The Dragon Doctors



""Well, I can tell you that a long life need not be a boring one. Everyone's always changing. And I don't just mean physically, though there's been a lot of that going around lately.""

- Mori, here

The Dragon Doctors is a transformation Web Comic about four "magical doctors" touted as the best in their respective fields, who have banded together to do good and solve medical mysteries. Consisting of a whimsical Shapeshifting wizard, a grim magic-assisted surgeon, a thoughtful "magical scientist," and a caring shaman/therapist the team helps others and solves previously incurable diseases and conditions. And it all takes place in the aftermath of an expedition to solve the mystery of a cursed valley which, while successful, turned them all into members of the opposite sex, to which they adjust with varying degrees of success.

Some of their major patients so far range from a sentient tree to a girl that is mysteriously invisible to a man suffering from a horrible sentient cancer. Various minor cases crop up that are even more bizarre, such as a man who cannot pronounce any word with the letter "E" in it or a woman trapped in slow motion from birth. Others are odd by our world's standards but considered commonplace by theirs, such as performing voluntary transformation services (like enlarging a pixie to human size so she can live among humans, or rejuvenating the elderly).

Unfortunately the author was only just learning to draw when starting out; the first chapter's art is very rough and though it is miles from where it started, it's not yet at "professional" level. (The page image is fan art). How much you enjoy the comic may depend on how tolerant you are of amateur art.

The comic is sometimes compared to The Wotch, due to its inexperienced artwork and recurring transformation theme, but its story, tone, and premise are decidedly different.

"Sarin: I am a total magical badass. Sarin: You've got my full attention. That means you've lost. Goro: Never underestimate a guerilla defending their turf. This is a hospital. You're in my jungle now."
 * Anti-Magical Faction: Thoria in the past was this, as a reaction to a war where people turned themselves into beastmen with magic. They weren't against all magic, but severely restricted its use in their populace and they ejected non-humans from their society. When rejuvenation magic was rediscovered, there was a social revolution in Thoria and they softened their stance considerably. The author noted that this was an ironic situation, where the conservative old guys in charge were suddenly the ones who most wanted change.
 * Apologizes a Lot: The artist, who often laments not being better at drawing.
 * After the End: Civilization is said to have fallen four times during the two thousand years between modern times and the Doctors' time (The "Breakings").
 * Afterlife Antechamber: Kili describes the afterlife as being a place that cannot be accurately described whatsoever by the living, since it is not a paradise for the living, but a paradise for the soul. The parts of the spirit world that we see her interact with are explicitly not the final resting places of anyone.
 * Aerith and Bob: The protagonists are named Mori, Aki, Kili, Goro, Sarin... and Greg. This may be due to the aforementioned mixed-up nature of the worldsetting or the cosmopolitan territory; one Caucasian character, for example, was named "Preston Chang."
 * Also likely because Greg is meant to be as plain as possible. This kinda gets changed later on when he ends up as a werewolf.
 * Akashic Records: As a shaman, Kili can access these at will and used them to research Rina's case, since all other records had been destroyed by time and the various Breakings.
 * Almost Kiss: Kili and Greg. They do it proper later.
 * And I Must Scream: Rina. For two thousand years. Mercifully, she fell asleep eventually, but not after going a little crazy.
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Tanica tried to kill Sarin, made her waste her one-of-a-kind magic seed, and is now blocking the window.
 * Art Evolution: Some, though there's still room for improvement. The first chapter was poorly-drawn pencil sketches in black and white. The second chapter begins in color and with cleaned up art. The artist himself is constantly apologizing to the readers for not being a better artist. Contrast this early page and the most recent page as of this writing. Still has room for improvement, but proof that Art Evolution in the form of doing a webcomic works.
 * Attractive Bent Gender: Subverted/Inverted from the norm with Mori, a short, fairly plain woman who changes into a tall, buff guy, and averted with Aki's father, who's just as overweight as a woman. The aversion is Lampshaded when Aki's dad admits "Not everyone gets to be a babe when they jump the gender fence."
 * Backstory: Chapter 12 is all about Mori. It's right there in the title.
 * Badass Bookworm: Sarin and Mori. Especially Sarin, though Mori fits the trope better.
 * Badass Boast: A few.

"Trsanti Squad Leader: Fredricka and Davan narrowly avoided getting arrested for public nudity...."
 * Badass Labcoat: Mori usually wears a white double-buttoned affair, like Doctor Steel.
 * Badass Normal: Goro, during the Die Hard on an X chapter.
 * Little Miss Badass: Poor, poor Goro, though this changed at the end of the thief arc.
 * Baleful Polymorph:
 * One of the effects of Mori's Scroll Gun in the Mr. Smith arc.
 * Sarin's master put him through this as training. The first step of said training was spending a couple years as a tree in a forest.
 * The same thing happens to Tanica the assassin when she's hit with Sarin's seed. Duration is "somewhere between six months and four years".
 * Battle in the Center of the Mind: Kili versus The Crax, twice. Mental combat is apparently all about confidence and willpower, and Preston Chang (the Crax) says that the best way to defeat the opponent is to confront them with Brutal Honesty and Awful Truth to undermine their willpower, which is why both battles involve Chang making Kili face her unpleasant past.
 * Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Goro suffers
 * Beast Man: The anthropomorphic animal-people who have appeared are all collectively referred to as "beastmen." They include catgirls, bugmen, and one instance of a lawyer who looks like a buffalo. The author has said this is partly because of the fantasy setting, which allows more diversification to help avert Only Six Faces.
 * Beta Couple: Though Mori and Sarin are the smartest and most powerful members of the team, respectively, their relationship is mostly kept to themselves rather than on display like Kili/Greg or Goro/Aki.
 * Beware the Nice Ones: The comic is full of nice people who could kick your ass and/or have a hidden dark side; sweet and sensitive Kili can turn into a ravening werewolf strong enough to punch people through walls, Sarin the wizard used to be an evil mugger and still remembers how to knife-fight (and has a Berserk Button: don't condescend to the magical badass), and Tomo the schoolgirl will MELT YOUR FACE OFF with disinfectant.
 * And Sarin, when angry, can slap an astral projection so hard that the person on the other end can feel it. That's right, SHE CAN SLAP YOUR SOUL!!!
 * Big Brother Is Watching: Played with: In the Camera Democracy, everybody wears a camera, and as long as it's on, it can prove that they're telling the truth. However, they can turn the cameras off in private, so instead of "Big Brother is watching", it's more like "You let Big Brother watch." Ideally, anyway.
 * Bi the Way: A common and readily available enchantment specifically modifies sexuality to be "compatible" with another person. Useful for a village where all the men are gender-bent permanently against their will.
 * Bittersweet Ending: Not all the Doctors' cases end perfectly. Take Priscilla, for example.
 * Blessed with Suck / Cursed with Awesome / Disability Superpower: Kili developed a disability as a kid; her spiritual senses are far too strong and without her magic tattoos that suppress her vision, she'd go insane. She's managed to use this to her advantage and has developed into a powerful shaman.
 * To give an idea of just HOW strong her spirit vision is, when her powers first went out of control, she saw the ultimate embodiment of decay, chaos, and entropy, who sits on a throne AT THE ABSOLUTE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE, waiting for the end of existence. The guy is so terrifying that after seeing him once, Kili's hair went pure white.
 * Also, her tattoos can completely nullify the powers of a regular shaman. She's still the best shaman with them.
 * Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: This comic.
 * Body Horror: The Crax, a sentient cancer that devours its victims' minds and bodies.
 * Body Snatcher: Again, the Crax. A couple of sub-tropes, too.
 * Demonic Possession:
 * Grand Theft Me:
 * Puppeteer Parasite: The apparent method of Crax infection.
 * Boobs of Steel: Invoked by Sarin after Goro recovers her strength.
 * Brick Joke:
 * With a much longer setup, the B-plot patient's payment in Chapter 4  in Chapter 13.
 * Cast From Lifespan: One chapter deals with a horrible curse that prevents a lost soul from moving on to the afterlife; the price for this terrible curse is that while the soul is unable to rest, neither is the caster. The unfortunately ignorant caster is unable to sleep, suffers from a continuous burning sensation in the back of her mind, and ages at about double speed. And she didn't even know it was a curse in the first place.
 * Playing the trope more accurately,
 * Catch Phrase: Sarin seems to have adopted "I am a total magical badass."
 * Catgirl: One of Marty's employees. A few others have shown up sporadically in the backgrounds here and there; there's also been at least one catdude.
 * Goro gets turned into the hairy version during the Crax arc. She's pissed.
 * Closer to Earth: It's hard not to notice that the two most down-to-Earth members of the team are the one who was originally female and one who's been hinted multiple times to have always been internally female.
 * This may have more to do with their roles than their genders, though; Mori's the leader and also a scientist, two things that require a level head, and Kili's shaman/therapist dual job also requires her to be considerate and calm.
 * Clothing Damage:
 * Weaponised as another effect of Mori's Spell Gun.
 * Clothing Damage:
 * Weaponised as another effect of Mori's Spell Gun.

"Kili: I don't think they're lesbians so much as-- Spirit: Pfft. Like I care about technicalities."
 * Sarin also uses this as punishment for a very nosy magic user, permanently making it so the woman's magic causes her to destroy any clothing she's wearing. She also uses it to disable   in a hostage situation. As she girl says, "she loves that spell."
 * In a subversion of the usual transformation clothing damage, Mori explodes her shirt when she turns into a man.
 * Kili's werewolf form is now larger than her human form, so losing her clothes is now inevitable. Good thing Godiva Hair is one of the side effects of her lycanthropy.
 * Combat Medic: Naturally; three of the doctors are powerful magic users, and Goro used to be a soldier. Even in a weak body, she's still a good shot with a thrown scalpel.
 * Combat Tentacles: the Crax.
 * However, it seems that the Crax may change in time, since it's found out the hard way that being an enemy to all living things is not a good strategy for long term survival.
 * Compliment Backfire: Goro, who is having difficulty adjusting to being changed from a large, burly man to a small and frail woman, is not happy when a patient suggests that having small, delicate fingers must give her a big advantage when performing delicate surgery.
 * Crowning Moment of Awesome: For several readers, this was when Sarin casually turns herself back from being petrified by a gorgon with the words "I am a total magical badass."
