How powerful are the Elementals post-Calamity?

Hello! Summoning all lore mages!

I've been doing a little bit of research into the Elementals for something I'm writing. I noticed the fear of the wrath of the Elementals was way more present in 1.0, where the Greenwrath, people getting abducted by the forest and treants (+ other forest creatures) attacking settlements was an everyday thing. Holding rituals to appease them was part of their culture and everyday routine.
From what I remember during my MSQ playthrough none of this is barely mentioned, if at all. If anything, it is mentioned that pre-Calamity, they're strong enough to strip a Padjal of their powers completely (EW tank role quest). Do you think they'd still be able to do this?

We know the Elementals used a lot of their power to shield as much of the Twelveswood as they could during the Calamity. So we're left to assume that they're either not powerful enough to go berserk on Gridanians like that anymore, or they're suddenly a lot more chill about things? I'm just confused here.
Do we have any information on what they can and can't do nowadays?


TL;DR: I'm looking for examples (preferably with some sort of source I can reference) of Elementals using their powers post-Calamity, to get an idea of what they can and cannot do for something I'm writing.

Personally, I feel like the answer would - as it often does in FFXIV - lie somewhere in between. A lot of FFXIV lore works in generalities whereby exceptions can exist.

We know that the Calamity did in fact dramatically weaken the elementals in general. Whatever of the elementals' actions depended on their sustained, systemic power is off the table - hence the sudden reappearance of things like the ruins of Amdapor, which they were hiding.

But could an elemental or a few specific elementals recover enough power to pull off some of the stuff they used to do? Probably, if the plot wanted it bad enough.


As for examples, that's tougher. In most content in the game they just whisper. They've appeared in instances a couple times if I remember right, so you could infer that they might tip the scales of a limited conflict. They helped fish Y'shtola out of the lifestream and lured Odin to our confrontation. Mother Mionne was confident that if the Guardian Tree came to harm, they would still be powerful enough to cause chaos in their rage, but when the sentinels in Amdapor came to life, they didn't band together and shut them down even in a brief, sustained outburst -- they fled.

My guess is that most of them are spending what little energy they have on maintaining the Twelveswood and that exceptions would be brief and require explanation ... but it could be done.

Thank you, Anonymoose. This leads me to believe that, following the Calamity, they've spent enough power to only be able to comfortably communicate with the Hearers and padjals. A lot of what happened since the Calamity would have them going nuclear if they had the power they used back then...


Do you happen to remember more about their appearances post-Calamity?


Edit for context: What I am specifically after, for now, is to see if the Elementals could be pushed to pull another Ea-Sura-Supin. I don't think they can, but I wanted to make sure before I end up having some questionable events in my little writing project lol

While Anonymoose covered every sort of 'basic' answer to the question, a factor I think is generally underdiscussed on this isn't power level, but just raw quantity. The way that the Elementals were written, especially in 1.0, suggested that we had a 'one in every tree, rock and stream' situation. If that's true, anything that 'an Elemental' or 'the Elementals' did was the result of dozens, to hundreds, to possibly thousands all working in concert.

I feel like, in that case, the conversation might change a bit. Because in that case, maybe de-Padjali-ing a Padjali was once maybe a dozen-or-so Elemental job, but these days it'd probably be a whole forest deal.

EDIT:

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Originally Posted by Shistar

Do you happen to remember more about their appearances post-Calamity?

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This part I can answer, though. In terms of direct, physical appearances, we've got one solo duty in the Conjurer questline; the rest are all abstracts, and in many cases it gets hard to tell if something definitely is the Elementals, but we have the Y'shtola revival in Heavensward, and the Endwalker tank role quest that you obviously already have experience with. I'd also specifically pinpoint Stormblood White Mage as something to look at, because while I don't think there was direct Elemental action there was definitely some adjacent stuff going on... and I weirdly have to bring up Stormblood Leatherworker as a prominent exception, because that's a case where the Elementals are absolutely explicitly not involved.

