Mysterious monsters without much explanation?

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Pronouns: Ifrita has 'em.



The Savage raid strongly implies that Ifrita and Ifrit were basically the same, but we do have to remember that the context of Pandaemonium Savage is 'present-day scientific paper drawing connections between Ancient times and modern day and taking some dramatic liberties', so take that with a grain of salt. But regardless of what Ifrita actually looked like, the intention of her addition was pretty clear: to declare that Ifrit was an Ancient construct that the Amal'jaans misinterpreted as a creator deity, and not a figure that the Amal'jaan society devised of their own accord or derived from their own experiences like the Ixal (although even the Ixal don't really consider Garuda their creator, which it turns out they were right not to). And I don't like that.

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I have similar thoughts for the EW ramifications of Gridania's whole setup cuz it makes it REALLY underwhelming for me and rather horrifying at the same time.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

The Savage raid strongly implies that Ifrita and Ifrit were basically the same, but we do have to remember that the context of Pandaemonium Savage is 'present-day scientific paper drawing connections between Ancient times and modern day and taking some dramatic liberties', so take that with a grain of salt. But regardless of what Ifrita actually looked like, the intention of her addition was pretty clear: to declare that Ifrit was an Ancient construct that the Amal'jaans misinterpreted as a creator deity, and not a figure that the Amal'jaan society devised of their own accord or derived from their own experiences like the Ixal (although even the Ixal don't really consider Garuda their creator, which it turns out they were right not to). And I don't like that.

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There is always some aspect of fact in myth. Things get exaggerated, misremembered, and become fantastical in nature. But there's always a part of the myth that's true. If we look in the past of the game, there are 2 possible times in the past where it's possible for it to be true.

First possibility, Ancient Allag and Zurvan. As in his description, "records describe the "Demon" striding into battle girded head to foot in armor formed of unshifting flame." During that time frame Allag used reptoids, creations made from multiple scalekin specimens and spliced together. They were kept under control via a metal box in their head that shocked them to have them follow commands. One could feel they were "beasts bereft of reason or intellect, each fighting an endless, mindless battle for survival."

Imagine if you will if Zurvan proceeded to fry those metal boxes without harming those reptoids, and then unspliced them with his intense aetherical power. It would be akin to having been cleansed by a sacred fire, as the creation myth states. This would make said myth rather truthful in a fashion, they were cleansed by a sacred flame, they were saved by a "god of flames".

However, that doesn't take into account the Calamity of Earth causing widespread destruction, or how they'd survive it.

The 2nd possibility, is that all of this happened during the 3rd Calamity, the calamity of fire, which razed the planet, burned crops, bringing famine and turning forests into deserts. At such a time there would indeed be people fighting for survival without a single thought. A being could have arose then to uplift the Amal'jaa and would have brought them the glory where "the tribes ranged far and wide, and ruled all that walked or crawled upon the land".

Downside of this possibility is that we have 0 way of knowing if that even happened because Allag is the furthest back we know in terms of world history, outside of the small area that was Ivalice (which was likely during the time before said 3rd Calamity).

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

There is always some aspect of fact in myth. Things get exaggerated, misremembered, and become fantastical in nature. But there's always a part of the myth that's true.

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To be fair, at some point the "true" part of the myth is so far removed from the myth that the myth ceases to be a useful guideline on what that truth allegedly is. For example, the level 50 FSH quest, where "giant sea serpent" was actually "just a big fish".

Still, I personally like your second idea of the Calamity of Fire being the source of the Amalj'aa belief in a fiery deity. The Calamity of Fire was not really "raging wildfires", but more "dry heat", according to the lorebook, but I assume that dry heat would lead to wildfires anyway due to, well, dry heat. The dryness would not be as damaging to the Amalj'aa as other races, given the Amalj'aa being less reliant on water, but the lack of food would definitely be an issue. Having a saviour figure emerge from that Calamity using fire-based rhetoric would certainly help the myth of Ifrit.

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Originally Posted by Alpheus

I have similar thoughts for the EW ramifications of Gridania's whole setup cuz it makes it REALLY underwhelming for me and rather horrifying at the same time.

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That sort of an entirely different enormous subject as a whole (and one that might get more attention if we get a variant dungeon set in the Shroud like I'm guessing we will), but the Elementals are a funny combo for us, because they're both essentially a leftover from a different plan in 1.0, and a thing that we in the English-speaking world miss a lot of the cultural context on (they're basically the Japanese myth of the kami bigged up considerably and mixed with a bit of European fae).

Definitely a considerable derail from the subject of this thread, which we're already kinda derailing on a minor level.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

That sort of an entirely different enormous subject as a whole (and one that might get more attention if we get a variant dungeon set in the Shroud like I'm guessing we will), but the Elementals are a funny combo for us, because they're both essentially a leftover from a different plan in 1.0, and a thing that we in the English-speaking world miss a lot of the cultural context on (they're basically the Japanese myth of the kami bigged up considerably and mixed with a bit of European fae).

