Guild Wars 2

I was thinking about making a norn thief, however I’m not sure if they fit within the lore. I know the connection with the snow leopard spirit might make some consider it, but is there anything else that could support it? Also, is there any norn thieves in the world that you can talk to or maybe they can explain why they became a thief?

All professions fit the lore of all races, ArenaNet made it so.

In norn thief particularly, they’d be trackers who utilized stealth to hunt their prey, and trickery to fight it. Snow Leopard is a patron spirit of stealth, and Raven is a patron spirit of trickery.

So yes, it’d fit.

In fact, in lore, the least common profession for norn is necromancer (as it is low in every non-sylvari race), due to the desecration of the dead (aka creation of minions/undead) being viewed by many as an insult to the dead. But those who follow raven tend to look past that.

It’s also good to remember that the player characters are not only individuals, they are exceptional individuals. Even if their choice of profession were to be considered odd by the majority of their people, that would in no way go against lore, as there have always been and will always be individuals that stick out from the majority. And the player characters definitely stick out.

I’d say humans don’t view necromancers as desecrating the dead, as you know, Grenth. And there are a few npcs in DR who openly talk about being necromancers.

One is a very well dressed father trying to get his son to follow in his footsteps, another is a lady who is told to “rethink her profession” because she doesn’t like dead things/grenth as much :P.

But as said, every race can have every profession and fit. Maybe not the MOST accepted job out there, but at least accepted.

Actually, Kalavier, in Ghosts of Ascalon, after Killeen raises a corpse, it causes discern amongst everyone else in the party. In an interview after the book’s release (and hinted at in the book after Killeen asks what she did wrong to Dougal), this was stated to be because unlike sylvari the other races see necromancy a bit odd in the most part.

Humans and norn are specifically stated to be the most hating of necromancy of the playable races; for norn it is because it’s a descecration of the dead and their legend, for humans it’s because of all the recent history that they’ve had with undead things – Khilbron, Joko, and Zhaitan – that have lead to a bigger disdain for the profession (even back in GW1, necromancy was viewed with distrust due to the relation to darkness and death).

So yes, people can and do openly state they’re necromancers (and with humans, usually they’re followers of Grenth), but that doesn’t prevent prejudice thoughts and words against them. Necromancy since day 1 (literally) has been viewed with a bit of disdain – especially by monks back in GW1.

Sadly, Anet did a very poor job of showing this in-game, just like their horrible job at showing any form of conflict amonst the players’ races/professions. There was supposed to be heavy tensions between asura and sylvari (and asura/skritt), loose tension between norn and humans (norn seeing most humans as weak for taking a leader who wouldn’t rule them with an iron fist and instead lets the ministry have their ways), and huge tension between humans and charr.

But everyone’s as happy go lucky as the norn/charr relation – the only relation between the playable races that is in background lore to be good pals.

The darkest relation between races/professions that Anet managed to show in the game – and you have to actually dig around for this – is that most races (especially humans and charr) see the sylvari as a bit offputting – the former due to their very humanoid appearance, the latter because they’re walking, talking plants and spreading like wildfire.

General dislike, I can accept. Open prejudice, not really. Necromancers in Guild Wars have ALWAYS struck me as being unique compared to other settings because they are viewed as dark perhaps, but not evil. The sylvari you mention, as I recall, was also viewed weirdly because she was so happy and curious about it. It’s weird if somebody just openly goes “Hey, if you die, can I use your corpse as a minion pretty please?”

Considering we actually don’t see human necromancers touching graveyards for minions, I’m sure there is some sort of guideline of sorts they follow.

We’ve never seen any sort of utter hate or hunting of human necromancer besides those gone crazy in GW1… and those typically had other necromancers hunting them in the first place. I can accept a distrust of undeath because of Zhaitan and all.

I just personally didn’t feel the levels of disdain besides from some monks, which is to be expected in general. It always felt way to widespread to be viewed so negatively to me in GW1. Which again, is why I kinda enjoyed them in comparison to similar classes in other settings (Warlock for WoW as example). Viewed as dark perhaps, but you could openly state yourself as a necromancer without getting a crowd trying to kill you.

Forgive rambling, it’s very late for me.

Open prejudice we don’t see unless, as you say, they go bad (and although it is good that they clean up their own messes, it’s worth observing that we also see a larger proportion of necromancers go bad than other spellcasters) but there’s certainly an all-around sentiment of almost snobbish distaste directed towards them in human culture. To quote a post I made a few months ago, they’re comparable less to sociopathic murders and more to the grunge-punk culture. Among charr, they’re considered maybe a little more disreputable than other magic users, but that’s still nothing compared to how they treat shamans. Norn I can’t remember much of anything on, except maybe a snippet of text regarding a boss in GW1. Maybe Konig has better specific sources.

