#anyway the order is 1: arr -> arr base finale

[myreia]

— vi. stay | follow

It is an inevitability, she feels, that they are always a little out of step, a little out of sync. One ahead, the other behind, a shadow to the other’s light. Pulled together not by fate nor by destiny, but by a small series of choices that are greater than the sum of its parts. They will always find each other—to the very end.

[wirewitchviolet]

The Entire Plot of Final Fantasy 14, with all the expansions, and some serious analysis of how good it actually is. (Part 1 - ARR)

Are you like me? Have you had people talking your ear off for years now about this supposedly amazingly good story Final Fantasy 14 has? And then you noticed that absurdly good deal free trial where you get the whole base game plus the first expansion for free and don’t have to pay a dime until you hit the later expansions? And you played through all of that because you had a serious medical issue and it was the only game you could play while forced to lay in bed for the better part of a year where you could make out enough of the screen to play the grindy bits since you happened to have a wireless controller? And then someone was super nice and gifted you the expansions and like half a year’s worth of time cards, and you decided to just marathon through so you can talk about it on your blog? No? Good because then you wouldn’t have a reason to read this.

Also just to get this right out of the way up front- Does FF14 have a great plot? No. No absolutely not. It is TERRIBLY paced and none of the characters have any personality until you’re into the expansions and it’s really awful with women in places and absolutely terrible at having any deaths stick and it tries to do this Game of Thrones sort of thing where people use “whoreson” as an insult and say “anyroad” instead of “anyway” and there’s some pretty sloppy retcons and TERRIBLE redemption arcs after a point. It does have a lot of well-written bits scattered through it though, it makes some interest choices structurally, and bends over backwards for some references that pander nicely to me, so, it’s worthy of discussion. This is going to be long, by the way. May have to multipart it.

Before I get into anything I have to talk about the structure here. FF14 is straight up written like it’s a single player JRPG. You are controlling a specific named character with a ton of personal backstory, you have a party of named characters who you end up going everywhere with after a while, there are full on perspective shifts later on where you control one of them instead of the main character for bits, there’s honestly probably more dialog than combat, and narratively speaking all those other players straight up do not even exist (with a couple interesting exceptions). In fact, as of when I’m writing this (patch 6.3) it is a legit major design goal to legitimately retrofit the whole thing into a true single player game where you can go into all the dungeons and boss fights with a party of plot siginficant NPCs instead of human party members and they have custom dialog and abilities and quirky little explorative stuff they do.

Also, there is a single specific main questline that must be followed from the very start of the game through to the end credits, then continuing through all the free content patches between the base game and first expansion, the next set of free patches, next expansion, etc. and you are just straight up hard locked out of everything until you reach it in the order it was added to the game. Which... I rather dig from the angle of seeing everything grow and mature sequentially, but then they do totally screw that up by doing total rewrites of class abilities without changing class specific quests so you get stuff like the summoner quest line talking about being a tactician and ordering your pets around the battlefield, but at present you don’t really have pets just pet shaped damage spells and it’s weird. Oh and that’s another thing. It goes all FF5 with the classes, so rather than make an alt for every class you make you just kinda have one character, and level up in every class you’re inclined to pick up seperately, which is nice honestly.

Finally there’s the whole “1.0″ thing. When FF14 first came out, it was generally agreed to be Not Great, and concerns with its quality were met in a way I honestly quite dig. Things played up to a big huge climax, everyone’s fighting the main antagonists in this big protracted battle, and then there is a full on apocalypse, absolute trashing the entire setting, killing a ton of major NPCs and possibly all the player characters. Then they made... really a sequel to that game, set like 5 years later I think it was, and that’s the FF14 we have today. All the “1.0″ stuff is backstory that honestly gets really heavily referenced and called back to, but can no longer actually be played through, and... look I tried watching a longplay but it was really boring so this is the one big hole in my research. The intro to the game shows the whole apocalypse bit, fun times.

That out of the way, let’s get into the actual base game, AKA 2.0 AKA

A Realm Reborn

Despite ostensibly being “the whole game” this is the part of the game everyone agrees is kinda just total garbage you just want to get over with as quickly as you can, and it gets much better once you do. I really figured going in that was just stockholm syndrome but no it actually is hiliarious how sharply things turn upward the instant you hit the official endpoint of this and get into the first batch of content patches. They’re just responding to feedback and trying to make characters more likeable, adding the first batch of dungeons and bosses with actual interesting mechanics, etc. It really is night and day. But slog through it I did.