 * Or when she defuses a hostage situation with the
 * Dangerous Thirteenth Birthday: Mori's family got reported to Purity Control on the day she turned thirteen. During her party. That's gotta hurt.
 * Dark and Troubled Past: Most of the doctors, despite being fairly well-adjusted adults in the present. When the author realized this, he concluded he must be some kind of optimist.
 * Dead All Along:  Kili says the Trope name in conversation.
 * Deconstruction: A minor mini-arc in the middle of the "Messenger of Death" chapter has Sarin being approached by the astral projection of a wizard who wants to recruit her for some grand purpose. Sarin, who is usually quite cheerful, refuses to play ball, growling at the recruiter for the presumptuousness of showing up unannounced to give a "You Are The Chosen One" speech and pointing out how creepy it is to spy on someone with magic. She loses her temper completely when the recruiter says "My name is of no importance" and slaps the recruiter's astral projection, which both shows off Sarin's indignation as well as hinting just how powerful she really is. Sarin continues to rip the recruiter a new one verbally and finishes off by zapping the recruiter with a curse that makes her clothes disintegrate whenever she uses magic.
 * The main reason that Sarin refuses? It's because, by her words, people who paint in broad strokes make big mistakes, and Sarin is much happier helping people on a one on one basis than trying to help millions and accidentally killing thousands. Given how powerful some magic can be, more than likely, someone has tried this before, and probably was the cause for one of the Breakings.
 * Defeat by Modesty:
 * See Clothing Damage.
 * This was how  was finally defeated - granted, it wasn't so much the Clothing Damage that did her in as it was the spell that caused it also getting rid of her gun.
 * Defrosting Ice Queen: Tanica, thanks mostly to the efforts of Aki.
 * Deus Ex Machina: Averted, but lampshaded in the strip title when.
 * Die Hard in a Hospital: Goro's overnight stay awaiting the Life Energy transplant does not go well.
 * Discount Lesbians: The inhabitants of Agri Village, and in the main cast.
 * Discount Lesbians: The inhabitants of Agri Village, and in the main cast.

"What are you doing, showing off a family photo like that, Doc? Don't you know it's bad luck?."
 * The  pairing is especially strange because, in one regard.
 * Well, not really for, since she.
 * Doesn't Like Guns: Justified; the assassins use invisibility suits and knives for maximum quiet in their kills. This backfires, however, when the psychic Kili senses the intent to kill of over 20 people closing in and the invisibility is dispelled, causing a Mexican Standoff between the magic-using Dragon Doctors and the posse of knife-wielding assassins, while they're operating on a patient.
 * Doomed Hometown: Kili's home was destroyed by a tidal wave, leaving him the sole survivor.
 * Dr. Jerk: Goro's abrasive some of the time, but this trope really belongs to Dr. Songbird, Aki's mother, whose idea of bedside manner is "try not to die in the next month or two."
 * Dystopia: Thoria, a hundred-fifty years ago anyway. It advertises itself as "a safe country for normal people". Meaning no magic, no weirdness, no rejuvenations, all traditional. If you fit their standards for normal, it's a nice place. But if you have a genetic defect like Mori, you get deported. And that's if you're lucky.
 * It's also a more effective dystopia than many because the Thorians are not relentlessly A Nazi by Any Other Name: they have valid reasons for opposing magic and recognize that condemning Mori's parents for a genetic manipulation that was the only way to let her survive comes across as monstrous, as well as acknowledging that she herself should not be directly punished as she had no choice in the matter. But they believe they stick to their rules strictly, Knight Templar style, even while appearing to regret it, and come across as much more human than most such examples.
 * Early Installment Weirdness: The characterizations and setting hadn't been nailed down in the first chapter, and there were a few odd things, such as Sarin wearing a robe that kept changing symbols on its front.
 * Emergency Transformation:
 * Sarin can turn anyone into anything, and using this to help a dying patient is a valid medical technique (called "Alter-Healing") in this series. However, the only time we've seen Sarin do this was an inversion of the usual for this trope; a non-human turned into a human, because her true form was too difficult to heal.
 * Greg was also petrified in the Crax arc, to trap the Nigh Invulnerable parasite inside him while keeping him stable, but this was only one part of a lengthy process. Rina Lee had to turn herself into stone because she was trapped in an abandoned mine behind an indestructible forcefield and was facing death by starvation. She got rescued after two thousand years.
 * in a more traditional sense, during the Mori Backstory arc. Significant in-universe as the first revolutionary procedure of one of finest medical minds of the time.
 * The person who bankrolls the Dragon Doctors also had to undergo an Emergency Transformation. Her body was afflicted with Rapid Aging which even the prevalent rejuvenation technology couldn't fix. She had to spend a few years as a statue, but was able to interact with telepathic interpreters to run her company. Eventually Mori came up with the idea of turning her into a Crystal Person, since that species has no aging.
 * Empty Piles of Clothing: Trope Namer. An explorer finds empty piles of clothing and says "That's bad! That's always a bad sign!" He goes through a minor Epileptic Trees guessing game about what happened to the owners of the piles of clothing, but it turns out they overdosed on a Fountain of Youth.
