Guild Wars 2

I was wondering if there was any Lore regarding a Rangers ability to summon/unsummon their pets or whether it was simply a game mechanic? Its hard to explain how your Bear just vanished and suddenly a Crow has appeared in its place.

For my Ranger I describe it as a form of Nature magic whereby I’m simply calling/teleporting them from a location in Tyria they “live” and then back again. This could either be a large Farm like area of land my Ranger owns or they simply “live” where I originally found them.

My sister’s Ranger on the other hand prefers to have 1 pet that she’s “linked to” and she describes her switching of pets, differently, whereby she transfers the 1 pet’s soul into different bodies. I tried to rationalise this with some GW Lore-logic by suggesting she’s using a combination of Nature magic for the summoning of the various animal “bodies” (for lack of a better word) and a Necromantic artifact imbued by my Necromancer to give her the ability of Soul transferrance.

Does this make sense is a Lore point of view or am I overthinking it and it could all be done by “Nature magic” in both situations?

I think your viewpoint is more reasonable, but that’s subjective. Pet swapping and stowing is mechanics; in GW1, you just always had a pet out.

We have been told that there is some natural magic involved in ranger taming of animal companions.

The exact mechanics of animal swapping has never really been explained in lore, but the way I tend to think of it is that it’s similar in behaviour to the warhorn hawk summon, Supply Crate, Artillery Barrage, and other skills that call something in from somewhere offscreen. Basically, the companion you don’t currently have active is somewhere nearby but not in the line of fire, and when you switch companions, you’re commanding your current companion to withdraw to a safe place to recover while calling in the current companion.

draxynnic.3719:

We have been told that there is some natural magic involved in ranger taming of animal companions.

The exact mechanics of animal swapping has never really been explained in lore, but the way I tend to think of it is that it’s similar in behaviour to the warhorn hawk summon, Supply Crate, Artillery Barrage, and other skills that call something in from somewhere offscreen. Basically, the companion you don’t currently have active is somewhere nearby but not in the line of fire, and when you switch companions, you’re commanding your current companion to withdraw to a safe place to recover while calling in the current companion.

I’m not keen on that explanation as it would suggest a Ranger has a massive herd of animals following them around at any one given time, hiding just out of view.

The way i’d explain Supply Crate is the use of teleportation device, teleporting the Crate in from a storage facility some where. Similar to the technology used to transport the collectables into the bank- Ore, Harvested plants and Lumber, etc.

I always figured that any ranger animals would simply be around. So they not so much teleport to your location, but they emerge from the forest and just happen to be nearby. In GW1 it was different, because rangers tamed only one pet, and it stayed with them the whole game (if they carried the associated skill on their skillbar). Later on a Zaishan menagerie was added to keep your tamed pets.

Pretty much. Few players change their animal companions more than once or twice a session if at all, so you don’t need a menagerie hidden just offscreen. You’ve got the one you have active, one you have hidden in the bushes/reeds/whatever nearby, and if you change one of your pets, the new companion just happens to be close enough to call, by coincidence or by pre-planning on the part of the ranger.

Considering that out-of-combat activities may involve things that would not be practical to do in combat, it’s possible that changing one of your companion slots actually represents a ritual to call an animal from a greater distance.

Would my two suggestions (mine and my sisters) be feasable in a Lore point of view though? Is there the kind of magic in Tyria that would allow for both of them scenarios to take place?

Cataclysm.7491:

Would my two suggestions (mine and my sisters) be feasable in a Lore point of view though? Is there the kind of magic in Tyria that would allow for both of them scenarios to take place?

Rangers in GW1 could summon forests spirits, but they didn’t summon animals. In GW2 we do see that rangers can call down flocks of really angry birds. So summoning is definitely something rangers can do, but the animals don’t pop up out of thin air. Rangers basically invoke the power of Melandru (if you’re human at is) and call upon the powers of nature itself. They use powers to call nearby animals to come to their aid (there even was a worthless skill in GW1 that did literally that).

From GW1:

‘Rangers are unique in their ability to succeed with the help of, or even in spite of, their environment. Nature rituals allow them to manipulate the environment to hinder their enemies, or borrow the very power of creation to heal and aid their allies. They favor long-range combat, the bow being their weapon of choice, and can be especially effective from elevated locations such as bridges and cliffs. They are the only profession with the ability to charm animals, which then accompany them on their travels and assist them in battle, gaining experience and levels over time. Rangers are also blessed with survival skills that help keep them alive by causing regeneration of health.’

