< The Order of the Stick

The Order of the Stick/Tropes A-F


Tropes A-F | Tropes G-O | Tropes P-Z

Tropes used in The Order of the Stick include:

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A

  • Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The "Obligatory Sewer-Themed Labyrinth".
  • Accidental Innuendo: In-universe parody.
  • Action Girl: Haley; Kazumi; Therkla; Miko; Lien
  • Aerith and Bob: "My name is Kodrog the Slayer, and this is my buddy Jim." (See Fourth Wall Mail Slot.)
  • Affably Evil: Several kinds.
    • Xykon is a Chaotic Evil lich who also happens to have some serious style and a rich sense of humor.
    • General Tarquin and Minister Malack are both Lawful Evil and power-hungry (and Tarquin will get revenge for any perceived insult), but they're also enjoyable company and very gracious hosts. Malack implied to Durkon that he's actually True Neutral, though this could've just been a lie to put the very Lawful Good Durkon more at ease with him.
    • Thog is so cheerful and friendly, it's easy to forget that he'll kill hundreds of innocent NPCs for little (if any) reason.
  • Aggressive Negotiations: Start of Darkness spoilers: This is how The Dark One ultimately met his end -- he was murdered while attempting to negotiate a peace settlement with the humans kings. Rather than ending the war, it made things far worse, as the goblins swarmed upon their enemies inflicting huge losses in vengeance for their fallen warlord.
  • All Crimes Are Equal: The Empire of Blood personifies this trope.
    • Roy and Belkar are sentenced to life in prison for not having paperwork; the reptilian bounty hunters soon suffer the same fate even though they have their paperwork, because the chancellor was ordered to lose it after they attempted to blackmail General Tarquin.
    • A few strips later, while Durkon is in a library, a sign is posted that says the Dewey Decimal System is strictly enforced. (One can only imagine.)
    • Thog was thrown into prison for public urination, even though he was already wanted for treason at the time.
  • Alliterative Name: Belkar Bitterleaf; Miko Miyazaki; Kazumi Kato; Daigo Da--
  • All Lowercase Letters
    • most orcs talk like this. It seems to be related to the INT score. Lampshaded in the last panel of this page.
    • Eric Greenhilt too, as he's quite young.
  • All There in the Manual: How did the Order of the Stick team up? Why do they suffer Belkar's presence? How and why did Redcloak align himself with Xykon? Just what did happen to that first Gate? To find out, you have to buy the prequel books, most of which are available via Ookoodook.
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Redcloak manages to successfully invade the base of the Azure City resistance thanks to a polymorphed spy.
  • All Your Powers Combined: The effect of Soul Splice.
  • Exclusively Evil: Gets averted, subverted, inverted, doubly inverted, perverted, extraverted, and, just occasionally, played straight. Most often doubly inverted when a villain delivers a Break Them by Talking on how the hero is Not So Different and then immediately Kicks a Dog.
    Deconstructed, too: Goblins and other evil humanoids were declared by the gods to be Exclusively Evil, designed only to be killed by player races. As sentient beings with their own society, they naturally feel persecuted by being forced into this role, and are now executing a massive Rage Against the Heavens in order to change things. Though the deconstruction is more aimed at players who treat these races as such, despite the fact that most of their Monster Manual entries only list them as "Usually X Evil"
  • Ambiguous Gender: Vaarsuvius, and now his/her mate too... and their kids.... and his/her master... ah screw it: with a few exceptions, elves in general. Word of the Giant is that any gender identification of Vaarsuvius (and other ambiguous elves) is strictly their own perception. And V's children are adopted. Make no assumptions; for all we know they could be a same-sex couple.
  • Amplifier Artifact: Most common magic items are of this kind, like Roy's Belt of Giant Strength, Elan's Belt of Charisma or V's Ring of Wizardry. Lampshaded by Haley with a Potion of Glibness: she takes it from Elan to use herself, because while it would make him a good liar, she's already a good liar so it will make her an utterly amazing liar.
  • Ancestral Weapon: Roy's greatsword is handed down from his grandfather (though it skipped his father). The family is actually named after its green hilt, and now that it was reforged with starmetal it glows green when slaying undead, and so qualifies as a pretty Cool Sword too.
  • And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt: The hobgoblin horde gets shirts that say "I killed a PC and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt!" when they kill the illusion of the Order of the Stick and Hinjo.
  • And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Spoofed.

Elan: Ohhhh. Thanks, Vaarsuvius. Now I know.
Vaarsuvius: And knowing is half the battle.

G.I. Joe: G.I. Joe!

"Pray to what gods you serve that you will be deemed worthy of this rare honor! Find your reserves of courage, warriors, for the Test of the Heart begins -- NOW!!"
(cut to: Roy in a chair at a doctor's clinic, a stethoscope over his heart)
"Pulse rate is 60... blood pressure is 85 over 60... You pass. Next!"