 * Everybody's Dead, Dave: Rina had to deal with this after being turned to stone for two thousand years; Kili had to deal with it as a kid when everyone in her village was drowned in a tsunami.
 * Expressive Shirt: Sarin's robe from the first arc.
 * Extreme Omnivore: The Crax is a life-form that can adapt to devour anything. The human consciousness that resides within it, Preston Chang, says that once he's done eating everything living on Earth he'll switch to eating sunlight if necessary. This is the reason why the only way to attack the Crax is by freezing it, because it can even devour energy (making any magic except ice magic useless on it).
 * Eye Scream: Goro faced an enemy with Eye Beams and went for the most immediate threat.
 * Fatal Attractor: Greg's had a lot of girlfriends in the past, all with interesting backgrounds, but he also had to break up with all of them due to unusual circumstances. The worst was when one (an alchemist) accidentally split herself into a dozen copies of herself; Greg couldn't date all of them and it wouldn't have been fair to just settle on one, so they broke up.
 * Fatal Family Photo: Discussed.

"Greg: I have no idea how I'd react to that. Sarin: Why wonder?
 * Fetal Position Rebirth:, once she finally gets cured of
 * Fingerless Gloves: Goro, for the express purpose of looking more badass.
 * First Law of Gender Bending: Initially, the Agri Valley curse turned the male doctors (among hundreds or thousands of others) into women, and Mori was turned into a man to fix it. Despite magic, including transformation magic, being commonplace, it was said that they lacked "essence" of their original sexes and to change them back was not only impossible, but on some level inconceivable. Despite this, in chapter 14, ; since an extremely rare panacea was used, and Goro, at least, expressed reluctance to change back anyway for fear of disturbing Aki (a lifelong Agri resident ), are now female for good.
 * Five-Man Band:
 * The Smart Guy: Mori, a sort of Magitek Science Hero. Diagnostician for the team, and its founder.
 * The Lancer: Sarin, apparent goofball wizard, until you get her mad. Doubles as both a heavy magic expert and an aesthetician, since she can turn anyone into anything.
 * The Big Guy: In a subversion, Goro used to be big and muscular but got drained of all her strength by the valley curse and desperately wishes to return to being the big one. Formerly a soldier, and still acts tough, or tries to appear so, by wearing body armor. Bit of a Genius Bruiser since she's a surgeon.
 * The Heart: Kili the shaman/therapist, whose job is to heal the wounds of the spirit, whether that spirit is of a living person or otherwise. A strong candidate for "The Hero" considering how much anguish she's willing to go through to save people.
 * The Chick: Part-fairy assistant girl Aki Songbird; also Goro's girlfriend.
 * Fountain of Youth: A very large (it's lake-sized) and very dangerous one; its anti-aging effects are so strong nothing in the vicinity grows at all, leaving it a desolate wasteland, and many people got regressed into nothing just by contact with the vapors from it. Reverse-engineering it allowed Mori and the rest of the world to benefit from its rejuvenating effects, hence why so many characters are Older Than They Look, including Mori (who just turned 170).
 * Four-Temperament Ensemble:
 * Sanguine: Sarin, fun-loving and creative, but can be arrogant and insensitive.
 * Choleric: Goro, driven and capable, but can overbearing and inflexible.
 * Melancholic: Mori, careful and inventive, well-adusted, but still stuggles with overcoming failures.
 * Phlegmatic: Kili, thoughtful and caring, but tends to avoid confrontation until she explodes. Aki, calm and compassionate, but almost exclusively reactionary.
 * Freaky Friday Flip: Another effect of the Spell Gun exploding, combined with a Gender Bender.
 * Gender Bender: Happens quite a bit, though usually not gratuitously. Also:
 * Gender Bender: Happens quite a bit, though usually not gratuitously. Also:
 * snap!*
 * bwooomp!*"

"Priscilla: My customers all think I'm some crazy artist lady who only does her work in the nude!"
 * Gendercide: Well, nobody actually died, but the first chapter of the story that sets everything in motion is a cursed valley that caused all its visitors and inhabitants to become permanently female. The protagonists are not immune to this curse either (they use protection magic, but it fails). They find out the curse is caused by an artifact that siphons masculinity from everything around it to promote plant growth (male fertility, basically). When Goro tried to attack it, it drained both his remaining masculine essence, as well as almost all of his strength essence, which comes dangerously close to being fatal over the long term. To blow it up, Mori has to sacrifice her own feminine essence and becomes a man permanently as a result, so all four of the protagonists start off the series getting permanently gender-bent.
 * In the past, however, an entire civilization did die out due to depopulation; they were the ones who made the same artifact that caused the valley curse, and since they were all women, they couldn't have any more kids, thus, they no longer exist. Worse still, they were the only ones who knew how to transfer and manipulate gender essence, meaning they were the only ones who knew how to do permanent, "soul level" gender changes.
 * Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: About 200 years before the comic takes place, there was a huge conflict called the "Beastman Wars" where humans discovered magical Lego Genetics and made themselves superhuman "beastmen" by splicing animal traits into themselves. Unfortunately, they lost because their biologies were different enough from human that they weren't prepared logistically for soldiers who ate three times as much and couldn't stomach certain things that humans take for granted, like chocolate. The reaction to the Beastman Wars led to the creation of ultra-conservative Thoria, a nation that severely restricted "deviant" magic.