That said, besides sylvari and their fascination with death, I’d also argue that necromancy has no even slightly negative connotations among the asura. Most of their greatest minds in GW1 had knowledge of the practice, and even if that isn’t really a representative sample, we still see no signs of dislike or concern from any asura NPC I know of. That’s fitting with their culture- while they do still show respect to their slain, the notion that they’re all ultimately just cogs in a machine, and their general looser adherence to ethical standards, makes it easier to accept a body as something to be repurposed than it would be for a human.

Lytro.9305:

I was thinking about making a norn thief, however I’m not sure if they fit within the lore. I know the connection with the snow leopard spirit might make some consider it, but is there anything else that could support it? Also, is there any norn thieves in the world that you can talk to or maybe they can explain why they became a thief?

Rp wise, the father of my main is a Norn Thief. He doesn’t enter someone’s lodge to steal thing, but hunt Sons of Svanirs and other threats by using ruses, poisons and deadly ambushes. Basically, he is somewhere between a ranger and a thief but leaning a lot more toward the second with his discretion.

We have to keep in mind that the Norns are great hunters, meaning that they have to be at least somewhat discreet when hunting. I don’t think that the majority of the Shiverpeaks’ animals charge right to you when you scream in their direction, even if some probably do so (hello minotaurs !).

In reality, we have to look at Thief behind the theft part. The stealing is only a small part of their overall class. As with other classes, you have a number of archtypes you can pick from.

Are they a trapper? A poisoner? Assassin or rogue type char? They don’t perhap have to be the standard ‘thief’ :P.

Kalavier.1097:

Considering we actually don’t see human necromancers touching graveyards for minions, I’m sure there is some sort of guideline of sorts they follow.

We saw this plenty in GW1, actually.

Like I said, this was said to exist in the background lore, but it’s not shown in the game itself like any form of conflict between the ‘good guys’ anywhere. The game of GW2 might as well be a disney film setting.

And I never meant that necromancers are evil or viewed as evil – Aaron’s comparison to how folks view grunge-punk culture is a lot more accurate.

Perhaps ‘prejudice’ was a bit too harsh of a word to have used – the one time I used it – but disdain certainly exists.

On necromancers: There are various other signs in GW1 of people not liking necromancers in general. There’s Oberan hiding out in the catacombs because he’s worried about how the living would respond to what he was doing (although since he went crazy later, maybe that’s because he was already going bad). There’s a rivalry between ritualists and necromancers shown in the early ritualist quests in Factions. Elona has the least evidence of it, from memory, but one of the Ronjok quests indicates that there is a superstition about it in some quarters at least.

Among the races, I don’t think there’s been much evidence of asura disliking necromancy either. In Ghosts of Ascalon, Kranxx isn’t perturbed by Killeen’s minion-raising, but immediately looks towards the practical aspect. I think more asura might prefer to choose flashier magic styles like mesmer and elementalist, but I think it was said in prerelease that they viewed necromancy as just another form of magic.

For the charr, necromancy seems to be one of the relatively respected forms of magic, probably because it’s more associated with Ash than Flame. It’s worth noting that Ember also wasn’t especially perturbed by Killeen’s minion-raising, it was just the humans and norn that objected – Ember even observed that making good use of the corpse was a good means of honouring the defeated Vanguard, suggesting that such practicality might be common among her legion. Of course, it’s still magic.

Regarding sylvari: There was an interview at one point, although I haven’t been able to find it for months, that stated that humans and sylvari generally get along fairly well and that humans were the first race that the sylvari had a first contact with that didn’t go poorly (like being experimented on by asura), and that that first contact going well gave the sylvari some assurance that there were some friendly races out there. Individual viewpoints vary, of course, but there are also examples of humans ingame who are very welcoming of sylvari in their chatter (for instance, a farmer in Queensdale suggesting bringing in sylvari workers because of their skill with plants).

On norn thieves: The general norn attitude is that what you do matters less than becoming legendary: infamy is as good a route to legend as anything else. So as well as being an avenue of using stealth or trickery to achieve more conventional nornish goals, a legendary heist (for example) would also be a way for a norn to build their legend.

This picture is why I rolled a Norn thief at Headstart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fafhrd_and_the_Gray_Mouser

Fafhrd was a 7 foot tall barbarian rogue who stole, gambled, drank heavily and whored regularly. Sounds a lot like a Norn thief to me. He stole a whole house once, (although it was a rather small one).

You can probably get the books on Amazon, they’re pretty fun to read. I’d give the comics a miss though.

I have a Norn thief. But, just because your a thief, doesn’t make you truly tied to being the stereotypical role-playing trope of a thief. Some are pirates, corsairs, highwaymen, bruisers, enforcers, scoundrels and ruffians of the entire spectrum.

Thief is but one word, I wouldn’t take it so literally.

The villain from “oliver Twist”, Bill Sykes, would be a good norn thief. He stole things, got drunk, womanised and, most importantly, everyone knew who he was and was rightly terrified of him and impressed by his thievery in equal measure.

So long as you can boast about the things you have stolen and the daring or skill you needed to do it, then Norns would approve. Being a norn is not about good or evil, it is about building one’s legend and notoriety.