We are defined not by our beliefs,
but by the lengths we will go to defend them.
—Moonlight Esuna


... wait, like the spell?

Author.

 Home Server:  NA, Crystal, Goblin
 Lodestone:  link
 Timezone:  UTC+0, evening/night
 RP preference:  In-game; walk-up RP welcome; SFW
  Clinic address:  Empyreum, Ward 23, Plot 10 (Esuna Physick)
  Apartment address:  Empyreum, Ward 23, Apartment 47So, I don't really... play any more. My sub ran out and I went through a bunch of life stuff and it was a whole THING and now I'm hanging in there and slowly dying. Maybe I'll come back! Contact email still works. If you're reading this, remember me fondly. <3 About the Author: Hi! I'm E (they/she), Moonlight's writer. I've been roleplaying for over a decade now, but I'm very new to FFXIV (31 May 2024). I'm a very private person OOC, but I love roleplaying and meeting new characters! If you see me in-game, feel free to walk up in-character! Note that much of it might not be 'canon' beyond that encounter (Moonlight won't be canonically doing FATEs on the First, for example).My prime hours are typically 18:00 to 06:00 UTC+0, though I'm notoriously hard to pin down. If you'd like to set something up, reaching out to me in-game is your best option; alternatively, send a (polite) email to [email protected] or leave a message in my clinic guestbook.If you're new to RP, just let me know and I'll gladly accommodate you (and provide tips, if requested); similarly, if English isn't your native language, that's entirely alright! I'll match whatever you give me.

 Literacy:  I'm a native English speaker, and I like to think my literacy skills are capable enough; that being said, I do tire out very easily when writing long (multi-paragraph) 1x1 roleplay. I tend to mirror other writers in length, so if you want consistent results from me, try and aim for a a maximum of a paragraph and I'll do the same. Preferences:  I have a preference towards in-game roleplay with a focus on fantasy - more 'tavern' than 'nightclub'. I like to keep my roleplay accessible for all ages; mature themes and suggestive references are fine, but I won't do erotic roleplay, graphic torture, or anything involving sexual assault. I also don't do romance plots, no matter how cute your character is; you're free to flirt with Moonlight (and she'll respond in varying ways!), but don't expect it to go anywhere, please. Power level:  Moonlight is a skilled healer and a member of the Arcanist's Guild in good standing, but she's no Scion of the Seventh Dawn. The first thing most people think of when they hear Esuna is the spell, not the Viera. Though her research into Allagan technology is promising, she hasn't made any notable contributions or discoveries within the field yet.
Similarly, Moonlight's magical power is sufficient to protect a small group of people and win a duel against an untrained opponent, but not change the tide of a battle or defeat a powerful combatant.

Weird Moonlight Facts.

  • Moonlight has a perfectly normal fascination with carbuncles, and several pieces of carbuncle-themed furniture in her apartment. Her own carby, Flicker, finds this a little weird but doesn't say anything.

  • Moonlight doesn't believe in Astromancy, and remains firmly convinced that Astromancers are just Geomancers with extra steps. That's because she's lived in an isolated village for most of her life.

  • Moonlight's favorite flavor is sugar. 'Sugar isn't a flavor', you might say, to which she won't reply, because her mouth is full of candy. She brews her tea with an extra-special blend of "95% sugary milk, 5% tea".

  • Moonlight likes to think of herself as a refined and dignified rabbit. As such, despite being surprisingly good at Triple Triad, she detests the Gold Saucer and their bunny-outfit attendants, and refuses to enter.

  • Moonlight is an awful pun enthusiast. Speaking a bad pun in her presence will inevitably cause her to respond in kind several times over, to the collective despair of everyone else in the room.

  • Moonlight was recently adopted by the Ishgardian House Vimaroix, who helped her set up her own clinic. Their fervent devotion to Halone is rubbing off on her a little, as much as she hates to admit it.

Character Info.

  • city name: Moonlight Esuna

  • forest name: Eir Kaldbaek

  • species: Veena clan Viera

  • nameday (age): 29 / 05 / 1464 (113)
    In Hyur years... about 30-something?

