#YEETS THIS INTO THE ABYSS

[blackestnight]

ffxiv and magic traditions: a very self-indulgent and nonsensical “““essay“““

as a joke i said “haha what if i went off and described each of my oc’s magical abilities but in terms of pathfinder’s magic traditions,” but then no one stopped me, so it’s no longer a joke. anyway.

this will come as a shock, i’m sure, but i play a lot of tabletop rpgs, especially pathfinder 2e. as much as i love ffxiv’s armory system as a mechanic (getting to take multiple classes! one one character! with no penalties! it’s fantastic!) the inherent mechanical limits on each class as a result just…bore me, frankly, from a worldbuilding standpoint; i much prefer the inherent flexibility of ttrpgs, where even two characters with identical classes and ancestries can play entirely differently. hence i like to draw inspiration from ttrpgs when doing my own worldbuilding for my ffxiv characters.

some necessary background: when i say “magic traditions” i’m referring to pf2’s four traditions: arcane, divine, primal, and occult—you might also hear these referred to as “spell lists.” these are separate from the eight schools of magic that you see in a lot of ttrpgs (including pf2 and 5e), such as evocation, divination, necromancy, abjuration, etc. put simply, the school of magic dictates what a spell does, but the caster’s magic tradition dictates where the power to cast it comes from, which will make more sense in a second if it doesn’t already.

also, obligatory because-this-is-the-internet disclaimer: these are my personal headcanons and class interpretations, applied for my own worldbuilding purposes to my own interpretation of the game world, i am not trying to dictate how you should play the game or write your story, you do you, etc.

with that out of the way: HERE WE GO

i’m starting with haruki mostly because he…actually doesn’t do much magic in the way of spellcasting, but he definitely has magical abilities, being a not-quite-dragoon. (i like to call him “waterbender with a pointy stick.”) instead of drawing upon the power of his ~inner dragon~ (he doesn’t have one), his supernatural abilities are a blessing from the auspice seiryu, which makes him a classic example of a divine caster. the most common divine casters in a lot of systems would be clerics, but it really just means that a character’s magical abilities are given as blessings from some sort of divine entity. on his own, haruki is not capable of breathing underwater or summoning tidal waves, but he possesses the power to do those things because the power is on loan from seiryu. it’s also important to note that just because he has power from seiryu doesn’t mean he worships seiryu; it’s pretty standard fare in the pathfinder universe for characters to receive divine blessings unasked-for, and sometimes unwanted (this is, like, the entire premise of the oracle class, and i’d argue also fits pretty perfectly with the oracles of light and darkness in ffxiv as well, but that’s a subject for another post).

i’m lumping adelaine and sjanna together because, not only do they practice the same magic tradition, they both practiced multiple traditions over the course of their respective lives. addie, who was enrolled in the conjurer’s guild while growing up in the black shroud, and sjanna, who was raised a servant of the green word in golmore jungle, both started their journeys as magical practitioners of the primal tradition. not to be confused with ffxiv’s primals, the summoned entities, primal magic is drawn from nature and a connection to the natural world—druids would be the iconic primal casters in most game systems. the line between primal and divine casting can get a little fuzzy sometimes, especially once you get into things like the elementals (who are sentient nature spirits worshipped in their own rights), but i ultimately lumped addie and sjanna into the primal tradition because conjury, from what we’ve seen, is about drawing aether from the land itself (and the elementals are depicted as “voices of the land”). the green word as it appears in ffxiv, similarly, is close to the green faith as it appears in pathfinder: a code that demands respect, reverence, and preservation of the natural world. addie learned magic as a conjurer who drew power from the land around her, and sjanna learned magic as a keeper of the wood who revered the green word. later in life, addie (who had suffered emotional and medical abuse under the conjurers’ guild) and sjanna (who committed anathema to the green word by deliberately causing harm to the wood) stopped being practitioners of primal magic, although addie left it behind willingly while sjanna had her power stripped from her.

