Valence

It's what most people assume about that 14th council member. It's made pretty clear in the various quests in the city, but we lack a clear link between them and the WoL besides what Emet Selch sees the WoL as before the final confrontation. The reason however, is pretty obvious and linked between the ideological conflict between Hydaelyn followers and Zodiark followers.

Having a bit of rough backstory is always good but I feel like a lot of RPer focus too much on that when they should really focus on fleshing out their character concept first. Define their personality and what they are, what you want them to feel like. Use character archetypes, mix them together, keep what you like and toss what you don't want. Don't hesitate to challenge said archetypes with different takes. If you (and after, the people you RP with) can describe your character in one sentence, and find like 5 key words / adjectives that absolutely define your character, then the base is already solid. If you can't, then it means that your character is still unclear and vague in your mind, and that they won't stand out. The character backstory is a red herring. You create it to support your character concept and explains how they got their, and then anchor them into the lore with it. It's a cement, but not the foundation. It serves the character, and not the other way around.

This recent interview contains some potential huge lorebombs, some on ShB (intentional greek named Amaurotine places, Sharlayan anyone?), and some on races, like Keepers of the Moons (ancient lore family names being words descending from potentially ancient Amaurot or the first offspring of the city after the Sundering?).

We have no clear, hard rule on how half breeding work. From the few examples here and there found ingame or in the story, and without speaking about interclan breeding but actual interracial stuff, things would tend to point at the offspring taking on more on the mother side, especially on the frame and size for obvious birthing reasons (I mean it's the same IRL anyway). Hilda keeps a hyuran frame, Arenvald a highlander one, etc. We also heard of a Ruby Princess mixed with a hyur fisherman father, and she is said to have been au'ra in appearance, but almost devoid of scales. All in all I would say that what we have seen of it leaves a bit of freedom for people to create their own thing. Dalmasca was known as one of the most diverse nations when it came to its demographics so I would really not sweat it about roegadyns here. 25% of "others" is quite a sizeable amount of whatever race that isn't Hyur, Viera, or Banga... Otherwise the Calamity struck Eorzea the hardest since the elder primal Bahamut also obviously focused mostly on Carteneau before being stopped by Louisoix, but the biggest part of the Calamity was actually Dalamud itself that exploded and sent wreckages and colossal chunks all around, nuking the land. This struck Eorzea the hardest, but you can bet that they felt some of it in other regions. This is a Calamity after all. Imagine a smaller version of the moon crashing down on the planet, even if most of its kinetic force was dampened before impact and the thing exploded...

No matter their training however, there is still a dead cold fact with garleans, and that is that they're very closed to aetherial manipulation, which means they have serious issues harnessing its natural power to enhance their own physical abilities, thus why they usually use a lot of aetherial inconductive armor and are armed to the teeth with ceruleum powered magitek contraptions. Strip them bare of their equipment, and they're as vulnerable as weaklings compared to aetherially imbued eorzeans.

Nothing in the lore suggests that garleans have improved physical capabilities over other races. The only thing I've read in lore on the subject is that the raw unnatural strength of xaelas can even surpass the body weight strength of roegadyns.

KojiF explained explicitly that racism is isually rampant in Eorzea and races mostly live with each other because they just have to, since nations are rarely tied to a single race and closed to anybody else. And you will have anything really, racial relationships being quite taboo (his words), while it being perfectly normal in more open places like for adventurers. In short people have no problems living together but they have limits to what is acceptable. The various examples we see ingame are exactly there to explore taboos, forbidden or badly accepted things. There is also one example of miqote being ridiculed for living with Gridanians: Leih Aliapoh in the archer questline. I seem to recall that she gets mocked by the leader poacher for the side she chose instead of sticking to her roots, or what "true and free keepers" do. This is also a recurring theme with the Coeurlclaws.

