Valence

Plus don't the Ascian's use Black Materia to prevent themselves from joining the life force, virtually causing them to come back from death as death was never able to grab a hold? Think It is the one time you see this other then the Zombie References made throughout the game (Thanalan just outside Little Ala Mhigo, Dungeons ect.,). Ya the only thing we know about the life stream is that all characters return to it unless blocked by the usage of Black Aetheryte Crystals, Hence the usage of the White Crystals. We don't even know if there is a subconscious beyond death.. all we know is we turn into the flow of Aether as far as I know and spiritually believe in the '7 Hells' as NPC's have said on more then one occasion. We know that the 'Void' isn't death just a place where darker magic and horror's exist.. so not sure the answer on this one as far as lore.. seems vague enough to allow room but also seems a little stretching. I'm not totally sure what you mean by "black materia", but the Ascians are a whole other kind of species that we don't know much about (yet). We don't know if they even are living beings, and if they follow the same rules than anything else. They are servants of Zodiark, the Dark Crystal exiled to the Moon by Hydaelyn. It's the power of the Dark Crystal that seems to prevent their souls to be dispersed to the lifestream (which could mean that the WoL could be subject to the same blessing from the Crystal of Light? Comparison only valid as long as Ascians are similar beings and their echo power is similar though). Anyway, the Dark Crystal refers to the power of Zodiark, and is not the same as any black crystal you might have in mind. Similarly, materia isn't the same as an aetherial crystal. Materia is the condensation of persona infused gear into small stones not that different from soulstones, with the difference that they don't quite hold souls or personas, just traces of it. The only known way to kill Ascians is to use white auracyte, which can temporarily suck and hold any flow of aether, and then kill it with a particularly powerful aetherial blast (something even shattered Tupsimati had trouble to do). So far, the only two Ascians killed that way are Nabriales (by the sacrifice of Moenbryda) and Lahabrea (by the eye of Nidhogg). Ascians are also immortal due to their nature of parasites, actually possessing people and discarding them when they need another one, not dissimilarly to voidsent.

On the lore side, the only thing I see that might cause trouble is the "being dead" thing... Unless your character wants to turn into a zombie, I'm not sure lore covers the possibility of coming back from the dead, at least, not yet to my knowledge. It's possible to come close to it or being lost to the aetherial sea like Y'Shtola and the other Scions though. Who knows what you could find in there? Antitower style.

The Raen migratory waves are recent and mostly came with Yugiri. Xaela however, had 3 of those over a decade or more. Unless I'm recalling incorrectly.

I would tend to agree with your points there. I think though that there is one thing that can validate travel for craftsmen, and it is companionship, something that almost all apprentice craftsmen used to do centuries ago where you learned your craft by going from workshop to workshop during years unti' you made a good tour of the country. Of course it only works for apprentices.

You can use a redirection tag on other pages with alternative names. #REDIRECT [[Name of your main page/character]] If you want the new married name to be the default main page with the article, then you will have to create a new page and transfer all the info on that one, and then remove all the info on the old, pre wedding page and put a single redirect tag as formated above on the page and it will point to the new page. I would even advise doing that just in case pages of other people still point to your old one. It would take the change seamlessly.

Most of the females of my FC play males. Anyway, courtesy of Ferus that digged that up:

Adding to what has already been said above, the Au'ra come from Othard, and the Raen especially from the city of Doma or the island of Hingashi. Both those feature a lot of river and coastal access and I don't think it would be a stretch to imagine that fishing and sailing are as important as they would here. Added to the fact that Stormblood will feature quite a bit of underwater scenari, I think you are pretty safe in going for a background of someone that has always lived directly in contact with the sea for everything in their everyday life.

It's always hard to say with Elidibus. He sure makes a lot of fuss about keeping the balance and not letting light or dark destroy worlds, but that's exactly what Ascians want anyway. They want their worlds still breathing for the rejoining.

From what I suspect the whole ordeal of getting all the Shards to rejoin with Hydaelyn is to bring Zodiark back from its exile and rejoin with Hydaelyn. I doubt that it bodes very well for Hydaelyn, but hey, maybe Elidibus will surprise us with his usual sophisms

Huh well, that was probably the tidbit I forgot about. The thing I have always wondered in any case is while they create Calamities in the Source to weaken Hydaelyn, what is exactly the mission of Ascians sent in Shards/Reflections? It was hinted that they got to destabilize them, while still apparently keeping a semblance of balance between light and dark.. But to what purpose and what effect? Do they need those shards in those specific states when Calamities happen in the Source? Do they have to synchronize the shit they do in Shards with the Calamities happening in the Source for a Rejoining to occur?

I don't think all Calamities had anything to do with any other Shard rejoining the Source? As far as I'm aware, none has rejoined as of yet, and the thirteen has been definitely spoiled. The Ascians are still at it, trying to force rejoinings, and have yet to succeed for a single one of them. The Calamities were designed to weaken Hydaelyn's will and sap her power away. It's the exact same method that is used on all the Shards as well, with the aim to force those rejoining against Hydaelyn's will. So far, no Calamity has succeeded yet, but it's always a step further in the direction of Hydaelyn's downfall. It is said at some point in the MSQ that the last one happening on the Source (the 7th with Bahamut) was probably the last one the mother crystal could take and was fortunately dampened a lot thanks to the efforts of the Scions.

