Literature / Kadingir

The whole gang

Nakki: Well, Ishtar, we owe you an explanation. There is a lot to say, and very little time to...
Ishtar: Yeah, yeah, Nakki... Way ahead of you. Everything went wrong and now it’s all a huge mess. There’s this parallel universe and the whatchamacallit thingies open portals to come and go. Oh, and some scary tiger guys kidnapped Granny and I’m to inherit her kingdom or something. No biggie. Now, what I really want to know is... How do we get Granny back?

— Kadingir. The Scepter of Zink

Kadingir is a series of fantasy novels written from 2006 onwards by Spanish authors Joan Llongueras, Merce Masnou and Helena Sales.

The story follows the adventures of Ishtar, a spunky and upbeat girl with a sharp tongue, after she accidentally travels to Ki, a chestnut-shaped world in a parallel dimension full of Fantastic Sapient Species with special abilities. She quickly recovers from the initial shock when she learns that her mysterious grandmother, an Adventurer Archaeologist who she has been penpals with for years but has never actually met, actually comes from this world... And has just been kidnapped! Ishtar's main goal will be finding her, as well as mastering her new-found powers with the help of her Mentor Nakki. That is, if the lizard-king Usúmgal doesn't kill her first.

The series is still ongoing, and currently consists of four books (El Cetro de Zink, El Señor de Zapp, El Caso Shapla and El Cuarto Poder ^English The Scepter of Zink, The Lord of Zapp, The Shapla Case and The Fourth Power), which follow Ishtar's multiple adventures in Ki. Additionally, in 2017 a prequel was published, La Reina de Kígal ^English The Queen of Kígal, which was centered on Ishtar's grandmother Nírgal and some other characters in their youth.

The authors have manifested time and again their admiration for the Discworld series, from which they draw some inspiration.

See the official website here

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These books contain examples of:

