Valence

We don't have as much info as I wish we had on garlean occupation policies, but we know that the more a nation proves problematic to conquer and especially the more trouble they cause after, the more Garleans will rule it with an iron fist. For example, a lot of the nations of Ilsabard (the garlean native continent) bowed more or less quietly before Garlemald. Doma on Othard, however, revolted in masse and got razed to the ground, and Ala-Migho proves to be the most problematic of all, not outright revolting like Doma in one big burst, bit constantly plagued with the Mighan resistance and various scales of guerrilla around. It is said to be now ruled by a ruthless tyran part of the imperial family since the Black Wolf got defeated at the Praetorium. We are going to learn more about all this in 4.0 and onwards. It would be rather incorrect to assume I believe that some nations went totally unchanged aftr Garlemald annexation. While Garlemald leaves a lot of independence and leeway for the people they conquer, not really interested in the way people rule themselves, they still act a lot like the Roman Empire and oversee everything on top of it. You don't become a de facto citizen of the Garlean Empire for example, with all the rights and status that go with it. One way to become one as we know of is to enlist in the military and serve for 20 years before being granted that status. So no, they don't force everyone in the military. It's really hard to say what truly is life under Garlean rule as we lack a lot of info on that as I said. We know however that life is absolutely atrocious for Ala-Mighans that are forced to work in the many garlean magitek manufactories almost as slaves. Mileage seems to vary depending on the province. In fine, as much as I wish we got offered a very nuanced view full of greys on Garlemald, we have to keep in mind for now that they still constitute a militaristic autocracy with a strong, ruthless central authority obeying the emperor (the senate being just a shadow of itself). In short, you don't fuck with Garlemald. If you live in their lands and attract their attention for some bad reason, then you are probably in trouble. Yes, there definitely is some Sharlayans that are open minded and looking at Eorzea and not just their own land. Those are, however, a minority. Louisoix for example, was seen as an eccentric among his peers when he decided to go crusade and offer his knowledge in service to Eorzea, when he could have just stayed in Sharlayan. His grand daughter and grand son you encounter at the start of 2.0, have just come to Eorzea to see what attracted their granfather to sacrifice his life to Eorzeans. Leveva and her family in he AST questline, come to Ishgard to spread sharlayan astrology there. They get basically outlawed by their own country (The Forum) for doing so. Y'shtola, Urianger, Thancred and all the Scions are the legacy left by Louisoix, and sponsored by the Students of Baldesion. Besides those and the Sons of St Coinach for example, there is little for philanthropist sharlayans around, but Louisoix sure seems to have been the spark to ignite that new trend. I would offer to bring more info as exposed in the lorebook, but I'm at work sadly for now.

With your criterias in mind, we know that Garleans enlist all the natives they conquer indiscrimately and so you will probably find a decent amount of miqo'te in their military, but since you would rather prefer something 'quieter' in terms of background without having to involve defection and whatnot, maybe it's not the best option, though it is still an option. Sharlayan is a good option as well. The AST questline also shows how foreign and culture shocked sharlayans tend to be when they come to Eorzea, due to the isolation and protectionism they live under, on their islands. Sharlayans tend to find eorzean rather barbaric and silly. Their first reaction is often contempt or arrogance. Overall, the Sharlayans are very, very arrogant librarians, although it doesn't mean they all are of course, but politically, they mostly lean towards strong isolationism and sitting on their own pile of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, especially in the faction of the Bibliothecs (far right conservatist wing). Don't worry though, they definitely didn't get nuked or anything like that in the story so far. They abandoned their colony on the main continent decades ago when their negociations with the Garleans failed and the Garleans started invading Eorzea (mild spoiler: you will visit it at the end of Heavensward), and the settlers returned to their main archipelago. It is also true that we get news from the island of the Students of Baldesion, the main patrons of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, that got razed off the map (possibly by Ascians, but we still don't know much about that). Playing a miqo'te from their continent of origin, is of course another option, although you will have a slightly harder time to play that because we literally know nothing of the current state of Meracydia. There is actually tons of lore regarding that continent, but most of this actually concerns the 3rd Astral and 4th Umbral eras under the yoke of the Allagan Empire, that went to war with Meracydia in their lust for conquest. We even start to see a bit of what Meracydian cultures were, but as of today, it's hard to say if they even have lots of trade and whatnot with Eorzea. We however know that lots of miqo'te tribes still live here, and those are probably the closest you can find from the original miqo'te. Fernehalves also hinted long ago that you can also find a few miqo'te on other continents like Othard (far east), but we probably get back to point 1 with Garlemald that invaded there as well.

