u/---TheFierceDeity---

I have several alts I do soft RP on, play them like each character is part of a traditional Final Fantasy party. I don't like RP in chat or anything just write backstories etc. I've got a Lalafell who is going to be wearing the Gnath gear and arms and the PVP Black Mage "hooves", playing him as a stunted No-Mind Vath adventurer. Gonna get him the Chocobo Sleep Mask facewear to hide his face best I can so the headgear truly looks like his head.

But I'm stuck on the weapon/role in the party. I'm fairly particular about this and asked some people in game but most just said "claws" cause they're just picturing the Gnath being weird little beast dudes.

Now I want him to be a melee DPS for party dynamics but I cannot decide on a weapon. The Gnath in game are Thaumaturges, Lancers and Musketeers. The lancer ones use the Wukong Staff from online store so they're less lancer and more "bonk with sticks"

However the Gnath are also based on a FF12 race called the Urutan-Yensa, who are basically the same except different heads. And these guys can wield spears, katana, great swords, broadswords and shortbows. I've provided a series of images for reference.

So taking into account the images if you saw a diminutive little Gnath guy in a Final Fantasy party, think along the lines of Mog from FF6 or Cait Sith from FF7, Frog from Chrono Trigger etc, just the "funny little non-humanoid party member who can be pretty badass" what would you think would fit him best. Would a little Dragoon Gnath hero be epic, like he learned from the Ishgardians, would a little wasteland Samurai have the most aura, having dusty coats and giving off that "cowboy ronin" look, should be be a tank and one hand paladin swords or even a great sword?

Also assume ranged and caster roles are taken

Found someones lost little friend while out for my afternoon walk in the Australian countryside~ Thought it made a lovely collection of elements~

Hello there, I am back with a new post. I made a previous post on the 7.4 update to Cosmic Exploration [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1r9jpev/spoilers\_7174\_cosmic\_exploration\_for\_those\_not/?ref=share&ref\_source=link) and I thought it would be prudent to do a follow up post now that several worlds have completed the project to its endpoint! I shall go into a lot more detail than last time as this one planet had a lot to cover. If you just want the outcomes skip to Aftermath at the bottom .

So let us begin: Leaving off from where we ended last time on Oizys, after careful study of the starmap and working with the Studium, Garleans and Loporrit scientists we found ourselves once again upon the Galactic Way to our brand new destination. We arrived to a beautiful green planet covered in a sprawling cityscape, which the erstwhile Namingway decided to name: Auxesia, which in the real world is the name of a Greek Goddess of Spring (Image 1). Fitting name for a forested planet, which after short study is determined to be the Traveler's homeworld.

Phases 1-11: After landfell as before on the previous two worlds we set up a base camp and found our chosen location, the "Timberlodge" as Namingway dubbed it, was in fact used by the Travelers for a similar purpose, as a space port (Image 2). As with Oizys where every structure left by the alien species had being "grown" from the earth, all of the grand city before us has being shaped from trees. The buildings, all wood. The platforms we stand upon: wooden structures shaped onto the top of colossal trees so large the bottom (and true surface of the planet) cannot be seen. The road, cars, glass windows, street lights? All fashioned from wood. Some have metal mixed in but everything is to some degree wood or plant based

In the distance many points of interest were observed such as large domed structure with immense crystal formations on the roof, covered in withered trees (Image 3). Addition what was dubbed the "City Core", a structure towering above the already large buildings of the city, covered in white foliage and quite out of reach (Image 4). However not a single sign of life. Cars and vehicles mid transit abandoned in the middle of the street. Homes sealed and lifeless. It was as if everyone on the planet had just...disappeared overnight.

