RPing Miqo'te Tribes.

[Clover]

Question, would that Linkshell be IC or OOC? I assume it'd be OOC, for I doubt all the Miqo'te tribes are connected to one another (?). In any case, thank you very much for creating it!

 

Before I make a new poll (unless it's been made already and I missed it), let me know if I'm forgetting any of the most popular tribes. They're  C, X, W, L, P, K, R.

 

Is it alright? ^^

 

Even if my main is supposed to be a hyur, I'm excited about this, haha. I need to know how the tribe will work in order to finish my Miqo'te's story.

[Nox]

It'd be a mostly in character thing, actually. I'll just put what I have right now here. 

 

 

The speaker, a male Seeker ofthe Sun Miqo'te with black and crimson hair, approaches the crowd of his fellow Miqo'te. It seems as though his call reached them well.

 

"Someone once told methat we all come from dust and that one day, we'll all become dust once more. For the longest time, I didn't want to believe him. I didn't want to face the truth and see reality, if that makes sense. Then I began to notice that what he told me was more true than I had ever imagined. This discovery wasn't just from watching those around me die. We all start somewhere and, as much as we might fight it, we return to our roots at some point.

 

That is why I've called youhere, my brothers and sisters of the Tribes. I extend my hand, not as a Dragoon of Ishgard, not as a Gysahl. No. I extend my hand out to all of you as a proud Miqo'te. Some of us come from Tribes and some of us come from the cities, but we are all Miqo'te. Either Seeker of the Sunor Keepers of the Moon, it doesn't matter.

 

With that in mind, I proposea... Tribe of some sort. Not a Tribe like what we've either left or never known. It's more of an alliance. A Miqo'te Nation, if you will. Now, I must ask. Do you stand with me? Will you look to your left and right and acknowledge those around you as companions. As brothers and sisters in this fight for our lives. We are the least populous race in this land, so we need to stick together.

 

If you side with me, there isa basket of pearls here. Please, come take one. We'll be in touch."

 

 

The speaker takes a pearl outof the basket and turns to leave. 

 

 

[Clover]

Um, that means that Miqo'tes would set their differences/rivalry aside to form a big alliance. I'm unsure, wouldn't this derail a bit from the lore?

I've heard that some Seeker Tribes might look down on any individual who has a relationship with a Keeper; I personally love conflict in RP even if I wasn't planning to take that route myself, but I don't know what everyone thinks.

 

In any case, I'm no Miqo'te expert and I'll adapt to what other players finally decide to do ^^

If people would prefer an IC Miqo'te alliance, then my character will be a part of it as well. Whatever happens, it'll be fun.

[Xha'li Moui]

Sounds good Nox, Xha'li would definitely join.

[FreelanceWizard]

Um, that means that Miqo'tes would set their differences/rivalry aside to form a big alliance. I'm unsure, wouldn't this derail a bit from the lore?

I've heard that some Seeker Tribes might look down on any individual who has a relationship with a Keeper; I personally love conflict in RP even if I wasn't planning to take that route myself, but I don't know what everyone thinks.

 

Some might feel that way, but in the lore thread about F'lhammin, one of the devs indicates that the reason she looks the way she does might have to do with having Keeper blood in her recent genealogy, which implies that Seekers and Keepers do have relationships from time to time. To be honest, I think the major factors keeping it from being more common are the different activity schedules and the strong cultural differences (a Keeper woman would ber uninterested in being part of a Seeker nunh's "harem," while a Seeker male isn't probably going to be willing to be subservient to a Keeper woman). Also, going outside of your tribe and "shirking your duties" would probably also make you an outcast.

 

That said, that all really only has to do with mating relationships. In terms of friendships and unity, if there's any conflict between the clans and tribes, it's probably rooted in stereotypes (like modern RL racism by nationality). I don't think there's a large deviation in lore with this LS, and in fact I can see it being attractive due to the effects of the Calamity casting the already (by lore, anyway ) rare miqo'te to the four winds. At any rate, those miqo'te who do have issues with the other clan or other tribes can handle it IC.

 

That said, L'yhta would totally take a pearl for this. While not a huge fan of tribal miqo'te culture (or "domesticated kitten" culture), she does believe miqo'te stand stronger together and likes people who can actually pronounce her name correctly.

[Kyatai]

So... is this going to be a purely Balmung LS or are there any Miqo'te going to Gilgamesh that are wanting to do this?

[Nox]

So... is this going to be a purely Balmung LS or are there any Miqo'te going to Gilgamesh that are wanting to do this?

 

If an offshoot of Gilgamesh players wants to make a sister LS, I'm happy to hand them everything I write.

 

Edit: Or help make it, even if it'd only be through the site that I could help. Seeing as what I write is very specific to my character.

