Overlord - TV Tropes

Once again, it's time to put on your (evil-looking and spiky) villain-hat. As the name suggests, Overlord is a video game series that lets you step into the flower-stomping, minion-kicking, heavily-armored shoes of an Evil Overlord. With such a premise, it can hardly come as a surprise that the games use or subvert half the entries in the Evil Tropes index. Written by Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of Terry Pratchett, due to the series' playstyle, it's often seen as a Darker and Edgier Medieval Pikmin, though they don't clash as much as you would think.

Games in the series include:

• Overlord: The Overlord spreads Evil across the land as he goes after the heroes that defeated his predecessor, each of them corrupted by one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
  • Overlord: Raising Hell: The first game's Expansion Pack, in which portals to Hell have opened up all over the land and there's only one thing to do: march in and take over! Bonus enjoyment for being able to personally torment the heroes you previously sent there, as well!
• Overlord II: A sequel to the first game, where the son of the previous Overlord continues the family business of spreading Evil across the land, now opposed by the Glorious Empire that seeks to destroy all magic in the world. Whether they are dominated or destroyed is up to the Overlord.
• Overlord: Dark Legend: A prequel centered upon teenager Lord Gromgard, the "First" Overlord discovering a long legacy of Evil and taking the reigns.
• Overlord: Minions: A spinoff for the Nintendo DS. A cult called the Kindred is trying to raise the Dragon Kin so they can rule the world. The Overlord won't stand for any competition, so he sends a squad of Elite Minions to stop them.
• Overlord: Fellowship of Evil: A co-op Hack and Slash set after II as the Fourth Overlord has fallen to a powerful force called The Golden, meanwhile as a group called the Shining Dawn seeks to drown the world in sickly-sweet goodness. Gnarl resurrects four Netherghúls and sends them against the forces of Good in the hopes one of them becomes an Overlord in their own right.

Not to be confused with the similarly named 1975 film, 2018 film, or Japanese Light Novel series.

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The entire Overlord series contains examples of:

• Arc Words: As per the page quote, Evil always finds a way...
• And I Must Scream: Once the Overlord weakens him enough, Oberon Greenhaze actually begs to be killed so that the tree trapping him and Evernight in an endless nightmare will be destroyed.
• Artifact of Doom: The Tower Heart, the magical orb that powers the Dark Tower. Even Florian's tampering while trying to siphon its power, leading to the creation of the horrid Wasteland in the time between I and II wasn't enough to complete eradicate it.
• As Long as There Is Evil: A recurring theme in the games, along with being the Arc Words is that "Evil Always Finds A Way": there will always be someone to fulfill the position of Overlord and oppose Goodness with Evilness, no matter how thoroughly the Overlord's tower has been trashed or how long it's been since the last one came to power.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: According to Word of God, this was the fate of the Third Overlord after the events of Raising Hell and his being trapped in the Abyss by the Forgotten God, with the implication during the ending of II that he might eventually return and start a confrontation with his son, the Fourth Overlord.
• Backstab: The Green Minions' special attack is to jump upon an enemy's back and stab them until they die, which serves to deal much more damage in a single blow than the other Minions can.
• Big Bad: The entire series is based around the premise of being one of these. All of the games also have a major villain who rivals the current Overlord to be defeated so that Evil can reign supreme.
• Black Knight: In I, the Overlord's armor gets blacker the closer he gets to 100% corruption, with Spikes of Doom sprouting from his shoulders. Conversely, he's closer to a Knight in Shining Armor at 0% corruption.
• Canon Identifier: In the first game, you play as, predictably, the Overlord. The final boss of the game is also the Overlord (the real Overlord, who wiped the player character Overlord's memory to reconquer the land and destroy the heroes for him). The protagonist of the sequel is a new Overlord, initially named the Overlad while he's still a child, and the protagonist of the prequel is a previous Overlord who held the title before the Overlord of the first game.
