Question about Horns / Antlers

[BunnyBois]

Is there any basis in the lore of XIV or other FF titles that would explain someone horns/antlers other than being a Padjaali or some kind of Voidsent? I'm big on nature themes but Padjaali don't really appeal to me so I was curious.

Thanks!

[Cleretic]

I'm assuming we're leaving out au ra, and if we are, then the only existing example is the edge case of succubi; they aren't actually 'people with horns', but are sort of deliberately supposed to look like they are.

Other than that, nothing, but there's plenty of room for you to make up your own, and a handful of horn headpieces to help you, although not a great amount. I'd ask you to question, for your own sake, why the padjali don't appeal but horns and nature themes do, becuase they're really your only canon option and you seem to have rejected them very nebulously, but if you just want to make up your own Dude With Antlers there's nothing stopping you.

[Zero-ELEC]

Other Final Fantasy species with horns include the gria, a species of dragon-like humanoids (kinda like au ra with wings), FFX's ronso (unlike the hrothgar of the Source and ronso of the First, these are always shown with a single horn), and FFIX summoners (basically humans with single horns that are capable of summoning). Yukes often have horns but they're.... less humanoid, being metalic and bird-like (and maybe incorporeal? I remember that concept changing a bit as the Crystal Chronicles games went by).

[Anonymoose]

Is there any basis in the lore of XIV or other FF titles that would explain someone horns/antlers other than being a Padjaali or some kind of Voidsent?

It depends on how far you're willing to traverse into the "you can't prove a negative" / "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" of the lore, imho.

Roleplayers often operate in that gray area; inventing things that don't exist yet but haven't been conceptually ruled out, either - even if they might or might not later be proven unfeasible. If an entire race of the player species can have horns naturally (Au Ra), and a powerful third-party aetherial/magickal effect can grant horns artificially (Padjal), and we've seen profoundly tempered individuals end up with traits found in the surrounding fauna, there's arguably plenty of room to make something up if you're willing to lore-bend. Another powerful third party, Allagan genetic technology, lost alchemical and/or thaumaturlogical experiments...



Incidentally, between the melanion genus (e.g. coeurlregina) and the upcoming trip to the rough analogue of the the Americas, it might be an auspicious time to explore adding adding some broad, palmate antlers to the horn-mimicking headpieces in the game.
I'm sure someone would wear them.

[JepMZ]

You could hail from an ancient tribe of auspice of deers, and you shapeshift into a human with antlers, and you can base their culture around whatever existing deer culture there is. For example, if your basing it on fairy tale, the tribe of deers could have made their own kingdom somewhere and you're a princess or prince, or base on this deer from the one in Buddhism

[BunnyBois]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Plenty here to chew one.

why the padjali don't appeal but horns and nature themes do, becuase they're really your only canon option and you seem to have rejected them very nebulously,

Mainly that they largely seem to remain in a child-like state. The only exception to that seems to be Kan-E-Senna, to a certain degree, but if my memory of the White Mage quests holds up E-Sumi-Yan is older than she is and he's squarely stuck looking like he stopped aging at 12.

[Anonymoose]

The only exception to that seems to be Kan-E-Senna, to a certain degree

Heck, even Kan-E still looks like a tween, imo. Her hair / make-up / clothing patterns are deliberate choices to appear older and be taken more seriously by others, but if you know that and really take a close look, still looks like a kid at a beauty pageant, lol.

[MistakeNot]

Mainly that they largely seem to remain in a child-like state. The only exception to that seems to be Kan-E-Senna, to a certain degree, but if my memory of the White Mage quests holds up E-Sumi-Yan is older than she is and he's squarely stuck looking like he stopped aging at 12.

He is much, much older. Kan-E-Senna is 28 at the start of the game while E-Sumi-Yan is a bit over 200 years old.

[Denishia]

Still grumbling about the missed opportunity for the jackalope joke with Male Vieras and how much I want one antler headpiece and one M!Viera NPC in North Tural wearing it.

[MikkoAkure]

I still feel like Au Ra were originally supposed to have normal horns and ears like the concept art we’ve seen before of them and how similar to oni the Raen are (Japanese aesthetic, live in the mountains, fight all the time). My theory is that the devs ended up giving them the dumb horn-ears because they couldn’t figure out how to get hats and helmets to work with horns.