History Literature / IronDruidChronicles

* HonorBeforeReason: Atticus insists on keeping his word to take part of an assassination attempt on Thor despite being told repeatedly from reliable sources that no good will come of it no matter how things turn out and his own personal judgement agreeing with them.

** Atticus himself often acts immature for someone of his age and life experience. Part of it is an act to make people think he is really only twenty years old. Often though it isn't.

* ShoutOut: Numerous. Atticus and Oberon are both OneOfUs.

* DealWithTheDevil[=/=]BargainWithHeaven[=/=]ReligionIsMagic: Gods run on belief and magic runs on belief and deals. Atticus' is with MotherNature and for lesser extent with the Tuatha Dé Danann (as he is their last true priest/believer). Witches tend to make deals for power with less savoury types. Which is the very reason his apprentice chooses him.

* '''TBA'''

* AliensInCardiff: For being a comparatively small city, Tempe Arizona has a druid, a pack of werewolves, a coven of witches, a vampire, and occasional Celtic and Native American deities that show up from time to time.

* ArtisticLicenseGeology: This is invoked by Atticus when Coyote asks him to magically create a gold vein under some land where Coyote wants to build a mine. Atticus protests that this would be geologically impossible and will probably result in geologists all over the world questioning all they know about geology.

* ColdIron: Especially [[ThunderboltIron Meteorite Iron]]. It's antithetical to magic so the best imaginable [[AntiMagic protection against it]]. It's also outright poisonous to beings of pure magic (TheFairFolk). Makes spellcasting extremely hard, though. Atticus' mastery of ColdIron earned him the title of the [[TitleDrop Iron Druid]]. However, iron of any kind pretty much cancels out magic under normal circumstances, Atticus's own magic being the exception, (It is possible to combine the two if the smith is talented enough) resulting in the Iron Age pretty much bringing an end to magic in the world.

* ContrivedCoincidence: By his own admission in ''Hunted'', [[spoiler:Atticus' Soul Catcher probably shouldn't have worked. It'd require that he die while in contact with the earth, that his body would fall in such a way that his tattoos were actually touching the ground, that his binding would actually keep his soul in place at all and a whole slew of other requirements that the odds of it saving him once were wildly improbable and unlikely to happen again.]]

* DealWithTheDevil[=/=]BargainWithHeaven[=/=]ReligionIsMagic: Gods run on belief and magic runs on belief and deals. Atticus' is with MotherNature and for lesser extent with the Tuatha Dé Danann (as he is their last true priest/believer). Witches tend to make deals for power with less savory types. Which is the very reason his apprentice chooses him.
* DeityOfHumanOrigin: The Tuatha Dé Danann were originally regular druids whom the ancient Celts started worshiping as gods. Somehow this turned them into "real" gods, but they are basically just super druids.

* GenreSavvy: Atticus survived twenty-one centuries by being very savvy about the events around him and gathering any information he can about his enemies and allies. This allows him to create powerful defenses and know when it is time to move to a new location.

* HomeFieldAdvantage: Druids are very GenreSavvy about this. Atticus has some very powerful enemies looking for him so he spent at least a century setting up his defenses. He befriended all the local nature spirits, allied himself with the local vampire lord and the local werewolf pack and put multiple layers of magical and mundane protections on his home and workplace. His ultimate home field advantage comes from an arrangement he has with Morrigan, one of his pantheon's Death Gods. As long as any battle he is in takes place under the jurisdiction of that god, Atticus cannot die in it. Unfortunately Aenghus Óg was just as GenreSavvy and went to extraordinary lengths to nullify all those advantages including making sure that the final battle happened where Morrigan has no jurisdiction and could not (officially) interfere.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold[=/=]JerkWithTheHeartOfAJerk: [[InformedAttribute Thor is supposedly the former]], not that you would know from looking, since the jerk part is all that is shown and talked about (and there is rather a lot of it) which makes Thor come across as the latter despite the tales of him being one of the friendlier gods to humanity.

** This can also cause multiple versions of the same god. There's several Coyotes running around Arizona.

** Actually something of a plot point in ''Hounded'': Emily, on the of witches in a local coven acts like a spoiled teenager despite being over ninety years old. Atticus uses her as an example to Granuaile, advising her to think long and hard before becoming a magic user, because it's a risk inherent in having an extended life.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold[=/=]JerkWithTheHeartOfAJerk: [[InformedAttribute Thor is supposedly the former]], not that you would know from looking, since the jerk part is all that is shown and talked about (and there is rather alot of it) which makes Thor come across as the latter despite the tales of him being one of the friendlier gods to humanity.

* PalsWithJesus: In the third book, Atticus has lunch and drinks with Jesus. They briefly reminisce about [[TheDaVinciCode moving the treasure of the Templars and planting false clues.]]

