Dungeon Siege is a series of action RPGs that began in 2002. Created by Chris Taylor and developed by Gas Powered Games, the franchise is innovative for its continuous open world with no loading screens and unique class system focused on open character-building rather than restricting the player to preselected classes. Players instruct their party members ahead of time while the characters act autonomously in combat. Units can be selected individually, akin to Commandos.

The four classes are:

Fighter (melee)
Ranger (archer)
Nature Mage (mostly defensive magic and some offensive magic)
Combat Mage (the reverse of Nature Mage)

The Expansion Pack to Dungeon Siege II, Broken World, adds two more:

Fist of Stone (combination of Fighter and Nature Mage)
Blood Assassin (combination of Ranger and Combat Mage.

You can also create a party of eight hireable companions (six in DS II) plus a pack mule to carry all your extra stuff.

Dungeon Siege I

The first game takes place in the land of Aranna, specifically in the region of Ehb. Your humble life as a farmer is disrupted when a normally passive race suddenly attacks your hometown. A dying friend of yours asks you to head over to the next town and seek help, but the quest doesn't end there. As you gather up your forces and progress through Ehb, you find out that an ancient demonic race, the Seck (who once served under the tyrant Zaramoth the Unmaker, but that's expanded on in the second game) has returned to Aranna to seek revenge. It is up to you and your friends to destroy it and end the threat.

In 2003, an Expansion Pack was released: Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna, which offered a lot of new options for the player and his party, including transformation spells, armor and weapon sets, a more combative pet, and new enemies to fight.

Dungeon Siege II

In August of 2005, a sequel hit the markets: Dungeon Siege II. It was greatly improved: the story was worked up, the world you travel through looks more impressive, the hireable NPCs were fleshed out (they even got their own personal Side Quests, although the party size was reduced from eight to six,) and the character classes were given new powers to turn the tide of battle.

The backstory was expanded upon too: a thousand years ago, Azunai the Defender clashed with the aforementioned Zaramoth. Both of their armies fought valiantly, but when the two warriors' personal armaments — the Shield of Azuna and the Sword of Zaramoth — clashed, the Endtime happened. The Age ended borderline-apocalyptically and a new one began. Many years later, a power-hungry prince named Valdis, the game's Big Bad, got a terrible fever and with it prophetic visions. When he recovered, he went to the ruins of Zaramoth's Horns. He found the tyrants sword (now a Sealed Evil in a Can) and became exactly what he wanted: a powerful tyrant bent on world domination. He even created an army of evil creatures called the Morden (an appropriate name, as "mord" is German word for "murder".)

In a twist, you and your best friend Drevin start as mercenaries working for Valdis. Unfortunately, after you complete your first quest, things turn sour and you end up the prisoner of the people you were fighting: the Dryads. After a few quests to prove yourself, you form up a party and head back to your hometown of Aman'lu. Unfortunately, Valdis beats you to it, and the Archmage who serves him destroys it. Thirsty for revenge, you and your party seek out Valdis and destroy him. The game unfortunately has a Downer Ending. Let's just say it's a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!.

In 2006, another expansion set was added to the series: Dungeon Siege II: Broken World. It's a darker continuation of DS II and wraps up the story. An evil force — who is much worse than Valdis — has taken over Aranna in the aftermath of your Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! moment, radically altering it and nearly killing all of its inhabitants. Don't worry, though; your friends have survived the Cataclysm and are ready to help you once again. Which is good because this time, It's Personal.

Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony

Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony was released for PSP alongside Broken World and serves as a side story to the events of Broken World. Both games featured crossover items, special items that could be unlocked across both games by either linking the PSP's MAC Address to the player's copy of Broken World or by using passwords given by each game.

Dungeon Siege III

Dungeon Siege III, developed by Obsidian Entertainment, was released June 2011. It tells the story of four descendants of the 10th Legion: Lucas, Anjali, Katarina and Reinhart as they attempt to rebuild the Legion and defeat the woman who disbanded them in the first place.

The only Downloadable Content pack for DS III, Treasures of the Sun, was released October 25th, 2011.

Uwe Boll made a movie of the first game, titled In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. With Burt Reynolds as the king. And, it must be noted, Ray Liotta as an evil sorcerer.

This series provides examples of:

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Multiple Games

All Myths Are True: Especially prominent in III regarding Azunai, Archons and the Creator Gods.
- Averted in the Utraean Peninsula map's main quest: While every town you visit has their own idea for what the ancient monument will do once the Town Stones are assembled, none of them spoke of the Sealed Evil in a Can waiting within.
Absurdly High Level Cap: 150 in the first game, and 100 in the second game and Throne of Agony.
- You can comfortably beat the first game's Kingdom of Ehb campaign with your party in the mid 50's, the Legends of Aranna campaign can be beaten in the late 20's, and the multiplayer-exclusive Utraean Peninsula campaign can be beaten in the mid 50's on Mercenary difficulty. Exaggerated with the multiplayer-exclusive Yesterhaven downloadable campaign, as its 3 chapter runtime means it's designed to be beaten without even reaching the double digits in levels. The frequency of level ups slows down to a crawl once you reach level 75, necessitating multiple grinding sessions on endgame areas just to gain a single level. The amount of experience required to reach past level 105 is so unfathomably high, not even utilizing mods to multiply earned experiece by x100000 makes it feasible to reach the level cap, even when fighting enemies on Elite difficulty.
- You can beat the second game's base campaign in the early 40's on Mercenary difficulty, with the Broken World campaign beatable in the late 40's on the same difficulty. While Level Grinding in singleplayer is possible without exploiting Enemy Summoners, the reduced experience awarded when killing enemies weaker than you makes it completely impractical to reach level 100 without going through New Game Plus two more times afterwards.
- You can easily beat Throne of Agony in the mid 40's to early 50's. It's entirely possible to reach the cap due to a total lack of Anti-Grinding being in place, but it's gonna take much less time to do so if you just replay the game on Legendary Mode instead.
Ancient Tomb: A variety of these are present throughout the entire series, complete with puzzles, traps, and all manner of undead creatures and other nasty surprises.
Anti-Grinding: Only happens in the first game. In the second game it's subverted, as the enemies respawn (sometimes only a few seconds later) but will give reduced experience the lower or higher level you are in comparison to them. Also averted in III.
Anti-Wastage Features: Potions are not fully consumed when used, where extra healing may be used when activating the potion later. Throne of Agony is the sole exception, making all of them work like how the Rejuvenation potions did.
Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Especially in the second game, where amount of space in your party is dependent on the difficulty setting, and any setting above "easy" can only be unlocked by finishing the game on the earlier setting. On the plus side, the first four party members you can find all fit the 4 main classes, so it makes things a bit easier.
- Also, in addition to the difficulty restriction, each slot beyond the first two requires a payment to the "Adventurers' Guild" in order to be usable. Fortunately, gold is fairly easy to come by.
Black and White Magic: To some extent, with Combat Magic and Nature Magic, respectively.
Classic Cheat Code: The first two games have dozens of cheat codes to utilize, all of which are enabled by pressing Enter to bring up the chat window during singleplayer; preceding a cheat with a "+" enables it, while preceding it with a "-" disables it. The first game has the "+drdeath" cheat, which maxes out all stats, making you level 150; conversely, the second game has the "+drlife" cheat, which makes you not take any damage instead.
Clock Punk: The city of Stonebridge in DS III, and the wizards trained there especially. This is a result of the societal integration of the Goblins, who were technologically-advanced villains in the first game.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
- The first two games color code the item names and backgrounds to denote their rarity. Aside from equipment without modifiers having a white text with a blank background, equipment whose requirements you don't meet having a red background, and equipment that has between one and three modifiers having blue text and a blue background, the rest of the color coding is handled differently:
  - In the first game, background and name colors are mostly separate, making it harder to discern what they are without hovering over them. Brown-colored names indicate that a piece of equipment trades one stat or skill off to increase another (like -12 Mana for +12 Health, -1 Dexterity for +1 Strength, or -3 Ranged skill for +3 Intelligence), lavender-colored names indicate that it's rare and contains 4-5 modifiers, and yellow-colored names indicate that it has a unique design and contains 5-7 modifiers. Legends of Aranna introduces two additional ones: equipment with a purple-colored name and background indicates that it's imbued with a spell (such as Mystic Aid^note), and equipment with an aqua-colored name and background indicates that it's part of a set.
  - The second game streamlines the color-coding. With the exception of Enchantable equipment (which have gray-colored names but a blank background like normal equipment without modifiers), all rarities have matching name and background colors, making them easier to distinguish. Rare quality equipment is colored aqua, Unique equipment is colored purple, Enchanted equipment is colored green, and Set items are colored yellow.
- Nature Magic spell icons are primarily colored green, while Combat Magic spell icons are primarily colored reddish-orange.
Convection, Schmonvection: Almost every map in every release of the game has either a lava-filled area or, in the case of III, an area that is engulfed in flames during your visit. In none of these is the heat any problem. Actually touching the flames, however...
Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Church of Azunai, one of the primary religions in Aranna, worships Azunai the Defender, the ancient human hero who defeated Zaramoth the Unmaker. They believe he ascended to godhood after being killed during the battle of the Plain of Tears, and now serves as a guide for the dead, helping them return to the River of Souls.
