Revelations from Encyclopaedia Eorzea III

The third lorebook has arrived! Share any interesting details here!

Given that this is not a narrative, I don't think spoiler tags are necessary in this case.

Minfilia continues to know nothing but suffering

That the current working theory about Reaper avatars is that the reason why they can mesh so well with their reaper and can allow them to go into the avatar state is that the avatar is that person's shard from the 13th.

Skimming through the new information on naming conventions and character names, a few things have stood out.

Peoples of the First (p.083)

Humes and elves have "almost identical" naming schemes due to cultural mingling. I had suspected this was the case but it is good to have confirmation.

Mystel... well, the answer to that long-standing puzzle feels a bit invented after the fact, but the two parts of names we know them by are apparently given name and birthplace (in different order by gender) despite none of them having names resembling known place-names, plus an additional Keeper/Mithra-style surname that isn't ever touched on in the game. But then the second half of the paragraph says "recent generations have found their identities in family history or places of significance" which maybe sounds like a shifting towards hereditary second-names instead of directly getting named for their birthplace?

Galdjent and Drahn (being the two races of Voeburt) were already clearly using the same set of names, but EE gives us surnames for them, which are a small set of clans and houses specific to each race.

Dwarves -- it sounds like Tholl and Gogg are the only two tribes. Rather than surnames, they identify by giving names of their parent and grandparent of the same gender.

Viis have abandoned surnames because they used to be taken from their villages, but now Fanow is the only village left as all the others were lost to the Flood.

Ronso names are divided into "imperial" names from the age of the Ronkan Empire, which are the names taken from FFX Ronso characters and used for place names around Ahm Araeng, and the more common names "influenced by trends of the common tongue". (In reality, which the in-universe book can't reference, Ronso characters seem to be using Icelandic names.)

Zun names -- first part is a gendered social status thing, surname is individual with some limitations.

Ondo given names finish with a sound produced by the gills. Surname is social status.


...I was going to write more but the need for sleep has caught up with me.

One last thing which isn't lore-based but stood out -- the "Fae Sickle" illustration on p.245 isn't using the Fae weapon colour scheme but the Castrum Abania gold/pink/green. We never actually got sage and reaper weapons added to Castrum since they're outside the level range for those jobs, but I wanted them because I love those colours, and it's both lovely and frustrating to see that the design actually exists for it.

It finally arrived later than advertised but after skimming it there's a few interesting things I picked up.

Viera lifespans are said to be 3 times a Hyur's lifespan now, settling the debate after a Viis mentioned being able to live 3 times longer than Urianger and more matches up with the Dramaturge's 240.

Viera men are shorter either due to poorer nutrition or natural selection to move quicker and stealthier in the jungle. I think I might go with the first one myself.

Viera wear high heels to "always be ready on their toes" sure...


Werlyt being included was an unexpected surprise. I was hoping for more on Corvos and the other Ilsabard territories captured by the Garleans but I guess they're going to save that for a later expansion. I was also hoping for a little more on the history of Garlemald but I guess what we received in the other books is what we've got.


Edit: The missing Vth Garlean legion gets a mention in that it was mostly wiped out in the Bozja Incident.

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Originally Posted by Tsiron

Minfilia continues to know nothing but suffering

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For people who haven't read it (which technically includes me, mine's coming with a nebulous delivery date, but I have seen the popular spoilers): The Minfilia before Ryne was beaten to death by a young Vauthry when they were both somewhere in their early teens. Which... god damn.

I actually kinda like learning it, though, because it fits exaclty how I've always read Eulmore, as basically a medieval/renaissance fantasy take on a post-apocalyptic 'have and have nots' city (think Immortan Joe's kingdom from Fury Road). Vauthry doing something like this tracks completely, since I can see that scene perfectly in both its possible inspirations.

As for the stuff I've seen that's not related: So far my favorite is that Giott's hammer is filled with liquor for emergency consumption. This makes it as unwieldy as you imagine, which is why she occasionally drops it and goes hand-to-hand.

Also, while I broadly agree with the 'we don't need spoilers' call here, I can think of one exception, because it seems like we might have info on one character we've never seen:

The head of the Gleaners' Guild is a hrothgar we've never met. So he might come up at some point next month.

is it all just norvrandt/ancient stuff?

Glad, I guessed correctly. I just read that part just now. And here people thought it was Golbez lol

They repeatedly say Ryne is in fact Minfilia's reincarnation, and yet in-game Hydalyn brought her soul to the Source herself and we briefly have met her soul again helping us. A bit confusing. Perhaps Ryne really is her shard too, maybe, in order for the reincarnation comment to be technically true

Ryne is only Minfilia's reincarnation in that Minfilia chose her to serve as such. To my knowledge there's no indication Ryne even has the Echo, and she had ample opportunity to gain it in ShB but didn't

That's what I originally thought before the book. But they go out of their way to use the exact same sentence that she's an reincarnation for Gaia's entry as well. I don't think proof of echo is necessary to prove or disprove she's a shard. The source Minfilia never uses her echo except to talk to the sahaghin, which wasn't necessary, everybody talks English on 2.0.

