Gelmorra And The Duskwight

Let me begin by saying Endwalker has been an IMMENSELY wonderful expansion with so much wonderful lore. With that being said: Now that we know we are going to be delving into the history of Etheirys - there are a few things that I didn't hear our dearest friend from another place, another time, mention.

Will we ever delve in depth into Gelmorra and the history of the Duskwight? There are so many unknowns in regards to the most unrepresented race in the game: The Duskwight.

There had been plans in 1.0 for other Gelmorra based dungeons. I truly hope that there are future plans to delve into that wonderful tidbit of lore, and to let the Duskwights have their time to truly shine. Any teasers, Yoshi? :)

Fun fact: Out of all named Duskwight-model elezen in the game, there might be more NPCs that were mistakenly set as Duskwight than we have genuine, still-living Duskwight. There are definitely more Ishgardian NPCs set to be Duskwight for aesthetic diversity than there are actual named Duskwight; because Ishgard closed their borders before the Gelmorra/Gridania split, they can't be genuine Duskwight. (The most famous of those would be Ysayle.)

That said, while I've constantly been almost comically disappointed, I do have faith that they want to do something with this sometime. Nearly every single expansion has a little bit of Gelmorra/Duskwight Lore to remind us that they're not forgotten; ARR had Tam-Tara, Toto-Rak and the Lancer questline, HW had the Palace of the Dead, Shadowbringers had that one Dancer quest, and Endwalker had talk about the actual events that led to the Gelmorra/Gridania split. They aren't forgotten, they're just neglected. And in fairness, perhaps we only notice the Duskwight are neglected because they're one of the few subraces that originally hail from somewhere we've actually been.

All that said, I will caution you: we actually can't say 'there had been plans in 1.0' about nearly anything. We only properly know a few things things about the original plans for post-launch FFXIV 1.0:

1. They didn't get to do it,
2. They wanted to do Musketeer and Arcanist,
3. For some reason naval battles were on the list.

There's no actual proof that they were definitely 100% going to do Gelmorra Stuff. However, we can reason they had more interest in Gelmorra Stuff than ARR did, going by the fact endgame currencies were Gelmorran and the game's existing content included a third Gelmorran dungeon. For presumably a number of reasons, Gelmorra got shuffled back in priority when Yoshi-P took over.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Fun fact: Out of all named Duskwight-model elezen in the game, there might be more NPCs that were mistakenly set as Duskwight than we have genuine, still-living Duskwight. There are definitely more Ishgardian NPCs set to be Duskwight for aesthetic diversity than there are actual named Duskwight; because Ishgard closed their borders before the Gelmorra/Gridania split, they can't be genuine Duskwight. (The most famous of those would be Ysayle.)

That said, while I've constantly been almost comically disappointed, I do have faith that they want to do something with this sometime. Nearly every single expansion has a little bit of Gelmorra/Duskwight Lore to remind us that they're not forgotten; ARR had Tam-Tara, Toto-Rak and the Lancer questline, HW had the Palace of the Dead, Shadowbringers had that one Dancer quest, and Endwalker had talk about the actual events that led to the Gelmorra/Gridania split. They aren't forgotten, they're just neglected. And in fairness, perhaps we only notice the Duskwight are neglected because they're one of the few subraces that originally hail from somewhere we've actually been.

All that said, I will caution you: we actually can't say 'there had been plans in 1.0' about nearly anything. We only properly know a few things things about the original plans for post-launch FFXIV 1.0:

1. They didn't get to do it,
2. They wanted to do Musketeer and Arcanist,
3. For some reason naval battles were on the list.

There's no actual proof that they were definitely 100% going to do Gelmorra Stuff. However, we can reason they had more interest in Gelmorra Stuff than ARR did, going by the fact endgame currencies were Gelmorran and the game's existing content included a third Gelmorran dungeon. For presumably a number of reasons, Gelmorra got shuffled back in priority when Yoshi-P took over.

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Actually, we do know that they were planning on more Gelmorra themed dungeons because you can watch videos of the inside of those dungeons. (They also come with some really neat looking Gelmorran technology that I'm absolutely dying to know about.) So, they did plan for it: But yeah, game got wiped and (thankfully) redone.

Either way, I would definitely love to see more Gelmorran/Duskwight lore. They're an underrepresented (And because of it, under-played race.) I hope they don't get neglected even more. I am however glad to see we'll be delving into the Seawolves and Aerslant: That was another grey area we hadn't touched.

I really wish they could get explored more, I really like the '' dark elf '' thing.
I kinda wish that if you played one too there was extra dialogue from people having a negative reaction to you considering their reputation.

