Where do the Ascian black masks come from?

By which I don't mean the Ascians themselves. I mean the black masks they wear.

Based on pre-Shadowbringers knowledge, we know that the Ascians wearing red masks are the powerful ones, whether Sundered or Unsundered. The black masks, in comparison, are pretty much minion-level: the Ascians of the Twelfth Chalice are "lesser Paragons" and allegedly under the command of Lahabrea, and we explodify them during the level 60 SMN quest. And during the ARR Hard and Extreme Primals, a few black-masked Ascians also show up mysteriously, say some mysterious comments, then mysteriously disappear.

Much later in 5.3, during the big brouhaha about Elidibus minting new Warriors Of Light, the Scions also mentioned a proliferation of black-masked Ascians, which Urianger reminds us are "of inferior rank" to the red-masked ones. These are handled offscreen, by both the new Crystarium Warriors Of Light, and presumably any Scion who happened to be there.

So the idea is that Ascians wearing black masks are servants and less powerful to the Ascians wearing red masks.

Except when we look around Emet-Selch's recreation of Amaurot, and later go ourselves into Elpis, there are no Ancients wearing black masks. Everyone, except for current Convocation members, are wearing white masks.

It's not even that only the subordinates of the Convocation wear black masks: in Pandemonium, Erichthonios and Hesperos have white masks. (Well, Hesperos wears a white mask in flashback, and when he actually shows up in front of us in his Dracula cosplay, he has no mask at all.)

Where did this tradition of "lesser" Ascians wearing black masks come from? Why did the Ascian Overlords not give them white masks?

One thing to remember is that all of the Ascians were written before Amaurot and the Ancients were even conceptualized. The Ascians were originally just a shady group of dark beings who did bad things to revive their dark god. It was only later that any substance was given to them. In order to streamline the narrative, they were eventually done away with entirely and we don't dwell on them.

The reason why the lower level of Ascians wear black masks instead of white is probably down to a few things:

1. This is old FFXIV that like other things has slowly since been brushed under the rug and not returned to.
2. Black masks are evil-er than white masks and when they were created there was no idea at all about a civilization of white masked people and they gave the Ancients white masks because of aesthetic reasons to stand out against their black robes, especially since our first view of them are the simplistic-looking ghosts made up of an empty robe and mask in ShB.

Pure speculation but perhaps they’re simply individuals who the Ascians recruit that aren’t shards of the former Convocation. The Convocation members would use the red as it’s a tradition. The hierarchy would then be something like:

Unsundered > Sundered Convocation members > Random Sundered Ancients.

In that way not using the white masks could also be a way to reinforce the inferiority of the Sundered. They don’t get to use those because “those are for the Ancients and you aren’t them yet.”

That’s at least an in game explanation, I agree with Mikko on why it’s that way from a meta standpoint.

I did find it a touch odd that the black masks were mentioned in 5.3 as being part of Elidibus' scheme to build faith in the Warriors of Light, as they had long since fell into obscurity at that point, with the bulk of their appearances being in ARR and only showing up again in the HW SMN quests.

I have doubts they'll ever go into the specifics of how they fit into the scheme of things unless the remaining Paragons decide to get up to no good.

On the subject of the masks, I'm also left questioning who wore the strange masks we see with Hades and Zodiark, as it implies there were people outside of the Convocation who wore "non-standard" models. I suppose it could just easily be a stylistic expression of the mental state of those Ancients who sacrificed themselves to summon Zodiark as their shapes evoke feelings of sorrow, anger, and despair.

I mean, the black-maskers are basically cultists; the fact that the story they were fed is technically true is kinda secondary to the fact. They're the Lambs of Dalamud with a nicer robe cut. I agree that the reason the Big Boy Ascians gave them black masks instead of white probably is a sort of instatement of inferiority; we know that they think sundered people are lesser, so why would they give them a dress code that implies they aren't?

Thinking about that, my question is less about the black masks are like that, I'm wondering why exactly the Big Boy Ascians landed on the design they did for their own robes. And to a bit of a more relevant degree, why is it that the one person deemed worthy of a white mask post-sundering was Unukalhai?

The color of the Ascians' masks is actually a subtle nod to FFII. In FFII, part of the Mysidian questline to open up the tower to receive Ultima is to acquire the White Mask and the Black Mask. It's been a couple of years since I played through it, but iirc, the Black Mask is on the Jungle Island wherein there are a dozen or so Red Masked individuals who ask the simple question, "Why you no weary mask?" and also, "Stay away from the Black Mask! It's evil magic!"

