Ivalician Moogles As A Playable Race - A Mogifesto

[Mahrze]

Pretty much this. The devs did consider a beast-like race from the concept art, but since some of the anatomy was very different to humans (skull shape and feet in particular) they probably just toned them down to humans to save time on making gear.

Or one particular image on how the females were thought of:


I am particularly fond of the one on the right.

Edit: I am not in the intent of derailing the topic, but in general, I do believe they will keep it "safe" on races and the closest thing to a "more feral" race consideration has been the Viera, and I am not to keen on that one.

/derailingrant

[Ametrine]

Well, the Au Ra were meant to both appeal to the biggest demographics of players possible, yet still be reasonable to implement.

If we got the concepts above, we may be grasping for a cutesy option as they may have just become "scaly Highlander/Roe girls" instead of "scaley Miqo'te/Midlander girls." (And we got players claiming Viera would be like Elezen with rabbit ears.)



Back on topic, "Allagans did it," seems too reasonbly on point for an explanation behind a set of altered Moogles, lol.

[Comito]

I agree with this suggestion wholeheartedly. Variety is something we desperately need.

[Corue]

It's been a while since I made a post to this thread, but I thought I'd bump it since I made some changes to the OP.

Sandpoms have now been renamed to Outpoms, a clan of Moogles who prefer to live far away from civilizations in Ivalice. This was due to the fact that just living in deserts sounded very limited to character development and it sounded far too similar to Dunesfolk Lalafells.

I also realised a little late that I didn't actually submit an actual idea for a naming convention, so here's something I worked on.

(Note: While I tried my best to come up with a naming system that emulated the names of the Ivalice moogles, I had to take some creative liberties for them. There aren't many Moogles with set names and the majority of playable moogles in the Tactics series have randomised names shared with other races. None of them have any surnames either. I can't really use the classic Moogle naming system either because the Moghome and Twelveswood moogles use them already. Since the Ivalice moogles have a drastically different design to traditional moogles, it's fitting for them to have a drastically different naming system too.)

Citymogs

(Note: This system was based on the majority of non-randomised Moogle names I could find. I formulated what I believe is a logical naming convention based on the names. The only exceptions to this seem to be Zupp and Montblanc. The list of names can be found here. )

Zupp
Peshe
Padi
Nware
Pane
Nutsy
Ingu
Lini
Sorbet
Horne
Hurdy
Gurdy
Montblanc
Nono
Reaker

First names are typically two syllables. Each syllable is between two or three letters long, although there can be exceptions.
By pure coincidence these names can resemble words you'd find in an Eorzean dictionary. Although they do not mean anything, some Moogles treat them like indicators of their future vocation.
Female names have been known to end with; -i, -a or -y.
Male names normally end with; -o, -u, -e or -y.
Sometimes names can end with consonants. In which case they are preceded by a vowel associated with the gender.

Surnames are merely a Moogle's current vocation, or their future aspirations. If a Moogle is practicing magic they'll use the name of the type of magic they study.
This comes from the days before documentation where Moogles would write their vocations by their name to advertise themselves and over time the names stuck. Surnames are only used when a Moogle is referring to themselves and very rarely are they brought up in casual conversation.

Full names aren't said in one breath. There is a slight pause before the surname, like how someone would introduce themselves in a roll call.

Examples of names:

Arque Machinist
Picco Freelancer
Kupo Knight
Parfait Culinarian
Hurdy Minstrel
Poma Black

Outpoms

(Note: This one since there were only three Moogles I could find who used three syllable names (Pillika, Popocho and Pirillo). I originally intended male names to start with Po- and female names to start with Pi- but I felt this would make coming up with names far too limited. Instead I opted for something that would continue the three syllable pattern but would provide some variety and also a way to tell the genders apart.)

Outpom names are short but are a little more complicated than Citymog names. First names are three syllables, while surnames differ depending on circumstance.

Outpom names are divided into three sections. For example:

Ri|pocho | Germinas

The first syllable, in this case "Ri-", denotes the family. All moogles in a family will have names that start with this syllable. The syllable is inherited from the second syllable of the father's name and everyone in the immediate family will use this. (i.e. If Kahponron started a family he'd become Ponponron and his spouse and children's names would start with Pon-) While often the name comes from the father it isn't unheard of for the name to come from the mother.

