Ĵwlŷs Kæsar: A FFXIV Tragedy and Annotary in Five Acts (Part 1 of 6)
Extradiegetic Copyright Information and Diegetic Front Matter
Copyright & Attribution
Copyright © 2025 by Ellis Arcwolf. All rights reserved. This document is a transformative work of fiction and literary criticism. The specific adaptation of the text into the “Allagan” dialect, the “Transcreator’s Footnotes,” the Preface, and the narrative framing device are the intellectual property of the author.
Source Text Attribution
Adapted from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (1599). The base text for this adaptation is sourced from the Folger Shakespeare Library editions. While the original play resides in the public domain, acknowledgment is hereby given to the Folger Library for their dedication to preserving and providing accessible texts.
Fan Content & Intellectual Property Disclaimer
This work is an unofficial fan project based on the world and lore of Final Fantasy XIV. Final Fantasy XIV, the Final Fantasy logo, and all associated setting elements, proper nouns (e.g. Allag, Miqo’te, Eorzea), and lore concepts are trademarks or registered trademarks of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. This work is not endorsed by, affiliated with, or sponsored by Square Enix. It is distributed freely for entertainment and educational purposes under the terms of fair use and fan content guidelines.
Preface
I only learned to read as an adult, when my adopted Padjali father taught me Eorzean letters, but I loved stories since I was a very young girl. My older brother Samuel Caspian Cross, whom we lovingly called “Cas,” was still a young teen training to apply to the Scholasticate once he had come of age, and having learned to read, he would read to all of us. These narratives kept me alive during some of the most difficult times in my life, which followed immediately after the tiny, red moon Dalamud shocked us all by cracking open like an egg above the skies above Carteneau and releasing hellfire upon the whole of Eorzea.
Stories have defined the breadth of Spoken history upon our star. From the mythological tales of the First Warrior of Light, his armor made of enchanted mythril that that shimmered with the gold of the earth and the blue blush of the heavens, to the celebrated and well-circulated chronicles of the Zodiac Braves, stories help us to connect to one another and to identify who we are—or who we wish to be—upon this star’s stage, with all its men and women (and non-binary individuals) as its players.
My life as an adventurer has taken some surprising turns, and one of these gratefully led me to discover these manuscripts long thought lost, which the people of Sil’dih inherited from their ancestors of the previous era—including the lost, magical desert city-state of Sagon, satrapy of a Thanalan empire lost to the Great Flood beneath the unforgiving sands of the Sagolii. And it is here I will take a moment to thank Lord Lolorito Nanarito of Ul’dah for the conservation efforts that permitted us to access and make use of this incredible find.
It was in the city-state of Sagon, in the Fifth Astral Era, that we find the near-legendary Bard of Sagon, an adventurer-poet who went by the name Liam Meri’a Morvelet. As a Seeker of the Sun who has long made her home the beautiful forest city of Gridania, I’ve found a deep sense of connection with my Keeper of the Moon countrymen, of whom I am deeply fond. To learn that Morvelet was himself a Keeper of the Moon was a delight I had not expected to enjoy. Indeed the more I learned about M. Morvelet, the more I felt a sense of kinship with his own love of storytelling, even if I am his distant inferior when it comes to the science and magic of the written word.
The Twelve have blessed me in many other ways, and one of the greatest of these blessings is the gift that is my durst-born son, Archon L. Maxx Arcwolf-Kisne. It is Archon Arcwolf-Kisne whom I approached to put together a team that could translate—insofar as doing so would cost us little of Morvelet’s art—his manuscripts into stories that Eorzeans could enjoy just as we enjoy hearing about the legends of Ivalice and about the adventures of the enigmatic Gridanian “Hopestar” or of the celebrated Champion of Eorzea—our Age’s legendarily laconic Warrior of Light.
Archon Arcwolf-Kisne’s team have done an incredible job not only translating Morvelet’s pieces themselves, but at discovering the secret histories hidden within his fantastical accounts of ancient myths and legends that, until now, had been all but lost. We have further been grateful for the contribution of my close friend Mme Gretta Grinneaux, a lead researcher among the Sons of Saint Coinach, and for Garlond Ironworks’ help in identifying key Allagan terms and turns of phrase rediscovered by Garlean magitek engineers during the late Sixth Astral Era, as Garlemald first began to develop ceruleum-based magitek.
We are grateful to many, many people besides, but I was told prefaces should not be terribly long, and I am known by my loved ones for being long-winded from time to time. Most of all, I am grateful to the Twelve in permitting us to receive, in our present day of scientific rediscovery and breakneck magitek advances, this wisdom from a distant age, bequeathed them by the errors of ages more distant still. May these pages galvanize your curiosity and love of literature, dear Reader, as much as they did mine.
