The ZAM staff concludes our "Reinventing Tyria" series with in-depth looks at the Sylvari, voice over artists, and the problem of endgame storytelling. Check it out!

ZAM: Can you go into anymore depth on the Sylvari? They’re really the one race that people don’t really know about...

Soesbee: And I’m tremendously excited about them!

The first Sylvari set forth on the world twenty-five years before the game begins. However, the tree that the Sylvari came from is older than that and dates back to the events in the first titles – you can see it in the Eye of the North. The tree is 200-250 years old, but the first Sylvari blossomed and came out – we use the term “awakened from the dream” – twenty-five years ago.

The Sylvari has a certain state of knowledge in that the tree is like a racial memory. Things that a Sylvari learns – not in its specifics but in the sense of things – is stored in the tree so that the next generation has a certain amount of knowledge.

So if the first generation came out and said “I wonder what that is! What is it? It’s a sword! I can hit things!” The second generation would then come out, and they wouldn’t have a memory of picking up a sword and learned to swing it, but they would know that the item is a sword and they kinda know what that’s for.

This sort of racial comprehension then lends itself to the idea that the Sylvari love to do exactly that: Explore. They run out and look at things so the next Sylvari can know what that object is. Anything from a blade of grass to a specific type of fruit fascinates them.

That said, the Sylvari are new, but they’re not naïve. They’re not babies. They just don’t have experience. They’re like a kid out of college; they’re educated and knowledgeable, but they’re not experienced. Because they’re new and literally coming from the world, they have a sense that there’s something wrong.

The other races go to some lengths here and there to deny the threat. The Asura, for instance, believe they can just go hide underground so they’ll simply bug all the other races and leave the Asura alone. The Sylvari know that it’s not just a dragon that’s terrorizing a locale over yonder; it’s a sickness in the world. You can’t ignore it or the world will be destroyed.

ZAM: Are there racial prejudices directed at the Sylvari?

Soesbee: If you look at a map and see where the Sylvari popped up, they appeared right next to the Asura. The first thing that the Asura think when they see the new race is “Aha! A test subject!”

So the Sylvari had a really quick awakening to the other races in the world. While it didn’t cause ‘em to go to war, it did lead them to be a bit more cautious and not just wander up to people spouting things.

That said, the other races certainly have blinders on in the same way that you see your car every day, you don’t realize that your car needs a wash. A person that sees it once a month might realize it really does need a cleaning.