Hello, fellow SF/F writers. I'm just compiling a very big list for fun, and was hoping you guys might have some ideas for additions. 
Here's what I've got so far:
The main character
-The main character will be a farmer, or at least, hail from an agarian village. Despite this, s/he will know little of things a farmer should know. Even the turns of the seasons seem to affect his or her life little.
-Despite the supposedly poor, agarian station in life the Hero/ine and his or her peers hold, when the Hero/ine searches through the ruins of his or her village for useful items to take along, he or she will find items like the following examples:
*Gold coins
*Jewellery and fasion accessories
*Artwork
*Cosmetics
*Weapons
*One or more fine thoroughbred horses which act like cars.
Often, the Hero/ine will take these items, which will be described in detail. Silly stuff like food, water, cooking utensils, addition "everyday" clothing, sleeping bags and the like will be glossed over, or not mentioned at all.
-The main character will always be a teenager or a young man/woman. Older, more experienced or mellowed characters will be shafted into a secondary role.
-Despite their upbringing and hard life, the protagonist will be physically attractive. While male protagonists gain lean muscles, female protagonists will avoid this, and may have "curves in all the right places" or be "atheletic yet feminine". This lack of obvious musculature will not prove a problem when the heroine has to exert herself physically.
-The main character will possess a seemingly unimportant trinket such as a ring, necklace or locket. This will prove important in some way later in the plot.
-The main character's morals and values will happen to coincide with modern western morals and values, despite the possibility of being raised in a society which does not adhere to said values.
-The main character is exempt from the rules of conventional reality of the fantasy world. S/he will be the only one to be able to do X action, and the world will twist itself into loopholes in order to make this possible for him/her.
-The main character will effortlessly pick up skills in a miniscule fraction of the time normal people spend learning them. Said skills can be as diverse as being literate (which the hero/ine can accomplish in as short a time as a week), to swordfighting, magic, wilderness survival, animal handling, playing an instrument, and so forth. Only "cool" skills are taught. Practical skills which have everyday use or can be used to make a living from like cooking, sewing, herding animals, mining, brewing and so forth are either glossed over and used as a springboard to launch the Hero/ine into the "cool" activities, or not mentioned at all.
-Moral standards are slipshod when the Hero/ine is involved. The Hero/ine will preach for pages about the sanctity of life, and then go on to slaughter armies of the Generic Grunt Race. That is all right, because Evil people are sub-human.
-The Hero/ine must be lavishly described. All stops will be pulled in the description, and the more similies and metaphors, the better. If the history of a body part is available, it will be recounted in detail. For example, a Heroine's hair will get one paragraph on its appearance, and a subsequent two on the history of her hair since birth, how it grew, what the Heroine liked to do with her hair and how it represented her dreams and aspirations, how the Evil Bully pulled it, and so forth.
-The Hero/ine can not only tell the morality of other characters by looking in their eyes, but also character attributes such as willpower, intelligence, physical strength, whether the character in question likes fuzzy bunnies or ramen, and so forth. This particular attribute is infallible.
-If the Hero/ine has magic, it will be genetic. Working hard to earn or control magic will either be nonexistent or glossed over.
-The Hero/ine will turn out to be a direct relative of the royal family or the Dark Lord/Lady, even when this has no bearing whatsoever on the story.
The supporting protagonists
-It is imperative that the Hero/ine amass a motley crew of companions. These companions must all be of various races, and it is best if every single companion is of a different race. This is to show how open-minded the Hero/ine is, and confirm that s/he is able to see beyond the exterior of people into their "inner beauty". Strangely enough, this ability does not work for minions of the Dark Lord/Lady.
-However, the motley crew will all think alike with the Hero/ine, and share his/her morals and ideals, despite the kind of society they hailed from.
-All the supporting protagonists will have their own goals and desires placed second to the Hero/ine's. They will not complain about this, and are likely to sacrifice themselves heroically so the Hero/ine can continue to live. Supporting characters always come back to the hero/ine despite previous bad treatment.
Wise Old Mentors
-Despite the amazing speed at which the Hero/ine will learn things, there will be a need for a character to guide, instruct and care for the Hero/ine. This character is the Wise Old Mentor. Wise Old Mentors may also be Helpful Strangers. They will impart all sorts of "cool" skills to the protagonists. How exactly this training is achieved is not mentioned, glossed over or outright contradicts teaching methods known to be effective, but it must be very impressive, given the rate at which the Hero/ine becomes proficient at the skill. Wise Old Mentors will patiently put up with all sorts of nonsense, immaturity and tantrums from the Hero/ine without complaint.
-The Wise Old Mentor will be relatively advanced in age, with at least greying hair. S/he is also likely to be of the same gender as the Hero/ine. Common signs of Wise Old Mentors are them "being firm but not unkind", "having twinkling eyes that laughed" or the such.
-If the Wise Old Mentor's chosen field of expertise is swordsmanship, he will be male. The Wise Old Mentor will be gruff, stern and he will be the result of a long life in the military. He may also be missing an eye and have an eyepatch. Scars will crisscross his body, but they will not cause him pain or limit his movement.
-If the Wise Old Mentor's field of expertise is magic, the gender is dependent on the nature of the magic. For arcane magic, an overwhelming number of Wise Old Mentors will be male. They will have long white beards, pointy hats, and carry staves with knobs on the end. Oddly enough, they will not be able to use their amazing magics to make the quest easy for the Hero/ine. Despite their years of arcane learning, they will be able to impart it to the Hero/ine in a matter of months or even weeks.
