Yep, the Calamity is the thing you see in the game's intro trailer, with Bahamut ravaging the land.
What made it difficult to travel to Gridania since its founding up to the Calamity was the elementals of the Shroud. The Gridanians lived in the Shroud under the terms of a very delicately orchestrated agreement wherein the Gridanians would tread carefully and treat the forest and its denizens with the utmost respect, and in return, the elementals (who flooded the world in the Fifth Umbral Era to end the War of the Magi) wouldn't destroy them utterly. Basically, as an outsider, it was extremely easy to incur woodsin for taking proscribed actions, and woodsin would provoke the greenwrath (the forest and its denizens trying to kill you).
There are rituals to cleanse woodsin, but Gridanians, being a rather xenophobic lot, generally only offered that to those they considered worthy. Most outsiders would get killed by the Shroud before they reached Gridania in the first place. The Calamity and the events leading up to it damaged the Shroud considerably and largely broke the power of the elementals, which is why you can safely travel to Gridania now (as shown in the 2.0 intro sequence), why you can enter forbidden Amdapori ruins, and why there's a big Castrum in the Shroud. There are still some powerful and dangerous elementals about that need to be placated, but on the whole, their power is significantly diminished (as noted by the twins in the main scenario quest around level 20ish).
The upshot of this is that traveling to Gridania as an outsider before the end of the Sixth Astral Era was a quite rare thing. That doesn't mean one couldn't have special circumstances to allow it (smuggled in, just that attuned to nature, grandmother married a Gridanian, etc.), just that travel to Gridania wasn't nearly as free then as it is now.
What made it difficult to travel to Gridania since its founding up to the Calamity was the elementals of the Shroud. The Gridanians lived in the Shroud under the terms of a very delicately orchestrated agreement wherein the Gridanians would tread carefully and treat the forest and its denizens with the utmost respect, and in return, the elementals (who flooded the world in the Fifth Umbral Era to end the War of the Magi) wouldn't destroy them utterly. Basically, as an outsider, it was extremely easy to incur woodsin for taking proscribed actions, and woodsin would provoke the greenwrath (the forest and its denizens trying to kill you).
There are rituals to cleanse woodsin, but Gridanians, being a rather xenophobic lot, generally only offered that to those they considered worthy. Most outsiders would get killed by the Shroud before they reached Gridania in the first place. The Calamity and the events leading up to it damaged the Shroud considerably and largely broke the power of the elementals, which is why you can safely travel to Gridania now (as shown in the 2.0 intro sequence), why you can enter forbidden Amdapori ruins, and why there's a big Castrum in the Shroud. There are still some powerful and dangerous elementals about that need to be placated, but on the whole, their power is significantly diminished (as noted by the twins in the main scenario quest around level 20ish).
The upshot of this is that traveling to Gridania as an outsider before the end of the Sixth Astral Era was a quite rare thing. That doesn't mean one couldn't have special circumstances to allow it (smuggled in, just that attuned to nature, grandmother married a Gridanian, etc.), just that travel to Gridania wasn't nearly as free then as it is now.
The Freelance Wizard
Quality RP at low, low prices!
((about me | about L'yhta Mahre | L'yhta's desk | about Mysterium, the Ivory Tower: a heavy RP society of mages))
Quality RP at low, low prices!
((about me | about L'yhta Mahre | L'yhta's desk | about Mysterium, the Ivory Tower: a heavy RP society of mages))
