Names for Tempering

[Kyan]

I was once the believer of different terms - I made a post about it a while ago. But Mr. Moose is right - there are different groups of people, within the game world, who refer to "tempering" as different terminology (Limsans with the drowning, sylphs with the touching, etc), but "tempered" seems to be the universal term used by those in the know within the game lore.

[Lusavari]

Did tempering appear in 1.0? I think it would be useful to investigate some of that history. In the mean time, I think that "temper" just took off because it was the easiest term to use universally, and it was used so the player didn't get confused. Unlike us lore junkies, most people don't want to have to keep up with 8 or 9 terms for something.

[Anonymoose]

Did tempering appear in 1.0?

Kind of. The term did not, but Ifrit did temper some people and it was a big mystery exactly what he did to make them worship him or why we were immune (we knew we were "blessed" by something, but what it was was up for grabs. We used to joke about Siren because for a little bit there, Siren as an unseen Wandering Races primal made some sense; I liked that theory for a time).

The Ascian/Primal arc in 1.0 then paused for a side-story about an Ala Mhigan resistance group trying to rebel against the Imperial foothold in Mor Dhona, but after Gaius utterly crushed them in one of the most badass character introductions ever, the story stopped with Thancred/Y'shtola/Yda/Papalymo saying that they would continue searching for what mysterious force blessed us and what the limits of our power truly were. After Yoshida took over, though, that story was halted and the Seventh Umbral Era storyline came instead.

We were supposed to come back to the Ascian / Primal arc at Level 52 with the revelation that the Reaper Ascian was the entity the beast tribes were so afraid of in the first place and that one was currently attacking Mt. O'Ghomoro. Upon arriving there, Titan had been summoned by the terrified Kobold and the Company of Heroes was attempting to put him down, but some were tempered in the process, leading to a discussion about what tempering was (again, though, I don't think the term was used even in that unreleased quest). None of that ever happened, a huge amount of the 1.0 storyline was scrapped for parts, and we got A Realm Reborn's "second chance" at telling the story more coherently.

Some of the old story can be pieced back together, a little bit of it will be expanded on the ARR's future, and a lot of it is seemingly no longer canon. Which is which remains to be seen.

(BRING BACK STHALMANN! <is dragged out of the room while shouting, "STHALMANN LIVES!">)

Unlike us lore junkies, most people don't want to have to keep up with 8 or 9 terms for something.

They could always add several terms and just refer to them all as "blessings," if they wanted to; the whole blessing/curse binary plays into icon gods pretty well. I think what's stopping them is that there doesn't seem to be a cap on the number of future primals. Sure we have the six + two big names, but there are a lot more coming, some completely out of left field according to Yoshida's teasing. Can they really come up with that many terms? It's easier to just fall back on the "control/moderate" definition of temper and be done with it unless spicing up the flavor text with some cultural perception.

[Enkidoh]

Ironically enough, after going back through my 1.0 screenshots, it indeed seems that there was only one instance of tempering being actually referred to as such in 1.0, and it was stated by the most unlikely of sources, an apparent tempered themself! (during the main scenario quest 'Lord Errant' when the player is captured by the amalj'aa and held prisoner briefly in that cell in Zan'rak with several other prisoners):

"Once you have been tempered in the flames, you shall be born anew. As was I."

Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that if this npc really was tempered, the fact he actually comprehended his situation and actually knew what had happened to him, seems to blow away completely the idea that tempered lose their 'free will' - in actual fact, it seems more accurate that tempering removes a person's will to resist and become docile, while still retaining their consciousness more or less. Or at least, the response of that npc seemed to suggest that.

[finiteHP]

Personally I've been putting it down to geographical separation. Ifrit was the first primal summoned in mainland Aldenard and tempers everyone and their mongoose. Because of this he would be the first primal most Eorzeans think of, so when they think of "tempering" they think of Ifrit tempering. This would also of course spread to Vylbrand, but wouldn't gain as much traction there because the island already has experience with a primal who has been tempering people (assuming he did this the previous times he was summoned and drowning isn't recent tactic). Why use a different term when you already have one? The other primals may have specific terms for it (like touched which may just be what the Syplhs call it instead of pertaining specifically to Ramuh), but as Ifrit and Leviathan are the most prolific temperers their terms would be the most used.

[Anonymoose]

This would also of course spread to Vylbrand, but wouldn't gain as much traction there because the island already has experience with a primal who has been tempering people (assuming he did this the previous times he was summoned and drowning isn't recent tactic).

