Attributing post SB jobs to races

XIV was famous for attributing jobs to specific races, like BLM to lalafels, WAR to roegadyn, and Monk to highlanders.

After stormblood it seems this is no longer the case. No matter how much the official art wants to tell us so; the job quests in the game itself don't seem to convey this very well anymore.

I'll give you gunbreaker with hrothgar
But what about dancer? It's midlander's?
Reaper is garleans?
Sage is elezens? roegadyn? midlander?

Now with picto it's midlander again? lalafel?
What about viper? Another midlander created job?

Seems square has thrown lore in the trash in favor of "marketing a midlander." Is there any real lore outside gunbreaker and reaper about the origin (racially) of these other jobs since shadowbringers?

I’m actually fine with this

I never really liked the idea of the WOL “intruding” on a job that felt like it was a very particular race

Like all SCH’s besides the WOL were lala’s, it always felt weird to me going in as a miqote and just saying “hey guys yeah I’m a SCH as well”

The WHM quest sorta mitigated is you cannot actually play as a padjal so the quest line was about the seedseers accepting you as a competent WHM in your own right but it’s not like they can do that for every job

I think you read too much into race = job thing. Most jobs and disciplines are much more applicably attributed to nationality or regional origin rather than race.

The thaumaturges' guild accepts anyone, even if the clergy is predominately lalafellin (demographics, you know) and black magic was made by a lalafell, but was practice by the people of Mhach, which we know wasn't all lalafells.
Marauders, similarly accept everyone, and while warriors originated in Hellsguard culture, they accept anyone who can tame their inner beast.
Pugilists again, accept everyone, and while one of the surviving members of the Fist of Rhalgr are Highlanders, the other was a miqo'te.

Dancers is a Thavnairian discipline, rather than one associated with any race. Reaper is one of the few that can be attributed to a race directly, in fact, it being a Garlean discipline of war to match other races' reliance on aether. Sage is a Sharlayan practice. Pictomancer was invented by a Sharlayan archon, and viper is a Turalian hunting style.

It's not that they moved away from attributing jobs to races, it's that they were never really doing that.

The jobs you're talking about were never attributed to races but to cultures. Black magic is a Mhachi discipline; warriors come from the Abalathian Hellsguard culture; monks are from the Fist of Rhalgr, a Gyr Abanian tradition.

All of those are linked with races that are common inhabitants of those regions, but with the possible exception of the Hellsguard, they are never portrayed as exclusive to particular races.

We know at least some of the Mhachi population was non-Lalafell -- high voidmage Cessair, a key backstory character for the Shadow of Mhach raids, was Hyuran -- and on the other hand that there were Lalafell populations at the time of Mhach who had nothing to do with black magic, like the Nymians.

The 50-60 MNK quests heavily feature Sunseeker Miqo'te as part of the monk culture -- Widargelt is training two of them and another is the villain of the arc.

Even the Hellsguard turn out to be not the sole "warrior with an inner beast" culture, as we learn the same concept has risen independently among the Xaela tribes.

Gunbreaker is Bozjan -- primarily but not entirely a Hrothgar nation.

Dancer is Thavnairian, which we have seen is a culture of mixed races, although the lorebook specifically attributes its origins to Kadjaya, whose shrine can be found in central Thavnair adorned by statues suggesting she was a Hyur. The lorebook also points out that the dance itself has been influenced by an assortment of cultures, pointing out its name (no origin specified, but we can recognise it as German) and that some of the dance steps come from Old Elezen (ie. French) ballroom dances.

Reaper is indeed Garlean, but I haven't played that questline yet so I'm not going to comment further.

Sage is Sharlayan, a nation with no specific racial identity, to the point that you can come across characters with a mismatch of name and race -- Krile being the most prominent one, but there's also another Lalafell called Atheleys and the local Viera tend to have taken Hyuran or Elezen-sounding names.

Pictomancer is also a Sharlayan art, specifically invented by one particular Archon of unknown race, though we can guess likely Hyuran as she is based on FF6's Relm and the name doesn't lend itself to an obvious other choice of race, although I could see it getting passed off as a Miqo'te name if they wanted to make her something else.

Viper has been mentioned to be a Turali discipline but we don't know enough yet about the populations of Tural. I think there's a fair chance of seeing a female Hrothgar as the job trainer for this. A Miqo'te was used for the job reveal trailer but that was from before the Hrothgar reveal.


I'm also not sure why you're raising the matter of official art, because those rarely reflect the race that is linked to the lore of the class -- the first artwork for pictomancer was a male Miqo'te and the recent job gear render is an Elezen, plus we have Krile as the upcoming star wielder of the art, so your "pushing a Midlander" narrative makes no sense.

The game does have too much bias in general towards using Midlander models instead of more variety, but that is nothing new and certainly nothing that only happened post-Stormblood, as the biggest missed opportunity was not having more Au Ra Raen in the far eastern setting that had previously been declared their origin.

SAM - Raen
RDM - Xaela
GNB - Hellion
DNC - Rava
RPR - The Lost
SGE - Veena

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Originally Posted by Rekh

XIV was famous for attributing jobs to specific races, like BLM to lalafels, WAR to roegadyn, and Monk to highlanders.

