Summoner and BLM differences

[AspectOfWinter]

Yes, it's me again.

I've already talked about my character Miranda, how she initially chose Gridania and Conjury for the beauty of the forest and peacefulness, but her universe keeps letting her down as she is easily taken advantage of and has been badly treated in the past. In a Nutshell, she is friendly and peace loving like Terra, but bitter and disillusioned underneath like Celes.

I was thinking about how she could keep her CNJ skills, but have a more offense oriented job as well. After all, I think there's more than a few reasons to believe the Padjal are not as nice as they seem, plus it takes a very rare person to believe that Eorzeans are bastards and still care about being a healer for them. =D

But now I'm curious as to what differences, if any, a SMN and a BLM would typically have as far as personality and mannerisms?

The BLM story reminds me a lot of Rift, another game I like - weilding magic from the Void, but using that power to seal portals to it, much like the Elemental Planes in Rift. But the thing is, It's kind of implied in the BLM storyline that the further you wander down the path of the Black, the more your personality will shift towards being mean and evil. Is this true? Or are they referring more to your bond with the Gem, and a lot of BLMs being evil comes from the fact that naturally evil people often want a quicker path to power?

SMN story has the Dark Summoner, but for the most part they seem to be sort of "rebellious scientists" whose methods might be questionable to the city states, but they have sworn to use their techniques against the Primals and never to give in to their tempering.

[Enkidoh]

Well, it's a bit hard to judge given the fact both Jobs in Eorzea are virtually extinct, especially SMN, so whatever personality traits might have been standard for practitioners of those jobs in ages past probably is no longer relevant.

One thing though about SMN - although it's unclear about Tristan, given the fact he was being manipulated by the Ascians, as far as the player is concerned they are not tempered because they can't be - they have the Echo after all and it's a major plot point of the game that the player is completely immune to Primal influence (ala tempering), making them uniquely suited to bending the Primals to their own will (or at least a portion of their power).

Tristan unfortunately was so consumed by revenge it virtually destroyed him (especially wielding the very powers he hated so much), but again it was unclear whether or not he was tempered himself.

[gornotck]

As to Black Mage, I didn't see it implied that it causes you to become mean and evil. It was a cautionary tale of hubris. Black magic is power, power begets hubris. The type of person who seeks power for the sake of seeking power tends to be prone to hubris, overstep their limits, and turn their friends into a fiendish hellbeast that they can barely even contain, much less defeat.

[JoeDono]

As to Black Mage, I didn't see it implied that it causes you to become mean and evil. It was a cautionary tale of hubris. Black magic is power, power begets hubris. The type of person who seeks power for the sake of seeking power tends to be prone to hubris, overstep their limits, and turn their friends into a fiendish hellbeast that they can barely even contain, much less defeat.

Not to mention they deal with dark fiends all the time. Whose power lies in seduction and corruption as much as it does in destruction.

[AspectOfWinter]

As to Black Mage, I didn't see it implied that it causes you to become mean and evil. It was a cautionary tale of hubris. Black magic is power, power begets hubris. The type of person who seeks power for the sake of seeking power tends to be prone to hubris, overstep their limits, and turn their friends into a fiendish hellbeast that they can barely even contain, much less defeat.

The quote I'm referring to is:

Ququruka: "You may have taken the black, but time is needed before the black takes you - before it permeates mind and body, and colors every fiber of your being dark as pitch."

[gornotck]

That doesn't imply any evil or mean spiritedness, really. Ququruka is saying that you may have become a black mage, but that it will take time to master being a black mage. His closing comment is along the lines of 'Do not fear the power to destroy. Master it and destroy what would destroy you.'

[dubstephalflife]

Greetings fellow RPer (or at least someone who thinks like one)! I'm going to give you a bit of an rp perspective. I actually play a thaumaturge myself (poor little Sigurd) who is a voidsent researcher. While in game, he's a BLM, personal storyline, he's just a THM who's way too obsessed with the void and refining his own skills. He actually recently crossed over into SCH-type play, but as he can't quite figure out this ancient Nymian tome he found while raiding a cavern, he's just kind of a SCH without a fairy. But I digress.

I'll give you an interesting fact I've played into Sigurd's personality. He's been having the void whispering in his ear for years. It's slowly driving him crazy as he becomes more wrapped in his research into the void and the events of RP unfold before him. He loses people, he gets stressed out, he's a typical young adult with post-traumatic stress caused by the Calamity. The usual. I'm terrible to him.

Now Sigurd is far from evil. He's Thanalanian (Is that a word? It is now), so he's got his share of shady going on, but he's certainly not evil by any definition, even though he's slowly being consumed by the void. He's just unfortunate. In fact, if you go through the entirety of the BLM storyline, you'll find out exactly what the void is trying to do. It seems more that it would make you sad and possibly self-destructive. He's had moments of severe self-doubt and loathing to a point where he's nearly thrown himself off a bridge, but that passes as he snaps to his senses.

