Revelations from Keynote II

[Iscah]

On the topic of the cloaked figure in the Artwork - I don't really think it's G'raha Tia. They try their best not to intertwine Raid Story with the MSQ, and then again, wouldn't they have told players to complete the Crytal Tower Raids by now...?

I was writing about this the other day (link), but I think if there's time travel in play and this is "Future G'raha" that we're dealing with - whether we go to his time or he comes back to ours - then it's not necessary to have completed the Crystal Tower raids. He is from a point in time where those events have already taken place, whether you have personally experienced them yet or not.

If players haven't completed the questline yet, I think it could be easily sorted out with some variable dialogue at the start - he'll recognise and greet you, because he's been through that story with you, even if you-at-the-current-time have never met him. So your character would react in one of three ways: (for those who haven't started yet) no idea why this unfamiliar person knows you; (for those partway through) confusion because you do know him but not like this; and (for those who completed it) full recognition and wanting to know how he got out of the tower.

That would lead into a customised explanation of what's going on, possibly with some "you mustn't speak a word of this to my past self next time you see him!" warnings for those who haven't finished.

[Berethos]

On the topic of the cloaked figure in the Artwork - I don't really think it's G'raha Tia. They try their best not to intertwine Raid Story with the MSQ, and then again, wouldn't they have told players to complete the Crytal Tower Raids by now...?

That wouldn't prevent them from bringing in a character if they felt it would work (and who knows, maybe tapping into the darkness in the void somehow with the help of G'raha to offset the surge of light coming is part of how Shadowbringers all goes down), as you could both be in the midst of the Heavensward story, working your way toward meeting Hraesvelgr for the first time with Estinien coming along...while also preparing to deal with him losing control to the Eye in and around the 40s Dragoon quests.

If they decide to bring him back, they'd just treat the CT as if it existed in a time bubble (like many other things they've done this with).

Honestly, the last time I can remember them actually requiring that you clear side-content for the sake of future MSQ was clearing out the three Hard Mode primals, and that had more to do with a specific set of MSQ NPCs that handed out those quests being moved as part of the MSQ. Since CT is a side story, it can easily exist in the same kind of time bubble that the job quests often do.

[alimdia]

My main problem with the theory of G'raha is that it hinges on that smirky mouth face, but that's not a face unique to him, that's a default face every catboy has access to. Who's to say Emet-Selch isn't using a Miqo'te body?

[Kalise]

My main problem with the theory of G'raha is that it hinges on that smirky mouth face, but that's not a face unique to him, that's a default face every catboy has access to. Who's to say Emet-Selch isn't using a Miqo'te body?

Well, it's not just the smirky face, but also the purple stuff on his face/neck and arms.

Which, is best guessed at being some sort of crystalline corruption that G'raha may receive from his time in the Crystal Tower.

So far, there haven't been many other plausible theories about what the purple stuff all over the dude actually is.

[Fenral]

I mean, any catboy player has access to that face, but there are a lot of possible combinations for each face type. With barely a dozen named male Miqo'te NPCs in the world, one happens to have that exact skintone, mouth, nose, jaw, and (if you look closely) eyebrows. For a truly new character, they would almost certainly have come up with a unique face model as they have for major players in Stormblood, rather than recycle the exact presets used by a noteworthy character from 2.X.

Either way, most of the stuff being talked about with regards to G'raha himself has come up in other threads in response to him suddenly coming up in places like Eureka and the Omega storyline, as well as the casual name-dropping Salina and Desch got in the Heaven-on-High story, almost as if they want to make sure he's back in player consciousness for some reason. It's not so much that the cover art has suddenly inspired speculation about his return, as the new art reveal seems to be in line with speculation that was already going on after the last few major patches.


(And the reason I'm so sure about the accuracy of the presets is that, like some of the ARR key visuals, this one appears to be painted over actual in-game character models. See also: The Art of Eorzea, pages 10-11.)

[RicaRuin]

Unpopular opinion, but I think the stuff covering the neck and face looks more grey-ish and not really crystalline. At least for the part covering the face, I would claim it looks more like a nasty scar than crystals.

[Merehm]

It's me or his right arm is thinner than his left ?

[LineageRazor]

Read through this thread in one sitting, and was a bit amazed to see the G'raha theory postulated and catch on so fiercely. I don't see it, at all - even after the sketched-in G'raha eye marks. The stuff on the neck and face looks exactly like Au Ra scales to me, with the exception that they're gray rather than black or white. It brought to mind the discussion a while back about there being a third tribe of Au Ra (maybe more) who might come into play in the future. Perhaps this is it! I was also certain that the face was female - until I took a good look at that arm. That does not look like a female Au Ra arm; way too beefy. On the other hand, the face is way too effeminate to be a male Au Ra face. Someone discounted the Au Ra idea by noting the lack of horns, but the hood could cover up several of the Au Ra horn styles.

