Hello, Guild Wars® community! I'm Liz Baker, senior narrative designer on Guild Wars 3™, with a peek into the asura of the Orrian golden age. Just as Tyria looks very different in this time before the Exodus of the Gods, so does this species of diminutive scholars.
While the majority labor to expand their beloved depths throughout the vast subterrane of Tyria, the asura of Orr represent the more adventurous and insatiable of their ilk—an expeditionary lineage who went where their kin dared not go in pursuit of an emerging force that would come to transform their entire civilization: magic.
A New (Old) Look
In Guild Wars: Eye of the North™, we met the asura after they emerged from an extended period of exclusively subterranean living. Their appearance has been shaped by the Depths of Tyria: no fur, not much height, large eyes, and pointed teeth.
But in the present of Guild Wars 3, over a millennium before Primordus's stirring, asuran society has a more balanced relationship with the surface. Though fossorial at their core, the asura do venture above ground for a variety of reasons: business, pleasure, curiosity.
So, the average asura you meet in Orr will be of a different stripe than their evolved descendants, figuratively and literally. Rougher around the edges, a little taller (though still not eye level with humans), a hair furrier. On the inside, however, they very much resemble the species you know and love with their large, inquiring minds and even bigger ambitions.
This is especially true of the asura who migrated to Orr before the start of Guild Wars 3. It was that insatiable urge to discover that kept them going through a decades-long journey of trial and error, from the Maguuma Jungle to the Shiverpeak Mountains and, finally, to Orr.
The Big Dig
Orr first blipped on the radar of asuran consciousness during their initial expansion of the depths around 300 BE. Tunnels were stretching out in every direction from the heart of the Maguuma Jungle; no small feat before the gift of magic. Bound to mechanical tools and physical processes, their engineering efforts cost time, materials, labor...and sometimes the laborers themselves, as a few unlucky krewes discovered whenever their shovels turned toward Orr.
First, it was the unexpected seawater that flooded a branch of tunnels along the coastline. Then—once they figured out underwater construction—came the tremors emanating from deep beneath the peninsula's abyssal plain. No matter the method or angle of approach, the way would collapse; it was almost as if Orr itself rejected the asura's digging.
Most asura took these obstacles at face value; why sacrifice more time and bodies when there's plenty of space elsewhere to dig? But one engineer couldn't give up so easily. Zouelle the Archengineer was a young apprentice when, while on an above-ground survey, she glimpsed Orr on the horizon and heard tell of it brimming with impossible magical forces. The memory stuck with her through many obstacles and little progress until her elder years, when she decided to take one last sojourn to the surface.
Accompanied by her granddaughter, Niommi, Zouelle led them to emerge near the top of Criterion Canyon. Their eyes still adjusting to the light, the pair turned toward Orr just in time to witness a great eruption, brief and incandescent, paint the horizon.
There it was, in stark prismatic relief: the magic of Orr. More potent than anywhere else in Tyria and far less understood. They had to go there. And if the underground was not a viable path, it was time the asura adapted.
On that very spot, grandmother and progeny founded Rata Pten: the humble beginnings of the asura's most ambitious above-ground expedition in Tyria, fixed squarely on the storied lands of Orr.
Launchpad to Orr
At first, many asura rushed to join the pioneering Rata Pten lab. Zouelle and Niommi's joint account of the raw power they witnessed sparked a collective hunger that would one day define them. All craved knowledge of magic—to study and master it for the uplift of their species.
This fervor only increased as news of humans and kodan migrating to Orr trickled down through the depths. Suddenly, there was competition, and the asura were behind.
But while the desire to go was strong, the will to do it was in shorter supply. It took many more years of experimentation and investigation before the first step could be taken: land surveys from which none returned, machines that malfunctioned, and the usual bickering and planning delays of any mass collaborative effort.
Only the most daring and committed were left by the time Niommi (soon to be deemed "the Trailblazer") formed the Rata Pten Expeditionary Krewe. Save for one notable absence: the night before the journey, Zouelle died in her sleep—dreaming of the land her granddaughter would one day reach.
And reach it Niommi did...sunburnt, surly, and missing half her krewe. The survivors had withstood heat sickness, supply shortfalls, and wildlife encounters. They had left behind all they knew, effectively cut themselves off from their kin in the depths, sacrificed years of their lives, and for what? An unknown land of uncertain challenges, unquantified resources...
...And the Vael.
Years of doubts evaporated in an instant. It had all been worth it.
Lifting the Vael
Of course, the dilemmas didn't end with the expeditionary krewe's arrival. Their enthusiasm for the land's potential and their no-holds-barred investigative style resulted in more than one clash with Orr's native creatures and their protectors. The Vaelwardens came to regard the asura as reckless—if well-intentioned—interlopers. The asura, in turn, viewed the Order of the Vael as dogmatic and allergic to the march of progress.
Eventually, however, the order did evolve—opening their ranks to all, including the asura, now decades into their establishment in Orr. Only a handful leaped at the chance to learn the guild's ways, especially regarding the artificing of signets. This signature art, passed on by the human gods Dwayna and Melandru, allowed the Vaelwardens to craft powerful and versatile arms by binding multiple signets to a single weapon. Who could pass up the chance to wield such power, and in service of the Vael? Yet many remained skeptical, proudly sticking with their own institutions and methods.
Orrian Asura Now
In the present of Guild Wars 3, the descendants of the Rata Pten Expeditionary Krewe have spread all over the continent. And though physically separated from their Tyrian cousins, they have reestablished a long-distance connection with the broader asuran civilization via Rata Pten, which is now a small but strategically located terranean outpost.
Down in the depths, every report passes from krewe to krewe like an electric current. Even those who once scoffed at the surface expedition now linger over its findings. They can feel it: something is coming that will change what it means to be asura. Most can't yet name it, but those who've held a humming signet or witnessed the unique majesty of the Vael spirits already know its shape.
The asura of Orr find themselves at the threshold of their species' future. A door leading to an unimaginable transformation is beginning to open.
There is much more for the asura to discover in Orr and for us on the dev team to reveal. So stay tuned! We'll cover the spirits born of the Vael's magic, other guilds and their conflicting interests, and—late this year—our fourth playable species and their deeply bound destiny with the realm.