Revelations from Encyclopaedia Eorzea III

[MikkoAkure]

My question for those with copies of the Encyclopaedia: do they clarify what counts as a blasphemy? There was some confusion about if "terminus beasts", "fell beasts", and "blasphemies" were all the same. Some believed that blasphemies were only the big ones that triggered the effects of the Final Days, others believed them to be all "fell beasts" we encounter, etc.

The first beast that kicked the whole thing off in Radz-at-Han was labelled as a "blasphemy against their beast-headed gods" since it looked similar to Thavnair's gods and subsequently the terminology was picked up by the other nations when referring to the initial beast in each region, and the first one in each region was always the most powerful one.


The book calls them all just "beasts" not "terminus beast" or "fell beast". Though its descriptions of the beasts of the Ancients' Final Days typically have the title "terminus".

[Cleretic]

I've now got my copy of the EE3, and as a very silly thing, I decided to check my smallest, weirdest prediction: I estimated as a joke in another thread that there would be 8-12 pages of Ancient content.

I counted, and specifically just looking for 'this is a page only about the Ancients or the World Unsundered', I got to twenty pages, and two of those were about the Blasphemies and Terminus Beasts of Amaurot so I'd be hesitant about counting them. (I estimate you could get to maybe twenty-six or so if you counted pages on post-sundering stuff about Venat, the Watcher or the Ascians.) So not far off for an off-the-cuff joke guess!

Interestingly, and perhaps a bit of a set for expectations of the people who don't have theirs yet: it more or less cuts off its 'new stuff' details at 6.0; it's got Smileton and the Stigma Dreamscape, but nothing on the void or the Twelve. The exceptions actually seem to come from the tribe questlines: the Hippo Riders are mentioned in the Arkasodara's section, and the section on the denizens of Ultima Thule has a bunch of info from the Omicron questline. I can't ID anything new from the Loporrit questline in their sections, which might give an idea of exactly when a bunch of the text was finalized. Interestingly there's no info on Pandaemonium at all outside of Hippokampos and Phoinix being in the bestiary, probably because that info wasn't even complete on the writer level by the time the EE3 was being written. You could also possibly argue that, since much of the info here is from the Scions, Pandaemonium's a black box because none of the talkative ones even knew it happened.

The exclusion of Pandaemonium does mean that Themis and Erich aren't actually in the book, which I'm sure is very disappointing for certain posters.

[YianKutku]

No, 'secret' in the verb form basically means 'to hide a thing'; it's a generally pretty archaic term, so you mostly see it in fantasy and period settings now. 'Secrete' is DEFINITELY wrong, unless that crystal is... significantly grosser than we were ever told. That's a very different verb.

TIL, thanks. I know "secrete" has another definition of "to conceal", but I would not be surprised if it came from the mentioned archaic usage of "secret". (Checking Merriam Webster via Google, that definition is still there, although I acknowledge the "secretion" definition appears to be primary.)

Still, I now know it's not an error, due to that archaic verb form of "secret". I sincerely love learning new vocabulary from FFXIV.

Interestingly, and perhaps a bit of a set for expectations of the people who don't have theirs yet: it more or less cuts off its 'new stuff' details at 6.0; it's got Smileton and the Stigma Dreamscape, but nothing on the void or the Twelve. The exceptions actually seem to come from the tribe questlines: the Hippo Riders are mentioned in the Arkasodara's section, and the section on the denizens of Ultima Thule has a bunch of info from the Omicron questline. I can't ID anything new from the Loporrit questline in their sections, which might give an idea of exactly when a bunch of the text was finalized. Interestingly there's no info on Pandaemonium at all outside of Hippokampos and Phoinix being in the bestiary, probably because that info wasn't even complete on the writer level by the time the EE3 was being written. You could also possibly argue that, since much of the info here is from the Scions, Pandaemonium's a black box because none of the talkative ones even knew it happened.

Very technically it does have MSQ information from 6.1, in that it mentions the existence of the voidgate under Thavnair, as well as Azdaja's historical fate.

Not much new stuff on the Void, though; most of what is in EE3 was already written in EE1 and EE2, to the point where I suspect the blurbs for the various voidsent (Cloud of Darkness, Scathach, Diabolos) were copy-and-pasted from those earlier books.

