What difference did the Twelve tangibly make?

Heyho,

So the Twelve were an Eorzea exclusive thing right? I wonder about this because Hydaelyn allegedly wanted to take people's desire to worship gods seriously and so gave them the gods to worship, but only in Eorzea? And they get prayers but can't actively help people so really what difference did they make? And how did the other countries on Hydaelyn suffer from not having a Twelves equivalent, like what did they miss out on?

Cause to me it seems like the Twelve should have just been a normal religion with no tangible gods and it would have been fine. Was Myths of the Realm literally only written to adress the fact that the Twelve were never summoned as Primals?

I think Myths of the Realm really took away the unknown from the game, at least in the terms of Eorzea itself. Im sure there is stuff here and there, but for the most part it seems like Eorzea is finished content. I don't really know what they could dive into that hasnt already happened before, or that they don't just make up after the fact with no connections previously.

Well, no, the Twelve aren't an Eorzea exclusive thing. The Twelve are arcane creations made of members of Venat's group (it's unclear if they're actually slivers of souls or just based on their souls), whose purpose was to ensure the world continued without breaking down, presumably because of the sundering. Hydaelyn didn't create them to "take people's desire to worship gods seriously" at all, I don't know where you got that.

Also the Twelve were summoned as primals, during the first Battle of Cartenau, even if only partially. Similarly, there was an Ascian plot to make Ala Mighans summon Rhalgr. Anything can be summoned as a primal.

Regardless, I agree that them being "actual" gods really adds little to the setting.

I don't think the Twelve were ever intended, from the in-universe perspective, to be gods, and acting like they were is going to lead you down a false path. Our actual window into the intention of Hydaelyn is that they more more supposed to be stewards than gods: they were made to make sure the world didn't melt back in a time where it was very much in need of help. It's just that being that sort of visible, assumed-positive influence got them worshipped as gods, and over time that had an effect. While they're not primals, I think the best comparison is probably Bismarck: mortals ascribed deific attributes to a thing that they saw. They're only worshipped in Eorzea because that's their base of operations, that's where they've been seen but that doesn't mean the Far East is left high and dry--in fact, there is scant evidence they know of the Twelve, they just don't care that much, because they have their own extant phenomena to build their belief systems around.

So they're not intended to be gods, but their actual intention is over now: they watched over the world until they were confident we could do it ourselves. If they vanished back in the First Astral Era, we'd have been screwed, but now they can take their leave.

I'm honestly happy with how the Twleve stuff turned out, but it did take until the finale for me to be okay with it. Boiling the Myths of the Realm storyline down into functional 'things it needed to do', I think the requirements looked something like this:

• Come up with an excuse to fight the Twelve (because the game's a people-pleaser at its heart, and the devs knew we'd want to fight them)
• Do the former in a way that makes it more than just empty fanservice (so it can't be 'someone summoned primals, go punch 'em')
• ...but also doesn't elevate them too far beyond the known elements they're adjacent to.

That last one is pretty important, because the message the game's been trying to carry is that the most important part of a religion is what people get out of it; that the fact that it's real to you is more important than the fact it's real at all. That effort starts to ring hollow if one of those religions is objectively right, though; 'Ul'dah recognizes the Amal'jaa's right to believe in their lame, fake religion, just as much as we're allowed to believe in Nald'thal, who is factually real and looks exactly the way we depict them' doesn't really work.

The way they did it, essentially coming at the Bismarck style of primal from a different direction, actually solves that; there's not a meaningful difference between Ramuh and Rhalgr, and so one is no less real than the other. There's even sort of an element of Thordan in them, in recognizing the problems in deifying a real thing... specifically, that those real things were kinda trapped in the narrative people built around them.


EDIT: If anything, my actual complaint is that the fights sucked. Myths of the Realm was a 'fight these cool bosses' excuse plot, and that's fine (I love Omega, which is very blatantly an excuse plot for cool bosses), but it needs those bosses to be able to hold up their end of the bargain, to really pull off that spectacle. And that just doesn't work if the bosses are so weak that we can out-DPS their entire combat script before the weekly restrictions are even lifted.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zero-ELEC

Hydaelyn didn't create them to "take people's desire to worship gods seriously" at all, I don't know where you got that.