  • pronouns: she/her

  • orientation: aromantic, asexual

  • profession: physician, researcher

  • origin: Kaldbaek village, Skatay Range

  • residence: Topmast, Limsa Lominsa

  • visual identifiers: dark red hair, reading glasses, emerald carbuncle earring

  • accent: Skatay / Dalmascan

  • demeanour: distinguished, professional, kind of a mess but she won't admit it

  • jobs: Scholar, Alchemist

  • skill proficiencies: medicine, arcana, perception, persuasion, insight, history

  • tool proficiencies: alchemist's supplies, herbalism kit, string instruments

  • aether strength: medium-high

  • aether specialization: arcanima, warding

Biography.

-

It all started a hundred and thirteen years ago, in a small village at the foot of the Skatay Mountains, not far from Dalmasca. Well, to be specific, it started a hundred and thirteen years and nine moons ago, when the village healer had a tryst with a Wood-warder, but we're not going that far back.Moonlight Esuna (or as she was known back then, Eir Kaldbaek) had always had an affinity for knowledge; she took to alchemy like a bird takes to the skies, and her mother often jested that she was born not with a silver spoon in her mouth, but a quill-pen. It is little wonder, then, that Moonlight followed in her mother's footsteps to become the village healer. When a passing Moogle merchant sold her a tome of magical geometries, Moonlight even took the first steps on her path to becoming a true Scholar in summoning her carbuncle familiar, Flicker. By day, she healed the sick, and by night, she studied arcanima, and all was well in Kaldbaek, for a time; the village saw the occasional skirmish with B'nargin scouts, but for the most part, life was quiet, peaceful, still. And then the Empire happened.The IVth Imperial Legion swept through the Skatay Range like a tempest, ceruleum-powered war machineslevelling forests and villages and snapping twigs and bones in equal measure. The Veena villages could not even be described as roadblocks to the Imperial onslaught; many of them were little more than footnotes in the firing logs of artillerists, and every day, Moonlight saw firsthand the cruelty of war, the inhumanity of the Garlean Empire. And she looked to her village, and asked them what they would do; how they would resist this occupation-- no, annihilation. They had no plan. It was a war of survival, and yet, her kin planned to sit there with their ears in the snow and wait? To try and parley with an implacable, irredeemable foe? Or worse, to join forces with the murderous bastards, to abandon every shred of dignity and honor in favor of a few more moons in a gilded cage?No. Better to die for something than die for nothing. And so Moonlight swore to herself an oath: she would find a way to protect her people, and defeat the Garlean Empire. She would see their cities burned to ash and the invaders and collaborators tossed onto the pyre, that their fortresses might be reclaimed by the very forests they destroyed to build them. A solution existed, somewhere, and she would not- could not- return until it was found. That solution, Moonlight was sure, lied in the secrets of Allag. She had read of their fantastical power, their magical artifice beyond compare, and though no blade or bow could stand against an Imperial vanguard machina, even the might of Garlemald would fall to an Allagan weapon.And so though Moonlight had little love for the Dalmascans, it was to Rabanastre that she made haste, aiding the defenders for just six moons before the craven B'nargin dynasty cracked and opened the city wide for their oppressors. And then block by block, house by house, room by room, the city fell. Its people, though, would not be so easily cowed; and so at the behest of a Miqo'te firebrand named N'aiha, Moonlight spent the better part of the next twenty years within the walls of Rabanastre, aiding the resistance movement by day and burying herself in ancient Allagan research by night. She was no guerrilla fighter, no clandestine warfare specialist - but her expertise in healing and warding was invaluable, and she gladly supplied the field teams with the explosives, toxins, and fire-flasks they needed.It worked well, for a time. Too well, perhaps. When the Barheim Incident claimed the lives of scores of Imperial soldiers and collaborators, the IVth Legion swept through Dalmasca again, with Livia sas Junius at its head. They bothered not with such formalities as 'due process' and 'evidence' - anyone even remotely suspected of harboring resistance sympathies was executed without trial. Safehouses and hideaways were raided by Imperial special operations teams, and the bodies of Moonlight's comrades were left where they fell. And so the Empire closed their fist around Othard once more. For the next ten years, resistance cells were slowly identified and eliminated one by one..It was in early 1568 that Moonlight discovered the answer she had so desperately been searching for: an Allagan tomestone detailing the works of the artificer Amyntas, whose creations harnessed the power of the sun itself to destructive effect. A superweapon that could not only defeat Garlemald, but wipe it off the map entirely. Amyntas' work was one of the cornerstones of the technology behind the Crystal Tower; and so, where better place to start than Eorzea?Stowing away aboard a ship to Radz-at-Han was easy enough. The resistance movement had been enlisting the help of smugglers since the start of the occupation, and they were more than happy to accommodate her escape to Thavnair. It was there that she faced opposition: the city of Radz-at-Han had closed their gates to refugees and outsiders some years prior, citing their 'neutrality' (and yet, once Othard fell, would Thavnair not be next?). So Moonlight learned of a trade vessel bound for Eorzea, laden with fine silks and exotic spices for Ul'dahn nobility, and a group of enthusiastic privateers in the Kraken's Arms preparing to hijack the ship. She offered the pirates her services as a wielder of arcanima, and they readily accepted. Even after decades of covert resistance against Garlean rule, taking the vessel was her first true fight, and a bloody reassurance that Moonlight's place was in a study, not a battlefield.Upon reaching Ul'dah, Moonlight used her share of the spoils to secure passage to the Eorzean city of Limsa Lominsa, home of the Arcanist's Guild. It was there, she reasoned, that she had the best chance of finding like-minded scholars to aid her studies; if anywhere a breakthrough could be made, a weapon could be created, a solution could be found, it would be in Limsa Lominsa. The liberation of one city would not be enough, not when her village and so many more were under the yoke of Garlean tyranny. And so she fell into the same old routine as in Kaldbaek, as in Rabanastre: acting as a physician and healer by day, and diving into her Allagan studies by night, praying to find something that could turn the tide in the East, and save her people in Skatay.Kaldbaek had never taken the Word of the Wood too strictly. The 'rule' of exile was more like a guideline, if anything. And with the Empire crumbling, it would be trivial to return; and yet, Moonlight knows deep down she never can.There isn't anything left to return to.

