I'll take a crack at these. 
My read of the dev post on the naming conventions is that the surname individuality rule applies to both clans. The difference between the two is in name structure -- but please take this with a grain of salt, as this is just my interpretation of the post.
The Seeker tribes came across an ice bridge in search of prey during the Fifth Umbral Era. Through coincidence, they found that there were 26 letters in the Eorzean alphabet, corresponding to the 26 tribes. Seeing this as a good omen, they assigned a letter to each tribe that was closest to the pronunciation of its name. We know that the names were based on beastkin, scalekin, or cloudkin totems, which are believed to protect the tribe. (dev post)
Beyond that, we don't really know much. Because of how the tribes expand (typically: new territories are acquired by a tia, who then becomes nunh of that area, and females join him), there's lots of different branches inside each tribe. Eorzea's a big place and miqo'te are relatively rare by lore, so the tribes are bound to be quite spread out. That gives you a lot of room in which to play with traditions and backstory, as you can just have your character be from a branch of your own design. The above-linked dev post goes into details on traditional miqo'te culture.
(09-25-2013, 11:52 PM)Goodfellow Wrote: 1) Are surnames individualized for Dunesfolk? That is, are both of a Dunesfolk's names unique to that individual? Is Lolotaru Lalataru the only Lalataru, or does he come from a long and storied line of Lalatarus?
My read of the dev post on the naming conventions is that the surname individuality rule applies to both clans. The difference between the two is in name structure -- but please take this with a grain of salt, as this is just my interpretation of the post.
(09-25-2013, 11:52 PM)Goodfellow Wrote: 2) Do we know anything about the individual tribes of Sun Seekers? Do they differ or matter at all? Where are they? Who are they? Etc, etc.? I've got a seeker named U'khaji and I'd really like to know more about where he comes from.
The Seeker tribes came across an ice bridge in search of prey during the Fifth Umbral Era. Through coincidence, they found that there were 26 letters in the Eorzean alphabet, corresponding to the 26 tribes. Seeing this as a good omen, they assigned a letter to each tribe that was closest to the pronunciation of its name. We know that the names were based on beastkin, scalekin, or cloudkin totems, which are believed to protect the tribe. (dev post)
Beyond that, we don't really know much. Because of how the tribes expand (typically: new territories are acquired by a tia, who then becomes nunh of that area, and females join him), there's lots of different branches inside each tribe. Eorzea's a big place and miqo'te are relatively rare by lore, so the tribes are bound to be quite spread out. That gives you a lot of room in which to play with traditions and backstory, as you can just have your character be from a branch of your own design. The above-linked dev post goes into details on traditional miqo'te culture.
(09-25-2013, 11:52 PM)Goodfellow Wrote: 3) Does the Echo make everyone intelligible to us? Just the spoken word or writing as well?
The Freelance Wizard
Quality RP at low, low prices!
((about me | about L'yhta Mahre | L'yhta's desk | about Mysterium, the Ivory Tower: a heavy RP society of mages))
Quality RP at low, low prices!
((about me | about L'yhta Mahre | L'yhta's desk | about Mysterium, the Ivory Tower: a heavy RP society of mages))
