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The Order Of The Stick / Tropes J to L

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Tropes A to C | Tropes D to F | Tropes G to I | Tropes J to L | Tropes M to O | Tropes P to R | Tropes S to U | Tropes V to Z

The Order of the Stick provides examples of the following tropes:

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    J 
  • Jacob Marley Apparel: Parodied with the Ghost of Lame Monsters Past.
  • Jerkass Has a Point:
    • Haley's Self-Loathing is needlessly cruel towards Haley, but she is correct in her analysis that Haley is trying to repress her true feelings, and hiding from Elan is going to hurt her further.
    • Belkar rightfully points out to Hinjo that his uncle has every reason to refuse being resurrected as Hinjo was planning to arrest him and his uncle was an old man who was due to die soon anyway. Hinjo, a paladin mind you, has to admit it that the person whose evil is measurable in kilonazis is right.
    • Belkar's insistence that Vampire Durkon be killed at the first calm moment was probably the best course of action since due to getting resurrected, Durkon was possessed by a vampire's spirit. Roy finally accepts that Belkar was right about Durkon when the High Priest of Hel reveals his true colors.
  • Jeweler's Eye Loupe: A gnome artificer uses a eye loupe to examine the Ioun Stone Blackwing has seized from Laurin Shattersmith in the previous book.
  • Jock Dad, Nerd Son: Inverted with Roy Greenhilt and his father, Eugene. Roy chose a career as a fighter class as opposed to a wizard like his father, which are seen as a jock and nerd class respectively at least in universe. Played straight with Eugene and his father, Horace, who had inspired Roy's career path. Interestingly, Roy was apparently a nerd compared to other fighters.
    Roy: Well I hate to break it to you dad, but this isn't the end of the line. More like half-time.
    Eugene: What? How can you halve time itself?
    Roy: *Sigh* I should have known a sports metaphor would be wasted on you.
  • Joke and Receive: Belkar declaring "We keep overcoming plot obstacles at this pace, we'll be killing Xykon in five strips!" The next strip, Dark V declares they're going to kill Xykon right now.
    Belkar: I was only kidding when I said we'd be killing Xykon in five strips! You can't take everything I say in the last panel seriously!
  • Joke Exhaustion: When Roy uses the belt of Gender Changing to escape being killed, Haley makes nearly a dozen jokes about Roy being emasculated, to the point that Roy mentions that technically, it's okay for him to hit a girl now.
  • Joker Immunity: Lampshaded and justified in "Death Actually IS Too Good for Them", where the Order decide what to do with a once-again-defeated Linear Guild. They come to the decision that imprisonment (in antimagic cells) is actually more secure than summary execution, given that they live in a world where Death Is a Slap on the Wrist. Of course, they also live in a world of Cardboard Prisons, so...
  • The Journey Through Death: People headed for the Lawful Good afterlife have to climb up a seemingly endless mountain before arriving in the afterlife. The afterlife is also structured as a series of levels which dead souls progress through in a spiritual journey as they become enlightened.
  • Judge A Book By Its Center: Aarindarius must be really engrossed in the central pages of that book.
  • Judgement of the Dead: After Roy dies, he sits down with a Deva, who resembles a lawyer or social worker, to go over his "case file" of actions in life, to determine whether he is worthy of moving on to the Lawful Good afterlife.
  • Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: V's epic Uber-spell to destroy all kin of the black dragon mother.
  • Just Between You and Me: Redcloak to Tsukiko. In a minor subversion, he says it before he springs his trap. And in a further subversion, he actually does make sure she never reveals it to anyone. Ironically, this is immediately after she attempts to pull the same trope on him.
  • Just Desserts: Tsukiko is eaten by her own wights, at Redcloak's command. He wanted to make a point about how the undead aren't allies, they're tools. Finally he orders them to eat each other, and the last one to destroy itself in the fireplace.
  • Just Eat Him:
  • Just Hit Him: The raging Thog's main tactic in his gladiatoral fight with Roy. Sure, being thrown into walls is damaging, but it also gives Roy enough breathing time to put together a strategy, and even puts him in the perfect position to enable it when Thog throws him into the spectator rows.

    K 
  • Kansas City Shuffle:
    • Haley pulls one on the rest of her party here, getting them to give her more treasure by making them assume she's trying to cheat them.
    • Xykon's strategy to enter Azure City, but luckily Haley is savvy enough to see it.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Azure City is the Stick-verse's Wutai, so katanas are favored by many of the soldiers and members of the Sapphire Guard. Belkar and Nale have both averted this trope, fighting with katanas they stole from Azurites, but switching to their preferred weapons at the first opportunity.
