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Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Printable Version

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Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Auralily - 07-29-2015

Just a bit curious on the nature of this, if it's possible, and if it's pushing some fine lines of super duper special snowflake. Whether opinion or fact, I would like some information to make a good decision. I guess some minor background should be included. 

I've been trying to decide what to do with my Hyur, and I've been wanting to have heterochormia eyes. I'd like mixed heritage to explain it, and one of the possibilities to come to mind was the Allagan Empire. I'm not looking to be of noble or royal bloodline or anything like that; nor have it considered more than a family rumor that's been passed down throughout the generations. 

Thoughts?

A late afterthought that I felt I should add. I have completed the story already, and have done almost all of the side quests for 1.0 and 2.0 (Excluding 2nd/Final Coil, but I've read about most of it.) so spoilers aren't a concern for me personally, but I do know others may read this.

RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Spethah - 07-29-2015

To be honest, if you want to look at it from a family tree standing point, everyone is related to an Allagan somewhere in the family tree. It's whether that particular bloodline still directly exists. Each time one person breeds with another that's not of the same "bloodline", the direct bloodline weakens until it's almost nada. Usually the process for that is about 1000 years in real time, even though birth records only go back to 1200s (In the form that the church writes whom was born before it became a legal requirement, at least here in the UK).

To state that a character is of direct relation to an Allag is not impossible, it's just rare. Allagans have been out of the scene for a long time (I've actually forgotten when, so here's a flare signal for anyone who does know -whoosh-) so having a direct bond to them would require one of two things. 

1. A short family tree. Basically people have lived very long lives and have had not too many children.

2. Incest involved. Incest of two bloodlines doesn't actually weaken it, but nor does it strengthen it. Seekers are a good example of it, they tend to breed to keep the strong miqo'te trait so that the tribe can essentially survive. 

Will I say that this idea is "speshul snewflak"? Eh, not really. It's just a perk. Would it be a perk that would been known to this Hyur? Not instantly no, not unless every family member reminds each other that they are descendants of Allag over and over. Allag knowledge in Eorzea seems to be a bit in the air as well, excluding Garleans who wish to emulate them.

RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Virella - 07-29-2015

Uuuh. I think it is possible to do this. But was the ST mi'qote not more some very lone descendant? 

However it really comes in the too much of a special snowflake area for me personally. There is many more ways to make your character interesting, and heck if you really want to be something with an odd heritage, give it a drop mixed blood of the existing races, that seems a way more lore friendly approach Smile

Heck you do not even need be something interracial to make your character interesting. You can always make a rumoured descendant of x baddie or known hero.

RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Blue - 07-29-2015

(07-29-2015, 08:01 AM)Septha Wrote: To be honest, if you want to look at it from a family tree standing point, everyone is related to an Allagan somewhere in the family tree. It's whether that particular bloodline still directly exists. Each time one person breeds with another that's not of the same "bloodline", the direct bloodline weakens until it's almost nada.

Actually it's the opposite, unless there are reasons to believe the population of Eorzea is declining (unlike RL population, which is increasing), the furthest back we go down the bloodline, the more the chances to have an ancestor in common are.

From: http://all-that-is-interesting.com/famous-descendants

43 of 44 US Presidents were descendants of John I, and all races are descendants of Egyptian King Narmur.

Quote:This one takes a little work to get, but here's the logic. Every living person has two parents, four grandparents, and so on. Eventually, the exponential increase of ancestors gives you and everybody else trillions of ancestors each, which obviously can't be true. We're all descended from the same people, some by scores of independent routes through time. And those ancestors are also ancestral to everyone else in the world if they lived far enough back. Simplified mathematical models show that everyone in the world can have an ancestor who lived within the last 1,000 years, and that all of our ancestors were the same people within the last 2,000 years. Obviously, geography and history affect this estimate, but not by much. Of the people living over 4,000 years ago, they were all either the ancestors of everybody alive today – or of nobody. Narmer had dozens of children. It's probably safe – and mathematically certain – to bet that he's an ancestor of Queen Elizabeth (I and II), Mao Zedong, the homeless guy behind your apartment, Jeffrey Dahmer, Carl Sagan . . . and you. The same is true of 100 percent of his contemporaries, including those slaves he's depicted killing. Either they're everybody's ancestors, or their lines are fully extinct, but nothing in-between. And you, 2,000 years from now, may well be a common ancestor of every human then alive – or extinct, but nothing in-between. Hug your kids. Source: WLRN
Read more at http://all-that-is-interesting.com/famous-descendants#8clzHGzvIbF2B6yT.99


RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Spethah - 07-29-2015

I think you missed the word "Direct". Direct assumes the role that there is none or very few changes in the name and relation to a person earlier in the tree to someone later in the tree. Anyway I'm going to ask my gran about if it's possible in such a large scale of time (Basing off HW detail, it could be thousands of years instead of just maybe a single thousand) since I think it would be best to ask a professional on the matter. The fact that such a job even exists is pretty surprising, tbh. All that I've said is from what I've been told by her, since she's all nuts about how I'm a direct descendant of Devici, the right hand man during William the Conqueror's schemes and had to explain what it means to be directly linked to a man considered "the right hand of Satan".

RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - FreelanceWizard - 07-29-2015

As a lore point, the Allagan empire hails from the third Astral Era. That's thousands of years in the past. A random one-off line from the Guidance Node in Azys Lla mentions a date for the last time one of the matter transporters was serviced, and IIRC it was something like over 10000 years ago.

EDIT: Thanks, Septha, for the quest quote. Smile So, the Allagan empire was at least 5000 years ago. If we assume the Azys Lla systems were able to keep things running for a time even after the occupants were no longer a factor, or that Azys Lla was a creation, like the Crystal Tower, of the late Allagan period, it could have been even longer.

RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Spethah - 07-29-2015

(07-29-2015, 08:48 AM)FreelanceWizard Wrote: As a lore point, the Allagan empire hails from the third Astral Era. That's thousands of years in the past. A random one-off line from the Guidance Node in Azys Lla mentions a date for the last time one of the matter transporters was serviced, and IIRC it was something like over 10000 years ago.


Quote:"According to my records, this conduit was last serviced approximately five thousand and fourteen years, six months, eleven days, seven hours and thirteen minutes ago. That it should function without mishap may be described as a miracle."

Is the quote. It's not really spoilers so it's not going under the hood.

RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Auralily - 07-29-2015

I'm not looking for an interesting hook for my character, or anything along those lines. Most of my characters don't go running through the street saying Guess where I'm from and who I am?! Her main focus won't be about her heritage, I just thought it a unique way to explain two different colored eyes. More to myself in my Word Documents of my characters, than to the world. But even behind closed doors, I don't like to write something that isn't possible, or so unlikely that you may as well be a chosen one Hero of Light. 

Overall that's something I didn't really think of. They conquered much of the world, and even if unlikely, a recessive trait like a red eye popping up every couple of generations doesn't seem impossible. If family legend decides that it's because they have Allagan blood, it doesn't hurt anyone and will just sound silly when shared IC.

Putting aside that I can RP false family legends, still open to any additional thoughts or input on the matter.

RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Sounsyy - 07-29-2015

As was said earlier, it's fair to assume that most people have some Allagan ancestry in their history due to the fact that the Allagan Empire spanned the entire known world, with the exception of parts of southern Meracydia. However, the Empire was all but wiped out during the 4th Umbral Calamity 5000 years ago. Those Allagans and Meracydians who survived went on to repopulate the 4th Astral Era civilizations.

However, over the course of 5,000 years, most knowledge of the Allagans was lost and their existence became a myth until a historian named Saint Coinach proved the Allagans existed. A lot of the myths surrounding Allag are the basis for the Lambs of Dalamud cult, who believe they are directly descendant from the Allagans.

A few other notable NPCs claim a direct line to ancient Allag, including VIIth Legatus Nael van Darnus and G'raha Tia from the CT storyline.

RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Hammersmith - 07-29-2015

(07-29-2015, 09:06 AM)Auralily Wrote: I'm not looking for an interesting hook for my character, or anything along those lines. Most of my characters don't go running through the street saying Guess where I'm from and who I am?! Her main focus won't be about her heritage, I just thought it a unique way to explain two different colored eyes.


If this is the reason for doing it, it's better to Not Do It.  

Fancy eyeballs are common enough in FF 14, down to strange colours, heterochromia, heterochromia with strange colours, the works, without needing to throw another reason in it that you've never going to make use of or touch on.

In short don't include something in your back story you're never going to tap, you're just turning it into a trophy case kind of thing.  


Explore other family things that don't require you to take a special lore stance (And having an Alagan Eye is pretty special.  The Doip Miqo from the Crystal Tower is implied to be the -only- one with an active eye in this age that isn't a
Show Content
several times.  )

Hammer's entire clan/family has red eyes and white hair.  No reason that's mystical and it sure as hell isn't an Allagan Eye.  It's just a family trait that has a habit of breeding true through the male side of the family. Sure, there's probably kiddy tales you tell children about how your clan founder got demon blood in his eyes, or washed his hair in an underworld river, or did something equally stupid, or amazing for it, but all of that is just mythos and what you'd expect from someone grew up tribal in the Spine. Mostly it's how he recognizes family, a lot of the time and how his 'people' back in the Spine recognize him as probably being directly blood related.  

