Occult Crescent speculation

While I'm extremely excited about all of 7.2, I feel like the Occult Crescent is the stuff that's REALLY throwing out the hooks for the proper long-term Lore Nerds, so I felt like it might be good to have a thread for this!

So, first of all, a bit of a collation of details I've gathered from the special site and the live letters:

1. The actual landscape includes buildings that clearly match Nym, Mhach, and Amdapor's architectures.
2. Accordingly, its music is actually a medley of their dungeon/raid themes: A Tonberry's Tears, The Scars of Battle, and Teardrops in the Rain. But interestingly, there's another inclusion in it: Far From Home, which is Skalla's theme, the unlucky fourth victim of the War of the Magi. I haven't seen architecture I'd call Skallic, but that might be because of inexperience.
3. The 'Phantom Jobs' we get in the Occult Crescent are a mix of jobs we do and don't have; in the first live letter Yoshi-P actually talked about how some of these jobs might not be viable to make as full jobs (they've tried to crack Chemist at least twice before), so this is a chance to play in the space without hitting that problem.
4. In the second live letter Yoshi-P mentioned the Phantoms Jobs of jobs we do have, like Monk, are ancient forms of the job. So by logic, the other Phantom Jobs like Time Mage are jobs that did exist, but got lost over time.
5. The end raid instance of the first Occult Crescent zone is the Forked Tower; from the screenshots it's a little hard to tell if it's Nymian, Amdapori, or possibly both, but I feel like I can comfortably rule out Mhach. Fights that look to take place inside seem to include both some Demon Wall-looking figures, and a Sin Eater-looking guy.
6. All of the outside-XIV inspirations that have been mentioned for this, including the Phantom Job icons, are from Final Fantasy V.
7. It's a Ketenramm story, and there's a scene of him opening some kind of stone chest or coffin with us, possibly inside Forked Tower. Sure enough, FFV's Forked Tower did have treasures at the end of it: the ultimate Black and White Magics, Flare and Holy.

So with all of that, my own theory on this one:

The Occult Crescent is from the Fifth Astral Era, and got unstuck in time somehow; this lines up with FFV's city of Mirage. In FFV's story, the world got split into two a thousand years ago, and the city of Mirage was stuck in a weird state of flux that froze it until the worlds got re-fused. The Occult Crescent probably isn't exactly that, though, because that'd cause VERY odd questions regarding shards and Rejoinings.

All these locations are very close together and by all appearances intact; Nym's corner looks a little waterlogged, but that's it. This makes me feel like it might be from before the war; I can't imagine these three (four?) would all be neighbors without blowing each other to bits during the war. We don't actually know the inciting incident of the War of the Magi; maybe this joint colony disappeared and everyone blamed each other?

Assuming it's not a mirage of some sort itself, if we need an "unstuck in time" mechanic there's always Ozma black holes... lol

Triple bonus score if they tell us the other 8 city names for no reason at all.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

All these locations are very close together and by all appearances intact; Nym's corner looks a little waterlogged, but that's it. This makes me feel like it might be from before the war; I can't imagine these three (four?) would all be neighbors without blowing each other to bits during the war. We don't actually know the inciting incident of the War of the Magi; maybe this joint colony disappeared and everyone blamed each other?

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I thought this was pretty funny, but it does also seem exactly like an Ascian doomsday plot to stir up (at least) three nations of extraordinarily powerful mages to trigger an apocalypse. And there is precedent with Eureka...

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Originally Posted by Vallavia

I thought this was pretty funny, but it does also seem exactly like an Ascian doomsday plot to stir up (at least) three nations of extraordinarily powerful mages to trigger an apocalypse. And there is precedent with Eureka...

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In fairness, while Eureka was the Ascians' fault, they didn't cause it; it disappearing was an emergency countermeasure to stop an Ascian.

And I do have a constant pet theory that it was Proto-Ozma that brought it back, but I don't expect it to actually be accurate.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Assuming it's not a mirage of some sort itself, if we need an "unstuck in time" mechanic there's always Ozma black holes... lol

Triple bonus score if they tell us the other 8 city names for no reason at all.

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The bubbles in the sky could be literal time bubbles or Ozma shaped bite marks in reality. Pick your poison.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

In fairness, while Eureka was the Ascians' fault, they didn't cause it; it disappearing was an emergency countermeasure to stop an Ascian.

And I do have a constant pet theory that it was Proto-Ozma that brought it back, but I don't expect it to actually be accurate.

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Sorry, I meant more that there's precedent for "there is an existing mechanism that can cause pieces of reality to be unceremoniously teleported across the planet", not that Eureka was done by an Ascian. Though even that might be mooted with the advent of dimensional fusion which opens all kinds of possibilities.

