#its nailahposting hours

[crowdsourcedloner]

lil goofy headcanon - nailah’s fluffy cheeks and general stoicism tend to hide when she blushes, but if you look closely you can see her ears turn more pink and her cheek fur fluff up when she’s flustered.

#cecil.txt #its nailahposting hours #look. its impossible for me to understate how vital floofy cheeks are #and imagining g'raha trying to brush her cheek and having them fluff out in response is giving me so much serotonin #large lion lady is soft for nerdy catboy: more at 11

[crowdsourcedloner]

so one of my big hangups over Nailah right now is the lack of an ingame model for her, so this post will be talking about how i see her vague cloud self and ideas for how she could look as well as general female hrothgar rambles. (it’s long and all speculative and incredibly self indulgent)

okay so to start, i’m gonna reference this art (from the shadowbringers artbook)

this is, to my knowledge, one of the few images we have for femhroth, outside of the bozja mural seen in a STQ cutscene. it’s concept art for the queen we fight at the end of delubrum reginae, which is a female roegadyn in the final game (due to lack of female hroth models). there understandably isn’t a lot of detail to her, as the artist was probably more concerned with the queen’s throne doodads, but from what we can see she has a more humanoid face than male hroth have. is this intentional? is it just placeholder? why does this image interest me so much? well...

this is a female ronso from ffx. while ffxiv’s hrothgar are distinct from ronso, they were used as inspiration (one of the male faces has a horn option to call back to kimahri as well as the lost’s color palette being similar to ronso palettes). female ronso have less bestial faces than male ronso (to my eyes) and i expect this to carry over into ffxiv’s female hrothgar as well. do i like this hypothetical decision of less bestial femhroth? i don’t know. i don’t have much faith in the developers going through with a full monster girl. i do know that female au ra had a massive shift towards their current more petite appearance compared to some of their concepts (included in the heavensward artbook) and i wouldn’t be surprised if the developers wanted a more cutesy or conventionally attractive model for femhroth. i’m rooting for the more bestial model ideas personally, but i’ve made peace with the potential for something else. i’ll work with whatever they give me. a good example of the more bestial look i’m thinking of is karmaho’s work, check them out here. their scholar design is beautiful! another look that feels likely to me is the below image.

this is fanart of a genderbent kimahri (artist credit here). this image feels closest to what we’re getting for two (relatively arbitrary) reasons: her skin color and ear placement matches the queen in the shadowbringers concept art and she’s quite human compared to kimahri’s original design. the art is also just really cool and i wanted to show it to y’all.

so how does this tie into Nailah?

there is a pretty big difference between the two potentials for female hrothgar, which makes it weird to decide a face for her. i have a few color palettes i’m between though! and no matter what, she will have glorious fluffy hair. i’m not budging on that. her potential color palettes include genderbent kimahri (its so soft! and pretty! and her eyes work so well!) or something like a snow leopard (white fur with dark markings and striking blue/yellow eyes! monochrome color scheme my beloved!) or a dark blue concept (dark blue/purple skin with black hair and golden eyes! close to a panther!) or something like a pale calico (pale markings that you can barely see! she looks so gentle!) or... who knows! maybe the character creator will hit me with something new! there could be fur patterns that capture my imagination! until then, she’s just my vague cloud child of infinite possibilities and i love her.

#female hrothgar #its nailahposting hours #...that'll be my headcanon tag lmao #this post is long and unhinged #but really fun to make #i'm on the biggest copium for fanfest y'all have no idea

[crowdsourcedloner]

in an attempt to work out a timeline, here's a vague series of events surrounding the squad prior to (and very early into) arr

(~60 years before present) Verre is born, raised, and trained in the Skatay Range as a scout.

(~30 years before present) Verre finds a strange device that leads Garlean invaders to her home village, destroying it in the process. In her grief she resolves to wander as an exile, seeking new technology in an attempt to curb her rampant curiosity and crushing guilt.

(~26 years before present) A hrothgar queen-to-be leaves her home village in an attempt to claim absolute freedom, though she is unknowingly pregnant at the time. She gives birth to a daughter during her travels.

(~25 years before present) Zezene "Zen" Zene arrives in Ul'dah claiming to hail from the freshly conquered Dalmasca, but no records of their life there exist. They begin to carve out a meager life as a thief and information broker.

(~25 years before present) The hrothgar woman finds an auracite shard and becomes enthralled by it, becoming increasingly paranoid and controlling of those around her. She resolves to train herself and her daughter as a weapon to combat her delusions.

(~21 years before present) Zen has fully integrated into the Ul'dahn underground, becoming a staple contact for many ne'er-do-well's. They note a group of contacts that want to get out of the life of crime and begin to formulate a plan.

(~19 years before present) The daughter has her first echo vision, earning great disapproval from her mother and losing her name in the process. She stays with her mother in an attempt to regain favor.

(~19 years before present) Zen opens a 'hunting hall' to be their base of operations - a front for their information gathering gig and a way to help people go legit should they desire it.

(~18 years before present) Zen hears rumors of a strange viera visiting the shops of Ul'dah asking for machinery. They successfully track down the mystery individual and recruit Verre to their operation as a tinker.

(~16-17 years before present) Yomi is born in an underwater raen village. She is terribly sheltered, but educated well and set up to inherit her mother's position as oracle.

(~15 years before present) In response to the Battle of Silvertear, Zen establishes ties to Clan Centurio and the adventurer's guild, despite the latter's waning popularity at the time.

(~12 years before present) The daughter is abandoned by her mother after failing to regain her favor. She namelessly wanders as a mercenary, convinced that her visions are a symptom of madness.

(~10 years before present) Verre tells Zen about her past, revealing her still-fresh grief for the first time. Zen encourages Verre to see them and their operation as a family of sorts in an attempt to soothe her.

(~5 years before present) Zen brings Garlean scrap to Verre so she can tinker with it. Verre passes along her findings to the Eorzean Alliance, namely about structural weaknesses and stress points. She also uses the scrap to build an air conditioning unit, much to Zen's confusion.

(~5 years before present) In the final leadup to the Calamity, Verre asks to fight at Cartenau alongside the Eorzean Alliance. Zen has a bad feeling and talks her out of it, sparing her from the front lines.

(~2 years before present) Yomi's mother receives an ill omen about her daughter and the danger she will associate with.

(~1 year before present) Yomi's mother tricks her into exile under the guise of pilgrimage, hoping to spare her village from impending doom. Yomi sets her sights on Eorzea, oblivious to the truth and the state of the realm at large.

(~1 year before present) Yomi arrives in Ul'dah and immediately falls for an obvious scam, only to be saved by Zen's timely interference. They offer to give her a place to stay and work to do, which she graciously accepts, meeting Verre in the process.

(~week before present) The nameless mercenary, weary and despairing after long years of wandering alone, sets her sights on Ul'dah's adventurer's guild.

(present, start of ARR) Upon arriving at the Ul'dahn adventurer's guild and being prompted to provide a name, the mercenary took the name of Nailah, though she is reluctant to introduce herself as such.

(present, start of ARR) By chance, Zen recognizes Nailah as a newcomer and decides to try and give her a place to stay, as she seemed down on her luck. In their attempt to help they learn her name and use it in conversation, causing her to become extremely defensive and leave upset.

#cecil.txt #loredump #its verreposting hours #its nailahposting hours #its zenposting hours #its yomiposting hours #...there we go thats all the headcanon tags covered lol #'vague series of events' = full ass timeline i guess orz #the dates are a lil vague for my benefit just in case i wanna adjust things later #anyways this should be the framework i'll work with #this just hits major events #any skipped dates are... somewhat intentional? i might've missed some #but there are a few intentional omissions (such as zen's actual age range) #(the biggest date i wanted to solve was verre's age anyways - she's now 10 years younger than she started lol) #(her age lines up better with imperial tech advancements now) #(i also treat viera like dragons in the sense that they have a warped perception of time due to their long lives - #and she feels that her village's death was far more recent than it actually is - #despite it being 30 years prior to game events)

[crowdsourcedloner]

have some headcanons for Nailah’s echo

her echo awoke when she was very young, leading to her mother believing Nailah to be half mad. Nailah herself believed this until she joins the scions.

it functions pretty similarly to the in game echo, with vivid visions surrounding some other person’s memories feeling as real as her own. she has some slight empathic sense of other’s moods as well, but its very faint and requires an amount of concentration.

all echoes have a universal translation feature, and Nailah’s is no different. she grew up speaking and writing hroth before her echo awoke. learning common while everything sounds like hroth (and everything you say sounds like common) was a trial and error affair involving a lot of books, as her echo does not affect written languages.

exposure to large crowds over a long time can set off echo chains, where she has multiple consecutive echo visions. these chains are rarely coherent in any way as memories will interrupt one another with little rhyme or reason. her sensitivity to chains has dulled as she’s aged, though she is still hesitant to spend more than a few days in a busy city.

healing magicks set off a smaller version of an echo, reflecting a portion of her patient’s sensations onto herself. this makes her a very skilled healer, but healing large amounts of people increases the sensations she absorbs from her patients. it is also more likely for a vision to trigger while she is healing someone.

her echo can be interrupted by severe physical injury, such as being stabbed or shot. this is incredibly disorienting (and painful) so she keeps this fact pretty quiet outside of a few trusted companions. 