• Abdicate the Throne: The Queen Of Kígal plot kicks off when King Lúgal decides he wants to retire and go on vacation to Earth, catapulting his nine-year-old daughter out of her leisurely life into a Training from Hell so she has a chance to pass the Oracle's Trial.
• Absent-Minded Professor: Gàlam, to a T. He's a genius scientist with Einstein Hair and a tendency to suddenly start scribbling his brilliant ideas on any available surface, whichever the situation and the number of enemies currently trying to kill him. He even fills the "professor" gap, since he tutored Ishtar and Malag.
• Adults Are Useless: 6-year-old Gerard is rightfully terrified when he sees a walking, screeching teddy bear climbing up the stairs of his house and promptly runs to his mother... who doesn't believe a word he says and tells him to stop daydreaming.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Used by Gòlik to infiltrate in Zapp Castle and later to spy on the Musdagur Resistance. He even mentions they are so convenient that he'd better remove the air ducts from his own club, lest someone tries spying on him.
• Amnesia Danger: One of the many, many, many reasons why the Nuzua jungle is considered the most deadly place on planet Ki.
• Ancient Tomb: Ishtar falls into what she assumes is an old, long-forgotten temple in the Nuzua jungle, when in fact it is an old, long-forgotten bank. With ancient Bank Toaster posters, too!
• Another Dimension: The story is set both on Earth and Ki, a world in a parallel universe.
• Artistic License – Biology: The Sutums suposedly are descendants of salamanders, and yet they are repeatedly labeled as reptiles.
• Astral Projection: An advanced mental ability Nakki shows Ishtar, who later uses it to fight against pirates.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: One of The Fourth Power's chapters is titled "Attack of the 50 feet caterpillar", a pun on the mulursanya being a giant killer bug and the fact that it actually has 50 limbs.
• Badass Normal: Sura is outraged at the lack of cool features the Zitis have compared to the other races, so he built himself Tidnum claws, an Anzud wing-like glider, Kuzubi scuba-diving gear, Musdagur camouflage and as many gadgets he can think of to counter this genetic injustice.
• Balcony Speech: Usúmgal gives one to his water-deprived people, accusing the Sutums of drying the rivers and wells. Most of his audience knows it's just a ruse aimed at a scapegoat, but they are desperate enough to go along with it anyways.
• Bamboo Technology: The lost scientists of Nuzua have built their whole village, survival machinery and diverse escape contraptions with this. Their most outstanding feats are a fully functional automated hunting-and-cooking machine and a zeppelin filled with explosive potato gas.
• Bar Full of Aliens: Gàlam brings Ishtar to one of these after she accidentally falls into a portal and gets lost in Zink, so that they can have a quiet chat about parallel dimensions over a cup of hot chocolate.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Nakki's method for clearing out a building (which must be used as an impromptu interdimensional portal) is charging in yelling about a bomb threat and ordering everyone out. The fact that said building is a church and half the elderly locals are attending mass significantly slows down the evacuation, giving pause to the priest to question his authority, but at that point Nakki is so impatient that he straight-out blocks his mind, kicks everyone out and bars the door for good measure.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Machiavelli is revealed to be a ziti who was exiled to Earth.
  • In The Queen of Kígal we learn that Elvis also came from Ki. However, that does not imply that Elvis Lives since that book is set in the late fifties.
• Berserk Button: Don't even whisper the word "Mulursanya" within Sura's earshot.