• Card-Carrying Villain: And how! Mostly, Gnarl carries the card for you (since you are a Villainous / Heroic Mime) and takes great pleasure in expanding on the 'evilness' of things.
• Catch Phrase: Doubling as the series' Arc Words, Gnarl is fond of proclaiming "Evil always finds a way."
• Character Model Karma Meter: In I, the appearance of the Overlord's armor changes based on their Corruption (steel-grey with a red cape at 0% corruption, dark grey with a black cape and Spikes of Villainy at max corruption). Some aspects of the Dark Tower also change, such as the color of the sky and how many spikes jut out of the ground around it.
• Colonel Bogey March: The Minions will sometime whistle this while on the move.
• Common Character Classes: The Overlord games have minions that correspond to warrior (Brown Minions, who can take more of a beating than other minions), nuker (Red Minions, who are more fragile but have powerful ranged fire attacks), rogue (Green Minions, who are immune to poison and can hide in one place to ambush enemies), and support (Blue Minions, who can travel through water and raise slain minions back from the dead) while mixing in Elemental Powers.
• Crapsack World: This is the default state of the Overlord setting. The conceit is that an efficient Evil Overlord is by and large preferable to well-intentioned (or not so well-intentioned), incompetent rulers. Genuine heroes eventually rise to fight the Overlord and temporarily make it a decent place to live... until they fall to Evil or tyranny in turn, starting the cycle anew.
• Cutting the Knot: While traipsing in the Mother Goddess temple in I, you're meant to wait for the guardian elf ghosts to wander behind these doors attached to special cranks, and then send minions to those cranks to shut the doors, which will only remain shut for as long as you have minions allocated to those cranks... or alternately, you can detour to Heaven's Peak to grab the Blues, return to the temple, and order them to attack the ghosts directly since they are immune to magic attacks.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The games teeter back and forth on this option. Some present options for being a good guy with scary armor while Overlord II has you merrily massacring hippies while slaughtering stadium crowds. The Fourth Overlord's inclination to Dominate or Destroy in that game suggests that Evil is somewhat necessary for times when Good actually becomes its own form of evil.
• Death Is Cheap: The Blue Minions can resurrect any recently deceased minion, provided that whatever killed them didn't completely disintegrate them or their bodies haven't yet faded away.
• Die, Chair, Die!: One way to leave yourself a crumb trail is to smash everything into splinters. You know you've already been down a passage when the furniture is splintered, feast tables are empty, and the Minions have pissed on the carpet.
• Dismantled MacGuffin: The Tower acts as such in every game. In the absence of an Overlord for whatever reason, the Tower Heart is either stolen entirely or dismantled and its pieces scattered, the Minion Hives (except for the Brown Hive) are lost and separated to different parts of the world, and the Tower's Artifacts get lost or looted by treasure hunters. The Overlord typically will start out too weak to survive without Browns helping in each fight, but the more of the Tower Objects recovered, the more powerful the Overlord becomes until they can take out whole hordes of enemies that used to be a tough fight single-handedly.
• Dueling Games: Basically the Dark Fantasy Evil Counterpart of Pikmin.
• Dumb Muscle: The Minions are this, especially the Brown ones that serve as fighters and guards. Gnarl even comments in Dark Legend that "Thinking only slows them down".
• Evil Chancellor:
  • Gnarl serves each Overlord in this regard. Fortunately, they're evil too, so it's a rather amicable working relationship. Not that that stops him from betraying the Third Overlord the moment his predecessor's plan succeeded, though this is depicted as merely a duty and he even encourages the Third to defeat the Second so that he can follow him completely.
  • *The ending of Overlord II implies that Gnarl is once again scheming to betray one Overlord for another, in this case the Fourth Overlord for his father, the Third Overlord who now rules the Abyss and seeks to return.
• Evil Minions: Of the Laughable type. That doesn't stop them from urinating anywhere they please, wrecking and looting entire buildings, and attacking baby seals precisely because they're fluffy and cute.
