Au Ra Horns Headcanons~

[Tsukige Malqir]

Hey! This is my first post. I'm bad at introductions so I'm just jumping right into commenting on something that is really fascinating to me~

 

Au Ra lack ears - their horns double as ears of a sense, in that they are the organs through which Au Ra perceive sound. This opens up some really interesting concepts, and I'm curious what other people think an Au Ra would experience under certain circumstances.

 

What if someone were to touch your horn? Since they can conduct the vibrations of the air to perceive and interpret soundwaves, how would it feel if someone else touched it? Hit it? Licked it?

 

I think a touch would feel wholly strange, if they've never experienced it before. I don't think you would exactly feel the hand touch you, but you would... hear it. It'd be a strange vibration similar to a sound, but without a sound to it at all. It's a hard thing to really parallel in human experience, because the closest thing to it would be someone reaching into your ear and touching the little bones in there that actually vibrate to produce sounds in your head.

 

If someone were to run their nails along the horn, you'd hear it scrape across every ridge and groove...

 

In short, it's just really interesting stuff that I think about sometimes, how sensitive the horns would be to touch. How the Au Ra experience sound is incredibly intriguing to me. Does anyone else share my feelings on this? It would be so easy to shut down a vicious Au Ra attacker by just tickling the base of their horn.~

[Oli!]

From a technical standpoint, if someone were to hit something that interprets sound, you wouldn't "feel" anything out of the ordinary. The reason for this is that sound is nothing more than the vibration of air; touching, slapping, hitting, or otherwise doing something that causes vibration to something that interprets vibration as sound would just end up "sounding" like something.

 

It might sound really, really weird, but it will still just be a sound.

 

If you've ever, for example, put a sea-shell or a cone or something up to your ear, and then scraped it and slapped it and whatever else, it would be something like that, one would imagine.

 

What I really wanna know, personally, is how you use a Linkpearl with that sort of thing. I guess you could strap it to your horn or something, but it's still really awkward.

[ShoggMommy]

What I really wanna know, personally, is how you use a Linkpearl with that sort of thing. I guess you could strap it to your horn or something, but it's still really awkward.

 

They attach 'earrings' in a way of a loop around the horn I would assume. Mostly because in-game your earrings attach to the horn. So I wouldn't think it would be very awkward considering they already have ornate little pieces attached to their horns in the form of jewelry.

[Masaki Moui]

Some of the Au'ra have the option of adding a decorative strip, or like a band, on to their horns and I wonder if this is in part connected to using linkpearls more easily or things like that. I also wondered if it muffled or augmented sound for them. Maybe it's just decorative.

 

In a very quiet room if you rub your ear you can hear it too. I'd imagine it probably sounds similar but upon the texture of horn rather than soft skin. A study of real-world horn came in really useful when I started playing an Au'ra. Horn itself is amazing material.

[myahele]

I'd imagine hitting an Au Ra's horn with a hard object will be worse than having a megaphone blasted on your ears.

 

I'm sure touching an Au Ra's horn is a big non no in terms of cross-cultural exchanges

[Tsukige Malqir]

Human ears are already pretty sensitive. They're an erogenous zone and everything. You don't just go touch someone's ear when you meet them, so yeah, probably bad form to just go touch auri horns on first meeting, lol. Probably want to get permission for that.

[K'nahli]

I have a hard time imagining horns work that way too, frankly. Nor do I think that hitting or touching them would make for any real problem or discomfort, albeit that's just me.

 

I do like to think that the interlocking of horns(where applicable) is a form if displaying affection though, similar to meeting foreheads as opposed to or perhaps even along with kissing.

[Okichi]

I do like to think that the interlocking of horns(where applicable) is a form if displaying affection though, similar to meeting foreheads as opposed to or perhaps even along with kissing.

 

I do agree with this aspect of the horns. They seem like an area that should remain off-limits for anyone besides those close to them.

 

I don't think the horns are terribly sensitive, else I can see them being a liability in battle. My Au Ra has used her horns in combat before. They're forward-facing, so she will sometimes attempt a headbutt to stab an enemy with them should an opportunity arise.

 

I also wonder if horns from defeated Au Ra are kept as trophies, like after battles between warring tribes in the case of Xaela. I also wonder what the effects of chipping or even large portions of horns breaking off will have on hearing. Like... how much of a horn can be damaged until hearing is impaired?

