Shadowbringers role quests
Jan. 20th, 2026 03:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
requiemsI have done these quests in their entirety five times - Khlip is the sixth. Everytime I watch every cutscene and I love them just as much as I did then.
One of the reasons I love Shadowbringers is the lore that's baked in to it; this isn't Eorzea or the Source, this is a place entirely new with a branching history and it's there if you go looking. You learn Norvrandt was the ancestral home to the elves and they didn't have a united system of governance until the other races came along and then they had a king - that the Shadowkeeper preyed upon those who distrusted the interlopers of what was rightfully theirs. Voeburt is gone and taken over by the fae, but the Drahn and the Galdjent had an elected council and nominated monarchs and it was a cold mountain kingdom reminiscent of Ishgard. The Shadowkeeper was there, too, having imparted the knowledge of corrupting individuals with the void. Ronka is a long forgotten empire but its teachings and advancements of magic have long outlasted it and paved its legacy. The Viis lived in the forests. Amh Araeng was a desert nation. Kholusia was seafaring, but the dwarves were insular and kept to the mountains. There are similarities to the setting you left because it's supposed to be that way, it's a divergence and a reflection, but there is so. Much. Lore about Norvrandt itself. It's so rich.
And you wonder, idly, who was the Shadowkeeper? They disappeared one day, it seems. Ardbert talks about taking their fight to the Ascians and defeating them only to fail (the creation of Eden) and then being lured in by Elidibus' false promises in their desperation. But he never mentions the Shadowkeeper at all.
And it would be easy for Ardbert's friends to stay nameless and forgotten by the narrative, hated by the world they sought to save and cursed by its people. Whilst Ardbert is the focus for MSQ, their histories are in the role quests and I love each and every one of them so much, as well as their hunters.
Granson's is about letting go and the process of grief, how vengeance is cyclical. How the man he wishes to paint as a monster is no man at all, and that a villain is easy to blindly thrust and assign blame. This lack of understanding makes it easy. (This in itself is a parallel to Emet Selch and you.) And when all is said and done he has to make peace with fate and his loss, that he has to relearn to live. Branden had to serve, and his service wrought sacrifice. But she wouldn't have wanted him to forsake compassion and love. And after Granson is gone Sul Oul, who knew Branden as he was, looks at you, and knows you have picked yourself out of hardship after hardship too...
Lue-Reeq is about learning to stand on your own two feet and commitment to something, the things that matter. As of himself he is the weakest hunter, in that the game gives you a lot of options to mock and not like him, but I've always had a soft spot for him. He left a life of stasis but still kept some of its perks in his pocket, hiring others to do the investigating, throwing chidlike ultimatums and money around freely to get what he wants until he realises he can't keep doing that, that he doesn't need his parents' approval or contempt, what matters is the people who were always there for him. And Renda-Rae... her guilt weighs on her conscience and she refuses to attach herself to anyone because it cannot, will not happen again, she must be self sufficient. "You gave me fear, and that fear gave me strength" is a sentiment that haunts me always. Though they are very different, they both have had to grow past the preconceptions of who they are and the things that were holding them back.
Giott is about convictions and truths, and facing the world as it is. Giott is as of herself comical and is coupled with the fantastic writing all the dwarves get, but she is fairly set in her ways. Lamitt was an embarrassment, she is sent to deal with the virtue, the elders word is law. But when she finds out the truth of the stoneblighted and the lengths Lamitt went to, that she could never return home again she feels for her so strongly. She doesn't need another helm. This realm is one that Lamitt explored and loved and fought for and she is a hero! She did what she did as they were the right things to do. No more standing idly by. The dwarves in themselves are very unopen to change, but she refreshingly is. She will not keep the convenience of comforting lies any longer.
Cerigg gets heavily tangled up with Taynor very quickly but that in itself is quintessential Shadowbringers. What's important to you - family is not only blood. You would lay your life down for the people that matter to you but you would not do it at the expense of others.
And Cylva. Only the best hunter for the Shadowkeeper will do. She carefully keeps you at distance because she knows what attachment will wrought. She needs to atone and she needs you to do this. But you have born witness to her friends and their deeds, and walked this other world in its entirety, and learned, paramount, that it is not that simple.
Her penance is to remember. To live. To be the living memory of her companions and to tell tales of them as they were. So they too might live in the minds of the world they sacrificed themselves to save.
