[Lore Guys!] Garlean Race Question & Hidden Castrum in Coerthas

[Phyllo]

Rather than cancelled I'd say unused.

Btw I just checked northern thanalan and this make no sense, the praetorium is inexistant from there, I've looked from all angle possible it's just not there (even climbed on the ceruleum pipe but nope)
Even meridianum's walls size in north than does no match the size of the dungeon o.O
Which is weird considering that in praetorium, when mounting the magiteck armor, even without looking down, you can see that the tower is pretty damn high, it should be possible to see it from anywhere in the northern thanalan >_<

[Phyllo]

So I just got into meridianum and there are three things that I noticed.

First, although I could not see it well due to the ceruleum shield, the praetorium kinda look like marinarum, but really slightly that's it.

Second, the praetorium is located behind the huge rock wall we can see in north than, the one where the ceruleum pipes lead to.
The problem is that, considering how much light and glittering things there are around it (not to mention the shield) even if it was placed in a way so it was right in the dead spot behind the wall, we would still see the huge shield and spot lights and all, but no, there's nothing.

Third, when we enter meridianum, and this points explains why the size of the walls seemed off, we are not yet inside the castrum, we must first cross a bridge of earth that is covered by crystals that are not corrupted, like in mor dhona, that bridge leads to the actual castrum.
But once more there is a problem; when you're in northern thanalan, if you look behind the walls, looking from the edge of the precipice where the ceruleum pipes are located, there no such bridge, there is nothing at all, behind these walls there is another precipice making it look like a tiny square shaped fortress, that is what misled me into thinking the size were not matching.

But all of these are probably level design mistakes, it happens and it's not really a big deal, tho it made me digress a lot xD
In the end, we are still at the same point, the Praetorium's shape is not close enough to marinarum's and western highland's to say it's the standard shape of major Castrums :/

[Chewy2nd]

The problem is that, considering how much light and glittering things there are around it (not to mention the shield) even if it was placed in a way so it was right in the dead spot behind the wall, we would still see the huge shield and spot lights and all, but no, there's nothing.

You can see the spotlights in Northern Thanalan, I'm guessing the shield isn't shown because it'd only really appear at a specific point in the story

[Phyllo]

the spotlights on this picture are the ones on the wall, not the inner castrum, as i said this morning, the actual facility is behind the stone wall, all of it, meridianum and praetorium.

otherwise the earth bridge would only be about 10m long, while it's easily around 100m long.

[Antonius2004]

Bingo, I was looking for that image. Agree'd, this is way too close and appears way too big to be in Thanalan, which is what I've stuck with ever since noticing this Castrum. I bet that it, along with the Coerthas Western Highlands (And the other three inaccessible zones), will be part of Heavensward, or perhaps even just part of the general update at the time.

Just going through my Limited Edition Artbook I can see a few other areas which are categorized under Coerthas. Out of the six images only one applies to what we can currently access and that be the Gates of Judgement, the other 5 are all showing nothing familiar, not even the castrum.

The other five images include a giant cavern which could be The Witch Drop/Oger's Belly cave, one thing that sways me to say no to this is the sheer size and vastness of this concept, and the fact that there appears to be no bottom. Another (Very interesting) image is of a giant structure that looks like a hive of sorts with what appears to be many birds flying around it, this could be Ixal related. What appears to be a cavern with a yellow/gold stone in the centre which seems to be encased in webbing... And the final two are pretty simple, grassy and rocky landscapes that look as though they're straight out of 1.0.

So the question I ask is why draw concept art for stuff that we can't see? Well it's simple, it's because we can't access it... YET! We're getting Ishgard come Heavesward, and guess what? There's concept art of the internal decor of Ishgard and such. So my bet is that our mysterious Castrum will become available once the Western Highlands do so themselves.

P.S. The concept art for Ala Mhigo looks godly in a Roman kind of way. 8D

P.S.S. I'm geographical crazy about lore and geography... If that makes sense.

[Antonius2004]

Took some pictures of le Castrum, looks nice on a clear day.