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Shadows of the Apt

702 statements
138 feature instances
58 referencing feature instances

Shadows of the Apt	type	TVTItem
Shadows of the Apt	label	Shadows of the Apt
Shadows of the Apt	page	ShadowsOfTheApt
Shadows of the Apt	comment	Shadows of the Apt is a fantasy series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The basic plot is fairly familiar: a single visionary must persuade his people of the imminent threat from a rapacious, conquering empire. The main twist is the idea of the insect-kinden; all humans inherit powers based on the idealised abilities of a particular arthropod.The books (so far) include:Empire in Black and Gold (2008)Dragonfly Falling (2009)Blood of the Mantis (2009)Salute the Dark (2010)The Scarab Path (2010)The Sea Watch (2011)Heirs of the Blade (2011)The Air War (2012)War Master's Gate (2013)Seal of the Worm (2014)The website also contain loads of short stories and histories based in the same world. Tchaikovsky would later write another trilogy, Echoes of the Fall, set in the same world but on a different continent, which sheds further light on some of the mysteries of the setting.
Shadows of the Apt	fetched	2023-12-03T05:16:27Z
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Shadows of the Apt	isPartOf	DBTropes
Shadows of the Apt / int_12575a9f	type	Friendly Sniper
Shadows of the Apt / int_12575a9f	comment	Friendly Sniper: Gorenn is a ridiculously optimistic and boisterous Dragonfly kinden who calls herself the Commonweal Retribution Army. She's also become a living legend because of the amazing shots she can do with her bow (including the first to disable a Sentinel).
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Shadows of the Apt / int_133f1c12	type	The Spymaster
Shadows of the Apt / int_133f1c12	comment	Stenwold attributes his adopted daughter Tynisa's nose for intrigue to her Spider heritage; Tynisa herself, on the other hand, ironically seems to think she got it from Stenwold himself.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_13eea985	type	Arbitrary Skepticism
Shadows of the Apt / int_13eea985	comment	Arbitrary Skepticism: Che knows that people can gain powers through meditation, among them telepathic hive minds, ultraviolet vision, wings, and the ability to shoot energy from your hands. She initially refuses point blank to believe in "magic." In fact, nearly all Apt characters fall into this category. This is because magic works in an entirely different way to 'Art' as noted when she noticed something off about Stenwold's agent in Helleron, whereas the people in this world can identify something as an 'Art' immediately even if they haven't seen it before. It's also the case that Apt characters are psychologically incapable of understanding how magic works, so they'll tend to instinctively reject the possibility that something could be magic in favor of a more "rational" explanation (however unlikely it may be) until they have literally no choice otherwise. Inapt tend to have the same reaction to machines - they don't understand how it could work, so they refuse to believe it could work until they see irrefutable evidence that it does. In addition, it is stated on the blog of the author that everyone has basically outgrown the silly superstitions of religion. The Inapt believe in spirits but only the ones that can be commanded, not worshipped.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_15fc9fb	type	Our Elves Are Different
Shadows of the Apt / int_15fc9fb	comment	Our Elves Are Different: Several of the Inapt kinden qualify. Dragonflies are usually tall, beautiful, and cultured but in steep decline as a people, resembling High Elves. Spider-kinden are also somewhat High Elf like, albeit with more of a focus on politicking and espionage. Mantises, with their Proud Warrior Race Guy ethos, association with nature, and tendency to live in isolated forests, are more like Wood Elves. Moth-kinden, with their grey skin and hair, association with darkness and the night, and strong sense of racial arrogance and belief that they deserve to rule the other kinden, are closer to Dark Elves.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_173909	type	Brainwashed and Crazy
Shadows of the Apt / int_173909	comment	Brainwashed and Crazy: At the end of Blood of the Mantis, Tynisa is forced via magic to attack Achaeos.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_17a606bd	type	Master Swordsman
Shadows of the Apt / int_17a606bd	comment	Master Swordsman: The Mantis Hat in general, the Weaponsmasters in particular, though many prefer the Claw.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_17ce80aa	type	All There in the Manual
Shadows of the Apt / int_17ce80aa	comment	All There in the Manual: Quite a bit of back story and history of the Lowlands can be found on the Shadows of the Apt website, along with other short stories based in that world. Quite a few of the characters/events from the short stories are woven into the main plot. The duel in "Ironclads" is brought up more than once in Heirs of the Blade (and the ghost story Avaris tells is most likely to be the same story as "The Dreams of Avaris").
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Shadows of the Apt / int_19851b86	type	The Sociopath
Shadows of the Apt / int_19851b86	comment	The Sociopath: Alvdan. He is utterly devoid of empathy and kindness and has a creepily shallow effect, normally feeling no emotions other than boredom or paranoia. He seems to take genuine pleasure in tormenting other people, and is at his happiest when ordering the genocide of the Bee-kinden.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_1994ba0b	type	Gone Horribly Right
Shadows of the Apt / int_1994ba0b	comment	Gone Horribly Right: When Seda decides to seek out the Seal of the Worm to try and harness its power for herself, her magical advisors Gjegevey and Tegrec instead convince her to seek out a less dangerous Sealed Evil, Argastos, instead. Unfortunately for them, it turns out Argastos was imprisoned to guard the Seal of the Worm, meaning that in their attempt to direct Seda away from the Seal, they accidentally led her right to it. Whoops.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_1a303edf	type	Our Orcs Are Different
Shadows of the Apt / int_1a303edf	comment	Our Orcs Are Different: Scorpion-kinden, being Proud Warrior Race Guys with a brutish appearance and reputation for barbarism, fit the "orc" archetype fairly well.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_1f050d03	type	Squad Nickname
Shadows of the Apt / int_1f050d03	comment	Squad Nickname: Every one of the Wasp Armies, generally referring to some particular aspect of the reputation- for example, the Sixth Army, the Hive, are based around a core of Bee-kinden veterans.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_22cf536c	type	Chekhov's Gun
Shadows of the Apt / int_22cf536c	comment	Chekhov's Gun: It is occasionally mentioned that Totho is always carrying his "project" on his back, apparently a prototype for a weapon he has designed. This becomes important when Achaeos notices that Totho hasn't had it since they left Myna and realizes that this is because he actually left with Salma and the Totho with them is a doppelganger. Totho's weapon later falls into the hands of the Empire and his Snapbow is put into mass production, leading to a last-minute Wasp victory at The Battle of the Rails. The allied Lowlanders then nearly tear themselves apart trying to create their own snapbows while preventing their allies/rivals from doing the same. Stenwold's Piercer bow makes a reappearance in Salute the Dark for a while as well. And then again in The Air War, where it was literally hanging on the wall before being used.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_234fa9ba	type	Mayâ€“December Romance
Shadows of the Apt / int_234fa9ba	comment	May–December Romance: Stenwold's love interest for much of the middle part of the series is Arianna, who is several decades younger than him. Che and Thalric eventually get together as well; while the age difference isn't quite as extreme as Stenwold and Arianna, Thalric is still noticeably older than she is.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_267ce120	type	Dirty Old Man
Shadows of the Apt / int_267ce120	comment	Dirty Old Man: Ulther, Wasp governor of Myna. He keeps a harem of about thirty slave women, all much younger than himself.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_270c1778	type	Blood Magic
Shadows of the Apt / int_270c1778	comment	After Emperor Alvdan’s death by Blood Magic, his sister Empress Seda discovers its aftereffects have rendered her Inapt and given her an affinity for the same, but this is a secret kept between her, her consort, her closest slaves, and the victims she has exsanguinated to feed herself. However, she only really comes into her power after being “crowned” by the Slug-kinden of Khanaphes, which not only boosts her power but gives her a magical aura of rulership that awes any Inapt she meets.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_2a090d00	type	Lampshade Hanging
