Diabolos

[A_Magical_Unicorn_Rider]

I think this speculation was settled in the limited-time FFXI crossover event.

Shantotto stumbled in from Vana'diel and didn't start with, "Hey, neat, it's that realm I meteor'd in a different section of spacetime fabric!"

"But, Moose, maybe in what is relatively her future she travels into our past to create black magic and was really the mythical Shatotto all along!"

... (╯ಠ дಠ）╯︵ ┻━┻

If that were true, EVERYONE's pants would be on fire.

(ノ^_^)ノ┻━┻ ┬─┬ ノ( ^_^ノ)

[A_Magical_Unicorn_Rider]

I think this speculation was settled in the limited-time FFXI crossover event.

Shantotto stumbled in from Vana'diel and didn't start with, "Hey, neat, it's that realm I meteor'd in a different section of spacetime fabric!"

"But, Moose, maybe in what is relatively her future she travels into our past to create black magic and was really the mythical Shatotto all along!"

... (╯ಠ дಠ）╯︵ ┻━┻

If that were true, EVERYONE's pants would be on fire.

(ノ^_^)ノ┻━┻ ┬─┬ ノ( ^_^ノ)

[Kyan]

The War of the Magi definitely includes Nym and Amdapor, but I think it is still nondescript enough to include other cities which we, as players, are not aware of.

That being said, what makes me question the origin of black mages is the fact that there are black mage tonberries in the Scholar quest: You venture inside Amdapor Keep, and there are tonberries wearing black mage robes and hats. We could infer that either black mages were present in Nym, allied with Nym, or the-merchants-which-are-now-tonberries used their time locked away in the Keep, after their transformation, to harness and practice the black magic arts.

Also, the summoning of powerful voidsent is quite possible with a group of black mages - as per the final back mage quest. But at what cost? Lives? Destruction of the land? Well...

...I certainly don't want to call forth anymore than my ahriman mount from the void, that's for sure.

[Anonymoose]

or the-merchants-which-are-now-tonberries used their time locked away in the Keep, after their transformation, to harness and practice the black magic arts.

That would make them tonberry black mages, not black mage tonberries!

Really, I think anything we say is purely speculation.

• We know it was the "enemies of Amdapor," but we don't know if it was the enemy we know by name (Nym).
• We know it was "dark magicks," but not if it was specifically Black Magic.
• We know that people of all classes turn up in every city, not just the city that hosts that seat of power (ex. guild)
• If it was black magick, we don't know where their seat of power was in the first place
• If it was the black mages, we don't know if it was their main "host" or a fringe element

We can talk about what-ifs all day long, but realistically, we know nothing. So, I mean, have at it. Any crazy theory until we get enough information to light up this thread again. I'll go ahead and throw my coin in with the silly fringe theory I posted earlier until we find something better.

[A_Magical_Unicorn_Rider]

Seems like this went WAY off topic. Started talking about Diabolos, ate a donut, now I'm killing hookers, what is this i dont even-

[Melinia]

[*]We know that people of all classes turn up in every city, not just the city that hosts that seat of power (ex. guild)

Not entirely true. There seems to be at least one major exception to that. AFAIK, there are currently no Arcanists outside of LL, and no Scholars or Summoners in the game anywhere.

[PArcher]

Not entirely true. There seems to be at least one major exception to that. AFAIK, there are currently no Arcanists outside of LL, and no Scholars or Summoners in the game anywhere.

Well, that's not entirely true. The ACN Guildmaster is MIA, traveling the land (and your mentor joins him), but I'm sure I've seen ACN in other places (I don't pay attention a ton though. RT probably has some...and of course we have the Elezen Scion "I can't spell his name") and there ARE other SMN around (that was a pretty big point of the SMN storyline...)

Technically, you are the only (known) BLM after that story finishes, and besides the tonberry(s), you are the only (known) SCH. There are other DRG, WAR, PLD, WHM, SMN, BRD and MNK, but you are "special" with regards to the others.

[Velox]

Technically, you are the only (known) BLM after that story finishes

I believe Lalai and Ququruka are Black Mages (NPCs that start the BLM job line). They are wearing different colored BLM AF sets.
Really the only "job" where you are sole member is Scholar, as you (the player) are the first to have access to these magicks since the destruction of Nym and the tonberry transformations.

[Darske]

I'm not sure if it was recently added in the latest patch or not, but I got some interesting dialogue from Raya as a BLM when asking her about White Magic, which was basically a small infodump on the origins of White and Black magic. I don't have the conversation in front of me, but basically it implies that White Magic was created as a balance to Black, mending to balance the Black arts of destruction. The two function on the same principle though, which is drawing power not from oneself but from the aether around them.

Which raises a very interesting parallel in my mind to the primals, don't you think? She goes on to say that a war between Black and White magic drained so much from the land that it led to the Umbral Era of that time. Now, what I think is really interesting in relation to Diabolos is how the Lost City isn't devoid of life. Far from it, the place is overflowing with life, with rampant mold and fungi everywhere. And since there seems to be more rampant life the closer to Diabolos's sanctum you get, it's really got me wondering if perhaps in desperation for more Aether, the white mages of Amdapor turned away from the land they bled dry for power, and sought the strong Aether of a different source... the Void.

Judging from the state of the city, I'd say they got more than they could ever have hoped to handle. So my theory is that the white mages opened a door to the void, hoping perhaps to channel its energies through the white magestones, and ended up unleashing something truly terrifying in the process. Perhaps the magestones themselves are the source of the rampant growth, outputting so much void-tainted aether that they've warped life in the city to its present state. And until now, Diabolos (a very powerful Voidsent, perhaps their ruler) has been waiting in that city with an open door to our world, waiting for the day the seal on Amdapor finally fades.

[Darske]

Thinking about what I'd just posted on the drive home, should my speculation be correct (although assuming speculation is correct is probably the worst kind of thing you can do with speculation), it occurs to me that there's an extremely interesting similarity to the events of the Black Mage questline. Specifically, how the quest's events revolve around a gate to the void which must be closed. In that quest, a ritual gone wrong turned a few Black Mages into a demonic monstrosity, and a gate to the void was opened. What strikes me as intriguing is that it's mentioned in the quest that the mage who opened the gate didn't really know why he changed the ritual ever so slightly- if I remember correctly he describes it as "perhaps an act of arrogance". That always seemed a little off to me though, and just a little eerie, as if some outside force was at work that I wasn't seeing at the time. But, if the White Mages opened a door to the void and found Diabolos... perhaps a more sinister force is at work in these events. Diabolos, literally meaning "Devil", has strong connotations of deceit and temptation. So while perhaps this is entirely built on a paper thin speculation on my part, I believe that perhaps Diabolos may have actively tempted the White Mages to even try to open the door to the void in the first place- and perhaps he tried it again, reaching out through a Black Mage centuries later when the lost arts of the Mages were being rediscovered.

I'd love to hear any thoughts on this. Diabolos, White Magic, and Black Magic... I feel like there's definitely a big plot connection waiting to be explored.