stripped of all his Djinn powers by the Efreet, leaving him with only his Chaos powers, before what remained of him was destroyed by the Hero. This is the first Chaos Lord to actually die.
    • Krellonos: Was brutally slain by his sister, Khassandra, making him the second Chaos Lord to die. Khassandra took his place as Chaos Lord, though she is on the Hero's side now.
    • Maximilian Lionfang: After his second defeat following his Kick the Dog moment of burning the Frostval gifts and his futile attempt to kill the Spirit of Frostval by knocking the snow globe out of the hero's hands and shattering it, he was remanded to Swordhaven's dungeon after witnessing her return much to his own shock and disbelief.
    • Noxus: Vordred is called away by Sally after it is learned that Arc Attack is in town, leaving Noxus alone with Gravelyn. Then he gets knocked right off the Shadowscythe throne by Chuckles, the only undead who he didn't create for her father (he was Gravelyn's first creation), who then frees Gravelyn. Gravelyn then promptly takes back control of the undead army that Noxus was going to use to finish off the assembled heroes and allows you to pass so you can kick his ass. Then, after you defeat him, Gravelyn cracks him one in the face when he tells you he cannot be killed, and then the Hero, during his or her conversation with Gravelyn about Vordred and Arc Attack, smacks Noxus down each time he tries to rise again, and then Gravelyn gives Chuckles a promotion by swapping his skull with Noxus', proceeding to deliver a Shout-Out to Hamlet while doing so. And then she plans to have Noxus' skull used to create a weapon for her...by Cysero. Tough break, bonehead!
    • Vordred: After a furious battle with Artix and the Hero, in which Vordred is stripped of his armor of skulls by Artix's power over Spirit Orbs and the Hero's furious battle prowess, Vordred's shadow is pinned down by Artix's shadow (a gigantic black dragon), while the Hero takes him down; Vordred gets his comeuppance in one of four major ways, depending on who you had Cysero and Beleen send for:
      • In Gravelyn's ending, Vordred is finished off with the weapon Gravelyn had made from the skull of Noxus, furthering Noxus' own conga and making Vordred's end suitably ironic.
      • In Vayle's ending, Vordred tries for one last shot at Artix and the Hero, but is stopped by Vayle, who is determined to be The Only One Allowed To Defeat Artix.
      • In Zorbak's ending, Zorbak lands right on top of Vordred and drives him down into the dirt. He then plans to have Vordred's skull made into a throne for his collection.
      • And finally, in Daimyo's ending, Daimyo pretty much does the same thing as Zorbak. 'Cept, you know, without having his skull made into a throne. Vordred's skull is instead given to Sally by Drakath in one of his rare Pet the Dog moments.
    • The Collector: As punishment for treating the Hero, kid Drakath, and the Johns of TMBG like collectibles, he himself ends up being trapped in a larger case by another, much larger collector. And to add to the conga, he, without the Vigilette, doesn't have enough focus to leave said case.
  • Hornet Hole: The Beehive area in Mythsong Canyon. Home of the Stinger and Killer Queen Bee monsters.
  • I Am Legion: The Overlord Doom Blade houses several darkness elementals
  • Ice King: Dead Morice
  • Idiot Hero: You would be surprised with some actions your character does in cutscenes.
    • Appears to be endemic to Paladins in Doomwood, judging by how many of them were defeated with the "Your shoes are untied" ploy note .
      • And you do this to Artix himself when stopping him from entering Doomwood. Idiot Hero indeed.
      • Of course, this was lampshaded by Lady Vayle once Artix was put into jail.
  • Impossible Item Drop: Countless monster drop items and gear. A lot of it makes sense, like skeletons dropping bone weapons or dragons dropping wings, some of it doesn't like how do certain monsters happen to be carrying swords or armor?
  • Informed Equipment
  • Item Farming: Want the coolest armor/weapons/gear/classes? Your options are either; killing countless of the same monsters to stack up that resource you need to merge, or keep killing that same boss for hours on end until you get that prized 1% boss drop rarity gear.
  • High Collar of Doom: Gravelyn
    • Some Heroes can also be this
    • The Mirror Realm version of Drakath also has one
  • Hurricane of Puns:
    • The hurricane of puns are a bit hard to handle when the serious cutscenes play.
    • The Pungeon Master NPCs can also be that way too...
  • Inaction Sequence/Kamehame Hadoken: Parodied with Ryoku's Soul Nuke from the Kitsune saga, which he ultimately never gets to use because he's knocked out by the hero at the end of the saga just as he's finally ready to cut loose.
    • In the final battle against Vordred, Artix uses a Dragon Lance made up of every spirit orb he's collected from every undead he's killed, and the Hero has to hold Vordred off long enough to finish powering up. It doesn't work, but the spirit orbs he frees by doing this can't be re-enslaved, and by detonating them, he destroys a sizable amount of his armor, which you then have to fight to destroy more of until it's all the way off.
  • Inevitable Tournament: The Hero has to fight in the Dragon Koi tournament to help Ai no Miko.
  • In Medias Res: The January 2012 Friday the 13th Event takes place late in the evening and then plays through what happened to get there.
  • Invisibility: The hero ones uses an invisibility cloak to eavesdrop on Vath. Kitsune also has this ability.
  • Irony Apparently the paladin Artix, who is actually an Undead Slayer due to his inability to use light-based magic, is the Champion of Darkness, while the Empress of the Shadowscythe and Doomknight Gravelyn is the Champion of Light. yeah....what?
  • Jackass Genie: Millenia ago, Tibicenas, the eighth Chaos Lord, tried to become as powerful as the Efreet by playing with Chaos magic, but the Efreet caught him and cast him out of the Djinn world. Ever since then, all that matters to Tibicenas is revenge against the Efreet for making him spend all of his millenia as an outcast, and he is willing to fight against him to do just that. And that's not all - according to the Efreet, Tibicenas' pride is unbelievable, and therefore, the Efreet can't believe such a chaorrupted Djinn can contend with his power.
  • Job System: This game allows you to acquire and max out as many classes as you wish. You can only use one class at a time and cannot change classes mid-battle, and while there is some overlap of skills between classes, you are limited to the skills of your current class, and cannot pick and choose skills from different classes like with other "job systems". Stats are also tied to class, and are modified by Enhancements placed on items. As a result, changing classes often means changing items as well, but considering that there are only a set number of enhancement categories, it's not hard for most players to put together some given "sets" for their general needs.
  • Jungle Japes: Bloodtusk Ravine.
  • Just Add Water: You can combine a couple of items in the merge shops to get new weapons, armor, etc.
  • Kaizo Trap: Grimskull's dungeon has a death pit hidden in front of the shopkeeper of the gift shop at the end. Thankfully, you respawn at the start of the room without losing any progress. And then subverted in that, technically speaking, it's not the end of the dungeon; there's an entire second half if you know where to look.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: There are a couple of katana weapons in the game. Most notably is the Hanzamune Dragon Koi Blade, which is one of the drops upon defeating Kitsune and plays an important part in the Akiba saga.
  • Killed Off for Real:
    • The Hero and Drakath killed Ledgermayne in the climax of the Arcangrove saga.
    • Krellonos is killed by Khassandra and stole his power
    • Averted with Tibicenas and Saahir since Tibicenas states that djinn cannot be killed and will return in a few thousand years.
    • In the Swordhaven sage, King Alteon succumbs to the chaorruption and kills his own daughter, Brittany. He is also Mercy Killed later on, at his own request.
    • A lot of people die during the 13th Lord of Chaos saga, including Farmer Northrup at the hands of a Chaorrupted Southwick, Safiria and her vampires at the hands of the Werewolves, Stalagbite (twice) at the hands of Drakath and his forces, The Hero themselves at the hands of Drakath (though he or she gets better), Death himself at the hands of the Hero, Vordred (for only how long this time) one-shotted by Drakath, Khasaanda and Frogerion killed by Drakath, and Drakath himself finally taken down by the Hero (we think, anyway).
