 Major Spoilers for Dragon Marked For Death ahead! It’s been almost four years since my friends over at DMFD Fanonworks first came together to talk about lorestuffs. At the time, pretty much every one of us was writing wildly different stories within the world of Remlia. Before I finally got a copy of the DMFD World Settings book, we’d sum up what little we could get from the game and our in-game adventures to make our characters into our own. From there, the story became ours, more of a Dungeons and Dragons type thing than the common definition of JRPG. Of course, DMFD isn’t really a narrative game, at least in terms of common expectations. Much of the plot and worldbuilding was pared down in favor of tighter gameplay pacing (understandable) and scoping issues (also understandable). Even the main plot itself doesn’t directly consider that multiplayer is so integral to the game (aside from a blanket statement that “all those away from the village survived”). And the game does not feature the supposed four unique stories of the protagonists that DualShockers reported on in 2018. My friends and I were so dried up of lore, I started clicking through the Twitter tags to find anything in both English and Japanese to funnel into our lore-and-refs chatroom. Rabid lore archival and crappy Switch screenshots became my primary contribution to upkeeping our DMFD reference materials (I wonder how many runs of “Calamity’s Portent” I have on file?) But pretty quickly, all of us in DMFD Fanonworks more or less decided to hash out our own worldbuilding by copying or referencing other media we liked. There was one thing a few of us contested on, though: DMFD’s stance on revenge. If there was one derivative from DMFD that served as a throughline for all our unique stories, it was the grief and—often uncontrollable—power of revenge. At the very least, I had particularly strong opinions on how DMFD portrays ”revenge”. The stereotype of revenge plots I knew at the time were exclusively anti-revenge plots—“Revenge is always bad!” or, “Revenge won’t bring your loved ones back!” (See: pretty much every thesis in the Mega Man X series and even Inti Creates' own Azure Striker Gunvolt series.) Thinking about real-world tragedies and traumas, these types of messages in stories felt very demeaning, maybe victim-blaming in many cases, and unhelpful for those who experience these emotions. To me, the desire for revenge is extremely human and natural—it can go for bad or for good—and it should be treated as such. And I think there are too many anti-revenge themes in a world where widespread corruption is so much more evident. Playing the game for the first time on launch day, I didn’t think much of the plot (I doubt many people did). But once I got close to the end of the game, of course I started thinking, really hoping, that DMFD did not regurgitate that same stereotypical plot. This thought first came about years ago when, coincidentally, two separate friends talked about how they imagined their characters going through the Quest The Castle Burns. For context, in that Quest, a Dragonblood warrior named Jinryu is trying to lead a revolt against the Divine Family of Marlayus in order to be allowed to form a self-sufficient nation away from the Divine Family. Even if Jinryu tried to peacefully negotiate for land, the Divine Family is staunchly intolerant, and would have crushed Jinryu’s nation with or without a revolt. Thus Jinryu kidnapped Marlayus’s Princess Miyahime and held her for ransom—his last resort and ultimately the weakness that the Marlayus Divine Family chose to exploit, painting the Dragonbloods in a poor light. You, the player, are forced to carry out the Divine Family’s wishes by killing Jinryu and all his allies, in exchange for nice reputation points and the princess. Back to the two friends I mentioned, in their retellings of the Quest, both of them held Jinryu in low, low regard. This is partially because Jinryu put a child in some sort of danger, but also because—based on the Shinobi’s backstory on Twitter—my friends wrote that the Shinobi’s best friend fled from their master to go work for Jinryu. Specifically, when the best friend arrived in Marlayus, Jinryu forced him to sacrifice his life to do his bidding, or otherwise threatened to kill him. In both of my friends’ stories, the Shinobi’s best friend attempted to fight back against Jinryu—the best friend was against the idea of revenge (the implication being that innocent people were being put in danger)—and then Jinryu punished or killed him. By the time the Shinobi character in both of my friends’ stories caught Jinryu, the Shinobi proceeded to kill him with no remorse. In fact, one of my friends treated Jinryu’s demise as comical, making the Warrior carry out a golf-swing Dragon Smash to incinerate him. In both stories, Jinryu’s death was treated as an absolute win for the heroes.