Timeline.

  • 1464: On the 29th Sun of the Third Astral Moon, Moonlight Esuna was born.
    This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

  • 1477: Moonlight reaches maturity, and becomes her mother's assistant in Kaldbaek.

  • 1494: A Moogle merchant visits Kaldbaek and sells Moonlight a tome of arcanima.

  • 1505: After over a decade of attempts, Moonlight summons Flicker for the first time.

  • 1510: The first magitek engine is created in Garlemald, a variation of the steam engine using ceruleum as a fuel source. Over the next decade, the Republic of Garlemald becomes the most fearsome military force in Hydaelyn.

  • 1528: The Garlean Empire invades Othard, sending multi-legged magitek transports through the Burn and stumbling across aether-drained ancient ruins. Emperor Solus zos Galvus orders a withdrawal, and declares a war of annihilation against the beast-tribes and their summoned Eikons.

  • 1547, early: The IVth Imperial Legion, under the command of Noah van Gabranth, invades Othard again, this time using ceruleum-powered airships to bypass the Kingdom of Dalmasca's defenses. The Skatay Range becomes a battlefield and staging ground for Imperial forces overnight. Many Vieran tribes are either killed or forced to capitulate to the Empire.

  • 1547, mid: Moonlight leaves Kaldbaek for Rabanastre.

  • 1547, late: After a six-month siege on Nalbina Fortress, the Kingdom of Dalmasca issues an unconditional surrender. Rabanastre falls, and the Empire annexes Dalmasca. The resistance movement is formed.

  • 1548: Garlean attempts to eliminate resistance across Dalmasca continue. Moonlight acts as a physician and alchemist for her resistance cell.

