When I first picked up FFXIV, I really had no idea what classes I was going to play. As I think I’ve mentioned before, I nearly always play rogue archetypes in RPGs, and at launch, A Realm Reborn didn’t really have one of those. As a result, I ended up experimenting with all of the classes over a long period of time. Black Mage was, I believe, the second-to-last class that I got to 50, smack dab in the middle of the game’s first major content patch, 2.1, which also introduced the glamour system.

But because I’m a total nerd, Black Mage created a problem. The 30-50 job storyline is very clear about Black Magic being a forbidden, dangerous art, something that the “canon” Alahra would probably never partake in to such a devoted degree, since she’s largely a by the book type. Of course, boredom (and actually really enjoying the class), got me through it, but I struggled to “explain” why Alahra had mastered Black Magic in my head (and a lot of my friends probably thought I was crazy for how much brainpower I was spending on it).

2.1 provided glamours, though, and that was actually one thing I knew I could use to soothe my frustration with the job’s in-game lore. After all, if I didn’t look evil, the whole conundrum probably wouldn’t bother me so much as to keep me from playing the class, at least as a side job. Thus was born one of my very first glamours (displayed on SMN here because I used BLM’s pose last week >.>):

Glamour Components
Head: Artisan’s Spectacles (Loam Brown Dye) | Body: Allagan Tunic of Casting | Hands: Warwwolf Gloves of Casting (Loam Brown Dye) | Legs: Acolyte’s Skirt | Feet: Acolyte’s Thighboots

This was probably one of the first glamours I took seriously—I wanted something that looked scholarly, in part because my main was Scholar, and it made me feel better if I looked at Black Mage as an extension of Alahra’s normal research (yeah, again, I’m a huge dork about this stuff).

Back in 2.1, we really didn’t have the wealth of options we have now, at least for maximum level gear, and as usual, I generally prefer to stick to stuff that looks “high level.” Luckily, the Allagan Tunic looks great (and you can get the dyable version now, which is what I’m wearing here). The leather on it matches the Acolyte’s Thighboots quite well (and I used the Acolyte’s Halfgloves with this before it was finalized with the Warwolf ones), and the natural pairing for the boots was the corresponding Skirt.

Strangely enough, despite patches and patches of gear, there’s not really much I would consider changing about this one. Of course, with the tunic now being dyable, I could play around with different color schemes, but casters have always been a little shafted in the gloves and boots department. The natural choice here of newer gear would be the Expeditioner’s Thighboots, though the Lominsan Soldier’s Boots might also work with the Tunic in Jet Black or Metallic Silver.

This look lasted me until 2.2, when I became obsessed with making a glamour around the Evenstar Tights, and I’ve previously shown what I ended up with there (though I think at the time the glasses were Dalamud Red, rather than the black-dyed ones I had on hand when I did a recreation shot):

Not long after this, I actually stopped playing Black Mage as my alternate DPS and moved back to Monk, and it’s actually in part because I never really got the look I wanted for the Tights.