#endwalker #finalfantasy #finalfantasyXIV #finalfantasy14 #endtalkers #ff14
After thoroughly dissecting the region of Thanalan, it is now time for our archons to move along to the Black Shroud; into the rich history of Gridania and the depths of Gelmorra. Join Elioaux and Niniri in this overview of the Shroud’s races and culture, the fascinating underground city of Gelmorra, the culture and politics of the region, and much more!
0:00 Intro
1:15 Gridania & Gelmorra Overview
7:55 Amdapor & Twelve’s Wood
10:10 Elezen in the Shroud
12:40 Ixali in the Shroud
15:22 Elementals & Green Wrath
—- To Skip EW spoiler 20:09
22:56 Moogles
24:10 Relics of Gelmorra
30:02 Politics, Culture & Magic
42:23 Founding of Gridania
46:25 Outro
About Eorzean Archive:
The Eorzean archive is a collective of archons and lore researchers seeking to explain, educate on and elucidate the information of Hydaelyn. From the basic to her most entrenched secrets we are dedicated to bringing knowledge easily and accessibly to the masses.
Check out our discord for more lore goodness and our active community: https://discord.gg/HGduNe2j5R
And please the Twelve by supporting us at our Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/eorzeanarchives?fan_landing=true
For further information and details on FFXIV lore check our website:
https://eorzeanarchives.com/?fbclid=I…
#ffxiv #ff14 #gridania #blackshroud #gelmorra #endwalker
source
Very exciting content. Thanks!
So glad to see this video in my feed! 🙂 I love this series, keep up the great work!
What does this have to do with elden ring?
Been playing FFXIV since current ARR. FIRST MMO or video game ever. Didn't even know how to hold PS4. Needless to say, lore, gameplay etc was a little overwhelming. I was unable to grasp and understand all the lore. Now, I am watching new FFXIV streamers go through content and light bulbs just keeps on going off. THIS…is great content. wow…BIG LIGHT bulbs just went off. Thank you
The hedge, in druidism and witchcraft, is the term used to often refer to the “fence-line” of sorts between the material world and spiritual one. Hedge Witches are especially adept in crossing and dealing with the other side. My best guess is the Hedge in the Black Shroud is an inner safe zone in which the elementals have the most influence, but it also may act as the physical marker of the area the elementals rule for humans.
sad we don't see more of gelmorra, other duskwight cities and moon keeper tribes, there's so many questions left unanswered after the post moogle quests and stuff that happens in gridania…
Thank you for touching on the Pajdal. I feel like they are the most passed over when it comes to beings in the world. I wish there was more detail on them because I just love the idea of them. Most high fantasy writings just make the elves the guardians of the woods but in this case the made a whole new "race"
Neat video. Hopefully there will be more info on the Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te in the next one. They have been living in the Twelveswood since at least the fifth umbral era. Everyone seems to forget about them. Would love to get some more lore about their relationship with Gridania and the elementals.
Loved this!! I’ve been so curious about the whole of Gridania for so long :> Just like everyone else, I treasure my character a ton, so getting a vid on the history of my Giraffe was awesome! c: thank you!! <3
I just tried POTD for the first time this week and was hoping you’d have a video up about it soon, haha. Perfect timing! 🙂
So I'm still a little confused. Were the Gelmorrans and Amdapori related?
Yesssssssssss gimme that sweet sweet FFXIV lore content
make a campfire? go to toto rak. cut down a tree? to toto rak. overcook beef? straight to toto rak. undercook chicken believe it or not toto rak.
So, after shortening this to not be (as much of) a wall of text, I'd like to start by saying I found this video to be a really disappointing take on a subject I'm most passionate about. I'd like to start the post by saying a lot of what is said in this video is correct and there's some interesting, lesser-known lore tidbits you guys touch on; for example, the ruins of Lasthold and the ruins above Gelmorra proper, the separation of Spirithold, the apparently much-needed clarification that no, the Duskwight were not ruled by Voidsent, yes, Galvanth is not a soulflayer, and even touching on Galvanth's spire, as well as the constant clashes of the Ixal and Gelmorrans which instilled an early distrust and hatred for the surface world, if the Elementals literally atomizing people hadn't done that already. I really liked the touch on the implications of moogles and sylphs in the political climate of the Twelveswood.
