Tempest Trials+: Life & Death (Part 1)

[Diovani Bressan]

 A new Tempest Trials+ Series is coming, titled "Life & Death"! 

The curtain rises on Life & Death, a series of events focusing on the story of Eir and others from Hel, the realm of the dead!

Plus, story elements that feature Special Heroes chatting will be released on the 4th day and 7th day after the event starts!

 

The bonus allies of this TT+ are:

Summer Thórr (& Summer Loki), Summer Nifl, Summer Eirika, Summer Lyon, Summer Seth, Loki, Nifl and Eirika.

Summer Seth's skills at 5★ Lv 40:

Young general of Renais who has been assigned to protect Eirika, prepared to accompany her into the
water if the situation calls for it. Appears in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones.

 Seahorse Axe+ (Might: 14 / Range: 1)
If unit initiates combat or is within 2 spaces of an ally, grants Atk/Def+5 to unit during combat and unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack.

 Rally Up Spd
Grants Spd+4 to target ally and allies within 2 spaces of target (excluding unit) for 1 turn.

 Spd/Def Catch 3
At start of combat, if foe's HP = 100% or if [Penalty] is active on foe, grants Spd/Def+5 to unit during combat.

 Def Tactic 3
At start of turn, grants Def+6 to allies within 2 spaces for 1 turn. Granted only if number of that ally's movement type on current team ≤ 2.

And the Sacred Seals are:
* Description for the enchanted version of each sacred seal *

 Atk/Spd Push 3
At start of combat, if unit's HP = 100%, grants Atk/Spd+5, but if unit attacked, deals 1 damage to unit after combat.

 Bonus Doubler 3
Grants bonus to Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat = current bonus on each of unit's stats. Calculates each stat bonus independently.

 

You can also earn some Divine Codes: Ephemera 7 by reaching the 6,000 score, and a Fire Blessing by reaching the 12,500 score.

Final Map:

Spoiler

TT Boss:

Thórr & Loki: Sun-Kissed Gods
Weapon: Divine Whimsy
Assist: -
Special: Blazing Thunder
A Skill: Still Water 4
B Skill: A/R Far Trace 3
C Skill: Worldbreaker

Enemy 2: Melee Flier
Enemy 3: Melee Infantry
Enemy 4: Melee Armored
Enemy 5: Ranged Cavalry

The next event in the series, titled Life & Death 2, is scheduled for Ver. 6.8.0. Because the story of Life & Death is told through a series of events,
you will be able to view the story on the Tempest Trials+ event page after the event is over, even if you didn't participate in it.

[Mercakete]

You know, at first I thought this would show Eir hanging out on that hill she likes, maybe stargazing, and I wondered if we'd meet her real mom, but if it's "and others from Hel," then maybe it'll actually focus more on Lif & Co.? I don't know; that feels too dependent on the main story since his team is working to overthrow the gods entirely (which sounds very Ragnarok to me.) I also don't know about this featuring dead Gustav since he kind of got his spotlight with Henriette during his FB. Book 3's cast was pretty small, so who's left? Lif's group includes Thrasir and Hel is gone, so...

[Tybrosion]

If anyone wants a peek at the story (either the Life & Death part or the typical TT story part) here’s the link:

Spoiler

https://feheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Life_%26_Death_1

It should without saying that you shouldn’t click the link if you don’t want SPOILERS, which includes:

Spoiler

the introduction of two new characters for the Life & Death storyline.

[Ice Dragon]

Ooh, those are some nice Sacred Seals. Pity no Catch or Ideal since it'll take a while to get them all, but the ones we're getting are quite nice.

Atk/Spd Push goes to Genny. The after-combat healing on her weapon looks like it's specifically there to offset Push's recoil damage since, if I recall correctly, her refine was released back when Solo and Push were the only real options for staff units.

Bonus Doubler is a good alternative Sacred Seal for units that have Menace skills or can otherwise buff themselves.