#its nailahposting hours #her echo is Rough and she resents it for a long while #anyways my brainworms are now y'alls #pls give the brainworms some nice dirt to sleep in #oc: hrothwol

[crowdsourcedloner]

been a minute since my last loredump, lets do one on Nailah’s soul crystals and soul crystal headcanons in general (plus a bonus somewhat-relevant echo headcanon that missed my echo post)

general soul crystal headcanons

to start, soul crystals work by giving your body muscle memory without context - you know how to swing a fancy sword correctly, you just don’t know when or why. it’s why practicing with them is so vital, to build up your own natural muscle memory while also learning context and applications.

this does mean that an unpracticed pupil will be nearly powerless without attuning to their soul crystal, while a seasoned expert doesn’t necessarily need theirs to perform advanced techniques (barring extreme examples). the mastery required to perform soul crystal skills without attunement generally means that few people bear more than a small handful of crystals.

as far as how they are made, they’re special empty crystals that get enchanted and etched with memory aether by experts in their crafts. the crystal stores the memories in a way that requires a certain level of natural accomplishment before it unlocks further memories, leading to it’s bearer learning the arts in in a linear fashion.

echo bearers can attune to multiple soul crystals more easily than people without the echo, but this can be overcome with training.

bonus echo headcanons

the echo works by uncontrollably recalling residual memory aether from other people. should too much time pass between visions, buildups of memory aether can occur - this is how Nailah’s echo chains get triggered.

the way the echo interacts with memory aether is what helps echo bearers attune to soul crystals, but it only helps with initial attunement. individual skill and diligence has a far greater effect on mastery.

Nailah specific headcanons

she does have every soul crystal available in game, but she is very much not proficient in all jobs.

her natural ability to mimic spells makes her a fast learner when attuned to a soul crystal - to her, learning from a soul crystal is a similar sensation to mimicking a spell and having an echo at the same time. it takes her a long while to become comfortable with the feeling, which returns when she switches between crystals, leading to her preferring to stick with a job for long stretches of time.

even if she masters a crystal’s knowledge, Nailah usually needs a physical weapon to be a focus for aetheric manipulation, and not all focuses can be used for every purpose. she’s learned how to store weapons “inside” of crystals and can recall them to her hands when she focuses - it works by storing a piece of crystal similar to an aetheryte inside of a weapon and teleporting it into her hand remotely, using a paired crystal she keeps on her person as an anchor point. she usually carries at least one weapon with her as a first resort, and being incapacitated, engaged in combat, or separated from her crystals will prevent her from summoning additional weapons.

she generally picks up the aetherial side of jobs much faster than the physical side. her baseline skill with weapons is barely passable without attunement, and even with attunement she’s much less confident in her physical prowess.

job specific headcanons

black mage - one of her most proficient jobs, Nailah does not require crystal attunement to cast high level black magic spells. the biggest difference between unattuned casting and attuned casting is efficiency - she’s much more wasteful with her aether without using the crystal.

red mage - she can cast any red magic spell with minimal difficulty, but her swordplay is poor without attunement. Alisaie will spar with her on occasion and often wins if she gets close enough, though Nailah will win extended spellcasting duels.

summoner - while she’s not good at arcanima, summoning magicks can be brute forced with crystal attunement and large quantities of aether - both things Nailah doesn’t mind doing. unattuned summoning is very sloppy and familiars typically only survive casting one spell before unraveling.

scholar - even with attunement, scholar is her weakest healing job. her lack of skill in basic arcanima holds her back from full mastery. on the upside, her fairy’s healing magicks do not interfere with her echo’s sensitivity, making her favor scholarly attunement during long healing shifts.

white mage - another job she’s very proficient in, Nailah doesn’t require attunement to cast high level white magic spells. similarly to black mage, she is much more efficient casting with attunement opposed to without, and white magicks greatly tax her echo with or without the crystal’s influence.

astrologian - while the deeper intricacies of astromancy evade her, Nailah was a very quick learner on the casting front. her biggest hangups involve the deck of sixty - with attunement she innately knows what needs to happen, but not knowing why trips her up far more often than not, leading to overthinking and hesitation in key moments.