  • Anti-Human Alliance: The forces under Redcloak.
  • Apocalypse How
    • (Planetary/Physical Annihilation): At the dawn of time, the Snarl unmade the creation of the planet and destroyed a whole pantheon of gods.
    • (close to Planetary/Species Extinction): A single epic-level necromantic spell seems to have caused the extinction of a large extended family. Since the victim is a dragon, and dragons don't breed much, this one spell killed a quarter of all the black dragons in the world.
  • Army of the Dead
    • During the battle of Azure City, Xykon slaughters all the paladins defending the throne room... only to watch them rise up and oppose him as spirits, led by the spirit of legendary paladin Soon, no less.
    • Not to mention that he led an Army of the Dead against Azure City in the first place. Undead Dragon and all.
  • Arson, Murder, and Admiration: Nale and Sabine's relationship contains a fair amount of this.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking
    • 26 unpleasant things that happen (or nearly happen) in Start of Darkness: Murder, Kidnapping, Trespassing, Zombification, Maiming, Foul Language, Defenestration, Squishy Hugs, Cannibalism, Blasphemy, Inebriation, Verbal Abuse, Blind Dating, Extortion, Fraud, Lies (and statistics), Depilation, Brain Damage, Arson, Betrayal, False Advertising, Running Gags, Rules Lawyering, Disintegration, Tampering with the Fabric of Reality, Taco Night.
    • Guild arena used for ritual combat, coming-of-age sacrifices, and as mosh pit for local alternative rock bands.
    • Turns out the gladiatorial champion of the Empire of Blood, who is built up as some kind of insane monster who mercilessly slaughtered dozens of fighters and guards, was originally locked up for peeing on the sidewalk. And then it turns out that that's because he's none other than Thog.
    • Belkar's cover story:

Belkar: We're wanted in several other nations for racketeering, jury tampering, and interfering with a mail carrier.

Belkar: I am a Sexy, Shoeless, GOD OF WAR!

B

  • Back for the Dead: Julio Scoundrél sincerely hopes never to cross paths with Elan again for precisely this reason. Averted when they crossed paths again.
  • Back from the Dead: Pretty much anyone who's got a friendly cleric with a Raise Dead spell nearby, including the Oracle, Roy, and Jirix.
  • Badass Normal: Many characters who kick ass without any intrinsic magical ability. This includes Roy, Haley, Thog, Kazumi, Daigo and more. Belkar as well, despite the fact that as a ranger he could use spells. Theoretically. If he didn't have a Wisdom score normally reserved for lemmings.
  • Bar Brawl
    • Check.
    • Also probably worth knowing is that both Belkar and Tarquin's backstories include an incident of them murdering all of the patrons in a bar in a more "one-sided" version of this.
  • Bare Your Midriff: Haley (for most of the comic, save for the latest arc and while with La Résistance); Julia; Crystal; Sabine (during two story arcs).
  • Batman Gambit
    • The Three Fiends gave Vaarsuvius supreme power, expecting that the elf would attack Xykon and "knock him out of his comfort zone." And it worked. Beautifully.
    • Tarquin seems to be made of this, too.
  • Battle Trophy
    • Belkar has a habit of doing this with the heads of kobolds he killed, though he never keeps them for long.
    • Roy takes Xykon's crown and wears it on a string around his neck after "setting him back a bit". This turns out to be a problem when the residual evil on it causes Miko to try and smite him. Xykon takes it back in their next encounter.
    • Later, Gannji concocts a plan that requires his partner Enor to kill him, cut of his tail, and keep it so that Gannji can be resurrected later. He tells Enor:

Gannji: Tell the guards it's a trophy of your victory. They won't question it 'cause you're part ogre. They do stuff like that all the time.

Belkar: Objection noted.

Roy: Wait, what? What about the Blood Oath of Vengeance?
Bureaucratic Deva: It's not a problem for us. Go on up.
Eugene: WHAT?!?!?!
Roy: In lieu of Paradise, can I just get a picture of the exact expression on his face?

Monster in the Darkness: ... everyone here tells me that I'm as dumb as things that are really dumb.
Redcloak: ... we didn't know the gate was guarded by a legion of ghost... things.
Haley: My brain feels like a psion... did some psiony stuff.

Xykon: Do you have any idea how many people I have killed in front of their loved ones? Could you narrow it down?
Roy: Grrrr. His master's name was Fyron. He was a wizard who lived in Cliffport. You needed some sort of magical doodad that he owned, so you killed him and his son in cold blood.
Xykon: Hmmm... more specific.
MitD: You killed more than one guy named Fyron in Cliffport?
Xykon: Five, actually.
Roy: Gah! It was forty years ago!
Xykon: More specific.
Roy: In the spring?
Xykon: More specific.
Roy: On a Wednesday?
Xykon: Oh! Right! Now I remember. Because it was Laundry Night, and I had trouble getting the blood out of my robes.
Roy: Oh, that is IT!!

    • Or, as Xykon puts it later:

Xykon: Y'know, I've destroyed entire towns, and the worst I got from the surviving families were a few snarky comments. You, sir, have a serious problem with overreaction.

Xykon: Hey! Paladin dude! Do you know what the best part about killing the entire Sapphire Guard was? Neither do I. I wasn't actually paying attention when I did it.

    • Apparently, Thog also doesn't care much about the people he kills, although that might be simple stupidity on his part.
  • But He Sounds Handsome: Belkar, disguised as a fellow medium-sized, and Nale, disguised as Elan, both indulge into this.

C

Haley: Do you want to go up a level, or down a level?
Roy: Don't start with that.

