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stormbabylore · 4 months

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⬆⬆⬆ Perceive Aeryn's early-Stormblood black mage glam! ⬆⬆⬆

I'm still on my black mage AU kick, so I'm gonna ramble out some brainthoughts on my lore for this iteration of Aeryn's story.

Mostly generic, but there will be one StB BLM class quest spoiler below.

Aeryn does not handle the events of the Vault well in any universe, canonically or otherwise. In canon, grief drives her to pick up dragoon again as what I like to call her "rage" class. But in her black mage AU, she takes a different approach.

Aeryn feels her "magic block" has become a deadly hindrance, regardless of Hydaelyn's gifts (or lack thereof at that point in the story). If she's to protect herself and her allies from enemies capable of wounding them with un-healable dark magics, she wants the knowledge and skill to do the same. She approaches the thaumaturges of Ul'dah for assistance. Cocobuki and the others, recognizing Aeryn's potential (and her need), set about to understand the source of her magic block and a means of breaking it. They determine Aeryn cannot easily wield magic in Eorzea due to some other, foreign source of magic inside her - one that is intertwined with her soul in such a way that it seems to "shelter" her from most outside magics. Though they none of them fully understand the source of such power, they all agree that Aeryn will likely never be able to properly channel magic without first severing her connection to that inexplicable power within.

The brothers are concerned at the potential dangers of this process. There's a possibility her soul and the magic surrounding it are inextricably linked, and given the mysterious nature of its existence, they have no way of knowing how its removal might impact her. They warn her it might sever her connection with the Mother Crystal. (Aeryn argues she has already lost that connection.) They warn her she might die. (Midgardsormr again taunts her with threats that there will be further losses - greater sacrifices made.)

Aeryn, however, is determined.

I believe it would have been a brutally painful experience. The notion of ripping away a magic embedded in your soul doesn't sound pleasant.

But they succeed - and in doing so, Aeryn opens herself to a floodgate of new magic all at once. Further, the magic that had threaded itself through her soul does not immediately disperse upon removal. It lingers within her. The combination of so very much magic, and the sudden influx of new magics, are too much for her. Though it overwhelms all her senses, at first, she finds the one most challenging to adapt to is a new sight - the ability to see the use of aether with her naked eye. The brothers acquire enchanted cloth for her to cover her eyes, which helps dull the sight of it enough for her to get by.

I'm not sure if Aeryn will ever learn the whole truth of her existence and the magic she was "born" with. (I'm waiting out Endwalker to see if story canon gives me anything to work with, there, before I decide.) But in both canon and AU, Aeryn begins getting flashes of memory throughout Shadowbringers that might help her piece together the story: the magic that was fused with her soul was the remnant magic of her dying star (what I've lovingly been calling the Fourth, though I have no idea if future game canon will break that for me). Her connection to her lost world had, in essence, been blocking her all along from fully connecting to the magic of the Source, as it continues to do in her canon.

[Spoiler for the StB BLM class quests below!]

As mentioned, the remnant magic extricated from her soul does not disperse, and she progresses through the rest of HW and most of StB bound by a lingering connection with the stars from her past life. So in the StB class quests, she is in a unique position to also sense the nearing of the comet, though she of course can't fathom why. When there is concern in those pivotal final moments of its approach that their efforts have not worked to redirect the comet in time, Aeryn inherently uses that lingering power to connect with the comet and further divert its course.

This act expels the vast majority of remnant star magic within her. The yellow fades from her hair, and as the comet draws away, Aeryn senses a great change within her and reaches up to remove the cloth from her eyes. With much of the excess magic gone, she is able to see as normal once again.

(If I had a way to change Aeryn's hair color for just one glam, her black mage look would not have yellow highlights! Her star magic is what makes her hair turn yellow when cut, so as a black mage, post-Stormblood, her hair would be entirely brown.)

That's it. That's the AU. \o/

#aeryn stormwater #wol lore #ffxiv oc #ffxiv wol #ffxiv #ffxiv screenshots #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv glamour #ffxiv black mage #black mage au #ffxiv au #stormblood spoilers #stb spoilers #final fantasy 14 #black mage #ffxiv screenies #ffxiv screencaps

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eorzeashan · 1 year

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yknow we'd probably have less debates about lalafell being children if papalymo were still alive. every time i look at him i go whoa. that's a 45 year old man

#ffxiv #ooc #stb spoilers #i miss him. it still doesn't feel right without him #ffxiv stop killing all the characters i would be into challenge #what am i supposed to do here #it's also a shame i'm not attracted to ffxiv models so i have even less ground to stand on

