We're here to bring you Al-da answers! We are Petra and Galena, a team of two doing our best to deliver fact-based reporting, well-backed theories, and cataloging of interesting info. And some stupid theories, and sometimes we just want to talk about the pillars and pottery.
Tbh we are here to have fun as much as to document ┐(´ー｀)┌
Research is ongoing and some of our guesses are likely to become outdated and discredited as more information surfaces, aka the game will update. We are also still learning more as we experience the game ourselves, so let us know if you notice anything we left out!
General spoilers warning for basically everything here, but we will try to warn at the top of our posts if we use datamined information specifically or if there are obvious story points. However, we promise nothing. Reader beware!
Also worth noting: yes we have themed names and little icons and we're calling ourselves a research team, but we are not doing this from an in-universe point of view. No RP happening here! We just think it's fun set dressing.
Please check out our intro post for some basic scene-setting information here!
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I really appreciate the effort put into these posts! I'm curious about how technologically advanced this world is. I think I remember a character wondering how Juniper gets the bathwater so hot, so I assume hot showers aren't a thing yet? Is there any info on this? Sorry if this was mentioned already somehow, I didn't get to read everything yet!
History isn't our specialty and technology is a wide subject, but we do have thoughts so we will answer this to the best of our abilities! Short answer: the technology level is generally idealized medieval, pretty low tech in most ways but things work smoothly as if modern conveniences exist, some things exist are a little incongruent, and there's a little magic sprinkled in there. Specific to your question, we don't have 100% definitive answers about water heating in general but Juniper's bathhouse is at least partially naturally heated by underwater geothermal activity.
Lonnggg answer.....!
(Spoilers post mines story + saturday market 2.0)
⊹˚✧₊‿︵ʚɞ︵‿₊✧˚⊹
We can start off with that we know how the baths are heated and it's neither technological nor magical! Caldarus explains that there is underwater volcanic activity in the area that has provided Mistria with natural hot springs that are utilized by the bathhouse - although Juniper has dialogue about bringing the baths to a higher temperature at Terithia's request, so it may not be only natural heating. The building also has a waterwheel, but it's unclear what its purpose is... It may have to do with pumping water from the springs or the aforementioned additional heating? (Maybe worth noting that the bathhouse was not retrofitted from some other purpose by Juniper - It was always one, she just fixed it up!)
We actually don't get a lot of information on the plumbing situation believe it or not! Yes, I'm disappointed too. There are no accessible bathrooms in the game; you can, however, purchase a bathroom set that implies full plumbing, with a toilet, sink, and bathtub. There are also sinks with faucets in Celine's cottage and in the living area of the general store. We would assume that there are bathrooms that the game does not show us that hold the usual amenities, but we do not know if the water is heated or how many locations have full plumbing (some further out houses, such as Terithia's shop and Errol's cabin, may not be hooked up to water at all). My bit of research says water heating in private homes came about before the modern style of toilet seen here, but I could not say for sure how it works in Mistria!
Toilets are likely to be modern and easily accessible because the game does not want you to think about waste disposal. *
It's worth remembering that the sprinklers you can use in-game are magic tools, so those may not exist in mechanical form in Aldaria. Regarding farming, both the player's and Hayden's farms are pretty low-scale, being entirely operated by a single person each, so we do not know how larger scale farms operate technologically. **
I am pretty sure there's no electricity but the game skims over things where it wants to - there's an icebox item rather than a fridge but you don't have to worry about keeping it stocked with ice (the game doesn't worry about preserving the items you store anyway, fish won't spoil and ice won't melt), and lights seem to be candles or potentially gas lights, but we don't have to worry about how these are lit and maintained. Stoves are powered by wood fire - except, potentially, the champion's kitchen set (obtained by completing all of Taliferro's cooking challenges) which looks more like a gas powered one to my eyes. The streetlamps in town may be gas lamps, and the lights further out seem more likely to be candle-lit. The lamp furniture items are candles, oil lamps, or, in the case of items gained from the mines, may run on magic.
Transportation-wise, we don't have any mention of trains or motorized vehicles, and the only boats mentioned are propelled by wind as far as I can remember. People get around on land by foot or by horse - we know that Baron Wiscar had a horse according to a childhood story from Eiland, and Merri has one that she brings to the animal competition in Mistria in the winter, although as far as we know Balor does not have an animal to pull his cart. The game does acknowledge some of the difficulty of travelling this way: Balor frequently requires repairs to his wagon due to trouble on the road, and bad weather has been mentioned as an issue to travel.
News spreads by letter or word of mouth. We do not hear of any dedicated letter-delivery service so that may be dependent on finding people going the way you want to send your message or hiring a messenger, but we know that it isn't difficult for the townspeople of Mistria to send and receive messages in a timely manner. Likely at least in part due to how close Mistria is to the Capital we hear news of things like current trends circulating as gossip. I do not recall any mentions of newspapers, fliers, or magazines, and there are no phones obviously.
We only see people writing by hand (with quill pens mostly, although there seem to be dip pens of other sorts in people's rooms) so there likely aren't typewriters, in Mistria at least. There do seem to be printing presses given the proliferation of books in town. There are even comic books in the bookcase in the general store's living area! ***
Everyone in town is literate as proven by the request board - notes are all written and posted personally and I believe every villager and Saturday Market NPC makes at least one request. There is relatively open access to higher education: money is mentioned as being set aside for Dell's schooling and much of the town is invested in Luc's future education as an entomologist, so education seems not to be socially stratified but it does cost money.
They seem to be operating on a modern understanding of health; they know about germ theory and understand, for example, protein's role in nutrition and what foods it can be found in. Valen has a medical degree, having studied at the same college as the royal physician. Interestingly, her clinic stocks "syrups" (a non-magical equivalent to potions for gameplay convenience) and her story revolves around recreating what seems to be a magic cure-all, but we would assume most of her work is actually closer to that of a real-life modern doctor!
Furniture is not mass produced - you can get stuff secondhand and refurbished, and you can commission a craftsperson to make things for you (such as in the crown request for furniture for an orphanage). Clothing, similarly, seems like it might often be commissioned or at least tailored somewhat to fit on purchase given people's comments in regards to Louis's market booth. Ryis mentions thrifting in the Capital so there is a strong secondhand market it would seem. Fashion is a mix of medieval-fantasy and modern. Women aren't confined to skirts in this society, and fashion is not conservative (you've seen those swimsuits). I will not make any guesses to material production or the potential for artificial materials - some things look plastic-y, but who can say for sure! ***
We do technically have photos from the dates you can take people on, but there is no camera shown and they are not acknowledged directly, and all other pictures we see are paintings, so these photos probably only exist for the player. I would hazard that camera technology, if it exists at all, would not reasonably be instant, full-color, and high-quality like the date pictures are. ****
The mines utilize a rope-and-pulley elevator and there are minecarts and tracks scattered around the upper levels. There are buttons on the mine elevator, but it wouldn't make sense for it to be electronic, right...?
Not necessarily technological, but you can get a magic circle house teleporter from Wheedle. This could have some implications, especially in conjunction with sealing scrolls apparently circulating in this world. There are ancient magic items in the world, but it is likely that they are few and quite hard to get your hands on... But also, sorceresses are out there, even if not known to the general populace. Could they also be creating modern magic items and those are making their way to the public in small amounts? Might the magic circle in Wheedle's shop be a modern spell..? I would assume that magic is not a significant part of the technological underpinnings of society, but it is out there to some extent, and seems to put sorceresses at a somewhat different place than the general population - there are short range teleporters and phone equivalents available to them!
⊹˚✧₊‿︵ʚɞ︵‿₊✧˚⊹
Slightly off topic notes:
*Shout out to the ancient Indus Valley civilization in India for the cities that got uncovered and had fully planned out sanitation! The rest of the world did not do that for a long time - Galena
https://www.safeplumbing.org/about-pmi/timeline here's my lil bit of research about plumbing in case you want to look too! - Petra
**I want to say nobility implies fiefdom/territories within a kingdom where there is some Overseer Figure over multiple farms in an area or larger organized farms, but we don't know that the historical western system transfers to this. either way, individual farms would def be a thing. - Galena
***Speaking of plastic: this world does not trend toward disposability in the way that the modern day does! Takeout from the inn would maybe count on dishes being returned? There won't be single-use plastic packaging here. - Petra
****After doing a quick Wikipedia refresh on camera history, I would guess potentially camera obscura projection techniques as a drawing/painting aid could be in use? - Petra
⊹˚✧₊‿︵ʚɞ︵‿₊✧˚⊹
"Technology" is actually a very wide subject, so we tried to cover a number of bases. If anyone has notes feel free to correct us or add your own additions! I hope that at least some of this was useful. Some of what we say here may feel redundant or obvious, but we have both missed obvious things before, so we'd rather go a little overboard for the sake of clarity.
Replying to some tags with further additions! There's more to be said about magic, and also a bit about how our perspective on the greater world might be biased by being set in Mistria, the one place where all the weird stuff is concentrated.
Also, a small thought on canon compliance in fanworks? Why not.
Continued spoilers for the completed mines story, and also Valen's heart event.
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Robinwinghood continues to bring us good food for thought!
This is a very interesting idea! I'm caught by the phrase "this world"... I'm wondering how much we can generalize aspects of magic to the world as a whole? We only see Mistria directly, and the town has some interesting magical properties that do not apply to the rest of Aldaria, but that doesn't mean magic is exclusive to Mistria. And then what about the world outside of Aldaria...? So I'm going to try to make up for being overly vague before and look at magic a little more specifically in terms of different parts of the world! (And also I will talk about Valen's panacea specifically too)
We do know there are Alchemists in the Capital - I got this line of dialogue recently as part of a quest:
But are these alchemists closer to real-life alchemists (not magic at all) or do they actually possess power? We don't really have an answer to that, but whether or not they have magic, we do know that there is magic in Mistria that is limited to the town and functions uniquely. The close proximity to the gate does something to the area, which is why people talk about how special the soil is: Vera notes that sesame shouldn't be able to grow in that climate, and it is mentioned as the reason the forageables regrow so quickly.
And, in regards to Valen and her work, she notes that the panacea does not work outside of town:
So the panacea may have been developed partly with tools or techniques related to, say, alchemy, but it could not be produced or studied outside of Mistria, so it is special to that place. I don't think we can connect whatever is involved in its making to the inherited form of magic practiced by modern sorceresses, as that is a magic that is effective outside of Mistria.
Also, I have something to say on sorcery!* This is a little more guesswork on my part, so take this section with a grain of salt.
March identifies Juniper's cauldron as foreign metalwork!
So that would be foreign to Aldaria, but we don't get any more specific than that. Cauldrons, then, presumably made for the purpose of potion making - I am guessing that it is not an ordinary object based off of Juniper's protectiveness of it - are made somewhere other than Aldaria. I have my own theory about that which I have a little bit of support for, so hear me out:
Sorcery may be practiced mainly in the Caldosian Empire. In the finale of the mines story line it is mentioned that Seridia's followers would probably go east, which is where the landmass the Caldosians are known to have gone to is - they are implied to be the same group.** The Caldosian traveller outfit set includes a pointed hat, like a classic witch hat, and also earrings shaped like moons, which we know to be a symbol associated with inherited magic (see our post on magic symbology***). I'll be honest, I'm still a little hazy on the differences and overlap of essence magic and sorcery, but it makes sense that Seridia's followers would have found some way to hold onto their power and pass it down.
As such, I'm positing that inherited sorcery magic is studied in Caldosia and is practiced in secret in Aldaria, while essence magic has not been practiced for thousands of years but still has a radius of effect surrounding the town of Mistria.
But back to Valen's panacea: we can see that it is affected by the magic lingering in Mistria. She would likely not consider what she did to create it as magic, although Juniper would probably disagree. The role that the environment plays is very interesting here... If the panacea ceases to work outside of Mistria, then it would seem there is nothing inherent to the concoction itself, but rather it is how it interacts with ambient essence magic that causes it to be the cure-all that it is. Is the panacea magic, then? Can a thing be called magic if it must be exposed to a magical environment to exhibit magical traits? Given the lack of clarity here, to us as people who have greater context, it is possible that the line between magic and science is easily blurred in-universe. However, this example is highly specific to this very unique location, so probably this does not occur on a large scale. However, I believe our picture of the world is not large enough to come to any definite conclusions. Who knows how much the secretiveness of sorcery has affected the perceptions of the world for those not in the know!
