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abc · **11-16-2016, 01:37 PM**

So, I finally managed to roll a character on Balmung after more than a few sleepless nights haunting the launcher during maintenance. Picked the first preset I saw, which was a female hyur midlander with a possibly lore unfriendly name (It's Gaelic in origin).

Anyway, I've a really basic concept for her fleshed out already. She's an adventurer/sellsword (with morals) and a soft heart who started out because she got inspired by the tales of the Warrior of Light's achivements, so she ended up setting out to follow in their heroic footsteps to make Eorzea great again. She'd probably be somewhere in her twenties or so at least. Personality inadvertently ended up sort of a wish-fulfillment thing, sort of like the cool big sis sort of archetype.

Been tossing around some ideas:

Her sex/orientation/insertproperterm: intersexed female with functional male genitals (sterile, possibly impotent) and developed breasts, which to my understanding are possible phenotypes but I can't say for certain; the academic talk on the sites I was going to started going over my head after the first few paragraphs. Thinking about consigning this as a largely irrelevant detail or just making her a complete female for the sake of convenience unless I end up forming a rapport and pursuing a romance with another PC, particularly since as far as I know, gender... issue... discrimination... I don't know what it's called these days, don't appear to be a thing in Eorzea. Sort of ties in with the image I had of the character while making her. Like, she looks female enough that a glance would lead one to assume such, but closer inspection would make one wonder if she's really female or just an unusually pretty male. Or something like that, I don't know; starting to ramble since I'm jumping all over this post and haven't slept yet.

Possession of the Echo: Tempering seems like such a bad way to go, and in her line of work it's likely that she'd end up going against beastmen in some manner at least on a semi-regular basis which means capture is a danger. Usually fine with letting things play out realistically and all, but given the difficulties of rolling characters on Balmung, I'm leery of letting literally the only access to ingame RP I have so far get killed off in such an... off-handed? manner.

Free Paladin: Read about this on the forum, the ideals and such seem to fall in line greatly with my character's motivations. Unsure whether to have her be one already despite currently being a low level or if I should work my way up to it. The latter seems to promise a more interesting narrative and better development but I suppose it'd depend on whether or not there are active Sultansworn to mentor under and such (if I understand how the training works correctly).

Nothing else really comes to mind at this time, though I wouldn't mind suggestions and the like. I'm not really familiar with the game's timeline or its lore really, I mean haven't even gotten into Heavensward content. Farthest I've gotten is the Snowcloak dungeon. Most I know is that ARR stuff picks up five years (I think?) after the Calamity and most of the MSQ stuff, though I'm sure I've glossed over a lot of the details in my memory.

Apologies for the rambling. I didn't go to sleep and ended up jumping all over the place while making this post. Won't be surprised if it goes ignored, it's hardly the most... coherent at points.

Kilieit · **11-16-2016, 03:11 PM**

I don't have much of coherence, but I wanted to share this point from experience:

Don't curtail your character's (for want of a much, much better phrase) """diversity points""" for fear of player reaction.

Have your character be the way she naturally inclines towards when you're writing her. Do your research, portray her accurately and sensitively, make yourself aware of stereotypes and tropes to engage in with caution or avoid altogether. It can be difficult to find clear and sensitive information online about this sort of thing, but it's worth the effort to feel like you're portraying your character truthfully, with verisimilitude, and without unintentionally causing OOC hurt.

And then... just... be careful about who you tell.

I strongly believe it's likely Eorzeans - with their relative minimum of gender discrimination and their total lack of homophobia - would accept being transgender, intersex, or gender-non-conforming as a quirk in line with "cuts the crusts off sandwiches" or "has an irrational fear of bugs", or otherwise as a private family matter akin to "isn't actually the biological child of their lovingly adoptive parents", and not something worthy of systematic harassment or discrimination...

...but I don't trust a collection of random OOC-wise strangers to be on the same page as me on that one. I fear most people will see any mention of my character's trans-ness as a "grab for attention", no matter how minor or casual it is, because it's a polarised issue IRL.

So I gloss over it in emotes when it might otherwise come up - I don't go into details on what people are seeing unless I trust them, and I avoid putting my character into situations where it would become obvious to others in the first place until I trust the person OOC.

But he's still transgender.

Ages ago, when I was a lot younger, I rolled a character who was originally supposed to be a transgender woman, but I changed her to be a cisgender woman eventually because I was so afraid of the OOC reaction if anyone ever found out. I eventually fell out of love with her for reasons which, while not limited to this issue, were all characterised by "changing things about the character so she was closer to what other people thought she should be". I revisited her recently, reverted all those changes (including making her trans again), and I'm so much happier with her now...

...TL;DR I want to posit myself as a cautionary tale and encourage you to do what you think makes sense for the character, in this regard, and then deal with the messy "what people think" stuff by just moderating who OOCly knows. xD

abc · **11-19-2016, 07:06 PM**

Thank you, Kiliet, for your tale and advice, I'll be sure to take it into consideration as I go forward with my character's story.

On another note, for the broader user base who might glance through this after the bump, I was wondering if the role of a Mystic Knight or a Rune Fencer might be plausible in the game's setting. A spellblade, in essence, capable of the same sort of abilities Steiner of FF IX was capable of whilst Vivi was in the same party, though without the same restriction. I can't claim to be particularly learned in regards to aetherial manipulation and the like, but I imagined it to be something akin to a swordsman using thaumaturgy or something along those lines.

Valence · **11-20-2016, 06:46 AM**

- There are RPers that play with the spellblade concept in mind. It's a recurring thing.

- As far as I know there is very little, of nothing, in lore regarding spellblade weapon enhancements, except through Magitek (cf the second fight with Legatus van Hydrus in the Aetherochemical Facility as the best example), which is something totally different and the opposite of magic.

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- Keep in mind that Red Mage has been heavily hinted for 4.0, and if so we might get a whole new set of lore things around that particular job. Possibly classic FF spells like Enfire, Enthunder, etc?

tl;dr: in short, you are out of the bounds of lore for now as far as I know, but aren't contradicting it either.

abc · **11-20-2016, 02:09 PM**

I'd not known that Red Mage was hinted at in Stormblood, Valence, so thank you for that particular tidbit of info. I think I might hold off on this particular aspect of her capabilities pending future information with this revelation, since having to go back and retcon things can be a pain.

Valence · **11-20-2016, 04:55 PM**

It's still unconfirmed right now, so stay tuned for more of their announcements I guess.

Help flesh out my first character?

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes