Guild Wars 2

I have been delving more into the lore of the Guild Wars Universe and obviously it is heavily involved with magic but when i looked for fun to see the basics of magic I got a ton of bullkitten. On both the GW2 and GW1 wiki’s I was very confused. I did not play the first Guild Wars and do not understand at all the 4 schools of magic. Nor do I understand how magic is special to certain races as Jotun and Dwarves and Forgotten “gave up their magic” while the Mussart didn’t? SO WTF IS MAGIC. Sometimes it looks like its simply energy carried around the lay lines like electricity is carried around wires but now im just so confused. I know the forms are full of epic lore hounds and I would love if they could help out a lore pup like me. Thank you all.

and WTF is dragon energy Chaos energy and all the other bullkitten energy that isn’t magic?

Is magic something that creates energy and therefor “magical energy” is energy coming from magic? Is the use of magic using magic to create energy which you in turn use to alter reality? Is that how you then imbued things with “magic” and then they radiate “magical energy”

Queskimo.9580:

Is the use of magic using magic to create energy which you in turn use to alter reality?

This is probably a pretty good way to put it, but I’ll work through your earlier questions.

But first: one of the reasons you’re having so much trouble is that no one in the game knows everything about magic. They’re still learning things about it, and we can’t know anything until they learn it. So any answer here is only our best guess right now, and might be incomplete/wrong down the road.

Okay, so, the simple version- magic is a fundamental energy, or perhaps force, in Tyria. We know it’s linked to both life and minds, but we’re not sure exactly how yet, just that they all seem to need each other to exist. In its natural state magic flows freely though the world- that’s what you’re seeing in the ley lines. All a ley line is is a flow where magic is naturally more concentrated. In the past it’s been compared to how water moves in rivers or ocean currents.

While in that natural state, magic can be drained off by the Elder Dragons. They feed off of it, so the last time they were awake, as best we understand, the races of the time decided to seal away all the magic they could to starve the Elder Dragons into hibernation- or to keep it safe until they went back to sleep on their own. That part isn’t clear. Anyway, that sealing is what the forgotten and the rest ‘giving up their magic’ meant. While it was locked away from the Elder Dragons, they couldn’t use it either.

This left Tyria in a kind of low-magic state. It was still there, but not enough of it to cast spells like we do in-game. The levels slowly went up as the Elder Dragons leaked what what they’d drained, but a good chunk of it was still locked away where the races left it, in what was later called the Bloodstone.

Enter the human gods.

They came to Tyria, and found the bloodstone, and unsealed it. Since their actions brought magic in Tyira back to the levels needed to cast spells, the humans believed for a long time that the gods created magic. Letting all the magic out like this caused chaos as the races abused their news power, so the gods put it back into the bloodstone and tampered with it so that no one could use all the different kinds of spells by themselves. That’s where the four ‘schools’ of magic came from, which roughly correspond to the elementalist, mesmer, necromancer, and guardian professions.

Over time, though, more and more magic ended up outside of the bloodstones, so that the limitations broke down. The schools of magic where in force in GW1, but not in GW2.

The humans didn’t understand a lot of what I just went over in GW1, so the wiki for that game records their beliefs at the time. They’ve since been proven inaccurate. The GW2 wiki should generally be considered the more ‘true’ version, at least where they differ.

Oh, and the types of energy- that’s basically just the sort of forms a spellcaster can convert magic into, or generate from magic. Like a lightbulb turning electricity into light and heat, only with darkness and chaos and all the rest.

There’s more that could be said, and I’m sure the wikis do say some of it, but mostly it’s pointing out the ways what we think we know could be wrong, or filling in blanks with good but not certain guesses. I’ll spare you that for now.

Ok thank you very much that helps clear things up. I have one last question. How did the Mussrat leave Tyria with "their magic?’

oh and do we have any idea what kind of limitation was put in place by the 6 human gods? Did they simply make it very hard to use more than one type of spell or did they make it impossible. Im quite sure that their are npc’s and charterers especial Asuras who have multiple kinds of magic spells. Sorry for all the questions. Thank you very much

No worries! Questions are what we’re here for, no?

