Everything I could find out, about every member of the Twelve (FFXIV Lore Breakdown)

[@AmaranthWitch]

Dalamud in myth: BIG EGG different cultures will develop it in different ways, leading to one splinter sect preaching the divine word of BIG OMELETTE

[@bendonatier]

I've always loved the 12, since they are in a really weird spot theologically speaking. They were important because they weren't real. They wouldn't come and save you. Rhalgar wouldn't free Ala Mhigo anymore than Ifrit would protect Paglth'an, not without crystals and a false idol. So why bother with him? Because that faith still matters. Belief in Rhalgar, is belief in yourself. Through ritual and faith the resistance found the strength to launch their rebellion and keep fighting. I think the raid series did a really good job reflecting that.

[@csrjjsmp]

Not being real doesn’t rule you out from being summoned as a primal. That was an important plot point ever since moogle mog in arr. In universe, lots of people believed Rhalgr could be summoned as a primal to help liberate Ala Mhigo, and believed it so strongly they were willing to give their lives. If the person organizing that plot had been genuine and not… Ilberd, it might even have happened. Ranuh was based on Rhalgr and has been summoned for us to fight.

[@bendonatier]

@@csrjjsmp I am more getting at Gaius in the Preatorium. "Why not just summon the 12" because most of the people who worship them don't see that as the point of them. The folks of little Ala Mhigo are shown as wrong for trying, and Shynryu is explicitly not Rhalgar, because that wasn't what the people were hoping for. I suppose the better way to phrase it would be "Because they don't have to be real" or "They are powerful because they don't actively interfere." The most they are ever credited with is a meteor strike in the 6th calamity, and uplifting saints which is nebulous enough to allow for a lot of interpretation. (and of course their summoning in the 7th calamity but that's not them it's a primal so not relevant.)

[@csrjjsmp]

@@bendonatier the point is that it is not really up to their choice or nature. In a world with primal summoning, whether a diety interferes in worldly matters is up to their worshippers and has nothing to do with the god themselves. Probably the only reason “beastmen” gods got summoned more than the gods of the spoken races is due to the whims of the ascians. Of course, beastmen gods include members of the twelve anyway. Gaius may have been how very glib, but he was right. So long as we lavished them with aether, we could have summoned the twelve as prinals to fight him. We just didn’t need to. Or want to, being the head primal puncher of the anti primal brigade and all.

[@csrjjsmp]

Obviously the outfit Azeyma wears has no sleeves because they fell off into the ocean and became fish

[@syenite]

RESIDENT MOONCAT FRIEND reporting for duty! Here is all the lore we get: [3471293724 blank pages later] and THAT, my friends, is the mooncat lore we get in the game.

[@somniferousSirenSocial]

I am so glad for the deep dives into the lore like this. I cannot wait to see how you take apart the New World fish lore when we get there!

[@EinDose]

It's a long time from now, but I know I'd love to do a Dawntrail Fish Watch in the future.

[@nicolenazle6417]

The fish alright alright alright?

[@vazzaroth]

@@EinDose I've already spotted multiple types of Panchex/Killifish and at least 1 S.America (new world) cichlid in the benchmark. It's my favorite 3 seconds of that trailer.

[@RhapsodicSongbird]

Ever since Shrouded in Moonlight dropped, I have been meticulously crafting a trans woman Moon Cat alt who woke up on the shores of Lake Silvertear with a Fantasia in one hand after the Battle of Carteneau, because Menphina is a matron who looks after and protects all women, not just cis women. Being someone who picked Oschon at the beginning and has become a Scholar main and gotten to where we are now, I love the parallels Deryk has with us as an inheritor of the will of Azem, the eponymous traveler who sees the world's breadths, and I do greatly respect him and look forward to seeing him during the holidays. I hope he, Alpha, and Omega get to have wacky times.

[@tenormartin277]

In Balance is clearly a song made by the Ul’dah tourism board to entice people to visit sunny Ul’dah.

[@EinDose]

I find this hard to deny, but I also find it hard to deny their success.

[@bigbadmonstertruck]

watching this as a moon cat far too invested in the twelve, while also only being in stormblood, pretending i know what is happening. 👍 i love lore deep dives. thank you for this :D

[@keysmashwarrior5057]

"Theologians don't know what friends are" is a banger of a joke to hide in a flowchart! As a mooncat used to getting nothing I legitimately teared up when I heard the hymm for the first time! I always took the moon and love to be linked in a general fertility cult sense, which is what I assumed the matriarchal mooncat tribe was supposed to be (again, based on nothing, though perhaps confirmed by the song?) I'm sure this video was a ton of research so I'd understand wanting to take a break from theology, but it would be amazing to see a video on what we know of non-Eorzean religions like the Church of the First Light or Bozja or whatever it is the Dothral and the other steppe tribes have going on. Also if Oschon is being a true Twelve's Namesakes completionist I look forward to seeing him again with a fishing achievement title in the future.

