Third Lore Project - A final study of Tyria

Hello everyone!

It's been two weeks since the last project (Second Lore Project: Clearing out the mist in the storyline) was begun. That project is well under way, but what it set out to do is of course not finished. We need to cover over those holes and clear out the mist by making conclusions where there are gaps in all things related to the storyline. Let us hope that after a good deal of discussion and research we will get there. So make sure to keep that project going.

But anyway, after two weeks (the last project covered a large area so I decided to extend it), it is time to introduce a new project. With only two weeks now until the release of Guild Wars: Factions, we do not have much time to continue exploring the lore of Tyria fully before we set off to Cantha. Of course in future projects we may return to look at Tyria again, but a lot of the focus will be on Cantha.

The aim of this third project is to perform a final detailed study of all that is the continent of Tyria, and the living things that dwell upon it. We will also attempt to delve into Tyria's history, and religions.

The next project will be introduced in about another two weeks, around the time of Guild Wars: Factions’ release. Until then, let’s try to put a lot of effort into this project and the previous one.

So, a final study of Tyria. The aim is to bring all the information we have been given together, and look at connections, details, and missing details. Examining everything we know and what we don’t know, and discussing and researching it.

What things could we look at?

• Tyrian geography. The landscape, climates, geology, etc.
• The races and families of creatures in Tyria. From the Mursaat to the Tengu, and from the Stone Summit to the Elonians. Details, history, culture, etc.
• The nations, and authorities of the lands of Tyria. Details, history, connections, current status.
• Religion, myths, legends, superstition, popular culture of Tyria (relates to different races).
• The general history of Tyria.
• Architecture, arts and crafts of Tyria.

There will probably be other things too.

I'm sure there are plenty of things to talk about within these subject areas, and I have spoken to someone who I think would be happy to introduce some ideas. Discuss and research anything you like, and where there are perhaps controversial things or missing details, we can of course try to make conclusions on them. All opinions are welcome!

Remember, we can find information inside of Guild Wars, and outside, including in the game manual, and on internet sites such as GuildWiki.

And yet again, All written and pictorial evidence that may be useful in discussing the matters at hand should be posted up without hesitation!

While i was in the falls area i found this white mantle temple.


With the design it resambles a white mantle archetech, but inside is a stautue of bathizar(witch is burning so it is activly being worshiped). But if is made by the mantle souldnt they be worshiping mursaat not balthasar?
Another thing i foung weird is the ramp leading up to it is the same and the one in heros accent inside the battle isles.

aye! someone found the outside entrance to FoW maybe?

that architecture is the temple found all over the gw world, by the grenth statue north of rankor, the UW, HA, ther (obviously) and some other places... interesting to say the least

(sorry its late and i dont care about my grammer right now :/)

I dont have them, but we should put up SS' of all the murals of the gods-found in Ascalon, pre and post mostly.

ok, wats with those big statue things in pre-seaing that are found across the wall in the charr area. Personally, i think they resemble the titans but im not sure. . .

Anubis, I believe that may be the arcitectual style of the Druids, or of the Krytans before the White Mantle took power. Remember, the Mantle had only been around for about 2 years.

Yes, the statues are resembling Titans. The way I understand it, the Charr worship the titans...

that dose make sence but as far as we know the druids have been around for a long time but we don't know much about them.

Maybe the druids worshiped the mursaat, then the temple was found by the krytans or whatever... then the made it a temple of balthazar... just throwing ideas out

I took a tour of southern Ascalon for the 2nd time today, I noticed a few things I hadn't before.

I know other have seen this before, but this was my firts time actually looking at it first hand:



This bridge proves that there was once a link between Ascalon and the Crystal Desert.



Not long after, I saw this:



These bones found on Ascalon's side of the mountains closely resemble those scattered throughout the Desert. This suggests that the massive creatures that once roamed the Desert, also popped into Ascalon from time to time. This re-enforces the idea that the bridge served as a passage between Ascalon ad the Desert.



This is unrelated, but i thought it was odd. While it is common knowledge that the giant crystals destroyed Ascalon, it also seems that they are resposible for the re-greenification of Ascalon as well:



This picture shows the most obvious of a few areas where it is apparent that colourful flora has begun to grow around the impact sites of the Searing crystals.



