Guild Wars 2

I’m at a dispute about this order and how they operate in terms of lore and Pact etc.

1. They are a secretive organization right? Many say they are like one of our organizations in the real world such as CIA or Black ops or something or another. That none of us are supposed to know about (yet we do as an American or w/e nation’s public) lest they come and kills us? Is that to far from the truth or extreme end of things with the OoW?

2. The pact when the OoW joined the ranks of the pact and allied with the other two order if they were so secretive, why would they even do that without exposing to The world that they exist? Wouldn’t they have to kill everyone in the pact after?

So my Ele (who is Vigil) who is the sister of my OoW engineer that would probably know she is of the whispers will have to die now knowing since Zhaitan that her sister was of that order if they both fought Zhaitan’s ranks together? Or would her sister hide all knowledge of being whispers from her and act like she is some mercenary or something stupid?

3. If they have to be secretive, how much can immediate family members know even if they are pact too? Do they have to die if they do know if that is the rules?

4. Tybalt. He wasn’t as much into the secretive stuff and yet he died to the risen at Claw Island. Was it on purpose as to not be reprimanded with the ultimate punishment (death) for his less serious ways of going about things?

I really think I bit off more than I chewed with one of my characters in RP cause the way others are portraying the OoW and the lore as I know it doesn’t fit… I did the Personal story and been in Orr multiple times over, and I don’t see the OoW as the “so scary tin foil hat stuff” and the “We have to kill you cause you know to much just by being with us even in the Pact as an ally”. If I’m wrong and the questions I have are answered and things are made light to me by a lore nut here, then I’ll have to deal with my characters or characters killed.

Other things I realized that make me have doubts about all this:

Your own personal story. Agent Ihan went out of his way to try to get you to join the OoW and even blatantly told you who they were, etc. If this is so, what makes it any more the reason that they should kill you for not joining them and instead another order? You already as the player in-universe know that order exists as low as lv 15-20 (old story structure), and they do not even bat an eye lid that you know.

I see it as a group that’s well known to the governments and to the racial “leaders” (and by extension the player), but is not well know to the general, less adventurous, public.

1) The existence of the Order of Whispers itself isn’t such a tightly held secret anymore. In the past 250 years, they’ve had to expand their ranks as they spread to Tyria, this would mean exposing themselves. They even have a public camp in the Grove, and one of the ambient tour charr in the Black Citadel point a sylvari to the Serrated Tavern stating “the Order you’re looking for is at the top” (this is the OoW’s base in the BC).

Not everyone knows of their existence, but they don’t kill if others find them out. They aren’t like the evil incarnations of illuminati.

They do, however, threaten (and possibly kill) if things they want kept secret are to be found out. Such as the LA base in the sewers which 98% of the population would never go near due to its location (only Lionguard on patrol, maintenance workers, and your foolish child – or skritt – would normally go into the sewers and thus possibly find the base, and the first two would likely be informed of such, be agents, or bribed).

2) The other two orders know of the Whispers for sure. That’s a plot point, even, in chapter 3 and chapter 5 (when recruiting you into an order, and when uniting them for Claw Island). Vigil and Priory know the Whispers’ existence and how they do things, and so forth.

What wouldn’t be known is “who works for the Whispers” unless they’ve revealed such to the individual or is one of the rare ‘wears the uniform on official business’ individuals. While it’s not shown well in-game, the uniform is only used by those who publicly announce themselves as tied to the Order. Most agents, don’t.

3) I imagine that it depends on the individual’s assignments. The Pact is a separate entity if the Orders that receives most of its manpower from the Orders. But they only know what the Orders know and do in regards to the Elder Dragons. And even then, possibly not everything.

4) Tybalt sacrificed himself so that the PC and Lionguard could escape. It had nothing to do with his secrecy. And he was actually rather secretive. Being also a member of the Order, it doesn’t seem such to the players. But he rarely talked about himself, or gave unnecessary info out. And though his enthusiasm slipped through often on that first mission, he did keep that he wasn’t our senior on the field a good secret. And it isn’t like he spilled any order secrets.

5) I really want to know where you got the silly idea of ’ they kill anyone who knows’ when you can run into multiple bases and they tell you who they are. And the Grove’s very open camp. They’d have to kill all sylvari if such a thing was true.

They only kill threats. They trust the PC, as said at the Ebonhawke base or outside the Lornar’s Pass base, so they give a few secrets out. Those being ‘we are here, but this isn’t all of us’.

Its a big bone of contention now in RP and I can’t argue anymore as no one seems to listen on their side. I have allies OOC and IC now that are willing to hide my toon as three guilds want her dead which are what these three OoW based guilds want. But these guilds are making the OoW seem not what the lore even states they are.

Its like as you say, like they turned them into Illuminati. I even was raising eyebrows to this and was like, “All I did was tell you my arch enemy escaped from our own bases (in iron marches where mordrem attacked) in front of a friend (which it did concern her to my RP plot as the said villain was after everyone they knew), and you want to kill me now?”

Just being whisper and having family members know (as three of my toons are related and all were in pact and fought together) that she is just by pact standards is enough to have my whole account killed off unless I retconned them into not knowing.

Its really out of bounds. And i’m glad to have you here to make me feel a bit better about it as I was about to quit RPing and quit GW 2 over it.

I was about to let them kill her and make a new villain out of my Engi by buying gems and make overs and name changes.

Lol! Now this one rper I’m up against says they are capable of manipulating everything in shadows etc and political figures etc. and kill over this.

That’s called metagaming. I tend to ignore such things.

And they’re not roleplaying Order of Whispers right.

They’re roleplaying a rogue faction of the Order of Whispers at best. Or imposters. Take your pick.

