Lore Reasons:White Mage?

[Gegenji]

While I was under the impression that the Echo was very rare, I didn't believe that there was just a single sole person gifted with it either.

 

Well, we know Minfilia has it as well, so there's a second person.

[Aduu Avagnar]

Yeah re watching the trailer is why I asked the question: I had remembered reading that WHM was... restricted, but in the Battle of Cartenau.. There is White Mage healing hte wounds of Midlander (Lalafell POWER!).. which would seem to  contradict lore?

 

 So perhaps its a weird Lore hiccup, or perhaps its best that we think about   ceating a psot about possible ways and ideas for people to encorporate classes- or at least their abilities ( though we know that the Guilds are an IC thing).

 

 

I mean my little Miqo'te ( I think  I have to name her soon, because typing that out is a pain).

 

Also guilds normally  didn't want their secrets spread so all the PCS joining the DoH, DoL,DoM and DoW, guilds is actually super unusual.

As I said, the whole reason they are in Job Gear at all is because they want Iconic gear for the trailer. They want people to look and go: That's a White Mage, That's a Black mage, etc.

 

I firmly believe that it was simply a marketing tool, as opposed to anything relating to the lore.

[Kage]

No there isn't?

 

If you mean more than one person who time skipped, yes that's true. However the Devs confirmed in Fanfest there's only one WoL - the main hero - he is the only person who became the WHM or the BLM or whatever - he's the only one who has the ECho, is Hydalaen's chosen, and working with the Scions. Just one. Devs said so right at Fanfest.

 

Touching on the mention of the Echo in this post. Can this be confirmed with a link to the Dev's words? While I was under the impression that the Echo was very rare, I didn't believe that there was just a single sole person gifted with it either. So I'd like to see some actual backing to that claims.

 

Cheers.

I'm pretty sure that the Echo isn't WoL - main character only. It's just that there is only ONE warrior of light. The idea in an mmo is that THE player (YOU!) is the ONE main Warrior of Light. But this does not completely work out RP-wise.

 

There's no direct post of it but you can find the words in Fanfest Vegas Lore Panel. Some did live reactions/transcribing. http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=8695&pid=117271#pid117271

[Aya]

Its the Echo versus Blessing of Hydaelen thing again.. all over again!  Again! 

 

To many of the character's around here, anyone claiming to be a White Mage in-character is probably considered a charlatan.  That's usually how such things work in RP, you can claim and do whatever you like, but everyone determines their own canon one way or another either by playing along or not - especially when it comes to things that are not well supported by lore :-]

 

There's no reason someone couldn'tt be a Conjurer who specializes in healing, although there are inherent dangers in that (as presented in the Conjurer quest chain).  It could also be interesting to be a healer, who perhaps through a twist of good-fortune can channel some amount of healing magic in addition to the use of herbs, tonics, tinctures, bandages, and assorted salves and remedies

[ProvaDiServo]

Yeah re watching the trailer is why I asked the question: I had remembered reading that WHM was... restricted, but in the Battle of Cartenau.. There is White Mage healing hte wounds of Midlander (Lalafell POWER!).. which would seem to  contradict lore?

 

 So perhaps its a weird Lore hiccup, or perhaps its best that we think about   ceating a psot about possible ways and ideas for people to encorporate classes- or at least their abilities ( though we know that the Guilds are an IC thing).

 

 

I mean my little Miqo'te ( I think  I have to name her soon, because typing that out is a pain).

 

Also guilds normally  didn't want their secrets spread so all the PCS joining the DoH, DoL,DoM and DoW, guilds is actually super unusual.

As I said, the whole reason they are in Job Gear at all is because they want Iconic gear for the trailer. They want people to look and go: That's a White Mage, That's a Black mage, etc.

 

I firmly believe that it was simply a marketing tool, as opposed to anything relating to the lore.

 

But wouldn't the same effect have worked if they provided the pvp gear they have? say the ilvl100 things?