  • Killer Rabbit: Nulgath's Ugly Cute Moglin minions, the Dark Makai, as well as Sally, who brought Noxus Back from the Dead and helped create Vordred.
  • Klingon Promotion: A new Werewolf King is crowned when someone challenges and kills the current Werewolf King in ritual combat.
    • This turns out to be Vordred's reason for wanting to kill Artix. Because Artix is the Champion of Darkness, and Vordred wants to take his title and his power.
    • This is how the Hero becomes the new Death during the Chaos Finale.

    L to R 
  • Lady of War: Gravelyn was shaping up to be one in the Doomwood/Shadowfall war. Until she learned the hard way that Noxus created her father's undead army.
    • And then she takes back control of said undead army after Chuckles, her very first undead minion, frees her.
  • Large Ham: Professor Iadoa, the Chronocorruptor villain of the 2012 New Year's event.
  • Laser Blade: The colored Star Swords that are released for a limited time only. Come in Blue, Red, Gold and Onyx, and Platinum.
  • Last of His Kind:Thanks to PaladinSlayer Vordred turning almost every High Paladin into his undead minions, Artix has become his last target. Even though lesser paladins—like Yara for instance—still exist, they probably wouldn't be able to harness the same strength and power Artix has. And that's not even the half of it, according to Sally, Artix is much more than a Paladin: Artix is the Champion of Darkness, come to Lore long ago to destroy it. But Artix chose the path of Good rather than Evil, and has sworn never to use his Darkness powers, instead becoming an Undead Slayer! If Vordred were to defeat him, he'd be UNSTOPPABLE.
  • Laughably Evil: Zorbak, the 100% Ebil Moglin. Nuff said.
    • Also, Escherion gets a rather funny moment at the end of the Chiral Valley arc when the hero uses the mirror he/she found in the Cornelis Ruins to reflect his inversion spell right back at him and make him invert his own powers, causing him to suffer the Humiliation Conga of using his own spells on himself and eventually polymorph himself into a harmless frog.
    • Drakath is starting to do a lot of this as the Chaos Saga reaches its end.
  • Law of Chromatic Superiority: The DoomKnights and Berserkers whom are the most powerful classes plus they are Red.
    • This is no longer true after the release of a few Cash Op classes that are powerful enough to kill bosses in a single hit.
      • Well you can become powerful and dressed in Red
      • Now there is the Doom Knight Overlord Class which is a red Cash Op Class
  • Lawful Stupid: Maximilian Lionfang, his brother Xavier, and their followers of the Golden Onslaught.
    • In addition, there's the Inquisitors and Crusaders of the Citadel quests, who believe that Magic Is Evil and must be destroyed, but who are actually siphoning magic from their victims for the Grand Inquisitor's own use. Also, the Grand Inquisitor is summoning a nasty demon by the name of Belrot to do his dirty work.
  • Lethal Lava Land: Stalagbite Volcano.
  • Level Ate: Twig's dreamworld is made out of fish and ice-cream. Beleen's Dream Island has chocolate roads, a Sriracha hot sauce river, marshmallow plants, and a mountain made out of Red Velvet Cake.
  • Light/Darkness Juxtaposition: In "Doomwood Saga", it's established that each of the elements possesses a champion, with Artix being one of said Champions. But in an ironic twist, it's revealed Artix is the Champion of Darkness and he was created to end the world (though he refused this destiny). Further revelations then establish that Sepulchure's daughter, Gravelyn, who stepped up as Empress of the Shadowscythe after her father's demise, is the Champion of Light. Nature Versus Nurture again arises, where both Champions defy their chosen destines and choose to go in the opposite direction, with Artix fighting for good and Gravelyn continuing her path of evil.
  • Light 'em Up: Artix has the power to use Paladin magic since he's an Undead Slayer, manifesting as spirit orbs.
  • Light Is Not Good:
    • Xang The Angel Twin when Drakath transforms her she is shown to be more evil then Xing The Devil Twin. This is due mainly to the Chaorrupted Xang being the evil Mirror Realm counterpart of the original Xang, which Drakath yanked from the Mirror Realm.
    • The evil heroes wearing/using light items. You can even buy and use stuff from Artix's Paladin shop even if you're evil.
    • Captain Stratos's now-rare Skyguard Outfitters shop have items that even Evil characters can buy and wear/use. Exos, Stratos's Evil Twin, wears Skyguard gear.
  • Literal Genie: Tibicenas is a chaorrupted Djinn living in the Djinn world and controlled by the main villain of the Sandsea storyline, Zahart. In fact, this Djinn is responsible for the unnatural wind that revealed that the Sandsea's oasis community was just part of a much larger town once devoured by the sands and forgotten by the people. Zahart can summon and give commands to Tibicenas at any time by using a magic ring.
    • Not to mention, in the "Sek-Duat Caught" cutscene, Sek-Duat mentions that the hero can only defeat Tibicenas with a Djinn of his/her own that he/she can get at the Cave of Wanders, although Sek-Duat is secretly plotting to obtain the Djinn's lamp for himself.
    • Let's add Xing and Xang on our list; the Hero tries to ask 5 questions and they do that, but it's not what the Hero had in mind. Specifically, the last question they took was the Hero's shocked 'What?' even though it really didn't count as a question.
  • Loads and Loads of Sidequests
  • Locomotive Level: The Ghost Train from the May 2011 Friday the 13th Event.
  • Love Redeems: In an Alternate Universe, Sepulchure is unable to kill the Champion of Light - his daughter Gravelyn - because of the love he has for her. Unfortunately, this leads to Redemption Equals Death.
  • Mage Killer:
  • Magical Girl: Alina invokes this trope in the cutscene before entering the Poison Forest / Lionfort map where you fight Maximilian Lionfang's brother, Xavier.
  • Magic Knight: Any magic user class that wields swords, daggers, axes (but not staffs) are this.
  • Make My Monster Grow: Amira 2.0 gets a moment like this when she short-circuits after King kisses her after claiming her as his wife.
  • Man Behind the Man: Actually, in this case, Woman Behind the Man. Kimberly qualifies as this because she used Discordia as her proxy.
  • Mineral MacGuffin: Vath forces the Dwarves to harvest Gemeralds So he can use them to unleash the Chaos Beast Rock Roc.
  • Minigame Zone: The Shamrock Festival. You could play carnival games to gain Gold tickets and trade them for weapons, pets, armor, etc.
  • Multiple Endings: The Doomwood saga has multiple endings, depending on who you have Cysero and Beleen send for, and whether you choose to help Artix or betray him.
    • If you send for Gravelyn, she arrives after Vordred's defeat just as he's about to finish you off at the last minute, and finishes him off with the weapon that she had made from Noxus' skull. She offers to make Artix the commander of all her undead legions as the Champion of Darkness, but Artix, as an Undead Slayer and a sworn champion of King Alteon and the cause of Good, refuses. Gravelyn swears that once Drakath is finished, she will finish what her father started. She then hands the Noxus Head Staff to the Hero, ensuring that it will be in good hands from now on.
    • If you send for Vayle, after finishing off Vordred and protecting the Hero and Artix, she demands that she and Artix end things right here, right now. The Hero and Artix explain that her brother was an undead abomination, and when she explains about the crystal, an unexpected guest arrives to clear the matter — the Spirit Orb of Vayle's lost brother, Edward. He explains that there was no way he could have been resurrected and both of them knew it, and he thanks the Hero and Artix for allowing him the chance to redeem himself before passing peacefully into the afterlife. But don't count on a Heel–Face Turn from Vayle anytime soon — she devoted her life to necromancy to try to bring her brother back, and she's still mad at Artix — in fact, she vows that the next time they meet, they will be mortal enemies. Can't win 'em all, I guess...
