Quote Originally Posted by Vencio View Post
Thank you kindly for your input & that brightened my curiosity even further,

What I am exceptionally disturbed its that these magi/mages are basically “vampire like” leeching aether from the material world (possibly living organisms as well) and just cause a huge drought to almost non-living around.

Hence why i love Paladin, and rather tap into my own aether at some degree to not over exhaust or deplete my own aether but control it ((on an RP stance within ffxiv’s lore)).
Yes ! They are kind-of, but in any fantasy world, magic has to emerge from an initial component, basically mana/aether in every fantasy world, no matter where it originates from (center of the planet, stard etc, aether/mana is kind of always a magic current circulating throughout the world, in the ground, in the water, in the air, almost every living organism possesses aether as well), so it's quite normal that at some point some disciplines of magic are seen as vampire-like since when you want more sheer force with magic (even when using your own aether you're limited by your inner aether reservoir), you need a bigger reservoir, and what is better than the environment itself as a reservoir?

However, do remember, concerning the War of the Magi, we're basically talking of a WAR (and not warrior haha), with hundreds and thousands of mages confronting themselfs on both sides (mhach vs amdapor), using aether to cast spells second after seconds, day after day, and a war that may have lasted for weeks, months... so the depletion of aether was massive and paradoxally in a short amount of time. Except during the 7th Calamity, the world has never seen such huge Magic War since the 6th Calamity, so I doubt even one or two epic fights with magic in your rp-story would cause much damage unless you resort to use some large scale spell (like Louisoix during the 7th Calamity using a spell to seal Bahamut that depleted the entire Carteneau region but needed to use prayers to the Twelve to cast it nonetheless - huge spell - long time incantation).
Besides, unless you use some sort of strategy, a mage using surrounding aether to cast spell will always be far more powerful than someone using his own aether to cast magic, you'll always end up shortening your life at some point for a scenaristic climax or plot armor thing x)