My speculation about crests and their involvement in plot.

[bLackWi1ka]

So with the latest Famitsu article we can pretty much conclude the list of crests our main characters have. We also know a fair bit about their (crests') connection to history. The confirmed crests are:

Saint group: Crest of Seiros, Crest of Cichol, Crest of , Crest of Indech and Crest of Cethlenn. We also have a mention of Divine Macuil, the crest of whom is probably the one on the right of the Crest of Chichol if we are looking ate the mural. The main reason why i think that is her(?) crest is because statues shown in the article have weapons with a fair resemblance to their crest image (Chichol is actually is the most obvious one) and Macuil is holding a sword which hilt might actually be an inspiration for the crest design (also all saint crests so far have been based at the top of the mural).

10 Elites group: Crest of Dominique, Flardarius, Daphnyll, Blaidydd, Gloucester, Goneril, Gautier, Charon, Riegan and Lamine.

And that is 15 crest confirmed. But we have 21 on the mural excluding the crest of Flames Byleth has (since it is in the middle and covered).

That leaves us with 5 (the crest of ?Hraesveleg? is not confirmed but we know of revealed bearer and relic weapon) crests of unknown allegiance. All of them are either damaged (Marianne's crest) or damaged on the basic mural. Below is the mural with red saint crests yellow/blue elite crests and purple other crests.

Which kinda led me to a little speculative theory which has several main points:

1) So we know crests originated from a certain high being. This certain high being is not depicted ANYWHERE and nobody worships it, even tho crests are deemed as very important and powerful. this is very much weird. That leads to the second point.

2) Either saints (which i see as more likely) led by Seiros or somebody else had a falling out with the high being which led to a wide conflict. My ideas include: imbalance of power (this idea is based upon the fact that Byleth's crest is placed in the middle of a mural, which indicates it is the most important . So maybe Nemesis, the previous know bearer? of Crest of Flames held too much power so divines got jealous or smth.), disagreement between policies (maybe saints wanted to worship high being and SET UP A CHURCH, but as the main representative Nemesis refused) or corruption (in this one everything gos well until Nemesis gets smhow corrupted by his crest and starts rampaging so Saints have to stop him).

3)Since Nemesis lost the war all infromation about high being was restricted and people maybe forgot and started instead worshiping Seiros and 4 of her companions as saints. That may explain the 1-st point i made.

4)I think that maybe 6 people initially joined Nemesis in his "Liberation" (thus 6 damaged crests on the mural), maybe 10 greats remained neutral or joined Divines. Main thoughts here are:

Bearer of ?Hraesveleg? crest may have betrayed Nemesis, but to keep him in check/reinforce friendship/maybe he fell in love, he(who knows) had to marry Seiros and thus Adrestian Empire was formed. Thats why this crest is not completely obscured on the mural but it is not really mentioned (smth like shame bearers of this crests hold).

Night crawlers are either companions of Nemesis or their descendants who want to ressurect the Liberation King (who knows the might actually succeed with the hands of ?Nemesis? bursting out of the coffin in one of the videos). That might explain their hate for Church of Seiros and mysterious powers (they might also be corrupted crest bearers).

Thats basically it or the theory so tell me what you think plz.

P.S I'm bad at image stuff so this mural edit is made in paint and is BAD. 

P.S.2. English is not my first but i tried my best. 

[SpiceMan]

Overall Pretty solid theory. I forgot that the 5 unknown crests were all damaged ones, that makes me really curious about what happened to them. I'm kind of hoping that the Nightcrawlers have some of these damaged crests because more crests equals more fun.

