Bozjan lore is properly scuffed.

So I'm writing short stories for my character's backstory because I absolutely love creative writing and it activates all the right almonds when I get in the zone. Though within her backstory, her adoptive father was a Bozjan gunbreaker Hrothgar (original, I know.). Upon doing a deeper look in to how to write everything. I noticed a small issue.

Radovan, the mentor for the GNB questline, is quoted as saying.

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To see me now, you'd scarce believe I once served as personal guard to my queen. But in the end, I couldn't protect her. I couldn't protect anyone. Not even my wife and son

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So, by his own words, there was a Queen of Bozja at least fairly recently, because he is no older than like 50. Yet, during the Save the Queen questiline in Bozjan Southern Front, Delubrum Reginae, AND in Zadnor, we find out that all queens of Bozja went by the title Queen Gunnhildr and the last one died around the time of the Allagan. This means the last queen of Bozja died over 5000 years ago, yet Radovan was allegedly one of the queen's personal guards.

This, out of game, can be explained just by different writers not communicating and such, yet I came up with the backstory before the BSF stuff did what it did. So, in game, what is the proper explanation? Are there other queens and since the reformation of Bozja they just stopped calling them Gunnhildr?

I don't think there's anything saying that Bozja stopped being a monarchy, just that they eventually stopped being so weird about it. Chances are that by the time of its fall, the Bozjan royal family had lost a lot of its mythical luster and was a bit more ceremonial and more of a figurehead. Similar to what happened to... well, every real-life royal family, but most obviously to English-speaking audiences the British one.

Of course, that doesn't mean there weren't royalists--again, look at Britain. Radovan checks out, he just has less of a grandiose mythical angle and is more of a staunch loyalist to his country.

The Gunnhildr line would've hit problems the moment that there were no female heirs, anyway, which is kind of an easy roadblock for them to hit.

A lot of Bozjan stuff is kept behind the Bozjan Resistance quest, Shadowbringers' relic weapon questline "Save the Queen."

Simply put, Queens Gunnhildr were not chosen how you'd think. Bozja was a highly stratified caste society (real original, Matsuno) where when it was necessary a woman from the shaman caste would be raised up to Queen Gunnhildr. So it's entirely possible for there to have been a "Queen Gunnhildr" during the time of the Imperial invasion despite the Queen Gunnhildr contemporary to Allag's fall being long dead.

Said Queen Gunnhildr was also a puppet ruler instated by her praetorian guard, Gunnhildr's Blades, to protect Bozja from being destroyed by offering herself as a sacrifice to summon a primal with Save the Queen since the old one was too scared to do it. Surprise, she had the Echo, so they killed her because with her power she was now a threat and would be doubly so if she learned she was intended to just be a sacrifice.

Really it's Hrothgar lore that is a mess. We were told (as a way of excusing the lack of female character models) that women are rare and venerated as "queens" – even Hrothgars' clan concepts revolve around the idea of those bound to a queen and those "lost" without one – and yet every second one we meet seems to be mourning a lost wife and there doesn't seem to have been an effort to integrate it into Bozja at all.

It's possible that the Bozja story was written in an early time when they thought they'd have male and female Hrothgar and not the split with Viera, most noticeably since Misija has an entirely Hrothgar name but we see other minor Roegadyn characters using their standard naming conventions.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

A lot of Bozjan stuff is kept behind the Bozjan Resistance quest, Shadowbringers' relic weapon questline "Save the Queen."

Simply put, Queens Gunnhildr were not chosen how you'd think. Bozja was a highly stratified caste society (real original, Matsuno) where when it was necessary a woman from the shaman caste would be raised up to Queen Gunnhildr. So it's entirely possible for there to have been a "Queen Gunnhildr" during the time of the Imperial invasion despite the Queen Gunnhildr contemporary to Allag's fall being long dead.

