Doll Master

The **Doll Master** (ドールマスター) was a sentient doll that became the master of Shangri-La.

## Appearance

The Doll Master is a doll that, with its pallid body colour tone, eyes of red orbs that are opened unevenly, a mouth shaped into an eerie grin, and an unnaturally twisted pose, looks absolutely disgusting. It is dressed in orange Taoist robes underneath a brown overcoat and a hat of the same colour.

## Personality

The Doll Master by nature was quite benevolent, feeling pure joy at being gifted to a little girl, though the rejection it subsequently suffered began to fill it with hatred towards humans. Still, it retained enough reason to refrain from harming humans too much, even showing them mercy in some situations, although once fully enraged it proved to be quite ruthless.

## History

The Doll Master was originally created as a doll used for puppet shows, and gained sentience due to the magical stone that the Head Researcher hid inside it. But on one snowy night, it was packaged as a birthday gift for a little girl, who immediately shoved it into the back of her drawer once she saw how disgusting it was. Later burnt along with the other old furniture when the girl moved, the Doll Master which survived because of the magic became incensed at humans who uncaringly throw objects like it away.

As the magical stone got activated and emitted more magic, the Doll Master gained mobility as well as a variety of magic powers, so it created a dimensional dungeon that Kazuma later said looks like a Shangri-La, where within the totally artificial environment, objects can exist peacefully without fear of humans tossing them out. However as the dungeon wandered with the Doll Master while it travelled the land, humans sent to investigate began intruding into its domain, prompting it to defeat them using doll copies of people before making their mentality revert to children so that they may play with the dolls in the outside world.

Eventually, Kazuma and his party, who on top of looking for the magical stone also accepted Sena's request to investigate, showed up at the dungeon, so the Doll Master accordingly sent doll copies of Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness to join up with Kazuma when the real ones wandered off, in hopes of taking the party out one by one. Kazuma, however, soon unmasked the doll copies as imposters, and thus the Doll Master sent a doll copy of Kazuma to help them overcome the real Kazuma along with any additional party member, though the tables got turned once the real Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness showed up.

The Doll Master subsequently showed itself, and after recounting its sad story, offered to let the worn-out Kazuma and his party leave safely if they would persuade other humans to stay away from the dungeon. Yet Aqua in a spurt of frankness began insulting the Doll Master for its disgustingness, enraging it so much it reanimated the doll copies of Kazuma's party to help it wage a full-scaled war of objects against humans. In the end though, all the dolls got defeated by the party, with Aqua using her powers to purify the hatred felt by the Doll Master, making it revert to a common lifeless doll.

## Abilities

* **Dungeon creation**: The Doll Master can generate a dungeon looking like a whole town inside a dimension that follows it around.
* **Doll creation**: The Doll Master can create doll copies of people based on the memories it scans from individuals, though only the scanned person as well as those people with a close relationship to him or her can have a viable doll generated.
* **Mentality manipulation**: The Doll Master can turn the mentality of the people it defeated back to that of innocent children who would play with dolls. However, in practice all that the childish behaviour expressed by those mentally reverted adults does is raise hell for society.
* **Marionette Offensive Strings** (傀儡攻性糸): The Doll Master can cast sharp marionette strings to cut up an enemy.
* **Marionette Cursed Strings** (傀儡呪縛糸): The Doll Master can scatter cursed marionette strings over its enemies to prevent them from using magic and other skills.

## Dolls

When Kazuma and his party entered Shangri-La, the Doll Master made doll copies of them after scanning Kazuma's memories, though because memories of him interacting with any fifth party member wasn't abundant enough, it could only generate dolls based off Kazuma, Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness.

These dolls, while under an illusion of glamour, looked and sounded just like the real person. However, since they were but puppets dancing to the strings of the Doll Master, they couldn't replicate the emotions or the natural reactions. Once the dolls entered battle mode, they threw off their illusions to reveal their true doll appearances.

* **Kazuma Doll** (カズマドール): A doll copy of Kazuma that can occasionally Snipe but otherwise does nothing, since it is unable to come up with the real Kazuma's tactics.
* **Aqua Doll** (アクアドール): A doll copy of Aqua that can cast Recovery spells, and acts more reasonably than the real Aqua.
* **Megumin Doll** (めぐみんドール): A doll copy of Megumin that casts Advanced Magic like Blast, Spark, and Diffusion Freeze, instead of one-shot Explosions like the real Megumin.
* **Darkness Doll** (ダクネスドール): A doll copy of Darkness that not only will cover companions with its tough body, but can actually hit with its attacks unlike the real Darkness.

## Trivia

* The Doll Master might have been another creation of the Head Researcher, considering its otherworldly design and tastes as well as the magical stone getting hidden inside it.
* It is possible the Doll Master and the Fake Doll may have come from similar roots, judging from the similarity in appearance of them as well as the dolls they create.

## References

1. ↑ Labyrinth of Hope and the Gathering Adventurers, Main Story at Shangri-La