Adelaide Adelier

Curious Lalafellin arithmetician, librarian, traveler,
and occasional voidsent host
Banner art by Madqueenmomo

At a Glance

Age:~21 at ARR start, ~33 at DT end
Race:Dunesfolk Lalafell
Birthplace:Ul'dah
Nameday:4th Sun of the 6th Astral Moon
Guardian:Nald'thal
Pronouns:She/her
Occupations:Off-brand Gleaner, Tactician, Nerd, (Rarely Reaper)
Relationship:Married (Spouse: Nemo Nenno)
Height:2'10"

Personality:A studious lalafell with a great appetite for new knowledge. Born to a new money family in Ul'Dah that lost almost everything in the Calamity, she had a higher class upbringing and a lower class transition into adulthood. She has a strong sense of curiosity which (along with the need to find a way to support herself) pushed her to leave home and begin traveling. Most of her earnings go into her personal library--both the physical location and expanding its contents.When there's a problem at hand, she's quick to come up with a plan (or several). She keeps copious amounts of notebooks to document things she encounters for the first time, and to keep track of magical experiments that she conducts as she learns more about the world's arcane workings.New fields and skills excite her, leading her to possess an incomplete experience with many subjects. She is "passable" at most of them, and this is true of combat skills as well. She can fill into , but can't match an expert in any of these fields. Sometimes, her slapdash cross-skill techniques can surprise foes and earn a victory that way, but it's rare she can carry a team in a fight.Despite being more comfortable with books, she was trained in negotiation and socialization and is comfortable across most conversational settings.Especially earlier on in her adventures Adelaide is very pain averse and doesn't tend to handle it well--thus why she quickly becomes a Shield Healer (either a Scholar or focusing on barrier formulas). In her WoL canon, she eventually gets over this fear around Shadowbringers.Timeline:
As Adelaide gets older, she gets more confident, relaxed, and knowledgeable. Her competency with magic also increases, though so does her ambition. Which really just means she gets better at producing simple and moderately complex spells with consistency (and less chance of complication) but that she also has spells in her pocket capable of greater boons and more devestating backfiring than before.I imagine in most cases she'll just be whatever "current content" age is (and thus rather chill), but if you're reading this and want to do a "what if they met around XYZ world event" or "what if they knew each other since they starting adventuring" and go from there, I'm open to it!Likes:
- Discovering new things
- Maps
- Books (both academic and recreational)
- Birds
- Crafting vessels for her magical formulas
- Fruit tea and dark chocolate
- Traveling by air and seeing the land below
- Nemo's singing
- Rainy daysDislikes:
- Societal/Familial expectations
- Her own ignorance
- Willful ignorance / Closed-mindedness
- Controlling others' access to education
- Littering

Main Job: Arithmetician

Adelaide was raised with the economic, statistical, and financial education needed to succeed in Ul'dah's cutthroat business environment (with a dash of thaumaturge training for status), when she left that life behind and learned of arcanima, her comfort with mathematics saw her pick up the basics quickly. Her freshly indulged wanderlust, however, refused to let her remain and study. So she bought up with books she could and is largely self taught.A curious person at heart, Adelaide takes great interest in various disciplines she encounters and tries to practice them to at least novice level as well, and incorporate what she's learned with arcanima. Mathematics can explain every phenomenon, right?Given her strong initial education and... weaker follow up, most of her magicks are "homebrew" arcanima. These techniques are inspired by the fighting styles and natural/magical phenomenon she encounters on her journey. Due to her self-taught understanding of the arcanima and her often ambitious ideas, these magicks are typically unstable if used on their own. The primary effect is usually along the lines of what she intends, but there are often side effects that are only conceptually related to the spell at hand. WoL Adelaide augments her arcanima with soulstones to improve their consistency, but non-WoL Adelaide does not have that luxury.All that said, she will practice other disciplines when the circumstances allow and the fancy strikes her as a way to increase her breadth of knowledge and to inspire new formulas, just don't expect her to be able to fill in for a master of those other styles.

Secondary Job: Reaper

WoL Adelaide: While Reaper did not release until Endwalker, I'm toying with the idea of WoL Adelaide picking it up late StB, potentially in the StB patches when dealing with formerly Garlean controlled territory and having her retroactively using it in StB patches and ShB. But perhaps she picks it up in EW instead.Non-WoL Adelaide: I think it would be incredibly funny if Non-WoL Adelaide does some math and accidentally gets herself possessed by a voidsent for a while... and once that arc is resolved essentially walks backwards into Reaper but using arcanima instead and a version of it that's based around the enshrouded forms.Enshroud Forms I'm in the midst of workshopping some unique Enshroud forms for Adelaide based off of different types of voidsent. I don't imagine I'll actually give her all of them. Right now I think mimic is my favorite one, but I think they each have potential.

