A mercenary swordsman hailing from the mountainous land of Forcena and son of the Golden Knight Loki, who famously aided King Richard in felling the power-hungry Dragon Emperor. Duran sets out to become the strongest warrior in the world after a humiliating defeat at the hands of Altena's Crimson Wizard.
Failure Knight: His defeat at Koren's hands prompts him to leave the service of the knights until he redeems himself.
Healing Hands: Possible only if he takes a Light-Side class.
Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: A plot point at the start of Duran's quest. He wants the Sword of Mana so he can defeat the wizard Koren, who Duran was not able to stop when the latter attacked Forcena. Averted in the actual gameplay, however, since all of Duran's possible classes end up learning magic of some kind.
Magic Knight: In the Final Fantasy tradition of Magic Knights, Duran's spell specialty is giving elemental attributes to weapons.
Mighty Glacier: Duran gets this label sometimes, although a little unfairly as his swing reset timer is the same as the other characters. The main reason is probably because he doesn't strike twice per attack like the other two males, who use daggers and Good Old Fisticuffs respectively.
Angela
The daughter of the Queen of Reason and princess of the magic kingdom of Altena, Angela failed to show any sign of magical prowess during her childhood. When her mother decides to make up for this by choosing her as the sacrifice for a powerful spell, she makes a break for it.
"My, what are young girls thinking these days, running around dressed like that?"
"Well Done, Daughter" Girl: As mentioned above, she feels neglected by her mother. Her main motivation for going along on The Quest is to gain the power of magic from the spirits, and to get the Sword of Mana, in order to force her mother to at least acknowledge her as something other than a failure.
Kevin
Kevin is the son of the Beast King, and thereby the prince of the Beast Kingdom. His mother disappeared around the time he was born, and as he grew up he associated with his fellow Beastmen less and less, preferring the company of a wolf cub he names Karl. However, he discovers his own Beastman strength when Karl attacks him and he kills the cub in of self-defense. Overhearing that the Beast King had orchestrated his wolf's attack on him, he attacks his father in a rage only to be swatted aside with ease. Denied his revenge, he sets out to find a way to bring his only friend back to life.
Wrestler in All of Us: With the sole exception of his starting class, all of his classes learn some kind of throw technique in addition to their normal tech.
Carlie
Carlie is half-elf, half-human, and was raised in the Holy City Wendel by the Priest of Light. She idolizes Heath, a fellow cleric, and is somewhat obsessively protective of him, enough that she sneaks away after him after he's called off on a mission. When she witnesses him being captured by Deathjester, her journey begins.
Verbal Tic: Carlie is very childlike, 'n shtuff, in her shpeech, m'kay? (This is a Woolseyism in the fan translation of her Katakana use in the Japanese version.)
Hawk comes from a much more humble lineage than his fellow protagonists. As a member of the Navarre Thieves Guild, he steals from the rich and gives (some) to the poor, and is very hapy with his job at that. Soon after the Guild takes in a young lady named Isabella, however, the guildmaster Flamekhan decrees that the guild will turn from petty thievery to all-out raiding and invasion, starting with Rolante. In trying to get to the bottom of this personality change, Hawk is framed for the murder of his best friend, Eagle, and locked away, threatened with the death-by-curse of Flamekhan's daughter should he tell anyone what he knows. Saved from his cell by his cat friend Nikita, Hawk begins his own quest for vengeance.
Bishounen: Put him and Angela in the same party and she will flirt with him. She'll also remark that he's 'cute' (complete with a heart) if she confronts him in Rolante.
Chivalrous Pervert: He'll try to charm the ladies at every chance he gets, asking Lise or Angela out in Jad and striking a pose while telling the Altenian soldiers "not to get so excited". But the worst transgression he ever commits is giving a Lise a (not entirely unwelcome) peck on the cheek if she confronts him in Rolante.
Dub Name Change: Originally named "Hawkeye". Like Carlie/Charlotte above, this ended up being shortened to fit the namespace.
Flechette Storm: The Level 2 Tech for his Ranger class is "Flying Swallow Toss", which consists of him spinning around and tossing knives at all enemies on the screen. Alternatively, his Ninja class can use the Shuriken skill, and if he takes the Ninja Master class, learns how to target all enemies at once with it.
Holy Hand Grenade: His Rogue class' Silver Dart skill, best thrown at zombies & demons.
Spam Attack: His Level 3 Tech for his Rogue class is called "Thousand Slice". Essentially it's the More Dakka principle applied to melee knife strikes.
Lise
The princess of the Wind Kingdom of Rolante, and a fierce wielder of the lance. The Navarre raiders took her castle, killed her father, and kidnapped her brother. Now she, too, is out for justice.
Spell My Name with an S: Riesz/Rizu/Reese/Lise—"Lise" is used for this page because it's spelled as such in the Corlett fan translation.
Stripperiffic: In the Fenrir Knight class only, but in it she beats out even Angela. Its costume is simply a bikini and a wolfskin cape.
