Summoners viable without facing Primals?

[Nananomi]

After two nights worth of interesting RP involving much in the way of research and reading, my dear Lalafell learnt about the wonders of Summoners and his desire to pick up the magicks they used has started to burn very very brightly.

 

Now, I haven't actually done anything about it yet, apart from the odd bit of research when he has the time, as I have absolutely no idea if it'd be acceptable to RP as one. Plus, I've found it difficult as it is to scrape up any lore on the fellows, apart from what's included in the two Summoner quests I've done so far.

 

But even then, in the Austerities of Earth quest, you end up facing off against a rival Summoner who also controls a manifestation of Ifrit, so I'm generally quite confused as to whether the requirement of facing a Primal is actually required or not. And if the follow up quests have more info on this, pardon my lack of knowledge and such.

 

So! I came here and decided to actually make a thread, in the hopes that I may receive some clarification on whether or not it'd be lore friendly to become a Summoner ICly after much in the way of hard work, without having personally battled against Titan, Ifrit or Garuda. Any help would be appreciated. <3

[Dat Oni]

According to the this post...

 

Summoners (the job)

• Primal Slayers?
  Not exactly. Summoners need only to perform a ritual to summon a Primals' egi, and then defeat that egi to bind it to them (yep, all they have to defeat is that mini Ifrit, Garuda or Titan you see floating behind them). It's made very clear that in the lore, the actual Primals themselves are not summoned and do not need to be defeated to obtain their egi.
   
   
  
• Origins
  Summoners as we know them today actually practice arcane arts developed by Allagan mages. The term "egi" is an Allagan word meaning "pure" or the "essence of", so for example "Ifrit-egi" literally translates as "the essence of Ifrit". Allagan summoners basically found a way to siphon the essence of Primals and manifest this essence as an egi, which is bound to do their bidding.
   
  

 

Essentially, the defeating of the Primals may be more of a standalone gameplay element used to pad out the length of the Job's questline, rather than one supported by Lore.

[ansemaru]

Seconding the "it's a gameplay convention that you have to defeat the respective Primal before gaining the ability to challenge their Egi" call. For that matter, most people tend to overlook the "exclusive" nature of promoted jobs for the sake of RPing a character with the combat role but not necessarily the narrative role- a Scholar doesn't have to be someone who's revived the lost arts of healing from Nym in RP, after all. So in the case of a Summoner, it's entirely reasonable to assume that they did the ritual to bind an Egi without having stared down Ifrit/Titan/Garuda personally.

 

There's, uh. Also a secondary way to gaining an Egi to summon that comes up in the level 50 quest for Summoner, but I don't really want to spoil it for you.

[Nananomi]

There's, uh. Also a secondary way to gaining an Egi to summon that comes up in the level 50 quest for Summoner, but I don't really want to spoil it for you.

 

Suppose I'd better hurry my levelling, then. D:

 

Anywho, thanks for the help you two, really appreciate it. <3

[Jomoru]

For the scholar and SUmmoner line I assume the story element is the character playing out the "first" of the modern incarnations of the job, there was a bit of trial and error but now they are taught by their respective npcs or at least given directions on how one might become them.

[Tla]

So basically this makes of Summoner, seemingly to Scholar, not as much an exclusive job as it would seem. So what's left that should be hardly RPed at all? White Mage and Black Mage? I don't know much about the second, I just go from what I heard, while white mage in theory is something only padjal can be and in the story you are one just because you are the hero...but clearly fandom must be more elastic. Oh and Paladin I guess?

[Ildur]

I have no idea why that post says that killing the Primal is not necessary, because it's a plot point for the Summoner questline: people who defeat a Primal are, in a sense, attuned to the Primal's aether. If I had to speculate why, I would say it's because of the massive ammounts of aether a Primal requires to be summoned in the first place: part of it would be irradiated in some sort of magical heat that affects the sorroundings, including people (or maybe only sentient beings). This 'attunement' allows the Summoner to tap on the Primal's essence and extract an egi.

 

This might seem like you can't be a summoner icly, but you can work around it by bending lore a bit: instead of attuning yourself to the Primal's energies directly, you could go to a place where you could find the Primal's essence in great quantities of the enviorement. You could also do exactly what the storyline says: you defeat the Primal IC. The lore allows for them to be summoned as often as the beast-tribes can (or, in other words, as often as the plot demands) so it is quite plausible that your character was on one of the groups sent to dispatch the Primal.