WoL Adelaide and non-WoL Adelaide are similar in many ways, but this section assumes we're talking about hooks for Non-WoL Adelaide. If you want to interact with WoL Adelaide, many of these hooks still work, but they can be applied at a higher powerscale.

Hooks

  • The Shaded Library: When Adelaide's adventures bore some fruit, she was quick to buy property... and then promptly filled it with books. Many are her own notebooks, but she is eager to collect any tome that catches her interest on her journey and add it to her library. Polite guests are welcome to come over and peruse her eclectic collection, and she loves trading tomes. She can also be motivated into coming along on an adventure with the promise of a sufficiently interesting book, or the opportunity to research a subject herself and add her own notes to the library! Anything from mapping unknown lands, magical mysteries, or just seeking out a rare bird could catch her interest!

  • Experimental Magic: Got something novel you want to do with spellwork? While the scholars of Sharlayan are much more likely to have the information you need, Adelaide might be closer to you (and easier to persuade to help)! Her cross-disciplinary mindset leads her to many experiments and a lot of practical arcane knowledge, so she can be a great person to work with on magic projects and hunting down components, just don't expect perfection.

  • Flexible Mercenary: While far from a master of any field, Adelaide has dipped her fingers in many and has a wide breath of knowledge. Need a mage who can dabble in healing? A frontliner who knows a thing or two about arcanima? She can be the perfect party fill for any dangerous adventure! Pay appropriate to the risk at hand is usually enough to get her along for the ride, but anything she could add to her library also works!

  • With Moderate Power Comes Moderate Responsibility: If you have a job at hand that involves enabling people to help themselves, taking down someone misusing their power to take advantage of people, or protecting an endangered species or culturally important artifact, Adelaide will likely volunteer to come along. She is a firm believer in helping people if it is in her power to do so, and will go to great lengths to empower those who have self-sufficiency or safety denied them by society, environment, or circumstance. But if she thinks the task is way over her head/skillset, she'll be afraid of making things worse and you might need to convince her!

  • In Over Her Head (it's not hard to be over her head; she is very short): Sometimes, the issue with having a lot of basic knowledge but not being an expert is that you misjudge your own capabilities. Adelaide is no stranger to this mistake, though she likes to think it doesn't happen too often. Live near a rare arcane material, interesting ruin, or just where there is a cool, unique species of bird? Is your homeland also dangerous to those who don't know how to navigate the dangers? Maybe you can help her out when she runs into trouble her research didn't prepare her for.

  • Oops, All Voidsent: Do you have a voidsent issue and need the aid of a formerly possessed arithmetician to help you out? Or perhaps you're the one sent to help deal with Adelaide when her curiosity has tethered her to another troublesome creature and her formulas need to be disrupted to both save her and spare whoever she's annoying with her impish antics.

Relationships

This section details key characters that are important to Adelaide, but it is not an exhaustive list! While at some point I'd like to get how she feels about each Scion in here, right now it's mostly other OCs I've made to support her story and her husband Nemo Nenno, who is played by another person.

Nemo Nenno, Husband

Adelaide met Nemo a couple years into her own adventuring. At the time, she had a handle on things and he was just getting started. She was no expert with a bow, but she knew the basics and the two teamed up to take on simple jobs together.Though the two didn't always get along perfectly, they did make a great team! Adelaide would do research and prepare for their upcoming jobs, while Nemo practiced singing and wrote songs. His melodies calmed her and kept her focused.They've been through all sorts of hazards large and small together, and are true partners in every way.