Shadows of the Apt / int_2a090d00	comment	Lampshade Hanging: Uctebri has a sense of the dramatic, it seems.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_2ae29c0d	type	The Dreaded
Shadows of the Apt / int_2ae29c0d	comment	The Dreaded: The Worm, aka the Centipeded-kinden, all the Inapt races have an atavistic fear of them to the point where giant centipedes are killed on sight. For the Sea-kinden, it's the Starfish-kinden. These are a race of mindless, violent savages that exist only to kill and have great regenerative powers, to the point where chopped body parts regrow into new people.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_2b706ca	type	More Dakka
Shadows of the Apt / int_2b706ca	comment	More Dakka: For infantry, the bullets really fly when the makers of the Snapbow then create the Repeating Snapbow. Vehicles, especially aircraft get the powerful Rotary Piercer which is fast enough to tag fighter jets.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_2bde52a3	type	Fantastic Firearms
Shadows of the Apt / int_2bde52a3	comment	Fantastic Firearms: Downplayed. While gunpowder exists, gunpowder firearms are considered dangerous and unwieldy, and are consequently never smaller than artillery (aside from specialist pieces used by larger characters). Instead, an arms race is kicked off by the introduction of "snapbows", which use compressed air to launch projectiles. They shoot further, hit harder, and reload faster than the crossbows that are the norm at the start of the series, and so quickly and completely change the way wars are fought.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_2bf1fd90	type	Proud Merchant Race
Shadows of the Apt / int_2bf1fd90	comment	Proud Merchant Race: The Beetle-kinden of Helleron also to a certain extent the Fly-kinden.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_33179374	type	Deity of Human Origin
Shadows of the Apt / int_33179374	comment	Deity of Human Origin: The Worm is the god of remnants of the Centipede-kinden, it was created when they turned to religion after getting exiled out of reality.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_334e48a1	type	After the End
Shadows of the Apt / int_334e48a1	comment	After the End: Downplayed. It's indicated that the world as it exists in the books' present is what it is because it was reshaped by some ancient cataclysm, but it doesn't come up often because only the Masters of Khanaphes are old enough to remember it, or to care.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_34dd5f3	type	La RÃ©sistance
Shadows of the Apt / int_34dd5f3	comment	La Résistance: The Mynan resistance, which isn't particularly nice.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_3517000d	type	Mad Scientist
Shadows of the Apt / int_3517000d	comment	Mad Scientist: Colonel-Auxilian Dariandrephos, generally just called Drephos. He is a master of designing military technology and absolutely relishes the creation and use of new weapons, regarding their numerous victims simply as expendable "meat." Totho eventually turns into this as well, under Drephos's tutelage.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_38449aae	type	Magnetic Weapons
Shadows of the Apt / int_38449aae	comment	Magnetic Weapons: The series' final significant weapon developed is the magnetic cannon. This was a new type of artillery developed by the Collegium to counter the Wasps' Greatshotters, it's basically a coilgun that's charged by hand-cranked generators.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_3b5fcbb7	type	Artifact of Doom
Shadows of the Apt / int_3b5fcbb7	comment	Artifact of Doom: The Shadow Box is the Soul Jar for the damned souls trapped in the Darakyon; as well as being a source of immense magical power in its own right, it's also a vessel for the Darakyon's malign collective will. Uctebri seeks it to use it as a source of power for his own magics.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_3c5ae1a1	type	Schizo Tech
Shadows of the Apt / int_3c5ae1a1	comment	Schizo Tech: Because of the divide between the Apt and Inapt races, technology levels vary tremendously. For the Inapt, even the act of trying to use a doorknob is impossible (doors for Inapt are pulled open by a looped rope). The highest weapon achievement that the Inapt have are longbows. Amongst the Apt races, there's a gap in high technology, the Ants are conservative and are decades or even a century behind in tech in comparison to the Beetles. The Apt also have oddly limited mastery in gunpowder technology - they haven't been able to make guns that a person can carry, but they can use it for artillery and vehicle weapons. However the Apt are capable of creating walking machines that are capable of highly articulate movement, something that our technology hasn't quite mastered. One mad scientist in the Collegium even created his Lightning Engine, a Lightning Gun specifically designed to destroy aircraft.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_3eb9e19f	type	Child of Two Worlds
Shadows of the Apt / int_3eb9e19f	comment	Child of Two Worlds: Tynisa as a half-breed Spider and Mantis is caught in the middle of a bitter rivarly where she struggles with acceptance in each community. Che once she becomes Inapt struggles to maintain her identity within Apt beetle society
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Shadows of the Apt / int_416a2a0d	type	Torture Always Works
Shadows of the Apt / int_416a2a0d	comment	Torture Always Works: Played straight. Torture is the standard method by which the Wasps and most of the Ants interrogate prisoners, and the information they get out of it is never suggested to be anything less than truthful.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_41914bb3	type	Blade Below the Shoulder
Shadows of the Apt / int_41914bb3	comment	Blade Below the Shoulder: Mantis-kinden have two flavors—their Art-grown spines and the Claw.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_424c9a9b	type	Cold-Blooded Torture
Shadows of the Apt / int_424c9a9b	comment	Cold-Blooded Torture: The Wasps, especially the Rekef, are fond of doing this to their captured enemies.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_434a6d40	type	Evil Sorcerer
Shadows of the Apt / int_434a6d40	comment	Evil Sorcerer: Uctebri is a Mosquito kinden sorcerer who offers to give Emperor Alvdan immortality if he can have Alvdan's younger sister Seda. What Uctebri actually intends is to turn Seda into a magical tool and he's the one who assassinates Alvdan. After Seda is corrupted, she has her former mentor Uctebri killed and she becomes an evil sorcerer too.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_4353c4b7	type	Magically-Binding Contract
Shadows of the Apt / int_4353c4b7	comment	Magically-Binding Contract: We find that while the Apt do not believe in such a thing, especially the Wasps, the Inapt races like the Dragonflies do. The Monarch of the Commonweal signed the Treaty of Pearl with her name. This means that they cannot break it no matter what. Even the Wasps didn't know the treaty would be so binding.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_44fc28e8	type	Honor Before Reason
Shadows of the Apt / int_44fc28e8	comment	Even the Mantids Honor Before Reason reputation is hinted to be at least somewhat exaggerated; the demands the Mantid honor code places on those who follow it are so extreme that it's hinted that plenty of Mantids must make minor fudges on it all the time, and it's then politely ignored by the community under most circumstances; otherwise, there would be no Mantids left.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_454bda24	type	Ancestral Weapon
Shadows of the Apt / int_454bda24	comment	Ancestral Weapon: Tynisa's Mantis rapier, passed on by Tisamon.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_485eb589	type	Sealed Evil in a Can
Shadows of the Apt / int_485eb589	comment	Sealed Evil in a Can: The ancient Inapt, having defeated the Worm in battle but unable to rout them from their underground strongholds, ultimately banished said strongholds into another dimension and sealed them there, unable to reach the rest of the world, by means of the Seal of the Worm. Argastos, the Moth sorcerer who led the war against the Worm, was also imprisoned in a barrow above the central Seal and set to guard it for all eternity. Whether Argastos was evil before his sealing is left ambiguous (he claims to have been a great hero, but as the narrative explicitly points out, many tyrants have done the same) but he definitely is by the present, having spent centuries stewing in his own resentment and plotting his revenge.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_4ef92d0b	type	The Atoner
Shadows of the Apt / int_4ef92d0b	comment	The Atoner: In Salute the Dark, Tisamon sees himself as an Atoner, although the main thing he's atoning for would, to most people, seem like a good thing—but Mantids mate for life...