Yeeaaah I don't know what to tell you, honestly. ShB made it seem as though her and Ryne's resolution was similar in nature to the WoL and Ardbert's and, much as I am glad she's not gone forever (still, and despite the devs failing her at every turn...), her appearing in EW at all felt like a retcon of that to me

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Originally Posted by Tsiron

her appearing in EW at all felt like a retcon of that to me

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While there's no proof, my gut feeling is that maybe they wanted to have Louisoix appear at that point in the Aitiascope but realised it couldn't work if the player hadn't done Coil so his soul was still trapped by Bahamut, so they had to use Minfilia instead.

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Originally Posted by JepMZ

That's what I originally thought before the book. But they go out of their way to use the exact same sentence that she's an reincarnation for Gaia's entry as well. I don't think proof of echo is necessary to prove or disprove she's a shard. The source Minfilia never uses her echo except to talk to the sahaghin, which wasn't necessary, everybody talks English on 2.0.

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She didnt use her echo in the 2.0 patches to "talk," to the sahagin she actually had the same echo vision we had. And it wasn't shown to be used anymore because there was no need. Plus she was the only one who was able to see Elidibus in 2.0 when he went to the waking Sands in the early patch.

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Originally Posted by Rannie

She didnt use her echo in the 2.0 patches to "talk," to the sahagin she actually had the same echo vision we had. And it wasn't shown to be used anymore because there was no need. Plus she was the only one who was able to see Elidibus in 2.0 when he went to the waking Sands in the early patch.

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Exactly, it's not even needed. It didn't save her from getting kidnapped. It shouldn't be a factor if Ryne is her shard or not

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Originally Posted by SannaR

That the current working theory about Reaper avatars is that the reason why they can mesh so well with their reaper and can allow them to go into the avatar state is that the avatar is that person's shard from the 13th.

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How does that work with the WoL? It was not really subtlely implied in 6.4 and 6.5 that the real Golbez is the Azem shard of the 13th.

[edit]
didn't we have a spoiler tag?

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Originally Posted by JepMZ

Exactly, it's not even needed. It didn't save her from getting kidnapped. It shouldn't be a factor if Ryne is her shard or not

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Uh it would be seeing as its brought out by a literal scar on the soul. Also since you didnt understand what i said, showing her having the echo wasnt needed afterwards for Minfillia. Not that she needed/didn't need the echo to save herself.

Secondly you seem to be forgetting that souls are drawn to one another and are a complete merge between the the two once it is done. However, we were explicitly shown with our soul shard merging with ours and with the soul of the sources Minfilia literally leaving that the two are not the same.

Another factor is the echo also showing up in Ardbert who is OUR soul shard and also sets a precedence for it happening another example would most likely be U boy and the elezen blm from Ardbert's group

p38:

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Further investigation revealed that this sinister figure had ordered Lamunth to secret the crystal in the mine shafts

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I think it should be "secrete"?

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

p38:



I think it should be "secrete"?

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No, 'secret' in the verb form basically means 'to hide a thing'; it's a generally pretty archaic term, so you mostly see it in fantasy and period settings now. 'Secrete' is DEFINITELY wrong, unless that crystal is... significantly grosser than we were ever told. That's a very different verb.

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Originally Posted by CNitsah

How does that work with the WoL? It was not really subtlely implied in 6.4 and 6.5 that the real Golbez is the Azem shard of the 13th.

[edit]
didn't we have a spoiler tag?

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We do have a spoiler tag (it's [ HB ] without the spaces), but as mentioned in the OP, there is no point to actually spoiler-tagging anything in this thread, because it's all basically extra flavor text for stuff we've already had for months-to-years. I exercised a bit of an exception given there's a character that seems likely to come up next month that hasn't appeared otherwise, but there's no point spoiling anything about stuff that's already in the game; if you're looking at the EE3 and/or people talking about it, you've already signed that waiver.

But to answer your question: The Avatar being their Reaper's shard is a theory described as 'both unverified and unverifiable'. To me, that reads as the writers saying 'we're never going to answer this, here's the biggest hint for people who are looking for that, but decide on your own favorite reading'.

And I think that works because it just does not matter. We have a lot of potential contenders for the Thirteenth's Azem shard: The Avatar, the CoD of Darkness, Golbez, Zero, Diabolos, Other Golbez, Cagnazzo, that one Hecteye; pretty much every single named voidsent is a possible answer... and any confirmation would change or deepen exactly none of them. What's the value in even answering the question at that point?



(Personally, I think it means much more interesting things for Zero and Zenos than it does the WoL; that was always an atypical relationship, but this adds some interesting potential angles about it.)

