Ascians
Ascians are the primary antagonists within Final Fantasy 14.
Originally the world in which FF14 takes place, and possibly the entire FF Universe, was a single Planet filled with wonderous magical potential and power. The primary sentient species of which were the Ascians, a benevolent race who sought to understand each other and the world and nature of the universe itself.
However, one day a calamity came, and the very power of the universe and universal laws and constants that they controlled, the power of creation itself, began to unravel. The cataclysm was destroying the world, and so the Ascians underwent the ultimate sacrifice.
The took half the population of their entire world and sacrificed the life-force in order to create a supreme being, Zodiark, who was powerful enough to avert the calamity and restore the natural universal order.
One faction of the Ascians, however, did not believe that this was a permanent solution, and it soon grew apparent that Zodiark would require more and more souls to fuel their power. So this faction of Ascians sacrificed their life-force to create Hydaelyn, who imprisoned Zodiark by splitting them into 14 parallel worlds, and thus dividing their power 14 times and imprisoning them within the moon itself.
This confrontation, the sundering, also rent asunder and split all life-forms on the planet. Turning the survivors into shadows of their former selves. Creating unique and new life, the humans, elves, lalafell and such that you see within the game world. All rooted originally as Ascians, but now sundered and disparate.
The Ascians we meet within the game are three of the original, unsundered, full-power, full-blooded Ascians. Beings of thought and capable of taking physical form at will or possessing the body of another if the Ascian has sufficient will to overpower them.
They seek to cause great imbalances within the magical nature of the sundered worlds in order to cause a calamity, a great cataclysm that destroys an entire world and merges it with the Source world. Each time they do so, Zodiark regains their power. Each time they do so they gain one more step to restoring their people.
They do not do this because they hate the life they destroy. They do it out of grief for the lives lost. They believe that if they rejoin all 14 worlds and Zodiark shatters the bonds of Hydaelyn, they can then use the life-force of all life that has survived the sundering and rejoining and been created anew to channel it through Zodiark and restore and return all those who were originally lost when Zodiark stopped the original calamity.