• Evil Overlord: It's the series name, what'd you expect?
• Evil Redhead: A case of Like Father, Like Son too as both the Third and Fourth Overlords show they have a thing for redheads. In truth, the trope is mostly subverted since Rose and Kelda, both of whom are the first Mistress of their respective Overlords, both of whom sport red hair are generally more pragmatic than outright evil and support their respective Overlords for genuine reasons (Rose joined because she thinks the Third will bring order to the world ravaged by the Seven Heroes, and Kelda joined because she's the only one who genuinely cared for the Fourth while growing up in Nordberg as the "Witch-boy" and wanted to reunite with him when he returned to conquer it as the Overlord).
  • Conversely, the other Mistresses are all typically brunettes and have more selfish reasons to join the side of Evil (Velvet is just greedy to the umpteenth degree and only married Sir William for the marital gifts his hero status would garner, similarly attaching herself to the Overlord when he comes to Heaven's Peak and kills her ex-fiancee; Juno is a self-absorbed homewrecker that takes advantage of the Overlord's conquering of Everlight to ingratiate herself once she realizes he has a chance of taking down the Empire; and Queen Fay either becomes corrupted by the Overlord's Evil magic and abandons her people to gain power as a Mistress or attaches her disembodied spirit to the Netherworld to keep herself from fading away (depending on how the Overlord dealt with her).
    • With Queen Fay, the former case where she becomes Dark Fay after being corrupted might be the only case where the trope is played straight as her (plant?) hair turns an Evilish red that way.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Despite being a Villainous / Heroic Mime, the Overlord does grunt and growl occasionally with a deep voice to boot.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Where an Overlord can hang up the axe and rest after a hard day's smiting and pillaging. The Third Overlord's Dark Tower appropriately changes according to his Corruption level, whereas the Fourth resides in the Netherworld instead due to the original Tower being obliterated after Florian tampered with the Tower Heart and created the Wasteland.
• Evil Versus Evil: An overarching theme for the games. Overlord formerly provided the page quote for that article. Save for the Elves (who are portrayed as largely ineffectual in both I and II), the biggest threats to the Overlord's expanding empire are typically paragons of Evil themselves to be toppled.
• Expy: All Overlords down to the fashion sense are essentially parodies of Sauron. The Minions themselves basically act like a legion of Gremlins (minus the three rules).
• The Extremist Was Right: Often seems to be the case for the Overlord's quest for world domination ultimately succeeding. Every game starts with the world being oppressed and terrorized by former "forces of Good" ruling with an even more iron-clad fist than the villains they usurped. Gnarl often discusses how the intervention of an Overlord is necessary to remedy the state of the world, or how truly Evil villains don't pretend to be virtuous while committing Evil.
• Face–Heel Turn: Quite the big one in the case of the Third Overlord's quest. As it turns out, the Overlord was once the "Eighth Hero" that suddenly showed up on the original Seven Heroes' journey to help defeat the Old Overlord. After the Eighth managed to defeat the Overlord, he was gravely injured after falling from the Tower. Afterward, the Old Overlord hung around long enough to pull a Grand Theft Me on the Wizard and proceed to corrupt the other heroes according to the Seven Deadly Sins, leading the world into its current state.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • The elves in the Mother Goddess temple call themselves "watchers", even as they fail to notice Jewel's raiders sneaking in right behind them.
  • The Green Minions are repeatedly stated to smell incredibly awful, but that never gets them caught while sneaking up on someone.
• Fallen Hero: A staggering portion of the NPCs you fight. Depending on the Corruption level by the game's end, this can become the case for the Third Overlord, who was once the "Eighth Hero" that helped the Seven Heroes defeat the Old Overlord, only to end up becoming an even worse tyrant than his predecessor.
