About Arevald SPOILERS

[LeonTrifang]

So I may have skipped the part, or it may be my lack of brains. I’m confused. I just beat that lady of serenity for the second time in the throne room. And Arevald. (Blonde hair, super sad backstory, face paint.) Well my question is: does he have the echo or a form of it?

[Anonymoose]

Short answer...yes.

Long answer...

Prior to the Calamity, Minfilia ran a group called The Path of the Twelve, which brought together everyone who had the Echo that they could find, hoping to protect them from the confusion and persecution they were likely to face. (Nothing was known about the Echo at the time, and they figured they could blend in with all the other religious sects and cults in town by having a weird name like that.)

During this period, Louisoix had a group called The Circle of Knowing, which was a bunch of Sharlayan Archons going rogue of "don't meddle in the flow of history" to forestall the coming Calamity. Louisoix eventually sacrificed himself for this plan, telling Minfilia she should be prepared to succeed him.

This was the birth of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, a much broader organization that began as a merger of these other two, now defined as anyone willing to fight everything revealed in the coming of the Calamity - the primals, the Ascians, etc.

The Scions still recruit Echo users, but by no means are they as ubiquitous as they were in the Path of the Twelve (pretty much everyone but their receptionist, Tataru). Arenvald was one such person, recruited to the Scions after having a "dream unlike any other." (The vision of the starshower.)

Arenvald is sometimes called in when we're busy.

[LeonTrifang]

Short answer...yes.

Long answer...

Prior to the Calamity, Minfilia ran a group called The Path of the Twelve, which brought together everyone who had the Echo that they could find, hoping to protect them from the confusion and persecution they were likely to face. (Nothing was known about the Echo at the time, and they figured they could blend in with all the other religious sects and cults in town by having a weird name like that.)

During this period, Louisoix had a group called The Circle of Knowing, which was a bunch of Sharlayan Archons going rogue of "don't meddle in the flow of history" to forestall the coming Calamity. Louisoix eventually sacrificed himself for this plan, telling Minfilia she should be prepared to succeed him.

This was the birth of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, a much broader organization that began as a merger of these other two, now defined as anyone willing to fight everything revealed in the coming of the Calamity - the primals, the Ascians, etc.

The Scions still recruit Echo users, but by no means are they as ubiquitous as they were in the Path of the Twelve (pretty much everyone but their receptionist, Tataru). Arenvald was one such person, recruited to the Scions after having a "dream unlike any other." (The vision of the starshower.)

Arenvald is sometimes called in when we're busy.

Thank you! That clears a lot up.

[Balphagor_]

If you were to replay the story you would see that Arenvald was recruited to the Scions the same time you were, he talks about what Anonymoose mentioned in that Minfilia is collecting anyone with Echo powers.

A lot of people dont realise but he has been around for a very long time, as he once was one of the background people who hang out in the base and update their text as you do more MSQs.

[Anonymoose]

Never pass up an opportunity to talk to the NPCs just standing around your quest hubs!

(Waking Sands, Rising Stones, Forgotten Knight, House Fortemps, etc.)

[AmemeAmeklin]

Never pass up an opportunity to talk to the NPCs just standing around your quest hubs!

(Waking Sands, Rising Stones, Forgotten Knight, House Fortemps, etc.)

Yeah! You never know when you'll find Moenbryda drinking Thancred under the table or see a woman agonizing about her sister's desire to be sandwiched between a pair of Roegadyn brothers...or spot Noraxia disguised as a highlander with green face paint so the others can stop screaming when they see her...or discover a male Miqo'te who hangs out with Arenvald who happens to be interested in a male Hyur conjurer...or notice the Nutkin of Modesty hanging out with Thancred in the Rising Stones...

[Iscah]

Never pass up an opportunity to talk to the NPCs just standing around your quest hubs!

(Waking Sands, Rising Stones, Forgotten Knight, House Fortemps, etc.)

And standing around outside quest hubs too! Any time you have major characters in the area, you should talk to them. Always speak to the quest-objective person last! And it can be worthwhile detouring to speak to important characters elsewhere if they might have something to say about the current story events.

