FWIW I think this is the right one to do first. There is obviously no actual "correct" one to do first, but the other scenario is about twice the length and IMO leads more nicely into the rest of the story.
My First MMO: Tet's Eorzean Adventures [FFXIV]
- Thread starter Tetsujin
- Start date
FWIW I think this is the right one to do first. There is obviously no actual "correct" one to do first, but the other scenario is about twice the length and IMO leads more nicely into the rest of the story.
Agreed, also happened to be the route I chose as well, but yeah. I think the context it adds is super helpful in the other scenario.
- AKA
- TresDias
Maybe so, but you're right on time to get your FFXIV face masks!
https://kotaku.com/square-enix-launches-official-final-fantasy-xiv-masks-i-1846395575/
Now you're no longer a Slime-slayin' Sprout.
- AKA
- Tets
New expansion, new look 
Figured the ninja outfit looks way too uncomfortably warm for the constant light everywhere.
So doing a few duty roulettes with Lex and Carlie yesterday I got my first taste of PvP. Seeing as how I've never done it, never read the rules and also had my hotbar swapped out for a completely different PvP version, I basically just ran around like a headless chicken not knowing what to do, it was absolute bananas
Gives ridiculous exp bonuses though. Not that I need them on my main job, I'm already lvl 76 and only just started ShB.
Imagine if I did roulettes every day. I'd have hit lvl 80 in Heavensward
So Kholusia is basically a counterpart to La Noscea it seems. Eulmore even from the distance is somewhat reminiscent of Limsa Lominsa and more similarities are to be found inside.
I'm into all the weird, post-apocalyptic society stuff presented here.
The city's ruler is just chillin' with sin eaters...sexy, sexy sin eaters. Maybe they ain't so bad after all...
..where was I? Oh right. Just finished Holminster Switch. I was excited to finally try out the Trust feature and have a first-time "smell the roses" playthrough for a dungeon.
Feels like I'm back in TLOU2 tbh
Anyway, playing with NPCs worked pretty well and I like that they have lines reacting to stuff as well. On the other hand it seems you'll get worse loot and killing mobs and bosses takes three times longer than with other players. I think I spent 30 minutes on this dungeon, lol
Those bastards bring Tesleen in as a mid-dungeon boss, how dare you punch me in the gut.
Victory over the Lightwarden:
...looks like an album cover or something
The final boss was a bit problematic because of sudden lag that I have never experienced before. I wondered if it was my connection or their servers but the lag persisted in the PS5 menu...uhhh. Is it the controller...? I hope this isn't gonna be a thing now.
Figured the ninja outfit looks way too uncomfortably warm for the constant light everywhere.
So doing a few duty roulettes with Lex and Carlie yesterday I got my first taste of PvP. Seeing as how I've never done it, never read the rules and also had my hotbar swapped out for a completely different PvP version, I basically just ran around like a headless chicken not knowing what to do, it was absolute bananas
Gives ridiculous exp bonuses though. Not that I need them on my main job, I'm already lvl 76 and only just started ShB.
Imagine if I did roulettes every day. I'd have hit lvl 80 in Heavensward
So Kholusia is basically a counterpart to La Noscea it seems. Eulmore even from the distance is somewhat reminiscent of Limsa Lominsa and more similarities are to be found inside.
I'm into all the weird, post-apocalyptic society stuff presented here.
The city's ruler is just chillin' with sin eaters...sexy, sexy sin eaters. Maybe they ain't so bad after all...
..where was I? Oh right. Just finished Holminster Switch. I was excited to finally try out the Trust feature and have a first-time "smell the roses" playthrough for a dungeon.
Feels like I'm back in TLOU2 tbh
Anyway, playing with NPCs worked pretty well and I like that they have lines reacting to stuff as well. On the other hand it seems you'll get worse loot and killing mobs and bosses takes three times longer than with other players. I think I spent 30 minutes on this dungeon, lol
Those bastards bring Tesleen in as a mid-dungeon boss, how dare you punch me in the gut.
Victory over the Lightwarden:
...looks like an album cover or something
The final boss was a bit problematic because of sudden lag that I have never experienced before. I wondered if it was my connection or their servers but the lag persisted in the PS5 menu...uhhh. Is it the controller...? I hope this isn't gonna be a thing now.