Personally I was both amused and disappointed with how EE3 confirms my own malicious bias: the Yorha raids were almost completely absent from EE3, with only stuff to do with Komra having minor mentions of "otherworldly attacks" and nothing else. The general impression is the lorebook just going "weird stuff happened, it was weird, moving on". I don't think any Yorha Raid enemies were even mentioned in the bestiary section, compared to the bestiary being full of Bozja critters.

Hence my continued biased belief that FFXIV could excise the Yorha raids entirely from the game, and nothing of value plotwise would be lost.

[Cleretic]

to the point where I suspect the blurbs for the various voidsent (Cloud of Darkness, Scathach, Diabolos) were copy-and-pasted from those earlier books.

I checked, and they aren't; the descriptions of all the big-boy voidsent are all unique from the other descriptions of the same big-boy voidsent. However, a few of the dungeon boss descriptions seem to come near-exactly from their Triple Triad cards.

I've gone through a deeper reading with a bunch of note-taking, so here's a handful of the most exceptional stuff I saw that hasn't come up here so far:

• The Helion and Lost divide among the hrothgar is assumed to be tribal entirely to outsiders; it doesn't work that way at all to the hrothgar.
• Nobody knows what the Ea's names mean. Including the Ea; they no longer remember. (Honestly, all the Ultima Thule stuff has this palpable despondence about it, it's genuinely the most fun reads in the book.)
• The Ronkans were ronso this whole time! How did nobody tell us?
• Titania's history suggests there was a fae kingdom out there before Il Mheg... and therefore, possibly, a fae kingdom on the Source.
• Gaius isn't actually the leader of Werlyt, he's just an advisor of some sort.
• The head of the Gleaners is a hrothgar, Vtorak Vetasch, who apparently just straight-up hasn't been seen for decades, to the point where we don't even know their gender (a male portrait is presumably shown as a guess). So... I have a new theory about who we're meeting in 6.55.
• The proprieter of the Beehive is secretive about everything, including his gender, but allows he/him pronouns for convenience. ...which implies we're looking at some gender non-conformity, that line implies his gender isn't so simple.
• A note that Fake Hythlodaeus' internal motivations are unclear; if he's acting according ot what Hyth would want, or what Emet would want.
• Misija didn't just mastermind the Save the Queen scheme, she also came up with the Resistance Weapons plan in the first place! She was the secret chessmaster of all of Bozja, and we need to give her way more credit.
• Nidhana is apparently considered by other arkasodara to be 'one of the fairest women in Radz-at-Han'; I always love confirmation of non-human beauty standards.
• The weapon lineups confirm that the Cryptlurker gear was used by gravetenders in Nabaath Areng, so... hot damn, that's seriously good Nabaath Areng lore.
• And the weirdest of all: The Elpis hunt monsters are all mentioned to in some way have roots in ancient myths: Ker is a broad boogeyman, Ophioneus seemed to inspire the Allagans to make hydra, Gurangatch was mentioned in Allagan tomestones of mythology as Meracydian, Petalodus is a Nymian myth, Yumcax is from somewhere in 'the New World', and Shockmaw is both mentioned in the South Sea Isles' folklore and presumed to be a proto-Bismarck.

[YianKutku]

I checked, and they aren't; the descriptions of all the big-boy voidsent are all unique from the other descriptions of the same big-boy voidsent. However, a few of the dungeon boss descriptions seem to come near-exactly from their Triple Triad cards.

You're right. I largely assumed it was copy-and-pasted because the blurbs are so uninformative about any new revelations that it felt like they were reusing old text, possibly with some summarization to fit the space.

[*]The proprieter of the Beehive is secretive about everything, including his gender, but allows he/him pronouns for convenience. ...which implies we're looking at some gender non-conformity, that line implies his gender isn't so simple.

Also Giott, of the ShB Healer Role Quests, has "they" pronouns. Slightly obscured by how it's only clear in one sentence, and the rest are either talking about the grouping of Giott and the player character (and thus the plural "they" is suitable), or in the passive voice that much of the Encyclopedias Eorzea are written in.

