The entire first blood.

[Rocl]

I wonder if there's a connection?





Both have the red line on their faces and both are pretty much possessed. Could this be an ability of the Great Wyrms to possess people this way?

This is one of the first things I freaked out about in private when Estinien displayed the same cracks at the seams in 3.2. I hope it's specific to great wyrms but I also wouldn't be surprised if it's just "too much aether in a mortal body" type thing too

[Frederick22]

Bit of topic, nobody is going to make a thread of the preview+ gamer's escape?

plis anon, come and help to my plea.

[Enkidoh]

I wonder if there's a connection?





Both have the red line on their faces and both are pretty much possessed. Could this be an ability of the Great Wyrms to possess people this way?

Nael van Darnus (including his gender-swapped aetheric clone in T9 as shown above) is a different case though

as he was not actually possessed by a great wyrm, but by a Primal - remember, the Bahamut in Dalamud that laid waste to everything in the Calamity was not the real Bahamut as it turned out, but a Primal 'shade' Tiamat created in her grief after the real one was killed by the Allag. Hence Nael was simply tempered as a Primal thrall just like any other, and the 'glowing red lines on the face' I wouldn't read into too much - they're just there for the coolness factor and probably also to help emphasize how inhuman, uh, inelezen, Nael had become now.

Having said that, it is clear the great wyrms can influence mankind - this seemed to be especially the 'curse' that doomed most, if not all, Azure DRGs eventually, this was shown even back during the level 50 DRG quest (the original one) where Nidhogg seized control of Estinien even then, making his later appearance in the storyline "in control of himself" all the more ridiculous as it came across as a handwave. Or foreshadowing, depending on your point of view.

Personally though, I think the main crucial factor to a great wyrm enthralling a spoken is if said spoken is of Isghardian birth, that is, they bare Ratatoskr's 'taint'.

Or maybe I'm rambling again.

[LineageRazor]

Nael van Darnus (including his gender-swapped aetheric clone in T9 as shown above) is a different case though

I'm guessing that up until Esti started displaying those lines, most of us suspected just as you did

that Nael's lines were either due to possession by a powerful primal, or a side effect of being a weird aetheric cross-gendered clone.

Now though, that we've seen similar lines on someone whose possession can't be either of those things, though, it's reasonable to speculate that it might have something to do with Great Wyrm possession. Bahamut may have been a Primal, but that doesn't necessarily mean he was no longer a Great Wyrm as well.

[Zohar_Lahar]

I interpreted those red markings slightly differently: that they are an ascended stage of Azure Dragoon (or whatever you'd call it) representing advanced link with the great wyrm. Estinien is already established as Nidhogg's pawn, and Nael certainly became a dragoon for the Dreadwyrm (even if s/he didn't realize it).

Perhaps someday, in future expansions, later player Dragoon skills will show a similar effect to reflect the submission link with Midgardsormr.

[Remus]

I interpreted those red markings slightly differently: that they are an ascended stage of Azure Dragoon (or whatever you'd call it) representing advanced link with the great wyrm. Estinien is already established as Nidhogg's pawn, and Nael certainly became a dragoon for the Dreadwyrm (even if s/he didn't realize it).

Perhaps someday, in future expansions, later player Dragoon skills will show a similar effect to reflect the submission link with Midgardsormr.

Maybe in 4.0 Dragoon will get a skill like that.

[myahele]

As seen with the 3.0 trailer, Estinien can transform into a elezen-nidhogg hybrid:


So I guess that's another thing possessed Nael and Estinien have in common,too