Is there even much to go into? They share the same history with Wildwood, they just chose to shun the elementals and stay within the underground city.

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Originally Posted by thegreatonemal

Is there even much to go into? They share the same history with Wildwood, they just chose to shun the elementals and stay within the underground city.

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Well, in the modern day they live among the Wildwood and Hyurs, but they're treated with racism to the point that many are automatically assumed to be thieves, bandits, etc.

Even the MSQ has a leg around the Ilberd and Crystal Braves getting shady arc where Ilberd and the corrupt Braves insist that a group of Duskwight Bandits have made away with most of a weapons shipment, iirc.

In Gridania it is said that Duskwights are treated similarly to Ala Mhigan refugees. This means that there are Gridanians all the way up to hearers picking bones with Duskwights, and trying to claim that the Elementals don't want them in the Shroud.

Also, they're generally hotter than Wildwood, and in general slept on by the playerbase (of course, Wildwood are slept on too, as are Elezen F in general, so...).

On top of all of everything Vyrerus said (okay, maybe not the 'Duskwight are hotter' part), there's some interesting questions to ask about the actual split. Why did so many people choose to stay underground that it essentially created a whole new subrace? That's a lot of people looking at what seems to be a pretty good offer, and declining it very strongly, for at least enough generations to cause actual physical differences. That's clearly not a decision made lightly, they planted their goddamn feet for a reason, and to this day we still don't know why. I think a lot of us fill in that blank with something world-changing, and sure, maybe they knew truths about the Elementals or the Shroud that we didn't, but even if it's not the tale of a people just steadfastly refusing to leave their homelands for generations is a strong one with a lot of potential value to it.

Even beyond that and just into basic details about the civilization, we have curiously little. Like, collating everything I know about the places we've been, all I know about their society is 'they had at least one graveyard'. We don't even know what they used the Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak or Mun-Tuy Cellars for. We don't know their form of government, combat styles, religions, anything like that. There are so many potential plot hooks if they were inclined to write anything about it, and they just... haven't.

There is some clues to Gelmorran society and it's structure though - it was apparently a monarchy with a king as it's head of state, who could be benign but also could be tyrannical (based on a tomb for someone named 'King Galvanth the Dominator' in Tam-Tara Deepcroft), their country's crest appears to be actually a prototype for Gridania's flag (Gridania merely added the twin snakes to the design to represent the coming together of hyur and elezen in the society), and based on the names at least, Mun-tuy Cellars was probably a food storage/preperation area, and Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak was the nation's prison, a literal dungeon (which Gridania merely inherited), along with the smaller Spirithold. We know the ruin that the Palace of the Dead ended up spatialy occupying was once part of Gelmorra's residential area (an early sidequest in South Shroud states that).

There is still a lot of missing info about Gelmorra though, and some of their ruins are still to this day downright engimatic (like the famous eponymous Gelmorran Ruins in the North Shroud, mysterious even before the Calamity), so it would be nice if SE does finally fill a lot of the blanks still existing with this past society, as it will go a long way to explaining many of the current issues plaguing the Black Shroud and it's diverse peoples.

tell us what that weird humming in north shroud is. also what is amber scale rock? can we ever go back to west shroud? if the sword is odin, where does the horse come from?
as much as i loath the gridanians, everything concerning the padjals, elementals and the shroud this expac makes me want a definitive gridania/gelmorra expansion, or at least a couple of patches for a story arc.

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Originally Posted by Lihtleita

if the sword is odin, where does the horse come from?

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The same place as Ifrit's nails, Titan's bomb boulders, Ravana's swords, etc.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

The same place as Ifrit's nails, Titan's bomb boulders, Ravana's swords, etc.

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odin the sword possesses an adventurer but has to make its own horse?

It's wild speculation/guesswork, but I do think there's some leg room now for them to give us more reasons to go into the Shroud and into more Gelmorran ruins.

Magical ruins are always rife with teleporters for one thing. They could possibly give us another aethereyte similar to the Sharlayan "prototype" that gave us our Aether Sickness scenes in Endwalkers, but rather than teleporting us to Thavnair, perhaps it teleports us to the New World or at least somewhere else which would be a sister city to Gelmorra.

Since we're gearing up for some Void involved storylines, and the Shroud has heavy Void involvement(Haukke Manor x2, Spirithold, Tam-Tara, Amdapor Keep x2, Lost City of Amdapor, PoTD, A-S rank hunts through multiple zones) we could also maybe go there for a new dungeon to find out more about the Void entities we're about to deal with.