Elite Mooks: Stronger versions of monsters, which usually come with either recolored textures or more intricate models to distinguish them from their regular counterparts, make an appearance in every game in the series, though their presentation varies in each one. In Dungeon Siege I, they are distinguished by having a colored Pillar of Light following them at all times. In Dungeon Siege II and Throne of Agony, they are instead surrounded by an orange circular Battle Aura. In Dungeon Siege III, they instead display Boss Subtitles.
Encyclopedia Exposita: Collectible In-Universe physical books and other important text documents are present in the first two games in the series. In the first game, there wasn't any distinction between regular and key items, meaning you didn't have much reason to keep them around since they took up your limited inventory space. In the second game, thanks to the addition of a Lore Codex for them to get added to, you can now read them anywhere and at any time without having to worry about making space for them.
Game Mod:
- The first Dungeon Siege received quite a bit of official mod support, to the point of having an official editor released to allow for the creation of "siegelets," or large scale mods with custom playable maps. Some of the more noteworthy siegelets include recreations of Ultima V and Ultima VI, and The Lands of Hyperborea, a "total conversion" mod that is a essentially a whole new game, with custom skills, custom spells, a ridiculous amount of story depth, a ridiculous amount of level content, an ambitious suite of new creature types that stretched the game's engine to its limits, and its non-linear nature meant that its multiplayer content drove the game through the roof in terms of replay value.
- The second game may have comparatively less mods than the first one, with the majority being quality of life addition mods (like increased party movement speed or retroactive skill point rewards from quests for characters you haven't recruited yet/are in the Inn), but there are still some notable siegelets: Dungeon Siege II: Legendary Edition is the most famous one, as it ports all of the first game's campaigns into the second one's engine, including the multiplayer exclusive one. One brave soul also attempted creating a Fan Sequel to Broken World titled Dawn of the Third Age, featuring 32 primary quests and one secondary quest.
Health/Damage Asymmetry: Barring Elite Mooks, enemies will almost always have way more health but deal much less damage than player characters. Those that invert this typically fall into the long-ranged Glass Cannon template.
It's Up to You: Played with a little; in these games, saving the world isn't a one-man job. It makes for a great Self-Imposed Challenge though.
Level One Music Represents: The theme of the starting area in the first game has appeared or been remixed in some form in each entry of the series.
Master of None: Going for multiple skills often results in a character that is rather weak for their level. One very early NPC in the second game warns against this, recommending to choose one of the four schools of combat (Melee, Ranged, Combat Magic, Nature Magic) and sticking with it.
Medieval European Fantasy: The primary setting for all three games, although the lands visited also include dense jungles, arid deserts, frozen wastelands, and roiling swamplands. III also introduces more Industrial Revolution era advances, but still retains a medieval feel.
Monty Haul: Even by videogame standards. In the first and second games, you had to bring along pack mules if you wanted any hope of carrying all the loot you'd find.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous:
- Zaramoth the Unmaker was unusual for his race, being an Utgard who possessed four arms with freakishly long Wolverine Claws and four spider-like legs. Not only was he strong enough to wield his BFS with one hand, he fully utilized his extra arms in battle to brutalize his opponents. The Overmage of the Cinbri in Broken World assumes a similar form once he transforms into Zaramoth Reborn.
- Several enemies across the series have multiple arms that they utilize to attack, such as the Rustguards in II and the Vagari Warlocks in Throne of Agony.
New Game Plus:
- In the first two games, beating any of the singleplayer campaigns allows you to import one of your party members to use as your Player Character in multiplayer, with their levels, equipment, and inventory retained. The Utraean Peninsula and Legends of Aranna campaigns even have additional selectable difficulty levels in order to give them extra replay value. The second one gives you options to import more than one character per player, at the cost of allowing less players on the server the more each one gets to control (from 8 players controlling their own characters down to just 2 controlling four party members each).
- The second game also allows you to replay the campaign in singleplayer at higher difficulties after you beat the previous level, with characters and pets (both in your party and benched in the Inn), item recipes, and chants carrying over. Interestingly, you can go back to previous difficulties at any time without their progress being overwritten, allowing you to finish any remaining secondary quest.
No "Arc" in "Archery": Averted. While it's not noticeable when you're close to an enemy or using the Automatic Crossbows in the first game due to their ridiculously fast projectile speed, if you attack from max distance or try dodging out of the way of incoming projectiles, you can see that arrows and thrown weapons travel in an arc and will fall on the ground after a short period of time, while also having a slightly different offset each time. A difference in elevation can also make it so the projectiles will just hit the ground before making it to their intended target. These quirks can prove to be vital when fighting strong ranged enemies if you employ Hit-and-Run Tactics.
One-Gender Race: All Dryads are female and all Half-Giants are male. Players can only play as male Dwarves, but female Dwarves are mentioned in the dialogue. All Archons are also female.
Our Giants Are Bigger: The Agallans and the Utgards are both races of giants who are prominent in the series' lore.
- The Agallans are a Precursor race of technologically-advanced giants who come in many different unusual skin colors and sizes, and can live up to several centuries. Hailing from the floating city of Agalla located in the Broken Lands and worshipped as gods by the Vagar, they were sworn enemies of the Utgards and eventually forged the Shield of Azunai. After the First Cataclysm, all the surviving Agallans who had defected to the Utgards were cursed with a shorter lifespan and reduction in stature, with the Half-Giants — who were introduced in Dungeon Siege II — being descendants resulting from centuries of the accursed Agallans breeding with other species in order to keep their bloodlines going.
- The Utgards, also known as Jotuns, are a long-extinct race of primarily red-skinned, warmongering mountain giants. Zaramoth the Unmaker was one such Utgard, who rose to power and was singlehandedly responsible for their extinction using the very sword they created for him.
Our Monsters Are Weird: While the first game had the more "traditional" RPG monsters in the vein of Dungeons & Dragons (with some unique exceptions here and there), most of the second game's creatures could be very bizarre and unusual, especially the Familiars in Broken World.
Rainbow Pimp Gear: With the exception of III, which has Informed Equipment instead of a Virtual Paper Doll like the rest of the series, mixing different equipment, particularly Uniques, very rarely leads to aesthetically pleasing combinations, but you'll sure not regret the stats they give you. Downplayed with II's Set Items; despite being much flashier than regular gear or even Unique gear, they provide much larger Set Bonuses the more of the same set you have equipped, discouraging mixing individual pieces of equipment from different sets for optimal stats.
Real-Time with Pause: A staple of the series, despite having very little actual value outside of the highest difficulties, especially in the second game. You can even pause during online multiplayer, though that can be disabled in the options.
Recycled In Space: Space Siege, although it's a much more simplified game it's still based on the same engine and similar in gameplay.
Ruins for Ruins' Sake: Especially in DS II, most ruins in the games get at least a feasible explanation for their presence. The Ruins of Okaym, on the other hand, do not.
Scenery Porn: While particularly prominent in II and III, even the original had a wide variety of environments that were quite detailed. Too bad the render distance was so short in the first game.
Schizo Tech: The Goblins in the first game have very advanced technology for a Medieval European Fantasy. While you're using bows and crossbows, they have miniguns and grenade launchers, which you can take and use for yourself. Strangely, they were completely absent in the second game, despite other forms of technology such as elevators and sliding doors, still existing. They're back in the third game, having made peace with the humans in the centuries between games.
Shout-Out:
- Some aspects of the second game draw some parallels with The Lord of the Rings. For example, the Battle of Snowbrook Haven is similar to the Battle of Helm's Deep (except for the dragon), and the Morden-Viir who are doing the besieging look very much like the Uruk-hai. As a matter of fact, when you get to Act III on Mercenary difficulty, after a while, the armor salesmen sells a helmet, a unique chinless helm called the "Onyx Steel Helm," that looks just like the ones the Uruk-hai wore in the movie versions of The Lord Of The Rings. Minus the White Hand of Saruman, of course.
- The Morden's Head quest is a shout out to Babylon 5.
- For another shout out, in the personal side-quest "Evangeline's Folly," has pretty much the RPG version of "Our Princess is in another castle." When Eva hears the second such answer, she even says "This is starting to sound familiar."
- The Automaton Constables in DS III look remarkably like Clanks, right down to the triparate camera eyes, brass finish and shako hats. The only noticeable difference is Auto-constables have an Arm Cannon and a two fingered claw, rather than proper hands and a minigun rifle.
- One of the enemies that appears in Legends of Aranna, the Skitterclaws, looks a lot like the Carakillers from The Future is Wild.
Spin-Off: Space Siege, which is quite literally Dungeon Siege IN SPACE!
Standard Fantasy Races: In the first game, you could only play as a Human and hire Dwarven NPCs, although multiplayer also allowed you to play as a dwarf or skeleton. In Legends of Aranna you could hire Utraean NPCs. In DS II, including Broken World, the race selection was greatly expanded: Humans, Elves, Half-Giants, Dryads and Dwarves.
Title Drop:
- Towards the end of the first game, the Droog leader says "Journey fast, kingdom child. The Seck dungeon siege may soon be underway." The final chapter is also called Dungeon Siege.
- In III, too - near the end of the game, you can get a quest to rescue some nobles from a dungeon, titled Dungeon Siege.
Took a Shortcut: The Utraean historian in Legends of Aranna.
- Not to mention the Azunite Scholar (who, as it happens, has the same voice actor) in DS II.
Useless Useful Spell: The first Dungeon Siege unfortunately had a lot of them. Thankfully, the game developers learned from their mistake and removed such spells from DS II.
Utility Party Member: Played with in the first game: instead of recruiting another adventurer, you can instead fill one or two of the eight party slots with donkeys who cannot participate in combat at all. Instead, their "special skill" is being able to carry twice as much Plunder as regular party members.
"Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The ending of Broken World. Also happens in III by showing what the consequences are of your choices.