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Shadows of the Apt / int_4f4372e9	type	Early-Installment Weirdness
Shadows of the Apt / int_4f4372e9	comment	Early-Installment Weirdness: The first two books both reference the Centipede-kinden and their ancient war with the Moths and the other Inapt kinden as if it's decently well-known history or mythology. Late books establish that this war was so traumatic the Moths actively scrubbed it from their histories aside from the most vague references, and even those that survived referred to their enemy only as the Worm.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_4f672bfe	type	Elegant Weapon for a More Civilized Age
Shadows of the Apt / int_4f672bfe	comment	Elegant Weapon for a More Civilized Age: The Mantis Claw- a "laughable anachronism" if you don't know what they can do with it...
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Shadows of the Apt / int_4f84cdef	type	Smug Snake
Shadows of the Apt / int_4f84cdef	comment	Smug Snake: Seda at one point describes Uctebri almost exactly as this trope - a clever man whose plans nonetheless ultimately fail because he's unable to acknowledge that other people might be more clever than he is.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_5171abed	type	Loads and Loads of Races
Shadows of the Apt / int_5171abed	comment	Loads and Loads of Races: Many kinden feature distinct named characters with perspective narratives. There are an unknown number of kinden in-world but several dozen are confirmed.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_52388345	type	Elective Monarchy
Shadows of the Apt / int_52388345	comment	Elective Monarchy: Ant-kinden city-states usually work like this - because of their telepathy, the Ant leadership are able to effectively identify young Ants with leadership potential, who are promoted to the city's governing body, collectively called Tacticians. The Tacticians in turn elect the King or Queen should the throne become vacant, generally from among their own ranks.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_5281d5b1	type	Our Dwarves Are All the Same
Shadows of the Apt / int_5281d5b1	comment	Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Beetle-kinden are usually short, stout, good with technology and craftsmanship, and have an incredible ability to endure hardship. All they're missing to complete the stereotypical "dwarf" image are beards.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_53ecf83f	type	Lensman Arms Race
Shadows of the Apt / int_53ecf83f	comment	Lensman Arms Race: Because of the war, both the Empire and Collegium have greatly advanced their military technology to counter each other's efforts. This reaches its apex in The Air War, where the Empire built Farsphexes (diesel-powered, fixed-wing fighter bombers) and specific tactics to counter the Collegium's Stormreader interceptors which were still limited to windup power. The presence of the Iron Glove society accelerates the arms race even further as they willingly sell their unique cutting-edge technology to any side.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_556a4e20	type	The Empire
Shadows of the Apt / int_556a4e20	comment	The Empire: The Wasp Empire, which has its sights set on world conquest.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_55cd4012	type	"Everybody Dies" Ending
Shadows of the Apt / int_55cd4012	comment	"Everybody Dies" Ending: Of the original main characters, the only survivors are Cheerwell Maker and Thalric.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_57b80b45	type	Fantastic Racism
Shadows of the Apt / int_57b80b45	comment	Fantastic Racism: All kinden have their stereotypes about each other, but 'half breeds' tend to suffer far worse.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_57d43e40	type	Fantasy Counterpart Culture
Shadows of the Apt / int_57d43e40	comment	Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Elements of it, but certainly not to the extent often seen. Nevertheless, it's interesting to look at the Dragonfly-kinden, with their unusual long-handled swords, their "golden skin" and their surnames before their personal names. Did I mention that the Dragonfly was used in Japan as a symbol of the Samurai? If Leonardo da Vinci had ever managed to create a working flying machine and spread it throughout Renaissance Italy, Solarno and the Spiderlands would probably feel a lot more familiar to the reader. The Wasp Empire draws inspiration from a number of real-world empires, including Rome (with their use of Auxillians, and constant need for slaves and wars of expansion), the Mongols (with their origins as a group of relatively obscure tribes united by a visionary leader and turned into a powerful military juggernaut), Those Wacky Nazis (the Wasp-Kinden themselves are usually pale and blond, never shut up about their perceived racial superiority, and have a brutal and infamous secret police), Spartans (the Wasp-kinden represent an aristocratic elite within Imperial society banned from having any profession beyond serving as needed in the army or government, like Spartiates in classical Sparta) and Mesoamerican and Mesopotamian states (with their fondness for ziggurats).
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Shadows of the Apt / int_5aa8d3d8	type	Friendly Enemy
Shadows of the Apt / int_5aa8d3d8	comment	Stenwold and Thalric are worthy adversaries as opposing spymasters and nearly friends later in the series if it wasn't for the fact that Stenwold and his spies don't trust Thalric enough to let him become that close. However, it is clear that Thalric regrets this fact and often despairs about how he has more in common with Stenwold's friends than he does with any of his own kin.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_5b2ab16d	type	TheLastOfHisKind
Shadows of the Apt / int_5b2ab16d	comment	The Last of His Kind: Cesta believes that he is the last of the Assassin Bugs 'The Air War' proves him wrong
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Shadows of the Apt / int_5c91635a	type	Bare-Handed Blade Block
Shadows of the Apt / int_5c91635a	comment	Barehanded Blade Block: Used rather well in Empire in Black and Gold. Colonel Ulther attempts it (and gets his arm cut open for his troubles) when fighting Thalric, a few pages before Tisamon's duel with Tynisa, in which he pulls off the same trick, thereby reinforcing his badassitude.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_5fb5dad8	type	Royal Blood
Shadows of the Apt / int_5fb5dad8	comment	Royal Blood: Played with. Uctebri, an expert in Blood Magic, notes that there's nothing inherently special about royal blood - but the Wasps hold their royal family in near-religious reverence, and magic draws power from belief, which makes Seda's and Alvdan's blood a powerful vector for magic.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_6068c76b	type	Clock Punk
Shadows of the Apt / int_6068c76b	comment	Clock Punk: The world is in a transition phase between the two technologies, the Apt parts of it anyway.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_617f0563	type	Heelâ€“Face Turn
Shadows of the Apt / int_617f0563	comment	Heel–Face Turn: Thalric grows increasingly disillusioned by the Empire and falls in love with Che, leading him to abandon the Empire.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_638b65bc	type	Armor Is Useless
Shadows of the Apt / int_638b65bc	comment	Armor Is Useless: Zig-zagged, as a result of the arms race against the Wasps. Sentinel plate armor has been the height of protection for thousands of years, and its wearers are virtually invincible. For this reason, Sentinels form the core of the Wasp infantry. However, then the snapbow is invented — an air-powered firearm that easily penetrates Sentinel armor, rendering that whole class of infantry obsolete. But then the Iron Glove arms manufacturers develop a new lightweight and extremely strong alloy which is quickly worked into advanced body armor and walking tanks. This makes them nearly invulnerable, even the armor-piercing snapbow bolts just glance off them. However, this alloy is only available in limited quantities.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_66181568	type	Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions
Shadows of the Apt / int_66181568	comment	Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: The Apt in general, Che in particular, have outgrown the silly superstitions of magicnote Actually it's not quite as simple as "Inapt believe in magic, Apt don't"; people who have grown up in places ruled by the Apt also tend to believe that magic does not exist (e.g. Tynisa is Inapt but was brought up in Collegium and does not believe in magic) whereas people who have grown up in places ruled by the Inapt believe that magic does exist (e.g. the Beetle servants in Tharn are Apt but they certainly believe in their master's abilities to perform magic.). This being a fantasy book, they are wrong. Meanwhile, everyone's outgrown the silly superstition that gods exist, as well as old wives' tales of unusual kinden both of which in a manner return in Seal of the Worm. Tchaikovsky's later series Echoes of the Fall, set in the same world but on a different continent, goes into a bit more detail about what happened countless milennia ago to make the kinden reject the idea of gods so thoroughly while also confirming that gods do, after a fashion, exist in this setting.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_6627695f	type	Author Appeal
Shadows of the Apt / int_6627695f	comment	Author Appeal: Tchaikovsky is something of an entomology fan. It shows.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_67f26dcc	type	Planet of Hats
