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Description
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Lunar Arcanum I: The Magician
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Resolve flows like fragrant tea,
Reality shaped by whim and leisure.
A cup, a pen, a knife, and a plate of desserts,
A small, secret rite, a harmony of four humors,
The bustle of an afternoon that stirs fond memories.
You claim that all resides in you,
Yet, in the end,
That fleeting moment of laughter and "magic,"
Is naught but a speck of light,
Formed in the boundless void.
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Lunar Arcanum II: The High Priestess
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Flowers, bearing fruit, new life born from crystal,
The truths people yearn for, forever hidden within form.
A "High Priestess" seated behind a veil of mystery,
A crowned beauty, lost in false deeds,
Walking the "transcendant" path through the pillars' midst,
In the end, what does your "heart" seek?
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Lunar Arcanum III: The Empress
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Before the ink dries, the kingdom lies yet unbirthed,
Once the final stroke falls, the world is completed.
When all is done, no matter how wise, no matter how earnest,
When tears run dry, nothing shall change her.
The path between spirit and love,
Nurturing illusions and metaphor,
The "Empress" of portents and quicksilver,
From the soil where the seeds of imagination slumber,
Where the tales of countless lives take root.
The boar is crowned a princess,
Fantasy is hailed as truth.
Wolves, squirrels, turtles, and pygmies,
Home of the exiled and defiant,
A verdant and evergrowing tapestry,
A fable of mortals and those beyond humanity,
All are stories, offered to your life.
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Lunar Arcanum IV: The Emperor
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Among the countless worlds, innumerable gods and mortals,
Seek power for themselves for myriad reasons.
Passion, pleasure, joy, and hope,
Sin, blood, beneficence, and duty,
Burning love and rising desire,
In the end, beneath the unyielding, absolute will of the self,
All serve to conceal, to crystallize, and to reshape that which is soft and mutable.
Such symbolism cannot be found in the divination cards of this world,
For since the very beginning, only one ruler has controlled the countless kingdoms that have arisen.
They are the "Emperor" who slumbers within their eggshell,
Yet proclaims themselves undying.
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Lunar Arcanum V: The Hierophant
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The "Hierophant" sings the rites of revelation,
The grand cathedral opens its doors to all life.
But the god who is praised,
The sentinel who holds the key,
Is akin to the children of the mortal world,
Powerless to speak of the mysteries of heaven.
How should one describe a wind without form?
How should one recite a poem without words?
It matters little, for faith is meaning in itself,
People need something to believe.
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Lunar Arcanum VI: The Lovers
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The path to understanding and beauty,
Love, or the smelting and separation that signify it.
The clumsy speech of the mundane world cannot describe such opaque mysteries,
And so it calls them "Lovers."
The joy of new life and intertwined souls,
A fated encounter doomed to be broken.
And so —
Dance now, dance,
O "Lover" mine alone,
My inseparable "other half,"
For every joy-filled yesterday we once shared,
For every tomorrow we once longed for but will never see.
Dance now, dance,
Dance through the wind and snow, through the trials and our final secret wedding,
Even "death" cannot part us.
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Lunar Arcanum VII: The Chariot
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The golden drums split the clouds, banners unfurled across mountains.
Waves break on the cliffs as wind sweeps the ramparts, iron crossbows strung by the moon.
The "Chariot" holds the narrow pass.
No fear for the dayless abyss, but sorrow felt for the stove fires in the streets.
A thousand dangers cannot halt our tireless march to bring peace to the homeland.
A thousand mountains guard the city walls.
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Lunar Arcanum VIII: Strength
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The renewal of the second cycle,
The reversal of servant and served.
Matters deduced a priori, etched into the bloodlines of new life,
"Strength," passed down for a thousand years, and the sin it births.
The tyrant steeped in blood,
The oppressed, too, steeped in blood,
The circle of history eternally repeating,
Replayed again in the embryonic record.