 

Edit 2.0 : Let me know if anything needs to be changed.

[Rinh Hallani]

Interesting linkshell, I think my miqo'te would like to join.

[shinymogwai]

I plan on playing a keeper. I have most of her direct family worked out, though it's still pretty flexible, and the character is still very much under development. I'd love to work out some relationships with her, if anyone is interested!

[Therese Villefort]

Yeah, very interesting, i might join that! It'S just a bit confusing for me to keep all the linksehlls and the stuff in mind i want to join when the game finally gets out, since i can't really join anything yet...

[Rhan'ir Azal]

I play a male Keeper of the Moon. After reading up on everything Miqo'te I could, I thought referring to the Keeper families as clans seemed appropriate. And I refer to my family matriarch as the Clan Mother. Does this sound appropriate to everyone else? Much of my back story revolves around the actions of my "Clan Mother". 

 

And by the way "Hello!" I'm new to the community 

[Myxie Tryxle]

I play a male Keeper of the Moon. After reading up on everything Miqo'te I could, I thought referring to the Keeper families as clans seemed appropriate. And I refer to my family matriarch as the Clan Mother. Does this sound appropriate to everyone else? Much of my back story revolves around the actions of my "Clan Mother". 

 

And by the way "Hello!" I'm new to the community 

 

Hello and welcome! Keeper "tribes" seem like they'd be more independent and freeform. I imagine they've developed lots of different names for themselves, clan probably being one of the more common. I know when my family used to have giant family reunions in real life, we referred to ourselves as a clan.

[Rhan'ir Azal]

Thanks for the kind welcome, Callipygian!

 

I have two openings in my known associates list and just throwing these out there for anyone looking for a bit of inspiration or just a fun side character to play. I'm open to changing these as well since the story has not actually been played out yet.

 

1. Red Moon: This is her arena name. We fought together in the coliseum.  I look up to her and have learned quite a bit from fighting along side her. Any disciple of war class fits.

 

2. Rhan Azal: Clan Mother. Dark sorceress corrupted by foul magics. She leads the clan like a cult and has claimed all sired males as her own.

[Rhan'ir Azal]

I plan on playing a keeper. I have most of her direct family worked out, though it's still pretty flexible, and the character is still very much under development. I'd love to work out some relationships with her, if anyone is interested!

Yes, I'm open. Let's PM away!

[Dubs]

Hey all,

 

I just wanted some input about RPing a Miqo'te with no current tribe. In fact he really has no idea about his racial culture whatsoever besides natural base instincts identifying more with Lallafell type mannerisms (He was raised by one). His base race is Sun-Seeker (in game) but the lineage of his tribe isn't really on the main list. I'm basically just creating one from scratch that diverged from the beastkin-scalekin totem based tribal system pre fifth Umbral Age.

 

The idea of a lost tribe is based on the race that Miqo'te evolved from. (I understand this opens up a whole new can of worms-which can induce synapse screeching in logic centers). Some subtle hints can derived from my backstory below.

 

Do you find this kind of character concept to conflicting to current style Miqo'te RP and or should RP be confined with what tribal lore we currently have within the time frame? Or do you think it's entirely up to the linkshell and it's leaders to accept the concept? Is deviation too problematic or refreshingly innovative?

 

 

Thoughts.

[FreelanceWizard]

Well, we don't have a whole lot of tribal lore, which is itself a complication.

 

If I'm understanding what you're trying to do correctly, you want to have a character from some other tribe that wasn't one of the 26 tribes and is completely segregated from that system and the behavior of miqo'te as described in the lore posts. If that's the case, then while you can certainly RP whatever you like, my frank opinion is that it's a "bridge too far" from established lore. In addition to having to construct a lot of backstory to establish the tribe's nature, how it got separated, why it never got integrated into miqo'te tribal society or even mainstream Eorzean society, and the like, there's not a lot of grey areas in the lore to explain how that could easily happen. You'll also have a lot of explanation to do ICly when it comes up.

 

I guess my larger concern with the concept is that it's dodging a lot of the game's themes and concepts for miqo'te to a nebulous narrative end. That always gives me pause, because to me, it's essentially playing outside of the boundaries of the lore and getting deep into "special snowflake" territory. To go that far, I feel you that you need an extremely strong narrative justification for it.

 

Again, you can certainly play whatever you like, and I'll RP with anyone , but my recommendation would be not to go down this road and instead stick with the lore -- because it's often so vague, there's a lot of room to play around in it.

 

Note: Please ignore all of the above if my summary in the second paragraph is wrong, because my thoughts are based on that. If I misunderstood, I apologize, and my commentary should be ignored.