Starting things off, you are Some Person, hailing from an Unspecified Place, to one of the three (really six) major cities in the continent of Eorzea based on what you picked as a starting class, either riding in a covered wagon or a ship. Oh and there’s a bit of an abstract intro before that where you’re floating around in space while a bit crystal says some stuff to you but we’ll get to that. One thing I do really like is that these three major cities remain relevant through the whole game. Most MMOs start you off in Newbie Town and from there you just kinda journey out through an endless parade of new towns until maybe hitting the pre-expansions Main Faction Hub or whatever but here, no, there’s basically just these three cities, you are constantly touching base with them, so low level and high level characters are constantly mingling and passing each other.

There’s a unique quest string in each city up to a certain point where you start regularly traveling between them, but they all kinda boil down to the same thing. Go to the local inn, get asked to do some basic errands by the proprietor, eventually one of these leads into some robed guy siccing a big monster on you, one of the eventual party members you get hooked up with showing up and going “hey nice job” with that, getting the first of these 6 crystals that summons you to almost literally the room with the sages from Ocarina of Time, and introducing the concept that you have this special rare power called The Echo where at usually inconvenient times you pass out and have a flashback to some event involving a person/object/location that’s at hand, which basically just exists as an excuse to exposition dump at you, but also comes with the handy side effect that you’re largely immune to mind control, which will come up.

After that you go back to town, the game starts a rather terrible habit of having every NPC there is talk you up as just the best person who ever lived, and sends you off to meet the other two heads of state to plan a big commemorative event for the whole apocalypse thing. After that these two basically identical little elf twins tag along as all the leaders give speeches, and badmouth them, after which you pick one of the three to formally swear allegiance to which ulitimately effects basically nothing except maybe what team you’re on in some “training exercise” PVP content you’re probably going to totally ignore, and which town you come back to for this one optional questline where you get to put together a little squad of people and send them off on missions. That said though, a quick rundown of things:

We have Limsa Lominsa, a city where a big ol’ fleet of pirate ships ran aground on some rocks and a nice fertile island, and decided to just kinda extend the rigging into the rocks and make this half island half ship and keep calling the leader of the city the Admiral. Said leader is Merlwyb, a huge woman with the sort of sideburns I’ve never seen on a cis woman and despite being told she’s bloodthirsty and racist she spends the whole game taking in refugees negotiating peace accords with “monster” races, and at one point straight up tags along with you to just shoot some cult leader to hopefully avoid a boss fight. She’s honestly great and one of like two likeable NPCs in the whole base game.

East of there we have Ul’dah, the desert city, which is just kind of this ultra-capitalist hellscape where a big mostly-markets city is surrounded by a shanty town full of refugees from the nearby country that’s been occupied by the evil empire for the past 20 years. Nominally the leader is Sultana Nanamo, a member of the race who all look like toddlers and are almost to the last sleazy capitalist scumbags. She’s relatively OK but also she’s a total figurehead while a corrupt merchant council controls most things and her big bruiser former arena champ bodyguard/boyfriend Rauban is the actual functional leader. He’s the other one likeable NPC.

Then finally northeast of that there’s Gridania, the chill hippie town in the peaceful/creepy giant semi-haunted forest where the leadership is a bunch of people born with big ol’ horns who can communicate with primeval elemental spirits at least in theory, and specifically by a woman named Kan-E-Senna who for the life of me doesn’t ever do one single thing I can think of worth mentioning except I think she’s maybe dating Merlwyb. Also the whole communing with ancient forest gods thing, given the main gimmick of the setting I’ll get to shortly seems like kind of just this gigantic red flag and it’s damn weird these people never get called out on this.

Anyway once you’ve settled in and you’ve run through the real early game basically tutorial dungeon set, you find yourself constantly getting called back to this one little nothing town on the edge of the map to have meetings with those eventual party members I mentioned, The Scions of the Seventh Dawn. I say “eventual party members” because once you’re a couple expansions deep they’re actually nicely fleshed out and there’s bits where you run through dungeons and stuff with them but at this point they all just sit around in a boardroom giving you mission briefings and having no personality. Real quick rundown though why not?