— Joan Arcwolf-Dhivri
Founding Patron & Executive Director of The Taper Project™ (MÆT-LP)1
Penned this 21.6U.13:7AE2
Title Page
The Tragedy of Ĵwlŷs Kæsar
by Liam Meri’a Morvelet
The Taper Project™
taper-project.jijivisa.org
© 13:7AE MÆT-LP
All rights reserved.
Characters
ĴULŶS KÆSAR
KALVWRNYA, his wife
SERVANT to them
MARKYS BRWTYS
PORTYA, his wife
LUŞYS, their servant
PATRŶTÅ WHO, WITH BRWTYS, CONSPIRE AGAINST KÆSAR
GŶS KASŶS
KASKÅ
KYNNÅ
DEKŶS BRWTYS
GŶS LEĢARŶS
MÅTELYS KYMRÅ
TREBONŶS
SÝRKŶTÅ3
KÅKORÔ
PUBLŶS
POPÅLŶS L’NA
ARBITRANTS4
VLAẂŶS
MERWLYS
RULERS OF ALLAG IN ACTS IV & V
MARQ ANT’WYNS
SERVANT to Ant’wyns
LEPÅDYS
OKTÊẂŶS
SERVANT to Oktêẃŷs
OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS IN THE ARMIES OF BRWTYS AND KASŶS
LUSYLŶS
TITÅNŶS
MESALÅ
ẂARW
KLÆDŶS
YOUNG KHATÔ
ŞTRATÔ
ẂOLUMNŶS
LABYÔ (non-speaking)
VLAẂŶS (non-speaking)
ÐARDANYS
KLÆTUS
SUPPORTING CAST
A Mechanic
A Processor
An Oracle
ART’MYĐÅRYS
First, Second, Third, and Fourth Rekhŷtå5
KYNNÅ the bard
PYNDARYS, slave to Kasŷs, freed upon Kasŷs’ death
First, Second, Third, and Fourth Soldiers in Brwtys’ army
Another Bard
A Messenger
First and Second Soldiers in Ant’wyns’ army
Citizens, Sýrkŷtå, Petitioners, Rekhŷtå, Soldiers
Setting
Kæsar’s assassination is only at the halfway point of Ĵwlŷs Kæsar. Like the Second Astral Moon, the month presided over by the Scholar Thaliak of the Twelve, the play is a tragedy is cloven into two parts: the first leads to Kæsar’s death; the second lays out the consequences of his betrayal. As the action begins, the Allagan Republic prepares for Kæsar’s triumphal entrance. Brwtys, Kæsar’s friend and ally, fears that Kæsar—the last living Trŷmẃyr of Allag—will mantle himself emperor, ending the Republic. Kasŷs and others convince Brwtys to join a conspiracy to kill Kæsar. On the day of the assassination, Kæsar plans to stay home at the urging of his wife, Kalvwrnya. A conspirator, Dekŷs Brwtys, persuades him to go to the Sýrkos with the other conspirators and his friend, Marq Ant’wyns. At the Sýrkos, the conspirators stab Kæsar to death. Ant’wyns uses a funeral oration to turn the citizens of Allag against them. Brwtys and Kasŷs escape as Ant’wyns joins forces with Oktêẃŷs Kæsar. Encamped with their armies at Nýoģôģ, Brwtys and Kasŷs quarrel, then agree to march on Ant’wyns and Oktêẃŷs. In the battle which follows, Kasŷs, misled by erroneous reports of loss, persuades a slave to kill him; Brwtys’ army is defeated. Brwtys commits suicide, praised by Ant’wyns as “the noblest Allagan of all.”
Time
During the middle of the Third Astral Era, at the end of the Allagan Civil War, and presaging the fall of the Allagan Republic and the rise of the Second Allagan Empire under Emperor Xandê Kæsar.
Act I
Scene 1 – A street in Allag on a laboring day.
Scene 2 – The Aģorâplex6 (near the racecourse) during the Feast of Drunkenness.7
Scene 3 – A street in Allag (near the Sýrkos) after midnight; a stormy night.
Act II
Scene 1 – Brwtys’ orchard before dawn on the Plexus of Thaliak.8
Scene 2 – Kæsar’s mansion at eight-O9 on the Plexus of Thaliak.
Scene 3 – A street near the Sýrkos shortly before nine-O.
Scene 4 – Before the Sýrkos Tower at nine-O.
Act III
Scene 1 – The Sýrkos Tower on the Plexus of Thaliak.
Scene 2 – The Aģorâplex directly following the assassination.
Scene 3 – A street in Allag following the funeral orations.
Act IV
Scene 1 – The Sýrkos some time after the assassination.
Scene 2 – A camp near Retz At’jan in the evening; prior to the march to Nýoģôģ.
