• HYDAELYN - The name given to the world. Also the name of the primary goddess of the series, an unseen entity best known for asking players to hear, feel and think.
• ALDENARD - One of the three Great Continents (the others known as Ilsabard and Othard). With the exception of Vylbrand, does not account for the surrounding islands and smaller landmasses.
• EORZEA - The name given to the greater area of Aldenard, including all surrounding areas. Much more commonly known and used.
• LIMSA LOMINSA - One of the 3 starting cities. A city-state found on the island Vylbrand and part of the greater area known as La Noscea. Its founding myth states that one of the twelve gods of the realm grounded a ship on the island, which later had the city founded out of its wreckage. Ruled by the Admiral Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn.
• UL'DAH - One of the 3 starting cities. A wealthy city-state and commercial hub found in the southern deserts of Aldenard. Ruled over by a sultan or sultana in name alone, with the most elite and wealthy figures behind them acting as the true power. Currently led by Sultana Nanamo ul Namo and the six members of the Syndicate.
• GRIDANIA - One of the 3 starting cities. Located deep within the Black Shroud (otherwise known as the Twelveswood), a hostile environment to those who work against the Elementals. Ruled over by Kan-E-Senna, Elder Seedseer, a mediator between the Elementals and those living within the forest. Traditionally hated by Legacy players for its impossible to navigate map.
• MOR DHONA - A desolate region in central Aldenard. The site of a battle between dragons and the Garlean Empire some 15 years prior. At the center of the region's lake is the wreckage of an airship with the king of dragons' body coiled around it. Also home to an adventuring hub called Revenant's Toll. The battle of Carteneau and the culmination of Legacy occurred in this region.
• ISHGARD - The fourth city-state of Eorzea far to the north in mountainous Coerthas. An isolationalist and highly religious nation, it has been at war with the neighbouring dragons for a milennia and is unwilling to split its military efforts to aid the rest of Eorzea in repelling the Garlean threat. Leads the continent in chocobo production.
• ALA MHIGO - The fifth city-state of Aldenard, found on the eastern corner. Occupied for 15 or 20 years (Legacy or Realm Reborn dependent) by Garlemald, following the demise of the prior king Theodoric who instigated a nationwide civil war and left the region unstable. Unsuccessfully attempted to invade Gridania some 80 years prior.
• SHARLAYAN - An island nation in the northern seas and a hub dedicated to learning. A pacifistic society that produces abundant numbers of scholars, it once held a small colony in Eorzea, abandoned once news of encroaching Garlean presence reached them. Scholars of note are known as Archons and have symbols tattooed on their skin to denote their position.
• GARLEMALD - Home to the Garlean Empire, the main antagonist of the setting. Produces magitek machinery in lieu of its citizens being unable to use magic. Once a remote and weak nation, it has become a formidable force in the last 60-odd years due to technological revolution. Has invaded and occupied several regions, including the city-state of Ala Mhigo. Its expansion has brought it to the doorstep of Eorzea, though it has been so far repelled.

• LOUISOIX LEVEILLEUR - Leader of the Circle of Knowing and Archon. Travelled to Eorzea to forstall the prophecised end of the current era.
• ASCILIA - A young girl and daughter of an Ala Mhigan spy within the Garlean ranks. The echo manifests within her, and under the name Minfilia Warde, she heads the Path of Twelve in the attempt to understand this power and use it to promote peace.
• Y'SHTOLA - One of Louisoix's followers. A Miqo'te conjurer investigating a shadowless man in the La Noscean area.
• THANCRED - One of Louisoix's followers. A Hyuran rogue who took Ascilia under his wing following the death of her father.
• YDA & PAPALYMO - Louisoix's followers, and a duo rarely separated. A Hyuran monk and Lalafellin thaumaturge investigating the Garlean presence around the Gridanian area.
• GAIUS VAN BAELSAR - Known as the "Black Wolf", a general in the Garlean Empire and viceroy of Ala Mhigo.
• NAEL VAN DARNUS - Known as the "White Raven", a general of Garlemald's VIIth Legion. Becomes Legacy's main antagonist.
• PATH COMPANION - Partners to the player character of varying race and class, but always from Ala Mhigo.
• URIANGER - A doomsayer from Sharlayan and student of Louisoix. Branded a heretic by Garlemald, his actions behind the scenes encourage the city-states to form their Grand Companies.
• CID GARLOND - A magitek engineer formerly of Garlemald who works with the Grand Companies to investigate Garlean behaviour.