The Trapiche Emeralds

The small adventuring group that Adelaide traveled with for most of 2.0-2.X. Though their differences saw them eventually disband after a fiery conflict, Adelaide wouldn't be who she was without them.Non-WoL Adelaide still traveled with this group, but they likely handled smaller scale adventures and collapsed in a less climactic way than the MSQ version of the events.Sholito Zunlito: Briefly known as "The Emerald of the Bloodsands" Sholito is a skilled archer who risked his life in the arena to earn the money needed to move his family to Gridania where they could have their rare ailment treated. He was popular for his pretty boy looks and the close calls that nearly ended his career. He retired to Gridania with enough earnings for a humble life, but not long after felt unsatisfied. He decided to become an adventurer asking only for enough payment to get by so that the skills he honed to save his own family might prevent others from suffering.The face of The Trapiche Emeralds, he often helped the other members of the party with their looks and "branding". Genuinely a kind and charismatic person, but not the most intelligent. Usually aware of his shortcomings.Jijidoa Lolodoa: An elderly lalafell and retired sultansworn of well over sixty summers, Adelaide recognized his name from an old story of her mothers' adventuring days. She ended up hiring Jijidoa on as a mentor, paying him a small stipend and a portion of her cut of all jobs the group took on.A gruff and often rude man, Jijidoa is the reason that The Emeralds were able to survive so many close calls... but his questionable morals and harsh attitude cause a lot of friction within the party.Canary: A former miner of Ul'dah and a lalafell lass of prodigiously small size, which often meant that she was asked to explore particularly dangerous, narrow tunnels. She's had the Echo as far as she could remember, though it quickly earned her a reputation as an ill omen, rather than a helpful warning alarm.She always wears a wooden mask (or a cloth veil while sleeping) to obscure her identity, and avoids using her real name. She fights using a pickaxe, which she can manipulate aetherically, as well as with some earth magic.Brash and reckless, Canary has a strong sense of justice and will put herself (and the group) in harms way if it means protecting an innocent. She's also quick to give away any of her earnings.

Family and Upbringing

Family and Backstory
Adelaide has a strained relationship with her parents, though she does speak to them and support them from time to time, the three often get into arguments. Her mother, Adada Ada was an adventurer in her youth who was mildly successful, but quickly got jaded and cynical. She turned her small profits to get an in to Ul'dah business life and became a cutthroat financier, making enemies as her profit rose. Her father, Adelito Yaralito was a Limsan farmer who profited heavily from the claim of kobold lands when Limsa Lominsa violated their agreement with them. A profit he earned by selling the mineral rights to Adada's firm. The two bonded during this experience and he ended up moving in with her in Ul'dah.Adelaide is one of seven siblings, and she's right in the middle of them all. They were raised and educated with the expectation that they would all take on roles within her mother's business, with the eldest son, Adelief Adeline to inherit it some day. They also each received a small education in thaumaturgy due to its importance to her mother's "success story", though each sibling had varying talent with it.As Adelief grew into adulthood, however, he became disillusioned with the harmful actions his mother currently employed and the ones his father used to in order to get to where he was in life now. He ended up leaving to become an adventurer himself, writing letters to some of the siblings about his travels until he disappeared at Carteneau.Adelaide learned a lot about the world from her brother and in many ways followed in his footsteps. While she was not as bold as him, when he left she still saw her parents' misdeeds even without him around to call them out, and guilt accumulated over not being as brave as her brother to leave it behind.Then the calamity happened. Her mother's business failed due in large part to the destruction, but if that was all, it would have been salvageable. Alongside it, those merchants businesses she had stepped on to climb higher in Ul'dahn society saw weakness and did the same to her as she did to them. The family's wealth vanished and they plummeted to poverty, even having to sell their estate just to cover debt.Crammed into a small home and with the loss of their lifestyle, five years of fighting resulted in siblings leaving one by one. The youngest, Addan Dadan is the only one who remains at home. Adelaide views him as a saint for supporting their parents despite their flaws, trying to help them understand why their actions and views aren't okay, and being willing to work any job no matter how demeaning or tough, if it means keeping them fed and with a roof over their heads.Adelaide left to follow in Adeleif's footsteps. Though she assumes he is long dead, she wants to at least know what impact he had on the world before he left--speak to those he helped, see the places he helped protect, and so on. As she succeeds in adventures she does return home on occasion to help support her brother Addan, and to do her part when it comes to their parents, though she can still only handle them in small doses.Adelaide's mother, Adada, in her youth, had been a traveling thaumaturge, and so Adelaide started her own journey there as well...

Warning! This section contains story spoilers up to the end of Dawntrail!

WoL Adelaide
I talk about this a little bit in the OOC, but Adelaide was originally thought of as being a supporting character to other players' WoLs, or as a member of a party of WoLs. Shadowbringers and Endwalker make that a little funkier to reconcile though.I'm in the process of reconciling this and giving her proper characterization throughout. This has been helped a lot by 2026's ffxivwrite!What follows is a rather lengthy writeup, but still a rather short summary (compared to playing the actual expac) of the character arcs she goes through. This is not comprehensive and doesn't hit every key event. I'd love to write detailed scenes out at some point. The first section is the longest thanks to that recent FFXIVWrite!I roughly assume that time in game passes at about the same rate as out of game (so ~2 years for each expansion and its post patches, paced as appropriate to that MSQ). The twins aren't taller because... I don't have a good reason for that. I might need to crunch this somewhat as Expacs continue, because I do think Adelaide going from 20 to 40 while most other characters stay the same could be tough to reconcile, but that's a future me problem.