• Big Bad: Usúmgal, the lord of the Musdagurs, is the main antagonist throughout the series.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Nuzua is full of monsters and dangers, but the absolute terror of it comes from the dread mulursanya: a white-haired caterpillar with eighteen red eyes, a huge horn and More Teeth than the Osmond Family that can be as big as a train wagon.
• Bilingual Bonus: A few lines of dialogue are spoken in Ki's language, which in turn is based on old Sumerian... Most lines can be easily inferred from context, though.
• Binary Suns: Planet Ki orbits around two suns, Utu and Kili, in an 8 shape.
• Bird People: The Anzuds, a race of freedom-loving nomads with feathers, talons and wings.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: Mad King Kanota's ultimate fate, after he blew up his own castle while proclaiming that no penguin would sit on ''his'' throne. His reign is widely regarded as an embarrassment to the Zitis, who would happily forget about his whole existence.
• Buffy Speak: Ishtar is particularly guilty of this, especially in the beginning, when she is new to Ki, its people and its technology. It takes her a while to stop calling the Tidnums "those cat-face guys", the Kuzubis "the fishies", and so on with the other races of Ki.
• The Butler Did It: The Nuzu brothers arrest the royal butler the second they start investigating on king Kuzu's murder.
• Call-Back: In The Shapla Case, Ishtar's hair turns bright blue due to an allergic reaction, and a tabloid journalist comments the colour will become fashinable amongst the Ziti. One book later, the Duke of Baredinna is indeed wearing a tunic in the same electric blue.
• Catapult to Glory: Ishtar and Nakki are needed urgently at the other side of the hemisphere, so he resorts to using the Zag-Tag, an obsolete and occasionally deadly method of transportation that very much resembles a catapult. Ishtar doesn't take him seriously until it's too late.
• Cat Folk: The Tidnums, one of the six races found in Ki. They are eight-foot anthropomorphic felines with a simple mindset: according to Nímur, their king, they are always either very happy of very angry.
• Clueless Detective: The Nuzu Brothers are charged with investigating the murder of King Kuzu. Their strategy is to interrogate everyone who was in the city, one after the other, looking at them straight in the eye and asking if they killed the king. And arrest the royal butler, just in case.
• The Comically Serious: Nakki never looses his cool, serious, hyper-efficient demeanour, no matter how surreal the scenes unfolding around him get.
• Cool Old Lady: Nírgal, Ishtar's grandmother, who's a worldwide famous Adventurer Archaeologist extraordinaire.
• Crash in Through the Ceiling: King Vizvi makes his grand entrance to the International Symposium in The Shapla Case smashing through a huge window, landing right on stage and outperforming the hosts who were conducting the inauguration.
• Crisis Makes Perfect: Ishtar only learns to read Ki's language when three eight-foot-tall Tidnums are about to tear her apart.
• Death Flight: Ullah deals with an enemy this way: diving down from the sky, grabbing him and flying back up, only to let him fall to his death.
  Urgug: LET ME GO! LET ME GO, YOU STUPID BIRD!!
  Ullah: Suit yourself.
• Demonic Possession: Gerard sees Nakki, his sister's teddy bear, walking around the house and shouting angrily in a weird language. He quickly deduces it must be possessed by Satan.
• Divine Right of Kings: All the kings and queens of the six races are chosen by Mul, the little moon orbiting around Ki. Whenever an heir is born, it lights up like a light bulb, making things like a line of succession completely useless since the new leader might be from a different lineage than the previous one. For example, Mul skipped a generation in regards to the Zitis, making Ishtar the new queen instead of her mother.

