Question about the real gods and how they relate to the story

I'm not talking about primals. I mean the actual deities of the FFXIV world.

During character creation, we are given an option to choose who our guardian deity is going to be. This doesn't appear to serve any real purpose, either in gameplay (no passive buffs or traits or anything) or in the story. And it's the latter that has me curious.

With all the talk of Zodiark and Hydaelyn, and how the WoL appears to be tempered by Hydaelyn, what if anything, is our guardian deity going to do about it? Do they even exist? What purpose is having a guardian deity if they don't actually guard you?

I'm not sure if the writers ever thought that far ahead, and perhaps choosing a god at character creation was just for RP purposes, but I have to figure there's a reason for it?

I've never played any other Final Fantasy game, so can anyone tell me if this is a feature in the other games as well? I assume the gods and goddesses talked about in FFXIV are references to other Final Fantasy games.

The only time I've really seen the deities brought into the story is when you're doing the quest to be eternally bonded. You have to go to each of their shrines and pray.

Beyond that, they don't seem to have much of a point in the actual story. If they haven't been brought into it in any of the other expansions, I doubt they will be now, and I don't really know what their purpose is.

Gaius implies that the Twelve are no more real than the beast men gods/primals, so it could be they don't actually exist at all. I don't know of any point in the story one of them directly intervenes. I think the people of Ala Mhigo THINK he sent the red star their ancestors followed to high ground after the flood but there's no confirmation that this was actually divine intervention. The closest thing was Louis partially summoning the Twelve at Cartineau.

I honestly never got the impression that they were real. The nations of Eorzea worship them, like Halone in Ishgard for example, but they're just beliefs.

Louisoix tried summoning them like Primals in an attempt to seal Bahamut in the end of 1.0 and Paplymo repeated that to seal Shinryu at the end of Heavensward, but Primals don't need to be real to be summoned either. You just need belief and aether.

Beyond what was already mentioned, during the ARR MSQ quests in Southern Thanalan, you deal with some of the refugees there attempting to steal crystals from the beast men in order to summon Rhalgr. I believe it was at least implied, if not stated outright, that an Ascian had given them the idea, much like they'd often done with the beast tribes.

I want the twelve to be real so I can punch Halone in face for everything that happened in Heavensward.

There is very little lore around them, but it's their power that Louisoix call upon against Bahamuth

Do they really exists? It's debatable, but I'd say yes. I say debatable because, it seems that summoning requires only faith (or purpose) and aether so I don't see the summoning of something completely made up as something impossible either. That said, the twelves are real for the Eorzean.

However I want to point out the hidden assumption in your question: that gods and primals/eikons are not the same. As of 5.01, we don't know if gods exists. We know primals have godlike powers and are revered as such, but we don't know if there's anything greater than primals. For all we know the twelves are nothing different than primals, but then again, you can summon a primal that incarnate what you feel an entity should be. Here I'm making allusion to Shiva who was a mortal (not a god), was revered like a saint (faith/purpose) and was only a shade of what the real Shiva was (by Hraesvelgr account).


As if they are going to be relevant, here some food for thoughts:
If I recall correctly, in the lore it's say the First Umbral Era marked the end of the age of gods and that The Twelve, retreated from direct involvement with mortals during this time. This, I assume, refers to the era after the Sundering and before the 1st calamity. We also know that since then, heros have raised before each calamities and there's references in the relics quest Lv50 and the last 24 men raids about the Zodiac Braves (which were 12).

So at the moment I'm flirting with the idea the Twelves are in fact just the original Zodiac Braves.. With all the awe we generate around us (and we're not yet a myth), I can see eons of story telling twisting the facts that much

Well to start with, 'existence' is always a tricky topic. Take Ifrit for example - does he exist? Sure he can be summoned, but when nobody is summoning him does he exist elsewhere waiting to be summoned? The Twelve can be summoned, as Louisoix partially did, so does that confirm their existence? Are primals gods, and vice versa? What even is a god?

The pantheon of The Twelve has all the heavens and hells associated with them - are they real places where The Twelve hang out or just another part of the fiction created by Eorzeans over the years?

Personally I just consider The Twelve to be primals for the 'spoken races'. Concepts of faith that can be given form by aether, kind of like fancy egis.

It's a shame nobody's ever thought to sit down and interview a primal. WoLs are always too busy bullying them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hazmick

Well to start with, 'existence' is always a tricky topic. Take Ifrit for example - does he exist? Sure he can be summoned, but when nobody is summoning him does he exist elsewhere waiting to be summoned? The Twelve can be summoned, as Louisoix partially did, so does that confirm their existence? Are primals gods, and vice versa? What even is a god?

