Belah’dian Knight
Taxonomy: Ashkin (Damned)
Description: Presumably once the elite warriors and perhaps aristocratic scions of Belah’dia, these unliving remnants walked once more in order to defend the temple they were buried within. This may have been intentional as an attempt to defend the temple, or a result of the bloody wars that saw the end of Belah’dia, as catastrophe and tragedy can bring corpses back to life without direct intervention. Perhaps these warriors represent a martial tradition that the founders of Ul’dah would go on to draw from in their creation of the Sultansworn.
Capabilities: The Belah’dian knights were able to ‘ossify’ their crumbling bodies in order to strengthen their physical forms.
Belah’dian Soul
Taxonomy: Ashkin (Ghost)
Description: Despite folklore to the contrary, ghosts are actually fully corporeal creatures, solid to the touch. They are typically said to be bound to the mortal world due to an unfinished purpose of some form. These creatures were likely once citizens or soldiers of Belah’dia who linger due to some traumatic experience in their death, possibly the civil wars of Belah’dia, or perhaps they were those who were put to death in Qarn’s holy trials, and may yet persist due to some intentional curse as part of their sentence.
Death Sickle
Taxonomy: Vilekin (Mantis)
Description: Immigrants to Eorzea, the greater mantis actually arrived on the continent at the same time as this author’s ancestors. Lalafellin voyagers landed on Vylbrand, carrying the mantis with them unintentionally via egg sacs attached to their boats when they were still reeds yet to be woven into ship hulls. These mantis likely found their way to Qarn after its abandonment.
Capabilities: The characteristic blow of the mantis is commonly referred to as the ‘standing chine’ in reference to the butchers’ technique known as the chine, slicing meat across the backbone.
Cracked Qarn Facer
Taxonomy: Soulkin (Qarn Facer)
Description: It was common practice for Belah’dian nobility to lay their tombs thick with traps, in order to prevent grave robbers from pilfering their various mortal treasures, and even their own corpses for use as folk remedies. Facers are magically automated golems which strike at those who disturb their resting places, and can apparently be deactivated by specific vocalizations.
Capabilities: The facers are capable of emitting waves of umbrally polarised aether in the form of ‘darkness’ which damages the target, likely imbued within them by the mages of the Sultanate.
Temple Fox
Taxonomy: Cloudkin (Bat)
Description: Bats reside within the dark places of the world, roosting in caves and other secluded locales. It is common knowledge that they are nocturnal creatures, but more dedicated research by the scholars of the realm has uncovered that they are capable of feats of extremely keen hearing and a technique called echolocation. Although most bats feed on insects and fruit, folklore has long held that some of them instead feed on blood. These specimens have obviously made their roost in ruins of the temple.
Capabilities: Much to the chagrin of this author, it was discovered by the research team that these particular bats are fully capable of the blood-draining abilities ascribed to them by folklore.
Etymology Notes: A number of bat species incorporate ‘fox’ into their name, most famously the flying fox.
Camptotaur
Taxonomy: Voidsent (Taurus)
Description: Seventh rank voidsent within the voidal hierarchy, taurus are mostly notable for being a favorite of voidsent summoners throughout history. Slain livestock have been popular sacrifices for as long as history can recall, and taurus prefer such sacraments as their hosts on the Source, creating an easy coincidence where such rituals will commonly bring forth taurus voidsent. This creature was likely summoned in just such a ritual, perhaps unwittingly devoted to Azeyma and bound here as a guardian.
Capabilities: The Camptotaur was capable of releasing a rapid array of claw-blows upon a target, in a move named ‘triclip’ by those who faced it.
Etymology Notes: The camptotaur is named for a real life dinosaur, the camptosaurus. This creatures name apparently meant ‘flexible lizard’. I suspect it is named this only because almost every Taurus in the game is named after some kind of carnivorous dinosaur.
Damaged Adjudicator ☠
Taxonomy: Soulkin (Qarn Guardian)
Description: Masterpieces of Belah’dian mages each, these constructs are most interesting for the clear ties they hold to the sublimely-crafted soulkin of the Amdapori despite Belah’dia’s origins with Mhach. This may imply some joining between the peoples of the city states in the Calamity of Water, or some form of lessons learned after the war by the survivors of Mhach. Regardless, it served as the judge and executioner of those who went before the trials of Qarn.
