Quechua/Inca influence in Dawntrail lore

[MikkoAkure]

My impressions looking at the map is that Tural is a blend of cultures and geographical features from the Americas scattered around just like how Doma seemed to blend China and Japan. Tacos and Mesoamerican architecture scream Mexico, but the whole plot of finding a lost city of gold is purely South American (unless you're Dreamworks Animation). Then there's the North American-inspired Whalaqee who may or may not show up somewhere.

Tuliyollal looks Meso-American. Yak T'el looks like it could be anywhere from Mexico to Central America, to the Amazon but it has cenotes like the Yucatan does. Urqopacha looks and sounds very obviously Incan/Andean complete with alpacas but the people there make mezcal.

Looking at the map, I'm fairly sure the plateau mountains will be tepui, the famous flat-topped mountains of Venezuela, but I'm not sure if they will be their own zone, a dungeon, or part of one of the other places we already know about.


My current theory is that only the 2 zones that have so far been revealed to us are visible on the recent map and that the different-style cloud cover on the map shows off regions that will be shown in future fan fests.

Below Yok Tural under scattered clouds could be a Patagonian pampas-type zone. And then there's Meracydia which has the same loose cloud cover and could hold at least 2 other zones. That would bring us to 5 and the 6th zone is usually a wacky, secret one except for Stormblood.

But my theory is based on the clouds on the map not being as dense as those over North Tural or Ilsabard so I feel like it's still a bit "corkboard and string" levels of theory-crafting.


I'd like variation of biomes so that it doesn't feel like we're in the same desert, jungle, mountains, or snow-blasted tundra every time one of those comes up and that all zones are visually distinct. But I'm not sure if there's anything that hasn't been done in FFXIV yet.

[Denishia]

Poor Cabeza de Vaca, your search for the gold-rich city in North America just didn't get the pop culture impact. (Okay, sarcastic here, but I would be tickled pink if there's a small island labeled Ill-Fate or Island of Doom on one of the maps).

Nothing so far looks like the Sierra Nevada highlands or the deserts and coastal plains of northern and central Mexico to which I'm more familiar with (I would love for a large almost completely flat grassland map with dotted thornscrub but I have a feeling I'd be the only one not calling it boring) - it's all Yucatan and south. But that does mean we should get a tropical savannah/pampas though with the emphasis on mist for Yak T'el I have a feeling the cloud rainforests were its inspiration, which still leaves a purely Amazonian-inspired jungle/river zone. So there's two more options to make another zone or two without leaving what have been uncovered.

I would love it they kept a general centralized consistency of location and not have wildly different themes for every zone but I'm expecting a disappointment come October when Meracydia will be revealed as part of DT.

For visually diversity, I strongly bet we're getting poui/ipe trees in a zone, though hopefully it won't be just Lakeland But Yellow.

Sadly Smileton has already used the giant head dungeon boss, but maybe that is our guarantee for some Olmec-inspired giant head mobs.

[Tetsujin13]

I don't know if I pointed it out well enough in the initial post. But the three locations on Thancred's map is lined up according to the four squares inside the symbol he had copied into the map, which you can see a close up of in Y'shtolas book. While the X is assumed to be the city of gold.

Considering that the ceque system in inca history divided all the sacred huaca's into four provinces and were systemized and ultimately made peace among the different tribes and created the inca empire. I feel it holds significance.

Inca cosmology was also advanced, as they were able to predict equinoxes etc. Their understanding was based around the orientation of the milky way, and they thought of the constellations and stars as a celestial river that the earth flowed on.

Inca myth does not disappoint.

[Cilia]

I'd say I want a Legends of the Hidden Temple reference, but we already got one of those back in Shadowbringers.

Interested to explore Native South American culture, even if it's through a fantasy filter. Probably one of the least studied among laypeople.

[Fenral]

Unfortunately, my own knowledge in descending order is Aztec -> Maya -> Inca, and even then I need sources at hand to help with recall.

I know we're probably too far south for that, but since we're potentially dealing with a kitchen sink situation, is there a possibility of discovering a doomsday calendar as well? It'd be a good way to establish a possible second Endsinger-tier threat without needing to start laying any specific groundwork.

I'd say I want a Legends of the Hidden Temple reference, but we already got one of those back in Shadowbringers.

I needed to search, but then a lot came flooding back.

[Cleretic]

I know we're probably too far south for that, but since we're potentially dealing with a kitchen sink situation, is there a possibility of discovering a doomsday calendar as well? It'd be a good way to establish a possible second Endsinger-tier threat without needing to start laying any specific groundwork.

I feel like 'doomsday calendar' has run its course out in several ways. Like, not only have we gone past the 'long-standing impending apocalypse' part of the setting (both of them!), but by the time Dawntrail launches we'll be twelve years out from the point the Mayan long count calendar ending anyway, so that subject's kinda run cold.

Also, the notion of the 'doomsday calendar' was already pretty off-base as a concept; it's not that the Mayans actually thought the world was going to end at that point, that was just... where their calendar drew the line and restarted. It was hardly the first time it happened for them, or sign of anything of great note. It'd be like looking at our calendar and assuming we thought the world would end after December 31st. I almost want to call it offensively wrong, but I don't want to speak for a demographic that I'm not even 100% sure exists, I don't know where the descendants of Mayans are or how they feel about the whole thing!