This idea of geographical and chronological order makes the most sense to me in an ARR capacity, in some ways. I've been afraid to latch onto it too hard because it falls back on making assumptions about what in 1.0 is still considered canon. Titan and Leviathan were first summoned around the same time and we never learned how Titan's tempering was referred to. Even the term "Drowned" didn't show up until ARR - in 1.0 they were just despicable pirates who'd abandoned their kin to "take up the Sahagin god." After Ifrit tempers some people, one Small Talk NPC inside an instance simply muses "I've heard rumors the beast tribes brainwash people - maybe that's what the Serpent Ravers are!" and left it at just "brainwashing."

Methinks I may need to go back to the Japanese transcripts of unreleased quests I got from some interblogz forever ago and attempt a more dutiful translation.

You think SE would pull the threads down if I tried to crowdsource some translations via Google Docs? lol

[Lusavari]

Hmmm.... Depends... I don't think they'd do it as long as it's 1.) 1.0 Material and 2.) never includes unreleased 2.0 Material or music, and is not making anything available for download in some way.

Short version, as long as it's not spoilers or costing them money, I don't think they'll mind. Especially if it's the lore community who is just super involved in figuring out the story based on what's presented.

[Grayve]

Um, I thought the first primal summoned was the unknown on that stopped the first Garlamund invasion force to the north of Ala Mhigo? Or did that one never 'temper' anyone?

[Anonymoose]

Short version, as long as it's not spoilers or costing them money, I don't think they'll mind.

Nah, it'd just be a two-column spreadsheet with the original Japanese text on one side and an "insert your best translation here" column opposite.

Um, I thought the first primal summoned was the unknown on that stopped the first Garlamund invasion force to the north of Ala Mhigo? Or did that one never 'temper' anyone?

It's hard to use that incident as evidence for anything in either direction because we know nothing about it. Forget whether or not it tempered anything, we don't even know who or what it was. The wording they used is incredibly ambiguous and doesn't fit in with the surrounding lore. For instance, we know the primal was sighted after the taking of Ala Mhigo, but not whether it was before the Battle of Silvertear Skies. The wording they use, "shortly after," implies the former, yet the entire reason Gaius was ordered to take Silvertear in the first place (according to the information I was given to assist in building the White Raven summary) was to prevent the beast tribes from learning to harness the aether there to summon primals, as the Empire feared it would only embolden the conquered nations of of the East to start summoning their own primals in rebellion once again and then Garlemald would be facing two continents' worth of unkillable demigods. You see where that's super confusing? Silvertear Skies was five years after Ala Mhigo - not "shortly" later by any means - yet anything before that likely wasn't the work of the beast tribes, as the culmination of that battle is what broke the seal that seems to have begun this whole Beast Tribe / Ascian / Primal thing in Eorzea the first place.

Leviathan, Titan, Ifrit, and Garuda are all shortly after the Battle of Silvertear skies, Shiva's tribe isn't even here yet, Odin wasn't broken out of his crystal until the Calamity, and Bahamut was still in space. This leads some people to guess Ramuh, as the Empire would have been advancing from Ala Mhigo to march on Gridania through the Black Shroud, right into Sylph territory ... yet we have no evidence of Paragon activity pre-1562, there were no tempered Sylphs in 1.0, conversations with them at that time included vows they'd never summon him, and in ARR, you seem to be told that they only summoned him once - seemingly in response to the raising of Castrum Oriens - and those who were involved were immediately tempered and forced them out of the Sylphlands (where they were still living and just fine in 1.0 before the Empire broke in at the end, there).

SE has never revisited this, and when I asked about it specifically to try to clear it up, I was told was, "Please look forward to it."

Soooo... please look forward to it? ><

[Enkidoh]

You know Moose, the more I think of it the more I think the mysterious Primal that so put the fear of the gods into the XIVth shortly after the fall of Ala Mhigo was just a mislabeling of Midgardsormr on SE's part, as they called Midgardsormr 'an elder Primal' on the 'Waning of the Sixth Sun' recap disc on the Collector's Edition, only to then state that was a mistake.

So it's likely the labeling of a 'Primal' appearing to halt the Garlean advance is just another typo in the same way (it fits the time frame for the supposed incident, and also remember that during the Battle of Silvertear Skies, when the Agrius crashed and ruptured the seal in Silvertear Lake, Primals in fact did appear - but not just one, hundreds of them shot out of the aether at high speed.).