There's also the 'proto-Elemental', as I'd call it, in the Elpis yellow quest 'Woken by the Familiar', where we learn about their creation magic concept precursor, which looks the same but is essentially just a telepathic familiar concept. There's not much to go off there for your question, it's just evidence that they started in a very different place.

There's also Eureka to add in; Eureka has Elementals, that use the same model as the Twelveswood ones, who just hang around and give you buffs if you get close. They're also definitely not just a gameplay conceit, because Absolute Virtue is an Elemental that got possessed by one of the Eurekan weapons. Anything further on that subject goes into speculation, though.

Thank you, Cleretic! Looks like I've got lots of stuff to check out before I get to writing in detail.

I did always consider that their powers were significantly diminished because many of them got straight up obliterated by Dalamud's remains... though when you bring it to light like this it highlights how important this is to the discussion. The Shroud lost thousands of Elementals during the Calamity, most likely. I'm surprised this isn't something that any Padjal bring up (that I can remember), but I guess Elementals don't quite mourn their kin like we do.


About Eureka: It was my understanding that Elementals dwell everywhere in the world, it's just that the sheer concentration of life (and how ancient some of it is) in the Shroud allows them to join forces more effectively and have a say on what goes on in their forest up until the Calamity obliterated entire parts of it and the Elementals living there. The Isle of Val is very interesting because there's some messed up stuff going on with the aether there, but I'm not quite sure what would push the Elementals to go through the trouble of physically manifesting and to give us helpful effects if we happen to cross paths with them. Though didn't they also use to appear in the Shroud in 1.0? They were lvl90+ or something like that, am I getting my wires crossed here? I assume the ones chilling in Eureka are there for similar reasons Shroud Elementals used to hang out in the forest sometimes..?


I think it's safe to assume they aren't taking any extreme measures against mortals by themselves any time soon, especially if it's not a huge problem, which is enough for me to get some of my writing done.

I was under the impression "Kami" were also basically elementals in everything but name, with Geomancy serving the same purpose as Conjury.

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Originally Posted by Shistar

About Eureka: It was my understanding that Elementals dwell everywhere in the world, it's just that the sheer concentration of life (and how ancient some of it is) in the Shroud allows them to join forces more effectively and have a say on what goes on in their forest up until the Calamity obliterated entire parts of it and the Elementals living there. The Isle of Val is very interesting because there's some messed up stuff going on with the aether there, but I'm not quite sure what would push the Elementals to go through the trouble of physically manifesting and to give us helpful effects if we happen to cross paths with them. Though didn't they also use to appear in the Shroud in 1.0? They were lvl90+ or something like that, am I getting my wires crossed here? I assume the ones chilling in Eureka are there for similar reasons Shroud Elementals used to hang out in the forest sometimes..?

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The Elementals as we know them actually appeared everywhere in 1.0, they weren't a Shroud-exclusive thing. And I can't find on a quick check how high-level they were, but they were a good thirty or forty levels above what players could be.

My read on the Elementals (and this is largely speculation) is that they're essentially an environmental regulator, and they turn up wherever aether is especially wild. The Twelveswood has been that for a really long time, so they've become a permanent part of the ecosystem there, and possibly gained power through collective faith and belief, as happens sometimes. Eureka's famously a mess, so they sprung up over there. Enemies with the same model also cropped up in the Aetherfont dungeon, which is also a hotbed of aether.

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

I was under the impression "Kami" were also basically elementals in everything but name, with Geomancy serving the same purpose as Conjury.

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This is a plausible read, albeit not one with any proper evidence, they are very similar. But I'd argue it's less because of any in-universe confluence, and more because the Elementals were already written to be very similar to Shinto kami.

So, about the Elementals, Kami, and other Aether-based lifeforms...

