Raimdelle Reborn: The Neverending Bestiary

[Anonymoose]

APOLOGIES FOR THE DOUBLE POST

Version 0.1 of the new chart is a go!

Some things to keep in mind:

• I started with the raw list of XIVMODELS visual archetypes, so there are some missing pieces I'll need to fill in now (especially the Spoken, which just have tonberries as a placeholder, atm).
• XIVMODELS isn't perfect. The game itself enables and disables some of the visuals, so you'll notice that both ram and ewe sheep on XIVMODELS have horns and the karakul look ridiculous. The links are just for informational purposes when identifying a species.
  
• Many names will change as we discuss improvements. I've tried to color code which things are known, which things are inferred, and which things are guessed/placeholders.
  
• Game mechanics and biology are not equal.
  • Some different "species" on this chart are simply one species exhibiting sexual dimorphism (Aldgoats, Antelopes, possibly Peiste). They may look different, use different attacks, and drop different items - but technically theyare the same species. How this is handled via the chart and via the wiki will be a case-by-case kind of thing until we build a way around it.
    
  • Some "species" are just unique variants of an existing species. Nether Nix, for instance, seems to just be a regular Nix changed by the poisonous environment of the Aurum Vale. I've kept some of them in the species column until we know for sure what mob they are, where they come from, what makes them different, and that they are indeed unique. For this reason, on the chart, some "unique visual variants" will appear as their own species and some will appear as variants of an existing one for now.
    
  • The "species" of Spoken will be different between this chart and the wiki. I won't bother going into loyalties, etc. on the chart, but on the Wiki, it makes sense to do so on occasion, for instance, grouping all Imperials together instead of dividing them by race due to their like map positions and item drops.
• Both this chart and the game are prone to errors. Sometimes, I will clearly have made a mistake, in which case you should point it out to me here and I'll fix it. Sometimes, the game will clearly have made a mistake, in which case you should point it out in the Localization forum. Ambiguous cases are always open to discussion.
  

[RolandDebreton]

Thought I'd toss these in here. I just finished slaying myself some voidsent, deepvoid spoken. I'd never seen voidsent spoken as a typology. I noted that I got blood from them as a quest reward to continue in this line of quests. I looked at the object before I dumped it onto the quest objective, it read, "Bottle of Spoken Blood - The warm blood of an adventurer whose adventuring days are now done. For some unknown reason, the humours will not coagulate."





It may be sloppy, but here were ashkin, spoken (which makes sense) who is also a voidsent... Methinks either they are willing to bend old Raimdelle's rules for story expediency, or voidsent is a "geographical" catch-all, just as ashkin is an undead catch all.

[Anonymoose]

deepvoid spoken ... Bottle of Spoken Blood ... Methinks either they are willing to bend old Raimdelle's rules for story expediency

Now that you bring it to my attention, the whole BLM story arc actually makes me very confused as far as mobs are concerned.

The first several quests deal with you being sent to close Planar Fissures between "this world and the next" (Yayake). The fissures seem to be mini Voidgates - aftershocks caused by the initial incident, perhaps. This implies that Yayake is simply making a mistaken assumption when she says they lead to the next world, they just lead to a different one: the Void, "a netherworld rife with shadow and monstrosity" (Ququruka). But that's part of the problem: though most of the monsters that come through the Voidgates are indeed voidsent, some are just undead.

What's up with the Ghosts (Deepvoid Soul / Void Echo)?

Ferne called ghosts Ashkin back in the day when we only had Bogy/Revenant ghosts. The Revenant Things FATE backs this up, saying that these are souls unaware of their death, unreturned to the lifestream, lost and violent. The names of most of them imply these circumstances. Corrupted Nimians were taken by the tonberry sickness, Betrayed Souls were killed by heretics in the Darkhold, Poisoned Peasants succumbed to the noxious fumes of the Aurum Vale. I can make excuses for a lot of things. Some mobs get accused of being from the Void when they're not. There's a dormouse in the Shroud named Deepvoid Deathmouse just because Gridanian's think it's unnaturally big. Maybe we can hit ghosts with a sword because aether gathers around the unsent soul and that's why it's a corporeal blob. Maybe it has an unnatural circulatory system with a little bit of blood we can beat out of it. But why does the ghost drop Voidsent blood when it's, as far as we've been told, an Ashkin? Devil's Advocate? Maybe the Bogy/Revenant is a creature of the Void and never had anything to do with our Eorzean dead in the first place. Maybe the names of the ghosts are just as misguided as the name of the mouse. Wisps are confirmed as being from the Void and Eorzeans believe they, too, might be the souls of the dead.