Now. Why do I think this is a disappointing video, then, with so much to praise about it? Well… there are a couple of statements passed off as fact which are just… misleading, or outright wrong. Let's start with the blaring marid in the room; the idea that Duskwight are not actually elezen, but are genetically and culturally a mesh of hyuran and elezen. Now, culturally, yes. Absolutely, there's no arguing that. However, the idea that Duskwight aren't actually elezen and are like, genetically mixed is just a misreading of the actual text. The cited text reads; "Sharing similar roots in the old tongue, Duskwight names closely resemble those of their Wildwood cousins, though after years of enmity between the two clans, any once-shared names have long since been claimed exclusively by one clan or the other. Upon close examination, similarities between Hyuran (Louis, Hilda) and Elezen (Louisoix, Hildie) given names can often be observed. While some scholars attribute this to a common ancestry shared by the two races, such theories have been roundly dismissed by the proud Elezen." (Encyclopedia Eorzea I, Page 083) This does NOT say what is claimed in the video… at all. It instead refers to the elezen and hyur POTENTIALLY having a very distant common ancestor, which the elezen fervently deny. This is NOT a statement that Duskwight are somehow not elezen, or that they're genetically some kind of weird chimera. (Claimed @ 11:00)
There's some indicated confusion about how the Elementals came to be worshipped in all cultures, which I find really weird because you touch on the exact reasons without drawing the connections. It's not just a proximity thing, the Elementals have always been considered to be 'Fragments of Nophica', which is why even Amdapor worshipped her and bargained with the Elementals on that ground. And these aren't just ideas that are easily ignored and subsumed; as you point out, to live in the Shroud is to be 'subservient' to the Elementals. Some, and I'm sure the Duskwight would use this analogy, would go so far as to call it 'slavery'. You either obey, or you die. Or, worse than death; you're 'claimed' by the Wood forever as a Wildling. And the Greenwrath isn't what we see today, it used to be WAY, WAY worse. Like, 'you turn to glitter and your soul is trapped in the trees forever' kind of worse. This is still canon, despite being 1.0, because it is outright stated in the CNJ/WHM quests that used to be the big risk of the Shroud, and now it's less so since the Calamity crippled the Elementals.
And on the topic of the Elementals, while their 'residence' in the Shroud is discussed, it's never touched on that the Elementals aren't ONLY in the Shroud. There are Elementals everywhere. You correctly point out the parallels to pre-meiji shinto with druidism flavors (which, already, huge respect for actually catching that), and then seemingly ignore the obvious kami allusion with the Elementals, with the padjal acting as literal kamiko and kannushi. Beyond that, the Elementals exist in Eureka and presumably elsewhere if we stretch a bit, considering the Corvosian myths of 'fey' and the whole way the Green Word is assumed to work, though the latter two are more headcanon than anything else.
It's stated in the video that the elezen and hyur, despite their racial tensions, exercised some kind of… 'decent amount of racial harmony' (10:55)? Which is just NOT the case. Even underground, the hyur and elezen warred, actively, for what's stated to be decades in other sources. (In EE1, though: "Fifty years later, population growth pushed the Hyur to enter the forest as well. Upon finding people already ensconced underground, they challenged the Elezen for ownership of the habitable caves. Quarrel soon led to conflict, and the two races came to cross blades time and again.")
