A round-up of the Valisthean text that appears in The Art of Final Fantasy XVI. All appear in-game, but some I wasn’t able to make out until I read them here. I did this for my own amusement, but I’m sharing it in case anyone else is curious :)
Maps
This isn’t an exhaustive list-up of all the maps that appear in The Art of Final Fantasy XVI, just the ones featuring text that hasn’t been elucidated by some other means (e.g. the in-game dialogue and field maps).
The Map of the Realm (unsurprisingly) reads: THE REALMS OF VALISTHEA.
n.b. I’m not going to share any Valisthean text I haven’t deciphered myself, but if you’re curious what the minute text on this map says, 限界トルガルさん (@musebigenkai) on Xitter posted a thread with the text in English and Japanese. If you want to know anything about anything in Valisthean, he’s your guy.
UPDATE: In LOGOS, this map is named Cottar’s Map (コッターの地図), and thanks to the higher-res image, I was finally able to read the smaller text on the left and right pages (though unfortunately not the text that disappears into the spine fold): [Upper Right]The people of Valisthea are quick to insist that theirs is a realm blessed in the light of the crystals, and that this blessing is everlasting, their claim upon it righteous. Yet in truth they cling like whelps to their Mothers’ ankles, sucking greedily at the withered teats of these crones. E’er running from the black of the land, but ne’er from the black that consumes their hearts, the men of the great nations embrace envy as the one true virtue. And thus are they slaves to strife, offering up their backs to the scourge of war for only does its sting bring them joy. [Lower Right]
Ports here lie gutted, the dried husks of their erstwhile residents hung from the gates serving as grim warning to those who might hazard a landing. The land is palled in a grotesque silence that slowly worms into a man’s mind, driving him ever closer to inescapable madness.
The Blight’s reach extends beyond the sands and into the very sea itself. Beneath these waves travelers will find no fish nor whale, only twisted aberrations with flesh as foul as a bloated corpse. The skies above are ever painted grey for even the sun dares not touch this forsaken land lest its corruption blacken her rays.
Myriad are the rumors that swirl upon the winds of Ash, yet of these tales, which are fact and which are fancy cannot be rightly gauged for no man of repute from these environs has returned.
LOGOSの223ページに下記の和訳が載せられています：
この地の港はひどく荒れ果てていて、門にはかつての住民たちの干からびた抜け殻が吊るされている。その恐ろしい光景は、まるで上陸を拒む警告のようだ。大地を漂う異様なまでの静けさは、ゆっくりと理性を蝕み、いつ正気を失ってもおかしくない状況に人を追い込んでいく。
黒の一帯は砂の先に広がる海をも侵すため、漁船を出したところで魚も鯨も獲れず、膨張した水死体の如く醜い奇形の肉塊が釣れるのみだ。陽の光すらも“黒”の侵食を恐れるのか、見放されたこの地に顔を出すことはない。ゆえに空すらも灰色に染まったままだ。
灰の大陸については様々な風の噂が流れてくるが、信用に足る人物がこの地赴いて帰ってきた試しがないため、それぞれの真偽をたしかめるのは難しい。
ー《コッターの地図》より
[Upper Left]
In winter months, great slabs of ice descend from the north, choking the seas and preventing all passage — punishment, it is said, for the kidnapping of the Ice King’s maiden daughter by a lustful northern lord. Along nor’western shores will the prudent captain find no safe harbor, though tempted will he be by the lure of calm waters and deep inlets.
And while there may have been a time when succor was to be had in the ports that dotted the emerald coast, all now he is afforded are never-ending hills stained black by the Blight. Even the rivers have soured — waters once clear as dew, now foul with death — and from inland can be heard the hoots and howls of beasts driven mad for want of prey. [Lower Left]
Ironholm, or Iarann* in the local tongue.
*Hearann according the Thousand Tomes
Here crusaders of Orthodox warm their hands on the final whispers of the slumb’ring drake, having lost the southern reaches of their holy kingdom to the black.
From her lofty summit, the lifeblood of Mt. Leodlah* flows ever slowly to the sea to feed a boiling hell where naught save devils might thrive. Those who choose to build their hearths upon the ash-strewn slopes of Ironholm — whose hearths are cold as lavaglass and whose tempers are hot as the mountain’s core — welcome few to their shores. On the rare occasion port is granted, the vipers will join not in the rousing shanties of their sea brothers, but [i]nstead spit poison heresies till Metia fades in the morning light.
