Guild Wars 2

Are there any horses in Tyria? If not, what would their equivalent mounts be? Also, in comparison to our progress in medicine, what era is there level of medical care? I mean I’m sure magic may have brought new possibilities, but I’m not sure if they have methods to check your glucose level, pro-time or produce antibiotics for instance…

I ask this cause I’m making a rather lengthy fanfic and one of them is a doctor that doesn’t rely on magic.

Oi, oi…

I wonder how many times “are there any horses in Tyria” will be asked in a new thread. Anet, please fix your search engine…

Short answer: yes, there are horses.

Long answer: Read this, the most recent thread

Horses don’t seem to be the primary mount, however. Only humans have ever been known to ride them – in Orr and Cantha, particularly – though this doesn’t say much. Dolyaks are common mounts in concept art and by the stone summit dwarves in GW1 (as were snow beasts, which aren’t seen in GW2 sadly), and I’d imagine that oxen, marmox (marmoxen?), and possibly even mosshearts (for sylvari) to be mounts – basically, any beast of burden caravan animal seen in GW2 may be potentially used as mounts.

As for medicines, there’s no explicit mention of the level of quality for medicines, but I’d imagine Renaissance era kinds of things. With magical healing, there doesn’t seem to be a huge rush to figure out proper “mundane” (or alchemical) medications. Elixers brewed from various herbs that sooth particular ailments and the like.

Healing magic is more or less a catch all as I understand it. There was an interview stating that typically biological understanding is not necessary for healing magic (though the existence of Menders in sylvari society proves that this does not go past the animal/plant barrier), but I presume that the level of magical healing used differs from society to society – asura likely use it the most, then sylvari, human, and norn, then charr the least (of the main races, this is).

I doubt Tyrians would know or care about glucose levels. Especially given that’s overall not a very major thing despite the product labeling claims (which are more or less the product of a very, very, very noisy singular individual over a matter that very few people actually need to watch for).

Horses are up in the air. We know they exist somewhere, and we know they probably existed in Orr, but you could make an argument for anything from them being extinct in the known world to being in everyday use (although probably only by humans) that we don’t see for gameplay reasons. If this is just for fanfic, feel free to pick whichever is most interesting for your story. I do not believe there would be equivalent mounts- the only other thing that comes close would be asura riding their golems.

For medicine, one of the novels refers to chirurgeons (a archaic term for surgeons) in Lion’s Arch and Rata Sum. The Rata Sum one seemed to be the sort who treated amputation as a cure-all. In-game, we don’t see much, really- the clergy of Dwayna undergo “medical training”, and they seem to serve as the primary healers in human communities, but that’s… really just about all we know. I’d suggest using the engineer heal-oriented skills as a starting point and fill in the gaps with where the given race seems to be technologically in mind. To take your specific example, any possibility of monitoring glucose levels and whatnot are probably going to be limited to asura, and even that’s a stretch- it’d take an asura in a position to form a krewe to be interested in accomplishing it, and the more niche the concern, the less likely that’d be to happen.

Still, you are writing fanfic, so stretching is not out of the question.

We know there are still horses in modern times. From Edge of Destiny page 97:

Visions. Beautiful visions…a grassy plain where wild horses ran…a deep lagoon encircled by leaning palsm….a great glacier with snowcapped peaks in blue… a sere desert where crystalline statues stood…

These being some depictions where the malfunctioning asura gate flashed to. Now, we know that – prior to experimental teleportation in 1325 AE – asura gates can only lead to another asura gate. So all of these locations had to be where the asura had been.

And come to think of it, I wonder why we never tried deciphering all those locations. Noticing it, those “crystalline statues” intrigue me now…

Thus extinct in the known world. And intentional teleportation requires a receiving gate, but I can think of at least one case where a gate dumped asura outside Thaumanova instead, so there is a precedent for faults or glitches getting around that. Intentional teleportation also, so far as we’ve heard, requires both gates to be tuned to each other. Unless there were a whole heap of gates abandoned, one apparently in the middle of the ocean, all attuned to one random gate in a subterranean dwarvern city, what they did falls outside how gates are supposed to operate.

I disagree with that statement, Aaron. ArenaNet has stated in the past that they cannot – thus do not attempt – to render all life in Tyria. With the scaling, that would make the world full of things. This includes most wildlife, and as such there’d be wildlife we do not see in explorable Tyria.

This may very well include horses.

