Velasco, the self-appointed "Last and Greatest King of the Children of Night", is a character and one of the antagonists in Dragon Quest Heroes. He is the one that triggered the events of the story where the peaceful monsterkind of the kingdom of Arba became hostile toward humankind.
Appearance[]
Velasco wields a staff and dark outfit. He has red eyes, pale skin, white short hair slicked back and black facial hair.
Personality[]
At fist glance, Velasco may appear as a refined, charming, and soft-spoken person, but underneath this facade he is in truth a deeply unhinged individual, prone to violent outbursts of either laughter when he felt to be one step ahead of his foes, or of seething anger when he was outmatched.
Even for the standards of his own kind, Velasco had always been obsessed with the power of darkness, so much so that he began to desire for it to swallop up the entire world and destroy everything. He prefered to paint his goals as an act to re-establish the balance between light and dark, which he belived it had been corrupted with the sealing of the dark dragon, passing himself as a rightful avenger of his kind; yet, he barely attempted to mask his utter loathing for the beings of light, in particular for the Children of Light, going to extreme lenghts to erase any trace that they ever existed. Furthermore, he not only almost wiped out his hated foes, but he also completely massacrated his own kind, another sign that Velasco did not truly care about balance or his people legacy, he just wanted the world to burn in darkness. The only living entity Velasco cared about, was the great dark dragon himself, who Velasco worshiped as a godly, and utterly supreme being, likely due to the fact that the dragon was being darkness incarnate.
Velasco was so single-minded in his goals, that he spent more than two hundred years planning his big move, pushing way past the normal limits of human lifespan, all the while hiding away at the isle of the Fault, a volcanic island that is deemed completely incapable to sustain life. He was a cunning and devious strategist, who stooped to no lows in order to achieve his vision, from sacrificing countless minions, attack and massacre powerless villages of innocent civilians, to even attempt to drain countless other worlds of their lifeforce until they shrivel and die; he even feigned a final redemption just to attempt to take his foes by surprise and further harm them, and he ultimately gleefully thrown away his own life in what, he belived, would be the doom of his enemies, maniacally laughing as plunged himself to a probably painful death into the fiery lava of the Fault in order to trigger a catastrophic eruption.
Biography[]
Dragon Quest Heroes[]
According to the few scattered records collected by the elven Elder of Sylvea, dating 200 years prior the present time, Velasco was at the time a well-known sorcerer of unmatched talent, ailing from the tribe of the Children of the Night, the group people that eons prior, were blessed by the god overseeing the power of darkness in their world, the Dark Dragon Shadroth, Lord of the Night. While it is not known if he truly was the King of the Children of the Night, or if he simply stole the title, what is known is that Velasco was far, far more obsessed with the power of darkness than any of his other peers, to an unhealthy degree. One ill-fated night, possibly because he was ostracizied in his beliefs, he razed his home village to the ground, wiping out his kind and taking their treasured heirloom, the Circle of Night, for himself, disappearing from the pubblic eye.
Velasco retreaded to the isle of the Fault, the one place in the entire world where the powers of dark were at their strongest, as the isle was directly above the underground prison of Shadroth, and there Velasco began planning the resurrection of the dark dragon, as the ultimate being of darkness was naturally the ultimate object of worship for the deranged sorcerer. Velasco began working his magical abilities into creating his masterpiece, a dark spell so powerful, it would be capable to drain the lifeforce of the worlds outside of Velasco's own, and transform it into darkness to feed to Shadroth; A few years before the present time, he was furthermore finally able to locate the hidden village of Lightsbower, the ancestal home of the Children of Light. Knowing that they would be the only ones capable to stop him, and viscerally hating them more that anything, Velasco laid waste on the village, sparing not a single man, woman or child, although he unknowingly missed two young survivors.
Eventually, one fateful day, his ultimate spell was finally completed, and he immediately unleashed it on the world; the sudden surge of darkness drove virtually all monsterkinf into a frenzy, putting them directly under Velasco's control. Furthermore, thanks to the dreaded Nightmaws at his disposal, Velasco was also capable to summon virtually endless hordes of mindless monsters into being, increasing the numbers of his new found army to ludicrous degrees. Velasco began directing the monsters into attacking all major settlements of the world, particularly targeting any emerging roots of the World Tree Yggdrasil, with the goal to weaken the sacred plant as much as possible.
