Great Figures of the Crystal War, Vol. II

[6souls]

http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics.../2956/2956.jpg

That ignoble, rusted chest turned up from the cluttered depths of Muckvix's Junk Shop in Lower Jeuno has divulged still more of its secrets. In the process, it continues to reveal the heretofore obscure history of the Crystal War in the form of biographical accounts of some of its most integral players. The archiving of the most recent installment of these priceless profiles has been completed, and the works released to the public for the first time in the latest scholarly journals.

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Great Figures of the Crystal War, Vol. II (03/07/2008)

That ignoble, rusted chest turned up from the cluttered depths of Muckvix's Junk Shop in Lower Jeuno has divulged still more of its secrets. In the process, it continues to reveal the heretofore obscure history of the Crystal War in the form of biographical accounts of some of its most integral players. The archiving of the most recent installment of these priceless profiles has been completed, and the works released to the public for the first time in the latest scholarly journals.

Azima, Alchemical Arcanist
http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...956/2956_3.jpg

Azima (824 - )
Renowned by some and feared by others as the Bastokan area's most accomplished and dangerous bounty hunter. Azima has been dubbed by many the "Hermitess of the Highlands," for it is in the uninhabited and remote uplands of Konschtat that she resides, seeking undisturbed solitude and quiet. Here she devotes every spare moment to her insatiable thirst for higher knowledge, ravenously poring over her collection of ancient magical tomes and philosophical doctrines.

Azima pays visit to the capital only under the strict cover of deepest night. She hauls in tow a coarse, flaxen sack containing her sometimes charred (or occasionally frozen) quarry, to be turned in and the bounty on their heads collected. Her advance notifications to the authorities spread quickly amongst a populace that has come to know all to well the desperate screams and howls that echo throughout the city as her victims are drug to meet their fate, gripping all within earshot in an indescribable aura of fear and terror. And so in the late evening hours when all know her to be coming, doors and shutters are drawn and sealed tight, lest a little evil make its way in...

Those rare few who know anything of her eccentric and anchoritic ways reveal that she has recently met with difficulties funding her compulsive purchasing of alchemical publications. She has therefore taken a great interest in the newest addition to the abundant bounties visible on wanted posters around Bastok: the so-called "Dhampir Mithra." The exorbitantly high price on this Mithran head is due to her suspected involvement in deliberately propagating the Three-dawn Scourge (*1) amongst Allied troops. At present, Azima is pursuing this vigilante relentlessly.
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Dalzakk, Affable Wayfarer
http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...956/2956_6.jpg

Dalzakk (835 - )
One of Bastok's greatest martial artists, Dalzakk champions his personal philosophy: only one who dives unflinchingly and headlong into danger and peril can truly be called an "adventurer." Surely, it can be said of this exemplary monk that he practices what he preaches.

In childhood, Dalzakk was diagnosed with a rare mental disease which caused him to suffer a relapse and experience several subsequent episodes of deja vu, throwing his own memories into complete disarray. It was in the midst of this identity crisis and personal tragedy that he first met the learned wanderer and teacher, Oggbi, with whom he would come to form an intimate master-pupil bond. At the urging of Oggbi, Dalzakk made a pilgrimage to North Gustaberg, where he engaged in stoic meditation directly beneath the tall, cascading waters of Drachenfall. There he honed his powers of concentration, and was at long last able to draw together his scattered thoughts and overcome his debilitating affliction. He continued his studies under the tutelage of Oggbi, who proudly passed along the esoteric knowledge of the Fist of Dancing Shades to his eager pupil. It was also at the insistence of his mindful teacher that Dalzakk took up literary studies at the Optistery in Windurst. Neighbored in the classroom by none other than Nyumomo (*2), another figure destined for greatness in these troubled times, Dalzakk excelled in his studies, showing a natural gift for the finer arts as well as for those martial.

After returning to his native Bastok and completing a tour of duty as a solider in the Great War, Dalzakk took up a solitary life of wandering. Making his bed on broad, starlit uplands, this determined and devoted monk committed himself to the never-ending pursuit of knowledge and skill. Yet as the Beastmen began to levy their atrocities on even the most remote corners of Vana'diel, he found himself unable to turn the other cheek. And as the fires of war burn brightly and inescapably, Dalzakk, overtaken by a sense of duty, has poured himself wholeheartedly into volunteer services in the name of the Allied Forces. It is even rumored that he has taken a young girl, orphaned by the war, under his wing...
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Choh Moui, Venomous Verminess
http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...956/2956_9.jpg

Choh Moui (837 - )
Gaining worldwide notoriety as the inventor of multifarious foods designed to coax optimal performance out of pets, Choh Moui's name has come to be almost synonymous with the term "beastmaster." Another of her monikers, "Baroness of Bugdom," derives from her renown as the most accomplished tamer of insects that Vana'diel has ever known, capable of bending everything from antlions to wamouracampa to heel at her side in submission.

