Fate By Blades

Fate By Blades is a war epic set on the planet of Aelithia. The world is torn by war as individuals rise to power. Backstabbing, betrayal and epic battles dominate this World of Badass.

The story can be found on Deviant ART and Elfwood.

Fate by Blades contains examples of:
 * Animal Motif: Mitchu is nicknamed the Steel Lion. His eldest son, Kirrin, adopts this motif as his own and wears armour with a lion motif.
 * Zac Wolfsblood wears armour with a wolf motif.
 * Anyone Can Die: Essentially, if a character does not have an extensive back story, he's going to die.
 * Averted with Kona, who dies, comes back to life and kicks ungodly amounts of ass.
 * Ascended Extra: Kona Higube is mentioned early in the story, but only comes to the fore when his father dies.
 * Badass: Pick a character. Any Character.
 * Four-Star Badass: Mitchu, Lucas, Frederick, Samu and Marcus are all leaders who fight alongside their men.
 * Like a Badass Out of Hell: Kona dies, and resurrects due to his demonic heritage moments later before kicking some ass. Cato pulls this off later as well.
 * Deal with the Devil: This happens a lot in the story. The "Devil" is depicted as a figure who wears a hooded robe that conceals his entire personage. Many characters make deals with this entity, but not so many turn out well.
 * Gilliam makes a deal with this figure to help his rebellion, so long as he doesn't sleep with anyone other than whomever the robed figure specifies. Gilliam betrays the "Devil" and his whole rebellion falls apart.
 * Lucas makes a deal to gain a beautiful maiden to tempt Kona to serve him. He gets one from the figure, on the condition that she sleeps with no one other than Kona. To ensure she doesn't, Lucas assigns Badass Karl Valian, as he can Ignore the Fanservice.
 * Kona's ancestor made one and got the sword that Kona wields.
 * Deus Ex Machina: Fail to uphold your end of a Deal with the Devil and you'll be facing this as your life goes to hell.
 * Deus Sex Machina: The "Devil" gets claim over every soul with demon blood. To ensure he gets the most for his money, he trades his Horny Devil "daughters" in exchange for phenomenal cosmic powers so that there are plenty of people running around with demon blood.
 * Expy: Not just in the traditional sense, but there are a lot of historical expies here.
 * Face Heel Turn: Lucas is believed to have pulled this, but some could see it as a Heel Face Turn. Kona later joins Lucas after Samu dies, so if Lucas is the closest thing to a Big Bad the story has, then Kona probably pulled an epic Face Heel Turn.
 * Samu betrayed Mitchu early in the story, despite swearing an oath to put aside ambition. Why he did this isn't clear, but perhaps he did it For the Evulz
 * Grey and Gray Morality: There is no clear villain in this story, just a lot of Anti-Hero characters who think they're doing the right thing.
 * Although, Kona only does what duty compels him to do, so he must either be the only "Good" character in the story. Even if he joins Lucas after Samu dies.
 * But then again, Kona joined Samu in the first place. Samu, due to Chronic Backstabbing Disorder betrayed Kona's father, Mitchu. Justified, as Kona didn't know that Samu was the one who betrayed his father.
 * Horny Devil: Often what comes with a Deal with the Devil. Kona marries one, a sexy one because Evil Is Sexy
 * Ignore the Fanservice: Lucas gets Karl to guard a Horny Devil whom Lucas intends to marry off to Kona.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: Plays this straight. Of course, since Anyone Can Die, if a character is not given an extensive back story, then he is probably going to be Killed Off for Real.
 * No One Could Survive That: Cato weathers a shower of bullets that killed all of his men, while he was still standing. The story lampshades this as people could scarcely believe he was alive.
 * Averted at one point by Kona. He DIDN'T survive getting killed by Peter, but his demonic heritage brought him back to life (And made him even more Badass than before)
 * The Plan: Ethan and Ezra are both masters of this.
 * Shout-Out: Tons. To name a few:
 * Cato and Karl Valian are both fictional versions of Lu Bu.
 * Roland Stormcrow wields six swords at once, which is a shout out to Date Masamune as he appears in Sengoku Basara.
 * Zac Wolfsblood's armour is a shout out to Game of Thrones.
 * Ethan is a shout out to Zhuge Liang from Romance of the Three Kingdoms
 * True Companions: Kona and Samu swear brotherhood. They are then inseparable until Samu is killed.
 * Kona's Horny Devil wife could count, as she is genuinely in love with Kona.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Lucas eventually manipulates Samu so that he gets executed, though this was probably to ensure that Kona would join him instead.
 * Samu was planning on killing the Emperor, because he was Lucas's Unwitting Pawn. However, this was all part of The Plan dreamed up by Ethan to kill Samu and lure Kona into Lucas's service.