Answers About the Archons

[treuhavik]

Tales from the Calamity: The Walker's Path

“It is foretold that on the cusp of an Umbral Calamity, individuals blessed with the power of the Echo will appear," the letter continued. “During the Sixth Umbral Era, when the waters rose to swallow the land, the twelve Archons who stood against the darkness each bore this blessing.”

Minfilia looked up to see Thancred staring at her. He abruptly turned away.

“The histories paint a fanciful picture of these gifted souls. Through countless retellings, the Archons’ deeds are become myth, their powers more akin to gods than men. However, there are two things of which I am now certain. First, their gift, the Echo, granted them the power to walk within the memories of others. Second─”

Though Minfilia knew how the sentence would end, her breath caught in her throat as she read Louisoix Leveilleur’s next words.

“You have been blessed with the selfsame power.”

Of Archons and Muses

Caught wind of all this Archon talk yet? Some folk make them for the very incarnations of the Twelve, come to Eorzea. Old prophecies and wives' tales say they descend from their heavenly seat whenever disaster threatens Eorzea, see.

Needless to say, many believe the Archons to have otherworldly powers─both of mind and body.

According to the loremasters' books, there was an age of shadow and calamity some fifteen hundred-odd years ago, when a great flood drowned the world─the sixth Umbral Era, they called it. Believers say it was the twelve Archons what came to fight the darkness then.

They say Ahldbhar was the mightiest of the twelve Archons. Rhalgr the Destroyer himself, taken form in Roegadyn flesh─a bloody mountain of a man, and a fearsome warrior, besides.(...)

You must've seen renderings of Rhalgr at some point─in paint or stone. Looks like a bag of angry muscles in a mage's robes, right? Aye, well, those are done in the likeness of Archon Ahldbhar.

Ahldbhar fought relentlessly against a clan of wicked sorcerers that sought only to wreak havoc on the world through their dark powers. But then, something happened... Something that threw Ahldbhar into deep despair. And in the end, he turned and took up with the enemy, though none can say as to why.

What came of him after his betrayal? Well, I confess I haven't heard the end of the tale myself.(...)

The Waining of the Sixth Sun

At the urgent behest of a party of twelve shadowy figures history remembers only as the Archons, the nations agree to consolidate their remaining resources to form the grand companies of Eorzea in an attempt to forestall the coming apocalypse.

Hatching-tide

An eccentric Miqo'te named Jihli Aliapoh is said to have been visited in her dreams by the Twelve Archons of eld, descending from the heavens atop beautifully bedecked eggs.

Hatching-tide turned out to be a lot less exciting than I had thought. Anony Moose summed it up for me: Basically some Miqo'te dreamed that the Archons would return, just before the Sharlayans showed up. So, it was probably speculated that these Archons (our Scions) were reincarnations of The Twelve, but so far that doesn't seem to be the case. For good mesure, a spriggin named Twiggy also claims himself to be an Archon. So, yeah...