[@EinDose]

I feel like the mooncats fit less as a 'fertility cult' thing (since that's Nophica's thing), but it does generally fit a culture that clearly values family. And I do like a spot of fictional theology, but it'd be hard to figure out what to do in another video there that isn't covered by this or my previous video on the afterlife!

[@keysmashwarrior5057]

A video on the afterlife!! This is fantastic news to me, a person who is still working through your older videos and is still deeply confused about what the hell was going on with minfilia and ryne and that whole deal.

[@sladeclegane9709]

I’ve always thought it was weird that Nym worshipped Oschon and had seemingly no connection to Nymeia despite their similar names. Perhaps there is some unknown connection between them that explains the Tonberry statue in the heaven of water. Or perhaps whoever was designing the area made the same faulty assumption I did.

[@EinDose]

The Nymians didn't want to be so basic. Honestly I have no idea either; maybe that's the Eorzean equivalent of 'Jesus was a common name' and names derived from Nymeia are super common.

[@kepscorner]

and posting this on haurchefant day... blessed video. I've been desperately wanting someone to consolidate information about the Twelve I'm gonna love this

[@ForgiveMyMadness]

Moonkitties rise up!!! I need to read the lyrics to that song, as I've been clamouring for more lore on the Moonkeepers... my WoL is half Moonkeeper half Sunseeker, but raised by her mother in their strict Keeper tribe, so for all intents and purposes would align with their culture (whatever the hell that is lol). On another note, sometimes I wonder if the intense faith in Halone might be what caused Coerthas to become a glacial landscape post-calamity... obviously the huge disruption in Aether was the catalyst, but I find it interesting that Coerthas was the only city state to have it's climate drastically altered. Out of all the climates that could have landed there... desert, marshland, flooded, tropical etc, they magically ended up with the very climate their diety was initially set up to watch over. Dynamis is weaker than Aether, but in the absence of Aether - like, in a huge calamity where a gigantic primal is fighting a Louisoix Phoenix Primal - could it be possible that the fear mixed with prayers of hope to Halone, the watcher of glaciers, actually changed the Coerthan landscape just like the landscape continues to change in Elysium?

[@sirensong1794]

Mooncat shout out! ;-; the fact we get so much of nothing ended up making me have my kitty cat be from thavnair, where there are miqo'te with the keeper of the moon models also, and just attaching myself to that lore. while there's also scant little info on miqo'te in thavnair aside from one description that implies they first met miqo'te as seafarers, having even more of a blank slate is kind of freeing in a way, since thavnair already has a ton of elaboration figuring out where miqo'te fit into all that with headcanons is fun. while there aren't many gods of the moon AND love, i do know several figures that are moon goddesses that have stories to do with love. semele from greek myth and chang'e from chinese myth (where we also get the rabbits on the moon thing with the loporrits and slight fusion with tsukuyomi's design) and they both have prevalent love stories associated with them. usually tragic!

[@Salt_Mage]

The Wanderer’s Minuet references Oschon in the same way as the Warden’s Paeon references Azeyma. You also didn’t mention that Azeyma’s symbol is seen on thr Cathedral in Azys Lla, which was ripped from the ground in Merycidia when the Allagans subjugated the land. As for Althyk, a major part of his portfolio is *gravity* due to the ties between time magic and gravity magic in FF. He even uses gravity spells in his fight.

[@Salt_Mage]

For Oschon, Vagrants in an archaic sense are just wanderers, without the beggar connotations. I also recall that Oschon and Llymlaen courted each other in myth, though his wandering of the lands and her attachment to the sea meant they were often apart until he eventually fell for Menphina since she was always watching over him.

[@EinDose]

@@Salt_Mage yeah, I transcribed the creation myth on my Cohost, and it has... a bunch of stuff that just straight contradicts other sources. The failed Llymlaen/Oschon romance is comlletely different than other sources depict it. I did forget the Azeyma symbol in Azys Lla, you're right! That's a very subtle detail that's easy to miss.

[@Reinshark]

Nice work with this vid! The academic in me, however, must point out: Euphrosyne is pronounced something like "you-FRAH-zin-ee", not "YOU-fruh-sign". It is a Greek word and not something they made up just for FFXIV-the "syne" at the end is two syllables (zin-EE), and doesn't sound like the English word "sign". (But don't fret over this! It's a very common way to pronounce it.)