    • If you send for Zorbak, he ends up stomping Vordred right into the dirt. He then plans on making Vordred's head into a throne for himself. Turns out he wants to add the throne to his collection, which includes Drakonnan's helmet. The hero and Zorbak then talk about the other elemental champions, in particular the question about who is the Champion of Light if Artix is the Champion of Darkness. The hero has an idea who it might be, which leads us to...
    • If you send for Daimyo, we get the real ending, where Daimyo basically does the same thing to Vordred as Zorbak, minus the making of Vordred's head into a throne. The Hero tries to give the Shadowscythe Amulet to Artix, but Artix tells you that you can keep it, as you are the one person that he trusts the most. We then cut to Sally, who has lost all of her friends, looking pretty down about herself. Then Drakath arrives. Sally asks if he's going to make her a Chaos Lord, and Drakath says no. He then gives her Vordred's skull. Sally is overjoyed by this, and plans to bring back the original Necropolis — as well as Vordred. We'll be hearing from them again.
    • And finally, if you betray Artix, you stab him (quite literally) in the back with your weapon and kill him as you declare that you are joining Vordred, with Artix's last words being "I'm sorry...everyone..." and Vordred saying something to the effect of "That was unexpected." This leads to the Bad Ending as Vordred becomes the Champion of Darkness and unleashes a Zombie Apocalypse upon Lore, shortly after rewarding you as you very much deserve by killing you and turning you into an undead. Then the game seemingly ends, telling you that the villain has won, with the adventure continuing in "Adventure Quest Worlds: Zombies." Then the credits roll before the game gives you a "Time warp...?" button to bring you back into the game.
      • The game further rubs things in with the description for the Backstab Blade in the Bad Ending shop: "How COULD you? Artix was your friend. He TRUSTED you! I hope you're happy now. Traitor."
  • My God, What Have I Done?:
    • Nythera says this due to the fact that the Void Giant she summoned to the Void Temple for her third and final challenge for the "Test of the Suitor" is out of control and is attempting to destroy the temple.
    • Sokrakiis mutters this when he finds out that Khassandra turn dark because of them, and that because of their feud they are going to lose three members of their own tribe to chaos.
    • The Swordhaven Wedding saga has a truly heartbreaking one on the part of King Alteon, 12th Lord of Chaos, who in his Chaos-induced madness struck down his own daughter Brittany.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast:
    • Vampire Lord Incubus his name sounds like the male lust demon Incubus
    • And to Paladins of all sorts: Vordred, the Paladin Slayer.
    • Faust as well.
    • Kezeroth the World Ender.
  • Narrator: George Lowe in some areas.
  • Unwitting Pawn:
    • The player tends to help the various villains and Chaos Lords further their plans, either through blunder, misinformation, or by being tricked.
    • In the Sandsea arc Zhoom is the one who causes this. By shooting an arrow through Zahart's ring, the gem controlling Tibicenas is destroyed and the djinn is free...Free to take over Sandsea and has brainwashed Zahart to be his slave. Even the player notes that what Zhoom did didn't help.
    • In the Arc Attack live event. The player decides to help Arc Attack by channeling electrical power to destroy Vordred....only to wind up making the already powerful undead badass EVEN MORE POWERFUL! Whoops...
    • The worst one yet is when the Hero freed Desoloth from his prison. To be fair, the children's nursery tale made Desoloth appear to be a good soul, not a great consumer. Nice job breaking it indeed.
    • Desoloth is a dracolich. A powerful Chaos dracolich under Drakath's direct control. Maybe killing him in the name of ending his threat to Lore wasn't such a great idea after all.
  • Nigh-Invulnerability: Vordred's armor of skulls.
  • Ninja Maid: Female heroes in the Butler & Maid outfit.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The developers tend to have fun chaining together adjectives and nouns. Most notably there's the Dracowerepyre — a Dragon, werewolf, vampire hybrid. They briefly toyed with making it a cyborg as well.
    • Desolich, the Undead Chaos Dragon that used to be the most powerful dragon in all of existence.
  • No Fourth Wall: Countless characters have acknowledged they are in a game, including the Hero.
  • Non-Mammal Mammaries: All female players have ample bosoms... even those that aren't really human.
  • Nonstandard Game Over: In the final Vordred Boss Fight, one option allows the Hero to betray Artix by backstabbing him, having decided to join Vordred. Vordred then proceeds to absorb Artix's darkness power and gets set to turn the whole world undead. The Hero asks if Vordred would spare him/her, but Vordred states the Hero would be the first. The game then gives a game over screen saying Vordred had won, and the game would be continued in "AQW Zombies" now that Vordred had zombified the whole world, followed by credits listing every character. Then a button appears saying "Time Warp?" which goes back to before the boss battle.
  • Nothing Can Stop Us Now!:
    • Ledgermayne says this after it breaks the Chaos Focus Gem, although it, according to the hero, didn't check to make sure there were no shards left from the gem to be accepted into the Supreme Arcane Staff. And when this doesn't prove to be enough, Drakath himself steps in to grant the Hero the necessary power to destroy Ledgermayne.
    • Noxus (or at least words to this effect) when he reveals that the forces the heroes defeated during the Shadowfall war were his own army, and that he still has Gravelyn's own undead army ready to finish them off — and then Sally calls Vordred away, Chuckles knocks Noxus off the Shadowscythe throne, Gravelyn is freed and takes back control of her army, allowing the heroes to defeat him.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Artix, like most Paladins, are eager to jump in and just maim any Undead out there. However, Artix is shown to be very caring for the spirits he 'slays' and they in return help him use Paladin Magic since he is an Undead Slayer.
  • Obviously Evil: Drakath, Sepulchure, Dage the Evil, Miltonius/Nulgath, the Black Knight, Gressil, King Alteon the Imbalanced (a.k.a. Mirror Alteon), Undead Artix, Vertigo, Nyctox, Thanatops, FEAR, Lord Krom Wrath, Vordred, Noxus, and Xan.
  • Off with His Head!: You do this to Undead Artix in the post-battle cutscene during the 2nd Birthday Event.
  • Offered the Crown: After the defeat of Tibicenas, the Hero is offered rulership of the Sandsea. The Hero still has a lot of enemies to defeat, so he or she hands over the crown to Zhoom.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Spoofed in one part of the 2010 Friday the 13th Event. George Lowe mentions that there was an epic chase sequence with One-Eyed Doll.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Vath gets this when the hero uses his/her Accidental Aiming Skills to throw his Legendary Sword of Dragon Control into his Chaos Dragon Amulet and destroy them both, and when he realizes that Stalagbite has turned against him.
    • Zahart also gets one when he sees that Zhoom has destroyed his magic ring, just before Tibicenas brainwashes his former master into his new slave after being free via destruction of the ring.
    • We also have Artix, who gets one when he notices the Fear Feeder, starting to quiver in fear afterwards. That's rather unusual for a paladin, even though he usually only fears the color pink. (See the Fridge page for an explanation).
    • Discordia, Ledgermayne, Tibicenas, and Ultra-Tibicenas get quite a hilarious "Oh, Crap!" look on their faces once they're out of hit points.
      • To be fair, that's because Ledgermayne, Tibicenas, and Ultra-Tibicenas were built on Discordia. The face that is shown when they're defeated is the same face he uses when he's screaming and when he's defeated.
    • And Gravelyn has gotten one when Noxus and Vordred take over her entire army of undead in the prelude to the big Shadowfall War.
    • King gets this kind of face when Amira 2.0 short-circuits and grows to giant size after he kisses her after claiming her as his wife.
    • The hero's reaction (despite not changing expressions) to seeing that Galanoth has lost his arm due to it being bitten off by Desoloth.
      • And again when he/she realizes that the tomb it found belongs to King Alteon's wife, Lynaria, whom Sepulchure was trying to bring back with Doom weapons.
