Guild Wars 2

If you enter the blood tribune quarters and talk to Laria Sharpeye as an Asuran ranger (oddly specific), you’ll have a conversation where she wonders if Asurans replace pets with golems. You tell her that although rangers aren’t common, they do tame animals too. From what I recall, I only ever see humans with dogs, Sylvari have those fern hounds, Charrs have a Devourer, Norns can have anything from a Wolf to a drake, and Ogres have hawks. So has anybody ever seen an Asuran with a pet? Do Quaggans have anything similar? What about Hyleks?

I don’t remember many NPC rangers at all, and no asuran ones. Which is not to say they don’t exist, just that I don’t remember them. But there are at least 2 asura who have tamed and trained moas – one on the lower level of Rata Sum and one in Queensdale and I assume the process is similar (although they’re training the moas to dance, not fight.) And then of course there’s Tigg and his racing moas.

So, mostly moas.

Speculatively I would say it’s more likely for NPCs to have pets found in their race’s homelands, just because they’d be more likely to come across them. It’s not impossible for them to travel and tame pets elsewhere but probably only if it was actually worked into their backstory (or the actual storyarcs, like Rox and Frostbite), generic NPC rangers would have pets from their homelands.

It’s actually something I worked into my human ranger’s backstory as an illustration of the odd combination of noble privilege and martial training in her childhood. She wanted a pet stalker like her ancestor, which is much more extravagant for a city kid than one growing up in the wilderness of old Ascalon. Her parents could have paid to have one imported but instead they hired a sylvari scout to lead her out into the jungle where she had to find and tame her own.

charr rangers seem to be a bit more common. It seems nearly all ogres are rangers as well. Id imagine charr and norn are hte most common sources of rangers. With humans and sylvari being up next. And asurans being the last (asurans tend to look down on anything primitive. They may not be able to properly form the necessary bonds with animals on a normal scale (player asuran rangers being hte exception).

Quaggans have sharks:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Talooboo

Don’t think I’ve ever seen a hylek with a pet, but in addition to the moas mentioned above, there’s also an asura in Rata Sum who trains siamoths to serve as companions- much more typical ranger ground than carnival attractions. Other races that come to mind are skritt with murellow, and arguably harpies with griffons, though that looks more like cohabitation than training.

I think, in general, Danikat hit it on the head here. While there are exceptions- like drakes seeming to be rare pets regardless of location, or non-moa birds only showing up with norn and pirates- it seems to boil down to whatever’s in the near vicinity.

Hmmm pets pets pets, lets see, from the top of my head…

Quaggan: One arctic settlement has a pet shark IIRC, one in the south doesn’t keep them as domesticated pet but uses bait to defend against krait.

Charr: Devourers mainly yea. One village in Iron Marches dedicates to training war hounds. A lumber mill in Diessa successfully! trained Skelk. Other than that, whatever rangers can tame in their vicinity I guess.

Ogres: Whole race is famed as animal tamers and rightfully so. Pets are their lives. Moas, warthogs, hawks, rock dogs, devourers, etc, etc… the only thing that was ever specifically mentioned to be untameable that I recall are dragon minions.

Hylek: …do poison-turrets count? I mean. Yeah. I don’t recall any Hylek pets either

Other races worth mentioning that have/had pets:

Dwarves: Snow beasts and Dolyaks back in the days, but they also had rangers so…

Centaurs: They keep rock dogs. Only rock dogs tho.

Tengu. But of course! What they keep nowadays is a different question tho. But back in GW1 we had ranger npcs at least.

Krait: Drakes, sharks, jellyfish, deep-sea scorpions, and not forgetting the krait witches also tequatl-sized leviathans and other races! Woo.

Dredge: Used to have rangers in GW1. 98% likely fell out of fashion with newer technology and guns, don’t seem to keep pets or domesticated anymore. (….I wonder what dredge eat.)

Skritt: Murrelows (,…bears…? /stares at Guild Bounty uh)

Probably not common, but the VOED from the college of statics finds an egg that the asura Kozzak adopts. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shrieksy

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Don’t think I’ve ever seen a hylek with a pet

The Hylek of the Maguuma Wastes herd giant beetles, I think that should count. Also Grawl can be seen herding grubs in Fireheart Rise.

versidia.4520:

Quaggans have sharks…

Is that a special case, because it was one quaggan that had a shark, and that’s a very tough shark for a pet.
Also, I like how just about everyone responding has a hint of humor at the end.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Don’t think I’ve ever seen a hylek with a pet

The Hylek of the Maguuma Wastes herd giant beetles, I think that should count. Also Grawl can be seen herding grubs in Fireheart Rise.

That’s probably closer to farming than having pets, though I guess we don’t know exactly what the Hylek use the beetles for. I can’t speak for everyone, but as someone who has livestock I do have a clear distinction in my head between pets (our cats, dogs, and horses) and livestock (cows).