About Tera Daisho

Tera Daisho is my longtime character in Final Fantasy XIV, and a constant fixture in this blog.

Origin: T’rdaisuke Yayoi

Originally created as the miqo’te T’rdaisuke Yayoi, the character that would eventually become Tera Daisho began life as a Warrior in Limsa Lominsa.

T'rdaisuke Yayoi zoning into Limsa Lominsa for the first time
T’rdaisuke Yayoi on her very first day of existence

The name T’rdaisuke Yayoi was an attempt to make a name that approximated the miqo’te standards while still including my usual gamertag of trdaisuke. The last name Yayoi was intended as more of a first name, as the character resembled Takatsuki Yayoi of iDOLM@STER with her red hair and twin tails.

T’rdaisuke quickly added the arcanist job to her toolkit alongside WAR, and was primarily a Warrior / Summoner / Scholar for quite a long time. Once caught up with current content, T’rdaisuke tried to tackle the savage raids (Midas was the cutting edge at the time), and eventually found a raid group as a Scholar.

T’rdaisuke played for a long time as this character, developing other jobs (but mostly playing tanks and healers) and battled through Heavensward and Stormblood. Along the way T’rdaisuke also became a gifted artisan.

First Fantasia and Name Change

Tired of being mocked for a strange name, T’rdaisuke bought a fantasia and a name change around Stormblood and became the Au’ra Tera Daisho.

The name as a whole was crafted to approximate the letters of trdaisuke in order while staying without straying too far from a normal-looking Au’Ra name.

Daisho is one of the approved Au’Ra default surnames, and apparently also refers in Japanese to a matched pair of swords carried by samurai traditionally. Daisho covered most of “trdaisuke”, so all that was left was the tr, which became “Tera” – intended as an homage to Terra Branford of Final Fantasy VI.

It is not a reference to the MMO TERA. I’ve never even played it. 🤣

au'ra Tera Daisho in a dance
The Au’Ra Tera Daisho as an Astrologian

The Warrior of Darkness

For Shadowbringers, Tera found herself as a caster first and foremost and got sick of the flat Au’Ra face, so another fantasia created the Midlander with an Au’Ra name we know today, although initially with kind of “Warrior of Darkness” hair to match the Shadowbringers theme:

Midlander Tera’s original hairstyle

I kept with this look throughout Shadowbringers and Endwalker, although I changed up the hair to something longer for Endwalker:

Tera Daisho blowing a kiss

Back to the Cat

Mid-Endwalker I decided it was time to bring the cat back, but I kept most of Midlander-Tera’s appearance traits: Long blonde hair, tan appearance. I did bring back the lion tail that initially appeared on T’rdaisuke Yayoi, though.

Conveniently enough, one of my old retainers has the old T’rdaisuke appearance – that’s how T’rdaisuke looked on the left, and this new blonde cat Tera on the right.

Tera has gone through a few changes and styles during her time in Eorzea, but has remained an active character for over three major game expansions now. It’s been quite some time since I first gave the game a shot, but I have really enjoyed my time in Eorzea as Tera, and as T’rdaisuke before her.

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