Something doesn't add up regarding the connection between Amdapor and Norvrandt...

[Ouen]

There's not much hand-waving in the lore of XIV, with the story having very few, if any, plot holes or inconsistencies that I'm aware of, so I am hesitant to conclude "well, time just conveniently flowed in such a way that Amdapor's founding and the Flood of Light coincided perfectly, then First-time virtually froze for 1,500 years, allowing for the events of the present to happen before the First can be rejoined. EVEN IF we assume this is the case, there's still something very, very strange going on.

Let's assume both events played out just right: Square waves their hands and everything magically happens to line up. At the very moment that Amdapor peers into/visits the first, they happen to find Sin Eaters existing in this minuscule window of time. They say "Wow these things are SICK, let's use them as inspiration," they go home and that's the extent of their inter-dimensional adventures.

If Sin Eaters really are the basis upon which the guardians were built, it indicates one of two possibilities that I can conceive of. Either the Amdapori had some means of traversing the rift between reflections, (possibly even being able to travel up and down the river of time, or at the bare minimum, were possessed of the ability to peer across and see other shards as they are in the present) or the Source was visited by Sin Eaters, which has been erased from the history books.

Both implications are extremely interesting, to say the least... If it's the former, why didn't they take the future Ironworks' technology or something else to ensure their sovereignty or victory in the War of the Magi? Were they searching for something else on the First? If it's the latter outcome, well... the story is about to become much more interesting.