• Flunky Boss: If the Overlords themselves were fought, this would be the case for them with their Minion armies. As for the actual bosses faced by the Overlord, Oberon, Sir William, Khan, the Wizard, and the Forgotten God from I, especially Khan - good luck trying to beat him with multiple beholders spitting out enemies and insta-killing you if you accidentally get run over by one. The Spider Queen and the Devourer from II also count, with the latter periodically summoning just about every non-boss enemy in the game.
• Genre-Busting: The games were designed as Action RPGs with RTS elements.
• Glass Cannon: Reds and Greens are easily killed in one to two hits from even the lower-tier enemies if they get close enough, but when positioned just right to be able to attack and retreat quickly, their flamethrowing and backstabbing attacks can be devastating.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom:
  • The Overlord, as expected. Interestingly, in Dark Legend and Overlord II the respective candidates have glowing eyes even before they become full-fledged Overlords, though the Overlad/Fourth Overlord is justified since he is an Enfante Terrible as the son of an Overlord. Gromgard on the other hand was apparently just destined for Evil from birth.
    • It's also worth noticing that the Minions also have glowing eyes, though their glow is not strong enough to make their pupils invisible.
• Go-Go Enslavement: In I, with a high enough Corruption level, Spree villagers will offer you a virgin (actually the town's harlot) to appease the Third Overlord. Gnarl will then come up with the idea of capturing women as maids and dressing them in skimpy outfits.
• Heel–Face Turn: In I, after the Wizard reveals himself as the Old Overlord pulling a Grand Theft Me on the former hero and usurps the Third Overlord, depriving him of his magic and Minions, between Rose and Velvet who are the Wizard's daughters, the Mistress that was picked at Heaven's Peak sabotages the Old Overlord's control of the Tower Heart to aid the Third in reclaiming his lost power; their reasons differ with Rose denouncing the Wizard as her father due to his power-hungry megalomania whereas Velvet only helps because she "wants to keep her options open" and anticipates that the Old Overlord's reign will be short-lived if the Third reclaims his power. That said, even with a Third Overlord at 0% Corruption, the good-natured Rose is still choosing A Lighter Shade of Black for the Overlord she's falling in with.
• Heroic Mime: Inverted, since as an Evil Overlord, one can hardly call them heroic.
• Immune to Fire: A special trait of the Red Minions is an immunity to fire allowing them to live without issue inside of a lava-filled biome.
• Interface Screw: A meta example as the first game was criticized over poor responsiveness and awkward camera tracking. While the sequel boasted smoother controls, it still retained the wonky camera and incomprehensibly capricious sweep controls.
• Justified Tutorial: Noticeably in every instance that a new Minion (or Mount in the sequel) type is discovered, you'll be pitted against a series of puzzles and enemies that require you to master the abilities of that exact Minion type. The series is pretty good at setting up the tutorials without breaking the flow, for example, in II, an ambush by a squad of soldiers proves the perfect opportunity to demonstrate your new tamed wolves' ability to break enemy formations.
• Karma Meter:
  • Odd though it may seem with the rest of the game in mind, the Corruption level measures if the Overlord is a Jerk With A Heartof Gold vs. Stupid Evil. After a few reveals, it actually becomes closer to Anti-Villain Vs. Ax-Crazy.
  • Overlord II doesn't give the Overlord a choice between Good or Evil; he is Evil regardless and the choices made throughout the story come down to Mind Control Domination or Ax-Crazy Destruction.
• Karmic Death:
  • According to Word of God, all Overlords end up in the Abyss one way or another. With the Third Overlord, however, this will likely get turned on its head since canonically, after his defeat of the Forgotten God, he Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence as the Abyss' new ruler and most probably won't seek to play by those rules anymore. And judging by Gnarl's comments during the ending of Overlord II, he might be looking for a way to return, perhaps coming into conflict with his son, an Overlord himself.
• Large Ham: For a decrepit old minion, Gnarl indulges in quite a bit of this.
