Lydia Lightfoot

A big, big pet peeve of mine about FFXIV is the lack of any way to preview equipment that you can acquire solely from dungeons (so as, for example, to make an educated choice about which dungeons one might want to grind, and as what class for the sake of Need rolls, in order to acquire items with a desired appearance). I've tried Google. A lot. I've looked at websites like Eorzea Collection which were suggested by friends, but then I filter "61 to 70" and it comes up with nothing for gear sets. I'd really love to see the appearance of the drops from 2.1 dungeons onward (2.0 dungeons as far as I can tell seem to be mostly just recolors of standard 2.0 gear), and especially the Stormblood dungeons. Is there a site that actually has current data for that? Or, if not, maybe we could start compiling that here? I have a few dungeon drop items I could toss up screenshots for, too.

What a generous gesture!

That also doesn't look like a miqo'te.

=.= I did four pictures, so Berrod did five... I see what you did there, good sir! I see what you did! Now to make an entire Lydia collage... I kid, of course.

Yessssss. Get some more guys in the mix! Come on, boys, don't be shy!

Hiya Maril! <3 I'm going to put the Lydia in this, but you two have to promise to keep the judging impartial! ;D Character Name: Lydia Lightfoot Introduction piece: As guildmaster of the Reliquarian's Guild, Lydia works alongside the other guilds of the city-states, such as the Marauder's Guild, Lancer's Guild, and so forth, to provide support and education for the adventurous-minded and ensure their endeavors are constructive to the Alliance and the law. Good folk from various Free Companies have become members of the Reliquarian's Guild, and she's always on the lookout for new friends who might not know about what her guild has to offer for them and their Free Company. In addition to managing the guild, Lydia is also the owner of a classy-but-cozy restaurant, Bistro Le Beau, located on the lower level of the Reliquarium, where her personal recipes are served to the delight of her guests. Optional screenshot:

Are they specifically saying it's a front, as in, a way to attempt concealing their shady dealings, or is it possibly just a feature of the FC? I know of and have been involved in some where it's been the latter, including my current endeavor. Lydia's bistro is in the same building as the Reliquarian's Guild, but the bistro is technically an entirely separate enterprise (and to that end, nobody in the guild is expected to participate in anything bistro-related). The bistro just happens to be leasing the lower floor of the building, which Lydia figures is a good idea not just from the perspective of basically paying rent to herself (woo!) but also because it provides a handy point of respite for guild members and visitors who want a bite to eat and something to drink. OOCly, most FCs recognize the value in having a "hang-out site between our adventures" (some, as others have said, seem more focused on the hang-out aspect than the adventure aspect, which is fine if it's what they like to do!). While it's totally possible to use an existing site for that (and even one which isn't player-owned, such as the Carline Canopy), players like being able to put their decor touches on it. The only time it really becomes harmful, in my opinion, for an FC to have their own hang-out site like that, is if they find themselves rarely venturing to anywhere else to socialize casually. That may lead them quickly down Insular Avenue, which can stifle the FC when they inevitably have a drop-off in participants due to varying circumstances, and they suddenly realize they're not bringing in any newcomers to fill the voids.

Just a curious question, but, if you're interested in RP, why in the world would you transfer off of Balmung?

As far as I'm aware, Balmung is still hard-locked by SE. No inbound transfers, no newly created characters, no windows of opportunity exist, no exceptions are made. Alas.

