Final Fantasy 14 Worldbuilding Guide
Jun. 14th, 2022 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrSince otherwise my specific posts will be even longer.
I'm only up to the start of Heavensward so so some of this will probably be wrong! There are some very vague spoilers but I've tried not to spoil anything significant.
Here's a map of the main world the story is set in:
Heres a much larger version.
The central continent is made up of Eorzea in the East, The Garlean Empire in the centre, and Othard to the West. Then there's the main islands around it: Northeast is Old Sharlayan, Southeast is La Noscea, South is Thavnair, West is Koshu.
I'll go into more detail about the specific countries below.
The collection of humanoid species in charge of the various countries they live in, in some cases after pushing out the earlier 'Beastmen' inhabitants. While every country has a tendency to be dominated by one species or another, 'Men' generally define themselves by their country and not their species. Afaict the line between 'mankind' and 'beastmen' is largely political, since some beastmen are very humanoid and some 'men' very animalistic.
Everywhere:
Hyur: Humans.
Roegadyn: Mildly orcish. Tall, bulky, often green.
Eorzea:
Elezen: Tall, thin elves.
Miqo'te: Catpeople, like short humans with cat ears and a tail.
Lalafell: Hobbitty. Look like very short chubby children.
Garlean Empire:
Garleans: Like tall humans with a little gem in their foreheads called a 'third eye'. The only 'men' unable to do magic, also the only 'mankind' species you can't choose as a player.
Othard/Koshu:
Au Ra: Dragon-ish, with horns, a tail, and scaled sections of skin.
Other:
Viera: Have bunny ears.
Hrothgar: Muscular all-male cat furries.
Dragons: Immortal, ancient, huge, all descended from Midgardsormr. Mostly live in Dravania.
Beastmen: native inhabitants who pre-date the arrival of mankind. As you can see they tend to be rather dark-coloured and 'tribal' looking in design. Some have very human-like personalities, others are animalistic or strange.
Ascians: Immortal, spirit-like beings who encourage mortals to cause huge calamities to bring on an apocalypse that will resurrect their god. The main villains.
Some countries are very obviously based on one place in terms of culture/names/architecture etc, while others are a mix. But overall the setting feels very obviously based on Europe and Asia.
Western countries:
Dravania (North East): Scandanavian dragons.
Coerthas/Ishgard (North): Northern Europe mixed with France, isolationist elezen.
Black Shroud (centre): Germany and England, forest dwelling elezen.
Ala Mhigo (centre west): North Africa and South Asia, dark skinned humans and miqo'te.
La Noscea (South East): Italy and Southern England. Roegadyn pirates.
Thanalan (South): The Middle East. Run by scheming lalafell, with sexy miqo'te in the desert.
The Garlean Empire in the center of the map is expansionistic, aggressively anti-religious, and xenophobic, seeing everyone else as ignorant 'savages' who need to be subjugated for their own good. They have a very Roman vibe but line up vaguely with Russia geographically. They do recruit local non-Garlean 'men' but it's hard for them to advance up the ranks.
Eastern Countries/'The Far East':
Azim Steppe (Centre North): Mongolia, noble warrior tribes of Au Ra.
Doma (East coast of main continent): Imperial Japan. Mostly human.
Koshu (Island off the East Coast): 1860s Japan. Mostly human.
All living beings are made in part of life energy, or "aether".
It is possible to summon 'eikons', powerful beings of aether. They take the form of something the summoner believes in, usually a god, and require both strong belief and lots of aether crystals. The summoned eikon is not actually a god, and while driven in part by the summoner's wishes, they mostly want mind-controlled worshippers and more aether. But they are a very effective way to kill your enemies if you're willing to pay the price.
Every time an eikon is summoned, it disrupts the aether/life energy of the world, and risks causing a huge disaster called an Umbral Calamity. Eikon summoning is thus forbidden, and only resorted to by the especially desperate. But the immortal Ascians are always there to show up at the side of anyone thinking about it, with encouragement and advice, because they want Umbral Calamities to happen.
The beastmen in Eorzea were driven from their lands by mankind and are often violently bitter about this. The narrative has thus far been very slightly sympathetic to this, and there's always peaceful beastmen you can trade with, but thus far they mostly show up to summon Eikons of their gods and get murdered for it.
The Garlean Empire claims to be saving the world from the dangers of eikons by taking countries over and violently preventing any summoning. 5 years ago they decided the aether-soaked land of Eorzea was too fertile a breeding zone for eikons and tried to wipe it off the face of the planet with a giant dragon eikon they'd found, but this just set off the Seventh Umbral Calamity.
20/25 years ago they took over Ala Mhigo and Doma respectively, and have been violently oppressing both ever since.
A Realm Reborn/ARR: the base game, as released at launch.
Heavensward/HW: the first expansion. About the conflict between the elezen of Ishgard and the dragons of Dravania.
Stormblood/SB: An expansion about Ala Mhigo and Doma.
Shadowbringers/ShB: An expansion about an alternate universe.
Endwalker/EW: The most recent expansion, I don't know what it's about!
The free trial covers ARR and Heavensward, for anything else you have to actually buy the game, which will include all expansions released to that point. I bought the game ages ago before Endwalker had come out yet.