Dungeon Siege and Legends of Aranna

Abandoned Mine: The dwarf towns of Glitterdelve and Crystwind both have mine shafts that connect the game's grassy regions to the snow lands a few levels up. They are full of Krug, minecart railways, mechanical elevators, and Exploding Barrels.
Aerith and Bob: The four dominant monstrous races in the first game, in chronological order: Krug, Goblins, Droog, and Seck. One of those is not like the others.
Ambiguously Human: Despite being humans, the bandit enemies will let out monstrous growls whenever they are hurt or killed.
Artificial Animal People: The Zaurask and Hassat races were created by the Utraeans conducting magically-accelerated genetic science experiments on common lizards and jungle cats to serve as slaves for their empire, and were the only successful results from dozens of templates. After the Utraean Empire is thrown down by a genocidal revolt of the Hassat and Zaurask against their creators, the Zaurask king Nosirrom tries to create his own capable slave race, the Droc, from crocodiles, but even they break from his control and form their own society.
The Atoner: Following the loss of their empire and shrinking of their population, some Utraeans seek to atone for the sins of their people and make peace with the Zaurask. It doesn't work, as the entire peace delegation was slaughtered by Nosirrom's forces, save one member who played dead. It's not clear whether this is because Nosirrom was insane, or if peace was never an option.
Automatic Crossbows: As indicated by the trope's page quote, crossbows in the first Dungeon Siege have a fast rate of fire, trading damage per shot for higher overall damage, in contrast to the real paradigm. There are even two separate classes of crossbow in the base game, one of which is even faster firing. Legends of Aranna adds a weaker Clockwork Crossbow whose projectiles behave more like arrows.
Awesome, but Impractical:
- Nature Magic offensive spells, compared to their Combat Magic equivalents, consume far too much mana per cast, necessitating carrying inventories full of nothing but mana potions for it to be even close to sustainable.
- Spells which call forth projectiles to rain down from the sky for several seconds, such as Firerain, have the potential to hit multiple targets or even the same target multiple times for considerable damage. Unfortunately, not only do they have an invisible 10+ second cooldown for no good reason, they prevent you from casting literally anything else until said cooldown is over, making you a sitting duck if you're a pure spellcaster.
A Winner Is You: The Utraean Peninsula multiplayer map ends rather anticlimactically once you place down the Tenstone at the Inner Sanctum of the unlocked Utraean Catacombs beneath Hiroth. The evil contained within gets sealed once more, you get access to a treasure room, and if you go back to speak to the priest who gave you the Tenstone, you get a single window's worth of text congratulating you coming back alive and a Utraean Helm with unique stats for your troubles.
Bag of Spilling: Return to Arhok takes place after the events of the Legends of Aranna campaign, with the same Player Character, but due to the fact that it's a singleplayer-exclusive campaign, you cannot carry your progress over. The game actually justifies the spilling: After the defeat of the Shadowjumper, the Player Character decided to willingly freeze themself along with the Staff of Stars until trouble were to befall Arhok again, but the spell that held them in stasis caused the Staff of Stars to be destroyed and drained some of their life force in the process. A couple of minutes into playing, however, you get a 10 level boost to a class of your choosing.
Bamboo Technology: Compared to the Utraeans, Goblins employ much more rudimentary technology, as many of their creations are made of wood and steel.
Beef Gate: Thanks to its non-linear nature, the Utraean Peninsula multiplayer map places enemies that are much higher level than the ones in the area you came from to denote if you're going to a region much earlier than you're supposed to.
Bleak Level: The completely optional Pit of Despair in the Utraean Peninsula multiplayer map. It's a long, multi-stage maze bathed in near total darkness for most of it, and it features no enemies.
Broken Bridge: To an almost ridiculous extent. In the Kingdom of Ehb campaign, the first obstacle you encounter to impede your journey, sans the various beasties, is a bridge, which was caught on fire, and then had a wagon driven across it, with the monsters who did the catching riding it. The bridge collapsed, and you end up going through an army of the dead in order to reach the other side. The loot was nice, though. It doesn't end there, of course. Both games have many, many, many broken bridges, in both the literal and figurative sense. The next major dungeon afterwards is a fight through a Big Creepy-Crawlies-infested underground lair. The reason? A door was blocked by a rockslide. It gets cleared away later. Not that you'll ever go backwards in this game.
Bubblegloop Swamp: All three campaigns feature haunted swamps as their mid-story region, replete with mud, boardwalks, giant fungi, vicious wildlife, and loads of undead.
Cosmic Keystone: The Great Clock is one for the game's world. The Utraeans had created it to gain control over the weather for the betterment of their empire, and eventually enslaved the Shadowjumper to power it after they defeated him. When he breaks out, he plans to spin the Clock out of control to destroy the Utraeans and the world along with them.
Crystal Landscape: Present in all three campaigns.
- The Kingdom of Ehb's Subterranean River is a limestone cave complex which follows the snow lands, loaded with multicolored glowing crystals, crystalline enemies, Trog warriors, and other cavey enemies. It also contains a temple which holds one of the keys to the Utraean Peninsula's big easter egg level.
- The Utraean Peninsula features two crystal caves, also following its snow lands. The aptly named Crystal Caverns are similar to Ehb's, with a Displacer platform instead of a temple. The Sulfur Tunnels are another, with far fewer crystalline opponents and more organic enemies. Every glowing crystal formation is a red or yellow not found in the other cave.
- The Legends of Aranna campaign has one in its final third, which is overrun with Zaurask who have tainted a magic healing well located inside. The player's party is tasked with cleansing it by killing the Zaurask presence.
Death Mountain: The Utraean Peninsula and Legends of Aranna campaigns both have enemy-laden mountains to contend with.
- The Peninsula features Mount Utrae, which is home to a bandit leader and his army. It goes from open foothills to coniferous forest to snowy peak, then back down through more coniferous forest into swamp lands.
- Legends of Aranna first has the Mountain of the Dead, whose climate is dominated by the undead-infested swamp which surrounds it. It then has Mount Kreth, the polluted and scarred Goblin wasteland that is home to the Great Clock.
Door to Before: After fighting your way through Wesrin Cross, you find yourself on the back side of the blocked gate you saw when you left Stonebridge, with conveniently placed explosives ready to clear the rubble. There's not really any reason to go back to Stonebridge at that point, though, unless you want to grab one of the optional party members you left behind on the first visit.
Dragon Hoard: Ehb and the Utraean Peninsula both feature a huge dragon boss in caves under their desert canyon biomes, each of which guard a large hoard of gold pieces and containers full of loot. The Ehb dragons were used by the Kingdom as an execution method, wherein those sentenced to death were given equipment and a sack of gold and ordered to slay the dragon, with predictable results. The Utraean Peninsula dragon just so happens to have one of the townstones in its hoard, and she needs to be killed for its acquisition to be possible.
Early Game Hell: Most prevalent in this first game, because of the way the level system works compared to every game afterwards. Experience is earned through damage dealt and spells cast rather than necessarily through kills, meaning the more health an enemy has, the more experience you get from attacking it. Before you reach the Dark Forest, enemy health isn't gonna be too high to get much experience per encounter and your equipment isn't gonna be good enough to facilitate things, but after that point, the frequency of level ups increases exponentially.
Easter Egg: The Utraean Peninsula multiplayer map has a few of them:
- After obtaining the necessary items^note and going up a lift near Quillrabe that leads to a small area that seems like a dead end, one can enter the Forgotten Mesa and unlock the Trial of Gallus, a short Brutal Bonus Level where you can fight the developers of Dungeon Siege and token Microsoft execs, including Bill Gates, in the form of giant killer chickens, concluding in a fight against a Super Boss version of Colonel Norick, the old man who dies at the very beginning of the Kingdom of Ehb campaign.
- The two infamously hard to find hidden pyramids in the Endless Dunes, both of which lead to the Eastern Island, an area that can also be accessed by taking a very specific path through the Northeastern Forest. The Lost Pyramid of Spirits leads you there directly, while the Lost Pyramid of the Dead has you braving through a labyrinthine Lethal Lava Land filled with the Legions of Hell first.
Emergency Energy Tank: Rejuvenation potions, which restore a greater amount of health and mana than either other alone, are very rare to find outside of shops and can only be used once before expiring.
Fantastic Science: A hallmark of the Utraeans is that they have strikingly modern knowledge and technology compared to the rest of the world, up to and including genetic research and evolution, hormones, and computers. They power and apply these through their high cultural proficiency in magic.
Flunky Boss:
- Commander Gresh fights with a horde of summoned skeleton knights.
- Gom starts summoning Slags and Lava Horrors in his One-Winged Angel form once his health is halfway gone (symbolized by his physical demon body being gone and only the fire remaining).
The Goomba: Krug Scavengers are among the first enemies in the game. They are the weakest among the Krug ranks; they have the lowest hit points, carry shoddy weapons, and move slowly.
Green Hill Zone: The first portions of the Kingdom of Ehb and Utraean Peninsula maps are farmlands, rolling green plains, and light forest cover, and they are populated by the game's weakest enemies.
- Each of the above two also has a Shadowland version; the pleasant but undead-threatened hinterlands of each region's big monster-overrun castle.
- The Legends of Aranna campaign instead has a snowy alpine town as its starting zone. Its green hilly area is found in the second half of the story, and is home to a threatening cast of hostile wildlife, witches and their summons, and Hassat tribes.
Hard Mode Perks: Items obtained on higher difficulties sell for astronomically higher amounts than they would on lower ones. In order to prevent Loophole Abuse, changing from a lower diffculty to a higher one doesn't make currently obtained items sell for more, with only newly dropped items being affected.
Healing Winds: Healing Wind is a Nature Magic spell that creates a breeze that raises the health of the entire party. The Reconstitution spell is the Combat Magic equivalent, using the same animation and sound effects, only it requires a much higher skill level than its Nature Magic counterpart.
Hub Level: The Utraean Peninsula has one quite literally, in the form of the Helios Utrae Basilicus, which can be used by the player to fast-travel to towns which they are high enough level to start at.
- The Legends of Aranna campaign expands on their story; the Utraeans had a whole network of displacer pads which linked their empire, centered at the Central Transportation Center in their capital city of Jherkal's Crown. By the time the player's party reaches it, all but one pad there has been shut down in order to prevent hostile forces who had sacked the city from using the displacers to quickly ravage the rest of the island.
Humongous Mecha: The boss of the Goblin Workshop dungeon in the Kingdom of Ehb campaign is a giant wooden mech outfitted with guns and flanked by two Tesla Coils, which is guarding the Warding Staff.
Legacy Character: The Player Character from Legends of Aranna is the latest in a line of Heroes of Arhok. Over the course of the story you find out what happened to the previous generation of Heroes, your parents.
Lethal Lava Land: All campaigns contain zones which consist of volcanic caverns located beneath stone fortifications and contain plot-relevant fixtures.
- The Kingdom of Ehb features the Vault of Eternity, in which the Seck were imprisoned for 300 years prior to the start of the campaign, underneath Castle Ehb's dungeons.
- The Utraean Peninsula's volcanic Caverns are home to the Maljin, a monstrous warrior race created by the Utraeans that invade the land when the Townstones are finally united.
- Legends of Aranna features the Lair of Cicatrix, inhabited by the undead forces of the titular skeletal centaur, as well as the lava caves under Fortress Emarard, the castle which protects and helps power the Great Clock.
Level-Up Fill-Up: Gaining a level in one of the four skills will restore health and mana.
The Lost Woods: The Kingdom of Ehb and Utreaean Peninsula each have three distinct stages of coniferous forest levels, increasingly enchanted with each subsequent one.
- Ehb has these in the following order:
  - A forest that is occupied by Krug, Savage Wolves, and undead, and is the location of the first Broken Bridge which forces the player to navigate through the Crypt of the Sacred Blood to reach Stonebridge.
  - A dark forest that is home to black wolves, trolls, demonic forest creatures, and a horde of bandits, as well as a witch's garden and a black stone castle.
  - A haunted forest that is home to fairies, black wolves, demonic forest creatures, cyclopes, floating skeletal wraiths, dragons, and an unsavory bonepicker merchant, as well as ancient temple ruins and a waterlogged dungeon with its own roster of dangerous enemies.
- The Utraean Peninsula has the following:
  - Instead of a direct analogue to the Ehb starter forest, there is a gigantic Great Northern Forest that can be traversed as an alternate path toward the first quest, or else hides pathways to hidden areas and contains the whole range of the above forest types under its canopy.
  - The Cloud Forest's terrain is expanded upon from Ehb's version, mixing grass clearings and sheer clifftops with its tree cover as it gradually ascends to being a snowy Death Mountain.
  - Redwood Gap is an analogue to the Temple Ruins forest, home to a similar water dungeon, the same monster set, and lots of fairies; though instead of temple ruins it contains the semi-hidden Pit of Despair level and a displacer back to the town of Lang.
- The only forest of this type in the Legends of Aranna campaign can be found outside Fortress Emarard, occupied by elite Zaurask forces protecting their king Nosirrom, in addition to a smattering of monsters from across the other campaigns.
Magitek: The Utraeans were masters of applied magic to technology, using it to power genetic research and accelerated evolution, war machines, robots, computers, and long-distance transportation.
Mecha-Mooks: The Goblins and Utraeans fielded robotic forces. It isn't clear who developed and deployed the technology first.
More Criminals Than Targets: Given the number of bandits clogging certain forest roads, you could be forgiven for thinking that bandits are the country's single largest demographic group all by themselves.
More Dakka: At a certain point in an otherwise internally consistent fantasy game, you can get a minigun among other high-tech Goblin weapons.
The Movie: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale tries to be this for the Kingdom of Ehb setting.
Peninsula of Power Leveling: Since multiplayer worlds aren't saved, multiplayer characters are able to visit various high-XP-yield locations again and again, while the more fixed singleplayer mode is trickier to pull this off.
- For the Kingdom of Ehb singleplayer story, the ice caves and swamps are home to witches that can infinitely summon monsters as long as they are alive. These summons grant experience and drop loot like their non-summoned counterparts.
- This XP-farming exploit is removed in the Legends of Aranna world, where summoned enemies do not grant XP when killed.
- Of note for the Utraean Peninsula multiplayer map is Iliarth Canyon, which despite being populated by mid-high level skeleton soldiers is connected directly to the low-level town of Crystwind. Skilled and/or daring newbies may benefit greatly from quick XP gain and loot+gold drops which are scaled far above their current level.
Plot Coupon:
- Merik's Warding Staff is a piece of equipment that cannot be sold and is required to progress the story.
- There are 7 Townstones to collect throughout the Utraean Peninsula map, which all need to be united at the Utraean Circle in the town of Hiroth for the plot to progress.
Plot-Irrelevant Villain: Aside from stealing Merik's Warding Staff, the Goblins have no stake in the plot beyond the one dungeon they're found in.
Polluted Wasteland:
- As one approaches the Goblin fortress in Ehb's swamp, one can see pipes discharging a sludgy fluid from their operations below. Its relation to the undead presence is unclear.
- The Lands of the Great Clock are broken, dead, and rife with Goblin industrial development and magic bursts from mishandling of the Great Clock.
Regenerating Health:
- Health regeneration is somewhat slow, but present, and can increased by the Regeneration and Party Recharge spells, and supplemented by health potions that instantly restore all health.
- The Troll family of monsters are one of the few regular monsters capable of regenerating health, and at a rapid rate too.
- The final boss of the Kingdom of Ehb campaign also regenerates health slowly.
Slave Race:
- The Droog turn out to be this, as they were tricked into being Forced into Evil by the Seck, complete with a near genocide of their species that forced them to cooperate.
- The Zaurask and Hassat were bred to serve as slaves for the Utraeans.
Slice-and-Dice Swordsmanship: All melee weapons other than staves use the same 1-handed or 2-handed attack animation. This results in daggers being swung as if they were broadswords.
Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The second quarter of the Kingdom of Ehb and Utraean Peninsula campaigns are heralded by snowy forested mountain landscapes, populated by hostile wildlife, snow demons, and ice elementals. The Legends of Aranna campaign, by contrast, starts in a snow land, albeit with the difficulty turned down.
Soundtrack Dissonance: Very calming and relaxing music plays in the background, even when your party is in the heat of all-out battle, thanks to a lack of Variable Mix.
Spider Swarm: Wesrin Cross and its analogues are full of these. The spiders range in size from rats to wolves, and there are also the demonic Mucosa, which are human and spider hybrids.
Stat Sticks: The different classes each can benefit from an off-class weapon even if they never use it, so long as the off-class item provides magic buffs which aid their build; for example, a melee fighter equipped with a strength-boosting spell book, a mage with an intelligence-boosting bow, or an archer with a dexterity-boosting sword. It is prudent in a singleplayer campaign to shop for these items early on, lest the stat requirements of such items in later shops outpace the advancement of characters' secondary stats.
- Legends of Aranna expands on this by including shields that require dexterity and intelligence, used almost exclusively for their magic bonuses.
Swamps Are Evil: All the game's swamps are overrun by any combination of the following: hostile wildlife, vicious monsters, witches, and undead.
Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack: Most of the soundtrack of this particular entry are comprised of remixes of the theme of the starting area, which is essentially the game's main theme.
Too Dumb to Live: A Broken Bridge in the first game is justified by a party of Krug setting fire to it and then driving their wagon across.
Turned Against Their Masters: The Zaurask and Hassat were created by the Utraeans to be their slaves, but they revolted and destroyed the Utraean Empire in the process.
Victory Fakeout: You defeat Gom, and the game's music goes silent as he plays his extremely long dying animation where he Disappears into Light on the ground... only for him to reappear a few seconds later as a hulked out, legless, floating demon with an inner skeleton of fire.
Wide-Open Sandbox: The Utraean Peninsula multiplayer map is designed to be non-linear compared to the singleplayer campaigns, having Resurrection Shrines scattered everywhere and two different types of fast-travel — the displacers (small platforms that transport you to a small tower located in or close to the nearest town; they aren't level gated but need to be used at least once in order to travel back to), and the Helios Utrae Basilicus (large black platforms that connect to the eponymous hub, allowing you to fast-travel between each of the towns; you can only use them and travel to towns whose minimum level requirement you meet) — as Anti-Frustration Features.
You Can't Miss It: An inverted example is given by Overseer Ibsen Yamas in Glacern. His description of getting to Fortress Kroth implies that it's probably the game's next stage ("Just follow your nose through the ice cave and you'll get there soon enough."). Instead, the party has to fight through a full third of the game's length; through a crystal cave, a forest full of bandits, a haunted swamp, a Goblin warren, a haunted forest, a Fury cave, and a Seck commander and his legion of skeleton soldiers before finally reaching the fortress.

