Antipaladin Blues

Trope-conscious Dark Fantasy parody written by Jess Gulbranson, concerning the adventures of an unwitting antipaladin in a dangerous world clearly founded on some common tabletop RPG tropes. Is first in a trilogy, followed by Archlich Hotel and Johnny Devil Comes To Town. In Development Hell.


 * Anti-Magic: The ‘thaumoethereal’ explosion wipes out an entire city’s magic.
 * Artifact of Doom: Elvist, the Needle of Flame.
 * Badass Normal: Derrick.
 * Bad Powers, Good People: Frank Burley, who is an ancient undead sorcerer, but still wants to save the world.
 * Explored with Kannon’s character, who has an evil day job, does mostly heroic things, but is still basically a murderous thug.
 * Benevolent Boss: Chamberlin, despite being a mage who is a corrupt government fixer, is clearly trying to be Kannon’s friend.
 * Black and Grey Morality: Like somebody threw up charcoal on the manuscript.
 * Blood Magic: Kannon’s enchanted armor runs on this.
 * Combat Pragmatist: It helps when your armor is covered in blades and spikes… any movement can be an attack. At one point Kannon uses a barrel of molasses to fight a shaman who may have an enchantment protecting him from edged weapons.
 * The Empire: Galak’s Empire, and its counterpart to the east, Pluton.
 * The End of the World as We Know It: Either ‘clean and nice’ or ‘fiery reverse Ikea run by Cenobites’, depending on whether the Angels and Demons take over.
 * Evil Overlord: Eboral, only mentioned until book three.
 * Five Races: Averted, in that nonhumans have been all but exterminated by the start of the books.
 * Functional Magic: The almost Steampunk setting runs on this, with the industrial complex running on Alchemy in particular.
 * Hub Level: Eboral’s ‘Hall of Gates’.
 * Humans Are the Real Monsters: The fundamental reason the Gods, Angels, and Demons are involved on this world at all.
 * Infinity+1 Sword: Elvist.
 * Magic Knight: Kannon, Viscount Hathoway.
 * Magitek
 * Never a Self-Made Woman: Averted by Avery, who is out to break the magical glass ceiling.
 * Our Angels Are Different: Androgynous, white-robed humanoids who at best are WellIntentionedExtremists but are actually an alien race fascinated with the human superego.
 * Our Demons Are Different: Likewise, an alien race who like humanity for their perversity, much the way people like geese for their livers.
 * Redemption Equals Death: Kannon resigns himself to this at the end of the first book. It doesn’t take.
 * Avery Is A Girl: Clumsily revealed in her first chapter, but played straight with Frank’s inability to comprehend ‘butch’.
 * Sealed Evil in a Can: While a protagonist and somewhat more benign, Frank Burley is something of a Sleeping Evil In A Can… he later mentions some of his fellow Eldritch Abominations who fit this trope to a T.
 * Shout-Out : To Alejandro Jodorowsky, Monty Python, Wolverine, the various settings of Dungeons & Dragons -really too many list, as this is an integral part of the book's style.
 * Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Definitely more cynical.
 * Something Blues
 * Squishy Wizard: Lampshaded. “After all, no matter how powerful you were, there was always a chance of someone getting in a lucky swing.”
 * Took a Level in Badass: Avery, after she starts keeping some more dangerous company.
 * Turn Undead: Avery, who was raised by exorcist monks, tries this on Frank Burley, Last of the Red-hot Archliches.
 * With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Frank was a man once…
 * Wizard Beard: Chamberlin’s lack of one is lampshaded by Kannon.