Guild Wars 2

I recently discovered this in pre-sering in GW1 on a plaque under a Melandru statue.

And it was that a tribe of godless humans wandered the land. Where camped did they lay waste, senselessly destroying everything nearby.

And so the tribe set out to find another camp, when suddenly sprouted a wall of thorny branches, which blocked their exit.

Then saith Ewan, leader of the tribe, “Know ye our ways. Whosoever does magic in this tribe shall be put to death.”

Yet none comes forward. Then, from the earth grows forth a large tree, and unfurling its branches, reveals the upper torso of a woman. Saith She, “I am Melandru, the Mother of earth and nature. Henceforth I bind ye to these lands. When they suffer, so shall ye suffer.”

And as She saith, so was it done. From their limbs sprouted branches, and the blood in their veins was the sap of trees. Then was Ewan and his tribe converted, and became they stewards of nature.

— Scriptures of Melandru, 48 BE

Could the last part be describing Melandru turning humans into Sylvari?

Well, she is a god. I suppose it is possible. But it could also be the druids, treants or any number of mobile plants in Tyria. Or, if they were sylvari, that may have been the creation of whatever lifecycle produced the seed that Rowan planted to get the Pale Tree. My personal theory being that sylvari carry Pale Tree seeds inside them but they only germinate when Tyria needs them to.

I suspect that passage describes the Druids.

I haven’t completed the story with Malyck as of yet. But as near as I can tell from what I have done of his story. He is not a Sylvari who was born of the Pale Tree as we know it. And Caithe’s reaction to his existence seems to indicate that she does not believe him to be a member of their branch of Sylvari at all to begin with.

If this is true, then it would seem to indicate that the Sylvari as a species may not originate from this Pale Tree. In fact it may indicate that the current crop of Sylvari may not even be the very first crop of Sylvari to exist on Tyria. This plaque does present some interesting possibilities. However assuming the plaque in question was written as part of the original game, and not part of the Eye of the North Expansion, or later expansions, then it is probably safe to assume that this plaque very likely has exactly nothing to do with the Sylvari race, and probably more to do with the Druids or another group of people associated with revering nature.

Its possible the GW1 devs thought about addig sylvari as a new race in tyria. Not a playable race but one that could add to the storyline. It could also be the reason why the couldn’t be corrupted by the dragons too cause they were created by a god.

The question then, is whether the Gods predate, and or created the Elder Dragons. Or whether the Elder Dragons themselves are possibly even of the order of power magnitude equaling the Gods themselves.

In fact in many ways I would liken the Elder Dragons to the Elder Gods of the Cthulu Mythos, and the Human Gods (Dwayna, Melandru, etc…) as being of a lesser power level than the Elder Dragons, and thus anything they create would be inherently capable of being corrupted by the Dragons. At least that is my interpretation.

In fact it could be argued that the Nightmare Court, or Scarlet’s Minions are the Dragon Corrupted versions of the Sylvari as both are not existing in the way I would consider that the Sylvari were intended to exist.