Limsa Lominsa

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Template:Infobox location "On the southern coast of the island of Vylbrand, under the shadow of ancient cliffs worn by the relentless onslaught of the Rhotano Sea, lies the marine city-state of Limsa Lominsa. Said to be blessed by the goddess of navigation, Llymlaen, the city is spread out over countless tiny islands, each connected by sturdy bridges of iron and wood construction, earning her the name the "Navigator's Veil" from traveling bards who have witnessed the city's beauty from afar.

Limsa Lominsa is a traditional thalassocracy, with power lying in the hands of the ruling party and its leader, the Admiral. Its economy is driven by shipbuilding, fishing, and blacksmithing, but the majority of wealth comes from the lucrative shipping industry.

To maintain the safety of its maritime routes, the city employs a formidable navy known as the Knights of the Barracuda. However, even in the waters nearby the city, pirate bands run rampant, reaving and pillaging." — Game Description

Limsa Lominsa (リムサ·ロミンサ , "Rimusa Rominsa") a maritime city-state located in the realm of Eorzea. Located on the southern coast of the island of Vylbrand, the city is built within and across steep, white rocks and reefs within Galadion Bay.

It is the largest and most famous port in the realm, and has a long history of nautical trade and piracy. Merchants from all over come to ply their wares in Limsa Lominsa, be they from across the Rhotano Sea on the continent of Aldenard or as distant as the New World to the west of the Three Great Continents.

Limsa Lominsa is one of three city-states in which new adventurers can arrive when they begin the game, should they choose arcanist or marauder as their starting class.

General Information

Flag and Motto

Limsa Lominsa Flag.png

Til Sea Swallows All

The obsidian longboat upon Limsa Lominsa's standard is a pirate ship, and hearkens back to the founders of the city: brutal Sea Wolf buccaneers, once the terror of the north seas. It should come as no surprise, then, that the crimson field represents the spilled blood of lost companions, and reflects the city-state's savage and gruesome history.[1]

Government

Lominsans choose their leader in the Trident, a competition held once every seven years. The strongest of pirate crews run this multi-pronged race, and whosoever crosses the finish line first becomes admiral, the head of the maritime city-state. Afforded sweeping powers over Limsa Lominsa, new admirals will often drastically alter existing policies—and with it, change the course of the city-state.[1]

A number of councilors, nominated personally by the admiral, oversee the everyday proceedings of the thalassocracy.[1]

Racial Distribution

Religion and Beliefs

As one might expect for a maritime city-state, Lominsans revere Llymlaen, watcher of the seas and goddess of navigation. True believers make pilgrimages to the mark of the Navigator before they set sail, and upon their safe return to port. The worship of Lymlaen has roots in a loose collection of local beliefs, however, and thus cannot be thought of as a formal religion. Indeed, the Navigator has no grand temples nor clergy to Her name in Limsa, save the odd bethel overlooking the endless seas. Instead, each man keeps his own faith within his home through prayer and humble ritual.[1]

Founded by men fleeing the rules of kings, Lominsans continue to see laws more as guidelines than actual rules. Whether pirate or fisherman, citizens generally feel less loyal to their city-state than to their immediate crew. This spirit of freedom ever drives Limsa forward, yet the selfsame wild abandon may appear brutish in the eyes of other Eorzean nations.[1]

Industries

Piracy

In the present day, piracy as such is forbidden. Privateering, on the other hand, is permitted, provided that the plunder be of Garlean origin.[1]

Fishing

Lominsan anglers come together in numerous loose associations of "pullers" and eke out their living by casting off the coastal cliffs and trawling the open seas.[1]

Shipbuilding

Whether they be crafting great warships or fishing skiffs, the shipwrights of Limsa Lominsa have no equals within the realm—as they themselves will proudly proclaim.[1]

Metalwork

The art of steel-making evolved alongside the shipbuilding industry and has profited much from Lominsan exchanges with the kobolds who are masters of metallurgy in their own right.[1]

Shipping

With their considerable knowledge of shipbuilding and seafaring, it was natural that a shipping industry should flourish in the city-state. Many and more are trading vessels that can be seen sailing in and out of port each day.[1]

Farming

A settlement initiative has made great strides in providing an honest livelihood for those retired from freebooting, who grow mainly oranges, grapes, and wheat.[1]

