Guild Wars 2

I started playing my first Asura and wish I had done so from the start. I originally found them grotesque, but they grew on me and I love my Asura!

However, this has got me asking questions about the life of an Asura (and consequently, the lives of other races). While doing the first Destiny’s Edge personal story section, you get to revisit old Lion’s Arch. I looked up Head Gatekeeper Roinna out of curiosity to see how they fared from the original portal hub to the new one and noticed a footnote:

An apprentice named Roinna worked at the gates in 1256 AE¹ (70 years before current events). It is possible they are the same person.

This is a reference to Sea of Sorrows (a book I’ve not read) and claims that Roinna is more than 70 years old. 70 years ago, they were an Apprentice, and 70 years later they are the Head Gatekeeper. Roinna doesn’t actually look old, though.

Is this because Roinna is an Asura or is this a limitation of the game engine?

• Human: Human’s natural max age is 80, on average (based on IRL human life expentancy). The oldest known natural (i.e. without dark magic) was 105 (the Canthan Emperor). Old humans have grey/white hair and wrinkled faces.
• Norn: Norn’s natural max age is 120, on average (based on pre-launch interviews). Elder Norns have grey/white hair and either wrinkled faces (for males) or scarred faces (for females).
• Charr: Charr’s natural max age is 80, on average, like humans. According to an interview I can’t find, Charr and Humans age at the same rate. I assume that also means they die at about the same age. However, I’m not sure what an old Charr looks like, if any even exist.
• Asura: Asura’s natural max age is 90-ish, on average. According to a pre-launch interview, Asura’s can live up to 120, but their average life expectancy is about 5%-10% more than humans. Many Asuras implied to be old have wrinkled faces or blotchy skin.
• Sylvari: No idea, yet!

I want to say that while playing my Asura, I’ve seen Asuras with wrinkly faces that didn’t appear to be (or sound) old and Asuras that were meant to be old that didn’t have wrinkled faces. Roinna is one example, but also of the mentors you could choose as an Asura, only one of them (Bronk) actually appeared to be old.

Is there an inconsistency here or am just misinterpreting?

BTW, attached is a screenshot of the two “Retired Researchers” in the Arcane Council chambers.

char’s fur fades with age..only thing i can say

Koviko.3248:

• Human: Human’s natural max age is 80, on average (based on IRL human life expentancy). The oldest known natural (i.e. without dark magic) was 105 (the Canthan Emperor). Old humans have grey/white hair and wrinkled faces.
• Norn: Norn’s natural max age is 120, on average (based on pre-launch interviews). Elder Norns have grey/white hair and either wrinkled faces (for males) or scarred faces (for females).
• Charr: Charr’s natural max age is 80, on average, like humans. According to an interview I can’t find, Charr and Humans age at the same rate. I assume that also means they die at about the same age. However, I’m not sure what an old Charr looks like, if any even exist.
• Asura: Asura’s natural max age is 90-ish, on average. According to a pre-launch interview, Asura’s can live up to 120, but their average life expectancy is about 5%-10% more than humans. Many Asuras implied to be old have wrinkled faces or blotchy skin.
• Sylvari: No idea, yet!

I want to say that while playing my Asura, I’ve seen Asuras with wrinkly faces that didn’t appear to be (or sound) old and Asuras that were meant to be old that didn’t have wrinkled faces. Roinna is one example, but also of the mentors you could choose as an Asura, only one of them (Bronk) actually appeared to be old.

Is there an inconsistency here or am just misinterpreting?

I can tell you outright that your numbers are false. Why?

Simply put: we don’t know human lifespans in Tyria. Leaders have a tendency to reach 80+ before death. King Adelbern died in his late 80s but his ghost is called middle aged. Yet we see his ghost still with his white beard he had when he was 60 (during GW1 Prophecies). Typically, middle aged for us refers to 40 and 60, but he was 20 years past this when he died. This implies that humans in Tyria live a bit longer than for us – easily explained via magical healing and longevity (the latter is known to exist and has kept Livia youngish looking for 180 years).

If I recall, there’s a retired old charr in the game who is in his early 90s, too.

The norn’s natural age is also unknown. The figure 120 was given to us saying that a norn can reach that age and still be physically capable for fighting. Forgal Kernsson was present when the risen took Port Stalwart. That was 96 years before GW2, and it doesn’t seem like he’d remember the event if he was very young – if 120 was the oldest norn tend to get on average, he wouldn’t be such a strong, fully-active, and still-accomplished soldier. We don’t know the ‘natural lifespan of norn’ because norn rarely ever reach that far, but it’s beyond 120, not at.

I would argue the numbers are closer to:

• Human/Charr – 90-100s
• Asura – 110-120s
• Norn – 140-160s

Won’t bother listing sylvari – as dragon minions, they simply may not age.

