This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all. |
Dema, the False Goddess, is the primary villainess in the mobile medley video game Echoes of Mana. She is the older twin sister of the Mana Goddess, who seeks to take her place. She takes profit of the hero's quest to explore echoes of all worlds, seeking to rewrite the multiverse how she sees fit. However, she was in fact influenced by Anise.
Appearance[]
Dema used to look like a youthful woman with teal hair and eyes, clad in a long, white robe with floral motifs, with flowers in her hair that reach her waist. Posing as a Goddess, her robe and hair reflect a blue, starry sky.
As the False Goddess, she looks more demonic. She has blood-red eyes, horns looking like branches sprouting from her cheeks. and hair turning red around their midsection, floating all around her like tentacles.
She wears a black and red robe, with armoured golden gilding, flesh-revealing cut-outs and a spiked array on her shoulders. She also wears black gloves, and a black, horn-shaped diadem ornate with a red jewel.
Dema's final form is an eldritch titan, forming a massive array of horn-like bones containing moving ribs and a beating heart, with a spiked golden halo. Her head has ghoulish, pale blue skin, a mass of red and black hair, black wings, and four black and gold horns, two protruding from her bloodied eye-sockets and two similar to her jewelled crown.
Personality[]
Back when she was little, Dema was sweet and sensible, enjoying a close relationship with her sister, who shared her love of stories. She took deep pride in being the older twin needing to protect her sister. Too much pride in fact… Yet, she was unflinchingly strict, stubborn, and self-righteous, insisting that rules had to be followed without deviation, even in stories, and dismissing Nona's irritation with her attitude as "being a handful". She shouldered her duty without asking for help and took decisions without listening to Nona, causing the very woes she wanted to spare her.
Dema took even greater pride in her role as the Goddess' next incarnation. Yet at the same time, she wanted to bear that burden on her own and resents the law forcing girls to succeed the Goddess, viewing it as a sacrifice to eradicate. Sadly, both sisters' inability to express their feelings to one another spelled doom for both.
Anise twisted Dema's resentment for being replaced by Nona, as both the new Goddess and the bearer of the burden, to corrupt her. She is now bitterly jealous of her sister, stopping at nothing to gain the divinity she feels rightfully owed. She plans to erase all worlds and their Mana Tree to remake them from a single one of her creation, preserving every past and future sacrifice.
She is very manipulative, knowing how to influence people through words or setting up a path leading to where she wants. She has no qualm in deceiving or using people and completely disregards casualties, reasoning that she is helping everyone in the long run and that she will "undo" any damage.
While she is genuinely polite and congenial, it is quite clear that her inflexibility and controlling tendencies have gotten worse than ever. She still loves her sister, she is nice to her servants and bears no grudge to those declining to work for her. Still, she cannot fathom that they could have their own diverging vision, or that her ideal would be little better than a gilded cage devoid of freedom and purpose. And while she truly wants to eradicate suffering, it is clear that she is imposing her view, and that ending the cycle of sacrifices would leave her as the only goddess for all of eternity. Yet, deep down, she knows that she is wrong, but refuses to move anywhere but forward.
Powers and Abilities[]
Dema gained residual divine powers from her twin's ascension. (So she says, for in reality she got them from the Demon World of Mavolia). She can oversee all worlds, duplicate the Mana Tree and create echoes of worlds through its fruits from harnessed memories, or give life to sentient beings imbued with her essence and grant them powers.
As the Goddess, she is nigh omnipotent, now able to create her Mana Tree and expand it across all worlds, draining their substance to gain power. She creates and empowers beings without restriction and rewrites reality, be it of real worlds or memories. Still, she needs to erase every world before being able to rewrite the very fabric of the multiverse.
By fusing with her Golden Tree, Dema assumes her final form and her power skyrockets. She controls divine creation and power over the universe, as well as demonic, destructive energy, and can harness powers from all worlds.
Background[]
Dema and her younger twin sister Nona were born in the Mana Clan, sworn protectors of the Mana Tree, the earthly avatar of the Mana Goddess. However, their law forces a chosen girl to merge with it the Mana Tree whenever he withers to regrow it, becoming the Mana Goddess' new manifestation but keeping her memories and traits. Dema was chosen, to Nona's worry.
Ten years before the story, Dema was ready for her role. She named their childhood friend Diospyros the Mana Swordsman, but hid her fears of vanishing. She did not know that Nona also wanted to alleviate her burden, wanting her to acknowledge her wishes. So, the Tree chose Nona instead at the last moment.
Distraught, Dema secluded herself in her home, refusing to see anyone for years. Anise tempted her with power, convincing her to usurp Nona and "finding" a devastated world to reshape as her Sanctuary, with two amnesiac survivors she could use.