Diet

Naturally, Lominsan cuisine makes use of the abundant fresh fish and shellfish. The city-state is a favorite of gourmands, as the seafaring culture brings foreign spices and recipes aplenty to the table. Likewise, Lominsan liquors, which were developed to keep on long sea voyages, are famed—particularly the ales and wines, brewed from local wheat and grapes in great quantity.[1]

History

The Sixth Astral Era

The Founding of a City

The founders of Limsa Lominsa were a group of Sea Wolves who hailed from the Roegadyn's ancestral home on the island of Aerslaent. In 874 of the Sixth Astral Era, the crew of the Galadion waged a war against a tyrant who ruled over their home. However, while they sought to save their people, their armada met defeat at the hands of those whom they meant to free.[1][2]

In the wake of their failed coup d'état, the crippled hull of the Galadion set sail from the Northern Empty, unable to abide the rule of tyrants. Not long into their journey, they met with a group of Elezen explorers shipwrecked by a storm. Rescuing these men from death, Admiral Elilwaen consented to carry them, but could not bear them to the lands they were fleeing. Out of gratitude, the Elezen agreed to help the Roegadyn, and told them of an island to the far south, largely uninhabited and safe from the pursuit of their tyrannical king.[3]

Following a yearlong voyage cursed with many troubles, the Galadion drifted and finally ran aground on the island of Vylbrand. Elilwaen tasked two of the Elezen helmsmen, a navigator named Jean De Nevelle and an adventurer named Guy La Thagran, with exploring the interior of the island, which they confirmed was fertile. Under Elilwaen's command, they built a small village in what was soon dubbed La Noscea after another Elezen lodesman who perished of scurvy two days prior to landfall.[1]

Not long after they founded their village, the settlers were attacked by the badger-like kobolds native to the island. After a few skirmishes, the crew abandoned their original village for the relative safety of the Galadion, which they left stranded off the southern coast of the island. Unable to expand inland, they instead expanded upward, building bridges to the small islands and exposed reefs in the bay, giving birth to the maritime city-state of Limsa Lominsa.[1]

Over the next half a decade, the Lominsans did not halt their attempts to settle the region, founding small villages in the western La Noscea region. In 879, the kobolds massacred townsfolk in a small settlement and, in the following year, a militia was dispatched from Limsa Lominsa to defend the settlements in the west and proved victorious against the beastmen.[2]

Admiral Elilwaen succumbed to an unknown disease (possibly the Lung Rot), in 902. His last will named his confidant Tragghyr the Cold as his successor to the admiralty, beginning a tradition of Lominsan admirals being chosen by appointment. Two years into his tenure as Admiral, Tragghyr recruited a group of like-minded individuals to form the Knights of the Barracuda, the Lominsan navy. Commanding its land forces—popularly known as the "Yellow Jackets" for their distinctive uniforms—he led a raid on kobold territories in the name of the city-state. In 905, he established Camp Skull Valley, seizing a portion of kobold lands and opening the region for colonization.[2]

A Maritime Age

In its early days, Limsa Lominsa attracted penniless refugees. Unable to make use of Vylbrand's resources due to the kobolds, the Lominsans lived in poverty, much as they had in the north seas. Because of their skill as sailors, they chose the path of piracy as a means of survival.[1] After occupying the scant forests of lower La Noscea in 908, they began large-scale logging operations. Soon they established Moraby Drydocks and commenced building war vessels with their newfound resources.[2]

This boom in shipbuilding saw acts of piracy by Lominsan citizens become commonplace by the 910s. The early townsfolk came into their element, attacking merchant ships on the Rhotano Sea.[1] To contend with armed escort convoys, they joined together under their own flags, and countless pirate bands came to terrorize the Five Seas by the 930s.[2] As the pirate bands multiplied in number, quarrels among them became more common. Questions of territory and shares of plunder erupted into violence in the 940th year of the Sixth Astral Era, and for nearly two decades after, the city-state became host to bloody feuds between rival crews.[1]

Change began to come when, in the 963rd year of the era, the incumbent Admiral of Limsa Lominsa was assassinated, and Admiral Agatzahr Roehmerlsyn was appointed to serve in his stead.[2] From a buccaneer background himself, Agatzahr invited the strongest of the warring crews to the negotiation table. Within three years, through bartering and threats, he secured their solemn oath to put an end to the fighting. He also put forth a code of conduct which every corsair would have to honor: No crew would cheat another of its plunder, nor rob a fellow Lominsan, nor sell fellow men into slavery. To enforce the code, the best of all crews came together and founded the Upright Thieves, a shadowy organization of rogues that punished those who broke the code.

