The Celestia Citizen (“Spookymas Comes with the 1 Year Anniversary” Edition)
Hello, fellow Celestians! Welcome to another edition of the Celestia Citizen newsletter! We are nearly a month into the fall season, and we can already feel the draw of cool air pushing its way across the country. In a couple of weeks, we will be on the cusp of the spookiest time of the year, a Spookymas of sorts. Where all good little Lalafells (or I should say, not-so-good Lalafells), naughty Miqo’tes, and slender ‘Zens will gather with many of other denizens of the world of Final Fantasy XIV to celebrate with costumes, candy, contests, and creepy stories.
Meanwhile in the real world, our Spookymas is little more than All Hallow’s Eve, or Halloween. Expect to see trick-or-treaters out and about on Monday, October 31st, as they come for goodies to fill their bags with, show their cute costumes, and to spend a night out having spooky fun. For adults, look toward costume parties, dancing, drinking, and enjoying a festivity that allows you to show your creative side in spooky fashion.
Before we get into the newsletter here, a quick blurb on Final Fantasy XIV news. A Halloween themed event is coming, along with confirmation on Patch 6.25! And of course, a concern that will be explained for account safeguarding. With that out of the way, let’s get to it!
One Year Anniversary!!!
So some good news. This marks our 1 year anniversary of the Celestia Citizen newsletter’s revival. Our re-launch was a gentle one. Brief newsletter, giving hints and tidbits about what was to come for the current iteration. Moreso an investment of hope to the Free Company that there would be a return to form for our publication. And now here we are. And to commemorate this one year anniversary, this newsletter pulled out just a little more effort to get in some information we could have had for the first newsletter (such as the coverage of Halloween, horror content, and other spooky things). Thankfully, that is to be found here for this year’s newsletter!!!
Thank you to all Free Company members who have read this newsletter, and kept up with it over the months, and have given us focus to bringing you this content to read and to enjoy. And thank you to our esteemed Officers, and the King and Queen of all creation (least up to the fence lines of the house), Scura and Blessed Darkangel, for continuing to be awesome. And of course, to all Celestians who are working devoutly to making Celestia one of the biggest FCs, if not the biggest, throughout the Hyperion side of Final Fantasy XIV!
Please look forward to another year of newslettery goodness!
Final Fantasy XIV News
The news last month was rather light due to us being between patches. 6.2 was live as of August 23rd, and 6.21 was over two weeks later (into early September). In waiting these many weeks, the announcement of 6.25 was made on Friday, October 7th. Details from the Live Letter that aired this date are available on the Free Company Discord server and under the #ffxiv-updates channel.
Before we touch on specifics regarding the Live Letter and some upcoming changes, an important notice was shared on behalf of the developer. On October 6th, an attack on Square Enix’s Account Management System was flagged with attempts to use a combination of email addresses & passwords that were retrieved from 3rd party online services. Per the linked article here: Precautions for Guarding Against Unauthorized Account Access | FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone
The article states explicitly to observe precautions being taken to safeguard your online access. One of these recommendations is to ensure that you do not utilize the same password on other services. If this is the case, it is strongly recommended to change your password for SQEX and FFXIV (as per the article above). In addition, a recommendation for enabling One-Time Passwords is also being made. This will conjunct with a recurring article that has been a part of the Celestia Citizen newsletter for months now. Refer to the section for 2 Factor Authentication/Multi Factor Authentication further down in the newsletter for the how-to in setting up ‘OTP’.
On the game side, Patch 6.25 was confirmed with the recent Live Letter to release on Tuesday, October 18th. An All Worlds maintenance will occur Monday, October 17th. Details here: All Worlds Maintenance (October 17th)
Another bit of news confirmed was the Addition of a new North American “Logical Data Center and Worlds” still occurring. The first phase was delayed from August 2022, but has now been confirmed for Tuesday, November 1st alongside the maintenance for Patch 6.28. The new data center name, the world names, and listings of special bonuses for creating/transferring characters to these worlds is listed here: Addition of New North American Logical Data Center and Worlds | FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone
Next, All Saints’ Wake is confirmed for Wednesday, October 19th to Tuesday, November 1st. And yes, this is the second All Saints’ Wake event for 2022. Details, including new items, are listed here: All Saints’ Wake 2022 – March of the Mischievous Costume Cortege | FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone
Lastly, news on Fan Fest aka Final Fantasy Fan Festival. As confirmed in the linked article, physical, in-person events are due to be held for Fan Fest through North America (July 28/29, 2023), Europe (October 21/22, 2023), and Japan (slated for Early 2024). Details here: Announcing the FINAL FANTASY XIV Fan Festival 2023-2024 | FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone
Free Company Updates and Social Events
On the Free Company side, we have a new officer announcement. Please welcome Matten Renegath to the Officer roster for covering our Primal Farming side of end-game content & events!