Then there's the curiosity surrounding how Palace of the Dead interacts with the Lifestream. The deeper you go into Palace of the Dead, the more undead and Voidsent enemies you encounter. The undead monsters are attributed to the workings of the Necromancer, but you kill him half way down. So what then, causes all of the other monsters, undead or otherwise, in the lower floors? You continue to find Gelmorran potsherds all the way to the bottom, as well as Pomanders.

Even more interesting, occasionally all throughout Palace of the Dead, you can encounter folks you killed or saw die outside of Palace of the Dead. This includes the green haired Roegadyn(Dolorous Bear) who claims to rival you when you first hear about Sastasha all the way back at level 15. Foulques of the Mist. Janremi Blackheart. Teledji Adeledji. The pilot of the Black Eft from Castrum Meridianum. Rhitatyn sas Arvina, and Livia sas Junius.

Rhitatyn and Livia are of particular interest now in Endwalker, because we fight their spirits as suped up bosses in the Aitiascope. Considering that all of these NPCs meet their end in wildly different locations, and that we never hear about the Necromancer being sighted taking corpses all around the realm, there has to be some sort of supernatural tomfoolery at play.

Could it be that the Palace of the Dead is a Gelmorran version of the Antitower or Aitiascope? That the Gelmorrans tunneled so far down that they have stoneworks at play in the literal location of the Lifestream or its periphery?

These stone archs at floor 200 must be Gelmorran, after all, mustn't they?

http://scontent-atl3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/...NQ&oe=62D66D95

Is this one of the stakes driven into the Serpent's back?

We also know some Duskwights landed on the wrong side of Balesar's Wall as we learn from the Weapons quest line. I just hope that we see more Duskwights that buck the trend of being bad. Like the one that was needing to leave their "firend" in that one quest line where they were both ladies but one was leaving Gridania due to finding work somewhere else. I can't remember if it was a job quest or a seasonal event.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

We also know some Duskwights landed on the wrong side of Balesar's Wall as we learn from the Weapons quest line. I just hope that we see more Duskwights that buck the trend of being bad. Like the one that was needing to leave their "firend" in that one quest line where they were both ladies but one was leaving Gridania due to finding work somewhere else. I can't remember if it was a job quest or a seasonal event.

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The Serpent Commander during 1.0, Flutaint, was a Duskwight. As is Atelloune, the world's leading biologist. Both of them are confirmed Duskwights. Flutaint had a very specific Duskwight skintone, white hair, and facial tattoos and Atelloune is described as Duskwight in EE2.

Mother Miounne uses a Duskwight model but it's likely that it's just for appearances as she's otherwise described as a Wildwood. There's also a few Duskwights among Gridanian NPCs spread across the Shroud but it's hard to tell because SE tends to use the whiter skintones instead of the bluer ones for NPCs that are Duskwights and Keepers.

Some Duskwights and Keepers seem to be integrated among Gridanian society, but the Archer and Lancer quests show that they're not fully integrated. There used to be an NPC in every city in 1.0 that talked about the races and clans that make the city home and I wish they kept that in ARR and I can't remember they're names or what exactly they said about each race/clan.


I was hoping that 6.1+ would return some of the story back to Eorzea and start demystifying and expanding upon stuff here at home instead of abroad. We had some of that with finally getting Pagl'than, which is a gigantic chunk of Eorzea that had up to that point been completely unexplored. Perhaps 7.0 might come back to some of that stuff but I think it's more likely we're going to some place crazy.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Well, in the modern day they live among the Wildwood and Hyurs, but they're treated with racism to the point that many are automatically assumed to be thieves, bandits, etc.

Even the MSQ has a leg around the Ilberd and Crystal Braves getting shady arc where Ilberd and the corrupt Braves insist that a group of Duskwight Bandits have made away with most of a weapons shipment, iirc.

In Gridania it is said that Duskwights are treated similarly to Ala Mhigan refugees. This means that there are Gridanians all the way up to hearers picking bones with Duskwights, and trying to claim that the Elementals don't want them in the Shroud.

Also, they're generally hotter than Wildwood, and in general slept on by the playerbase (of course, Wildwood are slept on too, as are Elezen F in general, so...).

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I know about the racism an all but what other lore would there be? It makes sense why they wished to remain in their underground city. They were driven there by the fickle elementals, granted it was after a race war between Hyurs and Elezens as a whole and as a result are not too keen on listening to a bunch of fickle beings that can and will take our their angry on all humans who live in the forest for a slight.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

The Serpent Commander during 1.0, Flutaint, was a Duskwight. As is Atelloune, the world's leading biologist. Both of them are confirmed Duskwights. Flutaint had a very specific Duskwight skintone, white hair, and facial tattoos and Atelloune is described as Duskwight in EE2.