• GRAND COMPANY - Groups formed by the starting city-states designed to form a cohesive military command in order to combat threats that cannot be dealt with traditionally. Players can belong to a single Grand Company at a time. Led by the city-states' leaders (with the exception of Ul'dah's force, which is led by General Raubahn). It was these forces alongside other adventurers that fought the opposition in the Battle of Carteneau.
• PRIMAL - Also called Eikons by Garleans, Primals are summoned creatures made up of vast amounts of the land's aether. Typically takes on a form of a god or other legendary figure, with the power to match. Has the power to temper (enthrall) those unable to resist. Considered a threat by Garlemald, who desire to stamp them out for good. The only Primals introduced in Legacy available to battle were Garuda, Ifrit, and King Moggle Mog XII.
• ECHO - A rare power awakened only in some individuals, typically upon seeing a starshower. Grants the individual the power to see into the past and implicitly understand every language in the world. Manifests differently in some individuals; the reason is unknown.
• ASCIAN - Sometimes called "Paragons", these black-robed figures are notably shadowless and work beneath the notice of the wider world to achieve an unknown goal. Responsible for teaching the art of summoning to beast tribes.
• CIRCLE OF KNOWING - A group led by by the Archon Louisoix who endeavour to archive all knowledge possible. They travelled from Sharlayan to Eorzea to accumulate more power in the form of facts and experience.
• PATH OF TWELVE - A group dedicated to researching the nature and origin of the Echo. Led by Minfilia and based in Ul'dah.
• THE TWELVE - The Eorzean pantheon. Six pairs represent the six elements found in nature, and each deity is associated with a month of the calendar and a constellation in the night sky.
• AETHER - The world's energy produced in the aetherial sea where all life begins. Impercetible but forms the basis of all things, including magic, teleportation, and even the creation of items via aspected crystals. Areas drained of aether, like Mor Dhona, are entirely barren.
• BEAST TRIBES - A term used to describe spoken races that differ from the playable races that make up the majority of the land. Typically unjustly maligned and mistrustful of the player races. The deities of these tribes are occasionally summoned as Primals in times of desperation. The only tribes met in Legacy are the Sylphs, Sahagin, Amaljaa, Moogles, Ixal and Kobolds.
• ASHCROWN CONSORTIUM - A Sylph-led organization responsible for distributing elemental crystals across Eorzea. Acting as a trading overseer, they desire peace, and trade with all races equally.
• GARLOND IRONWORKS - Made up of both Eorzean and defected Garlean engineers, this group is known for crafting magitek technology. Many defectors are hunted by Garlemald for passing along state secrets. Led by Cid Garlond, legendary craftsman and defector.
• ASTRAL & UMBRAL ERAS - Periods of time across Eorzean history typically characterised by the rise and fall of civilisations. Astral eras are distinguished by times of prosperity, and culminate with an Umbral Calamity of epic proportions. Following these Calamities are periods of short but harrowing times of chaos, known as Umbral eras. As of Legacy, the current timeline is set in the mid-1500s of the Sixth Astral Era (6AE).
• MENPHINA & DALAMUD - The two moons that orbit Hydaelyn. The larger is sometimes called Menphina after the goddess of love, and the lesser red moon her loyal hound Dalamud.
• ALLAG - An empire that rose to prominence during the Third Astral Era (3AE), approximately 5000 years prior. Its influence was felt world-wide, and its technological heights remain unsurpassed even today. Toppled and destroyed in the fourth Calamity and never recovered, though its reach and influence can still be discovered in current times.

An adventurer sits deep in the bowels of a swaying boat, unbothered but for a disembodied voice entreating them to hear, feel, think. Ascending to the deck in search of this voice, they are greeted with a vision of stars falling from the sky, until they are knocked from their feet by a swaying deck, helped up by a Miqo'te lass who begs you return belowdeck. The seas and skies conspire against the vessel: in the midst of a great storm, a swarm of jellyfish/aurelia come aboard and attack. The crew requests help, and the adventurer takes to the frenzy. Post battle, a great sea-wyrm erupts from the waters, and the songstress's voice once again rings in the adventurer's mind - your mind.

