Faux Hollows

See also: Trials

“

Relive harrowing battles of your past in the form of "Unreal" battles to create gripping tales you can share with a peculiar talking fox. Succeed and you will have the opportunity to play a special mini-game that offers unique rewards.

— Lodestone description (Patch 5.3 notes)

Faux Hollows is a minigame first introduced in patch 5.3 that functions as the reward for completing unreal trials, which are older extreme trials scaled up to the current level cap.

Requirements

Complete the level 80 quest Fantastic Mr. Faux. Start the quest by speaking to Painfully Ishgardian Man in Idyllshire (X:7.0 Y:5.9). Players must first complete the main scenario quest Shadowbringers and the quest Keeping Up with the Aliapohs.

Note that a player must have a level capped Disciple of War or Magic to complete the current unreal trial and earn Faux Hollows attempts.

Unreal Trials

Unreal trials are new versions of familiar duties, designed to challenge players who have reached the current level cap by providing an experience of similar difficulty to the original versions of these encounters at the time of their release. These trials are numerically tuned by the developers with the current job changes in mind, compensating for alterations in abilities since the original introduction of the trials. Mechanically, they are essentially identical to the original trial. Some mechanics in unreal trials may be easier to resolve than in the extreme trials when they were first released due to job changes (e.g, the current availability of knockback immunity actions for all jobs).

Due to the strict item level (IL) sync of unreal trials, it is not possible to outgear them as in a typical extreme trial. Therefore, players may find the DPS, healing, and mitigation requirements in unreal trials to be somewhat tighter than in the newest extreme trial (unless done using minimum IL settings).

Players must complete the story-mode version of the trial to unlock the unreal trial. They do not need to have completed the (Extreme) version.

List of Unreal Trials

With each major patch the current Unreal Trial is retired, and a new Unreal Trial is introduced.

Patch	Trial	Boss	Level	Item Level
5.3: Reflections in Crystal	The Akh Afah Amphitheatre (Unreal)	Shiva	80	430
5.4: Futures Rewritten	The Navel (Unreal)	Titan	80	430
5.5: Death unto Dawn	The Whorleater (Unreal)	Leviathan	80	430
6.0: Endwalker	On hiatus
6.1: Newfound Adventure	Ultima's Bane (Unreal)	The Ultima Weapon	90	560
6.2: Buried Memory	Containment Bay S1T7 (Unreal)	Sephirot	90	560
6.3: Gods Revel, Lands Tremble	Containment Bay P1T6 (Unreal)	Sophia	90	560
6.4: The Dark Throne	Containment Bay Z1T9 (Unreal)	Zurvan	90	560
6.5: Growing Light	The Singularity Reactor (Unreal)	King Thordan	90	560
7.0: Dawntrail	On hiatus
7.1: Crossroads (Current)	The Jade Stoa (Unreal)	Byakko	100	690

Faux Hollows Overview

Once per week, players may speak to the Faux Commander after completing an unreal trial to gain access to Faux Hollows.

Availability is reset every Tuesday at 1:00 a.m. (PDT) (Earth time), and can be confirmed via the Raid Finder entry for any unreal trial.

Playing Faux Hollows

The objective of Faux Hollows is to reveal the illustrations hidden beneath one or more panels. Only eleven panels can be turned in total when playing. Successfully uncover illustrations and earn faux leaves, which can be exchanged for various rewards. The amount of faux leaves awarded differs depending on the size and nature of the illustration uncovered.

The Faux Hollows board consists of a 6x6 grid of panels. Five panels will be blocked. There are four patterns of blocked panels, although these can be rotated in any cardinal direction, making a total of 16 board patterns.

The following illustrations may appear:

Commander (small): Rarely appears, but can only spawn in fixed locations, depending on the board pattern and the locations of the medium and large illustrations. Occupies one panel. Will reward 100 Faux Leaves if revealed.
Coffer or Gift Box (medium): One of the two will always appear. Occupies 4 panels in a 2x2 pattern. The Coffer will reward 35 Faux Leaves and the Gift Box will reward 25 Faux Leaves.
Dual Blades (large): Always appears. Occupies 6 panels in a 2x3 or 3x2 pattern. Will reward 15 Faux Leaves and a retelling (see below).

Retellings

Uncovering a large illustration grants a retelling. With this reward, it is possible to complete an unreal trial and access Faux Hollows once more before a week has passed, making it a viable alternative to solely aiming for illustrations that grant a high number of faux leaves.

Players may only earn one retelling per week.

Rewards

Faux Leaves can be exchanged with the Faux Commander in Idyllshire (X:5.7 Y:6.1) for rewards, some only obtainable via Faux Hollows.

Note that many of the rewards, notably the mounts and minions, can be sold on the Market Board for large amounts of gil.

Achievements

Faux Hollows is associated with the following achievements:

Name	Points	Task	Reward	Patch
Friend or Faux I	5	Play Faux Hollows for the first time.	-	5.3
Friend or Faux II	5	Play Faux Hollows 5 times.	Partner in Teatime	5.3
Friend or Faux III	5	Play Faux Hollows 20 times.	-	5.3
Friend or Faux IV	10	Play Faux Hollows 50 times.	Vrai Ami (Male) / Vraie Amie (Female)	5.3

External links

Trivia

The name Faux Hollows is a pun on a couple levels. Firstly, faux is an English word of French origin pronounced fō /foʊ/ meaning "fake or artificial" in keeping with the (Unreal) tag on the trials. Secondly, a naive pronunciation of Faux as if it were an English-native word would sound like /fɑks/ or "fox" which is what the Faux Commander is. Finally, the Faux Commander's stated handsomeness and alleged resemblance to Aymeric is potentially a play on foxy meaning "(informal) attractive, sexy".