The game takes place in an Alternate Universe Renaissance Europe during the 12th Century - with magic. Conflict ensues between The Knights Templar, The Spanish Inquisition and the Wielders, who all disagree on the usage of magic and each other's control of the region. The player character, a newly-freed slave, sets out to ally with one of the factions and chart their own destiny, all against the looming backdrop of a massive war between Spain and England...
The game is notable for using the SPECIAL stat allocation system (from Fallout, another Interplay title) with a faction system, relatively open world and plenty of enemies to crush, pierce, slash, burn, zap, freeze and so on.
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Tropes present in this game:
- Aborted Arc: The antagonism between the Knights Templar and the Inquisition gets tossed out the door by the end of the first act, especially when England invades, rendering it a colossal waste of time.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewers underneath Barcelona, which are home to thieves, beggars and lava trolls, and span multiple areas. To a lesser degree, dungeons of the churches where relics are kept.
- Action Bomb: The Disemboweled Ganglers lurking in the Ethereal Realm and the Crypt, which violently explode into a shower of gore (and damage the player, but not other enemies) when they're killed. And of course they award no experience if they detonate by themselves.
- Action Girl: Jehanne D'Arc, who (despite being an NPC companion) is fighting the undead on her own until the player finds her and is the most powerful companion in the game. The player's character (if female) can also count, especially when levelled up enough. Druj is this too, if the corpses around her hut have anything to say.
- Alignment-Based Endings: There are several different (short endings):
- If the player spoke to Nostradamus and then Druj and chose all possible conversation options and have the Speech skill higher than 180, the best ending is triggered, where Asha realizes the futility of his Start of Darkness and repents, ending his crusade of evil.
- If the player's good-aligned and didn't allow his friends to die in the final battle, Chaos Dragon is banished and Ahriman's rebirth is prevented.
- If the player is evil-aligned, or sacrificed his allies to win the final boss battle, Ahriman is delayed, but the Inquisition and Knights Templar now fall under his influence and eventually will try to revive him anyway.
- And then there's the final, most evil option: becoming the Big Bad yourself.
- All Myths Are True: Well, you don't get to see all of them since the game limits the player and story to only parts of western Europe and the Middle East. However you encounter Slavic vodyanoi, wererats, Mongol goblins, ogres, lava trolls, rock giants (aka titans), various types of undead and Egyptian sand spirits among other creatures on your travels. The backstory lore and Flavor Text of some items mention unicorns and Sea Serpents, the English druids are using LeyLines to win the war against Spain, Hernan Cortez drank from the Fountain of Youth but failed to conquer the Americas because the indigenous people used feathered serpents to destroy his fleet, China and Japan are powerful empires far to the East where the spirits of the ancestors communicate with their descendants, the main antagonists of the game are Zoroastrian daevas and lastly one of the Crusades was against multiple species of dragons which are considered one of the most powerful magical creatures (that aren't noncorporeal spirits) on Earth. Granted it's easy to miss, but if you speak with a certain rock giant in Toulouse you can learn that 10,000 years ago magic was a natural force that is responsible for the sinking of Atlantis which alongside other disasters made Utnapishtim casting a powerful spell which caused The Great Flood and banished all magic from the human world. But most importantly, the Big Bad's goal is to summon Ahriman, the Zoroastrian God of Evil.
- Already Undone for You: When you follow the pair of assassins who broke the cross and ran into the Crypt, you'll find that none of the traps have been set off, nor have any of the door seals been broken. The spirit who greets you at the entrance even ignores it when you ask him where the assassins went, and simply asks you to complete a set of trials to claim the relic.
- Alternate History: The game's entire premise is that Richard the Lionheart's decision to execute Saracen prisoners resulted in a magical cataclysm, and the history went downhill from there. Lots of real-life events happened anyway, but were given a different reasoning: such as the Cursed Crusade being against necromancers, Joan d'Arc uniting France against the undead instead of England, and Spanish Inquisition fighting actual, real sorcerers instead of doing their witch-hunting for heresy.
- Always Close: The player character and his/her companions show up to the Caverns of Nostradamus just as the ogres are fighting a losing battle against a horde of assassins.
- An Economy Is You: Played straight, although you can buy common belts and boots that have no stats and serve no purpose but to weigh you down. Lampshaded by a woman in the Barcelona market looking for fruit.
- Anachronism Stew: The ages (and locations) of several historical figures were changed so they could be included in the game.
- Angry Guard Dog: Mastiffs or pitbull-terriers are used by thieves and (for some reason) The Hashshashin.
- Anyone Can Die: By the end of the game, it's possible to kill (or fail to save) everyone besides one shopkeeper. This includes Galileo and Da Vinci themselves.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Semi-averted. There is no visible hardcount on party members, but given that many are a Guest-Star Party Member and only six have the possibility to stay with you for the entire game (not counting their death in battle), it is highly unlikely that players can hit the maximum number.
