Visual Novel / Loren: The Amazon Princess

Armor? We don't need no blastin' armor.

Loren: The Amazon Princess is a Ren'Py-based fantasy RPG by Winter Wolves that places you in the shoes of the hero's sidekick. You start as a slave to the Princess Loren, but you slowly work your way into her good graces, possibly even her heart, and towards your freedom.

You can control Saren, a man born from an Amazon and an Empire soldier, or Elenor, an indentured forest elf, said faithful servant, and, seemingly, only a supporting character in Loren's quest to find her mother. However, as the two of you search, the world is brought to war by Fost and his demon minions, shattering the already dysfunctional relationship between the human Empire and the elves. It is up to Loren and her faithful servant to unite the lands and bring evil to justice.

The game can be downloaded from the link above, and a free demo is available. An expansion was released, including new party members, new personal quests, and loads of new content.

Has a character sheet.

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This visual novel provides examples of:

• Absurdly High Level Cap: On the hardest difficulty, the base game can be beaten with all characters at a balanced level 15, and this is after spending a couple of dozen fights grinding tasks. This doesn't stop the final boss from being level ~18, and a player focusing on only a certain set of characters could probably reach that himself despite the relative pittance of experience gained (the most effective task only gives ~280 exp on average... split between up to 6 characters, when it takes over a thousand experience to level up each time past 14).
  • The actual level cap is 30 - to reach it, you'd have to spend at least twice as long grinding as playing the actual game.
• Action Girl: Loren, and the player character if you select Elenor.
• Aerith and Bob: Names of characters include Apolimesho, Myrth, and Karen. Interestingly (and possibly unintentionally) there does seem to be some consistency in Amazonian names, specifically the -en suffix of Loren, Saren, and Karen.
• Almost Kiss: Myrth and Saren in the middle of their arc.
• Ambiguously Human: The Amazons. Nothing particularly sets them apart from humans, besides producing women of unusual size and strength, but the Human Empire doesn't seem to consider them con-specifics, and the Amazons themselves seem to reciprocate the view.
  • A conversation in the prequel game seems to suggest Amazons are human in terms of species but ever since the Human Empire was established the Amazons (not being part of said Empire) picked up the habit of referring to Imperial citizens as "Humans."
• And I'm the Queen of Sheba: The Empire Vassal in Grimoire who doesn't believe Loren is an actual princess.
  Vassal: Right, she's a Princess, and I'm a forest nymph!
• Anyone Can Die: Chapter 4 is dangerous, and unless you make the right choices, many characters are not going to come out of it intact.
• Apologetic Attacker: Myrth, particularly in her repetitive battle lines.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: While there are 10 characters in the base game, with an additional 4 in the DLC, there is a maximum of 6 characters in any given fight — sometimes, less (or there may be required characters, particularly Loren and Saren/Elenor, further decreasing diversity).
• The Archmage: Apolimesho's other class is Archwizard. Yet, despite his old age, years of training and experience, he starts at level 1.
• Back Stab: One of Dora's ability, which is oddly in the Hunter's skill tree rather than the Thief's skill tree.
• Bag of Sharing: Played straight, and in an especially egregious way — because Changing Clothes Is a Free Action in combat, you can have one character outside the battling group toss his different-element crossbow to another character to win at Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Sauzer and his followers, the Disciples Of Truth.
• The Baroness: Jul shows herself to be the Sexpot variety when the party directly encounters her, using Charm Person magic to trap and allure all the romanceable members of your party and one or two more.
• The Berserker: Ramas' second class is called Berserker, complete with Unstoppable Rage.
• Beta Couple: Two of the party members in the game (besides Apolimesho) that you CAN'T romance are Dora and Ramas, who more or less fall head-over-heels for each other at first sight. The game will still offer you a "Romance" dialogue choice for them, sometimes, but it always ends in them brushing the main character off.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension:
  • If you take Amukiki's romance route, a lot of his in-between scenes with Saren/Elenor can come off as this instead of prickling rivalry (at least until the Tribe scene triggers). They even have a Slap-Slap-Kiss scene by way of a fight twice.
  • Elenor's romance with Rei comes across as this in places, at least partly because she's such a Tsundere towards him.