---

Huh, didn't the game state that? Maybe localization differences again, gonna have to find a quote.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cleretic

I don't think the Twelve were ever intended, from the in-universe perspective, to be gods, and acting like they were is going to lead you down a false path. Our actual window into the intention of Hydaelyn is that they more more supposed to be stewards than gods: they were made to make sure the world didn't melt back in a time where it was very much in need of help. It's just that being that sort of visible, assumed-positive influence got them worshipped as gods, and over time that had an effect.

---

Well that would change everything, so they didn't create the epitaph as a precaution first but as a reaction to happening to be worshipped?

Or maybe Hydaelyn knew people would worship them and took that seriously and I misremember it as her intending for them to be worshipped.

But what does being a steward to the star mean? Providing aetheric stability? And they had to be gods to be able to work together and consciously react to problems unlike a machine? Did they stop being useful after like the first Astral era?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eisi

Well that would change everything, so they didn't create the epitaph as a precaution first but as a reaction to happening to be worshipped?

Or maybe Hydaelyn knew people would worship them and took that seriously and I misremember it as her intending for them to be worshipped.

But what does being a steward to the star mean? Providing aetheric stability? And they had to be gods to be able to work together and consciously react to problems unlike a machine? Did they stop being useful after like the first Astral era?

---

The epigraph definitely looked to me like it was made by them after they started realizing people were worshipping them.

And as for 'what does being a steward to the star mean'... well, for one, that's how the Ancients described their role, but that's more just a metaphorical thing. Their roles were most likely just the things the epigraph said they were; to make sure all these both abstract and natural phenomena kept working in the ways they were supposed to, in a state where things were uncertain and difficult--having them around for setting things right after the Calamities probably helped too, and might explain why the visions of the Twelve coincided with them. Hell if I know how they did that, I don't know what sort of levers a creature of great power even has for governing mountains, but it's not really out of the question given the content and inspirations the game already shows.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zero-ELEC

Also the Twelve were summoned as primals, during the first Battle of Cartenau, even if only partially.

---

My understanding, though it may only be from how other players have interpreted and explained it, is that Louisoix quite deliberately did not try to summon "the Twelve", knowing it would have only produced primals in the form of the gods, but instead summoned "the power of the Twelve" which was still essentially a primal but a non-sentient one that could be formed into Bahamut's prison.

We know summoning is just creation Magicks. The summonings create new primals entrapping a dead unfortunate soul to permanently be that primal that can thus repeatedly be summoned again and again by the same worshippers. Seperate primals are created if prayed by completely different groups or beliefs. The "Twelve" summoned in Cartenau are new primals created on the spot, that somehow designed to not thrall anybody and were summoned again once more right before Stormblood. They are unrelated to the real Twelve, just as Ramuh is unrelated to the Twelve despite being created from Rhagr's image.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KenZentra

I think Myths of the Realm really took away the unknown from the game,

---

I felt unsatisfied with the development as well. I thought, given time, I'd come to like the ending more, but mostly it's just left me feeling kind of bitter? I liked it, story-wise, but not as a world-building development.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KenZentra

at least in the terms of Eorzea itself. Im sure there is stuff here and there, but for the most part it seems like Eorzea is finished content. I don't really know what they could dive into that hasnt already happened before, or that they don't just make up after the fact with no connections previously.

---

There's unfinished stuff with Duskwights and Gelmorra, but... they've been pretty deliberately moving away from them since ARR. They even killed off-and-replaced or retconned some story-prominent Duskwight characters into Wildwoods (Estinien being the most prominent example).

My tinfoil hat belief is that it's because they don't know what to write for Gridania and struggle to write the Elementals without making them come across as villains, so everything Shroud-related is just in eternal limbo. Incidentally, Moon Cats similarly get 'trapped' by this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wix

There's unfinished stuff with Duskwights and Gelmorra, but... they've been pretty deliberately moving away from them since ARR. They even killed off-and-replaced or retconned some story-prominent Duskwight characters into Wildwoods (Estinien being the most prominent example).

