The only Death God related thing in Versus/early XV was Etro from FNC, the imagery of "reapers" in the in world statues and artwork is just simply because the people worshiped Etro the goddess of death, and as a result they (SE) decided to use familiar death related imagery (like a grim reaper) to represent that from an in world perspective in the game, not because there was tons of reapers going around doing stuff as part of the story. Whatever that art is showing shouldn't be taken literally, but metaphorically. Whatever that reaper thing is is really in all likelihood just a stand in for Etro herself, or an allusion to her in reverence, as she is the Death Goddess, not just a death goddess. Like them having statures and decorations that looked like skeletons with wings can just be attributed to them literally worshiping Etro the goddess of death, and as such they adorn their society in decorations that reflect the worship to the goddess of death, hence a statues of a robed reaper or artwork of skeletons.
Like even looking at that mural artwork of the prophecy shows the Oracle at the top whom we can interpret as Luna, with the king of light and his sword sworn by him whom we can interpret as Noctis and the bros, the Astrals on the sides and the kings of old behind him, and those two robed figures attacking the Daemons below are just representations of hooded figures in black doing the kings bidding, which sounds a lot like the kingsglaive, as they are cloaked in black and wear their hoods up and are commanded by the king, rather than being a reaper like the literal visage resembles. The Oracle at the top even has wings and is drawn with her eyes shut, signifying she had died but was still watching over the chosen king from above, much like Luna said she would do for Noctis. And on that note, the artwork itself is simply just an in world artistic interpretation of the prophecy, and the in world explanation was that the painting was created a hundred years ago. One of the sword sworn even has bandages on his eyes, implying Ignis going blind has always been part of the prophecy too.
Another thing to note is that prophecy artwork was done by Yuki Matsuzawa who was not part of the Versus team, that artwork was created after Tabata became the director in December 2013 but before Ep Duscae in March 2015.
On that note regarding Reapers, the enemy called Reaper in the game was designed by Hasegawa who was the monster designer on the game and had been the monster designer since it was Versus too. (though the reaper does look kinda Nomura-ish with those belts lmao)
So in all likelihood these same Reapers would have been enemies when it was Versus/early XV too.
Back in 2010 Nomura mentioned that Noctis would wear a ring on his right hand as the only "accessory" that he wears, it's likely that at that point the ring originally came from Etro, but since they changed the story and replaced the FNC with Cosmogony and had it so the ring came from Bahamut instead, it made the ring now come from Bahamut instead of come from Etro, but the ring still casts death and has a strong tie to the concept of death and souls, and Bahamut and the Lucii still ask for blood prices too.
Also the 2013 trailer mentions "Lucii" and Regis was stated to be holding up a magical barrier around Insomnia even back then too, and the powers of Noctis with the Armiger, "Phantom Sword" as it's called in Japanese, always was in reference to the weapons being possessed by the souls, hence the phantom sword name. Even the text description from the first 2006 trailer mentioned that Insomnia is a "Modern Civilization protected by an ancient line of kings", maybe at one point they didn't have giant statues of the old kings possessed with their souls in it, but that concept sounds very much in line with the kind of thing it was trying to convey regardless, as Insomnia is literally a modern civilization that is literally protected by the ancient line of kings, so much so that it's called the old wall.
I think people are just looking way to much into what little actual story related "reaper" stuff there was, most of it being a bunch of imagery that was there as allusions to Etro, and in that really it was just Etro the goddess of death that was wosrhipped by Lucis and also by Tenebrae, mind you I'm not saying there wasn't more of a focus on the concept of Death in the story, since with the whole Etro stuff obviously it would have been there, I'm just saying it probably really wasn't as prominent as you think. Etro is worshipped as the goddess of Death even in Lightning Returns too, and there is murals of her in that too, I really don't think it would have amounted to any more than whatever LR did with it's Etro stuff.
Regarding Stella, she did get replaced with Luna once Kingsglaive had started in October 2013, and originally Luna had the same Roen dress as her and also wore her hair down like her, since really Luna is just a modified version of the 2013 Stella design. There is previs stuff even from mid 2015 and well after Kingsglaive had started in Oct 2013 where Luna still was wearing the white Roen dress and wore her hair tied up and also down, like I mentioned earlier, Kingsglaive originally had the same CG artstyle as the game until 2015 when they changed it, they even made CG renders of Luna and Nyx in their original pre 2015 Kingslgaive designs, where Luna looked like game Luna just in that Roen dress, and Nyx didn't use his models facial scan yet either. The design of Regis as we see him in the 2011/2013/2014 trailer is what Regis was also originally going to look like in Kingsglaive, prior to the change in 2015.
There was some artwork in the artbook that is Visual Works concept art showin
And at that time Luna still had the white Roen party dress and wore her hair down too, which is reflected in this artwork here of her (despite her design being basically identical to 2013 Stella's at the time)
You can see in the previs here that in early CG tests with Nyx and Luna that Luna still had the white Roen dress and wore her hair down, this stuff was created sometime between October 2013 and 2015.
I managed to spot some displays that SE have at their office, this is from Luminous Productions aka BD2s office during a livestream about that NHK documentary, this person had some standees with old CG renders of the original Kingsglaive version of Luna and Nyx on their desk, with Luna with her hair tied up but in the Roen dress, and Nyx in his original outfit and design too.