[Naoshi]

4star Eirika lvl 1 for my bonus TT until S!Seth, here I go!

Anyway, Bonus doubler is quite interesting.

[Xenomata]

Legendary Marth and other Infantry units with Bonus Doubler on their weapon can now have FOUR stacks of BD active at any one time! That's a +24 bonus to each stat from just having a +6 field buff, +28 if the bonus is +7 instead.

ASpush3 should be nice for any unit who is capable of healing the lost damage after combat, most notably the recently released Legendary Xander and Legendary Nanna. It's not as huge a boost as Solo/Brazen, but it's still a pretty simple to apply boost.

As for Life and Death... I won't be spoiling myself to the events, I just hope Eir comes out the other side alright.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Bonus Doubler as a new Sacred Seal? Very nice. Probably one of the better ones in recent months, in my opinion.

[ARMADS!!!]

 So first of all, OH MY GOOOÓD! I JUST CAN'T BELIVE THAT THIS IS HAPPENING I WAITED SO LONG FOR THIS!!! SO  L O N G!!! I KNEW IT! I K.N.E.W IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!! Really, I just can't express my excitement here, book III was my favorite one to date and I'm REALLY excited to see all of this. 🙂 

 

I didn't read the link that Tybrosion gave us here because I don't want spoilers so maybe who already read it has the answers already, but I'll make guesses anyway (again, don't mind if I get everything wrong):

  I'm pretty sure that with "other characters from Hel" they mean at least some new characters, like Jormungandr and Fenrir, that on the norse mythology are Hel's siblings and the two other children of Angrboda (that is Hel's deceased mother, mentioned in book III, for those who don't remember). They also mentioned the "triad cataclysm" on book III (Veronica says that Agrboda is the mother of the triad cataclysm during the ritual to kill Hel), which makes me think that we will get to see Hel's siblings for sure, assuming that she is one of the members and her siblings are the other two (I wonder if they'd be beast units since Jormungandr is a snake and Fenrir is a wolf? It'd be cool...). Also I bet that we will get ascended Eir, of course... I just wonder if there will be another ascended character to mirror or rivalize her like Laegjarn to Fjorm...           

  I also really want to know more about Angrboda (that is said to be the maiden of life and death on book III, in addiction to what I said before), Eir's parents and the dragon of life (I mean, Eir's parents where royalty but from where? Why did her mother had wings? etc). We will probably not get to see much about most of these since they're all dead (except the dragon of life that no one ever mentioned if its dead or alive). So this TT+ will probably either have a lot of flashbacks, or a lot of info dumping, or they simply will leave a lot to tell again just like on Ice and Flame (I mean, I still wanna know what happened between Muspell and the fisrt ruler of the Muspell kingdom, and I feel like we could have had a lot more details about Nifl and Muspell's hate for each other I don't know if they just didn't finish to explain and actually have a deep motive for this hate or if that "they're so different that they hate each other to death" explanation was the actual only motive for them to want to kill one another...)

 Now, I know I talk about this a LOT here (I mean, about Eir's possible siblings, Angrboda, the dragon of life, the triad cataclysm, Eir's mother's wings, etc) but RIGHT NOW its when I can't contain myself and since it seems officially the right time to talk about it I had to do it again. 

On top of this, I think that almost everyone will agree that something about Líf and Thrasir would be very appreciated (WHAT IF WE GOT SOMETHING ABOUT THAT ASKR'S SHARENA??? LIKE, FINALLY, really they can't lose this opportunity), I mean, maybe I'm already putting the cart before the horse here but I'll enjoy these final moments to DREAM before all this illusion might be destroyed!!!!

 

 

 Anyway, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (I just can't belive that this is finally happening, HOW MANY MONTHS 'TIL ASCENDED EIR , I$????)

Edited July 7, 2022 by ARMADS!!!