I think with the other discussions of Ozma holes and time dilation it's more likely that the Occult Crescent wasn't always in its current physical configuration. If I were to hazard a completely unfounded guess, I'd say that some party (probably Mhach, given Ozma has this power already) tried to use some applied magic on all these places at once (perhaps originating from the Forked Tower) which ended up failing spectacularly and instead sucking everybody and everything including the casters into a wormhole that dumped them in the modern Occult Crescent.

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Originally Posted by Vallavia

Sorry, I meant more that there's precedent for "there is an existing mechanism that can cause pieces of reality to be unceremoniously teleported across the planet", not that Eureka was done by an Ascian. Though even that might be mooted with the advent of dimensional fusion which opens all kinds of possibilities.

I think with the other discussions of Ozma holes and time dilation it's more likely that the Occult Crescent wasn't always in its current physical configuration. If I were to hazard a completely unfounded guess, I'd say that some party (probably Mhach, given Ozma has this power already) tried to use some applied magic on all these places at once (perhaps originating from the Forked Tower) which ended up failing spectacularly and instead sucking everybody and everything including the casters into a wormhole that dumped them in the modern Occult Crescent.

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I can see this, although not literally Ozma. Partly because Ozma's an FFIX thing and we're squarely in FFV Time, but also because I don't think Mhach's Ozma has enough juice for this; it did a pretty bad job sucking up one city, and Crescent looks bigger than that.

FFV does have an angle, though: Exdeath sucking locations into the Void, where he summons a big black orb and that entire part of the map's just gone. Dissidia interpreted that by way of having 'time bubbles' depicting some of those locations floating around the FFV stage, and it's not... a world away from the bubbles in the Occult Crescent? And certainly, the thing in the coffin/chest from the trailer looks pretty void-ular.

My new theory is that we're going up against Enuo, the original guy that tried to control the Void from FFV. He was only a boss in the Advance version, which I'd normally be disinclined to factor in... except they've already referenced Cannoneer, so we're good!

Considering that Eureka came in, claimed Ozma as its own, and dubbed the Weeping City boss a "preliminary attempt", if they did end up wanting to go that route, there's probably some wiggle room.

"Oh, uhhh ... Mhach's efforts just got better later".

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Considering that Eureka came in, claimed Ozma as its own, and dubbed the Weeping City boss a "preliminary attempt", if they did end up wanting to go that route, there's probably some wiggle room.

"Oh, uhhh ... Mhach's efforts just got better later".

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This was kind of what I was operating on; while it may or may not be Our Friend, Ozma™ I think there are certainly open avenues and existing connections adjacent to it that could point that direction. Plus, even with the FFV connections, Dawntrail Season 2 was for all intents and purposes FFIX-2, so I think at least a wink and a nudge to Ozma would be in order. And, as stated, the "this previously explored backstory point was expanded on offscreen and we had no way of knowing" isn't an uncommon handwave in this game (Ultima, the Ultima Weapon, Corvos, others)

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Considering that Eureka came in, claimed Ozma as its own, and dubbed the Weeping City boss a "preliminary attempt", if they did end up wanting to go that route, there's probably some wiggle room.

"Oh, uhhh ... Mhach's efforts just got better later".

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My read on Ozma was broadly that Proto-Ozma was the original, probably made by someone who owned the primal Eureka before Mhach (there's a line around Eureka Orthos that might be referring to it), and Mhach's Ozma is their attempt to make their own without Eureka.

So I don't think Mhach's efforts got better, I think Mhach's efforts got worse.

Man, reading this thread made realize how screwed up the MSQ is.

Imagine if 7.0 was basically just Occult Crescent?

In-game description for Ozma:

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Originally created by the mages of Mhach as means of protecting their home from what they believed was an unavoidable uprising of voidsent, the magicked spheroid was eventually employed during the War of the Magi to devour the cities of their enemies and send them into a state of dimensional compression.

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Caption for the image of the pyramid in the Weeping City of Mhach on page 196, EE3:

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Two nightmarish beings were said to guard the Nullstone at its apex: Ozma, an enigmatic sphere of terrible power, and Calofisteri, a mighty sorceress who achieved a twisted form of eternal life by imbibing the blood of voidsent.

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Proto Ozma doesn't appear to have an in-game description...

Demi-Ozma flavor text:

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Call into battle Demi-Ozma─the round mound of spellbound.

After concluding that Ozma of the Weeping City was but a preliminary attempt to weave an aether-based simulacrum of the Eurekan phenomenon Proto Ozma, the Students of Baldesion endeavored to apply similar magicks in the creation of what they dubbed “Demi-Ozma,” hoping to learn what makes the entity tick.

