Unnamed Mercenary

They are active, last I checked, but not on the RPC. You'll want to contact them through other means.

I'd recommend perusing the Making Connections forum and check out some wiki pages to get a general sense of things. RP Discussion and Lore Discussion are also good places to start if you're not sure about something, but want to get some general info on it, whether it be general RP things or something related to in-game. If you're looking for some linkshells, free companies, or groups, the the Club/Hall sections are also good, as well as http://tinyurl.com/where-is-the-rp which contains a bunch of discords. Since you're on Crystal datacenter, I'd definitely recommend to check out the Balmung and Mateus sections as well, as while you may not be able to join a linkshell or free company on those servers, you do have access to them via World Visit, which means a nice pick of open events. The RPC Calendar has a few dedicated feeds, and the vast majority of events you'll find on it are open to anyone.

There are smaller RP communities on Faerie, Jenova, and Siren. Lately, I've seen quite a few people from Jenova active here on the RPC! I'd definitely recommend checking out their server and discord for more information. We should have some listings in the FC and Linkshell Club sections and in the FC and Linkshell Hall forums. http://tinyurl.com/where-is-the-rp is also a great resource for finding discords, and the section there does show which server (or datacenter) they cater to. Regarding linkshells, we're still limited to a single cross-world linkshell which makes picking any single one tricky, but I'm holding out that this will be adjusted in some QoL fix down the road.

This lines up. Gaius technically had multiple invasions, one of which was ~6 years ago (the start of 1.0). Gaius was also responsible for Ala Mhigo's fall by using propaganda. (As opposed to just....slaughtering everyone). The Dalmasca from XII/Tactics and XIV have a lot of similarities, but aren't exactly the same same. (They've been re-imagined to fit within FFXIV and you'll see this in the 4.0 Ivalice raids the most and we're due for some more in 5.0). Othard has a lot of Asia-inspired themes and countries, but the other continents aren't quite as separated. Ala Mhigo is like a cross between Scottish people and Tibet. Eorzean countries would probably be the closest thing to European/Western themes. Ul'dah is ruled by a Sultan/Sultana with knights dating back several hundred years. Limsa was founded by pirates. Ishgard has a lot of French/Christian themes and cites multiple clergy terms. We also have things like "The New World," a continent without much more of a name discovered recently with a lot of Native American themes. It isn't accessible currently, but we have people/beast tribes from there who've come over. This one's visually tricky. The Garlean third eye is considered a working eye in all aspects, despite its lack of eyelid and pupils. We're not really sure how they see, just that they do. You can find one on all pure-blooded Garleans, like Cid, Nero, and other Garlean NPCs I'll hold off on spoiling. So far, we've only seen/heard of Hyur/Garlean mixed race children, but seeing how Elezen, Hyur, Lalafell, Miqo'te, and Roegadyn are all capable of having mixed-race children in any combo (we'll ignore certain...logistics), there could be a half-Garlean combination without too much of a stretch. Or no Garlean blood at all. Garlemald considers the people of its conquered lands its people too, regardless of their rights or treatment. (This is touched on in 4.0 MSQ). As you've likely seen around Mor Dhona, there are plenty of magic-casting garlean enemies. (No whether they believe in the empire or are just being forced to fight is their own story.)

