Characters / Guild Wars 2: Destiny's Edge

A famous adventuring guild dedicated to stopping the Elder Dragons.

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Tropes applying to all of them:

• A House Divided: The guild members turned on each other after the death of Snaff, blaming each other for various failures. The dungeon storyline focuses on bringing them back together so they can stand against the Elder Dragons.

Caithe

One of the Firstborn of the Sylvari. A Thief, and member of Destiny's Edge. When she discovers that the Sylvari hero also has a Wyld Hunt to defeat the Elder Dragons, she watches over them as they grow in strength.

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• Badass Longcoat: It's made out of leaves.
• Bad Future: In one cutscene taking place in the Orr Ruins, showing us a vision of possible things to come, she crosses the Despair Event Horizon and willfully joins Faolain and her Nightmare Court, having had enough with Destiny's Edge's interpersonal conflicts.
• Berserk Button: Don't mention Faolain around her. She'll warn you once, then cut your tongue out.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Invokes a variant of this trope in the penultimate chapter of Heart of Thorns while trying to convince the Commander to let her join in the fight.
  I only want to kill the dragon! Its death might kill me - the entire sylvari people - but that's better than living in its grasp!
• Broken Bird: Haunted by numerous failings, involving both Destiny's Edge and the Nightmare Court.
• The Corruptible: Definitely, with Faolain doing her best to make her cross the Despair Event Horizon. With the instability of Destiny's Edge and the suffering she has to endure because of them and the Nightmare Court, she has to struggle to not abandon herself to the corruption.
• Dark and Troubled Past: As detailed in the second season of the living story. Seeds of Truth and Point of No Return show flashbacks to her past with Faolain and show that Caithe had a hand in the massacre of an entire tribe of peaceful centaurs who had welcomed them as guests and only became hostile when Faolain started harassing their friend, Wynne. When Wynne runs off and they catch her, she is forced to kill her after Wynne reveals her secret: the Sylvari come from Mordremoth, the Jungle Dragon.
• Discount Lesbians: With Faolain.
• Dual Wielding: Wields dual daggers.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: It's revealed during flashbacks in Living World season 2 that Caithe used to have a different hairstyle. She changed it to the hairstyle she has in the present day after the traumatic event of having killed her fellow Firstborn Wynne, who had that very hairstyle, in order to remind herself of Wynne's burden of knowledge which she had taken on herself.
• Fantastic Fragility: Especially in the expanded universe. She doesn't have the strength or stamina of any other member of Destiny's Edge, but she does have a supernatural understanding of weaknesses, power flows, and limitations: the group's successes are as dependent on her understanding of their foes as they are on Eir's tactical planning.
• Good is Not Nice: During the Sylvari PC's personal story, once she gets the info she wants from a member of the Nightmare Court, despite promising to let her go she decides to kill her anyway. The Player Character themself reacts with an If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him! speech, which she ignores completely.
• The Heart: Averted. She tries to be this for Destiny's Edge, but her attempts to unite them always fail.
• I Will Fight No More Forever: See Bad Future.
• I Work Alone: Her past has largely convinced her that the only person she can rely on is herself. It comes to a head in Heart of Thorns, where she decides she can't even trust the Commander with Glint's egg and steals it. Unsurprisingly, her plan to take on Mordremoth more or less single-handedly doesn't go well, and she later admits that this is a major weakness of hers that needs overcoming.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: In the memory segments, Young Caithe has her outfit open, exposing her cleavage and midriff.
• Only Sane Man: Constantly tries to bring Destiny's Edge back together in the time of crisis, but the others (mostly Logan, Rytlock, and Zojja) want nothing to do with it.
• Regretful Traitor: After the events of Heart of Thorns, she deeply regrets her actions and wants to make amends. While she did believe she was stealing Glint's egg for a good purpose (and was also struggling with Mordremoth's attempts to turn her against the others), it made it nearly impossible for the members of her own guild and the Commander to trust her for a time.

Eir Stegalkin (and Garm the wolf)

A ranger, former leader and Norn member of Destiny's Edge.

