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On the Convocation[]

We do not know what Emet-Selch's position as a member of the Convocation entailed. However, it can be comfortably concluded that he is NOT the 'Architect'. Indeed, when we first travel to Amaurot and enter the Bureau of the Architect, we are told that we are looking in "the wrong office". This is further backed up by the fact that Hythlodaeus, not Emet-Selch, was the 'Chief of the Bureau of the Architect'. It does not make sense for there to be both an 'Architect' and a 'Chief of the Bireau of the Architect' at the same time. KingCaelum1994 (talk) 11:31, July 28, 2020 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken it's actually stated somewhere in Amaurot that Lahabrea was the Architect, possibly in addition to Speaker? I remember people on reddit being baffled that the most hot-headed on the three was the Architect, albeit I can't find a source on that either atm. ETA: Also missed that bit about Hythlodaeus, so nvm Lahabread. --Adonzo (talk) 21:10, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
The things we learn about Lahabrea come from the quest for Akadaemia Anyder, in which we learn he was the best orator of the Amaurotines and the best 'generalist' when it came to creation magic, though his own specialty was 'phantomology'. It is also implied that he was the one who designed the concept for Zodiark. The information regarding Hythlodaeus comes from the short story "Through His Eyes" published as the 4th "Tales from the Shadows" by Square Enix. KingCaelum1994 (talk) 07:55, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Split?[]

Given everything revealed over the course of Shadowbringers and Endwalker, shouldn't the information currently in this article be split up into at least two or three separate ones? Probably one for the race of ancients, one for the Convocation, and one for the Ascian cult? FF-Suzaku (talk) 00:38, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

The Convocation should have their own article, but I'm not sure what you mean by the "Ascian cult"? DrakeyC (talk) 02:03, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
I mean the group that calls themselves Ascians, founded by the survivors Lahabrea, Emet-Selch, and Elidibus. Those three are unsundered remnants of the Ancients, but don't comprise the race itself—and the sundered Ascians aren't Ancients at all. The current Fandaniel, for example, was Amon.
Right now the unaffiliated Ancients are listed as a subsection on this page and characters such as Venat have their race listed as Ancient but redirect to Ascian, despite not being Ascians. Rather, I think there should be an article for the Ancient race, with the Convocation and Ascians being separate articles. The name of the race in Japanese is 古代人 (Shin'naru Hito, lit. "Ancient People") and Elidibus also calls them 真なる人 (Shin'naru Hito, lit. "True People"), while the Watcher calls them 古き人 (Furuki Hito, lit. "Elder People"). FF-Suzaku (talk) 03:32, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
As the one who originally put the Ancients on this page I actually agree, but this was around the time I was still new to Fandom as well and was too scared to make new pages. Also I felt there wasn't enough information about the Ancients to warrant a new page at the time. So uhh, sorry about that. KingCaelum1994 (talk) 08:52, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Support splits as more specific terms being separate makes for more clarity and manageable article scopes. Convocation page would explain how that system worked and names of each seats. Ancient (Final Fantasy XIV) would be a race article, and the Ascian article could be more focused. What about the Telephoroi thing? Are there other older civilizations on the Source also known as "Ancient" or is Ancient (Final Fantasy XIV) good without further tags?Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 21:18, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

