History Literature / ForestKingdom

* KillTheGod: The goal of the title character in ''The God Killer'' is to do this... or at least, to kill beings that are worshipped as gods, yet don't have the power to save the titular killer from dying of cancer, and whom the killer thus considers to be only pretenders and thus deserving of death.

* YourWorstNightmare: This is one of the Beast's powers, causing nightmares in the people around it.

** In the very first book, when Councillor William Blackstone is found dead. the title characters order the house sealed, with everyone stuck inside. The other guests start dropping dead soon after.

** In book 1, [[spoiler: the sorcerer Gaunt has to do this to his succubus companion after she's badly injured by a werewolf]].

* HornyDevils: In book 1, the sorcerer Gaunt keeps a succubus bound in a magic circle as a companion. He admits that she's a source of pleasure and also for much of his power, and she's the one who carried out the Devil's Hook massacre, single-handedly destroying the gangs that controlled the area. She's also capable of generating fire.

** Fisher wields an enchanted axe that has the power to disrupt sorcery, gifted to him by a wizard friend.

* FashionableEvil: The reason why the dragon used to raze villages, why the High Warlock [[BalefulPolymorph polymorphs]] people who annoy him, and why goblins rob travelers; because it's expected.

* WasOnceAMan: The castle's moat monster was [[BalefulPolymorph originally]] a messenger who made the mistake of disturbing the High Warlock in the middle of an experiment. [[spoiler: It turns out that he could have changed back, but liked life in the new form so much he refused to.]]

* WreckedWeapon: In book 1 (''Blue Moon Rising''), while the protagonists are facing the Demon Prince, he snaps Rockbreaker, one of the [[EvilWeapon Infernal Devices]], across his knee.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: When the Demon Prince is done with [[spoiler: the Astrologer]], he [[BalefulPolymorph turns him into a low-grade demon]].

* AnAxeToGrind: In his original identity, Hawk was a master swordsman. After he lost an eye, his sword skills declined so Hawk's wizard friend gave him an enchanted axe that has the power to disrupt sorcery.

* WeaponsKitchenSink: Hawk uses an axe instead of the standard-issue police sword. Justified because he'd lost an eye and lacks the depth perception for refined swordplay.

** In ''Wolf in the Wolf'', when Hawk and Fisher go undercover in a tower belonging to a noble family, they once again get sealed in for a day, with a mysterious murderer on the loose.

* FramingTheGuiltyParty: At the end of book 1, Hawk and Fisher decide to report that [[spoiler: Lord Roderik Hightower]], who was responsible for most of the deaths in the book, was responsible for ''all'' of them in order to protect the reputation of the other killer.

* SuccessionCrisis: Book 1 starts with second-born Prince Rupert being sent off to slay a dragon. He knows, however, that it's really his father's way of having him get killed, so as to avoid one of these when it comes time for first-born Prince Harald to take the throne. [[spoiler: The climax sees him willingly leaving the kingdom and becoming Hawk and Fisher, captains of the City Guard of Haven.]]

* ElementalPowers: All members of Redheart's royal family have command over one of the four classical elements - Lewis has earth, Viktor has fire, and Dominic has water, while their sister Gabrielle has air. Roderik Crichton, being a cousin of the late King Malcom, is revealed early on to also have air.

* {{Geas}}: Brion [=DeGrange=] was a bandit leader until he was captured and [[BoxedCrook condemned to servitude]] at Castle Midnight. He was placed under a geas that compels him to work as the castle's head of security, and bars him from any act - drinking to excess, venturing outside, seeking female companionship - that might distract from or diminish his performance at that task. But it doesn't bar him from ''absolutely hating'' every minute of it.

* CutHimselfShaving: In book 1, when a noblewoman one-eyed Hawk what became of his eye, he gives the ridiculous excuse that he lost it in a card game.

* YouAreWhatYouHate: In book 1, [[spoiler: Lord Roderik Hightower spent years obsessively going out hunting werewolves. He only ever found one, but it was enough - the werewolf bit him and turned him into the very thing he despised]].

* TomatoInTheMirror: Discussed in ''Wolf in the Fold''. After reading the papers that document the secret history of ''the freak'', the characters discover that it not only steals lifeforce, it takes the memories of its victims and believes it's actually them, for a while at least, with the very first victim of this being its own mother. After learning this, Hawk speculates that "the freak" has pulled a KillAndReplace on one of their host's guests (whose body had been found in the chimney), using a strong illusion spell to blend in, but because of the memory-stealing effect, doesn't realize they'd done so. Ultimately subverted when they're actually revealed, and it's shown that they knew who they were the whole time.

* AscendedToCarnivorism: In ''The Bones of Haven'', the ghosts of animals that were killed at a slaughterhouse are summoned up en masse and rampage through the city. Crazed and furious, they retaliate against humanity by killing and eating people: a gruesome act of vengeance even the ''sheep'' take part in.