From right to left here, we have Thancred, sleazy sketchy scumbag rogue type, Y’shtola, nerdy white mage, Minfilia, leader and soggy piece of white bread who never gets any character development at all (but apparently had a good bit in 1.0), the broken staff of Louisoix, the old wise guy who used to lead these people in 1.0 and nobly sacrificed himself in the apocalypse, the youtuber I stole this screenshot from, Papalymo a stick in the mud dad type, Yda who wears a weird mask and kicks people and Urianger, a gigantic nerd in a hoodie with ear socks who does have some characterization but it’s just constantly throwing out thee and thou and perchange and generally managing to be the sort of creepy nerd who calls you “m’lady” within a fantasy setting which is an impressive trick. I absolutely hated Urianger until I didn’t. Oh and weirdly not featured here are the elf twins, grandchildren of Louisoix, Alphinaud, who’s kind of this dorky blueblood idealistic loser, and Alisaie who.... actually isn’t with these people at all and is kind of off doing her own thing until the lead up to the second expansion.

Anyway these people primarily exist as a little think tank/independent squandron here to do the big damn hero thing, particularly regarding The Most Interesting Idea In FF14, which I’m about to get to, but functionally they literally all just sit around and have you do everything.

So yeah, The Most Interesting Idea In FF14- We’ve got this big buzzword, aether, which is... kind of all matter and energy but mostly found in big honking crystals that’s kinda the elementally tinged lifeblood of the planet and also the basis for any crafting and factors into any and all technobabble. Most importantly though, if you have a giant pile of aether crystals handy, and you pray to your personal conception of a savior, you summon a god (AKA eikon AKA primal AKA recognizable classic FF summon). Said god will maybe try to help you with your problem, but will mostly suck all aether out of the local area, which is bad for the environment, and odd human sacrifice, and also just permanently mess with the minds of anyone in their immediate vicinity to turn them into an absolutely fanatical worshiper. Plus they’re all big set piece-y boss fights, usually with really cool soundtracks.

What’s nice about this is, hey, first off, excuse for a cool boss fight, and there’s even a baked in excuse to have harder refights against them later, because people can always just summon them again after you kill them. But in addition to boiling a lot of problems down to “how about you the video game protagonist go punch this big monster until it explodes?” this also sets up a nice set of long term problem with no easy answer. There’s a conflict between the humans (by which I mean the somewhere between 4 and 7 or 8 races generally agreed to be people/playable character options) and one of what are referred to as “beast tribes” (although later we drop the beast because one of them in a later expansion is kinda literally one of the playable races and people realized it’s messed up) over who gets to live in a plot of land or whatever. Humanity comes in with superior weapons, the kobolds or whatever get desperate and pray up a god, they go fanatic, start doing really depraved stuff to the humans, things escalate more, there’s retaliation, they pray again, etc. etc. It’s an idea that gets taken pretty seriously, really examined from a lot of angles, and sets up what I think are consistently the strongest parts of the game, where you end up befriending various monster-folk who aren’t constantly summoning gods and help them out with their personal self-contained questlines.

Anyway, you waste a bit of time, eventually go off to deal with a violent lizard people problem which ends in them summoning Ifrit, hey cool, you didn’t get mind controlled, and got another of those Zelda room crystals. You sit through a TON of absolute shameless filler, like finding out Ramuh’s been summoned but ultimately not fighting him because he’s honestly being reasonably chill, and which includes a string of like 6 quests where you’re trying to get hints on fighting Titan out of someone who insists on having a big huge wine and cheese party you need to get supplies for and ultimately is a fraud anyway. But eventually yeah, kobolds summoned Titan, you go smack him down.

Then we have more filler, but also a bit of a nice unexpected twist where the evil empire finds out where your base is and one of these four big named Imperial general types with the really over the top helmets just kinda walks in with a gun and kills everyone.

Things go a bit grim for a bit. There’s literally a quest where you have to gather up a bunch of bodies and cart them off to a cemetery on the other side of the country, where you just kinda hang out aimlessly until noticing that wait, one of these people in this church is Cid in disguise. This is kind of a weird bit of writing because while presumably Cid was established a bit in 1.0, in the game we actually have today he is literally never mentioned one single time before you run into him here. But, you know, it’s an FF game. We’ve got a guy named Cid, he’s a super talented engineer, he’s got an airship. We also have a Wedge and a Biggs, they work for him in this case. And oh hey it turns out the massive pile of corpses in your HQ somehow didn’t include any of those party members who suck and who cares but will get development later, which kinda ticks me off but again, get used to nobody staying dead. Oh and there’s also a side trek up to Coerthas, the huge frozen sprawling wasteland north of Gridania that mostly serves to start teasing a bit of how the first expansion is going to be about a bunch of classist Catholic elves having a big ol’ war with dragons but honestly I mostly just remember having to talk to NPCs behind enough doors and stairways to constantly get lost looking for them.

