Imagine being a mage carrying a globe and tarot cards as your weapons of choice; sounds cool, right? And what if I tell you these mages can use tarot card reading as an actual scientific method to become one of the strongest healers on the battlefield?
So today we are talking about Final Fantasy XIV’s Astrologian.
Introduced in Heavensward, the Astrologian is one of FFXIV’s many healer classes.
But how do these astrologians use tarot cards and the knowledge of the stars as a legitimate source of magical power?
Well, to know that, we have to dive into another one of our history lessons!
Astrologian lore in Final Fantasy XIV
In the sixth astral era, one of the Sharlayan sages named Lewphon studied stargazing for two decades of his own life. The reasoning behind this was that he wanted to not only compile a comprehensive study on the merits of stargazing, but also try to separate the mystical and superstitious parts of astrology from the more reliable and evidence-based knowledge.
But surprisingly, during his research, he found out that most of the records of ancient astrology were founded in legitimate arcane theory.
This was a game changer to him, and as such the focus of his research fully shifted from just the study of astrology to understanding these principles, and then to reconstruct and adapt the old teachings to an art form where the wielder’s aether can be attuned to the movement of the stars.
And thus, Astromancy was found. Following this discovery, the fortune teller cards that were previously disregarded as only simple fun turned into a proper academic study.
The deck of arcana, representing each of the constellations, and the star globe were later on added into this study to create one of the most unique disciplines of magic that evolved from Sharlaya.
And that is how Astrologian as a class was invented, and no doubt became one of the most visually stunning classes in the world of Eorzea, with its unique weapon design and having one of, if not the coolest animations in the whole game, in my honest opinion!