[Denishia]

The "Mayan Doomsday" calendar stuff is obnoxiously wrong and thankfully mostly forgotten in pop culture. As for the various Mayan groups- there's more than a couple dozen languages/tribes/descendant groups in Southern Mexico and the neighboring countries like Guatemala and are still the majority in the Yucatan irrc - it's one of the complications with the refugee crisis because many don't speak Spanish and thus need two layers of translation for the advocacy. Again, not a Tejano native, just lived several years now decently close to Mexico and the state I'm familiar with is Tamaulipas, which was too far north to have been even part of the Aztec Empire. We did Cabeza de Vaca stranded here for months on his failed expedition to search for a city of gold, but those weren't the myths and pop culture versions of El Dorado with the South American (and later MesoAmerican) setting that inspired movies and anime and theme parks.

[Fenral]

Also, the notion of the 'doomsday calendar' was already pretty off-base as a concept; it's not that the Mayans actually thought the world was going to end at that point, that was just... where their calendar drew the line and restarted. It was hardly the first time it happened for them, or sign of anything of great note. It'd be like looking at our calendar and assuming we thought the world would end after December 31st. I almost want to call it offensively wrong, but I don't want to speak for a demographic that I'm not even 100% sure exists, I don't know where the descendants of Mayans are or how they feel about the whole thing!

Okay, sorry. I mean, yeah. I know that already. It's very common knowledge at this point. Perhaps I should have included a gigantic footnote, but it felt kind of unnecessary when we're also talking about El Dorado, and that was basically made up by the conquistadores.


And besides, recognizing that the people you've just subjugated have an accurate calendar going out 500 years in advance and then pausing at the realization that it just stops (for very ordinary and practical reasons, as it happens) isn't really a "dur hur ignorant savages" moment, at least by my reckoning.

[WhiteArchmage]

The "Mayan Doomsday" calendar stuff is obnoxiously wrong and thankfully mostly forgotten in pop culture. As for the various Mayan groups- there's more than a couple dozen languages/tribes/descendant groups in Southern Mexico and the neighboring countries like Guatemala and are still the majority in the Yucatan irrc

You'd be correct! I'm saddened to say even we have some lingering racism against them as, (and I don't want to get too personal) I visited a few times, once for a cousin's wedding, and was... a bit offended that the "Mayan ceremony" she had was officiated by a white European woman (an anthropologist, at least, but still, jeez), and both her and my aunt refered to the natives as "mayitas" (little Mayans, which is both a term of endearment but also sounds kind of infantilizing). México is at an interesting point because the Northern half is probably closer to the US as far as our native tribes are concerned, since they were generally nomadic tribes because... deserts, while the Southern portion has a rich diversity of sedentary cultures, starting with the Mexica having the architectural know-how to settle and thrive in swampland.

I reiterate that, with the map we have so far, I don't think Yok'Tural englobes the entirety of South America (and as I keep saying, México's part of NORTH America) but likely involves Mesoamérica and grabs Perú and probably parts of the Amazon, which still leaves Argentina and Chile for another expansion or maybe exploratory content (and by the gods, the vistas in Argentina are amazing). Whether that means Northern México will be ignored in favor of USA native tribes... I don't want to say but... sigh, likely...

Of course, also need to reiterate that XIV is a game, inspired by some real life culture but also heavily by fantasy tropes, it won't be 1:1 to the cultures it's inspired by and that's ok (I still raise an eyebrow at G'raha eating a flour tortilla taco, we didn't really have WHEAT).

[Denishia]

Yep- and that Tululiyoll have some strong SEA influences and it's fantasy and one with primarily Japanese writers at that (and the three things that keep circulating in my head are how Tokyo Disney changed the Indiana Jones ride from themepark fantasy Asia to Central America to be more exotically appealing to the audience, old series The Mysterious Cities of Gold, and that One Piece also used the El Dorado tropes. Dawntrail and One Piece has already been joked about with the teaser trailer and it will only increase.)

Lol yes that wheat tortilla! I confess as a certified gringo I'm not fond of most Tex Mex or Northern Mexican dishes and don't have a familiarity with the central, southern, or even west coast cuisine (a special hatred of Hatch chilies) - but I already have a shortlist of favorite dishes I want included in the 100 CUL expert recipes, and if we don't get sopapillas, churros, and at least two different types of tamales (ideally the version I'm familiar with and then one of the recipes versions that uses plantain leaves) I will riot.

The game has done so many desert biomes already and peppered them with the Americas' cactus, so I have this sinking feeling that there won't be a Tural equivalent to the Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts unless the curve ball for the City of Gold is using the ancient pueblos for some fancy gold SF/Fantasy version of the cliff side metropolis. I still think the emphasis on the updated grass engine overall means that we will get a mostly pampas/grassland zone map for the 3rd or 4th zone, so we will get 'fantasy Argentina'. And if we don't, then a zone in North Tural, be it a later expansion or exploratory zone will give us the Great Plains. Something for me to shrug and go "close enough".

Still holding out to my theory that our endgame hub will be at least partially inspired by Tenochtilan in that wherever it is will be very high up in the mountains instead of coastal and have canals, a lake, and floating gardens bisecting it. The floating gardens and boats could also be blended with the Vietnamese floating markets. Though I also think whatever "Secret City of Gold" we find won't be the hub but the 5th or 6th map.