"Lore-Wrecking" Mounts

[Steel Wolf]

The Ahriman. Fat Chocobo. Sleipnir.

 

This game appears to have a fascination with mounts that, beyond the bog-standard horsebird or the Magitek Armor, take the piss with the lore.

 

Personally, I find this a bit of a shame. I love how Steel looks on Sleipnir, and how Sleipnir looks. Even to the point that I wanna make it her primary mount. I even gave her (she's a mare in my head-canon) a name: Holskhyll. The problem is, though...just...everyone's gonna see and think "Sleipnir". I'm even considering having my Elezen use the Fat Chocobo as her primary mount just because it'd be suitable for her character. Or maybe the Courel.

 

I'm just having a hard time justifying the mental hurdles that many others might have with seeing these mounts in a non-ironic or OOC way. Am I overthinking this here? Or are there people who are honestly looking at someone riding a Behemoth and inwardly rolling their eyes?

[Seriphyn]

You're not alone, esp. with behemoth or beast mount or whatever. Having a non-chocobo mount like a drake...well, the Amalj'aa know how to domesticate a drake...do the civilized folk in Eorzea? Gotta come up with a reason for having a mount that isn't a domesticated creature (like a couerl).

 

But I'm a broken record with how much I prefer "the ordinary". Chocobos for everyone!

[Aaron]

Fat chocobo aren't lore friendly?

[Ciel]

Behemoth mount is canon, read the flavor text on it.  My character uses a coeurl, which is also canon.  There are plenty of black mage type/void callers in RP who use the ahriman mount, so I don't see this as much of a concern either, just so long as the players using them understand that there's a stigma attached to summoning things from the void.

 

As far as things like Sleipnir, don't worry about what other people think.  Just say it's an impressive-looking horse and call it by a different name. I'd honestly be more concerned with the horse mounts which drop from Ex Primals.  Sure, there's flavor text to explain those as well, but not everyone can be a Primal slayer.

[Spethah]

Ira has a hobby of taming animals and as a result she's managed to control a coeurl to the point of mounting and is currently looking for more animals to understand. I heavy emphasise the time element in there, it doesn't take just a few days and bam she's got a new pet. It'd take months and perhaps even years depending on how dangerous her target it. 

 

Gentle Sun on the other hand is helping the sylphs out and trying to get to ride a goobbue (though currently unsuccessful), though mostly because his sheer muscle weight tends to cause chocobos to struggle despite the destriers being designed to handle Roegadyn weight. 

 

If you can find a way around it, you should use it and address it. I know someone in an RP in the quicksand that uses a minion as a twin and I myself use the opo-opo minion as a pet as well and everyone seems to understand the reasoning rather well. For Sleipnir you can pull the strings due to the fact it doesn't possess six legs. It looks like an ordinary and very pissed off horse and simply stating that it's definitely not Odin's best friend should get people to understand. 

 

And if you want to think reeeeally hard, chocobos themselves are hard to get as you need to be in a Grand Company and own a license which can be seen as quite hard to earn!

 

That's my two and a half gil on this.

[Gar]

We're RPers, imagination is sort of part of the deal. The game is limiting on what we can use. Honestly, I don't think there's a single mount that would be "lore breaking" if you did it right. You already said you don't intend to ride Sleipnir. If you want him to be a black horse, then he's a black horse.

 

Obviously there are certain lines of lore that can be crossed that make you think the person can't RP in the world they're given. But at the same time, I think there is a lot more room for creative ideas that still fit with the lore.

 

If people are going to turn their nose up at you because you're on a mount that they make assumptions about, that's their problem isn't it? RP requires explanation. Our characters have things about them that the game can't show. Its like if a character lost their arm, but someone goes "But I see their arm right there in game."

 

Have fun. Be creative. That's what RP is about.

[Candor]

I agree that you're not alone, Steel. However, something you need to consider is that this is an MMORPG and it was arguably not designed for RP and canon adherence. So, you need to take the game for what it is and decide where your own personal boundaries lay within it. Is Behemoth an unacceptable mount? Is the Behemoth Barding even acceptable?

 

Unfortunately you're going to have to make your own decision, based on your own RP integrity counterbalanced by your need to be unique. It's the same decision we all make, and the players we usually roll our eyes at are those that vote unique every time, because that's how we get Mary-Sues and snowflakes.

 

My advice to you is to regard it as any story decision. In the literary world it's a fact that every story has been told and will be told again, so a writer's merit no longer hinges on the originality of the context, but the execution of the method. I play a Nunh, which has already been done a million times over since the game launched, but I like to think that I play the kind of Nunh that doesn't make people roll their eyes at my "sex machine cat." If you can manage to present a Sleipnir or Fat Chocobo mount in a way that's interesting, and keeps your audience reading more, and prevents them from impatiently sighing at your own self indulgence, I say go for it. It might even be fun.

[Ciel]

If you can manage to present a Sleipnir or Fat Chocobo mount in a way that's interesting, and keeps your audience reading more, and prevents them from impatiently sighing at your own self indulgence, I say go for it. It might even be fun.

 

^This.

 

Such a significant chunk of RP is about self indulgence anyway, if we worried about every little detail that someone else might take exception to, there would be no point to making use of such a creative outlet.

[Aysun]

Well, the thing about something being canon due to flavour text... >>;;

 

Not getting into this! Nope!

 

I'll just say I like my chocobo. Regular old chocobo.

