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A South Korean RPG series by Softmax which began life on PC. There are three games in the series, with the latest, Magna Carta 2, available on the Xbox 360. The series is mainly known for its sharp (and Stripperiffic) character design, provided by Hyung-Tae Kim.

The three games in the series are:

See also Blade & Soul, a South Korean MMORPG with Hyung-Tae Kim as its character illustrator.

Not to be confused with the document signed in 13th century England ceding certain rights from the monarchy to the nobility.


Tropes:

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    Common 

    The Phantom of Avalanche 

    Tears of Blood/Crimson Stigmata 
  • Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Calintz gives one to Reith after saving her from a Blast Worm prisoner and the Yason soldiers sent to receive him.
  • All-Loving Heroine: Reith is a naïve yet compassionate person with the ability to heal. Unfortunately, she exists during a war where those qualities can put other at risk, given the mutual hatred and distrust that both sides have for each other.
  • All There in the Manual: Several character back-stories for the cast are described in the manual, rather than in the game itself.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Haren's fianceé, a preistess named Felicia, was attacked by Roxy's familiar, a giant armored wolf-creature named Steelheart. All that was left behind was one of Felicia's arms.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: To Orha from Roxy right before her Heroic Sacrifice, and to Calintz from Serina before she's Taken for Granite. She gets better, though.
  • Amnesiacs are Innocent: Reith is probably the sweetest, sunniest young woman that Calintz has encountered in all of Efferia, even to the point of naïvete. It's a stark contrast to her original, more aloof self.
  • Anti-Climax: Caltinz and Astal, the man he'd been seeking for revenge up to that point in the game, are in the middle of an epic sword fight, but it suddenly ends when Rianna stabs her own husband in the back.
  • Apologises a Lot: Reith.
  • Big Bad: Neikan, better known to the player as Agreian.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Justina parrying Calintz's strike when he attacked Reith for defending two Yason-disguised spies. See Revenge Before Reason below.
  • A Birthday, Not a Break: What makes Lehas' death in the Headquarters attack sting more is that it happened on Calintz's birthday, which she worked extra-hard on.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Calintz, Serina, and the Tears bring the war to a close, saving the Yason from Rheuma and allowing peace to take hold, as Amila had wished. However, many characters have died to see it realized; Calintz fought and defeated his former childhood friend, and almost loses Serina to Rheuma.
  • The Chessmaster: Neikan, who had been working out and executing his plan since 10 years before the beginning of the game. It later turns out that Agreian/Hugo is the mysterious Neikan.
  • The Conspiracy: The Turibo, a secret society of Dark Yason led by Neikan, also known as "The Third Man". They plan on using the Magna Carta. Astal had obtained information on the Turibo, leading to him betraying them and leaving said information to Rianna after his death.
  • Cool Old Guy: Zekart, the Hero of Wind and Calintz's mentor; and Rostin, Chris's father and a skilled airship engineer.
  • Cute Mute: Maya.
  • The Cutie: Reith. She's idealistic to a fault, and sees no reason to fight the Yason as Calintz and the others do.
  • Disney Death: Both Orha and Raul, though Orha comes back from his. The post-credits shows that Raul is still alive as well.
  • Doomed Hometown: Tears of Blood begins with Calintz's home of Fuget having been destroyed 10 years prior.
  • Due to the Dead: The Distant Epilogue sees a few characters paying their respects to lost loved ones, such as Haren visiting Felicia's grave, and Rianna casting a bouquet out for Astal.
  • Duel Boss: Calintz gets several in Tears of Blood, including the first form of the final boss.
  • Emergency Impersonation: When Queen Amila went missing, Serina was forced to pose as her sister to prevent internal conflict among the Yason.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: It turns out that Astal is Rianna's missing husband, and that despite everything he's done, his love for her is very real.
  • Everyone Has Standards: At one point, an assassin from Yason-Roven attacks Reith, ostensibly on Queen Amila's orders. After regaining her memory, the real Amila quickly deduces that Carian and Azhadi of the Four Warriors were responsible for that; her sister Serina would never stoop so low.
  • Evil All Along: General Agreian of the Alliance is also Neikan, The Chessmaster.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Not necessarily evil, per se, but Queen Amila's voice sounds more grown-up and deeper-sounding than that of her innocent "Reith" persona.
  • Fantastic Racism: The humans and Yason hate each other, but both of them despise half-Yason with a passion. This is why Queen Amila wears a mask in public, and why she kept her sister locked away.
