Khadan

I think I see the point of the OP. Or at least I think I can resonate with the general theme of the topic. It is semi-frustrating to be someone who loves conventional martial arts and incorporates that into RP for the purposes of not only being knowledgeable and realistic but also because it's just plain fun to have a gritty dust up where you don't spend five episodes powering up while internally monologue'ing about your tragic past (I love hyperbole) That being said, it is a high fantasy with magic almost literally -everywhere- but I still believe a balance can be had with little effort on either side of the 'knives' as it were. I.e. you move faster, hit harder, take more punishment etc. You can still display the sheer brutality, economy of movement, and debilitating blows that occur in a normal knife fight will being aetherically charged the whole time. Regardless a really good example of knife fighting to me is from the move "The Hunted", a really well done and underrated film (It also takes place in Portland Oregon *represent*) If you have no intention of watching the movie even though you should, have a movie clip of an example of how nasty and brutal knife fights can be: pKjkQ_sPE0U Otherwise just go see the whole movie, it really is good. One of the best quotes from the making of was something along the lines of "In a knife fight one of you is going to the morgue, the other is going to the hospital"

On my Xaela I've jokingly referred to Raen Au Ra as "Pale Scale" before =P

Something else to keep in mind is that the majority of the Xaela are highly nomadic on their horses roaming over the steppes etc. I imagine that word could spread relatively quickly if it had to and if there was enough fear of being annhilated by the Garleans then they'd likely hoof it quickly to wherever there was a port and ships waiting to take them. There's also a few seafaring Xaela tribes that could likely have taken ship on their own or taken other tribes with them etc. Trading vessels that come and go from Othard and Doma regularly enough (which also means there's a relatively high chance of smuggling going on) plus with the Doman migration to Mor Dhona it wouldn't be long before more ships were sent back to look for survivors and refugees etc. In all of that the Xaela have quite a few options to get from point A to point B. The real question is how does this race of steppes-dwelling horsemen (and women) cope with likely having to leave their horses behind and go to the land of horsebirds? Not having wide open land to resume their nomadic lifestyle and so on? The psychological effects these massive changes would incur, as well, could be thought of. Many things to think on =)

Winner winner chicken dinner From what I've seen the armor choices look pretty darn good and save a single piece here or there seem to keep well in the theme of the classes as well as the theme of the expansion itself. FF14 has its own aesthetic and it seems to stay pretty true to it most of the time. Except for bards. goddamn, bards...

I actually have to wonder about the quality of Xaela horseflesh, myself. As with the Mongolians, the horses "native" to the region of the steppes were usually the more shaggy "pony" type. Shorter, stocky animals more suited to hauling things than warfare or speed. This, of course, makes more sense for a nomadic people to have stocky work animals rather than war mounts but as with the Mongolians, the native horses were of 'mediocre' quality in comparison to the horses in the Western world. So did they (the Xaela) acquire horses somewhere else OR, in a divergence from the Mongolian-Xaela parallel, did they always have the best horses because the other large continent favors Chocobos? Also on a side note, when are we getting those normal-ish horse mounts, SE? Regardless, as an amateur student of Mongolian history I've found myself becoming more and more enamored by the concept of the Au Ra, the Xaela in particular, obviously. This is good times =)

Probably a small thing but I don't believe there are any slaves in Ishgard. Just nobility and peasants. =P

