Rance/Characters/Gods

At the beginning, there was only a sole God known as Rudrathaum. One day, after living for an eternity, he discovered boredom and loneliness, to his irritation. Wanting to get rid of it, he began to create the setting of Rance we know as a whole. First, he assembled the Continent along with Holy Beasts and created three entities from his body, named the Three Sublime Gods, each tasked to create life on the Continent.

Planner was in charge of making a "scenario" in order to please the Creator God and is the most directly involved in the rules surrounding the Continent. Notably, he created the Archfiend and their army as the designed "enemy".
Harmonitt, sharing his "father's" laziness and preferring to work behind the scenes, created the Gods Hierarchy to administrate Souls circulating through the Creator God, along with the Kalar, his personal creation.
Roven-Pan was tasked to create the "main player" or "Protagonist Race" against the enemies designed by Planner.

The Gods Hierarchy, while not as powerful as the aforementioned, are still powerful beings on their own right. Like them, they are tasked to monitor mortals, managing their Souls in the afterlife, or acting as agents for the Sublime Gods. They also follow a hierarchisation with a Class System:

The Eternal Eight who all represent elements, though they remain mostly hidden from other people.
1st Class Gods, servants of the Eternal Eight, and indirectly influencing the Continent in some way. They are also stated to be stronger than the Archfiend.
2nd Class Gods, lesser in power than the 1st and defeatable by an Archfiend while sharing the same role.
3rd to 6th Class Gods, commanders of the Angel Army and acting as representatives of the Gods in the Continent.
7th to 13th Class Gods, directly involved with mortals, most commonly as Level Gods.

Rudrathaum, the Creator God

The creator of the Continent and everything that exists on it. He now watches over his creations for the sole purpose of sating his boredom.

Tropes exhibited by Rudrathaum include:

Bigger Bad: He's pretty much the driving force behind every single conflict of the Continent.
Bonus Boss: In one ending of Kichikuou Rance, he's the ultimate final boss. Even if Rance wins, all he manages to do is put Rudrathaum to sleep for 300 years.
Complete Immortality: It's unknown whether it is possible for him to actually die. Even if it is, though, nothing on or around the Continent has anywhere near enough power to actually do it.
God in Human Form: Around the time of Rance X, he decides to incarnate himself and live among mortal humans for a change. He is born as El Mofus, child of Rance and Crook Mofus, and protagonist of Rance X: Part 2. His experiences as El lead him to decide that peace and happiness isn't so boring after all.
Good Feels Good: Living a life as El Mofus allows him to learn human feelings like empathy, friendship and love.
It Amused Me: The only reason he does anything is for entertainment.
Jerkass Gods: He created life only to watch it suffer and die for his own amusement. In one case where his creations succeeded in ending war and creating a utopia, he ordered their total annihilation because peace and prosperity is boring.
Legend Fades to Myth: he used to be actively worshipped, but those beliefs died out long ago. Most people in modern times don't seem to realize he even exists, and react to mention of his name with confusion. Either that or they think the idea of the Creator God being a giant white whale is stupid and the holy texts are a prank. Rudrathaum doesn't particularly care either way.
Space Whale: He resembles a white whale several miles long, with six fins and seventy-two comparatively tiny wings across his body.
Spell My Name with an "S": Older translations name him "Ludo-Rathowm".
Top God: No other known entity in Rance's universe can even approach his level of power. While it's implied there are other beings like him out there, they don't seem to see a need to interfere with him.
Wild Card: He tolerates Balance Breakers existing in the Planner Scenario because they have the potential to shake things up and cause interesting situations that wouldn't occur if Planner was in absolute control. The uncertainty makes things more fun.

The Three Sublime Gods

Planner

The unofficial leader of the three and the overall architect of the rules of the world, referred to as "the Planner Scenario". He's in charge of making sure the world remains entertaining for Rudrathaum, is the highest god who generally interacts with the mortal realm.