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• The Beastmaster: Like all rangers, she has an Animal Companion. Hers is a wolf.
• Death Seeker: All of her past failures drive her to go on a hopeless Suicide Mission in the story mode for Honor of the Waves. Ironically, it's after regained her will to live that she is killed.
• Exposed to the Elements: She's not wearing a lot for someone who resides in the snow-covered Shiverpeaks. Justified by the fact that the Norn's high body temperature means they don't have to worry about covering up.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: The left side of her outfit exposes considerably more skin, including lacking an entire pant-leg.
• Familiar: Her animal companion, Garm.
• Killed Off for Real: In Heart of Thorns. Her funeral kickstarts Living World Season 3.
• The Farmer and the Viper: If she hadn't stopped to help Faolain as everyone was fleeing the Mordrem prison camp, she might have gotten out alive.
• The Leader: Of Destiny's Edge until Snaff's death.
• The Stoic: Even when her estranged son meets her for the first time, she treats him very coldly. She grows a little closer to him when they both kill a bunch of Icebrood/Sons of Svanir in Season 2, Chapter 3.
• Touched by Vorlons: She's blessed by the Wolf Spirit.
• Warrior Poet: Eir is renowned for her skill as a wood and stone sculptor, and you can see a good bit of her work in game.

Logan Thackeray

Descendant of Gwen and Keiran Thackeray, champion (and potential suitor) of Queen Jennah, and Captain of the Seraph, Kryta's military force. Human characters gain his trust by saving Divinity's Reach from various dangers, and eventually are asked to assist Logan in the fight against the Elder Dragons. His decision to defend his queen from Elder Dragon attack left the party shorthanded in their own skirmish, and ultimately was one of the factors leading to Snaff's death and the group's parting of ways.

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• The Atoner: A large portion of his post-Destiny's Edge actions are to atone for running away.
• Badass in Distress: In Heart of Thorns, he is captured by the Mordrem alongside Trahearne and Zojja.
• Bad "Bad Acting": One option in the personal story involves Logan playing bait for the chapter's bad guys. After they surround him, he delivers the traditional victim speech in a flat monotone. Of course, he isn't trying to convince the bad guys, just annoy them, and his (lack of) performance manages that quite well.
• Barrier Warrior: Especially noticeable in the Citadel of Flame story path, where he uses magic to form a magic shield to protect the player party, Rytlock and him against Gaheron's attacks.
• Bodyguard Crush: On Queen Jennah, which pretty much everyone in Divinity's Reach is aware of. The personal story for human characters indicates pretty strongly (in the level 30 chapter) that it's mutual. However, Season 3 of the Living Story shows it is one-sided, and possibly even magic-induced, and he seems to be getting over it.
• The Captain: Serves as Captain of the Seraph.
• Carry a Big Stick: While he normally wields a sword, he does wield a mace in some of the story dungeons.
• The Champion: Jennah's personal champion.
• Chick Magnet: Every single woman in Divinity's Reach seem to have a crush on him. Even some of the men find him attractive.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Covered from the neck down in plate armor, but never seen wearing a helm.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Although not spotless.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: He uses a winged Seraph shield alongside his sword. In the living story he switches it out with a broad tower shield on occasion.
• Magic Knight: As a Guardian, he is just as capable of using magic as he is of wearing armor and using a sword.
• My Greatest Failure: Abandoning Destiny's Edge in their time of need led to the deaths of Glint and Snaff, destroyed his friendship with Rytlock and their guild disbanded on bad terms.
• Odd Friendship: With Rytlock Brimstone. Not very friendly when they first meet again, though that changes as your personal story continues.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Logan's escape from the Risen horde during "Victory or Death" (the final chapter of the player character's personal story). Everyone thinks it was a suicide mission, and we never find out just how he managed to survive.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Rytlock will never hesitate to remind Logan of what led to Snaff's death. Even kids pretending to play as Destiny's Edge know the story and drama. Fans also constantly bring it up.
• The Paladin: As a Guardian, he's a paladin in all but name.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The player characters earn his trust quickly, and he does his best to weed out corruption in Kryta.
• Take My Hand!:
  • In the Citadel of Flame story path, when one of Gaheron's fireballs smashes the bridge Rytlock is on, Logan catches Rytlock one-handed before the charr falls to his death. This is one of the things (along with a certain amount of nagging by the player character) that finally gets Rytlock and Logan talking to each other again, and revives their friendship.
  • Living World Season 2 ends with a cutscene showing Mordremoth's attack on the Pact fleet. One of the vignettes in that cutscene shows Logan clinging to the deck rail of an airship with one hand and holding onto Zojja (who had fallen off the deck) with his other hand. The size difference between humans and asura helps with this one.
• To Be Lawful or Good: In the prequel novel Edge of Destiny, Logan swore himself to service as Queen Jenna's guard and bond, while still working with Destiny's Edge to fight the dragons. When Destiny's Edge faces down Kralkatorrik as the same time that Jenna is attacked by Kralkatorrik's servants, though, he's forced to choose whether his word or the greater good and his compatriots are more important. Eir Stegalkin states it outright: she tells him he should do the right thing...unfortunately, the 'right thing' means something different to him than it does to her, the Asura, or to Rytlock. Worse, Jennah believed he was facing down only Glint, and fighting her for the wrong reasons, and eventually Jennah saved him rather than the other way around. The method Logan picks to try to save her — freeing Ebonhawke's imprisoned Charr and bringing them to fight dragon minions — ends up being important, though.
• We Used to Be Friends: With Rytlock.

