Aya

That is really fantastic! :-D

I love to see this sort of thing! Good luck with the drawing! :-D

Wayfarer's Bestfarer's! People should come stop by this wonderful little spot with the friendly staff! (Aya's totally never served there... nope.. nope.. okay, definitely has!)

That's great to hear Valic! Welcome to the RPC

Aaaah! Neat! Welcome back! :-D

A return of Ayaka sketches! Terrific as always! :-D

Weeeeeelcome to Balmung and the RPC! Even if I may never see you...! Day and night are what you make of them! I usually go by NA times (as an American that's pretty natural, but I did it while overseas as well) but any scene you play you can play as any time of day! The actual in-game day-night cycle is so fast that it has to be ignored or else you would have your head spinning :-D

Well... Aya and Faye already know each other! Aya and Therin have an incredible amount in common, to the point of Therin's name being almost identical to Aya's actual family name...!

Sounds really neat! :-D

Is that a banana avatar? Welcome to the RPC!

Exactly! Wiki's don't have to be that sophisticated to get the job done ^^ Then again I wouldn't even know where to begin with a tumblr side bar. That sounds a whole lot more involved than a character wiki!

I like this thread more every time I look at it! :-D

Don't feel too bad... I envisioned Highlanders as a celtic-Norse inspiration, and ran with that as well. I think there is room enough for your interpretation! :-D Sounsyy as always has all the best information

Highlanders have long been renown mercenaries, and you can surely find Highlander families and communities scattered across Eorzea. Although how many generations they stay physically distinct is hard to stay This is how Aya's relatives, with whom her family eventually went to stay, had come to Coerthas, and then Ishgard.

Seems fine to me... and a rather down to earth character which I like! Welcome to Balmung and the RPC

Hiii! Welcome to the RPC and to Balmung! Hopefully you find the transfer worth it I don't know how much RP actually occurs in LSes, beyond the occasional "phone-like" conversation that involves multiple people and is easier to handle that way than in a party. Head-cannons are definitely a thing, there is no way around it. For one, people have RP experiences that roughly 0.01% of the community shares. For two, the lore and the expressed world are not complete. There's a wide expanse of grey area to be explored and worked within. That said, the more firmly rooted in shared canon the better. I know there are quite a few head-canon assumptions in Aya's own background, for example, but nothing that could not be hand-waved away to RP with her if, for example, someone didn't want to believe that there is more Ishgardian city beneath the surface portion that we can access in-game.