  • First Girl Wins + Last Girl Wins: Serina, the last player character to be formally introduced and the first to fall in love with him, ends up together with Calintz in the end.
  • Forgotten First Meeting:
    • As a Fuget youth, Calintz went by the name Mano, and had a friend named Hugo. The two had traded their most treasured items with each other. It turns out that Agreian is Hugo, and the revelation brings Agreian and Calintz back from a rough patch in the present. More to the point, Hugo had planned to obtain Mano's treasure for his plan as "Neikan"...
    • Calintz does remember making a friend from outside Fuget who taught him some fighting, but he had no idea that friend was in fact a young Amila. Naturally, "Reith" had no recollection of this, but Queen Amila does.
  • Foreshadowing: Tears of Blood does a good job in leaving clues throughout the game that the mysterious "Neikan" is Agreian, and that Reith is Queen Amila before The Reveal.
  • Friend to All Living Things: Reith. She goes so far as to heal an injured Yason prisoner, though this incident gets her in trouble. When her memory returns, it still remains in regards to her familiar.
  • Fugitive Arc: Following Queen Amila's death in stopping the Magna Carta, Serina is charged with impersonating the queen and is sent to be executed. Orha and (to a lesser extent) Roxy help her escape the treacherous Yason, entrusting her safety to Calintz.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: Subverted with Chris. His late brother had all of the natural talent for building machines. Chris himself had to endure failure after failure before getting one right and, even then, most of the machine work is left to his father Rostin.
  • Good All Along: Queen Amila's actions have been in finding a way to create peace between the humans and the Yason.
  • Guest-Star Party Member: To help Serina escape, Orha briefly fights alongside Calintz against the treasonous Yason.
  • Half-Breed Discrimination: Half-Yasons. Both humans and Yason despise them, since they are more identical to humans. It's the main reason why Queen Amila wears a mask among her own people.
  • Half-Identical Twins: It's eventually revealed that the girl shown in Calintz's flashbacks was a younger Amila/Reith. At one point, her twin Serina had appeared instead, leading to Calintz mistaking her for Amila. Subverted in the flashbacks, where they do indeed appear identical, but Played Straight in the present.
  • Heroic BSoD:
    • Reith is arrested for helping a Yason soldier escape prison. When Calintz kills the soldier and subsequently has her freed, Reith remains sitting, devastated by what Calintz had done. In fact, she remains in her cell until Eonis visits her.
    • Rianna suffers one when her husband Astal hits her with an attack aimed for Calintz. It leads her to stab him in the back.
    • Calintz gets hit hard with this after Reith's/Queen Amila's Heroic Sacrifice, protecting him and Ladrinne from the Magna Carta.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Several, but only Reith/Amila and Roxy stay dead.
  • Hot-Blooded: Haren and Rianna, who are both hand-to-hand combatants as well.
  • I Owe You My Life: Why Azel is so loyal to Calintz.
    • Calintz's reason for always protecting Reith is because she saved his life after he fell into a ravine.
  • Interspecies Romance:
    • Rianna and her husband Astal, a half-Yason.
    • Calintz unknowingly enters one with Reith, and later Serina.
  • King Incognito: Reith is the real Queen Amila of the Yason. The present "Queen Amila" we've been seeing after the beginning was her sister Serina, posing as Amila while she was missing. Amila's goal was to learn more about Efferia and its inhabitants in order to end the war and save her people.
  • Loads and Loads of Loading: This game has many long loading screens between areas.
  • Love Triangle: It turns out both Amila and Serina fell in love with Calintz when they were kids.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: It turns out that Calintz is really the long-lost son of Great Priestess Ladrinne, but the Big Bad knew this and tricked Calintz into giving him his family heirloom to steal his identity. Ladrinne herself is horrified by this deception.
  • MacGuffin: The Eight Shards, which are used to activate "the Magna Carta". In Tears of Blood, the Magna Carta (also named "the Light of Salvation") is a powerful magic spell that can potentially wipe out entire races.
  • MacGuffin Delivery Service: The Tears of Blood are tasked with collecting and delivering the Eight Shards to General Agreian. Except...he's the Big Bad. Uhh, whoops?
  • Miko: The Great Priestess Ladrinne and Justina are a Korean variant, with their uniforms sharing similarities to the hanbok.
  • Mistaken for Murderer: Justina arrests Calintz for the murder of Elaine Crane, the Hero of Water, after finding him next to her dead body with Astal's poison dagger in his hand. Though it's cleared up, this incident leaves Alliance trust in the Tears of Blood shattered.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: When Calintz sees just how badly the Rheuma disease devastates the Yason population, his asks himself if this is what he really wants.
  • My Greatest Failure: Calintz keeps out-doing himself with these, but ultimately it comes down to being unable to protect first Lehas, then Reith.