sage - Nailah’s innate skill in aetheric manipulation makes her a quick study on the sage’s arts, but she’s still quite new to the magicks involved. she needs attunement for more complex spells, but can cast basic healing, shielding, and damage spells without the crystal’s help.

paladin - she is unskilled in swordplay, even with attunement. her paladin holy magic was picked up quickly and is extremely potent while attuned, but she cannot use the abilities without the crystal.

warrior - she’s even worse at axeplay. even attuned, her skill is poor in all aspects, and she avoids the warrior’s arts until she has far more time to practice.

dark knight - Nailah is absurdly defensively powerful while attuned, but she finds the experience incredibly intense and is poor at fighting with a greatsword. she only resorts to a dark knight’s arts in dire life or death situations, and refuses to use the skills without a crystal.

gunbreaker - she has interest in learning more about the gunbreaker’s arts, but she’s only average at best in melee while attuned. her greatest strength is in preparing cartridges - any round she makes is guaranteed to be extremely potent. Thancred will keep a few of her rounds in reserve for emergencies, best seen when he performs Gunmetal Soul.

monk - Nailah has great interest in becoming more skilled in hand-to-hand combat, but for now she’s not particularly skilled while attuned. she tends to fall back on simply coating her body in blasts of aether instead of trying to finesse more technical blows, which she does without attunement as well.

dragoon - while she is half decent at handling a lance without a crystal, Nailah generally doesn’t use a dragoon’s skills without attunement. she really only pulls it out to perform a long distance jump if needed, and forgets she has it more often than not.

ninja - her natural mannerisms make Nailah a good ninja in theory, but once again her melee combat skills are only average at best while attuned. she can perform mudras and easily maintains a stealthy demeanor without the crystal’s assistance, though the completed jutsu are significantly weaker without attunement.

samurai - there is little grace in Nailah’s swordplay, but her skill with manipulating aether along the blade makes any strikes that land devastating. she needs attunement to perform most abilities, and will usually try to brute force rush battles to finish them as quickly as possible.

reaper - Nailah dislikes reaper arts, both for not being the one to manipulate the aether and for the whole process of enshrouding. preferences aside, she is skilled in calling her avatar and actually performing enshrouded abilities, not needing attunement for either, though she does need the crystal’s assistance in adequately wielding a scythe.

bard - Nailah can hit a target and compose a song without a crystal’s help, but her dislike of performing holds her back far more than any lack of skill. she occasionally attunes to the crystal just to help her finish a song if it bothers her enough.

machinist - she’s a crack shot and can make ammunition even without attunement, but the more technical side of machinistry is beyond her. she typically relies on Verre making gadgets for her instead of making or maintaining her own.

dancer - stage fright aside, Nailah is a surprisingly quick study on the dancer’s arts, though not yet skilled enough to perform them without attunement.

#its nailahposting hours #oc: hrothwol #i love overthinking gameplay abstractions lmao #though theres plenty of gameplay abstractions that are just that - abstractions #i did also have the abrupt realization that she'd be an incredible blue mage partway through this >.> #but i do not see her going through with the masked carnivale stuff at all... #she'd probably just learn the blu spells out of curiosity and leave it at that #these headcanons are... super soft lmao #due to change upon future dev lore drops #and up to the whims of future jobs (caster especially)

[crowdsourcedloner]

okay so nailah has a whole ~thing~ about people using her name and how she’s perceived so here’s the long explanation/story about it (covers pre-arr up through the end of base arr)

(it gets heavy - this is your warning. also ~1k words. sorry.)

As a kid, her mother Tasya would rarely use Nailah’s name, choosing instead to just call her “girl” or “child” the majority of the time. In the very rare times she’d praise her daughter, Tasya would say it quietly, and only ever in private. Nailah internalized the idea that a name is a vulnerable thing - something delicate, reserved only for people one deeply trusted. She projected this rule on others as well, picking up the habit of calling people by their job or title on the few occasions she was allowed to speak.

Once Nailah’s started having visions, she lost the privilege of having a name. Tasya immediately switched to referring to her with insults, ranging from “thing” to “half-mad beast” to “disappointment” and the like. Nailah’s potential was mourned far more than her presence was tolerated. The rejection and denial carved a weeping hole in her heart, and she spent an incredible amount of effort trying to be good enough again for Tasya. It never was.

