#breakshard

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Forspoken Photo Dump 139: Visoria Castle Town, Part 7

[cruelfeline]

I love hearing Cuff's tonal shift when he switches into Teaching Mode. Like, I was listening to the DLC dialogue where Frey asks him about the crystals looking a little like Breakshards, and you can hear him slip into this brighter sort of teaching-voice as he explains it to her.

It's so, so endearing.

[bornt-urnge]

Okay so another big thought I had about Forspoken and the Break. Someone else may have already had these thoughts but I wanted to format it all myself.

(spoilers below obv)

So, keeping it short:

The Break is a mix of Tanta magic and Susurrus' magic (as explained by Cuff)

Despite having both of those now, Frey and Cuff still can't just voosh the Break away, which means there's more to it than that

In ITWT, we see that the Rheddig invaders' magic was noted to be similar to Cuff's magic, as well as effects of the giant tree in Visoria resembling Breakshards

It does seem like the Tanta of Rheddah was not allied with whatever faction invaded Athia, and instead wishes to help Frey defeat the Break, implying that she both 1) has experience with it, and 2) knows at the very least how it actually works (rather than Cuff's speculation)

Breakshards are able to be used as an ingredient to create things that enhance Tanta magic, implying Break magic can be beneficial if controlled

This leads me to think that perhaps the Break was the original form of the power that Tantas wield. A chaotic, swirling mass of energy that transforms and imbues power into anything it touches—dangerous to the weak of constitution, devastating to wildlife, but also transformative and lethally useful under very specific circumstances.

I think maybe the first Tantas gained their magic by separating the Good Parts of the Break from the Bad Parts, and then sealing those Bad Parts away somehow, to prevent the Break from happening again. This is what the invading Rheddig had: they unlocked and wielded the Bad Part of the Break, utilizing it to summon Susurrus, and either intentionally or unintentionally causing both parts to re-mingle and cause the Break to re-form.

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 5, day 1

I'm going to cause every problem known to man with this one >:3c

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 3, day 12, just a little work done today because I spent the morning playing Forspoken and the rest of the day with my family. I'm also operating on only four hours of sleep, because I was playing Forspoken until 4am yesterday. I beat the game, and I have so many many MANY feels, and bless my guild's Discord chat for existing because I got almost enough screaming out there XD

Anyway most of the work done was setting up a guide for the eye on the static background layer so I can get a feel for how exactly the eye is moving on the face. The guide I had wasn't quite doing it for me, so I made a more robust one. And boy oh boy, is that eye sliding around more than I want it to. At this rate I'm going to have to just tie down the whole first frame and set it as the background to get the whole face/head to stop doing weird things

[cruelfeline]

@phoenixiancrystallist

Ooh, you're so right! They definitely so still drop Breakshards... but not very many.

I wonder why that is.

[cruelfeline]

Because I am Totally Normal about this game and its characters, I spent the better part of my free time today considering Cuff's senses; namely, his sight.

It's occurred to me, after thinking about various dialogues and in-game situations, that I don't think he can actually see anything on his own. At least not, like, in terms of our concept of vision.

Cuff can sense things. His "compass" ability seems to work almost like a sort of echolocation, except with tiny birds instead of sound. And he appears to have some ability to sense magic, or power. He can, for example, sense the power of some of the necklaces Frey puts on and says as much. He can likewise sense the power in the Breakshards Frey collects after battle.

Actual sight, however, is different. And it's initially a little hard to pin down because, in certain circumstances, he appears very much able to see things that have no magical signature he could otherwise sense.

He can read, for one thing. At the beginning of the game, Frey cannot read Athian, but Cuff can, and so he reads things for her (while also teaching her, which I find perpetually precious!). Clearly, he is able to see with enough clarity that he's able to accurately make out Athian letters and words. He does this with generic signs and books: nothing that might have some sort of magic he could sense and decipher. It's all just plain old written script.

He can take note of various enemy characteristics, commenting positively or negatively on their appearances. He can see the paintings Frey finds on her journey and comments on them, too.

Then, of course, they're this fun example:

Essentially: Cuff appears able to visually see things when he needs to.

So! Why do I think he can't see on his own? And what, exactly, does that mean?