I am... not totally sure if you are speaking about what the Ascians want, what really happened, or just theories...?

I don't recall having read anything about most of them being gone. As far as we know the 13th shard (the world of Unukalhai) is definitely destroyed since it turned into the Void. The 1st shard is the world from the Warriors of Darkness and has been scorched by the Light. However 3.4 clearly says that Minfillia is sent there to act as the emissary of the mother crystal, so maybe there is still hope for that one.

Just to be sure, I think you would prefer being blessed by Nald. Thal's blessing for great fortune sounds a tad... grim, taken in a certain way :3

The guardian deity is actually not tied to the Namesday (birthday) of folks. The guardian deity is chosen as a patron deity of sorts. The deity tied to the namesday is... how is it called again? Memory leak...

All city states are hardly composed of a single lineage/bloodline actually and Ala-Migho is no exception. Highlanders are not the sole inhabitants in there. Midlanders among others can also hail from there. If you go the Uld'ah route, it's true that everything tends to be determined by wealth but honestly, I wouldn't let them defeat you. I don't see why even a street urchin could not for some reason be noticed by someone from the Ossuary for his unusual aetherial capacities. If you are interested by a Doman legacy, nothing prevents you to say that this name is just an eorzean handle he took, while you can find him a true doman name. If Sharlayan is your thing, maybe he was outcast or exiled himself because he was a bit too much interested in destructive magicks for the tastes of the forum there. Honestly, possibilities are plenty here. It's not like you are trying to shoehorn your character into a concept, far form it.

Sounds good to me, seems to converge with my own feeling on the matter as well.

I'm digressing a little there on that last quote now that I read it again after like, the thousand time, but it seems to imply to me that before facing Eorzea, the Garleans didn't face a lot of deadly magic... Does that mean that Ilsabard states, besides the ones that immediately bowed after seeing the first ones conquered, had little if no magic as well?

A fireball will harm anything, be it constituted of aether or not (cf voidsent, inert non organic materials, etc). Aether is energy, and using it to light a fireball or what you have will cause mayhem around no matter what. So to me the analogy is moot here. As for the question, garleans are as far as I know, Spoken and thus are probably partly made of aether like everyone. So yes.

The treatment of conquered nations greatly varies depending on their meek or rebellious streak, and how much problems they caused before capitulating. It's a bit similar to their IRL inspiration model, the Roman Empire. We know that a lot of the Ilsabard republics and nations bowed immediately to them while problematic city states like Doma or especially Ala-Migho are of no end of troubles and it's said that the new appointed legatus over Ala-Migho for Stormblood rules with an iron-grip. It's also hinted that most of the valid population is forced to slave their way through magitek factories or other menial labor. All in all though, no matter your treatment, if you really want to become considered equal to a true garlean citizen, you have to go through 20 painful years of military service in their auxiliaries. I'm expecting ( and hoping ) to learn a lot more about that in 4.0.

As far as I know the hissing sound is found in the 'h' in miqo'te names. Not sure about the apostrophe.

They aren't going to set things in stone for good aren't they? I understand it from their perspective. It gives you leeway to do whatever you want for the next expansions and stories to have a blank map around, and revealing it progressively only when they need it. And it's more teasing that way too.

Gotetsu is intriguing in terms of naming conventions and subraces, for sure. I'm not sure to follow... If you dilute it and make it 50% instead of 100% as initially we thought it would be, then that leaves even less time for the WoL to solve stuff... Unless there is nothing solved at the end of course, but it works in both cases. The idea is that many people did not and do not want to see Ala Mhigo 'yay full liberation wheee everything is now A-OK!' at the end of 4.0. Well that's what I said, if it was 100% Ala Migho instead of 50% it could still not be liberated... Ah I see what you mean. There is a smaller chance it gets liberated with only 50% because they will have less space to fill everything in?

I'm not sure to follow... If you dilute it and make it 50% instead of 100% as initially we thought it would be, then that leaves even less time for the WoL to solve stuff... Unless there is nothing solved at the end of course, but it works in both cases.

About Xande... He was "resurrected" in the sense his body was cloned and his persona was duplicated inside. Technically speaking it's not his soul that got brought back to the world of the living. As far as I know (or what the Scions seem to say) there is a hard limit where the soul, constituted of aether, returns to the aetherial plane. My understanding regarding necromancy is that it is the art of binding back a soul to a deceased body, before that souls gets out of reach (meaning, in the other realm). Souls can linger and roam aimlessly, as they can often turn into ashkin (bhoots, etc). By doing so, the necromancer also gets total control over the soul in question, as seen for example in the Wiping City of Mhach when you explore further into Yafaem and finds Forgall playing puppets with the dead crew of your rival, or with Obdilord doing the same with Eda. Those resurrected are entering in the category of "undead".