    • Everybody trapped at the bottom of the Necropolis cavern gets this reaction when Lynaria's tomb partially grants Gravelyn's wish for her father to come back. And Sally and Noxus get this reaction when they see Chaos Vordred getting easily demolished by what appears to be Sepulchure, but isn't. Finally, everybody gets this reaction again when they realize that Drakath gives Lynaria's tomb the power to fully grant Gravelyn's wish, leading to a question of what things would've been if Drakath hadn't interrupted the battle between King Alteon and Sepulchure in the beginning of the game.
  • Ominous Floating Castle: Sepulchure's famous castle was this...until Drakath crashed it down.
  • One-Steve Limit: Some players will have similar names to the other players
  • One-Winged Angel:
    • Deady does this in the 2011 Friday the 13th event when Lord Krom Wrath calls him pathetic for hiding in his teddy-bear disguise, insulting him for his lack of a sense of style and complying with his desire to see his true form before doing so. When the player asks why he doesn't do it all the time, Deady mentions that it's hard to get his real form back to the bear outfit.
    • Midway through the final showdown with Baron Luca in the 2011 Mogloween event, he takes on a monstrous form that would make Dracula proud.
  • Orcus on His Throne: Drakath Well so far he did leave his throne in The Arcangrove Saga
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Lots of Dragons out there. Also, another one of the main themes of Etherstorm Wastes.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Safiria, any players wearing vampire armors, Vampire Lord Incubus, and Baron Luca.
  • Our Hero Is Dead: Starts off early in the Doomwood arc when the hero's unfortunate encounter with the Nigh Invulnerable PaladinSlayer Vordred, turning him/her into his undead slave... Only to be revived by Vayle who has her own agenda against Artix.
  • Overly Long Gag: Zorbak going "Whoa whoa whoa" on the implication that the player has a talking Book of Lore and using said book to DEVOUR a book that hold secrets man should not know about.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Literally when disguising the hero to infiltrate the undead army in and finding out their leader in Doomwood, by wearing a paper bag with a skull doodled on it over his/her head. Too bad Vordred has Detect Living.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • Kitsune towards his fellow Yokai.
    • Zahart towards Tibicenas until Zhoom frees him and he enslaves him.
    • Drakath, in one of his rare moments of kindness, gives Sally Vordred's skull.
    • Xavier Lionfang to his pet lion Silverclaw.
  • Plant Person: Ledgermayne's appearance.
  • Port Town: Lolosia, where one can get the Pirate Class and catch a ferry to Akiba.
  • Power Gives You Wings: In the case of Gravelyn, angelic ones.
  • The Power of Rock:
    • The Bard class and the general theme of the Mythsong saga in general.
    • The Arc Attack event also uses this...FOR SCIENCE!
    • Kimberly of One-Eyed Doll is capable of unleashing a sonic screech in the 2012 Mogloween Event.
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Twilly's "Hey, you're right! It's not the dark that Twilly is afraid of at all!" causes Nyctox to suffer a Critical Existence Failure, letting out a hilariously priceless high-pitched Big "NO!" in the process.
  • Precision F-Strike: Even though this is a game meant for everyone to play, at least one certain slightly profane word that starts with C is allowed in-game, especially being used in cutscenes. For example, whenever the hero has to face Lord Balax'el for the second and third times:
    Hero: (as Lord Balax'el appears before him/her again) ...Ah, crap.
  • Prestige Class: Once a hero gets rank 10 in either Healer, Rogue, Mage and Warrior, they can become either an Acolyte, Renegade, Sorcerer or Warlord. Also, if one has the Shaman class, they can become Evolved Shaman.
  • Protagonist Without a Past: The original beginning cutscene shows the character on the cliff that is struck by lightning...then spends about a minute falling down the mountainside before going to the first part of the game.
  • Pun: This game and the hero both like using these things, ranging from "It has been a toad-ally un-frog-ettable experience!" to "Prepare to meet... YOUR LOLSUIT!!" to "It's the gift that keeps on giving."
  • Punny Name: All the knights of the Pactagonal table from clever names like Sir Pass to silly ones like Sir Vivor
  • Puppy-Dog Eyes: Nythera does these a lot in her own wedding event, and for good reasons.
  • Purple Is the New Black: Purple is the color choice for the forces of Chaos.
  • Red and Black and Evil All Over:
    • Gravelyn, leader of the Evil faction and the Shadow Scythe, has red hair, red armor and a black cape.
    • The Hero has the option to subvert this or play it straight.
    • EbilCorp is Red and Black and Ebil All Over
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning:
    • Vath, when he realizes his drow soldiers are losing the battle. Possibly his only break from being something of a Smug Snake, before he fights the hero.
    • Gravelyn and Safiria also get these when they're good and pissed.
    • The Beastmaker has these as the only part of him shown as the rest of his body is completely hidden and shadowed.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni:
    • Cysero is Red (but wears Green), and Warlic is and wears Blue (He's also known as the Blue Mage). Ironically, in the Mirror World event, Cysero IS wearing Red (But now has a Blue Oni personality) and Warlic still wears blue (But is more of a Red).
    • An Interesting case can be The Hero who acts Red to some NPCs while acting as The Blue to Cysero's and Kimberly's Red. Ironically in the Pandarium Asylum event, Kimberly is the blue to Cysero's Red.
  • Redeeming Replacement: The Good Hero can act as one to any villain and with Doom Knight Overlord Class the hero can act as one to Sepulchure
  • Redemption Equals Death: In an Alternate Universe, Sepulchure sacrifices himself to save his daughter Gravelyn when Drakath attacks her.
  • Redemption Rejection:
    • When the hero makes the Good choice of trying to convince Lionfang to do the right thing by considering what he's doing and leaving the Frostval Spirit out of the mess he's making, Lionfang rejects the opportunity to redeem himself by performing his Kick the Dog moment of burning the gifts, which causes Blizzy to let loose a Big "NO!" and the hero to hit him with a This Is Unforgivable!. Then after his defeat his Chaotic side kicks in as he crosses the Moral Event Horizon by knocking the snow globe containing the spirit out of the hero's hands and shattering it and lays bare his intent to make the world suffer for surrendering to Evil by destroying Frostval. Fortunately, the Frostval Spirit cannot be killed, and the spirit reveals that she represents the kindness, charity, peace, and generosity that everyone else has, trying to justify that all of it exists even within Lionfang. Even so, he still continues his rampage, especially in the Thunderforge saga. Tough break, spirit.
    • In one of the endings of the Doomwood saga, Lady Vayle saves Artix and the Hero from Vordred, then demands to have it out with Artix as revenge for her brother. Artix explains how her brother was an undead abomination at the time, and when she brings up the issue of the crystal that Artix destroyed, the Spirit Orb of her lost brother shows up. As her brother explains to her how there was no chance of her being able to resurrect him and that what she did was wrong, Vayle is very much affected emotionally by things. But after the Spirit Orb leaves for the afterlife, does Vayle take the opportunity to mend things with Artix? Not a chance in hell. She tells Artix that this changes nothing between them, that he ruined an entire life that was dedicated to necromancy to try to bring her brother back, and that the next time they meet, it will be as mortal enemies. Tough break, Artix.
  • Resurrection/Death Loop: the "4d Pyramid" event has the The Hero being put through one that overlaps with a Stable Time Loop. Due to the strange nature of the Eldritch Location, it is possible for people to encounter versions of themselves from the recent future or past. "Future You" acts as the Quest Giver for the present Hero based on what they were told by the previous future version of themselves. This allows them to slowly progress through the Eldritch Location to collect an item called "Eye of the Gods", one million times. However going through each cycle, it results in you getting exposed to a deadly plague which kills you. Fortunately, the sarcophagus you woke up in at the start of the event conveniently revives anything put into it. So the Hero of the past, under the instruction of their future self, will put continue putting their future remains in the sarcophagus that will bring them back to life and allow them to continue the cycle again.
