Revelations from Gamescom 2019

[Iscah]

Before you all get too excited about "Allagan ruins" in Qarn, the main architecture we see there is Belah'dian from the Sixth Astral Era. It's only some of the deeper parts of the structure that appear to be older.

Also, this happens to tie into an interview I got linked to the other day, which goes into the link between the Meracydians, Allag and Qarn - though entirely disproves the "Qarn is Allagan" idea. At least the familiar part of it.

To summarise the explanation:

1. Allagans discover the Cathedral in Meracydia, recognise "Azeyma's symbol" being used by worshippers of Sephirot and conclude that the symbol has shared origins somewhere in the past.

2. The Cathedral is transported to Azys Lla and its architecture is studied.

3. Popular knowledge of this study leads to the designs being incorporated into modern buildings for aesthetic purposes.

4. The Calamity happens; Allag's knowledge is lost, some of its buildings survive.

5. Later peoples mistake the decorative features on these buildings as "arcane wards" and again note the apparent symbol of Azeyma, the Warden.

6. These designs get incorporated into their own architecture, including Qarn.

To quote: "It also helped that Qarn was built atop the remnants of something much, much older than the Belah'dian civilization".


Also, from the lorebook: the ruins in the Sagolii Desert are Allagan, while Qarn and the Invisible City's architecture (also found in the Footfalls in western Thanalan) is definitely Sixth Astral Era Belah'dian.

So it's possible that the older base under Qarn is Allagan, or perhaps older again, but Qarn itself is not. I would guess it's older than Allag, or they'd be relatively likely to mention it rather than being vague.

Qarn (which definitely has Ancient Egyptian influence) was of Belah'dian origin, if I recall correctly? Which incidentally was a nation whose patron deity was Azeyma... And in Qarn HM there is this puzzle-seal-thing with the sun / moon / star gems...

Crud. Now I want to know more about Belah'dia.

Funnily enough I was in Qarn Hard the other day and noticed that the sun sigil on that puzzle looks suddenly significant... well, so much as a pre-established astrological symbol can be claimed, anyway. But I think it's glowing in the same colour as Azem's soul crystal.

Qarn Hard is generally odd though, because all these extra traps and defences have just popped into existence in the same actual spaces we already traversed.

Now which one out of Hades and Hythlodaeus would be the moon symbol, and which one the star? I'm sure we can wrangle some kind of situation for a certain nation-building Ascian to be involved in building this thing.

Qarn wasn't built by Belah'dia, it was already old before Belah'dia was even formed (the description for it in the Duty Finder mentions how it predated "this Sixth Astral Era civilization" and that generations of Belah'dian sultans added more and more of their own embelishments and modifications to the place, suggesting it was definetely at least pre-Sixth Astral Era, possibly even older.

My guess is something around Third Astral Era, aka, around the time of the rise of the Allagan Empire, as Allagan structures have always been part of Thanalan since 1.0, with the 'Royal Allagan Starway' and 'Royal Allagan Sunway' roads still in use in the present day, so an Allagan-era origin for Qarn is as good as any).

Also those minaret-like structures found partially buried in the sand in Southern Thanalan like at Byregot's Strike are very similar to the structures found near the Crystal Tower in Mor Dhona at Saint Coinach's Find, and also, Qarn's structure resembles the other ruins found in Eastern Thanalan around Highbridge and the appropriately named 'Invisible City' soooo... I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

The minaret-type ruins are definitely Allagan according to the lorebook (and probably the sightseeing log), but they don't resemble the Qarn architecture at all and as I mentioned above, are confirmed to be from the Sixth Astral Era - somewhere around a thousand years ago VS Allag's five thousand.

In-universe the minaret style seems to be maybe from the same era as the Crystal Tower, and drawn on for the Crystarium's design.

While the temple itself wasn't Belah'dian, weren't the golems and other constructs definitely theirs? And they're very distinctly Egyptian, especially the last boss.

The carved statue golems seem unique to Qarn, but the rocky golems in general (which are also found around and within the temple) are actually pretty strongly linked to Allag. They appear around and in the Binding Coil and in the trial of Bardam's Mettle, which is full of Allagan mechanisms.

(...actually, Qarn and Amdapor. But they were on the other side of the War of the Magi. And Nym, which was the other other side of the War... but anyway. Allag.)

I always envisioned Meracydia as Australia (southern continent that's mostly wasteland) and so its inhabitants as Aboriginals.

We've still seen no proof that anything distinctly Australian is from Meracydia, while what little we have - primarily the plants aloe and sesame - points more to Africa.

If anything, the lack of identified origin (to my awareness) for the koala and frill-necked lizard minions is a sign against them trying to link Meracydia to Australia.

[ShadowMeowth]

Now which one out of Hades and Hythlodaeus would be the moon symbol, and which one the star? I'm sure we can wrangle some kind of situation for a certain nation-building Ascian to be involved in building this thing.

The sun, moon and star symbols (which by the way are the seals we got in ShB for AST for activating Divination), well... I would say, in that triad, Azem is of course the sun, and Hades would be the moon (the sunless sea of heaven where the souls of the dead find eternal peace) and Hyth would be the star / the land (the bridge that connects the sun and the moon). Actually, if we delve further into stuff in which Emet had a hand... I am reminded of the Garlean banner: the three chain links, middle one being red. Which link represents who, that would be harder to tell, but there is indeed a recurring triad theme in what Emet builds / helps to build. Makes sense, though; if the Unsundered were susceptible to forgetting after 12000 years, I can see Emet littering everything wherever he went and lived to have his ultimate goal always fresh in his mind.

Also there is a strangely funny mental image of him in Allagan times finding out the Sephirotic cathedral with Azeyma-like symbols and being like, "did you just say 'traces of Azem'? BRING IT HERE!" and we know the rest of the story. (?)