I doubt it's Zero as we would have had sparklies when we finally touched her in 6.5. And now that I think about it I doubt it being OG Golbez (even if I'm team OG Golbez) as from what we know on how memoria crystals work people inside of them aren't able to pop out. It would be kind of hard for OG Golbez to be constantly popping out of their memoria crystal, temporarily do the fusion dance with (let alone popping out to do a few attacks here and there) us while in the Avatar state only to pop back into their crystal without anyone noticing. Especially with how frequently it would be happening.

My question for those with copies of the Encyclopaedia: do they clarify what counts as a blasphemy? There was some confusion about if "terminus beasts", "fell beasts", and "blasphemies" were all the same. Some believed that blasphemies were only the big ones that triggered the effects of the Final Days, others believed them to be all "fell beasts" we encounter, etc.

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Originally Posted by Zero-ELEC

My question for those with copies of the Encyclopaedia: do they clarify what counts as a blasphemy? There was some confusion about if "terminus beasts", "fell beasts", and "blasphemies" were all the same. Some believed that blasphemies were only the big ones that triggered the effects of the Final Days, others believed them to be all "fell beasts" we encounter, etc.

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The first beast that kicked the whole thing off in Radz-at-Han was labelled as a "blasphemy against their beast-headed gods" since it looked similar to Thavnair's gods and subsequently the terminology was picked up by the other nations when referring to the initial beast in each region, and the first one in each region was always the most powerful one.


The book calls them all just "beasts" not "terminus beast" or "fell beast". Though its descriptions of the beasts of the Ancients' Final Days typically have the title "terminus".

I've now got my copy of the EE3, and as a very silly thing, I decided to check my smallest, weirdest prediction: I estimated as a joke in another thread that there would be 8-12 pages of Ancient content.

I counted, and specifically just looking for 'this is a page only about the Ancients or the World Unsundered', I got to twenty pages, and two of those were about the Blasphemies and Terminus Beasts of Amaurot so I'd be hesitant about counting them. (I estimate you could get to maybe twenty-six or so if you counted pages on post-sundering stuff about Venat, the Watcher or the Ascians.) So not far off for an off-the-cuff joke guess!

Interestingly, and perhaps a bit of a set for expectations of the people who don't have theirs yet: it more or less cuts off its 'new stuff' details at 6.0; it's got Smileton and the Stigma Dreamscape, but nothing on the void or the Twelve. The exceptions actually seem to come from the tribe questlines: the Hippo Riders are mentioned in the Arkasodara's section, and the section on the denizens of Ultima Thule has a bunch of info from the Omicron questline. I can't ID anything new from the Loporrit questline in their sections, which might give an idea of exactly when a bunch of the text was finalized. Interestingly there's no info on Pandaemonium at all outside of Hippokampos and Phoinix being in the bestiary, probably because that info wasn't even complete on the writer level by the time the EE3 was being written. You could also possibly argue that, since much of the info here is from the Scions, Pandaemonium's a black box because none of the talkative ones even knew it happened.

The exclusion of Pandaemonium does mean that Themis and Erich aren't actually in the book, which I'm sure is very disappointing for certain posters.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

No, 'secret' in the verb form basically means 'to hide a thing'; it's a generally pretty archaic term, so you mostly see it in fantasy and period settings now. 'Secrete' is DEFINITELY wrong, unless that crystal is... significantly grosser than we were ever told. That's a very different verb.

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TIL, thanks. I know "secrete" has another definition of "to conceal", but I would not be surprised if it came from the mentioned archaic usage of "secret". (Checking Merriam Webster via Google, that definition is still there, although I acknowledge the "secretion" definition appears to be primary.)

Still, I now know it's not an error, due to that archaic verb form of "secret". I sincerely love learning new vocabulary from FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Interestingly, and perhaps a bit of a set for expectations of the people who don't have theirs yet: it more or less cuts off its 'new stuff' details at 6.0; it's got Smileton and the Stigma Dreamscape, but nothing on the void or the Twelve. The exceptions actually seem to come from the tribe questlines: the Hippo Riders are mentioned in the Arkasodara's section, and the section on the denizens of Ultima Thule has a bunch of info from the Omicron questline. I can't ID anything new from the Loporrit questline in their sections, which might give an idea of exactly when a bunch of the text was finalized. Interestingly there's no info on Pandaemonium at all outside of Hippokampos and Phoinix being in the bestiary, probably because that info wasn't even complete on the writer level by the time the EE3 was being written. You could also possibly argue that, since much of the info here is from the Scions, Pandaemonium's a black box because none of the talkative ones even knew it happened.

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Very technically it does have MSQ information from 6.1, in that it mentions the existence of the voidgate under Thavnair, as well as Azdaja's historical fate.

Not much new stuff on the Void, though; most of what is in EE3 was already written in EE1 and EE2, to the point where I suspect the blurbs for the various voidsent (Cloud of Darkness, Scathach, Diabolos) were copy-and-pasted from those earlier books.

