
Originally Posted by
Enkidoh
That wouldn't work - the Blessing and the Crystals of Light (as in, Hydaelyn's hotline to us) is not what makes us immune to tempering/negative influence from a higher power, but the Echo. The two concepts are interlinked, but also seperate ideas.
As far as Crystals of Darkness go, they are already what the Ascians use as their way of trapping mortals to their will (specifically, it's how they enthrall a host, like what happened with Thancred). It's not clear exactly how the Ascians create them, but it appears it's rather easy to reproduce, or at least, a synthetic replica - the Students of Baldesion did just that, creating a synthetic Crystal of Darkness for Minfilia as a means to free Thancred from Lahabrea's control (although it appears it was never used, becoming just a red herring).
Sadly I think I'm going to hold off trying to theorycraft exactly what leads us down the path of darkness in 5.0, in that we just don't know enough from the teaser, so I'm just going to wait and see where this new Path takes us and deal with the results as they happen - exactly how my character would probably deal with that, come to think of it.
That's a very good point which I think may be the key here to understanding this: the teaser just shows Derplander becoming a DRK to destroy a light-elemental Kuribu (after all his other Jobs failed), so his monologue about becoming the WoD therefore might be metaphorical rather than literal. Still Hydaelyn's Champion, still in fact literally the Warrior of Light, but needing to balance things by understanding that light and darkness are two sides of the same coin, and for Hydaelyn to be saved, that metaphorical coin now needs to be flipped side on, and DRK is the ultimate expression of that - a Job that uses emotion, both positive and negative, to power it, and learning to become, effectively lawful neutral (to use a DnD term). It's an interesting idea in any event.