Manuscripts Online?

I was thinking about buying a friend's account who doesn't have time to play the game anymore. He doesn't have his "manuscript" anymore (I guess the book that came with the box), but said you don't need any of that to play the game and you can get a key online anyway. The only thing I've come to find out is that this book contains the back story for the game. Is there any way to get even the basics of this backstory online? What do people do who buy a cd-key online from plaync.com? Is there a pdf?

I'm sure I'd be able to play the game just fine, but I'd really like to know at least the basic back story.

online manual
http://www.guildwars.com/manual/

online lore (the game manual is MUCH better)
http://www.guildwars.com/gameinfo/lore/default.html

Ok, the "Lore" is just short stories set in the world. No where does it describe what happened. Who are the Charr? What exactly was the searing, and why did it only happen on one side of a big wall? Is none of this online? What the heck is the point in selling an online retail cd-key if you don't give at least some access to the backstory?

What makes you think that all this information is in the PRINT manual? Much of it isn't. Many answers you'll only find by playing the game and following the storyline.

I agree the FULL manual should be online as PDF

hopefully, in the future, it will be


as for storyline
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basically The Gods gave magic to all intelligent creatures
humans and the Charr, Tengu, dwarves, minotaurs, imps etc

war broke out immediatly because of greed, as the magical races fought for dominance

after a plea from King Doric, the gods intervened and took all magic back by gathering it into one big stone, and then split the stone into 4 pieces and a keystone

the pieces represented 4 schools of magic(preservation,destruction,agression,denial)

all 4 types of magic would never again be under the control of a single creature. the stones were sealed with a drop of Dorics blood and put in a volacano.

a hundred years later, the volcano erupted and the (blood)stones were scattered across Tyria

the desire for power rose once again and *guilds* within the 3 human nations (Ascalon,Kryta,Orr) engaged in warfare

the kings of the 3 nations were powerless to stop the guild warfare because armies of the guilds were more powerful than the kingdoms armies

no one nation gained enough power to dominate the other two

after this conflict of 50 years, massive amounts of charr descended on all 3 human kingdoms

guilds/kingdoms dropped their grudges and united themselves against the new charr threat

Ascalon rallied themselves behind the NorthWall but a magic battle of fire and brimstone destroyed everything in the open plains for hundreds of miles (wall was retaken post searing)

Charr moved onto Orr.

The King of Orr read a forbidden dark magic scroll to defend his city - and this resulted in an explosion that sunk the entire penisula and killed nearly every citizen.

Kyrta depended on the White Mantle and their "unseen gods" for their Charr defense
(you are told this if you speak with the ambassador outside of PostSearing Ascalon)