Scene 3 – Inside Brwtys’ tent (at Retz At’jan) late at night.
Act V
Scene 1 – The plains of Nýoģôģ on the morning of the battle.
Scene 2 – The field of battle at Nýoģôģ during the first charge.
Scene 3 – Another part of the field at Nýoģôģ at fifteen-O.
Scene 4 – Another part of the field at Nýoģôģ during the final retreat.
Scene 5 – A rock on the field at Nýoģôģ at sunset; end of battle.
Pronunciation Guide
Presented below is a list of all known Allagan language phoneme approximations in the Eorzean language. Note that any phonemes that are notated identically between Allagan and Eorzean have been excluded from the following list.
‘ (apostrophe)
IPA Phonetic Sound: ʔ
Eorzean Approximation: Glottal stop; a sharp pause or break in the sound.
First A/a
IPA Phonetic Sound: æ
Eorzean Approximation: The a in “cat” or “trap.”
Unstressed A/a
IPA Phonetic Sound: ə
Eorzean Approximation: The a in “about” (i.e. schwa).
Â/â
IPA Phonetic Sound: æ
Eorzean Approximation: The a in “cat” or “trap”; used to denote the short, flat “a” sound when it does not carry the primary weight of the foot.
Å/å
IPA Phonetic Sound: ə
Eorzean Approximation: The a in “about” (i.e. schwa).
Æ/æ
IPA Phonetic Sound: æɪ
Eorzean Approximation: Starts like “cat” (æ) and glides to “sit” (ɪ).
D/d
IPA Phonetic Sound: ð
Eorzean Approximation: Voiced dental fricative; the sound in “this” or “then.”
Ð/đ
IPA Phonetic Sound: θ
Eorzean Approximation: Voiceless dental fricative; the sound in “thin” or “thanks.”
Ê/ê
IPA Phonetic Sound: eɪ
Eorzean Approximation: The ay in “way” or “weigh.”
G/g
IPA Phonetic Sound: ʒ
Eorzean Approximation: The s in “vision” or “pleasure.”
Ģ/ģ
IPA Phonetic Sound: g
Eorzean Approximation: The g in “gold” or “guard.”
I/i
IPA Phonetic Sound: —
Eorzean Approximation: There is no letter I in the Allagan language.10 See Y for the Allagan alternative.
J/j
IPA Phonetic Sound: h
Eorzean Approximation: The h in “hair” or “who.”
Ĵ/ĵ
IPA Phonetic Sound: ʤ
Eorzean Approximation: The j in “juice” or “joy.”
KH/Kh/kh
IPA Phonetic Sound: χ
Eorzean Approximation: The ch in Scottish “loch” or German “Bach,” but deeper and more raspy.
LL/Ll/ll
IPA Phonetic Sound: lː
Eorzean Approximation: A held/long “L” sound (as in Italian palla).
Ô/ô
IPA Phonetic Sound: oʊ
Eorzean Approximation: The o in “open,” “go,” or “boat.”
Ş/ş
IPA Phonetic Sound: ʃ
Eorzean Approximation: The sh in “shaggy,” “shoe,” or “station.”
U/u
IPA Phonetic Sound: ʊ
Eorzean Approximation: The oo in “foot” or u in “put.”
V/v
IPA Phonetic Sound: f
Eorzean Approximation: The f in “fan.”
W/w
IPA Phonetic Sound: uː
Eorzean Approximation: The oo in “cartoon.”
Ẃ/ẃ
IPA Phonetic Sound: v
Eorzean Approximation: The v in “van.”
Ẁ/ẁ
IPA Phonetic Sound: w
Eorzean Approximation: The w in “water.”
Y/y
IPA Phonetic Sound: ɪ
Eorzean Approximation: The i in “sit” or “pit.”
Ý/ý
IPA Phonetic Sound: iː
Eorzean Approximation: The ee in “bee” or “tree.”
Ŷ/ŷ
IPA Phonetic Sound: ʲiːə
Eorzean Approximation: The iu in “radius” and “genius.”
Lead Transcreator’s Note
I’ll be real. When I first came upon this project, I thought it would be boring, and I only started doing it because I knew my mother—Ms. Joan Arcwolf-Dhivri—always pays well when she gets excited about something. Still, my mom’s a clever lady; when she gets interested in something, usually there’s something there worth being interested in. And so with a well-deserved salary and a great deal of curiosity, I dove into the Fifth Astral Era works of Liam Meri’a Morvelet.
I’ve always been passionate about math, to the chagrin of almost everyone that knows me, but to the benefit of Etheiryan linguists everywhere because—while the benefits of a society that oppresses the working classes are few—twice a day, every day, every broken chronometer chances upon an accurate assessment of the time.
