why is the cast of the Scions so...elvish now.

[AmpelioB]

There's Tataru, if you count receptionists. Yugiri had a prominent role as well in previous stories.

But the main thing I feel from the writers is that they've pared down the number of main characters to something more manageable, with 1 spot being open for the expansion's guest character. Since Estinien took over for Ryne and Estinien famously hates working on a team, I wouldn't be surprised if he goes off to do his own thing sometime between now and 7.0, and someone fills that spot later. Shadowbringers seems to have stabilized and codified our main party since they introduced the Trust mechanic and I really don't see that going away or continuing with a full set of new people since progress carries over between expansions.

well, psycologically speaking (I think?) 7 is the number of thing the brain can remember if I'm not wrong, so six would be fitting for a number of main cast, like you say, so we have, y'shtola, g'raha tia, thancred, urianger, ali and alphy, i'mjust not counting tataru and krile because they aren't combatants and more of supporting characters. I do disagree about the thing about trust mechanics because most part of shb not all the scions are around when you do the first time but CAN be brought upon when leveling in the dungeon and personally i'm against not having new people just because uhu trust system shenanigans.

Heck with it, I want Raubahn, Merlwyb, Aymeric, Hien, Lyse, Yugiri to join

that would be interesting for role quests maybe one day they will have their own dungeon so you can play with them