How powerful are the Elementals post-Calamity?

[Cleretic]

Belief in a deity does make it easier to concentrate Faith, certainly, but it's not required that the target be believed to be a god or similar for Faith to influence them, only that there be enough belief in a thing to pass some sort of threshold that we can't fully quantify presently, (and we know that said threshold exists because it took the accumulation of three artifacts of Susano coming together for him to manifest without ANY deliberate summoning effort. He just MADE HIMSELF when enough targets of faith in him came together.) It's mentioned in many places, including the lore books, that the Far East has widespread belief in the way that Auspices come to exist, (explicitly, they believe in the process that Auspices go through as part of their local religious beliefs and mythology, along with belief in basically everything else ALSO having spirits.) which would absolutely qualify as collective Faith for the purposes of Primal manifestation.

So essentially, you do believe that their belief in Auspices and Tural Vidraal are akin to a belief in gravity; an observation of a thing that exists. That does raise a chicken-and-egg question in this setting that the Pilgrim's Traverse also put forward (what came first, the belief or the thing), but it's also not relevant for talking about the Elementals.

Because the Elementals are both an extant Thing, and an object of worship; Gridania's people both believe in them as a clearly evidenced phenomena, and as a higher power that they pray to. Because of this they can't be easily compared to the Auspices and Tural Vidraal, who only have one half of that. The Kami are a valid comparison, but one one without a lot of juice; there are maybe two storylines that focus on the Kami, and neither of them in a way that gives us workable information. No questions we have about the Elementals, and especially their relative strength as the OP was asking about, are answered by using comparisons to the Kami.

[Lunair]

I would concede that it leads to a chicken and egg question in regards to whether the Auspices and Tural Vidraal came before or after the belief, but combined with the previously mentioned quote, I would argue we have a clear enough answer on which came first. Belief came first, and then the actual Auspices and Tural Vidraal. The form the Belief takes is secondary to whether the belief is about a deity or not. But I do agree that we've gotten off topic at this point.

That said, my original point, which was intended to be that the Elementals may at least in part gain some of their power and properties from the beliefs relating to them in the region, remains valid. it's hard to say to what extent that might be, but it remains a valid point regardless.

[Naraku_Diabolos]

The Elementals as we know them actually appeared everywhere in 1.0, they weren't a Shroud-exclusive thing. And I can't find on a quick check how high-level they were, but they were a good thirty or forty levels above what players could be.

My read on the Elementals (and this is largely speculation) is that they're essentially an environmental regulator, and they turn up wherever aether is especially wild. The Twelveswood has been that for a really long time, so they've become a permanent part of the ecosystem there, and possibly gained power through collective faith and belief, as happens sometimes. Eureka's famously a mess, so they sprung up over there. Enemies with the same model also cropped up in the Aetherfont dungeon, which is also a hotbed of aether.

The Elementals were very violent during the end of Patch 1.23b. I remember being in La Noscea and hanging out in one area that was littered with aggressive high level Elementals. There were RMT players (they were not bots as they had coordinated play and were typing in coded numbers) and a regular player hung out with me as we watched the Elementals slaughter the RMT players. It was interesting to watch.

[RedLolly]

The Elementals were very violent during the end of Patch 1.23b. I remember being in La Noscea and hanging out in one area that was littered with aggressive high level Elementals. There were RMT players (they were not bots as they had coordinated play and were typing in coded numbers) and a regular player hung out with me as we watched the Elementals slaughter the RMT players. It was interesting to watch.

I remember that!

It was the GM's having fun. Those Elementals were Lvl 99 and being spawned by GM's specifically to harass that set of RMT. I can't recall if they used the Elementals for lore flavor or not.

But, speaking of, what about 1.0's entire Grid story being about expelling the Green Wrath off of us and Yda and Papalymo? Is that still cannon? (Was that Yda? I always that it was *real* Yda in 1.0 content and the switch happened post calamity since I can't possibly imagine Lyse using the term Psychopomp correctly but Archon Yda might and Yda KNEW Fordola and died protecting her in the short stories.)

[Shistar]

The Elementals were very violent during the end of Patch 1.23b. I remember being in La Noscea and hanging out in one area that was littered with aggressive high level Elementals. There were RMT players (they were not bots as they had coordinated play and were typing in coded numbers) and a regular player hung out with me as we watched the Elementals slaughter the RMT players. It was interesting to watch.

This sounds like so much fun LOL

[Cleretic]

But, speaking of, what about 1.0's entire Grid story being about expelling the Green Wrath off of us and Yda and Papalymo? Is that still cannon? (Was that Yda? I always that it was *real* Yda in 1.0 content and the switch happened post calamity since I can't possibly imagine Lyse using the term Psychopomp correctly but Archon Yda might and Yda KNEW Fordola and died protecting her in the short stories.)

So there's a funny thing: according to the information we have, yes, the 1.0 Gridania stuff with Yda is technically the only game content we've ever gotten including the original Yda! (None of the other Yda 1.0 stuff, though; the Gridania stuff was 1.0's weird Echo angle.) I think that was just an unintended consequence of the Lyse twist more than actually intended by anybody; that when we got a timeframe for when the real Yda died, it just so happened that it happened after those scenes.

And yeah, there's no reason to believe that story isn't canon. It's not necessarily important, the rules it lays down aren't the rules anymore because of the events of the Calamity, but there's no reason to believe it didn't happen.

[Naraku_Diabolos]

I remember that!

It was the GM's having fun. Those Elementals were Lvl 99 and being spawned by GM's specifically to harass that set of RMT. I can't recall if they used the Elementals for lore flavor or not.

But, speaking of, what about 1.0's entire Grid story being about expelling the Green Wrath off of us and Yda and Papalymo? Is that still cannon? (Was that Yda? I always that it was *real* Yda in 1.0 content and the switch happened post calamity since I can't possibly imagine Lyse using the term Psychopomp correctly but Archon Yda might and Yda KNEW Fordola and died protecting her in the short stories.)

The guy who was hanging out with me had asked the RMT if it was true that they got paid in bowls of rice, and one RMT replied, “yes.” I still have the screenshot of that.

[RedLolly]

The guy who was hanging out with me had asked the RMT if it was true that they got paid in bowls of rice, and one RMT replied, “yes.” I still have the screenshot of that.

Oh my god. I remember that, too. Holy crap.