Somehting I noticed with the beastmen...

[Cidel]

Personally, I have been curious as to why the Ehcatl Ixali have green feathers while the other, "tempered" Ixali are brown/dull. You would think that the Ixali affected by Garuda would share a similar color scheme, but it'd be kind of ridiculous for the dev team to decide "we want the tempered Ixal to be green now and the defualt ones from 1.0 can be the non-aggressive ones."

Unless there was a specific reason, we can speculate the feather color all we want, be it tempered vs. not, molting, etc.


I think we all sort of know deep down, that the color disparity is for simplicity sake of knowing "these beastmen aren't like the rest that I'm mowing down all over this zone."

[Terrini]

Maybe they dye their feathers? The Garuda Ixali just don't care enough to. I mean the Ixal in the black mage questline also had colorful feathers. Maybe it's a cultural thing that was lost because of Tempering? When you're tempered, you come TOO devoted and lose sight of culture, that seems to be the Amaljaa complaint too. The Sylphs think their tempered counterparts became nasty after being tempered. Tempering doesn't make you less intelligent, it just makes you less worried about anything but your Primal. And the degree of tempering may be related to the degree of worship previously. No worship = full temper, some worship = strong temper, strong worship = weak temper.

[Kyan]

...That makes no sense, unless it is a form of deception, but that would seem unusually coherent and sly behaviour for a tempered person.
Perhaps there are different levels of tempering...

Great points! In fact, there are some Ifrit-tempered Hyur in Little Ala Mhigo that you must identify and fight. They dress like Brass Blades, they act like ordinary citizens of Ul'dah, but yep, they are tempered by Ifrit and relaying information to the Amalj'aa on people's movements for the kidnappings and shenanigans. So, whilst they are tempered, they do have enough basic thoughts and control of their actions to "blend in" and "be disguised". Ultimately, though, these actions help strengthen Ifrit in the long run, by giving him more thralls.

I believe Ferne posted somewhere that there are indeed levels of tempering - you can be tempered several times, with each reducing what remains of you, or something to that degree. The example of Loonh Gah's mother has already been used, but that is a perfect example of what happens if you are tempered several times.

[TheGrimace]

I have to admit that there've been a few things that confused me about the whole state of the Amalj'aa race, as well as the Brotherhood of Ash. For example, we know that the Brotherhood of Ash does not worship Ifrit and that they consider the Amalj'aa who do to be weak. But if this is the case, why then, is Zan'rak (not sure about the spelling) still holy land to them? One of the daily quests of the Brotherhood specifically deals with us killing Bronze Tortoises and Lacovie to protect the Holy Land of Zan'rak. However, Zan'rak is considered Holy Land by the Amalj'aa because they consider it scorched and cleansed by Ifrit. If the Brotherhood does not worship Ifrit, then why is Zan'rak holy ground even to them? There is little to no evidence that the Brotherhood has a different religion they adhere to, so I can't see them considering it to be holy ground because of some other deity.

If I had to make a guess, I would say Zan'rak is holy land to them because their ancestors lived there, and the Brotherhood has great respect for their ancestors, but that's all it is: a guess. Perhaps I've missed a few details somewhere, but if someone could shed some light on this, I would appreciate it.

The leader of the Brotherhood of Ash ("Hamujj Gah?") said that aged Amal'jaa would travel from their homes in... "Pagla'than?" to get to the holy land of Zan'rak. From there, they would essentially embark in a fight to the death against Ifrit. It would be a fight they did not have a hope of winning, but it would be the ultimate way to die with the Amal'jaa notion of honor. Now, instead of using this tradition like the Amal'jaa of olde, the Amal'jaa Zealots have instead opted to serve directly under Ifrit to become more powerful themselves. The Zealot ranks began to willingly succumb to Ifrit's temperings, and things escalated between the Brotherhood and Zealots to become the way they are today.

[Empressia]

Novv's Sahagins are a different color, the Amaljaa of the Ring of Ash have blue bands instead of red, and uh... the 789th Kobolds have something different I'm sure.

Novv's used to be black reddish when he's still the Scarlet Sea Devil in the past (just look at that mini SSD)

[KupoKwark]

The serpent reavers are a great example of "intelligent" tempered humans. They enacted elaborate plans to slowly stockpile crystals for summoning leviathan. I'm sure tempered beastmen could act likewise.

[Rennah]

Popping in to confirm that tempering does, in fact, have various levels. From http://gamerescape.com/2014/06/17/the-lore-train-e3-2014-interview-with-fernehalwes/]this interview with Ferne:

GE: Can you give us some details on what happens to a person when they become tempered by a Primal? How much of their identity remains? Also, speaking of “tempered,” some people have taken to the idea that this term was only supposed to be attached to Ifrit, since tempering involves heat, and we see other terms attached to the process with other primals (Drowned / Touched). Care to shed any insight on what’s up with the different names?

MCKF: Back in 1.0, in that first Ifrit battle, that whole thing is that Ifrit has his blue flames that he spits out. That’s what tempers the people. There used to be NPCs that would go “No! I’d rather die than be tempered!” because it takes all of you away. It tempers you, removes part of your will to make you more acceptable to the teachings of Ifrit and the Amal’jaa. How much of the identity remains depends on how much tempering has been done. You don’t get a full tempering in one shot. One tempering will remove some of your will, but you’re still kind of conscious. If you remember back in 1.x you have people in the Serpent Reavers that were “drowned,” but they were still talking about their lives in the past, but now they’ve changed.

GE: So, it’s like a diet tempered.

MCKF: Yeah, there’s still a little bit of them left, but they’re convinced of the true power of Ifrit, Leviathan, etc. The more you get tempered, the more you lose. Currently, there is no known way to cure the tempering. Currently.

For Ifrit, the process is his blue flame. For Leviathan, they’ll dunk you in the holy water and you become Drowned. It’s the same process, but it’s a different kind. For Garuda you’re being touched by her gales of tempering, and so we’re calling it Touched. It’s that element washing over you and taking part of you away. You can assume there will be something similar with Ramuh and Shiva like Shocked or Frozen.

I don't know how much insight all that gives when it comes to coloration, but at least it's relevant to part of the discussion.

[PArcher]

SNIP

Just an...interesting...inaccuracy/inconsistency.

If Garuda's tempering is "Touching"...how do we explain everything we know about the Sylphs?

[Morningstar1337]

Just an...interesting...inaccuracy/inconsistency.

If Garuda's tempering is "Touching"...how do we explain everything we know about the Sylphs?

Just like to point out that traditionally, Sylphs were associated with Wind not Lightning

Also bear in mind that our use of the term comes from the first encounter of the associated brainwashing phenomena (Ifrit). for all we know, "touching" is actually the proper/default term fpr the Primal powers of indoctrination and only a few have elementaly related synomyns within the lore (Tempering = reheating metal - Fire. Grounded = stuck on the land - Earth. Drowned = death by submergence - Water)

[PArcher]

I'm talking more about what the Sylphs call it; you'd think they'd have the correct term after all...