- Artificial Stupidity: Companions aren't exactly intelligent. They have trouble following you, especially in mazes. When it comes to attacking, they only do so if they see the enemies within their visual range of sight. They also have annoying habit of walking randomly and more than too often, you'll accidentally click on them and enter conversation mode.
- Ascended Demon: Druj was the Daeva of Lies and made of Heel–Face Turn. She now helps people, mostly the Cathar. However, her change of heart could be explained because of cosmic balance: a powerful Angel, Asha, made a Face–Heel Turn shortly before she turned Good.
- Bears Are Bad News: Averted. One of the first companions you meet is Fang, a young bear being threatened by a hunter. Once you save him, he'll become a recruitable companion. Hostile bears are also found in a handful of areas, but generally aren't dangerous enough to pose a serious threat to the player. Played straight later with werebears hired by the Druids.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: The Jackass Genie in the Crypt purposefully misconstrues the player's wish to give them something they didn't want - that is, unless your speech skill is high enough and you make a very specific statement that can't be misinterpreted. The only wish he can't twist into a curse is a selfless one, to end the curse on Templars.
- Beneficial Disease: The Disease Ward perk slowly heals you when you're ill. There is also a counterpart for poison called Venom Ward, however you cannot ever get both of these perks. However there isn't a perk for acid immunity so be warned if you go up against something which damages you with acid.
- Big Bad: The Old Man of the Mountain, possessed by Asha Vahishta (who is a Zoroastrian Fallen Angel).
- Bird People: You encounter Egyptian Sand Spirits in the Persian desert who try to make it rain. Upon getting close, their leader will either force you to either pay with your blood. If your Speech is high enough, you can trick them into being neutral and instead attacking any Assassins that get close. The sand spirits are green-skinned and lack feathers but have naked wings instead of proper arms/hands.
- Blatant Lies: The player can overtly do this on many occasions by picking the "Lie" option in conversation if their speech skill is high enough. Alternately, this can be done by exploiting certain quest chains by completing a task for an NPC and killing them afterwards (either for experience or to fulfill another NPC's request).
- Bond Creatures: Humans cannot wield magic unless they bond with a spirit. While they can achieve power, it may also taint and mutate them into hideous monsters. However spirits cannot exist on their own in the physical world unless they bond with something and when their host dies, the spirit floats back into the ethereal realm. Worth pointing out is that spirits can also possess regular animals, plants and even inanimate objects. The player character has a spirit inside them which has been passed on from their ancestor, King Richard the Lionhearted.
- Booze-Based Buff: Serpent's Brew, which increases the player character's strength in return for decreasing their intelligence. This also forms the basis of a minor quest - the only way to understand the drunk patron at the bar in Barcelona's Harbor District is to drink said brew and speak to him, which nets you a special perk.
- Bottomless Bladder: The player character can chug potions and ale like there's no tomorrow, and never has any need to use the washroom.
- Bottomless Magazines: While special arrows and bolts that add damage or chance to hit are finite, the normal arrows are not, so that the player never runs out of ammunition in battle.
- Broken Bridge: Going back to Montaillou after the English invade results in the blue crystals being irreversibly broken and the only way to escape via Da Vinci's flying machine.
- Can't Catch Up: Companions can't level up or gain skills, which leaves some (like Ernesto) at a disadvantage later in the game when the enemies become much tougher and can kill them in a handful of hits.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Cervantes, who hunts for a demon in bushes, and is generally considered to be crazy by everyone in Barcelona. Then you find out that the "demon" he's looking for is Don Quixote, who exists as a fractured part of Cervantes' mind and results in a Battle in the Center of the Mind unless you help him. You can also ask Da Vinci about it, and he tells that it's Cervantes's own fault: eager to write a masterpiece, he stole a magic quill that conjured the nightmare.
- Cold-Blooded Whatever: The Vodyanoi resemble carnivorous mixtures of reptiles, amphibians and fish. They spit green poison at long range and have no-functional pterosaur wings on their backs.
- Competitive Balance: The four playable races have different strengths and weakness, although being a RPG you can customize and upgrade your character to boost their stats (assuming of course you know how to do it).
- Pureblood Humans are Jack of All Stats. They are good for newbie players, because all their abilities are perfectly balanced. Regular humans don't excel at anything.
- Feralkin are Magically Inept Fighters. They have low charisma and intelligence, however they have the best physical stats. Their great strength and endurance make them fierce melee combatants who can also tank enemy damage. Plenty of NPC Feralkins are brutish thugs employed by criminals.
- Demokin are the Gimmick race. They have better perception (senses) and agility (including speed) than the other three races. This makes them perfect for thieves who can detect hidden areas (also traps) and pick locks.
- Sylvant are Squishy Wizards. They have terrible physical stats, which make them bad in combat. But they have the greatest magical capabilities of all races.
- Critical Hit: Can be used to stagger or knock down enemies when it occurs. Just like the predecessor games, the player can use Slayer and Sniper perks to turn every hit into this.
