I don’t think carteneau can be used given merlwyb and raubahn were also present in their capacities as head of the maelstrom and immortal flames respectively. Similarly for ala mhigo.

Regarding the beast tribes: gridania is very much at war with the ixals to the point it’s a focus of bard and carpenter quest lines, several fates, that extended gold quest line from camp dragonhead and I think it also comes up in the msq unless pruned. They aren’t at war with the cabbages, but that is mainly thanks to a combination of ramuh being pretty laid back and siding with an untempered faction around level 20. The moogles (assuming they’re the 3rd) are another elusive race, and also followers of the elementals? (Been a while) so they start off in a less antagonistic position than the sagahin (competition over land) or amal ja (slavery and border disputes).

I would like to point out that there has been more focus in the story on merlwyb’s attempts to broker peace with the kobolds (5.4) and ul dah’s past with the amal ja (arr beast tribe bloodsworn quest, sil dih variant dungeon) than in gridania. In fact gridania has primarily highlighted racial divisions between them and miqotes, duskwright, ala mhigans and possibly ishgardian elzen but that might have been in the other direction.

She is also beholden to the capricious and temperamental shadowy rulers of gridania, the elementals whose impact seems to be increasingly swept under the rug. Nanamo and merlwyb both seem to be trying to instigate change and improve their city state’s lot - stormblood patches and subsequent interactions with nanamo, pirate reform in 5.4 for merlwyb. Even ishgard has explicitly drastically changed, yet gridania remains saddled with the despotic theocracy.

This is probably because gridania hasn’t received as much focus. When the variant dungeon was announced, it seemed like a good springboard to explore the gridanian culture/history, but alas once more an oriental holiday has scuppered the interesting region. I’m also not especially sure I like the efforts to make the starter cities more palatable or perhaps relatable to the modern audience, the variety of political systems made the world feel more lived in to me.