Au Ra, what are they?

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

My lady-friend joked I was a goat-man when I first showed her a picture of Ryuji, so. Goat-reptile-people?

I'm not sure their genetic origins matter all that much. We know about as much about their genetic origins as we do about, say, the Miqo'te's - that is, they're a humanoid race with vaguely animal features that originate from a different region of the planet. None of the other races have any sort of emphasis placed on "what" they are, which is why attitudes like this perplex me so much:

A mistake. Instead of a real Draconian or even Voidsent race they resort to this. Absolutely pathetic. So much potential in those concepts only to be tossed away in favor of Hyur/Elezen rejects with horns for ears.

I don't think that's entirely fair, for starters; there's quite a lot of potential for customization in the Au Ri that makes for very dynamic displays, limited as the character creation screen can be at times. It's more noticeable in the males than females, I suppose, though that's mostly due to their size. That nobody takes advantage of the options isn't really the fault of the devs (note: I am entirely guilty of that, as Ryuji is not an especially dynamic Au Ra).

But also, why is it so disappointing to people that a massive departure from every other playable race wasn't taken? As cool as it would have been, Velox has the right of it - the spoken races are just races of different humans, with the Au Ra being the vaguely reptilian answer to the other feline/elven/giant-like variations. While that certainly gives less variation in player appearance than if a chunk of the player base were hulking monsters, it's a legitimate world-building decision, especially given the place of dragon-men and voidsent in the established lore.

That said, I do think they could have been introduced better. I've long thought that this game could use racial quest lines (and city-state questlines, but that's something else entirely), but nowhere moreso than the Au Ra, who are an entirely immigrant race to Eorzea. Hell, a racial questline isn't even necessary; an immigrant community of them somewhere along our adventure would have been enough to give us SOME idea of their place in society. Instead, they just sort of appear, with a handwave and vague suggestion that they've been around this entire time, in small numbers. They're not integrated into Eorzea all that well, and I think maybe they would have been better received if more attention had been paid to this.