Video Game / A Tale of Two Kingdoms

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An indie Adventure Game created by Crystal Shard in Adventure Game Studio. The player takes the role of Maeldun Whiteblade, who is framed for murdering King Vortigern of Theylinn. While on the run trying to clear his name, he has to deal with a goblin invasion, an assassin on the loose, an evil wizard trying to stop him, and the quirky faeries of Thierna na Oge.

The game is fully voice acted and can be downloaded from Steam.

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Contains examples of the following tropes:

• Action Girl: Branwyn. She proves her chops from the beginning of the game to the end when it comes to swords and thrown daggers.
• Action Prologue: The deluxe version of the game allows you to take part of the prologue rather than reading about it like in the original version. It also serve as a tutorial.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: The monk considers faeries a "figment of man's imagination" while an army of goblins is camped just a few miles away.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: The good ending. Assuming you rescued the princess, she gets crowned the new queen.
• Badass Bookworm: Branwyn is easily the best swordmaster of her camp and is an avid reader of books.
• Bald of Evil: Taranis is the true Big Bad and doesn't have a string of hair on his head.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Kindness pays dividends in Theylinn.
  • If you are friendly with the tailor and give him a bottle of wine, he'll give you a cloak for free.
  • If you help the sorcerer's apprentice, she will not turn on you.
  • Although in gameplay there is no difference, Rhiannon will comment on this if you save her from the faerie glamour.
• Behind the Black: When Maeldun needs to hide, he positions himself so that you, the player, cannot see him, even if logically he should be able to be seen from any other viewpoint (such as that of Geraint or his guards).
• Better Manhandle the Murder Weapon: The reason why you're accused of murder. No, you can't avoid it, as you need to take the dagger to defend yourself against the assassin.
• Big Bad: Taranis, a former Evil Chancellor with formidable magical powers.
• Bookends: The game begins and ends with Maeldun attacking Castle Theylinn.
• Brutal Honesty: Lady Branwyn and Geraint. Subverted with Cailte.
• Burn the Witch!: Downplayed with the sorcerer's apprentice. Born in the village of Havgan, she left to study magic under Taranis and has effectively been ostracized from Havgan ever since.
• The Cameo: The heroine from Heroine's Quest can be seen in the capital.
• Captain Ersatz: The protagonist's sprite looks very much like Prince Alexander from King's Quest VI (see Spiritual Successor, below; funnily enough, in the original concept, Maeldun is a captain ersatz of Graham, not Alexander).
• Captain Obvious: as one of the goblin guards points out, their leader Rashakk Skullcrusher would be happy to crush your skull if you meet him. The other guard calls him out on stating the obvious.
• Changeling Tale: Blossom lives in the fairy realm, and is revealed to be a human child who was switched with the misfit Ruadh.
• Chekhov's Gun: Branwyn's dagger is shown early in the game as the likely murder weapon, and is useful in the end game by cutting a rope from a distance, as well as ringing a magic bell from a distance.
• Clear My Name: The protagonist's goal in the game, as he gets accused of the murder of the king. He's innocent (as the player knows) but finding out the true culprit is an optional sidequest.
• Clue, Evidence, and a Smoking Gun: Maeldun is absolutely able to deduce the murderer by gathering clues, overhearing conversations, and discussing the situation at camp with Taliesin. In a twist, however, Maeldun will use the evidence to rule out suspects, not convict them.
  • The murderer left behind a piece of cloth that, if shown to Midir, proves that the murderer must have been from Carbonek itself. This rules out Branwyn, as well as Finegas (who lives in the monastery), the sorcerer's apprentice (who lives with her master outside of Carbonek), or anyone who lives in Havgan (Amairgen or Niamh).
  • The murderer must have been in the king's bedroom at the time of the murder: Besides being additional alibis for Branwyn, Finegas, and Amairgen (who all left the castle before the king was killed), this rules out Ruadh (who was stealing Maeldun's girdle), Midir (who was passed out drunk in a different room at the time), Ashe (who was sleeping in the stables outside the castle), Paradur, and Iseult (who were having an affair in a different bedroom).
