The Lore-Purists Guide To Writing Splices in Tyria (Yes, It’s Lore-Adherent!)
Hello! Now that the Title has got your attention? YUP I’m actually going to prove how ,from a “ Lore Purist “ perspective, you can not only WRITE splices, but do so in a way that is 100% true to ALL given Tyrian lore.
Introductary Terms :
Splice : A character consisting of a hybridization or fusion of two species. GW2 has a class that plays with this already : Soulbeast, but for the purposes of this excersize, those will only be touched on .
Lore-Purist : Oftentimes read as gatekeepers , Lore Purists ONLY accept what is written DIRECTLY in the wiki, or things that came directly from the mouths of devs. Of course, this is usually based on bad experiences with Lore-Lenient folk, oftentimes newer roleplayers in general, thus lending to the perception as Gatekeepers
Genetics : The understanding of, and decoding of, the genome of species, sapient or otherwise.
Part 1 : Hexes, Soulbeasts, and Magick Amok .
Tyrian magic is a fantasic, all-encompassing system of INCREDIBLY diverse spell types . Imagine if you would , throwing light into a prism. That’s how magic works. The spectrum of magic is broad, and it’s uses moreso. Hexes are lore compliant, demonstrated by the Siren’s Reef Fractal, The Foefire Ghosts, The Undead ‘ Charm’ in Some paths of the personal Story, and Even More! , so , as demonstrated by the Foefire , Undead Charm, AND the Spectral Magic At Siren’s Reef, curses are capable of not only altering body shape, but the soul and magic of It’s target. Thus, an easy way to have a splice is just to have your character be cursed. Just, be sure to throw in some /ACTUAL/ Curse-like bits in there. Like being unable to say some words or having an allergy to some oddly-specific but common thing. Soulbeast magic! This is by far the easiest way to do this. Soulbeasts,” can become one in spirit(with their animal). By channeling their pet, they become a single entity, attacking with fanglike dagger strikes and using the abilities of their companion and its archetype.. “ Notice something in the wording there? “ Becoming a Single Entity “ There’s a few ways to interpret this. Either by just “ Buffing” yourself using the power of your animal, or, the more generally accepted, fusing yourself magically into a new beast. Fangs, Claws, tails , Scales, and Burning Breath all possible... And encouraged.
What’s more ? Magic in Tyria is decidedly unstable. Ley Magic Surges , Instabilities in Artifacts, and More can cause a soulbeast to be ‘ Stuck’ in a merge, thus resulting in a splice.. and likely a fair amount of distress over a “ Lost “ companion, depending on how you handle the merging of minds. Part 2 : Asura don’t know Genetics* (*AKA ‘ Anet isn’t consistent ‘ ) It’s explicitly stated that the asura don’t actually understand genetics. This is, of course, Only true at the time the statement is issued. From there we’ve had two pretty impressive peices of genetics-based lore given. Taimi suffers from a genetic condition, a terminal illness which is well understood and treated. The clue-in that this is genetically related is that the treatment isn’t shotgun-style “ throw things at it until it works “ ... That can not only prove detrimental, but outright lethal. Thus, the remaining conclusion, and the one that’s , yes, Genetics related: that asura doctors, if nothing else, understand genetics enough to know that ‘ upping dosages’ when something doesn’t work , or rapidly changing medicine types, probably won’t get them anywhere with terminal illnesses. Unless of course, one wants to say that they magically stumbled along the perfect route to learning about medicine without ever once touching on How illnesses develop. Given the asura tendency towards obsessive learning patterns, it’s doubtful that they’d pick up medicine without picking up anatomy, genetics, and more. Rata Primus Is the 1 absolute in this case. When dealing with plagues, especially ones that are species-specific, tampering with them to get them to jump across species requires some baseline understanding of genetics. You can’t just throw magic at it directionless and expect it to do anything but kill the researchers first. Yet we see those beautiful inquest bastards slowly, if not certainly, tweaking the plague generation-by-generation to adapt to new targets and hosts. while notably being wholly unaffected by it themselves in those first few iterations. Thus,even from a purist standpoint, the Lore has shifted enough from the “ Asura can’t do Genetics “ Time to today. We’re nearly in 2021,it’s time we update our Canon , just like the writers have done with the story itself. Part 3 : The Inquest Can Clone This is where things get fun! So , even without genetics , the inquest are capable of manipulating dragon magics and cloning entire creatures using them. Examples of this are Subject Alpha , An amalgamation of many different dragon magics, the Six Simulacrum (Artificially made) Of dragon minions , And various projects that violently warped the state of their subjects (Subject 6, Thaumonova Fractal ). Kudu himself was even capable of absorbing absurd amounts of dragon magic and staying sane Part 4 : Dragons? Easy. Souls? Easier. Splicing? Why even ask. The extreme ease by which the Inquest manipulates dragon energies is superceeded by one other thing they’re experts at warping.. Souls. In the asura personal story, long before dragons become a hassle for the commander, the inquest are seen fusing souls to Golem bodies as a power source.. so easily, in fact, it can be done without even touching the subject or golem, as well as being done in multiples (Funhouse instance Cutscene). Doxa is one such victim of technology like this going awry.
By this metric, it’s extremely easy to infer that the Inquest are capable of precise tampering with Bodies , souls, or magic as a whole in subjects.. meaning if they felt like it, an abuse of any of these magics would suffice to make a splice : Druid , Soulbeast, Dragon Corruption, Ley Energy, . Or, if you prefer Less magically dubious : Just fusing the two bodies into one.
The Conclusion : The Lore is Hazy. It’s fairly well established that lore in GW2 isn’t IRONCLAD, nor is it very definitively written. We, as players, have seen things go 180 in the drop of a hat. Norn Roleplayers have seen “ All the spirits are dead “ turned into “ All the Spirits are imprisoned “ In the course of 1 single story update. Asura have seen the Inquest go from a fringe group of mad scientists to a Mega-civilization that encompases the bulk of asura population itself. Anet isn’t known for consistent writing, and it’s not our place as players to say they’re concrete, and infallible, in their wording. The long and short of it is, Just have fun Roleplaying. Policing other players based on what they write is outright petty at best, and Full-on gatekeeping at worst. If you don’t want a specific Kind of Player or Character in your guild, Say it outright, Be direct yet Kind in doing so. It’s a stressful world, and the last thing anyone should do is attack a person for the wrong reason when they’re just trying to have fun. Edit : Updated Terminology , removed tooth from Post