I don’t mean to put disdain on my friends’ interpretations of the story (one of them had since decided to change this part of their story significantly because she wasn’t happy with it). Perhaps the point was that the “absolute win” was for the Shinobi finally avenging his best friend by killing his killer. Also, at the time, we did all have our own grudges against Jinryu: he was a Thunder Element Boss who constantly hit us with Paralysis, and we had no Bizarre Bones at the time. This was how we vented our anger! But, if our anger was directed primarily at Jinryu, and we’ve chosen to add it into our narratives (these two friends were not the only ones with the backstory plot of the Shinobi’s best friend working for Jinryu—my stories also have a similar prior context, and Hinabe-san’s unfinished DMFD manga draft also had that), then wouldn’t it mean that Jinryu became our symbol for the stereotype that “revenge is always bad”? I don’t think this was the lesson we were supposed to take from Jinryu, even beyond the sad music and rain on the Muramasa Castle in his specific Quest. You can call it coping, but I really did not want to face the possibility that DMFD’s thesis was ultimately the same old “revenge is bad!” spiel. Because, especially in DMFD’s case, “revenge is bad!” maintains the status quo, keeps the corrupt in power, and does not encourage change. In a game meant to critique corrupt religious institutions, this would have aged horribly. So now, years later, I’ve sought out to answer the question for my own gratification: What does DMFD say about revenge? Certainly more imaginative than I thought. I’ve decided to divide up my analysis into separate sections for ease of reading, and have looked through the game, multiple different playthroughs, lore compilations, and even the gameplay for evidence. Note that I am writing this through the perspective of a long-time DMFD super-fan (severely, to the point that I have datamined and glitched the game for cut flavor text lore) and a game designer focused on systems and narrative integration. My hope is that this will inspire some more interest in what the world of DMFD has to offer, and that more imaginative plots in games, fan-works, and stories overall will be made. All in all, it’s just my opinion after years of investment into this game, so I hope that you will enjoy it! Number 1: DMFD's narrative does not condemn the act of revenge.In the first real Quest of the game, the Ogre Fort, the protagonists can choose to help an old mother named Medica (who also coincidentally happens to look like an elderly Amica) to avenge her late son. You go kill a pair of Pale Goblins, retrieve her son’s pendant, then give the pendant to her, which earns you a Blue Flag used to unlock the game’s final sequence. If you talk to Medica twice, she then says, “Thank you… for getting revenge…” Ignoring the upbeat battle music of the Sica Village stage for a bit, already, the game paints revenge in its sorrowful light—and arguably more as a positive. After you help to avenge her son, Medica is now more at ease, able to start moving on from her son’s death despite her old age. This short scene is thus the protagonists' first sign that their revenge is ultimately for a good cause, because, at least in text, the act was done to help the old woman, not to just kill the Goblins. The protagonists in the actual game do not have any text dialogue, so I can't say for certain what they were thinking at each point in the story. That's for you to decide for your own characters. However, the enacting of revenge for the benefit of others rather than oneself is a consistent action of the protagonists in each account that it happens: they take down the Cthulhu to prevent the deaths of more innocent sailors, they fell the Twin Dragon to purify Cadena Forest, they kill Tonitrus for trying to cover up Primatis's atrocities within the Uos Tower. Ultimately, the protagonists' quest for revenge is to rescue Amica, but along the way, they help every single person whom other powerful, much more fortunate people could not be bothered to care about. In this way, the protagonists' desire for revenge is positively and respectfully underscored by constant good deeds.  The final cutscene of the True Ending, in which Amica and the protagonist run off somewhere. Artwork by Yoshitaka Hatakeyama. We don't really know if the protagonists explicitly had constant hatred in their hearts (didn't they already try that in Mega Man ZX? Same lead writer, by the way!) beyond the start of the game and aside from the hidden flavor texts of the Weapons from the Quest Marked For Death. But even if they did, that hatred is quickly melted away upon Amica's safe revival. The positive end result is compounded by the surprise in the True Ending in which the townspeople whom you help throughout the game join in distracting and leading away the Divine Knights seeking revenge on you for the ironic death of King Medius! Maybe the True Ending is a little comical and corny, but it does go to show how revenge isn't bad nor futile, and is ultimately a vehicle for uprooting the status quo (in this case, the Medius Divine Family and the initially negative opinions of the townspeople regarding the Dragonbloods) for the greater good. In addition, the various other endings of the game represent how the status quo could be uprooted for bad, or not uprooted at all.  