The Peacemaker series consists of JRPG games developed by Sounding Stone (who also developed the Physical Exorcism Series) and MaouCat Studio.
The world is divided between human countries that worship the Light Spirit and the Dark Realm that worships the Dark Mother. Although this seems like a classic story of light versus dark, the light countries have no regard for the lives of the dark ones or the sovereignty of the Dark Realm, and their religion preaches genocide against the dark ones for the sake of "peace." At the same time, the Dark Realm has a lot of inner turmoil, and one faction has their own plans to win the inevitable war with the light countries. The games in this series shows the viewpoints of both light and dark-aligned characters to demonstrate that the conflict isn't black-and-white, but is it even possible for the light and dark sides to coexist?
Games in this series include:
- Dice and the Tower of the Reanimator: Glorious Princess (2021)
- Hero King Quest: Peacemaker Prologue (2022)
This series contains examples of:
- Amazing Technicolor Population: The dark elves have purple skin in the current continuity. Before the reboot, they had brown skin.
- Ambiguously Evil: The Light Spirit appears to be the Big Good of Dice and the Tower of the Reanimator: Glorious Princess, but in Hero King Quest: Peacemaker Prologue, she's the deity of a racist and misogynistic religion, making her seem to be an example of Light Is Not Good. It's unknown if she's just pretending to be benevolent to humans or if the Cerulean Land misinterpreted her teachings.
- Animal Motifs: The Dark Mother is portrayed as a spider in the Light Spirit scriptures. Dark elves are also associated with spiders, and many of the named dark elves start their name with "spider."
- Continuity Reboot: Dark Lord: Peacemaker was originally planned to be the pilot of the series, but while the game was completed and released in Japanese, it eventually got rebooted into Hero King Quest: Peacemaker Prologue.
- Humans Are Bastards: Downplayed. While the Dark Ones distrust humans due to the genocide and thievery perpetrated by the human nations, they're willing to accept humans into their ranks as long as they worship the Dark Mother. Sanguine is also willing to acknowledge Bambooblade as being different from other light-aligned humans if he makes it through her tower without killing anyone, but she also believes that a few good humans don't outweigh the malice of the rest.
- Misanthrope Supreme: In all installments, Sanguine the Reanimator believes her fellow humans are inherently wicked because of their prejudice towards those who are different and because of their greed. In the good ending route of Dice and the Tower of the Reanimator: Glorious Princess, she's baffled when Bambooblade makes it to the top of her tower without killing any Dark Ones, though she insists that a few good humans won't be enough to change humanity as a whole. She also calls Dark Lord Spidergland humanlike because the latter embodies everything Sanguine detests about humans, despite being a dark elf.
- Morality Kitchen Sink: The Cerulean Land is portrayed as an incredibly corrupt and bigoted nation, and the king's only redeeming quality is that he loves his son. Even after the Cerulean Land is conquered, the clergy of the Light Spirit are still at large and seek the genocide of the Dark Realm. However, the Dark Realm is also ruled by a corrupt and racist Dark Lord, who is eventually replaced with the more benevolent but still ruthless Spiderweb. While the Silver Kingdom and Scarlet Empire aren't as outright genocidal as the Cerulean Land, they still think nothing of taking the lives of the Dark Ones when plundering the Dark Realm, though Bambooblade from the former nation can choose a pacifistic approach towards the Dark Ones. And looming above all of them is Nya, the pitch-black hearted God of Reincarnation for whom the realms are nothing more than another toybox to amuse themselves with.
- Necromancer: Dark-aligned mages like Sanguine and Spidervenom have the ability to raise corpses as zombie servants. As demonstrated by Sanguine, it's possible to restore or suppress the personality of a zombie, with the latter being necessary to control them.
- Retcon: In Dice and the Tower of the Reanimator: Glorious Princess, non-human dark ones were meant to speak an entirely different language to make negotiation with them impossible for Bambooblade. However, there's no such Language Barrier in Hero King Quest: Peacemaker Prologue.
- Token Evil Teammate:
- Most of the authority figures in the Dark Realm are benevolent to their own people, except for Dark Lord Spidergland, who is willing to sacrifice her fellow Dark Ones to protect herself from the Cerulean Kingdom.
- After Spidergland is overthrown, Sanguine the Reanimator is the most twisted authority figure in power, since she is sadistic towards humans and is a Mad Scientist who wants to collect more bodies to zombify. However, she's still an ally of the more reasonable Spiderweb and treats her fellow dark mages well, making her A Lighter Shade of Black to Spidergland.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The humans of the Cerulean Land, Silver Kingdom, and Scarlet Empire believe the Dark Ones are Always Chaotic Evil and don't treat their lives with the same weight as humans. The Cerulean Empire in particular outright seeks genocide, though it's not known what the Silver Empire and Scarlet Empire want to do to the Dark Ones in the long run. The Cerulean Kingdom does employ elemental spirits in their army, but only as Slave Mooks.