    Hobgoblin: [kills the guard Nale just disarmed] Hey thanks! I guess I'm lucky you really needed a katana!
    Nale: I prefer longswords, actually. [kills the hobgoblin and takes his sword]
  • Kazoos Mean Silliness: When Elan sprains his wrist and is unable to play his lute, he naturally chooses to branch out into the kazoo.
    Roy: [as Elan is buzzing away] Great. He spends skill points on Perform (Kazoo), and now I need to make a Knowledge (Limits of My Own Sanity) skill check.
  • Keeping the Enemy Close: This is Roy's reason for keeping Belkar as a member of the order. Roy doesn't trust any prison enough to keep Belkar from breaking out and going on a rampage, whereas so long as Belkar is working for the Order, the other members can keep him in check and direct his sociopathic tendencies towards evils that are more dangerous than him.
  • Keeping the Handicap:
    • Played with when Redcloak has one of his eyes gouged out by O-Chul. As a high-level cleric he could easily cast a regenerate spell to restore it, but his boss Xykon (who's mid-Villainous Breakdown at the time) decides he's sick of Redcloak wasting time instead of actively pursuing their Evil Plan and forbids him from getting his eye back as a form of punishment.
      Xykon: You're not regenerating anything. That eye? That's your individual Idiot Tax. That's what this fiasco costs you personally. I want you to remember every moment of every day what happens if we sit on our lazy ASSES and rearrange the furniture in a ruined city instead of moving on to the next target. If I ever see you with more eyes than assholes, I'm going to shove one in the other.
    • Durkon's mother Sigdi lost her arm years ago. When she joins the party in battle, wielding an axe, she's questioned why she didn't let Durkon regenerate her arm with a spell before the fight. She explains that Durkon needs all the high-level spell slots he can get for the fight, then touches upon this trope:
      Sigdi: Plus, I been like this fer fifty years an' change. I'm na sure I'd know what ta do wit two hands right away!
      Hilgya: I don't know, strap a shield to it?
      Sigdi: It's OK, lass. It took Durkon a while ta unnerstand, too.
    Even after the battle, Sigdi still declines to have it fixed, saying that her old arm is still holding her husband's hand and she's fine without it.
    • Among the priests seen at the Godsmoot, the high priestess of Odin has an eyepatch, the high priestess of Hoder is blind and the high priest of Tyr has a Hook Hand. Again, it would be trivial for high-level clerics to heal those disabilities, but in each cases they mimic those of their respective gods, and in fact it is very likely they were ritually self-inflicted.
  • Kicked Upstairs: When he finally accepts that Elan doesn't want Roy to be killed off, Tarquin suggests doing this to him in terms of the narrative: making him the largely offscreen Supporting Leader of a Redshirt Army, so the story could focus on Elan as The Hero leading the Order. He suggests that Roy's Lawful alignment makes him a perfect Da Chief.
  • Kick the Dog:
    • Vaarsuvius's response to hearing of Therkla's death. Not helped when they ask Elan if he "limited his affair with the NPC to oral pleasures" and even makes an Implied Death Threat against him (although it goes right over his head).
      Vaarsuvius: Does this mean we no longer gain XP for defeating her?
    • Invoked posthumously in regard to Crystal. Elan says he's not mad at Haley for it, as long as she's sure Crystal was "really, REALLY bad." Haley responds that she once saw Crystal headbutt an elderly gnome woman into a coma, which makes Elan feel better about it.
    • Elves are mean.
    • Yukyuk in "Animal Instincts".
    • "A Touch of Death". Wow. Really, Nale?
    • In case you needed confirmation that Qarr is indeed Lawful EVIL...
    • Discussed in "Executive Order". After Tarquin has committed some of his worse on-screen actions so far, he says he has one last one to do before letting Elan leave:
      Elan: What, do you have a bunny you need to punch in front of me or something?
      Tarquin: No, I'm talking about your dismal combat performance back at the pyramid. [to Kilkil] Though make note of the bunny thing for next time, that's good stuff.
    • The High Priest of Hel mocking Roy about his brother's death and asking how many pieces his body was found in.
  • Kids Play Matchmaker: Strip #888 depicts the remarriage of Elan's parents, who say they are remarrying because of him (and possibly his brother Nale). Subverted as this occurs in the simulation created by Girard Draketooth's Lotus-Eater Machine — and the fact that it's blatantly Too Good to Be True is the thread Elan spots that leads to unraveling the entire deception.