I just... hngh. These are perfect, perfect quests. I don't think they'll ever have another set like them.
One of the reasons I love Shadowbringers is the lore that's baked in to it; this isn't Eorzea or the Source, this is a place entirely new with a branching history and it's there if you go looking. You learn Norvrandt was the ancestral home to the elves and they didn't have a united system of governance until the other races came along and then they had a king - that the Shadowkeeper preyed upon those who distrusted the interlopers of what was rightfully theirs. Voeburt is gone and taken over by the fae, but the Drahn and the Galdjent had an elected council and nominated monarchs and it was a cold mountain kingdom reminiscent of Ishgard. The Shadowkeeper was there, too, having imparted the knowledge of corrupting individuals with the void. Ronka is a long forgotten empire but its teachings and advancements of magic have long outlasted it and paved its legacy. The Viis lived in the forests. Amh Araeng was a desert nation. Kholusia was seafaring, but the dwarves were insular and kept to the mountains. There are similarities to the setting you left because it's supposed to be that way, it's a divergence and a reflection, but there is so. Much. Lore about Norvrandt itself. It's so rich.
And you wonder, idly, who was the Shadowkeeper? They disappeared one day, it seems. Ardbert talks about taking their fight to the Ascians and defeating them only to fail (the creation of Eden) and then being lured in by Elidibus' false promises in their desperation. But he never mentions the Shadowkeeper at all.
And it would be easy for Ardbert's friends to stay nameless and forgotten by the narrative, hated by the world they sought to save and cursed by its people. Whilst Ardbert is the focus for MSQ, their histories are in the role quests and I love each and every one of them so much, as well as their hunters.
Granson's is about letting go and the process of grief, how vengeance is cyclical. How the man he wishes to paint as a monster is no man at all, and that a villain is easy to blindly thrust and assign blame. This lack of understanding makes it easy. (This in itself is a parallel to Emet Selch and you.) And when all is said and done he has to make peace with fate and his loss, that he has to relearn to live. Branden had to serve, and his service wrought sacrifice. But she wouldn't have wanted him to forsake compassion and love. And after Granson is gone Sul Oul, who knew Branden as he was, looks at you, and knows you have picked yourself out of hardship after hardship too...
Lue-Reeq is about learning to stand on your own two feet and commitment to something, the things that matter. As of himself he is the weakest hunter, in that the game gives you a lot of options to mock and not like him, but I've always had a soft spot for him. He left a life of stasis but still kept some of its perks in his pocket, hiring others to do the investigating, throwing chidlike ultimatums and money around freely to get what he wants until he realises he can't keep doing that, that he doesn't need his parents' approval or contempt, what matters is the people who were always there for him. And Renda-Rae... her guilt weighs on her conscience and she refuses to attach herself to anyone because it cannot, will not happen again, she must be self sufficient. "You gave me fear, and that fear gave me strength" is a sentiment that haunts me always. Though they are very different, they both have had to grow past the preconceptions of who they are and the things that were holding them back.
Giott is about convictions and truths, and facing the world as it is. Giott is as of herself comical and is coupled with the fantastic writing all the dwarves get, but she is fairly set in her ways. Lamitt was an embarrassment, she is sent to deal with the virtue, the elders word is law. But when she finds out the truth of the stoneblighted and the lengths Lamitt went to, that she could never return home again she feels for her so strongly. She doesn't need another helm. This realm is one that Lamitt explored and loved and fought for and she is a hero! She did what she did as they were the right things to do. No more standing idly by. The dwarves in themselves are very unopen to change, but she refreshingly is. She will not keep the convenience of comforting lies any longer.
Cerigg gets heavily tangled up with Taynor very quickly but that in itself is quintessential Shadowbringers. What's important to you - family is not only blood. You would lay your life down for the people that matter to you but you would not do it at the expense of others.
And Cylva. Only the best hunter for the Shadowkeeper will do. She carefully keeps you at distance because she knows what attachment will wrought. She needs to atone and she needs you to do this. But you have born witness to her friends and their deeds, and walked this other world in its entirety, and learned, paramount, that it is not that simple.
Her penance is to remember. To live. To be the living memory of her companions and to tell tales of them as they were. So they too might live in the minds of the world they sacrificed themselves to save.
I just... hngh. These are perfect, perfect quests. I don't think they'll ever have another set like them.
