Video Game / Armello

From Wolf to Bear, the Clans declare, the time has come to take the throne. For the Rot's creeping, it twists our King. Heroes, rise! Save Armello!

Armello is an Adventure Board Game-style computer game by Australian-based company League of Geeks. Four actual or virtual players, taking the role of the heroes of anthropomorphic animal clans, out on quests to ensure they became the next King of the Realm. The current King has been infected by the Rot, a supernatural disease that is slowly killing him and spreading The Corruption around the world. He'll be dead after about 8 days^note The King has 9 hit points, and loses one hit point to rot each dawn, while spreading corruption each dusk. If the king is not wounded or healed, he will die at the beginning of turn 19, and if he passes, the most Prestigious of heroes takes the crown. However, a hero can simply usurp the throne by personally assassinating the tyrant king; whether the king dies from your sword, from your own dark powers, or using the sacred Spirit Stones.

Armello was able to use special funds from the Australian Government to produce high quality animated Trailers. Audio books and other fiction within the game's universe are planned. The game was fully released on Steam and PS4 on September 2015. Xbox One and Nintendo Switch ports were released in 2016 and 2018, respectively. It can be bought here.

The first DLC, Usurpers, featuring four new heroes, was released on 30 August 2016. The Bandit Clan DLC, which was previously limited to Kickstarter backers, finally received public release on 26 April 2017. On 21 December of the same year, the Rivals Hero Pack was released. On September 3rd of 2019, the Dragon Clan DLC was released. As of September 2021, due to pandemic-related delays, the Dragon Clan DLC hasn't been released on the console or mobile versions.

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Armello and its expanded universe demonstrate examples of:

• Acrofatic: Twiss the Squirrel is short and very fluffy, making her look pudgy. Despite this, she has super evasion.
• Action Girl: Scarlet, River, Amber, Magna, and Zosha are all warriors first and foremost.
• Alliance Meter: Prestige is this along with being a victory points system. Basically what the royalty thinks of a hero, it increases when completing quests or defeating Banes and other heroes, decreases when killing a Royal Guard or being defeated, and drops to zero instantly if the hero attacks the King. Some Trickery cards and other events can affect Prestige count in various ways.
• All Trolls Are Different: While they don't appear visually, trolls are featured in the flavour text of several quests. A Rat Clan mission involves saving a cub from its troll kidnapper, implying that the creatures might have a taste for Armellian flesh.
• Always Chaotic Evil: The Banes are raven-like creatures that embody the Rot. If they defeat your hero they infect you with The Corruption. They only move at night and are killed instantly if they enter any Stone Circles. The King's Guards will attack any Banes that come close to them.
• Amazon Brigade: The Iron Guard, the elite protectors of the Wolf Clan's Alpha.
• Anachronism Stew: While the game takes much of its influence from Europe during the Middle Ages, clothing and weapons from other historical periods also make an appearance occasionally. The Rabbit Clan's fashion sense seems to be derived from the late 1500s, the Black Company skins for the Bandit Clan resemble clothing from the 18th century. Mercurio also wields a pistol in his Mustachio Mercurio skin.
• Animal Stereotypes: So very much, though some choose to subvert it. The lion is the king, wolves are noble and loyal to the pack (except Fang, vengeful for his exile); Rats are shady assassins and criminals, as are mustelids in the dark arts, etc.
• Armor Is Useless: Generally averted. A few items allow damage to Pierce armor and most armor only activates in combat, meaning it's not helpful against Spells (justified in the case of lightning or magical fireballs), Trickery cards, Perils,^note Leather Armor alone works both in Battle or Perils, but only grants a single Shield's worth of block. or a well-placed throwing axe. Because the battle system makes hits three times as likely as blocks, however, devoting your inventory to bonus defense is often essential to stave off a Mutual Kill.
• Armor of Invincibility: The Lionheart Breastplate is the one Treasure that when equipped, will force every other player to reevaluate their strategies. While it doesn't offer as many Shields as the Heavy Plate Armour, its other property allows the hero wearing it to stand their ground no matter what. This makes it incredibly difficult to dislodge the wearer from their position purely through combat. Couple the Breastplate with other defensive equipment or even Evade^note Lionheart Breastplate's immovable property overwrites Evade's always-flee drawback and you will effectively be an immovable object.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: The Pierce trait, applied to a single Sword of damage.
  • Thane's special. When he burns cards to gain Swords his opponent cannot block them with shields.
  • Equipping a Longbow or Hand Cannons gives you the chance to do this by burning Moon and Sun cards respectively.
  • The Iron Pike pierces with the first rolled Sword while attacking. This changes to a Reflect when defending.
  • The Silver Lance treasure provides one piercing Sun in battle; two if the battle is fought on a Plains tile.
• Art-Style Dissonance: A battle for political power using deceit, power, and corruption over a mad king is the heart of Armello, and it is represented by talking animals in a colorful medieval fantasy setting. See Crapsaccharine World.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Fang's power only activates on the offense, thus necessitating him to constantly attack his opponents.
• Awesome, yet Impractical: A lot of high-cost spell cards fall into this. Unless you are playing as Sana, Sargon, Ghor, Twiss, or a spirit-oriented Brun, a lot of them don't see use and are burned.
• The Bad Guys Win:
  • It can be safely assumed that this happens when a Rot Victory is achieved. The Kingdom of Armello is lost to the malicious power embodied in its malevolent champion. To further emphasize this, Rot Victory is the only game end where the screen becomes tinted purple.
  • While most of the heroes are on the side of good or their motives and morality left ambiguous, Zosha, Griotte, and Sylas are indicated to have frightening plans for the Crown even if not corrupted by the Rot. Sylas in particular threatens to hang all the other heroes once he gets his paws on the throne.
• Bad Moon Rising: Among the King's decree is "Blood Moon", which gives each hero an additional Rot.
• Bandit Clan: The first other clan outside the four Great Clans, the Bandit Clan, offers a place to the outcasts of Armellian society. Gold and glory are all that matter to this party of troublemakers. Scarlet, Horace, Twiss, and Sylas are members of this clan.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animal: None of the characters wear shoes.
• Bears Are Bad News: Sana, Ghor, Brun, and Yordana, though as the only one of the four to be kicked out of the Bear Clan, Brun fits this trope more. In general, angering the Bears is a poor choice, considering that they can easily blast enemies away with an arsenal of damage spells.
• Benevolent Mage Ruler: If Sana, Ghor, or Brun win the throne without being Corrupted.
• The Berserker:
  • A recruitable follower that adds a single point of Fight during battles and turns all Shield cards into Sword cards, much to Thane's benefit (not so much for Magna).
  • Fang is an archetype of one and his ability, Berzerker, allows him to take no return damage if he Slaughters (inflicts 3 overkill damage points on) his defending opponent.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Death can be a tactical decision in this game for several reasons - denying an opponent Prestige for your kill when cornered, breaking an unfavorable Pact spell, gaining Rot, or quickly returning to your Clan Grounds. To that effect, most direct damage spells can be cast on oneself.
• BFS: The art for Pride's Edge shows it with a Palace Guard for scale; the sword is larger than the Guardsman.
• Big Eater: Implied by the tubby rodent of a Poison Taster:
  Garbo Guts: I'll test your food, but it'll take more than just one bite. Like two. Yeah, three bites. Four.
• Blind Obedience: The Palace Guard will obey any orders that come from their slowly maddening king, no matter how cruel, insane, arbitrary, or simply suicidal.
• Bloodless Carnage: Averted, as on the battle screen, successful attacks will definitely draw blood.
• Bodyguard Betrayal: While the Amazon Brigade that is the Wolf Clan's Iron Guard are intended to protect the Alpha of the Wolf Clan, if they show any weakness the Iron Guard is intended to...redistribute the balance of power.
• Booze-Based Buff: Alcohol is present in-game in the form of 2 consumable items: Brazenberry Ale and Hot Rot Wine. The former adds a point of Fight (and reduces a point of Wit) for one turn, the latter provides 1 Action Point at the cost of 1 Health and the gain of 1 Rot.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Horace's ability to swap places with palace guards (As long as there is no bounty on his head). On paper, it does not sound like much, and does not really turn the tide of battle like some other abilities - yet many a player can tell you of how many times they wished they had Horace's ability due to a palace guard being in their way.
  • Shimmer Shield - changes all your card symbols to Shield. It's great if you get a poor draw full of Rot symbols meaning if someone attacks you, you can burn them all no consequence. It's also great for screwing over Thane as he relies on burning Swords cards to gain Pierce in fights. On the other hand, Magna loves this card as she wants to burn Shield cards to Reflect attacks. All this for the price of 1 mana.
  • If played on a hero, Wyld's Warning will grant them Evasion. This obviously provides said hero with some defensive capability, but it can also be used to push opponents out of the way; the card even works on heroes in the Palace! Assuming that you have some Piercing capabilities or the Poppet, you can damage or outright kill opponents without the risk of them counterattacking.
  • A well balanced hero between 5-7 of every other stats and only 3 spirit. Spells can bring all sorts of awesome effects, but 3 spirit is enough to cast just about all of the spells you need (and to burn a 1 mana card for good measure). 3 spirit is also enough to cast Teleport, Regeneration, or Cleansing Wyld - hands down the most useful spells in the game. And if you need more mana to cast an expensive spell (like Crystallise), Wyld-Born or Moon Juice can sometimes make up the difference.
• Cain and Abel: If the Greymane brothers are together in the game, Sibling Rivalry is pretty much guaranteed to ensue. Fang (Cain) used to be the heir apparent to the Wolf Clan but has since been replaced by his younger brother, Thane (Abel). Needless to say, he is less than likely to accept this lying down.
• Cards of Power: Interestingly enough, the cards that are used by players in-game are also represented as literal cards in the canon lore. The King apparently brought a deck of mysterious but powerful spell cards with him from his homeland.
  "The cards hold more power than most know. To control the cards is to control Armello itself." - Livance Underslough
• Carnivore Confusion: Currently, it's known that fish and fowl are used as sources of protein by carnivorous and omnivorous species. It's however unclear if there are any non-sapient livestock in Armello. The bovine Miner and Blacksmith followers would raise questions about whether beef is on the menu.
• Cast from Hit Points: This ability is acquired by hiring the Warlock follower.
• Child Prodigy: Barnaby.
• Choose a Handicap: During every Morning turn, the King presents the player who currently has the most Prestige points with a choice between two royal decrees. At the beginning, these will be mostly be choices between two helpful (to someone) options. However, as the game progresses and the King further descends into madness, both choices will often afflict the Prestige leader and/or every player on the board in negative ways, such as stripping them of resources or making NPC guards attack them until the start of the next turn.
• The Chosen One: According to the Bear Clan's soothsayers, Sana is a child of prophecy.
  • Nazar believes himself to be the chosen one of the Worm, though that may just be his ego talking.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Since every player is vying for the throne, don't expect the character you spared and healed the previous turn to spare you on this turn. The achievement Machiavellian even requires you to kill a Hero with whom you currently have an Allies' Pact and take one of their Settlements, in the same turn.
• City Guards: The King's Guards are loyal to the King and will defend the kingdom from Banes and wanted criminals alike. They are relatively well-equipped and it's ill-advised to go up against them without your own good equipment.
• Clueless Boss: According to the canon, Crag Greymane, the Wolf Clan Alpha at the time of the King's arrival in Armello and ancestor of Fang and Thane, was completely oblivious to the misdeeds of his underling Lady Boreal due to being an isolationist holed up in his headquarters. It's implied that this had been the state of things for quite a while, since the Wolf Clan had no prior knowledge of the fact that the Rat Clan had been trespassing on their lands to capture slaves.
• Color-Coded Clan: Red for the Rats, Green for the Bears, Blue for the Wolves, Yellow for the Rabbits, Black for the Bandits, and Purple for the Dragon Clan.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Many Spells and Trickery cards don't work on the King or on the Palace Grounds. This prevents heroes from just standing outside the castle and using Immolation on the King for an easy win, for example. In addition, Mirror Cape, a treasure that can copy any equipment worn by its owner's foe, will always copy The Crown, which essentially has no effect during the fight with the King, as opposed to the more useful Wyldhide Armor or especially Pride's Edge.
• The Corruption: The Rot. At low levels it hurts you constantly, and at high levels it can corrupt you. Let it get too high, and you'll end up like the King. In gameplay terms, it allows powerful magic and poison spells at the cost of increasing your Rot score each casting, and once you get 5 or more, Banes ignore you, you can steal battle dice from anyone with less Rot than you (as long as they're rotten too), and are granted Life Drain every time you kill an enemy. The normally worthless Rot dice result explodes like Spirit dice as well. In exchange for these powers, you're entering Stone Circles will deal damage equal to your rot score and Wyld rolls are counted as misses. Similar to Ancient Domains of Mystery, loading yourself down with corruption points before fighting the Big Bad in hopes of being Eviler than Thou is a viable strategy.
• Crapsaccharine World: The colorful world inhabited by talking animals in a medieval-fantasy setting is the façade of dark and dangerous powers, corruption, deceit, and death. The opening alone should speak of the game's tone and atmosphere (under-the-table tactics, a fellow getting his throat slit by bandits, and corruption slowly seething into someone's body). See Art-Style Dissonance above.
  • And many of the cards reflect it. Take the Follower card Squire◊. It looks like a funny Talking Animal until you realize what its effect is, and its flavor text reflect on that.
  "You're so great. I'd die for you—What? Err... no, I said... Hey mate, look at the size of you!." -Pika Potts
• Creepy Crows: Banes are monstrous, raven-like embodiments of the Rot. Regular ravens can also appear as portents of corruption.
• Critical Hit: When rolling dice, the Wyld symbol, representing natural magic, gives you a bonus dice in addition to a success on the roll, referred to as "exploding". When corrupted, the Rot Symbol, normally a pure miss, switches roles with Wyld. Every hero has an explode pool (determined by your Spirit/Rot level) that determines how many dice can multiply like this within a single encounter, though various items, trickeries and spells can modify or remove this limit.
• Dark Horse Victory: Because success in Armello is heavily reliant on the blessings of RNGesus, it's always possible for the unassuming player who has been playing rather unremarkably to suddenly snatch away victory from under the noses of the leading players. The prestige victory is especially prone to this, as multiple players attacking the king can result in another, uninvolved player being handed the win in the event of a Mutual Kill or the king's natural demise (as players attacking the king lose all prestige).
• Dark Is Not Evil:
  • The deer druids only appear at night, and wear creepy skull masks, but will heal your rot infection, give you a spirit stone, or the Holy Moon Scythe if you ask it of them. On the other hand, some quest flavor involves you needing to rescue Human Sacrifices from them.
  • On the other side of the coin of the Druids are their sworn enemies, the Dragon Clan, who are drectly associated to the Rot. Volodar and Nazar are definitely evil, but Oxana and Agniya have a much more nuanced, philosophical outlook on their service to the Worm in the novella.
• The Dark Side: The Rot is opposed to the natural magic of the Wyld. At early corruption it is purely a hindrance, draining one point of health each dawn. However, if you have more rot than a combat opponent, you gain extra dice equal to your opponent's rot. If fully corrupted (five or more rot points), you also gain health when you kill someone in battle.
• Deadly Ringer: Volodar uses a ritual bell as his weapon. His Fight ability is a very low 3, a trend common among improbable weapon users.
• Death by Materialism: In the Sinking Caravan quest, a merchant gets his wagon stuck in a bog. He absolutely refuses to leave it unless told by your hero to do so, and if you fail the Body test to drag it free, he gets guzzled up by the quicksand along with all his stuff.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Zig-zagged: getting killed returns a Hero to their Clan home with one lower Prestige, and a new point of Rot if they died fighting a Bane. While it's in no way a permanent affair, dying can still end up costing precious turns as you scramble to regain ground.
• Death Is Not Permanent: You can die as many times as you want (or don't want) in the game.
• Don't Ask: The flavour text for the Leather Armor requests that one not ask where the leather came from. Given the anthropomorphic cast, it's implied to be the Armellean equivalent of Genuine Human Hide.
• Doppelgänger Spin: The Mirror Image spell does this, and more importantly, takes away two dice from your opponents.
  • Nazar, from the Dragon Clan pack, always has a unique spell card in his hand called Illusion. It creates a short-lived doppelganger on the map, with the two Nazars moving one step in different directions — Any attack or targeted card effect used on the fake Nazar is wasted as the illusion vanishes.
• Dungeon Bypass: Unlocked after completing a number of quests, the final quest will contain a key that will allow the hero entrance to the Palace Grounds, completely bypassing the Peril on the tile (though nearby Royal Guards can still attack).
• Early-Bird Cameo: Long before his debut with the release of the Rivals pack, Fang was quoted in the flavour text of the Bloodthirst spell cards.
  Nothing ignites power like a foe's lifeforce upon your fur. - Fang Greymane
• Eldritch Abomination: The Worm, the entity that is the source of the Rot, definitely seems to be some form of this.
• Engineered Heroics: There are a couple of cards and abilities that summon or manipulate banes, and players can freely spawn them on top of settlements to terrorize them, allowing them to swoop in and slay the bane for the prestige of both killing a monster and rescuing a disabled town.
• Evil Weapon: There are five weapons, three of them Treasures, that infect their wielders with Rot, namely:
  • Poisoned Dagger: All rolled Swords are Poisonous when a Rot card is burned, +1 Rot.
  • Marauder Gaunlet: +1 Sword and +1 Shield in Battle, +1 Rot.
  • Raven's Beak Dagger: +1 Sword and infects slain opponents with 1 Rot, +2 Rot.
  • Bane Blade: +4 dice in battle, wielder loses 1 Health if s/he fails to kill the opponent, +2 Rot
  • Reaper's Trident: +3 Poisoned Swords at the cost of 2 dice, +2 Rot.
• Eviler than Thou: If both combatants have Rot, the one who's more corrupted gains extra fight dice. It's even possible to out-Rot the mad king. And because the number of extra dice is equal to the lower Rot score it makes Rot victories extremely risky.
• Evil Is Easy: Meta example: One of the fastest way to create and finish a custom game is to make all heroes corrupted (5 rots) from the get go. This ensures that if player(s) charge into the palace within the first few turns, they immediately gain bonus dice when fighting the King as he always starts at only 1 rot despite being always corrupted.
• The Exile: Both Fang and Brun were exiled from the Wolf and Bear Clan respectively. They have since returned to join the battle for the throne.
  • In his novella, it's revealed that the King was also exiled.
• Expy: So, there's a creeping corruption poisoning the land and opposed to the force of good magic called the Wyld. Wolves, bears, and rats, among others, band together to fight it and...wait, this isn't Werewolf: The Apocalypse? Even the symbol for the Rot is an inverted version of Werewolf's Wyrm symbol. The Dragon Clan, a cult that venerates the Rot, outright refers to it as the Worm.
• Fantastic Fireworks: Every game ends with a fireworks display celebrating the end of the old King's reign and the victory of Armello's new ruler.
• Fantastic Racism: Given how the citizens of Armello divided into species-specific clans, there is an unsurprising amount of distrust and suspicion held toward the other clans. The Wolves are seen as aloof brutes, the Rats untrustworthy scoundrels, the Rabbits arrogant snoots and the Bears oddball mages.
• Fantasy Character Classes: Averted in that all characters can cast at least some magic, and with the right gear and stat boosting choices can break their molds. Still, each character does seem to have an archetype they play into:
  • Thane is a Warrior, River is a Ranger, Magna is a Sentinel, and Fang is a Berserker.
  • Mercurio is a Rogue, Zosha is an Assassin, Sargon is a Tactician, and Griotte is a Gambler,
  • Amber is a Merchant/Bard/Samurai, Barnaby is a melee Tinkerer, Elyssia is an Engineer, and Hargrave is a Gunslinger.
  • Sana is a Druid in demeanor, though Priestess by name, since Druids in universe are a Fanatical Cult, Brun is a Magic Knight, Ghor is a Nature Magician, and Yordana is a Witch
  • Scarlet is a Magnetic Hero, Twiss is a magic using Thief, Horace a Knight in Shining Armor, and Sylas a Dark Knight.
  • Volodar is a Dark Priest, Oxana is an anti-magic Fighter, Agniya is an Antipaladin, and Nazar is an Ilusionist.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Taken literally. The flavour text for the Hand Cannons treasure card says that the king had them locked up because he feared their power.
  • Hargrave of the Rivals pack, however, has a more literal and historical hand cannon...mounted on a staff. It would appear he's openly defying the King.
• Feuding Families: The complicated political system of the Rabbit Clan pits powerful families against each other in brutal battles for influence in their warrens' House of Heritage. Amber is a Valebriar and Hargrave a Proudclaw. Due to Amber's actions in her novella, it's no surprise as to why Hargrave is out for her blood.