• Laughably Evil: The entertainingly destructive antics of the Minions, coupled with their tendency to stick just about anything on their head. This is lampshaded by Gnarl in the second game, "I remember my days as a young minion. Oh the things I used to put on my head."
• Legacy Character: The title of Overlord has been passed around by several individuals. So far in the series, at least four characters have been the Overlord: Lord Gromgard, the "First" Overlord in Dark Legend; the Wizard, the "Second Overlord" who was actually not the Overlord at first before he suffered a Grand Theft Me at the Second's first defeat and Big Bad of I, the Third Overlord, protagonist of I, and the Overlad, the "Fourth" Overlord and protagonist of II. Subverted in Fellowship of Evil, in which the four playable Netherghúls are not actually Overlords, rather they are explicitly Gnarl's subordinates competing with each other to gain the title of Overlord.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: The potential Mistresses all fall into one or the other. In II, the first two mistresses fall into Tomboy and Girly Girl - but also serve as a collective "Light Feminine" to the third.
• Light Is Not Good: A running theme alongside Dark Is Not Evil. The Third Overlord can invoke it by changing his flag/cape color to White and insignia to a castle, along with having a flower garden growing all over the Tower, but still being the villain of the picture.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: As bad as the Overlord may be in a given game, he is still usually better than the Seven Heroes, the Glorious Empire, etc., etc.
• Mascot Mook: The Minions.
• Magic Knight: The Overlord is capable of casting magic, either to kill his enemies or to power up his army by driving them into a frenzy and his alignment in the Karma Meter can influence how his spells will work. In II, it is explicitly because the Overlad/Fourth Overlord was born with the power to use magic that he was ostracized and nicknamed "Witch-boy" by the people of Nordberg and became a hated enemy of the Glorious Empire.
• Magikarp Power: At the start of the game, the Overlords themselves are heavily reliant on Minions in combat due to their lack of abilities and stiff animations. With sufficient upgrades however they become powerful enough to take enemies on themselves.
• The Medic: The Blue Minions' purpose. They are the most fragile Minion and rather useless in battle but make up for it by being able to revive dead Minions within seconds and by being able to swim (most water bodies are deep enough for the Overlord to walk through, but any non-Blue minions drown ). They also have the most magical nature out of all of the Minions; in I, there are some supernatural enemies that only Blues can attack, and in II, they're the only way to clear away the glowing blue magical fallout; any other Minion trying to touch that stuff gets warped into an even-more-homicidal Mutant Minion and turns aggressive towards the Overlord.
• Mighty Glacier: The Overlord himself. He's somewhat sluggish in combat and tends to swing his weapon awkwardly, but he carries really big weapons and hits really hard. Khan the Warrior also counts, as you can easily run circles around him while he's lugging around that giant morning star of his. Note that the Overlord is really only slow compared to his Minions, who are quite happy to scramble along as fast as their little legs can carry them in order to get to the thing that needs smashing, bashing, looting, or killing.
• The Minion Master: Also the Overlord. He's pretty much reliant on Minions for everything, including combat and puzzle-solving.
• Mook Maker: They tend to pop up from time to time; Halfling huts spit out halflings until Minions go in to wreck the place, and Beholders summon enemies until you take them down. On your side, any Minion Pit you can reach in combat functions as an effective Mook Maker as long as you have Lifeforce to fuel it.
• Mooks: For once, they're on your side. Dispensable, cheap and with strength in numbers.
• Necessarily Evil: Another running theme in the games. Most forces of Good inevitably end up falling to Evil, reinforcing the state of the Crapsack World, with the Overlord potentially used as A Lighter Shade of Black in contrast.