[*]Nidhana is apparently considered by other arkasodara to be 'one of the fairest women in Radz-at-Han'; I always love confirmation of non-human beauty standards.

I vaguely recall this being mentioned in-game somewhere too. I want to say the Aloalo intro quests? Mainly because that's where Matsya's crush on her is made obvious. Still, that's very far in the future from the writing of this lorebook.

Some thoughts about Thavnair names: there's a fairly clear common part of the names, "bin" or "bihn". In RL, "bin" used in Arab-origin naming conventions (eg Malay, which is what I'm referring to for my own experience) means "son of", ie indicating the title for the patronym. Technically the female version would be "binti" (or occasionally spelled "binte"), meaning "daughter of", but for FFXIV it looks like it's "bihn" instead.

It's just that I'm a little unsure if it's exactly used in the same way. For example, Ahewann bin Alzadaal, which would mean "Ahewann, son of Alzadaal", in turn implying Ahewann's father is named Alzadaal. Which is plausible, given repeated names throughout a family line, but it's also plausible that it could be more like "Ahewann of the house/family/line of Alzadaal". Thus, I don't know if the baby we saved in the 6.0 MSQ would have the name "bihn Qerasaf", after her father, or "bihn Shirashir", after Qerasaf's own "bin Shirashir".

Completely unrelated, I see that the now-deceased high commander of the Radiant Host of Radz-at-Han was Qulsun bihn Aphmau. Still not sure if this was a deliberate FFXI reference, because while this Aphmau is vaguely related to the relevant Near East country, her role and appearance are nothing like FFXI's Aphmau.

[reginleif-]

A note that Fake Hythlodaeus' internal motivations are unclear; if he's acting according ot what Hyth would want, or what Emet would want.

Wow. My overthinking ego is melting from joy. Thanks for sharing this!

And the weirdest of all: The Elpis hunt monsters are all mentioned to in some way have roots in ancient myths: Ker is a broad boogeyman, Ophioneus seemed to inspire the Allagans to make hydra, Gurangatch was mentioned in Allagan tomestones of mythology as Meracydian, Petalodus is a Nymian myth, Yumcax is from somewhere in 'the New World', and Shockmaw is both mentioned in the South Sea Isles' folklore and presumed to be a proto-Bismarck.

But this information already is in the game. An NPC from the hunting quest studies mythology and tells us about mythic creatures from all over the world. These creatures are Elpis marks and Ker.

For example, the in-game lines about Shockmaw:
Legends of a great whale that roams the skies have been passed down from generation to generation the world over. Bismarck, the white whale worshipped by the Vanu Vanu and said to dwell amongst Abalathia's clouds, is merely the best-known example.

Perchance such tales originated solely in the mind─ancient peoples shuddering at the sight of a vast wavekin, and imagining what horrors would reign should one take to the skies. Or perhaps, in the distant past, a creature akin to the mythic Lord of the Mists truly did inhabit the clouds...

I believe it so—yet I need proof. My research indicates that the ancient creature would most closely resemble the south sea isles' legendary “Shockmaw,” but even if I am wrong...I must know.

If the book repeats this, it isn't a new knowledge. Or did I misread, and you didn't mean its novelty?

[Cleretic]

If the book repeats this, it isn't a new knowledge. Or did I misread, and you didn't mean its novelty?

I mean, a lot of the Encyclopedia Eorzea books aren't about new information and are more about collating the existing information into an easily digestible and visually pleasing format. That part was new to me, because I don't read hunt descriptions.

[YianKutku]

I mean, a lot of the Encyclopedia Eorzea books aren't about new information and are more about collating the existing information into an easily digestible and visually pleasing format. That part was new to me, because I don't read hunt descriptions.

The Hunt descriptions had been pretty much copied-and-pasted from the in-game versions, except mostly cleaned up to be more of a passive distant voice rather than "this Hunt NPC is talking in their own words". Some exceptions exist, like the description for Naul in EE2, which goes along the lines of "ah yes, those wacky Ishgardians".

The Hunt descriptions for EE3 are noticeably more cleaned up, possibly because the Hunt NPCs are more eccentric in their in-game dialogue. So like the above example with Shockmaw, the Hunt NPC Basildere's words going "I believe it so" turns into the EE3 version going "Inquiring minds -- that of scholar of comparative mythology Basildere in particular -- need to know."

