#Yeku Recap

[yekulan-dothkah]

“Minor” Rework & Story

So, going through Encyclopedia Eorzea and the lore of the game post 2.0, plus the lore of 1.0, along with the work of the community I've come to some minor tweaks and changes I want to do to Yekulan to keep her in line with the constantly evolving information in a way that is interesting and unique as she always has been. I also want to set a scope of where she's going in case people want to IC mentor/teach/be friends/ ect.

A quick biography recap, as quick as roughly 100+ pages of writing can be:

As an Au Ra, Xaela and Dotharl, Old Yeku believed in the Dusk Mother and her love for her children; even thought she fought to kill the other bands of tribes as a young one. When she joined the Kahkol this led her to seeing the error in her violent ways and wanting to do better, but not knowing how to do anything but fight she struggled with this. Traveling to Eorzea, she sought to make fortune with her violence as a sell sword protecting those in need and killing massive beasts which filled her urge for adrenaline.

After an incident with a Mhachi artifact she was cast into a perpetual state of dreaming where she was stuck facing her greatest fear; harming those she cared for. Forced to kill those she cared for in this dreamscape over and over, Yekulan became very traumatized by the time the spell was finally broken. The trauma manifested in a type of delusion that she had someone telling her to do horrible things, and when acting on this voice her mind blocked out the events to protect what had become fragile, giving her the illusion of having an inner beast. Fearful now more than ever of the dreams coming true she nearly kills herself several time before she turns to an Allagan researcher and alchemist, Ramza (@wyvernjack-xiv), and asks for a concoction to wipe her mind, to start fresh in hopes the past will no longer plague her.

The concoction works but damages her relationship with Altan as she no longer remembers her lover. Altan seeking to shelter the woman who now feels more like an adult sized child, keeps her at home and rehabilitates her to society as best she can. Things Yekulan kept were things like muscle memory which gives her an innate knowledge of how to fight that she doesn't understand. For simplicity sake, language was so deeply rooted in her it was not so easily removed for the same reason; however she lacks metaphors and idioms for example.

Bored out of her mind living only in a house, she sought to earn Gil so she could help Altan maintain things, only really knowing how to cook and clean as that was all she had been encouraged to do; Yekulan set out as a door to door maid/chef. While the Gil offered her many personal belongings in addition to helping Altan, it also made her curious and slowly more bored as she performed the same tasks again and again. In many houses she saw multitudes of books on magick and magick paraphernalia, this spiked her interest to learn the arts herself.

Without a mentor as she didn't know at the time they existed; she read, researched, and practiced as best she could. Lacking a medium or focus she used her left arm to dabble in conjury; much to her demise. Casting tiny versions of bigger spells against proper methods caused Aether to build up in her arm as she used it like a focus. Being one who gardened and lived within the shroud on a constant basis she was surrounded by wind, water, and earth Aether and being her primary spell types, this caused the plant like transformation to take place; akin to the same mutations that afflicted the captain of Sastasha HM. The longer she looked for a cure to the mutation, the further it spread as the Aether slowly continued to build. With help from a new but knowledgeable friend, Thrae (@thraebhar), she has figured out a treatment.

Now knowing how to release the Aether built up in her arm she has halted the transformations progress at just past her shoulder, but in light of finding the solution too late has found  her arm irreversibly changed. As per Thrae's request, she went to the conjurers guild to look for how to properly cast spells and avoid a repeat of the incident, possibly even understand her magick; only to find her arm soaks up the Aether meant for her wand or staff in painful quantities. Upon returning to the guild and trying to at least learn the conjurer mindset and study where she went wrong, she comes to awaken her ability as a Hearer as many before her, able to hear those of earth, water, and wind Elementals. Altan and her have slowly been rebuilding the relationship lost as Yekulan starts falling for the woman a second time, while Thrae has become a close steadfast friend who has given her a paying job as a botanist and cook at their company, BWilf.

Now the background is out of the way, what's changing? Near Future Development?:

First and foremost would be her left arm, a very key feature that has lead to a lot of her character development in an equally unique way. What will be changing but not immediately will be her ability to cast spells with her arm and a better understanding of it's application, and of it's drawbacks.

To understand the arm; look at it as an empty crystal that constantly and slowly absorbs similar Aether from the world around it in small amounts, and when too much has been built up Yekulan suffers Aether sickness, and without releasing the pent up energy for too long the mutation will consequently spread. Spending too much is tiring on her, as this is similar to a Thaumaturge that has spent their wellspring and needs time to restore it, she can restore it at an accelerated rate but at a risk that too much could cause Aether sickness once more; time in the Black Shroud honestly is the best medicine for her.

Currently she is able to absorb normal seeds of plants like herbs and vegetables, and grow them at an accelerated rate from her arm while also granting her immunity to the negative effects. In a way this is very much a spell in and of itself and expends some of the Aether that is building up in the arm over time. I have written out absorbing seedkin seeds, assuming any of you read those. Aside from this accelerated body botany, she can and has used her Aether to get nearby plants to grow in a favorable fashion such as restraints or to blockade something about to attack her, even to cause a crop to bear fruit before it's time.

What the minor rework is looking to explore is the ability to continue using her arm as a medium, much like a conjurers staff or wand, as her arm works very much the same way by absorbing aether around it and then projecting it out with incantation/intent to give it shape/purpose. This will not be without training, exploration, mistakes even, and may be abandoned all together or pursued in limited quantities.

Currently Yekulan has started doing more serious work for the Conjurers guild as her membership is bordering on a year. She has become more adept with time and practice at being a Hearer, and consequently fulfilling the Elementals desires on a regular basis. This is included my more recent post of putting down rabid hoglets in a unique but effective way that avoided woodsin for all involved. This will string into the next development of why the guild wants to work around her arm with her, to unlock more of her potential to be an outstanding member of the guild.