[@EinDose]

Thankyou! Honestly, my angle on pronunciation of these things has gone pretty slack over time just because of how many times words are either mispronounced, inconsistent or unstated, and how difficult it can occasionally be to nail down other language structures for the sake of a single word; I did know these were Greek, but I'm not particularly on top of my Greek pronunciations!

[@Reinshark]

@@EinDoseThat's entirely understandable. I did philosophy in my undergrad and was exposed to a lot of Greek words then, and it stuck with me-so now I am a pedantic thorn in gamers' sides. :(

[@keysmashwarrior5057]

​@@Reinsharkmy partner studied Greek for a while so I can verify that you're not the only one out here being a Video Game Pedant - though that's small potatoes compared to their reaction when someone pronounces Classical Latin like Church Latin 😅

[@TarossBlackburn]

I love Lore in games and specially in these games. So I went and watched your video twice. Once to just enjoy it for the content of lore. The second time to make notes. It's important to note that early-ish on in Endwalker Thancred asks of the Watcher "If the Source ceased to be, what would happen to the reflections?" and we were told that what befalls the Source, befalls the rest. So while it makes sense that an incarnation of The Watcher exists across all reflections to be Zodiark's Jailer, the Twelve only need to be present to make sure the Source keeps on functioning. After all, if the Source keeps running properly, so will the others. Fun little joke about Nald'Thal being so worshipped in the Monetarist state of Ul'Dah basically means that They are kindof like the Blessed Exchequer and thus the Lalafell are fantasy Ferengi ;D Althyk's domain or main job might not have been 'Time' or 'Space and Time' but more to be the person to make sure that existence keeps on existing. Or more relevant, that the world itself 'is'. He is somewhat connected to the Bole, and the Bole shows a gigantic tree that could be interpreted as the World Tree. It does explain why his fighting area/domain also looks so forest-y. For Menphina getting the aspect of romance and love being added to her auspice for the moon is kindof logical. The Moon is has always been linked to passion and romance really. Don't they call it 'Amore' when it hits your eye like a deep dish? Her skillet is more present than people actually give credit for. Have you taken a good look at her right arm? That piece of armor that has like a frying pan on the elbow? There you go. And yeah. I almost think the only two mooncat families that exist are the Mhackaracas (One of the Songbirds is Nashu's sister) and the Aliaphohs. For Oschon, I believe you may have meant the "Breadth of the Firmament" and not the "Breath". The former would pretty much translate to 'all of the heavens'. Oschon is responsible for the mountains and, resting on top of the mountains, the heavens to make sure they don't fall down. So he's also kindof like Atlas and that could also explain why he is also the only one of the Twelve that does the entire 'growing gigantic' bit. You gotta be as tall as the mountains to hold up the skies. It's my belief that the Twelve were not just put there as a means to make sure the newly shattered Source gets up and gets going, but also as an additional 'shield' around the Star. There's still part of Zodiark making all the Aether currents go vroom, but so shattered not just the people but also the Source would be much more succeptible to Dynamis. Prayer in its very nature is belief, it may contain a little bit of aether by the way that this works on Eitheyris but it is probably mostly faith; Dynamis. The Twelve are there to kindof intercept this and prevent the weakened shield from Zodiark from desintegrating from the inside-out. Though as forbidden as they were to directly involve themselves with the people, all they could really do is absorb all this Dynamis (which started to colour their forms and personalities) and the pittance of aether. Which is then trapped with them. So even if they really didn't want to, they were still kindof feeding on the planets resources. And now that they are no longer needed, they want to return it. And being based on Ancient personality templates remember: Paraphrased: "When one feels that the tasks they want to do in life have all been fulfilled, they choose to return to the Star. And it is beautiful, always." That might have been a failsafe from Venat as well, to give them thanks to their personality cores the urge that once their job is completely done, they wish to return to the Lifestream voluntarily. The apparatus, or prayer wheel, they leave at the end of their existence is also a very clever means to keep the myth of the gods going. People who pray still have a 'sense' that their prayer is received by 'something'. Even if it's just immediately given back to the planet. It makes sense because the Twelve weren't allowed to do anything directly anyway...

[@EinDose]

You're nailing a lit of this real well, the only thing I want to note is that, I did check, and Oschon's yoke definitely says 'breath', not 'breadth'. So that's definitely some kinda windy thing.

[@hioute]

only just started the video but i'm soooo here for this!! so glad this showed up in my recommendations!