    • From #535 to #226 and #229. Apparently the inn's employees and the assassins had a good reason to assume that Roy was the King of Nowhere.
  • Calling the Old Man Out
  • Calling Your Attacks: Almost every combat ability other than moving and basic attacks. Spoofed often, especially in a Running Gag where anybody who uses a sneak attack actually yells "Sneak Attack!" when they do it.
    • Which is subverted and lampshaded when Nale kills the CPPD Chief.

Nale: Oops, I think I was supposed to yell "sneak attack" just there.

"...weathercontrolweathercontrolweathercontrol..."

  • Canis Latinicus
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Haley's attraction to Elan. At least until "Truth".
  • Cardboard Prison
    • Rule of thumb: if a prison is shown, someone will break out of it.
    • In a more literal example, most of the time while in Azure City, the Monster in the Darkness is seen within a prison cell, literally made from a cardboard box with a small window (with bars) cut into one side.
  • Cargo Cult: The orcs on the island worship... uh, Elan's hand-puppet, Banjo the Clown. And so does he. Also apparently one worshiper is enough for a said worshipper to request the ability to shoot out a small bolt of lightning to smite heathens (Elan does it to Roy; it does absolutely nothing).
    Though they later worship Giggles the Clown, Banjo's equally fictional brother and God of Slapstick. This leads to the refugee fleet, as "Champions of Banjo", and the new worshippers of Giggles having a pie-eating contest, the "traditional" challenge that must be enacted between followers of the two hand-puppet gods. Of course, given how deific ascension works in the world (which is why Elan came up with Banjo in the first place), then there very likely is an actual (if very weak) Giggles the Clown deity now.
  • Carpet of Virility: Enriqué; Tarquin
  • Carrying the Antidote: Elan assumes this is the case, and is mocked.
  • Catapult Nightmare: "Running Away"
  • Catapult to Glory: With Titanium elementals.
  • Catgirl: One of Tarquin's adventuring partners seems to be such a creature.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: Like you wouldn't believe. And lampshaded. Also subverted. Plot lines get more complex and darker as the series continues, but the awesome one-liners and constant lampshading never stop.
  • Characterization Marches On
    • In the cast page, Belkar is introduced as "the world's best tracker under four feet tall." As the strip moved on, his Stupid Evil nature was played up to the point where it turns out that he is a completely incompetent tracker, having spent all his skill points and feats on combat abilities (and gourmet cooking). Changing his alignment from Stupid Evil to Chaotic Evil also caused an enormous amount of Fan Dumb, as many believe the two to be the same.
    • The Monster in the Darkness started out as evil (just not very good at it), but has evolved into a good (or at least neutral) character being tricked and manipulated by his evil "friends."
    • Redcloak in his first couple of appearances was basically just a regular goblin with a fancy cloak, who kowtowed endlessly to Xykon and whose unlevel eyes didn't exactly scream intelligence. Fast forward a few hundred strips, and Redcloak is the quintessential Dragon with an Agenda, as well as the resident Only Sane Employee and Hypercompetent Sidekick, who claims to have been expertly manipulating Xykon from the beginning.
    • Elan lampshades Roy's character development while displaying his own.
  • Charm Person: It's a D&D-based trope, so of course this is here.
    • Striking general example is Nale hypnotizing Belkar; he can't make Belkar kill the Order and give their magic items to him, but Nale is able to make Belkar try to kill the Order and keep their magic items for himself... while singing showtunes...
  • Chased by Angry Natives: During the exile of the Azurites.
  • Chekhov's Gag: In "The Prisoner Dilemma", Belkar claims to "know a guy who knows a guy" in the slave trades. 500 comics later...
  • Chekhov's Gun: All over the place. More of a Chekhov's Armoury, really.
    • The pendant Celia gives to Roy. Double Subverted: it first appears to be a Red Herring, but it turned out to be a Chekhov's Gun for Celia's appearance in the fourth arc.
    • Vaarsuvius' familiar. A curious example where a pre-existing character and Running Gag is intentionally shelved to give his future reappearance more impact.
    • Not to mention the Boots of Elvenkind and the Bag of Tricks.
    • From the same series, but even more plot-important than the boots or the bag, Belkar's Ring of Jumping +20. It helps him escape from Azure City prison and indirectly causes Roy's death.
    • And Xykon's headband allowing him to Cloister Azure City.
    • The Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity that Elan takes from a defeated ogre.
    • The Ylang-Ylang moisturizer Haley purchased earlier from Aton helps Belkar lead Roy to her kidnapper. The moment of purchase might also qualify as an Innocuously Important Episode due to leading Roy, Belkar, and Durkon to Elan's relative, and possibly Draketooth.
    • In comic #422, Vaarsuvius uses Protection from Arrows on hirself. In comic #436 it gets put to use.
    • Redcloak's unspecified spell as he walks in his room, which you might not even notice he used? Command Undead.
    • Vaarsuvius' Familicide while with supreme arcane power comes back to haunt him/her when the entire Draketooth family was killed through the spell. One of the dragon's family members crossbred with a human.
    • The ritual (or rather, half-ritual) that Tsukiko confronted Redcloak about and got herself killed over is in fact first seen in strip #700.
  • Chekhov's Gunman
  • Chekhov's Skill
  • Cherry Tapping
    • Xykon does it to O-Chul, knocking him below zero hit points with a Ray of Frost (a cantrip that does 1d3 points of damage).
    • Belkar plays this straight with Crystal, first toying with her, then leaving her alive but humiliated.
  • Chess with Death: Or rather, Wet T-shirt Contest with Death.
  • Circling Birdies
  • Clean Cut: Many attacks with slashing weapons against Mooks result in this.
  • Cloudcuckoolander
    • Elan;
    • The Monster in the Darkness, which enjoys Power Rangers, tea parties and eating adventurers whole.
    • Thog, a half-orc barbarian with low intelligence who helps Elan's Evil Twin Nale murder innocents by the dozens -- but loves nothing in life more than ice cream, rocket skates, and puppies. Probably because of this, he and Elan get along really well.
    • Also Odin, the leader of the Northern Pantheon.
    • Thor shows this occasionally as well, though mainly when he is drunk or about to. Which is about everytime we see him.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture
    • Redcloak to O-Chul, ostensibly for information.
    • Xykon to O-Chul, just for fun.
    • When his winning personality isn't enough, this appears to be how Tarquin "convinces" women to marry him.
    • After finding out that Yukyuk shot Mr. Scruffy, Belkar decides to turn him into the cat's new litter box. Without killing him first.
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience
    • Lampshaded in regards to dragons; also the Trope Namer.
    • Everything related to Azure City. The city itself is completely blue, including most of the buildings, the town wall and even the ships in the port. The regulars in the army wear silver and blue armor, and the paladins, white and blue. Many characters, e.g. Hinjo, even have blue hair. And anything related to Kubota is purple.
    • It's to the point where if a paladin falls from grace, his or her clothes immediately change color from blue to brown, due to them being magical items that lose power when not on a paladin in good standing.

