http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/faqs/ff11ares.txt
Final Fantasy Xi
Acquiring Avatars for Dummies v1.0
By: Ares Kaminari
The first thing you'll need to know about your quests is that they all
require level 3 fame in the cities or areas that you need to go. I'll
list them in the order in which I acquired them.
Ifrit - (J-9) in Kazham (Windurst Fame)
Shiva - (E-7) in Northern San d'Oria (San D'oria Fame)
Titan - (I-7) in Port Bastok (Bastok Fame)
Ramuh - (I-9) in Mhaura (Windurst Fame)
Garuda - (G-8) in Rabao (Bastok Fame)
Leviathan - (H-9) in Norg (Norg Fame)
I think there are plenty of guides to getting fame, especially from
the other mini-avatar guide on GameFAQS already, but I'll list the
whole 3 quests in which I used to get all my fame:
- Windurst fame - "Something Fishy" - Port Windurst - Tokaka (C-8)
desires a Bastore Sardine because she supposedly can tell the
quality of the upcoming fishing season from the fish size, weight,
etc. Who cares about that? The point is: You buy a stack of
Bastore Sardines for 700-800gil at the Windurst Auction House, and
give her a single fish, but you have to zone out and back in every
time. She'll give you 70gil per fish. resulting in 840gil per stack
of fish. So this is a method of getting fame in which you actually
MAKE gil. You could do this quest infinitely, get level 10 fame,
and actually make gil off of it. All you need is patience and time.
- San D'oria AND Bastok Fame - "Only The Best" - Selbina - Melyon
(I-9) wants something to feed his sheep, because they're sick, or
something. Who gives? Anyway, this requires you to have a lot of
gil, but it works. Buy a stack of Boyahda Moss at the AH for some
high price (which is why you need a lot of gil), last time I believe
it was like 15k. It's best to borrow some money if you don't have
enough, or be prepared to go back and forth from Selbina to whatever
city your AH is in. You'll trade him the moss one at a time, but
you don't have to zone. You'll lose a bit of gil overall, but not so
much that you can't give back what you borrowed. You borrow (if you
need to) to prevent you from having to go back and forth. The great
part about this quest is that it gives you fame for BOTH Sandy and
Bastok. HOLY CRAP! THIS RULES! I did 2 stacks of moss, but I
believe I had some minor amount of fame in Sandy already (which is
what I was doing it for: Shiva). So max is probably 4 stacks.
Once again: BOTH Sandy and Bastok!
- Norg fame - "Mihgo's Amigo" - Windurst Woods - Nanaa Migho (J-3,
way up north) wants 4 yagudo necklaces because she likes them. She's
a selfish cat pirate, big deal. So just give her some. I recommend
using a level 30+ job (whatever you leveled to get SMN in the first
place) and go hunt Yagudos in Giddeus. People say to do this quest
about 15 times or so, some say 21, I did it 22 times. Some lady in
Kazham on the way to Norg said that even 22 wasn't enough, screw her,
she was wrong. I didn't believe her because she wastn't a SMN20, let
alone she told me she wasn't a SMN at all, so if you're reading this
lady, bite me (Okay, enough backstory ^_^

. This took me about 3
hours straight of farming, including a level 52WHM/26BLM and myself
(30DRK/15THF). The important part is that you have a lot of inventory
space so you don't have to run back and forth. I had 16 slots open,
she had 32 (Yes, if you have no idea how this occured, there are
quests in which you can increase the amount of items you can carry,
thus allowing her to have more than 30.)