One of the most important events in the history of Final Fantasy XIV‘s Eorzea is the year-long Dragonsong War between the citizens of Ishgard and the Dravanians. But what led up to it?
Well, to know that we have to go back to the start of the Sixth Astral Era, where, funnily enough, the Dravanians and a certain Halone-worshipping tribe lived in peace. In the centre of which were the unusual lovers Shiva and Hraesvelgr.
Hraesvelgr had two siblings in Ratatoskr and Nidhhog. One day, in an attempt to strengthen the allegiance between man and dragon, Ratatoskr revealed a secret about a dragon’s eye. She revealed to King Thordan of the Tribe that a dragon’s eye is supposedly a source of immense power.
Motivated by the urge to become all-powerful, King Thordan and his Knights of Twelve murdered Ratatoskr to obtain her eyes and became immensely powerful.
In doing so, they incurred the rage of Nidhogg, who, vowing revenge on the humans, fought the Knights of Twelve and managed to strike down four of them along with King Thordan, but lost his eyes in the process.
Nidhogg’s revenge and the Dragonsong War in Final Fantasy XIV
This was the official start of the Dragonsong War. And after this incident, two major things took place.
Four of the surviving knights found the High Houses of Ishgard, where Haldrath, the son of Thordan, abdicated the throne and became the first azure dragoon, tasked with protecting Ishgard from the repeated Dravanian onslaughts. He was later buried alongside Nidhogg’s right eye, while the left eye was wielded by the later Azure Dragoons.
On the Dravanian side of things, Nidhogg was healed by Hraesvelgr. But Nidhogg was not satisfied with how the battle ended with the humans, so he coerced Hraesvelgr into giving him his left eye. Hraesvelgr, who was now shocked at Ratatoskr’s betrayal, was willing to aid Nidhogg, but was stopped from directly fighting the humans by the spirit of Shiva.
In the official records of Ishgard, however, the details of the dragon slaying were completely rewritten; Thordan was said to be a noble man with no crimes to note. The details of Nidhogg’s right eye were completely erased, with it saying that Haldrath only pierced Nidhogg’s left eye.
And at last, Shiva, the peace-loving woman, was deemed a heretic who had committed the mortal sin of lying with dragons.
