Video Game / Songs of Conquest

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Songs of Conquest is a Turn-Based Strategy fantasy video game developed by Lavapotion and published by Coffee Stain Publishing.

In it, each player takes control of Wielders- people capable of powerful feats of magic- and directs them to explore the map, develop settlements, and build up armies with which to destroy rival factions. The game has competitive multiplayer and a skirmish mode with bots, as well as a single-player campaign for each faction. The game has four playable factions in the base game and more added as DLC.

• Arleon: A balanced/beginner faction consisting of valiant knights allied with The Fair Folk.
• Barony of Loth: A cult dedicated to restoring an ancient empire through necromancy.
• Barya: An "Arabian Nights" Days faction of gunpowder-armed mercenaries allied with the orc-like Harima.
• Rana: A marsh-dwelling coalition of Frog Men, Lizard Folk and predatory swamp creatures.
• Vanir: Viking warriors who shapeshift into creatures of Scandinavian folklore. (Added December 17, 2024)
• Roots: A living forest that takes over the bodies of slain foes to grow its ranks. (Added June 17, 2025)
• Yulan: A Wutai faction of several warring houses, each tied to a different Essence. (Added June 4, 2026)

The game was released into Early Access on May 10th, 2022 on Steam, GOG.com, and the Epic Games Store. It left Early Access and was officially released on May 20th, 2024.

Songs of Conquest contains examples of the following tropes:

• Abusive Precursors: The former subjects of the Aurelian Empire regard Empress Aurelia's reign as a Golden Age. Everyone else, not so much — the Rana know her as a genocidal invader who killed the dragons, burned the tree-mothers and enslaved their people, all in the name of bringing "order" to their distant continent. Aurelia created the Oath and the undead because she had every intention of ruling forever, without any care for what the Black Magic did to the environment; and was only stopped because one of her lieutenants had a vision of a Bad Future and sabotaged her revival.
• Achievement Mockery: The achievement "Whoops!" involves getting one of your troops killed against an enemy with the Quick trait, and "Oops!" involves using the spell Blind Hatred and the affected enemy kills one of your troops.
• Achilles in His Tent: Upon finding the Eth'dra, the Rana wielders call out R'Lac and his people for hiding behind a magic barrier, while letting the humans massacre and enslave the Rana. The Eth'dra ultimately joins the Rana, but only because they have little choice in the matter as the Baryans are preparing to retaliate.
• Action Initiative: Units with the Quick trait can allow them to deal their retaliation attack first before the enemy's attack. It is a default trait to Dreaths/Dire Dreaths, but research allows Faey Spirits/Faey Ragers to gain the trait.
• Actually Four Mooks:
  • The game follows the classic formula of unit stacks. Each unit has a number that represents the amount of creatures in that unit who act like one.
  • Some troops are a number of individuals being a singular unit, like Faey Spirits and Rats.
• Admiring the Abomination: Hillar and Magnolia's reactions to Scavenged Bones and Legions are along the lines of "how magnificent" and "how useful."
• Advancing Boss of Doom: After a while in the first mission of the Rana campaign, Aleah Ardashir will appear as a high-leveled wielder with a large and powerful army that is pursuing Rasc. He must reach the end of the map and complete the mission, or else, she'll stomp on the froggy before he can begin his rebellion.
• Affably Evil: As fitting the game's Grey-and-Gray Morality, flat-out evil characters are rare in the story.
  • The Baryans are slavers who will do just about anything if it's in their contract, yet they're often friendly with their enemies and many in the Arleon and Rana campaigns try to persuade the player characters not to fight them.
  • The Loth wielders are all on good terms with each other and constantly invite outsiders to join their cause, even letting some enemies go free after defeating them in hopes they'll come around later. Brother Hillar in particular may be an arrogant and selfish necromancer, but still insists he and Baryan wielder Everthink are friends and wants to study together with him, even after Everthink shows horror at what he's doing and tries to stop him.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: Much of the factions in Songs of Conquest are comparable to the factions in Heroes of Might and Magic.
  • Arleon is blatantly similar to Castle/Haven/Temple, a faction themed around knights and Medieval European Fantasy. Much of their human rosters are comparable to recurring human units in the Heroes of Might and Magic series, like peasants, swordsmen, archers, and cavalry. Arleon also incorporate some flavor of Rampart/Preserve/Sylvan, a faction themed around fairies and nature, due to the Faey being part of the Arleon roster.
  • Necropolis is divided between Loth, a faction themed around necromancers and the undead, and Roots, a faction that raises enemy troops to bolster their own ranks.
  • Barya is thematically similar to Tower/Academy, due to their heavy industry and use of slave labor.
  • Rana shares similarities to Heroes III's Fortress, a faction located in the swamps and home to ferocious wild life, with an element of Dungeon, due to their most powerful unit being dragons.
  • Vanir shares similarities to Stronghold, a town ruled by barbarians and preferred brute forcing any obstacle. They also share trolls as a ranged attacker.
• All Witches Have Cats: Haemnd, an elder nornor, has a black cat named Needleclaw sitting on her shoulders.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Units inexplicably change hands depending on the direction they're facing.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Unlike the other campaigns, the Loth campaign shifts perspective to different wielders for each mission. The first mission is focused on Baron Aldus, the second and fourth mission is focused on Hillar, and the third mission is focused on Roderick.
• Animal Testing: Brother Hillar is the pioneer of the Swarm of Rats that the living forces must face. He fed dust made from bones of legionnaries to rats so that they have the power of the Oath, then he uses it to control them so that he can further understand how to use it on the dead.
• Animated Armor:
  • Melkoth is a spectral wielder bound into the armor that he once wore during the Golden Age of the Aurelian Empire. When the Arleons defeat him in the third mission of the Arleon campaign (and the Baryans in their fouth mission), they find nothing inside the armor.
  • The Legion and High Legion are a collection of Oathbounds buried too close to each other and instead fuse into a spectral abomination of weapons and armor.
• Anti-Magic:
  • Faey Ragers have an ability that makes them completely immune to spell damage and untargetable by spells. In addition, they disrupt adjacent enemies' essence generation.
  • Destroy Essence is an Arcana/Destruction dyad spell that disables a single unit's essence generation for two troop turns.
  • Seeds/Roots of the Mother are completely immune to any spell damage and untargetable by spells by default.
• Arc Words: "The Marsh gives life" is one for the Rana.
• Awesome, but Impractical: High-tier troops with small stack sizes are impressive and hit hard, especially in their upgraded forms. They'll make micemeat of weaker units and are quite good at clearing neutral armies, but any fight with a wielder will see your very expensive elites get bombarded with spells (especially Justice) before they can make much of a difference.
• Bald Mystic: Loth wielder Ambertina is a member of the Unseen Society with a clean-shavened head and specializes in Destruction magic.
• Bad with the Bone: Bone Club is an artifact once wielded by Rana Guards as training weapons, until they are experienced enough to replace them for stronger weapons.
• Beam-O-War: If two opposing Hearts/Pulses attack each other, they will repeatedly attack each other until one of them is dead. An achievement "Heart to Heart" is acquired if your Heart/Pulse defeats the enemy Heart/Pulse.
• Bears Are Bad News: Vanir Berserkir can transform into the Vildra Skinshifter, who is literally a man-bear. The two wielders, Bjorn Oakbreaker and Gorm the Endbringer, take the form of bears.
• Beast of Battle: Every faction except for Arleon has a troop with the Beast status. Loth has Rats/Plague Rats, Barya has Dreaths/Dire Dreaths, and Vanir has Swines/Serimnaans and Bacahorses/Hungers. Rana is the faction heavily specialized in Beasts, as not only do they have three Beast troops (like Ravagers/Riders of the Swamp, Crawlers/Burrowers, and Tremors), but they also have Beast research bonuses that affect their own Beasts troops and any beast troops of other factions if Mixed Faction is allowed.
• The Beastmaster:
  • The Rana uses creatures from the Marsh to aid in their war against the humans. Their number of swamp creatures include Crawlers/Burrowers, Ravagers, and Tremors. M'Sugna, Who Sees Beyond is responsible for training the Tremors for the Rana, even starting with one Tremor in her starting army.