* CobwebJungle: Take to extremes in ''The Bones of Haven'', where the titular characters must hunt monsters in tunnels overgrown by "Crawling Jenny": an amorphous carnivorous life form made up of cobwebs, fungus, and moss.

* EvilWeapon: As before, the Infernal Devices. This book reveals they were created by The Engineer, one of the Transient Beings, who made them from the bones of saints and delighted in perverting symbols of good into objects of evil. Aside from the three featured in ''Blue Moon Rising'', this book reveals there are three more, kept in the Inverted Cathedral - ''Soulripper'', ''Blackhowl'' and ''Belladonna's Kiss''.

* BaldWomen: During the first chapter, Hawk and Fisher discover that their fellow guard Mistique is bald and hiding it under a wig when a zombie grabs hold of said wig and accidentally pulls it off. Mistique does ''not'' appreciate having her baldness exposed and violently takes out her anger on the zombie in retaliation.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: The Champion.]]

* GutPunch: [[spoiler: Finding out that the expanding Darkwood has engulfed the Forest Castle.]]

* ChaosArchitecture: The Forest Castle, which is believed to average about five thousand rooms. The entire south wing has been inaccessible for years, and when they finally found a way back they had to go through a GravityScrew to get there. Inconvenient, since that's the wing that contains the treasury and armory.

* EmergencyImpersonation: Jordan, an actor and stage magician, is secretly hired to impersonate Prince Victor of Redhart, who's been poisoned by one of his brothers and rivals for the throne. A transformation spell lets Jordan look just like Victor, and another grants him insight into the Prince's background, habits and motives. [[spoiler: Which, together with Victor's private ranting about how he's going to unleash a vindictive bloodbath once he's King, spurs Jordan to murder Victor and assume his identity permanently.]]

* ExplosiveLeash: Prince Dominic has a secret traitor among Prince Victor's supporters, to feed him information and take covert action in the brothers' rivalry for the throne of Redhart. Dominic "recruited" this traitor by inflicting a mortal wound to the man's chest, then using a spell to prevent the traitor from bleeding out: a spell that only Dominic knows, and that requires daily renewal.

A novel by Creator/SimonRGreen that follows the exploits of Prince Rupert of The Forest Kingdom, Princess Julia of Hillsdown, his unicorn, and her dragon. [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg And The High Warlock]].

The Forest Kingdom has always had Heroes. Kings with mighty swords of legend, princes who slew dragons by the thousands, champions and knights galore. As well as the occasional mage.

He is in fact, the second, unwanted, less skilled, less charming, politically inept, son of and possible danger to the kingdom and throne of King John. John deems it necessary for Rupert to die, and sends him off on a perfectly reasonable quest to slay a dragon and bring back its hoard - for the Forest Kingdom's Royal Treasury is a little... [[NoBudget thin]].

The series consists of five books:

The six-book ''Hawk and Fisher'' series (released from 1990-1992) is set in the same universe, but focuses on the port city of Haven. Its title characters are Captains in the City Guard; ''Beyond the Blue Moon'' reveals that they're actually Prince Rupert and Princess Julia from ''Blue Moon Rising'', who moved to Haven after the events of that book, only returning to the Forest Kingdom during the events of ''Beyond the Blue Moon''. It consists of:

* AnthropomorphicPersonification: The "Transient Beings". These entities seem to be Not-''Necessarily''-Anthropomorphic Personifications, in that some appear human-like while others are downright bizarre, yet they all embody some greater concept or ideal.

* OurLichesAreDifferent: Overall, lichs in the ''Forest Kingdom'' and ''Hawk & Fisher'' series are simply dead bodies animated by a sorcerer's will (or in some cases, the will of an EldritchAbomination), and aren't required to have been magical themselves when they were alive. However, ''Hawk & Fisher: Winner Takes All'' features a more traditional lich, a sorcerer who's been reanimated by his own will, and now calls himself Igor Mortice. Unlike most examples, his lichdom is a temporary state, and he's forced to hide out in an ice-filled cellar to avert his body's slow and painful decomposition.

[[folder:''Blue Moon Rising'']]

%%* CigarChomper: The goblin leader is almost always seen with a cigar.

* TheMagicGoesAway: The High Warlock claimed this was happening, as the rise of science and logic gradually displaced the fantastic from reality, and events in ''Beyond The Blue Moon'' make this trope inevitable by [[spoiler: annihilating Reverie, the dimension from which magical energies originate]].