Maybe the eyeball thing is a family trait!  That's low-key enough to be in the background and never touched on again.  

Or make the eye a thing of consequence that helped motivate your char to do something.  Maybe your char got blasted in the eye with some magitec thing they picked up in a ruin they were exploring and that ONE eye shifted colour.  The device is scrap now, so maybe they'll never know why, but it inspired them to start being an archaeologist, stuff like that helps you weave a story.

Just saying "Oh and I'm Allagan Royalty (half)" is kind of boring if you're never going to come back to it with any gravitas that it deserves.  It's also kind of pointless if you don't plan on doing something with i that also plays off your char's interests off and what it entails, ect ect.

TLDR; If you're not going to USE it, look for other options that will highlight your char, instead of using high end points of lore as throw-away reasoning.  The char will be better for it!

RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - LiadansWhisper - 07-29-2015

On Topic: Yes, you could. Be prepared for people to roll their eyes and disagree with you, though, because that's how people are. But if you want to do it, go for it. You don't have to be full-blooded to be a descendant.

Off topic:
(07-29-2015, 08:14 AM)Blue Wrote: all races are descendants of Egyptian King Narmur.

This is pretty much impossible. By the time this guy lived (and his name was Narmer, not Narmur, and some scholars believe he was actually Menes), there were many other races already in the world, including China, Native American groups.  Greece had been going strong for several thousand years, as well.  We have records of them going back something like 10000 years, whereas the Egyptian civilization didn't even get started until approximately 3500 BCE.  Narmer doesn't come along until ~3100 BCE.

RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Cato - 07-29-2015

Whilst people are free to do whatever they like I have to say I wouldn't acknowledge someone who claimed to be related directly to the Allagan Empire. Maybe if it was done exceptionally well but in my experience most of the people who drift towards that sort of thing end up pulling it off poorly and come off as a special snowflake.

It doesn't strike me as very plausible given that we're explicitly shown in-game that individuals with Allagan blood are exceptionally rare. It's the sort of trait that forces people to acknowledge someone's character as being on the same level as major lore characters - and as far as I'm concerned there's plenty of ways to make a character's backstory intriguing without doing stuff like that.

RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Auralily - 07-29-2015

(07-29-2015, 12:27 PM)Graeham Wrote: It doesn't strike me as very plausible given that we're explicitly shown in-game that individuals with Allagan blood are exceptionally rare. It's the sort of trait that forces people to acknowledge someone's character as being on the same level as major lore characters - and as far as I'm concerned there's plenty of ways to make a character's backstory intriguing without doing stuff like that.

That's about where I stood, or I wouldn't have posted it on here I'm quite sure. I do believe it would be something I would attempt without saying it's hard fact, but as I said this wasn't meant to be an 'interest factor' thing for my character. 

Thanks everyone :) The idea can be considered effectively abandoned. It's not the first time it's crossed my mind, but I'm sure it'll be the last lol.

RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Blue - 07-29-2015

(07-29-2015, 12:23 PM)LiadansWhisper Wrote: On Topic: Yes, you could. Be prepared for people to roll their eyes and disagree with you, though, because that's how people are. But if you want to do it, go for it. You don't have to be full-blooded to be a descendant.

Off topic:
(07-29-2015, 08:14 AM)Blue Wrote: all races are descendants of Egyptian King Narmur.

This is pretty much impossible. By the time this guy lived (and his name was Narmer, not Narmur, and some scholars believe he was actually Menes), there were many other races already in the world, including China, Native American groups.  Greece had been going strong for several thousand years, as well.  We have records of them going back something like 10000 years, whereas the Egyptian civilization didn't even get started until approximately 3500 BCE.  Narmer doesn't come along until ~3100 BCE.

It's just math. Unless someone has no ancestors whatsoever, it is mathematically plausible that within 2000 years you will be part of everyone's tree. Read the article I linked. It's bringing up stuff studied by people who literally do nothing but math every day of their lives, so I don't feel in the right to contradict them <_<;

RE: Roleplaying of Allagan Descent - Kellach Woods - 07-29-2015

(07-29-2015, 09:27 AM)Sounsyy Wrote: A few other notable NPCs claim a direct line to ancient Allag, including VIIth Legatus Nael van Darnus and G'raha Tia from the CT storyline.
G'raha has actually shown that he does have a dubious link to them if you do the CT storyline - he is also a non-issue because of said storyline.

The best way to do anything of note in the game is to keep it under wraps.