• Bittersweet Ending: At the end either Elenor/Saren, Loren, or Karen have to sacrifice themselves in order to seal away Fost. Unless you have the expansion Castle of N'Mar, which grants you access to lots of companion specific items and quest as well as access to the Golden Ending, which also happens to be the True Ending since the sequel will pick up from there.
• Blood Knight: For the most of chapter 3, Rei will dismiss you with a "It's rather boring if I haven't killed anything in a while."
• Boom, Headshot!: One of Rei's Assassin skills, as well as one of his battle cries.
• Brains and Bondage: Chambara's two romance stills both channel BDSM themes, with herself as the dominant. Saren's involves her forcing him to worship her leg while holding a whip over his head by the handle, Elenor's involves her using a collar and leash to ride her sub like a horse.
• Catchphrase/Running Gag: Saying "Oh, hi (again)!" in many different ways becomes one with Dora. It's mainly noticeable because most of the characters don't use the word "hi" often, especially in inappropriate situations like she does, and her "our conversations are over" dialogue is that phrase in verbatim. She even says 'hi' in the end, during an emotional reunion of the entire party in the Under-realm.
• Can't Catch Up: Any companion that isn't part of your party will not receive any experience points for kills or completing side quests. Main quests, however, DO share out experience among all party members.
• Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: You can access your inventory any time in battle to change equipment, useful for exploiting Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Draco has a bit of this.
• Combatant Cooldown System: This implementation leans heavily towards Turn-Based Combat: each combatant has a (slightly randomized) "initiative" score and is placed on the Visual Initiative Queue accordingly. The combatant with the lowest initiative (on top of the queue) acts first, then their old initiative score is subtracted from everyone else's, and the second-lowest gets to act, and so on. Each action resets the combatant's initiative score to zero, then adds a new number dependent on its type (strong/AOE attacks add a lot, quick but weak jabs add a little) to it, effectively acting as a global cooldown for them. The game also keeps track of "turns" for the duration of Status Effects, which occur after a certain total number of initiative points has been subtracted—as a rule of thumb, each combatant can carry out one basic attack per turn.
• Combat Stilettos: A cutscene shows Loren wearing heels. It is mentioned that Jul wears them as well.
• Cultural Posturing: Humans and elves spend a staggering amount of time talking trash about each other, and of course the Amazons look down on anybody who's not an Amazon female.
• The Dark Arts: Dark magic is very distrusted in this world, obviously. Its practitioners may or may not be evil, but even non-evil ones have to deal with people who want to Burn the Witch!.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The expansion, The Castle of N'Mar, is a detailed examination of this trope, dealing with demons and dark magic and how they may or may not be evil.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Loren, both if you romance her and in general as a friend.
• Dem Bones: Standard RPG enemies you'll face.
• Dialogue Tree: Usually there are 3 responses: Joking, Friendly or Forceful with a Romance dialogue option appearing during certain moments.
• Disproportionate Retribution: If playing as Elenor, after she's detained in Grimoire, Loren threatens to burn the entire city down if she's not returned to her.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": If you pick "Joking" during the Firestarter conversation, you learn that Draco's real name is Derry. Spoiler — he doesn't like it. You also learn it if you do Draco's personal quest and visit the Horus Academy.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • Draco for his absurd AOE, which is useful throughout the game and is unsurpassed until his fellow mages also get their maximum-level AOE spells.
  • Oddly enough, ranged Thieves. While the single-target damage quickly falls off, for some reason end-game-tier crossbows are available for purchase as early as the Grand Tree in Chapter 1, and at a relatively affordable price unlike the similarly available but 1k+ expensive Morte's Mantle armor. As an example, you can buy crossbows with ~20 attack power, when it can be an absolute pain to find a fitting one-handed weapon or two-handed weapon for the likes of Amukiki, Karen, and to a lesser extent Ramus until you do two of their personal quests for their exclusive weapons.
• Dual Wielding: Loren uses a pair of one-handed weapons. With her Blademaster class, she can increase the damage of her off-hand weapon to crazy levels. Other warriors are also capable of dual wielding, but don't have the prestige class Loren does.
• Elves vs. Dwarves: Aside from a few off-hand comments, this is averted. Elves vs. Humans is the real perennial conflict in this fantasy land.
• The Empire: The human Empire, which is not on good terms with the neighboring elvish state... which is only fair, since THEY aren't on good terms with IT either. Unusually, it's not really any better or worse than anyone else, morally speaking.
