Hydaelyn Role-Players

Hello everyone! New player and long time roleplayer here and looking to get a few feet into Eorzea.

My friends and I picked up the game about two weeks ago now and have been really having a great time so far. The game itself is great, the world is really nicely realized, and the emote system and UI stuff is still constantly blowing me away. We've had ever intention of transferring to Balmung to join in on the roleplay and really add to the immersive nature of the world and settle in. We're looking to find a way to both enjoy the community and the game at the same time.

I'm a long time veteran of MMO Rp, I got my start back in Everquest 2 and I've dabbled across Rift and GW2 since then. My friends are more tabletop oriented, mostly being D&D players with only a few forays into MMO settings. I'd consider them to be light to medium RP, with myself being more of a heavy roleplayer. I'm a huge lore buff and a long time FF fan. Eorzea is really cool so far and I'd like to make sure we're all heading towards a mostly lore friendly and immersive backstory for our characters before we try and transfer and find people to hang out with and FCs to join ect.

Right now we have two Keepers of the Moon who are brother and sister, a Seeker of the Sun, and a Xaela in our core group, with an few friends who are sort of dabbling right now as a Lalafell and a Elezen. Not sure how long the other two will be sticking around.

So over the last week I've tried to collect some brainstorm questions from everyone and thought I'd see what people who have been around the scene for a long time have to say and if there's any advice, lore pointers, or general server vibes to impart on us to make sure we're sticking as close to believable as possible.

1) How relevant are story hooks like memory loss, things related to the Calamity still to the game story or RP stories as a whole?

2) Seeker of the Sun tribe norms are laid out pretty well with the U but Keeper of the Moon don't have a lot of examples. Noble houses tend to be Elezen territory but are there any examples of say and influential Keeper family? While small in size would it be unfeasible to portray them as sort of a mix between nobility/mob styling culturally?

3) Jobs are pretty specific with the soul crystals and some of them seem really exclusive as the quests put them. Any tips for playing a Dragoon or Summoner without stretching too much?

4) Speaking of which how how much does class/job identity play into most peoples stories? With how easy it is to switch them around are more people free form freelancers or RP stricter class roles when it comes to telling stories?

5) Of the three healer classes who's got the most RP hooks? Conjurer seems fun with nature loving, Astrologian has cards and star powers so that's already a win, and scholar gets fairies. It's a tough choice.

6) Where the first Au Ra brought over with Yugiri after they got pushed out of Doma or is it one of those things where they were supposed to have always been around and just rare before then, we just have to suspend our disbelief a little because of game reasons.

Anyway thanks for reading this, and looking forward to seeing more of you once we all get over to Balmung hopefully sometime next week!

(02-27-2017, 10:42 PM)Brighthawk Wrote: [ -> ]1) How relevant are story hooks like memory loss, things related to the Calamity still to the game story or RP stories as a whole?

2) Seeker of the Sun tribe norms are laid out pretty well with the U but Keeper of the Moon don't have a lot of examples. Noble houses tend to be Elezen territory but are there any examples of say and influential Keeper family? While small in size would it be unfeasible to portray them as sort of a mix between nobility/mob styling culturally?

3) Jobs are pretty specific with the soul crystals and some of them seem really exclusive as the quests put them. Any tips for playing a Dragoon or Summoner without stretching too much?

4) Speaking of which how how much does class/job identity play into most peoples stories? With how easy it is to switch them around are more people free form freelancers or RP stricter class roles when it comes to telling stories?

5) Of the three healer classes who's got the most RP hooks? Conjurer seems fun with nature loving, Astrologian has cards and star powers so that's already a win, and scholar gets fairies. It's a tough choice.

6) Where the first Au Ra brought over with Yugiri after they got pushed out of Doma or is it one of those things where they were supposed to have always been around and just rare before then, we just have to suspend our disbelief a little because of game reasons.

