Ivalice in FFXIV

So I recently I finished the 24 man raids available in Kugane that are based on the world of Ivalice from FF12 and FF Tactics and something caught my attention.

When B'Gannan(sry if I misremembered his name) held the auracite in his hand he hallucinated seeing both Livia Sas Junius and.....Judge Gabranth from FF12?

Maybe I'm looking too deep into this but,if we assumed 5.0 takes place in Garlemald(which is all but confirmed at this point)....do you think it's possible that those raids hint at a possible visit to Dalmasca?Cuz before that Alphinaud did mention Dalmasca during one of the conversations we had with him in Ala Mhigo.

Also,if the patterns of how the expansions worked are to be believed,we got Ishgard and Dravania in Heavensward while Stormblood gave us Doma and Ala Mhigo/Gyr Abania.So maybe the second location in the upcoming expansion alongside Garlemald might take us to Dalmasca.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong,which I'm probably am considering so far all the 24 man raids prior to this one had little connections to the main plot.

It's the appearance of Livia(even if as a hallucination) that made me speculate all this so I'm curious what others think of this

I suppose it's possible but the first Ivalice raid is the Royal City of Rabanastre, the capital of Dalmasca. Would be odd to have it as a raid and then as a city/zone.

For what it's worth, Livia sas Junius (hard-confirmed to be dead) and Legatus Noah van Gabranth have deep personal significance to Ba'Gamnan, and he's holding an object which warps perceptions in consistency with desires. Rabanastre and Dalmasca have had name-drops since 2.0 (2013), but actually including anything related to them in the game aside from a name-drop homage has been pretty recent (decided 2016), which is why it swung a bit of a wrecking ball through the story.

To give you an example, Dalmasca has now fallen to the Garlean Empire twice. Once in 1517 in Ilsabard, and once in 1547 in Othard. And Livia was known as the "Witch of Dalmasca" for her ruthless performance in its subjugation despite being too young to have been at either, regardless of whether she's supposed to be 26 or 28 (because the lore book assigns the higher age to the sister it labels "younger" and vice versa). Clean-up has been in progress since Return to Ivalice began, with concrete clarification that the latter date and location of Dalmasca's fall are canon and that Livia was more recently sent to put down a rebellion. I assume lore book deux will clean up some of the loose ends...

So to bring it back around to your question - I do suspect we may get more than just Garlean territory, but whether the rest is Dalmasca based on its significance in Return to Ivalice and recent mentions in the MSQ (Thancred name-drops it for example) I'm not sure. We'll be able to gauge their intentions much more readily after we've seen whether Matsuno successfully liberates Dalmasca (his stated goal) and brings the chapter to a close in Raid 3. Though, as Bright-Flower said, the capital has already been razed to the ground. No unringing that bell.

I've been suspecting Thavnair to be the second area, but that's what I said when they added the Far East instead, too, lol.

Well Doma was 'razed' in the 2.X patches but we still spent half of the expansion in Othard. Rabanstre being razed doesn't necessarily mean we won't go there.

But I pray for something more like HW than SB, where the two regions in HW were more directly tied together and didn't split the MSQ so much. I feel like liberating doma and ala mhigo in one expansion kind of hurt both stories.

Well...

We do visit Dalmasca - sort of. The first 24-man in 4.1 is the Royal City of Rabanastre, the capital. Unfortunately, the city is in ruins because it was emboldened by the success of Doma and Ala Mhigo into rebelling - a rebellion that was, unfortunately, swiftly crushed by the Empire, with Rabanstre itself razed seemingly to the ground. (Double-edged sword - now the Empire lost its major refueling station in the region. Heh.)

As for Gabranth... it was stated he was Legatus of the IVth Legion, sent to put down a rebellion some time before the events of the game (likely in the interim between 1.x and 2.0), and Livia was deployed with him. (Noah van Gabranth. Really awkward among the Latin-esque names Garleans typically have.)

Could we visit Dalmasca? Maybe. Hell, uh, Rhalgr's Reach was used as the endgame hub of Stormblood - a ragtag encampment in the ruins of Rabanastre would actually not be a bad staging ground for another rebellion. That said... I'm already... unhappy with the heavy-handed Ivalice references in the 4.x raid series itself, and not just because I dislike Ivalice on account of a lot of people incessantly lauding it while I remain apathetic - I'd rather see more original stuff.