MitD: I know! Murky and Lurky must have stolen her colors!

    • Additionally, all spellcasters have a distinctive colored aura when casting spells:
      • Vaarsuvius -- pink;
      • Durkon -- white;
      • Elan -- blue;
      • Redcloak -- dark red;
      • Xykon -- dark grey;
      • Nale -- yellow;
      • Zz'dtri -- green;
      • Hilgya -- orange;
      • Leeky -- brown;
      • Pompey -- violet;
      • Eugene -- pale green;
      • Samantha -- purple;
      • Tsukiko -- indigo and blue (due to her being able to, as a Mystic Theurge, cast both arcane and divine spells);
      • Sapphire Guard members and Azurite clerics -- standardized light blue;
      • Malack -- grey.
    • It's implied (particularly in Start of Darkness) that the hierarchal ranks of the Dark One's clerics are indicated by cloak color. For instance, white cloaks are issued to the newly-ordained.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Haley has no issues with ambushing and killing her arch-enemy Crystal, the assassin, while she's in the shower, unarmed and not wearing any armor or magic items. Followed, naturally, by looting all of said equipment. This scene comes off a lot less cold-blooded if you have read the prequel On the Origin of the PCs and the supplemental pages in Don't Split the Party that were cut out of the online comic for reasons of pacing but put back in for the printed edition. The extra strips in Don't Split the Party reveal that Crystal was more than eager to hurt and kill Haley, and she and Bozzok were still planning to secretly murder Haley, despite the truce.
  • Compelling Voice: Haley gets this when she consumes a potion a glibness, giving her already huge bluff score an extra +30. She tells a guard that he's actually a yellow-footed rock wallaby, and he immediately hops off to find a wizard to polymorph him "back".
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: "There's only one ninja left, that means I'm death incarnate!"
  • Continuity Nod: Full of them. Of particular note is the Test of the Mind when Haley returns to the Oracle's valley. The continuity of OOTS is generally very well kept.
  • Continuity Snarl: While the comic doesn't contradict itself, the gods did.
  • Cool Horse: Windstriker
  • Cool Sword: Roy's sword has been handed down from his grandfather, and may be older than that. After it was broken, Roy is told it's made of starmetal and can't be reforged without it. Turns out that's not true, but now that it is reforged as starmetal alloy it is magical and does greater damage to undead, such as Xykon, and it glows green whenever this power activates.
  • Cool Teacher: Fyron was this to Eugene Greenhilt.
  • The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: Tarquin's ninth wife died of "mysterious circumstances". Which turns out to be a subversion -- Tarquin really has no idea how she died, although he's confident she was murdered by somebody.
  • Coup De Grace
    • Roy delivers several of these to goblins V put to sleep with an overly long and boring incantation boast about how s/he was much more powerful than anything they could imagine. It was so long and boring that it put Elan and Belkar to sleep as well.
    • Crystal attempts to do one to an unconscious Haley, but she's interrupted.
  • Covers Always Lie: The cover for Start of Darkness shows Xykon as a lich killing a paladin before his first encounter with Redcloak -- while in the story proper, he wasn't yet undead when this happened. Lampshaded on the last page of the book:

MitD: Wait-- The scene on the cover didn't happen that way.
Demon-Roach: Welcome to show business, kid.

