Luka

February 28, 2021

A sexy water maiden.

Koichi Ishii in the Art of Mana

Despite her youthful appearance, the captivating Luka is actually a 200 year old sage who monitors the state of Mana and happenings of the world from the Water Palace.  The Water Palace is the only one in the game to be permanently inhabited by someone who’s not a Mana Spirit.  Until the Upper Land, Randi returns there often as Luka provides advice on his next steps, similar to Joch in the midgame.  This culminates in an encounter with the Empire where Randi must rescue both Luka and the Water Seed from the clutches of Geshtar.  

She’s amused by Randi when first meeting him:

LUKA: Where’s Luka at? Ah, I’ll try and ask that girl. Hey you, where’s Luka?

JEMA: Watch your tongue! That was graceless. Sage Luka, it’s been awhile…

LUKA: Fofofo, it’s good that you’ve come.

RANDI: Whaaat? Then this kid is a 200 year old granny?

LUKA: Oho, so it was this young man that pulled out the Mana Sword?  Fascinating! Fofofo.

She can also communicate with Randi telepathically, possibly through the flow of water.  After serving as a guide for the first act, she directs him to seek out Sage Joch, and he effectively picks up where she left off.  Luka has no other impact on the game, other than the very end when the Empire comes to break the seal on the Water Seed and imprisons her in the basement of the Water Palace.  Like Jema, her dialogue doesn’t change at the end, and we never learn if she had further knowledge of Randi’s background.

Localization Notes

• Luka’s Japanese dialogue has speech characteristics typical of an “ancient” character trope: the pronoun “onushi” and the frequent sentence ending “ja.”  This style is reminiscent of Taketori Monogatari.  Sothis from Fire Emblem Three Houses speaks this way as well. While it comes off archaic, it is ultimately not difficult to understand.
• In Japanese, her name is “Rusa Luka”, a reference to the rusalka of Slavic folklore.