Dungeon Siege II and Broken World

Abnormal Ammo: The Morden utilize Durvlas, which are heavily-armored Big Creepy-Crawlies that can curl up into a ball, as living ammo for their catapults.
A Day in the Limelight: Every recruitable party member has their own dedicated secondary quest that requires them to be present in order to make progress in, sometimes triggered by talking to a specific NPC with a stylized green exclamation point above their head. Some of them flesh out their characters by shining some light into their motivations or events that took place in their past, while others serve more as lighthearted romps that give you some extra time interacting with them.
Anti-Frustration Features:
- This game adds the Summon Town Portal spell, which can be used by anyone regardless of Nature Magic proficiency, to allow for easy access to returning to town to sell loot or restock on potions, without the need to physically backtrack like in the first Dungeon Siege.
- Broken World adds an NPC available right at the Dryad Outpost that allows you to reset your spent skill points for a fee, allowing you to re-spec your characters if you made less-than-optimal choices in the main game.
- Since a few of the Side Quests in the game require the Player Character to give specific enchantment reagents to NPCs, the gameworld contains exactly enough of these reagents to complete all these quests without forcing the player to rely on Randomly Drops.
Always Chaotic Evil: Quite a few examples, actually: the Morden (except for the two exiled Morden in the main campaign and the Morden refugees in Broken World), the Familiars, and the Cinbri.
And I Must Scream:
- Several of the ghosts you can talk to were bound to the world by their killers until someone spoke to them.
- Champion Rahvan was enslaved by a Lich called Letiso for 1,000 years.
And Your Reward Is Clothes: A rather morbid example happens in Broken World: In the "Celeb'hel the Elder" secondary quest, if you don't prevent Celeb'hel from casting the spell that would impose his will on the world, he'll violently explode, leaving only his Unique robe behind that you can then pick up and wear, if you meet its requirements. Despite this Downer Ending, the quest is considered complete.
Animation Bump: Important characters in Broken World have properly modeled faces that animate when speaking, compared to them being both flat with textures representing the details and completely static in the main game (the Dark Wizards, Valdis, and the Azunite Scholar's true form being exceptions; the former two are both bosses with models that are higher-detailed than normal, while the latter reuses the face from the Dark Wizards). Warden Celia is a notable example, as she appeared in both campaigns sporting noticeably different designs as a result of the jump in quality from the base game to Broken World.
Artifact Alias: The Player Character is often referred to as "the mercenary" despite ceasing to be one by the end of the first act's first chapter.
Ascended Extra:
- Warden Celia was a rather minor character in the base game, being only relevant during the portion of Act I where the player has the Ring of Submission around their neck. In Broken World, she gets more dedicated screentime, serving as The Dragon to the Overmage of the Cinbri, leading a squad of magic-gathering Dryads. She's The Unfought, however, being Killed Off for Real in the pre-Final Boss cutscene.
- Celeb'hel, an NPC from Aman'lu who served as little more than a Mr. Exposition and quest giver in the main game, becomes much more important in Broken World: After being turned into the most powerful of the three Rogue Magi, he serves as the expansion's Disc-One Final Boss, and in Part 2, the real Celeb'hel becomes a recruitable party member, albeit only if you prevent him from casting the will-imposing spell that was only cast twice before in history.
Bag of Spilling: During the first playthrough (on the lowest difficulty level), you lose your entire equipment between the first act's first chapter and the second chapter. However, this is quite justified, as the Player Character has just been taken as a POW by the Dryads at this point.
Beef Gate: The Act I secondary quest "Feldwyr the Blacksmith" has you clearing out some Hak'u-infested ruins in order to retrieve supplies for the eponymous blacksmith, specifically his anvil, mythril ore and hammer. Despite having an intended level of 12 and all but the last objective (which is to reach the town of Aman'lu in Act II and talk to Fyrndolf to receive the quest reward) being technically possible to complete at this point in the game (which is roughly a little bit before the halfway point of Act I), retrieving his anvil is the only one that you'll realistically be able to do. The mythril ore is located behind a door that's guarded by a (stationary) level 24 Taclak Elite Mook which normally isn't encountered until you reach Act II, and if you manage to get past it via Hit-and-Run Tactics, there'll be an army of level 22 Taclak Mooks waiting for you behind it. Even if you manage to slowly chip away at all of them, retrieving Feldwyr's hammer requires you to clear out another area filled with Taclak and multiple Elite Mooks.
Berserk Button: This game introduces them as an actual gameplay mechanic; certain enemies will have text underneath their health bar that denotes that performing a specific action near them will enrage them, making them significantly faster and stronger for a short period of time. Examples include drinking potions, casting spells, and attacking the leader of a squad.
Blood Knight: When the normally passive Taar says she fights the Morden because she must, Finala gives the near psychopathic response that she fights them because she can and has personal reasons to do so. Ever her personal quest involves eliminating them.
Bloodier and Gorier: The first game had Bloodless Carnage^noteUnless you used the proper cheat code. In the second dealing sufficient overkill to an enemy causes Ludicrous Gibs and leaves a puddle of blood where they once stood. The expansion to the second game is set in a post-apocalyptic world with Eldritch Abomination monsters and features two dungeons with very explicit blood and guts piled and spilled all over their floors.
Bloody Murder: The Blood Assassin's abilities. Of particular note is the Ravaging Strike power, whose description says that disregarding their own life, the attacker pours their health and blood into a single devastating Area of Effect shot. Its animation is a stream of blood, and causes the user to lose 40% of their health.
Boring, but Practical: The humans of Snowbrook Haven locked the Aegis of Blindness in a heavy Mithril cage with a solid lock rather than rely on a complicated protection spell. And while the in-game journal description of the key notes that even the hardest metal won't last indefinitely against Valdis' mages, they will need more time to break through the cage than what they would need to lift a protection spell.
Brutal Bonus Level: The Mysterious Shrine, a One-Time Dungeon only accessible by completing several obtuse steps and a couple of secondary quests in order to obtain the required Set Items to unlock the doors within. It's filled with murderous prairie dogs that can breathe fire and Evil Doppelgangers of every party member in the game, including Drevin, with stats and builds based on their Elite playable versions and boss level HP. Defeat the 9 strongest enemies in the base game, and you get access to the Developer's Room, where you can get a ton of Purposefully Overpowered Unique items and some Joke Items as well.
Brutal Honesty: Deru after your initial meeting with Finala. Quite justified too, since the Player Character worked with the Morden under Valdis, who are terrorizing Aranna and most recently nearly destroyed their hometown.
Deru: She hates you.
The Call Knows Where You Live: The first act consists of the protagonist trying to return home, and happening to help various parts of La Résistance against Valdis. The second act begins with Valdis and the Archmage destroying said home, prompting the protagonist to continue adventuring with the aim of getting Valdis' head.
Captain Ersatz: Amren is really Spock in disguise.
Chain of Deals: There is a side quest that starts in Act I and spans all the way to Act III.
Character Development: Every so often throughout the adventure, your recruited party members will stop to chat. Despite the limited amount of times they happen, there is enough character development that takes place throughout both campaigns. Some of these character changes, however, only really take place between the Time Skip that occurs between both campaigns, such as Deru mellowing out her tunnel vision on adventure and treasure hunting that once got on the rest of the party's nerves in order to become a more sensible person, Vix going from a smug and confident soldier into a Hot-Blooded Shell-Shocked Veteran, and Sartan going from a misunderstood Dumb Muscle to a Chivalrous Pervert who tries keeping everyone else's spirits high with positivity and humor after the fallout of the Second Cataclysm.
Chekhov's Gun: Right before the Player Character enters The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, Drevin's Medallion, which they have been carrying with them for nearly the entire game, turns out to be a lost fragment of Azunai's Shield.
Chest Monster: Mimics are particularly nasty (albeit rare) enemies that can be encountered all throughout the game. They look exactly like regular wooden chests up until you click to open them, upon which they're revealed to have a mountain of health and defenses and More Teeth than the Osmond Family. Their main method of attack is spamming a highly damaging Skull Spray death magic spell, though they can also occasionally cast Impale and Iceball. Fighting them unprepared will result in a Total Party Kill, but they're manageable with Status Buffs and strong enough healing. Killing them awards you with high rarity drops.
Chivalrous Pervert: Sartan becomes one in Broken World, whereas he was the Dumb Muscle in the base game's campaign. Even his rejoining quote exemplifies this:
Sartan: Great; let's get moving. Hopefully we can rescue a few lovely damsels in distress while we work on saving the world!
Collection Sidequest: One Sidequest in Act III tasks you with collecting the 20 "Lore of Aranna" books that are liberally scattered across the entire game world.
Crapsack World: Pretty much the point of Broken World. Fortunately, this Crapsack World doesn't last forever, but you have to defeat a lot of tough bosses to make it happen.
- On the other hand, the main game had some dashes of Crapsaccharine World. You may think the Dryads are sweet and lovely plant girls, right? Not in this game; a lot of them are a stern and no-nonsense Amazon Brigade. For example, Warden Celia equips prisoners with Rings of Submission, which can sense your intentions before you've even thought of them and then do painful and even deadly stuff to you accordingly. When did this turn into Nineteen Eighty-Four? Fortunately unlike the leaders of the novel, Celia can be reasoned with.
Critical Hit: Prominently displayed in II by much larger and darker red damage indicators.
Darker and Edgier: Also pretty much the point of Broken World, but also the case for the Blood Assassin. In the lore, death magic is described as pretty nasty already. The Blood Assassin's abilities are a shade darker than that.
Deadpan Snarker: Lothar's seriousness is only matched by his dislike for Deru. He employs the most Sarcasm Mode in his dialogue out of all recruitable party members, one notable example being in Act I after meeting Sartan for the first time. After the main character asks him if he's met Sartan before, due to them both being Half-Giants, he sarcastically mentions that all Half-Giants know each other, and that they know a Secret Handshake too, causing the main character to feel bad for asking such a stupid question.
Death-Activated Superpower: The Familiars in Broken World have this. When they're killed, they come back to life three seconds later in a fiery blast, albeit only if the finishing blow leaves a corpse behind. They resurrect with only a quarter of their hit points but twice their attack power. Fortunately, it only works once.
Death Mountain: Combined with Storming the Castle for Zaramoth's Horns, which serves as The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. It's a mountain-sized fortress with a Red and Black and Evil All Over sky, colossal Spikes of Doom adorning its peak, and swarming with twisted fauna and legions of Valdis' strongest servants.
Demonic Possession: It turns out that The Plague is caused by spirits from Zaramoth's army possessing people.
Demoted to Extra: ???, the level 100 thief who'd occasionally spawn when a rare item drops from a chest or enemy, and was involved in the main campaign's secret secondary quest "Mysterious Mystery" by way of dropping a key item required to reach the Brutal Bonus Level, is still present in Broken World. Unfortunately it no longer serves a purpose beyond being a nuisance, as there's no equivalent to said quest in the expansion; even though it can still drop the same item after being killed, it's no longer considered a key item, so it just gets put into your inventory.
Design-It-Yourself Equipment: Enchantable equipment can be imbued with reagents to create your own equipment with custom stat bonuses. The higher the quality of the enchantable equipment, the more reagents can be imbued in it.
Developer's Foresight: You can't actually suffer a Total Party Wipe during the Justified Tutorial; even if your Player Character gets killed and you don't revive them, Drevin's HP will never go down below 1. You also can't go past the final gate unless you have both characters alive; luckily enough, the bookshelves in this starter region contain an infinite supply of Resurrection Scrolls.
Disc-One Final Boss: The Giant Trilisk at the end of Windstone Fortress is the last obstacle standing between the Player Character and the portal leading back to their hometown Aman'lu.
