Guild Wars 2

I’m pretty sure this has probably been explained before, but the official statement given by Arenanet doesn’t really make sense to me. They say that it’s because other races don’t believe in human gods, and I assume for the vast majority of others races, that holds true.

Is there something preventing other races from worshipping human gods? Do the human gods only accept the prayers of humans? If that was true, and the human gods were racist, I could see why other races can’t be Dervishes.

But couldn’t a Charr worship a Human god if he really wanted to? Charr are usually atheist from what I’ve seen, but even among the Charr there are differences. Some are Flame Legion, and some are totally atheist. Why couldn’t it be possible for a Charr to worship a Human god?

It would be quite easy to implement, from my perspective. The first questions that asks about your class in character creation could ask you something like “Why did you start to worship the Human gods?”

Answers could be something like
1.) An avatar of the gods appeared to me as a child.
2.) I had a vision of the gods after being seriously wounded.
3.) I have always felt the hands of the gods guide my life.

This could conflict with the cold shoulder the gods have been giving the humans, though. Or perhaps, in a future update, the gods break their silence, and that is evidence enough of the god’s existence for the other races to begin worshipping them.

I’m sure my theories and stuff have lots of holes in them, so feel free to probe.

It’s not so much a question of why the other races couldn’t worship the Human Gods, as a question of why they WOULD.

The Charr aren’t merely athiest, they are fiercely malthiest. They recognize the existence and raw power of the Human Gods (if not necessarily the Divinity of that raw power), and consider them enemies of the highest caliber. The Charr as a people would very much like to murder the Human Gods. This is one of the core unifying features of their culture.

A Charr converting to the worship of the Six would be like a medieval Christian opening a temple to Satan next to Inquisition HQ. It would be a violation of taboos so deeply engrained that I could see all other Charr, Flame Legion included, uniting (if temporarily) to extinguish such a heretic. At best, such a character could flee and seek sanctuary among Humans – and that’s really why ANet will never do this, because it would require them to write a whole new set of racial story missions just for this one race/class combo. No Charr Dervish could be a part of the Legions. Indeed, they’d have a hard time justifying the occupants of the Black Citadel not treating such an individual as Kill On Sight.

As for the other races:

Norn are too proud and stubborn to accept Human suggestions that the Spirits of the Wild are subservient to Melandru. A Norn who accepted the Six would be regarded only marginally better than the Sons of Svanir, who also abandoned the Spirits of the Wild to cower behind the “protection” of a “stronger” entity.

Asura recognize the Six, but as powerful entities and contributors to the Eternal Alchemy, which is greater than all Gods and Spirits. Worshiping any one mere component of the Eternal Alchemy above others is something they would consider beneath their dignity.

Sylvari, having been born after the Gods went silent, are politely agnostic. They would like to see some proof that such beings ever existed at all, thank you kindly.

You could possibly make characters of the other three races who deviate from these standards without their racial storylines becoming unplayable and their native cities becoming hostile territory, but it would still be distinctly at odds with the way the race is presented in every case. But the Charr have enough incompatibility with worship of the Six to spread around for everybody.

I think a better path than trying to open Dervishes to all 5 races would be to add Dervishes as part of a set of 5 race-specific Classes. But that would require an absurd amount of development time and resources, so I think the most likely option is sadly no Dervishes ever in GW2.

Melchior, I think you’re extrapolating too far from what we know of the other races’ beliefs. I’m with you on the charr, but I think that it would only be one more idiosyncrasy in an idiosyncratic race for an asura to take up the worship of the Six. The norn aren’t likely to because the human gods don’t fill the same purpose as the Spirits of the Wild in my opinion. I can see sylvari at least investigating the Six, or worshipping them to learn about them, which is actually pretty compatible with how I imagine dervishes.

So, other races are perhaps not that strongly opposed to the idea – however, I still think it wouldn’t work in the game. I think it would be reasonable to have a non-human role-play character who worshipped the human gods for their own reasons, but to put it in the game implies that it’s fairly commonplace among their race. Charr guardians have been stated to be quite unusual, for instance, but there’s no reason for anyone to be too surprised by them in Ashford. They’re familiar enough. A charr who worshipped the Six would cause shock, though, and as Melchior implies they may well be lynched!

If they were going to add dervishes, I think they would have to remove the gods from the template and use something else, more generally magical. I can’t see it happening though – I don’t think it adds enough to the game to justify it. What’s more likely is that at some point down the line some professions might get scythe as a possible weapon, and you can re-live at least a little of the glory.

