I just found a line of the questline that brought me to think a lot more and can bear a lot of implications on a larger scale, and not only for red magic:
Which seems to imply that Ishgardian libraries have records of red magic. Of all the places... Why not. That guy eventually happens to write the Nightkin book stored in the Gubal Library. Which means that when the art was active, it was probably not totally secret and ended up there (could it be the case for other lost forgotten jobs? Interesting in itself).
Anyway...
Yes in any case, it's pretty obvious that red mages were a thing before the Duelists got their own identity, since the art was already alive a century ago, way before the King of Ruin.
I also don't dispute the fact that you can learn most arts and disciplines with enough material from it at your disposal, and a fair amount of time and dedication when you don't have a soulstone. Okay, some jobs require soulstone as safety or for it to work, but otherwise...
Thing is though, the ziggurat has been left derelict and trashed by all manner of people, ending with the meat eating quiqirns. But at the same time some texts (probably not the whole extensive art but... who knows?) about red magic seem to have been stored in Ishgard. So many in Sharlayan too? Why would it only end up being in Ishgard? Hard to tell either way.
So all in all the last quote/image you showed is actually what I was looking for.
It really states that red magic was a thing in the past and vanished or faded off at some point, and X'rhun and Lambard digged it up and made it alive again, under the guise of the Crimson Duelists. That's objective.
Now then... Is there other red mages left around? Perhaps, who can say. Is there any Amdapori white magic practitioners somewhere? Maybe. So yeah, SE doesn't really say why RDM disappeared, or what happened.
The simple fact though, that X'rhun says that they had to "revive the art of red magic", and while it can be biased or out of him not having all the facts about possible living red mages, and while people can probably learn a thing or two about the art in old records, makes me think that the true red mages might actually be very much located in X'rhun, Lambard (rip), the WoL, and newbie Arya...
Which seems to imply that Ishgardian libraries have records of red magic. Of all the places... Why not. That guy eventually happens to write the Nightkin book stored in the Gubal Library. Which means that when the art was active, it was probably not totally secret and ended up there (could it be the case for other lost forgotten jobs? Interesting in itself).
Anyway...
Yes in any case, it's pretty obvious that red mages were a thing before the Duelists got their own identity, since the art was already alive a century ago, way before the King of Ruin.
I also don't dispute the fact that you can learn most arts and disciplines with enough material from it at your disposal, and a fair amount of time and dedication when you don't have a soulstone. Okay, some jobs require soulstone as safety or for it to work, but otherwise...
Thing is though, the ziggurat has been left derelict and trashed by all manner of people, ending with the meat eating quiqirns. But at the same time some texts (probably not the whole extensive art but... who knows?) about red magic seem to have been stored in Ishgard. So many in Sharlayan too? Why would it only end up being in Ishgard? Hard to tell either way.
So all in all the last quote/image you showed is actually what I was looking for.
It really states that red magic was a thing in the past and vanished or faded off at some point, and X'rhun and Lambard digged it up and made it alive again, under the guise of the Crimson Duelists. That's objective.
Now then... Is there other red mages left around? Perhaps, who can say. Is there any Amdapori white magic practitioners somewhere? Maybe. So yeah, SE doesn't really say why RDM disappeared, or what happened.
The simple fact though, that X'rhun says that they had to "revive the art of red magic", and while it can be biased or out of him not having all the facts about possible living red mages, and while people can probably learn a thing or two about the art in old records, makes me think that the true red mages might actually be very much located in X'rhun, Lambard (rip), the WoL, and newbie Arya...
Balmung:Â Suen Shyu