D

  • Da Chief: The Chief, of Cliffport fame.
  • Dangerously Genre Savvy: Xykon; Daimyo Kubota; Tarquin
  • Dark Action Girl: Sabine; Tsukiko; Crystal; Samantha... Haley notes a pattern of her fighting "airborne tramps."
  • Darker and Edgier
    • Not that the comic is exactly "light and fluffy", but prequel book Start of Darkness is significantly darker than the online comic's average tone.
    • Things have gotten a turn for the dark starting around comic #823. The Resistance falls arc and three teams are headed for the same gate: Team Evil, the Order of the Stick and The Linear Guild. And then the entire Draketooth family turns out to be dead, and guess who's responsible?
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Invoked by Belkar after Haley assumes that V's new black robes, glowing eyes, and evil whispers mean that s/he's turned evil. Belkar, too, is convinced of that, but defends Vaarsuvius with this argument just to mess with everyone's heads.
  • Darkness von Gothickname
    • When she was a gloomy goth teenager, Haley called herself Dark Mistress Shadowgale.
    • When Celia disguises herself as an evil necromancer, she uses the name Darkblood Gloomgloom.
  • Deader Than Dead: The fate of everyone killed by the Snarl. Maybe.
  • Dead Guy Puppet: Lord Shojo does this, in order to make a point that it's the heroes' fault the corpse is dead. To be fair, he's planning to bring the dude back to life.
  • The Dead Have Eyes
  • Deadpan Snarker: Most of the characters fall into this at some point, but Roy took extra points in this skill. Vaarsuvius comes only second to Roy in the snark, and being The Spock he's even more deadpan. And V's raven familiar seems to take after his wizard. On the villain's side, Redcloak is no slouch either.
  • Death Is Cheap: Not literally; coming Back from the Dead is actually rather expensive. But price aside, it's usually not all that difficult, except when the plot requires it to be, as in Roy Greenhilt's case, or in special situations like being killed by the Snarl or dying of old age. This is Lampshaded to the extent that a character calling for reinforcements (Haley in Old Blind Pete's cellar) suggests they bring the wherewithal to resurrect her and her friends. Also, you can apparently do the old "challenge Death to a game for your life" thing. And you can pick Wet T-Shirt Contest as your game.
  • Deceased Fall Guy Gambit
    • Kubota announces his intention to do this to Therkla. V, of course, interrupts by disintegrating him.
    • Redcloak frames Tsukiko for treachery as an excuse for why he killed her -- when in fact, he killed her for knowing that he is the one betraying Xykon.
  • Deconstructed Trope
    • Miko, as she develops, touches on what a Lawful Stupid Knight Templar would be like realistically.
    • Start of Darkness deconstructs the hell out of the assumptions underpinning D&D as a whole, particularly Exclusively Evil.
    • Token Evil Teammate is also deconstructed with Belkar, showing why a mostly good party would put up with someone like him.
  • Defied Trope
  • Deity of Humanoid Origin: Both the Dark One and the elven gods were once ordinary mortals who ascended.
  • Deliberately Monochrome
    • The prequel books are fully in greyscale. According to the author, this is to give them a "nostalgic" feeling, since these are the "home movie" of the OotS characters. Which is mostly a joking explanation -- the primary reason being costs.
    • Dwarven Darkvision.
    • The Fiends' hypothetic scenario.
  • Delicious Fruit Pies: From "Proof That I Am Deeply Disturbed.
  • Denouement: Several examples at the end of the Don't Split the Party arc, starting from around "But Seriously, She Won't".
  • Depth Deception: In "A Matter of Perspective", the starmetal appears huge at first but is really smaller than a fist.
  • Description Cut: "Thog like breaking stuff."
  • Destructive Saviours: Dorukan's Dungeon, the Weary Travelers Inn and Tavern, Azure City... few places seem to survive contact with the Order of the Stick.
  • Deus Ex Machina
    • During the siege of Azure City, Roy beheads Xykon's undead dragon. The head crushes a Death Knight that is overwhelming Vaarsuvius; V later complains that it was a lame "deus ex machina".
    • When V cast Familicide on an ancient black dragon in "If They Pull a Knife... ", the first victim is a black dragon currently battling against a pair of adventurers -- who are left wondering just what the heck caused their opponent to inexplicably drop dead in front of them.
    • The MitD plays this role in "The Path of Least Expectation", teleporting Vaarsuvius and O-chul to safety.
  • Did Mom Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?
  • Didn't We Use This Joke Already?
  • Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?
    • O-Chul and MitD.
    • Also Haley, Belkar and the MitD.
  • Disaster Dominoes: The well-oiled machine bit from the On the Origin of PCs book.
  • Discreet Drink Disposal: Durkon with the bloodwart tea.
  • Disintegrator Ray: The Disintegrate spell. A favorite of Vaarsuvius; also used by Redcloak and Xykon.
  • Disposing of a Body
  • Disproportionate Retribution
    • This is the main motto of Nale and the Linear Guild, even mentioned on their business cards.
    • Vaarsuvius. Ancient Black Dragon. "Familicide!"
    • Tiamat is promised five good dragons dead for every black dragon killed by V.
    • General Tarquin offers to give the pair of bounty hunters 8,000 gp for their trouble in accidentally bringing in Elan instead of Nale. Gannji then demands 50,000 instead because he has a thermal detonator (which is actually a soup can -- he was just keeping up a Running Gag). Tarquin then "misplaces" some court paperwork, leaving the bounty hunters sentenced to die in the arena for attempting to extort him in front of his son.
  • Distracting Disambiguation
  • The Ditz
    • Elan, when he's not The Fool, or both simultaneously.
    • Thog
    • Celia has her moments, explained in part by her status as an Outsider and therefore someone not familiar with the customs of the Material Plane. She's also from the Elemental Plane of Air, making her an "airhead".
    • Crystal. She once asks a blind ex-rogue (one whom she had blinded, no less) if he has seen who she's looking for.
  • Diving Save
  • Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Yeah, yeah, we know V's genocide of the black dragons was evil. But damn was it powerful, damn did it look awesome, and damn it if comic #639 didn't vicariously satisfy every major revenge fantasy the readers have ever had. In fact, the entire Soul Splice arc did wonders for V's character depth and popularity, regardless of any evil things V did in the storyline. Antihero-esque lust for power combined with insufferable snarking and heroic desperation? PSL Webcomics page, here we come!
  • Dope Slap
    • In the prequel book On the Origins of PCs, after a fair warning to Vaarsuvius (who was getting annoying), Haley performs a "Sneak Attack Upside the Head".
    • Nale dope-slaps his twin brother Elan in this strip. Apparently, that's a reflex from early childhood.
    • Strip #89 features a rare aversion of the dope-slap.

