Twelveswood

All of Gridania lies in the Twelveswood, right? According to a certain NPC : "All outsiders who wish to dwell in the Twelveswood must present themselves in Quarrymill to have their worthiness weighted by the elementals ". But I didn't have to go trough this. How does this rule exackly work? Who does it apply to?

Basically, all adventures are given special permittance to enter the Twelveswood. Praise be to the Elder Seedseer.

The Elementals aren't actually as clearly understandable or consistent as the Gridanians wish they were, plus they lost a lot of power during the Clamity, otherwise you wouldn't be seeing those Duskwright and Miqo'te bandits running about the way they are, not even mentioning the Garleans.

It's pretty much just Gameplay and Story Segregation :B

It's a little bit more than that though. As adventurers we're given certain freedoms not enjoyed by 'regular' people - permission to travel freely across national borders is one. Also a big distinction needs to be made between us and the refugees.

As adventurers we're not actually 'setting up shop and staying there', we're pledging allegiance to that city (in this case, Gridania) and doing work for them, but apart from staying in the Inn Room we're pretty much transient and are not actually settling in the forest - wherever we stay we're already using pre-made facilities (even private player housing is mentioned by npcs as being already "granted permission" by the elementals). The refugees on the other hand, want to settle in the forest, they want to make homes for themselves, to set up farms and industries, and most of all, make use of the forest's stretched resources without regard for the deeper implications.

As fair and understandable as that is, the forest is still recovering from the Calamity and is already stressed as it is, people from other lands usually do not share the Gridanians' pro-environmental stance, regarding it as just one more annoying layer of red-tape they have to negotiate and instead having a certain consumerist "we see we take" attitude, something the elementals frown upon and are very much trying to prevent.

So yeah, basically as adventurers it's sort of handwaved that "we are already cleared with the elementals to come and go in the forest as we're helping Gridania and by extension the elementals" as why we can enter the Black Shroud while refugees can't. It does seem cold and cruel, but then, that is nature for you.

The Elementals are a pretty fickle bunch, but they've created a fairly good system for controlling people.

They whacked the planet when Black Magic and White Magic drained the lands of Aether. They finally allow people to live in the Twelveswood again, but with conditions. They established a privileged caste (Padjal) and give them unique and great power (White Magic, one of the things they flooded the world in the first place for). The Conjurers are then granted power from the elements in return for further service, creating a borderline religious institution, and making the rare few Hearers about as important in Gridania as Inquisitors are in Ishgard. From there a strict, unyielding national propaganda is created and enforced to foster mistrust of the outside world, cutting the Gridanians off from viewpoints the elementals don't like, further controlling the population.

At the end of the day the Elements had created their own little meat army of puppets who'd throw themselves on swords if the Elementals told them to do so through a hearer or a padjal. Lo and behold, the Calamity wrecks the Twelveswood and the elements are weakened, and now they reply on their army of meat puppets. When that proves to be not enough, adventurers are given the Okay, mostly because they don't stay in one place too long, and so won't overtly affect the generations of social and psychological conditioning.

Honestly, the elements are like cultists. It's a bit disturbing when you think about it.

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Originally Posted by Vexander

Honestly, the elements are like cultists. It's a bit disturbing when you think about it.

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INB4 its revealed that the Elementals are Primals/Ascians

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

INB4 its revealed that the Elementals are Primals/Ascians

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I'm not sure it goes that far, but if you look into the psychology and science that comes with brainwashing and cultists conditioning their members and the likes, Gridania just reeks of it, with the Elements in control.

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Originally Posted by Vexander

I'm not sure it goes that far, but if you look into the psychology and science that comes with brainwashing and cultists conditioning their members and the likes, Gridania just reeks of it, with the Elements in control.

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It makes it a little bit funny that another cult also appeared in the Shroud multiple times

Don't be so quick to judge it as "oh it's an evil cult brainwashing everyone!" though - yes some of it is exaggerated a bit, but the fact remains that the elementals are real, the forest is theirs, and Gridania's harsh, xenophobic policies are the price they pay for being allowed to settle in the forest (remember, the elementals actually drove the Ixal out because they angered them). Those which transgress on the elementals will not only risk their own lives, but the lives of everyone in Gridania.

It should also be noted that the elementals don't just exist in the Black Shroud either, they exist everywhere in Hydaelyn, in every rock, stream, hill and the air you breath. They are just more potent and powerful in the Black Shroud than anywhere else though for some reason. The main problem is the elementals are not mortal beings, they are beings of pure aether, who have a will beyond mortal comprehension. Mortal ideas and concepts such as good and evil are not applicable to them, and likewise the thoughts and will of the elementals can come across to mortals as downright alien at times. It's an uneasy balance that the people of Gridania struggle to maintain, made worse by the destruction wrought by the Calamity.

I can't say I meant to judge it as evil, since Gridania is a flourishing society. I'm just pointing out that the Elements in this case have done an excellent job conditioning the Gridanians in a way similar to a Cult. If the Elements had ulterior motives I believe we would have seen them by now.

They're not 'conditioning' them, inso as much as the only reason the Gelmorrans were even allowed to settle in the forest in the first place was to accept the elementals will (for hundreds of years no one could even communicate with them - it was only through the moogles acting as intermediares that a compact was forged between the spoken races and the elementals, and that mortals were finally allowed to settle on the surface in the Black Shroud... but under strict conditions.).

Considering the Sixth Umbral Era was caused by the spoken races misusing magic to such an extent they were using the power of the Void to destructive ends, and causing such massive aetheric imbalances in the planet the elementals decided that the only way out was to wipe out everything with a global flood, you can't exactly blame them for being somewhat overbearing towards mortals.

