Griffith!

Beach bum.

I will say this, though - Ul'dah would be more stable with the monetarists in charge, if only because the monetarists would stop making trouble. One ruler is always more stable than two competing factions.

That's all well and good, but if they were in charge, would they help, independent of the Sultana's good intentions? Or would they just do the bare minimum and continue furthering their own goals? Just because they're funding the Sultana's efforts now doesn't mean they would inherit her goodwill later. There's no guarantee they'd support the refugees in the long term. Maintain the nation? Yeah, probably. But only insofar as it helps them to stay in power. I just don't see the monetarists - Lolorito included - going the extra mile.

Join we Tumet. Tumet are awesome. Infiltrate us.

I'm with Intaki - bankroll does not good leadership make. They may have the coin, but they don't seem like very good leaders. In fact, they seem pretty selfish, looking for power for power's sake, while the Sultana genuinely wants to help.

I might show up. It'd be Marten's first event, too.

That "herro" shit is also super racist. Lately, my biggest peeve is people ignoring my personal story in favor of theirs. I'm not being unreasonable here - if we've RPed your crap for two hours, is it really so unthinkable that I might like to turn the story to deal with my own character for awhile? I'm not just a supporting character in your story, I'm also the main character of mine. I'm tired of seeing people extricate themselves from RP just because the story isn't about them anymore.

White Magic - the arcane art of succor - is actually a forbidden kind of magic. I guess the Padjal are bringing it back - I'm a little hazy on the lore because I'm not a big fan of playing healers. The problem with role-playing jobs, as far I recall, is that in canon, there's basically just the one person who has access to them - the player character. And we can't all be the player character. That being said, I don't think it's a big deal to RP a White Mage, so long as you have a solid explanation of where your Soul Stone came from. EDIT - ninja'd by the Unnamed Mercenary.

Marten is a geologist, or some approximation there-of. His father was one, and so is he. I leveled Miner a bit as a kind of addendum to that, but I find the gathering classes just super-duper boring. Not my thing. So, his miner levels don't reflect his education. Of course, Marten is also a former gladiator, and while any class can be a gladiator, I actually leveled the Gladiator class. I don't think my level in it is super important, though, as Marten isn't even all that good at fighting. So my level doesn't reflect my skill here, either, except in the opposite direction - his level is too high to be as bad at it as he is. So, I'd say moderately important - someone roleplaying a black mage should actually have the job, for example - but not an end all or be all indicator of relative character strength. ...or I think that's what I'm saying, anyway.

Marten finds them strangely attractive, in an exotic, foreign kind of way. It helps that they look draconic, and he sympathizes with the dragons. The first time he met a couple, though, the male threatened to kill him after he was propositioned by the female, so he's been wary of pretty much all of them ever since. (He thinks they're a little crazy.)

I rolled a midland Hyur as my first character because it was the most Nilla Wafer option. I regret not having gone Elezen or Highlander for Marten. Either of those would have been more aesthetically what I want. Lalafell would have been a solid choice too, considering his background, and seeing it as the least popular option makes me kind of want to roll one.

Marten, as a Dark Knight geologist, is only afraid of igneous rocks. They're just so... holy. 8-) Seriously? No fears really, though I was toying with fear of heights, which I thought would be delightful in someone who wants to work with airships. Arslan, though, is just afraid of going home. Not to the tent he's been sleeping in outside Ul'dah, but his real home, in Othard. He doesn't feel worthy of the steppe or his ancestors, not after fleeing from the Garleans. It makes him very reticent around other Xaela, and even a little hostile around other members of the Tumet tribe. I don't know if he'll ever get over it - it doesn't seem likely. But, it's not a real issue yet, either, as he physically can't return home.

Thanks for the comments - I might be adding to this as we go along. Y'know, as a general sort of info dump for Xaela.

That's a fair point.

And full as of, I'm not even kidding, a minute later.

