Existential crisis here

[Packetdancer]

Lore doesn't say that. It's just an inference since all the half breeds we've been shown have been like that.

I think it actually did get answered that way in a Koji Fox interview somewhere, specifically to address the fandom speculation about, uh... 'issues' entailed if a Roegadyn father and a Lalafellan mother had a kid.

[Hank_Hotspur]

If you do the Ruby Princess quests and deliveries it's also revealed that an Au Ra Ruby Princess in the past took a Hyur as a lover and that their offspring was nearly scale-less.

[MikkoAkure]

In the cutscenes when we see Eula/Nael in her original form and without her helmet on, I could swear she's got Hyur ears rather than Elezen. Am I misremembering? (I'm not in game to go check.)

Like I said earlier, the game files mostly show the Garleans as being elezens with a custom head. Eula/Nael and Maxima don't even have custom faces and instead have legit wildwood heads with a third eye and hyur ears. Gaius, Solus, and Nero are considered to be elezen according to the game files, but they have completely custom heads. Zenos and Varris are the only completely custom Garleans that have their own body.

I think it actually did get answered that way in a Koji Fox interview somewhere, specifically to address the fandom speculation about, uh... 'issues' entailed if a Roegadyn father and a Lalafellan mother had a kid.

The only interview I could find where Koji brought up hybrids, the whole "mother" thing wasn't mentioned. Unless someone else can find an interview or a blurb in the game or lore books where it says otherwise, that's fanon. I know it's a fantasy game, but it doesn't make any biological sense for the child of two races to look exactly like the mother's race but with a tiny bit from the dad anyway. SE wasn't going to make a whole separate body model just for Hilda when they can just give her pointy ears and call it a day. It's just as simple as that.

Funny enough, in the same interview, Koji describes Garleans as being a separate race from hyur. I saw a different interview with Banri Oda where he said the same.

[Packetdancer]

Like I said earlier, the game files mostly show the Garleans as being elezens with a custom head. Eula/Nael and Maxima don't even have custom faces and instead have legit wildwood heads with a third eye and hyur ears. Gaius, Solus, and Nero are considered to be elezen according to the game files, but they have completely custom heads. Zenos and Varris are the only completely custom Garleans that have their own body.

Yeah, it was more the "Nael is an elezen with a third-eye, so Garleans can be all the races just with a third-eye" implication that I was questioning. Garleans in general appear to be very tall, hence using elezen animations; I don't think that implies Nael was an elezen, nor that any others are.

Pureblood Garleans appear to pretty much entirely resemble Hyur, albeit with a much greater average height and with the echolocation-y third eye. (There are exceptions; I believe that Jenomis cen Lexentale and our beloved friend Cid use Hyur bodies and animation rigs, even though both are purebloods and have the third eye.)

The only interview I could find where Koji brought up hybrids, the whole "mother" thing wasn't mentioned. Unless someone else can find an interview or a blurb in the game or lore books where it says otherwise, that's fanon.

I swear I remember when I asked for a source ages ago, someone linked me to a podcast or radio show or something that Koji Fox was on as a guest; I remember it being audio, because I remember my ADHD self being annoyed I had to listen to it rather than read an article.

But as I am presently sleep-deprived, caffeine-deprived, and stuck in Zoom Meeting Hell today (kill me), I am more than willing to admit I may be misremembering or blurring a memory of that lore point having a source that's actually the source of authority for some different lore point.

Funny enough, in the same interview, Koji describes Garleans as being a separate race from hyur. I saw a different interview with Banri Oda where he said the same.

That I certainly believe.

But what I find myself wondering about is whether they were a separate race from the Sundering onwards, and Goug was just where they had congregated in that Era, since a mechnically-focused city was more friendly to them due to their lack of ability to manipulate aether. But if so, why do they seemingly have absolutely no presence in the history for literally any of the prior Astral and Umbral ages we've learned anything of, nor any hint of an equivalent race on the First? (I mean we even have evidence of the Namazu on the First, though only ancient Ronkan historical record.)

In essence, we have zero evidence of Garleans as a separate race outside of Garlemald, or prior to the founding of Garlemald, or on any other shard... at least, none that I can think of. Which I find curious, considering we have it for pretty much all the other races.

But any theories about that would definitely be wild speculation at best.

[TheMightyMollusk]

It's entirely possible that any Garleans-by-another-name on the First were lost in the Flood, just like the Namazu (and presumably any other races we didn't meet), but we have no evidence either way. Nobody reacts to Emet-Selch's third eye, but the few non-Scions who see him could've just assumed it was decorative.

