Characters / Dragon Quest IV The Chosen

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In General

Clockwise from the top: The Hero (both of them), Maya and Meena, Torneko, Borya, Alena, Kiryl, and Ragnar.

A party comprised of the legendary hero prophecized to slay the Lord of the Underworld and the seven people destined to guide them on their journey.

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• Can't Drop the Hero: Though the party recruits many Guest-Star Party Members throughout the game, at least one of the eight Chosen is required to be in the active party at any given time, with the game justifying this by explaining that the non-Chosen party members don't have a clear enough understanding of the quest to stake out on their own. Despite explicitly not being one of the Chosen, Psaro is exempt from this rule in the remakes and treated as a full-time party member.
• The Chosen Many: While only the Hero is fated to defeat the Lord of the Underworld, the other seven are all destined to assist them in doing so.
• Competitive Balance: The party is divided up in such a way that everyone fulfills a particular niche that makes them all useful in their own way:
  • The Hero is a Master of All with excellent strength and HP, the ability to equip the strongest weapons and armor in the game, and exclusive access to the strongest offensive (Zap, Kazap, and Kazapple) and healing (Omniheal) magic. This allows them to serve as a stable and flexible force in battle that can fill any role in a pinch. This is further emphasized in the original game, in which they're the only party member the player is able to control directly. Their weaknesses include their lackluster agility, the third-worst in the party after Ragnar and Torneko, and their MP pool, which is the smallest of any of the party's magic users.
  • Ragnar and Alena are frontline fighters with high strength growths that allow them to dish out excellent damage. Ragnar is a Mighty Glacier with the highest HP growth of the party but the lowest agility. He is also the only character other than the Hero who can equip heavy weapons and armor, giving him consistent access to the best attack and defense-boosting items in the game. Alena is a Glass Cannon with the highest strength and agility growths of the party and an excellent critical hit rate but middling HP. Unlike Ragnar, she is a Bare-Fisted Monk with a very limited selection of weapons and armor to choose from, forcing her to rely primarily on her own physical stats in combat. Ragnar excels at stably giving and taking high amounts of damage and is an ideal choice for drawn out battles such as boss fights whereas Alena is best at dealing sudden bursts of massive damage before the enemy has an opportunity to act, making her shine during Random Encounters. Both also require distinct amounts of investment in order to make full use of their strengths, with Ragnar gaining levels the fastest of any party member but requiring large amounts of money to be spent to keep him well-equipped and Alena being subjected to Magikarp Power that forces her to be leveled up substantially in order to take advantage of the unique scaling of her critical hit rate.
  • Borya and Maya are mages with poor physical stats and equipment options but access to powerful magic. While both are Squishy Wizards, Maya is superior to Borya in every stat other than agility and is able to equip powerful female-exclusive equipment lategame, making her sturdier overall. Maya's spell pool consists almost exclusively of powerful offensive magic such as Bang, Boom, and Kaboom, which can hit every enemy in battle at once for massive damage. While Borya lacks Maya's damage potential, he instead learns potent support magic such as Oomph and Acceleratle, which respectively double a party member's attack and agility. Maya is the ideal choice for both crowd control and dealing concentrated damage to a single target whereas Borya is better when it comes to maximizing the strengths of his allies.
  • Kiryl and Meena are both Combat Medics with the ability to cast healing magic and fairly balanced stats overall. Kiryl has better HP and MP growths than Meena and learns the spells Multiheal, which heals every party member at once, and Buff and Kabuff, which raise the defense values of the party member it is cast on. In comparison, Meena has better strength growths than Kiryl and learns the spells Insulatle, which improves an ally's resistance to fire and ice attacks, and Woosh and Swoosh, which deal high damage to groups of enemies. Kiryl has more consistent access to equipment throughout the game, but Meena is able to equip female-exclusive armor lategame that gives her superior resistance to fire and ice attacks than him. Kiryl is more defensively-oriented and better at acting as a pure support character whereas Meena is more flexible and can act offensively if the situation requires it.
  • Torneko is a Lethal Joke Character who is completely overshadowed by his fellow frontline fighters in terms of stats and equipment options. Despite this, he is able to randomly perform unique actions in battle that have a number of beneficial effects. Some of these abilities are completely unique to him and highly useful, such as protecting an ally from enemy attacks, silencing an enemy before it can cast a spell, and stealing rare items from an enemy. Outside of battle, he has a number of useful skills that make traversing through dungeons more convenient, such as reducing the rate of enemy encounters and nullifying the effects of hazardous terrain. He is a Difficult, but Awesome character who can potentially trivialize enemy encounters provided luck is on the player's side.
  • More broadly, the male party members (with the exception of Borya) have a wider range of weapon and equipment options while the female ones (with the exception of the female Hero) compensate by having exclusive equipment that is statistically superior to anything the men can use at the time it's obtained. Overall, the men lean closer toward being Boring, but Practical than the women, having more stability at the cost of less potency.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: Should the player choose the female Hero at the start of the game, then the final party will consist of four women (the Hero, Alena, Meena, and Maya) and four men (Ragnar, Borya, Kiryl and Torneko). The remakes' bonus chapter throws off the balance in favor of men with the addition of Psaro as a playable character.
• Multinational Team: The localization of the remakes transforms them into one: One Scottish guy (Ragnar), one Irishman (Taloon), three Russians (Alena, Kiryl, Borya), two dark-skinned French Romani with some Indian ancestry (Maya and Meena), and your Hero, whose nationality equivalent is a bit unclear.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: And how. If it wasn't for the fact they all oppose the same evil and are hunting the same villains, it would seem very odd that a soldier, a priest, a princess, a magic tutor, a merchant, two traveling entertainers, and some young boy/girl are all traveling together.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Each party member in IV is a direct successor to a vocation from Dragon Quest III, inheriting some or all of the skills, magic, and stat layout from their predecessor.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: The game automatically ends if all of the Chosen are wiped out in battle, regardless of if a non-Chosen party member is still available to fight. Despite explicitly not being one of the Chosen, Psaro is exempt from this rule in the remakes and treated as a full-time party member.

The Hero

The Hero

Male Hero voiced by: Jun'ichi Kanemaru (Drama CD), Takeshi Kusao (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince), Joshua Wichard

The Chosen One whom the forces of evil are currently scouring the world for, in hopes of putting a premature end to that pesky prophecy. Until the day destiny comes a-calling, however, they're enjoying a peaceful, easygoing life, playing with their best friend Eliza and practicing their swordsmanship...