Honestly, the mursaat thing is one of those areas where we’re left without much detail, but as far as we can tell it’s not that they left with any magic, as in the energy. The problem is they took off with the knowledge to use certain spells, or to do certain things with magic, knowledge that they didn’t share and that might have made a difference in the fight against the dragons.

The limit was supposed to be that “the devastating power of all four types
together would never again be at the command of one single creature. Those who accepted the gift would have to cooperate if they intended to use it to its fullest.” Like I said above, though, those limits broke down over time. We don’t know how strong they were initially, but by GW1, they meant that any one person could only use a couple of the schools, or maybe only a couple of the schools at a time. Any more than that was impossible. By GW2, though, they’ve broken down entirely, meaning the schools effectively don’t exist anymore. Anyone can use any magic now, in theory. The schools only matter in that they’ve shaped the ‘styles’ of the main spellcasting professions.

Another thing that may have applied with the mursaat thing is that Tyria isn’t the only source of power that can be called ‘magic’. From the human perspective, the oldest form of magic came from tapping not into the magic of Tyria, but from the Mists, a power source that is largely irrelevant to what’s happening on Tyria. However, this form of magic seems to be generally less accessible to Tyrians than using the magic of Tyria – typically, the effects are less powerful and/or the user has to invoke an entity within the Mists to provide the spell for them. Ritualists and Revenants are both examples of this kind of magic. The mursaat escaped by leaving Tyria, so it’s possible that they used this kind of energy.

Or they may have left before the Bloodstone was created. The timeline is… unclear.

In GW2’s time… I’m not sure the limits of the Bloodstones have broken down entirely. The asura say they have and that bookahs are wrong, but asura and humans take different approaches to magic, and while the asura approach is well suited to creating magical technology, the human approach does have its advantages… including, it seems, allowing the very best of human spellcasters to be just a little bit better than asura spellcasters.

However, the Bloodstones are certainly less important since the level of magic that is not constrained by the Bloodstones has risen. There’s still enough power coming from the Bloodstones that it’s beneficial to remain within a single school, particularly if you want to maximise your power – but there’s enough unconstrained magic that you can combine that with a broad range of capabilities from outside your school. (I think, although this is entering the realm of speculation, that to a certain extent this was even possible in Guild Wars 1. The Dervish in particular seemed to combine features from multiple schools – while this has often been explained as drawing power from the gods, it could be that (apart from avatar skills) the dervish is actually an example of what was possible with unconstrained magic in GW1’s time.)

Have you ever read any of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books?

I often think the way magic works in Tyria is very similar to how it works in Discworld, in particular completely replacing the laws of physics and the other sciences with something generally similar but with a much wider range of effects.

In other words magic is the energy, the force, the laws etc. that make Tyria work. It underpins absolutely everything that happens in the world, but it’s not fully understood and much more easily manipulated by an individual or group than physics.

I tend to think of it as an addition to physics rather than replacing it, both in Tyria and the Discworld (a lot of the Discworld descriptions indicates that magic modifies physics in various ways, but when magic is relatively low for some reason things come closer to what we think of as normal).

I tend to think of magical energy on Tyria as being a mostly intangible fluid, similar to pre-relativity theories of aether. All creatures have some magic as an animating force, particularly in the souls of sapient beings. By training or instinct, some creatures can wield ether to manipulate the minds or souls of others, grant animation to objects that aren’t normally animate, and produce physical objects and effects – however, magic itself is never destroyed, and once used to create an effect the magic dissipates into the environment.

Apart from intangibility, its properties seem similar to a plasma – it does not have have a definite shape or volume, but various forces seem to be able to channel and direct it. (A lot of asura tech involves channeling or storing it similar to how we channel and store electricity., and the observed behaviour of leylines has some similarity to plasma streams under the influence of magnetic fields.)

The magic is a kind of force originated from the Dragons themselves for constant era, after era. The magic is not just merely magic, but rather a bit of particle that floats in the air. The magic itself is essential foundation for many, and other things. While Magic is a touchy subject, there’s many theories coming in from all sides. I’ll go ahead, and offer you my input.

Magic originated from the dragons themselves. The reason of such origin was that dragon constantly releases magic contained within their bodies as they slumber throughout the centuries. Therfore, the magic is usually referred as Dragon’s energy. It is entirely possible for an individual to not be capable of manipulating this magic, if they’re not native to Tyria. Which was believed that Humanity wasn’t originally on Tyria, and came from somewhere else if Abbadon bestowed a gift to use magic upon them.