PotD encourages cancerous dungeon behavior in a lot of players.

Is this still up? Is there a linkshell? Unable to catch you ingame so far...

Can be seen like that I guess. Can also be seen as a disgruntled customer asking for a refund after having broken ten times the warranty and the user agreement (if it was already stated that people had to be active).

Refunding their rooms? That sounds... a bit too nice.

Officers OOC don't have to match whatever hierarchical positions characters have IC. OOC officers should always be nominated over their managing, creative abilities as well as their involvement and maturity or whatever you ask them to be. Then I think purges are in order. Just don't do it like a tyran. The problem is, the more you wait, the more it will be difficult to get rid of something that took root in your FC. From what you say, it already kind of has, so don't take too much time to address the problem. It will only get worse as a result. That kind of players tend to poison everything by leading a very negative example, and it's very contagious, even if healthy members don't want to. If you have people that set that kind of atmosphere, it tends to spoil everything for everyone. I think it's more a problem of being a GM overall. Tabletop experience can greatly help, but that's something you have to learn, also by yourself. See what works and what doesn't. Take part in plots run by others, and see what worked and what failed. I think though what differentiates a FC living some kind of bliss and a standard FC is if their baseline members are active or passive, or in between. Passive means, just spoon fed by officers and leaders in terms of RP and plots. That is... not great because if officer activity fluctuates (it always happens at some point or another), then those members will suddenly be left without all their usual activities and will complain. Those are also often pretty much the kind of RPers that show up to events and still remain passive, or RP in their corner, or just RP when the spotlight is on them, meaning, they are nor proactive RPers. In between means, they are basically the same, they don't create much and their own events, but at least when RP is happening, they are involved and proactive. Active means that they basically run their own plots and bring a lot to the FC by themselves. Very few FCs are full of active players. Most of them tend to rely on their officers, and that's a shame. Motivate people to run their own thing. Show them support whenever one of them tries to, because when everyone suddenly turns active, RP suddenly happens all the time and it creates a synergy where people just have fun, and want even more. It's a virtuous circle.

Lots of new info Also, no new race for 4.0. Possibly, the plot with Garlemald could extend up to 6.0. Primals are gonna see more variety in the way of summoning.

Primals are maybe not locked in there in their entirety. The only thing the lorebook states is that Cuchulainn's band of WoL slayed primals with the help of auracite, they captured their essence. Maybe as a whole, or maybe just, what remained, or a weakened form. Nothing is certain for now. And yes, it doesn't seem to be a common crystal yeah definitely not.

