Cantha? Part II: The Tengu

[Shin Ryu.5802]

As mentioned in Part I, it is my opinion that the Tengu are currently the race most likely to have any current insight into the current state of Cantha. Again, I'm hoping to put forth some vague and brief ideas about what it might look like. I'm going to be particularly vague when it comes to possible story directions, as I would prefer to be surprised when it comes to what twists the plot takes. But first, a little background on the implementation of the Tengu thus far:

 

One of the more ambitious goals in the early development of "Guild Wars 2" was to implement the Tengu as a playable character race, perhaps sharing a starting zone with the Sylvari in Caledon Forest and making their home in the Dominion of Winds. The developers (wisely, in my humble opinion) decided to postpone the addition of the Dominion of Winds until it they could do it justice. For better or worse, it doesn't seem likely that the Tengu will ever become a playable character race, as the retrofitting of all the armor types to match their distinct body type is now a more prohibitively labor intensive project than ever before. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the GW2 team now has a smaller labor force than ever before. At any rate, I'm glad the tengu weren't demystified at launch; it left a lot of opportunities for the race to be surprisingly relevant in future installments.

 

I believe it is now possible to create an amazing and unique non-human city in accordance with the sensibilities and style of an avian humanoid race: integration of over-sized jungle trees and foliage, plenty of verticality, and lots of camouflaged or otherwise hidden areas. Parts of it might bear an uncanny resemblance to those areas inhabited by the Tengu living in the Auric Basin...

 

Back to the current state of the Tengu. While officially isolationist, the Dominion of Winds has been fielding scouts and merchants all over Tyria. Rather than suffer from the cultural and technological decline that isolationism generally imposes upon a nation, it's possible that they've managed to keep pace with their neighbors in many areas, if not surpass them in some respects. It's also known that the Tengu may possess knowledge about the nature of the Elder Dragons which remains unknown even to the Durmand Priory. They're likely to have a curious blend of keen insights and surprising misunderstandings about other races, combined with a reflexive tendency to make "us vs them" distinctions. Those Tengu who are willing to venture outside of the Dominion of Winds and interact with other races and cultures will be exceptionally open minded by their culture's standards. By contrast, the older generation of Tengu will personally remember being driven out of Cantha by humans with whom they once had a treaty, and will be particularly wary of others.

 

As distrustful as the Tengu are of other races, the feeling could be mutual. After all, the Tengu in the Dominion of Winds did nothing while Scarlet Briar destroyed Lion's Arch literally next door, and didn't participate in relief efforts or its reconstruction. And when all the other major races of Tyria united under the Pact against Zhaitan, Mordremoth, Balthazar, and Kralkatorrik, only a few individuals among the Tengu worked cooperatively with the Pact against these threats. It's not hard to imagine that working to establish working relationship based on mutual trust will be a major challenge.

 

A "Tengu lore" Mastery track practically writes itself; as the player works to establish mutual trust, they can gain access to the Dominion of Winds, its banks and merchants, and perhaps even crafting techniques or abilities previously exclusive to Tengu. As hackneyed as this gaming trope is, I still find it strangely satisfying when an in-game NPC group gradually shifts from cold hostility to reluctant tolerance to accepting my character as a friend and ally.

 

Since I've already failed miserably at being brief, I'll wrap it up here and invite others to speculate on what lies behind the walls of the Dominion of Winds--and whether it might even have anything to do with Cantha at all.