New Cultures of Known Species

[Narcemus.1348]

So this is just playing off of a random thought that popped up while daydreaming. How could we see new types of cultures of existing races? This is obviously very possible, especially with the inclusion of the Olmakhan. I would very much love to hear your thoughts and reasoning, but here's my example.

The norn, as we have known them, have always been great hunters, but the norn we have known have also always looked up to the spirits of carnivores. In Guild Wars 1 there was bear, wolf, and raven and Guild Wars 2 added Leopard. And there are obviously other spirits that are revered, but these specific spirits take center stage and have helped the norn lean into a very specific hunter style of living, but what if that changed? What if we found, somewhere new, a separate enclave of norn that was raised up worshipping the spirit of Elk, or other herbavore species. What could a more agrarian, possibly pacifistic norn culture look like?

What are your thoughts on viable alternate cultures to the races we have known?

Edited April 5, 2022 by Narcemus.1348

[Kalavier.1097]

The Norn don't really revere the spirits because of their food type, but traits that the spirits represent. the four major ones are the most widely revered, followed by the "minor" spirits, and then the "forgotten ones" (Such a gorilla and all). For example, Ox/dolyak is a spirit of strength and perseverance, and not farming or such.

 

It's perfectly reasonable to find a Norn community who are great farmers, as Norn split off to find their own paths and do it to the best they can. Fairly sure there are Norn farmers and Ranchers in the shiverpeaks already in some parts we can interact with?

 

edit: I will say it IS fun to see new factions/nations of existing cultures, such as the two Hylek tribes of the jungle who worship an entirely different Hylek god compared to the central tyria ones, etc.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Kalavier.1097

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

45 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

The Norn don't really revere the spirits because of their food type, but traits that the spirits represent. the four major ones are the most widely revered, followed by the "minor" spirits, and then the "forgotten ones" (Such a gorilla and all). For example, Ox/dolyak is a spirit of strength and perseverance, and not farming or such.

 

It's perfectly reasonable to find a Norn community who are great farmers, as Norn split off to find their own paths and do it to the best they can. Fairly sure there are Norn farmers and Ranchers in the shiverpeaks already in some parts we can interact with?

Pretty much this, the Norn are the way they are becuase they live in a mountain region, covered in snow year round, where farming isn't exactly easy. Even still, we do see Norn ranchers and farmers in core Tyria because there is no way a society at their level could survive entirely on hunter/gatherer methods.

That being said, the kinds of alternate societies I would like to see are non hostile versions of normally hostile only species like the Harpies, Krait, and Naga. It would be cool to interact with these groups in a way besides just bashing their heads in.

[Ehecatl.9172]

Malyck's tree and the possibility of other trees like it offer that exact potential for Sylvari. The Sylvari we know are strongly shaped by Ventari's tablet, but another tree wouldn't necessarily have the words of a wise pacifist engraved in stone to live by. There could be Sylvari out there that are highly militant due to having come from a Blight Tree that wasn't purified of dragon corruption. Their Mother would instead be raising her people to be soldiers for when her true master awakens, and now with Modremoth gone might be doing what Tequatl did and gone rogue to take over the power gap her dragon left.

 

Heck, another tree might not even have human-like Sylvari at all. The Pale Tree chose humans to mimic because of Ronan. Another tree might have chosen the Hylek or centaurs to be the basis, or even went and created something original by taking characteristics from multiple species and combining them into one plant creature.

 

There could be a tree with an entire population of giant, intelligent Sylvan hounds because that tree only had wolves to work with as far as social animals go, while another might have had a nest of harpies in her branches leading to a race of winged Sylvari that can fly.

 

The possibilities are nearly endless.

[Narcemus.1348]

3 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

The Norn don't really revere the spirits because of their food type, but traits that the spirits represent. the four major ones are the most widely revered, followed by the "minor" spirits, and then the "forgotten ones" (Such a gorilla and all). For example, Ox/dolyak is a spirit of strength and perseverance, and not farming or such.

 

It's perfectly reasonable to find a Norn community who are great farmers, as Norn split off to find their own paths and do it to the best they can. Fairly sure there are Norn farmers and Ranchers in the shiverpeaks already in some parts we can interact with?

 

edit: I will say it IS fun to see new factions/nations of existing cultures, such as the two Hylek tribes of the jungle who worship an entirely different Hylek god compared to the central tyria ones, etc.

