Okay, I have no idea how you would make this work, but also they randomly added some weird Gem Dwaves into their spider expansion so whatever.
Let’s get some Raccoon Dogs in here! Who wouldn’t want a cute lil Tanuki bro dual wielding Katana while wearing a Samurai hat? Or a Tanuki in a Ninja outfit holding a pair of shuriken in his fuzzy little paws?
They ended up occupying the worst part of the uncanny valley imo. Would have been better had they just gone full anthropomorphic, but I suspect they didn’t want to need to fix clothing for a different skeleton.
Our main town did a “Sister city” thing with a village in Japan. To show support they sent a 5 foot tall statue of a Tanuki with all of his… “prosperity” on display.
They put him in a Hula Skirt to soften the blow to non Japanese sensabilities.
You’re probably right about the skeletons. I think that’s something wow deserves credit for. They never shied away from making the big lumpy races as big and lumpy as they’re supposed to be. And then forced the armor on. They didn’t take the easy route of make everyone the same shape with different heads. Sure, some armor sits weirdly on some models, but it’s still pretty damn good most of the time.
That said, in the case of hrothgar, I like them as they are. Just big human bodies with cat heads.