^^^

The first question I will ask is: What do you think of this thread? Do you agree with what I think has happened in the RPC community? Was the RPC community always this way? I think it's a good thread in intent, sure. I also believe that no topic is 'sacred' or 'off limits' because of the innocuous chance of 'offense'. I will hold a discussion with anyone on anything, at any time because that is my right to do so and 'censoring' discussions don't help anyone or any situation, ever; even the most heinous topics are up for debate, discussion, and ultimately skepticism. So when you mention if I and others agree on what has happened to the RPC community? Well I suppose so, to a degree. Though this isn't any different than anywhere else; this isn't unique to the RPC. You see this a lot on tumblr, of course, and other online communities. Sanitizing discussions, hugbox cliques, passive aggressive behavior, and the general nature of 'offense/outrage culture' lend people to believe that they have a right to never be offended (they don't), and that their feelings are valid reasons for ceasing a discussion (they aren't). Of course the opposite to this is if the site rules DO state that such things are the case, which as far as I know aren't the case though given that we're about to experience an ownership/moderatorship/adminship change here, things might change. Was it always this way? I can't honestly say one way or the other. I can say that what I've observed is that the moderatorship of the RPC is and has been far too involved in the RPC's general discussions. My personal experiences moderating an equally sized community in the past for TESO have shown me that the more involved the moderators are the more unhappy people are with the moderators. Tone policing, nitpicking every word looking for 'offenses', and getting into petty arguments with the users do not endear a community to you, your authority, or whatever order you're trying to maintain; just because someone reports something and/or is 'offended' does not mean it warrants action. On the nature of gifs etc, I think people kneejerk too hard on them as if they are some kind of giant lump of feces in the middle of their driveway that they're about to step in. It's kind of ridiculous to fixate on the use of images rather than focus on, say, the reason and intention behind why people use these images. To me it's like using vulgar language. IRL I swear pretty much every hour of every day because to me language is just language; it's only 'offensive' if employed offensively. However do I swear to people at work? Of course not unless I'm absolutely confident that it won't get me in trouble, of course. The difference being that a workplace IS a sanitized area for many reasons, some legitimate, others not. People tend to use gifs and images as a sort of passive aggressive caltrops, on average. That's pretty shitty and shouldn't be condoned. If, however, an image compliments what you're saying and is on the topic of whatever you're responding to? That's fine. Just like swearing; if the language fits the narrative then good. If not, then you're just being a tool.

Kayllen is the second son/3rd child of a small noble house which is a vassal house to Dzemael. Through various things involving "story" he was presumed dead and fled Ishgard after some betrayal related business where he lived in Thanalan for several years. Recently, also through "story" he's been recognized as 'still alive', had to answer for charges of heresy and betrayal, and plans to retake his house from the forces that currently control it. His ultimate goals aren't known by really anyone yet but for now, his reasons for not being IN Ishgard are likely that it would mean he'd be assassinated.

I don't think that's entirely accurate. I'll try not to go on a tangent here though the topic has been discussed at length, before, but Ishgard is actually a Theocratic nation with a Feudal system firmly in place. If a 'Knight' barged into a church demanding a wedding he'd probably be told to gtfo, sure, but if he went through the proper channels his status as a knight would probably grant him precedence over lower class requests for the same thing. The main reason there's so many assassination attempts at Ishgardian weddings is, as stated before, that they are largely political. Nobility marries other nobility not really for love but for power, influence, money, and so on. The issue with this is when two houses get involved in that kind of union other houses lose out on that and sometimes they get a bit butthurt about such things; butthurt enough to hire a contract killer to stop the wedding because why the heck not? Beyond that, though, "personal freedom" seems to be still a thing in regards to one's ability to advance in society if Aymeric is any example. When it comes to marriages elsewhere well Ishgard's patron deity is Halone but they still recognize the Twelve (of which Halone is a part of; 1/12th or 8.33% a part of to be exact), so it stands to reason that an Eternal Bond held at the Sanctum of the Twelve, for example, would be just as legally recognized in Ishgard as anywhere else. They may not LIKE it especially if the couple fled Ishgard to do it and they happened to be nobility and married against the wishes of their houses etc, but then that's why we have assassins. =P Anyway that's my mini rant about personal freedoms and Ishgard etc.

I go with the price of food and compare similar food items to RL for money comparisons. *shrug*. I know, I know, game-to-RL-comparison thought crime activate. A decent meal can cost anywhere from 10-15 dollars while more expensive meals are obviously in the 20-30 dollar range. I think you can buy basic food items for like 10 gil sooooo, there we go. As for making thousands of gil by level 20? Well you're also getting paid to go out weapon in hand and actively kill monsters that can easily kill you in return. PMC's IRL can make roughly 500-750 dollars a day or 15k to 22.5k a month. So it seems legit that you're holding thousands of gil by level 20ish.

