History VisualNovel / SablesGrimoire

''Sable's Grimoire'' is available on Creator/{{JAST}} and UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}. Its sequels are available on itch.io, JAST, and Steam.

* BareYourMidriff: Drakan always wears her shirt open to show off her chiseled abs.

* HornyDevils: Sable's apathetic teacher is a succubus. She is accused of seducing students but we see no evidence of this in game and [[spoiler:on her own route we find out succubi feed on [[EmotionEater lust]] but only need to arouse others then feed, not actually sleep with them and indeed doing both to the same person is deeply disapproved of in their society]]. She ''is'' interested in Sable but only for his skill at spell design.

!! This visual novel contains examples of:

''Sable's Grimoire'' is a 2018 visual novel created by Zetsubou. In a world featuring magic, modern technology and multiple "demihumans" (sapient non-human species) a young human mage called Sable has just been accepted into [[WizardingSchool Amadronia Magic Academy.]] He is hoping to spend the next three years peacefully studying magic theory, designing spells and getting to know the school's demihuman population. Unfortunately he quickly discovers that Amadronia's reputation as the premier school of magic may have been rather overrated. His teacher barely bothers to teach, his fellow students mostly don't trust him due to [[FantasticRacism his being human,]] the principal is more interested in his political agenda and many people at the school seem terribly dangerous. Sable will have to tread carefully to find his place or even survive.

Two sequels were released in the summer of 2020. ''Sable's Grimoire: Man and Elf'' acts as a continuation of Lisha’s route, while ''Sable's Grimoire: A Dragon's Treasure'' is a continuation of Drakan’s route.

''Sable's Grimoire'' is available on JAST and Steam. Its sequels are available on itch.io, JAST, and Steam.

** On Lisha's route [[spoiler:Sable and Lisha get stuck in a situation where they need to perform a spell that requires a strong emotional connection to pull off. Lisha tries to force the connection by having sex with him. Sable responds by picking up an artefact that forces the target to tell the truth and asks if she really wants to. She is forced to admit that, much as she is coming to like Sable, she does not, at least not yet. As such Sable turns down the offer.]]
** On Tix's route [[spoiler: Tix wants Sable to impregnate her but Sable doesn't want to be a father at all, let alone an absentee father. Despite being fairly consistently hit on by a beautiful nudist, Sable stays that course.]]

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Jorou is a polite, kind, somewhat shy librarian who helps out Sable in various ways on almost every route. [[spoiler: On her own route we discover that she's hiding a terrible past that has left her with severe mental illness that makes her downright dangerous to herself and others if she loses control.]]

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: In the bad ending for ''Man and Elf'', [[spoiler:Sable uses mind destruction magic on Meave. This destroys her brain from the inside out, making her thrash and spasm so violently that she breaks her bones and ruptures her organs.]]

* DemonicPossession: In ''A Dragon's Treasure'' [[spoiler: Nidhogg arranges the creation of a spiritual being from her mind and Sable's that begins to possess his body. In a twist the spirit (eventually called Fafnir in the True End) doesn't actually want to do so (since she sees Sable as a beloved father) and helps aid Sable is avoiding possession even at the cost of her own life. In another twist Nidhogg actually meant for the entity to ''lose'' and have it's power be absorbed by Sable and is surprised (though not too bothered) when in the True End Sable instead seeks to maintain her existence.]]

* EmotionEater: [[spoiler:White vultures feed on the suffering and negative emotions of other beings. Their preferred targets are the dying and the recently deceased, so they tend to hang around hospitals, graveyards, and the occasional battlefield. Similarly, succubi and incubi feed on other people's lust.]]

* EvilCounterpartRace: Raised but ultimately [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] on Lisha's route. There are dark elves and they are treated with suspicion by other elves [[spoiler: and the only dark elf to appear in the first game is hostile]] but they are not evil by nature. Dark elves are just elves that have spent too long away from forests and lost their connection to them and the only real effect is a slight darkening of their skin to the point of looking somewhat tanned.
* EvilMatriarch: [[spoiler:Lisha’s mother Meave is a manipulative, power-hungry dark elf who treats all of her children as pawns. In the base game she murders her daughter Lim for failing her. In ''Man and Elf'', she forces her son Hagan to obey her commands through MindControl, and plans to enslave Lisha after breaking her spirit through psychological torture.]]
** [[spoiler: Drakan's mother Nidhogg gives this impression as well but it is somewhat more complex in her case. She genuinely is trying to do right by her daughter and even help Sable however her mindset is so far removed from that of humans that her "help" comes across as torture.]]