- Damsel in Distress: One merchant will ask you to rescue his sister from kidnappers. His quest (and side area) will only be available if you download and install the Bonus CD separate from the game itself.
- Deal with the Devil: The Dark Majesty perk notes that a "shadowy figure" will make you a "warrior of unparalleled puissance and guarantee you a warm climate in your elder years" in exchange for signing a blank piece of paper.
- You can also make literal deals with demons, starting with the Daeva of Pain in the Inquisition dungeon (who even gives you a reward perk of Brimstone Debt for freeing him), then later scaring or convincing other demons into leaving you alone.
- Dem Bones: Skeletons are frequent enemies you'll fight during your journey.
- Demihuman: Several monsters are mutated humans or descended from humans tainted by magic. The most prominent example are the Hujark enemies you fight in the Caverns of Nostradamus which resemble heavily the Githyanki. Also, the other 3 playable humanoid races besides pureblood humans.
- Disciplines of Magic: There are 3 types of magic spell trees you can learn, although being an RPG this game allows only just one to be fully upgraded when you reach the character level cap.
- Divine Magic is healing and protective spells, which can temporary offer protection from enemy damage and increase your stats. You can have a bonus for this type if your character is bonded with an Elemental Spirit.
- Thought Magic is raw elemental damage spells, which can make you kill enemies with natural disasters (fire, ice, poison, electricity and so on) when maxed out. You can have a bonus for this type if your character is bonded with a Demonic Spirit, but keep in mind some creatures have increased resistance to the elements.
- Tribal Magic is the most diverse but also the most unholy type of spells, which grant you the power to use necromancy, summon regular animals and supernatural monsters, become invisible, mind control your enemies and so. You can have a bonus for this type if your character is bonded with a Bestial Spirit.
- Disc-One Nuke: The "Fortune's Finder" perk, which can be picked at level 1 (though it requires 8 luck) and allows you to gain 10% more gold off corpses. Due to
a crazy bug, dropping the gold you have and picking it back up allows you to get more gold than you started with. By doing this process a couple dozen times, you'll start racking up thousands in gold, which can then be used to buy much better equipment at Weng Choi's store. It's enough to marginalize the first half of the game, although you'll likely be finding better gear by the time you get to Montaillou. In a later patch, this was changed to work differently; now it just causes additional coins to drop off enemies, sometimes even when they couldn't possibly have any in the first place. - Doppelgänger Attack: Two of the bosses (the daevas/demons Aesma and Aka Manah) can summon copies of themselves. In both cases, the original AND the copies (which tend to be weaker) need to be killed in close succession, as the original can summon more copies to replace those the player has already killed, or one of the copies can become the original if the original dies.
- Enemy Summoner: Two spells in the Tribal skill tree allows you to summon either undead creatures or regular beasts and monsters. Some mooks can also do this like the giant ghouls and the aptly-named snakebreed summoners which are very annoying.
- Escort Mission: In some sidequests, you need escort an NPC to somewhere. They will fight with you when needed, but don't expect any miracles from their part. If they die, you can't revive them and the quest will fail.
- Fallen Angel: Asha was an angel of good before he turned to darkness and currently he posseses the Old Man of the Mountain, which makes them revealed to be this game's Big Bad.
- Famous Ancestor: The Player Character, whichever one you choose, is a descendant of Richard the Lionheart, who in the game's Alternate History had magical powers from being tied to an elemental spirit that's now possessing you. Of course, by the game's setting of 1588 Richard has had many descendants and your character "shouldn't expect to be sitting on the throne of England any time soon."
- Fantastic Flora: There are green circular plants arranged like a minefield in the Duero Plains right before crossing the Pyrenees mountains into France. When you approach them, they open up their red-colored innards like a sea star and shoot poisonous spores into the air around them. They serve more as traps and environmental hazards than proper enemies which means you cannot attack and kill them. Either you must run away quickly from them (easier said than done though) or you need a high enough poison damage resistance.
- Fate Worse than Death: Poor Jehanne d'Arc. Wishing to forever protect the relic, she got her wish by making her a revenant that fights to protect it for eternity, which is bad enough. But being undead also cut her off from the angelic choir, making her unable to hear the voices of Heaven again, without hope to ever regain her divine guidance. And then the player has an option to deny Jehanne the release, leaving her in the undead form just so that she could serve them.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: Your character skill menu is divided into 5 trees. The first is dedicated to Combat note , Theiving note and the other 3 are separate magic disciplines.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: Thought offensive magic are divided between Fire , Ice and Electrical branches.
- Flunky Boss: The Final Boss will periodically summon mooks at you. Between attacking, surviving and keeping your companions alive, you'll have your hands full.