• Expansion Pack: The Castle Of N'mar.
• False Flag Operation: The goblin shaman Grob uses a pair of them to incite war between the Empire and forest elves by disguising his goblin underlings as the other faction and sending them to attack major Imperial and elven settlements.
• Fantastic Racism: Humans vs. elves and elves vs. dark elves. Ironically, pretty much everybody gets along with the dwarves, and everybody thinks the xenophobic and insular Amazons are a myth.
  • Loren encounters sexism (and learns about and from other races's distaste for slavery), however, and Dora does express that most people who weren't human in Grimoire were confined to poorer districts, including dwarfish immigrants.
• The Fellowship Has Ended: The party splits up at the end of the game, everyone getting their own ending depending on how the player handles their personal quests and decisions made during the story.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: All three base classes are here and everyone has a second class ranging from Assassin to Elementalist. Strangely, your PC only gets to be either a Fighter or a Thief; you can't choose to be a pure Mage although your character-specific second class is a pure healer class, likely to balance out the fact that otherwise you would pour every point into Will rather than explore other options (Fighters and Thieves do not inflict more damage with Will and in general would prefer not to put points into it, but you are in a unique position where it is necessary).
• Final Boss, New Dimension
• Fish out of Water: Loren is this trope, having never left the Amazon Citadel and knowing nothing of the outside world.
• Flunky Boss: Most of them are.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Ramas is a dwarf merchant. The first time you meet him, you can buy/sell equipment from him and you can spot the amount of gold he has. However, once he joins you, you don't get any extra cash or any of his merchandise.
  • Same with Apolimesho who's a powerful Archwizard of some repute, who has apparently undertaken a quest very much like yours some time ago... yet and he begins at level 1 when he joins you.
  • In story, the only time you ever go to the Dwarven city of Hammerhands it is under siege. The majority of Chapter 3, similarly, is about the entire world outside the Citadel being, supposedly, attacked by demons. However, you can still access shops, complete tasks, and overall enter the "town" on the map after experiencing the relevant story event once. Another striking example of this occurs in Chapter 3 when a demon ensnares the minds of the Dark Elves, forcing some to attack the party and the rest to become listless servants; after the initial event wherein the party realize this, you can then use the town as normal.
• Gay Option:
  • As Saren, you can hook up with Amukiki or Draco. As Elenor, you can hook up with Loren or Karen. The expansion allows Saren to hook up with Mesphit or Elenor to hook up with Chambara. Unlike many cases, these options aren't hidden — Loren is the "default" (and easiest) romantic path for Elenor just as she is for Saren, and the remaining Gay Options are just as easy or hard to find as the straight ones.
  • Draco and Karen are more literal in the sense that the opposite sex can't romance them; Myrth and Rei are, in the same spirit, the Straight Options. It may or may not express their sexuality — in Saren's route, for example, although Draco is implied to be gay if pursued, Karen did have a male lover, although she feels too torn up by guilt about the cultural distaste for it to try again if Saren expresses interest.
• Gayngst: Orientation-inverted, but still very much present for Karen and possibly Loren if she is romanced by Saren. Because their culture dismisses men as anything but slaves and Glorified Sperm Donors, their love for their male slaves is the cause of much sadness and inner turmoil for them. Towards the end of her romance Loren even has a Jerkass Realization about the misandry of Amazon culture and resolves to put a stop to it.
• Genki Girl: Dora and surprisingly, she's a dwarf, breaking away from their usual stereotype.
• Glass Cannon: Pretty much all the mage characters.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Fost, and, in the expansion, Zeal... maybe.
• Godiva Hair: The two nymphs Myrth summoned to entertain Loren privately.
• God Mode: Cheat Mode, which is unlocked after beating the game for the first time. It allows you to skip story mode battles, which is useful for replaying and unlocking alternative stories.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: Forest nymphs have fairy-type wings. Jul, as a succubus, has leathery bat-like wings.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • Breza will become quite unfriendly towards Elenor if she grow closer to Loren, at one point saying that the princess should be with an Amazon like her. She's also this way with Saren, but for wholly different reasons, as he is a slave who has surpassed her in rank as second-in-command, if not actually in love with Loren himself.
