Why you decided on your race (lore perspective)

[Baithin]

I have a very bad case of alt-itis. I'm a roleplayer, and I like all the races, so.. I want to level a character from every race. xD

My main is a male Seeker of the Sun, who is a Bard, Paladin, and Scholar (all 50).
I also have a female Elezen Duskwight, a Black Mage (50) and soon to be Warrior.
Also a male Highlander, currently a Monk (50) and soon to be Ninja.
Recently made a female Hellsguard, going to be a White Mage and a Summoner.
And a male Dunesfolk is in the works, who will be the gunner class when it comes out. I'll also use him for crafting.

Thankfully I am not crazy enough to want to play as every clan.

And once the expansion hits, I'll be making one of Yugiri's race, too (still betting they're called the Auri). And I eventually want to get every class to 50 between all these characters.

[Grand-Rider]

Gaming for me is a form of escapism and with MMOs also an opportunity for wish fulfilment. To that end I tend to create characters that share a resemblance to myself, or at least an idealised interpretation. Especially when I roleplay.

I chose a Highlander Hyur as physically they appear more rugged and mature than their Midlander counterparts and posses features, bar the males lack of eyebrows, that better resemble my own. Fingers crossed for some male dreadlock styles to match the females.

While Highlanders can hail from just about any where the Ala Mihgans struck a cord with me. Their plight as an exiled people scattered throughout the lands yet maintaining a strong spiritual and martial tradition appealed to my own sensibilities.

I liked the idea of my character pulling themselves up by their bootstraps out of the slums of Ul'dah, overcoming social prejudices to become a world renowned adventurer and artisan.

[Crystallis91]

I respect your decisions whatever they may be and your ideas however you might want to keep in mind that all the players characters are lore wise not from Eorzea so they could pretty much be from anywhere outside the realm of Eorzea which means Ala Mhigo would not be a possible origin place for any character players create.

[Sakuraluna]

Admittedly I didn't choose miqo solely for the lore. I chose mithra in XI because I've always loved little kitties, anything to do with cats and kittens, so being a cat-person seemed fitting enough. I chose miqo because by the time I started this game I was just so used to being a cat-person that I kind of defaulted to it. I did choose Keeper based on the lore though, because it just seems to fit my personality better than Seekers do.

[Velox]

snip

This is one of those things where your "character's" story only exists to satisfy the game's need for you to be a stranger. This is so they can justify not having the NPCs recognize you and so that your character's birthplace doesn't conflict with the future story. As far as creating a backstory for your character for your own use, it actually makes more sense to ignore the game rule of "you're an outsider," especially since we know so little of the lands beyond Eorzea (and it would become incredibly confusing to make a story up of why your character left that area, only to have SE re-define that story once those areas are added to the game). Avid RPers would be really affected by something like this.

For example:
"My character was born in the year X comes from the city of Y." 2 years later we get an expansion that explains how Y was destroyed by Garlemald before year X and there was no way you could have ever been born there. Essentially your backstory becomes invalidated and has to be redesigned all over again.


On-topic, I didn't create my character based on any lore or personal preference. I simply chose one based off of the starting stat distribution.

[Crystallis91]

Well I guess we can only hope that we will learn where the Adventurer(Meaning everybody's characters) originated and how it all fits into lore for the game and potentially explain a lot about the Adventurer himself/herself and maybe after the final expansion the creators will inform us what race, clan and gender even potentially the class the Adventurer by canon is.

[Enkidoh]

Well I guess we can only hope that we will learn where the Adventurer(Meaning everybody's characters) originated and how it all fits into lore for the game and potentially explain a lot about the Adventurer himself/herself and maybe after the final expansion the creators will inform us what race, clan and gender even potentially the class the Adventurer by canon is.

Technically this chap is the 'canon character' standing for the player's character - he's appeared in every piece of propaganda and trailer for the game since version 1.0 (which that above image is from - you may notice he and his friends also appear in the banner at the top of this very forum ).

Word of god (from Ferne) stated a long time ago that not only does this Midlander and his friends symbolize the player's own character during trailers and FMV cutscenes, they actually have their own unique independent story, but whether we'll ever see them in the game is another thing. Incidentally his real name is unknown (although officially SE gave him the placeholder name 'Meteor Survivor', but he's been affectionately dubbed 'Derplander' by the community because of the silly faces he pulls, a name that has somewhat stuck. ).

Class wise he was first shown in version 1.0's opening movie starting out in Limsa Lominsa as a GLA (in version 1.0 you could start as any class in any city and were not restricted to the city of your class's Guild), then due to some Echo-travelling shenanigans he changes to ARC, then back to GLA after the Echo scene ends, and by the time of the fall of Dalamud he's trained as a MRD and upgraded to WAR, a Job that he's taken as ever since, even into the recent Heavensward expansion trailer (although he Armoury changes to DRG at the end. ).

[Shyluv]

Where was it ever confirmed that our characters aren't from Eorzea? I'm really asking cause I can't recall. The only thing I can think of is the carriage/boat ride where you're asked if it's the first time you've ever been to the starter city you chose.

Where you can choose if you've been there before. Like my character. She lived in the Black Shroud as a Red Belly, and circumstances caused her to move to Ul'dah. Where in my mind, when asked if it was her first time there, she said yes. So in a way she is an outsider.

Well, outsider isn't really an accurate word. But she wouldn't be easily recognizable.

But if I remember right, Duskwights are primarily from Eorzea because they originated from Gelmorra. And if I remember right, it was said that finding a Duskwight outside of Eorzea would be very rare. Not only outside Eorzea, but the Black Shroud, even.

To stay on topic. I was originally a Keeper of the Moon. Only because I related to them, even if only in a small way. They're nocturnal; I've struggled since middle school to have a normal sleeping schedule. The numbers in each clan is small; I only really get along with my mom and brother. Not very close with my sister. And my aunts and uncles.. I'll just summarize and say they mostly suck.

But I changed to Elezen to amuse my significant other. Only intended to stay Elezen for maybe a month. But ended up absolutely loving being an Elezen. And with time, came up with the background information I posted above.

[Enkidoh]

Often npcs off-handedly mention your character as 'foreign born', particularly the Adventurer's Guild proprietor when first mentioning the Calamity stating that your character was probably unaware of what had happened to Eorzea due to being from another country (which then gives a convenient narrative excuse to go into detail about the player's starting city and to explain about the Calamity and the Warriors of Light).

Anyway, that's enough thread derailling from me. Carry on.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Where you can choose if you've been there before. Like my character. She lived in the Black Shroud as a Red Belly, and circumstances caused her to move to Ul'dah. Where in my mind, when asked if it was her first time there, she said yes. So in a way she is an outsider.

That works. It's similar for Lyland. He's from the Ciedalaes, which is technically a part of Eorzea, but it's so far on the fringe that it's also somewhat out of the realm, in that you don't actually get to visit it in-game, except in special circumstances.

And even then, you get to see only some parts of the island chain, specifically Turtleback Island, Locke's Lie and Hullbreaker's Isle. Who's to say there aren't more of them in the archipelago? So, as far as I'm concerned, you haven't actually seen Lyland's home island yet.

As for why I'm so enamoured with playing an overseas character, it's because of the original benchmark demo for FFXIV. I was immediately smitten by a certain white cat, and I knew right away I would follow the same track once the actual game launched. I needed to know who the catgirl was.