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Ozma and Proto Ozma don't have Triple Triad cards, so that's not a source of information either.

So... based on what's here, Mhach created Ozma as a weapon to COUNTER voidsent, presumably before Mhach started to weaponize voidsent as their preferred tools in the War of the Magi. And the Nullstone, as a contingency against the rebellion of said tools, was guarded by Ozma (a construct meant to trap voidsent) and Calofisteri (a sorceress who ritualistically consumed voidsent blood to become immortal). So while Ozma was originally AND ultimately an anti-voidsent construct, it was apparently deployed to "devour the cities of [Mhach's] enemies and send them into a state of dimensional compression" at some point in Mhach's campaign.

Meanwhile, what we're told in Eureka is that the primal Eureka created Proto Ozma, in addition to the other Eurekan weapons held in the Baldesion Arsenal, which were gathered by Galuf and his students in order to contain the threat of them. Which gives the implication that Proto Ozma is just another Eurekan weapon (albeit a pretty powerful one), and the Mhachi Ozma is a copy of it, (and Demi-Ozma is a neutered version created BY THE STUDENTS to figure out how Ozma works). This, in turn, tells us that while Galuf and the Students turned the Isle of Val into a prison for the primal Eureka, they still had to go out and collect Shin-Zantetsuken, Orlasrach & Munderg, the Lance of Virtue, and Proto Ozma from SOMEWHERE ELSE before bringing them all back to be contained with Eureka on Val.

The detail that Ozma ate cities certainly comports with all of the Fifth Astral Era architecture we're seeing in the South Horn. If it turns out the Occult Crescent has some kind of backdoor into Ozma's compressed dimension, that might explain why it's trapped so many folks who stumble into the place.

Given what we learn about Eureka during Eureka Orthos (that it was utilized and not necessarily created by the Allagans, who used it to create weapons like Zantetsuken and Excalibur) and what we can infer about how the Mhachi learned so much about voidsent in the first place (that they might have stumbled upon an Allagan repository that covered Xande's deal with the Cloud of Darkness and thus got a jumpstart into summoning voidsent for fun and profit), it seems reasonable to assume that the Allagans might have been the ones who had Proto Ozma in the first place.

Which, in turn, leads me to think that Mhach must have encountered Proto Ozma at some point in order to be able to copy it in the first place.

So, the theory I'm getting at here is this:

1. During the 5AE, Mhach discovers one of the Eurekan research facilities, containing information on Xande's pact with the Cloud of Darkness and also contains Proto Ozma.
2. The Mhachi develop a hypothesis that Xande's deal with the Cloud of Darkness is probably what led to the collapse of Allag and the disappearance of the Crystal Tower, so they know that the voidsent are dangerous and develop countermeasures against them... and here's Proto Ozma as a construct that can black hole targets into an inescapable dimensional space, which is great for (YOU GUESSED IT) sealing away voidsent.
3. Once the Mhachi feel secure that they can prevent the voidsent from betraying them (with their creation of Ozma) they start summoning voidsent in earnest to use for conquest.
4. When the Mhachi innovate the Nullstone as a more final countermeasure (rather than containing the voidsent within Ozma's black hole, they can just nuke the voidsent entirely) then Ozma gets repurposed as a weapon against the other city-states, but then gets placed as one of the two measures protecting the Nullstone, which is now a vulnerability for Mhach ITSELF given how much they've come to rely on summoning voidsent for power.
5. ... which is why the Void Ark is still powered by imprisoned voidsent being used as batteries, even when the Mhachi realized that the flood waters were rising. They straight up never put together that their overuse of voidsent was one of the reasons WHY the Calamity of Water was coming, so they just ran with it until they couldn't any longer.
6. Later on, in the 6AE, Galuf and the Students locate Proto Ozma within a Mhachi ruin and take it to the Arsenal for safekeeping, until Emmerololth shows up to start causing problems on purpose.

TL;DR: so yeah, it all comes back to the Allagans, probably.

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Originally Posted by Kranel_San

Man, reading this thread made realize how screwed up the MSQ is.

Imagine if 7.0 was basically just Occult Crescent?

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If it were, I'd be a lot less interested in both the Occult Crescent, and the MSQ. And not just because I like Dawntrail: the Occult Crescent would be AWFUL as an MSQ.

Like Eureka, Occult Crescent's central pitch is 'explore a weird zone'. I love a weird zone, and FFXIV has actually used them very well for finales as well as side content. But they'd make a terrible central concept for an expansion, because by themselves they're only driven by curiosity; there's no narrative drive, there's no character journeys, there's no concrete reason we should go there. Weird zone finales like Ultima Thule or Living Memory work because we almost always turn up there in pursuit of a specific person to stop a specific thing, and the game's spent five less-weird zones laying down the characters and stakes.