For events, the first to discuss was the Bingo event occurred on Saturday, September 24th. Our resident winners were, from left to right: Scarlette Valanorr (oh wait, that’s me xD), Elhana Greenwood, and Eviane Rosariae. Please extend congratulations to our other winners, and to all participants of the event!
Saturday, October 15th saw the scheduled Triple Triad tournament, as held by Blackhawk Slater and other supporting officers, engaging in a ‘duelist kingdom’ of sorts, or a ‘battle city’ of some kind. The winners that triumphed in this event were: Urbosa Vah’naboris and Aaliyah Amari. Please extend congratulations to our winners and to all participating entrants of this wonderful tourney!
For upcoming events, Saturday, October 29th will be the Halloween Costume Party, featuring 3 distinct themes: Orange and Green Costume, “Witchiest” Costume, and General Cosplay (Completely open creativity to all participants). Entrants may participate in 1 or multiple categories. Please sign up via the #social-event channel on the FC Discord!
Next, Eorzea Shark Week will commence on 11/2/22 and consist of a series of fun pop-up events where participants can earn raffle entries towards a $25 mogstation gift card at the end. Some events will be 90 only, but others are open to all level ranges. If you have a rod and some bait, there will be events you can participate in. Due to the shifting nature of weather requirements for some activities, the notice may be short…so keep an eye on general-dol-doh and make sure you’ve signed up for the dol/doh role to get pinged when an event is popping up! Credit to Simera Yeep for her wonderful write-up of this!
Lastly, Saturday, November 19th will be the Hide-and-Seek event for the Free Company.
For any details or signup information, please refer to the Free Company Discord Server, and refer to the #social-event channel!
Beyond the Light
Here is our next Beyond the Light interview for our Free Company newsletter. As discussed before, this is to give our FC members an opportunity to tell us more about themselves, and their love for Final Fantasy XIV by answering some interview style questions.
This month’s interview is brought to you by our FC member Squirrel Guile.
What is your in-game character’s name? Squirrel Guile.
What race are you currently in-game? Miqo’te.
What drew you into your current choice of race? After playing Tauren and other massive races, I decided I wanted something a little more pleasing on the eyes. And who doesn’t love cats.
When did you first start playing FFXIV? February 28, 2016.
What drew you to pick up and play FFXIV? I’ve played WoW since Vanilla, and when Legion came out I was pretty much done with that game. A few friends tried out FF and got me to come over.
How far have you gotten into the MSQ (Main Story Questline) of FFXIV? Finished
What was your first (job? class? role?) when you started? Monk for life.
What motivated you to pick that first (job? class? role?)? Every game I play, I play as an agile character. I love running around enemies, dodging attacks, being such a loud nuisance right in their face. usually duel wielding. The closest job to that was monk. I don’t need to hide behind a massive sword; my fists are the weapons!!!
To date, what favorite jobs/roles/classes do you have? Paladin and Monk.
What kind of content do you enjoy? MSQ, PvP, Savage Raids, Duty Content, Side Quests, Collectible Getting.
What would you say is your favorite content type from above to do? And why? I love raiding. Nothing is as satisfying as learning the boss fight and crushing the baddie……… after countless wipes and repair bills.
What is one thing you like about FFXIV that distinguishes them from other MMOs? There is the msq. The MSQ revolves around you, the character. The npcs know and interact with you, and they respect the power you have. You are not just “The Champion” who kills things, then the named nps gets the credit. The game respects your time. I don’t feel guilty if work gets busy and I missed a week playing. I’m not going to fall behind in some weekly capped power gain.
If you could make at least 1 change to FFXIV based on personal preference, what would you pick and why? Playable squirrel race!!!! Gotta have that fluffy tail…. or a buff on people that says the name of the mount so you dont have to do a stupid google search of “ff14 floating pirate ship mount” and hope you find a picture of it with a name.
What is your most memorable/favorite moment in FFXIV? (Redacted) almost murdered me when i was using ilv 40 gear on my lv 85 weaver. Idk i mostly play this game solo.
Do you have any favorite visuals of your character you want to share with the FC for the newsletter? None shared.
When did you join Celestia? September 20, 2021.