[Aya]

Yeah re watching the trailer is why I asked the question: I had remembered reading that WHM was... restricted, but in the Battle of Cartenau.. There is White Mage healing hte wounds of Midlander (Lalafell POWER!).. which would seem to  contradict lore?

 

 So perhaps its a weird Lore hiccup, or perhaps its best that we think about   ceating a psot about possible ways and ideas for people to encorporate classes- or at least their abilities ( though we know that the Guilds are an IC thing).

 

 

I mean my little Miqo'te ( I think  I have to name her soon, because typing that out is a pain).

 

Also guilds normally  didn't want their secrets spread so all the PCS joining the DoH, DoL,DoM and DoW, guilds is actually super unusual.

As I said, the whole reason they are in Job Gear at all is because they want Iconic gear for the trailer. They want people to look and go: That's a White Mage, That's a Black mage, etc.

 

I firmly believe that it was simply a marketing tool, as opposed to anything relating to the lore.

 

But wouldn't the same effect have worked if they provided the pvp gear they have? say the ilvl100 things?

The Mage gear (thematically) goes back to the original Final Fantasy.  No one would have recognized the PvP gear.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Yeah re watching the trailer is why I asked the question: I had remembered reading that WHM was... restricted, but in the Battle of Cartenau.. There is White Mage healing hte wounds of Midlander (Lalafell POWER!).. which would seem to  contradict lore?

 

 So perhaps its a weird Lore hiccup, or perhaps its best that we think about   ceating a psot about possible ways and ideas for people to encorporate classes- or at least their abilities ( though we know that the Guilds are an IC thing).

 

 

I mean my little Miqo'te ( I think  I have to name her soon, because typing that out is a pain).

 

Also guilds normally  didn't want their secrets spread so all the PCS joining the DoH, DoL,DoM and DoW, guilds is actually super unusual.

As I said, the whole reason they are in Job Gear at all is because they want Iconic gear for the trailer. They want people to look and go: That's a White Mage, That's a Black mage, etc.

 

I firmly believe that it was simply a marketing tool, as opposed to anything relating to the lore.

 

But wouldn't the same effect have worked if they provided the pvp gear they have? say the ilvl100 things?

 

Neither of those existed when 2.0 launched. ...or when 1.23b ended.

[Heart Quintessence]

Makes sense. And I love that, the fact that they wanted the iconic look so you could tell ( which is neat).

 

 So many good posts, makes me excited to chill in Balmung.. but first Gilgamesh in order to transfer.

[ArmachiA]

No there isn't?

 

If you mean more than one person who time skipped, yes that's true. However the Devs confirmed in Fanfest there's only one WoL - the main hero - he is the only person who became the WHM or the BLM or whatever - he's the only one who has the ECho, is Hydalaen's chosen, and working with the Scions. Just one. Devs said so right at Fanfest.

 

Touching on the mention of the Echo in this post. Can this be confirmed with a link to the Dev's words? While I was under the impression that the Echo was very rare, I didn't believe that there was just a single sole person gifted with it either. So I'd like to see some actual backing to that claims.

 

Cheers.

I'm pretty sure that the Echo isn't WoL - main character only. It's just that there is only ONE warrior of light. The idea in an mmo is that THE player (YOU!) is the ONE main Warrior of Light. But this does not completely work out RP-wise.

 

There's no direct post of it but you can find the words in Fanfest Vegas Lore Panel. Some did live reactions/transcribing. http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=8695&pid=117271#pid117271

 

Right, what I meant by that was he has ALL of those things and is the only one to have all and have done all of those things. The Echo is not restricted to the WoL, neither is Hydalean's Chosen.

[K'nahli]

I thought the MSQ referred to the cinematic heroes as the "Warriors of Light", so I always assumed that there were five of them, one representing you and the others, your party(whom you dungeon with if you have a static... i.e friends).