Following the Calamity, the Elementals by and large do seem to be largely weakened, for two reasons. The first is in their actions during the Calamity, and the second is in their nature.

It's somewhat commonly known that, during the Calamity, as debris from Dalamud and Bahamut's rampage rocked the region, the Elementals expended a great deal of their power protecting the Twelveswood from the brunt of the damage. as a result, many of the Elementals, who are largely composed of aether like many other Elementals (the Kin.) such as Sprites, Carbuncles, and so on, are in a dramatically weakened state, but should replenish their aether given time and an ample supply of aether.

That said, that's just part of the story, and the much more pressing issue lies in the nature of the Elementals. As stated by Raya-o-senna,

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"Raya-O-Senna: The trees are the elementals, the elementals are the trees——the lush verdure of the wood is inseparable from the spirits that dwell within it. But you do not need to hear this from me. Doubtless you felt it for yourself, when you healed that tree."

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which clearly states that for the Elementals, the forest isn't just their home. it's they themselves. The Elementals aren't just protecting the Twelveswood, they're protecting their own bodies, something that's hinted at in several other places around the game, though the most explicit aside from the above would likely be the case of the Guardian Tree in Central Shroud.

The thing is, while the Elementals protected much of the Twelveswood from damage, in terms of the actual impact that the Calamity has had on the regions we have access to, the only area more dramatically changed than the Twelveswood is Coerthas, and even that's just a climate shift. The Elementals weren't just weakened, but crippled by the Calamity, and a lot of that is likely due to the fact that the Western Shroud region has been almost completely devastated by the fragment of Dalamud that hit in what is now the North Shroud. Combined with the vast network of caverns under the Shroud from Gelmorra and it comes as no real surprise that the entire region has been upended.

That said, while many of the Elementals have been weakened, there're still some that're more than powerful enough to go full Greenswrath, they're just less prone to do it, and preventing one such example from doing just that is the whole point of the ARR White Mage questline, the Warrior of Light playing a vital role in performing a ritual known as "The Quieting" to quell the wrath of the Guardian Tree in Central Shroud.

That's right. They're giving the tree anti-anxiety medication.

The Twelveswood isn't just a forest. it's a vast, interconnected entity made up of all the trees and plants that're intertwined at the roots throughout it, with the older trees themselves being part of the Elementals outright. While I cannot for the life of me remember where I read it, (it might have been a dev interview, but i can't be assed to find it if so at 2AM) I could swear i once saw reference to the root system visible in Toto-Rak being another such example as the biggest more extensive root system in the Twelveswood. That said, as I mentioned, i cannot remember where i got that, so i'd treat it with a grain of salt.

The interesting thing though is that, based on what we know about the setting, especially in reference to "Aether-based life" like Elementals (the Kin) it's hard to say WHERE Elementals (the species) actually originate from. On the one hand, it's possible they're a naturally propogating species that were created by the Ancients. On the other hand, it's also possible that, like Kami, Auspices, and Tural Vidraal, they're a result of the collective faith of the region's peoples giving life and form to beings that we know as Elementals, making them little more than naturally-occuring minor primals. Either way, they're definately still not to be trifled with, they're just MUCH more reserved right now since a huge swath of the forest (Again, the entire Western Shroud) has been annihalated by the Calamity and has yet to heal.

Thank you, Lunair, lots of cool info and confirmation here!

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Originally Posted by Lunair

That's right. They're giving the tree anti-anxiety medication.

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Can I get some of that, too?

With regard to the kami angle, I'd point to two pretty strong citations that it was intended.

The first is that the 1.0 Japanese language uses 1:1 Shinto terms to refer to elemental-associated stuff. Concepts like [purity as consistency with natural order], [purification of impurity as a communal responsibility], [pacification of spirits], [impurity as the source of spiritual wrath], etc. were all present. Gridania was Shinto through a lens but then Hingashi came along and did it without the lens in a different way.