  • Revenge:
    • Tibicenas' motivation against the Efreet for all the years he made him spend as an outcast after kicking him out of the Djinn world.
    • Vayle is very pissed at Artix for breaking the crystal that had her brother's spirit inside.
    • And Gravelyn wants Drakath taken down for killing her father Sepulchure.
    • Khassandra wants to kill Drakath for causing the grief in Bloodtusk Ravine.
  • The End... Or Is It?:
    • Shadowslayer Z killed Wolfwing and he's now ashes, no longer able to hurt anyone....well, until the Moon shone on the ashes and a pair of eyes were seen.
    • After Vordred is defeated, Drakath gives his skull to Sally, who promises to make him more powerful than ever, which she does in Doomwood Part II.
  • The Reveal: Oh so many for the Doomwood saga.
    • Artix's axe is just an ordinary axe powered up with spirit orbs from the undead he's killed. His real power comes from being an Undead Slayer, whose sworn duty it is to free the spirits of the undead from their bondage by using the power of their orbs to destroy them.
    • Turns out Noxus was responsible for the creation of the Dracolich fortress of Shadowfall, played a part in the creation of Sepulchure, Gravelyn's father, and the creation of the Shadowscythe Empire's undead army. Oh, Crap!!
    • It's revealed that Chuckles was created by Gravelyn herself, her first undead minion, making him immune to Noxus' Villain Override!
    • Doomwood's final reveal: Artix is the Champion of Darkness, but he's sworn to uphold the cause of Good, and never to use his darker powers for evil. Instead of being a Paladin though, he was trained to be what is known as an Undead Slayer.
    • In the Skyguard update, Invidia reveals to the Hero that she's actually Exos' Dreamweaver in disguise. Turns out she was being controlled by Exos the whole time, and is actually very remorseful for it.
    • It's revealed that the Dreamweaver, a.k.a. Invidia, is actually working for Drakath himself.
    • At the end of the Doom War, it's revealed that the Champion of Light is none other than Gravelyn, and that this is the reason that Sepulchure kept her a secret.
    • The big reveals of the 13th Lord of Chaos saga, namely that the 13th Lord of Chaos is none other than YOU, and that you are the Eternal Dragon of Time reborn.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Vordred's "reward" if you betray Artix during the final battle is to be the first to be made into an undead as he unleashes a Zombie Apocalypse upon Lore.
  • Riddle of the Sphinx: The design notes mention this trope. Of course, they say that the only riddle the Chaos Sphinx, the seventh Chaos Beast, provides is how to survive its brutal onslaught.
    • The description for the Chaos Sphinx pet that it drops is also related to the Riddle of the Sphinx, as it says, "Riddle me this, riddle me that, isn't this the most chaotic sphinx pet you ever did pat?"
  • Robo Speak: Ledgermayne speaks in a calm and cool computerized fashion, something like a Machine Monotone, and even refers to itself as "we" or as "this form."
  • Robot Girl: The female hero when wearing the Prometheus armor.
  • Rock Bottom: Once the hero completes the Runix Cube and goes to Escherion the hero stupidly tosses the cube at Escherion, believing it will somehow defeat him. Unfortunately, they just gave Escherion the key item to summon the Hydra and are soon kicked out of the inversion tower. They then ask what else could go wrong...cue the shadow of the Hydra is over them.
  • Rule of Three:
    • This is prominently seen in the Live Events/Special Events, but it also pops up in quests every now and then.
    • There are three parts to the Runix Cube which used to unlock the Hydra.
    • Vath uses 3 Gemeralds To summon the Rock Roc.
    • As of Bloodtusk Ravine Three members of the Trolls have been corrupted by chaos (antigone, Krellenos and Khassandra, two of them killed.
  • Running Gag: Every time Friday the 13th is here, Voltaire has done a live event. Deady lampshades this by saying that the hero and Voltaire only meet up at that day.

    S to Z 
  • Satan:
    • Even if its a kids game, Faust is based on Satan. He even makes Don Giovanni, the guy who gives you the quest to take him down, a Deal with the Devil, for crying out loud! He even looks like a chaos version of the Devil.
    • Nulgath, who makes similar deals to the player. However, he serves a Master that may fit the trope.
    • Guess Dage the Evil counts as well to some extent.
    • Tibicenas also counts due to his backstory
  • Save the Princess:
    • Inverted as you have to save both the dragon and the princess from the Cursed Ring of Dragon Control in the prologue. Also note that this quest is called "Save the Dragon from the Princess" for a reason.
    • The Shadowfall War counts as this, only here it's Save The Empress.
  • Schizo Tech: Like most Artix Entertainment Games, the setting of AdventureQuestWorlds is a Fantasy Kitchen Sink with high-tech modern technology thrown in here and there with no explanation.
  • Screw You, Elves!: With the way that Vath generally treated the Dwarves during the Dwarfhold saga, this was pretty inevitable.
  • Scripted Event: Whether you choose to kill Wolfwing or not, Shadowslayer Z will kill him either way.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Pretty much every one of the Beasts of Chaos, who mainly serve as The Dragon for the Chaos Lord who awakens them. So far, we have the Hydra, the Rock Roc, O-Dokuro, the Dracowerepyre, Pony Gary Yellow, the Mana Golem and the Chaos Sphinx. And whatever is going to be unleashed upon Lore when all thirteen of Drakath's seals are broken...
    • The Dracowerepyre is more of a created evil then a Sealed Evil in a Can since Wolfwing just bites a random dragon before it transforms to the Dracowerepyre.
    • Kezeroth the World Ender was sealed by a Chronocorruptor with the express purpose of releasing him 20,000 years after his last failure to end Lore so that he can try again.
  • Sealed Evil in a Teddy Bear: What Deady really is.
  • Secret-Keeper: Sally is hiding the fact that Artix may not just only be a Paladin... He is actually the Champion of Darkness.
  • Shifting Sand Land: Sandsea.
  • Shoulders of Doom:
    • Drakath, as well as Thok. Even The Hero can choose to be this trope.
    • Vordred, with his skull based armor.
  • Shout-Out: Now with a page of its own.
  • Smug Snake: There are 3 Chaos Lords who are this: Escherion, Vath and Ledgermayne.
    • Ledgermayne believes that Drakath could possibly be one due to what it calls his "overconfidence."
    • Sir Roderick is also this. He ambushes Lord Brenton just to make sure that he doesn't face him during the Tournament of Heroes, and he doesn't miss a single opportunity to tell the other competitors how pathetic they are and how much better than them he is due to his pride in his fighting capability. His arrogance, along with his way of cheating in the tournament, eventually lead him to be bested by the hero.
  • Solo Class:
    • The rogue and the pirate, whose Footwork skill allows them to dodge enemy attacks (and every attack you dodge gets you a little bit of health back), and whose DPS abilities can even allow them to take out bosses solo, especially when Concealed Blade kicks in.
    • Many of the Rank 10 faction classes are quite capable of soloing most bosses, including the Necromancer, the Troll Spellsmith, the Undead Slayer and others. There's also the Paladin, which combines good offensive ability with good healing ability.
    • The Ultra Omniknight class has this in spades. When combined with the class's enemy damage nerf, the Ultra Omniknight's Healing over Time can increase to the point where its healing is greater than any boss's maximum damage output.
  • Spikes of Villainy:
    • Drakath.
    • DoomKnights and Berserkers.
    • Sepulchure and Gravelyn.
  • Stab the Sky: One of the emotes lets you do this with any weapon.
  • Stable Time Loop / You Already Changed the Past: Happens at AdventureQuest Worlds 3rd Birthday aka the They Might Be Giants Event where The Hero gives a lettar to They Might Be Giants and give them robes revealing that the 2 robed people in the event intro are John L and John F. Also, the event explains Drakath's reason to gain power. Drakath thanks the hero for the adventure and saving for him, and wants to make sure that he won't be captured or weak again.
