Builder (Dragon Quest Builders)
| "The Builder" | |
| Dragon Quest Builders I | |
 
| |
| Japanese name | 主人公 |
| Romaji | Main character |
| Race | Human |
| Age | Adolescent |
| Voice actor | Yamashika Daiki (male) Aya Asai (female) |
The Builder is the mostly-silent protagonist of the eponymous game, sent forth by the Goddess Rubiss to rejuvenate the world after the hero of Alefguard betrayed the faith the people placed in him and doomed the kingdom to darkness.
The Builder's default name in the demo of Dragon Quest Builders is Bildrick, regardless of the gender of the player. In the Japanese version, the male Builder is given the name of Build (ビルド Birudo), and the female Builder is given the name Crea (クリエ Kurie).
Appearance and Personality
The male builder wears a black long-sleeved shirt with white pants, covered by a blue tunic and long cap to cover his blonde locks. His accessories are a pair of yellow goggles, a red scarf, along with a materials bag and food pouch.
The fairer of the two wears the opposite color scheme, having black pants, a white shirt, and a red tunic with blue scarf. The yellow goggles and hair are the same, as is the exploration gear and the large belt. Regardless of sex, the Builder is described as "dopey" by a variety of NPCs, much to their chagrin.
Both versions of the character follow the series tradition of being silent, though voice actors are employed for yelps, grunts, battle cries, and so forth when taking damage or fighting monsters. Furthermore, a sassy personality is strongly implied for both as the protagonist will talk back to several characters over the course of the adventure, even the Goddess Herself. No dialogue is displayed when this happens, and the implication is carried through by the reactions of the other conversation participants.
Story
The builder awakens at the words of Rubiss asking if the player can hear Her voice. She explains the fate that has befallen Her world, and that the builder is the only person alive with the ability to forge items from raw materials, as all others have fallen prey to the curse of the Dragonlord that has clouded creative clarity the world over.
The builder begins the tutorial of the game entombed in an unmarked grave, where in Rubiss explains the process of crafting tools and what will be required of the player to save the remaining lives left in Alefguard (while being interrupted frequently). The Goddess ends the tutorial by stating that they are not a Hero, and thus the builder's responsibility lies strictly with rebuilding the towns of Alefguard and giving safe haven to the people. The Goddess is then flabbergasted to hear Her chosen one "doesn't get it" and "just wants to build things".
Abilities
The builder is the only person alive who is able to combine, rearrange and construct objects from materials and the only one who can reduce said objects back to their components by destroying them. This being said, the builder is not totally immune to the hex--they will be stripped of all knowledge gained during a chapter when beginning a new one, and must relearn every recipe again.
Due to the focus of the game being more sandbox-orientated than previous titles, the builder has far fewer stats than the typical protagonist. Only HP, attack, and defence are shown in-game, with the former improving through leveling up the quality of a given chapter's town and through Seeds of life, with the latter two being completely dependent on weapons and armour.
Origins
Due to the open-ended nature of the game, the Builder's history is never fully explained. The only concrete details of their life are that they were granted life by Rubiss for the express task of rebuilding Alefguard, and that the concepts of time and hunger were alien to them until encountering normal humans.
Fan theories have emerged in the wake of the game's release in an effort to explain the origins of the protagonist, with some gaining more traction among the fan community than others. The first is the most simple, being that the Builder is a revived guardsman/guardswoman of Alefguard who fell in the Dragonlord's first attack, and was chosen by the Goddess due to their lover for masonry and tinkering.
The second most commonly accepted idea is that the Builder is the "bad ending" incarnation of the Prince of Middenhall. What this means is that the soul who would become the Prince has materialized to right the wrongs of their "ancestor", the original hero. The support for this theory hinges on the game taking place approximately one hundred years after Dragon Quest, which is when DQII is set in the normal timeline and the fact that the builder can equip the Erdrick Equipment. Secondly, the Builder's outfit is remarkably similar to that of the Prince's regardless of sex--both wear large, distinct goggles that stand out in the medieval setting, wear thigh-length tunics over their clothes, fastened with belts that have rounded emblems at the center. Another point of note is that the Builder is incapable of casting spells: this trait is only shared with the Prince of Middenhall among all Dragon Quest's lead protagonists.
An early theory that was debunked is the idea of the Builder being the reincarnation of the first game's hero, forced to make amends for their misdeeds. This supposition was squashed when the same hero appears as a boss battle in chapter 5.
Gallery
The first memory
The second memory
The third memory
The fourth memory
