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mimble-sparklepudding · 1 year ago

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FFXIV Swap Poem Thingy

I had the honour of being matched with the very marvellous @paintedscales for the FFXIV Swap. I really enjoyed learning about Nomin and her backstory and it's given me the opportunity to do a lot of background reading on Xaela lore and the history of the Azim Steppe. Definitely worth reading Nomin's Carrd if you want more detail on the events described below.

However I was a bit worried that a poem might not be as exciting as some of the beautiful artwork created by others for this project, so I took the liberty of commissioning a custom character banner for Nomin as a little extra.

Anyway Poetry Time (mostly under the cut as it's quite long).

The Nameless Child.

The nameless child, left by design,

Bound tight with rope to sacred pine,

As tribal customs did dictate,

But was resolved to change her fate,

And once she had her bonds untwined,

She chose to leave her tribe behind,

From that day forth, without regret,

She was no longer a Tumet.

Having swiftly named herself,

Quietly and with practiced stealth,

She made her way across the plains,

To the lone town the Steppe contains,

Where, seeing one so young exiled,

They grudgingly took in the child,

Gave her food and clothes withal,

And raised her as a young Saghal.

The traditions of this peaceful tribe,

Among many other things proscribe,

The killing or the subjugation,

Of beasts with whom they share creation,

And thus, bitter irony indeed,

The adherents of this gentle creed,

Were enslaved, or left for dead,

Their lives destroyed by the Jhungid.

Having beheld her brother slain,

She had to work quite hard to feign,

Any form of acquiescence,

As she grew through her adolescence,

Under the watchful, callous, eyes,

Of custodians who she despised,

So she knew exactly what to do,

When battle dawned with the Kharlu.

As each tribe faced the other’s host,

In battle for the Eastern coast,

She drew the arrow in her bow -

And turned her back upon the foe,

Without pause, without remorse,

She shot her leader from his horse,

Before riding back to burn their yurts,

Administering their just deserts.

Having freed her former tribe,

She knew that she must circumscribe,

Her kinship with them all thenceforth,

To keep them safe, so journeyed North,

And West across the Steppe alone,

In search of tribes as yet unknown,

And, from spending time with each,

She’d learn all that they had to teach.

Whether across a glacier,

Travelling with the Angura,

Or racing upon an Oroq Sled,

She absorbs all that they’ve done and said,

And be it Himaa, Gharl or Mol,

Each colour's blended in her soul,

And every one that she recalls,

Is carried forth in her footfalls.

(For those that are interested in such things I opted for rhyming couplets as the nearest form I could find to traditional Mongolian Epic Poetry (known as tuuli). There are six variations of narrative in these epics, and (extremely loosely) I opted for The Mythicised Epic, where the hero fights to restore order, as the basis for Nomin's tale. The most famous version of this narrative in Mongolian Folklore is the Epic of King Gesar, but there are lots of other ones. Definitely worth learning about if you enjoy cultural history.)

Many thanks to @paintedscales for their patience in waiting for me to pull my finger out and finish this - and also for helping me with the pronunciation of the various Xaela tribes with which Nomin has been associated. Needless to say, until this assistance, I was apparently getting most of them very wrong (aside from the Mol - I could manage that one!)

I hope you enjoy my silly poem and the nice Custom Banner!

#ffxiv oc #Nomin Tal Kheeriin #ffxiv au ra #ffxiv xaela #ff14 #ffxiv writing #ffxiv banner #ffxiv wol #ffxiv #azim steppe #the nameless child #final fantasy 14 #ff14 ffxiv #final fantasy xiv

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tesserox · 10 months ago

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Okay, so before I put up my stream info for tonight, another FFXIViernes, just wanted to formally introduce this alt of mine that is currently my Main on Excalibur. She is supposed to be Rox Pickheart/Whetstone from Guild Wars 2. Of course, Hrothgals are only going to come out with the next expansion Dawntrail, so there will be an update when she matches her true self more accurately.