There's also an off-handed mention of all Duskwight being painted as 'the bad guys', even if they're 'not Gridanian'; this is a misconception. EVERY Duskwight can trace their origins back to to Gelmorra, albeit they've had five hundred years to move out and become expatriots or what have you. Every Duskwight comes from the Gelmorran seed culture, and inherits Gelmorra's view of everything on the surface and indeed most civilizations as being bad and wrong, and hyur and elezen that aren't Duskwight as being straight up race traitors. They raid and bandit not ONLY because they have to, but because the divide is five centuries in the making the Duskwight are almost solely of the opinion that they have the 'right' to anything on the surface, regardless of actual claim. And yes, they are the bad guys, because… even if oppressed and pitable, they are actively malignant toward the surface societies. I'd also like to take a moment to address the idea that the Duskwight still live /in/ Gelmorra; they did live in Gelmorra /longer than others/, but even they abandoned the city proper as the civilization collapsed. Concurrently, the city festers with vilekin and seedkin, and Duskwight are more of a scattered bunch than any united entity. Also, any Duskwight that is NOT a part of the Shroud Duskwight or an expatriot is not actually a Duskwight. A prime example; no Ishgardian is a Duskwight. Ishgardians are their own subsect of elezen with no ties to the cultural origins of Duskwight or Wildwood.
And my last two tenuous complaints is that it's said elsewhere in these comments, as well as in the video, that Amdapor and Gelmorra have NO connection, which is… kind of… a bit absolutist. After all, there's a reason the hyur and elezen insisted on staying /in/ the Shroud and not just… leaving, and why both considered the other effectively intruding on THEIR rightful lands. Hyur and elezen did exist in Amdapor, and there's a reason the Elementals were so… gun-ho.
And on that topic, the elementals never stopped being 'apocalyptic mode'. There was a reason the Gelmorrans were so careful about their protections and seclusion. Tripping up meant death. The Elementals HATED the Gelmorrans, passionately, even to this day when they've accepted the Gridanians as their servants. A perfect example of the Elementals' LOATHING for the Gelmoorans is indicated in the Leve Elemental Housekeeping: "Of overgrown traces of Gelmorra, few remain to disturb the order of the forest, yet occasional ruins are still found that must needs be removed. What is under the forest may stay, but our laws decree that no stone of Gelmorra mar the home of the elementals." And who makes those laws? The Elementals.
I do find it interesting that there are thaumaturges despite this, however, considering the sociopolitical climate at the time in the wake of the Flood was, with some major exceptions (Sharlayan) the usual response to umbral calamities; that is to say, that magick was basically treated as a nuclear weapon with the potential for great damage. I struggle to reconcile this as well with the elezen living under the hyperfocus of an actively hostile spiritual force that /absolutely/ would kill and claim you if it detects you. Perhaps the fact that it draws from internal mana and not ambient aether is what keeps it acceptable? It rather raises the idea of potentially drawing parallels between the cult of Nophica and these spellcasters, however. Just an interesting thought.
Now, on the topic of not-lore that I found amusing; I've actually never heard anyone refer to the Gelmorran standard as a 'bouquet of mushrooms', I've always heard it hypothesized as either a ghostmaw flower or mun-tuy beans.
While this felt more like an off-the-cuff discussion between two friends more than a lore video attempting to actually break down what Gelmorra and the Duskwight are and were, it was disappointing because even if I've misinterpreted the points I'm criticizing here, the fact remains that communication on them was so unclear that the miscommunication persisted through multiple rewatches and a practical thesis written out on such things. I've actually linked a lot of your lore videos to my (Duskwight predominant) FC such as your videos on aetherology, or a lot of the videos on obscure racial lore. (Lalafells poisoning themselves? I'm so glad someone actually picked up on that, I was half-convinced I'd imagined it from headcanon), and this felt… kind of like a slap in the face as far as expected quality and solidity went, especially for those of us who are /super/ passionate about this topic and the themes the Duskwight present. Again, it's a lore talk, not necessarily an informational video, but… you get it.
Regardless of my qualms and criticisms with this particular video, I will be eagerly awaiting the next installment of that which you lot put out. ^^
Duskie erasure