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

[Mugear_bahamut]

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.