Marisa

Having said that, regarding Machinist the Ishgardians don't seem to be above replicating already existing technology. Perhaps they took the bare bones from Sharlayan Astromancy to come up with their own Astrologians who live down at the Observatorium? That would actually be really interesting, as it would follow more or less what happened on Earth. Sharlayan appears to be analogous to ancient Greece, where Ishgard is quite similar to medieval Germany, with heavy Christian influences. In the real world, Christian scholars delved deeply into astronomy and astrology, and they began by building off of the works of Greek astronomers, adapting it to their own theology. In the same way, it is entirely possible that Ishgardian astrologians are building upon the work of Sharlayan astrologians, and interpreting it according to their own beliefs.

Some neat stuff in here. Dark Knight: Ishgardian batman. Vigilantes who cleanse evil from Ishgard without the sanction of the Holy See. Machinist: Born of Ishgard's desperation, they take inspiration from Garlond Ironworks to create their own Skysteel Manufactory, using technology to turn the tide against Dravania. Astrologians: Literally no connection with Ishgard whatsoever. I am still baffled by this decision. You'd think this one would be the most obviously connected with Ishgard, but it's the only one that isn't in any way.

And maybe Ala Mhigo is predominantly Highlander. I mean, nowhere on Earth has equal racial distributions. There is always one majority race. That doesn't mean it's not diverse. Let's take my home state of Indiana, for example. 7 million people, 86% of them are white. 9% of Indiana residents are black. So whites are the vast majority. Yet that still means there are over 600,000 black people living in Indiana. Now, this is gonna be a lot of speculation, but hear me out. I'm gonna guess that Eorzean city states are probably similar in population to Greek city states. So Ala Mhigo, during peace time, probably had about 300,000 residents. Now lets say Lalafells in Ala Mhigo were as rare as black people in Indiana (which is probably a low estimate, I'd think). That means there would be at least 27,000 miqo'te in Ala Mhigo. A small minority of the whole, but still a shitload of people. So if we're using the idea that in-game populations are a small representation of the whole, then I think ideas like miqo'te Ishgardians become stronger, not weaker. In 1.0 there were, what, a hundred or so Ishgardian NPCs? And one of them was miqo'te, right? So if we scale that up to the full population of Ishgard, again probably a few hundred thousand, that still means hundreds or even thousands of miqo'te living in Ishgard. If the MCH guy turns out to be a real thing, that number doubles. We can't call it a microcosm, and then turn around and say that only *some* things are part of this microcosm, and others aren't. edit: Hey, I'm heading off to bed, but I'm really enjoying this exchange so I'll definitely be checking back in here in the morning.

Isn't Little Ala Mhigo also composed almost entirely of a single extended family? Despite the name, I wouldn't really call it a microcosm of Ala Mhigan society. It's like a dozen people hiding in a cave.

Honestly, most sources I see anymore say that the negligible amount of dps you gain from using Rank IVs isn't worth the money sink. Unless you're crazy competitive about dps (which seems unlikely with the expansion so soon), I'd say just stop at rank 3 and add another stat.

Hrmm... I'm basing my knowledge off rabbits, if we're being honest. Never been much for cats. Well, I have one cat (he showed up one day and never left...), but he never really sheds.

I feel like a lot of folks are unreasonably stubborn on their own preconceptions about the lore, though. The whole Ala'Mhigo thing proves that. Square Enix itself did everything possible to demonstrate that Ala'Mhigo is a racially diverse state with Miqo'te, Roegadyn, Lalafells, and maybe even Elezen. Not just as token minorities either, but as significant portions of the population. Yet we still have this idea persisting among the community that Ala'Mhigans are exclusively Highlanders. So now I'm wondering, if Ishgard opens up and we find a bunch of lalafells inside, are people just going to pretend they don't exist? I don't think it's likely to happen, but I think you get my point. Speaking of which, I've been roaming around Coerthas, as I tend to do, and tonight I was paying particularly close attention to the NPC dialogue. And I realized something. Why does everyone think Ishgardians are racist? I couldn't find one NPC that made any reference to race. They didn't dislike me because I was a Miqo'te. They disliked me because I wasn't a local. "Oh, another adventurer," "Do not dare question our ways, unbeliever", things like that. Never once was my race brought up. Am I missing something here? Can somebody explain to me why Ishgard is seen as racist? Because, to me, it seems like they just dislike foreigners. They don't really give two shits about what you look like. Now, Gridanians on the other hand, those are some racist bastards. Always shit-talking Duskwights and whatnot...

Regular brushing would solve this problem, though.

NOW TURN THY GAZE AHEAD, AND LOOK TO THE MO- Wait, wrong song >.>

My favorite explanation of Angra Mainyu: "Things will happen. Please react accordingly."

Marisa's power level would be almost nothing, although if Ruru is with her he can kill small critters while she sits back and worries

It would be like Papers, Please but happier. Also if you fail, you get called dumb but there's no real consequence. And instead of terrorists, you occasionally get attacked by dragons.