Shadows of the Apt / int_67f26dcc	comment	Planet of Hats: Due to drawing their Art from a shared archetype of their totem creature and aspiring to emulate its qualities, most of the kinden naturally develop particular traits, skills and eccentricities most of that kinden share, and can be rather hatty as a result. But there are some definite exceptions: Stenwold attributes his adopted daughter Tynisa's nose for intrigue to her Spider heritage; Tynisa herself, on the other hand, ironically seems to think she got it from Stenwold himself. The Spider-kinden in general are often stereotyped as being brilliant, glamorous aristocrats and masters of intrigue... because they very much go out of their way to create that image. The few peaks the reader is given into the Spiderlands proper indicates that there are plenty of Spiders who do menial jobs, outright live in poverty, or are otherwise ordinary people nothing like the Aristoi. Tynisa initially has a very rose-colored view of the Commonweal, because she assumes that her friend Salma, is a typical example of a Dragonfly prince. It turns out Salma is a White Sheep, and there are very good reasons he left home to study abroad and rarely talks about his family or childhood. Admittedly, the Commonweal nobles overall still have a pretty good average; Salma's family, however, is rotten to the core. The Wasps have a, largely deserved, reputation for being arrogant, bloodthirsty, empire-building Proud Warrior Race Guys. While this is mostly true... it's also true that there are a growing number of Wasps who are getting sick of war and don't think their society should be organized around these principles. Even the Mantids Honor Before Reason reputation is hinted to be at least somewhat exaggerated; the demands the Mantid honor code places on those who follow it are so extreme that it's hinted that plenty of Mantids must make minor fudges on it all the time, and it's then politely ignored by the community under most circumstances; otherwise, there would be no Mantids left.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_6860368a	type	Mook Horror Show
Shadows of the Apt / int_6860368a	comment	Mook Horror Show: The Sea-kinden liberation of Collegium in book 9 plays out like this, starting with one of the Wasps’ invincible Sentinel tanks being dragged underwater by a gigantic tentacle, and continuing as an entire army of bizarre-looking kinden no one has ever seen before marches right out of the ocean and starts killing Wasps.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_69121204	type	The Un-Favourite
Shadows of the Apt / int_69121204	comment	The Un Favourite: What Che sees herself as.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_693cabaf	type	Gladiator Games
Shadows of the Apt / int_693cabaf	comment	Gladiator Games: The Wasps often hold these, using slaves as combatants.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_697b5232	type	Those Wacky Nazis
Shadows of the Apt / int_697b5232	comment	The Wasp Empire draws inspiration from a number of real-world empires, including Rome (with their use of Auxillians, and constant need for slaves and wars of expansion), the Mongols (with their origins as a group of relatively obscure tribes united by a visionary leader and turned into a powerful military juggernaut), Those Wacky Nazis (the Wasp-Kinden themselves are usually pale and blond, never shut up about their perceived racial superiority, and have a brutal and infamous secret police), Spartans (the Wasp-kinden represent an aristocratic elite within Imperial society banned from having any profession beyond serving as needed in the army or government, like Spartiates in classical Sparta) and Mesoamerican and Mesopotamian states (with their fondness for ziggurats).
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Shadows of the Apt / int_6bcfbc7e	type	Fantasy Gun Control
Shadows of the Apt / int_6bcfbc7e	comment	Fantasy Gun Control: Subverted with crossbows being the "weapon of the revolution" that put the Apt in charge and the Inapt on their long journey down the pecking order, and then again when Totho invents the "snapbow" for the Empire, which is basically an air gun that shoots further and harder than crossbows ever could, and makes even the awesome Mantis-kinden obsolete. Played with in The Air War: it's explained that the Apt haven't fully mastered gunpowder technology. They haven't been able to create a man-portable gunpowder weapon that's accurate, but they have them for artillery and vehicle-mounted weaponry (the leadshot and greatshotters).
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Shadows of the Apt / int_6c3d1777	type	Magic A Is Magic A
Shadows of the Apt / int_6c3d1777	comment	Magic A Is Magic A: Art is Art, and is inherited and instantly recognizable as Art; technology is only usable and creatable by the Apt, and Aptitude is nearly always decided by kinden; magic is only usable by the Inapt, and relies on doubt and fear.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_7160b097	type	Dawn of an Era
Shadows of the Apt / int_7160b097	comment	Dawn of an Era: Depending on your viewpoint the revolution of the Apt was either the dawn of science and the end of fear and superstition; or the end of magic and the start of a polluted, ignorant future.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_7315fd38	type	Covers Always Lie
Shadows of the Apt / int_7315fd38	comment	Covers Always Lie: None of the weapons in the series glow. The cover of Blood of the Mantis features a Mantis (possibly Tisamon) wielding a Claw. It doesn't appear to work in the way described in the books.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_77eeb348	type	The Big Bad Shuffle
Shadows of the Apt / int_77eeb348	comment	The Big Bad Shuffle: Initially, Alvdan and Uctebri are the main antagonists of the series as a Big Bad Duumvirate. After they both die, Seda - as Alvdan's sister and Uctebri's Bastard Understudy - inherits both their roles, and proves herself more dangerous than either, becoming the Big Bad for most of the series until the last arc, when the Worm is released and overshadows all other threats, though Seda remains active in her own right as well. The last two books also include the Ant tactician Milus, who opposes the Wasps but only to advance his own ambitions. And that's not getting into the various Arc Villains and Big Bad Wannabes who show up across the series.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_78255ad7	type	Passing the Torch
Shadows of the Apt / int_78255ad7	comment	Passing the Torch: The series really splits into two after the death of Emperor Alvdan, in the 2nd phase of the series two new important characters are introduced, the Collegium students - the Antspider and Eugen Leadwell. These two would be the ones to go to Capitas to see the end of the war and the Wasp Empire, something that none of the original main characters will do. And it'll be these two who will lead the rebuilt Collegium in the epilogue
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Shadows of the Apt / int_78540917	type	Like Brother and Sister
Shadows of the Apt / int_78540917	comment	Like Brother and Sister: Che, to Totho. He's not happy about it and is the reason for his Face–Heel Turn to the Wasps.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_7b454a57	type	White Sheep
Shadows of the Apt / int_7b454a57	comment	White Sheep: As it turns out in Heirs of the Blade, Salma was this for his family.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_7c862b8a	type	Chronic Backstabbing Disorder
Shadows of the Apt / int_7c862b8a	comment	Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Thalric; not that it helps him, given that the Empire eventually decides he's better off dead — and then changes its mind again, at which point he betrays and murders a top-ranking general. He's hauled to the capital in chains and arrives at just the right time to marry the new Empress, who needs a male figurehead. Then the Rekef decide they would prefer a new male figurehead... In Heirs of the Blade it seemed he was pretty content to put the past behind him and tag along with Che (although that is what we thought at the end of Salute the Dark with Seda...) Arianna as well. As a low-born Spider without any support or political connections among her own people, she initially works for the Wasps, then switches to work for Collegium (becoming Stenwold's lover), then sells Stenwold out to the Aldanrael Spiders in exchange for being adopted into their family, then turns on them and sacrifices herself to save Stenwold.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_7f8fd503	type	Lonely at the Top
Shadows of the Apt / int_7f8fd503	comment	Lonely at the Top: Alvdan takes no pleasure in any part of the actual work of being Emperor, and has grown jaded by his limitless political power and paranoid about others attempting to take it from him. He's an unusually unsympathetic example, though, since one of the few things he does enjoy is wielding his power over those weaker than himself, especially his sister Resa and his concubines.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_81c72ad5	type	Vestigial Empire
Shadows of the Apt / int_81c72ad5	comment	Vestigial Empire: Several, owing to the major Inapt powers all being in serious decline, if not having collapsed outright: The Commonweal is a large empire north of the Lowlands and west of the Wasp Empire. While still considered a great power, its glory days are clearly behind it - thinly populated for its size, with most of its people living in poverty, and its nobility having largely either forgotten the ideals they're supposed to abide by, or too weak to do much even if they haven't. It's pretty clear that the only reason the Wasps haven't conquered the Commonweal already is that it's just too big to swallow in one gulp. Khanaphes was, supposedly, the first city in the world and the great power of its day. By the time of the present, between climate change reducing much of its territory to desert, its godlike Masters spending most of their time in hibernation, and failing to keep pace with much of the rest of the world's technological advances, it's a regional power at best - and that only because its region is considered a backwater the modern powers mostly don't bother with. The Moths were a Magocracy who ruled all the Lowlands at their height, and became the world's preeminent power after the decline of Khanaphes. After the Apt revolution, they were reduced to a handful of small, isolated city-states whose people do little but lament their past glories. Averted by the Spiders, the only great power of the ancient world to still be a great power in the modern day - while they have largely lost their magic, the Spiders' skill at politics and diplomacy is valuable in any age and still makes them a force to be reckoned with even so, and while the Spiders themselves are Inapt, they're pragmatic enough to know that even if they can't understand or use advanced technology themselves, they can still have subjects who can. Indeed, it's explicitly noted that the Spiderlands are still the second greatest power in the known world, second only to the Wasp Empire.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_8204a6ad	type	The Magic Versus Technology War