However for more "natural" or new-ageish magic, the Wise Old Mentor will be female. It is highly likely that she will have green eyes and a "natural beauty" about her, despite her age. She may also carry a staff, although this is often excused by something like "it was freely given to her by the spirits/green ones/whatever". The Wise Old Mentor will educate the Heroine on the usage of "herbs" as a panacea for all ills. What sort of "herbs" these are nor the fact that they are surprisingly easy to find is not addressed. She will also be likely to teach the Heroine to respect nature and bind trees and animals to her will.
While both Heroes and Heroines can learn arcane magic, Heroes are not allowed to learn new-ageish magic for one reason or the other. Why the supposedly outspoken Hero who is aware of gender equality does not protest this is not addressed.
-Despite years of experience the Hero/ine does not have, the Wise Old Mentor will be bested by the Hero/ine within a short period of commencing their training. They will not resent their pupil for that, but instead be glad that their pupil has "surpassed them".
-After the Wise Old Mentor has served his or her purpose of setting the Hero/ine on his/her quest and imparting the necessary knowledge, they must be disposed of in one manner or the other. This is so that they cannot use their powers to easily solve problems and thus the story can be stretched out.
A favoured method of disposing of the Wise Old Mentor is to have them perform a Heroic Sacrifice to save the Hero/ine. This has the added benefit of giving the Hero/ine an excuse to angst.
Telepathic companions
-Occasionally, the Hero/ine may have an animal s/he will be able to "talk" to and which follows him/her around. This is known as a Telepathic Companion. Only "cool" creatures like dragons, gryphons, wolves, horses, dogs and cats, dolphins, hawks, ravens and large cats are allowed to be Telepathic Companions. "Ugly" creatures like grey parrots, pigs, apes, cockroaches and slimes are not allowed to be Telepathic Companions, irregardless of proven intelligence in real life, such as in the case of grey parrots, pigs and apes.
-The Telepathic Companion will be an emotional tampon for the Hero/ine, and will silently bear all the Hero/ine's grief and angsting, perhaps offering a string of encouraging words or two. Despite this "deep" and "profound" telepathic bond supposedly being two-way, the Telepathic Companion, like the rest of the Hero/ine's companions, will never unload its troubles onto the Hero/ine. It will also not have wants and motivations of its own; in fact, its personality is simply an extention of its owners.
-The Telepathic Companion will not act remotely like the creature it is supposed to be. Instead, it will act like a human with a few extra powers. This is supposedly because the Hero/ine is affecting it, but the reverse never seems to happen.
-The Telepathic Companion will not need to be fed. It will also not need to be cared for, except in instances where the Hero/ine's compassion/love/friendship needs to be "demonstrated". When the Telepathic Companion is not needed, it will mysteriously vanish, sometimes for chapters. Theories as to where the Telepathic Companions go abound; the most favoured one is a pocket dimension from which they can handily emerge when they are needed to save the Hero/ine. Despite their ill-treatment, they will never resent the Hero/ine.
-Sometimes, the Telepathic Companion may make the Hero/ine eligible for membership in a society of ubersmench who have similar Telepathic Companions. Dragon riders are a popular example. The Hero/ine may also obtain special pwoers from the Telepathic Companion. In such cases, the Telepathic Companion is likely to be forgotten once membership into the society is confirmed, and only taken out when needed.
Romantic relationships and Designated Love Interests
-The main character will always have a bickering romance with the next introduced character of the opposite sex who is remotely attractive. This character is the Designated Love Interest. Sex with him or her will become more important than saving the world. They will think about the sex more often than saving the world. Indeed, the main character's other companions will also be more concerned about whether the Hero/ine and the Designated Love Interest are having sex more often than the fate of the world.
-Despite the amount of unprotected sex going on and the fact that neither the Heroine nor the Designated Love Interest are sterile, the Heroine or the Designated Love interest will never become pregnant. In fact, pregnancy only happens to the Heroine of the Designated Love Interest either when she is raped or happily married to the Designated Love Interest after the novel. In the instance of rape resulting in pregnancy for the Heroine, the baby is aborted, given for adoption, wrenched from her hands and slaughtered by the Dark Lord/Lady, and so forth. Whatever the case, the Hero/ine's offspring will not be allowed to bog him or her down.
-At the end of the fantasy novel, the Hero/ine will be happily married to the Designated Love Interest in deep and true love. This is in spite of the fact that they have done nothing to build a relationship based on mutual trust and respect. Bickering and spying on each other in the bath is not a sign of mutual trust and respect.
-Also, if the protagonist is female, the guy will go down on her in almost every single sex scene. She will also be able to deep throat on her first blow job ever. This is due to Ancient Elvish Magic.
-If the Hero/ine and the Designated Love Interest are of different races, there will be much angst. Additionally, if the Designated Love Interest is not normally humanoid, s/he will be able to assume a humanoid form to escape cries of "bestiality!" Any offspring produced despite the very clear meaning of the word "species" will inherit all the benefits and none of the weaknesses of both races, and very definitely not sterile, as is often the case with cross-species breeding. The offspring is also prone to angsting.
The antagonists
-The Dark Lord or Lady will want to take over the world or destroy it. How this benefits the Dark Lord or Lady is unclear.
-Despite the Dark Lord or Lady being supposedly fearsome and cunning, all of his or her minions will be terribly incompetent at every single one of their tasks, unable to perform simple checks such as making sure the main character is in his or her agarian village before razing it to the ground, or even simply doing away with the main character quietly. The Dark Lord or Lady will be little better.
