Setting and characters Dawntrail takes place on Tural, a continent across the sea far to the west. The culture and geography of Tural are inspired by
Latin America and
Southeast Asia. Yok Tural, the southern half of the continent, includes the capital of Tuliyollal, a coastal metropolis drawing inspiration from
Tenochtitlan—the historic center of modern Mexico City. Another region, Urqopacha, is mountainous and reminiscent of the
Andes, featuring
Peruvian and
Incan architecture. Kozama'uka is an
Amazon rainforest-like region, homeland of the birdlike Hanuhanu. The nation of Tuliyollal is a multi-ethnic
federated monarchy led by Gulool Ja Ja, a two-headed Mamool Ja who united the continent under one banner during an
epic journey eighty years ago. Two-headed members of his species possess fearsome strength and potent magical abilities. He and his legendary companions traveled across Tural while forging alliances, quelling conflict between warring peoples, and even sealing away the flying calamity known as Valigarmanda. As Dawnservant, his reign is characterized by an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity. Shortly before the events of
Dawntrail, Gulool Ja Ja announced a contest to determine the next ruler of the nation. Three of the candidates are his children: Zoraal Ja, his one-headed biological son known as the 'miracle' due to the belief that two-headed Mamool Ja are
sterile; Koana, his adopted son who
studied abroad in Old Sharlayan to
bring their technologies back to Tural; and Wuk Lamat, his adopted daughter who is earnest and headstrong but sheltered. Whereas both Koana and Wuk Lamat hope to maintain the peace that Gulool Ja Ja established, Zoraal Ja has ambitions to conquer and colonize the rest of the world, motivated by his
inferiority complex with respect to his father's accomplishments. The last candidate is Bakool Ja Ja, another two-headed Mamool Ja from Mamook who aims to institute Mamool Ja
supremacy in Tuliyollal. Wuk Lamat journeys to Old Sharlayan to recruit the player's character, a hero known as the Warrior of Light, to aid in her
succession bid. They are joined by some of the player's allies from the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, including the twins Alphinaud and Alisaie; Krile, who is pursuing the truth about her grandfather Galuf's travels to Tural; and Wuk Lamat's childhood friend Erenville. Koana, meanwhile, enlists the aid of the Scions Thancred and Urianger.
Story The Warrior of Light's sea voyage to Tural is rocked by a devastating thunderstorm, which damages structures throughout the continent. Upon arrival, Wuk Lamat introduces her entourage to the city of Tuliyollal, and Gulool Ja Ja assembles the candidates to explain the rules of the contest. The winner is the candidate who first discovers the fabled '
city of gold' after completing all seven Feats in the Tuliyollal Saga, which retells the story of the nation's founding. Wuk Lamat and her companions travel across the land to find the electors of each clan, who are in charge of administering the Feats and awarding keystones. Following in her father's footsteps, Wuk Lamat tames an
alpaca in Urqopacha and revives the failing
reed crop in Kozama'uka. The candidates help the Moblins restore their economy following the devastation of the storm, completing another Feat. During a brief respite, Gulool Ja Ja confides in the player that he believes none of the candidates possess the character to become Dawnservant, and that the contest was designed to develop them. Bakool Ja Ja, who was absent during the previous Feat, abducts Wuk Lamat and steals her keystone. Her companions cooperate with Koana's entourage to rescue her. In the highlands of Urqopacha, they seek the elector of the Yok Huy, an ancient race of giants, who waits at the mountain's peak. While the other candidates climb, Bakool Ja Ja sabotages the ice prison encasing Valigarmanda, freeing the calamity to terrorize the region. Zoraal Ja, Koana, Wuk Lamat, and their allies work together to vanquish the fiend, earning them keystones. In Yak T'el, the candidates cook a traditional
roast pork pibil. After the trial, Wuk Lamat bests Bakool Ja Ja in single combat and reclaims her stolen keystone. They proceed to Mamook, where the final challenge is to defeat an apparition of Gulool Ja Ja in his prime. Zoraal Ja fails and is disqualified when he attacks the elector. Bakool Ja Ja fails, too, when the elector, his father, banishes him for lacking keystones from the previous Feats. Before attempting the Feat herself, Wuk Lamat seeks to understand the Mamool Ja people as she did with each of the prior clans. Bakool Ja Ja's mother reveals the secret of producing two-headed Mamool Ja: a
selective breeding program with a 99% mortality rate. With Bakool Ja Ja's support, the Mamool Ja reject the brutal practice. Koana relinquishes his candidacy to help Wuk Lamat defeat Gulool Ja Ja's apparition, completing the last Feat. Beneath the Mamool Ja
cenotaph, they find the entrance to the city of gold, a portal locked by a technologically advanced seal. Gulool Ja Ja announces that Wuk Lamat is the winner of the contest. She nominates Koana to become co-Dawnservant with her, mirroring Gulool Ja Ja's two heads representing Reason and Resolve. During the coronation ceremony, Zoraal Ja uses a key stolen from Gulool Ja Ja's vault to lift the seal of the portal. The portal leads Zoraal Ja to
Alexandria, a civilization in an alternate dimension. He allies with the queen of Alexandria, Sphene, and becomes their king. While exploring Xak Tural after the coronation, the Warrior of Light discovers a massive electric barrier has descended over a region called Yyasulani. Airships emerge from the barrier, carrying mechanical
shock troops who lay siege upon Tuliyollal. Their commander is Zoraal Ja, now augmented by Alexandrian technology, who challenges Gulool Ja Ja to a duel for the throne. Though Gulool Ja Ja defeats him easily, his headpiece activates, resurrecting him from the dead and empowering him to victory. Unsatisfied that he needed a handicap to kill his elderly father, he challenges Wuk Lamat to find and kill him in Alexandria, or his army will resume its assault. The Scions devise a plan to pierce the barrier using a train-delivered bomb, which succeeds with the help of all the Turali clans. Inside, they discover that thirty years have passed within the dome since Zoraal Ja first arrived and used the power of the key to perform interdimensional fusion, combining the land of Yyasulani with a portion of Alexandria's dimension. The people of Xak Tural who were trapped inside the dome have
assimilated into Alexandrian society, including the use of regulators—headpieces which allow the user to come back to life by expending souls harvested from the dead. Citizens who die of natural causes have their memories uploaded to a
server in the Everkeep, Alexandria's central fortress, but this also causes any living regulator users to lose all memories and knowledge of the deceased. Wuk Lamat befriends Queen Sphene, who is beloved by her people, both ex-Turali and Alexandrian, and is devoted to their welfare. Sphene dislikes Zoraal Ja's methods and entreats Wuk Lamat to help her remove him from power. They meet Cahciua, Erenville's mother, who is the leader of Oblivion, a resistance group dedicated to ousting Zoraal Ja and stopping interdimensional fusion. While exploring Everkeep, they encounter Gulool Ja, a vagabond child who resembles Zoraal Ja and occasionally accepts food and shelter from Oblivion. They follow the child to the ruins of Old Alexandria where they meet his guardian, Otis, a knight trapped in a robotic body who volunteered as the first test subject for memory extraction. This technology allowed scientists to revive Sphene as a
digital avatar who has since been the ruler of Alexandria. Growing impatient, Zoraal Ja orders the attack on Tuliyollal, but the well-prepared Koana and the Scions rebuff it with the aid of Bakool Ja Ja and new allies from the east. Zoraal Ja reveals that the reason for the attack is to harvest the nation's souls to power the server that maintains the memories of all of Alexandria's dead citizens—the
energy crisis that forced Sphene to ally with Zoraal Ja. With the genocide of Tuliyollal thwarted, he turns his soldiers on the living residents of Everkeep to power his ambitions. Sphene, Wuk Lamat, and the Scions do what they can to protect the citizens and confront Zoraal Ja at the summit of Everkeep. He expends all of his souls on enhancing his strength, saving none for resurrection, and is ultimately defeated. Before dying, Zoraal Ja entrusts his authority to Gulool Ja, who is revealed to be his son. Sphene claims the key and uses it to initiate interdimensional fusion with the intent of completely absorbing the power of the
Source, considering the sacrifice to be worth it to preserve the memories of her people. The Scions follow her to Living Memory, the hidden top level of Everkeep and the true city of gold depicted in Gulool Ja Ja's journey. There, memories of dead Alexandrians manifest in corporeal form as the Endless. The Scions find the memory of Cahciua, who asks them to shut down the storage servers and allow their digital
shades to rest. On the way, they encounter Krile's parents, the founders of Oblivion. From them, Krile learns that as an infant, she was sent across dimensions to the Source by her parents with the interdimensional key to deny it from Sphene. With the servers deactivated, the Scions pursue Sphene through her digitized memories of Alexandria and confront her as Queen Eternal. During the final battle, Queen Eternal attempts to delete Sphene's human memories to prevent remorse for her actions, but Wuk Lamat breaks through to her and restores her personality. They reconcile and lament not meeting sooner when Sphene was alive. As the last servers shut down, Sphene entrusts the safety of her living citizens to Wuk Lamat, and the key to the Warrior and Scions, before she too is deactivated. Young Gulool Ja becomes king of Alexandria, and Tuliyollal celebrates the Dawnservants' victory.