Huuuuuge update, after a busy few weeks! We've been quite active with plots and events rolling out for our members, as well as staying generally busy with casual roleplay between scheduled activities. We're pleased to welcome some new faces to the staff: Nora Cartwright is Lydia's sister, and played by a long-term friend of mine whom I'd been expecting would be joining the staff as time permitted. And thus, time permitted, finally! Hooray! Eyrilona Wistmoenwyn came to us at random, hoping both OOC and IC to make some new friends and get better exposure to the server community as a whole. Her former FC had all but disbanded following the Stormblood launch, so we're glad she's found a new home among us rather than shuffling off to another server or game. :3 N'idawa "Ida" Jahl is an alt of the player of well-known Maril Hawker, who came our way via our equally well-known guild member Athil Thorne. She'd actually joined up with the staff a few weeks back, but an RL trip kept her away from the game starting right after she'd signed up, so I thought to wait until she returned to announce her (just in case she'd changed her mind while away - but I'm glad she didn't!). Caera Fairgroom is a new character by the player of Lirianne Winddancer, who has been among our guild for quite awhile now. She'd decided it was time to do a little something fresh, and we were all pleased to chat with her and bounce ideas around to help her settle on one she liked. Thus, Caera was born! Or, rather, fantasia'ed and renamed from an old alt. And, unfortunately, as things go, we've had two departures from the staff: Molgo Meringo has gone Molgo Incommunicado, much to our worry. Molgo, we hope you're okay out there, wherever you are! If you happen to return, we're amenable to discussing shifting your character back to Staff status (he's currently in Member status, since there's no participation requirement for members). Lirianne Winddancer has shifted to member status, due primarily to the player's creation of Caera and intention for her to be the focus of staff presence in the guild. Lirianne's still a member, of course, and we'll see her from time to time for RP, for certain! In other news, we've had a few things sharpening up on the OOC front: We've added a linkshell in-game after all, for starters. I wasn't going to, due to the arbitrary participant limit imposed on them by SE, but it occurred to me that we can cross that bridge when we arrived at it. To keep us from getting there overnight, the linkshell is limited to characters who are members or staff of the guild, though it is an OOC linkshell. This means if our members or staff are logged into unaffiliated characters, they won't have access to the linkshell on that character. Our Discord server is still our primary hub, in any case, so anything important will be managed from there so that everyone has access regardless of their presence in-game. We've also appointed our first moderator for our Discord server - the aforementioned Athil Thorne, who has been a fantastic member of the guild thusfar and drawn interest in the guild from a lot of his contacts. Like me, Athil can now help newcomers to the Discord server to get settled in and welcomed, and will be assisting me with keeping our server in functional order. Thanks for reading our update, and, as always, if you have any questions about our guild, don't be shy about shooting me a message or jumping right onto our Discord via the provided link.

I love that my thread is still going on, a month later. :3 It seems there's a lot of interesting perspectives to be shared about the topic! <3

Looks great! A small clarification - when you mention that the NPC doesn't exist (variants of the phrasing were used on a couple of the ventures), do you mean to indicate the lack of an avatar presence in the game world, or, are you meaning it in a more mysterious IC manner, such as "the conjurer's guild has no record of the supposed conjurer who placed the order for the venture", and thus the characters involved are meant to pursue clues to unravel the mystery?

Most events have some manner of write-up about what the event is about, right here on the RPC. Browse around, do a little reading; you'll find inspiration in abundance.

But that's totally on topic. We can't seriously talk about time bubbles, the context of journeys and suspension of disbelief without bringing the tone of the story into the equation. Also, the title is misleading and doesn't even have much to do with the actual OP, which is about how to handle time and journeys. I don't even know why I spend time writing and contributing if I'm not even sure I'll still find my post the next day. Thanks for deleting everything I guess. This, ah... seems like something you may want to discuss privately with Nero. Generally, calling out or publicly arguing against a moderator is considered bad form at most community forum websites, regardless of who's right or wrong in the matter.

I'm of the personal opinion that all RP is basically "M" by default (you dang kids get off my lawn!). Feel free to have a look at what I have going on with the Reliquarian's Guild, if you like - it might be of interest to you, regardless of your future FC affiliation. As an organization it's "Lawful Good" by default (since to be a guild, the alliance would surely require law-abiding behavior from the organization, and a lack of general villainy), but the average member hovers around "Chaotic Good", with the general understanding that if individual characters were to act outside the law the guild as an organization isn't covering their butt (they literally can't). Just thought I'd bring that up since you'd mentioned your character is the "no morals" type, which doesn't necessarily mean he's not generally going to act with decency toward others - but just the same, if you're hoping to be a part of a band of cutthroats and outlaws, it may not be the right place for the character.

