Foreword: FC issues took place right before my scheduled posting date, and for a week and a few days after it took all of my energy and focus. Then I got a job last week! This was the post planned after my last post.
Planned Posting Date: 04/21/2017Theme of the Week: Thieves’ CantThis topic is going to mention several subjects, mostly real life history as well as concepts from Dungeons and Dragons, which help build context for the topic of the post. I hope it doesn’t distract too much from FFXIV’s lore and content!
In the Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition Player’s Handbook, upon designing a new character, a player is given an option of a variety of classes. According to the Player’s Handbook, class is “the primary definition of what your character can do. It’s more than a profession; it’s your character’s calling. Class shapes the way you think about the world and interact with it and your relationship with other people.”
One of these classes, or “callings” as it is described, is the rogue. “[They] rely on skill, stealth, and their foes’ vulnerabilities to get the upper hand in any situation.”
The class as designed in D&D introduces the idea of thieves’ cant, which is stated as follows: “during your rogue training, you learned thieves’ cant, a secret mix of dialect, jargon, and code that allows you to hide messages in seemingly normal conversation. Only another creature that knows thieves’ cant understands such messages. It takes four times longer to convey such a message than it does to speak the same idea plainly.”
And one of the players I have in my Tuesday group who read that part of their class choice asked me: what was thieves’ cant?
Without thinking I Googled the word, only to find the previous history of websites from when I studied the topic a few months earlier for an RP muse I was working on that had a history with the Rogues’ Guild in Limsa Lominsa.
Edelweiss, EdelweissOur first dose of what can be traditionally called thieves cant in FFXIV comes from a quest that was released during patch 2.4. This quest, called “Edelweiss, Edelweiss”, seems to do nothing useful aside from act as an opener for new adventurers to Limsa to meet the “Dutiful Sisters of the Edelweiss”
This “convent” is revealed to any LV 10 characters who’ve received permission from their starter guild to pursue other disciplines to be the location of the Rogue’s Guild, a concept that we’ll touch on in a little bit.
The Gatekeep, Lonwoerd, presents the ongoing deception, with a request for “proper business” and if that isn’t your reason for being there, rudely tells you to leave. Upon revealing the package you have from the Brugaire Consortium chief assistant, he says
“Them Consortium
culls know the right way to show appreciation!”
This is our very first word we are introduced to that is unique to the five NPCs that you meet in the Rogues’ Guild and he doesn’t seem interested in explaining what he means by it.
From the context of the meaning of the word in cant dictionaries, he seems to be addressing their status as allies and source as jobs. Instead of employers, or friends, or any synonyms to address their business deals, he refers specifically to their accessibility: either as targets themselves for jobs or the ones that can be targeted as a mark. It’s code in the most general sense, a word that only those membered into the Guild would have any idea what it means. You as a new adventurer, however, simply delivering this package revealed to be food items of various sorts, would have no clue what he means.
His subsequent task that he gives you after receiving the package is to let the chief assistant know “we’re always here” if they’re needed, a stark contrast to the “house o’ deep reflection an’ meditation” that he insists is not for you and tells you to kindly bugger off upon inquiring into it.
There are two available response options upon returning to let J’nasshym know of your successful delivery. It is implied that the PC asks J’nasshym what services do the Sisters provide, to which the following happens:
If you immediately return the sentiments to J’nasshym without enquiring into the guild further (or if you happen to be doing so on a character that is not permitted to take leave to join other guilds), the Miqo’te answers the question with:
“Continue your stay in Limsa Lominsa, and you’ll likely find out soon enough. In fact, if you’re confident in your abilities and comfortable with the unconventional, you might wish to approach them yourself.”
If you enquire further as to the convent, Lonwoerd recognizes you for your progress (lv 10 or higher prior to clearing Patch 2.2 content and meeting Yugiri) and mentions it’s the Guild’s vision to invite any of the more notorious adventurers in the area to consider aligning themselves with the mission of the Rogues. After finishing the first quest, J’nasshym changes her reply to:
“I’m quite sure an adventurer of your stature has already glimpsed the truth behind the facade. For a business such as ours, their presence in the city is incredibly reassuring!”