𓆩ʚ✧ɞ𓆪
Also, a mention for these tags from Camillabanilla:
I like to observe how fictional worlds function and I'll admit to being miffed sometimes at what fans change or ignore, but fanfiction is such an indulgent art that I can't really complain about people altering aspects to fit their purpose, especially when it comes to these sort of games that encourage you to insert yourself and make it feel personal. I personally enjoy attempts to follow canon! But I don't feel anyone is beholden to do so.
Also I don't know if this is talking about modern AU stories, but I'm having fun picturing an entirely technologically canon compliant story except people have cell phones. What a fascinating world...!
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I feel a little bad that I missed bringing up the line about alchemists in the last part, so here they are! Although, the follow-up doesn't actually give us any further information on them, so who knows what their deal is... It's an interesting bit of world building to ponder.
Also I hope it isn't strange to be commenting on fan stuff! I just wanted to throw my two cents in as a person who likes cataloguing canon.
Anyway, thank you very much for your thoughts! I'm dipping more into guesswork with this one, but I hope this gives maybe a little more insight into magic.
⯌Petra
𓆩⟡𓆪
*A quick note on the term "sorcery": while Juniper usually refers to her magic as "inherited magic," Seridia also uses the term sorcery a few times, so we will use those terms interchangeably for modern, non-essence magic.
**Yes, this breaks our prior theory about the Caldosians being related to Caldarus. Maybe someday we'll do a post about breaking down which of our theories were proven right or wrong!
***While there are a number of things we were not quite right about in our theorizing, an important one to note is that since sorcery is based on Seridia's magic, she is actually the one associated with the moon, not Caldarus. They do muddy the waters by having Seridia also call herself "bringer of light" (light being allegorical for magic), but the mural in the final level seems to 1. switch the cardinal direction that the sun and moon are associated with from how they were positioned in level 80's murals and 2. place Caldarus next to the symbol of the sun (east) and Seridia next to the symbol of the moon (west), with the dragons being identifiable by their horns: Seridia's project forward while Caldarus' are swept back. Keep that in mind when you read back on our previous discussions of moon symbols! I still think there are interesting takeaways from our examinations.
I really appreciate the effort put into these posts! I'm curious about how technologically advanced this world is. I think I remember a character wondering how Juniper gets the bathwater so hot, so I assume hot showers aren't a thing yet? Is there any info on this? Sorry if this was mentioned already somehow, I didn't get to read everything yet!
History isn't our specialty and technology is a wide subject, but we do have thoughts so we will answer this to the best of our abilities! Short answer: the technology level is generally idealized medieval, pretty low tech in most ways but things work smoothly as if modern conveniences exist, some things exist are a little incongruent, and there's a little magic sprinkled in there. Specific to your question, we don't have 100% definitive answers about water heating in general but Juniper's bathhouse is at least partially naturally heated by underwater geothermal activity.
Lonnggg answer.....!
(Spoilers post mines story + saturday market 2.0)
⊹˚✧₊‿︵ʚɞ︵‿₊✧˚⊹
We can start off with that we know how the baths are heated and it's neither technological nor magical! Caldarus explains that there is underwater volcanic activity in the area that has provided Mistria with natural hot springs that are utilized by the bathhouse - although Juniper has dialogue about bringing the baths to a higher temperature at Terithia's request, so it may not be only natural heating. The building also has a waterwheel, but it's unclear what its purpose is... It may have to do with pumping water from the springs or the aforementioned additional heating? (Maybe worth noting that the bathhouse was not retrofitted from some other purpose by Juniper - It was always one, she just fixed it up!)
We actually don't get a lot of information on the plumbing situation believe it or not! Yes, I'm disappointed too. There are no accessible bathrooms in the game; you can, however, purchase a bathroom set that implies full plumbing, with a toilet, sink, and bathtub. There are also sinks with faucets in Celine's cottage and in the living area of the general store. We would assume that there are bathrooms that the game does not show us that hold the usual amenities, but we do not know if the water is heated or how many locations have full plumbing (some further out houses, such as Terithia's shop and Errol's cabin, may not be hooked up to water at all). My bit of research says water heating in private homes came about before the modern style of toilet seen here, but I could not say for sure how it works in Mistria!
Toilets are likely to be modern and easily accessible because the game does not want you to think about waste disposal. *
It's worth remembering that the sprinklers you can use in-game are magic tools, so those may not exist in mechanical form in Aldaria. Regarding farming, both the player's and Hayden's farms are pretty low-scale, being entirely operated by a single person each, so we do not know how larger scale farms operate technologically. **
I am pretty sure there's no electricity but the game skims over things where it wants to - there's an icebox item rather than a fridge but you don't have to worry about keeping it stocked with ice (the game doesn't worry about preserving the items you store anyway, fish won't spoil and ice won't melt), and lights seem to be candles or potentially gas lights, but we don't have to worry about how these are lit and maintained. Stoves are powered by wood fire - except, potentially, the champion's kitchen set (obtained by completing all of Taliferro's cooking challenges) which looks more like a gas powered one to my eyes. The streetlamps in town may be gas lamps, and the lights further out seem more likely to be candle-lit. The lamp furniture items are candles, oil lamps, or, in the case of items gained from the mines, may run on magic.
Transportation-wise, we don't have any mention of trains or motorized vehicles, and the only boats mentioned are propelled by wind as far as I can remember. People get around on land by foot or by horse - we know that Baron Wiscar had a horse according to a childhood story from Eiland, and Merri has one that she brings to the animal competition in Mistria in the winter, although as far as we know Balor does not have an animal to pull his cart. The game does acknowledge some of the difficulty of travelling this way: Balor frequently requires repairs to his wagon due to trouble on the road, and bad weather has been mentioned as an issue to travel.
News spreads by letter or word of mouth. We do not hear of any dedicated letter-delivery service so that may be dependent on finding people going the way you want to send your message or hiring a messenger, but we know that it isn't difficult for the townspeople of Mistria to send and receive messages in a timely manner. Likely at least in part due to how close Mistria is to the Capital we hear news of things like current trends circulating as gossip. I do not recall any mentions of newspapers, fliers, or magazines, and there are no phones obviously.
We only see people writing by hand (with quill pens mostly, although there seem to be dip pens of other sorts in people's rooms) so there likely aren't typewriters, in Mistria at least. There do seem to be printing presses given the proliferation of books in town. There are even comic books in the bookcase in the general store's living area! ***
Everyone in town is literate as proven by the request board - notes are all written and posted personally and I believe every villager and Saturday Market NPC makes at least one request. There is relatively open access to higher education: money is mentioned as being set aside for Dell's schooling and much of the town is invested in Luc's future education as an entomologist, so education seems not to be socially stratified but it does cost money.
They seem to be operating on a modern understanding of health; they know about germ theory and understand, for example, protein's role in nutrition and what foods it can be found in. Valen has a medical degree, having studied at the same college as the royal physician. Interestingly, her clinic stocks "syrups" (a non-magical equivalent to potions for gameplay convenience) and her story revolves around recreating what seems to be a magic cure-all, but we would assume most of her work is actually closer to that of a real-life modern doctor!
Furniture is not mass produced - you can get stuff secondhand and refurbished, and you can commission a craftsperson to make things for you (such as in the crown request for furniture for an orphanage). Clothing, similarly, seems like it might often be commissioned or at least tailored somewhat to fit on purchase given people's comments in regards to Louis's market booth. Ryis mentions thrifting in the Capital so there is a strong secondhand market it would seem. Fashion is a mix of medieval-fantasy and modern. Women aren't confined to skirts in this society, and fashion is not conservative (you've seen those swimsuits). I will not make any guesses to material production or the potential for artificial materials - some things look plastic-y, but who can say for sure! ***
We do technically have photos from the dates you can take people on, but there is no camera shown and they are not acknowledged directly, and all other pictures we see are paintings, so these photos probably only exist for the player. I would hazard that camera technology, if it exists at all, would not reasonably be instant, full-color, and high-quality like the date pictures are. ****
The mines utilize a rope-and-pulley elevator and there are minecarts and tracks scattered around the upper levels. There are buttons on the mine elevator, but it wouldn't make sense for it to be electronic, right...?
Not necessarily technological, but you can get a magic circle house teleporter from Wheedle. This could have some implications, especially in conjunction with sealing scrolls apparently circulating in this world. There are ancient magic items in the world, but it is likely that they are few and quite hard to get your hands on... But also, sorceresses are out there, even if not known to the general populace. Could they also be creating modern magic items and those are making their way to the public in small amounts? Might the magic circle in Wheedle's shop be a modern spell..? I would assume that magic is not a significant part of the technological underpinnings of society, but it is out there to some extent, and seems to put sorceresses at a somewhat different place than the general population - there are short range teleporters and phone equivalents available to them!
⊹˚✧₊‿︵ʚɞ︵‿₊✧˚⊹
Slightly off topic notes:
*Shout out to the ancient Indus Valley civilization in India for the cities that got uncovered and had fully planned out sanitation! The rest of the world did not do that for a long time - Galena
https://www.safeplumbing.org/about-pmi/timeline here's my lil bit of research about plumbing in case you want to look too! - Petra
**I want to say nobility implies fiefdom/territories within a kingdom where there is some Overseer Figure over multiple farms in an area or larger organized farms, but we don't know that the historical western system transfers to this. either way, individual farms would def be a thing. - Galena
***Speaking of plastic: this world does not trend toward disposability in the way that the modern day does! Takeout from the inn would maybe count on dishes being returned? There won't be single-use plastic packaging here. - Petra
****After doing a quick Wikipedia refresh on camera history, I would guess potentially camera obscura projection techniques as a drawing/painting aid could be in use? - Petra
⊹˚✧₊‿︵ʚɞ︵‿₊✧˚⊹
"Technology" is actually a very wide subject, so we tried to cover a number of bases. If anyone has notes feel free to correct us or add your own additions! I hope that at least some of this was useful. Some of what we say here may feel redundant or obvious, but we have both missed obvious things before, so we'd rather go a little overboard for the sake of clarity.
Hello there! I was wondering if you would have any notes with what we understand about the type of government that is or could've influenced the one shown in Fields of Mistria, or even a better insight of the Baron and Baroness with what information is available at this time? I really do love the work you do here, and appreciate the dedication and attention to detail! Nevertheless, thank you for everything you both have done so far!
Petra here! What an interesting question to come to us with... Although there isn't much in-game information and this is not our specialty, here's my best answer anyway!!
(You know the city that's just visible from the summit? That's the Capital, as confirmed in some of the Shooting Star Festival summit dialogues!)
Fields of Mistria is set in what I would say is an idealized English Medieval setting, as many historical fantasies are. We know there is a king and a princess (Killinien and Delaphine), that there are lords and ladies with land and status (Adeline and Eiland and their parents, Wiscar and Linnet; Taliferro is also noted as being from a noble family), and that there is a council that aids in making laws and decisions.
Guilds exist - the adventurer's guild is a common fantasy setup, but we also have a confirmed merchants guild which was very much a real thing historically.
Religion seems not to have any place in the government, or even much of a part in the lives of the modern day Aldarians, with most references leaning more spiritual (Eiland refers to Caldarus as a guardian rather than god) or historical (dragons being worshipped in the pre-Alda era, Eiland's 8-heart event explains the idea of reincarnation as a legend). While the pre-Alda/Witch Queen era had high priestesses and such, we don't hear any religious titles used for governing figures in the present day.
As for specific information about Baron Wiscar and Baroness Linnet, we know a couple of things! Here's some dialogue from Adeline:
"My parents exchanged letters before they were married, after my father was sent to the front. But Mother rejected him after he was raised to peerage by King Kelinien!
Father had to come all the way back to Mistria to win her over, haha!"
They say my father saved King Kel's life back when he was still Prince Kelinien, and that's the basis of their friendship, but really it's the pranks…"
"Oh, yes! My father is King Kelinien’s trusted adviser, and my mother his bodyguard.
They're among few who can speak so um… candidly with him."
So we know their positions, that both seem to have been from Mistria, that the Baron was sent to the front lines of some battle and fought alongside then-prince Kelinien and was raised to peerage after saving his life, and that the baroness knew him before that and married him after. We also know that they are quite close to the king.
As a side note, we know much less about the Caldosian Empire! During Eiland's 6-heart event he mentions an emperor, and the signet ring he found was mentioned to be from an old dynasty which implies that rule is inherited by relation (this could easily be assumed but it's nice to have confirmation when there is so little else to work off of). I have mostly heard the word "dynasty" used in reference to Asian history, and while it is used in reference to ruling lines in various cultures around the world, I can't help wanting to tie this to Caldarus being tied to the Caldosians and his design having obvious Asian influence...
