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Mao · **05-11-2017, 01:25 AM**

Greetings and salutations! I transferred to Balmung not too long ago, and now I'm ready to begin creating my first character. I'm not new to roleplay-- though, this is my first time roleplaying in an mmo. There's so much lore to remember it's sort of intimidating.

Firstly, I've been stuck on names. Sources for 15th century mongolian names seem to be limited. Would Noyonjin be acceptable? Since Noyon = prince, and jin is one of the modifiers, I was going for something along the lines of "Of a prince." Is that too far of a stretch?

I know that I want my Xaela to come from an original tribe. How the heck do I go about creating a name for one of those? Help? Furthermore, are player-created tribes frowned upon in the community?

Are Xaela familiar with magic? It doesn't seem like any of the tribes are affiliated with anything of the like.

Finally, are there any goodreads to help get me better versed in Au Ra lore?

Any tips or recommendations about anything would be appreciated! Thank you in advance for your help. I look forward to meeting everyone!

Kilieit · **05-11-2017, 01:42 AM**

In order:

- Probably fine. Chances are, 99% of the players you meet are going to have about as good a grasp on 15th century Mongolian as you do. I think I've met one person, ever, who claimed any sort of further knowledge. Basically, if the resources aren't online for you to read, they probably aren't for anyone else either - and something that looks right to you is going to look right to that 99% of players, too. I used Lingua Mongolia for all my xaela name needs. Which is cheating a bit - what can you do? No one's mentioned anything wrong yet, so at the very least, it can't be glaringly obvious.

As much as I hate to advocate doing something you know could be incorrect... honestly, on this topic, we don't have much choice. I think it was a bit silly of the devs to decide on a naming convention that relies on resources that aren't freely available... but I digress.

- Honestly, there are no rules. Aghurlal's custom tribe names (he was born into one, and now goes by another) are just amalgams of two different words - "isÃ¼" (blackened by soot) "siregen" (throne)"; "qar-a" (black) "kimusun" (talon). Think about what your tribe's founding members would've wanted in a name (something with meaning? Just a random word that sounds good?) and go from there. I've also never had flak over his weird surname - and more often than not he just totally neglects to give a surname ICly, which has also raised surprisingly few eyebrows.

- We don't know yet, and...

- ...not yet. Everything we know about xaela/au ra in general is in the character creation screen, naming convention thread, and this quote from Las Vegas FanFest 2016:

Las Vegas FanFest 2016 Lore Panel Q+A Section Wrote:Q: Tell us about Au Ra a little more! How likely is it that their horns and tails are damaged/removed? Do they feel sensation against them, or are they a solid material? Should said tails or horns be damaged, do they grow back or are they lost forever? Just how good is Auri hearing? I'm assuming that the horns are hollow.
A: More info in the lore book, but also: it's hard for a tail or horn to be removed. They don't shed. They grow continuously until they reach a certain size then stop. They don't grow super long. If they're damaged, in a fall or in battle, they will slowly regrow until they reach the maximum size again. The horns themselves are hollow and the vibration of sound inside them aids their hearing. Is their hearing better than a lalafell who are supposed to have the best hearing? No their hearing is about as good as a hyur, just in a different way / hear it / process it differently. More in the lore book!

(...there wasn't more in the lore book. The only thing there that isn't on the character creation screen was calling the steppes they live in more specifically the Azim Steppe.)

Watch this space, though. In Stormblood we are physically going to the Azim Steppe, the home of the xaela tribes. Chances are we'll get a whole bunch of new info then. I actually vague-ified a lot of previously refined story details for my other (standard-tribe) xaela character, because as soon as I learned we were going to the Steppe, I knew a lot of the stuff I had previously made up as "ehh they'll never cover this may as well do whatever" could potentially be overriden by official lore come Stormblood. Maybe I'll restore it back to how it was because it turns out my ideas coincided with the dev team's; maybe I'll have to do some thinking about how to keep the same "spirit" with different facts. Either way, that's what I'm looking forward to at the moment.

TL;DR: We don't have a whole lot of resources available right now, but my recommendation is to keep things open and flexible at least until Stormblood launches. So like... do it! And be prepared to adopt/adapt to the new stuff that's coming out next month.

L'ohba Tia · **05-11-2017, 01:47 AM**

(05-11-2017, 01:25 AM)Mao Wrote: Greetings and salutations! I transferred to Balmung not too long ago, and now I'm ready to begin creating my first character. I'm not new to roleplay-- though, this is my first time roleplaying in an mmo. There's so much lore to remember it's sort of intimidating.

