The Mystery behind Valigarmanda within FFXIV Dawntrail



Dawntrail is coming up and we never really got tons of data on one of Final Fantasy’s old guard. I’m curious though, what do you think Valigarmanda (Tritoch) will be like within Dawntrail? I’m eager to hear your thoughts and opinions in today’s lore breakdown.

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28 thoughts on “The Mystery behind Valigarmanda within FFXIV Dawntrail”

  1. Maybe Valigarmanda is something similar to a Guardian Force and is tied to the girl in white on Dawntrail’s poster above Galool Ja Ja? Still agree it’s part of the contest, but that someone is responsible for calling upon it. Like an Esper perhaps?

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  2. I feel like Vali is tied to the Warring Triad and the Allagans. Perhaps to escape the fate of ending up imprisoned like the Warring Triad, Valigarmanda escaped and flew to the New World to evade the Allagans. It's Guardian of nature status owing due to seeing how Allag would often twist and corrupt nature using it's technology. Or perhaps he is a chimera of some kind created by Allag, That escaped following their downfall. The only speculative evidence I have is iirc in an Interview Yoshi P was asked like what content people should make sure they do in the lead up to DT, and his response was The Warring Triad.

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  3. The key art (CGI) for Dawntrail is very telling. Valigar is there flying very close to the city, yet the WoL is looking directly into the camera, smiling. That's very unlike what we saw in say the Heavensward key art where the WoL was in battle with the opposition in the image. So it for sure seems like Valigar is going to play some type of friendly role and will "test our resolve" or something like that.

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  4. I wanna point out something I, as a person whose favorite FF pre-14 is 6, cannot ignore. Urqopacha mirrors real life Macchu Pichu, and is a giant mountain with ice riddling it. Likewise, it was a former home of giants, and from both pre-release stuff and the Dawntrail benchmark, seems to be either the first or second dungeon. If it is the second dungeon, that means the first trial isn’t too far behind… and Valigarmanda has a habit of being inside giant mountains and being fought at the tops of. If this was all for some test to prove the claim in some form of fashion too… well, that explains a lot.

    Lastly, one last piece of potential evidence to the dragon or even auspice theory: We hear a roar in the distance after Vrtra and Azdaja call out. This roar is not one we know, and it could easily be Valigarmanda. Though not a member of the Firstbrood, if they were a Dragon who grew strong and powerful in the wilds of Tural before being sealed by the giants for some reason or another in ages past, still alive whether in a prison or safe haven of ice, this could explain this unknown roar. Similarly it could be an auspice, as I do generally like that concept as well considering. Though I have wondered thanks to all this… is it theoretically feasible for any creature to become an auspice, and if so, does that include aliens and things such as dragons? We know an auspice did wipe out all life on another star thanks to Meteion’s report, before ending its own upon this revelation to, but an auspice dragon could explain the extreme size and strength arguably more than it simply being one or the other.

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  5. Azem: Alright, so scaly noodle with a parrot beak.
    Elidibus: Yeah, too normal for you so far.
    Azem: RIGHT?! So, I put some wings on it, made it reeeeeaall noodly like, all over your screen kinda stuff.
    Elidibus: screen-?
    Azem: NO WAIT, MAKE IT A PARROT AT THE SAME TIME! BAM! *Creation noises*
    Elidibus: Why are you like this…
    Azem: And make it noble for no reason!

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  6. Great video.

    You mentioned Valigarmanda being in opposition to Solution 9; I kinda think it’s protecting it. I recently replayed FF9 to get ready for Dawntrail, and the natural protecting the futuristic makes me think of the weird techno-organic stuff at the Iifa Tree, and how they used the natural (the trees) to spread and promote the Mist for the restoration of Terra (the futuristic). I’d love some of those themes to be in play here, but it’s all theory at this point.

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  7. i bet shortly after we arrive in Tural, an early cutscene will have an enormous shadow soar past us as the WoL, Alphinaud, and Wuk Lamat look up to see Valigarmanda above us. not knowing what it is, Alphinaud will want to chase it down to find out, and Wuk will want to eat it, so away we go. itll be the level 93 trial, a wall boss using the Alte Roite skeleton.

