Gegenji

Was gonna sign up for Antlings too, but it looks like we have a full roster for it now. Ah well. Feel free to put me as backup or something similar, though!

Mikha Sunthistle also runs a Hunt LS as far as I remember, so you could shoot them a tell if you see them in-game. I'm also in a Discord channel with them, so I can reach out to them too if needed and see if they have any open slots.

What top is that? It goes REALLY well with the FFXI gloves and circlet. o Ao

Another option is to see if there is an LS or Discord chat dedicated to tracking what houses are available, coming up on demolition, or people are just looking to give up. I know Lucerna (I'm blanking on her RPC handle at the moment, maybe she'll see this anyone and pop in with more info!) helps with a Housing Discord, but I do not recall if it's just for Balmung or if it extends to Mateus as well. If not, perhaps there is one specifically for Mateus! Having those extra eyes and ears around could help a bunch with getting a house. Lucerna helped me get mine for Chachanji, after all! The biggest advice I can give is to not get discouraged. Getting a house on a high population server like Balmung or Mateus is going to be difficult. If possible, I recommend settling on just using an FC room or an Apartment if you can get one now and then just wait for your opportunity. Keep an eye out, use what resources are available to you, and hopefully you'll end up the proud owner of a house of your own!

That's a pretty straightforward way to go about it, yes... But if you don't know who you're going to be RPing with - such as being a new player on the scene - you might not know who you'll be playing with and how stringent they are with lore. If you already have a character in mind though, then yeah, just finding out what the people you're playing with are comfortable with and subtly tweaking your character could help. Though, that can come with its own oddities and difficulties, depending on how important the more lore-bendy bits are to the character. Hopefully they're not, but it's always a possibility.

Ah, the Jackie Chan method.

Yeah, that sounds about right. I was just throwing it out there as a thought experiment since we're talking about the obviously "darker" emotions with regards to succumbing. One that has succumbed to one of the more generally "positive" strong emotions gone wrong like that would be an interesting character concept. ... Or at the silliest, you have a DRK team not unlike the bosses of MGS3. THE PAAAIN.

You know, I've wondered about that. The whole idea of losing yourself to the Darkside, that sounds obviously destructive when your Darkside is fueled by negative emotions like anger and whatnot. But it's been mentioned that any strong emotion can fuel the Darkside. ... What happens if you succumb to a Darkside wrought of love?

As has been stated, a lot of this stuff is delving into things that the lore just hasn't provided yet - plus the added difficulties of converting it to a different system with potential different rules. So all you really can do is take what is there (both in FFXIV lore and DnD mechanics) and try to come to some reasonable conclusions. Attaining additional egis seems to be the easy part given what you have so far. The DM gave you a bit of an "out" for summoning for first egi, and all the others are going to be extensions of that. Attempting the technique with a essence of another Primal you've encountered should provide that egi. However, it is easy enough to have a situation where the Primal you are seeking to summon the Egi of be too powerful to summon and maintain. What happens if you can't summon and maintain the Egi for an indefinite period? Perhaps see if you can simply summon it for a short period - or at least tap into its power briefly with yourself as the conduit if even that isn't possible. The latter is effectively Trancing, and could be determined through enough study - and the SB SMN technique that lets you briefly summon the Bahamut-Egi is effectively the former. Perhaps, like spells have Spell Levels, Egis have Summon Levels (which is actually a thing in older FF games!). And the demi-summoning and Trancing are effectively techniques to briefly reach and attempt to access the power (in a reduced fashion) of a Summon above your Summon Level. Then it's not simply a matter of not having enough aether - just like a level 1 Wizard can't just CAST Fireball. The concept is either too advanced for them or they wouldn't be able to control it due to lack of personal power, skill, and experience. So adding an outside aetheric source isn't going to help you summon/demi-summon/trance anything beyond what you currently can. Can't Trance Bahamut yet? Get a few more levels in and increase your Summon Level. Now, as for adding in additional aether? I don't think that could cause a full Primal - your egi is an echo, a copy... and even with more aether it is still going to be just that. I would figure that adding additional aether (either summoning a low-level egi with extra personal aether or from an external source) would be akin to the Metamagic feats of DnD. If you know how to do it, you can make your egi bigger or faster or hit harder - depending on how you weave that additional aether into your summon. So, yes, you would supercharge it and any additional aether would just continue to add onto that until DM fiat decides it has too much (if it's an external source, can you control this souped-up egi you couldn't possibly cast normally!?) and it could either go berserk or explode. That's how I would work it, anyway. Maybe some of that would be useful for you in your FF/DnD game.