Firstly, I've been stuck on names. Sources for 15th century mongolian names seem to be limited. Would Noyonjin be acceptable? Since Noyon = prince, and jin is one of the modifiers, I was going for something along the lines of "Of a prince." Is that too far of a stretch?

I know that I want my Xaela to come from an original tribe. How the heck do I go about creating a name for one of those? Help? Furthermore, are player-created tribes frowned upon in the community?

Are Xaela familiar with magic? It doesn't seem like any of the tribes are affiliated with anything of the like.

Finally, are there any goodreads to help get me better versed in Au Ra lore?

Any tips or recommendations about anything would be appreciated! Thank you in advance for your help. I look forward to meeting everyone!

1. I don't think anyone is going to get picky about Xaela names. As you said, they're pretty hard to get totally right, and very few people are even going to know if it's wrong. If you really, really want to be accurate, there's always the name generator in character creation, but I think that makes you lose out on personalization.

2. I'm not sure how the majority of the community feels about original tribes, but I could see it putting at least a few people off. As for a name, I'd just look into Mongolian family names and take some inspiration from those.

3. Magic in some form is pretty widespread. There's no reason Xaela wouldn't have some kind of magic, but it almost certainly wouldn't be exactly the same as the sorts common in Eorzea. The one example we have of Far Eastern magic is ninjutsu, so you could look at the lore of that for inspiration. Or you could just have a variety of conjury, since Elementals exist everywhere and in everything.

4. There isn't a ton of Auri lore outside of Xaela tribe names, but I'm sure Sounsyy will show up and post her compilation very soon if she has one. Otherwise, there's the information posted on the OF, and what's written on their page in the lore book if you can find a scan of it.

Sounsyy · **05-11-2017, 08:51 AM**

(05-11-2017, 01:25 AM)Mao Wrote: Finally, are there any goodreads to help get me better versed in Au Ra lore?

Kilieit and L'ohba answered your first few questions already, so as L'ohba said I'm here to drop a lore compilation for you as my contribution.

-Race Lore Compilation (Au Ra)*
*Scroll down past the Roegadyn and you'll come to everything we know about the Au Ra so far.

Though, like Kilieit mentioned, Stormblood is right around the corner! So in about a month, we'll be getting a ton of new lore about the Far East, the Au Ra, and the Azim Steppe from which many of the Xaela tribes hail. Right now we're in this kind of weird limbo moment and I think a lot of things are about to change for Far Eastern rpers in the very near future. So I guess my best advice is take what we have now, make a good framework, but look forward to more details coming soon.

Hope this helps!

ExAtomos · **05-11-2017, 09:01 AM**

Like the others have said, get ready for everything to (possibly) change in some way in a month.

As far as making your own tribe... why? We have, what, 40 to pick from? But I know some folks do like making everything from scratch, so more power to you. Smile

I would say some people frown on it, some people find it interesting, and most people probably won't care. The one thing to keep in mind though is that many of the Xaela tribes have different relationships with other tribes (friendly, disdain, outright warfare, etc.) and most rpers I know do use this facet of Xaela life in their rp. A player made tribe may leave a bit of a hole here. So, even if you go through the list and say which tribes may have good/bad relationships with yours... you're the only one who would know and acknowledge that. So it's something to keep in mind.

Oyuu · **05-11-2017, 10:05 AM**

(05-11-2017, 01:25 AM)Mao Wrote: Greetings and salutations! I transferred to Balmung not too long ago, and now I'm ready to begin creating my first character. I'm not new to roleplay-- though, this is my first time roleplaying in an mmo. There's so much lore to remember it's sort of intimidating.

Firstly, I've been stuck on names. Sources for 15th century mongolian names seem to be limited. Would Noyonjin be acceptable? Since Noyon = prince, and jin is one of the modifiers, I was going for something along the lines of "Of a prince." Is that too far of a stretch?

I know that I want my Xaela to come from an original tribe. How the heck do I go about creating a name for one of those? Help? Furthermore, are player-created tribes frowned upon in the community?

Are Xaela familiar with magic? It doesn't seem like any of the tribes are affiliated with anything of the like.

Finally, are there any goodreads to help get me better versed in Au Ra lore?

Any tips or recommendations about anything would be appreciated! Thank you in advance for your help. I look forward to meeting everyone!

Original tribes can be a thing:
The Othardian steppe is a vast region, therefore, every so often, one may come across a Xaela with a surname that is not found on the list of 51. This may mean that they are from a clan that was recently destroyed or absorbed. It may mean that they are of a new tribe that was formed by members leaving another. It may mean they are of a tribe that remained hidden in the northern mountains. SourceÂ

Regarding the magic thing, whilst there might be no lore text that says they use it, I have not come across any that proves that they do not know any magic. We'll probably learn more in Stormblood as people have said, but it would be a little strange they wouldn't in this type of fantasy setting.