 

There's' date=' uh. Also a secondary way to gaining an Egi to summon that comes up in the level 50 quest for Summoner, but I don't really want to spoil it for you.[/quote']

 

I have finished that questline and I don't remember any secondary way to get an Egi.

 

So basically this makes of Summoner' date=' seemingly to Scholar, not as much an exclusive job as it would seem. So what's left that should be hardly RPed at all? White Mage and Black Mage? I don't know much about the second, I just go from what I heard, while white mage in theory is something only padjal can be and in the story you are one just because you are the hero...but clearly fandom must be more elastic. Oh and Paladin I guess?[/quote']

 

I am on the school of thought that, if the game allows you to be X, then you have a right to roleplay X if you want. Sadly, Squee screwed with us by making their plots around the "THOU ARE THE HERO", so we have to bend lore to make things work.

In the case of White Mages, we have to say that Padjals have been teaching the art for some time now and that many of their students went on to teach it, too.

I have no idea how the Black Mage storyline goes, but you would apply the same idea.

 

As of Paladins, they can be roleplayed without problems with the given lore: it is stated as soon as you start their storyline that player Paladins are 'Free Sultansworn', who are not really bound to obey the Sultansworn but to hold their moral code, making them basically knights errants.

[Jomoru]

So basically this makes of Summoner, seemingly to Scholar, not as much an exclusive job as it would seem. So what's left that should be hardly RPed at all? White Mage and Black Mage? I don't know much about the second, I just go from what I heard, while white mage in theory is something only padjal can be and in the story you are one just because you are the hero...but clearly fandom must be more elastic. Oh and Paladin I guess?

 

White mage. You are correct.

 

 

Black mage it seems like while the questline is unique its not unrepeatable by others.(Basically research research research)

 

Scholar and Summoner I'd argue can properly be initiated via their new orders, though if you want to go outside them.. you're probably going to have to fight some Primals at least for Summoner. The Garleans may presumably have theirown summoners though obviously they can't be pure breed Garleans since Pure breeds can't use real magic.

 

Dragoon is all manner of chosen one mary suetasticness. And seems especially unecissary for such to the point I'm willing to ignore the lore.

[Kendha'to]

Much like roleplaying the Echo, I don't see anything inherently wrong with RPing a character as a Summoner/Black Mage/White Mage so long as the player respects the lore behind them without resorting to "Chosen One" tropes. It can be done. RPing a character as both a Black and White Mage would raise my eyebrows, though.

 

(Plus, honestly, locking out "classic" Final Fantasy jobs from RP just seems plain un-fun to me. I'm playing an FF MMO for a reason here!)

[Jomoru]

Much like roleplaying the Echo, I don't see anything inherently wrong with RPing a character as a Summoner/Black Mage/White Mage so long as the player respects the lore behind them without resorting to "Chosen One" tropes.  It can be done. RPing a character as both a Black and White Mage would raise my eyebrows, though.

 

(Plus, honestly, locking out "classic" Final Fantasy jobs from RP just seems plain un-fun to me. I'm playing an FF MMO for a reason here!)

 

 

I wouldn't be too ready to look ascew at someone who is a blm and Whm since Yoshi said one idea for future content would be "Advanced jobs" with Red mage being a suggestion that would require both black and white mageness.

[Kendha'to]

Much like roleplaying the Echo, I don't see anything inherently wrong with RPing a character as a Summoner/Black Mage/White Mage so long as the player respects the lore behind them without resorting to "Chosen One" tropes.  It can be done. RPing a character as both a Black and White Mage would raise my eyebrows, though.

 

(Plus, honestly, locking out "classic" Final Fantasy jobs from RP just seems plain un-fun to me. I'm playing an FF MMO for a reason here!)

 

 

I wouldn't be too ready to look ascew at someone who is a blm and Whm since Yoshi said one idea for future content would be "Advanced jobs" with Red mage being a suggestion that would require both black and white mageness.

True. Don't get me wrong, I just think it would be unusual to have complete mastery of both. Red Mage is something I'd love to see. But it implies a certain "jack of all trades, master of none" amalgam of black and white magic - at least, traditionally. We don't know how the class will work in FFXIV yet. I just hope it retains the blending of sword and spell that defined the class in the past.

[Jomoru]

Much like roleplaying the Echo, I don't see anything inherently wrong with RPing a character as a Summoner/Black Mage/White Mage so long as the player respects the lore behind them without resorting to "Chosen One" tropes.  It can be done. RPing a character as both a Black and White Mage would raise my eyebrows, though.

 

(Plus, honestly, locking out "classic" Final Fantasy jobs from RP just seems plain un-fun to me. I'm playing an FF MMO for a reason here!)

 

 

I wouldn't be too ready to look ascew at someone who is a blm and Whm since Yoshi said one idea for future content would be "Advanced jobs" with Red mage being a suggestion that would require both black and white mageness.

True. Don't get me wrong, I just think it would be unusual to have complete mastery of both. Red Mage is something I'd love to see. But it implies a certain "jack of all trades, master of none" amalgam of black and white magic - at least, traditionally. We don't know how the class will work in FFXIV yet. I just hope it retains the blending of sword and spell that defined the class in the past.

 

 

I am saying that Advanced jobs might be the next big bump since job quests do pretty much work out by 50(just like class quests end with 30)  If Oracle or Sage or Red Mage builds off of a 50 BLM and a 50 WHM it might become problematic for the rp community if we've built up a "you can't be a WHM and a BLM' when suddenly there's a bunch of things that require both(same for being good at magic and combat that might be required for True redmagery or mystic fencing etc)

[Kendha'to]

*shrugs* I'm not here to tell anyone what they can or can't do. All I was observing is that the two magicks have entirely different schools of thought surrounding them. Black magic seems to have quite the stigma attached to it, given its penchant for destruction and being connected to the Void, unless I'm mistaken. I'm no lore expert and I haven't done either the BLM or WHM job quests. It just seems like it would be an unusual (but again, not impossible) scenario to successfully master both IC. Such a character would inspire awe from my own simple Miqo'te hunter. *grins*

[ansemaru]

In re: alternate methods to get an Egi- 

 

 

I don't think our summoner friend defeated Belias personally.

 

[Jomoru]

*shrugs* I'm not here to tell anyone what they can or can't do. All I was observing is that the two magicks have entirely different schools of thought surrounding them. Black magic seems to have quite the stigma attached to it, given its penchant for destruction and being connected to the Void, unless I'm mistaken. I'm no lore expert and I haven't done either the BLM or WHM job quests. It just seems like it would be an unusual (but again, not impossible) scenario to successfully master both IC. Such a character would inspire awe from my own simple Miqo'te hunter. *grins*

 

the FF series has long had multiple school casters much less so than its D&D predesssors which put a hard break between Divine and Arcane magic. With the possibility of future content being based around being a multiple school master pushing the idea that its particularly hard to be both, or harder to be both than say an archer and a Lancer is problematic.

[LiadansWhisper]

I wonder that no one has pointed out (possible I missed it, mind you) that the Primals have been killed multiple times.  And they keep reappearing.  Ifrit, in particular, has been killed quite a few times and the Immortal Flames even keep a list of people who have done it.

[LiadansWhisper]

Much like roleplaying the Echo, I don't see anything inherently wrong with RPing a character as a Summoner/Black Mage/White Mage so long as the player respects the lore behind them without resorting to "Chosen One" tropes.  It can be done. RPing a character as both a Black and White Mage would raise my eyebrows, though.

 

(Plus, honestly, locking out "classic" Final Fantasy jobs from RP just seems plain un-fun to me. I'm playing an FF MMO for a reason here!)

 

It's really hard to do that within the confines of the Lore for White Mage, since it's made explicitly clear during the questline that you're the only non-Padjal that's been allowed to become one in centuries.  Oh, and the only reason you're allowed to become one is because the soul crystal of A'Towa-Kan or whatever chose you - and only you - to carry on his legacy.

 

¯\(°_o)/¯

[LiadansWhisper]

*shrugs* I'm not here to tell anyone what they can or can't do. All I was observing is that the two magicks have entirely different schools of thought surrounding them. Black magic seems to have quite the stigma attached to it, given its penchant for destruction and being connected to the Void, unless I'm mistaken. I'm no lore expert and I haven't done either the BLM or WHM job quests. It just seems like it would be an unusual (but again, not impossible) scenario to successfully master both IC. Such a character would inspire awe from my own simple Miqo'te hunter. *grins*

 

Considering that Succor - the actual magic that White Mages draw from - is being monitored and restricted by the Elementals, I don't think it would be near as easy as you think it would be.  Also, White Magic and Black Magic are described as anathema to one another.

 

Edited to Add: BTW, if I'm coming across as harsh, it's not intentional. The way they decided to structure the White Mage lore in this game is a serious sore point for me. I hate it.

