Races born after Zodiark

[Zigkid3]

I'm trying to recall, I believe there was dialogue somewhere either in the main scenario or a side quest that referenced the birth of other non-Amaourite races.

By the gist of what I remember, after the Amourite's had created Zodiark and sacrificed half of themselves to Zodiark, the plan was to breath new life into the star and new life (other races that weren't Amaourite's like humans were born). This happened after Zodiark but before Hydaelyn was created.

I believe the Amaourite's also took it upon themselves to be the caretakers of the other newly born races, seeing them as weak since they couldn't do any creation magicks either.

Please let me know if this is correct and where i can find the dialogue for this in game. It's driving me nuts, unless I'm wrong and completely dismembered.

[MrThinker]

I'm trying to recall, I believe there was dialogue somewhere either in the main scenario or a side quest that referenced the birth of other non-Amaourite races.

By the gist of what I remember, after the Amourite's had created Zodiark and sacrificed half of themselves to Zodiark, the plan was to breath new life into the star and new life (other races that weren't Amaourite's like humans were born). This happened after Zodiark but before Hydaelyn was created.

I believe the Amaourite's also took it upon themselves to be the caretakers of the other newly born races, seeing them as weak since they couldn't do any creation magicks either.

Please let me know if this is correct and where i can find the dialogue for this in game. It's driving me nuts, unless I'm wrong and completely dismembered.

The quest you are thinking about is "A Greater Purpose", and the being who tells you this is the shade of Hythlodaeus. Also, I'm sorry this resulted in the loss of your limbs

...Yet oh how the star had suffered. So many species lost. The land was blighted, the waters poisoned, and even the wind had ceased to blow. Once more did our people give of themselves to Zodiark. Another half of our race sacrificed to cleanse the world; to ensure that trees and grasses and myriad tiny lives would sprout and grow and flourish.The cycle of life had begun anew, and we reconsidered the means by which we might protect it. The Convocation decided thus: we would nurture our world until it was bursting with vitality. Then, when the time was right, we would offer some portion of its living energy to Zodiark... In return, He would restore to us those brethren whose souls had fed His strength, and together we would resume our role as stewards.
There were, however, those who disagreed with this plan. They argued that enough had been sacrificed to Zodiark─that this new world should belong to the lives newly born.
These dissidents surrendered their life energies in the creation of Hydaelyn, an incarnation of their opposing belief. And for the first time in history, our people stood divided... Know you, then, how this conflict ended?

Note Hythlodaeus doesn't actually say anything specific about the new life, only that it existed and it was relatively 'tiny'.

Of course, the other languages may have additional details not present in the English script.

[Lurina]

I don't think they ever say "new races", but rather refer abstractly to new life, leaving it ambiguous as to if they mean sentient life, or just plants and animals. Opinion seems to be split on if some of the contemporary races are products of Zodiark's revitalization of the planet, or simply the descendants of Ancients, diminished by time and the result of the Sundering.

My guess is that the answer is probably a mix - most likely, the Hyur and Hyur-adjacent races are descendants of the Ancients, whereas beastmen (with the exception of some of the ones that retain human features, like the Anata) are some of the new life that has simply come to house sentient souls. I believe there was an interview that said that Keepers of the Moon still sometimes use names that are variants of what existed in the time of Amaurot, so at the very least, Miqo'te are almost certainly descendants.

[Eloah]

Without the actual dialogue I can't say for certain but I don't think its meant to be taken as a new "race" but just new life in general. While new sentient races are possible, I don't think the races we know of existed until Hydaelyn did her thing. The main reason I say this is because when Varis talks with us he idicated that we all use to be one "ultimate" race.

[Enkidoh]

There seems to be at least some indication (assuming Emet's reconstruction of Amaurot is accurate), that at least one current-day monster/'animal' species had origins that actually preceeded the Terminus - griffins of all things. One of the Amaurotine shades mentions how she tried creating a 'white lion' but her thoughts had been momentarily distracted by an eagle suddenly interupting her, causing the resulting creation to end up a weird winged lion/eagle hybrid. She didn't mention the word 'griffin' by name, but it was pretty clear that's actually what she was referring to.