• The Empath: Part of the special abilities the inhabitants from Ki possess is an affinity with other's emotions, particularly if they are strong or shared by a group of people. With enough training, this ability can be used to feel hostile presences, effectively turning it into an Enemy-Detecting Radar.
• Everyone Is a Suspect: The Shapla Case is the novel with the largest cast, and almost all of them are suspects to the death of King Kuzu: the Queen, his many children, the members of the State Council, the pirates, The Mafia, the anti-royalists, The Mole... the list goes on.
• Evil Overlord: Usúmgal, the Big Bad of the series. His father Kanasul was even worse.
• Expy:
  • Vizvi, the guitar-playing silver-tongued Anzud king, is a clear Elvis expy and even quotes frequently from his songs. Made funnier by the fact that Elvis Presley canonically exists in the story and emigrated from Ki to Earth centuries ago.
  • The Nuzu Brothers are very loosely based on the Marx Brothers.
  • Logan may be a standard trench coat and fedora-wearing lizard detective, but his mannerisms and extremely specific Verbal Tic are an homage to the Catalan dub of Rowan Atkinson's Blackadder.
• Faux Affably Evil: Rakkar is a kind, optimistic, passionate explorer who loves his dog to the moon and back, which makes his reveal as the leader of The Fourth Power very chilling... Especially considering that even after Ishtar confronts him, he never loses his sunny disposition.
• Fish People: The Kuzubis, a mostly neutral race that can breath both in and out of water. They have blue, smooth skin, no hair at all and fins on the back of their arms and legs.
• Flashback Within a Flashback: The Queen of Kígal is a precuel set about 50 years before the events on the main storyline, and it retells Nírgal's youth alongside many of the older characters in the series. However, part of the plot revolves around the return of a dreaded plague from 25 years prior, and two chapters are used to describe the events leading to it, stepping further back in time. The narrative brings this point home with the use of verb tense: while all the books are always written in the present tense, this specific flashback is entirely in the past, giving it a distinct feel from the rest of the story.
• Flashed-Badge Hijack: While lost on Earth, stranded in the middle of nowhere and in need of transportation, Nakki and Gàlam stop the first vehicle they come across and order it to alter course to fit their needs. Said vehicle is a huge schoolbus filled to the brim with widows of war on their way to a barbecue, who become very hostile to the idea of having their field day thusly ruined. Doubles as Bavarian Fire Drill since Nakki isn't technically in the right dimension nor has the authority to pull this off, although he was truthful when claiming the bus in the name of the Government... He just didn't specify which Government that was.
• Fun Personified: Nímur, the giant tiger king who always keeps a positive attitude and loves to goof around. Ishtar is immensely happy when he joins The Team after having spent weeks training with Nakki and Zuk.
• Gender-Blender Name: Most Zitis have a flimsy grasp of Earth's culture at best, which leads to some amusing misunderstandings. Case in point, Rakkar named his male French Bulldog "Babette", which is a French female name. He even gives him the title Monsieur, which further accentuates this misconception.
• Genki Girl: Ishtar certainly qualifies, what with having way more energy she knows what to do with.
• Giant Squid: Ishtar pretends to fight against one when she's trying to tide up the living room (with little success).
  • There are actual giant squids in the Amudur swamps, Ziu fights against one at the beginning of The Queen of Kígal.
• The Good Chancellor: Nakki, the hyper-competent super-serious mentor Ishtar loves to tease.

