Liz and Bishoujo wearing Japanese steampunk fashion on the street in Harajuku. Full Looks

‘Heart of a Woman’, Zhang XiuYuan by Wang Xin

‘The photo above shows the central living area of a rural farmhouse on the border of Tochigi and Ibaraki prefectures. The house was restored by Kenji Tsuchisawa who bought it as a rundown heap when he was only 20.‘ 

Chinese hanfu from Xitang Hanfu Cultural Week. Photo by 赵白-BaiBai

The Reason I Wanted To Die 僕が死のうと思ったのは【Cover: Nakashima Mika】【Lyrics: amazarashi】

That Day, on the Beach (Edward Yang, 1983)

A Timeline of the Garlean Invasion & Its Effects

[circa 1510]

- At the turn of the 16th century, an engineer attempts to create a smaller version of the stationary steam engine, but chose instead to utilize ceruleum as a fuel source. His creation is weak but portable, and soon has the backing of Garlemald’s military funding. The first magitek engine is born.

[1513] (64 y/a) 

- Solus Galvus becomes a Republican Legatus and begins making reforms to use magitek in the military, pushing for increased spending in military applications of magitek technology.

[1515] (62 y/a) 

- The Republic of Garlemald begins invading and subjugating its neighbors in Ilsabard.

[1517] (60 y/a)

- Solus Galvus is named Dictator of Garlemald.

- Republican Airships are launched in battle for the first time, and the kingdom of Nhalmasque in Ilsabard’s central mountains is easily conquered and annexed after raining destruction down upon it from above. Easily circumventing ground fortifications, Garlean airships were able to swiftly deliver imperial troops into the heart of enemy strongholds, forever altering the course of modern warfare.

[1522] (55 y/a) 

- The northlands of Ilsabard are united under Garlean rule. The Republic becomes an Empire, and Solus zos Galvus becomes the First Emperor. Several influential Garlean Houses, such as House Darnus, are elevated to positions of power in the Senate or military. A new calendar is adopted by the Garlean territories, the years counted according to the Emperor’s reign.

[1528] (49 y/a) 

- The Garlean Empire begins its first invasion into Othard.

- “No lands must remain beyond our grasp. Go forth. Conquer. Rule.” Solus zos Galvus says during the commencement of the First Far Eastern Campaign. 

- Three Imperial Legions set forth to conquer Garlemald’s next target, the region of Nagxia beyond the Burn. However, the distance to Nagxia was too far for Imperial airships to travel, so the Legions marched on foot and on multi-legged magitek transports. However, while traversing the Burn, the harsh climate and desert sand caused early magitek units to breakdown. As potable water diminished and morale was exhausted, the Emperor gave the order to withdraw.

- During the retreat, the Imperial army stumbled upon ancient ruins in the Burn, and a terrible truth: that the ancient city’s inhabitants were responsible for the creation of the wasteland, its aether consumed by godlike beings the people had summoned repeatedly.

- Upon returning from the Burn after having witnessed its desolation firsthand, Emperor Solus zos Galvus releases an imperial mandate calling for the eradication of all false deities, or “Eikons”, and any race suspected of summoning them. These detestable races the Empire dubs “beast tribes.”

[circa 1530~40s]

- Solus zos Galvus channeled the vast resources of the Empire into the development of new magitek designs, more efficient airships, and faster single-pilot units as well. 

[1547] (30 y/a)

- With the Empire’s new airships, the Garlean Empire now stood ready to resume its invasion of Othard. Long considered unassailable, Emperor Galvus bid his airships fly over the Skatay Range and attack the Kingdom of Dalmasca from the north, circumventing its defenses. Major cities fell in the blink of an eye. Nalbina Fortress, Dalmasca’s last bastion of defense, raises a magical barrier to stall the Empire’s approach.

- Legatus Noah van Gabranth of the IVth Imperial Legion begins a bloody, six-month siege to Nalbina Fortress. Tides finally turn against the Dalmascans in the final Battle of Nalbina, wherein Prince Rasler and Princess Ashelia were found among the 70,000 dead on the Dalmascan side.

- After the massacre, Dalmasca’s Regent relinquishes the crown to the Empire and supposedly succumbs to illness soon after, ending the royal B’nargin line after a thousand years of rule. Rumors of suicide and assassination circulate throughout the annexed kingdom.

