Loop holes?

[Kilkus]

I've been playing 14 for a few years now (I started the day CoD was released if that helps.) And I've only recently started roleplaying in this game, but I do have 11+ years of rp experience, just 0 of those years have been on 14, and I was just recently told I was not allowed to roleplay as a WHM (my favorite final fantasy class ever) because of the whole only Padjals are White Mages in this FF canon, and that I should just be a conjurer, thing is being a conjurer doesn't feel the same to me, I want to roleplay as the thing I love, but I can't without breaking the rules and having everyone hate me, is there any kind of loop hole at all to this? Cause having my creative freedom, and desires restricted feels a bit...well discouraging to say the least.

[Tristan Carver]

The only people you are going to upset are the lore strict crowd.  Most of us don't Rp in the same circles so just find people who are going to let you play how you want and enjoy the experience.

 

As for loop holes, while they state there are only a few WHM who is to say that there aren't a few soul stones out there lying around on some dead WHMs that were thought lost to the ages.

[Branson Thorne]

58 minutes ago, Tristan Carver said:

The only people you are going to upset are the lore strict crowd. 

I feel like this line here can be a bit misleading as to me it sounds like "Ehh not many will care, don't worry about them" when in reality most of Balmung is a pretty lore strict crowd. What will happen is a lot of others will tell you that you have the right to RP whatever you want (and you do) but then say that your character just isn't for them. 

That being said, there are groups of people who don't much care for the lore of the game. They are out there, sure, but I would say they are definitely the minority.

 

Either way, best of luck in your search!

[Kilkus]

Thanks for the feedback. I rp on Mateus, I probably should've lead with that, but thanks, most of my friends don't care, one does but only ICly, but I think I found a loop hole for it from input from a few others, but again, thanks for the help guys.

[Valence]

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.

Edited July 20, 2019 by Valence

[Malachar]

You can actually play as a white mage, but it's common practice to not announce it to the world, white magic being "forbidden" and all. How you became one is a more important factor, which can be easy to navigate around given the amount of lore surrounding WHM/BLM, as mentioned above.

 

Or you could just not be from Eorzea. 

[Luna Esbat]

Ways to RP a white mage:

1. You find a soulstone and practice. There were a TON of white mage zombies in Amdaphor HM surely they had soul stones. Maybe a soul stone was handed down in your family.
2. You learn it naturally from connecting with nature and soothing elementals. In HW your abilities grow and mature in ways even the Padjali did not know about because you traveled as that one padjali did ( I forgot his name sorry).
3. You buy a soulstone on the black market?

The thing is, we see scions using white mage spells, Y'shtola for example, she is capable of not only casting Holy but also Flow, both highly advanced spells. There's also Louisoix. My biggest suggestion with roleplaying a white mage, speaking as someone who has RP'd one since 2.0: Don't flaunt it, if your character is a white mage surely they know how taboo it is, they would only inform those closest to them. Plus honestly in RP I rarely found my character being a white mage was even that relevant. People just assumed they were a conjurer with advanced magick.

In summary: Roleplay what you want. Those who mind don't matter and those who matter won't mind. 
Yes a cheesy line but appropriate. 

[Valence]

6 hours ago, Darshendros the Eternal said:

Or you could just not be from Eorzea. 

 

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.

Edited July 20, 2019 by Valence

[Malachar]

18 hours ago, Valence said:

 

A white mage not from Eorzea sounds highly unlikely.

 

Is it, though? I know it's not alluded to in the MSQ, but I find it highly unlikely that there wouldn't be any magic users in Othard, especially since the Dotharl's chief clearly uses black magic (and Doma is roughly based on Japan).

Edited July 21, 2019 by Darshendros the Eternal

[Kilkus]

On 7/20/2019 at 8:38 AM, Valence said:

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

 

On 7/20/2019 at 4:24 PM, Luna Esbat said:

Ways to RP a white mage:

1. You find a soulstone and practice. There were a TON of white mage zombies in Amdaphor HM surely they had soul stones. Maybe a soul stone was handed down in your family.
2. You learn it naturally from connecting with nature and soothing elementals. In HW your abilities grow and mature in ways even the Padjali did not know about because you traveled as that one padjali did ( I forgot his name sorry).
3. You buy a soulstone on the black market?

The thing is, we see scions using white mage spells, Y'shtola for example, she is capable of not only casting Holy but also Flow, both highly advanced spells. There's also Louisoix. My biggest suggestion with roleplaying a white mage, speaking as someone who has RP'd one since 2.0: Don't flaunt it, if your character is a white mage surely they know how taboo it is, they would only inform those closest to them. Plus honestly in RP I rarely found my character being a white mage was even that relevant. People just assumed they were a conjurer with advanced magick.

In summary: Roleplay what you want. Those who mind don't matter and those who matter won't mind. 
Yes a cheesy line but appropriate. 

 

You two have no idea how much I appreciate these responses. I have them saved on discord to use against someone because he was a friend who had the Regalia as an IC thing. I had 0 issues with him using it ICly but he for some reason thought I did and bitched me out about how him having it was more lore abiding than me being a WHM. Now I have actual lore protected reasons WHM is possible and if he ever has the balls to speak to me again (I did apologize to him and try to make ammends.) I have these to shut him up.

[Valence]

17 hours ago, Darshendros the Eternal said:

 

Is it, though? I know it's not alluded to in the MSQ, but I find it highly unlikely that there wouldn't be any magic users in Othard, especially since the Dotharl's chief clearly uses black magic (and Doma is roughly based on Japan).

 

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.

Edited July 22, 2019 by Valence

[Kieron Lohengrin]

To be specific, Sadu uses Meteor LB3 during the MSQ, which is exclusive to BLM. 

[Tregarde]

It's an unfortunate truth that many of the job quests make their profession a very small, exclusive club. If you go strictly by the lore of the quests. White mage, as you noted, is a very clear example of this. While these can make for good, personal stories, it makes for poor RP in the larger picture. Why the devs chose to go this route so much, I have no idea.

 

As pointed out, there can be ways around this. For one, some of us just don't care - it's your character, play it how you want. Alternatively, you can just RP being a very skilled Conjurer, no one would argue that. Or maybe your character came from outside Eorzea, or was trained by someone who traveled to Eorzea - there is very little lore about classes and jobs outside of the one continent.

 

Remember, the lore are guidelines, not strict rules. A lot of the lore is used to justify certain aspects of game mechanics. But really, not everyone falls neatly into these narrowly defined roles. For instance - by game mechanics one of my characters is a Paladin. But IC, my character has never been a Gladiator, she most certainly never pledged herself to the Sultanate. She just happens to have trained to be good with sword and shield.