I guess I poorly described my idea. Sure the norn don't necessarily eat what their spirits' creatures eat. I more meant to point out that all of the main spirits are hunters minus raven who is a scavenger. This likely attributed much to the mindset of the norn when it comes to their desire to get the greatest hunt and form their legend. In recent days that has evolved from hunting the biggest creature to crafting the finest ale, but back in the earliest days it was almost entirely based off of feats of strength and valor. My concept was a subset of norn that followed spirits that were not necessarily interested nor attributed to anything pertaining to this call to glory. Perhaps there is no need to make your legend in this far flung group of norn, they are otherwise interested more in community or some other aspects. Anyways, that was just a though.....

[Kalavier.1097]

9 hours ago, Narcemus.1348 said:

I guess I poorly described my idea. Sure the norn don't necessarily eat what their spirits' creatures eat. I more meant to point out that all of the main spirits are hunters minus raven who is a scavenger. This likely attributed much to the mindset of the norn when it comes to their desire to get the greatest hunt and form their legend. In recent days that has evolved from hunting the biggest creature to crafting the finest ale, but back in the earliest days it was almost entirely based off of feats of strength and valor. My concept was a subset of norn that followed spirits that were not necessarily interested nor attributed to anything pertaining to this call to glory. Perhaps there is no need to make your legend in this far flung group of norn, they are otherwise interested more in community or some other aspects. Anyways, that was just a though.....

 

I'd note that in GW1, we didn't get a good chance to fully see and interact with the Norn culture as we do in GW2. Most of the time we were just proving to the Norn we could handle overselves and hang out with them. I think so many view the culture as "changed" because we go from being humans having to prove ourselves to every Norn, to being another Norn hanging out with others, and with a lot more interaction between the races.

 

But, I mean the idea of a group of Norn farmers is neat, though I think said group would have to have split off from the rest a very, very long time ago (pre GW1 even perhap) to translate into a completely split culture with no ties to the main group of Norn, as any would pause the question of "Why haven't we talked to them?"

[Narcemus.1348]

44 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

 

I'd note that in GW1, we didn't get a good chance to fully see and interact with the Norn culture as we do in GW2. Most of the time we were just proving to the Norn we could handle overselves and hang out with them. I think so many view the culture as "changed" because we go from being humans having to prove ourselves to every Norn, to being another Norn hanging out with others, and with a lot more interaction between the races.

 

But, I mean the idea of a group of Norn farmers is neat, though I think said group would have to have split off from the rest a very, very long time ago (pre GW1 even perhap) to translate into a completely split culture with no ties to the main group of Norn, as any would pause the question of "Why haven't we talked to them?"

I think that's my point. Humans, who aren't even native to Tyria, have many different nations and cultures, so why wouldn't the other races? Why wouldn't there be another culture of norn on a separate landmass that were disconnected from their people by a previous dragonrise (or other historical even). Different landmass, different culture, and may not even know that they have kin on Tyria (the continent). Thinking like how humanity in the Americas and Eurasia/Africa were separated for such a long time. Obviously I think new content could include new races, but it could also tie back to the core game by viewing alternate cultures of the races we know as well.

[Teratus.2859]

The two places I want to go most of all are the depths of the ocean and the depths of Tyria.

A big part of the reason for those locations is because of the species and history we'll get to see down there.
We are aware of some kind of horror in the depths of the ocean atm but we also know that multiple species we've had contact with originally lived down there.

Going into the Ocean would give us access to story content involving the Karka, Krait, Quaggans, Leviathans and most of all the Largos which many fans have been itching to learn more about since the personal story and vanilla game introduced them.
There may even be potential for story there involving the Naga as well, and possibly even Abaddon whom was the previous God affiliated with Water and Secrets.
Definitely untapped potential for lore and stories involving him hidden away deep in the depths of the ocean.

For the Depths of Tyria we have more story focusing on the Dwarves and what their race is going to do now that their primary purpose (fighting Primordus and the Destroyers) has pretty much ended.
We also have the potential to rediscover the lost Asuran and Skritt homelands as well as interesting technologies they once possessed and lost.
The Skritt in particular hold huge interest for me because of their hive intelligence.

I would love to see their homelands, see what their race was once capable off when they were all living and working together before they were scattered and driven out of the depths by the Destroyers.
They would have been significantly more intelligent than any Skritt society we've seen on the surface and they could have once possessed a society that was close or equal to.. or possibly even superior to that of the Asura.

