Where to read the entire lore of FFXIV.

[Zol_blade]

As the thread above. I know wiki is there but it's limited. Is there a link/source that tells about the lore of FFXIV from ascians and all.

[Dreggit]

Not really... well... actually that's not true. I know of several locations where the Encyclopedia Eorzea can be browsed in full at leisure for free but I do not know if linking something like that is against the TOS...

Both books run at 49.99USD each and can be found on several retailers online

[Enkidoh]

Basically, there isn't any, because no complete record of the game's lore even exists - the two Lore books give a lot of information, but they're hardly complete (not to mention there are plenty of acknowledged errors and typos in them, so take them at the very least with an open mind). It's the main reason this very forum exists, a place for players to discuss the lore and correlate what we know and discover. There are websites around where players have tried writing down as much of the lore as possible, but again they're not complete, and probably never will be, such is the nature of the beast.

Really, if you have any questions about the lore, ask on this forum! As I said, it is what it is here for!

[Anonymoose]

Regretfully, the entire lore can only be found within the game itself. A great deal of lore is what's called flavor - whimsically added tales of fauna, flora, and historical events that don't impact the overall narrative (unless a writer is inspired). There is almost nothing in the world of XIV that you can scratch at and find nothing beneath the surface, though whether it "matters" is subjective.

The IRL Encyclopaedia Eorzea books are indeed your best bet to get all the stuff that "matters" in one convenient place, but each player is going to have different foci and interests. Some people collect reams of "favor" about the fauna of the world, or aetherology minutiae, or every bottle of booze that's been mentioned so far.

For everything else, there's us - the living, breathing, typing archives of "I probably looked that up once upon a time." I have most of it archived in a way I can quickly search.

Also look at Enkidoh over here with six medals. I'd given up on six medals being a thing when I saw neither you nor I had done it. What a mistake that was.

[Zol_blade]

Ok, just like wow. They are lore books but thankfully the game content is not cut and added on books like how WoW does, which breaks immersion.

I just wish their was a channel dedicated to the lore of Erozea like I want to know in depth about the Garlean Empire and the People of Hydaelyn.
Well for now, I will check on the books. :/

[LineageRazor]

Ok, just like wow. They are lore books but thankfully the game content is not cut and added on books like how WoW does, which breaks immersion.

Weeeelllll…

I'm not sure how WoW does it, but there IS a significant chunk of lore in this game that has been cut, and now can largely only be found on the forums and in books. That's the entirety of 1.0, the original release of FFXIV. it was a tremendous disaster, but the lore of the current game is built on top of the lore from that game. Every now and then, the writers will resurrect some tidbit or other from that game into this one, and it become relevant again, like the starfall. (Just as often, something from that game is quietly retconned and forgotten, such as Ascians having no shadows.)

Not sure how much that affects your immersion, but it's something to consider!

[sciencebot]

Weeeelllll…

I'm not sure how WoW does it,

It's possible they've gotten better over time, but to engage in some gentle and only slightly exaggerated ribbing of my WoW-playing friends, as I remember it...

(Spoilers through Shadowbringers MSQ)

Imagine Patch 2.5 only had the Ishgard stuff, and all the important stuff about Nanamo and the Scions was in a tie-in novel, and got maybe two lines of reference in the game.

Heavensward is just the Nidhogg story, and the entire rest of the patch series is raid-focused on dealing with that. If you don't raid, you have to watch a cutscene on youtube to know what happened to Nidhogg. Thordan gets resolved in a novel and the Warriors of Darkness thing is both introduced and resolved in the last patch as a bonus raid.

The lead in to the Ala Mhigo rebellion is a short story on the website and a limited time in-game event. There's a novel about it, too, but all three versions -- the event, the short story, and the novel -- contradict each other on important points, for some reason. They come up with the idea of letting casuals queue for an easy mode version of Stormblood raids, which climaxes in the final patch with Shinryu. Omega showed up in the start-of-expansion event, but you only find out what happens in that plotline in a novel; the B-Plot is that Zenos isn't dead, but they don't mention that in-game, so a lot of people playing just don't know about it.

ShB comes along, and nobody knows what the story's about: people stopped running the Warriors of Darkness raid during Stormblood, because it's outdated content now! In Patch 5.4, we will finally discover why Emet-Selch was so evil (he was corrupted by drinking some purple juice).

[SannaR]

Then there is the small lore tidbits in each expansion's tales from ____ series sites.

[sciencebot]

Then there is the small lore tidbits in each expansion's tales from ____ series sites.

This is a good reminder; they're really good additions to the story. All the sub-pages for them are listed over here.

[Gula]

Need that twitch clip of Yoshi P opening the lore book and saying "Here is a lore!"

For ease of access, there is a player compilation of side quest/FATE/item text in regards to specific subjects. However, it is sprinkled with speculation so not 100% on the accuracy. But for the absolute, there are the lore books and being like me, reading every item description and FATE text when I run/fly over them.