ansemaru

Don't play an Ishgardian, but two (possibly three) members of Lansquenet are from Coerthas. The two Elezen who are- Drividot and Darwyn- are pretty open about it, at least in discussions with other members of the free company. The third individual has only hinted at it ICly- she's not Elezen or Hyur, so I believe that plays a part in why she doesn't particularly want to talk about her homeland.

There are a couple other male Miqo'te NPCs, for the record- there's a fairly minor Seeker named A'aba Tia who can be found in the Waking Sands prior to the Titan boss fight, as well as the ACN guildmaster. Other than them, though, the only male Miqo'te NPCs that do show up are G'raha and the three Seekers of the U tribe- unless, of course, you count the Coeurlclaw King from the Quarrymill region FATEs. (Minor though he is, he's the only example of a male Keeper of the Moon who actually shows up as any type of NPC.)

Just a small update: I'll be adding more screenshots to the gallery in the near future, this time from the CNJ/WHM questline and the story/side quests from Buscarron's Druthers and Quarrymill. They may provide some interesting data and clarification on earlier observations.

If you think either of my characters would be of use (Ahlek'zi or Aumeric), just let me know. Ahlek is a conjurer, and Aumeric is a summoner, if it helps.

I'd similarly prefer it not to be a fusion system, given the obvious sacrifices necessary. One of the great things about FFXIV is just how many sets of equipment you can have on you, and there are a lot of different ones that both look cool and fulfill roles for RPing- so something like a fixed vanity slot or other system that doesn't destroy one of the items involved would be really nice!

Is there a source on it being an item fusion system as opposed to something else? Since this is a speculation thread, I'm taking everything with a grain of salt, but you saying that makes me wonder if there is somewhere you're getting that information from.

If I'm not totally mistaken, I think Aumeric passed her having some kind of confrontation with a couple of Miqo'tes and a "random mercenary" in Ul'dah recently, but he got chased off pretty quickly. He might remember her from the time at the Bismarck, but Ahlek'zi is definitely more aware of her connection to Erik.

It's nice to get official word on what's going on with him IC/OOC- I had a recent IC encounter where he more or less told one of my characters what was going to happen shortly before his character died, but my other character, who has also interacted with him, is as of yet unaware IC of his passing. (If you've any interest in it, it might be nice to play out a scene related to that IC if we ever run into each other in-game!) I appreciate you coming on here to let us know that he's going to be busy, though. Hopefully all of the irl business will go well enough for him, and we'll soon be able to see him again IC.

Interesting. If I see you around (with either of my characters), we may have some plot threads to follow up on!

We'll think of something for you lovebirds, too, worry not.

Oh, and just as a clarification: those attending should feel free to bring a significant other of their own! Your character being married or in a relationship is no obstacle to attending, but it does mean you can skip actually being paired off with another audience member. And heck, even if your BLM just wants to go along with their good friend CUL who they'd never want to actually date in a million years, we won't judge! But on the same token, you can definitely expect to have some fun times if you come alone.

And I have also made an Imgur album for the information gathered on Primals. It's unfortunately less extensive, thanks to there being far fewer readily accessible examples of dialogue available for a postgame player. Hopefully, I will be able to add to it upon secondary playthroughs with alternate characters. Primal Research on Imgur. Also contains some additional information on beast tribes gathered, which may be of interest.

Alright, I've made an imgur album for the results of the Gridanian Cultural Census. I'll be uploading a second album for my information about Primals shortly, and linking it in a second comment. The Great Gridanian Cultural Census on Imgur The formatting is not perfect, thanks to a couple of awkward transitions, but the images are roughly grouped by theme rather than by order in which they were taken. Starting at this image are screencaps related to life in the Twelveswood and how the elementals and the monopoly the hearers/conjurers have on interpreting them have impacted how life is lived and how people behave. Starting at this image are screencaps related to Gridanians/forestborn showing prejudice or distrust towards outsiders, specific races, clans, and species. Includes a series of screencaps pertaining towards Duskwights being implied as criminal and/or decadent. Starting from this image are a series of screencaps indicating the Gridanian sense of pride and self-righteousness in their actions. Starting from this screencap are a series of images pertaining to the current state of the Twelveswood and elementals. Starting from this screencap are a series of images pertaining to individuals or groups with more moderate or alternative attitudes towards life in the Twelveswood, or depending on how you look at it, individuals that indicate the good in Gridanian culture.

If it isn't a problem to you, it isn't a problem to you. But if I find out someone's OOC beliefs clash with mine in a way that could be a serious problem, I'm going to have trouble being friends with them or rping with them. It's better in the long run to go "sorry, I don't really want to RP" than to get dragged into a long-term friendship with someone who disagrees with you on fundamental things or even has beliefs that invalidate important parts of your life. If I never find out, I never find out. And I'm absolutely not telling anybody how they should pick their RP partners.

