Everything to know about the mysterious Zonai in Tears of the Kingdom

polygon.com:

The word Zonai is a play on the Japanese word nazo, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild senior lead artist Makoto Yonezu said in the Breath of the Wild — Creating a Champion art book. And the word — nazo — means mystery, naturally.

Breath of the Wild embedded the mystery of a race of people called the Zonai into some players’ minds, and ever since, those players have been grasping at details to piece together the riddle of the little-known group. There are small hints of the Zonai in Breath of the Wild that are easily overlooked, and most players likely haven’t given them a second thought. But for the people who’ve been pulled into the mystery, those details are everything — and they lead to a prominent Zonai presence in the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

For years, Zonai-obsessed players have been working off miniscule scraps of information. But as Tears of the Kingdom approaches, a flood of knowledge has been opened. And just as the diehard Zonai theorists had inferred, the Zonai and their technology play a massive role in Tears of the Kingdom. Here’s everything you need to know before heading into the Breath of the Wild sequel.

The Creating a Champion book has a short section on the mysterious Zonai, in which it describes rumors they were “a savage tribe,” a group that’s only spoken about in “hushed whispers” due to their powerful magic. The Zonai worship a water dragon, likely Farosh from Breath of the Wild, with their dedication seen in their carvings and ancient structures. Indeed, the Spring of Courage is called out specifically in the art book, which is where Farosh’s scale can be submitted as an offering in Breath of the Wild. It’s said the group suddenly disappeared thousands of years