  • Kid with the Leash: Roy and Belkar, especially when Roy has the command word for Belkar's mark of justice. After Roy dies, the leash passes to Haley. She isn't as good at keeping him under control.
  • Killed Mid-Sentence:
    • When Belkar kills the Chimera at the very beginning.
      Trigak: You may have won this round, Order of the Stick, but we swear our revenge on you! When you least expect—! GAK! GAK! GAK!
    • Xykon does this to a group of mercenary ogres who are complaining about not being paid very early in the comic's run, (and then he zombifies their corpses so he can still get some use out of them), perhaps giving the first hint that he's not a harmless cliché storm of a villain, despite appearances.
    • This is also how Roy Greenhilt dies, mid-pondering in freefall.
    • And in Cliffport, "I'm getting too old for—"
    • Haley gets petrified mid-sentence by Zz'dtri.
    • Ambassador Gourntonk is killed mid-report of Tarquin's conspiracy to the Empress of Blood by Tarquin's Cat Folk ally Jacinda.
  • Killed Off for Real: While Back from the Dead has been a plot point, and an important one, Word of the Giant says that the spell True Resurrection (which can bring someone back from anything) won't be used in this story because it breaks the dramatic impact of death. Thus there are a few people we can be confident are gone for good:
    • Lord Shojo denies resurrection because he'd rather be in the Chaotic Good heaven than Azure City's Decadent Court. In a bonus strip, his body is burned for his funeral.
    • Miko is given a very final-looking death scene, and the only person who seems interested in her corpse (to make an intelligent undead, not resurrect her) passes up on the chance because of it being an incomplete body. At the time of her death, she had few-if-any friends or allies, and certainly none capable of casting resurrection. (Also, Word of the Giant is that she's staying dead.)invoked
    • Therkla is betrayed by her boss/father-figure and Elan won't be her boyfriend, so she has no reason to be revived.
    • The following people are staying dead because their bodies are destroyed or rendered inaccessible, and resurrection requires a body:
      • Kubota's body is disintegrated by Vaarsuvius, and the ashes are then spread to the winds.
      • Thanh's body is buried under a mountain (along the rest of the resistance) after being slain by Redcloak's Osmium Elemental.
      • After Redcloak seizes control over her wights, Tsukiko is level-drained to death and then they eat her body. Then that wight is eaten by a second wight, who is eaten by a third who is eaten by a fourth who commits suicide with fire.
      • Yukyuk's corpse is destroyed during the explosion of the Draketooth Clan's pyramid, along with the Draketooth clan.
      • Malack is burned to ashes by the sun after his Protection from Daylight spell is dispelled. We later learn that the way vampirism works in this verse means that even if his corpse hadn't been lost, resurrecting it would have brought back the original Malack, not the one we know.
      • Nale is disintegrated after being stabbed in the heart, with his ashes being blown away by the wind.
  • Kill It with Fire:
  • Kill the Lights: The Order are walking through a cave network when they're abruptly plunged into darkness. By the time they work out that, because it overwhelmed Durkon's Innate Night Vision, it must be magical darkness and therefore constrained to a small radius, they've stumbled out of it and into the dragon that cast it.
  • Kill the Parent, Raise the Child: This is how Serini found herself adopting Sunny. The beholder she was trying to recruit attacked her and she killed it in self-defense, but it was budding at the time. Given how beholders usually treat their offspring, being raised by a strict but caring halfling is definitely an improvement.
  • Kind Restraints:
    • Roy has to bind and gag Durkon in the Wooden Forest so that he'd stop freaking out about trees and risk alerting the bandits.
      Durkon: [gagged] Mmph mrph mmmph mmf mrf mrrrph mrph!
      Roy: I'm going to choose to attribute that comment to stress and not hold it against you in the future.
    • The team also keeps Belkar tied up and gagged after Nale uses a Charm Person on him... and a few hours afterward in the morning, even though the spell has already worn off, since the halfling is better company like this.
  • Kissing Under the Influence: Belkar to V. Not that the elf is about to say anything to him.
  • Kiss of Death: Succubi (such as Sabine) can energy-drain someone by kissing them. Sabine does that to Elan in "Critical Thinking".
  • Klingon Promotion:
    • Parodied: Therkla got to be the valedictorian of her ninja class by killing the original.
    • Also how Redcloak became supreme leader of the hobgoblins, by killing whom he assumes is their leader. The real leader wisely keeps his mouth shut and lets Red take over.
