We’ve already seen the creator god of the ff14 universe. Its naoki yoshida. We meet up with him every anniversary

While the Zodiark and Hydaelin saga is a nice low-spoilers name for people who get started, it was really about the sins of the ancients, and the way they shaped the world to come after. I think the Godless realm saga is literally about that... can humanity stand on its own, now that there are no longer almighties standing over us holding up the world.

The Ancients treated the planet/star itself as a God. Zodiark was just the "Will of the Star made manifest". Then it was Hydaelyn that became the "Will of the Star" after defeating Zodiark. But, now that both Zodiark and Hydaelyn are gone, the Star itself is reclaiming its own will and is starting to literally pull itself together. Now, whether this is a "conscious" decision by Etherys or just physics and nature taking back over remains to be seen.

Fun fact: Banri Oda, Lore master of FFXIV, published his first book in 2025 called "Wanderers in a Godless World". I bet they are gonna borrow ideas from his book.

I'm here so early the Ascians are still trying to figure out how they fucked up so hard with The Void!

I think it's worth noting that Athena's idea of a capital G God is a being able to create souls. It's hard to say she could have succeeded if left alone and wasn't interrupted by us. But based on that definition, we will know when we're dealing with a real God when they have the capacity to create souls. Athena's ambitions doesn't rule out that capital G Godhood can't be acquired.

Can't create souls = Lower case g god
Can create souls = Capital G God

There is also the question, at least to me, what happens if the Exodus of the "Gods" becomes publicly known on the Source.

meanwhile Ultima watches patiently

I think Godless Realms as a title more refers to the forsaken nature of humanity without Hydaelyn preserving the shards as they are and being able to 'answer' prayers, the trailer makes strong 'prayer' parallels to the 1.0 cutscenes, except it comes across far more forlorn and lost, as though no-one can answer now they're gone.

I feel the idea is more the idea of hopelessness/the actual death of your deity and collapse of your religion (or at least, answers to your prayers), where the plans of the Winterers can run rampant, alongside the unknown future of Zodiark's remaining aether in the moons. If the Winterers can convince the shards their gods are gone and they need to rejoin that is a powerful emotional and logical argument, our argument needs to be that mankind does not need the gods to succeed.

If I remember correctly, there are two quests in Elpis that speak of "gods" in a capital-G fashion. One of them a random side-quest, the other is from the raid series: a young Lahabrea chastising Athena for meddling in a realm (souls) reserved for gods. This tells me, that either the Ancients believed in some sort of god-being to exist... or it was phrase from the time before the Ancient's culture flourished as we witnessed it.

"Do you think the reins of history are once again in the hands of man?" Doctor Cid feels seen in those words.

Oh, the parallels between FFXII Venat's goal and our Venat are shining through even clearer.

I don't see this happening in Evercold, but it could be interesting to see a sub-plot around a people actually worshipping the WoL as a god and the fall out of that

The question is what is a God?

Do you specifically mean the abrahamic God?

Because in most religions that kind of God isn't a thing but they still have Gods.

Hinduism has Gods, Shintoism has Gods, both Roman and Greek religions had Gods.

Just because a fantasy world doesn't have an abrahamic God like figure like you see in Judaism, Christianity or Islam doesn't mean it was "godless".

Hydaelyn and Zodiark were Gods, various primals were Gods, the 12 were Gods. They had the status of a deity in their respective religions which makes them Gods. In a lot of religions Gods can be former humans or former objects. Just because the Gods were man-made doesn't mean they weren't gods.

In general because of how varied religions are there is no universal definition of what defines a "God" or "Deity" except for "a figure, being, thing, concept, idea or similar seen as a God (or Deity) in a religion is a God (or Deity)".

It seems to follow the idea of gods in japan pretty well, especially in modern anime/manga/LNs and games where "god" or "gods" often aren't all-powerful indestructible beings, but rather just super powerful beings beyond mortal comprehension. This is also often seen in Wuxia where immortals often are reffered to as gods

Gonna make an early call here: The Twelve returned to the star to help stop the Wintering. They knew, Hydalyn knew, and all that aether and knowledge returned to influence events beyond this world and in the life stream.

I bet the one actual god is the Great Serpent. It was hanging out on Aethiris when it was sundered and couldn't fight the Endsinger do to that.

Halmarut's words stuck with me about how nature and by extension the universe is entirely indifferent to whether life lives or dies, it has no stakes in our survival, it bears no grudges or holds any favors. I think this will be a major theme going forward, that in this godless universe there is NO higher being looking out for us to guarantee a future, thus we must create it for ourselves, we the people who against all odds inhabit these godless realms.

I am really wondering if they're going to, at some point, make Myths of the Realm required MSQ. Because like, they're called gods too. It wouldn't make sense for the "Goddess Realms Saga" to go on for long when it's possible that the Twelve are still in the picture - especially when their role was in part to help keep the Solstice back.

Or is it going to exist in a state of "pseudo canon" like Alexander and Omega are, where you aren't required to do them, but it's canon that at some point the WoL does do them.

It'll be funny if YoshiP's self-insert character, the Wandering Minstrel shows up at the end of this new saga as the One Above All lmao

when I realized that Gaius' monologue during the Praetorium duty was actually spot-on, like that he was speaking absolute facts in regards to the primals, it changed my entire mind. he still came to the wrong conclusion, but he was telling the truth