Divergent Character Evolution: Nature and Combat Magic were pretty interchangeable in the first game, thanks to the lack of an Elemental Rock–Paper–Scissors system and both schools of magic getting access to spells that were identical to each other except for different minimum skill level requirements, with the former providing healing and buffing much earlier than the latter. DS II makes the two schools of magic much more separate: Nature Magic focuses on healing and providing party-wide Status Buffs, their summons are melee-only, and they cast Ice and Non-Elemental offensive spells; Combat Magic meanwhile focuses on debuffing groups of enemies, their summons attack at a range, and they cast Fire, Lightning, and Death-elemental offensive spells.
Doppelgänger Spin: Valdis can create intangible clones of himself during the second phase of his fight, upon which he'll start to regenerate a huge chunk of his health until you start attacking the real one for a bit. The clones don't physically react to attacks and don't produce any sound.
The Dragon:
- In the main campaign, the Cinbri Archmage is this to Valdis.
- In Broken World, there are the Familiar Surgeons Despular and Baelusar, who are responsible for creating all the Bound creatures that fill the Overmage's legions. There's also Warden Celia, who inadvertently becomes this as she's the one rallying the Dryads into following orders from the Overmage, collecting magic with her Dryad Purifiers for the Great Plan.
The Eeyore: Amren in Broken World. Heck, every elf you can talk to in the expansion is morbidly depressed, except for Finala. Fittingly, she is the one who rebuilds Aman'lu from scratch after the war as shown in the epilogue slide.
Elemental Rock–Paper–Scissors: Shows up in this game, unlike the first.
Evil Chancellor:
- Sailing is one to Celeb'hel, as revealed in the Side Quest "A Servant's Haunt Part II." He was the one who killed Lord Levret and the latter's lover, then told his sister, Lady Levret, to blame it on her late husband's servant and have said servant executed. He was also the one who told Valdis that the Aegis of Death was kept in Aman'lu.
- Advisor Kynos in Act III. While the Player Character is occupied with retrieving the final Plot Coupon, he even kills Lord Kalrathia, the ruler. Thankfully, the Player Character is Genre Savvy enough to recognize said chancellor as a villain and kills him.
Evil Mentor: The Azunite Scholar, who is revealed to be a Dark Wizard, is this. He manipulates the player into assembling the parts of Azunai's shield at the hopes of making contact with Zaramoth's sword, causing a massive change across Aranna.
Evil Uncle: It is revealed that Valdis is Evangeline's uncle.
Extreme Omnivore: Pets can eat any magic item.
Face–Heel Turn: Celia in Broken World. Given how the Dryads lost their hometown and their place to the world, she and her fellow people have no choice but to ally themselves with the villain.
Faceless Goons: The Morden-Viir wear helmets that obscure the upper parts of their faces, showing only their jaws.
Final Boss Preview: At the end of the Justified Tutorial, Valdis walks into a group of Rustguards — high level Multi-Armed and Dangerous Living Statues you'll only run into at the tail end of Act II and III — and effortlessly decimates them with his Sword of Zaramoth. He utilizes the exact same attacks he uses in this cutscene during the first phase of the Final Boss fight.
Flunky Boss:
- The Vai'kesh Prophet in Act II, who has two phases to his fight, fights alongside a horde of other Vai'kesh.
- There's also the Knotted Shambler, which is fought immediately afterwards. There are six Leaf Generators that appear throughout the arena, one at a time, that summon leaf minions that'll replenish the Knotted Shambler's health if not killed in time.
- During his first two phases, Valdis summons a horde of Qatall Minions after reaching certain health thresholds.
Game-Breaking Bug:
- Pressing the Esc key to skip in-game cinematics can cause the scripting to break if done at the wrong time, particularly if the cinematic involves a character being attacked (like the Azunite Scholar in Act I) or moving from one point to another (like the Vai'kesh Prophet in Act II), leading to a softlock or a playthrough restart if you have the misfortune of saving afterwards.
- It's possible to softlock yourself during Act II's The Elen'lu Isles story quest. You're supposed to collect and place down a limited amount of crystals on refractors so they can focus diffused light on the Prism of the Elves in order to put out the magical flames in Aman'lu. It's possible to accidentally double click on a refractor as it's activating, consuming more than one crystal in the process, locking you out from progressing the story.
Gladiator Subquest: The Aman'lu Arena in both II and Broken World.
Herbivores Are Friendly: Until they get infected with the plague, or corrupted by the Vai'kesh.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Valdis, full stop. He can't seem to stop himself from doing stuff to piss you off starting by killing Drevin and not even paying you. In the immortal words of Nathan Ford, "Yeah, you should've just paid us!"
Humans Are the Real Monsters: Not actually in the game, thankfully, but the description for humans in the DS II manual reads like it could have been written by Johnathan Swift.
- In addition, the manual says that the Elves like being in control to the point of being Manipulative Bastards, but the Elves you meet in the game show no such egotism. You'd think the manual was for a different game entirely.
Insistent Terminology: From Broken World: It's "The Overmage of the Cinbri," not "Dark Wizard."
Insubstantial Ingredients: A quest in Broken World makes mention of these. Fortunately, they turn out to be metaphorical descriptions for quest drops.
Item Crafting: Broken World adds this as a secondary function to the enchantable equipment system. By combining specific reagents with the appropriate-level Enchantable item at an Item Enchanter, it's possible to craft Unique equipment that can't be obtained otherwise. Item recipes are Random Drops from monsters, but they aren't required to be able to craft them.
It's All Upstairs From Here: The aptly-named "Final Ascent" sub-area of The Very Definitely Final Dungeon of the base game, Zaramoth's Horns. You're cutting your way through legions of Valdis' strongest minions from the top of the Dark Archmage's arena all the way to Valdis' own personal temple, located at the tip-top of the mountain fortress.
It's Personal: The player character starts as a mercenary paid for Valdis at the hopes of satiate their love of adventure and glory. However, this wanderlust ends when Valdis kills their Best Friend Drevin and later nearly razed Aman'lu that killed the player character's parents drives them to destroy Valdis once and for all.
- In the expansion, the player character once again considers the Azunite Scholar, who is revealed to be a Dark Wizard as this. This is due of him manipulating the player into assembling the shield and comes contact once more with Zaramoth's sword, creating a cataclysmic event that nearly destroys various civilizations across Aranna. They spend much of the expansion hunting him while fixing the mistake that they unwittingly caused at Aranna.
Jerkass:
- Warden Celia, who has no qualms about using the Rings of Submission on her prisoners and takes considerable persuasion from Amren to even consider giving the player character a chance to prove their good nature. The events leading up to Broken World only serve to increase her cynical side.
- Finala the Elven machine expert also shows shades of this in her conversations with the player character. She is not entirely this without reason, however, given how the main character and Drevin worked with the Morden knowing that they were up to no good, so her hatred and mistrust towards them is justified. Thankfully, she does start to loosen up just before offering to join your party.
Joke Item: The Fluffy White Pillow, obtained in the Developer's Room after watching a Childish Pillow Fight happen for around 2 minutes until the Half-Giant hunted by Elves drops it. It's classified as a "club" by the game and deals 1 to 2 damage, lower than even the Cage Fragments obtained in Act I.
Killed Off for Real: Drevin.
Knight Templar: The Overmage considers the atrocities he's committing as good for Aranna, and he thinks his actions will redeem him in his races' eyes.
Large and in Charge: Contrasting with his normal-sized Dark Wizard henchmen, Valdis is an absurdly large Tin Tyrant who's nearly 3 times bigger than any of the playable characters, including the Half-Giants, despite supposedly being a (relatively) normal human.
Large Ham:
- Valdis doesn't so much as speak his lines, but rather angrily shouts them, particularly during the conversations taking place before the fights with him.
- The Overmage of the Cinbri in Broken World, bizarrely enough. He never acted like this as the Azunite Scholar in DS II, being at most a Cold Ham during the scene after the final boss.
The Leader: The Player Character is this to the assembled Badass Crew as acknowledged by Deru and Vix.
Lethal Joke Item: One of the Unique items exclusive to the Developer's Room is Sarah's Mug of Frothing Goodness, a filled mug of ale used as a throwing weapon. It deals 41 to 62 base damage and an extra 13 to 15 Fire damage on top of that, and when equipped, adds +90 max health, increases health regeneration by 20%, and reduces physical damage taken by 10%, while having the unique downside of reducing Intelligence by 12%.
Lightning Bruiser: The Ganth miniboss is bar none the fastest enemy in the entire game, and incredibly dangerous the first time you fight it. It has 12,500 health, resists Fire/Lightning/Death and has a weapon that gives it Life Drain. You need to employ Hit-and-Run Tactics in order to defeat it in a timely manner, as not running away from its telegraphed Area of Effect attack causes it to undo any progress you make.
Limit Break: Powers are introduced in this game, which are special moves that can be used once their charge is full, which can be both unlocked and upgraded by investing points in the appropriate skills on the skill tree for each class. They recharge passively, albeit extremely slowly, but dealing damage recharges Powers faster, with War Pedestals and Chants of Class Power recharging them instantly (the latter doing so repeatedly for the duration of the Chant). They avoid being Too Awesome to Use due to how often they recharge.
Lone Wolf Boss: The Vai'kesh Prophet and the Knotted Shambler have no connection to Valdis' forces. The Vai'kesh simply happen to steal one of the Plot Coupons.
Marathon Boss: While all bosses can qualify due to how much health they all possess on average, the first phase of the fight against Talon in Act II sticks out among the rest due to a mixture of Unexpected Gameplay Change and being a Flunky Boss: You can't damage Talon directly, but rather have to slowly aim a giant ballista left or right to shoot the dragon whenever it perches on the castle's walls, with each shot dealing set damage, eight separate times. After a couple of hits, the Morden begin catapulting Durvlas towards you, so you now have to deal with them whenever you aren't repositioning the giant ballista. This makes the fight play out more like a boss you'd find in a Platform Game than what the rest of the game offers.
Meaningful Name: Just like the Morden, Valdis's name also has a hidden meaning. It is derived from "valde," the Latin word for "great."
Metal Slime: Bone Minions fulfill a similar role to Mimics, being rare, nasty enemies encountered throughout the course of the game who ambush you, attack with powerful magic, and award you with high rarity drops when killed. Aside from their appearance, their main differences are that they resist Lightning and Death Magic, they cast different spells (Embers, Grave Beam, and Multispark), and they also cast Cripple to temporarily reduce your max health and attack speed.
Monster Compendium: In the base game, you first have to kill five monsters of a specific type to gain information on it, unless its an Elite Mook or a boss. In Broken World, on the other hand, you only have to kill a monster once to get the info.
Mood Whiplash: The side quest "Sartan's Suspicion." When Sartan finds out the leader of the underground resistance movement is the same officer who imprisoned him back in Windstone Fortress, he kills the officer in a moment of vengeful anger. When the other soldiers call him out on it, Sartan realizes it and you set off to rescue some imprisoned soldiers so he can set things right again. However, even though the rescue mission goes successfully, the other soldiers only sort of forgive Sartan, and tell him he'll just have to live with his guilt. Uh...yay?
Multiple Head Case: The first Boss Battle takes place against the Giant Trilisk, a normal snake that was mutated into a three-headed monstrosity through Demonic Possession by dozens, if not hundreds of Shard Souls.
My Name Is ???: ??? is a small hunchback humanoid thief that can randomly spawn whenever a Rare-quality or higher item drops. When it appears, it'll immediately start collecting items from the ground, and if you don't attack it to make it drop them, those items are gone forever. ??? also happens to be a level 100 enemy that drops additional Rare items if you keep hitting it, though that is made complicated thanks to the fact that it has a metric ton of health, is constantly running away at high speeds whenever you hit it, and despawns after a short period of time. If you're strong enough to be able to deplete its health, however, it'll award you with a key item that's vital to completing the main game's Mysterious Mystery secondary quest.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much:
- An early sidequest revolves around a Haku tribe that doesn't want to murder and devour everyone else.