- Fog of War: A rare example that isn't from an RTS game. Every area is initially blackened out when you enter it so you have to walk around to reveal everything. Which of course is hard given that most locations are filled to the brim with enemies and traps. The higher your Perception stat is, the bigger your field-of-view radius is. However there are some maps which are designed in such a way that some portions will remain black regardless of your Perception, the most noticeable example being the Pyrenees mountain pass.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: You can choose to be a Knight Templar or a member of the Inquisition in the first act, but no will bat an eye if you massacre your fellow soldiers as long as it's outside their own headquarters (and even then, the Inquisition doesn't care about you killing the soldiers - including the Grand Inquisitor himself - in the lower levels of their complex). And yes, despite both factions' refusal to do magic, nothing prevents you from using it. When war with England arrives, they won't even mind you hurling fireballs when standing next to them.
- The Order of Saladin tell you that they can’t make a Christian a full Order member (though there are still advantages to finishing the questline and becoming an honorary member). Playing as the one available Arab character, Safa Intisar, has no effect on the questline.
- Your subrace (if non-human) will have no effect on the persuasion skill, and very rarely if ever on dialogue options. This leads to hilarious occurrences of a half-sylvan girl dressed in rags with thorns growing out of her skin convincing NPCs that she's a member of a city guard, an inquisitor or a knight.
- Necromancy is considered the most vile of sins, backstory mentioning wars with legions of undead and Relican the Necromancer can be put in charge of the world's most evil coven of sorcerers (which the player can then lead themselves). However, any character trained in Tribal magic can use necromantic sorcery at will, without loss of karma or any reaction from the NPCs - other than the standard inquisitors' hostility over use of any magic, even Divine one.
- Get Out!: Barging in someone's home without permission will get you a response to leave immediately.
- Golem: Appear as enemies used by the English druids. They are suits of Animated Armor with capes and swords who are themed after the Fire, Ice, Lightning elements.
- Gotta Catch Them All: There are several examples of Collection Sidequest in this game. Two notable ones include locating 8 hidden books note and giving them to Weng Choi (the Chinese merchant in Barcelona) which awards you a perk that gives you a huge bonus to your Unarmed Combat and Evasion skills; and touching 5 green crystals across the game world that give small bonuses in your skill trees, while increasing your faction rank and giving you boosted stats. However to access the first crystal you first need to find the Wielders' hidden street within Barcelona then speak with the friendly Wielder that guards it.
- Groin Attack: One type of critical hit damages the enemy in the groin area, which staggers them and leaves them vulnerable to hits for several turns.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: You can bluff guards into letting you inside secure places you're not suppose to get in. Of course, that depends of how good your Speech skill is.
- Guest-Star Party Member: Several companions will only stay with you until you complete their associated quest, at which point they walk off for good.
- Guide Dang It!: Didn't talk to Nostradamus and listen to every conversation path midway through the game? No Golden Ending for you!
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Some of the undead creatures in the Ethereal Realm and the Crypt are missing the lower half of their bodies, and shamble towards the player before exploding in a shower of gore.
- The Hashshashin: Appear as villains in the latter half of the game working for the Big Bad.
- Historical Domain Character: A lot, the most prominent being King Richard in the backstory and Leonardo Da Vinci and William Shakespeare in the present. If you're playing a female character, you can get Shakespeare to woo you, read a few of his more famous sonnets, and give you a ring. Guy Fawkes, Machiavelli, Jeanne d'Arc and many others make appearances despite having lived over 300 years apart in real life.
- Historical In-Joke: Lots of it, from how did Shakespeare come up with an idea of his "Merchant of Venice", to Spain's branding England as heretics (in this case, over the use of magic instead of Protestantism).
- Human Subspecies: Besides regular pureblood humans which can have magical spirits inside them without any physical differences, there are 3 races formed when humans joined with spirits after the Disjunction cataclysm. They evolved unique traits which they pass down on their offspring and the 3 races are as follows: note
- Feralkin are descendant from humans with animalistic spirits. They have physical traits like horns, fur, tusks, pointy ears, claws, fangs, tails and so on which makes them ugly to regular humans and thus get shunned by society. Because of this Feralkin and Sylvant player characters will have a harder time playing.
- Demokin are descendant from humans with impish and fiendish spirits. They have physical traits like Feralkins and Sylvants but can also lack any such traits which allows them to blend in easier with pureblood humans.
- Sylvant are descendant from humans with elemental and nature spirits. They have physical traits like flaming or icy hair, green skin, rocks and/or spikes growing out from their body, glowing eyes and so on which makes them weird to regular humans and thus get shunned by society.
- I Fought the Law and the Law Won: Attacking the leaders of the Knights Templar or the Inquisition results in them immediately arresting and throwing the player character in jail. This happens even if said PC is a level 20 badass who's just mowed down the rest of the guards in the city.
- I Have Many Names: The many spirits have been through recorded human history by various identities and monikers in different civilizations, for example the Daeva of Hunger Tawrich has also been called Preta by Buddhists and Fames by ancient Romans.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: During the Battle in the Center of the Mind with Cervantes and Don Quixote.
- Implied Rape: When you rescue Malihandra, she'll say that the kidnappers did something awful to her before she cutted her phrase short.
