Charr

Does anyone have a link I can read to see if humans killed charr women and children when we pushed them from there land? It might not be there but I asume we did.

If your point is to know why there are no female and young charr in GW1, that's explained as part of the lore in GW2 wiki. Basically, female charr weren't allowed to enter combat and were always in charr settlements; youngsters were sent off to 'schools' of some sort, academys, whatever. Not sure on this last one but it's in GW2 wiki anyway.

Don't have a link to your specific question.

Keep in mind that in prophs we only seen the combat elements of the Charr. According to lore the Charr females were suppressed by the shaman class and not allowed to join the Charr forces on the front.

I've never seen a Charr child or a Norn or Asuran child as well. I'm guessing this will change in Gw2 seeing how we'll be exploring the other races cultures.

On the other tact from the 2 previous posts, nothing much is said about human conflict with the Charr before the Pre-Searing Ascalon of the game, save for the fact that the humans pushed the Charr back to establish Ascalon. It would be interesting to see Anet give us some more background lore for Guild Wars, especially about the wars themselves (aside from the Battle of Khylo, which is on the wiki), the Corsair Wars, humans establishing themselves in Tyria (and the pushing back of the Charr) and such, but alas we have very little. One could assume, though, that since the Charr spared nothing when it came to human women and children, humans probably did the same thing.

there is a concept art of one in the Art of Guild Wars 2.

@Ariovist: I thought it was the GDC slideshow? There was a baby charr, a teenage charr, and norn (?) children. I don't recall one in the Art of GW2.

@dark prince: There isn't. That's never said. The only thing said about the human/charr conflict is that the gods aided the humans push the charr back with magic, and with the assassination of the charr's leaders, the charr couldn't retaliate for hundreds of years due to a return of internal strife.

The only thing on charr women and children is that female charr were banished from the battlefield by the Shaman Caste which took over 200 years prior to GW1 and that children are often born fully furred and are sent to camps called Fahrar's at a young age where they are assimilated into a warband where they stay all their life.

That was it! Knew I saw the cutesy Charr cub pic somewhere (I dont actually have AoGW2, just thought it might have been in there)

Well, in the world of Guild Wars, both human women and female Charr (until the rise of the Shaman Caste) fought, so the females on both sides would be fair game.

Children might be different - we know that Charr enslave human cubs (and human adults too). It's possible that orphaned Charr picked up by advancing human forces were raised by the victors as well, but any such orphans would have died of old age by the time of presearing since Ascalon stopped pushing into Charr territory at the start of the Guild Wars if not earlier.

Maybe, or the Charr knew better than the arrogant humans and kept the future generations well back from the fighting until they were old enough to join in.

My best suggestion though is that, being human, they saw the Charr as animals, not equal sentient beings, thus treated the cubs the same way (killed them rather than capture them as prisoner.

I guess we wont know cause the time of the game the attitude is 'kill all Charr' rather than 'lets take their land for our own'

Well, your personal attitude seems to be influencing your thoughts here. Note you keep saying "arrogant humans" and the "Charr knew better". There's no evidence of that anywhere.

Don't fall into the trap of viewing the old Charr as "noble savages", it's a ridiculous remnant of Britain's Empire. Like any tribal society, they engaged in often vicious internecine warfare. Look at their body structure: they sure as hell weren't peaceful herbivores living off of the land. Yes, when they fell to worshiping the Titans, their culture degraded, but to claim that it degraded from some lofty egalitarian ideal ...well it's the kind of pap that Hollywood has been shoving down our throats for years. Remember Dances with Wolves?

When an army invades an area, a flood of refugees will be fleeing from them. It stands to reason that the old charr, not having large cities to tie them down, fled from the human's advance. Whereas we know that the Charr killed everyone that wasn't suitable for slavery, and enslaved the rest of the population. Even women and children. There's nothing in-lore about humans having charr slaves or labor camps. In fact, how do the charr refer to humans? "Meat". It's hard to deny sentience to an enemy that speaks the same language you do, I don't understand how you came to that assertion, but from what we've seen in-game, the charr are the ones that view their adversaries as untermensch, not humans.

As to humans using females as warriors and the charr "knowing better": Come on, you know that's just so people can play whichever sex they'd like in-game. Even in a fantasy setting, no culture would be stupid enough to risk its future by putting females against males in hand-to-hand combat.

Actually, Magragoc, in Prophecies the Ascalonians call charr mindless beasts. It seems that, really, all sentient races view their own as the best - charr, human, mursaat, asura, centaur, norn, etc.

And even in history, cultures have been "stupid enough" to put women in combat hand-to-hand or otherwise. Remember the Amazon women in greek mythology? In Africa, there are cultures which have women as the dominant emotionless ones while men are the sensitive ones even. You say that Ariovist is bias and you bash on him, yet you're clearly equally biased.

I'm sorry if I gave offense, but I never intended to "bash" anyone or anything; please don't tar me with the same brush as "Myotheraccount", nothing hostile or insulting was said.

I agree completely that every culture or species views themselves as the "good guys", that's only common sense. I was objecting to Lynxkinds implication that the charr were morally superior to humans, when the fact remains that if viewed objectively, the charr were "bad guys". How much of that can be laid at the feet of the Shaman caste and Titan worship is open to debate, but the behavior isn't created out of vacuum: The tendencies have to be there already for the Shamen to have manipulated.

As to the other, it's unfair to talk about history and then give an example from mythology. There was no real tribe of "Amazons", it was a Greek fairytale. As to those African cultures, nothing I said had anything to do with sensitivity or emotion. Given our long gestation periods, and our longer journey to maturity, it would be cultural suicide to employ the same numbers of males and females on the front lines. Even the Spartans, who can lay a fair claim on being the most militarized culture in history, never did that.

To be fair, there will always be exceptional people like Boadicea or Joan of Arc, but by their very nature, they're exceptions. There is no division of labor in GW, because the developers wanted (wisely) to allow each player to be whomever they'd like. Isn't that the point of a game?

Actually, Konig hit the nail on the head about my thoughts. While other human cultures in GW may not reflect it, the Ascalons have certainly proven themselves to be arrogant. They built the wall, but then they built cities outside it, including the capital Drascir, which could be seen as a taunting gesture towards the charr, but more importantly, in regards to this convo, the families were out there too, including future generations of Ascalonians.

What I was getting at with the charr 'knowing better', is savage though they might be (and there is no dispute there), they would still have the cubs protected somewhere because they know that they are the next generation of warriors. Mind you, though, the charr have a different mindset and culture to humans. Excerpt from 'Ecology of the Charr'

First off, it doesnt take long for them to be on their own. Secondly, unlike the academy at Drascir, I doubt the Fahrar camps would be practically on the front lines.


But, to address your accusation, I was not implicating that they were morally superior, and in fact the way you label them as "bad guys" it could be said you are implicating that humans are morally superior. In reality, though, as Konig pointed out each race views themselves as superior. I just try to look at each race on an even footing and see the differences in their culture.

It isn't so much they view themselves as good - I personally don't think the charr have opinions about good and evil, there's just allies, tools, and enemies. But every race views themselves superior to others.

Actually, this might not be the case, as archeologists have discovered remains of what could be what the Amazons are based off of. And for the second, I was meaning that women, in some cultures, are viewed to be stronger than men. Thus women would be preferred over men in combat.

I have to go now, so I'll respond to the rest later.

Where do we learn this? I'm interested in the history of the Charr using in game lore.

Thanks in advance!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_...y_of_the_Charr

It's a wiki page copied verbatim from an official article written by Ree Soesbee of ArenaNet.

1) What Legions do/did Pyre Fierceshot,Kalla Scorchrazor, Scorch EmberSpire and Rend Ragemauler belong to?

2) In GW2 if I play as a charr what is the definition of a "good" charr and a "evil" charr? Is a good charr one that follows his/her warband/legion and an evil one one that rebels against his/her warband or legion?

It is unknown exactly what legion Pyre Fierceshot belonged to because he is stripped of all his "titles" when he kills a shaman in the Flame Legion. I would assume he is part of the Blood Legion as that is what legion his descendant Kalla Scorchrazor is part of.
^removing crossed out part.
Kalla Scorchrazor's father is the leader of the Blood Legion. It never specifies if Kalla is also part of it. Since family ties in Charr society don't indicate their legion, Pyre's legion is also unknown.

