FFXIV Lore: The Missing Piece of Ishgard's History 

well thought

Given that Ishgard operated under a siege mentality for centuries, it's only natural they would encourage large families if for no other reason then to maintain their armed forces.

Anthony Delfino But it still fits. The Ishgardians who sided with the Knights of Thordan become the descendants of blood, while the ones who flee return to the Twelveswood and make peace with the elementals. One thing I find myself wondering is, there seems to be a theme of fleeing from these conflicts, rather than resolving them. The Amberporie who fled the woodwrath became the proto-Ishgardians, until the Thordan thing, and the ones that fled the wrath of Nidhog began the Gridanians. I wonder what the Gridanians will end up fleeing?

This, but more like 300 generations. All it takes is one Henry VIII and five hundred years later, half of Britain can trace themselves back to royal lineage.

The Duskwights are one of the two types of Elezen.

The Mhachi are the people of the ancient city-state of Mhach one third of the nations involved in the War of the Magi, a conflict that saw the rise of the flooding of the world by the elementals in response. The Mhachi in particularly were mostly Lalafell.

+EvidenceLawl tioman is a consort to nidhogg not a great wrym someone told me.

+EvidenceLawl Tioman's card description is just implying that she's a Big Deal, not that she's one of the first brood. We have Ratatoskr, Nidhogg, Tiamat, Hraesvelgr and Bahamut confirmed as 5/7, Koji Fox has mentioned that we will meet the other two sooner or later but not necessarily during Heavensward. For what it's worth my money's on Shinryu being one of the remaining two and that he'll turn up around the same time that Ilberd or someone else manages to dig up the Omega Weapon.

+Ethys Asher Thanks! Yeah I agree, I always thought it was be a weird concept in the story when the WoL and Estinien are about to traverse through Sohm Al he says he'll go through any dragon to get to "the great wyrm" Hraesvelgr, especially if it was another great wyrm. I feel like the description of the Tioman was somehow a typo because the card literally says "Consort of Nidhogg, one of the seven great wyrms." Maybe there was some sort of Tiamat/Tioman confusion when the card description was being written or it was originally supposed to say one of Nidhogg's generals like Vishap instead of great wyrms.

+Darwin's Arbiter Honestly, it wouldn't be surprising if Ishgard's founders had origins tied to Amdipor themselves.

+Bryn Phillips I believe that the Amdapori were probably Elezen and that the survivors of Amdapor split into two major groups, one that remained in the Twelveswood and were quickly forced underground into Gelmorra by the Elementals and another that fled north to Dravania and bickered with the Dragons for a few centuries before Shiva was born.

+Ethys Asher I haven't taken the time to try to zoom in on them before, but what race are the Amdapori Corpse enemies in Lost City (Hard)? Are the "lost nation" of Avalonia and the city of Anyx Trine older than the Landlord Colony and Zenith in the Churning Mists or newer? That is, was Avalonia a contemporary of Amdapor and the other Warring Magi nations? Was the Fifth Umbral Calamity widespread enough to also cover Dravania and the Coerthan lowlands, i.e. did the flood drive the remaining Avalonians into the Churning Mists and destroy Avalonia? Were the Landlord Colony and Zenith contemporary of Gelmorra and Belah'dia? Was Shiva from Avalonia?

+Ordoric yes! The Warrior job is a tradition of the Ablathian Hellsguard and it seems that Ninjutsu was developed by Midlanders from the Far East.

Isn't it pronounced like 'mock'

+Paula Vieira Also, if i remember well from the beginning of my conjurer quests, Gridania is said to have been founded 500 years ago. It's been a while though, and I could be misremembering. Where did you get the 1000 years number from?

+Paula Vieira Gridania was founded 500 years ago, yes, but there was a long time between the Elementals tentatively allowing people to live in the Shroud again and trusting those people enough to let them build a proper city. I'm merely suggesting that there may have been several centuries between these two decisions.

+Ethys Asher I see...

+Paula Vieira I know, the theory's still a stretch! I don't want or intend anyone to assume that something is canon just because I'm entertaining it. I just think it's a compelling stretch and one worth considering, that's all.

+Ethys Asher I'm not asserting anything on the status of the theory, don't worry! The question of Pre-Ishgardian dissidents is definitely worth pursuing, even assuming a good number of them stayed behind to intermingle/breed with the Ratatotskr-carrying ones. Yours is a good guess.

Source identified. Main scenario quest: Hero in the Making (Lv20), Cutscene #4. Kann-E-Senna: "Through great effort, they proved their worth to the elementals, and were granted a place beneath the boughs. So it was that Gridania was born, some five centuries ago." The Dragonsong war had begun an additional 500 years earlier.

+GrandCatapult That had occurred to me, I realise that Gridania itself is only 500 years old. However, people were living in the Twelveswood with the Elementals and Padjali for several generations - that "great effort" to which Kann-E refers - before they were allowed to build a city there, and we have reason to believe furthermore that the Elezen life expectancy can far exceed that of a human. It is the admittance of peoples into the Twelveswood and not the founding of Gridania itself that I figure as roughly 1000 years ago.

+Ethys Asher But then why Gelmorra? To literally hide from Nidhogg underground? Given Nidhogg's relentlessness, that could have quickly spelled the end of this reclusive civilisation. And bringing such animosity into the Twelveswood would have only furthered the ire of the elementals - not something I'd invite into my home. Furthermore, we website text is rather explicit on where the Wildwood came from - the split between Wildwood and Duskwight occurred on the founding of Gridania, not earlier. Prior to this they were one clan in the Twelveswood. The difference in physical traits appear simply to be a trait of adjustment as skin translucency/melatonin levels adjusts to the degree of sunlight (Elezen seem to tan nicely). The Duskwight retained underground traits because they chose to stay behind. Lastly, the natural longevity of a species is moot if its population is living in poor conditions. Gelmorran society, beneath a supernaturally hostile forest, cannot have been a particularly healthy place.

On another thought, it is likely that the great effort to reconcile with the elementals is associated with an incident involving the Ixal, who are understood to have arrived in the Twelveswood (or Tinolqa, as they called it) and lost their wings only a few decades before Gridania's founding. I'm really looking forward to learning more on this backstory.

+GrandCatapult I'm not saying that they fled to Gelmorra, I'm saying that 1000 years ago is more or less the time that the Elementals were suffering people to live in the Twelveswood once again. We know that this and the birth of the first Padjali happened a long time before Gridania itself was permitted to be built. I've posited before that Gelmorra was established after the fall of Amdapor by the Amdapori survivors that remained in the Twelveswood (whilst others traveled north into Dravania) and that it was these Elezen that became the Duskwight. Here I'm suggesting that the Wildwood we find in the shroud today could be the descendants of a large number of Old Ishgardians fleeing Dravania and as I suggest in this video I don't think Nidhogg would have cared much about hunting anyone other than those directly responsible or descended from the responsible parties for Ratatoskr's death. I know the official race description you're referring to, but it is contradicted in other pieces of text that talk about the Duskwight in game. You'll recall that we were once told in game that Midgardsormr was created by Althyk and Nymeia, which we now know is almost definitely not the case. The histories understood by the Eorzean people are often and deliberately patchy and misleading.