[Ildur]

I think the lost tribe angle is an unnecessary hassle; the tribe lore we have is unespecific enough to allow a lot of freedom in it.

 

As FreelanceWizard said, you'll have a lot of IC explanations to come up with. Not to mention it might feel a bit too 'special snowflaky' for some people, specially since, as I said, current Miqo'te lore has a lot of room for creativity.

[Dubs]

I totally agree with you two, to an extent. Hear me out.

 

I think the appropriate feeling that I am experiencing is conundrum. If at all the concept that I am thinking of is a Miqo'te that doesn't understand what it means to be a member of it's race which pretty much epitomizes what we are trying to establish here, the definition of a cultural framework while carefully sidestepping the formulation of some authoritative lexicon of cultural standards shared between RP communities. The problem is, I think this might be inevitable.

 

I have no problem writing backstory as long as I can keep it non-obstructive or establishing a constant that is contrary to the consensus of what it means to be Miqo'te and all the cultural framework definitions that eventually evolve from what little information we have.

 

I think part of the fascination of a sort of Miqothropology (Sorry made up word) is creating taboos, sociological dynamics between different tribes (Sun Seeker especially), tribe specific holidays, acknowledging specific pathological disorders maybe strains that are restricted to certain tribes etc. It's the proverbial Pandora's Box of who's toes am I going to step on because an illusory high council says "Lalalalala nope can't happen, impossible".

 

Back to my concept.

 

Here's another dimension to the angle I was thinking. I have been interested in the notions of Allagan Empire's delvings into genetic research on other races and the Garlean Empire's obsession with replicating the technology. Maybe keep it specific to a particular legion. That is in essence who the Eohji are. Genetically grown Miqo'te sent to infiltrate tribes to produce a specific genetic mutation. Could you transpose this idea to other races? Sure why not. Is it completely unfeasible that the notion of the Allagan Empire having this capability? Why not?

 

Like I said, a slippery slope.

[Naunet]

Here's another dimension to the angle I was thinking. I have been interested in the notions of Allagan Empire's delvings into genetic research on other races and the Garlean Empire's obsession with replicating the technology. Maybe keep it specific to a particular legion. That is in essence who the Eohji are. Genetically grown Miqo'te sent to infiltrate tribes to produce a specific genetic mutation. Could you transpose this idea to other races? Sure why not. Is it completely unfeasible that the notion of the Allagan Empire having this capability? Why not?

 

Honestly? I think this sounds friggin awesome.

[FreelanceWizard]

Well, I think it's important to note that no one has any monopoly on the truth outside of the devs and what they've said. All the formulations of how Seeker miqo'te act that you see on these forums are just different interpretations and extrapolations of the lore, unless those formulations come with a dev post reference attached.

 

Sure, the offshoot of the "K" tribe RPers are probably the largest single group of tribal miqo'te characters, and sure, they have their own cultural conceits and concepts, but they don't have any authority over anyone who isn't in their LS. Just because they're large doesn't mean they're right, nor do they represent any sort of "fanon consensus" that other RPers follow or feel that other players must, or should, follow. We're all very laid-back here in practice; there's no illusory high council running around, and you can be sure that I'd be laying into people making such claims of authority at every turn if there were.

 

So, I guess my larger point is that, because of how Seekers especially work (they have tribes, but those tribes have incalculable numbers of subtribes, built by tia becoming nunhs through territory expansion, and each of those developed culturally with varying degrees of isolation), you have a lot of freedom to do what you want culturally with a miqo'te without worrying that you've stepped on toes -- so long as you stick to what the devs have said and avoid OOC assertions that are, or would have to be, universal.

 

All that aside, regarding your concept, I'm afraid I'm not familiar with any genetic engineering that's going on in the setting. In my defense, Allagan and Garlean lore aren't my areas of expertise. Before I could comment on whether that'd be plausible or not, I guess I'd have to read some lore references about it. All I personally know is that the Allagan Empire had obscenely advanced magitek, which suggests that such a technology could be possible. My initial uninformed impression is that you could do it so long as you kept it some random side project of the Empire, which is my usual fallback response to ideas that seem plausible but have no direct lore support.

[Myxie Tryxle]

Here's another dimension to the angle I was thinking. I have been interested in the notions of Allagan Empire's delvings into genetic research on other races and the Garlean Empire's obsession with replicating the technology. Maybe keep it specific to a particular legion. That is in essence who the Eohji are. Genetically grown Miqo'te sent to infiltrate tribes to produce a specific genetic mutation. Could you transpose this idea to other races? Sure why not. Is it completely unfeasible that the notion of the Allagan Empire having this capability? Why not?

 

Honestly? I think this sounds friggin awesome.