Eventually though you get back to your job as designated god slayer, go fight summon number 3, Garuda, courtesy of some weird bird people, and then there’s a scene that’s just plain fun, where turns out the locals gathered up enough crystals to immediately summon her again and also have some of the other monster folk who summoned the first two bosses and there’s enough crystals around for them to also resummon their gods and... eh it’s worth a youtube link to like the most amusing scene in the base game, sure.

So yeah, we’re getting all set for our big cheesy summoned god Mexican Standoff and then the (local) leader of the evil empire just shows up out of nowhere and airdrops in the Ultima Weapon, which... has always looked like this for all prior FF appearances but only watching this did it really sink in for me what an absolutely ridiculous robot-dragon-centaur it is. Said goofy robot kills and eats all 3 gods, stealing their power, and then gets brought home to the main imperial fortress in the religion to hang out until it’s time to be the final boss.

And then we have more filler for a bit. Not nearly so much as usual, but we do have this 5th country between Ul’dah and Coerthas with the main imperial base to poke around in a bit before the endgame. A bit of this involves Cid and Pals commandeering a fun bit of FF6 fan service you get to tool around with a little before planning your big assault.

So yeah, end of the base game, the pacing stops being so terrible. We get a quick fight against Imperial General #1 which when I first started playing was an absolutely hilarious pushover because it’s the first time you get a party of 8 people instead of 4 and it’s just the one guy, but has since been revamped into a surprisingly tense thing you do solo, then an assault on an outpost where Cid’s playing with the toy shown above blowing down walls for you and you kill the general who killed uh... whoever was in your HQ that wasn’t important earlier, then the proper stronghold where there’s a fun bit where everyone gets to hop in a mech and fire off machine guns and missiles everywhere before general #3, the head Imperial in the region (who gives this real long I am a nazi piece of trash and I love to hear myself talk speech that I have completely committed to memory because it’s unskippable and the game frequently bribes people to come back and fill party slots for first-timers), and that goofy Ultima Weapon. Oh and Lahabrea.

I haven’t mentioned Lahabrea because he sucks and also matters so little to anything I genuinely didn’t have cause to mention him. He’s in that cutscene I linked though. So I should get this out of the way I guess.

So OK, there are three main antagonist factions in FF14. There’s random monster men summoning their gods, usually because frankly humans are doing colonialisms and threatening to wipe them out. There’s the evil empire which really doesn’t do a whole lot on camera? I feel like they were more active in 1.0 but really we just get a couple shots of generals plotting, the one bit where your base gets gunned down, the Ultima Weapon drop-in, and then the series of assault stuff at the end, but they are established pretty well as properly hate-worthy nazis. And then we have the Ascians.

The Ascians suck so bad. They are these cloaked hooded masked mystery weirdos who just kind of watch from the shadows and play evil vizier to... really literally anyone who ends up being an antagonist anywhere in the game. They taught monster men how to summon gods, they encourage the evil empire to be evil and dig up ancient high tech ruins. The... only one who I think gets named properly in the base game here possesses Thancred for a while but not only is he fine after this happens before any real effort is made to establish Thancred as a character so who even cares? And their goals and motivations are shrouded in mystery. By which I definitely mean the writers just through in some generically evil mystery weirdos and hoped nobody would notice they don’t do a single damn thing of substance with the vague plan to maybe do something interesting somewhere down the road. The 3rd expansion eventually gets around to developing one of them as an actual character and giving them a whole backstory and agenda that’s kind of interesting but really none of what gets done with them before, or for that matter after that point makes any sense. We just have a few random scenes where some guy in a black cloak goes all “yes, yes, just as planned, we’ve been watching you” and it’s transparently freaking nothing. And then you kill one as a cutsceney final boss.