• No Canon for the Wicked: The events of Overlord II all but state that a Third Overlord at 100% Corruption in I is non-canon, as an older Rose appears and is referred to as the Overlad's mother, confirming the ending of Raising Hell where she is pregnant and the Third's sole Mistress, as well as the fact that the Elven race appears to still be alive and kicking, something only possible by saving the last female elves in the first game, though in the latter case it's also possible that the elves of the second game are a separate group that avoided being enslaved by the dwarves and driven to extinction. However, the wrecked Dark Tower in the Wasteland visibly has the topper decoration that's only possible with Velvet as a Mistress, which would contradict Rose being around to be impregnated. Overall, it seems like the Third Overlord might have canonically been anywhere between 0% to 80% corrupted.
• No-Gear Level: An original variation, since the Minions are the Overlord's weapons for most of the early game until they can power up enough to become a Mighty Glacier themselves. Overlord II later plays the trope straight during the quest in Everlight when the Fourth is shipwrecked by the Spider Queen and has to track down the lost Minions scattered around the jungles.
• Oop North: Most of the characters have northern accents which is best shown by the villagers of Spree as well as Melvin Underbelly and his Halfling army.
• Our Elves Are Different: While the Elves are usually less evil (being at the worst Jerkasses) and are the closest thing to Hero Antagonists that the Overlord has), they are still generally ineffectual and just as dumb as anyone else. For the record, they present as whiny emos during I and overactive hippies during II. Fellowship even introduces a Dark Elf prince as one of the Netherghúls resurrected to become a new Overlord.
• Our Goblins Are Different: The Minions are fairly standard goblin-like critters - some of which are immune to fire, poison, drowning, and have natural affinity with various beasts.
• Physical God: Per Word of God, this is the ultimate fate of the Third Overlord after being trapped in the Abyss by the Forgotten God during Raising Hell and taking control of its armies.
• Playing with Fire: The Reds can toss fireballs and set your enemies on fire, serving as a ranged-attack unit.
• Poke the Poodle: Several such pastimes are provided that don't even nudge the Karma Meter, such as slaughtering sheep and stomping sunflowers. The early parts of Overlord II feature an objective for killing 100 baby seals for Lifeforce, which also doesn't cause you to become more Evil.
• Polyamory: Averted in I with the binary choice of Mistress. Gnarl clarifies that the Third Overlord must either choose Velvet or keep Rose as there is only enough room in the Dark Tower for one Mistress. Played straight in II where the Fourth collects three Mistresses over the course of the game, with all three remaining loyal (to some extent) to him, and he can freely choose any one of them to be First Mistress at any point.
• Portal Network: The Third Overlord is able to move around the World thanks to magical portals constructed at remote ruins in each region linked to the Dark Tower by the Tower Heart. The Fourth Overlord, due to residing in the subterranean Netherworld instead, travels through magic-enhanced tunnels burrowed up from below to the surface.
• Pyromaniac: If you use your fireball spells to set scenery on fire in I, all of your Minions get way too excited about it (especially the pyromaniac Reds).
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Subverted at the beginning of each game, where an Overlord tends to be fairly weak and dependent on the Minions in a fight, in spite of what their intimidating appearance would suggest. However, with the proper Tower Objects and gear upgrades, they can become a powerful Mighty Glacier Magic Knight armed with an Infinity +1 Sword rightly deserving of their title(s).
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Can become the Overlord's modus operandi if they're more focused on Destruction (though less so in I and more so in II and Dark Legend). In I, Gnarl even explains that it's wiser to keep conquered citizens alive and content to some extent so that they can continue serving the Overlord as his subjects, though he will not stand in the way of a little mass murder. This is also proven if Lord Gromgard is more benevolent in Dark Legend as his subjects remark that the only downside to his rule is that, as comfortable and content as they are, they are still technically slaves to the Overlord.
• Really 700 Years Old: The Minions, surprisingly enough. According to the developer's FAQ, no one knows how old Minions get because no Minion has ever died of natural causes. Gnarl, in particular, is by his own account old enough to remember what the long-extinct dragons were really like, and Giblet is said to have served at least three different Overlords.