"Ancient" as a term is actually used before Shadowbringers to refer any of the members of previous civillizations such as the Mhachi and the Allagans. However, as a race, it only refers to the first people, and they literally have no other name that we know of besides "Ancient", so it shouldn't cause too much confusion for the vast majority. KingCaelum1994 (talk) 23:27, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
To be clear, is "Ascian" ever used for the Ancient race, or is it exclusively used for the current members of the race? I agree with having a Convocation article for sure, but I'm not sure we need an article for the Ascian cult; afaik, all the of the members of it are Convocation members, so having separate pages seems like a distinction without a difference. DrakeyC (talk) 02:23, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure if they should be considered the same characters, per se; they have the same souls and memories but different bodies and sometimes different personalities. In any case, not all of the Convocation members remained loyal to the Ascians, with Azem actively opposing it and Fandaniel having his own plans.
By the way, is "Paragon" just a title for members of the Ascian cult, or does it specifically refer to unsundered Ascians? Cat (meowhunt) 04:13, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Paragon and Ascian are interchangeable terms as far as I am aware, but the former usually refers to the overlords. Also, before the grand reveal in the Tempest, the Scions assumed the Ascians as a race rather than a cult, which is proven incorrect. So they would say "Ascian civillization" or "Ascian homeland" before it became "Ancient civillization", "Amaurot", etc. KingCaelum1994 (talk) 06:39, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Long comment incoming, but I can provide some clarification and answers to several of the questions here: I believe the earliest recorded appearance of the term "Ascian" was during the Allagan Empire, but it's likely they formed before the First Umbral Calamity and either caused it or learned from it how to initiate further Rejoinings. I don't recall whether it's been stated to what degree they were involved in the first three Umbral Calamities.
There are Ascians other than former members of the Convocation, namely the black-masked minor Ascians, and the Convocation as a group also included individuals who never became Ascians, so I think they warrant being separated. In form and function the two groups also have very little in common. The sundered Ascians were no more the members of the Convocation than the Warrior of Light; and it's also noted that Amon had a different personality from Hermes despite inheriting part of his soul, so I'm not entirely sure if they should be considered one and the same. As far as I'm concerned, there's the original Fandaniel who returned to the star, Hermes who replaced him, and Hermes's Source reincarnation Amon, who became the Ascian Fandaniel. Note also that in Japanese, the Ascian versions of the Convocation titles are rendered like "Ascian Emet-Selch" (アシエン・エメトセルク) rather than just "Emet-Selch" (エメトセルク).
"The Paragons," 天使い (Amatsukai, lit. "Heavenly Messengers") in Japanese, is a legacy term that dates back to 1.0, referring to those who were responsible for teaching the Beast Tribes to summon their gods, and their connection to the Ascians was not fleshed out. In 1.0, the Ascians were portrayed as "shadoweaters" who had "eaten their own shadows," hence the name Ascian, meaning "shadowless." They resembled grim reapers, commanded voidsent, and were seemingly feared by the Beast Tribes. They were rumored to have been the first to learn summoning from the Paragons, and thus the first to summon a god. Whatever the original plans for the two groups was, they were consolidated into a single group in ARR, explained via throwaway dialogue on the official website and early in the MSQ stating simply that the Ascians were also known as Paragons.
The red-masked (high ranking) Ascians are led by the オリジナル (orijinaru, lit. "the originals") and command the 転生組 (tenseigumi, lit. "the reincarnated"). These terms aren't localized consistently in English. In ShB and EW, オリジナル is usually translated as "the unsundered," while 転生組 is translated variously as "fractured," "sundered," and "reincarnated." The unsundered are the three surviving members of the Convocation, the reincarnated are fragments of the souls of the other ten fallen members who summoned Zodiark, chosen from the various shards, including the Source.
The term "Paragons of the Source" is essentially a mistranslation of オリジナル in the English localization of patch 4.5 and doesn't really make sense with information later revealed in ShB and EW. In the original Japanese, Shadowhunter (Gaius) is explaining the hierarchy of the red-masked Ascians and states that "a few of their number claim to be the originals and lead the rest, called the reincarnated," and that Nabriales belonged to the reincarnated, but that as troublesome as he was, "the three originals wield far greater power."
In the English version they changed the dialogue to Gaius explaining that among the red-masked Ascians, "those set adrift with the shards clearly stand below those still joined to the Source," and that Nabriales's "powers were inconsequential next to the Paragons of the Source." The localization staff seems to have incorrectly assumed that the division was a matter of being either of the Source or of its reflections, but we learn in ShB that the originals actually survived the sundering unsundered, and there are reincarnated souls of the Convocation in each of the shards, including the Source (like Amon and the Warrior of Light), and it doesn't really matter which shard each comes from. During the Eden raid series, for example, Mitron says that Emet-Selch considers the reincarnated Ascians to be expendable because he can simply replace them with another reincarnation from another shard.
The Telophoroi are really nothing more than a footnote, and I don't know if they even belong in the Ascian article. Technically they're all just Garleans that were Tempered by Anima. The only Telophoroi who actually have their own will are the Ascian Fandaniel and Zenos, if you'd even consider Zenos part of the group.
Anyway, sorry for the wall of text, but hope it provides some clarity. FF-Suzaku (talk) 08:32, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
What a great comment. Some of those English-Japanese differences and translation clarifications could be added to a Behind the scenes.Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 16:22, 26 December 2021 (UTC)::

I agree that I do feel a need for Ascians and the ancients to be split into two article. From what we've learned throughout all of the expansions, the ancients were a race and the Ascians are those in the present that worship and are trying to revive Zodiark. But if we do split them, I'm not very sure what would serve as the title for the ancients. As mentioned above, the term "ancients" is a generic term used to refer to civilisations of old, not just the people before the sundering. It might be confusing to readers if we titled it "Ancient (Final Fantasy XIV)" and only mention the first people. Another official term is "Amaurotines" but I'm not very sure if "ancients" and "Amaurotines" are directly interchangeable because it seems like "Amaurotines" only refer to people living in the city Amaurot and not the whole unsundered world. One possible thing we can do is to have the article "Ancient (Final Fantasy XIV)" include all forms of ancient civilisations in FFXIV.

Regarding the Convocation of Fourteen, while there's a lot of overlap with the Ascians (the characters share the same titles, for example), they need to be split as they're different. But the question is whether the Convocation needs its own article or it can be a subsection of the ancients article.

To be honest, the Telephoroi doesn't belong to the Ascian article or any of the above proposed articles. They're just a group led by Zenos and Fandaniel for their own agenda by tempering people (Garleans and any beastmen to summon their primals). So this also needs its own article. LightKeyDarkBlade (talk) 13:13, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

How about Ancient (Final Fantasy XIV race)? Or Ancient (Etheirys)?Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 17:10, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
Hmm, I think "Ancient (Final Fantasy XIV race)" could work. "Etheirys" seems to refer to the whole world now so it'd be better to avoid that for this. LightKeyDarkBlade (talk) 17:45, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
You could open it with something like, "Ancient is a term that describes various bygone races in the setting of Final Fantasy XIV, most commonly the original incarnation of mankind that dwelled on Etheirys before the world was sundered by Hydaelyn, dividing it into the myriad races of the present day." Then lead into describing their biology, culture, and history, and finally dd an additional section with a header like "other ancient peoples" with a list including the Allagans and others. FF-Suzaku (talk) 06:05, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Useful links[]

Throwing a link here that has some lore about the Ascians/ancients/Amaurotines (has lore about other stuff too). Anyone can just put down any useful link here that hasn't been used in the article yet.

LightKeyDarkBlade (talk) 09:11, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Shadowhunter's masks[]

According to producer/director Naoki Yoshida from Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXVIII, Gaius van Baelsar, as the Shadowhunter, carries the masks of Altima and Deudalaphon on his person, although this does not necessarily mean that the Ascians had been killed. Perhaps this should be added to the article? Not sure if it fits.

Sounds applicable to me. Not sure how to source it if it is not said in the game anywhere. Any good links?Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 18:56, 19 February 2022 (UTC)