Guild Wars 2

What, uh… what are quaggan buildings made of? They look like some weird webbing material. I thought maybe they were just seaweed, but it’s always a pale, glowing, stringy material. My girlfriend is insisting that it’s quaggan butt-silk, like a spider.

Anybody know or have a guess at what it is?

“Quaggan homes utilize the resources of the sea and consist of round pods made of coral and corded seaweed. The pods are tethered to the ocean floor but can be easily towed to safer locations if needed. For light, quaggans farm luminous pearls and phosphorescent algae. "

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Mostly_Harmless_Quaggan

You’re closer, but not completely accurate, Astral. And your girlfriend has weird thoughts to think a mammal (I think? That’s the real question about quaggans – wtf are they? They’re compared to orcas and dolphins so I presume they’re egg-laying mammals like platypuses) would have a function akin to an arachnid. o.O

Aha, thanks Konig.

Yeah, I guess we figure anything’s possible where quaggans and weirdness are concerned.

Do Quaggans breathe air? Or do they have gills?

Who knows!

Atleast we know what the Quaggans’ goal is. Total world domination by 100% control of the trade. You may think it’s cute buying a Quaggan mini or a Quaggan backpack, but in reality you are only helping their imperialistic plans to conquer Tyria. Soon every household will have a Quaggan product and then they will strike with the mindcontrol devices hidden in those toys!

Repent sinners, the end is nigh!

Evon Gnashblade is actually two Quaggans in a Charr costume.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

“Quaggan homes utilize the resources of the sea and consist of round pods made of coral and corded seaweed. The pods are tethered to the ocean floor but can be easily towed to safer locations if needed. For light, quaggans farm luminous pearls and phosphorescent algae. "

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Mostly_Harmless_Quaggan

You’re closer, but not completely accurate, Astral. And your girlfriend has weird thoughts to think a mammal (I think? That’s the real question about quaggans – wtf are they? They’re compared to orcas and dolphins so I presume they’re egg-laying mammals like platypuses) would have a function akin to an arachnid. o.O

OT:

I think they are not mammals. They lay eggs. I suppose each quaggan lays one egg (from what I heard) but they are hatched alltogether by the community. Some of the mature quaggans become something like hatchers, which seems to be a great honor in their society. So I suppose there is no closer connection between mother and child. Young quaggan, look like normal quaggan but are rather white or without color and live together in a rather hidden cave or something guarded by some mature quaggan who rise and educate them.

Quaggans are intelligent, benign, amphibious beings who originally made their homes in the depths of the Unending Ocean. They have recently moved into the shallower waters along the Tarnished Coast and the Sea of Sorrows, as well as inland to the freshwater lakes.

http://www.arena.net/blog/the-mostly-harmless-quaggan

There are mammals which lay eggs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme

In the quote it is said they are amphibious. The second indication for me is that they hatch their eggs and offspring together without having a close connection of mother and child while only some individuals are guarding and raising them. Even with beeings that socially hatch their offspring as a group there is a connection between mother and child, but it doesn’t seem that way with quaggan. There is no indication that the offspring gets fed by the mother.

As for your statement that they got related to dolphins or orca it is only said in the developer statement that

Their original round appearance proved challenging to rig for animation, so they went through a number of iterations, at one point slimming down and becoming more like dolphins. Later they regained some of their weight but retained a beaver-shaped tail from earlier designs.

or

There is also a northern group that is black along the back and white along the belly, much like penguins and orca.

That means their appearance was similar to dolphins at some point, not that they are like dolphins. The same goes for the penguins and orca. Otherwise you could as well say they are birds because penguins got mentioned as well.

Pirlipat.2479:

In the quote it is said they are amphibious.

The word Amphibious refers the being able to stay on land and water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibious

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/amphibious

Not the same than Amphibian, which refers to animals with frog-like traits (my english isn’t good enough to properly detail it but I think you know what I’m saying).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibian

In fact the game uses the world amphibious with bears and cats and I don’t see them laying eggs… or maybe… Tyria has some weird creatures after all (like the Colocal or the Pinipal… wtf are they supposed to be?).

Lokheit said what I was going to say – amphibious just means something that lives above and below land. If dolphines had legs instead of fins, they’d be amphibious – despite being mammals biologically.

Pirlipat.2479:

The second indication for me is that they hatch their eggs and offspring together without having a close connection of mother and child while only some individuals are guarding and raising them. Even with beeings that socially hatch their offspring as a group there is a connection between mother and child, but it doesn’t seem that way with quaggan. There is no indication that the offspring gets fed by the mother.

Imprinting doesn’t require biological mothers to be the ones viewed as such by hatchlings. Societal mothers is no different than a wetnurse – wetnurses were servants who would breastfeed children so their mother wouldn’t have to; the constant action of breastfeeding would keep milk being produced, thus the biological role of the mother would be unnecessary.

