The Motivation for King Thordan and the Knights Twelve? (HW Spoilers)

[FJerome]

-They don't come off 'evil' to me at all, in fact they all seem really drained from the whole experience & didnt find it something to be celebrated (some of them anyway..?)

Yeah, that's largely why I'm interested in this, because Prince Haldrath and the Forgotten Knight talk sins and betrayal and trading their honour. They don't seem like men who'd have gone through with this for petty reasons.

Of course, it might have been really simple; Thordan just wanted a new pair of Wyvernskin Boots, so he had to slaughter Ratatoskr. Crafting in this game really does a great job of flying in the face of the narrative... I can pop out my Midgardsormr minion and go about slaughtering Wyverns and Dragons for their skins, because I need them for crafting, yet Midgardsormr still goes "Oh yes, Hydaelyns Champion helped bring peace between our people!". No Middy, I've perhaps slaughtered more dragons than Ishgard has in its entire history, all for their skins, and I blame Rowena. I go about slaughtering sentient dragons just for crafting collectables... I hope next expansion gives us Lalafell Skins and Lalafell Leather (and Miqo'te Furs and Au Ra Scales), because going through the story and then having to farm Dragon Skins for crafting is just as grim... And people complain that PvP flies in the face of this games themes... Crafting puts you on a genocidal campaign against all life on Hydaelyn, the Warrior of Darkness was just on Warrior to farm materials, he actually mains Culinarian...

Wait, you're a level 60 Alchemist, how have you not noticed all this Spoken Blood we've been using all this time?

The time for moral quibbles passed long ago, my friend.

Nevermind, wrong Taisai Jin.

Um, stop levelling Alchemist. Don't ask why. If the Brass Blades stop by this was all just stuff I brought back clearing Voidsent out from Haukke Manor.

[Nalien]

Wait, you're a level 60 Alchemist, how have you not noticed all this Spoken Blood we've been using all this time?

The time for moral quibbles passed long ago, my friend.

I suppose the difference is that Spoken Blood isn't obtained by killing people, it seems to be taken from vampire bats. Dragon Blood, however, is only obtained by slaughtering dragons... Further proof that crafters are evil would be what they make from Dragon Blood; Potions. The main scenario makes a point of how dangerous it would be if the common folk knew that just drinking Dragon Blood could prove their lineage, meanwhile Alchemists could reasonably go around selling Dragon Blood Potions and force all of Ishgard to transform into dragons... They're not even helping Ishgard by slaughtering dragons, crafters are just aiming for chaos!

I'm certain; King Thordan saw the Lv60 recipes and knew peace between man and dragon was impossible, so he took the initiative. He knew dragons would have to be slaughtered to produce new items, so he aimed to gain power before, rather than having dragons maintain the upper hand again. The only thing he didn't count on, was that dragons are idiots; "This is Hydaelyns Champion, he/she wishes for peace between man and dragon!", says Midgardsormr, while the Warrior of Light is standing their wearing the skins of, and soaked in the blood of, a thousand dragons.

To quote Mitchell and Webb; "Are we the baddies?", I certainly don't see the Ascians going around slaughtering the franchises mascots... Perhaps we should join the Garleans... Our allies are outraged at how Garlemald handles beast tribes (slaughtering them), but how are we any better? Isn't that exactly what we aimed to do with Nidhogg? You can't tell me its wrong to slaughter one tribe, then turn around and have me slaughter Dravanians for a fancy new jacket... Just think of all the beastmen we've slaughtered doing dailies too... Sylphs especially... Sure, they aggro'd us, but given our reputation, wouldn't you want to try and deal with the crazed murderer running through your territory? We really are no better than Garlemald... They're at least doing it to stop the Primals, we only stop Primals for ponies and we butcher the beast tribes for a minion and a mount... Thordan VII's final moments make a lot more sense now...

[FJerome]

I'm certain; King Thordan saw the Lv60 recipes and knew peace between man and dragon was impossible, so he took the initiative.

So you're saying that Thordan I was just an Omnicrafter resorting to arsehole tactics to try to corner the market?

...that actually makes a lot of sense.

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The subject of using dragon bits in crafting has been something that's come up in my FC a lot, actually. It'd help if it were easier to tell which dragons are sapient people and which are just animals, because there seems to be a range there but it's not always clear, like biasts always seem to just be beasts but that one Convictory questline makes it seem like some dragonflies are people enough that wyvern mourn them.

At this point in time we're rolling with a variation of the whole "the NPCs only have limited knowledge and aren't 100% accurate in their naming" business, or at least that their naming taxonomy has no real relation to which dragons are people-dragons and which are just big lizards and these wyvern-leather hotpants I'm wearing totally weren't made from the wings of someone's mother.