General Lore Questions

[TheCuriousRanger]

Hey folks! I’m finally having a moment to catch some time to better delve deeper into the game since my more initial debut back in early March. Since then and now, I’ve been peeking at the many lore posts by Sounsyy and what other posts could be salvaged for use by Unnamed Mercenary (Much appreciation to both of them for the time they put forth).

 

While I get the gist of most of the aspects of the lore that I can digest, there’s simply still so much more to pour through and some that remain to be.. Uncertain at best. I’ll be posting a list down below about some areas that I’m confused about or simply haven’t found too much on them as of the moment.

 

1. Dates:

What’s the seemingly agreed upon date used across for Eorzea as of now? As of currently, the farthest I’ve ever gotten within the story lines and MSQ is the after-patch batches of the MSQ that lead up the Heavensward expansion, taking up the reins from the main story in ARR.

 

I’ve realized that so far, we’ve entered the Seventh Astra era, as declared by the Grand Company leaders after the Warrior Of Light defeats the Ultima weapon.

 

And to possibly expand on this, what was the date before the Seventh Umbral calamity impacted, and how long has the Seventh Umbral era lasted for? I know before then it was called the Sixth Astral era, but as far as I can gleam from a wide variety of sources, it seems to be around the year 1572. As for how long the Seventh Umbral era has lasted, would it be correct to assume for five years, give or take?

 

2. Unconsciousness and Death:

I’m coming to a sense that both of these aspects are a rather interesting part of the lives of Eorzeans and outwards.

 

As for being in-character, is it true that people, to a certain degree, once reaching a state of being ‘unconscious’, just simply ‘dissolve’ into Aether and get transported back to an Aetheryte Crystal (such as those in the various city-states, etc) or is this something reserved to the ‘Warrior of Light’ due to their possession of an Echo? Or if so, is it something that forcibly happens?

 

With all this in mind and if that is indeed how unconsciousness works, what really defines death for a character? As seen in 

Spoiler

Heavensward, with the death of Haurchefant

(something I’ve learned from various videos, among other things. I also don’t mind spoilers too much, so be free to use them if need be), what stems from a character experiencing unconsciousness to an actual death where they’ll be transported back into the ‘lifestream’?

 

3. Teleportation through the Aetheryte:

I’ve seen a number of posts about this, though not entirely certain if I grasp it entirely. Is this a mechanic that’s widely available for anyone’s use, in terms of being in-character? Or is this something where only a certain kind of folk that possess the ability to truly make use of the feature of its teleportation? This is of course also taking in account about having attuned to other crystals throughout the world, as shown multiple times through game time.

 

4. The Lifespan of the Elezen:

While I’ve discovered that races such as the Miqo’te and the Lalafell share a kinship in the sense of their lifespan with the Hyur, I’ve yet at all been able to find the lifespan for the Elezen. All I’ve been able to figure out about this race is that they live longer than the other races, but also seem to age slower? I have a character concept that I’d like to explore later with them being an elezen, but I don’t have the faintest clue with how to handle their age as I don’t want to make them too old, or also too young.

 

5. Food and Drink:

Possibly not really a lore question, but it’s something that I also can’t seem to find in bulk. The most basic and commonly used is something that I’m searching for! While also including Teas, I’ve only been able to discover what I’ve been physically given in-game or found throughout the shops I’ve stopped at in the game. Is there a definite list for items such as these?

Edited May 4, 2019 by TheCuriousRanger

[Kieron Lohengrin]

1. 1577, give or take a few months.

 

2. People get wounded fatally and die often. Getting knocked out isn't an automatic escape for anyone back to a crystal. Respawns are a game mechanic, not a plot point.

 

3. Yes. As recently as the latest MSQ, it's a plot point that soldiers teleported from Doma to the Ghimlyt front lines.

 

4. Slightly longer than hyur, but not by much. Only viera thus far are explicitly stated to live 200+ years and beyond.

 

5. https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Category:Meal

[Unnamed Mercenary]

 

 

 

18 minutes ago, TheCuriousRanger said:

snipping because the question is right above

 