Said Queen Gunnhildr was also a puppet ruler instated by her praetorian guard, Gunnhildr's Blades, to protect Bozja from being destroyed by offering herself as a sacrifice to summon a primal with Save the Queen since the old one was too scared to do it. Surprise, she had the Echo, so they killed her because with her power she was now a threat and would be doubly so if she learned she was intended to just be a sacrifice.

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I already said all of this within my first post, which shows that the Bozjan lore is scuffed cause it has two conflicting primary sources.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I don't think there's anything saying that Bozja stopped being a monarchy, just that they eventually stopped being so weird about it. Chances are that by the time of its fall, the Bozjan royal family had lost a lot of its mythical luster and was a bit more ceremonial and more of a figurehead. Similar to what happened to... well, every real-life royal family, but most obviously to English-speaking audiences the British one.

Of course, that doesn't mean there weren't royalists--again, look at Britain. Radovan checks out, he just has less of a grandiose mythical angle and is more of a staunch loyalist to his country.

The Gunnhildr line would've hit problems the moment that there were no female heirs, anyway, which is kind of an easy roadblock for them to hit.

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The issue is that within the StQ area and line, it says that ALL Queens of Bozja are named Queen Gunnhildr. It is both a name and title.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Really it's Hrothgar lore that is a mess. We were told (as a way of excusing the lack of female character models) that women are rare and venerated as "queens" – even Hrothgars' clan concepts revolve around the idea of those bound to a queen and those "lost" without one – and yet every second one we meet seems to be mourning a lost wife and there doesn't seem to have been an effort to integrate it into Bozja at all.

It's possible that the Bozja story was written in an early time when they thought they'd have male and female Hrothgar and not the split with Viera, most noticeably since Misija has an entirely Hrothgar name but we see other minor Roegadyn characters using their standard naming conventions.

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For the Misija part, it's because she's Bozjan. The Hrothgar we meet are all Bozjans and Bozja itself uses Slavic naming conventions. For example, Misija literally means Mission. It's the same thing that you can see with Domans and Hinganashi Hyur using Raen names.

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Originally Posted by Ashlyn_Ishina

For the Misija part, it's because she's Bozjan. The Hrothgar we meet are all Bozjans and Bozja itself uses Slavic naming conventions. For example, Misija literally means Mission. It's the same thing that you can see with Domans and Hinganashi Hyur using Raen names.

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That's the thing though - it's not all races of Bozjans using those names. One of the group of three Resistance fighters mocking her early in the storyline is a Roegadyn with a Roegadyn name, and the Bozjan Hyurs like Aggie and Isolde are using Midlander names. So at very least there's some confusion there.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That's the thing though - it's not all races of Bozjans using those names. One of the group of three Resistance fighters mocking her early in the storyline is a Roegadyn with a Roegadyn name, and the Bozjan Hyurs like Aggie and Isolde are using Midlander names. So at very least there's some confusion there.

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Lilja uses a Bozjan name though and she's a Rava Viera. The resistance has more than just Bozjans there, but there ARE Bozjans there.

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Originally Posted by Ashlyn_Ishina

Lilja uses a Bozjan name though and she's a Ravan Viera. The resistance has more than just Bozjans there, but there ARE Bozjans there.

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Having checked, Lilja isn't in my name dictionary, though Lilia is Slavic. I'd previously assumed that it sounded in line with Viera conventions though, since both use the "j as y sound" a lot.

Viera are another special case though because their official lore is "likely to adopt a new name upon leaving their forest home". So if she moved to Bozja, she might pick a Bozjan name accordingly.

So as I said, there's confusion there at least.

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Originally Posted by Ashlyn_Ishina

The issue is that within the StQ area and line, it says that ALL Queens of Bozja are named Queen Gunnhildr. It is both a name and title.

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I just checked the field reports. It doesn't say that the last queen of Bozja was the one that fended off the Allagan Empire that Misija is descended from. Rather, it says that she was the last Queen Gunnhildr.