 

As for 2.0, you are either a newcomer to Eorzea whom possesses the same prowess the missing heroes had, or you are in fact one of them.

 

Not exactly 100% sound but they were hardly imagining this from an RP perspective.

 

 

 

Anyways... as always, I'll still be among the other group of people whom first say:

 

"But... why is WHM/BLM/whatever necessary exactly? Why is CNJ/THM/whatever not good enough?"

 

I'll never tell anyone what to RP, nor will I condemn them for their choices but why so many people - who wish to involve themselves with unplanned RP outside of a set group - insist on breaking/stretching lore for unnecessary reasons continues to baffle me. Unless you are someone who RPs the ACTUAL skills you get in-game like....

 

"White Mage casts a Medica around her, followed quickly by a Cure III in Warren's direction!"

 

....then I don't understand why the WHM title is necessary. Also, for the record, I doubt many people would bat an eye even if you did RP like that and used job skills when you played as a class.

[FreelanceWizard]

Yeah, the Echo is rare, but that's relative to the whole of Eorzea's population. One of the predecessor organizations to the Scions existed with the primary goal of locating those with the Echo. It's not an "only one guy has it" kind of thing, though it is rare. With that in mind, "rare" is a relative term; PC adventurers are a significant subset of the overall Eorzean population. From a power standpoint, the Echo is of questionable utility -- if nothing else because you don't seem to have any control over it.

 

The Blessing of Light is rather more complicated. There's a cutscene early on where you see the thousands of lights circling around the crystal, implying that Hydaelyn has a number of defenders. However, subsequent story in the MSQ implies that The Adventurer is the only one known to the Scions to have the Blessing of Light. So, it's not entirely clear to me how many people have it -- is it The Adventurer, or is it just rare? The powers of the Blessing seem... rather overpowered, IMO, with blades of Light and such.

 

Personally, I think it's perfectly fine to have the Echo, but I'd shy away from the Blessing of Light. They are, though, two separate things, as Armachia points out, and while The Adventurer clearly has them, it doesn't necessarily follow that no one else can.

 

As for White Mage... yeah. Opinions vary. Where people stand depends on a variety of factors, including powerful they feel the Elementals and the Padjal still are based on the available lore. On that basis alone, I always advocate avoiding it. It's easy enough to just be a powerful conjurer, after all.

[Sounsyy]

A post by Fernehalwes explaining Derplander and his allies as seen in the CG cutscenes for 1.0 and 2.0 can be found here. There's a slew of interesting details involved, but I'll quote the most pertinent paragraph to the discussion below:

 

But that still leaves one question—was the party an actual party' date=' or were they merely symbols meant to represent you, the players? Well, you can breathe easy knowing they are both. They all ventured into Eorzea at the same time as you did. They all did similar quests, and lived through similar adventures. They exist as your characters exist (in a virtual world-sort of existence). The fact that you haven’t come across them is probably the same reason you haven’t come across my character, Amanda Hugginkyss (or maybe you have? /wink). They’re just somewhere else. Though, maybe you’ll stumble across their party in the future. Or maybe you won’t. How’s that for committing to an answer?[/quote']

 

Pretty much like what Warren said... if you want to be the Warrior of Light, you can be. If you do not, there's always Derplander doing it for you. As to why the Lalafell WHM is a WHM... I would assume the most logical answer is that she was the "Warrior of Light" who underwent the trials set in place by Oha-Sok to become a White Mage. Derplander may not have been the one to do all of the story things, but one of his party certainly did. Like the Miqo'te likely was the one who underwent the trials of becoming a Bard. The female Elezen going from gladiator to Black Mage under the tutelage of the Beastmen and Ququruka. Etc.

 

Speaking of Warrior of Light, Warriors of Light, Echo, and the Blessings of Hydaelyn, I'll defer to Anonymoose's Explanation of the Warrior of Light. I try to explore in a little bit more detail at the bottom half of this old post.

