#tyria

Tyria Pride 2025 is coming June 28 and 29!

Salutations! Tyria Pride is coming once again! Join us any time next Saturday and Sunday, June 28 and 29, on both EU and NA, for an awesome event that takes us all the way from Ebonhawke to Rata Sum, while we raise money for a good cause!

You can also join us on Discord, or watch it on twitch, covered by a ton of streamers!

Check out the linktree at tyriapride.com!

More info below the cut

Cinnabar Moth caterpillar eat a tasty ragwort!

Cinnabar Moth Caterpillar:

TASTY RAGWORT!!!

Yes, this is a gorgeous Cinnabar Moth caterpillar (Tyria jacobaeae), family Erebidae.

For those that don't know, here's what the adults look like...

Mon Chat

Darzelya and Naramei are enjoying some Halloween time in Tyria. It was fun to make them interact together, since normally I draw one character per image, but it still was a challenge. I also want to keep drawing these two and make more GW2 art!

Need... to stay...awake...

Poor Kail, doing your duty may be hard at times.

This took a LOT, and i'm still quite not happy with the light of the campfire and Nylah's pose and orientation, but time's up, so here we go ^^

(from next month i'm gonna try making a real schedule, wich will probably be VS Art party shot, postcard, my OC shot (will start making a character sheet and tell something), postcard (or another project if i find the time). These first posts were just to see if i could fit a schedule, and it seems to work albeit tight, so i'm appoving the method but lightening a bit the work needed)

Model: Kail Swiftvoice (Asura Soulbeast), Nylah Deftwill (Asura Mirage) and Koyu (Nature Spirit, Kail's mount and pets), my OCs.

Landscape: False River Valley, Lornar's Pass.

Free in my Ko-Fi shop is a folder of four different fonts in .otf and .tff for your enjoyment. Have fun, and if you end up using any I’d love to get tagged so I can see!

As it is Guild Wars 1's 20th Anniversary, I thought I'd post some old things I did, as well as some old screenshots (which I'll put in another post).

A few years back I had taken the high quality maps from that_shaman and "completed" them. This one is of pre-Searing Ascalon, where I overlayed post-Searing regions onto it, and then shaded those regions green to make them more verdant and matching pre-Searing, to give us a completed look of what Ascalon would somewhat look like in GW1.

This one is of Tyria, where I added the pre-Searing, polymock arenas, guild halls, and other non-subterranean areas not on the world map. For guild halls, as there was no specific place for them to exist, I found geography which was fitting for the shape of the hall. The biggest thing is adding pre-Searing and darkening it (I didn't darken the snowry area because quite frankly, it looked bad, so it's a small white area where white otherwise isn't). I also fixed an error in Regent Valley that exists in-game since the world map changed for Eye of the North, where some parts of it has the unfogged appearance for some reason.

Nomad Isle and Isle of the Dead were a bit randomly chosen, as the former has no full distinguishing marks and the latter is subterranean, so it's not in this image but the next...

Like above, this is a "completed" map of Tyria, this time with all the subterranearn areas shown - the main purpose of this map was to show the Eye of the North dungeons and how they would look with direct connections in the floors. It's quite interesting just how far north Frostmaw goes.

One cool thing that I'm pretty sure was unintentional by ArenaNet, is that the boss area of Heart of the Shiverpeaks, which shows the skies and is on fire, ends up in a slightly blackened area on the world map!

My original plan for these images was to set up a small website similar to this interactive map from E3 2004, which would show each dungeon, outpost, and landmark with descriptions of them. I ended up scrapping the project due to time and budget, but it's still something I'd like to see. Maybe if I get more free time in the future.

With Cantha, I didn't need to add very much because all the PvP arenas were already on the map even without that_shaman. I did make use of his map that included Minister Cho's Estate, and the main changes were again adding the guild halls, but also the Alliance Battle maps to it. Unlike the guild halls, I didn't randomly guess location based on geography, but rather as the maps rotated in over a few months I took not of where opening the world map centered on (I did the same for polymock) and placed them there, or as close as possible without overlapping other maps. As you can tell, the Kurzick side got very cramped. Additionally, I added Urgoz's Warren - though I had to shift it a bit because it overlapped with Ferndale normally.

Cantha doesn't have much in the way of dungeons, but I did have this version that includes The Deep and Tunnels Beneath Cantha. This also shows the Undercity on the world map, overriding Xaquang Skyway.

