Folks, the Fictionary is now seven thirteen many months old. Thanks for all the support and great ideas.
Can you think of any more E&P jargon that should be included?
20 characters – the minimum length of a post is 20 characters (no problem for this behemoth). In order to bulk up a short reply, players literally add the phrase ‘20 characters’.
3*, 4*, 5* – rarity levels (Rare, Epic, Legendary) of heroes or, less often, AM or other items. A 5* hero at max ascension is an “80” (see below).
3*+15, 4*+19, etc. – a hero of the indicated rarity that has ascended up the Talent Grid by the number of nodes after the + sign.
5tack – a team of heroes of the same colour, i.e five colour stacked heroes.
60, 70, 80 – shorthand for the ascension level of a hero. A legendary hero at full ascension is an 80. A 70 is either a completed epic hero or a legendary at third ascension. A 60 is a 70 one ascension lower. So that’s cleared that up…I think 
7DD/Seven Days Departed – a well known and highly successful alliance. The 7D brand has been widely expanded to include other alliances and a plethora of game resources. I’m not here to massage egos, but in the main they just seem like a bunch of friendly keen gamers. Other alliance brands, such as Mixed Nuts are also available.
Ability – the unique talent of a given Class, always the first node on the Talent Grid for the Class.
AL – Alchemy Lab*; A once useless advanced building which is now only semi-useless.
Alt – an alternative account; some players use an account on two different devices or accounts
AM – ascension materials; the items used to ascend heroes, predominantly those not available from playing levels.
AMA - Ask Me Anything - an interview format used by the developers at Small Giant to share their vision with the gamers.
Also stands for Against Medical Advice, which includes calling Azlar ‘Mufasa’ and Treating fishing injuries with duct tape…
AoE – Area of Effect or Attacks on Everyone! A special attack that hits all enemies
AR
- Alliances Recruit chat channel in-game
- Atlantis Rises - the monthly bonus period of extra loot and lower world energy cost. Get grinding, people.
Avatar – A picture or figure representing a person in an online environment. Unless you’re M Night Shamalyan. Then it represents the death of your career.
AW – Alliance Wars; the portion of the game relating to team based combat. The matching system is…controversial?
BT – the 4* hero Boldtusk. Beloved by all for his endurance and combined healing and buff special ability.
Bench – your hero roster, particularly heroes not included in your defence team
Brick – see Tank
Buff
- a hero ability that improves the abilities of other heroes
- a hero or item being permanently improved
C2P – Cheap to Play; players who invest a small amount in the game such as the VIP subscription or a few gem offers
Cakeday – An interweb term used to describe the anniversary date of an account on a given platform.
Class – every hero’s got class! Or, at least, a class. Class is preset for each hero, e.g. all Caedmons are Druids. Class determines which Emblems are required to advance the hero, and to which Talent Grid it has access.
Classic — Heroes that are always available from the summons portals and training camps, in contrast to heroes from events, Season 2, or Heroes of the Month.
Cleanse — remove all status ailments (like blinding, burning, bleeding). Rigard and Vivica are the two Classic heroes with this skill.
Cookable – heroes that are able to produced in the Training Camp i.e not HOTM or event heroes. But plenty of Friar tucks, oh yes
Corner – see wings
Cups – the trophies used to record success in raids and allow access to tiers of loot.
Cup Dropper – tactical pragmatists or a stain on human morality? Players who leave weak teams on defense in order to loose trophies. This enables them to then compete against weak teams and potentially complete wanted missions more easily.
Debuff – a hero ability that reduces the abilities of other heroes
Devs/developers – the Small Giant staff working on the game.often the targets of much disgruntlement, they recently gave everyone a shiny gold coin and are enjoying a period of relative player contentment.
Direct damage – health loss caused immediately when a special is cast. Contrast to DoT.
Dispel/dispeller – removing buffs (positive effects) from the enemy
Dopamine – a chemical produced in the human body in response to stimuli such as success. Many games seek to harvest the addictive nature of dopamine by drip-feeding players with small successes. There is much debate (and occasional bloodshed) on the topics of gambling, regulation and addiction.
DoT – Damage Over Time; special attack that causes attacks over several turns… like a toxic relationship…
Drop Rate – the percentage chance of an item being produced by a loot chest or level
Dupe – Duplicate; Term used to describe summon/ heroes which are copies of heroes already existing in your roster… Usually worthless.
Elo System – the ranking system used for raids and, in the future as of June 2018, wars Elo rating system - Wikipedia
E&P – empires and puzzles…the game to which this forum is devoted. If you are reading this but don’t play the game, please reconsider your life choices.
Emblems – little blue buttons with a Class symbol. Used to ascend a max-ascension, max-special hero up the Talent Grid.
