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While I was still on Alla, I made this post full of information to aid people in their speculation, since most of it had no basis. Now I'm offering it to this comunity. Most of it is exactly what I had before, but I've updated some of it. Be warned, this has a lot of spoilers, expecially for CoP.
Avatar Speculation and You
After browsing a few FFXI forums, I've noticed a lot of speculation going on about possible new avatars. Sadly, a lot of it is very uninformed. So I decided to compile a list of things that contribute or take away from many avatar theories.
What's an avatar?
This needed to be addressed because a lot of people don't understand this game term. Avatar is not what you call a creature after it is added to our list of summons. Anything that we can summon was always an avatar.
There are two types of avatars: the terrestrial avatars and the sleeping gods, dubbed the celestial avatars. Spirits are not avatars, they are just an incarnation of elemental power.
The terrestrial avatars include: Carbuncle, Fenrir, Diabolos, Bahamut, and Phoenix. They can die like any creature, but it does seem their presence is sustained still. They don't reside in protocrystals, but they do have their realms.
Carbuncle > La Theine Plateau
Fenir > Full Moon Fountain [Horutoto Ruins {Kuluu City)]
Diabolos > The Shrouded Maw/Dynamis [Pso'Xja (Kuluu City)]
Bahamut > Monarch Linn
Phoenix > Unknown
Unlinke the sleeping gods, they have (or for some, did have) the ability to roam free among Vana'diel. Though their attacks are based off of one element, they are not tied to it like the sleeping gods. If you dig around Pso'Xja enough, I believe you can find a gate for each terrestrial avatar (except maybe Diabolos). As you can see, there is a very fine line between certain types of avatars. Carbuncle is not "the light avatar" and Fenrir is not "the dark avatar", which helps clear any confusion about Diabolos being dark based.
The sleeping gods are the masters of their respective elements. We know much about six of the eight of them. They remain in a sleep, dreaming. They reside in protocrystals. The threat of them waking was one that loomed in CoP. Carbuncle fears the moment when they might wake up and a war may break out, even post CoP. It is also thought that as more and more summoners obtain portions of their power, the line between their realm and Vana'diel is slowly thinning and waking them up.
These avatars, as we know for at least six of them, were once other living things who were given their divinity by the "goddess" (highly likely to be Altana). If you want to know their backstories, go here for an excellent translation:
http://killingifrit.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=104327&d=0
Ifrit > Ifrit's Cauldron [Cloister of Flames]
Leviathan > Den of Rancor [Cloister of Tides]
Titan > Quicksand Caves [Cloister of Tremors]
Shiva > Fei'yin [Cloister of Frost]
Ramuh > The Boyahda Tree [Cloister of Storms]
Garuda > Cape Terrigan [Cloister of Gales]
Odin > Unknown
Alexander > Unknown
We know next to nothing about Alexander and very little about Odin, who seems to be awake already... however we still don't know what this means, and we won't until we know more about ToAU.
I hope the above section educated some of you on avatars some. There will never be any new summonable avatars unless it is one of the above.. unless SE introduced a new group. But, we have nothing to base the possibility of that on.
Odin
I'll tackle him first since he's a hot topic right now since the "Dark Rider" has been sighted.
We know he is the Celestial avatar of Darkness from the stellar star charts. Every celestial avatar has their name on the constellation of their elemental star. Will he be summonable? Doesn't seem so, but we know for sure he's in the game.
More so than Alexander, his name pops up with the other celestial avatars. The taru with the star chart in Windurst talks about him, while the tarus in the other nations talk about different celestial avatars. His name is also on the gates in Windurst and Eldieme, among some of the other celestial avatars.
In the quests Tuning In/Tuning Out, a Mithran tracker investigating the sleeping gods came across a piece of magicite shattered in Bearclaw Pinnacle while trying to converse with the true forms of the avatars. While this was not a dark protocrystal as originally beleived, its existance is expected.
My personal theory on this is that it may have been a dark protocrystal after all. Odin and Alex are definitely special, which made me think that instead of Altana, perhaps Promathia granted these two their status. Odin I believe this holds true for moreso. Altana only granted the others their status when she saw how noble they were. Odin doesn't seem to fit this. If Promathia had made him an avatar, that would explain why his protocrystal was magicite (aka Promathia's will) and why he's up and running around in Aht Urhgan.