The final cutscene of the Neutral Ending, in which humanity is thrust into an eternal cycle of vengeance. Artwork by Yoshitaka Hatakeyama. But if DMFD doesn’t condemn revenge, yet several other revenge failures are evident in the story—including that of the great Atruum Himself—then what does it condemn? Number 2: DMFD’s narrative condemns the act of revenge for the sake of power.Didn't Atruum manipulate the protagonists into carrying out their revenge against the Divine Family? And wasn't Amica’s resonating warning that the protagonists shouldn’t carry hearts full of hatred and instead "keep the peace in their hearts"? If revenge is good or bad, then does it mean that either of them could be wrong? Maybe a little. Atruum and Amica represent two extremes of going about revenge, the former being to destroy everything in your path, and the latter being to... simply not do it, I guess? I mean, of course, in a combat game where the main verb was originally "sacrifice", there's going to be a path full of destruction, no matter what qualms Amica has in the plot. But it's ultimately maybe 90% of this destruction that allowed Amica to be saved, while Atruum fell back into the abyss. Before we talk about Atruum's case, there are multiple revenge attempts done by people whom the protagonists meet throughout their journey. Some of the attempts, however, were resounding failures (or clearly condemned by the other characters in the game).
 A mural depicting the war between the two gods during the Age of Creation (Year ??? - 0). In-universe, it is interpreted as a mural made by humans and are not accurate depictions of how the two gods truly look like. If you've gotten to the end of the Quest Marked For Death, then you'd know that Atruum's support of the protagonist was all to give Him enough souls to revive Himself and destroy Primatis's moon so that He can take over Remlia and "consume it in chaos". But the original reasons for Atruum's revenge aren't completely unreasonable. For lore context (since this isn't really presented in the game as far as I know), after the war during the Age of Creation, the victor, the Celestial Primatis, created two moons to hang in the sky above Remlia: the white Moon of Mercy (Primatis's resting place), which shines on purified lands, and the red Moon of Condemnation (representative of Atruum), which shines on unpurified lands. Essentially, both Primatis and Atruum took part in molding Remlia in some way (it's not really specific, and technically the land and humans existed before the gods even showed up, according to the Quest Truth in Heaven, so maybe it's too hazy and these idiots just wanted to duke it out for colonialist god reasons), but at some point they had a dispute and both wanted the land alone. The resulting war led to Atruum's near-death and a burning vengeance to make Primatis feel the pain that He caused Him. All this was because, as a result of Primatis's overwhelming rule on the land due to the widespread influence of the Celestial religion, Atruum got erased from the history of Creation and demoted into a figure of filth. All humans associated with Atruum during the war bear His burden too through centuries of persecution. In other, very simple and broad terms, Atruum wanted revenge so He can receive His place as the other creator or leader of the land, which Primatis conquered. (Inherently, it's colonialist, but this was likely His thought process.) Atruum's purpose in power is still corrupt, though. The two gods fought in the first place entirely for power. A great theme that DMFD presents by the time Truth in Heaven and Soul Vessel roll around is that even if Primatis and Atruum swapped roles, with Primatis losing and Atruum winning, the events of the game would still be the same, just a different look (maybe). Neither are above the other, and both are pretty much, as a friend of mine calls them, "celestial parasites", leeching on the souls of living beings sacrificed in their names. So Atruum's huge revenge plot of nine centuries failed because he really had no better purpose for revenge than to gain power, uprooting Primatis to establish an equally corrupt rule with Him at the top, just to continue leeching souls off innocent people. Does this mean that Atruum's attempt to destroy Primatis was all futile and that the status quo, with Primatis at the top, should be maintained instead? And that the protagonist's attempts at revenge should be dropped in favor of peace, as Amica implies? Number 3: DMFD’s narrative applauds the use of revenge to help change the status quo for the better.This goes beyond the cheeky happiness of the True Ending. Think back to the Quest Soul Vessel, wherein you're finally invited to "meet" King Medius, which definitely went well. And after defeating Vasith and watching him