  • The murderer must have a reason to kill the king. This rules out Geraint (who was loyal to the king) and Rhiannon (who loved her father).
• Dark Is Not Evil: Arawn Nos. He looks evil and he lives in the dark and creepy part of Thierna Na Oge, but he will aid you if you prove your worth to him and he isn't even remotely evil.
• Deadpan Snarker: Branwyn always has something to add to the conversation between Maeldun and another character when she is present. Geraint is also not bad at this.
• Disguised in Drag: In order to escape from Carbonek at the start of the game, you need to steal a dress from the tailor to disguise yourself and sneak past the guards.
• Dressing as the Enemy: During the prologue, Maeldun takes a guard's uniform to infiltrate the enemies.
• Eldritch Location: Taranis' tower is invisible to the naked eye, and noted as being "not of this world" when Maeldun does reveal it. Moreover, Taranis' power is MUCH stronger inside the tower than anywhere else.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Theylinn request military aid from their former enemies against a horde of goblins. Maeldun and his crew aren't too happy about this, but if Theylinn falls, the Southern Realms are next.
  • This happens again at the end, when the goblins cease their hostilities and Taranis makes his move to seize power. You have a choice to help the Theylinn's loyalists and overthrow Taranis. Or refuse the call and return home to the south.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Rashakk Skullcrusher leads the goblin horde in combat and will crush anything in his path, but will never resort to stealthy assassins to achieve his goals.
• Evil Chancellor: Taranis was one to King Vortigern and implied to be responsible for Vortigern's more belligerent acts in the backstory. An easily missed moment in the prologue shows him teleporting away just as Maeldun and his army accost Vortigern.
• Evil Laugh: Taranis lets out an evil laugh if you complete the evil ending.
• Evil Overlooker: The Big Bad, who will cast spells while watching from his crystal ball.
• Evil Sorcerer: The Big Bad is a powerful magician, and evilly wants to take over the kingdom. Several times he will interrupt the player with debilitating or Interface Screw magic.
• Exact Eavesdropping: There are twenty "Cutscenes" throughout the game, and most of them involve Maeldun doing this. Some provide alibis for various characters, which is useful for sussing out the murderer. Others simply provide interesting or amusing information about the characters.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Want to catch that assassin? Sorry, you just can't.
• Fairy Tale: A clear inspiration of the game, it contains plot points from Cinderella and the Brave Little Tailor (among others), and the second of the titular two kingdoms is the fairy realm.
• Fantastic Foxes: The Pooka is a fairy woman with a fox tail and ears.
• Forced Transformation: Geraint is turned into a hawk. Taliesin speculates that the newly christened Deidre, if she survives, would probably be able to restore him.
• Friend to All Living Things: The druid is kind to all animals (but not goblins, unless Maeldun convinces him otherwise).
• Genre Throwback: This is a 2007 game deliberately stylized, in terms of gameplay and graphics, to look like it had been made 15 years before that.
• Golden Ending: Fulfill all the necessary requirement and you'll receive the best of all possible ending:
  • Free the tailor from the goblins.
  • Hook up the stable boy with the princess.
  • Save the princess from the Barghest.
  • Spare the sorcerer's apprentice and save her from the mage's tower destruction.
• Good Luck Charm: To win a gambling game, you need to find a horseshoe for luck first.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: Guards can be fooled by distractions and can easily be bypassed. Your tricks wont work twice on them however.
• Happily Married: Downplayed by Maeldun and Branwyn. They are very happy together, but they are always described as consort or companion to each other rather than husband and wife.
• Have a Nice Death: As common in adventure games. Deaths are accompanied by a tombstone that has a poem written on it, describing your death.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: Ashe, the stable boy, if given some of Nimwe's power, turns into a prince, complete with pumpkin coach.
• The High Queen: Nimwe, the Seelie Queen, is an elfin lady of incredible grace and beauty.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: An in-universe example. The tailor believes that the king was assassinated by Muldan Blackblade, a barbarian with a massive black sword.