With that, and with the statement from Radovan that he served his queen until the Garlean occupation, we can assume they became some type of traditional monarchy afterwards.

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Having checked, Lilja isn't in my name dictionary, though Lilia is Slavic. I'd previously assumed that it sounded in line with Viera conventions though, since both use the "j as y sound" a lot.

Viera are another special case though because their official lore is "likely to adopt a new name upon leaving their forest home". So if she moved to Bozja, she might pick a Bozjan name accordingly.

So as I said, there's confusion there at least.

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Bajsaljen is also not a real Slavic name, it's just Slavic-like. The same goes for all Bozjans EXCEPT Misija for some reason. They decided to give her a proper name but everyone else a "eh, it sounds like this kind of culture" name.

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I just checked the field reports. It doesn't say that the last queen of Bozja was the one that fended off the Allagan Empire that Misija is descended from. Rather, it says that she was the last Queen Gunnhildr.

With that, and with the statement from Radovan that he served his queen until the Garlean occupation, we can assume they became some type of traditional monarchy afterwards.

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The reports say that all Queens of Bozja are called Queen Gunnhildr, with the last one being Nevembya Votyasch

So this lore isn't all over the place. You're not accounting for time.

The Queen Gunnhildr that became a primal using the sword did so during the time of the Allagan invasions. Remember the Allagans were hell bent on world domination and the only way others knew how to fight an army of echo users with magitech was summoning primals. Bojza did it too, just like Mercydia.

Obviously Bojza didn't fall during the war with Allag, instead they fell to Garlemald. Which, historically, happens much more recently. Radovan failed to protect the (recent) current queen from Garlemald. And failing the queen lost him his family (which were either killed or enslaved) and then he suffered in a internment camp for an untold amount of time.

Two separate time periods. This was explained in the story.

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Originally Posted by Kesey

So this lore isn't all over the place. You're not accounting for time.

The Queen Gunnhildr that became a primal using the sword did so during the time of the Allagan invasions. Remember the Allagans were hell bent on world domination and the only way others knew how to fight an army of echo users with magitech was summoning primals. Bojza did it too, just like Mercydia.

Obviously Bojza didn't fall during the war with Allag, instead they fell to Garlemald. Which, historically, happens much more recently. Radovan failed to protect the (recent) current queen from Garlemald. And failing the queen lost him his family (which were either killed or enslaved) and then he suffered in a internment camp for an untold amount of time.

Two separate time periods. This was explained in the story.

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A small fill-in on Radovan's family, they were killed during the Bozja Incident when the entirety of the capital was incinerated.

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Originally Posted by Kesey

So this lore isn't all over the place. You're not accounting for time.

The Queen Gunnhildr that became a primal using the sword did so during the time of the Allagan invasions. Remember the Allagans were hell bent on world domination and the only way others knew how to fight an army of echo users with magitech was summoning primals. Bojza did it too, just like Mercydia.

Obviously Bojza didn't fall during the war with Allag, instead they fell to Garlemald. Which, historically, happens much more recently. Radovan failed to protect the (recent) current queen from Garlemald. And failing the queen lost him his family (which were either killed or enslaved) and then he suffered in a internment camp for an untold amount of time.

Two separate time periods. This was explained in the story.

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But then if they name ***Every*** queen, Queen Gunnhildr. Then why does it say that the last queen Gunnhildr was during the fall of the Allag? This is what everyone is missing. The Field Reports list that ******ALL****** queens of Bozja were named Queen Gunnhildr because it is a title, not just a name. It's not a hereditary name, it's just the name they take upon ascension to the throne. With that said, for there to have been a queen recently, it means there would have been a Queen Gunnhildr recently.

Personally I believe that the plot for Bozja was written one way when 5.0 was first being written, but some small details changed when it got to the Save The Queen storyline. Some things just fell through the cracks. Don't suppose we could flag down Fernehalwes...?

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Originally Posted by Eviticus

Don't suppose we could flag down Fernehalwes...?

