The Tridam ultimatum is a strategy in which a number of people are held hostage, and either the demands of the aggressor are consented to, or the people will be killed one after the other.

It gets its name from the town of Tridam, where a local baron had thrown some brigands into a dungeon. The bandits' friends (among them the half-elf Civril) held a ferry full of pilgrims as hostages, demanding their friends' freedom in exchange for the people's lives.