In 967, Agatzahr temporarily expanded the powers of the Admiral to include the governing of the city-state, promptly instituting a tariff on looted goods, routing the funds to the Knights of the Barracuda. Their strength and numbers bolstered, they scored a string of victories for Limsa Lominsa and claimed a significant portion of the beastmen's lands. Their prolonged territorial conflict came to an end in the 970s, when the Lominsans permitted the beastmen to maintain possession of Mt. O'Ghomoro, their sacred summit in the northern part of the island.[2]

Thanks to piracy and Agatzahr's reforms, the city-state became rich with plunder with a black market taking root to peddle the stolen goods. Plainsfolk Lalafell from the south sea isles came to Vylbrand drawn by rumors of cheap wares, and seafaring trade began in earnest. Significant numbers of Hyur Midlanders and Miqo'te Seekers of the Sun also came to the city—some in search of a free life, others abducted by and assimilated into pirate bands. Through this, Limsa Lominsa's population grew more diverse.[2]

In the year 991, Admiral Agatzahr announced the first Trident, a three-pronged maritime race that would be used to avoid a war of succession in the future. The first trident was held in the following year, and this contest among pirate powers would serve to choose future admirals of Limsa Lominsa into the modern day. Historically, it has not been uncommon for Admirals to postpone the Trident in times of crisis, however.[1]

The Golden Age of Piracy

The Nonsuch, a pirate ship, was assailed by the Sahagin of the Indigo Deep in 1049, and the following decade saw tensions with the aquatic beastmen rise. Reports of widespread attacks on Lominsan vessels, merchant and pirate alike, became common. The beastmen later allied with the Seaspray Pirates, jointly engaging in piracy against the thalassocracy.[2]

At home, Limsa Lominsa continued to expand as, in 1062, Admiral Mealvaan appointed a Plainsfolk arcanist from the south sea isles named Ikuku Iku as his advisor in matters of governance. At her suggestion, he established Mealvaan's Gate to inspect and tax maritime traffic. In 1104, the harbor town of Aleport was founded in western La Noscea as a way to prevent large vessels from clogging the port of Limsa Lominsa.[4]

By the 1130s, the Cedarwood in lower La Noscea went barren from excess logging. The thalassocracy commenced reclamation of upper La Noscea to address increasing demands for lumber, and the next decade saw hostilities with the kobolds flare anew as consequence. In 1148, the Knights of the Barracuda launched a wide-scale offensive against the kobolds to secure the forests of Oakwood. This third major conquest of kobold lands saw the creation of Camp Iron Lake on the shores of the eponymous Iron Lake.[2]

The turn of the thirteenth century saw piracy enter its golden age with raids by Lominsan corsairs on merchant ships laden with Ul'dahn riches becoming the order of the day. It was amidst this boom in piracy that, in 1221, the pirate king Rycharde Mistbeard first appeared to terrorize the Five Seas aboard his flagship the Haar. He and his crew plundered the seas with impunity until, in 1249, he was rumored to have perished in battle against an armed merchant vessel from Radz-at-Han. The masked pirate appeared again in 1251, when he plundered a wealth of treasures from a Hannish argosy. Time and again, the dread pirate would be reported dead only to resurface, leading many to believe him immortal.[2]

In 1469, Limsa Lominsa—alongside Ul'dah and Ishgard—sent reinforcements to the sylvan city-state of Gridania to help them defend their homeland against Ala Mhigo during the Autumn War. This loose alliance served as a predecessor for the modern incarnation of the Eorzean Alliance of which Limsa Lominsa is a part.[2]