After a few "settling in projects" such as clearing the withered and evidently diseased overgrowth from our base and setting up facilities, the researchers set their sights on the "Sprouting Towerling" (Image 5). Determined to sit on the aetheric confluence and being connected to the rest of the city via "The Netroot" our objective was to reawaken this tower. As so we did, spraying it with a aetheric mixture (please ignore the strange colour and sparkling (Image 6)) and and it sprung back to life, which to our suprised caused the street lights in the local area to also turn back on, and giving the researchers access to the "Netroot" (Image 7)

Phases 12-22: With access to what seemed to be the planetary internet (though limited) several things were learned: Firstly the planets self maintenance system, the "Floracanes" a storm of pink petals which coincidentally cause Loporrits to behave drunk, which has the intended function of accelerating the decomposition of decayed plant matter had failed over time to prevent disease and overgrowth choking out the functions of the Netroot. Additionally the core of the Sprouting Towerling was the same jade crystal used to make the grand computers on Oizys. Finally by gaining access to the partially restored Netroot we learned the locations of a second tower. After clearing the way through a thicket of foliage we came upon the Sunning Towerling (Image 8)

Surrounding the tower were strange crystalline growths which with further testing revealed to be of extraterrestrial origin: These crystals were brought over from Oizys. They were of course not this large and overgrown at the time but it seems these crystals have over the long years absorbed the ambient aether in the air, growing large and problematic. Some further study later and it revealed our special yellow sparkly liquid aether cannons will not be enough to reviving this tower. However at its base were several energy ports that were determined to be capable of absorbing the crystals as a source of power. Hence we began the next project: Drilling the crystals and reactivating the Sunning Towerling. Upon successful reactivation we learned that these towers fuction as a "relay" network for the cities power supply and Netroot as well as what is believed to be the Auxesian natives language (Image 9).

Following another base upgrade we turned our sights of the large, overgrown yet dead looking dome (Image 3). Within it rests another tower of the relay network, the Rootling Towerling. However there is no way to access the dome. But the knowledge of the Travelers language plus the restored power to the city allowed us to access and used some of the derelict drones around the city. It turns out their function was gardening and shaping the trees: they have the power to encourage the plantlife to grow into whatever shape and direction they want. So after a round of charging these bad boys up we "made" a bridge using nearby roots (Image 10). With access to the dome we then swiftly got to work repeating the previous action taken on the Sunning Towerling: mining the crystals and powering it u). With that all said and done the Rootling Towerling was reactivated and the relay network almost full restored (Image 11). With the power restored the plantlife around and within the dome sprung to life, showing the relay network was also responsible for the flow of aether and vitality to the trees around it (Image 12)

Phase 22-30: One last base upgrade to give us flight capable mecha, we set our sights on the City Core. Data extracted from the Netroot revealed within the tower is a core system of the network, named "Grandma Laurel" due to it being the main system of the rest of the family of tower networks (Picture 4). Flying out upgraded suits to the top of the tower, we once again brought back our sparkly yellow aether cannons to revive the plantlife and thus restore some power to the tower (Picture 13). With some power restored, we were able to install a cosmoliner up to the tower so we wouldn't need mecha every time (Picture 14) and turned to the final project: Reactivating the core itself. Again with out sparkly cannons we revived the plantlife around the core, which restored the Netroot in it's entirety (Pictures 15, 16, 17).

Aftermath: With the local area of the city fully back online, and the Netroot restored the researchers activated Grandma Laurel and we were finally, after 3 planets and a moon greeted with our prize: The Nagylvi, the native inhabitants of this star (Image 18). Or rather a projection of one. The visual interface of the Netroot, it provided us with a small mobile unit (much like a mammet and yes we get it as a minion (Image 19) and as we toured the city with it, the secrets were revealed: They are a leafkin like race who over time gained autonomy. As suspected they used magic to shape the city into the form we saw it. They used roads and vehicles and teleportation for rapid transit.

They eventually developed advanced teleportation to reach their stars moons, then developed even more powerful gravitational magics to delve further into space aboard vehicles. However due to the gravity of their moons, they didn't realize how powerful these magics were and when they visited then left Oizys they accidentally destroyed the planet leaving it in the shattered state we found it in. But it was worth it for on Oizys they found a mineral that granted them immense amount of aether and "spirit" and thus Oizys was doomed to be pilfered of its riches and slowly ripped apart by repeat gravitational effects. They dubbed these green crystals "Sacred Dew Stones"

Over time their society flourished, powered by the dew stones growing into the great metropolis, with additional resources like the overgrown crystals we found during the project to help with construction projects. Alas eventually the Dew Stone mines on Oizys began to run dry, and their society began to flounder without it. The stone allowed them to advance to such a state and without it their grand cities would fall to waste. Some of the Nagylvi took back to the stars to try and find replacements, but never returned. The rest remained on Auxesia.