• Fictionary: One of Zosha's emotes is "Veyest Dahn," which she translates as "I am sorry." It's not clear if there's any more to the language, as nobody else yet quotes it.
• Fisher King: The kingdom progressively gets more and more corrupted as the king's condition worsens, and not just due to the king's own progressively insane proclamations. Banes appear more often and get stronger as the game (and the king's corruption) progresses.
• Flavor Text: Every card has it, often providing names for the characters in the art. It's slightly unintuitive to read, though, as it's accessed through a small scroll symbol on the card itself and not initially displayed.
• From Bad to Worse: What happens to Armello should a hero win through the Rot victory. So, the once great King is now corrupted and turned into a merciless tyrant by the Rot? Well, we have good news and bad news. The good news is, he's about to be replaced. The bad news is, he's about to be replaced by a hero even more corrupted by the Rot than he is. Oops.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: While some of the heroes were born into positions of wealth and or power, others had to climb their way up from the bottom of society to become fearsome contenders for the throne. Zosha and Sylas come to mind in particular, with the former starting off as an ordinary, lowborn rodent and the latter as a simple fisherman.
• Full-Name Basis: Some heroes have full names.
  • Amber Valebriar
  • Hargrave Proudclaw
  • Thane and Fang Greymane
• Game Changer: Hot Rot Wine and Strategist are some of the most if not THE MOST coveted cards in the decks because of that one AP boost they offer. It negates any possibility of the other heroes acting against you by playing cards or attacking once you have breached the Palace. If acquired by Spirit Walkers (a hero who manages to get four spirit stones), they can win the game the very instant they enter the palace grounds.
  • Breaching the Palace grounds is this in general. Once it occurs, it tends to mean that one player is within a hair's breadth of victory... except that, barring a use of the aforementioned AP boosting cards, said player instantly becomes a massive target while simultaneously opening a way into the palace. At that point, everyone's priorities tend to shift to some combination of pursuing the new point of entry, killing any player(s) within the palace, keeping players out of the palace altogether, and completing as many last-minute personal quests as possible.
• Gang Up on the Human: AI opponents in single player games often unload nigh their every spell and trickery on you regardless of the situation.
• Genocide Backfire: Because of the misdemeanour committed by Sylas, his family and village were destroyed by the King's Guards on the order of their master. Consequently, Sylas wants nothing more in life than to bring down the King. Twiss too is motivated by the King's massacre of the Thieves' Guild which she narrowly escaped.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: Light green and blue represent the purest form of the Wyld, while purple and black are the colors of the corrupting Rot.
• The Good King: The King was apparently this before he was infected with the Rot. As the game goes on he slowly becomes more and more unhinged until he ends up doing things like sacrificing his guards to summon Banes.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: With the exception of Magna and Sargon in the DLC, all the Male heroes have higher or equal Fight and Body (combined) stats then their female counterparts (The rats being the most similar with 4/5 versus 5/4). All the Female heroes have higher or equal Spirit, and usually higher Wits. Thane and River highlight this especially with River being an actual Archer.
• Hair-Raising Hare: The Rabbit Clan heroes are generally the Jack of All Stats with a heavy coin-purse. Thus, with the right equipment and stat builds, they can more or less go toe to toe against the other clans in pretty much every department.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: About half the cast, some of them verge on Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal.
• Hard-Coded Hostility: Banes will always attack Heroes (unless they're corrupted or are spirit walkers) and Royal Guards. Guards will usually focus on patrolling and fighting Banes, but will target Heroes who have bounties on them if the opportunity presents itself.
• Harmful Healing: Become the Spirit Walker, and you'll be purged of any rot you have or gain thereafter... at the price of a point of damage for each point of rot. This can lead to your (temporary) death. The Spirit Stones can also purify the King — a process he does not survive, though it lets him die as himself.
• Healing Potion: Wyld Weed and WyldSap are item cards that instantly restore 2 and 4 health, respectively.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: The sword is the weapon that sees the most use among Armello's heroes. Of the current 20 heroes, Thane, Mercurio, Amber, Scarlet and Twiss wield swords. The King, a Fallen Hero, also wields a sword.
• He Who Fights Monsters: The Rot Victory path involves letting your hero get corrupted, and the easiest way to gather up rot is to start using Evil Weapons and casting Black Magic.
• High-Voltage Death: Anyone unlucky enough to suffer Lightning Strike at 3 health or less.
• Holy Burns Evil: The stone circles instantly kill Corrupted (5 or higher Rot) characters that enter their spaces. Banes always start with at least 5 Rot and so can never enter them. The Rite of Wyld spell card is also described as this. In addition, any hero with 4 Spirit Stones or Spiritwalkers can cleanse any creatures with Blackheart, specifically Banes and the King himself. Considering how Banes flee such heroes and how the King reacts to being cleansed, it isn't a painless process.
• Horrifying the Horror: You know that mad tyrant of a King who has been so twisted by the Rot that he unleashes the plague on his own people and sends his guard to attack peaceful settlements? He backs away in sheer terror of you when it turns out that the Rot has chosen you as its champion and has thus, abandoned him to a terrible fate.
• Hub City: Before the construction of the Palace, Brimwatch stood in the centre of Armello and was considered neutral territory for the Clans to meet and interact.
• Humanoid Female Animal: Averted. All 12 females so far don't have figures inappropriate for their species.
• I Did What I Had to Do: The King's original reason for everything he did to unite Armello, which involved starting multiple wars, deceiving multiple people, and deliberately summoning a Bane to remove the last and largest obstacle. He believes (rightly) that such measures were necessary to create a peace that would allow the country to be united. Unfortunately, summoning the Bane is what got him infected by the Rot.
• Idiot Savant: While the Brilliant Fool may not know the definition of a hero, the extra dice he brings with him when dealing with Perils is always handy.
• Improbable Weapon User: Deconstructed, if you can believe that. Most of the heroes who are strong in combat use relatively sane and normal weapons, such as swords, shields, axes, daggers and whatnot (with the exception of Hargrave's awesome cannon polearm). Meanwhile, heroes who wield more esoteric weapons tend to be casters with a mediocre Fight score. These include Volodar (ritual bell) and Sargon (torch staff), both with 3 Fight, and Yordana (witch cauldron and spoon), sitting at a miserable 2. Apparently, exotic objects don't necessarily make for the best weapons!
• Improvised Weapon: Griotte and Yordana are the examples of this. The former wields a Paper Fan of Doom and a meat cleaver, the latter uses a stirring spoon and a cauldron as her choice of weapon. The Dragon Clan update brings us Volodar, who uses his magical bell as a blunt weapon to not-so-great effect.
• Incendiary Exponent: Invoked with the spell Aflame: It does 2 damage to the target, but also allows sun-symbols on the dice to explode, presumably though Infernal Retaliation.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: How being a Spirit Walker (a hero with 4 Spirit Stones) works post-patch. Any Rot points this character already has or acquires later are subtracted from their health instead.
