About Arevald SPOILERS

[LeonTrifang]

So I may have skipped the part, or it may be my lack of brains. I’m confused. I just beat that lady of serenity for the second time in the throne room. And Arevald. (Blonde hair, super sad backstory, face paint.) Well my question is: does he have the echo or a form of it?

[Anonymoose]

Short answer...yes.

Long answer...

Prior to the Calamity, Minfilia ran a group called The Path of the Twelve, which brought together everyone who had the Echo that they could find, hoping to protect them from the confusion and persecution they were likely to face. (Nothing was known about the Echo at the time, and they figured they could blend in with all the other religious sects and cults in town by having a weird name like that.)

During this period, Louisoix had a group called The Circle of Knowing, which was a bunch of Sharlayan Archons going rogue of "don't meddle in the flow of history" to forestall the coming Calamity. Louisoix eventually sacrificed himself for this plan, telling Minfilia she should be prepared to succeed him.

This was the birth of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, a much broader organization that began as a merger of these other two, now defined as anyone willing to fight everything revealed in the coming of the Calamity - the primals, the Ascians, etc.

The Scions still recruit Echo users, but by no means are they as ubiquitous as they were in the Path of the Twelve (pretty much everyone but their receptionist, Tataru). Arenvald was one such person, recruited to the Scions after having a "dream unlike any other." (The vision of the starshower.)

Arenvald is sometimes called in when we're busy.

[LeonTrifang]

Short answer...yes.

Long answer...

Prior to the Calamity, Minfilia ran a group called The Path of the Twelve, which brought together everyone who had the Echo that they could find, hoping to protect them from the confusion and persecution they were likely to face. (Nothing was known about the Echo at the time, and they figured they could blend in with all the other religious sects and cults in town by having a weird name like that.)

During this period, Louisoix had a group called The Circle of Knowing, which was a bunch of Sharlayan Archons going rogue of "don't meddle in the flow of history" to forestall the coming Calamity. Louisoix eventually sacrificed himself for this plan, telling Minfilia she should be prepared to succeed him.

This was the birth of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, a much broader organization that began as a merger of these other two, now defined as anyone willing to fight everything revealed in the coming of the Calamity - the primals, the Ascians, etc.

The Scions still recruit Echo users, but by no means are they as ubiquitous as they were in the Path of the Twelve (pretty much everyone but their receptionist, Tataru). Arenvald was one such person, recruited to the Scions after having a "dream unlike any other." (The vision of the starshower.)

Arenvald is sometimes called in when we're busy.

Thank you! That clears a lot up.

[Balphagor_]

If you were to replay the story you would see that Arenvald was recruited to the Scions the same time you were, he talks about what Anonymoose mentioned in that Minfilia is collecting anyone with Echo powers.

A lot of people dont realise but he has been around for a very long time, as he once was one of the background people who hang out in the base and update their text as you do more MSQs.

[Anonymoose]

Never pass up an opportunity to talk to the NPCs just standing around your quest hubs!

(Waking Sands, Rising Stones, Forgotten Knight, House Fortemps, etc.)

[Eloah]

Hmmm.... this begs a question of how Ysayle was over looked? I mean she was clear across the continent, but you'd think there would be some way of locating echo uses. But then again, though his model might suggest otherwise Arenvald is only 19, Ysayle is/was 24.

[Anonymoose]

how Ysayle was over looked?

Luck of the draw and statistics. Back then, people who awoke to the Echo had no idea what it was or that it was happening to anyone else. In 1.0, the player character didn't even know they were seeing visions; they wandered around confusing Echoes of 1562 for present-day events and confusing the hells out of everyone before one of Minfilia's people stumbled over them. That's not indicative of a very efficient operation in terms of swiftly identifying the majority Echo users and getting them the information they need.

Ysayle was born in (or near) Falcon's Nest back when Ishgard had sealed itself off from the world. When Ysayle relates the tale, she says the visions "came without warning" and at first terrified her so badly she wondered what she'd done to deserve them. It wasn't very long from there to the Calamity. It'd have been more surprising of one of Minfilia's people DID find her back then.

[AmemeAmeklin]

Never pass up an opportunity to talk to the NPCs just standing around your quest hubs!

(Waking Sands, Rising Stones, Forgotten Knight, House Fortemps, etc.)

Yeah! You never know when you'll find Moenbryda drinking Thancred under the table or see a woman agonizing about her sister's desire to be sandwiched between a pair of Roegadyn brothers...or spot Noraxia disguised as a highlander with green face paint so the others can stop screaming when they see her...or discover a male Miqo'te who hangs out with Arenvald who happens to be interested in a male Hyur conjurer...or notice the Nutkin of Modesty hanging out with Thancred in the Rising Stones...

[Fenral]

I can't recall seeing that Conjurer lately, though I'm glad the Arenvald squad seems to be out of harm's way these days. V'mah has not only outlived (literally and figuratively) many of his brethren, but also holds the dubious honor of being the first male Miqo'te NPC to appear in a major MSQ cutscene (Stormblood's ending sing-along), four whole years after they became playable!

I also appreciate the coincidence that he looked like my P2 alt color up until I changed my hair.

[Kalise]

Ysayle was born in (or near) Falcon's Nest back when Ishgard had sealed itself off from the world. When Ysayle relates the tale, she says the visions "came without warning" and at first terrified her so badly she wondered what she'd done to deserve them. It wasn't very long from there to the Calamity. It'd have been more surprising of one of Minfilia's people DID find her back then.

When did Ysayle start dabbling in becoming Shiva? Since, that could have also had an effect on how she was passed over. Like, it seems that much of the Scions detection is based on proximity. Meanwhile, when we're encountering Ysayle, she's the leader of the cult of Heretics and claiming to be the reincarnation of Shiva. Which kind of made getting close to her pretty tricky outside of either smashing your way through all the Heretics or probably being all sneaky like Thancred to get past them.

Meanwhile any murmurings of potential Echo activity could also be passed off as just typical cult hearsay about the strange powers their leader has...

The fact that it was pretty tricky to get through Ishgard, let alone travel all the way to Tailfeather (Or even to Anyx Trine, because she did befriend the dragons there, suggesting she might have spent a fair amount of time there. Which would mean, navigating your way past a bunch of dragons whom hate people...) would have also kind of hampered the ability to get to Ysayle.

On a side note: What's the deal with Shiva? Like, the way Hraesvelgr talks about her it seemed as though she was just a regular woman. But then Ysayle becomes a Primal and then Shiva is this sexy ice queen with a whole ton of icy magic of death. It confuses me because if the real Shiva was all icy death magic in real life, what's the deal with people stealing dragon eyes for power instead of doing whatever she did to become a sexy ice queen?

Then if real Shiva wasn't all icy death magic in real life... What was Ysayle's primal transformation based off?