Here are some scattered screenshots that hopefully will give a bit of a fuller picture about how Aldaria works:
So we know that:
Aldaria takes part in international trade, which is in large part handled by the Aldarian Merchant's Guild;
The baroness understands politics and the Baron maybe not so much; Aldaria used to have knights but does not currently (although the Baron fought on the front lines and Terithia was a soldier so there is an active military, meaning there is conflict with other countries);
Nobility is a big deal in the Capital (although beyond the Capital and their own area of influence that lessens);
And there is a royal physician, Briar (who graduated from the same medical college in the Capital as Valen).
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
Galena's two cents:
Terithia was a soldier in the navy and her stories allude to traveling far distances to many different areas, to the point she doesn’t remember them all. We don’t know much about the navy or overall active military, but could guess that the navy is so large because of Caldosian threats during times of unrest after the War of the Lilies.
International trade has occurred since at least the Alda time period (Alda tribes/dark ages) as referenced by the Alda gem bracelet artifact.
It also might be worth noting that monarchy/lineage/ruler by birthright with courts seems to have a long history dating back to the Witch Queens. When both Caldosia and Aldaria officially consolidated into their own countries, they seemed to take on slightly different versions of a similar idea - empire implies that Caldosia took over other territories though, while Aldaria seemed to expand over unoccupied land (implying that they may not have continental neighbors, or at least no close by neighbors). Elsie has met at least two princes that traveled to Aldaria, so there are other countries aside from Aldaria and Caldosia and they also have monarchies.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
I hope this helped at least a little bit! I did consider researching governance in medieval England for this answer but actually, I'm going to leave that one to you... If you are interested in the more everyday aspects of life in the Medieval period for world building purposes then the YouTube channel Modern History TV has great videos about that, covering things like cloak design and how guilds worked in an accessible way!
Thanks so much for the question and for reading our blog!
Hii just wanna say I appreciate you guys and your research. Reading your theories & observations makes me enjoy the game even more 💖 especially how I'm so invested in the Aldaria & Caldosian lore we have so far
We're really glad to hear it!! Appreciating the game more is the goal, the devs put a lot of work into the storytelling both directly and through the environment and we wanted to shine a light on that!
Thank you so much for reading and for the kind words! :]
Happy update day! Here's one more update-spoiler-free post before we start playing it ourselves, so have some last minute speculation! (that some of you already know the answers to, maybe?)
I’ve been pondering over the paintings in FoM for a while now, and though I don’t think the paintings are the main reveal for anything, I do think they’re good supporting evidence for several theories we have so far about many topics ahead. The paintings are also small, low resolution pixel art, so warning: this is my interpretation of what I think they are!
Spoilers: We’ll be going over a lot of pre-update content (we're sure to find more when we play the new content!) like skill perks, late dialogue, the mines, plot points, items spoiled in-game through the gossip mechanic, etc. Basically, spoiler for everything I can think of!
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Mist Realm, Dragons, and Witches
There are a number of mentions of “realms” sprinkled throughout characters’ dialogue: Juniper mentions the Witch Queens “ruling the realms,” Caldarus talks about the gates in the mines being a path “between realms,” and unlocking the Mist Sight skill says “A Mist Spot will appear daily around Mistria where the veil between worlds is thin, allowing you to reach through and pull forth unusual objects from the magic realm in exchange for essence.” Mist spots themselves are purple/pink clouds that reveal some sort of space/starry area within.
It seems pretty clear that these realms being referred to are different worlds, and that the one we gain a little window to through the mist spots is the one where dragons and magic originate from. The mist artifacts and furniture, then, could provide some insight into this other world!
The mist artifacts themselves are similar-ish shades of grey/purple/blue with maybe complimentary yellow, all cloud-like, and the mist print bed blanket resembles the inside of the mist spot itself. With spoilers from Elsie’s gossip, we know that there are Mistril ore and gems similar to the ore and gems we’ve seen so far in the mines, but both a vibrant pink color and a fictional material. There are many dragon motifs in Mistria, but they also seem to be connected (or connected through witches) symbolically to the moon and maybe the sun (tarot cards, level 60 of the mines, witch symbology, etc). Petra went over this in great detail in another post!
From these clues, we can guess that the dragons’ realm (which, lacking a canon name at the time of our writing, we will refer to as the Mist Realm) likely has features similar to what we’ve seen displayed in this set. It could also be that when the gates between realms were open that Mistria itself looked different.
We’ll start with the only paintings in the game that have dialogue: the inn has matching paintings in each room, chosen by Reina because of their resemblance to her favorite adventure novels’ covers. Reina’s dialogue indicates that the paintings likely aren’t as old as the inn itself, but based on what we know about dragons and the Mist Realm, they look accurate! Petra also wrote another really great post about building history around Mistria!
Let’s break down the style, substance, and color of these paintings, and see if we can find some patterns!
In Josephine and Hemlock’s room, there’s a painting of what looks to be two dragons, a pink sky and ocean, and a castle in the background.
In Reina’s room, there’s a dragon sitting on perhaps a yellow beach or cliffside (I’m leaning towards cliffside based on the shading), with maybe ice or blue crystals coming out from the pink sea. There seems to be some kind of pillar/pole/tower behind the blue, and clouds or (not likely) smoke.
Maple’s room has a painting of two purple hills, with an outline of maybe trees (although the shape on the right vaguely resembles the castle from the first painting). The sky is pink with white clouds.
Luc’s room’s painting is a purple sky and unlike the red-ish sun(?) from other paintings, it has a yellow moon or sun that a dragon is flying across. It’s much cooler toned than the others.
Balor’s room has a painting that is much more normal colored with green hills and likely trees, with a dragon flying by a tower.
The pink overall could simply be a theme of the dragons, an interpretation of the Mist Realm, or it could be the Mist Realm’s magic having a physical effect on Mistria back when the gate was open and magic flowed freely through. The celestial body in the purple painting seems more like a moon than a sun based on the purple background, perhaps in Mistria. Balor’s painting shows a dragon in a normal colored world, so the theory of one bleeding into the other is pretty rocky, but I still think it’s either symbolic or the Mist Realm itself when pink.
The geography is hard to match to modern day Mistria! The two dragons is another confirmation that Caldarus was not the only dragon in Mistria. We’ve never heard of any castles before in Mistria itself - only the capital looks like a castle in the distance, but so far we've been given no historical connections to the capital and it's too far inland to be the same as the painting. The cliffside painting is the most confusing, but maybe it’s the Completely Wrong Map theory (which we will discuss below!) - the western landmass that no longer exists. And finally, although we haven't seen it so far, Balor’s painting is very likely to be the witch queens' tower, the same that is on the ancient coin.
Now for the painting scattered throughout the various houses around town, starting in the manor.
On the right side of the manor’s entrance room, there’s a painting of a large boat (perhaps with a dragon head?) sailing through a pink sea with a pink sky background and puffy clouds. This is absolutely Mist coded. The ocean is another recurring subject - sailing westward though, unlike the eastward Caldosians (more like CalDON'Tsians). If this is the Mist Realm, it implies that humans traveled to it and explored on their own? Otherwise, the dragon head is likely another symbol of power and perhaps religious significance like several artifacts mention using.
There are two landscapes that could be worth looking at in comparison to the dragon paintings:
In Valen’s room, there’s a small landscape painting(?) that is in a pale yellowy pink palette I can’t really tell what’s happening here (it’s also smaller than all the others) but my first assumption from far away was a tree foreground, a lake, mountains, and then sky. This has the same vibes as the inn paintings, and a not dis-similar color scheme. I didn’t clock it as particularly Misty, but it can be compared to the landscape painting in Nora and Holt’s room. Meanwhile, Nora and Holt’s landscape painting is like Balor’s in colors - greens and blues in mountains and maybe trees, a blue/white river going from North to South, and a yellow/orange sunset sky. It doesn’t have any of the features of the pink paintings and seems much more normal, likely painted more recently. Neither looks familiar to me and could be landscapes of anywhere in Aldaria tbh
Back at the manor, and coming back to the dragon theme, we have this!
Eiland’s work room has a large and detailed(!!) painting of a human with white hair and wearing a blue robe reaching out to a dragon, with maybe the sun or moon in the background. While technically and thematically fitting that it could be the mountain in the background, I believe that the two are on the summit. The dragon is much more detailed than any other painting (although I can’t confirm which dragon it is) and it’s the first and only to have a human interacting with a dragon. It could be offering something, a conversation, but my first thought (with no basis) was that it was the first meeting between a human and dragon. The summit has not had much plot significance yet aside from being where Ari watches the star event, but it is very similar to Stardew Valley’s summit which is a huge achievement in the game and may very well play a larger part if FoM. The color palette is yellows, purples, and a bit of blue - it could be like other Mist paintings, but the colors aren’t as vibrant.
There are two very interesting paintings in the museum which clearly go together:
On the left, there’s a dragon encircling a mountain with a purple haze in the background? On the right, there’s a person robed and hooded, holding a staff (similar to the ritual scepter artifact) in one hand and holding out a crown in the other. I’m thinking this is some agreement between witches and dragons. The dragon is around the mines mountain. The witch is holding a staff that looks like one of the scepters that can be found in several artifact sets, such as this one from the ritual set:
Juniper’s robe also has a dark outside similarly to the figure depicted here. Witches were queens at the time so crown imagery makes sense, but interestingly this crown is purple unlike the artifacts sets that have only had golden crowns and circlets so far.
The Maps
The next major group of paintings are maps! At this point I have to make a confession: I can’t read maps, it seems. I can confidently make interpretations about many paintings, but Petra has already had to correct my east/west mentions earlier.
Petra identified these two as maps for the mines, which are in Errol’s and Olric’s rooms since they both worked there prior to the earthquake.
There are “artifacts” (the Upper Mines set) on the first few levels of the mines that are identified by Errol as his and Olric’s, but some are even Errol’s grandfathers. The set also included miner’s slabs, which were used to navigate the mines and are now “out of date” after the earthquake - maybe they were more detailed about each floor where these maps on the wall are the general blueprint for the elevator?
Eiland’s work desk has a drawing (it’s not quite a painting, but it’s close enough that we’ll examine it) that looks like a classic X Marks The Spot for buried treasure somewhere along a shoreline, but I can’t tell where the map is meant to be of.
We only have three areas that meet the ocean (the western ruins, Hayden’s, the beach). If it is the beach, then perhaps the two green dots are two of the spots you can swim to/use the bridge to access, but they don’t really line up..? (Map of the beach flipped for comparison)
Inside the manor, on the left side, there’s an old timey painting that depicts a sea monster. I’m assuming there’s a landmass but it’s very odd looking (Caldosia? Or perhaps some other part of Aldaria like a peninsula?) unless it’s a much less well drawn version of a giant squid. I fully believe Terithia’s stories about The Big One and hope we see the loch ness monster!
The right side of the manor has a map that looks like beachy areas, but I really, really can’t read maps. If it was of the Mistrian beach (ex. If the brown circle were the lighthouse) then the rest I would think it’d look different. Like the other painting, it could be of a different part of Aldaria or even Caldosia - it could also be a zoomed in section of the other painting!
There are two potentially helpful items that can be received from the museum: the Mistrian Wall Map (“you can see your house from here!”) and the Explorer Globe.
Both of these rewards are likely accurate depictions of the world that can be referenced for a good comparison. However, I have a much less trustworthy but much more interesting theory that I’ve been scheming for a long time...
The Completely Wrong Map Theory.
Part of the Oopart set and found anywhere with the Well Placed skill perk, the Completely wrong map’s description and Errol’s dialogue confirm that it is Completely Wrong. However, I present my theory: it’s Completely Right (at the time it was drawn). Errol says “...It's also quite wrong. All it's good for is getting someone lost” which doesn’t sound promising, but the description explains why: “An uncommon artifact. A badly faded map that appears to show a landmass where the Western Bay now lies.”
Both Eiland and Errol talk about the western ruins multiple times. Eiland thinks it’s an odd place to build a temple, that the cliffside part shows more wear, talks about the same sea breeze being over both the beach and ruins, and that it’s a marvel the ruins haven’t fallen into the sea. During the dragonsworn armor quest, Eiland theorizes that the armor pieces (one of which was in the western ruins) actually protect the areas they’re in - which is why those areas weren’t affected by the earthquake. Errol puzzles over the ruins, saying the stonework doesn’t match anything, that it isn’t Caldosian or Aldarian, and that he feels like he isn’t seeing everything. Well Errol, you AREN’T and if you looked at the map!!! You’d see!
We haven’t seen the witches tower (except in Balor's painting), which we know existed at the same time as dragons. We know it’s not something lost to the earthquake because that would be much more recent looking and no maps correlate to it. This missing landmass could have been where the witches tower was, or it could have been an important site to dragons that was lost in some magic use/disruption during the gate sealing.