- In the Past, Everyone Will Be Famous: Despite being a game set in an Alternate History version of 1588, it manages to have William Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Tomás de Torquemada, Miguel de Cervantes, Niccolò Machiavelli, Hernán Cortés, and Guy Fawkes all living within a few blocks of each other in Barcelona. Nostradamus, Queen Elizabeth I, Grace O'Malley and Joan of Arc also turn up later in the game.
- It's All About Me: Lucius, the rock titan, only cares about himself. He holds the entire collective memory of his tribe and refuses to be ritually killed so the memory could be pass on to the next memory holder. Without it, the tribe will become less sentient and more savage. Lucius lies to anyone he meet to escape his tribal duties. His actions caused the town of Toulouse to be sacked and he asks you to murder his tribe by saying they are savage monsters and liars. When you meet the tribe, they're actually reasonable if a little arrogant.
- Irrelevant Sidequest: The majority of the sidequests in the first half of the game deal with helping people take care of personal problems, which largely becomes inconsequential once England invades and kills most of the citizens in Barcelona and Montaillou.
- Notably, accepting an inquisitor's quest in Montaillou to seek out a rogue witch (and the end result being a successful mission and the man pledging to attack her) becomes this when his corpse is found near her hut during the English invasion, but the witch remains perfectly fine.
- Jackass Genie: The efreet in the Crypt. Want to be stronger? Congrats, you're now stronger smelling, resulting in lowered Charisma. Want to be rich? Great, you can be renamed to "Rich" at no cost! Wish all nearby enemies were dead? Well, you're in a crypt full of undead, so that's another job well done! It is revealed that this genie is responsible for Jehanne's curse, because she wished for a way to eternally protect the relic from the undead. It is possible for the player to overcome the jackassery of the genie by wishing for a wish that is not twisted into something unintended, but this requires a fairly high Speech skill.
- Jeanne d'Archétype: Joan of Arc (spelled 'Jehanne' in-game) herself makes an appearance in the game as a recruitable party member. Her faith and a nasty curse has sustained her at her vigil over the Lance, beyond death. She is one of the more useful NPCs in the game.
- Karma Meter: Though not explicitly shown, certain actions change the player character's relations with members of the game world. Killing a shopkeeper nets you the "Merchant Slayer" perk (which makes certain shopkeepers refuse to sell you their special stock), killing a member of the Saladins nets you a "Saladin Slayer" perk, and saving an NPC from a slave camp in Toulouse and choosing not to take a reward nets you positive karma.
- However there are some choices which don't affect your karma either way, such as betraying the Duke of the Spanish armada into being assassinated by Guy Fawkes or betraying the Wielders to the Spanish Inquisition.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: Averted - in any house or dwelling where an NPC and chest are present, they will often ask the player to leave, and attack them if the lock is picked. With high lockpick skill, though, it's possible to open the chest in front of them without anyone noticing.
- Level Scaling: The monsters encountered in the ethereal realm scale with the player's level, as well as the monsters encountered by activating red crystals throughout the gameworld.
- LeyLine: The English Druid enemies in the latter half of the game plan to use these to help England defeat Spain during the war and Take Over the World.
- Life Drain: There is a special trait for one of the 4 playable races that does this, as well as a spell in the Tribal magic tree (curiously placed in the Necromancy branch), a random sword from vendors, and magic potion which are conveniently all just referred to as "vampiric". The Revenant skeleton mooks can also do this.
- The daeva Tawrich can also do this, its boss fight will be very hard for new players unless they are prepared to counter it.
- Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: In the early stages, melee fighters have a much easier time over wizards, as the majority of the gear is favored towards tank builds and the bonuses for Inquisition and Wielder initiates is outclassed by the Knight Templar benefits.
- Made of Explodium: Weng Choi will sell you explosive kegs full with Chinese firepowder that (when placed on the ground) are detonated after a 3 second countdown because of a trapped fire spirit inside.
- The Magic Comes Back: About ten thousand years prior to the game's plot, a spell was cast to eliminate all magic and fantastic beasts. Then, during the crusades of Richard the Lionhearted, a counterspell was cast after the execution of 3000 Arab prisoners, releasing all manner of nasties into the world. The main villain's plan is to do it all over again, turning Earth into magic-infested hellhole.
- The Magic Goes Away: According to a rock titan, magic was present on Earth since the ancient times and was mostly accepted by everyone. One mage made it all go away with a spell and this caused a cataclysm that wiped Atlantis and other old civilizations.
- Magitek: Signor Leo (revealed to be Leonardo Da Vinci) has a workshop in Barcelona where he keeps his inventions. His machines' creation involves magic and they are possessed by spirits, for example his steam engine is powered by a grouchy fire elemental.
- Mana Drain: The crosses in the Inquisition dungeons will do this to the player, unless they find a McGuffin that breaks them upon approaching. There is also the Mana Reaver-type undead enemies.
- Mass Super-Empowering Event: The backstory has a cataclysmic magical explosion known as the Disjunction during the crusades. Many people were possessed by spirits this time which granted them magical powers, though such possessed people are shunned and distrusted by normals.