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It did not actually do this, nor was it famous for this. Some of them are skewed by the populations of the places they're from, but it's not broadly true at all. You gave three examples, but I'd actually struggle to name much more than three examples within ARR.

Dragoon is associated with elezen... except for the part where the main contact is a midlander.
Ninja NPCs are mostly midlanders early on... except for the first and most famous one.
Bard is famously a midlander-wildwood double act.
White Mage is textually a Padjali thing, until you actually read any of its storyline and learn that people asserting that is actually sort of the problem.
Paladin's major NPCs in ARR are a midlander and a sea wolf. If you add in Gladiator (which many would argue you should), that adds highlander.

The only one outside of your examples that applies is Scholar as Supersnow said, where it's implicitly a very 'lalafel' story... but I'd actually argue we should count out Black Mage, whose entire storyline is about a gang of beastmen.

I think that what you're actually seeing are the developers approaching both worldbuilding and job selection differently; jobs became much more focused on places we're going to/near in that respective expansion, and those places themselves start getting the chance to be more identifiable for their actual cultures and events, rather than what fantasy races happen to be there. When you predominantly see a certain race, it's always been for a reason. Machinist and Astrologian are entirely elezen and midlander not becuase they're inherently elezen and midlander stories, but because they're Ishgardian stories (with some Sharlayan over in AST), and midlander and elezen comprise most of Ishgard. Meanwhile, Dark Knight's speaking more to the outcasts of Ishgard, so it instead centers a xaela, who's notably not typical of Ishgard.

Stormblood actually does the same thing; Red Mage is ostensibly Ala Mhigan although largely diasporic, so while it centers NPCs of the races you see in Ala Mhigo (Seekers, Midlanders and Highlanders), it's not making a point of it. Similarly, Samurai is Midlander As Hell, but that's because Kugane and its samurai are Midlander As Hell.
Shadowbringers? Gunbreaker literally is what you're looking for, because Bozja is largely associated with hrothgar. Dancer isn't 'midlander', it's Thavnairian, and so it reflects the racial makeup we'd largely seen at that point, and would go on to see in Endwalker. (Well, I would've expected more raen given what we see in EW, but I'll cut them that slack.)
Endwalker, again, Reaper is literally what you're talking about, because it's canonically a Garlean technique, and it's near-exclusively Garlean because 'not sharing' is sort of the Garleans' thing. And Sage is Sharlayan, which has always been a melting pot, so obviously its questline has a racial makeup that's all over the shop.

I think you've basically made up something to complain about here, and are ignoring that even after your arbitrary point where they 'stopped doing this', nothing meaningfully changed in any direction.

I don't know what races we will or won't associate with Viper, largely because it's going to be a Tural job, and we don't really know Tural's demographics yet. (Remember: you can't use promo art for anything, Reaper was showcased with a hrothgar.) Pictomancer, though, is another Sharlayan job, so expect another melting pot without a clear racial center.

If anything can contribute to your misconceptions about jobs being tied to race it's the races DNA in a meta context. As in XI Galka had racial stats that of low mind and low intelligence but high strength. So they didn't make great mages but they did make really good warriors and monks. Meanwhile in the other extreme you had the Tarutrau who had high mind and intelligence and low strength. So they made for really good casters but poor warriors. This type of thing did carry over a little bit and sort of mattered until somewhere between Heavensward and Stormblood.

I sort of want to know what you're basing any of this on since just because a trainer is of a certain race doesn't mean that job is explicitly tied to that race. As you have Machi mages that are hyur and Elezen in the Lost City of Amdapor. Along with Hyur and Elezen Amdapori white mages. It's slightly hinted at that not every Nymian was a Lalafell. As almost every country that we know of isn't one made up of just a singular race.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

If anything can contribute to your misconceptions about jobs being tied to race it's the races DNA in a meta context. As in XI Galka had racial stats that of low mind and low intelligence but high strength. So they didn't make great mages but they did make really good warriors and monks. Meanwhile in the other extreme you had the Tarutrau who had high mind and intelligence and low strength. So they made for really good casters but poor warriors. This type of thing did carry over a little bit and sort of mattered until somewhere between Heavensward and Stormblood.

I sort of want to know what you're basing any of this on since just because a trainer is of a certain race doesn't mean that job is explicitly tied to that race. As you have Machi mages that are hyur and Elezen in the Lost City of Amdapor. Along with Hyur and Elezen Amdapori white mages. It's slightly hinted at that not every Nymian was a Lalafell. As almost every country that we know of isn't one made up of just a singular race.

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I suspect some of this might come from your first paragraph being sort of tangentially related. While I can't don't think matching your race to your intended playstyle was meta even in the earliest days of FFXIV (certainly it was already basically worthless when I started in Heavensward), I'm fairly sure it was relevant enough in FFXI for there to be some level of gameplay-story synergy; major NPCs associated with certain jobs tended to be of the races you generally expected would be good at their jobs.