What drew you to join Celestia? Was it a person, an advertisement, etc? Looking for a larger FC after friends quit playing. Saw post on lodestone community finder.
What do you like about Celestia as a Free Company? There are always people on and something is always happening.
What is your favorite weekly event to participate in with Celestia? Maps are fun when I have time for them.
Thank you very much to Squirrel Guile for participating in this month’s Beyond the Light interview! 😀
However, we have many months ahead and we need many more entries from our FC mates before the next newsletter!
If anyone wants to participate, and provide feedback, ideas, suggestions…please submit with the respective form linked herein: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfNy26Yyf-ejPBWBid01QlgFvtZSZhBxMkTxctWi1u4dTAyMw/viewform
2 Factor Authentication/Multi Factor Authentication
Please ensure that you safeguard your Final Fantasy XIV account, and your Discord account. Below is a copy-and-paste of my prior announcement made on our Discord server:
I am making a general awareness announcement to the FC in regards to security and safety for both your FFXIV accounts and your Discord accounts. With all of the rampant account hijackings occurring in the Discord world, you may have seen other servers stressing to avoid clicking on ‘sus’ (suspicious) links and downloads, especially from fellow server-mates. We are encouraging the same behavior in Discord so nobody has their Discord accounts hijacked and endangers others. If a member from the FC here does provide suspicious links or downloads directly to you, please reach out to one of our Magistrates ASAP. But what of the FFXIV front?
It turns out that ‘Yes’, you CAN have your FFXIV account get hacked. If a hacker gets your SQEX login that has a XIV account and sub attached to it, they could log in and give you a bad day. Do your diligence and safeguard yourself through the glory of 2-Factor Authentication in both Discord AND in FFXIV.
In Discord: Follow the safe link listed here for how to setup 2FA for your Discord account (this will just require you to download a free authenticator such as Google Authenticator, or Authy): https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/219576828-Setting-up-Two-Factor-Authentication
In FFXIV: Go to your Mog Station page (where you can manage your licenses, go to the shop for buying stuff, etc) > Square Enix Account Settings > “One-Time Password” > Select your choice of “token” or authenticator (per the image attached):
Security Token (key ring type, physical token): Retails for $14.99, no software on phone to juggle
Software Token (smartphone app): No cost, and uses Square Enix’s official Software Token app
Software Authenticator (smartphone app): No cost, offers flexibility on choice of authenticator app (Google, Microsoft, IBM, Authy, etc)
As always, be safe and keep yourselves secure for full enjoyment of these wonderful services, everyone!
Halloween: A History
So here we are. A little miscellaneous section I was planning to work in for the time of the year. In a couple of weeks, we will have Halloween upon us. But what is Halloween, aside from being a day where people wear costumes, enjoy candy, and do spooky things?
Halloween’s history reaches far back to Christianity for its origin. The origin of Halloween specifically seemed to commemorate with Allhallowtide, a series of days when the ‘dead’, particularly souls that had departed the Earth and had yet to reach Heaven, and saints, were honored. October 31st was regarded as All Hallows Eve, while November 1st was All Saints Day (or All Hallows Day), and November 2nd was All Souls Day. Some believed that the souls who had yet to reach Heaven would linger on Earth until All Saints Day (November 1st) and then would pass to the next world.
All Hallows Eve was believed to have been the last day where these souls would attempt to get vengeance on their enemies before passing on. To avoid recognition by vengeful souls, the living would wear costumes to hide their identities from the dead. Speaking of costumes, it is believed that the earliest instances of Halloween costume parties was tied to the danse macabre, a festival of the dead when they would rise from the grace. The living would dress in costumes and masks, sometimes taking the image of ‘corpses’, and would hold these danses as a reminder to “not to forget the end of all earthly things”, thereby paying respect and honoring the dead.
There is also a perspective that many of Halloween’s customs instead originated from the Celtic, or Gaelic, countries, and amongst Paganism. Samhain was regarded as starting the evening of October 31st, lasting until the morning of November 1st. There is also the belief that the boundary separating Earth from the other plane thins on this day, allowing for spirits or ‘fairies’ to emerge among the living. The dead were believed to venture to their homes and families, seeking hospitality for a night. These families would leave their departed loved ones food and drink, even setting places at supper tables for them.
Many Gaelic/Celtic countries practiced mumming and guising during Samhain, where people dressed in costume, guising or mumming themselves in costume, and would venture from home to home delivering song verses for food. Some even believed this tradition was also to allow the living to act on behalf of the dead, and accept offerings on their behalf. Those homes who gave offerings would receive good fortune, or mischief, based on whether they capitulated or not. This is most likely where the inspiration for modern day trick-or-treating arose. Children in costumes saying ‘trick or treat’ seems to stem from guised people venturing from home to home, offering either mischief or ‘tricks’ or the payment of ‘treat’ to placate them for the night.