I can't think of anybody I know who actually roleplayed out a real-time two-month period of their character being aboard a ship bound for Othard. Some people did portray such a voyage having happened to their characters, but compressed it into a small number of RP sessions with friends who went along for the voyage. Others handwaved it entirely, saying "yep, two months passed, woo, hi Othard". I know quite a few who decided to retcon into their character's backstory that they'd already made that journey at some point in their past, so that in the present they'd be able to use aetheryte already. Me, I had Lydia accidentally discover the ruin of an Allagan teleporter site in Thanalan which had a sister point in Othard, while on a treasure hunting delve in search of a mundane necklace in the ruins of an inventor's manor (which said inventor had, she discovered, built at that site because he was trying to figure out how this wonderful underground Allagan machinery worked). She hadn't any idea what exactly the discovered site did, and sheerly by misadventure BAMF'ed her way across the ocean. Alas, the state of general disrepair of the Thanalan site was nothing compared to the totally-destroyed condition of the Othard site, so there wasn't any way for her to go back so easily, but she had the company of a native, Kazukata, who'd also been drawn into the wormhole, and they were able to navigate to some nameless off-map settlement with an aetheryte and make it home from there. And thus now she can get to Othard. She's since reported the existence of the site in Thanalan to the alliance, who have secured it for study. It's not in fine enough shape for constant use, and would be totally unable to provide a strategic use for most military purposes (e.g. it doesn't work well enough or often enough that it could be used to transport a contingent of soldiers), but, they can allow authorized individuals to make the jump to Othard and attune there. So... feel free to borrow the method, if you like.

Agreed with Sounsyy. You'll probably find that most players tend to lean, independently of outside sources, in one of two ways: Either they play with the "present" being "a point in time which occurs after all available quest storyline", or, "a point in time which corresponds with where the individual player happens to have seen thusfar, because said player is trying to avoid spoilers, while somehow not realizing that the internet is basically an enormous spoiler minefield". In groups, you get either the former again, or, a version of the latter which is decided upon by the group in question (such as what Sounsyy said about wanting to play out the lead-up rather than jumping to the conclusion). Time bubbles abound due to it all, which is fine, excepting those awkward moments wherein you have, say... a character who is using the former, who interacts with a character who's using the latter. For one of them, Ala Mhigo has been freed, like, a good couple months ago. For the other, they're struggling every day as a rag-tag guerilla fighter to free it. Neither is wrong, per se, they're just technically existing in different time periods, yet they'll both show up to the same tavern night. How can that be reconciled? Well, most of the time, I take the camera that's pointed at the scene, I smear a big honking gob of vaseline on the lens, and call it good.

I know exactly what you mean. D&D groups and the like which I've played in have referred to this as Roleplay Jail, because the circumstances of the story make it either implausible, impractical, or impossible for the character to do anything which isn't related to the plot, and thus the character is effectively imprisoned by it. Classic examples: A cliffhanger occurs wherein the RP has to end for the day due to people's scheduling, but the actual plot hasn't wrapped up yet, and the nature of the plot is one in which the characters wouldn't have a justifiable reason to just hit the pause button and buggar off for several days. A "passive cliffhanger" occurs, in which there's no real cliffhanger situation, but the motivations of the characters in the plot are such that it wouldn't make rational sense for them to leave the vicinity of the plot in order to, say, go to somebody's tavern night. Even if nothing is actively occurring relating to the plot, the urgency surrounding the plot drives the characters to "remain at post". The plot occurs in a remote, travel-restrictive, or downright inaccessible (literally imprisoned, effectively) location, meaning that even if the plot scenes don't end on cliffhangers, it's not likely the characters could easily go elsewhere if they even wanted to. There are others, of course... It's really hard to avoid this happening, but it can be done with some strategy on the part of the storyteller. Here's some ways I like to try and keep it from occurring. Outline the plot in advance, and intentionally build in "break points" in each scheduled scene which correspond IC to the OOC need to end the scene. Usually, this comes in the form of needing to wait on something. For example, if the goal of scene 1 is to find an artifact, be flexible about exactly how it becomes found (that way you can make it spontaneous if you need to, in order to accommodate the OOC time limit on the scene). Once it's found, you declare that it'll need to be studied and researched before they can proceed, so everyone who can, please reconvene on X date at Y time at Z location (in other words, the start of your scene 2). Envelop the plot in a time pocket. This one gets trickier to pull off, and requires some preemptive discussion with participants in the plot. Let's say hypothetically you have a 4-scene plot planned out, and the only feasible point where a break could occur is between scenes 2 and 3, but OOC needs make it impractical to just do the plot as two very long scenes. Thus, you let everyone know: We're doing the RP in four scenes, dated September 1, 8, 15, and 22, each one week apart. However, scenes 1 and 2 both take place IC back-to-back on September 8, and, scenes 3 and 4 both take place IC back-to-back on September 22. Please do not use the activities which occur in the scenes we play out on September 1 and 15 in your unrelated RP, because timing-wise it won't have happened yet. If there's no good moment for a break, this can end up as a "serious time pocket", wherein you have to tell them all "okay, we're starting the scenes on September 1, but the entire plot occurs IC on September 22, so don't make use of any of it for outside RP until the plot has actually concluded". Reserve the plot exclusively for very active players whose schedules inherently correspond to yours. It could be useful if they're able to be active participants in continuing the RP scenario via Discord when being in-game isn't possible. This one is actually the hardest, and it's also the most limiting (due to the likelihood that your pool of participants will be small). However, it does mean you and the participants can probably stay focused and bang out the entirety of the plot in a concentrated effort, which can be an intense and enjoyable writing experience if well-executed. If you're merely a participant in someone else's plot, and they aren't managing their breaks very well, then... well, you're in a bit of a pickle, but all's not lost (excepting if the character is literally trapped in a place, in which case... well, shame on your storyteller for ending a scene in a situation like that). All you have to do is decide for yourself that your character has a secondary motivation elsewhere. They really want to help their friends do the thing, but they also have this other thing which is also very important to them right now. So they're inclined to pop back home to check on the other thing, if it's even reasonably practical to do so. Hope that helps!