If you happen to be among the very unfortunate few who find themselves under the thumb of a ruling class of caitiff11 that is not also little more than a circle-jerk of echo-chamber-born incompetence and male toxicity—that is to say, if instead of idiots your ruling class were full of (racist) scientists, (classist) magi, and (eugenicist) scholars of every pallial12 stripe and fashion… Well, it would be silly to ignore the mathematical intricacy and beautiful complexity of a constructed language that it would be possible to build under such a system: a language composed entirely from the top-down with purpose and direction, two things which are impossible to accomplish from within a pluralistic, ethical, and soon panstellar society that values people over cool systems (even if those systems really, really cool).13
Magitechnological advance is moderated by two things. One of these, of course, is the skill and knowledge that a given civilization had acquired. We know from Morvelet’s texts that the Third Astral Era democratic republic of Ekka, a loose confederation of northern Ilsabardian, culturally-distinct city-states, dominated the central swath of the Three Great Continents during the early half of the Third Astral Era, and they had developed monadic alchemy (the precursor to what would later become Allagan aetherochemistry) and had achieved wonders such as aspectual transmutation, hermetic environmental isolation, thermokinetic regulation, and hygroscopic modulation.14 The other—and less often considered—moderator is the language that such a civilization has access to. Ekkadite was a beautiful language, but its complicated structure and abstract concepts, born of several centuries of accumulated alchemical and metamagical knowledge, made its intricacies difficult to grasp by many of its contemporaries.
The beauty of Modern Eorzean is its linguistic plasticity. Any nascent, innovative concept is just a neologism away. Don’t ask me to give you an example; just keep reading Morvelet is a profligate neologinator.
Oh hey! I did a neologism! I neologesticulated!15
And that’s exactly what gives Modern Eorzean the flexibility that it lends to the very structure of our contemporary world’s creative spark. Modern Eorzean is a language that was built out of the Proto-Hylezic16 Eorzean tongue from the bottom-up, evolving from the lived experiences, sociopolitical dynamics, and cataclysmic stellar disturbances that forged every culture that ever has walked, walks, or shall walk upon the face of Eorzea. By allowing the wild whims of nature and fate to determine all the ways that we encouraged our linguistic tree to grow, we created a primal that—rather than steal from our aether—rewards us with the ability to think beyond the limits of what we thought yesterday.
The Allagans would have had a much harder time with incorporating—or even making sense of—the democratic, scholarly contributions of the common people. The fact of the ancient Allagan’s tongue’s inaccessibility would have made it practically impossible for your average Joe/Jane, Jean(ne), χ’Mhi Ohm/Tia, Caia/Caius, Rhun(’o), or Yvan(a)17 to go very much beyond the confines of their professions. The impressive subculture that is the Eorzean adventurer population is evidence of the vast breadth of skill among Eorzeans of the present day. Today, we would not look much askance at a carpenter who tinkers with clockwork as a hobby and uses tomestones to keep their research notes private. In the days of Allag, that intellectual freedom belonged only to the patrŷtå,18 the “nobility” of ancient Allag.
Social rigidity of this sort is generally a recipe for the automastication of a fascist state. While, yes, it is true that Allag eventually collapsed under the weight of its own hubris, it’s worth asking how it is that a society with a language built by elites, for elites, from the top-down managed to make it for the thousand years we believe that it did. And the truth was that the cognitive dissonance created by these facts was key gut data, not just a passing discomfort to be waved away.
As we condemn the Allagans for their moral failures, we must ask ourselves how they could possibly have been so monumentally effective at running roughshod over every corner of the star but the one with the angry dragons, the talking, murder-hobo trees, and the sonorous golden lady with a stick up her butt she can use to give you vertigo.19
The Diglossia of Ancient Allagan
For millennia we have imagined Allagan to be a singular, monolithic structure: a thousand years of Empire bookended by origenetically20 identical Xandês. What we knew, it turns out, is little more than a hypersimplification of a complicated—and surprisingly pluralistic nation.
The people of Allag were separated across either side of a very clearly demarcated line. On the one side were the patrŷtå, the ruling class, composed from individuals who claimed descendancy either from the Xandynâr Sýrkŷtå21 or from Xandê himself. On the other were the common folk, the rekhŷtå. Today, I am an archon, but I am also a Seeker of the Sun, and in Allag, I would have had no choice but to be a rekhŷt. If you began your life as one, you died as one, and very few (and rather terrible) ways to socially advance existed for them.
As long as you were an educated patrŷt, your ability discover was only limited by the distance you had the Allagan government’s approval to go. For a society such as Allag, for the wealthy and the privileged, such distances could be quite vast. Eventually, such distances included allowances for atrocities that we have gratefully only had to see once more since, and that gratefully only for half a century.22 And all of this was made possible by the remarkably well-structured and meticulously curated High Allagan.
