Au Ra physiology and other lore.

Hey guys, thanks for the praise. I'd like to update this thread with additional information and discoveries, but currently I'm fairly busy and won't always be able to do it the moment they reveal new info.

However, I do have a extra nugget of information for you. It appears that males can get extra horns on their heads based on their hairstyles. I made a slight error when it came to the head designs and the gryphon rider Au Ra is actually using Head 1's with Head 2's hairstyle. That said, horns are still customizable as the Au Ra females show different heads and at least two horn styles. I wonder if Au Ra females will have additional hairstyles with extra horns too?

I think it'd be best if we start asking now. =)

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Originally Posted by Kaiser-Ace

I'm planing on switching to male Au'ra my self. Always liked the idea of playing as a non-human but honestly, Roegaden are boring, Lalafel just dosn't fit me, and Male Miqo'te just don't look that cool. I'm more of a dog/wolf person my self so "Male Cats" Dosn't seem as.... for lack of a better word, cute of an idea as cat girls. Miqo'te Girls are SUPPOSE to look cute/sexy. Most male designs make them look homeless.

Now the Au'ra on the other hand, you have the cute petite famales for the girls (And the guys that play as girls) while the Male Au'ra are a whole new tier of bad ass looking. Any of the Armors I have, even the ridiculusly huge Paladin and Dark Knight Swords, would look perfect in an Au'ran's hands.

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The miqo'te men do look... less then had hoped and I'll make my little Miqo male an Au Ra to try them out (likely before deleing it altogether lol), and the Au Ra's look rather impressive at first glance. The thing is, armor and weapons scale so if they're huge now on PLD and even the pics of Hyur DRK from before Au Ra was shown, they're likely to still be huge to the Au Ra. While cat girl works for me even if I currently dont have one, if they had a wolf/fox type I'd probably change every character I have to it, lol.
I'm female and one of the things I love most about fantasy games is the "sexy gear," its why i switched to Hyur from my Miqo'te; that hempen camise looks BA on them and silly on everyone else. I hope the Au Ra have an awesome look to that chest item too; show off the scales!

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Originally Posted by Pomelo

I hope they have multiple tail options like Miqote does :D

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How about a literal "multiple tail option"? I want my dragon lady to have seven

I want a big height slider for the male Au Ra. I do not want to be 7 feet tall. :(

A very nice compilation! Male AuRas are really nice looking, I'll definitely try out them in character creator. But speaking about physiology I had an odd idea. Do they even kiss? The horns must be getting in the way, especially for the light coloured male...

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Originally Posted by Erendis

A very nice compilation! Male AuRas are really nice looking, I'll definitely try out them in character creator. But speaking about physiology I had an odd idea. Do they even kiss? The horns must be getting in the way, especially for the light coloured male...

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Probably only about as much as a Human's nose does. I mean, I'd think having the horns their whole lives would kinda make them acustomed to... you know.... NOT POKEING THEIR LOVER IN THE EYE!

Plus only male horns point forward, maybe this could be a reason WHY female Au'ra horns point to the backs of their heads.

Au Ra tails differ between the sexes, actually. Much like the other morphisms between the genders, the males sport shorter, skinnier tails than the females. The female Au Ra have thicker, longer tails with a 'frayed' scales at the base of the tail (on the rear of the hips). Males lack this sort of fraying and their tails are straighter and less curvy (or seem to lack "bones"). This is best seen in the Au Ra video footage. Since we lack an official, high-quality source, I'm reluctant to post it here. There's a fairly good possibility that Au Ra tails may not be as customizable as Miqo'te tails. Instead of tail customization for Au Ra, we'd see horn customization.

That said, there's still time to make changes and I bet if the fans make some noise, we may see some additional elements added while they're still working on the race.

Although art will differ from the real thing, there is, at least some hope for additional tail customization.
http://abload.de/img/b5rhk8pccaawsb9dqoxs.png
http://abload.de/img/b5rhzr6ciainl-4hdq2g.png

As you can see in both pictures, the Au Ra tails have a sort of two-tone coloring to them. The upper side of the tail is thickly scaled and darker in comparison to the lower side of the tail where it appears smoother and lighter in tone. Interestingly, you can see in these art pieces that the female tail is much longer that the male tail and that the female has more elaborate grooving than the male. Yet the official artwork of the race shows a dramatic reversal:
http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/img/.../321/ss_01.jpg

In the above, you can see the male sports a larger, thicker tail with elaborate grooving compared to the female Au Ra's thinner, smoother tail. Both tails show the same two-tone differences on the exterior and interior of the tail as seen in other artwork. The current in-game models lack these additional details and it remains to be seen whether they'll be added or not. Yet its important to realize that the official Au Ra models released in the press materials does not represent the full range of customization options and that models could have additional elements added to them that we haven't see yet (such as horns, faces, and even tails). So while it's possible that we may not see the large customization options for miqo'te tails in Au Ra, it's still likely that we may get some level of customization to more closely reflect the art. It may sound like I'm talking circles, but I'm only trying to make a simple point.

What we've seen may not be final. There are additional customization options being added that we have not seen. If we want to have certain tail, hair or horn styles, this would a good time to request them while they're currently working on the race and the expansion. And finally, be aware that they are going for a certain look and diversity between the genders, so any requests can't be too extreme. I don't think we will see rattle-snake or barbed tails on Au Ra, but we might get a few interesting features.

For what it's worth I've stood my Miqo'te next to Yugiri to see how tall she is approximately. My Miqo'te is 5'1" and she seems to be exactly the same size.
That's not saying much, though, considering Yugiri appears to be currently using a Miqo'te skeleton judging from her mannerisms and the way she stands and moves.

Based on the Au'ran tail leingths, I'd say they are fairly customizable and may see some diffrences in desighn based on which of the two clans you choose. After all Miqo'te have an extreem diffrence between the Moon Keepers and Sun Seekers. So for all we know what ever the two clans of Au'ra turn out to be could verry well have just as extreem diffrences. Though I will make a wadger on three customizations unique to the Au'ra.

1: Horn structure, the ability ro change the size, leingth and possibly even position of Au'ran horns.
2: Tail Structure, Simmiler to the horns it's possible any where from the leingth to the color might be cusomizable
3: The Scale Patterns, The scale patches we see in various places are most likly able to cutomize their position, color, location, and posibly even their presence entirely.

I really like this race and am torn about switching my Elezen to Au Ra or just making a new character... I'm thinking the latter as my main was always meant to be Elezen and I don't feel like being a part of the "I must hab eet nao" clan, where all the Miqote and Lalafel become Au Ra, making the two most populated races become as rare as Elezen...

I DO like the different mannerisms in Au Ra from male to female. The "deadened" glare the females give is a part of their persona, with quiet and mysterious, whereas the males are more aggressive like in manner. I don't think that it was due to an incomplete design.