- AKA
- Tets
I neglected a lot of the HW optional dungeons, a bunch of those quests have been in my log since last year 
I haven't even done Amdapor Hard yet, so had no clue about those bosses. Maybe I should do that quest/dungeon next...
The thing about the lag is weird though because my PS5 was lagging even after I logged out and closed the game. But yeah, later on when I logged in I had a queue of 169 people. The highest before that was maybe around 35 or something. Wtf was that all about? Maybe someone's just flooding the game with bots.
I haven't even done Amdapor Hard yet, so had no clue about those bosses. Maybe I should do that quest/dungeon next...
The thing about the lag is weird though because my PS5 was lagging even after I logged out and closed the game. But yeah, later on when I logged in I had a queue of 169 people. The highest before that was maybe around 35 or something. Wtf was that all about? Maybe someone's just flooding the game with bots.
There's a free login campaign through the end of March going in. At least here
- AKA
- Tets
Oh right, yeah that is likely it.
The leftover dungeons from HW bothered me, so I just solo'd Hullbreaker Isle Hard, Fractal Continuum and Lost City of Amdapor Hard.
Fractal Continuum had a bunch of things to read so it's nice to have time to do so without a group speedrunning the dungeon.
And yeah, Amdapor was interesting in regards to lore stuff. The first iteration had you go down this dark place filled with voidsent and culminating in fighting Diabolos which eventually tied into the Mhach raids story.
In the hard version you go through a similar place but instead it's all bright, light shining from the ceiling, light sprites roaming about and weird automatons of which I think I saw one of those in Kholusia? And the aforementioned two bosses that look like sin eaters of course. Interesting.
I've also taken on my role quests. I'm lvl 77 so I could do like, three of them in a row. Interesting how they handle the "job" quests in this one. Tieing it into the backstory of the First's warriors of light is cool. Makes it feel less like filler.
I wonder if this is how they'll handle job quests in general going forward in future expansions? Consolidating it into roles seems like they wanted to decrease the workload of having to do quests for the ever-expanding lists of jobs.
Makes sense within the plot too what with the usual job quest people being on another world I s'pose.
Another thing I noticed...is it just me or is the main character way more expressive in this one? It seems like I get dialogue options all the time now in story cutscenes. I feel less silent in this expac.
So far I have made it to Il Mheg. Minfilia is now reincarnated all the time with similar powers but no memories of her past selves but all incarnations keep the same name....is she Princess Zelda now?
Also, Thancred. I thought he lost his eye sometime before Heavensward? You're telling me the stupid bandana draped over his one eye wasn't a makeshift eyepatch but he just thought it looked cool?? What an absolute dork
The leftover dungeons from HW bothered me, so I just solo'd Hullbreaker Isle Hard, Fractal Continuum and Lost City of Amdapor Hard.
Fractal Continuum had a bunch of things to read so it's nice to have time to do so without a group speedrunning the dungeon.
And yeah, Amdapor was interesting in regards to lore stuff. The first iteration had you go down this dark place filled with voidsent and culminating in fighting Diabolos which eventually tied into the Mhach raids story.
In the hard version you go through a similar place but instead it's all bright, light shining from the ceiling, light sprites roaming about and weird automatons of which I think I saw one of those in Kholusia? And the aforementioned two bosses that look like sin eaters of course. Interesting.
I've also taken on my role quests. I'm lvl 77 so I could do like, three of them in a row. Interesting how they handle the "job" quests in this one. Tieing it into the backstory of the First's warriors of light is cool. Makes it feel less like filler.
I wonder if this is how they'll handle job quests in general going forward in future expansions? Consolidating it into roles seems like they wanted to decrease the workload of having to do quests for the ever-expanding lists of jobs.
Makes sense within the plot too what with the usual job quest people being on another world I s'pose.
Another thing I noticed...is it just me or is the main character way more expressive in this one? It seems like I get dialogue options all the time now in story cutscenes. I feel less silent in this expac.
So far I have made it to Il Mheg. Minfilia is now reincarnated all the time with similar powers but no memories of her past selves but all incarnations keep the same name....is she Princess Zelda now?
Also, Thancred. I thought he lost his eye sometime before Heavensward? You're telling me the stupid bandana draped over his one eye wasn't a makeshift eyepatch but he just thought it looked cool?? What an absolute dork
- AKA
- The Engineer
Ever since Heavensward, the WoL has gotten more and more expresive (must have been doing those Dark Knight quests!). At least part of it is how it's become much easier to tailor cutscenes to things like different race heights. Really, the cutscenes overall have become much more dynamic in terms of camera angles, character movment, etc.