Tropes exhibited by Planner include:

Berserk Button: Anything that disrupts the harmony and balance of the Planner Scenario. "Balance Breakers" like Rance in particular drive him up a wall, but Rudrathaum overruled him when he suggested killing Rance as a newborn.
Eldritch Abomination: His true form resembles an enormous floating golden shell with six arms and a head with glowing red eyes. When speaking with lower beings, though, he usually uses his alter ego.
Immortality: Only two things can kill Planner: the Hero at the absolute limit of his power, or Rudrathaum himself.
Jackass Genie: When he granted wishes to four of the Legendary Five heroes, he did grant them what they asked for, but in such a way that they would all suffer from them. Also he made them immortal, even though none of them asked for that, apparently for laughs.
Killer Game Master: If things aren't proceeding the way he wants, he will intercede to keep the perpetual violence on track.
Meaningful Name: "Planner". He plans out how the world will move.
Obvious Rule Patch: He keeps doing this for reality in general. Whenever either the Protagonist Race or the Archfiend gains too great an advantage, he introduces a new obstacle to balance the scales.
True Neutral: Embodied in his alter ego, the 1st class god Nautoara, god of neutrality. It's in this form that he usually enacts divine orders to uphold balance.

Harmonitt

The god in charge of all lower gods. He is the overseer of the cycle of rebirth of souls, and created the lesser gods, angels, and Kalars to aid him in this task.

Tropes exhibited by Harmonitt include:

Eldritch Abomination: His true form more resembles a crimson organic spaceship than anything else.
Immortality: Only two things can kill Harmonitt: the Hero at the absolute limit of his power, or Rudrathaum himself.
Pet the Dog: He seems genuinely fond of the Kalars, and it's said that his greatest joy and happiness is to see one of them ascend to become an angel (and likewise, his deepest sorrow is to see one corrupted into becoming a devil).
Trickster God: His alter ego, Mach, is for some reason a 7th class god rather than a 1st class like his brothers'. Mach is the Continent's god of pranksters, tricksters, and fools.
Worthy Opponent: How he views Rathaum and the Devils. Though they are in direct competition for souls, Harmonitt finds them interesting and has no desire to see them destroyed. He is the only god who knows where the Devil Realm is located, but he keeps this information to himself.

Roven-Pan

The god in charge of creating the Protagonist Race, therefore he is the creator or the Round Ones, the Dragons, and humanity. The most mysterious of the Sublime Gods.

Tropes exhibited by Roven-Pan include:

Eldritch Abomination: He resembles a limbless torso and head, with six faces scattered around his body. It's unknown which, if any, is his true face.
Immortality: Only two things can kill Roven-Pan: the Hero at the absolute limit of his power, or Rudrathaum himself.
The Unfavorite: of the three, he's taken the most grief from Rudrathaum due to his first two attempts at a Protagonist Race being failures.
You Have Failed Me...: His alter ego is Ragnarok, the goddess in charge of the divine armies. It was through her that he gave the order to exterminate the dragons, his own creations.

Eternal Eight

A group of elemental gods that represent and embody the eight elements the world is formed of, such as Fire, Water, or Darkness. Considered above 1st class gods in the hierarchy, but below the Three Sublime Gods.

General Tropes

Anthropomorphic Personification: They are the personifications of their respective elements. They each hold particular hatred for the god of their opposite element.
The Ghost: Despite the great power each holds, they are almost completely uninterested in the mortal realm, to the point that most mortals and indeed most gods don't even know they exist.

God of Light

The only one of the Eight who directly appears in the games, and the only known member of the Eight who ever interacts with mortals, even if very rarely. He hates Rance.