- Meta Origin: This game has King Richard the Lionheart's aggressive hoarding of holy relics during the Third Crusade result in an explosion of magical energy, the "Disjunction", that caused human beings to begin manifesting magical powers, significantly altered the geography of western Europe, and turned ordinary animals into mythological beasts.
- Money for Nothing: The "Fortune's Finder" perk, which allows the player character to find gold "in places they didn't even know existed".
- Money Spider: Zigzagged; you’ll never find gold on a Bear or Wolf, but will sometimes find it on a Vodyanoi. Yes, the little demonic frog-fish things crawling around in the swamp have gold!
- My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Monsters and your companions will never trigger traps when they step on them. That leaves only you, the player, who will take full damage from them.
- Named Weapons: Several unique weapons on certain enemies have names and unique attributes.
- New Game Plus: At any point in the game, players can export their characters. These characters can then be used to create a new game; keeping their skills, attributes and perks but losing all items in their inventory.
- Night of the Living Mooks: Alot of the enemies on your journey will be various types of undead. There are even three areas which are entirely filled up with only undead: the Unholy Oubliette (a satanic ritual dungeon in the sewers underneath Barcelona), the Darkwood cave beneath the Spanish forest woodcutter's cabin and the crypt of the Holy Lance in France.
- One-Winged Angel: Some creatures and characters can shapeshift into monstrous forms, this is a given with anyone afflicted with therianthropy. The Old Man of the Mountain/Asha transforms into a red and black Chaos Dragon if you chose to fight him, which serves as the game's Final Boss.
- Our Demons Are Different: Demons are just another type of spirit, which vary from small mischievous imps to Demon Lords and Archdevils. The main antagonists are the 7 Daevas, powerful ancient Zoroastrian demons who wish to corrupt and destroy everything including the world itself.
- Our Dragons Are Different: According to the lore, dragons are powerful reptilian creatures with Elemental Powers which spread around the Earth. Fire Drakes, Frost Wyrms, and Storm Dragons are mentioned in passing. The backstory has the humans launch a devastating crusade against the dragons which caused both species' to reach near extinction. Humans in the Old World survived and are slowly recovering, however the native tribes of the Americas worship Feathered Dragons which makes colonization impossible. Two of the Daevas assume the forms of dragons: Azi Dahaka is a Sand Dragon, while Asha Vahishta transforms into a more powerful Chaos Dragon for the Final Battle.
- Our Fairies Are Different: Shakespeare's quest involves taking back his muse locked up in Shylock's house, which appears as a small purple Spark Fairy inside a birdcage. Goblins in the Spanish wilderness also claim they "merely wish to eat the sugar-coated fairy creatures of this grove" (among others). The druids' and English soldiers' weapons are described as being engraved with faerie runes.
- Our Genies Are Different: A benevolent genie appears in the dream plane if you take the Knights of Saladin's quest. A malicious efreet with his lamp is encountered in the Crypt. Both share the same model, which resembles a squatting purple spiky frog with a small head and its front limbs are longer than its legs.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Ghosts are transparent versions of living creatures. Interestingly, they can be attacked and killed like they are still physical beings which means they lack intangibility.
- Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Ghouls are pare skinny humanoids who run around on four legs and slash you with their hands which afflicts you with Disease. There are 3 variants: male, female and giants; the last one also have the power of summoning lesser ghouls.
- Our Goblins Are Different: Here they're cannibal mongols (with Goblin Khan as their leader) who take pride in terrible poetry. And yes, the player can befriend them and do quests for them.
- Our Ogres Are Hungrier: Ogres serve the rock titans in the Pyrenees mountains. They resemble large minotaurs (it's hard to tell from the game's limited graphics) that attack with axes and maces or throw rocks. Ogres are stated to enjoy consuming meat.
- Our Spirits Are Different: Spirits are noncorporeal beings of magical energy or the natural elements which live in other planes of existence. The Disjunction caused them to return into the physical world. Spirits cannot interact with the environment unless they bond with someone or something (humans, animals, plants and even inanimate objects) and upon the host's death, the spirit floats back into the ether. Like people, all individual spirits vary from one another by having different personalities. Lastly spirits may grant their powers to their hosts, but also corrupt and twist them into abominations.
- Our Titans Are Different: Here this trope is interchangeable with Our Giants Are Bigger. Rock Giants/Titans are elemental descendants of Gaia (the Earth) itself, with some of their ancestors being famous deities. They are taller than humans, with blue skin and wielding clubs. Titans have a complex society which demands members holding their collective knowledge in their crystal hearts and then be killed in a ritualistic way so that their hearts can be passed onto another titan. Giants who don't have this magical crystal heart eventually turn into feral destructive monsters. The ones in Toulouse while arrogant, can at least be reasoned with.
