Guild Wars 2, a popular MMORPG (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game), has a set of 5 distinct races for the player to choose from. There are the humans, of course, who live in elaborate and spiraling cities. Then there are charr, a cat-like species that walks on its hind legs and has had a long history of war with humanity. The Norn live in the coldest parts of Tyria — the race is human-like but drastically taller and broader. Then there are Asura, who are a short and studious people dedicated to research and society’s advancement.
Finally, we have the Sylvari. The Sylvari are a young race compared to the others roaming in Tyria. They are humanoid plant creatures who are born fully grown and ready to take on the world, thanks to their mother, the Pale Tree. In this article, we’ve gathered up the best tidbits of lore about this fascinating species for you to peruse.
10 Do Sylvari Photosynthesize?
When you build a plant race into your lore, you have to be prepared for lots of silly questions from the fans about exactly how close a plant is to a Sylvari, and vice versa. For example: do Sylvari photosynthesize to gain nutrients? The short answer is: yes!
However, there’s a bit of nuance here. You see, most plants have roots to suck up nutrients from the earth, and they stay stationary so as to get consistent sun and to be fertilized by wildlife. These are all things that they don’t do. So, while Sylvari can photosynthesize sunlight into nutrients, it’s not enough to keep them alive. They still need to eat and drink like other humanoid races.
9 Why Are Sylvari Immune To Zhaitan’s Magic?
Zhaitan is an Elder Dragon that the player beats at the end of the main story. Once you get to a high level, you’ll be able to visit Orr, a land south of the Grove that used to be a human kingdom but has been corrupted by Zhaitan’s power. There, you can find zombie-like creatures who have been reanimated through the Dragon’s power to attack invaders, along with other forms of his power.
However, Sylvari seem to be totally immune to this kind of Elder Dragon magic — there are no zombified Sylvari, for example. This was a mystery for a long time until the expansion “Heart of Thorns” was released. In it, fans discovered that the Sylvari were supposed to be servants of another Elder Dragon, Mordremoth — the Pale Tree’s seed came from him. Since one Elder Dragon cannot override anothers’ power, Zhaitan was unable to take control of or manipulate Sylvari to do his bidding.
8 Do Sylvari Worship A God?
This question is hard to answer because it depends on how you define a “god” (or even how you define a religion at all). To start, no, the Sylvari do not believe in any overarching Divine figure who is omnipresent and immortal. However, they do follow the teachings of a man from long ago; the centaur, Ventari. He was one of the people to raise the Pale Tree and left her with some of his wisdom before he died. Different Sylvari may have different feelings about these tenets, but most Sylvari have strong faith in Ventari’s words.
The only other thing akin to a form of spirituality that Sylvari practice is their connection with nature. They are born with a kind of hivemind that allows them to sense one another’s emotions, and even the emotions of plants. As a result, they have a strong, spiritual-like connection with the Pale Tree as well as the environment and all parts that make it up, good or bad.
7 What Was Their Inspiration?
It may surprise you to hear that Sylvari were heavily based on Arthurian Legends — legends about the British figure King Arthur. Many people across the world have heard his story in some shape or form, whether it was about the “Sword in the Stone,” his epic romance, his relationship with a wizard named Merlin, his legendary blade “Excalibur,” or something else entirely. They used these legends to shape the personal story that players enjoy as Sylvari characters and even the slight English accent which all Sylvari use.
6 Do Sylvari Age?
Sylvari have only been in Tyria since the year 1302 AE. As of this writing, the present year in Guild Wars 2 is 1334, making the oldest Sylvari (the surviving Firstborns, like Caithe) only 32. Sylvari have died from lots of causes, but never of old age. Given the Pale Tree’s immense age, it’s possible that she passed this gift along to her children.
In any case, Sylvari do not show any physical signs of aging. They may accumulate scars and the like but they have not been seen to get wrinkles, become physically frail, or any other signs of old age present in conventional species.
5 Who Planted The Pale Tree?
When visiting the Grove, you’ll undoubtedly hear the name Ventari from around every corner and in every nook or cranny. Ventari is the name of the centaur who raised the Pale Tree from a sprout and left his teachings (now known as Ventari’s Tenets) on a piece of stone in the Omphalos Chamber. However, he didn’t act alone.
There was also Ronan, a human soldier. Despite the war between their races, Ronan and Ventari found mutual respect and friendship through their shared values of peace and love. They planted the Pale Tree together and dedicated their lives to protecting it and the safe haven they had created from the fighting. Ronan may have died years before Ventari, but he was just as instrumental in the Pale Tree’s birth.
4 Are There Sylvari Twins?
Sylvari are born out of pods that hang from the Pale Tree. Fans had plenty of questions about the process of their birth. Could they have genetic abnormalities, or does the Pale Tree make every Sylvari perfectly? (yes, by the way. they can have genetic abnormalities like deafness or blindness, as well as some specific to their race like an oversensitivity or undersensitivity to the hive mind).
The most fun question by far, though, is whether the Pale Tree ever has twins. Turns out, she does! Twins are any two Sylvari born from the same pod — while all Sylvari are born from the same mother, they usually consider one another to be distant relatives at best, while Sylvari twins often have a human-like sibling bond. Twins also tend to have a strong empathetic connection to one another through the hive mind, a stronger connection than they have to any other Sylvari.
3 Do Sylvari Have Blood?
Another silly question that fans have wanted answers to is the Sylvari anatomy. There are lots of small questions we could pick from, but one of the most prominent is about whether or not Sylvari have blood. Based on character models in-game, they do seem to have veins.
It was eventually confirmed that Sylvari do not have blood, but rather have a sticky, golden sap that runs through their veins. As a result, they do generate pollen (which is said to fall off them as they walk). However, it was also indicated that Sylvari do not have a heart, or anything akin to it, that is responsible for pumping this sap throughout their body.
2 Who Discovered The Sylvari?
Sylvari were first discovered in Tyria by an outside race when they encountered the Asura — a short, science-loving race whose capital city, Rata Sum, is quite close to the Grove and Caledon Forest, where Sylvari first explored. They kidnapped a firstborn named Malomedies in order to figure out what made him tick. There was no retaliation from the Sylvari, so they kidnapped a few more — secondborns, this time.
Eventually, they realized they were not dealing with a species that had newly evolved into intelligence, but rather a fully sentient race. There was some relationship-building to do with the Sylvari since the Asura had just kidnapped their people and earned themselves a bad name. But eventually, the two races stood at a mutual agreement. One secondborn, Ceara, even went to study the Eternal Alchemy in Rata Sum.
1 Why Are Sylvari Humanoid?
It’s reportedly still being debated between scholars as to why the Pale Tree chose to have children that were so “human” in appearance. The best answer that anyone can come up with is that the Pale Tree based her children’s design off of Ronan, a human and one of the two caretakers of her seedling.
However, there are two problems with this theory. First, we must wonder why the Pale Tree would use Ronan as a base model and not Ventari, who was a centaur. Second, in the personal story, players may meet a Sylvari named Malyck. Malyck originates from a different place, not the Pale Tree. The writers have mostly ignored (and slightly retconned) Malyck’s story with later content, but his existence undermines this theory and raises a host of questions.
NEXT: Guild Wars 2 vs. World Of Warcraft: Which Is Better?