Newbie Adventurer

(Pre-ARR-2.X)
One of seven children to an Ul'dah business woman and a Lominsan farmer who settled formerly kobold land, Adelaide had an affluent upbringing until The Calamity saw her parents' businesses and assets collapse. The new money family lost their posh lifestyle and while they survived, the pressure and stresses caused a lot of family conflict. Her siblings began to scatter one-by-one with Adelaide being the second to last to leave.Raised with an education geared for business and trade, Adelaide was more interested in the places goods were from than their value, and intrigued by even mundane things like plants and minerals. Feeling suffocated from staying in that hostile house, she worked part time jobs in secret to save up enough gil to get starter equipment, supplies, and some notebooks. She only let her remaining brother know she was leaving.Her first few adventures nearly saw her abandon her independence and return home immediately! Getting bitten by burning canine foe she had lit on fire before its life was extinguished on her second outing made her realize just how poorly she handled unexpected pain. Then on the next adventure, the terror she felt getting tugged by a gigantoad's tongue towards its open maw (that thankfully came to an end when she electrified the beast before it could consume her) nearly convinced her that if she persisted in this lifestyle she would not be long for this world.Fortunately, over a few moons she met several other adventurers who she would party up with. The pretty boy and minor colisseum celebrity Sholito Zulito, retired sultansworn and acquaintance of Adelaide's mother, Jijidoa Lolodoa, and a former miner and masked lalafell who called herself Canary. While they didn't always get along perfectly, they were a successful team. Adelaide herself became considerably more competent and successful after studying arcanima for a time, and then luckily ending up meeting Alka Zolka and receiving the Scholar soulstone. The barrier healing techniques of ancient Nym did much to help Adelaide avoid her pain sensitivity and allowed her to become a much better fighter.By fortune, they all possessed The Blessing of Light and were eventually recruited into The Scions of the Seventh Dawn as the group's designated primal handling team.But the team's motivations were fundamentally misaligned. This was easy to ignore when they were small and scraping by, but after 2.0's finale and the fame it brought, disagreements over how to operate and what to prioritize led to arguments and steadily increasing tension... until finally, this exploded into violence. Lines were drawn, blood was shed, and when all was said and done, The Emeralds were officially no more and Adelaide was the only one who remained with the Scions, for a large part out of guilt of leaving them without anyone who could face a primal if they needed someone. She retreated from public eye for a while to recover, learning other jobs and only returning to her more public facing tasks when required.

Heroic Adventurer

(Late 2.X - Early Stormblood)Thanks to her time apart from responsibility, Adelaide was able to have a "reset" and more critically examine what she wanted to do with her life. No longer was she a girl leaving home to see new things and avoid her parents. She had strength and influence and a responsibility to use it for the better.This mindset was greatly helped along thanks to meeting her future husband Nemo Nenno. Adelaide witnessed him as a novice adventurer himself biting off a bit more than he could chew and decided to aid and mentor him. Though they were no strangers to the occasional spat, they became fast friends and eventually founded ReChord together.After half a year or so together, an anxious Adelaide confessed to feelings towards the boy, and when they were returned in kind, she was ecstatic... but realized not long after that she had poor timing. The Bloody Banquet happened not long after, and they fled together to Ishgard.Much of Heavensward was spent doubting herself and her abilities all over again, but unlike before it was not a question of motivation. It was on a question of capability. The events of the MSQ lead her to regain that confidence.

Cracking Under the Pressure

(Early StB - EW)Zenos and the events at Rhalgr's Reach cause Adelaide to realize that she can't just protect people by shielding them or healing harm that comes to them. She also needs to defeat those who would cause harm (also I, the player, didn't like the StB healer changes). She picks up Red Mage and starts learning to balance healing and harming. As these expansions, especially Shadowbringers, progress, she starts to believe that she has to be strong enough to take down any foe. It's her duty as warrior of light to be able to face impossible odds no matter the danger to herself. Because if she doesn't, people get hurt.In Shadowbringers she really leans into the Warrior of Darkness persona to embrace this, and that persona does start becoming the "real" her as the pressure mounts. In Endwalker, she starts to realize that this mask she's worn might not be able to ensure she succeeds, and she spends the second half of the expansion trying to hide the grayscale creeping up her arm from her building despair and self doubt threatening to break her confident facade.