I've GMed and pitched a decent share of RP scenarios, and without exception, the ones that got the least immediate buy-in were the 'explore a weird zone' pitches. Because most people aren't driven by curiosity, they want a good answer for 'why', and a place like the Occult Crescent deliberately isn't forthcoming about that.

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Originally Posted by unlimitedBLACK

This, in turn, tells us that while Galuf and the Students turned the Isle of Val into a prison for the primal Eureka, they still had to go out and collect Shin-Zantetsuken, Orlasrach & Munderg, the Lance of Virtue, and Proto Ozma from SOMEWHERE ELSE before bringing them all back to be contained with Eureka on Val.

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For what it's worth in relation to this specific subject: Art and Owain, the split first bosses of the BArsenal, use attacks from Scathach and Diabolos. It's admittedly tenuous evidence, but it suggests to me that Mhach had more extended contact with the primal Eureka. That only raises further questions, though; if Mhach had Eureka, why weren't they using it? And if they lost Eureka, who took it?

I'm not 100% convinced we're looking at a Eureka story here, though, our evidence is deeply tangential at best. And I'd kinda like a 5AA/War of the Magi story where Mhach wasn't the antagonist, but I can't deny the overwhelming pattern of previous stories.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

For what it's worth in relation to this specific subject: Art and Owain, the split first bosses of the BArsenal, use attacks from Scathach and Diabolos. It's admittedly tenuous evidence, but it suggests to me that Mhach had more extended contact with the primal Eureka. That only raises further questions, though; if Mhach had Eureka, why weren't they using it? And if they lost Eureka, who took it?

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I didn't recall that detail about Art and Owain... though I agree it's tenuous evidence, it's still something.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I'm not 100% convinced we're looking at a Eureka story here, though, our evidence is deeply tangential at best. And I'd kinda like a 5AA/War of the Magi story where Mhach wasn't the antagonist, but I can't deny the overwhelming pattern of previous stories.

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I think it might be worth pointing out that Stormblood's field operation pulled on a LOT of different threads (the Ascians being interested in the primal Eureka, the fate of Team Galuf and the Isle of Val, G'raha Tia's interest in Allag and the Forbidden Land legend linking back into the Crystal Tower raids, the presence of Proto Ozma, as well as all the latent FF5/FF11 references throughout the place). Later, something that happened in ShB's field operation was that we learned a little bit MORE about Allag and Eureka just from being told how Save the Queen was an auracite weapon, and that Allag turned to using Eureka for weapons development because of the rarity of acquiring auracite. Eureka Orthos added another dimension to this by establishing that there were various Eurekan facilities aside from just Orthos itself, aside from also demonstrating more strongly the danger of the Eurekan weapons through the tale of Artorius and Excalibur... which I mention because while Eureka Orthos isn't a field operation like the Forbidden Land and Bozja, it came in the patch series for Endwalker, which didn't HAVE a field operation, in the same sense that Bozja took precedence over a deep dungeon in Shadowbringers.

So ever since Stormblood, some piece of patch content has breadcrumbed us more information about Eureka, directly or otherwise.

So while I agree that Occult Crescent probably isn't a Eureka story per se, the notion that we might unravel more of the mystery surrounding Eureka by learning more about Ozma seems like it would fit with that pattern.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I'm not 100% convinced we're looking at a Eureka story here, though, our evidence is deeply tangential at best. And I'd kinda like a 5AA/War of the Magi story where Mhach wasn't the antagonist, but I can't deny the overwhelming pattern of previous stories.

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To one of your earlier points, it does seem pretty conspicuous that we still don't know what incited the war in the first place, particularly given how much we've dug up about the three major players in the conflict already (and some of Skalla to boot). I still think it's overwhelmingly likely to be an Ascian intervention, all the writing for deliberately causing an Umbral Calamity is on the wall, but focusing on the 'human' element of it could be an interesting angle: perhaps Mhach pursued such aggressive armament in the first place because they were preparing to face a completely different existential threat greater and more terrifying than any other individual city-state, and the Ascians stoked paranoia about their growing arsenal among the other eleven Eorzean city-states at the time to provoke the conflict (and then went on to prolong the war as long as possible to drain the star of five elements).

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Originally Posted by unlimitedBLACK

In-game description for Ozma:
Originally created by the mages of Mhach as means of protecting their home from what they believed was an unavoidable uprising of voidsent, the magicked spheroid was eventually employed during the War of the Magi to devour the cities of their enemies and send them into a state of dimensional compression.

