Primordials are not so much a person or a place as they are an entire Mythos. Each Primordial is a self-contained culture, a cosmos in and of itself that does not rely on outside context.
For example, if you took the works of H.P. Lovecraft, then Cthulu would not be a Primordial. Neither would Nylarothep or Azatoth. The entire Lovecraft Mythos would be a single Primordial. Azatoth would be the fetich soul and the other outer gods would be the Lovecraft Mythos’ various Third Circles. Their servitor gods, like Cthulu and Dagon, would be Second Circles. Lesser mythos creatures like Mi-Go, ghouls and deep ones would be various First Circle demons. There would also be various creatures, such as shoggoths, that aren’t a direct part of the soul hierarchy but exist as Behemoths, or basically powerful monsters it’s hard to classify.
(in response to someone saying Yozis = corporations)
That’s too reductive of what Yozis are.
A Yozi isn’t just a organization, it is a rule system that determines the way organizations even exist. Saying that a Yozi is a corporation gives the wrong impression of how the Yozi works. See, in the real world corporation are run by the employees but in Exalted a Primordial runs its Third Circles, not the other way around.
Yeah, sure, Ligier may disagree with what Malfeas wants and he may chafe under the restrictions Malfeas places on him, but ultimately Ligier can’t change Malfeas’ nature. Meanwhile, in a corporation, if the board agreed to they could turn a corporation from a arms manufacturer to a charity based around feeding the homeless; the corporation itself can’t reject this.
That’s why I say the Yozi is the system under which the Third Circles operate. Malfeas isn’t Lockheed Martin, Malfeas is capitalism, the idea that things have Ownership and trade exists and so on and so forth. Yeah, Lockheed Martin could change its business strategy, but by itself it can’t change the capitalist system under which it exists.
Now, obviously I’m not saying Malfeas is literally capitalism. I’m saying that the relationship between a Yozi and its Demons is on the same scale.
I think this ‘corporation’ idea is a large part of why people humanize the Yozi too much in their games. Because in the real world? You can fight Lockheed Martin. But if you up the scale from the individual business to the system under which that business operates… well, it’s much harder to fight capitalism than it is to destroy a single company.