Exploring Eorzea's Existing Lore

[Jaywalker]

I know we're getting a lot of new stuff for Shadowbringers, which is very exciting on all counts. Honestly though I would be just as (if not more) excited in some ways to expand upon existing city states and NPC connections.

I SERIOUSLY want to see majority Duskwight, Keeper of the Moon, Hellsguard, and Plainsfolk settlements. I want additional plotlines that circle focus back to the political struggles of Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, Ul'dah, Ishgard, Doma, Ala Mhigo, and Kugane. One major issue addressed doesn't make things perfect. We have room to show protests for Beastmen rights in all three original city states but especially Limsa Lominsa. Kugane has shown that trafficking of intelligent races is practiced, and that can be examined in further detail elsewhere as well. Not everyone's fortunes in Doma or Ala Mhigo were improved by liberation, and like Asahi and Yotsuyu there are sure to be embittered Garlean loyalists scattered throughout. There are allusions to discrimination against Duskwights but this has yet to be explicitly shown in-game. The impoverished in Ul'dah remain downtrodden despite efforts at reform and it might be interesting to see if developing technology (ex. railroads such as seen in Thanalan) is at odds with elementals in Gridania. Ul'dah's ruthlessness in war against Sil'dih could also be examined or even expanded upon across the Eorzean Alliance in war against Garlemald. And Ishgard, after centuries of isolationism and bloodshed in the war with Dravania, is planting itself in the wars of Eorzea as a whole. The Warrior of Light might have their gratitude, but the Alliance itself refused to aid Ishgard. As more Ishgardians fall in battle with Garlemald while the Halonic faith struggles to recover from it might be interesting to see if there is division in public opinion and any antagonists arise because of such policies.

I don't want to just move on and forget past city states, or to abandon fleshed out NPCs like Aymeric, Estinien, Yugiri, Hien, Gosetsu, Lyse, and so on except for the odd cameo. And I'd love to see additional fleshed out NPCs outside of the immediate leaders for the original three city states.

Does anyone else feel like this? Is there any existing lore you want to see in practice? Any plot threads or questions related to established locations you'd be excited for?

[MistakeNot]

SERIOUSLY [/I]want to see majority Duskwight, Keeper of the Moon, Hellsguard, and Plainsfolk settlements. I

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there aren't any Keeper of the Moon settlements as such. The Keepers normally live in small family groups consisting of a couple of adult females and their children. Keeper males are typically lone wanderers.
There aren't any major Duskwight settlements either, apart from the bandit camps we see in the Black Shroud. The Duskwights used to live in the underground city of Gelmorra, but after all the Wildwood Elezens and Midlander Hyur moved out of there, there weren't enough people left to maintain Gelmorra so it is just uninhabitable ruins today. Some few have moved into Gridania, while the rest try to make a living as bandits and brigands - which gives the Duskwights a bad reputation which in turn force them to live as bandits since few people will trust them enough to employ them.

I doubt there are any major Plainsfolk settlements either, they are too mixed up with the other races - just like Dunefolk, Midlander Hyur, and Seawolf Roegadyn, none of which have any majority settlements either.

Overall Eorzea is a place where the various races mix a lot, to the point that there are very few settlements dominated by a single race.

[Jaywalker]

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I mean we could still see occasional settlements of Keepers! They're described as still having their own cultures and all. Has to come from somewhere, and we have seen multiple Seekers already. Duskwights I remember hearing about Gelmorra, but there's also this point:

"Gridanians have long perceived the Duskwight as outcasts and brigands, as many of them resort to common theft and banditry to make ends meet. Some Duskwight still dream of restoring a measure of prosperity to the fallen city of Gelmorra, reestablishing it as a settlement for their people to remedy this situation."

If this isn't legitimate my apologies, but I would seriously love to see an attempt by Duskwights to organize and re-establish themselves with their culture apart from Gridania. I think that would be a really interesting plot point, and would give some attention to them when they've felt pretty invisible in practice, and would help examine imperfections in Gridania more when at least to me they've felt a little idealized compared to other places.

I mean there's no reason why there couldn't be major Plainsfolk settlements. We haven't seen it yet but we could.