Facing the collapse of society, they chose a drastic action: to return to the trees that spawned them. Essentially they did their societies version of uploading their souls and minds to the internet. They became one with the great forest, discarding their bodies and all becoming one with the Netroot. However there was a unforeseen occurrence, obvious in hindsight but overlooked in the heat of the moment: with no one to tend to it, the forest would continue to grow. A city without workers to maintain it will fall into disrepair and a garden without gardeners will become overgrown. With the entire population uploaded into the Netroot, the trees grew wild, disease spread, roots withered and the Netroot began to lose power.

The Nagylvi were powerless to stop their own destruction, ironically because of the "digital" stasis they had placed themselves into wishing to avoid such a fate. Not that they noticed, for they were in a deep slumber. As our guide described it they were going to wither away and die, and not even realize it.

The Cosmic Exploration initiative arriving on the planet had....but sheer coincidence and luck...saved them. Our desire to simply turn back on the Netroots systems to find out the fate of the stars inhabitants, our pruning and clearing away of overgrowth and decayed trees, reactivating the towers, restoring life to the trees had inadvertently saved their entire species still in slumber. A fitting conclusion to the project to explore the stars post Final Days. We had finally found and made first contact with living, non-dynamis replicated, sapient extraterrestrial life (Outside the Dragons and little blue men from a certain detectives adventures)

For the time being the initiative is going to work with the Nagylvi to help restore the star to working order, to protect its people who still slumber within its trees deep within the Netroot (Image 20).

Just a final note this is an interesting comparison to the story of Dawntrail, where Calyx sought to protect his people via the Endless project. Both concluded the path to salvation was to shed their mortal bodies and trust in an artificially aetheric network to sustain their memories and souls. And both ultimately failed, tho the Nagylvi have being given a second chance via external intervention. Without the Dew Stones it's unlikely we can revive their society and culture but we can make sure the Netroot system remains operational and thus preserve their people in their stasis slumber within the trees.

Today my friends and I, a close knit community who met via FFXIV and have spent many years playing games and supporting each other, particularly the few who are streamers, were informed one of the best of us unfortunately and suddenly passed away on Monday.

Dyseal was an humble vtuber from Australia, themed around being a thunderbird. He played many games, FFXIV as noted, Path of Exile, Diablo, you name it.

After several years of me pestering him and sending him lore and yapping about it in his stream chat and on discord, he started to play Warframe. And he took to it like a fish to water. I've played since the game left open beta and due to laziness and my own tendency to burn out I've not even reach rank 30.

But Dyseal....Dyseal hasn't even being playing a year, he only got tempted in to finally Isleweaver and Oraxia. He was a known lover of monster girl designs and Oraxia spoke to him, he said even if she's not his favorite frame his honoria will never change off "Oraxia's Prey". So his 1 year anniversary of playing the game would've being next month.

In these 11 months of playing he logged nearly 1500 hours, and blew through those Mastery Ranks like a monster. Logging in this evening after running out of tears, I went to his profile and saw that the crazy bugger had actually hit Legendary 4, he just had to complete the test. But....he was taken suddenly before he got the chance.

During that time he played, he inspired many others to come play with him, and even tho I started my clan as a solo one so I wouldn't lose access to labs, via him it's grown. I even just these past few months invested into making sure every single research was done, just so we could upgrade the clan to let more people in.

He wasn't the biggest streamer but he was the most enthusiastic. He always brought a smile and energy to mine and others faces while playing, and was already ready to help people farm or do a mission or just play. IRL when I was having hard times he was one of the first to DM me and offer me his ear and even asking if I wanted to meet up in person. I....never got the chance. Distance and anxiety prevented me from doing so....and now I'll never see him again.

