Valence

Most of the NPC Keeper last names we see ingame are said to be wide, long spanning keeper families that spread over time all across certain regions. Those we see ingame are mostly Eorzean. Other wide spread family names also exist, either in Meracydia or Ilsabard among others, and may show different names than the ones we know. (source: Fernehalves) It doesn't exclude smaller families or unique entities to also exist though. Not every Keeper has a wide spread surname coming from the same roots.

For some reason I didn't get a notification when this got responded to, but ty! I mostly asked because of the RDM theory me and some friends made into a google doc (which no one's still responded to yet q.q) because we notice the red mage uses both of those glows for their weapon. Specifically, casting white mana generating skills (veraero/verstone/verholy) makes the conjury/white mage glow while black mana generating skills (verfire/verthunder/verflare) glows the intense purple. So we were wondering what kind of ties that might lead, whether it was how they are bringing about the aether to their weapon to channel or if it's just the element itself. I suppose a red mage wouldn't be limited to prayer/elemental pleading and channeling their own aether reserves alone... Unless there's some law/religion/reason being that a person couldn't do both for some reason? That's interesting. Although I didn't even consider treating the problem under the aspect of White and Black magics, that are slightly different from their conjury and thaumaturgy counterparts. While Succor/White magic involves a sheer amount of prayers to nature and all the jazz associated with conjury these days due to the padjali legacy and the simple fact that Elementals don't take no shit anymore about slippery uses of that, it is not so certain for Amdapori Succor of old, because prayer and meditation isn't required for Succor to function, unlike conjury: the latter must borrow from the land, thus the meditation, while the former uses a magic that just takes from the planet, much like Black Magic (and both require a soulstone to work properly). Personally, those colour schemes don't mesh well with my understanding of the lore. We could take them as you say and the game seems to show, as an indication that it's either Stone/Water/Wind (white) or Fire/Thunder/Ice (black) that are being cast, but in terms of elemental mechanics and put in application through the wheel, there is no clear pattern and it makes little sense. Both have astral and umbral elements. Both elements are not diametrically opposed too. I'm suspecting that if you really require a possible explanation of those colours, then I would guess that everything that requires the use of Black Magic lies on the same principles than thaumaturgy (except the uses doesn't siphon their own aether, they siphon the planet's), thus the purple. And I guess... for some reason, elementals in Gyr Abania don't really mind those red mages to use both black and white magic, so that white magic that lies on a certain elemental allowance (it's their magic after all, produces a white glow... If Red Magic is really what it claims to be, which is a mixture of Amdapori Succor and Mhachi Black Magic, then its practitioners by definition don't use their personal aether reserves. They should use Hydaelyn's aether. Which also means a certain combination of gems of Shattoto and a White Mage soulstone. But... Hard to tell, and i'm rather curious to see how the lore in 4.0 will explain that.

I fear that you are trying to know something akin to why a bard's empyreal arrow isblue-purple-ish rather than red or why a monk's elixir field is blue and not green or red or pink or whatever... And I really doubt anyone even among the developers have had a truly thought out answer directly anchored into the lore either. The most probable answer is that of a standard colour association as white with pure, natural, healing magic, and purple as malevolent and/or destructive gloomy magic. In terms of artistic believability, you could perfectly swap both and have conjury glow purple or even red, and thaumaturgy glow white, but especially in the case of the former, that would probably look very weird to most people, just due to those standard associations. Much like you associate red with danger and green with validation or safety. Now then, one thing is sure, if the colour is tied to the element being cast, then since both conjury and thaumaturgy aren't limited to a few elements and actually have acces to the full aetherial elemental wheel, then it would probably mean that a conjurer's cane would glow purple when casting fire/ice/thunder and a thaumaturge's rod would glow white when casting earth, water or wind. I somehow doubt that it's the case, and if there is any reason at all to begin with, I think that the colour is probably more tied to the style of magic and the tools they use to access it, which are diametrically opposed. So, white for a conjurer praying and pleading to elementals to allow them to access nature's bounty, no matter if they try casting Fire/Thunder/Ice ; and purple for a thaumaturge focusing and forcefully channeling their inner aetherial reserves through their weapon, no matter if they try casting Stone/Water/Wind.