• Infinity +1 Sword: A lot of the Treasures can qualify as this. The Royal Shield doubles your (normally fairly low) chance to successfully defend and halves your chance of missing, making it a perfect weapon for taking down the King by preventing him from stealing as many dice from you. The Bane Blade adds a whopping four dice in combat, with some drawbacks that are pretty negligible in comparison to the massive benefit. Armed with a Bane Blade, even a frail caster can suddenly turn into a competent combatant (Yordana, one of the physically weakest heroes at 2 Fight, can roll 6 dice in battle, as much as Fang before any boosts).
• Instant-Win Condition: Downplayed: While you can insta-purify the king once you've gathered all four spirit-stones and become a spirit-walker, you still need to get into the palace itself. This involves getting past a difficult peril, the guards, and the other players who want to win themselves.
  • Likewise, completing 4 quests rewards you with the inverse: You get another quest that lets you bypass the palace walls, allowing you to take the fight to the king directly.
  • Finally, entering the palace normally wastes your remaining movement for one turn, allowing other players and possibly guards (depending on whether you attacked day or night) to ruin your day. But Strategist (a very rare Trickery) and Hot Rot Wine (a slightly less rare item) allow you to add one Action Point to yourself, allowing you to attack the King the very turn you breach the Palace. Get the Palace Key, 4 spirit stones and one of these items and you have the closest thing the game has to this trope.
• Intrepid Merchant: Merchants can be summoned to peaceful settlements by heroes and they will arrive the following day or night. Any hero who enters the settlement may then pick one of two offered Followers from Roxy's Recruiting or Treasures from Biff's Black Market.
  Look, love. Ain't nothin' more tragic than a merc without a master. For a fee, I can fix that. - Roxy Marmalade
  No haggle. No barter! This Treasure? Rab here, he got troll claw in neck when get. Tell Rab you want cheap. - Biff Boggens
• In-Universe Game Clock: The day moves along as the players take their turns. In addition, the following things happen before the players get a turn during the Day and Night cycles:
  • Dawn: Characters with at least one point of Rot (including the King) take 1 damage, unless they have the Dragon Clan's "Rot Affinity". Royal Guards move. Controlled Settlements and Clan Grounds pay out 1 gold coin each. Sun symbols become successes and Moon symbols become failures. The King summons the current prestige leader to choose between two declarations that last until the following dawn.
  • Dusk: The King gains 1 point of Rot, and plays additional Perils to the game board. New Banes appear at marked dungeons, and all Banes move. Spirit stones appear at marked stone circles. Magic points are reset to each character's Spirit value. Moon symbols become successes and Sun symbols become failures.
  • Each clan has a favored time of the day, where they get additional dice. Wolf and Rat clans prefer the night while Bear and Rabbit clans prefer the day. The exceptions are the evenly-split Bandit Clan — being made of up of a mix of species; half prefer day, the other half prefer night — and the Dragon Clan, who have a completely different affinity.
• Jack of All Stats: Amber and River. The former leans a little more towards getting and using cards, while the latter is slightly more combat oriented.
• Jousting Lance: Present in-game in the form of the Silver Lance treasure card, which gives an extra bonus while fighting on plains.
• Keet: Barnaby, going by his character's emotes. Of course, he is the resident Child Prodigy...
• Kill It with Fire: The Aflame and Immolation spells.
• Killed Offscreen: Tau's traveling companion Mathis the rabbit ends up suffering this as Armello is united into a kingdom when he attempts to stop the proceedings due to Tau's use of the Rot to achieve his goals. The Rabbit Clan leader is not pleased and has him arrested, tried, and executed for attempting to ruin everything...and Tau is forced to let it happen.
• Kingmaker Scenario: Quite literally. If a player successfuly kills the Mad King but dies in the attempt, the player with the most prestige will win the game. This winner is very rarely the killer, as you lose all prestige the moment you attack the king^note There are ways to get prestige that can't be taken from you, however, and a Mutual Kill with one of those equipped can give you a win anyway, which is not this trope.
  • Similarly, any opening in the palace can be used by all players. You may breach the defenses, only to find yourself killed or banished, and the opposing players winning through the hole you made.
  • In some cases, a player who has fallen too far behind to win and has no hope of satisfying any of the win conditions may have to settle for trying to set up one of those for whichever of their friends they like most.
• Klingon Promotion: Kill (or banish) the King, you become the new King.
• Leitmotif: Each clan has a unique instrument that plays when someone from that clan starts their turn, claims a settlement, or wins the game.
• Lethally Expensive: It's heavily implied that the Palace key provided to the Wolf Clan heroes came at no small price.
• Light Is Not Good:
  • The King's Guard are dressed in golden armor, but as the King descended into madness their Undying Loyalty to him made them think My Master, Right or Wrong, causing them to commit horrible acts just because they were ordered to.
  • While the Wyld is mostly good and pure, the druids and Yordana are noted to be both attuned to the Wyld...and fond of sacrificing sapients to it. Rot-worshipping Oxana is specifically trained for and devoted to punishing them for this.
• Luck-Based Mission: The quests that the heroes partake in are essentially this: Unless you've buffed up the relevant stat to 10 to guarantee 100% success there's always a chance that that 90% possibility Royal Shield will end up slipping through your fingers, courtesy of RN Gesus. Though it's also downplayed as (for some reason) the roll is a shell game and you get to see the icons with the desired outcome before they spin around, so if you're good at object tracking you'll have above-what-the-number-says chances.
• Master of Unlocking: Vorak, the bandit locksmith, is the one who provides the Bandit heroes with the lockpick necessary to breach the Palace's defenses.
• Mature Animal Story: It's a game about anthropomorphic animals brutally killing each other in a variety of ways.
• Meaningful Name: Most of the heroes of Armello have names with some meaning to them. River is a Nature Hero and the calmest of the Wolf Clan heroes, for instance, while Fang is the most aggressive. Others may be more obscure:
  • Thane: An Old English word meaning 'clan chieftain'.
  • Magna: From the Latin word meaning 'great'.
  • Sana: An Arabic name meaning resplendence, light or radiance.
  • Brun: From the French word for brown, related to the Dutch bruin, used in English as a folk name for brown bears.
  • Ghor: From the word for 'mountain' (presumably based on his size) in several Indo-European languages. It also sounds like 'gore' — an Ironic Name for a Gentle Giant.
  • Yordana: A Hebrew name meaning 'descended from' or 'flowing down', as in the River Jordan.
  • Mercurio: As in mercurial; eloquent, changeable, lively, having qualities attributed to the Roman god Mercury (the god of thieves). Also a reference to the hot-tempered swordsman Mercutio from Romeo and Juliet.
  • Griotte: The French name for the morello/sour cherry.
  • Sargon: Sargon of Akkad, the founder of the Akkadian Empire, first empire of ancient Mesopotamia.
  • Elyssia: Elysium or the Elysian Fields, the peaceful, Arcadian afterlife reserved for the righteous and innocent in Classical Mythology. What Elyssia is trying to build for her people, essentially.
  • Hargrave: An old English place name/surname; also Hargreave or Hargreaves. A margrave, equivalent to a marquis, is a hereditary title originally belonging to the military commanders of the Holy Roman Empire.
  • Scarlet: The color red is fiery, seductive, and often bloody.