I just wanted to pop in and say that Grindstone numbers can and will likely continue to be very... "swingy." This can be due to a mix of personal player burnout, other real life things (time differences, holidays, RL plans like movie releases and just general outside-of-game social activities, even things going on in OTHER games), and even "counter-scheduling" of other events (events happening at or around the same time as the Grindstone) among other things. So some weekends we might only get 20-30 people, other times we get 50-60 or more. So, as a whole, using it as a barometer for how RP is doing for the server as a whole is... awkward due to the huge number of variables that can affect the turnout beyond just "less RP on Balmung." Plus, I want to throw my own hat into the pile of "there's plenty of RP if you go looking for it." I haven't had too much RP lately, but that was due to me not going out and seeking it myself - and I know that because I've seen plenty of events I could've thrown my Garlean at being run by Aegir and them (and several events I could've thrown Chachan at as well!). Not to mention that there are plots and events going on that I'm aware of but having dipped my toes in for some reason or another. I mean, there's a new plot that I just got into that has a lot of people jumping in on it and it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun for getting more RP and interacting with more people. All because I put myself out there and said "I wanna do this."

I still remain pretty confused on that matter myself, just because of the MMO standard of "higher level stuff costs more." A whole rabbit pie costs, like, less than 10 gil from a vendor... while a nomad meat pie costs around 2,200 gil. And that isn't even starting on the wild price discrepancies between gear (a full suit of iron armor costs less than a crafting hammer made of coppranickel). Which has always made pricing things ICly a nightmare for a merchant-type character like mine. Hence why I've kind of ran with the idea that Chachan is terrible at pricing things. But more on the topic, he actually makes a decent bit of gil regardless. He's a rather skilled smith with his own smithy in the Goblet, and does work for the likes of the Flames and even the Sultansworn on occasion. Plus, thanks to a little adventure of intrigue and investigation, he's the acting head of a small Ul'dahn noble house's smelting guild, so he gets a decent paycheck from that. He sometimes takes up leves as well, especially if they involve helping people... though that gil - which used to just help ends meet when he first came to Eorzea - is usually turned right around and given to help people in need.

More seriously...

Not gonna lie, I kinda like the idea of a character who either: a. Has a horribly hard to pronounce name (Sea Wolves!), or b. Got tired of people asking them what their name means ... and instead is like "Just call me Frank." Actually, I think a couple Sea Wolves characters actually do that already ICly. And I have a character I have yet to use yet who is half Sea Wolf, half Hellsguard who goes by "Unpronounceable Name." Honestly, there's nothing wrong with having a moniker or alias or something you use instead - which could also leave you open for finding a "proper" Raen name later if you like. Fang for example. Like Yugiri Mistwalker you could be just... Fang Wyrmscale or whatever.

This may be a long shot random suggestion I just came up with but... If people are going to look at your name and character and metagame that stuff... along with just ignoring the folks that do that if they won't listen to reason - maybe put something in your Character Info block that points some of this out? Like... "Nicer Than Your Average Dotharl" or "Dotharl Dreaming of Being a Maid" or something that implies that your character, while a Dotharl, is still a unique entity separate from all the stereotypes and preconceived notions. Obviously that should be an assumed thing, but every little bit could help, right?