Silly question

[Kolsykol]

Tbf Au Ra horns are probably much sturdier than those silly ears

They're still attached to your face tho and they're still basically your ears.
Even if your ears were solid imagine someone slams you in the ears with a sword.

It's the same with tails it's kinda silly honestly to have them out they wouldn't last long xD.

[RobynDaBank]

Wait, what? No ears? It's hard, but if I tilt my camera all the way to my character's back and then zoom in, I can see the earrings I glamoured dangling from somewhere behind her horns. If the earrings aren't actually attached to ears... that's kind of spooky.

[Iscah]

It's hard, but if I tilt my camera all the way to my character's back and then zoom in, I can see the earrings I glamoured dangling from somewhere behind her horns.

I think you'll find that simpler earrings are directly attached to the horns. (They definitely are on my male Au Ra.) The flowers are probably placed lower so they don't clip.

But yeah. They don't have separate ears. I assume at a character design level it was to make hats fit more easily and not have to worry about horns sticking through everything so much.

Canonically they hear through the horns so it's possible that the eardrum is completely concealed under it, or maybe there's a small opening at the base that doesn't show on the character model.

Just don't think too hard about it, or how they use linkpearls. Or earplugs.


I have a mental image of my Au Ra needing a blanket wrapped around his head because he can't use earplugs when we go hunting the siren.

[Hysorn]

More than one source identifies Au'Ra as the progeny of dragons. As well as the cranial projections (horns) are how they hear and have spatial recognition.

The descendance is supposed to be in dispute in the lore, as to whether or not they actually are, which I think adds a nice touch to the story for them. It's never been confirmed nor denied really.

I remember when I began playing and before doing Heavensward I thought they were elves that got mixed up with Dragons considering the direction of the story at around the level 40 mark.

[CrunchyMilk]

Interesting. I'd love if SE added more lore content for them. I love lore. I'm a lore nerd. Yep. I've been hunting down bits and pieces of lore for all the races but sadly, Au Ra seem to have very little. Not finding much there.

[KageTokage]

Interesting. I'd love if SE added more lore content for them. I love lore. I'm a lore nerd. Yep. I've been hunting down bits and pieces of lore for all the races but sadly, Au Ra seem to have very little. Not finding much there.

The Au Ra honestly have a lot more lore then most of the races due to having their own settlements and an entire zone in the case of the Xaela, with only the Viera and Miqo'te also having much of a culture to themselves still.

That said, it would be nice to visit the homelands of other races like Aenslaent and the southern isles to get a picture of what the native Roegadyn and Lalafell culture is like. Both were mentioned in Endwalker, so I assume it's just a matter of time.

I could see one of them potentially being the locale that the trial series for Endwalker is focused on, personally.

[CrunchyMilk]

Ooh, that would be cool. Who am I kidding? I'd welcome anything for any of the races that lets us see just a little more of their cultures!

Edit* I really need to go back to those areas and quest and read more. I think I've largely missed a lot because I came from another mmo that cherishes rushing to end game so a lot of the stuff from the base game and first few expansions I "escape key'd" through before realizing I was missing the best parts of the game in doing so.

[Asari5]

there was even an official statement that they are NOT related to dragons

[Recon1o6]

Au Ra being somewhat draconic is plausible. The auri race share some traits with dragons, but the horns could be an independant genetic change. Descended from and being 100% draconic are separate. For reasons why they are draconic:

-they have a minor version of the adaptation trait dragons have when growing up (at certain stages of their lives, dragons in ff14 change shape and size depending on their life and nearby crystals)
Sui no sato and a tribe in the steppe can explicitly survive underwater far longer than is normal
A northern glacier tribe, the Aogurs have a unique skin tone explicitly caused by the nearby glaciers and the refracted light from them
the quiil tribe also communicate through song and melody for similar reasons dragons do- to attach emotion to meaning

