Originally uploaded to Bilibili.tv
If miHoYo's doing with these Tribal Chronicle Character Quests what I think they're doing with them then I definitely approve. We've had tons of World Bosses before and while some of them did have in game lore to go along with them this is the first time these guys are legitimately historical figures that played major roles in the plot of the main story. (although the mystery behind Rhodeia was a pretty long game that miHoYo played)
So anyway in this quest we're told a few names. Yupanqui plays out in a bigger way than this story covers so we can put him to the side for now. Burkina and more importantly his Saurian Companion Kongamato are where it's at. These guys were first name dropped all the way back last year and were part of Tenoch's team going at the Abyss. In the Archon Quest we're told about Tenoch and the story is expanded upon where it was actually the Archon who got him to unite the other tribes to fight. Now with this story we see the aftermath. It wasn't pretty. Burkina died and Kongamato was afflicted with Abyssal Corruption that made it attack humanity uncontrollably. Actually now that I think about it it is really just like what happened to Dvalin back when this game launched. Kongamato is called a Saurian but that's really just a modern term. What these guys really are are human friendly versions of what Dvalin is which is a dragon. In fact the terminology is even the same in the original Chinese version. (This has happened before. For example Archon is a term only found in the English version. In Chinese Archon is interchangeable with god so all Archons are gods are Archons. All Saurians therefore are dragons are Saurians.) Therefore we know this Abyssal Corruption stuff is possible since we already saw it 4 years ago.
But that's not the most interesting part. The interesting part is that the World Boss we have is also called Kongamato meaning it is the same guy. The World Boss we fight just playing the game normally is tied to this important part of Natlan's history. That's new. All the other World Bosses we had had minor stories about how they fit into the world just to explain their existence. You know normal game stuff. Rhodeia was the only real exception to this because she actually belonged to a region we wouldn't get until last year so a long-term mystery developed about what could have happened in Fontaine for her to have left and become so paranoid. But Rhodeia was just one denizen of Fontaine and not some important central figure. Now here in Natlan we got 2 World Bosses so far and another one will be coming out in the next update. Besides Kongamato the other one we have is called Ngoubou and that name was also brought up with Tenoch. What that means is I think each of the World Bosses for Natlan will be the Saurian Companions from that team and they will also have stories that play out like Kinich's. Were they all afflicted with the Abyss? Will one of them have already been cured and is already doing the "testing grounds" thing even before we get to the story? I don't know about you but I'm very curious.
Next time the new character will be Xilonen from the Children of Echoes tribe. By going off of Kinich's story it's likely we'll finally get the last part of that tribe's Tribal Chronicles and it'll relate to that tribe's Saurian Companion Muhuru who will therefore be the new boss. After that we can use Mualani's path to Tupac from the Archon Quest to see that maybe Chasca will get the same treatment and that could relate back to Ngoubou, our other current World Boss.
They had said they were trying out something new with Natlan when it came to the Reputation System and if this is the case I definitely applaud them. Having World Bosses that we usually didn't care all that much about finally get tied back to the main story is cool and it gives the bosses more character than how it was in the past. Also as somebody that likes predicting the story it's nice to have such a clean roadmap. With Muhuru coming out in v5.1 that leaves Kayeke and Mahamba. We typically get 5 World Bosses first and then a 6th or 7th later on that's usually further removed from the the previous releases. So it's likely Kayeke and Mahamba will come out in say v5.3 while an unrelated boss will appear later, maybe v5.5 or v5.6. I'm going to guess this last boss will be related to the mysterious Mare Jivari region, maybe even tie into the Archon's Second Character Quest (which then means a tie-in with the new Weekly Boss too) and if that's the case it may further expand on what happened to this old team under Tenoch.
Also anybody study Latin? Do you know what alebriius might mean? As far as I can tell it's a made up word but usually miHoYo wouldn't do that. However what miHoYo has been known to do is mash non-Latin words with Latin grammar. Anyway hope a Latin expert reads this and has an answer!
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