- In Act III, during your trek through the Dungeon Town of Darthrul, a secondary quest will have you come across two Morden Riders and a Klask who are tired of the barbaric ways of the rest of the Morden after being exiled from their home as punishment for arriving late to the siege of Snowbrook Haven due to their leader's faulty map causing them to take two weeks to reach their destination. The Player Character even comments on how uncharacteristically civilized they're acting for their race. They ask for retrieving supplies from lockers spread throughout the districts so they can travel without issue, eventually settling on taking a vacation on Ehb, the setting from the first game.
Necromancer: This game introduces Death Magic as part of the Elemental Rock–Paper–Scissors, with the returning Leech Life spell falling into this element.
Nerf:
- Zig-Zagged with potions. On one hand, unlike in the first game, you no longer stop dead in your tracks when consuming them, allowing you to drink them in the middle of combat without any downtime. On the other hand, not only do potions no longer restore health or mana instantly upon consumption (being more akin to very rapid regeneration instead), most potion sizes have also had their total capacity reduced, in addition to the game introducing enemies that have potion consumption as a Berserk Button.
- Also Zig-Zagged with crossbows. They are no longer as strong as they were in the first game, being way slower than bows but dealing significantly more damage per shot. Their DPS may make them less practical, but their higher base damage makes them perfect for unleashing devastating Powers.
- Broken World nerfed both the effectiveness of armor in damage reduction compared to the vanilla game and introduced harsher Diminishing Returns for Balance for every pre-existing skill in the skill tree.
Noodle Incident: In Broken World, Celeb'hel wants to cast a spell that will allow him to impose his will on the world. He says that this particular spell was cast twice before in the history of Aranna, but the Ancestor of the Azunites says that neither casting had the intended effect; we aren't told what exactly happened.
Not Quite Dead: Talon proves to have survived the final ballista bolt hit, becoming the last opponent during the escape from Snowbrook Haven after the Player Character has retrieved the Aegis of Blindness.
Not So Above It All: When the Azunite Scholar turns out to be the Overmage of the Cinbri, he chides Valdis for thinking he's Zaramoth Reborn. Later, when you fight and kill the Overmage in Broken World, he shouts "NOOOO! But this is impossible! I am Zaramoth!"
Obviously Evil: Advisor Kynos is not exactly subtle about where his loyalties are since he practically says "Submit to the Morden" with every other sentence. Unfortunately, the Player Character cannot do anything about him until after he kills Lord Kalrathia while the Player Character retrieves the final Plot Coupon from the Mines of Kaderak.
Old Save Bonus: Broken World adds the F&K Society, which is a special store located at the Dryad Outpost that trades in Agallan Relics for otherwise-unobtainable Unique items or item sets. Connecting this game with Throne of Agony allows trading items unlocked in Broken World with that version of the F&K Society, and vice-versa.
One-Winged Angel: Unlike Valdis from the base game, who merely Turns Red as the battle goes on, the Overmage of the Cinbri transforms into Zaramoth Reborn for the second phase of his fight, becoming a giant, Multi-Armed and Dangerous humanoid with four spider-like legs who utilizes many of the same Powers the player can get access to, like Glacial Aura and Waves of Force.
Only Known by Their Nickname: Since the Player Character is named by the player, they are always referred to as "the mercenary" in voiced dialogue.
Our Founder: A statue of Zaramoth the Unmaker can be found within Zaramoth's Horns.
The Plague: A plague that's spread by bites is ravaging the Dryads' island. It's actually Demonic Possession.
Purposefully Overpowered: The items obtained in the Developer's Room, at least on Mercenary Difficulty (since they don't scale up with better items on higher difficulties), when they don't fall into Lethal Joke Item territory, particularly the Spirit of Bolivar and Gremal Gun; the former not only is a fast attacking sword with +15 max damage, but also gives the wielder +18% resistance to all elements, while the latter, despite not giving any stat increases, is a ranged weapon with a 0.5 second attack speed and 1 extra meter of range, both highest of any weapon in the entire game. Get Shade's Agility and a crapton of Dexterity increasing equipment, and you got yourself a weapon that can melt through enemies solo. To obtain them, you need to know Colombian trivia to answer a quiz and play a text adventure game, respectively.
Red Oni, Blue Oni:
- Taar and Deru are two dryads in II who can join your party. Taar's a softspoken, kindhearted Nature Mage, and Deru's a Hot-Blooded, abrasive archer.
- Taar and Finala, being the default mages of the party. Befitting to her calm and gentle temperament, Taar is a Nature Mage, and the temperamental and no-nonsense Finala is a Combat Mage. Finala and the mysterical, cautious, and wandering archer Amren can also form this trope as well, given how they both hail from Aman'lu, the hometown of the Player Character.
- Likewise with the warrior half-giants of the party: Lothar is calm, soft-spoken, and humble, while Sartan is eager, boisterous, and always think highly of himself.
Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: The Rogue Mage Celeb'hel you kill in Broken World wasn't actually the real one, but rather one of three Simulacrum created by the real Celeb'hel to obtain knowledge from the Overmage, Vai'kesh, and the Calennor Stronghold at the same time. He's still alive and well, just in hiding, and requests you to retrieve the Soulstones of his clones so he can obtain their knowledge.
Shell-Shocked Veteran: Throughout the course of both campaigns, Vix becomes this. Not only did he suffer the horrors of war, he had his personal squad infected and killed by the Plague before his very eyes, and witnessed both the fortress he was a warrior for and La Résistance befall the same fate as his comrades, turning him into one extremely paranoid if Hot-Blooded warrior. Broken World has him witness the effects the Second Cataclysm had on the world and the Bound creatures spawned from it, snuffing whatever sanity the man had left. Most of his dialogue in the latter involves him being a Nervous Wreck who says the party are all gonna die a horrific death, and right before entering the City of the Cinbri in Part 3, he has a vivid war flashback. His portion of the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue even has the narrator explain that he never recovered from his mental scars, being last seen charging into a pack of Klasks while shouting Xeria's name before disappearing.
Shoot the Medic First: The battle against the Giant Trilisk requires its middle head to be slain first since said head will keep healing the other two and undo the player's progress in the battle, but it thankfully cannot heal itself.
Shop Fodder: The Gold Chalice found in an underground shelter in Act III, despite having its own unique model and inventory icon, serves zero purpose besides being sold for a paltry sum of 1000 gold.
Storming the Castle: Happens at the end of each act:
- In Act I, you storm the Plague-infested Windstone Fortress, which is home to the Temple of Xeria at the heart of the fortress.
- In Act II, you infiltrate the Morden-occupied Snowbrook Haven in the middle of The War Sequence.
- In Act III, the very last dungeon is Zaramoth's Horns, a mountain-sized fortress which is home to Valdis' base of operations, with his own personal temple located at the very top.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The Morden follow the same template as the Krug from the first game, being both Always Chaotic Evil races that are the muscle to the real Big Bad, both serving as recurring enemies all the way from the early game, having different ranks that denote higher power, and both being accompanied with their own canine type beast (the Nawl Beast and the Krug Dog respectively).
Teleport Spam: A handful of enemies and a couple of bosses can teleport at will, with varying frequency, either to close in the gap between you or to get away from you. Some examples include the stronger variants of Hak'u and the Dark Wizards.
The Friend Nobody Likes: Deru has the most vitriolic conversations with other party members, particularly with Lothar and Finala, who both have zero tolerance for stupid questions and her "treasure hunting and adventure before everything else" attitude. Thanks to her growing out of that attitude since the events of the main campaign, Sartan is the one who takes on this role in Broken World, although it's because of the fact that he's The Pollyanna instead.
The Pollyanna: Sartan is this in Broken World, which is even noted in his portion of the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, where the narrator explains that he's helping the Dryads in the Outpost cope with their losses. He provides the more humorous dialogue this time around as well, although party members note how his joking is a bit ill-timed and in poor taste.
The War Sequence: The siege of Snowbrook Haven, which is a fight between the Morden and the Humans of the Northern Reaches. The Morden are succeeding in the siege, until you come in and thwart their plans. And then out of nowhere, a singular Crystal Shard is jolted into the middle of the remainder of Snowbrook Haven's forces atop the castle, leaving your efforts to saving them null, much like the people of Windstone Fortress beforehand.
Third-Person Person:
- The Hak'u talk like this, combined with Buffy Speak, such as referring to Dryads as "tree ladies."
- Inexplicably, out of all Half-Giants, Sartan is the only one who talks like this.
Token Evil Teammate: The Blood Assassin Ressa, in the form of a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
Torso with a View: This is how Valdis dies at the end of the base game, with a giant Eye of Zaramoth burning a hole through his abdomen.
Treetop Town: Eirulan, home city of the Dryads.
Trick Boss: The Vai'kesh Prophet is built up as the main boss of the first half of Act II. After spending all of Chapter 5 chasing him around the Vai'kesh Forest, you eventually corner and fight him. Despite being a Flunky Boss who's fought in two phases (one where he's riding a mount and one where he's on foot), his fight is far too lowkey in terms of spectacle compared to what the game established with the Giant Trilisk fought at the end of Act I. The real boss of the chapter, the Knotted Shambler, is located in the cave eastern to where you fought the Vai'kesh Prophet.
True Companions: As limited as the interactions between them may be due to the way the recruitment system works, your party throughout both campaigns will eventually display good camaraderie towards one another despite their differences. This is also shown in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, with one example being Taar and Deru helping Evangeline rebuild her kingdom.
Victory Fake Out: After the Marathon Boss fight against Talon and having to Mercy Kill the plagued La Résistance after getting infected by an out-of-nowhere Crystal Shard, the Aegis of Blindness is collected. However, before being able to go through the teleporter that leads you to the start of Act III, Talon turns out to be Not Quite Dead, leading to a surprise second phase of the fight against the now bloodied and scarred dragon to finish off Act II, who puts up much more of a fight than it did when it was in peak condition.
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: In Broken World, even though a lot of peoples' friends and loved ones have been turned into murderous Bound creatures and insane Rogue Magi, said people still get mad at you for killing the Bound creatures. As a matter of fact, only the first questgiver in the game and the elf in Aman'lu who's responsible for rebuilding the city sees the wisdom of what you needed to do.
What the Hell, Hero?: Much of the first few parts of Act I are spent having characters chew you out for being Valdis' stooge. Oddly enough, once you get back to your hometown, the only one who antagonizes you over it is the resident Jerkass (though not without a reason).
When Trees Attack:
- A few regular enemies in the first two acts are living trees, such as the Bracken, Forest Golems, and Mystic Protectors.
- The Knotted Shambler is a boss fought halfway through Act II. It's a giant tree abomination that fights alongside leaf minions spawned from Leaf Generators. If the leaf minions aren't killed in time, they'll regenerate the Knotted Shambler's health.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The Rogue Magi in Broken World. When the Overmage bestows an already-powerful mage with the ability to harness and control now-purified magic, the overwhelming influx of magic they're now in control of fries their brain and turns them into mindless yet unpredictable creatures, who have nothing else to live for except absorbing magic.
Wolfpack Boss: Before you're allowed to retrieve the final piece of the Shield of Azunai, you're forced to fight three Dark Wizards at once at the top of the Mines of Kaderak.
World-Wrecking Wave: A thousand years before, when the Sword of Zaramoth shattered the Shield of Azunai, it caused one of these, burning the entire southern half of Aranna into a vast desert that became known as "The Plain of Tears" and ended the First Age. This same clash occurs again at the end of the base game's campaign, only this time the sword is the one that shatters instead of the shield.
You Are Too Late:
- The Player Character comes too late to stop Valdis from laying waste to Windstone Fortress and Aman'lu.
- This trope also applies to Valdis himself when he is told that Princess Evangeline has taken the Aegis of Death with her days before his arrival in Aman'lu.
Zero-Effort Boss: The Act II secondary quest "Mythrilhorn" has you looking for Khartos the Wise in order to summon and capture a mythrilhorn as a pet. During Act III, he can be found drinking himself to death in the tavern in Kalrathia, now calling himself "Khartos the Strong". Drunk off his ass, he challenges the Player Character into a duel, proving it to be an Ironic Name as he can be defeated in less than a second.

Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony

Adaptational Villainy: A few of the Pets from the second game return as enemies you must fight.
Advanced Ancient Acropolis: The Agallans were far more technologically advanced than previously shown. Creating Living Statues, incantation shrines and water-powered mechanical bridges aren't their only feats. Not only are there just straight up Killer Robots in areas related to Agalla, there's also the Megalith, a giant machine that powered the Floating Continent of Agalla that gets visited near the end of the game.
Blessed with Suck: Malith took reins of the throne of the Agallans after the Betrayal, the coup of the King of the Agallans, but was forever cursed by his last words to be bound to it for all of eternity, even after Agalla sunk to the bottom of the sea for millenia.
Big Creepy-Crawlies: Scorpions of abnormal size, giant low-poly spiders, and Scorpitaurs.
Bittersweet Ending: Malith is vanquished, and the Vagar are restored back to their former selves as a result. Unfortunately, someone has to take the reins of the Throne of Agony now that Malith is gone, and that someone is the protagonist. Unless they choose to attack it, destroying it once and for all, but denying any power they could've gotten taking it.
Cloudcuckoolander: Fedwyrr and Klars, two explorers who share a name with the legendary cartographers mentioned in the first game's "Fedwyrr's Way" trilogy of books, and the namesake of the F&K Society, serve as NPCs in the First Town of Seahaven Village. They have the most humorous dialogue in the entire game, seemingly bickering like an old married couple at times, and are often Literal-Minded about things. Below is the part of dialogue that's shared between all three Player Characters, from their introductory conversation, serving as a prime Establishing Character Moment:
Player Character: Are you Fedwyrr and Klars?
Klars: No, I'm only Klars.
Player Character: I was speaking to both of you.
Fedwyrr: I'm Fedwyrr.
Player Character: Now that we've established that...
Klars: Oh yes, let's celebrate our victory!
Fedwyrr: By all means, we must rejoice!
Player Character: Please, time is of the essence.
Klars: The essence of time? Hmm, what could that be?
Fedwyrr: Oh, I know! The essence of time is loss.
Klars: Very clever Fedwyrr, but not correct.
Fedwyrr: How can you know such a thing? You cannot know for certain what the essence of time is or is not.
Player Character: The essence of time is—
Fedwyrr: Stop! Don't tell us! That would take all of the mystery out of it.
Player Character: Very well, let's change the subject then.
Klars: By all means, this one bores me.
Fedwyrr: Klars don't pretend you know the meaning of time. We will revisit this discussion at another time.
Klars: Of course we will, Fedwyrr. Of course we will.
Composite Character: The Vagar are essentially the Hak'u by way of the Morden, while bearing resemblance to the Vai'kesh: They're a race of tribal humanoids inhabiting the Searing Wastes of the Fallen Empire, although they hail from the desert of Eshadune. They used to serve and worship the Agallans, referring to them as "True Gods," but turned to Malith once they abandoned them after the Utgards arrived at their ancestral home. They were peaceful, before being driven mad by her increasing influence since the Second Cataclysm, leading to them suddenly becoming organized instead of segregated into remote tribes. Much like the Morden, who laid siege to Snowbrook Haven, the Vagar went to war with the Citadel of Drahn in the Searing Wastes, utilizing crude catapults with Armored Bugs (Durvlas in all but name) and bulky humanoid beasts akin to the Klasks as their muscle, leaving only a dozen Legionnaires alive inside of a tiny hall.
Cosmic Deadline: Act III, "The Red Queen," is literally comprised of a single dungeon, coming hot off the heels of the (proportionately) excrutiatingly long first two Acts. The dungeon itself features four boss fights and is divided into four separate areas, Malith gets a total of three spoken lines and no development past the Exposition Dump that Elandir gave you not too long ago, and you unceremoniously get a prompt of whether you want to activate Legendary Mode or not, and then the option to watch the ending or not after you defeat the Final Boss.
Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Dying doesn't result in you having to reload a previous save point or losing your gold, instead all that happens is that you lose any Status Buffs you had and have to restart the current level from the entrance you came from.
Disc-One Final Dungeon: This game's got two of them in Act I:
- The first of them is the Black Tree, a pivotal location to the Main Characters' initial motivations. It's home to the Black Druid, the first major boss of the game. Although the first Act doesn't end afterwards, the story does take a massive shift past it.
- The actual dungeon that closes off Act I is the Fortress of Doom, where you fight Dreadlord Bloodshadow in order to halt the Vagari Horde from advancing to the east portion of the Broken Lands. Once you defeat him, you'll enter the Searing Wastes, and thus begin Act II proper.
Fetch Quest: What most of the game's quests devolve into, usually being of the 20 Bear Asses variety. The Agallan Trials in particular being the most egregious example, as they have you thrudge through three different dungeons to collect Plot Coupons, with the fourth one being purchased from Neeloc, a Goblin merchant located on a separate islet from Bloodmist Isle.
Floating Continent: What Agalla ultimately is revealed to be. It was the capital city of the Agallans, and was sunken into the bottom of the ocean after the First Cataclysm one millenia ago, but is brought back up into the skies as The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
Gaiden Game: The game's events take place between the end of II and the start of Broken World, in a separate region of Aranna known as the Broken Lands, an archipelago.
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Outside of the Black Druid and Malith herself, the existence of bosses are either only alluded to very briefly in quest objectives or names as working for the Big Bad or are Plot Irrelevant Villains, with no in-between.
Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: The levels themselves aren't very long to begin with, but they provide a higher challenge than the handful of actual bosses the game has, what with the claustrophobic level design that funnels you into facing hordes of enemies in a confined space. That, and unlike every other game in the franchise, there's no Health/Damage Asymmetry at play, meaning the big Boss Battles aren't that much tougher than standard Elite Mooks.
Immediate Sequel: Or rather, Immediate Interquel, due to being a spin-off instead of a mainline title. The game follows almost immediately after the ending of II, showing the initial effects and consequences the World-Wrecking Wave has had elsewhere in the world, and expanding on what the agonized souls that were alluded to really are.
Late-Arrival Spoiler: The game's intro FMV is lifted straight from the ending of II's base campaign, which revealed that the final fight against Valdis resulted in the Second Cataclysm.
Lost Technology: The Agallans left behind several pieces of advanced machinery after their downfall, such as Killer Robots and the Megalith, a huge mechanical structure that was used to keep Agalla itself floating in the sky.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: There are two friendly Vagar that you meet throughout the story:
- The first one you meet is Fader Gaul, who's the primary quest-giver in the second half of Act I. He's a four-armed Vagar, and was banished for worshipping the Agallans, who he calls the "True Gods," instead of Malith. He notes how, despite looking very similar to the Black Druid, he's actually quite friendly to outsiders, and wants to learn more about the past of his people.
- One of the quests in Act II has you receive help from Ilisav, one of the few Vagar who haven't been affected by Malith's influence, and as such he helps you give intel on important figures of the Vagari Horde to slay in order to drive back their forces.
Mook Promotion: Aside from the Black Druid and Malith, all of the bosses reuse the exact model and scale as some Elite Mooks, like Dreadlord Bloodshadow, and even fight the same way, with only their stats being slightly higher.
New Work, Recycled Graphics: 80% of the enemy designs, weapons and armor are taken straight from the first two games, albeit with different names; some particulary bad examples include the Taclak being recycled as mere "Albino" and the Morden-Urg as the "Gorash," which are also the namesake of Gorashland, the northern plains of the Searing Wastes. The Vagar and Malith herself are some of the few new designs made for the game.
NPC Roadblock: Barin Stonesplitter, a half-giant who later becomes a quest giver himself, blocks the way to the second half of the starting region of the Broken Lands, and won't allow you to progress until you've completed all of the primary quests in Seahaven Village first.
Old Save Bonus: Throne of Agony has the F&K Society in the First Town of Seahaven Village. Klars, one of its two namesakes, is the one who accepts Agallan Relics in exchange for otherwise-unobtainable Unique items or item sets. Connecting this game with Broken World allows trading items unlocked in Throne of Agony with that version of the F&K Society, and vice-versa.
Orcus on His Throne: Malith spends the entire game sitting on the throne inside the Chamber of Agony, orchestrating her return by using her increased influence upon the Vagar who worship her to collect magic for her, much like Zaramoth before her. Justified in that she's been stuck there for the last thousand years thanks to the curse that was placed upon her, meaning she can't physically leave in her current state.
Out of Focus: The main protagonists. Past the first half of the game, their personal motivations for going on their quest are cast aside as the story shifts into a history lesson on the Agallans and how Malith was the catalyst behind the Betrayal.
Peninsula of Power Leveling: Thanks to the lack of Anti-Grinding, you'll gain experience normally whether you're under or overleveled compared to an enemy.
- As soon as you enter Eshadune in Act I, you can head to the Ancient Monument dungeon, which has level 29 Scorpitaurs, which can be taken care of with relative ease from long range with either magic or ranged weapons. They give out a ton of experience, even while fighting them at the intended level, which means killing 5 of them will net you a level up more often than not.
- As soon as you get access to the boat in Act II, instead of sailing to Bloodmist Isle, you can immediately head back to the eastern rocky shores of the Broken Lands for two optional dungeons: The Depths of Despair and the Forbidden Shrine, both of which house the highest level enemies in the entire game, higher level than even the Final Boss.
- Located at The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, for whatever reason, all three of the Living Statue bosses (Elegy, Regret, and Mourn) respawn infinitely. They're all guarding doors that load separate sub-areas, meaning that once you beat them once, you can just open the door behind them and return to respawn them without having to wait for their internal respawn timer to expire. They drop guaranteed Unique items, which are not only statistically the best in the game, they also sell for the highest amount of money.
Previous Player-Character Cameo: Taar and Eva from II appear as recruitable party members.
Prolonged Prologue: Act I is much longer than it has any right to be. Thought that dealing with the Black Tree would lead you to Act II? Wrong. Here's the second quarter of the world map, complete with a dozen dungeons to explore and quests to finish before you can finally reach the actual dungeon that closes off Act I.
Recycled Soundtrack: Most of the music is taken from the first two games wholesale.
Rocket-Tag Gameplay: What the gameplay eventually turns into, once your level ups start snowballing from Act II onwards. You may be able to dispatch Mooks in the blink of an eye, but the enemies can also do the same if you overextend yourself.
Starter Villain: The Black Druid, also known as The Defiler, is setup as the game's Big Bad for the first half of Act I. However, he's just a Vagar cultist who corrupted the Sunken Forest and runs the Cult of the Beast from within the Black Tree, and is of little importance past that point.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Because of the game employing New Work, Recycled Graphics, many of the returning monsters from the first two games return with different names, like the Va'arth as "Fur Beasts" and the Morden-Urg as the "Gorash."
Title Theme Drop: The Dungeon Siege main theme has been upgraded to title screen music this time around, meaning that this is in effect when it plays after the Player Character reaches the north region of the Broken Lands known as Eshadune, where they are tasked with figuring out the Vagar's history. The remix used for DS I's final fight and the Justified Tutorial in II also reappears in the Chamber of Agony, the final room before the Final Boss fight with Malith.
Third-Person Person: Scuttles and Neeloc, both Goblins, refer to themselves by their own name.
Underground Monkey: To an almost ridiculous extent. There are about two dozen unique enemy models, and all of them are recolored or outfitted with new armor at least 5 times throughout the course of the game.
The War Sequence: The beginning of Act II has you enter the Bloodstained Battlefield, where the Vagar are waging war against the citadel of Drahn and winning by a landslide thanks to their catapults and Armored Bugs as living ammo.
Wolfpack Boss:
- The Necromancers in the Windstone Abbey are a quartet of minibosses fought at the end of the Defiled Sanctuary portion of the dungeon, located all at the center of the very last room. Their long range spells are quite nasty for how early in the game you fight these minibosses at, especially because of their Hitbox Dissonance making dodging them harder than it looks.
- One of the last obstacles before entering the Chamber of Agony in the Ruins of Agalla is a fight against four Chosen of Malith, Multi-Armed and Dangerous Vagar that specialize in Death Magic, followed by a fight against Mourn.

Dungeon Siege III

Absurdly Low Level Cap: At least when compared to the rest of the series. The max level you can reach is 30 in the base game, and 35 with the Treasures of the Sun DLC installed.
Anti-Villain: Jeyne is more delusional than evil.
Bag of Sharing: Dungeon Siege III allows any character to access the shared inventory at any time. Also, to a certain degree, the storage chests in II, which can all access the same inventory regardless of which town you are in.
Becoming the Mask: Jeyne Kassynder falls under this as she initially calls herself "The Living Saint of Azunai" in order to gain support from the church in her crusade against the 10th Legion. She secretly still worships the Archon's Creator Gods but eventually begins to believe her own propaganda thus beginning her leap over the edge.
Brother–Sister Team: Lucas and Katarina.
Came Back Wrong: This is what happens when one tries to resurrect a creator god with the intention of using it to destroy.
Canon Name: In III, we learn a bit about the canonical Player Character of DS I — no first name, she's referred to as either "the farmer" or "Lady Montbarron." She's also the ancestor of Lucas and Katarina.
Can't Kill You, Still Need You: When it's revealed that the Dapper Old Gent, a terrorist who's the Arc Villain of the Stonebridge storyline is actually a former Legion mage you are given the choice of having him join the Legion at the cost of betraying the Reasonable Authority Figure who's been helping you take him down.
Combat Resuscitation: If one of the characters is downed, the other needs to reach the body and hold down the interact key for a few seconds, but getting hit can disrupt the revive process. The AI player doesn't seem to understand how to shake off attackers, and thus would likely die with the player.
Continuity Nod: The third game is full of them.
- You can plunder the crypt of the heroes of the first game.
- When trying to guess a password for a magickal door, your character will come up with several references to enemies from the first game.
Corrupt Church: According to all the stories Azunai was a pretty swell guy, his Church is a whole other matter. The Azunite Church appears to want complete and unquestioned domination of Ehb. So it appears that they stoked Jeyne's ego a bit and let her believe her own propaganda and even gave her an army. They have her declared Apostate and try to have her killed when she decides to give up her attempt to rule Ehb and help rebuild the Legion for all the evil she did.
Deadpan Snarker: Lucas is not afraid to let loose with this whenever he's the active sidekick during conversations.
Elemental Punch: Reinhart's standard attack in his Dynamic stance is a lightning-punch powered by his magic gauntlet. Anjali's last move on her string of standard attacks while in her Human stance is a fire-punch.
Escort Mission: III has a fun one: You have to keep four unkillable (but not undefeatable) sentinels occupied so they don't kill Phineas. The sentinels prioritize you, it's a more or less stationary fight and it's not long, so it doesn't outstay its welcome.
Evil Uncle: It's revealed that Jeyne is Queen Rosalyn's aunt.
Face–Heel Turn: The Dapper Old Gent.
Formulaic Magic: Reinhart's specialty is being good enough at math to kill people.
Full-Contact Magic: Reinhart uses a Power Fist and is able to channel entropic magic.
Genre Savvy: If Reinhart isn't the chosen player character, he states that he didn't come to the gathering in the beginning because he could tell that it was an obvious trap. He then apologizes for accidentally insulting you.
Gonk: One of the quests in the third game involves dealing with a particularly ugly human who everyone thinks is a Krug and is the victim of misaimed Fantastic Racism because of it. Because of this he's chosen to hide in a jailcell to avoid dealing with people.
The Gunslinger: Katarina dual-wields a Handcannon and a shotgun in close quarters and uses a rifle for range.
Heel Realization: You can cause this for Jeyne by pointing out that Hugh Montbarron didn't come to the Mournweald to ambush her but for a place to hide. This, more than anything, makes Jeyne realize that her entire quest for revenge was pointless and she essentially killed her own Creator Gods with her own selfish pride.
Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Several characters/NPCs in III, most prominently Lucas. Interestingly averted with Anjali, although only the late-game helmets are actually displayed, otherwise she just has helmet hair.
Heroic Bastard: Katarina
Hot Witch: Leona and Katarina.
In Name Only: III has many controversial departures from the previous titles' gameplay.
Jeanne d'Archétype: Jeyne Kassynder is a villainous example.
Judgment of Solomon: You can do this to settle a land dispute for a quest.
Kill the God: You fight a corrupted creator god as the Final Boss.
Knight Templar: Jeyne Kassynder.
Man Behind the Man: The Azunite Church appears to want to put Jeyne Kassynder on the throne so that they can be this to her.
Mecha-Mooks: Stonebridge has an army of these. They tend to be very sarcastic.
Mercy Rewarded: Spare Rajani, and she'll eventually realize how crazy Jeyne is and help you defeat her.
More Dakka: Katarina's final ability with her rifle.
My God, What Have I Done?: You can inflict one of these on Jeyne Kassynder after you defeat the corrupted Creator God by asking her why the Mournweald allowed Hugh Montbarron and his Legionnaires in. You then proceed to point out that they were only looking for shelter and the Creator Gods granted their request. Jeyne realizes she essentially betrayed her own Gods in her blind quest for revenge when she used the Seed of Creation to kill Hugh Montbarron. She subsequently realizes that her entire quest was pointless and she essentially killed her Gods over a petty grudge.
- You can also tell her that the gods allowed Montbarron's army in as a test of faith for Jeyne, to see if she would put her mortal desire for revenge above her commitment to her gods.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Anjali, the playable archon. Nearly every other archon swore allegiance to Jeyne, Anjali was raised seperately and joins the legion, which pits her frequently against her sisters.
Mysterious Waif: The Radiant Youth. It is implied that he may be Azunai.
One-Winged Angel: Rajani and Jeyne reveal their true forms when they are faced with enough pressure.
The Paragon: Dungeon Siege III's heroes, depending of your play style. Play your cards right and at the end, every faction they met will follow them. Hell, you can even convince a bloodthirsty genocidal borderline psychopath to tone down her hatred for your faction, repent for her crimes, and make her work for you.
The Purge: In DS III, the 10th Legion and their descendants are hunted down due to their role in a palace coup 30 years ago.
Razor Wind: Lucas' Wind Shear ability will unleash a wave of air towards his foes.
Relationship Values: Your companions each have their own Influence stat that can increase depending on your dialogue choices, and getting their influence high enough will grant you stat bonuses. Interestingly, while they can and will call you out if they disagree with your choices, you can't actually lose Influence. Each companion has their own general leanings for Influence.
- Lucas is a Knight in Shining Armor who believes in fighting for justice and obeying the letter of the law.
- Anjali is a Pragmatic Hero who favors swift, brutal justice for anyone who opposes the Legion and really wants Jeyne and her minions dead for what they did to her people.
- Katarina is a Loveable Rogue who approves of cunning, sly choices that ensure big rewards.
- Reinhart is a Nice Guy and Deadpan Snarker who approves of being a smartass and choices that help improve the power and publicity of the Legion.
Reincarnation:
- Near the end of the story, it turns out that Anjali is the reincarnation of an old friend of Rajani, who died when the archons first came to Ehb. The Radiant Youth speculates that it may have been a plan on the part of the Creator Gods.
- Jeyne tries to pull something similar. It isn't pretty.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Jeyne's massacre of the entire 10th Legion is basically revenge for the murder of her father, the King.
- Also, The Dapper Old Gent is a former Legion mage who's been waging an underground guerrilla war on Stonebridge.
Save the Villain: This is deconstructed. While sparing Jeyne gives the Legion a much needed PR boost, Jeyne herself either is imprisoned in a pitch black prison cell forever, lets herself be assassinated, gets exiled from the entire dimension forever, or is declared apostate by the Azunite Church.
- You can also do this to The Dapper Old Gent, on the basis that as a Legion mage he'd be useful to have on your side.
Sexy Backless Outfit: Anjali in Archon form, particularly in the artwork for III. Subverted in that it's not really a backless outfit, but her actual skin when in that form.
Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: III can be pretty idealistic... if you want it to be.
Stance System: All four characters have two different stances they can switch between, each with their spells and different attack styles.
Static Role, Exchangeable Character: The characters you don't choose show up later in the story to join up with you as companion characters with some reason as to why they weren't at the gathering in the beginning.
The Stoic: Anjali, except for the occasional Black Comedy quip.
Teleport Spam: Playing on Hardcore as Anjali or Reinhart.
Undying Loyalty: Odo, Jeyne and the Gent in III. Archons in general are also pretty devoted to their dead gods.
Verbal Tic: Katarina tends to end her sentences with "yes?/no?"
Violation of Common Sense/Gameplay and Story Segregation: In the third game, at one point you have to enter an area filled with volatile gases, which can be set off by the slightest spark, even if you're Anjali, who has no attacks which do not involve fire.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: All Jeyne wanted was justice for her father's murder.
What the Hell, Hero?: Your current companion will call you out whenever you make decisions they disagree with. Most notably, agreeing to Roslyn's proposal to capture Jeyne alive instead of just killing her will earn you an earful from both Lucas (whose lost his entire family except for his half-sister to Jeyne) and Anjali (who is obsessed with getting revenge on Jeyne for her crimes).
White-and-Grey Morality: Everyone has their reasons for doing what they do/did.

Dungeon Siege
(aka: Dungeon Siege II)

Following

Dungeon Siege I

Dungeon Siege II

Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony

Dungeon Siege III

This series provides examples of:

Alternative Title(s): Dungeon Siege III, Dungeon Siege II

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Video Game / Dungeon Siege (aka: Dungeon Siege II) Following

Dungeon Siege I

Dungeon Siege II

Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony

Dungeon Siege III

This series provides examples of:

Alternative Title(s): Dungeon Siege III, Dungeon Siege II

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Index

Next

Dungeon Siege
(aka: Dungeon Siege II)

Following