Astro lore

[Khalithar]

Here's the basics of the lore but I'm leaving out a few things specifically to avoid spoiling the story, this is the lore as I interpretted it, I may make a mistake or two, but here goes.

The Astrologian magic is referred to as Astromancy, Astromancy started out being practiced by the Sharlayans. They draw their power from the stars and constellations (the six cards AST uses are named after those constellations) and there is also a 7th constellation that the Astrologians only see at the moment of their death and no living Astrologian is able to connect with it until that moment.

Astromancy also involves charting the movements of the stars and constellations which allows them to see possible futures. A Sharlayan Astrologist came to Ishgard and while the Ishgardians were not interested in wielding the actual Astromancy magic, they were very interested however when they learned that the charting and constellation mapping could be used to map the movement of the dravanian hordes. The Ishgardians as a whole are not interested in wielding the actual Astromancy magic, they only care about using it to keep track of the movements of their enemies. The guy who gives you the Astrologian quest though, is very interested in having the Ishgardians fully embrace Astromancy, not just the charting, but also learning how to wield the magic themselves. The Holy See however, is not at all interested in seeing that magic become a part of their military and that's basically where the storyline starts.

Astromancy can be used to attack and heal using the power of the stars and it also has some time manipulation abilities, the ultimate of which involves the AST temporarily stopping time itself. The players don't get that ability of course, but you learn that exceptionally powerful Astrologians have such an ability. That leads me to believe that AST is the closest we're ever going to get to Time Mage.