The Golden Age of Exploration

In the 1497th year of the Sixth Astral Era, a Lominsan adventurer named Ketenramm the Blue embarked upon an expeditionary voyage across the western seas. After sailing for nigh two moons straight, the sailor and his crew made landfall, rediscovering thecontinent far to the west of Aldenard that many did not even believe to exist at the time. Despite his attempts to name the continent "Ketenland," the "New World" remains the more commonly used name to this day.[5]

Not only did Ketenramm and his crew discover the landmass, they spent several moons exploring inland. In 1499, they encountered the denizens of the sprawling nation of Mamool Ja, and Ketenramm was even granted audience with the autarch, supreme leader of the nation, to whom he presented various gifts from Eorzea. These rare gifts impressed the leader, who presented him with a massive idol forged from pure silver, as well as allowance to roam free about his nation during their stay. Ketenramm used the opportunity to map the land and gather myriad root vegetables and seeds to carry back home.[5] When Ketenramm returned home in 1500, word of his miraculous discovery spread across the city-state, and more and more Lominsans set sail in search of glory and riches in the New World, ushering in a golden age of exploration. Most of these voyages met with difficulties, however, as they became shipwrecked in the rough western seas or were ambushed by Sahagin as they crossed Indigo Deep.[2]

In 1517, the thalassocracy petitioned the kobold tribes for a peace accord in order to focus their strength on the campaign against the Sahagin and avoid fighting a war on two fronts. In the end of negotiations with the 1st Order Patriarch, both parties signed a pact of non-aggression bequeathing to man the "bounties of the sea" and the kobolds the "bounties of the land." The ambiguity would later spark further conflict, but achieved the immediate goal of freeing the Lominsans to wage war on the Sahagin. Unfortunately for the Lominsans, the subsequent Battle of Indigo Deep ended in failure by the Knights of the Barracuda and the pirate crews allied with them.[2]

The captain of the powerful pirate crew, the League of Lost Bastards, Bloefhis Bloefhisyn, had a daughter in 1535 named Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn.[2] Merlwyb served under the flagship's crew for much of her youth until the year 1554, when she discovered her father had been consorting with Sahagin. Challenging him to single combat on a deserted isle, she slew her sire and assumed leadership of the Lost Bastards.[6] The following year, she led the crew on an expedition to the New World, triumphantly returning in 1556, having discovered safe passage across the Indigo Deep. Three years later, Merlwyb formed an armed merchant armada and embarked on a trade expedition to the west.[2]

The Galadion Accord

In the year 1557 of the Sixth Astral Era, the city-state of Ala Mhigo fell to the might of the Garlean Empire. The thalassocracy joined together once more with Ul'dah, Gridania, and Ishgard in 1561 to form a joint military alliance to address the impending threat, formally inaugurating the Eorzean Alliance.[2]

In 1562, Commodore of the Knights of the Barracuda, Sthalmann Sthalmannsyn, attempted a coup d'état. The sudden appearance of the island Seal Rock, and retrieval of treasures from within spurred him to seek the admiralty. Guided by the Ascian Travanchet, he assassinated the sitting Admiral only to be betrayed by the shadowless interloper and dishonorably discharged. This left the position of Admiral open; in 1563, Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn led the League of Lost Bastards to victory in the eighty-fifth Trident.[2][1][7]

Despite being a pirate leader, Merlwyb recognized the threat posed by the Empire, and signed legislature that outlawed acts of piracy, an act that shocked Lominsans and dealt a blow to the mainstay of the city-state's economy and prompted more than one attempt on her life. Merlwyb, however, saw potential in forming strong alliances with the other Eorzean city-states, even as the Eorzean Alliance all but disbanded with the withdrawal of Ishgardian troops that same year.[2][1]

Merlwyb set out to win over the most powerful pirate crews—such as the Kraken's Arms and Sanguine Sirens—by negotiation, persuading them to Limsa's need to cooperate with the other city-states. Most difficult of these, however, was Hyllfyr Faezmoensyn, leader of the Bloody Executioners and kingpin of the Lominsan underworld. Lesser crews who remained unyielding, she silenced, and those who cooperated became state-sanctioned privateers given free rein to plunder imperial vessels. She also restructured the Upright Thieves into a formal, clandestine arm of the law, the Rogues' Guild.[2][1]