Alright so... if you don't mind me addressing the points I find confusing or somewhat nonsensical. The thing is... reading and an overall level of literacy is something you would expect from an upbringing among scholars, not blacksmiths. That is not to say that a blacksmith can't somehow be educated and literate and a bookworm or what you have, but your standard, run of the mill blacksmith is probably more concerned about his craft and trade, and probably know a lot how to bend and forge metals and alloys, but why would they bother with books, except as a hobby? In any case, there is absolutely no apparent logical link between having blacksmithing parents and a very good literacy upbringing. You might need another reason, or to elaborate on that a bit. Edit: you seem to elaborate on that a bit on the history section, that he actually taught himself due to his own passion for books. Sounds fine by me, but I think you might need an explanation to capitalize a bit on that. What made your character suddenly craving for books, reading stuff, etc? If I take mine for example, she loved that kind of stuff because she actually felt like a misfit in a society where books are not always the standard fare for children and adults alike, except scholars, guildmasters, archivists and conjurers. At best, her family was into books on botany and herbariums, because that was their trade. Why did she chose to chase after every spooky or cool book she could get her hand on? Because she felt like a misfit and tried to evade her condition through her own, naive, almost futile dreams. If that makes sense? The positives to me are the combat (basic sword and shield) and crafting skills (blacksmithing), that seem all but over the top, and flesh out the character more and are one of the best traits that give an overall direction to the character in my opinion. You can definitely capitalize on that. The chocobo story can also act as a good emotional story to forge your character personality. Character seems to be a good old fashioned, tradition ridden (values hard work and respect) paladin archetype. It might be a bit cliché left like that without any other twist, but it works. Wants to protect everyone, gets riled up by human misery and exploitation... Over used troped just left at that I think, but it's a good start otherwise. Overall now, if I may be blunt, your character read like a mishmash of things put together with the hope they make sense. To me at least, they don't. You have some interesting bits that could form a basis for things to happen, but they get literally drowned into the amount of things that I find either rubbish or out of place. The whole thing feels to me like Mary-Sue-ism associated with Weeboo-ism, anchored in a good dose of a brooding Shonen manga main character tropes. Overall, and I know you didn't bring your FC concept here, but coupled with it, it tends to be reminiscent of your usual young shonen hero afflicted by being chosen by a primal as its bearer. Please keep in mind that a lot of those tropes are definitely not inherently bad, as some good fiction characters directly stem from them or even inspired them, but put that way and especially associated with generally very negative concepts like Mary-Sueism and Weeaboo-ism, especially in roleplay, it can lead to a few cringe worthy things. And generally it just ends up in breaking suspension of disbelief, at least for me. Then, to everyone's their tastes I guess. That's for my honest feedback.

That is... incorrect though. Shiva and avatar-Thordan are prime example of willingly and conscious summoned primals. They are special in that the Scions were very surprised to see something like this being possible. Shiva, as well as Thordan, are living mortals turned into primal forms as long as they have enough energy at their disposal for doing so (Iceheart/Shiva with your usual fare of crystals, Thordan with the aether-infused eye of Nidhogg). I also believe that White auracite, or at least auracite (we are still not sure of the difference between both), is actually perfectly able to capture and hold a primal almost indefinitely, at least of the standard kind (maybe not an eikon like the warring triad or bahamut, but that's speculation). We know it's only temporary in the case of Ascians considering their power. However, we also know that the Warriors of Light of the 13rd Shard (the shard that turned into the Void), like Cuchulainn, used auracite in their weapons to siphon primal energies and imprison them inside, using them as a source of power. We also know that the seal is not perfect (as it seems to always be the case with auracite) and it allowed those corrupted energies to sip through it and taint those Warriors of Light progressively, turning them into voidsent monsters of incredible strength.

Have you tried to ask for feedback to the people that leave and see what they didn't like, or why they moved on to something else?

This need more love.

Here we go, seeing PF advertising selling apartments on Balmung.

One thing miqo'te might excel at, is sheer physical strength, especially in the back muscles. Well of course, Seekers are good archers too, but considering the emphasis Keepers put on the use of the (short) bow, that basically requires strength, no matter what. And lore doesn't really seem to take that into account, sadly. It's an annoying trope seen in most fantasy worlds, where archers somehow are the small dexterous ones, and swordsmen, the tall and strong ones, where it should be the opposite. Now granted, we are speaking about miqo'te, with their compact, wiry strength, using a short bow instead of a long warbow, etc etc...

I seem to have read many different opinions on minions, and what they actually are, but I'm ultimately more interested with their place in the lore. We seem to have at least two kinds of minions though: - The standard ones like the coeurl kitten or the gaelikitten. Those are often considered reasonably as baby version of their respective species? What about the baby bun? Same? Or are they considered as something totally unrelated to those creatures? - The wind-up ones... Are they even covered by the lore?