-If the Dark Lord or Lady has magic, it will often come from one of these sources: pacts with demons or evil spirits, sacrifices of animals or humans, drawing upon the life-energy of animals or humans, ancient evil tomes, and anything that reeks of darkness and generic evil.
-In the event the Dark Lord or Lady has machines, either mundane or magically powered, They will be dull, grim, have sharp edges and often painted in dark colours. There will be at least one scene in which the machines are shown to be destroying nature in various ways, such as felling trees and running over cute furry animals.
-The Dark Lord's dress code may vary, ranging from black armour with spikes or long hooded robes depending on his profession. However, the main dress code is black, deep violet or crimson and will always look sinister. The Dark Lord will have taken voice-acting classes in order to be able to hiss when there are no "s" phoneomes in his words, or he may speak "like a corpse" or have a deep, commanding, and above all sinister voice. Glowing red eyes are a plus.
-Unlike the average Dark Lord, a Dark Lady may be "inhumanly beautiful", until the point where the Hero/ine confronts her, wherupon her "facade of beauty crumbles". Dark Ladies generally have pale complexions, full blood-red lips and spend fortunes on black eyeliner. Unfortunately, they often stick to the same colour dress code at their male counterparts, although the articles of clothing may differ (or not). Figure-hugging full-length dresses are common. The Dark Lady may cackle or screech at points.
-The Dark Lord or Lady will have a Generic Grunt Race serving them. These creatures generally have no perceptible reason for serving the Dark Lord or Lady, and have no individual personality, despite the Hero/ine's rhetoric about not judging people by their race/beliefs/species/sexual orientation/whatnot.
Members of a Generic Grunt Race may or may not be humanoid, but they are always ugly, smell bad and are often shown to have low intelligence. It is perfectly fine to kill large numbers of a Generic Grunt Race in order to make the protagonists look good.
-When the Dark Lord/Lady shows how powerful s/he is, it's always reminiscent of Vlad the Impaler.
The extras
-Peasants are uniformly poor and haggard. They are Good.
-Nobles are evil parasites who extort money from the Good Peasants. They are Evil, unless on the protagonist's side, wherupon they will scatter gold to the Good Peasants and win their love and respect. Where this gold comes from is not mentioned.
-Evil but unimportant people such as extortionate merchants and bartenders can be identified by their fat build and greasy hair. They may also have "greedy, piggy eyes". However, if the fat is described as "portly" and they have a "big, jolly face", they are Good. Evil, unimportant people have no strength of will and subsequently cave in to the Hero/ine's demands with physical threatening, despite the Hero/ine's rhetoric about "violence being the last recourse".
-The members of the small agarian community of which the Hero/ine is a part of will be slaughtered. This is so that the Hero/ine can angst about their deaths and conveniently loot the remains of their homes for useful equipment. Living in close proximity to the hometown of the Hero/ine is a death sentence.
-The Hero/ine will almost never have two surviving parents. Fathers are either unknown or missing. Mothers die in childbirth. On the off-chance one parent survives, they will be killed in the Dark Lord/Lady's raid on the small agarian community. The Hero/ine will also almost never have any siblings. On the off-chance that the Hero/ine does have siblings, there is either a very warm or antagonistic relationship between the Hero/ine and his/her siblings, more often the latter. They too, die when the town is razed. If the sibling lives, they will either also be in love with the Designated Love Interest or completely opposed to the hero/ine's relationship wtih the Designated Love Interest for some ridiculously contrived reason.The Hero/ine never has any extended family.
-Healers will be uniformly female. This is either because women are stereotyped as kind and nurturing although this is a completely different world with no explained cultural precedent for this, or because women give birth. How this relates to the medical arts is not explained.
Healers will also wear white, be kind and loving, and are uniformly Good. The Dark Lord/Lady will not employ a Healer. In addition to the above, medicine will only consist of magic and "herbs". Bandages, preparations of mineral or animal compounds, leeching etc will not exist.
Story events
-Whenever something Really Bad happens, it is time for Angst Hour. Putting babies on stakes is one of those. The angsting will not stop until the next chapter, after which it is promptly forgotten by the Hero/ine and his/her companions. It may, however, be mechanically dragged out if they need their Berserk Button pushed. "Bob remembered the pile of dead babies, and a mighty thing rose within him."
The world around them
Speech and language
-Random words shall be misspelt in certain ways in an attempt to make them appear more mystical. For example, "Fey" will be hammered into "phay", "prefect" into "prefaic" and "magic" into "magik".
-There will be random strings of untranslated words such as "Zehsuhruo emlakwnr skljsl", despite having an English counterpart, their meanings sitting right next to the words and everything else the characters say translated. This is often done to give a sense of worldbuilding when there is none.
-Everyone speaks the same language all over the world, or at least, the region which the story is confined to. At the most, people who are far away will have a slight accent.
-Where one character has an accent, it will not impede understanding of what s/he is saying to the other characters. The accent will also mysteriously vanish when s/he speaks more complex words.
Religion
-Evil religions are easily recognizable by their psuedo-satanic rituals, often involving blood sacrifice. The cultists will dress in black hooded, body-obscuring cloaks and when they speak, it is reminscent of insects or reptiles. They will also carry daggers or sacrificial knives, and are likely to be in league with the Dark Lord.
-Alternatively, an evil religion will be a copy of the Roman Catholic Church, right down to the chapels, hierachal priesthood and style of worship and dress. This evil religion will be the Inquisition, Crusaders and Church all rolled into one, and the god worshipped will have a male nature. Magic-users will be persecuted without rhyme or reason, or at best, because "they are afraid of it."