[Titor]

Titor has the frontlines Flames horse IC. I say it was given to him as a gift for outstanding service to the Flames.

[K'nahli]

Taking flavour text seriously is not something that you're honestly meant to do to be fair, haha.

 

I will admit that I never really liked seeing Magitek mounts running about partly because I failed to understand how one could like it more than a chocobo and to actually use it as their regular mount, same with behemoths later on down the line. Whenever I saw those massive things taking up the screen or stomping on lots of chocobo in fate parties/group movements I did figuratively roll my eyes, haha. Not for RP reasons really but I just didn't understand the fascination.

 

Ever since playing with my friend's lala though(in a very silly-style RP) I've realised that Behemoth really suits her character in a totally cutesy and ironic sense and I have since to appreciate the fact that it simple works in some instances, just not the "I'm so cool, I ride a behemoth" style!

 

 

Maybe it is RP in a sense. I don't RP at all in-game but I dislike seeing people exposing skin in Coerthas and such, or running over your character/their mount instead of around them. This has evolved into me creating secondary sets for my characters to use in Coerthas and cold-weather dungeons for those that don't wear heavy, totally-concealing armour to begin with.

 

 

Fat chocobo are adorable though. The way they seem to get massive, bum-wiggling air time is too precious.

 

 

(I also dislike coeurl mounts. I find them totally unappealing but it doesn't bother me to see people using them. From an RP perspective it'd make me flinch though).

[TheLastCandle]

I like the fun mounts just to ride around on when I'm OOC, but when I think of the mental hoops I'd have to jump through to justify Yvelont taming a behemoth to use as a mount, it makes me glad that he's a fairly traditional Ishgardian elezen who loves his chocobo destrier too much to ride any other mount. <3

[Steel Wolf]

Lots of variant opinions, I love it! <3

 

I feel that the fact I've sort of written around most of the assumptions surrounding Holskhyll makes me a little more comfortable with riding her in public. I'd much rather be allowed to ride a regular black horse with similarly-styled armor, but...in the meantime, she is who she is.

 

...but now I do have to come up with an explanation of where I found her. The first story that came to mind was that she was among a marauder's hideout that Steel was tasked to take out and she rescued it afterwards?

 

Eeeehhh...I need to read up more on horsies in Eorzea.

[Aysun]

Lots of variant opinions, I love it! <3

 

I feel that the fact I've sort of written around most of the assumptions surrounding Holskhyll makes me a little more comfortable with riding her in public.  I'd much rather be allowed to ride a regular black horse with similarly-styled armor, but...in the meantime, she is who she is.

 

...but now I do have to come up with an explanation of where I found her.  The first story that came to mind was that she was among a marauder's hideout that Steel was tasked to take out and she rescued it afterwards?

 

Eeeehhh...I need to read up more on horsies in Eorzea.

 

They're a far eastern thing as far as I know. Only recently been showing up in Eorzea. Last years Heavensturn event gave us some horse lore.

[Ciel]

My point is, people can use the flavor text to justify having some of these things, and if they can't figure out how to do it based on the little info which has been presented, they can feel free to lore-bend to make it work for their RP.  I don't see them as being lore-wrecking just so long as there is some in-game nugget of info that says "Okay, this is possible".

 

I think there are people, however, who take things too seriously and see some aspects of the game lore as gospel while also telling other people that some things really don't count.  Seems kind of hypocritical. imho.

[Kellach Woods]

I don't think, other than MAYBE the Ahriman and even then Ahriman lore is kinda screwy right now, that any mount is lorebreaking. Even Sleipnir isn't legit.

 

Like, if they started offering Cloud's motorbike from VII then yeah, that'd be lorebreaking.

 

Nothing so far. Out of the ordinary, sure but not straight up lorebreaking.

[Steel Wolf]

They're a far eastern thing as far as I know. Only recently been showing up in Eorzea. Last years Heavensturn event gave us some horse lore.

 

I haven't played in the span between 2.1 and 2.4. So, no, the horse lore eluded me, but thanks for the primer.

[K'nahli]

On a related note, you may want to consider tweaking the title a little since it might be deemed as harshly-worded. Anyone who actually does use any 'out there' mounts ICly might take offence under the guise that you are demonizing their style.

[Steel Wolf]

Really good point, actually, thank you. I hadn't considered that.

 

I've surrounded lore-breaking in quotes to denote intent. Thanks. ^^

[Seriphyn]

Bah political correctness.

[Altitis Acquired]

I do like it when my mounts are wrecking my lore... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... sorry.

[Aris]

If I were to see someone on a 'lore breaking' mount but they describe it as something else, then that's completely fine with me!  I love hearing the story behind a character's mount haha. As mentioned earlier, the options are pretty limited.

 

To be honest, the only thing I would really question is the behemoth mount.. it just doesn't seem right to me for someone to have one - but as long as said person's story is plausible and keeps me interested then I'll just roll with it.

 

Tell us more about Holskhyll? 

[Blue]

I use Sleipnir IC. I just don't RP it as being Sleipnir. ICly, it's a dark-coated unicorn with a horn split in two because of an accident.

 

And that will stay my mount for as long as SE doesn't give me another option to walk as slow as Sleipnir does. He is, up to now, the most realistic walking speed we've got in-game.

[Kellach Woods]

"I TOLD him not to charge straight ahead into the axe stand but noooooooo!"

[Blue]

"I TOLD him not to charge straight ahead into the axe stand but noooooooo!"

 

<_< yes, pretty much.