• Gosh Dang It to Heck!:
  • As expected from a juvenile book series, the characters who occasionally swear (Ishtar, Gòlik, the pirates) all use very colourful but ultimately mild language.
  • Sannar is notorious for lacing everything she says with some very creative swearing, to the point that the narrative doesn't need to point out when she is the one speaking.
• Gratuitous French: Justified with Jacques, Ishtar's father, who is indeed French and constantly lets out words and expressions in his native tongue.
  • Played straight with the Ziti nobs in The Fourth Power, since the only reason they try (and fail miserably) to speak the language is because the queen's father is French and everything connected to France has become insanely fashionable.
  The Duke of Baredinna: Oh, lala! I love the France! I pulled some strings in the Kadingir Corporation and they revealed to me so much intel about this exotic Earthling region... Now I dress all my servants with berets, I eat kroudjans every morning and I've had all of Jewels Bernie's books translated!
• Handicapped Badass: Sura may suffer from PTSD and have a missing leg, but that won't stop him from being the boldest explorer in the planet! He simply made himself a steel leg to match the rest of his gear and be done with it.
• Heroic Fire Rescue: When Zuk is trapped inside a blazing inferno, Ullah, Ziu and king Vizvi immediately fly to the rescue. They aren't really very helpful, though, because once inside they start arguing who should be the one to do the actual rescuing.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Nakki, Kuzu, Ziu and Libir were ready to give their lives in their fight against Signishra, but ultimately it was Baraka who run the last mile, taking over when they were too exhausted to continue and dying so that their efforts wouldn't go to waste.
• Hive Mind: The xibits are a swarm of three thousand bouncing yellow furry creatures who seem to share the same single solitary brain cell.
• Human Aliens: The Ziti are genetically identical to humans, despite coming from a different world. Many have crossed dimensions into Earth throughout history, so much so that they even have their own government Hidden in Plain Sight posing as a MegaCorp, the Kadingir Corporation.
• Humans Are Average: All the races of Ki have different levels of special abilities, some with higher mental skills, some with insane empathy, but their powers are always evened out by having much lower levels in the other abilities. The Ziti are the only race that has exactly the same level in Knowledge, empathy and Mind Power.
• Hungry Jungle: Nuzua is the biggest jungle in Ki, and one of the most dangerous places in the planet: it's full to the brim with monsters, the powers you rely on don't work anymore and you're slowly forgetting what it was you were doing here...
• Identical Grandson: Everyone Ishtar meets in Ki remarks how similar she looks to her grandmother Nírgal, to the point that it becomes a running gag.
• Insane Troll Logic: The only way to uncover the truth, according to the Nuzu Brothers.
• Interdimensional Travel Device: The alterers, handheld devices that can open portals whenever both dimensional planes are close enough. Some of the main plotpoints stems from them being stolen, modified or straight-up broken.
• Jaw Drop: Ishtar nearly gives Nakki a heart attack when she happily jumps off a tower in front of him, prompting his unhinged expression out of sheer shock.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Gòlik. When Ishtar and Nakki ask him for help in finding Nírgal he mocks them before throwing them out of his club. Ishtar is dismayed, but Nakki points out how cooperative he was, and indeed he ends up helping out the heroes.
• Killer Teddy Bear: Averted with Usúmgal; he is indeed a teddy bear and a genocide, but he is too scared when in this vulnerable state to think about anything but escaping.
• La Résistance: A group of Musdagurs that meet in secret to conspire against the dictator Usúmgal.
• Lizard Folk: They come in two varieties! There are the Musdagurs, a race of wall-climbing scally reptiles, and the Sutums, who live near volcanoes and resemble salamanders. Neither have the ability to regrow their tail, despite multiple characters from other races wondering precisely that.
• Lotus Position: The most common stance whenever a long-range telepathic call is to be made.
• MegaCorp: The Kadingir Corporation is a massive multinational company with shiny black cars and mysterious huge trucks, and nobody is really sure about what it is they do. The truth is that this is all a front, and this huge organization is the Ziti government for their citizens living on the Earth, which they consider more or less a colony. Therefore, the Kadingir Corporation controls the dimensional portals and runs the secret army, aside from providing social servicies.
• Mega Neko: In The Lord of Zapp, a maladjusted alterer is used to open a very, very small portal inside of the Sata manor, spitting out a tiny tidnum. Grati the cat wants to play with her terrified newfound friend, but instead jumps by accident through the small portal... and ends up in Ki the size of a whale.
• The Men in Black: The Kadingir Corporation operatives. Whenever there's a dimensional-related incident on Earth, they follow along to cover it up and keep the humans from uncovering the Masquerade.
• Mentor Archetype: Nakki is this to Ishtar, much to his charging.
• The Mole: There is a traitor amongst the Zitis, who has been supplying Usúmgal with stolen dimension alterers.
• Morality Pet: Monsieur Babette to Rakkar. It is the sole reason he doesn't escape Nuzua in time for his plan to succeed.
• Mugging the Monster: The pirates learn the hard way why it is always a bad idea to ambush a pack of tidnums. They surround a class of children on their field trip, with their teacher and old chauffeur, thinking they will be an easy prey and end up facing More Teeth than the Osmond Family and barely escaping with all their limbs attached.
  Lumagur: Captain, I think this is a bad idea.
  Belaabba: What? Holding up a woman, an old fart and some kids?
  Lumagur: Precisely, sir. Attacking 32 tidnums.
• Murder in the Family: Since many of the suspects in Kuzu's murder are related to him, many characters suspect this might be the case. It turns out it really was.
• Mysterious Stranger: The hooded figure who clues Gòlik in about the location of the Sceptre of Zink, which vexes him immensely since they manage to hide their identity to him, despite his proficient mental skills and the nagging feeling familiarity about them...
• The Nicknamer: Ishtar frequently uses similar sounding names for people she just met, or straight-up makes them up for strangers.