  • Horace: Possibly named after the well-known Roman poet to go with Horace's title, "The Iron Poet".
  • Twiss: A surname that sounds a lot like "twist", somewhat appropriate for a slippery and agile hero that is incredibly hard to pin down.
• The Medic: Should your hero be at death's door, there's a chance that you'll stumble upon the Apothecary when entering a town. He'll heal you, make you stronger or join your quest as a follower, depending on your choice.
  "Glad I found you back there, don't think you would have made it otherwise." - Gruff Ruffcoat
• Medieval European Fantasy: In general, the entire game is set in a fantasy land resembling the time period during the Middle Ages. The animals in Armello can be found in Europe, save for the King, who explicitly comes from another, distant land. In addition, most of the weapons depicted in-game are weapons that would have seen combat in the Middle Ages.
• Merchant City: The city of Esterdale is stated to have vast open marketplaces.
• Mutual Kill: Damage is dealt by both combatants in the same round, thus allowing this. This mechanic is particularly important with fighting the King: if both the assassin and the King die in combat, the assassin does not score a Combat Victory. Instead, the King is treated as if he was killed by natural causes, and Prestige Victory is awarded to the appropriate hero. Since attacking the king sets your Prestige to zero, a mutual kill against the king is guaranteed to lose you the game unless you have items that increase your minimum prestige to a point above the current prestige of any other player.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: The King's Guard aren't bad guys, but they are absolutely loyal to their mad king. If he orders them to start terrorizing villages or killing innocent heroes for sport, they'll do so.
• Necromancer: An Accolade (title) earned by playing the most Rot-aligned cards in a game.
• No Face Under the Mask: The Druids, as of the Dragon Clan novella.
• Not the Intended Use:
  • Banish is intended to be an offensive spell, cast on players to fling them across the board to the furthest possible dungeon space... However, you can still cast it on yourself, and it can be a helpful time-saver if your current quest objective is on the opposite side of the map (which it usually is).
  • Nazar's passive can be used to get rid of a peril on the field. Sure, it won't fool anyone where the real you is as it instantly vanishes - but if you got someone placing a lot of perils on the field, it can be surprisingly useful to get rid of them. Got a lightning strike in the way? Send a Nazar clone into it. Mercenaries guarding a town? Send a Nazar clone into it to get rid of them. In addition, as a Rot card, it can give a Corrupted Nazar a guaranteed exploding die every turn if you intend on fighting something.
• Off with His Head!: The card “Beheaded” presumably does this to a follower of whichever hero falls victim to the peril (can be played directly to the hero if they’re on a settlement to guarantee that his follower [if any] ends up shortened).
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Achieve Rot victory, and the King visibly recoils in fear as the Rot abandons him for the new king.
  • A Bane which starts its turn adjacent to a Spirit Walker will freak out and immediately run away. Hilariously, the Bane runs in such blind panic that it may flee into a dangerous terrain, such as the stone circles.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: Invoked with the Rot Choir decree, where the king's choir sings throughout the land, corrupting everyone.
• One-Hit Kill:
  • A Spirit Walker can instantly kill Banes and the King. There is no combat; the Spirit Walker simply points at the Bane or King and the targets are immediately purged of Rot (and their lives).
  • Spirit Strike is a spell which converts all of its user's Magic into pure damage. A hero with high Magic (either due to having high Spirit or having gained Magic through other cards) can thus one-shot any character within reach.
• One-Woman Wail: Present in the theme song from the soundtrack, "Far From Home".
• One-Word Title: An example of The Place. It's named for the area that you're adventuring in and may rule.
• Opening Scroll:
  • The Debut Trailer opens with, 'Great heroes carry the journey's burdens, not on the shoulders, but in their hearts.'
  • The Horrors & Heroes Trailer opens with, 'From great horrors, great heroes emerge.'
  • All singleplayer games open with the text found at the top of this page.
• Our Goblins Are Different: Goblins can be found in a random encounter that triggers when a hero steps onto a dungeon tile during the night. They will offer a choice of a soup that infects the hero with 2 Rot, the Raven's Beak Dagger treasure or the permanent ability to Scout (for the permanent loss of 1 Body).
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: The Blacksmith follower is a muscular bull who will add a Sword and or a Shield dice in battle depending on the hero's equipment.
  'There's nothing I can't put through a forge and have it come out stronger. NOTHING!' - Lance Ledhoof
• The Pardon: The Royal Pardon treasure gives heroes full immunity to Bounties. It's particularly useful for Horace whose talent is nullified upon getting a Bounty, but absolutely detrimental to Sylas whose talent won't activate with the Royal Pardon equipped.
• The Place: Also a One-Word Title. Named for the area that you're adventuring in and may rule.
• Place of Protection: The stone circles heal 1 health when entered by a hero, but Banes and Corrupted heroes with at least 5 Rot suffer immediate burn proportional to their Rot^note Banes thus will immediately die, while only corrupted heroes with very high health can survive entering a stone circle.. Also, Banes never attack heroes or guards within a stone circle.
• The Plague:
  • Present in-game in the form of the Plague and Plague Bearer perils. The former is far more dangerous as not only does it infect heroes with one Rot point if failed, it also poisons the hero. The Plague Bearer peril is thankfully less lethal and damaging, unless you are at 2 health or less.
    "The land dried up, the air got thick. Folks started dyin' off left an' right." - Farmer Grinmaud
  • The Rot itself is a plague that corrupts the bodies and souls of those it infects.
• Planet of Hats: Each clan except for the Bandits has a model for its members to emulate.
  • Wolves are warriors, full stop. They have no dedicated magicians, and even the flexible River is a fighter first and anything else second.
  • Rats are sneaky and amoral; even at their best, they're almost always The Unfettered. They're a clan of thieves and rogues, and their sorcerer is a mad seer.
  • The Rabbits are intelligent and technically-inclined. Their heroes are engineers and adventurers, and Amber is also a deft politician.
  • The Bears are a highly spiritual and magically-inclined clan, though they favor Simple-Minded Wisdom over the higher intelligence of the other clans.
  • The Bandits, as mentioned, are defined by their exile from mainstream society. They lack a hat of their own; even their rings are taken from other clans.
  • The reptiles of the Dragon Clan are sinister, abhorrent, fanatical worshipers of the Rot. Their devotion makes them particularly suited to accumulating large amounts of Rot.
• Poison Is Evil: Most of the poisonous items and spells in the game inflict Rot on the user when equipped or cast.
• Poisoned Weapon: The use of Snake Venom or Poisoned Dagger will make all rolled swords gain the Poison status, meaning that if any one of these attacks damage the target, the target will be poisoned. Similarly, the Reaper's Trident is a deadly weapon that infects its wielder with 2 Rot and provides three guaranteed Poisoned swords at the cost of two dice.
• Properly Paranoid: During their construction of the Palace, the Rabbit Clan chose to build secret tunnels that led directly into the throne room. As it turned out later on, its decision would prove incredibly helpful to the Clan's heroes intending on confronting the mad King.
• Protective Charm: The Bane's Claw treasure causes Banes to ignore and not attack you.