Norn may even be longer. There was dialogue that hinted that Eir was a child when Hoelbrak was being built – which would imply she was ~180 years old, but this dialogue seems to have been removed some time ago (I saw it during the BWEs/shortly after launch, in the lost heirloom norn storyline) and certainly seems retconned with the lore around Braham added (she was called young when Braham was born – by her husband at least – and Braham was 17 when introduced in 1326).

Ogres are known to be able to live 250 years, and the norn have an implied relation with jotun – a cousin race of ogres – so it’s probable for norn to live ~200 years naturally.

King Adelbern was actually 79-80 when he died in combat, according to the wiki. Regardless, I do agree with the life expectancy values you’ve posted. They make more sense in relation to each other.

This does make me wonder why we have so few old characters, though. Norn and Charr make sense: they seek valor and glory and often pay with their lives. But it doesn’t make much sense for Human and Asura.

Realistically speaking, unless we had a huge baby-boom, there should be just as many Humans and Asuras between 60-80 as there are 20-40. I still don’t really know how to tell the age of Asura, but we know that humans get grey/white hair (if King Adelbern is representative of this, then in their 60s and beyond) when they get old. Yet humans seem to largely appear youthful with only the occasional citizen looking to be of old age.

Of course, it could be explained that humans don’t typically start to grey until 80+, and King Adelbern just greyed early due to the extreme stress of his job.

Actually it makes a lot of sense for humans. Kryta has been besieged by the centaurs since 300 AE (though there were brief moments of peace around GW1’s time, this has gotten worse in this past generation) and Ebonhawke has had the conflict with the charr take out many of their fighting persons. And even ignoring those, we have disasters like Zhaitan’s rise, subterfuge actions like the bandits and street gangs, etc.

Most old humans we see are in Divinity’s Reach and Garrenhoff, unsurprisingly.

As for asura – I’m sure that their constant lab accidents result in many short lifespans, and in 1319 AE (if not earlier), the destroyers were an active threat in the area. Furthermore, we had the Great Golem Uprising of 1284 – 40 years before GW2. That would no doubt have killed a good number of asura alive then, reducing the number of asura that was 41 and older compared to those 40 and under. Depending on the extremity of the golem uprising’s casualties, it could easily be that there was a baby boom in the past 40 years. There do seem to be a large number of young asura in the game (more progeny asura than children of any other race except arguably charr, and the charr likely have high birth rates due to high casualties from their constant fighting).

i think not all of every race ages in the same way.
Different to humans, that are biological meant to live in a group with more or less set roles (protectors, food-provider, caretakers etc.), the norn are traditionally meant to survive as single individuals that form groups for special occasions (f.e. the great hunt).
the Norn is not meant to protect or provide a group or to have another social position than “hunt to eat” and their knowledge mainly roots in their own experiences and their closeness to the spirits of the wild, while the human as a social “animal” build their life and knowledge on the shoulders of other humans and the experience not only themself but also others.
Old humans that can not fight and provide anymore still have an important funtion in the humans society, while old Norn have that less, thus they’ll probably would show the same aging process than humans. they’ll probably get a bit slower in their reflexes and more calculation of a fight is needed or not, but they’ll probably die before the reach the point of being a doter.
the Norn is meant to be a single predatory “animal” similiar to a bear in my perception.
Biologically they’re just meant to provide themself and their offspring as long as said offspring can’t do that themself. We see a lot of Norn children with single parents or no parents around at all.
Norn have to be independent and able to provide and protect themself very early and have to do it ‘til they’re very old when they don’t want to die.
having a support system like hoelbrak is actually very new and unusual and a reaction on the threat “Jormag”.
I think it would be very difficult to find enough norn that actually die only of old age, to actually find out how old they get naturally, because them getting older would at some point just mean that they die because can’t provide and protect themself anymore. they’d either fall in a hunt or they’d just starve to death.
generally with their (probably genetical )closeness to Jotun though, I’d say the natural age is around that of ~200 years if they don’t die from outside influences.

The charr also make it difficult, not only because they as predatory “animals” that generally are relatively robust towards age (i.e. be relatively fit until they’re really old and then die very fast), but mainly because it has a very negative connotation for a charr to die of age in some bed and in safety.
Like the ideal for Norn is to die on a hunt or in a confrontation with another Norn the ideal death for a charr is to die on the battlefield.
that’s probably why we don’t see much really old charr or Norn around…a majority of them probably dies/gets killed before the reach the point of them being so frail that they can’t support themself anymore.

The Asura probably have a bigger chance to actually die of natural aging, but they also test a lot with magic and chemicals that can lead to them aging earlier, not to forget the many lab accidents and them dieing because they’re being to curious and exploring something deadly.

the sylvari…I’m not sure if they age at all, but if they age, i think they’ll probably age similiar to trees. So 100+ years, I guess.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Actually it makes a lot of sense for humans. Kryta has been besieged by the centaurs since 300 AE (though there were brief moments of peace around GW1’s time, this has gotten worse in this past generation) and Ebonhawke has had the conflict with the charr take out many of their fighting persons. And even ignoring those, we have disasters like Zhaitan’s rise, subterfuge actions like the bandits and street gangs, etc.