The second is that the developer panel just before 1.x launch described Gridania as "inspired by an ancient Japanese polis".

Incidentally this is a big reason Gridanian culture gets misunderstood. If you can take it for granted that the elementals are real, that impurity is impurity regardless of "fault" and that it is the community's responsibility to purify it, that the presence of impurity causes the elementals to enter a wrathful state regardless of what they would otherwise "want", and that elemental wrath causes the forest to become agitated and violent and brings disaster, then it makes a lot of sense why Gridania is wary of outsiders, doesn't trust them to protect the community, is afraid of the calamity they might recklessly bring on the community, etc.

It would be nice to learn more about the Elementals and how they came to existence.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Incidentally this is a big reason Gridanian culture gets misunderstood. If you can take it for granted that the elementals are real, that impurity is impurity regardless of "fault" and that it is the community's responsibility to purify it, that the presence of impurity causes the elementals to enter a wrathful state regardless of what they would otherwise "want", and that elemental wrath causes the forest to become agitated and violent and brings disaster, then it makes a lot of sense why Gridania is wary of outsiders, doesn't trust them to protect the community, is afraid of the calamity they might recklessly bring on the community, etc.

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Because of this, you actually find that a widespread hatred of the Elementals is basically exclusively an English-language-audience thing; the Japanese audience doesn't really treat them with the level of antaognism you sometimes see in English, I think because they're just culturally much closer to the root inspiration.

I suspect there's also an element of American exceptionalism and hyperindividualism, too; that some amount of people instinctively hated the concept of something they don't have power over telling them that they can't do the thing they might want to do. But that's a very different level of discussion!

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Originally Posted by Lunair

On the other hand, it's also possible that, like Kami, Auspices, and Tural Vidraal, they're a result of the collective faith of the region's peoples giving life and form to beings that we know as Elementals, making them little more than naturally-occuring minor primals. Either way, they're definately still not to be trifled with, they're just MUCH more reserved right now since a huge swath of the forest (Again, the entire Western Shroud) has been annihalated by the Calamity and has yet to heal.

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There's no indication that auspices and tural vidraal are the result of collective faith. Many an auspice is completely hidden from the world, while tural vidraal are generally not part of any belief system, barring the societies that have captured them in totems, which are few and far between. They are very much unlike, say, the kami, for which there is ample evidence of that they are there because of faith, or [SPOILERS FOR PATCH 7.35]

the fae folk of the First which have straight up said to have probably been willed into existence by the centuries of belief by the Church of the First Light

, or the Twelve as they present themselves in the Omphalos. There's nothing so far indicating that auspices and tural vidraal aren't just animals that live long enough to become super powerful.

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Originally Posted by Zero-ELEC

There's no indication that auspices and tural vidraal are the result of collective faith. Many an auspice is completely hidden from the world, while tural vidraal are generally not part of any belief system, barring the societies that have captured them in totems, which are few and far between. They are very much unlike, say, the kami, for which there is ample evidence of that they are there because of faith, or [SPOILERS FOR PATCH 7.35]

the fae folk of the First which have straight up said to have probably been willed into existence by the centuries of belief by the Church of the First Light

, or the Twelve as they present themselves in the Omphalos. There's nothing so far indicating that auspices and tural vidraal aren't just animals that live long enough to become super powerful.

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The thing you spoiled does theoretically give a way that this could be true, but it's crucially not in the way that we often see people say that Auspices and Tural Vidraal are primal-like. All evidence we have about both of them suggests that the same phenomena happens in both places simply because an animal that lives long enough eventually collates insane amounts of aether; there is no collective faith involved, except that some (not all) Auspices do seem to have become objects of faith.

As for the way this square peg could fit in the round hole...

