Shout Out / The Descended

Because Brian has well over 40 inspirations for the world of Soano, he has incorporated a great amount from those sources into the webcomic, and it really shows.

General

• Many spells have names which are at least partially shoutouts to Final Fantasy games.
• The in-comic name of the gambit where any situation will result in victory? The Gargoyles Gambit.
• The name of the first Story Arc in the comic? And So Our Story Begins.

Mages

• Energy Mages have three spells, called Kame, Hame, and Hadoken. Using them one after another gives a huge power increase.
• Genesis, a Light Mage Limit Break, functions nearly identical to the inspiration.
  • Which makes it a shoutout to a shoutout.
• The Wind Mage is full of 'em.
  • increases Intelligence and also boosts Magic Attack. Stupefy, its counter-spell, has the exact opposite reaction.
  • Spidey Sense increases Instinct.
  • My Name Is Neo increases Reflex and also boosts Evade. Dodge This!, its opposite, decreases Reflex and Evade.
  • Lucky Star is as expected Luck-oriented, in this case boosting it.
  • Spoony Bard is the name of a Wind Mage spell.
  • As are Blow You Away and Razor Wind.
• Darkness Mages take a great many of their spell names and abilities from Dungeons & Dragons and The Elder Scrolls.
• The Water Mage, the elemental tree of manipulation, has an ability called chessmaster. It also has an ability called manipulate. They do much as expected. Sadly, there is no ability called magnificent.
  • It does, however, contain brainwash and turn. The ability Control doesn't follow this trend, as the ability with the power of More than Mind Control is called Change Of Heart.
• All mages can learn the ability "Magic Missile", itself a Dungeons & Dragons spell (with much the same function). However, the true shoutout comes in the third branch of that spell, called Magic Massacre.
  • They can also learn "Final Strike", inspired by DragonFable.
  • They can also learn Iron Glass, which lampshades a mage's normal role as frail but powerful, offering a solution.
  • They also have Phase Door, Teleport, and Runic Return, all functioning similar to how they do in Castle of the Winds, where their namesakes are from.
  • There's also a tree branch for resistances, called Anything But Futile.

Warriors

• By the Power of Grayskull! is a way to turn an energy warrior into a further badass by giving them a massive upgrade. Its summed the same way as the source material as well.
  • Energy warriors also have Suicidal Overconfidence as an ability.
• Fire Warriors have Wheel of Death as an ability.
• Earth Warriors have a Limit Break of Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies.
• Light Warriors and Darkness Warriors have obvious similarities to Jedi and Sith.
• Light Warriors have an ability called No-Sell. The third branch of that skill is called You Shall Not Pass!. It does much as expected.
  • They also have several Dungeons & Dragons shoutouts, such as Lay-on-hands.
  • Iron Will is another one, and the third branch of that skill spells it out most explicitly, as it's called Determined.
• Darkness Warriors are full of them.
  • To start, Rage Quit is a Darkness Warrior Limit Break.
  • The Darkness Element is made up of seven emotions, sharing the same colors as the source material, albeit with two of them merged into one color and concept. The profiles more or less fit with each corp as well.
    • The seven emotions also have ties to the Seven Deadly Sins.
  • As the Darkness tree for Warriors works on emotions, it's only natural that they have names reflecting them. As such, there is a darkness warrior skill called "Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming".
    • While not featured in the name itself, the description of the above skill has "For Frodo" in it.
  • The skill "Die to feel Alive" is a Shout-Out to a Muse song, "Starlight".
    • On that same note, "Love Hurts Good" is a Shout-Out to the Incubus song "Love Hurts".
  • Darkness Warriors actually have a skill called Power of Friendship.
  • They also have a skill called "Anew Hope", a Shout-Out to Star Wars.
    • The third branch of that skill is called Serenity Valley.
• The Wind Warriors have an ability called Tornado Fist.
  • The second branch of that skill tree is called "Falcon Punch".
  • Also featured is a skill called Mujuro's Bane, referencing the simultaneous block-and-strike Mujuro thought had happened.
  • Another Wind Warrior ability is called Flash Step.
  • As the Wind Warrior element deals with advantageous situations, it's not too surprising that it has skills named both "Attack of Opportunity" and "Sneak Attack".
  • The Wind Warrior's Limit Break? Wind Scar. It even has a higher version called "Backlash Wave"!