- Rabanastre became a key staging ground for Imperial forces moving into Nagxia, the kingdom quickly being annexed into two regions: the deserts of the Rabanastre capital to the north in Dalmasca Superior, and the jungles to the south in Dalmasca Inferior, with Lea Monde as its capital. 

- It takes three years for Garlemald to subjugate the whole of Nagxia. Despite the Nagxians being made up of several disparate clans, their guerrilla tactics and familiarity with their jungle home made the regions occupation difficult, until Garlemald began employing small, elite mobile units.

[1550] (27 y/a)

- Ancient Allagan relics are unearthed in newly annexed Imperial territories. While Garlemald’s engineers were never able to replicate the fundamentals of the Allagan devices, the secrets gleaned from the ancient machina progressed Garlemald’s technology by leaps and bounds.

- Garlean engineers are successful in using ceruleum engines to reanimate a number of these uncovered Allagan machina. Some of these ancient war-machina begin appearing on the front lines.

[1552] (25 y/a) 

- Fearing eminent invasion, Doma’s sovereign requests aid from Hingashi, however, after witnessing the fate of Dalmasca, the bakufu elects to remain neutral.

- Rather than reinforcing Doma’s castles and strongholds throughout Yanxia, Lord Kaien gathered his strength along the Dairyu Moon Gates, reinforcing their wards with geomancy and ninjutsu to disrupt the aetherial currents and send incoming Garlean airships crashing to the earth below. Ground assaults were likewise repelled with a united Doman army fighting alongside several auspices, including Tamamo Gozen. 

- Despite repelling the first wave, the Garleans redoubled their efforts and soon gained a foothold on the One River with the overnight construction of Castrum Fluminis. Realizing he could not hope to win out the coming siege, Lord Kaien surrendered Doma to the Empire to avoid more bloodshed. 

[1553] (24 y/a) 

- With the remaining lands of Othard quickly being annexed, Garlemald turns its full attention towards Aldenard and begins attacking the Eorzean city-state of Ala Mhigo, drawing attention away from Baelsar’s ongoing political subterfuge in the region.

[1555] (22 y/a) 

- Cid Garlond and Nero Scaeva enter Garlemald’s Magitek Academy, their fiercely competitive rivalry fueling the Imperial military with countless new inventions, many of which would come to be used against Ala Mhigo.

[1557] (20 y/a) 

- Ala Mhigo finally falls after Garlean infiltrators incite civil war in the city-state, leading to a rebellion of the people against Theodoric, the King of Ruin, after five years of paranoid tyranny and fear. In the wake of King Theodoric’s suicide, the XIVth Legion puts down the Ala Mhigan revolutionaries in a most brutal fashion.

- Sharlayan attempts to negotiate a peace treaty with the Garlean Empire. The Garleans refused to meet the Sharlayan envoy. Negotiations failed, the Forum votes to abandon Sharlayan’s colony in the Dravanian Hinterlands. Preparations are made so that their knowledge does not fall into the hands of the Garlean Empire.

- Fearing a rapid invasion after the fall of Eorzea’s greatest military power, Ala Mhigo, the remaining city-states attempt to bolster their defenses for the coming war. As most of these nations previously relied on sellswords or city guard rather than standing militaries, drafting and training professional soldiers began in earnest. This left many sellswords and mercenaries without work and many turned to banditry.

- A famed Lominsan mercenary leader by the name of Lodewicus the Leal establishes the Adventurers’ Guild, an organization for the displaced sellswords to find work bettering the realm and its smallfolk. The Guild acted as an intermediary, finding capable takers for a variety of tasks submitted by townsfolk-in-need. The Guild quickly establishes branches lead by prominent leaders in Ul’dah and Gridania. 

- With each nation amassing their strength to prepare for the Empire’s inevitable assault, an uneasy Age of Calm settles over Eorzea.

[1561] (16 y/a)

- The Adventurers’ movement was not warmly received by all. With the flood of new adventurers entering the cities, many smallfolk found their jobs and livelihoods taken over by these hired workers. This compounded Ul’dah’s unemployed Ala Mhigan refugee crisis, heightened tensions with foreign poachers in Gridania, and guilds across the realm reported a noticeable decline in the quality of their goods.

- The Eorzean Alliance is reformed by the nations of Limsa Lominsa, Ul’dah, Gridania, and Ishgard - Ishgard boasting the largest military presence of the four.

[1562] (15 y/a) 

- After amassing their forces in Ala Mhigo, Garlemald finally pushes south into Eorzea, seeking to lay claim to Silvertear Lake in Mor Dhona, but are thwarted by Midgardsormr and the Dravanians he calls to war. This singular event, later known as the Battle of Silvertear Skies, is the catalyst for almost every major world event to follow.