Guild Wars 2 combat, but with tanks and healers still. For those who don't know, in GW2 you gained new abilities by using a specific weapon long enough. Your main 5 abilities were weapon skills. Then you could get 5 non-weapon skills, such as spells, utility abilities, and passives, by putting points into those abilities. These 5 could be swapped out at any time out of combat, and there were dozens to choose from for each class. More importantly, each of your 10 abilities were actually interesting. None of that "Does X more damage if used after Y" bullshit. You only had 10 abilities at a time, but they were 10 AWESOME abilities. Alternatively, I'd like WoW's talent trees, or something equivalent, so each job could fill more than one niche.

That's certainly true in the aspect of him being a Miqo'te. However, I'd argue that Ishgard's heavy use of gunpowder cannons and harpoons probably indicates that they're at least interested in technology, especially if it kills things. Which, if true, I applaud SE for. Most fantasy settings represent theocracies and religious fundamentalists as being firmly against technology, which is bizarre because in the real world, religion has usually been the driving force of science in the last thousand years. In fact, during the 'dark ages', the clergy were about the only people doing real, methodical science. Sorry, accidental double-post!

Hrmm... personally, I went with the theory that a half-breed would have a high chance of genetic defects. For Marisa and Mishka Stormsong, instead of the common-sense route of halfway between a Hyru and a Miqo, we decided to go with small and underdeveloped, even compared to normal Miqo'te. Basically runts, if you will. And they probably can't reproduce, either. The way I see it, a cross-breeding *might* produce healthy offspring with strong traits from both races, since none of the sons of man are genetically that distant. However, its probably more common that it just produces weak offspring. But I guess this is another case of me trying to insert real-world logic where lore gaps exist.

You're the best, Sounsyy! I totally forgot about the MCH trainer. Actually, my favorite thing about him isn't even that he's a miqo'te, but that he kinda implies that Ishgard has secretly been the most advanced of the Eorzean nations this whole time. Well, if you don't count Mor Dhona, which isn't really a nation and is just using tech copied from Garlemald anyway.

See, I don't get the whole "they don't usually interbreed because of racial tension" thing. The Romans and the Jews had more cultural tension than possible anyone else in history, yet Roman soldiers getting Jewish women pregnant was so common that some people even theorize that Jesus was half Roman (although, full disclosure, that theory mainly existed in Nazi Germany) Sexual urges almost always trump racial conflict. If you haven't seen a white woman in 2 years, the Vietnamese gals are gonna start looking awfully cute. Same goes for Ishgardans and cat girls.

Well, not quite a cat-dragoon, but I do play a half-miqo'te Ishgardian, which is possibly worse. It was, as many are, a case of making the character first, then joining the rp community later. I just love the character too much at this point to change her. That being said, I can absolutely justify it. Now, if we were trying to compare Eorzea to medieval Europe, inter-racial breeding would be almost unheard of. People just didn't get that far away from their place of origin, not unless they were diplomats or crusading armies. But Eorzea's not the middle ages, is it? It can't really be pinned to a time period, but if anything it's the late medieval or early colonial era. And during those eras, being a soldier or merchant meant you traveled a lot. And you know what? Inter-racial babies suddenly became a thing. Now, Ishgardian men are still men, regardless of their culture. Without fail, even today, one of the first things deployed soldiers will do in a foreign land is see the local women and say "I want to have sex with that." Hell, the US military has to give an entire speech/video about STDs for this exact reason. It is my understanding that Ishgardian knights venturing into the shroud pre-calamity was fairly commonplace. It was only a matter of time before some midlander saw the local cat-girls and decided he wanted to show them his lance.

These maps make me confused where Mor Dhona and the Shroud are on those maps. :V Mor Dhona zone line was in the very south of the map, where "Coerthas Central Lowlands" is written. And the Shroud exit is over in the East next to the Compass and Briar Lake. I wonder if it would be entirely out of the question to squeeze the lowlands back in between Mor Dhona and the Highlands? Like, I'm guessing they wouldn't want to throw off the current leveling zone-flow, but... I dunno, sure would be cool to have that zone again.

Ooh, neat! I summoned Ethys! Any chance you could tell us about any upcoming videos you might have in the works?

Dude, you're the first person who's had a realistic reaction to my character. I just thought it was funny Everyone else is all like "Oh my god, you're so cute and special..." while in the real world, people would just go "Are you retarded?"

This is Marisa. Please be nice to her! She works really hard and just wants everyone to like her. She's the 'gopher' at Camp Dragonhead, so be sure to let her know if you need anything next time you pass through!

I'll give all the moral support I can, but I'm still perma-banned from the official forums.

K, time for my string of theories. First off, mark my words: Garlemald is gonna end up becoming the good guys. Anyone who's played Baten Kaitos should know what I'm talking about. Or Skies of Arcadia (and I honestly believe that parts of XIV were inspired by Skies of Arcadia). Now, we all know there are no off-screen deaths in FFXIV (or FF, for that matter), so I firmly believe that Gaius van Baelsar is still alive. And I don't know about you guys, but I genuinely think that Gaius is a good man. I also believe that Gaius will be the one who leads the Empire to become a force of good. He's had a lot of time to soul-search since the Praetorium, and I think he's gonna realize that Eorzeans are happy with their lot in life. Because really, his goal all along was to liberate us from our supposed tyrants.