[Tla]

It's really hard to do that within the confines of the Lore for White Mage, since it's made explicitly clear during the questline that you're the only non-Padjal that's been allowed to become one in centuries.  Oh, and the only reason you're allowed to become one is because the soul crystal of A'Towa-Kan or whatever chose you - and only you - to carry on his legacy.

 

¯\(°_o)/¯

That's what I meant, how can you play a white mage while respecting the lore wholly? You have to bend it a bit, and saying that padjal have been going around for a while teaching this magic to people...would kinda defeat the whole lore imho, since the whole reason padjal are born is to serve in that role and if it was just something anyone could be taught...I'd guess padjal wouldn't need to exist anymore.

So, for me, if anyone would roleplay as a white mage, should have to be as a very special individual who ended up being accepted as such because of very unique reasons. Still a bit of lorebending but quite acceptable, but the other case, for me personally, would be huge lorebending.

[Ildur]

I don't care about 'defeating the lore' when the lore is stupidly restrictive and detrimental to roleplaying. If you keep the "padjals are the only ones teaching White Magic and only to super-duper speshiul individuals" you are inviting people to make Mary Sues to justify their chosen Job. Mary Sues, I say, because they'd need to be selected by the padjals (who are major characters) directly, and chosen for super-duper speshiul circumnstances similar to the ones of the questline (the soul crystal directly chosing you, the Elementals ordering the Padjal to teach you, or similar things). All the Mary Sue alarms will go off around these poor players. This is not good for roleplay. The lore has to be bended and the quest canon trampled over if we want White Mages in our roleplay.

 

An alternative to the Padjals doing the teaching is for that first "very special" White Mage to have started teaching magic to other people, and those people taught others, and those others to others and so on and so forth.

 

the whole reason padjal are born is to serve in that role

 

That is not true. Padjal are basically the Elementals' "chosen ones". Their purpose isn't to have White Magic but to act as a direct link between nature (the Elementals) and Gridanians. They are given White Magic the same way you could give a carpenter a hammer: his purpose isn't to hold the hammer but to make furniture.

[Kendha'to]

I didn't think you were being harsh, Liadan. Thanks for sharing the lore. I haven't done the Black OR White Mage questlines yet, nor have I done a ton of research on them because they're just not important topics for my character's RP. Just going by what I gleaned from a cursory glance over the job descriptions on wiki. (And for the record, I never claimed it would be easy to learn both black and white magic; in fact, I was arguing the exact opposite.)

 

One thing I'm curious about is what the process of becoming a White Mage looked like pre-ARR when the jobs were first released. So that gives me something to search for on YouTube or something when I get home today, unless someone can shed some light on that for the discussion.

[Sounsyy]

An alternative to the Padjals doing the teaching is for that first "very special" White Mage to have started teaching magic to other people, and those people taught others, and those others to others and so on and so forth.

 

the whole reason padjal are born is to serve in that role

 

That is not true. Padjal are basically the Elementals' "chosen ones". Their purpose isn't to have White Magic but to act as a direct link between nature (the Elementals) and Gridanians. They are given White Magic the same way you could give a carpenter a hammer: his purpose isn't to hold the hammer but to make furniture.

 

White Mage is tricky. There is a reason only Padjal know White Magic. 

 

 

In the Fifth Umbral Era, there was a great freeze which encompassed the whole world. Most Miqo'te players recognize this as the time when the first miqo'te tribes crossed over to Eorzea. Now, the Umbral to Astral switch occurred when, in order to survive the harsh winter, modern magic was discovered. The very first mages figured out how to cast Fire and keep themselves warm through the freeze. Fast forward through the Fifth Astral Era to where this simple Fire spell for the sole purpose of survival has become Fire III and Flare and all manner of destructive magics made for the sole purpose of war and showing off. Shantoto bringing down a star just to make staves from its rubble comes to mind.

 

To counterbalance, White Magic or Succor was born. (It's hinted that the Elementals taught this to those mages who lived in the Twelveswood at the time.) However, even White Mages began to seek bigger and better spells and so sullied the purity of Succor. Enraged by the abuse of their power, the Elementals summoned a great flood that washed away the tainted magic of Eorzea. That is why the study and practice of Black and White Magic is forbidden. 

