Quote Originally Posted by Caitlyn View Post
Its kinda funny that Au Ra (a dragon-like race) were intruduced with the expansion about dragons at the same time!
And with all those scales, the look more like dragons than voidsent.

The only issue I have is, that Raen doesnt have a real homeland (unlike Xaela).

Is somewhere stated, that Raen or Xaela are good in swimming or diving?
I've always thought that it was a bit weird that a dragon-like race is introduced in an expansion that is all about dragons. But besides Koji saying in interviews that they're 100% not related to dragons, Shadowbringers put the final nail in the coffin of that theory because there are au ra on the First (though named something suspiciously similar to "dragon"), and we now know that dragons came to the Source from a different planet after the Shattering had already separated the First from the Source.

Raen, like hyur, seem to be adaptive and far-spreading. But I would be inclined to argue that Doma or Hingashi could count as sort of a homeland for them. Though they make up a minority in both countries, the governor of Kugane is a raen and we meet a raen princess from Hingashi in the ninja storyline. I don't believe we know the race of the emperor or the shogun, but at least that tells us that there are raen clans that are powerful in the government of Hingashi despite fully assimilating to the culture of the native hyur to that region.

I think there were a few Xaela tribes mentioned that were based around swimming and diving and one that can hold their breath for a long time. Then there's the raen clan that live in Sui-no-Sato who live underwater and naturally would have to swim a lot. Going back to when I first played Stormblood I was wondering if au ra actually were originally aquatic since I thought that having horns for ears would help with being underwater. Even though the underwater au ra can breath water, that doesn't help with water pressure as far as I know and going deep down would make your ears hurt, so not having ear drums at all would help.