Others
These last few paintings don’t have a lot to analyze, but they’re pretty and have some good details.
In the manor’s dining room there’s a family portrait of Eiland, Adeline, and their parents Baroness Linnet and Baron Wiscar. We haven’t met the parents yet so this is our only visual for now.
Based on dialogue from Elsie in particular, pink hair is a natural color in Mistria, but we haven’t seen any white haired kids/young people so far: my guess is that there’s a shade of blueish white hair that some kids are born with and grow out of (Eiland) and others keep (Linnet) similar to people with lighter/blonde hair.
In Landen’s bedroom, there’s a painting of a lighthouse - probably the one currently in disrepair and inaccessible on the beach.
In March’s bedroom, there is a somewhat detailed painting of the night sky, with maybe a shooting star, and a constellation drawn out. The stars could have two meanings, one being related to sea navigation - his parents sailed across the ocean (his father was a merchant, his mother a well known and renowned blacksmith) before they disappeared on one of their trips.
The other could be a point towards his dialogue about constellations: “See those five stars, brighter than the rest? That's a constellation called the Dragonsworn... It was my favorite growing up. I got to thinking about how you moved from elsewhere, and sometimes constellations have different names in other places…”
The Mournful Clown Painting is an unlockable furniture item through the Friday Night Inn conversations, with a tragic and detailed backstory. On reddit UsamiTsan pointed out the similarities to the painting Stańczyk, the troubled court jester reclining in a chair.
PETRA (art major) NOTE: I do not know if he is popular enough to be "a meme" but he is somewhat iconic of Tumblr to me, so I would guess that they chose to recreate this painting in particular as an internet reference.
Ryis and Hayden: enjoy cute animals after getting through everything!! Congrats!
⊹˚✧₊‿︵ʚɞ︵‿₊✧˚⊹
Well, art (and A.R.T.!) appreciators, what have we covered today?
1. The mist realm is pretty pink, and also has a strong cloud and star theming. This could be related to other magic imagery being pink and purple, and also have something to do with the other celestial imagery found throughout the game.
2. I know that western landmass was real and significant despite the evidence to the contrary! #CompletelyRightMap
3. Terithia's Big One is out there
4. We can’t read maps, please help - hopefully someone smARTer can decipher them, it's such a pain(t) :')
We’re gonna get into the update bit by bit, and we’ll make sure our spoiler tag lets you know if we mention anything from beyond that point! In the meantime, thank you very much for following me on this journey through the realm of art and mist-ery...!
Elements of the Mines - Artifacts and Schools of Magic
We have a theory about the biomes of the caves and the artifacts that are found in each! They obviously have an elemental element to them, but they also seem to be experiments in different forms of magic...?
(We'll also take a look at another set associated with the cave and its implied connections to modern day magic!)
Spoilers for: the cave artifact sets (those accessible before the mines update on 2/23/26), a piece of world building discussed in Juniper's 8-heart event, artifacts found with the Lost to History skill
• . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. •
We did a post talking a little about the sages already, along with several other figures that we only know of through their remaining outfits and artifacts. That looked mostly at the outfit sets to discuss the fact that there were sages and compared their appearance to the others available to us, but this time we are going to look at the artifacts in the different cave biomes to see what they might have been up to!
There are two elements to each biome-related set: a literal element, those being water, earth, and fire, and also what seem to be different methods or schools of magic.
We'll start with the Tide Caverns set. I'll list the items and their most interesting facet according to their description or comment:
Crab Statue - Looks nearly alive
Dense Water - Holds a solid pyramid form in air
Starlight Coral - Glimmers as though reflecting starlight
Stone Shell - Sound of water through deep caves, used by queens to call their armies
Tide Stone- Expands and contracts with the tide
There is definitely a theme of shaping and forming materials beyond what’s naturally possible, which we will notice is a pattern throughout the sets. This one would seem to involve altering the shapes that things take, shaping stone and holding water.
(I almost want to draw a theme of connecting distant things too... stone to tide, coral to stars, shell to the caves where a queen's army waited? However, this is not a solid theory. I think it would be neat though!)
Next we have the Deep Earth set:
Earth-Infused Stone - Has taken on elemental qualities of earth
Faceted Rock Gem - Mesmerizing, gem-like appearance (but it’s just rock)
Really Round Rock - Naturally formed, unnaturally round
Rock Statue - Naturally formed human shape
Seriously Square Stone - Naturally formed perfect cube
Besides these all being rocks, we notice a pattern to their formation that seems very specific! These items are all "naturally formed" and yet all clearly were formed purposely - there's no way that rock statue formed to look like a person with no outside force at work. Obviously there's magic afoot here! They must have been manipulated to form in this way, and probably much faster than normal stone would, unless this was done over generations.
Finally, we're looking at the Lava Caves set:
Fire Crystal - Imbued by essence of fire
Rainbow Geode - Many gems fused together
Red Obsidian - A streak of red running through (Juniper describes it as sinister (in a positive way, you know her))
Tiny Volcano - Geological formation that looks like tiny volcano
Warm Rock - Ordinary appearance, perpetually warm
Finally, this set seems to involve forcing items to combine or infusing them either with other items or with elements. I see the tiny volcano as a bit of an outlier here, and to be honest, the only thing we can think of when looking at it is "caldera" - a crater left after a volcanic eruption and the thing that Caldarus is named for. (Or, maybe it's just a stone infused with magma...!) Other than that, these items are either different stones fused together or imbued with fire or warmth, taking existing things and altering them by combination.
The purpose of the seals was "controlling the flow of magic" between realms according to Caldarus. The seals would seem to be directly related to the biomes, as they have a matching elemental theme to them and clearly divide the spaces. They are at the top of their corresponding levels, so the seals are opened from outside of their respective elemental area. Do they act as a series of valves, containing the flow of magic more tightly with each seal above, or does each seal control their respective form of magic? Potentially they may even serve to keep these different magics apart from each other rather than just apart from the world above!
There's something we haven't discussed just yet that is quite interesting: Juniper does not recognize the magic that these artifacts were formed by. She finds the dense water unsettling and confusing, wonders about the cause of the earth-infused stone taking on elemental properties, and calls the red obsidian sinister. We would guess that these artifacts were formed using essence magic, a form of magic that has been out of use for however long the gate beneath the cave has been sealed.
It makes sense that the artifacts of the cave, associated with dragons, would use the magic that was granted by them! However, there is another set of artifacts that can be found down there that doesn't fit the pattern...
˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
I am going to compare two sets: the ritual set, found with the Lost to History skill in random rare locations in the caves, and the ancient set, found in the Western Ruins. While we've looked at the ancient set before and connected it to modern and ancient forms of magic, I would like to draw another set of connections here!
Here is the ritual set, associated with Dragon Clerics and Priestesses:
Ritual Beads - Imparts a feeling of serenity
Ritual Chalice - Presumably for rituals
Ritual Incense Burner - Still smells of incense
Ritual Scepter - Likely used by priestesses, “looks royal”
Ritual Tablet - Pictographic, how to perform a ritual - involves a dragon
And here is the ancient set, associated with the Witch Queens:
Ancient Chalice - Used in rituals
Ancient Gold Coin - Depicts a tower and Witch Queen
Ancient Horn Circlet - Dragon horns
Ancient Royal Scepter - Dragon head as symbol of authority
Ancient Stone Lantern - Long lasting, Juniper recognizes the magic in it still (notably, as she is unfamiliar with the magic that formed the artifacts that are found in the mine discussed above!)
There are a number of similarities between these sets. Both contain items dedicated to rituals (even having corresponding chalices), scepters - one explicitly for royalty and another that is commented on as "looking royal" - and dragon symbology, between the dragon headed scepter and the tablet depicting one in its ritual instruction. Juniper comments on some artifacts with the implication that she does rituals, so it is a form of magic that persists in modern day. This means that sorceresses and witches have a connection to ritual magic in the same way that clerics and priestesses do. While "the different forms of magic are connected" is something we have discussed before, we somehow completely skipped over the ritual set. Whoops!
It is interesting that both the ritual set, using a form a magic that can be traced to modern day magic users, and the elemental artifacts, using what must be the lost form of essence magic, were both in use in the caves seemingly in congruence with each other! I have to wonder, did those types of magic ever combine...? If you befriend Juniper, the idea of mixing the two forms of magic is a recurring idea that she brings up, and it has me extremely curious!
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Hi there! We've been wanting to talk about the weird stuff going on with these artifacts for quite a while, and it's time to finally get this out of the drafts before the update hits (by the skin of our teeth)! Also, wow, I can't believe we skipped right over the ritual set when talking about magic in two cases where it would have been relevant? Terribly sorry about the oversight, it's here now! There's almost certainly more to be said (maybe about how the beads "impart a feeling of serenity" similarly to how the protagonist feels "peaceful" when looking at the dragon statues on the fountain in town or in the bathhouse, and what does the tablet mean), but probably it can wait a little longer.
I hope this was interesting! I hope that I don't get spoiled on the story update because they decided to have it happen on Monday and I have a job!! If you're also stuck unable to enjoy the update for a while like me, I hope this post helps tide you over. You certainly can't complain about there being a d-earth of content! Man, I just lava this game :)
The Formation of Nations - A look at Mistria's historical texts and creating a timeline
We wanted to take a moment to look at the in-game documentation of the history of Mistria and beyond! What do the people in this world know about the past, and what can we learn about the town of Mistria, the Kingdom of Aldaria, and the Caldosian Empire from them?
Some of the uncertain bits of the timeline are likely to be made clear with the upcoming update finishing the mines storyline, so it seems useful to get in order what we do and don't know currently! Join us on this little journey into the past...
(Spoilers post level 60 of the mines!)
⭑•̩̩͙⊱••••✩••••̩̩͙⊰•⭑
If you've paid close attention while wandering into people's houses, you'll have noticed that there are a number of research texts sprinkled around. (After looking at each one I am going to update a little timeline using what we learn to try to form a better understanding of what happened when!)
Eiland's office contains a book titled "The History of Aldaria" which tells of the formation of Aldaria as a singular united nation.
The Alda tribes are described as "fractured," so they were seemingly initially a single civilization before being split up. The time when they were split is referred to as the "Dark Ages." Finally, we establish that the Alda tribes coming (back) together to form the Kingdom of Aldaria is what ends the Dark Ages.
Dark Ages/Alda tribes > present era/Aldaria
Errol's house has a book titled "The Sister Kingdoms" which gives us some information about the Caldosian Empire in relation to Aldaria.
There is a nation to the east called the Caldosian Empire which we hear bits and pieces of through the characters in this game. This book posits that Aldaria and Caldosia, due to similarities with the early Alda, may have originated from "a single pre-Alda civilization," which may confirm that the Alda tribes had been united before (although, as the book says, there is little knowledge about this). This would mean that when that civilization split into tribes, one (or several) of them became the Caldosian Empire while the rest eventually became a single entity.
Pre-Alda (one civilization) > Alda (many tribes, including the proto-Caldosian empire) > Aldarian Kingdom and Caldosian Empire coexisting
Juniper also possesses a historical text, this one called "The Legend of the Forgotten Queens."
Given Juniper's interest in the Witch Queens we can assume that this text is referring to them, but while she is clearly deeply familiar with them, this book says they are a recent discovery. This would seem to mean that modern day magic users already know about these historical queens but there is not much public knowledge of them just yet; Eiland knows a bit about them through his research (and has attempted to get Juniper to share what she knows with little success), and Maple is interested in anything queen related but, beyond these specially interested individuals, the queens seem to be an unknown.
We could also potentially assume that Mistria is the "western Aldaria" area mentioned here, as the discovery of the artifacts in the Western Ruins is recent due to the earthquake uncovering the area (as confirmed by Valen in her 8-heart event) and that is where the artifacts associated with the Witch Queens are found.
Juniper's book posits that these Queens ruled the area prior to the Dark Ages, likely putting them in the time of the singular united pre-Alda civilization.
Pre-Alda (singular nation ruled by Witch Queens) > Dark Ages > Aldaria and Caldosia
While we're talking about the Witch Queens, it is likely that the queen in the queen berry story told by Eiland is about one of them!
