The FFXIV 7.56 Evercold story is the last stretch of Dawntrail's main scenario, and it does the same job the final Endwalker patches did for Dawntrail: it puts a face from the next expansion on screen and hands you a pile of lore about her world. Patch 7.56 released on Tuesday, September 8, and its main scenario quests begin with "A Winter's Dream," a level 100 quest picked up from Tataru at the Rising Stones (X:6.1 Y:6.0) after you finish "Trail to the Heavens". From there the patch opens the road to the Fourth, the frozen world Evercold is built on.<\/p>\n
The patch notes list "A Winter's Dream" as the first new main scenario quest, with three further level 100 quests following it, each gated behind the one before. The patch notes do not name those later quests, but the full quest list is available from other sources.<\/p>\n
The framing is Halmarut's proclamation. The patch notes describe the Warrior of Light setting out on another journey "faced with the coming Solstice, the fate Halmarut claims to await all worlds," one that "promises to grow ever colder". The special site text quoted for the second half of the Trail to the Heavens MSQ puts it in the Scions' terms: still reeling from Halmarut's proclamation, they waver over how to face the looming calamity, and a path to unknown horizons opens. The Solstice is described there as a rejoining of the reflections guided by nature itself.<\/p>\n
The patch's biggest story move is Visna. She and her crew arrive by airship to save your character and a couple of Scions during an ambush by strange creatures, and she fights with a crossbow while summoning a falcon familiar named Sigrnef. She also carries a Reading Rod, the magical tool from the Evercold trailer, which is used to disclose a person's "Brand" on the Fourth; when she uses it on you and the Scions, she finds no Brands and panics.<\/p>\n
Life there survives on Realmships \u2014 Visna also calls them Fimm Himnar, the Five Firmaments Left to Mankind \u2014 five vessels each tied to a natural element, with Visna's crew living on Naglfar, the Realmship of Water. A Brand magically binds anyone born on a Realmship to that vessel, and travelling to another Realmship or closely interacting with people who carry different Brands leads to death "nine times out of ten". Visna says the arrangement keeps populations and resources aboard each ship in check.<\/p>\n
The cold itself has an origin story in this MSQ. Visna says the calamitous winter began about 500 years ago, and points to the Frostglaer, ice-imbued clouds that keep the ground below encased in ice with no known solution. The Realmships are stalked by towering entities called the Jotnar, which forces them to keep moving, and the Jotnar send waves of minions called Thralls that capture humans as food rather than killing them outright.<\/p>\n