I forget to get a pic of this but, you can just go to Ft. Ranik and see. The moat (sp?) around Ft. Ranik is still water, when all other water is Ascalon was turned to tar. I havn't seen any other water around, but i suggest somebody go heck around crystals; there is potential that this reinforces my previous idea that crystals are helping Ascalon recover.


This is odd: why is it that the Ascalon landscaper looks more like it has suffered alot of seismic activity (rocky, hilly, large "shelves" of rock; presumably caused by Searing?) than the Ring of Fire islands (really do suffer seismic activity, constantly with all the volcanoes)??? i think its weird.


What weather patterns could cause Tyria to be coldest in the middle, and not on the top and bottom like Earth?






Here's my theory on the Charr's plan for invading tyria:

1) Solicit the aid of the Mursaat in building a WMD to aid their war effort (the crystal cannon thing)

2) Send Grimm Sharpfang to 1) scout targets for "artillery barrage", and 2) survey the Catacombs to see if they are a strategical asset

3) Launch artillery according to Grimm's observations (assuming he reported back before being killed), if you look at map there are clusters of crystals in important locations:
-around Ascalon City, obviosly, since it is the hub of Ascalon livlihood, and military, break hole at Breach
-around Sardelac to clear the way for a Catacomb attack (through Breach, into Catacomb entrance near Barradin Estate, seal it behind them)
-Pockmarck Flats to open a hole in the wall to attack through, clear the way down to south Ascalon, line of fire makes a nice curve thru Pockmark and Regent Valley (regent, to clear out Ascalon army, and make way for allies at Sardelac to come down and meet if necessary), cluster in south-east corner to blow apart the positions guarding the AScalon-Crystal Desert Bridge.

4) Charr go across the bridge, and traverse the mountains to lay siege upon the Crystal Desert.

5) Charr go west from Ascalon, to the Northern Shiverpeaks. The Stone Summit are not yet a problem, and the Deldrimor Dwarves put up little fight. To Kryta, the Charr march.

6) In the Desert, the Charr are accustomed to brown, barren terrain and quickly advance to Orr. Vizier Khilbron does his thing, and Orr goes boom. Charr vs. Orrian Kingdom= Orrian Victory (sort of, lol)

7) In the Shiverpeaks, despite the lack of resistance form Dwarves, they Charr despise the cold, hilly terrain, and are hindered in their progress. Their will to carry on pushed them through to Kryta. The Krytans no doubt expected their arrival, and were prepared to defend their nation. Though they emerged victorious, the Lionguard suffered many casualties and the White Mantle took advantage of their weakened state to become self-proclaimed rulers of Kryta.



Off on yet another tangent, the Tarnished Coast (southern edge of Kryta/Maguuma) may be so named because the edge facing Orr is noticabely more brown and desert-looking, in other words it looks tarnished. This likely happened when Orr exploded. The gargantuan explosion sent heat and shockwaves out in all directions, damaging the coastline. Some of the blast energy was redirected off of the Ring of Fire islands, and bounced towards the Coast. North-east of Orr, across the channel, is the Southern Shiverpeaks. The Orr blast completely melted coastline, and a fair ways inland, but the high mountain ridge saved the rest the Shiverpeaks by defelcting the bast skyward. As for the Ring of Fire islands, they weren't affected becasue they were tarnished to begin with. Or, perhaps the volcanoes weer dormant until the blast woke them up, and now there is lava everywhere again.

One thing...the Charr worship fire, not Titans.

The statues DO look like Titans thou', and the Titan boss is in Ascalon.

SO.....the Titans and Ascalon definetly are related.

Wow that was awesome canadian bacon you really worked your azz off AWESOME JOB!!!!!

lol, thanks. I really didn;t work all that hard. My original point was to put up my screenshots, but then I just started throwing down everythign that popped to mind, lol. Very little effort required.


I have just thought of sumthing else to discuss:

The devs went out of their way to mention that Giant's Basin is a Salt Water lake. Why is it salty (it has no tribultaries from the ocean), and why is its salinty relevant?


