New Heavensward Short Stories!

[Belhi]

Whoa. "No" is a strong word in that context, don't ya think?

Pretty much any being without the Echo that comes into contact with a primal is 'marked' (tempered, touched, drown, etc.). Ramuh says this much when speaking with the Warrior of Light; that if he had a choice in the matter, none of the sylphs would be 'touched', but that it is simply a side-effect of his summoning, his presence among them.

I don't think it works like that. When both Ifrit and Garuda tried to temper the WoL it was an active activity. The fact it is something a primal has to actively do fits other things we have heard about them. For example, at a Fan Festival lore panel Koji described how the Company of Heroes battled Primals. Once they lured the primal into a location it couldn't just flee from (an inlet for Leviathan) their forces would divide into three waves. The first wave would head in and get tempered. The second wave would engage the first, now tempered wave. The Third wave would then engage the primal. Simply put a primal cant 'spam' tempering. There is a limit to how often they can do it. If that wasn't the case then it would be practically impossible for anyone without the echo to beat them and we know that they have been beaten before but at great cost of lives.

For Ramuh, he tempered the Sylphs because they asked him to. Again, this comes from Koji. After all the Scions come face to face with Ramuh too and don't get tempered.

They actually did use to trade indirectly, there's an organisation called the Ashcrown Consortium that back in the 1.0 game used to facilitate a crystal trade between the humanoid races and the Beast Tribes. They're still around but the trade dried up when the City-States started hanging the Beast Tribes out to dry in the hopes that the Garleans would focus on them instead and the Beast Tribes started hoarding their crystals for summoning.

They are still around. They feature in the final quest chain with the beasttribe quests. I get the impression they still trade with the more moderate portions of the beasttribes.

[treuhavik]

When both Ifrit and Garuda tried to temper the WoL it was an active activity. For Ramuh, he tempered the Sylphs because they asked him to.

Ah, you're absolutely right. I recalled incorrectly. Quite a few sylphs did ask to bathe in the light of levin. Ramuh more so remarked that he took no pleasure in touching the sylphs. There were some who were touched in the process of his summoning as well, though.

That aside, I'm rather positive there are, in fact, drowned Sahagin and...um, stoned? Kobold. Every beast tribe we've encountered so far has had at least a sect, if not the vast majority, that unquestioningly acts for their respective deity.