Now, it’s not just words that serve as part of the principle of thieves cant. In an article cited by Wikipedia, it is described as “more than just slang or jargon, cant was an independent language, unintelligible to outsiders, an artificial English-within-English, which, according to the playwright Thomas Dekker, “none but themselves should understand.”
Everything about the Rogues Guild is crafted to deceive and mislead people. Their clients and the members are the only ones privy to knowing what exactly they’re about, as J’nasshym alludes to, but anyone else will remain blissfully unaware of the organization’s true intentions unless they either show promise in skill that the members need, commit a crime that calls their attention, to request of their services for someone who broke a similar law.
Going back to the point made before about the convent itself, it’s interesting to note they draw an organization identity to the Edelweiss. The name of the quest that serves as a lead-in to the Guild directly quotes the pop-culture reference of the song from The Sound of Music where we can get an idea of how the Edelweiss was used as a symbol in the musical as well as what it represented in the past.
We can also take a look and see that in the German and French localizations, as well as the original Japanese in the game, the identity with the Edelweiss is the same:
JP: エーデルワイス商会 (Ēderuwaisu Shōkai)
NA: Dutiful Sisters Of The Edelweiss
FR: Société De Négoce De L'Edelweiss
GR: Schwestern Von Edelweiß
It is interesting to note, in both the French and Japanese renditions of the title of the Guild, they are referred as a business (商会, Société De Négoce = trading company) rather than a convent or nunnery (Schwestern = Sisters) as it is expressed in German and English. This further expands the deception to the audiences experiencing it through the eyes of their PC characters; in NA and in the GR player communities we see them as practitioners of a saintlike order, whereas player communities in Japan and French see them as a highly specialized business in a category of “goods”
These two concepts remain united by the Edelweiss flower across all four languages. What could it stand for?
It most certainly doesn’t refer to the flower itself within the context of botanical presences in Aldenard, as the flower is not found in the gathering log received. The word for the flower translates to English as “noble white” and an entry into the description of the name refers to the point in history where the Edelweiss was legislated by the Swiss to be illegal to pick by the roots because of its rampant usage due to its rarity and dangerous location.
The Edelweiss also stands as a symbol of permanence and endurance in hard times, this theme being the aspect drawn upon in the famous musical using the flower to title the song referenced in the quest title.
It’s revealed that the Rogues Guild, in fact, is even a further disguise taken during the reformation of the maritime city-state by Merlwyb when she moved to outlaw piracy. In the past, it was known as the Upright Thieves (another term of cant), and was established in the Sixth Astral Year of 967, approximately giving the organization an impressive 610 year existence and throughout the timeline of its existence, only being subject to a single restructuring due to the current Admiral’s recent change, in comparison to the older Knights of the Barracuda who have been disbanded and absorbed into the Maelstrom entirely.
To me, as a purveyor of these events, Edelweiss symbolizes the permanence of the code of conduct among the pirates that raised the nation of Limsa, it represents the freedom they scaled to achieve from the wars of the Northern Empty, and it represents the endurance of the protection that code assures to any that would call themselves Limsan. The Edelweiss is the Code, and whether they are Sisters that convene to promote it or a trading company that specializes in its defense, the Rogues Guild conceals a brand of men and women who are dedicated to the noble purity that is the freedom of Limsa Lominsa and its history.
The Edelweiss thus becomes cant, and all the words used in conjunction with the same brand of secret society language, to hide the true intentions of these people, and to inspire those that may hold that desire in their hearts to show their true dedication to the people and maritime land they call home, to find the real meaning behind their convent, and behind the words that mark the people they defend or are tasked to defeat.
There’s so much I can write on the subject of the depth of the cant and the secret society it’s used to conceal in Limsa, but I’d have you reading for ages. (plus there’s a character limit.) Sources and cant definitions to follow this post!
- R'nehva Tia