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Another 1.0 Duskwight (at least, to the best of our reckoning) was Eolande Quiveron, owner of the Phrontistery and member of the Syndicate. She died in suspicious circumstances after the Calamity, with her seat on the Syndicate taken by Godbert Manderville.

...weird, that's another Duskwight-related story that sounds awfully interesting but never actually got explored. Although I guess with that one you'd unavoidably hit 'this makes Godbert look really suspicious', and I don't think the playerbase as a whole is in a mental state to accept Godbert might have ordered a hit.

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Originally Posted by thegreatonemal

I know about the racism an all but what other lore would there be? It makes sense why they wished to remain in their underground city. They were driven there by the fickle elementals, granted it was after a race war between Hyurs and Elezens as a whole and as a result are not too keen on listening to a bunch of fickle beings that can and will take our their angry on all humans who live in the forest for a slight.

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We've mentioned, basically every unanswered question about Gelmorra is a potential hook. We know very little of their societal structure, culture, or anything like that. And that's on top of the known element of 'people refused to leave their homeland despite pressure from an outside force and the other option looking pretty good' being a perfectly legitimate, tried-and-true seed for a story anyway, both on a personal level and a larger, more societal one. Which sounds like a perfect formula for an FFXIV story to me, the writers and playerbase both love 'a single person's sad story that's reflective of the pains of the society they live in'.

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Originally Posted by thegreatonemal

I know about the racism an all but what other lore would there be?

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Basically everything about their culture – up to and including whether it currently exists. We don't know who their ancestors are (possibly the Amdapori by deduction, but there's no statement), how they dress, what their customs and attitudes are; which of the Twelve (if any) they might prefer to worship; what their city looks like in its prime.

I have a Duskwight character and while there is enough insight into what other races might think of his when he ventures into the wider world, there is nothing for me to build into a concept of his own cultural identity.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Basically everything about their culture – up to and including whether it currently exists. We don't know who their ancestors are (possibly the Amdapori by deduction, but there's no statement), how they dress, what their customs and attitudes are; which of the Twelve (if any) they might prefer to worship; what their city looks like in its prime.

I have a Duskwight character and while there is enough insight into what other races might think of his when he ventures into the wider world, there is nothing for me to build into a concept of his own cultural identity.

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The Duskwight/Wildwood lore is the same as it was in 1.0, but on a tighter timescale because I don't believe calamities existed in the pre-Yoshida days.

Elezen were the only Spoken race left in Eorzea in great enough numbers for a civilization (in 1.0, they were the sole native Spoken race to Eorzea). Hyur started coming back and colonizing the land in great migration waves. The first of which pushed some Elezen north where they settled Ishgard and the second pushed others to the east where they began settling the Shroud. The Elezen were immediately attacked by the Elementals and fled into the caves. When the Hyur came, they too were attacked by the Elementals and started attacking the Elezen for the good caves. After decades of fighting, they realized the Elementals were the true enemy and decided to work together to build Gelmorra.

They then spent the next 200 years partying underground until the Elementals' favorite, the Ixal, were kicked out of the forest. The Gelmorrans saw this as their chance to live above and spent years asking the Elementals for their shot at a city on the surface before they were finally allowed to and made Gridania. Some of the Elezen thought serving the Elementals was BS and continued to live in caves to this day. Their culture according to Eorzea Encyclopedia:

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Originally Posted by Eorzea Encyclopedia

The customs of the subterranean city of Gelmorra are still practiced by the Duskwight to this day, from architectural advances developed to stake out comfortable residency in dank, humid caves to mystical wards that serve to stave off the fury of the Elementals. The Duskwight-fashioned pomanders-urns engraved with mystic glyphs of great power and filled with fragrant herbs-are an art without parallel in the realm. Duskwight cuisine is famous for its use of Mun-Tuy beans (soy beans?), a staple food in the subterranean depths, where they grow in abundance with no need for sunlight. That these dishes have come to be considered a Gridanian delicacy is an ironic twist, given the history between the two clans

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The rest goes on to describe how they still live in Gelmorra or new caves, hate surface society and city-states, and some resort to brigandry to survive. Another thing to note for RPers is that they basically have bat ears, with exceptional hearing and can "ascertain the source of a sound with unerring accuracy, unaffected by the echoes or reverberations".


I think the idea of calamities ruined large swaths of pre-existing lore. The Dunesfolk made more sense when they were originally desert-dwelling nomads from islands south of Eorzea who migrated to Thanalan, which was similar to their home. Instead now, they're ex-Mhachi mages (but only the Lalafell, for some reason) who decided to move there of all places and somehow evolved their desert-adapted eyes in an extremely short amount of time. Ditto with the Duskwight. We're supposed to believe that in 500 years, the Duskwight went from being normal Elezen to having completely different skintones and bat ears.

