Astraea

## DESCRIPTION

The main setting of The Arcana is set in **Astraea**, also called the **"Hidden Realm"** or the **"Hidden World"**, is a fictional world that inhabits both humans and mages. It's the world parallel to the real-world Earth, and Astraea's inhabitants are aware of the Earth's existence and its humans- calling them *Earthlings*- even without the other party knowing Astraea and its people exist. Astraea sees Aerith as its goddess figure for the reason that she's the first to actually do something to prevent the Warlocks from taking over the entire planet.

## PL**Λ**CES OF INTEREST

#### **Belvoire**

*Main article:* *Belvoire*

**Belvoire** is a country in an unnamed continent that Astraea has; Belvoire in particular houses Belvoire Academia of the Arcane, where students of the magical arts attend to learn more about magic.

## **Λ**STR**Λ**E**Λ**N SCRIPT

#### DESCRIPTION

Based on zodiac signs, the **Astraean Language/Script/Alphabet** is a constructed language in The Arcana universe, in **Astraea**, and the language was intended as a possible "mother language". Astraeans speak in their mother language aside from English, though English is commonly used- the Astraean script is mentioned to be used in the Wiccan Journal as well as other ancient grimoires and scrolls. The letters D, M, N, O, T, U, and V are the most obvious letters to have been inspired by the zodiac; D is Libra's scales, M and N look like Scorpio and Capricorn respectively, O is Taurus, T is Sagittarius, U is Ophiuchus, and V is Aries. The Astraean number system is said to be roman numerals.

Despite **Austin Dy** being one of The Arcana's writers, it was **Parker Trinh** who helped **Kath Aguinaldo** make the Astraean script, though it was never intended for either parties that the script would actually be used for a book since they only made it for fun.

## TRIVI**Λ**S

* Astraea means "Goddess of Justice", which matches Aerith's status in the fictional world. In Greek mythology, Astraea (Astrea or Astria) means "starry night" or "star-maiden", and she is the virgin goddess of justice, innocence, purity and precision.
* Writer **Austin Dy** stated that Astraea's inspiration would be both Kepler-22b and the most recent planet discovered, TOI 1338b by Wolf Cukier. It's mentioned that Astraea looks exactly like Earth, although its skies are more on the light purple and pink hue rather than blue and white.
* **Kath Aguinaldo** admitted to wanting to add continents in Astraea, and not just the continent Belvoire is in. Because of how much it would greatly expand The Arcana universe, though, she and Austin had the continents drafted for the time being.
	+ The continents' names are already planned, however, with its names being *Belios*, *Xirene*, *Malthus*, *Viatrix*, and *Sylvain*. Viatrix is where Belvoire is.
* Since Astraea is supposed to be a "hidden world" that only mages could access, the writers had to make Astraea an actual *other world* rather than making it a place in Earth populated by mages. The reason for this is because Astraea needs to be a secret as much as possible- if Astraea is a country on Earth, humans would be able to tamper and abuse the magic.