The pantheon of The Twelve has all the heavens and hells associated with them - are they real places where The Twelve hang out or just another part of the fiction created by Eorzeans over the years?

Personally I just consider The Twelve to be primals for the 'spoken races'. Concepts of faith that can be given form by aether, kind of like fancy egis.

It's a shame nobody's ever thought to sit down and interview a primal. WoLs are always too busy bullying them.

---

The issue with interviewing a primal is that most of them believe their own hype. The process of Creation likely includes the possibility of imbuing the summoned entity with memories of its imagined history if it has one.

Among the primals, Hydaelyn or Zodiark would probably be the ones to ask, being the most powerful, the longest lived, and both are likely utterly aware they were created for specific purposes by mortals. Even then, there will be biases (Zodiark will see himself as a savior and Hydaelyn as an usurper born of ingratitude, Hydaelyn clearly sees Zodiark as utterly evil).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Heliantheae

I want the twelve to be real so I can punch Halone in face for everything that happened in Heavensward.

---

Why? She had nothing to do with the decisions of the original Thordan or the high houses. They just slapped the name of a god on their lies to legitimize their selfish power grabbing after the fact and keep the populace in place, it didn't matter at all which one.

A really old (circa 2012) post in the old 1.0 forum (now archived) by Ferne suggested that the Twelve do exist, sort of (in as much as religion and faith believe them to exist), but not necessarily in a form that the mortals of Eorzea believe them to be, and that the truth is naturally murky at best - that the truth about them may have been lost as stories retold about them over countless millenia gradually change into gods and goddesses that watch over the land. This led to fan theories about such things that the Twelve may have been 'heroes' from the First Umbral Era that were deified. Or that they could be something else entirelly.

Unfortunately, with ARR and Hydaelyn and Zodiark's rise to the forefront of the story as the 'real main gods' of the story, the Twelve seemed to fade into obscurity, but given the revelations about Hydaelyn and Zodiark in SHB (which I'm still not 100% totally convinced on), it's possible the Twelve may start to return into the forefront of FFXIV's story again. I really hope so.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lium

I'm not talking about primals. I mean the actual deities of the FFXIV world.

During character creation, we are given an option to choose who our guardian deity is going to be. This doesn't appear to serve any real purpose, either in gameplay (no passive buffs or traits or anything) or in the story. And it's the latter that has me curious.

With all the talk of Zodiark and Hydaelyn, and how the WoL appears to be tempered by Hydaelyn, what if anything, is our guardian deity going to do about it? Do they even exist? What purpose is having a guardian deity if they don't actually guard you?

I'm not sure if the writers ever thought that far ahead, and perhaps choosing a god at character creation was just for RP purposes, but I have to figure there's a reason for it?

I've never played any other Final Fantasy game, so can anyone tell me if this is a feature in the other games as well? I assume the gods and goddesses talked about in FFXIV are references to other Final Fantasy games.

---

They're basically just guardian Deities. They used to be fictional "gods" until people learned of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, which degraded them to guardians. They're like guardian angels/mythology gods of the real world.

Also everything in character creation from your race, tribe and deity used to provide elemental bonuses which were devoided in later patches.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mugear_bahamut

They're basically just guardian Deities. They used to be fictional "gods" until people learned of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, which degraded them to guardians. They're like guardian angels/mythology gods of the real world.

Also everything in character creation from your race, tribe and deity used to provide elemental bonuses which were devoided in later patches.

---

Not true. The Twelve have been revered as 'guardian' deities of the citystates in Eorzea since time immemorial, possibly dating back to the First Astral Era - it was stated outright in the manual to FFXIV 1.0, that the citystates of Eorzea would take members of the Twelve as their guardian and that the wars between the citystates were regarded as holy wars:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FFXIV version 1.0 Collector's Edition manual

"The pantheon of the Twelve is followed devoutly by most, and doctrine holds that the past wars of the realm were the wars of the heavens, with the gods and goddesses choosing nations as their respective champions. Whether because of this celestial struggle or more wordly grievances, war spread throughout the realm, discouraging unity and peace."

---

Of course, ARR retconned or outright abandoned a lot of 1.0's story concepts, but it still appears that does remain at least tenuously true, that the Twelve have been regarded as the guardians of the nations of Eorzea far far longer than just five years previously (in 1.0 Hydaelyn's existence as a 'goddess' was never mentioned outright but merely hinted at, and Zodiark's existence was never mentioned at all).