Barring a lore nuance that I've overlooked, I believe the ghosts may be an oversight - a mistake. I still don't think SE would willfully misguide us about game mechanic basics. If anybody's wrong, I'd expect it to be Eorzeans. This leads me to believe that Eorzeans may be mistaken about the mouse, Eorzeans may be mistaken about the wisps, and Square Enix may be mistaken about Ashkin ghosts coming out of a Voidgate and dropping Voidsent blood. Especially in light of...

What's up with the Zombies (Deepvoid Pikeman / Deepvoid Wizard)?

Under the Armor identifies Zombies and Skeletons as Ashkin. Even if we assume that Ferne and Raimdelle are wrong and bogies are just hairless floating snurbles, what are zombies doing coming out of a Voidgate? At least this time they drop Spoken blood. That makes sense. Zombies were one people, people are Spoken. Nobody said the blood had to be fresh. Makes you wonder, if the ghosts' bodies are a new corporeal form on a Spoken soul, is it Spoken blood? Maybe the item name was misidentified. Clearly the fissures just want any blood. But then why are two types of Eorzean undead people coming out of the Voidgates!?

Other monsters that come through the fissures (for the sake of completeness):

• Deepvoid Scamp - Imp - Voidsent ✓
  
• Ahriman - Ahriman - Voidsent ✓
  
• Planebreaker - Demon - Voidsent ✓
• Void Lantern - Wisp - Voidsent ✓
• Void Plasma - Gargoyle - Voidsent ✓
  
• Void Trumpeter - Demon - Voidsent ✓
  
• Barbatos - Gargoyle - Voidsent ✓
  
• Void Tyrant - Death Gaze ... ?

I don't know what Death Gaze are. They look Voidsent as all get out, despite sharing many features with the Scalekin Aevis (they were both versions of Plate Wyrms in FFXII), and mega despite the fact that the Simurgh FATE outright calls them Cloudkin. Anyway, most of the monsters that come through are indeed Voidsent.

So - we only have two Ashkin anomalies to deal with - and it clearly runs deeper than Eorzeans' habit of just slapping the name "DEEPVOID" on anything having an 85% chance or better of having tumbled down the snurblehole from the Ascian realm. Maybe the quest just needs some polish. I mean, it already suffers from major, "Is it Magic or Magick in FFXIV?" syndrome.

UNLESS THE ZOMBIES AND REVENANTS WERE JUST IMPS IN GLAMOUR ALL ALONG!
OHOHOHO!

In the end, though, I feel obligated to say, since I spent so much time picking at it, that this is still one of my favorite story arcs in the game. A gifted thaumaturge allying with beastmen in a time before tempering only to have his hubris with powerful magicks rip open a hole to the void resulting in his friends being torn into their aetherial components which were then devoured by a voidsent entity in order to make his corporeal form... how black mage is that? Big thumbs up. Awesome tale.

Conclusion
Travanchet totally sent The Key, whatever the hell it was, through a Planar Fissure to the Void.

Thread-relevant Conclusion
TBA

Silver Linings
Because it's such a vague class, I keep just throwing anything that's animate and bound to something into the soulkin column even though I have reservations about them. Looking into the Ashkin made me realize that Bockman, a Dullahan, is said to be an undead revenant. This fits with past Dullahan in the franchise. Perhaps Eorzeans were wrong about the "ancient golem" part of their theories. Maybe, unlike the ghosts, these revenants know they're dead, and they're just downright vengeful about it... I'll move them to Ashkin for now. Progress! I still wonder about Golems, though... Why only with certain magicks only during umbral eras? An Ascian summoned one, maybe it's void magicks. Let's move them to voidsent for now. PROGRESS! ... Hm. I'm gonna need to do some digging on what the statues in Qarn are. Haunted? Magicked? There's a golem there... Something new to focus on at least.

