Azim Steppe

The recent live letter showed a lot about where the new story events are heading. With the events in Doma wrapping up, I’m afraid we won’t ever see Magnai get a wife. SE, may we get a quest on this? This would be a lot more interesting that more hildibrand quests. We recently played match maker with some moogles so...

I'm not sure where the content would go, but a thousand jokes have been made about Magnai's never-ending search for true love (and how hopelessly oblivious he is that it's all but assuredly Sadu). Even Yoshida's joked about it; I can't imagine it's off the table. Moreover, I think Ishikawa was in charge of the Steppe? It doesn't seem she'd want to leave that hanging forever (unless it was explicitly, "It's Sadu. He's hopeless. That's the end." lol).

EDIT
Don't forget this from the Letter from the Producer LIVE

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Q21. Do you have plans to implement quests where Magnai will find his moon?

A21. I was thinking it was Sadu. On the internet, some were saying it may be Cirina, or it may be the Warrior of Light. There may be a quest for Magnai and Sadu. Only the Dawn Father knows.

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It also might be the thing that Magnai and Sadu will always be in a "will they/won't they" stage so the WoL can feel free to RP romancing them.

This is true, too! They could end up with Carvallain and Rhoswen, lol.

I was really hoping the Durendaires would discreetly try to manipulate Carvallain back into the fold without any undue embarrassment to the family, only for him to marry Rhoswen (claiming to her that it's, obviously, solely to get them to permanently exile him), freeing him to his life of privateering and smuggling. Imagining the scene she would make in Ishgard to seal that deal, and how she could hold that Sword of Damocles over him in the future, tickles me.

I feel greedy for saying that I want more Steppes content, but I do. I'm especially curious about who built the Dawn Throne, why the Dusk Throne was allowed to fall to ruin, and what is up with the House of the Crooked Coin. And I would love to see the WoL go back for a quest or two, since until the next Nadaam, we're the khagan.

There's a sidequest that involves the House of the Crooked Coin. And it raises more questions then answers. Apparently the Xalea, particularly the Dorthal, believe the giant crystal structure inside is a piece of Nhaama's essence. The Dorthal also believe that if they commit suicide by throwing themselves into the cavern that houses the crystal, they will join Nhaama and break their cycle of reincarnation. So yeah, until more information comes available (looks at the Lore Book Vol. 2) it looks like there might be part of a goddess in there. How did it get there? *shrug*

The Dawn and Dusk Thrones are a lot more mundane. Both have sightseeing log entries associated with them. The Dawn Throne was built by the Xalea on the spot Azim created a mortal form for himself. The Dusk Throne was built where Nhaama made a mortal form for herself. If you look at a map of the Azim Steppe closely, you'll see the The Dusk Throne isn't actually in the Azim Steppe, but is in the Nhaama Desert. It's fairly common for desert ruins to get buried in sand due to dust storms (look at some very early picture of the Great Shinx) and it looks like that is what is happening to the Dusk Throne. I feel like this is one of the cases where the scale of the maps is way off and the Dusk Throne would probably be much further from the Dawn Throne if the map scale was correct.

Stuff I want to know more about... Bardam, the boss of Bardam's Mettle, looks a lot like a low-tech version of Alexander. So which came first? The stories of when Alexander, Dyne and Myde showed up in the past or Dyne and Myde basing Alexander off all the low-tech robots they already knew about? And speaking of Bardam, the real one... anyone else think he's a good candidate for an early WoL?

The Chuluu enemy... this reminds me a lot of the idea behind soul stones. For a refresher, a Chuluu is a tablet on which the history of Xalea warriors are caved to commemorate them. Sometimes this is done a bit too well and the tablets try to carry out what is carved on them. So you've got people recording information on stone and then the stone being a source of instructions for something. Sadu even uses two Chuluu as a power source (or instruction manual?) to cast Meteor. I kinda wonder if they're proto-Soul Stones or if Soul Stones are the "evolved" form of them.

Nhaama and Azim. This set of gods is a bit weird compared to the other ones we've run into. The Twelve in the Eorzean Mythos create the world and then leave it for the the Heavens. The primals were originally called primals because they were the primary force behind the creation stories of the beast races. The kami live in divine objects and it's very murky whether the object becomes a kami, the kami moves into the object, or a mix of both. In any case, all those stories start with the gods in the world and end with them either staying it it or leaving it.