To address the renewed threat of the kobolds and Sahagin, Merlwyb enlisted the Company of Heroes and tasked them with subduing their primal gods Titan and Leviathan. In 1566, the mercenaries vanquished the Lord of Crags and, with the aid of the Knights of the Barracuda, felled the Lord of the Whorl. This victory came with heavy casualties due to the primals' ability to temper their comrades and turn them into their fanatical devotees. Not long after their defeat, the primals were summoned anew.[2]

However, seeing the primals defeated caused many Lominsans to warm to Merlwyb, with many who decried her soon singing her praises. Due to the Garlean threat and, perhaps, thanks to her rise in popularity, Merlwyb postponed the Trident indefinitely rather than holding one in 1570. In 1572, the legatus of the VIIth Imperial Legion, Nael van Darnus, marched his troops into Eorzea, doubling imperial presence and prompting Merlwyb to swiftly establish the Lominsan Grand Company, the Maelstrom.[8] She also gained the hard-fought compliance of the three major pirate powers, the crews' leaders signing into law the Galadion Accord, which bound the crews to the Maelstrom and unified all of Limsa Lominsa under Merlwyb's command.</ref name="Limsa"/>

The Seventh Umbral Era

Project Meteor was the name given to the Garlean Empire's radical plan to call down the lesser moon Dalamud and use it to smite Eorzea, opening the path to its conquest. On the advice of Cid Garlond, and with the aid of a certain adventurer, the Grand Companies' leaders came together to reforge the Eorzean Alliance at Lotus Stand. Committing their forces to an assault on the Garlean encampment in Mor Dhona, Castrum Novum, the Maelstrom's forces assailed the front gates as a diversion while an elite force of adventurers entered the castrum to disable the lunar transmitter and halt Dalamud's descent.[9]

However, the transmitter's destruction did not halt Dalamud, as Nael began to direct the moon's descent himself. The Maelstrom and other Alliance forces sent reconnaissance missions to the White Raven's location, the Fields of Glory in the eastern lowlands of Coerthas, but none survived the mad legatus's rain of meteoric fragments from the lesser moon's surface. Instead, the adventurers were sent on a mission to the floating isles above the lowlands, Rivenroad, where they slew van Darnus. Yet this, too, did not put an end to Dalamud's descent.[9]

As the lesser moon continued to fall, the Circle of Knowing leader Louisoix Leveilleur put together a plan to save the realm. However, remnants of the VIIth Legion gathered at Carteneau Flats to see their dead leader's plan to fruition. The Maelstrom, alongside its allies, came to Carteneau to protect Louisoix as he worked a spell of summoning to push back the lesser moon. And yet, on that day, none anticipated that the moon would burst open, revealing the Elder Primal Bahamut who loosed his calamitous assault on the realm.[9]

At ground zero of the Seventh Umbral Calamity, Linkshell communications went down for the Grand Companies. Merlwyb rode headlong into the chaos astride her chocobo Victory to personally issue the order to retreat to the likes of Rhoswen Leach and Carvallain de Gorgagne, who were still fighting. She was struck by a magitek reaper, however, and lost consciousness before she was saved by the Bloody Executioners. Grand Storm Marshal Eynzahr Slafyrsyn, her second-in-command, gave the order to fall back to Limsa Lominsa in her stead.[10]

In Limsa Lominsa, a massive tidal wave hit the coastline as Bahamut's flames passed over the city and debris from Dalamud struck the land. In the aftermath, Galadion Bay was littered with bodies and floatsam. Temporary command for the Maelstrom was established at the Moraby Drydocks, sheltered from the worst of the wave by the Gods' Grip. The remains of the Lominsan armada sailed with food and supplies for survivors.[10]

During the Seventh Umbral Era, Merlwyb relocated Maelstrom Command to the Upper Decks and reformed the Maelstrom's power structure. She disbanded the Knights of the Barracuda, fully integrating them into the Maelstrom save for the Yellowjackets, who gained independence as the local peacekeeping force. She also reformatted the original nine squadrons of the Lominsan Armada into five.

Not long into the Seventh Umbral Era, the Sahagin summoned the primal Leviathan once more, using their god to unleash a tidal wave on the inhabited Halfstone region of western La Noscea. The Sahagin quickly moved in and established a spawning ground in the region to replace the ones damaged by the Calamity.

