Leveling in Final Fantasy XIV can be a slog at times. However, there are systems to help ease the burden by speeding up the process and giving you additional rewards. One of those systems is the Wondrous Tails journal. By completing a series of duties each week, you’ll not only gain a chunk of experience but also have the potential to get various tomestones and treasure maps.
It’s a little extra boost to completing your Duty Roulettes each week. With some additional effort, the Wondrous Tails journal offers excellent rewards.
How To Unlock Wondrous Tails
The first step to engaging with the system is to unlock it. You need to have reached level 60 in at least one Disciple of War or Magic job. You also have to complete the level 58 main scenario quest “A Great New Nation” in order to unlock the town of Idyllshire.
Once those two requirements are met, you’ll be able to pick up the quest “Keeping Up with the Aliapohs” from the Unctuous Adventurer in Idyllshire (X: 7.0, Y: 5.9). This quest will see you meet Khloe Aliapoh in Idyllshire (X:5.7, Y:6.0). It will also give you a brief explanation of the Wondrous Tails journal.
How To Complete a Wondrous Tails Journal
Once a week, you can talk to Khloe in order to receive a new Wondrous Tails journal. This item will go into your Key Items inventory. If you plan to access the journal each week, I find it’s best to drag the inventory item to a hotbar.
The journal is divided into a few sections, but the most important section is on the top-left. This includes all of the duties that are available for completion. These are split into four rows of four types of duties — each row is randomly pulled from a pool of available duties.
Completing a duty listed in the Wondrous Tails journal will mark the corresponding square in the journal. You can then click on the marked section to complete it and gain a Seal. The Seals are in the top-right section of the journal. Collecting nine Seals is the easiest way to complete the Wondrous Tails journal. When you turn the journal in to Khloe, you’ll gain experience if your current Job is below level 90, a treasure map, 500 Allagan Tomestone of Poetics, and an Allagan Gold Piece.
You can also gain additional rewards if your nine Seals complete lines horizontally, vertically, or diagonally on the 4×4 Seal Board. One complete line will get you 50 Allagan Tomestones of the weekly-capped variety (currently Allagan Tomestone of Astronomy), one MGP Gold Card, and Khloe’s Bronze Certificate of Commendation, a token that can be turned in to Khloe for specific items. Two complete lines will give you 500 Allagan Tomestones of the uncapped variety (currently Allagan Tomestone of Aphorism), two MGP Platinum Cards, and Khloe’s Silver Certificate of Commendation. Finally, three complete lines will give you 20 MGP Platinum Cards, three Khloe’s Silver Certificate of Commendation, and one Khloe’s Gold Certificate of Commendation.
When Does Your Wondrous Tails Journal Reset?
The journals are a weekly item and do not carry over each week. They will reset each week on Tuesday at 1:00 a.m. PDT. If you have not turned in a completed journal by then, you’ll have to talk to Khloe and receive a brand new journal.
Available Duties in the Wondrous Tails Journal
As stated before, your weekly Wondrous Tails journal will offer random duties pulled from a pool. These duties must be completed to mark them off. You can complete them unsynced if the option is available, which will save you time on lower-level duties.
The first row will always be four dungeon duties from the list below:
- Dungeons (Lv. 1-49)
- Dungeons (Lv. 50)
- Dungeons (Lv. 51-59)
- Dungeons (Lv. 60)
- Dungeons (Lv. 61-69)
- Dungeons (Lv. 70)
- Dungeons (Lv. 71-79)
- Dungeons (Lv. 80)
- Dungeons (Lv. 81-89)
- Dungeons (Lv. 90)
Then there will be three of the Extreme trials:
- The Howling Eye (Extreme)
- The Navel (Extreme)
- The Bowl of Embers (Extreme)
- Thornmarch (Extreme)
- The Whorleater (Extreme)
- The Striking Tree (Extreme)
- Akh Afah Amphitheatre (Extreme)
- Urth’s Fount
Followed by two wings from the available Alliance Raids:
- The Crystal Tower: Labyrinth of the Ancients, Syrcus Tower, or The World of Darkness
- The Shadow of Mhach: The Void Ark, The Weeping City of Mhach, or Dun Scaith
- Return to Ivalice: The Royal City of Rabanastre, The Ridorana Lighthouse, or The Orbonne Monastery
- NieR: Dark Apocalypse: The Copied Factory, The Puppets’ Bunker, or The Tower at Paradigm’s Breach
And two encounters from the available raid dungeons:
- Alexander: Gordias
- Alexander: Midas
- Alexander: The Creator
- Omega: Deltascape
- Omega: Sigmascape
- Omega: Alphascape
- Eden’s Gate
- Eden’s Verse
- Eden’s Promise
- Pandaemonium: Asphodelos
The final five spots will be randomly pulled from this massive pool of The Bahamut raids, PVP events, Deep Dungeon, Extremes, and Treasure Hunts.
- Any Coil of Bahamut
- The Minstrel’s Ballad: Ultima’s Bane
- The Limitless Blue (Extreme)
- Thok ast Thok (Extreme)
- The Minstrel’s Ballad: Thordan’s Reign
- The Minstrel’s Ballad: Nidhogg’s Rage
- Containment Bay S1T7 (Extreme)
- Containment Bay P1T6 (Extreme)
- Containment Bay Z1T9 (Extreme)
- Emanation (Extreme)
- The Pool of Tribute (Extreme)
- The Minstrel’s Ballad: Shinryu’s Domain
- The Jade Stoa (Extreme)
- The Minstrel’s Ballad: Tsukuyomi’s Pain
- The Great Hunt (Extreme)
- Hells’ Kier (Extreme)
- The Wreath of Snakes (Extreme)
- The Minstrel’s Ballad: Hades’s Elegy
- Cinder Drift (Extreme)
- Memoria Misera (Extreme)
- The Seat of Sacrifice (Extreme)
- Castrum Marinum (Extreme)
- The Cloud Deck (Extreme)
- Treasure Hunt
- Deep Dungeon
- PvP: The Feast, Frontline, Rival Wings, or Crystalline Conflict
No two players’ objectives will be the same, so it’s not more efficient to group up and get them done.
Using Second Chances to Complete the Wondrous Tails Journal
It’s entirely possible that you’ll be given a list of journal objectives that are too annoying or too difficult for you to clear. In that case, you’ll want to use Second Chances. These Second Chance points allow you to complete objectives that would otherwise be rather onerous — it’s all about allowing some flexibility in journal completion.
You gain a Second Chance point whenever you complete a duty where at least one party member is getting the first-time completion bonus. You can have a maximum of nine Second Chance points, and they’ll carry forward from journal to journal.
There are two ways to use the Second Chance points. The first option is Retry, which completes an incomplete duty objective at the cost of a completed duty objective. This allows you to cross off a duty you can’t complete with one you can easily do again. This is generally how folks use their Second Chance points.
The second option is Shuffle, which moves the Seals you’ve already gained to different positions on the 4×4 Seal Grid. This option is focused on potentially completing more lines for greater rewards from Khloe. For Shuffle to be available, you need to have anywhere between three and seven Seals.