It still makes me !!!! hard that the Twelve summoned by Louisoix in the cutscene from Unending Coil of Bahamut were crystals. There is also really weird numerology surrounding them relative to stuff with the Convocation of Fourteen, Hydaelyn, and Zodiark—not going into detail so no spoilers.

Additionally, want to stress that while the full setup as Twelve and the specific mythology surrounding each deity might be Eorzea-specific, there have been variations on the deities in other cultures. Sophia has been linked to Azeyma and Nald’Thal, as has worship in Qarn. Azeyma and Menphina can be tied to Azim and Nhamaa among Xaela. Noteworthy that even with gender and myth disparity, Azim and Azeyma even have similar names and roles insofar as judgment goes while Menphina as the lover and the moon remains consistent with Nhamaa.

Currently I figure the Twelve as archetypal deities might make sense? They repeat in the form of patterns across Hydaelyn and across history, but how much and in what forms people perceive them varies.

One think to remember is that the symbols for the twelve are ancient to the point that they are older than the Allagans and they represent 13 entities. It is quite possible that the 12 are actually a mythological remnant of the Amaurotian Conclave.

/tenletters

Ya know someone mentioned the Age of Gods and it kind of makes me wonder if they mean the Amaurotines. Because the descendants would have no memories of that time, only stories. So if the Twelve indeed *are* actually twelve of the Conclave. . .imagine the shockwaves of that discovery.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by redheadturk

/tenletters

Ya know someone mentioned the Age of Gods and it kind of makes me wonder if they mean the Amaurotines. Because the descendants would have no memories of that time, only stories. So if the Twelve indeed *are* actually twelve of the Conclave. . .imagine the shockwaves of that discovery.

---

The "Age of the Gods" is used to refer to the time right before the First Umbral Calamity.

It is important to note that the First Calamity (of Wind) is NOT the Sundering. The Sundering was the divide of the Source and the creation of the 13 Shards, The First Calamity was the destruction and rejoining of the 5th shard. While the common Eorzean scholar would use 'Age of the Gods' to refer to all time before the 1st Calamity, it would be better for us to distinguish between 'Pre-Sundering' as the "Age of the Ancients" and the time between "Sundering and 1st Calamity" as the true 'Age of the Gods'.
Yes it might be that Elidibus, Lahabrea and Emet-Selch got their associates 'ascended' back to their original selves and at first tried to rule over the disparate races starting in Eorzea, only to hate it and just go with the Rejoinings... but we really know nothing of the 'Age of the Gods'
As an aside, Emet-Selch says that when the Sundering happened, the sundered souls lost most, if not all, of their memories from before, so to them, they were at 'the beginning of the world' and any beings that still retained some sort of enhanced powers in comparison to ther ilk may as well be regarded as gods. Looking at the cave paintings in the Qitana Ravel, some people also might have remembered more than others.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by redheadturk

/tenletters

Ya know someone mentioned the Age of Gods and it kind of makes me wonder if they mean the Amaurotines. Because the descendants would have no memories of that time, only stories. So if the Twelve indeed *are* actually twelve of the Conclave. . .imagine the shockwaves of that discovery.

---

And maybe the WoL’s true name is whoever we chose as our guardian deity, since the speculation is high that we are the 14th member of the Convocation. :-)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hazmick

Well to start with, 'existence' is always a tricky topic. Take Ifrit for example - does he exist? Sure he can be summoned, but when nobody is summoning him does he exist elsewhere waiting to be summoned?

---

It's been 4 years I did ARR's story quest, but don't they explain the primal are dormant in the lifestream while they're not summoned? I felt it was for this reason you couldn't summon a primal at 2 places (Otherwise, the Alllagan's plan to imprison Bahamuth and the Warring Triad wouldn't have worked).. I think there must be some kind of core to which the aether can stick to, but I have no proof of that yet..

Here's a timeline for those who are lost

• Age of the Ancients
» Sundering (No memories before this point)
—————————————————————————————————————
• Age of the Gods (The Twelves origin's is rooted here)
» First Umbral Calamity – Calamity of Wind

• First Umbral Era
• First Astral Era
» Second Umbral Calamity – Calamity of Lightning

• Second Umbral Era
• Second Astral Era
» Third Umbral Calamity – Calamity of Fire

• Third Umbral Era
• Third Astral Era (Rise of the Allagan Empire)
» Fourth Umbral Calamity – Calamity of Earth

• Fourth Umbral Era
• Fourth Astral Era
» Fifth Umbral Calamity – Calamity of Ice

• Fifth Umbral Era
• Fifth Astral Era (Rise of Nymian, Amdapori and Mhachi civilizations)
» Sixth Umbral Calamity – Calamity of Water

• Sixth Umbral Era
• Sixth Astral Era
» Seventh Umbral Calamity – Calamity of Astral Darkness?