  • Never My Fault: Calintz has a habit of putting the blame on the Yason and the war against them when things look really bleak. He drops it late in the game.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: As a kid, Calintz helped a dying traveler out by bringing him medicine. The traveler, a half-Yason later identified as Astal, repayed him with warnings, and eventually with burning Fuget to the ground.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • In Yason-Roven, Calintz comes across Queen Amila's garden, when the Queen herself enters upon sensing that someone has intruded. Upon that intruder revealing himself to be Calintz, "Amila" is hit with this, her façade falling as she panics, telling Calintz that she doesn't want to fight. Orha's intervention keeps this meeting from ending in Serina's accidental death.
  • One-Winged Angel: Neikan's boss form during the final battle.
  • Our Elves Are Different: The Yason have ears with lengthened protrusions, and they have command over familiars. They are also the original occupants of the game's setting; the humans who live in Efferia are descended from those who were forced to leave their old lands behind.
  • Parental Abandonment: Justified. The Tears of Blood, a band of mercenaries, are fighting the Yason because they've all lost family and friends during the war with the Yason.
  • The Power of Love: Apparently how Calintz cures Serina of her Rheuma affliction after the final battle.
  • Proper Tights with a Skirt: Reith.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: A strange example regarding Reith, or Queen Amila, and her sister Serina, the latter of whom joins the party in the final stages of the game. Naturally, Serina is the Blue Oni to Amila/Reith's Red Oni; one is more withdrawn, and the other is more assertive. Amila's Reith persona is more outgoing and bubbly, while the Yason Queen herself is more aloof and commanding.
  • Retool: Tears of Blood shares more than a few plot details with The Phantom of Avalanche. Most notably, the main character is a young mercenary named Calintz who is in truth the son of a character named Ladrinne. There is also a character who poses as a major figure of royalty, only to be found out.
  • The Reveal: Twice for when Reith gets her memory back and is revealed to be the real Queen Amila—once for the player, and once for the party.
    • To a lesser degree, the truth that Rianna's husband is the half-Yason Astal...the same man who razed Fuget, and the one who slew all of Lehas' comrades.
    • Raul, a traveling swordsman, is actually the Celestial Hero, one of the Eight Heroes from 50 years ago.
    • Calintz is actually Ladrinne's true son; "Agreian" stole his identity by convincing the young Calintz that they should trade their most treasured belongings.
    • The true nature of the Tree of Light; leading to the player learning Queen Amila's final request to Calintz: "Do it for me… Destroy…the Tree of Light…"
  • Revenge: The driving force behind Calintz and much of his fellow Tears of Blood: revenge against the Yason for everything they've taken and everyone they killed. It even goes as far as…
  • Revenge Before Reason: Calintz nearly kills Reith when she stands between him and two temple spies disguised as Yason, but only she can see through the illusion. It's thanks to Justina that Calintz is stopped before it is too late.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Calintz spends a good deal of Tears of Blood searching for the man responsible for destroying his village.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Lehas. Her diary, discovered after her death, reveals that she'd been plagued by nightmares since the "Butcher of Hagran" had slain her captain and comrades, and left her incapacitated.
  • Undying Loyalty:
    • Azel to Calintz for saving his life.
    • Near the end, Orha is the only one of the Four Warriors who is still alive and still loyal to Queen Amila and Serina.
  • Taken for Granite: What happens to the Yason who contract Rheuma. This is because the Tree of Light feeds on the Yason people's Chi through their Vindies (their tattoo-like marks that allow them to absorb Chi). Serina's the last known Yason to suffer this, but she gets better almost immediately.
  • Time Skip: The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue takes a look at the characters one year after the Tree of Light's destruction.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Agreian has one as he enters his One-Winged Angel form for the final battle.
  • Voice of the Legion: Agreian as he enters his One-Winged Angel form for the final battle.
  • Wham Line: Delivered in the form of a secure military communication to Calintz that the Yason are attacking the Alliance Headquarters.
  • "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The ending of Tears of Blood is a silent version.
  • Wounded Hero, Weaker Helper: After getting separated from his fellow Tears of Blood, Calintz winds up at the bottom of a ravine, injured and unconscious. His survival is only assured thanks to Reith, who heals him despite not quite knowing how to.


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