• I Know Your True Name: Sidhe and master sorcerers have true names, and speaking the true name of such a being gives the speaker power over the being, unless the being is powerful enough to resist. It says a lot about Nimwe's power relative to Maeldun that she is willing to tell him her true name. Even Taranis is unable to do anything with that power.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Branwyn demonstrates her skill at throwing daggers in the prologue, and has a better aim than Maeldun.
• Infodump: The opening narration in the original game. The updated relrelease has a playable prologue instead.
• Informed Ability: In the opening Infodump, Maeldun is presented as a great warrior. In the game, he is anything but. Branwyn pointedly explains to the fawning Iseult that Maeldun is their diplomat, and Branwyn herself is the great warrior. She'll show it if you lead the barghest into your camp.
• Interface Screw: one of the spells Taranis casts on you inverts the mouse controls. If you pick up the snake statue in his tower, a similar effect also happens.
• Invisibility: Downplayed. Maeldun has a spell cast on him so that he will be unnoticeable by anyone not strongly connected to the murder and at least one person who is. Rhiannon and Geraint are the only ones able to see through the magic, but Iseult and the Chancellor will see through it if Maeldun talks too much. Funnily enough, the murderer themself won't see through it, no matter how much you talk to them.
• It Only Works Once: Generally, the more powerful an enchantment is, the more likely it is to fall under this trope.
  • Straight examples include the Pooka's golden apple, Nimwe's chime, Arawn Nos's onyx, the monastery's holy water, and Taranis' snake statue.
  • One downplayed example is the goblin rune, which breaks after being used to dispel a particularly powerful Sidhe enchantment, but not in the presence of one of the Sidhe in general.
  • The enchanted pumpkin and the enchanted belt are aversions; their wielders can respectively disguise or protect themselves at will and remain disguised or protected as long as they are wielding the object.
• Jerkass: Iseult is a real bitch to someone who isn't wealthy or well-connected.
• Knight Templar: Geraint is loyal to his king and holds a grudge against Maeldun for opposing sad king, far longer than is reasonable.
• Last Lousy Point: Some wisdom and honor points aren't exactly obvious.
• Light Is Not Good: Nimwe de Danaan is kind and benevolent, and she lives in the bright and beautiful part of Thierna na Oge... but she has seduced mortal men into spending their lives in Thierna na Oge before, and she will happily do the same to Maeldun after he proves his heroism. Failure to actively resist her charms results in a Bad Ending.
• Mage Tower: Taranis has a mage tower located on a small island, hidden from everyone.
• Merlin and Nimue: Taranis and his apprentice have this relationship.
• Mirror Character: Lord Geraint and Lady Branwyn, when you think of it. Both command the armies of their master/companion, are completely loyal to them and would do anything they can to protect them. Both are brutally honest deadpan snarkers to some degree. Branwyn hates Vortigern and Geraint because the latter's armies destroyed here village. Geraint hates Maeldun and Branwyn because the latter's armies vanquished Vortigern's empire. Both cases are mentioned in a conversation between Maeldun and Rhiannon. One of their principle differences is in ranged weaponry: Branwyn uses throwing daggers while Geraint uses a bow. this lack of one means Geraint can't hit Nimwe's charm
• Mistaken for Murderer: Maeldun, since he is the first to find the murdered king and he picked up the murder weapon from his corpse to fight off the true killer.
• Moon Logic Puzzle: The game's creators definitely tried to avert this, but many instances do crop up, particularly the infamous murder mystery. Some people consider this a Guide Dang It!, but the information is all in the game, and through elimination you can figure out that the assassin is really Cailte, in case you wondered.
• Multiple Endings: Five, ranging from the sad to the evil to the good. In the worst ending, you join forces with the murderer; in the best, the princess gets crowned the new queen and married.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Rashakk Skullcrusher.
• Our Giants Are Bigger: Morholt the giant is a classic example: huge, dumb, mean, and cannibalistic. If you outwit his test of strength, he softens up and becomes your pal.
• Pardon My Klingon: Goblins use "gronk" as a catch-all swearword, and "pigeon" as a catch-all insult.
• Permanently Missable Content: There are a few items in chapters 1 and 2 that cannot be retrieved once you end those chapters. There's also several sidequest objectives that can only be done early in the game. Plus, a lot of the inventory objects that can be applied to multiple puzzles are one-use items.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Pooka has this speech pattern.
