Quote Originally Posted by Andres_Lonegrief View Post
After completing the story quests I\\'m a bit confused about the primals\\' origins since what we have learnt so far doesn\\'t really match. I guess I missed a few pieces.
Primals are thoughtforms created through a ritual known as summoning. The people doing the summoning bring great quantities of aether together and use their willpower and thoughts to give that aether a form and a personality, thus forging a Primal into existence. That primal can be elementally aspected, or not, though usually they are (thusfar, as we've seen). They can even be combinations of elements, as is the case with Ravana and Bismarck. Further, a wielder of the Echo can summon a Primal form around themselves, and wield its power (as Iceheart does to Shiva).

All in all, Hraesvelgr tells us Primals are made up by their summoners, and no, you don't summon the immortal soul of a dead person and bring them back as a Primal (lookin' at you Bahamut and Shiva).

To complicate matters, Thordan and the Twelve Knights wear Primal forms of themselves, so essentially tempering themselves to an idealized image of themselves, mostly leaving them mentally the same, but overall leaving them even more devoted to the Archbishop, their Godking. Presumably the aether they use for these forms is their own, so it drains them, but they also supplement that with the faith of 1000 years of Ishgardian worship, so they can maintain those forms probably indefinitely. Thordan's just so powerful because he uses the Eye of Nidhogg, along with some of the power of the Warring Triad, who are not Primals but Eikons.

As we are told, Eikons are not simply Primals by another name as the Garleans like to think. They stole the word from Allagans, and the Allagans used the term for something much more powerful. The Eikons we know of right now are Odin and the Warring Triad.

Hope this helps clear some things up.