I can actually. If the magics of that era were so dangerous, why would the Elements ever allow mortals to have access to it again? They grant power over White Magic to the Padjals, the aforementioned, 'Privileged Caste,' they created to rule over Gridania. It's entirely cult-like behavior and brainwashing. It's only viewed as acceptable because the Elements are seen as something greater than mortals, rather than just a different kind of lifeform.

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Originally Posted by Vexander

I can actually. If the magics of that era were so dangerous, why would the Elements ever allow mortals to have access to it again?

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Because they know they cannot stop it, only delay it. Mortals will gain access to White and Black magic eventually, with or without the Elementals (Ascians say hi). Why not control how [some] of it is given, teach people to fear and respect it?

Look at Amdapor. The Elementals tried to hide it from mortals forever...and yet the ruins are laid bare again, and the trapped Voidsent threaten the forest. If we weren't contracted to clear the ruins out for the Hearers, and treasure hunters got there first...well, I'm fairly certain we'd have a major Voidsent issue in the Shroud right now.

So it goes back to that point that the Elementals have conditioned the Gridanians to carry out their will, and do as they like. "This magic is bad. You have to hunt down anyone who uses it. Except the people we're giving it to. Because we gave it to them. Because we say its alright for them."

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Originally Posted by Vexander

So it goes back to that point that the Elementals have conditioned the Gridanians to carry out their will, and do as they like. "This magic is bad. You have to hunt down anyone who uses it. Except the people we're giving it to. Because we gave it to them. Because we say its alright for them."

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It's not really conditioning though. It's no different to a government deciding who can be trusted with power over things. The Elementals may be a far more abstract and unknowable form of government but they are effectively a form of government of the Shroud. The people living there do so on the condition that they submit to the Elementals' authority as well.

The Elementals recognise that the magics used in the War of the Magi are not inherently evil. They caused the flood because they were being overused for mutually destructive purposes. They are willing to cautiously permit the use of said magics as long as they are heavily restricted and controlled to ensure a repeat of the War of the Magi does not happen. There have been numerous times now that we, using White and Black Magic, have helped the Elementals where they could not have helped themselves.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

As adventurers we're not actually 'setting up shop and staying there', we're pretty much transient and are not actually settling in the forest

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Neither were Meffrid and his men. Yet Gridanians refused to help his wounded friend because the the previously mentioned rule (which also applies to "receiving the wood's bounty").

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwLOokwcLx8

I think that it's problematic in general to associate values as we understand them with the Elementals anyway. It's difficult to even imagine what the world might be like to them; it's been stated that they don't sense the world in the same way that we do. Accusations of the elementals trying to foster a cult-like mentality might be similar to accusing a gardener trimming a shrub as trying to indoctrinate the plant. Even if a cult is the result, the elementals likely neither know or care what a cult is. They simply want to maintain their world as they believe it should be maintained. Humans can be tolerated as long as they don't rock the boat - because the last time humans rocked the boat, it was a horrendous disaster for elementals and humans alike.

We don't actually know why the Elementals refuse to let the Ala Mhigans receive aid. They might sense some chaotic factor in them that the Elementals find to be unappealing or even dangerous to the Shroud - and given that Ala Mhigo, not so many years ago, was a belligerent, expansionist empire, it's not beyond imagining to think that a few of the refugees might still harbor notions of stirring up trouble. While it seems cruel from our perspective, perhaps the Elementals were able to sense something that we don't see. Perhaps the suffering refugees aren't as innocent as they seem. The actions of the Elementals have been described as seeming inscrutable and random at times, but that doesn't mean that those actions actually ARE meaningless and random.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

and given that Ala Mhigo, not so many years ago, was a belligerent, expansionist empire

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I feel like pointing out that the first target of Ala Mhigo's ambitions is in fact Gridania. Mayhap the Autumn War make the elementals think that Ala Mhigo is no longer trustworthy and likely see their subujation by Garlemald as an overall boon to them at large?

The Elements are something else in the Black Shroud. I had to do some hard thinking back to the days of 1.0 and some of the Gridania quest lines, but I remember some things that dealt with the elements, including when they got upset with a boy and petrified him. Then another time when they were upset by what the Garleans were doing and unleashed their anger on everyone. This pretty much vaporizing people running away left and right, because they don't determine "friend" or "foe" just "people".

Thankfully after the time of Calamity and probably cause of the fact the aetheric flow was really messed up, the Elements don't seem to be as active or as dangerous(???) as they once were. At least I haven't seen any cutsceme in ARR that would make them super dangerous as they were in 1.0, I could be wrong though! But yeah, I think why NPCs act as they do, is because of that old power the elements once possessed and they rather not take those chances.

A few things here...

If you started in Gridania, you arrived on a carriage after sleeping most of the trip. It would be simple enough to assume that your carriage was inspected at Quarrymill on its way through. Ergo, you must have passed "customs" and given you got the blessing of light en route, the elementals were probably very happy to have you. And the twins and trader, because Scions.
Furthermore, when you arrive in Gridania, you are <required> to present and register at the adventurer's guild in the Carline Canopy. No, seriously, the Wood Wailers won't let you even approach the aetheryte plaza citing your need to be registered.

If you started in Limsa or Ul'dah, you arrived as a diplomatic envoy of your respective city-state. The Elder Seedseer herself was expecting you, who communes with the Elementals daily, and presumably arranged for your non-woodsinful admission to the Twelveswood. Seriously, can you imagine what would happen if a Limsan Marshal were mauled by a Treant on arrival? Stillglade Fane isn't that dumb.

Your good deeds from that point are sufficient evidence of your character to the elementals that the rest is, as they say, history.