It's Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon: What is Falna?

Key points

• Falna is the foundation of power in DanMachi, granting adventurers supernatural abilities and growth essential to face the threats of the dungeon.
• Excelia, empowered by the gods through Falna, determines adventurers' improvements in levels and statistics, gained through effort or monster energy.
• Falna's limitations include dependence on God for upgrades, personal motivation for growth, and vulnerability to overuse of abilities.

In DanMachiFalna is the divine blessing bestowed by the gods and goddesses who descended into the mortal world on adventurers who decide to become their followers. This divine blessing allows adventurers to gain supernatural abilities and grow exponentially, transforming them from ordinary people into powerful adventurers capable of facing the threats of the dungeons.

Falna is essentially the foundation of Orario's power system and development, allowing adventurers to gain strength, magic, and skills that become more refined as they face trials. Without Falna, adventurers are mere mortals, unable to acquire and use the special abilities required to face the terrors of the dungeons. Falna also touches Orario and the world of DanMachi as a whole, significantly influencing the growth and stability of the city and beyond.

Origin of Falna

Life as mortals

Before the descent of the gods, humans were already fighting monsters in dungeons. However, they had difficulty dealing with them due to their limited ability to fight monsters. The gods, with their immense powers, could only observe humans in the mortal world. Out of boredom, the gods decided to come down from the sky to live among humans, bond with them, and experience life more intimately. To do this, the gods had to seal away most of their divine abilities. However, they retained the ability to bestow blessings on mortals who chose to follow them. This divine blessing is what is called Falna.

The gods decided to descend into the mortal world and understand humans, but not as mere mortals. They still wanted to be recognized as gods and influence the progress of the mortal world, and Falna was the perfect way to do so. With Falna, gods can significantly influence the mortal world while still being revered as gods. Falna can also be bestowed on objects. An example is Hestia's Knife, forged by Hephaestus with Hestia's blessing. Currently wielded by Bell, the knife is considered an extension of the Hestia Familia, reflecting the bond between its god and the adventurer.

Falna system

How the Gods empower adventurers through Falna

Although Falna is often called a blessing from the gods, it is much more than that. It acts as a stimulant used to awaken an adventurer's innate power. The gods pour some of their divine power, also known as Arcanum, into the adventurers they choose, and the adventurers receive a boost in power. However, the increase in power they gain differs from adventurer to adventurer depending on their type and level, and this is where Excelia plays an important role.

Excels

Excelia is essentially an advanced experience that helps develop your physical capabilities. Falna's blessing opens a sort of container of hidden potential, and Excelia is what fills this container, allowing adventurers to level up. Excelia can be acquired in two ways: through effort and through monster energy, monsters being the richest source of Excelia. In places like the homeland of the Amazon, they prefer effort and kill other Amazons to raise their level.

However, obtaining Excelia does not immediately lead to a level increase, as they are not immediately converted into statistics. For this the god who gave the Falna is needed, so that they can correctly guide the statistics to where they should be. Excelia is also a channel through which the gods can relive the experiences that adventurers went through to obtain it. This strengthens the bond between the gods and their followers and allows the gods to know exactly where to allocate Excelia points in their statistics.

The 5 parameters

Falna tracks five key metrics: Basic Skill, Development Skill, Level, Magic, and Skill, but the area where its effects are felt most is in Basic Skills. Consisting of strength, defense, dexterity, agility, and magic, basic abilities are ranked from I to A, then S, with S being the pinnacle. These letter rankings are also numbered, each with a difference of 100 points, i.e. from I (0–99) to S (900–999). However, there are adventurers like Bell Cranel who defy this ranking, managing to overcome the limit and reach SS and even SSS ranks. As for development skills, these are acquired after leveling up and unlock an adventurer's potential, improving their skills. It's more like an excess of Excelia put into a fighting technique or a way of life. However, this is not guaranteed.

Additionally, skills and magic develop independently of the leveling system. They evolve with use and the more they are used, the faster they level up. Skills arise from the soul and are based on the character's personality and desires. For example, due to Bell Cranel's intense admiration for Ais, he was able to acquire the Liaris Freese ability, which grants him rapid growth as long as he is in love. It is also possible to acquire magic, but there is a limit of three categories of natural magic per adventurer. However, there are exceptions, such as Lefiya, who can use any elven magic she witnesses, and Riveria, who can alter the effects of her three categories of natural magic to three different levels. This shows that each individual's progress is determined by their personal experience, which ultimately leads to how they level up.

Leveling

Although obtaining Excelia leads to a level increase, there are other criteria to be met before leveling up. While most of these criteria have not been clearly defined, one requirement is that the adventurer have at least a D rank in any basic skill and use that skill to accomplish a great feat. Once Falna is granted, the adventurer starts at rank I0 and then builds Excelia to increase in rank. After reaching enough Excelia, their god helps upgrade their level and their statistics are reset to I0, although the previous level's statistics remain as the basis for the next level.

Also, the more you level up, the harder it becomes to level up. The quality of Excelia is measured by the difficulty of an activity in relation to the character's level. For example, if a level one character were to fight a highly dangerous monster, they would gain a higher high-quality Excelia than a level three character fighting the same monster. As seen with Bell Cranel who often faces many monsters and characters much stronger than him, he gets a lot of high-quality Excelia which allows him to level up quickly and increase his stats exponentially. This drastic growth also extends to his weapon, the Hestia Knife, because Hestia also granted him Falna, and is directly linked to Bell's status.

Limitations of Falna

Dependence on God

Falna, for all its incredible advantages and effects on adventurers, has its drawbacks, the most serious of which is that they rely heavily on their god to advance in level. When adventurers earn Excelia, they need their god or goddess to use it to improve their basic abilities based on their strengths. Without the presence of their gods, the Excelia earned by adventurers cannot be used to improve their statistics or even improve levels, and the gods may be absent, sometimes even permanently. While gods cannot be killed, they can be banished to the heavens if they break divine rules, leading to them losing the ability to dabble in the affairs of humans. An adventurer in such a god's family will undoubtedly lose the ability to progress.

The growth of one's Falna also depends heavily on the desires and personality of the adventurer. While this may be an advantage for some adventurers like Bell, it may be a severe limitation for others. Adventurers who have no personal desires or motivations may never realize their full potential, even with Falna. Furthermore, Falna does not spare adventurers from the inconveniences resulting from the extreme use of their abilities. While this may increase their pain tolerance, these adventurers are still vulnerable to injury, exhaustion, and even death if they are not careful.

Importance of Falna

Time stability

Falna remains a fundamental concept in the world of DanMachi. It's what adventurers need to survive the dangerous dungeon full of monsters and become strong enough to make a name for themselves. Adventurers depend on their Falna to improve and survive, which gives them a fighting chance. This is one of the main reasons why many people want to join a Familia. Falna also significantly extends adventurers' lifespans.

The Arcana that the gods pour into adventurers contains some of the essence of their being, which leads to slow aging. The more they level up, the stronger they become and the slower they age. Hestia said that leveling up reduces the distance to the deity, and each step forward makes them age more slowly, significantly increasing their lifespan but not granting immortality. As a pillar of Orario's stability and development, Falna not only empowers individuals, but also enriches the world DanMachi as a whole, intertwining divine influence with mortal ambition.

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