Valence

That's a good point but the main issue where it remains extremely vague is when did Mooncats exactly came to the Twelveswood in the first place. Was it before Gelmorans did their pact with the Elementals, and then had some pact of their own with the Elementals (improbable)? Was it after?

I don't even see why a good villain would necessarily have to be overpowered though... but that's another story.

On conjurers training enough to become Hearers, this seems to hint pretty strongly in favor of it I believe. I believe when you are a Hearer and start telling people shit because you can, it would be a bit disingenuous to think that for some reason, people, especially other Hearers and padjals, would never notice that weird Hearer saying all sorts of weird biased stuff all around eventually. That's really not putting much weight on their actual cunning and wisdom. Thus, you have to be cautious of what you say and how obvious it would be for others, especially your peers, to see that you are full of shit. It is true that acting often on your own without a padjal or two to check on your back at every second sure helps, but still... Also, nothing says that because we see a Hearer in Quarrymill distributing dubious leves alone, that Hearers ALWAYS act alone. I'm sure they talk to each other like anybody else, but heh, who knows, I don't recall any precise lorebit telling that they always act alone or in groups.

So far the closest thing to it that was pointed out to me is the lvl50 BLM quest where Ququruka and his pals make a summoning ritual and Ququruka alters the ritual. It rips apart his buddies and fuses them together to serve as a body for the summoned voidsent (Barbatos). So it seems that the void can indeed alter, manipulate and 'touch' people and their bodies, or taint them like a disease. But it doesn't seem to bring them supernatural void powers, unless the voidsent actually take possession of them.

I'm probably going to nitpick a bit but the Garleans work a lot like the Roman Empire. They do not necessarily conquer land to impose their ways. They conquer to bring order and peace, as mentionned countless times by Baelsar for example. Well at least, that's the official ideal of course. The mileage may vary depending on the person, as for everything. Bad apples everywhere and all that. In any case, they grab new lands, but don't impose that much actually. Especially the less problematic and confrontational the conquered nation proves to be. They get to keep their own laws, rules, culture and governors as long as it doesn't directly conflict with imperial rule above. Garleans are not that much interest into telling people what to do and how to live their lives. What they are interested in is that everyone make their share of duty for the whole Empire itself, working toward civilization and order. The Garlean Empire is more or less thriving to follow what the Allagan Empire was. A strong, unparalleled rule of Mankind United if you will. The primals are not really competition for them but just the ultimate direct threat. When they launched their fleet above Mor Dhona and got into battle with Midgardsomr and his brood, the fall of the Agrius and the resulting explosion broke the seal of the allagan prison here where all the primals were bound (a bit like Bahamut in the artificial moon Dalamud). The garleans were not prepared for this and as far as I know it was the first time they witnessed primal power. That's where they suddenly shifted their priorities to their pure and total annihilation. As Baelsar said it, they associated the willingness of Eorzeans not to deal with the source of the problem as they saw it: the beast tribes that continuously keep summoning those primals. If you put yourself in their shoes, you have a neighbor that keep say, building up unsafe nuclear plants at your border and keep blowing them up, you are probably going to seriously be pissed at them and take them as a threat. If they don't want to hear you and admit they have a problem of grave safety to be dealt with, you are probably going to eventually want to kick them down. Well that's the same thing with garleans. Eorzeans don't want to deal with their beast tribes that continue to summon extremely potent, unpredictable and dangerous weapons (primals). Garleans, being a bit extreme in all they do, then considered eorzeans as traitors and beast tribe protectors. Thus, condoning primals essentially, so they deemed eorzeans as part of the threat themselves. That's basically what Baelsar tells the Warrior of Light when he gets totally baffled that the WoL is actually talking with beast tribes. It is, of course, hypocritical of garleans since they are after all at the origin of why the primals got free of their allagan prison. It gets even more ironic as the garleans basically gave unconsciously the means for beast tribes to oppose their eorzean oppressors by summoning those primals. The Hearer gift is twofold: you can like Sylphie be a natural at it, and then train to understand it and not just Hear, but you can also not be a natural at it like most conjurers, and work hand in hand with nature and elementals to eventually be able, maybe, someday, to Hear like a newborn natural would. Bad apples among Hearers is probably a thing, like in any job or milieu really. If you dont want to get caught, then you have to be careful and good at tricking your peers. And I bet that in the case of Hearers, you would have to trick padjals, which is no small feat. But at the same time, once you get above that (since padjals are few and scarse), you basically get a free pass to make up whatever you want since well, you are the only one to Hear anyway, so who cares if you tell lies? The trick is just not to make up any shit too big for any other conjurer or Hearer to notice that you are just being a little shit... And also, the Elementals probably don't care if you make up shit. They will just start caring if it disturbs the balance of the Wood. But if you say "That mighan family is NOT approved by the Elementals" because you are a racist asshole of a Hearer, why would Elementals even care? Human problems. Racism is not even a thing among Elementals. They wouldn't even be able to say it's racism anyway, they wouldn't know the concept.