Well it could be a the difference between 'literacy' and symbol recognition. Like most kids know before they can even read well what a red octagonal sign with the word "STOP" on it means. They recognize the symbols more than the actual word. The Eorzean alphabet is pretty 'rune rich' and, (once again engaging in IRL comparison thought crimes) 'back in the day' even illiterate workers, sailors, and soldiers all generally knew what "tavern" was or "food". Generally because there are always recognizable symbols and words that everyone generally knows. If an illiterate person actually needed to have a letter written then there was always a ready supply of clerks to hire who would take dictation for you, a profession that means something entirely different, today as the expectation is literacy by age 10 give or take (assuming we're talking the Western World here of course). I suppose you could call that the difference between 'actual literacy' and 'passable literacy'. Though there does seem to be this odd disparity with the expectation of the 'layperson' being largely illiterate yet a large prevalence on letters and books which might dictate that literacy is more widespread than we're led to believe. I think the quote is "A large portion of Eorzea is illiterate" so it also could be that the term 'large' just means anything over 30% which by our standards today is pretty significant when it comes to illiteracy.

Every in game version of a gunblade (short of Lightning's non-canon one) has a cylinder for chambered ammunition. Since the Garleans can't by biology use Aether it would seem more likely that they would make a gun and then bullets for it. The effect you're speaking of is likely tracer ammunition or the glow is an aftereffect of whatever powder mixture they're using; that or they're also using ceruleum to power their ammo the crazy gits. The sparking effect was the high-velocity round impacting the WoL's armor and likely breaking up into shards, though something obviously got through enough to wound him which is pretty common when shooting at anything through material. I don't forsee any new classes until the next expansion, either, here's hoping for Ala Mhigo once Ishgard is secured =P

In before Gunadin. They'll call the Gunbladers "SeeD" >> I want to simultaneously high-five and strangle you for that LOL

In before Gunadin.

I would still go back to the whole notion of only seeing officers and high-ranking individuals with gunblades. As not every soldier has one it stands to reason that the common soldiery either wasn't allowed to train with them, wasn't able to due to limited quantity, or simply that they didn't need to. I.e. it doesn't really make any sense to take a modern day Marine and rather then train him or her in marksmanship with a rifle and squad tactics to then say "oh by the way we're also going to train you to use a sword because... reasons!" It's generally better to play to a soldier's strengths, anyway. With the conscripts being primarily Eorzean it's likely that the idea of using a gun or a gunblade wasn't even something they considered or were ever considered for due to the lack of evidence of any prevalence whatsoever of the weapon in Eorzea. If you want to say that your own character(s) is familiar with that kind of weaponry then that's of course just fine.

