r_n

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of (though not necessarily everything) this information was stuff written about the characters to begin with. Like they outline what each character's deals are, what goes on in the timeline, then use that as a basis for the actual dialog and events in game. And sometimes, as seen here, that stuff just never makes it into the game. Nier series is a pretty big example. There is a ton of backstory written for those games, but most of it is just trickled out in the game themselves. But you can tell from what is there that they're not JUST back writing it in. You see it in Pokemon, too. There' stuff only mentioned in passing *on their concept art* that never shows up in the games. Sun & Moon's concept art for Grimsley casually drops a time period relative to Gen 5 and information about his family's fall from riches is only on there or mentioned off hand in interviews. Pokemon design traits are often there too So thing's like Nuibaba's extensive backstory is probably the same. It was written probably so writers could do her scenario and "voice" with that in mind (keeping a bunch of beautiful women in her dungeon, her interactions with Berkut, trying ot bring in Alm to her, specifically, etc). Also is Dolth the one who summons draco zombies and the fort where you go through the underground? Is there *anything* in this book that talks about that fort because that always stood out to me. It's like...a factory. There's steel, extensive piping...it really stands out, design wise, from everything else that's usually just "generic fantasy"

I think the only thing it really needed was a Memory detailing Rudolf meeting a degenerating Duma and trying to bluff his way through not immediately invading zofia for the past decade

It kind of sounds like you wouldn't necessarily enjoy the rest of the game moving forward. You're getting tired of the battles, the weapon progression, leveling people up, etc. It might be best to just call it quits rather than force yourself to keep playing, that's a good way to burn out and sour yourself on the game. Been there with other games!

oh i didnt catch that Conrad was only a half brother. And specifically one of MULTIPLE half brothers. guessing she didn't bond as much with the rest.

Man that seems like a pretty rough 2 years Also wait did I misread the timeline or is Rudolf's wife never mentioned in this. Liprica is mentioned several times but Alm's mom is just sort of ????

Grima, Genny and Nuibaba

ah yeah gimmie that political backgrounds, that's the stuff As I figured multiple people have had the brand, pretty interesting that Duma has final say in who rules. I like how they went out of their way to state Mycen probably had no relationships with anyone and even if he did it wasn't long lasting. Like geeze historians, put the guy more on blast why dont ya.

he has a brand but it may not specifically be the brand in the prophecy Placement of the brand also matters doesn't it? like it has to be the back of the left hand or w/e e: Double checking the Memory, I think the fact that Celica was born at the same time with the brand also matters. Mycen & Rudolf both put emphasis on both children being birthed with matching marks.

The dragon vein thing is also detailed in Anankos' long oh so long entirely too long Spiel in the 2 part prologue dlc to the awakening trio. I don't think the tellius blood pacts and the blood pacts of the archanea super saga are really that similar beyond name (& blood pacts in fiction are fairly common to begin with). Tellius is a literal contract with magical consequences for breaking it. It's more like dark magic's hexes. In archanea (etc) it's blood locking things with no consequence unless you're Loptyr. If Fates is indicative of anything* blood pacts might be literal exchanges of blood that you actually ingest to give you dragon powers; in fates I think it was a show of bonds between anankos and the kings. *Fates' "pacts" could be its own things and not related to any other game. I know some things in the game make people think its a very very very early timeline with archanea but the evidence seems shaky and fates' setting is so ill-defined as it is overly detailed. Hopefully the Fates artbook will detail...any of that...at all...

Well I mean everything is technically draconic if we go with #2 considering the dragons brought things like iron & fire (& by extension: the forge). Including all alcohol It just seems if the 3 weapons were made by dragons, it'd have been mentioned in the 7 games they appear in or either artbook? But they just sort of exist without comment, just strong weapons that make their wielders feared. The closest thing we have to an origin is you can make them at any forge in Echoes out of blessed items but that's all quasi-canon. But I guess to return to my original point, actual origins of the weapons aren't listed on the timeline, merely that the regalia were stored there.

They "function" in Awakening but you can't actually get them normally. They're renown-locked or available in the regalia DLC But yes there's nothing proving they aren't dragon-made, but considering how they're just considered strong weapons I think they may just be that.

I don't think the regalia are dragon-crafted, they're just mighty artifacts kept in the Fane. Nothing in the blurb claims they're made, just stored there alongside Falchion.

I'm glad they've kept blood pacts going since...what...FE4? I think it was mentioned in game at that point

As comical and unthreatening as the pirates are in the game, I'm guessing a full nation's worth of these people who have full control on the sea were pretty dangerous. I like how the threw in the desire thing. Like it's fine, it fits with how duma operates on Berkut for example, but it's still seeming like something where they went "hhhhh okay maybe the duma faithful are a bit too evil" and wanted to explain how someone like Jedah & Nuibaba rose to the top. It is interesting to see degeneration not just be "rabid beast" like I assumed, losing self-control & inhibitinos makes more sense before you become a horrifying singleminded zombie.

