Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood - #63 - Black Rose

[@scottstuddert9178]

17:23 "bad weather we're having" says the Hitchhiker's Guide-style Rain God of Eorzea.

[@ICountFrom0]

The rainclouds only knew that they had to follow.

[@Merusdraconis]

one of my favourite tropes is when the C-plot takes over the A-plot, and the video game equivalent is when minor side quest things that seemed to be there because of Content turn out to be extremely relevant. I love the feeling of a story that has momentum you don't expect. (My favourite ever example: Warframe, and specifically how the big reveal, the Second Dream, is foreshadowed)

[@jedimasterpickle3]

Can you elaborate on that? It's been a long time since the Second Dream, and I can't really remember much happening in Warframe's story before that point. What foreshadowed the reveal? Only thing I can think of is Ordis referring to the player as "Operator".

[@forcesinbalance5685]

At 6:53, Molkoh addresses the anomalous presence of Garlean soldiers when you do the quest late: "Still, I find this quite curious. The Garleans were said to have retreated from this area. What were they doing here?" If you do this sidequest earlier in the MSQ (when it first becomes available, for example) she instead says, "Still, I find this quite curious. By all rights the Garleans should be too busy contending with the Resistance to waste time in a place like this. What were they doing here?" If Ala Mhigo has already been liberated, the implication seems to be that the Imperials are on a clandestine mission into liberated territory to pursue their escapee.

[@sinom]

This quest chain is also required to unlock the ananta daily tribe quests (the snake women). They are pretty fun and actually change some things about that region if you do them, so to anyone playing the game themselves I'd recommend doing them

[@chan742]

Playfriends, it's time for sidequests! This is your spoiler free lore comment! As Dan says, this story line is one of the requirements to unlock flight in The Fringes. But it's also part of the unlock quests for the Velodyna Gatekeepers! The Velodyna Gatekeepers are a resistance team which now hold Castellum Velodyna, which bridges the two halves of The Fringes. They are one of the combat job tribes that players can grind out reputation with. The Gatekeepers are lead by Alpa, an Ananta and daughter of the Vira Broodmother. Commanding the Velodyna Gatekeepers is Alpa's first leadership position and she's unused to associating with the diverse traders which cross the Velodyna River and stop at their post for inspection. Fortunately, her trusty second in command J'olhmyn is a bit more worldly, and helps her out with tips. As with all side quests, this chain occurs at the time when it's first unlocked. As the quests indicate, they're designed for level 61, which would place it around the time that Zenos leads the attack on Rhalgr's Reach and the Scions are forced to refocus their efforts to the Far East. 19:00 - You got chemical warfare in my fantasy JRPG! Black Rose is a horror which would allow the Garleans to wipe out entire cities. So horrible that Gaius van Baelsar objected to it. And unfortunately, it's not the only alchemical weapon in the game. If you recall from Dan and JoCat's adventures, Ul'Dah used Trader's Spurn to destroy their rival city state Sil'dih, turning the residents into zombies. 23:45 - The location of the canister that Durmin discovers is somewhat important. That vast tree is instrumental to the local ecosystem, and its roots grow deep. Deep enough that it picks up all kinds of nutrients and minerals. And maybe some toxins too... And that wraps up this little questline! The unlock for the Velodyna Gatekeepers continues at the M Tribe's settlement, where the Nuhn will ask you to help train one of the young men of the tribe, M'zhet Tia. M'zhet has challenged the Nuhn (M'naago's father) for his position several times, and been trounced in each attempt. M'zhet is the son of a previous Nuhn, and feels he has something to prove. The M Tribe's numbers had shrunk due to the Mad King's tyranny and the Garlean invasion. It was decided that it could no longer justify having two Nuhns, and M'zhet's father chose to leave the tribe. M'zhet seeks to bring glory back to his line's name. The problem is that he's incredibly inept. The quintessential disaster catboy. But M'naago's dad sees something in him, so it's up you to get him on the true path towards being a great warrior. Next time: Uh, maybe some MSQ?

[@TheIvoryDingo]

M'zhet is also the victim of a BUNCH of grenades thrown by players during said quests. Don't worry, he asked the players to do it so he could toughen up and he made sure to remove enough gunpowder so it wouldn't do too much damage...

[@chan742]

@@TheIvoryDingo "I've removed most of the gunpowder from this one! I think?"

[@cainprescott4937]

If SYNTHETIK has taught me anything, it's that sometimes grenades without explosives are deadlier than live ones...