Garlemald started its conquest of other nations 55-56 years ago-ish. (Edit: See Sounsyy's post below mine for more detail on what they were up to before that). Timelines are funky depending on if we're talking about the start of the 2.0 MSQ, or trying to account for how much time has passed "since then." For some quick timelines for things you may see referenced in the game (Astral/Umbral Eras and what they mean, events leading up to 2.0, NPC filler text) you can find some good timelines from the GamerEscape site. The Garlean Empire officially started conquests in 1515 of the 6th Astral Era, which ended on its 1572nd year. Followed by 5 years of the 7th Umbral Era. And for most players, we're to believe we're somewhere in the 1st or 2nd year of the 7th Astral Era now. However, most NPCs will still cite text like "Garlemald fell to the Garleans 20 years ago" which would imply either 5th 7UE or 1st 7AE since these are eras and not exactly calendar years and we don't have a hard set date of what moon (month equivalent) that transition happened. https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Loremonger:Timeline https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Sixth_Astral_Era/Timeline Pretty much all of the nations on Ilsabard, many of which we don't have names for just yet. Then they spread to the continent of Othard, which is where Doma is. Then they started heading west, which is where they ran into Ala Mhigo. I would generally advise against creating an entire empire/country/civilization, but something like a small town, village, or island is something most people would probably be ok with handwaving. The RPer population on FFXIV is pretty diverse and you'll find a LOT of differing opinions on lore strictness, high/low fantasy, power levls, and amount of headcanon in use. What may not work for one group may work for another, etc. Conscripts are brainwashed so much as they're purposely relocated to fight somewhere that isn't their home country. The promises to become a proper citizen -can- happen, but given how long the service is, you wouldn't really see that happening for most people outside of the military and associated research. It's important to note that only pureblooded garleans are affected by the genetic whatever that prevents the vast majority of them from being able to manipulate aether (broader than just casting magic), which is why the empire began to lead more on technology. However, the first lorebook does go on to state that there are a small population of garleans who can cast, but you're probably better off going the conscript route here, personally. There are quite a number of Garlean players! Mostly on Balmung and Mateus. As a former garlean RPer, I'd recommend not going full comic-book-villain-evil as there's a lot of nuace and political play with the Garlean Empire, which you'll see as the MSQ develops. (Mostly in 4.0). And a few cautionary words that you'll likely get pigeon-holed into villain roles if your character is openly praising the empire and its efforts.

For some quick lore on Soul Crystals, I recommend Sounsyy's post here: https://mirkemenagerie.tumblr.com/post/149512988109/is-there-lore-regarding-soul-crystals-and-spirit There's another one by another user with the general "how difficult is it to be this capital-letter named Job" compilation that I'm looking for the link to. (curse tumblr searching). Found it! https://kilieit.tumblr.com/post/159315531877/just-how-obscure-is-that-job-crystal-in-lore This one may be a little out of date as it was written before 4.0, but most of the general things stand like how rare a certail crystal is, or if there are legal/moral issues with it. Also newer information from the lore books, like the hard set number of DRG crystals for no reason other than "because SE said so" which is generally ignored by players.

Yup! Each one is self-contained. You could also liken it to the Japanese eras as well, although those are based on the Emperor instead of events. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_era_name So it's not the year 1577, because 1577 would imply we're still in the 6th Astral Era, which we're not. So we had 1572 6AE (end of 1.0) -> 1 7UE (The Calamity) -> 5 7UE (2.0 begins) -> 1 7AE (end of 2.0, start of 2.1 and all later content).

Umbral always comes before Astral. The 6th Umbral Era was "The Flood" which was then followed by the 6th Astral Era. For more general timeline stuff: https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Loremonger:Timeline https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Sixth_Astral_Era/Timeline

