Azeyma's Shields

[AspectOfWinter]

I never played 1.0, but I found a page on this faction which piqued my interest, given that I have always enjoyed RPing characters that are more on their own side than their nation's:
http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Azeyma%27s_Shields

From the looks of it, they sound a lot like what the Rogue's Guild ended up being, only for all the city-states and not just Limsa. But Rogues weren't added to the game until 2.4, which raises the question:

Which 1.0 class, if any, was most represented in that Azeyma's Shields faction?

Because one of the major differences between this game and XI is that lorewise the classes tend to be depicted as much more cohesive within their city-states, and from what I hear this was even more true of 1.0.

[Conradus]

I never played 1.0, but I found a page on this faction which piqued my interest, given that I have always enjoyed RPing characters that are more on their own side than their nation's:
http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Azeyma%27s_Shields

From the looks of it, they sound a lot like what the Rogue's Guild ended up being, only for all the city-states and not just Limsa. But Rogues weren't added to the game until 2.4, which raises the question:

Which 1.0 class, if any, was most represented in that Azeyma's Shields faction?

Because one of the major differences between this game and XI is that lorewise the classes tend to be depicted as much more cohesive within their city-states, and from what I hear this was even more true of 1.0.

Factions weren't associated with classes. What factions did is they handed out faction levequests, which were leves with especially big rewards. You got the right to take a faction levequest when you did enough regular levequests. They had their own set of leveplates, now retired, and some of them were weird. One leve plate required you to run around the city and find quest objects.

[Anonymoose]

The Factions were just civilian groups that, lore-wise, I guess weren't all that dissimilar from Free Companies in concept, except that no actual players were among them, we just took jobs from them and they worked closely with the Adventurers' Guild, both evaluating the completion of leves and taking out their own. There were three:

The Brotherhood of the Broken Blade
A group of vigilantes united by the conviction that the beast tribes will one day destroy the realm

Azeyma's Shields
Self-proclaimed protectors of the weak and enemies of evil

The Horn and Hand
A band of scholars and scientists, merchants and moneylenders who seek to gain fame by aiding in the outfitting of adventurers.

The groundwork for them still exists in A Realm Reborn, but they haven't made any appearances that I can recall.