 * "Gift of the Magi" Plot: Euryale the gorgon has herself turned human to be with Percy (the human), while Percy has himself turned into a rock golem-thing to be with Euryale. Euryale's earned unlimited credit, so they just laugh it off.
 * The Glasses Come Off: Elizabeth takes off her sunglasses when she gets annoyed.
 * Guardian Angel:
 * Harmless Freezing: Justified with the Nigh Invulnerable Crax; the Doctors plan to dispose of it by freezing it with magic, storing it in liquid nitrogen, and dissolving it with magical acid.
 * Hit So Hard the Calendar Felt It: The four "breakings" each started a new calendar. The current year is "625 4B". It becomes 627 4B by the time.
 * Hoist by His Own Petard:
 * Subverted by
 * Hot Amazon: Goro, after getting her strength (if not masculinity) restored. Aki is delighted.
 * Immortality Immorality:
 * Fundamentally Female Cast: Justified. The first case the Doctors solve in the series is a cursed valley with a statue in the center that caused all visitors and inhabitants to become permanently female. The doctors themselves were hit by this curse before they managed to destroy the statue, so most of them are stuck as women. Most of the comic takes place in Tinto, the town next-door to the valley, but it also has a large female population as a sociological side-effect of the curse; rescue workers, police officers, delivery workers and anyone else with a high-mobility job are usually female in case they need to pass through or near to the valley.
 * Instant Sedation: One of Goro's talents is this, as a magical surgeon. It comes in handy a few times.
 * Invisible to Normals: The Silent Suffering arc features a character who is invisible to everybody, even Kili when she isn't trying.
 * I See Dead People: Kili. Her tattoos negate some of this ability so that she stays sane.
 * I Want My Jetpack: Rina wakes up in a normal-looking hospital bed after being told she's 2000 years in the future, and thinks, "It doesn't look like the future. Not enough lasers or flashing lights." Then she turns a corner and sees Mori diagnosing an insectoid man.
 * Jumping the Gender Barrier: Subverted with Mori and Sarin, since they both changed genders.
 * Tanica points out that Greg's lucky that he met Kili as a woman. Greg suggests that they might have fallen in love anyway if that wasn't the case.
 * Lego Genetics: Mori points out that this is only made possible by the use of magic, which is able to swap out traits as conceptual objects.
 * Ley Line: Rina was buried in one by Derek, so the magical spell keeping her trapped there would run forever. She was later discovered by a ley line surveyor in Frontera. Unfortunately, being stuck soaking in mana for centuries sent her into mana shock and she nearly exploded after being recovered.
 * Locked Into Strangeness: Happens several times. Sarin the wizard's hair is green as a leftover from when she was turned into a tree for years, and Kili's hair has been white ever since she was haunted by a spirit as a child. Kili gets hit with more hair effects later; after becoming a werewolf, her hair adopts a wild style and grows so rapidly it is now at perpetual Rapunzel Hair length.
 * Love Is in the Air: Another effect of the Spell Gun. Possibly.
 * The Magic Comes Back: This was to be the main plot of The Odd Squad, the unfinished prequel to The Dragon Doctors that set up the First Breaking.
 * Magick: Made fun of in one strip, which had a background poster saying "Magic is not spelled with a 'k!'"
 * Magic Pants: Literally. Sarin can summon "emergency pants," a spell apparently developed because "I had a very wild adolescence." Averted in most other cases, however, since quite often we've seen that transformation does not apply to people's clothing (necessitating the need to buy all-new wardrobes in certain cases).
 * Magic Wand: Mori most often uses a wand which, while mechanical, seems to use magic and is usually used to scan patients with a "woob-woob" sound effect. It has a little pull-out display screen. A more traditional magic wand with a yellow star on top was wielded by one of the four magical thieves assaulting the hospital Goro was in; the wielder was the thieves' "technical expert" and used it for a variety of purposes including communications-jamming, lock-picking and (attempted) fireball-tossing.
 * Magitek: Since Mori is a "magical scientist," Mori is often seen using some sort of techno-wand. There's also been a few guns that shoot magic.
 * Man, I Feel Like a Woman: Sarin. She also teases Kili by accusing her of this when Kili's just having trouble putting on a bra.
 * The Masquerade: The pre-first breaking world, which is based on 21st century Earth. It turns out that mages were secretly running everything in almost every situation of power imaginable, most notably political positions. Violators, sociopathic mages who enjoyed torturing people, were somewhat rampant as well. When enough victims were made aware of each other they formed The Hearts Society, a group dedicated to protecting people from and undoing magical victimization. They decided the best way to do this would be to loosen the Masquerade slightly, so that people would at least start seeking help; The mages in power disliked this and fought back, believing that their power was more important than the victims of a few psychopathic mages (many of which were also in positions of power)... so the Hearts decided to completely completely destroy the masquerade. This caused an immediate civil war in every country on Earth as the non-magical realized that their leaders were either being manipulated by mages or were manipulating mages. This war, called the Breaking, destroyed civilization, but the resultant reformation was relatively quick and lead to an arguably better world.
 * Meaningful Name:
 * Sarin was nicknamed after the deadly nerve gas because she was a rotten kid at the orphanage.