This has led to some interesting differences. For example, Forgiven Pedantry, the S-rank Hunt in Kholusia: the in-game description (again, spoken by the Hunt NPC Vroi-Reeq) uses male pronouns, while the EE3 description uses female pronouns. Given the "woman with tentacle head" model, I would have assumed the female pronouns is the "correct" version, but that raises the question of why the male pronouns in the in-game description.

In addition, some of the descriptions in EE3 are more vague on the little clues and hints on how to spawn the S-ranks, occasionally to the point where it's a completely different hint. For example, Gunitt, the S-rank for the Tempest, has the in-game description about "as the denizens of the depths attempt to consume their prey, he will appear to steal it out from under them", which is clearly referencing the Clionids eating the Deep Sea Leeches. In EE3, it changed to "his insatiable nature forcing him to contend with any denizens of the depths even larger than he." Also potentially referring to the Clionids, but via a different hint.

[Iscah]

Interestingly, and perhaps a bit of a set for expectations of the people who don't have theirs yet: it more or less cuts off its 'new stuff' details at 6.0; it's got Smileton and the Stigma Dreamscape, but nothing on the void or the Twelve [or Pandaemonium].

Overall it seems like a really weird time to have chosen to publish this book. It would be logical to cover the events of Pandaemonium and the revelations of Myths at the same time as discussing the main events of Endwalker, and it will likely seem strange to go back to them in EE4 alongside whatever Dawntrail and its sequel throw at us.

Publishing now has also meant they can't include pictures of female Hrothgar even as we draw incredibly close to their reveal.

I understand that this might be the only time they can find a lull in their production schedule to work on the lorebooks, but it would still make far more sense to get the majority of the text ready and then hold off publication until the last parts are available.

Hence my continued biased belief that FFXIV could excise the Yorha raids entirely from the game, and nothing of value plotwise would be lost.

I don't think that's even a "belief" - unless they do plan to build on it in future somehow, it is a fact that it could be removed and we would lose nothing but unnecessary confusion and an ugly gouge out of the Kholusian mountains.

(Well, that and a couple of nice outfits but good riddance to those overused leggings and weirdly proportioned boots.)

I've gone through a deeper reading with a bunch of note-taking, so here's a handful of the most exceptional stuff I saw that hasn't come up here so far:

• The Helion and Lost divide among the hrothgar is assumed to be tribal entirely to outsiders; it doesn't work that way at all to the hrothgar.
• The Ronkans were ronso this whole time! How did nobody tell us?
• A note that Fake Hythlodaeus' internal motivations are unclear; if he's acting according ot what Hyth would want, or what Emet would want.
• Misija didn't just mastermind the Save the Queen scheme, she also came up with the Resistance Weapons plan in the first place! She was the secret chessmaster of all of Bozja, and we need to give her way more credit.

These items were already addressed to varying degrees.

Hrothgar "clans" being an outsider's misconception was already covered on their naming conventions page here.

Ronso were connected to the Ronkan Empire in the Qitari questline researching Ronkan history.

From Wisdom of the Night:

QITARL NATL
What we were able to make of the markings could be described thus: a mighty Ronso wearing a crown─no doubt meant to represent the first emperor of Ronka, stood tall with a blade raised high over his head.

From Delving Deeper:

QITARL NATL
Ronka, on the other hand, was composed of many strong peoples─the Ronso, brave warriors; the Drahn, adept at the arcane arts; and the Viis, peerless archers─all working together for the empire's prosperity.

Fake Hythlodaeus outright tells us that he's not sure whether he's acting by his own will or Emet's, and the line in the lorebook is just rephrasing that statement.

We are told early in Bozja that it was Misija's idea to recreate the weapons of Gunnhildr's Blades. Her position as chessmaster is no secret once the plot becomes clear in the game itself.

When you ask Misija to tell you more about herself during Path to the Past or The Bozja Incident:

MISIJA
Though it was under the auspices of our Garlean oppressors, I was educated in prehistoric archaeology.
While I am thankful for the opportunities afforded me, I could not turn a blind eye to the suffering of my people. And so I left to join the Resistance.
It was I who proposed to reforge the fabled weapons of Queen Gunnhildr's guard, and Bajsaljen has chosen to place his faith in my plan. I take heart in knowing all I learned from the Empire will be put to good use.

