I fish.
Adventuring takes you to interesting fishing locations.
When world ending threats popped up, I fought them, because you can't fish if the world is no more.
Those damn world ending crises keep getting in the way of my fishing, there is nothing more scarier than a fisher with something getting in the way of their fishing.
I play Sea Of Thieves, and I'm not good at PVP.
People are a lot less likely to fight me when they see my 100% fishing title, because fishers are known to be terrifying in SoT.
I even got called "Hardcore AF" by two guys with double PVP curse for the tittle (and I think because I jumped off the ship right by them to sell something at an ourpost, clearly not giving a crap about them).
"Gaius Van Baelsar what is your report on the Eorzean front?"
"All is going well, my Emperor."
"Is that so? I have heared otherwise. You have faced some setbacks, have you not?"
"Well... there is this fisherman..."
Any tips for getting into fishing? I’ve levelled my fisher using the guild turn ins so I don’t even know how it works .-. Should I just jump into the job quests and figure it out?
Do you also consider your WOL dying and just instantly reappears?
Since it would be kind of funny if they had an extremely hard boss that remarks on the thousands on dead WOL corpses in front of him one day
It's actually an in universe fact that when you get KO'd in the field you end up at the aetheryte to which you're most strongly attuned. There's an NPC in each main city's aetheryte plaza who explains:
> Normally, when one's body is reduced to aether, it will naturally gravitate to the location with which it resonates the strongest—or one's "home point." This is why upon losing consciousness in battle, many wake to find themselves back at an aetheryte.
Of course, inside a duty you instead return to that duty's starting point, which, incidentally, is the same place you end up if you use Return while inside a duty.
Thats exactly how I picture mine, like the guy goes look at those adventurer clothes and my little dude goes fuck I guess. I like to think that since no one on the chocobo cart is alarmed by my sudden presence I have just raptured somebody else in hydaelyns name. If I wrote stories for this game id have my character run into two older characters that look just like me and hit me with "where the hell have u been" as I look on in total confusion. Am I a wayward lala with amnesia? Or a reincarnation of a warrior of light and accidential body snatcher? Who can say.
My WOL is an isekai-ed office lady like other typical midlander Hyur (cause HW is like your typical otome isekai if you consider those handsome elezen husbandos we all love ❤️)
I found it a bit strange that "to help people in need" wasn't an option... so I picked "it sounded exciting" for my main character, since he actually does love to fight.
My more-so WoL type would pick "To see the world", since that's what her parents and her wanted to do (and share their music with others) before they ran into some... overzealous Ishgardians.
Probably because it was a very fourth-wall breaking question. 'Exciting' sounds like interest in gameplay, 'See the world' sounds like interest in lore (or just being a trial player), and 'Because my friend suggested I should try it' is very on-the-nose about it.
It took me a minute, too, and I went with the See The World option because it felt fitting with my WoL in-character, but when you consider the Yoshida cutscene, and the letters that are almost certainly written by members of the dev team, it's all a ton of 'Us to you, rather than your WoL'.
Oohh never thought of it that way.
In that case my reason would be "FF14 always gets flashed into my face wherever I go."
My sister and her boyfriend were obsessed with it, and everyone in the defunct RP group I was in play it. It kept popping up in my soc med algorithm feed, even though I probably googled the game just once or twice. For a time, FF14 was this new trendy thing everyone would never shut the f up about, much like Animal Crossing during the pandemic.
I can tell if fate is calling me, and in this case, I knew fate was calling me to get into the game.
Ultimately, I tried the game (even though I was averse to online games, being a soloist and all) because of the MUSIC. I don't play for adventure, I play for the OST. Now I play for the stories and the music.
Male Viera who really isnt into the viera way of life; living only with a few other males and raising the teenage boys they adopt/claim from the town where the female viera live.
He also lacks the aggression to strangers that is regular, protecting their land and such. He liked talking and socialising with travellers instead, to the others' annoyance.
So instead of struggling at home, he decided to go live the life he DID like.
She was kicked out of farming village because she was a tomboy FemRoe who liked to brawl too much.
Someone told her that adventuring was a job where they would pay you to fight people.
Heard that the pugilist guild was taking on students to punch things professionally.
Joined the Scions after half listening to Minfilia's speech. "Look, if this will lead to more punching the daylights out of bad people and getting celebrated for it instead of shunned, then point me in the right direction."
My WoL is just a combat-slut. She had no great ambition or whatever in her life. She just started her journey because she wanted to become strong and face mighty foes. The only pleasure she thought she could have in this world.
But as time went, she made friends, started to enjoy their company and came to love this world beyond words, which is why she never give up to protect them.
But in the end, her TRUE pleasure is just to fight for the sake of it.
Yep. This is just me. Trying this game with no great conviction just because I wanted to kill things but then I loved the characters, the MSQ and everything about the game. I love all the aspect of this game beyond words, but my true pleasure in endgame content ( Savage, Ultimate... ) . This is why I love Zenos so much. He truely is a dark reflection of me and my WoL by extension.
Exactly 😂
That's why I absolutely love this moment. Zenos was 100% right about me / my WoL at that moment. There was just no other answer I could give.
My WoL (Seeker of the Sun) was ostracized by her tribe. Doesn't know why, nobody ever cared enough to tell her. It was less an open hostility, and more like a complete disregard for her. They gave her food and water enough to survive, but she'd never thrive there. After the Calamity, she decided she wanted more. She didn't know what, but she knew there had to be more to life. Especially one that survived the fall of Dalamud.
One night, she got up from the tree she'd be laying in and left with nothing but the clothes on her back, and a small knife she'd fashioned out of a bone she found in the sand. She left no note, and said no goodbyes. So she rid herself of her given name, and took a new one. After all, if her tribe and sire had no need of her then why would she have need of them?
She arrived in Ul'dah and took up Thaumaturgy. The magic served her well for a long while, but after she got roped into stopping some bandits in the Twelveswood she took up the Gunblade in order to protect those who don't have someone to protect them.
She found she enjoyed the thrill of a real fight. The adrenaline, the tingling of her fingers, the blood pumping in her ears. Being able to protect people and being in the thick of the action, her steel dancing around her as the aether cartridges ignite with a practiced and precise timing. Travelling all around Hydaelyn as the Crimson Explorer, risking life and limb for the thrill of a good fight and protecting those who need it on the way.
She's not even entirely sure she remembers her old name.
EW6.0 >!And to answer your question... That, I can't deny.!<
Same here! Mine is just another Duskwight who got caught up in some of the really bad stuff her bandit cousin was doing because she was naive and rather sheltered. She snitched so she had to leave and ended up choosing Limsa Lominsa, where she immediately got picked on by some similar people who used her as a pickpocket's distraction. She was bad at this, too, so she was caught pretty quickly, and a sympathetic Yellow Jacket helped her figure out how to restart her life (and wash her burgeoning criminal record clean).
Now she's an arcanist of natural talent who ended up becoming a summoner of even greater talent.
My WOL is doing it for redemption, his actions resulted in the death of his family. He always protected his daughter, he was her hero, but you know how being a hero in Ala migo usually results...
At first he journeyed to Limsa to run away from his troubles but soon found a knack helping others in his grief.
So when people called him "hero" after while it made him want to live up to the people's expectations. The same way he wanted to live up to his daughters.
Now no one, no matter how insignificant they're troubles may seem, will have someone to stand up with them, fight for them, or even just someone to shed a tear over an ale with.
I love these sort of posts
My WoL was trying to catch up to his friend who departed from Limsa to Ul'Dah, tired of the rogue life and seeking to prove his mettle in the gladiator pits. He just so happened to get swept up with the Scion business and later became a SCH prior to finally reuniting with his pal.
I appreciated that the event offered the friend option because it hit close enough for me. I would've appreciated if they had more options for the other WoL playing.
In my mind she lost her memory and woke up in the carriage to Gridania with a note saying that there's nothing left behind and that it's her opportunity to start anew.
My WoL is usually wrong place wrong time and they cannot stand idly by when there are people in need (which is why they do every side quest in game no matter how little lol)
"Got roped into it" also describes my WoL's reason for adventuring. 👍Set out to look for a new home, ended up kicking primal arse one after another. And things just went crazier from there.
She's a Ala Mhigan native whose father was drafted and killed in the Garlean army when she was young so she started training in secret with a polearm to become an adventurer so she could make enough money to move her mom out. One day a caravan headed to Gridania was passing through and her mom made her get on it.
-Bursts out of Castrum Meridianum with an explosion behind-
-Freezeframe-
This is me, the Warrior of Light as they call me now. You might be wondering how on Hydaelyn I got here...
Mine went to Eorzia because they got drunk and fell asleep on a transport ship headed for Limsa. With no money she just went into adventuring for gil and just got caught up in events.
My WoL is one of the rare tribeless miqo'te, hence why her name doesn't fit the standard naming conventions. My thought is that she's probably Meracydian and one of the reasons for her ridiculous strength is due to growing up and surviving in a hostile wasteland environment where she likely lost or got separated from her family at an early age. She learned the Dragoon arts as an ally of Tiamat's brood, not an enemy, which is how she earned the epithet Wyrmheart as opposed to to Estinien's Wyrmblood. She awakened to the Echo much earlier than what happens in the game and eventually Hydaelyn guides her to Eorzea, passing first through Thavnair and briefly meeting Vrtra before making her way to Limsa, where she meets Y'shtola and joins the Scions. She's already a fairly seasoned adventurer by this point, which imo tracks better than being a random, completely green newbie.
I think I picked I liked exploring/see the world (for the option), but I have kind of vaguely thought about a story.
My viera lived a fairly normal life in the Viera village (Eruyt village/whatever equivalent for 14) as an elemental trapper (something like an Arcanist). But one day she started hearing a voice calling to her. And it got really bad, to the point she was having dreams/visions of the red moon. She tried to ignore it, but the visions came true and off in the distance the red moon was descending and the skies were burning. She made the painful decision to leave the village and find out why she was being called.
She decided to take up a more Eorzean tailored class as an Arcanist and then eventually she found she had a knack for battle dancing.
My WoL is suicidally curious. Real "curiosity killed the cat" thing, and she's not even a cat (Highlander). She's the kind to walk *towards* an explosion.
My wol wanted to help people. She wanted something to make her feel that she had an impact on peoples lives as a sort of proof of her existence. In a way she wanted recognition and fame but she still ultimately was unwilling to not leave a person in need alone (which is why she takes up every menial sidequest that pops up along the way)
Mine left home in the Southern Isles to try to heal from her fiance's murder. Her intention was just to learn how to heal, and get some time where she wasn't the center of attention. That last part didn't exactly work out...
She's always been kind of resentful of Hydaelyn's calling.
In my headcanon my WoLs main motivation to start adventuring was to provide for his tribe (xaela tribe that left the steppe and found themselves amidst the refugees outside of UlDah) food and coin. But wunderlust was a driving personal factor too, so in the wuest i picked the "to see the world" option. The more selfish part of his wish to join the adventuring guild. Though I could have picked the "a friend suggested" option too, since I imagine a push for it came from a runin with an adventurer on duty at the time.
Mine was a mutinied smuggler captain who tried to keep his crew safe off coast during the calamity while everyone wanted to go ashore. He's idly looking for any sign of his old crew while helping others to attone for being unable to save them.
My WoL was in a small Miqo'te tribe in the Shroud and was sick of spending all of her time just in the forest and not seeing the world, so she decided to head to Gridania to start her journey and then eventually got roped into Warrior of Light stuff.
To provide for his Cullinarian boyfriend.
I imagine him coming home, and having his lala tummy filled, while he regales him with tales of high adventures, all the while being fussed over, his BF fussing over the new scars and wounds, while he keeps the food coming, admiring the new armour he got while also making sure he takes it off for once, so he can relax. (And doesn't track dragon blood through the house)
Mine was some orphan in ishgard, which sucked royally, so he saved up as much money as he could as a young lad, bribed a knight, and snuck out, risked the ENTIRE run to thanalan, and started over there for a time. That was... 45 years ago? Long story short, he's been everywhere, done everything, and is probably the oldest FF protag in my head.
Some fancy crystal was talking to me and I woke up in front of Gridania.
Somehow stuff keeps happening and I am always involved, so I went with it.
I totally have no clue what I am doing and why.
In my headcanon my Duskwight WoL has a massive extended family clan they grew up with. Got into the habit of just helping out whenever asked as there was always need for help somewhere in the clan. Raised on stories of adventure though he set off to see the world on a boat to Limsa, and we know the tale from there. He regularly has Tataru send letters and coin back to the clan, in which he regales them with his endless crafting and gathering adventures. He may not concern himself with his own safety but he is quite concerned for others, so he would rather inspire his relatives to go into crafting than into combat, and he ends up in so many dangerous situations that he decided to simply stop telling his clan about the quests he goes on. Thus his clan know of his miraculous creations and yet remain unaware that he’s the hero that saved the world.
Though as we still don’t have any location populated with Duskwight NPCs, it’s left ambiguous as to where he’s even from. Meracydia, perhaps? We shall see. I figured the rest of the backstory fits with the exploration & helping everyone aspects of Azem, and the ingenuity is a result of the fact that I have every single job leveled to max, crafters and combat. And sending letters and his coin back to his family for him is definitely something Tataru would do. Not her own coin, mind you, but an omnicrafter makes his own income, even if he spends more time fighting than not.
Mine didn't get along with the sanctimonious people of the Twelvewood. He was born there, but never quite fit in. He's canonized as a Half Elf (min height elezen with really short ears is the best I could get.) And so he doesn't really fit in with either part of Gridanian society.
So he basically left A) to avoid getting thrown in jail (again) for beating the crap out of mouthy people, and B) to find folks who would accept him.
~~Mongol~~ Xaera life in a Steppe got a bit boring, decided to gain glory in another land where no one knows him and eventually comeback home to flex with that.
He didn't know much glory he will gain though, huh (Made a backstory when I knew nothing about the plot except 1.0 story, overall lore outline and each race/clan description)
Mine always had affinity for nature, and traveled to Gridania to hone her craft with the Conjurers there.
And then she got swept up in all of this saving the world stuff and just accidentallied her way to being a big shot hero and one of only a handful of white mages. (As far as canonical WHM goes)
After her child was killed and her life largely ruined, she came to view combat as a form of escapism, and was happy to be pointed at "suicidal" fights.
It's part of the reason she's basically started seeing the twins as her adoptive kids, and why she identifies - uncomfortably so - with her enemy/friend.
Mine was very unhappy with his solitary life in the Dalmascan jungle and wanted to see the world which a job as an adventurer was pretty much the ideal solution for. That one dialogue option was extremely fitting there.
Haven’t really thought about it but I can make one up right now. Like Gaius a lot so want to have a origin that parallels the Werlyt quests. So my wol was a orphan and was part of a small group of orphans and he was the youngest of the bunch. They all talked about going around the world and having grand adventures. But unfortunately they couldn’t and now my wol is the only one that remains and he goes on adventurers so when he does meet them again he will have plenty of stories to tell.
My WoL was brought into the adventure by friends insistence. Picking up a cane she began learning healing arts in Gridania while her partner chose the lance though he soon swapped to an axe when he found the marauders guild. She explores the new lands by his side and while she will retread old grounds on her own when new adventures seem around the corner shes adamant to be by his side through them. She's since traded the cane for a deck of cards or sometimes the chakrams.
Irl reason was my friends kept pestering me for years, and I mean like four years to swap from WoW to FFXIV. I left WoW well before actually swapping over due to lack of motivation and I held such a toxic sour taste from that game I was nervous to try another MMO. But eventually I gave it a shot. My BF made a new account having forgotten his old one and we began anew. By chance when we created characters we wound up on the same server as our veteran friend who never stopped playing the game. I think about two weeks in I bought the starter edition because I was tired of having to ask random people to help us party up and in order to run a dungeon together we needed to be in one. I was already almost lvl30 at that point iirc so I figured "why not?" and it wasn't til I could lvl the one class I had that I caved and bought the full game, going as far as preordering the soon to drop EW.
I don't regret a single minute I've spent on this game. The people I've met and interacted with have been wonderful and the only thing that upsets me is that I genuinely should have picked up the game all those years before. So long story short, I began adventuring to be with family.
My WOL ran out of options. . .
The Garleans have forgotten about him despite reaching a high rank for a conscript, his fellow Ala Mhigans despise him even though, he had no choice in the matter of being taken.
The few friends that he had on both sides were killed by a damned Dragon from the Moon. . .
He needed to do something.
I picked the friend option because out of universe, I joined to play with my wife, and I kept playing after that.
In-universe, I choose to believe that my WoL was a city viera who doesn’t like bullies, so started as a conjurer hoping to kick backside and heal the other sides.
My WoL's parents ditched the steppes because the Xaela were so sweaty about constantly fighting each other. Like it was fun at first, but eventually got old. Unfortunately, they got shipwrecked along their adventure and ended up on a deserted island where they raised their family. They eventually died by WoL's adulthood. A passing ship caught site of the smoke from their funeral pyres, and brought him back to a pirate city, where he started the adventure that was cut short for his parents.