Nhaama and Azim don't start in the world; they start in the heavens (as the sun and moon) and then come down to the world where they make corporeal forms for themselves. They aren't involved in creating the world like The Twelve are and they don't inhabit objects like kami do. After making corporeal forms for themselves, they have children somehow and then leave for the heavens again. Well... not quite. The Dorthal think some part of Nhaama's essence is still in the House of the Crooked Coin. And the Oronir think Azim purposely had children outside his own people to leave part of himself behind to protect Nhaama's people.

I just think it's rather odd that you've got one mythos that has really no creation myth in the traditional sense and swaps the locations of the gods. The gods forming bodies for themselves is also noteworthy. The only time we see gods take "corporal form" is when a summoning happens. Only apparently Nhaama and Azim do this to themselves. I'm kinda wondering if long before the Au Ra split, they did summon Nhaama and Azim. And then managed to keep part of Nhaama's aether in Hose of the Crooked Coin somehow.

I was really hoping we'd get to explore the House of the Crooked Coin as a dungeon, but with us getting another hard mode as the second 4.4 dungeon and 4.5 presumably being the last patch of Stormblood with a MSQ dungeon to conclude it, it seems like it might end up being a mystery forever.

I was about to say "Well, I found this really interesting place on the western edge of the Steppe while out hunting for emotes, Dhoro Iloh. It's an abandoned village with an aetheryte. I think it might have something to do with the MHW event or future development on the Steppe."

... but then I looked it up and it's just the Namazu hub, which I can't do since I quit crafting and gathering back at the start of 3.0 on account of the spike.

As for the House of the Crooked Coin... yeah, it's an interesting landmark, but I wouldn't quite say it's never going to go anywhere. Not every patch has an MSQ dungeon and/or trial (4.2 had neither), so it might be visited in 4.5. Maybe. Possibly. Even if it's not, there's nothing stopping us from coming back at a later date... past 5.0, at any rate.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

Nhaama and Azim. This set of gods is a bit weird compared to the other ones we've run into. The Twelve in the Eorzean Mythos create the world and then leave it for the the Heavens. The primals were originally called primals because they were the primary force behind the creation stories of the beast races. The kami live in divine objects and it's very murky whether the object becomes a kami, the kami moves into the object, or a mix of both. In any case, all those stories start with the gods in the world and end with them either staying it it or leaving it.

Nhaama and Azim don't start in the world; they start in the heavens (as the sun and moon) and then come down to the world where they make corporeal forms for themselves. They aren't involved in creating the world like The Twelve are and they don't inhabit objects like kami do. After making corporeal forms for themselves, they have children somehow and then leave for the heavens again. Well... not quite. The Dorthal think some part of Nhaama's essence is still in the House of the Crooked Coin. And the Oronir think Azim purposely had children outside his own people to leave part of himself behind to protect Nhaama's people.

I just think it's rather odd that you've got one mythos that has really no creation myth in the traditional sense and swaps the locations of the gods. The gods forming bodies for themselves is also noteworthy. The only time we see gods take "corporal form" is when a summoning happens. Only apparently Nhaama and Azim do this to themselves. I'm kinda wondering if long before the Au Ra split, they did summon Nhaama and Azim. And then managed to keep part of Nhaama's aether in Hose of the Crooked Coin somehow.

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We haven't even touched on the Mol tribe's "Elder Gods", although being just another name for kami is a possibility there.

Maybe we'll get some more insight on the Steppe side of things with the next round of Tales from the Storm.

Forget the romance story, there's still so much they can do with Xaela lore and history between all that's present in the Steppe alone. >.> I really want to see more about Azim and Nhaama, and think there's a lot of potential with the creepiness in the House of the Crooked Coin. It's a source of aether, the Xaela's goddess' aether no less... If that does scream potential primal, Idk what does. :P

Though we already had one moon god(dess) make an appearance as a primal... Perhaps Azim and Nhaama could make an appearance as a sort of dual primal?

Idk. I just know I'm a hopeless cat lizard and want moar lizards. >:r

I'd love to see more Steppes content, it's my favorite place in the game. Anything they can add to it will please me... Also, Cirina x Hien, Sadu x Magnai, and Carvallain x Rhoswen (hopes were raised when he was in the start of Stormblood.....) Maybe we'll get a super awesome Valontines Event to show them their true loves...

The trailer suggests it isn't going to be forgotten.