Warrior of Darkness: alter ego or something completely different?

[Fenral]

As long as it's not Allagans, I'm game for pretty much anything they could throw at us.

Maybe the Lunarians are the 1st AE precursor culture that built the Heart of Sabik?

[Nalien]

The thing that strikes me as odd, is that it's just thrown in randomly... With Krile, she's been mentioned since release, and I can make a guess that one day she'll visit the Twelveswood (which the Allag clearly wouldn't call as such, so we'll have to find a Moore fitting name) and somehow an Eikon will be released and we'll get ExDeath in the form of Exodus, the Judge-Sal... With the Warring Triad and Azys Lla, I'd imagine a certain nation of magic-inept people (who've also been around since release) might develop a means to harness magic, maybe turn a certain Legate mad in the process... Best I can come up with for the moon is that Zeromus, the Condemner is up there... Heck, given how Primals work, perhaps Bahamut was never even killed and he is just chillin' on the moon like he was in IV... There was no build up though, no Four Fiends, no Tower/Giant of Babil, no Lunar Whale... I think the closest we've got is a certain Dragoon being susceptible to mind control, and he certainly does a more impressive job of it than Kain ever did... Wait a minute... How many times did Kain turn traitor due to mind control? Estinien has done it twice now... Dragons may even be Lunarians, seeing as Midgardsormr is a magical space dragon... Holy crap Nidhogg is Golbez...

Still can't fit Derplander and Elidibus being up there as well though... They were in the middle of nowhere doing seemingly nothing... Perhaps I'm overthinking things, maybe Derplander was just there to find a cave full of Hummingways to change his name...

[myahele]

I also personally believe that derplander and co are the Warriors of Light of 1.0; after all, people mentioned a group of Warriors of Light pre-calamity and if you're a legacy player then you were one of them.

From 2.0 onwards our character ends up re-establishing the WoL status and eventually the rest were forgotten. Who knows, maybe WoD and his crew were intercepted by an Ascien (or Zodiark pulling a Hydaelin) and slowly convinced them to be on their side. There's a lot we don't know Echo and Hydaelin, but there are plenty of hints in game that the Ascien aren't that "bad"

Elidibus did say we'll join his side if we knew the truth. The Path of Knowing (Minfilia's group pre-scions) consisted of echo-users trying to find out more about the echo. Apparently, they go on journeys to learn more, but once they return they learn disturbing things that's best left unsaid. Then there's also the Archon/ echo wielder joining "cloaked mages"

I don't have the quote, but they did mention that the derplander and co are "real" character within the game and who knows if we'll "bump" into them.

Louisoix specifically time warps the WoLs in 1.0 .... maybe they were transported a little bit later into the game's timeline like after our character became the de facto WoL and gained Hydaelin's blessing? In other words, there was not much they could do since the we already defeated the primals/Garleans. All they could see was just the aftermath: threat was removed but things are still a mess

I think Darklander and WoD!Broegadyn are real, in-game characters, while DRG Derplander continues to take "our" place in the few scenes they showed.

Time will tell.

My thoughts exactly! There's the character-insert derplander used for promos and then there's the WoD Derplander. Thematically, it kinda shows (to us) the 2 sides of the same coin type of thing since they're using the same model for promo WoL and WoD

[Cilia]

I think Darklander and WoD!Broegadyn are real, in-game characters, while DRG Derplander continues to take "our" place in the few scenes they showed.

Time will tell.

[Frederick22]

But this is so confusing. Imagine we cant make a character of our own. Imagine we are Derplander ( no customise, no name, etc ). So we will facing our dark side again?
But if we are complete different charaters ( us, whoever the players wanted to make their characters ) We will be facing a WoD version of the GC adventurers?

[Kallera]

But this is so confusing. Imagine we cant make a character of our own. Imagine we are Derplander ( no customise, no name, etc ). So we will facing our dark side again?
But if we are complete different charaters ( us, whoever the players wanted to make their characters ) We will be facing a WoD version of the GC adventurers?

No you're not "facing your dark side", even if the WoD was a doppelganger. Different origins.

Though being able to create our WoD would be rad as hell, and likely not planned for. ^^;;;

[Frederick22]

snip

Remember that there are screenshots of Derp and his party on an echo vision?
Derp had a weapon of light and he and his party had not Af1 dyed in black.

[Kallera]

Remember that there are screenshots of Derp and his party on an echo vision?
Derp had a weapon of light and he and his party had not Af2 dyed in black.

Echo visions are cutscenes.

Its more like I wish it happened that way. Not that it will happen that way.

[Frederick22]

Echo visions are cutscenes.

Its more like I wish it happened that way. Not that it will happen that way.

I know they are, but that even makes more question than answers.

Based on that I can just speculate that maybe they were WoL on the begining but something happened. But where do we end on this? what happens if we are legacy players ( as them ) or we arent?