  • Brother Hillar and Nimander Breeze's specialization increases the hitpoints of Rats/Plague Rats and the damage of Dreaths/Dire Dreaths, respectively. Since those units cannot be upgraded through research, these specializations is the only way to make those units viable.
• The Berserker:
  • Horned Ones/Queen's Guards and Rats/Plague Rats have the ability "Berserker," which only activates if they receive damage. Upon activation, it increases their movement and damage, while decreasing their defense in return. The Queen's Guards has the Defend and, through research, Shielded traits to help mitigate the effect.
  • Vanirs have a literal Berserkir and its upgrade, Skinshifters, warriors who deals a lot of damage, but lacks defense. Unsurprisingly, they have the Berserker trait, which can be improved into Controlled Berserker, which removes the defense debuff, through research.
• BFG: The Hellbreaths/Hellroars are Baryan's powerful artillery that can destroy any force with impunity. They can shell a target and hurt both it and anything near it, but has to reload after the attack. The Hellroar has a special ability that increases the attack's radius at a cost of halving its damage.
• Big Bad: As revealed in the final mission of the Arleon campaign and the latter half of the Loth campaign, it appears Queen Aurelia, as a ghost, is this to the setting at large.
• Big Fancy Castle: Knights and Fists of Order are trained in Castles, with its flavor text stating that knights need a castle and servants for their needs.
• Bird People: Huskarls can be transformed into Korphans, Vildras that take the form of raven men. Oedi Nightdweller is also a Korphan.
• Black Magic: The creation of undead is antithetical to life itself, blighting the land and killing plants. It's stated to have been outlawed in Arleon for a long time — and with good reason.
• Blinded by Rage: Blind Hatred is a Chaos/Arcana dyad spell that causes a targeted troop to attack any random troop within melee range, with the spell allowing you to target multiple troops if the appropriate magic skills is upgraded. Be careful when using it as it can get your troops killed if they are close, with the "Oops!" achievement being rewarded if an affected enemy kills your troop.
• Bloody Murder: Boiling Blood is a Chaos spell that deals small amount of damage for two rounds.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Because of the time and cost involved in upgrading your towns, building the structures, and purchasing the units, it's often advantageous to stick to stacks of low- or mid-tier units instead of going for the flashy higher-tier ones.
  • Stack size research. Sometimes merely having twice as much of a unit is better than giving them all sorts of boosted stats and new abilities.
  • The Eth'Dra may not have the incredible stats or numerous abilities of dragons, but the fact they're useful shooters and far, far cheaper to get than dragons means you might still want to use them even if you have dragons available.
  • Swap is one of the cheaper hybrid spells at 3 chaos and 3 creation. While it doesn't have the range of its big brother Dimension Door, the versitility of switching the positions of any two units (friend or foe) cannot be overstated. You can pull units safely out of bad melee engagements, force enemy units into bad engagements, bypass city walls by swapping with one of the defenders, and swap units in acid clouds back and forth to repeatedly trigger hazard damage on them both.
• Cain and Abel:
  • Baron Silverlink and his sister Magnolia belong to two different factions: Arleon and Loth, respectively. In the second mission of the Loth campaign, Magnolia can clash with her brother when she shifts her allegiance to Loth.
  • Roots have two Wielders who are related to other Wielders from different factions. Flora was Ethylle-Ernaline's sister, while Grow was Gorm's brother named Gro.
• Can't Catch Up: Dreath and Dire Dreaths are strong for their ability to strike first, but they lack research upgrades that improve their offense and health, as the Foundry's upgrades only affect human and harima units, and the Dreath are classified as neither. Rats and Plague Rats have a similar issue, but at least have numbers to make up for their lack of upgrades.
• Came Back Wrong: Those bound by oath to Aurelia and brought back from the dead don't quite come back with their full mind. The Loth wielders are confident they'll figure out how to fix this in the future, while other factions use this as proof the oath is fundamentally flawed.
• Cap: Unlike Heroes of Might and Magic, there is a size cap that limits the number of stacks on a single troop, preventing the player from creating a doomstack. While the troop size can be increased by the Economy research building, the rule of thumb is that low-tier troops have a high size cap, while high-tier troops have a low size cap. In addition, there is a limit to the number of Wielders fielded at a time, which can be increased by the number of settlements the player owns and upgrading settlements to the higher tier, and Wielders are locked to 3 troops at a time by default, which requires picking the Command skill to increases the troop limit up to 9.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Each wielder (nine for each faction) has a unique and distinctive sprite on the map, as well as a full-body sketch in the inventory menu.
• Chain Lightning: Chain Lightning is a Chaos spell that deals damage to the target and bounces to 2 other units for the same damage.
• Climax Boss:
  • Wiesh the Returned is the final opponent of the Arleon storyline in "Death to Diplomacy", parked at the Loth capital of Grey Tor with a powerful end-game army. While the player has to fend off several respawning Loth wielders during the mission, beating Wiesh is the objective that ends the level, and he patiently waits for the player to approach.
• A Commander Is You: The Wielders control the armies, but don't participate in battles themselves aside from casting spells.
• Cool Crown: Dragonscale Crown is an artifact rumored to be made of dragonscales. It provides 2 extra Command to your wielder, allowing them to field more troops in their army until they properly level up their Command skill.
• Cool Mask: Wiesh, the Returned, wears a golden death mask decorated with ambers, despite being a ghost that shouldn't even have headwear. His mask is also an artifact that can be worn by everyone, including himself.
• Cool Old Guy: Bihgli of the Barya campaign is quite old, but still a formidable magician and commander and ultimately pulls a Heroic Sacrifice unleashing a powerful magical storm to stop both the attacking Loth and Rana armies.
• Color-Coded Armies: Every faction is defined by one color, though you can switch to different colors in skirmishes. Arleon is blue, Loth is purple, Barya is red, Rana is green, Vanir is yellow, and Roots is teal.
• Color-Coded Elements: Each essences have affiliated colors: Order is blue, Chaos is purple, Destruction is red, Creation is yellow and Arcana is teal.
• Cult: The Unseen Society is a secret society dedicated to the restoration of the former glory of the Aurelian Empire. The Barony of Loth grants them sanctuary in their lands, allowing them to further experiment their research and excavate ancient grounds, with the promises of bringing back the glorious days. One of Loth's units is the rank-and-file Cultist and Oathsingers, who serves as their musician and sings hymns to increases the wielder's spell damage power.
• Culture Chop Suey: Barya is an amalgamation of various Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultures, calling to mind both Renaissance Italy and the Ottoman Empire in their emphasis on mercenaries, gunpowder weapons and accumulating wealth.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The game intends the finale of Rana mission 3 to be one of these, giving you a massive army of dragons to demolish your enemies with.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Sabotage is a Destruction spell that reduces the enemies' defense and spell resistance.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: For fans of the Heroes of Might and Magic series, one of the first things they'll notice about Songs of Conquest is that it's right clicking that makes your hero move, not left clicking.
• Darkest Hour: The Rana campaign has a brief, but effective one: Rasc fails to find a new home for his people, the dragon egg he discovered is useless, and a huge Baryan army has tracked down the Rana refugees and started slaughtering them, which Rasc and his followers can't stop because mountains are in the way. Thankfully, all of this triggers a Traumatic Superpower Awakening in the Eth'Dra and turns them into dragons, who then burn through the mountains to stop the Baryans.
• Dash Attack: Knights/Fists of Order, Ravagers/Rider of the Swamp, and Bacahorses/Hunger innately possesses the Charger trait, which increases their melee offense by 10 for each hexes they moved.
• Defeat Equals Friendship: Nimander starts as a recurring foe for Bihgli in the first half of the Baryan campaign. After another defeat in the second mission, Lady Hammond hires him as a mercenary to fight a land claim against the Barony of Stoutheart. He becomes Bighli's ally for the rest of the campaign.
• Defend Command: Unlike in Heroes of Might & Magic, where defending is a default ability to all units, defending is an ability limited to units that specializes in high defense. Oathbounds/Legionaries, Guards/Protectors, and Huskarls have the Guard trait that grants 10 extra defense to adjacent allies, Oathbounds/Legionaries, Queen's Guard, and Storm Guards have the Defend ability to grant itself 25% additional defense and spell resistance, and Shield of Order and High Legions have the Protect ability to grant themselves and adjacent allies 25% additional defense and spell resistance.
