Voidsent (Final Fantasy XIV)

The voidsent are beings in Final Fantasy XIV. Consumed in primordial darkness, the voidsent are the distorted aether-starved remainders of the original lifeforms within the realm of the void. Starved of life energy, they seek to feed on the aether of other realms. Voidsent exist due the excess of dark aether shattering the aetheric harmony of living creatures, altering their natural forms and turning them into undying monstrosities driven by their unrestrained excesses and desires.
==History==
The Thirteenth shard of the Source came into being when Hydaelyn used her power to fragment her dark counterpart, Zodiark, into fourteen pieces. As part of their plan to resurrect Zodiark, the Ascians attempted to rejoin the thirteenth reflection to the Source under Igeyorhm's direction. Her victory over the world's inexperienced Bringer of Light inadvertently triggered a "Flood of Darkness" that turned the realm into a void. Any residents that remained became the first voidsent. The Ascians deemed the realm unsalvageable, and the event had caused an imbalance in the other shards, with the First now on the verge of a Flood of Light. The Ascians saved two of the surviving members of the Thirteenth, Unukalhai and Cylva, who became their agents in their schemes.
At some point after the Flood, a dark knight voidsent amassed power and followers as his campaign to conquer the Thirteenth, obtaining the largest territory among all the voidsent domains with the Thirteenth's moon as his personal sanctuary.
The people of the Source, unaware of the dark realm's nature, still recognized its power as natural fissures had occurred. They developed methods to artificially create temporary gateways through the veil between their realms and bind the beings into service with precarious bloodpacts while providing them with temporary vessels to inhabit. While larger gateways were necessary to admit more powerful voidsent, they required massive amounts of aether to maintain. Such gateways were typically only capable of admitting the essence or soul of a voidsent, which would then possess a vessel provided by the summoner. Like the gateways through which they emerged, stronger voidsent required stronger vessels.
In the Third Astral Era, Emperor Xande of the Allagan Empire sought to enter a covenant with the Supreme Voidsent, the Cloud of Darkness, to use her power to conquer the world in response to the Warring Triad. Some of the lesser voidsent were summoned to the Source to aid Xande's forces in the invasion of Meracydia that claimed the life of the dragon Bahamut. During the invasion, the dragon Azdaja flew through the massive voidgate created by the Allagans, sacrificing herself to close it from the other side. Her younger brother, Vrtra, would later establish Thavnair after learning of a naturally occurring fissure to the void beneath the waters of the Bounty. Though he attempted to pass through it to find his sister using a simulacrum, after seeing the armies of voidsent on the other side, he chose to seal the fissure so the voidsent would not invade their world.
During the Fifth Astra Era, the mages of Mhach followed Allag's example and summoned voidsent into Eorzea not only to fight their wars, but to power their creations, an endeavor that ended with disastrous results. Summoning from the void fell out of fashion, having been deemed both dangerous and harmful to the world's aetherial balance. Separate groups of cultists continued the deadly summoning practice and archived their achievements in finding immortality within forbidden tomes, such as the Necrologus.
The Warrior of Light encountered Unukalhai and Cylva during their adventures, with the two ultimately deciding to live on the First to help in its restoration while seeking a way to restore the Thirteenth. The Scions of the Seventh Dawn members also learned that the voidsent resembled the monstrous sin eaters that emerged on the First after the Flood of Light, and to those mutated from overexposure to a primal's enthrallment.
Following the prevention of the Final Days, the fissure under the Bounty was rediscovered when the Warrior of Light joined Y'shtola Rhul—alongside Estinien Varlineau, Urianger Augurelt, and G'raha Tia—on her expedition to find a means for travel between the Source and its reflections. Vrtra regaled the story of his sister's sacrifice and his attempt to find her, with the Warrior and the Scions offering their help. After stabilizing the rift, the group entered it and found a castle in the void. Within its dungeons they found the voidsent formerly bound to Zenos Galvus, who was a memoriate. After declining to give her true name, Y'shtola named her Zero. Zero revealed that Azdaja had long ago been captured by the voidsent Golbez, who was using her as a means to empower his four archfiends. The group was attacked by the archfiends Scarmiglione and Barbariccia before Zero exhausted herself to seal them away, and the group was forced to fall back to the Source so Zero could regain her strength.
Following the loss of two of his archfiends and yet his goals within reach, Golbez allowed his remaining archfiends, Rubicante and Cagnazzo, to formulate a plan to handle the mortal interlopers. Rubicante's plan required Cagnazzo to play as bait, luring the Scions to him using an eye of Azdaja, allowing Rubicante to destroy the voidgate beneath the Bounty, denying the Scions the means to enter the Thirteenth. Though both Cagnazzo and Rubicante fell, allowing them to truly die, enter the great flow and be reborn, the Scions would learn of Golbez's true plan: with the Thirteenth considered lost and desiring to be free from the endless cycle of life and undeath, Golbez now sought to break down the barrier between the Source and the Thirteenth, allowing all the voidsent to enter, whether to finally die in the attempt, allowing them to be reborn, or make the Source their own. Despite the intent, Golbez's plan would cause unimaginable damage to the Source, not just from the conflict the voidsent would ignite, but the destruction of the dimensional barrier. The Scions were forced to find another way to enter the void, stop Golbez, and free Azdaja. Despite the fall of his archfiends, Golbez believed his plans had progressed to the point he no longer needed minions.