I'm only up to the start of Heavensward so so some of this will probably be wrong! There are some very vague spoilers but I've tried not to spoil anything significant.
Here's a map of the main world the story is set in:
Heres a much larger version.
The central continent is made up of Eorzea in the East, The Garlean Empire in the centre, and Othard to the West. Then there's the main islands around it: Northeast is Old Sharlayan, Southeast is La Noscea, South is Thavnair, West is Koshu.
I'll go into more detail about the specific countries below.
Mankind/'Men'
The collection of humanoid species in charge of the various countries they live in, in some cases after pushing out the earlier 'Beastmen' inhabitants. While every country has a tendency to be dominated by one species or another, 'Men' generally define themselves by their country and not their species. Afaict the line between 'mankind' and 'beastmen' is largely political, since some beastmen are very humanoid and some 'men' very animalistic.
Everywhere:
Hyur: Humans.
Roegadyn: Mildly orcish. Tall, bulky, often green.
Eorzea:
Elezen: Tall, thin elves.
Miqo'te: Catpeople, like short humans with cat ears and a tail.
Lalafell: Hobbitty. Look like very short chubby children.
Garlean Empire:
Garleans: Like tall humans with a little gem in their foreheads called a 'third eye'. The only 'men' unable to do magic, also the only 'mankind' species you can't choose as a player.
Othard/Koshu:
Au Ra: Dragon-ish, with horns, a tail, and scaled sections of skin.
Other:
Viera: Have bunny ears.
Hrothgar: Muscular all-male cat furries.
Other sentient species
Dragons: Immortal, ancient, huge, all descended from Midgardsormr. Mostly live in Dravania.
Beastmen: native inhabitants who pre-date the arrival of mankind. As you can see they tend to be rather dark-coloured and 'tribal' looking in design. Some have very human-like personalities, others are animalistic or strange.
Ascians: Immortal, spirit-like beings who encourage mortals to cause huge calamities to bring on an apocalypse that will resurrect their god. The main villains.
The Countries I've Seen
Some countries are very obviously based on one place in terms of culture/names/architecture etc, while others are a mix. But overall the setting feels very obviously based on Europe and Asia.
Western countries:
Dravania (North East): Scandanavian dragons.
Coerthas/Ishgard (North): Northern Europe mixed with France, isolationist elezen.
Black Shroud (centre): Germany and England, forest dwelling elezen.
Ala Mhigo (centre west): North Africa and South Asia, dark skinned humans and miqo'te.
La Noscea (South East): Italy and Southern England. Roegadyn pirates.
Thanalan (South): The Middle East. Run by scheming lalafell, with sexy miqo'te in the desert.
The Garlean Empire in the center of the map is expansionistic, aggressively anti-religious, and xenophobic, seeing everyone else as ignorant 'savages' who need to be subjugated for their own good. They have a very Roman vibe but line up vaguely with Russia geographically. They do recruit local non-Garlean 'men' but it's hard for them to advance up the ranks.
Eastern Countries/'The Far East':
Azim Steppe (Centre North): Mongolia, noble warrior tribes of Au Ra.
Doma (East coast of main continent): Imperial Japan. Mostly human.
Koshu (Island off the East Coast): 1860s Japan. Mostly human.
Aether and Eikons
All living beings are made in part of life energy, or "aether".
It is possible to summon 'eikons', powerful beings of aether. They take the form of something the summoner believes in, usually a god, and require both strong belief and lots of aether crystals. The summoned eikon is not actually a god, and while driven in part by the summoner's wishes, they mostly want mind-controlled worshippers and more aether. But they are a very effective way to kill your enemies if you're willing to pay the price.
Every time an eikon is summoned, it disrupts the aether/life energy of the world, and risks causing a huge disaster called an Umbral Calamity. Eikon summoning is thus forbidden, and only resorted to by the especially desperate. But the immortal Ascians are always there to show up at the side of anyone thinking about it, with encouragement and advice, because they want Umbral Calamities to happen.
The beastmen in Eorzea were driven from their lands by mankind and are often violently bitter about this. The narrative has thus far been very slightly sympathetic to this, and there's always peaceful beastmen you can trade with, but thus far they mostly show up to summon Eikons of their gods and get murdered for it.
The Garlean Empire
The Garlean Empire claims to be saving the world from the dangers of eikons by taking countries over and violently preventing any summoning. 5 years ago they decided the aether-soaked land of Eorzea was too fertile a breeding zone for eikons and tried to wipe it off the face of the planet with a giant dragon eikon they'd found, but this just set off the Seventh Umbral Calamity.
20/25 years ago they took over Ala Mhigo and Doma respectively, and have been violently oppressing both ever since.
The Story Sections
A Realm Reborn/ARR: the base game, as released at launch.
Heavensward/HW: the first expansion. About the conflict between the elezen of Ishgard and the dragons of Dravania.
Stormblood/SB: An expansion about Ala Mhigo and Doma.
Shadowbringers/ShB: An expansion about an alternate universe.
Endwalker/EW: The most recent expansion, I don't know what it's about!
The free trial covers ARR and Heavensward, for anything else you have to actually buy the game, which will include all expansions released to that point. I bought the game ages ago before Endwalker had come out yet.
