New Player Lore Questions

[Yvresse]

Hello,

Who is the old guy in the opening cinematic who teleport everyone before he dies? He fought that huge dragon.

What was the aftermath of that? Where is that dragon now?

And was that guy in Uldah with the tattoo on his face and the white hair, was he there when this fight happened?

The enemy Ifrit said that he cannot possess me because I am already possessed by another - who is currently possessing me? And why?

Also, I believe Gladiotor turns into Paladin - is that the only option? Isn't a Paladin like a healer warrior? Is there a lore reason gladiotor has to become Paladin?

Thanks, sorry if my questions dont make sense am still kinda confused myself.

[Hainiryun]

Don't feel bad about asking questions, there's a lot of lore to take in and a lot of what you're asking about is actually tied to the original no longer extant version of the game which acts as backstory for the current version.

So to address each of your questions in order

1/2) the Old Guy is the Archon Louisoix Leveilleur, a notable sage from Sharlayan, the largely non interventionist island state to the west of Eorzea. He and 12 of his students formed the Circle of Knowing, a group vaguely dedicated to the "salvation of Eorzea" and he and several members of the Circle traveled to Eorzea in 1562 (17 years before the current day), a move which drastically contradicted Sharlayan's non interventionist stance. He worked to combat the threat of Primal summoning and also attempted to unite the three city states to reform the Eorzean Alliance to combat the threat of a renewed Garlean invasion, which had stalled after the destruction of the flagship Agrias at the battle of Silvertear Skies a year prior. This eventually led to him becoming a tactician for the alliance forces at the Battle of Carteneu in 1572 (which is depicted in the cinematic).

He also set plans in motion to prevent the cataclysmic fall of the lesser moon Dalamud onto Eozrea, which was a product of the Garlean "Project Meteor" supposedly intended to destroy Eorzea as an easier alternative to conquering it and a means to "cleanse" the beast tribes and their primals from the realm by dropping a big ol' rock on it. By the point of the battle adventurers (the 1.x players) had already fought and slain the instigator of Project Meteor, Nael Van Darnus but had failed to stop the moon's descent. With no way of stopping it from falling Louisoix devised a plan to summon incarnations of the Twelve (gods worshiped by the people of Eorzea) at Carteneu to protect the realm from the worst effects of moon's impact.

Which brings us to your second question, the Dragon in the cinematic is the Elder Primal Bahamut. Bahamut was sealed in the aritifical moon Dalamud thousands of years prior by the Allagan empire, which Nael had been aware of at the time, being tempered by Bahamut through the Lunar Transmitter and instigating the project in order to free the dreadwyrm. When the moon entered the atmosphere it began to break up and Bahamut was freed to rain destruction on the world. Louisoix attempted to invoke the Twelve to reimprison Bahamut but failed and he was left with no choice but to teleport those adventurers remaining on the battlefield to safety, casting them out of time until it was safe for them to return, resulting in them arriving 5 years later after the realm had begun to recover from the Calamity (this is how 1.x players got to a Realm Reborn and is also the reason nobody can remember what the Warriors of Light looked like). After this Bahamut unleashed its power on the battlefield and looked set to do so to the entire continent but was stopped by some unknown force. Louisoix's body was never found and they could only recover the fragments of his staff from the battlefield.

The general aftermath of that event is that the game got shut down. The Calamity was the event which coincided with the shutdown of the original FFXIV, with A Realm Reborn launching 3 years later. In universe it has been 5 years and it's now the year 1577 (alternatively the 5th year of the 7th Umbral Era as the 6th Astral Era ended with the Calamity). With the brunt of the Calamity having been stopped Eorzea has been moving along the road to recovery and the Empire has largely ceased its ambitions towards the realm for the time being, which is the state of play at the start of ARR. The exact specifics of what happened to Bahamut are unknown at that point (although the level 50 raid series "The Binding Coil of Bahamut" will explain a lot of that but I'm trying to avoid spoilers here since you're new and just stick to background context).

3) the Guy in Ul'dah is Thancred, he was a member of the Circle of Knowing, the tatoo is the Archon's mark which all Sharlayans who have earned that rank are given. Archons are basically extremely acomplished in their field of study, there are more as of yet unspecified requirements but the gist is they're a big deal in Sharlayan. He was in Eorzea at the time of the Calamity but didn't fight at Carteneu as he was elsewhere helping to prepare for Louisoix's summoning of the Twelve (if you rewatch the cinematic he's briefly seen praying at the Ossuary in Ul'dah after Bahamut breaks free). He's now a member of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, an organisation formed from the remnants of the Circle of Knowing and another organisation called the Path of the Twelve.

4) Primals are unable to temper those who have the Echo, a relatively rare power which the player character has. In addition to the echo though we have the Blessing of Light, which was conferred to us by the Mothercrystal Hydaelyn, which may be what Ifrit is refering to here, we're already "tained by the light" so to speak so Ifrit's tempering cannot afflict us.

5) Paladin is the only option for Gladiator. Worth noting is that the JP name for Paladin is Knight and that more closely fits the flavour of the job. The lore behind the Paladin (as we learn it) is that the Sultansworn Paladins are the sworn defenders of the royal family of Ul'dah. However as the authority of the Sultanate has been erroded by the Syndicate the prestiege of the order has fallen as well, leading to a dwindling of their numbers, which is why their captain is now actively reaching out to talented adventurers (like ourselves) in order to pass down the order's techniques so that they aren't lost.