Shadows of the Apt / int_8204a6ad	comment	The Magic Versus Technology War: The setting's backstory has the magic-using Inapt races being overthrown by their mechanically proficient servants several centuries ago. Particularly prominent in The Scarab Path, with the attitude of the city of Khanaphes to progress.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_82a4fadc	type	Our Liches Are Different
Shadows of the Apt / int_82a4fadc	comment	Our Liches Are Different: The ancient Moth sorcerer-warlord Argastos exists in this form as shown in War Master's Gate; though long dead, unlike a normal ghost (which are usually described as being a sort of echo of a dead person) his consciousness is still very much all there and inhabits his own mummified corpse (though he usually puts on a prettier face for receiving guests) and commands all his magical power. He also commands a legion of other undead, created from both his original servants and those unfortunates who found his barrow but were unable to free him from it.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_83641c73	type	Logical Weakness
Shadows of the Apt / int_83641c73	comment	Logical Weakness: The Centipede-kinden created their "god," the Worm, by somehow summoning the platonic ideal of their totem creature into the body of a giant centipede. The resulting creature does have the power of a god... but it's still in a living, mortal body, which is vulnerable to anything powerful enough to pierce its hide. Like Totho's grenades, say...
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Shadows of the Apt / int_8437cb10	type	Made a Slave
Shadows of the Apt / int_8437cb10	comment	Made a Slave: A common fate for those captured by the Wasp Empire. It briefly happens to Che during the first book, when she is captured by a Wasp caravan.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_86968c96	type	Above Good and Evil
Shadows of the Apt / int_86968c96	comment	Above Good and Evil: The Masters of Khanaphes think in terms of centuries and civilizations, and really couldn't care less about any moral judgments other beings might make of them, or the fates of individuals caught up in their grand plans. Inverted with the mindless Worm, which is more below good and evil. It cares nothing for morality, politics, kinden or even Aptitude - it just wants to consume endlessly until it is the only thing left in existence. It's explicitly noted that the Worm can't really be called "evil," because "evil" implies an active choice... and the Worm is merely following its nature.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_8774fb47	type	Eldritch Abomination
Shadows of the Apt / int_8774fb47	comment	Eldritch Abomination: The Worm looks like a giant centipede that has segments composed of all the people it's devoured (their faces can be seen in its body). The necromancer Maure couldn't feel the presence of the lingering dead in that world, because the Worm ate them all and it's presence causes humans to forget how to use magic and technological artifice, simply because it doesn't believe in either. Its aspiration is to invade the real world and convert it into more segments of itself.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_885a5be7	type	Suffer the Slings
Shadows of the Apt / int_885a5be7	comment	Suffer the Slings: The forces of the Worm are so primitive that their only missile weapon is the sling. Even the other Inapt races have gone up to using longbows.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_8878f3be	type	Badass Army
Shadows of the Apt / int_8878f3be	comment	Badass Army: An army of one thousand Mantis-kinden from Felyal doesn't quite live up to their boasts—they said they'd be able to kill the whole of the 20,000-strong Imperial Fourth Army. They only got three-quarters of them before the rest fled.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_8c1ad82f	type	Proud Warrior Race Guy
Shadows of the Apt / int_8c1ad82f	comment	Proud Warrior Race Guy: All over the place. The Mantis-kinden are peerless fighters, trained from birth to be perfect killing machines. Perhaps related, there aren’t many of them. No element of their society does not involve violence, including their theatre, which is mostly made up of tragedies about doomed warriors. They have no discipline, having instead suicidal bravery. The Ant-kinden are peerless soldiers, their mindlink Art giving them instant long-distance communication and perfect battle coordination. Their entire population is expected to be capable of taking up arms, and while they’re led by kings and queens, they’re non-hereditary positions filled by the best tactician/strategist in the whole city-state. The Wasp-kinden are consciously trying to become this, and they’ve generally succeeded - while they don’t quite have the effortless discipline and coordination of the Ants, they’ve successfully built a modern military out of a bunch of squabbling clans, with all the organization that implies, and make up for their shortcomings against the Ants with technological advantages.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_933576c8	type	Mighty Glacier
Shadows of the Apt / int_933576c8	comment	Varmen in Heirs of the Blade, who used to be an Imperial Sentinel befre the advent of snapbows rendered heavy infantry obsolete in a single battle, while not going out of his way to get himself killed, is quite content to have met his end on the battlefield, covering Thalric and Che's escape from the Salmae's camp.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_95b7c400	type	Faux Affably Evil
Shadows of the Apt / int_95b7c400	comment	Faux Affably Evil: Alvdan II usually conducts himself with civility and decorum, but that's just a paper-thin mask over the near-emotionless sociopath he really is, and even then his politeness is often just mean-spirited mockery.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_95f6a58a	type	Sneaky Spy Species
Shadows of the Apt / int_95f6a58a	comment	Sneaky Spy Species: Combining this trope with Sneaky Spider, the Spider-kinden are known for two things: being The Beautiful Elite, and being manipulative, cutthroat schemers. Their homeland, the Spiderlands, is known for its intricate politics as their rival families wage a continuous Cold War against each other for dominance. However, they're more of a spymaster species than spies themselves; while they certainly have the necessary skills, especially regarding seduction and social engineering, there aren't many of them and their reputation often precedes them, so they do their best work when at the center of a web of other agents.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_998360a	type	Take Up My Sword
Shadows of the Apt / int_998360a	comment	Take Up My Sword: Combined with Ancestral Weapon, and symbolizing Tynisa accepting her Mantis heritage.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_99ab4e84	type	Hand Blast
Shadows of the Apt / int_99ab4e84	comment	Hand Blast: Wasp-kinden have the “sting” as their most common Art, letting them shoot bolts of energy out of their palms. Therefore, no Wasp is ever technically unarmed, and they consider open hands a threat in their culture. Their stings usually don’t have the same range as a proper bow or crossbow, but they can kill just as easily.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_99dfd4fc	type	Nothing Is the Same Anymore
Shadows of the Apt / int_99dfd4fc	comment	Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Pretty much every character has their world turned upside down and is uprooted from their old life. The Sea Watch has to take the cake though. Despite some foreshadowing from previous books and online material, hints from Word of God, and even the front cover of the book itself, nothing prepares for the reveal that the "Sea-kinden" aren't just insect kinden that live underwater but are kinden of entirely non-insect-related origins, and that these kinden are divided into families of unrelated kinden. Considering that the histories of the insect kinden are still a mystery to the reader, it's a pretty big shock to be suddenly introduced to Octopus- and Jellyfish-kinden. It also raises even more questions about how much Scyla (and her teachers) truly knew about the different types of Kinden. This is basically what Adrian Tchaikovsky is trying to do. He says that he's trying to subvert the whole idea in fantasy stories that after an event, everything goes back to normal.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_9a08517a	type	Elves Versus Dwarves
Shadows of the Apt / int_9a08517a	comment	Tynisa as a half-breed Spider and Mantis is caught in the middle of a bitter rivarly where she struggles with acceptance in each community.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_9b935eeb	type	BadassLabCoat
Shadows of the Apt / int_9b935eeb	comment	Badass Labcoat: Sort of; Stenwold and Totho both wear their artificing gear (heavy leather clothes, fireproof aprons, tough gloves etc.) rather than armor in the first few books because firstly they are artificers before warriors, and secondly because none of the guards would pay attention to an artificer looking for work in an imperial city. In fact, during the siege of Collegium the city's defence was upheld by a last-minute militia that was equipped with what poor reserves the city had. After that, each man woman and child grabbed whatever could be used in a fight. Seeing how the local residents are mostly artificers... You get the idea.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_9e2c893	type	Black Magic
Shadows of the Apt / int_9e2c893	comment	Black Magic: While magic is not inherently bad, it is said that some forms of truly bad magic exist: the Darakyon ritual and the blood magic that Mosquito-kinden utilizes in general. A lot of foreshadowing is happening with the prophecy that Stenwold hears from the monarch of the Commonweal and towards the end of the Heirs of the Blade with what Che says about the crest of worms while she was in a trance-like state
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Shadows of the Apt / int_a122bf2f	type	Blind Seer
Shadows of the Apt / int_a122bf2f	comment	Blind Seer: Subverted by the Moth-kinden; they are all Seers and magicians, but rather than being blind they can see better than any other race with their Art for being able to see in the dark. Crosses over with Prophet Eyes (see below).
