"Espers come in a variety of forms. My appearance is similar to your own, so I can live here as one of you... without fear of anyone discovering the truth."
An Esper(幻獣,Genjū?, lit. "Phantom Beast") is a magical being in Final Fantasy VI. Espers act as the means through which Magic is learned in the game, and as the game's summons.
Espers were created as a result of humans coming into contact with Magic and the Warring Triad during their war for dominance. The gods eventually realized what they were doing was wrong, and they decided to seal themselves away in the forms of statues. They gave the espers back their free will, and asked them to protect them. Later a second war began between espers and humans seeking to use their powers, beginning the War of the Magi. At the height of the war the espers created a new realm and escaped there with the Warring Triad's statues.
A small handful of espers remained in the world, such as Valigarmanda who was frozen in ice, and Odin who was petrified in the Ancient Castle buried deep within the mountains. Ramuh lived in the human world for an unspecified time, using his humanoid appearance to blend into normal society, and he implies other espers do the same. Magicite remains of espers also remained, such as Ragnarok and Phoenix. As a whole however, magic faded from conscious mind and became the stuff of legends and myths.
The espers had lived in their world, safe from human invasion. However, one day, a woman named Madeline stumbled upon the esper world and fell in love with an esper named Maduin, much to the other espers' dismay. She gave birth to a baby girl, and named her Terra.
Two years later, an army of humans, led by Gestahl, came into the esper world. Unlike Madeline, who had come upon the place by accident, Gestahl had spent many years searching for the Esper World. Almost immediately, his troops began capturing espers, causing a panic. As a result, the Elder, who was one of the few descendants able to perform the feat, formed a Sealed Gate around the entrance to the esper world and force out the soldiers. Maduin was taken as well when he tried to stop Madeline and Terra from leaving the esper world before the gate closed, as Gestahl captured all three of them, but killed Madeline.
A NPC tells the party about Kefka being a Magitek Knight.
For the next sixteen years, espers were being held in the Magitek Research Facility in the Imperial capital of Vector, and were the subject of horrible experiments conducted by Cid Del Norte Marquez, who experimented with extracting magic power from the espers and infusing them into humans using the process of Magitek, creating the Magitek Knights. His first experiment was done on a man named Kefka Palazzo. The experiment was deemn a failure, as Kefka would later become twisted and insane as a result. A more refined process was later invented and used on Celes Chere, who Cid raised as his daughter. The refined process no longer harmed the subject's mental faculties, and soldiers and machines began to regularly be infused with magic.
At an unspecified point, the esper Ramuh and three other espers, Siren, Cait Sith and Kirin escaped the Empire, but the latter three were struck down by the Empire in the process. Ramuh fled to Zozo, taking refuge atop a tower in the city. At a later point, the espers Leviathan, Gilgamesh, Gigantuar and Diabolos also escaped, and would wander the world remaining free from detection for a year. Diabolos was eventually killed somehow, and his magicite came to rest in Dragons' Den.
At Narshe, the townspeople unearth the esper Valigarmanda in a newly dug mine shaft. The news attracts the Empire's attention, and they send Terra, under their control via a Slave Crown, to retrieve it with Biggs and Wedge. The two Imperial Soldiers are killed when the esper responds to Terra's presence, knocking her unconscious. Arvis finds her and contacts Locke to get her out of the city safely. As fortune would have it, the two are members of the Returners, an Imperial resistance group, and Terra joins their ranks to help them fight the Empire.
When the Returners return to Narshe, they attempt to have Terra awaken Valigarmanda to have a powerful ally to fight the Empire. However, the contact causes Terra to lose control of her powers and transform into her esper form. Ramuh, sending this event, summons Terra to him and puts her to rest while she mentally wrestles with what she is. When the Returners track down the two, Ramuh explains that the Empire's methods for extracting magic are flawed. Total transfer of an esper's power is only possible via magicite, the crystallized remains of an esper when they die. Ramuh entrusts the magicite shards of Siren, Cait Sith, Kirin and himself to the Returners and tasks them to rescue the imprisoned espers from the Magitek Research Facility.
The Returners raid the Facility and rescue the espers, though too late to prevent them from dying and turning into magicite. During the raid, Kefka and the empire learn that magicite magic is more potent than magitek. With the Empire's magic supply gone, the Returners ally with Narshe to open the gate to the esper world and launch a joint human-esper attack on Vector. Terra manages to open the gate, but when the espers emerge they lose control of their powers like she did and go on a rampage at Vector when they learn what the Empire did with their captured friends. The Empire is decimated and Gestahl calls a truce, asking the Returners ally with him to find the espers and explain the truce to them to avoid further bloodshed.
Kefka transforming an esper into a magicite by an unknown ability.
While Terra, Locke and General Leo locate the espers at Crescent Mountain near Thamasa, it is revealed to have been a ruse to draw them out of hiding. Kefka arrives under Gestahl's orders and kills the espers, seizing their magicite, incapacitates the party, and kills Leo. The sealed gate opens again and more espers arrive to attack Kefka, but he is immune to their powers and turns them all into magicite. Kefka and Gestahl then cross the sealed gate and raise the Floating Continent with the power of the Warring Triad. When the party confronts the two, Kefka kills Gestahl and takes the Triad's power as his own. The party flees, and the End of the World occurs.
In the newly formed World of Ruin, only a few espers remain alive, though magicite remains of espers are abundantly found, and it is mentioned by NPCs that there may be almost none left. With the destruction of Kefka and the Warring Triad at the end of the game, espers and magicite vanish from the world.
Terra is the daughter of the human Madeline and the esper Maduin, making her a half-human and half-esper. She can transform into her esper form when she discovers the truth about her origins. From then on, she will be able to control her powers, as long as she uses it in short bursts. This enables her to unlock her latent magical potential and increase her physical and magical power drastically. She also has the power to revert back into her human form at will. Terra is also naturally gifted in magic due to her heritage, able to learn sixteen spells as she levels up without the help of magicite.
It is unknown how many espers there actually are during the events of Final Fantasy VI, but there are at least dozens if not hundreds. They are represented on the field by assorted sprites representing wolves, dragons and fairies, and are not given proper names. In the battlefield, they use the summon sprites of other espers, so it is likely their field sprites are not reflective of their actual appearance.
Added by Fenrir9
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Added by Crescent moon
Added by TenzaZangetsu
Thunder x10
Cure x4
Libra x5
Yura.
Blue Dragon Esper.
Green Dragon Esper.
Red Dragon Esper.
Fairy Esper.
Wolf Esper.
Unnamed Esper.
Magicite, the remains of a deceased Esper.
Ramuh's field sprite.
Ifrit's field sprite.
Ifrit's battle sprite.
Shiva's field sprite.
Valigarmanda's field sprite.
Valigarmanda's frozen field sprite.
Bismarck's field sprite.
Carbuncle's field sprite.
Catoblepas's field sprite.
Phantom's field sprite.
Unicorn's field sprite.
Maduin's field sprite.
Odin's field sprite.
Odin petrified.
Phoenix summoned in the field.
"Summon orb" used during the summon sequence, distinct from the green orbs used in other games.
Siren's censored sprite in the US version (SNES).
Siren's Japanese sprite.
Lakshmi's censored sprite in the US version (SNES).
