Guild Wars 2

Silurians (Doctor Who)

or

Piccolo (DragonBall Z)?

Neither. There is a several thousand year old European folk mythology of plant like humans called dryads. They’re much more likely to be based on that.

A dryad is a tree nymph, or tree spirit, in Greek mythology. In Greek drys signifies “oak.” Thus, dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, though the term has come to be used for all tree nymphs in general.

Sample art of a dyrad.

They’re clearly based on the English.

Dryads come close, as Flesh Wound points out, but I’d actually argue the Sidhe come closer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aos_S%C3%AD

Specifically the whole Seelie / Unseelie court thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classifications_of_fairies#Seelie_and_Unseelie_Courts

Diovid.9506:

Dryads come close, as Flesh Wound points out, but I’d actually argue the Sidhe come closer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aos_S%C3%AD

Specifically the whole Seelie / Unseelie court thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classifications_of_fairies#Seelie_and_Unseelie_Courts

Oh yah, the idea of the Nightmare Court has clearly influenced the culture of the sylvari. But I don’t think that’s what the OP was asking. He’s asking about their physical design and what influenced that.

Nothing so fancy. The original was basically a loli-hentai elf in a tinkerbell dress:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Sylvari_concept_art.jpg

Somebody over there who DIDN’T watch anime and play D&D obviously saw it at some point and said “what the cat is this kitten?” and they decided to ‘un-kitten this puppy’…

http://www.merekatcreations.com/gallery/attachment/kristen-perry-on-designing-and-redesigning-the-sylvari__arenanet-blog-2/
Discussed:
http://kotaku.com/5828856/how-do-you-make-a-race-of-intelligent-plant-people-sexy/
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/33284-sylvari-redesign-revealed/
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/17472-arenanet-kristen-perry-on-designing-and-redesigning-the-sylvari/

So basically you don’t have any fancy inspiration. Rather you have somebody being put on a fiasco project to ‘un-mess-it-down’… who then just ran with the ‘plant’ theme in various iterations until they found the right balance between plant and ‘iconicly identifiable’ so that players would feel comfortable playing it.

Around launch ArenaNet was touting it as a new original concept for a race, never before done in the history of fantasy. Somebody was THAT unaware of mythology to not even have heard of a Dryad. Let alone that the Sylvarri we have today, has been a playable race in table-top RPGs since the late 1970s and the game Runequest, where this race is what they call ‘elf’ (as such Runequest took a major popularity hit with D&D fans who were looking for something hentai-like).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuneQuest
(I used to be a 12-year old boy, decades ago, so I remember that reaction to their plant-elf…)

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

They’re clearly based on the English.

From their names and the myths they’re based on I would say they’re more Irish, Scottish and Welsh dryads/nymphs.

They’re literally plants… attempting to follow an unseen will… and using corpses as blueprints for this will’s need for introspection.
So whatever folklore has already done that? Perhaps the Simpsons.

Pifil.5193:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

They’re clearly based on the English.

From their names and the myths they’re based on I would say they’re more Irish, Scottish and Welsh dryads/nymphs.

If you go back far enough there’s a lot of cross-over between English mythology and Welsh/Scottish/Irish mythology, because they used to be all essentially the same people.

Then the Normans invaded, took over most of what’s now England and pushed the previous inhabitants to the parts they couldn’t take over.

Kichwas.7152:

Nothing so fancy. The original was basically a loli-hentai elf in a tinkerbell dress:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Sylvari_concept_art.jpg

Somebody over there who DIDN’T watch anime and play D&D obviously saw it at some point and said “what the cat is this kitten?” and they decided to ‘un-kitten this puppy’…

http://www.merekatcreations.com/gallery/attachment/kristen-perry-on-designing-and-redesigning-the-sylvari__arenanet-blog-2/
Discussed:
http://kotaku.com/5828856/how-do-you-make-a-race-of-intelligent-plant-people-sexy/
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/33284-sylvari-redesign-revealed/
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/17472-arenanet-kristen-perry-on-designing-and-redesigning-the-sylvari/

So basically you don’t have any fancy inspiration. Rather you have somebody being put on a fiasco project to ‘un-mess-it-down’… who then just ran with the ‘plant’ theme in various iterations until they found the right balance between plant and ‘iconicly identifiable’ so that players would feel comfortable playing it.

Around launch ArenaNet was touting it as a new original concept for a race, never before done in the history of fantasy. Somebody was THAT unaware of mythology to not even have heard of a Dryad. Let alone that the Sylvarri we have today, has been a playable race in table-top RPGs since the late 1970s and the game Runequest, where this race is what they call ‘elf’ (as such Runequest took a major popularity hit with D&D fans who were looking for something hentai-like).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuneQuest
(I used to be a 12-year old boy, decades ago, so I remember that reaction to their plant-elf…)

Interesting!
Thanks for the insightful answers, everyone.

Diovid.9506:

Dryads come close, as Flesh Wound points out, but I’d actually argue the Sidhe come closer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aos_S%C3%AD

Specifically the whole Seelie / Unseelie court thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classifications_of_fairies#Seelie_and_Unseelie_Courts

Hmm, I like this answer as well and can totally see the correlation between Seelie Court and Nightmare court in GW2.

Pifil.5193:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

They’re clearly based on the English.

From their names and the myths they’re based on I would say they’re more Irish, Scottish and Welsh dryads/nymphs.

Not based on English mythology/folklore, but rather on the English themselves.

Kichwas.7152:

Nothing so fancy. The original was basically a loli-hentai elf in a tinkerbell dress:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Sylvari_concept_art.jpg

Somebody over there who DIDN’T watch anime and play D&D obviously saw it at some point and said “what the cat is this kitten?” and they decided to ‘un-kitten this puppy’…

http://www.merekatcreations.com/gallery/attachment/kristen-perry-on-designing-and-redesigning-the-sylvari__arenanet-blog-2/
Discussed:
http://kotaku.com/5828856/how-do-you-make-a-race-of-intelligent-plant-people-sexy/
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/33284-sylvari-redesign-revealed/
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/17472-arenanet-kristen-perry-on-designing-and-redesigning-the-sylvari/

So basically you don’t have any fancy inspiration. Rather you have somebody being put on a fiasco project to ‘un-mess-it-down’… who then just ran with the ‘plant’ theme in various iterations until they found the right balance between plant and ‘iconicly identifiable’ so that players would feel comfortable playing it.

Around launch ArenaNet was touting it as a new original concept for a race, never before done in the history of fantasy. Somebody was THAT unaware of mythology to not even have heard of a Dryad. Let alone that the Sylvarri we have today, has been a playable race in table-top RPGs since the late 1970s and the game Runequest, where this race is what they call ‘elf’ (as such Runequest took a major popularity hit with D&D fans who were looking for something hentai-like).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuneQuest
(I used to be a 12-year old boy, decades ago, so I remember that reaction to their plant-elf…)

Did you read the links you posted? Because dryads are mentioned as an inspiration, as are ents. BTW, certain highly important backstory elements were written long before the visual creation of the race, which is the reason they didn’t just ‘run’ with a plant theme.