Guild Wars 2

With still a small month remaining until the release of the next Living World chapter, I thought the timing right to voice concern about the geographical composition for the non-Zephyrite humans in the Maguuma region.

The first known humans to settle the Maguuma Jungle and the present Maguuma Wastes were of Old Krytan civilisation and whether they were turned into the Druid race or fought against them, “Old Krytans” remained the only humans to retain villages in the Maguuma. This folk was distinct from the “New Krytans”, as the former were a Brown people of Elonian and Orrian mixture, whereas the present Krytan demographic is remarkably European in its constitution.

Now, one can imagine that the ‘War in Kryta’, also described as a war of attrition between Mantle-loyalists and Krytan royalists did a great number on the native commoners in Kryta. Add to that the Ascalonian settlers who decided to make a stand and stay in Kryta, aswell as a Mediterranian White Orrian-descended nobility that might have flocked back from exile after the defeat of the White Mantle and it could then be explained why Brown Krytans became a minority in New Kryta.

However, it stands to reason then, that a concentration of Whiteness in Kryta goes together with its substraction from Krytan refuges beyond the Kingdom’s reach, which by contrast would retain the “Old” White Mantle’s demographical mix (i.e., all Brown, except for the odd White female).

With that in mind, I find it troubling that the first village beyond the reach of Krytan authority, the town of Prosperity in Dry Top, turned out to have a surprisingly Ascalonian human constituent (i.e., all White, except for the odd Brown female).

This is likely an oversight that could be corrected for settlements even more distant from Kryta (hence my bringing this to attention), because a very melanin-rich Mantle-led Kryta is reminisced in-game, through the Brown ghosts of pre-war Krytan Villagers, Less Longbow (original Shining Blade member from Guild Wars Prophecies) and antique White Mantle in Aurora’s Remains:

Logical skin colors were deemed too confusing for new players…

In all seriousness, they completely changed the geographical makeup of Kryta and made it the last human settlement in Tyria which also saw a large amount of light skinned Canthans come over once the country went crazy.

They also retconned the whole region to no longer be subtroppical and thus wouldn’t really need the people to have darker skin indicative of a region closer to the equator.

It’s also reasonable to believe that most of Ascalon’s people would have fled to Kryta once the throne was taken back and it was apparent beyond a doubt that Adleburn was insane and the kingdom was doomed.

As for the Mantle being largely darker of skin than average, it’s completely possible that they retreated into closed off communities that didn’t welcome outsiders and thus would still carry the genes for darker skin that was common in the region 250 years ago.

It seems a bit of a stretch to assume they borked skin color in a company that made a very well done stand alone game that took place entirely in an area influenced by African and Middle Eastern Cultures.

Or maybe the rise of Zhaitan scared everyone so much they all went pale and never recovered. It’s a mystery we may never solve…

You’re operating under the assumption that the White Mantle basically only breed with themsevles, whereas it’s far more likely that the Mantle are consistently pulling in new people (e.g. all those bandits they deal with), which would mean there should be an even mix of darker and lighter skin tones.

Don’t forget White Mantle Cult, the members, well, bandits mostly among some crooked politicians are white, but it should be quite mixed now. Name “White Mantle” isn’t in wide spread use, so majority are just “Bandits”…

Not to mention that those designated White Mantle foes in GW2 which have brown skin, are just ghosts.

The White Mantle aren’t an isolated group – they have remained integrated in modern Krytan society quite well, and recruit street gangs and people who are put down by the Krytan nobility (some of whom are White Mantle/White Mantle supporters) into their Bandit front.

While there easily could be people of “old Krytan appearance”, the White Mantle would not even be close to being solely limited to such, as there’d no doubt be recruitment into the various refugees into the banditry, and other forms of intermingling. Caudecus, highly suspect to be a high ranking White Mantle member, is as white as you can get, for example.

Druids no longer exist in human form, so they’d be irrelevant to the discussion.

Provided the still-human Druids have no relict offshoot, that would be.

Everyone,
the title does not say “White Mantle = Brown Man”! Evidently, the White Mantle in Kryta is New Krytan in its composition, because the local traitor is the most acclimated, knowledgeable and inconspicuous infiltrator. Even the local leadership would be determined by the local advantage over deracinated exiles. Yet, is there any indication that, prior to reinsertion, the White Mantle recruits from Kryta visit the Maguuman remnants of an “Old” Kryta that stretched South- and Westwards beyond the borders of present/“New” Kryta? If such is not the case, then shouldn’t mankind in the Maguuma regions have preserved the Old Krytan distribution of appearances?

Furthermore, the distinct architecture of Prosperity, isolated in the arid Maguuma Wastes, is all too evocative of Old Krytan architecture, dispossessed of thatched roofs. This too would suggest that the Ascalonian wave ran dry towards the Maguuma.

But don’t they make it known that there is travel between those areas, properity is not completely isolated – scarlet managed to get there after all, so did we. So I don’t see why they would be expected to be of pure Krystal lineage if they clearly have contact with the rest of tyria.

One wouldn’t find one’s way there, unless, like Scarlet, one sought to go somewhere where most wouldn’t find their way to. The Maguuma Wastes don’t seem a place hospitable enough to attract scores of settlers who aren’t on the run from the Krytan authorities. A case could be made for Prosperity receiving gradual influx of Krytan outlaws, do to it being just outside of any government jurisdiction; but that shouldn’t make the mix there Ascalonian either, should it?

Also, even then, as one would move away from the Krytan border and into the Maguuma regions, the admixture of Ascalonians and the concentration of Dorician blood should quickly become unnoticeable once the rest of Tyria is beyond meaningful contact.

Bazompora.2635:

Provided the still-human Druids have no relict offshoot, that would be.

According the lore, there is no “still-human” druids.

I’m not arguing for there still being Druidic humans, but, like there also turned out to remain pacifist Maguuma centaurs, about things that could function again, one ought never say never. Also, to our previous knowledge, Krytan nobility was virtually inexistant and with no hint to descent from Doric, till Salma was unearthed.

Because Ascalonian waves of refugees alone can’t suffice for turning their host lands majoritarily White, especially since most of their countrymen didn’t reach Kryta and Old Krytans would have had to have zero population growth for ethnic Ascalonians to ever become a majority in Kryta, the convergence of noble returnees of Dorician blood in post-war Kryta has to have been a major contribution. But the simultaneous removal of exiled Krytan nobles from everywhere else should conversely have left the Maguuma regions no less concentrated in melanin.

One more thing:
the Great Tsunami wouldn’t be a senseful explanation for why Brown Krytans became rare in Kryta and failed to remain the main contributor to human populations surviving in the Maguuma regions, for that one too would require a selective kind of divine intervention, sparing the Ascalonians while wiping out the Krytan hilltop settlements south, west and north of them, coupled with a mysterious suppression of the Old Krytan population in the Maguuma regions.

Guild Wars has an awesome legacy of human diversity,
which is something not to be modest about!

I think its clear. Coloured people are disliked.

inb4 Elona is oddly pale.