[[folder:''Blood and Honor'']]

[[folder:''Down Among the Dead Men'']]

[[folder:''Hawk and Fisher'']]
!!Tropes found in the ''Hawk and Fisher'' series:

* ActionPrologue: All of the books start with an action totally unrelated to the story most of the book is dealing with.
* AntiMagic: In book 1, Councillor William Blackstone wears an amulet that disables magic within a limited area around him. [[spoiler: The killer makes use of this to slip him a glass of poison, transmuted into wine, that reverts to its true form when in range of the amulet, but turns back into normal wine outside of its range.]]
* AnthropomorphicVice: In ''The God Killer'', the medieval-fantasy beat cops stop off at the Temple of John Barleycorn for a refreshing libation after a hard day of investigating a crime spree in the religious district.
* ArtifactOfDoom: In book 6, a thief is set free from Messerschmann's Portrait, a magical booby trap in which he'd been imprisoned for 23 years after an unwise attempt to rob a sorcerer. Although insane at first, he regains his senses by a fluke of events and subsequently discovers he's acquired superhuman strength, speed and stamina, as if all the concentrated energy of those twenty-three years is at his disposal.
* AscendedToCarnivorism: In one novel, the ghosts of animals that were killed at a slaughterhouse are summoned up en masse and rampage through the city. Crazed and furious, they retaliate against humanity by killing and eating people: a gruesome act of vengeance even the ''sheep'' take part in.
* AttackOfThePoliticalAd: Elections in Haven can get ''ugly'', as seen in ''Winner Takes All''. For the one day that campaigners are allowed to go out electioneering, the candidates can put out anything they want, including remarks and posters to make the other candidates look bad.
* {{Autocannibalism}}:
** In ''Guard Against Dishonor'', a teenager doped out of her mind on [[PsychoSerum super-chacal]] has her belly ripped open by her equally-berserk boyfriend. When Hawk and Fisher find her, she's nibbling on her own exposed guts.
** In another incident, Hawk cuts the umbilicus that connects a small parasitic demon to its host. Denied its source of nourishment, the demon attacks Hawk, jabbing at his throat with the severed cord's end in an attempt to make him its new host. Hawk grabs the cord and jams its end into the demon's own belly, and it sucks itself bodily into its own umbilicus and disappears.

* BatmanColdOpen: Used in book 1, with Hawk and Fisher dealing with a vampire in the first chapter, before moving on to the case that will last the rest of the book.

* {{Bifauxnen}}: The Little Lord is essentially a female GentlemanThief; a tall, handsome woman who dresses in slightly old-fashioned upper-class male clothes, complete with short hair and [[HighClassGlass monocle]].
* BloodyMurder: One of the assassination attempts on Reform candidate James Adamant in ''Winner Takes All'' involves a monster ''made'' of blood.

* CobwebJungle: Take to extremes in ''The Gods of Haven'', where the titular characters must hunt monsters in tunnels overgrown by "Crawling Jenny": an amorphous carnivorous life form made up of cobwebs, fungus, and moss.
* CollapsingLair: This trope turns nasty in ''Guard Against Dishonor''. As per tradition, the pocket dimension in which a deadly new drug is being prepared fails when the sorcerer that created it is killed by the Watch; untraditionally, this has worse consequences than just a dramatic race for the exit, as the pocket's collapse takes a crowded city tenement down with it, causing hundreds of civilian casualties. [[spoiler: This was deliberately planned by the drug lord who'd had the pocket dimension created, to discredit the Watch and make it easier to escape with the drugs in the midst of a disaster.]]
* CondensationClue: In ''Winner Takes All'', a political candidate's hired sorcerers deliver a death threat to his opponent via this trope, magically causing a window to fog up and then "drawing" a leering, speaking face in the fog with the tracks of dripping water.

* CutHimselfShaving: In book 1, when a noblewoman one-eyed Hawk what became of his eye, he gives the ridiculous excuse that he lost it in a card game.
* DeliberateInjuryGambit: In ''The Bones Of Haven'', the leader of an urban-fantasy Special Wizardry And Tactics team throws herself on the sword of a terrorist fanatic to give her squad the chance to take the man down. Doubles as a Moment Of Awesome, as she sneers in his shocked face and asks him: "You didn't think you were the ''only'' one willing to die for your beliefs, did you?"
* DestroyTheAbusiveHome: In book 1, the [=DeFerrier=] house had a very unpleasant set of previous owners. One of the suspects in the case has been trying to buy the house off its newest owner, and it's later discovered that he is in fact the last [=DeFerrier=], trying to buy the house so he can burn it down.
* ((Determinator)): Hawk and Fisher are definitely up there as determinators. Despite being completely human, they're willing to go up against anything Haven can throw at them and stick to their principles. Usually while insisting they've seen worse.
* TheDogBitesBack: In one story, a corrupt politician who'd engineered a campaign of mayhem against his opponent and everyone who'd dared support his rival is killed, not by the heroes or any of the other Badass killers and traitors on either side of the election, but by the mousy, terrified wife he'd been beating for years, who seized the moment of his downfall to stab him thirty or forty times.
* DrivenToSuicide:

* DyingAlone: In ''The God Killer'', a sorcerer sneaks away from his work to provide company to a dying deity, whose church became extinct many generations ago. He claims that even a god shouldn't be left to die alone. When the sorcerer is mortally wounded, the ephemeral god expends the last of its dwindling energy to join him, allowing both of them to avert this trope.
* EekAMouse: Played with and justified in the last story, where a crime lord keeps a bunch of naked Amazons as bodyguards. Rather than fight them, Hawk and Fisher turn a sackful of ravenous sewer rats loose in the crime lord's lair, and the bodyguards start climbing the furniture in a panic when the starving rodents swarm them to bite their bare toes.
* ElectionDayEpisode: ''Winner Takes All'' is about Haven's annual election, and how Hawk and Fisher get stuck protecting one of the candidates.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: First mentioned in ''Winner Takes All'', the "No Tax On Liquor" party is a political party that's single-handedly run and funded by a Lord Sinclair, and is dedicated to... getting rid of the tax on liquor.