  "What's up, Mr. Sushi?"

  — Ishtar, to a Kuzubi pirate who's trying to kill her.

• Noodle Incident: Anything concerning Mad King Kanota is conveyed through gossip, tall tales and increasingly outlandish anecdotes.
  • Apparently, Nakki caused the Izmit earthquake.
• No Sense of Humor: Nakki spends the whole of The Lord of Zapp reminding everyone who questions his crazy plans that he never jokes.
• Note to Self: All the members of the Nuzua expedition have to wear dogtags with reminders of their own goals and identities engraved, since the jungle wipes their memories out every night.
• Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: The Su-Nitlam sect is determined to end with the Divine Right of Kings by any means necessary, and would actually pose a serious threat if only their members would stop arguing over things like who shall be the target, which one of them will carry out the sentence, and what colour should the executioner wear.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: It is strongly implied that the amnesiac mayor of Idiri from The Queen of Kígal is the one who draw the original map into the Nuzua jungle to find the Bank, since he crawled out of there with enough cash to build a village from scrap. This invariably means that he somehow managed to find the Bank to begin with, got past the swarm of killer mulursanyes, stole part of their treasure and found his way back out of the jungle without the books addressing this colossal feat nor him even remembering a thing about it.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Gizzalkalamma is infuriatingly good at it.
• Our Wormholes Are Different: The only way to go from Ki to Earth is through a portal, activated by an alterer. The series main title, Kadingir, is actually the name of this interdimensional technology.
• Parental Obliviousness: Ishtar's parents are a pair of bohemian artists who live and breath their craft, and fail to notice several odd things going on in their own house. To name a few: their daughter being spirited away into another dimension, their son fighting against and later making friends with an eight-inch tiger-man, a huge laboratory in the basement, one of their guests being a giant chicken, two different demonic teddy bears roaming the corridors, a squadron of The Men in Black invading the house and an increasing number of packages that may very well come from a different planet.
• Person of Mass Destruction: A lifetime of ruthlessly achieving results by any means necessary, sometimes with explosive outcomes, has given Nakki such a reputation.
• The Plague: Centuries before the current story, the Kuzubis almost went extinct when the planet passed through a space cloud containing a microbe that attacked only their race. The ensuing plague was named Signishra, "the silent death".
• The Plan: Nakki's speciality.
• Power Incontinence: Ishtar's first arrival in Ki kicks off her latent abilities and she starts hearing the thoughts of all the people she comes across in a market, banging in her head in a language she can't even understand. Thankfully, Gàlam saves her before she goes insane.
• Power Levels: People from Ki possess abilities that come in three different segments: Knowledge, Empathy and Mind Power. Each segment has its own power levels that grant increasingly complex abilities, reaching levels that only a true king or queen can master.
• Power Nullifier: Saggin uses abzuza cuffs to prevent Nakki from escaping using his powers.
  • Some areas of Ki have this effect on people, such as the Nuzua jungle, the Oklum woods and the caves beneath Kur. This is why it is thought abzuza is mined from there.
• Proud Warrior Race: The Tidnum lifestyle consists on either napping or being engaged in an all-out war, with very little in between.
• Psi Blast: The most offensive way to use the mental abilities, with effects that range from a mild, seconds-long confusion, to an intense headache, to death depending on the power of both the attacker and the defender.
• Psychic Powers: Everyone in Ki has these to some extent, though their power depends on their race, training and lineage. These include Telepathy, Psychic Radar, Astral Projection, Psi Blast and Screw Learning, I Have Phlebotinum! amongst others.
• Psychic Radar: Another ability everyone in Ki possess, if trained. It comes in two flavours: the empathic radar, which allows them to detect close-range lifeforms in general (animals and people, though specifying on what species or which individuals is increasingly difficult); and the mental radar, which allows them to detect when close-range minds are actively thinking about them, hostile intentions or otherwise.
• Really Gets Around: King Vizvi is notorious for having as many partners as feathers on his wings. It results in a bit of a Succession Crisis when Mul shines on the birth of his new heir... But there are a dozen chicks born to him that very day, and no one can tell which one is The Chosen One.
• Really 700 Years Old: Since one year on Earth equates to seven years in Ki, but the aging rate is proportional, most of the characters are really centuries old. Ishtar herself is an 11-year-old on Earth, but by Ki standards she's turning 77.
• Retired Badass: Lúgal, Nírgal's dad and Ishtar's great-grandfather, is called out of retirement to stop a coup and kick some traitor's butt in The Shapla Case.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: A good chunk of the main characters are either their race's respective kings, leaders or head chancellors. The fact that Ki's royals are the most powerful people on the planet explains their hands-on attitude.
• Royalty Superpower: Each race has certain limits on their abilities, but the leaders are able to go one step farther, reaching levels only attainable by a very small group of unique individuals.