I dunno... seems pretty great to me! Welcome to Balmung... FINALLY! :-D hehe

[align=center][/align] [align=center][Homecoming - Part Five][/align] [align=center][/align] Just how long had it been. A couple of years? But, it felt like a lifetime. So much then had been uncertain. Not, "so much", really, but just about everything. There was only one thing she'd known for sure in those long moments: she would either escape Ishgard, or die trying. An escape is really what it were. The Sealed Gates not only protected the city from infiltration, but also kept the working people of the city from fleeing the endless winter that left the stone towers encased in a permanent layer of frost. It had been a convenient policy: power had never before been so centralized in the hands of the Clericy and their willing accomplices amidst the Houses. The statutory trade monopolies that resulted from the limited number of passage permits allocated to merchants, only encouraged the concentration of wealth and political influence among the favored few. While the rest, those whose blood, sweat, and toil kept the city running day-to-day, were offered the tossed down scraps of a whithering economy at the sharpened point of a lancer's spear. Of course, there was a war on. The only thing worse than the enemy we knew, was that we could never understand. The Dravanians, and their Heretic Allies who's machinations and assaults could mean the end of the city itself if not for the Fury's blessing, and the ceaseless toil of her flawed Church and the soldiers they inspired. Such was the lot of Ishgard's Blessed Holy See. One could wonder why anyone bothered asking why she'd left. Today only a gentle flurry darkened the sky. It felt strange to regard the Gates of Judgement from this angle: outside looking in. They were a monumental piece of stonework, nearly as intimidating as the sealed gates that had once locked her in the city. The last time she had set foot here had been a clear night, during a new moon when the sky was darkened to a pitch black. Crossing the bridge itself had been the most terrifying ordeal of her life: in her troubled imagination the structure spanned some ten miles or more, every foot patrolled by guardsmen angling to send her off to Witchdrop for a final test of her righteousness as an accused blasphemer. How she had clung to shadow, and dangled amidst the superstructure that supports the span from below. There, there was nothing solid between her and the gaping chasm that opened like an inky black maw below. How the ferocious winter wind had howled and roared around her. It was as if a hungry beast: ready to consume everything that came its way. For years that chasm had been believed to be her grave: another foolish would-be fugitive who'd met her judgement. Her friends and family had thought it her sad fate; her father blamed himself all the while, for having set his daughter upon a path of such desperation. Somehow, she now believed it would be different. That the years, and the passing circumstances would have softened the emotional power of the lifeless stone structure. But standing before it now, she know just how wrong she had been. Her concerns about passing the gates had been overblown: the passport restrictions had become so loose that the mere suspicion of her being an adventurer was enough to earn hand-waved passage. The cloak and adventurer's kit she wore draped over her head and body had likely been unnecessary, still the better to avoid scrutiny. But having passed beneath the arches she now stood paralyzed before the span. How she struggled with that first step. To set foot upon the bridge that had once been the threshold between life and death. Old life and new. She tried to remember what it was like to cross as a child, entering the city for the first time: with so much ease and hopefulness. At last, she had dreamed, a proper home, even family of their own! Now she stood motionless, imagining the faces of Uncle and Aunt, of their children, and other relatives. She imagined the faces of her brothers, to whom she had been so close, and to whom she now stood so near. She imagined her mother and father: young, and then old. She thought of her father: ailing and in bed. Wondering if he would ever see his daughter again. "That stupid Verad..." she spoke aloud, as if she could really blame the Duskwight's invitation for forcing her return to the city. Her return home. She leaned forward, drawing a foot along the way. One foot followed the next. The wind swept hard across the open span, roaring through the chasm like a hungry beast. Every moment relived that night of terror. Every step forward recalled the fear, the frostbite, the brutal, gnawing regret. She girded herself as she had that lifetime ago: This was her decision. She'd come this far. Nothing could stop her. And so, Aya Tharintreu, returned, at last, to her Tower City home. (Screen shot by @kiskiphelone via tumblr, and used with grateful permission!)

You really are evil! :-D

Hi Darcey! This is the normal status for Balmung, although it can sometimes be snuck on to after resets that about the only time it is ever open (and there is almost always even a short queue to log on, but I think they changed it to a soft queue with a brief maximum wait at some point, that or the server is literally always hovering just right at the cap!) The most reliable way to get on server is to perform a character transfer. That also allows you to move, I think, up to eight characters at a time if you like alts, or think you ever may want some alt slots. Good luck!

I agree with the first point, although I actually liked the opening scene as hard as it was to jump right into, I liked the aesthetic and it did a better job of establishing the regular menace of the Empire than anything in the original trilogy. But I don't agree with the second. Yes, its obviously not perfect, but I thought that having Tarkin (a wonderful character) added so much continuity and power to this film that a little suspension of disbelief was warranted in terms of accepting his CGIed stand in. Totally worth it! But I really do like, "What's a Moff?" Tarkin. (Peter Cushing added so much gravitas to A New Hope, and to the Empire itself. It could not have been the same franchise without him).

Yay! Welcome! This is a wonderful place to start RPing, though its not always easy. Feel free to come here for advice or help meeting people! There's also the fun little chatbox at the bottom of your screen, handy for making some friends!

What a lovely introduction! Welcome to the wild world of Balmung, and the RPC! :-D I hope you find it as amazing as I do!

I had written a long post about my appreciation for Balmung, the RPC, and the RP community, but my web browser decided to trick me into deleting it. So... I'll just say that I find the grass a lot greener. A whole lot greener. I wouldn't change the way things have gone for anything. Its not perfect, but nothing in the real world is. That's not to say that those who haven't enjoyed it are wrong, or that their experiences lack authority. Only that, on the whole, I'm incredibly happy about our community. I don't want people reading the thread to think that everyone is unhappy with it

Can I interview a young Harrison Ford please? And Mark Hamill was just adorable! Thanks for sharing