The Villains
The Dragon Emperor
An evil dragon with no specified origin baring that he waged a war and was believed to have been killed by Duran's father Loki. He in fact survived and turned Loki into his servant the Darkshine Knight. Wants to become a god and make life a living hell for everyone in the world.
A God Am I: This is about as far as his characterization goes. Is he a real Physical God or just an egomaniac dragon? Never explained.
Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: His true form is by far the largest enemy in the game, he's so big you don't even see his whole body.
Card-Carrying Villain: Unlike the Masked Mage and the Dark Prince, he has no motivation for wanting to conquer the world beyond the fact that he's evil.
Deal with the Devil: he made one with Koren, taking a piece of his soul in exchange for making him the most powerful wizard in the world. Unarguably he fulfilled his end of the deal, but it's speculated that him having a part of Koren's soul caused his evil to corrupt him.
Informed Ability: Talk to some of the townsfolk and the they claim the Dragon Emperor is stronger and smarter than any human. While the plot implies he's extremely powerful even without the Sword of Mana and the power of the God Beasts, he doesn't get enough screen to time live up to the latter.
An Evil Sorcerer that serves the Dragon Emperor, who attacked Forcena at the start of the game and nearly killed Koren. He boasts to be the strongest wizard in the world. turns out that he was originally a no talent attempt at a mage and because he was abused by his teacher
The Dragon: A particularly ironic case given that he is The Dragon to an actual dragon, whereas Koren himself is human.
Freudian Excuse: Like Angela, he had no inborn ability to use magic whatsoever. The Dragon Emperor offered to make him into a powerful wizard in exchange for a piece of his soul. Koren got all the power he wanted, but after his defeat decides life isn't worth living without that part of his soul kills himself.
Just a piece! How could I refuse?
Woolseyism/Dub Name Change: In the untranslated script, Koren is not his name, but rather, he's known as "Kouren no Madoushi," or "Wizard of the Red Lotus".
A powerful warrior serving the Dragon Emperor. Is in fact Duran's father Loki, who was injured fatally by the Dragon Emperor, but seeing value in him as a minion, he revived him as his servant. His mind-control breaks after his death.
Duran, I am your father. Is pretty much an Un Twist by the time reveals it, but Duran is too thickheaded to pick up on it. If the Dragon Emperor isn't the Big Bad, he tries telling Duran but dies mid-sentence, and Duran still fails to pick up.
Originally a human mage that was a healer, but ended up resorting to forbidden magic to save a patient, leading to his banishment. The dark magic he used eventually corrupted him and caused him to desire revenge on the world.
Giant Space Flea From No Where: Where as the other two Big Bads are mentioned by their minions throughout the game, he pretty much shows up out of nowhere late in the game.
Monster Clown: With a name like that, what do you expect?
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: If his faction fails in its bid for power, based on your character choice, the victor forces him to deliver a message to you, and when he does he makes the comment that he's going to take this opportunity to run.
Tragic Monster: he left to try and save his father from the darkness corrupted him, but that simply resulted in him being kidnapped by Deathjester and brainwashed.
The Dark Prince
Formerly a the human prince of the Kingdom of Light, but for unstated reasons he was hated and feared by his subjects. This led to him making a deal with the demons of the underworld, gaining power in exchange for destroying his old kingdom. After the deal he went on to kill the former ruler of the underworld. He aims to join the human world with the underworld so he can rule of over both and force humans into worshiping him and the demons. Was sealed away by the Goddess prior to the game's events and Jagan and Bigeu hold his remains and plan to find a host for his ressurction.
Despair Event Horizon: Goes into this if you don't take the Hawk/Lise route, in which case the Big Bad of your route destroys the Dark Prince's remains, ensuring he can never be resurrected. Not wanting to face a world without her beloved, she murders Jagan when he tells her he plans to try stealing the Sword to merge the two worlds anyway, and then after delivering the exposition to you, kills herself.
Yandere To the Dark Prince. If he's the Big Bad, she states that he lost his soul while among the demons and hopes to retrieve it, though exactly what that means is unclear.
Powerful elemental monsters that were sealed away by the Goddess at the creation of the world, and they threaten it once again when they break free after the villains release the energy from the Mana Stones.
Evil Counterpart: To the eight elementals that are helping the heroes.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The player will discover that killing a God Beast directly sends all its Mana energy into the Mana Sword...which you gave to the villain to keep them from killing your Fairy Companion.
Sorting Algorithm of Evil: It is explained that, when they first awaken, they are relatively weak, but as you defeat them, the remaining ones grow stronger (and so do the monsters in their respective dungeons). So in a way it is justifying why Zable Fahr, always the final God Beast you fight, is That One Boss.
That One Boss: Dolan and Zable Fahr are considered the most difficult of the 8. The former because aside from his all-round power, has a strong attack the temporarily reduces the party's max HP in addition to inflicting massive damage. With the latter, it has really strong attacks in addition to hitting the party with de-buff spells, and has the instant death spell that will kill a party member they are at a lower level than it, and odds are they will be.
