Names for Tempering

[Lusavari]

Did tempering appear in 1.0? I think it would be useful to investigate some of that history. In the mean time, I think that "temper" just took off because it was the easiest term to use universally, and it was used so the player didn't get confused. Unlike us lore junkies, most people don't want to have to keep up with 8 or 9 terms for something.

[Anonymoose]

Did tempering appear in 1.0?

Kind of. The term did not, but Ifrit did temper some people and it was a big mystery exactly what he did to make them worship him or why we were immune (we knew we were "blessed" by something, but what it was was up for grabs. We used to joke about Siren because for a little bit there, Siren as an unseen Wandering Races primal made some sense; I liked that theory for a time).

The Ascian/Primal arc in 1.0 then paused for a side-story about an Ala Mhigan resistance group trying to rebel against the Imperial foothold in Mor Dhona, but after Gaius utterly crushed them in one of the most badass character introductions ever, the story stopped with Thancred/Y'shtola/Yda/Papalymo saying that they would continue searching for what mysterious force blessed us and what the limits of our power truly were. After Yoshida took over, though, that story was halted and the Seventh Umbral Era storyline came instead.

We were supposed to come back to the Ascian / Primal arc at Level 52 with the revelation that the Reaper Ascian was the entity the beast tribes were so afraid of in the first place and that one was currently attacking Mt. O'Ghomoro. Upon arriving there, Titan had been summoned by the terrified Kobold and the Company of Heroes was attempting to put him down, but some were tempered in the process, leading to a discussion about what tempering was (again, though, I don't think the term was used even in that unreleased quest). None of that ever happened, a huge amount of the 1.0 storyline was scrapped for parts, and we got A Realm Reborn's "second chance" at telling the story more coherently.

Some of the old story can be pieced back together, a little bit of it will be expanded on the ARR's future, and a lot of it is seemingly no longer canon. Which is which remains to be seen.

(BRING BACK STHALMANN! <is dragged out of the room while shouting, "STHALMANN LIVES!">)

Unlike us lore junkies, most people don't want to have to keep up with 8 or 9 terms for something.

They could always add several terms and just refer to them all as "blessings," if they wanted to; the whole blessing/curse binary plays into icon gods pretty well. I think what's stopping them is that there doesn't seem to be a cap on the number of future primals. Sure we have the six + two big names, but there are a lot more coming, some completely out of left field according to Yoshida's teasing. Can they really come up with that many terms? It's easier to just fall back on the "control/moderate" definition of temper and be done with it unless spicing up the flavor text with some cultural perception.