Tales Under the New Moon Story #2: Bringer of Shadow, Bringer of Light

[Cleretic]

Second Rising short story of the year's here!

I'm not about to spoil who this is about. But I might be the only one who started grinning like an idiot when I saw it.

Hot damn, we got Ran'jit Lore in 2023! And quite a lot of it! Like with the last story, it's basically entirely about a character that got very little story when they were relevant... but unlike the last story, it's about a character we actually did meet, who existed as more than a macguffin (albeit not necessarily in a way most people liked). I absolutely adore it; Ran'jit's got one hell of a story, it turned out. I wish that got the chance to play out in-game, that's a really fantastic tale of a fallen hero.

And it answers the question of 'where did the body go'. ...but not the answer of 'who moved the body'.

[Iscah]

Well this wasn't on the bingo card. It looks like this series might be all wrapping up skimmed-over plot points.

(BRB, hopefully scribbling "Gelmorran Duskwights", "G tribe" and "Exarch and Lyna" onto the wish list...)

But anyway, this week we get VRANDTINE HISTORY.

So if we count the local calendar in "years after the Flood"...

AF 00 = Flood of Light
AF 02 = first Minfilia born in Voeburt
AF 12 = Ran'jit born
AF 14 = Minfilia discovered and brought to Eulmore - she is 12, Ran'jit is 5

...and here my grand hope of constructing a timeline fades, because we have an unclear gap here.

"After years of secrecy" when she has grown into her role, her existence is revealed and the Sinbound battalion is founded.

Zal'bard is killed/overtaken by the Lightwarden when Ran'jit is "still scarcely more than a boy"

"Ten years after the Sinbound's founding", Minfilia dies in battle.

Three years later her "prophesied reincarnation" is found, but "lasted but a dozen summers, and did not live to see her tenth battle" -- one can only hope most of that time was in training, and she only recently took up the actual fight, assuming she is a direct reincarnation who can only be conceived and born after her predecessor dies. Still, that gives us an estimate of when the first Minfilia might have started fighting too.

If we take age 14 as the time Minfilia was first expected to do battle...

AF 16 = founding of the Sinbound battalion
AF 26 = first Minfilia dies

AF 29 = second Minfilia found
AF 41 = second Minfilia dies

"Minfilia after Minfilia" are born and reborn

AF 80 = Vauthry becomes ruler of Eulmore; Sinbound battalion disbanded.
AF ?? = Vauthry orders the current Minfilia put to death, and tasks Ran'jit with finding and confining her next reincarnation. (?? = 100 - Ryne's age, so around AF 83-84?)
AF 100 = events of Shadowbringers

====

So, unfortunately a big thing sticking out to me is, writers can't do maths, or at least don't let things like timelines get in the way of a good story. Everything up to "second Minfilia's" death is fine; events after Vauthry comes in make sense, but that gives us a window of no more than 45 years for all of the other apparently countless Minfilias to live and die. Either they were getting thrown into battle (or, according to this, nobly begging for their own deaths) as literal children, or else there can't possibly have been time for more than three to be raised to young adult age like the first two, even if they didn't survive long on the battlefield after that. Still a cruel number, but they talk about it like there must have been dozens.

[Vyrerus]

Pretty cool tale this time. Still wish it was something new to wonder about, rather than some scant details about something old. Like these past two Tales are more or less lore trivia, rather than lore that matters. Very cool. Just not very impactful.

[Brightamethyst]

Well I certainly wasn't expecting THAT, but I was very pleased to see it

So, unfortunately a big thing sticking out to me is, writers can't do maths, or at least don't let things like timelines get in the way of a good story.

Seriously. They writers are really bad at making and keeping any sort of coherent timeline.

Though in this case whoever wrote this story was probably hamstrung by the already established 100 year limit and there wasn't a whole lot they could do about.

[SannaR]

Wasn't expecting more information on that character.

It looks as though there are still some non defector reapers working?

[Cleretic]

Pretty cool tale this time. Still wish it was something new to wonder about, rather than some scant details about something old. Like these past two Tales are more or less lore trivia, rather than lore that matters. Very cool. Just not very impactful.