[Zoderos]

1) The narrator in the first trailer says "The divine Seiros received a revelation from the goddess, a gift to help guide the lost...". It never mentions that the Goddess bestowed the crests to the humans, just that she revealed something to Seiros. Later on Edelgard says "... the crests... tokens of the Goddess's powers". So we assume the crests originate from the Goddess based on Edelgard's words. But is this true or is this something that Church preaches to the world? Also, the people of Fodlan at least believe  that the Goddess is the high being you're refering to, and she is supposed to be the flying woman on the mural(Seiros is the woman kneeling with the sword). Now of course we don't know if a real Goddess even exists or in the case that she exists that she cares to interact with mortals.  That said, I too believe the crests originate from a powerful entity that isn't the "supposed" Goddess. If I were to take a wild guess, I'd wager that the start of all of this madness was some people(I will call them "pre-Church" from now on to differentiate them from the current Church) who found a way to harness some unknown power and created the crests.  They distributed the crests and used them to establish their dominance on the continent, with them as the highest authority.

2) Byleth/Nemesis's crest is most likely the most powerful crest at least from what we've known so far. Why was he bestowed with the most powerful crest? Perhaps he was one of the people who created the crests or he was the one who made a deal with a powerful entity and he was given the "original" crest, which all other crests are modeled from. Your guess is as good as mine. Anyway, moving on, Nemesis is called "the Liberator". From his nickname we can assume that he liberated or perhaps it's better to say he "tried" to liberate the oppressed people. Why would he do that? I see two possible scenarios here. He either moved against some nobles/kings that abused their crests and made the common people suffer and the whole conflict escalated to the point that the pre-Church also intervened or he moved directly against the pre-Church to challenge their authority, because the pre-Church basically controlled everything - the whole world revolved around the crests. The crests bestow supernatural powers, indicate if your a noble or not, if you're fit to rule or to be ruled, in essence no crest no party. Nemesis was probably dissatisfied with the whole situation and rebeled, but of course there may have also been some other reason.

3) This is most likely true. History is written by the winners after all. He lost and the truth was hidden. That's also when the pre-Church people established the Church as we know it. They hid the existence of Nemesis's crest, made up a story about how the crests were a "gift" from a Goddess and not the sinister weapons of oppression that they are, and started preaching the new religion with the winners at the forefront(Seiros, the Divines and the Greats). Basically continuing the same thing that pre-Church did, but in a more elegant way. I mean it's sweeter to hear  that  a divine Goddess bestowed the crests to the worthy heros, than hearing that some people secretly created them while messing with unknown powers and used them to rule the world. And thus the religion spread  throughout Fodlan with tales of the mighty Seiros and her companions, yet everything remained the same as before.

4) Nemesis most likely had some comrades in arms. They may or may not have been the people with the faded out crests.

I don't quite understand what you're trying to say when you're talking about the Hresvelg guy, so I'll move on.

I too think the Nightcrawlers try to free Nemesis. I am not sure however if they are his old comrades(or their descendants) or just some guys who want to use him to achieve their goals. They sure look really pale, like vampire-pale, so they might aswell be immortal and have lived for a very long time.

[bLackWi1ka]

28 minutes ago, Zoderos said:

Spoiler

 

1) The narrator in the first trailer says "The divine Seiros received a revelation from the goddess, a gift to help guide the lost...". It never mentions that the Goddess bestowed the crests to the humans, just that she revealed something to Seiros. Later on Edelgard says "... the crests... tokens of the Goddess's powers". So we assume the crests originate from the Goddess based on Edelgard's words. But is this true or is this something that Church preaches to the world? Also, the people of Fodlan at least believe  that the Goddess is the high being you're refering to, and she is supposed to be the flying woman on the mural(Seiros is the woman kneeling with the sword). Now of course we don't know if a real Goddess even exists or in the case that she exists that she cares to interact with mortals.  That said, I too believe the crests originate from a powerful entity that isn't the "supposed" Goddess. If I were to take a wild guess, I'd wager that the start of all of this madness was some people(I will call them "pre-Church" from now on to differentiate them from the current Church) who found a way to harness some unknown power and created the crests.  They distributed the crests and used them to establish their dominance on the continent, with them as the highest authority.