  • Amukiki is accused of being this towards Loren because she was The Chosen One and he wasn't. Ironically, if Loren is being romanced it makes Saren/Elenor come across as clingy and jealous themselves.
• Green Thumb: One of Myrth's attacks is summoning tendrils to grab her foes.
• Guest-Star Party Member: In Chapter 4, if you go to the Citadel with Karen, Breza will temporarily join the party. She's similar to Karen in all respects, including having the same class and skills, and will leave the party once Saren/Elenor gets back to Hammerhands.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Draco is a half-elf.
• Happiness in Slavery: Saren/Elenor claims the slaves of the Amazons are mostly Type 1 happy slaves, though there's no evidence this applies to anyone but him/her.
  • If you play Saren/Elenor as somewhat critical of Loren's behavior and assumptions (i.e. not entirely happy with it) despite their outright devotion to her, usually through the "joking" option (interestingly enough, later on in the game they often make their most critical comments under the "joking" persona, different from the kindness of "friendly" and bluntness/zeal of "forceful"), you can actually glean a bit more to Saren/Elenor's back story from an offhanded comment they make to Apolimesho of all people (also touched on in Mesphit's romance route).
  • Mesphit's romance route as a whole throws more question into Saren/Elenor's happiness in slavery since his route deals heavily with freedom.
  • Regardless, on every path, Loren will come to realize that slavery is wrong and end the practice, or Karen will do it if Loren perishes.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Draco in his path, and Loren, Karen, or the protagonist at the end.
  • It's particularly heartbreaking when the protagonist's lover begs them not to go. For example, in Draco's case he cries that Saren promised that everything would be be all right.
  • Sauzer preforms one in a way in one of the endings of the expansion; he sounds like quite the badass in the subsequent stinger.
• He's Back!: In The Stinger Jul turns out to be alive, having just needed to rest a little before she came back to life. Without the expansion pack it's also implied she plans to bring the demons back from the brink to menace the world once again.
• Horny Vikings: Ramas.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Grob. Fost may be the Big Bad and the one holding the demon hordes together, but it's Grob who does all the heavy lifting to actually see his Evil Plan, such as it is, through. He's the one who almost gets the heroes removed from the picture through a Frame-Up operation, plants an Artifact of Doom in Draco's pack that draws Shadowmen to them, engineers the Empire-Elven war via a double-False Flag Operation and is implied to be behind the plague that spreads throughout the Citadel infecting the Amazons within. By comparison, we only ever see Fost sometimes giving him orders and throwing massive tantrums when things don't go as planned for him.
• Incompatible Orientation: As it's implied Draco's romantic interest lies primarily in men through Saren's dialogue in his path and Elenor's inability to romance him, some of the early dialogue when the characters assume he's the (attempting) Bromantic Foil Loveable Sex Maniac archetype comes of as quite hilarious through replay, especially since he seems puzzled by their insinuations more than once. Humorously, it more or less saves the day, as Draco is not charmed by Jul when she uses her magic. Neither is Dora, but it could simply be that Jul didn't get to Dora yet.
• Interface Spoiler: Just looking at the achievements screen can reveal the romance outcomes and some plot related stories. Just avoid the screen if you don't want to be spoiled.
• It's All About Me:
  • Chambara. Damn near every little thing she does is for her own benefit. She only agrees to help the party the first time so they'll leave the swamp she's hiding out in, joins the party only once convinced she can't afford to sit out the incoming shit storm the war and demonic invasion will bring and as soon as the games over, she goes back to her hovel and stays there for the rest of her life.
  • Krul, the Nomad antagonist leading the orc horde you encounter in Chapter 3, is noted as being an Opportunistic Bastard who doesn't care a fig for the lives of others. It can become a Fatal Flaw if Saren/Elenor takes his orc underlings hostage and he demonstrates to them that he cares more about going after the guy who shot him than saving them, prompting them to turn on him.
• I Was Just Joking: When asked by Myrth why she is following Loren, a Joking Elenor claims she's spent so much time with the Amazons that she prefers women too. Myrth doesn't realise she's being facetious so Elenor says she's just kidding.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Rei is a violent assassin with an abrasive personality, lax morals, and a violent Big Brother Instinct towards his adoptive sibling, but he does genuinely mean well. Apolimesho is a sour, racist old man, but he is also a Reasonable Authority Figure willing to put aside his prejudices in the name of peace who, in his backstory, has made a huge number of personal sacrifices for the good of the world... and, over the course of the game, sacrifices even more. Losing his job is the least of his problems.
