I’ve been leveling lancer on a few characters for the last few weeks and every time I go to the guild to talk to the trainer named Ywain, I feel so bad for him being stuck there. Yes, he does get out during one of the lancer quests when he tells the giant boar that we won’t be any fun to play with, but otherwise he’s just standing there watching and training the lancer recruits. Due to having so many alts, I’m quite familiar with most of the starter classes NPCs and know their names and remember at least some of their backstory. A few things I always noted about Ywain are the oven-mitt style gloves he wears and his big, puffy shirt.
So finally after spending so much time visiting Ywain at the lancer’s guild, I decided it was time to “rescue” him from his life of predictability. To do that, I made a new character in his image with some slight modifications to make him more my own. My Ywain is taller than the NPC, has darker skin, face paint, and different hair color. He’ll also never wear those oven mitts! I kept his name the same as the NPC, Ywain Deepwell, although I doubt many people will recognize the name.
My explanation for his changed appearance is that my Miqo’te girl, Punkin Willow, who trained under him first and then became dragoon, decided Ywain needed a bit of shaking up in his life. Once she picked up pictomancer, she put her magic to work and gave him a makeover/glowup. With a fresh appearance and new clothes, Punkin dragged Ywain out of the lancer’s guild and shoved him into the wider world.
Out of curiosity, I went onto the lodestone to see what other versions of Ywain were on there and I found a few. They’d all started lancer, but none of them had reached dragoon. I knew I had to change that because once Ywain escaped the lancer’s guild, of course he’d become a dragoon! I managed to level him from level 1 lancer all the way to level 30 lancer and dragoon in one day over the weekend because leveling classes is something I’ve become quite good at. I was seeing double for a while when leveling Ywain as lancer but I certainly wasn’t going to complain.
My Ywain will of course play other classes as well but I’ll continue leveling dragoon on him.
Playing Ywain out in the world through quests, dungeons, and raids has been quite fun because he now has a voice! Mind you it’s just the emotes in the Hyur voice I chose for him but it still gives him much more depth. I feel like he’s happy to be free of the confines of the lancer’s guild and back in the world of an adventurer and I’m quite happy to be playing him!
When they announced the latest Moogle Treasure Trove event, I made a list of stuff I wanted to get and for what characters. But then something happened in my life that made me realize that grinding for such things just isn’t that important to me. Ywain didn’t even exist yet when I made that list but thus far, I’ve gotten him the most mogtome items with a new mount and the adorable bacon bits minion. The minion is an homage to how he calmly told that giant boar to leave the poor lancer recruit be in the forest. I feel like he’d have an affinity for all creatures and a flying pig especially!
Creating my version of Ywain was something I did rather spontaneously and making new characters always renews my love for FFXIV. I’m not great at sticking to a plan when I play any game and grinding for anything isn’t fun for me anymore. So I’ll just play who I’m in the mood to play and let my characters inspire me from there. For me, gaming is something I do for fun and that will never change.
Srinity 