Guild Wars 2

Tachenon.5270:

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In regard to sylvari breathing: is it carbon dioxide in and oxygen out? Or do they emulate humans in this regard (as in so many others) and ‘breathe’ in oxygen?

It was stated multiple times that they eat like any other animal would. There are only two possible ways of turning food into energy for living: Reconstructing it by itself (like bakteria do when producing alkohol), but no creature that has access to oxygen does that because it’s way too inefficient. And burning it with oxygen. So Sylvari most likely breathe oxygen in and co2 out. Photosynthesis doesn’t produce enough energy to keep a moving creature moving around all day. If they do photosynthesis at all it isn’t their main source of energy.

Tachenon.5270:

What do sylvari do with their dead?

They bury them. There are several Sylvari-graves in the game. They mostly use a large leaf as a tombstone. Or is it a special kind of plant? A leaf would wither too fast.

Tachenon.5270:

Further study:

Are sylvari ‘warm-sapped’ or ‘cold-sapped’? Do they generate their own heat, like mammals, or must they rely on environmental factors? How cold/hot can they get before suffering damage?
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I highly doubt they are completely cold. Even if their sap doesn’t freeze due to defrosting substances in it, their movements in cold climates would be drastically slowed.

Sylvari do sleep and do dream. They can also experience nightmares, as one sylvari explains to the other on the upper levels of the Grove. Nightmares are usually taken as attacks coming from the aptly named Nightmare Court, or more likely the increasing influence the Nightmare has on the Dream.

As far as I understand, when sylvari sleep they connect to the Dream and in a way “upload” their daily experience (“I’ll pass this along to the Pale Tree!”), and from there other sylvari can find stuff if they happen to dream about these experiences. Its not like a hive-mind in the sense that every sylvari knows everything the other sylvari knows. Its more like the Internet. Full of information, some more or less usefull or important than the others, some wonderfull, some horrific, and you get to know only the parts that you happened to click on.

A sylvari walks into a bar and says, ‘Ow, who put that stupid bar there!’

How do alcoholic beverages affect sylvari?

A quick run through the googles seems to indicate that the ethanol in alcoholic beverages is bad (mm-kay) for plants. Mixed with water, ‘hard’ liquors like whiskey and vodka can inhibit plant growth at solutions of 5%, but a stronger solution — with 10% ethanol or so — causes stress, and at a solution of around 25% ethanol it’s /e slash throat. Beer and wine, due to the sugar content, evidently promotes fungal and bacterial growth, which again could spell doom for our leafy friends.

Hmm, it’s looking like sylvari might be doOOooOomed to always be the designated drivers. Well, if we had vehicles… (ahem).

Other than liquor, what beverages (or other substances) might produce a state of inebriation in a sylvari?

I’m pretty sure anything that humans can do, sylvari can also do. Except change size, but that’s not what I really meant. I’m pretty sure my sylvari contributes as much towards my “drunkenness” achievement as my norn or human does, and he still gets the “drunk” buff/debuff.

There’s a drunk Sylvari in Gendarran field, at least :
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Drunk_Sylvari

I think there’s also two drunk Sylvari in the grove, giggling like idiots because of words that sound funny.

Sylvari would breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Many people forget that plants also respire, which requires O2. And any amount of energy done by movement from an organism requires respiration. Since sylvari are highly active, like us, they would need oxygen. but they also photosynthesize to some degree. in which case they would take in CO2, but I’d assume that would be drawn in through the stomata from the leaves on other places of their body to reserve the “lungs” for as much O2 as possible

I’d have to search for the source — might have been in Ree Soesbee’s article pre launch? — but I know that my understanding of lore at the game’s start had Sylvari not much affected by alcohol at all, so they have to drink a ton of it to get a buzz, let alone drunk.

Some lore sources:
http://www.talktyria.net/2011/08/11/sylvari-lore-interview-with-ree-soesbee-kristen-perry/ (nothing about alcohol in this one)
http://www.wartower.de/artikel/artikel.php?id=651 (recording is in English. I didn’t just listen to it again, so I don’t recall the key points in it).
http://gaygamer.net/2011/10/interview_guild_war_2s_ree_soe.html (more about their romance norms than anything)

And I may be wrong, given this bit on Sylvari biology from Soesbee’s blog:
“Biology

Sylvari biology is very different from any other race. They do not have internal organs, but instead are formed of growing plant matter, sap for blood, leaves and bark for skin. A jaw, for example, can be formed by leaves, vines, or even shards of bark that grow and press together to form the silhouette, but if you look closely you can still see the fibers and holes of the structure. Instead of bones, an arm is a mass of tightly-woven stems and leaves that work together to do the work of such a limb.

Many scholars hypothesize as to why the sylvari look human-like at all instead of having a monstrous form, such as other “vegetable” races possess. Some suggest that the Pale Tree saw mostly humans during her youth. Individuals such as Ronan, who planted the seed, and others around the Pale Tree may have been physical role models for her eventual children. A popular asura theory is that the Pale Tree was planted on the graves of Ronan’s daughter and his ruined village, and their ”discorporate mass” was absorbed into the ground. The Pale Tree took nourishment from that soil, and therefore, the sylvari are predisposed to be shaped in a humanoid manner.

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Sylvari do sleep, and they can eat both meat and vegetables. They drink, as other races do, and they get tipsy on alcoholic beverages. They gain enjoyment from sitting in the sunlight—and it invigorates them—but can’t live on it as plants do. Their blood is a sticky sap, and though they can bleed, they do not have blood pressure or a pulse.

No one knows how long the sylvari live. The oldest of their race are the firstborn, all of whom awakened twenty-five years ago. Sylvari show little signs of growing old, and none have yet died of advanced age. Physically, sylvari are male or female, and the relevant external biology is accurate on both, but they cannot sexually reproduce as the other races do; they have no internal organs capable of creating children. Whether they have their own methods of reproduction outside of the Pale Tree has yet to be seen.

Sylvari grow their armor and much of their clothing. Their bodies create petal-like coverings, vines, and leaves that they shape into pleasing garments. When they wish to remove the garments, they simply shed their petal clothing as a human might cut their hair. Some sylvari wear armor made by other races or weave clothing in a more traditional manner, just out of preference. As an adopted custom, they cover themselves as humans do, concealing certain portions of their anatomy where it seems culturally appropriate." — source http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/73825.Ree_Soesbee/blog a bit past halfway down, with some Sylvari short stories surrounding it.