FFXIV Beastmen: Where, When, & How?

[Liminality]

As I've been progressing through the story and talking to random NPCs, I've heard mention of Beastmen similar to XI. I'm interested to know if anyone has seen any of them, and how they will play into the storyline.

Spoiler: show

I've progressed as far as I can through the Gridiania storyline, and of course they talk of Gridania going to war with "The Empire". Gridania is hiding secrets. Do Beastmen play a role in this? Talk of elementals in the forest. Who knows?

I did get my first ever sighting of a Qiqirn today!

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...33-06-07-1.png

Has anyone else had any sightings of Beastmen, or a possible idea of what role they will play, if any?

[Sagacious Sundi]

They're definitely gonna play a role in the story, since they're the ones who worship the primals (Amalj'aa - Ifrit, kobolds - Titan, Sahagin - Leviathan, Ixal - probably a wind one). I also theorized that there will be a Besieged/Campaign-like event in the hamlets (Aleport, Golden Bazaar, Hyrstmill, etc.) since beastman flags were found in the closed beta .dats in the map marker section. (Ishgard's enemies seem to be dragons.)

Qiqirn are in a lot of places, so I'm guessing they're gonna be Goblins of this game, only non-aggressive. Ixal (they look kinda like the retarded offspring of Yagudo and Mamool Ja) can be found in the North Forest and sylphs in East. Amalj'aa can be found in various parts of Western (Scorpion Keep, to be specific), Eastern, and Southern Thanalan. From what I've heard, kobolds can be found north of Iron Lake.

3 NPCs give some decent lore on the beast tribes, the Garleans, and the playable races/clans. Here's a nice compilation of them: http://ffxivarchives.com/topic/232-races-from-merewina/

[Liminality]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the link to post. I was actually glad to see that they hadn't changed the look too much, but also the fact that there will be "new" ones is appealing. Don't really want a copy/pasta things too much.

Do you think these events would be instances or open-world? As I've seen stated in another forum here somewhere about HNMs and NMs, SE has been leaning more towards the idea of instances areas, but people have included the idea of open world type-NMs. Which, I'm assuming, would apply towards these Besieged-type events.

I will most definitely check these places out

[miokomioko]

Qiqirn are also employed all over the Marauders' Guild ship. They are pretty much identical to their XI brethren in behavior/speech/culture.

Sylph are similarly neutral, but their culture is so (seemingly?) primitive that there's not much interaction with them outside of basic trading of goods.

I'm very curious about the automaton Mammets. Mostly because they made it seem like that one was involved in sabotaging the magic restraints on the Goobbue in Ul'dah.

[Lucavi]

Where the hell are my camp-fire camps of beastmen strutting around in starter zones, throwing ore and lopping off heads? The only beastmen I see are the ones that hit you with a ranged attack for 4k+.

[Hyan]

They seem to be more established this time, rather than weakened by a war lost few decades ago and scattered around everywhere. Probably much like Mamool Ja, Lamia and Trolls with their own regions (O'ghomoro was mentioned already).

Poroggos also better make a comeback. As the Zilart master-race of XIV.

[Lucavi]

Does the Empire count as the master-race?

[Anton]

There are Ogres similar to Gigas in Mor Dhona, only they grew tails, have flaming horns, and can punch you for over 5k making them the current overkill champions of XIV

[Liminality]

Does the Empire count as the master-race?

I would assume, so. "The Empire" will most likely be just the new Jeuno. Once they open it up, maybe the Beastmen will play a more prominent role in the Storyline. However, what role does Ishgard play?

[miokomioko]

Ishgard, and possibly Sharlayan are more likely to be the 'Jeunos' of this game. The Garlean Empire is the enemy here. They destroyed Ala Mhigo and then all of Eorzea was waiting for them to continue their war march south-west, starting with Gridania. Our entire existance as Adventurers is because all the city-states prepared for war and readied armies, but the Empire never attacked and it became the "Age of Calm." We were all left without jobs.

Spoiler: show

The story picks up as multiple (4?) individuals from Sharlayan have come to seemingly inspect how capable each city-state might be in a battle against The Garleans.

Perhaps there may be a twist where the Garleans halted their attacks because something happened with that dragon/airship situation, unleashing all the primals upon the land, and that has become everyone's top priority over battling with eachother. After all, much like in Vana'diel, all the city-states have long histories with warring with eachother. Rehash the 'ol "unite to battle the beastmen" thing.