Between the ancient queen and the returning berries (confirmed to be magical by Juniper's comments during the festival), this seems to be pretty clearly a story from the time of the Witch Queens, the pre-Alda society. (The word "sworn" here also piques my interest, as that makes me think of the Dragon Sworn. "Ashes" also brings to mind fire, like that of dragons' breath... However, this might mean nothing.) (Also if this is from the age of the Witch Queens its interesting that this story has survived so long. You'd expect it to have gotten berried in the past!! Okay moving on)
Besides the war in that story, there was a more recent one from sometime after the Kingdom of Aldaria and the Caldosian Empire had formed called the War of the Lilies! We hear very little about it, but we know that both the Caldosian and Aldarian artifact sets have swords and armor, that the Aldarian Sword is stated to likely be from that war, and that the Lost Crown of Aldaria disappeared after the Caldosian Empire invaded. It would seem that the empire invading was the start of the War of the Lilies, but it is unclear why they invaded or how this conflict ended. (We will save our theories about past conflicts until the end of the post!)
Speaking of unclear timelines, Caldarus does some digging into the past of his own, so let's look at what he learned!
(This is a series of dialogues over the course of a few days sometime after Caldarus has taken on human form, studying the scrolls in his temple!)
I am currently reading a scroll about the history of this temple.
"A civilization predating the Alda constructed the exterior areas prior to the Dark Ages, but the cave itself existed long before that." I am not familiar with the "Dark Ages" mentioned.
Perhaps I missed it...?
It's interesting that this is a scroll about the history of the temple but it speaks of "the cave"! The history of Caldarus' temple and the cave are implied to be intertwined then, which does make sense as we are fairly certain the dragons come from the realm that is connected to Mistria through the gate, beneath the seals in the cave. This text speaks of a civilization predating the Alda/Dark Ages, meaning that the temples (exterior areas) were probably built in the pre-Alda/Witch Queen era, and we learn that the cave is very, very old. We will get back to that soon!
I have been recovering much information from these old scrolls.
It seems that the "Alda civilization" mentioned was formed from fragmented tribes at the end of the Dark Ages.
Strangely, I can find no records that they had queens, kings, or any nobility at all.
I vaguely recall that queens ruled the human tribes at one time. How mysterious...
What he refers to here as the "Alda civilization" is almost certainly the formation of Aldaria as presented in the first text we looked at - one of his next dialogues has him expressing a lack of familiarity with "Aldaria" and "Caldosia", as they seem to have formed after his sealing. He also seems to know the "Alda", meaning that he may have still been around when the tribes were fragmented (only being unfamiliar with the term "dark ages" due to that being a term applied to the period later). References to the Witch Queens are hard to find, not just in modern Aldarian historical literature, but even in the preserved scrolls that the Dragon Priestesses recorded, which is especially interesting as this is information that is seemingly familiar to Caldarus.
[Player]! I have uncovered something most interesting.
Finally, a scroll referencing the queens that ruled the human tribes prior to the Dark Ages.
The timeline surrounding my long slumber is starting to slot into place but...
What happened, I wonder?
I wish that I could remember more. I must continue my research.
Fascinating...
"The Caldosians and the Aldarians are known to share a common ancestral origin."
Caldosians... and the Aldarians.
Descendants of those who lived and worshiped here during my time, I am sure of it.
And yet, those who would become the Caldosians sailed east to form their empire while the Alda remained to found Aldaria. Why...?
Ah, my head is beginning to hurt. Perhaps that is enough reading for today.
And so his research concludes! This document confirms what Errol's text surmised, that the Aldarians and Caldosian originate from the same tribe. Caldarus seems to draw their origin specifically to Mistria, and worshippers of Caldarus (and potentially the other dragon, given the second temple). The formation of the identities of "Caldosia" and "Aldaria" are also placed after the Caldosians sailed east. This would place the War of the Lilies after that point, and "sailing" also implies that the Caldosian Empire is across the sea on another continent.
Let's go back to that bit about the caves by looking at something Eiland says shortly after the mines are reopened:
You want to know about the history of the Mines?
We don't know too much, but there is evidence a pre-Aldarian society once utilized underground chambers for cultural and religious activities.
Pre-Aldarian, Pre-Alda, its origins likely predate even the rule of the Witch Queens.
There are surely artifacts yet to be discovered that will reveal more about them.
This again emphasizes the age of the caves - possibly built before even the reign of the Witch Queens (which here is implied to be before what we think of as pre-Alda..?). The cultural and religious practices obviously link to the ritual chambers and artifacts that can be found down there, and a piece of dialogue from Caldarus talks about prayers offered from "above and below the ground" long ago.
Information about the origin of the caves is one of the things we are most excited for in the upcoming story update! We made a post about the evidence we have regarding the Dragon Sages and Clerics, and to learn more about them and the Witch Queens and the origin of the dragons and the other realm will be very cool!
Our finalized timeline looks something like this:
Unknown civilization (the caves are formed, the gate likely opened during this period) > Witch Queens (> or =) Pre-Alda (the creation of the temples) > Dark Ages (tribes split, eventually proto-Caldosians went east) > Aldaria and Caldosia (War of the Lilies)
· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·
A brief aside about archival and study in Aldaria:
The Mistria Museum was established quite recently - the building was renovated from some other purpose, likely mining related given its proximity and how important that enterprise seems to have been to the town. There are occasional references to other museums, libraries, and historical scholars in Aldaria, especially in the Capital, and communication between these locations is open and collaborative, and also maybe just a little competitive!
Notably, while the Mistrian Museum of History and Culture is by no means the only archive in Aldaria and is likely no more recent than the earthquake that preceded the story, it has played a large part in studying its past! The existence of the Witch Queens is a recent local discovery, and while many of the characters don't realize it just yet, there is quite a bit of evidence of the magic that permeated Aldaria's past. They have rapidly become a well known repository of artifacts and information known throughout the kingdom.
· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·
Alright theory time! Both of us (Petra, the one writing this post, and Galena, who did much of the evidence gathering) think the conflicts mentioned above had to do with the dragons.
Here's the idea: The Caldosian Empire is associated with the east, both in that their land is off in that direction, and in Mistria the artifacts associated with them are found on the Eastern Road. Within Mistria (and Mistria itself within the kingdom if Juniper's book does refer to this town) Aldaria is associated with the west, with the Aldarian artifacts being found in The Narrows, just shy of the Western Ruins. Along with these two civilizations, the two dragons in Mistria are also associated with the far east and west of Mistria. The Statuette of Caldarus is even a part of the Caldosian set! Could the War of the Lilies have been something to do with the dragons...?
We would guess that there was a power struggle over the gate and the magic it metes out in the past, maybe the battle mentioned in the story about the queen berries, that split the pre-Alda civilization into polarized tribes based on worship of one or the other dragon (or potentially there was also a third party vying for power, such as the Witch Queens). This battle resulted in the sealing of the gate, and the two dragons with it. The Caldosians moved east, consolidated their power, and then returned to continue this fight, leading to the War of the Lilies.
তততততততততততত
We've made it to the end! I think that the way this game creates and interacts with its historical aspect is very interesting. There are places where you clearly can't quite trust what the characters or documentation say (they don't know that magic is real!), or where there isn't much information available so we have to make guesses or take something at face value that may not be true simply because there's so little else to go off of... It does frustrate me a little bit when, say, someone talks about reading an interesting book about the War of the Lilies and then they don't share anything about it, Eiland.
But anyway it's fun to figure out what we can, it simulates the experience a little bit, figuring it out alongside the characters!
I hope that we were able to communicate things clearly and that this is reasonably accurate! There's stuff that I wanted to cover but couldn't; we don't have screenshots and the wiki doesn't have records of certain things we know we've seen, like dialogue about conflicting first hand historical accounts, and some things just fall outside the purview here.
If you noticed anything we missed or have ideas, let us know! We can't figure this all out on our own, and besides... You can’t spell museum without us :)
⯌Petra (& much help and theorizing from Galena⯎)
P.S. (Petra Snote)
Have we ever mentioned where we get our cute little emoji dividers from? It's this page from Kaomoji Kuma, they have a fun little grab bag selection that it's a treat to look through each time we make a post!
What does Magic look like? Spellcasting, Seals, Symbols and Motifs
Happy Moonday :o)
Magic exists the the world of Mistria, unknown to the general populace. It takes a few forms - there are many artifacts that are clearly the result of magic or that exist for magical rituals, the protagonist learns several spells, and there's a sorceress in town. Here we'll look at symbols and actions that are associated with the Witch Queens, Sorceresses, and spell casting, drawing connections and trying to figure out some of the meaning of some more obscure pieces of this world.
Spoilers: Level 80 of the mines, something seen during Eiland's 8-heart event, Juniper's 6-heart event and something learned during her 8-heart event, a broad point of Celine's heart quest
(We hit the picture limit on this one! We crescent to you... a very long post)
──✩₊⁺⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧──
We've already covered what we know about the magic users who are associated with the mines in this post. It may be useful to read beforehand, as there are several similarities that can be seen between those sets and what we'll be examining here.
Before we start talking about magic, it is important to note that we learn from Juniper's heart quest that there are two forms of magic: inherited and essence. Juniper uses a form of inherited magic, which can apparently take many forms and still involves much learning to use and is the main method of magic in the modern era, while the protagonist uses essence magic, granted by dragons and quite common in Mistria up until the gate between worlds was sealed. We do not know if essence magic was ever used outside of Mistria (or even if it could be used at a distance from the gate), but we do know that inherited magic is practiced elsewhere - Juniper is not from Mistria, after all.
Let's start with the artifacts associated with the Witch Queens, the Ancient set. These items are found in the Western Ruins area, outside the temple there.
Caldarus is associated with the east, as are the Caldosians who worshipped him - his statuette can be found on the Eastern Road as part of the Caldosian artifact set, and his temple is in the Deep Woods to the east. The western temple, then, is likely not associated with him as it lies in the opposite direction. However, the temple's layout is a mirror to his, there is a dragon priestess statue at its entrance, and the ancient set clearly has dragon symbology. As such, this would instead imply a connection between the Western Temple and the other dragon, the one whose statue is in the mines. This also implies an association between this other dragon and the Witch Queens whose artifacts are found there.
(If you're thinking "there's two dragons?!", consider reading this post!)
There are several items of interest in the Ancient set: The Horn Circlet has an obvious association with royalty, but also with the sage sets from the mines which also often include crowns - and besides that, this crown is horned. The Royal Scepter has a dragon's head as a "symbol of the Witch Queen’s authority." The Crystal Goblet was used for rituals - there are artifacts in other sets associated with the other ancient magic users that also have ritual use, so it seems that rituals were a major part of magic in that era.
The color scheme of the set is gold, teal, and purple. Dragon symbology is associated with power and authority, as seen with the scepter and crown.
Juniper is a sorceress, one of the modern practitioners of magic. Essence magic used to be granted through dragons, and ever since their sealing, inherited magic is what remains. It is worth looking at what symbols are associated with her and, by proxy, modern magic.
Her color scheme is pink, purple, gold, and teal, sharing much of her palette with the Ancient set. The gems on her jewelry look a lot like eyes, a motif also seen in the Dragon Cleric outfit set. She wears a golden circlet; minus the horns, it looks quite similar to the circlet from the Ancient set, and given how many outfits associated with magic users also had crowns, we can see that there is a link between them and magic.
Juniper's room is also quite interesting for the magic symbology we can gather!
It shares her important colors, although blue takes a backseat here, and the eye motif is strongly present too. The wallpaper pattern looks very specific: I see it as dragon claws, which would fit with the dragon statues present elsewhere in the bathhouse and the other dragon symbology present in Mistria (scaled pillars, the winged sigils), although I could not say for certain.
There are two moons present, one a part of the magic circle around the cauldron and one a decorative cushion at the head of her bed. The magic circle also features teardrop shapes: potentially this is meant to invoke the shape of essence drops.
There are a few other magic circles we can see to compare it to: we'll start with the main lobby of her bathhouse and the sealing scroll that activates on level 60.
These are all a little different from each other! The circle around the cauldron in Juniper's room lacks outlines and features a line pointing east with a crescent moon at the end of it. The cauldron circle in the lobby looks quite similar, with the same pattern of teardrops and dots, but it leaves out the moon line and adds a double-walled circle surrounding everything. This double wall carries over to the circle caused by the sealing scroll, and the eight dots between the lines here match up with the dots in the bathhouse circles.
Next we have the seals. After the water seal is broken connecting lines begin to appear on the following seals:
The edge of the circles appears double-walled and there are six points inside. This number doesn't match up with any of the elements in the magic circles we just looked at, and the connecting lines between them are an outlier within our examples. The connections here never form a complete hexagram (six-pointed star): there are no connections on the water seal, the earth seal forms an X-shape behind the gemstone, there is a a hexagon but no visible inner connection within the fire seal (potentially there is a triangle figure behind the flames?), and the final seal's lines form an upside down triangle.
The final seal uses some of the visuals we've been talking about - a pink and purple color scheme and an eclipse, with the moon obscuring the sun. Beyond that, the presence of magic circles such as those used by sorceresses could imply that the creators of the seal also used inherited, rather than essence, magic.