• Dem Bones: The Oathbound and Legionnaire are skeletal warriors who are risen by the Barony of Loth to once again serve Aurelia and restore the empire. Meanwhile, the Scavenged Bones and Blessed Bones are an accumulation of bones morphed into a singular being.
• Deployable Cover: Arleon Sappers and Barya Tinkerers can set up stakes to place obstruction in the battlefield. Earth Block is a Creation spell that creates a thorny thicket that blocks enemy's movement. However, you cannot place another obstruction in one hex, [[[[Obvious Rule Patch due to exploits of trapping enemies by covering the battlefield with obstructions.
• Dig Attack: Adult Crawlers and Flayers can tunnel to a different hex on the battlefield, popping up the next round of combat. Once they surface they can only attack, not move, so guessing where the target will move to is important to make sure they pops up where it can be used.
• Discard and Draw: The major aspect of Vanir is that when you upgrade your human units (Huskarl, Berserkir, and Chieftains), you are transforming them into Vildra and their roles may change to suit their new form. For example, Huskarls are defensive troops that has a single-use ranged attack, while Korphan are skirmishers that can leap into the action. Shifting them from humans to Vildras also swap their human-based upgrades in exchange for Vildra-based upgrades.
• Disciplines of Magic: There are five types of essence: Order, Chaos, Destruction, Creation, and Arcana. Each faction specializes in three of the five essence types, with a number of their Wielders specializing in one of those essence types by generating 1 extra essence per turn regardless of if they possess their respective magic skill or not. As a result, every faction have certain spell combinations that can lead to different strategies and synergies.
  • Arleon's essence types are Order, Chaos and Creation. Cecilia specializes in Order essence, while Vilja starts with Order Magic; Giandra specializes in Chaos essence and starts with Chaos Magic; and Peradine specializes in Creation essence and starts with Creation Magic.
  • Loth's essence types are Order, Destruction and Arcana. Aldus specializes in Order essence, while Wiesh starts with Order Magic; Ambertina specializes in Destruction essence; and Wiesh specializes in Arcana essence, while Doctor Marjatta starts with Arcana Magic.
  • Barya's essence types are Order, Chaos and Destruction. Xavier specializes in Order essence and starts with Order Magic; Bihgli specializes in Chaos essence and starts with Chaos Magic; and Soughtfor specializes in Destruction essence, while Everthink starts with Destruction Magic.
  • Rana specializes in Destruction, Creation and Arcana. Itchamo specializes in Destruction essence and starts with Destruction Magic; M'Sugna starts with Creation Magic; and T'Chyra specializes in Arcana essence and starts with Arcana Magic.
  • Vanir specializes in Destruction, Chaos and Arcana. Gorm specializes in Destruction essence and starts with Destruction Magic; Ildra starts with Chaos Magic; and Haemnd starts with Arcana Magic.
  • Roots is unique as they have access to all five essence sources for complete control of the magic system, determined by having units begin their turns adjacent to each-other. However, it is still better to specialize towards specific army composition and spell synergies, or else, you will be starved for all magic types. Brood's specialization adds Creation essence symbiosis to Spikers and Piercers, while Honey starts with Creation Magic; and Flora starts with Destruction Magic.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Lord Stoutheart executed Lord Hammond and banished his daughter because they didn't pay their tribute on time. Vilja argues with Cecilia that her father's punishment of the Hammonds was too harsh, but Cecilia believes that he had every right to enforce his laws by any mean necessary.
• Do Not Run with a Gun: Ranged units can move and attack, unlike ranged units in Heroes of Might and Magic. However, they receive a penalty that halves their damage if they move and attack on the same turn. This is averted with troops that have the Mobile trait, who can move and attack without receiving the penalty.
• Duty That Transcends Death: The power behind the Barony of Loth's undead. Anyone who vowed an oath to serve Queen Aurelia can be raised from the dead to continue serving her. Luckily for everyone else, it also means they can't just raise dead enemy troops for their armies; they have to excavate ancient Aurelian tombs for undead soldiers.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Both the Vanirs and the Roots are both mentioned in flavor text and narration in the game before they are introduced as a playable faction. For example, the Vanirs are mentioned by name in the artifact Helmet of the Vanir, while Roots are first mentioned in the first mission of the Rana campaign.
• Epic Flail:
  • The Spectres wield a spiked ball and a chain, while the Seneschals swing their censers like a flail.
  • The Brute/Scarred Brute's weapon is a flail. The Brute's flail has metal balls attached to a rope to swing at their foes, while the Scarred Brute's flail has bladed head attached to chains to swing at their foes.
• Evil Reactionary: The Barony of Loth was favored by Empress Aurelia in ancient times, but declined in the wake of the Empire's collapse. The Unseen Society has convinced the deeply resentful people of Loth that the best way to turn their fortunes around is to literally resurrect the Empire so that things can go back to the way they used to be.
• Extra Turn: Rejuvenation is a Creation/Chaos dyad spell that allows a targeted ally that has already acted to gain an additional turn in the same round. Leveling both Creation and Chaos Magic allows the spell to target additional allies, up to 3 times.
• Experience Booster:
  • The skill Learning increases the amount of experience earned for the wielder. Several wielders start with this skill, which are Mehry Wondercraft and Sla-kin.
  • The Tutoring skill allows a Wielder to impart 25/50/75% of their experience onto any hero they interact with. A single powerful wielder can raise any number of fresh recruits into battle-hardened commanders in seconds.
• Expy:
  • Cecilia Stoutheart is a highborn Fiery Red Head Action Girl Frontline General campaign character for the game's knight faction who has to deal with seeming allies turned necromancer... just like Catherine Gryphonheart of Heroes of Might and Magic III.
  • Vanir Crones/Nornors is based on Heroes of Might and Magic's Harpy/Harpy Hag (and successors, Blood Maiden/Blood Fury/Blood Sister and Faceless/Faceless Puppeteer), Dungeon creatures that have the ability to attack their enemy then retreat back to their original position, with their upgraded form negating the enemy's ability to retaliate.
• The Fair Folk: While certainly not evil, the Faey can be vicious to any who they perceive as trespassing on their lands or despoiling nature.
• Fake Ultimate Mook:
  • Eth'Dra are produced from a large building Smouldering Cave, but their cost and power are really more of a mid-tier unit. Dragons, on the other hand...
  • Similarly, Chieftains are produced from a large building Meadhall, but their cost and power is comparable to Tier 2 troops. Unlike the Smouldering Cave, the Meadhall is surprisingly cheap for a large building, costing wood and stones instead of any rare resources, so you can reasonably train them. Upgrading the Meadhall that allows the training of Jormr requires a lot of resources, to compensate for the cheap cost of the Meadhall.
• Firearms Are Revolutionary: Barya is considered the most technologically advanced faction in the game with their cannons, in contrast to the swords and arrows still used by Arleon. From the Flavor Text of the Handgun Prototype:
  Babak Gunsmith: "I see a future where all Wielders of Barya carry a personal handgun, always at hand for close encounters. Armed with such a fine and ingenious ranged weapon it will inspire the artillery troops to strive harder."
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: The Artificers, the upgraded version of the Tinkerer, replaces their wrenches for flamethrowers, which lets them deal damage to the target and any unit behind them.
• Fixed Damage Attack: The Justice spell, at its base tier, kills a single unit in a troop, with the maximized version of the spell killing up to 3 units. This spell is very strong against high-tier troops, due to their low unit size.
• Fog of War: The map has two levels of obscurity: areas that are unrevealed to the player are hidden completely, while revealed areas that are far from Wielders and captured buildings are covered in shadow.
• Forest Ranger: Rangers/Archers are Arleon's ranged troops that shoot from the backline with their bows and arrows. They primarily serve as scouts who patrol the forested area neighboring the Tenderwyld. While Rangers lack any abilities but their ranged attack, Archers have the ability Ambush, which has them holding their attack until an enemy enters their Deadly Range.
• Freakiness Shame: Downplayed example in mission 4 of the Loth campaign. The Legions seem aware they were once multiple separate people burned together into one huge undead mass, but the Loth wielder's response to them is to say their new forms are impressive and useful.