It is, but at the same time there is a whole good dose of paternalistic hypocrisy here. If selective breeding was truly at the heart of the matter here, then they would also take the alpha women, since, you know, women pass 50% of their genes in the process too. So to me it's probably also a lot more to do with that harem thing. In short, it's half selective breeding only. As a sidenote to me, selective breeding is often equated to eugenism in our minds, but nature itself makes it so for every race. Partners with the best attributes often get a way easier way to find mates, and it's also true in our modern society, even if less so.

Ah neat, thanks. I think I actually already read it somewhere for those juggernauts (probably with that Mor Dhona FATE) and totally forgot about it.

Added the Agrius and her escort ships.

Void taint if I remember correctly my White Mage lore and classquests, happens when voidsent corrupt aether around them and then that shit start spreading and threatens everything. Turning sprites into corrupted horrors and stuff like that. Does it work on humans and beast tribes too? Like, sentient creatures?

I have come across a lot of 'void touched' characters and... basically, what does that imply in the lore? I know about possessed by a voidsent, but what is being void touched exactly?

Okay, I decided to create a repository for all Magitek weaponry related stuff belonging to the garlean military, so, feel free to add your sources and comments here! I'm interested in all you've got, whatever it is. Thoughts, lorebits, whatever works! I'll try to update it as possible. Note on airships: It seems to imply that garlemald air doctrine for the military leans heavily on slow, sturdy and heavily armored airships rather than fast and agile, with a few exceptions like the assault crafts/corvettes. It is also interesting to note that there is no distinction made between the Army and a kind of 'airforce', as airships seem to be given to each legion of land forces. This seems to imply that the Garlean military has already achieved a state doctrine of combined arms, which is something not that old IRL, and still not quite used in a total synergy (we still have airforces, navy forces, etc, even if they work more together in the modern day).

Well, I mean here it's not even about a job, it's just soulstones you carry with you, imprint yourself into them, and then pass along generations. I can totally see a cult forming around that with ancestors revering and stuff. You really don't even need anything about a job here. I find the concept quite original and neat. Of course, it's already threading into world building stuff because we are not anymore talking about pure lore facts here. OR... You can go the milder road and actually revere ancestors like we do IRL with not much magic behind. Maybe there is, and your cultists probably think so, but maybe there isn't.

Except for some jobs where it's specifically stated that you need it, like Black Mage (or else you can still use the spells but literally burn yourself from the inside), or MCH (as a catalyst for the transformer).

Ouch. I tend to go look over cliffs out of habit or something, most of the time when I'm not RPing, queued for duty, etc (favorite spot for that? Just outside of the Carline Canopy, and yeah, I have been approached before due to that...).

Zodiark and Hydaelyn are mostly esoteric concepts that are not really known to most Eorzeans. Especially Zodiark, that everybody has forgotten for millenias and eras, if they even knew about him to begin with. As said above, Hydaelyn refers to the planet. Some people might have a vague grasp that there is probably more spiritual stuff behind the planet than that, as evidenced by the Calamities, but that's it I think. I actually don't think that having a cult built around some kind of blessing from ancestors would contradict lore so much. Just build it around soulstones really. Classquests especially are a direct testimony to all the leeway you can get from ancestors' spirits manifesting through soulstones, from the very mild manifestations like in the NIN quests (you basically carry the experiences and soul of one of your fellow ninja before you, and it mostly seems very spiritual rather than anything else), to the very shattering events like A-Towa Cant coming to say hello almost in flesh and help quelling the Elementals. So I actually think it's directly supported by the lore, and it's up to you to see to what kind of level/magnitude you want to take it really.