F2P – Fight or Free to play; players who spend little or no money and generally make slower progress but are perhaps a little less vexed if the game odds run against them for longer than expected.
Farming/Grinding – replaying levels repeatedly to gain resources. Level 8/7 is widely known as the most farmed level.
Feed/feeder hero – using low ranked heroes to train high ranked heroes. Where do they go? And what does it do to their self esteem?
Flank – the two heroes either side of the central hero in a raid formation
Flask – used as a verb to flask : using an energy flask to allow players to attempt more attacks on a titan. Sometimes now referred to deliberately as ‘flashing’ due to the wonders of autocorrect.
Fire off – deploy a heroes special ability
Flag
- a unit of energy expended to play aspects of the game denoted by small images of coloured flags at the top of the base screen.
- to report and hide a post that may violate forum rules
Flaggage
A built up amount of flags sufficient to succeed at something, e.g. you want to be able to regenerate enough flaggage to be able to take the next Titan…as it will be stronger
Gacha – term used for any microtransaction system that functions in a similar manner: You pay a small amount, and receive a random item
_See more here: https://forum.smallgiantgames.com/t/what-exactly-is-a-gacha-read-before-posting-things-about-unfair-pulls/29490_
Ghost tiles – firing tiles into spaces devoid of enemy heroes or monsters. These tiles build your own heroes mana at a higher rate than tiles that strike enemies. So, who you gonna call…?
Glass Cannon – a hero with a strong attack but weak defence
GM – Gravemaker
GTV – Gravemaker, Telluria, Vela; An acronymn used to describe the centre three that took over much of Diamond Tier Raid Defences… JF is also oft subbed in for GM.
HA – Hero Academy; The newest advanced building added to the game; long touted & anticipated but is widely considered a flop.
Ham – the food resource of the game. ‘But it’s made in a windmill?!’ I hear you cry. Yes. And be glad that the sound effects of squealing piggies and grinding bones wasn’t incorporated into the program.
HoT – Heal over Time special effect, where the hero gains health each turn. Like a broken heart…
HOTM – hero of the month; special edition heroes available for…a month.
HP – Health Points or just Health. More is better, zero is death.
IRL – In Real Life; describing activities in the dull tawdry existence we endure between KILLING ALL THE TITANS!!
JF – Jean-Francois
Loot – the items won by playing levels, titans and wars; another source of player angst due to suspicions that loot is being reduced
Mana – the power used to use a special ability. It is gained on attack by matching tiles and on defense by being hit by tiles. Defense also gains a small amount each turn. It is represented by a blue bar under the green health bar.
Mana Speed – the measure of how quickly a particular hero gains mana. Fast mana heroes will charge with fewer tile hits than slow mana heroes.
Mats – Ascension Mats…see also AM…if you’re lucky enough to get them
Merc – mercenary; As a verb: to use extra alliance flags to help another alliance kill its Titan. As a noun: someone who mercs, often in lieu of being in an alliance.
META - Most Effective Tactic Available. Not to be confused with MEAT - Most Edible Animal Types
Minion – NOT an over-marketed anthropomorphic yellow jelly bean. generic term for little helper sidekicks summoned by certain heroes’ specials. Named after the minions cast by Thoth-Amun, the first hero with such sidekicks.
Mob – a wave of monsters in a quest or story level
Mod/moderator – the delightful and exceptionally wise people tasked with policing the forum (@rook, is this what we agreed?)
Mono - a monochrome team of just one colour. Aka a 5tack. A powerful but risky combination as it renders 80% of the board useless. Is there a pre-programmed conspiracy to remove all your strong coloured tiles? No.
Naked/Nekid – a player without an alliance, particularly when in an Alliance Recruitment chat
Nerf – reducing the effectiveness, productivity or abundance of an aspect of the game. Most controversially, reducing the power of heroes already in circulation. Apparently the term is derived from Ultima Online when players described weakened weapons as being like rubber Nerf bats. Every day is a school day.
Normal damage – damage not done by a special attack. On offense, it’s tile damage; on defense it’s the slash attack performed by the enemy. Or, you know, whatever is normal for a giant tree man, an armoured panda and a mermaid…
Off-topic – A message which is not relevant to a particular topic or forum. Posting off-topic messages may annoy people intensely, as they make it harder to follow the discussion properly.
One Shot – to kill a hero with one attack, or destroy a defense team in a war with one attack team
OP
- original post
used to refer to the original topic of a thread after it’s meandered into some convoluted twilight zone. - over powered
a game item that’s too strong. Search the forum for a thread about original Athena to read an OP about OP and tick that combo off your bucket list.
P2E – Play to Enjoy; a response to the tension between spending, pull rates, disappointment and angst
we should be having fun playing the game or having a hard think about life.