Personally I was both amused and disappointed with how EE3 confirms my own malicious bias: the Yorha raids were almost completely absent from EE3, with only stuff to do with Komra having minor mentions of "otherworldly attacks" and nothing else. The general impression is the lorebook just going "weird stuff happened, it was weird, moving on". I don't think any Yorha Raid enemies were even mentioned in the bestiary section, compared to the bestiary being full of Bozja critters.

Hence my continued biased belief that FFXIV could excise the Yorha raids entirely from the game, and nothing of value plotwise would be lost.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

to the point where I suspect the blurbs for the various voidsent (Cloud of Darkness, Scathach, Diabolos) were copy-and-pasted from those earlier books.

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I checked, and they aren't; the descriptions of all the big-boy voidsent are all unique from the other descriptions of the same big-boy voidsent. However, a few of the dungeon boss descriptions seem to come near-exactly from their Triple Triad cards.

I've gone through a deeper reading with a bunch of note-taking, so here's a handful of the most exceptional stuff I saw that hasn't come up here so far:

• The Helion and Lost divide among the hrothgar is assumed to be tribal entirely to outsiders; it doesn't work that way at all to the hrothgar.
• Nobody knows what the Ea's names mean. Including the Ea; they no longer remember. (Honestly, all the Ultima Thule stuff has this palpable despondence about it, it's genuinely the most fun reads in the book.)
• The Ronkans were ronso this whole time! How did nobody tell us?
• Titania's history suggests there was a fae kingdom out there before Il Mheg... and therefore, possibly, a fae kingdom on the Source.
• Gaius isn't actually the leader of Werlyt, he's just an advisor of some sort.
• The head of the Gleaners is a hrothgar, Vtorak Vetasch, who apparently just straight-up hasn't been seen for decades, to the point where we don't even know their gender (a male portrait is presumably shown as a guess). So... I have a new theory about who we're meeting in 6.55.
• The proprieter of the Beehive is secretive about everything, including his gender, but allows he/him pronouns for convenience. ...which implies we're looking at some gender non-conformity, that line implies his gender isn't so simple.
• A note that Fake Hythlodaeus' internal motivations are unclear; if he's acting according ot what Hyth would want, or what Emet would want.
• Misija didn't just mastermind the Save the Queen scheme, she also came up with the Resistance Weapons plan in the first place! She was the secret chessmaster of all of Bozja, and we need to give her way more credit.
• Nidhana is apparently considered by other arkasodara to be 'one of the fairest women in Radz-at-Han'; I always love confirmation of non-human beauty standards.
• The weapon lineups confirm that the Cryptlurker gear was used by gravetenders in Nabaath Areng, so... hot damn, that's seriously good Nabaath Areng lore.
• And the weirdest of all: The Elpis hunt monsters are all mentioned to in some way have roots in ancient myths: Ker is a broad boogeyman, Ophioneus seemed to inspire the Allagans to make hydra, Gurangatch was mentioned in Allagan tomestones of mythology as Meracydian, Petalodus is a Nymian myth, Yumcax is from somewhere in 'the New World', and Shockmaw is both mentioned in the South Sea Isles' folklore and presumed to be a proto-Bismarck.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I checked, and they aren't; the descriptions of all the big-boy voidsent are all unique from the other descriptions of the same big-boy voidsent. However, a few of the dungeon boss descriptions seem to come near-exactly from their Triple Triad cards.

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You're right. I largely assumed it was copy-and-pasted because the blurbs are so uninformative about any new revelations that it felt like they were reusing old text, possibly with some summarization to fit the space.

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[*]The proprieter of the Beehive is secretive about everything, including his gender, but allows he/him pronouns for convenience. ...which implies we're looking at some gender non-conformity, that line implies his gender isn't so simple.

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Also Giott, of the ShB Healer Role Quests, has "they" pronouns. Slightly obscured by how it's only clear in one sentence, and the rest are either talking about the grouping of Giott and the player character (and thus the plural "they" is suitable), or in the passive voice that much of the Encyclopedias Eorzea are written in.

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[*]Nidhana is apparently considered by other arkasodara to be 'one of the fairest women in Radz-at-Han'; I always love confirmation of non-human beauty standards.

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I vaguely recall this being mentioned in-game somewhere too. I want to say the Aloalo intro quests? Mainly because that's where Matsya's crush on her is made obvious. Still, that's very far in the future from the writing of this lorebook.

Some thoughts about Thavnair names: there's a fairly clear common part of the names, "bin" or "bihn". In RL, "bin" used in Arab-origin naming conventions (eg Malay, which is what I'm referring to for my own experience) means "son of", ie indicating the title for the patronym. Technically the female version would be "binti" (or occasionally spelled "binte"), meaning "daughter of", but for FFXIV it looks like it's "bihn" instead.

It's just that I'm a little unsure if it's exactly used in the same way. For example, Ahewann bin Alzadaal, which would mean "Ahewann, son of Alzadaal", in turn implying Ahewann's father is named Alzadaal. Which is plausible, given repeated names throughout a family line, but it's also plausible that it could be more like "Ahewann of the house/family/line of Alzadaal". Thus, I don't know if the baby we saved in the 6.0 MSQ would have the name "bihn Qerasaf", after her father, or "bihn Shirashir", after Qerasaf's own "bin Shirashir".