I don't think Keepers are running especially faster than Seekers. Better reflexes? Maybe, very possible. But in thick woods like the Shroud, speed means absolutely nothing. In any case, what lore states is really the emphasis on their incredible sense of intuition, able to spot marks and preys even when perfectly concealed. That, in those woods, makes a lot of sense, added to their drug addict, nocturnal eyes (oversized pupils). On hunter vs trader, they sure started as hunters, and in tribes, their activities still revolved a lot around that. However, we have some NPC examples of trading miqo'te, like the Liszeh family (embodied by Mauh Liszeh, selling her traditional stuff in the post moogle quests).

Lore is pretty explicit on what has already been stated, and what is mere speculation. As a mostly realistic player I tend to downplay a bit the racial traits described by the lore, but I certainly keep them here as a more subtle way to picture a society where all the races are Mankind, all with their quirks and differences sure, but they are all humans before anything (as opposed to beast tribes). So it will always end up to player interpretations for the degree of mannerisms you want to depict. It will also always end up to player willingness to thread or not into what isn't stated as true or false in lore as well. I know I don't, but a lot of people do.

They don't have claws, but they have fangs yes. Especially the Keepers that are overdeveloped. Feel free to hit me up ingame if you so wish!

Do you guys have a linkshell? I have had a hard time finding you out ingame, and I feel that a timezone issue strikes again here...

I find it interesting that a few roles like the Praefectus Castrorum seem to hint at some divisions (garrisons especially) of the army not actually comprised into one of the Legions proper. While a legion could be stationned at a Castrum, the administrative force of the Castrum proper looks not to be part of a Legion itself, a legion being mobile by definition.

I play a miqo'te and I never got a single eRP proposition, so... I expect it's also due to the circles I frequent. I feel that reading you your problem is not so much not finding much RP but probable ending up in the wrong circles, but maybe I'm wrong. Though by experience I have seen many like that, that get heavily depressed by all the shit they end up dealing with (possessive romance and OOC drama, RPers just intersted to get into your pants for ERP and whatnot... I have heard everything, and it's baffling to me because I never got to see those milieus myself). Playing shy or introverted characters is not a bad thing. It just means that you will have to double your own efforts as a RPer to make them stand out, and also to reach out to people OOCly even more. I have played myself shy characters on other games, like a very introverted librarian, and my twist was that she was actually interacting with the world through the internet/aliases and expressing strong political opinions, before getting all shy again in flesh. It's an example among many I think. But if you don't have such character twists that allow you to circumvant the shyness, you can also go the OOC way and arrange things a bit more with your RP partners. Come with proactive ideas of things to happen and plots that you know your character would immediately hook to. You're going to get the "It's a miqo'te so they must ERP" stigma, but just play what you enjoy. Prove them wrong by diversifying yourself from all the horrid Miqo'te RPers and show them that you're better than that. Don't let it stop you from doing something you want! Some people may still inevitably write it off, but generally you can tell within the first few posts if someone is blatantly seeking ERP or if they're genuinely interested in RPing with you. From tales I have heard - and quite a few - that's not actually always true. For your usual quicksand ERP propositioner, sure. They don't hide it very much. But for the others, they are among the RP community, and can be found in many FCs around. It's maybe blunt, but it's the way the community is (or most communities anyway), and it's pretty much an objective statement in itself considering the amount of evidence at hand.

Most importantly, what do you like to play? I'm pretty sure while one can certainly find out a few major tendencies (like going for the romance heavy usual tropes), that you will also find all kinds of tastes and that playing something you dislike will probably end up with you disatisfied. I also do believe that a well written character will always attract quality, even if not necessarily quantity... Do you really need that many people? Find the good ones. It's a quest on its own but it's worth the trouble.

Yes, I was gonna say, you have at least a few possibilities for sea pirates. For sky pirates however... Lots of sky islands, but a desperate lack of airships in the world. Wish we could at least access our own FC airships at times.

Heavily reworked and updated that post. It now includes all there is to find on the subject written in the lorebook (and added images on link at the end of the OP).