Nexus War

"The universe - all that we know, all that exists - is dying. It is time for a new universe to be born. In a faraway place and time, souls do battle to determine which ethos will dominate the new creation. This place is known by many names but those there refer to it as The Nexus."

Nexus War was a free browser-based MMORPG created and administrated by Brandon Harris (aka Jorm). It is similar in style to Urban Dead, and much of the player base is shared between the two games. See its archived wiki here.

The game was set on the (fictitious) St. Germaine Archipelago in the Caribbean. In 2007 the islands were ripped from the face of the earth in a massive hurricane, becoming the plane of Valhalla. Now, war between good, evil, and the unaligned rages across the islands and the extradimensional planes connected to them.

During early September of 2009, Jorm announced that because he was unable to keep up with the cost of running the servers, he was preparing to shut down the game. But he intended to go out with a bang--the war between the Elder Powers escalated, and they were found walking amongst the people. The planes of existence closed off one by one until only Purgatorio remained. And in mid-October of 2009, with Marquai as the victor, the game reached its final conclusion.

It recently spawned a successor, in the form of Nexus Clash (also known as Worlds in Global Battle Locked or even BobWar). Made by a former member, it's still in alpha and will apparently have a number of changes, among which are different "breaths" and new classes, including Fallen Angels and Redeemed Demons much to the fandom's content.


 * Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Not only is it Absurdly Spacious, it literally warps space.
 * Action Bomb: Explosive Murder, which despite its mechanical inefficiency was one of the most popular skills for its class. In general players liked blowing themselves up.
 * Another Dimension: Several of these. Clash takes it [Up to Eleven], quite literally.
 * After the End: It's a war at the end of the universe, so it's more like During the End. However, it is definitely a Scavenger World, as society and industry have broken down.
 * Alien Geometries: With the impending victory of Marquai, the Power of construction and engineers, everything was becoming more angular. The moon was now octagonal, clouds were square or triangular. Nexus Clash's Kaleidoscopia probably counts too.
 * All There in the Manual: The game includes a huge wiki that contains all of the Canon backstory articles as well as everything about the game.
 * Anti-Poopsocking: Using the techniques from Urban Dead, though they're loosened up a little.
 * Arcadia: The plane of Paradise.
 * Fluffy Cloud Heaven: The plane of Nimbus, which is in the clouds far above Paradise. Composed of clouds solid enough to support lakes, forests, and castles.
 * And if you're flying and you try to land on the Empty Sky tiles in the Nimbus, you'll splatter on the ground somewhere in Paradise.
 * Arm Cannon: Seraphim get to choose between several makes, models, and calibers of this.
 * Back Stab: Attacks from hiding. Again and again, sometimes. Occasionally attacking with an ambulance. Which explodes.
 * Badass Normal: Eternal Soldiers are this trope.
 * Big Badass Wolf: The Revenant Animus of the Wolf form, wolves summoned by Revenants, etc.
 * Black Magic: Most demonic skills, which focus on either a) doing a lot of damage or b) nastily debuffing the other guy.
 * Bloody Murder: The Wyrm Master skill Acid Blood. Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
 * Bottomless Pit: The Pit of Azazel. Several planes seem to consist mostly of this. If you try this in Nimbus it's Not the Fall That Kills You, but either way you're equally dead.
 * Breakable Weapons: The caveat if the Unbreakable Weapons let you down...which they inevitably will.
 * Bribing Your Way to Victory: Entirely averted. The items that can be purchased with donations have no in-game effect and just make your character look more unique.
 * Car Fu: Divine Champions using the Cloak of Steel skills can pick up a variety of heavy things to use as weapons, including vehicles, trees, streetlights, and statues. Much has been written about the irony of getting flattened by an ambulance.
 * Cast from Hit Points: Played straight, along with (arguably) Cast From Action Points, Cast From Divine Favor Points, Cast From Morality Points, and so forth. If it comes in points, there's a way to cast from it.
 * Chainsaw Good: RRRRRRRNNGGGGGG DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH.
 * The Clockwork Blade seems to be at least worth an honourable mention.
 * Character Alignment: Set in concrete by a convenient Karma Meter.
 * Charged Attack: Several. All add extra damage and change the damage type.
 * Church Militant: Nine of them, one for each Elder Power. Advancement in the church is mainly by killing followers of Powers your patron dislikes.
 * Class and Level System, Point Build System: Every character starts out as a Mortal. At level 10, they can take a secondary class based on their alignment. A third class can be added at level 20, determined by the character's secondary class.
 * Clown Car Grave: There's an entire plane of existence for this trope.
 * Competitive Balance: The methods of killing stuff are mostly balanced against each other. For example, rifles do much more damage per AP than bare fists, but the player also has to spend AP repairing the guns and searching for ammunition. The Divine Champion class can dish out more damage than a Seraph under the right circumstances but requires more management and is completely MP-dependent, while a Seraph's skills are mostly passive.
 * Critical Existence Failure
 * Crossover: Quite apart from the inherent nature of the Worlds, everything from Balrogs to Weepings Angels are running around.
 * Death Is a Slap on The Wrist: It becomes less of one as your character advances. Folks who rely on a lot of Breakable Weapons might see it as worse than one.
 * Death of a Thousand Cuts: Being hit always deals at least 1 point of damage, unless you are immune to that damage type.
 * Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: The Elementalist class. Learning an elemental skill increases resistance to that element...and vulnerability to the others.
 * Enemy Scan: Several starting skills do this. They all scan something different, though, so most folks pick up all of them.
 * Expy: Several BobWar classes have been renamed.
 * Eye Beams: The "Eye of Judgment" skill as well as the "Eyes of Doom" spell.
 * Glass Cannon: Casters in general but especially Void Walkers.
 * Grand Finale: When the gamre closed. Valhalla was sucked into the void, the outer plane closed and the gods walked the earth.
 * Fire and Brimstone Hell: The plane of Stygia flipflops between this and Evil Is Deathly Cold.
 * Floating Continent: The planes of Purgatorio and Nifleheim are both floating in endless void.
 * Four Is Death: The fourth Elder Power of each alignment is dead/missing.
 * Hand Cannon: The Walker Colt revolver. Deals as much damage as a rifle with better accuracy and more slots for enchantments. It takes a while to reload, though.
 * Heal Thyself: First Aid kits and other healing items can be used on oneself, and apparently heal everything.
 * Holy Hand Grenade: And how. Angels have all the big guns.
 * Hyperactive Metabolism: Both used and averted. Food and drink items heal you, but only a small amount and all types restore the same amount of HP.
 * Improvised Weapon: Characters can use a variety of odd melee weapons, including sledgehammers, chainsaws, whips, and shivs. They're not very effective, but they are Unbreakable.
 * Invulnerable Knuckles: No damage from punching a person (or even a barricade, door, or magic ward).
 * Magic Knight: The Nexus Champion and Divine Champion classes can learn to cast spells and are very effective combatants.
 * Mana Drain: This happens a lot. One of the Churches Militant gets followers almost entirely because their god offers protection from it.
 * No Cure for Evil: Demonic characters cannot be healed by others. As a result, they have several means of self-healing.
 * Our Monsters Are Different
 * Angels: Seraphs (and Lightspeakers to a lesser extent) are mechanical representations of order. Divine Champions are Old Testament-style messengers of the Word, who can turn into fire or mist or steel. Advocates are closest to the pop-culture version.
 * Demons: Dark Oppressors are Horny Devils or Faustian tempters. Infernal Behemoths are more like Balrogs than anything else, while Wyrm Masters, Doom Howlers, and Void Walkers are different flavors of Lovecraftian horror.
 * Vampires and werewolves: Revenants are burned by acting in sunlight and take double damage from tarnished (silver) swords. They can learn to turn into either wolves or bats.
 * Player Versus Player, PVP-Balanced: Almost all combat is player vs. player. The few wandering monsters that exist require dozens of characters to bring down. No monsters in Clash yet, but give it time.
 * Poison Mushroom: Demons drinking angel tears. Hilarity Ensues. Especially where Explosive Murder is involved.
 * Powers That Be: Played as straight as possible. Nine Elder Powers, competing to be the one who guides the next iteration of the universe.
 * Retcon: Hashaa was always female. Really.
 * Power Tattoo: The Nexus Champion class derives power from magical tattoos. All of his skills are additional tattoos, e.g. a tattoo allowing him to teleport, and one allowing him to deal more damage.
 * Random Number God: It exists, and it hates you.
 * Re-Power: Since BobWar periodically wipe itself after more than a year, characters start back at level one. While most will probably pick the same class again, its entirely possible to pick a completely different skill tree.
 * Revolvers Are Just Better: The only pistols available are a revolver of unknown caliber and a Walker Colt.
 * Rule of Three: Three Elder Powers for each of the three alignments.
 * Subverted Each alignment had 4 deities but one of each has been taken out of commission before the current breath.
 * Shadowland: Nifleheim.
 * Shout-Out: Evidently, there's a Wood Between the Worlds in Bob War.
 * Spiritual Successor: World in Global Battle, aka "Bob War".
 * Its both a Spiritual Successor AND a direct sequel. Being a game about the birth of the next universe, it gets a bit complicated.
 * Sprint Shoes: Almost everybody gets these eventually.
 * Summon Magic: Of the "temporary ally" type. Summoned pets have their own HP, MP, and AP. When any of those values reaches zero, the pet vanishes.
 * Talking Is a Free Action: In the last 24 hours of the game, speech actions cost no AP.
 * The Wild West: The plane of Nifleheim, before it became the land of death.
 * Too Awesome to Use: Magical throwing knives do huge damage, but can only be used once.
 * Unreliable Narrator: Haldos, who gains more credibility than he deserves from the fact that he is also the only narrator.
 * Urban Fantasy: Angels, demons, vampires, wizards, warrior monks, and undead running around a Caribbean island, waging a war with as many sides as there are players.
 * White Magic: Most angelic skills, which focus on healing, buffing, and Holy-typed damage.
 * Winged Humanoid: Most tier three Angels and Demons had wings as their movement skill, the Revenant's bat skill tree also had a humanoid form.