[Mogoi Qestir]

That's a good question/idea there Okichi... jots that down for Dotharl ideas I wonder really what the horns mean, though I have my Au Ra play it really carefully, only people really close to her or intimate can touch them. Others she'd stop quickly. I like the idea of them being used offensively if they're long enough. 

 

As for the decoration/ring things on the horn tips... I had run the idea of Au Ra having a link 'ring' instead of a pearl. Fashioned to sit around the very tip so it wasn't further up. Like near the space connecting horn to head, I feel it'd be better at picking up sounds, vibrations traveling up into a wider space to make sense of what they're hearing/seeing with them.

 

So it being kept on the further side means a booming voice over the linkpearl won't startle them. 

 

[Mind you this was before I actually ever saw where my character's earrings were. Lol long hair]

[lutroxical]

I don't have any specific head cannons for Mizuki's horns yet, so... thanks for this!

 

/shifty eyes and lurks thread

 

Good ideas here so far. :3

[Shizuno]

I've actually been using the horns' ability to sense soundwaves and the like as a sixth sense for Rin, since she's blind. 

 

She's been training herself to make use of them in two ways - 

 

First, in a way similar to sonar, she's able to use sounds around her to paint a picture in some sense so she has a good idea of her surroundings. Of course, it's basically only enough to not walk into walls and avoid things. 

 

Second is just the strength of the sense itself. She's trying to train herself to be able to pick up more minuscule sounds like the rustling of clothing and the like to help her decipher what people are doing. She already has this skill more or less developed in the sense that she can guess, for example, when people stand or wave based on the sound it makes. However, she's trying to deepen that ability now.

[Sen]

I've actually been using the horns' ability to sense soundwaves and the like as a sixth sense for Rin, since she's blind. 

 

She's been training herself to make use of them in two ways - 

 

First, in a way similar to sonar, she's able to use sounds around her to paint a picture in some sense so she has a good idea of her surroundings. Of course, it's basically only enough to not walk into walls and avoid things. 

 

Second is just the strength of the sense itself. She's trying to train herself to be able to pick up more minuscule sounds like the rustling of clothing and the like to help her decipher what people are doing. She already has this skill more or less developed in the sense that she can guess, for example, when people stand or wave based on the sound it makes. However, she's trying to deepen that ability now.

I like that sort of idea, that the horns are an extension to augment hearing or senses... Unfortunately, I am not well-educated in the biology of horns, but for the sake of being more versed in the subject, I may go venture into Google. > u<

[industrythirteen]

I'm not sure if the horns are spongy, or more solid. Humans ears are made of cartilage, on the outside, and help direct or funnel the sound, which is a frequency, into the inner ear to be processed and interpreted by the brain. Oversimplification, I know, but to my reasoning, I think the horns probably function similarly, or are taken a step further. I am making a load of inferences and assumptions. 

 

Is the horn just an extension, like a giant earlobe, that help to better capture the frequencies of sound, or more frequencies, at different ranges? Do they work sort of like echo-location for better spacial-awareness (as is stated in the lore) as frequencies bounces off the extended surface? Personally this isn't something I've worked with much in RP just yet, mainly because I haven't had much opportunity or inclination. 

 

I'm amused by the idea that the horns (and even scales) are probably the same material as hair or fingernails, or even spongy. If the horns are spongy or more cartilage-like, they could be pierced or adorned with jewelry. They could be pierced or adorned just the same, even if they are comprised of a harder material. Human beings pierce, brand, scar, and basically adorn almost anything, regardless of how much it may hurt, even if the adornment may interfere with function or the process has the potential for last damage. Sometimes it even enhances! But that is a different topic altogether. 

 

Personally, I find the overall design of the Au Ra, as much as I love them, to be just flat lazy or uninspired, especially where the horns are concerned. The positioning of the earrings on the model feels like an afterthought. I wouldn't take the in-game model at face value as it is just that, a model, and in-game models rarely capture the diversity of bodies due to technical restraints. I think it is for that reason that they couldn't push the design in a more interesting direction. Easy for me to say. I I want to make a deviation, I can just paint one for myself. And frequently I do.