[Mercakete]

Ah, so new Hel character. Specifically, another woman Hel's handmaid (who never bothered to show up during book 3 for no explainable reason.) She's clearly devoted, but it's not explicitly clear whether she's devoted to Hel herself, or just to things going smoothly in the Realm of the Dead (despite it taking so long for her to actually do anything about what Eir did.) I wonder what she'll look like in the end. She clearly has a design somewhere behind that purple-obscured shadow. You can see her massive scythe behind her.

You know, I didn't expect they'd address the power rift left behind from when Hel was offed, but I'm glad they are.

Edit: @ARMADS!!!

Good thoughts, though it looks like Eir isn't going to be Hel's ascended. But you know, a really neat thing IS could do is to make dead Sharena into the new Queen of Hel. Then she can hang with her dead dad and he undead brother and his friend. It actually makes their epilogue really nice that way.

Edited July 8, 2022 by Mercakete

[ARMADS!!!]

On 7/8/2022 at 1:15 AM, Mercakete said:

Ah, so new Hel character. Specifically, another woman Hel's handmaid (who never bothered to show up during book 3 for no explainable reason.) She's clearly devoted, but it's not explicitly clear whether she's devoted to Hel herself, or just to things going smoothly in the Realm of the Dead (despite it taking so long for her to actually do anything about what Eir did.) I wonder what she'll look like in the end. She clearly has a design somewhere behind that purple-obscured shadow. You can see her massive scythe behind her.

You know, I didn't expect they'd address the power rift left behind from when Hel was offed, but I'm glad they are.

Edit: @ARMADS!!!

Good thoughts, though it looks like Eir isn't going to be Hel's ascended. But you know, a really neat thing IS could do is to make dead Sharena into the new Queen of Hel. Then she can hang with her dead dad and he undead brother and his friend. It actually makes their epilogue really nice that way.

 Even though that seems to be the direction that the story is going now (that Eir will not be Hel's ascended because she doesn't want to rule Hel) I think that in the end this is exactly what will happen, unless if one of Hel's sibling (if they are actually brought up on the story, that is) happens to be sympathetic and want to rule Hel AND manage to survive until the end of the story (although I have the feeling that if we actually get a character like this they will die before ascending to the throne just so we will get A!Eir). I think that she'll end up ascending to the throne for thinking that is her responsability to rule Hel or that there is no better option or something among this line (kinda like Reggin), maybe she'll even step up and outright decide that it's her right to ascend to the throne because Hel was her mother (I mean, yeah it wasn't, but she saw her as such and was raised as her daughter so...) and because she thinks that she knows what's best for the realm of the dead.

Well, to be honest, I gotta admit that the main motive that makes me think that Eir will get an ascendant for sure is because IS already kinda of set themselves up with it whith Ascendant Fjorm on the first TT+ and this "The free OC of the book gets an ascendant version" thing was clearly a good idea so everyone knows it'd be a waste if they didn't make it with the rest of the freebies (I mean, maybe with the exception of Ash, its very easy to think of a logical ascendant for each of the freebies), specially now that we actually got a TT+ Life and Death and that it is about Eir, so now its almost mandatory that at least HER (even if the other freebies don't) should get an ascended alt now, otheriwse everyone would be pissed. I mean, there sure is a possibility of this not happen, I'm not denying it, but I absolutely can't see them not doing it now because the level of what they're setting up here is not the same as "Nifl got a summer alt so now Muspell must get a winter alt" or "Lyn and Eliwood got bridal alts so Hector must have one too", if they don't do it it will be the same as when they didn't release Fáfnir as last december's mythic with Eitri. 