  The claw of a Bane is so powerful that it is said that even a pup could walk among the black birds. - Jerome Favin
• Proud Warrior Race: The Wolf Clan places great value on combat prowess and shows little interest in politics, trade and magic. Loyalty to the clan and their Alpha is paramount to the Wolves. Their Clan was the one to provide the King with his Guards.
• Public Execution: The text for the quest “Enemies Closer” involves a noblewoman being led to the gallows.
  • Cut The Rope: What happens if you succeed the test. The escaping noble then rewards you with an item such as the Bane Blade.
  • Also, the text for the quest “Off With Their Heads” involves a Rat Clan hero trying to save some loyalists from being beheaded on orders of the Rabbit Clan.
• Punch-Clock Villain: The King's Guard are completely loyal to their mad king, but they are far from evil. They will not attack the heroes unless they are attacked first or a bounty is placed on a hero's head, and if a Bane is adjacent to them, they will attack the Bane until either they die or it dies.
• Purple Is the New Black: The Rot.
• Quicksand Sucks: Appears in the "Sinking Caravan" quest. A merchant is late and he was last seen entering a swamp. When you get there, his wagon is stuck in a quicksand and you have the choice to either try to get it unstuck (body test) or to tell him to leave it.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: The King starts out with 9 max life and 7 Battle dice, Armor that turns half of what would normally be missed dice into shields, and a Sword that steals missed dice of his opponent. Heroes start with at most 6 in either and no gear. Conversely, being strong enough to kill the King and survive before his natural death is accepted reason for succession.
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: A hero with the Ruin amulet, instead of claiming a settlement, will leave it terrorized, gain one gold and one Rot point, and lose 1 Prestige point. No points for guessing exactly what happens. One of the most reliable ways to get Rot quickly and easily, though it comes at the steep price of pretty much locking you out of any chance of a Prestige victory and recurring gold at dawn.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: While many of them have Blue-and-Orange Morality rather than being purely "evil", the Dragon Clan (made up of reptiles, though no actual dragons) are strongly associated to the Rot and have an affinity that's useless if they aren't actively rotting up.
• Ridiculously Fast Construction: Considering that entering a fortified Settlement takes the same number of Action Points as entering a Mountain tile, Elyssia must be a master builder of sorts to erect those fortifications so quickly.
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand: The Rat Clan is divided into numerous families, but while most of them seem to work together to control the illicit activities of Armello, the species's constant infighting means they're simultaneously trying to foil the manipulations of the Night Mother and her agents (primarily Zosha), as well as Griotte, who has her own individual agenda.
• Ring Out: Possible, as the edges of the board count as blocked spaces when determining a defender's retreat from battle, resulting in a rout (immediate death) if no spaces are available behind them.
• The Rival: The heroes of the Rivals pack are this to the other members of their clan. The most prominent one being Fang, Thane's exiled brother who seeks to reclaim what he believes to be rightfully his.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Sylas is fueled by this, as his family and village were murdered by the King's Guards by the order of the King. His undying hatred for the King's Guards is reflected in-game through the guaranteed Pierces he gets when fighting them.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: If you score a prestige victory, it usually means you've spent the whole game going around killing banes and restoring order to towns in turmoil, leading to Fridge Brilliance as to why you'd end up king in the first place.. Unless you posess objects that give you prestige and you just wait for a "hero" to die slaying the king for you.
  • Some of the heroes are stated to be members of the nobility, including Amber and Thane.
• Sadistic Choice:
  • When you're stuck between two perils, or you have a hero, guard, or a bane in the way and you really don't want to fight...
  • While for aesthetic purposes only, the flavour text for the quests tend to make you pause to consider the repercussions of failure. In one Wolf quest, a dog merchant drowns in mud if the hero fails to save him. In another, the hero may fail to save a cub devoured by a serpent.
  • Being the Prestige Leader means you usually get to pick a decision that's favorable for yourself, but sometimes you're stuck with two equally awful choices.
  • Having an extremely damaging or time-consuming Peril such as Plague or Lightning Strike be placed on your quest destination.
• Save Scumming: Just barely possible in single-player; while the game does auto-save every turn, it only auto-saves at the end of the appropriate turn, meaning that a player gunning for unlocks/achievements can quit and re-continue the game if, for example, they get a bad dice roll.
• Scary Impractical Armour: The Heavy Plate Armour is the greatest protection that a hero can afford, providing 3 Shields in battle. However, it comes with a penalty of one less Action Point which in general, is incredibly punishing for heroes seeking to complete their quests as soon as possible.
  • However, Barnaby's talent enables him to shed the Heavy Plate Armour before his turn begins, averting the penalty. After his moves have been completed, he can then re-equip the Armour to enjoy its protection.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: One of the late-game royal decrees is "Desertion" - any King's Guards still at the palace finally realize that something has gone terribly wrong with their king and vanish. Guards in the field, however, stay in play.
• She Is the King: Scarlet bears the title of "The Bandit King".
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Sinister Scythe: The Moon Scythe can only be obtained from a chance encounter with the elusive and mysterious Druids.
• Situational Sword: A lot of cards fall into this category, which is why the Burn mechanic exists. Some heroes have mechanics that let them take advantage of these cards in different ways - Barnaby can swap between equipment at will, letting him deck himself out for both combat and utility as he wishes, while Yordana can turn unneeded spells into useful curses. Burning cards with the Rot symbol, unfortunately, only guarantees a miss in combat unless you're corrupted, forcing you to hang onto them until a peril specifically calls for that result.
• Skill Gate Characters: River falls under this. Her power makes getting Kingslayer much easier if you fall behind (especially on the final two turns of the game), as well as helps with attacking. However, her status as a Jack of All Stats and lack of any other strengths means that she likely will fall behind unless you luck into a strong early game. Against players who know well enough to make sure to prevent other heroes from reaching the palace, she falters.
• Skippable Boss: The Spirit Stone victory is the only victory in which you confront the King, but don't fight him (in the Prestige victory you may never set foot in the castle at all). Entering the King's tile with four Spirit Stones is an automatic victory.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: The Wolf Clan, for all its real and imaginary faults, doesn't tolerate slavery within its lands in the slightest.
• Sliding Scale of Animal Communication: Level 9. Characters of different species are seen communicating with each other in the novellas.
• Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: Civilized Animal.
• Sociopathic Hero: Zosha, whose backstory does not gloss over exactly what most career assassins are like. Sylas too fits the bill as his Boast emote indicates nothing but horrific fates for opponents and he becomes deadlier with every level of infamy gained. Griotte is also implied to be a sinister figure not unlike Sweeney Todd.
• Soul Power: With the introduction of the Explode Pool system, Spirit has become an integral part to combat. The amount of possible Exploding dice is now limited by the Spirit stat (or in the event of Corruption, Rot), meaning a higher Spirit stat will improve one's chances in battle.
• The Spymaster: The Spy Master follower will reveal all the heroes' quest destination.
• The Starscream: Zosha has obeyed and defended her boss and surrogate clan mother far beyond the point of reasonableness thus far, but it's implied that if she takes the crown, she might just decide not to hand it over...
