Starsphere

For the similar item appearing in Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, see Star Jacinth. For the skill from Engage, see Starsphere (skill).

The Starsphere (Japanese: 星のオーブ Star Orb), later known as Azure (Japanese: 蒼炎 Blue Flame) in the era of Ylisse,^[1] is one of the five orbs of the Binding Shield/Fire Emblem, situated on the complete Emblem's bottom-left. It was introduced as an item in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light, where in addition to having several unique effects of its own when held in a unit's inventory, finding it was required as one of two components to create the Starlight tome. In Mystery of the Emblem and its remake, one of Marth's goals was to find the twelve lost shards of the broken Starsphere to reassemble it.

History

Archanea

In the year -10, the Starsphere was separated from the Binding Shield by the thief Adrah and sold off to raise funds for his eventual conquest of the continent and foundation of the Kingdom of Archanea. Eventually, as part of his quest to recover the gemstones, Gotoh found the Starsphere,^[2] and at some point he locked it and the Lightsphere away in chests in the Fane of Raman.

During the War of Shadows, Gotoh commanded Marth of the Archanean League to bring him the Starsphere and Lightsphere so that he could create the Starlight tome, in order to allow Marth to defeat Gharnef and take Falchion back from him. After retrieving the two spheres from Raman, Marth gave them to Gotoh in a Macedon village, who used them to create Starlight. However, the force of Starlight's creation broke the Starsphere and caused it to shatter into twelve pieces, which were scattered across Archanea.^[3] Three years later, during the War of Heroes, Marth recovered all twelve fragments and had Gotoh restore the Starsphere, and then took the Starsphere again as part of his search for all five spheres. After Hardin's defeat, the Starsphere and the other four spheres were reunited with the Fire Emblem, turning it back into the Binding Shield.

Ylisse

The Starsphere is known by the name Azure in modern day Ylisse and Valm in Fire Emblem Awakening. Azure is given to the party by Tiki at the end of Chapter 16. In Awakening, Azure is not an item that appears in any units inventory, and is simply a plot item, and is immediately placed into Chrom's Fire Emblem upon acquisition. It has none of the uses or effects the Starsphere previously had.

Data

Game	Icon	Uses	Worth	Effects and notes
Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light	--	--	Cannot be sold	Prevents a unit's weapon durability from decreasing when held in their inventory.
Mystery of the Emblem		--	Cannot be sold	Prevents a unit's weapon durability from decreasing when held in their inventory. +30% to all of the holder's growth rates when in their inventory.
Shadow Dragon		--	Cannot be sold	Prevents a unit's weapon durability from decreasing when held in their inventory, unless that weapon is being used as an item.
New Mystery of the Emblem		--	Cannot be sold	+2 strength, magic, skill, speed, luck, defense, and resistance when in a unit's inventory.

Locations

Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light, Shadow Dragon

Mystery of the Emblem

New Mystery of the Emblem

Flavor text

Trivia

• According to Wendell, the Starsphere has the twelve constellations seen in the Archanean sky etched on its surface.^[3] Judging by how its shards are all named for the real-life constellations of the Western Zodiac, and have these constellations depicted on their surfaces, this suggests that these twelve constellations all exist and are seen in Archanea as well.
• The colors of the Starsphere and Geosphere were swapped in the DS remakes; in Mystery of the Emblem, the Starsphere is blue and the Geosphere is green, while the Geosphere is blue and the Starsphere is green in Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem. However, the Star Shards retain the original dull-blue color of the SNES version, and Awakening reverts their colors back to the SNES coloring. Additionally, the Star Jacinth item from Shadows of Valentia, which is very similar to the Starsphere, is blue.

Etymology and other languages

Azure

Gallery

• 

  Artwork of the Starsphere from the Fire Emblem Trading Card Game.

• 

  The Starsphere (upper-right) with the other four spheres in New Mystery of the Emblem.

References

See also

• Binding Shield
• Lightsphere
• Starlight