Lore behind AF3 and job abilities

[Soul_Mythrim]

I'm wondering what Foul could be. It looks to be an Umbral aligned spell but it grants/requires neither UI/AF. I was thinking it could have something to do with releasing Dark aether that's built up from maintaining enochian from the Gem of Shatotto since a black crystalline structure appears during the animation. But the gem is way too big to be the soulstone so idk :/

Foul seems to be something we picked up by being near the creator of black magic during the 60-70 questline. As to what it is the requirement for casting foul is to have a polyglot which we get from building of aether from enochian. Now the English definition of a Polyglot is someone who learns multiple languages as an avocation, so by learning Foul I assume its our character learning a new type of magic, akin to us learning a new language. Now as to the what type of magic Foul is I like to think it's us opening a temporary tear from Eorzea into the void, using the built up aether from enochian, to corrupt or foul the aether of living beings in the surrounding area. This is just a guess though, Foul could be something else entirely, but learning Void magic, or another type of magic altogether, seems to make sense as our characters become Polyglots of magic.

As for our AF gear its probably a gift from Shatatto herself, but knowing her feelings about large gaudy hats, the headpiece we receive is kind of ironic. Or perhaps the headpiece was made that way to make fun of her a bit, who knows.

[Daralii]

Foul seems to be something we picked up by being near the creator of black magic during the 60-70 questline. As to what it is the requirement for casting foul is to have a polyglot which we get from building of aether from enochian. Now the English definition of a Polyglot is someone who learns multiple languages as an avocation, so by learning Foul I assume its our character learning a new type of magic, akin to us learning a new language. Now as to the what type of magic Foul is I like to think it's us opening a temporary tear from Eorzea into the void, using the built up aether from enochian, to corrupt or foul the aether of living beings in the surrounding area. This is just a guess though, Foul could be something else entirely, but learning Void magic, or another type of magic altogether, seems to make sense as our characters become Polyglots of magic.

As for our AF gear its probably a gift from Shatatto herself, but knowing her feelings about large gaudy hats, the headpiece we receive is kind of ironic. Or perhaps the headpiece was made that way to make fun of her a bit, who knows.

Enochian is a supposedly angelic language that came from John Dee, who was a medium in the 1500s. The BLM learning how to more properly channel the Void over Enochian's duration, resulting in them "learning the language" so to speak, would fit that idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enochian

[WhiteArchmage]

The only excuse I can gather from Verholy is we simply figured the equivalent to Verflare as far as White Mana is concerned; seeing as we saw X'rhun use his Verflare finisher on the very first job quest, it's likely he taught it to us offscreen or we figured it out ourselves and Verholy is essentialy the same just on the opposite polarity, which is...dreadfuly boring, really.

Thank you to Berethos for reminding me to look up the RDM rapier: Murgleis is the sword off Roland's stepfather in the Song of Roland, Ganelon (the stepfather) betrayed Charlemagne and was also Roland's rival; a story of rivalry DOES fit into the RDM themes a bit, Roland's sword Durandal hasn't yet appeared in-game, as far as I can remember. Doesn't seem to be in-game lore on Murgleis, yet, sadly.

[Berethos]

The Bard set and ability (as far as I can remember - much to my chagrin I didn't take any screenshots of the final conversation with Jehantel, despite taking over 1k since SB launched) appear to be less based on any specific lore and more based on the thematic elements of the job and the overall theme of the 60-70 story. I vaguely remember comments about his old teacher and/or past that might have given context to at least the AF3, but without it in front of me I'm probably misremembering.

The gear's name at least is a little on the nose, regardless of origin - Storyteller's Attire. Bard+song/storytelling tradition, obvious thematic connection there.

The weapon - Failnaught. The bow of Tristan from Arthurian legend, said to never miss its mark. Has appeared in FF games before, not really any connection to in-game lore, just Bard being one that sings/plays instruments and uses a bow (like some versions of Tristan).

The final ability - Refulgent Arrow (in English at least). This sorta connects to the theme of the story, of forgiveness and moving on while also acknowledging the truth...basically seeking a "brighter tomorrow" in a sense. Refulgent means "shining brightly" so there's a bit of a connection there. Also, you're firing a bunch of really bright arrows that appear in the form of light converging on the target, so I'm thinking it was more a literal description (the French version I believe translates to Radiant Arrow while the German version translates to Shiny Arrow), calling it "shining arrow" but using an archaic word to so like they typically do with the English localization, and the thematic connection to the Bard story may be coincidental.