[@LarkyLuna]

Didn't expect Durmin to actually do this quest I pointed it out in a comment ages ago that it was some extra activities people who were into the story of the Garleans should do or something xD This questline continues into the unlocking of the snek ladies daily grind quests, but you just find another vial of blackrose and dispose of it, I think? The Garlemald part of it is done done (the snek tribe is one of the fun ones tho. you get long nails you can paint and that charmed emote from the Lakshimi fight)

[@JoyceW-Art]

I can only imagine what kind of significance Black Rose will have in the future, but it can't be anything good... It's nice that these side-quests are on the shorter side, that was lovely!

[@KumaKaori]

2:38. Uhhh "Have you not heard me called: Warrior of Light, or Eikon's Bane?. ;; no you wouldn't hear the last one, only the empire calls me that." ^^;.

[@TheIvoryDingo]

If anyone is thinking of trying out FFXIV from this playthrough, I would generally recommend doing any sidequests that feature an image, as those tend to be the quests that have more interesting stories amongst the regular sidequests.

[@fourcatsandagarden]

This side quest had me stop cold. Like, it does make sense in terms of the world and story and yet it still felt like too dark a story to include based purely off of what I'm used to encountering in non-rated-R media. (Imagine my surprise later on.)

[@samuelturner6076]

This was a good lil quest chain, its nice when we get to see content outside the MSQ

[@thunderthebright8469]

There's an epilogue to this questline, unlocked though doing another optional quest involving a dispute between the chief of the M tribe and a younger member. After solving this dispute, you the youngin' decides to do some adventures nearby. That's how you encounter him again, as he aids you when some Ananta ambush you. Turns out, these Ananta have some live samples of Black Rose. It seems that the research isn't as lost as we hoped.

[@fourcatsandagarden]

Doesn't it also tie in with the Ananta tribe quests? (Tho I don't think black rose itself came up again there.)

[@thunderthebright8469]

@fourcatsandagarden completion of this epilogue unlocks the Ananta tribe intro quests. I haven't dabbled too much there, I stumbled upon it by accident

[@the6ofdiamonds]

Garlean mustard gas potentially being significant in future is... interesting.

[@Law-gnome]

Until just this moment, I would have sworn that this was a white mage quest. I'm guessing that I did this quest concurrently with the white mage class quest in the same area and put them together in my mind. That said, I'm glad you did this one. This is a very good side quest to show, for reasons you alluded to.

[@Einswerz]

I was sure it was a bard or dragoon quest. So we were probably doing similar things on different jobs.

[@sinom]

​@@Einswerziirc dragoon only has a single quest in gyr abania and it's one where you are searching for a dragon's mother so you go to a monk temple there. White mage's quest line does take place around there to a significant extent tho and so does the bard quest. The bard quest is about chasing a tome that has some dirt on historical heroes though and the white mage quest is about a hidden away padjali kid whose mother wants to protect her from the great wood. So both don't really go anywhere in that direction

[@MrWooaa]

Came back to this after finishing the quest "a prelude in violet" to jog my memory .

[@wavesofbabies]

It's absolutely ridiculous that this isn't in the MSQ... For no particular reason at all. Even though most people will be doing this for the aether current (which is needed to unlock flying in the zone)

[@mattkuhn6634]

It’s at least tagged as a blue quest, even after the aether current.

[@jedimasterpickle3]

It's not really necessary information imo. It's some helpful backstory and adds context to MSQ, but I don't think you're really missing anything by skipping it.

[@ICountFrom0]

Ah, Black Rose. If this was another game, that would be in bold and end up in a discussion menue...

[@CHBina]

YAY NEW VIDEO! :D this is such an interesting side-quest! I'm glad Durmin went through it 👍

[@wavesofbabies]

25:53 Interesting to see how they handle another case of a broken person with no memories of their past who has done great evil in comparison to how it's handled with Tsuyu. I guess both instances are "let the government decide", but here, even if it's just the opinion of two army officials, we as the player are led to believe that he would be punished severely, while Tsuyu was to live in Doma in peace... It really does feel like parts of this expansion were written by different people...

[@timothystamm3200]

Keep in mind that this quest came out before Yotsuyu and I suspect they might have been criticized for it. Hell, the quest itself suggests that someone got a hold of Guillermais's work nabbing it off of him while he was on the run and maybe even messed with his head. So the fact that he has no knowledge of what he did, and it might be better to use him as an intelligence asset by seeing what he remembers of where he put it seem to make the punishment first route look stupid besides of dubious morality. Punishing him in a manner that might kill him seems counter to both justice because at least until his memory is back he (a) can't understand why you think he did it and thus learn or feel any remorse (b) he might not understand he is even Guillermais and thus how can you punish him. You need to wait until his memory is back to try him, and again, before that, he's a good source of military intelligence, so at least get that first.

