setting

In case you missed the note on the index, there will be spoilers in this section and all following pages on this site. This page is accurate as of patch 6.0, Endwalker.

This is a very brief overview of the general setting of the world.

etheirys

Once, the world of Etheirys was whole, its inhabitants peaceful, powerful wielders of creation magic. People lived long, blissful lives, free to pursue anything they dreamt of. Strife was fleeting at best. This world was ruled by the Convocation, a group of fourteen souls who served as the stewards for the star.

Unfortunately, these peaceful days were not to last forever. A disaster known as the Final Days befell the star, turning the people’s creation magicks against them. Despair looked to overtake the world but for the Convocation’s plan: half of the population would be sacrificed to create a being capable of halting this disaster. So rose Zodiark, the eldest and most powerful of primals, and through him the world was saved. Another half of the population was sacrificed to restore the destroyed world to the way it was.

Yet that was not to be the end. In opposition to Zodiark rose another primal, Hydaelyn, birthed by a former member of the Convocation. Hydaelyn sundered both Zodiark and Etheirys itself, splitting the world and its people into fourteen shards of the whole. Of Etheirys’s entire population, only three members of the Convocation survived: Lahabrea, Emet-Selch, and Elidibus.

Calling themselves the Ascians, these three remaining members settled upon a goal to restore their world to the way it had once been: to rejoin the fourteen shards, one by one. Their first attempt went awry (creating the Void, the Thirteenth shard), but over thousands of years they managed to rejoin one shard after another to the Source, murdering millions of souls in the process.

By the time our story begins, a new Rejoining is close at hand.

the source

The Source, also called Hydaelyn and later Etheirys, is the primary setting for the game. Unlike the humans of the ancients’ world, the Source is populated by myriad races.

Height comparison of female races in Final Fantasy XIV

Three continents form the setting for the vast majority of the game: Eorzea, Ilsabard, and Othard. Eorzea is home to five major city-states, listed below by city-state and surrounding region.

The first three provide the setting for the base game (A Realm Reborn), Ishgard is the setting for the first expansion, Heavensward, and Ala Mhigo is half of the setting for the second expansion, Stormblood. The other half of Stormblood’s setting is Doma and Hingashi in Othard, far to the east.

The primary antagonist for much of the game is the Garlean Empire, located in Ilsabard, because what’s a Final Fantasy game without an evil empire or two? At first it seems as though Garlemald’s imperialistic ways are no more nuanced that that, but later it’s revealed that the Ascians established Garlemald in the first place and have been directing it to further their genocidal ends.

primals

The recurring problem for much of the story is the issue of primals. Feed aether and religious fervor to enough crystals, and you can make yourself a god that’ll fight for you. Of course, it’ll also temper you — render you a slave to the primal’s will, unable to regain your own mind even if the primal is slain.

The only way to slay a primal is to bear the Echo, which makes the bearer immune to tempering. In the player’s case, the Echo also makes you conveniently able to see flashbacks of important people and places, which helps provide some exposition.

The First

Though there are fourteen reflections, it’s more accurate to say that there’s thirteen — the Source is the one the Ascians use as a base for their Rejoinings. The First, then, is the first reflection of the Source — a parallel world.

Unlike the Source, however, the First is a fraction of its former self. A hundred years ago (by the First’s reckoning), the Ascians nearly succeeded in Rejoining it to the Source by way of a flood of light-aspected aether. This Flood overtook the vast majority of the world’s landmass, leaving only a small portion about the size of Eorzea left.

A note on time: time flows differently between the First and the Source until the start of Shadowbringers, at which point it enters the Time Bubble. There is almost no canon passage of time in Final Fantasy XIV, so as soon as the First became a visitable area, the issue of time differences simply stopped interfering with the plot. Yes, this is as confusing as it sounds.

In the present day, the First is largely a post-apocalyptic society. There are a few settlements in each region, and two major cities, but the world is harried by creatures of Light called sin eaters. At their apex are the Lightwardens, giant masses of Light that none can slay without turning into a Lightwarden themselves.

That is, until you show up.

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