Stormblade

So, obviously in-game we're pretty durable. Bullets are a mild annoyance on the same level of getting stabbed in the face, hit by magic lightning, or being set aflame. But how much of that carries over into RP/lore? I could see magic users as having a pretty decent excuse - Protect spells and other barriers could be justified as blocking a gunshot or two, deflecting a sword swing, and so forth. And we also have proven evidence that aether is imbued into our clothing and armour the more we use it. So while it looks like we're wearing a flimsy robe, it could offer much more protection than it would seem. Essentially, how durable do you treat your character in terms of being wounded or incapacitated, either during battle or other things? Would a single bullet or stab wound ruin your day?

Is there a printing press? Or rather, are books something that can be mass produced cheaply or do they need to be hand-written/hand-copied and are therefore relatively expensive to buy and own?

Dumb question: What is dark aether? Is it just a kind of aspected aether, like wind or earth aether, or is it corrupted/tainted aether? Basically, is it inherently bad or just another form of naturally occurring aether in the world?

The real question is whether or not there's a huge bounty on his head for blowing up the moon.

With this, don't worry overmuch about needing to memorize all the lore before RPing - most people, even on the continent of Eorzea, would be concerned mostly or entirely with what's going on in their own lives and around them, and not know or care that much about the greater political movements happening half a world away. So, for example, you could be a miqo'te who had spent most of their life with their clan or tribe and knows very little about the cultures and histories of the nations and races. Or an Au Ra who has just arrived to Eorzean shores, and is unfamiliar with how things are done here. Or a Roegadyn Hellsguard, just recently kicked out of their secluded home in the mountains because of overpopulation, and similarly new to how things are done elsewhere. Or a generic recluse/hermit who has been out of touch with civilization for most of their life. And if nothing else, there's the old standby of amnesia.

From your first post, I also assumed your pet peeve wasn't so much the scales being sensitive at all, but more "they lightly brushed my scales and I'm now writhing on the ground because of the overwhelming sensations".

True, that makes sense. It would be interesting to see more lore from the perspective of within a Keeper clan. You'd have siblings growing up together, then the brother leaves for months or years at a time, coming back every so often to visit relatives and "visit" non-relatives. Even for family, there would probably be a mixture of being glad to see him back and uneasiness because it'd be strange having an adult male around. I wonder if visiting males bring presents to try and help them 'woo' prospective mates. Maybe stroll into the settlement with some hunting trophies - both to display hunting prowess and to give the women some extra food so they have free time for hanky panky instead of hunting. If one male is already visiting, would a second male skip to the next settlement or try to compete? Probably depends. Keeper lore is so fascinating. And so is Hellsguard! A society where you basically kick out extra kids into the world - it's like Pokémon, but they become mercenaries. I'd imagine they rarely, if ever, go back to visit the Spines - so you'd have old, retired mercenaries who vaguely remember their parents and a few elder siblings, but have no idea if they have any younger brothers and sisters who are out in the world like they are. They had to kill a Roegadyn the other day in a fight - that could've been a sibling, born a few years after they were. And thanks to their naming convention, they'd never even know it.

Thank you! That answered my questions completely - except for the Hellsguard one, which apparently hasn't been given an answer in the lore. So, do they have permanent settlements? Could you stumble upon a Keeper 'family group' in the Shroud, and see houses and whatnot, or is it more of a situation where they pitch tents in one place for a little while and then move on, with various family's shifting between different groups over time? Do we know about what age male Keepers get kicked out? I'd assume around puberty, for obvious reasons. I wonder if daughters stay with the mother's family group, or also wander off to join a different group - maybe to scatter the gene pool a bit more.