Also, as I said before it wouldn't be strange or hard to make her Hel's acendend anyway (besides the story is about her so not giving an ascended to the main character of this story and give it to someone else would be weird, as it would be weird too if we got no ascended at all from this TT+), I think that Eir would be a great ruler to Hel, to be fair. Some months ago I had a conversation about how the ascended theme fitted Eir, I looked it up now and by chance was with you, I don't know if you still remember that or even if you changed your mind since then, but it was on the book V speculation and discussion thread last year. To save your time I'll quote what we said there back then. First you said:

Quote

Also, if Eir gets one of these versions (and I'm fairly sure she will), she'll probably be gaining her true mother's life powers, but ruling over Hel (realm) in honor of the one who raised her, whom she clearly had compassion for even as Hel (person) was dying. She'll probably chose to blend these two heritages and become (guess what) a valkyrie. You know, one of those ladies who ushers the spirits of dead heroes into an afterlife of peace and glory? Fits in perfectly if you ask me.

 and then I replied:

Quote

And I like the Ascendant Eir's idea, she would be a fair ruler to Hel, since she is not against death but also not in favor to it (and wouldn't try to create an army of dead people to raise her own power), and even says that her blade would bring death to whoever seeks it. It seems like she doesn't see death as something necessarily sad but she understands the ones who do, she just... understands death I guess? As well as she doesn't see life as something necessarily happy (neither always preferable over death) but reconizes that it can be something wonderful too, thats why she would be a perfect godess of death (and life maybe). Crap... she is the ascendant hero I would be the happier to see.

 to which you said you said:

Quote

Regarding Valkyrie Eir: Yeah, I forgot to mention those bits, too, but I did think of them. I believe Eir is called the "Merciful Death," and her weapon's name has "Lyfa" in it, I think, which means "healing."

 It has been some time, but I still agree with all of this speculation, and still think that Eir will be Hel's ascended.

 

 I mean, I'm not sure if by "though it looks like Eir isn't going to be Hel's ascended" (that you said on the post that I'm replying to) you meant that she won't be specifically HEL's ascended while still agreeing on her being the dragon of life's ascended (like the dragon's champion and all) or if you meant that now you don't think that she'll get an ascended at all, based on what we saw from this TT+ until now. I still think that it will be as we said last year though, that she'll be the dragon of life's ascended/champion while rulling Hel, well... or at the very least she'll be an ascendant on the sense that some of the non OCs are (as in "ascending to the throne") and will just be Hel's ruler, without any actual dragon blessing.

 

 About the dead Sharena thing: I don't know why out of everyone they'd let HER be the queen, but if it was either Hel's Queen Dead Sharena or no Dead Sharena at all ever, I would happily take Hel's Queen Dead Sharena, it's a very interesting concept nonetheless. On any case I think that she's somewhat gone for real like even for the dead, I don't remember it very well but Líf wanted to balance the cohort of dead to bring her (along with everyone else) back, and since he never saw Sharena on the dead Askr (or rather his and his Sharena's Askr) then it's because she wasn't there right? I don't remember how it worked or if no one actually bothered to explain it well, but as I remember she someway was even deader than dead. Still, I'll keep the illusion that she might either comeback, be hidden in a different part of Hel (that is reserved to deader than dead people) or at the very least show up on a flashback (unfortunately if it was a flashback, she wouldn't be useing that black dress that she has on Book III's cover, but again I'd take this over no Dead Sharena at all)

[Aedan7479]

Welp, here we go again. Good start, but could've been one cutscene (I read the ending on the wiki).

So, Hel's handmaid, Ganglot almost kills Eir because she wants to rule Hel, then Ymir (who has some connection to Eir's past) saves her at the cost of her life, and become Eir's Sothis, Okay. We'll get some backstory on Ymir and how she connect to Eir, go beat Ganglot, somewhere Eir gets an ascended form, maybe another new character gets introduced, and it'll be dragged out for half a year. Yeah, I'm not very optimistic, I'll enjoy it well enough, I'm sure Ymir's backstory will be interesting, but after that the only thing and Ascended Eir will probably look great, but it being dragged out when, really, a single paralogue could do the trick, will get old. On a less pessimistic note, there's not much on Ganglot in Norse mythology; she along with her partner, Ganglati, was Hel's handmaid who was so slow she seemed still. Would be amusing if the only reason she didn't help Hel was because she was too slow.