Everyone else has provided great answers, so all that's left is welcome and good luck with playing your Xaela! I've always fancied making a go of creating a tribe myself, thinking of tribal life and the smallest of details of what it would be like seems like great fun. Look forward to possibly meeting you too! Big Grin

Siha · **05-11-2017, 10:06 AM**

I just wanted to pop in and comment on the making an original tribe part! We do have about 51 named tribes to pick from but the lore book does state that because the Azim Steppe is so large there is a good possibility of seeing a Xaela with a surname that is not of the 51 named tribes. So I don't think anyone could say that you couldn't do it or that it's not probable, because it is. The lore book even goes to state that those tribes with different surnames usually result because a Xaela that was exiled or left their tribe started a new one, suggesting that it's unlikely that we see offshoots like we do with Miqo'te! If you're wondering about names try looking up actual Mongolian clan names, though be careful with that because Square has directly borrowed from these real world clans for the existing Xaela tribes and there's no telling if we'll get more tribes that show up when Stormblood hits.

Phew. That was long and rambly, sorry.

The only other thing I can toss in is that I sort of agree with ExAtomos, making your own tribe keeps you from having preexisting relationships with other tribes, not to say that you can't make some! It just means more work for you and agreement from other players. Which you might not always get. It's hit or miss. On the other hand, because there's less possibility of offshoots it almost limits you in some things to do a preexisting tribe, you can't lay out what a tribe was like if you have to share it with a bunch of other RPers now can you? That's my only small gripe. I'm sure people can say there are offshoots of course. So it's probably a moot point of mine, but it sounded like there weren't any or many at the very least.

EDIT: Oyuu totally beat me in posting about the original tribes. XD

Oyuu · **05-11-2017, 10:18 AM**

(05-11-2017, 10:06 AM)Siha Wrote: The only other thing I can toss in is that I sort of agree with ExAtomos, making your own tribe keeps you from having preexisting relationships with other tribes, not to say that you can't make some! It just means more work for you and agreement from other players. Which you might not always get. It's hit or miss. On the other hand, because there's less possibility of offshoots it almost limits you in some things to do a preexisting tribe, you can't lay out what a tribe was like if you have to share it with a bunch of other RPers now can you? That's my only small gripe. I'm sure people can say there are offshoots of course. So it's probably a moot point of mine, but it sounded like there weren't any or many at the very least.

EDIT: Oyuu totally beat me in posting about the original tribes. XD

Just wanted to chime in on this. As someone who plays a less popular tribe (I think it's like me and three others? I haven't checked in a while there's 23 according to lodestone, oops) it is quite nice to have the free reign to just make headcanons without too much worry about stepping on other people's toes. With your own tribe, you have full control. You can decide whether they were hostile, isolationist, nomadic, traders, etc. etc. I can still have interactions with other tribal Xaela, my character likes to compare the different yet similar lifestyles he had with them (and sometimes he likes making out some tribes are bad but he's a bitter old man.)

Building an actual RP tribe with other players might be a little difficult if you take that route, but if it's just your sole character, I wouldn't worry too much about it at all. It seems you're doing the appropriate research and asking the right questions to try and make it believable in the FFXIV setting, so go for it! Embrace the freedom to create something a little special to you and your character.

Mao · **05-12-2017, 12:41 PM**

Thank you for the help, everyone! I was scared about starting, but after reading your replies I'm not as nervous anymore.

Once I'm finished, I'll be sure to post my character in the same topic for some of you to check!

Griffith! · **05-12-2017, 01:17 PM**

I don't know how useful it would be, but I did do a write-up on the Xaela when Heavenward dropped. It's not terribly informative, and it answers none of your questions, but what the hell? Here it is.

Kismet · **05-13-2017, 12:32 AM**

I'll just be playing to the chorus here, but I'm also in the process of creating my own tribe and just wanted to give my own perspective. In addition to all of the reasons and resources people have already given above, I personally just really enjoy world building and character creation! What I get out of the process is the sheer enjoyment of researching various cultures to pick and choose influences from, to blend them together in a neat way. Even if I don't actually use most of what I read/watch about, simply learning about things I had no idea of previously is part of the adventure.

It can lead to tons of potentially interesting RP, so definitely don't shy away from making something personalized and unique.

Bamboozled in Balmung: Tonsa' questions about creating my first Xaela.

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes