General Lore Questions

[Valence]

Fair enough.

 

Also, I was pointed out to the case of Edda. What about Edda and the Void? Is she just opening void portals out of her crazy mind, or does she actually have void powers or something? I find her case highly confusing considering what we know.

[Gegenji]

I think it's a known thing that corpses are usually bad to leave un-cremated or otherwise appropriately handled because they can serve as potential hosts for voidsent. So it's less her having voidsenty powers and more she trying to bring her beloved back from the dead and instead getting it possessed. I would go so far to say that it was an unintended side-effect of her attempts due to being mad from grief.

 

Though, it doesn't seem too difficult to open at least a small portal to the void - you have folks doing it pretty early on in the MSQ and low-level THM quests (if I recall correctly). Likely easily obtained knowledge in the right circles. Whether you can handle what comes out or not is another matter entirely.

[S'imba]

I think it depends on how much a person is willing to delve into the void. I mean void power is still just aether, but it's seems to be highly corruptive and slowly turns a person into a monster, depending on how much a person draws on it. Last boss from haukke Manor appears to be a voidsent, but she is that psychopath bathing in the blood of virgins or something. Basically I think a person could use void like powers, it's just eventually you will become some form of voidsent through continued use.

[111]

I think it depends on how much a person is willing to delve into the void. I mean void power is still just aether, but it's seems to be highly corruptive and slowly turns a person into a monster, depending on how much a person draws on it. Last boss from haukke Manor appears to be a voidsent, but she is that psychopath bathing in the blood of virgins or something. Basically I think a person could use void like powers, it's just eventually you will become some form of voidsent through continued use.

 

It actually sort of seems like a binary on/off.

 

The last boss of haukke manor is a woman who's ritual killed her, and then a voidsent took over the body.

 

The jury is out on whether or not any such cases retain any memories or personalities of their host. I think the eventual conclusion of the Palace of the Dead and Edda will explain some of it.

[Gegenji]

I thought the thing about the Void was that it was mostly bereft of aether, though. That's why the voidsent want into Hydaelyn in the first place. To get some of that delicious, delicious aether. So void power wouldn't be aetheric at all... would it? Or is it a voidsent spending what few resources it has (or has gained from stealing it from its victims) to manifest their "void powers"?

[Kilieit]

Idle irresponsible and baseless speculation:

 

 

I'm gonna talk about WoW for a second - there are two main methods of magic there. "Fel" and "arcane". Arcane is where you take magic from the Twisting Nether and bring it into the living world; fel is where you drain magic from the living world and send it to the Twisting Nether. Fel magic is supremely destructive, addictive, and powerful... but at the end of the day, you're still essentially removing stuff from the living world and sending it beyond the veil. Often, ending up including bits and pieces of your own soul. Because, again: addictive.

 

If I was gonna do ""void magic"", I'd take cues from there. A "void" is a vacuum. It sucks. Literally. Like... it draws stuff in towards it and consumes it. So if you're wanting to drain people or places of aether, I can imagine ""void magic"" being awesome... not so much if you wanna do other things. And if it was addictive too, then that'd explain why people keep on using it after a voidsent tricks them into doing so for the first time.

 

And, again, supremely dangerous. If I had to take a level guess, I'd say the "becoming voidsent" process is one you undergo by allowing parts of your own personal aether to be consumed by the void, thusly creating a well within yourself that has to be filled by external aether. Just like a voidsent.

 

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Idle irresponsible and baseless speculation:

 

 

I'm gonna talk about WoW for a second - there are two main methods of magic there. "Fel" and "arcane". Arcane is where you take magic from the Twisting Nether and bring it into the living world; fel is where you drain magic from the living world and send it to the Twisting Nether. Fel magic is supremely destructive, addictive, and powerful... but at the end of the day, you're still essentially removing stuff from the living world and sending it beyond the veil. Often, ending up including bits and pieces of your own soul. Because, again: addictive.

 

If I was gonna do ""void magic"", I'd take cues from there. A "void" is a vacuum. It sucks. Literally. Like... it draws stuff in towards it and consumes it. So if you're wanting to drain people or places of aether, I can imagine ""void magic"" being awesome... not so much if you wanna do other things. And if it was addictive too, then that'd explain why people keep on using it after a voidsent tricks them into doing so for the first time.

