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+--- Thread: General Lore Questions (/showthread.php?tid=4766)
General Lore Questions - Goodfellow - 09-25-2013
Alright, jumping straight to the business, I know that it's entirely possible that a lot of what I'd like to know has not yet been explicitly laid out for us, but I imagine that if anyone is more knowledgeable than me, it's every one of you. So here we go:
1) Are surnames individualized for Dunesfolk? That is, are both of a Dunesfolk's names unique to that individual? Is Lolotaru Lalataru the only Lalataru, or does he come from a long and storied line of Lalatarus?
2) Do we know anything about the individual tribes of Sun Seekers? Do they differ or matter at all? Where are they? Who are they? Etc, etc.? I've got a seeker named U'khaji and I'd really like to know more about where he comes from.
3) Does the Echo make everyone intelligible to us? Just the spoken word or writing as well?
I think that's it for now. The big ones, at least, that should help get me started. I appreciate it.
-Goodfellow
RE: General Lore Questions - Fates Skein - 09-26-2013
Hi!
I can answer only one portion of your question, I'm afraid. Â Regarding the tribes of the Sun Seekers- there really hasn't been any widely publicized lore released for the individual tribes. Â Below are a couple of spoilers that I've either been told of or experienced.
There's really not much that's not fan-made regarding the lore and even for the cases I mentioned above the canon lore gives a good amount of leeway because while that part of the tribe in game may be a certain way, it's mentioned that the tribes were nomads for a long time so there may be offshoots that act completely differently.
Good luck with the other questions and I hope this helps!
RE: General Lore Questions - FreelanceWizard - 09-26-2013
I'll take a crack at these.
(09-25-2013, 11:52 PM)Goodfellow Wrote: 1) Are surnames individualized for Dunesfolk? That is, are both of a Dunesfolk's names unique to that individual? Is Lolotaru Lalataru the only Lalataru, or does he come from a long and storied line of Lalatarus?
My read of the dev post on the naming conventions is that the surname individuality rule applies to both clans. The difference between the two is in name structure -- but please take this with a grain of salt, as this is just my interpretation of the post.
(09-25-2013, 11:52 PM)Goodfellow Wrote: 2) Do we know anything about the individual tribes of Sun Seekers? Do they differ or matter at all? Where are they? Who are they? Etc, etc.? I've got a seeker named U'khaji and I'd really like to know more about where he comes from.
The Seeker tribes came across an ice bridge in search of prey during the Fifth Umbral Era. Through coincidence, they found that there were 26 letters in the Eorzean alphabet, corresponding to the 26 tribes. Seeing this as a good omen, they assigned a letter to each tribe that was closest to the pronunciation of its name. We know that the names were based on beastkin, scalekin, or cloudkin totems, which are believed to protect the tribe. (dev post)
Beyond that, we don't really know much. Because of how the tribes expand (typically: new territories are acquired by a tia, who then becomes nunh of that area, and females join him), there's lots of different branches inside each tribe. Eorzea's a big place and miqo'te are relatively rare by lore, so the tribes are bound to be quite spread out. That gives you a lot of room in which to play with traditions and backstory, as you can just have your character be from a branch of your own design. The above-linked dev post goes into details on traditional miqo'te culture.
(09-25-2013, 11:52 PM)Goodfellow Wrote: 3) Does the Echo make everyone intelligible to us? Just the spoken word or writing as well?
RE: General Lore Questions - Pondahl - 09-26-2013
Re: Question #1
The dev. post Freelance is most likely referencing is here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/61151-Lalafell-Naming-Conventions
Sadly, the only mention of Lalafell surnames is under the Plainsfolk heading. Â However, it also makes mention of both Plains and Dunesfolk, so you could argue that it's relevant to both.
Here's the quote: "Surnames are only surnames in placement, as they are not taken from the mother or father and are unique to the individual."
So yes, there's that
Re: Question #2
The previous posts are far better answers than I could ever hope to give *Doesn't play Miqo*
Re: Question #3
I'm going to side with FreelanceWizard on his answer. Â Just opinion, though~
RE: General Lore Questions - Goodfellow - 09-26-2013
That's alla great help to me, folks. Â I knewi could count on you. Â Thanks!
RE: General Lore Questions - LeCard - 09-26-2013
(09-26-2013, 12:45 AM)FreelanceWizard Wrote:This is info from after beat Titan(09-25-2013, 11:52 PM)Goodfellow Wrote: 3) Does the Echo make everyone intelligible to us? Just the spoken word or writing as well?
RE: General Lore Questions - FreelanceWizard - 09-26-2013
This is going to be a spoilerrific thread, I think.
RE: General Lore Questions - Goodfellow - 09-26-2013
Thanks for the additional context, folks.