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Document all the lore and the contradictions – every quote about Hrothgar society, in and outside of the Bozja storyline – and then raise the question when they call for lore Q&A submissions.

I got there eventually with resolving one big lore glitch in the AST quests.

I mean, that would work. Though that doesn't help my current issue. In my current short story I am delving more in to the character of her father and I *need* to know how to handle this in it. I am not a fan of retconning when I don't have to. It's bad enough I have to take certain assumptions and liberties within Viera culture in the jungle due to how little information we have despite them being in the series for just under TWENTY YEARS. Though, that does mean that as long as I make that stuff believable, it's very unlikely to be contradicted by a primary source. Unlike the Bozjan lore.

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Originally Posted by Ashlyn_Ishina

But then if they name ***Every*** queen, Queen Gunnhildr. Then why does it say that the last queen Gunnhildr was during the fall of the Allag? This is what everyone is missing. The Field Reports list that ******ALL****** queens of Bozja were named Queen Gunnhildr because it is a title, not just a name. It's not a hereditary name, it's just the name they take upon ascension to the throne. With that said, for there to have been a queen recently, it means there would have been a Queen Gunnhildr recently.

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Could be as simple as they consider her last TRUE Queen when their Empire was still free & everyone after the fall to Allag & Garlean rule they considered lesser Queens but still held the title of Gunnhildr.

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Originally Posted by Eviticus

Personally I believe that the plot for Bozja was written one way when 5.0 was first being written, but some small details changed when it got to the Save The Queen storyline. Some things just fell through the cracks. Don't suppose we could flag down Fernehalwes...?

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Matsuno had an interview a while back. Matsuno wasn't recruited for the project until August (a month after ShB's release), and he didn't finish the story until September. When the Bozja story for 5.25 was written, there was no plan for anything further. He wrote 5.25 with no consideration for future patches , so it sounds like he didn't know how many patches Bozja would even get. To his frustration, he was out of the loop of what the other writers were planning while he was writing Bozja. He didn't know that there was going to be a cure for tempering. And so on. Fascinating read.

The key takeaway seems to be that the Bozja story was written on the fly and that the left hand didn't know what the right was doing. So it seems like he might not have been informed of the finer details of the lore, or details were forgotten because time passed between each patch being written.

That would absolutely explain this kind of fuckery going on with the lore that finds me in my predictament.

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Originally Posted by Ashlyn_Ishina

I mean, that would work. Though that doesn't help my current issue. In my current short story I am delving more in to the character of her father and I *need* to know how to handle this in it. I am not a fan of retconning when I don't have to. It's bad enough I have to take certain assumptions and liberties within Viera culture in the jungle due to how little information we have despite them being in the series for just under TWENTY YEARS. Though, that does mean that as long as I make that stuff believable, it's very unlikely to be contradicted by a primary source. Unlike the Bozjan lore.

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There was a queen before the Garleans invaded. She was probably a Hrothgar. She was not named Gunnhildr, but 'Queen Gunnhildr' is a historical figure that Bozja still holds in high regard. At this point naming your daughter 'Gunnhildr' would probably be similar to if you named your son 'Jesus'. (Or in a perhaps more accurate but less immediately understandable to western audiences way, if a Middle-Eastern family named their child 'Nebuchadnezzar'.)

That queen is dead now. Probably in the initial conquest of Bozja, but if not, definitely after the Bozja Incident. We will probably not be looking back on her, as post-liberation Bozja is more interested in moving forward with a more egalitarian society to moving backward to a more stratified monarchy.

That all you needed? Everything outside of that is fair game, and if someone tries to say 'but in THE CANON' later on, you can say that it wasn't known at the time you started writing.