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• '80s Hair: Both of them sport some. While the female Hero's poofy green mane is the more standout example of this trope, the male Hero's feathered green mullet deserves some attention as well.
• Action Girl: The female Hero is no less capable than the male, and will go on serve as the party's strongest frontline fighter, mage, and healer by the end of the game if selected.
• All-Loving Hero: While their Doomed Hometown gives them more than enough reason to be motivated to defeat Psaro purely for the sake of revenge, dialogue from other characters makes it clear that they are doing so in the name of protecting the world and everyone in it and aren't letting their personal feelings cloud their judgment. Becomes even more apparent in the remake, where they choose to use a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to revive Rose rather than any of their own loved ones in the name of showing forgiveness to Psaro and joining hands with him to defeat Aamon.
• Ambiguously Gay: Eliza remains the Hero's Implied Love Interest regardless of their gender. The priest in Femiscyra thinks that the female Hero is jealous of him living in an all female realm and she can also try to go to the "puff-puff" room in Laissez-Faire, but she'll deny you.
• Ambiguous Situation: Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince reveals that Psaro was in fact framed by his older half-brother, Dolph, for the massacre of Solo’s Doomed Hometown. While Solo arrives to save Psaro from Dolph shortly after the latter mentions having done so, it’s unclear if Solo was within earshot yet and now aware of Psaro’s innocence. Though Solo declaring that he still intends to kill Psaro one day suggests that he wasn’t.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Kazapple is a powerful Combined Energy Attack spell with a flashy animation, but requires everyone in the active party to contribute a hefty 15 MP to use. Along with burning through MP reserves quickly, this also means that none of Ragnar, Alena, or Torneko (who don't have any MP to contribute) can be present for it to be usable, severely limiting party combinations. To make it even less practical, no one else in the party can take action during the turn it's used on.
• Battle Bikini: The male Hero wears long sleeves and pants, while the female Hero looks like she's wearing a swimsuit under a off-the-shoulder short tank, one detached sleeve, and a detached pants legs/tights... thing.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: They lived out the majority of their life in a small village being trained to eventually fulfill their destiny as The Chosen One. Chapter five begins with Psaro leading his forces in razing said village to the ground in an attempt to kill the Hero, which kickstarts their adventure to defeat him.
• Canon Name: The PlayStation port uses Solo for the male hero and Sofia for the female Hero in promotional screenshots, both of which are generally used whenever the characters appear elsewhere. Meanwhile the drama CD gives the male Hero the name Rei and the novel calls him Yuuril.
• Can't Drop the Hero: In an unusual departure for the Dragon Quest series, this trope is played with. While it's impossible to remove any of the eight main characters from the party, the Hero is only required to participate in the active party while exploring the Stairway to Zenithia and can otherwise be left on standby in the carriage if the player so wishes. The remakes also contain the only instance of party chat in the series that doesn't require the Hero to be present to be used, and in fact have several lines of dialogue that can only be seen if they aren't in the active party (and, conversely, several lines of dialogue that can only be seen if they are).
• Chekhov's Gunman: You begin the original version of the game by naming them, only for them to not make an actual appearance in the story until the start of the fifth chapter, which can take anywhere between six to ten hours of playtime to reach. Lessened considerably in the remakes, which add a short prologue that places you in control of them before moving on into Ragnar's chapter.
• The Chosen One: As the fabled offspring of a human and a Zenithian, they are fated to wield the Zenithian Equipment to defeat the Lord of the Underworld and save the world. Psaro's attempts to subvert this prophecy by killing them before they are able to live up to it is what inspires his actions for most of the early sections of the game.
• Combat Medic: Learns healing magic in addition to being a formidable frontline fighter, and is the only party member capable of learning the strongest healing spell Omniheal.
• Combined Energy Attack: Learn the spell Kazapple, which deals high damage to all enemies present in a battle at the cost of taking 15 MP from every party member participating.
• Cutting Off the Branches: Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince establishes that the male Hero, Solo, is the canon hero.
• Doomed Hometown: Their chapter begins with their village getting destroyed by Psaro's army in an attempt to kill them before they can rise against him. They manage to survive due to Eliza taking on their appearance and sacrificing herself and promptly set out into the world to fulfill their destiny as The Chosen One.
• Evil Overlooker: The male Hero is confusingly framed in a position reminiscent of this trope on the original game's box art, which has led to more than one person mistakenly assuming him to be the game's Big Bad.
• Foil: To Torneko. While they're both from small and unassuming villages tucked away from the rest of the world, the Hero is an orphaned youth raised from birth for the purpose of saving the world as The Chosen One whereas Torneko is a middle-aged man with a wife and son who works as an ordinary merchant. Their reasons for setting out into the wider world are also starkly different, with the Hero awakening to their destiny after having their hometown destroyed by monsters and Torneko simply following his dream of opening a weapon shop of his own. This is further reflected in their respective roles in battle, with the Hero being a Master of All with the strength and skills needed to reliably serve as substitute for any of the party's fighters, mages or healers in a pinch and Torneko being a Lethal Joke Character capable of randomly performing actions that no one else in the party can. The original version of the game makes this even more apparent, as while the Hero is the only member of the party the player is able to control directly, Torneko's goofing off makes him the member of the party the player has the least amount of control over.
• Game-Favored Gender: Downplayed in comparison to other installments in the series, but the female Hero is able to equip the very useful Pink Leotard armor, enabling her to have substantially better defenses than the male Hero during the mid-game. While this advantage goes away by the end of the original game, as the game's strongest armors can be equipped by either gender, the remakes introduce the female-exclusive Angel Leotard, which gives the strongest resistances to fire and ice attacks of any armor in the game in addition to having comparable defenses to the game's other best armors.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Their adventure begins with their hometown getting destroyed and everybody they've ever known getting killed by monsters, forcing them to set off on a quest to defeat the Lord of the Underworld with nothing more than the clothes on their back and whatever odds and ends they can find in the wreckage of their home. Fittingly, their Luck Stat doesn't start to grow at all until they reach level 11.
• Glacier Waif: The female Hero plays exactly the same as the male Hero, making her one of the party's heaviest hitters and the only female party member capable of equipping heavy weapons and armor at the cost of being fairly slow.
• Guest Fighter: The male Hero is one of the four Heroes that collectively make up the Hero DLC character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
• Half-Human Hybrid: They're the child of a Zenithian woman and a human woodcutter that she fell in love with. Their status as such is precisely what enables them to be The Chosen One. The person implied to be their grandfather in the Woodcutter's hut is shown as a dwarf, as well, possibly making them 1/4 dwarven, 1/4 human and 1/2 Zenithian.
• Heavy Equipment Class: The only party member other than Ragnar capable of equipping heavy weapons and armor and the only party member capable of wielding the Zenithian Sword and Armor.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Their name is chosen by the player at the start of the game.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: While their weapon repertoire also includes things like lances and axes, their unique weapon is the Zenithian Sword, and they're always depicted wielding it in both artwork and sprites.
• Heroic Mime: They're completely silent, unlike everyone else in the party.
• Hero Protagonist: A classic example: they're the main player character, The Chosen One destined to defeat the forces of evil, and the leader of the party.
• I Choose to Stay: They're offered the chance to live in Zenithia after saving the world, but refuse due to their reluctance to part from their companions.
• Legendary in the Sequel: Their victory over Estark makes them renowned the world over and strikes fear into monsters even beyond the story of Dragon Quest IV itself. This actually ends up being a bad thing in Dragon Quest V, as it leads to Grandmaster Nimzo calling for the slaughtering of all of their blood descendants out of fear of another legendary hero appearing to foil him.
• Magic Knight: Along with having excellent strength and HP and access to heavy weapons and armor, the Hero learns top-class attack and healing spells at later levels.
• Master of All: By late game, they have high HP and strength and access to the strongest equipment and offensive and defensive spells in the party, enabling them to competently fulfill any role during battle in a pinch. The only things keeping them from completely overshadowing everyone else are their lackluster speed, low MP pool, slow growth rate, and inability to act more than once per turn.
• Out of Focus: The female Hero is invariably featured in spin-offs and cameos much less often than the male.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: Averted. Certain lines of dialogue change notably depending on your gender, and certain equipment options become available or unavailable.
• Random Effect Spell: Eventually learn the spell Hocus Pocus, which can cause one of a variety of effects to happen in battle, both positive and negative.
• Rookie Red Ranger: By the time their adventure begins, all of their destined allies are experienced travelers whereas they are a level 1 neophyte who's never set foot outside of their village. While they level up quickly enough to make up the difference around the time Alena, Borya, and Kiryl join the party, they'll spend the early stretches of their chapter completely dependent on the much higher-leveled Meena and Maya for protection.
• Schrödinger's Player Character: Whichever gender the player doesn't choose at the start of the game vanishes from existence for the remainder of it.
• Shock and Awe: They gain the Zap, Kazap, and Kazapple spells as they level up.
• Suddenly Voiced: The female Hero has an entire conversation with the protagonist of Dragon Quest VI if the "Near Future" version of Reaper's Peak is chosen in the remake's Fungeon, and reveals herself to be surprisingly eloquent to boot. Averted by the male Hero, who is too engrossed in a conversation with Eliza to pay attention to the protagonist and doesn't have any of his dialogue in said conversation shown.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: The female Hero is a tough Action Girl who can equip heavy weapons and armor and dresses in a fairly unfeminine fashion, but looking into a mirror with her as the party leader may occasionally have her think about wearing makeup.

Ragnar

Ragnar McRyan, Royal Soldier

Voiced by: Shinji Ogawa (Drama CD), Tomokazu Sugita (Dragon Quest Heroes series, Dragon Quest Rivals, and Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince), Gordon Cooper (Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince'') [EN]

A royal soldier who has served faithfully under the king of Burland for several years. Along with the rest of the knights, he is dispatched to investigate the mysterious disappearances of several children from Strathbaile.

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• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: The novelization version of Ragnar is an outcast among the soldiers of Burland due to both discrimination for being an ethnic minority and for being the adopted son of a minister assumed to have only obtained his position through nepotism. In the game itself, neither of these traits are present and Ragnar appears to mostly be well-liked by his fellow soldiers.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: The novelization depicts him as being from an ethnic minority in the mountains of Burland who was adopted by a minister that saw promise in him, which isn't even slightly alluded to in the game itself.
• Amazon Chaser: Admits that a female warrior who claims she'll only marry someone who can defeat her in battle may be his dream woman.
• Badass Normal: Possesses no magical abilities whatsoever and lacks either Alena's unique critical hit rate or Torneko's unique actions; his main strengths in battle are his high strength, health, and defense and his ability to wear heavy equipment.
• Book Ends: He's the first party member the player gets to control and the last one that joins the party during the final chapter. This is lessened somewhat in the remake, where a short prologue starring the Hero is added before his chapter and Psaro is made into a playable character in the bonus chapter.
• Boring, but Practical: He's the least flashy member of the party in terms of how he can contribute in battle; not only can he not cast any magic, but he doesn't have Alena's astronomical critical hit rate or Torneko's useful goof-off actions either. Despite this, as the party member with the highest HP and most consistent access to strong equipment, he can both reliably deal high damage and take much more of a beating than everyone else, which makes him really shine during boss battles. He also levels up the fastest out of the party, which prevents him from needing to be trained very much to remain useful. His status as this is particularly evident in the original release of the game, where a party member who is only capable of performing a few actions in battle is much less susceptible to the Artificial Stupidity that plagues everyone else.
• Brave Scot: Ragnar is a valiant soldier of Burland, where the people all speak in Scottish brogues.
• The Champion: His success in rescuing the missing children during his chapter earns him his king's favor, which in turn allows him permission to leave Burland in search of the Hero.
• Character Roster Global Warming: A rare non-fighting game example. In the original game, Ragnar's status as the slowest party member was counterbalanced by his ability to equip heavy weapons and armor, making him a Mighty Glacier with a distinct and useful role in battle. The remakes' introduction of Psaro as a party member effectively renders Ragnar redundant, as he can also wield heavy weapons and armor in addition to being much faster and capable of using magic and special techniques. While everyone in the party has their uniqueness decline somewhat after Psaro's recruitment, Ragnar has it the worst by far.
• Cool Old Guy: He's a middle-aged knight who is both dependable in battle and fairly laid-back when on the road.
• Covert Pervert: The remake gives him several lines of dialogue that imply he has a preoccupation with the ladies, such as him being fascinated with Femiscyra, lamenting that his rugged looks make him unpopular with women when inspecting himself in the mirror, and being envious of how beautiful Torneko's wife is.
• Crutch Character: As a no-frills warrior with high strength and HP, he can handle every enemy he comes across during his chapter without much trouble, which helps ease new players into the game's system before more complicated elements such as magic and party management are introduced. By the time he rejoins the party, while still a perfectly viable character, the enemy encounters have become difficult enough that the player will need to coordinate his strengths with those of the rest of the party to succeed.
• Foil: To Alena. Both are melee-oriented fighters affiliated with large kingdoms, but while Ragnar is a stern middle-aged soldier of humble birth and great loyalty to his king, Alena is a young Rebellious Princess who would much rather shirk her duties to live out her dreams. The arcs of their respective chapters also move in parallel but opposite directions, with Ragnar's beginning with him investigating the disappearance of citizens within his kingdom and ending with him leaving it to explore the world in search of the Hero and Alena's beginning with her leaving her kingdom to take part in a fighting tournament and ending with her returning to it to investigate the disappearance of its citizens. This difference is further highlighted by their respective roles in battle, with Alena specializing in taking out enemies quickly with her high speed and critical hit rate and Ragnar specializing in surviving drawn out battles through his high health and defense.
• Former Teen Rebel: While he's a loyal and dependable soldier as an adult, by his own admission he was a troublemaker who often wandered away from home to explore dangerous caves when he was a kid.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: He's the only trained fighter in the party, which makes it understandable why he's also the party member who levels up the fastest.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: While his lackluster starting equipment is given the justification of Burland lacking the budget to properly fund its military, it's still rather odd for a seasoned soldier like him to begin the game at level 1. Even if, as stated above, he levels up the fastest to compensate for this.
• Genius Bonus: Ragnar, a Scandinavian name, at first seems out of place for a resident of the Scottish-themed Burland. Unless, of course, you are familiar with Scottish history and the role the Vikings played therein, particularly in Orkney.
• Heavy Equipment Class: The only party member apart from the Hero who can equip the heaviest sets of weapons and armor.
• Hero of Another Story: He can be encountered in Alena and Torneko's chapters in the middle of his search for the Hero. He's notably the only one among the chosen who can be encountered outside of his focus chapter prior to the start of the fifth one.
• Informed Flaw: One of the soldiers in Burland describes him as a carefree dawdler, even after he has singlehandedly rescued the missing children and joined the Hero on their quest to save the world. Lampshaded in the remakes, where speaking to Maya and/or Meena in party chat after talking to this soldier has them acknowledge that his claims about Ragnar couldn't be farther from the truth.
• Irony: He's the first member of the party to learn of the Hero's existence, and can be encountered throughout the other chapters traveling the world in search of them, but ends up being the last one to meet them. If that wasn't enough, it's ultimately the Hero who finds him, not the other way around. He even acknowledges this irony if spoken to with party chat while visiting Mintos.
• Late Character Syndrome: Actively averted: he's given a boatload of free experience points at the end of his chapter to raise his level to be comparable to the rest of the party when it finally recruits him in the fifth chapter. On top of that, he gains levels the fastest out of the party, so he'll quickly clear the distance even if everyone else is a significantly higher level than him when he joins.
• Magically Inept Fighter: He fights solely using weapons. In his chapter, he relies on Healie for healing magic.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: While the king of Burland assigns all of the kingdom's soldiers to investigate the missing children, only Ragnar makes any meaningful progress. On top of that, he also has to provide his own equipment for the job, as the kingdom lacks the resources to properly fund their military.
• Manly Facial Hair: Sports a huge and bushy mustache befitting of a brave and burly warrior.
• Mighty Glacier: He has high strength and HP growth rates and access to heavy weapons and armor, giving him both a fantastic damage output and the sturdiest defenses of the party. As a tradeoff, his agility growth is by far the worst of the playable characters and he'll likely spend the entire game acting last during battle unless his speed is modified using items.
• Moe Couplet: A stern, manly soldier who kindly takes in the adoring and adorable Healie as his companion. The two form the perfect team in battle, with Healie's healing allowing Ragnar to stay fighting fit to clobber whatever enemies they come across. It should come as no surprise that almost all of Ragnar's appearances in spin-offs have him accompanied by Healie.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: The only member of the party with visibly developed muscles is also a Mighty Glacier with steady strength and defense growths and the ability to equip heavy weapons and armor.
• Odd Friendship: Develops one with Healie.
• One-Man Army: Probably literally, considering how incompetent the rest of Burland's military appears to be. He'll spend most of his introductory chapter fighting alone, with his eventual companion Healie primarily assisting him through healing rather than attacking.
• Only Sane Employee: The rest of Burland's military is of pretty suspect competence, with one soldier even becoming lost in a cavern that is only a single screen long. Thankfully for them, Ragnar has more than enough strength and smarts to get the job done by himself.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Out of the party, Ragnar is hit the hardest by Psaro's recruitment in the remake in terms of having his usefulness decline. In addition to sharing Ragnar's access to heavy equipment, Psaro also has the unique ability to wear cursed equipment without penalty and has his own set of Infinity Plus One Gear in the form of the Pandemonic Armor and Sword. Additionally, Psaro's more versatile stat distribution and access to spells and abilities not usable by anyone else in the party give him even more sharp edges over Ragnar.
• Perpetual Frowner: A comment he makes about his face if you look in a mirror, lamenting that it's probably the reason why he doesn't get much attention from the ladies.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: Holds the distinction among the party members for being the only one to appear across multiple chapters, making cameos in Alena and Torneko's after starring in his own and before returning as a party member in the fifth.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He's decked out in a full suit of pink armor and is among the party's toughest warriors.
• Recurring Element: Continues the legacy established by the Warrior characters in Dragon Quest III by wearing pink armor.
• Suddenly Voiced: In the remake, he's a Heroic Mime during his introductory chapter but becomes just as chatty as the rest of cast when he joins the Hero's party.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Ragnar stands in for the Warrior vocation from Dragon Quest III, down to the bright pink armor.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Party chat implies him to be this with Torneko. On the occasions when one brings up the other, it tends to be to insult them. Despite this, Ragnar is quick to state that he'll protect Torneko through thick and thin when he hears that he's been pursued by monsters in the past and the two appear together frequently in artwork and spin-off games.
• Younger Than They Look: Despite his grizzled exterior, the drama CD gives his age as 29. However, as an undisclosed amount of time passes between his chapter and the fifth one, there's room to argue that some years pass between his introduction and when he finally joins the Hero to justify his looks.