It's plausible that the Auspices and Tural Vidraal may have started being a phenomena simply because those around them believed that could happen; like the pixies potentially springing to existence because the Church of the First Light thought they already did, they might be the result of a collective faith creating a part of the ecosystem that wasn't there before. It'd actually answer an unresolved question I've had: why there aren't Auspices in Eorzea. By this logic, they simply never eventuated in Eorzea because there wasn't that collective belief that they existed.

...But that theory itself just opens a different hole: if this is ultimately a phenomena born of collective belief, then how did effectively the exact same thing develop on two separate continents with, to our knowledge, no interaction?

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

[HB...But that theory itself just opens a different hole: if this is ultimately a phenomena born of collective belief, then how did effectively the exact same thing develop on two separate continents with, to our knowledge, no interaction?[/HB]

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I don't think it's that strange.

I would point to the real life phenomena of how it seems like every other culture in human history seems to have a version of a dragon in their mythos and folklore. The best theory I've heard behind this is that people were finding dinosaur bones, but even that is a theory. Tural Vidraal and Auspices being so similar but also wildly different can be a similar idea as how east Asian dragons have many similarities but are so different from dragon myths of Europe, but other differences and similarities from the myths of the Americas that Tural is based upon.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

The thing you spoiled does theoretically give a way that this could be true, but it's crucially not in the way that we often see people say that Auspices and Tural Vidraal are primal-like. All evidence we have about both of them suggests that the same phenomena happens in both places simply because an animal that lives long enough eventually collates insane amounts of aether; there is no collective faith involved, except that some (not all) Auspices do seem to have become objects of faith.

As for the way this square peg could fit in the round hole...

It's plausible that the Auspices and Tural Vidraal may have started being a phenomena simply because those around them believed that could happen; like the pixies potentially springing to existence because the Church of the First Light thought they already did, they might be the result of a collective faith creating a part of the ecosystem that wasn't there before. It'd actually answer an unresolved question I've had: why there aren't Auspices in Eorzea. By this logic, they simply never eventuated in Eorzea because there wasn't that collective belief that they existed.

...But that theory itself just opens a different hole: if this is ultimately a phenomena born of collective belief, then how did effectively the exact same thing develop on two separate continents with, to our knowledge, no interaction?

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Actually, we do have evidence to support the idea that auspices are a result of collective faith. that evidence being a dev flat out telling us that it's because of the collective faith in the area causing them to come into existence.

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2018 Fan Fest GE Interview w/ Koji Fox:GE: From the development angle, until now, everything was always presented as so mysterious. What are the Twelve? Who knows. What are the Elementals? Who knows. (pauses) Do we know what the Elementals are, yet?

Koji: Who knows?

GE: …So we have all of this for years and years, Eorzea’s this big mystery. Then we go over to Othard. One moon in Othard and it’s like, ‘Here’s the auspices and the kami and it’s all real!’ What?

Koji: That’s what they believe! It’s all about the belief systems over there. I think they wanted to do that—to make it that it’s so ingrained in that society that they’ve made it real by believing it to be so. And…it is! (laughing) Because we have auspices all over the place!

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Both Kami and Auspices are specifically mentioned explicitely to be a result of collective faith in this statement, and the parallels between Auspices and Tural Vidraal is brought up in the MSQ itself, essentially confirming that they're essentially just seperate cases of the same phenomenon. This is consistent with literally every other example we have of "naturally occuring primals"

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

I don't think it's that strange.

I would point to the real life phenomena of how it seems like every other culture in human history seems to have a version of a dragon in their mythos and folklore. The best theory I've heard behind this is that people were finding dinosaur bones, but even that is a theory. Tural Vidraal and Auspices being so similar but also wildly different can be a similar idea as how east Asian dragons have many similarities but are so different from dragon myths of Europe, but other differences and similarities from the myths of the Americas that Tural is based upon.

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But even that raises a question.

If we're dealing with almost inevitable convergent development of ideas that then itself became reality, then in that case, why did it only develop on two continents? Why didn't Eorzea seed the same thing?

