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richea · 4 months ago

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Tales of Hearts Worldbuilding

There's a lot of worldbuilding in Hearts that's either very obscure within its game, blatantly wasn't explained in it at all, and in a number of cases, was in DS and removed from R.

I skimmed the glossary from its guidebook and jotted down some interesting details from it that people might not know about the game. This isn't a full study on Hearts' worldbuilding, as this is only information borrowed from that specific book, and I only included things that I think people would be interested in knowing about. This excludes really obvious information that everyone probably knows or is easily found in a casual Hearts playthrough (though I did include some of it), and random pointless things like the fact that there's sheep in Layve who produce tea milk. (That stuff is fun too, but this post took me long enough to put together!)

Also, this post uses my own preferred romanizations for everything, as we can all agree that the localization was a huge mess.

If you enjoy this post and want more random Hearts trivia, check out Aera's old post too!

Characters

Side character ages: Creed (20), Fluora (21), Incarose (19), Seraph Bros (25), Corundum (10), Grossular (50), Kornerupine (44), Striegov (37), Zirconia (61), Byrox (22), Paraiba (20), Labrador (39). (Peridot is also 19.)

Shing is the youngest in the playable party at only 16. (In R he’s the youngest tied with Chalcedony)

Kohaku has such a strong, natural affinity for hugging people that this feeling was embedded in her even when she lost her emotions and ability to talk. She also gained her fear of heights from falling out a window once.

Lithia told Kohaku and Hisui to leave Norqueen “to find the Forest of Thorns”.

Kohaku and Hisui’s dad is dead. He died when Hisui was “very young” like Iola did.

Hisui can’t swim due to his upbringing in a snowy region.

Kunzite was injured in a fight with Incarose 170 years prior to the story, and then was held by the imperial army. This is the state the party meets him in. In order to reboot him, Lithia passed along this chant to Kohaku to recite: “Shape of man cast from iron’s true flame. With a solid bronze soul, and pure mercury veins. Swear on Quartz’s white moonlight, that you shall be our shield, and our sword, and our might. Platinum heart etched with a Quartz name, run so as to give life to your metal frame.”

Incarose was named by Creed after her eyes. She has 7 bodies in total but by the time Creed gets his body back she’s down to 4.

The person who made Corundum and the Seraph Bros was a famous Quartz named Eusite. Despite his genius, a lot of his mechanoids had varying defects (like Chlorseraph does) and they were scrapped a lot.

When the Seraph Bros were installed with their synthetic Spirias, they had a defect that made them assault everything around them. They were going to be disposed of but Fluora took them under her wing and made them her knights. This is why Clinoseraph feels such strong loyalty to her.

Fluora named the Seraph Bros after a famous bird known as the seraph.

Iola used to be of the Velleia faith. The details of her death are that after being injured by Creed, she fled to the land that would later be known as Norqueen, made the barrier around the area, gave birth to Kohaku, and then died shortly after. Her sister Sheila is actually the one who named (and subsequently raised) Kohaku, after the Kohakuzakura tree.

Sheila was a follower of the old Velleian teachings, but Arkham labeled her and others who follow it a heretic and denounced them when forming his “new” Velleia teachings. Due to this Sheila blames him and the church for Iola’s death and distrusts the Crystal Knights. Despite her harsh attitude in the story and as chief, she’s actually quite a nice woman who cherishes Kohaku and Hisui, and every year she treats the villagers to handmade sakura mochi.

Dona lost her emotions from the strain of transferring Creed to Shing, was brought to Seable by Zektz, and then died at some point during Shing’s early childhood. The villagers remembered her for being a quaint, kind woman but before she lost her emotions, she was very rowdy and crude, to the point that Iola once scoffed about her attitude in front of Zektz. Nobody knew who Shing’s father was, but Zektz suspected that he was a man who was likeminded to Dona and dedicated to a life of battle.

Silver was only 29 years old despite his grey hair and his high military rank. A lot of his actions (and role as Garnet) can be explained by his hatred of the military, after they forced him to have his wife and daughter present for a military Will Cannon experiment that took Pearl's life.

Despite Silver’s military ranking, Pearl was a very ordinary woman who was family-oriented.

Lapis was in a coma for 3 years.

Arago looks out for Helio “as if his own family” whenever Beryl leaves her alone in Blanche.

Helio was a famous nurse in her youth. (She doesn’t have an entry in the guides; this info is taken from an unnamed NPC text in game and felt like a shame not to include.)

The reason Chen had his eye on Beryl is that he actually used to paint himself, but he gave up on his dream and tried to support hers instead.

Sango’s unmarried and Chen has tried 99 times to get her a man to marry, but she’s just uninterested. She also can’t sleep without hugging a plushie despite her strong personality.

Ecaille was brought in to Chen by his daughter Sango. Despite choosing to stay as Chen’s secretary after getting her memories back, she does accept Ameth’s proposal.

The first emperor of the Max Empire was named Chrosite de Rais. He also sponsored the coliseum and reigned as champion for a decade, from the 1st to the 10th. The name Lion Grand Prix later came from the lion crest that was affixed to him.

Diamante is the name of the philosopher who defined what a Spiria is.