* FakeRelationship: Arises on Rei and Eth's route. [[spoiler: In Eth's ending she and Sable agree to pretend to be going out so Rei will move on from her infatuation with Sable. This seems to work but Sable notes that Eth is starting to behave like she's actually his girlfriend. As with most romantic entanglements he's rather ambivalent about that but decides he doesn't mind seeing how it goes.]]

* AGlitchInTheMatrix: In Man and Elf, [[spoiler:Sable realizes that many details about Meave’s prison don’t add up. How did Meave build an inescapable, magic-nullifying prison in less than a year? Why didn’t Lisha recognize any of the prisoners even though Meave has kidnapped many people from her home village? And where is all the poop if the cells have no toilets? From these and other clues, he deduces that the prison is an illusion meant to break his and Lisha’s spirits before Meave throws them into the ''real'' (and far more escapable) prison.]]

* {{Golem}}: Sable has worked out a spell to make a small worker out of soil. [[spoiler: In ''Man And Elf'' Lisha's half brother Hagan makes a ''much'' bigger one.]]

* HalfHumanHybrid: Drakan is half human, half dragon. [[spoiler:Ein's illegitimate son Victor is a half-elf, and his children are quarter-elves.]] Rei, whose mother is a rokurokubi like herself but whose father is human. [[spoiler: Fafnir, Sable's sort-of daughter created by Nidhogg's magic but formed from Sable's mind and viewing him as her father.]]

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: An in-universe example with Bartholomew, remembered by most as the human friend of the elven leader Ein who together forged the first lasting peaceful relations between humans and demi-humans. [[spoiler: In reality while the two started out as friends Bartholomew became obsessed with Ein's magical skill and eventually imprisoned him in a machine designed to painfully extract his magic from him, planning to do the same to his infant daughter Lisha. Ein only managed to escape by pulling himself free enough to rip out Bartholomew's throat ''with his teeth.'' Despite this he has protected his former friend's reputation for centuries so as not to taint the successes it has caused in human/demi-human relations.]]

* HornyDevils: Sable's apathetic teacher is a succubus. She is accused of seducing students but we see no evidence of this in game and [[spoiler: on her own route we find out succubi feed on [[EmotionEater lust]] but only need to arouse others then feed, not actually sleep with them and indeed doing both to the same person is deeply disapproved of in their society.]] She ''is'' interested in Sable but only for his skill at spell design.

* IWantGrandkids: Nidhogg, Drakan's mother, insists upon it. [[spoiler: To the extent of compelling Drakan and Sable to get engaged on her route or, in one of the bad endings, kidnapping and imprisoning Sable and forcing Drakan to rape him.]]

* LongLostRelative: [[spoiler:The dark elf Lim turns out to be Lisha's maternal half-sister. In ''Man and Elf'', Lisha further learns that she has a dark elf half-brother from the same parent, as well as a ''paternal'' half-brother who has kids of his own.]]

* MayflyDecemberRomance: A problem faced by the long-lived elf Lisha and the ''very'' long-lived half-dragon Drakan in their relationship with the human Sable in their respective routes and stand alone games. [[spoiler: Solutions are found in the stand alone games in both cases; Lisha reveals that the elven equivalent of marriage increases the lifespan of the parties involved and with a human it would do little for her but bring Sable up to an elven life expectancy while Drakan's mother uses a dangerous magical artefact to imbue Sable with draconic qualities including increasing his lifespan (though, being the TricksterMentor she is, she hasn't told either Sable or Drakan by the end of the game).]]

* TheNotLoveInterest: The closest Sable gets to any of his many female friends in the main game, though some routes look set for a RelationshipUpgrade in the near future. [[spoiler: Both ''Man and Elf'' and ''A Dragon's Treasure'' follow through on said upgrades for Lisha and Drakan respectively.]]