1. We're effectively in a time bubble within the game, so as to have some semblance of time-conformity whether a person has been playing since 2.0 launch or anytime after. We are given certain "it took this long" moments from the lore here and there, but NPCs will never refer to the current year, as the logistics behind that would be a nightmare. (Which gets even more fun when there are new years events, but within the setting, that time could never have passed.) As far as we know, we're still within the "first or second year of the 7th Astral Era" or so. But a boat from Limsa to Kugane supposedly takes 2-3 months. And another journey in game was considered to take place over 2 weeks (of 8 days each). Most NPCs in game are still going to refer to time in the same manner no matter what point of the MSQ you're in. So important things we ca say is that the 6th Astral ended in its 1572nd year, which is when Bahamut did his thing. Then we entered the 7th Umbral Era, which lasted for 5 years, when the player character cleared 2.0 MSQ and defeated Gaius and it was declared we were now in the 7th Astral Era. So from 2.1 onwards, we're somewhere in the 1st-2nd year and if you see people using a year after 1572, they're tacking it onto the 6th Astral, which isn't how this time system works, but seems to be fairly common by players anyways.

 

Sounsyy's lore post on time: https://mirkemenagerie.tumblr.com/post/162958167699/yozaofjenova-niccodai-mirkemenagerie

 

2. Go talk to the NPC Guards (who technically take your gil payment) about Aetherytes! They'll explain how Teleport and Return lore work! ...although these are still things the average person isn't doing often, as commonfolk don't typically have the anima for it. I'm not sure how far you are in MSQ currently, but this is brought up in 4.0 by Alisae. You'll know when. Now when you lose consciousness in a dungeon and you're whisked away to the entrance? That's different from Teleport or Return, but somewhat related. This is attributed to Hydaelyn's Blessing, which is kinda layered on top of having the Echo. (One can be Echo-enabled, but not have the Blessing. Like Krile. Or Arenvald. Prior to A Realm Reborn, Minfillia was gathering people who had the Echo, this was merged with Louisoix's Circle of Knowing to become what we know as the Scions. 

 

Unfortunately, when someone takes a heavy injury, like the loss of a limb or the like, they're not just getting a damaged body, but a damaged soul, in a sense. The anima is cut off and that's why we don't see people regrowing limbs by teleporting or something. Once a person has returned into the aether stream, their sense of self kinda melts away because it's basically energy going into a bigger pool of energy.

 

Sounsyy's aether/aetheryte lore compilation: https://mirkemenagerie.tumblr.com/post/149379334409/is-there-lore-on-aether-and-the-aetherytes-and

 

3. I  touched on this a bit in 2!

tldr: anyone can, but some people are better at it. The more anima a person has, the more often or the farther they can go without getting aethersickness. There's a reason people aren't just teleporting everywhere all the time.

 

4. This was answered at the 2014 Las Vegas Fanfest Lore Panel! (wow, what a mouthful). Basically, all races of man have about the same life span, barring injuries, sickness, or premature death. If we say that the average lifespan is 100 years, then Elezen life to about 120, compared to the other races. They also experience a longer "teen" puberty stage, which is why are our 16-18 years old-ish Elezen twins are still rather babyfaced. Imagine being a teen until your early 20s, and then finally catching up to the others.

 

5. Most of our common herbs and plants seem to exist in Eorzea. As for meats, the animal varies, but there are enough similarities. Like swapping dodo for turkey. Or aldgoat. There are even people generating real recipes off of in-game dishes! 

 

Botanica Eorzea has a great compilation of many things: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EzZNCDNA3H4WFiTYPialBzj0Wm3xfXqcEEkENItbR3k/edit

[UnidessGaming]

I've been playing for only a few months myself, and am still going through the HW MSQ, but by talking with people on the Chaos RP discord I can at least safely reply for what concerns the dates.

The Sixth Astral era ended when the Calamity struck. The Seventh Umbral ony lasted until the end of the 2.0 MSQ, as declared on the occasion you mentioned yourself. Since the beginning of the ARR MSQ mentions 5 years have passed from the Calamity, it's safe to assume that if not 6 years, at least an unspecified number of months have passed beyond the 5 years count.

Apparently, at some point between the HW and SB MSQ the plot puts the timeline in a sort of temporal bubble, leaving the current official date unclear. Can't say on the US side, but the EU community at least overall agrees to consider the time flowing along the RL one and use the actual release dates of the expansions, to allow a more consistent character aging and development. So from the beginning of the HW arc, it's commonly agreed to consider 4 years have passed, setting us in the year 1581 (give or take a few months as usual, if you continue the counting from the Sixth Astral as some people do), or more simply year 4 (and some) of the Seventh Astral Era for example. Obviously, this is all complimented by leaving vague dates when referring specific MSQ events, if their mention ever pops up during RP.