A few random questions; - Do pugilists use aether in their attacks? Monks clearly do, after unlocking their chakras, but does that mean a pugilist cannot, because their chakras would be closed? - Is there such a thing as 'antimagic'? Ways to prevent casters from using spells in a certain area (like a jail cell?), or shackles that prevent gathering aether, or something along those lines? - Can objects be imbued with aether so as to mimic spells? I don't mean Aetherial gear, which as far as I know just 'a shield, but stronger', but something along the lines of a THM embuing fire-aspected aether into a sword, and then selling the sword to someone, and they have a flaming sword (despite not being a THM). - Are chocobos eaten? Or is it like horses, where some cultures do eat them, but it's generally seen as not a thing you do? I don't remember seeing any cows - is there a milk-producing livestock, or one that's regularly slaughtered for meat? - For Hellsguard, it says that extra children are sent off to become mercenaries or whatnot, since the Spines can't support a growing population. Is that done while they're still kids, so you have 10-year old Roegadyn looking for work, or do they wait for adulthood? The former seems somewhat cruel, but the latter seems illogical if the problem is resources - you'd be feeding them through puberty and then getting rid of them once they're productive. - For miqo'te, is it that Seekers have settlements that has a few males and a bunch of females in one general location, and then Keepers with small villages made entirely of women/children and all the males roam between them, stopping only long enough to mate a few times before moving on to the next village? I thought this was the case, but I've been seeing some Keeper RPers who seem to have them similar to Seekers where everyone lives together all the time, and the only difference is the women are in charge.

I thought Voidsent were like summons, and they went 'poof' when they were killed...

Thanks! I agree, that using the physical differences is best done when agreed by all parties. I was just wondering how often people actually use any differences in their roleplay, or if they deliberately treat the races as on equal ground in terms of strength and hearing and so forth. Your breakdown is really interesting, though - I didn't know that Hellsguard Roegadyn were actually great mages, of all things. I had been thinking about trying out a scholar-type character, and it sounds like that might actually work with a Roe - which would be nice, since you don't see them very often.

Do you mean like how an ant is incredibly strong for its size, but a beetle would still be able to overpower it because it's simply much bigger? Or do you mean more like how a smaller person who knows karate can probably win against someone large and bulky who doesn't know how to fight at all?

Is a Xaela's strength something mentioned in the lore book? I wouldn't have thought it would be that high, just by looking at them. Good point, though - I probably should've posted this in the RP section. It would probably be bad to just repost it again in that forum, though, right?

This was brought up in another topic, but do you roleplay the different races as having different physical capabilities (miqo'te able to jump higher and be more agile than hyur) or as basically the same (your lalafell can arm-wrestle a roegadyn and win at least half the time)? My first instinct would be toward differences - it seems logical to me that a roegadyn would always win in terms of physical strength against the other races unless magic is involved, a miqo'te probably has the best night vision and is very agile/flexible, lalafell are quick and can easily hide from the larger races, hyur would be jack-of-all, master-of-none, Au Ra likely have a natural toughness thanks to their scales, etc. But I can see where that would impose limitations on people and is contrary to some scenes from the game - we see a lalafell fighting seemingly evenly with a hyur in the pugilism arena, most fighting is done with aether-enhancement which would make muscles potentially meaningless, people enjoy have a character that looks slender but is stronger than visibly muscular character, and so forth. What do other people think? What do you usually see played out, IRP? Whether it be people competing in a foot race, or arm-wrestling, or an RP fight where it comes down to a contest of strength or agility?

So, aside from Au Ra and miqo'te, are the other races significantly different from human/hyur biologically? For example, are lalafell basically small humans, or do they have a higher/cooler body temperature, or lay eggs instead of live births, or does their hair sense vibrations in the air? Are roegadyn basically just tall hyur, or is there something different about them? They have blue or red skin, depending on whether they're from the sea or the mountains - maybe it's because they have a gradual adaption of camouflage when they live somewhere across generations, or maybe it helps regulate body temperature? Do they have a higher metabolism, to support their large size? Or do they have a lower metabolism, but need to sleep longer per day and get tired more easily, like large mammals? Do lalafell mature faster than humans, becoming adult-size in fewer years? Could you mistake a 10-year old lalafell for a 50-year old one? Maybe other lalafell can tell the difference, but other races can't - cue the 60-year old claiming with a straight face to be his own 20-year old son for tax evasion purposes? Can lalafell survive a fall from extremely high distances? Do roegadyn have extremely strong bones? Are roegadyn agile and fast, in spite of their size, or are they slower and ponderous compared to humans and miqo'te, and even more so to lalafell? Based off nothing but assumptions, I'd say a lalafell and roegadyn can jump only slightly into the air, while a miqo'te can jump very high, elezen and hyur somewhere in the middle. Or is this wrong? Do miqo'te grow fur, or do they have mostly hairless skin except for their scalp and face? Is their scalp hair like human hair, or is it coarse like animal fur? Does it continue growing out like hair, or does it grow to a certain length and then shed, like fur? Hellsguard Roegadyn live in high mountains - are they accustomed to thinner air? Can they hold their breath for longer than other races, because sea level air is much thicker to them? Do miqo'te use their tails for balance, like large cats? If a miqo'te lost their tail, would they become clumsy and disoriented?