• Klingon Promotion: This is how one becomes Queen of the Amazons, albeit with more caveats than is usually portrayed in fiction. For one, it's a duel to the death, so you really have to want it, and two, you need a better reason than rank ambition to want to depose the old queen. Karen notes that her grandmother became queen this way because her predecessor was seen as weak, and the people actually rejoiced afterwards.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Apolimesho, one of the heroes who previously defeated Fost, and also a cynical old man with a chip on both shoulders.
• Lady Land: The Citadel, and though Loren thinks of it as a lesbian utopia, the player and the player character can see and point out the problems within its society. A romanced Loren experiences the dark side of it and is utterly horrified. Even without romance, Loren, or Karen if Loren is dead, will end the slavery and give male children of Amazons equal rights with females.
• Lady of Black Magic: Chambara.
• Lady of War: Karen.
• Leaked Experience: Newly-introduced characters will join at roughly the same level as your current party.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: While the game outright says that you are given the choice leveling all available characters in a balanced fashion or just focusing on a certain group, some of the hardest sections in the game are when you are split up. For example, in the initial attack on Hammerhands, Ramus splits up with (up to) 2 other party members to help one group, Dora with two others for another, and Saren/Elenor and Loren alone charge for the Keep. Thus, in the base game, only two party members could be ignored completely for optimal leveling.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: In a relatively balanced fashion, as Fighters are absolutely needed to be on the front line, Thieves can assassinate Squishy Wizards if left unchecked, and Mages themselves inflict the most damage. Nonetheless, it is very telling that Mages immediately get access to spells that may potentially triple their base damage, and later evolve to spells that "merely" double it but inflict damage to all targets. While Fighters and Thieves may have to balance attack and defense, Mages can pour all their points into Will, ignoring the generic Mage skill trees to maximize their specialized spells, turning single-target damaging spells or heals into multi-target ones.
• Lovable Rogue: Dora. While she loves wealth and "borrowing other people's belongings", she very cheerful and gets along with everyone. Even in the Imperial city you meet her in, she claims to have a number of friends in the city guard.
• Love Triangle: Saren/Elenor can only have one lover. If certain characters are romanced, a scene will play out where they must choose one and reject the other.
• Luminescent Blush: One of the standard expressions in a romantic dialogue.
• Making a Splash: Water attacks such as Flood.
• Mistaken for Gay: Saren during Myrth's Romance subplot if the player chooses to befriend Rei in order to gain his approval. Saren's attempts end up giving Rei the impression that he's being hit on.
• Mistaken for Romance: Amusingly triggering around the same time as the Mistaken for Gay example, again by Saren when Ramas asks him, as part of his attempts to woo Dora, to give one of his freshly-retrieved family gems to her via Saren. Dora does not even open the wrapped gem, thinking that Saren was hitting on her and turning him down sadly as Just Friends.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: You can skip the fight with Krul by demonstrating to his orc underlings that he doesn't care about saving them from a hostage situation, at which point they will gang up on him and rip him to shreds.
• The Mourning After:
  • Loren's mother Karen was in love with her male servant to such an extent that she cannot bear to love another man. Elenor, however, can become her Second Love if she romances her.
  • Loren herself never loves again if Saren or Elenor romances her and is the one to make the Heroic Sacrifice.
• Multiple-Choice Past:
  • The only things set about Saren and Elenor's backstories is that he is the son of an Imperial slave and an Amazon warrior and she lost her family to orcs but was rescued by the Amazons and serves them out of gratitude; they have an entire portion of the prologue devoted to determining the course of the rest of their lives.
  • Apolimesho notes that the background of the Death Knights is "debatable", with multiple in-universe theories for how they came to be.
• Multi Shot: Dora's speciality and part of her character-specific class.
• Narrator All Along: The "monk" telling the tale is an aged Elenor/Saren, or Loren if the former is dead.
• Nature Hero: Myrth, the Stripperiffic druid.
• Necromantic: A constant temptation to Apolimesho. Over the course of the game, his torment over his daughter's sacrifice to defeat Fost almost drives him to attempt necromancy on multiple occasions.
• Noble Demon: Mesphit, who is even a possible party member (and bisexual love interest) as part of the expansion.
• No Hero Discount:
  • Despite being the princess of her people, Loren start the game with only 100 gold, sparse equipment and a single slave for a companion. Justified, since by Amazon law, leaving the Citadel will revoke all her royal privileges.
  • Called out by Loren in Chapter 4, when it is warned out of universe that players will only get one chance to shop if they proceed from Chapter 3. While players are likely glad to have a final chance to stock up on supplies and possibly find rare upgrades to their gear, Loren is absolutely disgusted In-Universe as merchants are described to have gathered across the world with their rarest gear... for a price. Mercenaries are also hireable for 1000 gold, Genre Savvy that they might not even be needed for the whole end-of-the-world scenario currently occurring with a demonic invasion and thus might as well profit.
• Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid: The lizardman juvenile is half-elven.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Averted with Dora. She looks and sounds more like your typical anime Genki Girl. Ramas on the other hand, play this trope more straight, though he works as an above-ground merchant rather than a miner or soldier. Then, in the expansion, it becomes clear that this is the result of his slimy brother's machinations rather than his personal inclinations.
• Our Elves Are Different: From forest Elves to Dark Elves.
• Our Goblins Are Different: For one, they have incredible illusion magic.
• Our Orcs Are Different: They're desert dwellers who run salvage ops.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: If you have someone make a Heroic Sacrifice at the end of the game, several members of your party will weep for their fallen comrade, but no one moreso than your prospective love interest.
• Point-and-Click Map
• Playing with Fire: Draco's favorite attack tree, although he has access to other elemental attacks. Other mages also have access to fire spells: Myrth makes smoke clouds and Chambara heats a person's blood.
• Portal Cut: Grob goes out this way, as Saren/Elenor interrupt a teleporting spell he casts.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Amazons.
• Random Encounter: While moving between destinations on the map. They are entirely optional.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Fost.
• Red Herring: Breza not seeming to care if the queen were gone or not and Draco following them for no particular but possibly suspicious reason are two early ones. If you follow Draco's romance route, the suspicion might even carry on in chapter 3 with a comment Saren makes, although in the end it's apparent his worry about Fost is first and foremost his worry about Saren's well-being.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Subverted! Early on, it seems the lizardmen of the swamps are little more than violent animals, but Karen's personal quest makes it clear that they are much more civilized and sophisticated than the other races guess... and are even capable of entering into relationships with other races and having hybrid children.
• Romance Side Quest: Several optional sidequests to woo your fellow party members at camp.
  • Relationship Values: Relationship points are measured in "Affection" with hearts, which you can view anytime.
  • Just Friends: Elenor friend-zones Rei as part of their arc.
• Rule of Sexy: Why can most of the party fight in Stripperiffic armour that couldn't possibly protect them from damage? Because shut up, that's why.
• Sealed Evil in a Six Pack: Because Fost is a Death Knight bonded to his armour, those who fought him the first time were not able to truly destroy him and had to resort to locking separate pieces of his armour up in distant tombs. The player is forced to visit these tombs to convince the elven leadership Fost has come back by showing that none of these armour pieces are where they should be.
• Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: While most of the outfits in the game are pretty revealing, the heroes get a "modesty option" to cover up. This does not apply to the villains, so Jul will always be wearing her skimpy outfit and Krul will wear nothing but a pair of hot pants even with it on.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Saren/Elenor supports the budding relationship between Ramas and Dora, and ends up having to be Ramas' wingman because he Cannot Spit It Out how he feels about her.
  • In contrast to how Rei feels about her courtship with Saren, Myrth wholeheartedly supports his with Elenor, noting he has waited a long time to make an elf girl truly happy.
• Shoot the Medic First: One effective way to cripple the opposing party. By repeatedly harassing the enemy healer, he'll exhaust all his spell points healing everyone and won't have any left for buffing or attacking.
• Shout-Out:
  • Sauzer fights with his fists and feet. He has blond hair and wears a red martial arts gi. Ken Masters anyone?
  • One of Rei's skill is called Fatality, complete with an image of a Decapitation Presentation in the skill's icon.