What about the jack-o-lantern? This was based on the use of hallowed out turnips, or mangolds (which are a type of beet) with grotesque faces carved into them to serve as lanterns to either ward off spirits or represent them. In North America, this would lead to the pumpkin’s use instead as the medium due to its much softer and larger mass allowing for ease of use. The story of the jack-o-lantern also has Irish Christian roots in the form of a folktale.
In this folktale, Jack is a character who encounters the Devil and tricks him into climbing a tree. The Devil is trapped in the tree when Jack quickly scribes the holy Cross into the bark. He uses this to bargain to the Devil that he can never have his soul claimed. Despite this bargain, Jack lead a sinful life and eventually dies, unable to enter Heaven. The Devil also upholds his bargain in not taking Jack, and gives him a hot coal from Hell itself. Jack places this hot coal into a hollowed out turnip to keep it live, and uses it to light his way through the dark night to find a place to rest.
And there is the culinary side of Halloween. Because it was used to encourage no meat being consumed by some Western Christian groups, this led to a rise in vegetarian style foods becoming popular. Apples were candied and became popular to give. Pumpkin was expanded to its use of its seeds served when roasted, along with the popular ‘pumpkin pie’, which used a special type of pumpkin ‘sugar pumpkins’ for mixing the pie together; picture a much smaller pumpkin with less pulp and less of a stringy texture, then imagine it is cooked until soft and then mixed to make the pie filling. Candy also became popular around Halloween due to the number of children that came to participate, and the giving of chocolate, candy corn, candied apples, or any other form of sweets served as an easy means to fulfill tradition.
Halloween is also given a bit of wide berth when it comes to allowing its celebration among other cultures. Judaism forbids gentile customs from being participated in, which Halloween falls under, and Islam forbids participation due to Halloween’s Christian or Pagan roots. Hinduism does sometimes acknowledge Halloween, but they practice a festival preceding it beginning in mid September known as Pitru Paksha (for keeping their ancestors’ souls at rest). Neopaganism, or Wiccanism, practices Samhain for its Celtic/Gaelic heritage but also acknowledges Halloween.
Horror Movies
Another thing to discuss with this time of the year: Horror movies.
October has also become synonymous with being the time of the year when we can kick back with popcorn, relax through the opening credits, and be left a frightened, stressed, tensed mess by the ending credits. And the last several decades have given us numerous horror movies to enjoy in the process. If you favor something suspensful, or something slashy, or something scream-worthy, there’s all sorts of horror movies out there to enjoy.
Here is a list of some of the popular ones:
The Universal Studios “Monsterverse”: Yup, the granddaddy of it all. Frankenstein. Dracula. The Wolfman. The Invisible Man. The Mummy. The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Phantom of the Opera. And many others. Some of these characters from stories of old found their stories immortalized in black-and-white film and led by horror icons such as Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Sr and Lon Chaney Jr, and Claude Rains. To this day, their very essence still permeates into many adaptations that sought to bring the likes or Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolfman, and other horror icons to modern re-tellings.
Halloween – A series of movies focused around Michael Myers (not the actor), a psychotic serial killer who is regarded as strong and as dangerous as his reputation has left. His trademark is a giant knife and a white faced mask with hair (the story behind this is the mask is the inner part of a William Shatner mask turned outwards). This series put Jamie Lee Curtis on the road to the aforementioned ‘scream queens’ category, and helped in her rise to become a known actress. As of recently, the series saw a soft reboot with Halloween in 2018 continuing off of the original 1978 movie (which was also done by John Carpenter, a legendary film director behind such movies as Big Trouble in Little China, The Thing, They Live, Vampires, Escape from New York, and more). Halloween Kills released in 2021, and Halloween Ends releases this month!
A Nightmare on Elm Street – A child killer known as Fred Krueger was punished in life and burned to death. This failed to lay him to rest, re-emerging as a vengeful entity who preys upon teenagers in their dreams and kills them. This led to several sequels, as well as a crossover to another major horror franchise that is the very next callout in our list. Also, the series owes its origin to Wes Craven, who also was behind another major film series in this list. One very meta movie in the list is called Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, which utilizes both real world and in-movie elements to make for a real interesting take on the character. This also serves to bring him to a more menacing and serious position as a villain, dialing back the comical changes that befell him with prior sequels.
