Diabolos

At this point, it shouldn't be spoilers that Diabolos is the boss of the lost city of Amdapor. So here are the things to think about:

What is Diabolos? Obviously he isn't a primal, though he is a traditional FF summon. This begs the question of if there are primal like beings like Siren (Who may not have been a summon, but she was essentially tempering, albeit hers is more easily stopped or avoided). All we know is Diabolos was sealed in Amdapor and was somehow related to its downfall. What is his connection? What did he do? What caused his seal to weaken. Since Amdapor requires the main story to be complete, it's not unreasonable it has something to do with the Primal roar heard at the end of the main story.

iirc, the elementals in The Shroud were responsible for hiding Amdapor away. It seems likely that the elementals were at least partly responsible for keepin Diabolos sealed away. We know that the elementals' ability to keep Amdapor hidden have suffered recently (probably due to The Calamity). I'm guessing that their ability to keep Diabolos sealed away was also crippled.

Diabolos begins the fight by accusing you of being in cahoots with the White Mages of Amdapor. The civilization was known to be powerful mages that meddled with power that eventually proved their undoing. Thus, my guess is that they, the ancient White Mages, pierced the veil between the realms to the void. Bringing him here, where, as the quest goes, he fed on and destroyed the people. Then, the city, stagnant and filled with evil, was sealed by the elementals. As E'Sumi Yan says, "These dark stirrings we have traced to the lost city of Amdapor in the South Shroud. The city once throve in the fullness of magic during the Fifth Astral Era, but it was sealed in the wake of its demise."

As to what he is, Raya-o-Senna says of him, "the elementals tell us all was undone by what the great one calls 'an unclean presence.'" My current theory is that he is a lord of the Void, something more than just another voidsent. Plus, given his history, being the true Lord of the Void would be very consistent with what he is. I'm guessing we've not seen the last of him, because as he's thwarted he says that he's awoken too soon, and is not powerful enough. My guess, he'll be summoned back by someone, and he'll be much stronger next time. Think Hard Mode dungeon.

Also, I've noted that many of the monsters in the city are able to heal themselves very well. Then, there are artifacts there called White Magestones, that heal the Baalzephon (I've got nothing here, its a god of the north as far as the ancient Semites were concerned). My guess is that the Baalzephon, Warmoura or maybe many of the monsters of Amdapor once were the White Mages of Amdapor and were twisted by their encounter with Diabolos much as the ancient Nymians were by their Plague.

Another thing, that bothered me is that the Gremlins can talk. Even if it seems limited to cursing at us. Is this simply a creature that mimics human language like a parrot. Or is there more to it. I'm thinking in the same direction of the tonberries. People that lived there and changed into gremlins? Pure speculation off course. I sorta wish there was some dialogue/cutscene after completing the dungeon and reporting to the conjurer guild.

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Originally Posted by Vydos

Another thing, that bothered me is that the Gremlins can talk. Even if it seems limited to cursing at us. Is this simply a creature that mimics human language like a parrot. Or is there more to it. I'm thinking in the same direction of the tonberries. People that lived there and changed into gremlins? Pure speculation off course. I sorta wish there was some dialogue/cutscene after completing the dungeon and reporting to the conjurer guild.

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I'm not so sure, they look a bit like mutated Opo-opo to me. So perhaps whatever magics changed the creatures of the realm also affected them.

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Originally Posted by Lusavari

This begs the question of if there are primal like beings like Siren (Who may not have been a summon, but she was essentially tempering, albeit hers is more easily stopped or avoided).

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Siren was a summon in FF6 and FF8.

As is the case with many other dungeons, having some prerequisite knowledge going in and knowing where to look leads the dungeon to tell you a story you'd otherwise miss. It'll be a long time before I write the proper Loremonger entry for it, so let's go through the dungeon and then summarize the story it tells us.

At first, the ruins are exactly as you'd suspect for something hidden from the view of the cognizant in a thriving forest; molds and poisonous insects have taken over in the wake of the civilization's ruin. The Agora (town center/marketplace) and city streets are infested with funguar (Demonstool), Wamoura, slugs (Ruins Dross), gadflies, and banemites (Madmite).

The first signs of something amiss are the Gremlin (a grumpy, obscenity screaming mob that looks like the bastard child of a phurble and an opo-opo), and the Hecteyes (a slimy mass with several seemingly-functional eyeballs within it that hangs around the mold colony that has been somehow "tainted"). What are these? Voidsent? Corrupted former citizens? Recent intruders who have been killed, tainted, and stripped of the precious gear they just bought at Rowena's Darklight closeout sale!? Who knows.