so both of them instead re-trained in the arcane magic tradition. arcane magic is like, your stereotypical locked-in-a-tower wizard who spends all their time poring over spellbooks—they make a study of magic and use logic and rationality to categorize and control magic. ffxiv’s arcanists are also (fittingly) a good example of arcane magic as it appears in pathfinder. the arcane tradition relies upon casting spells from constructs, like magical diagrams or matrices, which can be physical (like the arcanist’s grimoire, in addie’s case, as she goes on to become a scholar) or a mental construct (which sjanna prefers, being more of a staff-wielder than a book-toter). it’s also worth noting that, in the case of pathfinder (and as i’m using it here), arcane magic draws mostly on the caster’s reserves, rather than drawing on power from an external source like divine and primal magic. addie learned arcane magic as a means of retaining her power without giving up her agency to an elemental tradition that had harmed her; sjanna took it up to reclaim abilities that had been taken from her, but this time under her own power. i just think it’s neat.

and last but not least: hanami. if you’re wondering why she hasn’t come up before now, it’s because i am cracking open a refreshing cold can of my bullshit (drk theorycrafting). settle in.

“but cyan,” you say, “isn’t hanami’s whole thing that she keeps insisting she is not a damn mage?” yes it is. however, hanami is a filthy fucking liar. hanami, as a dark knight, is a practitioner of the occult magic tradition.

occult magic is definitely the least-understood of the four magic traditions, both in the in-universe pathfinder flavor text and on a meta level by the players. the word occult probably brings to mind, like, a circle of hooded figures with candles and weird rituals to summon some horrible tentacled creature from whatever great beyond, but per in-universe texts on occult magic, these practitioners are benefiting more from sheer dumb luck than an actual understanding of occult magic, which is best demonstrated by the iconic occult casters of pathfinder: bards.

occult magic draws its power from the concept of a shared narrative. practitioners at their finest use magic to invoke symbols commonly understood by its beneficiaries (or victims) that, in turn, causes some secondary effect—usually an emotional reaction (you see a lot of mental spells on the occult spell list). in the case of a bard, they will most typically use song, but dark knights as written in ffxiv do the exact same thing. per the lv 30 unlock quest, dark knights are fueled by fear, pain, and rage (and, as we oh-so-memorably learn in the 50-60 questline, all of these are superceded by love, kupo), but the flavor text of several of the drk abilities (back in ye olden days when we actually got flavor text) also include references to emotional manipulation. per enyclopedia eorzea’s description of Unleash (the starting aoe skill): “Releasing his pain and rage upon nearby foes, the dark knight manifests an inky black circle of spikes on the ground around him. All those caught in its thorns are struck by unreasoning terror, and an irresistible need to claw away at its source.” also from EE1, under the section dedicated to Dark Arts (the conceptual magical practice, not the skill, may she rest in peace): “Fueled by the darkness from within, the dark knight employs these techniques to lend an arcane edge to the blows of her greatsword. Though known for their disdain for shields, the fighting style of the earliest dark knights was nevertheless built upon mundane swordplay, and it was not until several centuries later that one of their order first unlocked the secrets of the dark arts.”

we know from the very start of the class questline that dark knights are something of a folktale to ishgardians; the npc who starts the unlock quest talks about dark arts practitioners, and even later in the lv 63 quest, an npc named Lowdy (you know, the waitress who poisoned you back in falcon’s nest like 3 patches ago) explicitly mentions being told stories about dark knights as a child. (based on the relevant npcs’ social stations, it probably varies whether the mythical dark knights are presented as folk heroes or bogeymen.) “but cyan,” you say, “can you get to the fucking point?”

yes i can. my theory—once again, i direct you to the ‘this is me playing in a sandbox’ disclaimer—is that the original dark knights didn’t use dark arts or magic because there was no narrative surrounding them. the first dark knights, being the founders of the discipline, didn’t have the benefit of a ready-made reputation to go with the greatsword and the heavy armor: by the modern day, when the warrior of light and sidurgu and fray take up the mantle, dark knight evokes a very specific image that instills fear, and pain, and rage—which they then harness for their own ends. dark knights use the shared narrative of ‘big fucking scary knight with big fucking scary forbidden magic’ to actually do that magic: the belief and the fear is the source of their power.

