Guild Wars 2

Pipedream, with your “psychological” way of analyzing the Sylvari you are quite overshooting the subject.
The concept of The Dream and The Nightmare is not as black-n’-white as it might seem.
From a lore point of view, The Nightmare Court itself consists mostly of Sylvari that do not agree with the teachings of Ventari, BUT even if they do not agree with these specific teachings, they still have a – mostly individual – understanding of values.
Some value life, others not.
Faolain for example cares deeply for Caithe and that to an extend, where she absorbs the poison in Caithe’s body, endagering and eventually crippling herself (her hand, to be exact).
Not to forget at this point that this is the same person that, without hesitation, would kill anyone who stands in her way.
Even though The Nightmare Court is meant to be the enemy faction of the Sylvari race, it is not as witless as for example the Flame-Legion or the Sons of Svanir, where it is pretty much like: part of the faction → 100% evil.
The Sylvari are far away from being time bombs and most of the courtiers chose actively to be part the Nightmare.
For the one’s, which were “forced” into it: Every being has its breaking point. Like Koenig said: Some last longer, while others give in quicker.
Nevertheless, from a lore AND !psychological! point of view: you will not find the same conviction and passion in a Sylvari, who was forced by torture into The Nightmare, as you’d in a Sylvari, who freely chose to be part of it.
Most of the “forced one’s” show signs of mindless puppets, like Tiarchen and Ysvelta from the personal story.
The Nightmare Court poisons The Dream by torturing Sylvari and thus corrupting it, because every Sylvari’s experience becomes part of The Dream of Dreams.
So, please stop this “They are all bad, we need a purge”-thing. That is so pre-HoT!

First of all, I’d like to thank you all for your contributions concerning this topic.
After reading some of your messages, I actually do see that cavalry could be of use in Tyria, even if it would have to be specialized.
Nevertheless, I do not think that magic users are that common in armies/troops (see the Seraph or even the Charr armies/legions) in Tyria. I do understand that magic users are part of Tyria, but for example in “EoD”, none of Logan’s comrades of the scouting troop had any magical abilities (excluding him for having some guardian magic) and the soldiers of the city of Ebonhawk had no magical abilities as well.
So it is not that common to have mages and sorcerers in armies and troops.
Furthermore, if we’re already talking about cavalry, we are talking about a significant number of riders, what makes me think that even a spell could not stop such an amount of mounted soldiers, unless it a very powerful sorcerer, like the charr shaman Bonfaaz Burntfur, who caused the Searing.
And in a world of magic, where it is more or less common to face a magic user, the common folk and soldiers should have found ways of dealing with them. How can a warrior otherwise defeat an elementalist without getting burnt to ashes from a distance?
I think it is very hard to use any real life history and tactics in a world with circumstances like Tyria, but one thing is for sure: since magic users have always been part of battles of any scale, not only infantry, but cavalry as well, must have found ways of dealing with them, because following the logic “Oh, no! They have a mage! Our army is useless!” is just ridiculous.

Thank you all for your replies.

I was mostly referring to a time, where the race of Charr was not as advanced in technology as today, thus having no machines, yet. Like back in the day, where the legions were united under the Khan-Ur, which was approximately a thousand years ago (?).
Nevertheless, I agree with the statement that magic users AND machines would make it from very hard to impossible for cavalry to even reach their target on the battlefield in today’s Tyria.
I still believe that a cavalry could have been of use, even if that meant using other animals than horses or dolyaks.

Thank you, guys!

Hello, everyone!

After finishing “Edge Of Destiny” and especially after reading the part where Logan, Caithe and Rytlock see horses grazing on a meadow, while travelling through the portal, I started wondering why there are no any horses in-game.

I am very interested in the lore of “Guild Wars”, but aside from the already mentioned part of “EoD”, I could not find anything about the existence of horses in continental Tyria. Looking at all the wars that especially the race of humans went through, I started wondering how it is even possible, not only for one race, but for every advanced civilization not to use any mounts, in general, when it comes to war.

I mean, a strong cavalry could have been of use when the Charr marched upon Ascalon, right? It just seems odd to me that in thousands of years of war, none of the races came up with a cavalry. I know for example that the war-machines, like tanks, of the Charr are quite a “young” invention, compared to the fact that they did not possess any of them during the events of “GW1” and the Fall Of Ascalon, so these do not count.
I am talking anout real cavalry, where animals are mounted by soldiers and ridden into battle.
Furthermore, in “GW2” we only see different breeds of Dolyaks, which are mainly used as pack animals, so my question is: Have there ever been any horses in Tyria and has any civilization used animals (no matter if horses, dolyaks, etc.) as actual mounts for a cavalry unit?

I thank you all in advance for your time and interest.

At your service, T.

Hello, everyone!

As matters stand, it’s been a good while since the Six aka the human gods have left Tyria.
But when the NPC’s for example, tell us that the gods have left Tyria, are they referring to the continent of Tyria or the world, also called Tyria, itself?
Since Zhaitan’s awakening in 1219 AE, Tyria lost all contact to Cantha, for any canthan ship that tried to sail past Orr was sunk by the “black ships” of the risen.
Contact with Elona was lost when Palawa Joko rose once again and conquered big parts of Elona or even the whole of the continent.
Now, that we don’t really know how these continents have remained, we don’t know either if the human gods might have left continental Tyria for another continent, such as Elona or Cantha or if they just vanished into the mists.
As far as I know, the gods left the whole of the human race, but did they leave the world of Tyria, too?
That is my question.

Thank you all,
T.