Fenrir

[Anonymoose]

he existed far before these six elemental primals did

"These" is an important word in that sentence. In the Third Astral Era, different elemental primals existed. Belias being one, for example, whose egi is a spitting image of Ifrit's. The egi look similar presumably because they are both drawn from the same element (or, through my lens, the same essence of the land, Inferno). Belias was revered as a Demon King and Ifrit has horns and uses Hellfire, so maybe they also looked similar as deiforms, too; I'm not sure. Anyroad, Allag summoning was born when Meracydia summoned primals to resist Allag conquest, which brings me to...

Bahamut himself isn't an elemental primal

Meracydia was successful in fending off the Allag with the early primals of that era (presumably elementals, possibly inclusive of Belias); Xande died without bringing some of the great powers under the yoke. Louisoix states that Bahamut was summoned "in the twilight of the Third Astral Era," meaning that the unstoppable Allag advance that made the dragons summon Bahamut was after Xande was resurrected and became so determined to see his dream of a world-empire come to fruition the contracted with the Cloud of Darkness to harness the power of the Void.

The energy present in the corporeal realm is nothing compared to the energy present in the Void (kind of like how much energy is bound in material atoms in the real world). Harnessing the power of Darkness depleted even the energy stores sustained by the Crystal Tower, so Dalamud was sent into the heavens to harness the sun's energy to make up for it... until Xande unleashed all of its energy at once in an attempt to let the Cloud of Darkness into the corporeal world to undo everything back to Void, ushering in the Fourth Umbral Era and setting off a cataclysmic earthquake that destroyed the Empire.

Because Bahamut's appearance was late into the Era's collapse (after earlier primal summoning and introduction of Void corruption), it's really no different than the appearance of Moggle and Phoenix coming after Ifrit, Garuda, etc. I'm not saying that means my theory is true, of course, just that I don't see a conflict (*yet*). I also wouldn't be surprised to learn that Alexander, Ravana, and Bismarck aren't strictly of the the six elements, either. (After all, Bismarck is historically aquatic).

[treuhavik]

lol Moose, you're theory sounds eerily similar to my 12/11/14 theory.

What if....the twelve are the only, and I'm using this term loosely, real entities... These "primals" are just a primitive, or primal, fragment of them?

Let's say Rhalgar is a Black Mage (a stretch, I know /sarcasm) and Ifrit is or was some creature that was imbued with the all aggressive, ever destructive fire traits of him. Lady Iceheart was imbued with some power of Halone, using this St. Shiva as a connection between the two (Perhaps the echo gave Iceheart the power necessary to make this connection). King Mog could have just been a moogle, a highly thought of moogle, but just a regular moogle all-in-all. When the moogles became distressed, they looked to and prayed to their king, effectively granting him some god-like powers from, say, Athlyk maybe.

It's entirely possible that when the Ascians taught summoning to the beast tribes, they showed them only how to call on the negative sides of the twelve in order to further their scheme. To go along with this theory, there would also be purely positive aspects of the them, as well as the god as a whole (which no one yet has been successful in summoning).

Is your mind still intact? If so, what is it thinking?

Exactly. Think of the Twelve as clusters, Primals - crystals and Egis, shards. But for each cluster there is an astral and umbral crystal. We've just yet to see these astral crystals or full clusters in use. :P

It was rough, but the idea was: Hydaelyn = Mothercrystal > Twelve = Clusters of Mothercrystal > Good/Bad Primal = Astral Crystal & Umbral Crystal (polar aspects of said god) > Egi = Shard, one per crystal.

Menphina the Lover, wields power over Ice. Saint Shiva, the Ice Primal, perhaps maybe the Dragon Lover? We have Menphina's Loyal Hound and I'd argue we could call Fenrir Shiva's, or at least Iceheart's Loyal Hound given the reasons why we were fighting him...

While I'd be more inclined to say Icehart gave her body to Shiva, who had previously gave hers to an aspect of Halone, Fenrir is likely from Menphina in some way.

From 11/03/14;

So, this primal was birthed in our realm originally, from nothing but crystallized aether, hopes and wishes. Now, you could say that this is how summoning is done every time and that they are created from scratch on each occasion. But, I think we would have seen some sort of telephone game happening. Either the same primal would never be summoned twice or the same primal would be summoned slightly different each time with a slightly different attitude and probably no memory or knowledge other than what its' creators (worshipers) gave it.