1. We're effectively in a time bubble within the game, so as to have some semblance of time-conformity whether a person has been playing since 2.0 launch or anytime after. We are given certain "it took this long" moments from the lore here and there, but NPCs will never refer to the current year, as the logistics behind that would be a nightmare. (Which gets even more fun when there are new years events, but within the setting, that time could never have passed.) As far as we know, we're still within the "first or second year of the 7th Astral Era" or so. But a boat from Limsa to Kugane supposedly takes 2-3 months. And another journey in game was considered to take place over 2 weeks (of 8 days each). Most NPCs in game are still going to refer to time in the same manner no matter what point of the MSQ you're in. So important things we ca say is that the 6th Astral ended in its 1572nd year, which is when Bahamut did his thing. Then we entered the 7th Umbral Era, which lasted for 5 years, when the player character cleared 2.0 MSQ and defeated Gaius and it was declared we were now in the 7th Astral Era. So from 2.1 onwards, we're somewhere in the 1st-2nd year and if you see people using a year after 1572, they're tacking it onto the 6th Astral, which isn't how this time system works, but seems to be fairly common by players anyways. Sounsyy's lore post on time: https://mirkemenagerie.tumblr.com/post/162958167699/yozaofjenova-niccodai-mirkemenagerie 2. Go talk to the NPC Guards (who technically take your gil payment) about Aetherytes! They'll explain how Teleport and Return lore work! ...although these are still things the average person isn't doing often, as commonfolk don't typically have the anima for it. I'm not sure how far you are in MSQ currently, but this is brought up in 4.0 by Alisae. You'll know when. Now when you lose consciousness in a dungeon and you're whisked away to the entrance? That's different from Teleport or Return, but somewhat related. This is attributed to Hydaelyn's Blessing, which is kinda layered on top of having the Echo. (One can be Echo-enabled, but not have the Blessing. Like Krile. Or Arenvald. Prior to A Realm Reborn, Minfillia was gathering people who had the Echo, this was merged with Louisoix's Circle of Knowing to become what we know as the Scions. Unfortunately, when someone takes a heavy injury, like the loss of a limb or the like, they're not just getting a damaged body, but a damaged soul, in a sense. The anima is cut off and that's why we don't see people regrowing limbs by teleporting or something. Once a person has returned into the aether stream, their sense of self kinda melts away because it's basically energy going into a bigger pool of energy. Sounsyy's aether/aetheryte lore compilation: https://mirkemenagerie.tumblr.com/post/149379334409/is-there-lore-on-aether-and-the-aetherytes-and 3. I touched on this a bit in 2! tldr: anyone can, but some people are better at it. The more anima a person has, the more often or the farther they can go without getting aethersickness. There's a reason people aren't just teleporting everywhere all the time. 4. This was answered at the 2014 Las Vegas Fanfest Lore Panel! (wow, what a mouthful). Basically, all races of man have about the same life span, barring injuries, sickness, or premature death. If we say that the average lifespan is 100 years, then Elezen life to about 120, compared to the other races. They also experience a longer "teen" puberty stage, which is why are our 16-18 years old-ish Elezen twins are still rather babyfaced. Imagine being a teen until your early 20s, and then finally catching up to the others. 5. Most of our common herbs and plants seem to exist in Eorzea. As for meats, the animal varies, but there are enough similarities. Like swapping dodo for turkey. Or aldgoat. There are even people generating real recipes off of in-game dishes! Botanica Eorzea has a great compilation of many things: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EzZNCDNA3H4WFiTYPialBzj0Wm3xfXqcEEkENItbR3k/edit

Starting small is good! Especially if you find a group you jive with, whether it's similar interests, a plot or story, etc. The Making Connections forum and the RPC Wiki are also pretty good places to peruse characters, on top of tumblrs and discords. The RPC site is only a portion of the general FFXIV RPer population!

Hey there and welcome to the site! To be honest, FFXIV was my first experience with MMO RP as well, although I'd done a little bit of tabletop with friends before that. Plenty of similarities, but also plenty of differences. The best way to pick things up is to just delve in. From my understanding, RP etiquette in FFXIV is a little different from other MMOs, but still pretty straightforward. Most people will RP in /say or /emote chat, depending and use them interchangeably. Some people will add some narration or inner thoughts, others do not. Lore strictness, high/low fantasy (magic, skills, , high/low power levels are all personal choices that varies quite a lot among everyone. If your time is really restrictive, I'd suggest trying out either some public events, which you can find on the site calendar (whether imported from outside feeds or on the main RPC site calendar itself) or give some forum/discord RP a shot if you want to dabble without a time frame. Forum RP is how I started out way back! It provided some space to set things up, a little narration, and some ready-made contacts for once I got more comfortable RPing in game. It's been a little while since I've seen a general/open in-character thread, but some common ones in the past were simple things like chatting in a tavern or pub, or journalists making an announcement. There've been some interviews and the like as well! It's a little dated, and has some old/broken links after a site move, but the RP Handbook by Eva is also a good place to start as well, to give you an idea of some of the foundings of FFXIV RP. People are always happy to help answer any questions you may have as well, whether they be character-development, rp in general, ffxiv things, etc. If you unsure about something, you also also always flag down a staff member in a bolded blue name and they can help point you in the right direction. (Or stick a post over in the Requests and Feedback forum, and we'll help answer or move it to an appropriate public section.)