We have a few examples of people casting spells directly. The player characters learns a number of spells, and when the sealing scroll event happens Caldarus casts a spell of teleportation to bring himself to the mines and casts another spell to burn the scroll. Juniper does magic twice during her 6-heart event; first swapping bodies with the protagonist at the beginning, and then seen attempting some form of spell as the protagonist returns.
Caldarus and Juniper cast spells the same way: They hold their hands out to their sides with their eyes closed, a wind whips up around them, and the spell is cast. The protagonist, meanwhile, does it quite differently: They hover in the air and raise their hands to the sky, and a bright glow emanates from their hands. When Juniper is body swapped and doing magic she also hovers and raises her hands over her head, but there is no glow.
Another point of interest is color; when Juniper casts her swap spell there are no lighting effects, but Caldarus glows faintly with the color associated with the spell he's casting (blue for teleportation, orange for fire), and the glow around the protagonist's hands also changes depending on the spell being cast (blue for rain, red for fire). Could the lack of glow in Juniper's spell casting be associated with apparently not successfully being able to harness the protagonist's essence power during the swap?
The way that the protagonist raises their hands to cast is reminiscent of the gesture on the spell cards granted by Caldarus:
On these cards a pair of hands extend upwards, rays shining from the symbol for the spell that is being represented. A crescent moon sits atop each card: are the hands reaching upward towards it?
The color scheme of the cards is pink and white; this doesn't match with the colors of the Witch Queen artifacts, and the pink is much softer than what is associated with Juniper. It does look like a fairly close match to the lighter colors present on the level 80 seal!
Speaking of level 80, there are a pair of murals there that look quite similar to the tarot card-stylings of the spell cards! They are rectangular in composition, two toned, and feature rays emanating from a central object. The borders are also fairly similar, and the circle at the top of each mural is similar to the moon at the top of the cards.
The murals have a sun and moon and, we believe they may represent the two dragons that lived in Mistria, Caldarus and the dragon of the mines. It would seem that the moon here is representative of Caldarus - the moon is on the eastern mural here, and as stated at the top of this post, east is associated with Caldarus. Beyond that, the spell cards that he granted feature a moon at their tops. If this is correct, then the second dragon, the one whose statue sits at the entrance to the mines, would be represented by the sun on the mural to the west here. What could the eclipse on the seal mean in this context...?
---------
Thank you for following me on this journey so far! I also want to discuss some miscellaneous moons, so here we go:
There is a reoccurring sigil in Mistria that always features wings and a central element, but in the Sleeping Dragon Inn specifically it features a moon and carries a more definite dragon-ish look:
While there are also sigils on the tops of the most common ruins pillars, around the tablets in the seal rooms, and on the chest in the Dragonsworn's grove, they lack the moon and dragon look seen here.
Isn't it interesting that so many examples of the crescent moon in the game point upward? Here are two examples of crescents that point to the side instead: the Caldosian traveller set's earrings, and the belt buckle that Celine wears.
The Caldosian outfit includes a pair of earrings that look like crescent moons and a hat that looks much like a classic pointed witch hat:
This may not hold much meaning; while the game does offer a witch hat as a default accessory option, it is only that and not part of a set that has context within the game, so it is difficult to say if it means anything. It is still an interesting pair of characteristics for this set! As Caldosians split from Aldaria and were associated with Caldarus, who we have posited may have a connection with the moon, the persistence of moon symbols makes sense. Potentially the pointed hat and moon shape persists in Caldosia the same way that dragon symbols do in Mistria, no longer holding their original meaning but instead having become a broader cultural symbol?
Meanwhile, Celine...
In three out of four of her outfits Celine wears a moon buckle, and all of her outfits incorporate the wing sigil discussed above. Celine is connected to Mistria and its nature magic: She has the Codex Mistria and has been able to decipher it to some extent, she brings back an extinct flower through her heart events, and she feels a connection with temple flowers when she sees them for the first time. Her color theming at times includes teal, purple, pink (a pastel like the spell cards), and always some gold, sharing her palette partially with both the Ancient set of artifacts and Juniper. Her name is also quite similar to Selene, the name of the Greek goddess of the moon! Given the significance of moon imagery in this game, I can't help but feel that this isn't a coincidence. She's got something going on. What secrets are you hiding girl
｡ ₊°༺ 𖤓 ༻°₊ ｡
Hi it's the end! This post was a lot! Galena suggested bolding words to act as an anchor point, hopefully those helped.
There are many repeating symbols in Fields of Mistria, and many of them fit together in interesting ways! It can be hard to decide what should go together in a single post, so sorry if this one was a little unfocused. I would say my takeaways are:
The moon is associated with Caldarus, and it is likely the sun is associated with the other dragon. These celestial associations may point to some interesting connections!
The other dragon was an important figure in ancient Mistria, seemingly associated with the Witch Queens.
Sorceresses are the successors of witches. Magic circles are employed by sorceresses, likely a magic inherited from witches, and seem to also have been utilized by whoever made the seals. As such, I would posit that that the Witch Queens had a hand in the sealing.
Celine's got something going on, and the protagonist casts spells funny...?
Hopefully you see where we're coming from and this doesn't just seem like a bunch of moonshine. An astronomical amount of work went into this game and fleshing out its world and history, and it's always a lot of fun examining all the little pieces they've left for us! We’re connecting the dots... forming a constellation of theories..!
Magic Figures of Mistria's Past - Dragon Priestesses, Elemental Sages, Clerics
The Aldarian Research Team is back, and we want to talk about some mysterious figures from Mistria's past! We'll be looking at pieces of the environment, clothing sets, and artifacts as our main sources, with some minor information from dialogue.
Spoilers for up to level 80 of the mines & pieces you can get from the "Lost to History" perk!
━━━━ ⊱ °｡ ☾ °｡⊰━━━━
Statues of the dragon priestesses appear in a number of locations: There is a pair in front of Caldarus' temple in the Deep Woods, offering statues appear occasionally in the mines, and there is one at the top of the steps to the Western Ruins temple - although this last one is only barely visible most of the time, you can get a clear look at it during Valen's 8-heart event (and potentially by switching the scale and resolution of your game, I am told..?). Here they are in the order given above:
They are all quite similar in appearance, although we know that there was not just one single priestess. The traits of the figure include a long braid, a long asymmetrical tunic, a vessel held up high, and what appear to be claws instead of feet. The eyes on the fountain statues are closed, while those of the offering statue and Western Ruins temple statue are open. The offering statue also lacks the dragon wings that the other two have.
Are the dragon features symbolic of their position as attendant to the dragon gods, or did the priestesses literally have dragon features? These features are also some of the same as those Caldarus retains in his human form, although without horns and a tail such as he has.
It makes sense for there to be priestess statues around Caldarus' temple - he at times shares various fond memories of the priestesses who used to attend to him, such as that they used to make a tea using the Spirit Mushroom found in the Deep Woods, or that they created the scrolls that fill the temple shelves.
The offering statues in the mines, meanwhile, appear at random and can grant various blessings in exchange for offerings; health, stamina, or essence can be granted in exchange for stone, ore, or coral. The dragons are obviously tied deeply to the mines, and Caldarus says that the priestesses used to tend to the gate between lands, so statues of the priestesses being present reinforces their connection.
Finally, there are the statues around the Ruins Seal on level 80 of the mines:
These statues are obviously also of the priestesses: the long hair (although no longer in a braid), the peaceful closed-eye expression, holding something aloft while simultaneously cradling braziers reminiscent of the other statues' vessels. However, the dragon features have become much more pronounced here. The priestesses have taken on a centaur-like appearance, with human torsos stacked on dragon bodies with four clawed legs, wings, and a tail.
𓆩⟡𓆪
We know less about the clerics and sages than of the priestesses. There are no mentions of them, so we only know them through the appearance of clothing sets in the mines. Sages are associated with the elements of each section - water, earth, and fire.
Strangely, the naming of the pieces is consistent to each set except for the water sage - while the earth set always names its components "Sage of Earth [outfit part]" and the fire set always uses "Fire Sage [outfit part]", the water set reverses the pattern and uses inconsistent wording for its element: "Crown of the Tide", "Robe of the Waves", and "Sandals of the Water" - also avoidng using the word "sage" in any of these names.
The fire sage set has several unique features among the trio - while the other sets have three pieces, the fire set adds a cloak, and rather than a crown it has a hood (which notably has dragon horns). It also uses boots rather than the sandals the other sets use... Could it be of note that this set conceals the wearer the most?
(There's some interesting ties that could be made between the elemental sages and the types of artifacts that are found in each section of the mines: we may talk about that later!)
Now lets look at the cleric set, found in the ritual chambers:
The cleric set contains some similarities to the sage outfits - a crown and robe denotes a person of significance. The diadem is made to look like a pair of dragon horns, and the boots could be designed to look like claws. This set contains a cape like the fire sage set and a fifth element - earrings that look like eyes.
There is another place that we see eye jewelry: Juniper's outfit!
This creates a link between practitioners of magic from the days of dragons to the present. This is not a one off occurrence either - she also has other eye symbology in her room, in repeating patterns on her rugs and tablecloth:
𓆩ʚ✧ɞ𓆪
Now, we of course must mention the ghost of the mines, who introduces herself as a dragon priestess!
However, there are some points that make that claim seem a little... suspicious.
While she has the long braid of the statues and her tunic is similar to theirs, there are several points about her design that seem off. Her clothing is also quite close to the cleric's set: her brooch looks like an eye, and her tunic, cloak, and shoes are near matches to the cleric's. The similarities are especially visible in her overworld sprite:
It's also worth pointing out that her cape and gloves match some of Juniper's clothing choices (such as in her portrait above), giving her an aesthetic link to sorceresses.
Even more strange, the "priestess" has similar markings on her skin as Caldarus' human form does!
All this- lying about her actual identity, similarities to Caldarus and to the cleric set with its own share of dragon features- combined with our earlier observation that the dragon statue at the entrance of the mines where she resides is not of Caldarus but a match for the Unknown Dragon Statuette, leads us to believe that she is not a dragon priestess, but instead likely a dragon in human form.
Given how soon the update that will complete the story in the mines is coming out, we will get our answers on this soon. How exciting!
━━━━ ⊱ °｡ ☾ °｡⊰━━━━
Hello! If you follow us you may have noticed it's been a while. A few things happened:
We had decided to work on a really big post covering all the artifacts in the game and got stuck on how to format it or even how to split it up into easier to deal with pieces and it drained our motivation. Whoops!
We started this blog shortly before the two of us got very busy with life stuff. Double whoops!
We still would like to keep this blog going though, even if inconsistently, so please bear with us. We haven't ~given up the ghost~ yet! We've still got ~the spirit~ so look forward to our next mes-sage and we'll Caldo-see-ya laterrrr
(do you know how many sign-off jokes we have sitting around still? I have no idea how to fit "cleric-al error" into a post but I can't just throw that away)
@robinwinghood made a very good observation in the reblogs about some of the statues that totally passed us by! (spoiler break for level 80 again to be safe)
The dragon priestess statues around the Ruins Seal look different from each other! Here are the two side by side, with the left one flipped for easier comparison:
They differ in their hair texture and torsos, and the right one has an extra spike on its wing! The shading is the same on both wings, but the definition lines are a little different too.
It is surprisingly hard to find detailed wings to make a comparison with, sadly; The various dragon statues and winged priestess statues are mostly fairly small and undetailed, Caldarus' portrait in statue form does not include wings, and when we see his full dragon form his wings are folded. There don't seem to be any wings depicted that have that little inner spike besides this one, as far as we can tell.
If these are two specific priestesses, what does that mean? Are they related to the opposing sun and moon symbols on the walls beside them - which could give extra meaning to the eclipse on the seal? Could they have been priestesses for different dragons, one serving Caldarus and one the unknown dragon?
There's lots of interesting symbology in this room too - witches are associated with the moon, and the wall murals here share similarities to the tarot card-like pages of the player's spell book...
There's a lot of interest going on in here and we are sooo excited to see witch way it's all going!!
Magic Figures of Mistria's Past - Dragon Priestesses, Elemental Sages, Clerics
The Aldarian Research Team is back, and we want to talk about some mysterious figures from Mistria's past! We'll be looking at pieces of the environment, clothing sets, and artifacts as our main sources, with some minor information from dialogue.
Spoilers for up to level 80 of the mines & pieces you can get from the "Lost to History" perk!