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Do you have a source for this? I can't seem to find it. "dimensional compression" directly implies rejoining-like phenomena (the term seems to only be used twice: once when referring to scholars who mysteriously disappeared along with the isle of val, and once when referring to Heritage Found)

My guess for ST is also ozma-related. Excitingly, it seems like what we're getting is a direct-ish "sequel" to eureka.

Resurrecting this because the Occult Crescent is out now, and has a lot to unpack! Which I know at least for me is a reason for silence for a while; there's a lot to digest.

First of all, hitting the actual story. I'm not 100% done yet (still waiting for Calamity Bound), but here's what I've got.

So, the Occult Crescent is essentially a big weird Museum of the Fifth Astral Era, made by most-likely-Archive to preserve what they were before they blew each other up. Reasonably this probably happened after Bitoso hit Nym but before the entire place got dunked in a flood, but we don't have a clear timeline. However, there might be more to things than just Archive.

However, this does mean that we're not exactly looking at a settlement of any kind: everything was essentially constructed to illustrate what the civilizations of the 5AA were doing and capable of, using their own techniques, but we're not seeing whole groups.

As for the stuff we've learned about the 5AA so far:

So, the major discovery is another civilization: Karnak! Karnak's named after the city from FFV that had the Fire Crystal, but what we have mostly suggests that they were roughly Mesopotamian in terms of aesthetic, with turbans and ziggurats. For what it's worth, when I combine 'FFV' and 'turbans' I land on Mystic Knight, who aren't currently present anywhere in the game. They were also a magical civilization, but interestingly, Archive at least in English places Karnak outside of the 5AA's 'twelve city-states'. I wouldn't be confident about that without looking at other languages, though. The Occult Record seems to hint that Karnak worshipped Nald'thal, and more as a god of the forge than modern perceptions of 'the god of commerce'; more Hephaestus rather than Plutus.

Someone has actually suggested to me that 'the twelve city-states' might actually be a grouping more than a numbering, similar to Norse mythology's 'nine realms'; if you actually count the realms in Norse myth there's more than nine. In that case we might not actually be looking at a set-in-stone, concrete group of twelve.

As for the civilizations we already knew about, we don't get a lot of clear info, but of what we do have, Skalla's probably the biggest one: Treasure Tortoise of all sources confirms that they had 'mighty mages', but wasn't really specific beyond that. From there, I'd actually put forward that our best intel are the Phantom Jobs: so far, we have twelve.

• Knight
• Monk
• Thief
• Samurai
• Berserker
• Ranger
• Time Mage
• Chemist
• Geomancer
• Bard
• Oracle
• Cannoneer

I feel like it's probably fair to narrow Skalla's input on this down to the explicit magic jobs: Time Mage, Geomancer, Oracle, and maybe Chemist. Twelve jobs would reliably sync up to 'the twelve city-states' (if there were indeed twelve), but none of them explicitly sync up with anything we already know about the 5AA civs, so who can say.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

*snip*

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I believe that in other languages it's more explicit that

Karnak is actually one of the twelve city-states of the Fifth Astral

and it's just one of those loc kerfuffles that we get occasionally.

What's really interesting to me is that phantom knight is "knight" and not "paladin"; now this might be because it's intentionally using the name used in FFV's localisation, but I believe they're named the same in Japanese, with both being ナイト. Which might not mean anything or it might mean that this phantom knight job has some sort of continuity with modern paladins but changed names over time?

What also interests me is the fact that samurai and geomancers were seemingly present in the Fifth Astral, meaning that there maybe was already cultural crosspolination with the Far East of the time. I wonder what the makeup of those civilisations were at the time?

Thoughts

Why is the voice that only we can hear (assumed to be The Architect) referring to the Warrior of Light as 'deserved?' What do we or did we deserve? Makes me think The Architect knows something about our character.

Some speculation

While the characters are referring to the island as a 'museum' of sorts, I don't think that's it's purpose. The War of the Magi was an escalating magical arms race that ended in calamity so I think the Occult Crescent could be some kind of long term fantasy nuclear weapons/waste disposal site. Consider the illusory magicks that were used to conceal the island, and anyone who does manage to land would be greeted by ferocious wildlife, and visages of fallen civilizations. Museums want to preserve knowledge so that it may be accessible to others, but this place does not want to be found. This is not a place of honor. I think that the Warrior of Light was allowed onto the island because The Architect knows we are uncorruptable, and are meant, and will be able to destroy what ever ultimate magicks might be stored there.

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Originally Posted by Zero-ELEC

What also interests me is the fact that samurai and geomancers were seemingly present in the Fifth Astral, meaning that there maybe was already cultural crosspolination with the Far East of the time. I wonder what the makeup of those civilisations were at the time?