Tropes exhibited by the God of Light include:

Answers to The Name of God: In his guise as a 1st class god, he's known simply as "GOD".
Arch Enemy: Above all else, he hates the God of Darkness. The feeling is mutual.
Blinded by the Light: Anyone who looks at him sees only a vaguely human silhouette surrounded by intense, shining light.
Disproportionate Retribution: In Rance 03, Rance stepped on his sacred plate, in a forgotten shrine no one ever visited. For this the God of Light cursed Rance. At the end of the game, just when Rance had won against Archfied Jill, he lowered Rance's level to 1 and teleported him, naked, to Ylapu, cutting him off from civilization. It's also suggested that Rance's elemental weakness to Light and his sensitivity to bright sunlight may also be due to the God of Light's enmity.
Light Is Not Good: He's arrogant, petty, and vindictive.

1st Class Gods

ALICE

The goddess in charge of Human Administration, and the object of worship for the AL Church. See her entry on Rance AL Church.

Quelplan

The goddess in charge of Soul Administration, overseeing the cycle of reincarnation, making her effectively second to Harmonitt.

Tropes exhibited by Quelplan include:

Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Grows humongous as the Great Beast Quelplan.
Blinded by the Light: She usually emits an intense, blinding aura, making it difficult to see her. However, she can control this light and turn it down when she wants to talk.
Bookworm: In this case the books are the recorded lives and memories of all souls who pass through her administration. She's known to be extremely studious.
Deal with the Devil: Ends up agreeing to Neplacus' demands in exchange for being able to see Rance again by drinking his medicine to become a human, only for her to change into a Kaiju.
Divine Date: She fell in love with Rance and wanted to see him again but couldn't because of her position as a 1st class goddess. It was when Neplacus came to her domain that allowed her to temporarily be human until the medicine the devil gave to her made her a humongous beast.
Karma Houdini: Admittedly she wasn't in control of herself, but she did swallow a lot of humans, angels, the El Party, and even Archfiend Rance during her time as the Great Beast. Yet she doesn't get any kind of punishment for her actions since the reason why she became like that was to see Rance again which she does as soon as she comes back to her senses.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: She can control her own memories with tremendous precision, meaning she can inflict this on herself if she chooses. At least until Part 2 where she genuinely didn't know what she had done for the past few years as the Great Beast Quelplan.
The Rival: She really doesn't like ALICE, the goddess of the AL Church, and always competes when the two meet. On one occasion, they got into a staring contest for over 30,000 hours.
Spanner in the Works: She derails the entire Planner Scenario when she accidentally absorbs the Blood Memories from Archfiend Rance. She expelled it from herself in physical form, allowing Rance and his children to kill it and end the cycle of Archfiends forever.

System Goddess

A goddess who is in charge of saving and loading the player's games. Appears in Rance IV through Rance VI. Whether or not she actually exists within the game's world is unclear.

Tropes exhibited by the System Goddess include:

Addressing the Player: She tends to speak directly to the player, sometimes chiding them for not saving often enough or suggesting they stock up on healing items.
Fourth Wall Observer: She's the only character who ever references the fact that the games are games.
Painting the Medium: She represents the Save/Load feature of the games, as well as the Options menu.

2nd Class Gods

La Vaswald

The goddess of destruction, meant to carry out the annihilation of the Protagonist Race if necessary. Since humans are working out well for the gods' purposes, she was deemed unnecessary by Planner and split into the angel knights La Seizel and La Hawzel, and given to Archfiend Gai as a gift.

Tropes exhibited by La Vaswald include:

Fusion Dance: If her two halves were to rejoin, La Vaswald would be reborn. However, as the two are on opposing sides of the Enemy Civil War and their personalities would disappear if they did so, this doesn't appear likely to happen.
The Ghost: She only makes an appearance in Kichikuou Rance; she never appears in the canon timeline, although the artists did draw up a redesign for her appearance.

Amaterasu

The goddess in charge of Hell. It was due to her mistake that hellholes opened up in the land of Nippon, and she granted the people there several sacred treasures as an apology, in addition to teaching them how to seal the hellholes.