It is unknown what legion Scorch Emberspire belongs to. His name "Emberspire" shows that he is part of the Ember warband, which is believed to be part of the Flame Legion, as the warband names often indicate their legion in some form (ember)

It is unknown which legion Rend Ragemauler belongs to. It is speculated that he is part of the Flame Legion as his locations place him very close to them.

Your second question is one that belongs on GW2guru, not here. But do use the search function when you go there as there are at least 3 topics already on the matter, no need for a new one.

Your second question is a curious one.

Simply put someone is good if they do good and evil if the do evil.

Suppose the Charr is in a warband that aims to do evil how could he be classed as good for obeying the warbands instructions and do evil.

The warband shouldn't be part of the equation

To the first question: Each of the legions does have seperate fahrur and it's unusual (albeit not impossible) for a child of one legion to go to the fahrur of another. Thus, if Kalla Scorchrazor's father is in the Blood Legion, it's likely that her grandfather (Pyre) and great-grandfather (Vatlaaw Doomtooth) are in that legion as well. (In fact, with Pyre's descendants being in the Blood Legion's leadership, I'm surprised they didn't play a greater role in the truce faction. Maybe they wanted to keep their association with the Goremonger and her allies under wraps.)

From their warband names, I'd guess Scorch Emberspire and Rend Ragemauler to be Flame and Blood respectively, although that's purely an educated guess. It is worth noting, however, that at that time every legion had its shamans (even though the Flame had more) and that the shamans were all in cahoots with one another, so Rend's location near a Flame stronghold doesn't need to mean he's Flame himself.

Regarding "good" and "evil" charr - the "good" charr are the charr from the Blood, Ash, and Iron Legions, the "bad" charr are the unplayable Flame. You could throw in the dragon-corrupted crystal charr, but they're kinda not really charr any more.

Also: Merged, because we don't really need two charr threads running simultaneously.

I am not so sure that this is correct, based on Ghosts of Ascalon.

Charr matings are not necessarily within legion. (For example, Ember Doomforge is Ash Legion and so is her mother, but her grandmother is Almorra Soulkeeper of the Blood Legion.) It is mentioned that charr children are placed in the fahrar of one of their parents' legions (pp 276-277), which suggests that cross-legion matings are not uncommon.

It is not said that the fahrar choice is determined by the legion of the father, but must be the legion of one of the parents. Clearly it could be the mother's legion, depending on the circumstances. (In fact, it might even be the mother's legion most of the time, since the cub is with her until it enters the fahrar.)

Further, Dougal gives a bit of a lecture on the different legions (p 223). He states that the Iron Legion attracts warbands with an affinity to explosives and machines, the Blood Legion gathers those that are strong and violent, and the Flame Legion has most of the spellcasters and shamans. The Ash Legion is largely spies and saboteurs.

The phrasing in that speech -- which is uncorrected by Ember, who was present -- seems to suggest that warbands have a choice in their legion affiliation, and can go where they are attracted, rather than being forced into the legion in which they were raised. This may apply only to new warbands coming out of the fahrar, but, at some point, they appear to have a choice. (Could it be that legions have recruiters who visit the various fahrars to try to find likely prospects? Career days for cubs close to graduating? )

So it seems like a pretty thin chain of logic to put Kalla, Pyre, and Vatlaaw all in the Blood legion based on their relationship.

Yet the Ash Legion imperator at the time of GoA is a female named Malice Swordshadow. This seems to contradict the surname "rule" given above, since Malice is obviously part of the Sword warband.

Frankly, this makes more sense than what Ecology tells us. Adult warbands do not recruit children as replacements as far as we know, or warbands would essentially go on forever. So there would be no way for a descendant of an imperator to keep the same familial name, unless the descendant changed the name of their warband upon becoming the imperator. (Which is obviously not the case with Malice Swordshadow.)

Overall, it seems like warband names are not a very good guide to legion affiliation, and warband names can be repeated, perhaps in different legions. (Ember Doomforge and Vatlaaw Doomtooth, for example. We know Ember is Ash, and your hypothesis places Vatlaaw in Blood.)

Ack! Internet hiccough ate my post! Shorter this time. Might not be as clear or as well explained as the first time around, but I really don't want to write a half-dozen paragraphs again...

First, statistically, if there's a roughly 50/50 chance of a cub going to the mother or father's fahrur, I'd estimate a 2/3 chance of Pyre also being a Blood Legion member (with a 1/6 chance both mother and father are Blood, and I'm pretty sure Pyre ain't Flame). Vatlaaw comes out at roughly 50% statistically, although the warband name and his activities do suggest Ash.

There is a pertubation here in the inequity between male and female charr at the time, possibly meaning that the father's line is more valued (making the cub more likely to go to the father's legion) or that the female is more responsible for raising the cub makes the cub more likely to go to her legion. It's hard to say which way this would go.

Regarding warband specialties: I doubt that the charr legions actually encourage warbands to go to legions that share their specialty, even if Ember didn't bother to correct it. Instead, I suspect it's that natural tendencies combined with training brings out the specialty, but that "freak" warbands (except the magical ones due to that cultural bias) would probably be valued more than those that toe the line so that the legion doesn't have to call in another legion for jobs outside their specialty. While not so institutionalised as you've suggested, though, I suspect it is possible for warbands to change legions, giving Ember less reason to interject. Likely the Flame Legion's relative strength (seemingly more powerful than any of the other individual legions) has come from shamans and sorcerors from the other three defecting to somewhere where they'd be more welcome.

I suspect you're right in that warband names aren't passed on, instead dying as the warband dies to be retaken by a later successor. This may or may not be limited by legion, although I would suspect that there are some warband names that are more likely to come from one warband than another. For instance, fire-based warband names are probably most likely (but not necessarily) Flame or Ash, in that order.

Regarding the idea of the primus warband - That does seem to be out, and when you think about it, it's actually a pretty stupid system (it implies that whenever the members of the old primus warband die out you end up with the untried leader of the next primus warband getting the Imperatorship, and meanwhile there's a lot of eligible talent that never get the opportunity to try for it just because they graduated at the wrong time). I am wondering now, though, whether it's possible that the imperator's warband is given the primus warband name as an honourific, which they can choose to use or ignore as they wish. (An alternative may be that the imperator him- or herself carries the old warband name, while their warband carries the primus name - which might explain why the Flame leaders in GW1 tended to be Burnt*something* rather than Flame*something*.)

Incidentally, anyone else amused by the irony that one of the most "good" charr we've seen so far, the driver of the truce from the charr side, is called Malice?

Um, no? I can't think of too many instances where monstrous or savage looking people actually turn out to be not bad. It's turning an even more stereotypical (ugly=evil) concept on its head.

That is pretty sexist sounding. Obviously not every female is going to be on the frontlines because it won't be what every woman wants. Just as not all men are on the frontlines. If a woman is capable enough then what is the problem? There are a plethora of strong female fighters in the game to use as examples as well.

The real problem with video games tends to be that it is tougher to design women than men. Which is why we so often see mono-gendered species. It's easier to assume that there are in fact females around somewhere and that there are in fact children somewhere. Just because they aren't shown in game doesn't mean they don't exist.

A.net really didn't have to explain that fact with a backstory although the backstory they do have for the charr isn't bad.

Given the humans' relationship with the charr, I am sure they killed everything that was a threat or that could fight back. Yeah probably women in children. If we didn't have a backstory about them and they were just faceless monsters that would be a given. But that is really what they are to the humans--monsters. That makes killing women and children an entirely different level of morality.

As has been stated, no official lore regarding the slaughter of charr non-combatants exist, though it very likely happened. The history of humanity in our world shows us that when one group attempts to take territory from another, the exchange is.. less than pleasant. Generaly the first step in colonizing and area is to eradicate the indigenous population, that includes ensuring that none of thier young grow up to be future resistance leaders. Plus as the above post mentions, you have to consider the attitude humans of the time had towards charr. If you where pushing into let's say..imp (or insert any other GW1 monster that really annoys you) territory, wouldn't you make sure you smash up all thier nests and kill any survivors before building a farm on what used to be thier land? To most humans charr are nothing more than monsters, vicious animals that need to be eliminated so that humans can live safetly where they want to.