Anyway thanks for reading this, and looking forward to seeing more of you once we all get over to Balmung hopefully sometime next week!

1) Memory loss is really completely up to you and doesn't conflict with the lore at all. As far as the Calamity is concerned, still nobody remembers exactly what happened at Carteneau, if you want to involve that.

2) Keepers of the Moon are almost exclusively more tribal, and those that do enter society tend to be looked down on. You will definitely never, ever see some kind of Keeper noble in Ishgard. Gridania is more plausible but still highly unlikely given how xenophobic Gridanians are. Ul'dah is a place where anyone might potentially lift themselves up into a life of status, though.

3) Dragoon is very exclusive. There are only about a dozen still in active service, and most of those are known NPCs. But you could be a "Dragoon" who didn't cut it in training, or went AWOL, or might have learned a few techniques under the training of a proper Dragoon.

Summoners are much harder to do, and require your character to have been present at the death of a primal. That means they either need Echo, or they need to be a total badass. Once you meet that requirement, though, it's not as hard. Y'mhitra has expressed interest all along in spreading the Summoner arts so they can be used in the modern age.

4) Unless your job is tied into your backstory, it's not going to be the entirety of your character. Anyone can switch from gladiator to lancer simply by switching their weapon, so it's not really tied to the core of a character. However, if your character is something like a Dragoon, that would end up being a heavy part of their character simply because of the culture and training that comes with being one.

5) Conjurers would have a lot of hooks, and could very easily lead to some open world RP. Astrologians with their fortune telling could give you a lot of opportunity for walk-ups, like offering to read fortunes and such. Scholars are one of those more exclusive jobs that lorewise would be harder to come across, though the Maelstrom is training some troops in those arts.

6) There have always been Au Ra in Eorzea, just not in large numbers. Travelers here and there. There are a few moments where they talk about an attempted genocide by Ishgard on Auri settlers who had come in the past. There are more now with the Doman refugees, though. There are also other possibilities for how an Au Ra could get to Eorzea. Hingashi in the Far East is still an independent nation, and trades with Thavnair, which trades with Eorzea.

Hi there! Welcome to FFXIV, hope you and your group of friends have a wonderful time playing the game. As for your answers...

1. Story hooks involving memory loss are interesting. You can have a cluster of people offering to try and help you remember what it was that you lost, a faction that believes you shouldn't try to search for what's there, and a group that simply don't care.

2. I'm not too sure if they're a family perse, but there's a group of Keeper poachers in the Shroud known as the Coeurlclaws. They're infamous enough to be known throughout the Shroud and seem to function much like a gang. So, there is a precedent for a (in)famous family of Keepers.

3. Dragoons can be fairly simple. One can say they were mentored by a retired dragoon to have the requisite skills. Plunking a retired dragoon in the area of your character is a bit harder. Generally speaking, Coerthas or The Shroud is your best bet for having a dragoon hide out in. Summoners are harder ic. A summoner requires either the echo, or a way to withstand getting Tempered. Try to figure out the reason and hope for the best.

4. It really depends on the roleplayer. Some use their classes/jobs in their character, some ignore their class/job to create something entirely different for their character.

5. Depends on the character. A fortune teller is a natural for astrologian, while someone highly in-tune to the elements is suited for conjurer. Scholar is a bit harder, seeing as lorewise, the job was lost along with the city of Nym.

6. The au ra arrived alongside Yugiri. However, it is easy to say your Xaela friend arrived later, given the strife between Raen and Xaela.

Addressing 3 with a side order of 4 at the end:

I actually think summoner is a little easier than dragoon...

Dragoon - in the sense of job crystal dragoon - is very Ishgard-exclusive. Only a character who was born there or raised there for a significant portion of their life would really be able to access this job. They likely would have been on the frontlines against the Dravanian horde for a long time before they earned the right to train as a Dragoon - losing many many comrades in the process. They would have been put through rigorous, re-traumatising training. And then something must have happened to cause them to stop being in active service. And then the war they gave up their personal life to fight is ended and they're just meant to make peace with the dragons?