also just, one of these days i will go off about dark knights and akasa/dynamis, but this is already long and i’m already getting off-track, let me just put a pin in that.

so hanami, as an occult caster, uses Unleash and summons a big circle of spikes in the ground. scary! that image, which is pretty universally interpreted as threatening, achieves the effect of inducing terror in anyone caught in those spikes, because the magic is powered by the narrative of “big honkin’ thorns made of pure darkness = danger.” on the flipside, the dark knight also draws power from love—the specific example we see is the love a knight bears for their charge. (additional side-rant that folks like @starswornoaths and @autumnslance could do better than me: better paladin story than the paladin story.) what is The Blackest Night skill, if not a manifestation of that story of devotion and adoration?

…this definitely got off track and if you’re still here you get a medal. the medal is metaphorical though. ty for enjoying my rambling, if you’re interested in more information about the pathfinder magic traditions, i pulled a lot of the stuff above from the Secrets of Magic sourcebook, which contains a ton of cool worldbuilding about magic, including stuff about the traditions, the eight magic schools, and the four magical essences that i didn’t even get into here because they’re not immediately relevant, but they are cool. also: if this was fun enough that you want to incorporate the magical traditions into your own worldbuilding, obviously you can because i’m not a cop, but also tell me about it!!! show me your divine red mages or your arcane paladins or whatever cool and funky stuff you wanna do!!! talk multiclassing to me!!!

thank you for reading bye!!!

[tianlavellan]

I will find you

Blondie, I thought you should hear this from me before you hear it somewhere else. Something happened at Adamant. The Inquisitor and a group of their people fell through a rift – from what I understand, it took them to the Fade, physically. Shouldn't be possible, should it? Anyway. Doesn't matter. The point is, Hawke was with them. He didn't make it back. The Inquisitor says he stayed behind to buy them the time they needed to make it out. I'm sorry. Varric Don't do anything stupid.

[revitalizationrat]

Random mustachello update lets go

Time to start the butt krang arc

Prev, next

[phantomrose96]

Look look, on the whole Pikmin 4 is way easier than 1 or 2. However running Pikmin 4 Cavern for a King, no-time-resets, would really be the dark souls of Pikmin.

[spell-fox]

ran a VtM session today where between us we had SIXTEEN botches. The dice just wanted all these bitches dead

[ademonfucker]

you’re never fully dressed without a

[kinokoshoujoart]

i couldn’t find a video of this version so here’s Rock’s post engagement event if you choose the negative option for my own reference. please enjoy my framerate dropping to hell trying to record anything because of all my mods

[nostalgiaknight]

[grissomesque]

[factsilike]

Thinking of reading SVSS..... I know quite a bit about it already, but I wanna start reading it fr.

Fans of SVSS, could you tell me if I will like it?

[shining-gem34]

Emanator of Abundance

Name: Dan Feng

Age: 1000+

Species: Vidydhara

Birthday: [November 16]

Planet: Xianzhou Luofu

Affiliation: Independant (Or so Dan Feng claims)

Path: Abundance

Weapon: Spear/Catalyst (Freeform)

>Ship Status: Open to multiship.

>Voicelines (TBA) || Headcanons (TBA)

>Emanator of Abundance Verse associated with @grislyintentions

Appearance

Overall, Dan Feng's physical appearance remains the same with some changes. 

The beautiful azure scales have turned green-blue with gold dots. Between his scales, lotus flowers grow and bloom. His horns are more branch-like with plum blossoms growing. The furs of his tail became matted and have thinned out from Dan Feng's bad habit of scratching/picking at his tail. 

Currently, Dan Feng prefers to wear plain/simple robes or hanfu. With his condition, he cannot be bothered to wear the complicated and many layers of luxurious outfits he used to have. The only jewelry he wears is the red tassel earring.

