A closer look at the Amano artwork

[Spira]

yea they mostly are.. tho the frequency that they've done so has made it become like their own mythos..
like people seem to forget ifrit and shiva were drawn from mythology

btw you missed out laevateinn and nirvana from the mythic list.

[agerknux]

I can't remember where/when but someone in the SE community team touched on the reason why some of the jobs can't use relics. It had something to do with the "lore" and would look into possibly adding a reasons for the other jobs to be put on them. If they can find reasons why Geomancer and Rune Fencer to have its own Mythic, I think they would. Not to mention that having their own mythic means 2 new, but lacking weapon skills they must put in.

[Aldoras]

It could be Siren yeah... when they showed that artwork during the English stream they were completely vague about that creature.. they were surely hiding something.

i dunno about new avatars ... they would have to come up with a totally new lore as to where these new ones are from - we already have all celestial avatars (one for each element), and all the terrestrial ones appeared also

they could do something like being able to call upon the guardians of the land or some such, but then why can they be called in the same way as celestials which are supposed to be gods

[Rocl]

They introduced Cait Sith and Atomos as avatars just fine (more or less). I see no reason why there couldn't be another set of avatars in the West.

[Septimus]

Yeah, Cait Sith and Atomos are neither Celestial nor Terrestrial, they are just some new type of Avatar roaming about. And then there are Dark Ixion and Auroral Alicorn that have the fancy Avatar glow, but have never been confirmed to be avatars or not.

They really aren't too clear about their avatar lore these days...

[Azat]

Theoretically the Terrestrial line of avatars is not limited to just the 5, its just that the 5 were prominent in the main story so far. It is possible they are representatives of each post split crystal, or its just a happy coincidence. Terrestrial classification is simply those (in this case animals) that were of the paradise era that reemerged post split now with godlike power. Its been left pretty vague so it is possible DI and Auroral could also fall under the terrestrial family, albeit a lesser god level perhaps. If that is the case, then it should not be a huge issue lore wise to have other terrestrials existing running about. Or like its been mentioned with the introduction of Cait Sith, a whole new classification could exist.

[refresh]

Yggdrassil will have a spirit avatar or a guardian and odin (he just cant keep his hand out of the plot) has links to Yggdrassil maybe even more odin story do to him being the Big Boss of the Underworld is Odin's Realm it going to be Tartarus. As far we know you cant summon demons with out making a pact with odin.

Tartarus is where Pandemonium Warden came out from to Vana'diel "This is the end. . .of nothing. . .Defeating me proves only that you harbor the seeds of evil within your trembling flesh. . .Someday. . .they shall come. . .into fruition. . ."

An Ancient King try to open up Tartarus to win a war with Twelve Great Houses the and then became the Dark Overlord? seems we have to go deeper there must be old hints we are missing.

[Souj]

This expansion will make up its own stuff with little to no consideration for the old expansions and then we will struggle to make all the pieces fit, just like all the other expansions to date.

[Ophannus]

We were hoping for some big plot details with TOAU regarding the Olduum and Alexander but by the end of TOAU we literally learned nothing. The Olduum are mentioned in passing and maybe in 2 quests but not much is ever revealed about them and nobody ever explains who built the Alzadaal ruins or how Alexander came to this world really and what he wants. Are Alex/Odin really Celestial Avatars of Light/Dark or are they in their own class... I wonder.

Also don't forget there were things in previous Amano box arts that were never revealed. Remember when WoTG boxart came out people saw a silver haired horse rider(note: not chocobo rider) underneathe Odin and everyone thought "OMFG ITS RAIDEN" but that was never touched upon. Behold:

Spoiler: show

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/7146/odinz.jpg

Raiden would have made an infinitely more badass Neo-Einherjar boss than just Odin with higher HP. Shinzantetsu {Do you need it?}
Notice the different color armor and horse in both videos.



