Magical change of appearance in the lore

[shadowclasper]

Don't we run into the zombies at least once outside Hildebrand quests? And I know zombies are a real mob because that's what screwed over sil'dih. That said, I don't think the core of your theory is entirely unsound. Plus when we run into the ishgaddian inspector he is at first terrified that the ridiculousness of Hildy will be following us so at least some level of him doing this crazy shit happens.

Also just gonna point out, quite a bit of what Hildebrand and other characters in there do is copied elsewhere in a less silky format

Dragoon quests
Warrior quests
Ninja quests

All of them have massive insane physics defying feats involved cause aether is a hell of a drug!