There's a few points I want to address here and yes I'm going to engage in the whole 'Basing my fantasy off of RL concepts' thought crime (which I might also address if I can be arsed). The first thing is "Do gun blades exist and are they functional in FF14", obviously yes, the Garlean Empire is the go-to for this in general. On that topic, though, I'd point out that the development of such things as well as all their magitek advances have come about as a direct result of not having ready access to Aether; i.e. they needed to level the playing field since Aether is kind of a big deal. It literally allows one person to act as a walking artillery emplacement, field surgeon, bulwark, building demolishing with fists person, or leaping direct strike attacker. It is crazy powerful and crazy advantageous, hence why the Garleans conscript as many Eorzeans as they can. On the point of technology, you develop technology to make up for societal problems such as sanitation, medicine, construction, and so on. When those societal problems don't exist because you have 'magic' to take care of many problems for you then technological advancement almost by definition would take a backseat; why would you wish to solve a problem that no one has? Garleans have no magic but through 'magitek' they can solve most of their problems. Do guns exist in Eorzea? Of course. You see rifle racks all over in Limsa Lominsa as well as people in the Marauder's guild practicing with what look like black powder pistols (despite the rifles looking like bolt action magazine-loaded rifles...). As was as Merlwyb who uses a pair of double-barreled pistols that she can apparently rapid fire. So why are gunblades not more prevalent in both the Garlean ranks (you only ever see a few people actually using them and even their robots barely use guns) and in Eorzea because if it's such an obvious advantage it would overtake modern 'fantasy' weaponry just as it did in the real world; the advent of black powder and cannons/rifles completely changed how war was fought. Well that's a pretty easy explanation, believe it or not. The answer is still -Aether-. This stuff allows Eorzeans to be on par with guns and artillery which, while still devestating, barely puts them on even ground with your average Eorzean fighter who can run faster, hit harder, heal quicker, shrug of damage better, and do any number of things better than their Garlean opponents. I did state that I engage in the thought crime of basing my fantasy off of reality and so I have but I'll go further. Medieval armor, for example, was actually really poor at stopping black powder weaponry. It was great at stopping hand weapons, yes, save for specific weapons meant to mess up someone in armor (like a warhammer or mace) yet somehow Eorzeans still manage to stand up against their weapons. IRL a gun would make short work of someone in a suit of plate, in Eorzea through various quest text and so on you see blurbs of Paladins using aether to augment their strikes as well as their defenses which seems to indicate that the aforementioned 'plot armor' being able to stop bullets is now a reality. Also quick note: you only see Garleans of 'rank' using any kind of projectile weaponry which might indicate the gun blade to be a symbol of rank or status while other forms of projectile weaponry are modified for the individual, also of suitable rank. Normally though you wouldn't attach a gun to a blade, you would just carry a sword and a gun as they serve two entirely different roles and are made in two entirely different ways with entirely different processes. tl;dr if guns exist it stands to reason that they would dominate the battlefield unless something else were being used that was just as effective if not more effective: i.e. Aether-enhanced soldiers. Probably have more on this later as really the advent of firearms when confronted with something as ambiguously powerful as 'magic' is practically an entire anthropological and sociological essay by itself. Such are the things I think of, though. lol

*Points to forum title 'Ishgardian OG'* In seriousness, though, there's been a roughly 6-month story arc I've been running with my FC and friends whose culmination is returning to Ishgard. Most people for several different reasons. Some for revenge, some for justice, save the world etc. Family drama is great. =P Ultimately returning home to reclaim(?) his house from a corrupt matriarch and so on. From there it would be to join the Dragoons to help end the Dragonsong War once and for all.

"Oh you're from Ishgard? But it's like totally Elezen thou--" https://i.warosu.org/data/tg/img/0211/06/1350139867664.gif[/img] "Aren't there like only FOUR noble houses in Ishg--" http://media.giphy.com/media/128GjQtktRQWY0/giphy.gif[/img] "I see from your sword and shield that you're obviously a gladiator/palad--" http://cdn.smosh.com/sites/default/files/ftpuploads/bloguploads/0513/funny-avengers-gif-GTFO.gif[/img] And so, so many others... :frustrated:

Pitch for Warren: Square-Enix clarifies in new lore dump that the Coliseum is the only Syndicate-sanctioned fighting arena and that all other tournaments have long since been outlawed throughout Thanalan, thereby effectively retconning the Grindstone out of existence as far as headcanon goes. What would Warren be doing instead? I'd throw a pitch at everyone who's ever posted in this thread but I'm at work, don't have the time, and I feel like Warren cheated his way out of a real answer in his original post. I challenge everyone to try and answer the prompt, though. I'll take a swing at this as well for funzies. I used to participate in the Grindstone back in the day but I haven't been to it or participated in it in a long time, now. That being said, I can see the logic behind the Syndicates trying to quash something like the Grindstone, heck that's perfectly good entertainment being spectated on for free! No concessions? No tickets to get in? Sometimes the winner gets a cash prize, too? WTF! *flexes [Graft] powers and sends in all the brass blades to inflict as much police brutality as possible* That being said, I'd say that it would be something to use a challenge rather than an obstacle. How do the free people's of Eorzea deal with a sanction like this? I would post that they either give it the Tyler Durden treatment "The first rule of Grindstone is you don't talk about Grindstone..." make it more 'underground' and shady, etc. Give it that real 'two people duking it out dirty cardboard in a basement' feeling; loser gets dragged off to a corner by two shirtless guys and tossed out the back or laid down in front of a medical clinic, etc. That kind of gritty stuff is always good fun. Alternately there could be other things like I think someone suggested making it more like 'the peasant's coliseum' and perhaps Warren or whomever has to pay off the Brass Blades regularly in order to keep the Syndicate either satisfied or in the dark which runs its own set of risks and potentials for RP and growth. It could be forced to move to another region or to continuously move throughout Thanalan in order to keep the Blades off their ass or lastly it could be held in Little Ala Mhigo or something where, despite a Brass Blades presence, they could probably write it off as 'cultural stuff'. Lots of possibilities!