- AKA
- TresDias
I nearly pissed I was so tickled when I had that "Hey, I recognize that Sin Eater!" moment.
Imagine if I actually played the game instead of just watching on the YouTubes.
Imagine if I actually played the game instead of just watching on the YouTubes.
Theozilla
Kaiju Member
Actually wearing an eyepatch over a working eye has been theorized to have been utilized for prepping an eye in case one needs to fight in sudden darkness, which fits with Thancred being a scout/stealth person before becoming a Gunbreaker. The manga Golden Kamuy also touched on thisAlso, Thancred. I thought he lost his eye sometime before Heavensward? You're telling me the stupid bandana draped over his one eye wasn't a makeshift eyepatch but he just thought it looked cool?? What an absolute dork
- AKA
- Tets
^I still think he just did it to look cool to the ladies
So that time before we continued the Ivalice raids I decided to try and get up that stupid tower in Kugane again. Y'know, the one that caused me hours of pain.
...I actually got up there in one attempt, it took less than 5 minutes.
So I tried jumping down and landing on that lamp post with the spot for the sightseeing log and I just barely missed it. So I climbed back up and again it took just one attempt. I'm so proud of myself.
This time I managed to land on the lamp post!
The Ivalice story was kind of testing my patience because there's literal hours of cutscenes which gets annoying when you just want to play the damn thing with other people. I ended up skipping cutscenes, which is highly unusual for me.
(You can put away the pitchforks, it ended up only being the last five minutes and I watched them later at the inn anyway
)
The fights at the Orbonne Monastery were intense. Ultima was pretty epic, felt like it could've been a proper final boss or something. I remember Ultima somewhat from FFXII. Wasn't she the angel with a satellite laser cannon coming out of her butt or something?
Then there was this Lord of Thunder or whatever, not sure what that was all about
Gabranth has a cameo at the end. It seems this hints at further stuff to come?
Meanwhile, me exploring Lakeland
^That island looks like it's some kind of massive dinosaur turtle thing. I wonder if there's a story here...
Some shots from Il Mheg
^ I love that there's this whole sunken town. So cool.
^Peekaboo!
...those leafmen are actually creepy since they were all humans once.
Reminds me of this v
^ Basically what I do to pass time while waiting to get into the Titania battle.
To be honest, I almost prefer Il Mheg the way it looked at the start when you're under the pixies' spell. The heavy bloom lighting really gave it that surreal dream-like quality...
Sooo, the pixies accents. I love them lol
Scottish? Irish? I need an expert opinion on this.
Interestingly, the humans who lived here before the fae folk seem to have some German influences. The castle's previous name was Grünes Licht ("green light"). Then there's Wolekdorf, "dorf" meaning village/town. "Wolek" on the other hand sounds polish to me?
Speaking of Wolekdorf, I was exploring the place and stumbled across it before the story led me there which is kind of hilarious because it's just like...a bunch of Amaro being all casually like "hey man, what's up welcome to our town blah blah" and the entire time I'm just like "why aren't we talking about the fact that all y'all can TALK?!"
After bringing the night back to Il Mheg, Emperor Solus aka Emet-Selch reveals himself. Didn't expect this guy to casually appear. I wonder what his deal is in offering cooperation after being pissed that we delayed the next calamity. Wtf does this guy want
^ This is my "I don't trust you" face
LA -ＨＥＥ~~
A selfie with Y'Shtola~ ♪
The basic story setup of ShB so far in some ways...actually reminds me of Zelda?
The whole "travel to each region where you must defeat a boss in a dungeon in order to save the world" has this Zelda-like vibe to it, the bosses in Shadowbringers all do the thing where they have an intro cutscene where it's all like
which is a Zelda boss thing to do. Having to free each region from the everlasting light also reminds me of Twilight Princess where each region of Hyrule is under constant twilight and you have to undo that.
Then there's Minfilia which I already mentioned reminds me of Princess Zelda in a few ways. Just a few fun surface level similarities that I noticed
So that time before we continued the Ivalice raids I decided to try and get up that stupid tower in Kugane again. Y'know, the one that caused me hours of pain.
...I actually got up there in one attempt, it took less than 5 minutes.