Alena

Tsarevna Alena

Voiced by: Konami Yoshida (Drama CD), Shoko Nakagawa (Dragon Quest Heroes series [JP], Dragon Quest Rivals), Denise Gough (Dragon Quest Heroes series and Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince [EN])

The Tsarevna of Zamoksva. Her father disapproves of her Tomboyish ways, and would much prefer she become a prim and proper lady. But Alena's more than ready to start adventuring, whether her father approves or not—nothing's going to stand in her way, not even the castle walls!

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• Action Girl: Stands out among the female party members for being the only one that is purely melee focused, and is a Bare-Fisted Monk with the highest strength growth in the party to boot!
• All Amazons Want Hercules: Played with. While Alena states that she'd only consider marrying a man strong enough to give her a good fight, she also refuses to marry someone strong enough to defeat her as it would hurt her pride too much. Basically, she's too childishly stubborn to want to marry anyone, regardless of how strong they are.
• Badass Normal: Along with Ragnar and Torneko, she's one of the only party members that is completely incapable of using magic. She makes up for it with her sky high strength and speed growths.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: While she's one of the game's main physically-oriented fighters along with Ragnar, she has much fewer equipment options than he does and must therefore rely much more on her own strength stat rather than the assistance of weapons to damage enemies. The few weapons that she is able to equip late game all tend to be Wolverine Claws.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: The brawn to Maya's beauty and Meena's brains. She's the only one among them that is a purely melee-focused fighter, and is a "punch first ask questions later" type of gal overall.
• Blood Knight: She really enjoys a good brawl, and most of her party chat dialogue consists of her either expressing interest in fighting other characters, disappointment at not being able to fight other characters, or bafflement at why other characters would care about doing anything other than fighting.
• Chaste Heroine: Mostly expresses confusion about why anyone would be interested in marriage and is completely oblivious to Kiryl's feelings for her.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Her fixation with fighting and propensity for kicking down walls make her come across as a little bit loopy.
• Comic Trio: The clueless leader to Kiryl's hapless follower and Borya's ignored complainer.
• Critical Hit Class: She has the unique attribute of having her critical hit rate scale directly off of her level (to be exact, her chance of scoring one is her current level divided by 256). While this causes her to almost never land critical hits at low levels, by mid-game she'll be throwing them off with much more frequency than anyone else in the party. This makes her the ideal choice for Metal Slime hunting.
• Cute Bruiser: She's both petite and powerful.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: She's the only party member who doesn't show any wariness about dealing with Psaro, and instead angrily calls him a Dirty Coward for supposedly ducking out on their fight in the Endor Tournament whenever he's brought up around her.
• The Dreaded: The PlayStation version reveals that three of the five opponents she fights in the Endor Tournament develop traumatic fears of her after she beats them.
• Even the Girls Want Her: After her victory in the Endor Tournament, Princess Veronica mutters that she wouldn't mind being put into an Arranged Marriage with her.
• Fiery Redhead: She's outspoken and gung-ho, and has bright red hair.
• Flanderization: The remake's introduction of party chat makes her an out and out Blood Knight with a borderline obsession with kicking down walls, two traits that, while present in the original version of the game, are not otherwise suggested to be the defining aspects of her character.
• Flexing Those Non-Biceps: The artwork drawn of her for the DS version of the remake depicts her as doing this, conveying her status as a Cute Bruiser.
• Foil: To Ragnar. Both are melee-oriented fighters affiliated with large kingdoms, but while Ragnar is a stern middle-aged soldier of humble birth and great loyalty to his king, Alena is a young Rebellious Princess who would much rather shirk her duties to live out her dreams. The arcs of their respective chapters also move in parallel but opposite directions, with Ragnar's beginning with him investigating the disappearance of citizens within his kingdom and ending with him leaving it to explore the world in search of the Hero, and Alena's beginning with her leaving her kingdom to take part in a fighting tournament and ending with her returning to it to investigate the disappearance of its citizens. This difference is further highlighted by their respective roles in battle, with Alena specializing in taking out enemies quickly with her high speed and critical hit rate and Ragnar specializing in surviving drawn out battles through his high health and defense.
• Genki Girl: She's perky to an almost absurd degree.
• Glass Cannon: Her HP is only middling, with an equipment selection that often leaves her more vulnerable than your medics, but her strength and speed growths are through the roof, to the point where she'll hit the Cap for both well before reaching level 99. In addition, she has a unique attribute among the party that causes her critical hit rate to scale directly off of her current level, allowing her to score critical hits over a third of the times she attacks when at the maximum level.
• Heroic Mime: Averted. Possibly for the sake of maintaining the comedic potential of the trio, Alena speaks alongside Borya and Kiryl in party chat during her spotlight chapter.
• Hidden Depths: Admits while watching the dancers in Laissez Faire that she'd like to perform on stage in front of a crowd herself someday, but lacks any talent in the performing arts that would warrant her doing so.
• Improbable Weapon User: The Falcon Knife Earrings, which give the wielder the ability to attack twice per turn. It can be very useful for hunting metal slimes since Alena already has a high critical hit rate on her own.
• Inevitable Tournament: She participates in the tournament in Endor at the end of her chapter.
• Irony: Despite her reputation for being a tomboy, Alena's best equipment consists of a Pimped-Out Dress with jewelry to match—Alena's capable of Kicking Ass in All Her Finery with the Shimmering Dress, Falcon Knife Earrings, and the Golden Tiara all at once. Indeed, a Japanese player guide for the Nintendo Entertainment System version of the game features character art of her with this exact ensemble, and she's seen wearing it again in Dragon Quest Rivals.
• Magikarp Power: When the player first takes control of her, her stats are rather unimpressive compared to Ragnar's and she must rely heavily on the contributions of Kiryl and Borya to get by. The unique scaling of her critical hit rate also means that she's even less likely to score critical hits than the rest of the party when at low levels. Despite this, her sky high strength and speed growths ensure that she will quickly overtake everyone else in the party in those respective stats, while the scaling of her critical hit rate will grow progressively more in her favor as she gains more levels until she is practically guaranteed one every other attack, turning her into a bonafide Lightning Bruiser by the end of the game.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Unlike her allies, Borya and Kiryl, she has no magical abilities of her own.
• Meaningful Name: The letters "L" and "R" are interchangeable when spoken in Japanese, causing her name to be a homophone with the word "Arena", which ties in to her love of fighting and quest to take part in the Endor Fighting Tournament.
• Missing Mom: Her mother died during childbirth.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Alena is quite selfish and a bit too fight happy, but always puts people in need above herself. It also isn't hard to sympathize with her situation as someone being forced into a role they don't want to play.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: She's very petite, but has an even better strength growth rate than Ragnar. She holds the distinction of hitting the strength cap of 255 much sooner than anyone else hits the cap in any other stat. The player is first introduced to her after she has kicked down one of the walls of her room (which, might we add, is in a stone castle).
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: She's responsible for the bad guys acquiring the Armlet of Transmutation, a key item needed to complete the secret of evolution, due to giving it up as part of a Sadistic Choice to spare the life of her impersonator.
• Nice Mean And In Between: The in-between to Kiryl's nice and Borya's mean. She's selfish and stubborn, but also compassionate and courageous. When given the choice between handing over the Armlet of Transmutation or sacrificing the life of a girl who had been impersonating her for personal gain, she doesn't hesitate to give up the armlet to save the girl.
• Oblivious to Love: Kiryl's hopelessly in love with her, yet she doesn't seem to notice.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: She's short and slight but also one of the party's main damage dealers.
• Plucky Girl: Alena never lets anything get her down or stop her. Even though her kingdom has been destroyed and her father is missing, she is completely confident that she can find the culprit and punch it to death.
• Princess Protagonist: Her title is the Russian equivalent of a princess and she's one of the primary party members.
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: Well, more with tunic, but it fits.
• Rebellious Princess: Her father refuses to let her out of the castle. Her response is to knock down part of her bedroom's wall and leave the castle anyway, and when the wall is boarded up in Chapter 2 she knocks that down and ends up going on an adventure.
• Recurring Element: As a Bare-Fisted Monk with excellent strength and agility growths but limited equipment options, she resembles the Martial Artist class from Dragon Quest III.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: In addition to being royalty, she's the main character of Chapter 2.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: The energetic girl to Kiryl's savvy guy.
• Spirited Competitor: Enters the Endor Tournament for the thrill of the fight above all else and, at least in the PlayStation version of the game, is eager to have rematches with each of her former competitors when she reunites with them after her victory.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Said to be the spitting image of her deceased mother.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: The strong girl to Kiryl's smart guy.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Alena, stands in for the Martial Artist vocation from Dragon Quest III, with a similar stat layout and equipment selection.
• Tomboy: Repeatedly called this, perhaps because it flows well with Tsarevna.
• Town Girls: The butch to Maya's femme and Meena's neither. She's a Rebellious Princess with a love for fighting and no interest in things like makeup and marriage who functions as a Magically Inept Fighter in battle.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Has far and away the fastest natural strength growth of the party, but her equipment options are limited as far as weapons go. As such, the Hero and Ragnar will likely have a higher attack stat than her most of the time despite her strength growth eclipsing theirs simply because they have more consistent access to strong weaponry. She makes up the difference with her higher tendency to score critical hits.
• Warrior Prince: Alena is a princess who happens to be a formidable fighter.
• "Well Done, Daughter" Girl: She states in party chat that she wishes her father respected her fighting ability and would praise her a little. She gets her moment after curing her father of a curse.
• Wolverine Claws: Outside of the earliest stretches of her chapter, almost every weapon Alena can equip are sets of claws.