The path of the twelve was founded by Ascillia who renamed herself Minfillia, and was intended as a refuge for echo wielders like her, that was aimed at helping people and do good deeds. The circle of knowing is totally different and was lead by archon Louisoix, and was essentially a sharlayan entity dedicated to do what the scions do today. Both groups merged near the end of 1.0. As for the reason behind raids, for extreme primals its usually a stronger summuoned version of them. For other extremes like Thordan or Tsukuyomi for example, those obviously can only happen once in history so they are just presented as a sung version of the fight that happened, song made by the wandering minstrel, inspired by the tale made by the WoL. For savage raids it tends to have various other explanations like Eden where it is a recollection of memories made by Eden based on the wol memory and recorded in a crystal that you can vividly relive through at higher pace. All in all except primals maybe, it is generally centered around the WoL.

Seeker and Keeper societies are mostly described at the tribe or clan level. You see plenty of them living in cities or in civlization, mingling with others, and living lives that are completely dissociated with their cultural roots, starting with monogamous families and hyur like based behaviors and habits. Keepers also got their round eyes from living in very shadowy, unlit areas, like forests. They probably lost their slit eyes in the process, exchanging the depth and visual focus specialized to hunt in wide, open steppes and plains for more light sensitivity (and probably more situation awareness since their field of vision would therefore extend back to normal levels). But that's mostly my take on it, eye physiology seems rather complicated.

Good point but I just can't read it like that myself I guess. I'm unable to find videos in other languages yet for the facet of crafting quests..

Not specific to the First per se, but the Viera/Vis have superior hearing. How exactly compared to other races with superior hearing (elezens/duskwights and especially lalafells), that remains to be discovered...

Maybe your character was just part of a band of grizzled mercenaries? Or maybe your character was actually involved in wars? I mean, those aren't exactly lacking: you had , or the Garlemald invasion not once but twice: the first time In Ala Mhigo 20 years ago, and the second time on the Carteneau Flats when Meteor happened. And if you want the character not to be an eorzean native or having been at other places in other times, Garlemald also invaded a shitload of other nations, like Dalmasca, Doma, etc. The Dragonsong War lasted for a millenia between man and dragon in Ishgard/DravaniaIn. The character can be a knight of Ishgard and serving directly in the military against the Horde of Nidhogg, even have been a snowflake Knight Dragoon depending on the power level / elite level you want for them, or they could have been just someone wanting to get involved without having the social status (noble/knight) and went through the Convictory to try and get their dragon kill to climb the social ladder. If you opt not to play a native ishgardian, take care because Ishgard closed their doors totally to foreigners after the Calamity, and reopened them very recently. Ishgard is generally known for its knights, heavily armored to face dragons their broods (dragonkin/scalekin), wielding swords and spears, and its Knights Dragoon, an elite order of soldiers using spears and aetherial feats allowing them to jump to incredible heights and contend with flying enemies on a more equal basis. But overall, if you choose the road of the Convitory, whatever art and weapons will do. All of those people desperate for a dragon kill come from various backgrounds. Various Garlemald invasions: Garlemald invaded Ala Mhigo and stepped for the first time in Eorzea 20 years ago, taking advantage of the civil war in the country between the mad, paranoid King of Ruin (basically Caligula) and the Order of the Fists (monks) allied to the Crimson Duellists (red mages). When Garlemald entered the fortified city, people almost welcomed them with relief, but the invasion wasn't exactly bloodless either. The nation was just so bled out that they couldn't really offer any serious opposition, and the mad king Theodric had reached the last stages of insanity anyway, entrenched in his royal palace. Ala Mhigo was known for being the most martial and warmongering of all city states of Eorzean, and for its pikemen, considered at the time the best spear wielders of the realm, even above Gridania's, the latter actually taking a lot of its art from Ala Mhigo originally, but also for its powerful and influential monks, capable of superhuman feats by channeling aether through their steeled bodies by opening inner chakras. Ala Mhigo was conquered by the XIVth legion of Garlemald, lead by the newly appointed legatus and promising Gaius van Baelsar, who strongly believed into conquest of intact territories and upopulation uplifting). Ala Mhigo however has always proved to be a problematic territory to hold and full of unrest, which prompted a rather harsh treatment of its occupied population. Garlemald also invaded Eorzea 5-6 years ago, spearheaded by the VIIth garlean Legion and lead by the megalomaniac legatus Nael van Darnus, and eventually caused the 7th calamity by dropping Meteor on the Carteneau Flats with the help of Midas nan Garlond (Cid's father). This is basically the opening cinematic of ff14 ARR. The combined forces of the recently allied and reformed Grand Companies of Gridania, Limsa Lominsa and Ul'dah fight against a single legion in a bloody massacre to try and stop Garlemald's advance, until Meteor wipes everyone out. As you can guess, a lot died, but there is definitely many survivors that lived through that hell. The Calamity hit the hardest here but the elder primal Bahamut certainly didn't stop there and caused ruin all across Eorzea anyway. This is probably the war where you have the best opportunity for a character to have seen literal Hell, and survived. The family of the character can also have had a martial tradition and grand parents or ancestors having served in the Autumn War, a war between Ala Mhigo and Gridania that eventually turned global in Eorzea almost a century ago (date check?), leaving some bad blood between both nations. Ala Mhigo, a nation with very little natural resources and a harsh mountain climate saw its economy bolstered and sustained by the caravans going through their territorial chokepoint between Aldenard and Ilsabard, thus getting a lot of leverage from trade tariffs and taxes, which made their fledging, warmongering nation of mountain tribes and sheperds the nation it is now.... Until trade by sea from Vylbrand and Limsa Lominsa eventually became possible and profitable, and just went around through Thavnair and to the middle and far east without going through arduous land roads in Ala Mhigo. This lead the city state in a state of economic disarray and pushed them to invade their neighbor Gridania, which they could eventually have vanquished after their general died of disease, until Limsa and Ul'dah eventually intervened and pushed back the invader. Family could also have served into other conflicts like the Dragonsong War (since it spreads over thousand years), or even the very old wars between Ishgard and Gridania, or Ul'dah and Sil'dih at the dawn of the 6th Astral Era. Then you have wars and conflicts that happened outside of Eorzea... Which are legion. In the old and steady theme of Garlean invasions, the garlean invasion of the desert city Rabanastre (and its Kingdom of Dalmasca, including the cities of Valnain and Lea Monde), and then Doma, which happened in blood and technological superiority for both. Finally there is also all the garlean invasions when it was still a fledging republic and how they eventually conquered the whole Ilsabard, but on this we have very little info.

