#Equal Dragon Weapon

[tigwex]

my hc of what zoh shia looked like prior to getting absolutely fucking baked in the dragon war by fatalis and then scabbing over with wylk so bad it became unrecognisable (and because im an originally edw looking zoh shia truther)

[roukabi]

it's for real this time you guys trust me it's really gonna happen

[apathmakerstale]

MONSTER HUNTER WILDS ENDING SPOILERS

I was right! Well half right so far! There was not a war fully, at least they have yet to confirm as they do make a mention as to WHY Wyveria would need to create guardians but Wyveria was destroyed by a wyvern they made, Zoh Shia!

Zoh Shia is the Equal Dragon Weapon!

It's not one to one obviously since the EDW was concept only and not even canon, but it is absolutely based off of the EDW and that concept brought to realization. It's an artificial Elder Dragon.

Wyveria is the Ancient Civilization obviously and are even flat told it's them, and have all the hallmarks of the old lore. They abused the ecosystem, perverted the natural state of life, and committed various violations of the laws of nature that led to some of their descendents taking up a repentant mantle.

Zoh Shia is an absolutely monster in comparison to any other Elder Dragon wyvern. It doesn't even have eyes! They're just blank holes! And it undergoes a painful transformation when pushed far enough that it's outer shell literally blows out of it's skin and it's head and body becomes Fatalis and Black Dragon like and then starts pulling out it's moves!

It was feeling so familiar and that's because it's made out of Black Dragons! The Hunter even panics when it's mentioned! It rears up like Fatalis does and fires off blasts of fire that explode, red lighting and meteors, does a weakened nova that burns away everything, it has Alatreon's explosion and chaotic elemental shift and causes explosions, and even has Gore Magala and Dire Miralis's arms that come out of it's back and tail and stuff!

It even has parallels to Xeno and Safi as it can absorb energy and change entire ecosystems!

That's why it rebelled! Wvyeria attempted to harness the power of the Black Dragons and were destroyed by it.

This may be why Fatalis hates humans so much as it has seen what humans did to it's kind and kin!

I'm just so happy they made it canon since this was literally my fav part of the old lore.

[keeriijra]

WILDS LOW RANK BOSS SPOILERS

SO THEY REALLY WENT AND DID IT

I was screaming when the synthetic servant monsters were revealed with the advanced ancient civilization, but I was foaming at the mouth when the Wyverian mentioned this dude being created to stop a “war”. IT DIDN’T SPECIFY PEOPLE AGAINST PEOPLE I AM CONVINCED IT IS THE DRAGON WAR. And then to get to the actual fight and it’s the greatest final boss of MonHun??? He’s copying all three Fatalises and there’s some Safi and Shara and Gaismagorm thrown in there too?! 

Wish I hadn’t been spoiled about the Artian sets but I also haven’t been spoiled on how they’re introduced so I have that to look forward to in the lore.

Absolutely loving Wilds, I do wish that some of the bigger-deal monsters had a lot larger health pools for low rank during that part of the story but oh well, I’ll be starting on High Rank soon enough so I’ll see how much changes then.

[nightwalking-fae]

Manmade evil

[animalstamp]

Day 4: Undead (Equal Dragon Weapon)

Now this here isn't even a fully canon monster but it still pops up in discussion because its existence holds such horrible connotations. The only image of it shows the disrcated body of some kind of elder dragon. Ripped apart but not appearing as rotted as it should be.

No worries tho! It's not real....But it could be.

Even if the Equal Dragon Weapon is not canon there is a few different games that give support to its creation still being a possibility.

The weapon is an elder dragon. The main body is fairly similar to a Fatalis in shape. Fatalis and its weapon often talk about how its parts continue to torment the hunter who is bold enough to wear it. It’s implied that Fatalis is undying.

In Monster Hunter Stories (1st one) you fight against some monsters that are covered in armor not dissimilar to the one that the Equal Dragon Weapon is covered in. These EX-monsters are controlled against their will to fight by the scientist Dr. Manelger. (For some reason this information was hard to find.)

Multiple depictions of the MH world’s people being able to create titian-sized machinery and just as much evidence of using monster parts in their creation.

[shitpost-chef]

Okay, Monster Hunter rant time. And spoilers for Wilds’ story if you somehow haven’t played it.

So at this point, it’s pretty much undeniable that Zoh Shia is, or at least at one point was, the Equal Dragon Weapon. It’s also undeniable that it has Black Dragon cells within it, most likely that of the Fatalis that took down the Ancient Civilization.

But what I want to discuss is the way we discover it: slumbering within the Dragontorch, absorbing power from the Wylk around it. Doesn’t this sound vaguely familiar? It should, because this whole situation closely parallels Xeno Jiiva, who was luring Elder Dragona to it to feed off their energy.

Between the above and the story of the founding of the Hunter’s Guild (the Azure Star), I can’t help but wonder how many times one of those extraterrestrial Psuedo-Elder Dragons have touched down over the course of history, especially since we’ve seen a Safi Jiiva, the matured version of Xeno Jiiva. Could experiencing one of those have inspired the creation and usage of the Wylk?

And how about Zoh Shia’s return? It doesn’t come back in its crystalline form at first; it comes back in its fully corrupted form. Does that mean that the Fatalis’ Black Dragon cells are absorbing the Wylk too? And does it coming back again render it a White Fatalis? And where do Dire Miralis and Alatreon fit in here? Do all Black Dragons possess the ability to regenerate from mere cells?

I love lore speculation.

[godzillajuniorreborn]

Spoilers for Monster Hunter Wilds

Zoh Shia is the Equal Dragon Weapon finally realized. I mean, considering it's a Construct in the form of an Elder Dragon with the powers of the entire Fatalis trio, I'm surprised Capcom even followed up on that concept art.