I think we're all neglecting to consider the way that surnames work. The implication of Helion surnames—and, indeed, the surnames of several Bozjan NPCs listed in the field reports—is that multiple queens are still living. This leads me to believe that the actual Queen of Bozja (that is, Gunnhildr) is separate from the concept of personal queens, i.e. the progenitors of individual bloodlines/clans. If all or most female Hrothgar are treated as queens, this makes sense. Radovan would have been in service to a personal queen, rather than to Gunnhildr herself.

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Originally Posted by Ashlyn_Ishina

But then if they name ***Every*** queen, Queen Gunnhildr. Then why does it say that the last queen Gunnhildr was during the fall of the Allag? This is what everyone is missing. The Field Reports list that ******ALL****** queens of Bozja were named Queen Gunnhildr because it is a title, not just a name. It's not a hereditary name, it's just the name they take upon ascension to the throne. With that said, for there to have been a queen recently, it means there would have been a Queen Gunnhildr recently.

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Because the last time the queen became a primal was during the Allagan invasions. There was no need for a primal after that. So they continued to have queens appointed and that shared a title with the name of the primal, but didn't become primals. There is no need to complicate this further.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

There was a queen before the Garleans invaded. She was probably a Hrothgar. She was not named Gunnhildr, but 'Queen Gunnhildr' is a historical figure that Bozja still holds in high regard. At this point naming your daughter 'Gunnhildr' would probably be similar to if you named your son 'Jesus'. (Or in a perhaps more accurate but less immediately understandable to western audiences way, if a Middle-Eastern family named their child 'Nebuchadnezzar'.)

That queen is dead now. Probably in the initial conquest of Bozja, but if not, definitely after the Bozja Incident. We will probably not be looking back on her, as post-liberation Bozja is more interested in moving forward with a more egalitarian society to moving backward to a more stratified monarchy.

That all you needed? Everything outside of that is fair game, and if someone tries to say 'but in THE CANON' later on, you can say that it wasn't known at the time you started writing.

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Gunnhildr isn't a name like we think. It's a title as much as a name. No children would have been named "Gunnhildr" It's like The Dalai Lama. It's as much a name as it is a title. Though not a single child is named Dalai Lama. There have been many Gunnhildr, just named Queen Gunnhildr. The one who we saw the life of just happened to be *the last* one, which is why she's so important. It's like the name Ceasar. Once again, title as well as a name.

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Originally Posted by alacruxe

I think we're all neglecting to consider the way that surnames work. The implication of Helion surnames—and, indeed, the surnames of several Bozjan NPCs listed in the field reports—is that multiple queens are still living. This leads me to believe that the actual Queen of Bozja (that is, Gunnhildr) is separate from the concept of personal queens, i.e. the progenitors of individual bloodlines/clans. If all or most female Hrothgar are treated as queens, this makes sense. Radovan would have been in service to a personal queen, rather than to Gunnhildr herself.

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The queens of Bozja have been confirmed to not be based on lineage like noble houses like we know. For one, Novembya was a peasant prior to ascension. For two, Radovan made it clear that he served the queen of Bozja within his lines throughout his introduction.

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Originally Posted by Kesey

Because the last time the queen became a primal was during the Allagan invasions. There was no need for a primal after that. So they continued to have queens appointed and that shared a title with the name of the primal, but didn't become primals. There is no need to complicate this further.

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It was confirmed within the Field Records that the Bozja of Novembya's time collapsed during the Fourth Umbral Calamity. Meaning they didn't have unbroken queens. Also, the field record states pretty significantly, that she was *the last Gunnhildr*

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Originally Posted by Ashlyn_Ishina

For two, Radovan made it clear that he served the queen of Bozja within his lines throughout his introduction.

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Having checked the first two quests, he says that he served as "personal guard to [his] queen" (not the queen of Bozja, just his queen), and then separately that his clan are "the descendants of Gunnhildr's royal guard". That still doesn't clear up the distinction of the different types of queens, but says nothing about Gunnhildr being a present queen. If anything it suggests that the tradition of a central Queen Gunnhildr may have been replaced by individual tribal queens, but we still have no clear answers on this.