  • Starter Villain: Escherion, the First Lord of Chaos, is the first really serious bad guy that you fight.
  • Status Buff: The Bard class is mostly for increasing/decreasing stats.
  • Stripperiffic: In AQW, gender is specific and there's only about two or three classes in the entire game that cover the entire body from neck to foot on a girl.
    • There's a fanfic for AQW making fun of this trope. It's called Las Vegas Lion.
    • Although later released armours tend to cover the players neck to toes for both gendersnote , while some skin-revealing armors apply to men as well.
  • Suddenly Voiced: Characters are voiced during the Live Events. However this is — as almost everything in AQWorldslampshaded to the players about them having to read their own lines too.
    • In the May 2011 Friday the 13th event, Deady was voiced by Michael Sinterniklaas (who Artix states that he's gonna be voice acted by the best Turtle) note 
  • Sukhomlinov Effect: The werewolves victory over the vampires since the vampires are the side with the fancy uniform while the werewolves are not.
  • Swamp Monster: In "Mudluk Village" there are numerous swamp monsters including frog-like dragons, gigantic fish called Swamp Lurkers, and even giant leech like monsters with legs.
  • Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Drakath fits this trope well so is Mirror Drakath but he is less dark but more handsome
  • Truly Single Parent: Drakath is said to use Chaos Magic to create Chaos Lord Ledgermayne when he states that his chaos magic unexpectedly give the Chaos Lord life.
  • Theme Naming: The Cauldron sisters are named after the famous line of the Witches in Macbeth (Double Double, toil and trouble. Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble)
  • Tournament Arc: There's one in the Swordhaven Colosseum and another in Yokai Islaned.
  • Training Montage: The player needs to take the place of Lord OvtheDance for the dance competition and needs to be trained. The player is —of course— ecstatic to take part in a montage, but the Lord says it'll take too long. To compensate? The player is given a Twister mat.
  • 20 Bear Asses: The quest engine appears to be built on the concept.
    • OK, now they're doing it for this trope. There's a quest where you have to get bear skin.
    • AND bear teeth, to make new teeth for llamas.
  • Take That!:
  • Tears of Blood: Actually, in this case, Tears of Lava. FEAR, the big boss of the Fear Chaser event, has these.
  • The Four Gods: The Chinese New Year event features the Black Tortoise, the White Tiger, the Red Bird, and the Blue Dragon.
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You:
    • Lady Vayle toward Artix in the Doomwood saga.
    • Drakath with the Hero.
  • 13 Is Unlucky: There are 13 Lords of Chaos, and the traditional Friday the 13th events held in AQWorlds.
  • This Cannot Be!: Quite a few AQW villains are quite fond of using this trope when defeated, like Chaos Shogun Kitsune when he gets sucked into the rift leading him back to the Yokai world and Lionfang receiving a big shock when he realizes that the Spirit of Frostval survived the breaking of the snow globe that he kicked out of the hero's hands.
  • This Explains So Much: You say this when Xing and Mirror Xang reveal that Drakath switched the main universe's Good Xing with the Mirror Realm's Evil Xang.
  • This Is Unforgivable!:
    • The hero says this to Maximilian Lionfang after he burns the gifts to Blizzy's horror and laughs maniacally at the burning of the gifts. Naturally, just the fact that he/she says "You'll pay for that!" is enough to let Lionfang himself know that he's in BIG TROUBLE.
    • The Great Godfather of Soul also says this to the hero after he/she wins the /Dance /Dance Minigame and therefore takes his title of dancing champ from him. This is where Chaos Lord Discordia is mentioned for the first time ever - the Godfather himself vows to make him/her pay for stealing his title away from him with Discordia's help.
    • Also, in 2011 Friday the 13th event:
      One-Armed Bandit: My gang is all over this area. You'll never make it to that ship! (to Voltaire) You with the guitar... this is all your fault. I'll get you for this!
      • To be fair, he said that to Voltaire because he blames him for helping the hero defeat him. He keeps true to his promise to get revenge on him in the cutscene before fighting against Yahorneth, Lord Krom Wrath's pet, by ambushing him and dragging him somewhere to beat up on him... but Voltaire survives the fight with him while the hero is defeating Yahorneth, and shows up alive revealing that he got the One-Armed Bandit's mechanical claw in place of one of his hands in the process of his fight with him.
    • In the Bloodtusk saga, after helping to defeat the Alliance Soldiers led by Cynari and Tibias, who enforced martial law on the ravine, and afterwards sending the Horcs and Trolls back home to rest up from all the fighting they did with said soldiers, the hero declares that he/she will make the Chaos Lord running the events in the ravine pay for everything he has done to the ravine after discovering who it is and when he/she finds him... who later turns out to be Krellenos.
      • Later, in the same saga, Khasaanda has become enraged at Krellenos for having distraught her with his terrible actions as well as abandoning her and murdering their younger brother Antiphuus, and later kills him and usurps his position as a Chaos Lord to get revenge, afterwards planning to use said powers to get revenge on Drakath for the deaths and Chaorruption of both of her brothers.
    • In Doomwood Part 2, when Drakath kills Sepulchure again in the Alternate Universe created by him, Gravelyn becomes so enraged and torn by grief that she sprouts angel wings as a sign of showing her true potential as the Champion of Light. She then clearly tries to kill him for it until he makes her choose between fighting him some more or destroying her father's transformed armor, with no time to do both.
    • The Swordhaven saga ends with the Hero declaring that "Drakath. Will. Pay." And given what Drakath has done — assaulting Swordhaven with his army of Chaos, driving King Alteon, the leader of Good, mad with his ongoing case of Chaorruption and turning him into his 12th Lord of Chaos, causing the death of Princess Brittany on her wedding day by the hand of her own father, and unleashing horrible devastation upon Swordhaven and its people through the Chaos Dragon — the Hero has every reason to want him taken down.
    • In the Brightoak saga, the hero calls General Nevanna out after she has killed her own former partner Aven.
      Hero: I won't let you escape. Aven's death is worth a bouquet of yours.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Inverted in Vath's case. The player throws HIS sword to destroy both the Legendary Sword of Dragon Control and the Chaos Dragon Amulet, thus freeing Stalagbite.
    • The way Elim foiled Kezeroth's plan to awaken Quetzal 26,000 years ago was by throwing his sword at his stone - which threw off its aim at the comet and caused the beam fired from it to be out of the comet's range.
  • Time Stands Still: The Chronomancer and Chronocorruptor classes and Professor Iadoa in general.
  • Tomato Surprise: Artix, Champion of Darkness.
    • Gravelyn, Champion of Light.
    • YOU, the 13th Lord of Chaos AND the Eternal Dragon of Time reborn.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Drakath, compared to his level of power in the DragonFable. Admittedly, he is powerful in AdventureQuest as well, but the AQW version of him is mainly based of DF and is still likely more powerful than the AQ Drakath.
    • Artix counts also. Known to be a paladin in many a game, in this one he's the Champion of Darkness who cannot use light-based magic, but the spirit-orb based power of an Undead Slayer.
    • Quite simply Gravelyn takes this up to eleven when she forces Drakath to go on the defensive in Doomwood Part 2.
  • Too Many Belts: According to the Design Notes, Nulgath designed Vordred with skulls. He asked Artix if it was enough to which Artix sarcastically quotes it wasn't...and the final result is this.
    • And he gains even MORE skulls in the final battle because they power his immunity to light-based magic.
  • Unicorn: The first 2012 Friday the 13th event has unicorns, especially Voltaire's Black Unicorn.
  • Unsettling Gender-Reveal:
    • Some players become this trope by playing a character of the opposite gender.