2) Byleth/Nemesis's crest is most likely the most powerful crest at least from what we've known so far. Why was he bestowed with the most powerful crest? Perhaps he was one of the people who created the crests or he was the one who made a deal with a powerful entity and he was given the "original" crest, which all other crests are modeled from. Your guess is as good as mine. Anyway, moving on, Nemesis is called "the Liberator". From his nickname we can assume that he liberated or perhaps it's better to say he "tried" to liberate the oppressed people. Why would he do that? I see two possible scenarios here. He either moved against some nobles/kings that abused their crests and made the common people suffer and the whole conflict escalated to the point that the pre-Church also intervened or he moved directly against the pre-Church to challenge their authority, because the pre-Church basically controlled everything - the whole world revolved around the crests. The crests bestow supernatural powers, indicate if your a noble or not, if you're fit to rule or to be ruled, in essence no crest no party. Nemesis was probably dissatisfied with the whole situation and rebeled, but of course there may have also been some other reason.

3) This is most likely true. History is written by the winners after all. He lost and the truth was hidden. That's also when the pre-Church people established the Church as we know it. They hid the existence of Nemesis's crest, made up a story about how the crests were a "gift" from a Goddess and not the sinister weapons of oppression that they are, and started preaching the new religion with the winners at the forefront(Seiros, the Divines and the Greats). Basically continuing the same thing that pre-Church did, but in a more elegant way. I mean it's sweeter to hear  that  a divine Goddess bestowed the crests to the worthy heros, than hearing that some people secretly created them while messing with unknown powers and used them to rule the world. And thus the religion spread  throughout Fodlan with tales of the mighty Seiros and her companions, yet everything remained the same as before.

4) Nemesis most likely had some comrades in arms. They may or may not have been the people with the faded out crests.

I don't quite understand what you're trying to say when you're talking about the Hresvelg guy, so I'll move on.

I too think the Nightcrawlers try to free Nemesis. I am not sure however if they are his old comrades(or their descendants) or just some guys who want to use him to achieve their goals. They sure look really pale, like vampire-pale, so they might aswell be immortal and have lived for a very long time.

 

 

First thank you for the detailed response. It helped me sort some things in my head a little bit. On to the topic.

1) One of the ideas i had was that not all 22 crest were received simultaneously. So it might be as you've said that Seiros alone or maybe 5 saints received the crests first and then with their followers experimented to get more. Ah I kinda skipped on the goddes on the mural my bad :/. 

2)I also see this idea of Nemesis rebelling against the church (or pre-church) because of their ways as the most plausible variant.

4) About the ?hresveleg? crest guy: I just thought that a) this crest has some specific importance in the story. b) for some reason it is obscured. c) Edelgard's axe shows she might as well have the same crest as Marianne, and Marianne seems to be in hiding for some reason, which might be because ?Hresveleg? crest family tries to hide its existence from general public or is deeply ashamed of having it (or maybe this whole Edelgard/Marianne plot is just a power struggle as I've seen speculated in one of the posts), so I just tied it into the theory because it might've explained why the whole empire/church alliance happened or maybe why Edelgards family is in power (she doesn't seem to be of pure Seiros descent).

The thing about Nightcrawlers brings the question about them joining our side because of the whole "fight against the church" shenanigans and Byleth having the same crest as Nemesis. It would be cool if we at least had an option to recruit some of them. or maybe even fight at their side or smth.

[Samurai Hinata]

I really like this theory so far 😄

I also had an idea about the drawing on the mural … Since dragons have oftentimes been major antagonists in FE and since it looks like Seiros may have really been the bad guy, if the five dragons on the mural might not actually represent the saints. There seem to be 5 of both, and we've actually seen a white dragon in the E3 trailer that sported the crest of Seiros. Could that also mean that the person kneeling there with a sword is really Nemesis, and that the 6 figures to the left and right bear the other 6 crests that aren't accounted for among the 5 saints and 10 elites?