Completely unrelated, I see that the now-deceased high commander of the Radiant Host of Radz-at-Han was Qulsun bihn Aphmau. Still not sure if this was a deliberate FFXI reference, because while this Aphmau is vaguely related to the relevant Near East country, her role and appearance are nothing like FFXI's Aphmau.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

A note that Fake Hythlodaeus' internal motivations are unclear; if he's acting according ot what Hyth would want, or what Emet would want.

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Wow. My overthinking ego is melting from joy. Thanks for sharing this!

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

And the weirdest of all: The Elpis hunt monsters are all mentioned to in some way have roots in ancient myths: Ker is a broad boogeyman, Ophioneus seemed to inspire the Allagans to make hydra, Gurangatch was mentioned in Allagan tomestones of mythology as Meracydian, Petalodus is a Nymian myth, Yumcax is from somewhere in 'the New World', and Shockmaw is both mentioned in the South Sea Isles' folklore and presumed to be a proto-Bismarck.

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But this information already is in the game. An NPC from the hunting quest studies mythology and tells us about mythic creatures from all over the world. These creatures are Elpis marks and Ker.

For example, the in-game lines about Shockmaw:
Legends of a great whale that roams the skies have been passed down from generation to generation the world over. Bismarck, the white whale worshipped by the Vanu Vanu and said to dwell amongst Abalathia's clouds, is merely the best-known example.

Perchance such tales originated solely in the mind─ancient peoples shuddering at the sight of a vast wavekin, and imagining what horrors would reign should one take to the skies. Or perhaps, in the distant past, a creature akin to the mythic Lord of the Mists truly did inhabit the clouds...

I believe it so—yet I need proof. My research indicates that the ancient creature would most closely resemble the south sea isles' legendary “Shockmaw,” but even if I am wrong...I must know.

If the book repeats this, it isn't a new knowledge. Or did I misread, and you didn't mean its novelty?

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Originally Posted by reginleif-

If the book repeats this, it isn't a new knowledge. Or did I misread, and you didn't mean its novelty?

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I mean, a lot of the Encyclopedia Eorzea books aren't about new information and are more about collating the existing information into an easily digestible and visually pleasing format. That part was new to me, because I don't read hunt descriptions.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I mean, a lot of the Encyclopedia Eorzea books aren't about new information and are more about collating the existing information into an easily digestible and visually pleasing format. That part was new to me, because I don't read hunt descriptions.

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The Hunt descriptions had been pretty much copied-and-pasted from the in-game versions, except mostly cleaned up to be more of a passive distant voice rather than "this Hunt NPC is talking in their own words". Some exceptions exist, like the description for Naul in EE2, which goes along the lines of "ah yes, those wacky Ishgardians".

The Hunt descriptions for EE3 are noticeably more cleaned up, possibly because the Hunt NPCs are more eccentric in their in-game dialogue. So like the above example with Shockmaw, the Hunt NPC Basildere's words going "I believe it so" turns into the EE3 version going "Inquiring minds -- that of scholar of comparative mythology Basildere in particular -- need to know."

This has led to some interesting differences. For example, Forgiven Pedantry, the S-rank Hunt in Kholusia: the in-game description (again, spoken by the Hunt NPC Vroi-Reeq) uses male pronouns, while the EE3 description uses female pronouns. Given the "woman with tentacle head" model, I would have assumed the female pronouns is the "correct" version, but that raises the question of why the male pronouns in the in-game description.

In addition, some of the descriptions in EE3 are more vague on the little clues and hints on how to spawn the S-ranks, occasionally to the point where it's a completely different hint. For example, Gunitt, the S-rank for the Tempest, has the in-game description about "as the denizens of the depths attempt to consume their prey, he will appear to steal it out from under them", which is clearly referencing the Clionids eating the Deep Sea Leeches. In EE3, it changed to "his insatiable nature forcing him to contend with any denizens of the depths even larger than he." Also potentially referring to the Clionids, but via a different hint.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Interestingly, and perhaps a bit of a set for expectations of the people who don't have theirs yet: it more or less cuts off its 'new stuff' details at 6.0; it's got Smileton and the Stigma Dreamscape, but nothing on the void or the Twelve [or Pandaemonium].

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Overall it seems like a really weird time to have chosen to publish this book. It would be logical to cover the events of Pandaemonium and the revelations of Myths at the same time as discussing the main events of Endwalker, and it will likely seem strange to go back to them in EE4 alongside whatever Dawntrail and its sequel throw at us.

Publishing now has also meant they can't include pictures of female Hrothgar even as we draw incredibly close to their reveal.

