Patch 3.4 - Soul Surrender

[Laili]

I want Mystic Knights, spellblades are woefully underutilized in a lot of games.

[Nalien]

Damn SE, this has been a loooong time coming;

How old is the concept art we have of this? Four, five years? Anyone even have that still?

Also;

Forced to flee the Black Shroud for fear of the elementals and their boundless wrath, the Ixal settled the windswept mountains of Xelphatol more than five hundred and fifty years ago. Since that day, they have labored tirelessly to eke out an existence in these harsh and unforgiving lands, slowly but surely expanding their dominion over the entire region. Yet the Ixal have never forgotten that which was once denied them, and so they seek divine intervention once more─to summon Garuda and beseech her strike down their enemies. In the shadow of the First Mountain, the ritual nears completion, as a brave hero once more races against time to deliver the realm from destruction.

Sounds like round... Four? With Garuda is coming up... Oh lord, is she going to be the dungeon boss? That'd be hilarious, and very fitting with the recent slew of dungeon bosses throwing back to past titles... Garuda from FFIII, bring your Dragoons for Jump!

Needless to say, Xelphatol sounds like MSQ material, while Gumball is sounding more and more like a random jaunt for random reasons, just like I suspected... In other news;



The Mask is coming to town! Is that Idyllshire, or some random Hinterlands ruins... Might be Thanalan ruins instead though, I guess we are expecting a showdown with Derplander in Thanalan... Either way, guess Yda has a good chance of returning, if the Masks are entering the MSQ proper...

Ruins look remarkably similar to the ones outside Qarn (thank you Anima quest), although I can't find the exact spot... Could always be opening up a new part of Thanalan, or similar assets were reused elsewhere entirely, but for now... That's making me think the Corpse Brigade is about to get some relevance... That gate at the bottom of their lair has been taunting me long enough...

[Ceasaria]

Please, I want "Minstrel's ballad : Garuda (savage)" !!!

The description for Xelphatol dungeon is way more detailed in english than in french (we don't even know it's Garuda).
For Gubal, it's Midnight Dew who will send us here to search a book on behalf someone mysterious (I bet it's Rowena).

The title of the 3.4 for us, it's "Les gardiens des âmes" --> "The guardians of souls"

[Anonymoose]

MAIN SCENARIO

Looking like Ilberd isn't a bad guess for who was approaching that Masks uniform suspiciously. He could be planning to hijack the movement. Though, while that may be the popular theory, it could just as easily be a reformation of the Ala Mhigan Kingsguard (aka Corpse Brigade). If I recall correctly, the second-in-command looks quite similar. Either way, the Masks seem suspiciously well-funded / official, so I'm looking forward to that.

And for translations, we have Soul Surrender, Soul Inheritors, Soul Guardians, and Soul Legacy...

XELPHATOL

Something seems off about that blurb. I have 550 years ago as when the Ixal settled the Black Shroud from the newspaper release in 2012.

Some 550 years in the past, the Ixal chose the forest of Tinolqa* as their homeland. The stories say they built their nests in its trees, and, spreading their wings to the wind, were able to soar among the branches. Even in this ancient time, the Ixal, feeling kinship with the creatures of the sky, revered Garuda as the Empress of Birds. During this age of prosperity the feathered beastmen flourished and multiplied, overflowing the borders of their territory. Their unchecked growth, however, angered the elementals, and the Ixal were cast out of the forest. The exiled birdmen, in search of a new place to roost, migrated en masse to the great canyon known as Xelphatol.

Did they settle, overpopulate, and get expelled from the Twelveswood all in one generation...? I'd assume 1.0 has the error, that they lived in the Shroud until 550 years ago. It gives them time for Natalan to warp their physiology, and it'd time their expulsion with roughly the first contact between Gelmorra and the Elementals, which you'd have to imagine would really annoy the Ixal; Gridania emerges just as they exit? That's bound to create some bad blood.

Looks like the Warrior of Darkness will be in on this, as well, considering we keep meeting at primals.

[swiss_Momo]

The description for Xelphatol dungeon is way more detailed in english than in french (we don't even know it's Garuda).
For Gubal, it's Midnight Dew who will send us here to search a book on behalf someone mysterious (I bet it's Rowena).

For further comparison, the German text just talks about "the WoL learning of a planed primal summoning". However, it also mentions "the WoD seeming to be somehow involved as well"

[Theodric]

So either Garuda is going to be summoned again or the Warrior of Light manages to prevent it from happening in the nick of time? Either way the implications are interesting and depending on how it plays out it may add some weight to the brute force approach that Garlemald takes where Primals/Eikons are concerned. With that said I do wonder who or what ends up tipping us off to the fact that something is amiss in such an obscure region.

As far as the mysterious masked figure goes...the mask itself looks fairly sinister and the Ala Mhigan Resistance seems like a cause that could quite easily be hijacked by someone like Ilberd seeking to cause trouble. We've already seen a fair few examples of Ala Mhigans justifying actual and attempted atrocities in the name of their homeland. The skin tone, too, matches Ilberd's own.