Thanks again, Roland!

[Orophin]

void stuff

I'm probably looking into this a little further than I should be, but I think there was an instance in every dungeon, regardless or not of Ascian influence, where each end boss of every dungeon erupted in the typical "black void flames". Do you think this was SE's generic "boss kill" animation (like how the bosses in the old game would slowly crumble/disappear) or is it possible that every one of these foes are from the Void? It seems improbable that the very first dungeon boss you fight (the Sahagin) was a voidsent. I guess I can break it down from there:

- The Mindflayer, I can buy into that.
- The boss of Copperbell was buried underneath rock and recently reappeared.
- Halatali's boss was an ogre, and they're commonly summoned from the void.
- Totorak there was some Ascian influence.
- Haukke Manor there was some Ascian influence.
- Brayflox had a big dragon.
- Qarn had a lot of undead, but voidsent...? (there was a golem, which was the earliest seen voidsent summoned via the story)
- Cutter's Cry had the Chimera, but that seemed like a beast that had made those caves its home for a long time.
- Stone Vigil there was some Ascian influence.
- Dzemael Darkhold, yeah...full of voidsent.
- Aurum Vale had a lot of nasty beasties.
- Wandering Palace was kind of unique situation with the tonberries.
- Amdapor Keep had quite a bit of voidsent.
- Haukke HM had more voidsent stuff.
- Copperbell HM seemed just to reiterate the giants further re-emerging. (again..another golem boss animated by a spriggan here though...)
- Pharos Sirius was a mix of undead and beasts.

So I can't help but wonder if it's just a generic death animation or if all these bosses are tied to the void somehow.

[Anonymoose]

So I can't help but wonder if it's just a generic death animation or if all these bosses are tied to the void somehow.

Going through the cutscene list, all of the enemies that are not of the five races or primals have the animation, so, despite looking void-ish, with the black and purple smoke and bits of aether, I'm with you that it might just be generic. Even the Sahagin has it - a primal-tempered spoken, as does Aiatar, a normal scalekin as far as we know, and finally Miser's Mistress, who I don't see having any connection the void; not a single voidsent appears in the Aurum Vale.

[RolandDebreton]

I'm on my smartphone so my access to quest log research is limited. That being said, didn't our illustrious archon Urianger sic a golem on us nigh on the end of the Seventh Umbral Era? Or did he sic us on it? I'm unsure of whether he was still testing us, but I seem to recall some measure of explanations with the appearance of this new creature.

[Anonymoose]

didn't our illustrious archon Urianger sic a golem on us nigh on the end of the Seventh Umbral Era?

I think the only things he sicced on us personally were the familiars he summoned in the first quest (drake, anole, peiste). In Their Finest Hour, Papalymo sent us to Rootslake quoting only reports of danger there and we fought a golem there, which Urianger then spoke of and gave a little history to. Are either of those the incidents you're remembering?

[RolandDebreton]

We fought a golem there, which Urianger then spoke of and gave a little history to.

That is the very incident. I would assume you then know of the wider significance of them at that camp then?

By the by, for giggles: I showed up at Horizon, long ago when it was little more than a campfire and a lean-to and was shocked for Urianger appeared and seemed to summon a whole bevy of voidsent to battle me and the others there....





Sorry, my laptop was but a feeble creature at the time!

[Anonymoose]

Do you remember any of the circumstances along with it? I know Hippocerfs appeared in Western Thanalan on their own with or without him, and as part of levequests, as well, if I remember correctly. Did he say anything that'd imply whether he summoned them out of thin air, or make familiars out of ones that were already around? It'd be weird if they were just there incidentally considering he's staring right at one - but then again, he's under GM control and the GM can target whatever he wants, lol.

I wonder if it was a combination test / warning about the open Voidgates.

[Kyan]

Mr. Moose: Are you aware that there are some Naturalists in the Shroud aiming to update and correct Raimdelle's work, as well? I wonder if they're having as much fun as you are. Bubble chocolate?