Even for 'machinists', MCH is just a job like any other. You can perfectly be a gunslinger without being a machinist, much like you can be an archer without being a bard and whatnot... I mean, people with flintlocks in Eorzea are probably far more numerous and don't use aetherotransformers and the associated soulstone, which are the mark of the MCH.

Run in Sohm Al, stumbled on a WhM that was here for the first time. Doesn't use Shroud, spamms cure II (except when he really has to), spamms medica II even before fights or at the end (that aggro generation yo), goes out of MP... And just generally can't heal properly for shit, even on small packs. Tried to ask if he was using Shroud two times. No answer, but otherwise the guy was talking. I really hate people that ignore you whenever you start giving advice or asking if they forgot doing something, when it's obvious that they are shit at playing their class and it boggles the mind that they got that far doing mistakes you only do at lvl 30-40... Really salty about players that are bad, not because they are bad, but because they plug their ears and play ostriches and hope the people in party will get bored of asking and that it will end soon. In contrast, I stumbled on a tank in the Aery that was taking every advice we gave him, and tried to apply asap after. That was nice, he got lots of comms.

Suen: Magitek Spriggan

Didn't lore seem to say that even in Eorzea they all kinda have their own languages and stuff?

The reason of the why, we don't know. I'm not even sure that Hearers themselves get to know precisely why someone gets denied access while another one gets accepted. It is true that it seems to point that to a certain degree Elementals can make a difference between individuals themselves. This is also confirmed by the fact that a greenwrath can be directed at one or a few individuals that pissed off the forest. Problem is though, that if you do that enough you eventually put Elementals in such a frenzy that they start doing really bad things all around, as can be seen in the CNJ/WhM quest as well as the MSQ. And then it suddenly starts to concern everyone and targets everyone without much care. Why are Coeurlclaws accepted by the Elementals? Well, for once, I think that all of them are initially Gridanian citizens, so they don't come from outside like those mighans. They are directly part of the Pact of Gelmorra by birth. Your question is interesting though in that I always wondered how all those Keepers of the Moon got into the Shroud initially. What did they do exactly not to be targeted by the Elementals as soon as they crossed the Hedgetrees? Since well, they were not exactly part of Gridania/Gelmorra and had nothing to do with it. As for city states tolerating some beast tribes like the Sylph, yes, definitely. City states are not obtuse to the point of killing them all indiscriminately. The thing is though, that we can see that some like the Sahagin, Amajila and the likes, have clans that are not outwardly hostile. We also learn that some of those actually fight for their own survival, like the Sahagin. We also see in the MSQ that Y'shtola accues Merlwyb and Limsa to have actually perpetuated that genocide against the beast tribes to grab more lands and get rid pragmatically of a threat. She especially tells her that it's not going to be a solution in the long run. Merlwyb just answers that she does what she has to do to defend her people. So yeah, she did stuff that could have been seen outrightly evil, and yet, it was for her people. And if you are not convinced, then just look at the Garleans. They want to get rid of all beast tribes so that they get rid of the primal threat in the first place. Is that evil? Arguably by our standards I can admit, but I would argue also that their reasons are not. Unlike you know. Ascians that just want to see the world burn. Some qiqirns are allowed into Limsa, or even Ul'dah, but they soon got for example banned out of Ul'dah because they were competing with local merchants. Again, that's an example of scale of grey in my opinion. Of course, you can arguably put some of them lower or higher on the scale of evil vs right, like you would any character between righteous and evil in any tabletop. But I don't subscribe to painting people and factions in broad strokes of black and white, because that's not what is presented by the story. Garleans started it all? Sure. They got into Silvertears Falls and battled Midgardsomr until the Agrius exploded and liberated so much aether from that point (Silverfall being the bridge between aetheral place and the real one), that primals suddenly became a reality. Did they intend to do that though? I don't think so. They weren't even expecting to fight Dravanians here. Okay, I won't go into details on Thordan since you have not done that part yet. But keep in mind that he is probably the best example of what I'm trying to say. People like Xande might have been rotten to the core initially so that they were easy to corrupt for Ascians, Thordan however, is a whole different story. Or even Gaius. Was Gaius for a total genocide of all the beast tribes when they started summoning primals all around? Sure. Was Gaius opposed to project Meteor lead by his own people? Sure too.

