Lupin - make it a playable race!

[ArcaneCarbuncle]

Someone like a Viera that was never seen before in Eorzea would still gain quite the attention which would not be shown with the MSQ. They dont react differently if you are race x. Yes it might stretch the belief more but they already showed with the Au Ra that they can bend the story quite a bit if they want to.

Says who? You? The devs? The game? Seeing as there are Au Ra other than the WoL within Eorzean borders, some of probably having been in Eorzea longer then the WoL, I don't see why Viera would be something never seen before.
They didn't 'bend' the story, they did something that I'd call a 'soft-retcon': in Lore, Au Ra always were present, even in Eorzea; yes, they were rare, but far from unseen and unheard or 'unique'. The WoL is far from the first and only Au Ra, to ever come to Eorzea. Had they not drawn attention to the fact that they're 'new', that would have worked without a hitch. Again, a writing error, not necessarily a lore one.
They could introduce the Viera in 4.5 without character exclaiming loudly how oh-so-new they are and it wouldn't be a problem.
Seven hells, as of 4.3 they do officially exist and as far as the lore is concerned, they always did, just as the Au Ra did; they are just not native to Eorzea and thus rare there.
(And lets not forget that the WoL, canonically, isn't from Eorzea in the first place.)
No actual 'bending' needed.

I'll give you this: There is some Gameplay/Story segregation and Handwaving needed to make this work, i.e. you have to ignore to a certain extend that there are no Au Ra NPCs in ARR areas due to them obviously not existing from a gameplay standpoint; but from a lore standpoint they always did, with nothing pointing to the contrary.

And before somebody screams: "GOTCHA! If they can say the Au Ra/Viera have always been present in Eorzea, they can do the same to Lupin!"; no the really can't, cause if Lupins were always present the Eorzeans would likely know that there are 'civilized' beastman races and as such a complete ban on beastmen in Ul Dah for instance wouldn't be necessary (if anything, only a partial one). And if they for some reason didn't know (despite Lupin not being unheard of), they'd likely still have that ban and you'd have to explain why they'd lift it for your character specifically.

They could go with it different ways:

Only allow to change a player into Lupin after they crossed a certain story point. Could be explained ingame with a curse or something. But that would be bad for all those that wanted to play them from the start.
Or they could simply say that the WoL (who is from outside) has a very strong glamour thus does not look like a beastly race for others until a certain point where the story will have a reveal. (I mean we had to be fine with the "well I am not that person" then they should deal with us too)

Both of these would be incredibly cheap ways to do it, honestly.
The first one you already said yourself why. It would essentially provide a new race, however without all the exciting stuff attached to it like racial lore and gear. They'd just be some random cursed dude from whatever other race thats already ingame. Might as well go the Aion-route then by providing candy that turns the PC into a generic Lupin model temporarily, cause thats all the bang it would provide anyway.
For the second one I'd like you to justify why any new race should get a completely new story-aspect no other race gets. Cause if they pulled something like this they better do it well. To provide a complete minority of their playerbase that'd actually play them with playable puppypeople?
And when would that reveal even take place? earkly in the game? Late within the story when its mostly done for the next few months anyway? What if someone switches to Lupin rather late in the story; like most current players probably would? That would make the minority that would actually have a chance to see these new storyelements even smaller, at which point would it even be justified spending ressources on it?
Especially seeing that there are potential races around that wouldn't only require less work from a design standpoint, but also wouldn't require any heavy lore justifications to work.

Anyway if we take lore and story in account, we cant really get any new race without bending it even further.

I'll stress it again, if done well there is no actual lorebending involved.
The only situation where there'd be a problem is if lore stated that the current races are the only races to exist on all of Hydaelyn; something which we already know is not true.
Its not like they'd need to pull the figurative (and in case of Viera literal) Rabbit out of the Hat to explain a new race; there are still plenty of Areas we haven't been to yet, all with their own cultures and possibly races. We as players, and maybe even the devs, just don't know yet; which doesn't change that those places technically already exist in lore.
The Problem in this case isn't that they'd have to bend lore in general, its that they'd have to bend lore specifically for the Lupin (or beastraces in general); whereas a humanoid race like the Viera can just be, if they just let them exist organically without drawing attention to the fact that from a meta standpoint they are new.

Now, let me clarify here: I'm not saying Lupin or any beastman-races will never exist; if SE can find some magical creative way to make it work without having to pull some heavy retcons on the entire structural lore of the game, then Yay, you! Congratz! Have fun with your Playable Puppy People!
I'm also not saying Viera are definitely gonna happen.
What I AM saying is that, should SE come out of the woodwork tomorrow and confirm that there's a new race on the way, my money would definitely be on Viera, or at least a humanoid race, for various reasons.

Edit cause I didn't see this post before:

I believe many had pointed this before but:

Our Warrior of Light is always an outsider, always an exception. Since the first scenes on the game.

I wouldn't call this a problem, but the definition of a Beast Tribe is pretty broad on the game. Aside from their faces, Lupins have humanoid proportions, they hands looks like a human's, they feet fits a human shoe (in shape, not size), they wear clothes in hyur's fashion, and their culture seems the same as the Hyur's in Yanxia. Also, I believe the prejudice on the cities is aimed mostly at certain tribes than against non-humanoid people; the Wood Wailers have a beef with the Ixal, the Brass Blades with the Amalj'aa, while even Vylbrand tries to keep the peace with most of the kobold's legions.

So, yeah, I believe a Lupin would be an uncommon sight, but not one related to conflict like specific beast tribes.

I'm aware, thank you...

But if you believe that any average Eorzean would trust a dude with a Wolfhead and a maw big enough to bite their head of (no matter how 'human' the rest of their body is), then I believe you're overestimating said average Eorzean. The people in Gridania for instance were only 'friendly' to that Lupin from the Halloween event (that people love to bring up as some sort of proof of why Lupin would totally work) because they more or less thought he was a guy in costume like all of the other crazy figures running around.
Doesn't matter wether Lupin culture is the same as doman hyur, I doubt most eorzeans would know much about Doma other than the fact that it exists.
While it is true that the citystates indvidual prejudice is mostly aimed at specific beast tribes, there's still quite a bit of animostity against beast tribes in general; I for one highly doubt the Limsans would be very happy about an Amal'jaa on their doorstep, despite being both the most open-minded of the city states and Amal'jaa not necessarily being their main problem. Their hospitality stops where cute and non-threatening stops. And I highly doubt a Lupin would project much of that if you see one for the first time. And their sad excuse for 'peace' with the kobolds wouldn't help the Lupin in that situation either.
And don't even get me started on Gridania with their xenophobic tendencies and Ul Dah and their outright ban on Beast tribes in general. They'd probably just attack on sight.

Now, I'm gonna be fair here: There are also a lot of open minded people, like the GC Leaders and Minfilia, in Eorzea who might vouch for a friendly little dogdude, but they'd still have to get to those people. Currently you meet them throughout the storyline, but even starting that storyline takes you into the city, which I have already explained why I don't think is possible for some random Lupin.
Which means you'd likely have to give Lupins their own original starting storyline, which I simply don't see as something SE would do. Especially with easier-to-set-up race options available to them.

Oh, and 'uncommon sight' is an understatement; I for one know if I was some random average eorzean farmer and I'd come across a wandering Lupin I wouldn't just call them 'uncommon'; I'd call them scary. And then I'd run away. xD
Not everyone in Eorzea is a hardened adventurer.