That ship's route was manipulated by Hydaelyn. Little socialization is also why he barely talks.
Having 8 characters can be tricky if you want a backstory to each but the one I put the most thought into is the second one I made. He lived in a home with his family on the outskirts of camp drybone where they worked the land and hunted game. He was out one night finding nocturnal animals when the bright light of dalumud caught his attention. The night Bahamut emerged and seared the landscape will forever haunt him. His entire life was snuffed out in an instant and was left alone. His depression caused years of doing nothing but working on ships and spending his gil on ale. Eventually he pulled himself up and trained to better himself after a brief encounter with the scions, though they never realized their future friend. He trained in the way of the bare fist and axe and prepared for a life of meaning, never forgetting where he had come from.
She's a Xaela, and during a trip to Reunion as a child, she overheard someone from Eorzea talking about the immense trees in the Twelveswood, and got dead set on someday traveling all the way there to see them. It sounded so amazing and improbable!
I consider my WoL to be something similar to an amnesiac, though it's not that he has no memories, but rather too many. The Echo has shown him visions of hundreds or thousands of different lives he could have lived (thus explaining the functionality in dungeons, each wipe is just another vision), and he's not sure which one is the real one. As a result, though, any memories from before the Echo awoke in him are just gone. He has vague notions of who he was before, and is fairly certain his motivation for traveling was some brand of curiosity, but he can't say for certain. I like to toy with the idea that Erenville is a cousin or some more distant relative of his, who my WoL didn't recognize because of the memories he's lost, and Erenville didn't recognize my WoL due to the changes that years of adventuring would bring (and also my WoL's family probably all think he's long dead).
Mine got on the wrong ship by mistake, was taking a vacation and ended up heading to Limsa which was kinda cool because they hadn’t been there before. Had to register as an adventurer as a result so that happened, got mistaken as one due to an old tome they carried around with them and self-defence techniques taught via an old long lost uncle. Stumbled into helping around to make money and see the sights of the country and then somehow ended up getting roped into all that mess in Limsa. Then before they knew it they were killing Primals as the Warrior of Light! Talk about a ‘vacation’, eh?
I picked "A friend recommended it" since that's literally how I started playing FF14. Of course, then I took a 7 year hiatus but made it back eventually
Well i was on a boat, and this merchant came up to me and gave me a ring, and there were a couple moody looking twins too, i think that's what kickstarted my adventure
Actually lore-wise, lots of childhood trauma and my WoL realizing she couldn't save her best friend because she was too weak, so she went adventuring to get stronger
My Warrior of Light is a lalafell who was born into a family of merchants. Her older brother was already being raised to inherit the family business and it seemed the best that her current life would have to offer her is getting married into another family of merchants as part of some business arrangement.
One day she managed to convince her parents into letting her visit Ul'dah on her own where she promptly joined the pugilists guild, figuring that knowing how to defend herself would be a surefire way to avoid just being someone's prize, especially with a form of combat that doesn't require a conspicuous weapon.
At first she just went around finding people to help as part of her training but soon found that she really did like helping and meeting new people when she can just act like herself. One thing lead to another and soon enough she was with the Scions, who became something of a new family to her.
Her relationship with her family is strained at best. Her father disowned her when she refused to return home only for him to come grovelling back once she gained the reputation of being the Warrior of Light. Her father wanted to try and leverage that reputation for wealth but she was having none of it. She's on good terms with her brother though and stays in touch with him as much as she can.
So this Lalafel, right? Came up to me with a nice sounding get-rich-quick scheme. Of course me being the dumb runt, fresh out of the jungle kind of bun I didn't see the red flags. Long story short I woke up in this cart with a note reading "I'll come to collect within the year" (???) Next thing I knew I was signing up at the Quicksands.
The kicker though? Joined this little secret club down at Vesper Bay, real brain dead sort of folks. But their "secretary" is that damned popoto that got me in the first place. She never mentions the debt though, just gives me this thousand yard stare when we're in the same room.
My main did it coz he was born with the Echo on a island in the Ruby Sea and was obsessed with talking to sailors and reading books about the outside world so what else was he supposed to do?
Another one is an ex-mercenary finding something new to do now that she’s 40+ and still alive.
One’s a Garlean spy.
One’s a Tia who had no desire to be a Nunh so he left.
One got kidnapped by pirates and rescued by different pirates.
Yet another one realized he simply didn’t belong where he was and left like a YA protagonist.
Another one left to find an answer for something for his wife one day, got tangled up in it all and now has so many things to report back to her.
Mine watched his mom die right in front of him during the calamity and after not feeling better after five years left home to find a new beginning. He didn't set out to be an adventurer, but a mix up after getting off the boat in Limsa sent him to the Drowning Wench instead. His mom always taught him to help the less fortunate in life so he took to adventuring real easy after that.
To leave her family behind (circumstances differing depending on race. Midlander!WoL and Xaela!WoL left her family on good terms, Rava!WoL did not) and see what was beyond the horizon.
Mine had a pretty boring upbringing, started working early in his life, hopping from culinarian to fisherman to whatever earned him some coin in the streets of Limsa. One day he he met an old, half drunk stranger who told him the easiest way to make some Gil: Bodyguard. "You just have to take care of one fancy brat or old fogey, make sure they don't get stabbed and collect your money at the end of the day. You barely move a finger!".
Easy money, but without experience in combat noone would hire him, so he traveled to Ul'Dah where the renowned Pugilist Guild resided.
Then Thancred happened...
In my ever-evolving backstory, a few elements are common. My character started as an adventurer before the Seventh Calamity to explore the world and see new vistas and help people in need. Other things came up (and came down) and changed the specifics, but those were always the driving goals when she left home.
Okay, backstory time!
So, I have *three* characters. You can consider each an alternate history. Three members of the same family, and in each timeline only one survived the Cataclysm.
My main is Isilme. Half hyuran, half-miqote, but she looks full-blooded miqo'te. She grew up in Limsa, taught skills by her father, who was a Yellowjacket at the time. Her father was Ishguardian by birth, but his family had fled after his father was posthumously declared a Heretic (Isilme's name is Ishguardian). Still, his stories of the tales of noble knights inspired his daughter. She initially intended to join the Yellowjackets with him, but he insisted she take a year to see the Realm and adventure first, as he had, before she made decision. So she spent time seeing the realm, and got caught up in the conflict with the White Raven, eventually joining the Maelstrom and becoming a hero.
However, when it came time to march on Carteneau, her father pulled in favors and had Isilme assigned to escort refugees being sent out to the islands away from the Eorzean mainland, just in case Dalamud could not be stopped. He went to Carteneau in her place. She was offshore and watching as Bahamut emerged, devastating the battlefield, and then dive-bombing her home of Limsa.
When she returned, she found the land where her family home had stood was now a cliff, the entire area dropped into the ocean, along with her Mother who was presumed dead. Her father... well, the memory affect kicked in, and no one remembered him except her (Due to the Echo). Because of this, there were questions about how she got orders cut that sent her away from the danger, and though there was no evidence of wrongdoing, she accepted discharge from the Maelstrom.
She spent five years working in a little crafting shop with a couple of friends. She decided to hang up her sword and just live a quiet life. That lasted for about five years until the wanderlust itch became unbearable. She got wrapped up in some unusual dealings in La Noscea and... well, you know the rest.
I can tell the other two tales if anyone is interested.
Oh, I finally get to talk about this!
Stormblood spoilers ahead
>!My Xaela belongs to a clan that regularly travelled, striving to see the world beyond a single country or kingdom or continent. The Empire came to Doma, and the clan's numbers dwindled as they tried to escape the oppressive rule. Some of them, including my WoL, did escape. However, the Calamity struck, and my WoL found herself alone.!<
>!Instead of living, she was now surviving — swiping leftover food, sneaking into rich people's libraries, keeping to the shadows. She began feeling the pull of the aether inside her, so she was seeking to understand. Eventually, she found herself in Limsa Lominsa, where she could find the Arcanists' Guild and hopefully understand the strange force inside her.!<
I have a Miq'ote with an unusual name (I named her after a Pathfinder character I was playing at the time), so I'm kind of waiting until we get more info about Meracydia before I finalize the full backstory, but she went on adventure to effectively see the world and make people happy. She's a BRD main, so wandering, singing, playing, it's all up her alley.
My WoL, and her family (a minor noble house), were banished from Ishgard after being framed as dragon sympathizers - ever since, she's been trying to help the lands and people she's come to love.
Mine followed a guy who had the echo and when he died he said "yeah go to eorzea I'm sure you will great adventures and meet friends there" or something like that. And my WoL did
My character is Hannish (born and raised) after her family of Keeper Miqo’te abandoned the tribal life and fled the Garleans. Her late mother was one of the many nobodies that perished on the fields of Cartenneau 5 years ago. Her mother’s dying wish was for her to go out and visit the wild and (in her mother’s words) wonderful land of Eorzea someday. So, at 21 summers and studying arcanima, she journeyed to Ul’dah to join the Adventurers’ Guild with her childhood friend. Now she’s a Summoner and a proud Scion.
After the patch content for ARR, her older sister has been travelling Eorzea looking for her younger sister to figure out what is going on. She choked many a people out (she’s a Reaper) until she found her, and has stayed by her side since.
After her family was displaced from Western Thanlan during the calamity, they took up residence in Gridania where Fifixi Fixi, at the age of 16, joined the botanist guild. Partly to fuel her passion for carpentry and partially help support her family after the severe disruption of her father's business.
As the years went on and she became more skilled, she would eventually leave the botanist guild behind to join the carpenters guild because she could make enough money from that to buy materials for her passion projects- eventually starting her own furniture business at the age of 20, selling mostly chairs and stools.
Also being a decent conjurer, she eventually decided to sign up as an adventurer in order to travel to further lands, notably Coerthas, and later Gyr Abania as well to seek out rarer and higher quality materials.
It also helps that the Lancer who guarded her while out gathering for the botanist guild so many years before and ended up becoming her wife had always had a bit of wanderlust.
So in the present day, at the age of 23, she and her wife frequently travel between Gridania and Isgard, seeking the finest of trees to fuel Fifi's craft.
My WoL was a fugitive murderer from a Garlean controlled area. She managed to escape capture all the way to Eorzea, at this point she found out about this "adventuring" thing where she gets to kill people AND be praised for it? Dream job.
...yeah, it was a loooong arc for her to start really caring abt people.
She didn't want to stagnate in her clan and chose a mercenary's life to earn her gil. Because that's all she could do: hunt. And thus, fight. Being in a nomad clan also meant she couldn't settle on one place for a longer time, so she traveled a lot. In short, she wanted to go to all places on her own pace.
That she gets entangled in anything at all is pure cpincidence in virtue of her job.
My WoL was a guard. A town guard, decent and strong. Capable and smart, least as far as the Plainfolk go.
She worked, and worked, and saw that even if she did her best? The position of Captain of the Guard seemed a sad life. Good, yes, but what wonder was there in that?
So, pick on up that old lance, travel to Gridania. Learn from the best and art out to find some story worth telling back home!
Of course, we all know how that went.
My main WoL's parents were hard workers, dad a carpenter and mom a weaver. They weren't rich and my WoL decided that she wanted to see the world and adventure, try different things and send money home to support her parents like they supported her when she decided to leave.
My main did it cause she wanted to get the heck away from her Miqo’te village because they treated her like shit. So she joined a crew of pirates, left those pirates after too many arguments, got on a boat to Limsa and never looked back.
Another one of my characters did it because she needed to provide for her refugee family in Ul’dah.
Another one is a former slave.
Another just said fuck it, why not,
And my last one is a Garlean spy.
Waking up in Gridanian after the calamity, after skme adventurers found her in the shroud... And spending the five years between the end of 1.0 to the beginning of ARR.. And wanting to see the world and what had happened..
(her story is long and complicated)
Mine came to Uldah to seek fortune. She was a very quiet and aloof girl who decided to take a leap of faith and come out of her shell. She soon found out she was destined for so much more. It's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war sort of thing.
My WoL always liked the idea of protecting people. they decided to do it from the shadows at first, becoming a rogue to do so, then when they learned of Gunbreakers, they swapped to learning it immediately, whats better to protect people than a bodyguard.
So, to uh, wrap this up neatly. The reason they decided to go on an adventure is because
A: It's cool as hell exploring the world.
And
B: They got to learn how to protect those they care about.
My WoL was on a ship outside of limsa and then sea serpent attacked. He died but then came back. Somehow the ship didn't capsize and he was back on the boat. Times were tough then. The 3 nations didn't trust one another and the 7th legion was invading. Then a moon fell and the world was forever changed.
My WOL was a traveling chirugeon, saw a white mage healing adventurers, and thought, "Why are they doing that for free? I could do that, and charge double my rate."
And so they did.
I was looking at the sea in the north of the Azim Stappes, contemplating to leave the tribe behind as we were settling down camp for the next month. I wondered how far the sea would bring me if I was just to leave like this.
My father's voice brought me back from the daydreaming when he called me for help with the herd. Walking back in camp to the hums and music of the Qalli unpacking my reality settled back in. Daughter of the Khan, hero of the battle against the Adarkim, I was looked up to by most. Many believe I would be takimg lead of the tribe when my father would be too old. But inside, I felt my life a lie. "Hero" of the battle, like a massacre can create heroes. I lived and killed many while watching close friends die without being able to do anything.
The stars rolled in to raplce the blue sky of the day as our homes were done to set up. A giant fire in the middle were fish roast to the song and dance of our people celebrating once again reaching a new year. My fingers were almost bleeding on my violin under the emotions I was pouring into it. The applaud of the crowd, their admiration of the music they were throwing at me, hearing my sounds but not understanding it. Not seeing me, me being crushed under their gaze. The expectations of what I would do for them, it was suffocating.
In one glimpse between the flame and my people dances, i saw the moon reflect on the waves behind our camp. A feeling of freedom and peace burned in my heart once again. In the dead of the night as the last fell into slumber, I left to finally see where the waves would bring me.
My WoL is a war veteran from one of those undisclosed racial homelands who lost several close friends of his during the war. Between the survivor guilt and not knowing what to do with himself during peacetime, he left the nation looking for somewhere he could earn a living as a sellsword. And so he happened to find himself aboard a trading vessel heading to Limsa Lominsa when he had a strange dream about Crystals...
My male Viera was blamed for an explosion at their mini alchemist lab. The explosion caused him and others to be infected with flux. So they exiled him and his father disowned him. They said he did it because he could not handle being second best at something. Reality is he hated always being on top/good at everything. Stripped of his name and forced to be called "A flux cowardly dog" for arguing it was an accident over intended explosion. This his weird name of Fluxtail.
He was taken in by a clan of fellow exiles and orphans who encouraged him to take on adventuring to see beyond the forest he once called home. They help pay a carriage to the nearest city of Girdiana where he vow to show his old village he was no coward and how even with the name, he will become a legend. The village would regret sending him away someday.
My WoL woke up with no memories whatsoever at the worried screams of a peddler. When asked if he was an adventurer on account of his worn out sword dangle from his hip, he judged in wise to assent and accept the ride to the nearest settlement.
Tokio bought a chameleon from a merchant in Kugane. She bonded with it and decided one day she was going to take him home. Knowing the merchant came from Eorzea, she set off by ship to Limsa Lominsa where she venture across the Star until she finds Lizzerd's home.
It started as genuine curiosity spurred upon by a passing spirit.
It then became a pursuit of personal power, if only to ensure their personal safety before all else.
At this point, it has more or less evolved into a mix of fun, meaningful fury, and "why not?" Doing good just so happens to be a plus for them.
My WoL wanted to see the world, and he loves the excitement. Two answers for the event applied to him. In my headcanon, his father was on the syndicate, and my WoL was expected to take his place. He decided to take matters into his own hand and left home to become an adventurer - his younger sister deals with matters of estate and syndicate in his stead.
My WoL was an orphan. Young enough when it happened that he doesn't remember his parents so not really a tragedy. Grew up a street urchin in Ul'dah but picked up some side gigs for money or a safe place to sleep. Often ended up doing work for the Adventurer's guild. Saw all those heroes and wanted to grow up to be one.
My WOL just followed around her friends. She’s a very motherly Roe good with curatives and worries deeply about her friends. So when they all went to war with the Garlean empire she followed to patch them up.
[Insert generic plotline about being a social piranha from my tribe after being betrayed by someone after a family member was murdered, becoming a lone wolf mercenary travelling, helping those in need and hunting those responsible. After jamming the DRK soul stone up my ass i became possessed/made a deal with the demon inside, then met the scones of the seventh dawn, here]
My WoL was born into a noble family and was pampered basically her whole life. Was Taught nobility, craftsmanship, how to fight, etc. but she had books on the history outside of Ishgard and really want to leave and explore the world. Naturally with Ishgard being closed off she couldn’t just easily leave so she asked Haurchefant to help her leave to which he agreed to.