* EyeRemember: Referenced in ''The God Killer'', although averted in this particular investigation because the victim's head was missing.
* EyeScream: In ''The God Killer'', one of the priesthoods interrogated by Hawk and Fisher sews its members' eyelids together because the sight of their patron Being would burn out their eyesight. Another, creepier cult's priests ''have'' no eyes, only empty sockets, but still open their eyelids and "look" at the Guards as they walk past. In the previous Haven novel, ''Winner Takes All'', a sorcerer possessed by the Lord of the Gulfs takes off his hood, revealing that the Transient Being has consumed nearly all of its host's tissues, eyeballs included.
* FalseReassurance: In book 1, all the murder suspects attest under a truth spell that, no, they didn't kill the two victims. This is correct, because the victims were killed by different suspects.

* FramingTheGuiltyParty: At the end of book 1, Hawk and Fisher decide to report that [[spoiler: Lord Roderik Hightower]], who was responsible for most of the deaths in the book, was responsible for ''all'' of them in order to protect the reputation of the other killer.
* GiantSpider: In ''The Bones of Haven'', Hawk, Fisher, and the Special Wizardry and Tactics team fight a giant spider while traversing the sewers.
* GivingThemTheStrip: In ''Wolf in the Fold'', a spy Hawk is pursuing throws a dagger at the Guard and pins his cloak to the wall. Hawk isn't hurt, but the few seconds it takes him to unfasten the cloak's clasp gives the fleeing spy a head start. Later, the Guard Commander berates him for losing the spy ''and'' his cloak, which he'd left behind still pinned to the wall.
* GrievousHarmWithABody: In one novel, a psychotic magical construct calling itself the Dark Man goes on a rampage, part of which involves it smacking Watch officers around with the human head it's carrying.
* HoistHeroOverHead: In the first novel, legendary warrior Adam Stalker holds a ''werewolf'' over his head in this fashion, as this is the only way he can safely restrain the snarling, clawing monster long enough for others to fetch a silver weapon.
* HornyDevils: In book 1, the sorcerer Gaunt keeps a succubus bound in a magic circle as a companion. He admits that she's a source of pleasure and also for much of his power, and she's the one who carried out the Devil's Hook massacre, single-handedly destroying the gangs that controlled the area. She's also capable of generating fire.
* InternalReformist: In book 1, Councillor William Blackstone is presented as one, working to clean up the corruption in Haven. When he's murdered, it's figured that one of his corrupt rivals did it or had it done to protect their own interests.
* InverseLawOfComplexityToPower: Lampshaded in one of the novels, in which the sorceress Mistique criticizes an opposing wizard who's specialized in controlling wood, claiming he was limited by that choice. When someone points out that she, herself, only works with mists, she remarks that you can do a lot with mist.
* LetsYouAndHimFight: Much of ''Guard Against Dishonor'' is set up so as to get that series' married-cop protagonists, [[BattleCouple Hawk and Fisher]], to fight one another, as the bad guys implicate Fisher in police corruption while alleging Hawk has gone rogue and is killing innocent people. When they finally meet, [[spoiler: it's subverted, because they both care about each other more than about their duty as cops, so wouldn't have attacked each other even if the allegations had been true]].
* LieDetector: A [[TruthSerum truth spell]] is used in book 1, which forces people to speak only truthful statements. This attempt to find out who committed two murders fails, due to [[spoiler: the murders having been committed by two different people, each of whom could truthfully deny having killed ''both'' victims.]]
* LockedRoomMystery: In book 1, Councillor William Blackstone is found dead in his locked room, with a knife in his chest, and anti-teleportation wards preventing anyone from getting in and out that way. Later subverted when two of the suspects admit that one of them found him dead first, and locked the door afterward to make it ''look'' like one of these.
* LostHimInACardGame: In the first book, Hawk claims to have lost his missing eye in a card game. He was just kidding though.
* MathematiciansAnswer: In book 1, when Hawk and Fisher question suspects about the two murders under a truthspell, all the suspects can correctly answer "No" when asked if they murdered Victim #1 and Victim #2. They can honestly say this because the two deaths were the handiwork of different killers.
* MadwomanInTheAttic: In ''Wolf in the Fold'', the noble [=MacNeil=] family's dark Family Secret is the existence of "the freak". The physical deformities, it's noted, could have been overlooked -- "occasional unfortunates were inevitable when the Quality became as inbred as it had in Haven" -- but when the freak proved to be an immortal energy vampire who drained the life force of any living thing near it, ''that'' was horrific enough that his father walled him up in a secret room in Tower [=MacNeil=] where he remained undying but quiescent until the Family stopped feeding him.