    • Surprisingly enough, Ledgermayne, the seventh Chaos Lord, is Unsettling Gender-Reveal personified. Ledgermayne is actually an It, meaning it is genderless (despite sometimes being referred to as a male), but surprisingly its armor is shaped just like any other female armor. Not to mention, both the male and female versions of the armor drop are the same thing as that which Ledgermayne is wearing.
  • Valkyries: Any female heroes wearing any items forming the complete Celestial Sandknight set.
  • Van Helsing Hate Crimes: The majority of enemies aren't hostile until you attack them, which can lead to some peculiar moral quandries if thought about too much.
  • Vampiric Werewolf: In Worlds, a Werepyre (werewolf/vampire crossbreed) named Wolfwing serves as the Arc Villain with his Evil Plan to covert everyone into the same species as him so he won't be lonely.
  • Villain Decay: The Beastmaker seemed to be frightening at first, but in the July 2012 Friday the 13th event... he's not so frightening now.
  • Villain Override: Noxus does this to Gravelyn's entire undead army at the start of the Shadowfall War. The reason it's not Mass Hypnosis instead is because Noxus first created the army in question for her father, Sepulchure, who was also partially his creation.
  • Villainous Breakdown:
    • Vath gets this along with a Red Eyes, Take Warning when he realizes that his Drow Soldiers are losing the battle with the newly-freed dwarves.
    • After Ledgermayne sees that the hero accepted the shards of the Chaos Focus Gem into the Supreme Arcane Staff, it declares that the hero, whom it was unable to dissuade from the "self-destructive course" as it called it, must be dealt with as he/she challenges it to a fight.
    • Master / Exos experienced this when his plan was accidentally given away by one of the Chaorrupted Sky Pirates, and especially when Invidia (the Dreamweaver in disguise) betrayed him.
    • Vordred gets even worse in Doomwood Part 2 than in Part 1 as Sally is rebuilding him with Chaos magic provided to her by Drakath, and becomes only capable of saying two words: "MORE SKULLS!" And things get even crazier when the fully-completed Chaos Vordred is introduced.
    • The DoomBlade gets this when Sepulchure finally refuses to kill his own daughter after pummeling her so much, and again when Gravelyn purifies it into the Blade of Destiny.
    • Kezeroth temporarily lost his composure when his plan to bring Quetzal's Comet down to Lore failed 26,000 years ago thanks to Elim's thrown sword causing his stone's aim at the comet to go out of range of it. In fact, he got so angry that he furiously pounded Elim CONTINUALLY, only regaining his cool after he was sure that Elim was dead.
      • And then Kezeroth loses it again when the weapon he intended to use against Lore, the Beast Quetzal, is brought down by the Hero and his or her allies. He is so pissed, in fact, that he destroys Quetzal himself for failing him, even though, if he had kept his cool and waited, the beast could have regained its power and picked up where it left off.
    • Drakath himself starts to lose it upon you coming Back from the Dead as the new Death.
  • Villainous Crossdresser:
  • Villainous Rescue: Drakath when saving The Hero from Nessie unnoticed.
    • He also provides the hero with the Chaos power needed to use the Supreme Arcane Staff to kill Ledgermayne in the climax of the Arcangrove saga.
  • Villains Act, Heroes React: Good defends, Evil attacks. Alteon's lack of pro-activeness is part of why Gravelyn thinks good sucks. Proactiveness didn't get Evil anywhere against Chaos, as the final battle proves in spades.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Dead Morice is allergic to flames, happiness, love, and especially holiday cheer, which is why he infused everyone with his ice venom and turned them into ice symbiotes in the Frostval 2011 event. Good thing the hero got the Flame of Frostval from helping kid Gravelyn learn the magic and joy of Frostval; he/she uses it to destroy Dead Morice and restore everyone he infected with his ice venom in the end.
  • Wendigo:
    • The first boss of the Arcangrove saga is a yeti-like monster called Wendigo..
    • Also, another, similar boss appears in the Frostval 2011 event named Windego, which has the I in place of the E and the E in place of the I.
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • During the second part of the Giant storyline, your character learns about a village of Smuurvils (basically blue Smurf-like Sneevils) and promptly suggests feeding the Smuurvil village to the Giant so that he'll be too full to eat the villagers that he or she is trying to free. The village elder is horrified. Then after he makes the suggestion of using a sleeping potion on the giant, your character then has the idea of feeding one of the villagers to the Giant with the potion so that the rest can get away, to which the poor elder's only appropriate response is "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" Thankfully, your character wises up soon afterward.
    • At the end of the Etherstorm saga, you get one of these from Hs'Sakar after you slay Desoloth (the result of Evil winning the Etherstorm War) instead of sealing him like he and the other Dravix wanted, accusing you of taking away their ability to choose what happens to him out of sheer rash arrogance. Depending on how you answer Hs'Sakar's final question, he either sends you on your way after some restitution for all the death that resulted when Desoloth was freed, or he declares you Persona Non Grata before kicking you out of Etherstorm. Either way, you're also stripped of your Air power on the request of Ang'st, as "you do not deserve its blessing."
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: So far it's unknown what happened to Vath after Stalagbite took him away. Of course, Stalagbite is a dragon. A very angry dragon. Chances are, we don't want to know what happened to Vath after Stalagbite has his way with him...
    • Stalagbite got killed off by some of the Chaos Drow, but Vath's fate is still unclear.
  • What If?: AdventureQuest Worlds: Zombies is based on a question of what would happen if Drakath never intervened in the showdown between King Alteon and Sepulchure.
  • Wham Episode: One word: Doomwood.
    • Three words: Doomwood Pt II
    • The end of Chaos Lord Lionfang's storyline has Lionfang use the Tears of the Mother to defeat Drakath. It doesn't work because his powers come from the Mother of Monsters herself and the Chaos Beasts that are summon are needed to let her loose.
    • The Swordhaven storyline has King Alteon finally succumb to the Chaos he has been fighting against and become the 12th Chaos Lord, and Princess Brittany is forced to perform a Heroic Sacrifice in order to prevent her friends and family from being slaughtered by her own father's chaos-induced madness. And then a massive three-headed Chaos Dragon is released and unleashes terrible destruction upon Swordhaven before being taken down, and Alteon himself has to be slain when the Chaos proves too much for him. Due to these tragic events, Swordhaven will never be the same again, and will most likely fall into further chaos from the inevitable conflict for the throne. And to top it all off, after said tragedy, the hero declares THREE WORDS, in Punctuated! For! Emphasis! style: "Drakath. Will. Pay."
    • The hero fights Drakath at Mount Doomskull to learn the identity of the 13th Chaos Lord. Drakath's choice? THE HERO.
      • Sometime later, at the Attack on Battleon event. Drakath provides the reason for his choosing of the 13th lord. The Hero is actually the Eternal Dragon of Time, who is essentially the God of the world.
    • Frozen Tower: It turns out that Karok the Fallen was manipulating the opening of the Horologium Gate to have his Frostspawn Horde invade Lore with the intent of conquering it. And to make matters worse, he murders Lorentz and destroys the gate to ensure that his horde will remain on Lore, and Syrrus is unable to forgive himself for letting the invaders loose.
    • Brightoak Grove: At the Ruins of Elfhame, Aven is killed by his former partner Nevanna, who then uses the Celestial Horn of Balance to remove his corpse and replace it with the spirit of the Elfhame Guardian, whom the hero is then forced to fight. And what's even worse? Because of Ravinos' loss of his purification powers and the loss of Aven's protection, Brightoak is in even greater danger now, especially with the World Tree crippled from the toxins, and faces disaster from Nevanna's next attack. And when Nevanna uses the Horn to free Gaiazor from the heart of the World Tree, she has him unleash horrific destruction upon Brightoak after the hero has defeated it, leaving Brightoak in ruins.