Even if you don't go into the extra dialogue, she's the one giving most of the explanation on the history of the weapons and the plan to reforge them.

[*]The head of the Gleaners is a hrothgar, Vtorak Vetasch, who apparently just straight-up hasn't been seen for decades, to the point where we don't even know their gender (a male portrait is presumably shown as a guess). So... I have a new theory about who we're meeting in 6.55.

Going back to what I said at the start of this post, if the character revealed in 6.55 is in fact Vtorak, it just seems like such a strange point to publish the book a month before her actual identity is revealed and we're left with this pointless decoy in print forever.

In any case, regardless of whether we're due to meet with Vtorak or not, it just seems like a strange choice to say "this person is such a mystery we don't even know their gender, but here's a picture of someone who may or may not be them".

It would have been better to leave a blank picture frame, or maybe a portrait that is a rough pencil sketch that the in-universe compiler of the encyclopedia has had drawn based on what people claim Vtorak looks like, rather than the game screenshots that must be painted portraits.

Also Giott, of the ShB Healer Role Quests, has "they" pronouns.

I think they've deliberately dodged using pronouns for Giott for a very long time, but it's such an odd situation anyway because the whole reveal scene seems to hinge on "surprise, she's a girl" vibes so much that it's odd if they're not actually a girl. (And yes I know it's a male character model, but Lalafells can get away with that for misdirection purposes.)

Maybe the writer isn't certain and nobody has the guts (or dodge reflexes) to actually dare ask Giott about it.

I vaguely recall [Nidhana's beauty] being mentioned in-game somewhere too. I want to say the Aloalo intro quests? Mainly because that's where Matsya's crush on her is made obvious. Still, that's very far in the future from the writing of this lorebook.

Matsya's crush on Nidhana was brought up earlier in MSQ as well. I remember him gushing over her beauty when we said we were off to visit her next.

Completely unrelated, I see that the now-deceased high commander of the Radiant Host of Radz-at-Han was Qulsun bihn Aphmau. Still not sure if this was a deliberate FFXI reference, because while this Aphmau is vaguely related to the relevant Near East country, her role and appearance are nothing like FFXI's Aphmau.

I don't think there's any need to assume that specific FFXI characters are being referenced when the names get recycled for Thavnairian names. I assume they've just got the list of names and are using them at random.

I've previously added a list of FFXI names to my thread on Thavnairian naming conventions. There are a few other names that have been recycled as well, though I can't comment on the significance of any of them. I still need to update the page with these few additional names from the book.

I don't think we've gotten any direct comment on Thavnairian names in the book though, which is annoying when we got it for all of the new races, but the Thavnairians (and Werlytians) slip through because they're all pre-existing races compiled into new cultures.

[Cleretic]

These items were already addressed to varying degrees.

This isn't too surprising, but I think does highlight the strength of an Encyclopedia Eorzea release even for people who try their best to be on top of lore. So many established-but-not-important facts about the game world come up in passing and are just never reiterated on, meaning that it's easy to miss that they were said at all. There's also the related problem of 'I'm sure this was said, but I have no idea where, so I'm gonna struggle if someone asks for a source'. It was an almost terrifying eye-opener when I started actively taking notes my first time through a questline when I started doing patch lore reviews, because I was just noticing how many things I wasn't noticing before.

The Encyclopedias do so much to alleviate that, it's a massive relief.


Matsya thinking Nidhana is pretty is a great example of the limits of subjective sources of info, too. Yeah, I know that Matsya had a crush on Nidhana and thought she was beautiful, but there's a marked difference between 'one guy thinks Nidhana is pretty' and 'everyone thinks Nidhana is pretty'. Especially given I feel like Matsya's both a guy with a fairly small world, and a guy who probably doesn't just think about looks for stuff like this; I get the idea that he can fall for a girl-next-door type that he can have friendly conversations with, and that's kinda how I'd been reading Nidhana this whole time. Sorta similar to how I saw Fake Hythlodaeus as a wise and jolly old man rather than someone fairly youthful.