Tropes exhibited by Amaterasu include:

The Atoner: She felt genuinely bad for accidentally releasing the Oni on Nippon, and gave them divine gifts by way of apology.
Guardian Entity: The people of Nippon see her this way, after she helped them deal with the plague of Onis emerging from hellholes and gave them treasures.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Ironically for the goddess of hell, she's noted to be more kind-hearted and compassionate towards humanity than most of the gods, which earned her their disapproval. She had to invent the Emperor Race to appease Rudrathaum with some form of violent entertainment in exchange for Nippon being allowed to keep her gifts.
Rule of Three: She did three favors to the Nipponese people: she built the Tenma Bridge that connects Nippon to the main Continent, she created the position of Emperor and the sacred Emperor artifacts, and she taught them how to make miso soup.

3rd to 13th Class Gods

Colas 0024 "Cola"

The god in charge of the Hero. He chooses who will become the next Hero, and acts as a mentor and guide to that Hero until they are either killed or grow too old.

Tropes exhibited by Cola include:

The Chooser of the One: It's up to him who the next Hero of the Continent is, who very often ends up as a beacon of hope for humanity and the leader of resistance against the Archfiend.
Mentor Mascot: Something of a parody of the kind of cute magical creatures that often wind up as mentors in Japanese children's media.
The Svengali: Make no mistake: He is not on humanity's side, or even the Hero's for that matter. He exists only to ensure that opposition to the Archfiend remains active and that the Continent's perpetual conflict continues. If the Hero ever had a chance to actually permanently kill the Archfiend and end the cycle, he would sabotage their efforts.

Willis Fujisaki

A former human who recently ascended as an angel. She works as a Level God, exchanging humans' EXP for levels of strength. After the first game, she is contracted as Rance's personal Level God.

Tropes exhibited by Willis include:

Brother Chuck: She kind of... disappears following Rance VI. Though Rance and co. are naturally still levelling up, it happens off-screen and without Willis personally making an appearance. She comes back in Rance X alongside Mikan.
Deity of Human Origin: Was once human, before she ascended as an angel and became a Level God.
God Job: Though technically a deity, Level Gods are the lowest rung of the divine hierarchy and they provide a service seen as mundane and commonplace by the people of the Continent.
Reluctant Fanservice Girl: Level Gods frequently perform some action to entice their adventurer to level up. Rance being Rance, she is contracted to remove articles of clothing the more he levels up.
Shaggy Dog Story: The reason she became a Level God was to grow closer to Mi Lordring of the AL Church, whom she had a crush on. Unfortunately, when a human ascends, they lose all memories of their life as a human, so she doesn't remember any of this.

Mikan

An apprentice Level God assigned to Willis starting in Rance IV. As a result, Mikan occasionally takes over levelling up Rance's party when Willis is busy.

Tropes exhibited by Mikan include:

God Job: Like Willis, she's a Level God, performing a service for the humans of the Continent. Technically a goddess, but without any great power or authority.
Inept Mage: Mikan is still getting used to her Level God powers, and as a result sometimes screws up, including accidentally levelling Rance down.
Trademark Favorite Food: Oranges. She's named after a type of orange, her clothes are orange, and she carries around a (rather creepy looking) orange with a face as the focus for her divine powers.

Johnny

Maria Custard's personal Level God. Whenever she isn't with Rance, he's in charge of her levelling up.

Tropes exhibited by Johnny include:

Do Not Call Me Sir: He hates formality. He refuses to be addressed by title or with respective honorifics, and even demands an alternate summoning chant ("Hey, Johnny, c'mon!") rather than the usual Level God summoning spell.
Shameless Fanservice Guy: He also strips as his charges level up, just like Willis. Unlike Willis, he does this for his own amusement, not as part of his contract.
The Tease: Flirts with everyone who summons him, including men. He also addresses everyone as "my sweet honey", regardless of gender.

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