RE: General Lore Questions - Goodfellow - 09-29-2013
Okay, working on some background information for several characters and I've come up uncertain on one point in particular.
As we know, each race is subdivided into two distinct clans. Â Now, without reference to interspecies relationships, is crossbreeding between clans possible? Â I.e. Lolotaru having a Dunesfolk father and a Plainsfolk mother? Â I assume so, but wanted to be sure.
RE: General Lore Questions - FreelanceWizard - 09-29-2013
Per this dev post, at least for miqo'te, cross-breeding between clans can happen. It mentions that a particular NPC may have had some blood of the other clan in her past (among other possible explanations), which explains why she has Keeper features and a Seeker name. It seems the only barriers to cross-clan breeding are social and distance-related.
RE: General Lore Questions - Sigyn Shieldbreaker - 09-29-2013
I also have a question:
Paladin heals, like for Sultansworn...
Is there a lore-based explanation behind them?
RE: General Lore Questions - Lost River - 09-29-2013
(09-29-2013, 08:31 PM)Siobhain Wrote: I also have a question:
Paladin heals, like for Sultansworn...
Is there a lore-based explanation behind them?
I think it's explained as you progress up in level. Basically they're quite trained soldiers, dabbling in the other arts instead of just physical combat. So I'd think they need basic medical knowledge and be able to augment the aether. As they are in fact, the elite soldiers of the Sultana.
RE: General Lore Questions - LandStander - 09-29-2013
(09-26-2013, 12:45 AM)FreelanceWizard Wrote: I'll take a crack at these.
(09-25-2013, 11:52 PM)Goodfellow Wrote: 3) Does the Echo make everyone intelligible to us? Just the spoken word or writing as well?
Speaking of questions, I had a question about this one. I know in 1.0 (and I think 2.0) they say that the only reason you are able to communicate with the beast tribes is because of the Echo, yet the beast tribes seem to communicate with a lot more people. You see a uh lizard guy (name escapes me) in Limsa speaking with one of the merchant npcs (its just a little chat bubble). The guy in the Ifrit story line seems to be able to speak with the Mamool Ja. The Sylph speak with the Lalafell lady who mans the front of The Waking Sands. I think if you go into the back room, one of the Sylphs is even speaking with some random NPC. Not to mention the Sylph encampment that is shared with the Wood Wailers (I think) for the level 20 quest stuff.
Is this just because the beast tribes are starting to learn the common tongue..or is the Echo not as cool as they wrote it as being in 1.0?
RE: General Lore Questions - Lost River - 09-29-2013
I think someone decided to teach the common tongue to the beast tribes and such, if not...
Everyone would have a degree of the echo. Which in itself, is also plausible too!
Being strong in it would allow you to see other lives and such; like the game has the characters.
Quite a curiousity. It also adds to the lifestream of Gai- Hydaelyn.
RE: General Lore Questions - FreelanceWizard - 09-30-2013
(09-29-2013, 10:29 PM)LandStander Wrote: Speaking of questions, I had a question about this one. I know in 1.0 (and I think 2.0) they say that the only reason you are able to communicate with the beast tribes is because of the Echo, yet the beast tribes seem to communicate with a lot more people. You see a uh lizard guy (name escapes me) in Limsa speaking with one of the merchant npcs (its just a little chat bubble). The guy in the Ifrit story line seems to be able to speak with the Mamool Ja. The Sylph speak with the Lalafell lady who mans the front of The Waking Sands. I think if you go into the back room, one of the Sylphs is even speaking with some random NPC. Not to mention the Sylph encampment that is shared with the Wood Wailers (I think) for the level 20 quest stuff.
Is this just because the beast tribes are starting to learn the common tongue..or is the Echo not as cool as they wrote it as being in 1.0?
My personal read on this (which is a little speculative, so take it with between one and many grains of salt
) is that the beastmen often learn the common tongue to interact with others. In fact, the term "beastmen" is really a rather prejudicial one, adopted by the city-state dwellers for a variety of reasons; for instance, Ul'dah has a very vicious anti-beastmen policy, and so they adopted the term to dehumanize them in the eyes of the people (since beastmen get in the way of profits). There's a dev post that speaks to this somewhat obliquely, though I don't have it handy at the moment.I do believe the Echo is still intended to be quite rare, though of course while every PC has it by way of the main scenario quest, PCs are themselves quite rare (being a subset of adventurers, who are a subset of all characters).
EDIT: My bad. There's actually two dev posts that address this. This post talks about how the different city-states deal with beastmen; for instance, Gridania and Limsa Lominsa tend to have relations with some of the more amicable tribes. This other post (specifically, question 7) describes how the term "beastman" is used as racial epithet and why.