Revelations from Fan Festival Around the World 2021

[Iscah]

Images of the Magus Sisters has been spotted in the Pandaemonium artwork, so they might be associated with that quest line?

Logically those must be the Lunar Magus Sisters there, which would explain the lack of technicolor-ness.

Huh, that's artwork from 1.0 I think.

The one with what looked like Garuda looking at the WoL [...]

I'm pretty sure that's meant to be Hydaelyn.

The second is Mare Lamentorum; here "Mare" probably refers to an astronomical definition of the word, which is "a large, level basalt plain on the surface of the moon, appearing dark by contrast with highland areas."

True, though also overthinking the explanation. Those basalt plains on the real moon are all named with the format "Mare [Latin word]" so the pattern is being continued here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...ia_on_the_Moon

Zenos when he stands up look like they gave him a makeover. His nose is very straightened out, and his jawline is different. His face when he stands up screams HIMBO. That coupled with the character line up cover art has me suspicious that they really will pull some sort of Golbez-like plotline with him.

I haven't watched the trailer, but have we ever fully seen Zenos in CG before? I think he's only been in the Shadowbringers trailer wearing his helmet.

I wouldn't put too much focus on characters looking off-model in the trailer anyway. The CG models always look strange to me.

We already have their background lore, which is that the males are taken out of the female settlements to be raised by other males as soon as they're old enough to get on without their mothers, then they simply live as hidden guardians of the wood.

I forget - was that Viera or Viis lore? It all blurs together for them.

[Rocl]

Fashionably late. There's a lot to go through here, so I apologize for picking on Iscah alone.

Logically those must be the Lunar Magus Sisters there, which would explain the lack of technicolor-ness.

Right, and the fact they're in a tower. If I had to guess, based on the dungeon trailer...

The Magus Sisters will be the Primal of the Arkasodara, and we'll be seeing both Lunar versions and non. The tower dungeon they showed has Matanga imprisoned in the way the Amalj'aa were that summoned Lunar Ifrit.

I'm pretty sure that's meant to be Hydaelyn.

Whether it was originally meant to be Hydaelyn or not might be debatable (I put forth that they very likely had no idea what Hydaelyn the Goddess looked like until after Yoshida took over, and she was likely not meant to be a Primal Goddess in that age, if you consider the Ascians themselves were not fleshed out in that era.) but if you look at the art it's very clearly Garuda, and I believe it has been confirmed as such, though I lack sources so feel free to disregard that. The cloven feet, four-winged head seem to heavily point in that direction—she lacks the lower wings that Garuda later has though. If this was meant to be Hydaelyn, she clearly got a redesign as both the 2.0 and 5.0 art for her look very different! We can't see her legs in the ARR CE, but her head lacks a set of wings, and the ones she has are a different shape. The Endwalker art definitely copies the 2.0 boxart design for Hydaelyn as well.

I haven't watched the trailer, but have we ever fully seen Zenos in CG before? I think he's only been in the Shadowbringers trailer wearing his helmet.

I wouldn't put too much focus on characters looking off-model in the trailer anyway. The CG models always look strange to me.

I think it's the right call not to read too much into the CG Trailers. Though I'm sure they've learned from their mistakes, never forget Hraesvelgr appears as the antagonist in the Heavensward trailer due to human error (and was later coloured pink and multiplied so you wouldn't get confused). That said, Zenos has only appeared, to my knowledge, in the Shadowbringers trailer before this and he was fully armored with the broken mask (and arguably not Zenos but I digress...)

So as an aside I'm honestly surprised the trailer didn't remove the clouds over Ilsabard. And now that there's only one zone left unknown, I guess we really won't be going there outside of Garlemald this expansion. I'm not exactly disappointed per se, but I'm quite surprised. I was expecting that.

While I'm annoyed the clouds didn't disperse over Ilsabard, I'm more annoyed the Sharlayan Forum apparently can't spring for a map with Ilsabard revealed. I'd rather they not show the map in the Forum than show us a censored one!

[KageTokage]

The Magus Sisters will be the Primal of the Arkasodara, and we'll be seeing both Lunar versions and non. The tower dungeon they showed has Matanga imprisoned in the way the Amalj'aa were that summoned Lunar Ifrit.

*potential spoilers on 6.0 dungeon order*

I was picking my brain over what the heck those things in the walls were, but I guess that means the tower probably is the initial dungeon for Thravnair after all and that the region might actually have a second MSQ dungeon as one of the slides from the previous keynote showed an outdoor instance with everything ablaze.

I can only assume the tower extends deep into the earth for there to be that much architecture as there certainly isn't enough space up top to house all of that...though that makes me question whether or not all of the towers are vast, nightmarish underground prisons like that.

I also noticed the Thravnair tower is a bit different as its lights are white as opposed to red and has some strange purple root-like structures emerging from its base, though it's possible all of them will end up like that in due time.

Viera lore, from the Wandering Dramaturge in Stormblood. But viera and viis lore are practically interchangeable.The architecture in the moon is distinctly Amaurotine, which confuses me since I thought the moon was created as a prison for Zodiark and that would have happened after Amaurot ceased to exist. Unless I’m remembering wrong.

There's honestly still too much we don't know about the pre-Sundering time period to have more then guesses to throw at the subject, I'd say.

It seems like that last dungeon in the preview is the one for Mare Lamentum, though, which looks to be an expansive research facility of such a scale that it makes me wonder if perhaps the moon was being considered as a potential second home for the Ancients; particularly with a section of it looking to be devoted to the research/creation of biomes.

So we are probably gonna skip the whole Ilsabard lands, and get to Garlemand by that train dungeon, ala FFXV train in the second part of the story

I have a feeling the "train" dungeon is actually the Garlean royal palace as the hallways in there are a dead ringer for how the place looked back when we ran through it as Estinien, albeit now with very unsettling spinal cord-like structures strewn about.

I assume we opt to take the sneaky route in because the obvious way is liable to have the bulk of the Telophoroi's forces guarding it.

[EaraGrace]

I also noticed the Thravnair tower is a bit different as its lights are white as opposed to red and has some strange purple root-like structures emerging from its base, though it's possible all of them will end up like that in due time.

Could be the opposite as well, Urianger mentions that the “respite afforded this land was but fleeting, the end draws nigh.” That plus the map only having embers and not flames like in Eorzea seems to suggest it wasn’t hit hard yet. Maybe that’s the tower in it’s pre-activation stage? The roots may be its initial influence spreading.