    • The Queen of Monsters saga finale begins with the arrival of the mysterious Malgor and his Shadowflame army, who launch an attack on a village near the Queen of Monsters' castle. The hero fights against Malgor only to be captured and brought to the Queen's throne room, and there, they discover the fate of the Queen - it turns out that she was beheaded during the attack, and when the hero is led to believe that Malgor killed her, the latter responds that the former was the one who did it instead and makes an offer to them to join forces with him. Crazy, right? Luckily, a new ally named Varga the WarFury, Goddess of War, comes to your rescue and offers to help you defeat Malgor by gathering both allies and power and regaining your lost powers as the Eternal Dragon of Time.
    • And the big twist comes in the Shadows of War finale: Malgor was created by the negative emotions of the Eternal Dragon of Time. You know all those Mumblers and False Wyverns you've been fighting early on throughout the finale? Malgor was one of both such creatures, starting off as a Mumbler before evolving into a False Wyvern and then a Speaker before becoming what you've seen him as today. He was determined to save his creator, the Dragon itself, from disappearing, and arrived in the present to kill the Queen for the heroes. It's no wonder he was using their voice when he spoke to Dage, much to his surprise.
  • Wham Line:
    • Hero: (to Kimberly) Wait, YOU'RE THE REAL CHAOS LORD?!
    • Vordred: Artix is the CHAMPION OF DARKNESS!!
    • King Alteon, the 12th Chaos Lord, has awakened...
    • Drakath: (to the hero) For the 13th Lord of Chaos...I CHOOSE YOU!!!!!
      • Drakath: (to the hero, sometime later) YOU ARE THE ETERNAL DRAGON OF TIME!
    • A huge one comes in the Queen of Monsters saga finale and the start of the Shadows of War finale when the hero asks to see the Queen herself:
    Malgor: (holding the Queen's decapitated head) Here's your "queen"!
    Hero: You... you killed her!
    Malgor: No - you did!
  • White Mage: Healer Class.
  • Whole Costume Reference: Gravelyn's Slave Bikini
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: The Good Hero when wearing the Royal Role Reversal Garb.
  • Wings Do Nothing: You character's wings are just for astetics; even if you're falling off the side of a castle with great angelic wings, you're still going to cannon-ball into the moat below.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity:
    • Anyone afflicted with Chaos.
    • According to the design notes, whoever merely gazes into the Realm of Chaos loses all his/her sanity with no hope of ever going back to their normal existence again.
    • This is also true of the Necromancer class, as stated by its character panel description.
  • The Worf Barrage: Artix and the Hero's Ultimate Dragon Soul Spear of Ten Million Spirit Orbs attack fails to have an effect on Vordred. It's even lampshaded:
    Hero: This Is the Part Where... he comes out of the smoke undamaged, huh?
    Artix: Yup.
    • It does, however, give Artix the opening he needs to use the Spirit Orbs to blow apart Vordred's skull armor so that he can be defeated for good.
  • The Worf Effect:
    • When Saahir faces off against Tibicenas, Saahir gets owned. Badly. He doesn't even last five seconds.
    • Any paladin that's faced off against Vordred, as Vordred is completely immune to their light-based magic. He's called the Paladin Slayer for a reason.
    • Everyone gets their ass royally kicked against Drakath before the Hero comes Back from the Dead as the new Death.
  • Worthy Opponent: In some scenes, Drakath thinks the Hero is a Worthy Foe.
  • Wutai: Akiba and the Yokai Isle in general are the primary "Asian" area of Lore, leaning primarily toward the Japanese end of the spectrum. They're also where you will find Kitsune, the fourth major Chaos Lord.
  • You and What Army?: Escherion says this verbatim to the hero. The hero has an army of the citizens of Mobius who get hit by an inversion spell and go against the player.
  • You ALL Look Familiar:
    • Everyone including the players have the same face while Drakath's Human Face is one of a kind while His Chaos Face not so much since other players will have it
    • We even have Vath and his Drow (Dark Elves) they all have the same face and some have the same haircut as Vath
    • Some of the staff even fall victim to this trope like Artix, Cysero, Miltonius/Nulgath, Reens, and Safiria.
    • Yes, even the Lords of Chaos aren't immune to this, as the players can look just like them when wearing their armor sets. After all, they each have a chance that they may drop their armors as well as different items whenever they're defeated.
  • You Can't Thwart Stage One: The hero has never succeeded in preventing a Chaos Lord from summoning a Chaos Beast and breaking one of Drakath's thirteen seals. The one time the hero actually does prevent a Chaos Lord from summoning a Chaos Beast during the Mythsong saga, it turns out Discordia isn't the real Chaos Lord, and that he was being controlled by the real Chaos Lord, Kimberly, who has a Chaos Beast all summoned up and ready to throw at you.
  • You Have Failed Me: After the hero destroys the rabbit beast at the end of the sixth Friday the 13th event, the Beastmaker says this to Sleezter Bunny but surprisingly enough doesn't kill him as Sleezter's too dumb to accept death as punishment anyway. While Sleezter says he's sorry he failed, the Beastmaker receives word that the hero helped Deady and he decides to keep a close eye on him/her. Cue Red Eyes, Take Warning as well as Evil Laugh.
    • Kezeroth destroys Quetzal with the Sword of Hope in a fit of rage after the towering beast was brought down by the Hero and his or her alliance — and just after he had stopped the Hero from trying to do the same.
  • You Don't Look Like You: Some of The Characters don't look like their original version like Sepulchure with a New Helmet(While his statue a portrait of him and his original helmet subverts it), Noxus dressed in a new robes and is a lich, and Frostscythe
    • There is even a cinematic cutscene that has Dage and Nulgath looking different to their in game versions
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
    • Zahart has Tibicenas do this with one of his servants after they have uncovered the red diamond used to awaken the Chaos Sphinx.
    • Drakath often chooses the next Chaos Lord to replace the current one after the current one has served his purpose well in summoning his/her/its Chaos Beast.
      • And Ledgermayne becomes The Starscream to him because it feels that it no longer has any need for him after finding out his supposed overconfidence.
    • And in perhaps the worst Kick the Dog moment ever, Drakath not only does this to you upon revealing that you are the Eternal Dragon of Time and that he needs all 13 Chaos Lords dead to bring the Mother of All Monsters to the world, but he also kills Khasaanda and Escherion, the latter by stomping him into a froggy paste!
  • You Killed My Father:
    • Gravelyn would like nothing more than to make Drakath pay for killing her father, Sepulchure, and bringing the ShadowScythe Empire further into ruin.
    • In the Mirror Realm storyline, we learn that this is also true of Mirror Drakath, hearkening back to his story in DragonFable in which he was the son of the Evil King that the present King Alteon overthrew.
  • You Mean "Xmas": Just like AQ, DF, and MQ, Mogloween (Halloween), the Harvest Festival (Thanksgiving), Frostval (Christmas), Heroes Heart Day (Valentine's Day), Good Luck Day (St. Patrick's Day), Grenwog (Easter), Planet Day (Earth Day), and Freedom Day (Independence Day).
  • You're Insane!:
    • In the cutscene played after defeating Andre's Giant Necklace, Andre thinks that what the hero did is insane when he/she tells him to pick on somebody his own size next time he captures the villagers. He thinks that the hero poisoned his son, but the hero tells him that he's perfectly fine and that he's just taking a nap, which Crychek finishes with "...in yer soup."
    • In Nythera's wedding event, Ryuuji says this to Nythera when she says she magically awakened and summoned a Void Giant to the Void Temple because he realizes that the Void Giant is out of control and is going to destroy the temple.
  • Youkai: The Yokai monsters living in Yokai Island.
  • Zombie Apocalypse:
    • This is what happens if the Hero chooses to betray Artix in the Vordred Boss fight, resulting in a Non-Standard Game Over where Vordred becomes Champion of Darkness and succeeds in zombefying the world.
    • In the AdventureQuest Worlds: Zombies Alternate Universe created by Drakath, this is what happens to Lore when Sepulchure kills Death.

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