Welcome to La Noscea.

Wherever you hail from, adventurer, you are here in the port-city of Limsa Lominsa now, surrounded by pirates, thieves, and all other kinds of scurrelous people. Your first order: find a job, which is given to you by the Fisher's guildmaster. A simple escort job where nothing can go wrong, until it does!

Dead bodies lay strewn across the ground, and a pirate speaks to a man without shadow about striking a deal with the local beastmen. They leave once they realise they've been discovered, and upon your return to the city, you happen to bump into the nice young lady that helped you aboard the ship earlier. Her name is Y'shtola, and she searches for a shadowless man accused of assisting Sahagin.

What else is there to do but help?

A secret fishing hole revealed to you introduces you to a man of the Limsan fleet, and the captain of the ship you arrived by: he believes the pirate you stumbled upon earlier is responsible for betraying him (and by extension, Limsa Lominsa) to the local beast tribes. It's the only thing that explains the uptick in attacks, and to further hammer in his guilt, another pirate faction is searching for him.

Alas, he has already been caught and held prisoner, and the Sahagin are quick approaching. Accompanied by Y'shtola once more, you sneak aboard the ship to rescue him - but the seawyrm of before appears once more and causes a wave to swallow the ship. Y'shtola's magicks protect you, and her voice requests that you find a key - presumably from a suddenly-surfaced islet known as Seal Rock - and you awake upon the docks of Limsa Lominsa.

Not wishing to be caught up in politicking far beyond your ken, you turn yourself in to the local authorities and explain your part in things. They plan to arrest Y'shtola on espionage charges, for presumably she seeks something that belongs within Limsan borders - perhaps the artifact that the good captain now bears, that he says was able to repel the sea serpent. How fortuitous. Deeming him suspicious, you follow him to the mainland, where you catch him caught in battle with none other than Y'shtola herself, demanding his artifact. And as you approach...

Bright light, and the feeling of something amiss. Upon investigation, you find the captain and his crooked pirate rivals discussing how best to take the treasure of Seal Rock for themselves, and-

Once more in the present, Y'shtola realises you have been blessed with the Echo and have seen something of the past. And because no good can come of such things as prophecies and being a chosen individual, the sky opens up to shower stars down upon you once more, and the shadowless man you'd met once before appears. He takes back the artifact, and the world goes black.

You awake to the four walls of an inn room, and a message entreating you to visit Ul'dah, where the Path of the Twelve awaits your presence.

What else is there to do but go?

Welcome, adventurer, to the jewel of Thanalan!

It's a festival day in Ul'dah, and as you enter by chocobo-drawn cart, you're treated to the sky raining down stars, and a request to hear, feel, think. A young girl's voice jars you out of your reverie and you see that it isn't a starshower but fireworks instead to herald a processing going by, with none other than a goobbue on display in its midst. Of course, it breaks free and begins rampaging, and though there are injuries and - sadly - a fatality, a handsome stranger and another helper are able to bring the beast down.

A tragedy, to be sure, but you are here to make your fortune, and so take yourself to the local adventuring guild, where you learn of illegal mining activities that need stopping. It might not be fame and fortune, but everyone needs a place to start, so you take both yourself and a songstress from the parade along... only to find the young girl of earlier, injured and seemingly alone. The girl's name is Ascilia, and her father fatally wounded in the freak goobbue accident - though by her own words, it was loosed on purpose. Her father was a spy within the Garlean army, and it was likely their hand that freed the beastkin. Survivors of the Battle of Silvertear Skies, Ascilia and her father were here to try and warn the city of danger - but what, specifically, has died with him.

With the mage responsible for the mining nowhere in sight, you return to the city. The songstress takes Ascilia under her care, but it was her companions responsible for the girl's death. Enraged by their presence, Ascilia flees, and by chance you meet with the handsome man that fought the goobbue before. His name is Thancred, and it was his hand that guided Ascilia out of the city before, at her own request. He has his own designs: to flirt with every woman in Ul'dah, and to learn of the Garlean threat as it relates to the city.

