A Buddhist priest and onmyoji from Heian-period Japan, Douman is best known as the bitter rival of Abe-no-Seimei. He went by several names—Douma Houshi and Sangha Douman among them—and earned the epithet "Beautiful Carnivore, the All-Ridiculing" for his brutal, mocking approach to magic. Though initially he and Seimei worked together through the Bureau of Onmyou, Douman eventually turned against them, becoming one of the government's greatest supernatural threats. His most infamous scheme involved cursing the powerful Fujiwara no Michinaga in collaboration with Fujiwara no Akimitsu. The magical duels between Douman and Seimei were legendary even in their own time, said to be genuinely awe-inspiring. Adding to his mystique, Douman supposedly died multiple times but kept coming back—he'd mastered a form of pseudo-immortality by learning secret techniques from the Hakudou lineage.
When he ascended to the Throne of Heroes, Douman became known as an anti-hero whose death paradoxically brought peace to society. His Heroic Spirit form, however, isn't quite the same entity as the historical Douman. Summoned by the Alien God as an Alter Ego (sometimes called Alter Ego Limbo), he's been described as a "caricaturized version" of his living self—exaggerated, distorted. That said, accounts by Murasaki Shikibu suggest both versions share an inhuman nature and a talent for deception. As a Servant, he enhanced himself into a High-Servant by merging three component spirits into his Saint Graph. After his defeat and summoning to Chaldea, he played dumb, claiming to have no memory of his antagonistic history and acting confused about his Alter Ego form. Whether he was drawn by karmic bonds, summoned by the Greater History regardless of his nature, or even willfully summoned himself remains genuinely unclear.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
