Galaxy Palaxy

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...?

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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

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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..!

⯌Petra (featuring a lot of Galena's ideas!⯎)