FFXIV Moogle Lore. Are they RP worthy?

[KyeKaru]

Is there any lore reason for have a moogle minion be roleplayed as a companion, are they able to be seen by other players? Does the player with the moogle have to speak their language to understand them? Can moogles speak Eorzean. And what is the general consensus for moogles in roleplay. Are they allowed, can they be roleplayed, and how well do they fit into the roleplay concerning the lore? How rare are they? These questions and more are answers that I need to know. Please tell me what I need to know roleplay-wise concerning moogles and what I can and cannot do as a roleplayer concerning moogles.

[Enkidoh]

Well, from what we know of moogles, they are very shy and careful creatures who prefer to remain hidden from most Spoken, owing to the fact in previous times they were actually hunted by Ul'dahn merchants who sort them for pets (seriously!). In some respects, moogles share some similarities with the sylphs, both are extremely powerful magic users, both races are deeply entwined with the Black Shroud (the sylphs regard themselves as children of the forest, being anthropomorphic plants after all, while the moogles act as intermediaries between the Spoken races and the elementals of the Shroud - in fact it was the influence of the moogles that led to the founding of Gridania; they interceded on the Gelmorrans' behalf and assisted in negotiating with the elementals that the elezen were allowed to settle on the surface.

As for language, it's not clear, but although they may understand the Spoken races' common tongue, in 1.0 at least, they weren't shown to be able to communicate back in kind, instead using their own mostly unintelligible dialect called mooglespeak. A spoken could learn mooglespeak, but it was very difficult and would presumably take an inordinate amount of time of study to do so - hence the only ones shown to actually know mooglespeak were the padjal like E Sumi Yan, the Sharalyan Archons like Yda and Papalymo (to the moogles' embarrassment and E Sumi Yan's bemusement), and, as it turned out, the player's character, although that was because of the Echo as it turned out (which was a hint that something very strange had happened to them). Hence, to most people pre-Calamity, moogles were often regarded almost as myth, a story to tell children, as most people could go through their whole lives without ever sighting one, even Gridanians (early in 1.0's Gridanian storyline a woman at the Carline Canopy tells the player this much, actually becoming jealous that the player was fast becoming acquainted with them and could talk with them!).

Linked with that was that there was a story told in Gridania about Lifemend Stump, a location in the Central Shroud where it was said if you left a broken item within a fairy circle on the stump overnight, when you returned the next morning the item would be repaired, and that the moogles would presumed the ones responsible. Although considered a myth by most Gridanians, 1.0's storyline actually showed this to indeed be true, and that Gridanian children would venture there often with requests to the moogles, despite their parents warnings to the contrary.

Either way, post Calamity (ala, in ARR), this seemed to have changed in that moogles are shown to be communicating with Spoken in the common Eorzean language and not mooglespeak, so whether it's a retcon or the moogles simply decided to change how they communicate, I have no idea (I lack the lorebook so I cannot verify this from official sources). As Kan E Senna personally requested the help of the moogles after the Calamity to establish a realm-wide postal service as a stop-gap due to lines of communication being cut by the huge aetheric shockwave that accompanied Dalamud's fall and Bahamut's rampage destroying the existing aetheryte network and linkshells, this seems to ring true as it would make sense they would start communicating in ways that they could be understood by the Spoken races.

Anyway, I hope I haven't rambled on, this is just the info about moogles that I know of (if anyone can clarify or query that, please do!). As far as role playing a moogle goes, I don't see why not - after all as the vath established an adventurer's guild (or rather, their own interpretation), and regarded themselves as adventurers, then I don't see why a particularly enterprising and independently minded moogle could decide to see the world and sign up as one. Whether the Adventurer's Guild would accept that though is another matter...