• Friendly Fireproof: Played straight with most unit's attack, with the exception being units that can attack more than one unit, like the Hellbreath and Dragons. This is averted with spells, so be cautious with tossing spells when the enemy is within your units' range, unless you have a lot of spell resistance to throw it on top of your units.
• Frog Men: The majority of the swamp-dwelling Rana are frog-like people.
• Full-Boar Action: Swines/Serimnaan are boars released by the Vanirs into the battlefield. While the Swines are tanky but lacks any traits, the Serimnaan can charge into the fray and any stack lost in battle will return back to the recruiting pool.
• Geo Effects: Units standing on raised sections of land gain bonuses to both offense and defense against enemies on lower ground, and ranged units will also gain a bonus to their attack range.
• Giant Spider: The Tremors are a band of Rana that rides on giant spider-like mounts. They are so big and scary that they can intimidate adjacent enemies to lower their defense and initiative and, through research, negate the enemy's ability to retaliate.
• Glass Cannon: Arleon's Faey Spirits/Ragers, Barya's Sassanids/Shadows, and Loth's Spectres/Seneschals are high-initiative, fast-moving, hard-hitting troops that are relatively fragile for their damage output. Rana Hunters start out as this, too, until upgraded into Storm Guards.
• Green Thumb: Two spells, Earth Block and Entangle, are plant-based spells. Earth Block is a pure Creation spell that summons a bush of thorns that block the opponent's path, while Entangle is a Creation/Arcana dyad spell that traps the target with vines, preventing them from moving.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: No faction in the game is entirely sympathetic.
  • At first glance Cecilia of Arleon looks like the typical straightforward heroic knight character, but she ruthlessly kills her fair share of enemies who didn't want to fight her or were trying to surrender, justifying it as necessary to maintain law and order.
  • The Rana were enslaved by the Baryans and are fighting to be free... but their desperation and hatred of Barya leads them to attack humans that had nothing to do with their slavery, as well as non-humans who refuse to join them and don't get out of the way. It's telling that the intermission song verses paint Rasc the Rider as a threatening, vengeful warlord rather than a hero to his oppressed people. The Rana eventually go off the deep end and decide to Kill All Humans after Captain Silkspool, "the one good human", is executed by Cecilia above.
  • The Baryans are slavers and amoral mercenaries... who frequently try to minimize fighting where possible, because its not in their contracts. Bihgli, the main character of the Barya campaign, is actually probably the most moral and reasonable of the four protagonists.
  • Sure, the Barony of Loth is The Necrocracy and seeks to resurrect The Empire... but Baron Aldus only turned to the Unseen Society because his people were starving and screwed over by multiple outside forces. Many Loth wielders are honorable or at least respected by their followers, such as Sir Roderick. They frequently invite people to join them, let many of their enemies go free, treat their undead minions like people, and have great internal unity.
  • Empress Aurelia commited genocide on the dragons that once ruled Patrium, and enslaved the Rana in the aftermath. However, it's hinted numerous times that the dragons weren't innocent; the Harima of Patrium's deserts were hunted for food by the dragons, while faey spirits declare that "dragonslie" and attempt to stop the Rana from reviving the dragon race.
  • The Roots are victims of the same genocide that targetted the dragons... but they're also a disturbing hive-mind of parasitic plants that operates on Blue-and-Orange Morality, as likely to offer outsiders gifts as they are to slaughter entire villages on the off chance that one of the bodies will reanimate as a wielder vessel.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Perhaps as a call-back to Heroes of Might and Magic II, Arleon Rangers/Archers are women who shoot with bows, while the Arleon Footman and Knights are men carrying weapons and shields. In Heroes II, the Knight's ranged creature is Archers/Rangers, who are female archer in a roster of male warriors, especially since the previous game's archers were male.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Rasc's initial goal is sympathetic: escape his slavers, free his people, and lead them into a safe haven within the marsh. By the end of the campaign, though, he's arguably become just as bad as the Baryans, if not worse, wanting to commit full-on genocide of all humans in the world.
• Heinous Hyena: The Dreaths and the Dire Dreaths are Beast of Battle deployed by the Baryans. They are ferocious predators who are quick enough to deal the first strike before their prey.
• Herd-Hitting Attack:
  • Legions/High Legions and Chieftains' ability Sweeping Attacks allow their attack to deal damage to the target and any adjacent enemies.
  • Artificers and the Dragons/Elder Dragons' ability Flame Breath allow their attack to deal damage to the target and anyone behind them.
  • Jormrs, the upgraded version of Chieftains, have the ability Slam, which attacks the targeted hex and deals splash damage to all adjacent hexes.
  • Lashers and Flayers's trait Spin Attacks allow their attack to deal damage to every enemies surrounding the unit.
• Hero Must Survive: Despite the existence of mechanics for Wielders to be brought back when defeated, you lose instantly in the campaigns if that happens to your main hero.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The protagonist of the Barya campaign does this at the end of the final mission, channeling the power of multiple activated beacons into a final attack.
• Hit-and-Run Tactics:
  • Toxicologists and Banes' innate trait Mobile allows them to move and shoot at their enemies without receiving a damage penalty. In addition, the Banes can ignore zone of control to get out of melee range without the fear of being attacked. Militias/Sappers can learn the Mobile trait through research.
  • Crones and Nornors's special ability allow them to transform into a flock of ravens that can target any enemies in combat, then retreat back to their original position. Nornor's shifting allows them to attack an enemy without any retaliation.
• Horny Vikings: The Vanir is a faction of vikings and shifters who lives in the shores of the Bleak East. While they are all vikings, they actually lack any horns in their helmets.
• Humble Hero: Bihgli, the protagonist of the Barya campaign, has spent most of his life indebted and so doesn't think much of himself. He refuses to be called a Wielder (even though he is one) and only goes by his given name.
• An Ice Person: Ice Bolt is a Destruction spell that deals damage and decreases the target's movement and initiative.
• In a Single Bound: Korphans' special ability Leap allows them to jump to any hex equal to their movement, making them capable of bypassing terrain or enemy defenses to reach vulnerable targets.
• Indentured Servitude: In Barya, anyone who fails to fulfill their side of the contract are declared "indebted" and become nothing more than slaves. The repayment of their debts ranged from hard labor to mercenary work, though some refuse to repay their debts and become bandits. Some Baryan wielders were also indebted, like Bihgli Satherdown and Nimander Breeze.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • During the Loth campaign, Brother Hillar repeatedly tells people of all stripes and species that he's not commanding the dead, but the undead.
  • Every time Bihgli of the Barya campaign is referred to as a Wielder, he'll reply that he's "just Bihgli."
• Interface Spoiler: The fact that Eth'Dra transform into dragons is The Reveal of the Rana campaign... but seeing as the Rana unit recruitment menu shows the former creatures upgrade into the latter, it's not quite as surprising as it could be.
• It Can Think: When the Arleon wielders encounter Melkoth, they hear the familiar Madness Mantra of the Oathbound and figure that he's just another mindless undead... which prompts him to speak coherently.
  Melkoth: "There is no other like me. I burned the Tree Mothers, I killed the Dragons, I conquered Patriam. You are nothing."
• It Was a Gift: Ethylle's Blessing is a shield created by the Faey as a gift for Cornelius, Empress Aurelia's son.
• It Was with You All Along: The main twist of the Rana campaign. Rasc spends much of the story searching for the dragons to help against the Barya. He gets the help of the Eth'Dra and finds a dragon egg... but the egg is petrified and useless. One Darkest Hour and Traumatic Superpower Awakening later, it turns out the dragons are transformed Eth'Dra, meaning Rasc had already found his objective much earlier.
• Javelin Thrower: Vanir Huskarls can throw their spear to deal damage to a distant target. However, they can only throw their spear once per battle, then they draw a weapon suited for melee combat.
• Our Kelpies Are Different: Bacahorses/Hunger are monstrous horses that eats anything that intrude in their pond. They have the Charger, which increases their melee offense for each step, and Magic Resistance trait that bolsters their combat, with Hunger having the ability Feed, which deal damage to adjacent enemies and heal itself.
• Lawful Stupid: Baryans often come off as this, since they will not break, alter, or fudge contracts once they've been made. Even if the contract is blatantly unfair, even if breaking it would help innocent people, even if following it will get them killed.
