In Search of Sources

Metroidwave

[08] Mercenary
I've recently found myself reading up on the more obscure characters on the wiki, and decided to try and track down where this information came from. I managed to locate both Dürer's backstory and the III bonus characters' bios, but have found myself unable to track down the sources of certain pieces of information. So I decided to turn to you guys to see if any of you know the sources of any of these pieces of information:

-Edgardo's status as a canon character. I suspect this might be from the Broken Destiny relationship chart, but I can't confirm since I don't speak Japanese.

-Both Dragon & Keres backstories. They're too fleshed out to just be from a relationship chart, but they weren't given bios as far as I know.

-Necrid's death after being purified by Talim. I have no idea where this would come from given that Bandai Namco can't really use Necrid for anything more than minor references.

-Ortlinde & Rossweisse's survival. Since they're from IV, I assumed they'd be on one of the charts from the New Legends of Project Soul artbook, but I can't seem to find either of them.

Any assistance with either confirming or deconfirming these would be most appreciated.
 
I know no one's gotten back to you in months on this, @Metroidwave, and sadly I don't have any helpful info to find out obscure details on the minor characters, either. :(

I have noticed on the Fandom wiki for Soul Calibur that there are extraneous details that aren't cited, and I have often wondered where people were getting that information, and if anything further might have gotten left out.

If you do find any details on the story or minor characters, I'd definitely be interested in learning what you were able to find. Good luck! :)
 
SC 1 website.
-Edgardo's status as a canon character. I suspect this might be from the Broken Destiny relationship chart, but I can't confirm since I don't speak Japanese.
SC III website and he appears in Broken Destiny.
-Keres backstories.
Keres is mentioned in SC VI museum.
-Necrid's death after being purified by Talim.
This is not wikia information, it's a theory. SC 5 artbook confirms that it simply disappeared.
 
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SC III website and he appears in Broken Destiny.
I checked the website using the internet archive. They only mention that he was unused, nothing about his actual backstory or status as canon. And he was only a quick match character in Broken Destiny, which is usually at best a wink and a nod.
Keres is mentioned in SC VI museum.
This information was around before SCVI came out though. Also, I'll have to check but are you sure it doesn't refer to the spirit from Astaroth's Soul Chronicle?
 
This information was around before SCVI came out though. Also, I'll have to check but are you sure it doesn't refer to the spirit from Astaroth's Soul Chronicle?
What I meant is that they were defined only in SC 6, until then we had only speculation of what the keres would be due to their mythological origin and the little information in the Astaroth bio
latest

I checked the website using the internet archive. They only mention that he was unused, nothing about his actual backstory or status as canon.
You should look for Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny's Chain of Souls maybe it will be mentioned there.
 
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What I meant is that they were defined only in SC 6, until then we had only speculation of what the keres would be due to their mythological origin and the little information in the Astaroth bio

I still feel like this is too specific to be just the result of speculation:
Keres is the result of a summoning ritual performed by two surviving members of Fygul Cestemus who sought a power strong enough to take revenge on the now rebelling Astaroth. The two cult members were successful in their summoning of Keres, however the power of the spirits were too much for either priest to handle, and their minds were broken.
While I know to take the .fandom wiki with a grain of salt, it still feels like it had to come from somewhere. Was there a Soul Calibur III guidebook released somewhere? The closest I've been able to find was a BradyGames strategy guide, which might have had the information, but I don't own it so I can't be sure. It wouldn't be the first time bits of lore unmentioned in the games have cropped up in one of their guides.

EDIT: Checked with a friend. There's nothing in the lore from the guide. Story mode gets about a tenth of a page total and the majority is for Chronicles of the Sword. So nobody waste your time tracking that one down.

You should look for Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny's Chain of Souls maybe it will be mentioned there.
I found it, but I can't find one translated and plugging characters copied from Wikipedia's katakana page into google translate takes forever. Anyone know someone who could translate it? I'm willing to pay for their time if necessary.

About Ortlinde and Rossweisse, I'm pretty sure that they may not be alive following SCIV.
However, with the new Hilde reveal, it could be possible that Hilde killes the two.
Well, they didn't die, but at the same time it feels important that aside from Gerhilde, who's expected since she's the 'main' soldier from IV, those two were the only Wolfkrone soldiers from IV namedropped. Might be an unimportant tip of the hat like Durer's soldiers resembling the III Berserkers, or it might be something more.


Also, I was digging through the archived Soul Calibur I website and stumbled across 'The Room of Shadows'. Apparently this is where you plugged in codes unlocked in Weapon Master Mode to get... something. The website's too poorly archived to work properly. Does anyone here know what that whole thing was about?
 
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Okay, quick update. I found another lead on III’s characters though IV’s are still illusive. I started translating the Broken Destiny Chart as a side project and unfortunately the malfested Wolfkrone soldiers are only mentioned to have lost their souls in battle. No apparent connection to Astaroth either despite only appearing alongside him.

Anyways, I’m going to keep at translating that nonetheless, just so someone else doesn’t run into the same problem I did in the future.
 
I have no idea where this would come from given that Bandai Namco can't really use Necrid for anything more than minor references.
Actually they can mention the character as much as they like: the title screen and credits/licensing for the game make it fairly express that Namco owns the character itself. What they can't do is utilize the design that Tood McFarlane created for the character (unless there was previous or new permission to approve such use), as the design/image rights are owned by Todd MacFarlane Productions, Inc., or whoever the successor rights holder is on that end. IP in this sort of media are often a mixed bag of different interests accruing to different rights holders, as here.
 