** In one book, the titular cops use a magic-nullifying stone to end the anguish of several still-conscious dissection specimens, human and animal, in an evil sorcerer's house.
* MonstrousCannibalism: In one of the tales, the Lord of the Gulfs (a [[AnthropomorphicPersonification Transient Being]] embodying famine) demonstrates its power by calling up a huge crowd of ghostly figures in the last stages of starvation. At its bidding, the ghosts turn upon each other, screaming in horror at their own deeds even as they devour each others' ectoplasmic flesh and bones.
* MouthStitchedShut: In ''Wolf In The Fold'', the Freak's mouth was kept sewn shut by his father over many decades' captivity. This wasn't fatal, because the Freak lived on absorbed life force rather than food.

* MummiesAtTheDinnerTable: One story shows the titular police captains having to talk down a sorcerer who killed his girlfriend, then turned the body into a magical puppet which moved around at his command, thus feeding his delusion that the girl wasn't really dead. Hawk ends the confrontation by burying his axe in the dead girl's head so that the sorcerer can no longer maintain the belief that she's alive.
* NoManOfWomanBorn: In ''Winner Takes All'', an entity is foretold to be unstoppable by any foe, living or dead. [[spoiler: It get its ass handed to it by an undead hero]].

* OtherworldlyAndSexuallyAmbiguous: One story features an androgynous demon called up by decadent young nobles.
* OurLichesAreDifferent: The "undead wizard" version appears in ''Winner Takes All'', serving as a bodyguard for a political candidate. Mortice was also his protector in life, but died defending him from magical assassination. Unlike most examples, his lichdom is a temporary state, and he's forced to hide out in an ice-filled cellar to avert his body's slow and painful decomposition.

* PhantomZonePicture: ''The Bones of Haven'' has Messerschmann's Portrait, a painting that works as a magical booby-trap: if a person looks into it for too long, they end up trapped in the [[DeathWorld highly unpleasant]] landscape of the painting, from which they can only be released if someone else falls for the trap and takes their place. Someone who spends too long trapped in the portrait comes out no longer entirely human, and completely insane.

* PrincessForADay: The short story ''Vengeance for a Lonely Man'' sees the main characters (who would later canonically be revealed as ''actual'' royalty) going undercover as minor nobility to catch a spy who's stolen extremely sensitive information.
%% (commented out until more details can be added) * PsychoSerum: Superchacol.
* RaisingTheSteaks: In ''The Gods of Haven'', [[spoiler: thousands of enraged animal ghosts are called up from a slaughterhouse, materialize as zombies, and embark on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against humanity]].
* RipVanWinkle: In a supporting-character example, Wulf Saxon from ''The Bones Of Haven'' got trapped inside a booby-trapped magical portrait for 23 years while attempting to rob a sorcerer. No time passes for him, but by the time he's set free, his family are all dead or penniless, his friends have become callous and hostile, and the city he'd once hoped to reform has become a WretchedHive far worse than he remembers.

* SelfInsertFic: InUniverse, one minor character in ''Winner Takes All'' is a self-promoting mercenary who wrote loads of over-the-top adventure stories about his own "incredibly heroic deeds", then published them as mass-market chapbooks under a pseudonym.
* ShamelessSelfPromoter: In ''Winner Takes All'', one of a [[ThoseTwoGuys pair of mercenaries]] who help to protect James Adamant has a sideline, writing chapbook adventure-stories and songs with himself as the hero under a nom de plume.
* SpookyPainting: ''The Bones of Haven'' introduces Messerschmann's Portrait, a painting which, if you look at it too long, will trap you in the hellish landscape it depicts.
* StayInTheKitchen: In book 1, Adam Stalker has this opinion towards women and doesn't bother to hide it.
* SwallowedWhole: A giant spider encountered in the sewers lands on Hawk when it's killed. While it doesn't actually swallow him, he punches a hole in its descending abdomen with his axe, ends up inside its (mostly hollow) belly, then spends the next couple of minutes hacking his way out.
* TableclothYank: Gleefully averted in ''Wolf in the Fold'', in which Fisher snatches up a tablecloth to cover the naked body of a dead man. The toppling crash of place settings is described in all its destructive glory.
* TenLittleMurderVictims: Several of the ''Hawk And Fisher'' stories use this trope, starting with the very first book, in which Councillor William Blackstone is found dead and the title characters order the house sealed, with everyone stuck inside. The other guests start dropping dead soon after.