Praise, praise, the lord of the flaming wings!
Praise, praise, the empire immortal!
Praise, praise, the radiant alliance!
And praise, praise, the glorious endeavor of the sun!
And so, a new yet ancient era,
As countless millennia before, unfolds its prelude.
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Lunar Arcanum IX: The Hermit
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Allow not that knowledge,
To vainly torment your heart.
All the world's magnificence and perfection,
Will eventually fade, like sand slipping through cracks in your fingers.
Tulaytullah's sapphire domes,
The steeds of Iab and gold of Unut,
The beauties of Shimti and the nightingales who sang day and night,
All glory and splendor have vanished unseen.
Seek not the secrets of the world for the sake of empty renown,
For who can unravel the marvels wrought by the Lord of the Sky?
This is the path from love to beauty.
Only the "Hermit"'s lantern burns ever brightly.
Do you remember the ancient words —
Where love and lamplight meant the same thing?
Give your love to everyone,
While the years still allow it.
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Lunar Arcanum X: The Wheel of Fortune
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Though there is no meaning in this world within an eggshell,
The "fortune" we speak of is not some false metaphor,
In 14 billion "years" of darkness,
It is the sum of all that is destined to happen and all that never will.
Partings, encounters, and partings once more,
Birth, destruction, and birth yet again,
In the darkness of 93 billion "years" of light,
All existence holds meaning unknown to any,
Without which this universe would seem too solitary.
This is the "fortune" that divination cards speak of,
Or that which cannot be spoken.
The "Wheel of Fortune" turns ever onwards,
But there are things which are never forgotten,
Things that can never be destroyed.
At least, I am willing to believe so.
Just as you believe in reunion with her.
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Lunar Arcanum XI: Justice
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The laws that now bind the nations of the world,
Without exception, derive from the will of gods or mortals.
As with these laws, when we speak of "Justice,"
We are speaking of a concept that was not born from nature.
A construct of nations and peoples, a meaning devoid of purpose.
What is justice?
Mercy, the authority of creation, form for the formless,
Harmony, perfect elevation, a balancing hand on uneven scales,
Revenge, armed retribution, a dream of the old epoch's downfall,
A drama, a dreaming delusion, a neverending cycle of sacrifice,
Mystery, death and rebirth, the lonely chill of salvation.
Yet so you shall say:
"To submit to love without any flaw of will — this is the shadow of primordial justice."
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Lunar Arcanum XII: The Hanged Man
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The opulent light sinks into the dark depths beneath the earth,
Seeking to redeem the radiance that is fated to be extinguished.
Yet "redemption" is a word filled with arrogance,
There is an implicit meaning hidden within,
That mortals have done some clear wrong that must be corrected.
The path where "strength" is sacrificed for "human wisdom",
Is that of the "Hanged Man" who seeks to glimpse the mysteries of the demonic heavens hanging from the white tree.
Though the intelligence that mortals grasp is flawed,
It cannot be said to be false.
Quite the opposite, for reflected in his inverted eyes,
Is a pure truth illuminated beneath infinite brilliance.
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Lunar Arcanum XIII: Death
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"There will come a day, when she too will grow weary,
Of singing with the angels on high.
When she would prefer to embrace,
The rotting bones of the mortal world."
In Teyvat, such a sentiment is not a faithless criticism,
Nor is it hunger for earthly desires.
It is merely one from the heavens,
Desiring to witness firsthand,
The creatures of the world,
Their lives,
Their deaths —
It is simply a comment on this, and nothing more.
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Lunar Arcanum XIV: Temperance
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The path from the moon to the sun,
Its mysteries inexpressible by words.
Don't allow desire to dictate your actions,
This is but the shallowest meaning of "Temperance."
You exercise great "artistry,"
Sand does not dissolve in water,
Yet it must be sifted out.
Golden dreams do not reveal themselves in reality,
Yet you must unite them into one.