    • When Belkar, Haley, and Celia disguise themselves as some corpses and a necromancer to get past two hobgoblins, one of the hobgoblins doubts Belkar actually is a corpse, so Belkar stabs him to death. The other gets the message and lets them pass, then says "Thanks for the promotion" as they leave.
  • Knights and Knaves: "The Test of the Mind" in the Sunken Valley. Solved in a non-traditional manner.
  • Knows a Guy Who Knows a Guy: Belkar suggests selling some captured enemies into slavery, adding that he "know[s] a guy who knows a guy" to contact for this. Much later, we meet the guy in question, Buggy Lou. His best supplier on the Northern Continent was pals with Belkar.
  • Kudzu Plot: An inversion, as much of the Don't Split the Party and Utterly Dwarfed plots have gotten rid of longrunning antagonists (Nale, Crystal, Bozzok and so on) to prevent the story from getting bogged down.

    L 
  • A Lady on Each Arm: In On the Origins of PCs, a newly-jailbroken Belkar is just musing that life couldn't get any better when happens upon a sign saying, "WHORES: 2-for-1 Sale!" The next panel is the three of them walking off like this.
  • Lamarck Was Right: Elan and Nale are twins. Elan takes after his Chaotic Good mother, Nale after his Lawful Evil father. They also inherit different things from their other parent. Elan inherited his father's Genre Savvy and flair for the dramatic, while Nale inherited his mother's Complexity Addiction.
  • Lampshaded the Obscure Reference:
    • A comic ends with gladiators being torn apart by a giant Ollie of Kukla, Fran and Ollie fame. The comic's title is "Ask Your Grandparents".
    • Not as old nor as obscure, but the Sudden Videogame Moment featuring Centipede is lampshaded too.
      Chief: Man, that brought back memories.
      Rookie: I don't get it.
      Chief: Before your time, kid. Before your time.
  • Lampshade Hanging: The comic practically runs on this trope. At one point we even see an actual lampshade during a lampshade hanging.
  • Large Ham:
    • Vaarsuvius, when doing their loud, melodramatic rants about being able to reshape the building blocks of the universe with arcane magic.
    • Elan, though being a bard may be part of the reason.
    • Thor.
    • Xykon.
    • Linear Guild Members Nale, Thog, and Leeky Windstaff.
    • Tarquin.
    • The Empress of Blood.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia:
    • The memory charm around the Oracle that makes you forget everything about your visit except your questions and their answers as soon as you leave.
    • The same thing is going for the afterlife. Roy can remember the time spent on the clouds with his father and the scrying they've done, but past the big gate his memories are fuzzy, though he remembers some bits.
  • Laser-Guided Karma:
    • Elan and Nale's first fight.
      Elan: Nale! There's nowhere to go. Surrender!
      Nale: Surrender? Never, you moronic little twit. I'd rather die than—
      [bridge crumbles underneath his feet, leaving him dangling by one hand]
      Nale: Help me, brother!
      Elan: Karma-riffic!
    • Redcloak's right eye, reflecting his late brother, who had lost his left eye. You can tell that he's actually screaming at the irony, as opposed to the pain from the stabbing of his eye.
    • "Stupid entirely justified comeuppance."
    • Vaarsuvius was already feeling guilty about using fiend-granted powers to wipe out every creature related to a black dragon, but even so the elf probably wasn't expecting it to bite them in the ass like in "All in the Family".
    • "THIS IS A TERRIBLE ENDING!!!"
    • Suffice to say the Sapphire Guard's decision to wipe out a small goblin village comes back to bite them.
    • A planned one: Belkar, still under a magical curse that will go off if he kills someone within a town's borders, murders an oracle. Then he looks out of the oracle's tower's rear window...
      Sign: Welcome to the village of LickMyOrangeBallsHalfling.
      Founded: Last week. Population: Just enough.
      "No, seriously, give 'em a good once-over!"
  • Last Disrespects: When Belkar is particulary annoying Roy, Roy conversationally notes, "I'm going to dance on your grave, you know."
    Roy: Maybe a nice jig? I might take lessons first.
  • Last Grasp at Life: Golem Crystal, after being dropped into a Lava Pit.
  • Last Request:
    • A driving motivation for both Haley and Ian.
    • Durkon's last request to Malack is to not harm any of his friends.
  • Last-Second Chance: In this strip, Haley tries to suggest that flesh-golem Crystal find a way out of her painful position, preferably one that gets her away from people she might hurt. Crystal says that hurting people is how she plans to stop her pain, which is all Haley needs to decide she has to go.
  • Last-Second Word Swap:
  • Latin Lover: Enriqué, for Sara Greenhilt.