(Yes, I know Doma is a big shout-out to VI... but people aren't as vocal about that one, and Doma itself wasn't well-explored. Castrum Abania being the Magitek Research Facility in all but name, though... that was a bit irritating. Having an adaptation of Ivalice transplanted into XIV, major landmarks and all? Yeah, that's... really irritating.)

Doma in general is also quite different in XIV than in VI. It wasn't transplanted directly into FF XIV. Other than Cyan's theme being used as Hien's theme and Cyan being a samurai ish character there really wasn't much linking them aside from the name. Doma Castle is a dungeon but didn't really make me think of FF VI's doma castle. The Delta/Sigmascape bosses at least have the benefit of being simulations based on other worlds, and not things from FFXIV's world.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

Doma in general is also quite different in XIV than in VI. It wasn't transplanted directly into FF XIV. Other than Cyan's theme being used as Hien's theme and Cyan being a samurai ish character there really wasn't much linking them aside from the name. Doma Castle is a dungeon but didn't really make me think of FF VI's doma castle. The Delta/Sigmascape bosses at least have the benefit of being simulations based on other worlds, and not things from FFXIV's world.

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To be fair Doma was barely present in VI beside Kefka poisoning the river which killed Cyan's wife and son but other than that u don't see Doma for the rest of FF6 unless you do the sidequest dungeon inside Cyan's dream

I like XIV's Doma more since it feels more like a better realization of the concept than what the game it originated from did

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

For what it's worth, Livia sas Junius (hard-confirmed to be dead) and Legatus Noah van Gabranth have deep personal significance to Ba'Gamnan, and he's holding an object which warps perceptions in consistency with desires. Rabanastre and Dalmasca have had name-drops since 2.0 (2013), but actually including anything related to them in the game aside from a name-drop homage has been pretty recent (decided 2016), which is why it swung a bit of a wrecking ball through the story.

To give you an example, Dalmasca has now fallen to the Garlean Empire twice. Once in 1517 in Ilsabard, and once in 1547 in Othard. And Livia was known as the "Witch of Dalmasca" for her ruthless performance in its subjugation despite being too young to have been at either, regardless of whether she's supposed to be 26 or 28 (because the lore book assigns the higher age to the sister it labels "younger" and vice versa). Clean-up has been in progress since Return to Ivalice began, with concrete clarification that the latter date and location of Dalmasca's fall are canon and that Livia was more recently sent to put down a rebellion. I assume lore book deux will clean up some of the loose ends...

So to bring it back around to your question - I do suspect we may get more than just Garlean territory, but whether the rest is Dalmasca based on its significance in Return to Ivalice and recent mentions in the MSQ (Thancred name-drops it for example) I'm not sure. We'll be able to gauge their intentions much more readily after we've seen whether Matsuno successfully liberates Dalmasca (his stated goal) and brings the chapter to a close in Raid 3. Though, as Bright-Flower said, the capital has already been razed to the ground. No unringing that bell.

I've been suspecting Thavnair to be the second area, but that's what I said when they added the Far East instead, too, lol.

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Oh,I didn't know they did name drop Dalmasca since ARR.....maybe I missed that while I was playing but it's been so long since I completed ARR's msqs so I probably forgot about it

As for being razed to the ground......Doma suffered that as well but there were enough survivors alongside Hien to start another rebellion so its safe to assume some survivors from Dalmasca relocated elsewhere.

Also I didn't know Gabranth is now an actual Garlean legatus in XIV.Was that mentioned in a material you can read inside the Prima Vista ship?

Doma actually strikes me as the angle we'll approach Garlemald from. Other than the cave behind Coldhearth, I can't really think of an area in Gyr Abania that would function as a "path" to Garlemald... The path to Ishgard was naturally quite obvious, as was the path into Gyr Abania (although they didn't use that dead end in East Shroud for an actual physical zone line I guess).

Of course, we could always just take an Airship, or some form of magical transportation (somethingsomethingFFTWarpspell), but right now I see our approach being from fantasy Asia. Doman Enclave has some gates to nowhere that could lead to the area south on the map and clear up those clouds... It's also more or less the approach Alphinaud is taking, although I imagine we'd go around the Burn rather than through it... Not to mention the Doman Adventurer's Guild even flat out suggests "maybe we'll be able to explore the area under those clouds some day" after the latest upgrade to the Enclave is finished (I want that map as furniture, btw SE), which just makes me think going south from Doma and around the Burn is the next place we'll be visiting...