As for your scenario, since both thm and acn can cross into cnj, here's a thought for you and how I decided what classes I'd cross over into Sigurd's skillset.

1. Arcanism is a magic based off math. You can see it very clearly with the scholar spells that this is math-based. (You can see it in Tri-disaster with SMN too). If your character is good with math, it might be a good option, though you need to feasibly come up with a way to explain why he has a summoning book / gem / whathaveyou. If your character cannot count, this is probably not the skill for you.

2. thaumaturgy is based on black magicks, which is basically aether-bending. It is linked to the void but you don't necessarily have to make it absolutely so. Thaumaturges also seem to be incredibly devout to Nald'thal (holds true for BLM too).

Neither is actually good or bad, just with any magicks or DoW classes in the game. It's all about mastery and what you choose to do with the power that makes you who you are in the game.

[Gwaeron]

I'm pretty sure a soul crystal or main arm does not dictate the wielder's personality. Isn't curiosity a good enough reason?

[TinyRedLeaf]

I can't really speak for how you choose to roleplay Miranda, but I'll try to explain how I've integrated the thaumaturge and archer aspects of my summoner's storyline.

When Merlwyb appointed Lyland as her envoy to Gridania and Ul'dah, he took the opportunity to learn more about the other schools of magic in Eorzea. From the conjurers, he learnt more about the art of healing and protection. But, more importantly, he met Sylphie Sweetwind, and wondered why she couldn't be allowed to strengthen her own reserves of aether and avoid endangering her life whenever she heals with magic.

It's not immediately apparent, but among the three schools of magic, arcanists are very likely the best at managing their internal flow of aether. This is represented by the arcanist's aetherflow ability, which not just replenishes his aether, but also sets up a "reservoir" of aether that can be released in a burst of magical power.

Lyland pondered this question when he next visited Ul'dah and studied thaumaturgy. He found that the thaumaturges had no apparent problem drawing from their own reserves of aether, unlike Sylphie, but they do seem to often run the risk of running dry on aether when they are most in need of it. The thaumaturges seemed to get around this through alchemy (ie, mana potions), but Lyland later discovered that judicious use of astral and umbral cycles of spells would help manage the problem quite effectively.

So, it came down eventually to a matter of dogma. The conjurers were consciously aware that they using a borrowed power, ie, the power of the elements, to work their magic, and were therefore tradition-bound to follow the rules of their agreement with the elementals.

Lyland did consider putting this to Sylphie, but he decided eventually to leave it alone. It was not his place, as a foreigner, to comment on local culture. He chose instead to support Sylphie as best he could as a fellow conjurer, and things worked out in their own ways in the end.

=========

As for archery, it's much more straightforward. Lyland picked up miqo'te archery from the U tribe of the Forgotten Springs. He sympathised with U'kahzuna's plight, and was quite happy that she managed to learn a new way to hunt in the end, with bow and arrow instead of claws. In support, he picked up the skill along with her, and developed it further in Gridania (where he was aghast to find so much antagonism towards his style of archery... but that's another story).


So, to be sure, Lyland was never quite bothered by any ideological differences between thaumaturgy and arcanima. To him, both schools are more similar than different, especially from the perspective of how they utilise internal reserves of aether. If anything, though, Lyland found much in common between summoning and conjury, as both schools have a heavy reliance on elemental magic.

The key difference, though, is that summoning relies heavily on personal aether reserves to draw forth the egi, which are in turn contained and controlled through arcane geometry. Lyland would later realise that he would have to apply everything he knew about aetheric manipulation, from thaumaturgy and arcanima, to succeed as a summoner.

And that's the way the story rolled with Lyland. I hope it gives you some inspiration for handling Miranda's story.

[AspectOfWinter]

I can't really speak for how you choose to roleplay Miranda

Okay well, first off, let me apologize for not being able to leave well enough alone. I know I can be pretty stubborn sometimes and I apologize if I'm being annoying.

Eikidoh has a VERY good point about the Jobs, that I must admit I kind of overlooked in my Scholar vs Bard thread. The advantage of the two Arcanist Jobs is that you are virtually the only one of their kind in the present day world, besides Tristan of course. So for purposes of the story, it doesn't really matter what traits the ancient Nymian Scholars or the Ancient Allagan Summoners had.

By that definition, if I say Miranda couldn't be a Scholar just because they were militant in the past, then being a BLM or a WHM would have to be disqualified as well, seeing as how it's heavily implied that most past WHMs and BLMs were very much fanatical warmongers, which is how the aether ran out and the arts became forbidden.

I also only recently did the WHM quests up to level 45 on Miranda, so I know for a fact that WHMs today aren't always peaceful and friendly.

But yeah, one other thing I apologize for not making clearer: Miranda's bitterness stems mostly from her strong belief that "tough love" and arrogance do more harm than good, and seeing as how the city states have a knack for displaying both attitudes, she has ended up becoming disillusioned and independent minded. Pretty much, what she's against is fighting out of hubris, not fighting in general.