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fxrtunas · 1 year

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when u rlly want to gpose in tsukuyomi p2 but someone has to sac and distract the boss

cries in post-ew sage allan

#GJGLKJLKSJDG kudos to iska for distracting tsukuyomi for like almost an hour while #me and nill took pics im LKASJFOIQWJFKLJQWKLFJ #whezes lkJASFOIJQWLKFJ #idk why i never thought of going to gpose in normal version i always just tried to gpose during the extreme one then #forget about it LMFAOOO #ANYWAY AHHHHH KLAJFOIJQWKLFJ #I FORGOT I HAD AN APPOINTMENT IN HALF AN HOUR RUNS AWAY LKASJFLKJWF #;gallery #stormblood spoilers #stb spoilers #ew spoilers #just in case #ahhhhhh what do ppl tag LKJASFLKj #spoiler tw

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miqo-tia · 1 year

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Tsukuyomi hanging a Loporrit by the armpits like a weird cat.

#ffxiv #ffxiv art #my art #ew spoilers #stb spoilers #ffxiv tsukuyomi #loporrit #ffxiv loporrit #moon rabbit gang

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faragonart · 2 months

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"It sure is, isn't it..."

(A little continuation from this...)

Ridel had always wanted to see the Steppe... and Vatii always wanted to show him.

(ft. @pali-himbo 's Vatii)

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paintedscales · 8 months

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FFXIV Write 2023 :: Day 8

Prompt :: Shed Characters :: Nomin tal Kheeriin, Estinien Varlineau, Orn Khai Word Count :: 1,681

FFXIV Write 2023 Master List

“So…Faunehm is freed of her madness…” Nomin started to say, walking alongside Estinien and Orn Khai. The sun was beginning to dip down below the horizon. The reds and oranges were so much starker here than Eorzea as it cast its warm glow down upon the land.

“Indeed…” Estinien said in response.

Nomin paused in her step. Not long after, both Estinien and Orn Khai paused as well.

“And you?” Nomin asked, looking at Estinien with a curious gaze. “You leave Ishgard with not so much as a word to anyone else. I cannot say it particularly gladdens me to see you -- in my homeland, besides… You are truly shed of Nidhogg’s influence?”

“... Aye. I spoke true when I said my past experiences with Nidhogg made me eager to see Faunehm saved. Truer still that it was -- and is -- my intention to act as intermediary between man and dragon.” Estinien let out a low sigh, his arms coming to be folded across his chest. “I retain my sense of self, even now, Warrior of Light.”

“Nomin.”

“Aye, aye. Nomin.”

Orn Khai flitted between them as an awkward silence filled the air, his curiosity growing as he soon descended upon Nomin’s head and gently perched himself upon her shoulders. Tucking his wings back, he rested his hands upon the top of her head and gazed up at the darkening skies. He had opted to stick with them for a while longer while his parents had rejoiced in their reunion.

A more irritated sigh left Estinien after the silence seemed to have grated even him. He raised his gauntleted hand and pointed at Nomin.

“And you? Your eyes never betrayed oceans of strife and sorrow behind them -- nor did they betray the roiling hatred and lust for vengeance you craved. But never have I seen them more in the storm’s wake than now -- here in the Azim Steppe.” Estinien’s tone was firm, his brow furrowed. He knew that there was something else. “What is it that is here that made the Eye react to you those years ago?”

Nomin flinched, part of her recoiling from Estinien himself, another from his words. She had never been aware that he saw that much in her. She always thought him too blinded by his own rage and obsession to see hers.

It was perhaps in spite of the fact that he had those emotions that when they finally subsided, he saw hers.

Nomin grounded herself and did what she could to calm her emotions. For what right did he have to that part of her past? Two years, and here he was, asking questions she grew somewhat indignant over.

No…he deserved something. Something given their experience and being at the forefront of ending the Dragonsong War. He earned that much. And once Nomin rationalized it in her mind, she closed her eyes momentarily before looking around for somewhere to sit. Once a flat outcropping had been found, and Nomin was no longer on her feet, she reached up and motioned for Orn Khai to settle next to her.

“Were we still in Ishgard back then, I wouldn’t have entertained the very notion of telling you anything…” Nomin started. “But were Alphinaud here, he would likely be disappointed by whatever tension still remains between us. So you have him to thank as I keep him in my mind not to dismiss your question outright.”

Estinien gave a shrug, his frown creasing. “Answer. Or don’t. Everything within you is ultimately yours to deal with. I would rather not turn my lance against you in time, however. Know, however, that with mine own experience, I do not wish to see you fall victim to the same fate I had. You surely have much and more ahead of you, Warri--Nomin.”