━━━━ ⊱ °｡ ☾ °｡⊰━━━━
Statues of the dragon priestesses appear in a number of locations: There is a pair in front of Caldarus' temple in the Deep Woods, offering statues appear occasionally in the mines, and there is one at the top of the steps to the Western Ruins temple - although this last one is only barely visible most of the time, you can get a clear look at it during Valen's 8-heart event (and potentially by switching the scale and resolution of your game, I am told..?). Here they are in the order given above:
They are all quite similar in appearance, although we know that there was not just one single priestess. The traits of the figure include a long braid, a long asymmetrical tunic, a vessel held up high, and what appear to be claws instead of feet. The eyes on the fountain statues are closed, while those of the offering statue and Western Ruins temple statue are open. The offering statue also lacks the dragon wings that the other two have.
Are the dragon features symbolic of their position as attendant to the dragon gods, or did the priestesses literally have dragon features? These features are also some of the same as those Caldarus retains in his human form, although without horns and a tail such as he has.
It makes sense for there to be priestess statues around Caldarus' temple - he at times shares various fond memories of the priestesses who used to attend to him, such as that they used to make a tea using the Spirit Mushroom found in the Deep Woods, or that they created the scrolls that fill the temple shelves.
The offering statues in the mines, meanwhile, appear at random and can grant various blessings in exchange for offerings; health, stamina, or essence can be granted in exchange for stone, ore, or coral. The dragons are obviously tied deeply to the mines, and Caldarus says that the priestesses used to tend to the gate between lands, so statues of the priestesses being present reinforces their connection.
Finally, there are the statues around the Ruins Seal on level 80 of the mines:
These statues are obviously also of the priestesses: the long hair (although no longer in a braid), the peaceful closed-eye expression, holding something aloft while simultaneously cradling braziers reminiscent of the other statues' vessels. However, the dragon features have become much more pronounced here. The priestesses have taken on a centaur-like appearance, with human torsos stacked on dragon bodies with four clawed legs, wings, and a tail.
𓆩⟡𓆪
We know less about the clerics and sages than of the priestesses. There are no mentions of them, so we only know them through the appearance of clothing sets in the mines. Sages are associated with the elements of each section - water, earth, and fire.
Strangely, the naming of the pieces is consistent to each set except for the water sage - while the earth set always names its components "Sage of Earth [outfit part]" and the fire set always uses "Fire Sage [outfit part]", the water set reverses the pattern and uses inconsistent wording for its element: "Crown of the Tide", "Robe of the Waves", and "Sandals of the Water" - also avoiding using the word "sage" in any of these names.
The fire sage set has several unique features among the trio - while the other sets have three pieces, the fire set adds a cloak, and rather than a crown it has a hood (which notably has dragon horns). It also uses boots rather than the sandals the other sets use... Could it be of note that this set conceals the wearer the most?
(There's some interesting ties that could be made between the elemental sages and the types of artifacts that are found in each section of the mines: we may talk about that later!)
Now lets look at the cleric set, found in the ritual chambers:
The cleric set contains some similarities to the sage outfits - a crown and robe denotes a person of significance. The diadem is made to look like a pair of dragon horns, and the boots could be designed to look like claws. This set contains a cape like the fire sage set, and a fifth element - earrings that look like eyes.
There is another place that we see eye jewelry: Juniper's outfit!
This creates a link between practitioners of magic from the days of dragons to the present. This is not a one off occurrence either - she also has other eye symbology in her room, in repeating patterns on her rugs and tablecloth:
𓆩ʚ✧ɞ𓆪
Now, we of course must mention the ghost of the mines, who introduces herself as a dragon priestess!
However, there are some points that make that claim seem a little... suspicious.
While she has the long braid of the statues and her tunic is similar to theirs, there are several points about her design that seem off. Her clothing is also quite close to the cleric's set: her brooch looks like an eye, and her tunic, cloak, and shoes are near matches to the cleric's. The similarities are especially visible in her overworld sprite:
It's also worth pointing out that her cape and gloves match some of Juniper's clothing choices (such as in her portrait above), giving her an aesthetic link to sorceresses.
Even more strange, the "priestess" has similar markings on her skin as Caldarus' human form does!
All this- lying about her actual identity, similarities to Caldarus and to the cleric set with its own share of dragon features- combined with our earlier observation that the dragon statue at the entrance of the mines where she resides is not of Caldarus but a match for the Unknown Dragon Statuette, leads us to believe that she is not a dragon priestess, but instead likely a dragon in human form.
Given how soon the update that will complete the story in the mines is coming out, we will get our answers on this soon. How exciting!
━━━━ ⊱ °｡ ☾ °｡⊰━━━━
Hello! If you follow us you may have noticed it's been a while. A few things happened:
We had decided to work on a really big post covering all the artifacts in the game and got stuck on how to format it or even how to split it up into easier to deal with pieces and it drained our motivation. Whoops!
We started this blog shortly before the two of us got very busy with life stuff. Double whoops!
We still would like to keep this blog going though, even if inconsistently, so please bear with us. We haven't ~given up the ghost~ yet! We've still got ~the spirit~ so look forward to our next mes-sage and we'll Caldo-see-ya laterrrr
(do you know how many sign-off jokes we have sitting around still? I have no idea how to fit "cleric-al error" into a post but I can't just throw that away)
After talking about the Aldarian writing system, we wanted to share the available examples of the other writing system present in Fields of Mistria: Witchspeak! There might be more of it than you noticed present in the game! Spoilers for the mines and all available spells (and another type of spoiler to not get people's hopes up: we don't know how to translate this one (yet...?))
──✩₊⁺⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧──
We have a couple of examples of Witchspeak scattered throughout the game. Through progressing the story in the mines, we know that these tablets are written in Witchspeak, a language that was potentially used for communication between humans and dragons according to Eiland. Here are the examples we have so far, from levels 20, 40, 60, and 80 of the mines.
Note that we have translations of varying exactness for the first three tablets and, as of the current build of Fields of Mistria, none for the fourth as of yet. Note also that these inscriptions are quite short and low resolution and if they are indeed a translatable cipher they do not correspond exactly to the translation provided by the game. Anyway, if you want to try your hand at translation, definitely do not start with these.
We see similar, much clearer text on the floor in each seal room alongside the tablets. The text does not seem to directly correspond with the accompanying tablets.
We don't have any explanation for what they say offered up by the game, but it is interesting that each of these inscriptions starts with the same two branching symbols on the left.
More text appears on the spell book cards that are obtained through Caldarus. These have a direct translation provided on the cards themselves, and the Witchspeak is quite clearly readable. Personally, I think these are our best bet as a starting point!
There are two non-dragon-related altar statues that offerings can be made to: the Mistmare in the Narrows, and the chicken statue near Sweetwater Farm. The pedestals of both of these statues are inscribed with (quite small) Witchspeak.
And finally, one example that is not in-universe exists! The loading screen when you boot up the game holds the longest example of Witchspeak we've seen so far at 13 branches.
While in the game the language is apparently quite difficult to translate, for our purposes, given how specifically the text is written out, the number of times it appears, and the patterns that repeat throughout, we would not be surprised to learn that it can be read. Given that, I wanted to talk about some of the patterns I noticed. So, let's examine the text a bit now that we have all the examples compiled! Here's some notes and my best interpretations:
The text is made up of a horizontal line with branches shooting off both upwards and downwards, either in an up-down-up-down pattern or both up and down simultaneously. Because of this patterning, it is unlikely that the direction of the lines has any effect on the branch's meaning. (We had initially considered that it might be similar to Ogham when first examining it, an old Irish writing system that also uses a center line to write along and does have contextual directionality. Not the case here!)
The center line is broken up into interrupted pieces if put into a vertical space, as seen with the tablets. As this is the only place where we see broken up lines, it is likely that line separation does not designate space (between words etc). There is either a different designation of separation or there is none within this system.
Some examples of the text end with a branch, while some end bluntly after continuing briefly after the final branch. Unsure if this means something!
The floor writing in the seal rooms always starts with the same two branches on the left side. Potentially these could be designations, "seal" or "floor" or something of the like.
The spell cards have the only direct translation available to us out of all these options, so they seem a reasonable place to look for patterns. Here's my guess on a possible start with those:
Looking at the shortening of the spells to consonant syllables as would be done with the Aldarian text - SMN RN, GRWTH, FL RSTR (remembering that TH is a single letter in Aldarian, using the same symbol as T) - the number branches on the lines of Witchspeak corresponds relatively closely to Aldarian letters, matching 5-5, 3-4, 5-6... except the last one: DRGNS BRTH, 3-8. If the pattern isn't just coincidence on the others, it is possible that the final spell is shortened when translated (ie, "dragon's breath" to "breath" (BRTH), maybe considering "dragon" to be redundant), which would bring it to a match of 3-3. This theory needs more evidence, but linking the languages would be neat! Even if it isn't exactly correct, I believe there has to be some explanation for the difference in length of the Dragon's Breath spell name in English versus Witchspeak.
[For the record, there's similar closeness in the statue text - MSTMR and CHKN match 4-5 and 3-3 - CH being also a single symbol in Aldarian.]
˖⁺‧₊˚ ˚₊‧⁺˖✮-------------------✮˖⁺‧₊˚ ˚₊‧⁺˖
That's about all that we have to offer right now for observations! Ciphers are not our specialty, but if we make any interesting discoveries we will come back to this. In the meantime, if anyone else wants to take a crack at it, I hope this helped!
Well, I've spent enough time staring at this text, so I think it's time to set it a-side-pher now! Thanks for reading!!
It's time that we want to talk about the Aldarian text that shows up throughout the game! Have you seen it around? Did you know that it's translatable?! Spoilers in this one: the "gossip" mechanic, the Saturday Market V.2 vendors
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Let's compile our examples! We'll start with the places you can find text around Mistria. We have the sign over the forge, the Sweetwater Farm sign, the town event sign, and the text in the grocery store.
These examples are of varying resolution and it's a very small sampling to work off of. Let's pull up a few more! Here's the labels for the museum collections:
Alright, best for last - the greatest source of Aldarian text with easy one-to-one translatablility is the gossip portraits that you get when you talk to Elsie! Here's a sampling:
We know for sure what these translate to (character names), we have lots of examples, and we can then carry over what we learn from these to the signs before!
The first two things that I noticed were 1. the number of characters is less than it takes in English (first thought was that the text might be phonetic - not entirely correct!) 2. the same symbol is used to end "March" and "Fish" so there might be places where different sounds (ch and sh) are considered 'close enough' and use the same symbol. Keeping those in mind and looking through similarities, it wasn't too hard to start right in.
I'm not going to run you through the whole process, but as someone who hasn't done this sort of thing before, it wasn't terribly difficult to figure out what was going on (with enough trial and error and after eventually collecting enough gossip portraits examples); the text is focused on consonants. There is only a single vowel character, and it is exclusively used at the beginning of names. Doubling up of English characters is ignored for Aldarian - ie, Errol only has one R symbol in his name in Aldarian text. A few symbols are shared between sounds: CH and SH use the same symbol, and T and TH also share a character.
Here is the written example of the Aldarian alphabet (please excuse my handwriting!):
Notes: There aren't any examples of a hard G sound (like in Granola, as opposed to the soft G of Orange) so I cannot say if that would use an existing symbol or a new one. The Y symbol has a specifying (yuh) here because the symbol isn't used any time a Y appears - It is silent in Darcy because the Y sounds like "ee", while a the symbol appears in Terithia as the end to represent the sharp "yuh" that the "ia" sounds out. Also, we just don't have some sounds yet. No X names in the game!
After transcribing and translating the names, we can go back to the signs. (I am going to use an asterisk * to symbolize the starting vowel when typing). The town sign says *VNT (event), the forge sign says FRG (forge), Hayden's farm is labelled SWTWTR FRM (Sweetwater Farm). We can see that the museum signs say ARKLG, FSH, FLR, and *NSKT (archaeology, fish, flora, and insect). And then, finally, the grocery signs, which... are very small. Here are my transcriptions of all the character names that get portraits and the signs:
There is still room for interpretation of how some of the names are said, but I will note that this seems to confirm that Louis' name is pronounced "Loo-ee" rather than "Loo-iss" as there is no S symbol, Just LW (a previous point of contention between me and Galena). You'll also notice I struggled with some of the grocery signs! The text on those signs is at a very low resolution, so some characters took me a while to puzzle out (the spiral T symbol was especially hard to parse) and some still elude me. Some of the signs don't match their contents, so context only gets me so far... If you can make any sense of them, please let me know!!
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I hope that this was interesting! I tried to make sure that between the portraits and the signs there was at least one example of each character and the different ways they're used (i.e. both uses of the ch/sh character), so hopefully you can double check my alphabet using the pictures I've provided. I had a lot of fun translating the examples of text that we have, and I've been wondering if knowing this writing system might be helpful for the second one found elsewhere in the game... We'll talk about that one here soon!
