Patch 3.4 - Soul Surrender

[Cilia]

I think intentional or not, those who summon a primal are instantly tempered. At least that's what Ramuh said.

That's correct; I believe it was mentioned somewhere that, in addition to his unique non-malicious stance, Ramuh doesn't actively seek to temper followers. (Ramuh's unique term for those "blessed" by his power is "touched.") Aside from those who ask him to temper them, Ramuh only tempers those in his immediate vicinity when summoned. It's an involuntary reaction of the summoning ritual.

[Anonymoose]

I think intentional or not, those who summon a primal are instantly tempered. At least that's what Ramuh said.

That's correct <...> Aside from those who ask him to temper them, Ramuh only tempers those in his immediate vicinity when summoned. It's an involuntary reaction of the summoning ritual.

I knew I remembered this, too, so I went hunting for citations.

Is our only reference for "summoning = instant tempered" from Frixio?

These ones resorted to summoning Lord Ramuh to protect the wood from imperial ones. This one counseled against doing so, but was not heeded. Against this one's wishes, Lord Ramuh was summoned...and all those ones who took part became touched ones. These ones want so desperately to turn touched ones back to normal ones, but did not know how─and still do not know. Touched ones, meanwhile, wanted to turn these ones into touched ones, and did know how... So this one fled to Little Solace with all those ones who did not wish to be bound to Lord Ramuh.

Something about that sits awkwardly with me. Twice we've seen a crowd stand directly next to a summoning of Ifrit, as close as the summoners themselves, and no one was affected until he went all creme brulee on everyone. That line might simply be saying that the ones who summoned Ramuh were the same ones who begged to be tempered by him. Do we have other lines to cite to narrow down the specifics?

We could try to get around it by assuming that the act of summoning immediately tempers the summoners alone, but does that come with the automatic acceptance that zero beast tribes lack tempered factions?

Looking through the Occam lens leaves me with a sense that summoning in and of itself doesn't necessarily temper anyone (though perhaps you could use aetherial reside from the area where tempering took place to further temper others, as is implied the Sahagin do), yet most - if not all - modern beast tribes do have a faction of tempered-by-request fanatics. (However, the door is open for me just having forgotten some great examples to cite.)

[Cilia]

-snip-

That really is a pretty good question; I just remembered the time with Ifrit and being only a few hundred feet away with no ill effects on the soldiers until he tried to torch everyone.

Well, even if only the summoners were tempered, given Ramuh's unique stance on the matter... if the sylphs were desperate enough to summon him, they would more than likely have asked for it. So the sylphs that summoned Ramuh getting tempered is, theoretically, because they wanted him to, not because they were nearby when he was summoned. The "close proximity to summoning = insta-tempering" is contradicted by our experience with Ifrit, and also Leviathan depending on how far you gauge said proximity to be. So...

The wonders of critical thinking! But, I'm tired and too lazy to go look up citations...