His sentiment would have been touching if Nomin had not still felt some form of dislike for him. Despite, or perhaps because of, her expression of wanting to become friends for Alphinaud’s sake. She had been willing to do what she could to see their past stay in the past. Though his disappearance from Ishgard and with no word that had been given led her to believe that she would have never seen him again.

Would it have been better that way? Nomin had no idea.

However, she gathered herself and sighed. She had decided to humor him. To what extent, she supposed she would find out.

“If Nidhogg was looking for a vessel so threaded with the anguish that balled into the yarn of hatred and vengeance, I would have been the next best thing next to you. I would be lying if I said I did not wonder what would have happened if Nidhogg took control of me instead of you.”

She was stalling on answering the initial question. Estinien knew this as well as he folded his arms back over his chest and slightly narrowed his eyes at Nomin. Normally, he would not have bothered, but given their history with one another…he had clearly been equal parts annoyed and concerned.

“He would have preyed upon my obsession, certainly…” Nomin continued. She was working on getting her bearings -- her nerve -- to reveal what she could to someone she no longer despised. “I am not shed of my own past hurts, this I will admit. Being back here…it dredges up many memories. Some good…many bad. Then there are some that I would prefer to forget altogether, but I just…can’t.”

Nomin heard the metallic clinking of Estinien’s armor as he strode forward to meet with her and then take a spot upon the surface of the rock close by. He stayed ever silent, however, allowing for Nomin to eventually get to where she was going. Much as it exasperated a part of him.

“The biggest thing I can never forget, especially being here…” Nomin shook her head, keeping her gaze pointed away from both Estinien and Orn Khai both. “My brother…his last moments before he was struck down before my very eyes.”

Her heart thumped dully and painfully in her chest.

“His desperate attempt to get me to run.”

She could feel the arrow fletching between her fingers all over again. The taut feeling of the string being pulled back. The angry release of both arrow and scream.

“But…I didn’t. And…” Nomin paused, eyes darting from grass blade to grass blade as memories replayed in her mind. “And so I was taken and made to be a warrior for his killers. Stripped of my tribe of the time -- stolen from my sister who could only imagine what happened to me after.”

Nomin rested her hands at either side of her and curled her fingers tightly against the stone.

“Did you ever meet her again after?” Orn Khai’s voice spoke through and into their minds, curious and probing. He had raised his gaze up at Nomin as he adjusted himself to lay half of himself in her lap.

“... I…” Nomin started in response. She frowned and then sighed. “No. I tried. I saw her before I left the Steppe. But I just…I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” Orn Khai edged more into Nomin’s lap

“Shame. Uncertainty. Lingering sorrows…” Nomin said, offering simple responses that felt relevant at first. “The last time I had seen her, it was before our brother was stolen away from us by the tribe of Jhungid. I was scared to face her. Scared to know her words. Scared by the very notion that she would reject me -- blame me -- because of Esenaij’s death. I was scared of the potential of knowing that one person that loved me as family no longer did.”

She had long to think about why she never faced Bayarmaa. Why she left Turakina instead with a message for Bayarmaa.

Nomin scoffed, her gaze distant.

“It pains me all the time when I think about how I desperately wanted to see her again -- to think that I would be safe with her again when I was with the Jhungid. It pains me further that once I was free of them, I thought it best to simply…leave. Was I right? Was I wrong? I still find myself terrified of a solid answer.”

Silence washed over them again, and all that greeted them was a gentle breeze that flowed over the land. It was refreshing. Crisp. Rolling in from the Tail Mountains and bringing its gentle chill with it.

“I would suggest that before you face her, perhaps you should face yourself…” Estinien suggested, his eyes pointed in the direction of the ever towering Dawn Throne. He had started removing the clasps of his gauntlets.

“What do you mean?” Nomin asked.

“Far be it for me to inquire as to your reasons…” Estinien began in response. He had removed his gauntlets and placed them to the side of him. Reaching over, he rubbed a finger across Nomin’s horn, removing a loose layer of flaking paint from it.

However, Nomin herself had felt her neck and cheeks flush hot as a blush rushed up. She swatted his arm away and quickly got up, displacing Orn Khai back into flapping his wings and remaining airborne. Nomin could only look at Estinien with a look of disbelief as to his actions.

“Explain yourself!” Nomin demanded, her tail twitching and curling off to the right. The only grace she had at the moment was knowing as the sky darkened the land, so too did her blush remain hidden.

“Temper yourself,” Estinien replied, furrowing his brow. He then turned over his finger, now blackened by flaky paint. “‘Twas loose. I did not think it would elicit such a response.”

Nomin stared, her mouth falling slightly agape. She was in disbelief more than anything.

“Do…what do you think that is?” Nomin asked. In her mind, she believed that Estinien thought what coated his finger were flaking scales.