Every single priest of such an evil religion is evil and corrupt. They will also secretly commit sexual acts with young boys and this is portrayed as wrong, despite the fact that there has been no doctrine against it mentioned and that homosexual protagonists are often lauded for their choices. On the off-chance that a priest is good, he will realise the error of his ways and turn to the good religion.
-On the other hand, the author may keep on attempting to hammer into the characters their need to be saved, and use silly Jesus analogies. This is equally repulsive, although much less common.
-Religions connected to nature are automatically good, irregardless of the followers' actions. This is doubly so if the religion is centered around a mother goddess.
Government
-Taxes are evil and should be done away with. The roads and other public works build and maintain themselves, people serve in the "defence force" out of sheer altruism, government officials work out of love for their people, and so forth.
-Absolute monarchy is the primary mode of government in the fantasy world. In accordance with modern western morals being Good, there may be one psuedo-democratic republic which is purpotedly superior to all other modes of government, even amongst non-human races. How this is so or the exact mechanics of the democratic republic is not mentioned.
-Suitability to rule is not decided by how much training one has had in the art of statecraft, practical experience in ruling, the results obtained or even divine will. Instead, suitability to rule is decided by who managed to fuck who. This trumps everything.
-Indeed, the ability to hack, slash and blast away thousand of members of the Generic Grunt Race is immediate qualification for the position of ruler.
Buildings and structures
-Castles will have secret passageways between random locations. They will be discovered when the Hero/ine needs to sneak around or escape. No one will ever notice the large amount of empty space between the rooms, and sometimes the secret passageways will be impossible according to the laws of conventional physics. For example, a secret passage may open from a first-floor room to a third-floor room without going up, or it may connect in a straight line two rooms separated by another one. How this is achieved is not known, but wormholes connecting both ends of the passage have been suggested.
-Despite the Hero/ine's poverty, the Hero/ine's house will have the following:
*A kitchen
*The Hero/ine's own room
*A living room
*A bathroom
-Laterines do not exist. Where the Hero/ine and his or her companions move their bowels is a mystery.
-Ancient temples and houses of worship will be filled with deadly traps of all sorts. How the worshippers actually managed to make it in and out on a regular basis is not mentioned.
Animals
-Wild bears and wolves are fierce, ravening creatures. They will attack anything on sight, and may have glowing red eyes. This is a sign of being controlled by the Dark Lord or Lady; however, there is no perceptible difference in their behaviour as a result of this.
-Insects do not exist, unless in Dramatic Situations such as swarms of flesh-devouring scarabs (plenty of which in real life are simple dung beetles). No Hero/ine or his companions and their animals will be pestered by flies, mosquitoes, ticks, leeches and the like, despite the level of technology of the fantasy world.
-Horses are actually mechanical in nature, in order to cover immense distances in a short time. They do not require food beyond the ocassional grazing, and do not require water. Only stallions are present; mares and geldings do not exist. How the horses procreate is a mystery.
-Cows, pigs, chickens and other farm animals do not smell, will be romanticised, "approved" versions of said animals and never harm their minders. The Hero/ine will never have to muck them out before the Dark Lord/Lady orders his/her village razed.
-In the event that a cow is present, it will be able to give milk even when it is obviously too old or has not had a calf recently.
-"Cute" and "Cool" animals such as dogs, cats, deer, dolphins, tigers, panthers, etc will gravitate to the Hero/ine. This is to show how amazing and lovable the Hero/ine is.
-Animals will have drastically poorer senses than their real-life counterparts. This is so that the Hero/ine will be able to catch, kill and eat them.
Assorted items
Weapons and armour
-Despite the unfailing tendency of Heroines and/or female Supporting Protagonists to kick men in the crotch, no man has ever thought of investing in the equivalent of an atheletic cup.
-Weapons are never described in detail. For example, "two-handed sword" is used, instead of the still somewhat-broad "flamberge" or "claymore". The fighting styles are also very generic with "dodging", "attacking" and "parrying", despite the characters fighting being master swordsmen/women.
-There is no such thing as a morningstar. Or a mace. Or a lance, or a glaive, or a compound bow. All people have are swords, daggers, standard bows, and random Japanese things. Flails and whips may be owned, but only by the Dark Lord/Lady and his/her minions. It is also an indication that the Bad Person is also probably into BDSM.
Food and drink
-When in the wilderness, the protagonist will never find him or herself seriously hungry. Despite no prior experience in wilderness survival, they will always manage to obtain fish and game. These will be eaten without any mention of skinning, scaling, gutting or butchering.
-On the off-chance the protagonist is unable to obtain meat, s/he will be able to subsist on "nuts, berries, roots and mushrooms". Exactly what kind these are will never be mentioned, even in passing.
-The hero/ine will be able to drink water from any source, even stagnant pools, without treating or boiling it first. This will cause him or her no harm.
-On the off-chance that the protagonists drink alcohol, they are always brewed from the following crops: barley, grapes, and perhaps honey.
-All food will be up to modern western standards. Bread will always be white, soft, and made from refined flour only. Cheese will not have rinds. Oddly enough, the protagonists will never suffer from nutritional deficiencies despite their often severely limited diet.
-Methods of cooking will only come in the forms of roasting or boiling. Even when the aforementioned two are performed, in the former there is no mention of a spit or turning to ensure the food is evenly cooked, and in the latter the product will always be stew of some sort.