Definitely a considerable derail from the subject of this thread, which we're already kinda derailing on a minor level.

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Fair, won't derail further just wanted to say (referring to my last post) how you felt about the Amalja is a vibe i share AND that I just feel similarly to how Gridania fared (and Im not even a fan of Gridania) with the EW-ining of a sizeable chunk of its lore. Anyways you have a good one ^^b.

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Originally Posted by RukoBoshi

the monster i most want to have an explanation is Bismarck from the source.
The fact that the First have an actual Bismarck that is a living creature and not a primal is interesting.

It means that a magical being like him could have actually existed on the source, and probably would have been intelligent too.

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I don’t know the details, but I am of the understanding that fae creatures are at least somewhat extra dimensional. As an example, as our fairy friend Feo Ul can communicate to our retainers in the source. It doesn’t strike me as out of place that Bismarck either existed at one time in the source, or a source-version of him existed. I hesitate to say he was a creation of Elpis…but we can probably say everything that exists that isn’t a plane-Jane animal is probably at least ancient-influenced. The facts are we just don’t know the natural state of the world before or outside the ancients.

Why the need for constant new concepts to release in the wild? Is/was the planet barren of life pre-ancients? Why the need to essentially unbalance the ecosystem?

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Originally Posted by kaynide

I don’t know the details, but I am of the understanding that fae creatures are at least somewhat extra dimensional. As an example, as our fairy friend Feo Ul can communicate to our retainers in the source. It doesn’t strike me as out of place that Bismarck either existed at one time in the source, or a source-version of him existed. I hesitate to say he was a creation of Elpis…but we can probably say everything that exists that isn’t a plane-Jane animal is probably at least ancient-influenced. The facts are we just don’t know the natural state of the world before or outside the ancients.

Why the need for constant new concepts to release in the wild? Is/was the planet barren of life pre-ancients? Why the need to essentially unbalance the ecosystem?

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I think they were alluding (or atleast trying) to Bismark in elpis when during the msq Hermes (I think it was him or Hythlodaeus) made mention that the Words of Mitron created a flying fish and it started the fad of giving aquatic life, up to and including the cute little axotle thingies or abystoma, the ability of flight.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Minotaurs have been proven to have been yet another Ancient creation as they appear in Elpis (and as I recall, it was even explained there that they were designed to be security guards for sensitive or restricted facilities, basically they're just dumb muscle). Whether by the present day they have formed primitive societies is unclear though.

Really, I think we're at the stage that pretty much every monster or living creature in Hydaelyn was once either made with Creation Magic by some Ancient Etheirysian 12000 years ago before the Sundering, or was created more recently by genetic engineering or magical means by the Allag or some other past civilization (the Ixal being an example).

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I forgot about that FATE that had those, but yeah a lot of the monsters I know came from ancient times.

But I think there were still a few that still has questionable origins I think.

I probably should have re-word that post to say what these monsters are doing now rather than their EW creation story because that could apply to 84% of the monsters of the game I think.

5% being the World of Darkness, 5% from Allag, and 5% from Depression incarnate (lol).

1% being other creatures with no real idea where they came from.

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Originally Posted by Rannie

I think they were alluding (or atleast trying) to Bismark in elpis when during the msq Hermes (I think it was him or Hythlodaeus) made mention that the Words of Mitron created a flying fish and it started the fad of giving aquatic life, up to and including the cute little axotle thingies or abystoma, the ability of flight.

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Could be; could also be why there are so many fish-like mobs that float (Tempest/Violet Tides/really any beach).

Considering Bismark is intelligent and not just a beast, it seems very likely the case.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

Could be; could also be why there are so many fish-like mobs that float (Tempest/Violet Tides/really any beach).

Considering Bismark is intelligent and not just a beast, it seems very likely the case.

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And another thing to remember is the fae were also shown to have existed back pre-Sundering, and presumed to be an Ancient creation too - a certain sidequest in Elpis shows a fairy (an Il Mheg fairy, not a SCH fairy which is not the same), under study, with the puzzled Elpis researcher assigned to study it at a complete loss to explain it or knowing who even who created it in the first place. And their puzzlement turns to utter bewilderement when said fairy soon turns into a beaver, causing the fed-up researcher to throw in the towel and tell the WoL "Now let us never speak of this again". So the mystery remained! (Presumedly the Ancient researcher quickly swept the records of it under the rug).

Even the infamous shoebill that popped up throughout ShB shows up under study in Elpis in another sidequest, and like the aforementioned fairy no one knows who created it or where it came from, and that in particular "resisted all forms of study" according to it's assigned researcher, but it did kind of pour cold water on the fan theory it was Emet's familiar (or at least a creation of his), as EW made no link of it to Emet in Elpis at all (if Emet did create it, the Bureau of the Architect would have naturally known about it, Emet did seem to be a stickler for following official protocol if nothing else, even reluctantly), so why it was shadowing the WoL throughout the First in EW is still unexplained.

So if the fae are Ancient creations, is unclear, but EW definetely makes the case for it.