 

EDIT: Dang it, Unnamed anticipated me as I was submitting

EDIT2: Corrected a typing error after Unnamed Mercenary pointed it out and cleared another sentence.

Edited May 4, 2019 by UnidessGaming

[Unnamed Mercenary]

 

 

1

1 minute ago, UnidessGaming said:

The Sixth Astral era ended when the Calamity struck. The Sixth Umbral ony lasted until the end of the 2.0 MSQ, as declared on the occasion you mentioned yourself.

 

Umbral always comes before Astral. The 6th Umbral Era was "The Flood" which was then followed by the 6th Astral Era.

For more general timeline stuff:
https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Loremonger:Timeline

https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Sixth_Astral_Era/Timeline

[UnidessGaming]

1 minute ago, Unnamed Mercenary said:

 

Umbral always comes before Astral. The 6th Umbral Era was "The Flood" which was then followed by the 6th Astral Era.

For more general timeline stuff:
https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Loremonger:Timeline

https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Sixth_Astral_Era/Timeline

 

I was actually supposed to type 7th Umbral, typoed it badly. But since we're at it, making sure my understanding of the clalendar system works is right. Basicly, the years of an Era continue being counted up to it's Umbral/Astral stage shift, at which point it resumes from year 1. (akin to how Tolkien's calendar works for Middle Earth)

[Unnamed Mercenary]

18 minutes ago, UnidessGaming said:

 

I was actually supposed to type 7th Umbral, typoed it badly. But since we're at it, making sure my understanding of the clalendar system works is right. Basicly, the years of an Era continue being counted up to it's Umbral/Astral stage shift, at which point it resumes from year 1. (akin to how Tolkien's calendar works for Middle Earth)

Yup! Each one is self-contained. You could also liken it to the Japanese eras as well, although those are based on the Emperor instead of events. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_era_name

 

So it's not the year 1577, because 1577 would imply we're still in the 6th Astral Era, which we're not.

 

So we had 1572 6AE (end of 1.0) -> 1 7UE (The Calamity) -> 5 7UE (2.0 begins) -> 1 7AE (end of 2.0, start of 2.1 and all later content).

[Valence]

On dates, as said above we're in a time bubble. The story uses many time ellipsises as a narrative device and tends to leave things rather vague so that their time bubbles doens't pop under a lack of suspension of disbelief. Overall, whether your RP groups decides to abide by the lore or not, what lore clearly states is a little more than one year at best has passed between the beginning of ARR and SB. I've seen that most RPers tend to favor the IRL = ingame time approach because they don't want to follow the same storytelling principles, so it's up to you what you choose eventually to follow. Know though that it can be a big point of contention between lore purists and RPers in general.

 

On teleportation lore has always been rather on the side that people teleport rarely for many reasons: it costs a lot of anima to do it, and most people and your average joe aren't necessarily filled to the brim with aetherial reserves (unlike adventurers, and still many eorzeans since their land is literally swollen with Aether), the teleportation fees are big for most people compared to what they earn (again, less for adventurers), you can only teleport what you directly carry with you, and finally, it can be dangerous if you don't really know what you're doing (never learned the spells properly, even though those ones are supposed to be safe according to Sharlayans, unlike the first TP spells of the past). Overall the max distance will mostly depend of the aetherial strenght of the person attempting it, and one specific instance in the SB MSQ says how only the Warrior of Light could attempt seamlessly teleporting between Eorzea and the Far East. This tends however to be tempered a little by the fact that military groups from the far east eventually teleport next to Ala Mhigo in the Ghymlit Dark (the closest in Eorzea for them). probably not your average peasant though.

[TheCuriousRanger]

A big thanks for those who chimed in with my questions on here! It certainly clears quite a few things that I didn't know how to.. 'Interpret', perse. Especially with teleportation and the unconsciousness and death segments, as it were the areas I really didn't know if it was a simply a game mechanic, or something that could be utilized in-character.

[Goodfellow]

I didn't want to make a whole new post about it, but thought a PSA might be in order for anyone sitting on a fantasia for the new races:

 

Viera and Hrothgar naming conventions won't be released until the post-launch crush dies down.

 

The random name generator will presumably put out lore-friendly names, but we won't know what sort of significance they may have for a little while.