[Hank_Hotspur]

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Garleans were essentially created as a servant/patsy race for Ascians. I think a thing we take for granted is the Garlean inability to use aether, which doesn't make them "normal", because the fact that every other living being, including animals and plants, use aether in this universe(s) makes Garleans inability to do so an aberration and not mundane. The only other race that breaks the laws of nature so much are the Dragons, whose eyes are basically endless aether factories, which was explained by them essentially being aliens from a star with completely different rules.

Also, their lack of aether ability could be tied to (or just in addition to) the fact they can't naturally posses the echo, meaning that they could never hear Hydaelyn's auto-call and would never be wise to what Ascians are plotting. So we have a race that can't use aether (unlike Ascians who are suffused greatly with it), have to rely on magitek (which can be controlled and restricted by Garlean high command, which was for the most part Ascian-lead), and can't naturally gain the Echo (crippling them of a useful tool and keeping them in the dark of Ascian machinations).

I believe there might be lore somewhere that theorizes that Garleans may have been a technician race for the Allagan empire which, since we know how that got started, still lends credence to Ascian creation. There may have been a race similar to Garleans on The First, but since their lands were lost to the flood, it could be the perfect cover to surprise us of their true heritage. Seeing how there were no Allagan creations there (besides the Crystal Tower), it could mean there was also never any "Garlean race" there to begin with.

[Iscah]

Like I said earlier, the game files mostly show the Garleans as being elezens with a custom head. Eula/Nael and Maxima don't even have custom faces and instead have legit wildwood heads with a third eye and hyur ears. Gaius, Solus, and Nero are considered to be elezen according to the game files, but they have completely custom heads. Zenos and Varris are the only completely custom Garleans that have their own body.

Maxima has a custom face, as far as I can tell. Elezen don't look like he does.

It's possible that it's a "borrowed" face model from another race rather than made from scratch, but I can't recognise it.

Yeah, it was more the "Nael is an elezen with a third-eye, so Garleans can be all the races just with a third-eye" implication that I was questioning. Garleans in general appear to be very tall, hence using elezen animations; I don't think that implies Nael was an elezen, nor that any others are.

Pureblood Garleans appear to pretty much entirely resemble Hyur, albeit with a much greater average height and with the echolocation-y third eye. (There are exceptions; I believe that Jenomis cen Lexentale and our beloved friend Cid use Hyur bodies and animation rigs, even though both are purebloods and have the third eye.)

There are two elements to this.

At a world-building concept level, Garleans are a distinct Hyur-like race with the third eye.

At a game level, because there is no "Garlean NPC model", they appropriate both Hyur and Elezen models equally when building Garlean characters.

Garleans don't use Elezen animations because they're tall; they're tall because Elezen models were used to build the characters. It's just the head (including the ears) that is custom, and the standard Garlean armour is built to hide the lanky Elezen proportions. Compare Nero or Maxima's apparent build wearing their heavy armour to later in civilian clothes that are more directly Elezen-proportioned, just with some modification around the neck to hide where they merge.

I did a comparison a while back between Nero and my Elezen character wearing the same coat. You can see the coat model has been altered slightly to fit him.

[MikkoAkure]

Maxima has a custom face, as far as I can tell. Elezen don't look like he does.

It's possible that it's a "borrowed" face model from another race rather than made from scratch, but I can't recognise it.

Ah, it does seem like a different face. He uses an elezen-only hairstyle and has the exact same facial hair as one of the faces so I always thought they just gave him an eye and different ears but I guess they did a little more work.

I wonder why some use midlander skeletons/bodies and some use elezen. Severa makes sense because of her history, even if they are retconning the "only pure-blood's get an eye" thing for some reason. But then there's Cid, Midas, Aulus, and Jenomis. It's awkward when seeing Cid share a scene with Nero and he's a few heads shorter than him and the other Garleans.

[myahele]

Ah, it does seem like a different face. He uses an elezen-only hairstyle and has the exact same facial hair as one of the faces so I always thought they just gave him an eye and different ears but I guess they did a little more work.

I wonder why some use midlander skeletons/bodies and some use elezen. Severa makes sense because of her history, even if they are retconning the "only pure-blood's get an eye" thing for some reason. But then there's Cid, Midas, Aulus, and Jenomis. It's awkward when seeing Cid share a scene with Nero and he's a few heads shorter than him and the other Garleans.

My theory is that Garleans have at least 2 different clans. 1 clan is tall while the other clan is shorter. Kinda like Midlander vs Highlanders.

[grinkdaboy]

one of the yellow questlines in post 4.x infers that hyurs and miqo'te can successfully reproduce; the ex-garlean overseer of one of the little villages who was gonna run off and kill himself out of fear of being imprisoned or worse for his part in the garlean occupation. basically the catgirl loves him and one of them say something to the affect of once he's out of jail they're gonna get together and start a family