One important thing to note. If you got the exp bonus for creating a character on a "preferred world" there's a 90 day cooloff period where that character cannot be transferred. The same applies for characters transferred to preferred worlds as well. If you try to change your home world and it doesn't let you, then then is mostly likely the cause!

We do hear that a bit. ...for the most part, the server you're on shouldn't matter. (RP Discussion, Lore, Workshop, IC boards, etc. ...most should be server-agnostic.) ...in terms of the Clubs/Halls, the general policy is once non-filtered server's hitting that threshold of drowning out the "other" section, they get their own. Mateus went through that probably the most recently, but it was still a few years ago when the NA datacenter moved. I'd love to see more servers hit that point (even if the backend work is well...unfun.) Every now and then, we try to do a survey of the site and how others think it can be improved. The Requests and Feedback section's also good if there's something you've got a question about or would like implemented. (Provided it's got a plugin or integration we can tie in or so.)

We've got a few discord links in postings here and there, but I don't know of any central lists containing everything. The "Hall" sections and Club section should both have some filters to find not-Balmung/Mateus listings, however! (personal rant: this is why I like forums that can be searched on google!) @Maril does maintain a list that might be useful for you though! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ACyO3uuZyx9QpmnjcnZ_O88DLHQW53kXP2qn1YlUI5A/edit#gid=614491240

Balmung's currently open, but RPers on Mateus are also flourishing. With the recent 4.57 patch, World Visits are enabled as we're now on the Crystal Datacenter and you can use the same character on both servers. There's a free transfer period going for a little while if you decide you want ot change your home server, but otherwise, people can freely travel between Balmung and Mateus now.

I know Faerie and Siren had some smaller communities, but based on recent registrations on the RPC, I'd probably go with Jenova. The good news is, even if the smaller groups are scattered across servers, one can just world-visit to check them out. The RPC has also gotten new calendar import feeds, so events on more servers should pop up in the sidebar and in the calendar section in general as they get filled out.

RPC has been updated to Invision Community 4.4! You may notice a few subtle differences on the site layout from updated default themes and css. Please let me know if something has changed for the worse, so I can look into adjusting it! (Screenshots are helpful!) If you're curious on what changes came with this update, the official documentation is here: https://invisioncommunity.com/news/product-updates/welcome-to-invision-community-44-r1124/ TLDR: Lazy-loading images and animated gif editor integration are probably the biggest ones for us.

Unofficial server designations aren't really a RPC dictated thing. It's more like a threshold that is met by a large enough number of active roleplayers on a given server. While in 1.0 and for 2.0 launch, there were definitely pushes to coordinate people onto particular servers (Besaid/Balmung for legacy and Gilgamesh for people who didn't want legacy), this later became mostly Balmung because there's where people generally understood they'd be able to find RP with ease, even though I've known of communities as far back as 2014/2015 on Gilgamesh, Siren, Jenova, Moogle, etc that had RPers on them as well. Once congested server status became an actual thing, we saw an influx of people working to get Mateus up to a similar threshold of active RP where there was no single "RP Leader," which is a struggle that lesser populated servers can often be afflicted with. Many EU RPers were torn when the EU datacenter was opened because it meant a decision between better ping/latency or keeping their existing friend/LS/FC networks in NA servers. Because of this, Omega's RP scene hasn't quite hit off like say, Mateus. And with the EU split, that may be even more difficult. What I would recommend is determine whether a transfer or working for that coordinated effort with other players is the right choice for you. It's a lot like gardening where you have to put in a lot more effort to get things growing before it may become self-sufficient and stable without relying on any one person or group. For the RPC, we add dedicated links/filters for a server when it looks to have reached that threshold of "there are so many posts/listings for this server that one cannot find other content in the unfiltered sections." Because ultimately, the RPC is here for every server and it shouldn't be making decisions like "everyone go to X or Y or Z server" because that sort of talk in the past has led to quite some heated debates, hurt feelings, or outright disagreements because enough people didn't agree with other people.

I'm not sure where in the EU you're situated, but I know a fair amount of western european players who have no difficulty connecting to the current NA servers. And doing content no less. You may want to try a VPN if the EU datacenters aren't doing it for you. Or perhaps make an alt so you have a character for RP and one for content, if you have the time to dedicate to alts.