 

And, again, supremely dangerous. If I had to take a level guess, I'd say the "becoming voidsent" process is one you undergo by allowing parts of your own personal aether to be consumed by the void, thusly creating a well within yourself that has to be filled by external aether. Just like a voidsent.

 

 

 

One big issue with that. A person would literally die if they expended all their aether. We see this brought up in both the THM and CNJ quests. THM talks about how a person's aether reserves. And how going beyond them means spending one's life-critical aether. CNJ talks about going to far with that, to the point of caster-death-by-healing. (Sylvie's mother).

 

 

[Kilieit]

I don't mean all of it at once... I mean. Most of the "mortals turned voidsent" we see look pretty dead, right??

 

I guess it's still down for debate whether there's nothing left of their former personality because they died & were replaced by a separate being, or because their former selves were slowly depleted and transformed until unrecognisable...

 

Either way, it's pretty certain that they're "gone" (dead or destroyed or both), and that there is now a voidsent occupying the space that they used to occupy. I guess the mechanism by which it occurs is sort of inconsequential.

[Alexia Peregris]

I don't mean all of it at once... I mean. Most of the "mortals turned voidsent" we see look pretty dead, right??

 

I guess it's still down for debate whether there's nothing left of their former personality because they died & were replaced by a separate being, or because their former selves were slowly depleted and transformed until unrecognisable...

 

Either way, it's pretty certain that they're "gone" (dead or destroyed or both), and that there is now a voidsent occupying the space that they used to occupy. I guess the mechanism by which it occurs is sort of inconsequential.

So I'm going to bring up a weird case regarding how voidsent take away your personality, which is the Forgall fight in Weeping City. When Forgall raises the dead sky pirates in the arena, they actually start talking and begging for mercy and lamenting their fate, and it seems unlikely Forgall is making them do that. And it's not like they've just been afflicted by the slow zombification like we get, they're dead when we get there. No other void risen dead people seem to do this, but maybe because all the others we've seen have been dead for a long time?

 

I suppose the pirates weren't exactly possessed, though it is kind of hard to say, but maybe you can be controlled by the void and not lose your memories and such?

 

As for summoning voidsent, oh yeah those guys who do it with rituals are for sure dead.

[LiadansWhisper]

Idle irresponsible and baseless speculation:

 

 

I'm gonna talk about WoW for a second - there are two main methods of magic there. "Fel" and "arcane". Arcane is where you take magic from the Twisting Nether and bring it into the living world; fel is where you drain magic from the living world and send it to the Twisting Nether. Fel magic is supremely destructive, addictive, and powerful... but at the end of the day, you're still essentially removing stuff from the living world and sending it beyond the veil. Often, ending up including bits and pieces of your own soul. Because, again: addictive.

 

If I was gonna do ""void magic"", I'd take cues from there. A "void" is a vacuum. It sucks. Literally. Like... it draws stuff in towards it and consumes it. So if you're wanting to drain people or places of aether, I can imagine ""void magic"" being awesome... not so much if you wanna do other things. And if it was addictive too, then that'd explain why people keep on using it after a voidsent tricks them into doing so for the first time.

 

And, again, supremely dangerous. If I had to take a level guess, I'd say the "becoming voidsent" process is one you undergo by allowing parts of your own personal aether to be consumed by the void, thusly creating a well within yourself that has to be filled by external aether. Just like a voidsent.

 

 

But it's kinda cool. I like the idea.

[Valence]

Yeah I assumed by default that Eda just allowed her beloved corpse to be possessed and bring all kinds of nasty with that. 

 

Sorry if I wasn't more accurate but I was actually wondering if there was anything shown ingame or the dungeons like Tam Tara that would show Eda to have any kind of weird void-esque powers of sorts?

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Yeah I assumed by default that Eda just allowed her beloved corpse to be possessed and bring all kinds of nasty with that. 

 

Sorry if I wasn't more accurate but I was actually wondering if there was anything shown ingame or the dungeons like Tam Tara that would show Eda to have any kind of weird void-esque powers of sorts?

 

We had her sacrificial blood wedding as the final battle in Tam Tara hard mode. I'm assuming whatever she'd been planning to do with a body would have been completed had she successfully killed Paiyo Reiyo and the Warrior of Light [and friends].

[Gegenji]

Yeah I assumed by default that Eda just allowed her beloved corpse to be possessed and bring all kinds of nasty with that. 

