The Merchant's Tale discussion.

Still in the process of beating all paths and figuring everything out, but I figure we could use a thread to talk about The Merchant's Tale.

One thing I really liked (spoilers for the middle/straight path):

The Lone Swordmaster uses Concentrativity if you go through a path that causes magnetic bits to spawn, tacitly implying that Concentrativity was an Unyielding Blade technique.

While this could have been assumed because Zenos uses it and he trained in the Unyielding Blade as a child on his own by imitating the Corvosi master that would beat him, it was never explicit that Zenos' "main" technique was actually from that art, as he also used samurai techniques and weapons.

The Merchant's Tale is really interesting form a lore perspective, because it's the rare piece of in-universe fiction--and unique among even those, it's a piece of fiction that we don't know the 'true story' of, like the Zodiac Braves story or the Minstrel's Ballad. While it seems unlikely that anything would be straight-up false, and it all certainly sounds legit, it's entirely possible that some of this is subject to artistic license by the author, and we might not know until MUCH later.

While I haven't done all the routes yet myself, I was unfortunately spoiled on the final route's boss (who isn't surprising if you find even some of the clues), and that one's an interesting exhibit of it.

The secret boss is Dandan, a mythical giant, terrifying fish that almost definitely doesn't exist, but was summoned as a primal to fight the Empire. ...which we might've bumped into before, as way back in Shadowbringers, we learned that the Sapphire Weapon has all those fins because it absorbed a fishlike primal!

And yes, of course Dandan has a Triple Triad card. Frankly, it'd be the biggest missed opportunity in the game if it didn't.

Working through, seven paths done so far: 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11

Progress notes:

LEFT PATH

1. Left path, cave path, broke through the damaged fence, stopped the elemental(?) from stealing the chicks' food. This has opened up one of the palace's side paths but there's still clearly another one on the map. Can't see an obvious entry point.

4. Left path, orchard path, downhill path to the palace.


RIGHT PATH

6. Right path, seaweed path; Y'nazqha highlights the "shimmering stage" but there's nothing to do for now. Clear the seaweed and proceed to boss fight. (Journal 11 says the stage is for making an offering of friendship to another race.)

7. Right path, beach path; blew the conch horn but I think I missed a second step and it hasn't counted. Journal entry is prompting to search for "a way to make sound that reaches even the ocean floor". Was I supposed to double back to the stage, or is that path blocked off?


CENTRAL PATH

9. Central path, mushroom path, activated stones in the tunnel. Clues in side path and maybe journal.

10. Central path, mushroom path, didn't activate stones.

11. Central path, floating stones, activated the three boulders. (So probably not activating them is path 12.)

Other thoughts:

The cartoony style was briefly interesting but I think I would have preferred normal art, especially since we're unlikely to see present-day Corvos looking so pretty.

Is the swordswoman an Elezen? Her face had a bit of the look of one. We're due for some kind of new Elezen cultural group that isn't from another shard.

I know that a heavier magic-infused sword class is something people have been regularly asking about. Of course it's always 50-50 whether these types of cameos are previews of future jobs or just a case of "it'll never work as a player job but here's a lore concept".

Are sea-folk supposed to be real, a cheerful take on sirens/Ananta/etc or just fictional? The faerie wings are a curious choice too.

The "Pari" is another new maybe-race we haven't heard mentioned before. Is it a proper folklore thing? Does one of the other journal entries go into it?

Townsfolk in the early areas are all races found in Thavnair, nothing interesting like G tribe Miqo'te or something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Other thoughts:

The "Pari" is another new maybe-race we haven't heard mentioned before. Is it a proper folklore thing? Does one of the other journal entries go into it?

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This one we can look to the source material.

'Pari' is 'fairy' (you can probably see the loan word now that I say it), this particular figure is lifted right from Arabian Nights. Like in most folklores the term isn't exactly a taxonomic thing, you see 'pari' used to refer to plenty of figures that more modern fantasy would split apart; Darya would probably be referred to as a pari as well.

What that means here is a little hard to tell, save that this is definitely some kind of magical being; closer to an elemental spirit than a human. She might be a fae by the definition used by Il Mheg, which is the same sort of loose definition used by folklore itself that somehow puts pixies and the amaro in the same category, but that's the best we've got. It's even debatable if she exists to be categorized in the first place, because we're dealing with a fictional story.

Also, clarification on a particular thing for the middle route boss, just because I was confused until I found it myself:

She uses Concentrativity--explicitly named as such--if you're on the way to path 11. Which is the thing that more or less explicitly marks this skillset as being the one Zenos stole.

Route 11 also provides some of the clues for how to get to the secret route boss, but not all of them. I haven't found the rest of them yet.