Guild Wars 2

ok, so i have been looking around, and i have been wondering, are the charr the oldest race, or are the dwarfs? Since really on the wiki it says that the dwarfs were around before humans even arrived, but does that mean that the charr are even older then the dwarfs?

The Dwarfs are the oldest race if you dont count some other races that are mostly dead right now. Like the giants and so on. But otherwise the charr is probably the oldest race. Asura i dont know cuz they have been under ground. But i think the charr counts as the 2nd oldest race.

the jotun are the oldes then the dwarf, trolls and giants then there come the charr

They’re one of the oldest races in Tyria, the exact age of a number of races is indeterminable. But it is strongly implied at points that they were around long, long before the gods.

You’ll have your charr haters though who can’t say anything good about ‘em because they’re a beast race. “Wah, the dwarves must have come first because they’re not a beast race.” ad nauseum.

Noap. Many races, including the dwarves, the jotun, the giants, and the charr have been around for an indeterminably long time.

(I’m sure this’ll turn into a good thread for pinning the charr haters, though!)

Well, it’s pretty safe to say Giganticus lupicus and the Elder Dragons are both older than Charr. Other than that, no clue.

the elder dragons and a giant race (that are extinct) are the oldest. then the dwarves, seers and mursaats. then the gods crated a race of serpentine creatures called ‘the forgotten’ as servants. so no, not the oldest race!

I cannot speak for the Dwarves and the Charr, but I am going to go out there and claim the Jotun are older than both. But younger than Giganticus lupicus or the Elder Dragons! (Which of THOSE is older, I won’t even begin to guess.)

The Mursaat and Seers… I’m not sure where to place them in the timeline. At all.

The Forgotten, though, are younger than the Charr AND humans. The humans’ gods made the Forgotten after they came to Tyria, and they brought humans to Tyria with them. (Exception: Melandru, at least, may have been one of Tyria’s original gods, as even the Charr attribute the world’s creation to her.)

The Charr are certainly older than humans and sylvari – there is no way this can be disputed, as the lore backs it up. They are probably older than the Norn, but I’m not sure when it comes to the Kodan. (And we know basically NOTHING about the Asura in their time underground.

@Duke. the forgotten were in fact around before the gods arrived in tyria, they along with the seers, mursaat, dwarves and jotun were the original races that fought the elder dragons the first time around. it was the forgotten or seers that entombed all magic that the dragons hadn’t corrupted and created the bloodstones

Forgotten were placed on Tyria by the gods to prepare the world for the humans.
Seers and Mursaat are both not native to Tyria, however they arrived before the last dragon-rise.

Charr may or may not be native. Their writing system was borrowed from the humans so they have no ancient written history (we know of). But they are very likely native to Tyria and originate from the north and east of Ascalon. Currently we only have access to the Iron Legion territory (Ascalon), but that is reasonably only a third of their actual territory, which makes the allied legions hold the largest territory of any known nation (besides the Dragon Empire of Cantha).

Oldest of the playable races? Possibly. Oldest of all the races? Not by the evidence we have.

As others have noted already, the Charr do predate the human’s arrival on Tyria by over a century (and possibly much longer). As for Norn and Asura, there’s no clear timeline on how long they have been on Tyria as far as I am aware, so it’s difficult to say whether Charr are older than them, but we do definitely know they have been on Tyria longer than humanity.

However, the evidence we have points to them being younger than Dwarves and Jotun. The Charr are not among the five races recorded to survive the last rising of the Eldar Dragons – those five races being the Dwarves, the Jotun, the Forgotten, the Seers, and the Mursaat. This suggests Charr were not around when the Eldar Dragons were last active, unlike those five races. So, with the information we have been given, the Dwarves (and those other four races) are older than the Charr.

If it’s true what they speculate about norn being an offshoot of kodan, then it might be possible that norn are older-well, technically kodan are- but there’s just not enough information about the current races to say for certain. As for the actual oldest, yeah like many before me have mentioned, it was the original races like the dwarves, giants, jotun, ect (unless there were even more before them that got consumed, who knows). The reason I say the kodan are older than charr though, is some convos I have overheard about them saying they were learning the ways of Koda when charr were still young, or something to that degree. I’ll try to dig it up.