As such, nothing in quaggan society points to them not being mammals outright. The act of eggs or lack of direct mothers breastfeeding doesn’t discount this at all.

Pirlipat.2479:

That means their appearance was similar to dolphins at some point, not that they are like dolphins. The same goes for the penguins and orca. Otherwise you could as well say they are birds because penguins got mentioned as well.

Actually, the penguin-makes-bird doesn’t work because it was only the color of penguins used as an example.

However, with dolphins and orca, it’s the shape that’s differing. It’s not a heavy standing by any means however! But if you look at them, they certainly look like your typical dolphin or whale… except when they rage. Then they’re more like a mixture of old hags, barracudas, and something with very huge teeth.

Actually, the penguin-makes-bird doesn’t work because it was only the color of penguins used as an example.

And so it does not work for dolphin-makes-mammal because it was only the appearance of dolphins used as an example of how their design process worked not even how they look now. For me they rather look like pegman on two leg and not anywhere near to a dolphin. If they are similar to something for me it’s tadpoles.

Where do you see a proof that they are mammals?

They are beluga whales which were more given humanoid-like bodies.

Quaggan:
http://www.blogcdn.com/massively.joystiq.com/media/2011/06/gw2.jpg

Beluga Whale:
http://designyoutrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/1193.jpg
http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/AFPGetty-511300226.jpg

Pirlipat.2479:

And so it does not work for dolphin-makes-mammal because it was only the appearance of dolphins used as an example of how their design process worked not even how they look now. For me they rather look like pegman on two leg and not anywhere near to a dolphin. If they are similar to something for me it’s tadpoles.

Where do you see a proof that they are mammals?

Color schemes and physical attributes (shape, size, texture, etc.) are vastly different things.

And it is in those physical attributes which I believe point to them being mammalian.

And thank you Oglaf. I knew there was a specific species of whale that quaggans are just like, but couldn’t recall the name.

Which ones? …….

What do you mean which ones? Which physical attributes?

The fact they have skin and not scales. Their tail and body’s shape being design after aquatic/swimming mammals. The lack of fins and gills (by all appearances on the latter, at least). Their existence in the arctic (and thus not cold blooded) while having blubber (iirc, that’s said about the northern ones and is part of the cause why they cannot exist in warm waters and why the southern ones can’t in colder waters). All these point to “not fish, not reptile, not amphibian” with hints of “possibly mammal” and I doubt you’d go and call them birds given the lack of wings.

Humanoid, egg-laying whales which can live on land like seals?

^Gets my vote.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

What do you mean which ones? Which physical attributes?

The fact they have skin and not scales. Their tail and body’s shape being design after aquatic/swimming mammals. The lack of fins and gills (by all appearances on the latter, at least). Their existence in the arctic (and thus not cold blooded) while having blubber (iirc, that’s said about the northern ones and is part of the cause why they cannot exist in warm waters and why the southern ones can’t in colder waters). All these point to “not fish, not reptile, not amphibian” with hints of “possibly mammal” and I doubt you’d go and call them birds given the lack of wings.

Amphibians neither have scales, amphibians can swimm too, skelk are living in the cold too. Warm-blooded only means that those animals can adjust do higher temperature differences than cold-blooded.

Amphibians have extremeties, they lay eggs – like frogs do together. Amphibians can live on land and in water.

They are far more like whales than frogs or reptiles.

Skelk aren’t amphibians. They’re just amphibious.

Amphibians are born in water, but able to live on both water and land. Skelks are born on land (originating from underground), so they’re either mammals, reptiles, or something not found on earth (which, tbh, could be what quaggans are too).

Looking at it from general traits each class in the animal kingdom have you get this:

Mammals: Mammary glands, warm-blooded, skin and fur, usually doesn’t lay eggs
Birds: Wings, (mostly? – are penguins feathered?) feathered, (always?) lays eggs
Reptiles: Cold-blooded, scales, lays eggs, amphibious but born on land
Amphibians: amphibious and born in water, has two stages in life (water-breathing larva and air-breathing adult), mostly(?) cold-blooded
Fish: Aquatic, gills instead of lungs, scales, most lay eggs others incubate eggs in their bodies (different than mammals, though visually similar)
Invertebrates: lacks an endoskeleton

From this, we can outright cut out birds, reptiles, fish, and invertebrates. Quaggans lack that “water-breathing larva” state of amphibians, thus would only be left mammals.

Frogs are no reptiles.^^

We do not know how quaggan look in their very early state as well there are frogs who do not have a metamorphosis and in fact quaggan HAVE a second state – their angry form.

Actually, we do know how quaggans look in their very early stages. We can see quaggans hatch during evacuation iirc, and even then, there’s Quaggan Hatchlings.