Thanks to the 2nd lore book my theory on house Dzemael could hold some truth

[SannaR]

Okay so for a long while now I've always wondered why house Dzemael seems to not like the Wol and I always figured that it was because we found out they were up to some adult stuff in their Darkhold only to have it become over run with voidsent. Thanks to the lore book it could be plausible. This just going off the gear that's found inside of it as two sets are fairly skimpy and the other look like someone was hosting a costume party? I do know that in the other quests where a Dzemael house member shows up and is being a jerk is more towards the other npcs and we just happen to be there, but to me it always felt like they just never liked the fact we learned they have a kink of some sort. So anytime they see us "favoring" another house they freak out that we're going to tell them about the coliseum shawl and the dps set.

[AmemeAmeklin]

I mean we do have Haurchefant or someone else from Fortemps requesting boarskin harnesses for bedroom activities in at least one levequest so I'm gonna guess that that's not something they'd be worried about.

No, I got the impression that Dzemael has the big elitist attitude of the high houses. In contrast, Haillenarte loves artisans and they don't mind adventurers but fell on hard times recently. Fortemps is way more successful on the business side and also hires artisans and adventurers. Haillenarte and Fortemps are basically allies since they're quite similar in many respects. Durendaire and Dzemael are sorta allies with each other but both dislike Fortemps/try to rival Fortemps (and ignore Haillenarte mostly) in the political arena. Durendaire is more practical so we manage to win them over a bit in Whitebrim but Dzemael isn't on the front lines and would never lower themselves to associate with us...you can see from the Scholasticate quests that we just barely get the time of day from one of the sons, and only because Briardien is there.

As for the gear in Dzemael Darkhold, not sure any gear that drops in any dungeons necessarily has any lore significance. As an example, St Mocianne's Arboretum (Hard) is in the Dravanian Hinterlands but drops Ala Mhigan Resistance-style gear.

[Axl]

As for the gear in Dzemael Darkhold, not sure any gear that drops in any dungeons necessarily has any lore significance. As an example, St Mocianne's Arboretum (Hard) is in the Dravanian Hinterlands but drops Ala Mhigan Resistance-style gear.

Good point. Especially since the stuff that drops in Darkhold is stuff that a lot of the fighters in the bloodsands wear.

[SannaR]

I don't think the hard mode armor drops count so much? That and Haurchefant isn't like his fellow Ishgardians. Most armor in the normal versions drop gear that makes sense for where you're getting them from. They fit the theme/style of the place we're going through. Dzemael comes off as stuffy and uptight as they're the ones that seem to be strongly against anything that's not the status quo. Just look at the mch questline for example. Heck even those who are their wards seem to behave in a such a way that even if they didn't mention that they were one right off the bat it makes you go they have to be a Dzemael. It's because they're so stuffy and uptight that they would be the ones that had a secret that they wouldn't want the other houses to know about.

[Iscah]

The one exception we've seen to the usual "House Dzemael are jerks" rule is Tarresson from the moogle quests.

(And Tedalgrinche was surprisingly noble in defeat, though he was rather awful along the way.)



Also I looked up the dungeon information for the Darkhold. For what it's worth, the coliseum gear only comes from the All-Seeing Eye battle, while the other two bosses both drop the Buccaneer/Harlequin/Sentinel/Templar sets. Gear from treasure chests includes knights' armour, seneschal coatee (granted, rather revealing on female characters, but not necessarily the intent) and jester's cap.



And if you're going to hold dungeon items as actually belonging to the House previously in charge of the area.... you get peisteskin harnesses and subligars from the Stone Vigil which was a House Durendaire garrison.

Maybe the whole lot of them have interesting hobbies going on, and Haurchefant is just the only one who won't keep quiet about it.

(not being serious about that though...)

[AmemeAmeklin]

Maybe the whole lot of them have interesting hobbies going on, and Haurchefant is just the only one who won't keep quiet about it.

(not being serious about that though...)

Any culture with extremely repressed sexuality is gonna get hella weird once you get past the veneer of civility...and nobles have strange hobbies. Like the noble who wants to add weird animals you fish up to his aquarium, and at some point another noble gets into a competition with him about who can get the weirdest fish. And then there are the nobles in Camp Dragonhead who decide to create a new sport called spineball which involves kicking spiny urchins into a barrel. They even have a tournament! (levequests, how you amuse me.)

[Iscah]

Ahaha yes! I love reading through the levequest descriptions!

(Well, except for the few rather grim ones providing supplies to the Inquisition...) D:


....and ah. Right. When I said interesting hobbies I meant "interesting" hobbies of the variety Sanna is proposing....

[AmemeAmeklin]

Other than Haurchefant's rather harmless but obviously eccentric tendencies, we have temple knights who make a habit of dragging off young women from the Brume to rape them...

And then we have the Ishgardian merchant in Kugane who is not only not put off by the fact that an actor he previously thought was a beautiful lady was really an average guy in lots of make-up, he doubles down on his fascination and passionately declares his continued interest.

I'd have to keep poking around to find more flavor text and sidequests. Ishgard is a colorful place full of many secrets! I feel like most Elezen are dignified stuffed shirts at first glance but are usually secretly (or openly) obsessed with at least one thing to the point of eccentricity.

[Iscah]

Eccentric characters are the fun ones! ...Stephanivien for MSQ link-in, please.


Something that occurred to me a while ago with Ishgard is that you get so much talk of scheming nobles and politics and taking petty revenge on other Houses.... and yet we meet people from all the main families and they all seem really nice. Is it all the cousins and uncles being less courteous, or what? Obviously there are a lot more people "of the House" than those we know - most of the levequest descriptions point to characters that can't be the ones we've met. (I can't see Edmont and Baurendouin being the ones fighting it out over their rare fish collections, anyway...)

[AmemeAmeklin]

They've gotta be cousins and aunts/uncles or something. Ninne in Camp Dragonhead seems to be a noble of Fortemps, for example. 1000 years of tracking your pedigree means they'd be keeping tabs on a lot of family branches.

IRL for example they managed to find a relative or two of King Richard III to confirm via DNA that the body found in the parking lot was Richard...so quite possibly anyone up to a certain degree of separation would be considered a noble of a high house, with anyone going outside of those lines being 'demoted' to a different noble house. After all, everything we see is condensed...so we need to multiply the number of people we see in any town or area by about 10 (except for some adventurers, I think) to have a good grasp of how many people we haven't met, or how many are populating the city-states.

I think it would be funny to assume it's Artoirel with the fish collection, though. XD