You can tell the lore was changed because 1.0 Dunesfolk specifically mentioned migrating to Eorzea. The old lore for them had them as nomads who lived on great beasts of burden and had emblems on their head for their zodiac sign. This was changed in ARR and now the emblems are to remember Mhachi sorcerers and while they kept the idea of them living as nomads on the backs of giant animals, those animals are nowhere to be seen and the Lalafell were in Thanalan for just 37 years before creating Belah'dia so I don't think their writers are talking to each other if we're to expect their "heritage" as nomads and evolution into Dunesfolk was that short.

This is the sort of lore I would love to have explored and made widely available in the game present day.

You know what would be amazing? Like really, REALLY amazing?

To have a Historian that players could talk to, for each race: And get a detailed recounting of their origins, society, life, cuisine, social structure, etc. It'd even be amazing to have a racial story arc as side-quests. Let all of us explore the races at our leisure. Bonus points for doing quests relating to each race. By the twelve, that would truly be great.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Their culture according to Eorzea Encyclopedia:

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Sure, but – I nearly raised this in my last post – what sort of meaningful culture do you derive out of "they craft pomanders and like Mun-Tuy sauce"?

Why are the archaeologists in South Shroud talking about Gelmorra like it's a thing of the past? Where do they live now? Is there a city still? What does any of it actually look like?

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Originally Posted by Angellos

This is the sort of lore I would love to have explored and made widely available in the game present day.

You know what would be amazing? Like really, REALLY amazing?

To have a Historian that players could talk to, for each race: And get a detailed recounting of their origins, society, life, cuisine, social structure, etc. It'd even be amazing to have a racial story arc as side-quests. Let all of us explore the races at our leisure. Bonus points for doing quests relating to each race. By the twelve, that would truly be great.

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Fun fact: back in 1.0, that was basically Erik's role, albeit in a different space. He had jumbo-sized infodumps, you can find some on Youtube in videos about 1.0. Given the fact that when he came back in the Monk questlines in the live game, the joke about him was that he's go on long pointless lectures that nobody listened to... I kinda get the feeling that approach might not have been popular!

Something I think could fill this role is the Unending Codex. Historically, both in this game and in others, people tend to like a sideline infodump they can read whenever they want, as long as said infodump isn't essential to understanding the story (thank you, FFXIII).

I'll add to this that it'd be lovely if certain dialogue trees - particularly in Gridania! - were at least slightly modified for Duskies to reflect their 'othered' status in the modern Shroud. It felt really weird to have NPCs repeatedly elfsplaining who Duskwights were from a Gridanian POV to my Obviously Duskwight Character. I seem to recall the archer questline being particularly jarring ^__^;

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Originally Posted by bitterhorn

I'll add to this that it'd be lovely if certain dialogue trees - particularly in Gridania! - were at least slightly modified for Duskies to reflect their 'othered' status in the modern Shroud. It felt really weird to have NPCs repeatedly elfsplaining who Duskwights were from a Gridanian POV to my Obviously Duskwight Character. I seem to recall the archer questline being particularly jarring ^__^;

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I don't know how well in game fantasy racism would be taken in an MMO like FFXIV, tbh.
Seems like the kind of pit Square would wanna avoid. Kinda like Gelmorra, so far!

...in-game fantasy racism is a huge core element of the game's story. 'They don't want to touch that' seems unlikely given they do a lot with that relating to the Garleans, Ala Mhigans, beastmen, Ishgardians (granted that's more classism), Ascians, and even actual Duskwight content we do get.

I think the reason you mostly don't see that to a Duskwight PC is because that character isn't necessarily 'one of those Duskwight'. Also because that player wouldn't necessarily know that's going on so they still need the explanation anyway, and because a lot of it would lead to tangible differences in treatment and tasks required of the player, which is just not a great idea.

I’m flashing back to the fascist Emperor ranting about the one true race and how it’s supremacy is justified over the “lesser” races.

If they’re avoiding racism as a topic they’re doing a pretty bad job of it.

If you say so. I've seen enough to where I suspect Square would be in rather hot water in fantasy racism was directed at the player character rather than faceless NPCs in the background that are forgotten the very next patch. The labels and accusations the public would bandy about.... Yeah, not a pretty picture. This isn't Mafia III, and even they had to slap a big fat THIS GAME HAS A METRIC SHIT-TON OF RACISM IN IT warning before you launch it.