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Shadows of the Apt / int_a8217606	type	Sweet Polly Oliver
Shadows of the Apt / int_a8217606	comment	Sweet Polly Oliver
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Shadows of the Apt / int_ac6ea68c	type	Near-Villain Victory
Shadows of the Apt / int_ac6ea68c	comment	Near-Villain Victory: The series starts off this way, with the Wasp Empire nearly strolling into the Lowlands without a fight while Stenwold and his spies try to rally the Lowland cities to fight back. This is even lampshaded in Blood of the Mantis by the emperor when he comments that so far the invasion of the Lowlands had not counted as war, merely a sequence of skirmishes. Now that Collegium, Sarn and the Ancient League had allied themselves against the Empire it just about passes as a war.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_ace1f7c5	type	WorthyAdversary
Shadows of the Apt / int_ace1f7c5	comment	Worthy Adversary: Quite a few of the Imperial high command are presented at least somewhat sympathetically. All weapon masters view each other this way. It also happens to be the traditional way of seducing a Mantis. The Pilots of the Exalsee are compared to a dueling society; they all know and respect each other, some are very close friends, and if they were to find themselves pitted against one another their feelings wouldn't change. However, this wouldn't stop them from fighting to the death and shooting each other out of the air. Probably the best example of this is between Taki and Axrad (a Wasp pilot who seeks her out for an Air Duel during the invasion of Solarno) Stenwold and Thalric are worthy adversaries as opposing spymasters and nearly friends later in the series if it wasn't for the fact that Stenwold and his spies don't trust Thalric enough to let him become that close. However, it is clear that Thalric regrets this fact and often despairs about how he has more in common with Stenwold's friends than he does with any of his own kin.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_ad62678e	type	Living Shadow
Shadows of the Apt / int_ad62678e	comment	Living Shadow: The malevolent spirits of the Darakyon take this form.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_b5b4b077	type	The Ace
Shadows of the Apt / int_b5b4b077	comment	Tynisa initially has a very rose-colored view of the Commonweal, because she assumes that her friend Salma, is a typical example of a Dragonfly prince. It turns out Salma is a White Sheep, and there are very good reasons he left home to study abroad and rarely talks about his family or childhood. Admittedly, the Commonweal nobles overall still have a pretty good average; Salma's family, however, is rotten to the core.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_b7248073	type	My Country, Right or Wrong
Shadows of the Apt / int_b7248073	comment	My Country, Right or Wrong: Thalric starts out with this mindset, willing to even murder an old friend if his commanders order it, because he knows it’s all for the good of the Empire. It takes being ordered for execution himself — for being associated with the wrong side during a political purge — to shake his faith, and even then he nearly lets himself get shot, he’s just that loyal.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_b7b1aa73	type	And Then What?
Shadows of the Apt / int_b7b1aa73	comment	And Then What?: What Thalric says to his would-be assassin in Dragonfly Falling.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_b7c53a22	type	Blood Knight
Shadows of the Apt / int_b7c53a22	comment	Blood Knight: Tisamon is one in Helleron where he fights continuously, still wounded over the long past hurt and taking it out the only way he can. In Salute the Dark it's Tisamon again, anguished over his "betrayal" of Atryssa willingly lets himself be captured by the Wasps as a gladiator slave to get a chance to kill the Emperor as a form of redemption Tynisa, his daughter, also demonstrates this trait, getting a profound joy out of fighting and killing.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_b99bed67	type	No-Nonsense Nemesis
Shadows of the Apt / int_b99bed67	comment	No-Nonsense Nemesis: the Wasp Empire has a habit of using all the firepower necessary to deal with its enemies and then some, and in case they get it wrong the first time around they are perfectly willing to learn, adapt, and try again. They manage to crush the Mantids of Felyal by coming in loaded for Godzilla and with large city's worth of troops, and their siege of Collegium shows they did their homework on how the Vekken got defeated.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_b9f472b	type	Storming the Castle
Shadows of the Apt / int_b9f472b	comment	Storming the Castle: Empire in Black and Gold has Stenwold and the Mynan resistance sneaking in to rescue Che, Salma, Kymene and any other prisoners they can help.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_ba5bd7	type	Ignored Expert
Shadows of the Apt / int_ba5bd7	comment	Ignored Expert: Stenwold, at the beginning of the series.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_babc974	type	Sadistic Choice
Shadows of the Apt / int_babc974	comment	Sadistic Choice: In Salute the Dark, General Tynan tries this on Stenwold. Subverted in that a Deus ex Machina prevents Stenwold from having to make the choice.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_bf487e2b	type	Translator Microbes
Shadows of the Apt / int_bf487e2b	comment	Translator Microbes: An unusual example. It goes unremarked-on that everyone speaks the same language, everywhere in the world, with accent being the only notable difference. Written language may vary wildly from place to place, but spoken language never changes. No one has any trouble talking to anyone else, even in places that have been isolated from the rest of the world for centuries or millennia. The short story “For Love of Distant Shores” explains this as language being an inherent, biological characteristic of humans in this setting, which always develops the same way. This does not hold true for humans on other continents.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_c0961831	type	Interrupted Suicide
Shadows of the Apt / int_c0961831	comment	Interrupted Suicide: In Dragonfly Falling, Tisamon stops Felise from killing herself.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_c1e6c92c	type	UnluckyChildhoodFriend
Shadows of the Apt / int_c1e6c92c	comment	Unlucky Childhood Friend: Totho. A very interesting treatment of it, as it's Che's merely fraternal affection for him that leads to Totho working for the Wasps.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_c3d20e77	type	Tulpa
Shadows of the Apt / int_c3d20e77	comment	Tulpa: When the Centipede-kinden are exiled to a magic-less dimension, they suffer so much despair that they retreat into further embodying their totem insect and develop a religion from it. This causes The Worm to come into existence
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Shadows of the Apt / int_c41a5bac	type	Neutral No Longer
Shadows of the Apt / int_c41a5bac	comment	Neutral No Longer: The Moth-kinden and the Helleren militia at the end of Empire in Black and Gold.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_c4eff1b7	type	Sorcerous Overlord
