The Raimdelle Codex Alces

[Kyan]

To be fair: I forgot that they were in the Hildebrand quest as fightable monsters, so I would have accepted no.

Certain minions are also present in cutscenes or field variants, such as the black coeurl kitten in Alexander Midas, or the quest chain involving the wolf pup and coeurl kitten.

If the bestiary is to focus on fightable fauna and flora, I think you should stick to your guns to avoid that grey area.

[sciencebot]

The latest GE interview explained what 'Prime' means, the disposition of poroggo, the Ishgardian Soulkin/Voidsent Conundrum, and the mystery of the single silver pugil. So, that's a lot of progress!

Have we ever heard one way or the other about the gnat vilekin/voidsent confusion, though? Ark Ked makes it seem even muddier than ever.

[Anonymoose]

Have we ever heard one way or the other about the gnat vilekin/voidsent confusion, though? Ark Ked makes it seem even muddier than ever.

It's funny you mention gnats, because I removed them from even the "This isn't very important." question list so I didn't have too many bestiary inquiries, lol. (I didn't want to have too many personal project questions at the cost of things people were actually interested in.) And yet I've made barely any progress on the gnats, shy of being a few yalms short of just accepting that they're voidsent now, or at least that Eorzeans are quick to incorrectly (but officially) deem that they are.

As you say, the Ark Ked continues to muddy the waters. Of course, not every monster in the Ark is voidsent. There's cloudkin that flew into the open hull (vulture, zu, griffin), ditto vilekin (wamoura) and what I think are wavekin skyfish (cetus, hybodus) and the elemental hydrosprites that came in with them.

As far as voidsent, We see the blackguards, hellhounds, and gargoyles come out of coffins, and the puddings come from voidgates summoned by Cuchulainn. Likewise, Echidna's Triad card calls her a voidsent in service to Scathach, which I suppose extends to her cobras (which technically make Allag's cobras synthetic voidsent or chimeric scalekin that just so happen to look exactly like void cobras? I don't know.)

Irminsul (the tree) seems like legitimate void-growth of some kind; it even uses "pulse of the void". The "Pagan" enemies (vine, shrub, knot) are extensions of Irminsul.

However, the morbols, I'd hazard, are just... morbols. Have we ever heard anything that'd put us in doubt as to the Morbol's nature? I mean, sure, perhaps an Allag-modified seedkin, but it's always been a seedkin, right? How did they get there? I don't know. Seeds hitching a ride on the wamoura? That just leaves Sawtooth, which seems directly related to Irminsul, and ...

Ark Ked

Now, gnats are explicitly called Voidsent in only one place, that I can find (FATE: Stopping the Spread). However, they're implied to be voidsent in many other places: You've got the bloodlappers that appear for the Demon Wall (both times), and the Void Jumper, which appears in two leves and one quest.

The quest, The Hidden Chapter, is actually one of those things that's easy to dismiss as a "Haw haw, dumb Eorzean!" bit of deliberate misinformation, as the other "voidsent" in this quest are bats as slugs (aka probably not voidsent). The leves, though, The Burning Reason and Throw the Book at Him both feature the same set of mobs - a gnat, a bomb, and a pudding - allegedly all voidsent. I'm going to have to personally do those leves and see if the gnats are blatantly called forth or might have just wandered into the area.

I still find it weird. 1.0 called them vilekin at every turn... (Protecting the Pilgrims, Netting the Gnats)

What changed?

I'd also love to know why there are Diresaurs in Turn 13...

[twilitfall]

It's really late for me, but I seem to recall a particular Aevis in Snowcloak called the Dove Aevis. (I'll revisit this when I'm not dead tired.)

[sciencebot]

Well, it's delightful to hear it's still due for an update someday when it's less messy; Alces is probably my favorite FFXIV thing going! Best of luck figuring out what the heck an Anala is.

I have a strong suspicion that the anala are relatives of the ananta who have adapted to volcanic environments.

The big things that make me think otherwise are the hands and the locales. The Ananta have regular human hands, the Anala have these giant claws with two thumbs and two fingers between. The tails are pretty different too, as well as the whole skull situation.

Plus the Ananta are confined to a relatively average area of Gyr Abania, but when we first see the Anala it's all the way west to the middle of Dravania-- they're up in Sohm Al's depths -- and then when we see them again in Othard, they have the bulk of three continents between them. Which seems like a lot of travel for some dudes whose primary motivator seems to be "settin' stuff on fire"!

Typically other Spoken and tool-users like the Opken don't have quite as large a range unless they're out building boats or what have you. Usually the only things that make that kind of distance are flying creatures like Hydobus from Void Ark and its relatives in the Ruby Sea, swimming ones like abundance of crabs in either locale, or elemental or voidsent type situations.

Where that leaves us... I have no idea! They show up alongside the Anila, Dhara, and Apa in the Lost Canals, which seems like a selection of weird new elementals, but it's hard to be super sure about it on just that kind of evidence. It's pretty weak! Who knows?

[Mholito]

snip

I believe the anala are an adaptation of a much more widespread species that has since gone extinct. My reason for that is because of the large distance between known colonies. Unless their capabilities for long-distance travel is much greater than it appears, I find it highly unlikely that all currently known colonies originated from the same area. Therefore, it seems more likely that certain groups of "proto-anala" either chose to move towards volcanic territories for some reason, or that they were already living there before the volcanoes appeared.

There is also the possibility that they might be some kind of golem, though the fact that they wield weapons hint at a higher level of inteligence than what we've seen from golems so far.