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

[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.

[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.

[Kakurady]

The Hyur are also omnipresent across the entire planet in a way the other races are not, including in the New World, which seems to indicate them previously having been the dominant species of the world. Though, that's of course a post-hoc justification. The real reason is that they're fantasy humans, and making fantasy humans the generic race that's everywhere is just a thing writers do.

Lore implies Hyurs (like real-world humans) are just really good at long-distance migrating.

In the character creation screen, it says Elezens regard themselves as native to Eorzea, while Hyur are said to have migrated to it from surrounding areas.

Of course, that having happened several eras ago, no-one in universe or out would know how reliable that is.

[Lurina]

Lore implies Hyurs (like real-world humans) are just really good at long-distance migrating.

In the character creation screen, it says Elezens regard themselves as native to Eorzea, while Hyur are said to have migrated to it from surrounding areas.

Of course, that having happened several eras ago, no-one in universe or out would know how reliable that is.

Despite the Elezen's outlook, Encylopedia Eorzea says that Hyur have been present on Eorzea since before the First Astral Era.

[MikkoAkure]

Despite the Elezen's outlook, Encylopedia Eorzea says that Hyur have been present on Eorzea since before the First Astral Era.

Yes and no. Hyur obviously lived on Eorzea in previous eras. But after the 6th Calamity the Elezen were first to repopulate Eorzea, followed by the Hyur. The Eorzea Encyclopedia says that the Hyur immigrated to Eorzea in 3 waves, the first one was over 300 years into the 6th Astral Era and was what led to a large group of Elezen leaving the Shroud and creating Ishgard.

In the original 1.0 lore before Yoshi-P, there were no eras and Elezen were always the original natives of Eorzea so they had to reconcile the old lore with "everyone leaves but then they come back because Eorzea has a lot of aether".

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Ayche]

Evolution.