- For the monster family in the Dragon Quest series, see Demon family.
Demons, [source needed] or Darklings in The Adventure of Dai, are, generally speaking, a recurring humanoid race of beings who come from a sort of Hell-like location, such as Nadiria.
Unlike with other races, their morphology can potentially vary widely from individual to individual, although, just like monsters, a common trait among demons is an extended lifespan, being easily able to live naturally for centuries if not even millennia. It is also possible for humans and other races to transform themselves into Demons thanks to dark and often deeply evil rituals, or just incredibly powerful negative emotions; some examples of such characters are Nimzo, Corvus, Mordegon, Fractos, and many others.
Most Demons viscerally despise humanity, and would like to see them wiped out, and some go to great lengths to bring this about, allying themselves with various monsters, sometimes corrupting themselves into hideous forms. It is quite common for powerful human-hating demons to be the leaders of vast armies of monsters, attacking the world in an attempt to conquer it; in fact, most of the primary antagonist in the Dragon Quest series can be classified as belonging to the Demon race, either by birth or due to transformations.
This is because the Japanese word for their race, "Mazoku", can mean both a sort of "Demon" or "Magical creature", and it often used interchangeably to refer to proper Demons or just Monsters. In Dragon Quest IV, the term is conflated with "monster", and ever since then the word has been frequently used as a default "catch-all" term to describe creatures that fall in-between being proper monsters and Demonic beings, like witches, such as Valencia and Krystalinda, other transformed beings, or even true Demons, leading to some confusion on which one is which. Recently, the term "Demihuman" has also been used to describe proper Demons.
Major game appearances[]
Dragon Quest IV[]
In Dragon Quest IV, the word is translated as and conflated with "Monsters". The current Lord of the Underworld, Estark, in the past discovered and used the Secret of Evolution to transform himself into the supposed ultimate being, but was subsequently locked in a tomb underground in Mamon Mine a thousand years before the beginning of the story, remaining asleep until human excavators accidentally reached his tomb.
Psaro, The Master of Monsterkind, was a demon at the head of a vast group of monsters, who seeked to wipe out humanity in a misguided attempt to better the world for monsterkind and the other races, so he tried to reawaken him. However, much to the shock of Psaro, the Legendary Hero and their party, the Chosen, defeated him. With Estark defeated, and his elven lover Rose killed by humans, Psaro fell into despair and resorted to use the Secret of Evolution on himself in order to avenge her.
In truth, Psaro's own desire to wipe out humanity was being manipulated by Aamon, his right hand man, so that he could take his position as the Master of Monsterkind after Psaro and the Hero wiped each other out. But after the Chosen use the mythical Yggdrasil flower to revive Rose, her love for him is strong enough to return Psaro to sanity and, learning of Aamon's treachery join forces with the Chosen, getting revenge on Aamon and truly brings peace to the world by ending his feud with humanity.
Dragon Quest V[]
In Dragon Quest V, in Nadiria, Grandmaster Nimzo, a former Loftinian transformed into a Demon, was waiting for the Zenithian Hero, and has sent various demons and monsters to terrorize the world in preparation for his arrival, slaying any of the direct descendants of the Legendary Hero they could find. In addition, he is Aamon's last disciple, having mastered the Secret of Evolution better than what Psaro or his old master could ever do. However, one of his many victims, the Hero, alongside his extended family stood up to him, and eventually vanquished Nimzo for good.
Dragon Quest X[]
The Demon race as whole is greatly expanded on in Dragon Quest X. Since once again the word used to adress them is "Mazoku", used to refer to both the denizens of the Netherworld as well as regular, wild monsters, the line separating proper monsters from the more monster-looking demons is kinda of blurry. What is clear, is that various monster species live alongside proper Demons in the settlements of their homeland, with apparently no particular distinction between the two breeds.
At first they, alongside the demonic miasma appearing then and there, were the primary villains met, as Nelgel the Netherlord, Razerburn, Demon Marshal Zerudorado, the Great Demon King Maldragora, and many others, were all extremely wicked demons that the Hero and their allies needed to defeat in order to restore peace in Astoltia. This, as well as the already long history of conflict between the Netherworld and Astoltia, lead the vast majority of the people of Astoltia to an initial misconception that all Demons would be irredeemably evil.
