History Literature / IronDruidChronicles

** Granuaile gets really angry if you patronize her.

** Anyone caught in the effect of Fragarach, the Answerer. It forces them to speak nothing but the truth.

** The degree to which gods are shaped and empowered by believers is kind of inconsistent. In ''Hammered'', despite apparently having no believers, Perun weather control powers rival Thor's while in Asgard of all places, who is explicitly described as being much stronger because his is still remembered thanks to the Prose and Poetic Eddas. The Morrigan matches Freya effortlessly in ''Two Ravens and One Crow'' and outright kills Vidar in ''Tricked''. In the former case, pretty much the same deal. Goddess of death beats out a goddess who is most frequently conflated with Frigg in modern minds. And in the latter, Vidar directly submitted himself to her sphere of influence by challenging her to a fight.

* NeverMyFault: Atticus usually tries to avoid any responsibility for his actions and only tries to fix things if strong armed. He tries to skip town instead of dealing with the Maenads and only does when pressured to do so by the local coven. He blames the whole Asgard mess on the Norns and Thor only admitting he handled things "poorly" when forced to confront Odin.

** The degree to which gods are shaped and empowered by believers is kind of inconsistent. In ''Hammered'', despite apparently having no believers, Perun remains a viable fighter compared to the Norse, who are explicitly described as being much stronger because they're still remembered thanks to the Prose and Poetic Eddas. Though Perun never fought any of the "big name" Norse like Odin or Thor, just Skadi. Apparently, even a weakened god of thunder is more than a match for a god of skiing. Similarly, the Morrigan matches Freya effortlessly in ''Two Ravens and One Crow'' and outright kills Vidar in ''Tricked''. In the former case, pretty much the same deal. Goddess of death beats out a goddess who is most frequently conflated with Frigg in modern minds. And in the latter, Vidar directly submitted himself to her sphere of influence by challenging her to a fight.

** The degree to which gods are shaped and empowered by believers is kind of inconsistent. In ''Hammered'', despite apparently having no believers, Perun remains a viable fighter compared to the Norse, who are explicitly described as being much stronger because they're still remembered thanks to the Prose and Poetic Eddas. Similarly, the Morrigan matches Freya effortlessly in ''Two Ravens and One Crow'' and outright kills Vidar in ''Tricked''.

* ''Staked'' (TBA)

* '''TBA'''

* HolyGrail:: "The Chapel Perilous" focuses on the "true" story behind the search for the Holy Grail, which is actually [[spoiler: Dagda's Cauldron]].

* PublicDomainArtifact: "The Chapel Perilous" focuses on the "true" story behind the search for the Holy Grail, which is actually [[spoiler: Dagda's Cauldron]].

* CanNotTellALie: Anyone caught in the effect of Fragarach, the Answerer. It forces them to speak nothing but the truth.

* ImmortalityBeginsAtTwenty: Played with in Atticus' case. He was already an old man when he first came across Airmid, who taught him the recipe for his Immortali-tea, which reduced his age to how he looked in his mid-twenties. Subverted with witches, as they use magic to hide their real age.

** Gods in general are plagued by this. Brighid tries to kill Atticus with magic despite knowing Atticus has an amulet that makes him immune to magic (well, she thought she was strong enough to overcome it, but still) and a [[AbsurdlySharpBlade sword that can cut through anything.]] Odin is apparently tricked by a lie Atticus came up with on the fly. According to Perun, Thor tricked virtually every other thunder god, and by extension nearly every other god on the planet, to not have their stories written down in print, but in stone statues or oral traditions that are worn away or lost, causing them to be largely forgotten in modern day compared to the gods whose stories were written down like the Greek and Norse. Thor himself is repeatedly stated to be a brutish thug and moron.

** Gods in general are plagued by this. Brighid tries to kill Atticus with magic despite knowing Atticus has an amulet that makes him immune to magic (well, she thought she was strong enough to overcome it, but still) and a [[AbsurdlySharpBlade sword that can cut through anything.]] Odin is apparently tricked by a lie Atticus came up with on the fly. According to Perun, Thor tricked virtually every other thunder god, and by extension nearly every other god on the planet, to not have their stories written down causing them to be largely forgotten in modern day compared to the gods whose stories were written down like the Greek and Norse. Thor himself is repeatedly stated to be a brutish thug and moron.

* BystanderSyndrome: Atticus only gets involved if it's his problem, which becomes a plot point.

* TheGrimReaper: Shows up on his pale horse and everything in the first book. He's a decidedly creepy person.

** [[FridgeBrilliance Of course, he may simply have been lying to them to get them to agree to his offer of peace.]]

* RelationshipUpgrade: [spoiler: Atticus and Granuaile, almost as soon as she is a full druid.]

* DoomMagnet: Pretty much Atticus' raison d'etre. His actions have, directly or indirectly, caused most of the disasters that pop up in the series, most notably [spoiler: Loki's being freed from imprisonment and trying to start Ragnarok.]] Only the vampires have no direct beef with his actions; they're working on a grudge against all Druids in general.

* DominoRevelation: Magic animals, witches, gods & goddesses, werewolves, vampires, ghouls, demons, angels, and so more!

* BatmanGambit: The Morrigan told Aenghus Og that she had promised not to take Atticus, knowing he would use his connections with Hell to summon the Christian Death, so that when Aenghus died the Morrigan wouldn't have to take him, just leave him for Death to take to Hell.

* CrazyPrepared: Atticus has had twenty centuries to improve his magic and craft powerful defenses against his enemies. He resides in Tempe, Arizona specifically because it is the place in North America where a Tuatha Dé Danann would be at his/her weakest and thus least likely to look for him.

* MotherNature: The elemental spirit of the entire earth. Atticus communes with her every decade or so. Takes a few weeks because her concept of time is severely disproportionate to his (fondly reminisces about the time of the dinosaurs like it was just last week)