** "That thing with the goat and the stolen Roman leather skirt."

* NominalHero: Atticus fights because ItsPersonal, or because his [[MoralityPet loved ones]] are threatened, or because of mutual interests and old deals... and occasionally to deal out GaiasVengeance, but he makes no claim to being a hero. He spent two thousand years running away from a confrontation with Aenghus Óg, only finally deciding to after Brighid and Flidais conspired to force his hand, and even then he might not have gone through with it if Aenghus hadn't opened up a portal to Hell.

* NoodleIncident: "You never want to be a Nigel in Toronto." Atticus never explains why.

* RageAgainstTheMentor / [[RageAgainstTheHeavens Heavens]]: Granuaile gets angry at Atticus after she meets the Tuatha Dé Danann because they're mostly assholes that don't meet her ideal of a god, and she believed that being a Druid would require her to worship them. Atticus is quick to assure her that just because he worships them doesn't mean she has to; the only extra-human entity she is beholden to is the Earth itself.

* SacrificialLion: [[spoiler: The Morrigan is killed at the beginning of ''Hunted'' by Artemis and Diana.]]

* FieryRedhead: Brighid. Emphasis on fiery. She's a fire goddess after all.
** Granuaile. She ain't nicknamed 'Fierce Druid' for nothing.

* GaiasVengeance: In the direct sense, Atticus calling on Sonora as Gaia's champion when he's attacked by a demon at his house. Less directly, this is one of the primary schticks of Druids, but since Atticus was the only one for something in the area of two thousand years, he can't take a very active role in the whole avenging business.

** Granuaile gets really angry if you patronize her. Or threaten her dog. Or pollute. Or disagree with anything she says. She's getting better about that last part.

** Granuaile gets really angry if you patronize her. Or threaten her dog. Or pollute. Or disagree with anything she says.

** Atticus is no slouch either, being an {{Omniglot}} scholar with a habit of killing whichever supernatural that decides to pick a fight with him.

* KnightTemplar: The Hammers of God, a multi-religious military organization that targets Atticus because he was present when Aenghus Óg opened a portal to Hell.

** Granuaille gets in on the action in ''Staked''. She attacks her step-father's business explicitly out of spite, rationalizing her actions as helping the Earth. She derides Atticus' tendency to resort to violence as "how men solve problems" then goes straight to her step-father's office and beats the crap out of him and several security guards. Despite acknowledging her hypocrisy in attacking him, she continues to beat him up anyway, once again trying to justify it as her striking back against a polluter.

* NatureSpirit: The elementals that Atticus can talk to. They range from a local iron spirit to the Sonoran Desert.

** In the Thor Revenge Squad, Gunnar is the youngest, being around three hundred years, while Atticus' 2100ish is the highest confirmed age with Leif being just over a thousand. Zhang Guo Lao's age is never specified, but he should be over 4000 years and Vainamoinen (Finish culture hero) and Perun (Russian god) are probably older.

* ColdIron: More specifically [[ThunderboltIron Meteorite Iron]]. It's antithetical to magic so the best imaginable [[AntiMagic protection against it]]. It's also outright poisonous to beings of pure magic (TheFairFolk). Makes spellcasting extremely hard, though. Atticus' mastery of ColdIron earned him the title of the [[TitleDrop Iron Druid]]. However, iron of any kind pretty much cancels out magic under normal circumstances (It is possible to combine the two if the smith is talented enough) resulting in the Iron Age bringing an end to magic in the world.

*** Odin explains that the comic book version of ComicBook/{{Thor}} can't manifest at all. Apparently plenty of people believe in him, but because nobody ''worships'' Marvel's Thor he has no power whatsoever.

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Atticus notes that the villain in "Grimoire of the Lamb" needs to die because he's messing around with really dark magic that could kill part of the Earth, and because he has a way of undoing Druidic bindings and because he punched Atticus.

* BerserkButton: Atticus tells Bacchus he's "a pale imitation of a better god" just to piss him off.

* ContrivedCoincidence: By his own admission, Atticus' Soul Catcher probably shouldn't have worked. It'd require that he die while in contact with the earth, that his body would fall in such a way that his tattoos were actually touching the ground, that his binding would actually keep his soul in place at all and a whole slew of other requirements that the odds of it saving him once were wildly improbable and unlikely to happen again.

* RageAgainstTheMentor / [[RageAgainstTheHeavens Heavens]]: Granuaile gets angry at Atticus after she meets the Tuatha Dé Dannan because they're mostly assholes that don't meet her ideal of a god, and she believed that being a Druid would require her to worship them. Atticus is quick to assure her that just because he worships them doesn't mean she has to; the only extra-human entity she is beholden to is the Earth itself.

