World of Tyria
It's a Guild Wars screenshot post, featuring a trip to the Zaishen Menagerie!
All of the menagerie pictures were screenshotted as bmps, cropped at 1024x768, and retouched as needed for this presentation.
In the anniversary update earlier in the year, a new feature was added. The Zaishen Order now provides a private game preserve for each account. Animals charmed by a ranger can be "released into the wild" and they can be trained, evolved, and recaptured later. Naturally this triggered my Pokémon Reflex™ and I've started collecting animals. This is the first in (hopefully) a series of screenshots of the beautiful menagerie and its inhabitants. Today your host will be my mesmer, Aleron Asturian, sporting his new elite armor. Here he is showing off his new elite armor, and chatting with one of the Zaishen head tamers.
The menagerie is an island that exhibits virtually every sort of environment. We'll start at the shoreline with the Canthan Reef Lurker, otherwise known as a blue crab. This creature is native to the Jade Sea, a huge inland sea that was crystalized by the death curse of Shiro Tagachi.
Near the beach of the menagerie is a stream and a small swampy area. Here you can find the flamingos, native to Istan, and the white cranes, native to Shing Jea Island (an uncursed region of Cantha).
Leaving the beach area behind we travel up into the gentle, wooded hills of the island leading up to the central mountain. Here the endangered species known as Melandru's Stalker makes it home. These cougars were once plentiful but with the incineration of the kingdom of Ascalon in the Charr war, they are very rare. They are named after Melandru, the earth goddess.
Further up the hillside we find a nesting pair of mountain eagles in flight. Though the original birds came from the northernmost shiverpeaks just outside the mysterious oracle known as the Eye of the North, these birds are content to nest in the warmer forest atop the first hill line.
Atop the hills near the eagles nest is a cave reaching into the mountainside. Here amidst the sulpher and heat of a natural volcanic vent can be find the rare black moa of Echovald Forest. Echovald Forest is another Canthan region cursed by Shiro Tagachi. It has become a petrified forest, covered with weird mosses and lichens, where the magic of nature itself is a twisted thing. These black moas were mutated by the forest from common Ascalonian birds. Most black moas are vicious and aggressive and taming them for the menagerie was a deed worthy of legend! Despite their hostile nature, their chicks are some of the cutest animals of all of Tyria.
Going further up the mountainside, we eventually reach the snowline. There can be found a dolyak, technically a native to the menagerie and not captured in the wild. These animals are commonly found in the Shiverpeak mountains near Ascalon. Two more animals added to the menagerie native to the extreme Northern Shiverpeaks are the polar bear, and the elusive white moa.
The white moa is completely opposite to the black moa. It is a rare, natural evolution and it is completely passive. In the wild, they will flee from the slightest sign of human presence and require extensive training in the menagerie to serve as a ranger's companion. What a magnificent animal! This flightless bird is the tallest animal that can be tamed and second or third for overall largest size. Why, you could almost ride one of these birds!
And that concludes today's visit to the Zaishen Menageries. This post represents only about a third of the animals that can be collected for it!
All of the menagerie pictures were screenshotted as bmps, cropped at 1024x768, and retouched as needed for this presentation.
In the anniversary update earlier in the year, a new feature was added. The Zaishen Order now provides a private game preserve for each account. Animals charmed by a ranger can be "released into the wild" and they can be trained, evolved, and recaptured later. Naturally this triggered my Pokémon Reflex™ and I've started collecting animals. This is the first in (hopefully) a series of screenshots of the beautiful menagerie and its inhabitants. Today your host will be my mesmer, Aleron Asturian, sporting his new elite armor. Here he is showing off his new elite armor, and chatting with one of the Zaishen head tamers.
The menagerie is an island that exhibits virtually every sort of environment. We'll start at the shoreline with the Canthan Reef Lurker, otherwise known as a blue crab. This creature is native to the Jade Sea, a huge inland sea that was crystalized by the death curse of Shiro Tagachi.
Near the beach of the menagerie is a stream and a small swampy area. Here you can find the flamingos, native to Istan, and the white cranes, native to Shing Jea Island (an uncursed region of Cantha).
Leaving the beach area behind we travel up into the gentle, wooded hills of the island leading up to the central mountain. Here the endangered species known as Melandru's Stalker makes it home. These cougars were once plentiful but with the incineration of the kingdom of Ascalon in the Charr war, they are very rare. They are named after Melandru, the earth goddess.
Further up the hillside we find a nesting pair of mountain eagles in flight. Though the original birds came from the northernmost shiverpeaks just outside the mysterious oracle known as the Eye of the North, these birds are content to nest in the warmer forest atop the first hill line.
Atop the hills near the eagles nest is a cave reaching into the mountainside. Here amidst the sulpher and heat of a natural volcanic vent can be find the rare black moa of Echovald Forest. Echovald Forest is another Canthan region cursed by Shiro Tagachi. It has become a petrified forest, covered with weird mosses and lichens, where the magic of nature itself is a twisted thing. These black moas were mutated by the forest from common Ascalonian birds. Most black moas are vicious and aggressive and taming them for the menagerie was a deed worthy of legend! Despite their hostile nature, their chicks are some of the cutest animals of all of Tyria.
Going further up the mountainside, we eventually reach the snowline. There can be found a dolyak, technically a native to the menagerie and not captured in the wild. These animals are commonly found in the Shiverpeak mountains near Ascalon. Two more animals added to the menagerie native to the extreme Northern Shiverpeaks are the polar bear, and the elusive white moa.
The white moa is completely opposite to the black moa. It is a rare, natural evolution and it is completely passive. In the wild, they will flee from the slightest sign of human presence and require extensive training in the menagerie to serve as a ranger's companion. What a magnificent animal! This flightless bird is the tallest animal that can be tamed and second or third for overall largest size. Why, you could almost ride one of these birds!
And that concludes today's visit to the Zaishen Menageries. This post represents only about a third of the animals that can be collected for it!