My tinfoil hat belief is that it's because they don't know what to write for Gridania and struggle to write the Elementals without making them come across as villains, so everything Shroud-related is just in eternal limbo. Incidentally, Moon Cats similarly get 'trapped' by this.

---

Ishgardian Elezen who use Duskwight models aren’t Duskwights. Duskwights and Wildwoods only exist in Gridania but they never made separate Ishgardian Elezen models so they share.

Duskwights and Moon Keepers are fairly prominent in Gridania storylines but not as much elsewhere because they only exist in The Black Shroud. It would be difficult to make a story about either of them that does not involve that specific location since they only exist there and nowhere else.

That said, I think the Duskwights should’ve been featured more prominently in the Palace of the Dead and we should’ve received more lore bits on them there. And they could’ve thrown a Moon Keeper village at us on the other side of the wall in SB. But now we’re going to other continents, it’s going to be more difficult if not impossible to showcase them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Ishgardian Elezen who use Duskwight models aren’t Duskwights. Duskwights and Wildwoods only exist in Gridania but they never made separate Ishgardian Elezen models so they share.

---

The whole Ishgardian thing is sloppy, and people will never agree on it, so I won't directly address it, but I'll point out that there's at least one Duskwight-model Elezen in the Shroud who was also retconned to be a Wildwood (Mother Miounne).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Duskwights and Moon Keepers are fairly prominent in Gridania storylines

---

They're really not. You probably remember the Lancer questline, and the two Duskwight NPCs in Gridania ("Damnable Duskwights!" and the airship ticket guy), but go do the rest of their quests and you'll see they're not prominent at all. In fact, they're pretty rare flat out in ARR onwards. There's a handful who are nameless and will briefly show up for a one liner in a delivery quest, but beyond that, it's basically two Duskwights per zone, tops, usually one, sometimes none, outside of the South Shroud and Sharlayan.
I'm not even joking. Finding the token Duskwight in each city is like playing Where's Waldo.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

they only exist in The Black Shroud

---

In theory, but not in practice. In fact, the most prominent Duskwight family in the game actually had a seat on the Syndicate, and were located in Ul'dah, but SE made a point of killing them off going into ARR, though the son survived. He gets a brief cameo in post-ShB questing and a holiday quest you can no longer access, which makes him the only Duskwight in the entire game with a voice line. You can still pick up vague references to the family whenever alchemical things come up in Ul'dah, or their abandoned mansion in Thanalan that a Lalafell gang moved into, but that's about it.
Ironically, outside of certain parts of the South Shroud, the place you'll see Duskwights most prominently is among Garlean forces and Sharlayan groups. There's also an argument to be made that they existed in both La Noscea and Rabanastre, but those are yet more instances where it's messy and we don't have enough information, so people will argue whichever interpretations they like.

/DuskwightGrievanceRant
*cough*
Buuuut yeah. The conclusion of MotR wasn't exactly what I was hoping for either.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wix

The whole Ishgardian thing is sloppy, and people will never agree on it, so I won't directly address it, but I'll point out that there's at least one Duskwight-model Elezen in the Shroud who was also retconned to be a Wildwood (Mother Miounne).

---

I wouldn't call the whole Ishgardian thing sloppy and I don't know what there is to disagree on. It's explicitly stated that Duskwights are all descended from Gelmorran Elezen who remained underground even after Gridania was established. The ones who remained in Gelmorra after the Hyur and what would become known as the Wildwoods left the caverns are the ones who became the Duskwight and have adaptations specific to living in that subterranean environment for a long period of time. Only the descendants of Gelmorran Elezen who stayed in the remnants of Gelmorra are Duskwight so while individually they could have traveled to other places, there are no Duskwight from anywhere else. What makes them unique only happened to a select number of people in a very specific place at a certain point of history.

Ishgardian Elezen are a completely separate lineage that had nothing to do with Gelmorra and the Elezen who lived in the forests other than a common origin on the Eorzean plains.