And that’s it. That’s the whole base game of FF14. There is a TON of filler, a couple pointless speed bump dungeons, 3 boss fights (that are all total cakewalks), and a big assault on an imperial stronghold with a 4th proper boss fight towards the end. And there’s such obvious blatant signs of cut content too. Again there’s this whole Zelda medallion chamber to track your progress, you fill it with these 6 elemental crystals, 3 of those come from summons you kill, and the other 3 are kinda just... sitting there. We tease the hell out of fights with Ramuh and Leviathan that don’t happen. We don’t really mention Shiva but you always have Shiva early on in an FF game. Those three boss fights do totally make it in the first free patch wave along with a few others, but... you can see where they were cut out and replaced by finding fancy cheese for some random doofus.

It’s MISERABLY paced (count the main story quests on this list! Most of these are just wandering around talking to people as you slowly discuss plans for boss fights), the main villains barely get introduced before you fight them, the supporting cast isn’t fleshed out at all, and the gameplay for this leg of thing is dull as dirt too.

Side content is a bit better. There’s... well two little quest lines actually for every class in the game, a couple of which are a bit interesting. Black mages make a bunch of monster race friends and team up to close portals to hell. Scholars get into this bit learning how Tonberries (the green cloaked little monsters who slowly walk up and stab you with knives) are actually normal people suffering from a horrible plague. The rogue/ninja class wasn’t actually added in until the patches but it’s the one later edition you can access almost right away and has a fun bit with a charming thieves-cant-talking pirate-country-protecting assassin squad, and then there’s those “beast tribe” quests which again, I really like.

We’ve got the Proud Warrior Race guy lizard people, one of whom is a cat girl, and she has a big ol’ chip on her shoulder about it, while you help her resolve issues about her birth mother. We’ve got a fish guy who used to be a badass murderous warrior but became a dad and mellowed out and is dealing with some of his kids growing up to be jerks. We’ve got flightless bird people with a religion that’s basically just Laputa, wanting help building a high altitude airship to search for their promised land. This weird thing with mischievous fairy type plant people pranking each other and fighting for custody of like... plant fairy baby Jesus, and... OK the kobold quests are this dumb romantic rivalry but the mount you get for it is great.

Next time- “It gets good after level 50 I swear!” (and time allowing “The Award-Winning Heavensward Expansion”)

[autumnslance]

A Lore Nerd’s Analysis of Oaths and Warriors of Light in D&D and FFXIV

This is @wearepaladin‘s fault. Kinda. Actually, I’ve been planning on doing something for awhile, and the idea began to solidify more in a r/ffxiv thread where someone asked “Anyone notice Dark Knight is more like a traditional Paladin lore wise?” My own comment can be found here, where I say I’ve been long thinking of the ways the Dark Knights and Paladins of Eorzea match up to the various Paladin Sacred Oaths of Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. I figured I ought to expand on that sooner or later.

So yeah, “I’m your host LynMars/Dark Autumn, you can go below the cut for my TEDTalk on the Warrior of Light, Dark Knights, Paladins, and the Sacred Oaths of D&D 5e”:

Now, as a disclaimer, I have not completed the Paladin quest chains yet. I am nearly to the end of the original lvl 30-50 A Realm Reborn (ARR) chain, though, and since I usually don’t care too much about spoilers, already know what’s going to happen. Partially because I could easily guess and so just looked over the chain info. Anyway.

Paladin (PLD) is a traditional sword-and-shield wielding class of holy light users in Final Fantasy, like in most settings. In FFXIV, the primary group of paladins is the Sultansworn. As the class trainer, Captain Jenlyns Aesc, explains when you first approach him:

“A paladin swears allegiance to the sultanate. A paladin shall be the sword and shield of the sultanate. A paladin defends the people of the realm. Sellswords and gladiators and others of their ilk wield their blades for themselves, but a paladin serves the greater good. Do you understand me?

“The battle arts that the paladin learns have been held secret, nurtured, and perfected within the ranks of the Sultansworn elite for nigh on these six hundred years. Of all those sworn to protect the sultanate--the soldiers, the mounted guards, and the knights--we are the elite of the elite. Our conviction unwavering, our hearts true, our sword skills without peer.

“But the glory of the Sultansworn...Well, much of it is buried in the past now. Our brotherhood grows smaller by the year, we are a shadow of what we once were, and the sultana turns to sellswords to defend her palace. All this, because of one traitor--no, because of a blot of dishonor left by one who shall not be named...And because of him, we have been forced to seek the help of able-bodied adventurers.