  • Laughably Evil: Many villains (and one protagonist); Burlew is very good at writing characters who are both likeable (funny, awesome, etc.) and yet definitely villainous and unsympathetic. Examples include:
    • Xykon. All over the place.
    • Belkar. And he knows it.
      Belkar: I'm comedy gold! I'm the only funny thing left in this damn comic strip!
    • General Tarquin, in his geekier moments.
    • Qarr and the IFCC can get into it too.
  • Laughing Mad: "Patient seems to also be suffering from uncontrollable hideous laughter."
  • Laugh with Me!: Inverted. When Xykon proclaims that his goals will be achieved soon, Redcoak and the MitD let out an Evil Laugh. Redcloak then asks why Xykon doesn't join them.
    Xykon: Actually, ever since I became a lich, I haven't been able to get the same volume in my evil laughter. Since I technically don't have lungs.
  • Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Both discussed and defied. While subjecting O-Chul to suffering for their own amusement, Xykon suggests the Demon Roaches make use of lava next time. One of the roaches mentions that "you can't see the action through the lava." When lava actually appears, it is completely opaque.
  • Lawful Stupid: Frequently subverted (especially with Good Is Not Nice) and often lampshaded.
    • Paladins are noted to have this reputation, but actually rarely show it... with one unfortunate exception. In general, Lawful Stupid, Stupid Good, Chaotic Stupid and Stupid Evil are all demonstrated by one character or another at different times. (Miko Miyazaki arguably demonstrates all four, sometimes all in the same comic.)
    • Roy does a good job of differentiating between himself (Lawful Good) and Miko (Lawful Stupid) in a "The Reason You Suck" Speech. invoked
      Roy: You're not Good, at least not any definition of Good that I would want to follow. You follow the letter of the alignment description while ignoring its intent. Sure, you fight Evil, but when was the last time you showed a "concern for the dignity of sentient beings"? You're just a mean, socially inept bully who hides behind a badge and her holier-than-thou morality as excuses to treat other people like crap.
    • Played for laughs in "It Takes a Thief", where Haley tries to explain theinvoked Shell Game to two Lawful Good characters.
      Haley: A ruse that relies on the target's innate acceptance on the rules presented to him? Against a league of paladins? Easy money.
    • While interfering with the vote at the Godsmoot, the party is attacked by a legion of vampires raised by the High Priest of Hel. Roy points out that the rule forbidding the representatives from attacking each other doesn't apply to the invading vampires, and so some of the clerics present jump in to aid them. Others, however, move to support the vampires instead on the grounds that since their gods voted in favor of destroying the world, the "lawful" thing to do would be to kill the heroes trying to prevent that.
    • In "Limited Motions", the dwarven council holds a vote on how their demigod should vote on a matter that will affect their entire race. A few of them try to motion a delay, noticing that a little more than half of the council is under vampiric Mind Control meant to tamper with the vote. The vampires use a legal tactic to ignore the motion, and while a few eyebrows are raised, most of the un-dominated dwarves consider it an entirely reasonable compromise.
  • Law of Conservation of Detail:
    • Even throwaway gags in the strip may turn out to be critical. For example, in #1112, Durkon subjects the High Priest of Hel to a workplace orientation to torture him. However, the priest giving the orientation points out Wall of Names Of Very Rich Donors, which Durkon seems to be interested in. We find out later Durkon saw his mother's name on the wall, and confronted her about it, which led to Durkon's epiphany about "worst days of one's life", which then led to him using his memories to defeat the High Priest of Hel!
    • Invoked by Julio Scoundrél when Elan comments on how unlikely it is that they should meet each other.
  • Law of Inverse Fertility: Durkon apparently knocked up Hilgya after only having sex with her once.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Less common than Breaking the Fourth Wall moments.
    • In "A Vexation or Irritation", Tarquin comments about Thog, "It's weird, no matter how many people he kills, the audience still thinks he's lovable". Meaning the audience in the arena, not the readers, obviously.
    • Two just-introduced characters have a conversation that's perfectly mundane within the story, but takes a whole double meaning when you know that the character of Veldrina is a cameo granted as reward for contributing to the Kickstarter effort for the webcomic.
      Veldrina: Can you believe I threw 5000 bucks down just to get stuck here?!?
      Wrecan: And it felt like it took two or three years to get this far!
      Veldrina: That's money I could have spent on a new brooch. Or maybe a nice cameo.
    • invoked When Roy and Wrecan have their last conversation before Roy departs the Godsmoot, Wrecan gives a speech about how there is never enough time to get to know someone, and that you have to do what you can when you can, because one day there won't be enough time to do it. The conversation is more or less about the real Wrecan, who was a prolific forum poster who passed away and was put into the comic as a tribute.