The history of the conflict between the two lands is a very ancient one, marked by a usual pattern of "a Hero and an Ally" duo appearing every single time to defeat the Great Demon King attempting to invade the world, thanks to the powers within them said to having been granted by the human patron deity, Grand Zenus. Although, tragedy is also a constant in this relationship, as through history, its remembered that only one of them would survive, either due to tragedy or a treason. In truth, there are far more details and hidden truths behind each of the stories of these hero and ally duos, through the world would not know them for many centuries. The latest incarnation of said duo is composed respectively by Princess Anlucia and the Hero themselves.
Some of these historic battles between Demons and Heroes included the fight of the Ally Leone and the Hero Ashlay against the Great Demon King Goda, the very first supreme demon monarch to attempt to invade Astoltia, the fight between Azir, the young descendant of Ashlay, supported by Leone, who had recently woke up from his centuries old slumber of stone, and the thirteenth Great Demon King, Varzad, the clash between the Great Demon King Nerodus, the Hero Alvin and his Ally Kamil one thousand years ago, and finally the lastest full-scale demonic invasion, which ultimately saw Maldragora being defeated by Anlucia and the Hero. Also, five-hundred years ago, one of the last followers of Nerodus, the Demon Razerburn, attempted to destroy the world by creating a temple inside a fake sun, that scorched the earth and sucked the souls of the death, all in an attempt to create a powerful Demon King born in Astoltia, not the Netherworld, and thusly supposedly dodging the appearance of the Hero and Ally and usher complete destruction; this demon turned out to be Nelgel, who only awakened five hundred years later and allied himself with the more powerful Maldragora. Razerburn was not a Great Demon King, and as such was not stopped by a heroic duo, instead he was eliminated by the time-travelling Hero; his defeat however caused the temple housing the Dark Deity of Scorn Pujyu to escape, and begin his machinations, Likewise, Nelgel was stopped by just the Hero, as retribution for the latter destroying their peaceful village of Tenton.
Following Nadraga and Kyronos's deaths, the demon's homeland, lacking a supreme ruler for quite some time due to Maldragora's demise at the hands of the Hero and Anlucia, started to undergo an internal power struggle in order to decide who would become the next Great Demon King, with increasing frictions between its various kingdoms, particularly its three biggest ones: the militant fortress kingdom of Valdista, the ancient and magic-oriented kingdom of Zexus, and the youngest of the three, the trading desert kingdom of Farazade. Meanwhile, back in Astoltia, the dark clown Pujyu stole Kyronos's and Nadragle's Shock seeds, and used them to open the gate to the Netherworld to sow chaos.
Taking this opportunity, Valeria, the Archfiend of the militant fortress kingdom of Valdista, came out with a small army in an attempt to invade Astoltia. In the following brief but intense battle, Valeria defeated the Hero, even mortally wounding them. The Hero was, however, rescued by the demon Shaka thanks to an ancient and dangerous blood pact ritual, resulting in the Hero assuming Demon-like traits as a side-effect, like purple skin and horns. Having technically become a servant of Shaka due to the pact, the Hero was then, somewhat reluctantly, forced to accompany the young demon man in his journey across the Netherworld to convince the current greatest demon monarchs, to participate in the selection process to decide the next Great Demon King, Shaka having promised that along the way they would surely find a method to revert the blood pact's side-effects,
As the Hero personally discovered during their journey across the Netherworld with Shaka, many demons, while fiery with their emotions, in actuality, have noble and even kind souls, not too dissimilar from any member of the other races, barring the occasional misguided individual, or bad seed.
After many trials and tribulations, the Hero was not only able to unite the three fighting kingdoms, but was also ironically chosen by the Demon Oracle to be themselves the next Great Demon King. During the crowning ceremony, however, the Demon Oracle turned hostile for, at the time some, unknown reason, and revealed that the primordial evil Jagonuba, a member of the Jia Kut Clan once known as Jia Gonuba, had in fact indirectly created the Demon race from Humans, Ogres, Wetlings, Poppets, Dwarfs, and Elves: when Jagobuba lost his original crystalline body and mutated in a horrible lump of flesh, his body began to constantly spew great quantities of demonic miasma which it had terrible effects on the land and people. Eventually Goddess Luciana was forced to almost completely cut off that land from Astoltia, creating the Netherworld; the demons are the descendants of the several members from the other races that were left behind, who evolved and partially corrupted, becoming the modern Demons. However, the miasma was still growing in strength, still produced by Jagonuba's sealed off body, which would eventually cause the Netherworld to be destroyed. Goda had began the tradition of invading Astoltia as a way to slow down the process, albeit with a terrible cost.