So, I had a sit down to think about the Au Ra, and the Xaela in particular. Now, we haven't seen Othard or the steppes the Xaela call home, but we do know they are culturally influenced by medieval Mongolia. Of course, I don't know how accurate this is going to be in the end, but I thought I'd write up a quick and dirty guide to a revisionist, modern fantasy take on tribal life, to better organize my thoughts and maybe give some other players ideas. Please bare in mind that this isn't exclusively Mongolian, either, but a mix of steppe cultures. I also invite anyone to correct me where anything contradicts established Lore. The Steppe A steppe is a flat, dry grassland. Think prairie. Because of it's geographical features (or, more accurately, lack of geographical features), steppes tend to the extremes - very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. Like deserts, steppes are often dotted with oases that the itinerant population uses as waypoints and camping sites at various times of the year. The soil is generally too infertile for farming, and so permanent settlements are rare, and usually found near permanent sources of water, like rivers or lakes. The Dalamiq tribe have established just such a village. The Yurt Technically, yurt is a Turkish word. The Mongolian equivalent is the ger, but since SE used yurt, I will too. The yurt - a kind of collapsible tent that's easy to take down and move - is the center of tribal life. A yurt is made from a trellis-like frame of wooden slats, tied together with leather thongs. These frames are covered by thick felt rugs. The roof is made from poles, like rafters, that sit atop the walls. Like the walls, it is also covered with a rug. A special flap can be opened in the dome cap to let smoke out. A yurt can be taken down quickly, and can be carried by two to four horse. It only takes about two to three hours for two people to construct a yurt. The construction is very sturdy, and will stand up to strong winds or even the weight of a full-grown man walking on the roof. Inside, the floor is usually covered with yet more felt rugs, except in poorer families. Cushions are used for sitting and sleeping, and beds are rarer. Some families might keep a small cot for the head of the family to sleep on. One portion of the tent is usually screened off as a sort of master bedroom, with another screened off as a pantry. [align=center][/align] A single yurt is home to an entire family, sometimes including the elderly and poor relatives, as well as any guests and visitors. A typical yurt has between six and ten permanent residents, with room for more. Yurts are mentioned in the Dazkar description especially. Animals Horses were very important to real-world Mongols, and are even more important to at least one Xaela tribe. I'm looking at you, Goro. It can be inferred from some of the clan descriptions that the horse is still essential to the Xaela as well - the Noykin are famous for their horse-breaking, and the Oroq use horse fat to lacquer their sleds. This is actually good, because horses are everything to on the steppe. Horses are great transportation, a source of food, and make perfectly good leather and milk. They're even essential to waging war. The steppe horses are bred to be typically strong, tough animals, with the constitution to survive the freezing winters, broiling summers, and the meager diet of dry steppe grass. Of course, horses aren't the only animals raised by nomadic tribes either. Sheep, cattle and oxen are common as well. Camels are often used, especially in the dryer, more desertlike regions. Yaks would be common in the higher, more mountainous regions. Camels - in place of or in addition to horses - would be appropriate beasts of burden for the Bairon, Mierqid, Torgud, Uyagir, Kagon, and Urumet tribes, as they are all desert dwelling tribes. Yaks are most appropriate to the Angura, Arulaq, Khatayin, and Ura tribes, as it explicitly states they make their homes in mountainous regions. Food I mentioned already that the soil is infertile, so it should come as no surprise that the primary diet of a Xaela would be mostly meat. Almost any kind of meat, in fact - wild game, horses that have gotten too old to work or been injured, dog, beef, antelope, mutton or even rat, if there aren't any better options. Meats are typically roasted over a fire or boiled in salted water. Sausages and sun-dried meats are typical travel rations. Vegetables and fruit are harder to find and almost always gathered wild. Berries and wild onions are the most common. Historically, rice was either bartered for or stolen, as were teas. Tea was usually drank with salt and/or milk. Butter was also sometimes added (and is gross. Don't do that. Eyuch.) Milk was the other staple in the historical diet - it was often fermented into a mildly alcoholic drink called kumis. It was also often curdled and drank as a soup or eaten as a porridge. The curds could be dried and powedered for storage. When it was needed, it could be mixed with water, milk, or - in a pinch - blood and eaten as a paste. Tribal Structure First is the yurt, ruled by the head of the family. A collection of yurts is an obogh, a kind of village. Three or four obogh make up an orda, which, as I don't know a politer way to put it, I'm going to go ahead and call a horde. Orda are ruled by the Khans, a hereditary title that can only belong to a member of the ruling class, the noyans. A tribe is actually made up of several of these orda. There isn't typically a single leader for a given tribe, as each Khan more or less does as they please.

Kinky. Seems there are more Tumets than I thought. I have no intention of changing, there are just more than I thought. We'll all be one big happy family in the most realistic sense, by which I mean fractious and dysfunctional.

People are a little rigid on the lore, but I haven't really seen any elitist or stand-offishness thus far. I agree there is plenty of RP to be had on Balmung. I've played fourteen hour stretches the last few days, and there is pretty much always people on RPing. The servers are also pretty much always full.

Yeah, don't do that. :dodgy: I haven't seen any other Arslans. But if there are others, it might be because it means lion, or it might be because of this. Currently running anime gets a lot of imitators. Myself, it was partially the definition and partially Arslan Khan. Which, before anyone mentions it, could be translated as Lion King, provided accuracy isn't your thing.

Arslan Tumet - the runt of the tribe. He's new. I tried to squeeze him on before the maintenance, but no luck. I'll try again when it's done.

They just happen to be the two most populated worlds in the game. I, for example, play that early/late, and I'm hardly unique. ::shrug:: I don't have any characters on Siren, sorry.

Actually, the servers are just that populated. Right now, you get booted if you're afk for half an hour. I've had some luck on Jenova, but I imagine most servers have a couple RPers on them.

So, so far the idea behind the tribe (and my character in it) boils down to this: The Shark tribe - a seafaring offshoot of the Raptor tribe - took part in the naval battle against the Empire five years ago. Their ship, the Ominous Wake was sunk in that battle, taking most of the tribe with it. Those who survived were mostly too young or too old to crew the ship - or, like the current chief, occupied elsewhere. Now leadership has fallen to Sr'vassh, a former pirate now gone 'legit' (or legit enough). Without their ship, they aren't very good pirates - but Sr'vassh has a plan to fix that. Airships are very much a reality now - and Airship Pirates are not. So we build a ship, get a crew, and plunder the sky.

I felt the same way about the various smithing tools. Having worked in a smithy (or even just seeing a movie or applying common sense) I can tell you that heat is pretty important in blacksmithing. You might say it sort of integral to the process. But it's a game, so I'm not sweating it too much. I would hate to RP a crafting profession though. A gathering profession? Sure. Marten is an avid fisherman and works as a miner when he isn't fighting in the arena. All I really need to know is right there in the logs. But crafting would involve too much research and I'm lazy.

I dunno. I usually prefer it. So I haven't played as any of the new jobs because, well, I can't, but I have seen plenty of them in my many, many dungeon runs over the last few days, and honestly? I'm not sure they're very good at their jobs. Both Astrologian and Machinist seem to under-preforming in comparison to other Jobs in the same role. Machinist especially. I appreciate how little hate they seem to be generating, but at the same time, I kind of wish they'd contribute a little more, damage-wise. I get the jobs are new and people are still working out how to use them, but on the whole, I'm not impressed with what I'm seeing.