Roy: (probably -- he's invisible) ... You're lucky attacking ends the spell, or I would smack the crap out of all of you.

Tarquin: It's weird, no matter how many people he kills, the audience still thinks he's lovable.

Belkar: Duck.
Duck.
Duck.
GOOSE!

E

Roy: Hey gnome! There are two ways this can go down: the easy way or the hard way.
Leeky: Druids always pick the hard way; it encourages natural selection.

Redcloak: I mean, fire shouldn't even count. It's a chemical reaction!
Vaarsuvius: Does he not know that the classical elements are classics for a reason??

  • Elfeminate: A large part of the reason Varsuvius and kin get stuck with the Ambiguous Gender gag.
  • Enigmatic Empowering Entity: Two of these. Both are of the scam artist kind, but different kinds of scams.
    • An Angel "of pure Good and Law" clears the heroes' names, making them innocent of a very serious crime in the eyes of an order of paladins. However, the trial is just a Sham Ceremony, and the "angel" is just a manipulative ghost disguised as an angel.
    • The evil trio who tempts V takes on the role of Enigmatic Empowering Entities, but subverts the role to snare the wizard. V is manipulated into accepting a price s/he doesn't understand and is tricked to believe that s/he has an excuse to let her more destructive tendencies run wild without accepting true responsibility for the havoc. Also, the power they give is tainted and fatally flawed in itself, not at all what V had imagined "Ultimate Arcane Power" to be.
  • Episode Zero: The Beginning: One of the Start of Darkness issues.
  • Equal Opportunity Evil: The Lawful Evil Empire of Blood employs humans, lizardfolks and kobolds indiscriminately, from the lowliest foot soldiers or slave drivers to the upper echelons of society, including the Empress' main counselors (with a human general, a lizardfolk high priest and a winged-kobold chancellor).
  • Escalating Brawl: The argument between Roy, Gannji and Enor ends up in a serious pub brawl.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones
    • Tarquin is an amoral sociopath, but he deeply loves his son Elan.
    • Redcloak loved his brother -- just not quite enough.
    • Sabine may be an evil personification of pure lust, but her relationship with Nale is quite solid.
  • Even Evil Has Standards
    • Belkar won't let anyone hurt Mr. Scruffy.
    • There are also things so horrible, that not even Nale is willing to consider.
    • Xykon is known to mock Redcloak for having standards about whom they can crush and how much evil they can do in their efforts to conquer the world and bring equality to goblinkind.
    • Although even Xykon do have some small standards -- namely, he's not a "disgusting biophiliac" and is squicked by Tsukiko's crackfic-worthy fantasies.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Monster in the Darkness; the Oracle of Sunken Valley; the Chief; the Rookie
  • Everything's Better with Dinosaurs
    • Elan dreams of being transformed into an "Elanosaurus rex".
    • The Empire of Blood is shown to use dinosaurs as mounts.

Vaarsuvius: Not surprisingly, ethical concerns cannot overcome the siren's lure of a triceratops ride.