 

Sorry if I wasn't more accurate but I was actually wondering if there was anything shown ingame or the dungeons like Tam Tara that would show Eda to have any kind of weird void-esque powers of sorts?

 

We had her sacrificial blood wedding as the final battle in Tam Tara hard mode. I'm assuming whatever she'd been planning to do with a body would have been completed had she successfully killed Paiyo Reiyo and the Warrior of Light [and friends].

 

This is pure personal conjecture but... she was in grief about her love being killed. Trying to bring him back got the head possessed by a voidsent, which likely started manipulating her by claiming she is her love returned or something similar. The blood wedding was likely just a ploy for the voidsent to gain more aether/power for its own personal gain. So, a success would likely would've meant gaining that aether/power that - and whatever other negative things that would've led to.

 

What sort of negative things? A more powerful flying head, a bigger one, or maybe even a more powerful form maybe? More voidsent being brought from the Void? Or perhaps just more ventures of a similar ilk (blood anniversaries?) to drain more aether from the world, leading to a long string of mysterious disappearances? Exactly what the negative things would've been is hard to say, since they were prevented from happening in the first place.

[S'imba]

I kinda feel Edda would have to have some sort of void magic. She managed to continue to live on somehow after falling off a cliff. I probably shouldn't be be speculating on how she survived since I haven't finished the palace of the dead yet. But to still be around seems to be something bigger than conjury. Really can't imagine that's a power the elementals would allow. So really there's only a few ways she could do that. Void magic or the nefarious white magic we keep hearing about. I guess some sort of necromancy could be a thing too, but based on what was going on I'd say the most likely way is void magic.

[Valence]

Re: on Edda, I feel that the version we see in the Deep Dungeon is actually already a corpse (that you killed anyway), and animated by a Voidsent or something similar. It is reinforced to my eyes by the conclusion of the questline, where Edda appears as a ghost and tells that she has no recollection of what happened when a masked man in black appeared after her fall in Tam-Tara (hard).

 

 

On aetherytes:

 

I'm pretty sure I already asked the question somewhere, but I can't quite find it back and also don't even remember if I was answered in the first place so...

 

Since we know they have fees (quite expensive at that) to finance the economic loss caused by the Calamity... Who collects the fees? Officials on site when people suddenly pop out of nowhere nearby? Fine then, but how do they even manage to tell from where the travelers TPed? What prevents someone to lie?

[Kilieit]

I seem to recall that there's supposed to be an attendant nearby that you pay?? Can't remember where I read that though x_x

 

I mean presumably it's possible to tell where someone's just TP'd from something something aetheric signatures something something lingering resonance, but it seems like it'd be complicated and potentially expensive to make sure every single attendant had the ability to tell...

 

Maybe that's why there's a minimum fee of 100g for using any aetheryte from anywhere (fee reduction buffs notwithstanding).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[S'imba]

Probably relies on the honor system. Like those chocobo Porter rocks set up in the churning mists. When you use them it talks about leaving a some gil beside it. I'd imagine it's similar with the middle of nowhere aetherites as well. Who knows maybe there's a way to tell how far a person actually traveled by reading the residual aether. Some sort of parking meter to insert your gil. Place some sort of alarm on it if you don't pay your fees. 

 

Probably one of those things SE just intends to handwave away.

[Sounsyy]

Since we know they have fees (quite expensive at that) to finance the economic loss caused by the Calamity... Who collects the fees? Officials on site when people suddenly pop out of nowhere nearby? Fine then, but how do they even manage to tell from where the travelers TPed? What prevents someone to lie?

 

From your old thread on the topic:

 

Why does it cost gil to use aetherytes?

Many aetheryte camps were destroyed during the Calamity, which necessitated their reconstruction. However, this came at great expense, and so teleportation fees must be collected to repay the as yet unpaid debt.

 

However, the gil doesn’t just magically disappear from your purse! Though it's not shown in the game, it's collected by the guards keeping watch of the aetherytes.

 

On a side note, guards posted by each city-state's aetheryte can tell you about aetherytes and teleportation magic. If you're interested, see what they have to say!

 

So, when you go talk to one of the guards, Nicia for example, she says this:

 

Then why' date=' you ask, must we pay gil when using Telport? Well, after the Calamity, many of the existing aetheryte camps were destroyed. To relocate and rebuild them required a large sum of money, much of which was lent by certain men of business from Ul'dah. The gil [b']you pay when either leaving from or arriving at an aetheryte[/b] goes to paying off that debt.

