—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.
Profile
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 King's Grail.
Clash and Exile[1]
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.
Descent to Madness[2]
Ruling through his new civilization, Duma soon had his own religion that followed him as their god, known 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 became able to wield Falchion, which Duma bestowed upon him. After the pirate nation had been defeated, Rigel returned Falchion to Duma at the Duma Temple.
From this, the nation of Rigel Empire was founded with Rigel I being the first emperor. Duma also established a rule on the Rigelian Empire that strong Brand-bearers that could wield Falchion would get priority over the throne in Rigel, which led to Rudolf becoming the emperor of Rigel later on despite him being only a distant relative of Emperor Rigel III.
However, over a century later, Duma's madness would finally begin to take over as he degenerated, leading him to vanquish Mila's scions and beginning to urge Rudolf to conquer Zofia. Rudolf in turn promised to fulfill such desire, 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, warping the Duma Faithful into a group of fanatics, particularly Jedah, who 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, with him manifesting as a giant eyeball apart from his main body, making Rudolf finally starting to set his plan to put an end to the reign of gods into motion, as Duma bestowed Falchion to Rudolf to seal Mila away. During the war, 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 himself, 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 eventually 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
Once a proud dragon that held firm beliefs, Duma was quite loyal to Naga, serving as the leader of the military that protected her, but due to his banishment alongside his sister, he came to bear such a deep hatred for Naga that he had humans construct a tower to face Archanea, the land Naga ruled.
Believing that humans can only achieve happiness when they struggle through life for it, as its what helps them grow strong, Duma sees humanity as weak and requiring a god's guidance in order to become strong. This causes him to be very wary of their potential, as the progress in Thabes led him to fear that humans had grown too strong, and have the city destroyed. Regardless, he seemed to hold a sense of care for mankind in his rule over Valentia, which causes him to get into a dispute with his sister, as he saw Mila as naive and foolish to believe that a life without misery was a happy one, forcing them to part ways.
Despite all that happened, Duma does hold love for his sister, as he never once turned Falchion against her, with his desire to seal Mila with Falchion was also done out of love, as it was so that she would not succumbing to degeneration like he would. However, his own degeneration led this mindset to be warped to him wishing 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.
In-Game
Fire Emblem Gaiden
Base Stats
| Starting Class | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fell God | ||||||||
| Level | HP | Str | Skl | Spd | Lck | Def | Res | Mov |
| 20 | 182 | 20 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 20 | 20 | 5 |
| Magic | Starting Items | |||||||
| Ocular Beam Oculus | Tentacle | |||||||
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
Quotes
Gaiden
—Duma's defeat quote in Gaiden
Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
—Duma's battle quote in Shadows of Valentia
—Duma casting Upheaval in Shadows of Valentia
—Duma's defeat voice clip in Shadows of Valentia
—Duma's defeat quote in Shadows of Valentia
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.
- 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, distinct from other degenerated Dragons seen in the series.
- 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 Shadows of Valentia appears to be based on the mysterious figure seen in the background of Gaiden's boxart. This is supported by the similarities 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 Shadows of Valentia, Duma shares his voice actor, Darin de Paul, with the Narrator of the game.
- His name may be derived from Dumah, the angel of silence and death from Yiddish folklore.
Gallery
.jpg "Doma (Manga).jpg (228 KB)")
.jpg "Doma and Mila (Manga).jpg (171 KB)")
.jpg "FE15 Fell Dragon (Duma).jpg (77 KB)")