Hello, My Name is Human

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Originally Posted by Joven

I meant all on the same animal

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Maybe there isn't a real-world animal with all three, but that still means it's plausible that a mammal could have evolved all three in the right conditions.

In any case, the game has so many hybrid creatures that it's not necessary to make that argument in the first place. Chimeras, gryphons, lamiae, "owlbears", winged horses.... many of them are a mix of mammal and reptile parts (birds technically being specialised reptiles as well).

Interestingly most of those get traced back to Allagan experiments, according to the lorebook. Gryphons seem to be considered natural. As discussed earlier, you could theorise that Au Ra have "unnatural" origins as well, although there may have been lore contradictions to it. We know the Ixals are of Allagan origin, and juding from the lamiae on Azys Lla, the Ananta are as well. (I saw a theory once that the original inspiration of Garuda might have been an Au Ra woman, which could add up with the possibility of an Allagan origin for them.)

Of course, in-game understanding of taxonomy is still developing, with creatures grouped in ways that don't correlate with our modern understanding. eg. 'cloudkin', flying creatures, mostly birds but including mammalian bats and a fishlike monster, also the arbitrary split with 'scalekin' that includes things like ziz and archaeornis - eventually they'll probably work out, like in our world, that there isn't actually a dividing line between the two (and that bats are flying beastkin).

Then again, maybe anyone who tries to develop a better system gets as far as classifying the hybrids, and gives up.

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Bonus Wiki-trivia round! You know that bright-coloured lizardy thing that's an elite mark on the Azim Steppe? I spotted it on the reptile 'family tree'.

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Originally Posted by MsQi

Second the people who lack imagination don't have to play that race. Such a race would not be for their ilk.

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You don't need 'imagination' to play any race. You need it to come up with the idea, and lots of work to implement it. Actually playing it would be no different to any other race, except being potentially limited in the things it can do - and no amount of imagination from the player is going to fix that.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Then you're essentially developing an entire race and adjusting gear, emotes and the lack for a decidedly few number of players who would actually care to be said race. That's a colossal waste of resources.

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This would probably the primary issue. Generally races that are at least physically close to existing models allows for new gear and such to be adapted rather than made from scratch. If the models are notably different in skeleton though your generally going to have to spend a lot more time developing gear to fit all the models.

The other factor is SE wants to add something they thing will be popular and people will play. Half the design choices regarding the Au Ra, including size, was based of general player preferences. A new race that very few people will play is an expensive thing to add because you need to support that race going forward with any new gear and such.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

From the lorebook: "Succubi manifest on the physical plane by forcing their souls into the bodies of deceased women."

So, physically a human body, but not necessarily alive or able to reproduce.

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Since there's no telling what a voidsent's biology (morphology?) is like there's a chance that through whatever transformation the vessle undergoes as the voidsent inhabits it that it may remain fertile or the entity itself is able to reproduce with other species.

And I realize I'm debating the reproduction cycle of a fictional creation so that's all I'm gonna say on the subject.

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Originally Posted by Joven

Since there's no telling what a voidsent's biology (morphology?) is like there's a chance that through whatever transformation the vessle undergoes as the voidsent inhabits it that it may remain fertile or the entity itself is able to reproduce with other species.

And I realize I'm debating the reproduction cycle of a fictional creation so that's all I'm gonna say on the subject.

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Just because it is fiction, does not mean you can't speculate. Writers of fiction actually love it when people reading their material do this!

We know so little about the Voidscent. In the case that a creature from the void possesses a body in this world, it just depends on how much functionality remains intact of the host to the voidscent. If it remains fertile, then a voidscent in possession of a body in this world could have offspring.

The voidscent that don't need a host to sustain themselves in this world is a different matter, as we can only speculate on if they are capable of reproducing. They are such unnatural and vile creatures that we wouldn't think it even possible. The voidscent that are aesthetically pleasing such as the succubus likely follows traditional lore surrounding the creature. SE is known to do this, so the appearance of a succubus is likely a predation to lure in their victims.

That all said, the voidscent can be killed and don't like dying anymore than we do. They are going to operate off of a innate survival instinct, so whatever it is they need to do that, they are going to go after it.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Just because it is fiction, does not mean you can't speculate. Writers of fiction actually love it when people reading their material do this!

We know so little about the Voidscent. In the case that a creature from the void possesses a body in this world, it just depends on how much functionality remains intact of the host to the voidscent. If it remains fertile, then a voidscent in possession of a body in this world could have offspring.

The voidscent that don't need a host to sustain themselves in this world is a different matter, as we can only speculate on if they are capable of reproducing. They are such unnatural and vile creatures that we wouldn't think it even possible. The voidscent that are aesthetically pleasing such as the succubus likely follows traditional lore surrounding the creature. SE is known to do this, so the appearance of a succubus is likely a predation to lure in their victims.

That all said, the voidscent can be killed and don't like dying anymore than we do. They are going to operate off of a innate survival instinct, so whatever it is they need to do that, they are going to go after it.

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If there's a fear of death then there would be an inherent desire to preserve its essence either through replication or reproduction. So it could be possible for a voidsent to reproduce with others through direct insemination or by imparting some of its energy into another which could affect any offspring they may have.

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Originally Posted by Joven

If there's a fear of death then there would be an inherent desire to preserve its essence either through replication or reproduction. So it could be possible for a voidsent to reproduce with others through direct insemination or by imparting some of its energy into another which could affect any offspring they may have.

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It may be worth pointing out that the Voidsent are apparently what the denizens of the 13th shard became when the world fell to darkness - and that those denizens were very likely creatures similar to those that exist on Hyaedalyn. So even if Voidsent are not living creatures capable of live births and so on and so forth, they once were, eons ago. Even if they're not mammals now, many used to be. (But yeah, Succubi got a WHOLE lot less sexy when I found out they were basically animated corpses.)

Regardless, it's pretty much irrelevant whether the artists used dragons or demons or anything else for inspiration when creating the Au Ra - the result is another of the "human" races, thoroughly distinct from the "beastman" races and with more traits in common with the "human" races than not. They can even interbreed with the other human races, if the legends handed down in Sui-no-Sato have any seed of truth.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

I can't imagine SE wanting to add a non-humanoid race to the game. Mostly just due to the effort that would be involved for fitting all existing and future gear to the race. I mean, c'mon. They can't even be bothered to deal with tails as it is. They just clip through everything, pants, skirts, capes, etc - no special accommodation for tails as they used to do back in the day.

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The main problem is that this small indy company doesn't have enough manpower to handle so many changes. If someone finds sarcasm he/she can keep it, i have plenty left.