This covers Primal Beast characters who are recruitable through the gacha or special events. For non-recruitable Primal Beasts, see Primal Beasts.
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Shared Tropes
- Adaptational Species Change: Rage of Bahamut imported characters have their species overwhelmingly have their species switched over to "Primal". For example, Europa was aligned with "Man" in her origin game but was made a "Primal" upon being brought over to the Granblue Fantasy universe.
- Ambiguously Bi =/= Ambiguously Gay: A number of primals on this page have Ship Tease with the protagonist regardless of their gender and/or another primal (or non-primal character) of the same sex. This is seemingly touched upon in "Primal Resonance" as Medusa notes that primals don’t perceive things in the same way that humans do, likely meaning that they also don’t factor gender into their attraction.
- Animation Bump: For a lot of the newer released Primals from 2018 onwards, they receive special charge attacks that resemble chibified versions of their summon or raid boss animations.
- Cast Herd: While there is some crossover, such as Zooey meeting and befriending the Primal Pals, most Primals are divided into groups of characters in which they have primary interactions or some sort of story-related connection to:
- Primarch Group: Sandalphon, Hal&Mal, and Cerberus after her 5* uncap. Olivia and Azazel are counted among this group, though they have yet to have onscreen interactions with the aforementioned characters.
- Primal Pals: Satyr, Medusa, Baal, and Nezha, originally. Athena and Yuni also join this group though they aren't always seen with the aforementioned core members.
- Disciples: Grimnir, Alexiel, Europa, Shiva
- Primals like Noa, Yggdrasil, and Tiamat are cast herded into being associated with the main story-related characters due to their roles in the main story.
- Dub Name Change: Or Species Name Change. They’re called "Star Beasts" in Japanese, but their species is renamed to "Primal Beasts" in the translation.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: There was a lot of weirdness around when the game was first getting it's wings.
- The first playable primals which initially weren’t called "Primals" and instead were labeled "Other" are this compared to the later ones.
- Noa. Despite being a main story character, he initially appeared in the gacha as an SR and for a while was the only playable primal to appear in the gacha as that rarity rather than an SSR as every primal that followed him had been. This was rectified in December 2019 where he was finally promoted to SSR status as a Grand character.
- Lucio and Zooey, both whom were stated to appear to be very similar to summons according to
Word of God which lead to the assumption that they may not actually be the Promoted to Playable versions of their summon forms. This only ended up being the case with Lucio. Zooey is in fact a Promoted to Playable Grand Order, while Lucio is a different entity than the summon Lucifer entirely. He isn’t even a primal as revealed by "What Makes The Sky Blue: 000", though he is functionally like one according to Lucilius. Cygames eventually retconned his race into "Other" again, completely divorcing his character from Lucifer and the primal race entirely. - Cerberus is perhaps the biggest example of this, with her fate episodes speaking for themselves.
- Elemental Powers: While everyone in the game has powers like this, it’s notable in the case of Primals as some Primals are explicitly stated to have control over a certain element, such as the four disciples.note That doesn’t stop some primals from being given alternate units in different elements, however.
- Expy: Though a running theme of Granblue Fantasy overall, it’s notable that a majority of the playable primals revealed so far originated from Rage of Bahamut with the exception of characters like Lucio a.k.a. Helel ben Sahar, Noa, Vira, Baal, Halluel and Malluel and Sandalphon. Though in a different universe, their characters have been repurposed to fit the new setting and their backstories and titles remaining at least somewhat faithful to their original lore. In some cases, however, they fall under Reused Character Design as they have very little in common with their original selves. According to “What Makes The Sky Blue: Part III 000”, this is in-universe lore not just limited to Primal Beasts, but to any ported over Rage of Bahamut character in general.
- Fantastic Racism: Many stories show that they are often on the receiving end of this from sky dwellers due to previously being tools of the Astrals. "Created by the Stars, Loved by the Skies" reveals that with the intervention of Cosmos and Lucifer, they were able to change at least some sky dwellers' views toward them, though malice between the two races still pervades in some areas and is unlikely to ever disappear completely.