 

 

Finally... White Magic! As you've already seen, there's a bit of contention on the subject, because in game lore has a heavily guarded hold on Succor and who can/cannot use it. As such, most tend to avoid it. Personally, I don't have a problem with anyone playing any of the jobs so long as they are aware of what exactly those titles mean in the setting. A white mage is not just a healer, for instance. It's a single-minded devotion to restoring the world to balance, recovering the Wood, and doing the Elemental's work. It is a dedication that for the last 500 years was bestowed only upon a child of the Elemental's own conception. These jobs aren't just throw-away titles and things to take lightly. Each one bears a remarkable history and legacy.

 

Anyways, here's a couple posts on the subject.

Schools of Magic

Padjal Lore and WHM Discussion

 

Hope this helps! ^^

[Heart Quintessence]

Deep and Awesome, and now that Yhisa(my Miqo'te) has a name, I will really have to have her travel and see how she develops. White Mage? Maybe?

 

A Healer- most definately. Healing the heart and soul of all she can.. because its al she can do... Damn.

[Gale]

Thanks for the clarification gang, much appreciated.

[Tiergan]

This is why I've long believed MMOs should do away with single player storytelling all together because it causes nothing but confusion and disagreement over something that really isn't that hard to figure out.

 

Along the same vein, because of the way the White Mage quest is presented, your character is the 'lone and only chosen hero' who ever gets to be a White Mage while no one else save the Padjal get to have that special privilege.  While some job quests might simply be one scenario out of many - in the case of the White Mage quest, you literally only got to be a White Mage because some other long dead guy's white mage stone up and specifically, personally selects you to be the first and only non-padjal white mage in ages.  This spirit likely did not have multiple white-mage stones just hanging about in the shroud waiting for more adventurers to come around.  Just like our characters only have one job stone - he likely only had one job stone to give out as well.  Meanwhile, the Elementals are still very much against letting anyone non-padjal learn the art of succor.

 

I just really don't understand where this interpretation comes from because it makes several assumptions that seem ridiculous in the grand scheme of things:

 

A. The only Padjal in the entire land happen to be the five NPCs referenced in 2.0.

B. If not that, then they all think the same like a series of clones even though they all come from differing backgrounds.

C. This is the only way to do it.

D. That the reliance on the so-called will of the elementals is actually something more than exaggeration and superstition.

 

A lot of this obviously absurd imo, but what really settles it is the official site disagrees with it outright:.

 

As others have mentioned Fernhawles himself sadly confirmed there is only one. As you play the game OOCly - that character happens to be you.

 

Also, the Elementals are very real and not superstition. They were extremely powerful prior to the calamity and if you read onto the lore, they were so furious with how the Races of Man were misusing the art of Succor that they LITERALLY brought about an Umbral Age by causing a massive flood to wipe out the Mage wars going on at the time. They drove people underground and then took away the art of Succor which is when people were no longer able to be WHM.

 

if your character believes the Elementals are just superstition, they basically also believe the actual source of white magic isn't real.

 

Additionally going into the Shroud as an outsider basically marked you for death (greenwrath) by the Elementals until you appeased them before the Calamity struck. In 1.0 it was framed as pretty terrifying and hostile. I actually hated it because from an RP perspective, it made zero sense why anyone would ever go to Gridania if they were not Gridanian.

 

I also strongly encourage you to watch the WHM cutscenes again. The Padjal NPCs make a huge deal about how no one but Padjal get to be whm and how you are the first person in a long time who is not padjal and a whm.

 

I personally don't get upset if someone RPs that they are a white mage, but I do prefer that people understand what a HUGE DEAL it is to be one. Its not just a suped up version of conjurer. It is something massively special and you have to have done something really special to get it. Not just "trained really hard and became master WHM at age 20".

 

But these are my preferences. Different strokes for different folks.

[Flashhelix]

There's more than one warrior of light, though, and job quests are merely one possible scenario amongst many others. Neither of those prove any exclusivity whatsoever.