Unbeknownst to Velasco, his meddling with the balance of other worlds attracted the attention of the sacred Godbird, Empyrea, an inter-dimensional wanderer; in order to discover the cause of this imbalnce and stop it, Empyrea began wisking away heroes from all across the dimensions, and delivering them all across the kingdom of Arba, which in the near future, would greatly hinder Velasco's plans.
While personally overseeing his operation in the desert town of Colissea, Velasco met by chance Terry, who without his knowledge had just been transported from his home world; sensing the evil of the sorcerer, the lone swordsman began a duel with him, which was soon interrupted by the arrival of the captains of the Arban army, Luceus and Aurora, who had began investigating the recent chaos in the kingdom. With his dark attack towards the two captains being unexpectedly dissolved without harm, Velasco realized that the two were survivors from the Children of the Light, and after taunting them, he retreaded while leaving a trinity of Killing machines behind.
Velasco then set his sight directly at Yggdrasil herself, directing a massive horde of monsters in her boughs in order to open a way towards her Crown, an altar that effectively acts as the heart of the tree. There, he sprung a trap for the Arban captains and their otherworldly allies; firstly, he sown doubts within them by telling a partial version of the story of the sealing of the dark dragon, then, taking advantage that the Crown could only be accessed by either the Children of Night or the Children of Light, he ensnared the two captains into dark tendrils while their allies watched powerless, his plan being to plunge Yggdrasil into darkness, therefore weakening and ultimately killing the plant, thusly lifting the seal on Shadroth, by corrupting the Children of Light themselves with darkness. While taken by surprise by the sudden appearance of Healix wearing the Circle of Light, Velasco found the relic without power, scoffed at the idea that it could fall into the hands of a mere Healslime, and continued dragging the two captain away into the darkness while loudly gloating about the nigh resurrection of his god.
However, using the last of their strenght, one of the last Children of Light, was able to expell their companion out of the dark snare at the last moment; while this delayed the death of Yggdrasil, Velasco nonetheless continued in his plans. When the Arban army travelled to the Pillar of Light in order to ask for guidance from the Goddess of light, the King of the Night followed them there, and tried with his monster army to destroy the Oracle before they could use it. Despite the fact that he was unable to prevent their meeting with the Goddess, Velasco nontheless got the last laugh, as he summoned and controlled the colossal Bjørn the Behemoose into toppeling the Pillar of Light, thusly preventing any further counseling from the Goddess.
At the Shrine of Scales, an ancestal trial-ground for the Children of Light, Velasco once again followed the group of heroes, and when his minions were unable to stop their progress he personally ambushed the remaining Child of Light by possessing their companion, thusly bypassing the barrier preventing anyone outside the tribe of light to access the trial. Corrupting his captive Lightling into a Darkling, Velasco controlled them into attacking their compaion; they however, having just obtained the true power of their brethen to bring brightness even into the darkest corner, the captain was able to defeat their childhood friend, and expurge the darkness that had corrupted them.
The group of heroes, stronger than ever, eventually reached once again the Crown of Yggdrasil, planning to save her thanks to the mystical Dew of the Tree of Life they had previously retrived from Dawnsholm, but Velasco barred their way, even summoning a stronger than avarage Barbatos to hinder them. The heroes however bested their foe, and thanks to clever teamwork, they were even able to take the dark sorcerer by surprise and deliver the dew at very last second, thusly saving Yggdrasil's life; Velasco was however, one step ahead of them once again, as the seal on Shadroth had already been lifted by the weakening of the World Tree, so her continuing existence was not an immediate obstacle to his goals. Declaring that now only one final ceremony was required to fully awaken the dark dragon, Velasco taunted the heroes to join him at his homebase, the isle of the Fault, if they wanted to attempt to stop him.
At the Fault, the heroes confronted the Last and Greatest King of the Children of Night in a final clash, where he revealed to them his masterpiece spell; despite his already monstrous magic being boosted by the full power of the Circle of Night, Velasco was bested, his staff broken, and his ultimate spell dispelled. After the battle, Velasco declared to having finally been purified, and seemingly attempted to take his life as repentance, but this was none other than a ruse to further buy time, as the whole "final ceremony" affair was, as Shadroth had already been fully awake from quite some time and was already clawing his way across the earth's crust, to emerge to the surface in a few days.