Story goes that Rox is a female hrothgar that managed to escape Garlean occupation in Ilsabard by pure luck as a very young child, losing family along the way. She stayed in Gyr Abania long enough to consider herself Ala Mhigan and when it fell to the Garleans she joined the Resistance. It was there that she fell for some handsome hyur alchemist who was more than a little narcissictic. To sum up: he cheated on her with a miqo'te, she confronted him and dumped him, he got pissed, spiked a drink of hers with a magical alchemical concoction, and when she woke up with the hangover, she was a miqo'te. Suspecting him as the culprit, she once more confronted him and he told her he had done her favor, now men wouldn't cheat on her anymore. Honestly, it's a miracle he lived. She didn't stay in the Resistance long after that. She made her way out east to get as far away as possible and ended up saving a ten-year old xaela tied to a tree and abandoned. A member of the Tumet tribe, she hadn't been able to free herself of her bonds. Rox adopted her and gave her the name Aurene, since didn't have one. She also adopted another young feral teen a year or so later. And then another one.

#tesserox #twitch #ffxiv #streaming #ff14 #ff14 ffxiv #ff14 endwalker #guild wars 2 #gw2 #rox pickheart #rox whetstone #hrothgar #hrothgal #hrothgirl #miqo'te #ffxiv miqo'te

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otherworldseekers · 2 years ago

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I can't remember, did we ever learn Severia's real name? Does she know it?

Severia was never given a name by her parents. It's the Tumet tribe's custom to only give a child a name after they complete the ritual of being tied to the tribe's sacred tree, freeing themselves, and catching up with the moving tribe. Severia failed at this and would have died if she was not rescued by a kind soul from the Mol tribe.

I do headcanon that the Tumet tribe gives their young children a form of "taboo name". In this case it's a place holder that is meant to divert the attention of any evil spirits that might want to prey on the child until they are give their true name. The one given to Severia was "Khünbish", meaning "not a human being".

Her adoptive father never gave her a name either, both because giving a failed Tumet child a name is a major taboo on the Steppe and he was not free from superstition despite flaunting tradition enough to save her, and also because he felt it was not his place to do so. He mostly just called her "child".

So it was eventually up to Severia to name herself.

Oh I forgot to add that during StB she's adopted into the Mol tribe and given a Xaela name. Temulun names her Sarangerel meaning "moonlight".

#Severia Zetsuen #Severia lore #Xaela #and yes I came up with all this to justify having named her Severia and not wanting to change it when I began to flesh her out

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genshoomf · 1 year ago

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I know next to nothing about final fantasy, but if you could explain it to me like I don’t know shit I would love to hear about this au

god theres so much to xiv itd be kind of impossible to explain All of it but for the gist of it. soap is a viera who left his home region, the golmore jungle, bc viera men are separated from the women and live more solitary so he was like Nahhh and fucked off to a desert region called dalmasca. some handwavey amount of yrs later dalmasca was conquered by a nation called garlemald and then after the dalmascans tried to rebel, the capital city was uhh Bombed and soap left to join a faction called the bozjan resistance which was Also fighting garlean rule

(deep breath)

ghost is a xaela from the azem steppe which is where all the xaela are split up into a bunch of tribes. ghost is a tumet which doesnt mean a ton but he got to pick his name after surviving a trial when he was 13 yadda yadda. he left the steppe eventually bc Snore and fucked off to a country called sharlayan where he learned how to be a sage aka a Gun Healer but then left sharlayan bc theyre centerists. he went to the eorzean city-state limsa lominsa to join the faction there, the maelstrom, and later the eorzean alliance which is All the city-states from across the world. the alliance then sent people down to... bozja!

(deep breath)

ghost was assigned ? to soaps little unit within the resistance so basically they spent a lot of time going off and fighting shit together and getting closer until the resistance + alliance blew up the Final Boss and then they had vicious adrenaline-fueled sex and got together. ta da

#the infodumpijng.. damn #xiv au

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paintedscales · 1 year ago

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001. Tumet

Every year, the Tumet uphold a tradition that takes place before next they move to their new location for the new year -- just before the Naadam. Children that are of ten summers are tied to trees and are made to break their bonds. It is here that we start our journey alongside the okhin who would see herself free. Who would see herself worthy of a name and life beyond that moment in time.

Word count: 2,543

Steppe by Steppe Chapter List

“You understand what you must do, okhin,” a man spoke, binding the young Xaela child to the tree. The child in question said nothing; she merely nodded to show that she acknowledged what had been said. All the while, the bindings were tightened to ensure that a challenge was there. Xaela must be strong, after all…and if she could not break from her binds…then…

“Remember: when you break free, you rejoin us at our iloh. Only then do you go from ‘okhin’ to having earned your name and your place among the Tumet.”

