Quechua/Inca influence in Dawntrail lore

[Cilia]

What exactly has Shadowkeeper got to do with Ultima?

He(?) is convinced the similarities between the eye patterns on the Shadowkeeper and in the background of P12 imply a connection to Ultima, since auracite features heavily in the background to Pandaemonium's story and all auracite is derived from Ultima (apparently).

[Tetsujin13]

Only that the eyes are suspiciously present everywhere.
But the Shadowkeeper is conjured by Mitron using Eden, so maby something there.

[Cleretic]

Only that the eyes are suspiciously present everywhere.
But the Shadowkeeper is conjured by Mitron using Eden, so maby something there.

And I can see one, but it sure isn't 'auracite'. Remember, the Shadowkeeper was manifested by an Ascian (and one who seemed particularly into the whole 'bring back the Ancient world' thing), and Athena is an Ancient. If this is a thing, it's more likely an Ancient thing than it is an auracite thing.

Or maybe they're just very generic eyes. I don't look at that eye design and see anything especially unique; that's approximately how human eyes (and a lot of other species' eyes) are shaped when you remove a lot of detail. It's how I'd draw an eye if you pressed me for one. Must a simplistic eye design be attached to anything larger, can't it just be an eye?

Hell, one of your pieces of evidence is Mamool Jan attire; Mamool Ja have a lot of diversity in eye shapes from their sub-species, but the sub-species Galool Ja Ja's from certainly seem to have that shape, especially when you account for a difference you completely neglected: that the pupils (which may in fact be the actual eye when looking at Mamool Ja eyes) on that armguard are way larger than the eye motif in Athena's bacxkground.

And that's all without getting into the fact that P12S is fake nonsense in-universe, Athena canonically didn't do that phase change.

[Tetsujin13]

And I can see one, but it sure isn't 'auracite'. Remember, the Shadowkeeper was manifested by an Ascian (and one who seemed particularly into the whole 'bring back the Ancient world' thing), and Athena is an Ancient. If this is a thing, it's more likely an Ancient thing than it is an auracite thing.

Or maybe they're just very generic eyes. I don't look at that eye design and see anything especially unique; that's approximately how human eyes (and a lot of other species' eyes) are shaped when you remove a lot of detail. It's how I'd draw an eye if you pressed me for one. Must a simplistic eye design be attached to anything larger, can't it just be an eye?

Hell, one of your pieces of evidence is Mamool Jan attire; Mamool Ja have a lot of diversity in eye shapes from their sub-species, but the sub-species Galool Ja Ja's from certainly seem to have that shape, especially when you account for a difference you completely neglected: that the pupils (which may in fact be the actual eye when looking at Mamool Ja eyes) on that armguard are way larger than the eye motif in Athena's bacxkground.

And that's all without getting into the fact that P12S is fake nonsense in-universe, Athena canonically didn't do that phase change.

Well, thank you for your feedback. Seems you have a lot of strong opinions, and seem to hold a grudge.

The point of this thread was inca influence in Dawntrail lore. I think that's so much more interesting. So please don't make this about your justice.

You challenged me and what I meant by bringing the Ultima reference up, but I won't indulge you on that anymore.

The emblem/symbol found in Y'shtola's book and on Thancred's map is really interesting, because it's similar to the Inca ceque system in the way they are applying it to the map and try to find the city of gold.

Really hoping we get more context to how huaca's are connected to the lore and what significance they hold.

[MercuryD]

Personally, at this point I don't see a lot of evidence hinting at the inclusion of huaca or the ceques but we'll see.

I'm just excited because it seems that each region we're going to has some influence from a separate part of Latin America. There's a lot they can explore.

[KageTokage]

I'm mostly curious if the map we see as is is what we're exploring or if perhaps the clouded areas will be uncovered later, because I have a hard time imagining them fitting six distinct zones into just the small portion that's revealed.