It would have been bad ass if Alexander and Odin were two halves of the same avatar -- Raiden since Raiden is Odin without the helmet and with light armor and silver hair and a white/blue horse and considerably less evil. Raiden is also associated with Lightning element, not darkness, and Alzadaal/Olduum was ALL ABOUT THUNDERZ (to prevent getting Zantetsu'd against him or Odin you had to cast lightning magic on him to stun his sword while he was readying it in FF games, also notice the thuderbolt effect when summoning Raiden in the above video)


It also could have been that the Alexander concept was introduced very late and it was originally intended to be Raiden vs Odin from the beginning or something, or maybe in the future with you being Odin's Knight and Luzaf still being under Odin's control, maybe Luzaf will make an appearance as Raiden since he kinda has the long hair already.

[Spira]

anyone who has seen enough amano art will know that a lot of 'details' added to the drawing is just fluff, and i believe what you mentioned above is one of those things. you're not supposed to be able to make sense of all of it.

edit: look back at wotg, toau, cop and roz amano artwork. most of it have elements that dont mean anything, and we know everything there is to know about those expansions already.
edit 2: ok CoP may be the exception, only because its so simple.

[Septimus]

Theoretically the Terrestrial line of avatars is not limited to just the 5, its just that the 5 were prominent in the main story so far. It is possible they are representatives of each post split crystal, or its just a happy coincidence. Terrestrial classification is simply those (in this case animals) that were of the paradise era that reemerged post split now with godlike power. Its been left pretty vague so it is possible DI and Auroral could also fall under the terrestrial family, albeit a lesser god level perhaps. If that is the case, then it should not be a huge issue lore wise to have other terrestrials existing running about. Or like its been mentioned with the introduction of Cait Sith, a whole new classification could exist.

Each terrestrial avatar had a gate in Pso'Xja. There are only 5 gates, so nothing for Atomos and Cait Sith. Not to mention that Cait Sith was created in a completely different manner than the Celestial and Terrestrial avatars.

We were hoping for some big plot details with TOAU regarding the Olduum and Alexander but by the end of TOAU we literally learned nothing. The Olduum are mentioned in passing and maybe in 2 quests but not much is ever revealed about them and nobody ever explains who built the Alzadaal ruins or how Alexander came to this world really and what he wants. Are Alex/Odin really Celestial Avatars of Light/Dark or are they in their own class... I wonder.

Also don't forget there were things in previous Amano box arts that were never revealed. Remember when WoTG boxart came out people saw a silver haired horse rider(note: not chocobo rider) underneathe Odin and everyone thought "OMFG ITS RAIDEN" but that was never touched upon. Behold:

Spoiler: show

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/7146/odinz.jpg

Raiden would have made an infinitely more badass Neo-Einherjar boss than just Odin with higher HP. Shinzantetsu {Do you need it?}
Notice the different color armor and horse in both videos.



It would have been bad ass if Alexander and Odin were two halves of the same avatar -- Raiden since Raiden is Odin without the helmet and with light armor and silver hair and a white/blue horse and considerably less evil. Raiden is also associated with Lightning element, not darkness, and Alzadaal/Olduum was ALL ABOUT THUNDERZ (to prevent getting Zantetsu'd against him or Odin you had to cast lightning magic on him to stun his sword while he was readying it in FF games, also notice the thuderbolt effect when summoning Raiden in the above video)


It also could have been that the Alexander concept was introduced very late and it was originally intended to be Raiden vs Odin from the beginning or something, or maybe in the future with you being Odin's Knight and Luzaf still being under Odin's control, maybe Luzaf will make an appearance as Raiden since he kinda has the long hair already.

I think you are reading too much into the lore from one game and trying to apply it to an entirely different game with different lore. The only time that there was a connection between Odin and Raiden was in FFVI, Raiden has only been in two Final Fantasy games: Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings. In FFVI he is an upgrade to Odin, but in Revenant Wings he is Ramuh's pupil and looks nothing like his FFVI counterpart.

The Amano map of Vana'diel is kind of confusing really. Many of the avatars are easily identifiable: Odin, Ixion, Shiva, Leviathan, Carbuncle, and Fenrir. There are two birds that look like they could be Phoenix, then a winged human near Phoenix that could be Garuda. But then other things are purely speculative. Is the large, dark figure over Ixion Bahamut? (Doesn't really look like our Bahamut.) Is the red and black figure over Odin Ifrit or Diabolos? (It looks like Ifrit, but the colors are closer to Diabolos's.) Who is the red guy by that figure? (Maybe it is supposed to be Titan, but the guy getting tentacle love in the top right corner looks closer to Titan.) What is the thing between Altana's knee and Ixion? What is the thing between Ixion and the dark figure? (A behemoth maybe, but those aren't even close to Avatars, but Ixion's connection is iffy at best.) A lot of the random creatures scattered around don't even exist in the game.