Mother Miounne could just have Duskwight ancestry just like how F'Lhaminn is a Sun Seeker who looks like a Moon Keeper and was stated as having interclan ancestry. Other NPCs may use Duskwight models but that doesn't necessarily make them Duskwights. Just like with F'lhaminn and also with Lyse, Yda, and Minfillia, what clan an NPC looks like doesn't mean they're actually that clan. For that reason, I wouldn't count an NPC using a Duskwight model as one unless it's explicitly stated they're a Duskwight. The Elezen in Ishgard who use Duskwight models are stated as being "Ishgardian Elezen".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wix

They're really not. You probably remember the Lancer questline, and the two Duskwight NPCs in Gridania ("Damnable Duskwights!" and the airship ticket guy), but go do the rest of their quests and you'll see they're not prominent at all. In fact, they're pretty rare flat out in ARR onwards.

---

I was speaking about both Duskwights and Moon Keepers and in the context of storylines set in Gridania rather than anywhere else. The Archer storyline involved the treatment of Moon Keepers as well as a Postmoogle storyline. When the Dancer storyline came to Gridania it involved the Duskwights. Duskwights got a little mention (but not enough) when Palace of the Dead came out. But you're not going to find stories about Duskwights in La Noscea, Doma, or the New World because they don't live there.

There are still some named Duskwights around like Atelloune who is the world's most prominent living naturalist. And Valdeaulin who is from the Shroud but was on the wrong side of the wall when it went up and one thing led to another so he's with the Garleans. Similarly, Sadr Rem Albeleo is a Duskwight who was a thamaturge in Ul'dah who ended up with the Garleans and both give some level of believability for individual Duskwight being elsewhere outside of The Shroud and even Eorzea, but his family or at least his ancestors would still have to have been originally from The Shroud.

The problem is, is that Duskwights are stated to not really gravitate towards cities, to only be descended from a fraction of a population from a hidden group of people who remain mostly hidden still to this day, and are generally be said to be violent bandits when encountered outside the city of Gridania proper. They're probably the single rarest clan in all of the world and don't tend to mingle or interact with the greater world as a whole. That makes it very difficult to have very prominent characters in general who are Duskwight especially since the story has increased in scope away from Gridania which is the only place where Duskwights exist in any concentration and all our friends are Sharlayans.

To get back on track with the thread in general...

Like was mentioned already, revealing away mythology and the unknown in general feels like it diminishes the world. Just like when Elpis revealed away much of the flavor of the world as being "an Ancient did it".

I don't think the Twelve needed to be explained as anything more than memories of specific Ancients warped over time and their stories turned into myth and legend. Them being actual beings created by Hydaelyn from the memories or soul slivers of actual Ancients feels a bit weird, especially since nowhere else but Eorzea have the same pantheon.

But if you turned your brain off and just enjoyed it for what it was it was fun I guess.

I am happy to be rid of the twelve to be honest with you. I feel like it was a holdover from 1.0 that dragged along with us. And as we meet more of the realms of the world, discover new beliefs and gods, having the twelve with any legitimacy of being gods feels like "Our gods are real, yours are just primals" which was part of the racism of Eorzea. The "Primal" was them discarding the beast tribe faiths as being nonsense, but the twelve were TRUE.

It was an imbalanced story for the concept of people being goodly at all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

To get back on track with the thread in general...

Like was mentioned already, revealing away mythology and the unknown in general feels like it diminishes the world. Just like when Elpis revealed away much of the flavor of the world as being "an Ancient did it".

I don't think the Twelve needed to be explained as anything more than memories of specific Ancients warped over time and their stories turned into myth and legend. Them being actual beings created by Hydaelyn from the memories or soul slivers of actual Ancients feels a bit weird, especially since nowhere else but Eorzea have the same pantheon.

But if you turned your brain off and just enjoyed it for what it was it was fun I guess.

---

I think an important part is to explain them so they actually get a clear origin, showcase them because the game is a crowdpleaser, and then to take them off the board because the game's universal respect towards religion for what it does for people rings hollow when the majority religion has Real, Actual Gods and the others don't. Explaining them also helped there; as I mentioned, we now know that Ramuh and Rhalgr have no functional differences., which significantly evens the theological playing field.