• Leaked Experience: The Tutor skill allows the wielder to raise another wielder's experience yield to a percentage of their own.
• Level Editor: The game comes with a versatile map editor.
• Lightning Bruiser: Dragons have top-tier stats in just about everything, moving far and fast, hitting hard, and soaking up enormous amounts of damage.
• Lizard Folk: Some other sentient species of the Rana are lanky lizard-like Shamans/Sages, and the much bigger, stronger, and cooler Eth'Dra.
• Long-Range Fighter: In this game, ranged units have two type of attack range: Range and Deadly Range. While ranged units can attack any enemy that are inside their range, if the enemy is in their deadly range, they deal 50% more damage. While many of them have a melee attack to retaliate, it is preferable to not let them get flanked as it prevents them from using their ranged attack. Some ranged units, like the Aurelian Scholar and Hellbreath, are incapable of retaliating.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Units with the Shielded trait are more resilient to ranged attacks. This is either represented as carrying actual shields, like Arleon Footman/Shield of Order and Loth Legionnaire, or possessing resilient shells, like Rana Cheluns.
• Madness Mantra: Unless you're a wielder of Loth, the only thing any of their various undead creatures will say to you is usually some variation of "Bound by oath. Bound to Her. Bound to conquer."
• Magic by Any Other Name: Essence is magical energy generated by units that Wielders can tap to and cast any spell as long as they have enough Essence collected, and aren't restricted to one spell by turn. There are five types of Essence: Order, Chaos, Creation, Destruction, and Arcana.
• Magic Missile Storm: The Faey Queen's special ability Faey Fire casts a barrage of magical fire to random enemies.
• Magic Music: Since this is Songs of Conquest, each faction has a musician unit that has the special ability to provides buff (or for one unit, debuff) to their allies. Arleon has Minstrels/Troubadour, which buffs defense and spell resistance; Loth has Cultists/Oathsingers, which buff their spell damage; Barya has Pipers/Steam Pipers, which buff their initiative and melee and ranged offense (provided by the latter); Rana has Tremors, which debuffs the enemies' defense and initiative; Vanir has Lykt/Lyktvaan, which buffs melee and ranged offense; and Roots have Hearts/Pulses, which buffs their spell damage and spell damage resistance.
• Medieval European Fantasy: Arleon is a textbook example of this, with typical peasants, knights, and nobles.
• Money Multiplier:
  • There are several skills that increases resource income, like Tax for gold, Stone Cutter for stone, Wood Mason for wood, Crafty Spiders for glimmerweave, An Eye for Amber for ancient amber, and Find the Meteors for celestial ore. Several wielders start with the Taxes skill, like Baron Silverlink, Magnolia Silverlink, and Kol Blacknest.
  • The artifact set Coin in my Hand, which comprise of Baryan Headdress, Handgun Prototype, Baryan Glasses, Gloves of the Merchants Guild, and Sassanid Velvet Shoes, grants an increased income in gold and the rare resources. The maximum amount of income earned from completing the set is 300 gold and 2 rare resources per turn.
• Motor Mouth: Faey Spirits speak rapidly and without spacing out their words. One exchange in the Loth campaign lampshades it.
  Faey Spirits: Smelldeath! Neverpass!
  Brother Hillar: They speak rapidly. Could you slow down for me please?
  Faey Spirits: Neverreturn. Ethyllesaysbaddeath!
• Mounted Mook: Knights/Fist of Order, Riders of the Swamp, and Tremors ride on horses, non-flight avian ravagers, and spider-like tremors, respectively. Riders of the Swamp and Tremors are classified as both Beast and Rana, unlike Knights/Fists of Order having only Human, meaning that they are affected by both Rana and Beast research.
• Muggles Do It Better: According to the Musketeer's Flavor Text, Sanaz Truesight dismisses magic in favor of firearms.
  "Magic? Antiquated. Gunpowder is all the magic my army needs!"
• The Necrocracy: The Barony of Loth in practice is an unholy coalition of the living and undead ruled by a cabal of mages, which seeks to rebuild the Aurelian Empire by resurrecting its armies and generals.
• Necromancer: The Necromancers are upgraded version of the Aurelian Scholar, who serve as Loth's long-ranged fighter. Ironically, they cannot summon the undead themselves, with that ability belonging to the Blessed Bones. Instead, they can spend their turn generating additional arcana and destruction essence for spellcasting. They also more resemble a bishop, instead of an Evil Sorcerer.
• New Perk Every Level: As a spiritual successor to Heroes of Might and Magic, it shares a similar leveling system. When you level up, you have three options to choose from, including one option to upgrade the skill Command to increases the number of troops they can deploy, up to the maximum of 9 troops. Improving your skills up to Level 2 requires reaching Level 4, while improving your skills up to Level 3 requires reaching Level 10. Upon reaching 8 levels, you have a choice between 2 Powers, which are stronger than standard skills but can only be upgraded twice.
• Non-Elemental: Unlike the obviously-elemental Fireball, Ice Bolt, and Chain Lightning attack spells, Arcane Storm seems to be a raw magical attack.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: Serimnaan's special trait Eternal allows any stack lost in battle to return to the recruiting pool. This means that you can levy Serimnaan in any encounters at any point of the game.
• Obliviously Evil: Many Loth wielders see nothing scary about their undead minions and view them as honorable soldiers, seem to not notice the obvious harm their magic's doing to the environment, and are honestly confused when anyone opposes them using necromancy to conquer the world. The final cutscene for the Loth campaign, showing the spread of their influence, even has the map becoming gold to reflect how the wielders all sincerely believe they're doing what's best for everyone.
• Our Ghosts Are Different:
  • Spectres and Seneschals are ghostly scholars that swing their flails and censers, respectively, at their foes. As ethereal ghosts, they can ignore zone of control and, for the Seneschals, steal essence from surrounding foes. As far as the storyline goes, they're notably the only undead who can hold a coherent conversation with Loth wielders.
  • Wiesh is also a ghostly wielder, who was once the Grand Seneschal of the Aurelian Empire.
• Parasite Zombie: Roots wielders as well as their basic unit Broken Vessels are corpses that have been infected with plants and made to walk again in service of the Hive Mind. They resurrect a portion of slain enemies as Broken Vessels after each combat.
• The Phoenix: Breath of the Phoenix is a Creation/Destruction dyad spell that summons a phoenix that burns a horizontal path of 3 hexes to damage anything in its path. In addition, one of Yulan's units are Feng and Fenghuangs, legendary birds based on Chinese mythology.
• Plague Doctor: The design of the Bane, the upgraded form of the Toxicologist, resembles a plague doctor, especially their masks. Ironically, Banes spread the blight through their venomous crossbows, rather than cure them.
• Playing with Fire:
  • The Destruction spell Fireball deals damage to anyone in the targeted space and the adjacent hexes, while the Destruction/Creation dyad spell Breath of the Phoenix deals damage to anyone within a horizontal line of 3 hexes.
  • Eth'Dra hold magical fire in their hands and throw it as a ranged attack.
• Plunder:
  • The Raider skill allows the wielder to loot gold after winning battles, with each level increasing the percentage of the gold looted. Cheekham Stormcaller starts with this skill.
  • The wielder Girighet's specialization is looting gold after winning battles.
• Practical Taunt: The Skinshifter's special ability Challenge provokes a single enemy within 3 hexes to force them into attacking them. Since Skinshifter has the Berserker trait, they will return damage back to them with full force. In addition, you can use the ability to force the enemy to walk through a number of troops and receive attacks of opportunity. This tactic is encouraged, since there is an achievement "No Challenge at All" that is rewarded if the taunted enemy is killed through attacks of opportunity.
• Poisoned Weapons: Plague Rats, Toxicologists/Banes, and Shamans/Sages can inflict a poison that deals damage to the target based on the strength of their attack for 2 turns.
• Poor Communication Kills: A running theme of the campaign. You could make a drinking game out of how many times one or both sides say they don't want to fight each other, yet end up battling anyway over a misunderstanding, unwillingness to talk things over, or impatience.
  • Most of the Arleon campaign has Cecilia fighting Faey, who take forever to explain they're upset about Loth raising the dead and absolutely refuse to listen to Cecilia when she says she has nothing to do with it and is trying to stop it herself.