• Stealth Expert: Given her profession, it's unsurprising that Zosha has this as her unique ability. Stealth is an in-game mechanic that allows heroes to prepare ambushes and to avoid being directly targeted by spells and trickeries.
• Storming the Castle: It's possible to breach the Palace's defenses at any point in the game with a massive amount of luck and or the right cards to burn.
• Succession Crisis: The premise of the entire game. The Rot-infected King of Armello is dying and is without an heir. The clans thus send out their champions to claim the throne through all possible means.
• Suicide Attack: It's sometimes a viable option to charge at the nearest hero when at minimal health to get yourself killed and consequently, be sent back to your starting position with maximum health. Some players have a tendency of doing this against the King, breaching the Palace in the early-game before attacking the King. Whether or not they succeed depends on RN Gesus, but nonetheless, a shorter game is more likely.
• Swamps Are Evil: Swamps inflict a point of damage on any hero that enters them. Seasoned players know to be wary of Perils in swamps; there's a high possibility of said peril being Plague Bearers or worse, Plague. There is also a quest involving a merchant caravan run afoul of quicksand set in a swamp.
• Take a Third Option: Each quest gives you a Risky choice for a bonus reward based on stats (with a penalty for failure), or a safe choice that only awards the Stat boost and Prestige point. When you have the appropriate Follower or Rare Treasure equipped however, a third option appears with no chance of Failure, offering a "smaller" reward than the Risky path. These include using the Royal Pardon to deal with King's Guards, the Winged Boots to fly up mountains or over Swamps, or a Magic Staff/Follower to help break Curses.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: A variant: you can expect the other players to turn on you once you're close to killing the king. As entering the palace grounds takes up all your remaining actions, it's not uncommon for there to be a chain of betrayals and counter-betrayal before someone can take a shot at the king.
• Technicolor Magic: The Rot is heavily associated with purple. Rot magic glows purple, practitioners of the Rot's Black Magic (like the Dragon Clan) are usually portrayed as wearing some amount of purple on their clothing, and the thorny vines that cover the palace bloom with strange purple flowers.
• Teleporters and Transporters: The Teleport spell allows you to travel through (surprise!) teleportation, the Banish spell teleports the target to the furthest dungeon, normally on the other side of the map and one can stumble upon a hidden portal while exploring the dungeons.
• Thanatos Gambit: The Rot victory path usually requires intentionally being killed by the Banes to reach Corruption status. Also, players will often find the quickest path from their second (far from home) to third (very close to home) quest is to be killed.
• Timed Mission: Assuming the King is not healed via such means as killing a player or the Life Support decree, nor killed by a player, he will die of the Rot at the start of the 17th turn, at which point the Prestige victory is calculated.
• Totem Pole Trench: The illustration for the "False Orders" card shows a King's Guard talking to a messenger who is actually three small animals standing on each other's shoulders inside a larger animal's clothes.
• Tricked-Out Shoes: The Winged Boots treasure allows heroes to traverse Mountains and Swamps without any penalties whatsoever.
  Be brave and trust in the boots! - Adlez Aniraco
• Tsundere: Using Sylas's "nice" emotes, like "Thanks", "Well played", etc. makes him come off like this.
  "Don't expect me to thank you".
• Tutorial Failure: Although the prologue explains most of Armello's mechanics pretty well, a few (admittedly small, but rather important) points are glossed over:
  • Rot makes your character lose HP every dawn, but the text makes it seem like you lose health proportional to how much rot you have, not a flat 1 HP which is nowhere near as punishing.
  • The peril one has to face upon entering the palace are always the same four symbols, and there are two different types, one which tests your wits and one which tests your spirit. Thus, players are actually well informed on which way to storm the palace and which cards to bring to burn, but for a game so reliant on RNG it's understandable newcomers might think they're different each game.
  • Similarly, the tutorial says "you must defeat the palace peril", but that's inaccurate - as long as anyone clears it it's no longer an issue, not that each player has to do it independently.
• Underground City: As to be expected of their species, the Rabbits are adept at building subterranean settlements and have built several in their cavernous warrens.
• Undying Loyalty: No matter what the King commands them to do, his canine Guards will obey, even if it's slaughtering innocent towns. However, one late-game "decree" has the ones in the palace desert.
• Urban Segregation: According to the lore, the Rat Clan capital is like this, a prosperous city towering over its teeming slums.
• The Usurper: According to the devs, the heroes of the Usurpers DLC pack are this to the first generation heroes as well as the King. Not only are they gunning for the crown, they are also attempting to take the place of their Clan's chosen hero.
• Voodoo Doll: The Poppet treasure gives one Rot point when equipped and inflicts two damage points on the opponent should the hero and the opponent survive. It's an especially useful item for Twiss and turns her thefts into hit-and-runs.
  Crackle and sizzle, little poppet. Hurt our foes until we stop it. - The Matriarch
• Weaponized Teleportation: Banish can be used to teleport players far, far away from their goal. Best used when a player is in the place and is about the kill the king.
• When Trees Attack: The Wake the Trees peril can only be played to forests, and causes the target to lose an action point and two cards.
• White Magician Girl: Sana. While the other female heroes can kick butt physically, Sana is not suited to combat at all unless it's against Corrupted characters such as Banes, Corrupted heroes, or the King, where she can use her special ability to use her Spirit stat as her Fight stat.
• White Stallion: Heroes infected with Rot can cross paths with a spectral horse in the 'Whyteshadow' random encounter. They are then offered the choice of a Treasure, a Spirit Stone or the restoration of all HP. However, all options come at the cost of 1 Rot.
• Witch Classic: Yordana is basically this; what with the cauldron she drags around, her Mad Eye, her crazed cackle and a witch's hat (except with two points).
• Would Hurt a Child: Zosha would, in the backstory. She apparently drowned the children of a bandit when he wouldn't cooperate with her boss.
• Xanatos Gambit: While attacking the king normally Zeroes your Prestige: items that grant Prestige while worn continue to work. With the Royal Banner Treasure and the Favor Amulet, your minimum Prestige is 5. Therefore, if the 2nd place player has 4 or less Prestige, killing the King will cause your victory even if you die in the process.
• You Dirty Rat!: The Rat Clan are not nice folks. Their clan grounds suffer from ugly Urban Segregation between rich merchants and teeming slums, their heroes range from a rogue with delusions of grandeur to a mad, likely Rot-wielding sorcerer, and in the prologue, they immediately jump on the bounty on Thane as an excuse for launching their own bid for power. Even Mercurio, the nicest of the bunch, has some ugly deeds in his past. Zosha's backstory suggests that infighting is common and bloody. A character in the novellas outright states that the Rats are incapable of trusting each other.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: If the flavour text for the palace entry quest for Corrupted heroes is anything to go by, the King is about to be subjected to this by the Rot which has found a greater champion to serve its cause.
• Your Size May Vary: The actual sizes of various species vary from their relative character models to the artwork. For instance, the Rats are (logically) the smallest, but seem to range from "about half as tall as a Rabbit" to "small enough that it takes four of them to lift a single Spirit Stone".

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