Lore question in regards to the race of Eorzea

[Moogly900]

Hello

I want to ask in regards to the races of Eorzea? According to this guy/gal, the races are simply mainly different races of Humans or something which..I find it really confusing.

This gets asked a lot and I've answered it a lot, too. So don't mind me just shortening it to the bullet points. A lot of this stuff was answered on the official forums and by Koji Fox during early Dev Lore Panels a number of years back and is amended to include additional details provided in-game.

They can crossbreed.
Lalafells and Roegs are different branches of the same immediate "human" species of FFXIV (so you might consider it equivalent to European descent versus Asian descent yet still all being Homo sapiens sapiens). Keep in mind that racial Garleans are their own separate branch of the Lalafell/Roeg/Hyur/Etc. racial lines as well--the actual army is a conscript army of conquered lands and only people like Zenos, Cid, or Nero represent the racial Garleans. That all said, successful crossbreeding in general is apparently rare.

It's generally a bit of a social taboo to engage in mixed breeding so it isn't common.
Though obviously nobody seems to give a damn about sexual relationships, it's actually having children that society at large gets a bit iffy about the matter.

The mother dictates the primary physiology of the child.
Prevents the Aliens chest bursting issue for the smaller races mixing with a larger race.

The father affects secondary characteristics.
So in the case of an Au Ra mother/Hyur father (example provided in-game), the children were all Au Ra in overall physiology but featured unusually sparse scale density and I believe also shorter tails compared to full Au Ra.

True hybrids are exceptionally rare.
The only known example in-game is Hilda in Ishgard that is a true Hyur/Elezen hybrid rather than being a Hyur with minor Elezen characteristics or Elezen with minor Hyur characteristics. Otherwise you'd normally get an Elezen featuring short ears and relatively short stature or a Hyur that was relatively tall with maybe oversized ears or longer limbs or something.

And regards to #5 especially, given the hilariously massive amount of...intermingling between Hyurs and Elezen in Ishgard, Hilda is basically something that just doesn't happen. She's such a rarity that in the plot she's even identified specifically by the fact that she's a hybrid and not merely one-or-the-other exhibiting a few traits. Hilda the Mongrel, as it were.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...erent_species/

What does that even mean? I thought that the Hyur were the actual Humans in a different name while the other non-Hyur races were simply demi-Human species that looked pretty human apart from certain features.

Thanks.

[Jeeqbit]

It's really just like real life. We (us and our pets) all come from the same species, if you go back far enough.

[Enkidoh]

As above, the 'races' are basically all humanoid and yes, that just means 'human, but different'. It is also canon that the various races can interbreed, but that children born from such mixed-race unions are very rare (Hilda in the Heavensward expansion being a particularly well-known hyur/elezen example).

Also, a possible origin of the races and the implications of how human-like they are is kind of touched on in the most recent Shadowbringers expansion, but that is a big spoiler so I won't say anything more.

[Moogly900]

It's really just like real life. We (us and our pets) all come from the same species, if you go back far enough.

Basically, common ancestry, right? I mean, I think that the term, man, and etc in FFXIV is simply just a political designation to differentiate themselves from the "beastmen" which in itself is also a discriminatory social construct to differentiate from the Spoken or Men.

[Moogly900]

As above, the 'races' are basically all humanoid and yes, that just means 'human, but different'. It is also canon that the various races can interbreed, but that children born from such mixed-race unions are very rare (Hilda in the Heavensward expansion being a particularly well-known hyur/elezen example).

Also, a possible origin of the races and the implications of how human-like they are is kind of touched on in the most recent Shadowbringers expansion, but that is a big spoiler so I won't say anything more.

The term, Humanoid, is basically Human in appearance since the suffix -oid is Greek for appearance or shape. Different species can interbreed in real life, and in fantasy games like Warcraft, Humans and Orcs for example can interbreed despite being two separate species which the latter is an alien species from another planet, Draenor.

[Rongway]

It's really just like real life. We (us and our pets) all come from the same species, if you go back far enough.

It is like real life but that isn't why.

It's not about ancestry but about speciation now. A more relevant real life example is how all domestic dogs, regardless of breed, and wolves, are the same species. Likewise, many cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, kale, brussels sprouts, etc) are the same species. In both cases there are vast differences between the various breeds or cultivars.

[Enkidoh]

The term, Humanoid, is basically Human in appearance since the suffix -oid is Greek for appearance or shape. Different species can interbreed in real life, and in fantasy games like Warcraft, Humans and Orcs for example can interbreed despite being two separate species which the latter is an alien species from another planet, Draenor.

Although you are right about this being a fantasy game so such niceties as the complexties of genetics need not apply (there is after all a nice handy hint in the game's main title! ), SE do pride themselves on at least trying to make the lore believable, and that includes racial crossbreeding being uncommon. On this note, I forgot to add a citation in my previous post about the playable races' ability to interbreed where Michael-Christopher Koji Fox, aka 'Fernewahles', one of the game's writers and world lore creators (and head of localization) explained about this on the old FFXIV 1.0 forum (ten years ago as it turns out!), which can be found on the 1.0 forum archive here, but I've copied and pasted the revelant info below:

Can different races crossbreed?

Answer: Yes, but it is rare...and often difficult due to cultural differences, etc. which is why you don't see it often. The lore team has informed me that there will be future quests/events that touch on this and other issues, such as love and marriage.

We've seen this a few times throughout FFXIV with a number of crossbreed NPCs, and lets just say their lives and pasts are not pleasant due to being considered pariahs in their societies (Hilda and her hyur mother (a chambermaid) were thrown out into the street by her father, an Ishgardian elezen noble when his infidelity with her became knowledge due to Hilda's birth, and Arenvald's mother, also a hyur who was raped by a Garlean centurion, disfigured his face thinking a pimple that was growing in the centre of his forehead was a Garlean third eye (which is why he tattooed his face with a big white cross to try and hide the scar). And there is a story about a past (and long dead) Ruby Princess of Sui-no-Sato who was part au ra, part hyur who lacked scales). So it is definetely possible, but due to cultural (read: xenophobic and racist) reasons, this is a very rare event.

As I mentioned previously, there is sort of an explanation about why there are all these different 'races' that are technically all genetically similar and basically considered 'human like', but I won't spoil that, as it's part of ShB's story (and there are still a few missing aspects that just breed more questions than what they answer).

[Moogly900]

....

I know myself since I've reached to that point in the story in my other character who is the highest, so yeah. The ability to cross breed or whatever can be seen in seperate species in the wild with dromedaries and bactrian camels, and the latter with the wild species of Bactrians(they're separate species). For me personally, they're not like dog breeds because these breeds were created by us via artificial selection in contrast to natural selection in the wild. For me, the reason why perhaps all sentient species can inter-mix is simply because they all share common ancestry from a certain people and event in the expansion which you're right on that.

As I said before, the term, Humanoid, doesn't mean "human, but different" but rather means human in appearance or form hence the term, Demi-human, comes in.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DemiHuman