[@GeektoStudios]

this might be a stretch, but Nophica did remind me of Chauntea from the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for D&D. even if it's just her, uh, aesthetic. but unlikely the devs actually borrowed from an english creative creation and not a irl mythos somewhere. but I thought I'd put this out there

[@EinDose]

It wouldn't be that weird; Final Fantasy was born out of liberally copying from D&D, and XIV hews closer to that earlier history than a lot of the later games. There's a reason we have kobolds, mindflayers amd sahagin, after all! I'd expect Chauntea and Nophica to be more a case of parallel invention than intentional inspiration, but it's less because the latter is impossible and more because goddesses of fertility/the harvest are REALLY common in myth. They're probably both pulling from the same reference pool.

[@HikingFeral]

This was the first video of yours I watched and you did such a great job of explaining this to me as a returning player. I am currently queued for Thaleia and actually know what's going on :). Thanks. From what I read about DT, this AR series should be done by everyone, they may even make it mandatory as well as the warring triad.

[@FloraAnneFauna]

I loved the video! very informative, especially for those of us who haven't even thought about looking back at 1.0 archives you might want to change the thumbnail though. it's major spoilers for people who are going through the story for the first time

[@EinDose]

There's a lot of clashes between making an engaging thumbnail and avoiding spoilers, and yeah, I did consider it here, but I ultimately landed on using it because I figured it was evocative without being SPECIFICALLY spoiler-y. The fact the Twelve physically appear at some point is, given the nature of this game, not super weird. Also, 'all thirteen of them' is true in two different ways depending on how much you know about the story, so I was kinda proud of that one!

[@ProfessM]

I find it funny personally that for years I used the ARR relic axe and made Althyk my god (I generally find time gods rather cool because how we write them). Come Endwalker I finally retired that Zeta axe and up comes my chosen god with the same model of axe. I did try to make Althyk Axe a phrase like Thal's Balls. And agreed! I wanted him as a final raid boss. I have so little lore for Moon Keepers I have been debating making her a fem Hroth. The Tonberry always felt like a confusion of the player base joke. Most folks think cause the Tonberry's are tied to the Scholar quests the Scholar god must have been their's. I've had to tell people no so many times I think I might still be doing it right now.

[@elecrom_9757]

If Dalamud will even be particularly remembered in myth I could see him becoming like the wolf Hati of Norse folklore who is a wolf that chases the moon because he wants to devour it. But as long as it is largely common knowledge that it was an Allagan construct to imprison the Primal Bahamut I don't see that happening.

[@tbaumel]

Great video! Regarding the Nophica's Comb fish, I was curious and actually went to check what was the JP name for it. My first thought when seeing that it's called a "comb" and references warding off evil spirits was the Izanagi/Izanami myth, where Izanagi uses his comb both to first make a torch to go into the Underworld, and then to transform it stuff to slow down and stop the evil spirits Izanami (rightfully I might add) sent after him when he was running away. So I went to check the JP name thinking that maybe it'd have a more direct reference to that, and found that it's simply called ホネガイ (honegai) which is literally "bone shellfish", no mention of Nophica, or warding off evil spirits, or even a comb, just that it's a carnivorous shellfish that looks like bones. So, my theory is: The localization team needed a name that sounded cooler than just "bone shellfish" and randomly decided to throw Nophica's name in there :)

[@EinDose]

Yeah, the Nophica's Comb is a bit interesting on the localization front: Most languages (Japan, Korea, China, Germany) directly use some variant of the origin shellfish's name... to the point of the German name being 'Venuskammschnecke', with the Roman god's name in it. English and French instead do some 'fictionalization' of the origin name, swapping out Venus for the roughly analogous Nophica. Item and fish descriptions are the point where I just concede that I'm doing a dive on the English script specifically: there's no easy way to compare those between languages, I know those are different, and mostly my audience is reading the English script.

[@sansfangirl4life439]

oh! it may be her, but out in Elpis you can fly to a little island and one of the npc's there mentions how they naturally grow things there. there are a couple of non chatting npc's there to! And using smt stuff here is fantastic xD i also have those cards :3

[@IceMaverick1986]

Thank you for putting in all this time for research and doing a bang up job at editing. PS I love your accent.

[@syaojyn]

Greatly appreciate the permission to blow kiss at diety, some healers do get annoyed lol

[@nicolenazle6417]

Thank you for making this video!! I am huge into lore

[@MapleLunii]

Dalamud and Oschon will become besties Or something

[@dragonsoldier200]

Late to the party but i see mechs on your table and i love it

[@1701Rafael]

Is a moon cat. Can confirm, we do not get anything

[@sennaka]

I have so many questions. So when you meet the Watcher, there's an option to call him Hythlodaeus, and he's confused as he has never met you before (but he has, just forgot thanks to Elpis shenanigans). Which left me going "wait what? Wasn't he implied to be one of the ones that sacrificed himself for Zodiark in the Venat cutscene? If he was, how is he HERE?"