Yeah! You never know when you'll find Moenbryda drinking Thancred under the table or see a woman agonizing about her sister's desire to be sandwiched between a pair of Roegadyn brothers...or spot Noraxia disguised as a highlander with green face paint so the others can stop screaming when they see her...or discover a male Miqo'te who hangs out with Arenvald who happens to be interested in a male Hyur conjurer...or notice the Nutkin of Modesty hanging out with Thancred in the Rising Stones...

I never saw the nutkin! When was that?

And actually Noraxia's Hyuran disguise is a male Midlander! Though I didn't realise it until my third time through, when I'd happened to be looking at character designs just before and realised she he that one was using a male-only hairstyle. Sylph gender is canonically weird and isn't really male/female, but both times we've seen sylphs disguised as Hyurans (the other being Silbexio from the beast tribe finale) they've been the opposite of what their pronouns indicate.


I've also been trying to keep note of the other minor adventurers we see around at a few points, because they do seem to be reoccurring - eg. that Hyuran conjurer was one of the adventurers we recruited from Revenant's Toll to help defend the Steps of Faith. And from that same 'recruitment' quest, there was a female Roegadyn mage in a Darklight robe who has reappeared at the Rising Stones post-HW named Bluomwyda; she seems to be friends with Aergmhus.

Looking at my notes it's also reminded me of one of the best encounters, right near the end of post-ARR: Thancred being confronted by all his old girlfriends at once!

[AmemeAmeklin]

I never saw the nutkin! When was that?

And actually Noraxia's Hyuran disguise is a male Midlander! Though I didn't realise it until my third time through, when I'd happened to be looking at character designs just before and realised she he that one was using a male-only hairstyle. Sylph gender is canonically weird and isn't really male/female, but both times we've seen sylphs disguised as Hyurans (the other being Silbexio from the beast tribe finale) they've been the opposite of what their pronouns indicate.

...

Looking at my notes it's also reminded me of one of the best encounters, right near the end of post-ARR: Thancred being confronted by all his old girlfriends at once!

I have screenshots of both so I'd have to go dig up the one of Noraxia to see. I remember staring at it for a while and thinking it was sort of androgynous anyway.

The nutkin was some time in Heavensward and it's super tiny so I'm not surprised you missed it. In fact I almost didn't notice myself, except through some happy accident where I happened to go AFK in the Rising Stones and my idle cam kicked in. I wandered back in time to see it focused on a nutkin and promptly looked for it. It was just behind Thancred as he was hanging out near the exit. This is after you locate him in the wilderness of the forelands and he manages to reach Mor Dhona.

Thancred surrounded by women while Yda laughed hysterically in the corner and Papalymo tutted disapprovingly was pretty great. I remember the lead up to that scene took quite a few quests, too. Thancred had Yda meet one of them to get some sort of special material but the woman got super mad when she saw Yda, much to Yda's confusion...there's more to it but I can't remember.

I think another favorite of mine is Yda and Hoary Boulder getting into a squatting contest.

[Eloah]

Hmmm.... this begs a question of how Ysayle was over looked? I mean she was clear across the continent, but you'd think there would be some way of locating echo uses. But then again, though his model might suggest otherwise Arenvald is only 19, Ysayle is/was 24.

[Anonymoose]

how Ysayle was over looked?

Luck of the draw and statistics. Back then, people who awoke to the Echo had no idea what it was or that it was happening to anyone else. In 1.0, the player character didn't even know they were seeing visions; they wandered around confusing Echoes of 1562 for present-day events and confusing the hells out of everyone before one of Minfilia's people stumbled over them. That's not indicative of a very efficient operation in terms of swiftly identifying the majority Echo users and getting them the information they need.

Ysayle was born in (or near) Falcon's Nest back when Ishgard had sealed itself off from the world. When Ysayle relates the tale, she says the visions "came without warning" and at first terrified her so badly she wondered what she'd done to deserve them. It wasn't very long from there to the Calamity. It'd have been more surprising of one of Minfilia's people DID find her back then.