It's just not a particularly good explanation for this in terms of 'questions raised vs. questions answered'.

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Originally Posted by Lunair

Both Kami and Auspices are specifically mentioned explicitely to be a result of collective faith in this statement, and the parallels between Auspices and Tural Vidraal is brought up in the MSQ itself, essentially confirming that they're essentially just seperate cases of the same phenomenon. This is consistent with literally every other example we have of "naturally occuring primals"

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Except that, again, neither continent actually believes in the Auspices/Tural Vidraal as deities in the way we understand it. Some Auspices are incidentally worshipped more as an after-the-fact thing (specifically the Four Lords, probably because of the whole Tenzen story), but there's others that are completely unknown, and the Tural Vidraal don't even have that; they're treated as a natural threat, like an apex predator.

There's no aspect of faith in either Auspices or Tural Vidraals, except in the sense that we have faith in something like gravity; it's an observed fact, a Thing That Happens. The Pilgrim's Traverse has put forward a way that itself could be influenced by belief, but that's not even a proven fact about the subject that idea came up about. Applying it to the Auspices and Tural Vidraal is just supposition on top of supposition; it can't be treated as agreed-on supplemental evidence.

That quote is literally too vague to make anything out of, especially given it was part of an unscripted interview from seven years ago. It should not be treated as gospel above what the game itself says.

I mean, it could be no more complicated than "this animal is super old and super strong" being a thing everywhere, with Auspices being conflated with wisdom in their region and Tural Vidraal being conflated with strength and wild nature in theirs, while other regions don't attach local legend on the same scale to them. Eorzean faith leaned way more into the Twelve than the local legends.

But, along with Elementals, Eorzea has Moogles and a large concentration of living and active Dragons, all insanely long lived and sentient creatures that pervade both myth and reality. So, the Eorzean equivalent to beast that could become Auspice/Vidraal just remain the beasts that are FATE bosses or hunt marks.

The Church of the First Light was also *massive* in a way nothing on the source is. The idea of a few magical species on the scale of the Fae coming up makes a bit more sense if we consider most of the First's pre-flood population were actively believing in such creatures for many generations.

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

I mean, it could be no more complicated than "this animal is super old and super strong" being a thing everywhere, with Auspices being conflated with wisdom in their region and Tural Vidraal being conflated with strength and wild nature in theirs, while other regions don't attach local legend on the same scale to them. Eorzean faith leaned way more into the Twelve than the local legends.

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Yeah, this is genuinely my thought on this: animals becoming super powerful with age is a global thing, with certain cultures applying different personal meanings to it, but Eorzea just generally didn't notice or document it themselves. Being the epicenter of a few Calamities might've compounded things, too; to become a full-on Auspice an animal needs to live for a thousand years, and the Ascians generally didn't give Eorzean life the free time for that.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Except that, again, neither continent actually believes in the Auspices/Tural Vidraal as deities in the way we understand it. Some Auspices are incidentally worshipped more as an after-the-fact thing (specifically the Four Lords, probably because of the whole Tenzen story), but there's others that are completely unknown, and the Tural Vidraal don't even have that; they're treated as a natural threat, like an apex predator.

There's no aspect of faith in either Auspices or Tural Vidraals, except in the sense that we have faith in something like gravity; it's an observed fact, a Thing That Happens. The Pilgrim's Traverse has put forward a way that itself could be influenced by belief, but that's not even a proven fact about the subject that idea came up about. Applying it to the Auspices and Tural Vidraal is just supposition on top of supposition; it can't be treated as agreed-on supplemental evidence.

That quote is literally too vague to make anything out of, especially given it was part of an unscripted interview from seven years ago. It should not be treated as gospel above what the game itself says.