I understand that this might be the only time they can find a lull in their production schedule to work on the lorebooks, but it would still make far more sense to get the majority of the text ready and then hold off publication until the last parts are available.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

Hence my continued biased belief that FFXIV could excise the Yorha raids entirely from the game, and nothing of value plotwise would be lost.

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I don't think that's even a "belief" - unless they do plan to build on it in future somehow, it is a fact that it could be removed and we would lose nothing but unnecessary confusion and an ugly gouge out of the Kholusian mountains.

(Well, that and a couple of nice outfits but good riddance to those overused leggings and weirdly proportioned boots.)

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I've gone through a deeper reading with a bunch of note-taking, so here's a handful of the most exceptional stuff I saw that hasn't come up here so far:

• The Helion and Lost divide among the hrothgar is assumed to be tribal entirely to outsiders; it doesn't work that way at all to the hrothgar.
• The Ronkans were ronso this whole time! How did nobody tell us?
• A note that Fake Hythlodaeus' internal motivations are unclear; if he's acting according ot what Hyth would want, or what Emet would want.
• Misija didn't just mastermind the Save the Queen scheme, she also came up with the Resistance Weapons plan in the first place! She was the secret chessmaster of all of Bozja, and we need to give her way more credit.

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These items were already addressed to varying degrees.

Hrothgar "clans" being an outsider's misconception was already covered on their naming conventions page here.

Ronso were connected to the Ronkan Empire in the Qitari questline researching Ronkan history.

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From Wisdom of the Night:

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QITARL NATL
What we were able to make of the markings could be described thus: a mighty Ronso wearing a crown─no doubt meant to represent the first emperor of Ronka, stood tall with a blade raised high over his head.

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From Delving Deeper:

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QITARL NATL
Ronka, on the other hand, was composed of many strong peoples─the Ronso, brave warriors; the Drahn, adept at the arcane arts; and the Viis, peerless archers─all working together for the empire's prosperity.

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Fake Hythlodaeus outright tells us that he's not sure whether he's acting by his own will or Emet's, and the line in the lorebook is just rephrasing that statement.

We are told early in Bozja that it was Misija's idea to recreate the weapons of Gunnhildr's Blades. Her position as chessmaster is no secret once the plot becomes clear in the game itself.

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When you ask Misija to tell you more about herself during Path to the Past or The Bozja Incident:

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MISIJA
Though it was under the auspices of our Garlean oppressors, I was educated in prehistoric archaeology.
While I am thankful for the opportunities afforded me, I could not turn a blind eye to the suffering of my people. And so I left to join the Resistance.
It was I who proposed to reforge the fabled weapons of Queen Gunnhildr's guard, and Bajsaljen has chosen to place his faith in my plan. I take heart in knowing all I learned from the Empire will be put to good use.

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Even if you don't go into the extra dialogue, she's the one giving most of the explanation on the history of the weapons and the plan to reforge them.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

[*]The head of the Gleaners is a hrothgar, Vtorak Vetasch, who apparently just straight-up hasn't been seen for decades, to the point where we don't even know their gender (a male portrait is presumably shown as a guess). So... I have a new theory about who we're meeting in 6.55.

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Going back to what I said at the start of this post, if the character revealed in 6.55 is in fact Vtorak, it just seems like such a strange point to publish the book a month before her actual identity is revealed and we're left with this pointless decoy in print forever.

In any case, regardless of whether we're due to meet with Vtorak or not, it just seems like a strange choice to say "this person is such a mystery we don't even know their gender, but here's a picture of someone who may or may not be them".

It would have been better to leave a blank picture frame, or maybe a portrait that is a rough pencil sketch that the in-universe compiler of the encyclopedia has had drawn based on what people claim Vtorak looks like, rather than the game screenshots that must be painted portraits.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

Also Giott, of the ShB Healer Role Quests, has "they" pronouns.

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I think they've deliberately dodged using pronouns for Giott for a very long time, but it's such an odd situation anyway because the whole reveal scene seems to hinge on "surprise, she's a girl" vibes so much that it's odd if they're not actually a girl. (And yes I know it's a male character model, but Lalafells can get away with that for misdirection purposes.)

Maybe the writer isn't certain and nobody has the guts (or dodge reflexes) to actually dare ask Giott about it.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

I vaguely recall [Nidhana's beauty] being mentioned in-game somewhere too. I want to say the Aloalo intro quests? Mainly because that's where Matsya's crush on her is made obvious. Still, that's very far in the future from the writing of this lorebook.

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Matsya's crush on Nidhana was brought up earlier in MSQ as well. I remember him gushing over her beauty when we said we were off to visit her next.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

Completely unrelated, I see that the now-deceased high commander of the Radiant Host of Radz-at-Han was Qulsun bihn Aphmau. Still not sure if this was a deliberate FFXI reference, because while this Aphmau is vaguely related to the relevant Near East country, her role and appearance are nothing like FFXI's Aphmau.

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I don't think there's any need to assume that specific FFXI characters are being referenced when the names get recycled for Thavnairian names. I assume they've just got the list of names and are using them at random.