 * Kili's surname, "Stormcrow," means "Harbinger of the coming storm," and is a reference to one of Gandalf's many names in The Lord of the Rings. For that matter, "Kili" was one of the names of the dwarves.
 * Morality Pet: Aki, for Tanica.
 * Multiethnic Name: A few. Goro Delgado, Tomo Wakeman, and Preston Chang, for example. Fits the story's setting, in that the ethnic and cultural divides of the world have changed severly in the last two millenia.
 * My Country, Right or Wrong: Nancy the Thorian spy really didn't want to kill Mori and Tom but was committed to her mission to betray the exploration team.
 * Naked People Are Funny: Nudity, mostly of the Magic Pants failure or The Nudifier variety, pops up as a semi-running gag.
 * Minor character Priscilla was hit with a Cool and Unusual Punishment for violating Sarin's privacy. Said curse makes it so whenever she uses magic, she innately destroys any clothing she's wearing. It's only after this that we discover her day job -- a wood-shaping (carpenter/artist) mage -- requires that she use magic all day long.
 * Minor character Priscilla was hit with a Cool and Unusual Punishment for violating Sarin's privacy. Said curse makes it so whenever she uses magic, she innately destroys any clothing she's wearing. It's only after this that we discover her day job -- a wood-shaping (carpenter/artist) mage -- requires that she use magic all day long.


 * Name That Unfolds Like Lotus Blossom: All of the Crystal People use long names that describe their shape and color; e.g., "I am An Aesthetically Pleasing Humanoid Arrangement of Pretty Pink Crystals, but you can call me Pinky!"
 * Not So Different: In an inversion of the norm, it's Sarin who gives one to Elizabeth. "You're like me: smart enough to forget you can make mistakes."
 * No Transhumanism Allowed: Thoria, type 2, to the point that even curing a genetic defect (and throwing in an innocuous perk while they were at it) got a couple Unpersoned and
 * Not That Kind of Mage: Sarin's a master at transforming people, but unskilled at morphing clothing, a problem she's had since training. Hence why she learned to summon Magic Pants to cover up after turning to mist (and all clothes subsequently falling off)
 * The Nudifier: The Equipment Failure spell, which is a rather large beam that destroys anything inorganic (and "unalive") it touches. Useful as a  curse against a privacy violating mage, to diffuse a hostage situation, or to disable an attacker. Several other magical effects leave the user nude -- notably   and shape changing (especially werewolf transformations and changing from a tree to a human -- bonus points for the rebirth symbolism involved).
 * In the latest arc of this writing, said  curse turned   due to an unrelated effect, leaving said privacy violating mage with an even bigger helping of just desserts than expected.
 * Older Than They Look: Greg just celebrated his 60th birthday, but looks about 20-something. He's apparently not alone since rejuvenations are commonplace in this setting.
 * Mori was later revealed to be 170. She discovered the Fountain of Youth as an old woman, and was one of the first to benefit from it, so she's currently one of the oldest people alive (though not the oldest; other, more morally questionable forms of rejuvenation existed already, mostly involving massive life essence transfusion.)
 * Our Werewolves Are Different: Literally; as of the "Quarantine" chapter, Greg and Kili have become "variant" werewolves that do not necessarily follow the known patterns of other werewolves, due to the highly unusual way they contracted the condition (a living cancer invading their souls). One of the current side-effects is their hair growing REALLY long. They're also not contagious, and later Kili's werewolf form grew in size in response to her suppressed rage issues.
 * Out-of-Clothes Experience: Nicely twisted when Tanica the assassin-turned-tree is depicted in this way, and the reader is left to assume a straight use. A fair bit later other astralwhatever representations turn up, and when those look normally clothed it becomes clear that hers shows just how vulnerable she feels.
 * Patient of the Week: Patient of the Arc is more accurate, but the trope works.
 * Precision F-Strike: Kili delivers the comic's first (and to date, only) s-bomb when she confronts the killer of her friend.
 * Pride: Why Elizabeth lost. Sarin describes her as "Like me; smart enough to forget you can make mistakes."
 * Prison Violence: According to Tanica, members of Murder, Inc. are frequent targets for murder in jail.
 * Pronoun Trouble: Generally the comic follows the Orlando rule; call 'em "she" if their body is female and "he" if their body is male. So if we're seeing Kili in the past, Kili's a "he," but present Kili is a "she." The author said in several posts that he's amused when readers refer to characters otherwise since it shows off their perception of the characters.
 * It's later explained in-universe that when most of the medical team works on bodies rather than minds, it's better to always use physical genders than to make a mistake.
 * Psychic Surgery: Discussed in the Crax arc, but not used; it would rip out the Crax from Greg's body instantly but since the technique requires bare hands, it would be unwise to use it on a life form that devours everything.
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
 * Preston Chang, the mind operating the Crax, a horrific entity that is attempting to consume Kili and Greg's minds from within, gives a rather nasty one to Kili once she's cornered. He's already dominated most of her mental landscape and if some part of her remains alive inside, she'll just be forced to watch. Then Greg turns it around with a pretty good Shut UP, Hannibal.
 * Mori gives a good one to
 * And Sarin gives one to  on why she failed.