Also, one of those 6 crests curiously isn't faded out at all, and we've previously seen it on a balcony of the monastery. Wonder what that means. Maybe that was an ally of Nemesis initially, then turned on him and "redeemed" himself by building the monastery (though that wasn't enough to give them back the title of Elite). Also, Anna also has one of the faded crests on her clothes. Maybe she's also a descendant of one of Nemesis' allies? She does have a secret shop again afaik

[Zoderos]

10 hours ago, bLackWi1ka said:

First thank you for the detailed response. It helped me sort some things in my head a little bit. On to the topic.

1) One of the ideas i had was that not all 22 crest were received simultaneously. So it might be as you've said that Seiros alone or maybe 5 saints received the crests first and then with their followers experimented to get more. Ah I kinda skipped on the goddes on the mural my bad :/. 

2)I also see this idea of Nemesis rebelling against the church (or pre-church) because of their ways as the most plausible variant.

4) About the ?hresveleg? crest guy: I just thought that a) this crest has some specific importance in the story. b) for some reason it is obscured. c) Edelgard's axe shows she might as well have the same crest as Marianne, and Marianne seems to be in hiding for some reason, which might be because ?Hresveleg? crest family tries to hide its existence from general public or is deeply ashamed of having it (or maybe this whole Edelgard/Marianne plot is just a power struggle as I've seen speculated in one of the posts), so I just tied it into the theory because it might've explained why the whole empire/church alliance happened or maybe why Edelgards family is in power (she doesn't seem to be of pure Seiros descent).

The thing about Nightcrawlers brings the question about them joining our side because of the whole "fight against the church" shenanigans and Byleth having the same crest as Nemesis. It would be cool if we at least had an option to recruit some of them. or maybe even fight at their side or smth.

Oh I see what you were talking about. Yes I think Marianne's crest definitely has some huge plot significance and is related to Edelgard and/or the Empire. In the latest famitsu article it's refered as crest of ??? after all. I too believe it's indeed the Hresvelg crest, but it's not certain yet.

I don't think they'll let us recruit the old evil guys from the Nightcrawlers. The Peri- looking orange hair chick initially looked like she could be recruitable, but it's heavily implied by the trailers that she dies, so I doubt she'll join us. Of course, they may have not revealed all the nightcrawler characters, so there may still be some hope.
 

9 hours ago, Samurai Hinata said:

I really like this theory so far 😄

I also had an idea about the drawing on the mural … Since dragons have oftentimes been major antagonists in FE and since it looks like Seiros may have really been the bad guy, if the five dragons on the mural might not actually represent the saints. There seem to be 5 of both, and we've actually seen a white dragon in the E3 trailer that sported the crest of Seiros. Could that also mean that the person kneeling there with a sword is really Nemesis, and that the 6 figures to the left and right bear the other 6 crests that aren't accounted for among the 5 saints and 10 elites?

Also, one of those 6 crests curiously isn't faded out at all, and we've previously seen it on a balcony of the monastery. Wonder what that means. Maybe that was an ally of Nemesis initially, then turned on him and "redeemed" himself by building the monastery (though that wasn't enough to give them back the title of Elite). Also, Anna also has one of the faded crests on her clothes. Maybe she's also a descendant of one of Nemesis' allies? She does have a secret shop again afaik

If we take the mural at face value, I doubt the kneeling figure is Nemesis. Nemesis is a huge bulky man. The kneeling figure has a small waist  and large hips, meaning she's a woman. She also has the same curved sword that Seiros is using in the trailer. I am certain the kneeling figure is Seiros. Of course, there is still the possibility that the mural may have been redrawn and actually be a fake reverse depiction of the past events.