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Samurai isn't super weird, because we do know that Hingashi was around but fairly uneventful in the Fifth Astral Era. So was Bozja and Doma, although Doma probably not in a recognizable form, so it's not especially surprising to see imports from there.

If anything the weirdest to me might be Cannoneer, but that might just be because it feels like there should be a footprint left from people doing that. Surely we should be able to find the cannons, right!?

Some more kinda wild speculation

While there are sources that state that the 6th calamity was caused by The Elementals who were upset with everyone's misuse of the world's aether, it seem like that info is shaky. So I think we can assume that one of the 5AA super powers, more likely Amdapor developed magicks or a weapon which aspected to water as The Tenth was drowned out that caused the flood. Like how Mhach started augmented their power with The Void, I think Amdapor would utilize another plain of existence: The Aetherial Sea, and their first, and only use of a weaponized Life Stream caused the calamity. And this power is locked away in the Occult Crescent.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

Some more kinda wild speculation

While there are sources that state that the 6th calamity was caused by The Elementals who were upset with everyone's misuse of the world's aether, it seem like that info is shaky. So I think we can assume that one of the 5AA super powers, more likely Amdapor developed magicks or a weapon which aspected to water as The Tenth was drowned out that caused the flood. Like how Mhach started augmented their power with The Void, I think Amdapor would utilize another plain of existence: The Aetherial Sea, and their first, and only use of a weaponized Life Stream caused the calamity. And this power is locked away in the Occult Crescent.

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So, here's the thing about that: what your first sentence claims is 'shaky' is even shakier than you think!

There aren't current sources that say the Fifth Calamity was caused by the Elementals: the only source for that was the 1.0 White Mage storyline, which was conspicuously the only job storyline that they replaced come A Realm Reborn. Ever since then, the writing has been consistent that the Calamity was essentially caused by the war itself draining the land dry, to such a level that the end result was inevitable; if there was a spark setting off the flood itself, it's always considered far less important than the conditions that led to it in the first place.

What is interesting, though, is that according to the Encyclopedia Eorzea the fact that it was a flood was known, and was unanimously agreed on by every source in every city-state. ...including seers in at least one case, which gives some interesting context to the Oracle phantom job. We also know that the final shot of the war before 'oh crap, flood's coming' was Diabolos hitting Amdapor; I have no idea if that's relevant or what that means, but it feels notable.

Do we know which civilization Nyunkrepf was from ?
I think the lore was kinda scarce (exploration entry and that guy in sharlayan telling us they founded them), and I can't remember if there was something about it.

A rather loaded question

Was the Exdeath character that Omega made us fight inspired by a person from the 5AA? (making a distinction between FFV's Exdeath, and the Exdeath simulation from the Omega raid series)

It seems the Forked Tower: Blood, has been cleared. Although it appears there are no lore revelations or details to be shared about it.

Would love if someone could confirm.

The Forked Tower was cleared like, a week ago. It took longer than several Ultimates largely for organizational reasons; with Savage raids or Ultimates you can just keep trying, wipe after wipe, but with the Forked Tower you have to organize re-entry every single time, which is especially difficult with instances being busy right now.

That said, there's interesting stuff in the notes from the bosses, which you can find online.

Two of the bosses--the Demon Tablet and Marble Dragon--are Amdapori constructs. There's note that the Marble Dragon is too accurate to have been done without reference, suggesting that the creator must have been to Dravania to study them first-hand.

The 'Dead Stars'--Nereid Triton and Phobos--are tasked with managing the weather of the Crescent. Unclear what happens now that they're dead.

And the Magitaur is a voidsent, showing that this isn't entirely the Amdapor Show. Most interesting to me is that it mentions him wielding four weapons from the War of the Magi: the rune axe, sage's staff, assassin's dagger, and holy lance. Now, this is interesting because they're four of the twelve Sealed Weapons from FFV.

Finally, the 'treasure' at the top of the Forked Tower is an archive of texts in a language nobody can understand. Naturally, we don't have any idea what that entails, save that it's probably about the Fifth Astral Era.

I think most interesting of all, though, is the absence: this is only one half of FFV's Forked Tower dungeon, this is the physical tower. The other half is the magic tower that we're getting later, whose final boss is Omniscient. If you've played FFV you should already see where this is going, but if not:

https://i.imgur.com/yWPobpm.png

That's what Archive's robe is based on.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

A rather loaded question

Was the Exdeath character that Omega made us fight inspired by a person from the 5AA? (making a distinction between FFV's Exdeath, and the Exdeath simulation from the Omega raid series)

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I'm not gonna answer this in spoiler tags, because while the answer is long, in this context it's mostly just a very long 'no'.