I think the sea god thing might be meant as a cute nod to FE1's development. Originally there were several dragons, with Medeus being "Gaia" and a water dragon (repurposed for ice dragons in FE3, I think) god named Neptune. And obviously that never existsed, ergo... As for "Exalted Falchion" I think it might just be the fancy title used sword any time its at full power. Echoes Marth's amiibo calls his "Exalted Falchion" for example.

You reset to level 1 with promotion gains applied. It'd be too detrimental if that happened since there would be now way to earn those stats back

The point of level reset is to earn materials in bulk relative to the level. 1 silver every 5 levels, 1 gold every ten.

I doubt it's Ike since I think from Priam's paralogue tellius is considered from another world. Sigurd would make some sense considering we know Jurgdal takes place in FE1/2/3/13's timeline many years in the past. Barring retcons as they actually try to piece together a series bible, of course. Wouldn't be the first time. The awakening artbook posits that Grima may have been an earth dragon but I believe Forneus' records indicate it was made with divine dragon's blood, for example. Though you could also read it literally as theorized by scholars in-universe unknowing of Grima's origins, but, well, sometimes a retcon is just a retcon. FE writers even at the best of times can be pretty, ah, loose with their stories in a single game much less across other content. look forward to extensive ridiculous retcons in the fates artbook Oh speaking of Forneus, Duma specifically leveling a siege against Thabes makes me wonder if that's where Forneus got his blood samples.

But the risk doesn't outweigh the reward. A shadow elimination isn't about the risk, flat out you will lose if you do not handle everything. There's no time to properly grind out skills. IT's more a hard mission where you happen to maybe earn some extra kills to your skills. Your allies will get kills, but x2 just results in evening out what you'd earn playing normally. Maybe a little more. I think x3 or x4 would makes these more worthwhile, the skill system just isn't in the favor of spreading kills out. Targeted Elimination is good, though. Basically the closest thing to a normal mission in the game. I still feel like the developers didnt really think out why someone would want a skill grinding stage, but it's fine. The Experience Check is better, the one I found was a ~95 timed onslaught. Onslaught level curves are a little weird, but you can work around it with infernal blessing. Even without it got my level reset marth back into the 20s and taking care of the officers is fun.

Well technically the other artwork is in game too. It's used for all the bottom screen images & crit cutins, just cropped.

Are there any other places that get Test of Skill because the one on Emmeryn is garbage what on earth where they thinking with this. Shadow Eliminations are disasters, why would you make one that you msut S Rank in 7 minutes out of a 10 minute timer your grinding stage The ideal grinding stage is an onslaught, one you're focused on burning through many kos at once and can funnel all of them into one character (two if needed). Instead you make it a Shadow Elimination on a map that has a lot of one way doors AND you make the shadows being summoned Frederick?! Even with slayers or hitting res he is a brick wall that you will chip away at and bringing anything without slayers to this is asking for trouble. You don't have time to grind out weapon skills you're too busy killing the 2 mages and spending the bulk of your time kiling fredericks. Even putting aside the S Rank requirement (since you only need to get that once), doing this in 10 minutes is far too stressful. While we're at it, I don't understand why they threw extra restrictions on this? 10 minute time limit (7 minute s rank limit!!) and you take double damage and all for..."quicker" skill grinding. How much quicker. Is it just x2? Because that's utterly worthless. Cumulatively I had MAYBE almost 3k kills. I had to ignore almost every fort, I was too busy! That's not helpful to anyone Even if it was x4 you just do not have the time to take advantage of it. If they must have made it a shadow elimination, it should have been on Kingswood against Pegasus. Kingswood has no one way streets, lots of open spaces and pegasus knights are by design frail and will fall super easy to axes and wing slayers.

Yeah I was a bit surprised that Duma, Grima, Nuibaba, Slayde or the other early game big villain didn't get full pages here. Looking the japanese link above, it seems they're probably in the profiles section. how odd. Oh but man, the monster design page, very glad even these guys got their artwork showcased.

Yeah if you link it along it's really not that bad. Like I said of the 233 or so characters in the game, only 41 are seasonals. It just feels notable since we only get 2 a month and the game's only been around for a little over a year. There's other issues with the summoning pools and it's just easy to make seasonals a scape goat

I killed them once and i had to wait ten years for the message queue to do its thing while the ai slowly walked back to the base. My understanding of the message system is its like that in all warrior games and is specifically something they dont want to get rid of because....combos...or kos...or something. It's stupid and arbitrary and does nothing but *literally* waste your time.

I think the game is pretty fair for S Ranks in 90% of instances. But that 10% is taken almost entirely by things Villager Rescue (Recruitment? Whatever) where the way to not be scrounging around the couches for KOs is to...ignore themission entirely and let the villagers turn into enemies I also find Recruitment Battles stupid because sometimes the AI will just take forever to do anything. One time I had to do the map a second time because I physically could not kill the guy fast enough. And even when things go quickly there's still a long bit where its just like "well, i've gotten my 2000+ kos and captured every fort time to literally wait for a solid minute and a half". The message queue system also does not help at all