Which is his design based on his original 2D artwork, which judging by the artstyle is by Yusuke Naora, who also mentioned that he was involved in choosing the cast that will be in Kingsglaive.
You can see here Luna with her hair tied up but also still in the white Roen dress during Kingsglaive in a previs shot.
Like even looking at that mural artwork of the prophecy shows the Oracle at the top whom we can interpret as Luna, with the king of light and his sword sworn by him whom we can interpret as Noctis and the bros, the Astrals on the sides and the kings of old behind him, and those two robed figures attacking the Daemons below are just representations of hooded figures in black doing the kings bidding, which sounds a lot like the kingsglaive, as they are cloaked in black and wear their hoods up and are commanded by the king, rather than being a reaper like the literal visage resembles. The Oracle at the top even has wings and is drawn with her eyes shut, signifying she had died but was still watching over the chosen king from above, much like Luna said she would do for Noctis. And on that note, the artwork itself is simply just an in world artistic interpretation of the prophecy, and the in world explanation was that the painting was created a hundred years ago. One of the sword sworn even has bandages on his eyes, implying Ignis going blind has always been part of the prophecy too.
Another thing to note is that prophecy artwork was done by Yuki Matsuzawa who was not part of the Versus team, that artwork was created after Tabata became the director in December 2013 but before Ep Duscae in March 2015.
On that note regarding Reapers, the enemy called Reaper in the game was designed by Hasegawa who was the monster designer on the game and had been the monster designer since it was Versus too. (though the reaper does look kinda Nomura-ish with those belts lmao)
So in all likelihood these same Reapers would have been enemies when it was Versus/early XV too.
Back in 2010 Nomura mentioned that Noctis would wear a ring on his right hand as the only "accessory" that he wears, it's likely that at that point the ring originally came from Etro, but since they changed the story and replaced the FNC with Cosmogony and had it so the ring came from Bahamut instead, it made the ring now come from Bahamut instead of come from Etro, but the ring still casts death and has a strong tie to the concept of death and souls, and Bahamut and the Lucii still ask for blood prices too.
Also the 2013 trailer mentions "Lucii" and Regis was stated to be holding up a magical barrier around Insomnia even back then too, and the powers of Noctis with the Armiger, "Phantom Sword" as it's called in Japanese, always was in reference to the weapons being possessed by the souls, hence the phantom sword name. Even the text description from the first 2006 trailer mentioned that Insomnia is a "Modern Civilization protected by an ancient line of kings", maybe at one point they didn't have giant statues of the old kings possessed with their souls in it, but that concept sounds very much in line with the kind of thing it was trying to convey regardless, as Insomnia is literally a modern civilization that is literally protected by the ancient line of kings, so much so that it's called the old wall.
I think people are just looking way to much into what little actual story related "reaper" stuff there was, most of it being a bunch of imagery that was there as allusions to Etro, and in that really it was just Etro the goddess of death that was wosrhipped by Lucis and also by Tenebrae, mind you I'm not saying there wasn't more of a focus on the concept of Death in the story, since with the whole Etro stuff obviously it would have been there, I'm just saying it probably really wasn't as prominent as you think. Etro is worshipped as the goddess of Death even in Lightning Returns too, and there is murals of her in that too, I really don't think it would have amounted to any more than whatever LR did with it's Etro stuff.
Regarding Stella, she did get replaced with Luna once Kingsglaive had started in October 2013, and originally Luna had the same Roen dress as her and also wore her hair down like her, since really Luna is just a modified version of the 2013 Stella design. There is previs stuff even from mid 2015 and well after Kingsglaive had started in Oct 2013 where Luna still was wearing the white Roen dress and wore her hair tied up and also down, like I mentioned earlier, Kingsglaive originally had the same CG artstyle as the game until 2015 when they changed it, they even made CG renders of Luna and Nyx in their original pre 2015 Kingslgaive designs, where Luna looked like game Luna just in that Roen dress, and Nyx didn't use his models facial scan yet either. The design of Regis as we see him in the 2011/2013/2014 trailer is what Regis was also originally going to look like in Kingsglaive, prior to the change in 2015.
There was some artwork in the artbook that is Visual Works concept art showin
And at that time Luna still had the white Roen party dress and wore her hair down too, which is reflected in this artwork here of her (despite her design being basically identical to 2013 Stella's at the time)
You can see in the previs here that in early CG tests with Nyx and Luna that Luna still had the white Roen dress and wore her hair down, this stuff was created sometime between October 2013 and 2015.
I managed to spot some displays that SE have at their office, this is from Luminous Productions aka BD2s office during a livestream about that NHK documentary, this person had some standees with old CG renders of the original Kingsglaive version of Luna and Nyx on their desk, with Luna with her hair tied up but in the Roen dress, and Nyx in his original outfit and design too.
Which is his design based on his original 2D artwork, which judging by the artstyle is by Yusuke Naora, who also mentioned that he was involved in choosing the cast that will be in Kingsglaive.
You can see here Luna with her hair tied up but also still in the white Roen dress during Kingsglaive in a previs shot.
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