Welcome to the Umbra Dreadknights Free Company

Our Free Company, «UMBRA», offers a cozy, relaxed and mature environment to enjoy the game, and we operate more out of an expectation of mutual respect than by enforcing a complex list of rules: this page is mostly about documenting things that are not obvious or that are intimidating to new players.

The golden rule: no jerks

Our chat can get mature and bawdy at times, but it should always remain civil. Swearing is fine, attacking other players isn’t. Mature topics are ok, but avoid bringing up divisive topics such as politics and religion. We’re LGBT-friendly, bigot-unfriendly, and generally too easygoing to be forced to police the chat often.

A small FC with a lot of friends

There are four distinct but overlapping social groups associated with UMBRA:

This structure allows us to have a small FC, but a large amount of people to talk and have in-game activities with.

In general, socialization, recruitment and advice happens within the linkshell and Discord server, while FC chat is used to discuss stuff only FC members care about (for example, FC airships).

To chat in the FC chat, start your line with /fc. To chat in the ls, start it with /l1, /l2, /l3… depending on the slot where our LS ended up (you can have up to 8 linkshells).

If you find that our FC isn’t what you wanted and decide to switch, no hard feelings, and you’re welcome to stay in the LS and the Discord if you enjoy participating in them.

Unfortunately, linkshells only have room for 128 people (online or offline), and we are always close to the limit: for that reason, we frequently remove inactive people. If you take a FFXIV hiatus, you will find yourself removed from the linkshell eventually. Please do not take it the wrong way: we will gladly re-invite you as soon as you’re back.

Discord

We use Discord for voice chat and to talk out of the game - you should join us there. To join, just follow this link, and be sure to register an account to keep your access to the private channels. Even if you don’t want to use voice chat, its text channels are very useful.

You should have access to #general, and will be given access to #umbrafc. If you were not given access to #umbrafc, it’s an oversight on our part, please request access.

By default, the desktop app will start with Windows, and the phone app will ring you when your name is mentioned: unless you want that to happen, you should change the notification options to ping you less.

Do not be shy!

If you keep to yourself, you will find that you are only rarely included in discussions and group activities. Never be afraid to tell us about your current goal and ask questions: you will often obtain immediate answers and invitations to party up.

Hang out at the company house!

When you join us, you will find that you have a new teleport point to the Free Company Estate Hall, costing only a fourth the normal teleport rate. It offers many amenities: retainer bell, market board, armoire, vendors, hairdresser, chocobo stables, cutscenes book… but most importantly: it allows you to hang out with everyone. While we’re always in contact through the text chat, it’s a lot more fun to see each other’s characters.

The chest

The inventory of the Free Company chest can be accessed from all the main cities, and from our FC house.

We save resources in the chest for FC projects: building airships, items giving FC buffs, holding events, helping people gear up, crafting raid items.

With only 150 slots, and many FC activites requiring a shared inventory, we rarely have much room in our FC chest, so we do not use it much to trade with FCmates - we prefer trading in person or through mog mail.

Please avoid adding to the chest items that you’re not sure the FC actually needs: we generally assume items were added for a good reason, and risk leaving them eating up a valuable inventory slot for no reason.

When you join us, you will be allowed to deposit items, but not to withdraw them. If you prove trustworthy and participate in FC activities requiring chest access, you will be granted access eventually.

When you add items to the chest, you decide to give them to the FC: other people will use them without asking. If you add the wrong item by mistake, ask someone with access to get it back as soon as possible.

FC resources are meant to be used—fairly. You can purchase reasonable quantities of items such as materia at a discount, up to 50% off the marketboard price if that’s all you can afford. Just be fair about it. Before buying, consider the following:

If you can’t afford to buy at all, but could really use the help gearing up, talk to FC officers: we're always happy to help, but you'll need to clear it with us first.

Only the FC leader, A’milly, can withdraw money: since we cannot cap transactions, we have no way to prevent someone with gil access from fully emptying the bank.

You might catch Wtspudgy Puks’com moving around large quantities of items and big sums of money: it’s Lunaire’s alt character, whose only purpose is to hold things for the FC, and sell FC stuff on the marketboards. It keeps accounting simple: everything she owns belongs to the FC, except for her 371 pudgy puks. You can see an overview of what she stocks on this separate page.

Chocobo stables

The chocobo stables are free to use by everyone. Feeding stabled chocobos Krakka root gives them a bit of experience. Krakka can be grown in the FC’s gardens.