- Fatal Flaw: A variation of Sloth, as shown by Sandalphon, Zooey, the Primarch apprentices and the Primal Pals (specifically Medusa and Baal), Primal Beasts have the ability to become stronger if they train or learn new things to enhance their abilities but, due to the power they are born with and because they have been the most powerful species in the Sky Realm for so long, most simply refuse to do so and thus are caught off-guard when creatures from places like the Otherworld or people like the crew come along and defeat them.
- Fish out of Water: Most of them are very unfamiliar with celebrating holidays, such as Valentine's Day and White Day and are new at partaking in other human—er, mortal customs.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation:
- Unlike most human characters that aren't necessarily tied to any specific element, thus justifying their ability to have alternate version in different elements, most primals are stated to be tied to the element they have control over or are introduced as having. However, that hasn't stopped some of them from inexplicably being released in another element when they receive an alternate unit.
- Most (if not all) of the playable primals aren't nearly as strong as they're stated to be lorewise and at times are outranked in power and usefulness by playable units of other races.
- God in Human Form: As Primal Beasts, they are all naturally this with varying degrees of "human".
- Averted when the first playable non-humanoid primal, Colossus, was implemented as he’s a walking suit of armor.
- Hot God: Well, thanks to the overall Fanservice designs, the humanoid primal beasts are depicted as attractive individuals.
- Immortality: Primals are immortal as they do not age and cannot be killed by normal means. They can be hurt, however and too much damage to their physical forms will cause them to retreat into their core form until fully restored.
- Intrigued by Humanity: Several of them express an interest in mortal culture and their various foibles in comparison to the long-lived nature of Primal existence.
- Olympus Mons: Taken a step further than the rest of the Primal Beasts, since they can now be active party members instead of being limited to summons or event antagonists. Some of them are explicitly limited as Grand characters with equally powerful recruitment weapons to boot.
- Power Floats: A good portion of the primals such as Europa, Tiamat, and Zooey are capable of floating.
- Promoted to Playable: With the exception of Noa, HalMal and Azazel, most of them were summons and/or Raid bosses before they became playable.
- Really 700 Years Old: Goes with the territory. They were created by the Astrals for their war of conquest centuries ago and have been left to their own devices since. By default, their ages are often listed as unknown on their profiles though some have their ages implied in the stories. As well, Primarchs such as Sandalphon and Hal&Mal are among the oldest of Primals, having been created well-over 2000 years ago.
- Redemption Demotion: Applies to every Primal that was fought as a boss or an enemy in the story. Once playable, they're far weaker than they are as bosses. Some notable examples are Tiamat, Colossus, Yggdrasil, and Zooey.
- Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Just like most Primal Beasts, a lot of these characters are named, or based on mythological entities and deities from several pantheons.
- Reused Character Design: All of the characters imported from Rage of Bahamut fall under this, especially if their stories and characterization have nothing to do with their original selves, assuming the original characters had characterization at all beyond their card descriptions.
- Strong as They Need to Be: Primals in general seem to be affected by this trope, as how strong they are lorewise ultimately depends on the situation and who or what they’re up against.
- Turned Against Their Masters: Created by the Stars, Loved by the Skies reveals that many of the primals eventually sided with the skydwellers during the war, having loved their free will and refused to have it be taken away when the Astrals eventually created a Primal Beast whose purpose is to control all Primals and rob them of their free will. In response to this, a good majority of the Primal Beasts joined the skydwellers and fought against their creators, resulting in the skydwellers winning the war and the Astrals driven away from the skies.
- Winged Humanoid: Several Primals fall under this trope, with those being Sandalphon, Hal&Mal, Azazel, Olivia, Sylph, and Morrigna.
- Worshipped for Great Deeds: This is the case for most primal beasts. While most if not all of them began their lives as weapons and/or tools for the Astrals, following the rebellion they would go on to be deified by the skydwellers for their great power, contributions to humanity, and the protection they offer them.