Another nod came from the young girl.

She was nervous, but there had always been this pit in her stomach each year when she had previously observed the trial. Every year this ritual took place with other nameless children of the Tumet. Once she had been old enough to process what this ritual practice was, it made her sick.

Adults had always explained the ritual thus: if Father Azim saw them worthy to escape their binds, then the tree would represent the new dawn of their lives. In a way, freeing themselves from the trees was a way of rebirth that would welcome them to a world where they would be strong and capable warriors.

This year was her tenth summer and, therefore, it was her turn to earn her name and place. Her turn to be bound to a sacred dawn pine -- to earn her dawn of a new life.

The young Xaela girl looked around at the other Tumet children. There were seventeen total, including herself. None of the children were tied to the same tree. Same as it ever had been in the past. She was told that this was to avoid the children from freeing one another when they did not earn it themselves. To be freed by someone else was a disgrace -- and there were always those that told the elders of such happenings.

Those freed by others were not worthy, and they were disowned by the tribe. If one could not fend for themselves, then the elements should take them.

Pursing her lips, she looked at the man who had bound her to the tree -- the man who claimed to have been her father -- and watched him look over his rope work one last time. Once satisfied, he left and rejoined the other Tumet adults and teens. Many of them were already mounted up on their horses, and supplies for their ger were situated upon the backs and attached wain of the dzo. The moment they started motioning for their horses to venture the steppe to their next location was the moment that the challenge began for the Tumet children bound within their trial.

Summers had gone and passed in this okhin’s life, and she had always known that one day she would be in this position. Just so, she knew that only a handful of the seventeen children there would find themselves worthy of being in the Tumet and of having a proper name.

‘Okhin’ and ‘khüü’ -- or ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ -- were the titles bestowed upon the children of the Tumet at birth pending on what their gender was determined to have been. Sometimes parents would address them as ‘khüükhed’ -- child -- in the instance of multiple children. Such was the case of the last of the Tumet to ride off.

“Khüükhed! We shall await your arrival where the One River departs the Tail Mountains. Do not disappoint us,” the rider spoke with a certain coldness before they turned their horse and urged them into a canter to catch up with the rest of the Tumet.

Though this was an annual tradition for those who had come of age, the ritual never sat well with the girl. Not when there had been kids that she enjoyed playing with that were suddenly no longer there. The pain of loss had been learned early, and even if it was the Tumet way to grow hardened by that loss, this young Xaela seemed to hang her head instead of struggling against her binds like some of the other nameless Tumet children were doing.

She looked at her locks of light blue hair that fell into vision, her mind running through with ideas. There had been something in her pocket, but when she tested the strength of the ropes, she realized just how difficult it was to actually move her arms and hands to actually rummage in her deel’s pocket. Her hand had fruitlessly shifted and wriggled against her side.

A sigh left her lips.

There had been no restriction on how to free one’s self from their bonds, just that they had to do it themselves. With this knowledge prior, the young Xaela girl started to move her arms again. She had memories of when she said that she would use her scales to weaken the ropes. The truth was that since she was still a child, her scales were still rather soft and pliant, not hard with useful edges like the adults.

The Xaela girl squirmed against the binds until she could ilm her fingers into one of the pockets of her deel just as she had planned. It had been an uncomfortable process

“Ha ha! I think I’m getting loose already!” one of the children exclaimed excitedly. The girl could hear the smile on his lips.

‘Good for him,’ she thought to herself; her thoughts were not bitter. That was a family that could potentially celebrate the return and naming ceremony of their child. However, they were only in their first bell of their trial. His tune could change at any moment. Whatever hope there was needed a firm grasp.

She continued to struggle with getting her hand into her pocket, only able to get the tips of her fingers in there for the time being. It got to a point she had to stop trying and take a break to regain her strength and stamina. Her father had really tied the ropes tightly. She wondered if the other childrens’ parents secured them just as well.

With a huff, the girl resumed trying to get her hand into her pocket and finally succeeded. She felt around before grasping a broken river clam shell that she had put there after that morning’s breakfast. A small, triumphant smile grew upon her lips.

