Alliance Raid 6.3 tidbits from the trailer

[Tehmon]

So in 6.3 alliance raid we have Nophica, Althyk + Nymeia, Halone and Menphina as the last boss most likely. While this mostly follows the pattern most have already figured out, the addition of Nymeia, which most would've guessed would've been introduced in 6.5, leaves one unknown spot open for the last tier, as alliance raids tend to have four bosses.

For 6.5 alliance raid we now have Thaliak, Llymlaen and Oschon, with a mystery fourth. Any wild guesses as what the fourth might be?

[JeanneOrnitier]

Maybe something involving the Whorl?

[Eloah]

It's interesting that they had Nymeia on full display, but made sure to hide parts of Nophica. You'd think Nymeia would be the "surprise". My guess is there is something about Nophica's face they are trying to hide. I doubt it's the booba, they haven't shied away from showing it before.

[SannaR]

From the zoomed out shot before they move away we see Nophica on the left, Nymeia, Menphina, Althyk and Halone. As you can see the green of Nophica's dress and the icy tip of Halone's spear. They keep on seemingly wanting to temper people's expectations on Nophica. I'm not sure why we are shown Nymeia. I do wonder how the supposed theme of love will be applied.

[Kranel_San]

I doubt it's the booba,

You can actually see it in 1:49 of the trailer. I'm not an expert but it looks normal so it's definitely the face or just an attempt to tease the playerbase with nothing.

[SannaR]

Another interesting point is that there are twin moons in the shots of the heaven of Ice. Which to me is interesting as the small red one was Dalamud. Yet Dalamud wasn't always part of the night sky or part of Menphina's symbols.

[Necrotica]

Another interesting point is that there are twin moons in the shots of the heaven of Ice. Which to me is interesting as the small red one was Dalamud. Yet Dalamud wasn't always part of the night sky or part of Menphina's symbols.

That actually raises an interesting question as to why it wasn't. When the 12's religion was built up post Allegan calamity, no one would remember that Dalamud was a fake moon. You would think it would have more cultural significance. But aside from one tiny cult in Gridania, it is never brought up. According to what I could find out it was originally white like the moon created to contain Zodiark. Guess it is important to note Etheirys has no real moons? (Went to Elpis at night and could not find a moon). Which means originally it had no rising/falling tides for its oceans.

And now I am curious as to what was used to symbolize Menphina before there was a moon/moons. Assuming they actually do predate Ancient society and were not some post sundering creation. I don't recall any mention of them on the First and that also could mean many things.

Lore can of worms has now opened.

[Cleretic]

Another interesting point is that there are twin moons in the shots of the heaven of Ice. Which to me is interesting as the small red one was Dalamud. Yet Dalamud wasn't always part of the night sky or part of Menphina's symbols.

And they're both actual moons. So this shows that whatever they are, they're neither reflecting objective reality or current understanding, because if they were then Dalamud wouldn't even be in the picture, or at the very least wouldn't be depicted as a moon. We know that present-day worship of and symbology for Menphina hasn't exactly caught up to that whole 'there's only one moon' thing, though, but the only Menphina worshippers we've ever met were the Lambs of Dalamud, who are... probably extremists whose beliefs can't be taken as religious canon. But we can't be 100% on that without meeting any saner ones, which we haven't. So whatever the Twelve and the heavens are, they're reflecting an outdated faith.

We've already ruled out that they're primals, but taking a similar tack on this would explain it: if they were brought into being by or shaped around the people's faith in the Twelve at basically any point between the fall of Allag and the earliest instance of a sight of them we have (the refugees heading to Gyr Abania), then they'd have a belief in Menphina that would include the two moons. It can't be recent (or recently updated), or it would only have one... and they also can't just be an Ancient thing by the same token; if Menphina predated Dalamud then she wouldn't see and depict it as a regular moon unless she was motivated by depicting something else. So whatever they are, the central inflection point for them in being what we see them as was neither primordially ancient nor extremely recent.

(FYI: Elpis apparently does sometimes have a visible moon, but we don't know if that's an oversight because it's extremely rarely visible.)


On a different tack, as someone whose main is a patron of Althyk, I am very disappointed by his depiction. Really, that's all you can do for a god of time? A jacked dude with the world's dumbest cape? He is by far the least interesting design in the raid.

(It is very funny that they forgot to render the ground behind him for the trailer, though.)

[SannaR]

I'm not sure I'd go with that look either. But I'm also not sure how an austere emperor wielding a mythril greataxe is supposed to look like. Slightly disappointed that Menphina doesn't show off her Julian Mandeville cosplay. Unless she pops a skillet out during her fight at some point. The moon in Elpis does look funny and out of place. It also seems to only show up during the Astral weather at night. Though Elpis is so bright that even at night it doesn't ever look like night even if you're able to see the stars.

[Tehmon]

Yeah, Althyk looks very dull, but I can't say he is one of my favorites because his backstory with Nymeia is very creepy, though of course very in line with Olympians and ancient pantheons in general.
I'm more excited for the gods in the next raid because we'll get a double doze of extremely pretty lads with Thaliak and Oschon.

Another thing about Althyk though is that you can briefly see him riding on some sort of a steed in the trailer.
Menphina's wolf companion has this disk-like object on top of it, I wonder if that's supposed to symbolize the skillet or something else entirely.