Well, it’s getting trans-late, so I’m signing off. I wonder if you can guess witch topic we'll cover next...?
Mistria has a lot of history, and much of it can be learned through scattered dialogue from a bunch of different characters at different points in time. Here's a handful of stories that I managed to screenshot talking about some of the specific locations in town!
Covered here - The state of the farm for the last few decades, the museum building, and the full story of the naming of the Sleeping Dragon Inn (post Reina's 8 heart event)!
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Quick one to start with; the farm that the protagonist moves to has not been occupied for a while, and no one was caring for the land. Not surprising, given its state!
Moving on! There's been other dialogue about the museum that I haven't caught, so there are comparisons I would like to make but can't... Here's what we learn here: the museum building has been around for a while!
It was likely repurposed from something mining related if I had to guess, given its location and how that was apparently a large focus of the town's industry pre-earthquake. I'm pretty certain there was dialogue about construction so I had been under the impression that the building had been made recently, but it would seem that it was actually renovated. Interesting!
Alright here's the big one, get ready for a lot of pictures. Have you been wondering what the deal is with the name of the Sleeping Dragon Inn? Because I have been dying to know and hey, after completing Reina's 8 heart event, she told me!
Here's confirmation that the inn family goes a way back in Mistria! Off the top of my head, I know there have been mentions of Hayden and Celine's families also having a deep history there. The manor is filled with old, old things, but Baron Wiscar and Baroness Linnett are both said to come from humble origins, so we don't know anything about who used to be in the manor before their family (although Eiland has done some poking around about its history - Juniper confirms for him that some parts of the manor are older than others, for example). I will say, it's unclear to me if the inn was named something else before and renamed to Sleeping Dragon Inn or if the inn was established after the incident, although I would guess the former.
We know the Deep Woods is usually accessible and that the vines overgrowing the steps is something that has occurred relatively recently. I am not sure if there is any confirmation on when, besides within the lifetimes of the young adults in the town? My assumption is that the release of magic due to the earthquake had to do with the growth and were meant possibly to protect the temple (Sleeping Beauty-esque).
Those were both total tangents, weren't they...
Anyway, interesting that Caldarus retained some sort of presence even asleep! We know the statue on the farm doesn't so much contain his presence as channel it, so it makes sense that the temple would also be a place where he could be channeled, even if the gate's seals being intact prevented him from awakening.
⊹˚✧₊‿︵ʚɞ︵‿₊✧˚⊹
Well, that's some of my questions answered! I hope this was interesting, and I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for more (and I'll try to remember to get pics!!).
I hope you enjoyed, but if you didn't, all I can say is... these posts can't be winners all-da time......
⯌Petra
[You read to the end so you get to know what I'm working on currently! Shh, don't tell anyone else... I'm making a post about the Aldarian cipher and the reason it's been taking a little while is that I foolishly wanted to collect all the gossip portraits as examples. I have given up after several days of not getting the last one and I am going to just include a handful to not unnecessarily overwhelm the post with pictures, I've seen reason. Look forward to it!]
The Dragons of Fields of Mistria - Caldarus and the Unknown Dragon
At first glance, I thought Caldarus was the only dragon represented by the statues in Mistria, and now I'm convinced there were at least two dragons (one that is unnamed atm but has several occurrences). There are also a bunch of paintings and mini statues all over, which are interesting to compare, so here you go!
It's Galena writing a good chunk of this and bc I haven't written in a while, I'm probably a bit caldarus-ty! (ty petra for also writing and fixing it). Spoilers for up to level 60 of the mine (post breaking seal)!
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Caldarus vs The Other Dragon: Using Caldarus as the reference to point out differences between him and the Other Dragon, we can see how the game portrays the two as consistent between themselves.
The essence statues, one on the farm and one in the mines, are the easiest to look at because they're the biggest and most detailed. Traits from them apply to the smaller versions.
Caldarus is typically a warm shade of gray, Unknown is typically a cool shade of gray.
Caldarus's horns have a gradual curve, Unknown's horns have a sharper and more pointed curve.
Caldarus's legs are more stocky, Unknown's legs are more defined and slimmer.
Caldarus's snout seems to be a small bit broader, Unknown's snout is thinner.
Caldarus's eyes are more rounded, Unknown's eyes are longer.
As an aside, it is worth noting that Caldarus's skill perks are for farming, fishing, and generally more overworld tasks, Unknown's skill perks are for mining and combat which apply to the mines. There are probably bigger implications to this but that's for a different theory post.
As a museum prize, you can craft a dragon statue (furniture) in two variations; warm-toned (caldarus) and cool-toned (Unknown). The dragon statue furniture item has both an inventory icon and the actual furniture. Smaller and less detailed than the full versions, we can still see some differences.
Caldarus has horns that point almost directly up, Unknown has horns that curve outward first.
Caldarus's eyes are smaller and a bit more defined, Unknown's eyes are longer.
The shading on the legs makes it seem that Caldarus's legs remain stocky with visible claws, Unknown's legs remain more curved with softer paws.
Unknown's wing pointy tips are longer.
Caldarus appears rounder with rounded lighting on his head and chest, Unknown appears a bit more angled with sharp highlights.
Caldarus's snout is wider.
The inventory icons for the dragon statue furniture are the smallest and identical to the dragon statuette artifacts. The first two images are the furniture, the second two are the artifacts.
Statuette of Caldarus: Eiland comments on the Statuette of Caldarus artifact as being similar to the statue on the farm and that there must be a link between them. The Statuette of Caldarus is categorized in the Caldosian set in the museum.
The Unknown Dragon Statuette: The description explicitly states "This doesn't appear to be Caldarus." Eiland says that the Unknown Dragon Statuette looks different than other dragon statues and wonders if it is a stylistic difference. When given to Caldarus, he can't explain why he is unsettled by it. It's categorized in the Oopart (out-of-place-artifact) set in the museum.
Caldarus is warm toned, Unknown is cool toned.
Caldarus's horns point wider, Unknown's horns are curved inwards.
Caldarus's snout appears to be wider, Unknown's snout is a little slimmer.
The back legs and front paws are different than each other.
The last statue that we have confirmation on is the teleportation statue in Caldarus's house. In his dialogue, he describes how the dragon priestesses found a rock that naturally looked a bit like a dragon and slowly carved it into his likeness. - which explains the stoney expression. The gold ring is an item that Caldarus says he adds on and changes as he cleans it.
Now, for the parts that don't fit in - our own Oopart set! At this point I only have guesses as to what the following dragons are, but I've done my best to find every example that there is so far so we can try anyways.
Lets Call-Dozy-In (caldosian) because we're heading to the bathhouse to look at the dragons in there!
ok for real now, let's claw our way back to the real subject.
When taking a bath, a full body dragon surrounds the tub. The only other time we see a full body dragon in a similar pose is Caldarus himself when he saves the player. While there are some general similarities, the large bathhouse dragon seems to be a simplified version of whatever it is based off of - or it's a statue not meant to look like any dragon in particular. Some details to note though:
Caldarus's tail has many long, pointed scales/spikes. The bathhouse dragon has 3-4, but they don't match the pattern or length of Caldarus's.
Caldarus also has spikes on his wings, which isn't depicted in any of the statues (except the dragon urn).
The dragon's eyes are closed, which will mimic the next few we go over.
It has cute little paws.
We don't know how old the bathhouse is originally or how much was changed when Juniper took over, but Eiland comments that he would like to study the dragon statue as it looks extremely old.
In the side room of the bathhouse, there is a smaller bathhouse dragon statue. Also simplified, this dragon is hard to place as Caldarus or Unknown. It could be the same dragon as the full body dragon statue at the tub, or some other generic version of a dragon.
I will also point out the dragon urn found on the ritual levels in the mine. It has, unusually enough, horns that curve outward, not matching any of the other designs we have seen so far. It is also the only statue that has spikes on the lower edges of its wings as Caldarus himself has.
Scaling up to the top of the fountain at the center, we have a fountain dragon statue that stylistically looks different from every other dragon.
Its wings are outstretched
Its tail is wrapped around the front
It has the simplest horns and ears
Its eyes are closed, like the bathhouse dragons.
As a town rank prize, you get the stone dragon figure (furniture) recipe, which has three variations. None of the color variations change characteristics, but they are all nearly identical to the fountain statue.
And while I will inevitably post a long rant about all the paintings in Mistria, none of the paintings that depict dragons have identifiable markers.
Caldarus mentions in passing that dragons are solitary creatures, and he never speaks of any other dragon in Mistria (maybe it was a tHORNy subject for him). Caldarus's temple in the east mirrors the western temple (possibly a temple for Unknown), so potentially if both Caldarus and Unknown lived in Mistria at the same time that they avoided each other.
Except... that one painting...
˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
Well, I hope that this has been informative! What's the deal with that second dragon, and why does Caldarus never mention them? Are all of these other dragon statues around town just as old, or did Mistrians keep using dragons as a town symbol even as they forgot the specific dragons they used to worship?
Alright that's all! Thank you to everyone following so far, it really feels like we carved out a nice little niche here (carved - like a statue? We're running out of puns here).
Oh this is great! I'm an apothecary in the north of Caldosia and so many of my mentors have told me that Mistria is a great place for foraging. What's growing around there this time of year? I'd love to visit sometime.
Hi there! Sorry for the confusion, I know with the theming we're doing with the names and icons it might look like we're doing an in-universe thing, but this is really just two people playing Fields of Mistria who want to document stuff about the game for the sake of spreading interesting information to other players. It's just for a little added flavor, there's no RP happening here! We will alter the pinned post for clarity.
We hope that you find someone who can answer this question for you. Good luck, Caldosian apothecary....
We've been dying to talk about the pillars! Have you ever looked at the pillars in this game before? Well now you will. This post will be a lot of picture comparisons, not a whole lot of theory. Spoilers for the mines up to level 80, beware!
If you've seen Mistria, you have definitely seen plenty of this type of pillar around! Here are two from the Eastern Road and Western Ruins.
It's the most common, found around various ruins in Mistria. Besides the above mentioned locations they are also found on the beach, in the Narrows, and in the courtyard of Caldrus' temple. The emblem on top is also a repeating symbol in various places with variances in detail, but keeping the wings surrounding a centerpiece. More detailed versions of the emblem give it more obviously draconic features. Here are some examples of that on the Sleeping Dragon Inn banner and entryway.
We're on to the second pillar type, and this one is quite strange, even if you wouldn't notice at a glance. Here we have one of the pillars around the entrance to the mines:
The symbol on top of these looks quite different! There is nothing matching it anywhere else in the game. What could it be...? Other people we've asked have said that it looks like an angel, while Petra wonders if the five dots could have something to do with the seals and gate. Let us know if you have any ideas! It's certainly interesting that this is the only place that this particular kind of pillar appears.
Our third and final type of pillar is the kind that appears in the mines. They are on each level that contains a seal, with the front pair being broken and the doorway pair still intact on most floors.
They have a scale-like pattern and torches on them. Noticeably, there are more of these pillars on level 80 and they are all intact. This is especially interesting as the seals themselves are more damaged the further into the mine they are.
[As an aside, you'll notice similar symbols to those on the basic pillars above the doorways on the seal floors here - the addition of the crescent moon is quite interesting! - and more wings on the floors. We'll talk more about the symbols in this game later.]
Now, besides the mines, there is another interesting place where you can find examples of this type of pillar - Caldarus' temple.
They are both indoors and outdoors, but you'll notice that only the indoor pillars have gold bands on them. We theorize that all the pillars of the same design, outside and in the mines, likely had this same gold paint, but these are the only ones protected enough from the elements to keep their color intact.
It is also worth noting that the Western Ruins temple, being a mirror of Caldarus' temple, has the same pillars around its statue of a dragon priestess.
There are some easy connections to make here. The pillars are present in both temples, presumably both for the worship of dragons, and the seal rooms in the mines are rife with other dragon imagery. The pattern appears scale-like, and they were decorated with gold. These seem to appear in more religiously significant places and generally be of a higher standard than the average type.
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That's all we have on the pillars for now! We hope you see why this was of interest to us. Let us know if you have any ideas about that mysterious symbol on the pillars around the mine entrance! Showing it to other people has been like doing an ink blot test...
Your favorite column-ists signing off!
⯌Petra and Galena⯎
[By the way, we take pictures ourselves when we can, but credit where credit is due: the Mistria fandom wiki has been incredibly helpful, such as for getting those nice complete shots of the seal chambers!]