vomit out Amica's half-lifeless body (back in 2019 I screamed so loud the first time I saw it that my parents had to slam my door shut, you know I can't be the only one to do it), King Medius uses her body to summon and attempt to literally absorb the Celestial Primatis into his body—the same error the late King Litus attempted in the Age of the Relic War (Year 600-700). You finally managed to kill Vasith with your crew, and subsequently accidentally "killed" Amica, and just right after, King Medius literally explodes himself! And now you must escape to the Den (after which Marked For Death is unlocked and the end of the game is reached). It might not be super clear what's the political state of the Central Kingdom of Medius at this point, aside from any surviving Divine Knights wanting to seek out and murder you in revenge. But what's clear is that King Medius is finally dead, along with many of his soldiers caught in the celestial explosion. And judging by his rabidness in wanting to achieve immortality, he likely has no heirs. Therefore, the protagonists' quest to rescue the Oracle and kill King Medius have resulted in what may be a total political downfall of the Central Kingdom of Medius, the supposed most powerful nation on Remlia. And it's not that the common folk of Medius and the other nations of Remlia are totally powerless or in chaos. Again, in the True Ending, they actually go out of their way to rescue you and lead you to safety, even though they're from all over the world. Sailors from Hasta, traveling mercenaries, children—they all voluntarily risk their lives to save you because they remember you and you have changed their lives in significant ways. And they do so successfully with no injuries. Captain Balenno even offers you to take Amica out on a cruise ship date on his boat.  Let's take a trip to Hasta! Furthermore, due to the war during the Age of Creation, despite eating so many souls throughout the 9+ centuries, Primatis still does not have the strength to really hover over Medius anymore. For all this time, He was just "resting" in the Moon of Mercy and is unable to do much aside from send out Celestial envoys and explode kings who are trying to absorb gods (the pressure of which is probably the reason why His recovery will take an eternity, if He ever gets recovered). As the world of Remlia is concerned, Primatis is now too weak and out of the picture. Finally, as the most relevant change to the lives of the protagonists: Atruum no longer has any power over them. They still keep their Dragon Scar mutations, but it's in a way that they have "conquered" the corruption of Atruum and have turned it into their own vehicle for good. Atruum's defeat and Primatis's weakness serves as a metaphor for the uprooting of corrupt religious institutions, and the combined effort of the protagonists and the people they aided around them serves as a metaphor for social change. I like to think that, after the toppling of the main governing force of Remlia, that eventually Princess Miyahime fully inherits the throne of Marlayus and creates a haven and new policies for the protection of the Dragonblood Clan. That's just headcanon, though: we really don't know what actually happens after the True Ending of DMFD. But if Inti Creates decides to continue the story, then I hope this is the direction that they maintain—a hopeful one that incites genuine collaborative change rather than the need for a rigid, intolerant government. Number 4: DMFD’s GAMEPLAY directly supports the act of revenge in solidarity, or revenge carried out for the greater good and to change the status quo.Okay, this is where I get to talk about GAME DESIGN!!! Or mainly just game feel for emergent gameplay. Might be a little nerdy, but if you stuck around for this long, then... thank you!  Here is a picture of the Shinobi Dande hanging out. As everyone who's played the game knows, unless you're training yourself or speedrunning a solo run, DMFD is all the more fun in a full crew of four than alone. I spent much of my high school and COVID hibernation playing DMFD multiplayer on call with my friends. This is how things usually went: in the middle of the night, we'd be this whole crew of under-leveled and under-geared players (let's say Level 70's-80's challenging Level 110+ Quests). And we'd be funneling into a Friend Room to re-challenge The Twin Dragon’s Coffin because the night before, one of us died right as the Boss itself died and it was way too late to get another crack at him. One of our friends would curse—so loudly!—on call that her relatives needed to tell her to quiet down. This was how the chatroom was every night we played, basically:
The amount of pure energy we carried to take down these Bosses was super refreshing after a stressful day of classes. The way the Boss fights in DMFD felt had the effect of emergent "arch nemesis" gameplay, wherein we'd be so stubborn to re-challenge the Bosses again and again until we'd finally toppled them and pillaged their spoils. Fights were really encouraging, and the results of them—because we were all of that ripe character Level in the buttcrack between "noob" and "experienced"—were almost always different each time. We wouldn't know whether or not we'll defeat the Boss this round. We'd equip different Weapons, Accessories, Items, and Elemental Contracts to test our luck. We'd have a designated person carrying only Miracle Powders in case we were running out of Items (at the time, I don't think Potion +2's existed, or at least we weren't aware of them). And even while farming for Dragon King's Crystals in older versions of the game, instead of making our high-LUC Shinobi open chests, we'd make our lowest-LUC friend—who was also the lowest level Witch in the party—open chests and we'd somehow pull DKC's every single time. In my opinion, mid-level DMFD is when this emergent "arch nemesis" style of tackling Quests takes the forefront the most. I say mid-level, because unless you're already knowledgeable with the game or are in large communities for it, you probably will also be in that ravine between "noob" and "experienced", a sort of "unknown" point where you might or might not have the right gear or the right stats, but you'll hopefully be able to rely on your friends! Because at this point of the game, collaboration is the best way to go through it, to get all the way to Ancient Gods.  A party of four with all the same character but wildly different stats is quite an experience. To be honest, it's really different from my general experience with DMFD now, in which I now know a lot of the tech and good equipment, and all but one of my characters are now Level 100 decked out in some of the top gear, ready for Ancient Gods. I'm not yet really good at Ancient Gods yet, though. My main, the Warrior Milan, doesn't even have a God Axe yet, which I need to get at some point. But he's still my go-to character for getting other equipment for all my other characters, such as the Witch Rocinoll. Interestingly, my general experience now is less like revenge against a Boss and more like supporting the players I have the pleasure of fighting alongside, a bit like the actual narrative of DMFD, I guess? I don't usually like the idea of "carrying" unless we're in a call or doing couch multiplayer, but I've had moments where I'd meet a mid-level player in an Open Room I forgot to turn off, and we'd decide to play a bit. If we happened to be the same character, I'd try to lead the way but slowly, showing them some of the tech, and then the other player would surprisingly follow along and do their best practicing the same tech. It was always very nice to play with players like this, even if I can't meet them beyond the game. I have personal qualms with the communities I met in larger DMFD-related servers, so I don't have much of a presence aside from my art and fanfiction scattered throughout smaller groups. Toxicity is quite scary but very common, even in co-op games, with some genuinely skilled players being elitist and others not pulling their weight, instead choosing to be a nuisance or griefer. Many people end up treating this co-op game as a singleplayer competitive game for who can perform the best in the party, or who can get the fastest time in a run. I honestly owe it to DMFD for being the most significant co-op game I ever got to play that taught me the meaning of playing in a team. Things like this are going to be universal—I remember an upperclassman in my university stating that, in our large game projects, people often forget that they're supposed to work in a team, and instead of focusing collaboration, they focus on "looking good" and avoiding embarrassment. There are a lot of understandable reasons why, and I suffer this myself. It's a difficult but not impossible hill to climb though, to accept collaboration and getting help to make something greater. Thank you for reading to the end of this.I've been wanting to write a long post about DMFD for a while. Since I made Thing as part of my website, but I haven't done anything with it since April, I figured, might as well give it another shot! It's a lot of work, but I do enjoy writing my thoughts out in long form and sharing them every once in a while. I've been coming to grips with my hyperfixation on DMFD these past few years. As a student game developer, I have gotten a little jaded with the idea of playing games, even DMFD. But I have some unfinished work to complete and friends' new DMFD projects to continue supporting, and I needed to reassess what made me love DMFD in the first place. Honestly, my conclusion is that I just think it's awesome, and the effect it has had on my life, friendships, and love of art is definitely evident. I hope I keep my interest in it for a lot longer, and I hope that you have also found interest in it by checking out my work. Thank you and let's have a good quest! Song of This PostThe song of this post is Adesso e fortuna～ 炎と永遠 ～, cover by Akino Arai! -Gladel (G.R)
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REDDER'S THINGA blog for nonsense.
AuthorI'm Gladel (G.R). They/them or any. Archives
December 2023
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