That's a fair point. It's a sort of civil 'put your money where your mouth is' exercise and it's been great fun so far plus I always enjoy the opportunity to go over my own concepts with a critical lens. Thanks for engaging me! That's a good question. It's easy to say someone was trained to be the way they are and thus can't always 'break' that conditioning. I would say that his current mental state would have come from the thought and fear of being hunted and killed by those that betrayed his TK unit when his Father died. That kind of thing isn't something that would stand up to scrutiny especially when the claim was made that there were no witnesses survivors that could counter the story. Especially the son of a well known individual who 'comes back to life' and states for the record "Hey those guys did the bad thing!". The notion that you're being hunted, that your whole existence hinges on not being found out, caught, discovered, and/or outed to someone who sought to profit from your death is enough to make anyone a little jumpy or sociopathically paranoid. I imagine that the main change would be his coming to Thanalan a bit more 'naive' and developing IN to the colder emotionally cold person that he is now. Ul'Dah is a city where someone would probably sell their own mother for a nickel; it's known as the City of Sin and even the Grand Company's motto is "For Coin and Country" emphasizing a priority on money over patriotism. All in all it's a great place to disappear al la Jason Bourne but it's also a place where a misstep could lead to getting a knife in the neck if you're careless with your information. Rather than it being "This is how I survive, here" it would be "This is how I learned to survive, here." There would be some story elements to change as far as how his life went from arrival to current day but those would be easy enough tweaks to make. If his training was as you posed before, such that required him to be fully emotional and open etc, a place like Ul'dah is the first place I'd pick to try and break that conditioning. =P Good question!

Doing pretty good at bat so far, so mind if I throw a curveball? Newly revealed Ishgardian lore states that Dragoons and Temple Knights are entirely different factions: If a family line blossoms a dragoon, their line can never be temple knights and vice versa. What happens to your family history? Disclosure: If anyone has a link to your wiki in their signature, I've probably read it. Woo a lot to catch up on. Those nachos were good, too. ANYWAY I'll have to do a couple of posts so apologies ahead of time. This is a fairly good hypothetical, actually. Though I would pose that the simplest counter would be for a Dragoon bloodline to marry into a Temple Knight bloodline and thus negating said distinction. Though of course the counter-counter would be to make it matriarchal/patriarchal and that's how its decided, etc. As for Kayllen in that situation there's probably a couple of possibilities though for the sake of the exercise we'll go with "how do I keep things more or less the 'same' as they are now with these conditions". I would say that since his Father was a Temple Knight of substantial rank, obviously no Aymeric but enough to command his own force (Captain, perhaps?) then him joining the Temple Knights so far seems pretty on point. Later after the fall of the Blades of Halone (the name of the Temple Knights regiment he was in) he fled to the desert on orders from his Father to one day expose the betrayal that led them to ruin etc. At this point he is no longer a Temple Knight and, in fact, isn't really even 'alive' as far as the bureaucracy of Ishgard is concerned. All their Temple Knights were wiped out, the unit disbanded, and the family's resources that were tied to that were put elsewhere. Later when he returns to Ishgard or, rather, was forced to return because of 'circumstances' having to do with a rogue branch of the Faces of Mercy trying to kick off a war between the Eorzean Alliance and Ishgard he has to be re-acknowledged by the court and his family in order to be considered 'alive' and not an imposter or some such thing. Though having his faction of TK's disbanded still leaves him without a unit and having been written off as dead, the best thing he can hope for is to basically have no 'job' waiting for him back in Ishgard as far as the TK's are concerned. Besides, at worst he's been AWOL/MIA/KIA for 6-7 years, that's a hefty punishment if they chose to go that route. With him moving towards Dragoon these days due to 'acquiring' his Sister's soulstone which was their Grandfather's (which I suspect is part of the caveat of the questioning and it's easy enough to make it a distant relative or just not a relative's soul stone at all. The grandfather thing was just a nice twist in the family legacy story arc, anyway =P) I would say that in order to maintain his plot with him staying an aspiring Dragoon he would likely have to renounce any familial ties and become 'houseless'. He was already legally 'dead' and his Mother has denounced/renounced/disowned him anyway, leaving him out of the bloodline and so on. At this point I would say that, even though unconventional, he would still have a claim to be a Dragoon. Quick point of order, too, is that SE would have to retcon the lore tidbit that basically any Isghardian(?) that kills a dragon (I suspect it has to be a substantial dragon like Naul-type) is technically awarded the title "Dragoon". Though how they go from "guy who killed a dragon once" to "Jumping around ZOOMING Dragoon" is still unknown. Here's hoping we find out soon, though! =P Sorry for the lengthy reply!

