Gezel Hyatt?

[Jowy Atreides]

"That's right. Vinay del Zexay grew out of the deer antler trade. Gezel Hyatt made a fortune, and he built the international port." - some dude in Vinay del Zexay.

Total bullshit, or what?

[John Layfield]

Gezel Hyatt made his fortune in the Deer Antler trade and used the money to found Vinay del Zexay in order to increase his profits by trading with the western continent, as far as I can tell. I doubt, however, that he was the first head of the Zexen Confederacy.

There's no real reason to dismiss it unless the NPC lies in other conversations about other things claimed by him to be factual. I'd accept it as canon. However, that is indeed all the information we have on Gezel Hyatt.
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One day, I shall come back. Yes, we shall all come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.

[Axiose]

Quite an interesting point Jowy, but it's a surprise that a person who built the port (considering Zexen is really not very old nation at all) isn't spoken of any more than just one random NPC.
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[Axiose] [Fliktor]

[John Layfield]

The Zexen Confederacy as a nation may be young at 50 years (actually, this seems to be a bit of a doozy. Zexen is young at 50 years, yet Toran and Dunan are much younger at 18 and 15 years apiece. Really, Harmonia is the only nation nearby with any real age.) but the town of Vinay del Zexay itself is most likely a great deal older. It was the wealth generated from cross-continental trade at Vinay del Zexay that allowed the people of the western Grasslands region to found the Zexen Confederacy as a trading nation.

Knowing that, the only conclusive thing we can say on the foundation of Vinay del Zexay is that it must have happened at some point where the Suikoden world had ships capable of crossing oceans. That is a pretty big period of time, so it would be a huge leap of logic to assume that Vinay del Zexay only existed for several years prior to the founding of the Zexen Confederacy. It could have been 50 years prior, or 100 or 200 for all we know.

The amount of potch needed to buy an army big enough to hold Zexen territory in its first few turbulent years as well having to set up administrive functions for an entire nation coupled with the fact that business men want to keep their money, not lose it, would suggest that a considerable amount of profit would have had to have been stored by the traders of Vinay del Zexay before they would consider founding a whole new nation. This seems to suggest that Vinay del Zexay would have to be making large profits for several decades before they could realisticaly do such a thing.
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One day, I shall come back. Yes, we shall all come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.

[Admiral Ackbar]

Which character and chapter did the NPC say this in?
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[Krawnik]

I'm pretty sure I got the NPC to say that in Hugo's chapter 1. The NPC is in the first area of Vinay Del Zexay, near the balcony that overlooks the Council building. I think he was moving, and he was with a woman.

Anyway, I don't see why this wouldn't be considered canon. If not because there's no evidence against it, then only because trying to swoon women by teaching them about the antler trade is a pretty lame way to go about it.
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416- friggin' racists, messing up my generalizations, also stealing my jobs, women.
RIP Ninjalicious

[Admiral Ackbar]

Sure, it is canon. There's no reason it wouldn't be. The game makers would not have an NPC villager lie without good reason. NPC villagers add details to the world the players are in. What they say adds in all the cool little facts we don't learn in the main story.
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