I have noticed something else, just now. The only place in Tyria who's terrain consists mostly of black rock other than the Ring of Fire islands is the little-known area known to some travelers as "Kryta". You might be thinking, "stfu bacon, Kryta is clearly very green and lush". To you I say, "Yes, Kryta does have foliage. But under the topsoil, the bedrock is black. If you don't believe me, open your map and compare the islands with rocky areas such as Riverside Province, and around Bergen/ToA/Beetletun. You will see that they are in fact woven of the same material, except the islands lack foliage." So, clearly the islands were once, many years ago, a part of Kryta. The only explanation I can offer is that the Islands were at one time stuck to the Tarnished Coast as one unifed land mass, and possibly acted as a bridge between Kryta and Orr. A sudden increase in volcanic an seismic activity on the 'bridge' chunk (possibly some more crazy Orrian spells, like the one that got them killed?) caused it to break off, start to float out to sea in much the same way that our real world continents move, and begin to splinter into the island chain we all know today.

I agree with you- if you look closely, the rocks of Kryta to appear to be volcanic in origin. This fact is especially obvious in the "valleys" in the starting points of several areas, where large chunks of spiky volcanic rock poke out of the ridge edges.

Yay, 2 people with positive feedback so far.

C'mon people, lets get discussing here! I said alot of stuff, I'm sure people have thoughts! Heh, or did I express my thoughts so perfectly that nobody dares disagree/build on them because there is nothing to disagree about and it is already built high?

or. . .maybe the graphics designers making the game just got lazy and used the same type of terrain in both places

Or maybe you have no imagination! Ha!

~Note: Moved five posts about a temple in the Maguuma into this thread.~

Wow, Bacon! Very interesting, lots of effort there - I applaud you!

Well, from the posts so far, it looks like we've got into history, geography and architecture a bit. Several things to discuss.

Firstly, that bridge you found, Bacon. I hadn't seen that before, but it looks like it indeed was a bridge across that now tarry river. Perhaps that means that there was more of the Ascalonian nation to the south of the river, but it was basically cut off. It would make sense that this was the action of the Charr after they had gone across any bridges, that they destroyed them to prevent themselves from being followed. Then, if there was any more of Ascalon on the other side of the river, I should imagine on their journey south they pretty much eliminated it. Following this, they must have crossed that wall of mountains between Ascalon and the Crystal Desert, possibly even through a tunnel, and headed around to Orr. I think some possible connections between Ascalon and the Crystal Desert have been discussed over on GWO, I'll have to check on that.

The giant bones that litter Ascalon and the Crystal Desert are almost certainly those of the Giganticus Lupicus, the great giants, of whom the last signs of living date back to 10,000 years ago (as mentioned in the timeline). The manual gives virtually no other information about them, therefore we must simply assume that they were huge giants, created by the gods as creatures just like any of the others they made, just...massive in size. Since these bones haven't been found elsewhere than Ascalon and the Crystal Desert, we can assume that they generally roamed the eastern side of Tyria.

As for the vegetation around the crystals, it must just be the light energy they are radiating out and the minerals that have been buried into the soil (which plants love) are encouraging growth. The presence of water around Fort Ranik is odd, though. I can't think of an explanation for that. Possibly the moat was sheltered from the tar and other substances - that must have rained down in the searing to cause other areas of water to turn tar-like - by the hill formations/various tall things in the way.

You also mentioned some geology-related aspects, such as the rock patterns in Ascalon and the Ring of Fire and Kryta, and the Tarnished Coast.

I believe this part of a post I made in the thread about the Charr may relate to some of the things you have suggested.

So, let us merge our two ideas together. The explosion of Orr in the Cataclysm send out shockwaves, 'tarnishing' the coasts...or, perhaps, the heat caused by the explosion heated up the water (not quite as far as boiling point), and sent out these waves of hot water, which sort of eroded the coasts to make them look slightly 'burnt' or 'tarnished'. The explosion of Orr also caused a large amount of solid material to sink under the sea, raising the whole sea level. This flooded the river coming from the Shiverpeaks, and brought water over to the Amnoon Oasis. Before that, the bay between the Shiverpeaks and Orr was mostly land.

If the Ring of Fire islands broke away from Kryta/Maguuma, it must have been a very very long time ago and must have happened very slowly (so happens in geology)

But perhaps this leads us into studying Tyria's geographical past. Kryta indeed looks like there may have been volcanic activity there a long time ago. And it looks similar to the Ring of Fire in its dark under-rocks.

This made me think of a very interesting theory someone over at GWO put together. I might as well bring it here.

