Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei 1 & 2

[Piotyr]

Holy crap this is still being worked on??  Rock on!

[Djinn]

And I think ボルボ is Bolbe, not Volvo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolbe


There is some monsters in Megami Tensei II famicom version which are not present in remake:

ドクターバクタ - Doctor Bakta
キンズ ヘッド  - Keen Head
バックベアード - Back Beard (from Gegege no Kitaro)


And some are not present in famicom version:

ゼウス - Zeus
アルテミス - Artemis
アポロン - Apollo
レト - Leto


Fix:
ブラフマー　- Brahma

[ra]

Furaie = Erinys is probably better now that I think about it. That's what they were called in the Persona games.
February 01, 2011, 08:48:14 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

And I think ボルボ is Bolbe, not Volvo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolbe

ボルボ appears in SMT2 in the Femme clan as well and it has the same design as in MT2.

Compare:


According to the Megaten wiki:
Demonic sexual goddess of witchcraft, represents the ancient mother Goddess belief which was widely spread in Europe. Because many of the old earth mother Goddesses had liked bloodshed, sacrifice was attached to their cult. In addition, because it was thought, that in the ceremony of Yutaka prayer sex itself cultivates favoring the ground, it was done greatly. Volvo is goddess of the name remainder of such earth mother Goddess belief.

She is the primitive goddess of the moon, her uterus is the earth itself. Because the fact that it has owed such role in Greece as [hekate], it is called of Volvo = [hekate] hence both were merged. When it is the cruel area mother God which seeks blood simultaneously, it is the character which unites the love that wraps entirely. The witches were devoted to the mother God worship, Volvo was the highest queen of the witches.

Most of the Femme demons are pretty evil, and while Bolbe is sexy, I would imagine she would go into the Lady or Fairy clan, not the Femme clan.

[Djinn]

Sounds untrue.
Where did they found that information and Volvo name? Volvo is name of a car.
And that Yutaka ceremony does not exist.
Hecate is the godess of witchcraft, yes, but she is not Volvo.

[ra]

I tried to cross-reference it and it's all crap info I'm afraid. They mixed up bits and pieces of stuff. They probably think "Volvo" is Hecate because she appears in triplicate in the Devil Summoner games but that can be easily explained as it being a small coven of witches since Volva is a witch in Norse mythology and she apparently has a role in some fertility rite but she is not a fertility goddess and not associated with Hecate. Diana is associated with Hecate. Volvo = Volva I think.

[Djinn]

Volva sounds true! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lva

DDS-NERD says:

北欧の予言を行ったりする女シャーマン達の名称、また彼女達が崇めた女神。血を求める残酷な性格と全てを包み込む愛に満ちた包容力を併せ持つ。典型的な地母神の系譜である。ギリシャの月と冥府と魔術の女神へカーテと同一視され、ボルボ＝へカーテの名でも呼ばれた。ちなみにボルボとはラテン語で「私は回る」という意味でもあり、スウェーデンの有名自動車メーカーはそこからこの名を名乗っている。ファミコン版2で初登場の鬼女。異形の顔でドレスをまといポーズをとる印象的なデザインだった。魔女達の女神らしく魔力が高めで多彩な魔法を持つ。ソウルハッカーズではへカーテの三面神としての側面を強調したアレンジデザインになった。デフォルトで強力な魔法持ちである事は共通している。(willseek)

It is a name of shaman women in Northern Europe who made predictions or name of a goddess worshipped by them.
She had bloodthirsty and cruel character together with tolerance filled with all-absorbing love.
Typical mother goddess of earth and fertility.
She can be identified with Hecate, Greek goddess of moon, underworld and witchcraft. It seems that Hecate was called ボルボ.
At the same time volvo in latin means "I roll". It is a name of famous Swedish builder of cars.
In Megami Tensei II Famicom version was presented for the first time as demoness. She has impressive design: she has a strange face, wearing a dress and fixed in one pose. Seems like a goddess of witches she has a high magical power and variegated spells.
In Soul Hackers Hecate is a goddess with three faces of different design attached to the sides.
It is common for her to have powerful magic spells by default.

[ra]

ストーンカ = Stonka, I hate this one the most.  It's supposed to be based on a folktale from Bulgaria.  A bull with skin as tough as bronze and causes thunder when it stomps.  It killed peasants and their horses, and was slain when one of the peasants disguised themselves as a horse, and impaled it with a golden sword.

I did some research about this one and I've come to the conclusion that Stonka is the incorrect name. I have referenced many mythology encyclopedias and there are no entries for Stonka/Stanga/Stanka/Sutonka or anything close to that. It sounds like a plausible Bulgarian folk tale of the animal/wonder genre but here are the problems with that: animals are rarely killed in Bulgarian folk tales, they are usually subdued and then run away and also, they never have proper names unless it's something like Mother Fox, Father Wolf, etc. Furthermore, I haven't run into a folktale where a bull was a character in it and I've checked over 80 folktales so far. There are lots of Bulgarian folktales, I mean lots, and out of the collections I've referenced so far, there hasn't been one featuring a bull. If this story exists, it's very obscure, so obscure that I question whether the bull would even be named, let alone included in a Slavic mythology encyclopedia. It's more likely that Atlus used an inaccurate citation from an old mythology encyclopedia (wrong spelling obviously and possibly an incorrect origin).

[Vanya]

The only Bulgarian bull myth I find is the Water Bull which is definitely not this.

[BRPXQZME]

尚、名称のストーンカstonkaとはテントウ虫を指すポーランド語である様だ。

Oh shit, looks like someone read my post. The erroneous one.