• Red Right Hand: The spiky helmet that leaves the Overlord's face as a mass of shadows with pinpricks of light for eyes, pretty much SCREAMS 'villain' from the moment you boot up the game. Not that you need the hint. The Overlad too was creepy-looking from birth, having blue skin and glowing eyes that caused him to be viciously bullied by the children of Nordberg and mocked as "Witch-boy." Played with in I when it turns out that the Overlord was previously one of the Heroes, one that joined late into their quest to defeat the Old Overlord. This means his menacing appearance was already like that even before he woke up in the Tower basement.
• Rewarding Vandalism: Justified, since your character is an Evil Overlord.
• Sand Worm: Appears as an enemy type in I when traveling through the Ruborian Desert. Killing one cannot be accomplished by normal means, only if a Minion is sent to Feed It a Bomb by luring Blaster Bugs into their hunting grounds.
• Sex God: Practically a standard skill of an Overlord when they are able to have sex that shakes an entire monolithic tower with the force of an earthquake. Doubly so for the Fourth Overlord as not only can he do it multiple times with three different women, through certain choices he can bed all three of them simultaneously and keep it going for an entire hour.
• Screw You, Elves!: In the Overlord setting, elves are generally a race of either whiny emo idiots or entitled tree-hugging jerkasses who continually get shafted throughout the series, either by the Overlord's antagonists or the Overlord himself if he so wishes.
• Shoulders of Doom: The Third Overlord grows a series of demonic spikes as his Corruption increases, but the shoulders are where they get REALLY big.
• Shout-Out: Found during Raising Hell:

  Gnarl: Oh great, a Labyrinth. Sire, if you see any goblins or rosy-cheeked maiden, just ignore them, if there's singing, kill them all.

• Silent Protagonist: None of the Overlords ever speak, which raises the intimidation factor considerably during cutscenes. Compare the Wizard (really possessed by the Old Overlord after a Grand Theft Me in the past) who never shuts up about how he corrupted the Seven Heroes.
• Someone to Remember Him By: The Fourth Overlord serves as this for the Third's Mistress. That Rose discovers she's pregnant with the Overlad only after his father ends up permanently trapped in the Dark Abyss means it qualifies, even if the Overlord is not actually dead, but became a Physical God Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence.
• Sorcerous Overlord: Depends on how one plays the Overlord in combat, since they look mostly like the warrior type and rule over tehir kingdom like a sorcerer with magical Artifacts. No matter what however, the Overlord is always a Magic Knight.
• Squad Controls: The game has the commands Sweep (the whole cluster of Minions follows your cursor, smashing, killing or looting anything they find along the way) and Send (Minions charge either straight ahead or towards a selected target, again smashing, killing and looting) and Return. These commands can be used for anything from a single minion, to one tribe, to the whole horde.
• Squishy Wizard: Generally the Blues and specifically the Wizard, whose health drops like an anvil if you can just get past his magical shielding.
• Stupid Evil: The Minions, especially the Brown variety. See them grinning and laughing like a Psychopathic Man Child whenever they're causing destruction. They'll do just about anything For the Evulz.

  Gnarl: There's nothing a minion likes more than breaking things. ...Well, except killing things.

• Super Drowning Skills: Any Minion that isn't Blue will instantly drown, though what limited brainpower they have at least makes them wait at the edge of water instead of following the Overlord to their watery doom. The Overlord will simply wade through waist-high water and will not enter anything deeper, probably because all that armor would make him sink like an anvil chained to a boulder.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Minions are loyal to the point of willingly embracing death at their Overlord's merest whim. They're also dumber than a sack of particularly dull hammers. Ah well, you can't have it all...
  • The Fourth's Mistress, Kelda in II has this opinion of the citizens of her hometown, to the point that according to her, the Minions actually act as an improvement because "they can at least think and act at the same time."