 * Reed Richards Is Useless: Totally averted. The Dragon Doctors solve as many mundane cases as they do extraordinary ones (just very quickly) and humanity in general seems to benefit from a lot of the stuff they are capable of doing; people can purchase rejuvenations once they start getting old, for example, and Sarin's ability to magically turn anyone into anything is compared to an advanced form of face-lifts.
 * Ret-Gone: Doesn't actually occur in this comic, but is referenced when Aki's reading to Tanica. Tanica really hates this trope.
 * Mori had a minor one when the details of the Unperson spell was unveiled --
 * Revealing Coverup: In the "thieves of life" arc, it's the robbers' jamming of communications that tips Goro off about their imminent attack.
 * Revenge: Averted by, who states in prison that she's more angry with herself than at.
 * Ridiculously Average Guy: Greg even makes a speech about it. "You could forget I'm there if you so much as blink while talking to me." Of course, turns out there's a couple of Hidden Depths to him.
 * Sadistic Choice: Derek's MO was to trap people in caves with no food or water... and a scroll of flesh to stone. This was two thousand years ago, and one of his victims was only recently found; they're still not sure they've found them all, or when or if they will.
 * Schizo-Tech: In the early strips, when it wasn't expected to be an ongoing series, it comes off as a pseudo-medieval fantasy world... but then they start making deliveries on motorcycles... and doing research on the Internet. Now it's been dated to 2000 years (or more) in our future, and the technological trappings are harder to miss.
 * Science Hero: Mori.
 * Second Law of Gender Bending: Played with. Mori still isn't fully comfortable as a man, Sarin (being a shapeshifter) never minded it in the first place, Goro initially despised it but realized she hated being weak more than being female, and Kili, after some soul-searching, settled in so well others have difficulty remembering she used to be male in the first place.
 * Self-Deprecation: The artist, as noted above, is continually apologizing to his readers for not having better art and even occasionally makes jokes about it being "hideous."
 * Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Kili and Goro. (When they were guys, anyway.)
 * She Cleans Up Nicely: Multiple characters, although Priscilla may take the cake -- normally, she's a Hollywood Nerd with tightly bunned up hair and geek glasses, wearing conservative, baggy clothing. ... Then her nudity curse kicks in, letting her hair down and destroying the glasses. And, er, everything else.
 * Shirtless Scene: After a poll, Mori notes that there's a request for a "Mori Shirtless Scene" and wonders aloud whether they mean girl-Mori or guy-Mori.
 * Shout-Out
 * "Emergency pants."
 * A comic references "that legend about that sorceress who learned all her magic when she was turned to stone...who went mad and became an insane violator ." This is almost certainly a reference to The Sorceress of the transformation-fetish site Naga's Den, especially since the author is tightly linked to that site's creator's tamer works and this is the only time the word "sorceress" is used (the word "sorcerer" usually being gender-neutral).
 * Multiple ones to the manga Blame. Mori's name comes from a minor character in it, an underground realm called "The Cyber-Dungeon" is a direct reference to it and in this comic, the gun's extra flanges that pop out in overload mode are a reference to Killy's GBE gun.
 * Rina watches a documentary about the survivors of the nuclear war in the Second Breaking. It's a clear shout out to Fist of the North Star, with men punching each other at high speed.
 * Showing Off the New Body: Lee Smith checks out the sexy new body Sarin gave him her, complete with the comic's first butt-shot.
 * Smart People Wear Glasses: "Impaired vision equals smart!"
 * Spirit World: Kili goes here occasionally.
 * Stupid Sexy Flanders: Slightly subverted with Sarin and Mori, since Sarin is suffering from the mind-altering affects of changing genders. And they end up as a couple.
 * Suddenly Voiced: Tanica, the assassin-turned-tree, is inaudible to the reader for the first few chapters she's introduced in, though the characters can hear her inner voice with the aid of magic (though Aki's fairy antennae work on their own, too). This resulted in a lot of one-way conversations with a mostly-inexpressive tree, which was tricky to do, so the author allowed Tanica's voice to be audible to the reader in later chapters, starting when she first converses with Greg.
 * Taken for Granite:
 * Again, Rina.
 * Greg also gets this when he's turned to stone so they can delicately remove the sentient Crax from his body.
 * Every one of the Dragon Doctors is turned to stone for a moment by accident when they look at a gorgon. Sarin simply brushes off being petrified though, and restores the team.
 * Mori's arc reveals that
 * Sarin also frequently stoneskins herself when under attack.
 * Tanica follows this trope in spirit, as she (and Sarin) were both turned into immobile, yet conscious and aware, trees. Sarin found it to be peaceful as she was relatively safe and no longer had to live her rather violent and stressful life, Tanica... takes a lot longer to find any form of peace.
 * Tastes Like Diabetes: In-Universe, here
 * Tempting Fate: "Things are finally starting to look up."
 * That Man Is Dead:
 * Invoked by Kili when she takes a trip to the part of the spirit world inhabited by the spirits of people's former selves, or their Shadow Archetype. We meet a bitter, much saner Preston Chang, and Kili and Greg's younger selves (an annoying, grumpy thirteen-year-old and a Totally Radical headbanger, respectively).