  • Least Rhymable Word: Elan makes a Painful Rhyme in one strip. It's lampshaded by the title of that strip being "You Try Rhyming 'Assassin'!"
  • Leave Him to Me!: Invoked, not by one of the fighters, but by Julio Scoundrél, who has a standing policy that his crew are not to "interfere with third-act duels".
  • Leave No Witnesses:
    • When Redcloak wipes out the Resistance and gets Xykon's phylactery back, he only uses summoned monsters (who he then dismisses) and lets the only hobgoblin involved stay dead.
      Redcloak: The exact details here need to stay between me and our god. I just thank the Dark One that I didn't need to execute you myself.
    • After a Just Between You and Me speech, he kills Tsukiko by using her own wights against her and then has them destroy each other and the last one burn itself to ashes in the fireplace.
  • Leet Lingo: Elan writing "!!1!" in the sand.
  • Left for Dead: Durkon was, accidentally, in an early strip.
  • Left Hanging: The heroes deliberately invoke this in the Empire of Blood arc by leaving without resolving anything just to spite the narrative-obsessed Arc Villain.
  • Left-Justified Fantasy Map: A map of Azure City and its surroundings appears in the back of War and XPs with a sea along the left edge. However, the western continent should appear on the other side of the sea.
  • Let Me Get This Straight...:
    • Xykon to Roy during their first encouter.
      Xykon: So, let me get this straight. Your father spent his entire life looking for me over a largely inconsequential killing? (Magic Missile.)
      Roy: Yes! You killed his master, and he swore an oath to destroy you!
      Xykon: And he was too much of a loser to get the job done before croaking, so now you, Loser Jr., have taken up the task?
    • V and Blackwing, after V's question is answered via Answer Cut.
      Vaarsuvius: A planet? Within the planet?
      Blackwing: That's pretty much what I said, yeah.
  • Lethal Joke Item:
    • The bag of tricks, which summons random animals. Roy eventually finds creative uses for it, like making distracting kitties. It also has a compact rhino on it, but it kinda backfired.
    • Lethal Joke Spell, too: A hobgoblin caster's opening spell against Haley is the very low-level dancing lights. Haley makes fun of him for a moment before realizing that the spell's purpose is to call for reinforcements. On the other hand, dancing knights is indeed useless.
  • Lens Flare: Used in "Rematch" for dramatic effect.
  • Let Us Never Speak of This Again:
    • During Azure City's New Year, Belkar gets drunk and kisses Vaarsuvius full on the lips. Afterwards, Belkar forgets it entirely and Vaarsuvius insists that, if the one witness to the kiss (Durkon) ever has to discuss it again, it will be referred to it as "the Event". And they never talk about it again.
    • While being interviewed for the Lawful Good afterlife, Roy Greenhilt stops the bureaucratic deva interviewing him before she can mention the Gender Bender incident within earshot of his father, who is standing not ten feet away.
    • As seen in "A Dish Best Served Warm, After All", Vaarsuvius has this attitude regarding further recounting of their adventures in the Semi-Elemental Plane of Ranch Dressing.
      Belkar: Hey, maybe we'll see that as a bonus story in one of the books!
      Vaarsuvius: Maybe we shall never mention it again.
      Belkar: Yeah, probably that.
  • Lightning Can Do Anything:
  • Like Father, Like Son:
  • Like Father, Unlike Son:
  • Lipstick Lesbian: The "latent bisexuality" aspect of Haley's mind is among the more "girly" of the aspects.
  • Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards:
    • In true 3.5 fashion, Durkon and Vaarsuvius are the most powerful members of the party. The Giant had to deliberately give them terrible builds to limit them to just "most powerful" instead of rendering the rest of the party irrelevant.
    • Lampshaded and referenced in "Small Talk".
    • As revealed in On the Origin of PCs, Roy took up the quest of destroying Xykon to prove this trope wrong.
  • Line-of-Sight Name:
    • The Order's name is because of this trope, as revealed in On the Origin of PCs. When heading to Dorukan's Dungeon, Elan suggests various names for the team based around trivial things. Annoyed by this, Roy sarcastically suggests that they should be called "The Order of the Stick" because there's a stick on the ground. To his dismay, the name strikes a chord with everyone else.
    • Also, Redcloak and his brother Right-Eye, as revealed in Start of Darkness.