• Running Gag:
  • In The Scepter of Zink, Gàlam tries (and fails) to have a nice, warm cup of chocolate throughout the whole book, and only gets his just deserts right in the end.
  • Everyone Ishtar comes across compares her with her grandmother, and how amazingly similar they are.
  • Any conversation involving Sura and a newly arrived character starts with some variation of "But I thought you were dead!", and yet everyone has a different version of how exactly he met his demise. Note that Sura himself never admits to or denies any of such stories, nor does he give any explanations of how did he survivie...
  • Nakki never, ever jokes, despite how many "Are you kidding me?" reactions he gets in The Lord of Zapp.
  Nakki: For the last time! I don't joke! I don't jest, I don't jape, and I certainly am not kidding you right now!
  Malag: Then you are a bore, Mr. Nakki.
  Nakki: Exactly! He said it! A bore! Thank you... Wait, who are you?
• Sand Worm: Hurkel is a serene desert of silver sand with no signs of life or movement... Until the sand breaks open and a giant maggot-like murgal springs out like a jack-in-a-box and swallows whole any person, animal or bird that dared pass over its lair. The hook on its tail, attached to the rock bottom, makes it recoil almost instantly beneath the sand, and in a matter of seconds the desert is again as silent as a graveyard.
• Screw Learning, I Have Phlebotinum!!: Part of Ishtar's newfound abilities are "knowing what the planet knows", which means that she can learn the names of plants, places and people just by concentrating a little bit. She describes it as having TheOtherWiki inside her brain.
• Sealed Evil in a Teddy Bear: Nakki, at least in Gerard's eyes. Not that he is evil per se, but after having spent 11 years trapped inside a teddy bear and realizing upon waking that he's still a plushie, Nakki is so pissed that he walks around the Sata house shouting and swearing in an incomprehensible language like he's been possessed by a very angry demon.
  • Played straight with Usúmgal, who is also transformed into a pink, tutu-wearing teddy bear and sealed away behind a glass container for good measure.
• Secret Room: There's one below the Sata manor used by the Zitis to operate the Kadingir technology, full of surveillance equipment, defence mechanisms, machinery to detect and control dimensional shifts and a state-of-the-art espresso machine. Too bad the Sata family have no idea about it.
• Shoot the Messenger: Usúmgal's standard reaction to bad news.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: Nakki's approach to tutoring Ishtar is to expose her to increasingly awkward and dangerous situations to see if she can manage.
• Staff of Authority: The titular Scepter of Zink is this for the Ziti leader. Each race's king or queen has their own staff, and so do their head advisors. Since they also enhance their powers, they double as Magic Staff.
  • Nímur didn't think his ancestor's staff was very useful in a fight, so he made some adjustments and transformed it into a battle axe.
• Standard Fantasy Setting: There are six different Fantastic Sapient Species in Ki, all with their own kingdoms and culture: the Tidnums, the Kuzubis, the Sutums and Musdagurs, the Anzuds, and the human-looking Zitis.
• Standing Between the Enemies: Queen Laima fearlessly steps in front of the whole Musdagur army with open arms and sends a telepathic speech so powerful and moving that neither side dares attack, ending the war before it could even start.
• Stolen MacGuffin Reveal: After everyone has been looking for it desperately throughout the book, Gòlik saves the day at the last minute by giving Ishtar the Scepter of Zink.
• Strange-Syntax Speaker: The Gnoolies and the Sukisurs both fall into this trope, although in very different ways.
• Swirly Energy Thingy: The portals used to go from one world to the other are described as a spiral of impossible light, devoid of time, matter or sound: the void between dimensions.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Left, right and center throughout the events of The Shapla Case, and funnily enough almost every one of them caused by a different perpetrator. There's even one chapter titled Booom!
• Telepathy: A default ability of the people in Ki, as Ishtar is quick enough to discover. It is the standard form of communication of the Kuzubis, whereas the Tidnums have a hard time whenever they must use it.
• Teleportation Rescue: Lúgal used a hand-held dimension alterer to rescue Nírgal and Nakki from a hopeless situation, opening a portal and effectively making them disappear into thin air in their enemy's eyes.
• There Was a Door: Uttered word for word by Ishtar when Sura's blast-induced crazed state of mind leads him to believe that they about to be sacrificed by a horde of savage canibal scientists, and immediately busts through a wall of the hut they were "trapped in". Ishtar even mentions that the door wasn't even locked.
• The Stoic: Zuk, the member of The Team whose heritage conditions him to be rational and emotionless... Except when Ullah is in danger.
• The X of Y: Most of the books follow this title pattern: The Scepter of Zink, The Lord of Zapp, The Queen of Kígal...
• Time Stands Still: The encounter Ishtar has with Kasdal on the middle of The Shapla Case happens so fast that the narration stops on its track, winds back half a minute and goes over the whole scene again in slow-motion.
• Treasure Map: Nuzua is an unexplored giant foggy monster-ridden jungle where people lose their memory and eventually their mind. Therefore, a map of the place is rare beyond belief and utterly priceless... even if it's just a few scribbles on a post-it.
• Trilogy: Specifically averted by the authors. From the official website:

  "This is not a trilogy. Kadingir has no limits. We'll keep writing about this world until we get sick and tired of it."

  — Joan and Mercè, probably.

• Ugly Cute: Monsieur Babette, Rakkar's pet dog. It is supposed to be some sort of French Bulldog, but it is described as a little chubby blob with bat-like ears, pig-like tail, frog-like watery eyes and hyena-like body covered in cow-like patterned fur.
• Uncanny Atmosphere: The second stage of the Oracle's Test. Ishtar finds her way back home with no memories of Ki or anything in it, and goes about her day with her family: she has fun with her brother, her father will finally publish a novel, her grandmother is already there... Everything is too perfect, and anytime she has the feeling she is forgetting about something important, something good happens to distract her and lure her back into this feel-good place.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: While under attack, Nakki asks Ishtar to calm down and analyse the situation in order to devise an action plan. After realising he's not kidding, she quickly makes an analysis, diagnosis and devises a strategy, but when she gets to the plan the scene is cut short. Cue them narrowly but successfully escaping from the clutches of the enemies.
• Values Dissonance: In-universe example, to the point that a whole chapter is named as such. Ishtar and the rest of the Zitis are quite shaken by the way Musua dealt with Kisib in self-defence, as well as the enthusiasm her fellow Tidnums and particularly Nímur show in response.
• Verbal Tic: Logan blurts out "Nyè!" almost every time he opens his mouth.
• Viewer Pronunciation Confusion: Kadingir is a Catalan series based on Sumerian lore and with a major Spanish fanbase, which makes it extremely prone to mispronunciations (although usually the main issues comes from not knowing how to stress words). Some particularly egregious examples are:
  • Ishtar, which ought to be pronounced ish-TAR.
  • Iduh, which sounds like i-DU.
  • Kadingir, as in KA-din-jir.
  • Mulursanya rhymes with lasagne. No, really.
  • Ereshkigal is a compound word and lacks the accent mark, but it is pronounced e-RESH-ki-gal.
  • Ullah is particularly tricky because of the ll and final h, which confuses a lot of people. It's pronounced u-YA.
• Wall Around the World: There is a giant artificial dome around Ki, which protects the planet from the strain of orbiting around two suns. Despite being vital for their survival, it has a crucial flaw: the Risk's volcanic smog and detritus keeps pilling up beneath it, slowly leaving the whole lower hemisphere covered in darkness. Also, Lúgal laments they can't have satellite TV because of it.
• We Have Reserves: Usúmgal is perfectly happy to bomb an entire battlefield, killing his own soldiers, so long the enemy is also slaughtered in the process.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Time in the parallel dimension moves seven times faster than on Earth, making it a Week Inside, Day Outside situation. Since Ishtar is supposed to go on holiday with her grandmother throughout August, she actually spends seven months in Ki, which gives her enough time for going on multiple adventures.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Kanasul proves to be a ruthless and adaptable strategist in The Queen of Kígal, where Lúgal's self-appointed heroic rescue of the Zukum's refugees forces him to readjust his plan, and he ends up using his enemy's interference to his advantage: slaughtering his malcontent subjects, blaming it on Lúgal and using that as an excuse to capture and burn at the stake the leader of the Ziti.