Guild Wars 2

Was talking with a friend and came to a wondering about the Non-human races, about the finer more private parts of their culture, mainly for roleplaying reasons, but also curiosity. For instance: How does Norn courtship happen?
Do the men try and impress a woman?
Do women beat up men they’re not impressed with? Because I can’t think of a Norn doing anything else with something they’re unimpressed with.
Cause there seems to be no real gender divide in Norn culture, is there a set person who raises the children?
How family orientated are the Norn? Because in most of the stuff we’ve seen Norn tend to live alone as adults, yet random dialogue in Hoelbrak suggests they do get married.
Some lodges in the world seem to have whole families living in them, while others are businesses or just a random house people stop in to rest while adventuring. Is there any culture about what kind of lodge you can walk into?

How do Asuran families work? As may Asurans seem to live in their labs or have their personal labs at home, are there many instances of young Asurans getting injured or killed from the more dangerous experiments? Because some Asurans have little sense of lab safety. Do Asurans give birth to litters? Cause they look like originally similar to Moles IRL who also give birth to a litter of young.

Char have much more lore already explaining early life and family stuff. But my one question is again: Do they give birth to litters of young? Also are they called Kittens or something adorable?

With Norn, just as an example, you can find a Norn guy in Wayfarer Foothills who talks about raising his kids by himself, because his wife decided it was time to seek her glory. Sounds pretty convenient to me… “Yeah, uh I don’t want these kids any more… I’m going to go seek my glory.” — Moves to Lion’s Arch, leaves old life behind with no consequences.

I’m fairly certain Neither Charr nor Asura give birth to Litters, and Charr young are pretty much always referred to as cubs.

Asura and Charr child rearing is very similar in that they have their young, and then the young are placed in a sort of boarding school (Fahrahr or College) by the parents to be raised, and are checked up on every now and then (often silently and without the child’s knowledge)

Norn seem, like most other aspects of their life, to have no real “standard” way of going about things. Some norn seem to settle in family groups, while some seem to be a part of a larger lodge, and there doesn’t seem to be a stigma of which is the “child rearing sex” in… well… any of these cultures.

PopeUrban.2578:

Asura and Charr child rearing is very similar in that they have their young, and then the young are placed in a sort of boarding school (Fahrahr or College) by the parents to be raised, and are checked up on every now and then (often silently and without the child’s knowledge)

So a High School style fan-fic could be in universe, awesome.

In the first guild wars game there’s a quest chain relating to a norn (either male or female depending on your gender) who uh “suggests” that you get married. The logic behind it is that you are now a hero of enough renown to be a worthy mate, and so they basically just demand that you marry them. The way to finish the quest is to go slay a giant wurm, turning yourself into a greater legend than they are and shaming them entirely at which point they decide not to try and force you to marry them.

tldr; norn courtship seems to be based on partners with relatively same renown, and also some kind of compulsion of the physical sort?

Overworld.9613:

How family orientated are the Norn? Because in most of the stuff we’ve seen Norn tend to live alone as adults, yet random dialogue in Hoelbrak suggests they do get married.

I have come across lodges in the wild that houses Norn families. So it definitely happens. I haven’t come across anything that suggested the Norn were adverse to starting families at some point in their lives.

One group of npcs that really stood out while I was adventuring was a Norn father seeking refuge in a Durmand Priory outpost with his two daughters because his home had been burned down by the Dredge and his wife murdered by them.

Needless to say that entire map has soured my opinion of the Dredge and it wasn’t that rosy to begin with.

I really, really, really dislike Dredge. A lot.

Overworld.9613:

How family orientated are the Norn? Because in most of the stuff we’ve seen Norn tend to live alone as adults, yet random dialogue in Hoelbrak suggests they do get married.

Some lodges in the world seem to have whole families living in them, while others are businesses or just a random house people stop in to rest while adventuring. Is there any culture about what kind of lodge you can walk into?

I don’t know about most of your questions but there is a Norn family you have to help in Wayfarer’s Hill and it seems that either the man or woman can be primary care giver. In this particular case, the husband seems to be the one who get’s left home to watch the kids. He complains, and I am quoting as accurately as I can, “Wife away on adventure, kids need watching and I need to hunt, how is this going to work!” at which point he gives you an event quest to go kill Dolyke for meat.

As far as I can tell the Norn are basically old Norse/Angle culture. So basically, multiple generations in a lodge, possibly even in-laws but also they are more inclined to take in visitors, because visitors = stories plus the Shiverpeaks is not the kind of place you can turn away visitors in good concious, and certainly some lodges are basically inns.

I mean, in one of the lodges you get a drunk who insults the lodge owner and get violent. A woman, most likely his wife or at least a close relative, tells him off and starts crying due to his brutish behaviour. He becomes a boss you have to take down and then he decides his Svanir brother’s understand him better and go off to join them. The Svanir promptly try to use him in one of their rituals, you have to go rescue him and then he meekly returns to the lodge. So my guess is that he lives in the lodge with his wife and the lodge is either his relative’s or, most likely, his wife’s relative’s and they live together sharing the work load etc. Pretty much like how the old Norse/Germanic tribes used to live.

Overworld.9613:

Also are they called Kittens or something adorable?

Cubs. Charr call their kids cubs.

That’s pretty much all I know.

Illushia.3721:

I really, really, really dislike Dredge. A lot.

How can one hate the Moletariat, eh comrade?