Capabilities: This particular adjudicator seems to be able to manipulate the sands of Thanalan, including summoning large orbs of sand that unleash huge shockwaves, nicknamed ‘dust to dust’ by those who faced the adjudicator in combat, likely in homage to the deadliness of this threat. It was also capable of agitating the sand of the room it stood in causing them to become ‘shifting sands’ akin to quicksand. More simply, it was able to ‘sandblast’ its foes.
Ruins Crawler
Taxonomy: Vilekin (Yarzon)
Description: Dreadful predators, yarzon are cunning creatures that seek to immobilize their prey by spraying their joints with corrosive material before sucking their brain out via long, hollow fangs. They are a remarkably adaptable species capable of living almost anywhere, which explains why they can reside in deserts such as Qarn.
Temple Mite
Taxonomy: Vilekin (Diremite)
Description: Creatures with a strict social hierarchy not unlike an ant, diremites live in nomadic colonies that devour all the food in an area and then move on. There were only members of the middling rank of the diremite species, simply called diremites, who are the soldiers that act as guards to the colony, found in Qarn. Presumably, however, other variants could be found in the tunnels and caves further beneath or around the temple.
Desert Viper
Taxonomy: Scalekin (Cobra)
Description: Enormous creatures, cobras such as these were originally native to Othard before coming to Eorzea as part of trade. Some scholars do suggest a different origin however, that of the Allagan Empire’s fearsome chimerical experiments.
The Sabotenders ☠
Taxonomy: Seedkin (Cactuar)
Description: Cactuar are desert-survival specialists, capable of weathering brutal heat and prolonged absence of water. They are also entirely capable of defending themselves against foes, launching their needle barrages, often a little indiscriminately. These odd seedkin often live in complex, multi-caste communities. The most senior sabotender present within the temple was an ’emperatriz’, presumably the ruler of the Qarn community. Alongside this pseudo-monarch were ‘campeadors’, warriors of the emperatriz, ‘guardia’, the personal bodyguards of the emperatriz and ‘soldado’, her footmen.
Capabilities: These creatures were quite capable of using variants of their species’ signature ability, showering their immediate area with needles. In the case of the emperatriz this consists of such elevated amounts as ‘3,000’ and ‘100,000’ needles.
Etymology Notes: The term sabotender is a composite of saboten, japanese for cactus, and the word pretender. The word emperatriz is Spanish for empress while campeador means champion, guardia means guard and soldado means soldier.
The Tomb Raiders
Taxonomy: Spoken (Roegadyn, Elezen)
Description: These are the unsanctioned explorers and looters who so selfishly entered Qarn before it was made safe, trapping themselves and the scholars who were supposed to be here. The leader of the party was referred to as ‘traveled’ in records of him, clearly signifying he has had experience exploring much of the rest of Aldenard’s deeper bounds.
Temple Mummy
Taxonomy: Ashkin (Wight)
Description: Ritual mummification has been a relatively common phenomena across Eorzean history, and some cultures have extended this to imbuing their mummies with dark magics that allow the dead to rise in defence of their own tombs.
Qarn Guardian
Taxonomy: Soulkin (Golem)
Description: Golems are beings of stone animated by magic, with rumors suggesting that they may be easier to animate in the path of a calamity, although any real research will demonstrate that this is not the only time they are possible to create.
Capabilities: This golem was capable of unleashing great waves of force and shards of earth through a ‘boulder clap’.
The Viceregent to the Warden ☠
Taxonomy: Soulkin (Viceregent to the Warden)
Description: The foremost guardian of Qarn, the Vicegerent was one of the later stage creations of Belah’dia after they had refined the process of soulkin creation greatly. The blades that the Vicegerent wields are apparently Belah’dian executioner blades, though surely upsized for this purpose. A Vicegerent is the representative of a god’s power on the mortal plane, although it can also be used as a title for mundane regents. Azeyma is titled the warden, and of course this creature must then be the Belah’dian’s chosen avatar of their god.
Capabilities: The predominant abilities of the Viceregent involved summoning, controlling and turning its foes into mummies. This may mean that the reanimated corpses found throughout the temple were corrupted by this very construct. This could have been a punishment or an honor, but finding out which would require more knowledge on Belah’dian customs. It was also able to unleash a ‘flurry of rage’ in which it relentlessly slashed towards a foe with its cursed blades, able to further progress a being towards mummification. An additional technique was unleashing the ‘Light of Anathema’, presumably named for its cursed nature. This involved imbuing the Viceregent’s blades with dark power and slashing it outwards.
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