Every job uses aether more or less heavily, and I don't expect DNC to be that much different. That said I have yet to level it up and play through it so the only thing i know so far is that dancers use an art called Kriegstanz (war stance in german), and while also using various throwing weapons, complement them with aetherially created fans.

I'm not sure to see how magic being a thing in Othard (obviously) has anything to do with white magic? As far as I know, Sadu Dotharl is a very powerful thaumaturge, but even that is a label. Maybe she employs some black mage spells? Either way I have no idea how she could be a true black mage unless the story suddenly brings us clues about her having a gem of shattoto and all the apparatus required to cast black magic properly. Maybe she uses another art though? Like Y'shtola? I doubt that Y'shtola is a true black mage in essence either, and the game takes great length to denominate her "Sorceress" and not "Black Mage", even if she tells you she uses black magic. There is also a wide but unclear difference between a job label and roots/practitioners, and the nature of the spells themselves. You can be a healer chirurgeon of Ishgard without being a conjurer, which is a label applied usually to those shroud conjuring practitioners (because conjury at its source is moogle magic that was teached to gelmorrans by moogles so they could get closer to the Elementals and live in harmony with them). You still use another (halonic) form of conjury because the nature of the magic is the same. The same way than a conjurer magic is essentially the exact same shit than what a thaumaturge does, because the elemental magic they use is composed of the same aether, but cast completely differently. Long story short is, we have very little info usually on how some classes or magic is used in everything that's not related to our ingame classes and jobs. Edit: that's like saying you're from Othard and you're a Dark Knight because you harness dark energies from your emotion and the Abyss, to which you give a different eastern sounding name. Two concerns about it mostly: there is nothing telling us that this kind of art has been also developped elsewhere than in Ishgard, and a Dark Knight as a label makes no sense in Othardian folklore (would probably be called something like Dark Ronin or whatever less cheesy you could think of). I don't see the difference with white mage. Jobs refer to very specific arts and cultures. A monk is an Ala Mhigan art harnessing the power of chakras and body aetherial energy, maybe they have a similar thing in the far east, but that's not what the ingame job monk is. At the opposite, you don't see every knight in eorzea calling themselves samurai just because they had the idea to use a curved blade.