“And here you are. We shall instruct you in the paladin military arts. You will not be inducted into the Sultansworn, but serve as a free paladin. However, first you will show us that both your sword and heart have mettle, and you are worthy of the honor.”

So how does this relate to the best-known traditional tabletop RPG? In 5th edition (5e), the traditional classes are handled a little differently than before. To add customization, early in leveling (mostly lvl 3, though a few classes start off right at lvl 1), players can choose a type of their class they want to be; what Bard College they study, what Cleric Domain they know, what Druid Circle they are attuned to, etc. For paladins, they choose a Sacred Oath to swear. This gives them their moral code to follow in the service of their deity or ideal that grants them their divine abilities, while also loosening some of the constraints of the old alignment system, and gives both players and game masters a framework for what the paladin’s behavior should follow, lest they stray and lose their divine favor.

The Sultansworn would fit best into the Oath of the Crown:

Law: The law is paramount. It is the mortar that holds the stones of civilization together, and it must be respected. Loyalty: Your word is your bond. Without loyalty, oaths and laws are meaningless. Courage: You must be willing to do what needs to be done for the sake of order, even in the face of overwhelming odds. If you don't act, then who will? Responsibility: You must deal with the consequences of your actions, and you are responsible for fulfilling your duties and obligations.

This oath is for those paladins “sworn to the ideals of civilization, be it the spirit of a nation, fealty to a sovereign, or service to a deity of law and rulership.” (Sword Coast Adventurer Guide, pg 132). As the name implies, the Sultansworn are dedicated to Ul’dah and the Sultan(a) sitting on the throne. As the Sultansworn train free paladins, however, the Oath of the Crown doesn’t apply. A free paladin, Solkzagyl Keltnaglsyn, challenges the player:

“Simply learning paladin swordplay does not make you a paladin--nor does the armor you wear, or the status you claim...Strike off the shackles that bind your spirit, lift the visor that blinds, and find the true path of the paladin.”

Free paladins would fit better under the more traditional Oath of Devotion, from the Player’s Handbook (PHB):

Honesty: Don't lie or cheat. Let your word be your promise. Courage: Never fear to act, though caution is wise. Compassion: Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom. Honor: Treat others with fairness, and let your honorable deeds be an example to them. Do as much good as possible while causing the least amount of harm. Duty: Be responsible for your actions and their consequences, protect those entrusted to your care, and obey those who have just authority over you.

All the things the Sultansworn strive for, but without the strictures of devoted service to the sultanate. The Knights of Ishgard (often called Temple Knights if part of their military), though not called paladins in game, can also fall into one of these two oaths. In fact, let’s turn to the Holy See of Ishgard now...

(Aside: “But LynMars,” you might say. “My Warrior of Light doesn’t fit either of those Oaths.” Hold that thought for the end, fam.)

So where do Dark Knights fit in? Why consider them “paladins” in all but name?

Dark Knights (DRK) are from Ishgard, like the Temple Knights; most knights of the Holy See should fit into Crown or Devotion, especially with the emphasis on the worship of Halone the Fury, one of Eorzea’s Twelve gods. But, sometimes...holy men aren’t so holy, especially when so many are younger sons sent to the Church because there’s just no other place for them in the noble household structure. When many are orphaned poor joining out of desperation--and finding they’re still given short shrift over their nobleborn brethren. When sometimes, those in power are corrupted by power, or were corrupted to begin with. What then?

I already have a post about the historical origins of Dark Knights in Eorzea, from the Encyclopaedia Eorzea lore book and the official website. In summary, a lowborn knight, Ser Tryphaniel, solid and true and everything a knight ought to be, saw a priest doing unspeakably evil things to a child. Tryphaniel killed the priest on the spot in rage, and as a result--and thanks to Tryphaniel’s unpopularity among the elite due to his staunch beliefs--the knight was stripped of his rank for killing a “holy man.” Tryphaniel gave up his shield, with its crest and symbology, and used only a great sword.

