The guys over at German fansite TowerTalk have recently interviewed Ree Soesbee, Lore & Continuity Designer at ArenaNet, about the lore of the sylvari, including their biology, culture and even eating habits.

They can eat anything, they can eat other plants, they can eat salad, they can eat meat if they want to – much like a venus fly trap. They do have a stomach area in their body; it does decompose material just like a humans would and then uses that material to fuel the body.

In a very exciting point Ree tells us that the Pale Tree has an ethereal sylvari-form manifestation that we can visit in game.

Oh, yeah! She has a form, she has a Sylvari form. We’re still kind of messing with it in the art deparment, but it’s lovely. It’s a little bit ethereal; it looks a little bit gossamer. But it’s clearly a Sylvari and it talks and walks and it stays in the little chamber at the base of the Tree.

Although Ree explains that the non-Nightmare Court sylvari are, in a way, the glue holding the other races together in an attempt to band against the Elder Dragons, she’s pointedly makes it clear that the sylvari aren’t simply innocent peacemakers. They have their own set of prejudices, particularly against the asura who experimented on the asura early on in their existence.

And so they do have a certain resent having to mistrust the Asura. And they have come to a point where they believe the Asura can be redeemed, they’re very important members, very important to bring them into the strife against the dragons. But individual Sylvari especially those who have memories or were born with dreams that told them of the things the Asura did, they find it hard to get over it bias.

Head on over to the podcast to listen to the full interview (the intro is in German, but the interview in English) or read the English transcription.