After her mother finally abandoned her, she wandered nameless through the wilds. She thought of herself as a wild, half-mad beast, fit only to scavenge the very fringes of society. Yet when she’d encounter a stranger in the woods and they’d ask her name she never knew how to respond. Should she admit to her brokenness? Tell them she was a monster? Someone better left forgotten? She settled on simply being called “wanderer” - it was the truth, if anything. A mask to hide how she saw herself. She quickly realized it could be used to set people’s expectations of her on her own terms.

Once the wanderer discovered she could manufacture a social mask, she took up the mantle of the mercenary. She kept to remote villages, appearing and disappearing as suddenly as the wind, often only noticed by news of some local threat being quelled. Few people recognized her, and fewer still heard her speak. She hid as much of herself as she could, staying hidden under a thick cloak of silence and only answered to her moniker. She thought nobody could reject her if she rejected herself first, but her relentless visions haunted her. She felt, through other’s hearts, the warmth of lovers greeting one another, the affection in well worn childhood nicknames, the joys of long lost friends reuniting. The aching loneliness she was so used to grew more overwhelming with every vision. Was this truly what she wanted? To be forgotten and alone? Who was she really, hiding under her mask? 

She wandered town after town, road after road, using her title as a statement of being. She was just a Mercenary. Little more than a weapon to be pointed at a problem. People were kept at an arms length distance with professional ease, and she could still be useful to those she came across. There was comfort for her in how simple it all seemed, though simplicity was a poor answer to her loneliness. Every solitary morning she drowned in silence, every new horizon was greyed by her sorrow. She stopped trying to answer the cloying doubts that clung to her, their despair staining her thoughts more than she could bear. Who was she, under everything? She gave herself one last chance - go to the closest city and try to find an answer - or fade away, lost and forgotten.

Ul’dah held much more than just an answer for her, though she didn’t know it at the time. The adventurer’s guild asked for a name - she told them Nailah. She couldn’t remember where she heard it. Familiar as it was, she refused to let anyone call her such. She was Mercenary. Adventurer. The name was a formality, nothing more. It wasn’t a mask she wanted to use. Much to her displeasure, the guild used her name frequently enough for it to become common knowledge among their clients.

When the Scions took notice of her abilities, she asked the same comfortable distance of them she was so used to. In response the Scions gave her their names - Thancred, Yda, Minfilia - and she couldn’t understand. Why tell a simple mercenary the names of Scions? Did she not deserve scorn for her visions? The visions have a name? Their responses were acceptance and support and Nailah could not understand. She called them by titles instead - Scholar, Scion, Antecedent - though her echo didn’t let her miss the disappointment they felt. She tightened her masks and hid behind a new one, one given by those who accepted the mercenary - the Warrior of Light. 

Tales of the Warrior triumphing over Titan and Garuda spread through Eorzea like wildfire. Her new allies respected the distance she desired, though they had the odd habit of confiding their worries to her. The Warrior supposed she made a good listener, quiet as she was. Would they listen to her? Should she risk that vulnerability? She didn’t know what answer she hoped for anymore. She didn’t know what she would say. She kept her silence.

Her mask started to chafe. Strangers made assumptions about who she was, remarking they expected her to be bigger or a man. Few expected her to be as quiet as she was. Fewer still, a mage. She felt choked by their expectations - who she was wasn’t what they seemed to want. The desire to abandon her masks and nascent bonds writhed inside her whenever she heard new voices. What more did she need to do? Was the Warrior not enough for them? Scions noticed her frustration, offering short words of encouragement. She did her best to listen.

Once the Ultima Weapon was destroyed, she took a look at herself. The Scions - Papalymo, Yda, Urianger -  stood by her every step they could. Did they not deserve to see who their Warrior was? One quiet morning, once everything was moved to Mor Dhona, The Warrior met Minfilia in her solar for possibly the most terrifying request of her life - she asked her first new friend to call her by name.

Nailah. 

As long as they were in the solar. Alone. Where nobody else could hear. 

It was a start, at least.

#its nailahposting hours #cw abuse #cw depression #just to be safe #for everything surrounding her mother is not healthy #nailah's got some rough mental health stuff goin on but i dont know how much i want to go into it >.> #mostly out of fear of missing a cw tag #sorry this is so long ;-; #cecil gets carried away talking about blorbos ;-; #idk im just fascinated by the concept of identity #if you can't tell i have a lot of fic ideas surrounding nailah's struggle with identity - every paragraph is a potentially different fic #i might expand on this even more (re: hw through ew identity thoughts) but she's through the worst of her issues by the end of arr #...i'm gonna tag this as a writing thing bc it gets kinda fic-y #cecil writes