  • Literal Genie: Subverted. Roy, wary of this happening, words his question to the Oracle in such a way that it works against him. His concern made sense, as this trope was played straight the first time he visited the Oracle:
    Oracle: Hey, "In his throne room" was a perfectly legitimate answer to the question "Where is Xykon?"
  • Literal Metaphor: A fairly common gag.
    • Celia's ex-boyfriend is caught "slipping the wood" to some dryad hussy. At least it was a potted wood.
    • When leaving Azure City, Roy states that they are on "the road to Adventure". And indeed, it's the name of Gate 6 (next to Gate 7, the Road to Perdition).
    • "The Test of the Heart" is another blatant case. "The truths that are in your heart will be laid bare for all to know." Through a cardiac exam.
    • Sabine makes one in "Every Couple Has Their Quirks":
      Sabine: It's hard, but sometimes, I need to make a sacrifice in order to maintain our love.
      Roy: Like dressing up for him?
      Sabine: No, I meant a literal sacrifice. I have a desecrated altar waiting for your corpse in the next room.
    • "Their Concierge Service is Heavenly":
      Roy: Huh... I always thought the "revolving door afterlife" was just a metaphor...
    • And "Final Review":
      Bureaucratic Deva: Mr. Greenhilt, we do things "by the book" around here — and it just so happens that the book in question is 100 feet tall and alight with holy fire —
    • Inverted in "Those Don't Take Over Until the Graveyard Shift":
      Niu: [decked in anti-undead armaments] So, wait, when you said that the prison would be guarded by a skeleton crew during the speech, you didn't literally mean a—
      Thanh: Niu, please.
      Niu: What? Look at the world we live in, it was a reasonable assumption.
    • In "Something Blue", Tarquin mention that some of his previous wives got cold feet before the marriage. The ensuing flashback reveals that it is quite literal.
    • A delayed action one: In "Make It Three, Just to Be Safe", Haley asks Elan if he needs "200-foot-tall flaming letters" to see Tarquin is evil. In "Yes, Apparently", he's given some.
    • Sabine gets one turned on her in "We Recommend Tsukiko":
      Nale: Oh really? Why don't you chase after him, then?
      Sabine: Nale, you know I love you. I didn't—
      Nale: No, I mean literally. Go chase after him. He's escaping.
    • "Where Her Loyalties Lie": Saying "Go to Hell" to an Infernal being just doesn't have the same weight...
      Sabine: Go to Hell, imp.
      Qarr: Was just headed there now. I'll give your love to the Directors.
    • "The Soul of Discretion":
      Veldrina: Oh, don't mind the tiger. Little Whiskers wouldn't hurt a fly.
      Wrecan: On the plus side, that was more Giant Monstrous Fly experience points for the rest of us.
    • In "Half Expected", upon revealing herself, Serini Toormuck mentions that she has "firsthand experience" about Xykon. "As in, he's the reason I don't have my first hand." She ended up mutilated by an encounter with Xykon, and had her torn flesh regenerated into troll flesh, meaning she has a "new" hand.
    • Elan gets easily tripped by them, as seen in "Changed Circumstances":
      Sunny: See, she'd bonk him on the head right there is she could. Bonk bonk.
      Elan: Huh. So is this what they mean when they say someone's making a "bonkers argument"?
      Haley: Normally, no. In this case, yes, but for other reasons.
  • Literary Allusion Title:
  • Living Crashpad:
  • Load-Bearing Boss: Subverted. Xykon's destruction did nothing to the Dungeon of Dorukan, but then Elan activated a self-destruct sigil so they could have a dramatic escape.
  • Loincloth: Standard issue for gladiator convicts in the Empire of Blood — even for lizardfolks, although they don't need them.
    Belkar: Also, everyone here could use a little less loin and a lot more cloth.
  • The Loins Sleep Tonight:
    • In Start of Darkness, one of the factors that makes Xykon's decision to become a lich that much easier is that "it hasn't moved on its own in 16 years."
    • Ian Starshine also mentions that he'd been sterile for 10 years since an accident with a poison trap.
  • Long Speech Tea Time: The whole party, during the scribble-art backstory.
  • Look Behind You:
    • In "Good to the Last Drip", Vaarsuvius is so busy attempting to Disintegrate Qarr that only the small imp notices an ancient black dragon with a personal vendetta approaching from behind.
    • In "Not to Scale", Wrecan manages to distract vampire Durkon from delivering a killing blow to Roy. He can't do more to help, as he's bound by the rules of the Godsmoot.
      Wrecan: SNEAK ATTACK FROM BEHIND — is a thing I absolutely cannot do, because it would be against the rules.
