Certain enemies in HROT are based on Czech history, culture and folklore, so:


Pedro


This enemy is a mutated Pedro, a popular brand of Czech bubblegum that is over 50 years old now.

Šemík


Šemík is a horse with a gasmask, who attacks the player by doing high jumps
Šemík is based on a Czech legend about a poor noble named Horymír. Horymír was frustrated, people were mining silver in Příbram instead of farming, so there was little to make bread out of. He told the local prince Křesomysl. The family that was profiting of the silver mines (kovkopkové z březových hor u Příbram) decided to pillage Horymír´s village.
As revenge, Horymír flooded their mines. Kovkopkové told Křesomysl, and he sentenced Horymír to death as punishment. On the day of the execution, the prince granted Horymír a last wish, Horymír wanted to ride his loyal horse - Šemík - one last time. His wish was granted, but as he sat on his horse, Šemík told Horymír to prepare, and then jumped over the walls of Vyšehrad and kept on running. The large fall fataly injured Šemík, who would eventually die from his wounds, but for the bravery that was shown, Křesomysl spared Horymír. Šemík and Horymír are a symbol of bravery
Also, horse gasmasks are real.

The White lady

The white lady:
The White Lady (Bílá Paní) is from Czech folklore, she is supposed to look after several Czech castles and can be seen at night

Also on this painting, it states in latin:Believe, but see whom (věř, ale hleď komu).

Konfident


Konfident is the flying (resurected?) head of Vladimir Lenin, one of the founders of the Svoiet union


Lenin is also in this diary (or his head only, i wonder if thats on purpose) with the text:
"Lenin
Comarde Lenin
The ethernal Lenin lived
lives, and will live."
You can also type the same text on a typewriter in Luna


Klement Gottwald


Klement Gottwald is the final boss in the first chapter, he was a member of KSČ (Communist party of Czechoslovakia). He was the fourth president of Czechoslovakia after the short lived Third republic. he also was the first president of socialist Czechoslovakia.
]Also if you go back to where you first see Gottwald´s body after defeating him, you will get an achievment that references what happened to his body after his death, first his body was mumified in the mauloseum but was later icirenated by the ČSSR in 1962 for financial and political reasons.

There is also a subway station named after him, which is in the game as well

Gustaf Husák


The first chapter, kiss me Gustaf (polib mě Gustave) is named after him and you can find framed portraits of him that you can kiss, the kissing could be in refference to the famous photographs where he is kissing the then leader of the USSR Leonid Iljič Brežněv.
Gustaf Husák was a socialist slovak politician who became the eight Czechoslovak president and the last president of socialist Czechoslovakia
Gustaf Husák´s weird flying head is also the final boss of chapter 2. I actually have a theory.
There are flying heads as enemies, like konfident, but Husák´s head flies with a propeler, wich gives a more machine than man look, and since the chapter means a taste of/sample, it leads me to believe that this wasnt really Gustav Husák and instead, this is just ,,a taste" of him, and he will be the final boss of chapter 3, but thats just speculation.

Babička

Babička (grandma/granny) is the main character of a famous czech book by the same name
The book was written by Božena Němcová, The book is a collection of stories involving Granny, usually told by Granny. The book was important, as it was part of the effort to restore the Czech language, wich, at the time, when the czech lands were under the Austrian empire, had been spoken only by villagers, as everyone else usually spoke German.
Granny has a place named after her, with a statue, and is one of the most important pieces of Czech literature.

To start, when your character is idle while using the sicle, an animation will play where he puts a hammer over it to create the famous hammer and sickle, THE symbol of communism,

but i dont think thats where it ends.
You see, theres an old czech movie called Báječná léta pod psa (the Great years that Sucked, also SPOILERS) recorded in 1997 wich takes place after the communist takeover in Czechoslovakia, and focuses on a, not entierly functional family. At one point, the father of the family loses his job and goes a little crazy, the main gag is that he starts building himself a coffin, and at one point during its construction, while he is holding a hammer, he puts a sickle over it, also as a gag.
Now, the two probably arent related, but its just an interessting observation i made.

This car is either a Škoda 100, 110 or a mb. Škoda is a Czech car brand that is pretty popular.

This features a hammer and sickle with the text KSČ, wich stands for communist party of Czechoslovakia (Komunistická Strana Československa), this party still exists, now named KSČM, wich means Communist Party of Czechia and Morava(Komunistická Strana Čech a Moravy)


On the Basilica of st. Peter and Paul located in Vyšehrad (also real), there are two coat of arms.
On the left, there is the coat of arms of the Pope/the catholic church
On the right is the Czech coat of arms, Bohemia to be specific.


In the graveyard at Vyšehrad, there is a statue of Antonín dvořák, one of the most famous music composers from the Czech republic. In real life, there are alot of famous Czechs buried here.