Tetsu Hagane tells the tale of his three sins: the Sin of Love (making women in his family cry by being mean to them), the Sin of Grief (making his "blood brother" sad by accidentally leaving the window open and a cat eating his pet goldfish), and the Sin of Power (flaunting his strength by telling the tale of him taking down a xerom despite not being a Somatic).

Species

Powerhogs (the pigs you can find in Shing's hometown) are a medium-sized variety of rappig (popularly known from Abyss). They're kept as pets but the adult males are known to be as ferocious as monsters.

The eloi are a species that lives on an island north of Marquise. They have strong vitality and powerful Spiria. Thanks to the proto xerom Lisia, who wanted to exploit those Spiria, they're almost extinct.

Windum is an eloi who considers himself an "intellectually, culturally advanced species" of eloi. His favorite food is mabo curry. He develops the Sorcerer's Ring for the party and tasks the party with taking down Lisia and saving his brethren.

Quartzia had “mocking things” as pets. They were loyal to their masters and could breathe fire. This is a reference to Mieu from Abyss. This is one of three Abyss mascot references in the game (along with Barrelow as “Bellow” in this game, and Tokunaga.)

The DS version has a variety of monster known literally as “shadows monsters”. These are clumps of black mass that personify as monsters (birds, wolves, blobs, etc.). They’re an “embodiment of fear”. They’re similar to xerom but differ in that they vanish once their feeling of fear disappears. (As a gameplay mechanic, these are what the overworld enemies in the game are.)

Lore

Asteria (Shing’s Soma) has the same name as a flower that Lithia, Creed and Fluora planted on Quartzia, which was said to represent the bonds between people. The name means “shining star”.

Kunzite’s Soma, Vex, has the meaning of “knight of antiquity” in the ancient language. There’s a fairy tale written about it called the “Four-Armed Beast”.

The "Forest of Thorns" project was proposed by Fluora, but was mocked by other Quartz for the fact that Soma Links were never formed despite how many experiments she ran. (This is why Lithia is so in awe of the party's ability to Soma Link throughout the story.)

The Quartz knew about Volgajoz, the dragon that lives in Bamel Volcano.

Gardenia spans over 5,000km. The reason it went out of control is because its synthetic Spiria, which was based on Creed's, craved loved and absorbed everything around it instead of just the feelings of strife and war that it was intended to.

Mechanoids were made by the Quartz as their servants. They helped them in their daily lives, doing menial tasks, to researching, to protecting them; anything the Quartz could think of. Some of them were affixed with synthetic Spiria (like Kunzite) though only the special ones (likes ones intended to be personal bodyguards for special people), as most of them are just regular androids. Jacks help with daily tasks such as cooking and cleaning, Queens excel in Will Artes, Kings are non-humanoid, Jokers excel in research skills and Aces excel in combat. Kunzite is a Jack and in fact was not really intended for combat but was instead made to cook and clean, like many of his skits touch upon. (There's a sub event where he says he's actually tired of having to fight and the only reason he continues is because he wants to protect Lithia.)

Synthetic Spirias are not easy to manufacture and are only able to be installed on high-specs mechas. They're intended to give robots human-like capabilities. Mechas with synthetic Spiria are not actually intended to be able to use Soma and it's considered an abnormality that a lowly Jack type mecha like Kunzite is able to use one.

It's not just the people who were calcified on Quartzia but all remnants of life, period.

Spirmazes reflect the state of the person. If someone's life or emotional strength is running out, it'll get smaller. If it disappears entirely, this means they're dead. (In DS, there were different maps for Spirmazes which reflected the mood of the owner, instead of R's one uniform design. They also had a BGM associated with them, Sadness, Anger and Happiness respectively.)

Somas are useable by anyone, but Spirlinking itself is a grueling task, and if someone not fit to do one attempts one, they'll get ejected immediately.

The Quartz used to rule over the people of Celland, in part because their Spirias had a lot more "vitality" to them, so the Quartz wanted to exploit this.

Xerom are actually Will Arte weapons developed by the Quartz. Their intent was to absorb the Spiria of the people of Celland, which in turn would develop the xerom further. Lithia sealed them away once but as her power weakened over time, they were resurrected.

Soma were originally intended to link people's hearts together, but Fluora didn't have time to finish developing them before the Gardenia incident, so when Celland got its hands on them, they ended up finding use as weapons more than medical instruments during the Unification War.

There's a very limited edition doll called the DX Mega Tokunaga. There's only 30 in existence and Kohaku has one. Sango missed her chance to get one so she begs Kohaku to let her hold it at least once.

The incident with Zirconia (possessed by Creed) being fought off by Dona, Zektz, Tekta, Iola and Labrador is called "The Tragedy of Pransule Strait".

Norqueen was formed only 17 years prior to the story (which lines up with Kohaku's birth) as a safe haven for followers of Lithia's faith, after Arkham labeled them all heretics.

Followers of the Velleia faith are called "dolphins," as their sacred beast is the Winged Whale.

The Max Empire was restored to glory by Chrosite, first as a small country on Oldmine, and then during the Unification War, ruling over all of Celland.

#seines translation #tales of hearts

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