[@phiengley]

That's not the Watcher

[@EinDose]

You're thinking of someone else: that's Real Hythlodaeus in Zodiark (who's a bit leaky at that point). And yeah, not only does he not remember us in Elpis because of Memory Shenanigans, we haven't met him yet because of Time Shenanigans, we're just remembering meeting Fake Hythlodaeus at the end of Shadowbringers. It's an understandable confusion to reach, everyone in that sequence looks basically the same! The Watcher has a slightly different robe, but that's really hard to notice.

[@Theheadless1858]

@@EinDoseI thought he doesn’t remember us because he has not died yet. Those souls sacrificed to Zodiark are stuck there. It’s not until Fandaniel kills Zodiark that they are released to the ethereal sea where they can be cleansed and remember what happened in Elpis. The CS where he talks to Hades right before the fight is the only thing that doesn’t make sense where it is and should have happened after Zodiark dies. It is possible though that the scene where Fandaniel vanishes the masks is meant to represent he is releasing those souls and that’s why Hythlodaeus suddenly becomes himself again at that point. Given that Fandaniel planned on Zodiark losing it makes sense he would have weakened him before the fight to ensure his plan worked.

[@EinDose]

@@Theheadless1858 Yeah, that's the Memory Shenanigans I mentioned. He doesn't have those memories back yet, so he doesn't know he met us. And separately, because of time travel WE don't know we've met the real deal anyway at that point, either.

[@lysandre1861]

8:50 i was always under the impression that this wasn't the Watcher being killed by Golbez, but instead Unukalhai being defeated before being rescued by Elidibus?

[@EinDose]

You can see the Zodiark cage in the back, and 6.5 confirmed it was indeed the Watcher. Plus, Golbez is huge and Unukalhai is tiny!

[@Zacolyn]

Immediate laugh since I have several characters who have Nald'Thal as their deity. Why not pick the twins?

[@EinDose]

I picked Althyk because I saw 'god of time' in the description and I have never stopped being disappointed

[@icarusavery5691]

Haven't finished the video yet but if I don't comment now the ADHD is going to wipe it from my memory entirely. The reason there are tonberries in the Heaven of Water is because the tonberries are from the city of *Nym*, as in *Nym*eia.

[@EinDose]

Nym worshipped Oschon, though! The Wanderer's Palace is literally named after him!

[@icarusavery5691]

@@EinDose Oschon was their patron, sure, but you exactly don't name your city Jesusburg if you don't care about Jesus.

[@the_dark_soul_of_man]

While I really enjoyed the video, I wanna say that I am really glad that I came upon it after I finished EW, what with the spoiler being in the very thumbnail.

[@EinDose]

I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but I still don't think there was ever a good thumbnail for both 'spoiler-free' and 'visually appealing'. I eventually landed on accepting the fact that, for a game that gives us so many chances to fight people's gods, it's not that surprising that THESE gods appear at all, right?

[@the_dark_soul_of_man]

@@EinDose I guess, but I still would have been bummed out personally if YT threw it in my face before I finished EW. I mainly mean the spoiler about the 12 actually being 13. If you stopped at the first part of the sentence, it wouldn't be as bad, though the appearances are also a bit spoilery.

[@EinDose]

@@the_dark_soul_of_man Ahh, but before you did Myths of the Realm, you already thought there were thirteen members of the Twelve! You just had a different idea of who the thirteenth was.

[@the_dark_soul_of_man]

@@EinDose I'm actually not sure I know who you are talking about XD If you mean crystal mom, then I always thought of her as a separate entity, completely unrelated to the Twelve. Well, maybe not completely, but not on the same level, if you get what I mean.

[@EinDose]

@@the_dark_soul_of_man I mean Nald and Thal! Going by the lore we were given, the Twelve's always had thirteen members, it's just that we counted two as halves for reasons we only learned in Myths.

[@gothicshark]

just love listening to your lore videos, recent discovery and I love the listen. BTW also trans femme.

[@lucalycan]

immediate ❤ for the trans flag hell yeah 🏳️‍⚧️

[@Ephlanuist]

SMH, encouraging people to waste my bene on foolishness...

[@EinDose]

I'd argue that someone willingly getting beaned by a mechanic that can't kill might actually be LESS foolish than most of the stuff I heal in a raid.