Rytlock Brimstone

Tribune of the Blood Legion, and the only Charr member of Destiny's Edge.

During Living World Season 2, a botched ritual to cleanse Ascalon of ghosts left Rytlock trapped in the Mists. But in the Heart of Thorns expansion, he returns to the Pact Commander's aid as the first Revenant.

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• Big Brother Instinct: Rytlock was the runt of his farhar, and was bullied a lot as a child. One of the reasons he took to Logan was that he saw Logan as someone he could finally treat as a younger brother. This same relationship is why he took it so hard when Logan abandoned the group.
• Blind Folded Vision: In Heart of Thorns he returns from the Mists with a blindfold covering his eyes.
• Blood Knight: He is Tribune of the Blood Legion, after all. Like most of his aptly-named legion, he only ever seems truly happy while fighting something extremely dangerous and usually three to four times his size.
• Cool Sword: Wields Sohothin, the sword wielded by Prince Rurik in the first game. The Player Character gets to temporarily borrow it for their final confrontation with Balthazar.
• Flaming Sword: The above-mentioned Sohothin is less of a sword...and more of a hilt that spews fire.
• Four-Star Badass: As a tribune, he is second only to an imperator.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Like Logan, he wears full plat armor, but the only time anything on his head is covered at all is when he gains his Revanant blindfold.
• Klingon Promotion: Rose through the ranks by killing his superiors.
• Last of His Kind: Not in the traditional sense, but he is the last member of Destiny's Edge. Snaff died before the game started, Eir died in Heart of Thorns, Zojja spent years incapacitated before vanishing, Logan became Trahearne's replacement as Pact Marshal after recovering, and Caithe chose to stay at Tarir to care for Aurene. He is the one to suggest forming a new guild at the start of Season 3.
• Magic Knight: In Heart of Thorns he returns from the Mists as a Revenant, channeling the power of the legends of the past together with his skill as a warrior.
• Mascot: Of the game, to a certain extent; a miniature version of him is available to Digital Deluxe purchasers.
• Offing the Offspring: As much as he wanted to avoid it, he was forced to kill his son Ryland when the latter tried to stab Crecia, his mother.
• Odd Friendship: With Logan Thackeray; human and Charr don't have the best of histories, to say the least.
• Reasonable Authority Figure
• Sword and Gun: Although we don't see it much, Rytlock uses a gun alongside his sword. Oddly, this would suggest that before his excursion into the mists turned him into the first Revenant, his class was actually Thief (as they're one of the only two classes that can use this weapon combination- and the other is Mesmer). A more likely explanation is that it's simple Gameplay and Story Segregation.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: While in the Mists, he met a stranger bound in chains, who reignited Sohothin's flame in exchange for using the sword to free him. That stranger was Balthazar, who would go on to bring death and terror upon Elona.
• We Used to Be Friends: Blames Logan for Destiny's Edge's failure and disbanding, as well as the death of Snaff.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Gives Eir a hell of a chewing out over the Ascalonian Catacombs debacle, noting that not only did she put both of their lives (plus those of the adventuring party) in danger, she did it for an extremely childish reason, as the problems between him and Logan aren't going to be fixed by having matching swords.
• Willing Channeler: As a revenant, he qualifies as this by default.