Borya

Borya (Brey)

Voiced by: Joji Yanami (Drama CD), Yuichi Nagashima (Dragon Quest Rivals and Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince), Paul Herzburg (''Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince") [EN]

The long-suffering Court Magician of Zamoksva. Originally, he was supposed to serve as Alena's tutor, only to find she was completely hopeless with magic. This may be just as well, however; they have enough trouble keeping her from getting into too much trouble as it is...!

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• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: After spending all of Alena's chapter complaining about her tomboyishness and trying to convince her to return to her castle, he offers her sincere encouragement before she participates in the Endor Tournament and is clearly proud of her after she wins.
• Characterization Marches On: His character description in the NES version's guidebook calls him "a gentle old man", a sharp contrast from the Grumpy Old Man the remakes portray him as.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Alongside Kiryl, he functions as this to Alena. Unlike Kiryl, he can almost be as much of a handful to deal with as Alena is at times.
• Comic Trio: Serves as the ignored complainer to Alena's clueless leader and Kiryl's hapless follower.
• Cool Old Guy: He's the oldest member of the party and, despite his complaints, has no trouble keeping up with his younger companions.
• Court Mage: His official position within Zamoksva.
• Foil: To Maya. While Borya is an old and obstinate man who serves as the magician of his kingdom's royal court, Maya is a young and free-spirited woman who travels around the world as a dancer. This also applies to their respective functions in battle, as while both are offensive mages, Borya specializes in ice magic and Status Buff and debuff spells whereas Maya specializes in dealing out high damage to enemies using fire magic.
• Fragile Speedster: While his other physical stats are atrocious, his agility growth is surprisingly high, which results in him being among the fastest members of the party late game.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Compared to the rest of the party, he is Alena's servant first and foremost and his top priority is to ensure her safety. As such, the spells he learns are more geared toward supporting other members of the party through Status Buffs than they are toward dishing out damage.
  • As an elderly man, it should go without saying that he requires more experience points to level up than than everyone else for most of the game and that his physical stats remain the worst from beginning to end.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Considering he holds the esteemed position of Zomksva's Court Mage, it's a bit troubling that he begins the game only knowing how to cast Crack. Extracanonical adaptations of the game actually make an effort to explain this, with the novel having him briefly experience a Heroic BSoD after realizing how much of his potential he had wasted across his life as he starts learning new spells and the Drama CD more simply explaining that old age and the relative peacefulness of Zamoksva have caused him to forget his repertoire over time, with the moves he acquires while leveling up being him remembering them.
• Grumpy Old Man: Party chat shows him to be an avid complainer who takes issue with almost everything, from how other people carry themselves, to how other nations function compared to Zamoksva, to how disrespectful it is for the rest of the party to make an old man like him have to work hard rather than rest in the wagon.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Borya's purpose in Chapter 2 is to provide crowd-control, keeping enemies at bay with group-hitting spells like Snooze and Crackle.
• Hypocritical Humor: Despite his constant complaints about Alena's character, he exhibits much of the same stubborn pridefulness as she does in most conversations.
• An Ice Person: He exclusively learns offensive spells of the ice element, in contrast to Maya.
• Insufferable Genius: He's quick to brag about his wisdom when spoken to in party chat, as is he to boast about how superior his country is to others.
• I Was Quite the Looker: Claims to have been a ladykiller in his youth, though we only have his word to go off of.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Complains about almost everything and everyone, but is shown to have a caring heart deep down. This is most pronounced if he's taken to the final battle, where he asks the Hero if they are afraid and kindly reassures them to have faith in the power of their allies if they admit that they are.
• Lesser Star: While both he and Kiryl are considered members of the Chosen, neither of them get much individual focus of their own beyond being Alena's sidekicks. The Zenith Dragon even lumps the two of them together when congratulating the party during the ending and simply commends them for their hard work protecting Alena. The presence of party chat in the remakes allows both to receive substantial enough characterization to keep them from being outright Satellite Characters, however.
• Magic Staff: His character art shows him carrying a jeweled wizard's staff as a walking stick and the majority of Borya's weapon choices are various wands and staffs.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Borya is roughly a head shorter than Alena and appears to be the shortest of all the main party.
• Nice Mean And In Between: The mean to Kiryl's nice and Alena's in-between. While not an outright Jerkass, he's a Grumpy Old Man who almost never has anything good to say about anything or anyone.
• Not So Above It All: For all his stuffiness, even he finds Tom Foolery to be hilarious.
• Old Retainer: He's Alena's elderly retainer and a chronic complainer and worrywart who wishes she'd act more "traditional".
• Old Windbag: Many of his party chat lines, particularly if Alena is also present in the party, consist of long-winded lectures about conduct that the rest of the party quickly turns their ears off to.
• Out of Focus: While Alena and Kiryl have appeared together in numerous spin-offs, poor Borya is left out of every game that doesn't make a point of including every party member from throughout the series.
• Perpetual Frowner: Almost every piece of artwork of him has him sporting an agitated frown.
• Personality Powers: He's an ascetic and restrictive old man, which is rather fitting for an ice mage.
• Punny Name: While a legitimate Slavic name, "Borya" also sounds very close to the phrase "Bore ya", which is a fitting reaction to an Old Windbag like him.
• Racist Grandpa: A sizable chunk of his complaints about other countries consist of comparing them unfavorably to his homeland of Zamoksva. To his credit, he also shows genuine respect for the king of Parthenia's willingness to live meagerly for the sake of improving the lives of his people, suggesting that these comments really are meant to be taken as constructive criticism.
• Recurring Element: As an elderly man dressed in green that functions as a Squishy Wizard in battle, he strongly resembles the male Mage character from Dragon Quest III. In fact, his stat growths are nearly identical to those of Dragon Quest III's Mages.
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: He's the oldest member of the party and also distinctly the most outwardly mean.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The manly man to Kiryl's sensitive guy. Borya is a cantankerous know-it-all who often bickers with Alena whereas Kiryl is a soft-spoken Nice Guy who is an Extreme Doormat to Alena's antics.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: For all of his attitude, a few party chat lines imply that he's actually quite lonely and regretful of the fact that he never settled down or had children of his own. With this in mind, his role as Team Dad to Alena and Kiryl takes on new meaning.
• Squishy Wizard: His HP and defense remain the worst in the party throughout the game, and he has limited armor options to remedy this. On top of that, he gains levels slowly and will likely drag behind the other characters by a level or two even if he's used consistently. He compensates by learning numerous useful offensive and supportive spells.
• Status Buff: Borya has access to many useful utility spells, including Oomph and Acceleratle to help the party out.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Spends most of Alena's chapter fruitlessly attempting to get her to return to her docile life as a princess, and often makes envious comments about other more "proper" princesses when the party interacts with them.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Borya inherits one half of the repertoire of the Mage vocation from Dragon Quest III, specializing in their ice spells. In fact, with his white beard and green clothes, he bears a notable resemblance to the male Mage vocation in particular.
• Team Dad: More towards Alena than Kiryl, often wishing he could do more to get Alena to act like a lady.
• Tsundere: A platonic example toward Alena. He's very vocal about how infuriated her behavior makes him and won't ever shut up about how he wishes she'd act more like a Princess Classic, but he sticks by her side through thick and thin and shows pride in her when she finally takes part in the Endor Tournament.
• Undying Loyalty: Towards Alena. No matter how much he complains about her behavior, he will follow her anywhere.
• Weak, but Skilled: His physical stats are terrible and the offensive spells her learns aren't nearly as strong as Maya's, but he compensates by learning a variety of very useful supportive and debuffing magic, making him more versatile than her.
• Wizard Classic: He's an elderly wizard with a long white beard and flowing robes who carries a staff and serves as the Court Mage of a prominent kingdom. His strict adherence to the standard wizard archetype further highlights just how far removed Maya is from it.

Kiryl

Kiryl (Cristo)

Voiced by: Daiki Nakamura (Drama CD), Hikaru Midorikawa (Dragon Quest Heroes series [JP], Dragon Quest Rivals and Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince), Alec Newman (Dragon Quest Heroes series and Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince [EN])

A childhood friend of Alena's who's currently training to become a priest. Despite her incredible strength, he can't help worrying himself sick over her safety, and just has to come along...