Now let go down deeper. The Magic is sealed away by the King Doric to try to increase the control over magic, and prevent outrageous disasters that was orchestrated with this form. He spills his blood, and The Five gave him the Bloodstone. Containers of magic. These special stones plays a valuable role.

The bloodstone is a container of magic, holding magic to itself. Unable to be depleted of magic, as it’s a holding ground. It prevents magic from permanently fading from the face of Tyria, which the dragons’ intention was to do. Having clear desire to just consume the entire planet empty of it’s magic supply. Then leaves it to go to another planet, and sleep there instead.

Now, I did mentioned that magic originated from the dragons. Yes it’s understandably that Mist may be also the place containing high volume of magic. Considering that the Mist is a foundation, building block, memories, and everything within Tyria. It may be that you can still use magic within Mist. Because everything’s a memory, a repeat, or what so ever. Meaning that magic cannot fade from Mist.

However magic can fade from Tyria. What happens when magic fade from Tyria? No one can use magic again. Everyone’ll be reduced to absolute zero magic aptitude over generation, and have difficulty surviving the terrains. Waypoint wouldn’t function, magic devices would fail, and magical weapons will fade.

So don’t go to space, kid. Space lacks any form of magic! Yeah, that would be my input.

Queskimo.9580:

Ok thank you very much that helps clear things up. I have one last question. How did the Mussrat leave Tyria with "their magic?’

In technicality, they didn’t. They kept their knowledge of it – which could be argued to be “leaving with their magic” – but they supposedly left before the Bloodstone’s creation (as drax mentions, the timeline is unclear, but how could they use magic if all magic is gone? – it is possible that their form of magic escapes that of Tyria’s, like the ritualist’s and in turn revenant’s, all seem to deal with spirits and the Mists after all, but I’d be hesitant to make that claim all the same). They betrayed the other races – presumably because they didn’t want to lose magic – and fled the world. They came back when the world had free magic once again.

On top of that, they didn’t share their spells with other races – which is the critical thing mentioned – because they found spells that were highly effective against dragon minions (making them effectively invulnerable to them as we personally experience).

Queskimo.9580:

oh and do we have any idea what kind of limitation was put in place by the 6 human gods? Did they simply make it very hard to use more than one type of spell or did they make it impossible. Im quite sure that their are npc’s and charterers especial Asuras who have multiple kinds of magic spells. Sorry for all the questions. Thank you very much

The original lore was that magic from Bloodstone A couldn’t be used by a single person tapping into Bloodstone B.

This rule has rather fallen to pieces because so much magic has leaked into the world, however, blurring the line between the forms of magic. The schools of magic are still a thing, but they’ve fallen from “hard restrictions” to “archaic teachings”. Even in GW1, as evident through secondary professions, casters were able to ignore the rule a bit.

Dlarnkk.1068:

The magic is a kind of force originated from the Dragons themselves for constant era, after era.

Dlarnkk.1068:

Magic originated from the dragons themselves. The reason of such origin was that dragon constantly releases magic contained within their bodies as they slumber throughout the centuries.

Common misconception. While the Elder Dragons do radiate magic when they hibernate, this magic was first consumed by them.

Ultimately, we’re looking at a chicken and the egg scenario until we learn more, so it could technically go either way, but consider that Glint was close to becoming an Elder Dragon and there are many implications of dragon races (yes, race*s* – multiple kinds) existing in Tyria in the distant past, it’s likely that Elder Dragons were not always around, and that instead in ancient days magic was a food source for thousands of beings.

Until six got greedy.

Dlarnkk.1068:

Therfore, the magic is usually referred as Dragon’s energy.

Actually, dragon energy or draconic energy specifically refers to corruptive magic. The stuff that turns people and things into branded, risen, icebrood, destroyers, mordrem, and whatever the DSD’s minions are.

Dlarnkk.1068:

However magic can fade from Tyria.

Actually, all argument states that magic doesn’t fade – though it does take a long (hundreds or thousands of years long) time to disperse.

Magic levels in the world decrease only because dragons consume it. But it’ll eventually increase as the dragons release that very magic they consumed back.