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You're conflating Religious belief with Faith. They're explicitly not the same thing. I would remind you that Enkidu during the Gilgamesh fight on the bridge during the Hildibrand questline was, by all measures, a Primal born solely of Gilgamesh wanting to see his friend that badly. zero deification involved in that case. (And ridiculous as the hildibrand questlines are, they're still canon.) The only thing that's required is collective belief in a thing strong enough for it to begin to have effects, even on things that are not already primals. This capacity to influence non-primals is something we also see in the Archbishop, who explicitly tempered the Heaven's Ward even before he took the eye they already had out of it's resting place, empowered by the collective faith of Ishgard in the Archbishop's post within the church. Similarly, Bahamut wasn't a god, but a Dragon, and was the single most powerful primal we've seen aside from the big two

Belief in a deity does make it easier to concentrate Faith, certainly, but it's not required that the target be believed to be a god or similar for Faith to influence them, only that there be enough belief in a thing to pass some sort of threshold that we can't fully quantify presently, (and we know that said threshold exists because it took the accumulation of three artifacts of Susano coming together for him to manifest without ANY deliberate summoning effort. He just MADE HIMSELF when enough targets of faith in him came together.) It's mentioned in many places, including the lore books, that the Far East has widespread belief in the way that Auspices come to exist, (explicitly, they believe in the process that Auspices go through as part of their local religious beliefs and mythology, along with belief in basically everything else ALSO having spirits.) which would absolutely qualify as collective Faith for the purposes of Primal manifestation.

This all lines up with what we see from that explanation in the interview, as well.

I should add a note though that when I refer to Faith in this context, it might be more appropriate to call it Belief.

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Originally Posted by Lunair

Belief in a deity does make it easier to concentrate Faith, certainly, but it's not required that the target be believed to be a god or similar for Faith to influence them, only that there be enough belief in a thing to pass some sort of threshold that we can't fully quantify presently, (and we know that said threshold exists because it took the accumulation of three artifacts of Susano coming together for him to manifest without ANY deliberate summoning effort. He just MADE HIMSELF when enough targets of faith in him came together.) It's mentioned in many places, including the lore books, that the Far East has widespread belief in the way that Auspices come to exist, (explicitly, they believe in the process that Auspices go through as part of their local religious beliefs and mythology, along with belief in basically everything else ALSO having spirits.) which would absolutely qualify as collective Faith for the purposes of Primal manifestation.

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So essentially, you do believe that their belief in Auspices and Tural Vidraal are akin to a belief in gravity; an observation of a thing that exists. That does raise a chicken-and-egg question in this setting that the Pilgrim's Traverse also put forward (what came first, the belief or the thing), but it's also not relevant for talking about the Elementals.

Because the Elementals are both an extant Thing, and an object of worship; Gridania's people both believe in them as a clearly evidenced phenomena, and as a higher power that they pray to. Because of this they can't be easily compared to the Auspices and Tural Vidraal, who only have one half of that. The Kami are a valid comparison, but one one without a lot of juice; there are maybe two storylines that focus on the Kami, and neither of them in a way that gives us workable information. No questions we have about the Elementals, and especially their relative strength as the OP was asking about, are answered by using comparisons to the Kami.

I would concede that it leads to a chicken and egg question in regards to whether the Auspices and Tural Vidraal came before or after the belief, but combined with the previously mentioned quote, I would argue we have a clear enough answer on which came first. Belief came first, and then the actual Auspices and Tural Vidraal. The form the Belief takes is secondary to whether the belief is about a deity or not. But I do agree that we've gotten off topic at this point.

That said, my original point, which was intended to be that the Elementals may at least in part gain some of their power and properties from the beliefs relating to them in the region, remains valid. it's hard to say to what extent that might be, but it remains a valid point regardless.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

The Elementals as we know them actually appeared everywhere in 1.0, they weren't a Shroud-exclusive thing. And I can't find on a quick check how high-level they were, but they were a good thirty or forty levels above what players could be.