One thing I want to throw in that hasn't been written is time; roughly a month, with Ceana (NPC) whom she consulted about her arm and lacked answers when she was trying to halt the spread of the mutation initially. Working with Ceana to better understand the mutation, being the only willing and living subject of who have suffered such an exposure for tests, as she too wants to understand the change better. This has left her with a better understanding of how her arm works which will help with learning how use it for magick, and a bit of fear that comes with that knowledge. She has become aware from the experiments that her arm can be crudely used to suck the aether of a person till death, or push enough aether into someone to kill them too; and this is the cause of the fear along with what may happen should the mutation spread too far. The assumption from the study is should the mutation spread too far, she may become similar in mindlessness to other victims and easily tempered to the primal of her elements; whether this will happen, and be the outcome, remains to be seen.

Arm out of the way, Yekulan's faith is being tweaked slightly. While she believes in the Elementals mainly on the basis she can hear them and has seen them act; she is going to be a bit more devout. Not quite a "tree nut" but definitely up there. Her Chirurgeon methods are based on the background of the ancient methods as opposed to modern, but also what she has experimented with, and what the Elementals have given back to her as knowledge for her faithful service.

Yekulan also has some but very little experience with the beast tribes, namely the Sylphs who are fond of her arm. I want to expand on her relations with the Sylphs, as well as travels to the north when she hears of the Vath; especially when she catches wind of their knowledge of the land.

All and all this makes for a very busy Au Ra. Working for Thrae, working with the conjurers/Elementals, and spending her "time off" visiting the beast tribes, doing her own experimentation, and mailing off remedy requests left in her mailbox in her absence.

Future Story?:

I've been majorly delaying this post on account of the Stormblood expansion announcement  and that there was still some fanfests with information needed to confirm how I want to move forward with Yeku. Now the last one has finished I feel a bit more confident in how I want her story to actually move forward. Nothing is set in stone of course.

Yeku, has just very recently been accepted into Matron's Reach; a IC link shell of healers from all corners of study that are available for RP needs, the group offers clinics and care facilities across the three major cities. When I have more information I will gladly share.

With the release of Orthard ahead of my scheduled story (wasn't expecting it for another year or so) it will feel a bit rushed but Yeku does want to return home and figure out more about her old self, why she was so violent, and what drove her old self to "erase" her mind.

Why this will feel rushed is a slightly long winded explanation.

I wanted Yekulan to stumble into the Ninja's in Eorzea, so to speak. The religion that follows it in that the gods are in everything around them; heaven, earth, and man, is something she'd easily see and misinterpret as Elementals. While she wouldn't use the methods of assassination against fellow man or woman; she would use the poisons and careful knife play to help keep the forest in check, and the sneaking to avoid conflict with the forest. Whether she will dabble in mudra remains to be seen. All of this is very similar to the post I mentioned before in her work for the conjurers guild, just unaffiliated to the ninja's. Yekulan has very little in the way of self defense other than bashing potion bottles over peoples heads, while effective don't get me wrong, to be able to fight in self defense would be a huge boon and would open a few more avenues for writing and interaction with other peoples characters if they so choose.

The concept of her needing to kill something is a conflict she will have with her old self, in that she doesn't know what they fought for or why they killed so much and she fears repeating history. Hence Yeku is wanting to figure her old self out. However, if she isn't harming anything, there is no reason for this avenue to be explored in time before Stormblood's release to urge her to the new land.

As far as Red Mage and Samurai, if Yeku actually dabbles or goes fully into these will remain to be seen. I don't want Yekulan jumping on one or the other because of a trend, I want her there for significant character reasons. While I highly doubt Red Mage at this point based on what I've decided on for her ability to interact with magic, and that style of swordplay feeling "flashy", not something she'd go after. Samurai however might be something she looks into if, big if, there is spirituality or meditation within the lore in the same way or more than there is with Ninja. She may even simply be drawn in by the control over ones self; something warriors (old Yeku) are not very known for in an attempt to distance herself and justify her actions as her own. Again, this remains to be seen until more information is available.

Another fact is the "classes" and "jobs" I've considered for Yekulan are all jobs that are "recent" in the sense that Ninja's haven't existed since the fifth astral era or Allagan Empire for example, meaning the studies would theoretically be more readily available and easier to learn (As opposed to searching through a soulstone I'm not even sure how she would find for the answer of how to cast a spell). Not that there isn't a stone for Ninja, but with lore it feels more like a heirloom or badge than an actual requirement to perform the actions the job is capable of. Soulstones have begun to feel more like a programming mechanic at this point as well with new jobs because a soulstone allows a base class to change conditionally into a job, and less an rp requirement. For Ninja and especially with the Machinist job for example where the aim was for Machinists to be a job any low born could do and help with the war effort. Obviously for jobs like scholar, Summoner, and Black Mage; it feels a lot more necessary.

What does this offer the community?:

I always want what I do to give back in some way shape or form, should people choose to use it.

First off, Yekulan obviously offers her services still at free to very little charge. Characters are free to explore with or without Yekulan more natural medication and "mental" rituals where believing in them makes them effective as opposed to their questionable effectiveness. Being a member of Matron's Reach she has some added networking to be available for your needs.

Second, if anyone would be interested in making a plot with me to move Yekulan along the Ninja ideas above, I'd be more than welcome to ideas or suggestions, and character interactions; otherwise I will pick NPC's, made up or otherwise, to teach her.

Third, if anyone wants to interact with Yeku at any point, please feel free to do so. I like to reply at least once a week, if not more frequently. I'll rp on Tumblr or Discord, just message me.

Please feel free to add your thoughts, concerns, theories, ideas, or criticism.