“A heart bleeds, a man weeps, a soul burns. Thence comes the darkness, to consume…Yet even in the depths, the flame endures…Submit to the flame and harness the abyss…” - Ser Ompagne Deepblack

The Dark Knights appear as heretical monsters to the pious of Ishgard. Their abilities are given names such as “Souleater”, “Abyssal Drain”, “Salted Earth,” “Bloodspiller”, “Shadow Wall,” “Living Dead.” They glow with red and black energy. Ser Tryphaniel decided to fight using “any means necessary” in his crusade to protect those the Church could/would not, the great swords of those few Dark Knights acting as beacons in the dark. Those he trained, those also disaffected by the Church and the corruption in its heart (the plot of Heavensward addresses that), followed in his bloody footsteps.

Dark Knights fit perfectly into the framework of the Oath of Vengeance:

Fight the Greater Evil: Faced with a choice of fighting sworn foes or combating a lesser evil, I choose the greater evil. No Mercy for the Wicked: Ordinary foes might win my mercy, but my sworn enemies do not. By Any Means Necessary: My qualms can't get in the way of exterminating my foes. Restitution: If my foes wreak ruin on the world, it is because I failed to stop them. I must help those harmed by their misdeeds.

This is still a paladin oath from the PHB. The Oath of Vengeance is described as “a solemn commitment to punish those who have committed a grievous sin.” The PHB even says Vengeance Paladins are “sometimes called avengers or dark knights--their own purity is not as important as delivering justice.”

“To walk the path is to suffer. To sacrifice. Justice demands no less. But we must never lose sight of why we chose to walk it.” - Sidurgu Orl

I rather like @castthemintotheabyss’ low-spoiler summaries of the DRK quest chains. Identity and duty to yourself vs others; family and justice vs vengeance and mercy; to guilt and grief and acceptance of self.

Dark Knights are considered “edge lords” and “emo” and “gothy” and sure, some of that is true to an extent! But this is a class where the capstone lvl 70 ability, “The Blackest Night”, is a protection cooldown based on love. The “flame in the abyss” is the love the DRK feels for those dearest to their heart, their friends and found family--that is what fuels their darkly named and appearing powers.

If you’ve done the DRK quests, and/or don’t mind some spoilers, I highly recommend @haillenarte‘s translations (part 1, part 2) of the original Japanese text for the ARR DRK quests; the English version is rather different, though I think there’s room for both interpretations of Fray to inform each other. I’m also eager to see translations of later quests in this chain (and how the Stormblood NPC matches up).

I also have a Dark Knight tag where I link some of these resources, thoughts, art, and summarize several of the DRK story quests to be minimally spoilery and showcase how the WoL progresses through the self-reflection these quest enforce (kinda amazing for a MMO, actually). I originally completed the lvl 30-70 quests between October-November 2017, if you check the archive.

“They say the war’s over now, but it never ends for people like you, does it?” - Lowdy

There is one more oath I would like to touch on, due to the unique nature of the player character--the Warrior of Light (WoL)--in ANY of the FFXIV jobs, and how the game’s canon generally tends to assume they’ll roughly behave:

Oath of the Ancients: Kindle the Light: Through your acts of mercy, kindness, and forgiveness, kindle the light of hope in the world, beating back despair. Shelter the Light: Where there is good, beauty, love, and laughter in the world, stand against the wickedness that would swallow it. Where life flourishes, stand against the forces that would render it barren. Preserve Your Own Light: Delight in song and laughter, in beauty and art. If you allow the light to die in your own heart, you can't preserve it in the world. Be the Light: Be a glorious beacon for all who live in despair. Let the light of your joy and courage shine forth in all your deeds.

I think FFXIV players see how it fits. In D&D 5e, the Oath of Ancients has naturalistic/Fey origins. The PHB describes Oath of the Ancients as:

“...paladins who swear this oath cast their lot with the side of the light in the cosmic struggle against darkness because they love the beautiful and life-giving things of the world, not necessarily because they believe in the principles of honor, courage, and justice.” (pg 86)

The WoL is Chosen of Hydaelyn, the World Crystal Herself. Certain enemies call them the “Bringer of Light.” To other NPCs in the storylines, they are the “Weapon of Light.”

If your Warrior of Light fits Crown, Devotion, or Vengeance, awesome! I hope you find some inspiration in roleplay and/or writing from seeing those oaths and how they can interact with the FFXIV lore. These aren’t even all of the Sacred Oaths, either! There are others out there, some official and some homebrew, and some even for evil characters (traditionally anti-paladins or blackguards).

A big part of me, though, feels like the Warriors of Light in general due to the storyline, are on the path set by the Oath of the Ancients; the WoL goes through the main story as a beacon for others, struggling to preserve the light in others, in themselves--and, in the case of the Dark Knights, in the depths of the abyss.