My read on the Elementals (and this is largely speculation) is that they're essentially an environmental regulator, and they turn up wherever aether is especially wild. The Twelveswood has been that for a really long time, so they've become a permanent part of the ecosystem there, and possibly gained power through collective faith and belief, as happens sometimes. Eureka's famously a mess, so they sprung up over there. Enemies with the same model also cropped up in the Aetherfont dungeon, which is also a hotbed of aether.

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The Elementals were very violent during the end of Patch 1.23b. I remember being in La Noscea and hanging out in one area that was littered with aggressive high level Elementals. There were RMT players (they were not bots as they had coordinated play and were typing in coded numbers) and a regular player hung out with me as we watched the Elementals slaughter the RMT players. It was interesting to watch.

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Originally Posted by Naraku_Diabolos

The Elementals were very violent during the end of Patch 1.23b. I remember being in La Noscea and hanging out in one area that was littered with aggressive high level Elementals. There were RMT players (they were not bots as they had coordinated play and were typing in coded numbers) and a regular player hung out with me as we watched the Elementals slaughter the RMT players. It was interesting to watch.

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I remember that!

It was the GM's having fun. Those Elementals were Lvl 99 and being spawned by GM's specifically to harass that set of RMT. I can't recall if they used the Elementals for lore flavor or not.

But, speaking of, what about 1.0's entire Grid story being about expelling the Green Wrath off of us and Yda and Papalymo? Is that still cannon? (Was that Yda? I always that it was *real* Yda in 1.0 content and the switch happened post calamity since I can't possibly imagine Lyse using the term Psychopomp correctly but Archon Yda might and Yda KNEW Fordola and died protecting her in the short stories.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Naraku_Diabolos

The Elementals were very violent during the end of Patch 1.23b. I remember being in La Noscea and hanging out in one area that was littered with aggressive high level Elementals. There were RMT players (they were not bots as they had coordinated play and were typing in coded numbers) and a regular player hung out with me as we watched the Elementals slaughter the RMT players. It was interesting to watch.

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This sounds like so much fun LOL

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

But, speaking of, what about 1.0's entire Grid story being about expelling the Green Wrath off of us and Yda and Papalymo? Is that still cannon? (Was that Yda? I always that it was *real* Yda in 1.0 content and the switch happened post calamity since I can't possibly imagine Lyse using the term Psychopomp correctly but Archon Yda might and Yda KNEW Fordola and died protecting her in the short stories.)

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So there's a funny thing: according to the information we have, yes, the 1.0 Gridania stuff with Yda is technically the only game content we've ever gotten including the original Yda! (None of the other Yda 1.0 stuff, though; the Gridania stuff was 1.0's weird Echo angle.) I think that was just an unintended consequence of the Lyse twist more than actually intended by anybody; that when we got a timeframe for when the real Yda died, it just so happened that it happened after those scenes.

And yeah, there's no reason to believe that story isn't canon. It's not necessarily important, the rules it lays down aren't the rules anymore because of the events of the Calamity, but there's no reason to believe it didn't happen.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

I remember that!

It was the GM's having fun. Those Elementals were Lvl 99 and being spawned by GM's specifically to harass that set of RMT. I can't recall if they used the Elementals for lore flavor or not.

But, speaking of, what about 1.0's entire Grid story being about expelling the Green Wrath off of us and Yda and Papalymo? Is that still cannon? (Was that Yda? I always that it was *real* Yda in 1.0 content and the switch happened post calamity since I can't possibly imagine Lyse using the term Psychopomp correctly but Archon Yda might and Yda KNEW Fordola and died protecting her in the short stories.)

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The guy who was hanging out with me had asked the RMT if it was true that they got paid in bowls of rice, and one RMT replied, “yes.” I still have the screenshot of that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Naraku_Diabolos

The guy who was hanging out with me had asked the RMT if it was true that they got paid in bowls of rice, and one RMT replied, “yes.” I still have the screenshot of that.

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Oh my god. I remember that, too. Holy crap.