    • Cecilia for her part assumes the Faey are responsible for raising the dead for seemingly no reason beyond both being supernatural. It isn't until Baron Aldus shows up with a bunch of cultists and undead in tow that she starts to figure out the truth of the matter. Her dismissive attitude towards Peradine's investigations into what's going on doesn't help.
  • Cecilia attacks Cheekham and his raiding party, believing that Silkspool called upon the Rana as reinforcements. In turn, the Rana believe that she executed Silkspool because he freed the Rana from slavery, rather than him fighting under Lady Hammond's employment. This is the final straw for the Rana, declaring that humanity is to be wiped out.
• Portal Network: Beacons allowing fast travel were set up across the land during the rule of Aurelia. Part of the Loth campaign revolves around restoring them. In-game, they function as a Warp Whistle.
• Power-Up Food: One of the research from Arleon's Grand Armory and Vanir's Blacksmith are Hearty Meal and Heart of Winter, respectively. Both research increases the HP of their human troops, with the last level also increasing their damage.
• Professional Killer: Sassanids/Shadows are Harima assassin who excel in dealing massive damage against anything they strike, especially since they can both negate the enemy's ability to retaliate and, for the Shadows, move through enemy's zone of control to reach frailer targets.
  Sassanid's Flavor Text: "Everything's a deal in Barya. Sassanids deal in death."
• Projectile Punisher: There are several ways to mitigate attack from ranged units. The skill Positioning grants ranged resistance to the Wielder’s army, in addition to granting troop movement at Level 3, and the power Essence Shield provides extra resistance to block one attack; some units have Shielded that halves damage received from ranged attackers, like Footmen/Shield of Order and Cheluns/Elder Cheluns; the artifact Cape of Leaves grant +20% ranged resistance when equipped; and finally, some wielders, like Coral Lightbringer and Rik-Tap, have innate ranged resistance as their specialization.
• Proud Merchant Race: Barya is the merchant faction that loves gold and mercenaries.
• Pyrrhic Victory: An achievement called "Pyrrhic Victory" is obtained if the wielder is victorious but has only one unit left at the end of the battle. While the intent is that the wielder won at a heavy cost of an equally powerful opponent, you can also win a battle with only one unit.
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn:
  • Unlike Heroes of Might and Magic, you are not allowed to mix factions outside your own unless Mixed Faction is allowed. As a result, when you interact with a recruitment building not belonging to your faction, you pillage it and earn gold for it.
  • Upon claiming an enemy's towns and settlements, you can choose to raze the settlement to earn gold for each buildings destroyed. This can be a double-edged sword, as you will claim the settlement once all of the buildings are destroyed, so you are effectively spending that gold you just plundered to rebuild the settlement from scratch. On the other hand, you can deny the enemy and ruin their economy by taking the settlement and burning it down to the ground so they get nothing back if reclaimed.
  • The skill Raider encourages burning down towns and recruitment buildings for additional gold as it increases the amount of gold earned. The wielder Cheekham Stormcaller starts with this skill.
  • Some artifacts increases the amount of gold earned from pillaging, like Braid of the Horned Ones and Beak of the Beast. The artifact set Raid and Pillage increases gold earned from pillaging when you equip 4 out of 5 artifacts associated with the set.
• Rare Candy: Petrified tree rewards a wielder that pay 5 glimmerweaves a free level.
• Read the Fine Print: The Baryans are major sticklers for this and Exact Words, such as in mission 1 of the Loth campaign. When Aldus asks for their tribute, the Baryans point out the contract said they'd only do so if he maintained the roads. Never mind that the roads were damaged by recent flooding, not neglect, and Aldus was planning on fixing them (with the money he's asking the Baryans to give him.) Never mind that Aldus' people are starving, either: the roads haven't been maintained, and the Baryans will now fight to the death against Aldus to keep their money, firmly believing they're in the right the entire time.
• Recurring Boss: Merkoth, a Risen Loth Wielder, gets fought in multiple campaigns, sometimes multiple times a mission.
• Reinventing the Wheel: Upgrades from the Military and Economy research building do not carry over to future missions in the campaign. In fact, you have to keep one Military and Economy research building active, or else, you suddenly lose the upgrades from those buildings.
• Resistant to Magic:
  • Wielders: Vilja, Everthink, P'Cha, and Bjorn Oakbreaker's specialization is a 40% spell damage resistance, making them effective counters against magic-focused wielders.
  • Units: Scavenged Bones/Blessed Bones, Adult Crawlers, Brute/Scarred Brutes, and Bacahorses/Hunger have a natural 50% spell resistance, while Faey Ragers can spend a turn that grants them immunity to spell damage. Seeds/Roots of the Mother are completely immune to spell damage. Faey Nobles/Faey Queens, Oathbound/Legionnaires, and Huskarl/Korphan can obtain Magic Resistance through research.
  • Artifacts: Some artifacts provide spell damage resistance, like the Glimmergloves, Cloak of the Ancients, and Rod of the Roots. Those artifacts are essential to equip when fighting a magic-focussed wielder.
• Resurgent Empire: Loth's endgame is bringing back the Aurelian Empire. Not by building a successor state, mind you, but by bringing back the Empress and her armies as the living dead.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something:
  • Cecilia Stoutheart, main character of Arleon's campaign, is also a Baroness, and leads her troops in defending against wrathful Faey, invading mercenaries, and the living dead.
  • Baron Aldus is this for Loth. He actively visits with his subjects, cares about their problems, and fights on their behalf.
• Sand Worm: Crawlers/Burrowers are swamp worms tamed by the Rana. Both troops have the intimidate trait (reduce adjacent enemy's defence and initiative) and innate spell damage resistance, while the Burrowers have the ability to burrow underground and appear in a targeted hex, making them effective at disabling the backline.
• Scary Stinging Swarm: Insect Swarm is a Creation spell that summons a swarm of flying insects to lightly harm the target and reduce their initiative, which allows your units to more likely move before them.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The cremation urn of Empress Aurelia contains her immortal spirit, held secure in a ritual circle that suppresses her powers and consciousness. She intended to be revived so that she could rule the Oathbound in an everlasting empire, but the Faey Queen locked her urn away rather than revive her as planned, in an attempt to avert visions of a terrible future brought about by the poisonous magic of the Oath. Unfortunately, Sir Rodrick of Loth is contacted by Aurelia and frees her spirit by destroying the urn, allowing her to awaken the Oathbound across the world and take center stage as the Big Bad.
• Set Bonus: Added in a patch alongside the Vanir DLC, artifact sets provide bonuses to the wielder that equip certain artifacts. For example, the artifact set Raid and Pillage, which requires Vanir Bracers, Roundshield, Helmet of the Vanir, Throwing Axe, and Chainmail Hauberk, grants bonuses that increases gold acquired from pillaging, movement and view radius, and gold earned after completing battles.
• Shamu Fu: The Troll attacks enemy in melee range with a fish. The Vanir DLC added the achievement "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" involves using a Troll, who is supposed to be a ranged troop, to win a battle after it attacks in melee range. Grym replaces their fish for a proper club in melee combat that they can switch to instead of their rocks.
• Shock and Awe: Faey Nobles and Queens can summon lightning against their enemies, and Wielders can use the previously-mentioned Chain Lightning spell.
• Shout-Out:
  • More than any other unit, Song of Conquest's dragons seem taken directly from the Heroes of Might and Magic series, with a two-hex breath attack and, as in Heroes 2, green dragons upgrading into red ones. Additionally, the un-upgraded (green) dragon's health (180) and damage (40-50) stats are the same as the un-upgraded green dragons from Heroes 3, though this is perhaps coincidental. Vanir Crones and Nornor behave identically to harpies and harpy hags in Heroes 3.
  • The achievement, Unlimited Power!, involves killing three enemies with a single Chain Lightning.
  • The achievement involved swapping an enemy into an Acid Cloud is titled Get Over Here!.
  • Upgrading the Beast Corral to train Tremors add a goat hanging by a den where the Tremors are trained, similar to a goat tied to a post in the T. Rex paddock in Jurassic Park (1993).