Most old humans we see are in Divinity’s Reach and Garrenhoff, unsurprisingly.

As for asura – I’m sure that their constant lab accidents result in many short lifespans, and in 1319 AE (if not earlier), the destroyers were an active threat in the area. Furthermore, we had the Great Golem Uprising of 1284 – 40 years before GW2. That would no doubt have killed a good number of asura alive then, reducing the number of asura that was 41 and older compared to those 40 and under. Depending on the extremity of the golem uprising’s casualties, it could easily be that there was a baby boom in the past 40 years. There do seem to be a large number of young asura in the game (more progeny asura than children of any other race except arguably charr, and the charr likely have high birth rates due to high casualties from their constant fighting).

So to sum it up, regardless of your race, the chances of you living a long and healthy life is very slim in Tyria. Hell, even the secondborn Sylvari were seized and experimented on by the Asura.

This would also apply to GW1 (I’ve only played part of Prophecies so far) when the Foefire obliterated the weak (the young and the old) and the large majority of the characters you encountered looked 20-60.

The point of progeny that you make is interesting. There do seem to be a significantly higher amount of Asura progeny than there are children of other races. However, that might just be a perception thing.

Asura progeny are very dense. You don’t see any progeny outside of Metrica Province or Rata Sum, however you can find Charr cubs playing with Human children and Norn children playing near their homesteads. Also, I can’t tell the difference between a Norn child and a Human child, so it’s possible that Norn children are also in LA or something.

Charr cubs should be as dense as Asura progeny, but they are spread out like Human children for some reason. Fahrars should be full of cubs like colleges are full of progeny, but the only fahrar I’ve seen is in Black Citadel and has less than a dozen cubs. It’s possible that other fahrars exist and just aren’t accessible, though.

Koviko.3248:

Also, I can’t tell the difference between a Norn child and a Human child, so it’s possible that Norn children are also in LA or something.

Norn children are generally taller (unsurprisingly) but I agree that it often hard to notice if they are not right next to each other, like for example during the Lupikids event.

Koviko.3248:

So to sum it up, regardless of your race, the chances of you living a long and healthy life is very slim in Tyria.

This makes me think. I haven’t heard of anyone using penicillin, so in terms of basic medical knowledge and expertise I’m not too sure how advanced they are. One could assume that Norn, Charr and Asura have a naturally strong immune system, but we know this isn’t naturally the case for humans (presumably since we’re all human here and can speak from personal experience). So what does happen to someone in Divinity’s Reach if they step on a rusty nail and gets an infection? Do they call in the old sawbones? They could probably use magic, but I don’t recall hearing of that either.

CureForLiving.5360:

Koviko.3248:

So to sum it up, regardless of your race, the chances of you living a long and healthy life is very slim in Tyria.

This makes me think. I haven’t heard of anyone using penicillin, so in terms of basic medical knowledge and expertise I’m not too sure how advanced they are. One could assume that Norn, Charr and Asura have a naturally strong immune system, but we know this isn’t naturally the case for humans (presumably since we’re all human here and can speak from personal experience). So what does happen to someone in Divinity’s Reach if they step on a rusty nail and gets an infection? Do they call in the old sawbones? They could probably use magic, but I don’t recall hearing of that either.

Still, the fact that we don’t hear anything at all about it either means that A.) It’s a facet of life ANet hasn’t incorporated yet, meaning the eventual answer could be almost anything, or B.) it’s been reduced to such a non-issue that it doesn’t occur to Tyrians to comment on it. If that’s the case I’d bet heavily on magical cure over medicinal ones, but it could also be that things like tetanus simply don’t exist.

We have many cases in both games of flowers and herbs being used for medicine, but we neverare told any medical names for the concoctions made. Or sometimes the flower name… Sometimes we see things like ‘yellow flower’ for the item names.

Tyria’s in that weird magic vs. technology fantasy-limbo where technology is far more advanced than our own, yet magic still holds them back from the whole world being more advanced than our own. We can fight an auto-targeting rocket launcher using an enchanted greatsword.

That said, it seems that the majority of healing is probably done via magic since the resurrection mechanic appears so commonly in the personal story that the concept behind it feels canon. I’d imagine there are also surgeons since anatomy seems to be common knowledge (at least among the Asura) and I imagine they care about it more than just knowing for the sake of knowing. Also, the Vigil has an infirmary.

And on the herbal collection topic, it seems that we only collect herbs for extraordinary circumstances. This implies, to me, that normal wounds are something that characters have the means to deal with without any special effort.