[defensedefumer]

I attach my playthrough here:

 

[Mercakete]

@ARMADS!!!

Sorry for the confusion. The reason I think Eir won't be Hel's heir (heh) is not only because of her own lack of desire to rule Hel, but because of this new handmaid and Eir agreeing that Eir shouldn't take over Hel. (Eir's kind of done with that part of her life, it seems, and the Cohort of the Dead is kind of done with her.) Another reason is because the handmaid's appearance hasn't been revealed yet (which indicates she'll be one of the new summonable units.) Eir might meet her real mom and become her ascended, though (especially if her mom rescues her from the handmaid trying to kill her.) It's a good way to introduce the deity of life, too, just as Fire and Ice introduced the deities thereof. So, this new handmaid could become the new goddess of death (which I think is likely) and chooses someone as her champion (again, possibly dead Sharena) to take down Eir, who becomes the champion of life.

Here's another thing: dead Sharena already has a design. Making her a character in this would be easy. And though it's possible that she's "deader than dead," I think the situation is much simpler than that. Lif wanted to bring his whole country back to life, not into undeath. So, even if Sharena's dead, she's a resident of Hel. ... Somewhere. Hel's got to be a big place for it to house all the dead from multiple versions of multiple worlds across time. "Throw away the world you do not need." Basically, Lif's world (according to Hel's deal/promise/lie) would be restored to what it was if he got rid of Alfonse's. Every person who died in Alfonse's world would be restored in Lif's. So, they're dead, but they're not necessarily unreachable for fellow dead people, as I understand it. Sharena might be both dead and "asleep," though, if the Book 3 key art is anything to go by.

All that said, there is a way I can think of Eir becoming Hel's ascended unit. That is, since she still has her life, that she's not qualified. Hel herself was partially decayed, so maybe her champion/replacement must also be dead. Maybe the handmaid is trying to kill Eir so she can take over, so if she succeeds in killing Eir, then Eir may be forced into becoming the champion/next goddess by the handmaid (though in this case, she would probably be the handmaid's servant.) The main things putting me off of this theory is that FEH likes to keep canonical deaths to the men main story, an dif Eir was being subjugated, then like heck would the Askrans not try to do a rite with Briedablik intervene. So, it's probably someone who is already dead who will become the next ruler of Hel and someone who is already dead who will become Hel's champion. So, Gustav could reasonably fill one of these positions (I kind of doubt it, though.) Another option is Surtr, though, since he got a Xenologue as being a dead guy talking to Hel herself. He even already wields a scythe.

[Ice Dragon]

Why exactly do we need this story's Ascended Hero to be some god's champion? This isn't Nifl and Muspell's children's card game proxy battle anymore.

It could just be a non-amnesiac Eir.

[Naoshi]

I don't know about others but I like having more story about main oc from their respective book. Even if it ends being silly one..

[Mercakete]

First, it was nice having Gunnthra and Ylgr talk to Nifl. Poor Hrid is left out, though. He doesn't have any alts besides his New Year's one, though, but that only means that this would have been a great banner on which to give him a summer alt so that he, too, could bond with his matron deity. Oh well.

Second, yep. It sure looks like Eir's going to be the ascended hero of the life dragon, and the handmaiden is going to be Hel's replacement. We also know what the life dragon looks like now, and it's been confirmed that Eir's parents were the king and queen of her realm, and the life dragon was her friend. (Getting Sharena and the dream fairies vibes. Specifically, the life dragon reminds me a lot of Peony.) Personally, her eye design is both interesting (they remind me of the Tellius design for the "Heaven" element) and, in my personal opinion, kind of freaky-looking. I like how they designed her hair, though. It looks nice and neat -- simple, but unique. She might be the next character from this we get to summon since hers was the only design revealed. (We haven't quite seen the handmaiden's design yet and Ascended Eir's design hasn't been revealed yet.) Plus, it follows the "character dies and becomes summonable" pattern (though I do find it weird that the deity of life only had one life while Eir had, like, a bajillion.) Eir's the only one who can see her now, so it just kind of makes sense.

