Guild Wars 2

Hi! I am several chapters into the first GW2 novel, and Ember whatshername talks about her warband. This got me thinking about something that’s confused me before. I’m asking for RP reasons.

If you’re part of the Lion’s Guad, Seraph or Shining Blade, then that’s basically full-time jobs, correct? Could you be part of the Vigil at the same time – would that count as more of a hobby?

I think we all know what happens when you get conflicting orders or have to divide your loyalties between different organisations and their causes (eh, Logan?).

For other races I am even less sure how that works. Charrs answer to their legions and the loyalty stringly lies with a tight warband. Asura have their colleges (but that’s probably not too time-consuming?) and an optional (?) krewe (that you shall always be loyal to).

I’m not aware of any such divisions for Sylvari at all. Norn have their faith, but that doesn’t get in the way of anything I guess.

But for humans, Charr and Asura I’d like to see your input. Do you think there is regular conflicts between a character’s “home life and day job” and their order membership? If so, how do you resolve these?

For humans, I think that you couldn’t really be a full-time member of a military organisation (e.g. Lionguard, Seraph or Shining Blade) and still be a part of an Order. As you mentioned, it creates conflicts of interest and multiple chains of command. What would you do if your superior in the Seraph ordered you to protect a human village and your Vigil superior ordered you to abandon it to reinforce a Vigil assault on an undead force downriver? No, in that situation I imagine you would resign your commission from one organisation before joining the other.

For Asura, once you graduate from a College you’re no more a part of them than you are a graduate from a real life university. You keep up with friends and colleagues from the College, but you don’t spend much time around them anymore unless you join the teaching staff. Krewes are also fairly temporary in that they gather for a specific research purpose, then disband once that purpose is achieved. As such, it might be totally possible for an Asura to leave a krewe to join an Order, then form a new krewe as an auxiliary unit to support himself while still being part of the Order.

The Charr’s story is basically explained as part of their Personal Story. Rytlock Brimstone grants you leave of absence from your Legion to join your Order as a liaison. You’re still a part of your Legion, and you still report to the Tribunes/Imperators at the end of the day, but in all other situations you’re a member of your Order and you follow their instructions unless it conflicts with what the Tribunes/Imperators have ordered you to do. (In such a situation, I imagine it would be up to the individual player to decide where their loyalty truly lies. Could make for some interesting roleplaying. )

In most cases, I imagine that most Charr who join an Order are gladium who have either left their warbands, or were the sole survivors of a warband and decided to join an Order instead of another warband.

Zaxares.5419:

The Charr’s story is basically explained as part of their Personal Story. Rytlock Brimstone grants you leave of absence from your Legion to join your Order as a liaison. You’re still a part of your Legion, and you still report to the Tribunes/Imperators at the end of the day, but in all other situations you’re a member of your Order and you follow their instructions unless it conflicts with what the Tribunes/Imperators have ordered you to do. (In such a situation, I imagine it would be up to the individual player to decide where their loyalty truly lies. Could make for some interesting roleplaying. )

Ah. I haven’t played the Charr story far enough yet. Thank you

As Zaxares said, krewes aren’t really a drain on your character’s time. They get together to do a job and then break apart again. Your membership in an order might keep you too busy to join a krewe for a while, but that wouldn’t be a particular impediment to your asura.

For the charr, it’s more of a special assignment than a leave of absence. Your character is more or less formally handed over to one of the orders in the interest of strengthening ties between the order and the Black Citadel. Rytlock makes it pretty clear that you maintain your rank in the legions, but won’t be answering to them unless recalled, thus clearing up the conflicting chains of command. I imagine a similar situation might be possible among the human military organizations- you see a lot of human Vigil characters later on that at the start of the story were Seraph. Either they’re on a similar arrangement, or the Seraph are losing some of their best and brightest.

For humans, it’s different. Players are never part of any official military organization. They are simply a hero that gets called upon time or offers assistance repeatedly because they get results. Eventually Queen Jenna assigns players as her royal liaison to the three orders in order to combat risen that encroach on human territories. Later on she “strongly insist” players join an order because the elder dragons are a bigger threat than centaurs, bandits and scheming politicians. She also has the Shining Blade to protect her. While I would normally laugh at the “skill” of npcs, I’ve seen Countess Anise summon 10 sword phantasms at once. Jenna is in pretty good hands.

Heh, that reminds me of the “Defend the Queen” Personal Story event for Humans. If you picked the Vigil route, you defend Queen Jennah from a bunch of Risen, with the aid of Countess Anise, Logan Thackeray, a Veteran Vigil member, and a bunch of other Vigil and Shining Blade NPCs.

Ironically, Jennah and Anise are both Champions, and can quite easily mop up the entire Risen force by themselves. Meanwhile, poor Logan and the rest of the defenders took a dirt nap early on from a couple of exploding Risen, leaving me and the two ladies to do all the work. XD