*Mt. Drustanus = Beinn Leodladh, according to the Thousand Tomes
LOGOSの242ページに下記の和訳が載せられています：
鉄王国、あるいは現地の言葉で“イアラウン”と言う。
ここは、聖なる王国の南端を黒に呑まれた鉄王国兵たちが、“偉大なるドレイク”の遺した“吐息”で暖を取っている島だ。
ドルスタヌス島にある、彼らが霊峰ルドラと呼ぶ火山の山頂からは、煮えたぎる溶岩が絶え間なく海に流れ込み、悪魔だけが生き延び得る灼熱の世界をつくり出す。この灰塗れの傾斜地を住処に定めた者たちは、火山硝子のように冷たい心と、火山の中心部の如き気性を併せ持ち、よそ者の上陸が歓迎されることはない。稀に寄港が許されるときでさえ、気分の高まる舟歌をともに歌ってくれることは決してなく、メティアが朝日で見えなくなるまで、異国の言葉で毒づかれることとなるだろう。
ー《コッターの地図》より
These travelers’ maps are the two that appear on Vivian’s wall in the new hideaway. The top one is also the map on Clive’s desk, while the bottom one is also the map on Cid’s desk in Y.R. 873 and the map the Cursebreakers and Gav reference in Y.R. 878. Their titles read:
- Valisthea as Composed of the Continents of Storm and Ash and Lands Adjacent (top/left)
- HOLY ORIFLAMME AND HER MOST BENEVOLENT SUBJECTS (bottom/right)
The other things labelled on them are the same as those on the in-game field maps (Oriflamme, etc.).
This tactical map is the one Dion is examining in the cutscene at the end of CH34 when Joshua and Jote make a surprise appearance in his field command tent.
The names ‘The Crystalline Dominion’ and ‘The Isles of Ark’ will be familiar to anyone who’s played the game, but this map also labels Noesis (the part of the Dominion situated on Storm) and Noema (the part of it situated on Ash).
Written Word
You can read these signs in Dalimil by ‘inspecting’ them in the game, but for what it’s worth, they read: Once You Go Flat (right) & Never Forget (left). The sign changes over after SQ40 ‘Use Your Loaf’ in CH35. The fliers also appear in the Tub & Crown at the hideaway after you talk to Miruna.
The text on Goetz’s trader’s pass (bottom left) is as it appears in the item description. You can also read the Valisthean text on the passes themselves if you go over and look at them after completing Q50 ‘Blood from the Stones’ in CH36 (they’re amongst the stolen items Theodore has to sort through).
BY ORDER OF THE
BOARD OF DELEGATES
IS THE BEARER OF THIS
TOKEN BESTOWED
ALL RIGHTS AND
PERMISSIONS MERITED A
DOMINION MERCHANT
LOGOSの190ページに下記の和訳が載せられています：
商人委員会代表の命により
この札を持つ者には
自治領商人としてのあらゆる権利と許可を与える。
ー商人札に刻まれた文字
The text on Archduke Elwin’s Cenotaph (bottom right) reads:
In loving memory of
His Grace the Most Righteous
Elwin Rosfield
Archduke of Rosaria
Conqueror of the Northern Territories
Shield against the Scourge of the Southern Seas
Defender of the Flame of the Phoenix
who kept His light burning throughout
the long winter of His slumber
Now you sleep, but your flame burns still
n.b. The sword lying across the memorial’s base is Elwin’s sword, depicted elsewhere in the Art Book.
直訳ではないが、LOGOSの137ページに下記の和訳が載せられています：
ここに
ロザリア大公
エルウィン・ロズフィールド
慰霊の碑を建立する
北部を平定し 南方の敵を退け
不死鳥不在の玉座を守った英雄
冷たき土の下でも その炎は永久に
The upper spread is from Tarja’s tome on aetherborne lithiasis, a.k.a. the crystals’ curse. It reads as follows (all spellings and punctuation have been preserved):
[Left page]- Extremities stained and immoveable
- Flesh to such high degree deadened that no feeling be thereon
- Fracturing of scurf frequent in older, paler bodies
- Swarthening asymmetric and inconsistent twixt opposing flanks
- Callocities hardest at articulations
- Lithic excrescence undisturbed by lateral scarifying
- Moderate thinning of scurf as distance from quick [scratched out] increases
Note:
*scurf = the scales or small shreds of epidermis that are continually exfoliated from the skin
*callocities = calluses
*scarify = to make scratches or superficial incisions in the skin to produce an immune response or administer certain injections
Leechdoms against aetherborne lithasis, the disease of stone engendered upon a man’s flesh, or hight commonly the Crystals’ Curse.