The High Allagan language was designed by the most intelligent minds on the star, in order to empower themselves over everyone else. As Allag expanded, as its knowledge grew, High Allagan was constantly adapted and added to. As new languages and cultures entered the Allagan sphere of influence, High Allagan absorbed the knowledge those cultures had acquired, even adopted their linguistic phonemes by adding more letters to their alphabet with traditionally Allagan diacritics. High Allagan was a dynamic language, but it always remained rooted in classism and magitechnological advancement at any (and every) cost.
The rekhŷtå, who very often lacked a formal, liberal education, often learned a more simplified, vernacular form of Allagan that we’ve named Vulgar Allagan. Unlike its more erudite sibling, Vulgar Allagan lacked diacritics—which notably resulted in a great deal of diversity of Vulgar Allagan dialects across the empire and the Third Astral Era. Modern Eorzean’s Allagan influence is owed entirely to what survived of Vulgar Allagan, as the Fourth Umbral Era caused most of the High Allagan language to be lost.
The study of High Allagan was reinvigorated with Mhach’s discovery of Allagan ruins early in the Fifth Astral Era. As more Allagan ruins were uncovered, Allagan texts written in High Allagan were discovered, and the most advanced academic texts of the Fifth Astral Era began to be written in the reconstructed Neo-Allagan language.
The Language of Liam Meri’a Morvelet
Notably, Morvelet wrote in a combination of Neo-Allagan and Middle Eorzean. For a quick example, here’s an excerpt of Morvelet’s original text—Merwlys’s monologue in Act 1, Scene 1—in his native Middle Eorzean with scatterings of Neo-Allagan:
Wher-fore rejoise? What pris, what ragge, or slagge?
What hōmages folwen him to Allage
To enthone in caitif bondes his shippes holke?
Ye blockes, ye stones, ye duller than bestaille!23
O ye harde hertes, ye felouns of Allage,
Knewe ye nat Pompê? Many a tyme and ofte
Have ye y-clumben up to mansiouns hye,24
To railes and landing paddes, ye, to vent-stackes,
Your infantes in your armes, and ther have sat
Al the longe day, with pacient expectacioun,
To seen grete Pompê passe the stretes of Allage.
And whan ye sawgh his Admirail-shippe appere,
Have ye nat y-shoute with universal voyce,
That Đross quook underne hir bankes
To heren the replicacioun of your sownes
Y-maked by hir radiluscent strondes?
And do ye now put on your beste atire?
And do ye now y-chese25 a holyday?
And do ye now strewe floures in his way
That comth in triumphe over Pompêyes blood?
Be goon! Renne to your celles,26 falle on knees,
Preye the Twelfe do intermitte the plague
That nedes mot lighte on this unkindenesse.
The language that Morvelet’s work—combined with expert and indispensable contributions from both the Sons of Saint Coinach Grinnadettes,27 and from the Garlond Ironworks Metalbois,28 both of whom I cannot wait to work with again29—has helped us to reconstruct is, for all intents and purposes, the most complete version of the Allagan language and its variants that humanity has seen since Etheirys shook as one during the Fourth Umbral Calamity. This discovery has already permitted us to understand some Allagan concepts that had been previously uncertain or otherwise completely misunderstood until last year. Least practically, yet for the long-term longevity of the very panstellar culture we’re building today most crucially, this version of reconstructed High and Vulgar Allagan30 has helped us bring to life the characters, concepts, and some of the magitek peppered throughout this really weird play that I’m enchanted by—and also a little mad about it, NGL.31
Some interesting tidbits about our beloved, intimately-, thoughtfully-, meticulously-, and meaningfully-named hors-d’oeuvre “MÆT-LP-Allag-1.7.2:001307A” follow!
Some common Allagan words are spelled differently in Allagan, oddly explaining why they later became spelled as they are in modern day Eorzean. For example, Xande, which we pronounce XAN-day, was spelled Xandê in ancient Allagan, which the Allagans would have pronounced XAN-day.
The fact of sweet, delicate MÆT-LP-Allag-1.7.2:001307A’s32 phonemes led us to wonder whether Allag had actually been called Allag during the Third Astral Era. While we did, in fact, conclude that our modern spelling is retained as far back as the Fifth Astral Era in its current form, we did learn that the Allagans nevertheless pronounced their country name and demonyms differently than we do!
In the Third Astral Era, “Allag” was pronounced AL-luhzh (/ˈælː.əʒ/) with a geminate—“or lingering”—“L” sound. The demonym “Allagan,” however, was spelled Allâgå and pronounced AL-læ-zhuh (/ˈælː.æʒ.ə/).
