Art Appreciation - Paintings, maps, and pink mist
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!
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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...!
- Galena⯎ (and some ⯌Petra!)