Guild Wars 2

So, as I was exploring the new map with my friends, we discovered a rather curious area: a hidden centaur camp with banners that appear to portray (a) Pale Tree, with a presumably Tamini centaur by the name “Mysterious Figure”. As of yet, nothing there can be interacted with and the centaur will not speak, but One can assume that soon enough the living world will bring the players here.

Let the speculation begin.

Can’t speak for the figure, but that looks like Ventari’s camp in prophecies.

The area seems to more or less match to Ventari’s Refuge – which makes naming the zone “Dry Top” a bit silly, considering it matches pretty much exactly to Ettin’s Back rather than GW1 Dry Top…

It’s too far east to be Ventari’s Refuge.

That’s a unique centaur skin, isn’kitten

Where is it? I can’t find this place!

Aaron Ansari.1604:

That’s a unique centaur skin, isn’kitten

it resembles the Tamini in Gw2 the most
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/b/b2/Tamini_Chieftain.jpg

the form of the horns and the helmet look like it

Poplolita.2638:

Where is it? I can’t find this place!

we glitched out of the map to find it
it is not accessible in any normal way yet
but it will be most likely within the next days

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It’s too far east to be Ventari’s Refuge.

Too far east? If anything, it’s too far north, but I would be willing to put that to the shifty geography between GW1 and 2.

The map covers the northern edge of Dry Top and the eastern part of Ettin’s Back. Ventari’s Refuge was in western Ettin’s Back, just north of Dry Top’s edge latitude-wise.

N/S wise it’s perfect placement. E/W size it’s too far west.

The actual Dry Top (GW1-wise) portion of this new zone is all the canyons at the crash site. Once you get to open space, then it’s Ettin’s Back. And north of Prosperity would be Aurora’s Glade… which was taken over by White Mantle.

As to the centaur model – that helmet looks Modniir-like (much like their Berserkers). But at the very least wiki doesn’t have any images of that model amongst Modniir.

Yeah, it’s not quite Ventari’s Refuge, unless liberties are being taken with the geography. It could be related to that place though, especially given the tree (and non-hostile centaurs). Oh, and that banner is the Pale Tree. In the early alphas, it was actually the map icon used for the Grove.

Hmmh, true, with that overlay it is quite a bit too far east… my own estimation was based on the locations of Shattered Henge and Aurora Remains compared to Henge of Denravi and Aurora Glade and their relation to Ventari’s Refuge. That said, in the end, the prospect of a small settlement that was abandoned by it’s most prominent person (who presumably founded the place anyways) lasting 250 years in the same place seems rather unlikely, especially considering we’ve never seen permanent Centaur settlements, mostly just war camps and at most fortresses (though that can be attributed to them being villains in this game). It could very well be that the settlement moved sometime down the line, but it still being the same settlement in spirit – inhabited by centaurs following Ventari’s teachings – or it could be something else altogether.

EDIT: To be more precise, it’s on the browned out corner of the map, that should be easy enough to pinpoint.

Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure that this settlement has something to do with Ventari. We have peaceful centaurs, iconography relating to the Pale Tree, and there’s that tree (Ventari’s original refuge was at the base of a stonewood tree, and his second one was at, of course, the Pale Tree).

I don’t think that banner relates to the Pale Tree. Just because it is similar to The Grove’s beta icon doesn’t really mean much, IMO. More likely, it is some Harathi form of Ancestor Tree, or the Stonewood tree that Ventari’s Refuge was built underneath (since there’s a show of things beneath the tree).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

[…]
As to the centaur model – that helmet looks Modniir-like (much like their Berserkers). But at the very least wiki doesn’t have any images of that model amongst Modniir.

there you go
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/4/4d/Modniir_Berserker.jpg

i still think it might be tamini too
especially the horns look much more like
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/b/b2/Tamini_Chieftain.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Tamini_Warrior.jpg
and the helmets in these 2 images resemble the helmet of the “Mysterious Figure” too

also the belt and the front armor of
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/b/b2/Tamini_Chieftain.jpg
is almost exactly the same like the “Mysterious Figure”

so im pretty sure that it is a Tamini

The armor is rather similar to the Tamini’s but the skin of the centaur itself is not. Tamini – as you can clearly see in the images you linked – have white and brown spots; the centaur in Dry Top lacks this.