Anyway, since we're talking about the crest's involvement in the plot, after analysing the mural a bit more, I find it a bit strange that the Saints(or Divines, I still don't know which is the official translation) don't use legendary bone hero relics, even in the mural none of them is wielding a bone weapon(and let's be honest here, these weapons definitely seem to be made from dragonbones, or specifically dragon mandibles, which is a recurring theme in FE games, for example the Falchions contain Naga's Fang). Seiros herself both in the mural and in the trailers is seen using this curved normal looking steel sword. It's also strange that the Saints depicted in the mural seem to either be praying to or looking up in the sky, where coincidentally enough there are dragons flying. To add to that, as you mentioned before, the dragon in the trailer, which is the same dragon displayed in the centre of the mural, had Seiros' crest.  I doubt this is a coincidence. That dragon has definitely some connection to Seiros, hell it may even be Seiros when she transforms if she is a classic manakete, in the last trailer it was shown that a green haired woman's eyes turned into lizard eyes after all. So in essence, we have two oppossing factions here. On one hand, the saints with Seiros in the center, who seemingly worship the dragons in the mural. And on the other hand, the supposed Greats, who use dragonbone hero relics, and even a dumb person would know that to make a weapon made of a dragonsbone, you have to slay a dragon or at least find the carcass of one. However, oddly enough, both the saints and the greats have crests, and both sides are represented in the mural, so if there was a conflict between, it was resolved and ended in peace, based on the mural at least.

And finally to delve deeper in dangerous far fetched speculation territory, let's talk about the crest stones. Every hero relic has a crest stone inserted in it that is associated with a crest. The crest stone itself seems to be the source of  the weapon's power and can only be utilized when the wielders bear the same crest as the crest stone. When someone who doesn't have  the crest tries to use it, something bad happens. So I am gonna ask the question... are the  crest stones the dragonstones of this game? or at the very least artificial dragonstones to harness the power of dragons using weapons made by dragonbone? It would also explain the reason why the Saints and Seiros in the mural aren't visibly wielding any dragonbone weapons. They don't need it. They can use the stones directly. Of course, this doesn't mean they are all manaketes. They could be of course, but they may  also just channel the stone's powers to use powerful draconic magic or something. This could also explain a lot of things. That the crests are linked to dragons, and some of the crests are artificially made(the reason these artificial ones were made was either that some greedy people wanted to gain the power of dragons or as a means to combat a dragon threat). Just some food for thought.

[Samurai Hinata]

 

3 hours ago, Zoderos said:

 

It would probably make the most sense if the one who drew the picture in the middle did it as an assignment by Seiros' faction, to censor Nemesis' crest (the REAL centerpiece of the mural), but the artist himself secretly siding with Nemesis, thus drawing it in a way that seemingly depicts Seiros kneeling as per the church's wishes, while hiding the true meaning for those observant enough. The artist could very well be the bearer of the unknown crest depicted on the monastery balcony. Someone who didn't side with Seiros and thus wasn't considered an Elite, and either stayed neutral or betrayed Nemesis, and after the war played a crucial role in building the church of Seiros, maybe with the wish to leave as many clues to the true story as possible. I could see that being Seteth's ancestor, though of course that's all speculation

If the statues of the Saints are accurate, they do possess weapons that don't seem to be made of dragonbone. Which would make a lot of sense if they were manaketes themselves. Both, as you said, because they wouldn't need them, and also because it's like … using their fallen brethren's bones is kinda weird. But they could very well have rewarded the Elites with weapons made of the fallen dragons' bones for siding with them against Nemesis. That wouldn't explain Nemesis' own sword, but maybe Nemesis first killed a dragon and crafted weapons for himself (and his 6 allies?) out of their bones. And the Saints then made or allowed the Elites to make weapons in a similar fashion (so they weren't at a disadvantage in battle?)

And yeah, I'm also intrigued by the crest stones … The crests are said to be granted by the goddess, but the stones are an entirely different matter. It could be that they have transformative powers, and that they take over people who try using them without having the appropriate crest to handle them. And the idea about them being artificial (or there being artificial copies) would make sense too, because I'm pretty sure we've seen a Creststone of Gautier and a broken Creststone of Gautier on 2 different enemies …