If you leave your chocobo stabled when you log out, other FC members might feed it while you’re away! No promises we will do it regularly, however.

The stables have three cleanliness levels: sparkly clean, clean, and dirty. The level deteriorates every few days. Stables should be kept sparkly clean when at least one chocobo is being fed, as it maximizes the experience earned.

If the sparkles disappear, the stables should be cleaned with a magicked stable broom before further feeding. We keep a supply of brooms in the chest: if you have access to it, feel free to clean them yourself, otherwise, notify someone who can clean them. It will require using one or two brooms depending on the current cleanliness level.

Gardening

We use the gardens to grow Krakka for the chocobos, and to obtain valuable rare materials. When you see that something is planted in our garden, do not hesitate to tend to it. All the 8 plants in a plot need to be tended to once every 24 hours, but doing it more often won’t hurt. If the crops ever develop a purple cloud, please tend to them immediately!

In general, we try not to produce krakka faster than we consume it, and many of us have our chocobos at the maximum rank and no longer need to feed them. If you require Krakka for your chocobo, let us know, and we will plant some.

While most FC members have planting rights, few have harvesting rights. You’re entitled to your harvest in full, but you’ll need someone with the authorization to pick it up for you. Gardening actions are logged: nobody can steal your harvest.

Static raid team

TeaMI is a static team tackling the most difficult raids, comprised of both FC members and people from outside the FC.

By nature, a raid team only has 8 highly dedicated members playing different jobs, and its roster only changes as people must leave it.

Membership in the FC and static are separate: you will never be treated like a second-class FC member if you are not part of the static raid team, or are part of a different team.

Likewise, people from outside the FC are not treated as second-class TeaMI members.

Because running a static takes a lot of effort and energy, and savage mode raiding is entirely optional and done for the challenge of it, you should never expect the static to carry you through difficult raids.

Free company actions

All activities by FC members earn our FC some points, which can be spent on free company actions, small buffs shared by all members that last for 24 hours. Unlike large FCs, we do not rotate through a regular schedule of buffs, instead, we just run them whenever someone could use one.

Most FC members (Rank Dreadknight ★ and above) can purchase, execute, and discard actions. Please go ahead and make use of them for your own benefit!

To purchase actions with FC credits, visit the Limsa Lominsa Upper Decks and talk to the OIC Quartermaster. Never purchase actions "just in case" - only purchase actions you're certain to run today or in the coming few days.

Please note that raiders’ need for food duration buffs always takes the priority over any other desired buff, because progression raid food is too expensive to waste by eating unbuffed.

Rank & authorizations

Members have different ranks, each having different authorizations regarding recruitment, chest access, airship use, etc.

Promotion and rank is handled by the leadership, but generally one can find themselves being promoted based on activity and attendance to FC events.

Officers are specifically chosen by the leadership, and they have their own responsibilities within the FC.

Inactive members are demoted for the duration of their hiatus as a safety measure.

Ranks are a purely administrative concern reflecting one's involvement in the running of the FC - we treat each other as equals.

Progression through the story

There are many ways the FC and our LS friends can help you progress through the game.

While you will find that the story quests and dungeon drops provide most of the gear you need to progress, gear under level 60 can be crafted for cheap, with easy to acquire materials: FCmates will be happy to help you with upgrades.

When you take with you a premade party, you can run dungeons and trials up to lv.60 undersized, without level sync, and with a free party composition - but you won’t get any XP for that clear. That feature often turns old content into speedy curb stomps. So if you don’t care for the challenge and just want to clear a quest ASAP, take advantage of that fact and ask us to join.

And if you wish to invest in your crafts, we can help you powerlevel them too - ask your local crafters for the details.

Recruitment

Feel free to invite friends and other good players you come across in your travels—whether you invite them to the FC and LS, or only the LS. Focus on recruiting cool people! We're not trying to be largest group around, merely the best 8)

You can advertise our awesomeness in both Party Finder and /shout—just don’t spam! Be proud of your FC and invite others to be proud of it, too.

Contribute!

If you can, you should contribute to the FC in ways you enjoy: crafting, gathering, content clears for other people, donations to the FC chest… But if you’re leveling your first job to 70, your avenues to contribute anything are very limited, and we’re aware of that fact, so don’t worry about it if the relationship feels one-sided. It’s once you’re starting to reach the endgame that it becomes a give and take.

Useful websites