Unsolved Mysteries Of Vana'diel

Where did the Antica come from that the Galka developed this whole civilization on the continent before being forced out?

Where did the Sandworm of the past dissappear to that it is not only never mentioned in the present, but also doesn't show up?

What happened to the Fae?

And the biggest for me, what were the original plan for Demisang Deleterious? Writing an entire system to randomize its armor can't have been an accident, so what was the actual intent there?

This is just the best take I've got thinking about it really hard while I take a too much beef this week poo:

So all of the races on Vana'diel as far as we know are descended from the destruction of Paradise and Promathia. Further still, some of them were mutated by The Meltdown(the event that came at the destruction of the Crag of Vahzl perpetrated by The Kuluu). I assume this includes the Beastmen, even the Antica, because they all have humanoid shape (two legs, two arms, a head). While the Kuluu were explicitly mutated into Tonberries, there is no precise exposition about what The Meltdown did to other races.

So I think the Antica were a race of humanoids that were mutated into ant people, and that they burrowed deep into the sands being rather completely unknown by the rest of the world until the Galka dug too deeply, awakening them from self imposed stasis. Like how ant hills go dormant in winter, the Antica went dormant deep under Altepa until the aftermath of The Meltdown was over. The Galka digging too deeply was the clear call from the outside that let them know the surface was OK again.

Now obviously, that creates more questions, chief among them being, "If they survived The Meltdown's immediate effects, why burrow to avoid them further?"

Way simpler answer that doesn't try to capitalize on RoTZ lore is just, they were always there deep down, and didn't know about the surface at all until The Galka dug too deep. Or perhaps The Zilart had sealed them at some point in the past, and then the Galka dug too deep.

That's all I've got!

Re: Sandworm
We killed it, duh!

Re: Fae
Well, given Witchfire Glen's proximity to a Veridical Conflux that goes straight to The Walk of Echoes, and that the past is technically a Vana'diel Prime of sorts, and then given their presence in Abyssea, it could be that The Fae are from somewhere else and slipped into the WoTG era from another reality.

Re: Demisang Deletrious

Fomors have always given me the vibe of being PVP in PVE clothing. I think the original intent of a randomized armor and weapon may have been the starts at an attempt to have a battlefield consisting of dozens of randomized Fomors as a sort of, "Can you beat the dark version of your own party?" or something like that. But then, I don't think that D.D. is actually truly randomized. Granted, I have not run Sortie as much as really anyone else who is still even semi-serious about XI, but for me, he almost always has Great Axe and then a hodgepodge of WHM and WAR AF. Sometimes there's some variety in this. I've seen Great Axe, Dual Daggers, Dual Swords, Staff, Club and Shield, and Hand to Hand. So he's what, based off the 6 starter jobs but restricted to being melee? Maybe that's just how they kept with the theming of the Sortie Fomors being largely in parties.

To me the big thing about the Demisang is they are different from every other fomors. As best I can tell the game classifies them as half-gods or demigods. They are NOT undead. The Deleterious himself can be any combination of the 5 visible slots + a weapon from any of the initial six jobs. So WAR MNK WHM BLM RDM THF artifact/relic/empy + their respective six weapons. I feel like the original end of Sortie and Aminon was originally something different. It feels like Sortie was designed in 2012 and scrapped in favor of Vagary, and the basement was tacked on after the release of upstairs to the players many years later.

sortie released after odyssey, odyssey uses neither temp key items nor temp items. Used instead izzat which is displayed on screen, same for dyna.d. with wave 3 boss progress bar for a free m.swart.

if sortie was developed around the time of delve, sortie, incursion, and vagary, why use temp items when the others use key items UNLESS the event was supposed to reset temps each time you enter.
ABCDEFGH all forced you to be in their region to get credit for chests opened. now it's only upstairs EFGH which are separated. they adjusted the chest 'bug' before adding EFGH otherwise we would likely be able to get credit for basement while upstairs or at least any basement would have been enough for credit.
If we had to re-obtain the keys & plates each time, then would region locked chests have even been considered a 'bug' at all?

Tinfoil hat: retaining KIs the temps like keys and plates and such was never supposed to be the design but it's a bug and they can't figure out how to fix it.

Funny this meme showed up

Do Empyreans and Aeonics have any lore in-game like Relics and Mythics or are they just "Here you go, endgame goal, get at it"?

Aeonics, idk. I haven't made one yet.

Empyreans are moogle magic related. I can't quite recall if they're weapons sealed by King Kupofried or not, but all of their power comes from Moogle Magic.

Relics, as you may know, were crafted by goblins/demons and thanks to TVR we know they were based off of the Prime weapons, like the prototypes for them or something or other.

Mythics are the Arms of Balrahm, weapons used by Aht Urhgan's first Emperor, or weapons that he took as trophies from his adversaries, and they're brimming with Alexander's divine essence imparted by all the Alexandrite and Balrahn's soul or whatever.

As before, Empyreans are Moogle Magic. You give them the materials from the trials and this lets them fulfill the spell. And uniquely allows Kupofried in WoE to bestow the weaponskill into your soul.

Aeonics, again IDK. It's Three New Five me. I know you gotta go pick up Attestations for them and they use Escha Beads and the what not, and it's an Escha Goblin doing the upgrading right? Ancient Goblin secret weapons I guess? idfk

Primes are the demon weapons and have probably the most explicit power explanation from TVR. Made by demons. Eat the soul of the wielder for power. Meant to rival Odin's power etc.