Technically speaking that's mostly solving problems that didn't exist before the storyline, but if we didn't have Myths of the Realm and instead had, like, a Chrono Trigger alliance raid series, there would be a crowd hankering to fight the Twelve. Probably not in this subforum so much, but with RPGs there's always a crowd that doesn't just want to punch out the biggest thing in the setting, but expects it as an inevitability. And after Hydaelyn and Zodiark got taken out, the Twelve held that role. (As an aside, I actually suspect this to be a root of the 'Hydaelyn Bad' crowd; a subset of them had spent years assuming that fighting Hydaelyn was inevitable, and so spent a lot of that time trying to find a justification.)

To a degree Myths of the Realm was sort of a necessary element of moving to a new story arc; they were the biggest form of baggage from the game as it's been so far, the elephant in the room to address. Without them, the only lingering Three Great Continents mysteries are small enough to not need big resolving stories.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tsiron

I know it's because they hadn't come up with Myths of the Realm yet, but I'm actually kind of upset Hydaelyn manipulated Minfilia into killing herself in lieu of... I don't know, recycling one or two of the Twelve (not like they were doing much of anything anymore), or helping Herself to their 12000 years' worth of prayer aether (the Mothercrystal was also right there)...?

---

...That wasn't what happened at all, and I think you know that. Minfilia didn't 'kill herself', she arguably didn't even die at the point you're talking about; she just got caught up in the Flow spell, wound up near Hydaelyn as a result, and decided to work with her actual god. There's no indication at all that she was ever consumed for fuel.

Even assuming that Hydaelyn had an elaborate plan that needed a vessel and wasn't just working with the hand she's dealt, I doubt a member of the Twelve would've helped. Not only does Minfilia have personal strengths she called on, I don't think the Twelve were just sitting idle. As I said, I feel like the fact they were seen after Calamities suggests that they had a hand in disaster management; with a lot of those disaster-causers still on the table, I don't think it's a good idea to see what happens if the Ascians hit with, say, a Calamity of Ice and Halone's not around.

As someone who just finished the raids, let me just say as a history and mythology nerd I greatly appreciated this story and strongly disagree with those that say they feel bitter about the writers explaining the origins of the Twelve.

It had to be done when you have set up an entire story based on an all-powerful ancient civilization with the literal ability to create gods and to destroy entire worlds.

If the Twelve’s origins were never revealed, you can rest assured one of the very first questions people would ask was, “Wait what happened to the Twelve? Why would they let all this happen? Are they tied to the sundering in some way?”

Additionally, knowing what we know now about Endwalker, most people would have correctly theorized that the Twelve were the creations of Hydaelyn with or without the Myth of the Realm raids. It made too much sense. I saw threads guessing this very thing before the first raid was even playable.

It is impossible from a world-building perspective not to address the Twelve in the way they did. The writers followed their own rules in that regard.

And after that confusing debacle that was the Nier raids, this one was a breath of fresh air. In that I could actually follow it.

Coming back to this the Twelve must have had a tangible influence in people's lives beyond just stabilizing the star or whatever.

Praying to the Twelve must have effects, because else the prayer machine doesn't make any sense. So unlike the other gods, the Eorzean gods actually helped people in their lives if they are being prayed to. So the message is that either Hydaelyn wanted the people of specifically Eorzea to have supernatural helpers to guide and assist them or the Twelve reject Hydaelyn's stance on mankind having to be on their own and want to actively help people. Right? Sry, this story is more confusing than even NIER.

Maybe the Twelve can be seen as a counterbalancing force to the Ascians in favor of Hydaelyn over Zodiark? Where Allag and Garlemald were helped by the Ascians instead. But now the Ascians are gone but the Twelve still help people with that machine thingy. I don't like it! If they wanna help people, they should help everyone, not just people who specifically pray to them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lium

As someone who just finished the raids, let me just say as a history and mythology nerd I greatly appreciated this story and strongly disagree with those that say they feel bitter about the writers explaining the origins of the Twelve.