So far these have felt a bit more like 'lore cleanup' than anything, using current events as framework for writing about characters that didn't get much story when they were relevant, and right now are a bit too 'cold' to be worthy of a full in-game story now. Like, it'd feel weird to get an in-game Haldrath story now, and it's gonna feel even weirder come Dawntrail when we're on a whole new central story focus. So this sorta feels like 'last call for the loose ends', covering this stuff before the door closes.

Like, I feel like Ascian/Ancient stuff is gonna be inevitable here just as it has been with nearly every single short story batch since Shadowbringers, but with this pattern it's more likely to be about Igeyorhm or Nabriales than being us just continuing to beat the dead Emet-Selch. And personally, that's way more welcome for me than a lot of the 'more relevant lore', because I've gotten enough lore about Garlemald, I don't have any more questions about Thavnair, the Voidsent storyline doesn't yet need errata, and if I see The Three Stooges of Elpis one more time I'm gonna puke. But I do know where a bunch of gaps are, and frankly, Ran'jit was a big one.

[SaitoHikari]

My guess is one of the next stories is going to be a double feature about Varis and Quintus from G’raha and the twins point of view.

Namely wondering about what might have pushed Varis to unleash Black Rose in the bad timeline, then the POV shifting to Varis himself learning the truth about Solus and the way that knowledge affected him after (with Quintus possibly noticing something), then the POV shifting to how Quintus dealt with his death and the civil war, then back to people in the present day for some final thoughts on their ultimate fate in the current timeline (maybe G’raha and the twins watching some of the surviving Garleans prepare to hold a mass funeral for them both and everyone else lost).

[Alleo]

@Iscah
Shouldnt the AF be 17 when Minfilia and Ranjit first meet? Since he was born 12 years after the flood and was five when Minfilia was brought in as a 12 year old? Which also means that she was born AF5. (But maybe I can also do no maths)

Anyway countless Minfilias do make sense since our Minfilia told us that she was behaving like the Ascians. She did not get reborn as a baby after she died the first time. Her soul got free when one body died and took another girl over after that. After all Ryne could not exist as her own person if she was truly Minfilia reborn. No instead we have countless little girls that got possessed by her after another one failed. And it seems that quite a few of them were not able to do the mission and got probably killed very fast (either through Ranjit himself or by dieing in their first battle). And we dont know how many Minfilias died under Vauthry since he did want them death.

Its a sad story, so many girls getting their lifes snuffed out and I wonder how much this weighted Minfilia down more and more. She probably realized that there was simply no time for her to be reborn the normal way (I do think that the first Minfilia truly was her, since she seems to be behaving a lot like the one we know) and had to force herself onto those girls. We did get a glimpse of that in the main quest but its still nice to read about it more.

[myahele]

So far these have felt a bit more like 'lore cleanup' than anything, using current events as framework for writing about characters that didn't get much story when they were relevant, and right now are a bit too 'cold' to be worthy of a full in-game story now. Like, it'd feel weird to get an in-game Haldrath story now, and it's gonna feel even weirder come Dawntrail when we're on a whole new central story focus. So this sorta feels like 'last call for the loose ends', covering this stuff before the door closes.

Like, I feel like Ascian/Ancient stuff is gonna be inevitable here just as it has been with nearly every single short story batch since Shadowbringers, but with this pattern it's more likely to be about Igeyorhm or Nabriales than being us just continuing to beat the dead Emet-Selch. And personally, that's way more welcome for me than a lot of the 'more relevant lore', because I've gotten enough lore about Garlemald, I don't have any more questions about Thavnair, the Voidsent storyline doesn't yet need errata, and if I see The Three Stooges of Elpis one more time I'm gonna puke. But I do know where a bunch of gaps are, and frankly, Ran'jit was a big one.

Yes, I'd like to know more about Igeyorhm too. She was underdeveloped in HW and still remains underdeveloped considering how close she was with Lahabrea to the point of merging together (how much did she know of Lahabrea's plan?) and being assigned the 13th

[Alleluia]

Interesting lore. Would have liked it in the game in a questline, but oh well? lol

Gotta say, not the best writing. Started fine, from Thancred's pov, transitioned to his research before entering Eulmore, and then... it just kinda ends. lol And not even from his pov, anymore. It felt like the writer gave up on writing.