[Aravind.9610]

An asura colony in the depths cut off from their surface cousins due to Primordus's awakening, survives and establishes their own society and culture. Sounds plausible at least considering their gates weren't all connected to the Central Transfer Chamber from Guild Wars 1.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

3 hours ago, Narcemus.1348 said:

I think that's my point. Humans, who aren't even native to Tyria, have many different nations and cultures, so why wouldn't the other races? Why wouldn't there be another culture of norn on a separate landmass that were disconnected from their people by a previous dragonrise (or other historical even). Different landmass, different culture, and may not even know that they have kin on Tyria (the continent). Thinking like how humanity in the Americas and Eurasia/Africa were separated for such a long time. Obviously I think new content could include new races, but it could also tie back to the core game by viewing alternate cultures of the races we know as well.

That is a typical fantasy and scifi non-human species question, and the answer is, because if you gave non-human species the wide range of cultures, and ideas, humans have they wouldn't be a non-human species, they would just be humans with X physical difference.

Like if Dwarves weren't an entire race of miners, smiths, and warriors, and had the full range of interests and cultural ticks humans had they wouldn't be dwarves, they would be short humans with beards.

If elves weren't all amazingly beautiful people, who were good archers, and had great artistic abilities, they would just be humans with pointed ears.

If Charr weren't a giant military mono-state they would just be humans with fur.

etc. etc. The good old "planet of hats" trope.

humans often get reverse engineered into this trope in fictional settings, their "hat" being something like pluck, creativity, or curiosity. Humans are rarely the strongest, or have the best military, or have the best tech/magi-tech, but they make up for it by being the once that thats oddly good at every thing to some degree.

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Narcemus.1348]

17 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

That is a typical fantasy and scifi non-human species question, and the answer is, because if you gave non-human species the wide range of cultures, and ideas, humans have they wouldn't be a non-human species, they would just be humans with X physical difference.

Like if Dwarves weren't an entire race of miners, smiths, and warriors, and had the full range of interests and cultural ticks humans had they wouldn't be dwarves, they would be short humans with beards.

If elves weren't all amazingly beautiful people, who were good archers, and had great artistic abilities, they would just be humans with pointed ears.

If Charr weren't a giant military mono-state they would just be humans with fur.

etc. etc. The good old "planet of hats" trope.

humans often get reverse engineered into this trope in fictional settings, their "hat" being something like pluck, creativity, or curiosity. Humans are rarely the strongest, or have the best military, or have the best tech/magi-tech, but they make up for it by being the once that thats oddly good at every thing to some degree.

 

I understand that is how things typically are, following D&D, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings and other such franchises for decade or two, but that does not mean it has to be that way. Individual races can have separate cultures and stay unique. I believe that the Olmakhan have proven that with their vast differences with the Charr high legions. I mean, that is kinda ArenaNet's thing. They question why things are the way things are and if they could not be better. The existence of the Charr (rather than orcs) and making the Charr feasibly playable are two such examples.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Narcemus.1348

[Kalavier.1097]

17 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

That is a typical fantasy and scifi non-human species question, and the answer is, because if you gave non-human species the wide range of cultures, and ideas, humans have they wouldn't be a non-human species, they would just be humans with X physical difference.

Like if Dwarves weren't an entire race of miners, smiths, and warriors, and had the full range of interests and cultural ticks humans had they wouldn't be dwarves, they would be short humans with beards.

If elves weren't all amazingly beautiful people, who were good archers, and had great artistic abilities, they would just be humans with pointed ears.

If Charr weren't a giant military mono-state they would just be humans with fur.

etc. etc. The good old "planet of hats" trope.

humans often get reverse engineered into this trope in fictional settings, their "hat" being something like pluck, creativity, or curiosity. Humans are rarely the strongest, or have the best military, or have the best tech/magi-tech, but they make up for it by being the once that thats oddly good at every thing to some degree.

 

 

On one hand I'd agree but on the other hand in GW2 the humans have held the "Elf" trope spot for a while being the older race on the decline/just getting over the hard times.

 

9 minutes ago, Narcemus.1348 said:

I understand that is how things typically are, following D&D, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings and other such franchises for decade or two, but that does not mean it has to be that way. Individual races can have separate cultures and stay unique. I believe that the Olmakhan have proven that with their vast differences with the Charr high legions. I mean, that is kinda ArenaNet's thing. They question why things are the way things are and if they could not be better. The existence of the Charr (rather than orcs) and making the Charr feasibly playable are two such examples.

 

This is very true, they allow races and nations to change and evolve. The Charr of today are not the charr of the start of GW2, or even GW1.

 

I think the most important thing is when making a new subculture/variant group is to make sure it's not just a singular trope like "Farmer." or some singular trait.

 

Secondly, make it fit both the backstory of the race, area they live in, and history of the world. Which is why like for an alt Norn thing, I'd suggest they split from the main group a LOOOOOOOONG time ago, to the point the main four Spirits don't even really know of them and the norn culture/storytelling doesn't have much reference (because it wasn't a huge deal at the time, etc).

[Narcemus.1348]

25 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

 

On one hand I'd agree but on the other hand in GW2 the humans have held the "Elf" trope spot for a while being the older race on the decline/just getting over the hard times.

 

 

This is very true, they allow races and nations to change and evolve. The Charr of today are not the charr of the start of GW2, or even GW1.

 

I think the most important thing is when making a new subculture/variant group is to make sure it's not just a singular trope like "Farmer." or some singular trait.

 

Secondly, make it fit both the backstory of the race, area they live in, and history of the world. Which is why like for an alt Norn thing, I'd suggest they split from the main group a LOOOOOOOONG time ago, to the point the main four Spirits don't even really know of them and the norn culture/storytelling doesn't have much reference (because it wasn't a huge deal at the time, etc).

Agreed. My original thought was a group of norn with more pacifistic lifestyle, not active hunters but more agrarian style community builders, just because different spirits had more value to this subculture, but perhaps they could be even more diverse. They could even be a group of norn that were separated from the rest of their race before they adopted the worship of the spirits of the wild. What would norn who did not worship the spirits look like? Would they have the option to shape shift still or is that entirely a gift of the spirits as shown? If they can't shape shift what makes them more than just tall humans?

 

20 hours ago, Aravind.9610 said:

An asura colony in the depths cut off from their surface cousins due to Primordus's awakening, survives and establishes their own society and culture. Sounds plausible at least considering their gates weren't all connected to the Central Transfer Chamber from Guild Wars 1.

I have considered this as well. Or, what if all of the Asura in the Central Transfer Chamber were evacuating the region and a large group took a different gate that lead somewhere other than the Tarnished Coast/Maguuma Jungle? Would a separate Asuran culture have developed the same way as Rata Sum? We have already seen that Rata Novus (which is a between games development) was similar but also different from the other Asura in many ways. Perhaps they even ran into another species that protected them and that shifted their cultural development? Perhaps something else happens!

[Kalavier.1097]

Part of me has some ideas, but they run into problems of being too tropey or basically "Olmakhan, but X race."

 

20 hours ago, Aravind.9610 said:

An asura colony in the depths cut off from their surface cousins due to Primordus's awakening, survives and establishes their own society and culture. Sounds plausible at least considering their gates weren't all connected to the Central Transfer Chamber from Guild Wars 1.

 

This one I was back and forth on, as a "Nature loving, not tech Asura" group but I came up with a reasonable variant.

In the Mursaat histories we find, there is a reference that the Jotun purposefully cut themselves off from magic and almost self-destroyed their civilization to hide from the dragons.

 

Hypothetical: Asura group escaped through a gate, to another region underground. But fearing how the destroyers used not only the gates but seemed attracted to their magical tech (Asura cities underground were implied to be high tech, but not as advanced as GW2, with golems truly coming into play in GW1 when they reached the surface) so they smashed the gate, and all the tech to save themselves.

It worked, but they shifted away from using a lot of magic into a much more physical/manual labor style lifestyle. So they naturally are stronger/tougher/faster then their kin on the surface but they have a lot less magic and book smarts. Maybe even have them teamed up with Skritt as a joint colony and able to (somewhat) understand skritt's naturally hyperspeed native communication.

 

The part I thought about with races, from the Sylvari post up there was changes to physical nature. While I don't love the whole "Sub-species X of Norn/asura/etc) because of just.. well, the issues that arise, we could have slight differences like the above. Surface Asura have been described as "Sitting on the fence under the shade reading a book while the golem does the farming." so you could have the underground Asura from my example there being much more physically natured, and thus stronger. edit: As I hit post I do understand that we have three distinct sub-species of Hylek, not including Heket if you consider that split from regular Hylek. Though I'd want any such split to make sense, and not just be wtf.

 

And these groups don't even need to be as big as the Olmakhan or others, with the Dragons dealt with. Can be smaller communities we interact with and don't have to recruit them into an army :).

Edited April 7, 2022 by Kalavier.1097

[dusanyu.4057]

4 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

in GW2 the humans have held the "Elf" trope spot for a while being the older race on the decline/just getting over the hard times.

