#always feel free to infodump more in my inbox btw. the lore of this game is insane

[targentis]

okay, this might be super rambly but,,, Agarthans (note that most of the canon stuff about the Agarthans is like pretty vague? but i’ll try to cover most of it in a way that kind of makes sense)

IN THE BEGINNING, Sothis arrived in Fódlan in the area of Zanado. according to the church, she then like created all life, but who knows whether that’s true. the timeline is a little bit funky around here, but conflict grew between her and the local humans, and eventually some fought against her and probably destroyed large portions of the world. from Romance of the World’s Perdition:

To this end, the children of men have erected pillars of light upon the land. Thinis, Malum, Septen, and Llium were utterly destroyed. Those lands have vanished from this world. Yet even still, the False God stands. And soon, a flood aptly named Despair will drown this world.

this reads to me like the use of javelins of light, so the proto-Agarthans probably essentially nuked the world. they then fled the destroyed surface to inhabit what’s now Shambhala, and swore to one day succeed in destroying the Goddess:

The children of men fled to the depths of the earth, beyond the sight of the False God, beyond the embrace of the sacred sun, and beyond the reach of the waters of Despair. They swore a fervent oath of revenge against the surface world, ruled by beasts, and against their tormentor, the False God.

much time passed as Sothis healed the world, and at some point (unclear if it was before or after this conflict with the proto-Agarthans), she created the Nabateans. they became the rulers of the humans who now lived on the surface again. tensions eventually came to a head again, as humans grew dissatisfied with their Nabatean rulers, and the Agarthans took advantage of this opportunity. from the Nintendo Dream interview:

Those Who Slither in the Dark wanted to overturn this state of affairs (of the Nabateans as rulers) and as such, they devised schemes. They granted humans the technology to make powerful weapons from the corpses of the citizens of Nabatea, or so was their plan that they enacted, to which they went forward with this plan using the human, Nemesis. As a result, what would happen to humans who gained power… they would want even more power, and find a dragon much stronger to beat in order to collect materials forcefully, in order to make even more powerful weapons… and so that was the cycle that was born. And that was the birth of Fodlan’s Ten Elites.

of note, it seems like the Elites weren’t aware of what they were really doing, or of that Agarthan involvement. from Fragments of a Forgotten Memoir:

Why does Seiros despise us so? What did King Nemesis do to incur such unyielding wrath? Perhaps it was a mistake to accept his offer. In any case, that is all in the distant past now… ______and before this body falls to ash, the evil…

this is what led to the genocide of the Nabateans, as Nemesis + co. killed them off to turn them into Relics. Seiros survived, and eventually gathered the strength of the surviving Nabateans and supportive human allies, and defeated Nemesis and the Elites. with the end of this war, the Adrestian Empire, founded by Seiros’s good buddy Wilhelm, spread across all of Fódlan.

the Agarthans slithered back to Shambhala for a while. at some point, they also started a plan to bring back Nemesis and the Elites, though that wouldn’t be completed for a long long time.

there isn’t a whole lot of lore detailed for quite a while here, but several hundred years later (in the mid-700s), Loog, a descendant of the Elite Blaiddyd, led a rebellion in the northern empire. he got many of the other descendants of the Elites on his side, but they were still severely outnumbered by the empire itself. the Agarthans, wanting to sow discord in human lands, supported Loog in this endeavor. from Burnt Remnants of a Report:

…the Faerghus Rebellion. I harbor doubts about the army Loog has raised. How did he recruit soldiers without raising suspicions in the Empire? How did he acquire those mysterious weapons, so like Heroes' Relics? What is the true identity of Pan, the tactician rumored to have been integral to Loog's victories? And Those Who Slither in the Dark…

it appears that the Agarthans sent an advisor in the guise of this Pan to direct Loog, and supplied his forces with powerful Agarthan weapons to defeat the Adrestian forces and secure Faerghus’s independence. perhaps they hoped this would lead to a revival of Nemesis’s kingdom, given that it, too, was located in what’s now Faerghus, but the specifics are unclear.

regardless, it seems that they later lost hope in their plans in Faerghus. about a hundred years later, King Klaus I of Faerghus died, and the country split among his three heirs. although two of them reunited, this is what led to Leicester becoming an independent country. Klaus’s death may have been orchestrated by the Agarthans as another attempt at sowing discord in Fódlan to soften it up for their future schemes. also from Burnt Remnants of a Report:

The shadowed order of the Knights of Seiros believes that King Klaus I of Faerghus was assassinated… Everyone believes that his will, which demands the territory be divided among the three princes and fails to name a successor, is a fake.

could have been assassinated by someone else, but given that Burnt Remnants is an investigation into Agarthan activity, it seems that whoever put it together figured they were related.

things with the Agarthans seem to have calmed down for a while, or at least whatever they did wasn’t as obvious or relevant to the modern state of Fódlan. by the time period of the games, they seem to have upped their activity once again, causing chaos everywhere they can. they bodysnatched a few prominent figures, most notably Cornelia Arnim, the recently appointed court mage of Faerghus; Volkhard von Arundel, brother-in-law to the Emperor and uncle of Edelgard; and Tomas, trusted librarian at Garreg Mach. they used these positions and others to do things such as:

orchestrate the tragedy of Duscur. Cornelia (Cleobulus) convinced not-yet-bodysnatched Volkhard to bring his sister Anselma to Fhirdiad to escape court politics in Enbarr. Anselma took the name Patricia, and Lambert took her as his wife. as time went on, she wished to see her daughter again, and was convinced by Cornelia that she could do so by helping her orchestrate the tragedy of Duscur. Lambert got assassinated, as did some of his closest advisors and guards, but Anselma only participated on the condition that Dimitri lived, so he was spared. she herself disappeared during the tragedy, and was never seen again. (the fact that the people of Faerghus responded by blaming and committing genocide against the people of Duscur doesn’t seem to have been in the Agarthans’ original plans, but given the fact that they’re Evil, i don’t think they’re too upset about it)

Crest implantation experiments. House Hrym tried to secede from the empire, with assistance from House Ordelia just across the border, but their rebellion was put down by Adrestian forces. House Hrym was killed off, and House Ordelia’s territory was occupied. Agarthans who had embedded themselves inside the Adrestian power structure took this opportunity to experiment on House Ordelia’s children, which Lysithea survived, having received a second Crest. afaik her siblings died? it’s likely, at least. later on, after the Insurrection of the Seven, they did the same thing to House Hresvelg’s children. all died (or ended up in a practically dead state) except Edelgard, who took to her second Crest better than Lysithea, thanks to the extra practice the Agarthans had gotten.

the assassination of Oswald. the Agarthans set up some Demonic Beasts along the roads of Leicester. this led to the death of Oswald, the current Duke Riegan’s son (and Claude’s uncle), as well as Raphael’s parents, who were merchants along that route. Count Gloucester was implicated in this plot, which heightened tensions in Leicester as well.

god knows what they were doing with Flayn. they probably wanted her blood (possibly to use it in their Elite resurrection experiments?) or maybe she was just a red herring to allow for Kronya to infiltrate the monastery as Monica, who had disappeared a year prior.

that kinda covers up to the start of the game!! idk if you were looking for background lore, or also events that happens during the course of the game. i can rant about those too if needed

cited sources and everything too! damn!

thank you for this incredible resource yet again. with the map of fódlan you also made, my fics will be researched to hell and back <3