It was nothing special, and while she would have preferred something a little sharper, the broken shell was going to have to do. It had to. She just had to hope the sharp edge where it was broken could cut through the rope with enough persistence.

Sawing at the ropes as best she could from her awkward position, the Tumet girl did not feel like she was making much progress. Frustration began to set in as her movements became more hurried -- impatient. Making a dissatisfied groan, the girl pushed harder on the shell. The ropes surely had to weaken at some point.

Faster and faster…

SNAP!

A gasp fell from the girl’s lips as tears started to well in her eyes. Her already broken shell had broken further, a majority of it having fallen to the ground. It left her with iridescent splinters between her fingers. She took in a sharp inhale to block out the sobs that wanted to eke their way out, though her shoulders slumped, and she deadweighted into her bindings.

Crying would have only given way to creatures of the steppe coming in to investigate. An unfortunate circumstance. What kept her from wailing had been the fact that there was only one year that the girl remembered where no Tumet children returned to the tribe two years ago. A pack of gedan had come by, taking advantage of the situation of essentially what were meals strung up for the taking.

Children were forbidden from practicing to free themselves from their binds before the ritual, no matter what summer they were in. They had to think of the best way to free themselves based on their parents’ stories, along with their own intelligence and wit. The girl thought she could have utilized her mother’s method of using something sharp to cut the rope.

Against the tree with hope dissipating, she stayed. Her broken tool siphoned the desire to push forward faster than her lost stamina and gained fatigue. Still, she fought back the tears. She refused to cry in front of any of the other Tumet children. Though time passed, and the sun shone down on them, making the trial enter further tedium by heating the lands.

A shaky sigh left the girl’s lips as she tapped the back of her head against the dawn pine a few times. Ilming back up straighter, she looked around the immediate area while blinking away whatever tears had formed so that she could clear her vision. Aside from her broken clam shell, however, there was little that stood out.

She observed the other Tumet children. Some of them had tools of their own. One even had a sharpened rock -- certainly a far better tool than the girl had taken for herself. Another Tumet child seemed to have been resting, their ropes only barely visibly rising and falling with each breath they took. A boy had freed himself using a sharp piece of mondite in his possession.

Shuffling her feet, the clinking of the copper plates on her gutal made her pause. Her eyes widened, and her mouth fell slightly agape with an epiphany.

Shifting herself, she lifted one of her feet and did her best to bring her ankle to her hand -- a bit difficult with her deel in the way, not to mention how strained her leg felt with little room to bring her foot closer to herself. She eventually managed to grab the heel of her gutal and pull the boot off. Exhaling, she did what she could to ensure her grip on the boot before slowly using her fingers to turn it around in her hold so that the copper plating was more accessible.

The girl had no idea if this would work, but it was her only option now. The decorative filigree on the copper made the metal sharp, and it started to fray the rope apart when she started sawing the threads. It was slow, but steady work, and the girl had started to work up a sweat. Impatient as she felt, the work was worth it.

Looser and looser, the girl could breathe easier and easier as the bindings released their torturous grip. Each sawing motion of her wrist resulted in ropes being cut apart. With each thread cut, freedom was ever closer.

Once the ropes had fallen from around her and the dawn tree, the girl’s mouth broke into a big smile as she started to laugh both triumphantly and out of relief. She brought one of her hands up and wiped away the tear stains on her face, sniffling slightly as more started to well in her eyes out of relief. Of the seventeen, she was the second -- another Tumet boy had broken his bonds first and started running down the trail the tribe had ridden down.

She held onto her boot and took a couple steps forward to begin her journey in catching up with the rest of the Tumet tribe. However, she recalled all the potential friends she could have made -- could have kept -- and she stopped. Turning her head, she looked at the others that were there.

Some of the children still bound were children she had been friends with. She was torn as she looked at her boot and then the children that seemed to have simply given up.

‘They are worthy, too,’ her heart called out to her.

She walked toward them as if compelled by some other force. Reaffirming her grip upon her cutting utensil, she began sawing at the ropes of the children who had stopped trying. After all, when night fell would be when they were at the most amount of danger. She would not have been able to live with herself if she simply left and did nothing.