* VideoWills: In ''Wolf in the Fold'', Duncan [=MacNeil=] leaves a prepared illusion as his will, complete with instructions on precisely how his relatives are to be seated in the room where it will be activated. That way, when his 3D image appears, it can address his son, daughter, sister and others "face to face".
* WeaponsKitchenSink: Hawk uses an axe instead of the standard-issue police sword. Justified because he'd lost an eye and lacks the depth perception for refined swordplay.
* WhoYouGonnaCall: ''The God Killer'' features the God Squad, a special unit of Haven's police force who deal with supernatural phenomena and entities.
* WretchedHive: The series' setting is the port city of Haven, a city-state overrun with spell-casters, demons, and thieves, and so corrupt that the title characters can justly make the claim of being the only guards who have never taken a bribe or looked the other direction.

* YouHaveToBurnTheWeb: Used in the prison ColdOpen of ''The Bones of Haven''. Complicated by the fact that this particular CobwebJungle is ''alive'', and mobile enough to freak out when it starts to burn.

[[folder:''Beyond the Blue Moon'']]
!!Tropes found in ''Beyond the Blue Moon'':

* ClarkKenting: When Rupert and Julia return to the Forest Kingdom as Hawk and Fisher, they count on their both having aged to conceal their real identities. With the masses, it seems to work, mostly because their official portraits are so idealized as to look nothing like they had even when they were younger; at the end it's subverted, as everyone who'd actually ''known'' them admits that they'd recognized them both immediately, but kept quiet about it for reasons of politics and/or to respect their wish for anonymity.
* DesperateObjectCatch: An assassin/sorcerer under powerful magical protection takes the infant king hostage, and demands that the Queen Regent trade her life for the boy's. At the last moment, the Queen's father tosses a protective amulet for his royal daughter to catch, and its power lets her bypass the assassin's shielding spells and cut his throat with her own concealed dagger.
* DungFu: A hermit who's sick of peasants assuming he's some sort of holy prophet throws mud and deer scat at would-be supplicants so they'll leave him alone.
* EverybodyKnewAlready: This is the book where it's revealed that Hawk and Fisher are Prince Rupert and Princess Julia from ''Blue Moon Rising''. They attempt to hide this fact from the other characters, but at the big denouement at the end, everybody is relieved that they can finally drop the pretense.
* HandOfGlory: The Seneschal uses one, which was made from the hand of the first Forest King and hence, has the authority to open any door in Forest Castle [[spoiler: including those in the Inverted Cathedral]].
* OrganDodge: At one point, a sorceress who's fighting a zombie horde is attacked from behind by one of their number. It grabs her lush mane of curly black hair... only to find itself holding a wig, which confuses the slow-witted undead long enough for the sorceress, now outraged because it had exposed her baldness, to blast it.
* TheScourgeOfGod: Subverted by the Walking Man -- contrary to popular belief, he couldn't care less about minor vices. He reserves punishment for real monsters -- like a pedophile/child-murderer/necromancer, who gets beaten into a barely recognizable corpse... bare-handed.
* TimeSkip: Set twelve years after the events of ''Blue Moon Rising'', and two years after the events of ''Down Among the Dead Men''.
* WasOnceAMan: It's not revealed until this book that [[spoiler: the demonic hordes]] were originally human also, but were warped by the Darkwood.

[[folder:''Once in a Blue Moon'']]
!!Tropes found in ''Once in a Blue Moon'':

* TimeSkip: Set one hundred years after the events of ''Blue Moon Rising'', and ninety-eight years after the events of ''Beyond the Blue Moon''.

[[quoteright:261:[URL]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blue_moon_rising.png[/URL]]]

[[quoteright:261:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blue_moon_rising.png]]

** In ''Blue Moon Rising'', the King's Barons and their allies are openly plotting against him, and even host a gathering of rebels in his own castle, plotting to kill him and install the eldest prince as their puppet ruler. [[spoiler:It backfires, because Prince Harald is loyal to his father.]]

* OurLichesAreDifferent:
** Despite being called lichs, the lichs of the main ''Forest Kingdom'' series are simply zombie-like risen dead, rather than undead sorcerers.
** ''Hawk & Fisher: Winner Takes All'' features a normal lich, a wizard who's revived as an undead sorcerer. Unlike most examples, Mortise's lichdom is a temporary state, and he's forced to hide out in an ice-filled cellar to avert his body's slow and painful decomposition.

* BelligerentSexualTension: Between Prince Rupert (JerkWithAHeartOfGold) and Princess Julia (Tsundere for most of the book). [[spoiler:They eventually get their act together at the end and by the time of the sequels are a real BattleCouple]].

* GutPunch: [[spoiler:Finding out that the expanding Darkwood has engulfed the Forest Castle.]]

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:The Champion.]]

* TheLegionsOfHell: The demons that swarm out of the Darkwood[[spoiler:, although without the Demon Prince's influence they're just random monsters. ''Beyond the Blue Moon'' later subverts it when it's revealed the demons are actually humans transformed into murderous monsters.]]

