Moloch


 * "The sacred ice monster."

Moloch is a Summon sequence of the Mercury element found only in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. When two Mercury Djinn and one Jupiter Djinni are on standby, and Moloch’s Summon Tablet has been collected, the Moloch Summon sequence can be activated. It resembles a massive, white-furred, single-horned dog-like monster appearing out of a falling snowstorm and breathing ice at the opposition.

Moloch has a base Mercury power of 100 and also does additional damage equivalent to 9% of the enemy’s maximum HP. In addition, all foes have their agility ratings cut down to 50%. Moloch, however, is not automatically summonable once one collects the required Djinn. Moloch can only be summoned once the Summon Tablet containing the sequence has been found and collected in the interior of Madra Catacombs. This is a sequence that is sometimes missed by players because the catacombs can be explored several times early in the game without possessing the Frost Psynergy and Tremor Psynergy necessary to reach the tablet.

Moloch is among Zagan (Venus), Megaera (Mars), and Flora (Jupiter) as a Summon sequence that is useful as an “alternative” summon for more powerful “traditional” summons. However, once Piers, the Adept with the Psynergy means to reach Moloch, joins up, and provided the player has been careful to acquire all findable Djinn up to this point, the party can have a maximum of five Mercury Djinn by the time Moloch is acquired, so the powerful Boreas summon sequence may already have been used by the player for a while beforehand, and since Boreas does 2.4 times the amount of damage as Moloch, Moloch is already considered outclassed in the grand scheme of things.

However, two of the five Mercury Djinn that can be acquired are encountered in not-so-obvious areas of the overworld map, so more often than not a first-time player without a walkthrough handy will only have three Djinn (enough to summon Neptune) when they acquire Moloch. In this case, Moloch is considered a superior alternative to Neptune because it can do comparable damage while drastically lowering the agility rating of all foes. But though it is the strongest of the four “basic summons” of The Lost Age, Moloch will quickly be outclassed by other later summons regardless.

Cultural Allusions
Origin: Unknown, around North Africa, Middle East, and Europe.

In ancient texts there are many different interpretations of Moloch but the origins of such a deity are unknown. It is believed that Moloch was either the name of a god or a particular kind of sacrifice practiced by Phoenicans and other North African cultures. This particular sacrifice was young children being thrown into a gigantic fiery oven and cremated, which is actually directly opposite of the elemental association he has in Golden Sun. The Mesopotamians worshiped Moloch as Ba'al, the Moon God, whilst medieval European demonology saw Moloch as a Prince of Hell, due to his association with the fiery sacrifice. Moloch is also one of the Fallen Angels in John Milton's Paradise Lost, and is the Angel who openly advocates a revival of the war against God immediately during the Fallen Angels' conference in Pandaemonium, the capital city of Hell. However, he could also be a representation of the Yeti of Asia, specifically Russia.