Basically, there's two trains of logic you have to consider with Omega's bosses. The first is what the Ironworks go off on initially, that it's lifting these figures from literature and is very bad at reading: in this case, the in-universe version of FFXIV is from an epic poem that's not only fictional, but Omega also interpreted literally when it probably wasn't intended that way. So basically, Exdeath is like the FFXIV world's version of Beowulf (or probably more likely Grendel; we don't get much insight on the poem).

But then there's the notion that FFXIV Omega is the actual Final Fantasy crossover figure Omega, and that these aren't inaccurate interpretations of historic or fictional figures, but are Omega recreating figures it actually encountered through the rift, which it plausibly could've fallen into in pursuit of Midgardsormr. Sure enough, Omega debuted in V and made appearances in versions of I and VI, so that completely tracks, and explains why Omega's recreations are inaccurate to FFXIV's record, but are accurate to those games. It also explains Kefka, who outright doesn't appear in any in-FFXIV text, historical or fictional.

In short: neither take really syncs up to the Fifth Astral.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

The Forked Tower was cleared like, a week ago. It took longer than several Ultimates largely for organizational reasons; with Savage raids or Ultimates you can just keep trying, wipe after wipe, but with the Forked Tower you have to organize re-entry every single time, which is especially difficult with instances being busy right now.

That said, there's interesting stuff in the notes from the bosses, which you can find online.

Two of the bosses--the Demon Tablet and Marble Dragon--are Amdapori constructs. There's note that the Marble Dragon is too accurate to have been done without reference, suggesting that the creator must have been to Dravania to study them first-hand.

The 'Dead Stars'--Nereid Triton and Phobos--are tasked with managing the weather of the Crescent. Unclear what happens now that they're dead.

And the Magitaur is a voidsent, showing that this isn't entirely the Amdapor Show. Most interesting to me is that it mentions him wielding four weapons from the War of the Magi: the rune axe, sage's staff, assassin's dagger, and holy lance. Now, this is interesting because they're four of the twelve Sealed Weapons from FFV.

Finally, the 'treasure' at the top of the Forked Tower is an archive of texts in a language nobody can understand. Naturally, we don't have any idea what that entails, save that it's probably about the Fifth Astral Era.

I think most interesting of all, though, is the absence: this is only one half of FFV's Forked Tower dungeon, this is the physical tower. The other half is the magic tower that we're getting later, whose final boss is Omniscient. If you've played FFV you should already see where this is going, but if not:

https://i.imgur.com/yWPobpm.png

That's what Archive's robe is based on.

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Forked Tower boss notes speculation

Dravania is not the only place with dragons on Etheirys. The Marbled Dragon could be referenced from a Meracydian dragon. It's outfitted with what appears to be weaponry on its wings, and it does have a ring-like device around its neck. Allag has weaponized dragons before. There are mobs towards the end that appear to be platypuses. Maybe The Architect had been to or is from Meracydia.

Also it is kind of odd that there is a lot of Amdapori stuff tied to the Forked Tower. The entrance thingy where everyone places the ciphers, and is causing everyone a headache does feature Amdapori architecture. It could have been built with any other style, but they went with Amdapor.

And yeah, Archive is totally Omniscient coded! But I don't think he's going to be a boss. I think he's just an ally The Architect is allowing the Warrior of Light to have for our time on the island. We as the 'deserved' were able to undo the barrier that had sealed him a way. Maybe he was a threat back then, but now he's just a little guy. Maybe there's some dangerous memories in his head that breaks free, and we have to fight that.

I don't have much to add, but I thought the faerie being named Iris was an interesting choice -- it carries on the usual format of faeries having flower names, but also has an association with eyes, in a plot (and character) based around concealment.

I didn't see anyone bringing this up so I'll take this chance to say that the Architect of the island could be a powerful Ascian or an Ancient who managed to survive the Final days, but was fascinated with the cultures and civilizations of the fifth era that he decided to preserve it on this little island.

The reason behind me saying this is primarily due to the color scheme of the chains and seal binding the Cloister Demon (From the Calamity Bound CE), which are reminiscent of Ancient/Amaruotean magic over anything else we've ever seen during the course of the game. Furthermore, the seal also has a shell-like glyph, which is similar to how Azem crystal's summoning circle shows a glyph upon itself.

Overall, this could explain how the Architect managed to live for thousands of years ever since the War of the Magi at least. It could also explain that he had sufficient time to learn each culture and civilization to such a fascinating degree while also staying low, because someone of such capabilities and feats should surely become a legendary figure in history or folktales, calamity or not.

