Gelmorra And The Duskwight

[MikkoAkure]

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.

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:

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

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.