  • 1552: The Empire annexes Doma.

  • 1557: The Empire annexes Ala Mhigo.

  • 1558: The Barheim Incident occurs in Dalmasca. Resistance fighters rise up and attack Imperial colonists; in response, the XIVth Legion deploys to Rabanastre under the command of Livia sas Junius. Rebel fighters are executed without trial.

  • 1562: The Eorzean campaign is suspended upon the completion of Baelsar's Wall. Garlemald turns its attention back East.

  • 1568, late: Moonlight discovers the works of Amyntas, the Allagan artificer responsible for the solar technology behind the Crystal Tower, and leaves for Radz-at-Han at once.

  • 1569, early: Moonlight meets a group of Limsan pirates at Radz-at-Han and joins them in capturing a trade vessel bound for Ul'dah.

  • 1569, late: Moonlight leaves Ul'dah for Limsa Lominsa.

  • 1570: Moonlight joins the Arcanist's Guild with a specialization in the medical applications of arcanima. Her interest in Allagan technology is known to those in the Guild, and her and Flicker become regular visitors to the libraries of Limsa Lominsa.

  • 1572 (Sixth Astral): The Seventh Umbral Calamity occurs. As a result of the Garlean Empire's 'Project Meteor', the lesser moon Dalamud breaks apart and releases the Dreadwyrm Bahamut. The Sixth Astral Era comes to a close, and the Seventh Umbral Era begins.


  • 1 (Seventh Umbral): In the wake of the Calamity, Admiral Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn offers housing to all those in Limsa Lominsa willing to help with the rebuilding efforts. Moonlight takes this offer, and becomes a permanent resident of the city.

  • 5 (Seventh Umbral): Events of A Realm Reborn.


  • 1 (Seventh Astral): Events of A Realm Awoken and all DLC. Current year.
    Note: due to FFXIV's timeline being a complete clusterfuck, the current year is still 1... even after every DLC. And it's also still the Seventh Umbral Era sometimes. And the Garlean Empire is gone, but also it's still there. And Othard is liberated now, except when it isn't. It's... it's complicated.
    Don't think too hard about it.

Hooks.

These are just a few suggestions on how you might meet Moonlight.
I'm more than happy to run with anything you come up with - surprise me!

  • Moonlight runs a small clinic within Limsa Lominsa, where she provides medical care (both magical and mundane) and alchemical concoctions to those in need. She could easily be convinced to accompany you on an expedition, if you need a field healer.

  • As a member of the Arcanist's Guild for roughly seven years now (and a further seventy years of experience), Moonlight is highly skilled in arcanima; she'd be more than happy to provide tutoring or discuss the finer points of aetheric geometries with a fellow intellectual.

  • Moonlight's fascination with Allagan technology is an open secret within Limsan academic circles; perhaps you're interested in her ideas, or have thoughts of your own you'd like to share... or perhaps you want to stop her before she does something terrible?

  • Though Moonlight swears up and down she's a refined rabbit, certain rumors suggest she's an associate of a dangerous 'ex-'pirate gang within Limsa. If you're looking to take them down, she'd make good leverage... or if you want to join them, Moonlight could get you in.

  • Moonlight has always been a Viera first and foremost, and her love for her people runs just as deep as her hatred for Garlemald. Perhaps you could find common ground with her on those fronts - or even challenge her views on things. She's quite spirited on the matter.

  • Though she spent much of her life in Othard, Moonlight came to Eorzea eight years ago now. It's entirely possible she's crossed paths with you before while doing field research or gathering reagents; do you remember her? What was the interaction like?

Commentary. (WIP)

This page contains Moonlight's own thoughts on various matters in her biography. Click the FFXIV symbol on the top bar to return.

