#his home village got destroyed somewhere around the takeover so he just basically went “welp not like there's anything holding me here now”

[neriyon]

Did they learn their profession from the guildship, on their own, from a friend/family member? for Yulan!

Mix of these! He learned some basic skills in foraging, weaponmaking and mending back in his home village - including his still horrible cooking. Most of it was basic life skills stuff, like finding food and firewood on the mountainside, fixing broken gear or making arrows for his bow, but it eventually got him interested in whatever their village smith was doing. Not that she ever got to teach him much, as Yulan was soon taken as a woodwarder apparentice and had to leave the village.

When he later left the mountain and travelled Othard, he ended up staying in the bigger cities for few years, learning what he could from their craftsmen before moving on to next city. It was only after he made the trip to Eorzea that he finally got a formal, more long term apparenticeship under the Ul'dah goldsmith guild.

That's where he's been the past 25-ish years - offically he's still their employee, even if he has his own workshop nowadays and mostly chooses what jobs he wants to take. After running out of mentors to teach him within the guild, he took to studying any and all goldsmithing related records and books, eventually starting his own research into intricacies of mammet making.

So short form would be family/friend > guilds > more guilds but this time permanent position > his own research and experiments.