I have no interest in whether or not SE will or will not actually do this. The question is a hypothetical. Plausibility rarely matters. That said, while you say it's a fighting style, your wiki also very clearly explains how it has a definite impact on a student's psychology, to the extent that you explicitly state its students have to learn not to think that way. If it turns out that the fighting style of the Temple Knights is one which similarly influences psychology to the extent that they are all, say, completely sincere and openly emotional in contrast to the absence of emotion that your current style describes, will Kayllen's psychology change to follow suit? Contrarily I'd submit that plausibility has a lot to do with it since you're delving into some drastic hyperbole in order to prove that, what? I would actually become upset if SE dropped a lore bomb that drastically affected my character? I wouldn't, ultimately it isn't that big of a deal because despite how some aspects of the character are pretty solid there's really nothing that could happen to him at this point that would ruin the character's narrative and story continuity due to extensive pre-planning beforehand. On a side note, your example would be an entirely unique 'style' in the wide world of martial pursuits, though I can appreciate your intent. On to your question, though. I would say that his psychology wouldn't change nor would need to change. He's been out of the Temple Knights for nearly 6-7 years, at this point and having left under rather 'curious' circumstances his entire life away from Ishgard has been one of having to be someone he necessarily isn't. It would be of practically little-to-no effort to shift the narrative from the training necessitating his mental state to his circumstances being the reasons for it. Again, this comes from a lot of pre-planning and from using real life historical representations of both martial arts and psychology. =) This discussion is pretty enjoyable, so far!

You discover that SE declares Dragoon fighting styles to be highly proscribed, and they have nothing to do with the Circle of Blades. It would be considered a terrible thing, in-setting, for such a character to have such a style, by lore, and no Temple Knight would ever use it. How do you retcon it? I would change it to whatever the proscribed style of fighting is in the lore, since, by the given example such a proscribed style of fighting would be highly detailed in said content drop. Adding to that it can simply be something passed down from father to son, too. It doesn't really change anything to do with the character and the back story is easily tailored to accommodate such a change. I'd also be pretty surprised if SE ever did such a thing since 'fighting styles' in FF14 are almost all singularly based on the weapon rather than how that weapon is used. It's an extremely unlikely hypothetical but there you have it. Also I see you perused my character wiki which makes you like... the fifth person in the world to do so lol. A couple points of clarification: the Circle of Blades was only taught in that group of Temple Knights as a means of perfect defense. Said group of Temple Knights were all wiped out due to a political betrayal. It is possible for the fighting style to be used with weapons other than sword-and-shield as it is a mindset more than a fighting style though it does favor the sword by virtue of its original design (La Destreza Spanish Fencing). Lastly there are only likely a small handful of surviving practitioners and only one of those is confirmed (Kayllen). Regardless SE coming in to say "the TK's only fight THIS way and NO OTHER WAY", is not going to be a problem as I've taken all that into account beforehand. =)

I dunno, I find it to be far more impressive for someone to play within the boundaries of the given sandbox than intentionally breaking the walls of it to suit a desired narrative. True creativity is shaping your works with the tools that you're given; not outsourcing the product to China =P That said, there's nothing wrong with some creative liberties here and there. I'm pretty sure every writer ever has done that.