Now, our undeniable proof that the Dark Rider is Odin, handed to us directly by SE:
img136.imageshack.us/img136/1606/odinandsleip8xj.jpg
Those are the names of the textures of located in the Dark Rider's .dat file.
These are named by SE themselves! This is not a list custom named like with Model Viewer.
Verdict: Will Odin ever be summonable? I can't say. It doesn't look like it to me but SE can throw us curveballs. Diabolos had more going for him than Odin and even then we couldn't be sure. However, we can say for sure he IS in the game and he IS the celestial dark avatar.
Phoenix
Though much talked about in CoP, we never actually saw Phoenix herself. Many people try to argue how she died in the 6-4 cutscene as proof she will never be summonable.. however she was pretty dead before Tenzen "revived" her. Her presence is merged with Selh'teus.
The verdict: SE seems pretty much finished with CoP, so I wouldn't count on getting her. But let's not count our eggs before they hatch! We have a good idea what her summoning animation looks like and her Astral Flow pact from Selh'teus's appearances post 8-2. We can still hope.
Bahamut
The big bad wyrmking, ruler of the skies. He has no summoning animation, and SE has already said they won't make him summonable.
The verdict: SE could change their mind but don't get your hopes up.
Alexander
All we have as concrete evidence is the star chart, which shows him as the celestial light avatar. Unlinke Odin, we don't have much... there is some NPC dialogue in ToAU that sounds like it may be Alexander and some dialogue from Limbus NPCs, but that's it outside of the Gordeus floating in Walahra Temple which is similar to Alex's star in the sky. There's no direct mentioning of his name though. The moblins in Movalpolos were probably originally searching for Alexander when they started digging, but after finding a stone statue of Promathia, they never kept looking.
The verdict: The star chart should be enough for anyone, especially after Odin, to beleive Alexander is the celestial light avatar. But we don't have anything else concrete other than that to base speculation on. As it is, doubtful he will be summonable, at least until we see more of him in-game.
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There you have it. The four avatars already "in-game" that we have yet to summon and why they may or may not be a spell for us to use one day. Anyone's welcome to discuss or offer up their own theories. But keep them educated, which is what this post was for. SE's more than likely giving us one of these avatars in the near future. It's hard to say which.
Avatar Speculation and You
After browsing a few FFXI forums, I've noticed a lot of speculation going on about possible new avatars. Sadly, a lot of it is very uninformed. So I decided to compile a list of things that contribute or take away from many avatar theories.
What's an avatar?
This needed to be addressed because a lot of people don't understand this game term. Avatar is not what you call a creature after it is added to our list of summons. Anything that we can summon was always an avatar.
There are two types of avatars: the terrestrial avatars and the sleeping gods, dubbed the celestial avatars. Spirits are not avatars, they are just an incarnation of elemental power.
The terrestrial avatars include: Carbuncle, Fenrir, Diabolos, Bahamut, and Phoenix. They can die like any creature, but it does seem their presence is sustained still. They don't reside in protocrystals, but they do have their realms.
Carbuncle > La Theine Plateau
Fenir > Full Moon Fountain [Horutoto Ruins {Kuluu City)]
Diabolos > The Shrouded Maw/Dynamis [Pso'Xja (Kuluu City)]
Bahamut > Monarch Linn
Phoenix > Unknown
Unlinke the sleeping gods, they have (or for some, did have) the ability to roam free among Vana'diel. Though their attacks are based off of one element, they are not tied to it like the sleeping gods. If you dig around Pso'Xja enough, I believe you can find a gate for each terrestrial avatar (except maybe Diabolos). As you can see, there is a very fine line between certain types of avatars. Carbuncle is not "the light avatar" and Fenrir is not "the dark avatar", which helps clear any confusion about Diabolos being dark based.
The sleeping gods are the masters of their respective elements. We know much about six of the eight of them. They remain in a sleep, dreaming. They reside in protocrystals. The threat of them waking was one that loomed in CoP. Carbuncle fears the moment when they might wake up and a war may break out, even post CoP. It is also thought that as more and more summoners obtain portions of their power, the line between their realm and Vana'diel is slowly thinning and waking them up.