[Djinn]

There was a slavic tradition to sacrifice a bull for thunder god.
And belief that thunder clouds were bulls, bull's roar is thunder, and bull's stomp causes earthquakes.
But there was no any special name for such bulls.

It's more likely that Atlus used an inaccurate citation from an old mythology encyclopedia (wrong spelling obviously and possibly an incorrect origin).

First game where Stonka appears is made by Namco

[Djinn]

I think I found the origin of プルーシー which was renamed to プルシキ　in Kyuuyaku remake.
Because that monster looks like a horse, I think it is Kimpurusha:
Linky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimpurusha_Kingdom

In some Purana's they were mentioned as horse-headed.

Besides, there is an item in the game called プルーシーの嘶き　(Neigh of Purushi)

-----
And about Stonka.
http://imennik.narod.ru/Lesnoy_tzar-Letuchaya_ladya.html

Лесовой бог. У него была скотинка, бычок у украинцев.

Maybe Stonka is a wrong spelling of "скотинка" (skotinka - endearing name for a bull or cow in Russian).
God of Forest had it.

--moderator edit--
One again, changing link to URL tag to fix table borkage.

[ra]

Kimpurusha/Pulukisi/Purski could be a mistaken identity on Namcot's part. In MT1 it is a horse but in every other game it has appeared in (including MT2!), it is an elephant. It even evolves in Ganesha in SMT3.

This is Purski's Nocturne profile:

"In Hindu mythology, he is a god with an elephant's head and a third eye on his forehead. Although his looks suggest Ganesha's influence, he is thought to have originally been a local god of Tibet."

Here is it's Megaten Wiki entry:

"Another name for Airavata, the magical flying white elephant that serves as the steed for the god Indra. He is said to cause rain to fall after droughts."

http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Purski

The Kimpurusha seem to be a tribe of mystical half-animal deities (half-horse or half-lion) so you are probably right about the demon in MT1. The wiki says they are also related to the Kinnara which are also horse deities in Hinduism. Namcot may have made a mistake transliterating it into Japanese for the first game and then they probably realized their mistake and fixed it in the sequel by making Purski's sprite into an elephant.

You mentioned the Pulukisi dance in a previous post.

Well, this is what Google Books says about Pulukisi:

"Pulukisi is a bamboo-made elephant, covered by cloth over its body and with a big elephant mask on its head. Moved by two people inside, the elephant roams around Kathmandu during Indra yatra in search of his master Indra, whose vehicle is the elephant Airavata. During the rest of the year the white elephant mask is, together with the image of Indrayo, kept in the Kilagal Ganesa dyochem, which again has its own guthi."

link

Skotinka seems plausible! But maybe if someone looked into the GBA profile in SMT1 for Stonka, we'd get some more clues. There's supposed to be a library with profiles available in the GBA ports of SMT1 and SMT2 for each of the demons. A lot of the stuff on the wikis is unsourced and seems made up IMO.

--Moderator edit--
Changed name of a link to fix table borkage.

[Djinn]

Skotinka seems plausible! But maybe if someone looked into the GBA profile in SMT1 for Stonka, we'd get some more clues. There's supposed to be a library with profiles available in the GBA ports of SMT1 and SMT2 for each of the demons. A lot of the stuff on the wikis is unsourced and seems made up IMO.

All newer games says that it is a one-eyed bull with bronze skin from Bulgaria, but there is no proof of it, even in bulgarian.
In MT1 it have two eyes by the way.

And repeating my guess from a letter to you:
I also have a new guess about ファライ from Megami Tensei 1.
I think it's wrong spelling of Fury (ファ = fu, ライ = ry). So because it is in Femme (鬼女） clan I think it is it. Not Bolla (greek writing φάλη, φάλαινα), because Bolla is just a snake and not female human-like creature. And definitely not Forai (Morax) from Goetia.

So:
ファライ = Furiae

[Kiyoshi Aman]

I'd go with 'Farai', personally; if 'Fury' were intended, it'd be フリ. Furiae would, likewise, be フリエイ or so.

[BRPXQZME]

English "Fury" would be フューリー or フュリー; Latin "furiae" is フリアエ. I don't see how you could get to ファライ from that but weirder misinterpretations have happened before.

"Pharai" actually exists in Greek, for what it's worth, but it has nothing to do with mythology (it's a place).

[Djinn]

I'd go with 'Farai', personally; if 'Fury' were intended, it'd be フリ. Furiae would, likewise, be フリエイ or so.

English "Fury" would be フューリー or フュリー;

With correct spelling of course. I think they used _wrong_ spelling. "fu" as "fa" like in the word "fun", and "ry" as "rai". Like they often do it in other names.
And I already know the word Φαραί exists, but it have no connection with any female creature.

[enigmaopoeia]

Here is an image of ファライ if it'll help anyone. [SOURCE]

[Gemini]

That looks like a snake demi-human to me. :0

[Kiyoshi Aman]

Here is an image of ファライ if it'll help anyone. [SOURCE]

That sure doesn't look like an Erinýs. Conversely, Pharai has mythological ties to Pharis, son of Hermes and a Danaid.

[ra]

A lot of the demon portraits in the early games are not accurate so I wouldn't put too much stock into how they are presented. Even if it is Erynis, at least they got the gender right. Bolla and Pharis are not girls.

As for Rakcarango, I think it is a tantric Buddhist god called Heruka or Chakrasamvara. The Chinese and Tibeteans translate it into "blood drinker" and the demon does have a bull form, or at least a bull head.

Lalun/Lalung is Rarung, another Balinese witch who is Rangda's disciple.