I don't know how I am going to log into this game and play it again knowing my buddy is gone. I don't know how to process the emotions I am feeling, but I wanted to share what an awesome Tenno he was. In those 11 months he was a bigger and more dedicated champion of this game than some who've played for a decade.

Wherever he is, I just know he's annoyed he didn't get to do that last ranking test 🤣

Thankyou for reading

Hello it's me again the WoL with the theory about the planets massive crack hole. With the online spoiler embargo up more people have being sharing their theories and I have found two separate ones I believe work in unison.

Some users online made note of the battle against Queen Eternal, more specifically the Extreme version. In that fight (both versions) the Queen is using the key to perform incomplete interdimensional fusion as part of her attacks

As a shard must exist for her to "pillage" aether from this means we are getting glimpses of the other surviving worlds. Understanding that, we note there are 3 distinct phases Queen Eternal performs during the Extreme. A Wind Phase, an Earth Phase and an Ice Phase (Image 1)

Okay so clearly I and the online theory mongers are proposing that the last two remaining mystery shards are currently experiencing a Wind and Earth catastrophe. But you need evidence which is where I believe one plot point in 7.5 and other theories come into it.

In 7.5 we use the key to travel to the 13th and reunite with Zero and Golbez. It's a very touching and cool way to do a Uber Delivery. However the story then makes us go visit Zero's domain and activate the beacons we created during Endwalker patches. It's neat and all but narratively is a rather random occurrence. We didn't need to do that if the point of this part of the story was simply to demonstrate the true power of Ethos.

However, what if the point of Maplhas and the beacons was simple to remind us that "The First is abundant in Light, and as a method of fixing the Dark abundant Thirteenth we created a bridge between the two to transfer aether from one to the other, as Light and Dark are opposed".

"Well duh that's obvious" yes but why was that necessary to remind is of *now*. Well we shall turn to our favorite elemental chart (Image 2)

As you can see I have done some annotating. We are going to the 4th in Evercold, a world bound in Ice. Not so coincidentally the aetherically opposing element to Ice is Lightning, which is what currently envelopes the 9th Shard which we just visited. Ice is also by "happenstance" one of Queen Eternal's phases during Interdimensional Fusion.

What else is aetherically opposed? Wind and Earth. Which "coincidentally" happens to be the two other phases of Queen Eternal Extreme.

So we have the pieces of a puzzle here. One of the 3 entities we know of that used Ethos, even if it was incorrectly, connected to other shards and produced Earth, Ice and Wind attacks. Combined with the Lightning of the 9th and the Light and Dark of the 1st and 13th respectively, we have 6 'elements' that all neatly sort into pairs of 2 that oppose each other. Which neatly aligns with the fact we have 6 Shards currently surviving after the last arc.

We were purposely reminded of a plot point where by connecting two opposing shards that are aetherically imbalanced it might be possible to reverse the effects of their respective calamities. While our ultimate goal is to prevent the "solstice" we are also going to need to help solve each Shards individual element imbalances. It's all well and good if we prevent the 4th from being absorbed but if we leave it a frozen snowball well that's not very heroic of us.

So in the course of preventing the planet from eating her shards and hitting the "reset button", we are going to need to find a way to "fix" each of the remaining shards. So by the end of this arc, I believe we shall be making special connections between the 1st and 13th (more robust than the current system), between the 4th and the 9th and then the 8th and the 11th where their respective over aspected aether will be drained into their opposing element to address the balance.

This can all tie back into the various "World Tree" Theories, as we can see in the middle of the chart. We will make a Interdimensional "intersection" at some point and use it to channel aether into between shards until they are restored, probably via this trees.

So in Evercold we might end up before the end of the expansion directly tethering the 4th to the 9th in some fashion, draining Astral Lighting aether to the 4th while sending Umbral Ice aether back to the 9th.

