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[Digital Hellhound]

Yes, it is that time again! Narrative by Trope is a beloved Bay 12 classic, or, atleast, will be after we reboot it enough times.

I'll let Gatleos speak for me;

Spoiler: Spiel (click to show/hide)

I had an idea for a good forum game in the style of typical world-builder threads. But instead of a world, we will be building a work of fiction. With tropes! Instead of writing the story directly, we'll tell it through trope examples. I'll start by posting a vague description as if I were writing the first paragraph of a TVTropes article, then subsequent posters will add onto the universe by writing trope examples. Each example must work within the increasingly explicit guidelines of the universe defined by previous examples, and a story will begin to form.

Spoiler: Rulez (click to show/hide)

• Along with examples, feel free to add other tropish things, such as quotes, trivia, reviews, or even crowners (CMoA, HONF, etc.) and Wild Mass Guessing entries. Think outside the box!
• Let's actually write this like a TVTropes article, complete with an obnoxious amount of potholes alluding to even more tropes.
• Try to stay consistent with previous posts. Failing that, though, we can always pull a retcon.
• When it's agreed that we've gone far enough with the current work, I (or someone else) will post a new one and we can start over. In addition to normal submissions, I'll occasionally post an expanded work description, consolidating all the new accumulated info from the examples.

Thanks, Gat. The idea's simple, and if in doubt, you can click on the links there to see how the previous threads worked. Without further ado, though;

***

Ave Machina is a first-person Action RPG by Keystone Studios, set in an alternate world perhaps best described as Gaslamp Fantasy. It has received two story-driven expansions to date, each offering new missions, characters and gameplay.

Provides examples of:

Stern Chase: The game begins at the conclusion of one of these. Implied to begin anew if you let Charwood go in the Glassworks.

Waistcoat of Style: The Vilano brothers like to wear these. If idle chatter is anything to go by, the rest of the team thinks they look ridiculous. This will even affect their comments to the player if he or she ends up wearing them.

Hypno Pendulum: What the Doctor's Artifice is, essentially. If you piss off Kara too much, she will use one on you, to hilarious effect. Of course, Fridge Horror sets in when you realize she's implied to use it regularly on her family...

[Fniff]

Worthless Yellow Rocks: Combined with Vendor Trash. Jewels are weirdly common in the places you visit, making them very cheap and only useful for crafting the Utter Waste of Time.
Pointy Haired Boss: Danalish is the Humanoid Abomination equal of this. She used to be an excellent cultist for the Lodge of the Smiling God, but once she got "promoted", she was rapidly proven to be a very bad Fallen. How bad? She managed to create the only weapon capable of killing a Fallen... while attempting to create a way to protect Fallen from Lightbringers.
Wrong Time Travel Savvy: In the sixth chapter (The Chekov Firing), Danny thinks the Chekov Do-Over was caused because someone stepped on a butterfly. He's right. But not in the way he thinks he is.

[Mesa]

PTW.
I'm so bad at TV troping. Q_Q

Moral Event Horizon: The player can cross it at multiple points in the game.

The Musketeer: Most of the common Scourged Ones are this.

Badass Mustache: Pretty much every major non-female character in the game has one.

[10ebbor10]

Cool Airship: Numerous examples.  [You get to chase a fire demon in one , until reality ensues.

[Fniff]

Leitmotif: The game's soundtrack uses an innovative music system, similar to Portal 2, which puts extra instruments and adds in melodies as certain gameplay situations arise. The most notable character themes (That are added when near the presence of the character, when using an ability/item related to the character, or at certain story moments) are The Protagonist's Theme,Kara's theme, and The Vilano Brothers. Vecker is represented by a cheerful piano melody, while Vincent is represented by a rather terrifying violin.
Unlockable Content: Chapter 13 The God's Knife is unlocked if you manage to use the The Utter Waste of Time to

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

kill the Fallen Commander.

It is very hard. How hard? You have to take down the 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fallen Herald

with a knife.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Twice.

Easter Egg: One of the writers was on The Falling Dark. Guess who you can find watching you from a distance in a certain level?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You can see the Stranger on the whaling ship on Chapter 6, just after the boss fight with Lucien.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Non-Indicative Name: The Utter Waste of Time is actually highly dangerous, and also not a Waste of Time.+
...Eh. Not feeling inspired yet.

Oh, and ignore this if Fniff originally meant the UWoT to be a Lethal Joke Item and not a LJ Character, like the original bit

Utter Waste of Time.

said.

[Fniff]

Yeah, I meant it to be an item. My apologies. Though...

