Are the black mages the actual warlocks of eorzea?

[shinros]

Personally I love warlock classes in rpg games in terms of general rpg background first most and gameplay second and the first thing I did was try to figure out who is the warlock class of the game.

Lets forget play style here we all know that summoner is affliction warlock I am talking about lore wise here. (Someone may correct me here) Arcanist magic is basically turning aether into maths and using that to cast spells. (Well thats how I understand it)

While warlocks normally study the dark arts or use dark magic in some form in various rpgs and pen and paper games. Plus normally they are distrusted or viewed as heretics or maybe even a mix of both

After doing the first black mage quest it seems like they are the actual warlocks of this game world. Considering they study the dark arts and depending on who you ask in the thaumaturge guild they are also heretics. Plus the line when you learn a new black mage skill "The gem of shatto imbues you with dark knowledge."

Plus the evil organ music during the scene(lol which is awesome btw when is the soundtrack coming out?) and they tried to make the lalafell look a little creepy (and badass) with the yellow eye black mage reference. Anyway seriously considering all that he said during the first scene now makes me believe lore wise they are warlocks of this world.


Now some of my friends contend what I think hence I want to know what your opinions are on the subject. Still I can't wait to see where the black mage class quest leads since it is really interesting so far.

[NoloeTazier]

It really goes back to 1.0 and the Thaumaturge Guild. The Thaumaturge represented both aspects of Nald'thal, hence why there were 2 Thaumaturge guilds...Milvaneth Sacarium now being closed. They used a lot of Enfeeble spells but their main source of damage came from Banish and Scourge, Astral and Umbral damage. Thaumaturge would also Sacrifice their own life to heal others (and a nice little regen), while Conjurers used Cure without any repercussions.

The Arrzaneth Ossuary is essentially a Funeral Home (very expensive), with the addition of carrying out Revenge-Wills. If a person dies of unnatural causes and they had with the Ossuary a Revenge-Will, the Thaumaturge would carry it out and seek revenge for the deceased. Pretty dark stuff. Black Mages just branch even further from there.

[shinros]

Wow that is pretty dark I don't want to even imagine what the black mages did in the past. Plus if they branch further from there they must of done some pretty dark and shady stuff considering the tone of the scene when you become one.

It felt like I was becoming some dark wizard (which I am) or going down a dark path.

[Meliae]

basically the THM guild is set on duty to guide the souls to the other world and if they have vengence take it out, but from what I remmeber from 1.0 blm quest, BLM used actual souls and twisted them or used them to bargin with darkside to obtain power. from what I have seen so far it seems the Darkmages in Mainstoryline the Ascions are Black mages. since they have a habbit of using dark teleport spell, if you are in storyline far enough someone will mention about their teleport is high lvl.

[shinros]

Wow... so that pretty much confirms it you just blew my mind with your post, hmm now that I think about it you might be correct about the teleport that we learn at high level It might be the same one the paragons use if you connect all the dots on them and the magic they use.

Man black mages are a really dark class O.o

Now that I think about it I do recall demons from the void using thaumaturgy spells and other spells like void fire etc. The paragons (or acians) also use black magic as you said.

Lets not forget the black magic artifact gear looks like something a warlock would wear. This is all very interesting I can't wait to get further into my black mage quests and learn about the void gate.

Another thought occurred to me as well do you also think its because of our job crystal that allows us to avoid the whole twisting souls and bargaining with the void to learn our skills? Plus we also have a teacher there to help us learn our spells too.

[Meliae]

the way I understand it is that Acians are Dark and Scions are Light, hence the teleport that used the Scions member has white glow, think of it like in Harry potter where the Dark winzards/witches have that Black Cloak while light ones have White.

I can say that would be one of the reasons why Scions espacially focus on Acions or the other way around.

[shinros]

I see that makes a lot of sense. I have a theory the npc at the desk said black mages have not been around for centuries. Do you think the thaumaturge guild hunted them down since they considered them heretics? Considering how they learned their magic as you said and what the npc(the one who sends you on the quest at the star) said during the scene when you become one makes me think they were hunted.

Considering the threat of the void gate I think they are turning a blind eye to your character becoming a black mage.

I mean a profession like black mage does not strike me as something that would be popular with the thaumaturge guild or with the common populace.

[Meliae]

oh the BLM been around it just that they havent been seen in public, the old blm quest you were looking for clues as to what happend to people in uld, not sure if you played Neverwinter Nights 2 where in start the Warlock is going around killing lords of city, same thing here BLM is going around extracting revenge form the family that was involved in him being locked up, but thats where it kinda twists he wasnt getting revenge he was getting the seals so that the demon/voidkin he summoned years back he can defeat to reclaim his own soul back. not sure how different BLM storyline is now since I am yet to do all the class storylines higher then lvl 20 quests which I did in phase 4.

[NoloeTazier]

The idea behind the Jobs are and were that they are lost arts (cept for Paladin and Dragoons they're just rare or the art is a secret). White Mages hadn't existed since the Fifth Astral Era, but the Padjal reproduced the art. Black Mages are pretty recent with Ququruka having harnessed it as recent as 1472 6A.E. (Sixth Astral Era, 105 years ago). Dragoons began around 572 6A.E., Paladins of Ul'dah in 972 with the creation of the 3 Swords (one being Curtana) and the creation of the Sultansworn. So really they ARE just Advanced Jobs. While anyone can become a Class by joining a Guild in the City-States, one must be extraordinary to learn a Job and obtain the Job Crystal.

[shinros]

I just did the level 40 quest during the conversation with the amalj'aa beastman he pretty much confirmed what you said Meliae black mages are using void magic. Here is the line from the quest.

"Zirnberk, the dark magic coursing through you shares a deep bond with the void gate"

This leads me to believe that black magic comes from the void where the demons live and as you said Meliae the person who created black magic (I forgot her name) had to learn the spells from somewhere right?

The amalj'aa in the classt story quest also taught me my level 40 skill I wonder are amalj'aa thamaturges black mages too? Or is it only the beastman in the black mage class quest who is a black mage?