Primals and Voidsent, what's the difference?

[fumocchi]

So I've been reading up on the specifics of voidsent and primals. I'm not really sure how they differ, can anyone shed any light on this? They don't seem to be considered voidsent as far as I can tell, but their original as creatures from the Aether seems related.

[Cilia]

Voidsent are former denizens of the Thirteenth, warped by the Flood of Darkness that destroyed the world into aether-starved beasts.

Primals are ideas made manifest using aether as a medium.

[JeanneOrnitier]

Primals are aether given form to creatures by prayer, wishes, and belief.

Voidsent are essentially the demons of the game. They come from a parallel world that was destroyed by a Flood of Darkness that also mutated its inhabitants into monsters. I see that your character is level 42 - you'll learn more about the Voidsent in the Crystal Tower story at 50 and then later in Heavensward too.

[Brightamethyst]

The game does a pretty good job of explaining it as you get farther into the story. Here's the quick rundown though.

Primals are basically just magic given physical form. With enough aether (why the beastmen are hoarding crystals) and fervent belief you can essentially just will your god into being. Voidsent are more like demons. They're actual living (sort of) entities who come from another plane of existence. They exist all the time, not just when summoned.

[Morningstar1337]

From what I gathered. Primals are ideas made flesh by an ancient form of magic. Voidsent...

(and Sin Eaters)

...are already existing beings with corrupted aether.

Both of which are "made" in a sense and also drain aether form their surroundings to my understanding, but Primals come out of the blue and the other are basically transformed victims.

[fumocchi]

Thank you everyone for the responses..
So as I understand it now;
Primals are creatures born entirely of the Aether through summoning.
Voidsent are something that once existed in the corporeal realm (?), and were then starved of Aether, I assume via manual methods, as Mhach did, or simply not existing in harmony with both realms?
What is the Thirteenth?
Thank you again everyone for helping me understand. ^^

[Frizze]

The thirteenth gets explained in more detail later in the story, and we try to avoid spoilers where we can on the forums. Its where Eorzea's "demons" come from, so think of it as their world.

[LineageRazor]

The fact that Primals are actually belief made manifest is pretty much a spoiler, if you're level 42. This concept isn't explored until King Moggle Mog appears later on in the MSQ; up until that point, we took them at face value: that they were the gods of the Beastmen called forth summoned to the world.

The Thirteenth is the Thirteenth Reflection. Each Reflection is an entire world, a copy of our world, which is referred to as the Source. The Thirteenth world was destroyed and transformed into the Void by a Flood of Darkness, and the result of that was that all survivors on that world were transformed into misshapen demons, which we now know as Voidsent. The reason why it was destroyed will be revealed in the Heavensward MSQs.

[fumocchi]

Thanks a lot for the clarification, I shall continue playing!

[Cilia]

Apologies! I did not notice OP was a lower level player and acted unthinkingly. I'm just used to that stuff being common knowledge since it's in content that was released so long ago, and I'm currently running a toon through 2.X and basking in the halcyon days of just being a primal-slaying merc.

Minfilia: We were meant to use the Echo to protect people from primals. Why else would the gods gift it to us?
Me: ... I got some 'splaining to do...

Anyway like other people said it's all big spoilers but don't worry, things will get cleared up.

Again, apologies!