 

So, if you're teleporting out to a remote aetheryte destination that has no guards, say Azys Lla or something, you would pay your fee in advance. However, if you're returning from an outlands area to relative civilization, you would likely pay upon arrival.

[Valence]

Yeah but it doesn't seem to address the problem at hand.

 

1) How exactly can they tell where you are going or from where you are coming?

 

2) You can also apparently TP out of nowhere in the desert in the direction of an aetheryte, you don't need to be close to one at first, just at your arrival.

[Yssen]

Yeah but it doesn't seem to address the problem at hand.

 

1) How exactly can they tell where you are going or from where you are coming?

 

2) You can also apparently TP out of nowhere in the desert in the direction of an aetheryte, you don't need to be close to one at first, just at your arrival.

 

This is deduced by the fees themselves. They charge you based on distance. Which means they have some method of tracking that distance via the aetheryte itself or some other spell or device or what have you and charging you appropriately. Teleporting not via an aetheryte would seem to result in the Y'shtola and Thancred's current problems. Welcome to joyful world of paying for safe and monitored teleportation. Please do not use when trying to be sneaky.

 

EDIT - As for personal aetherytes in the residential wards, probably collected and monitored by those in charge of the wards.

[Valence]

You can teleport from anywhere, you don't have to be nearby an aetheryte for that, as long as the destination IS an aetheryte. That's what gameplay tells us.

 

The lore though? It seems damn nebulous. Why didn't Y'Shtola use a standard teleport to any aetheryte somewhere else? I don't even remember the explanation they gave...

 

In any case, that problem seems pretty nitpicky and inconsequential, but it actually is a real pain in the ass to deal with for RP everyday travel through those.

[Sounsyy]

The lore though? It seems damn nebulous. Why didn't Y'Shtola use a standard teleport to any aetheryte somewhere else? I don't even remember the explanation they gave...

 

Also answered in your old thread:

 

The very first that man did conceive to traverse great distances, and the ancient precursor to all methods of travel that utilize the Lifestream: Flow.

 

The spell entaileth the reduction of the corporeal form into its constituent aether, that the caster might enter the Lifestream and ride its currents thereby. Unlike the teleportation magicks of modern times, it requireth not a lengthy incantation.

 

Know that the scholars of Sharlayan forbade the use of this spell - and with good reason. The caster hath but limited control over his course. For every mage who came safe unto his destination, another would be set adrift in the Lifestream, never to emerge.

 

I further expound upon this notion of lengthy incantation in one of the linked threads:

 

It takes 2.5 minutes Eorzean time to cast Teleport. That's two whole minutes that the caster must remain still, in meditation, chanting, and uninterrupted or hurt for the spell to go off successfully. While under duress, the incantation may even take longer to accomplish or be too dangerous to pull off in the first place.

 

EDIT: 2.5 minutes doesn't seem like much, but listen to Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" from start to finish and that's how long it should take you to ICly cast teleport. That's a lot of awkward standing around murmuring to yourself.

 

 

So if Y'shtola attempted a modern safe teleportation, she would've been crushed beneath the rubble of her previous spell.

 

 

As for the other bit. Don't know. I don't think there's an answer for you. In 1.0 every aetheryte had a guard. I'd assume the same is still the case for most aetherytes, even if it isn't shown. So assuming you're not teleporting from the middle of the desert to Azys Lla, there should be someone there to take the toll upon arrival.

 

If it doesn't make sense in the RP you're doing to pay a fee for your departure and arrival destination, then consider adding the anima cost of teleportation to your RP. Most people cannot withstand long distance teleportations without rest afterwards, and teleporting to derelict aetherytes might be a dangerous proposition when even the city-states have reported the occasional "irreversible damage" done to patrons who attempted to teleport too frequently or too far for their bodies to the most well kept aetheryte structures.

 

Why doesn't everyone use aetherytes?

To traverse the Lifestream safely with Teleport and Return requires a great deal of spiritual energy, known as anima. While many individuals, such as adventurers, possess the fortitude to endure such travel, some individuals do not. What’s more, even if one has the ability to use aetherytes, the frequency with which one can do so varies. In essence, for some, the recast time for these spells can be far longer than for an adventurer.