Hey there! Welcome to the RPC! From what I've heard from others who've RPed in other MMOs, RP in FFXIV does have a slightly different feeling, probably stemming from our lack of official RP servers. (Everything is built by the players here!) Since we used to not have any indication of whether someone was IC or OOC in terms of actual game features, many took to having a search info stating they were a RPer. Other conventions merged in, likely from forum RP, with open/closed RP styles, and many took to stating whether they were open to random walk-up RP or not. Some people choose to use the /tell message feature before approach a group of people they haven't interacted with before as a way to ask "can I join in, or are you using this space for a closed RP?" It still very much depends on the person or the group. No strict requirements.

Mateus is large and active! ...and also hopping on and off that congested list as well. I would recommend having your friend make a character on an existing aether world that's planned to move to Crystal in the next 3 weeks, as there will be a period of free transfers after the move. During that time, it's possible SE might all servers (but more likely they won't open Balmung, and possibly other congested servers). But the good thing is, between Cross-World features and the World Visit system coming after the moves, you will be able to visit other servers in your datacenter. (Although we're still waiting on some specifics like if congest servers will be open too).

If you're set on wanting to play on Balmung or Mateus, you could start by getting a character onto a soon to be Crystal Datacenter world. There will be open free transfers (to non-congested worlds) for each of the datacenter adjustments, but more than likely, Balmung and Mateus won't be included as destinations unless SE is being overly kind. Alternatively, Jenova, Faerie, and Siren also have smaller clusters of RPers on them as well, to my knowledge. You could poke around those servers to see if there's a group you like before settling. (Or start there and use the transfer to get into Crystal if that looks like a better option. I'd probably make a couple test characters now, to get more information before any transfers.)

Before the NA datacenter move, the servers were on the east coast, USA. After, they're now on the west coast. There's a bit more latency than before, but the game itself isn't fully unplayable. I'd make a character on an open NA server to test out what the connection will feel like first, however!

Looking to make a section filter AND sort in a particular way? Want to know why we're using friendlier links for the club URLs? Here are some forum trick to get the site working for YOU. Clubs: All Active: https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0 All Active Balmung: https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=0 All Active Gilgamesh: https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=1 All Active Mateus: https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=2 All Active Omega: https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=3 All Active Other: https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=4 All Active Free Company Clubs: https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f2[0]=0 Active Balmung FC: https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=0&f2[0]=0 Active Gilgamesh FC https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=1&f2[0]=0 Active Mateus FC https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=2&f2[0]=0 Active Omega FC https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=3&f2[0]=0 Active Other FC https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=4&f2[0]=0 All Active Linkshell Clubs: https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f2[0]=1 Active Balmung LS https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=0&f2[0]=1 Active Gilgamesh LS https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=1&f2[0]=1 Active Mateus LS https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=2&f2[0]=1 Active Omega LS https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=3&f2[0]=1 Active Other LS https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/ips/index.php?/clubs/&f7[0]=0&f1[0]=4&f2[0]=1 WHAT DO THE THINGS MEAN? Active: clubs/&f7[0]=0 Inactive: clubs/&f7[0]=1 Balmung: clubs/&f1[0]=0 Gilgamesh: clubs/&f1[0]=1 Mateus: clubs/&f1[0]=2 Omega: clubs/&f1[0]=3 Other: clubs/&f1[0]=4 Free: clubs/&f2[0]=0 Linkshell: clubs/&f2[0]=1 Want to adjust the sorting? Put these at the end of pretty links (ones that end in a / ) ?sort=last_activity ?sort=members ?sort=content ?sort=created ?sort=name Or these at the end of a more complicated one (stuff with ?thing=stuff&otherthings=otherstuff&morethings=morestuff: &sort=last_activity &sort=members &sort=content &sort=created &sort=name

Welcome back! As you've probably noticed, we've gone through a bit of a facelist in the last couple years, moving over Invision Power. All your content should be here, although some posts may need some formatting updates and things like avatars or attachments may need to be relinked. If you've got any questions regarding the site, hit me up!