I've previously added a list of FFXI names to my thread on Thavnairian naming conventions. There are a few other names that have been recycled as well, though I can't comment on the significance of any of them. I still need to update the page with these few additional names from the book.

I don't think we've gotten any direct comment on Thavnairian names in the book though, which is annoying when we got it for all of the new races, but the Thavnairians (and Werlytians) slip through because they're all pre-existing races compiled into new cultures.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

These items were already addressed to varying degrees.

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This isn't too surprising, but I think does highlight the strength of an Encyclopedia Eorzea release even for people who try their best to be on top of lore. So many established-but-not-important facts about the game world come up in passing and are just never reiterated on, meaning that it's easy to miss that they were said at all. There's also the related problem of 'I'm sure this was said, but I have no idea where, so I'm gonna struggle if someone asks for a source'. It was an almost terrifying eye-opener when I started actively taking notes my first time through a questline when I started doing patch lore reviews, because I was just noticing how many things I wasn't noticing before.

The Encyclopedias do so much to alleviate that, it's a massive relief.


Matsya thinking Nidhana is pretty is a great example of the limits of subjective sources of info, too. Yeah, I know that Matsya had a crush on Nidhana and thought she was beautiful, but there's a marked difference between 'one guy thinks Nidhana is pretty' and 'everyone thinks Nidhana is pretty'. Especially given I feel like Matsya's both a guy with a fairly small world, and a guy who probably doesn't just think about looks for stuff like this; I get the idea that he can fall for a girl-next-door type that he can have friendly conversations with, and that's kinda how I'd been reading Nidhana this whole time. Sorta similar to how I saw Fake Hythlodaeus as a wise and jolly old man rather than someone fairly youthful.

Revelations from EE3:

-Forgiven Obcenity *WAS* formely the singer who was punished by Vauthry in MSQ.
-Omicrons were the strongest beings in the universe after defeating the Dragons (what does that say about us having dunked their strongest weapon?)

-Avatars are the 13th reflection of their Reaper's soul. This might contradict Golbez being our 13th reflection, which is all but confirmed, given how their shadow "comes out" of us during Lunar Subterrane dungeon and their face is never shown and they are suspiciously unvoiced in a voiced cutscene....

-Memories of Vauthry were partly included in the summoning of Fatebreaker. Many people assumed it was just Thancred/Ran'jit/Gukumatz, but the Light aspected cycles always reminded me of Vauthry.

-Garlean Legatus armor have inlaid crystals with the hopes that they would store their memories for future use (like rudimentary job stones). These are implied to be the stones that were employed in the 2nd Generation Anti Eikon Warmachina series' Synthetic Auracite System.

-Venat's group stole the "Deity" concept from the Bureau of the Architect to summon Hydaelyn, which was formely used in the summoning of Zodiark. This implies that the concept crystal for "Deity" may have been something the Words of Lahabrea submitted to the Bureau for testing and approval following the events of Pandaemonium. In other words, Athena's research may have directly laid the groundwork for Primal summoning. The other deduction of this finding is that the enthralling power of Athena may have inspired Lahabrea down the line to employ similar techniques in the corrupt version of creation magic he gifted to the Beast Tribes (which ensured their Primals would enthrall their summoners). Meaning this effect might be tied all the way back to some property or quality of the Heart of Sabik/Ultima's Auracites?

(to give an in-universe reason for some monsters using similar models)
-During the Flood of Darknesss, people's Souls intrinsically remembered a similar world-ending calamity (Final Days) and some souls were twisted with the memory of those creatures (Terminus Detonators), explaining the similarity between the two
-Svarbhanu (the first blasphemy) greatly resembles The First Beast. Certain primordial fears are "burned into the very soul" so this is no coincidence.
-Similarly, the Indigo Beast Blasphemy likely resembles Archaeotania because Archaeotania was Beast of the Final Days that resided in the sea and the soul remembers?

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I checked, and they aren't; the descriptions of all the big-boy voidsent are all unique from the other descriptions of the same big-boy voidsent. However, a few of the dungeon boss descriptions seem to come near-exactly from their Triple Triad cards.

[*]And the weirdest of all: The Elpis hunt monsters are all mentioned to in some way have roots in ancient myths: Ker is a broad boogeyman, Ophioneus seemed to inspire the Allagans to make hydra, Gurangatch was mentioned in Allagan tomestones of mythology as Meracydian, Petalodus is a Nymian myth, Yumcax is from somewhere in 'the New World', and Shockmaw is both mentioned in the South Sea Isles' folklore and presumed to be a proto-Bismarck.[/LIST]

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These were ripped directly from the Hunt descriptions already in-game. What's interesting to me is that Yumcax exists in the New World. If you are familiar with FF11's last major expansion, Seekers of Adoulin, Yumcax is one of the 8 Naakuals, or elemental guardian beasts of the New World Ulbulka, which while mostly resembling a primordial Australia, has Mesoamerican naming conventions. Yumcax was the Naakual of Earth. Perhaps these will be 7.1+ Trial Series?

