Guild Wars 2

The Third Edition of the Asura Lore Guide is live and now properly hosted on the GW2RP Wiki.

Yes, there was a second edition, but I sort of… informed Tumblr and GW2RP and forgot that these official forums existed.

Anyway. If there’s anything you ever wanted to know about asura, it’s probably in here. It’s a fully canonical, fully referenced guide, and all of the information contained within comes from either canon sources (novels, short stories), interviews with developers or the game itself (if so, I’ve provided screenshots).

Here are some additional tools for you.

Technobabble Generator - For naming inventions/devices/parts quickly
(Quiz) Which asuran college do you belong to? - To help decide where your character belongs, or just for fun
Asurapedia - Wikipedia project for asura roleplay community, hosts a bunch of character profiles and information on asura-based roleplay guilds

Cool. To put it like an Asura,
“You are not the moron I thought you were”

EmmetOtter.8542:

Cool. To put it like an Asura,
“You are not the moron I thought you were”

The greatest compliment ever given.

EmmetOtter.8542:

Cool. To put it like an Asura,
“You are not the moron I thought you were”

… when I started this recording. xD

I’m actually surprised I haven’t had any contributors come forward yet.

I very much enjoyed reading it, thank you for putting it together and sharing!

Rouven.7409:

I very much enjoyed reading it, thank you for putting it together and sharing!

Excellent, thank you very much for your feedback.

Ooooh! I’ll so be using this, yes. Now if only my tumblr was working properly so I could reblog it!

Really nice I’ll repost this on my guild forum

Needs more pictures.

I’ll add this to your mostly-empty section on Charr/Asura relations. I’ve run into at least one Charr with strong anti-Asura bias, I think he was at Trader’s Green Haven in Caledon Forest. (“Asura are obnoxious. Durmand Priory are obnoxious. Durmand Priory Asura are doubly-obnoxious.” Or words to that effect.) I can’t remember any other examples.

But going the other way, in contrast to their usual attitude towards all bookah, the Asura gate engineer in Black Citadel has a long conversation with his Sylvari partner, from time to time, in which he praises the Charr for being strong enough to bash through a brick wall, but smart enough to know which brick to remove so that the whole wall falls down without them having to bash through it. From an Asura, that’s high praise.

Again, I don’t know how much to generalize from that one example. But it wouldn’t surprise me of most Asura think that Charr, especially Iron Legion Charr, are surprisingly clever for non-Asura, while most Charr think that Asura are dangerously short-sighted, unpredictable, and thus not half as smart as we think we are.

Oh, another data point: one of the Sylvari who knows Asura well, a merchant at Mabon Market in Caledon Forest, tells a fellow Sylvari that most Asura are obnoxious, but that some of them are quite nice. She’s probably right. You don’t run into it as often among female Asura, but most male Asura are pathologically rude.

To add to the skirtt, I remember reading in the wiki that the Asura of olden times (before The Great Destoryer came) that we tried to Anet style Perma Ban all the skirtt, FROM LIFE!!! (eradicate them). And it was successful too until we found out they were on the surface too.
Also we created the nightmare court the sylvari are mad about it? Well how were we suppose to know the sylvari were living creatures when they first met us, instead of walking, talking overgrown weeds (Fern Hounds exist)? Saying “Hi” then going to shake our hand isn’t enough in my opinion, a single skirtt can do that, it required us to do extensive testing to see if they sentient species. -_-

Thank you so very much !
I’m a roleplayer from another community, and I’m quite new at GW2 (I’ve only been playing for three weeks). I play a Sylvari and an Asura, but I was annoyed because I couldn’t find a good guide for Asura Lore, so… thanks again.
May I suggest that you submit your guide to the guildwars2roleplay website ?

(Sorry for the broken English.)

InfamousBrad.5879:

Needs more pictures.

I’ll add this to your mostly-empty section on Charr/Asura relations. I’ve run into at least one Charr with strong anti-Asura bias, I think he was at Trader’s Green Haven in Caledon Forest. (“Asura are obnoxious. Durmand Priory are obnoxious. Durmand Priory Asura are doubly-obnoxious.” Or words to that effect.) I can’t remember any other examples.

But going the other way, in contrast to their usual attitude towards all bookah, the Asura gate engineer in Black Citadel has a long conversation with his Sylvari partner, from time to time, in which he praises the Charr for being strong enough to bash through a brick wall, but smart enough to know which brick to remove so that the whole wall falls down without them having to bash through it. From an Asura, that’s high praise.

Again, I don’t know how much to generalize from that one example. But it wouldn’t surprise me of most Asura think that Charr, especially Iron Legion Charr, are surprisingly clever for non-Asura, while most Charr think that Asura are dangerously short-sighted, unpredictable, and thus not half as smart as we think we are.

Oh, another data point: one of the Sylvari who knows Asura well, a merchant at Mabon Market in Caledon Forest, tells a fellow Sylvari that most Asura are obnoxious, but that some of them are quite nice. She’s probably right. You don’t run into it as often among female Asura, but most male Asura are pathologically rude.