Personality 

Before, Dan Feng was known to be an aloof and frigid individual by most people. Only those who got to know him knew he was a person with emotions like anyone else. 

Now, Dan Feng isolates himself from the world like the new moon.

With his mental health deteriorating by Yaoshi "Blessings", Dan Feng is a shell of his former self. When left alone, he is eerily quiet and remains rooted to his seat by the window watching the world move on while he wastes away. However, if approached, one must be careful for he is in no mood to tolerate company.

Especially if you're an Abomination of Yaoshi, or related to THEM, Dan Feng will not hesitate to tear you apart. In his rage-filled mind, any traces of Abundance must be eliminated. An irony considering Dan Feng has become an Emanator of Abundance (against his will).

However, Dan Feng too wishes for Death embrace and unfortunately, he is not allowed to die under Yaoshi watchful eyes.

History

Warning (Will be updated as needed): Implied Body Horror. Implied Forced Transformation. Manipulation.

The status of High Elder is a duty placed upon Dan Feng shoulders. His burdens is to lead his people to a better path, to honor his ancestors allegiance to the Xianzhou, and to seek a cure to his race cursed infertility.

Despite Dan Feng personal involvement in the research, they are limited by what means they are able to pursue without breaking the Ten Unpardonable Sins. However, Dan Feng has no issues with this. In fact, he finds it a challenge to try to break his race curse without resorting to the likes to the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus.

Unfortunately, Yaoshi had a different opinion.

A single glance from THEM was enough to alter Dan Feng fate.

It was not an instantaneous change, but a slow and painful transformation over the years.

Yaoshi "blessings" invaded his entire being. Roots dig deeper than flesh, drinking up his ichor for their flowers to pierce his skin and bloom beautifully. Their stems intertwined with his blood vessels, wrapping tightly around his heart. Azure scales have dulled and shed for green-blue scales to replace it. The majestic horns atop of his head have shed painfully, and the stumps growing into jagged tree-like branches are much more painful.

A beautiful monster, Dan Feng thinks, but a monster nontheless.

What's worse is that throughout the days of staying in his bed, bleeding and coughing flower petals, are THEIR voices in his head.

THEY comfort him. THEY soothe him. THEY tempt him.

Dan Feng fears the day he will succumb to THEM. He will be alone, helpless, and in pain without anyone by his side.

And Dan Feng knows a part of him has started to seek the mocking warmth of THEIR voices beckoning him give into salvation.

Abilities

For this verse, Dan Feng will follow the Path of Abundance and wields Imaginary element. He uses Cloudhymn magic to heal allies and provides buffs in exchange for his own health.

Basic Attack: Deals Imaginary damage to a single enemy based on Dan Feng HP%

Skill: Activates Dragon Heart in exchange for [percentage] of Dan Feng HP. While Dragon Heart is activated, Dan Feng heals allies every turn based on his HP% and buffs their ATK for 2 turns. After Dragon Heart ends, [percentage] HP will be returned to Dan Feng.

During [Mode Name] activation, Dan Feng cannot use his skill.

Ultimate: Dan Feng deals Imaginary damage to all enemies based on his HP%. If he uses his ultimate while Dragon Heart, he loses a [percentage] of his HP and continues to keep Dragon Heart activated for another turn. For a single turn, his Outgoing Healing% and ATK buffs are greatly enhanced.

Talent: For every ally who recovers HP during Dragon Heart, Dan Feng can stack up Tainted Azure Scale to 3 times. At the end of Dragon Heart, if one ally or more are defeated in battle, Dan Feng can revive them based on the number of Tainted Azure Scale stacked. However, if no allies are defeated in battle, Dan Feng will convert them to Bud of the Ambrosial Arbor instead providing crit dmg% boost for 2 turns.

Tecniques: After using technique, Dan Feng can immediately activate Dragon Heart at the start of battle and consume [percentage] of his HP at the start of battle.