    • There's an Allosaurus which feeds on gladiators who've lost in the arena.
    • Blackwing prefers to think of himself as a "super-advanced flying stealth dinosaur".
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Many characters, especially Xykon and Nale.
  • Evil Counterpart: The Linear Guild's main purpose, this is actually mentioned in-universe when The Order of the Stick and the Linear Guild first meet.
    • Roy/Thog and later, Tarquin.
    • Elan/Nale
    • Haley/Sabine
    • Belkar/Yikyik replaced by his son Yokyok and then Yukyuk after the deaths of the first two.
    • Vaarsuvius/Zz'dtri
    • Durkon/Hilgya replaced by Leeky, and Malack, though Hilgya is Affably Evil and Malack may simply be My Master, Right or Wrong.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy
    • Vaarsuvius was already aware of this, chose to ignore it, and is likely to pay some consequences in the next plot arc.
    • As revealed in the Start of Darkness prequel, Redcloak's plan, hatched by the god of goblinoids, the Dark One, to have a powerful divine and a powerful arcane caster manipulate the Gates to control the Snarl without completely releasing it, and then use the Snarl to force the other divine pantheons to give equal rights to the goblinoids and other humanoid "monsters" solely created to be experience point sword fodder for clerics of the other, older races. Redcloak is well aware that this might end with the death and unmaking of himself and Xykon, but is still determined to go through with the Plan.
    • Similarly, in Start of Darkness, Redcloak learns the hard way that Xykon is not a toy, or even a tool. Subverted, as it turns out; Redcloak still thinks of Xykon as a tool, just one which takes a little more skill than most to use. Whether or not this assumption will come back to bite him in the arse again, time alone will tell.
  • Evil Is One Big Happy Family: Even though it's the Trope Namer, subverted constantly. Evil characters don't care about the alignment of other characters, only whether or not they will help or hinder them in achieving their goals.

Lee: Don't be silly, why would we want the lich to win?
Qarr: Because we're evil?
Cedrik: And that makes us all one big happy family? Screw that!

Note that the IFCC, despite defying the trope in the above quote, also play it completely straight, since their long-term goal is to forge a truce which will unite the warring fiends in an alliance against the forces of Good.
  • Evilly Affable
    • Xykon. Redcloak even lampshades it in a conversation with a hobgoblin goon.
    • Tarquin is so affable that a few people think that even after kicking a few dogs he's only True Neutral.
    • The Giant seems to enjoy playing with the Evilly Affable trope in general: Redcloak averts it, both before and after his My God, What Have I Done? (before it, he doesn't bother to show the slightest concern for the hobgoblins, and after he genuinely does care about them), and Miko inverts it via Good Is Not Nice.
  • Evil Power Vacuum: Averted; Celia convinces Haley not to kill Bozzok, leader of Greysky's thieves guild, in order to stop a power vacuum being created.
  • Evil Sorcerer
    • Xykon;
    • Nale, Elan's twin brother, who multiclassed as fighter/rogue/sorcerer specializing in enchantments (instead of being a bard like Elan);
    • Samantha, the spoiled sorceress daughter of the leader of the bandits of Wooden Forest;
    • Tsukiko, the evil mystic theurge (technically she is both a divine and arcane caster);
    • Qarr the Imp;
    • Jephton the Unholy, the sorcerer-archmage used for Vaarsuvius's soul splice.
  • Exact Words
  • Exactly What I Aimed At: Haley, throwing her distinctive knife into a wanted poster instead of the one holding it.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Test of the Heart.
  • Excuse Me While I Multitask
    • Xykon conducts a job interview while storming the Azure City castle.
    • In the hypothetical scenario the archfiends suggest to Vaarsuvius instead of accepting their offer, V's master Aarindarius is shown defeating a powerful dragon while reading a book, not even bothering to look in its direction.
  • Exotic Entree: The banquet that Elan's father Tarquin holds in his honor. Poor Elan, not being the sort to enjoy such dishes, loses his appetite rather quickly.
  • Exposition Fairy: The title of strip #532.
  • The Extremist Was Right
    • Redcloak: the non-PC races really were set up for suffering, death and an utter lack of opportunities.
    • The Empire of Blood is a safer place to live than it had been before Tarquin. Though given just how bad it was before, this is all relative.
  • Eyepatch After Time Skip: Elan parodies the trope.
  • Eyepatch of Power
    • Right-Eye in Start of Darkness;
    • Redcloak as of comic #699.

Xykon: I like you this way. It's like we have a grumpy pirate on the team.

Hobgoblin cleric: *sniff* I think... I think there's something in my eye.
*SPLORTCH!* AAAH!
Belkar: Got it out for you.

F

Elan: Excuse me, huddled masses! Pardon me! PC coming through! PC coming--

  • Face Palm: "The Great Roy Greenhilt & Everybody Else Facepalm Count"
  • Fake High: In "Madness", a being from the Lower Planes explains why Vaarsuvius (under the effects of a "soul splice") appears to have shifted more towards Evil on the character-alignment scale by presenting a college-university analogy: "It's like if you were at a party where someone has been drinking beer that they didn't know was non-alcoholic: They might seem drunk anyway, just because they were expecting it."
  • False-Flag Operation: Tarquin places his allies as advisors and uses them to manipulate rulers into conquering the western continent.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death
    • Miko gets torn in half.
    • ... And an ancient black dragon gets torn into much smaller pieces from the inside.
    • A first-level commoner gets disemboweled by a housecat.
    • Commander and Lieutenant of Team Peregrine get Imploded by Redcloak; the Resistance leader with the topknot and kimono gets ripped in half by a diabolic being. All in one convenient comic!
  • Famous Last Words
    • "Goodbye... Redcloak." -- Right-Eye, when his brother kills him.
    • "The combo is perfect, I'm telling you. As long as I move back 15 feet every--" -- Half-Ogre with spiked chain
    • "It appears... not everyone... agrees with your analysis." -- Shojo, when Miko falls from paladinhood for killing him. Also from him: "Everything I did, I did for my people."
    • "You'll never take this city while I'm alive, monster!" -- General Chang, just before the Death Knight accepts his terms.
    • "Maybe if I--" *SPLAT* -- Roy, coming up with so many ways to survive a fall that he doesn't notice the ground coming up beneath him.
    • "I regret to report than I am no longer fit for duty... Supreme Leader..." -- Hobgoblin commander, right before triggering Redcloak's My God, What Have I Done?.
    • Xykon and Redcloak almost die at the hands of the ghost paladins of the Sapphire Guard.