Shadows of the Apt / int_c4eff1b7	comment	Sorcerous Overlord: The Moths were a race of this and were the foremost rulers of the Bad Old Days until their servitor races rebelled. The biggest example for the Moths is Argastos, the Moth's greatest Warmaster. Even after death, his decayed corpse continued to command his legions of Mantis Warriors and any victim that fell into his clutches would be made to join him (most recently a Wasp airship crew). In the distant past, the Slug-kinden were these, being immortal and even more powerful in magic than the Moths. They claim to have been the first civilization in the world and to have taught everyone else how to do it, and they might not be wrong. Like the Moths, however, their time is long past, and their remaining numbers spend most of their time sleeping beneath their ancient capital, Khanaphes, enacting a very long-term ritual to make their desertified homeland green again. After Emperor Alvdan’s death by Blood Magic, his sister Empress Seda discovers its aftereffects have rendered her Inapt and given her an affinity for the same, but this is a secret kept between her, her consort, her closest slaves, and the victims she has exsanguinated to feed herself. However, she only really comes into her power after being “crowned” by the Slug-kinden of Khanaphes, which not only boosts her power but gives her a magical aura of rulership that awes any Inapt she meets.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_c7575bab	type	ElvesVsDwarves
Shadows of the Apt / int_c7575bab	comment	Elves vs. Dwarves: The kinden are dived between the Apt (Dwarves) and Inapt (Elves). A very close approximation: the Inapt are graceful, (usually) tall and some use magic, while the Apt are generally bulkier and use technology. This is partially averted in later books where it is shown that many Skater-kinden are becoming Apt whereas they had all been Inapt a few generations before. Especially obvious between the Apt Beetles and Inapt Moths, given their mutual dislike. While the Spiders and Mantis (Mantises? Mantids?) are both similar to elves in different ways, their virulent enmity is also reminiscent of the elf/dwarf conflict of other settings.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_cc4b45f6	type	Word of God
Shadows of the Apt / int_cc4b45f6	comment	The Sea Watch has to take the cake though. Despite some foreshadowing from previous books and online material, hints from Word of God, and even the front cover of the book itself, nothing prepares for the reveal that the "Sea-kinden" aren't just insect kinden that live underwater but are kinden of entirely non-insect-related origins, and that these kinden are divided into families of unrelated kinden. Considering that the histories of the insect kinden are still a mystery to the reader, it's a pretty big shock to be suddenly introduced to Octopus- and Jellyfish-kinden. It also raises even more questions about how much Scyla (and her teachers) truly knew about the different types of Kinden.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_d5a84e45	type	Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit"
Shadows of the Apt / int_d5a84e45	comment	Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Almost all man-portable projectile weapons in this world is called a bow of some kind. The snapbow is an air-powered gun, while Balkus's nailbow is a weapon that uses explosive powder to fire a spray of nails at enemies like a blunderbuss.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_d91d0365	type	The Magic Goes Away
Shadows of the Apt / int_d91d0365	comment	The Magic Goes Away: While alluded to in previous books, in The Scarab Path and The Air War, it finally comes out that magic was once truly the stuff of miracles. If the Inapt races were capable of the sorceries of their ancient times, the Apt would never have been able to overthrow them. However, the Inapt races were caught up in devastating wars amongst each other that greatly diminished their power. Since magic thrives under a climate of darkness and mystery, the current age of reason and technology has prevented magic from being the force it used to be, except in certain isolated parts of the world.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_d9e9ad7e	type	The Cavalry
Shadows of the Apt / int_d9e9ad7e	comment	The Cavalry: Many examples, especially in Dragonfly Falling once with the Spider reinforcements arriving at Collegium to break the siege; and then twice at the Battle of the Rails, first with the Moth and Mantis army arriving to aid the Sarnesh, and second with Totho arriving with snapbows to save the Wasps and create a victory for the Empire.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_dc1761bd	type	A God Am I
Shadows of the Apt / int_dc1761bd	comment	A God Am I: All of the Slug-kinden of Khanaphes. They actually have the stones to back up their claims though. Empress Seda and her hunger for recognition of her power.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_de9047ac	type	Gambit Pileup
Shadows of the Apt / int_de9047ac	comment	Gambit Pileup: The Spiderlands political landscape, especially in Solarno. Not unexpected seeing how every Spider is born a natural chessmaster.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_dfc3e10a	type	The Dung Ages
Shadows of the Apt / int_dfc3e10a	comment	The Dung Ages: The age of the Inapt was referred to as The Bad Old Days. For the Apt races, their histories depict it as a time of superstitious ignorance and slavery. The reality was even worse, the Bad Old Days was a Dark Fantasy world where sorcerous overlords would regularly commit atrocities and it only ended when all the Kinden fought against the forces of the Worm.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_dfe120e5	type	Functional Magic
Shadows of the Apt / int_dfe120e5	comment	Functional Magic: Two main kinds: Art is an Inherent Gift that everyone has to some degree; by meditating on and seeking to emulate their kinden's totem creature, a person can learn to access some of its abilities. These are mostly basic powers that affect only the person in question or their immediate environment (ie, telepathy, night vision, flight, the Wasps "stings," etc.) or even physical transformations (such as the barbs or claws certain kinden can sprout). One of the idiosyncrasies of Art is that an observer can always recognize it as Art. Magic is usable only by the Inapt, and requires a great deal of study to be used well even for those with great inborn talent. Magic often involves much longer-range effects, and is much more flexible in what it can do compared to Art, but often requires elaborate rituals or meditation to activate; it also draws its power from the collective unconscious of humanity, and is less powerful in the present than it was in the past due to the Apt turning away from magic and refusing to believe in it or credit its power. While all forms of magic can alter reality in various ways, different Inapt kinden have their own traditions with their own specialties - the Moths tend to focus on darkness, shadows and gathering information, Mosquitos on Blood Magic, Spiders on illusion and misdirection and the Masters of Khanaphes on long-range environmental effects.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_e0309d03	type	Slave Race
Shadows of the Apt / int_e0309d03	comment	Slave Race: Anyone conquered by the Wasps will likely end up here, either pressed into military service as "Auxillians" or enslaved outright. The notable exceptions are those Beetle and Fly kinden native to the Empire itself, who handle a lot of the economic and administrative jobs the Wasps need loyal people to do but are entirely uninterested in doing themselves; while not considered equal to the Wasps themselves (who are effectively all aristocrats, being sufficiently supported by the labor of their slaves and subjects they can dedicate their lives wholly to soldiering and/or politics), they are still full Imperial citizens and placed above everyone else.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_e235202a	type	The Power of Blood
Shadows of the Apt / int_e235202a	comment	The Power of Blood: Type AB, with a touch of Type O when it's used in prophetic dreams. Surprisingly enough, the Mosquito-kinden have a bit of a thing about blood...