The next two syllables, "-pocho" here, will be the name unique to the Moogle. All syllables are either two or three letters long, start with a consonant and end with either a vowel or a consonant depending on gender. Male names end with consonants while female names end with vowels. Female syllables can end with a "-h" since it's not pronounced.

The surname is drawn from the location a Moogle currently lives in. The Moogle in the example would hail from Mt. Germinas. Locations can be as specific as regions or as broad as countries. If a location name contains two or more words it will either be reduced to its key name (La Noscea -> Noscea) or, if that isn't possible, the first and last syllables are combined (Central Highlands -> Celands).

Moogles are formally referred to by their full first name but are otherwise referred to as the latter two syllables in more casual discussions. (i.e. Kupoto's friends will refer to her as Poto.)
Outpoms never refer to each other by their full name-- the surname is merely used to adhere to the standards of the outside world. Should they have to use their surname it's usually in writing.

Some examples of names:

Rabrabbon Ruby
Tadrenkot Salikawood
Kupochi Giza
Kuharret Giza
Mumuji Nelveska
Mogtaba Noscea
Rohseti Soshroud

[KisaiTenshi]

Well, the Au Ra were meant to both appeal to the biggest demographics of players possible, yet still be reasonable to implement.

If we got the concepts above, we may be grasping for a cutesy option as they may have just become "scaly Highlander/Roe girls" instead of "scaley Miqo'te/Midlander girls." (And we got players claiming Viera would be like Elezen with rabbit ears.)



Back on topic, "Allagans did it," seems too reasonbly on point for an explanation behind a set of altered Moogles, lol.

Given what the production art suggests, the dev team probably couldn't figure out a way to do the feet for a "bunny-girl" type of race, and went with the Au ra concept instead.

If we let the developers cut as many corners as possible, they would actually just recycle the elezen gear models and change the head gear. The problem is that the Viera actually have a different foot shape and way of moving because of it. Even if the devs wanted to redesign 200 pieces of foot gear for them, that still leaves the problem of the player rig being different, thus the gear wouldn't work properly when animated.

Like, I totally get why we haven't seen any additional races, and this also presents the same kind of problem with adding any playable race that has different shaped heads or feet. All the other "races" in the game are a single model with no gear.

For "moogles" of any sort, would require repurposing the potato-lalafell models, and I just don't see that working as well as others do.

[Okamimaru]

Remove pom and wings and make them the male viera...

[Shouko]

Nothing against cute races but we have enough on game. All our races looks cute and not badass. If I wanna a beast race I wanna something aggresive and intimidaiting, like the daemons (demons) from FF XV or something similar to Ifrit. We already have Podt with infernal theme and Hells Lid. Sorry but if the au ra are our demons or succubus/incubus race, we are doing it wrong!

Au Ra are draconic, aka based on dragons not demons. The reason they don't do something like your pic is because it would be a nightmare to put gear on, remember it has to fit into lore and be able to design gear for and utilize old gear and I suspect that's way beyond the scope of what they would want to do for this game.

[AlphaSonic]

Au Ra are draconic, aka based on dragons not demons. The reason they don't do something like your pic is because it would be a nightmare to put gear on, remember it has to fit into lore and be able to design gear for and utilize old gear and I suspect that's way beyond the scope of what they would want to do for this game.

Au'ra aren't based on dragons though. A developer said that they are based more on demons rather than dragons. In the lore they even explain that being descendants of dragons is a discarded theory.

[Shouko]

Au'ra aren't based on dragons though. A developer said that they are based more on demons rather than dragons. In the lore they even explain that being descendants of dragons is a discarded theory.

The curved horns and beautifully patterned scales that characterize the Au Ra often give rise to speculation that this Hyur-like race native to the Far Eastern continent of Othard are, in fact, the progeny of dragons. This has long been disputed, with scholars citing several distinct differences as evidence of decidedly dissimilar roots—the foremost being the enhanced hearing and spatial recognition granted by an Au Ra's cranial projections (traits not attributed to draconian horns), and the second being the gross disproportion of body mass between Auri males and females (again, a trait widely unseen in dragons).

Not sure where the devs said they were demon based as I can't find anything going off it

[Coombah]

I would love to see both Viera and these moogles added. Great work