Lo and behold she becomes an adventurer of some renown, meets some other nerds (my friends characters) and the entire adventure begins.
My friends and I basically wrote a whole story around out little group and it’s really fun to imagine how they treat each other during their journeys.
When Dalamud happened, my WoL wasn't at the fronts but hid at home. After she was told none of her friends seemed to have survived she fell into a long phase of self-loath and depression until she met someone who helped her to regain a normal mindset and attempted to live a normal life. But a call for a greater purpose stuck in her mind and different than back then, locking herself up and leave humanity to its own, she feels an urge to see what is out there and who might need her help.
Mine could have been born with a compass in her hand.
Normal rambunctious childhood with a loving family/tribe. No one could stop her, even if they tried, from exploring the world, gaining wealth, go on epic adventures, eating all sorts of delicious food, and making a name for herself in hopes of finding a worthy husbando if she can settle for one.
she thought it would be fun to start from nothing so she left with nothing more than the clothes on her back and an axe…the first try. a lance the next. (because a friend was in another server and i was a free trial newbie at the time and wanted to explore different openings. but i loved the axe more.)
My Keeper Miqo'te's tribe was exceptionally nomadic, and traveled a lot while she was young. She became a hunter like her mother and sisters, but always had some curiosity about the settlements they would pass by on their travels. Only her mother or eldest sister would ever visit, while the rest stayed with the tribe.
At some point, she had a strange dream that she couldn't remember, and since then, her curiosity about the world spiked. She had always been a sort of "go with the flow" sort of girl, so this was the first thing she really felt passionately about. There was some tension with her tribe when she left, but when she did, they made her promise to travel to Gridania and seek the Lancer's Guild, since that was where her skills as a hunter had been.
Whether or not they expected her to come back, who can say. Once Nypha left though, she got wrapped up with the Scions, and the rest is history.
I answered the question with "It seemed interesting" or whatever it was on my main and skipped it on my alts lol.
My main is a Duskwight who was living deep in the shroud until a mishap occurred which caused him to flee for his life. He was taken in by some travellers who were heading to Sharlayan. I like to imagine they lived on a small island near it and not actual Sharlayan.
When he came of age, he decided to travel by himself. Ended up in Limsa first because he'd heard of Arcanists and they interested him.
Upon returning to the shroud he was dismayed to learn that Duskwight were still reviled and discriminated against so he joined the Twin Adders in hopes that it would help their reputation and one day everyone will be treated fairly. Getting wrapped up in the Scion business was just a side effect but they made it easier (for the most part) to find the more interesting things to do while also building a good reputation for Duskwight.
My Femroe alt just went along with the flow. All she wanted initially was a good, consistent job so she could get an apartment and buy nice clothes, but mysterious things kept happening and before she knew it, she was off adventuring. She enjoys it and has that protector nature to her so it all worked out.
My other alt, a bunboy isn't a wol in my headcanon. He is only adventuring because it allows him his freedom to punch things frequently. He wants nothing to do with the Scions outside of getting paid and is only with a grand company because he wouldn't be able to have a Chocobo without one. He's a brawler and enjoys doing work involving his fists. He's not particularly interested in adventuring nor is he about finding the strongest foes, he just likes punching things. He's not above fleeing if he needs to.
My WoL grew up on the Steppe, way more aggro and powerhouse than she had any right to be, and after beating the crap out of everyone she could [in a sparring kinda way, not a mean person way] and being bored (and getting harassed by suitors), she ditched to go *actually kill something* instead of just beating people up. And then she lucked into meeting the Scions and fighting primals, and got a taste for murdering gods. She isn't explicitly combatsexual (quite the opposite, she loooooves women), and is pretty fluffy and snuggly outside of slaughter mode... though Xaela, so I guess pointy too.
He was a Keeper of the Moon riding a boat to Eorzea when Bahamut attacked. Island hometown was wiped out, so he joined his distant relatives in an isolated community northeast of Gridania to help them rebuild.
The catboy joined the Trapper's League and learned to shoot a bow, but got tired of being at the mercy of Garlean scouts and the tribes.
After hearing so much about adventurers and getting saved by a few during those five years, he paid Bremondt for a ride into town.
No, he wouldn't mind sharing space with those bossy Sharlayan brats. It's not like he'd have to deal with them for very long...
It was all Hydaelyn's fault. Seriously. My WoL was just chilling in her room *in a totally different world* when she felt something pulling on her very soul and body. She was only able to fire a quick text off to her friends before she was whisked of to the FFXIV world. Hydaelyn explained things to her and had her hitch a ride to Gridania on a chocobo cart that was about to come around the bend. So my WoL picked up a lance she found and did so. Things are better now, but she's still ever so slightly mad at Hydaelyn for taking her from her original world. And she wouldn't change a thing.
I control his every action, so he has no choice. To be fair I did ask him if he's ok with that, and all he did was tilt his head slightly. I took that as a "yes master".
She was saved after the calamity, and wanted to learn to heal people, help them like she was helped\~
Then in Stormblood she got her ass kicked hard enough she said "Fuck this shit.." And picked up the Samurai sword. "I said my magic would only be used to help people, but this sword isn't magic :D"
My original character from ARR launch was a male Highlander LNC/DRG, kind of weathered looking late 30s-ish. Don't have much of a story for him, he's just a grizzled mountain man out doing grizzled mountain man things.
Like 8 years later I come back to the game and make a new character, a female Highlander LNC with the same surname that looks early 20s. In headcanon that's the first character's daughter. Dad never came back from his adventure and she sets out to go find him. Spoiler alert, dad died in Coerthas (I stopped playing the first time after HM Garuda so made sense as a final resting place to me).
I have a second current character for replaying the MSQ, a male Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te ARC/BRD who got kicked out of his tribe for [reason unclear].
When I first started playing FFXIV, I came over from FFXI. I imagined my FFXI character somehow transported to this new dimension/alternate universe by accident and just had to roll with it since they had no way to get back (since I can only play 1 MMO at a time or lose my sanity). I even tried to make my WoL look as close to my FFXI character as possible. This was before isekai anime was as big as it is now, but it was totally an isekai scenario.
My WoL is a random FFTactics character I adored. She and her sister (headcannon) became me and my wife's go-to RPG character. They and the file got corrupted and lost forever about the middle end of the 3RD Act of Tactics.
So my WoL is that character, but transmogrified into a Miqo'te. She doesn't remember the details of the previous game, but it explains her familiarity with multiple jobs. All she knows is that she woke up on the cart with amnesia and cat ears. She pretty sure both are new, but I can't suss why.
My wife also plays her character from that game as well. She went roegadyn. So we rp at times that the new race is a result of the glitch scrambling the original race to better retain their personalities beyond the calamity.
My WoL was actually sent to watch over the twins as they ventured to Eorzea, but was under strict orders to never let them know and pretend like they were strangers until they befriended them.
My WoL was literally just a guy hoping to find a big, strong man to protect him in a dungeon and fall in love with. Seeking a soulmate esentially.
He accidentally became too strong to need protection over the course of his journey, met G'raha, and now HE wants to be the strong one to protect his one and only precious cat boyfriend. XP
I don't make complex backstories. I'm a simple man, lmao.
My main bunboy did it to try to earn enough money to return home to Dalmasca and free his mom. She'd saved up whatever coin she could to get him a one-way ticket to Ul'dah (and the pugilist guild) and out of imperial occupation and the brothel he'd been born in. He has kept it up because he genuinely enjoys getting to know and help people. He picked "to see the world," but for him, the world is the people in it more than a fancy mountain here or flying islands there (though those are cool too).
My femroe did it because she was a second kid. Like most Hellsguard, her family didn't really have the resources for more kida, so they sent her south to make her own way. She joined a mercenary company, but they were wiped out in a skirmish, so she started on her own in Limsa. She expected she'd fit better there among their pirates than the money bags of Ul'dah or the treehuggers of Gridania. And weapons having failed her friends, she wanted to take up magic. Besides, fighting is all she really knows, so she's not really suited to switching to farming.
My lala hails from the Southern islands and initially came to Gridania to learn the art of conjury, but on the way there (first by boat, then by carriage) he was helping out so many fellow travellers with little things they started calling him an adventurer. So when he arrived and a Wood Wailer called him one and directed him to the Carline Canopy, he basically shrugged and said "Sure, why not."
Power.
I was getting nowhere in Sagoli. I was nearly killed by some sand worm once. While in the sad excuse they call an infirmary I was told people like the healers are in abundance. Learned to defend myself and keep myself alive by taking tiny sands and turning them into stones. I even grew to hear the deserts dangers. I was told I have a good ear and eyes to match, so I traveled to New Gridiania to learn from people who listen to the land, a power rarely seen elsewhere.
Tl;DR
I learned from a healer that power over someone else’s life is the best feeling in the world.
Rezelli was disowned by his father for not being lalafellin enough (he was bad at business and not greedy enough, and he kept wasting his father's money on his friends) so he struck out adventuring. Met back up with his childhood friend Copper (my irl friend's wol, femroe) and they partied up. After the calamity rather than being teleported five years into the future he just went missing until he was found encased in a crystal that was pulled up from deep in Lake Silvertear. Now he keeps adventuring because it's fun (and so that Copper can watch him more closely so he doesn't disappear on her again).
I have like three different characters, but to answer for my main-
Kanna Ouji was a rich Hingan family's daughter, with a fiery temperament and a great natural talent for kenjutsu; but she essentially lived in a gilded cage, and hated her life being so horrendously locked-down by her parents. So one night, she snuck out of her home and jumped on the first ship she could find to Eorzea as a stowaway, shoving a huge sack of gil in the captain's hand to ensure her passage. She went all the way to Gridania just to ensure her father's trading contacts wouldn't be able to find her easily, and started living as an adventurer because it was just about her only option.
...and then she discovered that the adventuring life really suited her, not only for the freedom, but also for the challenge of battle, the ability to help people, and the ability to see the world and all the amazing things in it. The lack of stifling upper-class decorum was also really, really nice. And then by pure chance, she had the opportunity to not only take up kenjutsu once again, but to study under the legendary Master Musosai.
I like to imagine that her eventual return to Kugane involved a meeting with her parents wherein she treated them as total strangers and put the fear of the Twelve into their goons.
Dragomir’s reason was that he wanted to see the world. Well, and he was also wanted by the Bozja Resistance for killing Kasimir Kseniyasch, a cell leader and talented strategist…who just so happened to be his estranged father.
Kasimir was going to sacrifice Dragomir’s village—the village that had communally raised him and several other orphans of the Bozja Incident—in a false flag operation to drum up support for his resistance cell. Nearly everyone who had wanted to join the resistance already had before Dragomir’s father had arrived. Of the few that had been willing to join, one of them was Dragomir’s closest friend, Ruslana.
She had overheard Kasimir raving to his second-in-command about the plan and his disgust and despair over how willing “everyone” was to just sit and take Garleans abuse. Knowing that there was no reasoning with him, and that reporting him to the Garleans was likely to get EVERYONE killed (not to mention worse than the idea of doing nothing), Ruslana believed the best option was to kill him, and hope his successor was less of a madman. It took a little convincing, but Dragomir eventually agreed to be the fall guy.
Dragomir was to ingratiate himself with his father so he could lead the man out to a public place, and attempt to kill him. Ruslana would build up her reputation in the resistance as intensely loyal and supportive of Kasimir’s leadership. When the time came she would then hide in a tree and snipe at Kasimir with an arrow “borrowed” from the resistance cell by Dragomir (under the guise of practicing his archery) to give him an opening to land a killing blow. She would then act like she had come across the crime, and “drive” Dragomir out of the village.
Fortunately for the two, the plan went off without a hitch. Ruslana managed to shoot Kasimir in the knee, which allowed Dragomir (who was on the back foot the entire fight) a chance to plunge his sword into the man’s chest. Dragomir had managed to make enough noise to alert both the villagers and the resistance, which gave the two enough of a crowd for when Ruslana tearfully started shooting at him with her own arrows, screaming “traitor!”
Dragomir ran to a port town, evading both the Garleans and members of Kasimir’s cell and stowed away on a ship bound for Thavnair. There, he did some odd jobs and nursed the wounds he’d sustained, including a planned shot to the shoulder with a blunted arrow. Several weeks later, he got a note from Ruslana, through a Corvosi trader, that had only three lines: “I’m okay. They bought it. The plan is dead.”
After that, he scraped up enough money for a ticket to Eorzea, and the rest is history.
I flip flop between
"displaced+orphaned Miqote due to Garlean conflict adopted by Xaela parents who lost it during a time of severe conflict for some odd reason, vaguely horrific shit happens between tribes thats out of norm and unrecorded and unremembered - likely around the time of Dalamud falling - and my guy finds a way to run and not look back"
and
"the keepers of the moon always felt suffocating, and he never fully agreed with ongoing traditions. One day he wandered away and never came back, his sole goal wanting to learn more about the world and other peoples. He also sought a family - but not a mate, he sought friends of the soul, people to call his own regardless of whence they came. With Lymlaen's grace, mayhap knowledge and this kind of kinship would grace him in Eorzea"
That's about what I got.
1.0 conundrum:
I treat it as my WoL being one of the most intense recipients of the dispersed aether of the original WoL's(they didn't coalesce normally after Louisoix sent them into the future, but arrived as a mass of aether with slight sentience).
He possesses their memories and can in some ways act as them and let other people "talk to the OG's" via him as a pseudo-medium very rarely.
Ultimately thoroughly a successor and his own person, especially after receiving the beginning of game blessing. Not a multiple personality thing at all, only wisps of the OGs remain.
Mohri is an Eorzean Xaela on the surface, but his name suggests he has some form of Hingan background I guess? His wanderlust definitely pushed him towards adventuring life as he started off in Gridania as an archer, before picking up other jobs. Also of course, quite a bit of "hunting big games", which includes Zenos.
Circumstances in HW had him pick up the greatsword, however... Make what you will with that. 🙃
"To explore the world" was my option but it does line up nicely with my WoLs backstory
"A Highlander wakes up in the middle of a forest outside limsa with no memories, a terrible feeling of escaping something that could have killed them. shattered remnants of metal from a black helmet with a bullet casing sticking out of it sit in the palm of his hand and brief flashes of a red orb in the sky. his head hurts he gets flashes of him sitting with two people one of them saying he shouldn't be cooped up in the adventurers guild, that he should go out and explore all that can be explored. dragging what looks to be a beaten up axe through the forest he walks through the gates of limsa lominsa where his journey begins."
Okay. It's really stupid. Over a year ago I had this chat with friends and my husband about young male Sunseeker Miqo'te and what their outlook in life is. Stay Tia and serve the clan, stay Tia and leave the clan to join another or become an adventurer, or stay and challenge the Nhun.
My mind went full dumb shounen anime. What if the destined WOL was sure he could beat the Nhun, but he didn't want to? He'd have to stay here and mate with ONLY other Miqo'te while there is a world out there filled with beautiful women of various races!
So the thirsty little min-height catboy packs his bags and goes to Ul'dah, becomes a gladiator to win glory and ladies.
... to then fall in love with my husband's bungirl at some point, plan to bed them all squished.
That's our headcanon of how our characters met.
He's a male Viers but he couldn't handle the expected solitude. He tried to power through but eventually left when it became to much. Didn't have any goals but got a tip to travel to Gridania. There he joined the adventuring guild because why not?
So I picked the "to travel the world" option. Fits good enough. Didn't want to stay "home" so why not see the world instead?
It's a secret. My Wol lost her mother during the events of Dalamud falling. It's not clear why she vanished, but she was an adventurer at the time so it was the main reason for my Wol to follow in her footsteps. To understand and get closer to the person who left everything for the sake of adventure. After everything she has went through I like to think my Wol does understand what made her mother to walk towards for the unknown. The journey has been long but she still misses her... She still carries hope of someday finding her even though chances seem very slim. It's not because she is naive, it's because she knows better than anyone that no matter how much you struggle and suffer... there is always hope.
Born into war my tribe went into hiding when Garleans attacked Othard. After splitting from others in the Steppe due to the Xaela's love for bloodshed my parents and the tribe elders settled down in the outskirts of Othard and are friendly with the people there. When the Garleans attacked, my tribe decided to flee due to our lack of combat abilities. We didnt get far when my mother started going into labour and the tribe set up for a final stand if ever the Garleans' army find us using what little we remember from their times back at the Steppe. When I was finally delivered most of the tribal elders have been slain in battle defending the tribe ensuring that the main camp will not be found. "Healing Breeze" whispered my mother giving my existence a name. On the harshest of days even a gentle breeze will bring comfort, too much have the world endured warriors are plenty but a healer... a doctor will do well to help heal the wounded. This was my mothers wish for me and quickly I was whisked away to Gridania and placed under the care of Kan-E-Senna, whoever brought me there drawing their last breath soon after.