Here's what I've got so far:
***
Things which should always be done when writing a fantasy novel:
Things which should always be done when writing a fantasy novel:
The main character
-The main character will be a farmer, or at least, hail from an agarian village. Despite this, s/he will know little of things a farmer should know. Even the turns of the seasons seem to affect his or her life little.
-Despite the supposedly poor, agarian station in life the Hero/ine and his or her peers hold, when the Hero/ine searches through the ruins of his or her village for useful items to take along, he or she will find items like the following examples:
*Gold coins
*Jewellery and fasion accessories
*Artwork
*Cosmetics
*Weapons
*One or more fine thoroughbred horses which act like cars.
Often, the Hero/ine will take these items, which will be described in detail. Silly stuff like food, water, cooking utensils, addition "everyday" clothing, sleeping bags and the like will be glossed over, or not mentioned at all.
-The main character will always be a teenager or a young man/woman. Older, more experienced or mellowed characters will be shafted into a secondary role.
-Despite their upbringing and hard life, the protagonist will be physically attractive. While male protagonists gain lean muscles, female protagonists will avoid this, and may have "curves in all the right places" or be "atheletic yet feminine". This lack of obvious musculature will not prove a problem when the heroine has to exert herself physically.
-The main character will possess a seemingly unimportant trinket such as a ring, necklace or locket. This will prove important in some way later in the plot.
-The main character's morals and values will happen to coincide with modern western morals and values, despite the possibility of being raised in a society which does not adhere to said values.
-The main character is exempt from the rules of conventional reality of the fantasy world. S/he will be the only one to be able to do X action, and the world will twist itself into loopholes in order to make this possible for him/her.
-The main character will effortlessly pick up skills in a miniscule fraction of the time normal people spend learning them. Said skills can be as diverse as being literate (which the hero/ine can accomplish in as short a time as a week), to swordfighting, magic, wilderness survival, animal handling, playing an instrument, and so forth. Only "cool" skills are taught. Practical skills which have everyday use or can be used to make a living from like cooking, sewing, herding animals, mining, brewing and so forth are either glossed over and used as a springboard to launch the Hero/ine into the "cool" activities, or not mentioned at all.
-Moral standards are slipshod when the Hero/ine is involved. The Hero/ine will preach for pages about the sanctity of life, and then go on to slaughter armies of the Generic Grunt Race. That is all right, because Evil people are sub-human.
-The Hero/ine must be lavishly described. All stops will be pulled in the description, and the more similies and metaphors, the better. If the history of a body part is available, it will be recounted in detail. For example, a Heroine's hair will get one paragraph on its appearance, and a subsequent two on the history of her hair since birth, how it grew, what the Heroine liked to do with her hair and how it represented her dreams and aspirations, how the Evil Bully pulled it, and so forth.
-The Hero/ine can not only tell the morality of other characters by looking in their eyes, but also character attributes such as willpower, intelligence, physical strength, whether the character in question likes fuzzy bunnies or ramen, and so forth. This particular attribute is infallible.
-If the Hero/ine has magic, it will be genetic. Working hard to earn or control magic will either be nonexistent or glossed over.
-The Hero/ine will turn out to be a direct relative of the royal family or the Dark Lord/Lady, even when this has no bearing whatsoever on the story.
The supporting protagonists
-It is imperative that the Hero/ine amass a motley crew of companions. These companions must all be of various races, and it is best if every single companion is of a different race. This is to show how open-minded the Hero/ine is, and confirm that s/he is able to see beyond the exterior of people into their "inner beauty". Strangely enough, this ability does not work for minions of the Dark Lord/Lady.
-However, the motley crew will all think alike with the Hero/ine, and share his/her morals and ideals, despite the kind of society they hailed from.
-All the supporting protagonists will have their own goals and desires placed second to the Hero/ine's. They will not complain about this, and are likely to sacrifice themselves heroically so the Hero/ine can continue to live. Supporting characters always come back to the hero/ine despite previous bad treatment.
Wise Old Mentors
-Despite the amazing speed at which the Hero/ine will learn things, there will be a need for a character to guide, instruct and care for the Hero/ine. This character is the Wise Old Mentor. Wise Old Mentors may also be Helpful Strangers. They will impart all sorts of "cool" skills to the protagonists. How exactly this training is achieved is not mentioned, glossed over or outright contradicts teaching methods known to be effective, but it must be very impressive, given the rate at which the Hero/ine becomes proficient at the skill. Wise Old Mentors will patiently put up with all sorts of nonsense, immaturity and tantrums from the Hero/ine without complaint.
-The Wise Old Mentor will be relatively advanced in age, with at least greying hair. S/he is also likely to be of the same gender as the Hero/ine. Common signs of Wise Old Mentors are them "being firm but not unkind", "having twinkling eyes that laughed" or the such.
-If the Wise Old Mentor's chosen field of expertise is swordsmanship, he will be male. The Wise Old Mentor will be gruff, stern and he will be the result of a long life in the military. He may also be missing an eye and have an eyepatch. Scars will crisscross his body, but they will not cause him pain or limit his movement.
-If the Wise Old Mentor's field of expertise is magic, the gender is dependent on the nature of the magic. For arcane magic, an overwhelming number of Wise Old Mentors will be male. They will have long white beards, pointy hats, and carry staves with knobs on the end. Oddly enough, they will not be able to use their amazing magics to make the quest easy for the Hero/ine. Despite their years of arcane learning, they will be able to impart it to the Hero/ine in a matter of months or even weeks.