Yes, before the pact of Gelmorra everything that was basically not ixali was immediately cleansed by the Elementals. However, when the Ixali snapped so bad when elezens and hyurs started to communicate with the Elementals, and got kicked out of the wood, the pact of Gelmorra basically allowed every human race to live there as long as they followed the Elemental's law. And that's the thing. Poachers are humans. As far as the Elementals are concerned, they are the same thing than any other Gridanian. They live there with the permission of the Elementals. If they screw too much with the order of things, then it's the whole pact of Gelmorra that gets threatened. It brings up Greenwraths and all bad things that Gridanians will do almost anything to prevent. That's why Gridanians are so harsh and uncompromising when it comes to apply elemental law (and not just their local laws). They basically flip their shit at the idea that humans eventually break the pact and all hell gets loose and Elementals can't be appeased anymore. So, before the Calamity, the Elementals were probably a lot quicker to anger and act yes, but at the same time, the Shroud was a lot less under pressure with all those new threats, as you say, like voidsents, poachers, and people breaking the law due to the weakened state of everyone in charge here. So, now that the Calamity has happened, Elementals are probably a lot less almighty there due to their weakened state, but proportionally there is also a whole lot more bad stuff happening with the potential to anger them. The Coeurlclaw king does pretty despicable things yes. And every City state kills hundreds of beast tribe people every month or so, or are guilty of so much racism and xenophobia that it boggles the mind, and Maelstrom privateers pirate and assault garlean mercantile ships, and Thordan did a lot of bad things too to make his Kingdom safe for his people, and Gaius Van Baelsar was ready to make literal genocides to deal with order and the primal threat, etc. Oh yes, the Coeurlclaw king does a lot of 'evil' things on our moral scale. He also holds a few values that are lot less black. Total freedom, hatred for the Elementals tyranny, protecting all the people that got wronged one way or the other by a society that despise them or decided to toss them aside, even if he does it with very twisted, wicked methods. You can't just paint him all black like you would with an Ascian/Paragon, but you can surely say that the guy's colour is pretty tainted alright. But one of the central concepts of the FFXIV lore (or FF lore in general) is the opposition between mortals, the people living there, with all their flaws and strengths, and the dark, evil forces that actually play on hubris everytime to make civilizations fall, again and again. Xande was not necessarily evil in himself, Gaius or the Garleans certainly not either with their very strong ideals, or Thordan. They just were made so by Ascian influence.

From what I can gather at the very least, the few ones we have don't seem to have last names. Perhaps allagans didn't make use of those, or didn't exactly made the difference between last name and first name, for them it being just a name, and that's it. ( Note that Amon was called Hein in FFIII )

Well, the only two cases I can refer to in lore for ancestors empowering somebody are soulstones, which are memories, experiences and testimony from the people that wore it before, and the case of A-Towa Cant coming back in the form of a ghost (that can even interact with the world around), but that second case seems pretty much linked to the WhM soulstone in the first place so... Yeah. Soulstones. And that thing with Louisoix in the last Coils.. Doesn't mean it's the only way to do it though. But as far as I know there is nothing else in the lore currently existing for that purpose. Then of course you have all the more creepy ways like bringing back your loved one from the dead in twisted voidsent personas and the likes, and then making them possess you and whatnot, but I doubt that's really empowering by ancestors proper.

Shiva being considered the Dusk Mother sounds a bit hazardous to me. Shiva is Dravanian/Landlords figure that got turned into the epitome of heresy for centuries in the society of Ishgard. They even go to the point saying a few times in the MSQ that not everybody is even aware of her considering how taboo and repressed and censored she actually was in most ishgardian books and stories. In any case, I have a hard time seeing how she could have reached Othard somehow. The lore quotes from Oboro brought up by Sounssy in the post you linked is interesting in itself. It seems indeed to point at something very similar to shintoism where Domans would revere an equivalent of kami (japanese spirits akin to elementals).

The Au'ri actually worship 2 main divinities they believe to be directly descended from. The xaela worship the Dusk Mother and the raen worship the Dawn Father.