It had to be done when you have set up an entire story based on an all-powerful ancient civilization with the literal ability to create gods and to destroy entire worlds.

If the Twelve’s origins were never revealed, you can rest assured one of the very first questions people would ask was, “Wait what happened to the Twelve? Why would they let all this happen? Are they tied to the sundering in some way?”

---

I still don't think the setting needed near-literal gods that were left behind by Hydaelyn to watch us and the whole thing sort of comes out of left field.

Creating Zodiark and Hydaelyn were one thing, and the setting made it out that creating actual gods required heavy sacrifice and were a big deal, but the Twelve being "real" comes out of left field when we've spent 10 years putting down primal fakes from other peoples' mythologies. It was already established in the setting by Gaius very famously when he treats our Twelve as no different than anyone else's religions in that it's just empty belief and to call them down is the same as primal summoning. I don't many players after that actually believed the Twelve were real gods doing stuff or responsible for anything at all, let alone the Sundering. It's one thing to have them be half-rememberings of Ancients, but another to be actual Ancient themselves or at least a sliver of their soul as a real-ish god created by Hydaelyn just for 1 region of the world.

It's just really awkward to come back from "gods are all myth" to say "Actually the gods in this one backwater region of the planet are actually real". Especially since they don't actually do anything except accepting prayer and they have no real, tangible impact on the story or the setting before or after they leave.

Not everything in a story requires explanation and it can make the setting feel smaller if there are no mysteries or mythologies.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

It's just really awkward to come back from "gods are all myth" to say "Actually the gods in this one backwater region of the planet are actually real". Especially since they don't actually do anything except accepting prayer and they have no real, tangible impact on the story or the setting before or after they leave.

---

Except they do have a tangible purpose. It was to keep the world stable after the sundering, and then the calamities after that. This is explicitly told to us during one of the cutscenes.

Also, the name of this raid series was literally “Myths of the Realm.” It was about Eorzean mythology and the actual story behind those myths.

It’s only out of left field if you haven’t been paying attention to the story over the last 10 years. In one of the expansions, I think it was Shadowbringers, Elidibus or Emet-Selch says that the Twelve are real but they don’t elaborate.

After the events of Endwalker, it made perfect sense that the Twelve would be constructs of Hydaelyn. Like I said in my previous post, people were already guessing that’s who they were before anyone even played the first raid.

That’s why I’m having a difficult time understanding how it could be seen as out of left field. People were literally saying they were created by Hydaelyn.

That was the story that had been established. Everything revolved around this all-powerful ancient civilization, and how one of their own rebelled against the others to save the star.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lium

snip.

---

Before the existence of Myths of the Realm, the Twelve were just myths and there was no foreshadowing to their existence being real beings beyond being able to be summoned as primals like all fake gods could. Like I said before, Gaius calls them out as being make believe too way back in ARR. You say I haven’t been paying attention for 10 years but I can’t think of any mention from ARR to the very end of EW that says anything about them being real out side of Myths of the Realm. If there is, please share it.

It came out of left field because while Emet-Selch at the end of EW says we don’t know the true identities of the Twelve, nothing else in EW mentions them and there’s no supporting lore bits or groundwork done to lay down a foundation for the raids. Especially anything about them being creations or otherwise real beings. Before the raids and even before EW, people speculated that they weren’t real and were just misremberings of Ancients and particularly the Convocation. He also doesn’t say anything about them being real gods unless you can find that somewhere.

We spend the whole game putting down fake gods around the world and seemingly established that all religions are little more than myth and even the big 2 secret gods most people don’t know about were actually primals. So for the game to suddenly turn around after 10 years of that to tell us that actually ours are real feels a little awkward and out of place.

In the context of the raids it makes sense that they’re her creations and where they came from but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m questioning why these raids and this story were even necessary and how turning myth into reality can diminish the lore instead of the enrich it.


Also, the Twelve stabilizing the world after a Sundering solves a problem that did not get alluded to or was known to exist before the storyline did.

Like I said, it was in one of the previous expansions when one of the Ascians said the Twelve were real. I just can’t remember who said it. But it was vague.