Well, take a dialogue like this:

Besides being deeply endearing to me, it's also quite interesting in that it appears to imply that Cuff is totally unaware of his currently very small surroundings. Frey and Cuff are in a Pilgrim's Refuge. It's a small space. There's not really anywhere for anything to hide. An enemy would be exceedingly easy to see. So why is Cuff momentarily panicked and asking Frey if there's something there?

Furthermore, why does Cuff, in various battle-related dialogues, ask Frey if they're surrounded, or how many enemies there are? A simple glance around would tell him, wouldn't it?

My personal headcanon is that Cuff sees through Frey's eyes. We know, after all, that he senses what she senses via the following:

What I believe, however, is that he only does so when he specifically focuses on the action. It's not automatic; he has to expend some effort and concentration in order to do it.

It would explain why he's able to do something like read to her: she's already looking closely at the text, and so he's able to reach through their connection and access her own sight. Same thing with something like the tower: she sees it, and he's able to briefly reach out and see it with her.

In other situations, it's simply not convenient or viable for him to look through her eyes. In sudden combat, it's quicker to ask if they're surrounded than to access her sight. It may also be a matter of... how to say... the stability of the image. If Frey is focused on reading and is looking at words on a page, her vision is more stable than if she is in battle, eyes flicking from place to place. In said battle scenario, it may be quite disorienting for Cuff to borrow her eyes, so it's easier for him to ask. Not to mention something like combat featuring much more stress and activity, hampering the concentration that may be needed for accurate sight-borrowing on very immediate notice. Especially if Cuff is more focused on, say, scanning or guarding.

In terms of the moment with the torana-teasing: I expect that, safe in a Refuge, he relaxed a bit and wasn't focused on gleaning information from Frey's vision. When he heard her supposedly opening a torana, he assumed there was an enemy immediately near and either felt he didn't have time to reach through their connection or - amusingly - was too panicked to focus enough to do so. Thus, he asks Frey if there's something there.

This is all just speculative, of course. But it makes sense to me! It offers what I feel is a reasonable explanation for why Cuff seems perfectly able to see at certain times, yet appears totally unaware of his surroundings at others.

It's also just... interesting to me. That this could be yet another way that he's so reliant on Frey. That without her, he's limited in what exactly he can sense and identify and interact with. To his perpetual frustration, I'm sure!

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Huh, interesting.

In Praenost, Avoalet, and Visoria, the lands outside of the Depths of Corruption are relatively normal, save for the obvious Broken running around. But once you get into the Depths of Corruption and the lands beyond, the air is saturated with magic, and veins of Break have pushed up through the earth. Even shards of the Break float through the air in defiance of gravity. It's obvious that magic is all out of whack in these places.

[Praenost vs Praenost Depths]

[Avoalet vs Avoalet Depths]

[Visoria vs Visoria Depths]

In Junoon, however, it's almost the opposite. Break has shoved itself up in the lands outside of the Depths, and particles of it float through the air. But inside the depths? Those lands are almost untouched by the Break (except in Farcoast Terrace, which is almost nothing but Break, but we don't talk about that accursed place if we can help it). The air is saturated with magic in Junoon's depths, giving the atmosphere a soft violet haze, but the most prominent veins of Break and gravity-defying shards are outside of the Depths.

[Junoon vs Junoon Depths]

What a fascinating bit of environmental storytelling. I thought that those bright rocks and floating stones were just atmospheric effect in the Depths, but they're not! They seem to show where each Tanta finally lost herself to the Corruption. We know the exact location where Cinta fell. She told us. Also there's a fucking crater there.

Except I'm probably wrong? Because while the veins of Break are clearly prominent around the crater, the floating Breakshards aren't. They're very conspicuously absent around Junoon Castle as well, though the castle gardens have Break-infested plants.

Clearly more research must be done.

But there's one more thing I find fascinating. There's somewhere else you can find veins of Cinta's magic pushing through the earth. Do you know where it is?

It's Cipal, specifically all the lands around it.

You can baaaaaarely see some red Break in the distance, where the Blessed Plains boarder with Praenost, but all the rest of it is Junoon. (If you're having trouble finding the red Break, look at the bottom of the cliffs below the right side of the aurora. You may have to zoom in a little)

Anyway, I'm delighted at how much more there is to discover just by paying attention to the environment :3