More than about 1500 years ago in the Eorzean calendar, three great mage capitals thrived: The Mhachi, the Nymians, and the Amdapori.

The start of the 5th Astral Era began with a rediscovery of magic, and a great mage Shatotto discovering a way to utilise the Aether surrounding them instead of their internal Aether to cast magic. Hence, the first Black Mage was born(This Shatotto also called down Meteor and used the starshards from that to create the Stardust Rod). The Mhachi primarily resided around northwest of Mor Dhona, around the Yafaem Saltmoor.

In the city of Amdapor lived the bastions of White Mages. The White Magic relied on the balance with the environment to provide succor - a comfort, a relief, in response to the development of Black Magic that utilised the Aether around them.

The Nymians lived on Vylbrand, and while they were a small maritime nation, they were considered superb tacticians. It has been said that,“A single scholar can fully support a party of marauders.”

Initially the three Mage nations lived in Harmony but everything changed when the firenation Mhachi attacked.

Well, to be fair we don’t have concrete statement of who started the war, but what evidence we do have points to the Mhachi as the instigators. (Edit 8/3/2016: or at least someone who attacked BOTH Nym and Amdapor, as we’ve not been given evidence stating that Amdapor had attacked Nym)

As the war progressed, what Surito Carito and Alka Zolka in the SCH questline tell us, was that some Nymian seafaring traders got shipwrecked and landed on a desert island inhabited by a tribe of Lalafells. The seafarers got assitance from this tribe to set them afloat once more, but not before gifting them an ampoule as a gift ( why are a lot of images for a googe image search of ampoule a lightbulb NVM its french, thanks @nightmazing :> )

This looks about right.

So the seafaring Nymians went back to the City of Nym and then had the vial put on display in the royal hall. Slowly however a taint had spread throughout the city of Nym, and one by one the Nymians fell into a curse, transforming into the Tonberries we know of today. Through Surito Carito and Alka Zolka’s research, we find that the ampoule contained a voidsent, which was then finally cleansed through the 50-60 scholar questline.

With the Nymians out of the picture, the Mhachi turned their full attention to the Amdapori, continued their assault on the White Mage capital. From what we know, the Mhachi were proficient with summoning/utilising Voidsent, and thus had sent their voidsent to assault the City of Amdapor. At some point in time, the Mhachi grew desperate and summoned what E-Sumi-yan had described as a “King among demons”, Diabolos.

Lets pretend that diremite is a voidsent, okay?

This is why in the Lost City of Amdapor Hard Mode, corpses of Amdapori and Mhachi are shown wearing the AF gear.

In the chaos, the White Mages seemingly had abused their own power and thus the Elementals grew disappointed and angry at man’s actions, and their rage gave form to Oha-sok, akin to an elemental primal. It was this collective rage of the Elementals that ushered in a Great Flood that caused the Sixth Umbral Era.

BUT WAIT!

Turns out the Mhachi foresaw of the Great Flood and had prepared a means to try and survive it. The had created the Void Ark, to be powered by the Voidsent to weather it out. However according to what we know with the Void Ark storyline that the High Voidmage Cessair who had constructed the Void Ark, he and his followers were unable to fully control the entity they had summoned to power the ship, and hence had perished after succeeding in rebinding the voidsent.

This does mean that some Mhachi survived somehow, as it is speculated by Surito Carito that the remnants of the Mhachi ended up founding the nation of Belah'dia, which then separated into Sil'dih and Ul'dah.

Likely descendants of the Mhachi

Many thanks to Anwyll/Anonymoose of Gamerescape and FFXIV official forums, and to @folkenface for proofreading <3



Also thanks to Y’mir Tia (BLM), Roxy Migurudia (SCH), and the random Roe and Au Ra for providing the roles of MRD and WHM respectively. This does not likely accurately depict what races actually were those nations however, as far as we know.

Edit 8/3/2016 Thanks to /u/ishirozaki for pointing out the line in the VA Story about High Voidmage Cessair