• Power Tattoo: Taranis and his apprentice both have glowing tattoos on their face, as a sign of the magically Initiated
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: The goblins, and especially Rashakk Skullcrusher, spend a lot of time trash talking the humans and do have the fighting ability to back it up, but also have their own code of honor and will respect you once you prove yourself in combat against Rashakk.
• Rags to Riches: With some faerie magic, you can turn the stable boy into a noble so he can save and marry the princess.
• Redemption Equals Death: Geraint, more or less. He doesn't die so much as get turned into a bird. Taliesin speculates that Deidre, if she's alive, could restore him, albeit it would be difficult.
• Reconstruction: The game attempts to recreate the fun and joy of old VGA quests while jettisoning their annoying moments (Unwinnable, Guide Dang It!, etc.).
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Lady Rhiannon refuses to sit idly in the castle while the kingdom is in trouble, and Maeldun can overhear her arguments with Geraint and Midir to that effect. Deconstructed when her determination gets her in trouble with the Fair Folk.
• Shout-Out: Dozens of them, especially to King's Quest games.
  • There are at least two to Discworld. You can find "Twurp's Peerage" in the monastery's library, and Maeldun describes cider as a drink made of apples. "Well, mostly apples."
  • Near the castle, you meet a talking scarecrow. You can give him a brain, and afterward he will name himself Baum.
  • If you try to enter a stump, a message will appear, requiring you to insert disk 23, followed by 'Oops, wrong game.' Also, on the monk's bed there is a book called 'The Mystery of Ape Atoll,' (no, not THAT Ape Atoll) which involves swordfighting, dark magic and the undead.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: A blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in the prologue shows a sorcerer teleporting away just as Maeldun and his army are closing in on King Vortigern. Princess Rhiannon will tell you early in chapter 1 that that was Taranis, the king's former advisor.
• Slipping a Mickey: The first puzzle in the prologue (after climbing the castle wall and entering the barracks) involves slipping some strong liquor into a guard's cup so that you can steal his uniform.
• Spiritual Successor: Of the King's Quest series. It was even originally conceived as a Fan Sequel to the aforementioned franchise.
• Spot the Imposter: One of the characters in Theylinn is a Faerie changeling, and can be exposed as such in a sidequest.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: The next puzzle in the prologue after Slipping a Mickey is to distract Geraint. Maeldun does so by telling him "There's nobody drunk in the barracks, sir."
• Tempting Fate: In the prologue, a guard complains about his boring assignment of guarding the castle and wish he could see some real action. You'll be providing the action soon enough.
• The Fair Folk: Both the Seelie and Unseelie faeries, but most especially the Pooka.
• True Love's Kiss: Required, of course, to wake the sleeping princess. In the subversion, you are not her true love. You just give him a confidence booster and a magic glamour.
• Updated Re-release: The game later received a graphic overhaul and added voice acting. However, it's no longer available for free on Crystal Shard's website and you have to buy it on Steam.
• Undying Loyalty: Lord Geraint is an unpleasant jerk, but he'll protect the king and his daughter no matter what.
• Unwinnable: One trait of old Sierra adventures that wasn't adopted by the game's creators. However, this trope still does apply to the best ending. If you don't want the normal or bad endings, which leave several problems unsolved, you'll still need to keep several spare save files in case you miss or lose certain items from solving puzzles the wrong way.
• World of Ham: The dialogue is bombastic, grandiose and full of Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe. Very often Lampshaded.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: The fairies talk like this. Blossom the changeling also tries to, but isn't very good at it. It's also subverted and lampshaded many, many times, particularly in this Easter Egg:
  Helloeth! Thou appeareth to be playingeth an adventure gameth. Wouldeth thou liketh help with thateth?
• You Can't Go Home Again: Deirdre used to live in the tiny village until she left, and the villagers...don't take kindly to her when she shows back up. Mostly they think it's inappropriate how she lives with a much older man.
• You Fight Like a Cow: As a Shout-Out, you can try this in your fight against Rashakk. It doesn't work.

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