Finding Balance and Becoming a Mentor Again

(Post EW - PresentWith the end of Endwalker's events and the catharsis involved, Adelaide takes a step back for a while, and genuinely rests. Dawntrail proves a very valuable experience for her.The opportunity to return to being a mentor is incredibly healing for her once again, and she realizes that educating and enabling others is certainly her true calling. It got her out of The Emerald's collapse in 2.X, and it helps shake her out of her unhealthy hero complex.Adelaide finds traveling in Tural for the rite of succession and mentoring Wuk Lamat to be incredibly refreshing. It inspires her to consider training more successors not only to alleviate pressure on herself, but as a way to help more people and put her experience to use in non-violent ways.But surely she can't stay healthy and happy too long! Let's find out how Evercold messes with her...

FFXIVWrite2026

Despite playing as Adelaide and giving her personality and story since 2013 and doing a lot of creative writing over the years, I did not actually put anything of her to paper until 2026! And that was via the prompt-based FFXIVWrite event run by Moen on bluesky (and other places too, I'm sure).You can find every prompt, plus a bonus chapter to finish out the last scene, on Ao3!These prompts are primarily based around Adelaide 2.0-2.X adventures with a party of WoLs who come to be known as The Trapiche Emeralds. I imagine it starts a bit before ARR to give them some time to get to know each other before the MSQ begins, so some events are out of order from the game to account for that tweaked power curve.Also! Because of the prompt-based nature of ffxivwrite, the chapters are not in chronological order, though the conclusion is the last few chapters at least. That said, I think if you're the sort to want to read all about other people's WoLs, reading them in release order makes the most sense.But! If you just want to check out a couple...13, 20, and 27 feature Nemo Nenno, her husband, and are funny and sometimes romantic (especially that middle one).14, 9, and 26 are lighthearted and comedic.11, 28, and 23 are fight scenes! Against Titan, Garuda, and cutting her way out of a Morbol, respectively.The rest all focus on developing the Trapiche Emeralds and/or putting Adelaide through The Pear Wiggler so that way the finale, (21 -> 29, 30, 21) pays off from the investment in the characters!

Where to Find Adelaide/Me!

Right now, Adelaide is on Primal / Hyperion and has an FC with her husband Nemo Nenno (and some other friends) called ReChord! Feel free to come visit and say hi! Hopefully soon we'll have a house we can receive guests and have little events at!You can also find me on bluesky and tumblr and if we chat there or meet up in game a couple times and get along I can pass you my discord!

About me

Hi, I'm Mordio Crow!I've been playing FFXIV since a little after ARR release (I missed the initial purchase and had to wait until they allowed them again when they stopped for a while! Remember that? Wild times)! Nemo's player started not long after, and the two of us play through MSQ together and do "light" roleplaying over voice as we progress. Things like "oh, how would Nemo react to this?" or "would Adelaide get along with this npc?" that kind of stuff. Despite this, I had almost nothing written down about Adelaide until this carrd was made!I'm pretty casual in FFXIV. Frequently subbed and I do most of the different side content, but I haven't done savages or extremes on release in a long time.I recently did FFXIVWrite2026 and put all of my writings in an Ao3 fic! They specifically flesh out Adelaide's beginnings--her 2.0-2.X adventures, with a couple little asides with Nemo scattered throughout. Spoilers for that story range, of course, though it's mostly focused on Adelaide and her relationships with some other oc WoLs.I don't know if anyone will end up reading through this, but if you do and are interested in doing some scenes, or talking ffxiv, let me know!Nemo's player and I do stream our MSQ (and major sidequest) stuff, but usually aren't streaming for dailies unless other friends also want to. You are not expected to come to (nor watch) our streams to play ffxiv with me!

Roleplaying with Me

I haven't actually done freeform roleplaying in a long time (since back in the forum days!), nor have I roleplayed within FFXIV itself, but I have plenty of TTRPG experience. I've also written a lot of fiction for myself. I feel like I write a lot and might respond slow, but I suppose we'll have to find out!All this to say, I don't have much FFXIV-specific RP experience, so please forgive any formatting missteps or clumsiness.

MSQ/WoL RP

From what I can tell, this is relatively uncommon in FFXIV, but I'll note it down here anyway.Adelaide is a very natural fit for a "B" or "C" scion who could eventually be added to a WoL's party, or as a member of an independent mercenary group who could be hired then integrated in the same way. I actually originally wrote her as a supporting character with the Echo who could join battles later on, much like how Krile ended up being.I only really started seeing Adelaide as a WoL during Shadowbringers! Until then I always viewed her as a supporting character to other players' WoLs. If you're interested in writing in your WoL canon with Adelaide, I am happy to! Or if you want to join hers, we can talk about that too!