 * At the end of the second Mr. Smith arc,
 * There Are No Therapists: Very much averted, and not just because one of the main characters is a shaman/therapist. Several other characters have been in or are still going through therapy (like the devastated Rina, who's much better for it years later.)
 * Tomboy and Girly Girl: Kili and Goro. (Well, now at least.)
 * Tonight Someone Dies: "Chapter 13: The Night She Died."
 * The Great Offscreen War: Two (possibly three) of the "Breakings" were cataclysmic wars. The First was a magical civil war in every country on Earth, the Second was a nuclear war.
 * Translator Microbes: There's a world-wide magic spell called "The Language Barrier Breaker" in effect at all times, explain the doctors to Rina. The doctors themselves are explicitly stated as speaking a distant descendant of English, and all signs are in English for reader conveinance.
 * Transsexualism: One actually does show up in Mori's backstory chapter; Lem, born a woman who used magic to be a man. Unfortunately, Lem was self-medicating with cheap, toxic potions, putting his life in serious risk. (Tragically, this is Truth in Television.) Other people with voluntary gender-switches have occasionally appeared, but they're not necessarily people with gender dysphoria so much as people looking for a little variety in their lives.
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Future: The first half of "Last Victim" focuses on Rina discovering her latent magic powers in the 21st Century, shortly before the "First Breaking."
 * The Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer: Rina, eventually. It helps that she already knew magic before emerging in a magical world, and that the culture she came from was compatible with Frontera--the characters point out that if she had been frozen during one of the Dark Ages she wouldn't have fared nearly as well.
 * The Unmasqued World: This was the "First Breaking" that lead to an eventual collapse of society in the comic's backstory. It is implied that this takes place some time in what we think of as the 21st century, as this is where Rina seems to come from. There was civil war in every country on Earth, between magic-using puppet masters trying to preserve their grip on the world, and The Hearts Society, a group of people dedicated to stopping evil magic users from preying on innocent people (and they figured the best way to do that was to make the existence of magic public knowledge).
 * Unperson: Variation; when people are banished from the country of Thoria, their surname is magically eradicated so that no-one, not even they themselves, can remember what it was.
 * It's later mentioned that this can't be undone - even if the people in charge change their minds and want to undo what they did.
 * The Unpronounceable: Although everyone in-universe seems to have no trouble with it, it's uncertain how you pronounce the name of the Murder, Inc. group, the Trsanti.
 * Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Inverted; as a child, Kili was a complete brat.
 * Vague Age: Rina comments on this during Mori's 170th birthday party. All the parents and grandparents look like young adults, due to society having access to a functioning Fountain of Youth.
 * Voluntary Shapeshifting: Sarin. Besides transforming, she can turn anyone into anything.
 * We Help the Helpless: The Hearts Society is an international organization dedicated to helping victims of magic (in particular, debilitating transformation magic) and stopping "Violators" who cause these sorts of problems. For example, if an evil sorcerer turned you into a statue, or worse, a shoe, they'd be the ones who would hopefully find you and restore you.
 * We Will Have Perfect Health in the Future: Averted; people are generally quite healthy, due to how fast magical medicine works as well as rejuvenations making most age-related diseases a thing of the past, but magic has caused just as many weird diseases and problems to crop up in their place.
 * What Could Have Been: The author also had another webcomic idea, but discovered it had already been done.
 * With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Derek and Chang especially, but it's suggested that this phenomenon occurring en masse led to The End of the World as We Know It in the twenty-first century or so. Specifically, magic using sociopath mages who abuse their powers are called "Violators" and are looked upon very poorly by society, but modern society is now much better equipped for dealing with them.
 * Winged Humanoid: Aki, a couple Pixies, and Sarin with the aid of a spell. There's no flapping because, as Sarin explains, Pixie wings (and spell wings, appearently) work using magic, rather than aerodynamics.
 * The World Is Not Ready: Thoria, before their national Heel Face Turn, had spies in the Frontier Exploration Force with explicit orders to kill everyone on any team that made a discovery that would be world-altering,.
 * World Sundering: It's happened four times, and people are ambivalent about whether or not a fifth is due.
 * Xanatos Speed Chess: During the Die Hard on an X chapter, Elizabeth the shapeshifting thief keeps re-adapting her master plan every time Goro tries something different to stop the thieves. If it hadn't been for a slip up at the end (making her disguise as Goro too perfect) she'd have gotten away with it, too.
 * Year Inside, Hour Outside: When Kili and Greg bond inside a dreamworld while the doctors operate on Greg's petrified body to chip out the Crax, we see seasons passing as they get to know each other. They spent long enough with one another there that they have fallen deeply in love.
 * You Can See Me?:
 * says this. Subverted because  really wants to be seen.
 * And Sarin can see the Real you. Regardless of whether it's illusions, transformation, or any other sort of magic, she always sees the real form of others. She takes this Up to Eleven when she can see the true form of a person using an astral projection.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Kili has white hair while Sarin and  have green hair, respectively, though it is explained that all are due to an unusual magical circumstance (Kili's overpowered spiritual abilities caused her to see a particularly bad Eldritch Abomination, Sarin   spent a few years as trees). Occasionally other characters with unusual hair color show up, but they might be "naturally occurring," such as a pixie with bright pink hair (and bright orange skin).