RPing is an activity I do for fun, out of a sense of camaraderie with others. If I have reason to believe that a person I'm RPing with fundamentally disagrees with something that important to me OOC, it's going to permanently impact my opinion of them and make it harder for me as a person to enjoy RPing with them. As much as I believe in the IC/OOC divide and tolerating other people, knowing such things is going to ultimately color my perspective on a person. And there are some things I draw the line at. I know not everyone I RP with is going to agree with me on everything. And there are a lot of things I can, in fact, agree to disagree about. But if someone outright states that they don't agree with the theory of evolution, I'm not going to be able to see them as a friend and I'm not going to enjoy them as a roleplaying partner. I have to draw the line somewhere, and I'm fully aware that it may make me unappealing to other people, just as they may be unappealing to me. Ultimately, it's the trade I make. Like, ultimately? If I'm never going to interact with a person OOC anyway, you're right. Their beliefs don't matter. But they do matter a great deal the moment we step out of character to talk as friends or equals, and the moment we try to plan anything more than spontaneous IC interaction.

I dunno about you, but I wouldn't want to RP with someone who didn't believe in evolution, point blank. I could tolerate them believing that it doesn't exist in Hydaelyn/exists in Hydaelyn in a fashion that is distinct from how it works in the real world, but if they don't believe in it in general, it's a rock-solid sticking point for me. It's all well and good to say "everyone's headcanon is valid", but that's a thing that goes beyond headcanon.

It can. But it's extremely common for developers/storytellers/authors to gloss over that and ignore that particular aspect of biology. Not going to lie, it's a massive pet peeve of mine. Unless it's directly stated in lore, a bunch of sentient species don't just pop out of the aether fully formed, and as long as they have DNA, they still ought to be beholden to at least some version of how genetics and evolution work. God, I wish I didn't love fantasy so much. In my heart of hearts I want things to operate like science fiction. But fantasy tropes and design. Ugh.

Seconding "but magic" as kind of a cop-out. A well-constructed fantasy universe can contain magic but still have magic operate on internally consistent rules about what it can and cannot do and what it does and does not change from the real world. And there must be something said for internally consistent laws of reality. Physics and chemistry, after all, work similarly enough to reality in Hydaelyn. Why can't biology operate on internally consistent rules as well, magic or no?

Hrm, nice to see some interest in the results of my research! Now, the question is: should I compile these on an outside site, or would it be kosher to make a thread on this forum featuring the screencaps? There are over a hundred of them, so I can understand if I should put them somewhere else.

Okay, now I'm very interested in seeing those ostensible future quests regarding cross-species couples and offspring.

You can't say there's no viable interbreeding when Squee has actively said half-breeds happen. And actually, there may be more evidence for physiological similarities across the different races than differences, at least that we can tell - and what we can tell is extremely limited. They all eat and drink the same things; they all share the same body plan; with the exception of Keepers, they're all diurnal. Animals sharing a body plan and dietary choices does not make them the same species. Dolphins, sharks, and icthyosaurs all are/were piscavores and shared remarkably similar body plans, but are disparate species to an extreme degree. And IIRC, Square didn't say crossbreeds happen, there was a poll of fans asking whether they'd be interested in crossbreeds occurring in-universe.

Actually, "beast tribe" has less to do with species than you'd think. It's a designation created by the Garleans in reference to their religious practices, and more akin to a derogatory racial term than an actual differentiation between species. I think it's reasonable to assume at least four out of the five playable races are hominids, but they're not the same species. There's no viable interbreeding, and enough physiological differences for them to have separated enough as to be different species. But they can still be "human" by way of common culture, rather than genetics.

I think it's rather silly to go ALL MIQO'TE SIMILARITIES TO CATS ARE ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL, THERE IS NO CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THEM AND CATS OTHER THAN THE DEVELOPERS THINKING CATGIRLS ARE CUTE. The visual similarities are there, the behavioral similarities are there. Going "Miqo'tes are nothing like cats" is being willfully obtuse. And as for "all the playable races must share a common ancestor", I do and don't agree. There are enough physical similarities for that to make sense, but we should keep in mind that parallel evolution is a thing that happens- two entirely disparate organisms can end up with remarkably similar body plans because said body plan is most effective for their ecological niche- and there are numerous sentient races that patently don't share a common primate ancestor with hyurs et al. There's no way Amalj'aa, Mamool Ja, Ixal, Sahagins, Qiqirns, or even Sylphs come from the same immediate primate ancestors. There's precedent for Miqo'te not having a common ancestor with elezen, roegadyn, hyur, and lalafell.

It was actually a bit odd to go from the GW2 /say range to the FFXIV range. Our first performance we had to scout out our venue just to figure out how close the audience would have to sit for a play performed in /say.

Thing is, he's pretty clearly not a trained conjurer at all. He looks like an ordinary Gridanian citizen! So if he was hearing the voices of elementals without any education in conjury (he's old enough to have missed the recent edict for children to be trained in conjury mentioned in the text of some levequests), he could very well be scared and uninformed regarding just what he's actually hearing. And because of the authority of the conjurers in Gridania regarding matters magical, they'd be the first people citizens would turn to for advice or help. He already suspects it's elementals, so he made the choice to go to the people who understand how elementals work better than the rest of the world. And if he turns out to have a hearer's powers but no training, they're the best-equipped to teach him how to cope with hearing the voices of elementals and turn it to a blessing, rather than a curse. I mean, we already know that hearers are born, not made, and that even a hearer who's been educated in conjury may not actually understand the nature of the voices they're hearing. It stands to follow that a born hearer with no education in conjury as a baseline would be even more bewildered by these voices than someone in the same boat as Sylphie or her mother, and would even (thanks to superstition) assume that the elementals were angry at them for no reason.