Summary
Deep lore and worldbuilding is usually a fascinating topic in roleplaying titles, sometimes laid out in detailed codacies, sometimes scattered about the world as environmental storytelling, and in the case ofFinal Fantasy 16, innovatively sharedthrough the Active Time Lore mechanic. Fortunately for fans of deep worlds, upcoming cat soulslikeKristala’s world of Ailuris hardly an exception.
DeveloperAstral Clocktower Studioswent the whole nine yards when it came to setting up its world. Not only do the animal-based societies of Ailur each have their own social order and each character has their place in that order, but the studio worked with a linguist to develop a special language for the feline Anagativa. In a recent interview with Game Rant, Astral Clocktower’s founder Alexis Brutman gave prospective players an inside look at the world of Ailur and the inner workings of Ailuran society that form the backdrop of the upcoming title.
Everybody Wants to Be a Cat Warrior
InKristala, players will be inhabiting the role of a Raksakkar. These young, promising warriors are blessed withthe power of the Crystalsand are seeking to become members of the Anagativa’s elite warriors, leaders, and mediators: the Raksaka. The annual pilgrimage, the Raksaka Proving, takes the Raksakkar from every clan on a journey across the Anagativa’s lands and finally to the Raksaka themselves.
There are six clans that each send a Raksakkar, and Brutman promises that the initiates not created by the player will be encountered along the way to the Raksaka. But that isn’t all the player will come across, as the typically peaceful proving turns out to be anything but for the initiates this time around.
Typically this is a mostly peaceful pilgrimage but that would be a very boring start to a video game, so it’s not peaceful at all. It’s very different because at the same time, the other group of animals that were involved. The Kotakaya, which are rodent beings,have decided to rebelto demand access to the crystals because the Anagativa have held it back from them since the beginning of their time.
In the upcoming Early Access period, players will be able to originate from one of two clans–the nature-magic wielding Nisarga and the necromantic Myrtuna. A major NPC that will appear is also a Raksakkar, Prada Lun, hailing from the light-magic experts of the Lyumina. That leaves the other three; the ice-based Tandar, the fire-based Keoza, and the Sykomana who Brutman called “Ailur’s Jedi.” It’s unclear to what extent those clans will be involved in Early Access, but by full release all six will be playable.
While the game will feature a character creator, each clan’s eyes will be fixed, as the eye color denotes which clan an Anagativa belongs to and is tied to the magic the clan can use. The Nisarga’s eyes are green, the Myrtuna’s eyes are purple, the Lyumina’s eyes are champagne-colored, and so on.
Then, of course, are the other animal races. The first boss, Lophi the Lost, is a fish who had the confusing experience of growing legs. Brutman said Lophi–who is voiced by deathcore vocalist Paxton Grizzle of the band Brojob–is “pretty pissed about it too.” Other bosses she teased were spider-based Rhylotha, Weaver of Echoes and the ogre Hiratrola, the Abandoned Son. Hiratrola–voiced by David Simonich from Signs of the Swarm–lost his battle to the other source of instability in Ailur’s world, the Dark Curse.
The Dark Curse has affected all of the normally docile creatures andturned them into mutated ravenous beastsset on destruction and trying to kill pretty much anything they see. It also has created these curse tendrils all over the world that will block your path. Essentially it’s a curse that’s on all the creatures the land turns them into crazy monsters and it’s to stop your progress. It’s trying to keep you from getting to the end of your goal and speaking to the Raksaka.
And, of course, there are the other characters players will run into, including a giant frog in the muddy waters of Dalamase named Krabufo. The Kotakaya rebellion has been good for Krabufo, who has decided the rodent warriors make delicious snacks. Of course, eating warriors is a dangerous gambit, and one Kotakaya broke off a particularly sharp tooth of his would-be diner, escaping with it. Krabufo wants the Raksakkar to fetch his tooth and his meal. Brutman says he’s hangry, and driven by both an empty stomach and a load of rage.
A throughline of the lore inKristalais the deeply inventive names scattered throughout. That came with a process Astral Clocktower decided to pursue that can add a wealth of depth and believability to worldbuilding–the construction of a language.
How Kristala Speaks Cat
Constructed languages, called conlangs for short, fill science fiction and fantasy properties.Star TrekandLord of the Ringsboth have fleshed out artificial languages scattered across their media empires. In games,GreedFalluses its Yecht Fridi exceptionally well to establish the native peoples of Teer Fradee. Bethesda’s Dovahzul allowedSkyrimto both make dragons feel more alien and to frame the Dragonborn as a near-mythical threat to dragonkind without clearly telling the player.
In practice, Ailuran is closer toFinal Fantasy 10’s cipher-language Al Bhedthan the proto-Celtic offshoot of Yecht Fridi. English sounds were given symbols, and those symbols matched Ailuran sounds, allowing for a simple direct translation. The linguist Astral Clocktower worked with created the written language as a font pack, so developers could type a word in English, and then have how it would be read in Ailuran right at their fingertips.
Brutman explained how the written language their linguist developed came to be, and the power that the language’s cipher nature gave the independent studio.
She started with the written form, because she wanted a language that looked like cats had scratched it into sand. She made each letter like an equivalent letter that had its own sound attached to it that looked like a cat had scratched it into sand with their claws … Say I’m typing in the word cat, for example: the font gives me the three Ailuran characters and then I can look up in my guide what sound that makes and I have a word. So that’s how she did it.
As for how the sounds and the spoken language developed, that began with some broad notes from Brutman and her team. Words like Raksakkar or Anagativa were found by mix-and-matching sounds associated with their translated term from various languages. Matching written Ailuran to those sounds and ideas allowed the developers to create new words on the fly from the bones of the language they developed the long way.
And by focusing on sounds rather than letter-to-letter translations like Al Bhed, it allows Ailuran words to feel less like a cipher language to those unfamiliar with its construction. Ana, short for Anagativa, doesn’t directly correspond to the letters C, A, and T. Same for Kota, or Kotakaya, not directly being a letter-for-letter replacement for a rodent-related term, but rather a sound-for-sound replacement.
The thing that sets a conlang apart from just simple made-up words is the fact that a conlang is detailed enough to be learned like a real language. Famously, people have become fluent inStar Trek’s Klingon language, for instance. Learning something like Yecht Fridi, which hasn’t published most of its linguistic notes, can be since it relates to grammar, while Ailuran being based heavily on English but obfuscating that basis can make it both easy to learn and impressive to show off.
Whether the Ailuran pronunciation guide will make its way into player’s hands remains unseen, but the language itself will play across players’ ears soon, whenKristalaenters Early Access at some point in May.
