Gar's Lair

Hi, I’m Ben… I’m what Gar refers to as “The Presence.”

I started playing Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) a couple of years ago. We were well into what I refer to as the “Covid Interruption.”

I had been playing World of Warcraft (WoW) for almost a decade. More and more of the disclosures started coming out about the atmosphere at the company and I started questioning my involvement with the game. Of course, the short list contained FFXIV. I did a small bit of research, decided I wanted to give the game a try, and so here we are two years later.

I’m enjoying it more than I ever did WoW.

When I started playing, Endwalker was in the pre-release phase and I got caught up in that vortex. As a result, Gar powered through the Main Scenario Quests (MSQ) so he could catch up and participate in the Endwalker chaos.

Along the way, I’ve had a lot of fun and made some friends.

I’ve also developed a small bit of a backstory for Gar. I don’t consider myself a role player but it was fun to occasionally think about where Gar came from and what he was doing.

For a while, I was in a Free Company where we had a few fairly serious lore masters & role playing members. I remember a discussion about how they chose their characters’ names and how it fit into the lore. When I created Gar, I didn’t pay any attention to that so I quickly came up with the idea that Gar was an adopted foundling by parents that knew nothing of Miqo’te culture. I didn’t realize it at the time but that started the snowball started rolling.

I also realized that by powering through MSQ, I missed a lot of the storyline… Especially parts that came from side quests and other content.

About a year ago, I started saying that I was going to create an alt at some point and take the game more slowly and pay more attention to the story.

A few weeks ago, I bit the bullet and created Rauwrer. Not too surprisingly, I found that Rauwrer has a bit of a personality difference from Gar. I mean, it is sort of natural given a fiesty Miqo’te and a more deliberate Hrothgar.

When creating Rauwrer, I decided to create him as another foundling alongside Gar. That only added to the snowball.

After playing both characters for a while, I started to get involved with the interaction of the two (which never occurs in-game since I can’t be logged in as both characters at the same time).

Gar also has some stories that need to be captured. I mean, the Garwhale story really needs to be captured. It’s a bit of a legend among some of Gar’s friends.

And, finally, I sometimes come up with information that I want to make more widely available in case it might help someone.

The end result is this Blog.

I’m having more fun here than I thought I would. I don’t know how long I’ll keep it up.

I hope you find a bit of useful information and possibly get a good laugh from time to time or at least a smile.

Take care, be well, and have fun!

— Ben (“The Presence”)

P.S.: Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts or comments.