Something doesn't add up regarding the connection between Amdapor and Norvrandt...

[geekgirl101]

We've also seen a similar fiend in the First that we've known for a long time in the Source - the Demon Wall. That rather surprised me to see one of those in the First, so I did some digging after reading this topic and reventured into Amdapor Keep and read up the dungeon information regarding the different segments of Amdapor.

Whilst inside the final dungeon a couple of things took my interest - Dark Wings, a regal lion which is identical to one of the Lightwardens we fought on the First, the Crystallum which is a regal looking chamber flooded with Light and filled with Light-based monsters that brings to mind Vauthry's palace in the sky, and what should we meet with at the end of the Crystallum? A powerful sin eater capable of summoning both Light and Dark lesser sin eaters.

Putting aside the recent activities of the Lambs of Dalamud that reawokened the monsters inside that had for centuries been sleeping in stone, what happened back in the ancient city of Amdapor bears a striking resemblance to events that were happening on the First. Wielders of powerful and forbidden magicks who could reshape the fabric of existance and saw themselves as gods, monsters born of dark aether that transformed other living beings and fauna into blood-thirsty monstrosities, and a catastrophe that followed that brought about the end of the Fifth Astral Era. This sounds like the works of Ascians creating the very same monstrosities that were resulting in the very same disaster as on the First only this was Dark-based instead of Light-based. They were doing exactly the same thing back then.

Which now makes me wonder, was Diabolos originally a Darkwarden?

[Iscah]

and what should we meet with at the end of the Crystallum? A powerful sin eater capable of summoning both Light and Dark lesser sin eaters.

It's not a sin eater, it's an Amdapori golem that somehow happens to be identical to one. (Note that it remains as a stone statue after the battle is over.)

Also worth noting in the hard dungeon: in the area leading down to what was originally Diabolos' arena (named "the Arrested Darkness") we encounter several "Rift Dragons".

From what they said in the recent live letter about having settled on their plans for Shadowbringers by around 3.4, the idea would have been coming together when the Lost City hard dungeon came out in 3.2 - though I'm not sure how far in advance they'd be working on a patch dungeon.

[geekgirl101]

It's not a sin eater, it's an Amdapori golem that somehow happens to be identical to one. (Note that it remains as a stone statue after the battle is over.)

Also worth noting in the hard dungeon: in the area leading down to what was originally Diabolos' arena (named "the Arrested Darkness") we encounter several "Rift Dragons".

The Rift Dragons did in deed capture my attention, making me question whether this hinted that the Amdapori mages were perhaps meddling at opening rifts. This springs to mind the 2 mages on the First who were being taught how to open up rifts, I forget their names.

My theory on the final bosses at the dungeon were that they were perhaps sin eaters at one time and once they had expended their energies turned into stone, but I got nothing to back that theory up so I was maybe wrong about it. There's not a huge amount of detail about what happened during the Fifth Astra Era that I could find other than it was a time when Eorzeans first discovered magic and were dabbling with black magic, whilst mages in Adampor developed white magic in order to counter them. What I didn't do was look up and read up about the following era, the Sixth Umbral Era, which explained the use of void magic, where Diabolos came from, and a fair amount of detail in what caused the era to end. I guess I should've really done my homework a lot more than I did and not just relied on the one source I was using last night that didn't give me much to go by.