I was going to say I think the scythe might be a likely expansion to the game. I can definitely see it being put to good use by the Necromancers, Warriors, so on and so forth. But sadly the god related enchantments and avatars are limited to to human only skills.

humans are the only ones who openly worship the human gods… charr would more or less respect Balthazar but they don’t worship him… they would rather challenge him to battle and kill him…

To answer your question, there’s nothing actually preventing any of the non-human races from worshiping the human gods. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, Blimm (asura, Ghosts of Ascalon novel, if you’re unfamiliar) was rumored to have renounced his faith in the eternal alchemy and begun to worship the human gods. So conversion/departing from racial stereotypes does happen.

I don’t know if we can expect to see dervishes (or a dervish-inspired class) but it would certainly be cool. Dervishes and paragons were my favorite classes from GW1.

Honestly, it doesn’t make sense to me just because there were plenty of non-human dervishes in Guild Wars Nightfall & Eye of the North, not to mention the White Mantle Devotees in War in Kryta. But whatevs. If ArenaNet doesn’t want to give us dervishes (or monks— I will never stop complaining about monks), we can’t force them to.

@Dinny: Actually, Blimm just stopped believing in the Eternal Alchemy. Nothing says or implies he began worshiping the Six Gods.

But as others said, the reason dervishes can’t exist as a playable race is because asura, norn, and charr (especially charr) are just too improbable to worship the Six Gods.

The odd asura and norn might, and sylvari may pick it up after Zhaitan’s death what with one of Grenth’s reapers visiting and the power behind the temples being more or less proven real, and documents of the Six being found in Arah – though it’s a different question if the sylvari would revere the Six in the same way humans do, rather than seeing the power as the target of reverence, or just seeing the Six as powerful beings, but not something to worship. But charr never will except for the very odd ones – and those “very odd ones” are treated as Flame Legion spies by the normal charr (per one of the NPCs outside the entrance to the Imperator’s Core in Black Citadel – he’s a lawyer defending a charr who picked up worship of gods and is being put on trial with the possibility of death for being a Flame Legion spy just because he worships a god).

@Melchior: You’re rather over-exagurrating for how the asura and norn would act with the Six Gods what with it being “beneath them” and all. But as to the whole race-specific profession – ArenaNet has explicitly stated they do not want to do this, so it won’t be done, and even if they do change their minds, it’d be too much work to balance these professions out with the others. At best, we’ll begin getting more dervish-related skills as human racial skills.

The Charr are not atheistic as a whole, they are mainly Mal-Theistic, in which they believe in Gods, but they hate them.

The Human Gods do allow others to worship them we can see that through GW1 lore, but they usually favor the humans for some reason or another, which has led to some bitterness by other species.

A Dervish is someone usually so in tune with their respective God that they become an avatar(embodiment) of this God. Considering that all the Gods have left it is kind of hard to become an embodiment of said God simply because its hard to gain a good enough understanding.

I don’t think the Charr hate the Human Gods as a whole. It’s just that the Charr don’t believe them to be actual “Gods”. The Charr’s definition of a “god” appears to be a being that is truly, absolutely omnipotent/omniscient. If a creature can be faced in battle, defeated and killed, then it is not a god. (And since Abaddon’s death in Nightfall proved that the gods can indeed be slain, the Charr do not believe the Six Gods to be true deities.)

Instead, the Charr regard the Six Gods with attitudes ranging from derisive contempt to simple indifference. As a society, they believe in accomplishing things with their own strength and merit, and they believe gaining power through worship of, and subservience to, another creature to be shameful and a sign of personal failure.

If a truly omnipotent being were to arise that was invulnerable to everything the Charr could throw it, the Charr might actually revise their opinion about worshipping it if it was the only alternative to destruction. (Many Charr would not do so, nonetheless.)

I don’t know Zaxares. From the outlook of the Charr, I get the feeling that even if an omnipotent/omniscient being came to Tyria and looked to rule all, they would most likely fight tooth and nail against it because of their outlook on life. They are all that they need to accomplish what they want. Everything else is a hindrance.

I agree with Narcemus – “a truly omnipotent being…that was invulnerable to everything the Charr could throw it” might as well be an Elder Dragon, and that’s barely phased the charr. They’re used to living hard lives in a hard land, I think.