Cloudhymn Magic: Due to his heritage, Dan Feng had a strong aptitude with Cloudhymn magic. He is capable of controlling water, creating mirages of lotuses and spears, sealing/breaking seals, manipulating the weather, and powerful healing. 

Levitation: It is implied Dan Feng can float/fly into the air as a humanoid. 

Transformation: It is implied Dan Feng, as High Elder, can transform into a full dragon. He is also capable of hiding his Vidyadhara features and appear as an unassuming humanoid. 

Martial Arts: Dan Feng  is proficient in Cloudlancer art, one of the many martial arts used in the Xianzhou. While it is possible for Dan Feng to be familiar with other weapon types, including bare-handed martial arts, he prefers the spear. 

Combat Experience: Since he was trained to fight and join the war against the Abundance, it is natural Dan Feng has build-up experience from that. He is a powerful spell-caster and a strong warrior who enjoys sparring with Jingliu and the other HCQ members.

Weapon: Dan Feng wields a magical orb/pearl acting as a catalyst for his powers. Cloud Piercer is a spear he wields with pride as it was forged by Yingxing. Other weapons are pretty special artifacts growing rusty in his treasury. 

Physical Stats: Before his transformation, Dan Feng physical abilities are greater than an average human. Presently, he is given an immortal body that heals almost instsntly even from the most fatal injuries. That being said, any physical abilities he had are further enhanced.

Longevity: On average, the Vidyadhara are able to live up to about 700 years before returning go the cycle. Unfortunately, Yaoshi has "blessed" Dan Feng to live beyond that and never return to becoming a pearl under his natural life expectancy.

Notes

Due to the nature of this verse, Dan Heng does not exist yet in main story. Because of Dan Feng immortality, he lived passed an average lifespan of a Vidydhara, and currently still lives. However, canon DH from the main story and/or AU Dan Heng are welcome to poke a grumpy old man.

||Updated 11/17/24

[anotherferalrat]

If the Hoyo EN cast weren't cowards and actually translated certain relationships correctly then he'd have a top ship

You know what, you're so right bestie and more people should say it (...or at least should stop getting attacked for saying it).

Tangentially related note (assuming anon and I are on the same wavelength; if not I'm so sorry), as I've been a little more engaged in the media, I've decided to continue my fandom deep dive...

AND YALL (not u anon, ur doing great) GOT ME FUCKED UP

With how controversial the whole ragbros/kaeluc thing is, I was like oh are we actually a rarepair or smth?

WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE'RE A TOP SHIP UNDER THE GENSHIN TAG? NOT ONLY THAT. WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE'RE ACTUALLY TOP 3??? [as of 6/15/24]

Frankly I think kaeluc antis hate to see girlbosses winning. What if we were just all friends? Maybe- and here me out now- what if we all like... kissed about it... or smth...

(On a more serious note, ty for the ask anon. Also, sorry it took so long. Wasn't expecting to be perceived and I panicked at the disco a lil bit lol. U kno. Normal hot girl shit)

[answrs]

i literally could not have thought I would care less about this poll. but now people are picking The Wrong Option™ and Apparently I Have Opinions On This Now

[jamiesfootball]

Another snippet no one asked for:

They don't talk about it. Even amongst the players, Roy never heard a pipe. Jamie never said a word, and Roy didn't have the right to bring it up on his own. They weren't that kind of close; hell at that point in their rocky relationship he wasn't sure you could call them friends.

Friendship or not he knew this: if he ever, ever, caught the lads talking about what happened at Wembley behind Jamie's back, he'd put an abrupt end to it and he wouldn't think twice. It would be the least he could do, after he'd stood aside and-

Useless. He'd been fucking useless. Anger and aggression had carried him his entire career - that night it couldn't move him across a locker room.

It wasn't the first time Roy Kent had gone home after a match with shaking hands, but it was the worst.

[littlexdeaths]

do you ever look over all your wips and just literally scream

[jtownraindancer]