There's a bit more to most of these answers but as I said I don't want to outright spoil things so this is the general "as things were known to be at release" version of a lot of events.

[dreamfisher]

Hainiryun's answer is excellent.
I just also wanted to add that additional information around Bahamut (the huge dragon) continues to be revealed throughout the main story of the game, even into the current expansion. So don't worry if you get through the Binding Coil of Bahamut and still have a couple questions about how things fit together.

If you want to see for yourself how certain events played out pre-calamity around certain characters such as Nael van Darnus (the head of the Meteor Project), Archon Louisoix, the Scions, etc., you can find a few videos of the 1.0 cutscenes online. I think they're worth a watch, but I won't fault you if you decide it isn't worth your time.

One more note: Much of this game's lore is told as exposition in dialogue and cutscenes. While the game does have two (very good) lore books and a few handfuls of short side stories accessible online, almost everything we know about the world comes from information told to us in the story/stories within the game. Details are unraveled over time, with important lore either being drip-fed over the course of several expansions or dropped on you like a bomb out of the blue.

Have a safe journey, Uplander!

[Anonymoose]

Much like dreamfisher it's probably best if I annotate a few things from Hainiryun's excellent post instead of making you read more things, lol.

※Louisoix's field of study was exegesis (the study and interpretation of ancient texts and prophecies). His focus was a prophecy called the Divine Chronicles of Mezaya Thousand Eyes, which predicted the cycle of Calamities in Eorzea. His reason for founding the Circle of Knowing was to identify the cause of and forestall the arrival of the Seventh Umbral Era.

※The degree to which van Darnus understood Bahamut's identity before the calamity is questionable, as they often spoke of the object of their worship as "Almighty Dalamud, the red moon" until the Binding Coil story.

※Ifrit sincerely believes he is the one true god, so you must take what he says with a grain of salt. Primals can very rarely be trusted to fully understand their place in the world, and their tempered can almost never be trusted to have an unbiased assessment of their own reality.

※In the original state of FFXIV 1.0, there were no jobs - no Paladin. People around the realm taught you skills unique to weapons, and you could combine them to make your own class. It was dreadfully imbalanced and didn't quite fit what the rest of the game wanted to be, and moreover many people complained the game "didn't feel like Final Fantasy". For those reasons one of Naoki Yoshida's first orders was to make the job system and introduce classic roles. The way this works, each job is a tradition - a school of combat - from the ancient past. Gladiator turns into only Paladin because it's how Yoshida bridged the gap from "learn a weapon" to "learn a job." It's an organic fix rather than one planned from the beginning. In some places this is much more obvious - Conjurer is master of the elements, but becomes White Mage. Thaumaturge is a master of life and death, but becomes Black Mage. To make this work, they split the elemental wheel, with CNJ/WHM using "natural generative" elements and THM/BLM using "destructive" elements even though arguably they are ALL natural/destructive in context. It's a story/game mechanics thing. Just gotta roll with it.

[Yvresse]

Hello, I made a post yesterday quoting every post individually. But I hit max posts and it failed and I couldn't recover it.

I just wanted to say thank you for such detailed responses, I learned a lot in this thread both about lore, history and game mechanics.

Thank you. I really do appreciate you taking the time to supply me with such detailed posts and so informative.

[Gothicshark]

Hello,
...

I see a few good repsonses to your question, however I think you should watch this documentary as it clears up a bunch of things about the game, and really shows what that opening cinematic is all about.

FINAL FANTASY XIV Documentary Part #1 - "One Point O"

[Baradinrock]

Literally, all your questions will be answered as you progress towards the story.

[Yvresse]

Im in the binding coils of bahamut now.
I did 1, 2, and 4.

Struggling to get groups for the rest.

What is the binding coil of bahamut?

Why is Alisaile here? What does she have to do with it, this is literally the only time I've seen her since.

Why is Bahamut here? Why are there dragons here? I wiped on the Coil 5 boss for an hour before the group disbanded. We got him to 25% on one run, this is using party finder only.

I must know :>

[kaynide]

Im in the binding coils of bahamut now.
I did 1, 2, and 4.

Struggling to get groups for the rest.

What is the binding coil of bahamut?

Why is Alisaile here? What does she have to do with it, this is literally the only time I've seen her since.

Why is Bahamut here? Why are there dragons here? I wiped on the Coil 5 boss for an hour before the group disbanded. We got him to 25% on one run, this is using party finder only.

I must know :>

Your questions are answered by finishing Coil. If you want to be spoiled, just read the wiki.

[Yvresse]

You don't need to run Coil synced through Party Finder. You could create party finders for running unsynced to just see the story.

You'll understand what the Binding Coil of Bahamut is, why Bahamut is there and what the dragons are doing there as well when you complete each section and see the related story.

Alisaie is there as she wants to find the truth about what happened to her grandfather. She initially did not see eye to eye with Alphinaud about the way to do things and parts ways with him (you see those scenes when you are doing the envoy tour around the 3 city states before your first dungeon) but later on in MSQ she becomes part of the Scions.

Aha, I see! Thanks for that. This is exactly the type of answer I am looking for.

Your questions are answered by finishing Coil. If you want to be spoiled, just read the wiki.

No thank you.