Duma

"Men are weak. Our duty as gods is to make them strong. Our hands must be firm."

- Duma to Mila in their Memory Prism in Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

Duma is the final boss of Fire Emblem Gaiden and its remake, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. Along with his sister Mila, he is one of two sibling gods who resides at the continent of Valentia. The patron deity of Rigel known as the War Father, by the events of the game, he has been denounced as a Fell God by some because of his descent into madness.

Golden Age of Dragons
Thousands of years ago, Duma was from the Divine Dragon tribe in Archanea. He served Naga, the ruler of the Dragon tribes and strongest of the Divine Dragons, protecting her with his military might, earning the title of Kingshield along with her favor. His sister would meanwhile bless the lands to allow prosperity for the dragons, earning the title of Kingsgrail.

Clash and Exile
When humans began to exist in the land, the dragons offered them much knowledge, allowing them to prosper and advance, eventually creating an extravagant city known as Thabes.

However, Duma grew wary of the humans, and feared that they had grown too powerful. He sent his soldiers to Thabes, and had it destroyed in three days, leaving the remaining survivors to scatter across the continent.

This would result in Naga becoming furious over Duma's actions and exacted harsh judgment on him, causing Duma to clash against Naga in a ferocious battle. Though his sister sided with him, they were no match for Naga and her forces, and surrendered after nine days of battle that caused extensive damage across the land. The battle had scarred Duma and also hurt Naga and made her fangs splinter and scatter across the realm.

For their transgressions, Duma and Mila were exiled from the land. Before he departed, Naga bestowed one of her fangs that was carved into a blade that would be named Falchion to him. This weapon was intended to be used against him and Mila by humans should the need arise where they degenerate into madness and need to be put down.

Afterwards, Duma and Mila traversed the ocean for seven days before they finally reached the continent of Valentia, which they would claim as their new home. There, they would become patron deities in the land.

Divine Accord
Despite settling in Valentia, Duma was still filled with resentment and bitterness towards Naga for his exile and desires vengeance against her. He ordered his people to erect a large tower to face the continent of Archanea from atop a mountain, that was approved by his sister as well.

However, Duma's lust for battle, along with his beliefs over humanity led him to clash with Mila. While Duma believed that hardship creates hardy, strong humans, Mila believed that humans should live without strife, creating peaceful people.

Though they clashed for many seasons until both had exhausted themselves of strength, Duma never once turned Falchion against her. Eventually, Duma and Mila reached an accord: they would divide the land of Valentia into two, where Duma would rule the north which would become later known as Rigel, and Mila the south that would become Zofia, and neither was allowed to intervene with the other and cross into their nations.

Unfortunately, their ideals and beliefs led to extremes between the individuals of both nations: the Rigelians became cruel and power-hungry while the Zofians became lazy and hedonistic.

Descent to Madness
Ruling through his new civilization, Duma soon had his own religion that followed him as their god, know as the Duma Faithful.

As time passed on, Duma's strength began to wane, and during this period of time, a pirate nation began to emerge that posed a threat to the Valentian mainland, along with Archanea's west coast. To combat the pirate nation, Duma and Mila performed a blood pact with a human from their respective nation. Duma performed his blood pact with the fighter Rigel, and through that blood pact, Rigel was bestowed and capable of wielding Falchion. After the pirate nation had been defeated, Rigel returned Falchion to Duma at the Duma Temple.

From this, the nation of Rigel was founded with Duma as the leader. Duma also established a rule that strong Brand-bearers that can wield Falchion would get priority over the throne in Rigel. This is what led to Rudolf becoming the Emperor of Rigel later on despite him being only a distant relative of Emperor Rigel.

However, over a century later, Duma's madness would finally begin to take over as he degenerated. This led Duma to vanquish Mila's scions and begin to urge Rudolf to conquer Zofia. This led Rudolf to promise Duma of conquest, bolstering the imperial army's armaments.

This also led to Duma favoring ambitious people that put their own desires above all else, such as Dolth, Nuibaba, and Jedah. This led to the Duma Faithful warping into a group of fanatics. Jedah would also offer his daughters, Marla and Hestia, to Duma as offerings, earning Duma's trust.

Gaiden/Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Several years later after Duma's degeneration began to overwhelm him, Duma's body began to slowly rot along with his decaying mind. He began to manifest as a giant eyeball apart from his main body. This led to Rudolf finally setting his plan to put an end to the reign of gods into motion. Duma bestowed Falchion to Rudolf to seal Mila away.

During the war with Zofia, Jedah tries to discover what ailed Duma, leading him to conclude that Duma desired the soul of a Brand bearer to ease Duma's pain, causing him to target Celica.

As Berkut began to descend into despair and rage over his loss over Alm, Duma began to communicate with the Rigelian royal through telepathy, offering Berkut power. This seems to continue until Berkut approaches an alter in Duma's Temple, where Berkut succumbs to his despair and madness upon discovery of Alm's true heritage to the throne of Rigel, and the belief that even his fiancée Rinea looked down on him. This leads Berkut to willingly offer Rinea to Duma for power, causing Duma to kill Rinea and possess Berkut, granting him immense power.

Alongside that, Jedah successfully had goaded Celica to follow him by tricking her into believing that he can free Mila from her petrification sealing. After trapping her, Jedah offers Celica to Duma. Duma seemingly takes Celica's soul and has her turned into a witch to obey him, but this is soon thwarted later when Alm uses Falchion to stop Celica and Mila uses the last of her powers to restore Celica's life and soul.