That would actually explain a lot.

Even within the game and the lore book, there are plenty of gaps or things like unsaid that leave room for industrious roleplayers to fill with ideas, theories, assumptions, and weirdness that collectively get referred to as 'headcanon'. So what is your favorite - one that you've come up with to fill in something for your character's backstory, something you've heard from other folks, something you sometimes forget is not actual canon?

In-game on a regular basis, what variety of RP do you usually see around you, or do you actively participate in? For example; an adventuring event with combat and exploration, a social event at a bar or other venue, a celebration of a holiday/birthday/wedding, a romantic or relationship-based event, or something else? Or maybe do you wish you'd see something more often, or maybe less often? Just wondering what the more common varieties of roleplay are out there and that people usually see/experience in FFXIV.

So, looking at Sounsyy's link, I think this answers my faerie question: --- MCKF: “Yes, the second one. Fairies again, while they fall under the taxonomy of elementals, they are actually beings that were created. They did not exist before. The Scholar would take the energies and elements from around them and would basically create these beings that were made of the elements.” Q: “Those are bound to the soul crystal then and passed from one person to the next where carbuncle is more one per person. Very cool.” --- So a Carbuncle is created by an individual Arcanist by carving diagrams into a gemstone (ruby, topaz, etc), and each arcanist's Carbuncle is slightly different and personalized to them. So your Carbuncle would remember what you told it a week ago, even if you had unsummoned and resummoned it a dozen times, but no other arcanist's Carbuncle would know that info, because their personality and memory is bound into the gem. So the Scholar's Soulstone would be a more complex version of that, able to house the presumably more complicated diagrams and formulae needed to create a Faerie. Since they're passed down from Scholar to Scholar, the process of making a Faerie is probably one that takes a long time and a lot of skill/knowledge. It also means the Faeries have stronger individual personalities, since they're far older than the average Carbuncle, and longer memories, for the same reason. So making a new Faerie would probably be both a lost art and something that would consume an entire lifetime of effort, only to be passed down to one's students. Oh well. At least I've learned that I should be able to personalize my Carbuncle and teach her tricks, since each one is a unique entity.

Thank you! That cleared up a lot about the different magic practices. So, is the difference between arcanist and scholar just the ability to summon a faerie? A summoner would need to be exposed to Titan aether, which presumably very few people are in a global scale, but from reading about the job quests, it seems that 'faerie summoning' was just sort of a lost art. You mention that BLM and WHM can't really use their spells without suiciding if they don't have the job crystal, but could an arcanist learn how to summon a faerie without needing the crystal?

All magic users draw from aether, right? So is the difference between them only how they turn the aether into a spell? From what I've heard, arcanists use sigils and designs recorded in a book to turn a little aether into a big spell. Conjurers slowly absorb aether through their staves to cast spells. White Mages and Black Mages draw aether directly from the world. Thaums use rituals to the same effect as arcanist's designs. Astros draw aether from the stars (???), and Red Mages use... their sword? Not sure about those. Also, what are arcanist/scholar/summoner summons? I thought Carbuncle was just a semi-independent mass of aether, customized by the arcanist with whatever designs and patterns they carve into the gem they use for the summoning - so, depending on how the arcanist shaped the gem and what formulas they use, their Carbuncle might be obedient or willful or affectionate or stubborn. And I guess Egi's are smaller versions of the Primals, which the arcanist/summoner can create because they were exposed to that Primal's aether and are basically making a smaller "copy" of it. But what are faeries? Are they like Carbuncles, or are they like Egi's?