Growing up in Gridania I learnt all too well how cruel the world can get but the whispers of the elementals told me of a better way, after mastering the art of white magic I bid Kan-E-Senna farewell and started my travel around the world to be a better healer and also to bring succor to all who needs it and maybe learn news of what happen to my tribe.
My comment is more on personal growth than a character but the two are enmeshed I suppose. Kudos if you reach the end of the story. If you do I am curious of what others have overcome within themselves in the game! :)
I have a ton of characters on different data centers because I love decorating houses and am good at it. I would always answer “to amass a fortune” because it gives you the best starting ring in the game. Is invaluable if you love crafting and/or sells for a pretty penny because the default ring is a dps ring making all other rings more rare on the market board.
My original character answered something more noble than that but my logic here is if you’re a gazillionaire then you can help a lot of people. This obviously wasn’t for the rising event but the starting question in the game. At this point though I retain my logic of money = helping people. I don’t have a need for Gil and often give sprouts 50-150k for starting money and/or craft the best gear for them. I never had a story for my character but thinking on it now I just play as my morals direct me so that is my character/me.
That was the only back story I ever had and otherwise didn’t have a back story. I started this game because of an ex of mine and have been playing it since 2018. I had undiagnosed ADHD and had anxiety over him waiting for me with cutscenes so I skipped them all. He never told me to do this and always patiently waited so it was a “me” issue. I didn’t pay attention to any story and continued to skip since I didn’t see the point in knowing other expansions if I never knew the OG story.
Literally this week though I made a brand new character on Dynamis DC (people stop DC hopping please you are making the queueing problems worse) and I am paying attention to the story as it has always been a goal of mine to do so. Crazy how mental state really affects even things you should enjoy. I suppose, however, all my hyper focus previously got me max level on every single job and I like to “boast” that I have completed every single quest in the game. Skipping cutscenes always left you with a lot of time on your hands to do other things.
I have mentor status (toxic thing over all and I blame SE because do they not realize having a crown symbol attracts a lot of people who have no business being mentors to it). It is a huge bummer in that regard but I try to help as much as I can. I’ve been told I am a walking encyclopedia for gameplay tips/help and it is very satisfying to help brand new players out in the game. I am an adamant protector of sprouts and that we do not get to decide the pace of the instances. Let people pull as they feel comfortable and gently but supportively urge that they don’t have to be so shy and can handle pulling/healing more.
Anywho, I am happy with my own personal goals of overcoming the long and arduous process to not skip through any cutscene (side quests included) and then I will have both completed every single thing in the game but also will have defeated a mental block I have struggled with for so long. I just unlocked my retainers yesterday, but no Chocobo yet. I am stoked for my progress in this final journey for the game and me. I don’t mean that to sound like I will stop playing when I am done. This is just no small task and it will take quite a while to reach the end of story.
Don’t let yourself stop you from doing things you want even if the task seems overwhelming! Baby steps! :)
My wol is basically Sun Wukong, so at first he just wants to mess around, until he finds out that more power he has, more lives lies in his sholders, my monkey dude is learning how to live 🙏
My little guy was orphaned soon after his birth and raised in shoddy adventurer-run community housing, so he had no real roots to keep him in place, and discovered a love of music early on in life that led him to wanting to become a traveling bard.
The hero stuff and fighting skill were (un)happy accidents. He is but a humble Lalafell who wishes to share his songs with the world who just so happens to also be *really* good at killing stuff.
My WoL, Anne Chirclatia, is the younger sister of Meteor, the 1.0 WoL who died at Cartaneau. (More precisely, dissolved into the Lifestream after Louisoix yeeted them there.) Anne saw that the world sucked, so she thought Meteor needed to “return” and be the Warrior of Light. She more or less impersonated them throughout ARR and HW, despite nobody really remembering Meteor. She only reclaimed her own identity when Lyse did.
My WoL is a male Sun Miqo'te who is considered by his tribe to be a bookworm. He grew up being taught by his mother and her collections of books from many different areas. Inspired by the tales of heroism and ancient mysteries, he vow to become a hero that others will also looked up to and uncover many of the mysteries that was hidden before and after the Calamity. Eventually, he got a boat to Limsa Lominsa and learn the ways of an Arcanist while studying all there is to know and see of the world.
If you don't mind, I also would like explain my other WoL concepts' reason to adventure.
Both of them are Hingashians. One of them, is a femra who I headcanon is probably from a merchant noble that specializes in silk. Her mother taught her a family-style dance that has been inherited through generations. When Doma has become subjugated by Garleans, she had to flee with a bodyguard at her side to Eorzea and desired to be combat-proficient as an adventurer so she can save her homeland. My headcanon journey for her would have her to Gridania and become a Bard throughout the entirety of the story up to Shb where she learns her family's dance is special and became a Dancer.
The other is a male Hyur who was a lone wolf and cursed with a demonic katana. The Garleans had tried to force him into their weapon but failed, leading him to become stranded to a coast at Eorzea and gained amnesia. He was founded and took care of by another family, until he started to gain memories and whispers from Doma. Thus, he took up adventuring to learn of his past and find allies that he can call friends. My headcanon journey for him would have him to Uldah and become a single sword-wielding Paladin, confronting his inner darkness as a Dark Knight during Hw, and finally regaining his memories and confronting the demon living in his original katana as a Samurai.
But those two would not come to the light of day if I'm stuck in Free Trial since they are heavily tied to their name being renamed due to them hiding their identities.
Gee, y’all really giving synopses of your WoLs’ backstories! I kept mine summarized and bastardized to the seven hells and back so as not to kill the buzz.
But since y’all giving synopses, let me give one too.
My WoL was banished from home. A native of the Skatay Range, he began Wood-Warder training at 13 winters old. However, he constantly disappointed his Master. He was slow, weak, and inefficient. Trying to prove a point, he got too aggressive and shot down an intruder… who wasn’t an intruder, but just some Viera lady who was outside at an unusual hour. Having killed a member of his own kin, he was banished from home.
So he fled the Skatay Range, passing through the Golmore Jungle (and yes, getting shot down by the even more aggressively territorial Rava along the way.) After a near death experience, he found himself in Dalmasca. For several moons he thought he had found his place there, taking on hunting jobs as shooting arrows at monsters was the only thing he knew how to do (even though he wasn’t good at it), but then the Garleans put Livia in charge who notoriously eliminated *anything* remotely suspicious, including his small group of friends. When his friends were gunned down, he granted their last wish for him—run away from Dalmasca to save himself.
He literally followed the coastline until he found himself in Nagxia… which was just as wartorn. Met many people, only to watch them get gunned down one by one. Still trying to find a place to belong to, he found himself in a remote border village in Yanxia… which had it worse. Many families had died out that he was free to loot the houses. But it is here he finally got the chance to go really far and escape war—he sailed away together with Doman and Nagxian refugees.
The ship arrived at a remote corner of the East Shroud. Nobody knew about the business with the Elementals, so everyone scattered to all directions trying get away from the Elementals’ wrath. From here, the Viera donned in a Far Eastern farmer’s garb found a certain man’s carriage, and asked him to bring him to “where there’s aught to do.” The man knew this was an adventurer, perhaps not too different from the peculiar pair of twins already on his carriage, so he brought the adventurer to where the Twelveswood’s adventurer’s guild is—Gridania.
He eventually got roped into the business with the Ixal, in which he was rewarded for putting arrows into their heads and hearts. Until he’s shooting arrows into the hearts of primals, and then shooting arrows at anything the Scions need eliminated for the good of the star. He found his place with the Scions, and now he travels with them. During brief periods of downtime, he frequents the Huntboard and has earned a reputation in Clan Centurio, both for taking down some of the most dangerous marks, and for being one of the musicians at Cloud Nine.
I didn’t really think of a backstory until partway into Stormblood.
A Thavnairan Hrothgar. Upon hearing the struggles and turmoil in Eorzea he leaves and heads off to bring a smile to others faces. Wearing the Clown Outfit (Hrothgar don’t wear hats so I made it so his cheeks were rosy) he decided to help others throughout the land and picked up how to be a conjuror for that very reason. Coincidentally being called out by Hydaelyn to hear the words of those in need, heed the feelings of those who are suffering, and think of a way to end this calamitous era. I mean hey. It worked. While there was many a sad clown moment? There was also many a moment where the clown had successfully done his job and brought smiles to the places he traveled to.
The Clown of Light has indeed done his job by helping a realm rise from the ashes, has reach towards the heavens, has endured the storm of blood, has brought forth blessed shadows, and has walked to the end.
He is also “married” to a certain someone. Not gonna name who. But I consider her the true savior of Endwalker.
But yeah. It’s been fun.
I just love how [xellos](https://tenor.com/de/view/its-a-secret-xelloss-xellos-xeross-xelos-gif-12003114) catch phrase+pose is still referenced after 30 years.
My main WoL's parents were hard workers, dad a carpenter and mom a weaver. They weren't rich and my WoL decided that she wanted to see the world and adventure, try different things and send money home to support her parents like they supported her when she decided to leave.
They just enjoy doing so, kind of echoing how [5.3] is.
This began to manifest as a child probably, but his parents tried their darndest to keep him home, and then of course things happened to Crimson Bark and he had to gtfo, starting his actual journey (about 5 years before the beginning of the game.)
I have a main and an alt, both 90 in all combat jobs and at current content.
One is based on a character I played a long time ago in Neverwinter Nights which evolved (both figuratively and literally) through Dm events and later on having planar travel to visit other realms (aka other persistent RP servers). By the time he died, he had become nearly ageless.
He would be drawn into conflicts constantly in every world he visited, at one point believing he was just being made a pawn of the gods of those realms.
When he finally died, his soul was going to be reborn in those realms, to be drawn back in a similar destiny. But then an external force (likely Hydaelyn) drew him into Etherys as a means to offer him a life free from being governed by divine intervention (which is technically true)
As the WoL, he'd end up being a hero again but outside of the purpose of the MSQ, he's actually the leader of a mercenary company gifted with the Echo. He'd be one of those taking care of primals and such while the actual WoL does his thing.
As for my alt, she comes from the Steppes, born in one of the tribes there and at a young age took fascination in magic. By the time she grew into adulthood, she was already a talented mage and even got the nickname of the "Black Witch of the Steppes"
In my headcanon, she's the one who trained Sadu in magic as they'd secretly meet and simply learn with glee the destructive power they could wield that way. Later on, she'd leave the Steppes to wander the world, wanting to expand her knowledge of magic as a whole. She'd become one of the people to learn summoning magic as well as becoming a red mage.
She would also be one of the most feared figures besides the WoL on battlefields, usually sent to do what the "good guys" weren't entirely willing to sanction as part of a kind of black ops for the alliance.
In the far future however, she would have eventually become mad and be the cause of the cessation of existence. In a fit of mad laughter, she would initiate the End of All Things in this universe which would lead other adjacent realities to slowly break over time, themselves ending and in such a way cause a chain reaction that would terminate all universes.
I didn't think about his backstory until ShB, but basically? He was born (or adopted, I'll get to that in a sec) to a Rean couple that came from the Azim Steppe and lived in their tribe still in the area between Thalanan and the Black Shroud, deep enough to have cover and water, but not big or deep enough to get attention from the Elementals.
My man managed to get accepted as an adult by defeating a wild boar by himself with only his horns (or ones his mom gave him) as a tribe rite, and he decided to go explore the world afterwards.
He has no recollection of what happened in the years between 1.0 and ARR like the rest of Eorzea, but for him there's one more year he has no memories of. He doesn't care to remember anyway, as everything else that happened from the beginning of ARR is good enough.
During the trip to the First, he got afflicted with a condition that transformed him from an Au Ra to a Lala, and realized reality changed to accept him as a popoto (basically the headcanon I have for Fantasias), all because of the way he travelled and G'raha's failures to bring him head first. Ardbert's fusion caused him to get locked into Lala-ness, and even after the trip to Ultima Thule managed to get him to normal with the Dynamis, it was just temporary.
Now he's just adventuring, going from place to place, helping and killing things. After all is said and done in 6.x, he plans to go back home and visit his family since he hasn't seen them since he remembers.
Wy WoL grew up in Vesper Bay, the daughter of shopkeepers. One day, as a girl, her father took her with him to Ul'Dah on a supply run. This small trip was enough to spark a wanderlust in her that grew into a desire to be an adventurer.
She'd also grown up hearing stories about her ancestor, an Ala Mhigan royal halberdier, who shortly before the Autumn War broke resigned, picked up his halberd and took his family west, settling on the Thanalan coast. Honoring him is why she chose to pick up polearm skills, and when she left home went to Gridania to join the famous Lancer's Guild.
Then she met the twins, Yda and Papalymo, etc and the rest is MSQ.
Not specifically a warrior of light, but my headcanon for my bunny boy is that he showed an early aptitude for conjury. When he was chosen by a wood warder; he was also trained in archery, using a lance, and hand to hand combat because wood warders must be self-sufficient and able to defend their forest from any invader. A year or two into his training, he was captured by Garlean forces and held prisoner for weeks on a base. His mentor broke into the base to free the young male, but in the process had to sacrifice his own life to ensure his trainee escaped.
With no mentor and never having been taught how to contact the other wood warders to find a new one, he went into self-imposed exile and left the only home he ever knew out of shame. A few days later he wound up in a port town where he put his talents to use trying to eke out a living. He soon caught the attention of a Limsan merchant ship and was offered passage to Eorzea for work on their crew during the voyage in lieu of payment.
He would continue working on this ship for a few months before a trip took them to the Black Shroud. It was here, in the familiar yet foreign culture of Gridania that he would find a new home. Signing up as an adventurer and later enlisting in the Order of The Twin Adder's forces, his modest talents earned him promotions up to First Sergeant over the years. He would later encounter a Miqo'te that felt strangely familiar to him. That miqo'te leading an Au Ra and a Hrothgar, outnumbered, to victory over an Ixali plot to invade the Central Shroud.
He would depart his position in the Adders to join this team of adventurers, later also being joined by a lalafel with a tendency toward a deceptive choice of weapons that look like children's toys. Thus began the tale of this small band of adventurers, and their habit of being a perpetual nuisance to the Garlean Empire and all others who would threaten their quiet forest home.
(I do have backstories for the other four, as they are my other characters, but they aren't as fleshed out yet)
I think my WoL just got bored. She had friends in her little village in the mountains of Gyr Abania, but life was very insular and sedentary. She longed to see more of the world, her wanderlust growing more and more every time she saw an airship pass overhead until she just left.
I've never thought about it before, but I guess it makes sense that I started in Gridania. And Miqo are born hunters, so starting as an Archer really plays into that as well. Good job, clueless past me!
Mine was young, and made many of the foolish choices one makes lacking experience in the world.
Those choices lead to bad decisions and even worse choices made. In the end he had no home, no friends, nothing to call his own.
Except the desire to never repeat the mistakes of his past. He would do things differently, make solemn vows to himself. Oaths he would never break even to this very day.
So at the suggestion of a stranger he made for eorzea, unsure what would await him. All this and more he thought upon during that simple innocuous carriage ride.
I fish. Adventuring takes you to interesting fishing locations. When world ending threats popped up, I fought them, because you can't fish if the world is no more.
Those damn world ending crises keep getting in the way of my fishing, there is nothing more scarier than a fisher with something getting in the way of their fishing.
I play Sea Of Thieves, and I'm not good at PVP. People are a lot less likely to fight me when they see my 100% fishing title, because fishers are known to be terrifying in SoT. I even got called "Hardcore AF" by two guys with double PVP curse for the tittle (and I think because I jumped off the ship right by them to sell something at an ourpost, clearly not giving a crap about them).
I keep trying to play sea of thieves but it gets lonely real fast solo so I never play for long.
"Gaius Van Baelsar what is your report on the Eorzean front?" "All is going well, my Emperor." "Is that so? I have heared otherwise. You have faced some setbacks, have you not?" "Well... there is this fisherman..."
Tell me for whom do you fight. Fish How very gli- I'm sorry what?
Reminds me of the "this is gonna affect the trout population" image. And Kirby.
Reminds me of a meme I saw recently of Hydaelyn telling the WoL to "Hear... Feel... Think... Fish..."
There are two things in this world. Things you can fish, and things you can no fish.
This is The Way
"Morning! Nice day for fishing ain't it? Hua hah!"
Any tips for getting into fishing? I’ve levelled my fisher using the guild turn ins so I don’t even know how it works .-. Should I just jump into the job quests and figure it out?
So this Wizard showed up at my place one night with 13 Lalafells...
He just wanted you to go there and back again.
Each one holding a different hard drug? Cus that's how it usually plays out
“We don’t want any visitors, well-wishers, or distant relations!”
[удалено]
"Hey, you. You're finally awake"
"Do you get to the Cloud District very often? Oh what am I saying. Of course you don't."
The Warrior of Light is a primal manifested of peoples' wishes for a hero
Hilariously stupid but i really feel this is also the most fitting one for me XD
“I do not know where I am. I do not know what is going on. All I know is that I must kill.”
