Board Thread:The Last Sovereign Discussion/@comment-27713488-20181103233945/@comment-39120971-20190413204024

I'm far behind the latest events but wild speculation is fun, so let me throw in a couple predictions of my own:

-I'm hoping for the Lord of Blood to play a role in the story, but at the same time I expect it to be only a minor role. As far as the remaining Incubus Kings go, I foresee Simon dealing with Estevan and Esthera personally, double-crossing the Lustlord in the process. The Lustlord will need to steal someone's shard to stay in the game, half of Estevan's shard is just keeping up with Simon, assuming he gets even that, and of the remaining ones the Lord of Blood seems like the weakest target to feed the Lustlord's ego. Mind you, it would be sweet if we at least get attacked by the Lord of Blood and see his roaming fortress in action, even if the Lustlord swoops in and takes the soul shard after our battle, if we keep the fortress for ourselves I'd consider that a win.

-I'm hoping that the final harem member in the combat section will be Ginasta. I know there's Vhala too, but Vhala is already tagging along with our party without joining the harem and I don't see that changing. Ginasta, on the other hand, has RP and a very long history of interactions with Simon and his party throughout the game. She's a rival and was a boss at one point, but we fought Riala too, right? So yeah, fingers crossed for Ginasta.

-I'm also counting on all of those Shining Swords we've been collecting to be materials for forging Ginasta's custom weapon. One obligatory SS dropped from the Noble Scion boss, anything above that will boost its power, depending on passing certain thresholds (10, 20, 30 Shining Swords?). Either that or we'll eventually equip an army of Chosen with these, but I find that unlikely, as Chosen with self-control are really rare, Kalant being the exception to the norm, and there is only a handful of them alive at any point in time, so is there a chance that we'll collect more Shining Swords than there can be active Chosen? Maybe, that's why I give Ginasta's custom weapon the nod over a Chosen army.

-The Chosen 'hatchery' that was moved to Aram is actually related to the Church imprisoning Ivala and when we finally go to Aram and Eustrin we'll uncover that plot and release the goddess. Now I'm only going off of loose hints that could mean all sorts of things, like Carina hearing the voice of Ivala more clearly in Stineford. However, assuming for a moment that they really were holding Ivala prisoner, it's strange that the goddess never asked for Carina for help, or any of her other followers, isn't it? So my theory is that they're holding her in a state of magical sleep or some sort of stasis and siphoning her power to create the Chosen over and over, but while they have Ivala's blessing giving them power, they lack her guidance and so end up wandering off and dying in the silliest of ways. However, somehow Ivala is aware of and counting on Simon, since she apparently communicated with Sarai and Carina in subtle ways, without her guidance Carina wouldn't have been present at the Dark Ruin and joined Simon's harem, which to me is a clear enough sign that Ivala meant for things to happen that way. There's probably more hints out there that complicate the picture, but at least I feel confident that Ivala wishes Simon well, given what we know so far.

-The airship count that increases each iteration will give some big boon during the intercontinental conflict coming up, however the story will be structured so that even with just one airship we'll be able to get some minimal passable result. This is more me hoping that Sierra will have some grace on players who didn't invest in it early in chapter 4, since the various events are already really demanding between collecting RP, raising the three new countries' scores, raising Social/Economy/Religion scores for the Council, it's hard to fit the airship in there. One way or another players will need to give up something, and the trade offs will become relevant during the war, with fewer airships perhaps players will be able to compensate by using their other resources instead, creating divergent scenarios like during the Battle of Yhilin and the 3rd Arclent War depending on prior investments/discretionary funding... so, in short, my reason for this speculation is that we can expect more of the same as previous chapters, just bigger and more complex in scope, and that perhaps this is more manageable narratively - it's easier to write a story with a weaker or stronger airforce as opposed to a separate branch for a situation when no airships are available... although that's no guarantee, especially if ignoring the airships altogether is meant to carry a significant penalty, like not reinforcing either border leading to Yhilin getting hit by a seed during the 3AW.

Alright, I think that's enough wild speculation for one post, with the airships I feel like I was already stretching for something not yet confirmed but with at least a bit of in-game justification to it... I'll post again here when I get some fresh ideas.