(HQ version here)

Various things that help the theory were also discussed in the thread, such as the Bergen Hot Springs and mountain folds. Perhaps even, the Ring of Fire islands in fact were formed by broken away landmasses from the Maguuma and Orr that crashed together, bringing up volcanoes and such. All very interesting stuff, I suggest you check out that thread to bring more of that discussion over here - http://forums.gwonline.net/showthread.php?t=386378

Let's keep discussing all this geology/geography stuff, it's very interesting.

As for the burning effigies, yes, it has been discussed before, the larger of those most certainly represent titans. What we are unsure of is what the smaller ones represent, but I think that discussion could be kept over in the thread where it started - http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...d.php?t=138262

The temple in the Maguuma jungle, and the sequence of the Charr invasion, are also interesting, but I think I've been through enough stuff in this post for now!

*ahem* i discovered a few things while walking through ascalon today i noticed that those crystal bombs look a lot like the ones from the crystal desert.



As you can see they look a lot like eachother so they might be related.
After that i whent to the northern coast of kryta where i found a few of these strange towers...


This might prove that the charr attacked from the north because these might have powered up some force field that defended kryta but i am not sure about that....

I then helped a friend with the villiany of galrath when i saw Verata but nowhere in the lore or whatever you see why Verata would have joined forces with Galrath.... Whe have a few more questions now somebody here got more information regarding this?

Verata does not join forces with Galrath afaik, as you can lead Galrath's bandits into Verata's followers and they will fight.

One thing I have wondered about is the fact that the lore booklet notes that Saul D'alessio encountering villages or communities of Mursaat deep within in the Maguuma. Has anyone actually found anything relating to societies of Mursaat in the jungle?

On to some random speculation, Galrath seems to be White Mantle, judging from his attire, maybe he opposed the Mursaat and was exiled from their order? Maybe that is why perhaps that he is accompanied by his Bandits and not by White Mantle.

In the Villainy of Galrath, we venture out to Kessex Peak, where the mysterious Wizard's Tower lies. The quest description describes that there are hidden secrets within the Wizard's Tower. I'm thinking that perhaps Galrath knew what was inside and could be used against the Mursaat.

I don't think that made much sense but whatever lol :P

Undead Mesmer, I like the idea of the Charr being the mysterious force described in Beetltun's caption. I have been trying to figure that one out a bit, and I assumed it was giant's or something. Charr makes alot mroe sense, but it raises questions, especially ones relating back to comments abotu the formation and importance of Gian'ts Basin.

1) Charr hate water, so they would not have just paddled along merrily on boats across the lake. Therefore, the lake didn't exist when the Charr attacked. So what caused it to form?
I have one idea on this matter, but it does not account for the salinity. Liquifaction. Liquifaction (water comes up form underground, floods an area) ties in perfectly with that other guy's idea about a fault line thru Kryta. However, to my knowledge, liquifaction waters are right form the ground, so I don't know how the lake became salty.

2) Why is it salty?
I just had a thought. Open ur map, and look at the eastern-most Krytan lake. Notice how it is shaped an positioned to be an excellent addition to Giant's Basin. SO, perhaps they were linked at ine time, but somehow became seperated by land. Hey, here's a WILD idea: what if the Charr, hating water, actually made that land bridge across the lake to access Kryta? Just a thought. Back to what I originally wanted to say, look at the eastern lake, and now notice how south of it, towards Gates of Kryta, the land form clearly shows an old riverbed cut into the land. Theere are high ridges on either side of narrow places, perfect for water flow. This leads right down past Gates of Kryta, and looks like it could hook up with that 'S' shaped river. I know that lakes normally flow out into the sea, but this at least makes a connection to the ocean. There is another nland river from the ocean north of Fisherman's Haven, and it seems like its old conection to Giant's Basin was severed at some point, so now it hangs numbly, waiting to reconnect Giant's Basin as it exists now to the sea. Edit>>> I just went for a stroll form Lion's Arch to the lake, and realized that the swamps could support the idea that water once flowed thru that region. I noticed that the non-submerged parts had walkways visible on them, and there was evidence of knocled-down buildings everywhere. It looks to me like water swept through there very suddenly, crushing buildings, and burying old roads. We should check the lore for any mention of a long-gone town right there. Edit again>>> alot of the wreckage sems to point south, towards Lion's Arch. Soming out of the swamp, i notice a neat little wrecked building (peaceful hiding place, I shall return there) and there was debris strewn about seemingly at random. LOL, this is now so far off-topic from 'Why is it salty?', but who cares.