We have chosen to keep the common terms Allag and Allagan in their original Eorzean, although we have chosen not to deny you the joy of experiencing Allagan for yourself via all the characters’ names and many other vocabulary words we felt were important to include for their pedagogical use in bringing to life a more historically “broad” and “vivid”—if not necessarily with an absolute certainty of accuracy—portrayal of Allagan society during this difficult and oppressive time.
I’m excited about this journey. And I’m excited that you’re taking it with us. Not, like, excited that you specifically are taking it with us, but that the collective body of you are taking it with us. Cuz, like, if it were just one or two o’ you, that would fucking suck. Just bein’ real.33
— L.34 Maxx Arcwolf-Kisne, Æ.W.35
Lead Transcreator of The Taper Project™ (MÆT-LP);36 Sharlayan Co-Chair of the SQAPRP37 Commission; Science Communicator
Dictated to my brother Shaido38 on 27.6U.13:7AE39
The Taper Project™ is the DBA (“doing business as”) of the Morvelet-Arcwolf Equimetrical Transcreation Literary Project (MÆT-LP), a small non-profit dedicated to the restoration, equimetrical (“it sounds the same”) transcreation (“it feels the same”; also, the word “trans” is in it, so suck it, Forum!), publication, and distribution of Liam Meri’a Morvelet’s recovered plays.
The 21st Sun of the Sixth Umbral Moon in Year 13 of the Seventh Astral Era.
Sýrkŷtå – The Allagan word for “Senate.” Also may serve as a reference to the seat of the Senate at the Sýrkos, the central capitol building of Allag from the First Empire to the final and dramatic end of the Second. Significantly, the Sýrkos was destroyed by the Xandê during the Apotheotic War which resulted in the resurrected Xandê’s rise to become the last emperor of the Second Allagan Empire. It was during this last century of the Late Allagan Period that Xandê commissioned the construction of the massive rectifying antenna and hypercapacitor that he called the Sýrkos Tower, as a means of ridiculing the massacred Sýrkŷtå whose corpses became the foundation of the ill-fated crystalline rectenna.
Consequently, mentions of “the Sýrkos” are appropriate for the Middle Allagan Period, while mentions of “the Sýrkos Tower” are anachronistic references, likely made by Morvelet in the Fifth Astral Era so that his viewing public could easily recognize the legendary symbol—a massive crystalline spire—that best showcased the majesty and excesses of the lost Allagan Empire, from which the magical lalafellin city-state of Mhach—far to the northwest of Sagon, within the Yafaem Lowlands (now Saltmoor)—took much inspiration.
Arbitrant – During the Middle Allagan Period, arbitrants were appointed by the Sýrkos from among the patrŷt class and were charged with speaking for Allagan rekhŷtå before the Sýrkos and its magistrates. They were state-appointed “ombudsmen” so you can imagine how well that worked out for everyone. (Or don’t imagine; just pop over to Act I, Scene 1, and see for yourself!)
Rekhŷtå – The common people of Allag, contrasted with the patrŷtå, all of whom claimed direct descendancy from the Xandynâr Sýrkŷtå—the original 100 senators appointed by Xandê to lead Allag following his dissolution of the First Allagan Empire at the end of the Early Allagan Period of the Third Astral Era. The Xandinâr Sýrkŷtå proceeded to found the Allagan Republic, the existence of which defined the Middle Allagan Period.
Aģorâplex – A massive building complex composed of a large number of specialty stores and entertainment venues. These had become central hubs of community and commerce across every Allagan major city by the rise of Second Allagan Empire.
The Feast of Drunkenness – The Allagan Feast of Drunkenness celebrates the survival of humanity following the Solar Scathe, which we—millennia removed from its consequences—call the Third Umbral Calamity. Nald, furious with the ways that man had corrupted its laws and dogmas with narcissism and cruelty. He spurred Azeyma’s fury, causing her to singe the face of Hydaelyn. Oschon sat with his embittered, genocidal brother and entreated with Nald to drink with him and to share with him his troubles. Nald drank from sunset to sunset until at last his fury was exhausted, and he once again became temperate Thal. The Allagans celebrated this event with the Feast of Drunkenness, during which the patrŷtå would drink and the rekhŷtå would be permitted to violate norms and laws with respect to other rekhŷtå for a period from sunset to sunset.
The 16th Sun of the Third Astral Moon in the Eorzean calendar.
Allag was a militaristic culture, and their way of telling time was derived directly from Allagan military convention; the Allagans used a 24-bell time scheme, with the -O suffix serving as a contraction of the High Allagan ôrys, later becoming the Vulgar Allagan hora, and much later the modern Eorzean “bell.”