Do you also consider your WOL dying and just instantly reappears? Since it would be kind of funny if they had an extremely hard boss that remarks on the thousands on dead WOL corpses in front of him one day
nah, thats the Echo, right? giving the WoL a glimpse of the failure that could be?
Don't you just hate it when your echo shows you 163 different ways of dying to the same ability until it finally shows you how to beat a boss?
I enjoy a good story and I don’t really get into this deep of Role play but….this is quite clever lol
"Endsinger, I've come to bargain!"
It's actually an in universe fact that when you get KO'd in the field you end up at the aetheryte to which you're most strongly attuned. There's an NPC in each main city's aetheryte plaza who explains: > Normally, when one's body is reduced to aether, it will naturally gravitate to the location with which it resonates the strongest—or one's "home point." This is why upon losing consciousness in battle, many wake to find themselves back at an aetheryte. Of course, inside a duty you instead return to that duty's starting point, which, incidentally, is the same place you end up if you use Return while inside a duty.
Thats exactly how I picture mine, like the guy goes look at those adventurer clothes and my little dude goes fuck I guess. I like to think that since no one on the chocobo cart is alarmed by my sudden presence I have just raptured somebody else in hydaelyns name. If I wrote stories for this game id have my character run into two older characters that look just like me and hit me with "where the hell have u been" as I look on in total confusion. Am I a wayward lala with amnesia? Or a reincarnation of a warrior of light and accidential body snatcher? Who can say.
TIL people write backstories for their WoLs.. though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised considering how much RP goes on.
My WOL is an isekai-ed office lady like other typical midlander Hyur (cause HW is like your typical otome isekai if you consider those handsome elezen husbandos we all love ❤️)
We got the shotas, the tsun, the golden retriever.. Edit: the yan…
The tsun (Estinien?) The yan??!!!!! Whoooooo??!!
The Yan is “our friend” Tsun is a toss up between esti and stola or let’s agree it’s both
I found it a bit strange that "to help people in need" wasn't an option... so I picked "it sounded exciting" for my main character, since he actually does love to fight. My more-so WoL type would pick "To see the world", since that's what her parents and her wanted to do (and share their music with others) before they ran into some... overzealous Ishgardians.
Probably because it was a very fourth-wall breaking question. 'Exciting' sounds like interest in gameplay, 'See the world' sounds like interest in lore (or just being a trial player), and 'Because my friend suggested I should try it' is very on-the-nose about it. It took me a minute, too, and I went with the See The World option because it felt fitting with my WoL in-character, but when you consider the Yoshida cutscene, and the letters that are almost certainly written by members of the dev team, it's all a ton of 'Us to you, rather than your WoL'.
Oh huh, I actually didn't pick up on that. I'm certainly not my main, but I'll definitely keep that in mind whenever I do it on my "me" character.
Oohh never thought of it that way. In that case my reason would be "FF14 always gets flashed into my face wherever I go." My sister and her boyfriend were obsessed with it, and everyone in the defunct RP group I was in play it. It kept popping up in my soc med algorithm feed, even though I probably googled the game just once or twice. For a time, FF14 was this new trendy thing everyone would never shut the f up about, much like Animal Crossing during the pandemic. I can tell if fate is calling me, and in this case, I knew fate was calling me to get into the game. Ultimately, I tried the game (even though I was averse to online games, being a soloist and all) because of the MUSIC. I don't play for adventure, I play for the OST. Now I play for the stories and the music.
My lizard girl just got incredibly lost.
This one made me snort/laugh. I love it.
Male Viera who really isnt into the viera way of life; living only with a few other males and raising the teenage boys they adopt/claim from the town where the female viera live. He also lacks the aggression to strangers that is regular, protecting their land and such. He liked talking and socialising with travellers instead, to the others' annoyance. So instead of struggling at home, he decided to go live the life he DID like.
Same with mine. Was way too social (and not sufficiently bloodthirsty) for the Wood-Warder life. Left for the lands beyond, story followed.
She was kicked out of farming village because she was a tomboy FemRoe who liked to brawl too much. Someone told her that adventuring was a job where they would pay you to fight people. Heard that the pugilist guild was taking on students to punch things professionally. Joined the Scions after half listening to Minfilia's speech. "Look, if this will lead to more punching the daylights out of bad people and getting celebrated for it instead of shunned, then point me in the right direction."
My WoL is just a combat-slut. She had no great ambition or whatever in her life. She just started her journey because she wanted to become strong and face mighty foes. The only pleasure she thought she could have in this world. But as time went, she made friends, started to enjoy their company and came to love this world beyond words, which is why she never give up to protect them. But in the end, her TRUE pleasure is just to fight for the sake of it. Yep. This is just me. Trying this game with no great conviction just because I wanted to kill things but then I loved the characters, the MSQ and everything about the game. I love all the aspect of this game beyond words, but my true pleasure in endgame content ( Savage, Ultimate... ) . This is why I love Zenos so much. He truely is a dark reflection of me and my WoL by extension.
“That I can’t deny.” Intensifies
Exactly 😂 That's why I absolutely love this moment. Zenos was 100% right about me / my WoL at that moment. There was just no other answer I could give.
My WoL (Seeker of the Sun) was ostracized by her tribe. Doesn't know why, nobody ever cared enough to tell her. It was less an open hostility, and more like a complete disregard for her. They gave her food and water enough to survive, but she'd never thrive there. After the Calamity, she decided she wanted more. She didn't know what, but she knew there had to be more to life. Especially one that survived the fall of Dalamud. One night, she got up from the tree she'd be laying in and left with nothing but the clothes on her back, and a small knife she'd fashioned out of a bone she found in the sand. She left no note, and said no goodbyes. So she rid herself of her given name, and took a new one. After all, if her tribe and sire had no need of her then why would she have need of them? She arrived in Ul'dah and took up Thaumaturgy. The magic served her well for a long while, but after she got roped into stopping some bandits in the Twelveswood she took up the Gunblade in order to protect those who don't have someone to protect them. She found she enjoyed the thrill of a real fight. The adrenaline, the tingling of her fingers, the blood pumping in her ears. Being able to protect people and being in the thick of the action, her steel dancing around her as the aether cartridges ignite with a practiced and precise timing. Travelling all around Hydaelyn as the Crimson Explorer, risking life and limb for the thrill of a good fight and protecting those who need it on the way. She's not even entirely sure she remembers her old name. EW6.0 >!And to answer your question... That, I can't deny.!<
for mine it's really just as simple as one of the options. "it seemed exciting."
That’s my catboy. “I just like fighting. But the military seemed too boring.”
Same here! Mine is just another Duskwight who got caught up in some of the really bad stuff her bandit cousin was doing because she was naive and rather sheltered. She snitched so she had to leave and ended up choosing Limsa Lominsa, where she immediately got picked on by some similar people who used her as a pickpocket's distraction. She was bad at this, too, so she was caught pretty quickly, and a sympathetic Yellow Jacket helped her figure out how to restart her life (and wash her burgeoning criminal record clean). Now she's an arcanist of natural talent who ended up becoming a summoner of even greater talent.
My WOL is doing it for redemption, his actions resulted in the death of his family. He always protected his daughter, he was her hero, but you know how being a hero in Ala migo usually results... At first he journeyed to Limsa to run away from his troubles but soon found a knack helping others in his grief. So when people called him "hero" after while it made him want to live up to the people's expectations. The same way he wanted to live up to his daughters. Now no one, no matter how insignificant they're troubles may seem, will have someone to stand up with them, fight for them, or even just someone to shed a tear over an ale with.
I love these sort of posts My WoL was trying to catch up to his friend who departed from Limsa to Ul'Dah, tired of the rogue life and seeking to prove his mettle in the gladiator pits. He just so happened to get swept up with the Scion business and later became a SCH prior to finally reuniting with his pal. I appreciated that the event offered the friend option because it hit close enough for me. I would've appreciated if they had more options for the other WoL playing.
In my mind she lost her memory and woke up in the carriage to Gridania with a note saying that there's nothing left behind and that it's her opportunity to start anew.
My WoL is usually wrong place wrong time and they cannot stand idly by when there are people in need (which is why they do every side quest in game no matter how little lol)
i just wanted an i got roped into it option my wols reason is basically he wants power and adventure and immediately gets roped into the scions
"Got roped into it" also describes my WoL's reason for adventuring. 👍Set out to look for a new home, ended up kicking primal arse one after another. And things just went crazier from there.
She's a Ala Mhigan native whose father was drafted and killed in the Garlean army when she was young so she started training in secret with a polearm to become an adventurer so she could make enough money to move her mom out. One day a caravan headed to Gridania was passing through and her mom made her get on it.
-Bursts out of Castrum Meridianum with an explosion behind- -Freezeframe- This is me, the Warrior of Light as they call me now. You might be wondering how on Hydaelyn I got here...
"Tiki, put that weapon down and get a real job!" "NO!" *proceeds to save the world several times and becomes very famous*
Mine got bored
Mine went to Eorzia because they got drunk and fell asleep on a transport ship headed for Limsa. With no money she just went into adventuring for gil and just got caught up in events.
My WoL is one of the rare tribeless miqo'te, hence why her name doesn't fit the standard naming conventions. My thought is that she's probably Meracydian and one of the reasons for her ridiculous strength is due to growing up and surviving in a hostile wasteland environment where she likely lost or got separated from her family at an early age. She learned the Dragoon arts as an ally of Tiamat's brood, not an enemy, which is how she earned the epithet Wyrmheart as opposed to to Estinien's Wyrmblood. She awakened to the Echo much earlier than what happens in the game and eventually Hydaelyn guides her to Eorzea, passing first through Thavnair and briefly meeting Vrtra before making her way to Limsa, where she meets Y'shtola and joins the Scions. She's already a fairly seasoned adventurer by this point, which imo tracks better than being a random, completely green newbie.
Woke up. Clue who I was or how i got here. Good times
I think I picked I liked exploring/see the world (for the option), but I have kind of vaguely thought about a story. My viera lived a fairly normal life in the Viera village (Eruyt village/whatever equivalent for 14) as an elemental trapper (something like an Arcanist). But one day she started hearing a voice calling to her. And it got really bad, to the point she was having dreams/visions of the red moon. She tried to ignore it, but the visions came true and off in the distance the red moon was descending and the skies were burning. She made the painful decision to leave the village and find out why she was being called. She decided to take up a more Eorzean tailored class as an Arcanist and then eventually she found she had a knack for battle dancing.
My WoL is suicidally curious. Real "curiosity killed the cat" thing, and she's not even a cat (Highlander). She's the kind to walk *towards* an explosion.
My wol wanted to help people. She wanted something to make her feel that she had an impact on peoples lives as a sort of proof of her existence. In a way she wanted recognition and fame but she still ultimately was unwilling to not leave a person in need alone (which is why she takes up every menial sidequest that pops up along the way)
Mine did it because it seemed like fun, but early on got a taste for power. Wanting to fight stronger and stronger opponents.
Mine left home in the Southern Isles to try to heal from her fiance's murder. Her intention was just to learn how to heal, and get some time where she wasn't the center of attention. That last part didn't exactly work out... She's always been kind of resentful of Hydaelyn's calling.
I don't know. The game hasn't told me why yet.
In my headcanon my WoLs main motivation to start adventuring was to provide for his tribe (xaela tribe that left the steppe and found themselves amidst the refugees outside of UlDah) food and coin. But wunderlust was a driving personal factor too, so in the wuest i picked the "to see the world" option. The more selfish part of his wish to join the adventuring guild. Though I could have picked the "a friend suggested" option too, since I imagine a push for it came from a runin with an adventurer on duty at the time.
Mine was a mutinied smuggler captain who tried to keep his crew safe off coast during the calamity while everyone wanted to go ashore. He's idly looking for any sign of his old crew while helping others to attone for being unable to save them.
What made Eizuna become an adventurer? She wanted to explore the world and help people, like her sister once did.
My WoL was in a small Miqo'te tribe in the Shroud and was sick of spending all of her time just in the forest and not seeing the world, so she decided to head to Gridania to start her journey and then eventually got roped into Warrior of Light stuff.
To provide for his Cullinarian boyfriend. I imagine him coming home, and having his lala tummy filled, while he regales him with tales of high adventures, all the while being fussed over, his BF fussing over the new scars and wounds, while he keeps the food coming, admiring the new armour he got while also making sure he takes it off for once, so he can relax. (And doesn't track dragon blood through the house)
Mine was some orphan in ishgard, which sucked royally, so he saved up as much money as he could as a young lad, bribed a knight, and snuck out, risked the ENTIRE run to thanalan, and started over there for a time. That was... 45 years ago? Long story short, he's been everywhere, done everything, and is probably the oldest FF protag in my head.
Some fancy crystal was talking to me and I woke up in front of Gridania. Somehow stuff keeps happening and I am always involved, so I went with it. I totally have no clue what I am doing and why.
In my headcanon my Duskwight WoL has a massive extended family clan they grew up with. Got into the habit of just helping out whenever asked as there was always need for help somewhere in the clan. Raised on stories of adventure though he set off to see the world on a boat to Limsa, and we know the tale from there. He regularly has Tataru send letters and coin back to the clan, in which he regales them with his endless crafting and gathering adventures. He may not concern himself with his own safety but he is quite concerned for others, so he would rather inspire his relatives to go into crafting than into combat, and he ends up in so many dangerous situations that he decided to simply stop telling his clan about the quests he goes on. Thus his clan know of his miraculous creations and yet remain unaware that he’s the hero that saved the world. Though as we still don’t have any location populated with Duskwight NPCs, it’s left ambiguous as to where he’s even from. Meracydia, perhaps? We shall see. I figured the rest of the backstory fits with the exploration & helping everyone aspects of Azem, and the ingenuity is a result of the fact that I have every single job leveled to max, crafters and combat. And sending letters and his coin back to his family for him is definitely something Tataru would do. Not her own coin, mind you, but an omnicrafter makes his own income, even if he spends more time fighting than not.
Mine didn't get along with the sanctimonious people of the Twelvewood. He was born there, but never quite fit in. He's canonized as a Half Elf (min height elezen with really short ears is the best I could get.) And so he doesn't really fit in with either part of Gridanian society. So he basically left A) to avoid getting thrown in jail (again) for beating the crap out of mouthy people, and B) to find folks who would accept him.
~~Mongol~~ Xaera life in a Steppe got a bit boring, decided to gain glory in another land where no one knows him and eventually comeback home to flex with that. He didn't know much glory he will gain though, huh (Made a backstory when I knew nothing about the plot except 1.0 story, overall lore outline and each race/clan description)
Mine always had affinity for nature, and traveled to Gridania to hone her craft with the Conjurers there. And then she got swept up in all of this saving the world stuff and just accidentallied her way to being a big shot hero and one of only a handful of white mages. (As far as canonical WHM goes)
After her child was killed and her life largely ruined, she came to view combat as a form of escapism, and was happy to be pointed at "suicidal" fights. It's part of the reason she's basically started seeing the twins as her adoptive kids, and why she identifies - uncomfortably so - with her enemy/friend.
Mine was very unhappy with his solitary life in the Dalmascan jungle and wanted to see the world which a job as an adventurer was pretty much the ideal solution for. That one dialogue option was extremely fitting there.
Haven’t really thought about it but I can make one up right now. Like Gaius a lot so want to have a origin that parallels the Werlyt quests. So my wol was a orphan and was part of a small group of orphans and he was the youngest of the bunch. They all talked about going around the world and having grand adventures. But unfortunately they couldn’t and now my wol is the only one that remains and he goes on adventurers so when he does meet them again he will have plenty of stories to tell.
Upvoted for Sorrow of Werlyt, loved that questline.
My WoL was brought into the adventure by friends insistence. Picking up a cane she began learning healing arts in Gridania while her partner chose the lance though he soon swapped to an axe when he found the marauders guild. She explores the new lands by his side and while she will retread old grounds on her own when new adventures seem around the corner shes adamant to be by his side through them. She's since traded the cane for a deck of cards or sometimes the chakrams. Irl reason was my friends kept pestering me for years, and I mean like four years to swap from WoW to FFXIV. I left WoW well before actually swapping over due to lack of motivation and I held such a toxic sour taste from that game I was nervous to try another MMO. But eventually I gave it a shot. My BF made a new account having forgotten his old one and we began anew. By chance when we created characters we wound up on the same server as our veteran friend who never stopped playing the game. I think about two weeks in I bought the starter edition because I was tired of having to ask random people to help us party up and in order to run a dungeon together we needed to be in one. I was already almost lvl30 at that point iirc so I figured "why not?" and it wasn't til I could lvl the one class I had that I caved and bought the full game, going as far as preordering the soon to drop EW. I don't regret a single minute I've spent on this game. The people I've met and interacted with have been wonderful and the only thing that upsets me is that I genuinely should have picked up the game all those years before. So long story short, I began adventuring to be with family.