• Seventh Umbral Era
• Seventh Astral Era (Present Days)

On the subject of the Twelve being "just Eorzea's Primals", even if this is true, it's implied that many, if not ALL Primals have an "original" upon which they are based. There was an original Shiva (Hraesvalgr's consort). There was an original Garuda (Allagan general in charge of the Iksalions, precursors to the Ixal). The discovery of the Moogles in the Churning Mists implies there was an original Moggle Mog.

If the Twelve are Primals, who were the originals? The Council of Fourteen (minus one)? The Zodiac Braves of the Age of Gods? The possibility that they are actual REAL gods is not even off the table - it's not impossible that there are actual deities listening to the prayers of their followers, and intervening in subtle ways (as gods are wont to do).

We don't have enough information yet to assume an aetheistic answer must exist in this fantasy world - and the existence of a Primal is not even the implication of evidence. Primals can be created from any concept, and I don't see any reason why it would be any more difficult to create a Primal in the likeness of a god than it would to create one in the likeness of a mortal woman or a Moogle.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LineageRazor

I don't see any reason why it would be any more difficult to create a Primal in the likeness of a god than it would to create one in the likeness of a mortal woman or a Moogle.

---

Clearly Good King Moogle Mog is the one true god of Eorzea.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LineageRazor

The discovery of the Moogles in the Churning Mists implies there was an original Moggle Mog.

---

There actually was, he was called 'Chieftain Moggle', he was the very first moogle Chieftain of Moghome in fact - one of the optional quest arcs in Moghome in HW mentions it:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Heavensward sidequest 'A Moogle by Any Other Name'

Moglin: "My ancestor, who was Moghome's first chieftain, was named Moggle, and in fact was he who decided which brave moogles would travel down to the surface after fire rained down from the skies."
Kupli Kuki: "Moggle... that name seems so familiar.... Kupopo! Moggle Mog?!"
Kupli Kuki: "Could Chieftain Moggle have in fact been Moggle Mog? If so... Chieftain Moglin, you would be a descendant of Good King Moggle Mog the XIIth - may all his lienage bask in greatness!"
Moglin: "Indeed, the two names are quite similar, kupo. Moggle Mog... I remember-this was the name of the king from your legend."
Kupli Kuki: "It all makes sense, kupo. The legend is so ancient, it's no wonder the name changed ever so slightly! That means I'm presenting myself before the descendant of the last great king of mooglekind!"

---

So yeah, there's another Primal whose origin story was actually based on someone or something that previously lived in Eorzea in the distant past. ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cybylt

Why? She had nothing to do with the decisions of the original Thordan or the high houses. They just slapped the name of a god on their lies to legitimize their selfish power grabbing after the fact and keep the populace in place, it didn't matter at all which one.

---

Yea at first. But if she does exist, she still sat around and did nothing while all this was going down in her name.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lium

And maybe the WoL’s true name is whoever we chose as our guardian deity, since the speculation is high that we are the 14th member of the Convocation. :-)

---

If that's the case, then all you Halone's are off the hook for eventually stopping it. But I've got my eye on you.

Honestly, I dont think they exist in the aspect of being true real gods. I think they may have been upgraded to gods and are originally something else or they are manifestations of Hydaelyn. Remember not all of the myths surrounding the 12 pertain to them. Yeah they may use their names but due to time marching on the stories changed yo where it was the 12 and not Hydaelyn. Perfect example the covenant between Hydaelyn and Midgar. It was also told it was a pact between him and one of the 12 (via after clearing Keeper of the Lake) cant remember her name though not Menphina but the water esque goddess. ALSO! Makes me think due to the fact that Emet refers to the 12 as their 12, especially to Alphinaud... really makes me doubt it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by redheadturk

/tenletters

Ya know someone mentioned the Age of Gods and it kind of makes me wonder if they mean the Amaurotines. Because the descendants would have no memories of that time, only stories. So if the Twelve indeed *are* actually twelve of the Conclave. . .imagine the shockwaves of that discovery.

---

I do wonder if maybe the twelve are those that summoned Hydaelyn? Or maybe just 12 great WoLs that turned into "gods" over the time thanks to their stories.