I found that unlikely at the time, but it makes perfect sense now...

Different cultures are naturally going to have different primals because they wouldn't share the same mental image of said element personified. This explains Bismark and any other future summons with an elemental affinity.

[lololink]

Bumping the topic with infos of Fenrir's lore from :http://dengekionline.com/elem/000/001/009/1009707/
フェンリル（マウント）
Fenrir ( Mount )

かつてエオルゼアに君臨した古代獣・ホアハウンド。既に絶滅したと信じられてきたが、近年、アバラシア山脈の奥深くで再発見されるに至った。その雄々しい姿から、伝説の月狼“フェンリル”の名で呼ばれている。
A long time ago, in Eorzea ruled ancien beasts called the war hounds.
It was thought that this specy was extinct, but they were recently discovered again, in the depths of the Alabathian mountain range.
Because of their brave stance, they were given the name of the legenday wolf of the moon : Fenrir.

[treuhavik]

I suppose the only question remaining is; was the one found in Snowcloak just one of these wargs, or was it something more?

[Anonymoose]

I suppose the only question remaining is; was the one found in Snowcloak just one of these wargs, or was it something more?

Tough call. Usually, the game mechanics don't lie to you directly, so I'd say to trust Iceheart and the Sickle Fang in that it was a genuine spirit-wolf, but the game's nameplates have every indication of regularly lying about where mobs are from (as far as I can tell at this time). "Deepvoid" beastkin, "Deepvoid" ashkin, "Void" cave mobs in the THM storyline... maybe the questionable claims have spread to items?

For now, I'm going to take Iceheart's claim that it was the "moon wolf" and the Sickle Fang description as legitimate.

[lololink]

I don't know, the mention of Fenrir being a spirit wolf seems to only be in the english version of the item, japanese and french doesn't mention it at all so who knows, the english team seems to add a lot of lore that aren't in the other languages so I usually try not to rely on them, maybe Iceheart is just thinking that this wolf is a moon wolf when she found it in the alabathian mountain while it's just a regular beast, maybe the myth of fenrir came from these in the first place.

[treuhavik]

I'm starting to think the term "primal" is just a catch-all for a known aetherial being made manifest in the physcal realm. The only distinction between what's considered a primal and what isn't is just what Eorzeans feel that it is, much like what you say, Moose; things obviously not from the void are labled as if they were.

The right course, as I feel, is to look at everything as if the people of Hydaelyn named it, not the developers. The confusion with Moggle Mog was that no Eorzean had ever heard of him before so they weren't quite sure what to make of it and hesitated to call it a primal. Or am I missing something else there? Anywho, Moggle seems to be the only real odd-ball. Bahamut, Odin and Pheonix are all titled "primal" appropriately because that's what they're viewed as, and again, that's the only real distinction that I can see.

Back to Fenrir(s), they can't all be the moon-wolf, but they were all named as such because they resembled it(him?). It is possible, though, that Snowcloak-Fenrir really is the loyal hound of Menphina. Fenrir could've been summoned into a warg body, like Shiva was summoned into Lady Iceheart and Pheonix into Louisoux. Hells, for all we know (or don't know), that's how all primals are or were originally summoned.

[Nalien]

A long time ago, in Eorzea ruled ancien beasts called the war hounds.
It was thought that this specy was extinct, but they were recently discovered again, in the depths of the Alabathian mountain range.
Because of their brave stance, they were given the name of the legenday wolf of the moon : Fenrir.

So... Fenrir isn't really Fenrir? They're just a species of wolf named such due to their nature and rarity?

Wonder if we might one day get a Primal fight with the "real" Fenrir then... Full moon, group of Fenrirs howl at it and summon the legendary wolf of the moon. Queue Papalymo complaining that seemingly everything in Eorzea can now summon a Primal; "Next you'll be telling me Ladybugs have a Primal!".

Wait... That would actually introduce the Magus Sisters fairly well...

[Zohar_Lahar]

The website update today has something on the mount:

Following the rise of Ishgard, hoarhounds all but disappeared from the Coerthas highlands. However, the shift in climate caused by the Calamity has seen the legendary beasts descend from their mountain dens once more.

So now we know the species name for Fenrir.

[PotatoSalad]

It's Cloud Strife's bike, what's to know?!