After what Ilberd has done I doubt that he will be the 'Ysayle' of 3.4, 3.5 and 4.0. I'll be very disappointed if that turns out to be the case as he's in a prime position to be a great antagonist that we can love to hate. He's also someone who could easily twist the Ala Mhigan Resistance into something so horrid that we end up allying with some of the more moderate factions/individuals within Garlemald's territory.

I also can't help but note that Elidibus specifically states to the Warrior of Darkness that the Garleans will 'play their part'. I suspect that part of his plan may very well include trying to bait Garlemald and Eorzea into a fresh escalating conflict - and Ala Mhigo seems like a pretty logical place for that to happen.

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in 3.4 and beyond!

[Nalien]

Did they settle, overpopulate, and get expelled from the Twelveswood all in one generation...?

Possibly... To overpopulate they don't necessarily need to reproduce, they could have just started migrating en mass following the discovery of "Tinolqa" after deciding its their new homeland... They have to have come from somewhere before hand, after all, we know quite a bit about their origins at this point, although there are still some pretty big gaps... Wonder if Azys Lla will come up at all in this encounter, now that I think about it... It's also possible that the Allagan made them to reproduce and develop fairly quickly, given that would only be a benefit to their intended purpose, so that could also account for a rapid overpopulation problem, assuming such a trait hadn't degraded at that point...

Could also just have been an interpretation of events... I guess the Seedseers might know the Elementals motives, but rather than being run out for overpopulating and expanding, the Elementals could have just recognized them as Allagan and slapped a big fat "Nope!" on them for it... People see a new tribe moving in and growing, Elementals push back for reasons, people assume it's because they've done something wrong... Would actually be great if this was all just a misunderstanding... After Ul'dah, Gridania (and Limsa) really need more flaws to be highlighted... Having the Elementals start a conflict with the Ixali, just because the Elementals are racist against Allagan constructs, while Gridania justifies it with "They were expanding too quickly and damaging the forest!", when they may not have been the case... That could be fun... Is it bad that I want Hydrus to actually have a point when he calls us savages? I don't want Eorzea to be as idyllic as it perhaps currently is...

[Anonymoose]

Wonder if Azys Lla will come up at all in this encounter, now that I think about it...

I'm hoping that they tie it back to Garuda's origin story, if so.

The Empress of Birds who defeated the Lord of Snakes: Ixal vs. Lamia during the exodus from "Ayatlan"?

[Nalien]

I'm hoping that they tie it back to Garuda's origin story, if so.

The Empress of Birds who defeated the Lord of Snakes: Ixal vs. Lamia during the exodus from "Ayatlan"?

I still really want this to tie back to Midgardsormr... I'm so bothered by his complete lack of presence during the Allagan reign... They built an end-of-the-world tower next to his lake for crying out loud! Never mind what they did to his kids... Gaius was just happily flying over the lake and he gets is ass handed to him for it... I don't get that wyrms motives...

Having the Lord of Snakes instead be the Lord of Wyrms, though... Well... That kills two birds with one stone... The Allag would have done battle with him, presumably in much the same way Gaius did, and presumably because he attempted to deny them flight... Those ships would have been full of Iksalion for maintenance... The battle is won, though many ships fell, but "Garuda" claims her prize and harvests Midgardsormrs corpse and that unlocked Neurolink development for the Allag... That blob of flesh in the Neurolink Nacelle? Cloned Midgardsormr... That sends out the signal that compels dragons to obey the Allag via Neurolinks... That's three birds with one stone! I'm offending some many Ixali right now...

That's almost certainly absurd though... More likely a Ixal vs. Lamia style thing, but again I'd bring it back to the Allag... Perhaps because Garuda is much more human than she should otherwise be... Having the Empress of Birds be the mother of the Ixali, as in the one who developed the Iksalion (and Mirrorknight/etc.) project, while the Lord of Snakes developed the Lamia (and Shabti/etc.) project... That sounds fun to me... A battle over project funding, to the death! The titles, just office slurs! The threat? Grounding their research!

[myahele]

I can't help but wonder if the original Garuda feasted upon the aether of a Primal? I am reminded of Unukalhai's story of heroes being corrupt as they used up the energy of "gods" and eventually craved and consumed aether.

As it stands she's the only Primal who forced other beast tribes to summon their respective primals in order to consume them. I also figure that the Ixali attempting to summon Garuda in Xelphaltol will prompt the Garleans to action since it borders Gyr Abania - a direct threat to them. Would be interesting if Ixals have summoned Garuda to deal with the Garleans near their border rather than Gridania for the time being.

Based on what little we see, the person does look like the Highlander face model of Ilberd, even the tanned skin looks similar.

I am interested to know what exactly is going on in Ala Mhigo now that Gaius and his crew are no longer there. Is there a new Van ruling, for example.