-On the first, Au ra are known as Drahn. Drahn means dragon in dragonspeak
-There are the falak or serpent like dragons at the bottom of the tempest on the first. There's the hydra dragons in the world of darkness which is the 13th.
-One of the gwibers explicitly states it was an attempt to recreate dragons. Given Vrtra confirms that the shards had been split before Middy arrived on the source, this means at least some dragons found their way to the first before the flood of light.
-Ratatoskr was "A wanderer and bearer of dragon's songs" and has been implied to have gone to the furthest reaches of the skies to bring messages between her kin. Given the above its not unfounded that she found a way to the other shards at some point. Nearly all au ra are nomadic or at least have a sense of wanderlust. Dragon broods do take after their lineage fairly strongly and unlike other migratory tribes that are slowly stopping like the miqote, the auri are still going.
-Au ra have no set age or maturity rate (the statement about races not mentioned living like hyurs was made before the auri race) So do dragons

[Mirhd]

Au Ra being somewhat draconic is plausible. The auri race share some traits with dragons, but the horns could be an independant genetic change. Descended from and being 100% draconic are separate. For reasons why they are draconic:

-they have a minor version of the adaptation trait dragons have when growing up (at certain stages of their lives, dragons in ff14 change shape and size depending on their life and nearby crystals)
Sui no sato and a tribe in the steppe can explicitly survive underwater far longer than is normal
A northern glacier tribe, the Aogurs have a unique skin tone explicitly caused by the nearby glaciers and the refracted light from them
the quiil tribe also communicate through song and melody for similar reasons dragons do- to attach emotion to meaning

-On the first, Au ra are known as Drahn. Drahn means dragon in dragonspeak
-There are the falak or serpent like dragons at the bottom of the tempest on the first. There's the hydra dragons in the world of darkness which is the 13th.
-One of the gwibers explicitly states it was an attempt to recreate dragons. Given Vrtra confirms that the shards had been split before Middy arrived on the source, this means at least some dragons found their way to the first before the flood of light.
-Ratatoskr was "A wanderer and bearer of dragon's songs" and has been implied to have gone to the furthest reaches of the skies to bring messages between her kin. Given the above its not unfounded that she found a way to the other shards at some point. Nearly all au ra are nomadic or at least have a sense of wanderlust. Dragon broods do take after their lineage fairly strongly and unlike other migratory tribes that are slowly stopping like the miqote, the auri are still going.
-Au ra have no set age or maturity rate (the statement about races not mentioned living like hyurs was made before the auri race) So do dragons

Pretty much everything you stated is often why people mistake them for having draconic ancestry in the first place. Still doesn't mean Au Ra (or anything with similar traits) = dragons. Au Ra existed on the Source before Middy ever showed up and official sources (doesn't get more official than the game itself) are pretty clear that they have nothing to do with each other. The game also makes it quite clear that dragons are from another planet; hell, we visit a partial memory of that planet in Endwalker. For Au Ra to be descended from dragons the devs would need to throw lore out the window.

EDIT: I don't recall that group of Au Ra in the Ruby Sea being stated anywhere to have some super natural ability to breathe under water...? What does that even have to do with dragons, given that's not something associated with them, really? I could be forgetting something (insert insomnia complaint here), but even discounting that, we, the player, gain the ability to breath under water via a blessing from the Kojin, so it's not unheard of. Also, the "Drahn" thing is very likely meant as a joke, not some definitive confirmation.

EDIT again, don't post when low on sleep, you fool!: I doubt any of Middys' kids can traverse the Rift (space) as he can, probably relating to his extreme age and how the older the dragon= the stronger they get. The game goes out of its way to remind you how powerful he is (was) yet tells you traveling through space taxed him severely, and he's never quite been the same. Not enough time to recover, I suppose. Each time we've seen/heard of him, it's about him waking after a long sleep to do some stuff (fight off the Garleans at Silvertear, for example), then immediately return to sleep to restore himself... none of his children seem capable of the same feat (Middy has "died" how many times, now?), so again, I doubt they can travel through space.