Such talents can no doubt be attributed to an unfortunate series of events which resulted in her incarceration, alongside her mother, the notable beastmaster Ghino, for crimes perpetrated by the latter. This guilt by association forced her to spend several years of her youth in the confines of a dank underground prison cell. It was here that a young Choh Moui would find her childhood playmates in the form of the insects and vermin she today commands to fight by her side, devising prodigious new methods that allowed her to communicate and interact with them.

Following an act of clemency by the state, a pardon was issued which granted her release. Choh Moui immediately threw herself into alchemical studies and syntheses guided by her intimate familiarity with the beasts of Vana'diel. She eventually succeeded in developing groundbreaking new edibles that would completely revolutionize traditional thinking about pet food. Prior to the Crystal War, she opened a humble teaching establishment in the main commercial district of Olzhirya, and in a short time came to amass legions of adherent disciples. She quickly rose to prominence and established a reputation as an industrious young entrepreneur amongst the people.

Upon hearing news of the outbreak of war, she placed all proprietary rights to her then numerous schools up for sale. With the money, she turned to bribery in to try and secure the release of her mother, still imprisoned and now bedridden with illness. After repeated failed attempts, she was left with no recourse but to abandon Ghino, and set out alone on a transcontinental voyage to war-torn Mindartia. Shortly thereafter, unsubstantiated accounts began circulating of her appearance on the battlefield, accompanied by her characteristic Chigoes (*3), allegedly to gather the blood of soldiers for some sinister aim of perverted science. Any truth to these rumors, as well as the original intent behind her voyage to Mindartia, remains shrouded in mystery.

Illustration by Mitsuhiro Arita
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*1: Three-dawn Scourge
A lethal sickness causing chain-link bruises and high-pitched fever in the victim, much akin to the unforgettable plague which, in later days, held the Republic in its terrorizing grip. The scourge's full name comes from the fact that a complete cessation of symptoms and quick recovery ensue after a period of precisely three days, with a marked decrease in mortality rates thereafter. Following the onset of hostilities in the Crystal War, the Three-dawn, as it was simply called, spread like wildfire amongst the forces stationed in and around the Grand Duchy of Jeuno. It baffled alchemists seeking a cure due to its apparent lack of discrimination between races. Sadly, the epidemic would prove only a mild precursor of the great plague to come, the Bastokan Blight...

*2: Nyumomo
Current Patriarch Protector Principal of the Federation of Windurst, a station charged with the safety of all Patriarchs of Parliament. Formerly a leading pupil among the great beastmaster Choh Moui's disciples.

*3: Chigoe
A small-bodied parasite native to the Near East. Classified an insect, this vermin is attracted to the movement and heat of passing organisms, onto which it leaps and clings. It then proceeds to burrow beneath the epidermal layer and infest its newfound host. While appearing as nothing more than a harmless cyst or swelling on the surface, the Chigoe below nourishes itself by gorging on the blood within. Its small and simple anatomy belies a moderately complex intelligence capable of counting, as well as facial recognition. Such cognitive faculties lent themselves to the Chigoe's commercially-exploited ability to entertain and warm the hearts of war-weary troops. To this end, troves of the species, being cheap and abundant, were imported from their indigenous lands to populate the traveling circuses of the day.

Edit:

Vol. 1 (SE Link)
Vol. 1 (BG Discussion)

[LD]

Be nice if we could use this to figure out how to enlist Azima.

I suspect there are connections between Choh Moui, her mother, and the bastokan blight. This "Dhampir Mithra" could easily be one or both of them...

[Gilthas]

I haven't talked to Azima in the present for years but I'm guessing that people no longer fear her for being the Wicked Witch of the West?

[LD]

What really confuses me is the article saying the Bastokan Blight comes after the war, when it came at least 50 years earlier.

[EdgeMoragan]

I think it was mentioned elsewhere or something that smaller outbreaks have occurred outside that major one?

[LD]

No, because This clearly states a cure was developed after the original plague. Now, what IS possible is that this older sickness, which has no cure, is being brough back and that blurb is merely speaking of its initial discovery, which might have been before the Bastokan Blight. However, I can't see this as being true when they cite the sickness' attack on Jeuno during the war and saying it was a prelude to the Bastokan Blight. I suppose it could mean the Bastokan Blight hit Jeuno without affecting Bastok (that actually makes the most sense, it's just a name, afterall) and with supply routes being so unreliable, a steady supply of a bastokan-made cure would be nearly impossible (then totally resolving it at the end of the war.)

[Elmer the Pointy]

I don't know who wrote that about the Three-Dawn Plague, but they obviously took liberties with the translation without knowing any background history about Vana'diel. They may also be mildly retarded.