Anyway, Eir's been filled with the power of the life goddess (just like what we've seen with Fjorm and Laegjarn) thus becoming her champion. So, we can expect an ascended version of her soon. I wonder if the handmaiden will make anyone her ascended. It would follow the 2 gods and 2 champions pattern Fire and Ice set up for us, and it makes sense that, now being the new death goddess, she would start to raise up others to strengthen her position (like how Hel recruited Lif and Thrasir as leaders of her army.) At least for now, my guess is that the death ascended (the one she raises as her champion, as per my described scenario) will be either Gustav or Surtr. All depends on if IS wants her supporter to be more like her (conquering) or a counterbalance (peaceful.) They may also be relying on everyone having forgotten the Xenologue in order to surprise us with Surtr, or they may be wanting to twist the knife of sympathy by putting Gustav in there (also as a sort of "replacement Lif" from the handmaiden's point of view.)

[Aedan7479]

9 hours ago, Mercakete said:

though I do find it weird that the deity of life only had one life while Eir had, like, a bajillion.

I feel like that could be relevant; maybe she gave many of her lives to save mortals, maybe she gave them all to Eir (after all, she said it's 'her fault' that Hel kidnapped her). We'll likely get Ymir's backstory next, we'll see next month.

[Mercakete]

1 hour ago, Aedan7479 said:

I feel like that could be relevant; maybe she gave many of her lives to save mortals, maybe she gave them all to Eir (after all, she said it's 'her fault' that Hel kidnapped her). We'll likely get Ymir's backstory next, we'll see next month.

Yeah, I was particularly thinking that Eir got all her lives because Ymir gave them to her, but I thought it was more of a blessing than a sacrifice. Could very well be; good thought.

[DefyingFates]

4 hours ago, Aedan7479 said:

I feel like that could be relevant; maybe she gave many of her lives to save mortals, maybe she gave them all to Eir (after all, she said it's 'her fault' that Hel kidnapped her). We'll likely get Ymir's backstory next, we'll see next month.

I'm looking forward to that, and seeing how the Norse!Ymir's story gets translated to hers, if at all. I'm not a fan of him getting turned into yet another girl, but it's par for the course at this point.

On 7/10/2022 at 4:33 AM, Aedan7479 said:

Would be amusing if the only reason she didn't help Hel was because she was too slow.

I would love this! To IS' credit, she could have also just been maintaining the war front in another realm or something, I guess.

Another issue I have is Eir calling out for Kiran in her moment. It only barely made sense for Fjorm given her crush, but Eir was never shown to be dependent on him. Heck, calling out to Hel could have sparked a nice exploration of her Stockholm Syndrome. For now though, I'm curious to learn more about Eir's true parents. If this is happening before reaching Asgard in the main plot, I'm suspicious that they won't be Odin and Frigg, but who knows: we got Thorr years ago and she hasn't done anything important to the main story yet, so maybe Odin will be making an early cameo too?

3 hours ago, Mercakete said:

Yeah, I was particularly thinking that Eir got all her lives because Ymir gave them to her, but I thought it was more of a blessing than a sacrifice. Could very well be; good thought.

Considering Norse!Ymir is basically the earth, I wonder if those lives actually come from the people who lived in her realm (akin to something from Fullmetal Alchemist, for those of you who've seen that) which... makes things a lot more uncomfortable.

[Sentinel07]

Kind of related, but a couple new facts about Ymir came about with her becoming playable.

1. Her realm is named after her.

2. Hel destroyed it along with kidnapping Eir. Guess that's why she's got enough free time to watch over Eir specifically.