The Seventh Umbral Era

During the fifth year of the Seventh Umbral Era, an adventurer helped halt an attempt to sabotage the construction of the Victory, the first of the thalassocracy's new warships, by the Serpent Reavers, a band of notorious pirates who consort with the Sahagin.[11] After deciphering a note found on the attack's leader, Commodore Reyner of the Yellowjackets sent the adventurer to Swiftperch to stop the Reavers' attack on the struggling settlement.[12]

For their services, the adventurer was recognized by Merlwyb, invited to a banquet as her honored guest, and made an envoy of the thalassocracy to the other city-states.[13] The adventurer is later enlisted to delve into Sastasha Seagrot to defeat the Serpent Reavers and their Sahagin masters upon returning from the other city-states.[14]

Later, the adventurer attended a remembrance service held in the Stateroom in Limsa Lominsa, where they listened to a speech delivered by Merlwyb.[15] They later returned to Vylbrand with Y'shtola Rhul as part of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn to deal with the primal Titan. After surpassing the trials set by the Company of Heroes, the adventurer vanquished the Lord of Crags.[16]

With the threat of Ultima Weapon imminent, Merlwyb and the other Alliance leaders briefly entertained the idea of surrendering to the demands of Gaius van Baelsar. However, the return of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn helped convince them to fight the Empire to the last.[17]

During Operation Archon, the Lominsan Armada blockaded Castrum Marinum while the Maelstrom's forces sieged Castrum Occidens as part of a coordinated assault with the other Grand Companies.[18] At a victory celebration in Mor Dhona following the Warrior of Light's defeat of Ultima Weapon and van Baelsar, Merlwyb and her fellow leaders heralded the beginning of the Seventh Astral Era.[19]

The Seventh Astral Era

Early into the Seventh Astral Era, a stronger incarnation of Titan was summoned by the kobolds, but the Warrior of Light and their allies struck the Lord of Crags down once more.[20] The hero and their allies journeyed to Castrum Occidens with Alisaie Leveilleur in pursuit of the truth behind the Seventh Umbral Calamity.[21] A third, unusually powerful summoning of Titan occurred around this time, again to be put down by the skilled adventurers.[22]

Refugees from Doma came to Eorzea seeking succor and made fast friends with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. When the Sahagin made ready to summon their primal Leviathan once again, Merlwyb and a small force of Maelstrom soldiers joined the Scions and their Doman shinobi allies in an attempt to prevent it. However, while Merlwyb felled the Sahagin elder leading the summoning, the group was unable to prevent the return of Leviathan.[23]

Creating a vessel dubbed the Whorleater and using corrupted crystals to counter Leviathan's command over water-aspected aether, the Warrior of Light and their Walker allies were able to fell the primal.[24] Out of gratitude, Merlwyb also granted Yugiri Mistwalker, leader of the Doman refugees, access to the Lominsan underworld and planned to exchange combat techniques between the ninja and the Rogues' Guild.[25] Not long after this—much like Titan before Him—another, horrifically powerful incarnation of Leviathan was summoned but felled by the Warrior of Light's party.[26]

After the end of the Dragonsong War in Ishgard and the Griffin's false-flag attack on Castrum Oriens, Limsa Lominsa joins the other members of the Eorzean Alliance as part of its effort to liberate Ala Mhigo. Later, the Maelstrom's forces help hold back the Garlean Empire's advance at the Ghimlyt Dark.

Locations

Main article: Limsa Lominsa Upper Decks
Main article: Limsa Lominsa Lower Decks

Limsa Lominsa is divided into two zones, the older structures on the lower decks and the newer structures on the upper decks, connected with wooden bridges. The central pillar of Limsa Lominsa is the Mizzenmast, said to have been built around the original mast of the the vessel that ferried the city's founders to Vylbrand.

Within the Mizzenmast is the Command Room—seat of the admiralty—and the city's airship landing. The lower decks are home to Hawkers' Alley, where merchants from Eorzea and abroad buy and trade goods, and the upper decks house a newly-relocated Maelstrom Command.

Guilds

Travel Connections

Limsa lominsa1.jpg
Limsa lominsa2.jpg

Aethernet

Adjacent Zones

Travel by Boat

Travel by Airship

Notable Lominsans

Notes and Trivia