Wizardry Variants Daphne's Final Fantasy XI Collab Gives You One Free Adventurer From Six, and the Scrolls Stop August 26

The free Moldy Scrolls stop on August 26, 2026 at 23:59 JST. That is 25 days from now, and it is the deadline nobody covering this collaboration has treated as one.

"Fantasy Castle of Deepest Dark" (闇深き幻想の城) opened on July 30 and runs to September 10, 12:59 JST, which is 40 days out. Every outlet that filed on launch day printed that second date and stopped there. The login bonus that feeds the recruitment banners closes fifteen days earlier, and a player who logs in for the first time on September 1 will find the scroll tap already shut.

One thing is claimable at any point in the window regardless: a single item, chosen from six, once per account. Three of those six are Prishe, Iroha and Zeid. The other three are not Final Fantasy XI characters at all.

For the reveal chain that preceded it, see how the collab was announced and dated, covering the July 3 teaser, the July 13 Square Enix post and the July 24 date reveal.

The collaboration key visual with the event window burned in: 7.30 to 9.10, both Thursdays. The black cat is Cait Sith, who is in the art and not in the roster.

Two clocks, and the first one is August 26

Drecom's launch release prints two period lines, not one. Both are reproduced below in the four timezones this site's readers actually use.

Game8 renders the second row as "September 9th, 8:59 PM ET / 11:59 PM PT". Those labels are reversed: Pacific runs three hours behind Eastern, so a PT clock time cannot be later than the ET one for the same instant. Anchored to Drecom's own 12:59 JST figure, the pair is 11:59 PM ET and 8:59 PM PT.

The login bonus pays 2 each of Moldy Scroll: Darksteel Hurricane, Moldy Scroll: Singer of the Rhapsodies and Moldy Scroll: The Abhorrent One of Tavnazia per day, plus what Drecom's wording calls "and more". Those scrolls are the currency of the three character banners, so the August 26 cutoff is not a bonus expiring, it is the pull budget closing.

One free adventurer, chosen from six

The Collab Adventurer Recruitment Event is a one-time exchange, not a login gift. Drecom's release lists all six selectable items, and the split matters:

Half the menu is a Final Fantasy XI crossover and half is a legendary catch-up. A player who already owns Red Beard, Arboris and Abenius is picking between three characters that leave with the event; a player who owns none of them is weighing a permanent roster hole against a limited one.

Automaton West named the sixth as Glintblade where Game8 named Abenius, which reads as a contradiction and is not one. Drecom's item string is "Bones of the Fighter Called the Glintblade" and the adventurer's own official English title is "Abenius of the Glintblade". One person, one epithet, two outlets picking different halves of the name.

The collaboration's logo lockup, as used across Drecom's campaign materials.

The gate: Beginning Abyss, then the Man Scavenging Bones

The pick sits behind progression, which is why a fresh install cannot claim it on day one. Reach a point in the Beginning Abyss, and a limited-time event opens in the Royal Capital Luknalia. The Man Scavenging Bones hands over the item there, once.

A community guide puts the trigger more precisely: clear the Royal Capital cutscene, enter Beginning Abyss Floor 1, and find the NPC at map coordinates X:5, Y:1. Treat that as T3, and useful mainly because no outlet on the search results page carries a location at all.

The story runs alongside it. "Search for the Sons of a Lord" is taken at the Adventurer's Guild in the royal capital, and Drecom's flavour text sets it up in three lines:

"An ill-omened castle has appeared unbidden in Northern Hollow, and my lord's sons rode out to scout it. Now the keep has vanished into thin air, and the young lords have not returned."

Prishe, Iroha and Zeid

All three were disclosed on launch day, July 30, with titles, weapons and Japanese voice actors, and none of them earlier.

The kit column is Game8's read at T2, not a published stat sheet. Cait Sith, the character on the key visual since the July 3 teaser, is not recruitable and is not on this list.

The collaboration PV, the only first-party video Drecom published for this event.

The scroll economy, and what the free pick is worth

Each of the three has its own recruitment banner, fed by the Moldy Scrolls from the login bonus and from limited-time missions. Noisy Pixel reports that recruiting a character with its designated bonus scrolls grants one random exclusive equipment piece per character; that is a single source and no other outlet carries it.

The value case for the free pick is real, and it is not what launch coverage claimed. Wizardry Variants Daphne has no per-pull hard pity. Pulls yield exchange tokens spent at the Jeweler: 100 tokens buys a guaranteed Legendary, 60 buys a guaranteed non-Legendary. A community guide prices limited remains at 200 gems for a single and 2,000 for an eleven-pull, with roughly a 2 percent rate on a new Legendary.