The secret origin of the Demons was subtly hinted from the beginning by the general appearance of the Demons as, in this title, while some do have more exotic looks, sporting for example multiple arms or eyes, or more monstrous bodies, the vast majority of demon-kind have physical elements that lay bare their true origin race, such as fins from the Wetlings, the big ears of Dwarfs, the shoulder spikes, tails and general build of the Ogres, and so on. While it would make sense that even Dragons would be among the people left behind and corrupted by Jagonuba's demonic miasma, no Demon individual that can without question being classified as such, except perhaps for Darkas, has made an appearance so far. Despite their wildly different shapes and sizes, a common trait that all Demons share is the presence of a pair of horns of their head, albeit in a completely different shape from those of the Ogres or Dragons.
Due to their origins, the Demons are the only humanoid race of Astoltia, beside the Angels, that lacks both a patron deity and a guardian divine beast. Yet, despite their dark origins, the Demons are eventually recognized by the Goddess Luciana herself to be children of Astoltia as much as the other races.
According to Shaka's account, who personally briefly fell under his control, Jagonuba's nefarious influence subtly distorted and corrupted the intentions of almost all Great Demon Kings of the past with feelings of unquenchable hatred towards Astoltia, this being the reason why all the past Great Demon Kings, even those who initially had benevolent goals, eventually tried to conquer it; the Hero was however immune to this influence, perhaps due to their strong inner light, or their non-demonic nature.
With the Hero themselves having been crowned as supreme Great Demon King, it quickly lead to a brief misunderstanding with their previous Astoltian allies, as Princess Anlucia herself, personally lead a small but powerful group, composed by herself, Abbess Estelle, Sage Luchenda, and Singh, at the new Great Demon King Castle, to attack and take the head of what they assumed was just another tyrant in the making. However, once the misunderstanding was cleared, both the heroes of Astoltia and the kings of the Netherworld joined forces together to prevent the resurrection of the evil Jagonuba, although, due to their past grudges, the alliance was initially very tense for both parts.
While they ultimately failed to prevent it, the resurrected Jagonuba was nonetheless finally defeated for good after a great struggle, leaving room for the relations between the Demons and the rest of Astoltia to at long last to improve and heal; nevertheless, the most loyal followers of Luciana, the Angels of Tenseikyo, still remained mightily skeptical towards both the Demons and the Hero themselves, having misinterpreted the latter's actions as some sort of nefarious rise to power, and their unintentional part in Goddess Luciana's ultimate demise.
Still, the Angels had to ultimately change their mind, when a group of corrupted Angels set in motion a plan that resulted in the ancestral nemesis of Luciana and Astoltia, the interstellar Jia Kut Clan, the same clan from which Jia Gonuba, the original alias of Jagonuba belonged, to find Astoltia again, and they began a new war to completely drain the planet from the Power of Creation, which would destroy everything living.
After the defeat of the Jia Kut clan, Archfiend Azbar, having initially disguised himself as a Wetling, joined as a representative of the Demon race the Astoltian exploration team known as the Ember Explorers, put together to survey the alien world of Zenias.
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince[]
In this story set in the world of Dragon Quest IV, a young prince Psaro is seeking vengeance against his father, the current Master of Monsterkind and ruler of Nadiria, Randolfo, the Tyrant. Randolfo had many children with members of other races, with his first-born son, known as Dolph, gifted with enormous strenght, his second-born son Psaro being half human, and his thid-born son, Ludo, being an half-Elf.
As the first-born son, Dolph was naturally given the right of succession for Nadiria's throne; however, he soon revealed himself to be a brutish, cruel individual, who cared only for strenght and nothing else. Fearing that under his leadership monsterkind would end up eating itself alive, the previously chosen successor to the throne, the elderly but powerful Zangiel the Omniarch, strongly opposed him as an heir, eventually coming into conflict with Randolfo. Retreating to Terrestria, from Diabolic Hall Zangiel became the de-facto ruler of Terrestria's monsters, building up his forces in order to one day wrestle the throne away from Randolfo. However, when it became clear that the old Zangiel was approaching very quickly to the end of his lifespan, he decided to instead put his faith in Randolfo's second born, Psaro, when his old friend General Chayne informed him that the former was still alive; as such, from behind the scenes, Zangiel began secretly supporting Psaro, even sending his own forces in search for Estark, so that he could then pass it all to Psaro after he had proven to be the just leader they had hoped he would be.
After a disastrous confrontation against his father, Psaro was cursed by Randolfo with the inability to harm any monster. Psaro, undeterred, eventually found a solution by becoming a Monster Wrangler, while, with the help of the elf Rose, and many other allies, he set out to find a cure for his curse.