Still, it’s up to each player, and this is just some personal analysis on how the classes presented in FFXIV coincide with elements in D&D. In the end, it’s something that can be used, or not, as one likes (or not). I’ve just found the comparisons neat and wanted to get it down, and fate kept conspiring to push me to do that until I finally wrote all this. So thanks for reading my rambling on about nerdy things.

[kuipernebula]

The 4.5 subsite is up so here’s some Blue Mage analysis based on New Screenshots

You get Gil, Allied Seals, and Tomestones for winning fights, which is Neat

And there’s a Weekly Reward of some sort to keep you doing Masked Carnivale fights

But I’m super not a fan of the fact that you only get Poetics Tomestones? Unless that’s just for Novice stuff. If I got current Tomestones for this that’d be Really Really Good, though I guess it wouldn’t be Super Useful for Blue Mage itself. (Not that I currently have a use for Poetics even for Blue Mage, given I already have fully-augmented 50 and 60 gear. Though I’ll probably have to go get an Ironworks Weapon for Blue Mage...)

Also Allied Seals is neat, and a way to get the ARR mount speed maps without spending 3 years on hunts - hunts i’ll probably have to do anyway as a Blue Mage but whatever - but Centurio Seals are used instead for Heavensward and Stormblood hunts, so I wonder if post-50 Carnivale rewards will give you those again

We got new spell information, which is neat? The attack I was guessing was Screwdriver is actually Water Cannon, and it seems to be the first Blue Magic spell you get, from a “Kraken” which is probably the boss of the first Job quest. There’s also a Fire spell which, given it’s in the first 6 spells of the book, is probably just a single-target Fire spell equivalent to Water Cannon. There’s also an Eye spell that might be Evil Eye? Or really any eyesight attack at this point, but Evil Eye is the most iconic.

There’s also far more information on each spell than I expected. There’s “Type” which shows Magic for Water Cannon, and the distinction between Magic Blue Spells and Physical Blue Spells is probably going to be important to the Carnivale, and possibly to party setups if you get a chance to premade your way into a dungeon. Also “Aspect” showing you the elemental affinity, if any, of the spell you’re looking at. The most interesting thing is “Rank” which shows only 1 star for Water Cannon, since I guess they’re leaning into the fact that not all spells were created equal. We’ll see how they manage to balance that, if at all.

Also neat is there’s flavor text for every spell, explaining how you learned it and how, exactly, the spell functions. Which I, as someone who Loves Lore, am super down for. And I’d be happy to live without if we could get BLU as a full job

The Masked Carnivale UI looks really nice, shockingly. You choose fights individually, and get a preview of who you’ll be fighting, what they’re weak to and resist, and how they’re laid out on the arena, giving you time to set up your Spells before heading in. They even show you if enemies show up in waves, what is in each wave, and all information about each of those waves. Most interesting to me is the “Completion Time” in the corner, which would theoretically lead to people competing for better times. The big problem, of course, is balancing that out with something like Level 5 Death (as the developers have mentioned enough times to make me think we’re Definitely Getting It, even if I personally would rather we didn’t for this exact reason :/)

There’s also a “Bonus Details” button on the bottom, which makes me wonder if we’ll see Bonus Challenges, such as killing enemies in certain orders, using or not using certain spells, or not getting hit by any AoE’s for the whole fight.

Also there’s a tidbit about the story behind the Blue Mage jobquest; apparently it’s a new form of magic from the “New World” (i.e. the part of Hydaelyn unexplored by Eorzea) and you can get a job stone from a shady-looking “mage” who is probably trying to con you.

In a Worst Case Scenario, the stone is a con and that’s their explanation for why you can’t Party Finder with it. (Though the Flavor Text we can see for Water Cannon implies it Super Isn’t A Con? Possibly unintentionally and/or the mage we bought the stone from isn’t the final step of the becoming a Blue Mage process)

That said, I’m mildly disappointed there isn’t any Red Mage vs. Blue Mage stuff in the lore. I mean, they probably don’t want to rehash the War of the Magi, but fuck I was really hoping for something to make the two disciplines rivals.

Unrelatedly, the new casting armor for the Ghimlyt Dark looks nice. But even if it’s Dyable I’m not sure I can work it into a Look...