The original Japanese says nothing about "baffling Alchemists" who tried to cure it, which is the first source of confusion. They most likely just added that as flavor text to accentuate how it affected all races, whereas the Bastokan Blight only affected Hume.

Also, the last line implies the Three-Dawn Plague created a situation reminiscent of the early stages of the Bastokan Blight. People dying randomly, strange blotches, high fevers, etc. At face value, the passage is just noting the eerie similarity and that perhaps this would herald a second Blight. However, I think when reading between the lines, something was inferred incorrectly due to a lack of context, i.e. historical knowledge.

[Toth]

Judging from the past teasers and write-ups, it does appear whoever is writing these passages now is not schooled well in proper English use. I'm guessing that thy are being written by someone who's first language is not English. That certainly explains the inconsistencies.

[Xanthe]

Judging from the past teasers and write-ups, it does appear whoever is writing these passages now is not schooled well in proper English use. I'm guessing that thy are being written by someone who's first language is not English. That certainly explains the inconsistencies.

That's what they get for not hiring Elmer.

Judging by the Choh Moui passage, it sounds like they are subtly telling us that the new pet foods will be released this update.

[Lordwafik]

Judging from the past teasers and write-ups, it does appear whoever is writing these passages now is not schooled well in proper English use. I'm guessing that thy are being written by someone who's first language is not English. That certainly explains the inconsistencies.

That's what they get for not hiring Elmer.

Judging by the Choh Moui passage, it sounds like they are subtly telling us that the new pet foods will be released this update.

They're also telling us that the only way to start charming Vermin is to become imprisoned.


Ok guys, time to start MPK'ing, KS'ing, Swearing at every GM untill I can charm vermin in Mordion Gaol.

[Toth]

I almost thought that these three figures could be connected to means to obtain relic armor for the ToAU jobs. But no

[Dohorehn]

why did they get rid of the Vanadiel Tribune, if they're still going to be giving history lessons like this.

I actually read it; I'm sure some others may have as well.

[Xanthe]

I think the tribune was a regular publication whereas they can put stuff out like this as often or infrequently as they like.

[Tajin]

IThey may also be mildly retarded.

Thanks :elmer: this made my morning, who needs breakfast when you have BG. :D

[solsovly]

Choh Moui, Venomous Verminess

Choh Moui (837 - )
the most accomplished tamer of insects that Vana'diel has ever known, capable of bending everything from antlions to wamouracampa to heel at her side in submission.

accompanied by her characteristic Chigoes (*3), allegedly to gather the blood of soldiers for some sinister aim of perverted science.

God, I hate SE.

Arn't those Roc pets cool?
Solsovly uses Charm.
The Roc receives the effect of bind.
Solsovly uses Charm.
The Chigoe receives the effect of bind.
Solsovly uses Charm.
The wamouracampa receives the effect of bind.
Solsovly uses Charm.
The Gnat receives the effect of bind (you die)
Solsovly uses Charm.
The Gnoll receives the effect of bind.
Solsovly uses Charm.
The Frog (A FROG) receives the effect of bind.

/sigh

[Indalecia]

Choh Moui, Venomous Verminess

Choh Moui (837 - )
the most accomplished tamer of insects that Vana'diel has ever known, capable of bending everything from antlions to wamouracampa to heel at her side in submission.

accompanied by her characteristic Chigoes (*3), allegedly to gather the blood of soldiers for some sinister aim of perverted science.

God, I hate SE.

Arn't those Roc pets cool?
Solsovly uses Charm.
The Roc receives the effect of bind.
Solsovly uses Charm.
The Chigoe receives the effect of bind.
Solsovly uses Charm.
The wamouracampa receives the effect of bind.
Solsovly uses Charm.
The Gnat receives the effect of bind (you die)
Solsovly uses Charm.
The Gnoll receives the effect of bind.
Solsovly uses Charm.
The Frog (A FROG) receives the effect of bind.

/sigh

BST uses charm in Sea.
HAHA NOOB, YOU DIE NAOW!

[Septimus]

Judging from the past teasers and write-ups, it does appear whoever is writing these passages now is not schooled well in proper English use. I'm guessing that thy are being written by someone who's first language is not English. That certainly explains the inconsistencies.

That's what they get for not hiring Elmer.

Let us repeat this so that the SE Representative may read it.

Most of our knowledge of this game's back history has come from Elmer.

???? :elmer:

[Kyreth]

Let us repeat this so that the SE Representative may read it.

Most of our knowledge of this game's back history has come from Elmer.

???? :elmer:

Let us also note that Elmer is currently in Japan, teaching people English, and VERY EASY TO CALL IN FOR AN INTERVIEW (hint hint).

[Priran]

wasn't it already established in the tribune long ago that Azima never fought in the war?

[LD]

I dunno, was it?