Friday the 13th – Jason Voorhees, who drowned as a young boy at Camp Crystal Lake, returned as a mass killer who stalked the camp with each movie until more creative direction took him to other venues. One fun tidbit is that Jason does not show on screen until the second Friday the 13th movie (which is clarified in the original movie as to why). There is also that mention about a crossover movie. In 2003, Freddy vs Jason released which saw a story crossing over Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees. Despite the movie being touted as a fanservice, appealing to horror fans who hoped for such crossovers with many other horror movie villains, it has served to become a cult classic horror flick.
The Conjuring – One of the most recent franchises to have emerged, this series serves to present the protagonists, Ed and Lorraine Warren, as they cover some of their most notable haunting cases. From this franchise came the mainline series of 3 films, and spinoff films around some of the entities the Warrens have encountered (such as Annabelle, La Llorona, and a particular ‘nun’).
Scream – Have you ever wondered of a movie portraying a serial killer who knows the horror franchises of old? The first entry in this longstanding series was in 1996, bringing Wes Craven (of Nightmare on Elm Street fame) back to the forefront. Two sequels would arise within the next 4 years, with the 4th movie in 2011. This would be the last that Wes Craven would direct, before his death in 2015. In 2022, a sequel/reboot called Scream premiered and encouraged a sequel which would be the 6th movie in the franchise.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre – Leatherface calls this movie home. Regarded as a killer and a cannibal, he touts himself as wearing a leather mask (a patchwork of human skin) and wielding a chainsaw. His family uses the ploy of a gas station to lure victims in, for them to do their business. The movie was touted as a “true story”, but is considered a fantasy. The movie series saw many sequels over the years, though their releases were far more staggered. One notable fact about the series is that some of the more well established film actors in the modern day had roles in these movies. Dennis Hopper starred in the second movie, Viggo Mortensen was in the third movie, and the Next Generation movie in 1995 saw a young Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey in the leading roles (and it was due to their quickly rising stars of fame that the movie saw a full release in 1997, though was panned badly. A remake in 2003 saw Jessica Biel in the starring role, and a couple of other attempts over the next 20 years led to mixed successes.
Saw – Another recently spawned series of immense popularity. A mysterious individual known as Jigsaw popularized the usage of elaborate traps and challenges to teach sinful individuals the value of survival. Every movie seems to tie to the previous ones in some form, carefully expanding the storyline of John Kramer and those who were touched or influenced by his presence in life. The latest movie, Spiral, came out recently starring Chris Rock.
Child’s Play – The Lakeshore Strangler, Charles Lee Ray, gets fatally wounded one night and uses a voodoo ritual to implant his life and soul into a Good Guy doll. In the pursuit of a young boy named Andy Barclay, he seeks to leave the doll’s body and become human again. While the first couple of movies are considered incredible, with the third movie also good, this has led to a further sequels, a ‘reboot’, and a TV series paying tremendous respect and love to the OG series that is due to see its second season air very soon on SyFy! It is called “Chucky”.
Stephen King movies – It. The Stand. The Shining. Cujo. Misery. So many good horror flicks that came from the mind of the great Stephen King. While some adaptations were less faithful than others (The Shining), and some took things in interesting directions (such as the Fog remake with Thomas Jane), Stephen King’s influence is felt in horror to this day.
Tales from the Crypt – Okay, so this isn’t so much scary as it is funny and niche. This series from the 90s brought us the famous Crypt Keeper to TV screens and brought in a slew of horror stories that featured many actors of various fame from across the 90s to appear in roles for this episodic series. There were two movies, Dark Knight and Bordello of Blood, that released to mixed reviews but maintain a particular niche. And this series is known for featuring rather dark but ironic or funny endings to some of their tales, leading it to stand out in this regard.
There are so many other franchises to touch base on that this one article can get rather big. Instead, I am going to recommend Ranker for more series referrals: The Best Horror Franchises And Scary Movie Series, Ranked (ranker.com)
Conclusion
Now here we are. about a third of the way into fall, and about to come upon both a new XIV patch and a fun, albeit, spooky holiday. But despite things getting darker and scarier out, know that eventually, one must come back into the light again. And speaking of the light, please remember that we still have plenty of FC members to find out more through the Beyond the Light newsletter. We want to learn more about our fellow mates, and to encourage opening up so that friends can be made, duties can be done, and homes can be had for those looking.
Expect the next newsletter mid November, where we will go into Year 2 of newsletter publication for the Celestia Citizen. And as always, see you, space Warrior of Light.
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