Patches Wuk Lamat and Koana invite the Warrior of Light to attend Sphene's funeral in Everkeep, where its citizens, for the first time being able to remember death, struggle to process their grief. During the funeral, Gulool Ja expresses his desire to know about his mother, leading the Scions to an abandoned research facility where Zoraal Ja performed soul transfer experiments on captive beasts. They recover audio logs recorded by Teeshal Ja, one of the scientists and the mother of Gulool Ja, that recount how Zoraal Ja spurned his son. In Shaaloani, the Warrior, Wuk Lamat, and Erenville assist Koana in restarting railway operations by neutralizing an apex predator disrupting the ecosystem. At Everkeep, Wuk Lamat and the Warrior are surprised to encounter Sphene apparently alive and unharmed, declaring to the people that they are to be made Endless to alleviate their fears of death using a limited number of "neo-regulators". The Alexandrians' memories have been altered to remember the funeral being held for those killed in Zoraal Ja's attack rather than Sphene's death. Meanwhile, Y'shtola visits Living Memory with Oblivion member Shale and discovers the original Queen Sphene of Alexandria collapsed on the ground. Thought to have died 400 years prior, Sphene is brought to Oblivion's headquarters where it is revealed she had been kept in cryostasis and released upon Living Memory's shutdown. To differentiate this Sphene from the ones they'd seen previously, they begin to refer to the fake as a simulant and the one they first met as Endless Sphene. While exploring Solution Nine, Wuk Lamat, Sphene, and the Warrior of Light encounter the simulant, who demands the key to interdimensional fusion returned to her. She also reveals that she is working for a young man called Calyx, the original genius that mastered the electrope technology which powers Alexandria and the founder of Preservation. Appearing remotely via a video screen, he, too, demands the key or promises consequences. Sphene recognizes him and deduces from his existence 400 years later that he is an Endless as well. Shale tracks Calyx's transmission to the Underkeep, a location at the base of the tower that houses the original Alexandria castle. During the group's venture into the castle, the Warrior of Light defeats a robotic recreation of
Zelenia, a knight of Alexandria. Calyx confirms that Alexandria hails from the Ninth shard, and that he is aware of the sundering. He gifts them with Endless Sphene's tiara and her regulator, and then vanishes. Upon returning to Everkeep, the Scions encounter the city's robots and vehicles acting of their own accord, injuring and killing citizens. The machines eventually stop their assault, and Gulool Ja restricts their access to weaponry to prevent future incidents. Sphene pledges to relearn her magical abilities. Under Calyx's command, the city's robots resume killing Alexandrians with their bare hands, and they harvest the souls and aether from their corpses. Citizens targeted by the attack are those that have shunned regulators, and their murders, along with the artificial scarcity of the neo-regulators, heighten the population's fears of death and compel them to obtain their own neo-regulators. Hoping to locate Calyx, the Warrior of Light and their companions explore an abandoned floor of Everkeep, discovered to be the laboratory where the Endless was first researched. Calyx appears on the facility's main terminal and invites a confrontation at the top of the Meso Terminal in Living Memory to obtain the key to interdimensional fusion. The Scions ascend the Meso Terminal, defeating its security and the Endless summoned by Calyx. At the pinnacle, Calyx activates the neo-regulators, enthralling their wearers, and draws on the Alexandrians' fears of death to summon