- Our Trolls Are Different: Lava trolls are encountered only in one dungeon cave area of Barcelona's sewers. They resemble tall green humanoid reptiles or frogs with some brown fur and spikes on the upper half of their bodies. They are called "lava" trolls because they are immune to fire damage and they attack by stomping the ground, which causes a circular shockwave of lava to appear and damage everything around them.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: Wererats are seen in the Barcelona sewers. They are formerly human beggars who (somehow) got bitten from the Alpha and Prime wererats living in the Spanish wilderness forests. This disease infection causes beggars to transform into tall Rat Men and infest the sewers like normal rats. The Cathars in France can also shapeshift into werebears which are identical to regular bears.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Decayed zombies are weak enemies who shamble slowly towards you and pelt you with green slime which slows you down and infects you with the Disease status ailment. The graphics however make them resemble green bald orcs instead.
- Palette Swap: Several enemies come in different colors to help distinguish their variants— for example purple/blue Vodyanoi are the basic version, while green ones will spit green poison at you from long range.
- Pause Scumming:
- It's possible to walk into an enemy encounter or boss battle, pause the game and toss off half-a-dozen potions before activating an explosive barrel in your hotbar, making things much easier in the long run. This works especially well against large groups of enemies.
- It's also possible to run in and out of a level when you're critically injured, then run back in when you're healed, and the enemies will still have the damage that was incurred to them the first time around. This can be exploited to great effect in areas with high-level enemies.
- Peninsula of Power Leveling: At the very beginning of the game, you can walk into the wilderness and find a "waterfall cave" that has multiple Vodyanoi enemies that attack you with acid spit. Due to a bug, clearing every creature out of the cave except for one, exiting and re-entering causes all of the downed enemies to respawn. This can be used to farm experience at low levels, and works well into the mid-teens.
- Permadeath: Save for necromancy (which reawakens them as corpses with limited hitpoints), any companions killed over the course of the game stay permanently dead. Needless to say, most players prefer not to take them into battle altogether.
- Permanently Missable Content:
- Any companion that dies during a battle is gone for good.
- A large chunk of sidequests in the first half of the game become inaccessible once England invades and massacres the residents of Barcelona and Montaillou.
- A lot of quests are locked behind dialogue options the player wouldn't know in advance could affect anything. That is not even to mention mutually exclusive quests that require doing opposite things.
- Point of No Return: The war with England. After you visit both the Crypt and the Caverns of Nostradamus, you can only focus on the main quest for the rest of the game's ten or so hours.
- Prophecies Are Always Right: To Nostradamus (who happens to be the narrator), "future is like pages in an open book". Nostradamus having the ability of predicting the future helps the player to Screw Destiny.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: Save for one optional encounter (romancing Shakespeare), both the male and female player characters are functionally identical to each other.
- Purposely Overpowered: Taking a certain questline (the Wielders) and choosing to talk to a specific character (the Keeper of Ways in La Calle Perdida) twice in succession results in the option to turn your character into a "super human". Taking this option maxes out your stats and makes the game absurdly easy. It was likely that this was intended as an Easter Egg for enterprising players.
- Rescue Introduction: In the opening of the game, the player character escapes a slave camp with the help of their friendly spirit companion.
- Revenant Zombie: The Revenant enemies themselves, which are very powerful undead creatures with resistance to fire but drop the most powerful items in game. Additionally, Jehanne herself became this in the years since she was cursed by the Jackass Genie.
- Riddle Me This: The final test to become favored by the Knights of Saladin is to test either your strength or your wit. Testing your wit involves solving riddles (and, oddly enough, doesn’t take character intelligence into account; so long as the player knows the answers, the character can be dumb as a rock and still win the challenge).
- Saharan Shipwreck: There are two present in the Spain and Persia regions, though one of them is located "only" about a single mile inland.
- Savage Wolves: There are 3 types of wolves (brown, grey and black) and they are all hostile towards you.
- Scary Scorpions: You'll encounter gigantic ones in the Persian desert and they'll attack you on sight with their claws and poisonous tail. They are resistant to fire and lightning, but have no defense against ice attacks.
- Shop Fodder: You pick up a lot of random equipment that your character can't use but can be valuable to resell, as well as Wolf and Bear Pelts that give you some extra coin. Vodyanoi Skulls are an interesting case: they cannot be sold to a merchant at all, but one vendor in Barcelona will happily buy any from you, and for a far more generous price than all those pelts.
- Sinister Scimitar: The primary wielders of Scimitars are the antagonistic man-eating goblins.
- The Six Stats: Lionheart uses the SPECIAL system of Fallout when creating playable characters. The stats are: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. When you take the first letter from each of these seven stats, you spell out the word SPECIAL.
- Snake People: An enemy type is green and purple "Snakebreeds" who have poison attacks and move in a serpentine manner, though they do still have arms and legs.
- Story-Driven Invulnerability: Several characters can't be attacked by any means (Sir Auric, Da Vinci, etc). Attempting to do so either results in you getting arrested by the Knights Templar/Inquisition or sent to an ethereal realm, where the enemies scale to your level and can come in droves.
