Loho

Loho (ロッホ村 Loho Village) is a settlement in a western area of Angara, very near the Great Western Sea and accessible only from the sea, and is visited in. It is located in an area of the continent closed off from the rest of the continent by various mountain ranges, which prevents its area of the overworld from being accessed in the original. It is the main and only known settlement of a Dwarven race in the series as of the present, and visiting Loho to get a cannon late in The Lost Age is mandatory to completing the game.

General
Loho is a town-style location at a western end of Angara, geographically very close north of where Altmiller Cave from the original Golden Sun would be located (and they are separated only by a single mountain range). It is situated very near the Great Western Sea, and is thus accessible only by sailing the Lemurian Ship to the nearby beach and landing and disembarking there. This means that this settlement is accessible as soon as you and your ship access the Great Western Sea itself late in The Lost Age. The general area of the continent that Loho is located on is entirely surrounded by mountains and the sea, meaning that the area cannot be accessed in the first Golden Sun.

If you come here as soon as you sail into the Great Western Sea, you'll find that while you can use the two-in-one vendor and inn service in the upper left building and talk to all the Dwarven townspeople, you can't do anything else of lasting importance. In order to progress in this town, you must first have completed the dungeon Magma Rock, and have retrieved the Magma Ball from its depths. Then, go to the cannon in the center of town and use the Magma Ball on it. The resulting cutscenes will cause the town to update and your ship be permanently armed with the cannon you just used. This right here is what you needed to do to progress, and now that your ship has the cannon, you are able to enter the Northern Reaches on the top end of the world map.

But before leaving, investigate the newly opened area of the town, and use Scoop on the object half-buried in the ground to gain a Golem Core. Then use the Lift Psynergy on the nearby brown boulder, and another Golem Core is revealed to be half-buried under where the boulder used to be sitting on, and using Scoop there will get you that one too. Then climb your way up the vines and hop to the roof of the building to the left to get a Jupiter Djinni, Lull. Finally, go to the lower left area of the town and cast Reveal until you see a glowing spot on the ground right below a broken section of wall. Scoop that spot and you will get Mythril Silver. These are all Forgeable materials that can create powerful equipment.

Vendors
Loho's vendor setup is unique among settlements in that the one person running the shop is also the one person running the Inn. She is located in the first building and entrance you see as soon as you enter Loho, and when you enter the room she is standing in front of boxes of supplies and acts as a normal NPC. There are counters to her right and below, and when you stand in front of the bottom counter she will walk down toward you and act as a vendor NPC; likewise, standing in front of the right counter will prompt her to walk to the right and act as an Innkeeper NPC. The Inn rate is 22 coins per Adept.

Collectibles
Lull: This Jupiter Djinni is visible on the roof of one building from as soon as you enter and start walking into Loho. It can only be reached after using the Magma Ball on the cannon in town.

Crystal Powder: Found in a barrel outside the house below the cannon.

True to its nature, many of the items in Loho are buried, and must be dug out using Scoop. Mythril Silver: Buried between two rocks below the well. Initially blocked by a dwarf, who moves after the wall is destroyed by the cannon. Golem Core: Buried on the other side of the wall destroyed by the cannon. Golem Core: Buried on the other side of the wall destroyed by the cannon. Use Lift on the boulder to reveal it.

Background and story
This set of ruins built out of stone and into a mountainous area on Angara is apparently the remnants of a city that once existed in Weyard's ancient past. Whatever this city used to be named and what it was like in the ancient past is a mystery. Today, however, it is inhabited by settlers that appear to literally be a race of Dwarves - squat humanlike people that in both appearance and hobby are exactly like Dwarves that commonly appear in other high fantasy works. This is the only appearance of Dwarves in the known world of Weyard.

The Dwarves in Loho are not natives of these ruins, however, but settlers. Apparently, the race hails from beyond the ice floes of the Northern Reaches just like Prox and its own humanlike race, the Mars Clan. "A short while back", the enterprising Dwarves sailed down from the Northern Reaches and sailed in search of an ideal location to settle. They are naturally talented and interested in mining and excavation, but also hold a deep-rooted interest and appreciation in history, which is why they settle the ancient ruins when they eventually discover them along Angara's west coast. They name their new settlement Loho and begin staking claims in the area, mining for ore and precious metal. It becomes part of their culture that if one lives in Loho and doesn't dig, one "doesn't belong".