Whereas the White Mask is in the secret basement of Castle Fynn.

As for their purposes, the White Mask is placed on a statue in Mysidia to spawn the doppelganger spirit. The Black Mask is used on the doppelganger in order to freeze it in place, opening up the way to the Crystal Rod which opens the Tower of Mysidia where Ultima is held along with four orbs of power.

So perhaps it's a subtle nod to the idea that the Sundered are essentially doppelgangers of the Unsundered.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

2. Black masks are evil-er than white masks and when they were created there was no idea at all about a civilization of white masked people and they gave the Ancients white masks because of aesthetic reasons to stand out against their black robes, especially since our first view of them are the simplistic-looking ghosts made up of an empty robe and mask in ShB.

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Quite possible, although I was thinking that once we got to Elpis in Endwalker, we'd at least see some black-masked Ancients, and handwave the lack of them in Amaurot as Emet-Selch not quite remembering correctly. Especially if the black masks are intended to represent servitors or some such lower caste (humanoid familiars?), and so Emet-Selch didn't include them in his version of Amaurot because unconscious bias meant he simply didn't think about them. This would easily provide an explanation for the aesthetic reasoning for only white masks in Amaurot.

But no, there were no black masks in Elpis or Pandemonium.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I did find it a touch odd that the black masks were mentioned in 5.3 as being part of Elidibus' scheme to build faith in the Warriors of Light, as they had long since fell into obscurity at that point, with the bulk of their appearances being in ARR and only showing up again in the HW SMN quests.

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And technically in late Stormblood, when we meet "Shadowhunter" and see that he has a collection of black Ascian masks (and the two red masks of Altima and Deudalaphon). So the black masks are still around the Source as of Stormblood, and apparently easily dealt with offscreen.

The interesting thing is after Heavensward, we never see any black-masked Ascians, but everyone else apparently does. Possibly this implies that the black-masked Ascians are deliberately trying to avoid us, while their existence and tendency to cause chaos has been widely publicized, thus random adventurers and enforcement agencies know that These People Are Not Your Friend, and deal with them accordingly.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I mean, the black-maskers are basically cultists; the fact that the story they were fed is technically true is kinda secondary to the fact. They're the Lambs of Dalamud with a nicer robe cut. I agree that the reason the Big Boy Ascians gave them black masks instead of white probably is a sort of instatement of inferiority; we know that they think sundered people are lesser, so why would they give them a dress code that implies they aren't?

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The black-masked Ascians do have the ability to warp in and out via that shadow portal thing. Now, Zenos can do the same after he got his body back from Elidibus, so maybe this isn't actually that difficult and it's just us who have no idea how to do it. Still, that implies the black-masked Ascians are given at least some instruction in Ascian techniques, which (as of the first lorebook) is supposedly part of the Echo.

I'm still curious about their red energy sigil that they show on full display when attacking you. It's the circle with 3 columns attached to it. All the black masks have the same one, and I'd mistaken it with Lahabrea's in the past.

Maybe the black masks and that sigil merely mark them as direct servants of the Convocation, and we didn't see any in Elpis, because it's a distant research post unaffiliated with the Convocation.

Or maybe they're just Lahabrea and Elidibus's idea, and with their bad memories they didn't do the right masks.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

The black-masked Ascians do have the ability to warp in and out via that shadow portal thing. Now, Zenos can do the same after he got his body back from Elidibus, so maybe this isn't actually that difficult and it's just us who have no idea how to do it. Still, that implies the black-masked Ascians are given at least some instruction in Ascian techniques, which (as of the first lorebook) is supposedly part of the Echo.

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The black-masked Ascians aren’t real living humans and like the rest of the Ascians, are incorporeal beings who need to take over a body to exist on the Source. They inhabit the bodies of corpses because they’re not powerful enough to possess living bodies. Their Echo isn’t strong enough to transfer bodies either so a blast of aether is strong enough to permanently kill them. They also were supposed to have a tell-tale sign of not casting shadows in 1.0 lore, which is why their theme song is “Shadowless” but I don’t think that made it into ARR.

The weird thing about their lore is that this all would make them weaker than even the Sahagin chief we see who possesses someone else’s body after his current one is killed and he twists that one into his preferred shape just like Emet-Selch does. They also ran around doing random acts of evil like killing adventurers for fun, which doesn’t really help their overall goal that we found out about later on.