 

As a result, only a fraction of the populace can utilize aetherial travel habitually, which is why chocobos, airships, and other forms of transportation still play a major role in Eorzea.

 

Aetheryte is the name given to massive shards of crystallized aetheric mist, precisely cut and fused to arcane machinery. While it is not known when or by whom these devices were originally constructed, their teleportational qualities have become the backbone of everyday transportation throughout the realm, with most managed and operated by individual city-states. Their existence in Eorzea seems to be what drew scores of people to settle in the hostile land in the first place.

 

Though the exact mechanism behind teleportation via aetheryte is still largely a mystery, one theory states that when a sentient being approaches one of the portals, the aether that makes up its body resonates with the aether of the crystals, which in turn results in a complete breakdown of the being's mass, allowing it to temporarily return to the invisible aetheric streams that course throughout the planet.

 

The being's soul, which cannot be broken down, then guides the particles to a predetermined destination, and upon arrival, the corresponding aetheryte receptacle reconfigures the mist back into its original form. This whole process takes only a matter of moments, allowing for nearly instant transportation to faraway destinations.

 

However, being broken down to the aetheric level can take its toll on one's body, and rest is often required after several consecutive jumps, especially as the distance becomes greater. As a precaution, most city-states strongly discourage over-teleporting, as it can lead to irreversible damage...

[Valence]

Right, forgot about the casting time in Y'Shtola's case... My bad.

 

Well in the case of the RP I'm doing I'm always trying to wrap my head around what would make sense according to the lore, not in my own little personal RP, but in the case of the RP I'm brought up to do with other people, the FC, etc. 

 

If it was just up to me I wouldn't use aetherytes for many reasons: average character with not that much anima (might be able to travel once a day through aetheryte or something), enormous fees, and all the restraints the lore gives, but the main point is that it totally ruins the notion of journey/travel in my book. So I don't use it in my personal RP. I already lavel it in the mild part of "power level", since you have to already be an adventurer with special powers to use it.

 

But, I also happen to play with other people so aetheryte travel is still something that makes me cringe but with which I have to compose. So, I have to explain it at least a bit rationally. How do they monitor where you go to or where you come from, is the main point of contention and full of plotholes in the lore as far as I see it, and it frustrates me a great deal. So i'm going to assume that someone can check it immediately and ask for the correct fee (like one of the explanations proposed above). 

 

Guess I'm going to keep it vague as much as possible.

[Eddard]

I have a question on the creation of magic/enchanted items: 

 

A new character of mine is going to have a book that he keeps very private yet has on him at all times. As a security measure to make sure nobody reads it I was thinking it could have two defensive spells that activate if it senses an aether signature other than his when held. One would simply keep the book closed while the other would burn the hands of the one holding it. I'm not exactly sure if there's a means of making a magical item in such a way that's been elaborated on at any point. I know of soul binding weapons and materia but they aren't the means I can see that occurring. Is there any specific school of magic/craft known to be proficient in applying spells of this manner?

[Morningstar1337]

I have a question on the creation of magic/enchanted items: 

 

A new character of mine is going to have a book that he keeps very private yet has on him at all times. As a security measure to make sure nobody reads it I was thinking it could have two defensive spells that activate if it senses an aether signature other than his when held. One would simply keep the book closed while the other would burn the hands of the one holding it. I'm not exactly sure if there's a means of making a magical item in such a way that's been elaborated on at any point. I know of soul binding weapons and materia but they aren't the means I can see that occurring. Is there any specific school of magic/craft known to be proficient in applying spells of this manner?

 

Arcanist is the closest, since their weapons are books. A certain pair of Crafted Weapons might be useful since it has fire particle effects, but you will likely need some deep pockets or repeated trips to the Bowl of Embers to get the key ingredient for this.

 

Speaking of Crafting, I have a small (and semantic, and a little embrassing) question about the Leatherworker's Guild, specifically Geva. Her Claim to Fame are some sort of patterns. I thought she meant design patterns until she mentioned the odd detail of...conserving leather out of respect for the Twelveswood. Odd regarding design patterns...but not so much when in the context of Shoes. On the other hand IIRC the type of shoes called "Patterns" are usually CRP crafts. So I want some confirmation (the hindsight has mean leaning more towards "shoes" then "tessellating/repeating designs")