Snaff

Former member of Destiny's Edge, and mentor to Zojja. He specialized in mind-controlled golems and was quite known for "not doing things the normal way". He died while battling Kralkatorrik when the golem he was in was attacked by Branded. His death is the reason why Destiny's Edge fell apart. Zojja implemented a whole competition named after him, the Snaff Prize.

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• Eccentric Mentor: Undeniably one of, if not the most brilliant mind in the field of golemancy, but a little on the odd side.
• Humongous Mecha: He's made fairly huge golems (around 18 to 20 feet tall) for him and Zojja to use. He calls them Big Snaff and Big Zojja.
• Large Ham: At least when his ghost is met in the Mists during Living Story season 4.
  "Eat my bullets, you ugly beast!"
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: The oldest and most experienced of the guild and the first member to die.
• My Greatest Failure: Kudu was Snaff's first apprentice, and the relationship between the two ended on very bad terms when Kudu decided Snaff was holding him back, due to his refusal to continue experimenting with the dragon energies, and turned to the Inquest instead. It took Snaff quite awhile before he was willing to take on another apprentice, Zojja.

Zojja

A famed asura golemancer and former member of Destiny's Edge, she is rarely seen without her personal golem "Mr. Sparkles". She closely mentors Asuran player characters after they win the coveted Snaff Prize.

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• Badass Adorable: Tiny and cute and can wield lightning through her gauntlets.
• Badass in Distress: In Heart of Thorns, she's captured by the Mordrem alongside Trahearne and Logan.
• Berserk Button: Do not question why Snaff deserves to have a prize named after him. Just don't. He was the other asuran member of Destiny's Edge, and Zojja's mentor. His death was the catalyst for the fellowship's breaking.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: Much to the rest of her group's surprise, she unexpectedly shows up at Arah to rejoin Destiny's Edge and help them kill Zhaitan.
• Deadpan Snarker: Rarely without a sarcastic quip for the situation.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: The events of Heart of Thorns completely broke her, to the point that when she finally was able to leave a hospital bed, she abandoned her old lab and everything in it and went wandering, taking special care to avoid her old friends, the Commander, and even Taimi. When the Commander meets up with her again, it's clear that she's pinning a lot on the Astral Ward becoming her new purpose.
• Elemental Powers: Her profession is Elementalist.
• In-Series Nickname: The Inquest call Zojja "Snaff's Footnote".
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Arrogant, rude, and loves to rub her genius in everyone's face...but she's very devoted to her mentor, and knows she would never forgive herself if her friends (Eir included) got killed if she wasn't around.
  • While still able to give a good comeback, she has softened up a lot by the time she reappears in Secrets of the Obscure. Not surprising, considering what she went through.
• Parental Substitute: Taimi's dialogue about being grounded by her suggests this.
  • Additionally, she makes a comment in the latest release when she finally reappears, essentially saying she is fond of Taimi and sees potential in her she feels Snaff saw in herself. Furthermore, in Heart of Thorns, the first dialogue she has immediately has her asking where the (absent yet safe) Taimi is.
• Put on a Bus: In the aftermath of the war on Mordremoth, Zojja effectively vanishes from the story from the beginning of Living Story season 3 all the way to Secrets of the Obscure. The latter reveals that after she spent a very long time recovering from her ordeal at the hands of the Mordrem, she abandoned everything she owned and left Rata Sum in secret. See Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life above.
  • The Bus Came Back: Fans of the character were delighted when the pre-release trailer for Secrets of the Obscure had a brief scene of Zojja in action once more. Her return was confirmed in a July 2023 blog post.
• Wistful Amnesia: At some point between the end of the core Secrets of the Obscure story and the beginning of the first expansion ^note released November 2023, Zojja accepted the offer to join the Wizard's Court. A side effect of the ritual that connects a wizard to the Tyrian magic field is forgetting a lot of what happened in the wizard's earlier life. The first post-ritual meeting between Zojja and the Commander is painful for both of them — Zojja knows she knows the "Wayfinder" from before, but can't quite pull those memories up past the memory fog.
• You Should Have Died Instead: Constantly tells Eir she is the one who should have died, not Snaff.