My goodness, time sure does fly when we're having fun, doesn't it! We've had some newcomers to the staff, whom I'll be adding shortly - the first of which is the charming Lirianne Winddancer - you might've known her by the name Niamh, but IC circumstances (which are hush-hush, so shhh) warranted that she change her name, and so she has. We all happen to think Lirianne's a lovely name just the same! Lirianne's the self-described humble housewife of our member Elawyn Winddancer who works for the Celestine FC at their tavern in the Goblet. She's taken on the guild's cleaning duties, as well as an interest in learning the ways of exploration and treasure hunting. Glad to have you, Lirianne!

The biggest thing, I think, is that for the most part like 99% of the time the users here are reasonably friendly, helpful, and supportive of each other and the general community. I mean everybody has a snarky moment now and then but that's just life. Overall it's a pretty welcoming kind of community, and so people stick around and contribute to that.

Didn't see a shortcut made for this, so here's a shortcut. :3 tiny.cc/balcal

Though the existence of hybrids is plausible (given evidence you already mentioned), it's also very very rare, if we consider the NPCs we have access to in the game to be any indication of population density. Thus, while playing a hybrid isn't in any way lorebreaking, you will doom yourself to the following two probable situations coming up on a regular basis: 1. Some players will consider it snowflakey, especially if the fact of being a hybrid seems irrelevant to the character's story/background. If it's a major component and arguably defines their outlook on the world and the manner in which they interact with others and pursue goals, then it will seem less snowflakey because it becomes a critical plot point rather than a cosmetic detail. 2. You will have to constantly, and repetitively, make note of whatever prominent visible features exist on the character which other characters can see, but you can't represent on the avatar. For example, when playing a hybrid hyur/elezen, if you use a hyur avatar, you'll have to constantly include in your emotes references to the character's pointed ears, lanky limbs, etc. On the other hand, if you use an elezen avatar, you'll have to constantly reference the character's rounded ears and squatter-than-elezen limbs. This is the only way to ensure that other players can recognize you're playing a hybrid (putting it in your search info or wiki isn't enough - many won't look and will just assume the character is the race represented by the avatar). If those two things are palatable to you to endure on a routine basis, then you'll be just fine.

You seem to have already spelled out your answer. If you haven't established him as being an expert at it yet, then traditional study and training will take him years if you treat it realistically (and that's assuming he can endure and pass said training). The only quick route is a soulstone, and given how much death there's been recently in the liberation of Othard (and then said Othardians going temporarily to help liberate Ala Mhigo), it's not unreasonable that he could've found a soulstone - and, that a teacher who has lost many pupils would be willing to show him the ropes in an accelerated manner by making use of it.

I recall it being noted in the Azim quests that it was perceived that it wasn't so much that there wasn't anything in the steppes of interest/use to the Garleans (who may very well have opted to take it over merely for acquisition's sake), it was more a situation of the Garleans recognizing that an invasion attempt would unite the clans against them and would be a very costly endeavor in manpower and equipment, and they weren't in a position to commit that kind of force. Which is why it turns out that the Garleans were actually correct in that assessment, because the united strength of the clans ends up indeed sufficient (along with other factors, of course) to rout their butts entirely from Doma and Ala Mhigo.

Psst... which server? (It's possible I'm blind and didn't spot it - if so, oops!)