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• Amazon Chaser: He's deeply infatuated with Alena, and calls watching her fight in the Endor Tournament one of the most beautiful things he's seen in his life. On the flip side, he's also worried that Alena's superior strength gives him even less of a chance at ever becoming an item with her.
• Artificial Stupidity: Probably the game's most infamous example of this trope: a healer who loves nothing more than to spam his insta-death spells rather than, say, heal your Mighty Glacier who's standing at 3 HP. Including against bosses! All future games featuring him, including the remakes of Dragon Quest IV, have acknowledged this in some way. In fact, the remakes push this trope even further by having him instinctively prioritize healing Alena over all other characters in battle regardless of how much damage she has taken in addition to not fixing his overuse of Whack. Thankfully, the remakes also allow him to be controlled manually, circumventing this problem entirely.
• Ascended Meme: Kiryl's crippling Artificial Stupidity has become an in-joke even among the development team. In response, the remakes' addition of party chat has him occasionally allude to his love of casting Whack while his appearances in spin-off games often feature him unsuccessfully trying to use Whack during the animations for his special attacks.
• BFS: Carries one on his back. Overlaps with Gameplay and Story Segregation, as while he is capable of wielding some swords, including the Liquid Metal Sword, the majority of his weapons are other things such as staffs.
• Bowdlerise: Starting with the DS version, the crosses on Kiryl's outfit were changed to a more generic shield in order to avoid any overt religious references.
• Butt-Monkey: Seems to be the designated one among the game's main cast: contracting an illness he needs to be healed of before joining the party, receiving no respect from either of his companions, regularly having his fear of heights exploited, and of course, remaining Alena's Hopeless Suitor from beginning to end. The developers also consciously chose to make his infamous Artificial Stupidity when under AI control even worse in the remakes because series director Yuji Horii believed it to be an indispensable facet of his character.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Kiryl seems completely incapable of telling Alena how he feels about her, something that has carried over to spin-off games where the two appear together.
• Characterization Marches On: His profile in the NES version's guidebook describes him as a cool guy who is popular with women, a far cry from the high-strung Butt-Monkey he is portrayed as in the remake and spin-offs.
• Chick Magnet: His profile in the original release of the game's guidebook describes him as one. While this seems to have mostly been phased out as his character was more firmly established, Maya does remark how excited she is to be traveling with a young man when he's recruited in the remakes.
• Childhood Friend Romance: It's painfully clear he has a huge crush on Alena... and just as painfully obvious that she doesn't have a clue.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Alongside Borya, he serves as this to Alena. While he's probably the most sensible of the three, his complete submissiveness to Alena doesn't make him a particularly good fit for the role.
• Combat Medic: He's pretty good with weapons in addition to being able to heal. Both his strength and weapon options start to drop off around mid-game, however, causing him to lean closer toward the "Medic" half of the trope.
• Comic Trio: Serves as the hapless follower to Alena's clueless leader and Borya's ignored complainer.
• The Comically Serious: He's quite straight-laced, which makes seeing him get flustered by Alena's antics and various other inconveniences across his travels all the funnier.
• Covert Pervert: A few lines of party chat imply that he has a rather dirty mind, such as when he gets caught fantasizing about Alena sunbathing. In typical form for this trope, these moments are even accompanied by Nosebleeds in the Japanese version.
• Cowardly Lion: Cautious to begin with and with a crippling fear of heights, Kiryl will nonetheless brave anything for the sake of protecting Alena.
• Crutch Character: On top of his healing being vital to the party's survival, his balanced stats and wider weapon and armor options make him a major asset during Alena's chapter, to the point where he may contribute as much or even more to the party's damage output than her if properly equipped. Where Alena's strength stat surges as she gains levels, however, Kiryl's plateaus relatively early on. As he is also incapable of equipping heavier weapons and armor, his potential as a frontline Combat Medic further declines around mid-game until he is more or less relegated to strictly serving as a supportive healer. Thankfully, his spell repertoire accommodates this new role nicely and he remains a useful party member for the rest of the game, albeit in a more specialized position than he had previously.
• Distressed Dude: When you meet Alena's party in chapter five, he's desperately ill and Alena is out searching for a cure.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Helps Alena disobey her father's orders on an adventure that regularly puts his life at risk solely for the sake of being close to her.
• Flanderization: The original version of the game does not suggest that he has feelings for Alena outside of him stating that he would be devastated if anything were to happen to her when he joins her on her quest, which is ambiguous enough that it can be taken to mean a number of things. All of his future appearances make his infatuation with Alena a defining aspect of his character. His bad habit of casting Thwack over healing when under computer control also becomes an Ascended Meme that is actually mentioned in-universe.
• Foil: To Meena. While both serve as the party's healers, Kiryl is a priest who works in the castle of a large kingdom and Meena is a traveling fortune teller. The two occupy similar roles within their respective parties as more sensible counterparts to their free-spirited companions, but Kiryl is largely submissive to Alena whereas Meena generally serves as the leader between herself and Maya. This is further reflected in combat, where Kiryl primarily focuses on supporting the rest of the party through healing and Status Buff spells and Meena leans more toward being a versatile Combat Medic with more formidable offensive abilities and spells.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Compared to the rest of the party, he is Alena's servant first and foremost and his top priority is to ensure her safety. As such, the spells he learns are more geared toward supporting other members of the party through Status Buffs than they are toward dishing out damage.
  • The remakes practically turn this trope into an art form when it comes to Kiryl's AI. In addition to adding multiple lines of dialogue that retroactively turn his love for spamming Whack into a character trait, he will always prioritize healing Alena above doing anything else if she is in battle with him. As the remakes also firmly establish him as being in love with her, this quirk is pretty self-explanatory.
• Good Shepherd: He's a priest-in-training and a goodhearted and pious guy all around.
• Heavy Equipment Class: In Chapter 2, Kiryl wears the heaviest armor and biggest weapons—on the other hand, he can't wear the heftiest things like the hero, Ragnar, or Torneko can.
• Hidden Depths: He's a pretty good artist, at least when it comes to drawing sketches of Alena.
• Hopeless Suitor: He's just as unlikely to profess his true feelings to Alena as she is to notice them.
• Jack of All Stats: His starting stats are relatively balanced across the board which, in conjunction with his varied equipment pool, allow him to cover a lot of bases in battle early on. He becomes progressively less of one as the game continues, gaining paltry boosts to his physical stats as he levels up and having fewer and fewer weapon and armor options available to him over time, essentially forcing him off of the frontlines and into the back row after a certain point.
• Lesser Star: While both he and Borya are considered members of the Chosen, neither of them get much individual focus of their own beyond being Alena's sidekicks. The Zenith Dragon even lumps the two of them together when congratulating the party during the ending and simply commends them for their hard work protecting Alena. The presence of party chat in the remakes allows both to receive substantial enough characterization to keep them from being outright Satellite Characters, however.
• My Greatest Failure: Remains apologetic about getting sick and requiring the party to make a detour for his sake from the time of his recruitment until the very end of the game.
• Nice Guy: All of Kiryl's dialogue is very polite and respectful, and he shows compassion whenever the party encounters people in need.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: The nice to Borya's mean and Alena's in-between. He's unfailingly polite to everyone he meets and is quick to take the blame when things go awry, even when he isn't the one at fault.
• No-Respect Guy: The occasions when Alena and Borya bring him up in party chat consist almost exclusively of them belittling him for being a weakling or a coward, with Borya consistently referring to him as "hapless comrade Kiryl".
• Only Sane Man: He's the most reasonable of the trio from Zamoksva, though his crush on Alena and Butt-Monkey status often foil whatever clarity this position would otherwise give him.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: The savvy guy to Alena's energetic girl.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The sensitive guy to Borya's manly man. Borya is a cantankerous know-it-all who often bickers with Alena whereas Kiryl is a soft-spoken Nice Guy who is an Extreme Doormat to Alena's antics.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: The smart guy to Alena's strong girl.
• Subordinate Excuse: He's in love with Alena but believes her status as Tsarevna and his pledge as a man of the cloth make them incapable of becoming a couple. Despite this, he has told himself that he is content simply being by her side and thus chooses to accompany her on her adventure for a chance to be close to her.
• Super Gullible: He's too straight-laced and kindhearted for his own good at times, and is the only member of the party to completely fall for the rip-off tour guide at Bath's scheme to overcharge you at the inn due to his desire to repay him for his service.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Kiryl receives half of the Priest vocation's repertoire from Dragon Quest III, inheriting their risky One-Hit Kill spells and more party-healing options.
• Tender Tears: Weeps in grief when the party arrives in the monster-occupied Zamoksva.
• Token Religious Teammate: While all of the party are implicitly followers of the Church of the Goddess (as that is where they all go to pray), as an ordained priest, Kiryl takes religion by far the most seriously and will often give small prayers if spoken to when moving through areas connected to the divine.
• Undying Loyalty: Towards Alena, and more than happy to remind her of that.
• Useless Useful Spell: Learns the Whack family of spells, which have a chance of causing instant death to enemies. While they have some situational use, he is infamous for repeatedly using them against enemies programmed to be immune to them when controlled by the computer.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Is deathly afraid of heights. Too bad for him the party has to climb several enormous towers.

Torneko

Torneko Taloon (Taloon)

Voiced by: Tesshō Genda (Drama CD), Chafurin (Dragon Quest Heroes series [JP], Dragon Quest Rivals, and Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince [JP]), Francis Magee (Dragon Quest Heroes series, "Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince" [EN])

A cheerful merchant who dreams of owning his own store, rather than working under his ill-tempered boss. After all, how can he support his loving wife and son on minimum wage? Thus, he sets out in search of the perfect place to settle down, hoping to find fortune and a little fame along the way.