Think about running it synced or even min ilvl. The challenge for the latter is higher and while those dungeons take time like that (1hour and a half each), the story makes ten times more of an impression like that I find. Running through it too fast cheapens everything I have noticed. But yes, to answer your question, no matter how you complete an instance, it works for completion. Min ilvl, undersized party, synced standard party, roulette...

For HW jobs, all three jobs have very different states of affair: 1) Astrologian is a rather rare and hard job to justify in terms of roleplay unless you specifically are Sharlayan and so, been teached the ways of Astrology. It is also possible to have been teached the basics of astrology as a foreign student in the Sharlayan Studium, and while those are barred specific areas of knowledge that can be used offensively or to make war, the case of Jannequinard is proof enough that while that guy was lazy as hell to actually learn anything, he was teached the basics of the art. Astrology being a very potent magical art, is especially put under great scrutiny from the Bibliothecs that don't hesitate nowadays to send accomplished assassination teams to deal with the few sharlayans that try to spread that knowledge outside the borders of the archipelago. All in all, playing a sharlayan is enough in itself to play an astrologian (which is still an art that remains considered rather... eccentric by sharlayans themselves, but respected for its potency by those that know). Playing a foreign student also gives a good justification. It gets harder, but of course not impossible at all, to be teached those ways outside of Sharlayan by the handful of sharlayans that tried to spread the art, especially before the rise of the Bibliothecs in the recent years. We have to keep in mind though, that the ishgardian astrology, which was simply contempt watching the stars to look for dragon invasions, has very little to do with it, and so Astrology in itself, the sharlayan art, was brought to Ishgard by Leveva's family, but never taken seriously by ishgardians themselves, until... just now. 2) Dark Knight: is a very ishgardian specific job of a bunch of people playing batman to fight the wrongs made all around in the city. As long as your character has lived at least a little in Ishgard, either as a native (Fray), or a refugee (Sidurgu), you can be a dark knight, and those have been there for centuries before, and it took them centuries to discover the Dark Arts they use now in complement to their two handed sword skills. 3) Machinist is a very recent job that doesn't even have a few years to account for. While house Haillenarte and Stephaniven basically invented the art and opened the SkySteel Manufactory, and try to teach the ways of the machinist to anyone that wants - to the point of begging - we have to keep in mind that since that job is very new to Eorzea, machinists are not yet legion and you would probabluy be hard pressed to find true masters of it since... the few that are good at it barely have a year or two of practice. However, marksmanship in itself, or engineering, are no new arts. The only new thing here is the use of the aetherotransformer and turrets. All in all though, the only way to be a machinist right now is probably to go get teached at the Skysteel in Ishgard, unless maybe you find by a huge coincidence a wandering machinist. So, depending on the HW job, your mileage may vary. All but machinist have been around for eons. Dark Knights continue to play batman, machinists are just starting to spread happily, and astrologians likewise in Ishgard, outside of Sharlayan. So, except dark knight, the two other new jobs are just starting to be a thing in Ishgard. Now then, for Stormblood jobs... The lore blurbs seem to indicate that Red Mage is not a new art since it was formed by survivors from Amdapor and Mhach... So not exactly new. Samurai... is harder to tell, but it does seem to be something deeply ingrained in the culture of Othard, or at least Kugane. Hard to tell for both though, how they are regarded legally, and in terms of taboos, but they have been there for long I bet.

While the archer questline goes a great length to portray the underlying racism between gridanians aimed at miqo'te, I don't think Silvairre is a great example in himself, because all his posturing is bloated and over exaggerated, since he actually hides a lot of his feelings behind that, where all his hatred is actually directed at himself, though if you want to know more, I strongly advise you to go on ahead and see why it is so. I don't want to spoil anything with that character. It's true though, that he was probably full of prejudices before, and thus why he relies on them, but that's what makes me say that his forceful, over the top antics are probably not the best reflection of the reality. I think if you want to really read under the lines in that quest, it's best to listen to what Leih Aliapoh has to say on the matter. For the ACN questline, the motivations of that specific roegadyn pirate are probably aimed at a position of power and domination from his part yes, but it's not so much directed at her size rather than her past that involves... him too. Likewise, it's explained near the end of the questline.

I think it's the flag of the Resistance. Historical examples often show that resistance movements rarely use the flag of their country. Especially when they oppose their own country that they consider illegitimate.

Just throwing that here, but there is still anger around in Europe directed at Germany for WW2. Mostly from old people that actually were alive when it happened, or direct children of the post war, but I remember consistently having grown in an environment where germans were often referred to in very derogatory manners, and this, despite the efforts of building the EEC and then the EU. It was literally everywhere. We are well past 20 years after my early childhood though, true, and this has mostly vanished, or in the way of doing so. It's not as clear cut as it sounds. Of course, it can be argued that the Autumn War had nothing to do with something on the scale of WWII. So I would naturally tend to go with what the game lore shows, which is little enmity.

Aspected magical elements aren't equal to nature, wild elements. If you throw water aspected aether at fire aspected aether, they will have a neutral aetherial relation, so no aetherial reaction together whatsoever. It's totally counter intuitive, but that's how the elemental wheel works. It starts to get interesting though when your aspected aether actually cause a wildfire somewhere, that you can probably quench with standard water, as expected, or bolster with the right amount of wind. But yes it's clumsy I find on their behalf. The simple idea to use water AND ice in an elemental wheel makes it borked by nature since both elements are kinda redundant. But those are the usual FF elements of the licence so...

Now that I look back, what I truly miss in HW that was there in the world of 2.0, was a decent lore rich environment. I mean, I'm the last one to praise secondary filler quests and other low end gamedesign like that (if a story isn't good enough to be in the main story, then don't put in instead in secondary shit, it will still be shit). And yet, I look back more fondly to some of the sidequests of 2.0. They were shitty ping pong quests and what you usually have, but we weren't literally drowning in an ocean of them, and they offered nice lore still and exposed the world around for what it was. In HW, it's... the same I guess, bar the sheer amount, but the world is not quite the same. It's not about the Shroud, Thanalan, La Noscea and all. It's about mostly barren and empty regions, with less than engaging sparse inhabitants (moogle quests? bleh). We had a moutain of such quests compared to ARR, and yet I felt like I had very little to actually eat in terms of meaningful lore. Right, of course we had Ishgard proper, and a few other very neat lore areas. Airships and skypirates. Really neat stuff actually.

Thaumaturge: Conjury: That makes perfect sense for conjury and thaumaturgy, but the question that often bugged me is why would arcanists need to think of the arcane geometries that are already written in their books? Open your eyes and look at the damn book no?

You could potentially... go the adoption road too. Nothing prevents a keeper mother to adopt one or two male siblings orphaned for a reason or another, and include them in her list of male names.

We definitely have many lore references about materials protecting from or enhancing magicks. This is also something that appears in garlean armour coatings like gold. About skin drawn arcanima patterns doing exactly that though, nothing as far as I know.

This is for now part of fanon lore rather than anything factually based or shown in lore (the only tattoos we have in lore for now are all cultural and/or aesthetical but don't seem to hold any magic power for their users). Nothing however seems to go against the possibility of it, but I highly doubt that you will find anything ingame for the aforementioned reasons.

I would advise to do the optional quests for Matoya - the ones where they don't give you a pointer, but just hints. They are probably your best source of lore for magicked brooms and porrogos.

It could be reasonable to assume so, but that doesn't mean it's a stated fact either. So far, the Doman NPCs we have seen sure seem to exhibit dark hair (Oboro and his group, Karasu, etc). Though even IRL, asians don't ALL have dark hair, even if it's pretty unusual, and very rare for very light shades. I also wand to add that even when the lore states something like "Keepers of the Moon exhibit dark eyes and fur, and pale complexion", doesn't mean it's the case for all. Firstly, the character creator offers way more options, and that's already telling since it still tries to stay within the race flavour. Secondly, ingame models tend to exhibit different features than the lore standard (for the case of Keepers again, the generic Coeurclaw NPCs for example often have grey/white hair and dark skin). So all in all, at best, you could get a general rule, but I really doubt it would cover every individual.

I like, simple and lore grounded backgrounds. Can't offer family since Keeper, but can offer RP around Gridania backstories for sure! Small note, Seekers don't really have surnames in the surname sense. Females have their own first name and the first name of their sire, and males have their own name plus their social status (tia or nunh).

Be it well and interestingly done or not, it remains mostly part of your own character backstory or ongoing story. What does it bring to other players you are RPing with? Quests to help your character find their memory back?

From experience, the only thing that stops Garlemald to completely subjugate (through conquest or utter annihilation) its enemies, is when they would benefit more from said enemies to stand more or less independent rather than subjugated (cf Radz-at-Han). Garlemald ending bogged down in a guerilla? I would be surprised for them not to blow the shit out of the whole island in such a case.

I don't understand the scenario's need for Yda to be someone different from Lyse. It brings absolutely nothing to the story but confusion. We never knew Yda then, and it just makes her a part of Lyse backstory.... To what purpose? Yes, I feel there might be more to it, or otherwise, it has very little interest in itself.

Gosetsu is obviously a roegadyn model, with a specific, unique face. The same way Lyse/Yda is a midlander with a unique face. The same way Raubahn is a highlander with a unique face. The same way Yugiri is a Raen with a unique face and scale gradient. etc etc Unique NPCs tend to have unique faces specifically tailored due to their prominence in the storyline. Though the Eorzean Alliance was just a thing of a time, a war coalition more than anything, before it collapsed just when the Mighans were beaten eventually. The modern version of it, a long lasting one, but fragile one, is very recent. It took decades for it to be rebuilt, and it's one of the themes of 1.0. When 1.0 starts, they are really depicted as isolated and bickering free cities that don't care much for each other. 1.0 was also a lot more harsh with Ala-Migho overall. They were depicted by Minfillia as "having done their best to repel the Garlean invasion, only to find their iron blades and their modest magicks to be no match for Empire's machina." Without speaking about their civil war, or course. But when you see the actual Ala-Mighan resistance in 1.0, it's almost laughable. They are depicted as desperate people with barely their clothes on their shoulders and dressing like animals, only armed like peasants. And then they go try to steal an airship to supposedly go do damage and free their city (a single garlean airship? lol?), because the only thing they have for themselves is nothing more to lose and a true despair calling, so thick you can actually feel it. They don't even start to even comprehend the power they are facing, and when they all get slaughtered by Baelsar, they speak of disbanding the Resistance already.

From where does all the flood came from? With a bit of imagination, I could guess it comes from the surroundings of the Shroud, that is as you might have noticed, a rather wet area. For all we know there is a lake somewhere near at the bottom of Gyr Abania. It looks wrong the way it's done only because we don't know of such a location and haven't seen one around (yet). And maybe the dragon is just a fucking huge water aspected crystal and MAGICKS, SON... The WoL could have reduced them to a bloody pulp, and I had the same reaction for like, 5s when it happened in 2.55. But it actually shows that the WoL is not an idiot is not going to throw it like Raubahn under a fit of rage and play directly in the hands of their enemies, in the middle of everyone. That was actually a wise move to do. And... proactive? Sure, give me back 1.0 story. Was thousand times above the shonen we have been getting since ARR.

Told people it was probably not Rhalgr... And yet people were deadset on stating it was for no reason.

Designed to work fine under 200ms ping? Try playing Titan hard or ex and see how you like the puddles with above 150ms already. Or any countdown you have to smash several times for it to register. Seriously, the things you read...