And there is a threat. The Ul'dahn elite want war for profit's sake, and it has not been so long since Silvertear. To top it all off: the parade was not Garlean-done after all, but orchestrated by the songstress' companions for personal glory alone. The death of Ascilia's father was an accident, and one which they feel guilty for - but a man has died all the same, and the girl is unable to pay for the funeral.

For her part, the songstress wishes to commune with the dead by way of thaumaturgy - apparently an impossibility, so what information he carried is gone forever - and in quick succession, Ascilia is stolen away, to be delivered back to Ala Mhigo, lest she bring the wrath of Garlemald upon the city... though she says whatever danger comes is greater than their might. You rescue her and leave her in the care of Ul'dah's infirmary, and then go after Thancred, for one of these men does indeed have dealing with Garlemald, and he will want to know.

As it turns out, resurrection is an art nearly perfected. You and Thancred rush to the mortuary to prevent it, whereupon you are struck with an Echo: Ascilia, huddled by her father's seemingly empty coffin, and the songstress' companion stabbed from behind by a black-cloaked figure. The Echo ends, and Thancred rushes outside only to see once again a starshower. Whatever is happening will affect all of Eorzea, it seems... and thus, you faint.

You awake to the four walls of an inn room, and learn that a girl by the name of Minfilia brought you here. She requests your presence, when you're well enough - in a little place called the Waking Sands.

What else is there to do but go?

Faintly through the emerald boughs of the Twelveswood, a song can be heard. An adventurer, entranced, goes in search of it, and stumbles instead upon a shower of stars beyond the canopy, and someone asking them to hear, feel, think... moments before something much more tangible comes rocketing down from the sky and lands in a clearing nearby. It is a man and a woman in varying states of uncertainty as to their whereabouts, though their jovial nature flees easy enough in the face of the wood's wrath.

The three of you are chased to Gridania, saved by the timely interruption of a band of moogles, a Hearer of the Elementals, and a proclamation that the forest's fate depends on us. Funny how these things turn out - especially when the three of us are now bathed in woodsin, a negative affliction that brings the forest's fury down upon anyone that goes against the way of the Elementals. Our task, then, is to create a mask for personal use in a purification ritual, while the duo you met earlier go about their business asking around about potential war between Gridania and Garlemald. It's a real concern, and with Gridania the gateway to the rest of Eorzea, the implications could be dire. On top of this, both Moogles and Hearers are troubled of late by the forest's unrest, its natural protections having been destroyed by an exile of the city.

You are far from the only one affected by Greenwrath: a young girl is attempting to fix a mask for her brother, long since enthralled by the Elementals and known now as a wildling. Upon investigating a local landmark, you have the fortune of meeting with a Moogle, who informs you the girl's mask is unbroken and cannot be fixed. Her brother cannot be changed back - nor can the parents of a boy, similarly turned. His grief has turned to rage, and he despises the Elementals and all they stand for - and all those with any connection to them.

So furious is he that he claims the Elementals themselves do not exist - and to prove it, he attacks a tree. What bursts forth is nothing less than an Elemental, overcome with Greenwrath and angered beyond belief - you must do battle with it, but even that is not enough to calm the forest. It transpires that the girl's brother was the one to bring down the Shroud's protection, and plans are hastily drawn for the purification ritual, though the Hearers fear that sending all parties involved away is the only thing that will work to quell the forest's rage now.

The wildling is brought before the Hearers and regains his mind, if only for a short while, for his life may be forfeited in order to save the boy. Both yourself and your strange friends who fell from the sky, known as Yda and Papalymo, are witness to this, and to the secrets being kept by the Hearers - that is, the truth behind the fall of the protective barrier, and that Gridania intends to wage war against Garlemald.

Before anything else can be addressed or revealed, the rite of purification must go ahead. It nearly goes awry: the girl's brother collapses, and upon running to stop him from hitting the ground, you find yourself in the past, by the power of the Echo, seeing the moment of the boy being bathed in woodsin. Both Yda and Papalymo also see this vision, and realise that something greater than themselves has been set in motion... to which you have no answer but to promptly faint, as they flee.

You awake to the four walls of an inn room, it having been decided that the greenwrath was responsible for your fainting incident, and that a passing hermit put you up at his own expense. He had a message to pass along: that if you ever find yourself in Ul'dah, to visit a place called the Waking Sands.

And really - what else is there to do but go?