Lifespan/age of different races?

[Enkidoh]

All that aside, I'm a little confused about a couple of things. When you say that the WoL is "the same person," this makes sense to me given that the game seems to heavily suggest that Ardbert is the Grenoldt to our Gerolt. However, weren't the other members (excluding you-know-who) of Ardbert's party also WoLs? Isn't Krile sort of a WoL, without the warrior bit? Are they all ultimately one person as well?

Ahhh... I assume you haven't reached the end of Shadowbringers yet? In which case, spoiler alert!

SHB's main scenario reveals that Ardbert is the player's character, in that both share the same soul, and he ends up Rejoining his soul to the WoL's during the climatic scene prior to facing the final boss, curing them of the Light inside them that was about to transfrom them into a Lightwarden. This is why Minfilia refused him to sacrifice himself to stopping the Flood of Light a century before - she knew he still had a final task ahead of him to Rejoin with US, trusting in our natural tendency to overcome the impossible and that we would eventually make our way to the First to do so.

As for Ardbert's friends, they're Warriors of Light in a sense, in that they too possess the Echo and gained Crystals of Light, but they are not part of us, they would have their own counterparts on the Source accordingly. They are not part of our WoL, think of them as being parts of other players from your point of view.

Wait, 8th calamity? Do you mean the 7th, or am I reading the timeline wrong? I always thought that the reason the WoL stuck around after Cartenau is that the apocalypse was at least partially averted, whereas on previous occasions, the destruction seems to have been pretty comprehensive, and thus one of the shards was absorbed.

You know, the Eighth Calamity that was

about to happen when the Garlean Empire unleashed Black Rose upon Eorzea that interacted with the First being Rejoined, thus turning it into an absolute weapon of mass destruction that wipes out two thirds of life on Hydaelyn, including completely destroying not only Eorzean civilization but the Empire too, and that the WoL was also a victim of, where even 200 years later things were still so bad that the only way out considered was to turn the Crystal Tower into a Crystal TARDIS and try and change history so the Eighth Calamity never occurred? Preventing the Eighth Calamity is the whole reason we go to the First, to prevent it from ever happening by stopping the First from being Rejoined, which we do by destroying the Lightwardens and defeating Emet-Selch, the Ascian responsible for it.

As events at the end of SHB show, this original timeline was 'cast adrift' rather than being replaced by our new timeline where the Eighth Calamity never occurs and we survive so still technically exists somewhere continuing on hopelessly... which is pretty depressing to think of.

Either way, trying to stop the Eighth Calamity from coming to pass is the central theme of SHB's main scenario.

Also, aren't we like the Asians? Like, really like the Ascians? Maybe this is my own crackpot theory, but I thought that the end of the ShB was trying to push the idea that we were one of the dissenting members of the Convocation pretty forcefully? I don't suppose that would change much, though, in terms of what happens to our mortal bodies... Or would it?

Again, big spoilers from SHB's story line:

I too have that same darksteel foil hat about the WoL's true origins, that what SHB's main scenario does strongly hint towards, that the WoL was the dissenting 14th member of the Convocation and, furthermore, was the one directly responsible for Hydaelyn's summoning and thus the Sundering as well. And more than that, the idea is that all life on Hydaelyn's Source and the Shards are originally Ancients, sundered when the Star was split by Hydaelyn's summoning into the Source and Shards. Only three Ancients survived unsundered, the method of how they did so has not been explained yet: Lahabrea, Emet-Selch, and Elidibus, and somehow managed to make themselves immortal beings beyond the normal natural laws of life and death (possibly a result of Zodiark's summoning in the first place intented to "rewrite the laws of nature").

The Ancients pre Zodiark//Hydaelyn summoning/Sundering were not Ascians, that is only what those that remained after the Sundering ended up becoming - as Emet's reconstruction of Amaurot showed (and if it is accurate), the Ancients were of impressive physical statue with immense personal wellsprings of aether beyond what anyone currently alive posseses, which allowed them mastery over Creation magic. So all current life on the Source and Shards are not descended from the Ascians, they're descended from the Ancients, which the Ascians are also 'final forms' of. Modern mortal life and the Ascians therefore originate from the same.. um.. source.

But yes, the game really strongly hinted that the WoL is this mysterious 14th Convocation member who resigned their position shortly before the Terminus, and the one assumed to be behind the summoning of Hydaelyn. They were also strongly hinted as being good friends with Emet pre Terminus, as in... really, really good friends, which frames Emet's interactions with the WoL throughout SHB's story in a whole new light... but I digress...

[purgatori]

...

Nope, I have finished ShB, but I guess I wasn't very clear with my WoL/Ardbert & Gerolt/Grenoldt comparison. :P I also totally forgot that the 8th calamity did, on one timeline at least, actually come to pass.

I hadn't really considered that the unsundered Ascians might be more powerful than the Amaurotines. If it was only after the Terminus event that they learnt some new tricks concerning longevity/practical immorality, then I guess that might mean that the WoL would still have a definite lifespan even if she manages to become unsundered. On the other hand, it seems that the Ascians also taught life-extending techniques to the Shadowkeeper...