Honestly, I think the light knight was an early concept design for Alexander that was later scrapped for a more classic model- looking at the map, it is probably from very early in the game's production before even RotZ. (Notice the Crag of Mea in Sauromugue Champaign north of Drogaroga's Spine, the Gigas in Cape Terrigan, nothing around Tavnazia, and no Uleguerand Range.) Alexander has been the holy or light elemental in the FF games in which he is summonable. (With the exception of FFXIII, but their summon system was fucked up to say the least- hello Brynhildr, the tranny Ifrit-mobile or the Shiva, the Scissor Sisters.) The only other holy/light based summon in the main-line FF games would be Maduin and the Myst Dragon in the FFIV remake.

[Souj]

Each terrestrial avatar had a gate in Pso'Xja. There are only 5 gates, so nothing for Atomos and Cait Sith. Not to mention that Cait Sith was created in a completely different manner than the Celestial and Terrestrial avatars.

The Kuluu built Pso Xja and as far as we know the Kuluu have only been on the original continent. Could be they only had known about those avatars.
/devil's advocate

[Azat]

It had been my understanding Pso'Xja was build by the Kuluu to serve as a base and harness the power of the 5 Avatars they had forged a pact with in order to disrupt the zilarts plans.

In either case the new expansion does give them the freedom to either flesh out some existing concepts about the avatar system, introduce yet some new type, or simply say fuck it and make it about a giant rabbit bent on world domination.

[Pikarya]

o i fully agree. the era of camping NMs is over. content should be made fun and accessible for all.

Casual talk.

[Priran]

http://gamatsu.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Seekers-of-Adoulin-07.jpg

This is either a new mob class, it looks like a Spriggan(half woman half plant) but it could also be a new Avatar -- Siren, from Final Fantasy VIII

Maybe it has something to do with Garuda? The location of her story, the "Bay of Beheru," is described as a capital city surrounded by the sea and is the only one that hasn't been visited yet.

I just wonder why adventurers are only now going to Adoulin. Adoulin has trade with San d'Oria, and people come from the area to the Middle Lands. Hopefully there's a more interesting reason than an "explorers needed" want ad like in ToAU.

[Sagacious Sundi]

Tenzen did sort of place a limit on terrestrial avatars when he said "The terrestrial avatars are the five powerful gods born of Vana'diel and entrusted to protect her." (BTW, does bgwiki have any scripts? Had to use otherwiki for this.)

I don't think there's a limit for celestial avatars, though. I think the only requirements there are that they were the original gods born before the crystal was split (Carbuncle calls them "elder gods" IIRC) and currently live on the Astral Plane. I'd peg Atomos as a celestial, since he's clearly in space which is implied to literally be the Astral Plane.

Cait Sith is probably in a whole new category of avatars who are born from Altana's bodily fluids.

[Septimus]

Tenzen did sort of place a limit on terrestrial avatars when he said "The terrestrial avatars are the five powerful gods born of Vana'diel and entrusted to protect her." (BTW, does bgwiki have any scripts? Had to use otherwiki for this.)

I don't think there's a limit for celestial avatars, though. I think the only requirements there are that they were the original gods born before the crystal was split (Carbuncle calls them "elder gods" IIRC) and currently live on the Astral Plane. I'd peg Atomos as a celestial, since he's clearly in space which is implied to literally be the Astral Plane.

Cait Sith is probably in a whole new category of avatars who are born from Altana's bodily fluids.

Eight is the accepted number for Celestial Gods is because of the star chart and the 10 statues in the Hall of Gods. (Altana, Promathia, then the 8 elder god Celestials.)

[Suteru]

Wait, where is it explained what those statues are? It's been too long since I've played through that.

[Priran]

I always thought they were the Dawnmaidens.

[Souj]

same
The 7 elements + the rainbow maiden