I don't know why so many didn't see the Vauthry/Innocence parts there in Fatebreaker. There is clear Lightwarden parts to the design that only come from Innocence. I think some knew that the final Mt. Gaulg boss was that poor au ra girl who panicked that she couldn't sing anymore. Just now it has an easier place for people to point to.

I feel people are just overthinking who the Azem shard of the 13th is again. Nothing is confirmed, nor do I expect it to, given the developers' desires for players to build up their own characters' lore. There's a reason why we've never seen Azem in-game or even in any of the short stories.

As for Golbez, I think the reason we never see his face is because there was no reason to. For all intents and purposes, Durante is Golbez now, and the scene with him picking up his helmet is supposed to show his insecurity of playing the hero by putting on the mask of his deceased friend (in a figurative and literal sense). Showing us what the original Golbez looked like wouldn't have had any purpose since we didn't know what Golbez looked like outside of the armor, and from a developers' standpoint would have been a waste of time and resources to make since Golbez has a unique body that's unlike any of the other playable races.

Also, Ardbert has an established face and voice, so it's not like Golbez not having a voice or face doesn't lend any credence to him actually being our counterpart.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

I don't know why so many didn't see the Vauthry/Innocence parts there in Fatebreaker. There is clear Lightwarden parts to the design that only come from Innocence. I think some knew that the final Mt. Gaulg boss was that poor au ra girl who panicked that she couldn't sing anymore. Just now it has an easier place for people to point to.

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Honestly, it's actually unclear if Forgiven Obscenity was the Canary; my reading of the EE3's hinting was that the Canary was killed and fed to sin eaters, and the Obscenity may have been an entirely different performer.

...which in retrospect is basically adding extra layers of horror and misdirection just for the sake of it. Which I would be mad about if this was something that ever mattered, but when it's a character/characters this minor, and the context is already horrifying to a point where neither angle is out-of-place, y'know what, go ahead.

As for the Fatebreaker: I know I've been calling it 'Than'jinnocence' for years, but I guess there's people who shuffled that part back far enough that they didn't notice, or didn't care enough to take note.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

-Forgiven Obcenity *WAS* formely the singer who was punished by Vauthry in MSQ.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Honestly, it's actually unclear if Forgiven Obscenity was the Canary; my reading of the EE3's hinting was that the Canary was killed and fed to sin eaters, and the Obscenity may have been an entirely different performer.

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It's quite clear from EE3 that Forgiven Obscenity, the third boss of the Mount Gulg dungeon, is not the Canary. The implication is the Canary met a grisly end, whether the interpretation of "killed and fed to Sin Eaters" or "turned into Sin Eater, then turned into meol".

However, Forgiven Obscenity was already present and a Sin Eater before the Canary was killed. EE3 states that Forgiven Obscenity was one of Vauthry's favourites, which again implies she was one of the lounging Sin Eaters we see when we first encounter Vauthry on our first visit to Eulmore.

However, I honestly can't recall if Vauthry had punished any singers in the MSQ. As in, he certainly didn't do it in front of us, but I can't recall if there was any offhand mention of some Beehive singer who offended Vauthry and was ominously Never Heard From Again.

Another cool revelation is that Eden was ACTIVE during the Flood of Light, going from region to region creating the empty. Eden was at the heart of the "flood" and Minfilia stopped Eden at Amh Araeng, blowing it southward where it remained disabled until we arrive to wake it up in the raid series.

So the section in Bozja's History, Inglorious New Purpose, where a Bozjan shire maiden uses her predictive powers to see the Meteor Project disaster coming, sends a covert commando unit into Garlemald itself to kidnap Midas nan Garland, and they are stopped by Cid and Nero!? That wasn't mentioned elsewhere in game, was it? The rest of the plot details mentioned I remembered from the in-game story text, but not this part.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Another cool revelation is that Eden was ACTIVE during the Flood of Light, going from region to region creating the empty. Eden was at the heart of the "flood" and Minfilia stopped Eden at Amh Araeng, blowing it southward where it remained disabled until we arrive to wake it up in the raid series.

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This in retrospect made sense, because if you just assumed Eden was staying immobile and putting out a wave, then its 'resting point' would've been on the other side of the planet to Norvrandt, and that's one hell of a hovercraft ride.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

So the section in Bozja's History, Inglorious New Purpose, where a Bozjan shire maiden uses her predictive powers to see the Meteor Project disaster coming, sends a covert commando unit into Garlemald itself to kidnap Midas nan Garland, and they are stopped by Cid and Nero!? That wasn't mentioned elsewhere in game, was it? The rest of the plot details mentioned I remembered from the in-game story text, but not this part.

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It's from one of the side stories on the Lodestone.

The story focuses mainly on the Cid And Nero relationship, and I think kind of understates the whole bits about Bozja and Midas Garlond.