The fact of the matter is that we just don’t know if horses exist in Kryta, Ascalon, etc. And if they do, what kinds of breeds. We just know that multiple breeds of horses are known to humans in the general sense (there’s a Seraph soldier who compares the three centaur tribes to draft horses and other kinds of horses which indicates not just separate breeds of horses, but domestication of horses in the past if not also present).

I don’t recall a gate dumping asura outside Thaumanova without a receiving gate… The only asura gate related stuff near Thaumanova I recall was the gates leading to and fro the Inner Inquest Complex – there’s two gates there. All other teleportation is a result of the chaos magic explosion.

As to two gates attuning – this is only for modern gates, and the gate Logan, Rytlock, and Caithe stumbled upon seemed to be from the previous generation (which had one set destination and could supposedly only need one side activated to work – hence the need to destroy the gates in EotN, both times).

I was listing it as a possibility that could be supported from what we know. If you go back and look, you’ll see I’ve also got “in everyday use that we just don’t see for gameplay reasons” up there. For myself, I agree that the most likely case seems to be that horses are still around in modern day Kryta to some degree or another, but since there’s so little to work with here and since AVM is writing fanfiction, I laid out two extreme ends of a spectrum of choices that they could work with.

It’s an ambient dialogue from the two generic asura standing outside (Just north of the east entrance, if you’re curious). I don’t have it verbatim, but they were fleeing skritt, ducked into a gate, and found themselves where I found them.

I doubt they have a germ theory, which would mean that any medicine is basically just folk cures or worse. No antibiotics, no antiseptics (except maybe salt). Even a fairly minor wound could lead to sepsis and death.

Surgeons main skill would be to saw off limbs really really quickly (because the only anaesthetic is lots of strong drink). And without a germ theory, surgery would be done without sterile supplies (not even hand-washing).

Of course, with magic, maybe all that is unnecessary. And who knows if germs even exist in Tyria?

Herbal remedies not only predate germ theory, but worked and are still used today, even being the basis for some simpler medicines.

Also, just not having a germ theory doesn’t mean they’ll be completely unsanitary. The acts of hygiene well preceded the prevalence of the germ theory in the mid 1500s, going back to the Roman and Greek civilizations if not earlier. There would also be more concepts of surgery than just amputation except for hack doctors (no pun intended), and bloody equipment rusts, they’d clean it off, as well as their own hands. I’m fairly sure the concept of boiling water to make it taste better precedes the germ theory too.

Basically the germ theory did not create all these acts of hygiene, but rather explained why these long-existing acts of hygiene actually work. They were done because they knew “hey, we can get sick if we don’t” but they didn’t know why they’d get sick.

I recall one guild’s name.

“<Character name> Mounts ur mum”

So I guess there could be mounts out there.

In all seriousness,
You will have to use your imagination.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Horses are up in the air.

Thinking about this again, I’d have to argue that there’s no way they’re up in the air.

The argument of horses being “extinct in the known world” falls short because of when Seraph compare the centaurs to three different kinds of horse breeds. The very fact that an average Seraph not only mentions different kinds of horse breeds but also expects the other party to know indicates that there’s common knowledge – to some degree – of horse breeds. Meaning that it’d be at least possible for the average joe to differentiate between different horse breeds; which in turn means that the average joe would have had enough interaction and/or teaching and/or viewing of different horse breeds. This is unlikely to ever occur if horses were long extinct.

I’ll stay away from the horse part. For medicine, I figure if you have necromancers who sense stuff in blood and can pull life force out of things, you have people who can magically detect bacteria and how they are ravaging a system. I don’t think it’s a stretch to have germ theory known at least to some scholars, though the general populace might just be in the “cleanliness is health” level.

Since I never like to just hand wave magically and heal everything, in my RP my healers can accelerate healing, purge toxins (including alcohol) and such, but they can’t turn someone deathly ill into a paragon of health in seconds. The body needs time to truly heal and shore up the bracing the magic gives it. So protein-rich foods, bed rest, salves, etc, they all come into play to synergize with the magical part. Your non-magic healer could be great at stuff that just takes herbs and bandages. My thief certainly has no magic heals, he just does first aid when no healer’s handy.

Side note: Glucose concerns are very real to more than one person, btw, I know at least three people in my immediate circles (including my mom) who suffer nasty effects from it. It can’t be that rare. Which doesn’t mean Tyrians would have any idea about it other than as an allergy some people have to bready things.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Horses are up in the air.

Thinking about this again, I’d have to argue that there’s no way they’re up in the air.

Pegasi, on the other hand…