The official ArenaNet blog has been updated once again with news about Legend and Legacy with the Norn in Guild Wars 2. The Norn should still be rather fresh in everyone’s mind since they were first introduced in Guild Wars: Eye of the North, but let’s do a quick refresher course. The Norn is basically giant Humans who lived in the Northern Shiverpeaks. They didn’t believe in having an army as each Norn basically worked alone for great glory.

I'm not sure what the blog header image is, but it looks really cool.

One of your Norn goals in GW:EN was to meet up with the Norn and help them deal with the Nornbear, a beast that was being hunted by Jora. The Nornbear was actually her brother, Svanir, who was corrupted by the dragon in Drakkar Lake called Jormag. Afterward, you helped clear the Charr from Jora’s homeland and cleared the Destroyers from one of the Norn temples. After which, a few of the Norn decide to join your cause to go against the Great Destroyer (since they work alone, they decided it wouldn’t be that bad of an idea to join up with a hero for glory).

That’s pretty much the Norn as we knew in in the original Guild Wars and it appears that not much will have changed between games other than the Norn becoming more open to helping each other in battle.

Norn Week Kicks Off

The latest update from Norn Week has given us some interesting and new things to think about. The first that I think is the most interesting is the list of the Norn ideas about other races:

  • They respect charr for their strength and military prowess.
  • They tolerate humans, weak and soft as they may be.
  • The power an asura can bring to a fight proves that size isn’t the only determining factor in one’s strength.
  • And sylvari are still a bit of a mystery; they’re clever and curious, but sometimes they just don’t make sense.

Looking at this list it seems that the Norn are pretty much friendly with everyone. They respect the Charr, tolerate the Humans, the Asura prove that size doesn’t matter, and the Sylvari are just plain curious. So it seems that the Norn are a lot more open now about talking to outsiders and don’t immediately throw their nose up to everyone.

Norn artwork has a very "viking" feel to it.

Your actions in the original Guild Wars seems to carry over too.

Why are the norn working with others? Because they’ve learned the hard way that some foes are too strong to fight alone, and sometimes there’s no time to become stronger before a battle. The norn are proud, but they’re not stupid. They don’t follow leaders, but they will follow heroes, and even a hero needs help sometimes.

The Norn still doesn’t have a government, per se, but it appears that they will band together and rally behind a hero, much like they did in the original GW storyline. I assume that throughout the game, one of your big things will be becoming a hero in the Norn’s eyes so that they will want to follow or listen to you.

Some Norn like to be... a little bit different.

Sons of Svanir

This is one thing I absolutely love. The Sons of Svanir are the “bad Norn” but they’re still tolerated by Norn society. This is a lot different then what most races normally do to the bad guys or people who ally with the enemy. The Sons of Svanir are the ones who follow the ice dragon, Jormag, which is the #1 enemy to the Norn (since the dragon drove them away from their homeland).

Spirit Animals and Legends

The Norn were capable of transforming into a bear (which you could do as well with certain skills in the original GW) and followed many different spirit animals. It seems that these animals will be making a return in GW2 like previously discussed by ArenaNet. It seems that the Norn, unlike others, do not rely on their religion to help but only see it as a guide and not a divining hand.

Another big thing with the Norn is the desire to create a legend. It seems that there will be a huge amount of lore centered on the obsession with doing something so magnificent that a legend spawns around you.

Hoelbrak will be the Norn capital.

Homestead

The only thing the post missed out on for me is more details about Hoelbrak, although we’ll probably hear something later in the week about it. Hoelbrak seems to be the Norn capital, so it’ll probably be a lot of fun to explore and read about whenever we can get more details about it.

It seems like the Norn are going to be a lot of fun in Guild Wars 2 and I can’t wait to play with these huge Humans when the game launches. Come on by our community forums and share your thoughts.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Guild Wars 2 Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

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