“Paint, clearly.”

Nomin huffed and folded her arms over her chest. So she had been wrong. Regardless, her frown deepened as she said: “I must ask you never ever, ever touch my horns or scales ever again.”

#ffxivwrite2023 #ffxiv #ffxiv writing #my writing #ffxiv oc #oc: nomin tal kheeriin #estinien wyrmblood #estinien varlineau #orn khai #stb spoilers #stb dragoon quest bits #update now that i'm more awake:#i must have been out of it toward the end #because how dare i not even resolve that question my character had #wheezes #that'll be fun to revisit when i'm getting to that point in my main writing though

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nymfaia · 2 years

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I've always kind of headcanoned that Alta was so quiet and struggled to speak as an adult due to vocal cord injuries she obtained after the Hotgo tribe massacre. She was so young when it happened that her first response wasn't to shut down, like it often is in the MSQ now: it was to scream. And scream she did.

Her grief was so inconsolable that she lost her voice. By the time it began to come back, she had been taken in by the Kha.

The Kha never hear her speak above a whisper. Her entire tenure in their tribe was in silence or murmurs. It was not until she traveled to Eorzea, where people were ignorant of her history, and got off the boat in Limsa Lominsa, where the drunkards were more than willing to tell her to speak up, that she realized she would need to use her voice just a little more.

Eorzea was good for her healing. Over time, she slowly outgrew her coping mechanism, but her voice retained the scratchy, breathy characteristics from the strain she had put on them years ago.

By the time Heavensward rolled around, she had, more or less, found a morsel of peace. She still struggled with her Eorzean, and still preferred silence over filling space, but her spirit was on the mend.

And then Haurchefant died.

That was the first time any of the Scions - or her Ishgardian companions, for that matter - had heard her raise her voice even a little. By the time she had depleted her mana and her hands were numb from the sheer amount of aether she was trying to channel into him, her pleas had evolved from shrill panic into cracked, wispy begging.

And then Ysayle died, too.

Alta didn't speak for the remainder of Heavensward. For the second time in her life, she had begged and pleaded for her loved ones to respond - and for the first time, she had the ability to save them.

And she had failed both Haurchefant and Ysayle.

Her losses set her back several, several years in her trauma recovery, and it wasn't until she got to the Steppe and recognized Cirina that she began to make slow headway once again.

#ooc 🍑 peaches & queues.#☄️ alta ; hcs.#death tw #stb spoilers #sb spoilers #hw spoilers #hvnswrd spoilers

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queenofnohr · 2 years

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yaknow the rules on ascians body snatching is kinda vague

cuz like…… obviously we see lahabrea do it to someone who’s like. still in there. not dead.

but as far as possessing corpses goes like…… putting aside Elidibus with Zenos and Fandaniel since an unknown amount of time passed since those corpses were buried. Ardbert should not be fucking possible?

And like this wouldn’t really be a whole Thing except for the fact that Emet-Selch keeps meat puppets with his face around bc he doesn’t wanna go through the process of having a new host body become him again???? But like what. Determines when you actually have to switch bodies. Like Ardbert had been dead for 100 years that body is gone, man. But if they have the power to restore a body then like…… what is keeping them from reusing one for as long as they want.

Also just like. I know I put aside Zenos-Elidibus & Fandaniel but they possessed corpses. If it was a matter of “can this body function any more” then like…… no? It can’t? It’s dead? But even then. Even if it’s like “as long as it’s a fresh corpse” why does Emet-Selch need his fucking little gumball machine of identical bodies to go into??? Why not just possess the same corpse over and over again? And if it’s like “okay but you’ll have to recover from whatever killed you” like Zenos-Elidibus was laid out in a hospital bed and Emet-Selch simply did not want to fucking do that, okay……. But again, Ardbert????? Hello?????

Also like…….. do they ever have to switch bodies if they’re fond of the one they’re in?

I have so many fucking questions frfr

I’m asking bc I need this knowledge for science (read: Ajax shard) but also bc usually I can finangle logic in my head to give me a suitable hc but in this case the more I think the more confused I get

#ffxiv spoilers #ff14 spoilers #shb spoilers #StB spoilers #arr spoilers #wasn’t there also a detail like ‘if an ascian body hops too much they lose their power’#which is why lahabrea went down like a bitch but Emet was fine #ACTUALLY THAT HAS TO BE FANON RIGHT????? cuz Emet literally switched his body right before shb we saw him do it and his spare bodies #lahabrea was literally just weak or gilgamesh #and if it is canon then it doesn’t make any sense cuz even if it has the same face emet’s body is new bro 😭😭😭#god this is driving me up the wall

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