“Hey! Hey!!” one of the other bound girls called out to her with the copper plated gutal. “You can’t help them! They will not be worthy of the tribe if you do!”

“If they die, they are already considered unworthy…” the girl responded between grit teeth, continuing to cut the binds. She met little protest from the children who seemed to have given up, though the ones who did she stopped trying to free them from their binds. If they wanted to continue with the trial, that was their choice…but the girl had listened to her heart, and her heart told her that she should live, and so should those who wanted to keep living. They should all have the choice to live as they wished.

After all, her scales upon birth had already dictated her unworthiness of being a true child of Nhaama anyroad. Where Xaela valued their inky black scales of night, the girl who continued to cut the bindings of others had scales tainted with striations of brilliant azure. It was not uncommon among Xaela to have some forms of discoloration, but it certainly was cause for scrutiny from those with pure black scales.

As it stood, however, even this little Xaela girl had been considered freakish by nature. For her striations had been a more extreme mutation that ran through nearly every groove and valley of her still-growing scales.

Words of others rung in her memories already. Was it even worth going back to that? Back to people who treated her both like livestock and like she was not a child of Nhaama? Was it worth getting a name in a ceremony that would mark the tribe’s disdain for her? Worse yet, her birth parents’?

This okhin would rather have not known the name that would have been given to her during the ceremony. Not if it potentially meant being named something born of disdain.

When the last child who did not protest was cut free, the girl finally pulled her gutal back onto her foot and looked to the tree she had been tied to. She collected the rope she was bound with, knowing its uses from observing the Tumeti people up till this point, and left in the opposite direction that the rest of the tribe had gone. Instead, she journeyed in the direction of Reunion -- the markets owned by the Qestir.

She did not know how long it took. By the time the girl had made it to Reunion, dusk had settled on the land. She was tired, she was hungry, sweat had clung to her, but most of all, she was happy. It showed in the smile that remained on her face since she started her journey.

Happy…

Happy she was alive. Happy that she broke her bonds. Happy that she made it at all.

She gazed upon the bustling markets with a wide smile and tired eyes. It was time to fully embrace herself. Her victory. Her realization.

Taking in a breath, the girl yelled out with everything she had in that moment: “My name is Nomin! And I am worthy!”

#ffxiv writing #ffxiv #au ra #xaela headcanons #oc: nomin tal kheeriin #xaela tumet #ffxiv oc #my fic #my writing #au ra xaela #NTK:Chronicles

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militibus-ex-umbra · 2 years ago

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Backstory for Angelo

((A drabble of backstory I wrote for the Xaela WoL I have,))

His birth name was not Angelo, that would merely be a name he adopted after abandoning his past life. No before that he was born to the Tumet Tribe of Xaela Au'Ra in the Steppe of the East. Due to the customs of his tribe he was treated very distantly and was unnamed since birth. It was not till his tenth summer that he learned of the ancient custom of his tribe. This custom was the way their tribe was able to strengthen their children to turn them into warriors to defend the tribe. Angelo as a child was taken to a tree in the wild and was bound to it by his own parents. Once he was bound tightly to the tree unable to escape his family left him behind. The entirety of his tribe moved to their next location leaving him behind. The intended tradition said that if the child was worthy of living they'd escape from their bonds and reunite with the tribe. Angelo was able to accomplish this trial set before him... however the experience of both his escape and traveling through the wilds of the step left him forever changed. What was once the happy child was now an instinctual cold warrior of the Steppe.

It should have been exactly what the tribe needed, and he did bring them glory as a warrior in his youth. Over the next 5 years he managed to bring many enemies of the tribe to their knees. As well as keeping them safe from any wild beasts that would threaten their livelihood. However there was this beast inside of Angelo that had been awakened after the violence he had experienced. His warriors blood would send him into a frenzy in battle, tearing desperately into his enemies and utterly butchering them with his long sword. Whether it was beast or man all died to him even in his youth. His tribe whispered amongst themselves, dubbing him the Devil of Tumet. A name that was feared amongst all the Xaela tribes as a brutal weapon wielded by the Tumet.