Plus it wouldn’t make much sense for it to be a Tamini. Reason being that the Harathi were the centaurs that came from the Maguuma Jungle, the Tamini lived north of Kryta in GW1 as nomads.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Chriskang/Sandbox/Emblems

like Tamias.7059 what we can see on the green flags (that Tuomir.1830 linked) has been used as The grove symbol
and more likely as a symbol of the pale tree which happens to be in the grove and is like the biggest mark of the grove and thats why is was most likely used as grove symbol

so i think it really shows the pale tree

Though you have to remember that those icons stopped being used during the BWE, thus it could be disregarded as being canon for its original purpose, and effectively have been repurposed.

Like, for example, much of the Utopia work that was reused later in Eye of the North. The Destroyers, for example, are vastly dissimilar to their original concept.

So, we could finally work with peaceful Centaurs. It’s actually a good point in my book. Furthermore, it could be used to develop both the Centaurs and the Sylvari; after all, it should be known by now that the Sylvari follow the teachings of Ventari, even y the Centaurs and the Plant-peoples should be more than willing to learn more about the Centaurs themselves.

Plus, hasn’t it be two years (in the timeline) that Ulgoth the Modniir is dead ? We could see some breakup in the Centaur “alliance”, don’t you think ?

remnants of Scarlets Norn/Centaur alliance
nah i do not think so

i rather believe in new/reused art assets

It would be natural to think that they would include Ventari’s Refuge when they venture into this part of the world following a sylvari storyline.

I know you said the camp you found is in the obscured part of the new zone, but judging by this map it seems like the zone could contain Ventari’s Refuge if it stretches that far west, or possibly in an adjacent zone. Maybe what you found is just an outpost for the original Ventari’s Refuge or they just moved camp in the last 250 years?

Maybe Ventari’s camp moved up because they are on the run of Mordremoth?

There isn’t a Ventari’s Refuge anymore, though. That’s why he moved to what is now the Grove in the first place- the fighting between the humans and centaurs got so bad that it was not possible to have a peaceful settlement anymore. If these centaurs are copying Ventari’s idea, it’s just that- copying. They can’t be the same settlement.

What if it’s not related to the pale tree? What if it’s related to Malyck’s tree? I remember that he went to Maguuma.

I wonder if Ventari ever had any offspring and the Mysterious Figure is a descendant. Or even if not related to Ventari, then someone who adheres to his peaceful teachings, a protege of some sort. It wouldn’t be Ventari’s refuge anymore (and thus doesn’t have to be where the old one was), but still serve much the same purpose.

There was more than one peaceful centaur in the Maguuma.

I hope that they’ll use the friendly centaur seen in the refugee camp of Gendarran Fields in conjunction with this one, if he remains friendly. Helping to forge a peaceful coalition of centaurs would be great, imho.

Mysterious figure? Mister “E”?

The symbol on the flag could represent the druids that were a group of krytan humans that moved to the jungle in order to live with nature and were devout followers of Melandru, but they had mysteriously vanished.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Druid

It makes sense to have followers of Ventari in the area. This probably shouldn’t be considered an iteration of his Refuge, though. Centaurs are largely nomadic, and don’t express a strong connection to location. Even when they name areas, it’s descriptive instead of meaningful.

Ventari’s teachings would be held culturally, not geographically.

If this banner does represent his followers, we can’t even assume this is the only group. For all we know, they could have a strong presence through all of Maguuma.

Why is everybody jumping to conclusions based on that banner showing a tree? I mean, why does it have to point to sylvari or druids or what have you?

Ancestor trees are a thing you know? http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ancestor_Tree

Edit: I see Konig already mentioned it but was ignored.

Diovid.9506:

Why is everybody jumping to conclusions based on that banner showing a tree? I mean, why does it have to point to sylvari or druids or what have you?

Ancestor trees are a thing you know? http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ancestor_Tree

I was also thinking in that direction, maybe it has nothing to do with Ventari or sylvari at all. As the centaurs are quite close to nature (in fact in a Sylvari personal story quest you even convince them to follow your orders because you are nature spirits) wouldnt it be possible this camp and banner belong to a crazy cult of dragon worshipping centaurs just like the Sons of Svanir worship Jormag?

There are a series of ledges to the north of the Prosperity waypoint. Today, from the middle ledge, I was able to see the ‘mysterious figure’ centaur on the top ledge.

Going back to the story .. we didn’t find any trace of Aerin in Prosperity so did he perhaps meet the centaurs instead? Could Aerin’s notes have been talking about killing the centaur chief bringing the rest under control?