[@mattkuhn6634]

I think the distinction is that, for all her cruelty, Yotsuyu was also a victim of oppression, and they spend a lot of time setting that up. This guy gets no such treatment, and given his position he probably had a good deal of privilege until Gaius put the kibosh on his experiments. It is certainly interesting to consider whether that alone should make that much of a difference, but they aren’t identical.

[@TheIvoryDingo]

Meanwhile, this quest is part of why I personally disagreed with how Yotsuyu was handled in the patch MSQ.

[@wavesofbabies]

@@timothystamm3200 A big problem with the whole "lost their memory" trope in fiction is that you never know how it works. In real life, amnesia is permanent. But in fiction it could be anything from permanent to need to bonk someone on the head to make them remember. So you can't make policy based on "when" he gets his memories back because you expect him to never get them back. But if he does, keep him close to the vest so you can get the Intel out of him. Basically exactly what they did with Tsuyu.

[@wavesofbabies]

@@TheIvoryDingo I think that's rather lacking in empathy.

[@sirB0nes]

I like Dan adding "I think" still in the character's voice when attempting to pronounce Grillairmais (which, I'm going to guess, probably sounds something like "GREE-ar-MAY").

[@Caterfree10]

Damn, I had completely forgotten this questline was a thing. Granted, at this point, I was still doing every side quest I could right away instead of saving them for alternate jobs (this would change later in Stormblood but I would still level cap my main job in Shadowbringers oops), but yeah.

[@Fralexion]

Interesting that in this case, the cast seems likely to decide that having no memory of your crimes doesn't protect you from facing justice for them, whereas in the main story that was the main reason they didn't execute Tsuyu.

[@spwharp]

Ah yes, the key element of every FF game-- *chemical warfare*. This sure as hell caught me by surprise.

[@Wanderingsage7]

The more we learn of Garlemald, the less it seems like Gaius fit.

[@ringlhach]

Black Rose is a particularly nasty thing, even for a chemical weapon. Vague spoilers below. This particular sidequest chain has ramifications two xpacs down the line. Well, more like one and a bit, but still.

[@El_Rey_247]

Hi there. This is unrelated to the video, but Joseph Anderson uploaded a "critique of Lies of P" recently. He put special emphasis that although he lacked the language to discuss the animations, he believes that they may be some of the best in the business, and he wished someone with expertise would do an analysis. Figured I'd bring it to your attention.

[@matthiasl.6551]

If this quest is required to unlock flight in the fringes, how come Dan is already flying in the video? Is he playing on New game+ (I forget if that's what it's called, I mean the game mode where you can replay old story content)?

[@meej33]

Very disappointing news regarding JoCat. That's why we can't have nice things - or people.

[@natoriousthehopeful2786]

Hey there everyone, how was your weekend?

[@Caterfree10]

ALL JOBS IN XIV GOT MAXED OUT BABYYYYYYY!! I am so thrilled to have that marathon done until Summer lmao. And in the meantime, I’m finally going to finish games like FFXV, FFXVI, and get to the Pokémon SV DLC already (still need to play Teal Mask and that needs to be completed before I can touch Indigo Disk oops). After that, I’m snagging some indies I’ve been putting off. /o/

[@natoriousthehopeful2786]

@@Caterfree10 CONGRATULATIONS (he said in the Smash Announcer voice)🎉💯✊🤩 But real talk: I am happy for you homie😎 What indies are you snagging?

[@Caterfree10]

⁠@@natoriousthehopeful2786thank you muchly! There are a bunch in my Steam account I’ve been neglecting and I might hit up Hiveswap bc I do want to catch up on that. There are also others like Sea of Stars and The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood that have caught my attention as well as some featured on PlayFrame like Unpacking that I want to snag too. Here’s hoping I can get as much of this done before Rebirth drops in February! 🤞[returns to “Genesis will be in Rebirth” prayer circle”]

[@AdeonHawkwood]

I'll admit I'm always skeptical when an authority figure in a video game says "we'll make sure to destroy all records of the horrible WMD that you found". I always assume that they're going to instead try to study it for their own use.

[@schickerkeks3734]

Hello I'm new in this game can I play the story in koop with my friend?

[@camigeorge3487]

More or less, as a mmo so long as you’re both on the same world you can run around doing everything separately but simultaneously but you can help each other out.