’An agile and wily survivor, the Ranger specializes in archery, beast mastery, and attunement to nature. ’

Cataclysm.7491:

Would my two suggestions (mine and my sisters) be feasable in a Lore point of view though? Is there the kind of magic in Tyria that would allow for both of them scenarios to take place?

For the most part, I think that you’ve both done a laudable job of reconciling a mechanic I’ve always simply dismissed (for my part, I have an amphibious pet and do my utmost to not swap pets at all). What you both suggest may theoretically be feasible- it falls under the “no reason to believe it wouldn’t work but never has actually been tried” category- but I would make one minor correction. Nature magic has never displayed any capability for summoning or teleporting solid creatures. That’s more the domain of mesmer magic or asura magi-tech. You could rather simply, I think, substitute one of those things in, but do not feel that you have to! We’re here to make suggestions; I would never presume to tell you how to play.

Honestly, I’d just slap a “Mechanics!” bumper sticker on this – like the mountain borders or necromancers summoning minions from the corpseless air (as opposed to NPCs in some events summoning them from corpses – Trahearne is, iirc, the only one who doesn’t summon physical minions from corpses) and a few other things. But if I were to have a lore explanation then I’d either go with drax’s explanation or say that the ranger doesn’t really have all those pets charmed and at its disposal, just the two-four that s/he can switch between which would always be with the ranger (or nearby in the case of aquatic/terrestial pets).

As for the suggestion your sister made: As I said in the PM you sent me, I’d argue that, for a ranger alone, this wouldn’t be possible. Though rangers summon nature spirits as Malafide said, there’s no precedent for them using – let alone controlling to the point of what would effectively be possession – of the souls of once-living animals. The… nature of Nature Spirits isn’t exactly clear, but they seem to be spirits within the land themselves since they always deal with elements/environments and above ground take on treant shape like the druids (who shed their flesh to become closer to nature – thus one can argue, they became nature spirits) – on a side, nature spirits may be akin to the Spirits of the Wild and Urgoz/Zhu Hanuku (the latter two called “forest spirit” and “sea spirit” respectively).

With a necromancer (or Ritualist in Cantha) it might be possible, but there’s no known case of spiritual possession of the living thus far. Spirits have only been known to possess inanimate objects and corpses – things that are not living, in short. So based on known lore, it would have to be that the pets are all well-preserved corpses.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Honestly, I’d just slap a “Mechanics!” bumper sticker on this – like the mountain borders or necromancers summoning minions from the corpseless air (as opposed to NPCs in some events summoning them from corpses – Trahearne is, iirc, the only one who doesn’t summon physical minions from corpses) and a few other things.

As a side note, I always explained the summoning of minions, as the necromancer raising remains of various creatures from the soil, and shaping them into a new temporary body, which is then either animated by the necromancer’s own magic, or possessed by a spirit from the Mists.

Another explanation for the GW2 necromancers is that part of equipping minion skills is the necromancer carrying enough raw materials to create a minion (or a handful of smaller ones), which they replenish off the corpses of the fallen after using their supply.

Maybe, but that’s a real large sack of meat if you use Flesh Golem.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Maybe, but that’s a real large sack of meat if you use Flesh Golem.

The Flesh Golem is like a giant hybrid of multiple creatures. It makes sense to me that the ground would be full of remains of dead things (instead of the necromancer carrying it all with them), and the necromancer simply makes them rise from the ground, into this shape. Although possibly maybe some spell components are involved too. You can easily roleplay that in.

Minions look like they are bits and pieces assembled from multiple creatures. In GW1 necromancers created minions from corpses, without animating the corpse itself. Bone Horrors literally rise up from inside the corpse that was used to create them. It is as if necromancer magic gathers random nearby bones and flesh to form some sort of a husk that serves it’s master.

Obviously you carry them around in little balls.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Honestly, I’d just slap a “Mechanics!” bumper sticker on this – like the mountain borders or necromancers summoning minions from the corpseless air (as opposed to NPCs in some events summoning them from corpses – Trahearne is, iirc, the only one who doesn’t summon physical minions from corpses) and a few other things.

As a side note, I always explained the summoning of minions, as the necromancer raising remains of various creatures from the soil, and shaping them into a new temporary body, which is then either animated by the necromancer’s own magic, or possessed by a spirit from the Mists.

My main is a Necromancer and this is essentially the way I explained how my Necromancer minions work! :-)

Rangers are just really good at pulling things out of their hats.