Okay, so my lead probably paid off. I imported the Soulcalibur III Official Complete Guide, and it had a page with a little blurb for every character to show up in Arcade Mode that wasn't a main one. Still dunno where Edgardo fits into this, but he might be mentioned offhandly at some point in the book and I just don't know. It's big and in Japanese. Anyways, pictures (Forgive the shitty image quality. These were taken with my phone. I'm going to replace with scans as soon as I can and hopefully translations):

Cover
Blurbs (Front)
Blurbs (Back)

EDIT: Yeah, these turned out to just be descriptors of how they fight/are fought. Dang. I'll check the developer interviews that were at the end of each chapter to see if those have anything.]['?

And it also had a little bonus. We all know KOS-MOS is in the character creator, but this volume included five Namco character recipes (also to be scanned):

Page 1
Page 2
Gilgamesh
King
Kagekiyo
KOS-MOS
Valkyrie

Now if you'll excuse me, I have cackling to do. I've very happy.
 
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At a skim, I think that's all gameplay related information, but I'd be bappy to be wrong.
Yeah, I noticed a command or two nestled in the descriptions. But I have hope and will be trying to translate Dragon and Keres tonight. And if it turns out to be nothing, we still got the official recipes out of it.

There is another SCIII guide out there, the Final Guide, but I suspect it's just the Official Guide split into two separate books for multiplayer and single player going by the near identical page count.
 
Been a while, but I'm once again working on translating the Broken Destiny Relationship chart. Some of the interesting bits I've found so far are Gargantua, Shark, Dverger, and Picks being part of the same group as Greed and Miser, Arthur either pursuing or fighting Charade moments before Nightmare reformed Soul Edge (and Charade being listed a 'Missing' compared to deceased), and Cassandra's Weapons being listed on the chart (connected to Hephaestus, Rothion, and of course Cass). Algol's also on there twice, once as deceased, with 'Revived' pointing to the playable version.
 
For the most part, the translations going well, but I hit a couple of stumbling blocks. The first is the arrow from Arthur to Charade:
Code:
今一歩まで迫るが、 目前で虚空へと逃げられる
Google translate gives me two possible translations:
Code:
It approaches one step now, but I can escape to the void in front of me
Code:
I'm approaching one step now, but I can escape to the void in front of me
So yeah.... no clue what this means or how to interpret it. Obviously Google Translates being weird (it insisted the link between Yoshimitsu and Tira was 'subordinated' as opposed to 'Harmed his men'), but normally there's at least something I figure out. Not here, so I'm turning to you guys for ideas.

The second thing is a link between Lizardman and either an object or a minor character (both use the same box style).
Code:
シッポ
, translated phonetically as
Code:
Shippo
, is something Lizardman's apparently the owner of and hasn't changed since long ago and is 'targeted by everyone'.

If anyone could figure out just what the heck these are supposed to be, it'd be a great help.
 
Well "shippo" just literally means "tail", so maybe everyone just really wants Aeon's tail? Are lizardman tails valuable? Kind of weird.

As for Arthur, maybe it means that he's close to tracking down Charade, but is hesitant to do so, because he'll get sucked into the void (Astral Chaos)?
 
Well "shippo" just literally means "tail", so maybe everyone just really wants Aeon's tail? Are lizardman tails valuable? Kind of weird.

As for Arthur, maybe it means that he's close to tracking down Charade, but is hesitant to do so, because he'll get sucked into the void (Astral Chaos)?
Thanks for the first one. Since this was released with Broken Destiny, there might be something about a Lizardman Tail in it's gauntlet mode. Wouldn't be the weirdest thing....

I'm still undure on the latter though. it just feels off. All we know about those two at this point is that Charade got absorbed back into Soul Edge.....

EDIT: It wouldn't be the only Gautlet Mode reference on the chart either. Boris is on there. Side note, Olcadon's apparently been selling various items to the Cepheus shop to make money.
 
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K. So it turns out every new character from Broken Destiny is on the chart, surrounding a fighting tournament. So I guess that actually happened at some point, even if the business with Cassandra and Hilde didn't. The Cepheus shop provided prizes. The Lizardman Tail thing is indeed from Gauntlet Mode when the party confronts him to acquire 'Lizard's ???'. Tails stolen are among the listed statistics for one of the missions, though I couldn't find if lizard tails holds any cultural significance.
 
Status update. Somewhere between 40% and 60% done translating, every name's been translated except one. Good news is this is where the info about Edgardo came from, since he's on there. Even more interesting than the gauntlet characters being on this, the Fygul Cestemus cultist that summoned Kratos is on it as 'Succeeded in summoning a God to take revenge on Astaroth, but at the cost of his life', which has interesting implications. I did notice that while it matches with Krato's Japanese bio, they never name the specific God, so plausible deniability is a thing

Bad news is I have no clue who the last name is. It's 'リア(新入り)', which google translates as 'Rear (Newcomer)', and transliterates as 'Ria'. They're in the Cepheus shop section of the chart, obviously a new employee, but I can only find the original three. Nothing about a fourth.
 
I’m pretty sure that Ria/Lia would have been the shopkeeper for SoulCalibur V if there had been one, since the DLC shop is called “Cepheus Store” and all. I’ve known about the mystery fourth girl before, but this chart is the only lore she has, I’m pretty sure, because SoulCalibur IV didn’t have a shop, you just bought stuff in the creation mode.
 
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