Basically, it's a very specific character archetype: bitter, Fury-fearing war veteran.

Summoners, on the other hand... while they still have certain set things that have to have happened in order for the character to be capable of becoming a summoner (have been present at the defeat of a Primal; have a certain level of aetheric surplus and basic magical talent; have access to a soul crystal), it doesn't place any limitations on where the character can be from, what type of personality they have, what their family history is like... They'll probably have at least one trauma in their backstory (how did they end up fighting a Primal?), but beyond that? There's much more freedom, and much more range as to "this is what a summoner looks like" in roleplay without people having to set aside the lore in order to suspend disbelief.

To recap, here are the things you need to consider when making a summoner character:
• They absolutely must have been present at the defeat of Ifrit, Titan, and/or Garuda, and they will only be able to summon egis of the primals they have been present at the defeat of. (So if they were present at Garuda's defeat, they'd be able to summon Garuda-egi but not Ifrit-egi or Titan-egi.) This is non-negotiable. No Primal defeat witnessed = no egis. There's a few ways your character could end up in such a situation - some consensual, some not so much - so there's still options here.
• They probably need a background in magic. Arcanima is the standard route - this is taught by the Arcanists' Guild in Limsa Lominsa, who seek to spread the art of arcanima so that it isn't lost over the generations. But I could see justifications for a conjurer or thaumaturge seeking tutelage in Summoning as well.
• They need access to a soul crystal. In the SMN's case, these are ancient Allagan artefacts, and so far most of them seem to have been recovered from the dig overseen by the Sons of Saint Coinach in Mor Dhona, near the Crystal Tower. Either the character should have scholarly ties to the Sons, or they should have motivation and ability to try and steal a crystal from this dig.

If this is still too restricting, or doesn't click with you - there's absolutely nothing wrong with making your character a regular old Arcanist (or Lancer, for that matter). Arcanists can still summon Carbuncle through the use of arcane geometries - there's a game feature now where you can make your in-game "egis" look like Carbuncle, too, so you don't even have to worry about what to do if you want to run duties IC. And they can still reach excellent levels of power, so please don't worry about always being "weaker than" any other characters who happen to have job crystals.

In fact, most RP characters I've met in this game don't have a job crystal - they're just a regular person, who happens to be trained in certain magic disciplines, or capable of using certain weapons. (Or sometimes neither. There are pure Disciples of the Hand/Land I've seen, too.)

First off, welcome to Eorzea and to the RPC! ^^ I think I can at least help you out with some of your lore inquiries.

(02-27-2017, 10:42 PM)Brighthawk Wrote: [ -> ]2) Seeker of the Sun tribe norms are laid out pretty well with the U but Keeper of the Moon don't have a lot of examples. Noble houses tend to be Elezen territory but are there any examples of say and influential Keeper family? While small in size would it be unfeasible to portray them as sort of a mix between nobility/mob styling culturally?

-Nobility Across Eorzea Lore
-Race Lore Compilation

The Race Lore link has a tab for Miqo'te. I do want to say that the post is currently outdated and I'm almost finished putting a newly completed compilation up, so if you check back and just see a link, that's why.

As for Keepers and nobility, it's possible, but not something you'd see commonly. Mostly because Eorzean "nobility" can vary vastly based upon the region in which one is attempting to claim nobility. Keepers, for instance, are most populous in the Black Shroud, where Gridania recognizes no true nobility and also regards most Keepers in a negative light. Influential families of Keepers though? You actually have no further to look than the last names of Keeper NPCs. These family names (there's 50 in total) belong to the most influential and oldest of Keeper families, so creating a powerful family-centered dynamic wouldn't be too difficult.

The Mujuuks, for instance, are a family of Keeper bandits you run into during the archer quests who adopt castaway Keepers from Gridania and take care of them in a more tribal setting. Their ringleader could definitely be seen as a mob boss persona.