Role in the Game[]
First Season[]
The Mana Goddess awakes the hero, the boy Quilto or his twin sister Quilta, next to the last Mana Tree. She tasks them to explore echoes of extinct worlds (games of the series), to restore the multiverse before its end.
Searching for the Mana Sword while hunted by the Ebon Knight, they eventually end up in an echo where they meet Nona and Dema as little girls, not knowing who they are, with an ominous voice speaking about "destiny" and to "end sins".
Dema only shows her hand after the hero defeats the Ebon Knight and obtains the Mana Sword. As they stab the Goddess with the Sword to regrow the Mana Tree, she reveals herself as Dema, rising as the new Goddess and replacing the Tree with her black and gold one, spreading across all worlds.
Season Two[]
As Dema prepares to place the hero in eternal slumber as a "reward", they are brought to the actual Sanctuary by the great fairy Mousseline, where they meet Nona, the true Goddess, who explains everything. They reach an echo of their extinct world, being drained of the last memories sustaining it by Dema's Fake Tree.
Dema appears in person, explaining her goal to destroy all worlds and their respective Mana Trees, to recreate them with her single Tree linking them all. She offers to name the hero her Mana Swordsman, departing when they decline. But she neglected to mention that the hero's twin is already working as her Mana Swordsman.
Guided by Mousseline, the hero travels throughout echoes once more to restore them and gather the eight Mana Spirits, but Dema's Three spreads its roots, destroying every world they reach. The hero destroys them with the Mana Sword, but monsters follow them, led by the Crimson Wizard and both versions of the Dark Lord.
The hero later meets their twin, who reveals that Dema gave them a name and a purpose. They ask why their twin is now opposing the Mana Goddess, being kept in the dark about Dema's true nature. As the heroes ponder about Dema's motivations, Nona brings them to the echo of her past, where they watch her corruption by Anise and save the Mana Spirits from Gossamare.
The heroes finally reach Dema's Sanctuary hoping to talk. They are greeted by the hero's twin, wielding their own Mana Sword, who notes how being two halves makes them both unstable. They battle their twin to become one, but accepts them as the hero when beaten, giving up their Sword to make it whole. Alas, Dema refuses to listen to reason, leaving no choice but fight.
The Mana Sword summons all its wielders from the echoes, who help the hero to defeat Dema. With her Sanctuary gone and all worlds and echoes restored, Dema is freed from Anise's taint. Diospyros brings her to finally reconcile with Nona. Mousseline later relinquishes her physical existence to restore her world for the twins, none other than Pinzton village where it all began, meeting their friends for real.
The Final Battle[]
Dema is highly powerful, resilient and challenging, so the party must be high-levelled and well prepared. She remains static but teleports and casts spells of every element from glowing pentagrams, mightier than normal. She also casts status-inducing ones like Sleep Flower, or fearsome special attacks like Shining Ray, a gigantic beam upfront.
The shadows she conjures never attack, yet must be destroyed given that they gradually heal her. When she gathers energy, she must be taken down before she drains one stat of the party in a dark wave. When Dema encases herself in crystal, her four shadows must be destroyed before she unleashes Destruction Overkill: a screen-filling, dark-red energy blast around her dealing crippling damage, direr with each remaining shadow. Slaying all four shadows on the other hand, knocks her out and leaves her vulnerable.
False Tree Dema poses an even greater challenge. The heroes must boost themselves and spam their most powerful attacks, while curing and healing often. She fully refills her life-bar twice, the second time conjuring a copy of her normal self as target.
She fires huge energy spikes from a yellow rune, as a barrage or as a rain, and calls forth playable villains' and bosses' mightiest attacks from a floating fruit. Such as Julius' blazing Triple Flare, Thanatos' Dark Grip, skeletal hands firing dark orbs, or Zable Fahr's Southern Slice, a dark-red wave. Her attacks are fearsome: Divine Genesis, conjuring her sanctuary over a wide area, and Universe Unleashing, up to three gigantic dark pillars striking the centre of floating circles of runes.
When she says "the Light of Utopia emerges", she moves her halo upfront to fire a devastating, screen-filling beam. When she "sets an aim" while glowing red, she must be knocked out before she uses a playable villain's attack deadlier than normal. Same when she "traces memories", lest she says "the fateful fruit has ripped" and drops a fruit nuking the arena with an onslaught of purplish-blue energy.
When knocked out, her heart falls, open to attacks and vulnerable, so it must be pummelled. She can conjure up to four floating black and gold orbs that unleash her special attacks independently and must be destroyed at once, lest they self-destruct in a damaging dark, purple blast.
[]
Villains | ||
Final Fantasy Adventure / Sword of Mana Secret of Mana Trials of Mana Legend of Mana Dawn of Mana Heroes of Mana Echoes of Mana Visions of Mana |