That reminded me that it was strongly suggested a black masked Ascian was responsible for the mess at Shisui of the Violet Tides.

Perhaps their general role was "stir up chaos with no real goal in particular" to distract any potential warriors of light from the designs of the Paragons, as Haukke Manor was a similarly small scale case of evil-doing.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

That reminded me that it was strongly suggested a black masked Ascian was responsible for the mess at Shisui of the Violet Tides.

Perhaps their general role was "stir up chaos with no real goal in particular" to distract any potential warriors of light from the designs of the Paragons, as Haukke Manor was a similarly small scale case of evil-doing.

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Yeah, absolutely. The biggest 'black-masked Ascian' was probably Travanchet, whose 'chaos for no reason in particular' wound up causing Alexander.

Granted I feel like if anyone's due fro a retcon-promotion, it's Travanchet, but interviews have said he's just one of the cultist crowd.

(The following is speculation combined with a pinch of headcanon for flavor. If you're interested in sticking to strict interpretations of strictly official material, skip this post.)

There's some speculation going around that the individuals who make up the black-masks are those who'd been sworn to Lahabrea's Seat in Pandaemonium, pre-Sundering, and some aspect of that loyalty carried over--it's worth noting that all of the black-masks we see, their masks are carved in the image of his mask specifically, even those called upon by Elidibus in 2.1.

As for the meaning of the black mask...I can't help but think of how the only black-masked Ancient we know of is Azem (as cited in a pre-5.3 discussion with Yoshi-P, I think it was a Live Letter where the 5.3 trailer was shown and he was pointing out Azem in the Echo memory image of the Convocation). Azem's duty was to travel the world and report to the Convocation--a duty which seems to have been inherited by these lesser Ascians. Could the mask color have been assumed by them alongside said duties?

Presumably the Convocation had staff that helped them run their departments, black masks might be recruited from the sundered admin staff.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

Presumably the Convocation had staff that helped them run their departments, black masks might be recruited from the sundered admin staff.

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That's why I mentioned Pandemonium in my first post, though: if it was a case of Convocation members having their staff or subordinates wear black masks, the most likely person to wear one would be Erichthonios, since he's explicitly a member of Lahabrea's staff, under Lahabrea in the org chart. And yet he wears a white mask, or at least has one hanging on his robe, with no indication that there was ever a black mask in his wardrobe.

And the other member of Pandemonium (and thus part of the Words Of Lahabrea), Hesperos, wears a white mask in flashback. I'm willing to place less importance on Hesperos, given he wears no mask at all when we confront him, and by that time he has clearly gone off the deep end. But that does not explain Erichthonios.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

That's why I mentioned Pandemonium in my first post, though: if it was a case of Convocation members having their staff or subordinates wear black masks, the most likely person to wear one would be Erichthonios, since he's explicitly a member of Lahabrea's staff, under Lahabrea in the org chart. And yet he wears a white mask, or at least has one hanging on his robe, with no indication that there was ever a black mask in his wardrobe.

And the other member of Pandemonium (and thus part of the Words Of Lahabrea), Hesperos, wears a white mask in flashback. I'm willing to place less importance on Hesperos, given he wears no mask at all when we confront him, and by that time he has clearly gone off the deep end. But that does not explain Erichthonios.

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Maybe the convocation members didn't have the time, resources or inclination to make crystals to restore their subordinates memories?
Lacking the memories of who exactly they once were, they don't count as properly restored to their original jobs, and as such don't get the same colour masks as before either.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

Maybe the convocation members didn't have the time, resources or inclination to make crystals to restore their subordinates memories?
Lacking the memories of who exactly they once were, they don't count as properly restored to their original jobs, and as such don't get the same colour masks as before either.

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Also, the crystals contain the Convocation's memories (specifically the Unsundered's memories) of the individual, basically just to ring the bell in their mind.

It wouldn't even be possible to create crystals to elevate ALL their subordinates. Think about your own job; sure, you might be able to manage that sort of thing with some coworkers, but eventually you're gonna get to someone where all you've got is 'likes cars, I think', and that's probably not enough. Especially considering that we're dealing with Emet and Lahabrea as two thirds of this, and neither of them seem especially sociable. We haven't really met pre-Sundering Lahabrea yet (if we ever will), but I generally get the feeling that he doesn't actually care that much about Hesperos.