When Alm and Celica's army unites together, they face off against the remaining Duma Faithful and Duma humself, as Duma's giant eyeball form merges with his dragon body's forehead. After a fierce clash, Alm defeats Duma once and for all by plunging Falchion into the Duma's eye. With his last breath, Duma regains his sense of self once more, and entrusts Valentia to Celica and Alm, while he falls into a deep slumber with his sister, and warns the two Brand-bearers to never wake them.

He is buried alongside his sister on a mountaintop, while his religion would merge with Mila's into a single one under Nomah afterwards.

In time, two trees grew from where Duma and Mila were buried and intertwined to create what would be known as the Mila Tree.

Personality
Duma was once a proud dragon that held firm beliefs. He was once a loyal servant of Naga, serving as the leader of her military that protected her, earning the title of Kingshield. He was also very wary of potential dangers, as the humans rapid progress of Thabes led him to fear that humans had grown too strong, and have the city destroyed. This led him to clash against Naga, resulting in Duma's banishment alongside his sister. This caused him to bear a deep hatred for Naga that he had humans construct a tower to face Archanea, the land Naga ruled.

Though he caused the humans of Thabes to be wiped out, he seemed to hold a sense of care for the humans that he ruled over in Valentia.

Duma holds a firm belief that humans can only achieve happiness when they struggle through life for it, where enduring hardships is what helps man grow strong. He believes humanity to be weak and require a god's guidance in order to become strong. This caused him to get into a dispute with his sister, forcing them to part ways, as he saw Mila as naive and foolish to believe that a life without misery was a happy one. To him, smothering humanity with love will only make them soft, in turn leading them into depravity and ruin. This caused him to seperate from his sister, splitting their territories.

Despite their dispute, Duma does hold love for his sister, as he never once turned Falchion against her. Duma's desire to seal Mila with Falchion was done also out of love. Due to Mila being younger than Duma, she had not yet degenerated to the extent that he had, and he wanted her seal so that she would not succumb to it like he would. However, his own degeneration led this mindset to be warped to believe that he wanted to "slay Mila" instead.

As the degeneration continued to take hold of Duma, he began to desire nothing but power and conquest, as he attempted to get Rudolf to make preparations for the conquest for years prior to the game's events. According to the dying  Fernand, Duma was no longer a god, but an incarnation of the lust for power due to his madness.

Overall
It should be noted that he cannot be defeated without the use of the Falchion wielded by Alm. Duma will not take damage past 52 HP with other weapons. However, Nosferatu will still be able to do damage, due to an oversight in the coding caused by the weapon's hard-wired 50% hit rate.

It should be also noted that the final map in Gaiden is one of the few maps where Upheaval occurs, activated by Duma.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Help Description: A divine dragon who founded the Rigelian Empire.

Base Stats

 * -|Normal=


 * -| Hard=

Gaiden
"That should be enough... Hero Alm. I entrust everything to you. Inherit the will of us siblings and govern this land... Carrying both the strength of Duma as well as the love of Mila, guide the people justly... You must not repeat the same mistakes we committed. You must never again disturb our slumber..."

- Duma's defeat quote in Gaiden

Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
"Only power holds meaning. Only strength holds sway. Call to me. Thirst for me. Thirst for power!"

- Duma's battle quote in Echoes

"Spirits of the earth...heed my call!"

- Duma casting Upheaval in Echoes

"Where...did mankind...find...such power...?"

- Duma's defeat voice clip in Echoes

"So be it, Alm. I leave Valentia's future to you, her hero. Take from us what lessons you will and shape her into a land to remember. Make her strong like Duma, and fill her with Mila's love. Let our grave mistakes be warnings of where not to tread as you lead her forth. Now, we shall sleep. And never shall you disturb our slumber."

- Duma's defeat quote in Echoes

Trivia

 * Duma is one of the several final bosses in the series with the ability to move around their exclusive maps. The others are Idunn, Fomortiis, Ashnard, and Garon.
 * Duma has the second highest HP total of any enemy in the series at 200 HP, losing only to Anankos. However, Duma has all of his HP in a single unit, while Anankos splits his HP between multiple parts.
 * There is a unique animation if Alm (in Hero class in Echoes: Shadows of Valentia) attacks or defeats Duma with a sword. When attacking Duma, Alm will jump up and slash Duma's eye instead of his usual animation. For the final blow, Alm will attack before Duma fully rises, throwing away his shield, jumping and stabbing Duma's eye.
 * Though normally Duma can only be defeated by Alm's Falchion and Nosferatu, he can also be defeated by the amiibo version of Alm if the Alm data saved to it has Falchion.
 * Duma can also be defeated by an amiibo of Marth or Roy.
 * In Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Mila and Duma are stated to be exiled Divine Dragons. However, it is not explained how Duma came to have tentacles and a single, laser-shooting eye embedded in his forehead. Duma's decaying features are thus far unique to him and Draco Zombies.
 * This makes Duma the only named dragon in the series to not use Breath to attack.
 * Oddly, the spells casted by Duma are mainly of the Darkness and the Earth element, unusual for a Divine Dragon.
 * Duma's humanoid form in Echoes appears to be based on the mysterious figure seen in the background of Gaiden 's boxart. This is supported by the similarites with the pauldron and the fact that the Duma's Helm accessory also seems to be based on the headgear of the aforementioned figure.
 * In Echoes Duma shares his voice actor, Darin de Paul, with the Narrator of the game.