The diegetic transcreator chose violence. If Latin’s gonna kill her J, she’s gone ahead and decided to kill Allagan’s I. What’s good for the goose is just as good for the gander. Fuck you, ancient Rome!
Caitiff – Cowardly or contemptible. They let me say more curse words if they fancy.
Of, relating to, or resembling a mantle or robe. For example: “That succubus turned my newly pallial skin to a beautiful shade of red.” Tee-hee. 😈
Supervillains look cool because they have to. There’s nothing good on the inside, and so you have to make do with what you got. This is why many, very, exceptionally terrible things look kinda cool on the surface.
Always look deeper. That’s what I’m saying. I love cool shit as much as anyone. Most of it is shit on the inside, once you crack the shell open. You’ll see this a lot as you look deeper into the fantastical Allagan Empire and its precious Crystal Tower.
And oh yeah, we’ll be looking deeper. Just you wait. Don’t worry. I’m the last thing you have to read before you start. If you feel like starting now, though, I’m not the boss of you! Just turn the fucking page, and stop being a bitch.
TL;DR: They invented air conditioning!
I did again! And way more egregiously than before! 😹
Proto-Hylezic – The reconstructed, inferred protolanguage of the original hyuran and elezen inhabitants of Eorzea. Hylezic is derived from the root words hy- (from hūmore, meaning “Hyur,” literally “of balanced humors”), -lez- (from ualdzé, meaning “Elezen,” literally “the Elden People,” likely as they were first the first known Spoken race to settle the Eorzean continent), and the Neo-Allagan suffix -ic (meaning “having the nature of” or “pertaining to”).
The Placeholder Name (or Nomen Nescio, literally “I do not know the name” in Garlean), for several of Etheirys’s humanoid Spoken races. In order, the listed ones are as follows:
Joe/Jane – Hyur; diminutive of Joseph, the “everyman” Eorzean meaning.
Jean(ne) – Elezen; acquired meaning on account of ubiquity among Elezen in the Sixth Astral Era.
χ’Mhi Ohm/Tia – Seeker Miqo’te; literally “Miqo’te of no tribe,” the surname is only necessary if it matters that the individual should be identified as female.
Caia/Caius – Garlean; literally “Defendant,” the name given to unidentified prisoners who found themselves before an Imperial Military Tribunal during the Garlean Imperial Period.
Rhun(’o) – Keeper Miqo’te; literally “mystery,” the “’o” is only necessary if it matters that the individual should be identified as male).
Yvan(a) – Hrothgar; meaning “John” in Eorzean and representing the “everyman.”
Patrŷtå – Literally “patrician.” Patrŷt is the common Allagan root word for father (patyr), which later influenced modern Eorzean via words like “patricide,” “patrilineal,” and “patriot” (patryo).
I’ve never been in a fight with Sophia herself, but I was once in a fight with a mutant Twister-disaster of Halone and Sophia. Now that was a lot of faces to face off against, lemme tell ya. And so many sharp points!
Origenetics – The science of heredity, studying how traits and characteristics (like eye color, height, instinct, aetherpool density, or disease risk) are passed from parents to offspring through material genes (segments of deoxyribonucleic acids with six variations of nitrogenous bases inside the nuclei of living cells) and metamaterial ikrines (monadic chains of soul aether that act as instructions for building and operating an iteration of a phenomenological Self). The word comes from Egikriography, the study of and practice of retrieving data retained by the soul over the course of countless cycles of metempsychosis (i.e. the process whereby the soul dies, is recycled within the Lifestream, and reborn into a new material body).
The Xandynâr Sýrkŷtå – The original 100 Sýrkŷtå (“senators”) appointed by Xandê at the start of the First Allagan Republic, representing the first Sýrkos of Allag.
Garlemald knows what it did.
And it’s committing to do better. It’s up to all of us to hold them to it, but it also behooves all of us to include and support them. Lest we give them reason not to need us as they are choosing to be vulnerable enough to do today.
Bestaille – Middle Eorzean for “beastkin.”
I am ashamed to admit that it took me two moons to realize Morvelet didn’t just mean “tall mansions” here. Don’t make fun of me! I became an expert paleolinguist like two weeks ago! 😿
I have never wanted to insult someone by shouting at them, “You cheese!” more than I do right now. This is neither a professional nor relevant comment.
We later translated this to “modules.” The use of “cells” certainly captures the cramped conditions under which one lived within a module, but not their flexibility, comparative comfort, and multiplicity of function. No matter how special one’s cell, they cannot be homes, even under the best conditions.
Yeah, that was a reference to P10S. You’re welcome, gamers! Also, that’s my star you’re raiding on; don’t litter. 💜
Three fantastic, gorgeous, affable, and very well-coordinated singers. Also, some of the best engineers, researchers, and aetherologists the star has ever known, led by Ms. Gretta Grinneaux.