I don't believe in the fairies being able to break every law presented to us by how the universe works between shards. Even if fairies seem to have almost unlimited power when it comes to certain rules answering to their twisted games (so as long as they make it a game, they can conjure insane magics by just snapping their fingers), I really doubt that they would be able to make people traverse the rift itself, even if they can with unanimated (no soul) materials. Otherwise they would just bring your retainers to you directly... But heh, it's rather nebulous either way when it comes to the fairy folk.

A white mage not from Eorzea sounds highly unlikely. White Magic was developped in Amdapor, which is in Eorzea. At best you could twist it and go all the way up to Gyr Abania, since they're descendants of Amdapor and Mhach, and created Red Magic out of black and white magic.... Although that's also stretching it because there is not even more than a single red mage practitioner survivor, so white magic... which was shunned and replaced by red magic there... Big doubt. I mean the character can be a foreigner to Eorzea, but they would kinda have to come around here to learn about it in the first place anyway. The only other place we know that serves as a big mcguffin to learn all various kinds of forbidden and forgotten magic is Sharlayan (which can probably explain why Y'shtola has access to some spells from the white mage repertoire I suppose, or how Alisaie got on the trail of X'rhun Tia for her red magic...). Then I guess you're free to create your own places, but that would be a bold claim.

If that's the lore strict crowd, then I don't know what I am. I'm a lore purist stricto sensu and I can safely affirm that their true problem isn't that the lore forbids it (the lore actually allows it through various difficult and restrictive means), but that they just might see it as too "unicorn" for their tastes at best. So, to cut short to the chase, the 3 white mage padjals tell the WoL ingame that since the War of Magi and the 6th Calamity white and black magic have gone extinct and stayed forbidden until more or less forgotten in the twists of History. White Magic (amdapori magic) continued to be transmitted into the very exclusive circles of the heirs of Amdapor by the Elementals, to a few chosen individuals. Those came progressively to be hearers and people linked to the Elementals of the Shroud, and when Gridania was finally founded, transmitted inside padjal seedseers and their close circle. To this day, the last great white mage was a-Towa Cant, that died in the mines of O'Gomorho and left his soul stone to be inherited by the WoL, first white mage of non padjal origin for eons. Now, this doesn't mean that there can't be other white mages (padjals and seedseers aren't omniscient). Koji also referred nebulously to other more "nefarious" methods to get a white mage soulstone, and there is for most jobs the last resort option which is always to find such a rare soulstone on your own, here for white mage, probably hidden deep somewhere among the countless ruins of Amdapor in the Shroud. All hard of access and stupidly dangerous and infested by all manners of forest creatures, but also animated golems of Light (winged lions, kuribus, etc), last defenders of Amdapor. Now then, all soulstones acting like jedi holocrons of sorts, you probably want to be already well versed into conjury for it to even open to you. Maybe you can force it, crack it open through magic macguffins of your own making, or whatever. Then it will start teaching you. Now the thing we don't know for sure, is if the white mage job is a job that absolutely requires the soulstone to function (like SCH, MCH, etc), requires the soulstone only not to kill yourself in the process of casting serious shit (like BLM), or not at all. The BLM option is a strong contender since both those jobs are basically mirrors of each other that pumps the planet aether to feed their gargantuan spells. Either way, not even having a soulstone could potentially be an option for less "snowflakey" feels, but you'll have then to restrict yourself even further in the actual proficiency of your character into the art, slowly and arduously learning whatever bit they can find about said magic in old, obscure arcane tomes in forgotten libraries. And dabble into the magic for years, decades, experimenting, failing, etc.