The charr back in the day hated and resented the humans and their gods because they beat them – using powers the charr couldn’t match. Whether or not the charr actively hate the Six now, they despise the idea of a god in general. They don’t want to bow down before anything, or serve a will beyond their own. Nothing makes a charr grovel! And they conquer on their own strength, with technology made by their own hands, not by the help of outside forces they cannot control.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

@Dinny: Actually, Blimm just stopped believing in the Eternal Alchemy. Nothing says or implies he began worshiping the Six Gods.

Thanks for the correction, this is what happens when you rely solely on memory I suppose. Though I thought the implication arose when it was mentioned he no longer believed in the eternal alchemy and lived amongst/thought like humans… Unless the implication was that he just essentially became an atheist.

While I realize dervishes as they were known in GW1 won’t come back, it would still be interesting to take the ideas/mechanics of the class and repurpose them. A light armor class wielding scythes and having a lot of close-range/melee attacks, with lots of healing abilities/damage mitigation abilities, perhaps? I’m not sure.

Dinny.5310:

While I realize dervishes as they were known in GW1 won’t come back, it would still be interesting to take the ideas/mechanics of the class and repurpose them. A light armor class wielding scythes and having a lot of close-range/melee attacks, with lots of healing abilities/damage mitigation abilities, perhaps? I’m not sure.

elementalists and warriors with scythes?

that way all races could use it, as it wouldn’t be related to the gods, the enchantment and avatar fighting styles could be replaced with elementalists, and the regular scythe moves could be used by warriors.

and while we’re at it we could give necros a scythe, and make them into ritualists :P

Calcifire.1864:

Dinny.5310:

While I realize dervishes as they were known in GW1 won’t come back, it would still be interesting to take the ideas/mechanics of the class and repurpose them. A light armor class wielding scythes and having a lot of close-range/melee attacks, with lots of healing abilities/damage mitigation abilities, perhaps? I’m not sure.

elementalists and warriors with scythes?

that way all races could use it, as it wouldn’t be related to the gods, the enchantment and avatar fighting styles could be replaced with elementalists, and the regular scythe moves could be used by warriors.

and while we’re at it we could give necros a scythe, and make them into ritualists :P

And have them summon ghosts? Well, it would at least save A-Net the trouble to fix minion AI…

You all missed the most important point in all this. The human gods are NOT the gods of Tyria or any of the other races.

They neither created Tyria, nor did they create the non-human races. They brought humans with them from another world.

The six gods led humans into Tyria and conquered it, driving other races back to make room for them.

What does this mean? The human gods aren’t just gods who happen to favour the humans. They made them, care for them as their chosen people. They fight for them. They are inherently human. In some cases they literally were mortal humans. Their very existence is antithetical to the other races of the world, and that’s why it wouldn’t make sense for the other races to worship them.

Zaxares.5419:

I don’t think the Charr hate the Human Gods as a whole. It’s just that the Charr don’t believe them to be actual “Gods”.

“Then, the humans came, an infestation caused by beings called gods that had been enemies to the Charr since the beginnings of history.”

“Before the time of the humans, it is said the Charr had no gods, no concept of divine beings with more power than themselves. They knew of Melandru, and even had legends that described how she created the world. But to the Charr, these beings were not to be worshiped or feared–they were to be fought, and if possible, destroyed.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Ecology_of_the_Charr

It’s not so much that they view the term to mean “omnipotent/omniscient” but that they just don’t believe that nothing can be a ‘god’ – they believe in the beings Melandru, Dwayna, Balthazar, etc. but they don’t view them as something to worship – they don’t view them as divine.

E.g., they recognize the being, they recognize others’ definition for god, but they don’t view anything to be said definition of god.

Charr are kitten:

“What you worship and fear, we will fight and destroy!”

Aurum.8793:

I’m pretty sure this has probably been explained before, but the official statement given by Arenanet doesn’t really make sense to me. They say that it’s because other races don’t believe in human gods, and I assume for the vast majority of others races, that holds true.

Is there something preventing other races from worshipping human gods? Do the human gods only accept the prayers of humans? If that was true, and the human gods were racist, I could see why other races can’t be Dervishes.

But couldn’t a Charr worship a Human god if he really wanted to? Charr are usually atheist from what I’ve seen, but even among the Charr there are differences. Some are Flame Legion, and some are totally atheist. Why couldn’t it be possible for a Charr to worship a Human god?

It would be quite easy to implement, from my perspective. The first questions that asks about your class in character creation could ask you something like “Why did you start to worship the Human gods?”