So I tried jumping down and landing on that lamp post with the spot for the sightseeing log and I just barely missed it. So I climbed back up and again it took just one attempt. I'm so proud of myself.
This time I managed to land on the lamp post!
The Ivalice story was kind of testing my patience because there's literal hours of cutscenes which gets annoying when you just want to play the damn thing with other people. I ended up skipping cutscenes, which is highly unusual for me.
(You can put away the pitchforks, it ended up only being the last five minutes and I watched them later at the inn anyway
)The fights at the Orbonne Monastery were intense. Ultima was pretty epic, felt like it could've been a proper final boss or something. I remember Ultima somewhat from FFXII. Wasn't she the angel with a satellite laser cannon coming out of her butt or something?
Then there was this Lord of Thunder or whatever, not sure what that was all about
Gabranth has a cameo at the end. It seems this hints at further stuff to come?
Meanwhile, me exploring Lakeland
^That island looks like it's some kind of massive dinosaur turtle thing. I wonder if there's a story here...
Some shots from Il Mheg
^ I love that there's this whole sunken town. So cool.
^Peekaboo!
...those leafmen are actually creepy since they were all humans once.
Reminds me of this v
^ Basically what I do to pass time while waiting to get into the Titania battle.
To be honest, I almost prefer Il Mheg the way it looked at the start when you're under the pixies' spell. The heavy bloom lighting really gave it that surreal dream-like quality...
Sooo, the pixies accents. I love them lol
Scottish? Irish? I need an expert opinion on this.
Interestingly, the humans who lived here before the fae folk seem to have some German influences. The castle's previous name was Grünes Licht ("green light"). Then there's Wolekdorf, "dorf" meaning village/town. "Wolek" on the other hand sounds polish to me?
Speaking of Wolekdorf, I was exploring the place and stumbled across it before the story led me there which is kind of hilarious because it's just like...a bunch of Amaro being all casually like "hey man, what's up welcome to our town blah blah" and the entire time I'm just like "why aren't we talking about the fact that all y'all can TALK?!"
After bringing the night back to Il Mheg, Emperor Solus aka Emet-Selch reveals himself. Didn't expect this guy to casually appear. I wonder what his deal is in offering cooperation after being pissed that we delayed the next calamity. Wtf does this guy want
^ This is my "I don't trust you" face
LA -ＨＥＥ~~
A selfie with Y'Shtola~ ♪
The basic story setup of ShB so far in some ways...actually reminds me of Zelda?
The whole "travel to each region where you must defeat a boss in a dungeon in order to save the world" has this Zelda-like vibe to it, the bosses in Shadowbringers all do the thing where they have an intro cutscene where it's all like
Baddy McBadface
___________________________
Adversary of Goodfaces
___________________________
Adversary of Goodfaces
which is a Zelda boss thing to do. Having to free each region from the everlasting light also reminds me of Twilight Princess where each region of Hyrule is under constant twilight and you have to undo that.
Then there's Minfilia which I already mentioned reminds me of Princess Zelda in a few ways. Just a few fun surface level similarities that I noticed
Then there was this Lord of Thunder or whatever, not sure what that was all about
Excuse you, sir. That's Count Cidolfus Orlandeau, aka Thunder God Cid.
- AKA
- Tets
Scottish? Irish? I need an expert opinion on this.
Scottish
- AKA
- Tets
Just went through a pyramid in Rak'tika with puzzles and traps that trigger giant boulders. Classic.
One thing that's been on my mind is that beacon that the Exarch used to get me to the First at the very beginning of ShB. It was this random object on the ground with an Ironworks logo on it, except Biggs and Wedge didn't recognize what it is and thought it might be counterfeit.
If that is not a setup for it to be something of significance, I don't know what it is. There will be a point in the story where it's all like "ohhh so that is what that is and how it got there" and I bet timey-wimey shenanigans will be involved. I bet it's genuine but the reason they didn't recognize it is because it has yet to be made or something like that.
*inb4 Whispers carry me out of this thread*
One thing that's been on my mind is that beacon that the Exarch used to get me to the First at the very beginning of ShB. It was this random object on the ground with an Ironworks logo on it, except Biggs and Wedge didn't recognize what it is and thought it might be counterfeit.