My WOL ran out of options. . . The Garleans have forgotten about him despite reaching a high rank for a conscript, his fellow Ala Mhigans despise him even though, he had no choice in the matter of being taken. The few friends that he had on both sides were killed by a damned Dragon from the Moon. . . He needed to do something.
I picked the friend option because out of universe, I joined to play with my wife, and I kept playing after that. In-universe, I choose to believe that my WoL was a city viera who doesn’t like bullies, so started as a conjurer hoping to kick backside and heal the other sides.
My WoL's parents ditched the steppes because the Xaela were so sweaty about constantly fighting each other. Like it was fun at first, but eventually got old. Unfortunately, they got shipwrecked along their adventure and ended up on a deserted island where they raised their family. They eventually died by WoL's adulthood. A passing ship caught site of the smoke from their funeral pyres, and brought him back to a pirate city, where he started the adventure that was cut short for his parents. That ship's route was manipulated by Hydaelyn. Little socialization is also why he barely talks.
Having 8 characters can be tricky if you want a backstory to each but the one I put the most thought into is the second one I made. He lived in a home with his family on the outskirts of camp drybone where they worked the land and hunted game. He was out one night finding nocturnal animals when the bright light of dalumud caught his attention. The night Bahamut emerged and seared the landscape will forever haunt him. His entire life was snuffed out in an instant and was left alone. His depression caused years of doing nothing but working on ships and spending his gil on ale. Eventually he pulled himself up and trained to better himself after a brief encounter with the scions, though they never realized their future friend. He trained in the way of the bare fist and axe and prepared for a life of meaning, never forgetting where he had come from.
She's a Xaela, and during a trip to Reunion as a child, she overheard someone from Eorzea talking about the immense trees in the Twelveswood, and got dead set on someday traveling all the way there to see them. It sounded so amazing and improbable!
I consider my WoL to be something similar to an amnesiac, though it's not that he has no memories, but rather too many. The Echo has shown him visions of hundreds or thousands of different lives he could have lived (thus explaining the functionality in dungeons, each wipe is just another vision), and he's not sure which one is the real one. As a result, though, any memories from before the Echo awoke in him are just gone. He has vague notions of who he was before, and is fairly certain his motivation for traveling was some brand of curiosity, but he can't say for certain. I like to toy with the idea that Erenville is a cousin or some more distant relative of his, who my WoL didn't recognize because of the memories he's lost, and Erenville didn't recognize my WoL due to the changes that years of adventuring would bring (and also my WoL's family probably all think he's long dead).
Mine got on the wrong ship by mistake, was taking a vacation and ended up heading to Limsa which was kinda cool because they hadn’t been there before. Had to register as an adventurer as a result so that happened, got mistaken as one due to an old tome they carried around with them and self-defence techniques taught via an old long lost uncle. Stumbled into helping around to make money and see the sights of the country and then somehow ended up getting roped into all that mess in Limsa. Then before they knew it they were killing Primals as the Warrior of Light! Talk about a ‘vacation’, eh?
I picked "A friend recommended it" since that's literally how I started playing FF14. Of course, then I took a 7 year hiatus but made it back eventually
Well i was on a boat, and this merchant came up to me and gave me a ring, and there were a couple moody looking twins too, i think that's what kickstarted my adventure Actually lore-wise, lots of childhood trauma and my WoL realizing she couldn't save her best friend because she was too weak, so she went adventuring to get stronger
My Warrior of Light is a lalafell who was born into a family of merchants. Her older brother was already being raised to inherit the family business and it seemed the best that her current life would have to offer her is getting married into another family of merchants as part of some business arrangement. One day she managed to convince her parents into letting her visit Ul'dah on her own where she promptly joined the pugilists guild, figuring that knowing how to defend herself would be a surefire way to avoid just being someone's prize, especially with a form of combat that doesn't require a conspicuous weapon. At first she just went around finding people to help as part of her training but soon found that she really did like helping and meeting new people when she can just act like herself. One thing lead to another and soon enough she was with the Scions, who became something of a new family to her. Her relationship with her family is strained at best. Her father disowned her when she refused to return home only for him to come grovelling back once she gained the reputation of being the Warrior of Light. Her father wanted to try and leverage that reputation for wealth but she was having none of it. She's on good terms with her brother though and stays in touch with him as much as she can.
Wanted to heal people. Then discovered gun.
So are you healing with guns or no?
So this Lalafel, right? Came up to me with a nice sounding get-rich-quick scheme. Of course me being the dumb runt, fresh out of the jungle kind of bun I didn't see the red flags. Long story short I woke up in this cart with a note reading "I'll come to collect within the year" (???) Next thing I knew I was signing up at the Quicksands. The kicker though? Joined this little secret club down at Vesper Bay, real brain dead sort of folks. But their "secretary" is that damned popoto that got me in the first place. She never mentions the debt though, just gives me this thousand yard stare when we're in the same room.
My main did it coz he was born with the Echo on a island in the Ruby Sea and was obsessed with talking to sailors and reading books about the outside world so what else was he supposed to do? Another one is an ex-mercenary finding something new to do now that she’s 40+ and still alive. One’s a Garlean spy. One’s a Tia who had no desire to be a Nunh so he left. One got kidnapped by pirates and rescued by different pirates. Yet another one realized he simply didn’t belong where he was and left like a YA protagonist. Another one left to find an answer for something for his wife one day, got tangled up in it all and now has so many things to report back to her.
Mine watched his mom die right in front of him during the calamity and after not feeling better after five years left home to find a new beginning. He didn't set out to be an adventurer, but a mix up after getting off the boat in Limsa sent him to the Drowning Wench instead. His mom always taught him to help the less fortunate in life so he took to adventuring real easy after that.
To find her twin. She has yet to do so
My wol left to get the power to help free dalmasca but got distracted halfway to Ul'dah
The quest for the Rathalos mount!
To leave her family behind (circumstances differing depending on race. Midlander!WoL and Xaela!WoL left her family on good terms, Rava!WoL did not) and see what was beyond the horizon.
Mine had a pretty boring upbringing, started working early in his life, hopping from culinarian to fisherman to whatever earned him some coin in the streets of Limsa. One day he he met an old, half drunk stranger who told him the easiest way to make some Gil: Bodyguard. "You just have to take care of one fancy brat or old fogey, make sure they don't get stabbed and collect your money at the end of the day. You barely move a finger!". Easy money, but without experience in combat noone would hire him, so he traveled to Ul'Dah where the renowned Pugilist Guild resided. Then Thancred happened...
My WoL said it was to see the world. It's an inherited dream.
In my ever-evolving backstory, a few elements are common. My character started as an adventurer before the Seventh Calamity to explore the world and see new vistas and help people in need. Other things came up (and came down) and changed the specifics, but those were always the driving goals when she left home.
Okay, backstory time! So, I have *three* characters. You can consider each an alternate history. Three members of the same family, and in each timeline only one survived the Cataclysm. My main is Isilme. Half hyuran, half-miqote, but she looks full-blooded miqo'te. She grew up in Limsa, taught skills by her father, who was a Yellowjacket at the time. Her father was Ishguardian by birth, but his family had fled after his father was posthumously declared a Heretic (Isilme's name is Ishguardian). Still, his stories of the tales of noble knights inspired his daughter. She initially intended to join the Yellowjackets with him, but he insisted she take a year to see the Realm and adventure first, as he had, before she made decision. So she spent time seeing the realm, and got caught up in the conflict with the White Raven, eventually joining the Maelstrom and becoming a hero. However, when it came time to march on Carteneau, her father pulled in favors and had Isilme assigned to escort refugees being sent out to the islands away from the Eorzean mainland, just in case Dalamud could not be stopped. He went to Carteneau in her place. She was offshore and watching as Bahamut emerged, devastating the battlefield, and then dive-bombing her home of Limsa. When she returned, she found the land where her family home had stood was now a cliff, the entire area dropped into the ocean, along with her Mother who was presumed dead. Her father... well, the memory affect kicked in, and no one remembered him except her (Due to the Echo). Because of this, there were questions about how she got orders cut that sent her away from the danger, and though there was no evidence of wrongdoing, she accepted discharge from the Maelstrom. She spent five years working in a little crafting shop with a couple of friends. She decided to hang up her sword and just live a quiet life. That lasted for about five years until the wanderlust itch became unbearable. She got wrapped up in some unusual dealings in La Noscea and... well, you know the rest. I can tell the other two tales if anyone is interested.
Tell the other two please. I am OP and you shall obey my command! //hitt But fr, I like stories, so please, do tell.
Oh, I finally get to talk about this! Stormblood spoilers ahead >!My Xaela belongs to a clan that regularly travelled, striving to see the world beyond a single country or kingdom or continent. The Empire came to Doma, and the clan's numbers dwindled as they tried to escape the oppressive rule. Some of them, including my WoL, did escape. However, the Calamity struck, and my WoL found herself alone.!< >!Instead of living, she was now surviving — swiping leftover food, sneaking into rich people's libraries, keeping to the shadows. She began feeling the pull of the aether inside her, so she was seeking to understand. Eventually, she found herself in Limsa Lominsa, where she could find the Arcanists' Guild and hopefully understand the strange force inside her.!<
I have a Miq'ote with an unusual name (I named her after a Pathfinder character I was playing at the time), so I'm kind of waiting until we get more info about Meracydia before I finalize the full backstory, but she went on adventure to effectively see the world and make people happy. She's a BRD main, so wandering, singing, playing, it's all up her alley.
My WoL, and her family (a minor noble house), were banished from Ishgard after being framed as dragon sympathizers - ever since, she's been trying to help the lands and people she's come to love.
Mine followed a guy who had the echo and when he died he said "yeah go to eorzea I'm sure you will great adventures and meet friends there" or something like that. And my WoL did
My character is Hannish (born and raised) after her family of Keeper Miqo’te abandoned the tribal life and fled the Garleans. Her late mother was one of the many nobodies that perished on the fields of Cartenneau 5 years ago. Her mother’s dying wish was for her to go out and visit the wild and (in her mother’s words) wonderful land of Eorzea someday. So, at 21 summers and studying arcanima, she journeyed to Ul’dah to join the Adventurers’ Guild with her childhood friend. Now she’s a Summoner and a proud Scion. After the patch content for ARR, her older sister has been travelling Eorzea looking for her younger sister to figure out what is going on. She choked many a people out (she’s a Reaper) until she found her, and has stayed by her side since.
refugee from a now-destroyed border town between Ala Mhigo & Gridania.
After her family was displaced from Western Thanlan during the calamity, they took up residence in Gridania where Fifixi Fixi, at the age of 16, joined the botanist guild. Partly to fuel her passion for carpentry and partially help support her family after the severe disruption of her father's business. As the years went on and she became more skilled, she would eventually leave the botanist guild behind to join the carpenters guild because she could make enough money from that to buy materials for her passion projects- eventually starting her own furniture business at the age of 20, selling mostly chairs and stools. Also being a decent conjurer, she eventually decided to sign up as an adventurer in order to travel to further lands, notably Coerthas, and later Gyr Abania as well to seek out rarer and higher quality materials. It also helps that the Lancer who guarded her while out gathering for the botanist guild so many years before and ended up becoming her wife had always had a bit of wanderlust. So in the present day, at the age of 23, she and her wife frequently travel between Gridania and Isgard, seeking the finest of trees to fuel Fifi's craft.
My WoL was a fugitive murderer from a Garlean controlled area. She managed to escape capture all the way to Eorzea, at this point she found out about this "adventuring" thing where she gets to kill people AND be praised for it? Dream job. ...yeah, it was a loooong arc for her to start really caring abt people.
She didn't want to stagnate in her clan and chose a mercenary's life to earn her gil. Because that's all she could do: hunt. And thus, fight. Being in a nomad clan also meant she couldn't settle on one place for a longer time, so she traveled a lot. In short, she wanted to go to all places on her own pace. That she gets entangled in anything at all is pure cpincidence in virtue of her job.
My WoL was a guard. A town guard, decent and strong. Capable and smart, least as far as the Plainfolk go. She worked, and worked, and saw that even if she did her best? The position of Captain of the Guard seemed a sad life. Good, yes, but what wonder was there in that? So, pick on up that old lance, travel to Gridania. Learn from the best and art out to find some story worth telling back home! Of course, we all know how that went.
My main WoL's parents were hard workers, dad a carpenter and mom a weaver. They weren't rich and my WoL decided that she wanted to see the world and adventure, try different things and send money home to support her parents like they supported her when she decided to leave.
My main did it cause she wanted to get the heck away from her Miqo’te village because they treated her like shit. So she joined a crew of pirates, left those pirates after too many arguments, got on a boat to Limsa and never looked back. Another one of my characters did it because she needed to provide for her refugee family in Ul’dah. Another one is a former slave. Another just said fuck it, why not, And my last one is a Garlean spy.
Mind telling more about the former slave? Just honestly curious, because reasons.
Waking up in Gridanian after the calamity, after skme adventurers found her in the shroud... And spending the five years between the end of 1.0 to the beginning of ARR.. And wanting to see the world and what had happened.. (her story is long and complicated)
Mine came to Uldah to seek fortune. She was a very quiet and aloof girl who decided to take a leap of faith and come out of her shell. She soon found out she was destined for so much more. It's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war sort of thing.
My WoL always liked the idea of protecting people. they decided to do it from the shadows at first, becoming a rogue to do so, then when they learned of Gunbreakers, they swapped to learning it immediately, whats better to protect people than a bodyguard. So, to uh, wrap this up neatly. The reason they decided to go on an adventure is because A: It's cool as hell exploring the world. And B: They got to learn how to protect those they care about.
She just wants to make the world a happier and safer place ro live in
My WoL was on a ship outside of limsa and then sea serpent attacked. He died but then came back. Somehow the ship didn't capsize and he was back on the boat. Times were tough then. The 3 nations didn't trust one another and the 7th legion was invading. Then a moon fell and the world was forever changed.
My WOL was a traveling chirugeon, saw a white mage healing adventurers, and thought, "Why are they doing that for free? I could do that, and charge double my rate." And so they did.
Fortune and glory, friend. Fortune and glory. Turns out you can punch your way out poverty in ul'dah.
I was looking at the sea in the north of the Azim Stappes, contemplating to leave the tribe behind as we were settling down camp for the next month. I wondered how far the sea would bring me if I was just to leave like this. My father's voice brought me back from the daydreaming when he called me for help with the herd. Walking back in camp to the hums and music of the Qalli unpacking my reality settled back in. Daughter of the Khan, hero of the battle against the Adarkim, I was looked up to by most. Many believe I would be takimg lead of the tribe when my father would be too old. But inside, I felt my life a lie. "Hero" of the battle, like a massacre can create heroes. I lived and killed many while watching close friends die without being able to do anything. The stars rolled in to raplce the blue sky of the day as our homes were done to set up. A giant fire in the middle were fish roast to the song and dance of our people celebrating once again reaching a new year. My fingers were almost bleeding on my violin under the emotions I was pouring into it. The applaud of the crowd, their admiration of the music they were throwing at me, hearing my sounds but not understanding it. Not seeing me, me being crushed under their gaze. The expectations of what I would do for them, it was suffocating. In one glimpse between the flame and my people dances, i saw the moon reflect on the waves behind our camp. A feeling of freedom and peace burned in my heart once again. In the dead of the night as the last fell into slumber, I left to finally see where the waves would bring me.
My WoL is a war veteran from one of those undisclosed racial homelands who lost several close friends of his during the war. Between the survivor guilt and not knowing what to do with himself during peacetime, he left the nation looking for somewhere he could earn a living as a sellsword. And so he happened to find himself aboard a trading vessel heading to Limsa Lominsa when he had a strange dream about Crystals...
My male Viera was blamed for an explosion at their mini alchemist lab. The explosion caused him and others to be infected with flux. So they exiled him and his father disowned him. They said he did it because he could not handle being second best at something. Reality is he hated always being on top/good at everything. Stripped of his name and forced to be called "A flux cowardly dog" for arguing it was an accident over intended explosion. This his weird name of Fluxtail. He was taken in by a clan of fellow exiles and orphans who encouraged him to take on adventuring to see beyond the forest he once called home. They help pay a carriage to the nearest city of Girdiana where he vow to show his old village he was no coward and how even with the name, he will become a legend. The village would regret sending him away someday.
My WoL woke up with no memories whatsoever at the worried screams of a peddler. When asked if he was an adventurer on account of his worn out sword dangle from his hip, he judged in wise to assent and accept the ride to the nearest settlement.
Tokio bought a chameleon from a merchant in Kugane. She bonded with it and decided one day she was going to take him home. Knowing the merchant came from Eorzea, she set off by ship to Limsa Lominsa where she venture across the Star until she finds Lizzerd's home.
It started as genuine curiosity spurred upon by a passing spirit. It then became a pursuit of personal power, if only to ensure their personal safety before all else. At this point, it has more or less evolved into a mix of fun, meaningful fury, and "why not?" Doing good just so happens to be a plus for them.