[Nalien]

Yeah, that's pretty much it. There is still the possibility that Darklander is just completely separate, but then that just creates confusion IMO, I can't see why they'd make such an obvious connection (same appearance, same pre-Heavensward Jobs) if the intention is for the Warriors of Darkness to be entirely new characters...

I'm certainly more interested in the theory of Derplander becoming Darklander, just because that seems far more interesting from a narrative point. It effectively gives us another swing at the same ball Edda was throwing; A look at how our existence has impacted, perhaps negatively, other adventurer's. Not to mention fits nicely with what Elidibus has been alluding to all this time...

That said, having some form of copy is perhaps the better route, just to avoid confusion with promotional material... Plenty of ways they could even create a copy, I mean we already have Clones, and an Alchemist recently figured that out (not that I think the Ascians would need to figure it out, if anything I'd suspect they gave Allag the technology in the first place...). I've also got a nice little theory that may or may not be a Final Fantasy XI reference... Remember when Ramuh mused on the origins of Light and Darkness, and man? I'm just going to guess that man is made up of both Light and Darkness, since it's a fairly common trope... Final Fantasy XI had a similar plot point, with the Zilart actively attempting to remove Darkness from individuals... My XI lore is incredibly rusty these days, but I'm fairly certain this went some way to the creation of the Warriors of the Crystal, who basically were the Warriors of Darkness... Same thing here, except Louisoix inadvertently did it when he cast his spell on the group (which I imagine is of a similar grade to the spell Y'shtola resorted to... So with its own risks), or that 5 year gap gave the Ascians time to do so. We'd then effectively have pre-Calamity Derplander (Light+Dark), then post-Calamity Lightlander (who is now a Dragoon) and Darklander, to continue the current nomenclature . Then of course, is the possibility of a alternate world where Darklander is from, where things played out differently, which I only mention because the Heavensward trailer put the idea in my head (he arrives at Ishgard, alone, and in the middle of a battle, he then defends Ishgard from an assault, rather than traveling to Dravania to prevent the assault...), I imagine that is more down to the time the trailer was first drafted, though.

One thing I have wondered though, is what is their motivation? Three things from the trail;

The Paladin attacks Y'shtola.
Darklander fights Ravana.
Someone (I assume Darklander) says "So you are the Warrior of Light, the savior of Eorzea", and his tone is not a pleasant one...

Now, ignore the point about Y'shtola for a minute... They're fighting Ravana? Err... Why do we have a problem with them then? They're doing our job for us, let me play Lord of Verminion while they take care of Primals! No, I suspect something else is going on here... If they're putting down Primals, why clash with Y'shtola? Why the disdain for the Warrior of Light? I think Y'shtola may have the answer already. Right now, she comments on how we put down one Primal, only for another to take its place... Perhaps their disdain for us, and willingness to fight us, comes from the fact that we've not really been dealing with Primals? We've just perpetuated a cycle of resummoning...

My favorite of topics though... Yes, this could be the lead up to Free Company Primal Summoning! Been saying it since 2.4 and I'll keep saying it dammit! Why do we visit Gnath lands and encounter the Warriors of Darkness in the first place? Answer; Something was happening in Gnath lands. What? Warriors of Darkness were harassing Gnath. Why? So they'd summon Ravana. If we're dealing with Primals incorrectly, why attack us because of it? Why actively be hostile against us? No, I think they were there to get Gnath to summon Ravana so they could claim Ravana as their own... Why? Who knows, but that would certainly be motivation for Y'shtola to end up clashing with them.

A more... grounded... theory, perhaps, would be that they're doing exactly what we've been told they're doing; Restoring equilibrium. They're going around undoing (good) things we've done... We bested Ravana, so he gave his word that he wouldn't attack the nearby dragons? Those dragons are now arguably Ishgards best hope of forging peace... Yep, Warriors of Darkness kicks Ravana down and tells him to resume that conquest, weakening Hraesvelgrs brood and thus strengthening Nidhoggs...

That said... I want Free Company Summoning already! Elidibus spoke of having to deal with the consequences of Lahabreas failures... What consequences? That Ysayle turned out to be an ally? That Thordan VII showed us how easily a Primal can deal with Ascians? Does our might encroach upon the realm of gods because we might finally be thinking "Hey, if we summon a Primal, it wont roam free and be a danger and blight on the land, we can just summon it for a second to blast Ascians!", what better way to put us off that idea than to send a group of jerks to do just that (and remove any Ascians Elidibus might disagree with hmmm) to reinforce the idea that it's an evil thing to do, and undo any positive enforcement for that scheme our time with Ysayle may have offered...

You know what's funny? I had a much better post written up, saying basically all of this, that I apparently forgot about when I went to check Elidibus' moon dialog when I noticed the statue...