Xykon: Hey, Redcloak, we really had a shot at the prize there, didn't we?
Redcloak: Yeah, we did.

    • "I--I can live with that..." -- Miko
    • "I'll take my chances... that the Afterlife... won't have any punishment worse... than not being with you..." -- Therkla
    • "Now come along, bring me to your master so we can begin the Trial of the Century." -- Kubota, right before V disintegrates him.
    • "No! No! You... You Monster!" -- Black Dragon Mom, when V slaughters her entire family for attempting to slaughter his or her family.
    • "Why don't... you love... me?" -- Tsukiko, being killed by her own undead minions.
  • Fandom Nod: Many, including Miko (not) becoming a Death Knight.
  • Fangs Are Evil
  • Fan Service: Lampshaded during Haley's bath sequence in On the Origin of PCs.
  • Fantastic Nature Reserve: The room filled with outdated monsters in Dorukan's dungeon.
  • Fantastic Racism
    • Basically Redcloak's motivation both ways. His family was slaughtered because paladins don't consider his kind to have the right to exist, so he blames all humans for the actions of that group and kills them freely.
    • Classism: Wizards in general and Vaarsuvius in particular seem to look down on the other magic-using classes. Sorcerers are usually the targets, but being called a warlock is a dire insult.
  • Far East: (Or Far South, as the case may be.) Azure City would be a Fantasy Counterpart Culture for Japan, if it were at all consistent. Instead, names like "Miko Miyazaki" stand side by side with names like "O-Chul", and the people worship the Twelve Gods, the animals from the Chinese zodiac. This, naturally, is a pastiche of D&D's Oriental mishmash settings, most specifically the Oriental Adventures Sourcebook.
  • Fastball Special
    • Well, "Tetherball Special", anyhow. That one's even called "Wolverine, Eat Your Heart Out".
    • Also, what happens when you sit on Durkon's head as he casts Thor's Might.
  • Fast Forward Mechanic: Invoked in "Time is On My Side".
  • Fatal Flaw
    • The Pride and inability to admit that his/her magic can't do everything of Vaarsuvius, as pointed out by the fiends in #634. See also here: "Mistakes were made all around, but the important thing is that this needless conflict is now over WITHOUT the loser's entire family line getting totally eradicated. So, you know. Progress."
    • On the Origin of PCs has Roy claiming that belief in the complete supremacy of arcane magic is a common flaw among spellcasters.
    • Thinking he knows more about a situation than he actually does is Roy's Fatal Flaw. If Roy had known that liches can regenerate from a phylactery from the very beginning, he could have made sure Xykon was Deader Than Dead and wouldn't have been able to return to kill him later. This also lead to Miko becoming wrongfully suspicious of Roy, with disastrous consequences. In a Too Clever by Half moment, he also believed he had outsmarted the Oracle when the latter was more than happy to just tell him which Gate Xykon was headed towards next. Later, he dismissed the Celestial's warnings about V's Deal with the Devil because he thought she was talking about Belkar.
  • Fate Worse Than Death
    • The Ancient Black Dragon intended to bind Vaarsuvius' children souls to it forever, and Xykon has a fondness for trapping the souls of important enemies in gems. This is subverted when he imprisons Dorukan in the same gem as Lirian.
    • A slightly more humorous example: after willingly being abused and used as a weapon by Belkar in order to not be destroyed, the head of the "Eye of Fear and Flame" (one of Xykon's three decoys) finally draws the line when the latter announces his intentions to eventually use him as an "emergency chamber pot".
    • Another humorous example: Kobold Kitty Litter.

Durkon: Uh... wait. Aren't ye gonna, y'know, kill the kobold first?

V & Belkar: No.

Belkar: Here's an idea: Let's never do this again.
Haley: Yeah, like we're never gonna need filler again. Dream on, shorty.

  • Fox News: Referenced briefly as the horrible method Gnomes get information, it looks like Burlew is taking a shot at the news outlet... until the panel cuts away to a bunch of gnomes listening to an actual fox, red, white-tipped tail, yipping noises and everything. Let's face it, if you got all your news from a small furry animal, some things would slip through the cracks.
  • Friendly War: We have three desert empires that always struggle against each other. However, they are secretly allied with each other. The conflict between them is merely an excuse to take over other nations, as well as a safeguard to keep the other peoples from uniting against them.
  • Funetik Aksent: Durkon, lampshaded.

Belkar: Wait, he can pronounce "stratosphere" but not "the"?

Vaarsuvius: And yet I see no reason why I still need ye. You.

  1. ↑ ("just as strong [as Earth], and 40% lighter")
  2. ↑ (one of the hardest natural metals, twice as heavy as lead)
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