• Simultaneous Arcs: All four campaigns and several tales overlap with each other, meaning some things which happen in one level might be the result of something that happened in another level which the current playable characters didn't see. It requires playing all four to best understand what's going on:
  • Silkspool meets with Bihgli in Barya mission 1, goes to free Rasc in Rana mission 1, then is hired (along with the other Topaz Battalion members) by Lady Hammond during the events of the Baryan campaign and dispatched to occupy Ashborne in Arleon mission 2.
  • After Loth mission 2, Hillar and Magnolia leave for the marsh, get defeated in Rana mission 2 and 3, and regroup in Loth mission 4.
  • Cheekham takes a detour from the Rana campaign after mission 2 to try and meet with Captain Silkspool to form a contract with him, which is why he shows up in Arleon mission 2. Afterwords, Cheekham returns to the Marsh in Rana mission 4 to inform Rasc of what happened.
  • After their appearances in missions 1 and 3 of the Loth campaign, Aldus and Roderick get dealt with in missions 3 and 4 of the Arleon campaign, respectively. Arleon mission 3 also features the site of Aurelia's funeral urn, which Rodrick had destroyed in Loth mission 3.
  • Merkoth gets fought in Arleon mission 3, Rana mission 4, and Barya mission 4.
  • Bihgli retrieves the Crest of the Legion for Ambertina in Barya mission 1, which she passes off to Brother Hillar in Loth mission 2. The Baryans then encounter Lady Hammond and, after Bihgli fights her due to mistaken motives, offer a debt to her for the honest mistake, leading to the Baryans' participation in the rebellion against Stoutheart in the first two levels of the Arleon story.
  • According to Aurelia, Loth Mission 4 and Rana mission 4 happen simultaneously, as she states that the recently-revived Merkoth and Coral Lightbringer are "to the south" fighting the Rana uprising. After the beacons are captured, Ambertina is sent back to Arleon to assist in the defense of Grey Tor (Arleon 4), while Magnolia volunteers to continue capturing beacons in Patrium (Barya 4).
  • In the Rise Eternal storyline, Coral Lightbringer joins Kastus Maal during the second mission, but then departs to go study a recently captured vildra wielder; Sorg from "Tales: Sorg's Journey".
• Sincerest Form of Flattery: The game's description admits to being inspired by '90s strategy games, but the developers specifically cite Heroes of Might and Magic 2 during the interviews. The similarities are apparent in design and gameplay.
• Sinister Minister: The Necromancers resembles a bishop because they wear dark ecclesial robes and miter and wield a staff with skulls carrying candles like a candelabra. This fits Loth's zealous devotion to Queen Aurelia.
• Slave Mooks: Much of the mercenary soldiers fielded by Barya are indebted that serve their time in the military to repay their debts.
• Slave Race: When the Aurelian Empire conquered the Rana, they were enslaved by their human oppressors, especially Barya. Suffice to say, they will take it no more.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Silkspool appears only briefly in each campaign and isn't that huge a figure politically, but he plays an important role in both Rasc and Bihgli's stories and his death at Cecilia's hands has major repercussions on the setting.
• Spell Book: Arcane Tome is an artifact that improves the wielder's spell damage power by 50%. It is said that only wielders can read the tome, as it is designed to enhance their already potent magical abilities.
• Sprint Shoes: Protectors and Serimnaans have the ability, Bull Run, to charge forward until they collide with an enemy or an obstacle. They will not stop until they can no longer move, so they are receptible to attacks-of-oppurtunity.
• Stats-Tradeoff Equipment: Some artifacts grant both positive and negative effects. For example, Gloves of Eternity grants an additional attack to the wielder's army at a cost of decreasing their offence and defence by 50.
• Status Buff:
  • Cunning is a skill that increases offence and defence to all of the wielder's troops for the first few battle rounds. Lady Elisa Hammond and Brother Hillar start with this skill.
  • Every faction has a musician unit with a special ability that grants a buff to the army, with the exception of Rana, whose musician unit inflicts a debuff to the enemy army instead.
  • The pure Order spells, save for Pacify, improve allies' stats. Protection grants defense and spell resistance to an ally, Quicken grants initiative and movement to an ally, and Rally grants an army-wide buff to melee and ranged offense, defense, and spell resistance. Leveling up Order Magic allows Protection and Quicken to be applied to multiple units, up to 3 times at tier 3.
  • Aggression is the only ally-buffing pure Destruction spell, which increases the ally's melee and ranged offense. Leveling up Destruction Magic allows it to be applied to multiple units, up to 3 times at tier 3.
  • Onslaught is an Order/Chaos dyad spell that grants a targeted ally an additional attack, which is useful for ranged units that have to reload after they fire with their ranged attack, like Arleon Militia/Sappers and Barya Musketeers/Veteran Musketeers. Similarly, the Rapid Fire spell is an Order/Destruction dyad spell that grants an army-wide additional attack buff to ranged units.
  • Invigorate is an Order/Creation dyad spell that grants an army-wide buff to initiative and movement, similar to Quicken.
  • The two spells, Ethereal Scales and Aegis, are defense-buffing spells that affects melee and ranged resistance, respectively. Ethereal Scales is a Creation/Arcana dyad spell, while Aegis is an Order/Arcana dyad spell. Both spells can be increased to target multiple units, up to 3 times, but require leveling up both their required Magic skill.
  • Burst of Strength is a Chaos/Destruction dyad spell that grants an army-wide buff to their damage.
  • Strengthen Essence is an Order/Arcana dyad spell that doubles a targeted ally's essence generation.
  • Fury is an Order/Chaos dyad spell that grants an army-wide buff to their melee offense at a cost of defense.
  • The Fist of Order, Chieftains, and the neutral creep Outlaws can spend their turn to activate the ability Strengthen, which gives extra offense and damage to adjacent allies.
  • Faey Nobles/Queens, Sages, Chieftains, and the neutral creep Outlaws has the Inspiring trait, which gives extra offense and initiative to adjacent allies. Knights/Fists of Order can learn this trait through research.
• Step into the Blinding Fight: Clouded Vision is an Order/Creation dyad spell that blinds the troop and decreases their attack range, making it useful against ranged troops. Increasing the Order and Creation Magic skill allows the spell to target multiple enemies, up to 3 times.
• Storm of Magic: Arcane Storm is a powerful Arcana spell that unleashes magical energy to harm units within a massive area of hexes.
• Strategic Asset Capture Mechanic: The map is filled with buildings that the player can convert to their side for additional income.
• Sturdy and Steady Turtles: The turtle-like Cheluns are a sub-type of Rana that boasts high defense, but lack movement. As shown with P'Cha the Hermit, they are Wise Old Turtles, especially Elder Chelun, who has the ability to spend their turn to generate more of their essence.
• Swap Teleportation: Swap is a Creation/Chaos dyad spell that swaps the position of two units to each other.
• Swarm of Rats: The Rats/Plague Rats are Loth's basic unit. Although its stats are weak on paper, its high troop size and cheapness allow them to amass and be a threat in the battlefield.
• Summoning Ritual: Summoning Circle is Loth's large building that trains Legions, their ultimate unit. Creating Legions are the ultimate achievement of Loth necromancers, as it requires a massive amount of bones and essence to restore the Aurelian Empire's greatest soldiers.
• Symmetric Effect:
  • Tempest is a Chaos spell that summons a mighty windstorm that decreases all troops' ranged offense. This is useful against an army heavily composed of ranged troops and your army heavily composed of melee troops need to close in.
  • Apocalypse is a Chaos/Destruction dyad spell that is Songs of Conquest's iteration of Heroes of Might and Magic's Armageddon spell. Like Armageddon, it deals damage to every troops in the battlefield, friendly and hostile alike. While it is quite risky to use, you can mitigate the risk by stacking as much spell damage resistance on your wielder or incorporating troops with Magic Resistance.
• Synchronization: Root's ultimate troop, Seed/Root of the Mother, has the trait Mother's Embrace, which absorbs half of the damage dealt to a troop standing on its roots. Since it has one of the highest HP of any troop and it is immune to magic damage, killing it will not be easy.
• Tech Tree: Unlike Heroes of Might and Magic, there are research buildings: the Military research building, which has unit upgrades, and Economy research buildings, which has upgrades to resource generation and troop size caps. Constructing them require the city to reach level 3, as they can only be built on a large site.