[Denishia]

It's interesting because the uncovered area of Yok Tural is roughly equal to Aldenard, and we had more than two expansions worth of zones in Eorzea, but it comes down to their design philosophy choices of how much of the map do they convert into a single overworld zone. I doubt that Yak T'el will encompass all of the "rainforest" region that has two very large river systems and that suspiciously uniform sideways omega plateau with cenotes. If I were to guess at additional zone maps staying within southern continent and knowing that the world map is too zoomed out for many features, I'd guess a map north or south of Yak T'el that has some dense rainforest sections for visual continuity but has a river as the central feature instead of cenotes and a zone inspired by the pampas grasslands of southern Brazil, eastern Argentina, and neighboring countries. I don't think we'll get a region inspired by the Atacama Desert because of the abundance of desert zones already, though with each new whale fossil discovery it just reminds me of how much I'd love if this was a proper FFX inspired expansion with another Sin-inspired trial boss that isn't Bismark and that we'd fight 'totally not Sin or Bismark' in a coastal desert region south of 'totally not Peru'. The suspicious northern crack screams 6th zone to me- but I'd also love if a cenote leads into the 6th zone and it's inspired by the Afterlife.

[Cleretic]

It's interesting because the uncovered area of Yok Tural is roughly equal to Aldenard, and we had more than two expansions worth of zones in Eorzea, but it comes down to their design philosophy choices of how much of the map do they convert into a single overworld zone. I doubt that Yak T'el will encompass all of the "rainforest" region that has two very large river systems and that suspiciously uniform sideways omega plateau with cenotes. If I were to guess at additional zone maps staying within southern continent and knowing that the world map is too zoomed out for many features, I'd guess a map north or south of Yak T'el that has some dense rainforest sections for visual continuity but has a river as the central feature instead of cenotes and a zone inspired by the pampas grasslands of southern Brazil, eastern Argentina, and neighboring countries. I don't think we'll get a region inspired by the Atacama Desert because of the abundance of desert zones already, though with each new whale fossil discovery it just reminds me of how much I'd love if this was a proper FFX inspired expansion with another Sin-inspired trial boss that isn't Bismark and that we'd fight 'totally not Sin or Bismark' in a coastal desert region south of 'totally not Peru'. The suspicious northern crack screams 6th zone to me- but I'd also love if a cenote leads into the 6th zone and it's inspired by the Afterlife.

There's definitely an interesting little clash where Tural is clearly borrowing a lot from Central America... and also from the aesthetics of FFIX and X, which were focused on South-East Asia and Oceania. Those aren't grossly incompatible as far as aesthetics go, especially if we're sticking to coastal areas and rainforests, but it does mean you're gonna start bumping into dead ends or carving false paths if you only look at one of those cultures.

(Incidentally, my guess on the final zone of Dawntrail is 'basically Memoria, but with enough of a unique spin that it doesn't just feel like FFIX Memoria', like how ShB Amaurot was basically Zanarkand.)

[MercuryD]

Personally, I'm really excited for the Latin America influence to show up even more. And, if we're being honest, AESTHETICALLY it shouldn't be too hard to kind of shift the SEA look of FFX to LatAm. Honestly, aside from Bevelle and the Yevonite temple, I didn't see anything that screams "this can only be Asia". In fact, young me actually assumed that a chunk of it was in LatAm in some way. So, if they shift the Temple design to be more mesoamerican then voila, it fits haha.

This isn't to say I'm opposed to the SEA influence, just noting that it works as LatAm too.

[Denishia]

Naturally- just as by virtue of my location I’m far more familiar with Aztec than Mayan, and the Mesoamerican inspirations are Mayan. I do hope for if there’s FFX inspirations it pulls the Cloister of Trials, especially Bevelle, as an alternative to Allagan ruins. And there’s always that twinge of regretful disappointment because I loved Zanarkand and yet found Amaurot only interesting and decent as a setting when it was on fire as a dungeon.

Probably the other mental blinder to the SEA influence of Tural is that we haven’t gone to Nangxia - but you’re right. And this further convinced me that Southern Othard of Dalmascia and Nangxia has been regulated to side quest only. The MSQ used Radz-at-Han as the convenient off-screen location to shove side characters when they needed to be temporarily shelved from the MSQ, so I feel that there will always need to be populated map areas that we never go to. Corvos seems to be the new Thavnair, but like Thavnair I think we’ll eventually go there. I have no gut feeling of the same hope for Nangxia and all the regions bordering Dalmasca.

There’s a lot of green on that map of Yok Tural, and I don’t think all of it is Yak T’el’s jungle. Grassland surely. Another Ruby Sea-like coastal map is my dream but I’m not expecting it.

That deep ocean rift is my new obsession and the symmetry of the central mountainous feature. It’s a fantasy game, so there’s some ancient super weapon shenanigans afoot. I just have to keep my FFX tin foil packed and not scream Vegnangun.