- In the massive explosion of aether from Silvertear Lake, the first Eorzean primals are summoned from the fears of the Beast tribes. From then on, the tribes learn to summon these primals repeatedly against their enemies. The Echo begins manifesting in countless individuals across the realm after reportedly seeing a “starshower” in the sky.

- The XIVth Legion, utterly crushed by the Dravanians, retreats to Ala Mhigo and begins construction on Baelsar’s Wall to keep the beast tribes and their “eikons” at bay.

- Seeking a method to defeat Eorzea’s primals, the Emperor gives the okay for Midas nan Garlond’s and Nael van Darnus’s “Meteor Project,” seeking to use the power of the lesser moon, Dalamud, as a weapon against Eorzea. Their first test site is Bozja, the largest commercial hub in Othard.

- Dalamud awakens and a beam of energy evaporates the entire city of Bozja, desolating the entire region. Garlemald attempts to cover up this “Bozja Incident” but it is impossible. Fear spreads throughout Othard. Nael van Darnus takes her failure out on the Othardians, worsening conditions there. The first whispers of Far Eastern resistance begin.

- Having witnessed the destruction his magitek inventions visited upon Ala Mhigo and the obliteration of an entire region at the hands of his father, Cid nan Garlond and several of his engineers defect from the Empire. In Eorzea, Cid founds the Garlond Ironworks and readies the Eorzean Alliance for war by creating magitek enhanced weapons and airships.

- Gaius van Baelsar creates the Crania Lupi, children of Ala Mhigan dignitaries born during the occupation and raised as “Garlean” citizens, with all rights afforded them. Once of age, these children were trained as soldiers and made to collect the tax on annexed peoples, one-fifth of each month’s earnings. As the livelihoods of many a Gyr Abanian had been destroyed by the Empire’s invasion, many were unable to pay the tithe.

- XIVth Legion engineers begin testing a new chemical weapon, “Black Rose”, on Eorzean prisoners of war. The project was eventually shut down by Gaius van Baelsar. 

[1563] (14 y/a)

- Unwilling to divert their forces away from the Dragonsong War and the most recent awakening of Nidhogg any longer, the Holy See of Ishgard withdraws from the Eorzean Alliance, closing its gates to all but its Temple Knights.

- Limsa Lominsa, Ul’dah, and Gridania remain an alliance in name only. The nations disband their drafted armies, leaving countless scores of infantry without work. Many of these soldiers are drawn to the growing popularity of the Adventurers’ Guild, thus begins an almost decade-long time period known as the Age of Adventure.

[1569] (8 y/a)

- Imperial Dreadnaughts of the XIVth Legion begin shooting down airships over Eorzean skies. Garlemald increases airship patrols over their annexed nations. Hostilities come to a head when a Highwind Skyways airship transporting civilian passengers is shot down.

- Between Dravanian attacks and Imperial Dreadnaught patrols, Highwind Skyways suspends all regular airship service indefinitely. Flights become limited to instances of “extraordinary circumstance.”

[1572] (5 y/a) 

- Garlean airships begin air-dropping propaganda linkpearls upon the free city-states of Eorzea. The Empire promises its full military protection, on the condition the Eorzean city-states take up arms against the beast tribes and their primals.

- Nael van Darnus and her VIIth Legion leave the Eastern theater and join van Baelsar in Ala Mhigo, driving the slaves there to redouble their military efforts. The VIIth and XIVth Legions harry the city-states, cutting off trade routes in and out of Eorzea. Trade between the East and Eorzea begins to dwindle.

- Unable to repel Garlean encroachment upon the Black Shroud any longer, the newly appointed Elder Seedseer of Gridania, Kan-E-Senna, appeals to Gridania’s former allies for aid and urges the nations of Ul’dah and Limsa Lominsa to reform the Grand Companies of eld. The city-states of Eorzea reform the Eorzean Alliance and declare war against Garlemald. 

- The second incarnation of the Meteor Project comes to fruition in the recently Garlean-occupied Mor Dhona. Dalamud descends upon Eorzea. The XIVth Legion retreats to Ala Mhigo to crush Ala Mhigan resistance there. The VIIth Legion entrenches itself in Mor Dhona, sending out cohorts to attack the city-states.