The Mujuuks are also associated somewhat with the Coeurlclaws, one of the more infamous Keeper bandit groups. It's important to note though that the Coeurlclaws are the antithesis to normal Keeper culture. They are run by a self-styled "king" who has preyed upon, manipulated, and emotionally abused Keeper females into thinking they need him to survive the harsh bigotry of Gridania. But his methods to isolate his flock only serve to further antagonize Gridania and make Keepers feel more unwelcome there, despite the fact the Coeurlclaws are an extremist, outlier Keeper faction and not representative of the majority.


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(02-27-2017, 10:42 PM)Brighthawk Wrote: [ -> ]3) Jobs are pretty specific with the soul crystals and some of them seem really exclusive as the quests put them. Any tips for playing a Dragoon or Summoner without stretching too much?

-Soul Crystal Lore w/ Links to Job Lore Posts
-Summoner Lore
-Dragoon Lore

Unfortunately with the nature of what "jobs" are in the setting (usually ancient professions no longer commonly found in Eorzea), most of the lore surrounding them is pretty exclusionary or requires some creative avenues to manipulate. Some people are against roleplayers who play certain jobs, others don't care overly much.

Dragoons are complicated in that, due to recent historical events, most of the dragoons are dead or retired. There are several approaches one can take though, and some recent discussions came up on the topic, but I'll only list one.

-Dragoon Discussion Thread

Summoners are tricky, in that they require the practitioner to have been in close proximity to a primal at the time of its death. Many roleplayers again feel that this is too OP, as many believe this requires the character to possess the Echo in order to escape Tempering. However, non-Echo users, such as the Company of Heroes and the men and women of the Grand Companies (and their respective predecessor militaries) have been slaying primals at the cost of many many lives for the last fifteen years, and any number of those survivors could potentially utilize the summoner arts. Also, don't be afraid to have the Echo, if you'd like that for your characters. The Echo is uncommon, yes, but not nearly as exclusive as many of Eorzea's jobs.


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(02-27-2017, 10:42 PM)Brighthawk Wrote: [ -> ]4) Speaking of which how how much does class/job identity play into most peoples stories? With how easy it is to switch them around are more people free form freelancers or RP stricter class roles when it comes to telling stories?

This is kind of a mixed bag. On the one hand, many of the FFXIV jobs require certain backstory elements to be present before access to said job is plausible. The above example of the summoner needing to have been present at a primal's demise. Many roleplayers skirt this issue by playing a more generalized role - a swordsman instead of a Gladiator or Paladin. Others prefer to follow the lore of the class guilds, as these do have their own quirks, but aren't nearly as exclusive. Others would rather not define their character by any class or job, and instead encourage basing a story around the character instead of around a job. There's far too many threads to list off for this topic, but I think it ultimately boils down to - what feels right for your character's story? Do you want them to be a Dragoon? Do you want them to just be a man with a spear? Will the weapon that's in their hand even matter?


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(02-27-2017, 10:42 PM)Brighthawk Wrote: [ -> ]6) Where the first Au Ra brought over with Yugiri after they got pushed out of Doma or is it one of those things where they were supposed to have always been around and just rare before then, we just have to suspend our disbelief a little because of game reasons.

Yes and no. Yugiri's band of Doman refugees are noted as the first Raen Au Ra to have entered Eorzea in remembered history. This event occurred following the War of Succession and the razing of Doma. You can find more lore on the topic here.

The nomadic Xaela have ventured into Eorzea on a few limited occasions in the past, but are still largely an unknown in the realm due to the fact that most Xaela immigrants are killed off shortly after arriving to varying circumstances. For instance, one such Xaela tribe fled to Eorzea roughly 25-30 years ago following the Imperial invasion of Othard, the Far East. Shortly after settling in the mountains of Coerthas though, the Ishgardians mistook them for dragons and slaughtered them all.


