#fe 18

we are going to experience the tutorial chapters with cai's faction ala FE8 and eirika or the first couple chapter's in fates. the footage released on twt lately and the fact that he's the only one who seems to develop his special ability during the story implies to me we'll play as him up until about when he discovers it

there is definitely some agarthan + nabatean nonsense afoot. cai's powers are reminiscent of shez/arvel to me, leda has the same powers as hapi which were from argathan experiments, the divine sovereign obviously has nabatean features, as does the woman opening the underworld in the trailer. we also see like pipes and holograms in one of the posts on twt. and of course there's everyone's favorite Gun Nun lmao

related to above, it is possible dietriech and crew were sent by the church of serios explicitly TO investigate the argarthan + nabatean nonsense. especially if this is a post 3H reformed church who probably want to clean up any mess left behind by TWSITD + rhea

more fuel to that theory is if dietrich is a descendent of jeritza or mercedes whose family is likely to be involved with the church AND VERY invested in eradicating TWSITD

one of the posts on the official japanese fire emblem account says the continent of dagda was "given to sovereign dagus by the goddess", and the divine sovereign's design gives MAJOR duma vibes, so im thinking there might be some plot allusion to valentia dragon siblings. maybe the underworld lady we only see the back of IS his sister

im thinking eshmel, if they aren't explicitly spirits of some kind, are kind of like sitri, byleth's mother, where they are Artificial Beings created by sothis, just more successful than when rhea did it because sothis is. well. the goddess lmao. them having and being able to wield crest weapons supports this to me

cai and some of his revealed party members have insignia's that seem fairly similar to those on the officer's academy on them, so i think it's possible the reformed academy spread out to other places to spread education + cultural exchange across continents. access to education and exposure to other cultures comes up a good amount in 3H so it seems like something that would happen no matter what route you took

leda is possibly from morfis, a theory courtesy of @owainbradys (her instrument is explictly called a biwa on the official twitter)

Chloe - Fire Emblem Engage

These emblems/banners seem to imply factions/different paths are back

I know this footage of Theodra's gambit has people assuming battallions are back, it really does look like it. But here's the thing;

Where's the batallion in the UI? She has a 2-use gambit, and troops appear when she uses it, but unlike in three houses, there is nothing in her unit summary or the description of the gambit itself to identify which batallion she is equipped with.

Dietrich (oh my god in english words his name is diet rich, that's so funny if he's like a disgraced or former noble) is the only one of the "lords" we see with a hero's relic, called by name, though Thodora's armor looks pretty hero's relic-like, so this might age badly.

Leda is the only "lord" shown to have a "manage gage" option, albiet greyed out, and considering this gage seems to go up as you use blaze arts and has the same symbol as the game's curse stat, alongise the hapi paralells and summoning demonic beasts and using dark magic, this seems to be an entire mechanic all it's own the others don't have...

Cai also has some power, though we don't quite get to see it in the game's mechanics. This, to me, suggests each "lord", if that's even what is going on here, has thier own mechanic all thier own, taking a more Fates-like approach where different paths (if that's even happening again?) offer different mechanics and playstyles. Thee houses teased this potential but it fell flat, with the various routes feeling extremly similar, some borderline identical to each other. and, for my wildest notion...