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

[van_arn]

I’d like to file this under “things I don’t think about and prefer not to dwell on.”

All of the entities we see ingame come from the character creator. Yes, that’s it; that will do.

Hybrids cannot exist because the Maker needs to select one of the discrete races at character creation. This also means a lala and a roegadyn can usher fourth a catgirl into the world, fully-grown, from nothing.

Thank you for hearing my lore talk. Please don’t think on it too much.

[Iscah]

IIRC, it's been stated in lore that if two different races do procreate, the offspring is of the mothers race.

I'm fairly sure that's fan conjecture and not confirmed.

There's also at least one apparent counter-example in the sidequest A Jobb Well Done, where an Elezen woman sends you to deliver a package to her son, who is a Hyur – so unless he's adopted, that would disprove the "child takes the mother's race" concept.

[MikkoAkure]

IIRC, it's been stated in lore that if two different races do procreate, the offspring is of the mothers race.

This is fanon that was made up by RPers and keeps getting spread around like it's canon but there's no source for it. Hilda and Severa are both living examples of this being wrong since they have features of their fathers' race like elf ears or a 3rd eye. For Hilda, she is somewhat of a minor character and I don't think they were going to make a special body just for her. For Severa, Garleans don't have their own body model and use midlander and elezen bodies so her midlander body still works in this situation.

- We see them all the time, but most aren't identifiable at a glance. (Do note that G'raha must have some Hyur ancestry, unless I'm wrong and ancient Allagan royalty was in fact Miqo'te.)

In regards to G'raha, the princess of Allag magically gave the powers to G'raha. There was no interbreeding.


But like it was mentioned before, the real reason there aren't a lot half-races running around is the social taboo. Koji even brought up in an interview that these people have all been living in the same villages and stuff for eons but still won't mix with each other because how the culture is in Eorzea.

[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.

[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.

[Destati]

I think in the Sui-no-Sato part of the Stormblood quests there is mention of an Au Ra/Hyur hybrid who had Auri horns but little to no scales...

[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

[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.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The only confirmed hybrids we've seen in-game are Hilda and Arenvald. Hilda has a unique head model, but Arenvald just looks like a regular Highlander, with no obvious Garlean traits.