And in any event, people’s speculation before EW that the Twelve were probably just misremembered Ancients turned out to be essentially correct. Because that is exactly what they were.

I think you and some others are getting hung up on the deity aspect of all of this. They weren’t actually gods. Mortals just started worshipping them as such and they were re-formed in to the image of gods BY THE HOPES AND PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE.

That is the entire point of the raid series. Hydaelyn created them to be more like stewards to the sundered people, but people reshaped them over the millennia.

So in other words, the people of Eorzea created the actual gods. Not Hydaelyn. Take Halone for example. She didn’t actually look like that at first, but became more imposing and militaristic as the prayers morphed her into that.

They share very similar aspects to primals in that regard. But the main difference is, they were actually people at one time who were deified by the populace. They didn’t come out of left field.

They were always there.

I think the speculation around the Twelve having an Amaurotine origin dates back to patch 5.3, and Urianger's theory around the connections between Azeyma (the Warden), Azim (the Dawn Father), and Azem (the Traveler). Coincidentally, the symbol for Azem's Convocation Crystal, introduced in the same patch, is the circumpunct (the astronomical symbol for the sun and the alchemical symbol of gold, the latter which makes sense when you realize that Au on the periodic table stands for Aurum, or 'shining dawn').

To make matters a bit more complicated, during patch 3.2, people noticed that the Cathedral to Sephirot in Azys Lla (which was uprooted from its original site in Meracydia by the Allagans - see Vista Record 062 in Heavensward) had a motif of holes that had a very crude association with Azeyma's symbol. Naturally, the question came up in a Q+A, and the answer suggested that there may be a common origin between Sephirot's symbol, Azeyma's symbol, and runes found in Qarn. This was posed as an 'Allagan theory' at the time. Either way, the 'common origin' theory has been floating around for a while, and Shadowbringers likely started them thinking more about a framework to anchor it to.

In Endwalker, the people of Thavnair also make reference to 'the old gods', and the prayer that Matsya recites sounds very much like something Venat would have said. So it does seem like there is a parallel influence across multiple cultures, even if they weren't always envisioned along the same lines.

I'm not sure about the significance of prayer as it relates to the lifestream. That being said, my gut feeling is that the lore around the lifestream itself will probably become clearer going into Dawntrail, especially given the ceruleum harvesting in Tural.

I think the thing Mikko is focused on is the fact the storyline didn't need to happen on, like, a story perspective. Before it, the story never directly touched the Twelve, and never really implied they were anything more than just abstract--or at least, never implied it very loudly. (I can't confirm if Lium's memory of 'the Ascians implied the Twelve were real in Shadowbringers' is true, Emet implied a lot of things so we're gonna need to narrow down the search a bit.)

And yeah that's true, but it's also true about most of the game. Side content especially; a lot of that storytelling is about inventing problems and then solving them. Off the top of my head and just looking at raid storylines: Mhach, Alexander, Ivalice, obviously Nier, Eden and Pandaemonium all focused on problems, and usually entire regions/places/concepts that didn't exist before their storyline introduced them. Most of the time, a storyline invents its own problem to solve, and we just hope that the problem and solution are cool. And usually they are, because you can just give a one-sentence pitch that's pretty hype; there's more to take into account for a story than the actual in-story justification.

Yes, in terms of the game's core story, an origin story and sendoff for the Twelve wasn't necessary; they could've just existed as an abstract god that we never see anything more about, just like The Big One. But this is a game that knows people like fireworks, want to fight cool bosses, want to learn about pointless nooks and crannies (if they weren't, we wouldn't have 900 pages worth of Encyclopedia Eorzea by now). If the Twelve were real gods, they're the most powerful things we'd never fought post-Endwalker; and if the Twelve weren't real, they were still really conceptually interesting figures that would be interesting to fight some derivation of.

People wanted to learn more about the Twelve; they've been part of the game's setting since 1.0, and yet some have so little about them that they have one single known follower. And if we were ever going to learn about the Twelve, they were too interesting in aesthetics and powersets to be anything but a twelve-round Royal Rumble.

And personally, I think they did pretty well at solving the problems that they invented for the purposes of having a story.