Would still like to know how mankind deviated into so many different variants

[Rulakir]

Varis may be a biased source given he got his information from Emet and possibly Elidibus, both of whom refer to mankind after the sundering as "malformed creatures", but it's still all I've found in game about it thus far.

[Lauront]

Varis may be a biased source given he got his information from Emet and possibly Elidibus, both of whom refer to mankind after the sundering as "malformed creatures", but it's still all I've found in game about it thus far.

Good spot. At this point I've little reason to doubt their testimony on the matter (although I would suspect the "malformed" thing also refers to the state of the soul, which Emet at the very least could directly see, as well as their physical state.) I do wonder if they'll ever come back to this but it does strongly hint at it being a side-effect of the sundering.

[KageTokage]

I also took the unsundered's repeated claims of us being "malformed" as a suggestion that the races of man were born directly from the sundered ancients.

It does raise the question of why the other lifeforms in the world seem unchanged post-sundering, though.

[Shuuli]

The creatures that were on Elpis were on "testing" phase. That does not mean that there were no other creatures that were already released. This would assume the Ancients created majority of the creatures that are beasts or part of a beast tribe.

How our playable races deviated is a good question and is never explained. Might be a sundering side effect.

[SannaR]

Some how I just figured the modern races were the lifeforms Zodiark spat out after the 2nd summoning. Since it's fairly clear from what the side story, shade Hythlodaeus and a memory crystal say that it wasn't Ancients. Course if what a Meteion says about how planetary lifestreams work is true that new life could also be what would have been alien life. As they state that if a planet's lifestream stops functioning due to the planet dying or has died that all the souls drift over to the next biggest pool.

[Enkidoh]

Well, it's not an actual confirmation, but a sidequest in Elpis hints strongly that at least one modern-day race was a pre-Sundering creation by the Ancients suprisingly (or not), the matanga/arkasodara (the quest is 'Terror on Two Legs', where you have to track down a creation that has gone berserk, and it turns out it's a small matanga. The end of the quest states that it seemed to be highly intelligent and that the researchers were considering giving it the power of speech accordingly).

So, assuming that creation was the origin of the matanga/arkasodara, then, potentially, all sentient races could potentially be. But again that's just assumptions on my part.

[YukikoKurosawa]

Supposedly Hydaelyn's sundering killed every single remaining Ancient, along with splitting their souls. They would then be reincarnated into various different races, presumably by her will. How, it's never explained. Something something creation magics. It's sort of dissapointing in a way, as it destroys any theories about the origins of certain races like Au'ra, we now know for certain they're not dragons (couldn't be since dragons are aliens) or demons, they're just giant humans sundered and reincarnated into dragon-girls. Even the beast tribes are reincarnated ancients based on the fact that the Sahagin priest from post-ARR had the echo. Well except for certain artificial ones like the Ixal which were created by the allagans, hence why they don't show up on the First.

[KageTokage]

Supposedly Hydaelyn's sundering killed every single remaining Ancient, along with splitting their souls. They would then be reincarnated into various different races, presumably by her will. How, it's never explained. Something something creation magics. It's sort of dissapointing in a way, as it destroys any theories about the origins of certain races like Au'ra, we now know for certain they're not dragons (couldn't be since dragons are aliens) or demons, they're just giant humans sundered and reincarnated into dragon-girls. Even the beast tribes are reincarnated ancients based on the fact that the Sahagin priest from post-ARR had the echo. Well except for certain artificial ones like the Ixal which were created by the allagans, hence why they don't show up on the First.

There's nothing to really suggest the people of Etheriys died in a literal sense; particularly when Emet-Selch's convocation stone recorded him commenting on the immediate aftermath of the sundering and how the former Ancients had been degraded into "malformed creatures".

This initial batch of sundered also still possessed fractured memories of the original world that would go on to become myths and legends that carry on into the present, which presumably includes the Twelve and myriad other gods like Azim and Nhaama due to feats that were once considered commonplace now being something beyond the realm of mortals.

Even if all the races share a common origin, learning more about their histories and how they eventually ended up where/how they are today would be interesting in its own right.

[Lieri]

When Hydaelyn sundered the world. She did multiple spells. During the first cast, she was thinking about cats, therefore miqote. The second, lizzer therefore AuRa and so on and so forth... as for the final one, she accidentally saw popoto chips on a plate, therefore Lalafell.

[Ayche]

Evolution.