Primal confusion - spoilers

[Kallera]

Not to throw another wrench into this...but where do the Twelve fit in? They are worshipped, but not made manifest(except an attempt by lousioux, but that didn't quite last...). Is it that their worship do not typically involve the siphoning of aether/crystals as a ritual?

[dragoelete]

Not to throw another wrench into this...but where do the Twelve fit in? They are worshipped, but not made manifest(except an attempt by lousioux, but that didn't quite last...). Is it that their worship do not typically involve the siphoning of aether/crystals as a ritual?

the 12 are still there but they are in the aether stream as while they are worshiped they have never been summoned. and lousioux didn't try to "summon" them he was "channeling" there power to try to reseal bahamut but upon noticing that he was getting to close to summoning them he forcefully stopped thus why bahamut was able to escape. at which point all the prayers of the people ended up being absorbed into him thus forcefully changing him into pheonix.

[Anonymoose]

Not to throw another wrench into this...but where do the Twelve fit in?

Depends on who the Twelve really are. There are a lot of myths and theories out there, but how much do we really know? Some hints suggest that they're just myths of the Archons that have grown too big for their own shoes over the millennia. Other myths suggest that they were the original, deific inhabitants of Eorzea and left during the First Umbral Era, closing out the Age of the Gods. The symbols of the Twelve even showed up on Allagan runestones, but I assume they didn't think of that symbol representing Menphina: The Goddess of the Twin Moons considering they built one of said moons themselves.

I still hold out a little hope that they're real and perhaps a class of deity we've yet to really articulate. It would be lonely with just Hydaelyn, but ... of all the gods of all the cultures of all the eras, what are the chances all of our city-states just happened to be the ones who were right? Oh, man, what if they were just Eikons? Like, real Eikons...

They are worshipped, but not made manifest (except an attempt by lousioux, but that didn't quite last...). Is it that their worship do not typically involve the siphoning of aether/crystals as a ritual?

More or less. You can worship without conjuring a manifestation. Louisoix's ritual actually was a legitimate summoning (Tupsimati + Prayers infused into the land at stones encircling Mor Dhona), but he planned to harness their strength to return Dalamud to the heavens and then kill himself at 90% of the casting timer so they couldn't manifest physically in our world - most people just don't know that part because Bahamut interrupted the cast at 60% and we saw the results of those events. No matter how the the Battle of Cartenau played out, however, Louisoix wasn't coming home; something that only came out in the short stories posted for ARR's one year anniversary.