The unchanging desert,
The ancient structures fallen into disrepair.
Can you still recall the dreams of old?
The fables of ibis, crocodile, and jackal,
The principles of balance.
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Lunar Arcanum XV: The Devil
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Was there ever a true age of darkness?
Where ignorance and shadow were mistaken for divine,
And the "Devil" was hailed as creator.
Where violence and suffering ran rampant,
A "Dark Age" of savagery that burned through civilization.
The "Devil" is merely a mask,
Through which the power of darkness is revealed.
The god who creates and maintains,
The abyss that consumes and destroys.
That infinite, boundless, perpetual "Age of Enlightenment."
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Lunar Arcanum XVI: The Tower
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...
Those who come bearing welcome round the mountain slope in single file,
To witness,
The final scene of my life,
One more searing page.
I stop, taking in their faces,
Certain that I know each one.
A fearless cry rises from my lips,
"Master Roland, who seeks the dark 'Tower,'
Has come before it."
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Lunar Arcanum XVII: The Star
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Among the divination cards, the "Star" has a deep connection with water.
The astrological water carrier, missing from this world,
A star of hope, poured into water.
And that is why hydromancy holds legitimacy!
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Lunar Arcanum XVIII: The Moon
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When we speak of the "Moon" in astrology,
We must understand that the phases of the moon are symbols and metaphors,
False tranquility, shattered destruction, and in between,
The power to transform the world.
When we speak of the "Moon" in the divination cards,
We must know that it is an abstraction of the old world and the spiritual one.
The ruler of the moon, the lord of the world of night,
The medium between the surface and the universe,
The ruler of the spiritual world.
The tides, the axis of life,
The calendar of sun and moon,
The master of water, night, and the underworld.
Now, only ruins remain,
Wordlessly gazing at the homeland to which mundane matter has not returned.
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Lunar Arcanum XIX: The Sun
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In principle, in this world,
The "Sun" seldom refers to a specific star in tomes of philosophy or mystery.
So, what do we mean when we speak of the "Sun"?
Wings spread over all, the earliest, most brilliant light.
The shared story of the countless stars in the universe.
The direction of a soul's ascension in the spiritual world.
And everything blessed by the grace of light and heat,
All that grows, and all ideals.
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Lunar Arcanum XX: Judgment
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Blades, spears, swords, and pikes, eight thousand ranks deep, armored steeds and weapons of war, one hundred thousand strong.
They say the road to the terraced spring is far, the blossoms ever changing.
Awaiting the spring breeze to scatter,
The thin night mist.
Friends,
Returned now from the nether realm,
To see what form this illusory world displays.
The underworld's court has yet to pass "Judgment," the "eternal calamity" remains unchanged.
Alas, this is not the world of old,
The hearts of the past can no longer be found.
Only our names remain,
Inked into illustrious record, a hundred ghosts in a painting.
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Lunar Arcanum XXI: The World
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You may have heard it say:
"My work is complete."
The golden lion bows its head,
And the silver tree sprouts buds.
Following all that is remembered,
The "World" stands firm.
You have not heard it say:
"My work is complete."
And thereafter create nothing more.
The earth and mountains lie silent,
While the waters and rain gently murmur.
The flames crackle,
While the winds blow wordlessly by.
"Memory" is "design,"
The scales are a symbol of reason.
The golden twins join hands,
And the silver tree sprouts buds.
You follow each tiny piece of your memory,
The "universe" stands firm.
You say:
"My work is complete."
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Lunar Arcanum XXII: The Fool
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A drifting star that even the "fortune" that wove the "world" could not imprison.
To the master of the cage, a path with no design has always been inexcusable folly.
"I am the void at the moment of creation, I am the newborn spark when all things end."
"My traveling pack is empty, I have only this pure-white companion by my side."
"I will mock all desire, glory, and reason, I will tread the seven-fold steps."
"One star rises in the heavens, one star falls in the valley, the two have always been the same."
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