One thing I've always liked in MMOs are mounts. Especially cool looking ones. For those who don't know, mounts in MMOs are basically horses or other creatures you can ride to increase your movement speed. Mostly used when traveling between areas to speed things up a little.
If you're gonna travel it's always better to do it in great style in my opinion and luckily FFXIV has a ton of cool mounts to collect. Now that I'm finished with the story content of the game I'm gonna be spending most of my time in the game leisurely collecting stuff, like mounts, and leveling other classes besides my main classes.
The Elemental Nightmare Horses
It just so happens that I've finished my first mount collection! The Elemental Nightmare Horses! These are relatively easy to get but that's not to say they don't look good as shit. I've always thought horse mounts are basic and boring but luckily these ones aren't any ordinary horses. They're elemental!
These mounts drops from the six Primals that's encountered in the base game, A Realm Reborn, on the Extreme difficulty. Since this is old content these fights are relatively easy to solo which means these mounts can be farmed. I had to do about 10 runs of each boss to get each of the mounts.
I'm gonna humbly show off all of them.
Gullfaxi, of Earth
Gullfaxi drops from Titan, the Primal of Earth. He's worshipped by the kobolds who live deep underground. The earthly element can be seen in his brown color and by the rocks swirling around his legs. A cool one for sure and the first Nightmare that dropped for me.
Aithon, of Fire
Aithon drops from Ifrit, the primal of Fire. Ifrit is basically the god of the beast tribe called the Amalj'aa. Aithon is red like a fire and has burning feet. Aithon was the second mount in this collection that I got.
Xanthos, of Wind
Xanthos drops from Garuda, the primal of Wind. Garuda is the god of the beast tribe called the Ixal which is a bird like people. Wind helps bird fly so I guess some worship is in its place. Wind has no color but Xanthos has a light beige color with some swirlies around her legs.
Enbar, of the Sea
Enbar drops from Leviathan, the primal of the Sea. Leviathan is worshiped by a beast tribe called the Sahagin which are fish like people. Fish live in the sea so I can see why he's their god. Enbar is naturally blue with water swirling around his legs. One of my favorites for sure.
Boreas, of Ice
Boreas drops from Shive, the primal of Ice. Shiva is the odd one out here as she's not worshiped by a beast tribe but instead born of humans. That's a long story on its own so I'm not gonna go into it. Boreas has a white color with a cold blue mane and snowy clouds circling her legs. Awesome!
Markab, of Lightning
Lastly we have Markab which drops from Ramuh, the primal of Lightning. Ramuh is worshipped by small flying cabbage people called the Sylphs. Why they're worshiping a Thunder god I don't really know, but they do. Markab is a purple horse with lightning rolling around his legs. Probably my second favorite.
What did I get for it?
Well, for starters I got six cool looking mounts to ride around. For desert I actually got an extra mount for collecting all six of the elements! Got yourself six mounts did you? Well here's another one! I'm not one to say no thank you.
When you collect all six of these a quest unlocks fra a Traveling Minstrel that sits in what was the endgame town of A Realm Reborn. When speaking with him and showing off our mount flutes he recalls an old tale of a Lord of Beasts callec Kirin who has walked the realm for thousands of years. He's described as an untamable beast who will only answer the call of a hero he deems worthy.
This Traveling Minstrel just so happens to think that since we have all the Nightmare Horses we may just be worthy to call on Kirin. It also just so happens that the Minstrel has a flute that can call upon Kirin. With the Minstrel and all of the horses at our side we set out to do just that, and lo and behold, Kirin shows up.
Now as you can see, Kirin is really cool. He's this mix of a lion and a horse with a badass looking mane and long pointy horns. When we ride him on the ground he looks just like in the picture but when we take off into the sky he sprouts golden wings which almost makes him look like Zapdos from Pokemon.
Now it's not really that prestigious to own these mounts anymore due to the ease of fearming them. It would have been something else eight years ago. According to FFXIV Collect close to 80% of characters that have their collections public owns these mounts and that's a big number. Still, I'm super stoked to own all of these mounts.
On to the next collection!
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.