The Warrior and their allies would, in time, find a way back to the Thirteenth by using the Source's moon. Using gathered aether and the Tower of Babil to deliver it to the moon, the group opened a rift to the void large enough for Vrtra to travel through. As a precaution, the group rebuilt the seals that once held Zodiark to ensure voidsent would not slip through. The group found Azdaja chained in a great chasm on the moon, returning her stolen eye to revitalize her. Her chains were bound to Golbez's will who soon confronted the Warrior and their allies, stating that by coming to him and rekindling Azdaja's hope of returning home, they had presented him a golden opportunity to make the dragon into the perfect instrument for his goals.
Undoing the binds holding Azdaja, the dark energies of the Thirteenth began to corrupt her, revealing that the chains were also protecting her. Consumed by the power of dark aether, Azdaja became the Shadow Dragon, bound to serve Golbez. Under her master's command, the Shadow Dragon attacked Vrtra as more voidsent attacked the group and the Warrior of Light engaged Golbez. The group prevailed but Golbez threw Azdaja into the chasm, merging her with Zodiark's lingering aether, transforming her into a voidsent strong enough to break down the barriers between worlds, dubbing her as "Zeromus", after a hero of legend. Unable to battle a voidsent strengthened by Zodiark's essence, their warding scales beginning to fray, the group retreated to prepare for when Golbez and Zeromus would invade the Source. They could only hope that if they defeated Zeromus within the Thirteenth, then Azdaja would be released from voidsent's control and could still be saved.
After developing a method to send resplendent Light from the First to the Thirteenth, the group pierced an opening into Golbez's domain, allowing them to enter and confront the Knight in Black, learning of his true origins and motives in bringing salvation to his world. Determined to see his crusade to fruition, Golbez stood firm against the group, summoning shades of his fallen archfiends to even the odds. Zero and her friends held him at bay long enough for the Warrior to move past Golbez to reach into the moon's core and battle Zeromus. Confronting the massive voidsent whose power already began to crack the fabric of reality, the Warrior battled Zeromus to prevent it from breaching the barrier between worlds. The Warrior prevailed against Zeromus but like all voidsent, it swiftly resurrected. With the timely arrival of the Warrior's allies and Golbez himself, who had a change of heart thanks to Zero, the group defeated Zeromus with Vrtra calling out to his sister's soul. Azdaja broke her free from Zeromus's grasp as Zero, now reformed into a Light-based paladin, sealed Zeromus into memoria. With Azdaja free, Vrtra give her the eye that powered his vessel, allowing her to regain physical form as a young dragonet, allowing her to return home at last.
With the threat passed, Zero convinced Golbez to aid her in restoring the Thirteenth to atone and live up to his namesake. Bidding farewell to her friends for the time being, Zero imparted the Warrior with Zeromus's memoria to be delivered to Ryne Waters in the First, believing that the massive amount of darkness within it could help restore balance to the First.
==Void hierarchy and culture==
Eorzean scholars of the void categorized the voidsent into one of twelve rungs representing relative strength and intelligence. The lower the number of rung, the more formidable the voidsent is in relation to others. The ranks have no bearing on a creature's actual standing within the void, and merely help Eorzeans better understand the voidsent.
A key part of voidsent society is that the strong rule over the weak: one powerful enough to devour weaker voidsent can also coerce them or scare them to work for them, and the most powerful voidsent can rule over entire domains of voidsent underlings. This authority is not static, true to darkness's nature as volatile and shifting: power can change hands quickly. Weaker voidsent can find ways to devour strong ones and take their places, or strong voidsent can be defeated and devoured by even stronger voidsent. As most of the voidsent minions follow the strong out of fear, they have no loyalty towards them as some of Golbez's weakest minions attempt to flee from service if they are likely to be eaten. If a domain's leader is killed, the voidsent under their command turn on one another and fight to be the new ruler. This is in contrast with their counterparts, the sin eaters of the First, who also have a hierarchy based on power but, true to light's nature of stagnancy, it is permanent, even if their position does not benefit them with gaining more aether. 
Another key to the voidsent culture is that they make Faustian deals, either with a summoner or with each other. Voidsent will almost never try to help out even a kindred out of empathy or morality, and will ask for a form of payment (usually a portion of the 'customer's' aether) in exchange for any service. Mortals in the Source have noted that the voidsent are usually reliable when it comes to holding up their end of an agreed upon bargain. Even so, some of the more malicious voidsent may find a way to work around the terms of their bargains to suit their needs as the Cloud of Darkness had done with her pact with Emperor Xande, in which she could not harm those of Allag royal bloodline like Doga and Unei. So instead she dragged them into the World of Darkness, where all the other voidsent who were not bound could have at them.