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• Acrofatic: He's very hefty but has a respectable agility growth and is stealthy enough to be able to steal items from enemies during battle without them noticing.
• Action Dad: The only member of the party with a child.
• Action Survivor: While the rest of the party are all suggested to have a certain degree of training if not experience with combat prior to their focus chapters, Torneko is a portly middle-aged merchant with no business on the battlefield. This is highlighted in both his chapter, which greatly de-emphasizes combat compared to the rest of the game and encourages the player to hire bodyguards to keep him safe during the rare instances where he's required to fight, and his random mid-battle goof-off actions in the fifth chapter, which cause him to occasionally screw up doing what he's supposed to.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Along with trimming down his goof-off actions to make the beneficial ones greatly outnumber the useless ones, the remakes give Torneko a host of additional very convenient out of battle abilities, such as Padfoot, which reduces the rate of Random Encounters, and Whistle, which attracts monsters and makes Level Grinding more efficient.
  • By virtue of being made into the central Player Character, the Mystery Dungeon games make him much more versatile and consistently competent as a fighter.
• Anti-Frustration Feature: He is mercifully exempt from performing his random goof-off actions during his focus chapter, where he is the main and potentially only character at the player's disposal.
• Arab Oil Sheikh: More subtly done than most examples, but his kippah and hijab bring to mind middle-eastern merchants when paired with the rest of his character.
• The Artifact: His ability to appraise items is mostly made redundant in the remakes, which tell you about as much information about items in their menu descriptions as he would by appraising them. Since he has unique and in-character dialogue for appraising every item in the game, though, there's still some incentive to do it for no reason other than flavor text.
• Badass Normal: Like Ragnar and Alena, he can't use magic at all. Unlike them, he lacks a particularly impressive strength stat either; he's truly a Master of None when it comes to fighting.
• Beware the Nice Ones: While Torneko is a lovable Nice Guy most of the time, many of his party chat lines while visiting towns have him scheming up ways to exploit the surrounding environment to turn a profit. He is a merchant, after all, and he engages in very similar behavior while under the player's control during his chapter.
• Breakout Character: While Torneko was chosen to star in the Mystery Dungeon series of Roguelike spin-off games because the developers thought his Intrepid Merchant Action Survivor characterization made him a good fit for its gameplay rather than anything having to do with his popularity, his protagonist role in those games gave his profile a big boost, and he has since become one of the most recurrent characters in all of Dragon Quest.
• Breather Episode: His chapter functions as this relative to the others. The primary goal is simply moving between towns trying to find new ways of making money and then using that money to open new and more profitable venues to explore. There are no bosses and the one dungeon available is totally optional; it's possibe to beat the entire thing without taking part in a single fight. On top of that, enemies have a much higher item drop rate than they do in any other chapter, making farming equipment much easier than it otherwise is. Tonally it's also generally lighthearted and ends with a clear Happy Ending, whereas it comes sandwiched between the two chapters that end tragically.
• Charged Attack: One of his goof-off actions involves him mustering his strength, which increases the power of his next attack.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He seems to be a little bit out there, as he'll occasionally do things like tell jokes or sing lullabies to the enemy, do a weird dance, or simply space out and do nothing in the middle of battle.
• Composite Character: Blends together the designs and class attributes of the male Merchant and Gadabout characters from Dragon Quest III into a single character. The remakes give him several of the skills learned by the Thief class added in Dragon Quest III's remake to go along with his stealing ability.
• Cool Old Guy: He's a jolly, generous, and pluck-filled guy who successfully achieves his life's dream of opening his own shop through a combination of savvy and zeal. He's also gutsy enough to willingly tag along with the party on its world-saving adventure despite having no need to.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's a chubby chap in a goofy outfit with lackluster stats compared to your other frontline fighters and has a chance of acting completely randomly during battle. However, several of these random actions actually prove to be highly useful and allow him to pull off things no one else in the party is capable of, such as stealing items and preventing enemies from doing anything. He also singlehandedly stops a war from happening during his focus chapter entirely through his wits, and expertly engineers the situation so that he makes a ton of money and fulfills his dream of opening his own weapon shop in the process.
• Cultural Chop Suey: While his outfit is distinctly middle-eastern inspired, the English localization gives him an Irish accent from the remakes onward.
• A Day in the Limelight: The first three entries in the Mystery Dungeon spin-off games have Torneko as the main protagonist and player character.
• Difficult, but Awesome: He can't use any magic and he's a much worse physical fighter than either Ragnar or Alena are. Luck also factors heavily into his playstyle, as he has a 1/4 chance of doing one of several special actions in battle instead of what he's ordered to. While these qualities have the effect of making him the least reliable party member by far, his special actions allow him to pull off some very useful feats that can benefit the player in ways no one else can. Most notably, his ability to steal from enemies allows him to obtain Rare Drops with shocking frequency, reducing the 1/256 chance of obtaining the Liquid Metal Helm from a Metal King Slime to a much more managable 1/40.
• Fairy Battle: During his chapter, he can sometimes run into other traveling merchants while exploring the world map who he can do business with.
• Famed In-Story: While every member of the party outside of the Hero has acquired some amount of reputation for themselves by the start of the fifth chapter, Torneko stands out for having multiple people across several cities sing his praises as the greatest merchant of his time. Of course, since his chapter ends with him financing a cross-continental transit system, it makes sense that he'd be more widely known than the rest of the party.
• Fat Comic Relief: It's no coincidence that the tubbiest party member is also the game's primary comic relief.
• Foil: To the Hero. While they're both from small and unassuming villages tucked away from the rest of the world, the Hero is an orphaned youth raised from birth for the purpose of saving the world as The Chosen One whereas Torneko is a middle-aged man with a wife and son who works as an ordinary merchant. Their reasons for setting out into the wider world are also starkly different, with the Hero awakening to their destiny after having their hometown destroyed by monsters and Torneko simply following his dream of opening a weapon shop of his own. This is further reflected in their respective roles in battle, with the Hero being a Master of All with the strength and skills needed to reliably serve as substitute for any of the party's fighters, mages or healers in a pinch and Torneko being a Lethal Joke Character capable of randomly performing actions that no one else in the party can. The original version of the game makes this even more apparent, as while the Hero is the only member of the party the player is able to control directly, Torneko's goofing off makes him the member of the party the player has the least amount of control over.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: The remakes give him several pieces of party chat dialogue that subtly acknowledge his status as a difficult-to-use Lethal Joke Character by suggesting that, even in-universe, he spends most of his time traveling with the party waiting in the carriage (as in, not being used). Being the Lovable Coward that he is, though, he's perfectly happy with this arrangement and will even complain if he's brought along to a major dungeon or boss encounter.
• Guile Hero: His focus chapter involves taking advantage of two feuding kingdom being on the brink of war by selling armor at a premium to the army of one of said kingdoms, using the money earned from selling the armor to buy property for himself in the other kingdom, and then preemptively ending the war by uniting the prince and princess of the two kingdoms to gain the legal documentation needed to convert his new property into a weapon shop.
• Happily Married: His wife Tessie seems to be perfectly happy with him (and apparently is attracted to his drive to follow his dreams instead of his looks), and his comments about her indicate that he's just as satisfied.
• Helpless with Laughter: One of his random actions is to tell a joke that might cause enemies to fall over laughing and miss their next turn. However, it has no effect if the enemy "doesn't get the joke."
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the final chapter of the original NES release, he would randomly intercept magical attacks against your entire party by taking the entire blast himself.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Mentions that he wanted to become a skipper when he was a child before awakening to his talents as a merchant. Perhaps because of this, he has a strong association with sea-faring vehicles and is responsible for commissioning the ship that the party uses to sail around the world.
  • He's apparently a pretty good singer, as he can put most enemies to sleep by singing a lullaby to them.
• Improbable Weapon User: His signature weapon is Astraea's Abacus, which is an abacus mounted on the end of a polearm.
• Intrepid Merchant: The central conceit of his character; rather than be a brave adventurer or a hero fulfilling some greater destiny, Torneko is simply a merchant in search of rare items to sell off at his shop. The focus of his chapter is figuring out the most effective means to make a ton of money as quickly as possible, while his eventual reason for joining the party is to find the Zenithian Sword in the hope of making a mint off of it.
• Lethal Klutz: One of his goof-off actions consists of tripping over while attempting an attack. As he falls flat on his face, his weapon accidentally slams into the enemy at just the right angle to be a guaranteed critical hit.
• Lethal Joke Character: Once you have the full party, he becomes more useful for what he can do outside your party (appraisal and treasure finding) rather than in combat. In Chapter 5, he begins doing random goofing-off much like Dragon Quest III's Gadabout class. However, some of Torneko's "goofing-off" actions include stealing items from the enemy (being the only way in the game to do so), performing a leg sweep to nullify some of the enemy's turns, calling in an army of fellow merchants he's befriended in his travels (who proceed to beat up on the enemy for a few rounds), covering an enemy's mouth to prevent spellcasting, and tripping over himself to score a guaranteed critical hit. The only thing keeping this power in check is that, again, these goof-offs are completely random.
• Lovable Coward: Speaking to him in party chat while in dungeons often results in him asking if he can go back to the carriage instead of venturing deeper.
• Magically Inept Fighter: He's completely incapable of using magic, with most of his special abilities having other purposes, such as calling or repelling monsters.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: One of his random actions is to "bellow loudly," which has a chance of causing enemies to become "paralyzed with fear" and miss their next turn.
• Master of None: When looked at purely through his stats and equipment options, he's painfully mediocre in every way. While he's good enough to remain a viable character throughout the game, his strength is inferior to Ragnar and Alena's and he can't use magic or equip much in the way of heavy weapons or armor. He makes up for it with his unique goof-off actions allowing him to do things no one else in the party can, such as stealing from and silencing enemies, as well as the fairly fast rate at which he gains levels. The remakes also alter his stats slightly to make him a bit tougher, with his HP in particular eventually growing to rival Ragnar's at higher levels.
• Mana Drain: He has a chance of performing a weird dance in combat that can cause an enemy to lose between 15 to 20 MP.
• Mr. Vice Guy: He's surprisingly greedy and pragmatic, but he's also otherwise an all-around Nice Guy trying to buy his way into a better life for his family.
• Nice Guy: He's friendly, generous, and a devoted family man.
• Oireland: He, his family, and the rest of Lakanaba's residents are given this kind of accent in the English localizations of the remakes onward.
• Only in It for the Money: While he's an affable guy, he makes it no secret that his primary objective is to find rare weapons to sell off at his shop. If spoken to after acquiring the Zenithian Sword, his stated reason for traveling with the Hero, he even tries to tap out of the adventure entirely only to backtrack and use a "Just Joking" Justification when it earns him a dirty look.
• Parent-Child Team: Develops one with his son Tipper in the third Mystery Dungeon game.
• Perspective Flip: His chapter allows you to experience what its like being the person at the counter of a weapon shop in an RPG rather than the adventurer buying things from them. At the time of the game's release, this was rather novel.
• Plucky Comic Relief: He's a goofy-looking fat guy who screws around in battle, along with being a Lovable Coward with plenty of funny party chat dialogue.
• Quirky Bard: He can't use magic, is pretty middling as a fighter, and randomly screws around in battle, but many of these random actions have positive effects that otherwise can't be performed by anyone else in the party.
• Recurring Element: His vaguely middle-eastern aesthetic follows the precedent set by Dragon Quest III's Merchant class while his random goof-off actions, flabby physique, and vertically-striped outfit mimic those of the male Gadabout class from the same game.
• Self-Made Man: Goes from a simple weapon shop clerk to one of the most famous merchants in the world over the course of his chapter, entirely through his own drive and ingenuity. And rather than rest on his laurels after becoming a successful merchant, he uses his wealth to finance the construction of a trans-continental tunnel system to expand trading opportunities across the world.
• Suddenly Voiced: In the remake, he's a Heroic Mime during his introductory chapter but becomes just as chatty as the rest of cast when he joins the Hero's party.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Torneko (a merchant, obviously) stands in for the Merchant vocation from Dragon Quest III, but his goofing off is a gift from the Gadabouts, and his random stealing is a trait of the Thief.
• Taking the Bullet: One of his random combat actions has him leap in front of a spell that would have hit the entire party, taking all the damage himself instead.
• The Team Benefactor: As one of the wealthiest merchants in the world, he provides the party with a ship he commissioned to sail around with as soon as he joins. And while it's impossible for him to carry over any of the money he acquires during his focus chapter into the fifth one (he's stated to have used it all to finance the ship), it is very possible for him to carry over hundreds upon hundreds of items purchased with that money, which can in turn be sold for a tidy profit in the fifth chapter and render money a nonissue for the remainder of the game.
• The Team Normal: Stands out among the party for having totally mundane origins and no particular strengths as a fighter; his mains asset is the savviness he built up living as a merchant.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: He's a rather frumpy fellow, but his wife Tessie is an absolute knockout. Both an NPC in his hometown and Ragnar wonder how he found such a good-looking wife.
• The Unchosen One: Downplayed. While he is by definition a chosen one for being among the Hero's destined party members, he is notably the only one among them who is not propelled into becoming one by outside circumstances. Both his reasons for leaving his hometown and his reasons for joining the party are entirely his own.
• Video Game Stealing: One of his random actions involves him stealing an enemy's treasure while it isn't looking, instantly giving the player whatever item that enemy is programmed to drop. This is notably the first ever instance of a stealing mechanic in a Dragon Quest game.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Party chat implies him to be this with Ragnar. On the occasions when one brings up the other, it tends to be to insult them. Despite this, Ragnar is quick to state that he'll protect Torneko through thick and thin when he hears that he's been pursued by monsters in the past and the two appear together frequently in artwork and spin-off games.
• Younger Than They Look: The Drama CD gives his age as being "around 35" when he could easily pass for someone well into his forties.