Necron—a primal of death incarnate. The party defeats Necron and readies to attack the core containing Calyx's memories, but the primal is resurrected. Calyx initiates the transfer of his memories from the core as he plans his escape. Through a city-wide broadcast, Sphene allays the enthralled citizens' fears of death, weakening Necron and allowing the group to vanquish it. The Warrior of Light destroys the core before Calyx can complete the transfer and he vanishes. Alexandria heals, and Gulool Ja pledges to grow stronger and protect his nation by training under Tuliyollal's Landsguard. Some weeks later, Oblivion discovers that the Alexandrians' memories of death were never fully deleted but stored in the Meso Terminal. With the Alexandrian citizens' approval, the terminals in Living Memory are reactivated, returning their memories to them. Sphene takes her place as Queen of Reason, and Wuk Lamat rejoins Koana in Tuliyollal to lead their people. Meanwhile, Calyx is revealed to have survived, and he loses composure from his near-death experience and the unraveling of his plans. An Ascian approaches him from behind, and Calyx assures them that he will to report to the pair's "Winterer" peers. Following Calyx's defeat, Alisaie, Alphinaud and Erenville depart Tural, while Krile expresses interest in exploring the Ninth beyond Living Memory. Discovering that an airship can be taken from Living Memory to the surface below, the Warrior of Light along with G'raha, Y'shtola, and Sphene, land on the continent of Mist where Alexandria formerly stood. The group soon arrive at the city of Treno and assist them with repelling a monster threat after the city's barrier is breached. Shortly after, a city-wide evacuation alerts them to the presence of a still-working Lindblum war machine called the Doomtrain. The Warrior destroys the Doomtrain and returns to Treno to find it under attack again by monsters, and repels them while their engineers repair the barrier. The city's mayor Miayli reveals that she is the latest in the line of descendants of the Speaker who escaped the Fifth Umbral Calamity in the Source, and that Krile's mother Alayla is her sister, making Miayli Krile's aunt. Alayla gave the interdimensional key to Preservation out of desperation to return to their ancestral home in the South Sea Isles. As the group prepares to leave, Miayli warns the Warrior of the dangers the key poses. As the Warrior leaves Treno, an Auri woman hides and panics after glimpsing them from afar. A plush animal she holds soon berates her, revealing it to be possessed by Calyx, with him identifying the woman as Halmarut, one of the remaining few Ascians. Halmarut suggests Calyx say his goodbyes to anyone on the Ninth, and proclaims that the Ninth and the other worlds will soon die as a result of the silence left by the
death of the will of the star. Shale and Y'shtola work out how to remove the key from its protective confinement. Meanwhile, voidgates begin opening up across the Source, most notably in Garlemald. The Scions travel there and assist the Garlean contingent in driving back the invaders. Knowing that the moon holds the voidgate they used to defeat Zeromus in the past, the Scions travel there. While there and holding the key, the Warrior hears an Ancient voice who calls the key Ethos, and with it, they travel to the Thirteenth and reunite with Golbez and Zero.
Enuo, a powerful voidsent attempts to continue the assault on the Source, but the Warrior, Golbez and Zero stop them and halt the voidsent invasion. Before the Warrior departs, Golbez reveals concern that the barriers between shards are weakening. On return to the Source, the Warrior and the Scions are confronted by Halmarut and Calyx. They reveal that their motives concern the incoming Solstice in the wake of Hydaelyn's death, an event where all shards will rejoin, and life on the Source will essentially be restarted, wiping out all existence as it currently is. Halmarut, however, seeks to force rejoinings earlier than would happen if the Solstice would naturally occur, and as such, recruited individuals like Calyx, to be part of a group that accelerates them - The Winterers. However, the cost of this would be completely destroying each of the shards entirely. The Scions return to the Rising Stones in Mor Dhona, where they discuss their learnings and Y'shtola entrusts Ethos to the Warrior once more. As the Warrior stands alone, looking up to the moon, Calyx approaches them. He reveals that he and Halmarut plan to visit the Fourth, a world covered in ice, where its inhabitants have used magicks to create civilizations in the sky. Calyx admits he doesn't agree with some of the ideals of his Winterer peers, before departing. ==Development==