It wasn't till another 5 years passed that everything came over. His father ended up confronting him over his methods. Xaela were not an honor bound race of Au'Ra, but Angelo's savagery had become far too much for the tribe to control. His father felt the need to assert his authority by force to make his child heel. However when his father tried to threaten his son, Angelo was reminded of all the grief and pain his parents had caused him. How they caused this spark of fire inside of him to turn into a raging inferno. The young Xaela saw nothing but red in his vision and he let out all of his emotions that were buried in his gut. When he came too, his father lay dead at his feet.

His tribe did not outright banish him, but after seeing the monster that he had become. Angelo knew that the rest of his tribe would not be safe until he had managed to cool himself. Or find a strong enough foe to put him down.

Thus Angelo discarded his old life and name. To forever walk the path of one reborn in the light of the moon. If his soul was one of a beasts he would wander far from his homeland to the desert city of Ul’dah. He would commit himself to the gladiator pits as a self inflicted punishment. To fight until he could be snuffed out by a more powerful beast. However when he took the caravan to Ul’dah, he dreamed of a bizarre sight... the Mother Crystal beckoned to him. He would not find redemption in a bloody spectator sport. No he would find redemption in serving the side of light. To kill all who would threaten to bring the world into darkness. If they wished to feed on the suffering of the people he would in turn feed the beasts of darkness his sword. For he deep down was The Devil of Tumet. And it was in his nature to bloody any battlefield. At least this time he would draw blood for the sake of the realm.

#ooc #headcanon;#hc #headcanons #Xaela Of Light;#ffxiv hc #ffxiv oc #ffxiv wol oc #mun speaks #Wolfo Speaks;

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goblinfreder · 1 year ago

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Frederick and Erranea currently don’t have kids, and won’t until after 7.0, probably won’t canonically happen until after 8.0. But it will happen eventually, and they have twins that they name Thes and Sero.

Thes is her father’s daughter, inheriting Frederick’s sense of duty, justice, and investigative tendencies. Studying Red Magic from Alisaie and the Paladin arts from her father, she’s a natural born leader who gives herself the name Valour. Her Echo manifests a lot like Frederick’s in the “delve into memories” way, but she is also possessed of an unwavering spirit of determination, and is able to inspire those around her with it.

Sero is closer to Erranea, being very quiet and emotional as a child. Being the only twin who inherited the Garlean eye from mom, they spend much of their childhood hiding behind others. This combined with a natural empathic tendency leads them to study Scholar arcanima from a young age, taking the name of one of its spells as their own: Broil. Their Echo allows them to perfectly recall their own memories, and to sometimes remember bits and pieces from their Ancient self’s life.

And then it goes one layer deeper: Valour and Broil’s kids.

Valour marries a woman, a Doman shinobi named Tsubaki, but they end up adopting two kids from Othard.

Kasumi is an Xaela, lost child of the Tumet tribe. The tribe’s culture demands that children must be tied to a specific sacred tree and forced to find their way to where the tribe relocated to in order to be worthy of a place and name within it. Valour and Tsubaki find this small red child face down on the ground, lying 15 feet from a tree and dying of thirst. Upon hearing what happened and determining that the girl doesn’t feel she can ever return, they offer to take her in and give her a name.

They also find a lop-eared Viera child stealing from the bucket of caught fish they were keeping, and Tsubaki was impressed by their ability to sneak up on all of them. Thus was Mizuho brought into the family as well, being an orphan like Kasumi.

Kasumi has a anger streak to her, but never acts out of hatred towards her new family. Just, her passion can lead her to say things she doesn’t truly mean. This leads her to learn the trade of a Warrior, as an outlet to all of that, as well as learning Red Magic from Valour.

Mizuho on the other hand, you’d be hard pressed to find someone more calm. They’re by no means a saint, but anger is not an emotion they’re in regular contact with. They learn the art of the Shinobi from Tsubaki, as well as Samurai from Broil. Neither Kasumi nor Mizuho are known to have the Echo yet, though this may change once I figure out something cool for them lol

Broil marries a Viera woman named Cordelia, and together they have a child named Nefra. The specifics of Nefra change depending on the timeline, so I’ll reblog this with a followup. But I gotta have a pic of Broil and Cordelia because I am very normal about them.

Wolqotd 6/16/23

does/will your wol(oc) have kids? who are they?

#wolquestion #wolqotd #rika’s wolqotd #wol qotd #wol questions #ffxiv #ff14 #viera #male viera

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