Pressing on, in the Halcyon Court (open-air park area), a decaying but hungry goobbue has taken up residence; is it now ashkin, or simply a seedkin mutated by poison and mold? Or is the goobbue long dead and perhaps controlled by parasitic fungi? Is this linked to the gremlins and hecteyes? Again, who knows.

Eventually, the man-made paths become less common and ...organic... paths take over; suddenly the ground seems farther away, as if the city streets have descended into a valley and you're moving between rooftops and bridges on insect and mold-sewn highways. The paths twist and wind towards the Tower of White, the roost of Arioch (a Hebrew name meaning Fierce Lion attributed to a demon mentioned in several grimoires, though possibly a direct reference to Paradise Lost, likening Amdapor to such a thing), who has been feasting on the wamoura there. Within the structure beyond, from whence Arioch may have come, is the Sanctum of Dreams, the lair of Diabolos.

With Central Amdapor behind, the sanctum houses paths of stone and magick that spiral downwards through The Arrested Darkness; voidsent imps (Dastardly Devilet), Taurui (Allotaur), and Ahriman (Dirty Eye) cluster around Baalzephon (a Hebrew name meaning Lord of the North also given to a confusing set of deities and locations associated with them), who may also be corrupted former inhabitants, that are continuously healed by White Magestones. Here's a creepy thought... what if the Baalzephon are former White Mages of Amdapor, healed by their guardian stones, acting as bait to keep the voidsent spilling into their realm at bay? Talk about an eternity of pain.

The confrontation with Diabolos takes place on a magicked platform called The Waking Nightmare, where a key mechanic of the fight is entering pockets of void to hide from his attacks as he awakens enraged and confuses the player with Amdapori mages. Thankfully, his slumber has left him weakened, and he is subdued (for now?).

Now with some idea as to what's going on, trace the names on the map backwards.

During the fall of the Fifth Astral Era and rise of the Sixth Umbral, it seems that the powerful magicks of the Amdapori White Mages, possibly centered on the Tower of White, weakened the Veil to the void, through which came Diabolos, who began to shift reality and its inhabitants into a waking nightmare. Unable to defeat it, they halted its advance, breaking pathways and erecting barriers to arrest the darkness of Diabolos' new dream sanctum (though, admittedly, perhaps the Amdapori themselves named it this and had an affinity for dream magic to which Diabolos was attracted, but let's go with Occam's Razor and the first interpretation, for now).

It seems that even as the civilization fell to Calamity and the ruins were hid by the Elemental magick, those wards held, until the Calamity of the Seventh Umbral Era broke both layers of seals...

Of course, that's all just my interpretation.

So what is Diabolos?

I'd say a powerful voidsent whose particular skill revolves around fear and dreams that came through the weakened border between worlds during the fall of the Era resulting from the overuse of magickal ability during the War of the Magi.

How he fits into the world, though... we'll have to see! SE has been pulling out a lot of big franchise names for LV50, and I really don't feel like we've seen the last of half of them. If anything, this feels like Diabolos' introduction more than his defeat. I feel like Diabolos is a tempting opportunity to save some development costs and re-skin an area as dream [insert name here] and cut some corners, though, so I just hope that, if he does return, it's a healthy mix of alternate versions of existing areas and dreams/visions of places we'd otherwise never see; something that keeps the novelty in alternate versions without making it feel cheap.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

*snip*

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Always a pleasure when you bring some much needed light and explanation into the discussion Moose.

Wow, impressive Moose. I like it.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Here's a creepy thought... what if the Baalzephon are former White Mages of Amdapor, healed by their guardian stones, acting as bait to keep the voidsent spilling into their realm at bay? Talk about an eternity of pain.

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Love this theory! This is the sort of thing I was thinking of him. Or perhaps many White Mages melded by gravi-dark magic into one terrible, agonized entity?

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

SE has been pulling out a lot of big franchise names for LV50, and I really don't feel like we've seen the last of half of them. If anything, this feels like Diabolos' introduction more than his defeat. I feel like Diabolos is a tempting opportunity to save some development costs and re-skin an area as dream [insert name here] and cut some corners, though, so I just hope that, if he does return, it's a healthy mix of alternate versions of existing areas and dreams/visions of places we'd otherwise never see; something that keeps the novelty in alternate versions without making it feel cheap.

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Could not agree more here. To pull now major players like Diabolos (important to the FFMMO brand after XI), and admittedly important figures like Siren (Long history with the brand 6, 8, cameo in 13) early feels like they'll be needing Doomtrain for level 70 dungeons. So I think the cliff-hanger nature of our encounter with these two points to bigger things. Perhaps the birth of new primals (Primal of the Void/Primal of the Ashkin) as forces note and summon them, perhaps just recurring villiains.