fantastic question

This was touched on in the DJ Equipment and Inventory.

In Chronicles of Elyria, one size does not fit all. In fact, the same size may not even fit the opposite gender. In CoE, there's gender-neutral equipment, equipment for men and women, and equipment for the small, medium, and large. Wearing equipment too big for you will make it less effective, and wearing equipment too small may be impossible. Of course, this can be remedied by taking it to an appropriate craftsman and having it resized. C'mon villagers, never say we didn't do our best to keep you in business!

I also saw it said different tribes will all fit the same, so a skinny Hrothi shirt may fit a fat Kypiq, but don't expect an average Neran to fit. Think this was a Q&A though.

Also by all means something can be a hand me down if it is still in a usable condition.

I asked one of the developers today. Here's what Jormungandr said in Discord in a quote mesh...

Crafters can make gear within a certain range if sizes, once they build something at a size it doesn't stretch or scale just because it was equipped on different sized character.

A large shield for a Kypiq might be a buckler for the Janoa, so they won't get the same level of protection that a Kypiq might.

The Kypiq might be able to research building larger shields for larger tribes that they themselves would have difficulty using, but that would fall under the research system and is entire up to the design guild.

Some items might be more difficult to scale up, raw materials that are large enough might be hard to find. So for example if the Kypiq use a certain leaf folding technique that covers half of their body, with one leaf. Then if they try to apply that same technique to a larger person they may not be able to find a leaf big enough. They might have to come up with a way to stitch a few leaves together or grow one big enough.

The same can be said for cogs and gears which might be made from specific materials of certain sizes and it's impossible to make them bigger than their source material, at least not without some extra research, trial and error.

From a content stand point (creating 3d models and materials) it's fairly straight forward to make most of the clothing, armor and gear work with most of the characters from most of the tribes without having to create more than one asset.

So it really comes down to what design wants to limit and for what reasons. There aren't that many technical restraints (with how the game content is built) that will keep them from allowing it all to cross over. However gameplay and balance all have to be factored into it.

Jor's response to a question about the Kypiq shield...

Q: Can this stretch to a Neran size and be used without an issue?

A: they could, it might be slower or faster to deploy, it might have greater friction and be prone to lock up, which might lead them to research different ideas to fix that problem which could flow back into the original design and make it better.