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

CrimsonMars · **04-07-2014, 04:39 PM**

I'm in the process of deciding whether my alt character, Riven Stars should be in-character. I don't wanna be both though since that would seem Mary-sueish. IC so far, she is anÂ archaeologist with aÂ somewhat sarcastic personality, and is somewhat interested in necromancy.Â Currently, she is a WM, but I'm thinking about changing it.

Zhavi · **04-07-2014, 05:40 PM**

So long as she's not super young, I don't see why she can't have devoted time to both pursuits. I mean, as long as she's not the type of person who never studies and yet has achieved super awesome mastery status as a summoner and a white mage, and is admired by all and sundry for her genius level abilities and has a bevy of followers who admire her and . . . you see where I'm going. In real life there are people who actively pursue their interests when they're young, and as a result can claim some marvelous accomplishments before they hit 30. It all depends on her natural ability and her determination and devotion to make up for the things she lacks (or to supplement what she already has). In fact, having her be rather successful with one and struggle with the other could give her something to agonize over, just as for most people they have subjects that they excel at and others that they have to struggle and work harder than others to see the same results.

There's nothing wrong with having a talented character. To me, the trap people tend to fall into is making the character be about the talent/feature/tragic past/whatever rather than consider the whole of the character. I think that's where the term Mary Sue can be awkward. It's entirely possible to take the supposed traits of a Mary Sue and still have an engaging, interesting, and sympathetic character come out the other side -- it's all in how you write it. (one example off the top of my head is Honor Harrington. I can definitely see several traits that could give people reason to call her a Mary Sue, yet that character is one of my favorite sci-fi heroines)

So I say do what you want and what makes sense for the character. If that means both, then go for it!

Sounsyy · **04-07-2014, 05:57 PM**

Necromancy is leaning more towards thaumaturgy lore-wise. However, having a White Mage who desires power over the dead could be a very interesting development, since such magicks are strictly forbidden. Could create a very interesting power struggle between Mage and Elemental.

CrimsonMars · **04-07-2014, 07:50 PM**

Meh, I'd still like to have one or the other to make things less complicated. I dunno if I wanna make Stars that tight anyway. She's at her early/mid 20s and has had a good enough education. From what I've heard though, Summoners are only able to tame egi's by defecting primals. I don't know how I feel about her fighting them yet.

I'll still level them up both, but I'll just used one of them ooc.

ArmachiA · **04-08-2014, 04:25 AM**

Remember that in Lore WHMs are explicitly banned by the elementals and only one exists in the world that isn't a padjal (The pc your playing in the story) playing one in RP doesn't really make much sense lore-wise (It's also a pretty heavy source of contention in the FFXIV RP community).

Aria Benett · **04-08-2014, 04:42 AM**

I have to agree in that it wouldn't make much sense to have your character as a White Mage, considering only THE protagonist as a non-Padjal White Mage. There's nothing wrong with being a powerful Conjurer, on the other hand, they just can't access the same tier of magic - I can't comment on the Summoner part, though. I have no idea lore-wise about them. I should remember to look into it.

Shizuka · **04-08-2014, 04:47 AM**

(04-08-2014, 04:25 AM)ArmachiA Wrote: Remember that in Lore WHMs are explicitly banned by the elementals and only one exists in the world that isn't a padjal (The pc your playing in the story) playing one in RP doesn't really make much sense lore-wise (It's also a pretty heavy source of contention in the FFXIV RP community).

I play a WHM, and ICly I just....gently sort of gloss over that. I've run into people who have called her a White Mage before, and I don't argue because by game mechanics wise it's true. Lalah generally refers to herself as a Conjurer, which is also true whether or not you go with the idea that more than just the Padjal can be White Mages. It seemed to be the best way to deal with it, just not go into specifics and keep the personal references to "Conjurer".

ArmachiA · **04-08-2014, 05:48 AM**

(04-08-2014, 04:42 AM)Aria Benett Wrote: I have to agree in that it wouldn't make much sense to have your character as a White Mage, considering only THE protagonist as a non-Padjal White Mage. There's nothing wrong with being a powerful Conjurer, on the other hand, they just can't access the same tier of magic - I can't comment on the Summoner part, though. I have no idea lore-wise about them. I should remember to look into it.

Summoner has an easy-ish work around. You have to fight a primal in order to fight it's essence and get an Egi. If your character has the Echo, no problem, fight a primal at some point become a Summoner. It's tricky if your character doesn't HAVE the Echo, but there are ways around it as well that bend lore and not break it (It's stated in canon that people with a high willpower can resist tempering for instance)

CrimsonMars · **04-08-2014, 08:57 AM**

(04-08-2014, 04:25 AM)ArmachiA Wrote: Remember that in Lore WHMs are explicitly banned by the elementals and only one exists in the world that isn't a padjal (The pc your playing in the story) playing one in RP doesn't really make much sense lore-wise (It's also a pretty heavy source of contention in the FFXIV RP community).

I honestly missed that part in the WHM story-arc. :/ Oh well. Gilgamesh is fairly forgiving anyway and I remember running into a few whitties ic beforehand...

FreelanceWizard · **04-08-2014, 01:25 PM**

(04-08-2014, 08:57 AM)CrimsonMars Wrote:
(04-08-2014, 04:25 AM)ArmachiA Wrote: Remember that in Lore WHMs are explicitly banned by the elementals and only one exists in the world that isn't a padjal (The pc your playing in the story) playing one in RP doesn't really make much sense lore-wise (It's also a pretty heavy source of contention in the FFXIV RP community).

I honestly missed that part in the WHM story-arc. :/ Oh well. Gilgamesh is fairly forgiving anyway and I remember running into a few whitties ic beforehand...

I wouldn't so much say that you missed it, so much as it's a matter of debate whether that's still true in 2.x (it was definitely the case in 1.x, though). I'm not going to revive the debate except to say that not everyone agrees on what the lore says with regards to whether a PC can plausibly be a White Mage.

CrimsonMars · **04-10-2014, 03:54 PM**

Decided that I'll make her an SMN in training. Thanks guys. Anyone who's interacted with Stars before can just forget about her being a WHM.

Arcnist/Summoner or White Mage [IC]

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