Soul Jar:The Utter Waste of Time is a container for the soul of an orcish time mage who imprisoned himself in a thousand worthless items. He did this because he forgot the syllable differences between "summon a drink into my hand" and "imprison me into a thousand worthless items for potentially eternity".

[Digital Hellhound]

Angel Unaware: In the The Clockwork King DLC, the boatman ferrying you around is implied to be the Smiling God. He doesn't seem all that malevolent, although sharp-eared players will recognize the tune he sings as the Song of the Fallen - in the Unkind Tongue, no less!

Humongous Mecha: What's being built inside the Infinity Tower. Despite heavy foreshadowing, it's left well alone and plays no part in the end game.

While Rome Burns: In Chapter 10, you find

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Vincent playing happily on his grand piano as the Lightbringer stronghold lays in ruins in the background.

[Fniff]

Nemean Skinning: The Hunter wears this. However, unusually, it is made out of Kara's uncle. this handly indicates that the Hunter is batfuck insane.

[Mesa]

Grappling-Hook Pistol: The Spiderfang.
Gun Accessories: Most firearms in the game support at least two such accessories to be attached to them, and some of them are really fancy, especially in the late game.
Swiss Army Gun:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Florenzo's Omnirifle, what with it being essentially a gun that fires spells instead of bullets.

[Powder Miner]

Who Dares?:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Last Dragon

starts this when you enter his cave, but stops himself halfway through.
Dangerously Genre Savvy:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Last Dragon. How else do you think he survived The Glorious Hunt?

[Digital Hellhound]

Deadly Lunge: The Scourged Ones you find infected with the Ravenor Plague just love to do this. Even worse, if you get downed by one the rest will swarm on you in seconds.

Parasol of Prettiness: Kara is usually found with one of these, even when it's raining. She holds on to it

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

even when the storm brings down the Bloody-Red Lady.

Villain Episode: Half of the The Clockwork King DLC can be seen as this, as you alternate between playing as Lorenzo and the Protagonist.

[Mesa]

Child Soldiers: Niko's Red Arrows can be seen as both this and the Five-Man Band, with Nikolai, Samuel, Felix, Marcus and Lay.

Our Monsters Are Different:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dr. Alset's

are mildly different from their common brethren, examples including

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Centanks, Chrome Gargoyles and Iron Spiders

[Knit tie]

The Paladin: The Hands of God claim to be this

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

and are actually not lying, despite the writers deliberately making them

appear to be one of the axe crazier versions of the trope

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

during the first few chapters. Once you enter Port Azure, you are invited to a meeting with some of their members, and as it turns out, they are simply a very peaceful non-government organisation/political movement consisting of various thinkers, poets, merchants and nobles who oppose the current Lunar Kingdom's policy of segregating people according to their class and racial backgrounds through campaigning against the apartheid and providing humanitarian aid to the most oppressed groups and regions. What you see of them before is just propanganda spread by their enemies.

Fantastic Racism: averted-the elves have been living among and interbreeding with the lunar humans for so long that they are not even considered a different race anymore, let alone species. About 80% of the characters are stated to have at least a little bit of elven blood in their veins, and some have much more than that. There is plenty of intraspecies racism and classism, though: The lunars consider everybody who is not them to be violent uncivilized barbarians, and, likewise, the upper classes of their kingdom honestly believe that their privileges were bestowed upon them by the gods and that it is their holy right to live on the money earned by other, lower classes, even though current economic realities say otherwise. There are, of course, radical thinkers like Kara who believe in egalitarianism, and although their beliefs are pretty racist by modern standards, they are still an example of tolerance and compassion that the writers like to state are inherent in all sentient beings.

[Fniff]

Dark And Troubled Past: The Protagonist has serious amounts of this. Most of it is very vague, but we know the following fact: for some amount of time he/she served under The Fallen (Mostly for cash, though the more Atoner-like dialog options implicate that s/he did it because they genuinely believed in the cause), then spent the immediate aftermath of The Iron Rebellion raiding and pillaging. How the Protagonist deals with his past forms the moral choice system: s/he can be a Card Carrying Villain, a psychopath who now channels his/her impulses into a more just cause nowadays, or a person who did "a lot of stupid things as a kid" and now genuinely wants to make amends.
Hilarity Sues: Humdunger & Sons repeatedly attempts to sue the Lightbringers for a growing list of crimes. They do this even during the summoning. Luckily, after you save the sons of Bradley Humdunger, he admits that trying to sue you now would just be bastardly... So he's just going to wait until the world isn't ending.