* TheMagicGoesAway: The High Warlock claimed this was happening, as the rise of science and logic gradually displaced the fantastic from reality, and events in ''Beyond The Blue Moon'' make this trope inevitable by [[spoiler:annihilating Reverie, the dimension from which magical energies originate]].

* OurDemonsAreDifferent: These demons are mindless {{Mix And Match Creature}}s with no drives except to cause pain. [[spoiler:Except for the [[MonsterLord Demon Prince]], who [[ItCanThink isn't mindless]].]]

* PityTheKidnapper: Prince Rupert arrives at a dragon's lair only to find a dragon who desperately wants to be rid of an aggressive, tomboyish, ''loud'' princess who was sent to it to die. When asked later [[spoiler:why the dragon is helping them]], Rupert answers that he rescued it from a princess.

* SuccessionCrisis: Book 1 starts with second-born Prince Rupert being sent off to slay a dragon. He knows, however, that it's really his father's way of having him get killed, so as to avoid one of these when it comes time for first-born Prince Harald to take the throne. [[spoiler:The climax sees him willingly leaving the kingdom and becoming Hawk and Fisher, captains of the City Guard of Haven.]]

* WasOnceAMan: The castle's moat monster was [[BalefulPolymorph originally]] a messenger who made the mistake of disturbing the High Warlock in the middle of an experiment. [[spoiler:It turns out that he could have changed back, but liked life in the new form so much he refused to.]]
* WeAreStrugglingTogether: The barons are just unbelievable. They actually [[spoiler:tried to stage a revolution ''in the middle of a continent-wide demonic incursion!'']]
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: When the Demon Prince is done with [[spoiler:the Astrologer]], he [[BalefulPolymorph turns him into a low-grade demon]].

* AntiMagic: The knight Gawaine owns a magical ax made by the High Warlock. One of its powers is that its blade cancels out any offensive magic in his vicinity.

* BodyDouble: Jordan, an actor, is hired to serve as one for Prince Viktor of Redheart, so nobody will know the real Viktor is unavailable. [[spoiler:The transformation into an exact physical duplicate proves to be ''so'' effective that it gives him the same royal Blood as the original Viktor, granting him Viktor's fire magic and letting him pass the blood test issued by the Stone of Redheart, thus letting him become king.]]

* DemBones: Early on, Jordan and his escorts are confronted by Bloody Bones, a Transient Being in the form of a nine-foot, bloody (and blood-drinking) skeleton. Luckily, the knight Gawaine has an AntiMagic ax that allows him to dispatch the monster, and they plan to dump the skull in a body of water some distance away to ensure he can't come back.

* ExplosiveLeash: In ''Blood And Honor'', Prince Dominic has a secret traitor among Prince Victor's supporters, to feed him information and take covert action in the brothers' rivalry for the throne of Redhart. Dominic "recruited" this traitor by inflicting a mortal wound to the man's chest, then using a spell to prevent the traitor from bleeding out: a spell that only Dominic knows, and that requires daily renewal.
* FakeWizardry: In ''Blood and Honor'' the protagonist is a down on his luck stage actor who uses stage fire magic to good effect against his opponents while posing as a mage prince with elemental fire powers.
* FisherKing: In ''Blood and Honour'', Castle Midnight starts sliding into a hellish state without a King. As soon as a King is on the throne again the darkness subsides.

* InTheBack: How [[spoiler:Prince Viktor]] dies at the hands of Jordan himself, after Jordan realizes what a monster he is.

* {{Necromancer}}: Prince Dominic has been animating dead people as his servants, including [[spoiler:Robert Argent]], who's supposedly in league with Prince Viktor, turns out to be an undead servant of Prince Dominic due to being held on the very point of death via a fatal wound that Dominic delivered, yet holds at bay, with his own sorcery.
* OffWithHisHead: The skeleton monster Bloody Bones is dispatched via decapitation with an anti-magic ax.
* {{Patricide}}: It's widely believed that one of King Malcom's sons committed this, or at least had it ordered. The final chapter reveals he was indeed murdered by one of his children. [[spoiler:The catch is, it was his ''daughter'', who suffocated him via her air magic.]]

* SuccessionCrisis: There's one after King Malcom of Redheart dies and his three sons start fighting for the crown; to win it, one of the sons -- Lewis, Viktor and Dominic -- must complete a set of rituals that involve presenting the former King's crown and seal of office to the Stone in the proper ceremony. Complicating things is the fact that Viktor is too ill to actually take part, and an actor named Jordan has been hired to pretend to be him, and that the Regent decides to declare the throne open to ''anyone'' of the right Blood who completes the ritual of presenting the crown and seal to the Stone. It later turns out King Malcom had intended him to do this all along. [[spoiler:Ultimately, it turns out Jordan qualifies as a candidate, since the spell that transformed him into an exact physical duplicate of Prince Viktor gave him the same Blood and giving him a valid claim to the throne.]]

* VideoWills: In ''Blood and Honor'', King Malcom's will takes the form of a hologram of himself sealed within a ruby.

* AntiMagic: In book 1, Councillor William Blackstone wears an amulet that disables magic within a limited area around him. [[spoiler:The killer makes use of this to slip him a glass of poison, transmuted into wine, that reverts to its true form when in range of the amulet, but turns back into normal wine outside of its range.]]

** In the same book, [[spoiler:Adam Stalker commits suicide in the end to avoid arrest for the murders and other crimes he committed]].

* FramingTheGuiltyParty: At the end of book 1, Hawk and Fisher decide to report that [[spoiler:Lord Roderik Hightower]], who was responsible for most of the deaths in the book, was responsible for ''all'' of them in order to protect the reputation of the other killer.

* MadwomanInTheAttic: In ''Wolf in the Fold'', the noble [=MacNeil=] family's dark Family Secret is the existence of "the freak." The physical deformities, it's noted, could have been overlooked -- "occasional unfortunates were inevitable when the Quality became as inbred as it had in Haven" -- but when the freak proved to be an immortal energy vampire who drained the life force of any living thing near it, ''that'' was horrific enough that his father walled him up in a secret room in Tower [=MacNeil=] where he remained undying but quiescent until the Family stopped feeding him.

** In book 1, [[spoiler:the sorcerer Gaunt has to do this to his succubus companion after she's badly injured by a werewolf]].

* NoManOfWomanBorn: In ''Winner Takes All'', an entity is foretold to be unstoppable by any foe, living or dead. [[spoiler:It get its ass handed to it by an undead hero]].

* OurLichesAreDifferent: The "undead wizard" version appears in ''Winner Takes All'', serving as a bodyguard for a political candidate. Mortise was also his protector in life, but died defending him from magical assassination. Unlike most examples, his lichdom is a temporary state, and he's forced to hide out in an ice-filled cellar to avert his body's slow and painful decomposition.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: The vampires (only seen in '''brief''' detail in book 1) fall under the "rotting corpse that clawed out of its grave" category, right down to mold growing on the skin. They sometimes have a servant known as a Judas Goat, who (by virtue of appearing outwardly sane, unlike Dracula's Renfield) acts as the vampire's protector. Others use psychic tricks to appear like ordinary and trustworthy humans, even as they're reeking of mildew and drenched in the blood of the ''last'' poor sucker they'd fooled. They also drink blood, must stay in their coffins during daylight (which proves a fatal weakness; Hawk attacking the vampire's coffin with his ax drives it to distraction as it desperately tries to protect said coffin, putting it into position for Hawk and Fisher to kill it), are weak to garlic and hawthorn, and can only be killed by first staking them, then decapitating them, burning the head and body separately, and scattering the ashes in different places.

* RaisingTheSteaks: In ''The Gods of Haven'', [[spoiler:thousands of enraged animal ghosts are called up from a slaughterhouse, materialize as zombies, and embark on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against humanity]].

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: Many, many criminals in Haven use or try to use this to get away with their crimes, including the villain of book 1, an influential person who got Hawk and Fisher pulled off a case involving a child prostitution ring he was a patron for. [[spoiler:It's also why he killed William Blackstone, who'd also figured out his involvement and was building a case against him.]]

* SwallowedWhole: A giant spider encountered in the sewers lands on Hawk when it's killed. While it doesn't actually swallow him, he punches a hole in its descending abdomen with his ax, ends up inside its (mostly hollow) belly, then spends the next couple of minutes hacking his way out.

* TruthSerums: Truthspells, as they're called, are a magical version. In book 1, the sorcerer Gaunt casts one so Hawk and Fisher can question the murder suspects in his house. The spell doesn't prevent them from withholding information or answering in a deceptive way, though, so all of them get away with saying "no" when asked if they committed the murders. [[spoiler:Turns out there are two murderers, each of whom committed a different murder; when Hawk asks each of them if they killed Blackstone ''and'' Bowman, both murderers were able to truthfully answer no.]]

* WeaponsKitchenSink: Hawk uses an ax instead of the standard-issue police sword. Justified because he'd lost an eye and lacks the depth perception for refined swordplay.

* YouAreWhatYouHate: In book 1, [[spoiler:Lord Roderik Hightower spent years obsessively going out hunting werewolves. He only ever found one, but it was enough - the werewolf bit him and turned him into the very thing he despised]].

* ClarkKenting: Here, Rupert and Julia return to the Forest Kingdom as Hawk and Fisher, and count on their both having aged to conceal their real identities. With the masses, it seems to work, mostly because their official portraits are so idealized as to look nothing like they'd looked even when they were younger; at the end it's subverted, as everyone who'd actually ''known'' them admits that they'd recognized them both immediately, but kept quiet about it for reasons of politics and/or to respect their wish for anonymity.