- Succubi and Incubi: The former appear as enemies while the latter are nowhere to be seen. Succubi come in two variants: Ethereal (using disease, acid and poison spells) and Arctic (using ice and lightning spells). Interestingly, they are classified as undead instead of demons.
- Sunken City: The islands of Britain and Ireland (as well as the Scandinavian peninsula according to background lore) have been reduced to archipelagos, with half their land sinking underwater after the Disjunction.
- Take a Third Option: Plenty of alternative dialogue choices open up if your Speech skill is leveled enough— you can trick enemies into leaving you alone instead of engaging them in a fight, manipulate them into giving you money and items or just get some useful information to advance with your quest.
- Your first major quest (which advances the plot when completed) has you join a faction in Barcelona to protect your from your unknown enemies. Your choices are either the Knight Templars or the Spanish Inquisition (joining the thieves, beggars or the Knights of Saladin won't fulfill this quest however), but you can also find and join the Wielders (peaceful wizards that are persecuted and fled into a secret Pocket Dimension hidden with magic) as your third option. There is also a fourth option technically— when the Wielders tell you to kill the renegade necromancer Relican, he will give you the option to betray them and take over La Calle Perdida. If you side with Relican, he will replace Cedric as the quest giver and his undead mooks will slaughter the unfortunate wizards. Doing so is one way to get the "evil" alignment ending.
- Take Your Time: Offering to protect Machiavelli results in him getting attacked by assassins as soon as you leave his house. The ensuing fight could be tough for a beginner, but you can wait until much later in the game and return to save him whenever you like. Same with the city of Toulouse and woodcutter's daughter: making these quests timed would put already a non-linear game onto even more strain.
- Third-Person Person: Amir speaks like this when you talk to him
- To Serve Man: Goblins like to eat humans. Because of the nature of the game, you can side with them and provide them with human victims. Or you can serve them and then stab them in the back.
- Translation Convention: For the sake of simplicity, everyone in the game talks in English, despite having characters that come from Spain, Italy, England, France, Arabia, Egypt and China. Some of them, however, use phrases in their native languages when being emotional, with translation included in brackets.
- Two-Faced: Half of Jehanne d'Arc's face is skeletal because of her undead curse.
- Underground Monkey: Several enemies have more than one variant. Sometimes they share the model so it's hard to tell the difference— e.g. the Brimstone Soul Reavers are the basic variant, while the Mana Reavers will deplete your magical energy with their melee attacks.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: It's possible to murder nearly every NPC in any of the major cities throughout the game, and even if you're caught and imprisoned, it's a measly 25-gold fine after a cutscene. Players can run around slaughtering guards in Barcelona once their level is high enough without a problem.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: The daeva Nanghaithya is a sadistic Zoroastrian demon who drinks the blood of humans and constantly disguises itself by changing forms. Your first encounter with this demon (in the form of a peasant woman) is in a house at Barcelona's Temple District, but Nanghaithya taunts you and escapes. Way later, you meet it hidden in Montaillou where you can properly fight it (an optional sidequest in Toulouse also reveals it has been attacking the rock titans) however it's immortal and constantly shapeshifts instead of dying. Quite unique for this boss fight, you have to possess a relic of Zarathustra in your inventory (there's only 2 of these in the whole game) to bypass the demon's shapeshifting powers and make this daeva killable.
- Wallet of Holding: It's possible to carry tens of thousands in gold on your character. Notably, dropping a significant amount of gold from your inventory results in a wide pile of gold on the ground that looks to be bigger in size than the player model.
- Warrior Poet: Goblins are warmongers and have an appreciation for poetry, the bloody kind that is.
- Weapon of X-Slaying: There are some unique weapons that have a bonus against certain types of creatures- e.g. an enchanted war hammer that deals 25 points of damage against all goblins even if it misses them, a blessed mace which has a 3% chance of instantly killing even the strongest undead, a magical bow that is good against dragons, and a cursed battle axe that deals 66 points of damage to all "regular" animals like wolves and bears (curiously the game also classifies the Vodyanoi, mutated wasps and giant Persian desert scorpions as "regular" animals). The axe instantly kills the guard dog enemies, although they don't have much health to begin with.
- We Used to Be Friends: Between Juanita and Enrique. They were both part of the Thieves' Guild and lovers until Enrique and some of his fellow thieves became wererats. This drove them apart and they now wage war against one another.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The "evil" ending, where the player convinces the Old Man of the Mountain/Asha Vahishta to relinquish control of Ahriman and the summoning ritual to him/her. Galileo and Da Vinci give you harsh words before teleporting away. The game then ends with the player character himself/herself becoming the new Big Bad, and gathering an army of undead to conquer the world.
- Wicked Wasps: Giant mutated wasps are encountered in the Spanish wilderness. Come in three flavors: Yellow (standard), Red (inflicts poison ailment) and Cursed (blue, also inflicts disease in combination with poison).
- You ALL Look Familiar: Played straight. One possible companion is Ernesto and he looks exactly like any other guards in Barcelona. The same can be said with Darsh and Diego who wear the same robes as other inquisitors.