Haha ...Imagine SE's next content/lore update requires us to intentionally gimp our REMAs to Broken/-1 versions in order to proceed on a specific job. Oh, new questline and you want to proceed on MNK? Well, go ahead and please convert your R15 Verethragna to Verethragna-10 at the Magian Moogle ...Yikes.

That would have to be mythic/ergon, wouldn't it, since those are the only set that are all tied to a single job per weapon?

Empyrean would be, like, break this to unlock ilvl magian trials.

Relic would be break a weapon to unlock access to a new jse armor set.

Aeonic would be do you like NMs? Break one of there to fight a whole bunch of NMs to fight through.

And prime... prime weapon breaks you.

I liked how SE did the original lore posts about relic gear and weapons. It made them feel special.

I would unironically approve this.

Also artifact weapons need to get a reforge finally.

Message me later lol.

Yeah that's why I asked, I enjoyed the Relic and Mythic lore tidbits, but there's nothing really in-game that tells their (Empyrean & Aeonic) stories.

What Vyre wrote is probably right, but it's conjecture.

I mean, technically, SE gave us JSE Weapons at Oboro ...and also, technically, those could be considered modern Artifact weapons, right? ...RIGHT?!*

(*) Note: This is exactly what I expect a college intern or a person born after 1999 who works at Square-Enix to pass off as a FFXI weapons update, to us.

Unsolved Mysteries of FFXI: Does Robert Stack to 12 or 99?

Just some casual musings of mine. I've been gone a long time...at various different eras. But as far as I remember nobody figured out Ebon Panels either lore-wise or practical use-wise. There was so much noise about them being tied to Absolute Virtue back in 2006/2007, but that ended up being not true. Do they just truly have no use?

Unrelated, I've always been curious about various caves/alcoves to no where that look like zone-lines for an unreleased/cut area. Batallia Downs has a little cave near the sea that seemed prime for an additional zone. There is that restricted area in Bastok Mines down near the Alchemy guild that, unless there is some obscure quest there that I've never done, has no use but looked important. I'm sure there are others I am forgetting.

Another is the logistical layout of The Boyahda Tree and Dragon's Aery. I understand that Boyahda Tree is some sort of tunnel system underneath Zi'tah, but aery by definition is a bird's nest on top of a cliff or mountaintop. The name of the zone implies we are climbing a tree and when you climb the path up to Dragon's Aery, it does feel like you are ascending a bit, but it's somehow still underground and when you zone from Aery to Zi'tah, you are just at ground level. It's always been confusing to me.

Id have to go home and verify, but do the zonelines between saru and tahrongi indicate that youd be going from grasslands to a dirt filled canyon or vice versa?

You might just have to imagine a nice climb down that you dont get to see.

The Japanese for Dragon's Aery is just 龍のねぐら which literally translates to, "Dragon's Lair."

English just deciding to be more flavorful, as usual. Aery has a few definitions. The first being a bird's nest on a cliff or in a tree.

The next being, "An elevated, secluded dwelling, structure, or position."

What's the lore/premise behind the "beam me up" teleports in the Adoulin zones, associated with the WKR and 2nd map of the corresponding -Gates zone.

These 2nd maps also lead to Ra Kaznar so I'm assuming there is some connection but is this ever touched upon? The dialog and animation make it seem more than just a simple thing

The Naakuals are actually from Tartarus. August in all his Supreme Chad Founder King glory made them capitulate to him, and they are actually protectors of not just nature, but of the possible entrances to Rakaznar, which is from Tartarus.

The animations in all of Rakaznar's teleporters are super awesome, and I wish they'd done more with them. .Especially with the Inner Court zone.

I hate those teleporters because they ruin my muscle memory.

Every prompt in FFXI with two options:
Up = yes
No = down / cancel
With multiple prompts, generally the last one is no / cancel


Those teleporters:
Up = no / cancel
Down = yes

I dont know any other prompt in this game that follows that format.

Basically this, the warps don't unlock until you defeat the respective Naakual from that area. Isn't it mentioned in one mission that they aren't there to inhibit colonization into Ulbuka, rather to stop people to getting to Tartarus?

Runic portal in Aht Urghan if memory serves.

Ah yeah that is definitely touched upon, I guess I just wasn't expecting the "entrance to Tartarus" they were protecting was a teleport mechanism that sorta leads to it... was expecting something like a "dimensional fissure" type conflux or something, but I guess these were purposely crafted, convoluted entrances?

I wish they had more time/money with Adoulin as I feel like a lot of this stuff was half baked and could be way better if they had actually had the chance to give us more content/explain further.

I think Seekers has more backstory/lore than any other expansion, but maybe that's just because of the requirements to complete the epilogue and get Ygnas trust.

Inner Rak always feels out of place to me, like it doesn't quite belong in FFXI. Really fun to pos hack around though, it is freakin huge compared to most zones and the structures are built way above and below what the player can see even with increased draw distance.

I'll agree with this, but that's also why I'm kinda sad there isn't more.

A lot of stuff was just touched upon, or referenced once in passing never to be heard of again :'(

We had mentions of Rhazowa, etc ... coulda been glorious

Correct. I havent used that portal manually in forever thanks to superwarp. That might be a failsafe because the portal actually has a per-use cost and they were worried people would double click by accident and complain?

Never happened...