Which means that the entire Order of Whispers (read: the Master and Preceptors and any lower ranks that are assigned the task of hunting them down) would want THEM dead because they’re a threat to the unity of Tyria and their own trustworthiness.

The Order of Whispers are good guys; their existence is known to anyone who pays enough attention – though most people consider them too shady to trust. They won’t kill just to keep their existence a secret, when everyone who knows of the Pact, likely knows of the Order of Whispers, because they are roughly 1/3rd of the Pact’s forces.

I think what’s happening with them is that they’re taking a single NPC’s dialogue as the canon for the entire order. But this is not true.

If what those people are roleplaying were canon, then every PC that isn’t Whispers would be killed off by the Order of Whispers not only for doing the Personal Story, but for talking to certain Whisper members. So would all of Destiny’s Edge, the world leaders, and many members of the Vigil and Priory who know of the Order of Whispers. Even Marjory would be hunted down.

The concept of killing off those who knew of the Order of Whispers wasn’t even true in GW1, where the main plot forces characters to ally with the Order of Whispers, but not join them.

In other words, if the people you’re RP’ing with were right, the Order of WHispers’ “to kill” list would include:

• Trahearne
• Queen Jennah
• Imperator Smodur
• Knut Whitebear
• Skarki Knutsson
• Sigfast Knutsson
• Logan Thackeray
• Caithe
• Pale Tree
• Almost every sylvari ever, really (if not every sylvari ever)
• Marjory Delaqua
• Kasmeer Meade
• the three explorers in Dry Top (whatever their names are)
• Rytlock Brimstone
• Eir Stegalkin
• Zojja
• High Councillor Flaxx
• Steward Gixx
• Warmaster Efut
• General Almorra Soulkeeper
• Wynnet Fairhaired
• Every non-Whispers Pact member
• Every person who’s heard enough of the Pact to know the Whispers assist them
• The 10 non-Whispers Personal Story recruiters

Yeah… I really can’t see such a list existing.

As to that last point: No single member is capable of manipulating any world leader. The closest they get to is being attendants (the Master is Lawson’s attendant, for example) and thus can easily spy and even if necessary reveal him/herself to give them needed information (like with Cobiah Marriner). At best, a single member would be able to get into personal contact with a single world leader of the same race.

Your roleplaying with metagamers, who claim to be capable of doing no wrong and can’t be beaten.

Find someone else to roleplay with, that’s my suggestion.

Thank you and yet the girl and others still argued with me after being armed with this information and my own conclusions. I just told her and to them to: “take your pick: ignore me, block me, or leave me alone.”

Yeah, I call BS as well.

There’s the reasons Konig has mentioned: The OoW is secretive, but they’re still the good guys, not an evil cult to murder anyone that knows of their existence. Even if they were inclined to do so, that horse has already bolted – pretty much anyone who would present a credible threat to the OoW already knows of their existence. What the Order is secretive about is what they’re doing, where their bases are (except in the Grove) and who actually works for them.

Even if we put aside all that, such a wide killing program is wasteful. Whispers agents are assets. People who are not Whispers agents but who a Whispers agent knows and trusts are… still assets. Assets to be screened in case that trust is misplaced, maybe, but if that trust is warranted, for an agent to have allies is a force multiplier.

I suspect the way they actually operate is similar to the way most intelligence organisations in Western countries actually operate (as opposed to how conspiracy theories imagine they do): Members are encouraged to keep their membership on a ‘need to know’ basis, but are trusted to be able to make their own calls in that respect (although the organisation will keep tabs – as the old saw goes, “trust, but verify”). Classified information is, of course, classified, but the mere fact that someone is a member is not protected information – although certain agents might be considered more valuable because no-one knows they’re an agent, this isn’t worth killing family and friends of agents over.

What these guilds appear to be roleplaying is a conspiracy theory fantasy of the Order, which bears little to know resemblance to what ArenaNet has actually created.

Order of Whispers and CIA is a good comparison, in both cases everyone knows that those organizations exist, but information about who belongs to them, where is the main HQ, what they are doing exactly are all a mystery/secret and both organizations will try their best to keep it that way.

The final straw is when asking Ihan if you can tell people that you belong to the OoW in the human personal story…his response: to paraphrase…people already know we exist, what ever you(the PC) decide to tell people is up to you.

I’ll just ignore anything these players say or do then as they are dead wrong.

The only thing where they are truely secret about is their inner most secrets.

Your idea of CIA or NSA is right. They do things for the greater good , but maybe not as shady as you might think.

Well, they do. They assassinate, they play puppetmasters and the like. Their methods are everything but good , however they prefer to work from the shadows, instead of taking things to the frontline.

At least that is the practise they are discribed with.
How they are shown in game is… debatable.

All I can say, people know they exist, but the extend of what people know is very limited.
Think of it like the Freemason maybe?
It might even be that we, even though we rushed quickly up in their ranks, do not know everything of their inner workings (I at least hope so, because they felt a bit boring and generic in the PS and this hasn`t changed till then) and just remember: We haven`t seen all of them.

If rumors are true, they reach everywhere.
The Headquarter we see might not be the main one.

The methods of the order are quite profane:

- A lot agents with unknown identity
- You basically just get to know the next higher rank. Independent how long you’ve been in the order, you just get the information you need to work with.
- Three high ranked member are the only ones who know the Master of Whisper (Preceptors). The information which his spreaded, is that one of them is the MoW, but only they know who it is. Surely we get the information, but we are one of them who defended the headquarter together with 1stfirstborn doing the major work on defense.
- Fights are majorly handled with distraction, sneaking, false herrings and information. Why fight the dredge if we can turn the dredge and steam creatures against one another (renown heart in Lornar’s Pass). Krait versus risen (renown heart in Mount Maelstrom)

All this added with some mysterial gossip including the help of several (racial-)leaders gives them the power they have.