There's not really anything besides that tenuous connection that would indicate how we learned such an ability, other than we're simply getting better at being "beacons" of morale/hope/encouragement for our comrades.

[Jattou]

The Ninja's Kage-kakushi garb appears to have obtained in the most fitting of ways for a Murder Hobo- taken off of Hanzo after we defeated him.

Ten Chi Jin is a bit puzzling since I feel there was no build up to it, and with mention of the 4th Mudra being thrown around like confetti in the quests once more I feel they got cold feet about giving it to us due to being unsure how to incorporate it.

[Cilia]

"Myochin" is another old fanservice reference. The name itself likely comes from a family of armorers dating back to the 12th century.

"Kiku-Ichimonji" is, aside from another fanservice name, the name of swords made by a group of swordsmiths summoned by Emperor Go-Toba during 1208. One was made for each month of the year; all had the characters for kiku ("菊"), an Imperial crest, and ichi ("一") on the tang, the portion of the sword covered by the pommel. This might explain why there is more than one in-game... Musosai had one, Hien has one, and you get one with your Myochin equipment.

Abyssal refers to... well, the Abyss, the source of a Dark Knight's supernatural powers.

Caladbolg is an extraordinarily powerful sword from the Irish Ulster cycle mythos, stated to be able to cut the tops off hills and slaughter entire armies. This is also a fanservice name - Caladbolg is Tidus' Celestial Weapon from X.

[TinyRedLeaf]

One of the main themes of the SMN arc was extending the limitations of arcane geometries utilized in evoking avatars by utilizing the high-speed computations of a machine, thus allowing the summoning of more "authentic" egi.

The Stormblood chapter of the SMN story is the first that I didn't quite like. The previous chapters were more closely linked to the main plot, due to the involvement of the lesser Ascians.

As 'Moose said, the implication seems to be that the WoL has learnt to use advanced calculations to enable the temporary evocation of demi-Bahamut.

And it seems the advanced calculations also make it possible for the SMN to temporarily boost the power of his egi.

I like to believe that the development builds on the egi-glamour introduced in the closing chapters of Dragonsong. It's been explained that an arcanist/summoner could, in fact, change the appearance of his egi without actually changing its essence.

That probably explains why the actual egi disappears at the "summoning" of demi-Bahamut. Cool trivia: This could also be one way to rationalise the upcoming changes to allow players to adjust the size of demi-Bahamut, ie, you're only changing its appearance but not its function.

The AF3 origins can be difficult to pin down, but the SMN one seems easy enough; Sari was the last great summoner of Allag, so the gear is from as high of a summoner as you could get.

I would've preferred more lore on Wiyu, the first great Allagan summoner we learnt anything about. :/

In any case, "Sari" is itself a reference to FFIX, as it's part of the name of the summoner village (Madain Sari) that Garnet and Eiko came from.

[Belhi]

Its worth pointing out that when you are scanned in the lvl 65 SMN quest it says "Latent Aetheric Capacity: Immeasurable". That would suggest that while what the WoL is capable of originally is limited, the cap on their potential Aetheric strength is crazy high. Or I could mean that it couldn't effectively get a reading...

[Alberel]

As a general observation I've noticed a very deliberate separation of the job quests from the rewarded abilities this time around. I don't believe any of the new job quests directly relate to the granted level 70 ability. Instead everything is handled as vague concepts of acquiring some sort of secret or new training.

Given the way many of the pre-50 job quests were gutted and no longer reward the skills they actively talk about I imagine the developers have decided to avoid that issue in future by not tying abilities directly into the lore like that. It's rather unfortunate though as many new skills feel rather out of place, such as Demi-Bahamut's existence now rendering the previous logic regarding failing to summon Ramuh-egi irrelevant.

[CaesarCV]

I've only completed the Summoner and Scholar questlines, but they have rather clear explanations for where their final skills come from. For the Summoner, the ability to Summon Demi-Bahamut is the final lesson that Principia had been hiding behind its tests and locks. Given that it's related to what was (at the time of Allag anyway) the strongest primal in existence, its a fitting 'ultimate technique' for Master Sari's more magical side. Meanwhile, Aetherpact (unfortunately the Scholar 'capstone') was a spell that Surito Cairo mentioned that he was going to teach you at the end of the quest line. It's implied he developed it either from the new knowledge of White magic, or that it's due to the player's interactions with Lilac.