We will create 3 sets of "twin worlds" who shall help their partner heal from the designs of the Ascians while also simultaneously stopping the Solstice from rendering this recovery pointless.

So we've got all sorts of theories for the future of the games story in this new arc. We got World Trees and World Serpents and Bifrost brigdes but I wanna focus something that seems to be being left for later. Ever since Dawntrail was revealed and we got the new World Map people were asking about this "crack in the ocean". And unless something WILD happens in September in 7.5 MSQ Part 2 I think we won't get our answers this expansion. But regardless I've had a few theories about the grand chasm that splits the two halves of Tural (Image 1)

We haven't actually being told all that much about it, except that it is somehow related to the Turali's "Great Sunken Gods" and then there is this singular line in the second quest of the Dawntrail MSQ (Image 2)

Okay so it's implied the fissure in the earth might be the result of essentially the Sundering, the fight between Zodiark and Hydaelyn. We were in fact given a visual of this fight, at the start of the Evercold teaser trailer. We first saw the Star undergoing the Final Days, then a great shroud of purple enveloped the atmosphere which was then pierced by a blue light (Image 3)

After this the trailer transitioned into a little graphic about the shards and such. So with the events of 7.4-7.5 and the reveal of Evercold and the Keynote we know this new story arc is all about essentially dealing with the "after effects of the Sundering"

So knowing that, we know that the actual action of the Sundering, the fight between the two Elder Primals that saw Hydaelyn do a flying dropkick on Zodiark that hit so hard it shattered him and the planet into 14 pieces with 13 phased out of reality. Again we are shown this in Image 3.

From the MSQ Dialogue in Image 2 we know it left a physical impact. But looking closely at the fissure on the map, this isn't a mere crack. It's the "edge" of a larger impact, as we can see on the eastern most edge it tapers off to a point, but on the western side, right on the edge of the map we see more fissures. So this is a little "teaser" of something much more significant.

Now this part is a bit more wild speculation because the CGI trailers take a lot of liberties. But if we look at the trailer image again (Image 3) it seems like the impact happened in the "upper" part of the star. Now the World Map falls into the typical pitfalls of being a slight innacurate depiction of landmasses true locations, however we can go into space! So I present my helpfully annotated with stereotypical red circles image of the "Pacific Ocean" of Etheirys (Image 4)

So as we can see the country of Higashi, the most Eastern landmass we can see relative to Eorzea and the location of the city of Tuliyollal in Tural are relatively "high up" on the planet. If the Evercold trailer isn't overly lying about the rough location the battle between Hydaelyn and Zodiark went down, plus the great fissure separating North and South Tural being the only physical evidence of this battle we can predict somewhere in the white circle there is a massive "wound" to the star (Image 5) (sorry I'm not an artist bad paint copy paste is what you get)

As we learned in 7.5 the planet itself, whatever that means be it just "nature" or some supernatural entity we have yet to encounter, is trying to put itself back together. It is trying to "heal". I don't think this will come up in 8.0 but at some point during this brand new story arc, I have zero down we will be visiting or having to deal with the great gaping wound in the planet. Perhaps with the Hydaelyn-Zodiark storyline concluding with us going deep into space this Godless Realms Saga might conclude with us...going downwards, deep into the planet itself. I know we've being as "deep as possible" when we plunged into the Aetherial Sea to confront Hydaelyn but perhaps hidden out there in the "pacific ocean" is a great bleeding wound hidden from view by thousands of years of rejoinings and continental shifts and no one bothering to sail East from Hingashi.

Maybe that's where the Ridorana Lighthouse will be revealed to be, that the Clockwork City of Goug in FF14's setting was nearby to the already existing fissure and when Construct 8 fired its black hole weapon it caused the Island to collapse further into the hole.

There is a portion of the world hiding a big secret and it's not just Meracydia. The planet trying to heal itself isn't just going to be about the Shards, I believe there is a real physical *wound* that has being sitting there doing...maybe nothing while Hydaelyn kept the planet in a state of relative stasis. But with her gone maybe this wound has started to ache. Regardless there is something much bigger and I believe important out west of Tural.