P2W – Pay to Win; players who spend real money to accelerate progress in the game. Without their hard earned cash, the game wouldn’t be viable. See F2P
PoG-Path of Giants. a 28-day event meant to provide a challenge to even the most experienced players. Complete challenges, to gain points and collect rewards. Similar to the Path of Valour.
PoV – Path of Valour; or Valor if you’re American and can’t spell properly… A 28-day long “loyalty” program.
Power Creep – That buffed dude who keeps sending awkward texts. Or the upward trend in quality of legendary heroes, making earlier generations feel underpowered.
Power Creep Teflon - A hero with an unusual power or synergy that resists the slide into obscurity. Examples may include Brienne, Boldtusk and Gregorian. Courtesy of @NotVixx
PS – Peer Support*; An in-game chat channel which is (theoretically) dedicated to player-to-player assistance/ knowledge sharing.
Pull – summoning a hero. Often bought in batches of ten, known, logically, as a 10 Pull.
PvE – Player vs Event or Player vs. Everything; the titans/quest/map/challenge aspect of the game.
PvP – Player vs Player; the raid element of the game. E&P does not support true PvP as only one player is on online at the time of the match.
QoH — Queen of Hearts, a legendary fire hero from the Wonderland event, borrowed from the classic Lewis Carroll tale. “Off with his head!”
QOL - Quality of Life - game features that assist players with usability or community services but don’t involve the mechanics of game play.
Rainbow Team – a team with one hero from each element. Isn’t that lovely.
Ram Sandwich – using two heroes with Ramming Pulveriser in a team, most often against titans.
RNG – Random Number Generator; programming that allows for items and heroes to be produced at random. A constant source of conspiracy theories.
S1/S2/S3 – Season 1, Season 2 and Season 3; the two available maps. Season 1 is a kind of generic mishmash of Warcraft, LOTR and Tolkienesque Western fantasy tropes. Season 2 is Maoi meets Jurassic Park. Gandalf vs Velociraptors. Season 3 is a trip down memory lane to the 9 realms of valhalla filled with blokes from your favourite Marvel Cinematic Universe.
what’s not to like?
SG / SGG – Small Giant (Games), the company that created Empires and Puzzles. Cursed and blessed in equal measure.
SH - Stronghold - the large and fairly useless keep in the middle of your castle. This building dictates the maximum level of your other buildings.
Slash Attack - the normal attacks done Defending heroes/ mobs/ enemies per their count-down timer… Usually dealing far more damage then they should…
Sniper — a hero whose special skill hurts one target.
Splash damage — a special skill that hits target and nearby, in contrast to a sniper (single target damage) or AoE (hits all). Most splash damage does minor damage to nearby, but some hit nearby equally hard.
Squishy – heroes with low defense and/or health
Stack –
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A term used to describe if status effects compound with each other
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A new mechanic introduced with Season 3 where consecutive firing of a hero special skill results in additive benefits/ ailments.
Stacking – selecting heroes from the same element in order to gain an advantage against heroes of the corresponding weak element, usually targeted at the Tank.
Status ailment — the fancy-shmancy word for a debuff; an effect on a hero that is harmful, such as blindness, poison, burning.
Talent Grid – max-ascension, max-Special heroes have access to the Talent Grid. Using emblems for its Class, the hero gains power or abilities. A hero that has progressed n nodes up the grid is referred to as a “+n” hero, e.g. 5*+15 or Guinevere +20. If you see one of those, run away!
Tank – a hero selected for exceptional toughness and longevity that is used to take the central position of a team where the most damage is inflicted. Notable tanks include Kasshrek and Guinevere.
TC – training camp; the building used to produce heroes. The top tier of TC, the TC20 is coverted for allowing the (occasional) training of five-star heroes. Note that the level referred to relates to the level of research completed at the camp. So a TC20 must not only be a building of level 20 but also have researched level 20. Got it? Good.
Telly – Also known as the Idiot Box (Television)… or also Telluria
TL;DR – Too long; didn’t read.; For long threads less interesting than this riveting dictionary!
ToL – Tavern of Legends; a monthly event which features a portal where old old old HotM can be summoned… or so they say…
TPK - Total Party Kill - in a short space of time your team is dead, dead, dead. Jargon import from RPG games like D&D.
Vanilla hero - also known as classic or Season One heroes - heroes available from the TC20. The term ‘vanilla’ has been reinvigorated after appearing in 50 Shades of Grey. The E&P edition Fifty Shades of Greymane was pulled from shelves due to the wet dog smell.
Wings – the two heroes furthest from the centre in a raid formation, also known as corners.
@zephyr1 Created when Petri tried to insert a Link into the forum on a full moon.
Zombie alliance – an alliance with few or no active members, particularly with inactive leaders. Sometimes joined by new players who are not aware of how to search for active alliances.
© Guardians Reborn Alliance: join us
very light hearted as well.