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Shadows of the Apt / int_e6a901a3	type	Meaningful Rename
Shadows of the Apt / int_e6a901a3	comment	Meaningful Rename: The Butterfly-kinden change names after major changes in their life.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_e8e56799	type	Blue-and-Orange Morality
Shadows of the Apt / int_e8e56799	comment	Blue-and-Orange Morality: Several flavors: Drephos' moral code is... interesting. He has a very high sense of professional ethics (including being one of the only Wasp officers willing to hire and promote people solely based on their skill at artifice, regardless of kinden, gender, social class or national origin) but it's coupled with a complete lack of concern for who uses his weapons (or who they're used on) or the harm they cause, so long as they work. He also disdains the Bee-Killer gas, not because it's a weapon designed for genocide, but because it's crude and he doesn't want to be remembered for science that shoddy. The Slug-Kinden have such a long view of time and cause and effect that they only work towards goals that take place across centuries, and though they claim to be patrons of civilization and enlightenment, they also couldn't give a damn about most individual lives. Che is appalled at their callousness, but also can't really make any moral argument they'd consider worth engaging with. Mantis-Kinden are obsessed with Honor Before Reason, to a degree that other kinden find literally insane - but don't tell the Mantids that.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_e9d6eff8	type	Cool Airship
Shadows of the Apt / int_e9d6eff8	comment	Cool Airship: A fair few, notably the Sky Without in Empire in Black and Gold and the Starnest invasion ship in Blood of the Mantis. And of course, it's worth mentioning the "Triumph of Aeronautics", an armored airship.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_eb4086e3	type	Big Creepy-Crawlies
Shadows of the Apt / int_eb4086e3	comment	Big Creepy-Crawlies: Apart from humans and certain livestock mammals, these are the dominant form of life, many of which have been domesticated as beasts of burden or battle. The various kinden came about as a result of people studying and meditating on the characteristics of the various giant arthropods they shared the world with: the Beetles emulated the endurance and industrious nature of certain giant dirt-rolling beetles, for example, and also tamed them as draft animals. The Scarab Path says that an environmental catastrophe in the distant past killed off most life that wasn’t giant bugs, and The Sea Watch implies the survivors were deliberately exterminated during an ancient war, for some reason.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_eb81c601	type	Big Damn Heroes
Shadows of the Apt / int_eb81c601	comment	Big Damn Heroes: Twice the Sea-kinden come to the rescue. The first time, their giant monsters rise out of the sea to destroy the invading Spider-fleet that was about to attack an unprepared Collegium. The second time, they liberate the Collegium from the Wasps 2nd Legion with a surprise attack that catches the Wasp and the Collegium citizens off-guard.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_edc22fe8	type	Cartwright Curse
Shadows of the Apt / int_edc22fe8	comment	Cartwright Curse: Both Stenwold Maker and his niece Che believe themselves to be bad luck for others.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_f09ac6a6	type	Chekhov M.I.A.
Shadows of the Apt / int_f09ac6a6	comment	Chekhov M.I.A.: Nero. Later in the series, the entire race of Mosquito-kinden turn out to be not so mythical! Just read the lore sections of the author's website and the date posted. Dude's been planting Chekhov's mines everywhere and priming them to blow for a long time. No wonder he's pumping books out so fast. Everything is already planned.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_f1492605	type	Redemption Equals Death
Shadows of the Apt / int_f1492605	comment	Arianna as well. As a low-born Spider without any support or political connections among her own people, she initially works for the Wasps, then switches to work for Collegium (becoming Stenwold's lover), then sells Stenwold out to the Aldanrael Spiders in exchange for being adopted into their family, then turns on them and sacrifices herself to save Stenwold.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_f1c860c4	type	Spider-Sense
Shadows of the Apt / int_f1c860c4	comment	Spider-Sense: Hilarious when you think about it: it's the Flies that have this ability with their Art!
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Shadows of the Apt / int_f1d6144a	type	War Is Hell
Shadows of the Apt / int_f1d6144a	comment	War Is Hell: while hardly the driving theme of the series, it's still present. simply due to the way the war against the Wasp Empire is described.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_f7402e24	type	ProudWarriorRaceGuys
Shadows of the Apt / int_f7402e24	comment	The Wasps have a, largely deserved, reputation for being arrogant, bloodthirsty, empire-building Proud Warrior Race Guys. While this is mostly true... it's also true that there are a growing number of Wasps who are getting sick of war and don't think their society should be organized around these principles.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_f788b2c5	type	Love Makes You Evil
Shadows of the Apt / int_f788b2c5	comment	Love Makes You Evil: Totho is in love with Che; she views him simply as a platonic friend. His increasing bitterness over this isn't the only thing that drives him into the embrace of the Wasps, but it certainly plays a noticeable role.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_fe0330fb	type	Brick Joke
Shadows of the Apt / int_fe0330fb	comment	All of the Slug-kinden of Khanaphes. They actually have the stones to back up their claims though.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_fe1c3451	type	Prophet Eyes
Shadows of the Apt / int_fe1c3451	comment	Prophet Eyes: The Moth Kinden and Butterfly Kinden.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_ff8afd14	type	Spider Tank
Shadows of the Apt / int_ff8afd14	comment	Spider Tank: Commonplace. Motor vehicles in this world often go about on legs instead of wheels or tracks, but particular mention goes to the Sentinels, which are isopod tanks sold to the Empire by the Iron Glove in the last few books, which are heavily armed, very fast, and utterly invincible. Snapbows, bombs, ramming, and direct hits from cannon fire barely dent their armor, and in field battles they prove to be an overwhelming advantage for the Empire. Only a handful are ever destroyed by the end of the series, only one of them because its armor was penetrated — on its underside, by the Greatclaw Onychoi, who had to flip it over first.
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Shadows of the Apt / int_fff371b4	type	Death Seeker
Shadows of the Apt / int_fff371b4	comment	Death Seeker: The Mantis are an entire race of them, they've been a servitor race for ages but their Moth masters have dumped them and their individual skills are no longer a match for modern weapons and squad tactics, so they now seek death in battle. One Mantis nation actually succeeds in completely killing themselves off. They get better through the intervention of their totem insect and a sorcerous queen. Varmen in Heirs of the Blade, who used to be an Imperial Sentinel befre the advent of snapbows rendered heavy infantry obsolete in a single battle, while not going out of his way to get himself killed, is quite content to have met his end on the battlefield, covering Thalric and Che's escape from the Salmae's camp.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Above Good and Evil / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Almighty Idiot / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Animalistic Abilities / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Artifact of Doom / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Bare-Handed Blade Block / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Big Bad Slippage / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Big Creepy-Crawlies / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Black Magic / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Blade Below the Shoulder / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Blood Magic / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Bug Works / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Clock Punk / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Cold-Blooded Torture / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Conscription / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Dream Spying / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Elegant Weapon for a More Civilized Age / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Elves Versus Dwarves / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	English Literature / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Evil Versus Oblivion / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Fantastic Firearms / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Fantastic Slurs / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Functional Magic / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Gladiator Games / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Half-Breed Discrimination / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Healing Hands / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Holy Hand Grenade / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	I Gave My Word / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Inhumanly Beautiful Race / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	It Was a Gift / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Klingon Scientists Get No Respect / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Lensman Arms Race / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Living Shadow / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Magic A Is Magic A / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Magic Versus Science / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Master Race / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Master Swordsman / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Muggles Do It Better / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Our Dwarves Are All the Same / int_17655771
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Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Powder Keg Crowd / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Prophet Eyes / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Proud Industrious Race / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Proud Merchant Race / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Single Language Planet / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Slaying Mantis / int_17655771
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Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Soldier vs. Warrior / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Squad Nickname / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	The Empire / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	The Magic Goes Away / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	The Magic Versus Technology War / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	The Medic / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	The Mourning After / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	The Power of Blood / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Unwilling Suspension / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Wicked Wasps / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	Minored in Ass-Kicking / int_17655771
Shadows of the Apt	hasFeature	The Chains of Commanding / int_17655771

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