Run that arithmetic to 100 tokens and the guaranteed-Legendary cost is 9 × 2,000 plus 1 × 200, or 18,200 gems. That figure is T3 community arithmetic on T3 prices, not a published rate, and it describes an exchange counter rather than a pity counter. The unit is Gems, paid Gems of Erin or free Gems of Org, and the number moves if any of the three inputs is wrong.

The dungeon, the Relic Weapons and the Rank Exam

Three systems shipped with the event and only one of them is a banner. Relic Weapons are collaboration-exclusive gear bought in base form at the event Jeweler's Exchange for gil, then reforged into stronger versions. Reforging materials pass through a Trade Broker at the tavern in Northern Hollow Village.

Community measurements put the base Relic Weapon at 1,000 gil and the exchange itself behind Zone 4, "Harken". The same guide counts 7 zones plus an optional "Goblin Abode" side dungeon unlocked by a town request, with the third run gated at launch and scheduled to open later in the window.

The microsite adds a Collaboration Rank Exam: a quiz of 15 questions per title, built so a Wizardry player can be tested on Vana'diel and a Final Fantasy XI player on the Abyss. On the Final Fantasy XI side, characters that log in during an August campaign receive the Abyss Mask, and Square Enix has still published no dates for it; that half belongs to the announcement record.

What Wizardry Variants Daphne is

A free-to-play 3D first-person dungeon crawler on a grid, with turn-based party combat and adventurers acquired from "remains" bought at the Jeweler or recovered in the Ruins. It is published by Drecom, with development credited to Studio 2Pro. That credit is worth stating carefully: Gematsu and the community wiki both name Studio 2Pro as developer, while the Steam store lists Drecom in both the developer and publisher fields and Drecom's own release credits "Development/Distribution/Operation: Drecom Co., Ltd."

The Steam store capsule. The PC version arrived on March 6, 2025, five months after the October 15, 2024 mobile launch.

Mobile came first, on iOS and Android on October 15, 2024. Steam followed on March 6, 2025, with landscape 1920x1080, controller support and cross-platform account linking. The storefront's date field reads "5 Mar, 2025" because Valve renders release dates in Pacific time; it is the same launch. Six languages are listed there today, English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean and German, two more than the Steam launch set.

Final Fantasy XI is the first MMORPG in the series, in its 24th year, with Drecom's own release putting the 25th anniversary in 2027.

Three dates that decide how this lands

August 26, 2026, 23:59 JST. The last daily scroll drop. Every day skipped before then is 6 scrolls that do not exist afterwards, and there is no catch-up mechanism published at any tier.

September 10, 2026, 12:59 JST. The event closes, and with it the free pick, the collaboration dungeon and the Relic Weapon exchange. That is 03:59 UTC, or September 9 at 11:59 PM ET and 8:59 PM PT.

Unpublished. The Final Fantasy XI Abyss Mask campaign window, still without a start or end date on August 1 with the month already running. We will update the announcement piece when Square Enix posts it.

FAQ

What is the deadline for the free Moldy Scrolls? August 26, 2026 at 23:59 JST, which is 14:59 UTC and 10:59 AM ET. The login bonus pays 2 scrolls per collaboration character per day until then.

How do I get the free collab character? Reach a point in the Beginning Abyss, then meet the Man Scavenging Bones in the Royal Capital Luknalia. He hands over one item of your choice from six, once per account, at any point before the event ends.

Which characters can I pick from? Six items covering six adventurers: Prishe, Iroha and Zeid from Final Fantasy XI, plus Red Beard, Arboris and Abenius, who are standing Wizardry Variants Daphne legendaries and not part of the crossover.

When exactly does the collab end? September 10, 2026 at 12:59 JST. That is 03:59 UTC, September 9 at 11:59 PM ET and September 9 at 8:59 PM PT.

Are Abenius and Glintblade two different characters? No. The item is "Bones of the Fighter Called the Glintblade" and the adventurer's official English title is "Abenius of the Glintblade".

Does Wizardry Variants Daphne have pity? Not per pull. Pulls yield exchange tokens spent at the Jeweler, 100 for a guaranteed Legendary and 60 for a guaranteed non-Legendary. Community arithmetic puts the 100-token path at about 18,200 gems.

Is Cait Sith in the collab? Cait Sith appears in the key visual and is not recruitable. The playable crossover roster is Prishe, Iroha and Zeid.