war of the magi

[liljramos88]

Ok I started to get into the lore more so am wondering what went on in the war wasn't it the white mages vs the black mages

[Anonymoose]

Ish, but more complicated.

Coming out of the Fifth Umbral Era - The Age of Endless Frost - magick was rediscovered as a means of survival, giving rise to cultures that highly valued aetherial arts. Cities rose around it, prospering in friendly rivalry.

Within this age, Shatotto developed Black Magick by learning to use environmental aether for spells instead of just the aether within ones own body. The potential for destruction seemed limitless, and the city of Amdapor created White Magic to act as a check and balance. With the info we have now, we think that the Black Mages were established the the city of Mhach, eventually moving from Black Magic into Void Magic. The third city we know of was Nym, home to the Royal Marines (Scholars and Marauders).

These cities, and possibly others, eventually had their friendly rivalry sour. The resulting realm-wide war, the War of the Magi, consumed them. Alliances were made and broken between various cities, but eventually it seems that Mhach gained the upper hand, summoning Diabolos to destroy Amdapor and unleashing the Nymian Plague that turned its inhabitants to Tonberries.

This widespread use of magick - environmentally fueled magick - upset the aetherial balance of Eorzea and ushered in the Sixth Umbral Era, a devastating flood. That's about all we know - we don't even really know how it all turned out. What little I've been able to puzzle out on my own suggests that the Archons (possibly the Sharlayans) raised an army of golems (which blade can't scratch nor magick corrupt) and put down those who refused to cease hostilities.

[liljramos88]

Ty I wrote thread than I went back to forum I see a topic that was bump answering my question

[WyrahFhurrst]

Well, not quite. There were three sides, one of which we only recently even found out about. White Mages of Amdapor were on one side, yes, but Black Magic is a later development. The Void Mages of Mhach are specifically stated to be on the vaguely defined winning side. Also, there were the Scholars of Nym.

We only just found out a bunch of stuff on the Mhachi, so bear with me. We know that the Nymians were taken out by a mysterious virus that turned them into Tonberries. Recently, however we found out that the disease was caused by a voidsent servant of the Mhachi. This has lead to some thoughts that Diabolos may also be one the Mhachi's machinations (a... Mhachi-nation, if you would), which could only be kept sealed by the White Mages, who had to draw upon a great amount of power from the Elementals, which in turn caused the Sixth Umbral Calamity.

[Anonymoose]

This has lead to some thoughts that Diabolos may also be one the Mhachi's machinations

There's one line in English that refers to the enemies of Amdapor summoning Diabolos. In French, this clause is changed to the black mages. Cleaned up to be simple and pretty, it's possible that Mhach was Black Mage as well as Void Mage, unless there's a fourth city we've yet to hear about. It also fits with the assumption that Mhach's collapse in the Sixth Umbral Era led to the establishment of Belah'dia in the Sixth Astral.

[myahele]

Based on what we know of the Scholars of Nym, the War of Mhachi pretty much was a war between White Mages of Amdapor and Black mages of probably Mhachi and maybe other BLM nations.

Scholars were just defending their home from invaders ... if anything this is almost reminding me of FFX Machina War between Bevelle and Zanarkand; where Zanarkand invades and destroyed the Summoners of Besaid Island (who where never interested in war).

I am also of the opinion that the Tonberry disease was used in Amdapor, but subsequently failed due to the petrified Tomberries near Fall Gourd Float in 1.0

In regards to Void magic, could the White Mages of Amdapor - in a last ditch effort- try void magic? It might explain why Gridania has so many voidsent, even more so than Thanalan (who got Zombies mostly). Perhaps the elementals have always been fighting off the lingering voidsent that Amdapor summoned?

[Dalvy]

Im of the opinion that Nym was dragged into the war because the royal family might've tried to play both sides, but it backfired. The conflict must have been at a long standstill before they entered, and it forced Mhach to resort to trickery. Of course, i never finished the relic quest so I dont know more about the Nymian hero who used the omnilex.

But! The Flood Calamity is almost unanimously blamed on Amdapor in the white mage quests IIRC (i say thanks to gridanian propaganda), and flavor text states that Amdapor made use of their own voidsent. It doesnt click for me that Mhachi voidmages could somehow summon Diabolos in the city--again, flavor text & the city's plagued condition leads me to believe that Amdapor summoned voidsent to be labor slaves, but it backfired with Diabolos.

It makes more sense that they ended themselves trying to contain Diabolos, Ferdiad, etc, resulting in overuse, coupled with Mhachi and Nymian overuse...

[Belhi]

While there is evidence that the Amdapori bound voidsent to stone to construct and animate their cities, I suspect Diabolos to be Mhachi machinations. We have already seen from the SCH quests that they used subterfuge to unleash voidsent on the enemy populous, so much so that the Nymians at the time never even realised it. It also sounds like Mhach was actively aggressive. The SCH quests say that Mhach tried invading Nym several times.

Id say its almost certain that Mhach was the BLM nation from the war. BLM touches on Voidsent a lot as it is so its not a huge jump to Void magic. Again the SCH quests suggest that Ul'dah houses the decendents of this nation and its Ul'dah where we go looking for information on voidsent for those quests.

From reading through the 1.0 WHM quest dialog, I got the impression that it was a general misuse of magic that triggered the elementals to flood the world. It has been implied that the Nymian's did abuse White magic which like Black magic draws on the aether of the world around the mage. Aether being life, over use of it would tax the natural world and thus anger the elementals.

We should consider that almost certainly there were Ascians playing behind the scenes here. It wouldn't be surprising to discover that both Amdipor and Mhach had Ascians interacting with the higher ranking members of these nations.

[Akiza]

Isn't the War of the Magi a result of the warring triad fearing each other power starting warring turning mortals into espers to fight for them. Afterwards esper and humans lived in peace until humans wanting the power themselves fuse with espers creating Magi and start warring with Espers. Eventually Magi got percecuted by non magic numbers until they at few in number and go to in isolated island

[Zohar_Lahar]

Given the apocalyptic escalation of that war, I must ask what the Dravanian Horde were doing at that time. Wouldn't they have noticed something was up?