And I disagree on there not being majority settlements for other races. I think Limsa is majority Seawolf, Gridania is majority Wildwood and Midlander (to the point that it's how the Twin Adders got their name/symbolism), Ul'dah is majority Dunesfolk, Doma is majority Midlander, Ishgard is majority Wildwood, Sui-no-Sato is Raen and the Azim Steppe is Xaela. Majorities in different spots with different cultures is a thing in-game! It doesn't mean it's universally one group or anything, although this can happen as per Xaela. Ul'dah totally has significant minorities of Hellsguard, Midlanders, Seekers, and Highlanders for instance. Gridania has some Keepers in their midst and Limsa has Seekers, Midlanders, and Plainsfolk minorities. Similarly, Ishgard, Doma, and Ala Mhigo also have minorities. But I'd argue that it's possible to see a main group and cultural influence in different spots, and idk I find that interesting and would like to see it fleshed out further.

[Kazrah]

I doubt there are any major Plainsfolk settlements either, they are too mixed up with the other races - just like Dunefolk, Midlander Hyur, and Seawolf Roegadyn, none of which have any majority settlements either.

Thavnair would likely be the closest thing to something of a Plainsfolk homeland since they're originally islanders and Thavnair is an island nation. Then again, the flip side to that though is that all we've seen from there are Hyurs.

[Enla]

Thavnair would likely be the closest thing to something of a Plainsfolk homeland since they're originally islanders and Thavnair is an island nation. Then again, the flip side to that though is that all we've seen from there are Hyurs.

Pretty sure it's the same thing with Miqo'te? It's been awhile since I reviewed their lore but I remember them being transplants to Eorzea. Though with regards to the Plains Folk I wouldn't rule anything out. We didn't see a single sign that Roegadyn were present in Doma or Hingashi prior to the expansion dropping and then BAM, it turns out Othard has them living there in abundance.

[Jaywalker]

Pretty sure it's the same thing with Miqo'te? It's been awhile since I reviewed their lore but I remember them being transplants to Eorzea. Though with regards to the Plains Folk I wouldn't rule anything out. We didn't see a single sign that Roegadyn were present in Doma or Hingashi prior to the expansion dropping and then BAM, it turns out Othard has them living there in abundance.

Yup! Honestly it was interesting that so many were Hellsguard too imo, and that Gotsetsu specifically is an Othard-specific subrace of Roegadyn but no other members of that subrace were shown. Room to examine that if SE ever feels like it too.

[JunseiKei]

Eh, some of this looks like backpedaling to when were just an adventurer and not the known and trusted Warrior of Light to our leaders of their respective city-states.

Specifically, beastmen rights and protesting for them just don't make sense. 1.x showed beastmen working with the other races. What changed was the Ascians and teaching them summoning and then being enthralled by their own summons' wishes. Uh, yeah, no rights for the enthralled. We've already seen the city-states are perfectly fine with beastmen not under the influence of their patron primal deities, from the sylphs just outside of Gridanian to the beastmen quests that we can complete.

Other stuff of this is covered in the lorebooks you can buy and other things just don't make sense (like technological advancement, sure, but when you cross into another city-state without permission, that's called invasion and would be in violation of an alliance). IE: A lot of the races migrated to different areas as well as their places of origin are all mentioned in the lorebooks.

Also, Ishgard pulled out of the Alliance when the Garleans made it clear they were coming for Eorzea, as well as Gridania and Ala Mhigo entwined in their Autumn War. It's hard to want to support a nation that left of their own volition and didn't want to help its former allies (especially, as we have come to find, the Dragonsong War was of Ishgard's own creation and their leaders at the time knew it). Also, the reason the Ishgardian church is reeling is because their faith was based on their leaders' lies.

I wouldn't mind seeing former fleshed out NPCs again, but I equally don't want them to dilute the story and the main focus of each arch [read: expansion] simply for the sake of having X NPC there. Honestly, I think that's part of why Stormblood feels so lacking, especially when compared to Heavensward, is because of the constant splitting between the Far East and Ala Mhigo. We never really made a connection to Hien, Gotetsu or Lyse (we know "YDA") on the same level as someone like Aymeric, Haurchefant, Ysayle or Estinien (Yugiri is an exception as we've been in on-and-off contact with her since before the release of 3.0). It's the same way I feel about Thancred and Minfillia; Minfillia sat at the Waking Sands and called us to say go take care of that primal. Thancred was possessed for 2.x and 3.x had him running errands or being missing while 4.x had him spying on the Garleans until he was taken by whatever is going on with the Scions currently.

I feel like SE would have to meet some really high standards to revisit a lot of the things mentioned by the original poster that would still leave me feeling attached to characters like I was in 3.x. I don't really see that happening.