These avatars, as we know for at least six of them, were once other living things who were given their divinity by the "goddess" (highly likely to be Altana). If you want to know their backstories, go here for an excellent translation:
http://killingifrit.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=104327&d=0
Ifrit > Ifrit's Cauldron [Cloister of Flames]
Leviathan > Den of Rancor [Cloister of Tides]
Titan > Quicksand Caves [Cloister of Tremors]
Shiva > Fei'yin [Cloister of Frost]
Ramuh > The Boyahda Tree [Cloister of Storms]
Garuda > Cape Terrigan [Cloister of Gales]
Odin > Unknown
Alexander > Unknown
We know next to nothing about Alexander and very little about Odin, who seems to be awake already... however we still don't know what this means, and we won't until we know more about ToAU.
I hope the above section educated some of you on avatars some. There will never be any new summonable avatars unless it is one of the above.. unless SE introduced a new group. But, we have nothing to base the possibility of that on.
Odin
I'll tackle him first since he's a hot topic right now since the "Dark Rider" has been sighted.
We know he is the Celestial avatar of Darkness from the stellar star charts. Every celestial avatar has their name on the constellation of their elemental star. Will he be summonable? Doesn't seem so, but we know for sure he's in the game.
More so than Alexander, his name pops up with the other celestial avatars. The taru with the star chart in Windurst talks about him, while the tarus in the other nations talk about different celestial avatars. His name is also on the gates in Windurst and Eldieme, among some of the other celestial avatars.
In the quests Tuning In/Tuning Out, a Mithran tracker investigating the sleeping gods came across a piece of magicite shattered in Bearclaw Pinnacle while trying to converse with the true forms of the avatars. While this was not a dark protocrystal as originally beleived, its existance is expected.
My personal theory on this is that it may have been a dark protocrystal after all. Odin and Alex are definitely special, which made me think that instead of Altana, perhaps Promathia granted these two their status. Odin I believe this holds true for moreso. Altana only granted the others their status when she saw how noble they were. Odin doesn't seem to fit this. If Promathia had made him an avatar, that would explain why his protocrystal was magicite (aka Promathia's will) and why he's up and running around in Aht Urhgan.
Now, our undeniable proof that the Dark Rider is Odin, handed to us directly by SE:
img136.imageshack.us/img136/1606/odinandsleip8xj.jpg
Those are the names of the textures of located in the Dark Rider's .dat file.
These are named by SE themselves! This is not a list custom named like with Model Viewer.
Verdict: Will Odin ever be summonable? I can't say. It doesn't look like it to me but SE can throw us curveballs. Diabolos had more going for him than Odin and even then we couldn't be sure. However, we can say for sure he IS in the game and he IS the celestial dark avatar.
Phoenix
Though much talked about in CoP, we never actually saw Phoenix herself. Many people try to argue how she died in the 6-4 cutscene as proof she will never be summonable.. however she was pretty dead before Tenzen "revived" her. Her presence is merged with Selh'teus.
The verdict: SE seems pretty much finished with CoP, so I wouldn't count on getting her. But let's not count our eggs before they hatch! We have a good idea what her summoning animation looks like and her Astral Flow pact from Selh'teus's appearances post 8-2. We can still hope.
Bahamut
The big bad wyrmking, ruler of the skies. He has no summoning animation, and SE has already said they won't make him summonable.
The verdict: SE could change their mind but don't get your hopes up.
Alexander
All we have as concrete evidence is the star chart, which shows him as the celestial light avatar. Unlinke Odin, we don't have much... there is some NPC dialogue in ToAU that sounds like it may be Alexander and some dialogue from Limbus NPCs, but that's it outside of the Gordeus floating in Walahra Temple which is similar to Alex's star in the sky. There's no direct mentioning of his name though. The moblins in Movalpolos were probably originally searching for Alexander when they started digging, but after finding a stone statue of Promathia, they never kept looking.
The verdict: The star chart should be enough for anyone, especially after Odin, to beleive Alexander is the celestial light avatar. But we don't have anything else concrete other than that to base speculation on. As it is, doubtful he will be summonable, at least until we see more of him in-game.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
There you have it. The four avatars already "in-game" that we have yet to summon and why they may or may not be a spell for us to use one day. Anyone's welcome to discuss or offer up their own theories. But keep them educated, which is what this post was for. SE's more than likely giving us one of these avatars in the near future. It's hard to say which.
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