• Teleportation: There are three spells, Chaos Step, Dimension Door and Swap, that teleport an ally to a different position. Chaos Step is a Chaos spell that moves an unit to a random hex adjacent to the targeted hex, while Dimension Door is an Arcana spell that moves an unit to the targeted hex. Swap is a Creation/Chaos dyad that switches the positions of any two units within range of each-other. The upgraded versions of each of these spells increase the maximum range of the teleport.
• A Thicket of Spears: Pikeneers and Veteran Pikeneers are Baryan mercenaries who wield polearms. They have an extended melee range, allowing them to attack up to two hexes away and reach past other troops to do so. The Veteran Pikeneer gains a special ability that lets them strike anything that enters their range.
• Thunderbolt Iron: One of the rare resources is celestial ore, which can be considered meteoric metal since a skill that passive generate additional celestial ore is called "Find the Meteor."
• Token Heroic Orc: To the Rana, Silkspool was "the only good human." In honor of him, they spare a few friends of his they otherwise would've killed.
• Transhuman: All of the Vanir human units turn into mystical creatures when upgraded, having embraced the magic of the Vildra for greater power.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: At the start of the Rana campaign, Rasc acquires his wielder powers upon witnessing Baryan merchants caging younglings and decided that he will take it no more. During the Rana's Darkest Hour, the Eth'Dra witnessing the Baryans slaughtering the refugees triggers their transformation into dragons.
• Our Trolls Are Different: Trolls and its upgraded type, Gryms, are creatures that can be recruited by the Vanirs. Trolls and Gryms are large Vildra that prefer living under stone bridges and throw boulders at their enemies, though Grym can switch between throwing boulders and whacking things with its massive club. Trolls are generally not too bright, speaking rather simple. One of the Vanir wielders is a troll named Sorg.
• Turn-Based Combat: Fights occur on a hexagonal battlefield where sides take turn by giving their units commands.
• Turtle Shield: Cheluns and Elder Cheluns are turtle-like Rana with the Shielded ability, which makes them more resistant to ranged attacks.
• Unblockable Attack: The ability Backstabber prevents the enemy from retaliating against the attacker. Sassanids/Shadows has it as an innate trait, Cultists/Oathsingers can learn the trait through research, and the wielder Oedi Nightdweller grants Backstabber to Korphan as a specialization. Nornors' trait Improved Ravenform allows them to attack their enemy without enemy retaliation, then retreats back to their original position.
• The Undead: The Barony of Loth is the classical necromancer faction, filled with liches, skeletons and large skeletons.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Silkspool never could've known that his simple act of letting Rasc go free would lead to a full-on Rana uprising, leading to the killing of countless of his own people.
  • The Baryan Rules Lawyer mercenaries in the Loth campaign kickstart an entire necrocracy when they use Exact Words to screw over Baron Aldus. This makes him desperate enough to accept help from the Unseen Society, who — given freedom to operate unopposed in the barony — are able to launch their mission to find Aurelia.
  • Bihgli's first mission involves him retrieving the Crest of Aurelia for Ambertina, which comes back to bite him and many, many others later on.
• Unwitting Pawn:
  • Ambertina uses Bihgli to retrieve the Crest of Aurelia for her. Had Bihgli truly known what it was and what it would lead to, even he, a Consummate Professional, probably would've broken his contract.
  • It's implied that Baron Aldus doesn't quite understand what he's getting into with the Unseen Society — at least at first — and they're more than willing to say what they need to say to keep his cooperation.
• Walking Ossuary: Loth has Scavenged Bones, units made from the bones of many different people animated as a singular undead. Its upgrade, Blessed Bone, can assemble a temporary troop of Oathbounds into the battlefield at a cost of a single Blessed Bone.
• Warp Whistle: In maps that including functioning beacons, Wielders can travel between claimed ones instantly.
• Weather Manipulation: Tempest is a pure Chaos spell that summons a heavy storm that reduces all ranged unit's offense, both friendly and hostile.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Baron Aldus is trying to keep his lands afloat in a time of crime and natural disasters. Being a pious believer of Aurelia, he has no qualms accepting help from fellow faithful... even if they're necromancers.
• Wicked Witch: The Crones/Nornors are Vildran witches who fights with the Vanirs. They are haggard and they have the ability to transform into a flock of ravens to attack an enemy, then retreat (with Nornor preventing retaliation).
  Crone's Flavor Text: "A Crone's cottage is a familiar sight in Vanir. They offer aid in all matters for a steep price, yet if you seek vengeance, they often help out of the kindness in their heart."
• Who Are You?: At the end of the Arleon campaign, the defeated Wiesh simply asks Cecilia, "who are you?" Cecilia's response in the campaign:
  Cecilia: “I am Cecilia of Stoutheart, and as long as I stand Arleon will never kneel to the Undead. Now, return to the afterlife!”
  Wiesh: “I shall return.”
  Cecilia: “And I shall be there to push you back again, ghost.”
  • In the song:
    “I am Cecilia of Stoutheart. I’ve crushed your hordes and I’ve pushed back another upstart.”
• Worthless Treasure Twist: During the Rana campaign, Rasc goes to a lot of trouble to find a supposed dragon egg that he thinks is key to bringing back the dragons, but after carting it around for a while, he discovers that it is useless.
• Worthy Opponent: After defeating Loth in the Arleon campaign, Empress Aurelia projects herself and says to Cecilia, "I am impressed," before warning her that she will see Cecilia kneel before her.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Many defeated wielders in the campaign pull this. Some just run away offscreen after being defeated in battle, while some of the Faey use magic to escape.
• Villain Respect: Depending on how long things get dragged out in mission 4 of the Barya campaign, Coral may come to respect Bihgli for fending off so many Loth attacks. Aurelia herself wishes that Bihgli, who was marked by her Crest, would join her, though he refuses.
• You Killed My Father:
  • Cecilia's father, the old Lord of Stoutheart, executed Lady Hammond's father then banished her from his realm. Resentful, she begins a rebellion to reclaim her lost lands.
  • Gorm despises the Roots for taking his brother, Gro, that his hatred transforms him into a Vildra, seeking their power to burn the entire Wyldwoods to the ground.
• You Require More Vespene Gas: There are six resources in the game: gold, stone, wood, glimmerweave, ancient amber, and celestial ore. These resources are used to train units (some high-tier units require one of the three rare resources), construct buildings, and research upgrades. Gold is acquired by owning towns, capturing gold mines and houses, and upgrading gold generation through the Economy research building. Stone and wood is acquired by constructing buildings that generate stone and wood, as well as capturing Stone Deposits and Lumber Camps, respectively. And, finally, the rare resources: glimmerweave, ancient amber, and celestial ore, can only be generated through capturing their respective resource generator and researching upgrades through the Economy research building. Each factions prefer generating one of the three resources: Arleon and Rana generates glimmerweaves, Loth generates ancient ambers, and Barya generates celestial ores. Wielders can also generate these resources through skills, like Tax, Stone Cutter, Wood Mason, Crafty Spiders, An Eye for Amber, and Find the Meteors, respectively.
• Zerg Rush: Loth has access to Rats, which have the lowest recruitment cost, highest maximum stack size, and fastest recruitment rate of all units. Due to these advantages, it's actually considered totally viable to have an entire army of nothing but rats - they'll drop like flies, but you can easily replenish them faster than the enemy can kill them.
• Our Zombies Are Different:
  • The Risen are undead Loth soldiers that are resurrected from the recently fallen living soldiers. After battle, Loth wielders can recruit Risen generated from the number of human units, like the Cultist/Oathsinger, Toxicologist/Bane, and Aurelian Scholar/Necromancer, killed in battle. Due to their weak stats and limited accessibility, they will never snowball out of control, unlike Skeletons in Heroes of Might and Magic, but will be decent meatshields.
  • Everyone who perishes in the Wyldwoods has their corpse infested by parasitic plants and fungi, to be reanimated as part of the Tree Mothers' Hive Mind. After every battle, Roots wielders can gain Broken Vessel/Blighted Vessel troops based on how many enemy troops fell in battle, giving a Roots player a neverending supply of cannon fodder. The Dread/Terror in particular is a broken vessel amalgamated from both human and animal cadavers. The Roots wielders themselves are rare "successful" vessels from numerous species and nations, reborn after attacks by the Roots or ill-fated expeditions into the Bleak East.