Although looking at it... That kind of route would be more suited to a "Not actually Garlemald yet" expansion, with Thavnaria as a likely stopping off point on the way just due to its proximity to such a route... If you fill out the rest of the eastern map, there's still a lot of ground to cover between there and Garlemald, I suppose it is all still technically Garlean territory though... Where exactly is Dalmasca estimated to be on our bizarrely cloudy map anyway? It would definitely be nice to revisit the area at some point, and given we currently access it from Kugane (although that's likely more to do with the fact that its neutral territory) I'd assume its closer to the Doma side of the map. I suppose when the map is updated, the area south of the Burn might just end up as a "This is where the Ivalice raids took place!", but I've no idea of the geography of it all at this point... Given Hiens reasoning for Garlemald having to come at him from the Burn, I assumed Dalmasca must be either west or south of the Burn? Maybe I'm thinking too much on the map though, for all I know there could be a whole bunch of ocean under much of that cloud cover... Hope we get an updated version soon... If nothing else it would be nice to see the 24man raids as physical spaces on the map... Crystal Tower was nice because I knew where it sat, Void Ark was kind of hit and miss for that (could at least point on the map and say "Weeping City is around here" and you could actually see Void Ark flying around), Return to Ivalice? I'm lost... The areas are nice and all, and I definitely wouldn't mind fleshing out the region a bit more, but they feel so disconnected from the rest of the world right now... I think that makes the fact that they're fanservice areas a bit more heavy, where as something like Crystal Tower was a bit more grounded in Eorzea than just a "It's Crystal Tower from FF3!".

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Originally Posted by Nalien

Doma actually strikes me as the angle we'll approach Garlemald from. Other than the cave behind Coldhearth, I can't really think of an area in Gyr Abania that would function as a "path" to Garlemald... The path to Ishgard was naturally quite obvious, as was the path into Gyr Abania (although they didn't use that dead end in East Shroud for an actual physical zone line I guess).

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Not trying to spoil anything but recent events make it hard for me to believe we will be doing anything with Othard. Not to mention the lack of backup involved from a tactical point of view. We are more likely to launch from Gyr Abania via the land bridge.

There's the possibility of having a way behind the enclave though

I think there's potential for us to visit Dalmasca outside of Rabanastre itself. It got name-dropped in the last part of the MSQ of course, and there's still the long-hanging thread of Drest in Raincatcher Gully who really really needs to get his chance to return home. We're now friends with world leaders who casually drop in to Ala Mhigo from Doma for a meeting, and we're spending a whole plotline visiting the place. Can we please finally put two and two together and take him along? Or actually seek out his advice (and company) to show us the best route from there into Garlemald, or something.

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Originally Posted by Zephanoa

Not trying to spoil anything but recent events make it hard for me to believe we will be doing anything with Othard. Not to mention the lack of backup involved from a tactical point of view. We are more likely to launch from Gyr Abania via the land bridge.

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Well, my hope is that we get something like Besieged on the Ala Mhigo front, meanwhile we push in from behind via Doma. Then again I've been hoping for something like Besieged from every expansion ("Dragonsong War? Sounds perfect for Besieged style content!"). With Squadrons being woefully underutilised and Yoshida even saying he wants to add something more for Grand Company content... I can dream... I can dream...

Right now it just seems like there is more to flesh out in the east than the west. There's a lot of empty map over there to explore, and the region seems to have far more hints than whatever is beyond Gyr Abania. Do we actually have any idea what's beyond Gyr Abania? Thancred presumably waltzed around those regions but I don't think he dropped a single name that had me thinking "bet that'll be in the next expansion". Meanwhile we've got Dalmasca (unless I'm bad at geography) and Thavnaria in the east, and even if we don't directly revisit Rabanastre I could see them wanting to reuse various assets from the Ivalice raids (namely the races added via it). Plus we already have Alphinaud trailblazing that route... We know that there's a route in that way as a result, meanwhile I'm somewhat doubtful Garlemald is just going to let us walk that land bridge into their territory...

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Originally Posted by Zephanoa

Not to mention the lack of backup involved from a tactical point of view.

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That assumes we're pushing in as a liberation force, and given that's what Stormblood was about, I can't seem them repeating that with the next expansion. It's already been established that we're going for more of a war of subterfuge... If we go into Garlemald with the Eorzean Alliance at our back, rather than going in there and working with various Garlean factions to actually flesh them out, I'd be very disappointed... I'd rather see an expansion where we work on regime change than liberation again... If we go to Dalmasca I don't want a literal copy of Gyr Abania where we have the Resistance camp and we liberate them by the end... The story is going to be pretty flat if it's just us reclaiming cities from Garlemald every expansion...