However for more "natural" or new-ageish magic, the Wise Old Mentor will be female. It is highly likely that she will have green eyes and a "natural beauty" about her, despite her age. She may also carry a staff, although this is often excused by something like "it was freely given to her by the spirits/green ones/whatever". The Wise Old Mentor will educate the Heroine on the usage of "herbs" as a panacea for all ills. What sort of "herbs" these are nor the fact that they are surprisingly easy to find is not addressed. She will also be likely to teach the Heroine to respect nature and bind trees and animals to her will.
While both Heroes and Heroines can learn arcane magic, Heroes are not allowed to learn new-ageish magic for one reason or the other. Why the supposedly outspoken Hero who is aware of gender equality does not protest this is not addressed.
-Despite years of experience the Hero/ine does not have, the Wise Old Mentor will be bested by the Hero/ine within a short period of commencing their training. They will not resent their pupil for that, but instead be glad that their pupil has "surpassed them".
-After the Wise Old Mentor has served his or her purpose of setting the Hero/ine on his/her quest and imparting the necessary knowledge, they must be disposed of in one manner or the other. This is so that they cannot use their powers to easily solve problems and thus the story can be stretched out.
A favoured method of disposing of the Wise Old Mentor is to have them perform a Heroic Sacrifice to save the Hero/ine. This has the added benefit of giving the Hero/ine an excuse to angst.
Telepathic companions
-Occasionally, the Hero/ine may have an animal s/he will be able to "talk" to and which follows him/her around. This is known as a Telepathic Companion. Only "cool" creatures like dragons, gryphons, wolves, horses, dogs and cats, dolphins, hawks, ravens and large cats are allowed to be Telepathic Companions. "Ugly" creatures like grey parrots, pigs, apes, cockroaches and slimes are not allowed to be Telepathic Companions, irregardless of proven intelligence in real life, such as in the case of grey parrots, pigs and apes.
-The Telepathic Companion will be an emotional tampon for the Hero/ine, and will silently bear all the Hero/ine's grief and angsting, perhaps offering a string of encouraging words or two. Despite this "deep" and "profound" telepathic bond supposedly being two-way, the Telepathic Companion, like the rest of the Hero/ine's companions, will never unload its troubles onto the Hero/ine. It will also not have wants and motivations of its own; in fact, its personality is simply an extention of its owners.
-The Telepathic Companion will not act remotely like the creature it is supposed to be. Instead, it will act like a human with a few extra powers. This is supposedly because the Hero/ine is affecting it, but the reverse never seems to happen.
-The Telepathic Companion will not need to be fed. It will also not need to be cared for, except in instances where the Hero/ine's compassion/love/friendship needs to be "demonstrated". When the Telepathic Companion is not needed, it will mysteriously vanish, sometimes for chapters. Theories as to where the Telepathic Companions go abound; the most favoured one is a pocket dimension from which they can handily emerge when they are needed to save the Hero/ine. Despite their ill-treatment, they will never resent the Hero/ine.
-Sometimes, the Telepathic Companion may make the Hero/ine eligible for membership in a society of ubersmench who have similar Telepathic Companions. Dragon riders are a popular example. The Hero/ine may also obtain special pwoers from the Telepathic Companion. In such cases, the Telepathic Companion is likely to be forgotten once membership into the society is confirmed, and only taken out when needed.
Romantic relationships and Designated Love Interests
-The main character will always have a bickering romance with the next introduced character of the opposite sex who is remotely attractive. This character is the Designated Love Interest. Sex with him or her will become more important than saving the world. They will think about the sex more often than saving the world. Indeed, the main character's other companions will also be more concerned about whether the Hero/ine and the Designated Love Interest are having sex more often than the fate of the world.
-Despite the amount of unprotected sex going on and the fact that neither the Heroine nor the Designated Love Interest are sterile, the Heroine or the Designated Love interest will never become pregnant. In fact, pregnancy only happens to the Heroine of the Designated Love Interest either when she is raped or happily married to the Designated Love Interest after the novel. In the instance of rape resulting in pregnancy for the Heroine, the baby is aborted, given for adoption, wrenched from her hands and slaughtered by the Dark Lord/Lady, and so forth. Whatever the case, the Hero/ine's offspring will not be allowed to bog him or her down.
-At the end of the fantasy novel, the Hero/ine will be happily married to the Designated Love Interest in deep and true love. This is in spite of the fact that they have done nothing to build a relationship based on mutual trust and respect. Bickering and spying on each other in the bath is not a sign of mutual trust and respect.
-Also, if the protagonist is female, the guy will go down on her in almost every single sex scene. She will also be able to deep throat on her first blow job ever. This is due to Ancient Elvish Magic.
-If the Hero/ine and the Designated Love Interest are of different races, there will be much angst. Additionally, if the Designated Love Interest is not normally humanoid, s/he will be able to assume a humanoid form to escape cries of "bestiality!" Any offspring produced despite the very clear meaning of the word "species" will inherit all the benefits and none of the weaknesses of both races, and very definitely not sterile, as is often the case with cross-species breeding. The offspring is also prone to angsting.
The antagonists
-The Dark Lord or Lady will want to take over the world or destroy it. How this benefits the Dark Lord or Lady is unclear.
-Despite the Dark Lord or Lady being supposedly fearsome and cunning, all of his or her minions will be terribly incompetent at every single one of their tasks, unable to perform simple checks such as making sure the main character is in his or her agarian village before razing it to the ground, or even simply doing away with the main character quietly. The Dark Lord or Lady will be little better.