,,We had the best intentions, but it ended as it always does"



One of the primary healing items is low-fat milk, wich isnt that interessting, but now there also is rohlík, a type of curved pastry made to look like a half-moon. Its shape was chosen to celebrate the Ottoman defeat at the Siege of Vienna (1683) , so it was made to look like the muslim-half moon used on the Ottoman/Turkish flag.


,,Uranium mines Příbram are accepting new workers"


,,All honest citizens of the republic vote the candidates of the national front"


,,Kladno welcomes the famous(/great) Soviet army!"


,,CITIZENS - keep calm and take care conscientiously of all instructions of the national comitee"


,,No beer"


,,The red right" (right as in rights) - The newspaper of the KSČ from 1920 to 1995


I dont know if this is a specific reference, but a vodník is a character from Czech folklore, he resides by lakes and rivers, he resembles a fish-old man hybrid, usually smokes a pipe and, from story to story, his hostility differs. Sometimes, hes not that bad, and can be quite jolly, but other times, he impregnates a girl and then kills her baby (Kytice, Jaromír Erben)


,,Thinking workers (miners) dont drink, drinking workers dont think"

(I might add more)

To explain the hussite symbolism, you need to know who the hussites were, and why they were popular during socialist Czechoslovakia
(important)
The Hussites were followers of Jan Hus, a christian preachers who started speaking againts the Catholic church (wich was, at the time led by 3 popes), notably after it started selling idnulgences (if you paid, your sins would be automatically forgiven). The church gave Hus an offer, stop and take back what he said or he would be executed. Hus refused, didnt take back what he said and was burned alive, deemed as a heretic. His death could be illustrated by a phrase he once wrote in a letter ,,Pravda vítězí" (Truth prevails), wich would become the motto of the Hussites and the Czech republic ah a whole after it was popularized in 1915 by the later first Czechsoslovak president: Tomáš Garigue Masaryk. After his execution, his followers began to mass riot, wich ended up in a peasant army led by Jan Žižka, a now renowned millitary genious


(some extra info)
After their suprisingly succssesful millitary campaigns, the Hussites were split, one half thought they had won, and they should finally start negotiating for peace and reform, the other, more radical side, wanted to make the church negotiate with them, this came to a climax at the battle of Lipan, where the radical hussites, lead by Prokop Holý after Žižka´s passing (probably due to sickness) would fight againts a crusader-hussite coalition. The radical hussites were destroeyd thus ending the ,,Hussite wars".


One of the main reasons of hussite succsses were the many wagons they used as easily transportable fortifications. If they were under threat, they used their wagon in a circle formation, with hussites inside wielding maces, crossbows, early muskets and, notably, canons.


This is a shield called a pavise, it was used in the back of the wagon formation to fill in smaller spaces, they could also be easily removed, allowing hussite light cavalry to go outside the formation and chase after a retreating army. The pavises usually featured symbolism, in this case, it features a chalice, the primary hussite symbol
The chalice filled with wine is supposed to represent the Blood of Christ, wich he gave to his Apostles during The Last Supper, alongside the Body of Christ. On ceremonies in catholic churches, only noblemen got wine (The blood of Christ) while lower classes only got the wafer (The body of Christ), Hus requested that everyone, in this case, should be treated equally and get the wafer as well as the wine. The Hussites agreed with this, we need to remember, they were not only a religious group, but also a political and economic one. It aslo features the text ,,Hear the truth, speak the truth, defend the truth"

Hussite legacy during socialist Czechoslovakia:
Hussites were quite popular during the socialist times for 2 reasons:
1. They were anti-catholic. Even though they still were christian, catholiscism was definitely a larger problem for the USSR.
2. The town they built as well as their capital city: Tábor, located in Jihočeský kraj, the town worked on a principal of shared property and money, simillar to communism.
All of this information was greatly exaggerated to fit hte communist ideology.


The wagon forts as well as the gunpowder and other strategies were the ideas of Jan Žižka, a follower of Hus, definitely on the more radical side. He may have lead/been in the Czech army at the Battle of Grunwald. He started his career one eyed, an iconic look, along with his horse and a mace, later becoming completely blind, still winning some battles. No hussite army lead by him was defeated. The podium where his statue is built is decorated with a large socialist Czechoslovak lion, now, the two tailed lion was the Czech national animal, as well as the main coat of arms for a long time, the main difference on the socialist version is his missing crown, instead being replaced with a red star floating above his head.

I dont think this is finished yet. I do later plan on adding more info about the specific locations and buildings in the game.

Also:
Sorry if i made mistakes in the writing, i think i´m pretty good at english, but it isn´t my first language
(also i hope i didn´t make factual mistakes)

If anyone is wondering about the sources, it´s a mixture of school, info from my friends and family, and of course youtube and wikipedia. I don´t have specific links, but im pretty sure most things here have a wikipedia article.





KONEC