24/02/2026
Before they became those late-game, “where did these monsters come from?” mages in our armies, Crowley and Mazus started as something much simpler: master and student. And for Mazus, that never really stopped being the core of his life.
Crowley is introduced in Suikoden as a terrifyingly talented sorcerer, a man who claims to have a hundred runes carved into his body and spends his days buried in research. He’s obsessed with pushing magic to a level that can stand alongside the True Runes themselves, and the way the lore talks about him, he’s on a completely different tier from ordinary magicians.
Mazus, who shows up in Suikoden II, once studied under Crowley. He’s loud, proud, and absolutely fixated on proving his own power. His life goal is simple and stubborn: defeat his old master in a real duel and take that “strongest sorcerer” title for himself. Joining wars, lending his strength to armies… for Mazus, all of that is just more fuel for that rivalry.
Eventually, that obsession led to one of the wildest “off-screen” events in Suikoden lore. Over a century before the Dunan Unification War, Crowley and Mazus finally clashed in a true battle of magic. Their duel was so destructive that three mountains were flattened and an entire lake evaporated, leaving behind the Karakas Desert that now covers much of Senan. That isn’t fan exaggeration either – the official lore straight-up credits their fight with reshaping the land.
The funny part is how differently the two of them treat it. For Mazus, this is the rivalry, the thing that defines his existence. He’s still chasing that rematch where he finally stands above Crowley. Crowley, by contrast, is portrayed as almost indifferent. Some background material even describes their “rivalry” as basically one-sided, with Crowley having little real interest in it at all. To him, Mazus seems more like a noisy footnote than a true equal.
Fate has a sense of humor about it, too. In the lists of the 108 Stars of Destiny, both Crowley (in the Toran Liberation War) and Mazus (in the Dunan Unification War) share the same star: Chizen. Two different eras, the same “slot” in destiny, both held by mages whose grudge match once erased mountains from the map.
There’s also a timeline entry that places their devastating duel in an age where, technically, they shouldn’t even be alive. That’s where fan theories start popping up – reincarnation, strange lifespans, or time not working quite the way we think in Suikoden – but those ideas are community interpretations, not confirmed canon. What is solid is this: Crowley and Mazus fought a duel so intense that it turned a lake into a desert, and even after that, Mazus is still chasing his master’s shadow.
So when you finally recruit them and see both of these quiet, unassuming sorcerers standing around your castle, it’s easy to forget you’re basically hosting a century-long magical grudge that once redrew an entire region on the map.
If you could only take one of them into your final party, whose magic are you trusting when everything’s on the line – Crowley or Mazus, and what makes you pick him?