-If the Dark Lord or Lady has magic, it will often come from one of these sources: pacts with demons or evil spirits, sacrifices of animals or humans, drawing upon the life-energy of animals or humans, ancient evil tomes, and anything that reeks of darkness and generic evil.
-In the event the Dark Lord or Lady has machines, either mundane or magically powered, They will be dull, grim, have sharp edges and often painted in dark colours. There will be at least one scene in which the machines are shown to be destroying nature in various ways, such as felling trees and running over cute furry animals.
-The Dark Lord's dress code may vary, ranging from black armour with spikes or long hooded robes depending on his profession. However, the main dress code is black, deep violet or crimson and will always look sinister. The Dark Lord will have taken voice-acting classes in order to be able to hiss when there are no "s" phoneomes in his words, or he may speak "like a corpse" or have a deep, commanding, and above all sinister voice. Glowing red eyes are a plus.
-Unlike the average Dark Lord, a Dark Lady may be "inhumanly beautiful", until the point where the Hero/ine confronts her, wherupon her "facade of beauty crumbles". Dark Ladies generally have pale complexions, full blood-red lips and spend fortunes on black eyeliner. Unfortunately, they often stick to the same colour dress code at their male counterparts, although the articles of clothing may differ (or not). Figure-hugging full-length dresses are common. The Dark Lady may cackle or screech at points.
-The Dark Lord or Lady will have a Generic Grunt Race serving them. These creatures generally have no perceptible reason for serving the Dark Lord or Lady, and have no individual personality, despite the Hero/ine's rhetoric about not judging people by their race/beliefs/species/sexual orientation/whatnot.
Members of a Generic Grunt Race may or may not be humanoid, but they are always ugly, smell bad and are often shown to have low intelligence. It is perfectly fine to kill large numbers of a Generic Grunt Race in order to make the protagonists look good.
-When the Dark Lord/Lady shows how powerful s/he is, it's always reminiscent of Vlad the Impaler.
The extras
-Peasants are uniformly poor and haggard. They are Good.
-Nobles are evil parasites who extort money from the Good Peasants. They are Evil, unless on the protagonist's side, wherupon they will scatter gold to the Good Peasants and win their love and respect. Where this gold comes from is not mentioned.
-Evil but unimportant people such as extortionate merchants and bartenders can be identified by their fat build and greasy hair. They may also have "greedy, piggy eyes". However, if the fat is described as "portly" and they have a "big, jolly face", they are Good. Evil, unimportant people have no strength of will and subsequently cave in to the Hero/ine's demands with physical threatening, despite the Hero/ine's rhetoric about "violence being the last recourse".
-The members of the small agarian community of which the Hero/ine is a part of will be slaughtered. This is so that the Hero/ine can angst about their deaths and conveniently loot the remains of their homes for useful equipment. Living in close proximity to the hometown of the Hero/ine is a death sentence.
-The Hero/ine will almost never have two surviving parents. Fathers are either unknown or missing. Mothers die in childbirth. On the off-chance one parent survives, they will be killed in the Dark Lord/Lady's raid on the small agarian community. The Hero/ine will also almost never have any siblings. On the off-chance that the Hero/ine does have siblings, there is either a very warm or antagonistic relationship between the Hero/ine and his/her siblings, more often the latter. They too, die when the town is razed. If the sibling lives, they will either also be in love with the Designated Love Interest or completely opposed to the hero/ine's relationship wtih the Designated Love Interest for some ridiculously contrived reason.The Hero/ine never has any extended family.
-Healers will be uniformly female. This is either because women are stereotyped as kind and nurturing although this is a completely different world with no explained cultural precedent for this, or because women give birth. How this relates to the medical arts is not explained.
Healers will also wear white, be kind and loving, and are uniformly Good. The Dark Lord/Lady will not employ a Healer. In addition to the above, medicine will only consist of magic and "herbs". Bandages, preparations of mineral or animal compounds, leeching etc will not exist.
Story events
-Whenever something Really Bad happens, it is time for Angst Hour. Putting babies on stakes is one of those. The angsting will not stop until the next chapter, after which it is promptly forgotten by the Hero/ine and his/her companions. It may, however, be mechanically dragged out if they need their Berserk Button pushed. "Bob remembered the pile of dead babies, and a mighty thing rose within him."
The world around them
Speech and language
-Random words shall be misspelt in certain ways in an attempt to make them appear more mystical. For example, "Fey" will be hammered into "phay", "prefect" into "prefaic" and "magic" into "magik".
-There will be random strings of untranslated words such as "Zehsuhruo emlakwnr skljsl", despite having an English counterpart, their meanings sitting right next to the words and everything else the characters say translated. This is often done to give a sense of worldbuilding when there is none.
-Everyone speaks the same language all over the world, or at least, the region which the story is confined to. At the most, people who are far away will have a slight accent.
-Where one character has an accent, it will not impede understanding of what s/he is saying to the other characters. The accent will also mysteriously vanish when s/he speaks more complex words.
Religion
-Evil religions are easily recognizable by their psuedo-satanic rituals, often involving blood sacrifice. The cultists will dress in black hooded, body-obscuring cloaks and when they speak, it is reminscent of insects or reptiles. They will also carry daggers or sacrificial knives, and are likely to be in league with the Dark Lord.
-Alternatively, an evil religion will be a copy of the Roman Catholic Church, right down to the chapels, hierachal priesthood and style of worship and dress. This evil religion will be the Inquisition, Crusaders and Church all rolled into one, and the god worshipped will have a male nature. Magic-users will be persecuted without rhyme or reason, or at best, because "they are afraid of it."