While laughing maniacally, Velasco plunged himself into the lava of the isle, knowing that his demise would trigger a massive eruption of the volcano that the heroes would likely be unable to avoid, even ensuring that a King Hydra would block their way; thusly ended the life of the deranged Velasco, thinking to having in the end won the war. But against his predictions, while indeed the King Hydra took the bridge to the shore with itself when defeated, and the Stonecloud was unable the assist the party due to the darkness smoke emitted by the crater of the Fault, the group was nonetheless saved from the desperate situation by the direct intervention of Empyrea. Furthermore, Healix's crown was indeed revealed to having been the Circle of Light all along, and when its powers finally reawoke, they proved crucial in aiding the Children of Light into slaying Shadroth once and for all, finally restoring peace in the kingdom of Arba.
Strategy[]
Velasco, being a powerful sorcerer, is a dangerous and slippery foe, even moreso due to having his powers enhanced by the Circle of Night. He higly prefers darkness based spells, as well as powerful variations of the Frizz spell, thusly simbolizing both dark and fire, the elements of his home of choice, the volcanic Fault.
During the fight with the heroes, in the first phase, he uses the power of the Circle to make himself invulnerable, while summoning a Pazuzu and a Belial to do his dirty work; while the heroes confront his minions, Velasco will aid them by occasionally casting Snooze and Kerfrizz, which is composed by 5, slighty homing projectiles of fire. Once his pawns respectively reach half-way of their HPs, he will boost them, the Belial with Kabuff and the Pazuzu with Oomph.
In the second phase of the fight, initiated once his minios are gone, Velasco begins to attack in person; he frequently uses dark teleports to either close the distance or put himself out of harms way. He stops using Snooze, and instead begins to cast Kaboom, the previous multi-projectile Kerfrizz, Kafrizz, where he chucks a big ball of fire in front of him, Kafrizzle, which is an even bigger ball of fire tossed in front of him, as well as casting multiple orbs of dark energy in rapid succession while striving on ground using a dark levitation to move to either his left or right side. He even uses an attack unique to him, Gigasphere, where he summons a dark sphere above his head, drawing the Lightlings and their allies near him, to then damage them with an explosion.
Once he reaches half-way of his HP, Velasco become more aggreesive, and add to his already vast repertoire of spells a dark version of Kaswoosh, summoning devastatigly powerful gusts of wind.
His last phase is activated when he only has a third of health left. Cornered against the wall, Velasco enters a state of high Tension: his attacks become more powerful, he is even more aggressive, and he furthermore, alongside all of his previous attacks outside of Snooze, can now cast his most powerful attack, similar to a Coup de Grâce, Katafrizzm (ヘルマガイアー), where he stops, begins to use his dark powers to make his magic staff spin in front of him while he gathers energy, for then unleash a big shockwave of dark flames. The spell original Japanese name is furthermore a word play on Velasco's own Japanese name, "ヘルムード" and the spell name "メラガイアー" (Kafrizzle), making it truly his own signature move. Thankfully, it is possible to stop the spell before it is fully unleashed if enough damage is delivered to Velasco during his short charging period, or if a Coup de Grâce from one of the heroes is delivered to him.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Velasco is similar to Hargon from Dragon Quest II, both being evil sorcerers who command monsters, both wishing to revive their god (Shadroth and Malroth), and both sacrificing themselves to ensure their god will destroy the world.
- However, Velasco has more story screen time than Hargon.
- Mockingly, Aurora gave him the nickname of Mr. Mustachioed, due to his well groomed facial hair.
Other languages[]
| Other languages | |
| French | Unknown |
| German | Velasco |
| Spanish | Unknown |
| Latin American Spanish | Unknown |
| Italian | Unknown |
| Dutch | Unknown |
| Norwegian | Unknown |
| Greek | Unknown |
| Portuguese | Unknown |
| Russian | Unknown |
| Chinese | Unknown |
| Korean | Unknown |