Elona's guild halls were probably the least challenging, as two of them are Dajkah Inlet. Like Tyria and Cantha, the PvP maps were already on the world map. But the Hero Battles maps were not, so I found fitting places for those, and then added the Sunspear Sanctuary, Command Post, and the two zones that are underground and don't overlap. Unlike that_shaman, I also found a way to mix in the Turai's Story mission map, though I did notice that the geography changed quite a bit hmmmm, so I don't blame that_shaman from not including it in his own map.

Even less than Cantha, Elona only has the one dungeon that overlaps with above ground areas - Caverns Beneath Kamadan. So that was a fast one...

This one is left unfinished, however. It was a premise of making a Nightfallen Elona map - turn waterways into sulfur, turn the soil into gradiants of brown to blackish, etc. In the end, too much work, but I did enjoy overlapping Nightfallen Jahai, Nightfallen Garden, the version of Marga Coast from the mission, and the guild hall which I couldn't add to the normal version.

So, it's time to get back to Nameless Higanbana's journey through Tyria and her quest to defeat the dragon, Zhaitan! Last I left off, she and Trahearne were on their way to Fort Trinity, which (as I had nothing to do with the Norn or the Durmand Priory) meant making my way through most of the Shiverpeak Mountains for the first time!

I did actually have a vague memory of this first quest - we stop at a fort which I discovered was NOT Fort Trinity, but a different fort entirely. After a brief discussion regarding Trahearne's fitness to lead (apparently not so fit?) we hear the cry of a panicked researcher; The dead have amassed at a nearby ruin, trapping several explorers inside!

Now, like I said, I kind of remember this quest - at the very least, I remember finding it pretty tricky the first time I did it. Fortunately, being a geared up tanky Revenant did make things a little easier XD Nameless and Trahearne find the researchers under siege in a corner of the ruins, and after dealing with a small onslaught of Risen, we escape into a twisted network of caves, where we make a troubling discovery. The Dead were planning an ambush. It seems that the closer to Orr we get, the more powerful, and therefore smarter, the dead get. There was a brief moment where Trahearne revealed himself to be a necromancer and summoned several undead to fight for him, which considering the whole Risen problem rather made me question the rules and lore of this world, but no one else seemed bothered. In any case, it's probably best not to question it.

After a brief scuffle with the Lich that was coordinating the Dead, it was time to carry on through Mount Maelstrom and meet up with a team of bombardiers.

Now, I don't think I've done this bit before. I think this bit might be related to the question we were asked by the Mother Tree about what we feared, and I guess I just never picked this option because I have NO memory of this next bit at all. Nameless is given command over a team of cannoneers who are setting up to bomb the undead who are blocking the path ahead. After battling our way through another set of undead (who we aren't bombing, apparently?) the team sets up the cannons and on Nameless's command, opens fire on the teeming mass of Risen below.

Except... they aren't Risen. Despite the fact that I definitely saw Risen - I even have screenshots - it turns out that we just decimated our own troops. Oops. There are a couple of survivors, including one Tactician Syska, who berates us for our horrific mistake. All around us lie the bodies of Charr, Sylvari, Human, Asura, Norn... All part of the pact, all dead due to some kind of trick of the eye. There's no time to wallow in guilt, however - it seems that there are more troops stuck in the bowels of the volcano, and we need to make amends by going to save them. Before we set off though, one of our Pact cohorts mentions that there's something a bit shady about everything going on, and mentions it might be worth looking into Syska.

Arriving at the foot of Mount Maelstrom we find several Pact soldiers bickering amongst themselves. They are quick to snap to attention and let us know that there are more troops trapped deep inside the volcano. Naturally, looking to restore her honour, Nameless is quick to lead the soldiers back into the volcano to find the missing troops. Of course, this means battling our way through hordes of fiery Destroyers. Normally I wouldn't really question this, but considering what just happened, I am a little suspicious of the circumstances around this missing troop, and sure enough, when we find them...

They shatter into fractals. They were just illusions, and we are forced to fight our way back out of the volcano. Tired, confused and feeling very betrayed, the troops are quick to question Syska's orders, with one of them revealing that Syska has been 'off' lately, giving confusing orders and being reckless with her tactics. Nameless is encouraged by the Pact soldiers to get to the bottom of this mystery, something that I think she would be only too happy to do.

Ps. I do think it's a shame that I never really clicked with the Norn, because the male Norn's arms are very yummy <3