It's even worse in the case of Dragoons where there is literally a chosen one - the Azure Dragoon.

 

Dragoons are a good bit more plausible just by virtue of there being plenty of dragoons back in Ishgard. Of course, people tend to take that in the wrong direction by having their Ishgardian DRGs just walking around the Quicksand with no reason why they're so far away from home.

[V'aleera]

It will be interesting to see the nefarious/alternative means of claiming White Magic that were mentioned by the developers elaborated upon (perhaps in the Heavensward WHM class quests). I'm curious how Gridanian society will react when (or if) they find out the most sacred power of the Elementals can be taken by third parties without permission or punishment.

 

Interesting things tend to happen when the almighty have a spotlight shone on their impotence.

[Aduu Avagnar]

It will be interesting to see the nefarious/alternative means of claiming White Magic that were mentioned by the developers elaborated upon (perhaps in the Heavensward WHM class quests). I'm curious how Gridanian society will react when (or if) they find out the most sacred power of the Elementals can be taken by third parties without permission or punishment.

 

Interesting things tend to happen when the almighty have a spotlight shone on their impotence.

Personally I smell a World of Warcraft Burning Crusade Blood Knight approach going on... a rogue hearer helps capture an elemental, and they somehow bring it under heel....

[Tiergan]

There's more than one warrior of light, though, and job quests are merely one possible scenario amongst many others. Neither of those prove any exclusivity whatsoever.

It's even worse in the case of Dragoons where there is literally a chosen one - the Azure Dragoon.

 

Dragoons are a good bit more plausible just by virtue of there being plenty of dragoons back in Ishgard. Of course, people tend to take that in the wrong direction by having their Ishgardian DRGs just walking around the Quicksand with no reason why they're so far away from home.

 

True, people can definitely be *a* dragoon as anyone who has killed a dragon gets to be called one. It only gets hairy when someone claims to be The Azure Dragoon.

[Chillsmack]

lol the jobs are such a hot-button topic: SE really should have just done away with the starter classes and the "unique revival" stories of the end-game and stuck with classic full-on FF jobs that people could take from the get-go. It'd save us RPers and lorebuffs a headache 

[Unnamed Mercenary]

lol the jobs are such a hot-button topic: SE really should have just done away with the starter classes and the "unique revival" stories of the end-game and stuck with classic full-on FF jobs that people could take from the get-go. It'd save us RPers and lorebuffs a headache 

 

fun fact: There were no jobs when FFXIV 1.0 launched. They were added in patch 1.18 iirc. (When Yoshi-P took over)

[Chillsmack]

lol the jobs are such a hot-button topic: SE really should have just done away with the starter classes and the "unique revival" stories of the end-game and stuck with classic full-on FF jobs that people could take from the get-go. It'd save us RPers and lorebuffs a headache 

 

fun fact: There were no jobs when FFXIV 1.0 launched. They were added in patch 1.18 iirc. (When Yoshi-P took over)

 

Yeah I know, but that's what I'm referring to: why 1.0 tried to make an MMO out of classes that have not existed in the FF franchise (save for Archer) just seems strange in hindsight. What ties the FF metaseries together are the iterations of common aspects of the world and themes - the apeparance of jobs is a well established tradition in that respect, and particularly suited for use in an MMO

[Warren Castille]

Tanaka works in mysterious ways.

[Chillsmack]

And gets fired in not-so-mysterious ones lol

[Seriphyn]

It's easier to just wear white robes and be a conjurer, but for some people folks see the title and latch onto it, as if that in and of itself means anything in roleplay.

 

I agree, and the inverse of this is what I've never understood. Why -must- you have the title if having it means all sorts of lore diceyness?

 

I look at it like this; you wouldn't try to break the lore and game rules at a tabletop session, so why here? The lore sets a consistency for all interactions, otherwise we might as well play Second Life.