  • Loophole Abuse:
    • Redcloak orders the Silicon Elemental he summons to "kill [the Order]. Starting with the human with the greatsword [Roy]." Haley manages to make it change targets by taking Roy's sword.
    • In the Godsmoot encounter, bodyguards cannot attack another god's priest without being put to death. Nothing is said about the bodyguard attacking the priest they are protecting.
    • Dwarfs are forced to either act honorably throughout their lives (and in death) and go to Valhalla, or do otherwise and get imprisoned by Hel. But if they become worshippers of Loki, then acting dishonorably will mean that they are following their patron god's guidelines, and thus technically act honorably, meaning they can do pretty much whatever they want without the fear of divine punishment.
      Hilgya Firehelm: It's a totally bogus deal we didn't choose, and it shapes everything about our lives and culture. But it'll be OK, 'cause there is a loophole. And that loophole is named Loki.
  • Lotus-Eater Machine: In "Victory Comes from Within", Belkar is killed, Vaarsuvius returns from their disappearance, and Roy manages to use a new trick to disable and kill Xykon. But then it's revealed that this is all taking place in one of Girard's illusion traps. The illusion proceeds to give the Order a happy ending, with Durkon returning alive, the Order dumping Xykon's phylactery into a volcano, Elan making up with his family, the liberation of Azure City, a grand tomb made in honor of Belkar and Scruffy, the Order enacting justice on Bozzok, Vaarsuvius and Durkon working together to repair the destroyed Gates, et cetera on to infinity. The strip after that reveals that fighters have become more popular than wizards, as per Roy's dream. And that Tarquin has even decided to remarry Elan and Nale's mother, with Malack officiating and everyone in attendance. The Order successfully disbelieves the illusion when it does too good a job of giving the Order what they want, and Elan realizes that many of his dreams are too silly or unrealistic to ever be realized.
  • Loud of War: At one point, Thog suggests using a rather well-known Canadian singer as a torture device, but Nale thinks that particular choice is uncivilized.
  • Love Doodles: Minrah, a cleric of Thor, seems to view her god as something of a celebrity crush, and she mentions once that "every follower" grew up writing his name with hearts around it in her notebook.
  • Loyal Phlebotinum:
    • The Crimson Mantle imparts the divine half of the ritual for controlling the Snarl directly into its wearer's mind, but only if they are a priest of the Dark One.
    • The Sapphire Guard uniform is magical and only works for a paladin. Thus, when Miko becomes a fallen paladin, her armor loses its color and powers. (This is not stated in-comic, but All There in the Manual in the hardcover book War and XPs.)
      The Giant: Members of the Sapphire Guard utilize special magic items that are constructed using Celestial power. If they are worn by anyone who is not a paladin in good standing, they lose their power. Neat, huh? It also explains why Miko takes such a beating from Roy afterwards; in addition to her class abilities, she's lost several magic items too.
  • Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me:
    • In Start of Darkness, the rematch between Lirian and just-turned-lich Xykon is basically Lirian using all the wrong spells and abilities so Xykon can explain why none of them work now that he's a lich. Admittedly, it isn't out of character for Xykon to taunt his opponent by pointing out why his opponent can't beat him, even if that essentially means giving tips on how he or she could.
    • Tarquin plays this entirely straight when the Order ambush the Linear Guild in Girard's pyramid, magically deafening them. He then turns the remark into a witty Noodle Incident anecdote regarding how he came to acquire the skill:
      Tarquin: Luckily for us, I'm well-versed in Drow sign language...
  • Luke Nounverber: The Greenhilt family doesn't count since it's actually named from the ancestral sword, but we have plenty others: Haley & Ian Starshine; Belkar Bitterleaf; Durkon Thundershield; Hilgya Firehelm; Leeky Windstaff; Girard Draketooth; Fyron Pucebuckle; Miron Shewdanker; Hieronymus Grubwiggler; Reegon Mithrilspear; Hiran Sinkeye; Clang Killitchy; Deergar Bluehawk; Firuk Blackore; Darren Leafsword; Laurin Shattersmith...
  • Luke, You Are My Father:
  • Lying by Omission:
    • When the Order are accused of attempting a prison break, the Lawful Goodinvoked Durkon claims that the locks opened due to a "mechanical defect" and omitting that the defect was that it could be picked by a rogue.
    • In a case of Never Speak Ill of the Dead regarding the destruction of Soon's Gate, O-Chul admits that he made the decision and it was his blade that did the deed. But he was magically paralyzed at the time; Miko destroyed the gate right before they were about to win the fight.

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