[Nero]

I imagine Au Ra horns to function similar to narwhal tusks: innervated sensory organs with nerve endings that connect stimuli to the brain. Following this, then other than hearing (which is the detection of vibrations made in the air) an Au Ra would be able to use these organs to sense changes in humidity and temperature, to a limited extent. Being more sensitive to sound in addition to sensing fluctuations in the air would be in line with the lore blurb that described Auri horns as giving them "enhanced spacial recognition".

 

At the same time, I also imagine that the functions besides hearing are mostly vestigial for most Au Ra. Certainly, Au Ra who, for example, lived in extremely low-light environments would have enhanced senses and thus their horns would be much more sensitive at detecting things like body heat or the movement of air caused by external motion, but unless the Au Ra's environment demanded such functions be necessary in terms of natural selection--for example, freezing ice is often fatal to large groups of narwhals, therefore narwhal tusks are sensitive to changes in salinity to detect whether ice is beginning to form--I doubt that the aforementioned "enhanced spacial recognition" really received that much development evolutionarily.

 

As far as the surface, I think it'd be...well, matching their scales in texture. Tough, rough, and somewhat chitinous. These are large and prominent appendages, in sharp contrast to human ears which are small in relation to the head and typically flat. Au Ra horns by necessity would have to be hardened and reasonably durable, perhaps encased in a layer of hollow but tough bone or something similar.

[K'nahli]

Well, I don't think many people would really care for others touching their hair or face or anything like that unless it was for a good reason/they were close to them. With that in mind, horns don't really ring out as a special case to me - just another part of one's anatomy which would reward people with a strange, disapproving glance should they, for whatever reason, decide they wanted to try and lay their hands on you.

[Michikyou]

I imagine Au Ra horns to function similar to narwhal tusks:

snip.

 

 

Pretty much this i show I imagine it, as the lore states they are sensitive. I couldn't image people bashing each other with them if they are infact sensitive or how it would be if one were broken.

[Paradox]

I read this as Au Ra Horn Headcannons, and my first thought was Fuck. Yes. Laserhorns.

 

As for the actual horns, well. I had a character in an unrelated RP years and years ago that had horns made into her skull as part of an experiment with her family. The way the horns worked is that they were like hollow carapace with hardened outer shell. The idea was that they took in vibrations through the air through very tiny openings in the horns that led into the hollow cavity, enhancing her ability to hear and feel those vibrations to identify things. In a sense similar to, but not quite echolocation. More like one half of it. I imagine if an Au Ra's horns got broken at the end, they would not be able to filter out sounds, and it would be like a bullhorn going off in their 'ear' constantly until they covered it with something or it grew back (can they grow back? can they be healed with conjury?).

[Kittycat88]

where does the lore state them as being sensitive? I haven't found anything about that, but I'd love it if it was true.

[K'nahli]

This is pure speculation on my part but I can't imagine a scenario where Xaelan Au Ra(at least) would be in constant torment or discomfort as a result of damaged horns. That, or I'd have to imagine that they are INCREDIBLY difficult to damage, let alone break. I just imagine that evolution would kind of cover that aspect for such a savage crowd.

 

But then again, not all of them are quite so aggressive. Who knows?

[Manari]

I think that without specific lore (and even if there were specific lore), it's all going to come down to how each individual RPer wants their horns, or tails, or ears, or whatever unique racial feature to react to various things in RP. I've seen Miqo'te players do everything from completely ignore/forget they even have tails, to RP that their tail is a living, sentient being with it's own name and personality...

 

One player might prefer to RP that their horn is very sensitive to any touch or physical contact, while another RPer could dislike that idea and RP that the horns are not effected by touch whatsoever. And since the lore can't specifically disprove either case, they are both valid ways to RP the race.

[Whisper Bexley]

This was *very* insightful. Imma just keep lurking but i definitely love the Narwhal tusk thing.

[Kilieit]

It's worth noting that since this thread was posted 2 years ago, we've had a little bit of official lore come out about au ra horns.

 

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' date=' 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.[/b']

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!

 

TL;DR: They're hollow, they don't shed, they grow back if severed, and they provide average hearing ability.

 

We also were able to see in Stormblood NPC's the way horns grow from childhood, to adulthood, to old age:

 

 

(I assembled these composites myself)

 

So it seems that as an au ra ages, that "maximum size" gradually increases.