Onto a different matter,

I have a thought on the 'sinking' of Orr. First, was it actually literally floating on top of the ocean? If it was floating, then it would already be displacing water, so water levels wouldn't rise when it sank. If it did not actually float and was part of the ground, then water still wouldn't rise cuz its already in the water. So, unfortunately, it looks like the theory about inland flooding 'doesn't float'.

deep, very very deep...

i dont know if im having a brain fart or if they answered this question somewhere, but where exactly was Orr before it blew up?

Orr was (is) the shattered peninsula just east of Ring of Fire islands.

That might also be the thing that attracted Verata there because he whas babling about ultimate power and such when you encounter him in the shiverpeaks...

On another note it did make sense ^^ and i came to know that minotaurs life in herds and are most of the time leaded by a herdleader :P or just a high lvl minotaur (the forest minotaurs live that way)
The shiverpeak minos live the same but the elonian type of minotaurs life in groups of 3-8 of them most of the time not leaded by a alpha male.

Here's something i have been researching lately:

The Wizard's Tower. It floats majestically in the air, presumabely captutred by Galrath, right off of Kessex Peak. Where did this tower come from? The architecture doesn't match anything I have seen before. My guess is that this is the old style of Kryta, before the White Mantle razed the buildings and built their own. Also, I checked, it isn't the same one that appears in Pre-Searing (speaking of which, where did that one go? lol) There should be a big hole in the ground where Galrath lifted this thing from, cuz you can see that the tower took its piece of ground along for the ride.

Ultimate Power eh? Read on...

The Lich fulfills the Flameseeker Prophecies and gains the "Ultimate Power" (Titans.) Could Verata have been looking for Flameseeker text? Could the Mantle (Galrath) have been trying to destroy the Flameseeker text in hope of preventing the destruction of the Mursaat? Sounds possible to me!

Another question that probably isnt right due to the differences in the looks of the towers: Could the Elementialist (Azure) have been guarding it in Pre-Searing for any known reason (or are the towers completely different?)

Update to my previous post about waterways:

I just explored CSoundrels Rise, and there are shipwrecks everywhere, so no doubt it was once a waterway of some sort. The ships are all crashed as though they were floating, and suddenly all the water left right form under them. This is truly perplexing. The only problem is that there is a bout a 200ft cliff down to the water. That isn't consistent.

I think its because the moutains are so high its just cold. Its the only explanation because no matter witch way you possion the axis on a globe or such it would be impossible to have the middle cold and the rest warm.

The lake that you guys were taking about that was formed mabey to keep the charr out of kryta may have been feed by that river.


One more thing i noticed is in some places in kryta (LA is best place to be) you can see these to giant towers that look like citys. These are never in the story line but for tyrias technoligy it looks pretty hard to build even for today.

i thought orr extended more into the sea of sorrows?

their floating..OOoooooOo...

Oh and u guys are making my head hurt >_<

there not floating.

Ya, they are clearly grounded quite nicely.

Any of you ever wonder where all those little buildings going into the ground in Majesty's Rest lead to?

Also,how is it a few meteorites landing here and there in Ascalon scorched the entire landscape? Not to mention I don't remember the Charr being afraid of water being mentioned in the Lore about them.

Btw,that bridge that links Ascalon and the Desert would explain how the Charr got to the Desert! Only thing I don't understand is,why don't we see any Charr camps in the Desert or remains of camps?

They couldn't have just kept running and running,they would have had to stop and rest I would imagine.

Time for more random speculation. Regarding how the Charr got to Orr, I believe that upon coming to the mountain range seperating the Crystal Desert from Ascalon, the Charr dug their way underground or found existing tunnels leading from Ascalon - Crystal desert.

It would certainly explain a number of these entrances to tunnels that are found throughout the desert.



On another note, could it be that the Mursaat had forced the Druids out of their colonies in the Maguuma? Perhaps prior to learning of The Searing, the Mursaat had found out that the Titans had been at work?
The Titans are supposedly worshipped by the Charr and they probably gave them the power to trigger the Searing.

