Excerpt from a journal, writ red on aged parchment.
We come, friends and strangers, to a little realm far from home.

For home is often cruel, cold, hard. As winter sinks wicked teeth into our hearts, as the world burns, as we cry out desperately for hope, we flee. While violence and brutality prevail around us, we seek solace. We struggle to fight greater battles while yet shouldering our own burdens, but in this realm, new faces and old alike are welcomed in from the cold, refugees all.

Here, power is placed into our hands. Power to fight, power to change, power to confront evils alike to those all around us, power to question ourselves and the world we live in. We carry here our burdens and scars, aggrieved by the world, and this little realm mirrors the agonies of our own -- and strives to light a path forward.

Toppling dictators, finding aid and comfort in friends and allies, striving to learn more of the great wide world and to protect all its inhabitants. Searching for oneself, struggling for answers and meaning and grappling with loss, finding peace with our past and trauma and fears. In a little realm far from home, refugees in the thousands face the world's grim realities through a gilded mirror.

I, myself, arrived only a short while ago. Drawn by the promise of friendship, a warm hearth and warmer welcome, I journeyed here from a crumbling reality, bearing with me my fear and doubts. My travels here are not yet done; I've not yet explored every far-off land, broken bread with all the many and varied people of this realm. But those places I've seen and people I've met have given me something I'd long thought lost: a fragile, yet growing, flower of hope.

I struggle to find reason to strive onward, in that world I call mine own. I struggle to see an end to the carnage and hatred that seethes from the rotting core of so many nations. I struggle to see the value of mine own small influence, though I must ever smile and press on for those I love.

Here, I've found myself able to view my world through new eyes. The stories of this realm's people blaze a path that I might strive to mimic. Though this little realm does not reach beyond its own borders, I carry a little piece of it with me, now, woven into the tattered fabric of my being, lending its strength to my worn and threadbare self. Brick by brick, I am rebuilding mine own love of life, of the world. My hands may be bloody and raw from the work, yet still I will press onward: to be a hero in what little ways I can, and to forgive myself when I cannot.

And ever shall I consider this place my home.
[A personal thank-you to the XIV writing and development team for their hard work and poignant storytelling, which hold great personal weight and meaning for me. One day I will reach Shadowbringers. If selected to win, I would like the Noble Barding, please.]