Answers could be something like
1.) An avatar of the gods appeared to me as a child.
2.) I had a vision of the gods after being seriously wounded.
3.) I have always felt the hands of the gods guide my life.

This could conflict with the cold shoulder the gods have been giving the humans, though. Or perhaps, in a future update, the gods break their silence, and that is evidence enough of the god’s existence for the other races to begin worshipping them.

I’m sure my theories and stuff have lots of holes in them, so feel free to probe.

From a lore perspective there isn’t much reason why non-human worshipers of the six couldn’t exist.The reason why we won’t see Dervishes in GW2 is from a mechanics perspective. Even in GW1, Dervishes consistently lacked a clearly defined role. They were meant to play as a sort of hybrid caster/melee DPS but they never worked out in that role: warriors and assassins were generally more versatile melee characters and ritualists/eles/mesmers were more useful in a support/caster DPS role. It took the invention of a new mechanic to make them useful and that mechanic basically turned them into an enchantment-driven warrior with a few overpowered skills.

In GW2 every class role is already pretty much filled. Adding more classes would run into the same problem we saw in GW1: no particular role for the new class. We’ll be much more likely to see new weapons/weapon combinations rather than completely new professions in GW2.

Errant Venture.9371:

In GW2 every class role is already pretty much filled. Adding more classes would run into the same problem we saw in GW1: no particular role for the new class. We’ll be much more likely to see new weapons/weapon combinations rather than completely new professions in GW2.

I think ANet said as much in an early interview. They have no plans to add any more classes to GW2, although they are definitely looking at new races. New weapons also seem possible (for starters, Nightmare Courtiers sometimes use whips).

Well monks still exist within the game, they just aren’t a playable class and their skills are much weaker than they used to be. I am also pretty sure Miyani is a Paragon, so what’s to say that Dervishes don’t still exist within lore.

We just can’t play as them for mechanics reasons.

But we should have scythes as Melee weapons. That would be all kinds of awesome.

Maybe it would mean some race specific classes? Dervish only for humans, golemancer for Asuras etc. I think that can be a good twist.

I think A-net said they intentionaly wanted to stay away from race specific classes.

ArenaNet wants every player to have the ability to mix and match races and professions to create the type of character they want.

Instead of a Dervish, what I could see is a profession that plays and feels like a Dervish, but has different sources of power depending on race (or a source of power that is friendly to all races). Since M.O.X.. was mechanically a “Dervish” as far as its abilities go, I could imagine Dervish 2.0 would be called the “Golemancer”. This is also considering that anyone can operate siege golems in WvW, not just the Asura.

I suppose this new profession could work in that it could either be a pet-centric profession like the Necromancer in that Golemancer can summon assorted golems to assist in the battlefield; or the Golemancer could be the golem itself and start wrecking having like they’re the freakin’ Terminator. I think I would enjoy being the latter than the former.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

At best, we’ll begin getting more dervish-related skills as human racial skills.

That the racial skills exist strongly indicates to me that is all that remains of the dervish and about all we will see of them without Elona content.

Still, another topic got me on this subject and really quick I’m curious to know why, given the Gods are greatly disconnected from Tyria and how impressive the dervish was, that its forms (Melandru, Reaper of Grenth) have become something every human hero can do, regardless of profession, in addition to Hounds of Balthazar. Not only that, but asura managed to transform the player (even a non-human) into an Avatar of Balthazar. Is any of this explainable by lore or just waxing nostalgia?

Write-up for the dervish added for reference:

Serving the gods as holy warriors, dervishes stand confidently in the whirlwind of conflict. Martial techniques perfected in the deserts of Elona allow a Dervish’s scythe to lash out quickly at multiple opponents, surrounding the holy warrior with a swath of destruction. Initiates often learn spells of self-protection, prayers that rush a combatant into battle, and invocations that empower attacks with elemental fury. Masters of the profession can assume the form of a god, enacting divine will with holy blessings. Keenly aware of the conditions of a fight, a Dervish can reap great benefits by using multiple Enchantments. Wandering the savannahs and deserts of Elona, the faithful Dervish chants prayers to the earth and wind… and the fury of the sandstorm answers in response.

— The Guild Wars Nightfall Manuscripts

Bolstered by the blessings of the gods, these holy warriors reap the benefits of multiple Enchantments. With a sharpened scythe, the Dervish can unleash a whirlwind of destruction.

— In-game description

Hmm i can imagine a new type of profession based on the dervish but made to be usuable by other races.