Meena

Meena (Minea (JP), Nara)

Voiced by: Hiroko Emori (Drama CD), Yōko Hikasa (Dragon Quest Heroes series [JP], Dragon Quest Rivals, and Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince [JP]), Mariam Haque (Dragon Quest Heroes series, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince [EN])

A composed, meticulous Fortune Teller who has been searching for Balzack, the man who betrayed and murdered her father Mahabala. After years of traveling under the radar, she believes it's time for them to make their move...

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• Adaptational Badass: Her HP growth is the worst of the party in the original game, but is bumped up to being the second-worst after Borya's in the remakes. While this doesn't sound like much, her final HP value at level 99 in the remakes is more than twice what it was in the original, making her much sturdier.
• Ambiguously Brown: She and her sister both have noticeably darker skin than the rest of the party to go with their broadly Romani/South Asian influenced designs.
• Anti-Hero: While she's a very heroic character overall, she's motivated primarily by revenge and admits to twisting her predictions when telling fortunes for the sake of making money, giving her a slightly more morally gray portrayal than the rest of the party.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: While she often behaves as though she can't stand Maya, she is shown to act adoringly towards her on the rare occasions when she gets serious.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: The brains to Maya's beauty and Alena's brawn. She's level-headed and goal-oriented whereas they're both flighty and short-sighted.
• Birds of a Feather: The remake has her express sympathy toward Borya and Kiryl for having to put up with Alena's antics after first meeting them, as she feels much of the same way about her relationship with her sister.
• Blow You Away: She learns the Woosh line of spells.
• Combat Medic: Although she falls behind Kiryl in terms of healing magic, her strength and defense growths are more consistent than his are and she is capable of using powerful wind magic, giving her more offensive potential overall. She also has a respectable enough equipment pool that she can function as a bonafide Magic Knight if given the right items.
• Cultural Chop Suey: She and her sister utilize aspects of both the Magical Romani and South Asian Mystical India tropes in their designs and abilities.
• Death Dealer: Her signature weapon is a deck of Silver Tarot Cards, which she can launch at enemies in addition to using to tell fortunes during battle.
• Disc-One Nuke: Her Silver Tarot Cards are acquired relatively early on in her focus chapter and can potentially provide the player with access to spells they shouldn't have until much later in the game, such as Oomph, Zap and Kasap, when used as an item during battle. The only catch is that it's totally randomized which of these outcomes will occur when the deck is used, and one of them causes Thwack to be cast on the entire party.
• Foil: To Kiryl. While both serve as the party's healers, Kiryl is a priest who works in the castle of a large kingdom and Meena is a traveling fortune teller. The two occupy similar roles within their respective parties as more sensible counterparts to their free-spirited companions, but Kiryl is largely submissive to Alena whereas Meena generally serves as the leader between herself and Maya. This is further reflected in combat, where Kiryl primarily focuses on supporting the rest of the party through healing and Status Buff spells and Meena leans more toward being a versatile Combat Medic with more formidable offensive abilities and spells.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The composed responsible sibling to Maya’s impulsive foolish one. Best demonstrated when the player first encounters them in chapter 5, where Meena is attempting to earn money for them by telling fortunes while Maya is blowing all of that money at the Endor casino.
• Fortune Teller: She reads people's fortunes and introduces herself by doing so before she joins in chapter 5. It even translates into gameplay if she's given the Silver Tarot Cards, as she is able to tell the party's fortune during battle to cause one of a number of outcomes to occur.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Despite being a healer, her primary motivation is to avenge her father's death by killing the man responsible for it. As such, she's more of a hybrid character geared toward dealing damage in addition to healing injuries than her counterpart Kiryl is.
  • As the responsible half of the Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling duo, she's a well-balanced Combat Medic capable of serving multiple roles in battle when needed whereas her sister can't stray far from her position as a Squishy Wizard. She's also the one of the two the player begins their chapter in control over, implying that she's the one doing the bulk of the decision-making between them.
  • She's a fortune teller by trade, and has the unique ability to tell tide-turning fortunes during battle if she has the Silver Tarot Cards in her possession.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: She's the smart, practical sister who often butts heads with the alluring and impulsive Maya.
• Heroic Mime: Averted. Possibly for the sake of conveying the dynamic between them, both of the sisters are fully capable of speaking during their focus chapter.
• Hot Gypsy Woman: While she dresses much more conservatively than her sister, she is also a strikingly attractive woman with a Romani influenced design.
• Improbable Weapon User: She's capable of equipping a unique weapon known as the Silver Tarot Cards, which is a deck of tarot cards that she can fling at enemies.
• Jack of All Stats: She's the most balanced member of the party outside of the Hero. While she's primarily a healer, she has respectable strength and defense growths, a decent equipment pool, and the ability to use offensive magic. To offset this, she's nowhere near as strong as a frontline fighter or spellcaster as the party's specialists are, can't learn the very convenient Multiheal spell that Kiryl does, and has the lowest total MP of the party's magic users.
• Magical Romani: Her design and abilities are inspired by Romani fortune tellers.
• Marriage of Convenience: Discussed. When the topic of marriage comes up around her she mentions that it's an attractive idea solely on the grounds that it would mean getting to be away from her sister.
• Mature Younger Sibling: Far more sensible than her older sister, and does most of the decision-making for both of them.
• Mr. Exposition: She informs the Hero of their mission to unite the Chosen during her recruitment in the final chapter.
• Mystical India: She and her sister are given Indian accents in the English localizations from the remake onward, and are both magic users with exotic, Romani-like designs. Meena in particular is heavily associated with mysticism due to her status as a fortune teller.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Downplayed, but party chat reveals her to be fascinated by monsters and fond of dank and dark locations such as caves and dungeons.
• Not So Above It All:
  • While she's generally mature and serious, she becomes positively giddy when the party gains the ability to transform into monsters using the Mod Rod.
  • Though she's shown to genuinely believe in the power of fortune and fate, speaking to her in party chat after talking with one of her customers reveals that she occasionally bends the truth in her predictions when doing so for money for the sake of generating more business.
• Not So Stoic: One moment in particular stands out for breaking her usual cool: when Oojam performs his heroic sacrifice, where she panics and forces Maya to step up and take charge. She also gets teary-eyed whenever Maya makes it clear the she's just as serious as she is about their mission of avenging their father.
• Only Sane Man: While she's not entirely without her quirks, she's generally much more reserved and serious than the rest of the party are.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Maya's red. While Maya is a flirtatious dancer who believes in luck, Meena is a quiet fortune teller who believes in fate.
• The Reliable One: Along with being much more focused on their mission to avenge their father than Maya is, party chat reveals that Maya usually leaves her in charge of negotiating work, food, and shelter for them during their travels while she plays around.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: She and her sister are polar opposites in nearly every way. While Meena is a healer, Maya is a mage. While Meena is a Combat Medic, Maya is a Squishy Wizard. While Meena is serious and task-oriented, Maya is playful and easily distracted. While Meena is a fortune teller who believes that all actions are predetermined by fate, Maya is a gambler who prefers to leave everything to luck. This is particularly emphasized in the remake's party chat system, where the two will often have the exact opposite reaction to whatever is currently happening.
• The Stoic: She stays very calm and collected most of the time, though her sister is good at getting a rise out of her. Notably, the majority of artwork featuring her depicts her with a serious frown.
• Strong Family Resemblance: While she and Maya aren't twins, they could very well pass for them.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Meena inherits the other half of the Priest vocation's repertoire from Dragon Quest III, specializing in their more aggressive wind magic and some Status Effects.
• Tarot Motifs: Each card in her Silver Tarot Cards has a different effect. This was actually rebalanced in the DS version to include many more positive effects. She can even give somewhat-accurate one-card readings if the Cards are used outside of battle!
• Town Girls: The neither to Alena's butch and Maya's femme. She's a reserved and sensible fortune teller who exhibits neither Alena's tomboyishness nor Maya's flirtatiousness and functions as a balanced Combat Medic in battle.
• Verbal Tic: From the English localization of the remake onwards, she and her sister tend to avoid using contractions and repeat adjectives for emphasis.
• Weak, but Skilled: She's a versatile Combat Medic who can competently serve as a healer, an offensive spellcaster, and a frontline fighter provided she's well-equipped, but her HP growth is the second worst in the party (the worst in the original version) and her MP growth is the lowest of the party's magic users by a fairly wide margin.
• You Killed My Father: Her primary motivation alongside Maya is to kill Balzack, the man who murdered their father.

Maya

Maya (Manya (JP), Mara)

Voiced by: Michie Tomizawa (Drama CD), Miyuki Sawashiro (Dragon Quest Heroes series [JP], Dragon Quest Rivals, and Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince), Anjli Mohindra (Dragon Quest Heroes series, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince [EN])

Meena's exuberant and far-flashier older sister, Maya has earned quite a reputation and a considerable fan-following as a belly dancer. However, she's also an incredibly talented spellcaster who's all about Stuff Blowing Up. Like Meena, she wants revenge on her father's murderer; she just tends to keep a brighter attitude about everything to offset her sister's serious nature.

