Nightmare, Elemental Steeds, Elemental Falcons Lore

[Moonstar]

First post! Yay!

I've always had an interest in the elemental horse mounts and the falcons and wondered if there was more lore out there on them?

I like the summoner class and love to treat them as part of the summoner arsenal. Anyone else out there use them in that way or do you have other creative ways that you incorporate into Roleplay/Fanfiction?

Can't wait to read your replies!

[Anonymoose]

The first thing to remember with items like these is that the lore train runs both tracks; sometimes content is designed to reflect the lore, sometimes lore is designed to reflect the content. It's literally a chicken and egg situation in terms of development. Thus, it's probable (though not explicitly confirmed) that we were getting ponies and birbs regardless and the lore team was told to make it work, so don't be too disappointed if it turns out that the roots don't run all that deep.

The Nightmare
I may be mistaken, but I think the majority of the lore is just based on a pun. A mare can be either a female horse or an evil spirit / demon from Germanic folklore that sits on your chest and gives you bad dreams (likely inspired by sleep paralysis), which gave rise to the term "nightmare". The mount is both a dark horse and an evil spirit, and thus a nightmare forsooth.

Given that the Ascians were handing them out like candy, I imagine they're some kind of void unicorn, yes? Black coat, glowing eyes, etc. It's horn has a flame aura and its feet have both earth and wind auras, which are probably more based in the three primals that the mount drops from than anything else. So I suppose we take it at everyone's word that the nightmares are "manifest darkness".


Elemental Ponies
These are (allegedly) simply Nightmares given to the beast tribes by the Ascians, which were in turn immediately sacrificed to their respective gods and reborn from the void re-cast by elemental aspect. Is there more to it? Perhaps. Is it just technobabble for a gimmick mount dressed up in something vaguely along the lines of what we've seen from primals in the past? Possibly. (EDIT: Sans Boreas, which was a regular unicorn.)


Lanners
Going by the descriptions of the Round Lanner, it seems that these great falcons are pretty common in the Dravanian and Abalathian skies. In all of the cases so far, it seems the lanners took on auras by either gaining an entity's "favor" by either being mounts of prestiege or just happening to roost in a relevant location (such as the Dark Lanner, which roosted in the Aery and became corrupted by malice).


I find it interesting that the Warring Lanner refers to Sephirot as a primal.
So long as we're meant to be questioning just how different they are, shouldn't that say ... eikon?

[Rennies]

The Shiva pony was described as a unicorn, not a nightmare. Not sure about others.

[Anonymoose]

The Shiva pony was described as a unicorn, not a nightmare. Not sure about others.

Correct! I forgot all about that one being an outlier.

[PArcher]

Also good to note the Ponies name's have roots in myth; Aithon was one of the horses that pulled Helios's chariot across the sky each day, for example.

[Rocl]

Also good to note the Ponies name's have roots in myth; Aithon was one of the horses that pulled Helios's chariot across the sky each day, for example.

Also worth noting that like Fenrir, it's likely these appellations are based on even older mythos in Eorzea/Hydaelyn rather than being definitive. i.e.; I doubt Aithon from the Bowl of Embers is the legendary Aithon mentioned in the Aithon's Colt description (a magma-faring seahorse)

[Morningstar1337]

Also good to note the Ponies name's have roots in myth; Aithon was one of the horses that pulled Helios's chariot across the sky each day, for example.

Not all of them. Markab gets his name from a star in the more equine constellations. Xanthos was a city in Ancient Lycia.

Like Aithon, Gulfaxi and Enbarr are also horses of myth (Norse and Celtic, respectibly). Boreas (aka the Unicorn of this peculiar herd) is named after the Greek God of the North Wind, not a horse or even horse related IIRC

[PArcher]

Not all of them. Markab gets his name from a star in the more equine constellations. Xanthos was a city in Ancient Lycia.

Like Aithon, Gulfaxi and Enbarr are also horses of myth (Norse and Celtic, respectibly). Boreas (aka the Unicorn of this peculiar herd) is named after the Greek God of the North Wind, not a horse or even horse related IIRC

Xanthos (well, Xanthus, just alternate spelling) is one of Achilles' two horses, one of Hector's horses (Trojan Prince), as well as a Mare of Diomedes (Hercules' 8th Labor).

And like you said, Markab is one of the stars in the Pegasus constellation (another horse-related myth itself); Wiki also says it means "something to ride" in Arabic.

EDIT: Looking up Boreas, it seems the cold North Wind had a thing for horses as well, myths stating he (along with Zephyrus, the west wind) would take the form of a stallion each spring and seek out mares (the children being some of the finest horses you could find). Also, all four Winds were associated with horses in some way; both the Greeks and Romans sacrificed horses to them for their favor

[WhiteArchmage]

In some versions of the myths, I believe all four gods of the wind (Notus, Euros, Boreas and Zephyrus) pulled Zeus' chariot, controlled by Nike, the goddess of Victory so there's also a relation there.