Posona

I actually had a brief, casual chance meeting with one of your members last night, but when I checked their FC I didn't recognize it. Shortly after that I got an email with an FC Hall update and it was you! Small world, and maybe a sign. At first I didn't think I have any characters that could fit in, but then I got to thinking. I have a thief, a young thief who's real good at thievin', and he needs connections--well, more like friends or companions--if he's to continue getting by. The catch is he's a good thief, an honest thief, a Just Like Robin Hood type, so he would only join an FC of this nature if convinced it was for good. For instance, are the things acquired and sold here for shady people or used for a good cause? If his talent seems useful and he can be convinced of that (it doesn't necessarily have to be true, mind) I think he might be able to fit in, or at least shake things up a bit if he were to find out the business isn't as good as he was lead to believe. I just published his wiki, so if you'd like to look into him, here ya go! I'll see if we can talk this out more in-game next time I'm logged in with him.

Yes yes, that's what I'm talking about! I was thinking if nothing else it could be an offshoot that splintered from the tribe proper but I feel that would still entail a name change to properly distinguish. But it really makes a lot more sense to me if they were split up and scattered in that way. It definitely seems like a much safer way to do things, at any rate. I didn't plan on getting in-depth with their particular mythology, just little things that could be related to it--like the idea of a yellow moon being a bad omen. Though I'm assuming they would praise the moon or something similar, I feel like it's a safe assumption to make, and as such things pertaining to the evening/night are given more weight than daytime things. However, even using the different clans within tribes = similar but differing customs idea, I wouldn't be comfortable doing that until I've met Xaela in-game. How big is Xaela territory anyway? Where is it exactly? I'll still probably just continue playing Stormblood and hold out with finalizing details until I've gotten to that part of the story, but I'm really curious.

I appreciate the ramble, regardless! That's exactly what I try to do when I world build, I want to work with the lore. My biggest problem now is that I'm not as well-versed in Xaela lore as other people because I've not played that far ahead. After everyone's responses I definitely feel more confident in my approach and that I'm not taking things too far. I was worried about "overstepping" because of what might happen should Cota meet another Sagahl who would undoubtedly have a different background. If tribes stayed in one big unit and didn't split up across the steppe into smaller units, that would cause problems. At least for me it would just because of how nitpicky I am. But now I have another problem and that's my lack of knowledge about Xaela lore in general. Reading about it and experiencing stuff in-game are two totally different things; I don't know the finer details of half the things you said, so now I feel like I need to keep Cota in reserve until I've played up to that point so I know exactly what to work with. Even though Cota himself is supposed to be different from how Xaela are explained and one of his major character traits is wanting to distance himself from being Xaela altogether, it's because of his experiences as a Xaela that he feels that way in the first place. It's hard to portray that accurately if I'm not even sure what being a Xaela means, not just a Sagahl.

Yeah, one significant part of his story was that the tribe itself was split into two schools of thought: killing in self-defense is okay vs. no killing no matter what. Something happens that eventually makes it impossible for both sides to stay as one and they break apart from each other, one side creating a new tribe entirely so as not to be associated with the other. One of my issues is that I'm not sure how scattered the tribes are? Do they usually stay in and move as one big unit, or are there usually camps scattered about with each camp having its own leader and variations on customs and beliefs? Are the camps usually small or do they vary in size? This is what I was going to go with: he comes from a relatively large camp of Sagahl that already has a rift in it on whether or not it's okay to kill in self-defense, and he's part of the family of leadership in that particular camp, which draws attention to him in positive and negative ways as he grows up. They are not isolationists, they trade with outsiders and allow outsiders in (though the people are torn on this issue too), make camp in areas with few aggressive beasts in order to avoid conflict, have their own beliefs and superstitions (for instance, a yellow moon is a bad omen, blue eyes are a blessing of Azim but not considered conventionally attractive or favorable), and the only herd they keep is sheep for their wool and milk. Fruits and vegetables are a delicacy, they're skilled weavers and metalsmiths, expert botanists, only use spears when they need to use weapons at all (on large vilekin, for instance; spears are best for piercing carapaces). Leadership is usually established by birth but can be challenged and taken through combat, but since they're largely more peaceful this only happens if they feel their leader is truly incapable of leading. The elderly are revered and give counsel but all final decisions are the leader's. Learning to read and write is treated with indifference, but if one has a particular passion for it they're considered odd. They don't believe magic should be used by mortal men, that doing so is inviting disaster because it's impossible to fully understand something that comes from the realm of the gods; it's dangerous and also extremely disrespectful. They're generally a quiet people who are more likely to side-eye the things they don't like/trust/believe in rather than outright say something about it. They can be passive-aggressive to a fault.

Thanks for your input! Those were definitely my main concerns. Obviously there will be other Sagahl out there, but so far I haven't even seen one in passing, and it looks like Cota might be the only one on the Xaela discord channel I'm in (atm). Admittedly, if I had planned him out before naming him, Sagahl is probably the last tribe I would've gone for, but I'm actually happy with it now. It's not as unique and thrilling as many of the others, but now I'm glad because it poses interesting challenges for development and interaction. I had considered the different camp idea but I wasn't sure how that worked, since I've barely started on Stormblood and it'll probably be a while before I get that far.

First let me say that while I have started Stormblood, I've barely played any of it yet and probably won't for a while. Okay so I've been working on a new character. He's a Xaela, and at first I didn't even plan to use him for RP, I was just messing around in the character creator and decided I wanted to make a new character to learn how to tank, but then I got attached to him and he developed a backstory before I knew it. Since no planning went into him beforehand, I'd used the name generator and went with the first name that struck my fancy--Cota Sagahl. While creating his backstory I stuck to the lore of the Sagahl, but the only thing I know (that any of us know, to the best of my knowledge?) is that they're basically vegetarian, they don't eat meat or use animals as beasts of burden. Therefore anything else concerning his past isn't lore-based because it's not in the lore. I've looked at all the lore posts concerning Xaela and I've seen nothing more concrete. So my question is, if I were to go into greater detail on the Sagahl tribe--like if I were to say they only use one type of weapon because they've no need for anything else due to their diet, or that they're excellent botanists and weavers, or that in order to defend themselves against aggressive beasts they use a sleeping powder to knock them out instead of kill them--would that be overstepping lore boundaries? Would it also be overstepping boundaries to assume they're on the more peaceful side because of their beliefs in beasts equaling men? If I've overdone it then I'll create a new/off-shoot clan, but I'd rather avoid the $10 name change. (Which I know isn't exactly necessary but I'm too detail-oriented not to.)