[1] ... a small village at the foot of the Skatay Mountains...
"Kaldbaek. I remember it well, and not a day goes by I do not miss it with all my heart. There were maybe a dozen families there, mine included. When the winters grew cold, and cold they oft were, we would share our blankets and firewood and meat. We had no Aetheryte, so any travel would be done on chocobo-back. I rarely left the village myself; to do so was discouraged, even with our 'loose' interpretation of the Green Word."[2] ... the village healer...
"My mother was a phenomenal woman. Little magical talent, but her skill with herbalism and surgery was unmatched. She taught me everything I knew, and she knew more than could be taught in a dozen lifetimes. I was her only child, and I think in me she saw something of herself - we were always very close. When I told her I was leaving the village, she merely smiled and handed me a pack of supplies. I think she knew the path I would walk before even I did."[3] ... a Wood-warder...
"I never really knew my father. From time to time, he would visit the village to spirit away the boys, and he would wave to me and I to him, but we never spoke. I knew it was him, of course; we shared the same hair, the same eyes, and according to my mother, the same implacable spirit. In hindsight, I wish that I had introduced myself, even once. As a kit I was too afraid; I had yet to find my courage. And now, the chance has passed."[4] ... Moonlight Esuna...
"What's in a name? The reason I am Moonlight... well, it wasn't even my idea, really. N'aiha, a dear friend and companion within the resistance, she would call us 'our little Moonlight'- a reference to the hours I would stay awake, no doubt- and the name stuck. I could say it's symbolic. It is. But we're not going there today.""And 'Esuna'? That one's a lot less touching and a lot more amusing. When I arrived in Limsa Lominsa, I was asked for my name-- I told them, Moonlight. Then they asked for a last name, and I had prepared nothing. So I said the first thing that came to mind, the cantrip for curative healing: Esuna. And now every time someone new meets me, it's always 'wait, like the spell?'-- yes, like the spell."[5] ... Eir Kaldbaek...
"That's not me any more, not really; and I would ask you keep the name between us. It feels a disservice to my kin to speak it aloud, and I cannot quite place why: I think a part of me feels that, by leaving the village, I abandoned them to their fates. That I should have stayed and fought, and stained the snow with my blood. I lost my name when I lost my people."[6] ... followed in her mother's footsteps...
"I'm not sure I'd put it like that. She never made mistakes, not once-- me, though? I still remember the day I lost my first patient. It happens to every physician sooner or later, that sinking feeling when you realise they're too far gone-- but it was different for me. As much as I like to pretend otherwise, this was no 'we did our best'; this was very much, in all senses of the word, a mistake, and it cost the life of a dear friend.It was... the night of the fourteenth of Nophica, in Eorzean time. I was barely twenty-three, still deep in my studies; at that point in my life when I knew nothing, and thought I knew everything. My mother was out gathering herbs when it happened -- a beast had slipped past the Wood-warders and attacked one of the children of the village. A serious wound, though not an immediately fatal one; it could have waited for my mother to return, had we sent a messenger to retrieve her rather than entrust the child into my care.But I could do it, I thought. I had been the assistant since I was a fresh-faced kit- I was still a fresh-faced kit, of course, but who thinks like that in their youth?- and I knew the recipe for a simple, but powerful, restorative. Mistletoe and mushroom, the simplest of combinations. Well within my skill, and O, how proud mother would be if she returned to find the child healthy and well! So I made the draught.Now, any alchemist can tell you the visual similarities between the many mushrooms available in the Skatay Range. Some can even tell you the rhyme; if it's cream, eat the stem; if it's tan, flee at once. It... rhymes in Vieran. In short-- I used the wrong one. Coeurlsmane instead of gil-bun. In my haste, and my inexperience, I gave the child not a restorative elixir, but a blood-thinner. A foolish, entirely avoidable error, that cost the life of someone never truly given the chance to live.Their name was Áste Kaldbaek, and not a day goes by I do not think of them. Not a day goes by I do not double- and triple-check my reagents, or have that slightest hint of hesitation before picking up a scalpel, or think to myself on the necessity of a treatment. For we cannot change the past; merely learn from it. Anything less would be a disservice to Áste."[7] ... a passing Moogle merchant...