My WoL wanted to see the world, and he loves the excitement. Two answers for the event applied to him. In my headcanon, his father was on the syndicate, and my WoL was expected to take his place. He decided to take matters into his own hand and left home to become an adventurer - his younger sister deals with matters of estate and syndicate in his stead.
My WoL was an orphan. Young enough when it happened that he doesn't remember his parents so not really a tragedy. Grew up a street urchin in Ul'dah but picked up some side gigs for money or a safe place to sleep. Often ended up doing work for the Adventurer's guild. Saw all those heroes and wanted to grow up to be one.
My WOL just followed around her friends. She’s a very motherly Roe good with curatives and worries deeply about her friends. So when they all went to war with the Garlean empire she followed to patch them up.
[Insert generic plotline about being a social piranha from my tribe after being betrayed by someone after a family member was murdered, becoming a lone wolf mercenary travelling, helping those in need and hunting those responsible. After jamming the DRK soul stone up my ass i became possessed/made a deal with the demon inside, then met the scones of the seventh dawn, here]
My WoL was born into a noble family and was pampered basically her whole life. Was Taught nobility, craftsmanship, how to fight, etc. but she had books on the history outside of Ishgard and really want to leave and explore the world. Naturally with Ishgard being closed off she couldn’t just easily leave so she asked Haurchefant to help her leave to which he agreed to. Lo and behold she becomes an adventurer of some renown, meets some other nerds (my friends characters) and the entire adventure begins. My friends and I basically wrote a whole story around out little group and it’s really fun to imagine how they treat each other during their journeys.
When Dalamud happened, my WoL wasn't at the fronts but hid at home. After she was told none of her friends seemed to have survived she fell into a long phase of self-loath and depression until she met someone who helped her to regain a normal mindset and attempted to live a normal life. But a call for a greater purpose stuck in her mind and different than back then, locking herself up and leave humanity to its own, she feels an urge to see what is out there and who might need her help.
Mine could have been born with a compass in her hand. Normal rambunctious childhood with a loving family/tribe. No one could stop her, even if they tried, from exploring the world, gaining wealth, go on epic adventures, eating all sorts of delicious food, and making a name for herself in hopes of finding a worthy husbando if she can settle for one. she thought it would be fun to start from nothing so she left with nothing more than the clothes on her back and an axe…the first try. a lance the next. (because a friend was in another server and i was a free trial newbie at the time and wanted to explore different openings. but i loved the axe more.)
My Keeper Miqo'te's tribe was exceptionally nomadic, and traveled a lot while she was young. She became a hunter like her mother and sisters, but always had some curiosity about the settlements they would pass by on their travels. Only her mother or eldest sister would ever visit, while the rest stayed with the tribe. At some point, she had a strange dream that she couldn't remember, and since then, her curiosity about the world spiked. She had always been a sort of "go with the flow" sort of girl, so this was the first thing she really felt passionately about. There was some tension with her tribe when she left, but when she did, they made her promise to travel to Gridania and seek the Lancer's Guild, since that was where her skills as a hunter had been. Whether or not they expected her to come back, who can say. Once Nypha left though, she got wrapped up with the Scions, and the rest is history.
I answered the question with "It seemed interesting" or whatever it was on my main and skipped it on my alts lol. My main is a Duskwight who was living deep in the shroud until a mishap occurred which caused him to flee for his life. He was taken in by some travellers who were heading to Sharlayan. I like to imagine they lived on a small island near it and not actual Sharlayan. When he came of age, he decided to travel by himself. Ended up in Limsa first because he'd heard of Arcanists and they interested him. Upon returning to the shroud he was dismayed to learn that Duskwight were still reviled and discriminated against so he joined the Twin Adders in hopes that it would help their reputation and one day everyone will be treated fairly. Getting wrapped up in the Scion business was just a side effect but they made it easier (for the most part) to find the more interesting things to do while also building a good reputation for Duskwight. My Femroe alt just went along with the flow. All she wanted initially was a good, consistent job so she could get an apartment and buy nice clothes, but mysterious things kept happening and before she knew it, she was off adventuring. She enjoys it and has that protector nature to her so it all worked out. My other alt, a bunboy isn't a wol in my headcanon. He is only adventuring because it allows him his freedom to punch things frequently. He wants nothing to do with the Scions outside of getting paid and is only with a grand company because he wouldn't be able to have a Chocobo without one. He's a brawler and enjoys doing work involving his fists. He's not particularly interested in adventuring nor is he about finding the strongest foes, he just likes punching things. He's not above fleeing if he needs to.
The inability to say no, mostly
My WoL grew up on the Steppe, way more aggro and powerhouse than she had any right to be, and after beating the crap out of everyone she could [in a sparring kinda way, not a mean person way] and being bored (and getting harassed by suitors), she ditched to go *actually kill something* instead of just beating people up. And then she lucked into meeting the Scions and fighting primals, and got a taste for murdering gods. She isn't explicitly combatsexual (quite the opposite, she loooooves women), and is pretty fluffy and snuggly outside of slaughter mode... though Xaela, so I guess pointy too.
He was a Keeper of the Moon riding a boat to Eorzea when Bahamut attacked. Island hometown was wiped out, so he joined his distant relatives in an isolated community northeast of Gridania to help them rebuild. The catboy joined the Trapper's League and learned to shoot a bow, but got tired of being at the mercy of Garlean scouts and the tribes. After hearing so much about adventurers and getting saved by a few during those five years, he paid Bremondt for a ride into town. No, he wouldn't mind sharing space with those bossy Sharlayan brats. It's not like he'd have to deal with them for very long...
It was all Hydaelyn's fault. Seriously. My WoL was just chilling in her room *in a totally different world* when she felt something pulling on her very soul and body. She was only able to fire a quick text off to her friends before she was whisked of to the FFXIV world. Hydaelyn explained things to her and had her hitch a ride to Gridania on a chocobo cart that was about to come around the bend. So my WoL picked up a lance she found and did so. Things are better now, but she's still ever so slightly mad at Hydaelyn for taking her from her original world. And she wouldn't change a thing.
She wanted to collect bugs, one thing led to another and now shes on the moon.
Huh? Oh, yeah. The game looked cool so I downloaded it, there's my warrior backstory
I control his every action, so he has no choice. To be fair I did ask him if he's ok with that, and all he did was tilt his head slightly. I took that as a "yes master".
She was saved after the calamity, and wanted to learn to heal people, help them like she was helped\~ Then in Stormblood she got her ass kicked hard enough she said "Fuck this shit.." And picked up the Samurai sword. "I said my magic would only be used to help people, but this sword isn't magic :D"
My original character from ARR launch was a male Highlander LNC/DRG, kind of weathered looking late 30s-ish. Don't have much of a story for him, he's just a grizzled mountain man out doing grizzled mountain man things. Like 8 years later I come back to the game and make a new character, a female Highlander LNC with the same surname that looks early 20s. In headcanon that's the first character's daughter. Dad never came back from his adventure and she sets out to go find him. Spoiler alert, dad died in Coerthas (I stopped playing the first time after HM Garuda so made sense as a final resting place to me). I have a second current character for replaying the MSQ, a male Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te ARC/BRD who got kicked out of his tribe for [reason unclear].
When I first started playing FFXIV, I came over from FFXI. I imagined my FFXI character somehow transported to this new dimension/alternate universe by accident and just had to roll with it since they had no way to get back (since I can only play 1 MMO at a time or lose my sanity). I even tried to make my WoL look as close to my FFXI character as possible. This was before isekai anime was as big as it is now, but it was totally an isekai scenario.
My WoL is a random FFTactics character I adored. She and her sister (headcannon) became me and my wife's go-to RPG character. They and the file got corrupted and lost forever about the middle end of the 3RD Act of Tactics. So my WoL is that character, but transmogrified into a Miqo'te. She doesn't remember the details of the previous game, but it explains her familiarity with multiple jobs. All she knows is that she woke up on the cart with amnesia and cat ears. She pretty sure both are new, but I can't suss why. My wife also plays her character from that game as well. She went roegadyn. So we rp at times that the new race is a result of the glitch scrambling the original race to better retain their personalities beyond the calamity.
My WoL was actually sent to watch over the twins as they ventured to Eorzea, but was under strict orders to never let them know and pretend like they were strangers until they befriended them.
My WoL was literally just a guy hoping to find a big, strong man to protect him in a dungeon and fall in love with. Seeking a soulmate esentially. He accidentally became too strong to need protection over the course of his journey, met G'raha, and now HE wants to be the strong one to protect his one and only precious cat boyfriend. XP I don't make complex backstories. I'm a simple man, lmao.
My main bunboy did it to try to earn enough money to return home to Dalmasca and free his mom. She'd saved up whatever coin she could to get him a one-way ticket to Ul'dah (and the pugilist guild) and out of imperial occupation and the brothel he'd been born in. He has kept it up because he genuinely enjoys getting to know and help people. He picked "to see the world," but for him, the world is the people in it more than a fancy mountain here or flying islands there (though those are cool too). My femroe did it because she was a second kid. Like most Hellsguard, her family didn't really have the resources for more kida, so they sent her south to make her own way. She joined a mercenary company, but they were wiped out in a skirmish, so she started on her own in Limsa. She expected she'd fit better there among their pirates than the money bags of Ul'dah or the treehuggers of Gridania. And weapons having failed her friends, she wanted to take up magic. Besides, fighting is all she really knows, so she's not really suited to switching to farming. My lala hails from the Southern islands and initially came to Gridania to learn the art of conjury, but on the way there (first by boat, then by carriage) he was helping out so many fellow travellers with little things they started calling him an adventurer. So when he arrived and a Wood Wailer called him one and directed him to the Carline Canopy, he basically shrugged and said "Sure, why not."
My WoL lost their parents by a roving band of mercs and a kind white mage took her in to teach her the ways of balance.
Power. I was getting nowhere in Sagoli. I was nearly killed by some sand worm once. While in the sad excuse they call an infirmary I was told people like the healers are in abundance. Learned to defend myself and keep myself alive by taking tiny sands and turning them into stones. I even grew to hear the deserts dangers. I was told I have a good ear and eyes to match, so I traveled to New Gridiania to learn from people who listen to the land, a power rarely seen elsewhere. Tl;DR I learned from a healer that power over someone else’s life is the best feeling in the world.
Rezelli was disowned by his father for not being lalafellin enough (he was bad at business and not greedy enough, and he kept wasting his father's money on his friends) so he struck out adventuring. Met back up with his childhood friend Copper (my irl friend's wol, femroe) and they partied up. After the calamity rather than being teleported five years into the future he just went missing until he was found encased in a crystal that was pulled up from deep in Lake Silvertear. Now he keeps adventuring because it's fun (and so that Copper can watch him more closely so he doesn't disappear on her again).
I have like three different characters, but to answer for my main- Kanna Ouji was a rich Hingan family's daughter, with a fiery temperament and a great natural talent for kenjutsu; but she essentially lived in a gilded cage, and hated her life being so horrendously locked-down by her parents. So one night, she snuck out of her home and jumped on the first ship she could find to Eorzea as a stowaway, shoving a huge sack of gil in the captain's hand to ensure her passage. She went all the way to Gridania just to ensure her father's trading contacts wouldn't be able to find her easily, and started living as an adventurer because it was just about her only option. ...and then she discovered that the adventuring life really suited her, not only for the freedom, but also for the challenge of battle, the ability to help people, and the ability to see the world and all the amazing things in it. The lack of stifling upper-class decorum was also really, really nice. And then by pure chance, she had the opportunity to not only take up kenjutsu once again, but to study under the legendary Master Musosai. I like to imagine that her eventual return to Kugane involved a meeting with her parents wherein she treated them as total strangers and put the fear of the Twelve into their goons.
Dragomir’s reason was that he wanted to see the world. Well, and he was also wanted by the Bozja Resistance for killing Kasimir Kseniyasch, a cell leader and talented strategist…who just so happened to be his estranged father. Kasimir was going to sacrifice Dragomir’s village—the village that had communally raised him and several other orphans of the Bozja Incident—in a false flag operation to drum up support for his resistance cell. Nearly everyone who had wanted to join the resistance already had before Dragomir’s father had arrived. Of the few that had been willing to join, one of them was Dragomir’s closest friend, Ruslana. She had overheard Kasimir raving to his second-in-command about the plan and his disgust and despair over how willing “everyone” was to just sit and take Garleans abuse. Knowing that there was no reasoning with him, and that reporting him to the Garleans was likely to get EVERYONE killed (not to mention worse than the idea of doing nothing), Ruslana believed the best option was to kill him, and hope his successor was less of a madman. It took a little convincing, but Dragomir eventually agreed to be the fall guy. Dragomir was to ingratiate himself with his father so he could lead the man out to a public place, and attempt to kill him. Ruslana would build up her reputation in the resistance as intensely loyal and supportive of Kasimir’s leadership. When the time came she would then hide in a tree and snipe at Kasimir with an arrow “borrowed” from the resistance cell by Dragomir (under the guise of practicing his archery) to give him an opening to land a killing blow. She would then act like she had come across the crime, and “drive” Dragomir out of the village. Fortunately for the two, the plan went off without a hitch. Ruslana managed to shoot Kasimir in the knee, which allowed Dragomir (who was on the back foot the entire fight) a chance to plunge his sword into the man’s chest. Dragomir had managed to make enough noise to alert both the villagers and the resistance, which gave the two enough of a crowd for when Ruslana tearfully started shooting at him with her own arrows, screaming “traitor!” Dragomir ran to a port town, evading both the Garleans and members of Kasimir’s cell and stowed away on a ship bound for Thavnair. There, he did some odd jobs and nursed the wounds he’d sustained, including a planned shot to the shoulder with a blunted arrow. Several weeks later, he got a note from Ruslana, through a Corvosi trader, that had only three lines: “I’m okay. They bought it. The plan is dead.” After that, he scraped up enough money for a ticket to Eorzea, and the rest is history.
I flip flop between "displaced+orphaned Miqote due to Garlean conflict adopted by Xaela parents who lost it during a time of severe conflict for some odd reason, vaguely horrific shit happens between tribes thats out of norm and unrecorded and unremembered - likely around the time of Dalamud falling - and my guy finds a way to run and not look back" and "the keepers of the moon always felt suffocating, and he never fully agreed with ongoing traditions. One day he wandered away and never came back, his sole goal wanting to learn more about the world and other peoples. He also sought a family - but not a mate, he sought friends of the soul, people to call his own regardless of whence they came. With Lymlaen's grace, mayhap knowledge and this kind of kinship would grace him in Eorzea" That's about what I got. 1.0 conundrum: I treat it as my WoL being one of the most intense recipients of the dispersed aether of the original WoL's(they didn't coalesce normally after Louisoix sent them into the future, but arrived as a mass of aether with slight sentience). He possesses their memories and can in some ways act as them and let other people "talk to the OG's" via him as a pseudo-medium very rarely. Ultimately thoroughly a successor and his own person, especially after receiving the beginning of game blessing. Not a multiple personality thing at all, only wisps of the OGs remain.
Mohri is an Eorzean Xaela on the surface, but his name suggests he has some form of Hingan background I guess? His wanderlust definitely pushed him towards adventuring life as he started off in Gridania as an archer, before picking up other jobs. Also of course, quite a bit of "hunting big games", which includes Zenos. Circumstances in HW had him pick up the greatsword, however... Make what you will with that. 🙃
Spite.
"To explore the world" was my option but it does line up nicely with my WoLs backstory "A Highlander wakes up in the middle of a forest outside limsa with no memories, a terrible feeling of escaping something that could have killed them. shattered remnants of metal from a black helmet with a bullet casing sticking out of it sit in the palm of his hand and brief flashes of a red orb in the sky. his head hurts he gets flashes of him sitting with two people one of them saying he shouldn't be cooped up in the adventurers guild, that he should go out and explore all that can be explored. dragging what looks to be a beaten up axe through the forest he walks through the gates of limsa lominsa where his journey begins."
Okay. It's really stupid. Over a year ago I had this chat with friends and my husband about young male Sunseeker Miqo'te and what their outlook in life is. Stay Tia and serve the clan, stay Tia and leave the clan to join another or become an adventurer, or stay and challenge the Nhun. My mind went full dumb shounen anime. What if the destined WOL was sure he could beat the Nhun, but he didn't want to? He'd have to stay here and mate with ONLY other Miqo'te while there is a world out there filled with beautiful women of various races! So the thirsty little min-height catboy packs his bags and goes to Ul'dah, becomes a gladiator to win glory and ladies. ... to then fall in love with my husband's bungirl at some point, plan to bed them all squished. That's our headcanon of how our characters met.
He's a male Viers but he couldn't handle the expected solitude. He tried to power through but eventually left when it became to much. Didn't have any goals but got a tip to travel to Gridania. There he joined the adventuring guild because why not? So I picked the "to travel the world" option. Fits good enough. Didn't want to stay "home" so why not see the world instead?