Wild speculation

Looking the epitaph at the end of The Forked Tower from clear videos, and thinking it could contain information about a Holy type magic just like it's FFV counterpart. But it's not FFV's version of Holy, it's FFVII's, a magic that stops threats to the planet. There is a kind of flowing illustration on it which could be related to the flood, and there are 7 spokes on the epitaph. Maybe the planet is actually alive, and the flood was a kind of immune system response. Maybe the people of the 5AA knew the planet was alive in some capacity, and that's where the 'prophecies' came from. Maybe the epitaph is an attempt to document the flood that washed away the 5AA civilizations for the purposes of recreating at will with out needing a world war to wreck havoc on the ambient aether. Which begs the question: what's in the other tower, considering Flare is just a level 50 BLM spell, Ultima?

I can't comment on the larger theory since I haven't played FFV, but regarding this bit...

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Originally Posted by mallleable

what's in the other tower, considering Flare is just a level 50 BLM spell, Ultima?

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If Flare is just a level 50 BLM spell, then Holy is just a level 45 WHM spell. So if you're speculating that there's some special sort of Holy spell then there can equally be a special sort of Flare spell.

Okay, this has me extra spooked.

From the sightseeing log of the Ziggurat in The Peaks.

"The Sixth Umbral Calamity wreaked havoc upon the realm's aetherial flow, giving rise to unstable weather patterns. Desiring to correct the disturbance, descendants of the Amdapori and the Mhachi set aside past differences and came together to build the Ziggurat, which served as a weight to still the land's writhing currents of aether."

This may have have been a 'wedge driven into the serpent's back' that was recalled by the Golden Dhyata. Maybe there are six more out there. If it is a 'wedge' then it also implies that The Peaks may be an aethericly significant location geographically.

The entry also mentioned "unstable weather patterns" so I speculate that the effects could have manifested on other shards as well considering that the lifestream seems to be linked across shards given how Minfillia was able to take the Warriors of Darkness back to The First. I think the The War of the Magi wreaked so much havoc for the planet that it caused the aetehric disturbance on The Ninth which would be the catalyst for the Storm Surge. With some handwavy time dilation of course.

The south-western area with the abandoned ascent and other archtitectures like where the mud fate spawns or the cloistered demon spawn seems to have a uniform look to it, gray stones with indigo blue accenting. Although according to the records it is an unknown fifth era city state and its architecture is unfamiliar to us.

The braziers record goes on to talk about Nald'Thal as a god of fire but also the forge, which seems to be a first to refer to him as such a patron deity of something. In addition how braziers and bonfires were created to act as ways to give offerings to Nald'Thal. Although it also makes mention how those same braziers are found at the abandoned ascent, that area of the unknown city state.

Aside from being near marshland, the only notable symbol about this unknown city state would be this:

https://i.imgur.com/X1Zp2p1.png

My apologies since there is a pillar in the way on the right, but reassured its a complete symbol. What relevance it has to ffxiv I don't know except what appears to be primary obsessions appearing to be blue, of course, but also a strange mathematical fascination with the integer of 8.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

The south-western area with the abandoned ascent and other archtitectures like where the mud fate spawns or the cloistered demon spawn seems to have a uniform look to it, gray stones with indigo blue accenting. Although according to the records it is an unknown fifth era city state and its architecture is unfamiliar to us.

The braziers record goes on to talk about Nald'Thal as a god of fire but also the forge, which seems to be a first to refer to him as such a patron deity of something. In addition how braziers and bonfires were created to act as ways to give offerings to Nald'Thal. Although it also makes mention how those same braziers are found at the abandoned ascent, that area of the unknown city state.

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While the record claims to be unknown, that pyramid is the record that triggers Archive's dialog about Karnak.

We don't have much more to add from that other than a name and the vaguely middle-eastern vibe Archive describes (turbans and the like), but there you go.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

While the record claims to be unknown, that pyramid is the record that triggers Archive's dialog about Karnak.

We don't have much more to add from that other than a name and the vaguely middle-eastern vibe Archive describes (turbans and the like), but there you go.

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Oh yeah true, so possibly they were also nald'thal worshippers based on the brazier's lore text about them also having braziers. And they might've viewed nald'thal as a fire and forge god.

If the enemies that are present are reflective of the culture of a given city state, then Karnak's has a present mix of seedkin, scaleskin, elementals, wavekin, voidsent, and unclassified (aka chimeras). With what seems to be a strong emphasis on fire-elementals and fire-scalekin and voidsent. Which feels very Ul'dah at least to me.

Mostly pondering on the emphasis on Karnak. Like is our tonberry friend from there? Also can't be Belah'dia which would later be Ul'dah and Sil'dih. So maybe some precursor desert civilization that would later inspire Mhach survivors in the 6th era to adopt?