"Ah, Moogles - delightful little creatures, I find. A tribe of them lived in the forest near Kaldbaek, so the women of our village were always able to understand Mooglespeak to some extent. I was always rather fond of them, though I fear the feeling was never quite mutual; they had a tendency to avoid me after I said 'kupo' one too many times as a kit. The merchant, though, Mogra, they would stop by quite often to supply the village with rare goods from who-knows-where. Colored cloth, reagents, metals for the blacksmith, all sorts of miscellany; and never would Mogra ask for coin in exchange. It was always kupo nuts they wanted, which - to our benefit - were plentiful enough in the bushes of the southern Skatay. Never did I figure out why Mogra didn't just harvest the nuts themselves..."[8] ... a tome of magical geometries...
"My first introduction to arcanima - and oh, how I loved it! I had always had the spark of aether to me, more so than most, but never before had I learned how to harness it so. The tome was far too advanced for a beginner, and it took me nigh on a decade to even begin to understand the damned thing, but late at night I would stay up by candlelight reading theorems and tracing sigils and hoping that this time, I'd get it right. I'd never quite been able to pick up standard aetheric manipulation, conjuring and thaumaturgy and geomancy and such, but arcanima was different. It's logical, not emotional; you do not 'feel' an arcane ward, you think it. The inks in the grimoires act as conduits, shortcuts that allow for a mental Q.E.D of sorts to permit rapid casting; though of course, one must understand the theory before putting it into practice."[9] ... summoning her familiar, Flicker...
"It took me a decade to learn how to call upon Flicker - I had no tutoring in the art of arcanima, and my only source was a book designed for experts, that assumed the basics were already known. It had shortcuts for the shortcuts. But eventually, after one too many sleepless nights deciphering geometric glyphs, it began to make sense. When I first summoned Flicker, the link was hesitant, almost fading; I had successfully conjured a Carbuncle, but every few seconds, she would flicker in and out of existence, returning to the aether and rematerialising as I struggled to solidify the spell. Hence the name, 'Flicker'.""These days, of course, I can summon her even without a tome- I have committed the arcanima to memory, as many an arcanist has- but she kept the name. She can be a little irksome at times, but I love Flicker dearly; she has been my familiar for longer than most people have been alive, and with so many years comes a remarkably powerful and resilient connection. Incidentally, you're welcome to pet her, though I ask you be gentle; she doesn't bite."[10] ... occasional skirmish with B'nargin scouts...
"Oh, I held little love for the B'nargin Dynasty. They would send their scouts to try and expand into the Skatay Range quite frequently, and quite frequently we would push them back, for those were our lands, not theirs. They never quite escalated to war with Kaldbaek, though; I never quite saw the horrors that men could inflict until the Empire came. I know other villages were not as lucky as mine in that regard. And though they were undoubtedly never the friends of the Viera, the B'nargin were far from our greatest enemy once the Garleans arrived. It ceased to be a skirmish for territory, and soon began a desperate struggle for survival."[11] The IVth Imperial Legion...
"When most people think of the Empire, they think of the villainous schemes of the Seventh and Fourteenth, or the unmatched cruelty of the Twelfth. Not so was the Fourth- their domain was that of a callous, uncaring professionalism, a strict focus on objectives and results rather than grandeur or revelling in the kill. It would be noble, in a way, if their objectives had not been those of complete and utter control, and their results had not been the massacre of innocent peoples. But make no mistake: for all their honor, for all their professionalism, the Fourth were monsters to the last, and those who sided with them even more so."[12] ... ceruleum-powered war machines...
"In some parts of Eorzea, the cracked husks of Imperial Reapers and Vanguards are far from an unusual sight - but imagine what they must look to an isolated clan of Veena, or to the barely-trained militia of Dalmasca. These implacable juggernauts of foes, undeterred by bow or blade, clouding out the sun with black smoke, tearing people limb from limb with as much effort as one might need to dismember a child's doll. I never fought on the front, I never faced their wrath first-hand; my lot was merely to look upon the scores of bodies, stitch together those I could, and pray that no more would follow. Even today, I cannot tolerate the stench of ceruleum."