Totem

Totems are special items in Megami Ibunroku Persona.

Appearances

 * Megami Ibunroku Persona

Profile
Totems are items required to summon unique Personas. They can be found in treasure chests, bought from the casino, or obtained by Returning a Persona. According to the Persona World guide, Totems and Material Cards are items that contain the sealed power of gods and demons. The guide also divides them in three categories: Alias (named after the Persona), Belonging (something belonging to the Persona), and Related (something related to the Persona).

Each Totem is associated with a certain Persona, and when added to the certain fusion it'll change the result to that specific Persona. In most cases Totems work as long as they are added to a fusion that would result in a Persona of the same Arcana as intended. Some of the strongest Personas however, can only be created by fusing specific demons in a Special fusion.

The Totems needed to fuse the party's Ultimate Personas are obtained in a special way. In the SEBEC route, the protagonist is given many choices that test his strength of character. When meeting his other self at the depths of the Alaya Cavern, he'll receive a certain number of Totems depending on the number of correct answers: five if they're all correct, only two (for himself and Maki) if there's any incorrect answer, and zero if they're all wrong. The answers are:

In the Snow Queen Quest, the player is rewarded Ambrosia after clearing each one of the three towers. The quantity depends on the order in which the towers are cleared: doing them from easiest to hardest will provide the least amount of Ambrosia, while starting with the hardest is the only way to obtain all five. After defeating Lady Masquerade and gaining access to the upper floors of the Ice Castle, the player can find Hee-ho-kun on 3F, where he'll trade one piece of Ambrosia for a Totem. If the player has less than five Ambrosia, they have the freedom to choose which Totems to obtain.

Trivia

 * In the Japanese version, Totems are known as fūshingu (lit. sealing shingu). A shingu is an object placed in a  and can be many different things such as small vases, candle holders, small mirrors, miniature, etc.
 * The Totem used to summon Nike is called "Just Do It" in the Japanese version, which is 's slogan. The localized name, Gottabe Shoes, is a reference to one of the company's marketing campaigns, "It's Gotta Be The Shoes."
 * The name of the Totem used to summon Verdandi is mistranslated in both Revelations: Persona and the PSP port. The Totem is actually called Passé, which is the French word for "past." This is because the Totems used to summon the three Norn sisters (Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld) are named after the French words for past (passé), present (présent), and future (avenir). However, only Skuld (future) is assigned to the correct time period while Urd (past) and Verdandi (present) are switched around.
 * Totems are precursos to the Material Card system used in the Persona 2 duology.