[zoroark-in-disguise]

So @presidentstarscream wanted to hear about my equal dragon idea so here it is

Was messing around with a headcanon my friend had about Valstrax being a completed Equal Dragon Weapon

Basically the Shadow to the EDW’s Biolizard, 02 would be an artificial Valstrax made by the ancients, far more obedient and less destructive than the original, but the civilization fell before they could “activate” him and now he awakens thousands of years later, the masters he was supposed to serve long gone

I’m still messing with his design but the visor and armor are removable, but he does have some mechanical parts and attachment points for said armor embedded in him

[hyperfixations-and-hecticness]

Hilarious that Tuffnut shoved gems up his ass in literally episode one of Race to the Edge and he only gets more unhinged from there.

[rosie-artz]

The false prophet,

🪽✨️Zoh Shia✨️🪽

Been wasting my time playing the hell out of wilds, officially have over 200 hours in the game. So safe to say im enjoying my time, especially with the new update i've already fought Zoh over 20 times and have all their armor\weapons. so it's been pretty good, also been doodling more so i'll hopefully have some art up soon🌹

Also..

Never change monster hunter community, never change.

[sweetevoltrap]

Sylus saying "...don't run" to MC when they're finally being openly honest about their desire for one another and their trust and shared spaces.

[roukabi]

hi sorry I'm relatively new to mh. what in the world is an edw

SPOILERS FOR MHWILDS UNDER THE CUT

the edw (short for Equal Dragon Weapon) is none other than THIS BAD BOY

Ain't she a beauty? This is the original concept art for the Equal Dragon Weapon (Wyvern Machine Soldier in Japanese, an equally badass name). It was an idea creating during development for the first Monster Hunter game, back when it was a generic fantasy rpg. Splash text next to this image reads,

"The Equal Dragon Weapon was discovered in some ruins, an ancient storage facility. It is possibly the only remaining weapon of war from the age of the Great Dragon War. This man-made dragon was pieced together using parts harvested from over thirty mature dragons.

"However artificial, the Equal Dragon Weapon boasts a might comparable to any living dragon. Its physical strength, endurance, and firepower are said to have posed the most relevant threat to the dragons during the ancient war.

"The technology behind crafting an Equal Dragon Weapon reached its pinnacle during the Great Dragon Wars, but that technology, along with the great dragon hunters of the day (ancestors of the modern day monster hunters), were not destined to last. The humans engaged the dragons in a war of epic scale, with both sides fighting valiantly and viciously until they were simultaneously brought to the brink of extinction."

It's a lot to take in that only scratches the surface of the Ancient Civilization, but most MH fans didn't worry about it. While the Ancient Civ gets mentioned from time to time in-game (Artian armor, Tower map, the Dragonator, etc), the EDW was only a concept created back during Monster Hunter's generic fantasy era. The thing itself was never mentioned in any of the games, nor the Great Dragon War. It was just kind of a white whale for lore lovers to cheer about whenever a glimpse of a mechanical monster appeared (see Ahtal-Neset, and how fans wondered if this was the EDW, when it was in fact the second phase of Ahtal-Ka's fight). Furthermore, with the ecologically-driven direction MH took post-MHGU, something as gruesome and fantastical as the EDW just didn't seem to fit. I had hope, though. The idea of this horrific, unnatural 'monster', without so much as a face, strewn together by parts from entire families of dragons, lying dormant as an ultimate weapon, is freaky as fuck. It's freaky for a generic fantasy game and even FREAKIER for a Monster Hunter game in which every animal you see is rooted in some kind of realism. I guess it's the grossness of it all that captivates me.

Now that was 21 years ago. Flash forward to the week of February 28th, 2025.

With the release of Wilds, pretty much everything about the Equal Dragon Weapon, from the War to the Ancient Civ's treatment of monsters, is mostly canon. 'Mostly', as in, the same lore with a fresh coat of paint. This is what our Equal Dragon Weapon looks like now:

It's an interesting combination of an angel/demon dichotomy and what appears to be an undercoat of Fatalis parts. During the fight, the player's Hunter reacts in horror to Zoh Shia's black flesh, implying that Zoh Shia is an amalgamation of Black Dragon parts (and further implying that the player's Hunter has fought a Black Dragon before). Notice how there are no mechanical parts on Zoh Shia; as previously mentioned, MH is taking a more ecologically-sound direction and therefore the creation of constructs like Guardians and Zoh Shia are more natural. Instead of steel and metal, the Ancient Civilization used Wylk/Wyvern Milk.

I'll admit I miss the graphic frankenstein'd metal monstrosity, but Zoh is still pretty awesome. And all the lore that people said was from a bygone era of MH? Canon. Canon canon canon! It's so Wild(s) checking back on the MH Wiki and seeing the Ancient Civilization page get updated with canonizing information.

So that's the EDW! Short for Equal Dragon Weapon, shorter still for 'Creepiest thing the games will ever come up with, unless the expansion shows us something SUPER fucked up. Like, idk, the OG Equal Dragon Weapon.' If you wanna read more, the MH Wiki has a page: https://monsterhunter.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_Civilization#The_Forbidden_Act

[apathmakerstale]

MONSTER HUNTER WILDS SPOILERS

I just got to Suja and they keep referring to a calamity that destroyed Wyveria, and how their people were ‘routed’.

I’m genuinely wondering if they are hinting at the Dragon War. And creating life and disregarding the laws of nature.

The Equal Dragon Weapon actually has a chance of being made canon.

[lesbianwyllravengard]

Jaws of Hakkon da inquisition dlc.... Oh my God.......