If that is not a setup for it to be something of significance, I don't know what it is. There will be a point in the story where it's all like "ohhh so that is what that is and how it got there" and I bet timey-wimey shenanigans will be involved. I bet it's genuine but the reason they didn't recognize it is because it has yet to be made or something like that.
*inb4 Whispers carry me out of this thread*
- AKA
- Tets
Cleared Qitana Ravel and hit level 80, woo. Meaning the rest of the MSQ (currently lv75) will be throwing millions of EXP away basically
Emet-Selch revealed a few interesting things about Hydaelyn and Zodiark (Primals? If that is true, could we possibly have been under a thrall this entire time? I wonder...) and meanwhile me absorbing the Lightwardens' light seems to somehow possibly corrupt me which I'm sure is entirely totally unrelated to why Emet is content in letting me do my thing...
The plot thickens
Emet-Selch revealed a few interesting things about Hydaelyn and Zodiark (Primals? If that is true, could we possibly have been under a thrall this entire time? I wonder...) and meanwhile me absorbing the Lightwardens' light seems to somehow possibly corrupt me which I'm sure is entirely totally unrelated to why Emet is content in letting me do my thing...
The plot thickens
- AKA
- Tets
Nintendo's lawyers are on their way
directly to you
Celebrating another Lightwarden's death:
Look at this cute little shit!
Moogle are fucking HARDCORE, dude.
So that one time a bunch of sin eaters coordinated an attack against Lakeland and the Crystarium. Eulmore seems to be the culprit but I can't help but think that maybe it's because of me? What with all that sin eater light I have absorbed. Maybe they're flocking to me now.
The real Minfilia seems to be properly gone now and Newfilia gets her own name. Weird to think that the last time we spoke to the real not-oracle-of-light Minfilia was way back in A Realm Reborn.
...who *is* in charge of the Scions now anyway? Who will tell people to pray return to the Waking Sands now?
Just had an Echo vision with someone reading Fortemps' Heavensward chronicle. Echoes always show somebody's past but this seemed like the future where the calamity occurs? Of course, maybe it's possible to have an Echo of the future if that future is somebody's past...
We know of the coming calamity because of Urianger's vision but I find it more likely the Exarch just lived through it and somehow travelled back in time to prevent it from happening and for whatever reason doesn't want to reveal that to the rest of the Scions so maybe he only told Urianger and they just made up that vision story because they both like their damn mysteries and secrets so much. Idk
Emet-Selch's also like "yeah no clue how you brought people over here because the Crystal Tower doesn't do that shit bro" so there's more to the Exarch than he lets on.
Also, we're really still here pretending he isn't G'raha Tia, like come on now.
btw why is Emet's posture so bad, he always holds himself like it's Monday morning and he just dragged his ass out of bed to go work at his shitty dead end job or something
directly to you
Celebrating another Lightwarden's death:
Look at this cute little shit!
Moogle are fucking HARDCORE, dude.
So that one time a bunch of sin eaters coordinated an attack against Lakeland and the Crystarium. Eulmore seems to be the culprit but I can't help but think that maybe it's because of me? What with all that sin eater light I have absorbed. Maybe they're flocking to me now.
The real Minfilia seems to be properly gone now and Newfilia gets her own name. Weird to think that the last time we spoke to the real not-oracle-of-light Minfilia was way back in A Realm Reborn.
...who *is* in charge of the Scions now anyway? Who will tell people to pray return to the Waking Sands now?
Just had an Echo vision with someone reading Fortemps' Heavensward chronicle. Echoes always show somebody's past but this seemed like the future where the calamity occurs? Of course, maybe it's possible to have an Echo of the future if that future is somebody's past...
We know of the coming calamity because of Urianger's vision but I find it more likely the Exarch just lived through it and somehow travelled back in time to prevent it from happening and for whatever reason doesn't want to reveal that to the rest of the Scions so maybe he only told Urianger and they just made up that vision story because they both like their damn mysteries and secrets so much. Idk
Emet-Selch's also like "yeah no clue how you brought people over here because the Crystal Tower doesn't do that shit bro" so there's more to the Exarch than he lets on.
Also, we're really still here pretending he isn't G'raha Tia, like come on now.
btw why is Emet's posture so bad, he always holds himself like it's Monday morning and he just dragged his ass out of bed to go work at his shitty dead end job or something
- AKA
- TresDias
I think you just perfectly summarized how he looks at what passes for his job and his life.