Concretion comes oftenest of corrupt humors after exposure to surfeits of aether, at which time the flesh whilom grows swarthy. To assess severity and progress of the disease, with frequent scarifying, whilom with mickle, whilom with slight, wean and draw calculus from the affected place. Should the excrescence be [scratched out] purulent, the patient is not to be let blood on a vein, but rather be tended with potions of a perfluent and calming nature applied inwardly, with which senses might be deadened.
Let the sufferer drink this for sixteen mornings, more if there be need of it, and let him partake in neither milk of the stolas, nor the flesh of bo, be it wild or domesticke, nor fresh wyrm, nor fresh [scratched out] aldgoat, nor aught of that with armor of chitin or shells as the adamantoise, and by no means let him draw of the foul smoke of tabac.
Should the excrescence be stony, the flesh is to be fomented and warmed and to be tended with warm appliances. You shall first warm the cold with triturated sulfur mingled with flecks of [scratched out] aurum weighed against one gil. Take then a kettle and put of the sulfur and aurum two parts to one and mingle with bomb ash and chocobo sharn and a wort hight [scratched out] morganbeard of which the netherward part is grated and sifted through a sieve. Boil till that it be as thick as a tear of honey and smear wound therewith and overlay the wound with linen and wool of a ewe sodden in sharp vinegar.
Notes:
*leechdoms = treatments
*hight = (archaic) called or named
*humors = (in medieval physiology) the four elemental fluids of the body: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile
*whilom = at one time, at times ~; former, erstwhile; formerly, once
*mickle = (archaic) great, large [in amount]
*calculus = (pathology) a stone, or concretion, formed in the gallbladder, kidneys, or other parts of the body
*perfluent = flowing/passing through
*bo = chocobo
*tabac = tabacco in FFXVI
*foment = to apply warm water or medicated liquid, etc. to [the surface of the body]
*triturate = to reduce to fine particles or powder
*sharn = (archaic/dialect) manure or dung
*aurum = gold
*wort = (also sometimes wyrt) a plant, herb, or vegetable
n.b. As anyone who’s ever read Chaucer or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight will know, English spellings weren’t standardised until long after the Middle Ages, so the texts that appear in FFXVI contain all sorts of spelling variants. English speakers will probably recognise the words, regardless, but for what it’s worth:
*domesticke = domestic
*aldgoat = aldergoat, elder goat, old goat
LOGOSの23ページに下記の和訳が載せられています：
石化が定着し動かなくなった四肢
ここまで石化が進行すると感覚がなくなる
表皮の破砕は年を重ねた脆弱な身体ほど顕著
くすみの広がりは左右で非対称
最も硬度が高いのは関節周りの石化
石化する部分もまちまち水平に乱切したほうが石化部分を破損しにくい
最も痛みを感じる部位から遠ざかるほど石の厚みがやや薄くなる
エーテル性硬質症とは人の身体が石になる疾患であり、一般的には“石化”として知られている。以下に記すのはその対処法である。
肌の硬質化は過剰なエーテルに晒されたことによる体液汚染が主な原因であり、それに伴い肌にくすみが見られるようになる。症状の進行具合を診断するには幾度にもわたる乱切が必要となるが、つける傷はいずれもごく浅いものでなければならない。こうして患部から切り離した付着物が青黒い膿状のものであった場合、患者が静脈から出血していないことを確認の上、鎮静効果のある液体状の薬を飲ませて感覚の遮断を試みる。
患者には16日間にわたって薬を飲ませるが、必要であれば期間を延長する。この間、患者にはストラスの分泌分やチョコボの肉（野生および家畜化されたもの）を摂取させてはならない。新鮮なウィルムやアルドゴートについても同様で、アダマンタスの外皮や甲羅も厳禁。何より絶対に煙草の煙を吸わせてはならない。
切り離した付着物が石のような質感をしている場合は、患部に温庵法を施すものとし、処置に用いる器具も温かい状態になければならない。まずは冷たくなった患部を温めるために、粉末状の硫黄に少量の金を混ぜたもの用意する。重量は１ギルと同等。次にポットを取り出し、硫黄と金の混合物とワインを２対１の割合で入れ、そこにボムの残灰、チョコボの糞、モーガンビアードと呼ばれる植物と混ぜる。モーガンビアードは根の部分をすり潰して濾したものを使用する。蜂蜜と同程度の粘度になるまで沸騰させたら、それを傷口に塗りつけ、すぐに患部をリネンと酸性の高い酢に浸けた雌羊の毛で覆う。
The second tome, of course, needs no translation:
FINAL FANTASY
JOSHUA ROSFIELD
All source materials belong to the parties to which they are licensed. All translations are our own unless otherwise indicated.