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• Adaptational Badass: For whatever reason, the remakes make her already excellent stat growths even better, to the point where she has the highest overall stat total of the entire party when at her Level Cap. And yes, that's even including Psaro.
• Ambiguously Brown: She and her sister both have noticeably darker skin than the rest of the party to go with their broadly Romani/South Asian influenced designs.
• Anti-Hero: While she's a very heroic character overall, she's motivated primarily by revenge and prefers gambling over an honest day's work, giving her a slightly more morally gray portrayal than the rest of the party.
• Awesome, but Impractical: As noted in Magikarp Power below, her stat growths suddenly surge from around level 60 onward until she completely sheds her Squishy Wizard status upon hitting the Level Cap. The only problem is that she requires more experience points than anyone else in the party to level up and even the remake's bonus content can easily be beaten by a party with levels in the mid-40s, essentially making this aspect of her character more of an Easter Egg than a feature.
• Bag of Spilling: Hilariously invoked at the start of chapter 5. Even if you ended chapter 4 with tons of money, the sisters will have none of it when they join the Hero because, apparently, Maya goes through money like water.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: The beauty to Meena's brains and Alena's brawn. She's a captivating dancer in a revealing outfit who is by far the most image conscious of the party's women.
• Big Sister Instinct: Conveyed through gameplay during the climax of the sisters' chapter in the original release of the game. After Oojam performs his heroic sacrifice, Maya is automatically made the party's leader as the sisters make their escape, suggesting that she's the one making the difficult decision to abandon him for the sake of protecting herself and Meena. Made more overt in the remakes where, despite no longer automatically being made the party leader, party chat shows her to be the one taking charge and calming down the panicking Meena during the escape.
• Black Magician Girl: She's the party's strongest offensive mage, in contrast to how Meena primarily uses healing magic.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: She's an excellent spellcaster who, if her stat growths are anything to go by, is incredibly gifted at pretty much everything, but she'd much rather push all of the hard work onto her sister while she indulges herself in vice.
• Chainmail Bikini: Downplayed. Her starting armor is the Dancer's Costume, which consists of the bikini top and slitted skirt she's shown wearing in all of her sprites and artwork. And while it gives inferior defensive bonuses than most of the game's other armor options, it's still inexplicably twice as sturdy as Plain Clothes are.
• Childish Older Sibling: Can't be trusted with money and leaves Meena in charge of almost everything in their day-to-day lives.
• Combat Hand Fan: Her unique weapon is the Iron Fan, which she tosses at enemies like a boomerang.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: The scantily-clad female party member in the previous game was the female Warrior, whereas Maya is a Squishy Wizard.
• Cultural Chop Suey: She and her sister utilize aspects of both the Magical Romani and South Asian Mystical India tropes in their designs and abilities.
• Disappointing Older Sibling: Meena is very outspoken about her frustration with having such a wasteful and frivolous person for an older sister, and Maya is generally content at letting her call the shots for the both of them.
• Everyone Has Standards: While she's ordinarily a Lovable Sex Maniac who goes gaga over every handsome man she comes across, she draws the line at doing so for Psaro despite admitting that she finds him good-looking.
• Flanderization: In the original version of the game, she is recruited in the fifth chapter at the Endor casino after having wasted all of her and her sister's money gambling but otherwise is given no further association with casinos. The remakes outright turn her into The Gambling Addict who constantly talks about going to the casino when spoken to in party chat.
• Foil: To Borya. While Borya is an old and obstinate man who serves as the magician of his kingdom's royal court, Maya is a young and free-spirited woman who travels around the world as a dancer. This also applies to their respective functions in battle, as while both are offensive mages, Borya specializes in ice magic and Status Buff and debuff spells whereas Maya specializes in dealing high damage to enemies using fire magic.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The impulsive foolish sibling to Meena's composed responsible one. Best demonstrated when the player first encounters them in chapter 5, where Meena is attempting to earn money for them by telling fortunes while Maya is blowing all of that money at the Endor casino.
• The Gambling Addict: Gets so swept up in playing around at the Endor casino between chapters four and five that she ends up spending all of her and Meena's funds. Party chat reveals that this is hardly the only time that something like that has happened, and has her constantly bring up going to the casino regardless of how relevant it is to the current situation.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Her primary motivation is to avenge her father's death by killing the man responsible for it. As such, she's more strongly geared toward dealing as much damage as possible to the enemy than her counterpart Borya, learning stronger attack spells but much fewer supportive ones than he does.
  • As the foolish half of a Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling duo who prefers coasting on luck and her natural talents, she's strictly a Squishy Wizard compared to the more versatile Meena.
  • Late game, she suddenly begins requiring much more experience points than the rest of the party to gain levels. As a tradeoff, her stat growths upon leveling up become staggeringly high, far surpassing those of anyone else in the party. Both of these quirks are befitting of a Brilliant, but Lazy person with excellent potential but no real drive to pursue it.
• Glass Cannon: She learns the strongest offensive magic out of anyone in the party, but has poor equipment options to protect her from enemy attacks. Surprisingly, her HP growth is actually very good, enabling her to take a bit more of a beating than she otherwise could.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: She's the flirty and frivolous beautiful sister who often butts heads with the serious and asceitic Meena.
• Gold Digger: Makes it no secret that her primary concern for a potential romantic partner is how rich they are, and expresses willingness to marry old and ugly men so long as they have enough gold for her to swim in.
• Having a Blast: Learns the explosive spells Bang, Boom, and Kaboom, which allow her to hit every enemy in battle regardless of whether they're grouped together or not.
• Heroic Mime: Averted. Possibly for the sake of conveying the dynamic between them, both of the sisters are fully capable of speaking during their focus chapter.
• Hidden Depths: Despite normally coming across as flighty and irresponsible, she takes her mission to avenge her father by defeating Balzack and eradicating the secret of evolution from the world just as seriously as her sister does and, when she really needs to, is able to demonstrate a level of decisiveness and maturity that not even Meena can.
• Hot Gypsy Woman: She's a dark-skinned, scantily-clad traveling dancer in the style of a archetypal Romani woman.
• Hot Witch: As a natural consequence of combining the Magical Romani and Hot Gypsy Woman tropes.
• Lazy Bum: Party chat reveals that Meena does almost all of the hard work for the sisters during their travels, with Maya generally sleeping in during the day and playing around with their money during the night.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Maya is generally playful and carefree, but becomes appropriately focused whenever the situation gets serious, particularly when Balzack is involved. This is most pronounced during the climax of chapter 4, where she takes charge and leads herself and her sister to safety after Oojam's apparent death.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Party chat occasionally has her express excitement at getting to spend time with young and handsome men, and she's the only one among the party's women with any real aspirations of finding a husband (albeit primarily because she's a Gold Digger).
• Magical Romani: Her design takes a lot of cues from Romani dancers and she's one of the party's primary mages.
• Magikarp Power: The remakes turn her into a very unusual variant of this trope. While she's a perfectly good mage with respectable stat growths from the outset, she suddenly begins gaining tremendous numbers in every stat from around level 60 onward. Upon reaching the Level Cap, she'll have the highest overall stat total of the entire party, boasting maxed out luck and agility, nearly maxed out strength and wisdom, much more MP than her fellow mages (over 900 compared to her closest competition Kiryl's 670), and HP beaten out only by the Hero, Ragnar, Torneko and Psaro. When combined with her ability to equip the Gringham Whip and Angel Leotard, this enables her to completely discard any trace of being a Squishy Wizard and become a full-fledged Lightning Bruiser Magic Knight that can fight on the frontlines just as well as she can cast magic. The only catch is that she requires far more experience points to level up than anyone else in the party after she hits level 40, meaning that she'll reach the level cap much later than everyone else will. On top of that, the party is unlikely to have even reached level 40 by the end of a normal playthrough and both the Bonus Dungeon and True Final Boss can be comfortably beaten with a party in the mid-40s, giving there no real merit to Level Grinding Maya to this point beyond bragging rights.
• Mana Drain: She learns Drain Magic, a spell which absorbs MP from the target, at level 16.
• Morphic Resonance: The Battle Road spin-offs reveal that she retains her striking eyes and long eyelashes when transformed into a dragon using the Puff! spell, in addition to having purple scales to match her human form's hair.
• Mr. Vice Guy: She's The Gambling Addict, an outspoken Gold Digger, a Lazy Bum, and primarily motivated by revenge, but she's also friendly, easy-going, and ultimately caring as an older sister.
• Ms. Fanservice: She's a beautiful woman with a flirtatious personality and the first character in Dragon Quest history to ever wear the now-iconic Dancer's Costume.
• Mystical India: She and her sister are given Indian accents in the English localizations from the remake onward, and are both magic users with exotic, gypsy-like designs.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Drops her usual playfulness for unadulterated Big Sister Instinct after Oojam performs his Heroic Sacrifice.
• Personality Powers: She's a spontaneous and passionate dancer, which is rather fitting for a fire mage.
• Playing with Fire: She exclusively learns offensive spells of the fire element, in contrast to Borya.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Maya's blue. While Meena is a quiet fortune teller who believes in fate, Maya is a flirtatious dancer who believes in luck.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: She and her sister are polar opposites in nearly every way. While Meena is a healer, Maya is a mage. While Meena is a Combat Medic, Maya is a Squishy Wizard. While Meena is serious and task-oriented, Maya is playful and easily distracted. While Meena is a fortune teller who believes that all actions are predetermined by fate, Maya is a gambler who prefers to leave everything to luck. This is particularly emphasized in the remake's party chat system, where the two will often have the exact opposite reaction to whatever is currently happening.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Occurs in-universe when the Hero first encounters her in chapter 5. While passing through Endor in search of the Hero, she became so distracted by the local casino that she wasted all of her and her sister's money gambling. The remakes reveal that this isn't the first time something like this has happened. invoked
• Squishy Wizard: Downplayed. She's a powerful magic user, but has a limited equipment pool that doesn't give her much in the way of defensive options. On the other hand, she has a surprisingly high HP growth rate that will quickly surpass that of her more defensively-capable sister, making her sturdier than you might expect.
• Stripperiffic: She's the progenitor of the Dragon Quest series' famously revealing Dancer's Costume. Her outfit is in fact so risque that it had to be slightly toned down in its appearances in future games and spin-offs to maintain the age rating.
• Strong Family Resemblance: While she and Maya aren't twins, they could very well pass for them.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Maya inherited the other half of the Mage vocation from Dragon Quest III, specializing in fire spells to Borya's ice.
• The Tease: A sizable number of her party chat lines are flirtatious in nature and she often expresses interest in picking up men.
• Town Girls: The femme to Alena's butch and Meena's neither. She's an alluring dancer who would prefer to live in luxury with a rich and handsome man over adventuring and functions as a Squishy Wizard in combat.
• Verbal Tic: From the English localization of the remake onwards, she and her sister tend to avoid using contractions and repeat adjectives for emphasis.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Her Puff! spell, which lets her transform into a fire-breathing dragon.
• You Killed My Father: Her primary motivation alongside Meena is to kill Balzack, the man who murdered their father.

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