Pre-Searing Ascalon

Pre-Searing Ascalon is the tutorial area for the GuildWars game.

Here you are introduced to the background story and the main NPC characters. Here you learn your first skills from Profession Trainers and choose a secondary profession.

See the Pre-Searing Guide for more details.

In Pre-Searing, if you're killed, you're resurrected by the nearest Resurrection Shrine without Death Penalty. This means you can "rinse and repeat" until you've cleared an area.

Enemies with level 2 or lower are not aggressive. They will fight you if they attacked, or under some circumstances when another of their species is fighting you. Thus be careful of walking amidst a group of peaceful Level 1 Grawls when there is a level 3 Grawl Longspear just outside of your Aggro Circle.

Enemies with level 1 or 0 receive no natural health regeneration when not in combat. Thus if you are killed while fighting a mixed group of enemies far away from a resurection shrine, by the time you run back, higher level enemies would be at full health, but level 1 and 0 enemies would be at whatever health level they were at when you last fought them (unless they were healed by a skill).

When you enter accept the offer from Sir Tydus to join the Ascalon Guards and you enter the Ascalon Academy, there is no turning back: After you've accomplished the academy trial fight you see the Searing (the destruction of Ascalon by the Charr) happening in a cutscene and - after a "time warp" - you find yourself in post-searing Ascalon City ruins. This is where the real game begins. (Even if you quit the game after entering the Ascalon Academy, you will still end up Post-Searing.)