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  8. I will just say this, FF XIV has always taken inspiration from different games for it's story. Not just one or another, and not just Key points. Shadow Bringers is a combination of world of ruin from VI, III's world of darkness and warriors of darkness + some small details of IX. Meanwhile Endwalker is clearly inspire from IV and VII. IV in the traveling to space, to the moon. And VII in fighting to the clear end of the world that's coming and we know it's coming before the whole world does, and actively try to stop it but we fail.

    In the case of Dawntrail 2 things jump to mind. First the overall goal, which is to stop war from happening between 2 different sides of the world. Which is similar to the goal that the resistance originally has.

    Second, we have the jobs introduce, Pictomancer clearly base on the unique magical abilities of Relm, and Viper clear base on how it's depicted on fighting game the weapon of Zidane, through in IX Zidane can equip either the dual blade or double bladed thief sword, but there is more, now thanks to the lastest live letter, we know that not only it changes of form according to our desire, but it has a form where we take more power from our Job stone to achieve more power almost as if we are entering a TRANCE. The main ability of Terra from VI and the whole main cast of IX.

    To me this says that at less this expansion. But we don't know how much of this expansion will influence the future story line. It can be just not much to a lot, only time will tell. And we can see the influence of IX too in Solution 9, and the travel to the "new" world, as in IX we travel to multiple continents which the people of the continent of mist through to not exist, or hard to access.
    What does this say then? That Valigarmanda purpose could be similar, but different

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  9. I think one of two possibilities: One, Vali is just an extremely powerful monster and is a misdirection, ending up being a dungeon boss while the real trial fights are hidden (like in Endwalker). Two, it's a new type of being altogether, introduced into the lore for meta reasons because Primals and Voidsent are old hat.

    That's not even touching on the possibilities brought on by what Dawntrail's story ends up being about. If DT introduces some time travel element, could Vali be some magical creature from the ancient past/far future? Or perhaps we travel into an alternate world (either another Shard or some kind of parallel timeline) and that's where it originates.

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  10. Honestly, I hope it's something entirely new. To open new possibilities for other mythical, interesting creatures to exist outside of the primal/auspice definition. Still, I like the idea of it being an auspice because it can exist without the detriments a primal causes to natural aether.

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  11. I mostly lean to Valigarmanda being of the second brood. The eldest of one of the first brood's children. But what it does in the story that's a tricky. I wasn't thinking it was against Solution 9 rather its guardian. My idea is it found this city and seeing how man is felt it best to keep people out till they are ready. Or it was made with the city to hide it. What better way to hide a high tech city then by making people think only a beast is there? Other idea I had is fighting and getting the blessing of Valigarmanda is the battle for the throne. We spend the first part tracking down legends of this beast. Those who hope to take the throne must go from place to place learn from the locals and prove their worth to them so that all the info can be pieced together. Thus showing you are able to both aid your people and listen to them to prove you are just as smart as you are powerful. It could still even be of the second brood, having made this deal with the current king, to leave clues to itself.

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  12. As a feathered serpent-like bird creature from FFXIV's version of South America, the parallels to Quetzalkoatl/K'uk'ulkan are too apparent to leave them out of the analysis.

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  13. Another option is that it was creature created back before the world was sundered. When we traveled back in time to Elpis, many of the creatures we see and fight are similar to ones we've encountered in the present. Showing that many of the creations of the ancients did survive into the present. Valigarmanda could have been a creation from back then that wasn't affected by the sundering and continued to grow and evolve over the eons into the being we will encounter.

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  14. I dont think that sulution 9 plays in eitherys, i must now think on emets words, that we have still visit the other shards, and ysthola being so obssesd with that, i think that valigarmanda might be able travel trough shards, maybe a dragon that has that power and can bring other along, sulution 9 seems soooo diffrent i think its on another shard more advanced then the source, that maybe valigarmanda asks for help and brings us there, who knows maybe their still ascians outside that still want to fuse all thw shards.

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