* OffingTheOffspring: Comes up on Lisha's roue. [[spoiler: While it's not plan A, Lisha's mother is content to let her other daughter kill Lisha to achieve her goals. She also kills said second daughter rather than let her be captured.]]

* RomanceGame: Despite the game's routes being based around the school's female characters this is averted on some routes, subverted to various degrees on others, in large part because Sable himself is rather resistant to romance. [[spoiler: Jorou's route isn't remotely romantic and Rei's ending is Sable letting her down easy. The other routes have some romantic element to each of their good endings but it's never a straightforward relationship.]]

* {{Weredragon}}: Drakan is a half-dragon. While normally appearing as a scaly humanoid with wings and a tail but she can take on the form of a full dragon if she wants. [[spoiler: With some practice she can also take on a fully human form as well.]]
* WillingChanneler: Sable has developed a spell that allows him to take control of another person and make use of their magic power, allowing him to try out his spell designs with sufficient power to pull them off. The process is voluntary and requires a very strong emotional connection and trust between the two. [[spoiler: During their respective routes both Lisha and Drakan can get there with Sable.]]

* HalfHumanHybrid: Drakan is half human, half dragon. [[spoiler:Ein's illegitimate son Victor is a half-elf, and his children are quarter-elves.]]

* HumanMomNonHumanDad: Inverted with Drakan, who has a human father and a dragon mother. Likewise inverted with Rei, whose mother is a rokurokubi like herself but whose father is human. [[spoiler:Played straight with Lisha's half-brother Victor, who has an elf father and a human mother. Inverted again by Fafnir, Sable's sort-of daughter created by Nidhogg's magic but formed from Sable's mind and viewing him as her father.]]

''Sable's Grimoire'' is available on [[https://store.steampowered.com/app/717850/Sables_Grimoire/ Steam.]]

Two sequels were released in the summer of 2020. ''[[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1131410/Sables_Grimoire_Man_And_Elf/ Sable's Grimoire: Man and Elf]]'' acts as a continuation of Lisha’s route, while ''[[https://store.steampowered.com/app/892990/Sables_Grimoire_A_Dragons_Treasure/ Sable's Grimoire: A Dragon's Treasure]]'' is a continuation of Drakan’s route.

* ADogNamedDog: Drakan the half-dragon. [[spoiler:Though it turns out that her real name is Naziel.]]

* HornyDevils: Sable's apathetic teacher is a succubus. She is accused of seducing students but we see no evidence of this in game and [[spoiler: on her own route we find out succubi feeding on [[EmotionEater lust]] but only need to arouse others then feed, not actually sleep with them and indeed doing both to the same person is deeply disapproved of in their society.]] She ''is'' interested in Sable but only for his skill at spell design.

* HornyDevils: Sable's apathetic teacher is a succubus. She is accused of seducing students but we see no evidence of this in game and it may just be people assuming. She ''is'' interested in Sable but only for his skill at spell design.

** [[SuvertedTrope Subverted]] with Rei on Eris' route; Sable spends the weekend at Rei's house to get access to some books her parents own leading many to conclude they're going out. Sable objects and it's entirely true, he really ''did'' spend all weekend studying.

* HumanDisguise: Succubi like Eris can make themselves look more human by retracting their wings and tails into their bodies, changing the shape of their pupils, and turning their sclerae from black to white. This transformation doesn't do anything about their pointy ears or purple irises, but as Eris points out, those are easily concealed through other means.

* DreamWalker: Eris, as a succubus, can enter other people's dreams and [[DreamWeaver take control]] of them. She uses this power to interrogate a sleeping Sable about some very unusual glyphs that he used in a spell earlier that day.

* HughMann: In Eth and Rei's route, Sable takes Drakan on a trip to a nearby city. Since a half-dragon strolling around town would draw unwanted attention, Drakan goes in disguise. The actual disguise is flawless, as she magically transforms into a human version of her normal DraconicHumanoid form. The acting is another story: Sable spends a day teaching her to walk properly and to stop referring to everything as "human [x]" or "human [y]". Despite some slipups, she manages to fool everyone she meets and the trip goes off without a hitch.