Shout Out / The Arcana

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• In Muriel's route, when the Apprentice and Muriel are disguised as Lucio and Valdemar, if the Apprentice chooses to heckle the mercenaries, they yell "I didn't expect to get such a spineless, pathetic lot!" All that was missing was "Lucio" declaring he'd make a man out of the mercenaries.
  • Lucio himself references the same song in a paid scene from Book VIII of his route: "Silent as the breeze, swift as an arrow, mysterious as the dark side of the moon!"
• The whole setup might be one to The Masque of the Red Death: A prince (or count, in this case) of a vaguely-Italian city-state chooses to ignore a devastating pandemic called the "Red" Plague by throwing an elaborate masquerade ball with themed rooms. It doesn't end well for him.
  • The fact that the founder of Vesuvia is named 'Prospero' in Chapter XVII of Portia's route would seem to confirm this.
• One paid choice in Julian's route gives you the option to start a snowball fight with him or to let it go.
• In Lucio's route, a partygoer asks if he's heard of the "fighting club," and then mentions that he's not supposed to talk about it.
• There's a couple to Howl's Moving Castle. Asra is a Pretty Boy magician who is known for being powerful despite his youth, and who traded half his heart in a deal. Julian's fate in his Reversed Ending is also very likely inspired by the film.
  • In Book XVI of Nadia's route, the Apprentice encounters Nadia during her three-year slumber in the Tower, and when they overcome it and the Tower shatters, the Apprentice calls out for Nadia to find them in the future before being pulled away.
• In the fall extra story, there's a horse named Lil Sebastian.
• In Julian's route, Portia refers to Mazelinka as the "Dread Pirate Mazelinka."
• When you visit Volta in Portia's route, she welcomes you into her home by calling you "my delicious friends."
• During the plague, Julian borrowed a book from Asra that would allow him to access the Major Arcana. Asra complains that Julian "almost tore the margin on page 394!"
• In Lucio's route, when he's injured fighting a worm in the forest, he assures you that "It's just a flesh wound!"
• In Asra’s Upright Ending, he mentions that one of the “colorful characters” that he and the Apprentice met on their travels was a cabbage merchant.
• In Lucio's Upright Ending, one of Valdemar's riddles is: "Alive without breath, as cold as death, never thirsty, ever drinking, all in mail never clinking."

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