- AKA
- Tets
I said:Just had an Echo vision with someone reading Fortemps' Heavensward chronicle. Echoes always show somebody's past but this seemed like the future where the calamity occurs? Of course, maybe it's possible to have an Echo of the future if that future is somebody's past...
We know of the coming calamity because of Urianger's vision but I find it more likely the Exarch just lived through it and somehow travelled back in time to prevent it from happening and for whatever reason doesn't want to reveal that to the rest of the Scions so maybe he only told Urianger and they just made up that vision story because they both like their damn mysteries and secrets so much. Idk
Fuckin' knew it
- AKA
- Tets
Enjoying the view in Kholusia~
Celebrating victory over the final Lightwarden
The game threw me for a loop here. With Mt. Gulg ascending to the skies and one area left that hasn't been visited yet and is only marked as ???? I thought Mt. Gulg would be it. I mean sure, the floating island thing had already been done in Heavensward but eh, it's a JRPG classic!
Instead it turns out it's just a dungeon and the final area is...the ocean floor?
Definitely wasn't expecting that but I also have to admit...it's kind of a boring, ugly environment. Not really up to par with what Shadowbringers has presented so far.
They do have the nicest looking Aetherytes here however:
Also wasn't feeling having to help out the locals with a few chores again as it felt like the game is really ramping up towards the end and then comes to a halt again so we can befriend fishpeople.
Luckily, that didn't last very long and the game presents me with Amaurot:
Well if that isn't the Newest of Yorks.
Oh, we're getting some deep Ascian lore here?
And holy shit, those Ascians were HUGE
"Can I help you?
"Yeah can I have a burger, some fries and a milkshake please?"
"Ma'am this isn't a Wendy's"
I'm up to the final MSQ of 5.0 so this is getting finished tonight. Will be weird to be caught up soon. I'm looking forward to the NieR raids but then also realized the last one of these isn't even out yet. I'm used to just binging these!
Got exactly one month to get fully caught up until 5.5 and the PS5 beta release, should be enough time.
P.S.
I just remembered, in the new game+ menu there are two sidequest chapters that I haven't unlocked yet? One is "Dragonsong War" and the other "St. somethingoranother's Scholasticate"
What are these and why haven't I seen them yet and do they unlock something neat?
Celebrating victory over the final Lightwarden
The game threw me for a loop here. With Mt. Gulg ascending to the skies and one area left that hasn't been visited yet and is only marked as ???? I thought Mt. Gulg would be it. I mean sure, the floating island thing had already been done in Heavensward but eh, it's a JRPG classic!
Instead it turns out it's just a dungeon and the final area is...the ocean floor?
Definitely wasn't expecting that but I also have to admit...it's kind of a boring, ugly environment. Not really up to par with what Shadowbringers has presented so far.
They do have the nicest looking Aetherytes here however:
Also wasn't feeling having to help out the locals with a few chores again as it felt like the game is really ramping up towards the end and then comes to a halt again so we can befriend fishpeople.
Luckily, that didn't last very long and the game presents me with Amaurot:
Well if that isn't the Newest of Yorks.
Oh, we're getting some deep Ascian lore here?
And holy shit, those Ascians were HUGE
"Can I help you?
"Yeah can I have a burger, some fries and a milkshake please?"
"Ma'am this isn't a Wendy's"
I'm up to the final MSQ of 5.0 so this is getting finished tonight. Will be weird to be caught up soon. I'm looking forward to the NieR raids but then also realized the last one of these isn't even out yet. I'm used to just binging these!
Got exactly one month to get fully caught up until 5.5 and the PS5 beta release, should be enough time.
P.S.
I just remembered, in the new game+ menu there are two sidequest chapters that I haven't unlocked yet? One is "Dragonsong War" and the other "St. somethingoranother's Scholasticate"
What are these and why haven't I seen them yet and do they unlock something neat?
I don't remember what hte Dragonsong War one is, but the Scholasticate one is a story from like 3.4 with that Ishgardian Inspector that was in the HW Hildibrand quests (with the glasses). I believe that one gives you his shiny glasses push-up-your-nose emote.
What are these and why haven't I seen them yet and do they unlock something neat?
For the dragonsong war quests I think you need to do a small chain of sidequests called "The Paths We Walk" that you pick up from the House Fortemps manservant in Foundation/ The Pillars. It's not marked as a blue unlock quest either IIRC.