XIV has always loved its bigger brother, and weaves in references and spiritual nods all the time. So, a number of the 'racial connections' to jobs, especially early on, might stem from that; Thaumaturge/Black Mage ultimately has a lot of lalafel involved in its story because of Shantotto. I suspect part of the reason Samurai is a big ol' midlander party is because XI had a lot of hume Samurai, and they're just referencing those guys.

I think it's pretty clear that this by and large isn't a thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if you can trace some of the genuine examples, especially the earlier or more apparently arbitrary ones, back to callbacks to XI characters.

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Originally Posted by Rekh

XIV was famous for attributing jobs to specific races, like BLM to lalafels, WAR to roegadyn, and Monk to highlanders.

After stormblood it seems this is no longer the case. No matter how much the official art wants to tell us so; the job quests in the game itself don't seem to convey this very well anymore.

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Jobs were never really attached to races in the lore.

While, for example, most monks were highlanders this was because most monks were from Ala Mhigo, and most highlanders were also from Ala Mhigo.
But look at the pair of monk students in the level 50+ monk quests - a pair of miqo'te!

I think one of the things I like about FFXIV’s setting over FFXI’s is that not very much is tied to race.

In FFXI, each race more or less lived only in very specific places and you were even rewarded for the correct choice of race-city combo when you started the game with a special ring. Racial stats were also so different from each other that you may be disadvantaged choosing different jobs or have to wear specific armor in order to match the level of someone playing a more suitable race.

In FFXIV, racial stats are basically meaningless and the racial distribution in the world makes much more sense and the populations are mixed even if the people themselves aren’t mixing genes. There are some exclusions, like you’ll never see a Miqo’te, Elezen, or Lalafell native to the far east, but those types of exclusions don’t mean as much in the home region of the game anyway.

Now, the most important thing about anyone is where they're from instead of what race they are and a Raen from Thavnair will have little in common with one from Werlyt or Doma.

I find it hilarious that some are looking for absolutism to pin a job to a race. War is roegadyn's as Gunbreaker's hrothgar's; the rare instances that another race is also that job is called exceptions to the rule.

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Originally Posted by Rekh

I find it hilarious that some are looking for absolutism to pin a job to a race. War is roegadyn's as Gunbreaker's hrothgar's; the rare instances that another race is also that job is called exceptions to the rule.

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We already found out in multiple examples in the game that this is not true.

In Stormblood we find out that one tribe of the Xaela are doing the same exact inner rage Warrior thing that the Hellsguard were doing. Gunbreaker is Bozjan and while the Hrothgar may have invented it, Bozja is a country made up of many races that aren't Hrothgar and the Garleans copied it anyway. The most famous gunbreaker in the game is also Thancred, a Hyur. The Ronkans also independently invented something very close to Gunbreaker on their own as well.

Like others have said, it's much more accurate to say that the jobs are closer tied to countries and cultures than they are to races. The only one you can really say is a "racial" job is Reaper because it was created specifically for a race of people who cannot otherwise manipulate aether to the same extent other races could and the only non-Garlean Reaper in the entire game is the WoL.

Race is so unimportant to Sharlayan that you wouldn't be able to pin any of their disciplines to one anyway since Sharlayans do not care about it and don't even report their own racial distribution.

And like was mentioned before, Monk is Ala Mhigan, not Highlander. Miqo'te also make up a portion of Ala Mhigo's population and are represented as having been Monks in their questline and also the main original Red Mage in their own questline.

Dragoon and Machinist are Ishgardian disciplines, not Elezen. Ishgard is made up of both races and even Hyur can enter knighthood and the nobility after they kill a dragon, which explains the existing Hyur nobles who must've had a dragon-killing ancestor and the trainer for the whole job, who is a Hyur. Machinist was invented by an Elezen, but the whole point of the job was something accessible to anyone and the questline is made up of Hyur and half-Hyur being trained by a Roegadyn.

In all these instances, the race attributed to each job is a byproduct of the culture that race is from, not necessarily the race itself except in the case of Reaper where it was invented when the country was only made up of a single race to solve a problem inherent to that race.

Yeah, we're clearly looking at an instance of someone declaring something that's just straight-up not true, but has barely enough circumstantial evidence to almost resemble being true. Like, it's not 'the WoL is a dragon' blatantly false where you can just point to the obvious counterevidence, it's just declaring a pattern existed that then stopped, when that pattern both didn't exist and, by his own definition, didn't stop.

I do think that, when chewing on this, it does kinda accidentally highlight how the game's depiction of given nations evolved over time. Because early on, they kinda did have a 'planet of hats' thing going where nations that weren't being centered--and therefore, the jobs that came from there--were often completely racially homogenous. Nym was just a land of lalafel, Abalathia's Spine was just a land of roegadyn, Ala Mhigo was, early on, just a land of highlanders (plus the midlander ladies that were added back before highlanders could be female). The writers were never content to just leave that to be true when it came to a nation they're actually focusing on, so places we actually go get a lot more diversity than that, but early on it does lead to this vibe that only the nations we actually visit (at least, that are still standing) are the ones with racial diversity.