At some point in their mining expedition within the ruins, they unearth an ancient cannon, which appears to be an intact war weapon from the ancient past. This is an exciting discovery for the Dwarves, but they find they have no idea how to operate the heavy device. They note that it "looks a little like an old ballista, but the way it works is totally different", and they surmise that it is capable of immense blasting power. That would be just what they need to blast away a particular stone wall in the ruins that blocks them from reaching a new area to mine (since the stone walls of the ruins are remarkably durable even to the point that the Dwarves' own manpower cannot damage them), but if they cannot use the cannon to begin with, it is useless. Some Dwarves nonetheless hold the cannon as a cultural symbol that could attract tourists and commerce, while some Dwarves think it should be sold to Tolbi, which is geographically close by down south. Others think that possession of such a great power could lead to potential for great evil by whoever has the cannon, and that it should not be handed to anybody.

Late in The Lost Age, the traveling party of human Adepts co-led by Felix and Isaac sail to the beach near Loho and land their Lemurian ship there, and enter the settlement. They inspect the cannon themselves, and soon figure out that to make it fire whatever steel ball is placed inside it, apply a Magma Ball from Magma Rock to it. The cannon shoots out a blast with intense explosive force, utterly destroying the wall it was pointed at, and everyone is momentarily stunned by the display. Upon realizing that now the miners can continue their excavations, the head Dwarves thank the Adepts for assisting their activities and propose to give them the cannon, and they place it onto the Lemurian ship, stating that now the Adepts can sail into the Northern Reaches and get past the ice floes that prevent the Dwarves' own ships from sailing back north. Now armed with a functioning weapon from the ancient past, the Adepts are able to sail north into the Northern Reaches, using the Magma Ball in conjunction with the cannon to blow away the recently formed wall of ice, and continue to the end of their journey.

While neither Loho nor its people are mentioned in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, it can be surmised that their discovery of the ancient cannon at Loho -- and perhaps its usage by the Warriors of Vale in their famed quest -- spurred on the reintroduction of cannons throughout Weyard in the thirty years following the conclusion of Isaac and Felix's journey, for the sailing ship used by the pirate Briggs and later on Eoleo and Matthew includes a full compliment of functioning cannons. This is not thought of as a remarkable feature of the ship by any NPC, suggesting that cannons are now commonplace in society. (The Lost Ship also features a full compliment of cannons.)

Trivia

 * Loho and its surrounding region of landscape are located such that they would have been entirely visible on the overworld map to Isaac's party in the first if they travel up to the overworld entrance of Altmiller Cave and zoom out the view of the overworld with the L button, had Loho not been added only later in the second game. Likewise, the entrance to Altmiller Cave should be entirely visible to Felix's party from The Lost Age by doing the same thing with the overworld view below Loho; presumably, the reason the cave icon was removed in the second game was to prevent confusion by players who might not realize that Altmiller is a location entered and explored in the original Golden Sun, and only in that first game.
 * Incidentally, the portion of beach southwest of Loho, which was added to that area of the overworld in between the two games, is the site of the popular glitch where parking your boat at the lowest part of the beach and disembarking the ship at a downward angle allows the party of The Lost Age to walk the overworld land of the original Golden Sun.
 * In Kalt Island, the old man living there along with his wife thinks the following line: "The people of Loho have a legendary weapon called a cannon that fires magma balls. That's supposed to be how they crossed the frozen wastes, but it sounds like a tall tale." This line contradicts the information provided by the dwarves themselves, who found the then-inoperable cannon at Loho after crossing the Northern Reaches southward. This contradiction is the result of a translation change: In the Japanese script he mere thinks the legendary cannon with a magma ball could open the way to Prox and makes no mention of Loho.
 * The dialogue in the small scene after the wall is destroyed does not change depending on the docked location of your ship. Therefore, if one uses the Hover Psynergy to dock the boat on land, the dwarf in the scene will still say there's a boat docked on the beach to the southwest, even though this is untrue. One could place the ship right outside Loho for a rather amusing effect: upon exiting the town after the cutscene, the dwarfs will walk towards you from the beach to tell you that that your ship has been outfitted with the cannon even though the ship is right next to you. This is a simple oversight by the developers.