Guild Wars 2

Now this post will describe an idea that I’ve been brewing over a bit of time.

This game is quite awesome in it’s own right but something I miss a lot from the original Guild Wars is The Underworld.

For a quick reminder about what the underworld is we got a link here and a map.

I believe this place could work kind of similar to some of the living story dungeons (The one from Queens Jubilee and Tower of Nightmares, except permanent if it amounts to something): you can do them solo or as a group.

Now here is why this might actually work with Guild Wars 2 lore:
Guild Wars 2 lore states that the gods have gone silent over the past 250 years which effectively should block all access to the realms of the gods. Now (do not know if this is a recent occurrence) however we have Aatxes and Shades coming out from portals to The Underworld at the old Temple of Ages in Godslost Swamp, Queensdale (and northern Kessex Hills). We have a “functioning” Grenth Statue at the Reaper’s Gate, Lornars Pass (one out of two entrances to The Underworld in the Guild Wars Prophecies Map, also the only god statue in Guild Wars 2 to give a buff when you kneel at it as far as I remember) where there is also Shades and Aatxes. In the human Personal Story mission Speaker of the dead we even have Priestess Rhie open a portal to The Underworld (Granted that was to summon a spirit from there). Last but not least we have the Cathedral of Silence Personal Story mission where we at the Cathedral of Silence for the first time in years successfully summon one of Grenth's Avatars. Furthermore at the Cathedral of Silence we have the Chain Event in Cursed Shore which involves getting some people to go into the brown portal thingies in the two side rooms to gain the Grenth’s Domain effect to allow you to damage the shade (which I assume have been summoned from The Underworld).

Now we got those three noteworthy Grenth Statues so here is where it could become interesting. This could be sort of a unique dungeon in that it (in this idea) will be almost available to everybody with each of the statues being able to function as an entrance. Now for everybody to not just take the entrance in Queensdale the gimmick would be that the dungeon would be the same level as the corresponding map (so Queensdale 15-17’ish, the one in Lornar’s Pass whatever the level is in that particular area of the map and the one in Cursed Shore would be level 80+). Now to further expand on this in this idea the mobs in the Queensdale version would be normal except from last boss which could be a champion and mini-bosses which would be veteran. In the Lornar’s Pass version the mobs would probably be a mixture of normal and veteran with mini-bosses being elite or champion and last boss being a champion. The Cursed Shore version would have the mobs be a mixture of veteran and elite (or level 83-85) mini-bosses champions and last boss legendary as well as having overall better rewards and an extra path (maybe).

The ideas for the paths of this dungeon are as follows:
Story Mode (exclusive to Cursed Shore): now the gist of this would be that it’s after Zhaitan’s Fall (of course) and Destiny’s Edge and the player character(s) are answering the call of The Pact in entering Grenth’s Domain to find out what’s causing the Portals to appear and the minions of Dhuum to enter Tyria. Might culminate in the party helping to reseal Dhuum.
Vigil Path: The Vigil wants to defend Tyria to their best ability so lets say that they have an interest as well in minimizing the amount of Dhuums minions to enter Tyria so they could be looking for a way to make sure that the minions of Dhuum no longer would be able to enter Tyria which could free further resources towards fighting the dragons.
Whispers Path: The Order of Whispers are curious as to whether they could use the underworld as another mean of transportation in that there seems to be several of the Grenth statues which links to The Underworld and as such if it would be possible to exit at other statues of Grenth which could help them establish contact to the Zin Ku Corridor and thus be able to reestablish a connection to Cantha (unless they already have connections to Cantha and are just not telling us).
Priory Path: The Priory would as always be looking for knowledge and the place where the souls of the dead end up could be a well of knowledge (a bit vague but not sure how this particular path would work anyhow).

To further elaborate on the Story Mode idea:
You enter from the Cathedral of Silence with the Destiny’s Edge characters with the help of Priestess Rhie and maybe Zojja. Now since it’s the Reapers/Avatars of Grenth that used to transport people to The Underworld something goes wrong (due to lacking knowledge of how exactly to make the portal work) and the portal becomes unstable and sends the characters all over The Underworld. For nostalgias sake the Player Character(s), Priestess Rhie and Caithe will end up in the labyrinth and have to fight their way through the Denizens of The Underworld to find the other Destiny’s Edge members. Eir and Garm would have been sent to the Forgotten Vale, Rytlock to the Spawning Pools, Logan to the Bone Pits and Zojja to the Chaos Planes. After finding them all the Reaper at the location you did last could suggest seeking out King Frozenwind and the Reaper of The Ice Wastes for help getting back to Tyria. Now here is when Dhuums seal could break and the players then help reseal Dhuum while Destiny’s Edge are keeping Dhuums minions away from the chamber that Dhuum gets sealed so they cannot aid him in taking out the Reapers and interrupt the sealing ritual.

As for the enemies the mobs in this instance could be Shades, Aatxes, Terrorweb Dryders, Dead Collectors/Threshers,Banished Dream Riders and Charged Blacknesses.

To summarise: I would like to see The Underworld being introduced as a dungeon in Guild Wars 2, and I can’t find any reason in the lore presented in-game as to why that would be impossible.

The problem is if they did this it would show favor to the human gods. I personally would enjoy seeing the underworld return as well, but then you have people complaining about how their norn animal spirits don’t have an instance, or why the eternal alchemy doesn’t have one, or why the sylvari and charr aren’t represented with one either.

I would love this. Yes some people might say it’s too human blabla. But I’m willing to bet if it was fun and well made, no one would care that much really.