 

I agree with Naunet. Where did you get this information, because I want to read it. For science! :geek: Seriously, that emoticon is called "geek?" I guess "badass" must have already been taken by the dude with sunglasses.

 

I also think your idea of a culturally distinct Miqo'te has merit. Remember that the 26 tribes plus the Keepers migrated to Eorzea, much like the precursors to Native Americans crossing the Bering Sea land bridge in the last ice age. Just because a few tribes of Asians became Americans doesn't mean there weren't still Asians. Eorzea is a small part of a bigger world. There's bound to be an unimagined number of other Miqo'te tribes in other places of the world, and the means for them to travel around are quite sophisticated (through seas, air, and aether).

[Dubs]

Thanks a bunch Freelance. You've really provided me with some insight and much needed perspective about how to approach this. The gradual discovery of how my character might approach a racial connection, whether or not he can deal with being a possible pariah in the Miqo'te community as well as discovering who he is or even if he really wants to know why. I guess it's all up to the linkshell leader and willing participants who wish to accept this kind of character arc within their own personal  RP community.

 

That is until SE releases a bunch of historical information in which we all have to experience a collective retconning enema. :dazed:

[FreelanceWizard]

I also think your idea of a culturally distinct Miqo'te has merit. Remember that the 26 tribes plus the Keepers migrated to Eorzea, much like the precursors to Native Americans crossing the Bering Sea land bridge in the last ice age. Just because a few tribes of Asians became Americans doesn't mean there weren't still Asians. Eorzea is a small part of a bigger world. There's bound to be an unimagined number of other Miqo'te tribes in other places of the world, and the means for them to travel around are quite sophisticated (through seas, air, and aether).

 

Indeed so; the dev post says 26 tribes, not "all 26 tribes" or anything like that, and for Keepers especially, there's direct dev confirmation of Keepers who didn't migrate or went to other lands. So, an isolated tribe is entirely possible with regards to lore. I suppose my larger concerns are narrative (what does this buy that being "less special" doesn't buy?) and lore related if the tribe came to Eorzea around the same time, but wasn't part of the 26 tribes. However, that latter bit, in retrospect, seems to be me reading something into the pitch that wasn't there. So, sure, to have the group have come to Eorzea later should be in the clear.

 

Total side note, but travel isn't really all that sophisticated, IMO. Airships are rare and Garleans far outstrip everyone else in this regard (this is more clearly stated in the GC quest lines). There doesn't seem to be any significant ship activity to other continents, suggesting that even Limsa Lominsa doesn't have especially great deep sea shipbuilding capabilities. Aetherytes are convenient, but they require infrastructure, are costly, and require that you attune to them first. So... most people probably still travel by walking, Chocobo, or carriage.

---

Thanks a bunch Freelance. You've really provided me with some insight and much needed perspective about how to approach this. The gradual discovery of how my character might approach a racial connection, whether or not he can deal with being a possible pariah in the Miqo'te community as well as discovering who he is or even if he really wants to know why. I guess it's all up to the linkshell leader and willing participants who wish to accept this kind of character arc within their own personal RP community.

 

I doubt you'll have any issues with acceptance; your having explained it more makes it "click" better for me, and more importantly, it doesn't stomp over lore -- which means it should be workable. In terms of the miqo'te community as a whole, tribal miqo'te are almost assuredly outnumbered by "urban miqo'te," and they, like most Eorzeans, tend to be tolerant on the whole.

[Dubs]

I agree with Naunet.  Where did you get this information, because I want to read it.  For science!  :geek:  Seriously, that emoticon is called "geek?"  I guess "badass" must have already been taken by the dude with sunglasses.

 

 

Hi Callipygian,

 

I didn't really get this information from anywhere. It's just pure Dubs created fiction, from the ol noodle. I'm kind of just running with it :cactuar: to see where it takes me and if it comes down to someone way more knowledgable about the Garlean /Allagan technology helping me a long the way so be it. Always have a willing ear open for input.

[Myxie Tryxle]

I agree with Naunet.  Where did you get this information, because I want to read it.  For science!  :geek:  Seriously, that emoticon is called "geek?"  I guess "badass" must have already been taken by the dude with sunglasses.

 

 

Hi Callipygian,

 

I didn't really get this information from anywhere. It's just pure Dubs created fiction, from the ol noodle. I'm kind of just running with it :cactuar: to see where it takes me and if it comes down to someone way more knowledgable about the Garlean /Allagan technology helping me a long the way so be it. Always have a willing ear open for input.

 

Drat! Thought I might have grounds for another one of my exploratory thesis posts. You might run into a little flak if there's no lore basis for the genetic manipulation. What you described is very modern science or even science fiction. I don't know enough about Garlean/Allagan to say. I know about the genetics of such things, but not if it's supported by the lore.