The Searing might have alerted the Mursaat to the prescence of Titans in Ascalon and they may have sent scouts into the Maguuma to investigate.
The Druids currently living in the Maguuma at the time could have been forced out by the Mursaat or they could have left hundreds of years before, who knows.

A few things to say.

We have to remember that now with the introduction of Cantha, Tyria is not the whole world but more of a continent, therefore we don't know its location on a globe (if it is a globe) so the temperature of the shiverpeaks can not be pinned on whether its a pole or not. But ther height would explain their coldness such as in the alps or himalayas.

Another thing about the location of water. From what I understand Great Britain is basically playing see-saw at the moment. During the Ice Age huge glaciers in the north caused a great weight on that end, however in the south such as portsmouth there were no glaciers. The Ice in the north was so heavy it caused Scotland to sink into the water, however now the ice is gone and Scotland is rising and gaining land whilst in Portsmouth the solent is flooding. At quite a rate too, there is evidence of a dead forest halfway out into the sea and many roman buildings have been found off the coastline.

So this leads to two theories, Could there have been an Ice Age causing various climate variations and landscape formations, but more importantly what effect could ORR have had.

Imagine a whole country just getting blown into oblivion, if one day Germany disappeared it must have a profound effect on the rest of europe. Orr may have been causing a lot of weight and pressure on the continent in the south, however ORR goes bye bye and suddenly that weight is relieved, like a seesaw Kryta is know heavier, that means its sinks, water rises, you have your lakes. Now as for the salt, in England there are also I believe large underground deposits of salts and salt mines are common. The salt is caused by underground rivers and caverns and such, the Catacombs prove that there were certainly underground caverns, could it not be possible that Kryta with all the volcanic activity also had underground rivers or such and possibly ones that connceted to the ocean causing underground reserves of salt water that surfaced when Kryta and the Magumma sank.

Or maybe Forgotten's home (Just a guess). The only thing I try to find is: if Charr reached the Kingdom of Orr, why we can't seen any trace of them in the desert? I mean, they're nomad and they alway bring The Flame Jars (and some Flame Bringer/Keeper) for the Favor of Gods (Titans) during their journey. I know the pedestral southeast in the desert where the statue is... err.... was but that brings me to the human colony history in the desert. It looks like the same pedestral during Altea Ashes quest.

I will try to dig more on this subject.

BTW, I wonder if the guy who created the Wizard Tower is the same who discovered Hall of Heroes? Just to think.

Pretty good thinking there. i like the ideas.

You mean Lord Odran? Also,what I find to be interesting is,why did the Ascalonians go over the Shiverpeaks and establish Kryta? What caused them to decide to leave their home and go there?

Not to mention would there not be a colony at Orr then it become an indepedent nation?

898 AE Great Northern Wall is erected,is that when the Charr first started attacking Ascalon?


(If you tell me a good site to use to put pics on here,I will. Anubis what did you use to put that pic up?)

The charr wanted to make it orr as quickly as posible they wouldnt have tryed digging through the moutain they would have gone over it.

Maybe The magic used by Kilbrohn was ment to target the charr, if so we wouldn’t be able to find traces of the charr in the desert. The blast to kill the charr just had some side effects making it explode.

As for wether the charr are scared of water heres how I figure. The Storm caller was made for one of these three reasons or all three. To extinguish the charr flames (this may cause the charr to panic due to the fact that they pretty much worship it) another reason because they are scared of water due to there liking of fire or lastly the charr have lots of fur, getting it very wet like during rain would make the fur very heavy, this would make the charr move slower making them more venerable.

The charr wanted to make it orr as quickly as posible they wouldnt have tryed digging through the moutain they would have gone over it.

Maybe The magic used by Kilbrohn was ment to target the charr, if so we wouldn’t be able to find traces of the charr in the desert. The blast to kill the charr just had some side effects making it explode.

As for wether the charr are scared of water heres how I figure. The Storm caller was made for one of these three reasons or all three. To extinguish the charr flames (this may cause the charr to panic due to the fact that they pretty much worship it) another reason because they are scared of water due to there liking of fire or lastly the charr have lots of fur, getting it very wet like during rain would make the fur very heavy, this would make the charr move slower making them more vulnerable.