I’ve gotten everything I possibly can out of developer interviews, the short stories/novels and canon sources, but I think there’s still a bit more info to be gained from the game itself. I do need to walk around the world and talk to NPCs more to see if I can find any other interesting info. At the moment, for writing the guide, I’ve only talked to all of the NPCs in:

- Rata Sum
- Metrica Province
- Brisban Wildlands

Kharne.4235:

To add to the skirtt, I remember reading in the wiki that the Asura of olden times (before The Great Destoryer came) that we tried to Anet style Perma Ban all the skirtt, FROM LIFE!!! (eradicate them). And it was successful too until we found out they were on the surface too.
Also we created the nightmare court the sylvari are mad about it? Well how were we suppose to know the sylvari were living creatures when they first met us, instead of walking, talking overgrown weeds (Fern Hounds exist)? Saying “Hi” then going to shake our hand isn’t enough in my opinion, a single skirtt can do that, it required us to do extensive testing to see if they sentient species. -_-

Wasn’t included because if you read the TowerTalk transcript with Jeff Grubb, the main lore writer, you’ll see that he’s retracted it. He thought that the idea that asura wanted to eradicate skritt (a la holocaust) was way too harsh and he re-wrote it.

Apparently there are actually plants in Tyria that are really good at mimicking sentience, so I’m not that surprised that asura didn’t necessarily understand sylvari at first.

PetboyJoshua.3108:

Thank you so very much !
I’m a roleplayer from another community, and I’m quite new at GW2 (I’ve only been playing for three weeks). I play a Sylvari and an Asura, but I was annoyed because I couldn’t find a good guide for Asura Lore, so… thanks again.
May I suggest that you submit your guide to the guildwars2roleplay website ?

(Sorry for the broken English.)

Thank you for the feedback, I am happy to know it has helped! I would like to submit it to the guildwars2roleplay wiki, but they haven’t given me permissions/validated my account yet. I’ve submitted a request and I’ve let them know my intentions.

I have to admit I am a lore freak. And because I never played the first GW (I wish I did but I got caught up in he WoW craze) it really answers some questions and brings somethings to light.

I would join your krewe any day of the week

There is a cutscene in one of the personal storylines (I did it with my main asura, but I can’t remember off the top of my head which paths I chose), in which one of the presenters gives a ranking of the playable races. Obviously asura are at the top, and I believe charr are second after them, which would imply that asura (or at least some of them) believe charr to at least be somewhat more intelligent than any of the other races. For what it’s worth, I think norn were placed at the bottom.

Very nice writeup. Definately something I’ll keep handy if I ever stop being wishy-washy with whether I want to actually get into RP (seems like it’d be fun but at the same time a lot of extra work), and an interesting read regardless of that.

This is an excellent guide, Dinny! Do you mind if I post a link to it on the GW2RP forums? You’ll be credited (very obviously, in big bold red font). We could really do with this kind of info there.

Long response, haven’t been around the forums for a while and want to respond to everyone personally.

Clockworkfiction.4872:

I have to admit I am a lore freak. And because I never played the first GW (I wish I did but I got caught up in he WoW craze) it really answers some questions and brings somethings to light.

I would join your krewe any day of the week

Hahah, how sweet! I’m very glad to hear it’s helped, though. The section on history (which was supposed to be catching the reader up on GW1 lore pertaining to asura) is a bit thin at the moment, but I will try to refine it later.

Simple.1097:

There is a cutscene in one of the personal storylines (I did it with my main asura, but I can’t remember off the top of my head which paths I chose), in which one of the presenters gives a ranking of the playable races. Obviously asura are at the top, and I believe charr are second after them, which would imply that asura (or at least some of them) believe charr to at least be somewhat more intelligent than any of the other races. For what it’s worth, I think norn were placed at the bottom.

That’s Cepha’s Constant and it is mentioned in the guide, although not where you were looking.

Electro.4173:

Very nice writeup. Definately something I’ll keep handy if I ever stop being wishy-washy with whether I want to actually get into RP (seems like it’d be fun but at the same time a lot of extra work), and an interesting read regardless of that.

I’m happy to hear you think so. Even if you don’t necessarily get into roleplay, I still think reading lore is a great idea! It’s a lot of fun.

Sprawler.5612:

This is an excellent guide, Dinny! Do you mind if I post a link to it on the GW2RP forums? You’ll be credited (very obviously, in big bold red font). We could really do with this kind of info there.

Late response, and you whispered me about it earlier, but just a reiteration: I am perfectly happy with this (and appreciative). Thanks again!

Great work, Dinny. Thanks.

Excellent work Dinny thank you!

Excelsior Dinny! Many thanks from me and my Asuran buddies! Thanks soooo much!!

Bump. See first post: lots of new links and everything is updated.

I’m happy this excellent guide has reappeared from the depths of the forum. I was looking for it some weeks back but since I couldn’t remember it’s title I was unable to find it.

/vote for sticky =)

I didnt know these things existed, this should be stickied and the different race rp guides posted to each race subforum.

I wish Piken Square had an active Asura roleplaying community. Unfortunately everyone is in Divinity’s Reach and Ebonhawke. And Rata Sum is always devoid of roleplayers

Thank you very much Dinny. The guide is awesome.

There is a paragraph in you guide on how Asura treat the less intelligent aka Dumb Asuras. I think you should add to this, details about the ‘Asura who has been imprisoned in Rata Sum, for being stupid’. You can find the guy in a prison cell in the lower part of Rata Sum