[Jaywalker]

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I'm kind of ://// on lorebooks exclusively, it feels like telling instead of showing. Not good form in stories, also flattens the world we can interact with in-game to a series of informed qualities.

I'm not talking enthralled beastmen either. Limsa Lominsa has some beastmen but Gridania and Ul'dah? Haven't seen 'em, and it's explicitly brought up that an exception is being made for Mamool Ja in the Blue Mage questline. Also, while the Amal'jaa of Zan'rak are totally enthralled I don't get the sense that the Kobolds, Ixal, or Sahagin are. I think it was mentioned that not all primals temper all the time? Some are more prone than others, like Lakshmi and Ifrit, and even with Leviathan my sense was that non-Sahagins were more likely to be made thralls.

I'm confused how some Gridanians being interested in foreign technology would be invasion. I'm not talking about Ul'dah invading Gridania against their will. I'm talking about there is technology in the world of Final Fantasy XIV beyond airships. It might be an interesting conflict to see different Gridanians having different opinions on what kind of lifestyle they want and how they'd like things to develop, especially with travel between city states.

I'm squinting at you a bit on the Ishgard points because it looks like you're trying to moralize this and are getting defensive. I'm talking about how different residents of Ishgard might feel, realistically. I'm not saying I personally would find them right. I'm saying it would be an interesting conflict that could continue fleshing out the world and society.

I disagree with you on Stormblood also tbh. I felt very invested in the characters and plot, although with less investment in Yugiri because I don't think as much concrete, specific, mundane characterization was shown for her. It also resonated with me having studied the impacts authoritarian regimes can have on people and what tactics they use, as well as looking at how various psychologies played out in different characters. If you want evidence to back things up I can do that for you. The thing is, I do not think you need to like things but there's a big difference between "I like/dislike X" and "X is well done/poorly done". They're not the same thing. You can like a story that is poorly done on a technical level, you can not like something well done on a technical level. I don't think there's any technical reason there would be a problem with the stuff I mentioned. If you personally just don't want it that's fine, but it's kind of weird you came to a thread where the spirit is "I hope XYZ happens what would you like to see" and went in the spirit of "I hope XYZ doesn't happen". We're both just fans with no power here. It's not a threat to you.

As one last bit, in terms of going back to "just an adventurer"? You missed me there. I'm talking about getting reminders to when things were just messes made by people. I don't think those have less value or interest than say, a massive primal, Allagan monstrosity, or Garlean warship. If anything it might ground things in further personal investment because you can see how everything effects the people in the game. Also, having these issues side-by-side grants a wider range of possible plots in this series than needing to come up with new world-ending threats bigger than Bahamut every new arc. You still have really high stakes but the tone shifts between antagonists.

[InkstainedGwyn]

Unfortunately, I get the feeling that the statement Yoshi P made at one point about content like the Diadem (or was it PotD?) & ARR stuff (& how to make it "relevant again") is something they apply to lore we've "already learned": he said that they "don't focus on past content, they move on and learn for future content." I remember someone linking to it on a Eureka thread when someone was complaining about why they didn't just revamp Diadem to a 3.0 version instead of giving us Eureka.

They do a relatively decent job of tying the MSQ content into stuff you learned in the past, because they plan 5 years out, so when you learn something now that makes you go "oh!" later, that was intentional. But as for going back to revisit stuff like old races and things of that nature, I feel like they're more interested in giving us "new shinies to attract new players/keep our attention" than flesh out old content. Sometimes I even worry that Thavnair is going to be a case of "we already learned a little bit about it so people would be bored now, let's go some place new" which is sad, because I've always been interested in it.

Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe they've softened that stance - we've seen enemies from Lost City hard in the ShB trailer, which means a harken back to the war between Amdapor and Mhach, the War of the Magi (although given that this was the birth of a calamity and that's the whole focus of the MSQ, maybe it's a one off.)

But my gut says that whenever they feel people's interest waning, we'll just get something new, and they won't go back to the old stuff. Which is a shame.

[Hasrat]

I doubt it would be much of a stretch to shift Duskwights to being general Underdark residents beyond just Gelmorra. But, everyone knows nobody wants to spend time trapped in caves. So, getting to actually see any such underground cities would be unlikely. Besides, being so isolated, they would have the luxury of not really being involved or impacted by the goings on of the surface, further reducing the need or likelihood of ever interacting.