** 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.

* BigBad: Aenghus Og in the first book is really the only antagonist that fits the trope effectively. At least, until Loki [[spoiler: reveals that he has been faking his insanity all this time and is actually quite a schemer]].

* CoolOldGuy: Manannán mac Lir lets Atticus keep Fragarach because it pisses off Aenghus Og and helped Atticus get to North America long before that schmuck Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

** Goibniu and Manannán mac Lir of the Tuatha de Dannan.

** 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, it's pretty much a case of scale. Goddess of death, even one that's largely forgotten, would still probably have more power than 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 over the ownership of a weapon that belonged to the Tuatha de Dannan.

* TheGrimReaper: Shows up on his pale horse and everything in the first book. He's a decidedly creepy person [[spoiler:and takes Aunghus Og to Hell when he died.]]

* {{Hellfire}}: Aunghus Og gained this through a DealWithTheDevil.

* HomeFieldAdvantage: Druids are very GenreSavvy about this. Atticus has some very powerful enemies looking for him so he spent at least a century setting up his defenses. He befriended all the local nature spirits, allied himself with the local vampire lord and the local werewolf pack and put multiple layers of magical and mundane protections on his home and workplace. His ultimate home field advantage comes from an arrangement he has with Morrigan, one of his pantheon's Death Gods. As long as any battle he is in takes place under the jurisdiction of that god, Atticus cannot die in it. Unfortunately Aunghus Og was just as GenreSavvy and went to extraordinary lengths to nullify all those advantages including making sure that the final battle happened where Morrigan has no jurisdiction and could not (officially) interfere.

** Before that, Aenghus Og first kidnapping Oberon and Hal, then drawing power from the Earth to open a portal to Hell, which killed the surrounding land for about twenty square miles. Both HUGE no-nos in Druidic law, and a personal blow for anyone intimately connected to the Earth (as all Druids are).

* JerkassGods: A few. Thor and Aenghus Og stand out in particular. Most believe in MightMakesRight and would [[DisproportionateRetribution murder for rudeness]] (The Morrigan for example) if the culprit isn't on their power level. Lampshaded in the "Clan Rathskeller" short story, though in that case it was actually a subversion.

* KnightTemplar: The Hammers of God, a multi-religious military organization that targets Atticus because he was present when Aenghus Og opened a portal to Hell.

** Aenghus Og summoned the Christian Death for his fight with Atticus, because he knew that the Morrigan wouldn't come for him. When Atticus kills him, Death takes him to Hell instead of Tir na Nog.

* NominalHero: Atticus fights because ItsPersonal, or because his [[MoralityPet loved ones]] are threatened, or because of mutual interests and old deals... and occasionally to deal out GaiasVengeance, but he makes no claim to being a hero. He spent two thousand years running away from a confrontation with Aenghus Og, only finally deciding to after Brighid and Flidais conspired to force his hand, and even then he might not have gone through with it if Aenghus hadn't opened up a portal to Hell.

** Atticus is a {{Druid}}, his job is being the protector of Earth. Outside of that one Aenghus Og-caused catastrophe he doesn't seem to care or at least is never shown to do anything environmentally conscious (closest he comes is relegating his apprentice to do it as training), though he does mention a number of times where's he's intervened to save an Elemental (local NatureSpirit). In the general sense, he justifies his lack of action as pointless. He's just one guy and could spend days sabotaging mining equipment and things like that, but the mining companies would just replace the equipment and continue right along and he'd have to start all over again.

* RageAgainstTheMentor / [[RageAgainstTheHeavens Heavens]]: Granuaile gets angry at Atticus after she meets the Tuatha de Dannan because they're mostly assholes that don't meet her ideal of a god, and she believed that being a Druid would require her to worship them. Atticus is quick to assure her that just because he worships them doesn't mean she has to; the only extra-human entity she is beholden to is the Earth itself.

* TricksterMentor: Atticus' old Archdruid was prone to smacking him with his staff when he wasn't paying attention or concealed something from him, and is mentioned to have thrown a pissed off rooster at Atticus. Nevertheless his tutelage allowed Atticus to survive for the last two thousand years, and it's implied that he himself may still be alive as well, as Atticus mentions never having seen him in Tir na Nog. [[spoiler: At the very end of ''Hunted'', it's revealed that he ''is'' alive because the Morrigan preserved him on a Time Island and gave Atticus its location at the beginning of said book]].

*** Aenghus Og is mentioned to be able to turn into a swan.

* YearOutsideHourInside: The Time Islands in Tir na Nog. People trapped in there experience time normally, but relative to the rest of the world it takes several millennia for them to so much as blink.

** Played with in ''Trapped''. Atticus traps Bacchus in an area of slow time. He's effectively trapped, but as far as he knows time is passing normally and not even a single second has passed.