Every single priest of such an evil religion is evil and corrupt. They will also secretly commit sexual acts with young boys and this is portrayed as wrong, despite the fact that there has been no doctrine against it mentioned and that homosexual protagonists are often lauded for their choices. On the off-chance that a priest is good, he will realise the error of his ways and turn to the good religion.
-On the other hand, the author may keep on attempting to hammer into the characters their need to be saved, and use silly Jesus analogies. This is equally repulsive, although much less common.
-Religions connected to nature are automatically good, irregardless of the followers' actions. This is doubly so if the religion is centered around a mother goddess.
Government
-Taxes are evil and should be done away with. The roads and other public works build and maintain themselves, people serve in the "defence force" out of sheer altruism, government officials work out of love for their people, and so forth.
-Absolute monarchy is the primary mode of government in the fantasy world. In accordance with modern western morals being Good, there may be one psuedo-democratic republic which is purpotedly superior to all other modes of government, even amongst non-human races. How this is so or the exact mechanics of the democratic republic is not mentioned.
-Suitability to rule is not decided by how much training one has had in the art of statecraft, practical experience in ruling, the results obtained or even divine will. Instead, suitability to rule is decided by who managed to fuck who. This trumps everything.
-Indeed, the ability to hack, slash and blast away thousand of members of the Generic Grunt Race is immediate qualification for the position of ruler.
Buildings and structures
-Castles will have secret passageways between random locations. They will be discovered when the Hero/ine needs to sneak around or escape. No one will ever notice the large amount of empty space between the rooms, and sometimes the secret passageways will be impossible according to the laws of conventional physics. For example, a secret passage may open from a first-floor room to a third-floor room without going up, or it may connect in a straight line two rooms separated by another one. How this is achieved is not known, but wormholes connecting both ends of the passage have been suggested.
-Despite the Hero/ine's poverty, the Hero/ine's house will have the following:
*A kitchen
*The Hero/ine's own room
*A living room
*A bathroom
-Laterines do not exist. Where the Hero/ine and his or her companions move their bowels is a mystery.
-Ancient temples and houses of worship will be filled with deadly traps of all sorts. How the worshippers actually managed to make it in and out on a regular basis is not mentioned.
Animals
-Wild bears and wolves are fierce, ravening creatures. They will attack anything on sight, and may have glowing red eyes. This is a sign of being controlled by the Dark Lord or Lady; however, there is no perceptible difference in their behaviour as a result of this.
-Insects do not exist, unless in Dramatic Situations such as swarms of flesh-devouring scarabs (plenty of which in real life are simple dung beetles). No Hero/ine or his companions and their animals will be pestered by flies, mosquitoes, ticks, leeches and the like, despite the level of technology of the fantasy world.
-Horses are actually mechanical in nature, in order to cover immense distances in a short time. They do not require food beyond the ocassional grazing, and do not require water. Only stallions are present; mares and geldings do not exist. How the horses procreate is a mystery.
-Cows, pigs, chickens and other farm animals do not smell, will be romanticised, "approved" versions of said animals and never harm their minders. The Hero/ine will never have to muck them out before the Dark Lord/Lady orders his/her village razed.
-In the event that a cow is present, it will be able to give milk even when it is obviously too old or has not had a calf recently.
-"Cute" and "Cool" animals such as dogs, cats, deer, dolphins, tigers, panthers, etc will gravitate to the Hero/ine. This is to show how amazing and lovable the Hero/ine is.
-Animals will have drastically poorer senses than their real-life counterparts. This is so that the Hero/ine will be able to catch, kill and eat them.
Assorted items
Weapons and armour
-Despite the unfailing tendency of Heroines and/or female Supporting Protagonists to kick men in the crotch, no man has ever thought of investing in the equivalent of an atheletic cup.
-Weapons are never described in detail. For example, "two-handed sword" is used, instead of the still somewhat-broad "flamberge" or "claymore". The fighting styles are also very generic with "dodging", "attacking" and "parrying", despite the characters fighting being master swordsmen/women.
-There is no such thing as a morningstar. Or a mace. Or a lance, or a glaive, or a compound bow. All people have are swords, daggers, standard bows, and random Japanese things. Flails and whips may be owned, but only by the Dark Lord/Lady and his/her minions. It is also an indication that the Bad Person is also probably into BDSM.
Food and drink
-When in the wilderness, the protagonist will never find him or herself seriously hungry. Despite no prior experience in wilderness survival, they will always manage to obtain fish and game. These will be eaten without any mention of skinning, scaling, gutting or butchering.
-On the off-chance the protagonist is unable to obtain meat, s/he will be able to subsist on "nuts, berries, roots and mushrooms". Exactly what kind these are will never be mentioned, even in passing.
-The hero/ine will be able to drink water from any source, even stagnant pools, without treating or boiling it first. This will cause him or her no harm.
-On the off-chance that the protagonists drink alcohol, they are always brewed from the following crops: barley, grapes, and perhaps honey.
-All food will be up to modern western standards. Bread will always be white, soft, and made from refined flour only. Cheese will not have rinds. Oddly enough, the protagonists will never suffer from nutritional deficiencies despite their often severely limited diet.
-Methods of cooking will only come in the forms of roasting or boiling. Even when the aforementioned two are performed, in the former there is no mention of a spit or turning to ensure the food is evenly cooked, and in the latter the product will always be stew of some sort.
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