I hardly see humans as even being close to elves. For starters they are not even close to an old race they appeared in Cantha when the gods deposited them there from some other world in 205 BE than Balthazar encouraged them to go conquer the world. dating the Asura is impossible as they were basically a unknown until eye of the north  but being a native species to Tyria they are probably as old as the Charr. As far as char we know they were there when humans pushed into Ascalon  and possibly even further south into areas around the crystal sea as a multiple bes-reliefs of a human fighting a Charr can be seen in GW1's version of the tomb of the primeval kings (the wall where these carvings existed is collapsed by Brand in GW2)

 

As far as the human collapse it is more of the result of being on the receiving end of a Violent reconquest by first the Charr and now the centaurs  that closely resembles that of the Reconquista  that happened in the real world (781 years of war in the Iberian Peninsula )

Edited April 7, 2022 by dusanyu.4057

[Fenom.9457]

Well, personally I feel like a lot of the underused playable races have the most potential now

 

the Norn are all about making their legend and doing amazing things so individuals or groups could be placed *anywhere* as descendants of Norn who wandered off on an epic quest, got lost, and settled down somewhere else.  Or if it’s more recent they could even be the ones who left

 

The Asura came up from underground so again you could place them literally anywhere as a group from a different city and they left the depths separately 

 

sylvari are a bit trickier but there do seem to be more than one non corrupted tree so visiting Malyck’s or even adding a third one isn’t far fetched 

 

Charr I’m not sure, they can add more cultures all they want but they kinda already did it.  However we don’t have huge portions of their territory in game and some parts of their lands we know almost nothing about so there’s no need to add new variants

 

and lastly humans are probably the hardest to add new regions for because of how much we know about what the gods did and where humanity expanded to.  The only place they could do this without a whole lot of weird explaining to fit it in would be the sunrise crest fourth human land, the one with the trade routes on the map

 

but I will also say, I think expanding the non playable races and adding new cultures or variants of those is just as, if not more interesting.

[Narcemus.1348]

1 hour ago, dusanyu.4057 said:

I hardly see humans as even being close to elves. For starters they are not even close to an old race they appeared in Cantha when the gods deposited them there from some other world in 205 BE than Balthazar encouraged them to go conquer the world. dating the Asura is impossible as they were basically a unknown until eye of the north  but being a native species to Tyria they are probably as old as the Charr. As far as char we know they were there when humans pushed into Ascalon  and possibly even further south into areas around the crystal sea as a multiple bes-reliefs of a human fighting a Charr can be seen in GW1's version of the tomb of the primeval kings (the wall where these carvings existed is collapsed by Brand in GW2)

 

As far as the human collapse it is more of the result of being on the receiving end of a Violent reconquest by first the Charr and now the centaurs  that closely resembles that of the Reconquista  that happened in the real world (781 years of war in the Iberian Peninsula )

Current time humanity in Guild Wars 2 doesn't really fit that trope anymore, but when the game was first coming out they were definitely sold that way. No, they aren't the oldest race by a longshot, but they were definitely the race in decline, especially in Tyria. First ascalon and orr we're lost and Kryta was all that was left, but then even Kryta lost a lot to Zhaitan's tsunami and the founding of Lion's Arch. Humanity was brought down to two major cities separated by a majority of the continent and a few outlying villages. While they aren't the oldest race, they likely are the current oldest standing kingdom that has fallen far from grace. I believe that is what was being described.

[Kalavier.1097]

6 hours ago, Narcemus.1348 said:

Current time humanity in Guild Wars 2 doesn't really fit that trope anymore, but when the game was first coming out they were definitely sold that way. No, they aren't the oldest race by a longshot, but they were definitely the race in decline, especially in Tyria. First ascalon and orr we're lost and Kryta was all that was left, but then even Kryta lost a lot to Zhaitan's tsunami and the founding of Lion's Arch. Humanity was brought down to two major cities separated by a majority of the continent and a few outlying villages. While they aren't the oldest race, they likely are the current oldest standing kingdom that has fallen far from grace. I believe that is what was being described.

 

This. At the start of Gw2 we had gone from 7 (9 depending how you count) independent, flourishing nations to 1 confirmed nation actually still standing and alive. And that one was struggling.

 

The humans started off as the Elves. A once great and powerful species, who has lost a lot of their former glory and nations/cities. They are powerful, but are on a decline and struggling to end that.

 

Meanwhile the Sylvari were the "typical human" race. A newer, younger species who has emerged and quickly gained a chunk of power, are endlessly curious and exploring, never let anything slow them down.

[Ishmael.6740]

On 4/6/2022 at 2:48 AM, Ehecatl.9172 said:

There could be Sylvari out there that are highly militant

 

I accept no authority but the clenched fist of the plant legion!