Voidsent have been summoned by Garlean Reapers for generations forming pacts with those chosen to allow them to wield magic and fight in tandem. Voidsent hunters use a blood-scented candle as bait to lure voidsent into traps. 
However, not all voidsent are vicious and driven by their hunger for aether, some even despising what their world and people have become and wishing to merely live in peace. Such voidsent are treated as outcasts and pariahs by the rest of their kind, leading them to attempt to simply hide away in what few safe domains that remain within the Thirteenth, such as Zero's Domain. Yet, despite not wanting to fight or serve a master, they are still plagued by their hunger for aether, leading them to work out some form of an arrangement with their fellow exiles or they will eventually succumb to their hunger.
==Voidsent biology==
The voidsent are former mortals who have mutated into monsters as a result of absorbing more dark-aspected aether than the body and soul can manage. The resulting voidsent, including its appearance, type, and intelligence, depend on the strength of the mortal prior to their transformation. The stronger voidsent are capable of speech and some do remember their days before the Flood. However, most do not retain their personality prior to their transformation, and all voidsent, to some degree, had their personalities warped. All voidsent are plagued with an endless hunger for aether, and the strongest ones revel in their power. The voidsent will kill and devour the aether of the voidsent around it as nourishment, but prefers the aether of mortals.
The dark nature of the Thirteenth prevents natural death if the voidsent dies within that world. The aether of activity prevents the soul from reaching eternal rest, even should their flesh and soul separate, and the voidsent will reform in time. The only known ways to prevent the resurrection is to either kill the voidsent in a different world where the aether will disperse normally, kill the voidsent and eat its aether before its soul can escape, or be slain by a Memoriate (Memoria-user) and have the soul sealed inside a crystal.
Being consumed by another voidsent does not necessarily mean the end of a voidsent's life. It is rendered unable to resurrect in a physical body, but its soul and consciousness live on in the voidsent that consumed it, and the soul can have a tangible effect on the personality and behavior of the voidsent that ate it. The most powerful voidsent have usually devoured many other voidsent, and are powerful enough to maintain individuality and limit the influence of the voidsent they ate. Killing such a voidsent would break it apart into the individual voidsent that comprised it. It is possible to rebuild the voidsent's strength, but this comes at great risk, as the original voidsent is significantly weaker and is at risk of being eaten themselves, whether by another voidsent or by their erstwhile prey, thereby stopping the resurrection. 
The Memoriate, Zero, is an unusual voidsent. Rather than being a living mortal forcibly transformed after overexposure to dark aether, Zero was created when her mother was exposed to dark aether while pregnant with her, resulting in a half-mortal, half-voidsent hybrid, not unlike how Vauthry was born half-mortal and half-sin eater. Zero avoided transforming completely by escaping the brunt of the Flood of Darkness through a rift and maintains her mortal appearance and reasoning, but is unable to age. She uses the powers she had as a mortal but nonetheless requires aether to nourish herself like her fellow voidsent.
==Notable voidsent==
* Imp
* Bomb
* Arch Demon
* Gaelicat
* Gnat
* Vodoriga
* Mimic
* Flan
* Ogre
* Persona
* Soul Flayer
* Taurus
* Deepeye
* Anchag
* Deepeye
* Page 64
* Boogyman
* Gremlin
* Arioch
* Void Monk
* Cerebus
* Demon
* Ahriman
* Gargoyle
* Hecteyes
* Succubus
* Dahak 
* Atomos
* Troubadour
* Blackguard
* Parthenope
* Forgall
* Foper
* Ferdiad's Fool
* Chimera Poppet
* Hellhound
* Ultros
* Typhon
* Voidwalker
* Zero
===Highest voidsent ===
* Cloud of Darkness
* Scathach
* Diabolos
** Diabolos Hollow
* Ferdiad
** Ferdiad Hollow
* Deathgaze Hollow
* Bitoso 
* Byblos
* Bombadeel
* Caym
* Pazuzu
* Lamashtu
* Louhi
* Calofisteri
* Forgall
* Arachne
* Sawtooth
* Cuchulainn
* Echidna
* Archaeodemon
* Demon of the Tome
* Muud Suud
* Golbez
* Scarmiglione
* Barbariccia
* Cagnazzo
* Rubicante
* Zeromus
==Behind the scenes==
The voidsent resemble the daemons of Final Fantasy XV, being dark creatures of human origins. During the collaboration between Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XV, Noctis and Y'jhimei notice this similarity.
In Patch 6.2, the World of Darkness was updated to have all voidsent enemies release a burst of darkness in their death animations to remain consistent with the lore and visual updates introduced in The Fell Court of Troia.
==Citations==
Category:Races in Final Fantasy XIV
Category:Voidsents