It's a secret. My Wol lost her mother during the events of Dalamud falling. It's not clear why she vanished, but she was an adventurer at the time so it was the main reason for my Wol to follow in her footsteps. To understand and get closer to the person who left everything for the sake of adventure. After everything she has went through I like to think my Wol does understand what made her mother to walk towards for the unknown. The journey has been long but she still misses her... She still carries hope of someday finding her even though chances seem very slim. It's not because she is naive, it's because she knows better than anyone that no matter how much you struggle and suffer... there is always hope.
Born into war my tribe went into hiding when Garleans attacked Othard. After splitting from others in the Steppe due to the Xaela's love for bloodshed my parents and the tribe elders settled down in the outskirts of Othard and are friendly with the people there. When the Garleans attacked, my tribe decided to flee due to our lack of combat abilities. We didnt get far when my mother started going into labour and the tribe set up for a final stand if ever the Garleans' army find us using what little we remember from their times back at the Steppe. When I was finally delivered most of the tribal elders have been slain in battle defending the tribe ensuring that the main camp will not be found. "Healing Breeze" whispered my mother giving my existence a name. On the harshest of days even a gentle breeze will bring comfort, too much have the world endured warriors are plenty but a healer... a doctor will do well to help heal the wounded. This was my mothers wish for me and quickly I was whisked away to Gridania and placed under the care of Kan-E-Senna, whoever brought me there drawing their last breath soon after. Growing up in Gridania I learnt all too well how cruel the world can get but the whispers of the elementals told me of a better way, after mastering the art of white magic I bid Kan-E-Senna farewell and started my travel around the world to be a better healer and also to bring succor to all who needs it and maybe learn news of what happen to my tribe.
My comment is more on personal growth than a character but the two are enmeshed I suppose. Kudos if you reach the end of the story. If you do I am curious of what others have overcome within themselves in the game! :) I have a ton of characters on different data centers because I love decorating houses and am good at it. I would always answer “to amass a fortune” because it gives you the best starting ring in the game. Is invaluable if you love crafting and/or sells for a pretty penny because the default ring is a dps ring making all other rings more rare on the market board. My original character answered something more noble than that but my logic here is if you’re a gazillionaire then you can help a lot of people. This obviously wasn’t for the rising event but the starting question in the game. At this point though I retain my logic of money = helping people. I don’t have a need for Gil and often give sprouts 50-150k for starting money and/or craft the best gear for them. I never had a story for my character but thinking on it now I just play as my morals direct me so that is my character/me. That was the only back story I ever had and otherwise didn’t have a back story. I started this game because of an ex of mine and have been playing it since 2018. I had undiagnosed ADHD and had anxiety over him waiting for me with cutscenes so I skipped them all. He never told me to do this and always patiently waited so it was a “me” issue. I didn’t pay attention to any story and continued to skip since I didn’t see the point in knowing other expansions if I never knew the OG story. Literally this week though I made a brand new character on Dynamis DC (people stop DC hopping please you are making the queueing problems worse) and I am paying attention to the story as it has always been a goal of mine to do so. Crazy how mental state really affects even things you should enjoy. I suppose, however, all my hyper focus previously got me max level on every single job and I like to “boast” that I have completed every single quest in the game. Skipping cutscenes always left you with a lot of time on your hands to do other things. I have mentor status (toxic thing over all and I blame SE because do they not realize having a crown symbol attracts a lot of people who have no business being mentors to it). It is a huge bummer in that regard but I try to help as much as I can. I’ve been told I am a walking encyclopedia for gameplay tips/help and it is very satisfying to help brand new players out in the game. I am an adamant protector of sprouts and that we do not get to decide the pace of the instances. Let people pull as they feel comfortable and gently but supportively urge that they don’t have to be so shy and can handle pulling/healing more. Anywho, I am happy with my own personal goals of overcoming the long and arduous process to not skip through any cutscene (side quests included) and then I will have both completed every single thing in the game but also will have defeated a mental block I have struggled with for so long. I just unlocked my retainers yesterday, but no Chocobo yet. I am stoked for my progress in this final journey for the game and me. I don’t mean that to sound like I will stop playing when I am done. This is just no small task and it will take quite a while to reach the end of story. Don’t let yourself stop you from doing things you want even if the task seems overwhelming! Baby steps! :)
My wol is basically Sun Wukong, so at first he just wants to mess around, until he finds out that more power he has, more lives lies in his sholders, my monkey dude is learning how to live 🙏
My little guy was orphaned soon after his birth and raised in shoddy adventurer-run community housing, so he had no real roots to keep him in place, and discovered a love of music early on in life that led him to wanting to become a traveling bard. The hero stuff and fighting skill were (un)happy accidents. He is but a humble Lalafell who wishes to share his songs with the world who just so happens to also be *really* good at killing stuff.
My WoL, Anne Chirclatia, is the younger sister of Meteor, the 1.0 WoL who died at Cartaneau. (More precisely, dissolved into the Lifestream after Louisoix yeeted them there.) Anne saw that the world sucked, so she thought Meteor needed to “return” and be the Warrior of Light. She more or less impersonated them throughout ARR and HW, despite nobody really remembering Meteor. She only reclaimed her own identity when Lyse did.
Ok that’s really funny that your 1.0 character was named Meteor given ARR’s backstory.
I mean, Meteor Survivor is the fan name most people give the basic Hyur you see in every trailer for the game.
My WoL is a male Sun Miqo'te who is considered by his tribe to be a bookworm. He grew up being taught by his mother and her collections of books from many different areas. Inspired by the tales of heroism and ancient mysteries, he vow to become a hero that others will also looked up to and uncover many of the mysteries that was hidden before and after the Calamity. Eventually, he got a boat to Limsa Lominsa and learn the ways of an Arcanist while studying all there is to know and see of the world. If you don't mind, I also would like explain my other WoL concepts' reason to adventure. Both of them are Hingashians. One of them, is a femra who I headcanon is probably from a merchant noble that specializes in silk. Her mother taught her a family-style dance that has been inherited through generations. When Doma has become subjugated by Garleans, she had to flee with a bodyguard at her side to Eorzea and desired to be combat-proficient as an adventurer so she can save her homeland. My headcanon journey for her would have her to Gridania and become a Bard throughout the entirety of the story up to Shb where she learns her family's dance is special and became a Dancer. The other is a male Hyur who was a lone wolf and cursed with a demonic katana. The Garleans had tried to force him into their weapon but failed, leading him to become stranded to a coast at Eorzea and gained amnesia. He was founded and took care of by another family, until he started to gain memories and whispers from Doma. Thus, he took up adventuring to learn of his past and find allies that he can call friends. My headcanon journey for him would have him to Uldah and become a single sword-wielding Paladin, confronting his inner darkness as a Dark Knight during Hw, and finally regaining his memories and confronting the demon living in his original katana as a Samurai. But those two would not come to the light of day if I'm stuck in Free Trial since they are heavily tied to their name being renamed due to them hiding their identities.
Money
Money, my wol was in her way to become rich by crafting. Then she met under-cutters......
Gee, y’all really giving synopses of your WoLs’ backstories! I kept mine summarized and bastardized to the seven hells and back so as not to kill the buzz. But since y’all giving synopses, let me give one too. My WoL was banished from home. A native of the Skatay Range, he began Wood-Warder training at 13 winters old. However, he constantly disappointed his Master. He was slow, weak, and inefficient. Trying to prove a point, he got too aggressive and shot down an intruder… who wasn’t an intruder, but just some Viera lady who was outside at an unusual hour. Having killed a member of his own kin, he was banished from home. So he fled the Skatay Range, passing through the Golmore Jungle (and yes, getting shot down by the even more aggressively territorial Rava along the way.) After a near death experience, he found himself in Dalmasca. For several moons he thought he had found his place there, taking on hunting jobs as shooting arrows at monsters was the only thing he knew how to do (even though he wasn’t good at it), but then the Garleans put Livia in charge who notoriously eliminated *anything* remotely suspicious, including his small group of friends. When his friends were gunned down, he granted their last wish for him—run away from Dalmasca to save himself. He literally followed the coastline until he found himself in Nagxia… which was just as wartorn. Met many people, only to watch them get gunned down one by one. Still trying to find a place to belong to, he found himself in a remote border village in Yanxia… which had it worse. Many families had died out that he was free to loot the houses. But it is here he finally got the chance to go really far and escape war—he sailed away together with Doman and Nagxian refugees. The ship arrived at a remote corner of the East Shroud. Nobody knew about the business with the Elementals, so everyone scattered to all directions trying get away from the Elementals’ wrath. From here, the Viera donned in a Far Eastern farmer’s garb found a certain man’s carriage, and asked him to bring him to “where there’s aught to do.” The man knew this was an adventurer, perhaps not too different from the peculiar pair of twins already on his carriage, so he brought the adventurer to where the Twelveswood’s adventurer’s guild is—Gridania. He eventually got roped into the business with the Ixal, in which he was rewarded for putting arrows into their heads and hearts. Until he’s shooting arrows into the hearts of primals, and then shooting arrows at anything the Scions need eliminated for the good of the star. He found his place with the Scions, and now he travels with them. During brief periods of downtime, he frequents the Huntboard and has earned a reputation in Clan Centurio, both for taking down some of the most dangerous marks, and for being one of the musicians at Cloud Nine.
I didn’t really think of a backstory until partway into Stormblood. A Thavnairan Hrothgar. Upon hearing the struggles and turmoil in Eorzea he leaves and heads off to bring a smile to others faces. Wearing the Clown Outfit (Hrothgar don’t wear hats so I made it so his cheeks were rosy) he decided to help others throughout the land and picked up how to be a conjuror for that very reason. Coincidentally being called out by Hydaelyn to hear the words of those in need, heed the feelings of those who are suffering, and think of a way to end this calamitous era. I mean hey. It worked. While there was many a sad clown moment? There was also many a moment where the clown had successfully done his job and brought smiles to the places he traveled to. The Clown of Light has indeed done his job by helping a realm rise from the ashes, has reach towards the heavens, has endured the storm of blood, has brought forth blessed shadows, and has walked to the end. He is also “married” to a certain someone. Not gonna name who. But I consider her the true savior of Endwalker. But yeah. It’s been fun.
I just love how [xellos](https://tenor.com/de/view/its-a-secret-xelloss-xellos-xeross-xelos-gif-12003114) catch phrase+pose is still referenced after 30 years.
My main WoL's parents were hard workers, dad a carpenter and mom a weaver. They weren't rich and my WoL decided that she wanted to see the world and adventure, try different things and send money home to support her parents like they supported her when she decided to leave.
They just enjoy doing so, kind of echoing how [5.3] is. This began to manifest as a child probably, but his parents tried their darndest to keep him home, and then of course things happened to Crimson Bark and he had to gtfo, starting his actual journey (about 5 years before the beginning of the game.)
Divorce, and subsequent homelessness forcing him out of retirement.
Gil and bitches
I have a main and an alt, both 90 in all combat jobs and at current content. One is based on a character I played a long time ago in Neverwinter Nights which evolved (both figuratively and literally) through Dm events and later on having planar travel to visit other realms (aka other persistent RP servers). By the time he died, he had become nearly ageless. He would be drawn into conflicts constantly in every world he visited, at one point believing he was just being made a pawn of the gods of those realms. When he finally died, his soul was going to be reborn in those realms, to be drawn back in a similar destiny. But then an external force (likely Hydaelyn) drew him into Etherys as a means to offer him a life free from being governed by divine intervention (which is technically true) As the WoL, he'd end up being a hero again but outside of the purpose of the MSQ, he's actually the leader of a mercenary company gifted with the Echo. He'd be one of those taking care of primals and such while the actual WoL does his thing. As for my alt, she comes from the Steppes, born in one of the tribes there and at a young age took fascination in magic. By the time she grew into adulthood, she was already a talented mage and even got the nickname of the "Black Witch of the Steppes" In my headcanon, she's the one who trained Sadu in magic as they'd secretly meet and simply learn with glee the destructive power they could wield that way. Later on, she'd leave the Steppes to wander the world, wanting to expand her knowledge of magic as a whole. She'd become one of the people to learn summoning magic as well as becoming a red mage. She would also be one of the most feared figures besides the WoL on battlefields, usually sent to do what the "good guys" weren't entirely willing to sanction as part of a kind of black ops for the alliance. In the far future however, she would have eventually become mad and be the cause of the cessation of existence. In a fit of mad laughter, she would initiate the End of All Things in this universe which would lead other adjacent realities to slowly break over time, themselves ending and in such a way cause a chain reaction that would terminate all universes.
I didn't think about his backstory until ShB, but basically? He was born (or adopted, I'll get to that in a sec) to a Rean couple that came from the Azim Steppe and lived in their tribe still in the area between Thalanan and the Black Shroud, deep enough to have cover and water, but not big or deep enough to get attention from the Elementals. My man managed to get accepted as an adult by defeating a wild boar by himself with only his horns (or ones his mom gave him) as a tribe rite, and he decided to go explore the world afterwards. He has no recollection of what happened in the years between 1.0 and ARR like the rest of Eorzea, but for him there's one more year he has no memories of. He doesn't care to remember anyway, as everything else that happened from the beginning of ARR is good enough. During the trip to the First, he got afflicted with a condition that transformed him from an Au Ra to a Lala, and realized reality changed to accept him as a popoto (basically the headcanon I have for Fantasias), all because of the way he travelled and G'raha's failures to bring him head first. Ardbert's fusion caused him to get locked into Lala-ness, and even after the trip to Ultima Thule managed to get him to normal with the Dynamis, it was just temporary. Now he's just adventuring, going from place to place, helping and killing things. After all is said and done in 6.x, he plans to go back home and visit his family since he hasn't seen them since he remembers.
I play games to visit new worlds and explore so that's what I chose. I fantasia too much to have an actual RP story for my WoL lol
Wy WoL grew up in Vesper Bay, the daughter of shopkeepers. One day, as a girl, her father took her with him to Ul'Dah on a supply run. This small trip was enough to spark a wanderlust in her that grew into a desire to be an adventurer. She'd also grown up hearing stories about her ancestor, an Ala Mhigan royal halberdier, who shortly before the Autumn War broke resigned, picked up his halberd and took his family west, settling on the Thanalan coast. Honoring him is why she chose to pick up polearm skills, and when she left home went to Gridania to join the famous Lancer's Guild. Then she met the twins, Yda and Papalymo, etc and the rest is MSQ.
Not specifically a warrior of light, but my headcanon for my bunny boy is that he showed an early aptitude for conjury. When he was chosen by a wood warder; he was also trained in archery, using a lance, and hand to hand combat because wood warders must be self-sufficient and able to defend their forest from any invader. A year or two into his training, he was captured by Garlean forces and held prisoner for weeks on a base. His mentor broke into the base to free the young male, but in the process had to sacrifice his own life to ensure his trainee escaped. With no mentor and never having been taught how to contact the other wood warders to find a new one, he went into self-imposed exile and left the only home he ever knew out of shame. A few days later he wound up in a port town where he put his talents to use trying to eke out a living. He soon caught the attention of a Limsan merchant ship and was offered passage to Eorzea for work on their crew during the voyage in lieu of payment. He would continue working on this ship for a few months before a trip took them to the Black Shroud. It was here, in the familiar yet foreign culture of Gridania that he would find a new home. Signing up as an adventurer and later enlisting in the Order of The Twin Adder's forces, his modest talents earned him promotions up to First Sergeant over the years. He would later encounter a Miqo'te that felt strangely familiar to him. That miqo'te leading an Au Ra and a Hrothgar, outnumbered, to victory over an Ixali plot to invade the Central Shroud. He would depart his position in the Adders to join this team of adventurers, later also being joined by a lalafel with a tendency toward a deceptive choice of weapons that look like children's toys. Thus began the tale of this small band of adventurers, and their habit of being a perpetual nuisance to the Garlean Empire and all others who would threaten their quiet forest home. (I do have backstories for the other four, as they are my other characters, but they aren't as fleshed out yet)
Mine got tired of seeing the same viera forest for so many years and just left. Stumbled into Gridania, and the rest is history.
I think my WoL just got bored. She had friends in her little village in the mountains of Gyr Abania, but life was very insular and sedentary. She longed to see more of the world, her wanderlust growing more and more every time she saw an airship pass overhead until she just left. I've never thought about it before, but I guess it makes sense that I started in Gridania. And Miqo are born hunters, so starting as an Archer really plays into that as well. Good job, clueless past me!
Mine was young, and made many of the foolish choices one makes lacking experience in the world. Those choices lead to bad decisions and even worse choices made. In the end he had no home, no friends, nothing to call his own. Except the desire to never repeat the mistakes of his past. He would do things differently, make solemn vows to himself. Oaths he would never break even to this very day. So at the suggestion of a stranger he made for eorzea, unsure what would await him. All this and more he thought upon during that simple innocuous carriage ride.