 

Now we fast-forward again to the next relevant bit of the White Mage story. We go to c.500 years before current time. The Elementals have forbidden the elezen or anyone really from entering the Twelveswood after what happened in the Sixth Umbral Era. So the elezen built a great city beneath the Wood called Gelmorra. There they tried to find a way to communicate with the elementals. Ultimately they were unsuccessful until Hyur began to integrate into their society. Where there was bloody war between the Hyur and Elezen everywhere else in the world, in Gelmorra, the elezen and the hyur embraced for a common purpose of living in the Twelveswood. It is quite possibly through this expression of love and good faith that changed the Elemental's minds about the races of men. 

 

The elementals sent moogles to attempt to bridge the communication gap and eventually Conjury was born. Conjury is NOT succor. It is simply the aetherial manipulation of Nature. But these early Conjurers were able to hear the Elementals. This is where the Pact of Gelmorra was formed. The Pact basically can be summed up to: The Elementals will allow you to live in their woods so long as you protect the wood, do not harm it, do not take from it in excess, etc. Should you break the Pact, you not only risk the safety of everyone in the Wood, but everyone in the world as well. (Now maybe you understand why Gridanians don't trust outsiders at all. Most outsiders are unaware of the Pact, yet Gridanians will pay the price of any ignorant actions they take against the Wood.)

 

 

 

 

So, now that the basic history lesson is out of the way, we move on to the second (private) part of the Pact. Select gifted Conjurers were chosen by the Elementals so that their children would become Padjal. The Elementals knew that without the power of Succor, it would be nearly impossible to heal the hurt that had been done to the Wood. So the Elementals taught it to the Padjal. Should Succor or White Magic ever be abused for any reason though, the Pact would be void and all those within the wood would perish. This is why, canonically, White Magic is a closely guarded task of the Padjal only. It is too dangerous to be known by many. Even in the WHM questline, both Padjal have reserves about teaching you Succor and Raya-O-Senna cautions you strongly at the end saying that if you abuse your powers and responsibilities in any way, she will strip the power of Succor from you.

 

In closing, I believe you can RP as a White Mage if you so desire. But I also believe you need to have a pretty good backstory as to why you have a forbidden power.

[Sounsyy]

One thing I'm curious about is what the process of becoming a White Mage looked like pre-ARR when the jobs were first released. So that gives me something to search for on YouTube or something when I get home today, unless someone can shed some light on that for the discussion.

 

In the 1.0 WHM questline, you dealt directly with an Elemental named Oha-Sok. Lots of good lore stuff on the Elementals in that questline, which unfortunately got changed in 2.0. 

 

You can watch the cutscenes 

. Oh and you're really not missing a lot in between. The actual quest objectives were mostly killing Notorious Monsters.

[Rinh Hallani]

I know the primals keep coming back and you can theoretically have a unending supply to create new summoners, but don't they also say that only people who have the Echo can avoid becoming bound? Or did I misunderstand that? Personally, I've avoided it altogether and RP as an arcanist only.

[Ildur]

People with the Echo are immune to the brainwash, yes. But the Primal has to specifically try to brainwash in the first place. If you ask me, the only reason Ifrit managed to do that in his introduction was because the prisoners were shackled. Otherwise, once summoned, the Primal could just go to one of the major city states and brainwash everyone there and in the way.

This tells me a Primal can't do it with their sole pressence, and that it requires for it to concentrate (or something similar) that isn't readily available if he's busy fighting. It could also be a process that consumes a lot of aether and, as such, isn't worth using during combat since it would weaken them considerably. Specially not a good idea if they can't tell if a person has the Echo until after the brainwash spell was cast.

 

White Mage is tricky. There is a reason only Padjal know White Magic.

 

I guess I stand corrected. But I still reject that canon. It would be fine if this was a singleplayer RPG where the player character is truly unique in his reality. But he isn't. Squeenix is trying to have their cake ("White Magic is super-duper spechul!") and then eat it ("You, our dear players, are also super-duper spechul!"). So special, we are, that the Elementals have to vouch for us to the Padjal, and they have to teach us despite their reserves.

This would be akin to giving us the choice to pick Padjals in race selection. It's all fine and dandy if the player pool is limited to only one person (or maybe half a dozen), but it is not acceptable in a massively roleplaying scene. We have to bend lore, not only to justify all the White Mages, but also because the game itself is giving contradictory messages: that white magic is severely limited by the Padjals and the Elementals, yet every single player character can pick that Job.

If Squee wanted White Magic to be super duper special they should have limited the ammount of player characters that can be White Mages with some kind of limit (which would piss people off on a meta-game scale), or not allow any player to become one at all. The same way we can't be Padjal in character creation.