Meanwhile, Ludo, the third-born son, became disillusioned with the world as it currently was. Initially wishing to simply reunite with Psaro and flee from his harsh life, his desire eventually shifted into a distorted ideal of completely destroy Nadiria, Terrestria, and even Zenithia and rebuild it from scratch, a goal not too dissimilar from that of the ancient, fallen-from-grace Zenithian Azabel.
Other Appearances[]
Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai[]
In the world of The Adventure of Dai series, as well as its various manga, animated, and game adaptations, the Darklings are a race of demons, created by one of the Gods of the world, and living in the Underworld.
Ever since time immemorial, the Darklings have been locked in countless bloody struggles for the control of the world, against Humans, as well as Dragons before the latters de-evolved and lost their speech and intelligence.
That said, some Darklings are sympathetic to humans and wish to strive for peaceful coexistence, but the general consensus is still that humans have monopolized the world, which should be for everyone, and forced the far fewer demons into the Underworld with their prejudice and/or outright violence.
Hadlar who was the Dark Lord, tried to conquer the lands above but was defeated by Avan and his party fifteen years ago. He, however, was resurrected by the Dark King Vearn, another massively powerful Darkling and a god-like figure of this underworld.
Other known members include the sly Zaboera, his son Zamza, Lon Beruk the blacksmith, and Larhart, who was the child born of the marriage between a Darkling father and a human mother.
Darklings were shown to have wings, but none of their members are shown to have them in present time. A blood of a Darkling is blue, Hadlar has two hearts and Vearn has three. They have powerful magical abilities, and they have their own language and can transmit it through mirrors using a spell. Scenes in the Underworld show that females exists, and when naked Zamza seemingly did not have genitals. They have regeneration abilities so great they can grow back their limbs. They also have longevity, being able to live for at least centuries.
They can by evolved with monsters traits, as discovered by the Superior Being studies. However, perhaps as punishment for toying with the life granted by the Gods, the artificial process of transforming into a Superior Being had terrible consequences: they lifespan would be shortened exponentially, and should they become mortally wounded, their bodies would be turned to black ash, never to be resurrected again. Furthermore, while the procedure was still incomplete, the modified Darkling would also become unable to cast spell; this, however, was a flaw that was corrected when the procedure was completed.
Lamenting the conflict of their sentient creations, eons ago the Gods reconvened, and decided to create the Dragon knights, a hybrid species which combined the Magic Power of the Darklings, the strength of the Dragons, and the external appearance and heart of Humans. Since then, the Dragon Knight's purpose was to de-escalate the conflict, and destroy any force that would attempt to conquer the world for themselves, whatever they be Dragon, Darkling, or Human.
Gallery[]
Notes[]
- From Dragon Quest I to VIII, the title "魔族の王" (King of Mazokus) was used for each of the following characters with varying translations, as it could simply mean "demon king" without a specific context. It is translated as "monster lord" by Dragon Quest of the Stars. The word was notably not used in episode IX onwards but gained prominence in the Japan-only Dragon Quest X.
- Dragonlord
- Hargon
- Malroth
- Baramos
- Zoma
- Estark
- Psaro the Manslayer
- Psaro, it is his vocation when recruited in the remakes, which was translated as "Master of Monsterkind"
- Aamon
- Nimzo
- Murdaw
- Jamirus
- Gracos
- Dhuran
- Mortamor
- Orgodemir
- Rhapthorne
- Nelgel
- Maldragora
- Nerodus
- Mordegon, Lord of Shadows
- Calasmos
- Demon King Madyuraja
- Flucifer
- Xiphos the Deathbringer
- Velasco
- Fractos
- "魔族の森" is a Dragon Quest Heroes II location with its name literally meaning "forest of the mazokus", but localised as "Wildwood"
- The way they are portrayed in the franchise is somewhat similar to Dark Elves in western media. It is unknown if they were a direct influence.
- For the manga The Adventure of Dai, the word was romanized in the Jump Comics Perfect Book Dai #1 as "Evil". Furthermore, Spain and France used translations meaning "Evil family" in some edition.
Other Languages[]
| Other languages | |
| French | Famille du Mal (Dai manga), Créature du mal (Dai 2020) |
| German | Düsterling |
| Spanish | Familia del mal |
| Italian | Regno delle Tenebre (Dai manga reprint) |
| Dutch | Unknown |
| Norwegian | Unknown |
| Greek | Unknown |
| Portuguese | Unknown |
| Russian | Unknown |
| Chinese | Unknown |
| Korean | Unknown |