While it'd be nice to see G'raha again, I don't think this is it. Honestly, I also don't think it will happen, ever. The way G'raha promised to guard the sealed tower until the world was ready for its secrets was a HUGE flag, in my opinion. "When the world is ready" can pretty much be translated to "never" in any work I've ever seen it appear in. A time travel plot MIGHT be able to work around that, I suppose, but I still think it unlikely. G'raha's exit from the storyline had an all-too-familiar "we're getting rid of this character because we've told his story and having him hanging around would be inconvenient" feel to it. I detest that all-too-common sort of tidying up of loose ends, but can easily recognize it when I see it. (Was happy to see it averted with Alpha, even as easy as it would have been to have him disappear with Omega!)

I've talked about most of the other stuff in other threads, so will leave it at that!

[Kalise]

I don't see it, at all - even after the sketched-in G'raha eye marks. The stuff on the neck and face looks exactly like Au Ra scales to me, with the exception that they're gray rather than black or white. It brought to mind the discussion a while back about there being a third tribe of Au Ra (maybe more) who might come into play in the future. Perhaps this is it! I was also certain that the face was female - until I took a good look at that arm. That does not look like a female Au Ra arm; way too beefy. On the other hand, the face is way too effeminate to be a male Au Ra face. Someone discounted the Au Ra idea by noting the lack of horns, but the hood could cover up several of the Au Ra horn styles.

Yeah, it's a pretty sneaky teaser for sure... Since, yes, the facial markings look very similar to Au Ra scales, but the face looks very effeminate while the arm looks quite manly.

Also, while the facial markings look like Au Ra scales, the weird stuff all over the arms do not. When most Au Ra have scales on their forearm and/or their upper arm.

While it'd be nice to see G'raha again, I don't think this is it. Honestly, I also don't think it will happen, ever. The way G'raha promised to guard the sealed tower until the world was ready for its secrets was a HUGE flag, in my opinion. "When the world is ready" can pretty much be translated to "never" in any work I've ever seen it appear in. A time travel plot MIGHT be able to work around that, I suppose, but I still think it unlikely.

I dunno... Trailer Voice Guy said that the Calamity that needs undoing, is "Greater than even the 7th Umbral Calamity"

If the world is ever ready for the secrets of the Crystal Tower, it'd probably when trying to stop something this powerful from destroying it... (Especially when we're actually in a spot where we're getting pretty dangerously close to 1) The world being engulfed by Light/Darkness given the effect that the First is having as well as it seeming to be setting up for some massive shenanigans with Black Rose and 2) Ascians feeling as though their plans to cause a rejoining so as to resummon Papa Zody are coming to fruition)

Not saying this means G'raha, but he's a possible candidate. Especially given the references to time travel in the trailer (Having to "Undo the Calamity" and "Rewrite History" suggests some form of travelling to the past) - Not to mention, the trailer shows lolifillia while this art shows an adult Minfillia (Some have posited it could also be Lyse, but Lolifillia is wearing the same dress as the girl in the art (Or at least, one very similar))

It could equally be some kind of new dragon femboi, though I feel that might be less likely given SB had a significant focus on Au Ra already due to the Xaela tribes.

Inb4 it turns out to be Hildibrand or something xD

[Iscah]

I'm also surprised my wild guess caught on the way it did, to be fair, and originally only threw it out there so someone could point out some obvious feature I missed that ruled it out entirely.

I don't think it's that wild a guess. I'd already suggested during the 4.4 theorising that the mysterious voice could be G'raha - based off that apparent leak which may or may not be accurate in the end.

So once you'd pointed out that the hooded character looks like him, it all adds up pretty clearly to me.


...aha! Went back through the forum and found our previous discussion where I suggested that it might be him.

Partly, people like the G'raha Tia Theory because there was a very vague lague hinting at something with Crystal Tower, not going into detail here. But afaik that leak had been proven fake.

That would be this alleged leak that inspired my guess that it was G'raha.

We thought it had been proven fake because it's way off the mark about Blue Mage.

But now... it did correctly predict Minfilia's return - on the (special edition) box art and everything - so who knows. Maybe it's still fake and they just threw out some educated guesses about things that are likely to happen at some point.

True leak or not, the Crystal Tower is likely to come back into play eventually, because at the end of that story we had the scene where Nero throws away his magitek compass and it detects something down below the tower.

Unpopular opinion, but I think the stuff covering the neck and face looks more grey-ish and not really crystalline. At least for the part covering the face, I would claim it looks more like a nasty scar than crystals.

The grey colour makes it look like it can't just be a scar, even if the shape of it would suggest that.

The colour also could be affected by the orange-tinged lighting in that scene, which would mute the usual blue of crystals.

It's me or his right arm is thinner than his left ?

I think it might be that his right arm isn't down at his side like his left, but lifted up so we're only seeing the lower part of his forearm and the top of his hand.