A Question I've Always Had On The Races...

[TheVigilant]

Generally speaking in the real world interspecies breeding is rare.

There are a lot of biological reason why it doesn't work very well and while some species can intermingle the resulting children are often infertile.

I would suspect the case is the same in the game.

Excuse me, while I understand the point you're trying to make, I disagree that a Hyur and a Miqo'te are like a Human and a Cat.
The only difference between the two is the ear and tail, that's it.
They are even both called "people", "person" and even "Humans" several times in the story.
Hell, they even are attracted to each other, seeing the Miqo'te female dancers in Ul'dah and Costa del Sol, attended by other races there.

[Iscah]

Excuse me, while I understand the point you're trying to make, I disagree that a Hyur and a Miqo'te are like a Human and a Cat.

They didn't say that, though.

Even in the real world, closely-related species (like the various big cats) can interbreed but the offspring are often infertile.

And as Tsumdere pointed out, there are real physical differences between the races that may not neatly combine if their bodies have different shapes, particularly ear placement (and necessary difference in the underlying skull shape) and tails.

[OranKells]

Even in the real world, closely-related species (like the various big cats) can interbreed but the offspring are often infertile.

basically

lions + tiger = ligers
horses + donkey = mule/hinny
wolf + dog = wolfdog

most of these hybrids are pretty viable but also incapable of further reproducing. While any two races might be able to have a child, there could be some genetic health issues that come up. This along with whatever racial strife exists in the lore is why you generally wouldn't want to intermingle.

[TroySoFab]

I shudder at the though of a lala-ronso.

[Iplewhelmed]

I recall reading somewhere that it was stated in an interview during HW times that all the playable races (at the time) can successfully interbreed and have viable offspring, just that it's very rare because of social taboo and because SE don't wanna make unique models. The rest seems to be headcanon or hearsay that everybody treats as canon (such as the resulting child being mostly the mother's race plus some minor trait of the father, likely due to Hilda who has a midlander hyur's body and animations like her mother but her elezen father's pointy ears).

I shudder at the though of a lala-ronso.

Just assume the lala is the father.

[TheVigilant]

basically

lions + tiger = ligers
horses + donkey = mule/hinny
wolf + dog = wolfdog

most of these hybrids are pretty viable but also incapable of further reproducing. While any two races might be able to have a child, there could be some genetic health issues that come up. This along with whatever racial strife exists in the lore is why you generally wouldn't want to intermingle.

An interesting way of thinking but unless we have proof from the game, this is merely a conjecture.
We're applying real life biology to a fantasy world without evidence from the game itself.

[OranKells]

An interesting way of thinking but unless we have proof from the game, this is merely a conjecture.
We're applying real life biology to a fantasy world without evidence from the game itself.

okay the real reason is that devs do not want to make the 40+ new character models would be needed to make each hybrid. but if you're looking for a lore reason its a combination of racial/cultural tensions and biology 101