Wylderkin are fine as is. They should open it to extinct and fantasy animals. Story, story, story. What racials people have shouldn't even be a big concern. The roleplay, the story, should trump anything mechanical. At the same time, too much RP of a Kin becomes silly and unreasonable. RP wise, there should be some guidelines and leeway with it, but it shouldn't be extreme.
Costuming wise, as long as they look like the animal, like from a distance, and close up similar, they're fine. Even if it is minimalistic. Dogkin with a black nose, brown face, and a white circle around the eye? Looks like a dog to me.
I just can't agree to having the costume be over the top or perfect at all - this is a LARP, not a cosplay thing. Further, not everyone has the skill or money to go nuts with that. The game should be accessible to all. I suck at makeup. If it wasn't for my wife, I would look like this awful mishmash of brown and white making me look like a bus hit me on the way in. Really I just would not be portraying a wylderkin, cause I can't do the makeup. Do the furred masks look better? Heck yes. But should it be required? Heck no. I've seen plenty of people who did minimal makeup with no prosthetics that I can look at and go "Thats a Fox!" or whatever kin they are. Requiring way more seems unreasonable and elitist to me.
The whole concept of "Balance" with costuming is right out - cause of the double cost for Read/Write and read magic. The mechanics are balanced. It doesn't need to be "I costume more, so I get benefits more" in my view, and by the rulebook, that doesn't seem to be the case either.