To wonder why they didn't use those for Eden and chose old malfunctioning linkpearls instead (maybe because said weed withers and dies in the Empty)..

I mean Ishgard is just starting to expand and reclaim its territories again since the Dragonsong War is over... Citadels like the vigils, lands like Falcon Nest and whatnot are being supplied again by the capital more regularly... They also expand in the Sea of Clouds, Diadem, etc. But even before the end of the war, you still had villages scattered around Coerthas. Estinien comes from one such that got burned to the ground by Dravanians. The girl that puts a sleeping drug in the WoL's drink during the peace celebration in Falcon Nest in the MSQ also saw a fate similar to her own native village happening. Settlements are legion. Ishgard couldn't hope to survive alone without them, especially during the 5 harsh years of the Calamity where they decided to close their gates to everybody. You just have to be aware that the land since the calamity has seen incredible weather change, lots of settlements like the Gorgane Mills or Hemlock in Western Coerthas for example only host ghosts now, since western coerthas was the area the most hurt by climate change, and also the closest to Dravania.

Apparently linkpearls aren't a thing in the First either, until some old dusty ones got salvaged from the Tower.

If I remember correctly, the house of the character Crammevoix (forgot the house name) in the Scholasticate series used to own some parcel of land in Coerthas, whose smallfolk they sacrified in the name of twisted ishgardian honor before forfeiting their lives as well. So yeah the ishgardian nobility can either own properties of various kinds in Ishgard proper, but also outside. Some of that property can be land. ( not to be confused with official major defensive citadels like the Stone Vigil, etc, that belong to Isghard proper, even if they are entrusted to some of the major noble houses )

I'm opening a thread where I can post various interesting tidbits of lore about the First. Apparently, glamours aren't a thing on the First and are a specific creation of the Source. It was introduced by the Exarch among other things, like gremlins that aren't native to the First as well, and came unfortunately with the Crystal Tower (source: I don't have the image, it's from a FATE in Lakeland).

Midgardsormr doesn't exactly come from another shard, but another Star.

It seems to point at the tower being able to open a rift wide enough not to only let the Exarch go through the rift from the future (with the help of Typhoon), but the full building itself, which must have required an insane amount of energy. Now in the future they say on those Ironworks manifestos (found in the Twinning) that it took them a long time and many headaches to finally make the tower open to them and that they have to thank for that all the previous work made by the Sons of St Coinach on understanding allagan tech, tomestones, etc (in our epoch) for without which they wouldn't have been able to. Which basically means it took them eons to just open the tower and access it, meet/wake up Graha Tia inside, and then start working on using the tower to send people back in time through the Rift. This goes without saying, besides maybe the Exarch, nobody in our epoch be it in the Source nor the First so far, has any clue how to use it again... Unless someone manages to pierce the mysteries left in the Twinning... especially since uh... the WoL blew up the Typhoon to prevent some funny guys (Ascians) to put their hands on it and start doing funky things with time... not in our favor. Edit: in short, the Crystal Tower in the Source is the one we know, the one from our epoch/timeline. The Tower in the First though, is the Tower from the Source but in the future, when they transported it across the Rift and through time with the Exarch inside.

You don't have ambiant lightning everywhere or at every time, but in certain places or during a storm, sure, plenty of it. But yes you could theorically "just" use an aetherotransformer that draws aether from the land around. You'd understand though that designing such a contraption you'd immediately face 2 problems: - How do you tell the transformer to draw from the land only and not also from everyone or every creature that gets trapped into the radius/beam/whatever? (can probably be solved by fancy aetherometric filters and whatnot). Also the transformer would probably be a lot more complex and uh... BIG to vacuum everything in a ten yalms radius... - How do you tell people you're not basically a black/white mage sucking up the land dry? I mean it's probably easy to conceal to such a small scale but still. Can be an interesting story hook in itself.