This isn’t sexist cuz one of them’s a gay man. He’s just, like, super gay. I have rarely felt so out-fabuloused, and the feeling is sublime.
A crystal programmer, an omnimagitek engineer, and a paleotechnologist walk into a bar… Just kidding. They never drank with me, and I asked a bunch of times.
Please send peer pressure C/O “Gŷs Kasŷs <3 Metalbois,” to the mailing address listed on the back cover of this book.
Call me, Baby-Fuzz Meteor! I know where you hide your cookie dough. LOL. 💜😜
Don’t bite at me, Lore Freaks. That’s not the real Meteor. It’s just a 20-year-old dude that looks like Meteor but can’t grow a full beard. They know who they are! Jeez. Makin’ me have to manhandle the camera like I’m losing my godsdamned mind over moving over to the MCU or some shit…
Also, this is extra-meta cuz “Meteor” is the Placeholder Name (or Nomen Nescio) for any Echo-wielding adventurer that wakes up from a bender to being dragged towards one of three Eorzean city-states with or by a goateed feller with a B name. So, like…relatable, yo.
Also-also, for the Lalafell-Are-Pedo crowd? Cookie dough is a euphemism for lube with drugs in it. There. You happy? Now I have to explain this to Mom. THANKS. 😒
Referenceable at the Noumenon in Old Sharlayan using Reference Citations MÆT-LP-pAllag-3.1.4:001307A for High Allagan and MÆT-LP-rAllag-1.1.2:001307A for Vulgar Allagan.
Hey referenceable is another neologization! Well, not nondiegetically, but it counts for me!
“Not going to lie,” in Not-Olllld.
It’s clear I’m being sarcastic right? That name sucks morbol balls.
Sure, like, for the benefit of all the star and all its peoples and their hopes and dreams and puppies and all that sappy shit. But seriously, if it turned out no one cared about literature? I say we call up some Ascians and ask ‘em to ferry us along to the Eight Era so we can start over, cuz we are execrable (fancy curse word meaning “poopy”) otherwise.
My first name is Lillian. It is the birth name my mother chose for me because she made a natural mistake many parents make when we’re young and assumed my gender was the same as my sex. I am a man, and I am trans. Lillian is a man’s name when I use it, and I always invite criticism of any kind about this issue, in person, to the mailing address listed on the back cover of this book.
Æ.W. – An abbreviation that indicates that I have earned the title of Archon from the Sharlayan Studium and all honors thereof. Mom didn’t know what it meant, and it turns out a lot of Eorzeans don’t either, so short history lesson:
Nyunkrepf, the enigmatic founder of Sharlayan, had once been of the Þeod (pronounced THAY-ohd and meaning “The Folk” in Þeodisc), and many of his earliest lessons were written in Þeodisc, the parent language of both Old Roegadyn and early Sixth Astral Era High Sharlayan. Initially, Nyunkrepf was referred to by the early Sharlayans as an Earc-wita (literally “Vessel of the Scholar” in Þeodisc), and his first graduates became Earc-wita beside him.
This would be it, except that Nyunkrepf had been raised by fishermen, and he’d learned the Angleran dialect of Þeodisc, within which the word earc (meaning “sacred vessel”) came to be spelled and pronounced ærc instead. And so, to the early Sharlayans, the native Þeodisc Earc-wita had become Ærc-wita, and as titles became certifications, it was only natural that the word became abbreviated as Æ.W.
The word Archon only appeared during the development of High Sharlayan, by which time early encounters with the city-states of Eorzea allowed for linguistic transmission between the isle and the mainland of Aldenard. By the time Sharlayan adopted Modern Eorzean, the original meaning of the Archon’s post-nominal credential had been all but lost.
But not to me; because I’m very annoying when I have questions of which authority figures seem intent to keep me from the answers. In written works, the Æ.W. is often further shortened by use of a quick doodle of the Archon’s Mark. It can be bad. I’ve seen terrible ones. Not that many scientists are also visual artists, and this is an indictment on the natural sciences generally.
At the end of the day, I’m really excited to be a part of it!
Initialism for the Commission for the Standardization of Quantum Aetherophysical Research Protocols (SQAPRP), a joint Sharlayan-Loporrit-Garlean task force designed to…um…well, I mean, it’s not a very creative name, but it is thoroughly explanatory.
If you don’t have one, get you a Shaido. Nothing does more wonders for your self-esteem than a big brother who sees you as you are, no matter how shitty your words sometimes come out. 😻
The 27th Sun of the Sixth Umbral Moon in Year 13 of the Seventh Astral Era, abbreviated because the age of social media has returned to Eorzea, and it’s time to make our dates easier to write out. Epistolaries aren’t just for nobles anymore!