Quote Originally Posted by Veloran View Post
I wasn't really equating Ronka with the Ancients, merely stating that Ronka clearly understood the gravity of the information they had in their care. As we see through the quests in Rak-tika, the last emperor of Ronka went through great pains to establish the myriad wards, safeguards, and trials which were all designed to protect their great knowledge, which ultimately turns out to be the ancient murals depicting the Final Days. While the creation of the murals clearly predates the Ronkans themselves, the level of import that was placed on them can only be explained by the Ronka knowing what they represented, and wishing to pass that into the future.

As to how they knew, there could be any number of explanations for that. Emet or another Ascian, for one. Alternatively an Echo-user may have seen those events through interacting with the murals, or perhaps there was some sort of oral tradition dating back to their creation that explained the context. We don't know the specifics, but it's clear the Ronkans were aware somehow.
The set painted on the walls west of Slitherbough (the ones I posed above) couldn't have been painted by anyone from the Ancients or Ronka because that would require them to have knowledge of Ardbert's adventures and victory over Shadowkeeper.

Furthermore, all of the paintings (including the ones found after the Ravel) are painted in roughly the same style, implying they had the same painter, but what we know about the history doesn't fit with anyone unless they are immortal and that kinda limits who the painters are.

All of this would have been easy to solve if Emet, Lahabrea, or Elidibus claimed to like to paint history, but none of them ever say anything like that. I also got the impression that when Emet sees the paintings after the Ravel, he is either seeing them for the first time or hasn't seen them in such a long time that he forgot until he was reminded by seeing them again.