• Take Over the World: The main goal of every Overlord, no matter how many elves, dwarves, rock trolls, Wizards, or Romanesque empires they have to go through.
• Tin Tyrant: All Overlords are tall, scary-looking fellows covered in intimidating-looking armor. The "tyrant" part can be defied in large part by the Third and First Overlords, but the Fourth is squarely in that area, only his method of choice in Mind Control or Blood Knight being decided by the player.
• Toilet Humor: If a Minion is ordered to go drink up the booze that someone left lying around, then after downing it all in a few seconds, a short moment later they will audibly piss it right back out wherever they please.
• Troperiffic: Look at all these examples!
• Try to Fit That on a Business Card: The Overlord gains more and more titles the more heroes they kill, Minions hives they recover obtain, and great feats they complete. The Jester Minions rattle off the Overlord's accolades while dwelling around the throne room.
• Unicorns Are Sacred: Invoked to represent how Oberon Greenhaze's Sloth has effectively ruined the tranquility of Evernight as even these creatures are willing to charge and brutalize anything they came across. The first one you meet is even snacking down on a dead dwarf's corpse.
• The Unintelligible: The Overlords never speak; they just make a sound like an organ chord or gesture imperiously.
• Villain-Based Franchise: Evil always finds a sequel hook, sire.
• Villainous Harlequin: All the games feature a jester who's there to sing of the Overlord's deeds and to be kicked around after malicious annoyance sets in.
• Villain Protagonist: An Evil Overlord certainly isn't about to treat their enemies to milk and cookies!
• Virgin Sacrifice: If the Third Overlord terrorizes the people of Spree plenty of times, the villagers will offer up a "virgin" to appease him, amidst loud protestations from the girl herself that she's not called 'Haystack Harriet' for nothing.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Only minus the hardware. Gnarl, and sometimes one or more mistresses, can communicate with the Overlord over any range through the Tower Heart, as well as through their helmet. At one point in II, Rose demonstrates the ability to speak to her son directly using her mind... somehow. Gnarl uses the classic Is This Thing On? line as he fires up the spell for the first time during I
• Waterfront Boss Battle: One boss battle consists of a large Sea Serpent that sticks its head out of the water and attacks while the Overlord is on-land.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Minions are the Overlord's first and last resort to anything. Halfing wobbling towards you with a pitchfork? Send Minions. Empire tries to Take Over the World? Send Minions. Hippie elf pretending to be an Emperor of humans tries to kill you and become a magical god? Send Minions. Forgotten God tries to regain his powers? More Minions! You can count the problems the Overlord can't solve with the use of Minions on one hand. Which you'll then clench tightly around the handle of your weapon of choice, and pound said problem out of existence. So really, all you have are two hammers for all your problems.
• We Have Reserves:
  • The Overlord's typical attitude to the Minions. In I, the Third Overlord can send Minions into Blood and Mana Pits to rejuvenate himself. Dark Legend has Lord Gromgard throttle Minions to turn them into suicide bombers.
  • II subverts it with the Fourth Overlord being able to resurrect fallen Minions that he's taken a liking to... by sacrificing lots of Minions that he doesn't.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Almost every character in this game that was once considered "Good" is presently pretty corrupt. Ironically, despite the fact that the player character is an Evil Overlord, he can be played with more redeemable traits than almost anyone. This trope serves as a plot point in I; the Old Overlord, after pulling a Grand Theft Me on the Wizard, discreetly influenced and corrupted the Seven Heroes so they accumulate enough Evil such that when the Third Overlord, who was once the eighth Hero revived after being left for dead, killed them while believing that he was creating his own empire, they would release enough energy for the Old Overlord to resurrect himself. All of this was only possible because the Seven Heroes left their fallen comrade to die when he defeated the Old Overlord, then near-fatally fell into the Tower ruins.
• Zerg Rush: Really, there are few situations that can't be solved just by employing more Minions. For those, you have to find the right way to employ them ...or just employ even more Minions.

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