- XIVth Legatus Gaius van Baelsar warns the Eorzean Alliance of Meteor, and of the tenacious hold Dalamud has over van Darnus’s mind. Led by Flame Commander Jakys Ryder, Storm Commander R’ashaht Rhiki, and Serpent Commander Quinquerol Flutaint, the Grand Companies scramble to assault Castrum Novum and destroy the lunar transmitter beckoning the Lesser Moon. The transmitter is destroyed, but VIIth Legion Legatus Nael van Darnus escapes. Dalamud continues to fall.

- Using Allagan technology found in the Fields of Glory in Coerthas, van Darnus rent a portion of the land from the firmament to become a beacon for Dalamud in the sky. This, the Rivenroad, became the VIIth Legatus’s last battlefield. A group of adventurers, led by Cid nan Garlond, flew to the island and killed Nael van Darnus, but it was far too late for Dalamud to be stopped.

[CALAMITY and Years 1 - 4 of the 7th Umbral Era]

- The Battle of Carteneau is waged between the Eorzean Alliance and the VIIth Legion on the Carteneau Flats, while Archon Louisoix Leveilleur prepares to call upon the power of the Twelve to return Dalamud to the heavens. Dalamud bursts open, however, revealing the elder primal Bahamut, who lays waste to Eorzea.

- The calendar Year resets to Year 1 of the 7th Umbral Era. 

- Baelsar’s XIVth Legion pushes into Eorzea on multiple fronts, building castrums in preparation for another invasion. However, all further aggression halts as First Garlean Emperor Solus zos Galvus’s health sharply declines.

- In Dalmasca, a resistance uprising known as the Barheim Incident claims scores of Imperial colonists’ lives. In response, the XIVth Legion returns to the Royal City of Rabanastre. Under Livia sas Junius’s command, suspected rebels were hunted down and slaughtered without trial, earning the Tribunus the title: “the Witch of Dalmasca.”

[0005 7th Umbral Era] (~1 y/a) 

- Operation Archon. The Eorzean Alliance pushes back in a unified assault on all Garlean castrums, rooting any planned Imperial advance. Gaius van Baelsar, legatus of the XIVth Legion is reported slain. The empire quickly sends reinforcements to the Eorzean castrums to hold their position.

[0001 7th Astral Era] (~1 y/a) 

- Solus zos Galvus passes. A War of Succession breaks out between the Emperor’s youngest son and the Emperor’s grandson. Hoping to take advantage of the War of Succession, Doma’s people appeal to Lord Kaien to fight back against the Empire. The Doman Liberation Front succeeds in taking back several villages and the capital from the Garleans.

- The War of Succession ends abruptly with the grandson, Varis zos Galvus, taking control over his uncle, Titus yae Galvus. Varis tightens his grip on the East, sending his son and Legatus of the XIIth Legion, Zenos yae Galvus, to end the insurrection. The Doman rebellion is put down, its capital is razed, and anyone captured associated with the rebellion is publicly executed alongside their families as an example to Othard’s other peoples. Lord Kaien is slain and his son, Lord Hien, once the voice of the Liberation Front is forced into hiding. 

- Yugiri leads a group of surviving Doman refugees to the island nation of Hingashi seeking asylum. Hingashi refuses them, fearing they’d face the fate of Doma. The refugees then sail to Thavnair. They are also refused there. Yugiri finally turns towards Eorzea, sailing for two months to reach Vesper, whereupon Ul'dah also refuses them aid. The Doman refugees finally settle in a border town in Mor Dhona called Revenant’s Toll.

- In order to replace Gaius van Baelsar, Legatus Zenos yae Galvus is sent west to govern Ala Mhigo. Zenos promotes the spy Yotsuyu as Acting Viceroy of Doma. To discourage future uprisings, Yotsuyu ordered the magatsu kiyofusa, automatons once used in Doma’s defense, to slaughter the noble samurai of Monzen. Yotsuyu then deploys her soldiers to every Yanxian village, orders the families of those who resisted to step forward or watch their entire village burn. Those who stepped forwards were beaten by Imperial soldiers.

- Even the Confederacy, who had long been ignored by the Garlean Empire, was not spared Yotsuyu’s contempt. Under Viceroy Yotsuyu’s reign, the Confederacy was condemned and any Hingan or Doman who recognize their authority in the Ruby Sea become enemies of the Empire. In order to maintain neutrality, Hingashi was forced to cut ties with the mainland or risk attacks by the, now desperate, Confederacy. 

[Present - Events of Stormblood]

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