Hope this helps! ^^ Lemme know if you have any more lore questions you'd like answered!

(02-27-2017, 11:15 PM)Kilieit Wrote: [ -> ]To recap, here are the things you need to consider when making a summoner character:
• They absolutely must have been present at the defeat of Ifrit, Titan, and/or Garuda, and they will only be able to summon egis of the primals they have been present at the defeat of. (So if they were present at Garuda's defeat, they'd be able to summon Garuda-egi but not Ifrit-egi or Titan-egi.) This is non-negotiable. No Primal defeat witnessed = no egis. There's a few ways your character could end up in such a situation - some consensual, some not so much - so there's still options here.
• They probably need a background in magic. Arcanima is the standard route - this is taught by the Arcanists' Guild in Limsa Lominsa, who seek to spread the art of arcanima so that it isn't lost over the generations. But I could see justifications for a conjurer or thaumaturge seeking tutelage in Summoning as well.

Just wanted to touch up on some SMN stuff.

1) The ability to summon an Egi of a primal requires your character to have been present when the primal was defeated and for the primal to not have been summoned too powerfully. In game mechanics, the Hard and Extreme versions of primals are already too strong for the summoner (even the wunderkind Warrior of Light) to harness in the form of an Egi, so players are limited to the three we face in the leveling story quests. This doesn't mean your character couldn't summon another primal's Egi if they faced it at a "lower level," i.e. summoned without an excess of crystals or any blood sacrifices.

In the case of primals summoned too powerfully to harness as an Egi, the summoner can harness the primal's aether with a Trance State. In the summoner's job quests you skip straight to Bahamut as it's considered the most powerful primal and everyone in Eorzea was doused in his aether, but your character certainly doesn't need to do this if they can Trance another primal (especially if they don't have the connections to get to Carteneau that the WoL does).

2) Arcanima is required for a Summoner because the tomes they use have the summoning rituals and geometries for their spells written in them. While there's nothing saying your character can't also be good at casting with a scepter or cane, using Summoner abilities does require a tome. The ancient Allagan spells that are tied to the soulstone but not directly to summoning (Tri-Bind and Disaster, Painflare, etc) are also cast with a tome.

(02-27-2017, 11:04 PM)TK Hikaru Wrote: [ -> ]2. I'm not too sure if they're a family perse, but there's a group of Keeper poachers in the Shroud known as the Coeurlclaws. They're infamous enough to be known throughout the Shroud and seem to function much like a gang. So, there is a precedent for a (in)famous family of Keepers.

^^ This

My character, Mia Moui is a Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te and was an unwilling member of the Coeurclaw (as I'm sure many are) but even before that, I speculated that her family were tight collection of outlaws (think Sons of Anarchy) who lived slightly off the map in the North Shroud and who received some deadly karmic punishment from the Calamity.

Being a current or former member of the Coeurclaw, no matter how willing or unwilling will almost certainly bring a certain amount of scorn and/or notoriety.  Perhaps not what you're looking for but I've enjoyed it a few times (especially with anyone playing some stick-in-the-mud, rule following Gridanian).

Of course - as with all things RP - there's a really good chance no one has ever heard of Mia's outlaw family (and they've been dead for five...now seven years).  But that's not really a problem.  Everyone will have heard of the Coeurclaw tho.

Thanks everyone for all the replies! Lots to think over and work out and I've got a little better idea of some lore stuff thanks to you all, been peeking at the wiki a little but since I'm trying to avoid spoilers somewhat for the main story I didn't go on a full wiki dive.

Considering what everyone's been saying I'm leaning more towards Conjuror or Astrologian as a focus for starters. I've found at least to get the hang of the world settling into a class really helps to flesh out the world for me and help define at least a little bit some boundaries. Crafting is also really fun so I might do a bit of that as an rp hook. It makes me curious if people hire other players to rp something like a retainer (Just without the planar transporting bell)