The context of the dialogue was it was meant to show just how easily the Ancients' Creation magic could go astray, but I found it more interesting for how it seems to suggest that modern griffins came about simply because an Amaurotine's thoughts 12000 years ago got sidetracked by a bird.

It makes one wonder just what other creatures/monsters currently existing may also have similar pre-Sundering Amaourtine magical origins.

[Lurina]

There seems to be at least some indication (assuming Emet's reconstruction of Amaurot is accurate), that at least one current-day monster/'animal' species had origins that actually preceeded the Terminus - griffins of all things. One of the Amaurotine shades mentions how she tried creating a 'white lion' but her thoughts had been momentarily distracted by an eagle suddenly interupting her, causing the resulting creation to end up a weird winged lion/eagle hybrid. She didn't mention the word 'griffin' by name, but it was pretty clear that's actually what she was referring to.

The context of the dialogue was it was meant to show just how easily the Ancients' Creation magic could easily go astray, but I found it interesting for how it seems to suggest that modern griffins came about simply because an Amaurotine 12000 years previously got distracted.

It makes one wonder just what other creatures/monsters currently existing may also have similar pre-Sundering Amaourtine magical origins.

My guess would be that almost all of the surviving animals have some kind of fantastical origins, with only a handful of exceptions. There's nothing really to substantiate this, but my vague guess based on framing is that the animals that evolved alongside humanity rather than being created by either the Ancients, Zodiark, or later civilizations like the Allagans, were all probably much closer to mundane, real world creatures. If you look at the animals we find in the game that share the names of actual animals, they're often different or monstrous - like the sheep, which look like rodents, or the bears, which look have hunched backs and nightmarish appearances. My guess would be that the original "sheep" were much more like our recognizable real-world sheep, but that they were rendered extinct during the Final Days, and the Ancients ended up just applying the name to a new animal with a vaguely similar appearance.

[SannaR]

I mean we did just go and do a dungeon that was a warehouse for concepts of various things. In which the bad Ondo channeled aether into crystals that then popped out various beasts including a Cyclops. So, who knows what all they created and or kept a template for that they then stored there and I'm sure a few other places that would be shipped to a quartermaster type for those who couldn't use creation magic or weren't powerful enough in it to create what they wanted/needed.

[LineageRazor]

Without the actual dialogue I can't say for certain but I don't think its meant to be taken as a new "race" but just new life in general. While new sentient races are possible, I don't think the races we know of existed until Hydaelyn did her thing. The main reason I say this is because when Varis talks with us he idicated that we all use to be one "ultimate" race.

I think that Varis's opinions need to be taken with a grain of salt. He's clearly enthusiastic about the whole "master race" idea (and very likely pictures that original "whole race" as being distinctly Garlean), but he could be filling in blanks from whatever tidbits of knowledge the Ascians in his life gave him.

That said, as has been mentioned, none of the quest dialog is clear in stating that the "new life" Zodiark created included sapient beings, or not - and with the latest quests, we now know that the Dissenters weren't motivated by protection of that life (at least, not solely). They were concerned that the Zodiark plan was only putting off the end, not fixing it. Whether there were thinking beings among that new life or not, the goal of setting Hydaelyn to protect it was for a greater purpose.

I tend to think that the different races were created before the Sundering, though, simply because they all exist basically the same on the Source as they do on the Shards. If there was just one race (the Ancients) before the split, then there would presumably be just one race (sundered Ancients) after the split, who would then "evolve" into Sahagin, Lalafell, Hyur, Gigas, and so on - and they did so the same way on every world? It makes more sense to me to assume that all of these myriad races existed before the Sundering, and afterwards were just copied to each world.

[JeanneOrnitier]

Yeah the other sapient races had to have come before Hydaelyn's splitting, since they're on all of the Shards. It would also explain why not everyone who sees the meteor showers gets the Echo - not everyone is a sundered Ancient.