  • There are a number of plot similarities to the Dragon Age: Origins video game. The romance system is also very reminiscent of the Dragon Age games too. The three personalities system is similar to that of Dragon Age II (Friendly/Joking/Forceful, like Hawke's Diplomatic/Sarcastic/Aggressive). Chambara is a rather obvious Expy of Morrigan.
  • A Joking Saren/Elenor may crack a joke about loving the smell of rotten flesh in the morning.
  • In Chapter 2 the narration comments on Loren gathering the party and venturing forth.
• Skippable Boss: A few fights against certain bosses (as well as some against normal mobs), are skippable if you choose the correct options, such as taking Krul's allied orcs hostage, thereby instigating a mutiny between them and Krul once it becomes clear that the latter does not care for them.
• Squishy Wizard: All the mages: Draco, Myrth, Apolimesho, and Chambara.
• Stone Wall: Amukiki second class is Gladiator which specializes in defense abilities, and his starting speed isn't great. Heck, with his abs he looks like a wall.
• Super Spit: Zombies have an attack called "Stinking Spit"
• Supporting Protagonist: Loren is the hero. Saren/Elenor is her personal slave.
• Swamps Are Evil: There's one called the Unforgiving Swamp complete with Lizardmen. Subverted. Karen's quest reveals that the lizardmen are a civilization of their own, they're not happy with being scavenged, and there's even members of other races living with them and marrying into the tribe.
• Team Pet: In the expansion, Trouble, if you decide to let Draco keep him. He's not what you think he is.
• The Stinger: After the credits it is shown that Jul is very much alive and eager to take over the demonic army. Up until, should you have the expansion Castle of N'Mar and have Zeal kill Fost for you, Zeal calls out to Jul and the two embrace, revealing a deep relationship between the two. As it turns out, Jul just wants the demons to be accepted into the world like all the other races and Zeal wants to help her.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Amukiki insists on duelling Krul alone without party interference. After he's winning and it becomes clear to Krul he can't win in a fair fight, however, his opponent calls on his allies to attack Amukiki and he has no choice but to accept their help.
• Tsundere:
  • Loren is very tsun-tsun for Saren/Elenor at first if romanced. In the later chapters she begins to mould into dere-dere instead.
  • Elenor herself shares this role with Rei on his romance path, with both trading barbs back and forth between genuine moments of affection. They would qualify as Vitriolic Best Buds if not for the obvious Belligerent Sexual Tension.
• Stripperiffic: The outfits reveal a lot of cleavage in the women and a lot of abs in the men. There's an ingame option to bowdlerize them a little.
• This Is the Final Battle: Karen and Breza will warn the player that they will need to settle all their side-quests before advancing to the final chapter.
• Tin Tyrant: Fost.
• Underboobs: Elenor's costume with the fanservice option turned on.
• Underground Monkey: Kept to a bare minimum, but occasionally present.
• Unstoppable Rage: Ramas' rage ability.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Even if you romance someone else, Saren/Elenor's dialogue in the beginning seem to imply s/he has an attraction towards Loren. For the most part, when your romance with someone else has cemented near the finality of chapter 3, the protagonist and Loren will act as Fire-Forged Friends, with particularly apparent Undying Loyalty on the protagonist's part, but in Amukiki's route the UST between the protagonist and Loren will be called out on, since their rivalry largely focuses on serving as Loren's right hand.
• Your Normal Is Our Taboo: Amazons are forbidden to fall in love heterosexually, and are expected to take women as lovers and use men only reproductively. This caused Karen considerable shame. While Karen is bisexual, she's not willing to take another man as a lover because she can't go through that again.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Amukiki. With the fanservice costumes turned on, Ramas and Saren's costumes turn into this.
• With This Herring: Loren must temporarily renounce her position as princess to leave the Citadel in order to search for Karen. This means she isn't allowed access to the treasury or the best gear. The Guard Captain still bends the rules a little by assigning Saren/Elenor to accompany her as a bodyguard but the trope is otherwise played pretty straight.
• Wizard Beard: Apolimesho. Comes with being an Archwizard.
• Wizard Classic: Apolimesho is pretty much Gandalf's copycat in looks, if not in personality, with a bit of the film version of Saruman thrown in.
• Zombie Puke Attack: Walking Dead have the ability Plague Vomit, which strikes the entire First row for minor (1-3) damage, but inflicts Poison status. They also have the ability Stinking Spit, which is largely the same.

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