Pronouns?

[Shibi]

Also, I wonder how exactly the aetheryte transport system works? I have the impression that your physical body actually ceases to exist for a moment and you traverse the lifestream in aetherial form. Are there some constraints which require the physical body to be reconstituted in the exact same way, or would your physical appearance after such a trip rather match your mental self-image?

From everything I have found the devices convert your body to it's aetherial form, then back to it's previous physical form at the other end. As far as I've seen or read, one's perception of the self doesn't seem to have the ability to change the output, although clothes, echo, and "other things" can go missing if the lifestream is pushed to the extreme.

However, the ability for someone to become a "primal", such as with Saint Shiva, suggests there would be other ways - like belief and prayer - with which one could transmute one's form into the form of the mind's eye.

[TheMightyMollusk]

However, the ability for someone to become a "primal", such as with Saint Shiva, suggests there would be other ways - like belief and prayer - with which one could transmute one's form into the form of the mind's eye.

People who turn themselves into primals (Shiva, King Thordan, Tsukuyomi) overload their bodies with aether to transform. When that aether runs out, they change back. Shiva/Ysayle is the only one we see to actually survive post-transformation for more than a few minutes; however, Archbishop Thordan was an elderly man beforehand, and Yotsuyu was repeatedly shot right afterwards, so it's hard to call if it's a side-effect of the transformation, an effect of the primal transformation without the protection of the Echo and/or Blessing of Light, or just because of outside circumstances. Either way, unless they continually feed on aether, the change isn't permanent.